‘North Korea is a vital buffer for the Chinese to counter the heavy US presence in Japan and South Korea…The idea that Beijing might rein in Pyongyang is a Western illusion’

The "Golden Shield Project" is blocking access to great swathes of the web, but Chinese netizens are fighting back

The Wind from the East: French Intellectuals, the Cultural Revolution, and the Legacy of the 1960s by Richard Wolin

‘People who excuse Mao’s regime should remember that at least 45 million people died in the Great Leap Forward’

'The Chinese government is destroying the mud-brick maze of traditional Kashgar to cement control over its rebellious Turkic natives. Uighurs are terrified that by mid-century they will have become the Apache or Cherokee of China's Wild West'

‘Turning Russia around to support sanctions against Iran would be a great achievement. But will it happen?’

We imagine that the web is a forum for uncensored thought. We couldn't be more wrong

Business leaders are wrong to claim that they have no role to play in China's human rights record

An eye-witness of the massacre says its malign legacy persists 20 years on

It's fashionable to say the US is in terminal decline. Don't bet on it - still less wish for it