‘If’ — Ending the Western Presence in China, Then & Now

Xi Jinping’s Empire of Tedium Appendix XLII 溫故而知新
可以為師矣   Eighty years ago T.S. Eliot published ‘Little Gidding’, part of Four Quartets, a cycle of poems. It contains the following famous lines: We shall not cease from exploration
And the end of all our exploring
Will be to arrive where we started
And know the place for the first time.… Read

When Bamboo Invites a Zephyr

The Other China 引清風   The following celebration of bamboo is inspired by the calligraphy of Liu Chan 劉蟾 and features the scholarship of Duncan Campbell as well as the art of Lois Conner.… Read

You Can Get Here from There — Soviet historian Stephen Kotkin on Xi Jinping’s China

Watching China Watching XL 東張西望   Since the 1980s, the Soviet Union and the Eastern Bloc have loomed large in our work on China’s People’s Republic. Historians, thinkers and social critics from the Soviet era, and those who continued to study USSR/Russian affairs as well as the Central and Eastern European world following the dissolution of the Soviet Bloc in the 1990s, have similarly offered unique insights into the Chinese party-state.… Read

A Bitter Aftertaste — Let Them Eat Coronation Quiche!

Hong Kong Apostasy 冠冕堂皇   King Charles III will be coronated on Saturday [6 May 2023], and you’ll never guess who China is sending for the occasion: Vice President Han Zheng, the former head of Beijing’s Central Leading Group on Hong Kong and Macau Affairs.… Read

The Art of Survival in the Age of Xi Jinping

Xi Jinping’s Empire of Tedium Chapter XIX, Part I 熬   When I launched  China Heritage in December 2016, I offered some tentative advice about how to deal with and survive the Age of Xi Jinping (see Living with Xi Dada’s China — Making Choices and Cutting Deals).… Read

Dragging One’s Tail in the Mud on 1 May 2023

The Other China 曳尾塗中   China Heritage marks May Day 2023 in the company of Qu Yuan, Zhuangzi and Liu Chan, voices from The Other China. *** The brazen bell is smashed and discarded;
The earthen crock is thunderously sounded 黃鐘譭棄 瓦釜雷鳴   ‘Is it better to risk one’s life by speaking truthfully and without concealment, or to save one’s skin by following the whims of the wealthy and highly placed?… Read