Author Ian Johnson recently published Sparks: China’s Underground Historians and their Battle for the Future, and discusses the dominance of women as underground historians with Jeffrey Wasserstrom at the Los Angeles World Affairs Council. Women are relative outsiders in China’s power structures which puts them in a good position to document the country’s history, he says.Read More →
China veteran and scholar Ian Johnson will publish in September 2023 his next book Sparks: China’s Underground Historians and their Battle for the Future. “It describes how some of China’s best-known writers, filmmakers, and artists have overcome crackdowns and censorship to forge a nationwide movement that challenges the Communist Party on its most hallowed ground: its control of history,” writes Ian Johnson at his weblog.Read More →
Former Beijing correspondent Ian Johnson looks at the treasure of the Forbidden City, now in Taipei’s National Palace Museum, and how China changed its view over de past decades on those thefts, now almost 75 years ago, under current geopolitical tension, for the Art Newspaper.Read More →
China is taking a stricter line when it comes to national security and spying when it comes to foreign companies, including raids of the consultancies Bain and Capvision offices in China. Intercultural leadership coach Gabor Holch guides those foreign firms through the intercultural minefield, he tells in the South China Morning Post, in an article about the last warnings,Read More →
China veteran Ian Johnson describes how faith and value systems in China have been developing over the past century and how the government and the communist party acted on religion at the USCCA.Read More →
Strategic analyst Victor Shih, author of Coalitions of the Weak, (2022), looks at China’s sudden exit from its contested zero-Covid policy. Was it because of the protests, was it planned before, and what does it mean for the country’s domestic policies and economics? A discussion at the New Yorker on how decisions at the top-level take place.Read More →
Former president Jiang Zemin was not only known for his relaxed way of dealing with foreign leaders, he is also fondly remembered by many of the Chinese who met him, recalls author and journalist Zhang Lijia at China File. “Now he is gone. Amid economic downturn and political repression, the Chinese public are remembering his positive side, his warmth and color, and his many talents, such as singing. Nostalgia, like old wine, tastes better as time goes by,” Zhang Lijia writes.Read More →
CFR-scholar Ian Johnson introduces and interviews bestseller author Liang Hong (in translation) about her book China in One Village on the vanishing villages and the costs of economic growth in the countryside, for the China Institute.Read More →
COVID-19 did put pressure on the global turnover of public auctions of artworks, but their value has gone up, says Hurun chairman Rupert Hoogewerf at Shine. Artists from China have been moving up in the ranking, in line with China’s economy, he adds.Read More →
Marketing expert Ashley Dudarenok looks at the recent Autumn festival, China’s second-largest holiday. How did it develop and how does it affect tourism, eating, and drinking, from her digital vlog. 80 million people have been traveling domestically this year, she says, and comparable to America’s Thanksgiving festival.Read More →
Bats as a possible source for the coronavirus were de latest incident based on the Western myth all Chinese eat wild animals where possible. Cultural analyst Arnold Ma puts China’s eating habits into perspective, for his vlog.Read More →
China’s authorities first raised the number of allowed children from two to three per family, and might now even cancel all restrictions. Journalist Zhang Lijia, author of Lotus: A Novel(January 2017) on prostitution in China, looks at the troubled relationship between feminism and motherhood in her mother country, in an interview with the Italian publication Il Manifesto.Read More →