Beijing, Shenyang, Dandong
Frans Vandenbosch 方腾波 07/10/2025
Westerners in China
Walking along the streets of Beijing, Shenyang, Dandong and Shanghai, compared to 10 years ago, it is remarkable how few young Europeans or Americans are left in China. These days, there are many Russia
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- 2025-10-02
Beijing
Frans Vandenbosch 方腾波 30/09/2025
The barbarians in Beijing
The Old Summer Palace, the Yuanmingyuan “圆明园” in Chinese, located in the Haidian district of Beijing, was a large imperial garden that the emperors of the Qing Dynasty operated for over 150 years. It was known as th
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- 2025-09-24
Beijing
Frans Vandenbosch 方腾波 23/09/2025
Core values
The 12 core socialist values:
富强 (Fùqiáng) – Prosperity and Strength民主 (Mínzhǔ) – Democracy文明 (Wénmíng) – Civility和谐 (Héxié) – Harmony自由 (Zìyóu) – Freedom平等 (Píngděng) – Equality公正 (Gōngzhèng) &
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- 2025-09-19
Beijing
Frans Vandenbosch 方腾波 16/09/2025
A short report of the first few days in Beijing
Hainan Airlines flight HU494 BRU – PEKLast week, Hainan Airlines quickly swapped its scheduled Airbus A330-300 for a Boeing 787-9. Almost 10 hours in the air. Departed from Zaventem half an hou
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- 2025-09-17
My next adventure unfolds in China and beyond!
Frans Vandenbosch 方腾波 09.09.2025
Seventeen Arched Bridge, The Summer Palace, Beijing, China
I’m thrilled to announce that my annual journey to Asia is almost here! This Sunday, 14 September, I’ll be embarking on my
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- 2025-08-26
How China’s Mandate of Heaven redefined legitimacy
Frans Vandenbosch 方腾波 20.08.2025
Qing Dynasty (Taoist) painting of the Chinese pantheon, Hunan Museum
For millennia, rulers have sought divine justification for their power but none framed it as conditionally as China’s Mandate o
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- 2025-08-19
How Western audiences reveal their programmed biases when confronted with objective analysis of Chinese politics
Frans Vandenbosch 方腾波 22.07.2025
The whole situation with the awkward questioning after my lectures bears a strong resemblance to what happened to Marco Polo on
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- 2025-07-28
When language becomes a weapon
The Frontier Man (Larry Johnson) 08/07/2028
Artwork: Rebellion of the Soul. The Frontier Man August 2024
This article is re-published here with the approval of the author at
“Sonar21”
On 5 February 2003, U.S. Secretary
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- 2025-07-28
A comparison with China
Frans Vandenbosch 方腾波 28.07.2025
Performance of 歌剧魅影 Phantom of the Opera in a shopping mall (Shanghai 20.05.2023, my own photo)
Social cohesion decline in the West and the role of gaslighting by elites
The erosion of social cohesion in Western na
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- 2025-07-27
From confrontation to cooperation
Jan Oberg 08.07.2025
This is an article, re-published with the approval of the authors of
“If You Want To Understand China”
– Foreword, Intro and Content of a TFF anthology.
In July 2020, former US Secretary of Sta
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- 2025-07-08
How Confucian culture first delayed and then accelerated China’s innovation.
Frans Vandenbosch 方腾波 04.07.2025
Smashing the European myth
For centuries, Western narratives have portrayed science and technology as exclusively Western achievements,
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- 2025-07-06
The immense cultural differences between China and the West make the discussion about the technology competition pointless.
Peter Peverelli • 15 july 2025
Chinese vs American application of AI; cartoon RedNote (disclaimer)
Culture
What most Westerners fail to understand is that the
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- 2025-07-05
China’s long term strategy paid off. The West never saw it coming
Frans Vandenbosch 方腾波 08.07.2025
Since the turn of the 21st century, China has not merely participated in global systems shaped by Western powers; it has decisively reconfigured them. From trade gove
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- 2025-06-27
The devastating influence of having no future.
Frans Vandenbosch 方腾波 01.07.2025
Losing faith in the future
In many western societies, the erosion of faith in the future has become one of the defining psychological and political crises of the 21st century. E
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- 2025-06-16
How truth decays in a world of tribal narrative.
Frans Vandenbosch 方腾波 23.06.2025
Trust, but verify, lessons in healthy scepticism
When my father-in-law boasted of shooting 23 German soldiers in World War II, I didn’t take his word for it. Digging into archives
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- 2025-06-08