Round Table China
Channel Details
Round Table China
Round Table is a premier English radio/podcast show, straight from Beijing. Hear what's buzzing on the Internet and the main streets, see the latest lifestyle trends, and feel the pulse of life in China, Round Table is your golden ticket. With dynamic cultural exchanges between hosts from diverse ba...
Recent Episodes
881 episodes
Encore: Milk tea shops turn mini mart
Walk into a milk tea shop these days, and you may leave carrying more than just a drink. Crisps, cakes, and even surprise snack packs now line the she...
Encore: Closing the care gap with AI
Getting a child the right care sometimes meant a long trip to a big city hospital. Local clinics just did not inspire enough trust. But now, doctors a...
The ice cream identity crisis
China's ice cream market has gone cold, but not in the way you might think. Warehouses are quiet. Distributors are on edge. The familiar summer frenzy...
Hainan bans gas car sales
Hainan just pulled the plug on gasoline cars. By 2030, no new sales, period. For some, it's a bold leap forward. For others, it raises hard questions....
The $50 million throwaway problem
A rocket booster costs tens of millions of dollars. For decades, the industry has been throwing them away after a single launch. China just proved the...
Digital friend or digital file?
You tell it your secrets. It knows your routines, your worries, and your bad days. Then one morning, it's gone because a company decided to pull the s...
One traveler, one taxi ride, 21 million likes
One traveler, one taxi ride, and 21 million likes later, a viral video earned its creator a life-changing payday from Xizang's tourism officials. But...
Did the social media crackdown work?
Every generation worries about what young people do with their time, but today's screens are designed to never let go. As a result, governments steppe...
Tick tock goes the checkout clock
For decades, hotels worldwide have followed the same rule. Check in after two in the afternoon, check out before noon the next day. Most travelers nev...
China's road tax debate heats up
Gasoline drivers have long funded roads through fuel taxes, while electric vehicles have contributed nothing. But with six in ten new cars in China no...
Lights, camera... football?
What happens when the movies are no longer the main attraction? Across China, cinemas are reinventing themselves as all-in-one entertainment destinati...
Is your car more than a car?
Forget traffic jams and parking headaches. In China, the car is becoming more than transportation. From RV campsites and smart mobility hubs to a boom...
The joint degree reputation reversal
For years, Chinese-foreign cooperative programs were seen as backup options for students who missed their top choice universities. Inflated tuition fe...
New rules for China's "flying" doctors
For years, China's "Fei Dao" system let rural hospitals fly in top city surgeons for a few thousand yuan extra. It saved lives, but it was a legal gra...
Do you need a 3D printer?
Chinese malls are rolling out something new: 3D printing stations that let anyone design and print a custom object in under ten minutes. It's easy to...
Robo-students are off to school
We send kids to school for reading, math, and the occasional history class snooze. But what if the students are made of circuits and steel? In Hangzho...
Can ancient hacks beat modern heat?
We are in the thick of summer, cranking the AC and reaching for anything cold. But for thousands of years, people survived blazing heat without a sing...
China's bid to electrify trucks
China reshaped the global auto industry with electric cars. Now it is targeting the heavy-duty trucks that move the world's goods. But truckers respon...
Are we meeting ourselves to death?
The average worker spends more than an entire workday each week in meetings. Calendars are overflowing, focus is fractured, and meaningful work keeps...
Eldercare Is now a recognized profession
China is turning eldercare into a licensed occupation. A new national certification is formalizing the workforce that will shape how millions of senio...
How to change your mood in 60 seconds
You know that nagging feeling that follows you through the day: what if a sixty-second mental move could dissolve it? Behavioral scientists have uncov...
How to keep history's hangouts cool
Older cities are facing a new question, where preserving buildings and streets is no longer enough. Across China, historic neighborhoods are becoming...
Europe's AC dilemma
Temperatures have soared past forty degrees across Europe. Schools have sent children home. Outdoor work has been banned. A famous landmark closed its...
The future factory points up
When it comes to how cities use land, what is the right formula? China is reimagining urban land use by looking inward, not outward. We are talking ab...
Your life, their data, your job
You have heard of gig work, but this is different. There are no apps and no ratings. There is just a camera strapped to your head while you fold laund...
The track that changed everything
Two decades after the Qinghai–Xizang Railway first sliced across the plateau, the tracks tell a story bigger than engineering. At 4,000 meters, they'v...
Why all your screens just got pricier
Prices are rising across the entire consumer electronics sector, yet this surge does not follow the usual pattern. The driving force is neither a raw...
Your block, rebuilt from within
We tend to picture Chinese cities as endless expansion machines. But the next five years are about retrofitting, not rebuilding. The national strategy...
The Soapbox: speaker off or get off
You are settled into your seat and finally relaxing. Then someone starts blasting videos without headphones. One airline says that is now a punishable...
The end of commute misery
For millions of commuters, the daily trek is a draining puzzle of schedules and traffic jams. Now China is weaving suburban rail, subways, bikes, and...
The Full Circle: digital babysitting, AI doctors, AI authors
Digital babysitters, AI doctors, and AI authors walk into a story. It sounds like the start of a joke, but it's actually the beginning of something bi...
Shelf wars: grocers strike back
Something has shifted in the grocery aisle. Store brands now dominate grocery shelves, and major retailers are competing head‑to‑head with the brands...
Who really wrote that novel?
Artificial intelligence is a useful tool for many people, but what does it mean for writers? A prize-winning sci-fi author has admitted that part of h...
From the campus to the company
The Class of 2026 is entering a job market that no longer follows the old rules. The megacity dream is fading, and patents are replacing theses for a...
The hidden costs of working from home
We celebrated the work-from-home revolution with no traffic, no commute, and total freedom. But the research is in, and the findings are unsettling. D...
Such a major decision
The Gaokao is over, but a new pressure has just begun. What to study? What to become? This year, Chinese universities are rewriting the rules with fle...
The blurry ethics of smart glasses
Smart glasses promise to translate any language, recognize every face, and capture life hands-free, all without a phone in sight. But when a device ca...
The trip to nowhere
In early June 2026, a cruise slipped out of Shanghai. The Adora Magic City steamed into open water with no foreign dock in sight, then looped back to...
The changing drama name game
If you have ever watched a drama and wondered why fans lose their minds over the opening credits, it all comes down to billing order. In China's enter...
Home sweet rental home
Finding a place to live in a new city is supposed to be exciting. Then you start scrolling listings and realizing those perfect photos are probably fr...