Beijing insists the Chinese nation is not imagined, but a “historical inevitability.” Yet China’s new ethnic unity law suggests the opposite: national consciousness must be legislated, operationalised, and continuously forged. My latest for @chinabrief.bsky.social: jamestown.org/new-law-engi...

1/4 New essay out in @madeinchinajournal.com: “Rectifying Names, Erasing Mongols: The Unmaking of Mongolian Education in China”. madeinchinajournal.com/2026/01/20/r...

While you're making pumpkin pies and cranberry sauce, why not learn about how China has annexed Bhutan's territory, without a single shot fired? Check out our latest #Borderlands podcast episode with Japneet Kaur, @jleibold.bsky.social and @robbiebarnett.bsky.social

If you want to understand how Xi Jinping’s “soul-casting” [铸魂] project works in practice, read this searing account of one journalist’s journey through—and resistance to—the Xi Jinping School of Journalism: www.equator.org/articles/the... #SouthernMongolia #SoyomboBorjigin @equator.org

China intimidated UK university to ditch human rights research www.bbc.com/news/article... Shame on SHU for caving to Chinese intimidation. Even if they backed off when they were duly warned by the UK govt. But how many such horror cases of selfcensorship by universities go undetected, out of fear?

1/3 I appear on Asia Insight (NBR) discussing “Documenting China’s Borderlands: A Hundred Years of CCP Borderlands Policies.” Benno Weiner & Robert Barnett join. Listen (34m): podcasts.nbr.org/e/documentin... @nbr.org @bennoweiner.bsky.social @kingscollegelondon.bsky.social @latrobeuni.bsky.social

Enjoyed showing an advance copy of my new @columbiagr.bsky.social reports book to UK friends yesterday, at the cafe in Russell Square where I did some of my best interviews with exiles, the book on The Milk Tea Alliance is beside my go-to milk tea, Chai (even though the book isn’t about India)

Al Jazeera: ‘Tidal wave’: How 75 nations face Chinese debt crisis in 2025 Developing countries to pay a record $22bn this year, mostly linked to loans from #China ’s #BRI

New article just out in The China Journal: “Vanishing Quotas" - We track how Tibetan political representation is being hollowed out under Xi Jinping—and replaced by Han cadres in the TAR. www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/10.1086/... Some highlights from our findings:

In our new essay for @jodemocracy.bsky.social, Tenzin Dorjee (a super talented representative of a new generation of Tibetan scholars) and I unpack Beijing's attempt to erase "Tibet" from global discourse. Words matter—don’t let Tibet disappear quietly. #Tibet #Xizang t.ly/FwE5o

My article on the drafting of the genocide convention and language rights has been published in volume 25(1) of Ethnicities, and it is open access and free for anyone to read. journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10....

Antisemitism in China is connected to extreme anti-Manchu conspiracy theories as well. In this article, @jleibold.bsky.social looks at fringe Hanist forums. Members of these forums justify the Holocaust and in one case refer to the Manchus (who they want to exterminate) as the "Jews of China."

📢 New Book Alert! Dive into Rivers of the Asian Highlands: From Deep Time to the Climate Crisis. This multidisciplinary examination of the upper Brahmaputra and Yangzi rivers systems offers a unique “braided river” approach. 🌊📚 #RiverScience. Here’s what’s in the book, chapter by chapter. 🧵1/11

Interview: @geraldroche.bsky.social on the Erasure of Tibet's Minority Languages. "We know that the Chinese state can be highly punitive when it wants to … when the Chinese state chooses not to be punitive and controlling, I think we have to assume that that has some kind of significance."

My new article looks at Chinese Hui, Uyghur, and Salar Muslims adapting to the dynamics of urban social life in the early years of Xi Jinping. Being Muslim doesn't guarantee social or spatial affinity over class, experience, labor, personal history differences... www.tandfonline.com/eprint/TE97U...

What is Language Oppression? Examining the Case of Manegacha www.youtube.com/shorts/Toz-L...

Great to see this 6 part Chinese language video and podcast series based on the translation of “In the Camps” ( @columbiagr.bsky.social) which was published in Taiwan last year.

Digging into this important new book by my @latrobe colleague @geraldroche.bsky.social my copy of the book finally arrived last night. There are so many thoughtful insight behind the cover