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History Lessons

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When students strike

Parallels between the Hundred Days' Reform and the recent protest against Hong Kong's Extradition Bill
Jul 5, 2019 (WiC 458)

Television images have circled the globe over the past fortnight showing masses of Hongkongers protesting against a controversial extradition law (see WiC457). On Monday, the student-led demonstrations turned chaotic as the young activists ...

China’s most famous canine is…

It goes back to 1894...
Feb 15, 2018 (WiC 398)

The most famous dog in contemporary Chinese history is Taiyang, or Sunny. A fierce canine from Taiwan, Sunny was on board the Zhiyuan when the Chinese warship was sunk in 1894 during an epic sea battle with Japan. Sunny is also probably the ...

The treasure of Zhang Xianzhong
Apr 28, 2017 (WiC 363)

Most people attribute the observation “History is written by the victors” to Winston Churchill, but there is no conclusive proof that he actually coined the phrase. This highlights another fact of history: it is sometimes just myth. In the ...

Ming, the merciless

Xi's anti-corruption campaign is the toughest in history?
Sep 5, 2014 (WiC 251)

"The ongoing anti-corruption campaign is so tough that one would find nothing close throughout the Twenty-Four Histories.” This remark was made by Ling Jiefang in an interview with the Party’s anti-graft watchdog. Ling, a former soldier, ...

Becoming the top dog

Duzhan aotou
May 17, 2013 (WiC 193)

Last Friday, 49 year-old Alibaba CEO and founder Jack Ma announced his retirement from day-to-day operations during Taobao’s 10th anniversary party. Ma will stay on at Alibaba to provide strategic advice but says that he’s getting “a bit ...

Making a sincere apology

‘To carry chastening twigs and beg for forgiveness'
May 3, 2013 (WiC 191)

During the Warring States period, Lian Po 廉颇, a military general from the Zhao Kingdom, acceded to the rank of shangqing 上卿 or 'high-ranking official', having pulled off a series of stunning military victories. However, another Zhao ...

Li Bai
Dec 7, 2012 (WiC 175)

Anyone who thought Xi Jinping might celebrate promotion to the top rung of the Chinese leadership with a celebration or two was sadly mistaken. After just three weeks in the job, Xi’s message is a clear one: less frivolity and banqueting, ...

Qu Yuan
Nov 30, 2012 (WiC 174)

For William Wordsworth, a leading English Romantic poet, poetry was “emotion recollected in tranquility”. But about 2,000 years before Wordsworth put pen to paper in the 1790s, a Han dynasty scholar took a different view. He wrote in the ...

Xi Jinping’s disappearance

Absent leaders
Sep 21, 2012 (WiC 165)

The mysterious disappearance earlier this month of Xi Jinping, heir presumptive to the Chinese presidency, puzzled China’s chattering classes and grabbed worldwide attention. Xi’s vanishing act – exactly two weeks long – ended on ...

Lose-lose situations
Dec 9, 2011 (WiC 132)

By putting pressure on China to allow its currency to appreciate, the US is “hurting others but not benefitting oneself,” Xiang Songzuo, a prominent economist at Renmin University of China, said recently in an interview, using a well-known ...

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