How Israel’s embassy lost China, Xi call pleases Trump, and China brainrot
Deep Dives
Explore related topics with these Wikipedia articles, rewritten for enjoyable reading:
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Shanghai Ghetto
12 min read
The article mentions Yang Meng's doctoral research on Shanghai's WWII Jewish emigré community. The Shanghai Ghetto housed approximately 20,000 Jewish refugees who fled Nazi persecution, representing a unique chapter in both Jewish and Chinese history that provides essential context for understanding historical Jewish-Chinese relations.
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One China
1 min read
The article discusses Xi Jinping pressuring Trump regarding Taiwan and Japan's potential military response to a Chinese attack. Understanding the diplomatic framework of the One-China policy—its origins, variations between countries, and strategic ambiguities—is crucial for readers to grasp the stakes of these conversations.
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Sanae Takaichi
19 min read
A central figure in the article's discussion of Japan-China-US relations, Takaichi's comments on Taiwan defense angered Beijing. Her political background as a conservative nationalist and her positions on historical revisionism provide important context for understanding why her statements carry particular weight in the region.
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In this week’s edition:
‘How Israel’s embassy lost China’
A surprise call from Xi Jinping pleases Trump
China brainrot, from creator schlock to AI propaganda
Recommended reading and listening
Important China news from the last week or so
Antisemites in China and the U.S.
‘How Israel’s embassy lost China’
Yáng Mèng 杨梦 is an assistant professor at the prestigious Peking University, where she is the founder of the course “Jewish Civilization in a Global Context” and of China’s first Yiddish class. She learned the language while researching her doctoral thesis on Shanghai’s World War II emigré Jewish community.
I’ve been corresponding with her occasionally over the last few years, as she has faced a growing wave of antisemitism in China, and even institutional difficulties with her work. Beijing’s pro-Palestinian stance hardened after October 7, 2023, and virulent, conspiracy-minded criticism of Israel and antisemitism on social media have spiked, fueled by memes and ideas imported from the global internet. This has been tolerated by China’s powerful censorship apparatus and amplified by some state-affiliated accounts.
This atmosphere is in such stark contrast to my experiences living in China from 1995 to 2015, when most people’s attitudes to Jews seemed very positive. Sure, if you were very sensitive about stereotypes, you may not have liked the books on the secrets of Jewish business success that were constantly on display in bookstores, nor the frequent comments, when the subject was raised, about Jews being smart and good with money. When I was learning to speak Chinese in the 1990s, primarily by chatting to drunken strangers in small Beijing corner restaurants, I heard admiration expressed several times for Hitler as a “strong” leader, but that was often followed up with many complimentary statements
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