Contra Trump 禍起蕭牆 In the midst of the Iran–US military crisis of June 2025, US President Donald J. Trump gestured towards a framed copy of the Declaration of Independence that he had ordered to be mounted on the wall of the Oval Office, and observed: [I] see the Declaration of Independence and I say I wonder if you—you know the Civil War?—it… Read

Contra Trump 以史為誡 In this chapter of Contra Trump — America’s Empire of Tedium, we consider the ‘judgement of history’ in the company of Nils Gilman, a historian and futurist. The chapter is divided into two parts.… Read

This is the sixtieth chapter in Other People’s Thoughts, a China Heritage series inspired by a compilation of quotations put together by Simon Leys (Pierre Ryckmans), one of our Ancestors, during his reading life.… Read

Contra Trump 隔岸覬覦   In late 2020, Xu Zhangrun wrote that: you often come across dozens of cameras jostling on the same single pole, nestling there like a flock of weary raptors.… Read

Contra Trump 抗心希古 Six decades ago, Li Ao, a Taiwan-based popular historian and mud-racker, published ‘The Art of Survival’, a short guide to ‘the art of living in the chaotic world while keeping yourself in one piece’.… Read

Celebrating New Sinology 左道旁門 ‘What use is Song poetry?’ It was 2010 and the questioner was a professor of social sciences. A few months earlier, with the support of my university and the Australian federal government, I had established a centre based on the ideas of New Sinology, which I had first proposed in 2005.… Read