1/ I've been revisiting Jeffrey Ding's book *Technology and the Rise of Great Powers* ahead of a long-overdue podcast interview with him. His central argument is most persuasive: Tech diffusion and not leading-sector 0-to-1 innovation ultimately matters more in national power. 2/ He's not some blithe cheerleader for China in this book: indeed, by many of the measures he comes up with, China actually suffers a "diffusion deficit" resulting in part from its big push for breakthrough invention and, in some areas, a skills gap.

1/ I just published a long essay on a question that shapes U.S.-China relations but is rarely confronted directly: Is the rule of China's Communist Party legitimate? 🧵 2 / Here's a link to the piece, which I'll repeat at the end of the 🧵sinicapodcast.com/p/the-legitima…

1/ Read an interesting piece by @phl43 arguing that U.S. fears of China are overblown. He comes from a right-of-center realist perspective but lands in a similar place to mine on the folly of hawkish China policy. Some quick thoughts on where I agree and where I diverge. 🧵

https://twitter.com/phl43/status/1889330897435959358

@phl43 2/ He’s right that much of the China-bashing in the West isn’t really about human rights or democracy—it’s about a deep-seated discomfort with the prospect of a world where the U.S. isn’t dominant. Reflexive hostility toward China often has more to do with hegemony than values.

1/ My flight's delayed and I find myself with a couple of hours in the Zurich airport, so I thought I'd follow on my earlier thread to address a question that's always intrigued me: What is it about China's rise that seems to stick so badly in the American craw? 2/ I've adapted this from a keynote I gave in September of last year at the New York Conference on Asian Studies in Buffalo. It was later published by AmCham Shanghai, in a modified form, as an op-ed. Here's a link to the full article, from my newsletter. sinicapodcast.com/p/high-stakes-…

1/ Why does the U.S. seem to be caught off guard so often by what China or Chinese companies accomplish? Here’s an off-the-top-of-my head thread unpacking some reasons—structural, cultural, and epistemological—for this recurring phenomenon. 2/ First, it’s critical to note how we report and interpret China. In the U.S., China is almost always reported through a political lens—as a story of authoritarianism, state control, and geopolitical rivalry.

THREAD 🧵
At a moment when U.S. policymakers and ordinary folks alike seem riveted or rankled by China's rise, I've been reflecting on how this fits into the larger sweep of modern Chinese history. Some thoughts on patterns — inspired by the late great Joseph Levenson. Levenson’s trilogy "Confucian China and Its Modern Fate" offers a profound way of seeing civilizational stability: core ideas, like Confucianism in traditional China, weren’t debated—they were lived. What we might call “value-facts” formed the air Chinese intellectuals breathed.

From an unpublished Tsinghua student paper looking at younger (35-47 y.o.) "America hands" in Chinese think tanks and universities. Many do see U.S. in relative decline, but even among those, most don't see China surpassing the U.S. by most measures soon. This is one of five student papers to be presented on Friday at the Sinologia Conference. The event is free, from 8:50 am to 12:15 pm EDT. Some excellent work! events.supchina.com/event/sinologi…

Jesus fucking Christ. McCarthyism rides again. These motherfuckers will have blood on their hands, fanning the flames of anti-Asian hate once again. video.foxnews.com/v/628922349700… This piece of shit even goes so far as to call for the end to educating any Chinese nationals in the U.S. The whole argument, linking America's Dems & progressives with the CCP, is horrifying and insidious. The worst thing? I'm sure this will resonate with the GOP base.

I can’t attest to the accuracy of this post making the rounds on Chinese social media. It purports to summarize reforms proposed by Minister of Education Huai Jinpeng, who took office in Aug. Rumors of major changes have been abroad a while but this would be quite extreme. 1/N Huai was formerly president of Beijing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics, vice-minister of the MIIT, deputy secretary of the Tianjin Municipal Committee, and secretary of the Party Group of the Chinese Association for Science and Technology. 2/N

Xi Jinping's essay on "common prosperity" in Qiushi has been published. DeepL translates it pretty decently if you don't feel like slogging through the Chinese. qstheory.cn/dukan/qs/2021-… Early into the essay (from a speech delivered in August), he warns about the dangers of income inequality, political polarization, the tearing of the social fabric, the collapse of the middle class, and the rise of populism in "some countries." Insists China won't go that way.

On this week's @SinicaPodcast, leading Taiwan scholar Shelley Rigger of Davidson College discusses her excellent new book 𝘛𝘩𝘦 𝘛𝘪𝘨𝘦𝘳 𝘓𝘦𝘢𝘥𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘋𝘳𝘢𝘨𝘰𝘯: 𝘏𝘰𝘸 𝘛𝘢𝘪𝘸𝘢𝘯 𝘗𝘳𝘰𝘱𝘦𝘭𝘭𝘦𝘥 𝘊𝘩𝘪𝘯𝘢'𝘴 𝘌𝘤𝘰𝘯𝘰𝘮𝘪𝘤 𝘙𝘪𝘴𝘦. supchina.com/podcast/how-ta… We also publish a transcript of our podcast for those who prefer reading. You can find that here: supchina.com/2021/10/14/a-h…

There’s a Chinese language Clubhouse room on the Xinjiang camps right now. Some fantastically candid things being said. One woman asked, earnestly, how to handle the sense of offense, her instinctive defensiveness, as a Han person confronted with allegations and evidence of the atrocity. Absent so far is any overt denial or apologism.

1/ You’ve probably seen the photo of Trump’s modified speech, where he crossed out “Corona” and wrote in “Chinese.” This was a deliberate provocation, and he said as much even before the pictures were out. He'll doubtless use it again in his upcoming press conference. 2/ But even if Trump is not a hateful bigot – and there’s every reason to believe he is – then at the least, he’s unacceptably tolerant of bigotry and insensitive to how he is fomenting it. He is endangering people who look like my wife, and my children, and many of my friends.