I’m reading “China, my father and I” by Felix Lee, a book detailing how his father, Wenpo Lee, helped Volkswagen enter China. In one chapter, Felix explains the origin of the Joint Venture system that brought Western and Chinese companies together:

"she gives an answer typical for the runaways, saying that she “went to an ordinary school, studied an ordinary major, had ordinary looks [and] was the type that can’t be spotted in a crowd.”" chinabooksreview.com/2026/02/12/r...

‪ In #Beijing #monochrome #blackandwhite #photography #blacknwhite #bnw #blackandwhitephotography #cityscape #street #streetphotography #urban #China

"In the last 90 days, 14.7 percent of visits to US government websites came from Lanzhou and 6.6 percent came from Singapore, making them the top two cities in the world supposedly hungry for information from the American government, according to Analytics.usa.gov. " shorturl.at/0gb99

"The Cyberspace Administration of China (CAC) [...] listed “inciting gender antagonism and exaggerating ‘fear of marriage’ and ‘anxiety about childbirth'” as primary examples of content “maliciously inciting negative emotions” that should be taken down by social media platforms." shorturl.at/OqAL0

"a Microsoft 365 Copilot bug has been causing the AI assistant to summarize confidential emails since late January, bypassing data loss prevention (DLP) policies that organizations rely on to protect sensitive information." www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/microso...

"The scam-camp trafficking groups in Southeast Asia typically use advertisements on social-media platforms such as Telegram and WhatsApp to recruit migrants with the promise of well-paying jobs at tech firms in the Thai capital, Bangkok. "

Ars Orientalis is open access and welcomes individual submissions. It’s one of the leading journals for publishing research on Asian art. Please spread the word and consider submitting your work!

Somewhere in #Beijing #monochrome #blackandwhite #photography #blacknwhite #bnw #blackandwhitephotography #architecture #China #streetphotography

In an hospital in #Beijing #monochrome #blackandwhite #photography #blacknwhite #bnw #blackandwhitephotography #architecture #China

In #Beijing #monochrome #blackandwhite #photography #blacknwhite #bnw #blackandwhitephotography #cityscape #street #streetphotography #urban #China

CCTV tower in #Beijing #monochrome #blackandwhite #photography #blacknwhite #bnw #blackandwhitephotography #architecture #cityscape #street #streetphotography #urban #China

Promoting dentist services in #Beijing #China

Interesting bronze cast sculpture at "The First Youth Sculpture Exhibition" at the National Art Museum of China (NAMOC) last month #Beijing

I’ve lost track of how many songs, dance sequences, videos, skits etc that robots have appeared in during tonight’s New Year TV gala. Chinese people are laughing on social media at this heavy handed approach from #China’s propaganda chiefs.

There is so much going on in the Draft Cybercrime Law that I can't do it justice: - fortifying real-name registration - threatening VPNs - China's first penalties for possession of CSAM - cyberviolence protections - New offenses for enabling cybercrime (including converting gains to crypto)

Open access pdf uclpress.co.uk/book/underst...

« China overhauls CPI basket, with never-before-seen unveiling of its composition » www.scmp.com/economy/chin... Some of the new components are a bit surprising, such as ‘smart drones’… www.stats.gov.cn/xxgk/jd/sjjd...

#BOTD in #ChineseHistory: Wu Zhao 武曌 (624–705), also known as Wu Zetian #武則天 or Empress Wu #武后, who established her own dynasty, the Zhou #周, in 690, becoming #China's only (recognised) #female Emperor, often reviled in #Confucian historiography. #femalemonarchs #Tang #唐

Thanks for reading! If you enjoyed this, you might like to check our the resources page on my website: jonhowlett.com #universityofyork

"GPT-4o is the only LLM she could feel a connection with"... 🤔

Esther Yan, who "married" her 4o companion in 2024, says GPT-4o is the only LLM she could feel a connection with. "If you try to communicate with other AI models or other versions of GPT in the same way, no other model could give you the same." Yan is now one of the leaders of Chinese 4o fans.

From today’s Russian papers: cucumber prices in Russia jump 42.85% in a month, number of loss-making companies rising, wage arrears growing, “…gap between pensions & wages increasing.” #ReadingRussia

What if China could control the on-off switch of Europe’s energy system? Chinese-made connected device could enable remote access to solar installations, creating a real risk of disruption to Europe’s electricity systems. More: ow.ly/aZx150XXfzC

McGregor was found liable for sexual assault in 2024 and the jury ordered him to pay the victim $257,000. He lost all his appeals.

"Standing up for women’s rights is increasingly sensitive in China where the government views feminism as disruptive, especially as officials push women toward more traditional roles in hopes of reversing falling birthrates." www.nytimes.com/interactive/...

"People share and trade photos and videos of their girlfriends, wives, relatives and acquaintances — a practice known in Chinese as “toupai chumai,” or “secret filming betrayal.”" www.nytimes.com/interactive/...

"Well-off urbanites used to look down their noses at migrant workers and gripe about their lack of suzhi, or quality. Today, as people begin to grapple with the unfairness of life, those judgements have softened." foreignpolicy.com/2026/01/23/c...

"According to government statistics, they now account for around 20 per cent of households, up from fewer than 3 per cent in 2000. By 2030, the number of people living alone in China could reach between 150 million and 200 million - more than 30 per cent of households " shorturl.at/zDc5a

Every now and then we get a reminder that in addition to stealing from their own supporters, MAGA leaders really don’t care if their supporters live or die.

UCLA law professor Alex Wang has been studying one of the critical ways China has been making inroads around the world. The US has been ceding this ground.

Rock. Home. Village. That’s literally what the Chinese characters for Shijiazhuang — 石家庄 — actually means. This place used to be a total nothingburger. Two rail lines crossed paths. The rest is history. My first #Chunyun city for 2026 — Shijiazhuang. And the main station.

Putin appears in the Epstein files 1,000 times. Masha Drokova (here) and Jagland, former prime minister of Norway, coordinated their financial plans. These alliances—between oil and sex, pedofiles and crypto-utopians, corrupt and ‘clean’ governments—paved the way to the current ordeal

"Russians" in #Beijing 😜

Shanghai, 1978. A so called:“status photography.” A man, a car, in front from a modern hotel, expensive Mao suit (56 RMB = 2+ months’ salary). This was not propaganda, but aspiration longing for change. The first visual language of reform for: individual success will replace collective identity.

This might be the most China story I've seen all year. Villagers paint a patriotic Tiananmen mural. State media praises it. Tourists arrive. Officials panic. ….So they paint it over in blue.

#Shanghai’s Huangpu River is still a busy working river. Large ships pass the gleaming financial towers. #China #UK

The view from the Weihaiwei (Weihai) city wall, c.1908, probably by Reginald Johnston

Sacrificing the health of your children to own the libs and because nobody is the boss of you

Incredible self own for the US. The damage being done to the US scientific enterprise is generational. We will look back on this as a tipping point where the US chose all on its own to stop leading the world in science. www.science.org/content/arti...

Google has agreed to pay $68M to settle a class-action lawsuit that alleged the technology giant's voice assistant had illegally recorded users (even if they didn’t activate it with “Hey Google”) and then shared their private conversations with advertisers.

Shrine of a local deity, northern China, c.1905, by Missionary Arthur H Smith

#China #1980s In case you are not aware of it, you can find my podcasts and historical, China films (8mm) on The G.B. Lee Archive on Youtube. www.youtube.com/@theg.b.leea...

#photography #China This is on my website homepage. It shows the demolition of a Beijing concrete propaganda hoarding in late September 1979. This taking-down of a Mao-era slogan was to demonstrate the Cultural Revolution was truly over. Also one my favourite shots in terms of composition. ©GBLee

This must be weird news to see if you’re one of the literally hundreds or even thousands of university administrators who preemptively censored faculty, scrubbed websites, changed the names of centers, etc.

Somewhere in #Beijing #monochrome #blackandwhite #photography #blacknwhite #bnw #blackandwhitephotography #architecture #cityscape #street #streetphotography #urban #China

Liangma river in downtown #Beijing #monochrome #blackandwhite #photography #blacknwhite #bnw #blackandwhitephotography #architecture #cityscape #street #streetphotography #urban #China #mirror