Audio, History
Jeremiah Jenne
What can the end of the Ming Dynasty tell us ...

Trump's re-election disappointed many in the U.S. and abroad. To help them process, Jeremiah and David talk with literary translator and Pennsylvania voter Brendan O’Kane about Zhang Dai, the Ming-Qing transition, and living through an age of upheaval.

What can the end of the Ming Dynasty tell us about the election of Donald Trump and what comes next
Contemporary China, History, Audio
Jeremiah Jenne
Historical Battles: Rewriting China's Past to ...

Jeffrey Wasserstrom joins Barbarians at the Gate to discuss the legacy of the Hong Kong protests, Xi Jinping’s patriotic education law, and how Beijing’s control over historical narratives is reshaping academic engagement with China.

Historical Battles: Rewriting China's Past to Shape the Future
Audio, History
Jeremiah Jenne
Dan Snow's History Hit: The Creation of the ...

How China transitioned from imperial rule to Chinese Socialism and all about the key characters whose opposing visions for China's future created so much chaos along the way.

Dan Snow's History Hit: The Creation of the People's Republic of China
Book Reviews, History
Jeremiah Jenne
Philip Kuhn: Sorcery and Bureaucracy in Qing ...

A supernatural crisis pits an anxious autocrat against his own functionaries when a hunt for soul-stealing sorcerers turns into a political witch-hunt among 18th-century China’s “deep state.”

Philip Kuhn: Sorcery and Bureaucracy in Qing China
Audio, History, Travel
Jeremiah Jenne
Edge of Empire with author and journalist ...

In this episode of Barbarians at the Gates, Edward Wong of the New York Times joins David and me to discuss Ed's new book, At the Edge of Empire. We discuss frontiers, what the Qing Dynasty means for China, and the different generational perspectives on China's recent past.

Edge of Empire with author and journalist Edward Wong

Chinese politics

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Standing Up to Zero COVID

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Standing Up to Zero COVID

This special episode of Barbarians at the Gate recorded last night provides a “time stamp" and an initial reaction to the protests in several major Chinese cities on November 26 and 27, including the situation in Beijing.

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China’s Struggles to Reconcile Church and State are Rooted in History

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China’s Struggles to Reconcile Church and State are Rooted in History

It’s not an easy time to be Christian, Muslim, or Jewish in China. Universalist religions are under attack in the PRC.

The Party Goes Retro for National Day

The Party Goes Retro for National Day

It’s the National Day Golden Week holiday in China, and Jeremiah muses on competing retro trends with the Party reaching back to the 1980s and reviving “Anti-Bourgeois Liberalization.” Were they inspired by the needless decision to remake Magnum, PI?

My Beijing Insecurity (on National Security Education Day)

My Beijing Insecurity (on National Security Education Day)

April 15th, National Security Education and Awareness Day in China, has become an annual day of whimsy for those of us living in Beijing.

Donald Trump and Xi Jinping in 2018: Evan Osnos, American Decline, and the Country of Cats

Donald Trump and Xi Jinping in 2018: Evan Osnos, American Decline, and the Country of Cats

China advances, America retreats. What's really happening in the dance between Xi Jinping and Donald Trump?

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Dangerous Benevolence

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Dangerous Benevolence

The Beijing municipal government threatening organizations that assist displaced migrants is bad policy, but official ambivalence toward private charity dates back at least to the imperial era

Changing the Guard

Changing the Guard

Coverage of China has always been a reflection of our own expectations and hopes, cast onto the tabula rasa of the high walls which surround the palace.

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Xi Writes Himself into the Narrative of China’s Modern Rejuvenation

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Xi Writes Himself into the Narrative of China’s Modern Rejuvenation

The Developed West ignores the message emerging from the 19th Party Congress at its own peril

Ambassadors Caught on Tape, China Edition

Ambassadors Caught on Tape, China Edition

The presence of US Ambassador Jon Huntsman at a protest site in downtown Beijing was enough for conspiracy theorists to start weaving stories of US collusion in the “Jasmine Revolution.”

China: Not Quite a Revolution

China: Not Quite a Revolution

The CCP knows that they could never hope to suppress every single act of defiance in a country as large and diverse as China, so they have instead chosen to invest time, money, and energy in preventing these acts from linking together, either vertically across class lines or horizontally across geographic space.  

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