I propose DC solve its budget shortfall by impounding and auctioning off all cars with license plate covers

a good rule of thumb: if an essay uses euphemism to endorse actions they are unwilling to describe, it's shit writing.

Really delighted by this essay on nuclear weapons by Tong Zhao on the costs of secrecy, past and present. Or should I say "chuffed" @samuelwa.de (though I've never heard you say that I don't think???) chinabooksreview.com/2026/05/07/t...

My translation of ADRIFT IN THE SOUTH, the debut memoir of Chinese worker-poet Xiao Hai 小海, out with Granta Magazine Editions today. A landmark work of the migrant worker literature movement, it showcases one of China’s liveliest emerging voices. #XiaoHai #chineseliterature #translatedliterature

The President is wandering the White House gluing coins to doors?!

Dusted off the writing cap for a...listicle! Five new china books, an eclectic bunch that pretty much sums up my reading interests... hope they interest you too! chinabooksreview.com/2026/04/28/n...

Really astounding conversation. The stupidity and, frankly, depravity is just unbelievable. www.nytimes.com/2026/04/22/o...

It's an impressive piece of organizing, but is it really so objectionable that this parking lot next to a substation be turned into a data center? It's already an industrial lot? Are there any health downsides to data centers other than noise pollution, which of course is very annoying?

D.C. is failing kids like Jahari Alford — in the space of one week, he (a 10-year-old!) was robbed at gunpoint & intentionally run over by an ATV gang. Unbelievable, and so grim.

Really glad to see this fearless book by Dongxian Jiang. Cheers to those who would 49年入国军, unbowed by the maxxing-tides, and yet willing to admit that their principled and reasoned stands “may well end up a joke.”

Person picks up hammer for first time. Bends a few nails, drives others in crooked. Person then declares: "this hammer is useless!" State of the AI discourse on here.

amazing — a man who stood up against "被精神病" www.economist.com/obituary/202...

Media literacy really is dead. this profile is scathing, in Sánchez Bezos’ own words. Learn to read.

sports writers live in such a bubble. At what point was Tiger Woods one of the three or four most recognizable men on earth????

hosted the latest China Books Podcast, let me know what you think! chinabooksreview.com/2026/04/07/e...

Read Yi Liu's Q&A with Liang Hong in the latest installment of What China's Thinking: chinabooksreview.com/2026/03/10/w...

“The key question,” the guest and hostess interject nearly simultaneously, “did you steal it?” “I did actually,” Michael (a perennial good sport) affirms. “Good,” goes the guest, “because capitalism sucks.” Once (over)wrote about this. www.ramble.media/p/saffron-ta...

@beijingpalmer.bsky.social best chance to test the phrase, "there are no atheists in a foxhole" is the Sino-Vietnam war of 1979... so did people pray during that conflict? and to what?

A Day in the Life of an Internet Censor China’s social media boom let its people speak out — but its censorship network silenced them. One of those censors reveals what happens behind the curtain. Read the excerpt from Yi-Ling Liu's new book "The Wall Dancers": chinabooksreview.com/2026/02/05/c...

Our new column What China's Thinking is underpinned by the work of my former colleagues at @chinadigitaltimes.net The superlative Chinese team & my friends/role models @samuelwa.de @cindycarter.bsky.social have contextualized so much of recent Chinese history chinabooksreview.com/2026/01/27/w...

real China heads know that is not the case @jmzbeijing.bsky.social

My favorite part of this piece on the ever-more relevant Orwell by @jwassers.bsky.social brings us into the potential literary inspirations of his nightmares of a tri-partite world... prophetic? I hope not... theconversation.com/how-george-o...

a hero who paid the price, what an obituary. www.nytimes.com/2026/01/14/w...

nothing on my favorite D.C. version of this: "我附近的草店" (above the equally delightful NBDUB, a post-Wizards must)

good on Joseph H. Thompson www.nytimes.com/2026/01/13/u...

insane. trump officials want to speed when driving into the city (they all live outside it) — and don't care about the lives of anyone who lives here. terrible. www.politico.com/news/2026/01...

Trump is collaborating with Maduro's regime because he's upset Machado accepted the Nobel. Everything, everything, everything is greed, spite, bile and malice. www.washingtonpost.com/national-sec...

The Jan 6 pipe bomber was inspired by The Troubles in Ireland

The best China books of 2025, across nonfiction and literature, as selected by experts and the editors. Read the full list: chinabooksreview.com/2025/12/18/b...

One of my favorite columns — Translated Chinese Literature — need to check out Diablo's Boys. Hunter was a personal favorite! chinabooksreview.com/2025/12/09/t...

What do Flannery O'Connor, "Blind Shaft" [2003], and itinerant Daoists have in common? BINGO; they're all discussed on the latest China Books Podcast. Take a listen! chinabooksreview.com/2025/12/02/e...

The modern world

Socialism with Chinese Characteristics: Good!

Jeremiah's latest Archive Pick is really quite something, was an honor to join him on a special editions of Barbarians! (read the article, it's great: chinabooksreview.com/2025/11/11/h...)

Good words thread 🧵 1. Garrigue: a scrubland biome found around the Mediterranean, specifically in France. h/t: John Minford in intro to Strange Tales from a Chinese Studio by Pu Songling

this entry in @jeremiahjenne.com’s Archive project is a gem.

NED – China Digital Times: 2025 Democracy Award Honoree www.ned.org/china-digita...

"Countless Yingzhis live among us, while the Zitaos of China are fading away with time. The tears of Chinese women, if unleashed, could drown a nation." For @chinabooksreview.com, I write about gendered violence and illusions of liberation through two novels by Fang Fang (tr @bairuiwen.bsky.social):

a guy who makes cookies & posts about it in insta came up to me while recording on his raybans in Minneapolis and frankly it was quite invasive. he was sweet but if he'd asked to record me I would've given a real review of the cookie. instead it was a "no thanks, best of luck."

The day I left for America.

very cool translated short story + interview combo, give it a read!

Read Fei Dao's Q&A on Chinese sci-fi, and his story "The Storytelling Robot," translated by Alec Ash: chinabooksreview.com/2025/09/18/s...

Three Days of the Condor was almost an all-time Secret China Movie™. RIP Robert Redford

“be right there, dude, I’m on the L. Ron Hubbard express.”

Texas A&M has as much free speech as Shanghai. None. In 2021, a Chinese student secretly recorded his teacher questioning the Nanjing Massacre's death toll — a Party taboo. He also said she's a "walking $500k," a reference to the award money for turning in traitors to secret police.

The Shiji abounds with examples of corrupt, venal, or stupid rulers getting cosmic comeuppance. In today's timeline, it's almost quaint to believe in a universal order that punishes terrible leaders. Read more in my latest for @chinabooksreview.com chinabooksreview.com/2025/09/09/s...

reading a very popular book right now and....

Translating literature is a brutal and impossible task, so this is not a criticism of the translator. But am I insane for saying that translating this line, "香港不也是中国的地盘吗，所有需要证件的地方，她一概不能去" as "Hong Kong was part of China" is a real loss?

DC house parties are fun, actually, and everyone hating on them here is talking about a small subset of staffer functions that wrap up by 8:30...

LeBron James' essay in the People's Daily, the mouthpiece of the Party. An odd move for such a image-minded man, especially as the essay was actually written by a People's Daily journalist based on an interview.