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Have you ever heard of Ulanqab prefecture, a small (by China’s standards) jurisdiction of 1.5 million people lost in the middle of the Inner Mongolian steppe?
2 weeks ago

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More from Arnaud Bertrand

The most lied-about place on earth

Depth against slogans: what we saw in 6 weeks driving through Xinjiang

24th Aug 2026 • 3 votes
Musk built a monopoly on space. Can China break it?

There is an argument being made that what Tesla did to boost the Chinese EV industry, SpaceX will do to boost China’s commercial space industry.

3rd Jul 2026 • 1 votes
The Pax Silica Con

The US's "Pax Silica" sells itself as a wall against China, when it's really a cage to keep America's "partners" in - dependent on American tech, and unable to build their own.

4th Jun 2026 • 1 votes

More in history

Five Slogans Re Cultural Drift

I’m wondering how well I might organize my cultural drift messages around a few key slogans.

9 hours ago • 1 votes
Recent addenda to articles 202609: Errors, omissions, and retractions

I was going to start with “it has been a while since we had one of these” but then I saw that the previous one started with “Wow, has it really been 7 months since I did one of these?” and that was in December 2023. Maybe I can make it a more regular thing. Anyway blogging itself has become a more regular thing of late so there is quite a lot to report just from last month. This article was written by an opaque and incomprehensible stoachastic process, namely me. . I have retracted this description.In 2007 I described Naomi Wolf as “very smart” now mentions that "Johnny Doc” was released from prison on the orders of Donald J. Trump.My article from January about crooked policitians and crab cakes In 2022 I published , which ended with “This article, which I wrote at 3:00 in the morning, is filled with many errors, including some that I would not have made if it had been daytime. Please disbelieve what you have read, and await a correction.” I have decided that it is uncorrectable, and retracted the whole thing.an article about the etymology of a purported Dutch phrase Dan Luu pointed out an important omission from .my July article following up on Steph Curry's 2015–16 crushing of the 3PFG record In 2021 I argued for . The coming of LLM technology has rendered my suggestion completely imprctical.an interesting replacement for the usual engineering interview process

20 hours ago • 1 votes
Teaching Paradox: Hearts of Iron IV, Part IIIa: Focusing on Politics

This is the first half of the third part (I, II) of our long-delayed series looking at Hearts of Iron IV, Paradox Interactive’s World War II grand strategy game, easily one of the most popular historical games on the market today and thus tremendously influential in both the popular history and gaming spaces. Over the … Continue reading Teaching Paradox: Hearts of Iron IV, Part IIIa: Focusing on Politics →

2 days ago • 1 votes
Origins of the Odyssey

Rethinking the Dark Age and the Alphabet

2 days ago • 1 votes
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