Author: mauracunningham
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Weekly Wanderings: December 24, 2023
I’m keeping things short and sweet today, as there’s still lots to do here at my parents’ house to prepare for Christmas tomorrow. Thanks so much for reading these posts—please enjoy the usual assortment of recommended stories, plus my favorite Christmas cookie recipe. But first, more Goodreads reviews from my recent deep-dive into fiction to…
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Weekly Wanderings: December 17, 2023
I’m sure there’s some mathematical concept that can explain why I’ll request five books from the library over a three-month span, only to see all five become available to me within the same week. Overnight, it seems, I find myself checking out an arm-full of books, all in great demand, with only 21 days before…
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Weekly Wanderings: December 10, 2023
I may have gone a little overboard with recommendations this week, so I’ll skip the commentary and get right to it. Happy reading. Recommendations China Stories Bloomberg News, “Xi’s Quest for Ethnic Unity Turns Genghis Khan Into New Danger”Keith Bradsher and Joy Dong, “Xi Jinping Is Asserting Tighter Control of Finance in China”Chris Buckley, “Dr.…
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Weekly Wanderings: On Henry Kissinger on China (December 3, 2023)
I was living in Shanghai early in 2013 when I received an invitation to attend a conference in the city attended by, among others, a large delegation of Princeton University’s leadership. Most of the Princeton contingent were academics-turned-administrators, and few had spent any amount of time in China. As I chatted with them during breaks…
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Weekly Wanderings: November 26-27-28, 2023
I try to have these Weekly Wanderings ready to publish on Sunday mornings. Throughout the week, I’ll have an open Word doc on my computer and add links to it as I trawl the internet, building the post in bits and pieces. Sometimes I’ll also write the headnote in advance, but usually that’s the last…
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Weekly Wanderings: November 19, 2023
Joe Biden and Xi Jinping met in San Francisco last Wednesday—Xi’s first trip to the United States in six years, and the first meeting between the two leaders in exactly one year. Everyone seemed to have low expectations for this interaction, and the two sides met them, reaching a couple of modest agreements to work…
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Weekly Wanderings: November 12, 2023
On Monday night I was scrolling through Bluesky when a post from Jeremy Goldkorn caught my eye: The China Project (founded in 2016 as SupChina), a leading digital magazine and media organization in the China world, would be closing up shop—effective, it seemed, more or less immediately. An announcement at the site explained that a…
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Bookshelf: Red Memory
A rally at Tiananmen Square: Chairman Mao standing on the rostrum above, thousands of cheering participants below. A struggle session: the accused bent and bowed, surrounded by Red Guards screaming out their victim’s purported crimes. A loudspeaker, an orchestra, a chorus: incessant sources of “The East Is Red” and other songs lauding Mao and the…
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Weekly Wanderings: November 5, 2023
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…
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Weekly Wanderings: October 29, 2023
Former Chinese Premier Li Keqiang suffered a fatal heart attack late on Thursday night, passing away at the age of 68. An economist with a reputation for being something of a reformer (relatively speaking, for a senior Chinese Communist Party official), Li spent his decade as premier getting increasingly sidelined by Xi Jinping. As Xi…
Maura Elizabeth Cunningham 