AUTHOR'S BIO
Ma Jian
Ma Jian's most recent novel is Beijing Coma.
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The Power of China’s Powerless
Ma Jian Series: China World 2011-12-23Whereas Kim Jong-il’s demise reminds us that all people are equal before death, Vaclav Havel’s passing reminds us that the value of life will eventually gain respect. Indeed, for Chinese concerned about how to live in truth under a post-totalitarian system, he remains the exemplar.... read Comments: 1 Recommended: 0 Read: 11688
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The Sunflower Revolutionary
Ma Jian Series: China World 2011-04-13
The news that Ai Weiwei, perhaps China’s most famous contemporary artist, has been jailed recalls Ai’s 100 million porcelain sunflower seeds, now being exhibited at London's Tate Modern Gallery. China’s people, Ai’s installation seems to imply, are like the millions of seeds spread across the Tate’s gargantuan entrance hall.... read Comments: 1 Recommended: 0 Read: 14437
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In the Footsteps of Gandhi, Mandela, and Havel
Ma Jian Series: The World in Words 2010-12-01Liu Xiaobo, the imprisoned Chinese writer and human-rights campaigner who will receive the Nobel Peace Prize on December 10, clearly has rattled his persecutors. China's rulers know that any Chinese can become another Liu if they choose to see through the lies of materialism.... read Comments: 0 Recommended: 0 Read: 14041
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Guilty Democrats
Ma Jian Series: Human Rights 
2010-01-25
The Chinese government's imprisonment of the writer Liu Xiaobo is a blatant attempt to criminalize democratic thought, and the real criminal in this case is, of course, the Chinese state. But the world’s democracies are guilty as well, for they appear to have lost their willingness to stand up for their beliefs.... read Comments: 7 Recommended: 2 Read: 17998
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China’s Slave Power
Ma Jian Series: China World 2007-06-26Revelations of slave labor, including children abducted from around the country, in a government-run brick plant in Hongdong County, have cast much needed light on an economy and society that is rotten to the core. Indeed, slavery is endemic in the country's brick plants and coalmines, abetteed by the police and state authorities.... read Comments: 0 Recommended: 0 Read: 17282
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The Revolution Will Not Be Memorialized
Ma Jian Series: The Worldly Philosophers 2006-05-31Forty years ago Mao Zedong launched the Cultural Revolution. The Propaganda Department of China’s ruling Communists have now issued an order banning any kind of reviews or commemoration of this disaster as part of the Party’s bid to make the Chinese forget about that lost decade. ... read Comments: 0 Recommended: 0 Read: 23847
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China’s Internet Dictatorship
Ma Jian Series: Human Rights 2005-05-16Eleven years after its initial connection to the World Wide Web (WWW), China’s access to the Internet is still guarded by firewalls, embedded in its proxy servers, which have proven to be more practical and impenetrable than the Berlin Wall. Moreover, an increase in the demand for broadband connection has triggered the launch of an $800 million “Jin Dun (Golden Shield) Project,” an automatic digital system of public policing that will help prolong Communist rule by denying China’s people the right to information. ... read Comments: 0 Recommended: 0 Read: 30342
