New on the site this fortnight.  First, a blast from the past, Cui Weiping’s brilliant “Why Does the Spring Breeze Not Warm the Earth?  The 1980s Debate on Humanism in China,” originally published in Taiwan in 2007, in which Cui revisits Wang Ruoshui and the debate over “alienation,” insisting that the debate remains relevant in reform-era China.  I was delighted to work with my colleague Selena Orly, Lecturer in the Department of Asian Studies at Bar-Ilan University in Tel Aviv, Israel, in the preparation of this translation.

Second, a very recent (Nov. 26) discussion of where the U.S. is heading with the election of Joe Biden by four well-known Shanghai professors.

Many of you may be interested by the journalist Ian Johnson’s recent post, “What is China Thinking?” which is a thoughtful review of the Reading the China Dream website.  For those who have recently discovered the site, Johnson does an excellent job of explaining what it is we are doing.
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Finally, the publication of Johnson’s post provoked an unexpected flurry of criticism of me and the website (on Johnson’s Facebook page, which I cannot helpfully link to).  Those interested in my response to this criticism can read my “Guerrilla Translation in a Borderless World.” 

New on the site this fortnite, two texts on China’s foreign relations by senior members of Beijing’s international relations elite :  Shi Yinhong, “The U.S. and Other Major Countries' Policies Toward China and the Future World Configuration,” and Wang Jisi, “Abandon the Conventions of Great Power Relations to Grasp the Framework of International Trends”.  Sinocism’s Bill Bishop observes that neither Shi nor Wang seems to have the ear of Zhongnanhai, but the texts are interesting nonetheless.

We are also adding three new texts to our Spanish-language section.  China is increasingly important throughout Latin America, but there is not a great deal of academic study devoted to China, and Spanish-language commentary is fairly rudimentary, so, ¡ándale!  I will create a separate menu for these texts once we have a critical mass. 

Nicolás Cornejo has joined the team as a second translator.  He studied political science at Tres de Febrero University in Argentina, is interested in the intellectual history of Republican China and contemporary intellectual debates.  He is currently learning Chinese in preparation for study in China.

Jiang Shigong "La 'Década Crítica' en la relación chino-americana: el 'Nuevo Imperio Romano' y la 'Nueva Gran Lucha'" (Cristina Reigadas)

Jie Dalei, "Ideología y competencia estratégica sino-estadounidense" (Nicolás Cornejo)

​Yan Xuetong, "Por qué y cómo prevenir la intensificación de las disputas ideológicas entre China y los EE.UU." (Cristina Reigadas)