Sam Crane

Hard to see who that might be

Xi Looks to Tighten Grip After Scandals Shake China’s Military Elite

Can Xi be confident the PLA could actually carry off a Taiwan attack?

www.nytimes.com/2025/08/10/w...

Faster please

The horror…

If this is true then key takeaways:

1 Forest is pretty damn efficient.

2 Villa good value

3 why can’t Fulham up its game?

Occasional photo:
Dublin

If you're in London on Oct 27, stop by.

www.soas.ac.uk/about/event/...

Yes. A good starting point.
I often begin with the Yijing. I show them how to throw coins to consult the oracle. It’s a bit confusing for them, but opens up to big questions of cosmology and epistemology.

Yes. I’m sure your approach will be great for your students. But it’s still a daunting question: how do we start? In a philosophical vein, I still find Mote’s Intellectual Foundations of China helpful but ymmv.

No. Don’t engage. If we even suggest that AI can do what we do, we are fucked. It is, and always will be, inferior to the human mind.

Wow. So where does one start to describe “Chinese culture”?
I like to detach it from “Confucianism” since that often becomes a metonym for the whole of it. Why not start with the Daodejing?

Alex Iwobi: ‘I give 100% in my football but I like to have fun off the pitch as well’ The Fulham midfielder has released a music single with Ramz and been for a walk with a lion but says it will not distract him because ‘I really do enjoy playing football’

As far as I am concerned, Iwobi can do whatever he wants.
#bestFulhamplayer

www.theguardian.com/football/202...

A grizzled elder, his dreams obviously crushed by capitalism, reluctantly dons military garb to engage in dangerous work suppressing undesirables and guiding his obviously dissolute and nihilistic offspring.

In today’s China the elderly live in comfort and need not work in reviled, low-status jobs to support unproductive youth.

U.S. may require visa applicants to post bond up to $15,000 to enter country The State Department is proposing requiring applicants for business and tourist visas to post a bond of up to $15,000 to apply to enter the United States.

The depth of the stupidity here is truly exceptional.

www.pbs.org/newshour/pol...

Getting serious about transition to consumption v. investment?

Oh.

It’s not about antisemitism. It’s about domination.

Occasional photo:
Duke Humphrey’s Library, Oxford.

That was a part of it, yes.

‘Self-termination is most likely’: the history and future of societal collapse An epic analysis of 5,000 years of civilisation argues that a global collapse is coming unless inequality is vanquished

Interesting, if chilling. Builds on previous research - ie Tilly, Mann. Like how he rejects language of “civilization.”

www.theguardian.com/environment/...

Comrade Xi Jinping not among signers of Jeffrey Epstein’s birthday book.

Excellent move, comrade! Why even have statistics if they don’t support Party ideology?

Less v. Fewer

Occasional photo:
Oban, Scotland

Yes, totally unfair to Hua, who was savvier than many have supposed. But who will be the latter day Ye Jianying, an early supporter of Hua who then critically shifted against him? We might see an analogous character as a current Republican powerholder who moves against Vance. Who is that?

The key missing element is the seeming absence of a Deng-like character behind the scenes. There are no effective moderate Republics who might push out Whateverists.
/fin

As Trump slides into decrepitude a new China analogy emerges: the court politics surrounding the fading Mao Zedong. Who will become the interpretive intermediary, telling us what the supreme leader really means and wants? Miller as Jiang Qing and purged? Vance as a Whateverist?
1/

Trump Administration Told Taiwan’s President to Avoid New York Stopover

Looks like Trump warded Lai off before a formal request for transit was made.

Trump Administration Told Taiwan’s President to Avoid New York Stopover www.nytimes.com/2025/07/30/w...

Yes. The US chooses to accept and continually reproduce gun violence.

Trump proactively concedes to Xi and undermines Taiwan.