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New York Times
03-06-2025
- General
- New York Times
What We Can Learn About Xi's Rule by Studying His Father's Life
One June evening in 1976 when a neighbor visited Xi Zhongxun, a former vice premier who had been exiled to a factory in central China, he found the old man drinking cheap liquor and crying alone in the dark. Mr. Xi explained that it was his son Xi Jinping's birthday. The old man felt guilty that Jinping and the family suffered so much during the Cultural Revolution. A month later, Xi Jinping, who had just turned 23, visited his father, who made him recite two of Mao Zedong's famous speeches from memory: 'On Contradiction' and 'On Practice.' The Cultural Revolution ended that fall with Mao's death. Xi Zhongxun would go on to become a national leader in the 1980s with a reputation as a reformer. His son Xi Jinping would become China's top leader in 2012 and chart a more authoritarian course than any leader since Mao. One of the most enduring debates — and, for many people, deepest disappointments — in contemporary China is why Xi Jinping did not live up to his father's image. After both were persecuted under Mao's autocratic rule, why has Xi Jinping's reign come to echo Mao's cult of personality rather than the more open, institutionalized governance that his father most likely would have preferred? In a new biography of Xi Zhongxun, the China scholar Joseph Torigian addresses this question and contributes greatly to our understanding of China. The book, deeply researched, tells the story of a man torn between his humanity and his loyalty to the Chinese Communist Party, offering insights into the party's workings and the human suffering that shaped his son's governing style and conception of power. 'Some may wonder why Xi Jinping would remain so devoted to an organization that severely persecuted his father,' writes Mr. Torigian, an associate professor at American University and a research fellow at the Hoover Institution. 'Perhaps the better question is, How could Xi Jinping betray the party for which his father sacrificed so much?' Want all of The Times? Subscribe.
South China Morning Post
28-05-2025
- Science
- South China Morning Post
Elon Musk's Hyperloop can be ‘extremely unpleasant', China project scientists have ‘cure'
Chinese scientists claimed to have solved a critical flaw in the futuristic vision of ultra-high speed ground travel, potentially salvaging vacuum-tube maglev technology and casting new light on the challenges faced by Elon Musk's Hyperloop concept. A study published by China's peer-reviewed Journal of Railway Science and Engineering on May 16 showed that even minor imperfections – such as uneven coils or bridge deformations – would turn a journey into an ordeal, even in near-airless tunnels. But the engineers – who are working at the world's first full-scale test line in central China – also said they found a way to slash turbulence intensity by nearly a half, reducing 'extremely severe bumps' to levels that were 'pronounced, but not unpleasant'. The researchers, led by Zhao Ming from the maglev and electromagnetic propulsion division of state-owned China Aerospace Science and Industry Corporation (CASIC), said they used supercomputer simulations and scaled-down prototype tests for the study. The team found that track irregularities and electromagnetic resonance were enough to trigger violent low-frequency vibrations in maglev cars travelling at the technology's cruising speed of 1,000km/h (612mph). Using the 1940s-era Sperling Index, an international metric for ride comfort, the study showed that oscillations amplified at specific speeds, with a peak at 400km/h (249mph) reaching a level of vibration deemed 'extremely unpleasant'.
