Editor’s note for Monday, August 10, 2020

My thoughts today:

The thinking behind our new format

On Friday, I asked for feedback on the changes we’ve been making to the format of this newsletter. Thanks very much to all of you who responded. If you’d still like to tell us what you think, just reply to this email with comments of any kind!

“Today’s top stories” — which you can see above right at the top of the email — are the headlines of our main stories each day, the ones you find below written up in more detail. What we think is the most significant news of the day is always at the very top. This is followed by other important news, and stories that we think are important for understanding China right now but that would not qualify as breaking news.

If you want to get straight to the news, scroll down to “Top Stories” below. Otherwise, the next stop is “My thoughts today,” which contains commentary from me, or a short piece of thought-provoking writing by someone else and links to the source.  

After “Top Stories” is a section called “What we’re reading,” which excerpts from and links to newly published writing (and video, audio, etc.) that we think is worth your time.

And then there are the links. We’ve removed most of the short summaries (at least one of our dear readers has complained about this — please tell me if there are others), but we have tried to tighten up the writing of the little headlines so that you know what the story is about in just a few words.

So that’s the master plan! Do tell us if it’s working — or not — if you have not already.

Upcoming online event that might interest you:

Thinking outside the archive — Wednesday, August 19, at 7:30 p.m. EST. Emily Baum (University of California, Irvine) and Denise Y. Ho (Yale University) present an online webinar for “graduate students in Chinese history and Chinese studies, broadly defined.” This is one of a three-part series, intended to address some of the unprecedented challenges students are facing in conducting research and pursuing their professional development. Register here.

Our word of the day is to be arrested: 被捕 bèi bǔ.

—Jeremy Goldkorn, Editor-in-Chief