Brave Attempt
A new account tells the story of the 2019 Hong Kong protests, and their failures, through four individual lives. But we need more unmediated voices...
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Minxin Pei: China’s Surveillance State
China's surveillance capabilities are often presented as feats of futuristic technology. But its true advantage lies in human networks of informers and state workers.
Yiyun Li: ‘You’re Always Chinese’
The Chinese-born writer of fiction and memoir left in 1996 and has moved on to other settings in her work. But can a writer ever...
Alec Ash on Rural Escape in Dali
From dissidents to drop-outs, why are some Chinese seeking a rural escape hatch from the promises of the modern urban state? An Asia Society book...
All We Have to Fear
The Western world has held an outsized fear of Chinese power for centuries. But why? A new book argues that alarmism began in the late...
Peter Goullart: Forgotten Kingdom
20 years after “Shangri-La” was coined in the Western imagination, a Russian adventurer published a memoir from the valley of Lijiang, southwest China, that is...
China’s Lexicon of Digital Resistance
Netizens on the Chinese internet have been using buzzwords and memes for decades, to express obliquely what they cannot directly. From the “river crab” to...
Ep. 6: Spy Novels, True Thriller
The China Books podcast talks to Adam Brookes, author of a China spy novel trilogy and a WWII non-fiction thriller, about writing on China for...
The Reverse Migrants
After decades of urbanization and economic development, a cohort of China's population is seeking rural refuge and personal development instead — moving back to the...
Jianying Zha’s China Bookshelf
The writer and cultural commentator picks five titles from her shelf, from Henry Kissinger’s transcripts to a Cultural Revolution memoir — and tells us what...
From the Mines to the Glaciers
Coal energy fired China’s explosive growth. But its emissions contributed to the melting of Himalayan ice. In photographs from a new exhibit, a picture speaks...
What China’s Reading: How Past Reflects Present
Chinese literature has a long tradition of using history to discuss contemporary affairs. Our columnist picks five recent titles that do just that, from Shang...