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Taisu Zhang

@zhangtaisu.bsky.social
1.5K followers 406 following 32 posts

Comparative historian, legal theorist, Chinese law and politics observer @Yale.

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Taisu Zhang @zhangtaisu.bsky.social · 13/06/2026
I’ve been trying to stay off social media while trying to finish a batch of article/book revisions, but I really have to say: having rooted for Brazil in every World Cup since 1990, this is, by far, the worst squad I’ve ever seen. It has, what, 1/4 of the talent that the team used to have in 2002?!
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Taisu Zhang @zhangtaisu.bsky.social · 03/01/2026
I’d say something about public international law dying, but the truth of the matter is that it’s been dead for many years by now, and what we’re now seeing is just a public display of the shriveled corpse. It could also be that it was never alive in the first place.
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Taisu Zhang @zhangtaisu.bsky.social · 13/12/2025
Just sent the full draft of a new book (on “Legality in China” or “the authoritarian functions of law”) to my editor for peer review and subsequent processing—hopefully in time for the book to come out in a little over a year.
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Taisu Zhang @zhangtaisu.bsky.social · 17/09/2025
New paper on “Legal Internalism” posted. Co-authored with Shyam Balganesh. papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers....
papers.ssrn.com
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Taisu Zhang @zhangtaisu.bsky.social · 13/09/2025
The desire to make the RMB internationally attractive partially explains the Chinese government’s continued hesitation to significantly increase the money supply (which then feeds directly into current waves of deflation). I’m not sure that’s worth it. www.economist.com/china/2025/0...
economist.com
China is ditching the dollar, fast
Officials believe that the yuan has finally come of age
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Taisu Zhang @zhangtaisu.bsky.social · 03/09/2025
Just a reminder that, since 2009, China has held a military parade in Tiananmen Square roughly once every 5 years to commemorate major anniversaries, and yet in that span it has invaded, bombed, or otherwise militarily attacked exactly 0 countries.
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Taisu Zhang @zhangtaisu.bsky.social · 01/08/2025
It seems like, well, an opportune time to push this paper again. We find qualitative similarities in how the Chinese and American governments produce economic statistics, but even we couldn’t anticipate how quickly those similarities would strengthen…
vjil.org
The Law of Information States: Evidence from China and the United States — Virginia Journal of International Law
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Taisu Zhang @zhangtaisu.bsky.social · 15/07/2025
This paper Is finally out! www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/10.1086/...
journals.uchicago.edu
Does Legality Produce Political Legitimacy? An Experimental Approach | The Journal of Legal Studies: Vol 54, No 2
Abstract This article studies whether pure legality, stripped of normative components that are central to the rule of law, can convey perceived legitimacy to governmental institutions and activity. Th...
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Taisu Zhang @zhangtaisu.bsky.social · 25/06/2025
First draft completed! The writing took six months, but the substantive research took about 7 years, spanning multiple article and essay projects (none of which will supply actual text for this book, given Harvard UP’s publishing preferences). Should be out at some point in late 2026.
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Taisu Zhang @zhangtaisu.bsky.social · 20/06/2025
Just one of many reasons why we never use student edited journal placements as a proxy for quality when making hiring decisions (and if you’re a school that considers yourself intellectually serious but does use these proxies—shame on you)… freebeacon.com/campus/exclu...
freebeacon.com
Exclusive: Harvard Law Review Axes 85 Percent of Submissions Using Race-Conscious Rubric, Documents Show
When the Washington Free Beacon published documents showing how the Harvard Law Review selects articles based on race, the law review insisted those documents had been taken out of context.
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Taisu Zhang @zhangtaisu.bsky.social · 04/04/2025
For a decade, I’ve been arguing with economists over whether ideology can override economic rationality in large enough doses to fundamentally alter the course of human history (I argue yes, most economists I know are skeptical). As of today, I believe I’ve won the argument.
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Taisu Zhang @zhangtaisu.bsky.social · 09/03/2025
Some data on the Chinese judicial cases database that so many social scientists now use. Quantitative empirical studies of Chinese courts are probably going to be stuck in 2017-2020 for the next decade or two…
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Taisu Zhang @zhangtaisu.bsky.social · 06/02/2025
At this rate I’m not sure DOGE is really going to achieve its stated goal of reducing total federal government employee count, simply because there will soon be so many lawsuits and so many restraining orders that they might have to double the staff count at DOJ…
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Taisu Zhang @zhangtaisu.bsky.social · 21/01/2025
An EO (e.g., Trump’s EO seeking to “end” birthright citizenship) that delays its own implementation for 30 days from the date of issuance is obviously anticipating being quickly sued (which has already happened tonight) and stayed (which will happen within a few days) in court.
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Taisu Zhang @zhangtaisu.bsky.social · 29/12/2024
Credible (or rather, formerly credible) commitments, once broken, are incredibly difficult to restore. This will take years of policy-based and institutional therapy, if there is indeed the political will for it. www.ft.com/content/de2c...
ft.com
Beijing seeks to curb ‘shakedown’ detentions of Chinese executives
Senior figures at more than 80 listed companies were held by local authorities in 2024, FT analysis finds
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Taisu Zhang @zhangtaisu.bsky.social · 26/12/2024
Final SSRN upload of 2024: a symposium essay forthcoming in YJLH that muses about why some forms of social hierarchies, however morally dubious, tend to be more historically prevalent and stickier than others. papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers....
papers.ssrn.com
"Natural Hierarchies"
This essay examines the socioeconomics of status hierarchies: how they respond to external demands, and how, in terms of institutional structure, they make them
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Taisu Zhang @zhangtaisu.bsky.social · 24/12/2024
Second SSRN post of the week, this one on how governments produce information—and what the law can do to optimize that process. Perhaps surprisingly, core political incentives and institutional mechanisms are broadly similar across the U.S. and China. papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers....
papers.ssrn.com
The Law of Information States: Evidence from China and the United States
Government could not function-legally, administratively, or politically-without producing information about the population, the economy, crime, elections, publi
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Taisu Zhang @zhangtaisu.bsky.social · 23/12/2024
New paper posted to SSRN, a few more to come later this week. The primary claim in this one is that legality and authoritarianism can be politically and administratively synergistic. papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers....
papers.ssrn.com
Legality and Legitimacy in Authoritarian Regimes
Conventional legal and political theory tend to assume that authoritarian regimes have an inherently uneasy relationship with law: that strong legal systems fun
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Taisu Zhang @zhangtaisu.bsky.social · 19/12/2024
Pretty good research on the (lack of) relevance of the USNews rankings for essentially the only thing they should theoretically influence: student matriculation decisions. papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers....
papers.ssrn.com
The Decline & Fall of the US News Rankings
Have the U.S. News & World Report law school rankings become irrelevant? The ostensible purpose of the US News law school rankings is to give prospective la
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Taisu Zhang @zhangtaisu.bsky.social · 14/12/2024
The Rosalind Picard incident from yesterday’s NeurIPS conference keynote would normally be grounds for a Title 6 complaint and investigation.
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Taisu Zhang @zhangtaisu.bsky.social · 12/12/2024
Whatever stimulus effect emerges from these rate cuts, it’s likely to flow more to debt refinancing by local governments and SOEs than to consumption or new investment. That said, devaluing the RMB is necessary, and frankly should have already happened. www.nytimes.com/2024/12/12/b...
nytimes.com
China Pledges More Stimulus to Shore Up Flagging Economy
At a meeting to set the party’s economic policy agenda, China’s leadership said it would borrow more and cut interest rates in a bid to bolster growth.
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Taisu Zhang @zhangtaisu.bsky.social · 12/12/2024
When I left to drop my kids off at school, I thought for sure that the final Ding-Gukesh game was headed for a draw. Came back, and within minutes Ding had committed an irreparable blunder. It’s a brutal game sometimes, but congratulations to the new king. Quite the series.
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Taisu Zhang @zhangtaisu.bsky.social · 03/12/2024
Judging from the amount of posts here on the SK martial law declaration, it’ll be a while before this site can really compare to the other place in terms of political information…
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Taisu Zhang @zhangtaisu.bsky.social · 27/11/2024
If true, this would be… unbelievably embarrassing (third one in a row). If it triggers a more systemic anti-corruption campaign in the armed forces to clear the rot, that would probably set back near-term battle-readiness by quite a lot. www.ft.com/content/6414...
ft.com
China’s defence minister placed under investigation for corruption
US officials say probe is part of wider operation to uncover graft in People’s Liberation Army
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Taisu Zhang @zhangtaisu.bsky.social · 23/11/2024
It’s now the 20th Anniversary of this episode, and it’s still the greatest college prank of all time. This also happened to be the only time I went to a Y-H Game in Cambridge. So worth it, even if the game itself was utterly forgettable. youtu.be/T4kai4FL0MQ?...
youtu.be
Harvard Says "WE SUCK"
YouTube video by cinematikwoo
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Taisu Zhang @zhangtaisu.bsky.social · 21/11/2024
One of the most interesting articles I’ve seen in quite some time: www.cambridge.org/core/journal....
cambridge.org
The Global Network of Liberty: Toward a New Framework for Understanding the History of Political Concepts | American Political Science Review | Cambridge Core
The Global Network of Liberty: Toward a New Framework for Understanding the History of Political Concepts
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Taisu Zhang @zhangtaisu.bsky.social · 18/11/2024
Doesn’t it feel like academic twitter/X has basically just moved here, whereas the rest of the social/political world has not? So… going forward, this app is basically going to be a networking club for scholars?
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Taisu Zhang @zhangtaisu.bsky.social · 17/11/2024
Giving this app a test run…
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