After almost a week in Beijing, I've finally found a robot. It was in a convenience store, and it's purpose seems to have been to surveil the customers.

It's not that this stuff isn't real, but it isn't representative of life in China. I've been in Beijing five days this time around, and I haven't seen any robots making coffee. But foreign influencers and journalists just can't resist making videos like this, including even Fox News.

This went down very, very poorly.

I went to an EU-organised event in Beijing on EU-China trade yesterday. The audience was surprisingly optimistic when polled on the state of trade relations, but the debate was quite heated, revealing fundamental differences and underlying resentments.

This morning's even more polluted than yesterday. Beijing's pollution has not been fixed.

This is Beijing this morning. Whenever you mention air pollution here, everyone seems genuinely surprised: "but we've solved it. It's not longer a problem". Sorry, but no. Even Bangkok only gets like this in January, the most polluted month of the year.

They seem to have built a whole new temple from scratch on Beijing's Gulou Dongdajie. The plaque outside says the temple was "restored" (often code for "rebuilt") in 2005. But I'm pretty sure that temple wasn't there when I left Beijing three years ago.

My latest, now without a paywall. capitalinthenorth.substack.com/p/from-auton...

Just had a really good breakfast of dimsum, 粥 and tea in one of the hip hutongs in the Gulou area. Total price: 79 yuan. That's almost 12 USD. Thinking back to the Americans on RedNote and their "breakfast in China only costs 1 buck" insider info.

Back in China for the first time in a year! Currently transiting in Xiamen on my way up to Beijing. First negative comment: the meals offered by Chinese airlines continue to be particularly revolting. The smell of the packed lunch on the Xiamen airlines flight made me want to wretch.

In another vital editorial, SCMP's editorial board comes out against killer robots...

Personally I think suspicion towards outsiders was rising noticeably during Xi's first 4-5 years in power. I think by now it's plateaued. But relations with Japan have been particularly bad recently, which is probably what this lady has been picking up on. www.wsj.com/world/china/...

An assistant professor of law at the University of Massachusetts writes this ridiculous caricature of the China Studies field, in completely ungrammatical English, and gets over 1k likes. Amazing stuff.

Truly revolting antisemitic post by one of the most well-known internet tankies out there. At least these people are showing who they truly are.

Just insane to call @beijingpalmer.bsky.social a "China apologist". Seems like the fate of every Westerner who comments on Chinese affairs is to be accused of being both a China apologist and a China hater at one point or another.

"At a time when international concern about Tibet and Xinjiang seems to have waned, the recent passing of the Law on Promoting Ethnic Unity and Progress managed to briefly bring global attention back to the topic of minorities in China." capitalinthenorth.substack.com/p/from-auton...

That's China. Everyone's convinced everyone else is getting special privileges denied to their own group. Urbanites think farmers with a rural 户口 get special privileges. The Han think minorities get privileges. The Chinese think foreigners get all kinds of special privileges.

"Nationalism is bad, except for China where it's good, because China's awesome." The worship of China by young American leftists is really something to behold.

In Xinjiang, being asked to drink tea with the Chinese police is not a cause for panic... as long as you're not a Uyghur, of course. It's ok for Taiwanese shills on holiday. Revolting whitewashing.

Macron rightly tweets about the Armenian genocide. The replies are a mix of Turks denying that the genocide ever took place, various people saying he should think about France's own history of genocide, and others asking why Turkey isn't mentioned anywhere in the tweet.

Apparently China doesn't have drinkable tap water because... there's no demand for it. It's a cultural thing. This argument was brought to you by a Hong Kong university professor.

Tell me you've never been outside of Europe and North America without telling me...

What's telling is how the harassers repeat classic antisemitic tropes ("we are just goyim to you, aren't we", "you've been kicked out of 110 countries"). The pro-Palestine movement in the West is just saturated with this stuff. www.reddit.com/r/Jewish/com...

New from me: No increase in global coal power generation after Hormuz closure - solar and wind growth covered the fall in gas-fired generation. The record buildout of clean energy in 2025 helped mitigate the impact of the Hormuz closure.

This is a pretty extraordinary thing to argue after twenty plus years of seeing supposedly liberating technologies be harnessed by authoritarians to discipline their critics and defend their power and wealth.

The China that the influencers and RedNote users won't show you.

There's no genocide in either place, according to how the term was normally used until a few years ago (the mass extermination of a targeted ethnic group). Throwing around the word genocide actually helps propagandists like Vijay, by setting up an argument they can easily win.

Apparently this terrible article includes several references that were hallucinated by AI. Among its pearls of wisdom is this astute question: "why does nobody talk about the fact that more mosques have been attacked in Australia and the US than in Xinjiang?"

This thread is today's big dispute in China/Taiwan twitter. While I generally agree with Luke, this contention that Taiwan was not really ruled by the Qing Dynasty, or that it was only ruled by them for eight years, is nonsense, and the pro-Taiwan side should stop making it. x.com/lukedepulfor...

Good, one more! www.theguardian.com/world/2026/a...

"(...) and even reverently calling him the “core” of the leadership — a term Vietnam has never formally used before but is instantly legible to anyone who has watched China’s political vocabulary migrate across borders. The message wasn’t subtle." carlrobinson.substack.com/p/vietnams-o...

On March 30, the Iranian embassy in China posted an AI video saying that they were "avenging the deaths of all people" and included the bombing of Hiroshima as one instance. Chinese netizens were confused and not very thrilled by this. The video was modified shortly after.

I'm reading this classic Thai textbook, co-authored by Australian adventurer Stuart Campbell and Chuan Shaweevongs in the 50s. The preface to the second edition, written in 1962, keeps talking about Thai servants in a tone that would be unthinkable today, although the intent clearly isn't malicious.

Are we still doing the "China has lots of skyscrapers, learn Mandarin and your future is set!" thing in 2026? Don't people ever get tired?

Vietnam is the new China: an authoritarian state run by a Communist Party with a growing economy, idealised by both right and left-wing extremists from the West as a well-governed utopia with no homeless, no crime, free healthcare and clean streets.

Went to this fair in Bangkok on Saturday. There was a world map with national flags people could match with the country. There was no flag for Taiwan, but someone put the Samoan flag, which looks very similar to the ROC flag, on top of Taiwan. Rather funny.

A lot of talk about how dire the situation is in Thailand, with people sharing photos of long lines of cars queuing for petrol and empty streets. The problems are real. But I went to the Siam area of Bangkok today, and it was absolutely bustling. People having fun and consuming everywhere.

In first place, It is strictly prohibited to express or spread views that oppose the Party or socialism, smear the image of the Party or the country, defame national leaders or heroes, promote separatism, distort history, or glorify aggression. mp.weixin.qq.com/s/gCpwQN8wIC...

New substack out capitalinthenorth.substack.com/p/han-chauvi...

"A verbal altercation with a member of the government": she probably saw someone get into a shouting match with a 保安. For some people, visiting China really has negative value in terms of understanding the country.

"Dean Rekha Shrestha reportedly claimed the “termite-infested” books had been lying unused for years whereas the administration said that junior staff burned the books and other documents to clear space in the lab room." www.independent.co.uk/asia/south-a...

Jewish volunteer ambulances set on fire outside London synagogue in anti-Semitic attack https://www.europesays.com/news/8532/ Several ambulances belonging to a Jewish volunteer rescue organization were set on fire outside a synagogue in a…

Meanwhile, this is going on too.... www.theguardian.com/world/2026/m...

Wait till this guy hears about China.... It may be a "technological power", but everything else he said is applicable to it.

New substack out gabrielstravels.substack.com/p/vietnam-pa...

If the test to get into BBQ University in China isn't called either the 高烤 or the 烧考, I will lose all of my remaining faith in humanity.

This guy should try talking about China on social media. It's about a thousand times worse than with Thailand, because debates about Thailand don't normally revolve around people's basic values.

This backfired pretty badly! Most of the replies and quote tweets seem to be about Xinjiang too.