Killing Freedom in the Name of Freedom: Debating Trump's Attack on Harvard

"The Trump administration’s intervention [at Harvard University] is not about destroying freedom but about putting an end to bullying." — Zhao Xiao (赵晓)

Today's post opens with an introduction by the one and only Kaiser Kuo, a founding member of the rock bands Tang Dynasty and Chunqiu (Spring & Autumn), a particularly thoughtful voice on China and the longtime host of the Sinica Podcast, which I can’t recommend enough. — Thomas

After moving to the United States from China in that fateful year, 2016, I developed a morbid fascination with the extent of support for Donald Trump among Chinese immigrants — not just for his promises of lower taxes or his supposed business acumen, but for the entire affect and ethos of Trumpism. I’ve written elsewhere about this puzzling embrace of MAGA by a cohort that includes not only Chinese Americans with little political background but also highly educated Chinese intellectuals and dissidents. I’ve also been fascinated by what Yao Lin calls “Beaconism” — the idealisation of the United States as a moral and institutional beacon by Chinese liberal intellectuals, a belief that America’s liberal democracy r…