How Israel’s embassy lost China, Xi call pleases Trump, and China brainrot
The world is undergoing "great changes unseen in a century" as Xi Jinping likes to say.
This newsletter gives you the most important China news and commentary, and links to the best writing and podcasting in English, delivered once a week, although not always on the same day, without the help of AI, except for proofreading.
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In this week’s edition:
‘How Israel’s embassy lost China’
A surprise call from Xi Jinping pleases Trump
China brainrot, from creator schlock to AI propaganda
Recommended reading and listening
Important China news from the last week or so
Antisemites in China and the U.S.
‘How Israel’s embassy lost China’
Yáng Mèng 杨梦 is an assistant professor at the prestigious Peking University, where she is the founder of the course “Jewish Civilization in a Global Context” and of China’s first Yiddish class. She learned the language while researching her doctoral thesis on Shanghai’s World War II emigré Jewish community.
I’ve been corresponding with her occasionally over the last few years, as she has faced a growing wave of antisemitism in China, and even institutional difficulties with her work. Beijing’s pro-Palestinian stance hardened after October 7, 2023, and virulent, conspiracy-minded criticism of Israel and antisemitism on social media have spiked, fueled by memes and ideas imported from the global internet. This has been tolerated by China’s powerful censorship apparatus and amplified by some state-affiliated accounts.
This atmosphere is in such stark contrast to my experiences living in China from 1995 to 2015, when most people’s attitudes to Jews seemed very positive. Sure, if you were very sensitive about stereotypes, you may not have liked the books on the secrets of Jewish business success that were constantly on display in bookstores, nor the frequent comments, when the subject was raised, about Jews being smart and good with money. When I was learning to speak Chinese in the 1990s, primarily by chatting to drunken strangers in small Beijing corner restaurants, I heard admiration expressed several times for Hitler as a “strong” leader, but that was often followed up with many complimentary statements about Jews when I inevitably told them I was one. Crude and unsophisticated, yes. Malicious or truly harmful? No.
What changed? Obviously, Israel’s mass killing in Gaza is the pivotal factor, but China seemed primed to allow the spread of antisemitism and strident anti-Israel sentiment long before that. In a piece for The Diplomat, Yang places a good deal of the blame on Israel’s outgoing ambassador, whose team did not “engage with Chinese thought leaders or combat rising antisemitism—until it was too late.”
I now live (in a blue dot) in the heart of red state America in Tennessee, and I can’t help but notice parallels: Last year actual Nazis came to Nashville to harass Jews and distribute pamphlets while institutions like the ADL have given up on fighting antisemitism in the U.S. in favor of uncritically defending the Netanyahu government, even as the ADL itself has documented a rise in antisemitism. Meanwhile, support for Israel in the U.S., even amongst Jews, is in decline.
Taiwan, Japan, and the U.S.
A surprise call from Xi Jinping pleases Trump
Xi Jinping spoke to Donald Trump on November 24 in a call that was initiated by Xi, which the New York Times described as an “unusual move.” Xi’s aim, per the Wall Street Journal:
Days after Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi outraged China by suggesting a Chinese attack on Taiwan could mobilize a Tokyo military response, Xi spent half of an hourlong phone call with Trump, people briefed on the matter said, hammering home China’s historic claim to the democratic self-governing island as well as Washington and Beijing’s joint responsibility to manage the world order.
Trump did as he was asked, the WSJ says: “Later the same day, Trump set up a call with Takaichi and advised her not to provoke Beijing on the question of Taiwan’s sovereignty.” Chinese state media reporter Fred Gao characterized this, in his personal newsletter, as Beijing “using Trump to isolate Japan.”
Takaichi seems unlikely to retract her comments, and if the New York Times is to be believed, “many of Japan’s voters like her stance,” and “after learning of the report, Takaichi told aides that she did not think Trump had said anything along those lines,” according to Nikkei.
She might have to stand without Trump. After both calls, he posted to his Truth Social platform that he “had a very good telephone call” with Xi and that America’s “relationship with China is extremely strong!” Trump confirmed that he will visit China in April 2026, and said that Xi will visit the U.S. “later in the year.”
Takaichi won’t be the only one feeling left uncertain about Trump’s support: “Trump’s glowing assessment of Sino-American relations, even amid Beijing’s spat with a key U.S. ally, will unnerve American security partners in the Indo-Pacific,” says research firm Trivium.
See also: An analysis of reactions by China’s establishment intellectuals to Takaichi Sanae’s statement, by Jacob Mardell.
China brainrot
Creator schlock, state-sponsored Substacks, and AI propaganda
“2025 was the U.S.-China ‘honeymoon’ year for content creation,” says Manya Koetse of Eye on Digital China: “It’s when China became ‘cool,’ appealing, and eye-grabbing for young Western social media users, particularly Americans. The recent China trip of the prominent American online streamer Hasan Piker fits into that context.” Piker offered rave reviews of China and its government, and sat for an interview with state broadcaster CGTN.
Piker has several million followers on Twitch and YouTube: he is likely more influential on younger Americans than most mainstream news outlets. But he is just one of millions of online voices singing the Chinese government’s song to foreigners. A British former employee of Chinese state media has documented how Beijing has set up “media studios” that package state media employees as independent voices on YouTube, Substack, and other social media platforms. State-run Xinhua News agency has also begun using generative AI to make propaganda, such as the video above, which was posted to X.com (and subsequently deleted).
All of these pro-Beijing voices join the growing cacophony of our era of what the Czech writer Milan Kundera called graphomania: “One morning—and it will be soon—when everyone wakes up as a writer, the age of universal deafness and incomprehension will have arrived.”
Context: The age of China graphomania predates Substack and even Facebook, YouTube, and Twitter, but to get an idea of how much the information environment has changed in the last two decades, have a look at this then-comprehensive list of China-related blogs in 2005 on my old website.
About China, around the internet
Recommended reading and listening
An AI English teacher is in demand among Chinese parents. ChinAI newsletter explains the fuss about Zebra English’s AI tutor Jessica.
U.S. cops love Chinese robodogs: “In Washington, D.C., China’s premier robotics company is a growing cause for consternation on either side of the aisle. But outside the Beltway, Unitree’s products are more popular than ever. Universities, companies, local police stations, and even the U.S. Army are looking to buy Unitree robotic dogs, which cost a fraction of those made by Western rivals,” reports Noah Berman for The Wire China.
The U.K. doesn’t want to talk Chinese anymore: The BBC Chinese Service has for decades been a leading platform in text and audio for unflinching hard news reporting on China in Chinese languages. Its former head, Howard Zhang, laments its “slow unravelling.”
Anatomy of a fake story about China requiring podcasters to have qualifications: “A new Chinese law aimed at reducing misinformation set off global discussion,” writes Wenhao Ma. “But nobody got it right.”
Explaining the Nexperia drama: On the Sinica podcast, Finbarr Bermingham, the Brussels-based correspondent for the South China Morning Post, explains why the Dutch government seized control of chipmaker Nexperia and suspended its Chinese CEO, and what happened next.
Important China news from the last week or so
Deadly Hong Kong apartment blaze
In Hong Kong, at least 128 people died in a fire at the Wang Fuk high-rise apartment complex in Tai Po District, which started on November 26. Some are blaming bamboo scaffolding, others point to crowded housing conditions, and safety requirement lapses.
“China’s new London embassy should now go ahead” with U.K. intelligence agency MI5’s approval, reports Cindy Yu.
U.S.-brain-drain-to-China watch: Qián Hóng 钱纮, a “renowned mathematician who is also part of China’s Qian clan—a surname linked in the annals of Chinese scientific history to national pioneers in science and engineering—has become the latest U.S.-based scientist to return to China,” reports the South China Morning Post.
China’s giant underground neutrino observatory, which allows physicists to study subatomic particles, “just released its first results—and they’re promising,” according to Scientific American.
Xi Jinping paid tribute to late reformer Hú Yàobāng 胡耀邦, whose death was one of the sparks of the 1989 protests. Here are two analyses of Xi’s decision to celebrate Hu: South China Morning Post; Fred Gao. My own take: this doesn’t mean much: Xi has always sought to promote unity and downplay division within the Communist Party.
A U.S. court jailed hip hop musician Pras Michél for 14 years for illegally funneling foreign funds to former U.S. President Barack Obama, after a trial and media coverage that showed him trying to act as an intermediary between Washington and Beijing over grifter Guō Wénguì 郭文贵
Taiwan will add $40 billion to its defense budget “to bolster deterrence by inserting greater costs and uncertainties into Beijing’s decision-making,” vowed its president Lai Ching-te (賴清德 Lài Qīngdé) in the Washington Post.