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2025: Greenlander in Danish Folketing -- Denmark Not a True Commonwealth

Berlingske, one of Denmark’s leading newspaper, in January interviewed Aki-Matilda Tilia Ditte Høegh-Dam, a Greenlandic pro-independence representative in the Danish Folketing. Aki-Matilda Tilia Ditte Høegh-Dam, born on October 17, 1996, in Hillerød, Denmark, is a Danish-Greenlandic politician representing the Siumut party. She was elected to the Danish Parliament (Folketing) on June 5, 2019, at…

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2024: Oral History of PRC Confucian Scholar Zhang Liwen

The reuse of ancient ideas as China under General Secretary Xi Jinping strives to enter a Chinese renaissance aka the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation. As did earlier dynasties, the Chinese Communist Party detested Confucius when they were rebels but a generation later, when they were the Establishment, they picked out some themes and interpretations of Confucius and Confucianism that…

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2020: Chinese People's Understanding of the “Universe” Came 2,000 Years Earlier than Europe

Volume III of Joseph Needham’s Science and Civilization in China published back in 1959 also discusses Chinese astronomical achievements in some detail but much work has been done on astronomy and other areas of ancient Chinese science and technology. I first saw mention of this book when I heard on RedNote an angry talk about how Jesuit missionaries in the md 17th century destroyed the history…

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2025: Exploring Little Red Book -- RedNote

I signed up for Little Red Book 小红书 (as in Mao’s Little Red Book) aka Red Note. While I remember the Red Restaurant craze on the late 1990s with waiters in Red Guard uniforms serving Maio’s favorite dishes from Hunan, Little Red Book doesn’t have a strong Maoist flavor. This Chinese social media platform with many short videos and lifestyle content along e-commerce business has been getting more…

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2024 Kang Youwei on Founding Confucian State Religion -- First Survey the Religion of Others

Kang Youwei The late 19th century thinker and reformer Kang Youwei, seeing China under the assault of the West on all fronts, sought to preserve Chinese culture in the face of aggressive missionary efforts and growing foreign cultural influences. Kang wanted to establish Confucianism as a state religion to be a bulwark for traditional Chinese culture and morals. During his long travels in Europe…

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2025: Taiwan National Security Bureau on PRC Spies

On January 12, 2025 Taiwan ROC National Security Bureau issued a report on the uptick in PRC spy prosecutions in Taiwan. Related translations on this translation blog: 2024: China Takes Aims at Taiwan Elections PRC Spies in the ROC/Taiwan Military 2022: Taiwan Chief of Staff’s “How Taiwan Can Win” 2023: Taiwan’s Military Preparations — Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAV) 2019 He Qinglian:…

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2012 Yu Ying-shih: The Predicament of Modern Confucianism

Yu Ying-shih (余英時; January 22, 1930 – August 1, 2021) was a distinguished Chinese-born American historian and sinologist, renowned for his extensive contributions to Chinese intellectual, political, and cultural history. He held the position of Gordon Wu ’58 Professor of Chinese Studies, Emeritus, at Princeton University. Born in Tianjin, China, Yu’s early education was disrupted by the Second…

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Before the Flying Tigers -- Soviet 'Flying Bears' Flying Against Japan

Volunteer Soviet pilots flying against Japanese invaders of China supported the Republic of China war effort from 1937 until the signing of the Soviet Union-Japan Non-Aggression Pact of April 1941. Wikipedia has an article about them at Soviet Volunteer Group On 23 February 1938, the Soviet Volunteer Group conducted its first operation outside Chinese borders, with 12 and 28 bombers departing…

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Most Chinese Dynasties are Short-lived, Including the Post 1949 Ones

One of the many differences between China and Japan is that while Japan has had essentially the same imperial house forever (allowing for a few discontinuities and mythological roots before the third century or so) while in China any boy or girl (don’t forget Tang Dynasty Empress Wu Zetian!) can dream of growing up to be emperor. This may not loom large compared to say ‘peaceful evolution‘ 和平演变…

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2021 Li Jianglin: Parting Ways with My Red Family

Li Jianglin VOA Interview: Parting Ways with her Red Family, This Revolution is Wrong 美国之音： 李江琳：与红色家庭分道扬镳，这场革命是错的 VOA narrator introduces Li Jianglin Li Jianglin, a native of Nanchang, Jiangxi Province, grew up in a “red” family. Her parents were members of the Fourth Field Army of the Chinese People’s Liberation Army, moving south from Northeast China to Jiangxi. After the Communist Party…

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2025 He Qinglian: Remembering Tibet Historian Li Jianglin -- Her Works Live On

I was sad to hear that Li Jianglin 李江琳 is gone. She visited us at US Consulate General Chengdu fifteen years ago when she was passing through Chengdu. Below I added some additional material in brackets and some links to some explanatory material. To my translation of He Qinglian’s article I added translations of some other Li Jianglin articles I found online: Translated as appendices: Li…

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2025: President Xi Jinping Delivers 2025 New Year Address

The Chinese evening news joint broadcast 联播节目 of December 31 carried Xi Jinping’s 2025 New Year’s address. The Chinese text is on The Daily Joint News Broadcast 每日新闻联播 website. Running the text through ChatGPT4o I got an English translation. Below is the December 31 broadcast on YouTube. If you would like to read transcripts of other daily Joint News Broadcast, you can get reasonably good…

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2025(?): Xi Jinping Article Updates Talk from 2023, Adding Passages on Severe Challenges PRC Faces

Brushing up on Xi Jinping Thought today, I read the 2023 Xi Jinping article from the Party ideological journal Qiushi [Seeking Truth] and felt inspired to translate it as 2023 Xi Jinping: Chinese-style Modernization is the Broad Path to Building a Strong Nation and Achieving China’s National Renaissance. This article is “※ This is an excerpt from General Secretary Xi Jinping’s speech on February…

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2023 Xi Jinping: Chinese-style Modernization is the Broad Path to Building a Strong Nation and Achieving China's National Renaissance

Translation of a 2023 speech by Chinese Communist Party General Secretary Xi Jinping. Here I have translated fuxing 复兴 as renaissance rather than rejuvenation. Rejuvenation is the officially approved term used in Chinese government translations. Just an experiment. References: Chinese Media Project Dictionary on Chinese-style Modernization 中国式现代化 Modernization Theory Other translations…

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2024: Another 'Japanese Spy case' prosecuted in China for 'espionage' by Japanese citizen against China in Japan -- Long Arm Jurisdiction?

Ten Japanese have been indicted for spying by the Chinese government over the past decade. A small proportion of the 100,000 Japanese businesspeople, students and others residing in China yet worrying for the Japanese business community. The US, Canada and other countries have similar concerns. PRC laws are often vague; just how they are to be interpreted and enforced is influenced by the…

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2024: With PRC Russian Food Fad, Counterfeits Rise

A fad for Russian products, especially food product, in China brings with it fake products from Chinese counterfeiters eager to cash in on a new trend. I asked the ChatGPT4o search engine in Chinese ‘Is there a growing trend of counterfeit “Russian” goods being sold in China? How big is the problem? What kind of Russian goods do Chinese consumers like?’ My query in Chinese with link to response…

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2024: All Sages Bookstore Beijing Bestsellers and Recent Books

What are people in China reading these days? An atypical sample comes from the All Sages Bookstore 王圣书店, located between Peking University and Tsinghua University in the Haidian District of Beijing, is frequented by academics and intellectuals. Its bestseller list can give a sense of what people in Beijing and around China — the bookstore is online and does a large mail order business, including…