A Scorecard on Day One of Year Two of T2

Contra Trump 元年次日 At a gathering at Davos on 20 January 2026, journalists were briefed by the Trump White House with a document titled ‘365 wins in 365 days. President Trump’s Return Marks New Era of Success’.… Read

American Gestapo

Contra Trump 萬 The Chinese rubric of this chapter Contra Trump, a series devoted to America’s denouement under President Donald J. Trump and its doppelgänger in China, is 萬 wàn, a character that can also be written with the symbol 卍 / 卐.… Read

An Ignoble Prize & Liu Chan’s Calligraphic Comment

Contra Trump 貪天之功,以為己力 The Norwegian novelist Knut Hamsun was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1920. Later, when he became a staunch supporter of the German Nazis and a collaborator with the traitorous Vidkun Quisling in Norway, Hamsun sent his Nobel Prize medal to Joseph Goebbels, the Nazi minister of ‘public enlightenment’, as a gift.… Read

Bring on the Wine! — Xi Jinping’s Lessons for a Tang-dynasty Poet

Seeds of Fire 人生得意須盡歡
莫使金樽空對月   This introductory chapter to Seeds of Fire: China Heritage Annual 2026 is inspired by Wu Zuguang, whom I first met in 1976 — by his outspokenness in 1956, by learning about his exile, resistance and continued travails from 1966 and from his dark warnings about ongoing cultural repression in 1986.… Read

The Unbearable Weight of ∀a≠0

Contra Trump ∀a≠0 In Gödel’s Loophole and American’s ‘Cultural Revolution’, a chapter in Contra Trump — America’s Empire of Tedium, Zhang Qianfan 张千帆, a leading Chinese constitutional expert, observed of the law-bending first month of Donald J.… Read

The Tea Master of Zibo’s Kung Fu Hustle

Celebrating New Sinology 酱爆瘋批茶道   The Tea Master of Zibo is a second-hand car salesman who produces short videos under the name ‘Exploding Sweet-sauce’ 二手醬爆. His Tao of Tea 醬爆茶道 is rebellious, rambunctious and ridiculous.… Read