Hair-trigger tensions in the South China Sea escalated as China and Vietnam traded accusations over the sinking of a Vietnamese fishing vessel in the vicinity of a Chinese oil rig parked in disputed waters off Vietnam’s coast.
Chinese pro-democracy protests begun in the late spring of 1989 led to the brutal military suppression on Beijing’s Tiananmen Square 25 years ago this June 4. Around the world, discussions of the events of that spring have been well underway for...
China claims almost the entire South China Sea, rejecting rival claims to parts of it from Vietnam, the Philippines, Taiwan, Malaysia and Brunei.
A pest extermination campaign is under way on western China’s Qinghai-Tibetan Plateau. But experts say there is no scientific basis for the killing of the pika, a small rabbit-like...
Vietnamese Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung said his government was considering various "defense options" against China, including legal action, following the deployment of a Chinese oil rig to South China Sea waters Hanoi also claims.
Does the new collaboration between Russia and China amount to a renewal of the alliance against America?
Prosecutors building a case against Wang Dong, one of five Chinese military hackers indicted for economic espionage, were helped by Wang’s apparent willingness to break a cardinal rule of spying: Leave no tracks.
Assailants in two SUVs plowed through shoppers while setting off explosives at a busy street market in China's volatile northwestern region of Xinjiang, killing 31 people and injuring more than 90, local officials said.
The United States has never faced a rival whose ordinary people lead lives that have so much in common with ours in America. (The Soviets did not get Carson.)
Unresolved allegations that the U.S. National Security Agency spied on a Chinese telecoms giant Huawei have resurfaced amid growing anger from Chinese officials over accusations that the PLA hacked American databases.
Twenty-five years ago to the day I write this, I watched and listened as thousands of Chinese citizens in Beijing’s Tiananmen Square dared to condemn their leaders. Some shouted “Premier Li Peng resign.” Even braver ones cried “Down with Deng...
Two sisters with business savvy and important friends in high places are now the standout figures in the mysterious case of a former Shanxi province government official, Jin Daoming, charged with corruption.
Few details of the Jin case...
A new notice demands greater “naming discipline” from party members and officials, warning that using “vulgar” terms of address in the workplace was “wrecking inner-party democracy.”
The deaths occurred in rioting around Chinese factories that amount to one of the worst breakdowns in Sino-Vietnamese relations since the neighbors fought a brief border war in 1979.
On May 3, fifteen Beijing citizens—scholars, journalists, and rights lawyers—gathered informally at the home of Professor Hao Jian of the Beijing Film Academy to reflect on the 25th anniversary of the 1989 June Fourth massacre in Beijing. Two...
Thousands of workers rampaged through an industrial area in southern Vietnam in what reportedly began as protests against China’s stationing of an oil rig in disputed waters off of Vietnam’s coast.
To commemorate the student movement, CDT is posting a series of original news articles from 1989, beginning with the death of Hu Yaobang on April 15 and continuing through the tumultuous spring.
The Philippines has protested signs of land reclamation by China aimed at expanding a disputed coral atoll near the southern Philippines, the latest in a series of disputes pitting China against its neighbors.
Faced with rising labor costs at home and negative perceptions about their employment practices in Africa, Chinese companies are setting up new factories on the continent and hiring more Africans.
The specter of Chinese President Xi Jinping’s sweeping anti-graft campaign has in recent months ousted officials of all ranks and even banned authorities from purchasing ostensible symbols of corruption.
Twenty-first century rivalry between the United States and China will be as much about economic might as military power.
In this show: dating tips for hooking up with your Marxist-Leninist thought instructor, advice on what modern music and seasonal vegetables to smuggle in from Hong Kong, the origins of China’s somewhat unorthodox driving customs, and instructions...
Experts say leaked contingency plans, which include the detention of leaders and establishment of refugee camps, may be valid but do not suggest that the alliance is weakening.
Pu Zhiqiang, 49, has been detained by the Beijing police one month before the 25th anniversary of the deadly crackdown on the Tiananmen protest movement.
China's Li Keqiang arrived Sunday in Ethiopia for a four-country tour of Africa, calling for deeper ties with his country and seeking to recast a relationship that has admittedly faced difficulties.
The Enhanced Defense Cooperation Agreement took eight months to negotiate but mere days to anger Beijing, which sees U.S. involvement in East Asia as interference despite President Obama's insistence the goal is not to "contain" China.
The publication comes during a fraught period in Japan-China relations. Last week, Japan's Mitsui O.S.K. Lines paid $29 million for the release of a ship seized by China over a dispute that dates back to the 1930s.
The Balance of Power in the Pacific; China’s global footprint; and friendship with Russia
President Obama is in Japan for the start of his four-nation Asia visit. The trip aims to assure U.S. allies that they're not forgotten, even as China gets more bullish with its neighbors.
A Chinese court released a Japanese ship owned by Mitsui O.S.K. Lines Ltd. after the cargo carrier paid compensation for the loss of two vessels leased from a Chinese company before the two countries went to war in 1937.
Code Approved This Week by 21 Naval Powers Isn't Legally Binding
The Diaoyu Islands, which are of little real strategic or economic use, are hardly worth disrupting relations among the world’s three largest economies. It is time to put the issue back into a box.
Taiwan has a chance to set a positive example and chart a peaceful course in managing and eventually resolving East Asian maritime disputes.
Concerns that Chinese hardliners could seek to use Crimea as a precedent for moves against disputed territories in the Asia-...
Amid spreading prosperity, a generation of self-styled also-rans emerges.
This week, Sinica presents a special live recording from the annual meeting of the Association for Asian Studies (AAS) which convened in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Regular listeners, please note that the audio quality here isn’t up to our usual...
What to make in the decline of Chinese patrols of the territorial waters around the Diaoyu / Senkaku Islands since September 2013.
A firm co-founded by the grandson of China's former leader landed a sweet deal in a state-controlled sector of the economy. Now, many in the industry are flocking to invest with Alvin Jiang.
Royal Navy submarine HMS Poseidon sank in collision with a Chinese freighter during routine exercises in 1931 off Weihaiwei. Thirty of its fifty-six-man crew scrambled out of the hatches as it went down. Of the twenty-six who remained inside, eight attempted to surface using "Davis gear," an early form of diving equipment: six of them made it safely to the surface in the first escape of this kind in submarine history and became heroes.
For the first time, China will host the Western Pacific Naval Symposium, a meeting every two years of countries that border the Pacific Ocean.
Israeli President Shimon Peres is visiting China, the latest sign of growing Chinese-Israeli ties.
At the Sochi Winter Olympics, President Xi Jinping professed his affection for Russian letters. Pushkin, Lermontov, Gogol, and other literary giants made up the reading list of his youth, and his generation was raised on a diet of Russian culture...
The United States and China clashed over Japan as the Chinese defense minister asserted that Beijing had “indisputable sovereignty” over a group of islands.
This week on Sinica, Kaiser Kuo and Jeremy Goldkorn are pleased to host a conversation with Timothy Garton Ash, Professor of History at Oxford University and recent participant in the Capital M Literary Festival in Beijing. As one the world's...
The Pentagon’s emerging doctrine includes defending against cyberattacks on the United States and also using its cybertechnology against adversaries, including the Chinese.
An antique map of China gifted by the German Chancellor to China's President is at odds with how China views its historical boundaries.
This week on Sinica, Kaiser Kuo and David Moser are delighted to host Mark O’Neill, author of The Chinese Labour Corps, for a...
Ang Lee, the Oscar-winning American film director with Taiwan roots, and Zhang Yimou, the storied veteran of mainland Chinese moviemaking, joined together on...
On June 6, 1946, at 5pm, after stepping out of the office of the Democratic Weekly, Wen Yiduo died in a hail of bullets. Mao blamed the Nationalists and transformed Wen into a paragon of the revolution.
Wen was born into a well-to-do family in Hubei, China, and received a classical education. But he came of age as old imperial China and its institutions were being swept away, and the Chinese people were looking ahead to a new China. It was fertile ground for a young poet.
Forget our complaints about the pollution, China has an even more intractable public relations problem that has everything to do with the country’s favorite hard liquor. And yes, we are talking about baijiu. In 1854, French Catholic missionary...
For Richard Nixon’s foreign policy, 1971 was the best of years and the worst of years. He revealed his opening to China, but he connived at genocide in East Pakistan. Fortunately for him, the world marveled at the one, but was largely ignorant of...
Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s use of revisionist history is a dangerous provocation for East Asia, which is already struggling with China’s aggressive stance in territorial disputes in the East and South China Seas.
Alexander V. Pantsov: The Chinese Communist Party leadership has always maintained: “China believes in non-interference in internal affairs.” In the current Ukrainian situation it is the most we can expect from the P.R.C. because it is...
This week, Kaiser and Jeremy are joined by David Moser and Orville Schell. While long-time listeners will of course know of David Moser as one of our favorite resident sinologists, if you haven’t also heard of Orville Schell we think you should...
