A major shift in global relations has recently transpired. To some in America, it may look like the second coming of the Evil Empire. Too much of the rest of the world, it’s a welcome chance for a renewed multipolar order, where the sovereign desires of nations are respected and new collaborations can be established.… Read More Juan Cole: The Meaning of Historic China-Brokered Deal Between Saudi Arabia and Iran
NB: An interesting essay. However, Heyking seems to conflate China and ‘Asia’. DS John von Heyking In order to cut through the two false alternatives – “catch up” and “social harmony” – I appeal to the original figure of Western liberal education, Socrates. Socrates indeed embodies the individual as it has been transmitted throughout the… Read More The Figure of Socrates and its Significance for Liberal Education in Asia
First posted January 26, 2016 The 2015 film “Behemoth” opens with an mining explosion and closes with a ghost city. The 84 minutes in between are a wordless exploration of what connects the two — the environmental tragedy that has mirrored China’s economic miracle. Shot over several years in the Chinese provinces of Inner Mongolia and Shaanxi,… Read More Matt Sheehan: Silent documentary on China’s unspooling environmental disasters
‘Blank Paper movement’ decrying government policies rekindles dissent after Xi Jinping’s decade of iron-fisted crackdowns. Support the Chinese peoples struggle for democracy! A 25-year-old woman who had been interrogated by police after protesting in south China tells the Guardian that even though she is frightened by police, the protests have radicalised her as she has… Read More ‘We just want to live in a normal world’: China’s young protesters speak out, and disappear
By Caitlin Johnstone / CaitlinJohnstone.com In what Austin journalist Christopher Hooks has called “one of the stupidest news cycles in living memory,” the entire American political/media class is having an existential meltdown over what the Pentagon claims is a Chinese spy balloon detected in U.S. airspace on Thursday. Secretary of State Antony Blinken cancelled his scheduled diplomatic visit to China after the… Read More US Surrounds China With War Machinery While Freaking Out About Balloons
Group of legislators, activists and community workers are accused of holding unofficial pre-election primaries that authorities say constitutes subversion One of the most significant national security trials in the Chinese government’s crackdown on Hong Kong will begin on Monday, two years after many of the city’s most prominent government critics were first brought into custody. The case… Read More Hong Kong 47: trial of dozens in pro-democracy movement set to begin under national security laws
Muhammad Bezinjo Pakistan’s port city of Gwadar, the hub of the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), is in a siege-like situation amid unrest caused by a crackdown against protesting citizens. The city faced a blackout of mobile and internet communications for almost a week. While the mobile networks have been restored, the internet has been shut down… Read More Pakistan’s Port City Gwadar in Chaos
On 7 January, a massive protest broke out at the Zybio (Zhongyuan Huiji) medical supply factory in Chongqing that produces Covid-19 antigen test kits. About half of the company’s 20,000 workers were set to be terminated after orders for test kits have recently dropped. Workers were still owed some back pay and took to the streets to… Read More Massive protest in Chongqing belies company’s recent labour awards from the official trade union
By Tania Branigan In an age of increased repression, few air their concerns. But as the party congress opened in October, a lonely figure protested in Beijing: among the demands on his banners was “Reform, not the Cultural Revolution”. That call was taken up by others at the remarkable protests against the zero-Covid policy that swept through cities weeks later.… Read More A tragedy pushed to the shadows: the truth about China’s Cultural Revolution
Zhang Daqian may not be a household name in the West, but in China — and the global art market at large — he is on par with the likes of Warhol and Monet. A master of classical Chinese painting who later reimagined modern art in his adopted American homeland, Zhang’s work spanned traditions from… Read More Chinese artist is outselling Van Gogh
After the truth-shower 