"Some see in his critique of the Mao era parallels to today: the arbitrary rule of an aging leader, harsh treatment of dissent, and government programs that encourage people to inform on one another." My profile of Gao Ertai in The New Yorker newyorker.com/news/persons-o…

One of my first The China Project columns was on the disappearance of archives, or at least access to them (inspired, obvi, by an 18C murder over an outhouse)--thechinaproject.com/2020/11/18/chi…. Really disturbing to see that threat spreading beyond PRC borders

So glad to read this Gao Ertai profile. This sentence answered my question about his restrained style: When Gao channelled his hatred from the Cultural Revolution, his wife Pu “would say, ‘This is Cultural Revolution language—it is tasteless, boring, it is written in anger.’ ”

"Beauty was not in the eye of the beholder; it was defined primarily by its use in class struggle. A painting of peasants was revolutionary, and therefore good. An ancient fresco of flying goddesses represented the interests of ruling classes and had to be criticized, perhaps

“There is a thirst for different views that wasn’t as pronounced a decade ago, precisely because it’s not just dissidents and activists who feel a need for alternative explanations,” says Ian Johnson, author of a book on underground historians. wsj.com/world/china/a-…

Ian Johnson A teacher by training from central China, Zhang moved to Beijing in the early 2000s, drawn by the relatively vibrant exchange of ideas prevalent at the time in the Chinese capital’s. He took a job with a small publishing startup. wsj.com/world/china/a-…

"高爾泰只能每天行走在懸崖峭壁上，並從石窟中掃沙。此前，他曾在壁畫中搜尋有關中世紀中國生活的信息。他注意到對農耕、養蠶、編織、建築、狩獵、婚姻、葬禮、乞討、屠宰和武術的描繪" Artist and writer Gao Ertai recalling his Dunhuang years with Ian Johnson

"I whispered: memory hurts wherever you touch it" A tour-de-force essay from 2009 on a visit to the notorious Mao-era death camp Jiabiangou. Hats off to Boston Review of Books for reprinting it. (Chinese) bostonreviewofbooks.substack.com/p/27a

Talking ABC News about the diaries of senior Chinese leader, which are held by Stanford University's Hoover Institution and which China wants back. My conclusion: Li Rui wrote these with an eye to history and would want them where they are today--available to the public. youtube.com/watch?v=yXxALS…

With thanks to Ian Johnson for his insights: "Our potential interlocutors don’t have to be members of the Politburo,” Ian Johnson, former senior China fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, told me."

I’m really impressed with the way Ambassador Nicholas Burns and staff use his travel around China to accentuate the ties between China and the United States. We need more of that because the differences are all too apparent and all too amplified by daily political tensions.

Sorry to hear about the passing of Dan Morgenstern, 94, who did much to publicize Jazz musicians, especially through his liner notes for RCA, Capitol , and in later years for Mosaic Records reissue series. Read one of his Mosaic Louis Armstrong notes👇 mosaicrecords.com/jazz-gazette-n…

To go or not to go (to China). Jeff Wasserstrom on why he's taking a break from visiting China--but why he's not discouraging others from going. insidehighered.com/opinion/views/…

This Weibo comment is quite something: “When I was born they said there were too many. When I gave birth they said there were too few. When I wanted to work they said I was too old. And when I retire they say I’m too young”

Well that makes it simple: the powerful NDRC has confirmed a ban on foreign investment in Chinese media, basta. In Chinese via WeChat (The article's accompanying image of empty seats and a blank screen seems particularly apt... ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ ) mp.weixin.qq.com/s/pqml_5oevZ75…

At once a biography of the most famous dissident in the 75-year history of the PRC, Perry Link and Wu Dazhi's epic biography of #LiuXiaobo is also a tour-de-force intellectual history of China's reform era. My review The New York Review of Books $ nybooks.com/articles/2024/…