Some people in China are bravely trying to document the past
“Sparks”, a new book by Ian Johnson, looks at China’s censored history
Amid the global calamity of covid-19 in 2021, the Chinese Communist Party’s elite had much to discuss at their secretive, annual conclave. But in the communique issued at the end, there were eight times as many mentions of the word “history” as of the word “pandemic”. To China’s leader, Xi Jinping, getting the party to agree to his version of the party’s century-long past was a no less pressing matter.
This article appeared in the Culture section of the print edition under the headline “Writing the wrongs of history”
From the September 30th 2023 edition
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