china

"The Party has accepted that it cannot eliminate Feng Shui; instead, it has placed itself as the ultimate authority on how it should be used. In this “state-led logic of legitimation,” the layout of China’s cities becomes a map of political authority, leading back to Beijing. Reading [Singapore Management University Professor Andrew] Stokols, I recalled the police officers from 2018, claiming atheism while adjusting their desks to face the right way. They weren’t hypocrites. They were simply navigating a country where the state bans superstition yet practices it, where ideology bends to mountains and rivers, and where even the most secular revolution eventually realizes that the dragon veins run deeper than Marx."

"...the anachronistic conception that Greece and Rome alone should be considered sources of culture for us, and that therefore they must remain for all time the focal point of historical-philological research. [Classicists] still practice that orthodox philology, which claims and possesses an influence, which it has not for a long time deserved, [and] that intolerant onesidedness which only accords the oriental sciences a hearing in so far as they are related to the history and culture of Greece, but otherwise are blind and want to be blind to the enormous field of Asian knowledge, which has brought us into contact with the modern world. [They are still beholden to] that real “unworldliness” in the scholarly sense, which takes no part in the widened historical conceptions of our day. Those are the forces with which Orientalistik has always had to struggle, and which today too block Sinology’s path, ... And added to this is another fact, that one ought to think, should offer [Sinology] a leg up, but actually because of the weirdness of our academic [canons of] scientificness hinders it; and that is its vital connection with the present. If Sinology only had to do exclusively with a long finished, ruined and then re-excavated culture, then perhaps there would be a possibility of finding grace in the eyes of the philological right-thinkers. .."

"Old Testament criticism was never bound by the same rules and prejudices as the study of China or of India, and vice versa."

"There's not a single other woman in Liuyicun who could fit their feet into my shoes. When my generation dies, people won't be able to see bound feet, even if they want to."

"Most people’s immediate reaction is how bad this custom was. I now see it as more of a means to an end. In their society it was the only way forward for women: It would garner them a better future, a better life; in their society it was considered beautiful and then later on it was considered backward. Can you imagine first of all being praised for going to such extreme measures and the torture you went through to be aesthetically pleasing only to be demonized as an adult for complying with standard practices?"

"Strange to think it was an erotic thing. To us, the smell of rotting flesh would be unbearable. But back then men wrote poems about the rich smell."

"Looking back on it, I am not sure what I was expecting. Such cruel and ugly words are used to describe bound feet. I held her naked foot in my hands and was surprised how soft to the touch her feet were. I was also taken aback because in some ways the form of her foot was quite beautiful. I think this also stems from a feeling of empathy that she had gone to such extreme lengths to be considered beautiful, desirable, marriage potential. It really resonated with me and I became even more excited about the project and eager to find more women to tell their stories."

"The bandages that women used for footbinding were about 10 feet long, so it was difficult for them to wash their feet. They only washed once every two weeks, so it was very, very stinky. But when I was young I was very free, because when I was naughty my mother couldn't run fast enough with her bound feet to catch me and beat me."

"It was a foot in name only. The misshapen mass looked more like a hoof bisected by a crack."

"Certainly the "three-inch golden lotuses" were seen as the ultimate erogenous zone, with Qing dynasty pornographic books listing 48 different ways of playing with women's bound feet."

"For one of my pieces on camera, I balanced a pair of embroidered doll shoes in the palm of my hand, as I talked about Lady Huang and the origins of foot-binding. When it was over, I turned to the museum curator who had given me the shoes and made some comment about the silliness of using toy shoes. This was when I was informed that I had been holding the real thing. The miniature “doll” shoes had in fact been worn by a human. The shock of discovery was like being doused with a bucket of freezing water."

"I came into this project with preconceptions like most people have, that this was a custom only done by the elite who lived lives of luxury in beautifully embroidered shoes, only to discover that this tradition transcended different classes just like any fashion statement. The women in my project all come from rural areas and are typically peasant farmers who have lived through some of the harshest times in China. I have learned so much from hearing their stories and being part of their lives. As a photographer, I am a storyteller and I hope people can have a better understanding of this tradition through looking at my work. It has been an honor to have been part of their lives."

"The truth, no matter how unpalatable, is that foot-binding was experienced, perpetuated and administered by women. Though utterly rejected in China now— the last shoe factory making lotus shoes closed in 1999 —it survived for a thousand years in part because of women’s emotional investment in the practice. The lotus shoe is a reminder that the history of women did not follow a straight line from misery to progress, nor is it merely a scroll of patriarchy writ large. Shangguan, Li and Liang had few peers in Europe in their own time. But with the advent of foot-binding, their spiritual descendants were in the West. Meanwhile, for the next 1,000 years, Chinese women directed their energies and talents toward achieving a three-inch version of physical perfection."

"Every academic in China works under a censorship and ideological regime that distorts and repackages his work to make China appear like a normal and free society. …Offending phrases or topics may lead to sanctions such as failing an “ethical evaluation.” Party leaders in China’s universities also make use of student informants who report any politically banned speech from their professors in the classroom. The system generates a constant rumor mill about topics that are off-limits, and also has the consequence of denying China’s rulers useful information about governance issues like corruption."

"For the untrained eye, Tai Ji Men’s Dragon Dance might appear to be merely a cultural showcase. It is undoubtedly a colorful and vibrant performance of Chinese cultural heritage, which is made possible by hand-crafting artisanal dragon heads and sometimes dozens of meters-long dragon bodies. This massive mythical creature is then brought to life by syncretizing the movements of , who are led by the dragon ball, before the creature’s head. For scholars of religion, however, the arduous preparation process and the practice of the Dragon Dance also unveil further interpretative layers."

"“In ancient Tibet there was a kind of feudal discrimination against women; however, compared to the fate of Chinese women, Tibetan women had a much better status, almost equal to that of men. » ... “many of the high reincarnations of our lamas are women – so, at least from a religious point of view, women have been well treated”."

"Frankly, I don’t know much about it... If I had enough knowledge I would speak about it. It is not so much in the papers."

"I did not find any instance of forced labor or cultural and religious repression. The imams we met at the mosques and the students and teachers at the Xinjiang Islamic Institute told us that they enjoy freedom in practicing Islam and that the Chinese government extends support for maintenance of mosques all over Xinjiang. I learned that there are over 30,000 mosques all over Xinjiang that form part of the religious life of the people there. Similarly, I did not see any sign of cultural repression... My country is also plagued by terrorism. I hope my country can adopt some of these measures, such as setting up a vocational education and training center and carrying out poverty alleviation work, to help de-extremization. But they don't have so much money to do this."

", an [American] anthropologist, is Assistant Professor of International Studies at Simon Fraser University in Vancouver, British Columbia, and a specialist of Xinjiang. In new, fascinating research he reports a strange phenomenon. Irrigation channels are clogged in Southern Xinjiang but there have been no landslides or other natural incidents. They are clogged by books. Villagers go there at night and dump all the volumes they kept at home. The police are visiting their homes and would arrest them if they find religious, subversive, or otherwise “dissident” literature. Since they don’t know what books may be regarded as subversive, to be on the safer side they dump all of them. Elsewhere, books are dumped in the sewers, and they are also obstructed."

"I’m not sure that’s what’s happening in China. In our conversations with China, they have drawn a different picture of the issue. And whatever issues we do have with the Chinese, we will always discuss them behind closed doors."

"Because of our extreme proximity and relationship with China, we actually accept the Chinese version... It is hypocritical. There are much worse human rights violations taking place in other parts of the world… But Western media hardly comment on this."

"The Turkish side never uses Xinjiang-related issues as a tool against China and has long designated the ETIM (East Turkistan Islamic Movement) as a terrorist organization and banned its activities in Turkey."

"I think often of persecuted peoples: the Rohingya, the poor Uyghurs, the Yazidi -- what ISIS did to them was truly cruel -- or Christians in Egypt and Pakistan killed by bombs that went off while they prayed in church."

"The spark that ignited the [June 15, 1988 Uyghur Xinjiang University students'] protest came after years of systematic discrimination and humiliation of Uyghur students. On May 5, 1988, racist and degrading graffiti were scrawled in the restroom of the Physics Department at Xinjiang University in Urumqi. The words included vile slogans such as: “Let’s make Uyghur men slaves, and turn their girls into prostitutes.” Despite the disgraceful nature of this incident, the university administration and authorities remained silent. Uyghur students attempted to voice their concerns through legal and official channels, submitting petitions and seeking dialogue. All efforts were either rejected or ignored. It became clear—silence was no longer an option. …What started as discrimination in the 1980s has now escalated into full-scale genocide."

"By receiving billions of dollars from China, these countries are not only forced to remain quiet on the genocidal atrocities against Uyghur Muslims in East Turkistan but also commanded from Beijing to do whatever the PRC wants."

"In China, Uyghurs and other Muslims have difficulties protecting their religious rights and cultural identity... Is it right to ignore the situation of the Uyghurs?"

"But Khan’s work in championing the world’s Muslims is undercut by his deafening silence on the oppression of the Uighur community in China... When asked publicly about the Uighurs, Khan’s responses range from declaring he knows little about the issue to saying he is discussing the matter privately with Beijing."

"[W]e are a 100% satisfied that it’s a non-issue. The West can say what it wants. I am telling you as a responsible official, we know everything we need to know about the Uighurs and everything else in China as they do about us. We have zero concerns, absolutely zero concerns."

"After careful examination of the available facts, I have determined that since at least March 2017, the People’s Republic of China, under the direction and control of the Chinese Communist Party, has committed crimes against humanity against the predominantly Muslim Uyghurs and other members of ethnic and religious minority groups in Xinjiang."

"I believe, however, that the hatred of the Chinese Communists, hatred which dates back to Mao Zedong, is much more violent towards Tibetan Buddhism than it is against the Islamic separatists of Xinjiang. Moreover, recently, a senior Chinese official commented that Tibetan separatism is more dangerous than that of Xinjiang. Strange, when we are a religion that preaches absolute non-violence. Besides, I will give you an example of this hateful partiality against my people: in Chinese prisons, the prison guards respect Muslim customs by not serving pork, but they force Buddhist monks to kill cows and pigs, knowing that our religion forbids it."

"Pakistan remains of the firm view that the perspective and consent of the concerned States should be given utmost importance when dealing with the affairs which fall exclusively within their sovereign jurisdiction."

"Why is it wrong for [the] Uyghurs to seek help from other states to protect their national existence and gain national freedom and to seek partners in international conflicts, while the country of Pakistan, where you studied, has the right to receive help from [the Communist régime ruling] China at the expense of sacrificing the rights of Uyghur Muslims to feed its own people with blood-tainted Chinese [Communist Party] money?"

"Not satisfied with this, after entering Peking, Lord Elgin ordered the burning of the Summer Palace `whose splendours' the conquerors themselves had `found it difficult to describe'. This action Elgin in his ignorance had imagined would impress the Oriental and leave a lasting fear of the European in the Chinese mind. By a strange process of reasoning, the Europeans have, throughout their relations with Asians, convinced themselves that acts of savagery and inhumanity will increase their prestige in the eyes of Asian people. ... The Elgins have been unfortunate in their historical imagination- — whether it be in respect of Greek marbles or Chinese palaces."

""How TikTok Killed The Preteen Era by Evita Duffy-Alfonso, The Federalist (January 6, 2024)"

"Defendants did not create the Challenge; rather, they made it readily available on their site. Defendants’ algorithm was a way to bring the Challenge to the attention of those likely to be most interested in it. In thus promoting the work of others, Defendants published that work — exactly the activity Section 230 shields from liability."

"You can't use TikTok for now"

""Pakistan Wants to Ban TikTok for “Immorality”" by Marco Respinti, Bitter Winter (January 6, 2025)"

"In families that already had one child, the births of additional children—in violation of the one-child policy—were often undocumented, leading to many problems later on for those children as they struggled to receive an education or find work."

"China’s one-child policy will be remembered as one of the costliest lessons of misguided public policymaking. Contrary to the claims of some Chinese officials, much of China’s fertility decline to date was realized prior to the launch of the one-child policy, under a much less strict policy in the 1970s calling for later marriage, longer birth intervals, and fewer births. In countries that had similar levels of fertility in the early 1970s without extreme measures such as the one-child policy, fertility also declined, and some achieved a level similar to China’s today. While playing a limited role in reducing China’s population growth, the one-child policy in the 35 years of its existence has created tens of millions, perhaps as many as 100 million, of China’s 150 million one-child families today. For these families, the harm caused by the policy is long-term and irreparable."

"Though often labeled one of China's most draconian laws, China's one-child policy, introduced at the end of the 1970s and abandoned at the beginning of 2016, achieved what it set out to do -- rein in growth of the country's already vast population. More than three decades on, as economic prosperity and nature have taken their course, the country faces a new demographic issue: it looks set to become old before it becomes rich."

"A consensus has emerged that the sex ratio distortion in China is due to prenatal discrimination against female conceptions. This consensus is based primarily on evidence from fertility surveys, field work and census data."

"Peer pressure and an extensive propaganda campaign were aimed at persuading Chinese people to embrace the ideal of a one-child family. Most Chinese did not own a television, and cell phones and the Internet did not exist during the policy’s first two decades, so the government made use of public spaces to display slogans and images depicting happy, healthy, and prosperous one-child families."

"Some families defied the policy by having a second or third child. If the “population police” found out, they punished the parents by imposing fines that were well beyond most families’ ability to pay. Many such parents therefore kept their “above quota” children hidden from public view. Their official invisibility meant that these children were not given a residence permit, called a hukou, which meant they could not get health care, attend school, or even get a library card."

"Finally, the jury is still out on how Chinese people will respond to this loosening of the rules. One of the side-effects of the old policy is that there is now an expectation that parents will spend so much money and resources on a child, that even many middle class couples say they cannot comprehend being able to afford two children.5 China therefore may continue to have a generation of children who feel either lucky or lonely, or both."

"Was the policy a success? It depends on who you ask. Supporters say it worked: since the late 1970s, China’s economic growth has lifted hundreds of millions of people out of poverty. That would not have been possible, they say, without controlling population growth."

"The one-child policy was designed in 1980 as a temporary measure to put a brake on China’s population growth and to facilitate economic growth under a planned economy that faced severe shortages of capital, natural resources, and consumer goods. However, the answer to China’s underdevelopment did not come from its extreme birth control measures, but from reform policies that loosened state control over the economy. China’s economic boom over the last few decades has lifted hundreds of millions out of poverty, sent almost 100 million young men and women to college, and inspired generations of Chinese, both young and old, to purse their economic goals. As observed in many other countries and societies, socioeconomic and cultural transformations accelerated the pace of fertility decline. By the turn of the new century, China’s fertility was well below the replacement level, and China began to face the mounting pressures associated with continued low fertility. To continue the one-child policy within such a demographic context was clearly no longer defensible."

"But critics say the policy was unnecessary, and ultimately replaced one problem—too many people—with another—too few. Specifically, China now has too few females and will soon have too few young people. These imbalances are creating social tensions that will be difficult to un-do, even now that the one-child restriction has been replaced with a two-child policy. These tensions are felt at a very personal level, and are challenging long-held values in China about the importance of marriage, family, and children’s sense of duty to their parents."

"In China, parents have historically preferred sons to daughters and in some circumstances discarded daughters upon birth. In the 1960s, when fertility was high and infant mortality was low, this pattern was temporarily muted by the fact that most mothers were likely to have at least one surviving son without resorting to sex selection. However, while the female deficit was reduced, high fertility and low infant mortality were contributing to unsustainable population growth."

"Why did we follow such a wrong policy for so long? The Chinese government doesn’t want to admit it’s wrong. It says the policy was right but now is the time to change. If it just says the policy was wrong, the public will become angry."

"The situation in China is different from that overseas. Other countries also have families who have lost an only child, but not as many. Such parents comprise just a small segment in other countries, but since family-planning is a national policy in China, this demographic group has ballooned. Among the Chinese up to 25 years old, four out of every 10,000 die for various reasons every year. This translates into 76,000 deaths each year. Over the past few decades, some 10 million families have been affected by these deaths."