1448 posts tagged with china.
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35 Years Later: A Retrospective on the 1989 Tiananmen Protests
China File's retrospective on the 1989 student protests and ensuing massacre. Silence and heavy security in China and Hong Kong marked the anniversary. There are 47 activists and protesters who have been accused by the Chinese government of trying to "overthrow" the government in Hong Kong 3 years ago. In Hong Kong, US and EU consulates marked the anniversary with candles. Taiwan's President William Lai Ching-te has promised that the anniversary would not be forgotten. Previously.
exploiting a legal exemption from the 1930 Tariff Act
Nineteen percent of cotton on the U.S. market still sources back to the forced labor heartlands of East Turkestan (Xinjiang), according to a new analysis from Applied DNA of 822 cotton-containing products sampled from February 2023 to March 2024.... More info on enforcing the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act, which prohibits the importation of goods produced wholly or in part from the so-called Xinjiang Autonomous Uyghur Region unless it can be proven that they are not the fruits of coerced labor.
Anti-American partnerships during WWII and the early Cold War
Confronting Another Axis? History, Humility, and Wishful Thinking. A long historical essay by Philip Zelikow, describing the perspectives of past and present US adversaries. "Zelikow warns that the United States faces an exceptionally volatile time in global politics and that the period of maximum danger might be in the next one to three years. Adversaries can miscalculate and recalculate, and it can be difficult to fully understand internal divisions within an adversary’s government, how rival states draw their own lessons from different interpretations of history, and how they might quickly react to a new event that appears to shift power dynamics." Via Noah Smith.
The Legacy of KMT's "Lost Army" After Losing China
Unless you knew modern Chinese history well, you probably have no idea what I am talking about. Most people only knew that "after Chiang Kai-Shek's Nationalists, or KMT, was defeated by Mao Tse-tung Communists, Chiang took his army to Taiwan and settled there and turned it into an economic powerhouse..." What most people do not know is that a portion of the KMT Eight Army, under General Li Mi, comprised of KMT 26th and 93rd Divisions, actually remained in Yunnan after after Chiang's retreat, and in order to grow their support, they, with permission from Chiang, allied themselves with the the Karen National Defense Organization and tried to help them take over Myanmar / Burma. Those of you who watched Rambo (2008) may recognize "Karen", as in the Karen Rebels. Yes, it's the same people, still fighting the Myanmar government decades later. And there are a lot more involvement of the Lost Army... [more inside]
Fear, Cynicism, Nihilism, and Apathy
Even in a state where surveillance is almost total, the experience of tyranny and injustice can radicalize people. Anger at arbitrary power will always lead someone to start thinking about another system, a better way to run society. [...] If people are naturally drawn to the image of human rights, to the language of democracy, to the dream of freedom, then those concepts have to be poisoned. [...] Here is a difficult truth: A part of the American political spectrum is not merely a passive recipient of the combined authoritarian narratives that come from Russia, China, and their ilk, but an active participant in creating and spreading them. Like the leaders of those countries, the American MAGA right also wants Americans to believe that their democracy is degenerate, their elections illegitimate, their civilization dying. The MAGA movement’s leaders also have an interest in pumping nihilism and cynicism into the brains of their fellow citizens, and in convincing them that nothing they see is true. Their goals are so similar that it is hard to distinguish between the online American alt-right and its foreign amplifiers, who have multiplied since the days when this was solely a Russian project. Tucker Carlson has even promoted the fear of a color revolution in America, lifting the phrase directly from Russian propaganda.The New Propaganda War: Autocrats in China, Russia, and elsewhere are now making common cause with MAGA Republicans to discredit liberalism and freedom around the world. [SLAtlantic]
Troubling the Water (Conceptualizing science, academic freedom & China)
Yangyang Cheng explores the historical evolution of how we think about science, its capitalization, politicization, and securitization, & how the US' competition with China is restricting the future of scientific research:
"To understand the present woes in scientific collaboration between the United States and China and to conceive of a better future, one must go back in time to trace the evolution of this transpacific relationship."
^•ﻌ•^ฅ oh, hello ฅ^•ﻌ•^ฅ...
meow.camera lets you watch live feeds from hundreds (thousands?) of cozy and custom-decorated cat feeders set up throughout various cities in China. [more inside]
Or, random facts about Imperial China
“The Apothecary Diaries” is an anime (/web novel/novel/light novel/manga/other manga) that takes place in a fictional kingdom based on Imperial China. Youtuber LibeliumDragonfly, a Chinese-Canadian translator, provides an episode-by-episode “viewing appendix” to separate the facts from the fiction. (SLYTPL)
The 3 Body Problem is out!
After a failed adaptation in 2017, Netflix has finally released the home-streaming adaptation of Cixin Liu's Three Body Problem trilogy. How will the slow build to epic scope that prevented some readers from finishing the book series fare in the hands of the same showrunners that brought you Game of Thrones? Binge ready for the weekend (trigger warning: starts with violence). [more inside]
TikTok... DOOM!
The seemingly dormant push to target ultrapopular video platform TikTok on national security grounds roared back to life this week as the House teed up a surprise bipartisan vote on forced divestment of the app's US operations.
An attempt by Chinese parent company ByteDance to mobilize users against the legislation clearly backfired, angering lawmakers into delivering a unanimous vote to proceed.
Critics warn the app offers the increasingly authoritarian CCP government reams of sensitive data and an unprecedented insight into the American psyche (along with a potent avenue for propaganda and influence operations), while defenders cite the company's diversified ownership and ongoing efforts at re-shoring US data operations.
Bolstered by support from the White House (and a troubling intelligence report on election interference), the bill sees likely passage in the House today and an uncertain path in the Senate, as well as a long legal battle after that. The biggest twist: former president Trump, a longtime Sinophobe who signed a failed executive order banning the app, has suddenly flipped in favor of it as a counterweight to Facebook -- a move many insiders see as calculated to undercut Biden's already precarious support from young voters. [more inside]
China's vet shortage
China has less than one-third the number of vets per capita as the United States or European Union. My cat had a health emergency this week and I had to call about 30 different animal hospital/clinics to see which one had a surgeon and a free OT to operate on my cat that afternoon. Thankfully, one out of the 30ish were able to take us at short notice. [more inside]
A remarkably efficient way to reduce America’s international reach
The risk of Americans being held on spurious charges by a foreign government is now so widespread that the State Department warns U.S. citizens against traveling to countries accounting for nearly a quarter of the world’s population. In diplomatic parlance, those nine nations are classified “D” for the risk of detention. Classification D is America’s gathering new reality: an increasingly piratical global system where the taking and trading of foreign citizens—once the preserve of guerrilla bands or fundamentalist insurgencies—has become a tactic deployed by nuclear states. from How Snatching American Citizens Turned Into a Tool of Hostile Governments [WSJ; ungated]
No hookups; yes Jubensha
Equal parts Murder Mystery Party, Escape Room, and Parlour LARP, Jubensha are the Chinese gaming experiences that you've probably never heard of. (NYT) [more inside]
Chinese Democracy
Voting begins in Taiwan's critical elections watched closely by China - "Polls opened on Saturday in Taiwan's presidential and parliamentary elections which China has framed as a choice between war and peace and are happening as Beijing ramps up pressure to get the island to accept its sovereignty. Taiwan has been a democratic success story since holding its first direct presidential election in 1996, the culmination of decades of struggle against authoritarian rule and martial law."[1,2,3] [more inside]
For the first time, I knew women could live differently
Heavily persecuted, highly influential: China’s online feminist revolution - by Wanqing Zhang in Rest of World. I couldn't pick a favourite quote, they are all so good!
Ten interesting dissertations on games, play, and meaning
May-Ying Mary Ngai (2011), "From entertainment to enlightenment: a study on a cross-cultural religious board game with emphasis on the Table of Buddha Selection ...," highlighted in 2021 by George Pollard on Twitter / IA / Nitter: "around 830 C.E. a man named Li He ... invents a game named 採選 Cǎixuǎn, Selection with Dice, about promotion and demotion in the ranks of the state bureaucracy," giving rise to Shengguan Tu (pics: 陞官圖 / 升官图). Serina Laureen Patterson's (2017) "Game on: medieval players and their texts" discusses fortune games like "Chaunce of the Dyse" (see also), "Truth or Dare" / Q&A games with a chosen king/queen, e.g. "The King Who Does Not Lie" or "Le jeu du Roi et de la Reine," and more. [more inside]
"Ghosts haunt cities, seeking revenge for the disappeared past"
The Haunted City is an essay by Azania Imtiaz Khatri-Patel about the ghosts who haunt modern life, concentrating on London, Mumbai and Japan. Meanwhile Andrew Kipnis' essay The Haunting of Modern China focuses on the ghosts of urban China, and the living's changing relationships with the dead.
A Land of Contrasts ^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H Sinicisation
How China is tearing down Islam [ungated; viz. cf.] - "Thousands of mosques have been altered or destroyed as Beijing's suppression of Islamic culture spreads."[1,2] [more inside]
Apple takes a bite out of speech
Jon Stewart's Apple TV show ends over editorial dispute regarding coverage of AI and China. Apple previously garnered public attention by removing an app in order to support the crackdown on Hong Kong protests in 2019. They bolstered this position with a curtailing a file sharing tool used to evade Chinese censorship in 2022.
Top science journal faced attacks from Covid conspiracy theory group
"One of the world’s most prestigious general science journals, Nature, was the target of a two-year-long sustained and virulent secret attack by a conspiratorial group of extreme Brexit lobbyists with high-level political, commercial and intelligence connections, according to documents and correspondence examined by Computer Weekly and Byline Times."
Magic mushroom diplomacy
“There was this delicious mushroom dish. I was not aware that these mushrooms had hallucinogenic properties...I learned that later.” Janet Yellen visited a Yunnan restaurant during an overseas visit and enjoyed local mushroom cuisine: jian shou qing, which means "see hand blue", referring to the blue stain the mushroom makes when bruised or cut. The dish is made with a local bolete mushroom called Lanmoa asiatica. When not properly cooked, the mushroom has been reported by some sources to have hallucinogenic properties.
Chinese zoo denies its sun bears are humans dressed in costumes
Hangzhou zoo insists animals are real after video of one standing on hind legs triggers online speculation
A zoo in eastern China has denied suggestions that some of its bears could be humans dressed in costumes, after video of one standing on its hind legs circulated online.
Video of a sun bear standing on its hind legs had circulated on social media, with people noting that its slender legs and folds of fur made it look like a human was acting the part of the bear.
But in an audio recording circulating on WeChat, a spokesperson for the zoo said the animal was real and that such deception would not happen at a state-run facility. He also noted that in the 40C (104F) summer temperature, a human in a fur bear suit “would not last more than a few minutes before collapsing”.[more inside]
Anti-semitic conspiracy theories + Chinese version of TikTok =
In less than eight minutes, the video’s narrator accuses Jews of starting China’s “century of humiliation” by financing the Opium Wars, and describes their cunning Fugu Plan. This 1939 Japanese proposal to resettle German Jews in the puppet state Manchukuo was named after the deadly blowfish that is a delicacy if handled correctly and was based on "expert" analysis of the fabricated antisemitic text The Protocols of the Elders of Zion. While about 20,000 Jews found refuge in Japanese-occupied Shanghai between 1938 and 1941, the Fugu Plan never gained traction, even with the putative beneficiaries. Nonetheless, in July 2023, the Fugu Plan is in the top search result for the word “Jew” (犹太人) on Douyin.
to learn what it feels like to be dead
White people food is the latest social media trend in China, with posters presenting minimalist lunches of raw veggies, crackers, slices to cheese, cold cuts and other staples, as Chinese young people discover the "lunch of suffering."
“Don’t speak of how women can’t become heroes”
Qiu Jin was a Chinese feminist revolutionary [archive link] beheaded by agents of the Qing empire in 1907, becoming a martyred hero to her cause. She was also a poet, and Canadian translator (and SF writer) Yilin Wang has been publishing new translations of her poetry in various venues. For more about her approach, you can read her essay about translating. These new translations have been widely appreciated, including by the British Museum, who stole them and published without attribution or compensation.
Coercive Diplomacy
Coercive diplomacy [PDF], "where international politics often takes place in a gray region involving no-peace and no-war, wherein the threat of violence – more than its mere application – is the critical variable," is everywhere. China recently published a laundry list of the US' efforts, while China's are also well-known, if less-than-effective. [more inside]
Cheetah immigration, tiger personality tests, lion triplets
Good news in big cat news. First cheetah cubs born in India since extinction 70 years ago. Tigers that scored higher on words such as confident, competitive, and ambitious fell under what the researchers labeled as the “majesty” mindset. With her third litter (three cubs!), Florence the lioness has now given birth to approximately one third of Senegal’s Niokolo Koba National Park 's lion population. [more inside]
Young Chinese Love Everything About Sweden. Except Living There.
After years working in China’s finance industry, Helen Wang was feeling on the edge of burnout. She was fed up with working grueling hours, then being expected to be on call during her precious time off. The 28-year-old wanted to find a new path: one where she could “lie flat” for a while.Then, a friend gave her a left-field suggestion: move to Sweden. On Chinese social media, Scandinavia is often portrayed as a socialist utopia — a place where women’s rights are respected, parents of young children receive lavish support, and the working culture is relatively relaxed. What better place to start over? [more inside]
Nüshu
Nüshu: China’s secret female-only language "Throughout history, women in rural Hunan Province used a coded script to express their most intimate thoughts to one another. Today, this once-“dead” language is making a comeback." [See also: Tan Dun's symphony Nu Shu: the Secret Songs of Women]
TSMC
I Saw the Face of God in a Semiconductor Factory [ungated] - "As the US boosts production of silicon chips, an American journalist goes inside TSMC, the mysterious Taiwanese company at the center of the global industry." (part of wired's 'let's get physical' series; previously: 1,2) [more inside]
As the Great Game Goes 'Round: Middle East Rapprochement & Realignment
Qatar and UAE in process of restoring diplomatic ties [ungated] - "The restoration of ties comes amid a broader regional push for reconciliation with Iran and Saudi Arabia agreeing last month to re-establish relations after years of hostility, which threatened instability in the Gulf and stoked the war in Yemen." [more inside]
Extra-national Chinese Police stations
Canadians describe surveillance, intimidation and terror 'under China's shadow'. In the UK, Alarm Over Chinese Businessman And 'Secret Police Station'. And in the Washington Post, Chinese police stations in NYC are part of a vast influence operation.
(archive link) [more inside]
(archive link) [more inside]
A Predisposed Disappointment
It may seem strange to apply a theory developed with respect to such significant world events to stickers, a medium primarily concerned with circulating images of lazy cartoon ducks and the like. But that is part of the point. Stickers reveal how the realities of public secrecy in China within the culture of the everyday have crystallized. With stickers, the tactics of visual ambiguity, remixing, humor, affective masking, irony, and ambivalence — once the preserve of artists dealing with significant political events — have become a primary part of mundane visual expression. from Speaking in Stickers by Krish Raghav [more inside]
I'ma Bring Down the Ruckus
The Fugee, the Fugitive and the FBI: How rapper Pras Michél got entangled in one of the century’s great financial scandals, mediated a high-stakes negotiation between global superpowers and was accused of major crimes. [Bloomberg; ungated]
“I did not come to bury wuxia, but to praise it.”
The History and Politics of Wuxia by Jeannette Ng [Tor] “These are stories, after all, that are about outlaws and outcasts, existing outside of the conventional hierarchies of power. And they certainly do have plenty to say about these big universal themes of freedom, loyalty and justice. But this is also a genre that has been banned by multiple governments within living memory. Its development continues to happen in the shadows of fickle Chinese censorship and at the heart of it remains a certain defiant cultural and national pride intermingled with nostalgia and diasporic yearning. The vast majority of the most iconic wuxia texts are not written by Chinese authors living comfortably in China, but by a dreaming diaspora amid or in the aftermath of vast political turmoil. Which is all to say that the world of wuxia is fundamentally bound up with those hierarchies of power it seeks to reject. Much like there is more to superheroes than dorky names, love triangles, and broad universal ideals of justice, wuxia is grounded in the specific time and place of its creation.” [Bonus: Wiki, 30 Essential Wuxia Films, An Introduction to Wuxia Novels]
How to geolocate the photo of a spy plane flying over China spy balloon
US balloons in Chinese airspace?
The USA repeatedly shoots down [redacted] over the USA and Canada
After the downing of Big Balloon off the eastern seaboard following monitoring and riffing, the USA air force has been busy shooting down an array of [redacted] over several locations. 10th February, off north Alaska. 11th February, over the Yukon territory. 12th February, near Lake Huron. There is much uncertainty. New York Times: U.S. Destroys U.F.O.s. BBC: "'I will let the intel community and the counterintelligence community figure that out,' Gen VanHerck said when asked if it was possible the objects are aliens or extra-terrestrials. 'I haven't ruled out anything at this point.' NPR: "'We did not assess it to be a kinetic military threat to anything on the ground...'"The UK will apparently shoot down [redacted] over its airspace, though hopefully not all.
POTUS SOTU's NOTICE
In about half an hour, President Joe Biden will be making his second State of the Union address -- the first before a divided Congress, and widely seen as a soft-launch for his 2024 re-election campaign. Watch on YouTube (PBS), or check out Politico's cheat sheet for an advance transcript, background, and analysis. More: NYT: Biden’s State of the Union Prep: No Acronyms and Tricks to Conquer a Stutter - Politico: Biden’s 2022 State of the Union report card: Where he delivered — and fell flat - FiveThirtyEight: In Defense Of The Mostly Pointless State Of The Union - AP: U2′s Bono, family of Tyre Nichols’ among Jill Biden’s guests - State of the Union 2023: Who is the designated survivor? (unannounced at press time!) - Republican response: newly-elected Arkansas governor (and former Trump press secretary) Sarah Huckabee Sanders - Rep. Delia Ramirez to give progressive's response - Don't forget MeFi Chat for live reactions!
The Traditional Cultures Behind Genshin Impact
Open-world RPG gacha game Genshin Impact heavily draws from and features traditional cultural arts, particularly Chinese arts - such as engaging a professional Chinese Opera artist to sing for operatic character Yun Jin (live concert version). For this year's Lantern Rite (the in-game equivalent of Lunar New Year), their YouTube channel features collaborations with more traditional Chinese artisans, such as a short film set during the Shexian Lantern Festival and art handmade using Chinese woodblocks.
Donghua has its own identity, and it’s one worth knowing
Chinese animation is a vibrant, distinctive industry — so why do so many people still call it ‘anime’? [Polygon] ““Donghua” — much like “anime” for Japanese speakers — is simply the Chinese word for “animation.” After decades of stagnation in the animation industry, going as far back as the Cultural Revolution, China has entered what many tentatively call a rebirth in the field. It’s the result of 20 years of a Chinese identity crisis in animation, as the industry struggled to compete with the likes of Disney, Pixar, and Japan’s famed Studio Ghibli. While donghua’s current form is heavily influenced by anime, it has its own identity. From the beginning, the medium has constantly evolved to meet the mindset of the society it comes from. Chinese animation has been around for nearly a hundred years.” BONUS: [10 best donghua to get into Chinese animation]
Nightmare fuel
99 years-old artist Huang Yongyu designed the Year of the Rabbit (from Hell) zodiac stamp for the Chinese postal service. Huang actually came on livestream to talk about his red-eyed blue rabbit, expressing that drawing a rabbit is something fun, something celebratory, and that he just hoped his rabbit would make people happy. "But it doesn't," one person replied. From What's on Weibo founder Manya Koetse.
Archaeology is Not Often Thought of as a Tool of Politics
Historical accuracy and truth are not important for Beijing’s purposes. China would obviously prefer a more comprehensive interpretation of Zhangzhung’s extent, and the lack of knowledge and certainty surrounding Zhangzhung make it ripe for exploitation and distortion. The importance of the kingdom is that it is tied to so many cultural and geostrategic dynamics China wants to manipulate today. Beijing is therefore actively creating historical revisionism through the sponsorship of archaeologists and historians to provide a new narrative of Zhangzhung in order to justify its territorial, cultural, and geopolitical control in the region. from How China Reinvented an Ancient Kingdom to Advance Its Claims in the Himalayas [The Diplomat]
You got to vaccinate people against the hate.
Why Fascism's Returning to the World - "It was the great John Maynard Keynes who pieced it together best. Fascism, he discovered, was the result of sudden, sharp plunges into poverty, especially unexpected ones, ones where people's expectations of upward mobility collided with the grim reality of downward mobility."[1,2,3] (previously) [more inside]
Significant protests at Foxconn iPhone factory in Zhengzhou
"It's not hyperbolic to say that this is the most significant worker revolt we've seen in China for many years" says Chris Cash, Director of the China Research Group in a four minute interview with Times Radio that includes graphic footage from an unverified video. [more inside]
How Hong Kong Became a Police State
“Wake Up, Sleeping People of the Netherlands!”
Arguably the single most influential public intellectual alive today
The analysis and importance of Wang Huning. The New Yorker profiles Wang Huning (王沪宁), an influential Chinese political thinker, member of the Chinese Communist Party Politburo's Standing Committee, and author of a 1991 book about America. [more inside]
“Why is there an America?”
For those three decades, planet China revolved around a mysterious sun — the United States. Cunning, baffling and powerful, America as an idea (much more than as an actual place) allowed Chinese to redefine themselves and their expectations of life .... Capitalism, on the other hand, has changed the country utterly, down to every city, town, village and family. Shanghai has always been the capital of that revolution — the altar where prayers to the power of global wealth and enlightenment were cast off in the direction of distant America. With a certain vision of Shanghai vanishing, what’s next for the country? from The Rise And Fall Of Chimerica by Jacob Dreyer [Noema]
Chinese and Australian governments, protests, and digital privacy
Bail conditions for climate change activists linked with Blockade Australia have clauses "that would prohibit the use of encrypted communication apps such as WhatsApp and Signal. [New South Wales] police also imposed conditions forcing the activists to hand over any communications device to police and provide passcodes upon request." Elsewhere, "A protest planned by hundreds of bank depositors in central China seeking access to their frozen funds has been thwarted because the authorities have turned their health code apps red", which left them unable to travel. (Previously.) [more inside]