Conversation
12.02.22
Jiang Zemin, 1926-2022
Former Chinese leader Jiang Zemin died on Wednesday at the age of 96, shortly after anger about the zero-COVID policy had boiled over into a wave of protest last weekend. Jiang took the country through the boom years of the 1990s, a time now...
Postcard
05.30.19
Four Is Forbidden
Liusi. Six-four. The two-syllable word, spoken nonchalantly by our teacher, was a stone cast into the tranquil pond of a classroom. From each ripple rose a gasp, a murmur, or a perplexed face, with only one or two enunciating the question on many of...
Viewpoint
07.13.18
‘Liu Knew His Responsibility in History’
He was risking not the immediate arrival of soldiers, but the inevitable and life-threatening imprisonment that befalls all people who challenge state power in China today. This was not an active decision to die, but a willingness to do so. The...
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09.20.17Where the Wild Things Are: China's Art Dreamers at the Guggenheim
New York Times
The signature work at “Art and China After 1989,” a highly anticipated show that takes over the Guggenheim on Oct. 6, is a simple table with a see-through dome shaped like the back of a tortoise. On the tabletop hundreds of insects and reptiles —...
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08.21.17Cambridge University Press Faces Backlash after Bowing to China Censorship Pressure
Washington Post
Cambridge University Press announced Friday it had removed 300 articles and book reviews from a version of the “China Quarterly” website available in China at the request of the government.
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07.13.17Nobel Laureate Liu Xiaobo, Who Fought for Democracy in China, Dies in Police Custody
Wall Street Journal
Nobel Peace laureate Liu Xiaobo, who embodied the hopes of China’s 1989 Tiananmen Square democracy movement long after the protests were crushed, died in detention on Thursday after a battle with liver cancer, according to a government statement. He...
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10.17.16China’s Last Tiananmen Prisoner Set to be Freed, but Frail
New York Times
Miao Deshun, the 51-year-old former factory worker, is severely ill after spending more than half his life behind bars
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07.22.15Wan Li Obituary
Guardian
Former leader Wan Li, who died at age 98, was a reform-minded communist. In the post-Mao Zedong era, Wan achieved one great success only to fail dismally in another crucial enterprise.