Month: March 2021

Mar 4th 2021 IN ITS HEYDAY in the 1960s and 1970s, the village of Dazhai was called a place of miracles. Millions of revolutionary pilgrims came to hear how local peasants had carved terraced grain-fields and reservoirs from its rocky hillsides, armed with little more than hand tools and love of Chairman Mao Zedong. Dazhai’s barely literate Communist Party secretary, Chen Yonggui, was summoned to Beijing and elevated to the Politburo with the rank of vice prime minister. Back then Liang Jiwen was a schoolboy, the son of a Dazhai…

Mar 4th 2021 HONG KONG SINCE CHINA imposed a draconian security law on Hong Kong last year, protests in the city—already dampened by pandemic-related controls—have been rare. But on March 1st hundreds of people gathered outside a court to demonstrate against the largest case so far related to the security bill. They held banners calling for the release of “political prisoners” and chanted slogans that were popular during the unrest that engulfed the territory in 2019. Students at a primary school nearby stood outside their classrooms, shouting in solidarity. It…