China Analysis Digest
Publications from October 14-22, 2021
Hey folks,
An update on the digest project…
We started publishing the Analysis Digest in March and the Scholarship Digest in August. Since then, we have experimented around, expanded the source lists, and revised the codes that make it all work.
In the last couple of months, we’ve been working on overhauling the code architecture. Very pleased that it’s now finally complete! You probably wouldn’t feel much of a difference, but it’s a world of difference for us: the backstage tech we used was cumbersome and inefficient — but no longer! Importantly, we can now more accurately capture and filter out content.
We’ve also made some changes to the Analysis Digest. We’ve added a batch of new sources, bringing the total up to 100. This covers most of the publications that I find useful on China. In addition, we’ve now put the sources into broad categories so that it’s easier for you to jump between different types of sources.
Since the two existing digests are now in good shape, we are starting work on the next one: the Official China Digest. This digest aims to provide lists of primary source official documents coming out of Beijing, including Party and state policy documents, speeches of leaders, meeting readouts, articles in key official publications, etc.
This undertaking is more challenging than the previous digests. It requires mapping out the entire Chinese political system and figuring how to source official material. You can help us by suggesting the categories of material you’d like us to capture, pointing us to sources, and helping us think about how to categorise this information (by type, institution, subject, etc?).
Last but not least, an acknowledgment: a thousand thanks go out to Katharina, my wife, who spent hundreds of hours coding for this project. The digests would simply not have been possible without her enthusiasm, ideas, skills and hard work.
- Adam
China Analysis Digest is a weekly published list of new China-related analyses.
Issue: 2021/34
Date range: October 14-22, 2021
Sources1 scanned: 100
Content: 241 publications from 61 sources
Download raw data (.csv)
Recommended Reading
Remembering Liu Xiaobo’s moral critique of modern China
Kerry Brown | Engelsberg Ideas | October 20
In his reflection of Liu’s critique of China, Brown highlights the “surface similarities” between the key concerns of Liu and Xi Jinping, namely, moral decay. But the two differed in their prescriptions. Liu wanted political reform and democratisation while for Xi it was (and still is) about consolidating the Party’s power and rebuilding its moral leadership. As China sails deeper into Xi’s new era, the moral critique of Liu, a “representative of a tragic generation of intellectuals in China,” is more and not less relevant to us thinking about China’s future. (1379 words)
Of Rose-Coloured Glasses, Old and New
Fabio Lanza | Made in China Journal | October 20
Lanza compares two pro-China stances — that of 1960s global Maoism and that of today — and argues that they are not similar in any meaningful way. He explains:
[T]hey developed under very different historical and political contingencies, which they did, but also because they embody radically different (or rather antithetical) political positions. That the pro-China stance is now embraced by intellectuals and activists who have a direct connection to the longer history of the global left…is revelatory of a crisis on the left and the general collapse of its sets of references, more than of any actual similarity between this moment and that of the 1960s.
The implication for today:
the PRC offers an alternative, not to capitalism, but to the form of the neoliberal state: it might be an alternative path we do not want to follow, but it is one we must examine. We can therefore learn with China, and with Chinese people, not because we are both engaged in a search for radical futures (as in the long 1960s), but because we are all experiencing both the commonalities and the localised contingencies of late capitalism.
Lanza is right: China is not the antithesis of the West, but rather a country dealing with many of the same problems of late capitalism confronting western societies. Even if we don’t agree with the direction China is traveling, we can learn from it. (2574 words)
An insider’s view of China’s Communist Party: Corruption and capitalist excess
Jude Blanchette | Washington Post | October 15
Blanchette, in reviewing Desmond Shum’s new memoir, Red Roulette, raises two issues. The first is critical role of personal relations in Chinese elite politics, which is much harder for outsiders to understand than formal institutions and rules:
[Shum’s memoir] highlight[s] the limitations of more formalistic analysis of China’s political system. While the hierarchical, Leninist nature of party governance and decision-making remains an important conduit for the exercise of authority, it is in the informal interactions among the political, business and military elite that true power is exercised. In this, Shum’s depiction of how power is wielded brings to mind Milovan Djilas’s 1957 critique of Soviet communism, in which he observed: “Meetings of party forums, conferences of the government and assemblies, serve no purpose but to make declarations and put in an appearance. They are only convened to confirm what has previously been cooked up in intimate kitchens.”
Second, unchecked power and the inevitable privilege that arise from it:
As Xi continues to nudge China’s political system in the direction of dictatorship, the official rhetoric of equality and socialism will become more pronounced as he attempts to reforge the party’s popular legitimacy. Yet, as Djilas observed about the Soviet Union, so long as the Communist Party controls all power and property, “it inevitably creates privileges and parasitic functions.” Xi hopes that his very public denouncements of corruption signal a new model of clean authoritarian governance, but as Shum warns in the book’s final passage: “The reality is that the Party’s main purpose is to serve the interests of the sons and daughters of its revolutionaries. They are the primary beneficiaries; they are the ones sitting at the nexus of economic and political power.”
Earlier in the week, a journalist asked me whether Xi and his mates actually believe in their rhetoric about common prosperity. I pointed to the unfolding campaign against the entertainment sector and the wealth of the leaders’ families, and replied: how can they lead morally when their hypocrisy is so glaringly obvious? (983 words)
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China Watching
China Neican
Reading the China Dream
Made in China Journal
China Heritage
China Media Project
Opinion Pages
Project Syndicate
Australian Financial Review
Blogs
China Story
Lawfare
The Interpreter
East Asia Forum
China Dialogue
Pearls and Irritations
Nuclear submarine operations in South China Sea endanger coastal countries
Dodging the debt trap: a better way to compete with China in our region
The cringe comes back: has Australia misunderstood its place in Asia again?
The Strategist
Commemorations of 1911 Revolution highlight ideological rift between Beijing and Taipei
Exposing the Chinese government’s oppression of Xinjiang’s Uyghurs
News & Magazines
Foreign Affairs
Monkey Cage
The Atlantic
The Economist
Sixth Tone
Pricy and Unpleasant, ‘Yangsheng’ Drinks Are Flying Off Shelves
China’s Biggest Influencer Pushes a New Message: Buy Chinese
Quartz
A single tweet is once again putting pressure on the NBA’s China business
China is both unleashing and restricting market forces to secure its energy supplies
Foreign brands are getting caught in China’s online gender wars
Xi Jinping’s vision for China does not involve workers “lying flat”
China’s GDP data shows the damage to its economy from “black swan” events
Tightfisted consumers are becoming a worry for China’s economy
One of the world’s most popular iOS apps right now was developed by Chinese police
China is the engine for global economic growth. What happens if it slows down?
The last US-owned social media platform in China is closing down
China Digital Times
HKU to Remove Pillar of Shame, Erasing Memory of June Fourth Massacre
Minitrue: No Independent Comment from Bar Associations on National Lawyers Congress
Former Journalist Luo Changping Detained for Defaming “Heroes and Martyrs”
The Conversation
China’s global diplomatic approach is shifting, and Australia would do well to pay attention to it
Will the Evergrande crisis doom China’s grandiose, big-spending football dreams?
National Review
The Intercept
The Wire China
SupChina
Xi wants to reshape the economy, but are property taxes going too far?
How China controls Xinjiang: New report sheds light on ‘stability maintenance’ system
Chinese power sector reforms mean more coal now, less coal later
2021-22 CBA season tips off looking radically different than recent past
Justice for Lhamo: Man handed death sentence for live-streamed murder of ex-wife
Netflix doc ‘Found’: Three teenage girls seek roots in China
Tutoring crackdown: Beijing steps in to broker refunds on behalf of parents
ThinkChina
Mainland and HK officials step up visits to the grassroots: Hope for lower-income Hong Kongers?
Strong civilian presence needed to protect Indonesia's sovereignty in the North Natuna Sea
AUKUS: A reflection of ASEAN's inability to cope with China's rising assertiveness?
Tsai Ing-wen's comments on cross-strait relations: Brash or brilliant?
China's reputation in major countries is at its worst. Can it save itself?
China's burgeoning e-commerce cyberspace and its ever more complex regulations
The Diplomat
Chabahar Port and Iran’s Strategic Balancing With China and India
The Biden Administration Has Shown Unwavering Support for Taiwan
Op-Ed in China Draws Backlash for Advocating Women ‘Warm Rural Bachelors’ Beds’
Can Russia and Mongolia Replace Australia’s Coal Supply to China?
China’s Overseas Coal Pledge Is Not a Climate Change Gamechanger
How a Chinese Sailboat Became a Microcosm for Arctic Geopolitics
Pacific Nations Have an Interest in Challenging China’s Expansive Maritime Claims
How China Uses Development Finance Strategically in South Asia
Changes to China’s Banking Law Could Help – or Hurt – the Planet
Foreign Policy
‘Now You’re in a Situation’: Democrats Pressure Biden on Taiwan
China’s Orbital Bombardment System Is Big, Bad News—but Not a Breakthrough
‘It Was Like Having the Chinese Government in the Room With Us’
Think Tanks
MacroPolo
Center for Advanced China Research
Carnegie Endowment for International Peace
MERICS
China’s economy is facing a cyclical and policy-induced downturn
Policy blitz to curb risks stokes downward pressure on the economy over the third quarter of 2021
Course correction: China’s shifting approach to economic globalization
The gaps in the new regional security architecture for the Indo-Pacific
Australia-China Relations Institute
Why apps are a game changer for Chinese-language media in Australia
Perspectives | The PRC’s path to carbon neutrality: Bright future, tortuous road
Atlantic Council
Observer Research Foundation
Australia Strategic Policy Institute
Bilateral
Politico China Direct
Beijing to Britain
Beijing to Canberra and Back
Newsletters
World Game
Eye on China
ChinaTalk
Beijing Baselines
Pekingnology
Takshashila PLA Insight
Tracking People's Daily
Misc
China Law Translate
National People's Congress Observer
Society & Culture
What's on Weibo
Dutch Vlogger Discovers Her Boyfriend’s Photo on a Chinese TV Drama
Chinese Musician Song Dongye Canceled (Again) after Complaining about China’s Cancel Culture
RADII
Paper Republic
Greater China
Lausan
A crowdsourced spreadsheet is the latest tool in Chinese tech worker organizing
As long as there are people, we can continue to write our own stories
Hong Kong Free Press
Even with the Nobel Peace Prize, press freedom remains under fierce attack
Why China’s mass jet incursions mark an ominous new stage in cross-strait tensions
Taiwan Insight
Colonial Racial Science and Taiwan: How Indigenous Peoples Became Anatomy Data Points. Part II
Colonial Racial Science and Taiwan: How Indigenous Peoples Became Anatomy Data Points. Part I
LGBTQ+ Groups Celebrate Ruling Against Surgery Requirement For Legal Gender Change
Chinese Sources
爱思想
《求是》
中国现代国际关系研究院
中央党史和文献研究院
习近平系列重要讲话数据库
Full source list: China Neican, Reading the China Dream, Made in China Journal, China Heritage, China Media Project, China Leadership Monitor, Tracking People's Daily, China Brief, Project Syndicate, Australian Financial Review, China Story, ChinaFile, War on the Rocks, Lawfare, The Interpreter, East Asia Forum, China Opinion, China Collection, China Dialogue, Pearls and Irritations, The Strategist, Echo Wall, Asialink Insight, Palladium, Inside Story, Foreign Affairs, Monkey Cage, The Atlantic, The Economist, Los Angeles Review of Books, Sixth Tone, Quartz, China Digital Times, The Conversation, National Review, Internationale Politik Quarterly, The Intercept, The Wire China, SupChina, ThinkChina, The Diplomat, Foreign Policy, MacroPolo, Center for Advanced China Research, Pew Research Center, Congressional Research Service, Center for Strategic and International Studies, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, Center for Security and Emerging Technology, MERICS, Institut Montaigne, European Council on Foreign Relations, National Bureau of Asian Research, Brookings Institution, U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission, China Data Lab, Rhodium Group, Asia Society, Australia-China Relations Institute, China Research Group, Center for New American Security, Chicago Council on Global Affairs, Chatham House, Lowy Institute, Atlantic Council, Observer Research Foundation, Australia Strategic Policy Institute, Politico China Watcher, Politico China Direct, The India China Newsletter, Beijing Baselines, Beijing to Britain, Beijing to Canberra and Back, World Game, Eye on China, The Upheaval, ChinaTalk, Pekingnology, Takshashila PLA Insight, Beijing Channel, Protocol | China, Chinese Storytellers, Chinarrative, Texas National Security Review, China Law Translate, China Trade Monitor, National People's Congress Observer, What's on Weibo, Chaoyang Trap House, RADII, Paper Republic, Lausan, Hong Kong Free Press, Taiwan Insight, 中国：历史与未来, 爱思想, 《求是》, 中国现代国际关系研究院, 中央党史和文献研究院, 习近平系列重要讲话数据库.