Notes from ChinaFile
04.29.24![](https://www.chinafile.com/sites/default/files/styles/system/public/assets/images/article/system/55346_sm.jpg?itok=Cmi_Cc5s)
Lessons from Tiananmen for Today’s University Presidents
Thirty-five years ago, in April 1989, Chinese students from Beijing’s elite universities began their occupation of Tiananmen Square. Their issues were different from those of American students today. Chinese demonstrators voiced concerns about...
Notes from ChinaFile
06.02.23![](https://www.chinafile.com/sites/default/files/styles/system/public/assets/images/article/system/the_aps_john_pomfret_with_tiananmen_studentleaders_wang_dan_and_wuer_kaixi_.jpg?itok=tuz3u2Ik)
Covering Tiananmen
The Tiananmen Square crisis in 1989 was a turning point for China. Weeks of student-led demonstrations turned into the largest protest for political reform in the history of the People’s Republic. The bloody military crackdown that crushed the...
Viewpoint
12.12.22![](https://www.chinafile.com/sites/default/files/styles/system/public/assets/images/article/system/54451_sm.jpg?itok=-yIDDEXd)
In China’s Diaspora, Visions of a Different Homeland
At the beginning, there were songs. It’s the Monday after Thanksgiving. In the storied New England town, over a hundred of us had gathered for the candlelight vigil. After a fire claimed at least ten lives in a locked-down building in Urumchi, and...
Conversation
11.29.22![](https://www.chinafile.com/sites/default/files/styles/system/public/assets/images/article/system/54411_b_sm.jpg?itok=Kgg_eM9V)
China in Protest
Over the weekend, large demonstrations broke out in cities across China. The protests followed news, spread rapidly across Chinese and international social media, that a fire in an apartment building in Xinjiang’s capital of Urumchi on Friday had...
Viewpoint
04.01.21![](https://www.chinafile.com/sites/default/files/styles/system/public/assets/images/article/system/gettyimages-1301591110.jpeg?itok=j5S7vOZL)
Will Protests against China Push Beijing to Intervene in Myanmar?
Angry with the results of the November election, which saw a landslide win for the ruling National League for Democracy party, Myanmar’s military claimed electoral fraud. On February 1, they seized power from the civilian government, rounding up...
The NYRB China Archive
11.19.20![](https://www.chinafile.com/sites/default/files/styles/system/public/assets/images/article/system/gettyimages-1214824207.jpg?itok=P5AhZqoK)
China’s Clampdown on Hong Kong
from New York Review of Books
Hong Kongers demonstrated about everything from the removal of hawkers selling fish balls during the Chinese New Year to fare increases on mass transit (which had also provoked protests under British rule). But mostly they have demonstrated against...
Viewpoint
12.11.19![](https://www.chinafile.com/sites/default/files/styles/system/public/assets/images/article/system/hk-protester-five-sys.jpg?itok=tuhwhx1J)
Is Violence in Hong Kong’s Protests Turning off Moderates?
As protests in Hong Kong have become more violent, have the demographics of the protesters changed? The level of violence employed by protesters as well as the police force has escalated to new heights ever since July 21, when alleged triad members...
The NYRB China Archive
11.26.19![](https://www.chinafile.com/sites/default/files/styles/system/public/assets/images/article/system/hk-election-line-sys.jpg?itok=zo9-c-u3)
How China’s Rise Has Forced Hong Kong’s Decline
from New York Review of Books
For nearly six months, people around the world have watched the pro-democracy protests in Hong Kong with one question in the back of their minds: When will Beijing lose patience and the repression begin? Journalists expecting to cover Tiananmen II...
Viewpoint
11.14.19![](https://www.chinafile.com/sites/default/files/styles/system/public/assets/images/article/system/51546_sm.jpg?itok=_0QYfFGG)
Violence by Hong Kong Protesters Won’t Advance Their Cause
I have watched with growing concern as violence has intensified in Hong Kong. I have been deeply dismayed to see escalating police violence, which has fundamentally damaged the reputation of a police force once known as among Asia’s best. And I have...
Conversation
11.04.19![](https://www.chinafile.com/sites/default/files/styles/system/public/assets/images/article/system/school-sys.jpg?itok=oR7E3O88)
How Should Universities Respond to China’s Growing Presence on Their Campuses?
How should universities encourage respectful dialogue on contentious issues involving China, while at the same time fostering an environment free of intimidation, harassment, and violence? And how should university administrators and governments...
Postcard
10.17.19![](https://www.chinafile.com/sites/default/files/styles/system/public/assets/images/article/system/lawyerfamily-sys.jpg?itok=hzQurQY5)
‘If We Give up on Our Husbands Today, Tomorrow Our Children Will Be Ashamed of Us’
This is a story about fear and the attempt to conquer fear. The wives of some of the lawyers who disappeared in China’s “709” crackdown have suffered house arrest, threats, and suppression. In their search to find their husbands, they hope no longer...
Conversation
08.07.19![](https://www.chinafile.com/sites/default/files/styles/system/public/assets/images/article/system/hk-protest-throw-sys.jpg?itok=FkLfPdof)
Will Hong Kong Unravel?
Beijing’s top official in Hong Kong, Wang Zhimin, called the protests a “life and death war” and compared them to the “color revolutions.” Coming a week after Hong Kong police charged 44 people with rioting and days after strikes paralyzed parts of...
Conversation
06.19.19![](https://www.chinafile.com/sites/default/files/styles/system/public/assets/images/article/system/hk-march-sys.jpg?itok=bmvrO1Wn)
Hong Kong in Protest
On June 16, an estimated 2 million people took to the streets to protest the Hong Kong government’s handling of a proposed extradition bill. This followed two massive demonstrations against the bill earlier in the month, including one where police...
Media
06.03.19![](https://www.chinafile.com/sites/default/files/styles/system/public/assets/images/article/system/tiananmen-people-sys.jpg?itok=jDFEqUO8)
Six Questions and Four Articles About Tiananmen Square
Why can’t we banish history from our memories? The author Ling Zhijun titled his 2008 exploration of Mao Zedong’s disastrous people’s communes “History No Longer Lingers,” and it sometimes feels counterintuitive that we cannot forget past tragedies...
Viewpoint
05.28.19![](https://www.chinafile.com/sites/default/files/styles/system/public/assets/images/article/system/tiananmen-sys_0.jpg?itok=J4bcUAQf)
Why We Remember June Fourth
Some people recently asked, “Why must you remember June Fourth? Thirty years have gone by. It is history. Get over it. Move on.” A simple question, but there are many answers. No single answer is adequate, and all of the answers together still leave...
05.20.19
![](https://www.chinafile.com/sites/default/files/styles/system/public/assets/images/article/system/no-extradition-protesters-sys.jpg?itok=JgyMHXdz)
What Would Amending Hong Kong’s Law on Extradition Mean for International Non-Profits?
Hong Kong legislators are currently engaged in a fierce struggle over the proposed passing of a bill that would expand Hong Kong's policy to allow for extradition, on a case-by-case basis, to countries with which the territory does not have...
Viewpoint
05.08.19![](https://www.chinafile.com/sites/default/files/styles/system/public/assets/images/article/system/may-4-school-sys.jpg?itok=0dFyTP2W)
This Year, I Couldn’t Avoid May Fourth
The one hundredth anniversary of the 1919 May Fourth Movement came and went last week much as one would have expected...For some, myself included, the anniversary evoked a set of more complicated emotions. For years, these complications have pushed...
Viewpoint
05.03.19![](https://www.chinafile.com/sites/default/files/styles/system/public/assets/images/article/system/youtuday-sys.jpg?itok=Vca8m857)
May Fourth’s Unfulfilled Promise
Spring 2019 is marked by a series of sensitive anniversaries for China: Beijing is visibly nervous that the 30th anniversary of the June 4 Tiananmen massacre could trigger protests. But it is also concerned about the 100th anniversary of the lesser...
Media
01.28.17![](https://www.chinafile.com/sites/default/files/styles/system/public/assets/images/article/system/chinesefeminsts_cao_mengwen.jpg?itok=8rWzS2V1)
China’s Feminists Go to Washington
Zhang Ling was dressed like a revolutionary from the Spanish Civil War. With a long braid emerging from a scarlet beret and clad in trousers a color she described as “communist red,” Zhang had driven her Honda from her home in upstate New York the...
Books
01.11.17![](https://www.chinafile.com/sites/default/files/styles/system/public/assets/images/books/system/shirley_lin-taiwans_china_dilemma_hirez.jpg?itok=rUWdOpeM)
![](https://www.chinafile.com/sites/default/files/assets/images/books/covers/taiwan_china_dilemna_book_cover.jpg)
Taiwan’s China Dilemma
China and Taiwan share one of the world’s most complex international relationships. Although similar cultures and economic interests have promoted an explosion of economic ties between them since the late 1980s, these ties have not led to an improved political relationship, let alone progress toward the unification that both governments once claimed to seek. In addition, Taiwan’s recent Sunflower Movement succeeded in obstructing deeper economic ties with China. Why has Taiwan’s policy toward China been so inconsistent?Taiwan’s China Dilemma explains the divergence between the development of economic and political relations across the Taiwan Strait through the interplay of national identity and economic interests. Using primary sources, opinion surveys, and interviews with Taiwanese opinion leaders, Syaru Shirley Lin paints a vivid picture of one of the most unsettled and dangerous relationships in the contemporary world, and illustrates the growing backlash against economic liberalization and regional economic integration around the world. —Stanford University Press{chop}
ChinaFile Recommends
12.12.16China Riot Police Seal Off City Center After Smog Protestors Put Masks on Statues
Guardian
Clampdown in Chengdu after protesters place masks on statues in anger at air pollution choking the city
Features
11.18.16![](https://www.chinafile.com/sites/default/files/styles/system/public/assets/images/article/system/trumpprotest.jpg?itok=ogMKieHu)
Chinese and American City-Dwellers Differ on Trump Win
City-dwellers in China and the United States are among the greatest beneficiaries of the international trade deals President-elect Trump says he’s against, but the two groups responded differently to the outcome of the U.S. election, and the...
ChinaFile Recommends
11.14.16With It’s Latest Intervention in Hong Kong, Beijing Wins the Battle but is Losing the War
South China Morning Post
Cheung: the NPC should be sparing in the use of its power to interpret the Basic Law, or it risks further alienating the city’s young people
ChinaFile Recommends
10.14.16China Warns “Hostile Forces” Trying to Undermine Military Reform
Reuters
After protests erupted in Beijing over lay-offs, China's military warned that "hostile forces" were spreading damaging online rumors
ChinaFile Recommends
10.11.16Protests Outside Chinese Defense Ministry at Army Cuts
Guardian
More than 1,000 people walk and chant in Beijing in demonstration believed to be about pensions and personnel cuts
ChinaFile Recommends
09.23.16Provincial Boss Ordered Crackdown on China's 'Democracy Village' with Eye on National Power
Reuters
Wukan is Hu Chunhua's tryout for the Politburo Standing Committee
ChinaFile Recommends
09.20.16Gay Pride: China Activists Fight ‘Conversion Therapy’
Hong Kong Free Press
Coming out was never going to be easy, but Yu never thought it would see him committed
Viewpoint
10.08.14![](https://www.chinafile.com/sites/default/files/styles/system/public/assets/images/article/system/456455832.jpg?itok=btpa7Rra)
‘We Do Not Want to Be Persuaded’
Over the past week, it has been hard to make sense of the threats and ultimatums the Hong Kong protesters have faced. On Sunday, the South China Morning Post splashed on its front page that Hong Kong had “hours to avoid tragedy.” University deans...
Sinica Podcast
07.28.14![](https://www.chinafile.com/sites/default/files/styles/system/public/assets/images/article/system/451557580.jpg?itok=WOMMAQ-P)
Hong Kong Protests and Suicide in China
from Sinica Podcast
This week on Sinica, we’re delighted to welcome back the stalwart Mr. Gady Epstein, Beijing correspondent for The Economist, to discuss the recent protests in Hong Kong, as well as the flux in China’s suicide rates. And specifically, we’ll be...
The NYRB China Archive
07.16.14![](https://www.chinafile.com/sites/default/files/styles/system/public/assets/images/article/system/451577922.jpg?itok=PgIRNoCL)
Hong Kong Rising: An Interview with Albert Ho
from New York Review of Books
The former British colony of Hong Kong reverted to China on July 1, 1997, and on every July 1 since then Hong Kong citizens have marched in the streets asking for democracy. The demonstrations on this year’s anniversary, however, were on a much...
The NYRB China Archive
05.20.14![](https://www.chinafile.com/sites/default/files/styles/system/public/assets/images/article/system/52010868.jpg?itok=I5HaIwBW)
Tiananmen: How Wrong We Were
from New York Review of Books
Twenty-five years ago to the day I write this, I watched and listened as thousands of Chinese citizens in Beijing’s Tiananmen Square dared to condemn their leaders. Some shouted “Premier Li Peng resign.” Even braver ones cried “Down with Deng...
Media
05.10.13![](https://www.chinafile.com/sites/default/files/styles/system/public/assets/images/article/system/yuanly3.jpg?itok=AZox3sXr)
Unrest in Beijing Over Mysterious Death of Young Woman
A rare protest in Beijing involving hundreds of people was documented by photos posted on China’s social media (scroll down to see a sample photo). The cause of the protest was the death of a twenty-two-year-old migrant worker, who fell several...
The NYRB China Archive
03.24.11How China Fears the Middle East Revolutions
from New York Review of Books
Chinese authorities have done what they can to stop news—and worse, from their point of view, any influence—of Tunisian and Egyptian people-power from spreading to China. They have been worrying especially about what social media like Twitter and...
The NYRB China Archive
06.26.08![](https://www.chinafile.com/sites/default/files/styles/system/public/assets/images/article/system/beijing-coma-cover_0_0.jpg?itok=mM5FjmIS)
Casting a Lifeline
from New York Review of Books
Sixty pages or so into Ma Jian’s novel Beijing Coma, the hero, Dai Wei, is troubled by the memory of a harrowing anatomy lecture that he attended as a university student. Taught by “a celebrated cardiovascular specialist,” the class observed the...
The NYRB China Archive
05.29.08Thunder from Tibet
from New York Review of Books
1.Every so often, between the time a book leaves its publisher and the time it reaches its readers, events occur that change the ways it can be read. Such is the case with Pico Iyer’s account of the fourteenth Dalai Lama, the exiled leader of Tibet...
The NYRB China Archive
11.20.03The Hong Kong Gesture
from New York Review of Books
On September 5, in an astonishing victory for liberty in Hong Kong and an equally unexpected defeat for Beijing and its hand-picked chief executive, Tung Chee-hwa, the Hong Kong government withdrew a proposed new law against subversion and treason...