Contra Trump 幾希   ‘Humans differ but little from beasts’ 人之所以異於禽於獸者幾希 is a well-known line in Mencius 孟子. Moreover, little separates humanity from the law of the jungle and it is why 幾稀 jǐxī, ‘scant’, ‘similar’,‘approximate’ — an expression made famous by Mencius — is the rubric of this chapter in Contra Trump.… Read

Contra Trump 叱咤風雲 On 31 March 2025, Jonathan Pie reposted his commentary on Donald J. Trump’s victory in the November 2016 US presidential election with the comment: Eight years on, and nothing has changed.… Read

Celebrating New Sinology 後之視今，亦猶今之視昔。 New Sinology Jottings was launched in 2017. They are compiled in the style of ‘jottings’ 筆記 or 劄記, a genre familiar to readers of traditional Chinese prose.… Read

This is the fifty-sixth chapter in Other People’s Thoughts, a China Heritage series inspired by a compilation of quotations put together by Simon Leys (Pierre Ryckmans), one of our Ancestors, during his reading life.… Read

Contra Trump 危邦不入
亂邦不居 The rubric of this miniseries on the crisis in American higher education comes from a famous passage in The Analects of Confucius: 子曰：篤信好學，守死善道。危邦不入，亂邦不居。天下有道則見，無道則隱。邦有道，貧且賤焉，恥也；邦無道，富且貴焉，恥也。 — 論語．泰伯 Translated by Simon Leys as: The Master said: “Uphold the faith, love learning, defend the good Way with your life.… Read

Contra Trump 你儂我儂 Peter Hartcher is political editor and international editor of The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age in Australia. He interviewed me about how Donald Trump’s America is becoming more like Xi Jinping’s China.… Read