Opinion – Reconciling China’s Zero-Covid Policy with History
Unlike in Mao’s era, domestic problems in China that affect its economic and political strength are likely to also affect the world in greater measure.
The Chinese Military Under Xi: Loyal and Ready to Achieve the History Mission?
Under Xi the People’s Liberation Army has a clear role in the national story of rejuvenation and empowerment that the President has been promoting since he became leader.
The Chinese Great Cultural Revolution and China’s Loss of Faith
The Cultural Revolution shaped, and continues to shape, the China that exists today. No matter whether anyone dares, or wants, to talk about the events five decades ago.
Review – Mao, Stalin and the Korean War
Through reconstruction of conversations between Soviet, Chinese, and North Korean diplomats, Shen Zhihua provides a vivid account of the origins and course of the Korean War from the Communist side.
Review – Mao’s Great Famine
In 1957 Chairman Mao Zedong launched a programme of rapid industrialisation with the ostensible aim of overtaking British steel production within 15 years. Over the following four years millions died in the greatest famine in history. Using recently opened archival material, Frank Dikötter has exposed the scale of this disaster in greater detail than any writer before and illustrates Mao’s central role in the suffering and devastation.
The development of Human Rights in Communist China
Since the establishment of the People’s Republic of China in 1949, its Communist Party leadership has repressed dissident political views and organized political opposition. Nevertheless, today’s China is not the China during the rule of Mao Zedong (1949-1976), when people were persecuted and imprisoned not only for what they said, but for who they were.
