China

The Cost of China’s Prosperity

For Hong Kong and Taiwan, neoliberalism’s falling tides made political repression inevitable.

  • Eli Friedman

Semiconductor Island

The colonial making of Taiwan’s chip supremacy.

  • Brian J. Chen

Escape from the Closed Loop

Protests in China are shining a light not only on the country’s draconian population management but restrictions on workers everywhere.

  • Eli Friedman

The Proto-Fascist Guide to Destroying the World

Noam Chomsky on lies, crimes, and savage capitalism.

  • Noam Chomsky
  • David Barsamian

China and the Lure of Global Capitalism

The country’s explosive development has relied on markets—at the cost of earlier ideals.

  • Macabe Keliher

The Power of the Party

Founded a century ago, the Chinese Communist Party has repeatedly defied predictions of its demise.

  • Macabe Keliher

Sign up for our newsletter

Neoliberal Hong Kong Is Our Future, Too

Economists lionize the city as the ideal free market, but the social consequences have been disastrous.

  • Macabe Keliher

No, Autocracies Aren’t Better for Public Health

Some have praised China’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic, but its suppression of information helped cause the problem in the first place.

  • Yasheng Huang

Quantifying Love

Reputational currency, like China’s Social Credit Score, rebrands repression as rational nudging. And these algorithmic governance models are spreading.

  • Frank Pasquale

Making Chinese Officials Accountable, Blog by Blog

Despite the risks, Chinese social media users are beating online censorship.

  • Greg Distelhorst
  • Diana Fu
  • Yue Hou

The Language of Violence

The effects of revolutionary violence on Chinese poetry.

  • Nick Admussen

Hong Kong’s Umbrella Movement

One of the largest peaceful protest movements in recent world history.

  • Guobin Yang
  • Ran Liu

Measure Words

A cross-cultural reading group in Beijing

  • Drew Calvert

Why the Success of the Rest is Good for America

Charles Kenny's The Upside of Down.

  • Ali Wyne

Exploring the Hidden China

Yu Hua's Boy in the Twilight.

  • Drew Calvert

Under the Cross in China

Christian weddings are on the rise in China, even among non-believers.

  • Xiao-bo Yuan

Awkward, Diligent: Liu Xiaobo’s Love Poetry

The creative output of the Nobel Peace Prize winner.

  • Nick Admussen

China’s Other Revolution

Though there has been no “Chinese Spring,” it would be hard to describe what has transpired in China over the past twenty years as anything but a revolution.

  • Edward S. Steinfeld
with responses from
  • Andrew G. Walder
  • Helen H. Wang
  • Baogang He
  • Ying Ma
  • Guobin Yang

Zigzag Ice Dragon

A hike in Tibet

  • Matthew Fishbane

What Makes a Miracle

Some myths about the rise of China and India.

  • Pranab Bardhan

Reading China

What American conventional wisdom gets wrong.

  • Jeffrey N. Wasserstrom
trending_flat
Get our newsletter

Vital reading on politics, ideas, and culture to your inbox

A political and literary forum, independent and nonprofit since 1975

Registered 501(c)(3) organization

Help Us Stay Paywall-Free

Donate

Become a Member

Subscribe