Sneak peek into what my book is about, now that it is off to the typesetter—TOC for #territorialnatures is up on the @uchicagopress.bsky.social site. Thanks to my manuscript workshop, I abandoned chronological argument for a thematic one, embedding it into the book structure. #envhist #histstm

so many people i know have been struggling since last week’s news, and i think this passage explains it well. very little in our lives materially changed; but, the lack of accountability requires recalibrating just how broken the system is and to live within this is to slowly hollow out

This will happen again and again if the left and right continue to project their ethnocentric geopolitical fantasies on an ignored people who ask for recognition on their own terms.

Some of the best journalism today is in student newspapers. This includes the incredible work of Trinity's student paper, The Trinitonian. Just this week, they published a detailed investigation of the tenure denial of our Islamic studies scholar trinitonian.com/2026/04/09/j... (1/2)

I think one of the things about bluesky is that for a lot of its users, it represents a kind of retirement from social media. Like I’m tired and I want to get out of the game

Great work from SCMP’s graphics department to help summarize the first round of hearings regarding the Tai Po fire disaster multimedia.scmp.com/infographics...

“Oh my god… It’s glorious… they should’ve sent a poet…” - Deng Xiaoping

On a visit to see the old "Hong Kong Story" with my mother, security guards stationed there, unprompted, shared anecdotes re items on exhibit that they been part of their lives/childhood. That old exhibition brought joy and connection to people. So of course the government had to destroy it. 😔

2/ @hongkongfp.com had the foresight to document the old 'Hong Kong Story' - a visual archive of 220 images... hongkongfp.com/hkfp-visual-...

1/ The Hong Kong Museum of History has reopened its permanent exhibition with a new theme on the city’s shared “roots” with mainland China, nearly six years after it was closed for a revamp. hongkongfp.com/2026/04/02/h...

I obtained an internal Party document from Inner Mongolia University, stamped "strictly prohibited from external distribution," that details 19 directives for eliminating the Mongolian language. The original Chinese PDF is also available for download. open.substack.com/pub/soyonbo/...

So excited to get a copy of @sayakachatani.bsky.social (with Kumhee Cho)'s new book. In sheer awe of the amazing research, incl. more than 200 interviews with members of the Zainichi/Chongryon community. I'll be moderating a book talk in June, so please join! mjha.org/event-6602790

On the eve of International Women's Day this month, China shut down at least ten WeChat accounts — part of a widening censorship campaign tied to Beijing's push to reverse a record-low birth rate. lingua-sinica.org/womens-day-m...

Today is the 128th anniversary of the Supreme Court’s decision on birthright citizenship in U.S. v. Wong Kim Ark.

Also to be honest, going to a protest because it makes you feel good to be around people who have a similar conceptualization of the world and its issues is good simply because it reminds you you are part of the world.

Wikipedia now has higher standards than all universities

We want to draw our readers' attention to the 𝐋𝐞𝐚𝐫𝐧𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐂𝐚𝐧𝐭𝐨𝐧𝐞𝐬𝐞 section of Simon Patton's blog, 𝐶ℎ𝑖𝑛𝑎𝑚𝑎𝑛 𝐶𝑟𝑒𝑒𝑘: 𝑀𝑢𝑠𝑖𝑛𝑔𝑠 𝑜𝑛 𝐶ℎ𝑖𝑛𝑎𝑚𝑎𝑛 𝐶𝑟𝑒𝑒𝑘, 𝑃𝑜𝑒𝑡𝑟𝑦, 𝑇𝑟𝑎𝑛𝑠𝑙𝑎𝑡𝑖𝑜𝑛 &𝐻𝑜𝑛𝑔 𝐾𝑜𝑛𝑔. In it, Simon selects short videos of Hong Kong people speaking in Cantonese. More information: www.facebook.com/photo/?fbid=...

For all the Chinamaxxers out there.

Today my students discussed whether and to what extent Islamophobia and anti-Arab racism play a similar structural role in Europe to the role antisemitism played in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Then the Israeli Foreign Ministry just goes and tweets out an Islamophobic octopus.

fantastic article by @brianhioe.bsky.social on how the western left, and specifically jacobin, needs to be more reflective and critical, and reminding us what actual solidarity might look like. newbloommag.net/2026/03/20/j...

Our CfP for the 2027 Big Berks is now OPEN! The 2027 theme is “Beyond Boundaries: Gender, History and the Futures We Imagine". You can find out more and submit your proposal here: berksconference.org/big-ber...

Matcha was very excited to receive my hard copy of the Sage Handbook of Interpreting Chinese History, with my essay on historical memory in Hong Kong! You can order the book here: us.sagepub.com/en-us/nam/th...

“Gender studies aren’t important”

Out a week from tomorrow in the UK, Asia, & other places (just not North America, though hope to have a special N. American edition to follow). My very very short new primer on China in the era of Xi Jinping buijones.com/books/everyt... (w/Intro by Mitter & blurbs by Branigan, Moser, Yu, & Mallet)

Reminder 📢 Join us tomorrow for Taomo Zhou's S&T in Asia @ Harvard talk! Zoom registration: seow.scholars.harvard.edu/STinAsia

He also seems like a pretty decent guy

Many thanks to @yilinwriter.bsky.social for taking me on a whirlwind tour of secondhand bookstores post- #AAS2026, including one where I picked up a copy of Lin Tai-yi's translation of 鏡花緣 'Flowers in the Mirror' that apparently used to belong to Tim Brook.

Oh

I have watched 6 hours of a DOGE bro deposition. The whole thing, start to finish. It's a fascinating, and horrifying, look at the people who caused so much damage, didn't really achieve anything at all, while still being so sure they are right. Here's what they said: www.404media.co/i-watched-6-...

Once passed, this law will finalize the collapsing of many ethnic identities in China that I write about in my book, Let Only Red Flowers Bloom npcobserver.com/2026/03/05/c...

*taps sign* China is a real place with actual people and policies, not somewhere for you to project your feelings about the United States onto.

Taking a short break from my regular dire posts (my areas of expertise/interest are Chinese ethnic politics, UK migration policy and UK academia, there's just so much dire), as I am about to take off for the Association of Asian Studies conference in Vancouver and I am really very excited.

so who else is going to #aas2026?

This to me is the most interesting—that research on Uyghurs is now considered DEI (but not another oppressed group, Mongols in China). Learned Islamophobia or just nonsensical maybe?

6/x Regarding *ethnic* minorities: Uyghurs in China (no. 99) = DEI, but Mongols in China (no. 914) ≠ DEI, even though both are indigenous to their respective homelands

Excellent thread on what counts as “DEI” in Asian studies research—revealing and full of contradictions

Excited to be heading to Vancouver in a couple days for #AAS2026! Hope all who read this find me to say hello (or check out the two cool panels I have the honor of being on!)

A Hong Kong woman who returned from Australia has been charged with carrying two laser pointers and three bottles of spray paint for illegal purposes during the 2019 anti-government protests. Ami Chan Hui-ching, 21, was escorted to Eastern Court on Monday.

10/10 take. no notes

Now would be a good time for anyone who wants to learn about recent Iranian history to read this. It is well worth your time and money (I am sure your local library has it if you don’t want to purchase it).

It does not escape me that this illustrates the Trump/GOP/neo-Nazi apparatus working precisely as China is assumed to work. It’s a little more complicated in China, and it’s a little more complicated here—but the distinction used to be obvious and, if this pattern holds, that is no longer true.

Y'all blew up an elementary girls school.

Need people to stop being weird about Alysa Liu and Eileen Gu. And also to understand what an athlete representing China can and cannot do, versus what an athlete representing US - for now - can and cannot do.

hello bsky, new person to follow! On #japan and beyond.

4/ I’ve started a second project on “An Extractivist History of the Nintendo Game Boy.” It explores the environmental costs of abstracting nature into digital worlds, linking the electronics industry in postwar Japan to intensive mining and drilling practices at home and abroad.

3/ ”Territorial Natures” argues that the fraught and urgent question of autonomous regions in the People’s Republic of China originate not only from Soviet internationalism, but also from Japanese fascism, which cultivated rural landscapes as authentic markers of ethnic identity in Inner Mongolia.

2/ My first book, “Territorial Natures: Imperial Japan and the Mongolian Question,” is coming out with @uchicagopress.bsky.social this August 2026. You can find it here: press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/bo...

Bluesky #historians! Make sure you follow my brilliant friend Sakura (and pre-order her amazing book!)