Written in the Stars: How Old is China?
Chinese astronomers and the European Jesuits who worked alongside them found evidence of China’s antiquity in the heavens. Others were sceptical: how old was China really?
China
The Lin Biao Incident
On 13 September 1971 a plane carrying Mao’s anointed heir crashed in Eastern Mongolia. What really happened to Lin Biao?
Delivering the Chinese Post Office
As Late Imperial China sought to rebuild as a modern state from the ashes of war, a new national post office was born.
‘The Worlds of Victor Sassoon’ by Rosemary Wakeman review
Rosemary Wakeman’s The Worlds of Victor Sassoon: Bombay, London, Shanghai, 1918-1941 is a tale of three cities linked by globalisation and a singular global citizen.
China’s Communist Comic Books
How did the People’s Republic of China cope with a literary canon filled with un-communist ideas? Comics called lianhuanhua were the answer, at least for a while.
On the Spot: Gina Anne Tam
‘What is the most common misconception about my field? That China has “5,000 years” of continuous history.’
How the CCP is Closing China
Forty years of opening and reform persuaded a lot of people that the Chinese are not really communists. But modern China was modelled on the USSR, and its leaders want to revert to their Leninist roots.
An Uyghur Chieftain in China’s Civil War
How did Uyghur chieftain Yolbars Khan come to be buried in a Chinese Nationalist grave in Taipei? The answer reveals much about China’s violent relationship with its most western province.
Sun Tzu and the Art of Becoming Famous
How did Sun Tzu and The Art of War become synonymous with strategy in the West?
The Power of Protests
Recent protests in China are part of a long tradition of student activism, but results are often lacklustre.