hukou liberalisation significantly reduces urban crimes, so does equalization of public services. and "we find that increasing registered population does not adversely affect service provisions for the originally registered individuals". www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

as historians say, we always live in precedented times. Sphere of influence logics also echo and reinforce one another now. they flow across not only geopolitical, but also ideological boundaries. e.g. this "multipolar civilizational order" thing that some decolonial people are also obsessed about

As the Monroe Doctrine resurfaces through US military action in Venezuela, Craig Smith looks back to the 20th century to show how, in periods of imperial expansion, Pan-American and Asianist discourses flowed in both directions across the Pacific, not only echoing but also reinforcing one another.

Another post from a Venezuelan friend:

"Both governments are strongly sovereigntist, anti-liberal, and proponents of anti-liberal norms that have world order consequences. However, the two polities go about the enactment of their policies in significantly different ways". thediplomat.com/2025/12/conv...

amazing how the entire machine can pivot within 24 hours. no need to slowly upsell the argument; just issue new marching orders

interestingly some of my interviewees (Chinese feminists) have the same critique of a certain type of anti-CCP dudes (Chinese dissidents), that is they hate a particular regime but don't have compassion for the oppressed

this Pakistani woman Samina's meeting with Mamdani is heart melting www.instagram.com/reel/DTDs1S_...

political dark comedy but IRL

Well there's this from the Spanish p.m.

"Neocolonialism is you wanting to explain my own history to me. Neocolonialism is you expecting me to be the subject of your utopias." spot-on takedown of campism

You can’t report illegal acts because you don’t want to compromise them being carried out is an interesting take, if true

the good old "sphere of influence". Nat Con Michael Lind laid this out in "A concert of power", suggesting instead of trying to control every region, the US should work with other great powers to "manage" their respective areas of interest.

Pro democracy arab intellectuals used to say that there was a difference between the US and Russia or China, because the US at least rhetorically espoused particular ideals. That space between reality and rhetoric could be leveraged, they thought. There's no such delusion today

preparing for the "life in the UK" test for PR application. yes knowing whether Henry VIII's fourth wife was German or Spanish is absolutely essential knowledge for going about life in the UK.

so good at saying the quiet part out loud

We will either end fossil fuel dependency and the predatory extractivist basis of global production, or they will end us through wars and ecological collapse - all at the same time.

"international law must be followed" is european for "thoughts and prayers"

Marco Rubio is reportedly saying Maduro will stand trial in US courts. Which means it’s now the US administration’s position that US courts can hold foreign presidents, but not the US president, accountable for crimes.

It's finally happening, America has begun bombing the Venezuelan capital of Caracas And polls show that Americans overwhelmingly oppose this conflict before it even begins Read the latest polling for free here: usapolling.substack.com/p/america-ma...

protests spreading across Iran www.aljazeera.com/news/2026/1/...

love it when I asked a geographer friend if Beijing still allows this kind of outdoor seating (photo taken in 2014), they not only said no, but also sent me a paper they wrote on this exact topic...

spending the last day of 2025 taking a photo walk in Newcastle with my new camera📷

for better or worse, ChatGPT tells me I'm blending China analysis with existential reflection 🤪

victims of colonialism can be best at weaponizing victimhood. in fact colonizers are also very good at playing victims these days.

very true. that's exactly my students' conclusion in our seminar on reactionary politics last term, after viewing a couple of viral tradwife videos... Tradwives, it’s not (leftist) feminism you dislike, it’s capitalism! - Meaghan Furlano, 2025 journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/...

Friends, if you or someone you know has published awesome work in disability studies (defined *broadly*), please let me know! I'm updating my "Disability: A Democratic Dilemma" course and would love to include some newer work (both academic and otherwise).

Xmas is the time when you're reminded once again of what a horrible film Love Actually is.

UPDATE: We may see the first time English is displaced as the most popular language among Bluesky posters as soon as Americans head to sleep tonight. Japanese users were close to achieving that feat at 7 am Eastern Time, and their activity is increasing at an exponential pace. This is remarkable.

An unemployment crisis has created fertile ground for companies to step in with opaque systems built on WhatsApp groups, middlemen, and bargain-basement wages. restofworld.org/2025/kenya-c...

Full article: Civilizationism in the European Union beyond the far right: a morphological approach www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....

oh my, will it really be 2026 soon? COVID was like last year and we're entering the second half of the 2020s??

ghost stories for Christmas? I translated another of my old blog post - mum's ghost stories. It turns out they were about girls who died wronged, killed by poverty and patriarchy, and whose misfortunes cast long shadows in the hearts of the girls who survived chenchenzhang.net/2025/12/20/m...

“The shackling of prisoners while in hospital, even when using toilet facilities, is something I have never seen before in my medical career.” The treatment of five hunger strikers has prompted more than 800 health workers to speak out. Read more:

14 two-year postdocs for academics of any nationality who cannot continue their research due to US politics. Do share if you know of such.

oh yes, AI slop not only ruins writing, but also reading. "When you spend enough time around A.I.-generated text, you start to develop a novel form of paranoia." too much stuff feels like AI written; you can't help noticing and you can't prove either. www.nytimes.com/2025/12/03/m...

"refusing is actually the more hopeful, expansive vision of the future than the one that is telling us that the future is already settled and decided".

I can't stress enough how weird this book is. written by a couple, there's an entire chapter on "nighttime hierarchies" that supposedly "add color and joy" to life. press.princeton.edu/books/hardco...

Help us send 2,000 books to readers who are incarcerated this winter through our Books Not Bars program

"re-civilization is undertaken by integrating aspects of one’s ancestral civilization with ultramodern innovations in both government & technology... perhaps the West & China could re-civilize together". the postliberals will surely be welcomed by Beijing americanaffairsjournal.org/2025/11/the-...

Ireland has one of the world's highest concentrations of data centers. The expansion has reshaped the grid & deepened fossil fuel use. As the EU pushes to triple data center capacity, Ireland offers a warning, writes Louis Boyd-Madsen. Read our investigation with @algorithmwatch.org:

What a time to decide to learn less about the world. dailytarheel.com/article/univ...

"some will love this". who?

brilliant new paper. also thinking of all the X & Instagram influencers that go "there's no homelessness in China" ‘There’s no place like no home’: Progressive displacement and silent unmaking of homeless spaces in urban China - Jin Zhu, Jinwei Hao, 2025 journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1...

in the same spirit

stumbled upon another Very Short Introduction that made me feel much more sympathetic with that French academic's reaction

love love Italian food. and as with all great food, it's "a saga of hunger, improvisation, migration, industrialisation and sheer survival instinct". www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

His name is Ahmad Al-Ahmad and we can all choose to highlight him instead of the murderers who committed a massacre bsky.app/profile/impl...

one thing that hanzi users like to do which probably looks funny and incomprehensible to non hanzi users is, mid conversation we'd begin to do this "air writing" trying to explain zi we're talking about (you can't spell it, and when it's not common radicals). and it works!