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Capitalism is Democratic the Way Rape is Romance
Whenever I see he/him or she/her I think fuck/you. You must be living an awfully precious life if, amid the pervasive despair of an economy in free fall, your uppermost concern is clinging to your pronouns.” — Norman Finkelstein, I’ll Burn That Bridge When I Get to It! Heretical Thoughts on Identity Politics, Cancel Culture, […]
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Xi’s Call with Zelenskyy Demonstrates Responsibility of a Major Country

Illustration: Liu Rui/Global Times Chinese President Xi Jinping spoke with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy on the phone at the invitation of the latter on Wednesday afternoon. The two sides exchanged views on China-Ukraine relations and the Ukraine crisis. Xi pointed out that China’s readiness to develop relations with Ukraine is consistent and clear-cut. Regarding the […]
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Borrell and His Likes Should Avoid Leading Europe into a Ditch

The European Parliament just spent a whole week discussing China, and the High Representative of the EU for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy Josep Borrell will convene foreign ministers from across EU on April 24 local time to discuss the same topic. In anticipation of this meeting, Borrell published a column on April 22 urging […]
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The Second Cold War Is More Dangerous than the First
Twenty years ago, Noam Chomsky published a bestselling book called Hegemony or Survival. Since then, the stark choice he posed has only become more urgent. Depending on how humanity responds to the challenges of ecological destruction and imperialistic war, in the coming decade that terrifying question “Hegemony or survival?” may well be answered. Modern history […]
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A Road Paved with Irritations
Emmanuel Macron’s recent visit to China did not quite go according to plan, though much depends on what was planned to begin with. In one sense, the French President was consistent, riding the hobbyhorse of Europe’s strategic autonomy, one hived off from the US imperium and free of Chinese influence. Europe’s third-way autonomy would be […]
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Historic Meeting between Xi and Putin
This week’s News on China in 2 minutes. • Historic meeting between Xi and Putin • Hong Kong announces industrial policy for the first time • Baidu unveiled its version of ChatGPT
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Ideology, Autocracy, and Dystopia

The title of this acutely perceptive memoir is perhaps misleading: the American reader has come to expect lurid, “tell-all” biographies which spare no graphic details of the subject’s debaucheries and scandals. Some such unsavory details are of course revealed, but the author–Mao’s personal physician for the remaining 22 years of Mao’s life (1954-1976)–had a more […]
