Dancing To Prison
1983’s Strike Hard Against Crime Campaign led to the arrests of many innocent victims, caught up in a culture of fear. One of them was...
Nicholas Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn on China from 1988 to Now
The Pulitzer Prize winning New York Times journalists reflect back on their time in Beijing three decades ago, and what has changed since.
Ep. 13: Peter Hessler on ‘Other Rivers’
The bestselling author first taught in China in the late 1990s. In 2019, he went back. We caught up with him to ask what had...
How a Chinese Student Turned Marxist
Intellectual young Chinese — once the socialist vanguard, now struggling to get by in a capitalist economy — are turning left once more. But when...
Edward Wong on the Edge of Empire
The New York Times journalist tells us how his father followed Mao's star in the 1950s — and how the frontiers he reported on in...
The Martyrdom of Liu Xiaobo
China’s dissident writer was an exemplar of iconoclastic intellectual spirit, pursuing a more humane society despite state repression. A new biography draws the arc of...
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...
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...
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...
One for the History Books
How Endymion Wilkinson’s encyclopedia of Chinese history grew from 70,000 words in 1973 to 1.75 million words for its 50th anniversary edition.
Ep. 4: How ‘Leftover Women’ Reshape China
Educated, unmarried Chinese women have been dubbed “leftovers” by the state, who want them to focus on having children. Their independence is transforming China’s demographics...