ARTICLES
FROM MAO CONFIDANT TO PARTY CRITIC
In this obituary in the NYT, I describe the life of Li Rui, Mao's personal secretary who later became a convinced democrat.
“MY RESPONSIBILITY TO HISTORY”
In my latest installment of the "Talking About China" series in the NYR Daily, I talk to Zhang Shihe, aka Tiger Temple, on his exile back in his hometown, Xi'an.
SOULS IN CHINESE
I'll be traveling to Taiwan this month to help launch the first Chinese-language edition of The Souls of China.
HAS THE EXTREME BEEN REACHED?
On Monday, the Chengdu-based blogger Huang Qi was put on trial for leaking sensitive state documents to the public. In this short piece for the New York Times, I report the news.
SLOVAKS VS OLIGARCHS
How does a society fight the downward spiral into oligarchy and repression? The small European country of Slovakia provides some answers.
HOW CHINA IS COOPTING RELIGION
A few weeks ago, Foreign Affairs asked me to revisit a piece I did for them in 2017 on China's amazing religious revival.
MUZZLING CHINA’S HOUSE CHURCHES
One of the main characters in The Souls of China is Wang Yi, a dynamic pastor in the southwestern city of Chengdu. In the book, I followed him and his congregation, Early Rain Covenant Church, for more than a year in 2012 to 2013, and was amazed at how he managed to walk a fine line, almost [&he
LESS THAN MEETS THE EYE
In this piece for The New York Times I investigate Beijing’s new airport in the suburb of Daxing.
FRENCH EXCERPT OF SOULS OF CHINA
Many thanks to the Catholic magazine Spiritus, which has excerpted part of The Souls and translated it into French.
PROPHET AND THE PARTY
Why has China had such a hard time accommodating Islam? In this piece for The New York Review of Books NYR Daily I look at this question.
THE TAO OF THE WEST
In my latest for The New York Review of Books, I look at Taoism: how it moved westward and created a new religion; as a green religion; and how western universities systematically ignore Chinese and other non-western philosophy.
FROM MONTREAL TO BEIJING
Parlez-vou 中文？How growing up during Montreal’s language wars made me a China watcher In this piece for China Heritage‘s “Watching China Watching,” I talk a bit about myself, and how growing up in 1960s and ’70s Montreal made me focus my China watching on language.