Maura Elizabeth Cunningham

Good morning from Chicago, where I’m at least 50% less frazzled and 150% more rested than I was when I last sat down to write a post intro. My brother and I have spent several days walking around the city, taking tours, and eating one good meal after another. Our hotel is in Little Italy, which is full of great restaurants and bakeries—more than just Italian ones. This is the first time I haven’t stayed in the heart of downtown Chicago, but the bus system is so good that it doesn’t feel like an inconvenience. I wish Ann Arbor’s public transportation were as useful.

I have a new book review up at the Wall Street Journal, discussing Let Only Red Flowers Bloom: Identity and Belonging in Xi Jinping’s China, by NPR correspondent Emily Feng:

Often regarded by outsiders as a land of homogeneity, China thus displays a surprising degree of diversity once someone gets to know the country better. Emily Feng, an international correspondent for NPR, found this unexpected diversity to be one of China’s most intriguing aspects when she arrived in 2016. Reporting in China, Ms. Feng says, offered her “the ability to briefly be allowed entry into the lives of people in one nation-state who ate, thought, spoke, and behaved entirely differently from one another.” Traveling the nation on assignment, she sought out stories that celebrated “a resilience that kept these people true to themselves even in the face of enormous intimidation and pressure to conform.” READ MORE

Thanks for joining me this week.

Recommendations

China Stories

David Barboza, “‘The Day Engagement Died’ — Bob Davis reflects on his new ebook, the five year anniversary of the ‘China virus’, and what to expect from Trump 2.0.”

Camille Bromley, “Q&A: Viola Zhou on the Challenge of Covering Chinese Tech”

The Trump administration is silencing the very institutions that Beijing has long sought to undermine – at a time when China is spending lavishly to expand the global footprint of its own state media.

— Nectar Gan, “‘How gratifying’: Cheers in China as Trump dismantles Voice of America”

Chris Horton, “Former Chinese Enemies Increasingly Aligned on Taiwan”

Yoko Kubota, “Inside the Chinese Region That Has Become a No-Go for Western Companies”

Tiffany May, “Chinese Nationalists Praise Trump’s Cuts to Voice of America”

David Pierson and Berry Wang, “Trump Has Hinted at a Xi Visit. China Is Still Wondering What He Wants.”

Pranshu Verma, “Trump ends program millions in China use for internet, worrying Congress”

On the campaign trail, Trump said he would prioritize deporting Chinese nationals of military age, suggesting without proof that they are building an army in the US. Immigrant rights advocates say Trump’s targeted rhetoric has instilled an unprecedented level of fear and anxiety in Chinese communities, both among newly arrived migrants and undocumented immigrants who have lived in the US for decades.

— Claire Wang, “Fear grows among US’s 390,000 undocumented Chinese immigrants: ‘So many policies have changed’”

Viola Zhou, “How a Chinese battery factory sparked a political meltdown in a small Michigan town”

Wanderings Around the World

Ben Bland, “In Southeast Asia, Trump reinforces worst fears about the US”

Senay Boztas, “‘In plain sight’: how The Hague museum was secret hideout from Nazi forced labour”

The boom has been driven by young people who, in a country of dozens of languages, are increasingly reading literature in their native tongues alongside books written in English. For these readers, books open worlds that India’s higher education system, with its focus on time-consuming preparation for make-or-break examinations, often does not.

— Anupreeta Das, with photographs by Gabriela Bhaskar, “The Hot Place to Be Seen for Young Indians: Book Festivals”

Christopher L. Eisgruber, “The Cost of the Government’s Attack on Columbia”

Matthew Lee and Chris Megerian, “Trump administration guts board of US Institute of Peace. Group says DOGE arrives”

Claire Moses, “As Children, They Fled the Nazis Alone. Newly Found Papers Tell Their Story.”

Featured photo: Tiffany-designed dome in the Grand Army of the Republic Rotunda, Chicago Cultural Center, March 21, 2025.