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Ma Jian
For Ma Jian's latest contributions to The Japan Times, see below:
Japan Times
COMMENTARY / World
May 15, 2016
Xi Jinping — a son of the Cultural Revolution
Power is Xi Jinping's lodestar, and he appears willing to go to any length to secure it. In this effort, he has one key advantage: Mao Zedong's legacy.
COMMENTARY / World
Aug 25, 2012
Trial of the century reveals China's fractured leadership
The trial, conviction and suspended death sentence of Gu Kailai, the wife of purged Chinese leader Bo Xilai, has called into question not only China's legal system but also the very unity of the Communist Party leadership.
COMMENTARY / World
Dec 10, 2010
In the footsteps of modern morality fighters
LONDON — Liu Xiaobo, the imprisoned Chinese writer and human-rights campaigner, will receive the Nobel Peace Prize on Friday. For the first time in history, however, neither the laureate nor any member of his immediate family will be present in Oslo to accept the award.
COMMENTARY / World
Jan 28, 2010
It doesn't pay to appease China
LONDON — When former Czech President Vaclav Havel knocked on the door of the Chinese Embassy in Prague to demand the release of the writer Liu Xiaobo, I had an eerie sense of deja vu. Thirty-three years ago, Havel helped initiate Charter 77, the landmark document that crystallized the ideals of all the dissidents — and many others — trapped behind the Iron Curtain.
COMMENTARY / World
Jun 5, 2006
The revolution will not be memorialized
PRAGUE -- Forty years ago, Mao Zedong launched the Cultural Revolution. The Propaganda Department of China's ruling Communists have now issued an order banning any kind of reviews or commemoration of this disaster as part of the party's bid to make the Chinese forget about that lost decade.

Longform

A statue of "Dragon Ball" character Goku stands outside the offices of Bandai Namco in Tokyo. The figure is now as recognizable as such characters as Mickey Mouse and Spider-Man.
Akira Toriyama's gift to the world