Share this page!

Enter Twitter Thread URL to Unroll

Needs to be the full URL like: https://twitter.com/threadreaderapp/status/1644127596119195649

How to get URL link on Twitter App

  1. On the Twitter thread, click on or icon on the bottom
  2. Click again on or Share Via icon
  3. Click on Copy Link to Tweet
  4. Paste it above and click "Unroll Thread"!
  5. More info at Twitter Help
Dylan Levi King Profile picture
@dylanleviking
May 31 • 6 tweets • 2 min read Twitter logo Read on Twitter
This is an old piece of industrial boosterism from Wang Xiaodong 王小东, who is identified with what has been called the Industrial Party 工业党. What he advocates is development at any cost, with state resources and direction leading high-tech industrialization. The essay,… twitter.com/i/web/status/1… Image
Competitiveness in an industrial age relies on these factors: making things that others cannot, making things better, and making things cheaper. To do those things relies on skilled technicians, scientists, and workers. China has a good supply of all of them. There are many… twitter.com/i/web/status/1…
The next section speaks directly to the split between the Industrial Party and what Wang Xiaodong calls the Sentimental Party, which embraces both the left and right. Although he didn't coin these terms, this essay popularized them.
In The Chinese in Africa, the authors ask an American expert if he is worried about China's expansion, and he answers that he is grateful. The Chinese, he says, are doing things in Africa that the West is not. The book argues that Chinese contributions have put Africa back on the… twitter.com/i/web/status/1…
Let the Bullets Fly is a metaphor for the Chinese revolution and Chinese history. It expresses the director's understanding of the Chinese revolution, the Chinese people, and Chinese history. The left and right take what they want out of the metaphor and applaud the film. The… twitter.com/i/web/status/1…
That's the entire essay.

• • •

Missing some Tweet in this thread? You can try to force a refresh
　

Keep Current with Dylan Levi King

Dylan Levi King Profile picture

Stay in touch and get notified when new unrolls are available from this author!

Read all threads

This Thread may be Removed Anytime!

PDF

Twitter may remove this content at anytime! Save it as PDF for later use!

Try unrolling a thread yourself!

how to unroll video
  1. Follow @ThreadReaderApp to mention us!

  2. From a Twitter thread mention us with a keyword "unroll"
@threadreaderapp unroll

Practice here first or read more on our help page!

More from @dylanleviking

Dylan Levi King Profile picture
May 3
A 2021 survey in Taiwan found the majority of respondents believed that the Japan Self-Defense Forces would be deployed to save them from the People's Liberation Army. It's possible. However, in this poll, only eleven percent of Japanese respondents agreed with the idea. Image
Fifty-six percent suggested that logistical support should be the extent of SDF aid. Twenty-seven percent said it would be wrong to work with the American military. Seventy percent suggested that the solution to the Taiwan issue was deepening relations with China.
This reflects thoroughgoing pacifism, I believe, but also fear of breaking with the status quo, perhaps skepticism of American-led foreign policy, and recognition that there's not much in it for the Japanese. Intervention would certainly be a disaster.
Read 5 tweets
Dylan Levi King Profile picture
May 2
On the subsistence of the Japanese on apples, North America is not the right comparison. China loves fruit. These markets are nowhere to be found in Japan. No ladies selling mulberries or rambutan on the street, trucks loaded with pineapple (stuck on a nail, skinned, and bagged). Image
Look at those peaches! The consumption numbers bear out the conclusion. But, again, China is a continental agricultural superpower. You can't compare it to a temperate, mountainous island chain. That's the final answer: this is life on a string of islands in the North Pacific. Image
I will attach here another note about dietary conservatism, China vs. Japan. I'm not sure "Westernization" can be quantified, so let's adapt the last term to "dietary diversity." The import supermarket does not exist in Japan (Seijo Ishi doesn't count and Nissin is unique). China… twitter.com/i/web/status/1… ImageImage
Read 4 tweets
Dylan Levi King Profile picture
May 1
I was distracted from my research into the 1995 Ministry of Public Security Notice on Rectification of Drug Rehabilitation Facilities and Kunming heroin markets when this somehow came up in the results: local state monopoly on prostitution, Kunming, 1912-1949. Image
The system was early on attacked by Confucian societies, merchants, residents, and patriotic women's groups, who demanded that women in the quarter be denied certain hairstyles, as well as unbound feet (they didn't want their daughters mistaken for working girls). Image
It closed down but eventually re-opened, with more stringent regulation and advanced bureaucratization. State employees administered the brothels. Revenues funded the city. It began to decline in the 1940s when coastal refugees demanded more choice in commercial sex. Image
Read 4 tweets
Dylan Levi King Profile picture
Apr 30
Tonight, I enjoyed reading Lin Chengxiang's thesis, "An Epic Poet in the Information Age: Revisiting Haizi at the Intersection of Literature and Science in Postsocialist China." When writing about legal systems engineering and Qian Xuesen, I had not realized he was a key thinker. Image
Lin lays out Haizi's engagement with Jin Guantao, Alvin Toffler, Hegel, and posthumanism in his academic work, as well as his epic poems. Like Qian, Haizi was interested also in the possibility of qigong and somatic science as more than a metaphor for information theory. Image
All of this locates Haizi more accurately in the intellectual context of the time. His poetry was informed by currents—cybernetics-enabled interventions in national cultural fever, and qigong-infused takes on three theories fever—that are particularly interesting to me.
Read 4 tweets
Dylan Levi King Profile picture
Apr 24
The story of Kodama Yoshio failing to deliver tungsten to the CIA belies his reputation as the rare metal king of Northeast Asia. He built an empire that stretched from wartime to peacetime, empire to empire, trading heroin for tungsten. ImageImage
The Americans and Japanese were involved in getting tungsten out of China before Kodama arrived (see: Southeast Asian Raw Materials and the Origins of the Pacific War, Marshall). It is a essential to waging industrialized warfare. The Japanese came to monopolize the trade... "Opium, Tungsten, and ...
In areas where the Japanese could not control the mines, opium was traded with criminal brokers, who could move the product to them. As the war progressed, responsibility for this trade was given to Showa Tsusho KK, a joint venture between the military and private firms. (Japan's Economy in War and...
Read 9 tweets
Dylan Levi King Profile picture
Feb 11
Little has been written in English on hiroyuki as public intellectual. The recent Times piece still focused on his 4chan ownership. Context is lacking. I won't endorse Ito Masaaki's conclusions, but his recent article on "hiroyuki theory" is one place to begin. Image
This article seems to be popular as a scholarly, leftist take-down of a figure scorned by scholarly, leftist types. It is that, but Ito, who writes frequently on the online right, attempts also to figure out why and to who hiroyuki appeals. I will explain it as best as I can...
The article starts with a basic introduction to hiroyuki, his early internet career, taking part in the launches of 2ch and Niconico (4chan ownership is widely covered in the English-language media), eventually branching into building a brand as Youtuber and author.
Read 17 tweets

Did Thread Reader help you today?

Support us! We are indie developers!

This site is made by just two indie developers on a laptop doing marketing, support and development! Read more about the story.

Become a Premium Member ($3/month or $30/year) and get exclusive features!

Become Premium

Don't want to be a Premium member but still want to support us?

Make a small donation by buying us coffee ($5) or help with server cost ($10)

Donate via Paypal

Or Donate anonymously using crypto!

Ethereum

0xfe58350B80634f60Fa6Dc149a72b4DFbc17D341E copy

Bitcoin

3ATGMxNzCUFzxpMCHL5sWSt4DVtS8UqXpi copy

Thank you for your support!

Follow Us on Twitter!

Send Email!

:(