Category Archives: The Middle Kingdom

Notes From All Over (3/02/2014): Ghosts, Empire, and Tribal Honor

Tags:Dogs of War, Ecology, Education, History, Japan, Monied Interests, Notes From All Over, Pakistan, Romans and Grecians, Southeast Asia, The Middle Kingdom, Wealth

A collection of articles, essays, and blog post of merit. TOP BILLING “‘The standard of living in ancient societies: a comparison between the Han Empire, the Roman Empire, and Babylonia“ Bas van Leeuwen, Reinhard Pirgruber, and Jieli van Leeuwen-Li. Working Papers 50, Utrecht University, Centre for Global Economic History. The global and long-term development of […]

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Which Chinese Ethnic Minorities are Important? Ask the Spring Festival Gala!

Tags:Demographics, The Middle Kingdom

The annual CCTV Spring Festival Gala bills itself as the most watched television program on planet Earth. [1] I think this slightly misstates the nature of the program. It may be more accurate to describe the Gala as the most widely tolerated background noise for Mahjong-playing, dumpling eating, and hongbao giving celebrations on planet Earth.  […]

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Things Those Chinese Think (+What We Think Back)

Tags:Narrative, The Middle Kingdom

Taken from Michael Swaine, et. al, U.S.-China Security Perceptions Survey: Findings and Implications, p.11. Earlier this week the Carnegie Endowment for Peace published an important study (pdf version here) that presents and dissects an expansive survey of Chinese and American opinions and attitudes about their countries’ relationship with each other. [1] While the Pew Global […]

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Another Look at ‘The Rise of the West’ – But With Better Numbers

Tags:Demographics, Europa Regina, History, The Middle Kingdom, Wealth

Why the West? I do not think there is any other historical controversy that has so enthralled the public intellectuals of our age.  The popularity of the question can probably be traced to Western unease with a rising China and the ease with which the issue can be used as proxy war for the much […]

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Not Everyone Likes Sunzi

Tags:Political Theory, Possessions For All Time, Steppe and Sown, The Middle Kingdom

The Great Kangxi. Source: Wikimedia. Born Aixin-Jueluo Xuanye and styled Kangxi, his reign was the longest of any emperor. To this day no Chinese scholar has followed in the foot steps of Arthur Schlesinger Sr. and gathered China’s best historians together to rank all of China’s emperors, but if the task ever is completed, we […]

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The Limits of Weibo

Tags:Demographics, Narrative, The Middle Kingdom

Weibo penetration by province.From King-wa and Michael Chau. “Reality Check for the Chinese Microblog Space: A Random Sampling Approach.” PLoS ONE 8(3). 2013. The Chinese government’s ongoing campaign against “online rumors” and the devils who spread them has the blogosphere’s China hands aflutter. A great number of articles and blog posts have explored the topic; […]

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Notes From All Over (August 2013) Wars, Graphs, and Biospheres

Tags:Complex Systems, Ecology, Europa Regina, Geopolitics, History, Military Affairs, Monied Interests, Notes From All Over, Southeast Asia, The Middle Kingdom, Wealth

A collection of articles, essays, and blog post of merit. TOP BILLING “How To Lose a War: A Primer“Mark Safranski. Zenpundit.com. 28 July 2013. Since Pakistan is now attempting to get its victory over the United States in Afghanistan formally ratified, now seemed to be a good time to reflect on the performance of American […]

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Notes From Beijing: About that Chinese Social Contract

Tags:Culture, Narrative, Political Theory, The Middle Kingdom, Wealth

Why does the Chinese public support the Communist Party of China? Many assert that the Chinese government retains its legitimacy through high growth rates. Few stop to consider what evidence supports the contention. Truth be told, there is not much. The Chinese people like to bargain. I have heard Chinese call bargaining an art; others […]

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Keeping Up With China – A Few Resources

Tags:The Middle Kingdom

Chinese history, politics, and strategic thought are topics regularly returned to at The Stage. I have devoted several articles on the best books and resources for learning about China’s history and strategic corpus; below I provide a list of the (English language) websites that I find useful for keeping track of contemporary Chinese affairs.AggregatorsBill Bishop […]

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