China November Digest | Part 2 — International Relations www.sinification.org/p/november-d...
November Digest | Part 2 — International Relations
US-China | Europe | Japan | Africa | Russia
www.sinification.org
December 10, 2025 at 4:54 PM
China November Digest | Part 2 — International Relations www.sinification.org/p/november-d...
China November Digest | Part 1 - Economics, AI and Society www.sinification.org/p/november-d...
November Digest | Part 1 - Economics, AI and Society
Chinese Economy | Society and Governance | Young People | AI and Chipmaking
www.sinification.org
December 10, 2025 at 4:47 PM
China November Digest | Part 1 - Economics, AI and Society www.sinification.org/p/november-d...
Reposted by Peter FitzGerald
The hunt for Twrch Trwyth – gwallter
gwallter.com
December 10, 2025 at 11:55 AM
A further digression by Eric Schiesser, with a view I concur with in The De-politicization and naturalization of twentieth Century Adam Smith (traced to Halévy) open.substack.com/pub/digressi...
The De-politicization and naturalization of twentieth Century Adam Smith (traced to Halévy)
Earlier in the week I discussed how at the start of the twentieth century, Adam Smith was seen as one of the key founders of the English liberal tradition that combined the ‘Manchester’ school of Cobd...
open.substack.com
December 10, 2025 at 4:39 PM
A further digression by Eric Schiesser, with a view I concur with in The De-politicization and naturalization of twentieth Century Adam Smith (traced to Halévy) open.substack.com/pub/digressi...
A short lexicon of politics through the Looking glass. open.substack.com/pub/chrisdil...
A short lexicon of politics
A brief guide to understanding political terms.
open.substack.com
December 10, 2025 at 2:56 PM
A short lexicon of politics through the Looking glass. open.substack.com/pub/chrisdil...
Spinoza, Logic, and Geometry
open.substack.com/pub/axdougla... Alexander Douglas's thoughts on not to read Spinoza through a Kantian lens, and why "it is geometrical knowledge as Descartes understood it that inspired Spinoza".
AD unravels a geometrical remark made by Spinoza that puzzled me too.
open.substack.com/pub/axdougla... Alexander Douglas's thoughts on not to read Spinoza through a Kantian lens, and why "it is geometrical knowledge as Descartes understood it that inspired Spinoza".
AD unravels a geometrical remark made by Spinoza that puzzled me too.
Spinoza, Logic, and Geometry
What did he mean by treating geometry as the method of metaphysics?
open.substack.com
December 5, 2025 at 7:32 PM
Spinoza, Logic, and Geometry
open.substack.com/pub/axdougla... Alexander Douglas's thoughts on not to read Spinoza through a Kantian lens, and why "it is geometrical knowledge as Descartes understood it that inspired Spinoza".
AD unravels a geometrical remark made by Spinoza that puzzled me too.
open.substack.com/pub/axdougla... Alexander Douglas's thoughts on not to read Spinoza through a Kantian lens, and why "it is geometrical knowledge as Descartes understood it that inspired Spinoza".
AD unravels a geometrical remark made by Spinoza that puzzled me too.
On Berlin's reading of Bacon on Machiavelli--with some excitement over Lucian.
open.substack.com/pub/digressi... Here Eric Schliesser puzzles on "why Machiavelli seems to have elicited and continues to elicit incredibly heterogeneous interpretations." Maybe it's Machiavelli's use of counterfactuals.
open.substack.com/pub/digressi... Here Eric Schliesser puzzles on "why Machiavelli seems to have elicited and continues to elicit incredibly heterogeneous interpretations." Maybe it's Machiavelli's use of counterfactuals.
On Berlin's reading of Bacon on Machiavelli--with some excitement over Lucian.
As I noted yesterday, Josh Cherniss nudged me into re-reading Isaiah Berlin’s (1972) “The Originality of Machiavelli” reprinted in Against the Current.
open.substack.com
December 5, 2025 at 6:49 PM
On Berlin's reading of Bacon on Machiavelli--with some excitement over Lucian.
open.substack.com/pub/digressi... Here Eric Schliesser puzzles on "why Machiavelli seems to have elicited and continues to elicit incredibly heterogeneous interpretations." Maybe it's Machiavelli's use of counterfactuals.
open.substack.com/pub/digressi... Here Eric Schliesser puzzles on "why Machiavelli seems to have elicited and continues to elicit incredibly heterogeneous interpretations." Maybe it's Machiavelli's use of counterfactuals.
The holy grail of capitalism
www.worksinprogress.news/p/how-to-mea...
www.worksinprogress.news/p/how-to-mea...
The holy grail of capitalism
A new measure may be the holy grail of economic regulation.
www.worksinprogress.news
December 5, 2025 at 1:39 PM
The holy grail of capitalism
www.worksinprogress.news/p/how-to-mea...
www.worksinprogress.news/p/how-to-mea...
read it in the original
open.substack.com/pub/backofmi... Dan Davies' rewarding visit to the Algorithmic Accountability Lab at the university of Kaiserslauten. Two axes of importance "when you look at algorithmic decision systems - transparency and potential harm."
open.substack.com/pub/backofmi... Dan Davies' rewarding visit to the Algorithmic Accountability Lab at the university of Kaiserslauten. Two axes of importance "when you look at algorithmic decision systems - transparency and potential harm."
read it in the original
a call for indications of interest
open.substack.com
December 3, 2025 at 7:30 PM
read it in the original
open.substack.com/pub/backofmi... Dan Davies' rewarding visit to the Algorithmic Accountability Lab at the university of Kaiserslauten. Two axes of importance "when you look at algorithmic decision systems - transparency and potential harm."
open.substack.com/pub/backofmi... Dan Davies' rewarding visit to the Algorithmic Accountability Lab at the university of Kaiserslauten. Two axes of importance "when you look at algorithmic decision systems - transparency and potential harm."
Wales watching - The midweek briefing
open.substack.com/pub/willhayw... This is my takeaway from this briefing: "This was the latest in a long line of utterances by UK ministers that contain misinformation about how the automatic, population-based, transfers under the Barnett formula work".
open.substack.com/pub/willhayw... This is my takeaway from this briefing: "This was the latest in a long line of utterances by UK ministers that contain misinformation about how the automatic, population-based, transfers under the Barnett formula work".
Wales watching - The midweek briefing
Labour divides spill out in public
open.substack.com
December 3, 2025 at 5:44 PM
Wales watching - The midweek briefing
open.substack.com/pub/willhayw... This is my takeaway from this briefing: "This was the latest in a long line of utterances by UK ministers that contain misinformation about how the automatic, population-based, transfers under the Barnett formula work".
open.substack.com/pub/willhayw... This is my takeaway from this briefing: "This was the latest in a long line of utterances by UK ministers that contain misinformation about how the automatic, population-based, transfers under the Barnett formula work".
On Montesquieu and Spinozism -Eric Schliesser certainly knows his Spinoza. open.substack.com/pub/digressi.... Finding out that you are Spinozist without realising it.
On Montesquieu and Spinozism
In 1725, Montesquieu started on a text, The Treatise on Duties, that was never published.
open.substack.com
December 2, 2025 at 3:15 PM
On Montesquieu and Spinozism -Eric Schliesser certainly knows his Spinoza. open.substack.com/pub/digressi.... Finding out that you are Spinozist without realising it.
What's this obsession that Elon Musk and Peter Thiel have with Lord of the Rings? Don't they know the ending!
Brand new at @theunpopulist.net, @polphilpod.bsky.social's fascinating piece showing how Elon Musk's deployment of Tolkien is straightforwardly fascist.
Even by a Strict Definition, Elon Musk Is a Fascist
He is weaponizing Tolkien to promote violence by ‘hard men’ against Asian immigrants
www.theunpopulist.net
December 1, 2025 at 5:23 PM
What's this obsession that Elon Musk and Peter Thiel have with Lord of the Rings? Don't they know the ending!
Oscar Wilde on Zhuangzi
open.substack.com/pub/axdougla... ' Here may (...) be a few who have grown wearied of that strange modern tendency that sets enthusiasm to do the work of the intellect. To these, and such as these, Zhuangzi/Chuang Tzu will be welcome.'
open.substack.com/pub/axdougla... ' Here may (...) be a few who have grown wearied of that strange modern tendency that sets enthusiasm to do the work of the intellect. To these, and such as these, Zhuangzi/Chuang Tzu will be welcome.'
Oscar Wilde on Zhuangzi
"He would be disturbing at dinner-parties, and impossible at afternoon teas, and his whole life was a protest against platform speaking."
open.substack.com
December 1, 2025 at 5:13 PM
Oscar Wilde on Zhuangzi
open.substack.com/pub/axdougla... ' Here may (...) be a few who have grown wearied of that strange modern tendency that sets enthusiasm to do the work of the intellect. To these, and such as these, Zhuangzi/Chuang Tzu will be welcome.'
open.substack.com/pub/axdougla... ' Here may (...) be a few who have grown wearied of that strange modern tendency that sets enthusiasm to do the work of the intellect. To these, and such as these, Zhuangzi/Chuang Tzu will be welcome.'
"The country" open.substack.com/pub/chrisdil.... The mastery of the use of a word to hide where the true power lies. A perspective expressed by the English lady at a Savoy dinner in 1945 who said: 'they have elected a socialist government and the country will not stand for it'.
"The country"
"The country" often does not mean the whole of the people.
open.substack.com
November 30, 2025 at 2:25 PM
"The country" open.substack.com/pub/chrisdil.... The mastery of the use of a word to hide where the true power lies. A perspective expressed by the English lady at a Savoy dinner in 1945 who said: 'they have elected a socialist government and the country will not stand for it'.
Shklar, Althusser, and Montesquieu's purported Liberalism
open.substack.com/pub/digressi.... Further digression by Eric Schliesser on Liberalism - a fuzzy concept. It seems that context is everything when attributing it to an individual or institution.
open.substack.com/pub/digressi.... Further digression by Eric Schliesser on Liberalism - a fuzzy concept. It seems that context is everything when attributing it to an individual or institution.
Shklar, Althusser, and Montesquieu's purported Liberalism
I learned from Edward Hall’s Power and Powerlessness: The Liberalism of Fear in the Twenty-First Century (OUP 2025) that Judith Shklar uses the phrase ‘liberalism of fear’ already in her (1987) book, ...
open.substack.com
November 27, 2025 at 5:58 PM
Shklar, Althusser, and Montesquieu's purported Liberalism
open.substack.com/pub/digressi.... Further digression by Eric Schliesser on Liberalism - a fuzzy concept. It seems that context is everything when attributing it to an individual or institution.
open.substack.com/pub/digressi.... Further digression by Eric Schliesser on Liberalism - a fuzzy concept. It seems that context is everything when attributing it to an individual or institution.
Newton, The fixed Stars, Comets, and Doomsday
open.substack.com/pub/digressi... Some reading of Newton's cosmology from 300 year ago.
open.substack.com/pub/digressi... Some reading of Newton's cosmology from 300 year ago.
Newton, The fixed Stars, Comets, and Doomsday
It is well known to my readers, I hope, that in the second (1713) edition of the Principia, Newton, added a General Scholium.
open.substack.com
November 21, 2025 at 2:52 PM
Newton, The fixed Stars, Comets, and Doomsday
open.substack.com/pub/digressi... Some reading of Newton's cosmology from 300 year ago.
open.substack.com/pub/digressi... Some reading of Newton's cosmology from 300 year ago.
On the function of Woke Censoriousness and Lippmann's truth-apt defense of freedom of speech.
open.substack.com/pub/digressi... Some further digressions by Eric Schliesser on Lippmann's liberalism.
open.substack.com/pub/digressi... Some further digressions by Eric Schliesser on Lippmann's liberalism.
On the function of Woke Censoriousness and Lippmann's truth-apt defense of freedom of speech.
During the past few decades, one politically savvy move of the enemies of liberty has been to use a relatively absolutist notion of freedom of speech — grounded in a Millian interpretation of the Firs...
open.substack.com
November 21, 2025 at 2:38 PM
On the function of Woke Censoriousness and Lippmann's truth-apt defense of freedom of speech.
open.substack.com/pub/digressi... Some further digressions by Eric Schliesser on Lippmann's liberalism.
open.substack.com/pub/digressi... Some further digressions by Eric Schliesser on Lippmann's liberalism.
On the Dutch Election Campaign and Results
open.substack.com/pub/digressi... A good update as to what is happening politically in the Netherlands by Eric Schliesser
open.substack.com/pub/digressi... A good update as to what is happening politically in the Netherlands by Eric Schliesser
On the Dutch Election Campaign and Results
I am about to head off to Oxford for a conference on early modern philosophy and science (see here).
open.substack.com
November 19, 2025 at 10:05 AM
On the Dutch Election Campaign and Results
open.substack.com/pub/digressi... A good update as to what is happening politically in the Netherlands by Eric Schliesser
open.substack.com/pub/digressi... A good update as to what is happening politically in the Netherlands by Eric Schliesser
The EU's "Rare Earth Anxiety" According to Zhao Junjie
www.sinification.com/p/the-eus-ra...
www.sinification.com/p/the-eus-ra...
The EU's "Rare Earth Anxiety" According to Zhao Junjie
"The anxiety and helplessness the EU has displayed over the rare earth issue reveal the contradictions and dilemmas at the heart of its policy towards China."
www.sinification.com
November 18, 2025 at 9:58 PM
The EU's "Rare Earth Anxiety" According to Zhao Junjie
www.sinification.com/p/the-eus-ra...
www.sinification.com/p/the-eus-ra...
On Imperial Boomerangs in Montesquieu
open.substack.com/pub/digressi.... Some further digressions by Eric Schliesser on the boomerang effect on Imperialist States.
open.substack.com/pub/digressi.... Some further digressions by Eric Schliesser on the boomerang effect on Imperialist States.
On Imperial Boomerangs in Montesquieu
One of the joys of blogging is meeting distinguished and young scholars at conferences who confide to me that they are regular, even daily readers of these digressions. They swell my head in the most ...
open.substack.com
November 18, 2025 at 2:21 PM
On Imperial Boomerangs in Montesquieu
open.substack.com/pub/digressi.... Some further digressions by Eric Schliesser on the boomerang effect on Imperialist States.
open.substack.com/pub/digressi.... Some further digressions by Eric Schliesser on the boomerang effect on Imperialist States.
Chartbook 462 One Belt One Road 2.0. China's new paradigm?
open.substack.com/pub/adamtooz...
open.substack.com/pub/adamtooz...
Chartbook 462 One Belt One Road 2.0. China's new paradigm?
Contemporary history is relentless both in its pace and in its ramifying entanglements.
open.substack.com
November 16, 2025 at 7:06 PM
Chartbook 462 One Belt One Road 2.0. China's new paradigm?
open.substack.com/pub/adamtooz...
open.substack.com/pub/adamtooz...
the cognitive legion etrangere
open.substack.com/pub/backofmi... Some thoughts by Dan Davies of the benefits of increasing your cognitive bandwidth.
open.substack.com/pub/backofmi... Some thoughts by Dan Davies of the benefits of increasing your cognitive bandwidth.
the cognitive legion etrangere
no shame in asking for help
open.substack.com
November 16, 2025 at 7:03 PM
the cognitive legion etrangere
open.substack.com/pub/backofmi... Some thoughts by Dan Davies of the benefits of increasing your cognitive bandwidth.
open.substack.com/pub/backofmi... Some thoughts by Dan Davies of the benefits of increasing your cognitive bandwidth.
On incompetence in how not to govern the UK by Chris Dillow open.substack.com/pub/chrisdil... I agree with him when he says, "Framing the issue as one of money rather than real resources isn't just lousy economics but lousy politics." Media 'political' journalists take note.
On incompetence
Much of our political culture is fundamentally incompetent.
open.substack.com
November 15, 2025 at 1:21 PM
On incompetence in how not to govern the UK by Chris Dillow open.substack.com/pub/chrisdil... I agree with him when he says, "Framing the issue as one of money rather than real resources isn't just lousy economics but lousy politics." Media 'political' journalists take note.
Chartbook 461 Ordering not order: Thinking about the future of the world economy in 2025, with historians, journalists, political scientists and ... Nietzsche.
open.substack.com/pub/adamtooz... - Will the resentment by the seduced powerless play a part?
open.substack.com/pub/adamtooz... - Will the resentment by the seduced powerless play a part?
Chartbook 461 Ordering not order: Thinking about the future of the world economy in 2025, with historians, journalists, political scientists and ... Nietzsche.
We are in a moment in which in the face of Trump’s turmoil, China’s Belt and Road Initiative is booming again.
open.substack.com
November 14, 2025 at 4:26 PM
Chartbook 461 Ordering not order: Thinking about the future of the world economy in 2025, with historians, journalists, political scientists and ... Nietzsche.
open.substack.com/pub/adamtooz... - Will the resentment by the seduced powerless play a part?
open.substack.com/pub/adamtooz... - Will the resentment by the seduced powerless play a part?
Academic Philosophers and “Writing Clearly”
open.substack.com/pub/axdougla...
open.substack.com/pub/axdougla...
Academic Philosophers and “Writing Clearly”
Cold, limp, lifeless prose is not clear
open.substack.com
November 14, 2025 at 3:47 PM
Academic Philosophers and “Writing Clearly”
open.substack.com/pub/axdougla...
open.substack.com/pub/axdougla...