‘We’re Very Sexy People’: How the U.S. Miscalculated Its Allure to China
The Sino-Vietnamese War is rarely remembered or discussed today. But 40 years ago, the war appeared to herald a tectonic shift in regional and global politics and helped forge a close, more trusting relationship between the leader of the free...
Is this the Beginning of a New Cold War?
Beyond complicating trade negotiations between the United States and China, the arrest of Huawei CFO Meng Wanzhou has renewed concerns that the two countries are embarking on a new Cold War, based on economic preeminence and technological...
Beijing’s Long Struggle to Control Xinjiang’s Mineral Wealth
The Silk Road Economic Belt—the overland component of Xi Jinping’s signature Belt and Road Initiative (BRI)—promises to bind China to Central Asia and beyond through a new infrastructural network. Connecting through China’s far western Xinjiang...
Who Killed More: Hitler, Stalin, or Mao?
from New York Review of BooksIn these pages nearly seven years ago, Timothy Snyder asked the provocative question: Who killed more, Hitler or Stalin? As useful as that exercise in moral rigor was, some think the question itself might have been slightly off. Instead, it...
How Do You Stand up to China? Ask Mongolia
The day before the Dalai Lama’s November 18 trip to Mongolia, Beijing issued a “strong demand” to its neighbor to cancel the visit...
Where Is China’s Gorbachev?
Why China hasn't had—and isn't likely to have—a political reformer in the mold of the former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev.
Vows of Change in China Belie Private Warning
Xi Jinping told party insiders during a visit to Guangdong Province in December, China must still heed the “deeply profound” lessons of the former Soviet Union.
Xi Jinping’s Opposition to Political Reforms Laid out in Leaked Internal Speech
Beijing-based writer Gao Yu’s writing on a speech Xi Jinping made during his “southern tour” in December, suggests Xi, who blames those not “man enough” to do what had to be done to save the Soviet Communist Party from itself, has even less...
Beijing Observation: Xi Jinping the Man
Xi Jinping’s “new southern tour speech,” made in December, began circulating last week in the party. It reads like a confirmation of Harvard Professor Roderick MacFarquhar’s prediction that the likelihood of the Chinese Communist Party reforming...
Who Was Mao Zedong?
from New York Review of BooksIn Kashgar’s largest bazaar a few years ago, I spotted a pencil holder sporting an iconic Cultural Revolution image: Mao Zedong and Marshal Lin Biao smiling together. But Mao’s personally chosen heir apparent had been a nonperson since 1971, when...
Mo Yan Mines a Deep Well
Mo Yan's work recalls a Soviet dissident's quip that in his country “reality and satire are the same.”
Late Nights, Mysterious Women, and Communism
The men who run China today are avid readers of history, especially of the decline and fall of the Soviet Union. They can recite its causes, and they are explicitly dedicated to avoiding a repeat of the experience. So I have to wonder if anyone...
Dissident Dissonance
The United States has applied a different standard on human rights and dissent to China than it did to the Soviet Union. Several things explain this. First, beginning in 1972, relations with the People’s Republic of China (PRC) were intended to...