Long Reads

The artist who drew US attention to China’s WWII plight

Martha Sawyers eschewed pre-war tropes of other Western artists depicting Chinese people as weak and backward.

16 Mar 2020 - 10:21AM
The curious case of Mongolia’s missing dinosaur fossil

Unearthed by poachers in the 2000s, the Halszkaraptor escuilliei is a dinosaur unlike anything seen before and, having changed hands a number of times across continents, is finally ready to come home.

15 Mar 2020 - 5:08AM
HART to the rescue: Hong Kong’s specialist squad

When a climber falls from a cliff, the unit of uniquely trained fire services officers springs to action to save their life.

14 Mar 2020 - 10:30AM
How China’s fashion industry, and its consumers, have evolved

The triumphs and challenges of the nation’s designers and distributors are revealed in this excerpt from the book Fashion in Multiple Chinas – Chinese Styles in the Transglobal Landscape.

8 Mar 2020 - 10:40AM
Keeping the faith: China’s Kaifeng Jews date back 1,400 years

The little-known and dwindling community, which has only 100 practising members in Henan province, has an unlikely ambassador – a teenage schoolboy from Hong Kong.

9 Mar 2020 - 11:22AM
Around the world in a Model T: the globetrotting of Aloha Wanderwell

One marriage, 380,000 miles, two children and many mishaps later, only a murder could (briefly) interrupt the pioneering filmmaker’s travels.

3 Mar 2020 - 11:49AM
How art helped spread Maoism around the world

An excerpt from Art, Global Maoism and the Chinese Cultural Revolution, edited by Jacopo Galimberti, Noemi de Haro García and Victoria H. F. Scott, explores the contradictions inherent in the global spread of China’s 20th century political doctrine.

1 Mar 2020 - 9:15AM
exclusive | How Disease X, the epidemic-in-waiting, erupted in China

Health experts warned of a future epidemic that would be ‘threatening to the world and socially disrupting’. The new coronavirus may fit the description.

29 Feb 2020 - 6:08PM
Amphetamines: how World War II got Japan and the US hooked

In this second excerpt of Peter Andreas’ book Killer High, the author recounts how a post-war surplus of the drug triggered addiction epidemics around the world.

24 Feb 2020 - 9:38AM
Gold drew the Chinese to Australia, why is their legacy largely forgotten?

Driven off Queensland’s goldfields, arrivals from China pioneered trade and agriculture in the north of the country, until discriminatory legislation and changing times forced them out.

22 Feb 2020 - 7:16AM
Cambodian city loses bet as money for Chinese casinos dries up

Thousands of Chinese construction workers have been left unpaid and stranded in Sihanoukville, Cambodia, as work on half-built casinos backed by Chinese investors comes to a halt following August ban on online gambling.

20 Feb 2020 - 11:59AM
‘You have to take sides in life,’ says Hong Kong lawmaker Claudia Mo

The 63-year-old Hong Kong journalist turned lawmaker talks to Kate Whitehead about reporting from Beijing on the Tiananmen Square crackdown and her recent run-in with pro-establishment lawmaker Junius Ho.

18 Feb 2020 - 3:41PM
How Shenzhen’s ‘urban villages’ were lost to the megacity myth

Architect Juan Du has written a book about the long history of Shenzhen, China’s ‘instant’ metropolis bordering Hong Kong. We take a stroll through the city’s vanishing old enclaves with her.

16 Feb 2020 - 2:35PM
The fight to save Penang from proposed mega projects

Various local NGOs have come together to oppose construction projects in the Malaysian state, including three motorways, an undersea tunnel and three new islands

15 Feb 2020 - 10:32AM
For centuries, war and opium have been entwined in Asia

In an excerpt from the book Killer High, author Peter Andreas lays out how the opium poppy has been funding political parties and conflict for generations, often with the CIA’s tacit approval.

14 Feb 2020 - 7:44PM
Is China ready to take lead in fight against climate change?

Following the United States’ withdrawal from the Paris Agreement, China was expected to take the environmental lead, but, as the deadlock at the recent COP25 conference shows, the country has other plans.

9 Feb 2020 - 3:00PM
Did Japan once offer US$100 million for Macau?

The Portuguese colony’s potential as a hub for transpacific flights came to light in the 1930s – as did a mystery bid to buy it outright.

8 Feb 2020 - 2:32PM
Inside Carlos Ghosn’s audacious escape from Japan

The covert operation that spirited the celebrated businessman and former head of Nissan to Lebanon illustrates how wealth and connections can set you, literally, free.

9 Feb 2020 - 11:25AM03571EC5-13F4-4283-B996-99444BE88411
Where would US health care be without Filipino nurses?

With the existing workforce ageing, a historic shortfall looming and Trump limiting immigration, the system’s best hope lies with the nurses themselves.

2 Feb 2020 - 8:30AM