China and Charlie

First there were the terrorist attacks in Paris. And then there was the global reaction to the attacks, with its spate of frenzied free-speech cartooning. And then there was the counter-reaction to the initial reaction, which played out mostly on Facebook. And then the China Daily decided to wade into the fray, vaguely blaming Charlie Hebdo for “[persisting] in its way of doing things" and alienating most thinking people with its somewhat baffling display of not-quite-sympathic-but-not-exactly-condemnatory rhetorical showboating.

Conversation

01.16.15

Why Did The West Weep for Paris But Not for Kunming?

Bethany Allen-Ebrahimian, Taisu Zhang & more

In the days since the attacks that killed 12 people at the offices of the satirical newspaper Charlie Hebdo in Paris, Chinese netizens have watched the outpouring of solidarity. As our colleagues at Foreign Policy reported earlier this week, the...

So what does all of this have to do with China, and how are the terrorist attacks getting read by the Chinese government? Joining our two hosts to talk about this story is none other than Ada Shen, renowned social-media wunderkind and longtime friend of both Jeremy and Kaiser. Ada joins us for an interesting discussion that meanders us from Algeria and King Lear to ancient Chinese horses and their sometimes-controversial burial customs.