Same song, there

I'll start with this article, an interview with an author whose family and national ties, as well as her profession, has enabled her to take a closer look at what I've seen in bits and pieces over time. (Depending on the entertainment an audience chooses to consume, seems like many others have seen such pieces as well.)

Any attempt at a change in tone is marred by the continued use of the term "Cold War mentality" parroted by its mouthpieces;

to counter, I use these articles (along with the article I started with) to remind myself of the term "century of humiliation," something which, if I remember correctly (turns out I do), is taught prominently in schools on the other side of the Ring of Fire. (If there's a reason why one side should drop a mentality that the other counters with a collective resentment enshrined in its history lessons, I'd be much obliged to hear it.)

The phrase "collective trauma of its colonial past" in this article also sounds familiar, though the reason for its familiarity to me is from this side of the Ring than the other.

I continue to see the hyping up of environmental activism when they're turning into the they claim to counter. (It's not enough to have their own fellow citizens on a red hill, they're adding this kid as well. Try the heading "The China Context" in here for a possible reason why she's on that hill too.)

I continue to see the push for state control of all religions, though a politician in a cassock might prefer to see windmills.

I see the willingness to risk what isn't theirs to risk joined to a continued disinterest in dialogue (拒谏饰非 fits the article linked through "continued disinterest"), and all of it still driven by what amounts to a 冤魂.

So I take with a grain of salt any side such a 国 chooses to support, and question how the statement in this piece contributes to the optics of the related situation. I also agree wholeheartedly with those who continue to keep on guard against such a 国, because any softening I see in its leadership is a 画皮.

Ending with this because it sounds like a good idea; keep an eye, though, on what one eats when that goes into one's hair goes into the plants that receive them, and the plants one's fertilizing are edible.