Trump Proves He’s a Patzer at Chinese Chess — Dasheng’s Calligraphic Comments on Current Affairs (VII)

The Other China

毒瀆毒
殺閷杀

Liu Chan 劉蟾, who also goes by the literary sobriquet Dasheng 大生, is a writer, scholar and calligrapher. Born in Shaanxi, he lives in Beijing where he edits The Chinese Study 中國書房. We have frequently featured Liu’s work in The Other China.

‘Dasheng’s Calligraphic Comments’ are an innovative use of an ancient art form. In them, Liu Chan uses quasi-poetic couplets, often parallel in structure, to encapsulate current new stories, often juxtaposing items that superficially have little in common. In the colophons that he composes — they run vertically along either side of the lines of the couplet — the calligrapher elaborates on stories that have been highlighted in poetic brevity.

Many of Liu’s couplets employ traditional semantic parallelism. For example:

北京歡迎普大帝
上海又傷日本人

(place + verb + noun)

Although he is still relatively young, Liu Chan often affects the style of an ‘old fogey’, a personality type that is more than familiar to China Heritage. It is a persona that allows Liu considerable latitude in commenting on, and gently satirising, the welter of current affairs in a style that gestures towards late-dynastic prose. Indeed, Liu Chan’s lapidary couplets and drole commentaries are reminiscent of literati jottings 筆記, miscellanea 掌故 and historical marginalia 稗官野史 — various forms of informal records used by later generations to help gauge the realities and absurdities of authoritarian rule.

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China Heritage is grateful to Dasheng for sharing his recent work. Explanatory material has been added to our translation. For previous chapters in this series, see:

As well as:

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The Chinese rubric of this chapter in The Other China is 殺閷杀 毒瀆毒, a tricolon of two deadly words.

— Geremie R. Barmé
Editor, China Heritage
14 August 2026

King Trump is a Patzer at Chinese Chess
While Marco Rubio is Played like a Rube

From 13 to 15 May 2026, King Trump visited China with a dream team of business people. Many mellifluous words were exchanged by both parties, so much so that those who believed that Trump was playing 4-D chess with China were disabused of their erroneous views.

Furthermore, as for Secretary of State Marco Rubio, prior to this trip he had been banned form China because of his extremist statements. For this occasion, state media pulled a switcheroo: Rubio’s Chinese surname — 盧 Lú — became 魯 Lǔ. By changing this single character, Eastern wisdom proved to be victorious yet again.

— Dasheng Liu Chan, 14 May 2026

Note:

The character 魯 lǔ, apart from being a surname, also appears in words like ‘reckless’ 魯莽, ‘stupid’ 魯鈍 and ‘crass’ 魯直.

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Bowing and Scraping Just For a Selfie
Maybe It’s Déjà Vu All Over Again

Donald Trump was accompanied by various business executives when he visited China, including Elon Musk and Jensen Huang. A number of Chinese executives were also present for the state banquet organised to welcome the visitors on 14 May, including Lei Jun 雷軍, CEO of Xiaomi. Lei made a spectacle of himself by taking an awkward selfie with Musk, an image that went viral immediately.

Over a decade earlier [in July 2013], Lei Jun had visited Tesla’s Fremont factory [in Silicon Valley and met Elon Musk out of curiosity], after which it gradually became the leading EV manufacturer. In response, the columnist Wang Wusi 王五四 [reworked a famous line from the Tang-dynasty poet Li Bo 李白] and asked: ‘How can you belittle yourself like that just to get a selfie?’ To that line I’ve added one of my own:

‘It’s though someone you knew before has reappeared right in front of you.’

I have made this record of the encounter by putting those two lines together.

— Dasheng Liu Chan, 15 May 2026

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Student Geng Reveals Falsified Scientific Research
Chinese Students in Germany Involved in Pack Rape

Since April this year, a whistleblower known as ‘Student Geng’ 耿同學 [Geng Hongwei] has gone viral on social media. He has repeatedly exposed the fraudulent academic work of some five academics at prestigious institutions such as Shanghai’s Tongji University and Nankai in Tianjin. It would seem that this is merely the tip of the iceberg. If this is the state of affairs in academia how can Chinese science really be able to advance?

Also, recently a court in Munich tried a student by the name of Jiang Zhongyi 蔣中懿 on two charges of attempted murder and [seven counts of aggravated] rape. He has been sentenced to eleven years and three months in prison. The case also implicated a number of people known as the ‘German Driving School’ who sedated their victims and posted videos of the rapes. Of the eight people implicated in the case, seven were elite students from China.

— Dasheng Liu Chan, 18 May 2026

Notes:

The Whistleblower Student Geng

The Case of Jiang Zhongyi

In a case reminiscent of the long-term abuse perpetrated by Dominique Pelicot against his wife Giselein France, J* had been accused of drugging and raping his neighbor at least seven times between February and December 2024. Prosecutors said J* knowingly administered life-threatening doses of sedatives and anaesthetics.

J*’s trial in Munich is part of a broader series of investigations into eight men who were members of a Telegram chat group called the “German Driving School.” All but one of the men are Chinese, and all but one live in Germany. Their victims — those that have been identified — were almost exclusively Chinese women and were the men’s partners, colleagues, friends or acquaintances. Most were not aware of what had happened to them until they were contacted by the police.

In the Telegram chat group, the men used code words to discuss what medications to use to sedate women, the dosages, what they did to women once they were unconscious, including what tools and objects were used. They also shared photographs and recordings of their crimes. “Looking for a car” referred to the search for a new victim; “oil” or “fuel” were code-words for sedatives; “luxury car” referred to an especially attractive woman and sedated women were referred to as “dead pigs.”

— Helen Whittle, Man found guilty in Pelicot-style rape case, DW, 4 April 2026

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An Anti-fraud App Facilitates Fraud
Police Enforcers Disturb the Peace

Reports have come out that a fellow in Fujian teamed up with some local police to use the state anti-fraud app to steal the bank account details of civilians for profit. Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?

On 18 May, the Nanjing Communications College reported that there was a clash with civilians when the local urban management authorities launched a major police operation aimed at cracking down on the night market just outside the entrance to the college campus. By all rights, the police are there to ensure public safety, but now they are acting like this. How can one not despair?

— Dasheng Liu Chan, 19 May 2026

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Beijing Makes Emperor Putin Feel Welcome
As Shanghai Harms Japanese People, Again

Vladimir Putin visited China from 19 to 20 May 2026, only a few days after Donald Trump had left Beijing. In the face of Trump’s shenanigans, ‘we steadfastly stood our ground’ [as Mao Zedong wrote in his 1928 poem Jinggangshan] and we won merely by the fact that we remained unmoved.

Meanwhile, it was said that there was an altercation in a Japanese restaurant in Shanghai that left two Japanese people with stab wounds. The reasons for the violence were not immediately apparent and Chinese media made no mention of the incident. One presumes that it had something to do with anti-Japanese propaganda. Truly pitiful.

— Dasheng Liu Chan, 20 May 2026

Note:

The Japan Times reported that, on 19 May 2026, a fifty-nine-year-old Chinese man wielding a fruit knife attacked three people at the Ginpei Japanese restaurant in the Shanghai World Financial Centre. The incident injured two Japanese men and one Chinese woman. The suspect was detained at the scene.

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Poison, Bane, Toxin
Murder, Slay, Execute

On 15 May, the media reported that workers in Longhai district, Fujian province, had been selling bayberries [楊梅] that had been soaked in banned preservatives and artificial sweeteners. Meanwhile, untainted fruit was being exported to countries in the EU. This kind of double-standard in food production is an old problem, but what is the underlying cause?

A student at the Second Polytechnic University in Shanghai who had nodded off in class felt they had been insulted by a lecturer who woke them up and shouted out ‘Kill, Kill, Kill!’ in response. A video clip of the incident went viral. If anything the incident was an indication of increased psychological stress among students, though it’s probably not only students who feel that they are on the verge.

— Dasheng Liu Chan, 20 May 2026

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Lives Lost in Gas Explosions in Shanxi Province
And Downpours in Hunan Leave Many Harmed

On 22 May 2026, there was a gas explosion at the Liushenyu Coal Mine operated by the Tongzhou Group in Qinyuan County, Shanxi province. While rescue efforts are ongoing, it is reported that ninety people have been confirmed dead. One can only hope that number will not increase.

Meanwhile, from 17 to 22 May, torrential rains hit South China. Shimen in Hunan province has been badly affected with five people reportedly deceased and eleven people missing. Seventeen people are also missing in Qingyongzhou and one person has reportedly died. On 24 May, a fire broke out in a shop in Hengyang resulting in five fatalities and one person seriously injured.

At best, life is but a fragile thing and untoward events are commonplace. It is invariably the case that the most vulnerable groups in society are the first to suffer. Tragic!

— Dasheng Liu Chan, 24 May 2026