Where the Malan Blooms

60 Years After the First Chinese Nuclear Bomb

By Yangyang Cheng on October 16, 2024

This October 16 marks the 60th anniversary of the testing of the first Chinese nuclear bomb. When my friends and I coiled up our jump ropes and returned to class, we learned inspirational tales about the earliest generation of Chinese nuclear scientists, who left the comfort of home for the northwestern frontier and toiled in anonymity to forge the country’s atomic shield. In the same classrooms and from the same textbooks, we also marveled at our motherland’s vastness and diversity: every inch on the map had been part of China since time immemorial, and the Han majority and all 55 ethnic minorities constituted one big happy family.

Tick Tock for TikTok

A ChinaFile Conversation

By Kevin Xu, Ivy Yang & more on October 4, 2024

Will TikTok succeed in defending itself on First Amendment grounds, or will it be forced to shut down in the U.S.? Or will ByteDance find a creative way out of the problem? What will this case mean for Chinese business interests in the U.S. and the future of tech? And given that Donald Trump appears to have reversed his earlier position on banning TikTok while Joe Biden signed the ban, what effect might the TikTok ban have on the U.S. election?

China’s Iconoclast

By Ian Johnson on October 3, 2024

I Have No Enemies: The Life and Legacy of Liu Xiaobo by Perry Link, the leading Western chronicler of dissent in China, and a Chinese colleague who writes anonymously as Wu Dazhi is the definitive biography of the most famous dissident in the nearly seventy-five-year history of the People’s Republic of China. The book, long and necessarily ambitious, is also a tour de force survey of Chinese political thought, activism, and dissent over the past half-century.

Ivy Yang

on October 1, 2024

Ivy Yang is the founder of Wavelet Strategy, a New York-based consultancy specializing in thought leadership and reputation management. Wavelet helps businesses craft compelling narratives, develop strategic content, and engage key stakeholders to boost visibility and impact in global markets.

Yang writes Calling the Shots, a Substack focused on bridging the U.S.-China communication gap through stories of successes and challenges. She is also a columnist for the Financial Times Chinese edition, where she explores cross-cultural communication, business strategy, and global market trends.

Yang graduated from New York University with a degree in Media, Culture, and Communication and holds an MBA from Columbia Business School.