The Made in China Journal is an independent #openaccess publication that seeks to facilitate critical discussion about Chinese politics and society. Visit us at https://madeinchinajournal.com. A Global China Lab initiative (https://globalchinalab.com).https://bsky.app/profile/madeinchinajournal.comhttps://bsky.app/profile/madeinchinajournal.com/post/3mlixmowssk2tHow to find solace in a politically turbulent present? In a new essay, David Kwok Kwan Tsoi examines the case of Anita Mui's cultural afterlife in post-2019 Hong Kong to introduce the concept of 'temporal fugitives': those who cope with political depression by retreating into a reconstructed past. https://madeinchinajournal.com/2026/05/06/temporal-fugitives-and-anita-mui/10 May 2026 14:25 +0000at://did:plc:wvtle7wktcmh22u23ee436pb/app.bsky.feed.post/3mlixmowssk2thttps://bsky.app/profile/madeinchinajournal.com/post/3ml4bij24yc2jFour books explore Chinese lives in the US from the 19th century to the present, laying bare the shifting boundaries between the citizen and the alien, the criminal and the law. The colour line and class divisions are barriers more formidable than national borders, writes @yangyangcheng.bsky.social. https://madeinchinajournal.com/2026/05/05/the-pacific-as-a-mirror/05 May 2026 13:17 +0000at://did:plc:wvtle7wktcmh22u23ee436pb/app.bsky.feed.post/3ml4bij24yc2jhttps://bsky.app/profile/madeinchinajournal.com/post/3mko7qzkmhc2zFrom ancient deities to modern poets, queer life has shaped Chinese culture for centuries. In our podcast, @yangyangcheng.bsky.social sits down with @queercomrades.bsky.social and @dariuslongarino.bsky.social to explore queer Chinese activism, literature, and why poetry can reign when courts fail. https://madeinchinajournal.com/2026/04/27/episode-8-the-poetic-justice-of-queer-china/29 Apr 2026 23:08 +0000at://did:plc:wvtle7wktcmh22u23ee436pb/app.bsky.feed.post/3mko7qzkmhc2zhttps://bsky.app/profile/madeinchinajournal.com/post/3mklzf2aqdc2p|| NEW PROFILE || Funded by China Eximbank and built by Sinohydro, Uganda's 600MW Karuma Dam is one of sub-Saharan Africa's largest hydro projects. Yet it has been plagued by construction delays, quality issues, labour abuses, and land disputes, write Robert Wyrod and Casondra Heiss. https://thepeoplesmap.net/project/karuma-hydroelectric-power-station/29 Apr 2026 02:09 +0000at://did:plc:wvtle7wktcmh22u23ee436pb/app.bsky.feed.post/3mklzf2aqdc2phttps://bsky.app/profile/madeinchinajournal.com/post/3mkcl3uz5rc2yWhat does digital capitalism look like beyond Silicon Valley? Andrea Pollio talks to Tinhinan El Kadi about the five years he spent among renegade Chinese entrepreneurs, Kenyan state planners, VC analysts, and engineers in Nairobi's Silicon Savannah, the subject of his new book, 'Silicon Elsewhere'. https://globalchinapulse.net/silicon-elsewhere-a-conversation-with-andrea-pollio/25 Apr 2026 07:59 +0000at://did:plc:wvtle7wktcmh22u23ee436pb/app.bsky.feed.post/3mkcl3uz5rc2yhttps://bsky.app/profile/madeinchinajournal.com/post/3mjzcngkzn22dIn this new essay, Cai Chen recovers the queer lives hidden inside Chinese migration to Africa. Following three gay men across multiple countries, he develops the idea of 'unintended sexual migration', journeys where sexuality wasn't the motive but reshaped the path. Global China can be queer. https://globalchinapulse.net/queering-chinese-in-africa-the-unintended-sexual-migration-of-chinese-gay-men/21 Apr 2026 15:34 +0000at://did:plc:wvtle7wktcmh22u23ee436pb/app.bsky.feed.post/3mjzcngkzn22dhttps://bsky.app/profile/madeinchinajournal.com/post/3mjir4kc3gs2jHow did Kaifeng's old Jewish community go from revival to erasure? @jordynhaime.bsky.social traces the forces that recast Judaism as foreign in China, from missionaries to rising nationalism to CCP ethnic policy, asking whether any revival is possible without rethinking the Chinese nation itself. https://madeinchinajournal.com/2026/04/14/from-revival-to-erasure-ebbs-and-flows-of-judaism-in-kaifeng/15 Apr 2026 01:38 +0000at://did:plc:wvtle7wktcmh22u23ee436pb/app.bsky.feed.post/3mjir4kc3gs2jhttps://bsky.app/profile/madeinchinajournal.com/post/3mj4dyqlasc2aWhat does it mean to become an independent scholar in China today? In this essay, Mengzhu An reflects on her decision to leave the university system as an opportunity to critically interrogate the infrastructure of knowledge production in the Chinese context. https://madeinchinajournal.com/2026/04/09/is-it-possible-to-be-an-independent-scholar-in-china-today/10 Apr 2026 03:11 +0000at://did:plc:wvtle7wktcmh22u23ee436pb/app.bsky.feed.post/3mj4dyqlasc2ahttps://bsky.app/profile/madeinchinajournal.com/post/3mij7msakdk2pIn this new essay, Hasan Karrar traces how extractivism, infrastructure, and security politics became intertwined in post-9/11 Pakistan. Money came first through the Global War on Terror, then through Chinese investment, but both waves were shaped by the same securitised logic, he argues. https://globalchinapulse.net/extractivism-infrastructure-securitisation-new-entanglements-in-the-post-9-11-era/02 Apr 2026 12:32 +0000at://did:plc:wvtle7wktcmh22u23ee436pb/app.bsky.feed.post/3mij7msakdk2phttps://bsky.app/profile/madeinchinajournal.com/post/3mhw3uaw5ws23The new episode of our 开门见山 podcast is out! In the wake of the adoption of the new 'ethnic unity law', @yangyangcheng.bsky.social speaks with @dbyler.bsky.social and @rianthum.bsky.social on centuries of Islamic life in China, the repression in Xinjiang, and how identities survive state violence. https://madeinchinajournal.com/2026/03/24/episode-7-being-muslim-in-china/25 Mar 2026 22:04 +0000at://did:plc:wvtle7wktcmh22u23ee436pb/app.bsky.feed.post/3mhw3uaw5ws23https://bsky.app/profile/madeinchinajournal.com/post/3mhsikiavqc2kWhat does it mean to live where every promise of transformation has stalled but never quite ended? Following a holoparasitic plant through centuries of human-plant encounters, Yadong Li explores political depression on China's interior frontier, where futures feel suspended but not closed. https://madeinchinajournal.com/2026/03/24/tracing-the-unfinished-human-plant-encounters-and-their-echoes-in-chinas-interior-frontier/24 Mar 2026 11:41 +0000at://did:plc:wvtle7wktcmh22u23ee436pb/app.bsky.feed.post/3mhsikiavqc2khttps://bsky.app/profile/madeinchinajournal.com/post/3mhbwpkev3k2mHow do Chinese asylum seekers navigate US labour and platform economy regimes after arrival? Moving beyond linear migration-as-freedom narratives, in this essay @zoezhao.bsky.social and Haoju Lu trace workers' survival strategies across borders and the constraints on collective organising. https://madeinchinajournal.com/2026/03/16/beyond-zouxian-the-making-of-chinese-asylum-seeking-workers-in-the-us-platform-economy/17 Mar 2026 21:39 +0000at://did:plc:wvtle7wktcmh22u23ee436pb/app.bsky.feed.post/3mhbwpkev3k2mhttps://bsky.app/profile/madeinchinajournal.com/post/3mgop7igerc24@wozzeckhuang.bsky.social traces a line from neurasthenia in Mao-era China to the rise of 'political depression' today. Revisiting Arthur Kleinman's argument that neurasthenia was an embodied memory of political trauma, he asks: as depression took its place, how much of that burden was carried over? https://madeinchinajournal.com/2026/03/09/political-depression-and-the-afterlives-of-neurasthenia/10 Mar 2026 06:04 +0000at://did:plc:wvtle7wktcmh22u23ee436pb/app.bsky.feed.post/3mgop7igerc24https://bsky.app/profile/madeinchinajournal.com/post/3mgcmxeodi22uDaniel Herszberg discusses how Hong Kong's former pro-democracy protestors navigate dissent under the National Security Law. Focusing on two forms of soft resistance—the retention of artefacts and private commemoration—he argues they do so through grief, memory, and preserving what came before. https://madeinchinajournal.com/2026/03/05/custodianship-in-a-time-of-a-political-depression/05 Mar 2026 10:52 +0000at://did:plc:wvtle7wktcmh22u23ee436pb/app.bsky.feed.post/3mgcmxeodi22uhttps://bsky.app/profile/madeinchinajournal.com/post/3mg7mwznmhs2k|| NEW CALL FOR PAPERS || To mark the 50th anniversary of Mao Zedong’s death, we are planning an issue on memories and lessons from the Mao era. We invite contributions revisiting overlooked experiences, questioning established interpretations, or reflecting on what Maoist China can teach us today. https://madeinchinajournal.com/calls-for-papers/04 Mar 2026 06:14 +0000at://did:plc:wvtle7wktcmh22u23ee436pb/app.bsky.feed.post/3mg7mwznmhs2khttps://bsky.app/profile/madeinchinajournal.com/post/3mflq7vezes2jThe new issue of the Made in China Journal is out! This time we explore how queerness offers a lens for understanding contemporary Chinese society, as state visions of family and citizenship collide with diverse lived realities and unevenly translated global LGBTQIA+ discourses. https://madeinchinajournal.com/2026/02/24/queer-china/24 Feb 2026 08:19 +0000at://did:plc:wvtle7wktcmh22u23ee436pb/app.bsky.feed.post/3mflq7vezes2jhttps://bsky.app/profile/madeinchinajournal.com/post/3mf7nigkkr22gIn this essay, @queercomrades.bsky.social explores how the classical Chinese story of the Rabbit God has been reinterpreted across the global Chinese diaspora in recent years, highlighting creative reimaginings that promote an open and undogmatic vision of queer Chinese identity and heritage. https://madeinchinajournal.com/2026/02/19/performing-the-rabbit-god/19 Feb 2026 12:58 +0000at://did:plc:wvtle7wktcmh22u23ee436pb/app.bsky.feed.post/3mf7nigkkr22ghttps://bsky.app/profile/madeinchinajournal.com/post/3meo6v7alhc2eIn this essay, Jenny Man Wu examines how the Beijing Queer Film Festival has endured amid intensifying cultural regulation and LGBTQ+ repression in China, arguing that its survival rests on adaptive organising, guerrilla tactics, decentralisation, and a minoritarian ethic of care. https://madeinchinajournal.com/2026/02/12/queer-festival-troubles/12 Feb 2026 14:22 +0000at://did:plc:wvtle7wktcmh22u23ee436pb/app.bsky.feed.post/3meo6v7alhc2ehttps://bsky.app/profile/madeinchinajournal.com/post/3meftzpsyf225In 'Intimacy as a Lens on Work and Migration', Jingyu Mao offers a compelling account of the intimate experiences of Chinese migrant workers engaged in ethnic performance at restaurants and tourist sites in southwest China. Read the conversation with Hongkun Wang. https://madeinchinajournal.com/2026/02/05/intimacy-as-a-lens-on-work-and-migration/09 Feb 2026 06:46 +0000at://did:plc:wvtle7wktcmh22u23ee436pb/app.bsky.feed.post/3meftzpsyf225https://bsky.app/profile/madeinchinajournal.com/post/3mdl2uohf7223In his acclaimed 'Breakneck', Dan Wang frames China as a fast-moving technocratic 'engineering state' and the US as a rule-bound 'lawyerly society'. In this review, Clark Aoqi Wu argues the contrast is overly simplistic, substituting a memorable slogan for historical explanation. https://madeinchinajournal.com/2026/01/26/engineers-lawyers-and-the-costs-of-building/29 Jan 2026 15:06 +0000at://did:plc:wvtle7wktcmh22u23ee436pb/app.bsky.feed.post/3mdl2uohf7223https://bsky.app/profile/madeinchinajournal.com/post/3md2ykpwrns22Why do Chinese gay men eroticise the heteropatriarchal masculinity that oppresses them? Examining online S&M subcultures centred on the worship of straight-acting men, Bingchang Sun challenges interpretations that frame these practices solely as abjection or resistance. https://madeinchinajournal.com/2026/01/22/when-heteropatriarchy-turns-you-on-masculinity-masochism-and-the-erotics-of-normativity/23 Jan 2026 05:43 +0000at://did:plc:wvtle7wktcmh22u23ee436pb/app.bsky.feed.post/3md2ykpwrns22https://bsky.app/profile/madeinchinajournal.com/post/3mcvjifmcjk2qIn this essay, @jleibold.bsky.social and Soyonbo Borjgin expose the systematic dismantling of Mongolian-medium schooling in Inner Mongolia and argue that changing school names from Mongolian into Chinese constitutes one of the final acts in cancelling once-promised autonomy and sovereignty. https://madeinchinajournal.com/2026/01/20/rectifying-names-erasing-mongols-the-unmaking-of-mongolian-education-in-china/21 Jan 2026 01:29 +0000at://did:plc:wvtle7wktcmh22u23ee436pb/app.bsky.feed.post/3mcvjifmcjk2qhttps://bsky.app/profile/madeinchinajournal.com/post/3mcj44sin622jSix years after the ‘Be Water’ rebellion, in 'Forever Hong Kong' Ching Kwan Lee interrogates the historical conditions and precedents that precipitated the 2019 revolt, reinterpreting Hongkongers’ political resistance as acts of decolonial defiance. A conversation with @sharonyamsy.bsky.social. https://madeinchinajournal.com/2026/01/15/forever-hong-kong-a-conversation-with-ching-kwan-lee/16 Jan 2026 02:58 +0000at://did:plc:wvtle7wktcmh22u23ee436pb/app.bsky.feed.post/3mcj44sin622jhttps://bsky.app/profile/madeinchinajournal.com/post/3mcbholry4s2iHow does food delivery become masculinised? Zihao Zhang and Jenny Chan show how managers recruit and discipline riders through gendered ideas of masculinity, rewarding a few 'successful' breadwinners while casting others as less worthy men. A look at gender, labour, and the gig economy in China. https://madeinchinajournal.com/2026/01/12/gendered-organisation-of-platform-food-delivery-work-in-china/13 Jan 2026 02:04 +0000at://did:plc:wvtle7wktcmh22u23ee436pb/app.bsky.feed.post/3mcbholry4s2ihttps://bsky.app/profile/madeinchinajournal.com/post/3mbvzp6eea22lFrom imperial ritual through Maoist dialectics to Xi-era heritage politics, in this essay @tristangbrown.bsky.social explores how China’s heritage bureaucracy has turned archaeology into a language of governance, transforming artefacts into symbols of civilisational continuity and state authority. https://madeinchinajournal.com/2026/01/07/excavating-a-history-already-found/08 Jan 2026 12:54 +0000at://did:plc:wvtle7wktcmh22u23ee436pb/app.bsky.feed.post/3mbvzp6eea22lhttps://bsky.app/profile/madeinchinajournal.com/post/3mboaxknnvc2oAs the Monroe Doctrine resurfaces through US military action in Venezuela, Craig Smith looks back to the 20th century to show how, in periods of imperial expansion, Pan-American and Asianist discourses flowed in both directions across the Pacific, not only echoing but also reinforcing one another. https://madeinchinajournal.com/2026/01/05/monroe-doctrine-redux-new-americanism-and-the-echoes-of-empire-in-china-and-japan/05 Jan 2026 10:43 +0000at://did:plc:wvtle7wktcmh22u23ee436pb/app.bsky.feed.post/3mboaxknnvc2o