chinaheritage.net/journal/wu-z... ‘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!” (chinaheritage.net/journal/brin...) devoted to his memory.

chinaheritage.net/journal/a-sc... 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.”

Thinking about Ai Weiwei’s recent trip back to the Fatherland:

“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-...

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。 chinaheritage.net/journal/fare...

chinaheritage.net/journal/to-t... 在西邊有一東方大國

“We are asleep. Our life is a dream, but sometimes we wake up just long enough to realize we are dreaming.” — Ludwig Wittgenstein chinaheritage.net/journal/othe...

“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 chinaheritage.net/journal/and-...

“Four legs good, two legs bad.” David Rowe in “The Australian Financial Review”:

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’. chinaheritage.net/journal/grea...

traffickers..

Here we mark Thanksgiving 2025 with Jianli’s Grace & Justice followed by an analysis of the poem by Ren Jingjing. chinaheritage.net/journal/no-t...

‘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。 chinaheritage.net/journal/when...

chinaheritage.net/journal/on-t... “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.”

“A desk is a dangerous place from which to watch the world.” — John Le Carré, “The Honourable Schoolboy” chinaheritage.net/journal/othe...

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.!

A poetic critique of Trump’s Gatsby-esque Halloween bash in the style of pre-Qin obloquy: chinaheritage.net/journal/the-...

“Eaten my fill, drank to the lees, the focus is now on sleep. Why do anything else when reality is just so ridiculous?” 吃飽喝足之後， 主要就是睡覺。 還能做點什麼？ 現實這般可笑。 — Lao Shu 老樹 chinaheritage.net/journal/when...

New Rhyming Chaos podcast: Kazakhstan, clan politics, doing bizness and more.

currently the winning thumbnail 🐀 forget the lies you have been told! rats are empathetic, intelligent, and sweet pocket puppies. and their tails are beautiful.

Katherine Boyle, former Peter Thiel intern, says government is an enemy of families. So she's investing in high-tech weaponry...for the government. I shared my thoughts on her "American Dynamism" — a VC pitch-deck version of Christian nationalism. NYT gift link: www.nytimes.com/2025/10/19/b...

Another perspective on the No Kings protests of 18 October 2025: chinaheritage.net/journal/how-...

New Rhyming Chaos podcast: @mariarepnikova.bsky.social and I talk to Julia Sonnvend about her book on charm in contemporary politics and its use by strongmen:

chinaheritage.net/journal/othe... 牛馬有的是，就缺驢。

chinaheritage.net/journal/a-ce... On Gore Vidal’s centenary.

“Behold. The festering carcass of American rot shoved into an ill-fitting suit: the sleaze of a conman, the cowardice of a draft dodger, the gluttony of a parasite, the racism of a Klansman, the sexism of a back-alley creep … ” (from “Other People’s Thoughts 66” chinaheritage.net/journal/othe...

when the interview goes well: www.newyorker.com/news/q-and-a...