Maura Elizabeth Cunningham

March! Where did you come from?!?

Thanks for joining me this week.

New Goodreads Review

Recommendations

China Stories

Natasha Bertrand, Katie Bo Lillis, and Zachary Cohen, “US intel shows Russia and China are attempting to recruit disgruntled federal employees, sources say”

Choe Sang-Hun and Muktita Suhartono, “On Chinese Tuna Boats, North Koreans Trawl for Cash for Kim Jong-un”

Mark Landler and Mara Hvistendahl, “In Giant Chinese Embassy in London, Opponents See Long Arm of Beijing”

The Uyghurs, who had been detained in Bangkok for over a decade, were part of a wave of more than 300 people who fled China in 2014, hoping to use Thailand as a transit point to get to Turkey, which is home to a sizable Uyghur community. Last month, some of the detainees, who are all men, went on a hunger strike amid fears of being returned to China.

— Sui-Lee Wee and David Pierson, “Ignoring Pleas, Thailand Deports Dozens of Uyghurs to China”

Ana Swanson, “Trump’s New Crackdown on China Is Just Beginning”

Chun Han Wong, “U.S. Foreign-Aid Halt Is Making Scrutiny of China Even Harder”

Wu Guoguang, “Xi Jinping’s Purges Have Escalated. Here’s Why They Are Unlikely to Stop”

Wanderings Around the World

With each article about the so-called ambition “vibe shift” that seemed to frame it as a change in American ambition, or millennial ambition, or generational ambition, I wanted to scream: Weren’t we really talking about women’s ambition?

— Jessica Bennett, “Goodbye, ambition?”

Jessica Kutz, “‘It’s all been scrapped’: Women in wildland firefighting bootcamps canceled after DEI cuts”

Julian McKenzie, “Before the NHL, an all-Black hockey league helped to innovate the modern game”

[It] is very, very difficult to imagine any U.S. president other than Trump doing what he did to Zelenskyy in the Oval Office. Yes, many presidents before Trump had exhorted Europe to do more for its own defense. Yes, the trends have been clear for a while. But Trump and his advisers’ words and actions over the last 2 weeks, and especially during the hour that Trump and Zelenskyy spent in front of the cameras in the Oval Office, have ruptured U.S. relations with Europe, realigned the United States with the murderous dictator of Russia, and above all, likely abandoned Ukraine to its fate.

— Elizabeth N. Saunders, “Trump’s verbal attack on Zelenskyy was shocking – and predictable”

Jennifer Schuessler, “Amid Changes at the National Archives, the Carter Library Cancels a Civil Rights Book Event”

David Smith, “‘I was in shock’: DC gallery pulls exhibits of Black and LGBTQ+ artists amid Trump DEI crackdown”

Featured photo: Patrons in the Downtown Ann Arbor District Library’s first-floor reading room, c. 1970. Image rights held by Ann Arbor District Library, used under a Creative Commons license.