ARTICLES
China’s Challenges for 2022 (and Beyond)
We’re a few days into the new Chinese lunar year, the Year of the Tiger, but it might better be called the Year of Politics. That’s because 2022 is shaping up to be a critical point in the now-decade-long-rule of Xi Jinping. That makes it a perfect chance to step back and take a wide-ang
Lecture: an underground journal in Xi’s China
As part of my project on memory and history in China, I’m revisiting a magazine that I wrote about in an two-part series for The New York Review of Books in 2014 (part 1 here and part 2 here on the NYRB website, both reprinted without a paywall by the Asia Society’s ChinaFile website her
Chinese Medicine in the Covid Wards
Ever since the 1980s, I’ve been interested in Chinese Medicine as a Chinese cultural practices that is still widely in use today. This probably stems from my having roomed with Nigel Wiseman, who was just starting out on what would become a career as one of the most prolific translators of Chi
Europe’s Changing Consensus on China
In my first piece for Foreign Affairs since joining the Council on Foreign Relations, I look at diplomatic ties between the two countries that I know best: Germany and China. I speculate that the end of the Angela Merkel era will mean a (slightly) more forceful German foreign policy, especiall
Nuclear Subs vs. Trade
Is the deal to sell nuclear subs to Australia a foreign-policy meisterstroke or another example of America’s overreliance on the military to deal with a rising China? My take via the Council on Foreign Relations.
How Will China Deal With The Taliban?
“In some ways, Afghanistan under the Taliban is China’s perfect partner: dysfunctional, dependent, and happy with whatever China can do for it:” In this Q&A with the Council on Foreign Relation’s cfr.org website, I answer questions from the editors on China’s hopes and
Gaming the System?
One common way of looking at China's success at the Olympics is as metaphor for its rise--with the conclusion being that its rise to the top of the medals tables (just like its rise in its global standing) is tainted by too much state interference--that it's done so by a brutal sports machine.
China in One Village
How does rural China recall the past decades of change? One answer is the pathbreaking 2010 book by Liang Hong, China in Liang Village (中国在梁庄), which recounts the history of Liang’s native town, a village near Zhengzhou in central Henan province.
Council on Foreign Relations
Starting July 1, I will be the new senior fellow for China studies at the Council on Foreign Relations.
REMEMBERING RIK SCHIPPER
In this NYT obituary I recall the life of one of the most influential China scholars of recent years, Kristofer "Rik" Schipper, who died earlier this year in Amsterdam, aged 86.
FORBIDDEN CITY: THE BOOK
Newly published: a new photobook on the Forbidden City that I helped put together with the publisher Assouline. I wrote a 4,000-word introduction, in which I talk about how the Forbidden City has returned to the center of Chinese culture.