Maura Elizabeth Cunningham

Recent Goodreads review from me:

Recommendations

China Stories

But even as it remained in keeping with the Party’s terse traditions, Li Keqiang’s paint-by-number treatment in the official Party-state media, including the brief initial announcement on the 27th and the official obituary on the 28th, closely mirrored the former premier’s sidelining by the leadership under Xi Jinping. This likely reflects plans at the top to ensure that Li’s death can be made to pass swiftly, with due respect and properly stage-managed solemnity.

David Bandurski, “Sidelined in Death, as in Politics”

James Carter, “The Triumphs and Travails of China’s First American Citizen”
Bonnie S. Glaser, “No, Xi Jinping Is Not About to Attack Taiwan”
Jonathan Landreth, “The Chinese diaspora ‘needs to rise up’ about atrocities against Uyghurs — Q&A with human rights lawyer Rayhan Asat”
Kanis Leung, “Chinese arrivals replace Hong Kong exodus. For them, the city is still freer than the mainland”

Events in Yuen Long on the night of July 21 [2019] when residents were brutalized by marauding gangs would rupture whatever hope still existed that Hong Kong could reach some kind of political compromise. Reporting for a narrative history of the pro-democracy movement reveals that the police were aware of the planned attacks, as were government officials close to Hong Kong’s political leadership. Yet they did nothing to stop it.

Shibani Mahtani and Timothy McLaughlin, “As Hong Kong stood up for democracy, a neighborhood was brutalized” — an excerpt from their book Among the Braves: Hope, Struggle, and Exile in the Battle for Hong Kong and the Future of Global Democracy, which will be published on Tuesday

Katrina Northrop, “The Limits on China and Russia’s No Limits Partnership”
Li Yuan, “They Propelled China’s Rise. Now They Have Nothing to Fall Back On.”

Wanderings Around the World

It feels a little tired to write about Houdini and Halloween, like a last resort. You know the basics: Houdini died in Detroit on Oct. 31, 1926, at Grace Hospital (demolished: 1979), after an Oct. 24 performance at the Garrick Theatre (demolished: 1928-29). The cause of his death was peritonitis, set on after an appearance in Montreal two days earlier, where he was punched by a fan who was trying to see for himself if Houdini really had an iron stomach. Do we know if the punches ruptured his appendix? We do not, but that’s the story we all grew up hearing about the death of Houdini. In Detroit!

Amy Elliott Bragg, “The magicians cemetery”

Ian Mendes, “After a tumultuous year, behind the scenes of the NHL’s first Pride night of the season”
Anne Helen Petersen, “Butts: A Backstory” — interview with author Heather Radke
Raphael Rashid, “‘More to this place than barbed wire’: South Korea reimagines its DMZ as a path towards peace”
Megan Specia, “Friends From Childhood. Brothers in War.”

Standout Story
ChinaFile Presents: “China Reporting in Exile,” with Annie Jieping Zhang, Li Yuan, Jiang Xue, Ian Johnson, and Susan Jakes

I spent the 2011-12 academic year as a fellow in the Asia Society’s Center on U.S.-China Relations, working on the team preparing ChinaFile for launch. The publication is now celebrating its tenth anniversary, marking the occasion with a panel discussion featuring four China journalists currently working abroad. Check out the event video and hear how these reporters approach their work, how they maintain a sense from afar of what’s going on in China, and why they push back on the notion of being “in exile.”

Feature photo: Halloween at the Association for Asian Studies. I’m the black bear. Growl.