The New York Times Hires Michael Forsythe
Forsythe left Bloomberg after writing an article that threatened the Publication's presence in China.
Major Leadership Shake-Up at China Film Group
La Peikang will take over from Han Sanping as the new head of the all-powerful state-backed film company, in a rare power transition for the Chinese industry.
China Renews Western Journalists’ Visas After Months-Long Standoff
Several Western journalists who faced expulsion from China were issued renewed visas by the Chinese government, ending a months-long standoff. But China is still on track to force at least one New York Times reporter to leave for the second year...
What Could Happen in China in 2014?
Gordon Orr predicts corporate focus on driving productivity, increased interest in CIOs, bankrupt shopping malls, and European investment in Chinese soccer clubs.
Slowly, Asia’s Factories Begin to Turn Green
Despite a lack of legal restriction, foreign companies in Asia are beginning to set up environmentally sustainable factories to their financial benefit.
Caixin Media
01.08.14
How Shanghai’s Free Trade Zone Works
At a conference table surrounded by bookshelves in his Shanghai office, the city’s party boss Han Zheng recently polished the image of a commercial crown jewel—the China (Shanghai) Pilot Free Trade Zone—during an exclusive interview with Caixin...
Caixin Media
01.07.14
Chinese Firm Linked to CNPC Suspected of Fraud in Iraq
Just after the December 29 celebration of the Muslim holiday Ashura in southern Iraq, heads of the Iraqi subsidiary of China National Offshore Oil Corp. (CNOOC) received a letter titled “Suspending all activities of Hermic.”
The sender of...
China Approves Pilot Plan to Set Up 3-5 Private Banks
In a step to boost financial support for cash-starved smaller firms, The China Banking Regulatory Commission (CBRC) has announced its plan to maintain “prudential regulatory standards” in approving private banks.
Media
01.03.14
Coming to Chinese Headlines in 2014
Chinese people have spent another year breathing dirty air,...
Police Seize 3 Tons Meth in South China Village
Call it “Breaking Bad: China Edition.” More than 3,000 police officers equipped with helicopters and motorboats and accompanied by dogs descended on a southern Chinese village notorious for making crystal meth, seizing 3 tons of the drug and 23...
Wal-Mart Recalls Fake Donkey-Meat Snacks in China
Some months ago, rat meat was passed off as strips of lamb in China. Now it's fox sold as donkey-meat snacks. And in the middle of the latest Chinese food scare: Wal-Mart.
China May Raise Iran Oil Imports With New Contract: Sources
China may buy more Iranian oil this year as a state trader is negotiating a new light crude contract that could raise imports from Tehran to levels not seen since tough Western sanctions were imposed in 2012, running the risk of upsetting...
China 2013 Box Office Surges 27 Percent to $3.6 Billion
Chinese box office revenue rose $760 million to $3.57 billion, an increase of 27 percent over last year's $2.8 billion (17 billion yuan), data from China's biggest online film review site, Mtime, showed.
Caixin Media
12.30.13
The Rise and Fall of a Local Official Obsessed
A November 27 statement by the Communist Party’s anti-corruption watchdog confirmed that the Deputy Governor of Hubei Province, Guo Youming, was being investigated for graft.
Three days later, Guo was removed from his post, becoming the...
Other
12.23.13
[Transcript] One Year Later, China’s New Leaders
Nearly a year to the day after seven new leaders ascended to their posts on the Standing Committee of China’s Politburo, the Asia Society held a public...
How China Spends Christmas
As the western world eagerly anticipates the festive season, in China Christmas will be a relatively subdued affair.
Li Ruigang’s CMC Buys Stake in Caixin Media
China Media Capital, a $833 million venture capital fund with connections to...
Bitcoin in China
Bitcoin, a virtual stored-value system not regulated by any country or banking authority, has been a huge phenomenon this year and much of the action has been driven out of China.
Is Beijing About to Pull the Plug on Two Major American News Operations in China?
In an unprecedented move, the Chinese government has declined to process visa applications for the entire Beijing bureaus of The New York Times and Bloomberg News, in apparent retaliation for investigative reporting those two media...
Apple Blocks Anti-Censorship ‘FreeWeibo’ App in China
U.S. technology giant Apple has removed the FreeWeibo application intended to allow users to read sensitive postings on Sina Weibo, a Chinese equivalent of Twitter, from its Chinese app store on orders from Beijing.
Environment
12.12.13
China’s Coal Industry at a Crossroads
from chinadialogueTimes are getting rough for Wang Guangchun, a ten-year veteran sales manager of a state-owned coal company.
“During the golden era of the past, clients came to find me,” Wang said. “Starting last year, we had to go looking for them.”...
Journo for a Journo
If China kicks out U.S. journalists, should the U.S. do the same to Chinese journalists?
Is Beijing About to Boot The New York Times?
The Chinese government’s crackdown on Bloomberg and “the paper of record” reaches a head.
Foreign Correspondents in China Do Not Censor Themselves to Get Visas
Compared with five years ago, when the Chinese leadership promised to ease restrictions on foreign journalists as part of reforms unveiled during the Beijing Olympics charm campaign, the atmosphere has clearly chilled.
IKEA Toy Wolf Becomes Unlikely Anti-Government Symbol In Hong Kong
An IKEA toy wolf whose name in Cantonese, Lo Mo Sai, sounds like the offensive phrase "mom’s c***," was thrown at Hong Kong’s chief executive, Leung Chun-ying on Sunday. "Throw Lo Mo Sai" in Cantonese sounds like "f*** your mother."
Late to the Party? The U.S. Government’s Response to China’s Censorship
When China denied veteran journalist Paul Mooney’s visa request in November, neither the State Department, Administration officials nor anyone on Capitol Hill said anything publicly about a U.S. citizen appearing to be punished for his speech....
China’s Government Is Scaring Foreign Journalists Into Censoring Themselves
The story of self-censorship in China is a quieter tale of unwritten articles, avoided topics and careful phrasing.
China’s Strong-Arm Tactics Toward U.S. Media Merit a Response
Chinese journalists get an open door to the United States. This reflects U.S. values and is fundamentally correct. If China continues to exclude and threaten American journalists, the U.S. should inject a little more symmetry into its visa policy...
Caixin Media
12.09.13
Traditional Chinese Medicine Struggling to Find Cure for Regulatory Woes in the U.S.
In November, the traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) Fuzheng Huayu Tablets passed the second phase of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA) clinical testing.
Before this, only one TCM drug had cleared the second of the three phases...
Conversation
12.07.13
Will China Shut Out the Foreign Press?
Some two dozen journalists employed by The New York Times and Bloomberg News have not yet received the visas they need to continue to report and live in China after the end of this year. Without them, they will effectively be expelled from the...
Books
12.03.13
Junkyard Planet
When you drop your Diet Coke can or yesterday’s newspaper in the recycling bin, where does it go? Probably halfway around the world, to people and places that clean up what you don’t want and turn it into something you can’t wait to buy. In Junkyard Planet, Adam Minter—veteran journalist and son of an American junkyard owner—travels deeply into a vast, often hidden, multibillion-dollar industry that’s transforming our economy and environment.
Conversation
12.03.13
What Posture Should Joe Biden Adopt Toward A Newly Muscular China?
Susan Shirk:
United States Vice President Joseph Biden is the American political figure who has spent the most time with Xi Jinping and has the deepest understanding of Xi as an individual. Before Xi’s selection as P.R.C....
Caixin Media
11.25.13
Chinese State Oil Scandal Has Links to Iraq
A legal storm that started with China’s largest state-owned oil company has expanded to include Iraq and led to the detention of more people.
Mi Xiaodong, a former mid-level official at China National Offshore Oil Corporation (CNOOC) was...
Bloomberg News Suspends Reporter Whose Article on China Was Not Published
Award-winning Hong Kong-based Bloomberg reporter Michael Forsythe met with supervisors and was placed on leave, said two Bloomberg employees with knowledge of the situation, which was supposed to be private.
Reporter on Unpublished Bloomberg Article Is Suspended
A reporter for Bloomberg News who worked on an unpublished article about China that employees for the company said had been killed for political reasons by top Bloomberg editors was suspended last week by managers.
China Unveils Boldest Reforms in Decades, Shows Xi in Command
China has relaxed its longstanding one-child policy and further freed up the markets in order to...
Bloomberg Boots ‘China Leak’ Scribe
Bloomberg News has put reporter Michael Forsthye, suspected of leaking news about a controversial China story on unpaid leave, escorting him from Bloomberg’s Hong Kong office on Nov. 14, sources said.
Caixin Media
11.11.13
How Ambition Buried an Official Known As ‘The Digger’
Cranes and bulldozers were quieter in the ancient city of Nanjing on October 16.
News broke that day that the city’s fifty-seven-year-old mayor, Ji Jianye, was being investigated for “suspected serious discipline violations,” the Communist...
Imax, China’s T.C.L. Unveil Home Theater Joint Venture
Imax C.E.O. Richard Gelfond told the New York Times that he chose to partner with the Shenzhen-based electronics giant because he expects China will be the largest market for the pricey home theater systems.
Caixin Media
11.04.13
China’s Chilling Effect for Investor Research
Shanghai investor Wang Weihua’s final microblog post October 12 was brief and ominous: “The police are coming.”
Three days later, Wang’s family said he’d been taken into custody by police officers who traveled more than 3,600 kilometers to...
Conversation
10.30.13
Trial By TV: What Does a Reporter’s Arrest and Confession Tell Us About Chinese Media?
The latest ChinaFile Conversation focuses on the case of Chen Yongzhou, the Guangzhou New Express journalist whose series of investigative reports exposed fraud at the Changsha, Hunan-based heavy machinery maker...
Books
10.28.13
In Line Behind a Billion People
Nearly everything you know about China is wrong! Yes, within a decade, China will have the world’s largest economy. But that is the least important thing to know about China. In this enlightening book, two of the world’s leading China experts turn the conventional wisdom on its head, showing why China’s economic growth will constrain rather than empower it.
Hollywood Must Think Bigger About China
In the period from January to June, domestic films in China outperformed imported ones by 65 percent. That was a major reversal from the same period last year, when proceeds from imported films almost doubled those of domestic productions...
Conversation
10.25.13
Can State-Run Capitalism Absorb the Shocks of ‘Creative Destruction’?
Following are ChinaFile Conversation participants’ reactions to “China: Superpower or Superbust?” in the November-December issue of...
Sinica Podcast
10.24.13
Innovation in China
from Sinica PodcastIn China, innovation has become one of those political buzzwords which—like harmony—seems to mean anything and everything to the Central Propaganda Department. So much so that we find it difficult to walk down the streets in Beijing now without...
China Hints at Effort to Export Cars to West
Requests for auto parts companies to supply parts that meet Western regulatory standards are the clearest sign yet that after more than a decade of preparation, Chinese manufacturers are feeling the confidence to begin high-volume auto...
China Box Office Worth $5 Billion to Film Studios by 2017
BofA Merrill Lynch Global Research estimates the Chinese box office could yield $5 billion in value potential for Hollywood studios by 2017 including imported and local productions (with this figure potentially doubling under further...
China’s Poly Culture Plans Hong Kong I.P.O.
State-owned enterprise Poly Culture, one of China’s leading auction, cultural and film investors, previously planned to list its shares on the Shanghai Stock Exchange, but dropped them earlier this year due to regulatory uncertainty....
China Companies Rank Lowest in Survey of Transparency Reporting
The report draws attention to a Chinese business environment corrupt due to minimal public-reporting requirements. Party leaders have warned that corruption threatens their grip on power and have announced anti-graft investigations of a...
Conversation
10.16.13
Uncomfortable Bedfellows: How Much Does China Need America Now?
Bill Bishop:
The D.C. dysfunction puts China in a difficult place. Any financial markets turmoil that occurs because of a failure of Congress to do its job could harm China’s economy, and especially its exports. The accumulation...
Caixin Media
10.08.13
Shandong Shipyard’s Lesson: Don’t Rock the Bank
What was initially billed as a lucrative order from a European customer has pushed a Shandong Province shipbuilding company to the brink of bankruptcy and ruined its relationship with one of China’s biggest banks.
Rushan City Shipbuilding...
Xi Jinping Gets Mocked Going After New Zealand on Food Safety
While China’s new leader has won praise at home for his aggressiveness in pushing China’s interests abroad, this is one situation in which his boldness was bound to backfire. As bad as the Fonterra scandal appeared, China’s own dairy...
Obama’s Absence Leaves China as Dominant Force at Asia-Pacific Meeting
Secretary of State John Kerry replaced President Obama at the opening of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation, leaving China’s president, Xi Jinping, as the dominant leader...