Author Archives: 高大伟 David Cowhig

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About 高大伟 David Cowhig

After retirement translated, with wife Jessie, Liao Yiwu's 2019 "Bullets and Opium", and have been studying things 格物致知. Worked 25 years as a US State Department Foreign Service Officer including ten years at US Embassy Beijing and US Consulate General Chengdu and four years as a China Analyst in the Bureau of Intelligence and Research. Before State I translated Japanese and Chinese scientific and technical books and articles into English freelance for six years. Before that I taught English at Tunghai University in Taiwan for three years. And before that I worked two summers on Norwegian farms, milking cows and feeding chickens.

2015 – 2025: Anime Bans in China and Other Countries

Posted on 08/02/2025 by 高大伟 David Cowhig

I saw a 2015 PRC Ministry of Culture list on Twitter/X of animation products banned in China. This list was cited on a sign at the August 1, 2025 Shanghai China Joy 2025动漫节 Animation and Manhua Festival. The 2015 list … Continue reading →

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2016: Party Explains Mao’s Respect for Rule by Law; ChatGPT, DeepSeek Explicate

Posted on 07/29/2025 by 高大伟 David Cowhig

Jiang Qing quoted this saying of Mao to bolster her argument that the Gang of Four, sadly depleted from the Gang of Five after Mao died, was the real leadership of the Party before that awful coup Hua Guofeng/Ye Jianying that … Continue reading →

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2005: PLA General Liu Yazhou: On America

Posted on 07/27/2025 by 高大伟 David Cowhig

Twenty years ago the now-imprisoned PLA General Liu Yazhou wrote this essay on US-China long term interests, possible conflicts between the two states and how conflict might be avoided. An intriguing 2005 perspective on the United States and its role … Continue reading →

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2025: Imprisoned General Liu Yazhou and Transforming the PLA from a Party Army to a National Army

Posted on 07/25/2025 by 高大伟 David Cowhig

An amusing trivia question might be which countries do not have a national army? The answer might well by China and Costa Rica. China, like its sometime role model, the Soviet Union, has a party army with command doubled with … Continue reading →

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2025: PRC Rare Earths Related Production, Export Control and Environmental Protection Policies

Posted on 07/25/2025 by 高大伟 David Cowhig

Rare earth elements are important to the electronics industry and have become strategic materials. Political tensions and PRC occasional imposition of export controls, sometimes for political reasons, has made the search of alternative sources a pressing matter for some current … Continue reading →

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2025: Chinese Provinces Trade, Assistance in Africa

Posted on 07/24/2025 by 高大伟 David Cowhig

China’s province – African country pairings are fascinating. They likely work off the same template as the PRC domestic pairings of rich coastal provinces with impoverished counties in the interior. These pairings were also used to help badly-affected Sichuan counties … Continue reading →

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1957：Mao’s Lu Xun — More Valuable Dead than Alive

Posted on 07/10/2025 by 高大伟 David Cowhig

Lu Xun was useful as a famous writer broadly sympathetic to the Chinese Communist Party’s announced goals in the 1930s. He seems to have been sympathetic to Leon Trotsky who was at the center of a controversy than dividing the … Continue reading →

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2025: People’s Daily Commentary Beware Slanders Against Returned Student Talent

Posted on 07/06/2025 by 高大伟 David Cowhig

Chinese students get it from both sides. Sometimes suspected of being Chinese spies abroad, they can also be suspected of being American spies or being failures who had no choice but to retreat back to China. The steady decline in … Continue reading →

Posted in National Security 安全, Science, Technology and Academic 科技学术 | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

2025: Chinese Discuss Mao Worship (safely outside of China)

Posted on 07/06/2025 by 高大伟 David Cowhig

Translated below from a Reddit Chinese-language China discussion group. Apparently mostly people from the PRC an anonymous discussion on Mao that couldn’t take place (or couldn’t last long) online in the PRC itself. Some interesting reflections (and ideas one might … Continue reading →

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2021: Intro II from Daoism/Zhuangzi: Zhang Yuanshan’s “Zhuangzi Restored Edition” 張遠山《莊子復原本》

Posted on 07/04/2025 by 高大伟 David Cowhig

Here continuing the translation of the preface and the introductions of Zhang Yuanshan’s “Zhuangzi Restored Edition” 《莊子復原本》that I began at 2021: Daoism/Zhuangzi: Zhang Yuanshan’s “Zhuangzi Restored Edition” 張遠山《莊子復原本》 Commentators have worked on recovering and correcting transcription errors and other problems with ancient … Continue reading →

Posted in Daoists 道家, History 历史, Literature 文学, Science, Technology and Academic 科技学术 | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment