With hardly any media coverage one of Britain’s few world-leading sectors is, right now, being decimated. The university funding model does not work and anti-immigrant hysteria has deprived the country of the means by which we met the shortfall: international students.

Margot Finn@eicathomefinn.bsky.social · last mo.

A grim day in a grim week in a grim month for UK higher education, with Dundee, Exeter and Hertfordshire all making major announcements of planned redundancies. Shrinkage of the research & teaching base by the invisible hand's visible fist is not an 'us' or 'them', SHAPE or STEM phenomenon. 1/2

A shortage of translators and interpreters, cull of modern languages at UK universities, cuts to East Asian studies and Chinese specifically at Sheffield Uni ...

The Guardian@theguardian.com · 2mo ago

Chinese dissident says he was berated by ‘pro-regime’ interpreter for UK police

NEW: China's campaign of oppression in Xinjiang has entered a pernicious new phase - and FT analysis shows that the region still has the highest detention capacity in the world, relative to its population. as.ft.com/r/a4b72955-5...

How China is breaking apart a people and its culture

The campaign of repression against the Uyghurs has entered a new phase

as.ft.com

My colleagues in East Asian Studies at Sheffield produce world class research and so many of the UK’s leading experts in Asian Studies have gotten MAs or PhDs there. This is an incredibly shortsighted choice that will diminish this country’s knowledge exchange with a vital region of the globe.

Mark Pendleton@markpendleton.bsky.social · 3mo ago

East Asian Studies is being gutted at Sheffield - all staff at risk with 8.6 FTE proposed to go (a third of us). Biggest cuts in Chinese and Japanese Studies. We’ll be taking a few days to process. Solidarity to Materials and Chemistry colleagues who are also dealing with similarly bad news.

He could have gone for cheap shots (there were plenty of opportunities) but David took the time to write a thoughtful and super informative rebuttal to the drivel in Monthly Review. Worth a read even if you didn't see the original

Dismissing China’s repression in Xinjiang

Vijay Prashad and Tings Chak recently defended China’s policy toward ethnic Uyghurs in Xinjiang. David Brophy exposes the weakness of their case.

tempestmag.org

Eight Years Without My Mother: What I Carry, What I’m Learning, and What Still Hurts open.substack.com/pub/kashgart...

Eight Years Without My Mother: What I Carry, What I’m Learning, and What Still Hurts

Opinion: Akida Pulat - Daughter of Uyghur Anthropologist Rahile Dawut

open.substack.com

Ilham Tohti Rahile Dawut Yalqun Rozi Tara Zhang Yadi

Chapter III "Facilitating Interactions, Interchanges". remember those who worked to improve interchanges and mutual understandings are in prison npcobserver.com/2026/03/05/c...

NPC 2026: China to Enshrine Xi-Era Ethnic Policy in New Law

China's new assimilationist ethnic policy mandates forging a common Han-centric Chinese culture and identity, while muting minority identity expression.

npcobserver.com

The essay reviews Tahir Hamut Izgil's "Waiting to be Arrested at Night" (tr. @jlfreeman.bsky.social freeman.bsky.social) and "The Backstreets" by Perhat Tursun (tr. @dbyler.bsky.social r.bsky.social). If you haven't read them, please do! The essay can be found here 👇

Fear and Writing in Xinjiang: On Tahir Hamut Izgil’s “Waiting to Be Arrested at Night” and Perhat Tursun’s “The Backstreets” | Los Angeles Review of Books

Fear and Writing in Xinjiang: On Tahir Hamut Izgil’s “Waiting to Be Arrested at Night: A Uyghur Poet’s Memoir of China’s Genocide” and Perhat Tursun’s “The Backstreets: A Novel from Xinjiang.”

tinyurl.com

The depths of inhumanity of the US government in all its facets, international and domestic, is horrific. Trump and his sycophants have mobilized the very worst of the country. The sooner they are turned out the better.

I actually don't have words as to how angry I am. Wonder what happened in these countries that people on student visas in the UK found themselves needing to apply for asylum instead of going home post 2021. UK Labour are heartless bastards & apparently have bo idea whats happening in the world.

Myanmar Now (English Version) @myanmar-now.bsky.social · 5mo ago

Nationals of Myanmar, Afghanistan, Cameroon, and Sudan seek to “exploit our generosity,” the UK’s home secretary said in announcing the move Read more: myanmar-now.org/en/news/uk-t...

More from @sophiedrich.bsky.social:

China’s Erasure of Ethnic Minority Languages

China’s linguistic assimilation campaign continues to advance.

thediplomat.com

Eli Friedman@elifriedman.bsky.social · 5mo ago

Straight up fascist behavior

Jimmy Lai sentenced to 20 years, six senior journalists and news executives sentenced between 6yrs 9mths and 10yrs. All bad enough. And then there are the little details tucked away (but still being reported) in local media that hit really hard like the story of one woman ... 1/

China urged Kazakhstan to take "appropriate measures" against 19 citizens who protested last November against the detention of their family members in Xinjiang. They now face up to 10 years in prison for "inciting discord." eurasianet.org/kazakhstan-a...

Kazakhstan: Anti-China demonstrators face long prison terms after fiery protest

Astana brings criminal charges only after Beijing complains.

eurasianet.org

Excited to recieve my copy of my friend and colleague, @rianthum.bsky.social’s new book “Islamic China.” It looks like a great read! We’ll be talking about it on Feb. 10 at the Manchester Museum (see Eventbrite link below). If you’re in town, come join us! www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/islamic-ch...

Reminder: All it would take to end the murder of American citizens by an untrained government goon squad is 16 Republicans in Congress voting with Dems to defund ICE (or 23 to impeach and remove Trump — 3 in House & 20 in Senate). That’s it. 23 Americans can vote for the public and end all of this.

Solidarity to MN, let's get out there on Friday

ICE Out for Good

On January 23, people across the country are taking action in solidarity with Minnesota to demand ICE out of our communities. Join the day of action.

iceoutforgood.org

Let’s be clear about the central political problem in the US: Republican and conservative elites hold on to Trump, who is clearly mentally damaged and driving American society and culture and economy into oblivion, because they believe they can benefit politically and economically from the chaos.

It's not debatable that a mentally disturbed person has the nuclear codes. The Republicans know they're endangering us all by leaving him in office. This is a betrayal of every person on Earth. It is a crime against humanity.

This is a remarkable case of Chinese authorities threatening a UK university into halting research on human rights violations, and the university acquiescing.

China intimidated UK university to ditch human rights research, documents show

Sheffield Hallam University apologises to Professor Laura Murphy for restricting her academic freedom.

bbc.com

The book is out! www.hup.harvard.edu/books/978067...

No Kings protest about to start in Paris. Wish I could be in the US today. There’s still plenty of time to grab your jacket and head to a protest in towns across the US!

history teacher in 50 years: So in September, that’s when the president signed an executive order criminalizing anti-fascism and saying all resistance would be crushed student: oh so that’s when the whole country realized they were living under fascism teacher: haha what? oh no lol not at all. no.

/6 If you are stuck in the McArdlian view "we can't think of the other side of evil" -- which I view as sociopathic -- I have to ask, is there ANYTHING they can do that will make you call it evil? Is there ANYTHING they can do that won't make you say "I should focus on finding common ground?"

My tribute to Paul Cohen as historian & mentor to many www.asianstudies.org/in-memoriam-... cc @lmansley.bsky.social

In Memoriam: Paul A. Cohen (1934-2025) - Association for Asian Studies

Paul A. Cohen, who died on September 15, 2025 at the age of 91, made significant contributions to both the interdisciplinary field of Chinese studies and the discipline of history. The most obvious wa...

asianstudies.org

IDF sniper from Chicago who says he killed Gazan teenager just for trying to retrieve his brother's corpse: “They’re thinking, ‘Oh I don’t think [I’ll get shot] because I’m wearing civilian clothes and I am not carrying a weapon' and all that, but they were wrong. That’s what you have snipers for.”

The Gaza family torn apart by IDF snipers from Chicago and Munich

Five-month investigation reveals how four members of one family were shot and killed in a single day and highlights a pattern in which Israeli troops target unarmed civilians

theguardian.com

What’s the ideal age for the state to impose assimilation on minorities? In Tibet, it’s 4. Gift link to new long read from me and Niharika Mandhana Beijing's building of government-run preschools across Tibetan areas to reverse generations of opposition to party rule: www.wsj.com/world/china/...

China Steals Language and Home Life From Tibetan Kids as Young as 4

Beijing is building a broad network of preschools across Tibetan areas, seeking to inculcate loyalty to the Chinese Communist Party early in life.

wsj.com

Same racist authoritarian data collection they've been doing in Xinjiang for years. Fight it everywhere

WIRED@wired.com · last yr.

NEW: The US government has collected DNA samples from 133,000+ migrant children and teenagers and uploaded them into CODIS, a national criminal database originally built for convicted sex offenders and violent criminals, according to documents reviewed by WIRED.

This is an official plan for ethnic cleansing. If you supported Israel for the past 18 months or so under the assumption that this was about the hostages you were taken for a ride. If you still support Israel's assault on Gaza, you support ethnic cleansing. It's that simple.

Israel plans to occupy and flatten all of Gaza if no deal by Trump's trip

Trump has effectively given Netanyahu a green light to do as he sees fit, Israeli officials say.

axios.com