Excerpt

The Thief Who Became a Celebrity

When Zhou Liqi went viral on the Chinese internet for stealing scooters to protest social immobility, he sparked a debate between the popular movement of “lying flat” and the state’s desire for “positive energy.” The state won.

Workers of the World, Rewrite!

A Chinese non-fiction writer finds himself in the same straits as the migrant laborer-artists of Picun village whom he profiles.

Can Germany Find a Better China Strategy?

Under Merkel and Scholz, Germany was criticized as being soft on China. Three new books explain the backstory to Berlin’s relationship with Beijing, and how — with a new Chancellor incoming — the prospect for change has never been so great, nor so uncertain.

Ep. 18: Lijia Zhang on Women’s Stories

The memoirist and novelist talks us through her grandmother's and mother’s stories, as well as her own, and discusses how the status of women has changed in China through the decades.

Kublai Khan, from Land to Ocean

Kublai Khan’s Yuan dynasty, like the Mongol empire, is thought of as a land power. A new work of popular history argues that its real strength and wealth came from the sea.

Hal Brands on the Axis of Autocracies

The foreign policy expert discusses his new book, why he thinks that China is the most formidable player in an emerging “axis of autocracies” and what Washington should do about it.

Jerome A. Cohen on Chinese Legal Reform

The veteran China watcher discusses his memoirs, the challenges of reforming Chinese law, meeting Zhou Enlai in the Cultural Revolution, and the CIA's Yale recruitment efforts.

Upcoming books

China’s 1800s

Jessica Harrison-Hall

March 20, 2025

British Museum Press

Remembrance in Clay and Stone

Hajni Elias

March 25, 2025

Columbia University Press

Europeans in Hong Kong

Mark O'Neill

March 25, 2025

Earnshaw Books

Latin America, China, and Great Power Competition

Enrique Dussel Peters

March 25, 2025

Lynne Rienner Publishers, Inc.

Chinese Thirdspace

Jianmei Liu

March 25, 2025

Columbia University Press

Browse more upcoming
Recent books

Not Just Another Cold War

Ed. Bard Nikolas Vik Steen

March 19, 2025

Oxford University Press

Soft Burial

Fang Fang (tr. Michael Berry)

March 18, 2025

Columbia University Press

The Running Flame

Fang Fang (tr. Michael Berry)

March 18, 2025

Columbia University Press

Remembering 1942

Liu Zhenyun (tr. Howard Goldblatt, Sylvia Li-chun Lin)

March 18, 2025

Arcade

The Adoption Plan

Jack Neubauer

March 18, 2025

Columbia University Press

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Bestselling books

Seven Things You Can’t Say About China

Tom Cotton

February 18, 2025

Broadside Books

168 Better Than Takeout Chinese Recipes

Mandy Fu

October 9, 2024

Souped Up Recipes

The Night Ends with Fire

K.X. Song

July 2, 2024

Penguin Random House

Homeseeking

Karissa Chen

January 7, 2025

G.P. Putnam's Sons

You Must Take Part in Revolution

Badiucao, Melissa Chan

March 4, 2025

Street Noise Books

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Editors' picks

At the Edge of Empire

Edward Wong

June 25, 2024

Viking

Private Revolutions

Yuan Yang

July 2, 2024

Viking

Other Rivers

Peter Hessler

July 9, 2024

Penguin Press

Sound and Silence

Yan Lianke

April 23, 2024

Duke University Press

Granta #169: China

Various

November 12, 2024

Granta

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From the Archive

Is China’s Post-1978 Legal System a Mirage?

The scholar of Chinese law argues that post-Mao legal reform — as aided by Western lawyers including him — may yet prove enduring. Its critics say it enabled a dictatorship.

Reginald Johnston: Twilight in the Forbidden City

A Scotsman’s memoir of tutoring Puyi, China’s “last emperor,” is more than just court gossip — it’s a tantalizing portrait of China’s imperial trappings.

Found in Translation

An award-winning novel set in Japanese-occupied Taiwan explores the relationship between colonizer and subaltern, translator and translated — and how some distances can’t be closed.

Books to Better Understand Taiwan

Five recent titles show there is more to the island than just politics, from historical profiles to a cookbook that sets Taiwanese and Chinese cuisine apart.

Ep. 17: Lau Yee-Wa on Hong Kong Fiction

We talked to the author of "Tongueless" about how Cantonese is disappearing from Hong Kong schools, and what literature can do to raise awareness.

The Thrilling Truth

A new thriller set in 1930s Shanghai includes just enough historical detail to be believable. But is history at risk of being overtaken by fiction?

What If Hu Yaobang Had Lived?

The former Chinese Communist Party leader’s ousting and death led to the Tiananmen protests, but his life reveals a deeper push and pull between reformist and conservative impulses.

Eva Dou on Huawei and Chinese Tech

Eva Dou discusses her new history of Huawei, the Chinese telecommunications giant at the center of the U.S.-China tech wars, and the future of Chinese technology in Trump’s America.

The Curse of the "Good Premier”

Zhou Enlai, Mao Zedong’s second-in-command, has been lionized as a moderating force who held back Mao’s excesses. But does he deserve that reputation, when he also enabled them?

Graham Peck: Two Kinds of Time

An American writer’s memoir of World War II China remains a timely diagnosis of the pathologies of U.S. foreign policy in the wake of the “loss” of China.

Huawei Goes to Iraq

How the Chinese telecom giant built a global business by chasing contracts in the Middle East — and attracted U.S. regulation in the process.

What China Read in 2024

Five books published in China last year, from fiction to memoir, reveal a nation still reeling from the pandemic, and finding a new literary voice in its aftermath.

China’s 1800s

168 Better Than Takeout Chinese Recipes

From the Archive

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