China Heritage
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https://chinaheritage.net
chinaheritage.net/journal/othe...
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Other People’s Thoughts, LXXIV
Other People’s Thoughts This is the seventy-fourth chapter in Other People's Thoughts, a China Heritage series inspired by a compilation of quotations put together by Simon Leys (Pierre Ryckmans), one...
https://chinaheritage.net/journal/other-peoples-thoughts-lxxiv/
2 days ago
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The Unhomed — Mourning in the Future Tense
Intersecting with Eternity 上善若水 In 2021, a century after Stefan Zweig wrote about the invisible republic of the spirit, we adapted the concept to our ongoing investigation into what we have long dubbe...
https://chinaheritage.net/journal/the-unhomed-mourning-in-the-future-tense/
3 days ago
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“Things will not go how you want them to. Unlike previous empires, America can’t even make a desert; everywhere it goes the world reverts to mere chaos. State collapse, ethnic war, tribal militias forgetting how to speak, stammering and babbling over the ruins.”
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The Chaos They’ll Call Peace
Contra Trump ubi solitudinem faciunt, pacem appellant ‘They make a desert and call it peace’ is an oft-quoted and clichéd line from Tacitus, one that we learned in high school when studying Roman hist...
https://chinaheritage.net/journal/the-chaos-theyll-call-peace/
6 days ago
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When the Ayatollah Called the General Secretary
The Other China 裡通天朝上國 In the Xi Jinping era, the term Great Power 強國 qiáng guó, literally ‘powerful nation’, is a commonplace term for China itself. It encapsulates the quest of the People’s Republic...
https://chinaheritage.net/journal/when-the-ayatollah-called-the-general-secretary/
10 days ago
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Hang High the Lanterns
The Other China 張燈結綵 The Fifteenth Day of the First Month of the New Year 正月十五 marks the first full moon of the Lunisolar New Year. Generally called Yuanxiao 元宵, literally ‘First Evening’, it is
https://chinaheritage.net/journal/hang-high-the-lanterns/
11 days ago
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Recalling the Covid-19 years, Dr Li Wenliang and exploring the origins of ’China Maxxing’:
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Covid Lessons for Kumbayistas
Seeds of Fire 回忌李文良 The space for professionals to speak out within the system as it presently exists is extremely limited. The constraints imposed exist to prevent people from telling the truth; the ...
https://chinaheritage.net/journal/covid-lessons-for-kumbayistas/
16 days ago
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We mark the anniversary of Ukraine’s War of Resistance Against Russia, which started on this day four years ago, with a tribute by the Beijing-based calligrapher Liu Chan.
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24.ii.26 — The Fourth Year of the War of Resistance
The Other China We mark the anniversary of Ukraine’s War of Resistance Against Russia, which started on this day four years ago, with a tribute by the Beijing-based calligrapher Liu Chan. — Geremie R....
https://chinaheritage.net/journal/24-ii-26-the-fourth-year-of-the-war-of-resistance/
17 days ago
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chinaheritage.net/journal/on-h...
The 遺民 yímín of the Xi Jinping era espouse values and promote ideas that Xi and his comrades have been at pains to contain, corrupt and obliterate. By comparison, the acquiescent majority are 順民 shùnmín, which is another hallowed term from the Chinese tradition.
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On Heritage in Seeds of Fire
Seeds of Fire ‘On Heritage 遺’, reproduced below, was written in January 2016. It offers the Rationale behind China Heritage, a publishing and archival project related to culture, translation and thoug...
https://chinaheritage.net/journal/on-heritage-in-seeds-of-fire/
21 days ago
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The Gao Brothers and the Shame of China
Seeds of Fire 無恥之尤 Journalist Marije Vlaskamp’s essay on the Gao Brothers 高氏兄弟 — Gao Zhen 高兟 and Gao Qiang 高强 — reproduced below, is all but unreadable, even unbearable. That’s because Vlaskamp descri...
https://chinaheritage.net/journal/the-gao-brothers-and-the-shame-of-china/
22 days ago
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chinaheritage.net/journal/fuck...
The commentator Wang Liuyuan offers his observations on Tama/ 踏馬/ 他媽, an expression featured in a Spring Festival Gala 春晚 song that was widely perceived as being a surprise middle finger to the status quo.
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Fuck the Year of the Horse! China’s Homophonophobia
Seeds of Fire 馬首是瞻 While many people were enthralled by Kungfu bots— 武bot — of the official Spring Festival song-and-dance celebration, or Chunwan 春晚, broadcast by Beijing’s CCTV on 16 February 2026,...
https://chinaheritage.net/journal/fuck-the-year-of-the-horse-chinas-homophonophobia/
23 days ago
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The purged Professor Xu on a new year’s meal that he can’t eat:
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Who will adjudicate the how’s and why’s? — Professor Xu Zhangrun’s New Year
Xu Zhangrun Archive 哦莫怪!我是路人 The last meal on the last night of the traditional calendar — 年夜飯 niányèfàn — is one of the most important occasions in the Chinese year. Families and friends gather to
https://chinaheritage.net/journal/who-will-adjudicate-the-hows-and-whys-professor-xu-zhangruns-new-year/
25 days ago
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Snakes Retreat with the Advent of The Horse
蛇尾馬頭 The 2014 Year of the Horse was my birth year — I turned sixty on 4 May 2014 — a fateful time and one that Indian astrologers had warned me would be a
https://chinaheritage.net/journal/snakes-retreat-with-the-advent-of-the-horse/
26 days ago
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“During Bingwu and Dingwei years, China has repeatedly experienced major changes, be they threats born within the land or humiliations originating with the barbarians outside.” 丙午、丁未之歲,中國遇此輒有變故,非禍生於內,則夷狄外侮。
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On the Cusp of Fire — The Flaming Horse and The Blood-red Sheep
Seeds of Fire 赤馬紅羊劫 *** This is the first of a series of new years cards designed for China Heritage by Callum Smith. It features a photograph by Lois Conner of a bronze horse
https://chinaheritage.net/journal/on-the-cusp-of-fire-the-flaming-horse-and-the-blood-red-sheep/
27 days ago
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When the Intifada Goes Local
Contra Trump Our media and government(s), like most in the Western World, have spent the days since Israel began its Holocaust in Gaza living in a highly fragile parallel universe stitched together by...
https://chinaheritage.net/journal/when-the-intifada-goes-local/
about 1 month ago
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Mark Clifford in his 2024 book on the recently sentenced Jimmy Lai: “History is littered with examples of single individuals posing earthshaking threats to totalitarian regimes. … Jimmy Lai refuses to yield. That is why the Chinese Communist Party fears him.”
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Sublime Madness and the Final Passion of Jimmy Lai
Seeds of Fire 殉道受難 Shortly before Christmas 2023, Jimmy Lai (Lai Chee-ying 黎智英, 1947-), a former pro-democracy media tycoon went on trial in Hong Kong under a Beijing-imposed national security law. He...
https://chinaheritage.net/journal/sublime-madness-and-the-final-passion-of-jimmy-lai/
about 1 month ago
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China Heritage
Gil Durán
about 1 month ago
In the late 1990s, Peter Thiel read a strange book called "The Sovereign Individual: How To Survive and Thrive During the Collapse of the Welfare State." It predicted the decline of nations and the rise of a "cognitive elite" empowered by a new digital currency. And now...(coming August 2026)
add a skeleton here at some point
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The artist-poet Lao Shu is anxious for the Year of the Horse to arrive, preferably at a gallop.
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Lao Shu: ‘Giddy-up, Year of the Horse!’
The Other China 快發錢!要過年!!! On 25 January 2025 China Heritage celebrated the First Day of the First Month of the Year of the Snake in the company of Lao Shu 老樹 (see: Lofty Aspirations &
https://chinaheritage.net/journal/lao-shu-giddy-up-year-of-the-horse/
about 1 month ago
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chinaheritage.net/journal/free...
As it says in the Tao Te Ching: 夫唯不爭,故天下莫能與之爭。 ‘It is because he is free from striving that no one in the world can strive against him.’
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Free from Striving — Lao Shu ‘straight vibing’
The Other China 夫唯不爭,故天下莫能與之爭。 ‘It is because he is free from striving that no one in the world can strive against him’ — this line from Tao Te Ching encapsulates the spirit of the following
https://chinaheritage.net/journal/free-from-striving-lao-shu-straight-vibing/
about 1 month ago
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A list of things I’d rather do than ask ChatGPT Consult an oracle/ Ask a crow/ Dig out my old Magic 8 Ball/ Call my grandma/ Ask the void/ Ask a brain inside a jar/ … — Alex Dawson, 8 January 2026
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Other People’s Thoughts LXXII
Other People’s Thoughts This is the seventy-second chapter in Other People's Thoughts, a China Heritage series inspired by a compilation of quotations put together by Simon Leys (Pierre Ryckmans), one...
https://chinaheritage.net/journal/other-peoples-thoughts-lxxii/
about 2 months ago
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A Different Kind of Deluge at Davos — a calligraphic comment from Beijing
Contra Trump “天選之子” This year — 2026 — marks the sixtieth anniversary of Mao Zedong’s Cultural Revolution. As we noted when launching China Heritage a decade ago: In 1966, Mao observed that his person...
https://chinaheritage.net/journal/a-different-kind-of-deluge-at-davos-a-calligraphic-comment-from-beijing/
about 2 months ago
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‘I know I can be a good human being, but it’s impossible for me to be a good Party member too.’ — Wu Zuguang in an Appendix to “Bring on the Wine!” (
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Wu Zuguang — a gentleman who was disaffected to the end
Seeds of Fire 吳祖光 This an appendix to Bring on the Wine! — Xi Jinping’s Lessons for a Tang-dynasty Poet, the introductory chapter to Seeds of Fire: China Heritage Annual 2026. The other appendix to th...
https://chinaheritage.net/journal/wu-zuguang-a-gentleman-who-was-disaffected-to-the-end/
about 2 months ago
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Ian Dunt: “… you have to fight hard to avoid the F word. … You have to perform contorted intellectual gymnastics to avoid the one word which explains the phenomenon we see in front of our eyes.”
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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
https://chinaheritage.net/journal/a-scorecard-on-day-one-of-year-two-of-t2/
about 2 months ago
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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 ...
https://chinaheritage.net/journal/an-ignoble-prize-liu-chans-calligraphic-comment/
about 2 months ago
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Thinking about Ai Weiwei’s recent trip back to the Fatherland:
about 2 months ago
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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
https://chinaheritage.net/journal/bring-on-the-wine-xi-jinpings-lessons-for-a-tang-dynasty-poet/
about 2 months ago
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“We would remind practitioners of Sino-Hasbara 中華大外宣, as well as eager students and promoters of China-is-the-futurology, that the People’s Republic has long been in an advanced state of ‘at least not zero’.”
chinaheritage.net/journal/the-...
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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...
https://chinaheritage.net/journal/the-unbearable-weight-of-%e2%88%80a%e2%89%a00/
2 months ago
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The Tea Master of Zibo's Kung Fu Hustle
Celebrating New Sinology 酱爆茶道 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, rambuncti...
https://chinaheritage.net/journal/the-tea-master-of-zibos-kung-fu-hustle/
2 months ago
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1 January 2026 — a Masthead for The Year of the Horse
Seeds of Fire 丙午馬年 On 1 January 2026 we are formally launching China Heritage Annual 2026, the theme of which is Seeds of Fire. This China Heritage series celebrates four decades since John Minford ...
https://chinaheritage.net/journal/1-january-2026-a-masthead-for-the-year-of-the-horse/
2 months ago
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31 December 2025 — Lao Shu at Year’s End
The Other China 年終總結 In this chapter of The Other China, we join the artist Lao Shu as he bids adieu to the year 2025. For our farewell to 2024 and welcome to 2025, also
https://chinaheritage.net/journal/31-december-2025-lao-shu-at-years-end/
2 months ago
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Wang Kang, a perceptive China Watcher, could see what fate had in store for China. As he observes in his 2015 poem: 魑魅魍魎出入紫禁城,如同公元前221年的倒影如同史前滅絕的恐龍死灰复燃!夜色倒灌白晝。陰霾從“海里”飄升,額前刺紅的城樓,腐鼠追逐蛤蟆,木乃伊握緊雙拳。
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Farewelling 2025, Remembering Wang Kang
Seeds of Fire 浩氣長流 In 2015, Wang Kang (王康, 1949-2020), writer, artist, dissident and unofficial historian, welcomed the new year with a poem. As part of Seeds of Fire: China Heritage Annual 2026 we co...
https://chinaheritage.net/journal/farewelling-2025-remembering-wang-kang/
2 months ago
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在西邊有一東方大國
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To the West there’s a Great Eastern Power
Seeds of Fire 大肚能容容天下難容之事; 開口便笑笑世間可笑之人。 We mark the festive season of 2025 with a monologue by Huang Yi Hao 黃逸豪, a Taiwanese comic whose performances combine elements of traditional Chinese cross ta...
https://chinaheritage.net/journal/to-the-west-theres-a-great-eastern-power/
3 months ago
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3 months ago
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“We are asleep. Our life is a dream, but sometimes we wake up just long enough to realize we are dreaming.” — Ludwig Wittgenstein
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Other People’s Thoughts LXX
Other People’s Thoughts This is the seventieth 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 ...
https://chinaheritage.net/journal/other-peoples-thoughts-lxx/
3 months ago
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Bracing for Impact — bad infinity and a denouement in three acts
Seeds of Fire 2026 其小無內兮,其大無垠 We'll tell you anything you want to hear. We lie like hell! We'll tell you Kojak always gets the killer, and nobody ever gets cancer in Archie Bunker's house…
https://chinaheritage.net/journal/bracing-for-impact-bad-infinity-and-a-denouement-in-three-acts/
3 months ago
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“Yesterday saw the first snow of the season and today the sun was out. Evening closed in quickly and the jackdaws crowing in the bare tree outside only added to my bleak isolation. So, I composed this doggerel verse, a soliloquy by and for me.” — Xu Zhangrun
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And Still I Rise — Xu Zhangrun writes of Surprise and Awe
Celebrating New Sinology 人能弘道,非道弘人 Yesterday saw the first snow of the season and today the sun was out. Evening closed in quickly and the jackdaws crowing in the bare tree outside only added to my
https://chinaheritage.net/journal/and-still-i-rise-xu-zhangrun-writes-of-surprise-and-awe/
3 months ago
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It’s Beginning to Look a Lot Like F This — Randy Rainbow’s 2025 Xmas Gift
Contra Trump 北風那個吹 雪花那個飄 On 1 January 2024, China Heritage published Nutbush City Limits — 2024, Mao, Trump and China Heritage to mark what promised to be a momentous year in US and global politics.
https://chinaheritage.net/journal/its-beginning-to-look-a-lot-like-f-this-randy-rainbows-2025-xmas-gift/
3 months ago
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My Father Bao Tong — Part III
Xi Jinping’s Empire of Tedium 坦蕩怡天壽 ・ 其叁 This is Part III of My Father Bao Tong, a biographical essay by Bao Pu written to commemorate the life of his father, Bao Tong. *** Bao
https://chinaheritage.net/journal/my-father-bao-tong-part-iii/
3 months ago
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“Four legs good, two legs bad.” David Rowe in “The Australian Financial Review”:
3 months ago
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The Chinese rubric of this chapter in our “Contra Trump” series — 親者痛,仇者快 qīn zhě tòng, chóu zhě kuài — may be rendered as ‘allies will shudder, enemies rejoice’.
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Great Power Insecurities — on the national security strategy of a flailing state
Contra Trump 親者痛,仇者快 Chinese reading the document will say, our time has come. Russians reading the document will say: we can still rebuild our old empire. Europeans reading the document will ask them...
https://chinaheritage.net/journal/great-power-insecurities-on-the-national-security-strategy-of-a-flailing-state/
3 months ago
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China Heritage
3 months ago
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Here we mark Thanksgiving 2025 with Jianli’s Grace & Justice followed by an analysis of the poem by Ren Jingjing.
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No Thanks Given — the poet Jianli on a celebration of American amnesia
Contra Trump 投木報瓊 Grace & Justice is a work in Old Odes, New Poems 新詩經體詩, a series by Jianli that draws inspiration from The Book of Songs, the fountain head of Chinese literature. It
https://chinaheritage.net/journal/no-thanks-given-the-poet-jianli-on-a-celebration-of-american-amnesia/
4 months ago
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‘The tones of a ruined state are filled with lament and brooding: its people are in difficulty’ 亡國之音哀以思,其民困。
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When to Cherish Virtue is an Indictment — the poet Jianli on Donald Trump’s America
Celebrating New Sinology 眾女嫉余之蛾眉兮 謠諑謂余以善淫 The Ji Clan at Mar-a-Lago, a chapter in our Contra Trump series, featured a poem by Jianli. Drawing on classical literary forms and allusions found in China’s...
https://chinaheritage.net/journal/when-to-cherish-virtue-is-an-indictment-the-poet-jianli-on-donald-trumps-america/
4 months ago
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“In his chronicle of the Yin-Shang dynasty, the Grand Historian of the Han dynasty Sima Qian remarked that its decline was ‘marked by endless sexual predation and disorder’ 淫亂不止. It’s an epitaph fit for Jeffrey Epstein and his class.”
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On the ‘Epstein Class’
Contra Trump 獨夫無厭 殷鑒不遠 In Hemail Peril, a chapter in Contra Trump devoted to the ‘Epstein Files’ and the putrid core of Donald J. Trump’s presidency, we quoted Tina Brown: Jeffrey Epstein is the
https://chinaheritage.net/journal/on-the-epstein-class/
4 months ago
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My Father Bao Tong — Part II
Xi Jinping’s Empire of Tedium 坦蕩怡天壽 ・ 其貳 This is Part II of My Father Bao Tong, a biographical essay by Bao Pu written to commemorate the life of Bao Tong. *** Bao Tong (鮑彤,
https://chinaheritage.net/journal/my-father-bao-tong-part-ii/
4 months ago
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“A desk is a dangerous place from which to watch the world.” — John Le Carré, “The Honourable Schoolboy”
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Other People’s Thoughts LXVIII
Other People’s Thoughts This is the sixty-eighth chapter in Other People's Thoughts, a China Heritage series inspired by a compilation of quotations put together by Simon Leys (Pierre Ryckmans), one o...
https://chinaheritage.net/journal/other-peoples-thoughts-lxviii/
4 months ago
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So starts the winter ... Lao Shu asks: ‘Head off for hotpot or head into the hills?’
The Other China 立冬 火鍋或曠野 In this chapter of The Other China, we join the artist Lao Shu to mark 11 November, a relatively new Chinese festive day, and bid farewell to the northern autumn
https://chinaheritage.net/journal/so-starts-the-winter-lao-shu-asks-head-off-for-hotpot-or-head-into-the-hills/
4 months ago
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Proof of Life — Xu Zhangrun in Barbed Wire
Xu Zhangrun Archive 千里冰封,萬里雪飄 On 4 November 2025, Jingzhou Tao 陶景洲 told his online followers that he had met up with his old friend, Xu Zhangrun, one of China’s most famous ‘internal exiles’, a
https://chinaheritage.net/journal/proof-of-life-xu-zhangrun-in-barbed-wire/
4 months ago
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reposted by
China Heritage
Jeremy Goldkorn
4 months ago
New Rhyming Chaos podcast in which I interview CNN chief international correspondent Clarissa Ward on reporting from a capital city as a horde of religious extremists take over—and I'm not talking about Washington D.C.!
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How does a city feel when it's invaded by an occupying army?
Clarissa Ward has reported for CNN on many of the major wars of the last decade. She talks about entering Kabul as it fell to the Taliban, Syria, Ukraine, and more.
https://www.rhymingchaos.com/p/how-does-a-city-feel-when-its-invaded
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A poetic critique of Trump’s Gatsby-esque Halloween bash in the style of pre-Qin obloquy:
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The Ji Clan at Mar-a-Lago
Celebrating New Sinology & Contra Trump 碩鼠 In The Shame of Mar-a-Lago, reproduced here with the permission of China Thought Express, the cultural critic Ren Jingjing 任晶晶 offers a commentary on Mar-a-L...
https://chinaheritage.net/journal/the-ji-clan-at-mar-a-lago/
4 months ago
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Going off the Rails with Jianying Zha
The Other China 脫軌餘生 Should fish suddenly start to talk, I suppose that ichthyology would also have to undergo a dramatic revision of its basic approach. A certain type of ‘instant sinology’ was ind...
https://chinaheritage.net/journal/going-off-the-rails-with-jianying-zha/
4 months ago
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