A Radical Realist View of Tibetan Buddhism at the Rubin

By Ian Johnson on July 13, 2019

For many, Buddhism is “a religion of peace” and its adaptation for political purposes, even to inspire violence, feels flat-out wrong. That makes the exhibition at the Rubin Museum of Art, “Faith and Empire: Art and Politics in Tibetan Buddhism,” an especially welcome landmark, the first in-depth exploration of the topic. Tightly organized around some 60 items, the show is accompanied by a catalog of photos and essays by some of the leading scholars in the relatively new field of Tibetan studies. Together, the exhibition and the book go a long way toward demystifying Tibetan Buddhism, art, and politics, showing how closely they have been intertwined over the past 1,300 years.

Todd R. Darling

on July 10, 2019

Todd R. Darling is an American documentary photographer based in Hong Kong, where he began his career photographing the Umbrella Movement for Polaris Images in 2014. He studied Documentary Practice and Visual Journalism at the International Center of Photography from 2016 to 2017 and the Eddie Adams Workshop in 2017. Todd recently completed work on a documentary project that began in 2016, about Paterson, New Jersey. The project, inspired by local poets William Carlos Williams and Alan Ginsberg, is a lyrical interrogation of the American dream told through the singular experience of America’s first industrial city and its people. Darling is currently working on a collaborative portrait project in Hong Kong about its people and the city as it grapples with a shifting social, political, and cultural landscape due to its increasing integration with mainland China.

Kissinger on Kissinger

By Winston Lord on July 9, 2019

St. Martin’s Press: As National Security Advisor to Richard Nixon, Henry Kissinger transformed America’s approach to diplomacy with China, the USSR, Vietnam, and the Middle East, laying the foundations for geopolitics as we know them today.

Nearly 50 years later, escalating tensions between the U.S., China, and Russia are threatening a swift return to the same diplomatic game of tug-of-war that Kissinger played so masterfully. Kissinger on Kissinger is a series of faithfully transcribed interviews conducted by the elder statesman’s longtime associate, Winston Lord, which captures Kissinger’s thoughts on the specific challenges that he faced during his tenure as the National Security Agency, his general advice on leadership and international relations, and stunning portraits of the larger-than-life world leaders of the era. The result is a frank and well-informed overview of U.S. foreign policy in the first half of the 1970s.

The Other Tiananmen Papers

A ChinaFile Conversation

By David Shambaugh, Evan Medeiros & more on July 8, 2019

In the wake of the lethal use of force by China’s military against demonstrators in Tiananmen Square and citizens of Beijing on June 4, 1989, the United States and other governments were confronted with a series of vexing moral and policy questions. What to say publicly and how to say it? What to convey privately to the Chinese leadership and through what channels? How to balance the immediate moral indignation with consideration of longer-term national interests? What to do about the extensive set of linkages between the U.S. (and other nations) and China’s Party-governmental authorities and military—as well as the extensive ties among private sector actors? Should foreign citizens be evacuated? Should official exchanges be frozen or terminated, or should doors and private channels of communication be left open? What sanctions should be enacted to penalize China’s government without hurting the Chinese people? How broadly should such steps be coordinated among foreign governments, how many would cooperate, and was the reaction in the West shared by governments in Asia and elsewhere? What to do about Chinese abroad who did not wish to return to China under current circumstances?

U.S.-China Diplomacy After Tiananmen: Documents from the George H.W. Bush Presidential Library

on July 8, 2019

These are the main documents in the George H.W. Bush presidential archives from the six months after June 4, 1989 that most pertain to how the Bush administration assessed the situation and decided to proceed following the Tiananmen Square crackdown. David Shambaugh and ChinaFile thank the staff of the George H.W. Bush Presidential Library for their cooperation and assistance.

• Press Conference by the President, The White House, June 5, 1989. (A searchable transcript, along with video, is available here.) (1-9)

• Cable from Department of State to U.S. Embassy Beijing concerning Secretary of State James Baker’s meeting with Chinese Ambassador Han Xu, June 7, 1989. (10-14)

• Press Conference by President George H.W. Bush, June 8, 1989. (Video is available here.) (15-18)

• Memorandum of Conversation: LTG Brent Scowcroft, Deng Xiaoping, et al, July 2, 1989. (19-32)

• Letter from President George H.W. Bush to Deng Xiaoping, July 21, 1989. (33-37)

• National Security Council Memorandum for Brent Scowcroft from Douglas Paal, Subject: China—Outlook Even Bleaker than it Seems, August 4, 1989. (38-40)

• Letter from President George H.W. Bush to Deng Xiaoping, November 6, 1989. (41-42)

• Letter from former President Richard Nixon to President George H.W. Bush, November 9, 1989. (43)

• Cable from Brent Scowcroft to Ambassador James Lilley, November 10, 1989. (44-46)

• Toast by National Security Council Advisor Brent Scowcroft to Chinese Foreign Minister Qian Qichen, Beijing, December 9, 1989. (47-48)

• Toast by Chinese Foreign Minister Qian Qichen to National Security Council Advisor Brent Scowcroft, Beijing, December 9, 1989. (49-50)

• Memorandum of Conversation: Working Lunch between Chinese Foreign Minister Qian Qichen and National Security Council Advisor Brent Scowcroft, Beijing, December 10, 1989. (51-55)

• Memorandum of Conversation: Private Meeting of National Security Advisor Brent Scowcroft with Chinese Foreign Minister Qian Qichen, Beijing, December 10, 1989. (56-59)

• Memorandum of Conversation: Meeting between Premier Li Peng, General Scowcroft et al, Beijing, December 10, 1989. (60-65)

• Memorandum of Conversation: Meeting between Chinese Communist Party General Secretary Jiang Zemin and National Security Council Advisor Brent Scowcroft, December 10, 1989. (66-72)

• Cable from Department of State to all U.S. Embassies worldwide, on Scowcroft-Eagleburger Mission to China, December 14, 1989. (73-75)

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The Journey of a Bra

A Roundup of China’s Best Photojournalism

By Ye Ming, Yan Cong & more on July 1, 2019

Many of the photo stories in this edition of Depth of Field cover issues relating to women and gender, including a piece on women from Madagascar married to men in rural Zhejiang province, artistic photo collaborations with women and men who have experienced sexual assault, the manufacturing of a bra, and a series of profiles of female Chinese photographers. Others explore cities: Li Ya’nan travels to Homs and Aleppo in Syria to document how conflict has impacted the country, and food couriers capture the scenes along their delivery routes.

Zen Music: A Buddhist Orchestra in the Mountains | Tencent “Guyu”

on July 1, 2019

Tiantai Temple, in the mountains of Hubei province, has a history dating back to 622 AD. The old Buddhist temple now has something unconventional: 60 of its monks and nuns play in an orchestra as part of their Buddhist practice. Inspired by Christian church choir music, the Abbot, Wule, who trained as a violinist, founded a string quartet in the temple in 2004, and it grew into an orchestra in 2008. Professional and amateur musicians volunteer to train the monks and nuns.