Charles Shaar Murray

Author, journalist, musician and cultural infidel.
SHOTS FROM THE HIP now an eBook at

[Anna Chen @AnnaChenMiaow]

Suzy Wrong 32 years since Edinburgh Fringe Festival jailbreak
Most satisfying was mowing down audiences with a pump-action pingpong ball gun from the business end of a sex doll as I shot down dehumanising tropes buried in the culture since the Opium Wars
https://t.co/CNle9oIJVP

[Charles Shaar Murray @CharlesSMurray]

@SteveWChina @AnnaChenMiaow Is that the guy from Captain Beaky Dozy Mick and Tich?

[Charles Shaar Murray @CharlesSMurray]

@SteveWChina @AnnaChenMiaow ... And Trump greeds everything.

[Anna Chen @AnnaChenMiaow]

The West FAILS Opium Wars 2.0
China CALM vs USA MAD; Women in China; Britain's political crisis.
Anna Chen interviewed by Jeff Rich for Burning Archive
https://t.co/GDyCrHVvno
https://t.co/kWJDuAtY35 via @YouTube

[Nel B. @noirnen]

Dehumanize, Then Destroy: Anna Chen on How Empires Manufacture Their Enemies
If you want to understand the larger context of what is unfolding, what I would call not simply a "war on China" but a strategy of mutual denial, continuous grey‑zone warfare, the methodical crossing of red lines, and the normalization of organized violence as the permanent condition of this current multipolar order, this episode of @PSF_Resistance is Fertile is essential listening.

In this episode, hosts Benji and @indica sit down with the brilliant @AnnaChenMiaow , who masterfully cuts through decades of Western propaganda. She shows how the British Empire, and later its American successor, built a narcotics‑fueled machinery of extraction and dehumanization that never really ended. The "Yellow Peril" caricatures were, as Anna argues, instrumental (racism). To destroy, conquer, or contain a people, you must first render them less than human—a blank canvas onto which the empire projects its own crimes. This is the cultural‑psychological precondition for the violence that follows, and Anna's account of how it was manufactured, from the 19th century to the fentanyl panic of today, is masterful.

What makes Anna's analysis so vital is how she connects the drug trade to the structural-historical formation we today call the US-led empire. She illustrates how this organized violence is a direct continuation of a baton passed down from the British Empire (In other words, it is a story of an empire that has been passing the same baton—from Jardine and Matheson to the Pentagon and Palantir—for over a century.). The narco-capitalism that destroyed 19th-century China has simply mutated into the modern era, where the empire now cynically projects its own domestic decay and drug crises (like fentanyl) onto its primary (and other) geopolitical target(s).

Anna painstakingly details the modern timeline, showing how China was used to float Western capitalism (its period of financialization) through the Reagan-era wealth transfers and the 2008 financial crash, only to be rewarded with the Obama/Clinton "Pivot to Asia." This pivot marked the beginning of aggressive military repositioning and the descent into a "bunker state" mentality, where the imperial core is perfectly willing to sabotage its own supply lines and destabilize the globe rather than accept a peaceful, multipolar reality. Or as Anna calls it: the Deathstar. (But she explains it much better than me in this podcast episode.)

To get true clarity on these developments—and to understand the deeply rooted, historical continuity of this imperial playbook—I highly recommend listening to this episode. Furthermore, I highly recommend following the work of Anna Chen, who has been diligently, bravely, and painstakingly observing and documenting these developments for decades, often as a lone voice against a tide of media complicity.

Listen to the full episode here: https://t.co/jAORq2jDXk

[Steve Weaver @SteveWChina]

If you want something meaty to get your teeth into, not the usual superficial stuff you find elsewhere, then check out @AnnaChenMiaow over on her YouTube channel:
Resistance is Fertile: America's 21st century war on China with Anna Che... https://t.co/LsHsWVu0I2 via @YouTube

[Anna Chen @AnnaChenMiaow]

I've been following America's war on China in real time throughout the 21st century & this timeline shows why hostilities are not ending.
China is the penultimate target in the US war on rising stars. The ultimate target is the rest of us.
#Iranwar

https://t.co/IjXiRQikwp

[Anna Chen @AnnaChenMiaow]

Bird With Two Right Wings by Lawrence Ferlinghetti, read by Anna Chen.
A poem still valid in the US electoral swings between Democrats and Republicans in ever declining cycles of awfulness.
#poetry #America
https://t.co/nkP4WDFb0W

[Anna Chen @AnnaChenMiaow]

Trump: "It's nice to see China come through in this way. Amazing. Good game in Riyadh. Gonna be around for a long time."

Sorry, that's Judd Trump at the Tour Championship 2026 in Manchester as Zhao Xintong wins another snooker competition.

[Charles Shaar Murray @CharlesSMurray]

@AnnaChenMiaow ... preferably in yuan. (You know it make cents.)

[Anna Chen @AnnaChenMiaow]

AMERICA AS SUPERNOVA imploding and exploding all at once: the US Death Star https://t.co/0mx0RIFh4Z via @YouTube

[Charles Shaar Murray @CharlesSMurray]

@AnnaChenMiaow Anna Chen is the best there is at what she does.

[Anna Chen @AnnaChenMiaow]

Word War III: Whoever owns language rules the world.
In this video about the war for reality, I discuss how language was turned into a weapon by empire to shape our perceptions.
Marx vs postmodernism was one battleground on which the class war was fought.
https://t.co/B22cfr1owq

[Anna Chen @AnnaChenMiaow]

Happier New Year than the last in Trump-world 2026
2026 is the year many of America’s plans come to some sort of fruition with conflict breaking out everywhere. Can Trump’s endgame beat the mid-term elections?
A short US-Ukraine timeline.
https://t.co/4J6s7rdfdA

[Anna Chen @AnnaChenMiaow]

Trump just said Europeans want him to be their president.
Why stop there? KING OF THE WORLD🫣
Trump's National Security Strategy wish list.
https://t.co/g2AwdlQkd6

[Anna Chen @AnnaChenMiaow]

America, F**k Yeah! Trump’s National Security Strategy wish list, by @AnnaChenMiaow
https://t.co/wgDZh0QKph

[Charles Shaar Murray @CharlesSMurray]

Calls for my services from the public prints are rare these days, but here's one from the magnificent Literary Review.

[Anna Chen @AnnaChenMiaow]

Loved One's piece now out in December's Literary Review.
Charles Shaar Murray on Lionel Ritchie, Cat Stevens and the fabulous Patti Smith, whose memoir he loved.
https://t.co/wLVdlAktmH

[Charles Shaar Murray @CharlesSMurray]

@AnnaChenMiaow @NuryVittachi I've been watching this happening over the past several years: Anna makes valuable points, gets ignored by most -- and then, years later, someone else makes the exact same point and gets rapturous ovations. Save time by picking up what Anna says WHEN SHE SAYS IT.

[Charles Shaar Murray @CharlesSMurray]

Looks like Anna trod on Someone's Toes. Note that all ther accounts she's been following have been removed. Evidently he posts have been getting too close to ... SOMETHING.

[Anna Chen @AnnaChenMiaow]

Was it something I said?
Note who gets the 100s of 1,000s and millions of views.
And who gets this. 👇

[Anna Chen @AnnaChenMiaow]

1) Sheffield University lost a defamation case in the High Court last year regarding baseless claims about Uyghur labour. But you'd never know from the latest media spin.
As a result of China-hate, Uyghurs are unemployable in China, plunging many back into poverty.
🧵