What to do when the law and basic humanity are in opposition? The Chinese internet has an answer: “Aim the rifle an inch higher” (枪口抬高一厘米, qiāngkǒu táigāo yī límǐ). The phrase is shorthand for subverting orders that violate...
This week, Xi Jinping and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi held their first formal bilateral meeting in five years, on the sidelines of the BRICS summit in Russia. India and China have been locked in a tense standoff, fueled...
Around 5:00 p.m. local time on Friday, an explosion damaged an office building of the Chinese consulate in Mandalay, the second-largest city in Myanmar. No casualties were reported, but the Chinese government condemned the...
Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba met with Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi this week in Guangzhou. Kuleba is the highest-ranking Ukrainian official to travel to China since Russia’s February 2022 invasion. As Western...
More than three years after the military’s coup d’état, Myanmar remains engulfed in instability and civil war. China has more leverage in Myanmar than any other foreign power, and the ongoing crisis along the China-Myanmar...
Last week, Russian President Vladimir Putin met with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un in Pyongyang, where the two signed a “friendship treaty” and pledged military assistance in the event that either nation is attacked. The...
The Swiss peace summit concluded over the weekend with what Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky hailed as the “first steps towards peace,” but much remains unresolved before Russia might conceivably agree to cease its war...
In Peter Hessler’s latest piece for The New Yorker, “How Chinese Students Experience America,” he notes that “COVID, guns, anti-Asian violence, and diplomatic relations have complicated the ambitions of the some three hundred...
A Party organization’s flippant invocation of “World War III” using video game terms went viral over the weekend, thrilling some nationalists but perturbing other Chinese netizens. The video was later removed from Bilibili and...
A middle school literature exam in Chengdu has triggered the latest outburst of anti-Japanese nationalism. Students were asked to analyze an excerpt from “Fallen Azaleas,” an amateurish piece of fiction by the virtually unknown...
Israel’s war in Gaza has elicited increasing attention from the Sinophone world, as five months of violence have led to the deaths of 32,000 Palestinians, an imminent famine in northern Gaza, and little progress on freeing...
Some recent restrictions placed on historical books, museum exhibits, and academic discourse have brought renewed attention to the Chinese Communist Party’s attempts to rewrite history, control the historical narrative, and...
Expectations were low going into this week’s meeting between Joe Biden and Xi Jinping on the side of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) Summit in San Francisco. Since their last meeting in Bali one year ago,...
In mainland China, August 1 is known as PLA Day or Army Day, and commemorates the establishment of the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) in 1927. This year, the celebration of the PLA’s 96th anniversary coincided with a...
An antiquated Chinese political phrase enjoyed a brief revival when it was dusted off and used by some online commentators to describe the series of events known variously as the “Wagner Group...
At long last, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken traveled to Beijing to meet Chinese leaders and jointly work towards stabilizing bilateral ties. His trip was originally planned for February but was postponed when a Chinese...
If the lesson last week was “Don’t laugh about the PLA,” this week’s message seems to be, “Don’t even crack a smile.” First, stand-up comedian Li Haoshi (stage name “House”) was accused of defaming the People’s Liberation...
Word(s) of the Week: Forge Exemplary Conduct, Fight to Win (作风优良，能打胜仗 zuòfēng yōuliáng, néngdǎ shèngzhàng) On Saturday at the Century Theater in Beijing, a stand up comic joked that his dogs’ pursuit of squirrels brought to mind...
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