Category: China
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Beijing: Brilliant and Beautiful
I’ve just returned from a three-week work trip to Mainland China and Taiwan, which involved visits to six cities and twenty-two days of hotel breakfast buffets. (I was rather surprised when I woke up in New Jersey this morning and my only choices were oatmeal with peanut butter or toast with peanut butter—and that I’d…
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The Diplomat — “The Currency Question: Andrew Jackson and Chairman Mao”
Later this year, Jeff Wasserstrom and I are going to collaborate on a third edition of China in the 21st Century: What Everyone Needs to Know*, so we’ve started making notes on parts of the book that will need updating. With this week’s announcement that Andrew Jackson will no longer be the face of the…
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#AAS2016 and Seattle
I’ve recently returned from the annual meeting of the Association for Asian Studies (AAS), which was held in Seattle this year. AAS is my favorite academic conference—it tends to have really strong panels and offers many opportunities to see my friends in the profession—and I enjoy it even more when I can combine it…
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Five Photos from China in 2005
Mid-February always makes me think of my first trip to China, which began when my plane landed in Beijing late at night on February 16, 2005. As I wrote last year, the six months that followed were simultaneously exhilarating and challenging: as much as I loved living on my own and getting to know a…
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Ms. Magazine blog: “The Faulty Logic of China’s Most Radical Experiment”
I have a new post at the Ms. Magazine blog, a review of journalist Mei Fong’s recent book, One Child: The Story of China’s Most Radical Experiment. An excerpt: On Oct. 29, 2015, the Chinese government announced that it was moving away from the one-child policy it had enacted more than 35 years before. After nearly four decades…
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Panda-monium at the Bronx Zoo: A History
Last week, the New York Times ran a long article detailing the efforts of Representative Carolyn B. Maloney to secure two pandas for the Bronx Zoo. Maloney’s quest faces political hurdles in both New York and Beijing: Mayor Bill de Blasio won’t support any panda plan that requires public funding (building a habitat, leasing the…
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LA Review of Books China Blog: Let 100 Voices Speak
My latest LA Review of Books China Blog post went up on the site last week, but I was away on a work trip and didn’t have time to link to it until now. In the post, I interview Liz Carter, a Washington, D.C.-based translator and author of Let 100 Voices Speak: How the Internet…
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Road Show
On Monday, October 5, the National Committee on U.S.-China Relations (the organization where I work) will be staging its 9th annual CHINA Town Hall, a national day of programming that will take place in nearly 80 venues across the United States and beyond this year. I’ll be traveling to Manhattan, KS to speak at Kansas…
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LA Review of Books: The Spy Game’s Afoot
While I really enjoy television shows that tell spy stories (Alias, Chuck, The Americans), I very rarely read spy novels. They tend, I’ve found, to be long and tedious: covert action that can be carried out fairly quickly and clearly on screen often takes many pages to describe in print. But I’ve thoroughly enjoyed two spy novels…
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Up, Up, and Away: Yangshuo, 2005
Like many other things I did during my first trip to China, the hot-air balloon ride wasn’t my idea. I had gone on what was meant to be a two-week tour of Hong Kong and southern China with Elaine (not her real name), an American classmate of mine from Beijing. After several days in Hong…
Maura Elizabeth Cunningham 