Hidden History

Republican China’s Most Mysterious Man

An assassin who met a suspicious end – Kevin McGeary

The first half of the 20th century had many characters – T.E. Lawrence springs to mind – who excelled as both men of thought and men of action, living lives that dwarf any author’s imagination. As Orson Welles ad-libbed in The Third Man, there is something about living through the kind of times nobody wants to live through that brings out greatness.

Another such man was Dai Li 戴笠. A genius of military intelligence, Dai (also known as Dai Yunong 戴雨農) was China’s most accomplished assassin during the War of Resistance against Japan. As well as helping Chiang Kai-shek claim the scalps of high-profile enemies and defectors, he also bedded some of the most glamorous women of his day.

After Dai’s death in a plane crash on March 17, 1946, Chiang Kai-shek is known to have rallied his troops by insisting, “Dai Li never died.” His death was indeed mysterious and conveniently timed for those who might have wanted him dead. Several years ago, on the anniversary of his “disappearance,” Xinhua went over the whole story and the various conspiracy theories around the plane crash. However, none are as bizarre as the official history.

Diaspora, Q&A

Singapore with a Republican Accent

Rebecca Choong Wilkins interviews Jannis Jizhou Chen about the Sinophonic voice

Jannis Jizhou Chen was born in Chengdu and left China in his teens. Since then he has sojourned in Singapore, Germany and the United States. His publishing debut is a collection of short stories in Chinese, The Stories of Eng Watt Street (永發街事), released in January. Rebecca Choong Wilkins sat down with him as part of her Diaspora column for the China Channel to talk about the controversies of the Sinophonic voice, in all of its varieties.

Can you tell me about your debut work?

It is a collection of 12 short stories taking place in Singapore on Eng Watt Street. I had lived there for six years and got to know many lovely neighbors. I started writing some of the stories while there, and turned many of my dear neighbors into fictional characters. Each story focuses on one household, but when read together, they form certain connections with each other.

Chinese Corner

Classically Trained

Gladys Mac leaps into Jin Yong’s retro wuxia language

When I was in elementary school, my sister and I would stay up late on Saturday nights to watch TVB’s 1994 production of Legend of the Condor Heroes (射鵰英雄傳), based on a novel by Jin Yong, the beloved writer of wǔxiá 武俠 (martial arts) fiction who passed away last year at the age of 94. The Los Angeles branch of the Hong Kong channel aired this drama at midnight – we would watch two episodes before going to bed at 2 am, quite the commitment from the under-ten set. This drama reran a couple times in later years, and each time my sister and I would watch it as eagerly as we had the first. Sometimes it aired on weekend afternoons, and once on weekday afternoons during summer vacation. We scheduled our plans around the show in order to catch every episode. Many versions of this drama were produced in the following years, but none of them are as fun and fast paced as the 1994 version.

Little Red Podcast

China’s Challenge for the Pacific

Old rivalries and a new Great Game in the Pacific theater

AN EPISODE OF THE LITTLE RED PODCAST

The Pacific is seeing a flurry of diplomatic activity: Australia is “stepping up,” New Zealand has ordered a “Pacific reset,” and even Great Britain is reopening missions in its former Pacific colonies. The reason for their sudden interest is simple: China. If Beijing comes good on $4 billion in aid pledges, it could overtake Canberra as the largest donor to the Pacific. Often missed in this new Great Game are the concerns of Pacific Islanders, looking to make the best of this fresh interest in their blue Pacific. To discuss the Pacific’s China challenge, Graeme and Louisa are joined by Vanuatu’s Foreign Minister Ralph Regenvanu, Secretary-General of the Pacific Islands Forum Dame Meg Taylor, as well as Pacific academics Patrick Matbob and Transform Aquora and former Chinese diplomat Denghua Zhang. ∎

Excerpt

Nailing the Jell-O

Chinese Democracy and the Great Firewall – James Griffiths

EXCERPTED FROM THE GREAT FIREWALL OF CHINA

Li Hongkuan was a spammer extraordinaire. Beginning in 1997, he built up a database of hundreds of thousands of email addresses, collecting those available online or trading them with others in the same business. Particularly useful were university servers, which often had little to no security, allowing Li or one of his assistants to grab the email addresses of all the staff and students who ever signed up for an account.

That year, he launched his newsletter, Da Cankao, known in English as VIP Reference. Compiled by Li and a team of volunteers, Da Cankao collected articles that had been censored in China and translated sensitive stories from the foreign press before dumping them into the inboxes of thousands of unsuspecting users. By spamming people with the newsletter, it not only spread far and wide, but also gave recipients plausible deniability if they were found in possession of a copy.