China’s post-socialist modernisation and economic growth in the 1980s and 1990s have led to great political and institutional changes and deepened structural inequalities, creating a large marginalised subaltern group whose lives have been shaped by shifting labour markets and migration policies (Hillenbrand 2023; Pun 2016). Today, the stories of China’s ‘subaltern’ are widely heard, from […]
In the Chinese music scene, women have traditionally been confined to roles embodying elegance and obedience. This is exemplified by groups such as the 12 Girls Band, whose success, built on performing traditional instruments such as the guzheng (古筝) and pipa (琵琶), aligns with societal expectations of femininity, reinforcing Confucian stereotypes of Chinese women as […]
The Chinese diasporic media operates within a fragmented and turbulent environment. It is exceedingly difficult to deliver uncensored, meaningful content that can connect communities and reflect the complex realities of life both within and outside China. Over the past decade, Xi Jinping’s administration has tightened its grip on Chinese society by expanding state control and […]
When Liu Lipeng first contacted me in July 2020, I was still in China. I initially wanted to write this as a fictional short story, but I didn’t have the courage to do it at the time because it would have landed me in prison. I left China in 2021 and spent time thinking about […]
In late March 2022, Shanghai imposed its strictest lockdowns since the Covid-19 outbreak two years earlier. Amid China’s stringent zero-Covid policy and crackdown on personal freedoms, internet searches for ‘conditions for immigrating to Canada’ surged, drawing the attention of authorities. To circumvent censorship on emigration-related searches, Chinese netizens adopted the code word run (润), whose […]
The People’s Daily (人民日报) publishes important announcements on behalf of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). It covers high-level politics, economic achievements, diplomatic breakthroughs, and other serious topics. So, on 14 December 1984, a reader might have been surprised to see the paper run the playful headline ‘Interprovincial Dating Project’ (跨省市恋爱协作) (People’s Daily 1984). The article […]
An industrial policy renaissance, trade controls, and geopolitical challenges are further complicating the permanent features of the current global (dis)order that is already facing a polycrisis: economic stagnation, climate crisis, and interstate war. The era of neoliberal globalisation—often seen as being synonymous with the Washington Consensus—that has long been a central feature of the international […]
Covert Colonialism: Governance, Surveillance and Political Culture in British Hong Kong, c. 1966–97 (Manchester University Press, 2023) examines state–society relations in one of the United Kingdom’s last strategically important colonial dependencies, Hong Kong. Using underexploited archival evidence, it explores how a reformist colonial administration investigated Chinese political culture, and how activism by social movements in […]
This essay re-examines the Great Translation Movement (GTM) as an activist-journalistic initiative that challenges the authority of the Chinese Party-State by exposing its support for Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Highlighting a problematic aspect of the GTM, it calls into question its oversimplified portrayal of the Chinese people, as it perpetuates national character discourse by attributing societal issues to perceived inherent traits of the populace rather than holding the regime to account. The GTM’s engagement with Chinese political discourse appears to be driven by its coordinators’ alignment with Euro-American right-wing populism, fostering self-racialisation and internalised racism that ultimately distort dissent within China’s political landscape.
The Prince Claus Fund is a Netherlands-based independent organisation dedicated to the advancement of culture and development, particularly in places where culture is under pressure. Every two years, it gives out six Impact Awards to outstanding cultural practitioners and artists worldwide. One of the 2024 laureates was Chinese poet and fiction writer Mu Cao (墓草), […]
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