By Thomas Friedman ; New York Times; December 17, 2024 I just spent a week in Beijing and Shanghai, meeting with Chinese officials, economists, and entrepreneurs, so let me get straight to the point: while we sleep, China has made tremendous leaps in high-tech manufacturing. If no one has told Donald Trump, then I will: his… Read More How Elon Musk and Taylor Swift Might Solve US-China Relations
ADAM TOOZE Conducted in the summer of 2024 in Shanghai this interview with Ding Xionfei is the most far-reaching public discussion I have had had about the development of my writing and thinking since Perry Anderson’s review of my work. I want to thank Ding Xiongfei for his remarkable engagement and for permission to republish part… Read More Adam Tooze on Polycrisis and technocratic complacency. Interview with Ding Xiongfei from the Shanghai Review of Books
By Erik English Since 2014, the Chinese Communist Party has perpetuated human rights abuses against Uyghurs and other Turkic Muslim minorities in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region under the guise of anti-terrorism and anti-extremism—subjecting them to forced labor, mass detention, and land transfers. Now, a new report reveals that some Chinese pharmaceutical products made using forced labor in… Read More How modern slavery, in China and elsewhere, undermines the fight against existential threats
The above is the title of a prose poem in French by Victor Segalen (1878 – 1919) The English translation is followed by the original French (1922), below. The prose poem is cited by Simon Leys in an essay called The Chinese Attitude Towards The Past; in his book; The Hall of Uselessness. I am… Read More To the ten thousand years / Aux dix mille années
A rare statement issued last week by dozens of Chinese people living in Japan condemned the assault and called for reflections on the “underlying causes.” “The extreme nationalist hate education against Japan has been prevalent in China for a long time. It has obscured some Chinese people’s understanding of Japan, and even indulged ignorance and evil,” the statement… Read More ‘Education of hatred’: Killing of Japanese boy sparks soul searching in China over rising nationalism
Under Xi, the ruling Communist Party has vowed to eradicate “historical nihilism” — or any views that question or challenge its official version of history, including glorified images of sanctified national heroes.China passed a law in 2018 banning any insult or slander of national “heroes and martyrs,” including military personnel. The offense was added to… Read More An artist made scathing sculptures of Mao over a decade ago. Now, he’s detained for slandering China’s heroes, family says
The delegates invited, the agenda unveiled… indicate China’s efforts to convert Tibet (renamed recently as Xizang) into the fulcrum of sub-regional initiatives as well as to expand China’s influence… over a period of time, 7.5 million Han Chinese have come into Tibet, drastically altering the demographics of the region and making Tibetans a minority in… Read More China-Xizang Himalayan Forum: The cynical ‘sinicisation’ of Tibet
Who controls the past controls the future. Who controls the present controls the past: George Orwell, 1984 When you have a monopoly over power, you develop an obsession with secrecy: Frank Dikotter Amy Hawkins Senior China correspondent In the early hours of 4 June 1989, Li Rui, a veteran of the Chinese Communist party (CCP), was… Read More ‘Monument to history’ battle between US and China over future of Mao’s secretary’s diary
First posted October 15, 2019 In the winter of 1930, the father of Ding Ling’s child and 23 other Communist activists and writers were executed by Chiang Kai-shek. Her response was swift and irrevocable: she joined the revolutionary struggle I MYSELF AM A WOMAN: Selected Writings of Ding Ling. Reviewed by Susan Brownmiller (1989) (Scroll… Read More I myself am a woman: Selected Writings of Ding Ling (1904-1986)
Why did Japanese Confucians enthusiastically support Imperial Japan’s murderous conquest of China, the homeland of Confucius? Shaun O’Dwyer At the International Military Tribunal for the Far East (1946-48), convened to try Japanese military and civilian leaders for war crimes, one defendant delivered a puzzling explanation for Japan’s 1937-45 war against China. The aim of the… Read More Chastising little brother
After the truth-shower 