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>>

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>>

A Date with the Cultural Revolution

Two intellectuals find fear and love at a Trump rally

Qiong Liu

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>>

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>>

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>>

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>>

U.S. and China Just Set New Road Rules for Science Collaboration. Americans Will Benefit If We Don't Scrap Joint Research

Brendan Kelly & Jing Qian via Foreign Policy

Amid heightened U.S.-China strategic and technology competition, bilateral scientific collaboration has become increasingly challenging. China’s broad military-civil fusion and espionage efforts have heightened Washington’s concerns that any collaboration could be exploited to advance Beijing’s military development. China’s increasingly closed information environment has also exacerbated doubts around whether the results and benefits of collaboration will be properly shared.In this environment... Read full story>>

The Tibetan Government-in-Exile Has a New Strategy

Robert Barnett

An unexpected development has taken place in the seven-decades-long dispute between the Tibetan exile leadership and China’s government. In early July, for the first time since 2010, Chinese authorities reportedly held direct talks with the exile Tibetan political leadership, based in Dharamsala, India. The meeting in July followed a year or more of back-channel contacts of some kind.These talks are at only a very preliminary stage and may not last. Beijing has not confirmed that it has had... Read full story>>

ChinaFile Presents: ‘Nikah,’ a Film Screening and Discussion

Mukaddas Mijit, Bastien Ehouzan & more

The film ‘Nikah,’ set in China’s Uyghur region in 2017, spans the months between two weddings. It follows Dilber, a young woman approaching a crossroads amid the Chinese government’s surveilling and detaining of members of her community. As even her most personal decisions become suddenly political, Dilber must struggle with the tension between tradition and modernity, as her world closes in around her. Co-directors Mukaddas Mijit and Bastien Ehouzan were in conversation with ChinaFile Senior... Read full story>>