Diplomats, Scholars, Adventurers

Watching China Watching (VI) William Sima’s China & ANU — diplomats, adventurers, scholars published in late 2015 (and available for free download) is a study of Australia’s national awakening to, and continued anxieties  about, Asia (once called the ‘Near North’) more generally and in regard to China in particular.… Read

The Tradition of China Watching

Watching China Watching (IV) Here we introduce an excerpt from The Tradition and Prototypes of the China-Watcher, a talk in the George E. Morrison Lecture Series presented by Lo Hui-min in 1976.… Read

On New China Newspeak

Watching China Watching (III) It is over half a century since I first encountered New China Newspeak in English. It was 1967 and a classmate at my high-school in Sydney introduced me to the clangorous prose of Peking Review.… Read

Non-existent Inscriptions, Invisible Ink, Blank Pages

Watching China Watching (II) In The China Expert and The Ten Commandments — Watching China Watching (I) we featured Simon Leys’ observations on China Experts. Although they were written nearly four decades ago, we are confident that readers today will enjoy the resonances between the Mao era and the Xi imperium.… Read

The China Expert and The Ten Commandments

Watching China Watching (I) To date, we have featured the work of the celebrated Hong Kong political commentator and ‘China Watcher par excellence’, Lee Yee (see The Best China). In ‘Watching China Watching’ we offer a range of reflections by others on the study and appreciation of the Chinese People’s Republic.… Read

A Barbieri in China

On 1 January 2017, we published A Monkey King’s Journey to the East. In that inaugural China Heritage essay we contemplated with bemused trepidation the first day of the first year of a newly empowered, and enthroned, American Weltanschauung.… Read