CHINA THEN & NOW: XI JINPING & CAVE HOUSES IN SHAANXI

CAVE HOUSES IN SHAANXI

&

THE MAKING OF

A CHINESE PRESIDENT

A CAVE HOUSE IN YAN'AN

SHAANXI PROVINCE, CHINA 1981

In all the hoopla surrounding the visit to the U.S. last week of Chinese Vice-President (and President-Select, President-Presumptive) Xi Jinping, the story of the seven years he spent living in a cave house in Shaanxi was highlighted again and again. [to be continued]

JOHN WARNER TURNS EIGHTY-FIVE

JOHN W. WARNER

b. February 18, 1927

SENATOR JOHN WARNER (R-VA)

on the Armed Services Committee

Senator 1979-2009

U.S. Secretary of the Navy, 1972-1974

More details of his biography here

With Senator Sam Nunn, here

BO YIBO b. February 17, 1908

BO YIBO

February 17, 1908-January 15, 2007

BO YIBO

(2nd from right) at the 16th Congress

of the Chinese Communist Party, November 2002

The members of the Presidium of the 16th Congress pictured are (seated left to right), ZENG Qinghong, WAN Li, SONG Ping, BO Yibo, and SONG Jian.

The 16th Congress was the last one attended by Bo Yibo, a former Vice-Premier of the People's Republic of China and one of the Eight Immortals of the Chinese Communist Party. Bo was by this time ninety-four years old.

Also attending the Congress in a leadership position was his son, Bo Xilai, then the governor of Liaoning (see here and here) and now the Party Secretary of Chongqing. In recent years, Bo Xilai has been widely seen as campaigning for one of the (currently) nine seats on the Party's Politburo Standing Committee, the inner sanctum of power in the PRC. His campaign, as Reuters has detailed it, consists of "a high profile war on crime, economic policies to boost Chongqing and a nostalgic Communist revival to win over support from the conservative old guard."

Recently, his efforts seem in danger of being derailed. Some details here and here and here; more as the story unfolds in the run-up to the 18th Party Congress, due this fall.

THE WILD SWANS OF JUNG CHANG LAND ON THE STAGE AT AMERICAN REPERTORY THEATER

"WILD SWANS"

AUTHOR

JUNG CHANG

"WILD SWANS" THE PLAY

which had its world premiere

the American Repertory Theater

Cambridge, Massachusetts

yesterday

is based on her 1991 book

Some background on the play, including information about the playwright and director, and about how an eight-hundred page memoir subtitled "Three Daughters of China" (Jung Chang and her mother and grandmother) was worked into a two-hour drama focusing on the husband and wife of the middle generation, is to be found here and here and here. The theater's WILD SWANS website is here; the production runs through March 11 in the U.S. and then moves to the U.K.

JAMES SCHLESINGER IS EIGHTY-THREE

JAMES R. SCHLESINGER

b. February 15, 1929

JAMES SCHLESINGER

as the first U.S. Secretary of Energy

under President Jimmy Carter

Published in the October 9, 1978, issue of Business Week (p. 91)

Schlesinger has also been Director of the Central Intelligence Agency and Secretary of Defense under Presidents Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford (details here); currently, among other posts, he is Chairman of the Board of MITRE (details here). A more recent photograph is to be found here.

HAPPY ONE-HUNDREDTH BIRTHDAY TO THE STATE OF ARIZONA

ARIZONA

IS ADMITTED AS

THE 48TH STATE

OF THE U.S.A.

February 14, 1912

HOPI SILVERSMITH FROM

THE SECOND MESA, ARIZONA, 1988

A few scenic views of Arizona here and here and here; two recent articles, here and here.

WHO IS XI JINPING? SLOTTED TO BE THE NEXT PRESIDENT OF CHINA

XI COMES

TO WASHINGTON

XI JINPING

INTRODUCED

as the heir-apparent

at the 17th Congress

Another photograph and some information here

Some background and speculation ahead of Xi's meetings tomorrow with the U.S. president and vice-president, and stops at the State Department and the Pentagon, here and here and here and here

EZRA VOGEL DISCUSSES "DENG XIAOPING AND THE TRANSFORMATION OF CHINA"

EZRA VOGEL

ON HIS MASTER WORK

ON DENG XIAOPING

EZRA F. VOGEL

Author

DENG XIAOPING AND

THE TRANSFORMATION

OF CHINA

Prof. Vogel spoke this evening at Porter Square Books in Cambridge, Massachusetts, where he taught at Harvard for many years (a notice of the event is here). A good source of background information on Vogel's work on the book can be found here, and a number of reviews, here.

More Vogel here; more Deng here.

Tomorrow: the next president of China is due in Washington, D.C.; see here.

MITT ROMNEY: RICHARD VIGUERIE IS NOT BEST PLEASED

RICHARD VIGUERIE TOOK NOTE THAT

MITT ROMNEY SPOKE TO THE

CONSERVATIVE POLITICAL ACTION

CONFERENCE (CPAC) YESTERDAY

RICHARD A. VIGUERIE

The Chairman of ConservativeHQ.com points out that he has been in "conservative politics at the national level" for fifty years. Here he is (above) in his role as conservative fundraiser, photographed for the October 30, 1978, issue of BUSINESS WEEK (p. 158).

Chairman Viguerie wishes to inform the Governor that "Mitt, you may have the words of conservatism right, but you just don't have the tune." The offending remark? Romney's description of himself, in a speech to the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC), as "severely conservative"; in full, that he was "a severely conservative governor of Massachusetts." It was reported that there was "much head-shaking in the hotel ballroom...." (The "severely" is not to be found in the official transcript.) The headline response: "Richard Viguerie Says Mitt Romney is A Severe Conservative Impersonator."

Today Mitt Romney won the CPAC presidential straw poll, 38% to 31% for Rick Santorum, 15% for Newt Gingrich, and 12% for Ron Paul.

BORIS PASTERNAK b. February 10, 1890

BORIS PASTERNAK

February 10, 1890-May 30, 1960

BORIS PASTERNAK (r) TALKING TO

LEONARD BERNSTEIN (l) IN THE FILM

"BERNSTEIN IN MOSCOW" BY

RICHARD LEACOCK (1959)

Boris Pasternak, winner of the 1958 Nobel Prize for Literature, is probably best known outside Russia for his novel, DOCTOR ZHIVAGO, but inside Russia and the Soviet Union for his poetry. Discussions of both, and of Pasternak's life, can be found here and here.

A still photograph of Pasternak and Bernstein and Bernstein's wife Felicia Montealegre taken on the 1959 visit of the New York Philharmonic to the USSR can be found here.

More on Richard Leacock and the film here

More on Leonard Bernstein here