For Your Weekend, July 28, 2022

on July 28, 2022

For your weekend, we recommend Ian Johnson’s review of a new English language translation of Wang Xiaobo’s 1992 novella The Golden Age, released this week.

You can read more on Wang, his unique place among contemporary Chinese writers, and his wife, the influential sociologist of sexuality Li Yinhe, in this essay by Johnson for The New York Review of Books.

And for an additional look at Wang’s social and artistic mileu, watch this ChinaFile interview with filmmaker Zhang Yuan which touches on his collaboration with Wang and Li on his film East Palace, West Palace, one of mainland China’s first films about same-sex romance.

Wong Yi

on July 27, 2022

Wong Yi is a Hong Kong writer, librettist, and editor at Fleurs des Lettres. In 2020, she was named one of “20 Most Anticipated Young Sinophone Novelists” by Unitas. Her most recent book is Ways to Love in a Crowded City. She is currently writing short stories inspired by Hong Kong’s history.

Confession and Reconciliation in the Cultural Revolution’s Aftermath

A Conversation with ChinaFile

By Susan Jakes on July 27, 2022

Last week, frequent ChinaFile contributors Geremie Barmé and Zha Jianying joined editor Susan Jakes on Twitter Spaces to discus Zha’s recent short story for ChinaFile, “The Prize Student.” The story takes place in Nanjing in 1983, as a prominent writer pays a visit to a Middle School teacher he had denounced and persecuted at the start of the Cultural Revolution 17 years earlier. Barmé and Zha discussed the story’s origins, their own experience of the Cultural Revolution, and the vexed question of how it is and can be remembered in China today.

Can a New U.S. Law Prevent Uyghur Forced Labor?

A ChinaFile Conversation

By John Foote, Darren Byler & more on July 26, 2022

Last month, the U.S. began enforcement of the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act. Signed into law late last year, the UFLPA bans imports of goods made in Xinjiang unless the importer can offer “clear and convincing evidence” that no forced labor was used in their production. Advocates have roundly welcomed the law, but argue that one American law on its own is unlikely to cut into forced labor. Are the law’s investigative mechanisms sufficient to root out forced labor? What is the ultimate goal of such a law, and how might its efficacy be measured?

Norma in Kaohsiung

Amid the Pandemic, a New Landscape for Opera in Taiwan . . . and in Beijing

By Anatol Klass on July 25, 2022

On a warm evening this past January, a crowd gathered outside the Weiwuying Opera House in Kaohsiung, Taiwan’s second largest city, more than an hour before the night’s performance was scheduled to begin. As they waited to enter the theater, people explored an opera-themed bazaar set up underneath the towering canopies stretched between the wings of the sprawling performing arts center to resemble local banyan trees. As buskers performed Italian arias, vendors dished out creations based on the evening’s program, Vincenzo Bellini’s Norma. A local food truck was offering portions of Pasta alla Norma, a Sicilian eggplant dish named after Bellini’s opera because, according to a perhaps apocryphal story, a happy diner declared it to be a masterpiece on par with the bel canto classic. Nearby, a small bar was pouring glasses of “Norma pink sparkling wine” and a local gelato stand had established a small kiosk serving “Norma sundaes.” A sign nearby explained, “the chocolate brownie is a metaphor for Norma’s fiery love. Even though she is treated as coldly as ice cream by her chosen lover, her love for him cannot be extinguished.”

Anatol Klass

on July 25, 2022

Anatol Klass is a Doctoral candidate in the History Department at the University of California, Berkeley where he studies the bureaucratic and intellectual transformation of Chinese foreign affairs from the 1930s to the 1970s. He conducted research for his dissertation as a Fulbright fellow in Taiwan. He is also currently the Chun and Jane Chiu Family Foundation Fellow in Taiwan Studies at the Woodrow Wilson Center and will be a pre-doctoral fellow at the Harvard Kennedy School next year. In addition to his academic work, his writing has appeared in The Washington Post, The Los Angeles Review of Books, and SupChina.

Marti Flacks

on July 25, 2022

Marti Flacks is the Khosravi Chair in Principled Internationalism and Director of the Human Rights Initiative at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS). The initiative seeks to bring innovative thinking and a multidisciplinary approach to tackle pressing global human rights challenges and better integrate human rights across foreign policy priorities. Flacks spent more than a decade in the U.S. government, most recently serving at the National Security Council (NSC) as Director of African Affairs from 2015 to 2017, where she coordinated U.S. policy across East and Southern Africa and on continent-wide trade and economic issues. Prior to the NSC, Flacks spent three years as Deputy Director of the Office of Energy Programs at the U.S. State Department, leading the department’s work on energy transparency and good governance, and four years working for the U.S. special envoy for Sudan on implementation of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement and the independence of South Sudan. She joined the U.S. government through the Presidential Management Fellows program at the Department of Homeland Security. Prior to joining CSIS, Flacks served as Deputy Director & head of the North America office at the Business & Human Rights Resource Centre, a human rights organization focused on the role of business in respecting human rights. Flacks received a B.S. in foreign service from Georgetown University, a Master's degree from the Fletcher School at Tufts University, and a J.D. from Columbia Law School. She is originally from Solon, Ohio.

Nicole Morgret

on July 25, 2022

Nicole Morgret is a Human Rights Analyst at C4ADS. She earned her M.A. from the Johns Hopkins University Nanjing University Center for Chinese and American Studies and her B.A. from the American College of Thessaloniki. Prior to joining C4ADS, she spent five years as the project manager for the Uyghur Human Rights Project. She speaks Mandarin.

John Foote

on July 25, 2022

John Foote is a partner and head of the customs practice at Kelley Drye & Warren LLP in Washington, D.C. He is an advisor to companies and a widely recognized expert on Section 307 of the Tariff Act of 1930, the U.S. forced labor import ban. He is also the author of a Substack newsletter called “Forced Labor and Trade,” where he provides analysis and commentary on “the most interesting law in the world”. Foote was previously a partner with the law firm Baker McKenzie, and began his legal career clerking for Judge Gregory Carman at the U.S. Court of International Trade.