Neican: US-China, ideology, Peng Shuai

1. US-China relations Summit Biden and Xi held a virtual summit [US readout | PRC readout (in Chinese)]. While the US readout is only four paragraphs, the Chinese readout ran to 20 paragraphs, mostly paraphrasing Xi. Both readouts are very polite, couched in diplomatic rhetoric 外交辞令. Such diplomatic rhetoric has been helpfully translated by Chinese … more

Neican: Plenum, climate, Keating, tennis

1. 6th Plenum: outcomes The 6th Plenum concluded on Thursday with a communiqué [Chinese | English] that held little surprises: Xi was lionised and history whitewashed. We put together a bilingual side-by-side version of the communiqué for those of you preferring to work with both languages: Click here to download the PDF The most significant … more

Neican: Plenum, PLA, focus on China, esports

1. Sixth Plenum preview The Sixth Plenum is currently underway in Beijing and will run until Thursday. For background on plenums and how they fit into China’s political system, see our explainers (written | video) from last year. The outcome of this Plenum is important to both policies in China as well as Xi’s prospects … more

Feminism as a force for anti-colonialism in 1930s Manchukuo

May Fourth feminists

In 1931 the Japanese military seized Northeast China and in the following year established the puppet state of Manchukuo. As in other Japanese colonies and in contemporary Western colonial empires, the state used female education to promote its colonial goals. In Manchukuo, the Japanese used the conservative values of “Good Wives and Wise Mothers (GWWM良妻賢母)” … more

Neican: Climate, history, Digicel, news sources, Li Yundi

1. Climate policy The Chinese Government is getting very serious about climate change. A few days ago (just before the Glasgow Climate Change Conference), the Central Committee and the State Council jointly released Working Guidance For Carbon Dioxide Peaking And Carbon Neutrality In Full And Faithful Implementation Of The New Development Philosophy 关于完整准确全面贯彻新发展理念做好碳达峰碳中和工作的意见 [English | … more

When Beijing Opera Represented Taiwan

Beijing opera

In 1973 and 1974, the Taiwan-based Republic of China (ROC) government dispatched its “National Chinese Opera Theater” (NCOT) to the United States in order to challenge the international image of its archrival, the People’s Republic of China (PRC). However, the NCOT failed to generate widespread political support for the ROC. The ROC’s reliance on an … more

Neican: Chinese language media in Australia, censorship in media, US-China trade, BRI debt, Taiwan flights

1. Chinese language media in Australia Two recently published papers shed some insights on Chinese-language media in Australia: Waning Sun’s journal article “Chinese-language digital news media in Australia” published in June in Continuum: Journal of Media and Cultural Studies and Fan Yang’s analysis “Translating tension” published last week by the Lowy Institute. Sun focused her … more