Editor’s note for Wednesday, February 2, 2022

My thoughts today:

China’s propaganda organizations want the country’s youth to make silicon chips! “A studio is making a 40-episode TV drama on the story of a Chinese student who returned from the U.S. (after Beijing’s enticement) to build a chip company, and afterwards guide future generations,” per Dan Wang, or see Baike for more (in Chinese).

Meanwhile in the U.S., the Pew Research Center has released the results of new surveys which found that “unfavorable views of China remain near historic highs in most advanced economies.”

Our word of the day is Iraq (伊拉克 yīlākè).

—Jeremy Goldkorn, Editor-in-Chief