Xi Jinping’s Empire of Tedium
Tiger Skins in the Year of the Tiger 拉大旗作虎皮 The writer Lu Xun used the expression 拉大旗作虎皮 lā dàqí zuò hǔpí, literally ‘drape yourself in the flag as though it were a tiger skin’, to mock people who put on a formidable show to disguise their lack of substance.… Read

廬山真面目   It is five years since we published ‘A Monkey King’s Journey to the East’, the inaugural article in China Heritage, and ten years since what would soon become the irresistible rise of Xi Jinping.… Read

Spectres & Souls Chapters in the 2021 issue of China Heritage Annual: Spectres & Souls, have appeared throughout the year, and which will overlap into 2022, we posited that many of the spectres and shades, as well as the enlivening souls and lofty inspirations, that assert themselves both in China and the United States in 2021 may present an even more compelling aspect when considered in the context of the 160-year period starting in 1861.… Read

Spectres & Souls In the Preface to Spectres & Souls, we quoted ‘Romain Rolland: The Man and His Work’, a commemorative essay written by Stefan Zweig to celebrate his old friend.… Read

Spectres & Souls The 23rd of December 2022 will mark thirty years since ‘Santaland Diaries’ featured on Morning Edition on National Public Radio. In 1992, I split my time between Canberra, where I had a postdoctoral fellowship at the Australian National University, the People’s Republic of China, where friends flourished once more in the midst of a phantasmagoria, and Boston, where I was working on a film about the 1989 Beijing Uprising.… Read