Beijing’s Culinary Crusade: Erasing Uyghur Identity through Food

Timothy Grose

Instruction began early on a November 2018 morning. This lesson was not taught in a classroom, but in a makeshift kitchen as part of Xinjiang’s “household school” program. There, a teacher stood before her class of adult women and asked: “What do you like to eat for breakfast?” The students responded in unison, “nan and milk” or “nan and tea.” “You don’t eat a bowl of hot congee?” the teacher interjected. This question sparked additional discussion and “even more curiosity” among the women in... Read full story>>

Why the African Union Stopped the Donkey Hide Trade with China

Lauren Johnston

The African Union’s unprecedented decision to ban the trade of donkey skin ended a hitherto fast-evolving China-Africa business. It also is the result of an unusual agreement between the 55 African Union member countries on a matter that affects rural development, women’s rights, and poverty alleviation. Perhaps most unusually, the ban arose from an implicit unified pushback against a profitable business with China, Africa’s largest trade partner and one of its major investors and financiers. Read full story>>

Traces in the Land

Memories of a Massacre in Hunan

Sim Chi Yin & Ian Johnson

The Xiao River rushes deep and clear out of the mountains of southern China into a narrow plain of paddies and villages. For several weeks in August 1967, more than nine thousand people were murdered in this region of Hunan province. Its epicenter was Dao county, which the Xiao River bisects on its way north toward the Xiang and then the Yangtze. Read full story>>

Updates to Our Database of Arrests under the Hong Kong National Security Law

We updated our suite of graphics tracking the impact of Hong Kong’s National Security Law. The law, which went into effect on June 30, 2020, and the allegation of “sedition,” have been used to arrest 292 individuals, charge 159, and convict 71 as of January 31, 2024.Among arrests under the law in recent months, four individuals were arrested for signing up for paid subscriptions to Patreon accounts for Nathan Law and Ted Hui, Hong Kong politicians now living in the UK and Australia,... Read full story>>

Lessons from Tiananmen for Today’s University Presidents

James A. Millward

Thirty-five years ago, in April 1989, Chinese students from Beijing’s elite universities began their occupation of Tiananmen Square. Their issues were different from those of American students today. Chinese demonstrators voiced concerns about corruption, inflation, the effects of on-going market reforms, and lack of free press and participatory governance. Today’s students at Columbia, NYU, Harvard, Yale, University of Minnesota, University of Texas, Brown, USC, and other campuses are mounting... Read full story>>