A Calamitous Chinese Killing by Shamini Flint [Book Review]

A Calamitous Chinese Killing by Shamini Flint [Book Review]

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A Calamitous Chinese Killing, the latest entry in Shamini Flint’s Inspector Singh Investigates series, is a light yet engrossing read that sends the titular character into a conspiracy of murder, wrongful arrest, property seizure and corruption. The series, now six…

Riddle, mystery, enigma: What it means to be a Hong Kong person [China Daily]

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I am a Hong Kong person. I was born in this city, I spent my childhood and adolescence here, I have permanent residency, and a Hong Kong identity card with three stars. I am ethnically Chinese through my mother. But…

Reprints!

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My review of Brothers at War: The Unending War in Korea was reprinted by Caixin Media! You can check it out here.

Brothers at War: The Unending Conflict in Korea by Sheila Miyoshi Jager [Book Review]

Brothers at War: The Unending Conflict in Korea by Sheila Miyoshi Jager [Book Review]

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This year marks the 60th anniversary of, if not the end of the Korean War, at least the Armistice. That’s two generations. For almost anyone under the age of about thirty, the first-pass conventional view of the Korean War, if one thinks about it at all, is probably simple: North…

Macau and Hong Kong enjoy the best of both worlds [SCMP]

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This September, thousands of University of Macau students will cross a border to attend class, though they may not realise it. There will be no immigration checks in the tunnel between the new campus on Zhuhai’s Hengqin island and Macau…

Escape from North Korea: The Untold Story of Asia’s Underground Railroad by Melanie Kirkpatrick [Book Review]

Escape from North Korea: The Untold Story of Asia’s Underground Railroad by Melanie Kirkpatrick [Book Review]

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For a state considered a charter member of the so-called “Axis of Evil”, North Korea never seems to remain the center of global attention for long. It is one of the places that the average person (or indeed, almost anyone) really knows nothing about: we don’t know how…

My Last Empress by Da Chen [Book Review]

My Last Empress by Da Chen [Book Review]

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Da Chen’s My Last Empress is a mixture of fable and reality, viewed through the imperfect perception of its characters rather than the crisp clear view of an omniscient narrator. While not perhaps the “hallucinatory realism” lauded by the Nobel Committee in their…

Obama’s “Creative Ambiguity” Preserves Stability in East Asia [Fair Observer]

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While talk of a ‘G2’ may have been overblown, the Washington-Beijing relationship may now be the world’s most important bilateral relationship. As China continues to grow, some have called for a harsher policy; Vice-Presidential candidate Paul Ryan told a crowd…

Winner Take All by Dambisa Moyo [Book Review]

Winner Take All by Dambisa Moyo [Book Review]

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The emergence of China as a major economic and political power is perhaps the most important development in the global system since the collapse of the Soviet Union. While this change is sometimes manifested through  the launch of China’s first aircraft carrier,…

Why not focus on things people can agree upon [China Daily]

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With the breakdown of talks and the protest march last Sunday, the national education issue has reached an impasse. It is now a political argument to be won, rather than a policy question to be solved. The risk is that…