Affiliation with different religions can have different effects on practitioners’ trust in state institutions and in social actors. Based on a survey of 3,740 residents in Hong Kong in 2021, we examine the relationship between religious affiliation and believers’ trust in the political authorities in Beijing and Hong Kong and in civil actors in the city. We find that affiliation with traditional Chinese religions and Eastern religions has a positive and significant effect on believers’ trust in the political authorities, whereas belief in Western religions does not have such an effect. Affiliation with Western religions, however, has a stronger positive and significant effect on interpersonal trust and on tolerance for unconventional behaviour. These findings shed light on the interaction between the government and religious groups in Hong Kong after 1997.

The Private Life of Chairman Mao: The Inside Story of the Man Who Made Modern China.By Li ZHISUI. Written with the editorial assistance of ANNE F. THURSTON. Translated by TAI HUNGCHAO. Foreword by ANDREW J. NATHAN. [London: Chatto Windus, 1994. xxx+ 682 pp. 20.00. ISBN 0–7011–4018–6.]

The elections held on 21 December in Taiwan for seats in the National Assembly were unprecedented in a number of respects. But they prolonged the more than 40 years of overwhelming dominance of the island's politics by the ruling Kuomintang (KMT). They represented a huge leap towards a genuinely pluralist political system in Taiwan, but were marred by electoral malpractice, and distorted by the prominence of the “independence” issue, and the intervention of Beijing leaders.

Commenting on literature as a human record, Goethe once called it “The fragment of fragments: The smallest part of what has been done and spoken has been recorded; and the smallest part of what has been recorded has survived.” I find this observation a very sobering and instructive reminder for a discussion of Chinese poetry under Communist rule. Goethe was speaking of literature in general. And poetry, formally at least, being but one of its branches, is by deduction a fragment of “the fragment of fragments.” Over a decade many things have been accomplished under the régime. Many deeds have been done, immense work of material reconstruction has been completed, and more is in process, on the débris of destruction of comparable quantity; and unfathomable tribulations, pains and frustrations in soul and body are felt and muttered, as well as the hue and cry of zeal and enthusiasm exclaimed among massive crowds.

For the most part, the history of Communist Party activity in Guangxi before 1949 is one of modest success in difficult circumstances. Guangxi was the home base of one of the most formidable military factions of the Kuomintang. In association with Chiang Kai-shek (Jiang Jieshi), provincial leaders Li Zongren, Bai Chongxi and Huang Shaoxiong – the “Guangxi Clique” – played a major part in planning and executing the April 1927 Party purge and thereafter, throughout the Republican era, proved bitter opponents of communism.

We can be grateful that Edgar Snow once wrote, in his straightforward uncompromising style, a book about himself. He called it Journey to the Beginning. At a later point in the book he returned (briefly) to talk about his origins, but the “beginning” (Chapter One, line one) was: “When I first reached Shanghai. …”

There are two sources of world civilization: one is the study, another is the prison. We the youth must make up our minds to enter the prison once out of the study, and enter the study once out of the prison. Only these provide the most lofty and sublime life. And only those civilizations born in these two places are true civilizations with life and value.

10 1969 was not only the 20th anniversary of the founding of the Chinese People's Republic (C.P.R.); it also marked the culmination of China's fifth year as a nuclear power. During this five-year period there were 10 detonations, three of which were thermonuclear and one of which was tested underground. At least one of the warheads was fired from a guided missile. According to one estimate, current defence expenditures amount to 10 per cent. of China's gross national product, and one-fifth of this outlay is devoted to nuclear research and development alone. A large portion of China's advanced scientific and technical manpower has also been assigned to this field. Although an adequate delivery system for this limited nuclear capability, as of November 1971, is not known to be operational, China's progress in the research and development of advanced weapons has clearly been substantial. The launching of Chinese satellites in 1970 and 1971 and the likelihood of an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) test in the near future are further evidence of major technological achievement. Peking's entry, then, into the “nuclear club” has been a major concern of China's leaders; it has also had significant consequences for American defence planners. The explicit rationale for the Nixon Administration's expansion of the anti-ballistic missile (ABM) system in early 1970, for example, was to guard against the possibility of a Chinese attack in the 1980s and thus to assure the reliability of American defence commitments in East Asia and the Pacific.