Bin Song has recently published two essays that readers may find interesting:
“Donald Trump, Mao Zedong and Religious Anti-Intellectualism,” in Donald Trump in Historical Perspective: Dead Precedents, Edited by Michael Harvey (Routledge, 2022)
and
“The Utopian Seed of Modern Chinese Politics in Ruism (Confucianism) and its Tillichian Remedy,” in Why Tillich? Why Now?, Edited by Thomas G. Bandy (Mercer University Press, 2021)
Random note:
It was some time—maybe, when I finally paid attention. See, I did not know who Mao Zedong was. The first name was familiar enough, the last? I hadn’t a clue. Imagine my surprise when I found he was the Chinese communist leader from the twentieth century! I did not have the context for this. I asked people about it. Why the change in spelling, so different to the original? No one offered an explanation, other than the new name was more Anglicized; easier to remember. Doesn’t seem to matter much. Now, keeping the Mao part is useful. Better than, say, Bob…
This link may be helpful to you. There’s a whole history of Romanization for Chinese, which, I think is what you’re asking about. http://www.pinyin.info/romanization/