Mareike Ohlberg

(Just to be clear, I regularly experience the same astonishment in the other direction: there are those who see the Chinese political system for what it is but somehow pretend that everything is a-okay in America. But today I'm marvelling extra hard at the other camp.)

I probably shouldn't be, but I'm always astonished by the people who can see the authoritarian turn in the US very clearly but somehow still manage to whitewash, ignore or play down authoritarianism in China despite having lived in the country. And I'm not talking about the classic tankies.

After 29 years, RFA is on pause From the executive editor: funding uncertainty is driving RFA’s remaining teams to stop delivering the news for now

Congratulations, Elon Musk.

Huge if true, and seems to confirm that the semiconductor export control regime was indeed up as a bargaining chip in Trump's talks with Xi, which begs the question of what else might be up for negotiation

Thanks for publishing this. Reading the exchange, I couldn't help but think that the reason why Halligan feels so unconstrained to go for this ham-fisted intimidation/manipulation attempt is that this kind of stuff probably works on an unfortunately high number of people.

I like to joke that Xi Jinping is my most important and reliable ally when it comes to convincing the US and Europe to make better China policy. Maybe I need to add Putin to my list of "allies."

PEN International #China: Today, on the 10-year anniversary of the kidnapping of poet, bookseller and PEN member, Gui Minhai, 65 PEN Centres around the world renew our demand for his immediate and unconditional...

#China: Today, on the 10-year anniversary of the kidnapping of poet, bookseller and PEN member, Gui Minhai, 65 PEN Centres around the world renew our demand for his immediate and unconditional release.

Read our joint statement ⬇️

www.pen-international.org/news/china-p...

#FreeGuiMinhai

"escalating his challenge to the authority" @nytpitchbot.bsky.social is this you??

China Pushes Trump to Drop Curbs as It Dangles Investment Pledge China is pushing the Trump administration to roll back national-security restrictions on Chinese deals in the US, dangling the prospect of a massive investment package as part of a proposal that would...

Is Trump irresponsible enough to fall for this? China’s leadership must think so

www.bloomberg.com/news/article...

Black-and-white photo of a man retrieving a letter from a partitioned restroom stall, while others stand nearby observing. Chinese text is printed below the image.

continue on the theme of different "toilet cultures", I grew up using toilets without flush water and without cubicles. this is a widely circulated image showing an illustrated 007 book likely from the 1980s. the illustration is about James Bond retrieving a secret letter in a public restroom...

Rough Seas Ahead

My analysis of Tuesday's mtg:

"...It underscored the admin’s intention to shift its focus... toward homeland issues, and provided the clearest indication yet that US partners and allies will have to contend with a military increasingly operating outside of int'l law."

www.gmfus.org/news/rough-s...

Author copies for

Dictating the Agenda: The Authoritarian Resurgence in World Politics

by me & @cooleyoneurasia.bsky.social arrived today!

If you re-post this by Sept 30 we'll put you in a drawing & send the winner a free signed copy anywhere they happen to be on the planet.

Glad to see people finally talking about this.

Chinese readout from the Trump-Xi call www.cac.gov.cn/2025-09/19/c...

""Fünf nach zwölf" heißt jetzt: Ich weiß nicht, ob wir noch die Freiheit, die Vielfalt der Lebensformen, die Toleranz verteidigen können; aber mehr als verlieren können wir nicht."

I've had my fair share of disagreements with Mr. Niblett on China (and still do), but we are, sadly, in agreement here.

One of my last few trusted online resources really let me down today, and it feels like we have entered a new era where anything and everything can and will be taken down. Even the most trustworthy corners of the internet are no longer exempted.

Brendan Carr had better get on the ball to silence this Brendan Carr guy

Tired: Qu Yuan 屈原 as the voice of a pearl-clutching elitist

Wired: Qu Yuan as a queer flower queen who’s utterly unwilling to just be cool with appalling government

COVID-19 journalist Zhang Zhan will be tried this week in China, RSF calls on international community to act Chinese journalist Zhang Zhan spent four years in prison for breaking some of the earliest COVID-19 stories from Wuhan, the Chinese city where the virus took hold. Now, she is about to be tried in the...

❗ #China: Zhang Zhan spent 4 years in prison for reporting on COVID-19. She is to be tried in Shanghai tomorrow after being re-arrested a year ago for a bogus offense. It’s urgent for the international community to pressure Beijing for her release. #FreeZhangZhan! rsf.org/en/covid-19-...

For EU nerds, helpful list of all EP Committees now on Bluesky:

No one has the goods yet, but journalists should be digging to see if there is an agreement with Russia about these deportations

Russia designated the 'LGBT Movement' as a terrorist organisation. They know there is no such group; that's the point. It means they can choose to arrest ANYONE with any association with LGBT issues and treat them as a terrorist.

The fact that 'antifa' is not a group should not be a comfort here.

The correct term is "historical nihilism", and you got to fight it.

YouTube video by Dali Tang 较量无声-国防大学内部片

Apropos of current events, here's Silent Contest (2013), produced by the PLA and the National Defense University. Consider it. a prelude to China's NGO Law. www.youtube.com/watch?v=iUjk...

this is a gloriously stupid new take on a book that is a constant generator of stupid takes

I spoke with @whiskeyocelot.bsky.social and @chinafile.bsky.social's Jessica Batke about their recent Locknet report, which provides a brilliant, concise, detailed but accessible overview of China's online censorship system.

Lol. A year ago these same people insisted that any effort to label foreign propaganda was an attack on free speech, and forced the dismantling of multiple orgs studying foreign disinformation

Last point: I'm increasingly convinced that a solid 70% of our problems in dealing with authoritarians (both the established and the aspiring ones) stem from media, pundits, and even people who should know better failing to call out bad faith bs when they see it and instead try to "engage."

People in DC keep telling me how hawkish Trump 2 is on China. The truth is, I'd even advocate for this proposal now if I believed for a second that this was actually true. But all relevant signs point towards accommodation and profit maximization as the sole driving factor of China policy.