Lijia Zhang's Blog, page 15
March 21, 2024
Global Feminism
I have always been interested in gender issue. When I was invited to take part in a panel discussion about Global Feminism, organized by Georgetown University in the U. S., I said yes!
The ongoing struggle for women’s equality around the world has a deep history. For millennia social, cultural and religious forces have held women back, relegating them to second class status in the family and the wider culture and society. What are some key milestones in the history of women’s liberation around the world? What lessons do global histories of feminism hold for today’s ongoing struggle for women’s equality? Leading international intellectuals Nesrine Malik and Lijia Zhang will reflect on these questions in an online conversation moderated by Pankaj Mishra, renowned author, essayist, and literary critic.
March 18, 2024
Be interviewed for a Mao documentary
I came to Paris mainly for this major TV documentary on contemporary China. The interview took place today inside the Pagoda in Paris, such a hidden gem. Delighted that the interview went really well.
March 6, 2024
My piece in the pink pages
How wonderful to have published in the bloody FT! Well not bloody, to be precise, but in the “pink pages”!
In today’s opinion piece, I talk about China’s low political participation – there are too few women in senior government positions.
https://www.ft.com/content/a4cee0a7-d4d6-46ba-b61e-129dfd766b6a
If you’d like to read it but don’t have a subscription, feel free to message me.
March 1, 2024
my column on China’s ‘common prosperity’
As someone who hails from a lower rung of society, I am very interested in wealth inequality and social mobility. Here’s my take on China’s ‘common prosperity’ goal.
February 15, 2024
Chinese food culture
Food, Glorious Food! I had the great pleasure of interviewing Fuchsia Dunlop, a top expert on Chinese food and its food culture.
February 1, 2024
Podcast on feminism
Feminist activism in China then and now: here’s a link to our NuVoices Podcast hosted by Jessie Lau and myself,interviewing journalist Wanqing Zhang who had recently written an in-depth piece on the topic.https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/n%C3%BCvoices/id1413970298?i=1000643677428
January 28, 2024
my oped on China’s labour tension
As someone who has slaved for ten years at a factory, I take a keen interest in labour relations. Sadly outrageous things such as sacking workers on the spot still take place in China today. Here’s why.
January 22, 2024
January 17, 2024
The Incredible Transformation of Prominent Chinese Dissident Chen Guangcheng
"Dissident at the Doorstep," is a fascinating new podcast created by award-winning filmmaker Alison Klayman, (her debut feature is artist Ai Weiwei), her husband Colin Jones, and Yangyang Cheng, a super-smart Chinese academic living in the US. It tells the remarkable journey of the blind lawyer Chen Guangchen, from his poor village in Shandong to a barefoot lawyer, fighting rural injustice, to his heroic escape from house arrest to the American embassy in Beijing and finally into pro-Trump Republican. (He famously spoke at the Republican National Convention in 2020.)
I must say that I played a role in Chen’s life. I was the first journalist ever to interview him and made him famous. And in 2012, I helped Newsweek to work on a feature about China’s barefoot lawyers – the self–taught lawyers, borrowing Mao’s idea of the ‘barefoot doctors’, with Chen on the cover. The article attracted plenty of attention from around the world and sent him to America where he met a distinguished legal professor Jerry Cohen, who later helped him to get a place at NYU.
How did this remarkable Chinese dissident become a passionate Trump supporter? You’ll find out from the podcast.
January 16, 2024
Dissident at the Doorstep, a fascinating podcast about the blind lawyer
"Dissident at the Doorstep," is a fabulous new podcast created by award-winning filmmaker Alison Klayman, (her debut feature is artist Ai Weiwei), her husband Colin Jones, and Yangyang Cheng, a super-smart Chinese academic living in the US. It tells the fascinating journey of the blind lawyer Chen Guangchen, from his poor village in Shandong, to a barefoot lawyer, fighting rural injustice, to his heroic escape from house arrest to the American embassy in Beijing and finally into pro-Trump Republican. (He famously spoke at the Republican National Convention in 2020.)
