Why China Executes So Many People
While anti-death penalty activists say public education is needed to get the message out, they believe change ultimately needs to come from the top -- something that they're not optimistic about at all.
In China, Power Is Arrogant
The wacky and arbitrary nature of some rules, regulations and laws imposed by the local and national governments recently demonstrates the arrogance of power in China.
S.P.C. Directive on Handling Suits Related to Internet “Management”
A translation of a directive that reveals, among other things, just how many layers of oversight, guidance, and coordination Chinese courts are subject to.
Conversation
05.14.13
Why Can’t China Make Its Food Safe?—Or Can It?
The month my wife and I moved to Beijing in 2004, I saw a bag of oatmeal at our local grocery store prominently labeled: “NOT POLLUTED!” How funny that this would be a selling point, we thought.
But 7 years later as we prepared to return...
“Swept Away”: Abuses Against Sex Workers in China
Human Rights Watch
Human Rights Watch believes the Chinese government should take immediate steps to protect the human rights of all people who engage in sex work. It should repeal the host of laws and regulations that are repressive and misused by the police, and...
Media
05.10.13
Unrest in Beijing Over Mysterious Death of Young Woman
A rare protest in Beijing involving hundreds of people was documented by photos posted on China’s social media (scroll down to see a sample photo). The cause of the protest was the death of a twenty-two-year-old migrant worker, who fell several...
Conversation
05.07.13
Why Is a 1995 Poisoning Case the Top Topic on Chinese Social Media?
With a population base of 1.3 billion people, China has no shortage of strange and gruesome crimes, but the attempted murder of Zhu Ling by thallium poisoning in 1995 is burning up China’s social media long after the trails have gone cold. Zhu, a...
The PEN Report: Creativity and Constraint in Today’s China
PEN International
The report which follows measures the conditions for freedom of expression through literature, linguistic rights, Internet freedom and legal obligations. This is an approach anchored both in the breadth of history and in today’s realities, one...
Books
05.02.13
China and the Environment
Sixteen of the world’s twenty most polluted cities are in China. A serious water pollution incident occurs once every two-to-three days. China’s breakneck growth causes great concern about its global environmental impacts, as others look to China as a source for possible future solutions to climate change. But how are Chinese people really coming to grips with environmental problems? This book provides access to otherwise unknown stories of environmental activism and forms the first real-life account of China and its environmental tensions.
China Criticizes U.S. For Questioning Xinjiang Clash
In the wake of Tuesday’s violence, State Department spokesman Patrick Ventrell called for a thorough and transparent investigation and expressed concern over discrimination against Uighurs and the practice of Islam.
...
China’s Xinjiang Hit By Deadly Clashes
Clashes in China’s restive Xinjiang region have left 21 people dead, including 15 police officers and officials, authorities say. It is very difficult to verify reports from Xinjiang, reports the BBC’s Celia Hatton...
Beijing Air Laden With Arsenic, Other Heavy Metals
Such heavy metals can damage the nervous system and cause cardiovascular disease and cancer, according to a report by a joint team of Greenpeace members and scholars from Peking University that tested the capital’s air over a 15-day period...
Wife Of China’s Jailed Nobel Winner: I‘m Not Free
Liu Xia was allowed to leave the Beijing apartment where she has been held for two-and-a-half years to attend the trial of her brother on fraud charges that his lawyers said are trumped up to punish the family.
In This Corner Of China, Boxing’s Next Frontier
Fight promoter Bob Arum insisted that he had seen the future of boxing, and that it was in China and Singapore and would perhaps spread elsewhere in Asia, like the Philippines.
Environment
04.28.13
Poor Rural Residents in China Seen as Easy Target for Environmental Lawsuits
from chinadialogueChina today boasts a collection of ninety-five environmental courts, all of which were set up over the past six years. It is a trend that promises to re-shape Chinese environmental law.
But simply trumpeting this initiative is no guarantee...
Caixin Media
04.27.13
Cracking Down on Bond Market’s Knotty Traders
It was a typical workday morning at Wanjia Asset Management Co. in Shanghai’s downtown financial district, but the firm’s star bond trader Zou Yu was not at his desk.
Zou, 31, had mysteriously failed to report for his job as head of Wanjia...
U.S. Eyes Pushback On China Hacking
Current and former officials said the offensive shift turned on two developments: new intelligence showing the Chinese military directing cyberspying campaigns, and a sudden change in U.S. companies’ willingness to acknowledge Chinese...
Will The State Department Sanction China And Russia For Human Trafficking
This year the State Department must either promote Russia and China to Tier 2 status or demote those countries to Tier 3, the lowest classification, which opens those countries to sanctions from the U.S. government.
China Censors The Word ‘Censorship’
‘China’s Spielberg’, film director Feng Xiaogang, gave an emotional acceptance speech for ‘director of year’ in which he referred to censorship as a “torment” for Chinese filmmakers. The video - in which the word ‘censorship’ was censored...
China Responds To Gun-Control Failure
To the Chinese who awoke to the news Thursday, it was a confusing object lesson in what they are so often told is a model political system.
China Sees The Best And Worst Of America In Boston Bombing
Chinese Web users seemed to draw two general conclusions: that China would be more effective at preventing a Boston-style attack, but that the U.S. is better equipped to respond to and cope such an event.
Wikileaks Dumps Over 200,000 Documents Related to Kissinger
A new, full-searchable document dump containing over 206,000 documents related to Henry Kissinger from between 1973 and 1976.
Caixin Media
04.15.13
China Export Policy Chokes on Vitamin Verdict
Internet cafés covered by the city of Wuhan’s Internet Café Association agreed to set minimum prices for online access nearly a decade ago. And more than one hundred coking coal company-members of the Coke Association of Shanxi Province each...
Two China Cities Move To Cool Overheated Housing Market
In Shanghai and Beijing, stricter laws governing residence status and residence-related taxes in order to offset a real estate bubble that could seriously damage the economy and exacerbate social tensions between the rich and the poor....
Caixin Media
04.08.13
A Day in the Life of a Beijing “Black Guard”
After receiving his delayed wages, thirty-year-old Wang Jie decided to change professions.
On March 7, he pressed a fingerprint onto a receipt that read: “Today I have received settlement of the 12,000 yuan in wages owed to me by Mr. Shao...
China Takes Aim At Apple. Why?
The sustained vitriolic tone of the state-run campaign against Apple is prompting observers here to wonder what could possibly be behind it, with some speculating it is retribution for America’s treatment of Chinese flagship telecoms...
China Convicts And Sentences 20 Accused Of Militant Separatism In Restive Region
“It’s not clear what is being alleged against these people beyond being members of a clandestine organization,” said Nicholas Bequelin, a researcher based in Hong Kong for Human Rights Watch.
The NYRB China Archive
03.21.13
Who Killed Pamela in Peking?
from New York Review of BooksAn ordinary winter evening in the Legation Quarter of Peking, where foreign embassies and consulates were located, January 7, 1937. Cold. The heavy sound of Japanese armored cars, out on patrol down the busy shopping streets that flank the...
Conversation
03.19.13
China’s New Leaders Say They Want to Fight Corruption. Can They? Will They?
In his first press conference after taking office as China's new premier...
Caixin Media
03.17.13
Ladders, Losers, and Direct-Marketing Schemes
A skin cream customer pays an extra fee and, voilà, instantly becomes a company representative with the right to sell cream and other products, as well as recruit more dealers.
Eventually, she persuades other women to buy the cream and...
‘White Gold’ In China
China is a large importer of illegally acquired ivory. This photo set focuses on the tradesmen who make their living off of carving the ivory, some of which have been doing so for generations.
Skype’s Been Hijacked in China, And Microsoft Is O.K. With It
A computer science student at the University of New Mexico deciphered an everchanging list of sensitive keywords for which Skype in China surveils and now wants Microsoft to answer for the privacy breach.
U.N. Resolution To Aim At North Korean Banks and Diplomats
The United States and China introduced a resolution that would tighten inspections of suspect ship and air cargo and subject the country’s diplomats to invasive scrutiny and increased risk of expulsion.
Chen Guangcheng Q&A
The blind lawyer and human rights activists answers questions regarding China's constitution, rule of law in China, and the inevitability of change in the Chinese government.
China Could Fix Its Oversupply Of Men By Letting Gays Marry
China has tens of millions more men of marriageable age than there are women. Legalizing same-sex marriage would help solve China’s hugely problematic gender imbalance.
Public Opinion Split On Live Airing Of Executions On T.V.
Although the live program ended shortly before the men were executed by lethal injection, it became an instantly polarizing sensation.
Top Prosecution Body To Add Second Review Of Death Penalty Sentences
Six years after the Supreme People’s Court regained the power to review death penalty sentences the Supreme People’s Procuratorate has now been formally tasked with providing external review of Supreme Court decisions to apply the death...
Going Undercover, The Evangelists Taking Jesus To Tibet
Missionaries see Tibet as a formidable yet crucial undertaking, a last spiritual frontier. Today’s evangelists work undercover as students, teachers, doctors, and business owners in order covertly proselytize.
Caixin Media
02.24.13
Dirty Business for China’s Internet Scrubbers
Flames of a public relations disaster were licking at the heels of a private equity firm when China’s most notorious Internet-scrubbing company rode to the rescue.
Saving the Shenzhen-based firm’s image was not cheap, and it took more than...
U.S.: Hacking Attacks Are Constant Topic Of Talks With China
Obama administration officials acknowledged that China’s involvement in cyber-attacks is a near-constant subject of conversation between the nations’ officials but that there have been few signs that China is willing to stop the attacks.
Chinese Army Unit Is Seen as Tied to Hacking Against U.S.
An unusually detailed 60-page study tracks for the first time individual members of the most sophisticated Chinese hacking group to the doorstep of the military unit’s headquarters.
China Considered Drone Strike On Foreign Soil In Hunt For Drug Lord
Liu Yuejin said one of the plans to end the manhunt for drug lord Naw Kham was to strafe a hideout in Myanmar using an unmanned aircraft.
U.S. Security Group Suspects P.L.A. Behind Hacking Attacks
A secretive Chinese military unit is believed to be behind a series of hacking attacks, prompting a strong denial by China and accusations that it was in fact the victim of U.S. hacking.
China Won’t Cut Its Cyberspying
Some Obama advisers have recommended harsh action to send a clear signal to China to change its ways. But even if the Americans retaliate, China is unlikely to respond as they might hope.
China Vanke Enters U.S. Property Market With Tishman Deal
China Vanke Co., the biggest developer listed on Chinese exchanges, has entered a residential-property venture in San Francisco, its first foray into the U.S. real estate market.
China Plays By Its Own Rules While Going Global
When Venezuela seized billions of dollars in assets from Exxon Mobil and other foreign companies, Chinese state banks and investors didn't blink. Over the past five years they have loaned Venezuela more than $35...
A Chinese Hacker’s Identity Unmasked
Joe Stewart’s day starts at 6:30 a.m. in Myrtle Beach, S.C., with a peanut butter sandwich, a sugar-free Red Bull, and 50,000 or so pieces of malware waiting in his e-mail in-box.
U.S. Cybersecurity Plan Aimed at Keeping China out of America’s Networks
President Barack Obama signed an executive order aimed at helping protect the computer networks of crucial American industries from cyberattacks and prodded Congress to enact legislation that would go even further.
Media
02.13.13
Officer Draws Gun on Drunk Driver—To Overwhelming Online Applause
A policeman draws his gun to stop a desperately escaping criminal. It may sound sensational, but this is technically what happened in the southern Chinese megalopolis of Guangzhou on January 31. As traffic policemen were manning a drunk driving...
Blogging the Slow-motion Revolution: An Interview with Huang Qi
Huang Qi is best known in China as the creator of the country’s first human rights website, Liusi Tianwang, or “June 4 Heavenly Web.” A collection of reports and photos, as well as the occasional first-person account of abuse, the site is updated...
Viewpoint
02.11.13
A Beginning for China’s Battered Women
Like it or not, it takes an American woman to give a face, bring a voice, and deliver a victory to battered women in China. On February 3, a milestone...
Hewlett Directs Its Suppliers in China to Limit Student Labor
Hewlett-Packard, one of the world’s largest makers of computers and other electronics, is imposing new limits on the employment of students and temporary agency workers at factories across China.
Eye-Stinging Bejiing Air Risks Lifelong Harm to Babies
Air quality in the Chinese capital deteriorated beyond World Health Organization safe limits every day last month as smoke from coal-powered generators, factory emissions, car fumes, and dust amassed over the city of 20...
Rupert Murdoch Tweets Chinese “Still Hacking” WSJ
Rupert Murdoch has said that the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) newspaper remains under attack from Chinese hackers.
Op-Ed: China’s Big Divorce Case Highlights a Hidden Epidemic of Domestic Violence
Kim Lee’s victory over celebrity husband Li Yang is in stark contrast to the treatment handed out to many Chinese women.
Japan Protests to China After Radar Pointed At Vessel
A Chinese vessel pointed a type of radar normally used to help guide missiles at a Japanese navy ship near disputed East...
China to Make State Firms Turn Over More Profits
China unveiled guidelines on its long-awaited income redistribution plan by saying it would boost income for the poor, tighten its grip on illegal income and ask state companies to contribute more profits to the government.
Reformers Aim to Get China to Live up to Own Constitution
After the chaos of the Cultural Revolution, the surviving Communist Party leaders pursued a project that might sound familiar to those in the West: Write a constitution that enshrines individual rights and ensures rulers are subject to law, so...
Foxconn Plans Chinese Union Vote
Foxconn, the contract manufacturer whose biggest customer is Apple, is preparing genuinely representative labour union elections in its factories in China for the first time, a...