Food Paradise or Hell: A New Documentary Sparks Debate
A seven-part documentary on China’s food culture, “A Bite of China” (which translated literally means “China on the Tip of the Tongue”) premiered on the main channel of China Central...
A Fallacy of Steel and Glass
from chinadialogueAmong its many environmental challenges, China faces an enormous increase in energy consumption by buildings over the coming decades. Bricks and mortar already account for 25% of China’s total primary energy consumption, but are currently...
On Weibo: Cultural Revolution Suicides
As people across China took part in the June 1 Children’s Day campaigns to, among other things, remember the millions of “left-behind” children in...
Godwin’s Law with Chinese Characteristics
This winter writer-blogger-race car-driver Han Han found himself facing charges of plagiarism from celebrated fraud-buster Fang Zhouzi. Both Han and Fang have huge followings among China’s microbloggers. And their personal disagreement soon...
Heading Deep for the First Time
On May 9, China National Offshore Oil Corp.’s (CNOOC) first deepwater drilling platform began operating in the South China Sea. The world-class vessel is stationed in the Liwan 6-1-1 field, about 320 kilometers southeast of Hong Kong, in waters...
The Sweet and the Sour in China-U.S. Relations
At this very hour, one early May, just shy of a half century ago, I married a girl from Shanghai and we launched our joint adventure.
Ever since, Bette Bao and I have practiced the precept of Adam Smith—division of labor. She manages our...
We’re All Farmers Now
from chinadialogueAt a monthly “friends of farming” dinner held by Green Heartland, an NGO based in Chengdu, west China, Chen Xia quietly reads an ode to the land against light background music. It’s a simple...
Rail Builders Shift Interest to Overseas Mines
After a three-year wait, China Railway Construction Corp. Ltd. (CRCC) recently won permission to launch a major copper mining project in Ecuador.
The production agreement signed April 25 by Ecuador’s government and Corriente Resources, a...
Hard Lesson for China Concept-Stock Investors
Imagine discovering on your first day as a new CEO that your employer is merely a shell that may be destined for a shameful delisting on the Nasdaq Stock Market.
That’s what happened recently to ChinaCast Education Corp. CEO Feng Yiyi, who...
Policeman Burned for Dealing With the Devil
On March 17, the Chenzhou Public Security Bureau announced Huang Bailian had been removed as head of the police department’s drug squad.
Huang offered a simple explanation for his sacking: “This is retaliation.”
Three years earlier...
Unplugging from China
from chinadialogueApparent preparations by US energy giant AES Corporation to withdraw from China have raised eyebrows lately. Earlier this year, it emerged that the firm—one of the world’s biggest independent power generators—had engaged an investment bank to...
TV Show Catches Flak for its Criticism of Contestants Who Have Lived Abroad
The gameshow Fei Ni Mo Shu (Only You) has a pretty straightforward premise: a contestant steps onto a stage next to the host and introduces him/herself to a panel of twelve bosses of major companies who sit in highly extravagant throne-...
Identity Crisis Rattles Volvo’s Chinese Owner
New models bearing the Chinese-owned Volvo badge shared a luxury spotlight at the Beijing International Auto Show in April with perennial stars Mercedes-Benz, BMW, and Lexus.
But behind the diamond-studded presentation was confusion over...
Chen Guangcheng: A Hopeful Breakthrough?
The arrival of the celebrated Chinese rights activist, Chen Guangcheng in the U.S. after years of prison and house arrest, raises the larger question of what the whole incident will come to mean in terms of the status of dissidents in China and...
Hong Kong Movie Star Now a Motivational Speaker
Nicholas Tse—the famous young Hong Kong singer, actor, and musician—is known for portraying irresponsible young rebels. People think that's what he's like in real life. The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology invited Tse to be a...
Drunken Brit Assaults Chinese Woman in Beijing
A drunken foreigner was caught sexually assaulting a Chinese woman in Beijing near the Xuanwumen subway station. Pedestrians stopped him and it ended in a fight. This video shows the initial confrontation with the foreigner and then jumps to the...
Europe Can Do Better
from chinadialogueSince 2005, the European Union and China have sought to develop dialogue and cooperation in the area of climate-change policy. This has taken place primarily within the framework of the EU-China Partnership on Climate Change, agreed at the 2005...
Near Three Gorges Dam, the Exodus Continues
Walls inside Zhang Haomin’s home in Zhenxi Township, in Chongqing, started cracking in 2008, around the time the reservoir behind the new Three Gorges Dam neared capacity.
“Early on, the cracks were small,” said Zhang, whose home is about...
Message in a Bottle for Spirits Maker Moutai
A glass of Feitian Moutai packs a wallop, which is one reason why the 106-proof baijiu is a hit among influential government officials.
They also like Feitian Moutai because a single bottle, thanks to special arrangements between state...
Era Ends for China’s Legendary Stock Picker
Investors who closely followed the stock picks of one of China’s most successful brokers are wandering in the wilderness—and wondering what will happen next to their unemployed luminary Wang Yawei.
In April, and without warning, Wang...
Villagers Loot Spilled Watermelons From Truck After Car Crash
Two trucks collided on the Beijing-Hong Kong-Macao Expressway in Yueyang, Hunan Province. While local firemen worked to rescue the drivers stuck in their vehicles, people from a nearby village arrived on the scene to loot watermelons that had...
IV Drips Sustain Students Studying for College Entrance Examination
The Xiaogan No.1 High School in China's Hubei Province allegedly hooked students up to intravenous drips filled with amino acids to sustain them while studying for the country's notoriously difficult national college entrance exams:
...
Keeping an Eye on China’s Bankers
from chinadialogueLast August, a major pollution story broke in China: 5,000 tonnes of toxic chromium tailings had been dumped near a Yunnan reservoir, contaminating water...
Children Travel on Zip-line Across Abyss To and From School
All 3,369 inhabitants of Hongde Village in Guizhou province, including dozens of school children, must either somehow cross the gorge, or take a detour by walking for several hours, in order to get out of their village. In 2002, a zip-...
Ferrari Stunt Scars 600-Year-Old Monument
Netizens are outraged after a 60-second stunt by car manufacturer Ferrari leaves a 600 year-old historical site marred with skid marks.
From Youku
Along the Xiang, It’s Toxic from the Tap
Water flowing from the Xiang River into the faucets of Hunan Province homes has been dangerous for decades. The central government first classified the river’s water as toxic in the 1980s. But the river was being called the most polluted in China...
In the Journals: Journal of Asian Studies, February 2012
The February 2012 issue of the Journal of Asian Studies opens with a trio of short articles exploring major trends in China-related publishing over the past decade. The essays, which differ widely in topic, are connected by a concern...
Chinese Firms Try Scoring with Spanish Soccer
When NBA journeyman Damon Jones signed a shoe deal with sporting goods maker Li Ning in 2006, he became the first in a long line of American basketball players to win a sponsorship from a Chinese company.
Today, China’s Peak Sport Products...
China’s Tax Burden: A Mysterious Lead Sinker
(Beijing)—In much of the world, admiration and envy are common reactions to China’s consistently high GDP growth rates.
But closer to home, the Chinese public’s admiration of their own economic miracle is shadowed by tax increases that...
A Gift from Bill Gates
from Chutzpah!My name is Thousands (“Yiqianji”) and I’ve worked in all sorts of jobs. Most recently, I’ve been spending my time at home writing, and in my spare time, help my mother out picking vegetables. (With the recession, a good job’s hard to find.) Every...
A Pension Plan, a Story by Ha Jin
from Chutzpah!It was said that Mr. Sheng suffered from a kind of senile dementia caused by some infarction in his brain. I was sure it was neither Parkinson’s nor Alzheimer’s, because I had learned quite a bit about both during my training to be a health aide...
Dalian Businessman Who Built an Empire Vanishes
(Dalian)—The sudden disappearance of a self-made billionaire in the coastal city of Dalian has unnerved not only bank executives concerned about loans they made to his companies, but also government officials who have lent generous support to the...
