Xi Jinping’s Empire of Tedium 必也正名乎 As Xi Jinping, China’s party-state-army leader, consolidated power in 2013, he established more and more ‘special leading groups’ which allowed him to meld his role as the primus-inter-pares leader of the Communist Party with the functions of civilian government.… Read

Contra Trump   November 9th marks Stephen Miller’s first day as White House chief of staff. It is, an oddly fitting — perhaps even particularly chosen? — day for him to take over: November 9th marks the 88th anniversary of Kristallnacht, the beginning of the anti-Jewish pogroms across Germany that presaged the Holocaust to come.… Read

Contra Trump 厭美疑美憎美反美   In The American Green Zone in Our Consciousness, an earlier chapter in our Contra Trump series, we featured Patrick Marlborough, a Perth-based comic writer and broadcaster who observed that: The greatest trick America’s ever pulled on the subjects of its various vassal states is making us feel like a participant in its grand experiment.… Read

The Other China 秋風拂塵夢，落葉滿空山 相邀出城去，一路卻無言。
秋風拂塵夢，落葉滿空山。 丙午秋深，與友同游西山秋風在耳，遍地紅黃，畫以記之。
老樹隨手造一紙，略狀其行。 We made a date to leave the city,
didn’t exchange a word on the way out:
Autumn winds stirred our mundane musings,
fallen leaves greeting us in those empty mountains.… Read

Contra Trump 招兵買馬、引虎自衛 The following is a multimedia miscellany inspired by the elections held in the United States on 3 November 2026. All 435 seats in the US House of Representatives and 35 of the 100 seats in the US Senate were contested in the midterm elections.… Read

Contra Trump 愛屋及烏 IFLA (I Fucking Love Australia) writes about America and its Pacific cousin on Substack. In his inimitable Australian style of prose, IFLA chronicles the saga of a benighted America, although in this chapter of Contra Trump, he finally has something to crow about.… Read