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There are lots of obvious questions I could use to open my dialogue with Rob Schmitz, China correspondent for American Public Media’s Marketplace, which will take place Thursday afternoon at the University of California, Irvine. I could begin, of course, by asking him to recount for the audience how exactly his high-profile exposure of Mike Daisey's fabrications unfolded. Or I could invite him to talk about the series he’s been doing for Marketplace on the real conditions in Chinese factories. Or get him to expand on one of his stories from the past, such as memorable ones he’s done on an auto showroom in Inner Mongolia and the anxieties that Chinese youth face when gearing up for the high-pressure exam that will determine which university they can go to — if they can go to any...