‘Survival Comes First’

A Chinese Internet content monitor explains the job

Wang Xiao via China Media Project

Generation Z has now become the primary force among China’s growing ranks of China’s online content moderators, who number in the tens of thousands. Their physical stamina means they generally fare better with the intense demands of the job and can stay up late to respond quickly to issues with sensitive content. They now handle the bulk of the work for major internet platforms when it comes to content moderation. Also known as the “Internet Generation,” Generation Z also includes those born... Read full story>>

Former Chinese Enemies Increasingly Aligned on Taiwan

Taiwan’s KMT is closer than ever to its old nemesis, the Chinese Communist Party. Many Taiwanese who seek to maintain their sovereignty are worried.

Chris Horton

A conservative party pledging to return the country to a glorious imagined past. Massive budget cuts across government ministries. Concerns about foreign influence. An unprecedented challenge of governmental checks and balances as a constitutional crisis looms.This is not the U.S., but rather is the reality that Taiwan has been grappling with for the past year. With its legislature just opened for spring sessions in late February, Taiwan is preparing for a year of domestic political turbulence... Read full story>>

U.S.-Soviet Détente and the Future of U.S.-China Relations

Christopher Chivvis

In the early 1960s, the United States and the Soviet Union passed through a period of intense rivalry. The Soviets built the Berlin Wall. A nuclear war almost broke out over Soviet plans to deploy missiles to Cuba. But surprisingly, within a few years relations started to thaw. President Richard Nixon, although a devout anti-communist, announced in his 1969 inaugural address: “After a period of confrontation, we are entering an era of negotiation.” By the end of Nixon’s first term in office,... Read full story>>

Xi Jinping’s Purges Have Escalated. Here’s Why They Are Unlikely to Stop

Wu Guoguang

The final months of 2024 witnessed a new wave of purges in Xi Jinping’s China. On November 28, the Defense Ministry announced the suspension from his duties of Admiral Miao Hua, the number four military leader below Xi, who oversaw the political and organizational work of the People’s Liberation Army (PLA). Miao’s ouster makes him the third PLA general in charge of political and organizational work Xi has purged, and the second of the six members of the 20th Central Military Commission. An... Read full story>>

Learning the Wrong Lessons at Harvard

I witnessed a protest at a speech by China's Ambassador. Neither university officials nor their critics in Congress have the correct approach to what happened next

Aaron Glasserman

Last fall, Harvard University once again found itself in the crosshairs of the U.S. Congress in a spat that left both institutions compromising American values and competitiveness. On October 18, the House Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party released a report on its investigation into Harvard’s handling of an incident that occurred during remarks by China’s ambassador to the United States, Xie Feng, at an on-campus conference in April. As was reported in the days following the... Read full story>>

A Date with the Cultural Revolution

Two intellectuals find fear and love at a Trump rally

Q

At first glance, J and Q were stereotypical highly-educated Democrats. They resided in Lexington, Virginia, a small liberal college town of 7,000 where they each worked at historic institutions of higher education. J, a business professor, taught rich Republicans at a private liberal arts school. Q, a historian, taught the less affluent Republicans at a state-supported military college. J’s eight-year-old daughter, already fluent in the subtleties of American class distinctions, once proudly... Read full story>>

In Taiwan, a Growing Cohort of ‘Preppers’ Readies Itself for an Uncertain Future

Grace Marion

Jenny Huang is practicing cleaning water from the creek near her apartment in Linkou, northwest of Taipei. She pours the water through pantyhouse to filter out sediment, then coffee filters for smaller particles, and finally adds iodine to kill bacteria and any microorganisms in the water. The 48-year-old mother of one believes someday it might be a necessity. She doesn’t bother learning how to gather rainwater, she says, because it is too polluted in the city, but for the most part the creek... Read full story>>

Trains: A Chinese Family History of Railway Journeys, Exile, and Survival

Part III

Zha Jianying

12.This happened in the 1990s:Two decades after her family moved back to Wuhan, Aunt Dongsheng made a special trip to Fularki. My grandfather had died by then, but my little uncle Lusheng was still alive, and in his sober, wistful moments, he would beg Aunt Dongsheng: “Could you go bring Mom home from the northeast?”It was a very long journey by train, so Aunt Dongsheng got off in Beijing to take a break. Before getting back on the train, she bought a roll of film at a store near the train... Read full story>>

Behind the Exodus of U.S. Law Firms from China

A ChinaFile Conversation

Donald Clarke, Margaret Lewis & more via ChinaFile Conversation

In early December, U.S. law firm Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison announced plans to close its office in Beijing. In 1981, Paul Weiss became one of the earliest foreign law firms to open an office in Beijing, but it is one of the latest of a growing number of American and global firms to leave China or shrink China operations. In early December, Mayer Brown spun off its Hong Kong office. In October, Wilmer Cutler Pickering Hale and Dorr said it would close its Beijing... Read full story>>