Watching China Watching (XXIV) This is one of three essays concerned with living in the New Epoch of Xi Jinping and the party-state of the People’s Republic of China. The following speech-turned-essay (‘蘊 — What Is & Isn’t Possible’), and ‘Staying Out of Range 彀外遺少’, which will appear on 25 May 2018, were published in 2008 and 2009 respectively.… Read

Dog Days (VI) ‘The Midget Hound’ 小獵犬 is the first in a new series of translations by John Minford from the stories collected in Pu Songling’s (蒲松齡, 1640-1715) Strange Tales from a Chinese Studio 聊齋誌異.… Read

The Best China (XII)   The Chinese authorities were on high alert in the lead up to and during the celebration of May Fourth China Youth Festival in 2018. The date was also used to commemorate the 120th anniversary of Peking University and the 200th anniversary of the birth of Karl Marx, whose philosophy is officially espoused by the Communist party-state.… Read

How Yongzheng Dealt with
His Christian Conundrum   Watching China Watching (XXIII)   As we noted in the introduction to The Christian Conundrum of Yongzheng (China Heritage, 13 April 2018), negotiations between the Vatican and Beijing on the future of the Catholic church in the People’s Republic of China have drawn attention to the contemporary echoes of late-dynastic religious policy.… Read