Xi Jinping’s Empire of Tedium
Chapter XX 咒   The 16th of October 2022 marked the day on which, 1332 years earlier Wu Mei (武媚 624-705 CE), formerly the empress consort of the Emperor Gaozong) of the Tang and, after his death, empress dowager, ascended the throne as the Empress Regnant Wu Zhou 武周皇帝 of Zhao 曌.… Read

Xi Jinping’s Empire of Tedium Chapter XVII 聚   China’s Highly Consequential Political Silly Season is a three-part meditation on the Twentieth Congress of the Chinese Communist Party convened in Beijing in October 2022.… Read

Xi Jinping’s Empire of Tedium Chapter XVII 聚   China’s Highly Consequential Political Silly Season is a three-part meditation on the Twentieth Congress of the Chinese Communist Party convened in Beijing in October 2022.… Read

Xi Jinping’s Empire of Tedium Appendix XVIII 雙十   The following essay originally appeared on 5 October 2019. As we preciously observed: ‘The 5th October marks the half way point between the 1 October National Day of the People’s Republic on the Chinese mainland and the 10 October celebration of Taiwan’s Republic of China.… Read

Xi Jinping’s Empire of Tedium Chapter XVII 聚 My ‘first Party congress’, that is the first national congress of the Chinese Communist Party of which I was aware and to which I paid attention, was the Ninth Congress held in April 1969.… Read

Shervin Hajipour (شروین حاجی‌پور, born 1997) is an Iranian singer. His song Baraye has been described as ‘the anthem’ of the 2022 Mahsa Amini protests. After the song had gained over forty million views on Shervin’s Instagram page in the space of a few days, the singer was detained by the authorities.… Read