Editor’s note for Friday, April 9, 2021
A note from the editor of today's The China Project Access newsletter.
My thoughts today:
The fall and fall of Jack Ma continues: The Financial Times reports that his โelite business academy has been forced to suspend new student enrollments following pressure from Beijing as authorities tighten their chokehold on the Chinese tech billionaireโs empire.โ
The South China Morning Post may be next. How long can it be before the Party forces Ma to sell Hong Kongโs most important English-language newspaper to a more Beijing-friendly owner? That would kill two birds with one stone.
2034: A Novel of the Next World War, by two former military officers, which describes a conflict between China and the U.S., has been widely praised for its realism. None of the reviews have pointed out basic mistakes, like Chinese generals who donโt use pinyin for their names. If those kinds of mistakes bother you, youโll enjoy this review from the authors of the SpyTalk newsletter.
Our word of the day is pixilation (of parts of photos or videos to hide faces, brands, or private parts; ้ฉฌ่ตๅ mวsร ikรจ).
Itโs a loan word from the English mosaic, which is its literal meaning, but itโs most commonly encountered nowadays in reference to the blurring of photos and videos to hide identities.
โJeremy Goldkorn, Editor-in-Chief
