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
Journal
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
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