Chinese communist party… Journalist Expulsions and Beijing’s Counterterrorism Narrative 26 Jan 2016 2015 was supposedly a triumphant year for the Chinese Communist Party, but the CCP seemed determined to end the year on a landslide of insecurity with respect to the foreign journalists…
EU-East Asia relations… Powerless Harmonies: Cultural Diplomacy in French-North Korean Relations 29 Dec 201429 Dec 2014 In March 2012, an orchestra of North Korean musicians went to Paris to perform, an event which gave us a very good case study of looking at the DPRK's soft…
Cultural Politics… Moranbong: Following French Intellectuals to North Korea in 1958 22 Nov 2012 As I've completed a long article on the subject of Sino-French relations in the mid-1950s with a focus on the 1955 journey of Simone de Beauvoir to the People's Republic…
Art… Blockages and Breakthroughts: Cultural Diplomacy and North Korea 23 Feb 2012 [A cross-post of an essay which I posted on SinoNK.com. -- AC] Yesterday, Corée_Actualités launched a short missive which functioned as a kind of bouleversement of the normal: a 90-member delegation of the DPRK's…
Cultural Politics… Consecrated: New French Embassy in Beijing 11 Nov 2011 The next time you encounter someone caterwauling about the rapid expansion of Chinese cultural institutions abroad, Chinese companies taking over contracts in Algeria, or complaining about the size of the…
Cultural Politics… Plateau Rouge: On the Cultural Revolution in Tibet (2) 7 Nov 20119 Nov 2011 A few weeks ago, I finally received my copy of the new French translation of Tibetan writer Woeser’s text of oral histories on the Cultural Revolution in Tibet. This past…
EU-East Asia relations… Inside North Korea: French Edition 5 Sep 20115 Sep 2011 I found this French film, apparently shot in spring 2010, to be better than most treatments of the North Korean tourist experience. Among other things, a young North Korean "rapper"…
Chinese communist party… The Dalai Lama in Toulouse: On Soft Power, Le Pen, and Unfallen Shoes 4 Sep 2011 Back in July, while on a late-night stroll through the 5th Arrdondisment looking for Rue Oberkampf, I chanced upon an announcement of the Dalai Lama's mid-August trip to Toulouse, France,…
China… High Altitude Social Isolation Tense Political Situation = Dream Job for Foreign Aid Worker in Tibet 6 May 2011 In the best cases, one of the unheralded side benefits of being a professor involves the holding of office hours, the offering of an open door. This morning, the open…
Art… Catching Up on French Reports from China 25 Apr 201125 Apr 2011 Today, prepping a piece on Ai Weiwei in the German press, I popped a few dozen links (beginning with my own "European Sources on East Asia" in my homepage sidebar)…
Adam Cathcart 