How to get out of China is a question occupying the minds of the wealthy, the rebellious, and everyone in China who doesn’t like living in Xi Jinping’s New Era. But the desire to escape is not new, as we see in this oral history from the late 1980s by Sang Ye, translated and introduced by eminent Sinologist Geremie Barmé.
We know almost nothing about how the senior leadership of the Communist Party makes decisions, but that does not stop wild speculation in the media about factional fighting and even attempts to overthrow Xi Jinping. Scholar Wu Guoguang lays out how we should think about the information vacuum, translated and introduced by the eminent Sinologist Geremie R. Barmé.
How can scholars, journalists, and others engage with China ethically? The eminent Sinologist Geremie Barmé offers 10 watchwords.
A scholar of elite Chinese politics examines the various theories and rumors about the disappearance of the former foreign minister.
Xi Jinping took visiting French president Emmanuel Macron for a pas de deux in the Pines in a garden originally built for Chairman Mao. Macron was suitably impressed, and said all the right things that a ‘true friend of China’ must say.
The man behind the famed “Chained Woman” case has been given a sentence of a mere nine years in prison, which has drawn frustration from many, including lawyer and citizen journalist Chen Qiushi. The following is a translation of his outraged commentary.
Dr. Lǐ Wénliàng 李文亮 is the doctor who tried to warn his colleagues about the spread of COVID-19 in Wuhan in early 2020, was silenced by the authorities, and forced to write a self-criticism. This is a translation of that document by renowned Sinologist Geremie Barmé to mark Li’s death three years ago this week.
Legal scholar Xu Zhangrun, formerly of the prestigious Tsinghua University, has been a pariah in Beijing since he wrote a takedown of Xi Jinping four years ago. In this work of creative nonfiction introduced and translated by Geremie R. Barmé, Xu takes us into his new life as a social outcast.
Shanghai residents are seething under strict COVID-19 lockdowns that have left many imprisoned in their apartments without food. A video of one old man’s complaints that went viral gives an idea of the depth of discontent that some Shanghainese people are feeling.
The fall of Kabul to the Taliban reminded some nationalistic Chinese commenters of the victory of the People’s Liberation Army in 1949. They have a point, argues the noted Sinologist Geremie R. Barmé.