25 Years Ago: Zhao Ziyang Appears to Win Backing
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.
Chinese Police Charge British Former Head of GSK in China With Bribery
The case is the biggest corruption scandal to hit a foreign company in China since the Rio Tinto affair in 2009, which resulted in four executives, including an Australian, being jailed for between 7-14 years.
Philippines Challenges China Over Disputed Atoll
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.
Media
05.13.14
Why Are There No Credit Scores in China?
Few would dispute that Chinese society suffers from a serious trust problem. After surviving crafty scams and shoddy products for...
China Isn’t Overtaking America
Twenty-first century rivalry between the United States and China will be as much about economic might as military power.
Media
05.06.14
Chinese to the World: Ignore Our GDP
The U.S.-based World Bank grabbed everybody’s attention by announcing that China was poised to displace the United States as the world’s largest economy based on purchasing power. But a survey of the Chinese web shows people at home aren’t buying...
Rights Lawyer Detained Ahead of Tiananmen Anniversary
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.
Why India Will Soon Outpace China
India’s decentralized, often chaotic economic model has been seen as inferior to China’s authoritarian, top-down model. A reappraisal of that view may soon be in order.
China's Half-Year Report Card on Economic Reform: Slow, Safe and Steady
Incremental steps promise to reach enough critical mass to sustain reform momentum and help the world's second-largest economy shift down fairly smoothly after decades of red-hot...
Sinica Podcast
05.03.14
Shoptalk on Publishing
from Sinica PodcastThis week on Sinica, Jeremy Goldkorn is pleased to be joined by two people navigating the English-language publishing industry as it involves China: Alice Xin Liu, Editor of Pathlight magazine, and Karen Ma, first-time author of the well...
Conversation
04.30.14
Will China’s Economy Be #1 by Dec. 31? (And Does it Matter?)
On April 30, data released by the United Nations International Comparison Program showed China’s estimated 2011 purchasing power parity (PPP) exchange rate was twenty percent higher than...
Media
04.30.14
Five Lessons From the Axing of ‘The Big Bang Theory’
It’s a plot twist few saw coming. Not long ago, China’s video streaming sites were trying to clean up years of copyright violations by...
Why China is Censoring ‘The Big Bang Theory’ but not ‘Game of Thrones’
While authorities speak of “cleaning the web” of offensive content, they may be more worried about reminding the country’s flourishing private internet firms that the government is still in charge....
Bill Gates Urges China’s Wealthiest to Give to Charity...Again
Businessman makes plea in People's Daily for country to improve bad philanthropic record by investing in the poor.
Apple, Be Afraid: China's Xiaomi Going Global
Xiaomi’s Mi3 in China is cheaper than the iPhone 5c—1,999 yuan versus 4,488. No wonder Xiaomi outsells Apple, shipping 7.3 million phones in the fourth quarter of last year over Apple's 7 million.
China Forces Four U.S. TV Shows Off Web
'Big Bang Theory' and 'Good Wife' are among programs taken down from popular video streaming sites Sohu, Youku Tudou, and Tencent, as government control of the Internet and over foreign entertainment content intensifies.
China Releases Japanese Wartime Documents: State Media
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.
Media
04.25.14
Bieliebers They Are Not—Chinese Outraged by Singer’s Tokyo Shrine Visit
Justin Bieber has once again displayed his talent for seemingly effortless international gaffes. The twenty-year-old Canadian pop princeling, who last year wrote “hopefully she would have been a Belieber” in the guestbook on his visit to the Anne...
Alibaba Works Magic for China's Taobao 'Treasure Hunters'
Alibaba's eBay-like marketplace Taobao allows budding entrepreneurs to set up and run an online store, for free. The site has steven million sellers offering hundreds of millions of items.
The Shadow over Obama’s Asia Trip: 3 Ways China Scares the U.S.
The Balance of Power in the Pacific; China’s global footprint; and friendship with Russia
Obama: U.S. To Defend Japan In Territorial Disputes With China
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.
China’s Police Will Carry Guns Unlike Any Others
Arming regular beat patrols is a significant policy change for a nation with some of the world’s most restrictive gun laws.
I Sold Out to China
You know that censorship has won its war on truth-telling when journalists happily police themselves.
Russia, China Block Central African Republic Blacklistings at U.N.
The United States and France proposed U.N. sanctions of former Central African Republic President Francois Bozize for "engaging in or providing support for acts that undermine the peace, stability or security."
Caixin Media
04.23.14
Graft Inquiry at CNPC Uncovers Shady Deal
A little-known deal related to an equally little-known, yet highly productive oilfield has come to light as a graft investigation unfolds at oil giant China National Petroleum Corp. (CNPC). A businessman with strong ties to officials is behind...
Media
04.23.14
Welcome to Uighur Web—Now Watch What You Say
China’s Internet is vast, with millions of sites and more than 618 million users. But nested within that universe is a tiny...
Media
04.17.14
Ai Weiwei’s Reach Draws New Yorkers’ Attention to Free Speech
“
Ai Weiwei retweeted me!” exclaimed a young blonde woman, laughing and waving her iPhone in the air with excitement. She and some two hundred other New Yorkers had gathered on the steps of the Brooklyn Public Library at Grand Army...
Why Ukraine Crisis has China in a Bind
Concerns that Chinese hardliners could seek to use Crimea as a precedent for moves against disputed territories in the Asia-...
China is Reportedly Screwing Up the Search For MH370
With a handful of countries still searching the Indian Ocean for missing Malaysia Airlines Flight 370, the one country annoying the others is China.
The Mystery Shrouding China’s Communist Party Suicides
At least 54 Chinese officials died of “unnatural causes” in 2013, and that more than 40 percent of those deaths were suicides.
In China, A Big Jet Becomes a Status Symbol
Chinese buyers are enthusiastically opting mostly for so-called heavy metal jets—big, long-range luxury jets that can cost $50 million or more before extras like fancy cabin fixtures.
Media
04.15.14
Captain America Conquers China
SHANGHAI—This week, while U.S. Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel’s trip to China was underscoring bilateral...
China Cancels Human Rights Dialogue with Britain
Beijing accuses UK of using rights issues to interfere in its internal affairs and axes dialogue that resumed after diplomatic freeze over Dalai Lama
China Property Collapse Has Begun
Walmart will be closing its Zhaohui store in Hangzhou on April 23 as a part of its overall plan to dump marginal locations—about nine percent of the total—in...
Can Forbidden Rules Teach Officials How to Behave?
A Sichuan newspaper listed "ten forbidden behaviors" for officials—such as don't talk to the public with hands behind your back and don't ask others to carry the suitcase for you.
Chinese Signaling in the East China Sea?
What to make in the decline of Chinese patrols of the territorial waters around the Diaoyu / Senkaku Islands since September 2013.
Media
04.11.14
Is Jesus Really Hotter Than Mao on China’s Social Media?
It’s easier to talk about Jesus than Chinese President and Communist Party General Secretary Xi Jinping on Weibo, China’s massive Twitter-like social media platform.
The atheist Chinese Communist Party, known for its sometimes heavy-handed...
Conflicting Reports of Potential Flight 370 Pings shows China’s confused status in investigation
Despite China's interest in finding Flight 370 and its efforts in the search, the Chicago Convention on International Civil Aviation does not offer it an official role.
Conversation
04.06.14
Spy Vs. Spy: When is Cyberhacking Crossing the Line?
Vincent Ni: For a long time, Huawei has been accused by some American politicians of “spying on Americans for the Chinese government,” but their evidence has always been sketchy. They played on fear and possibility. I don’t agree or...
China’s Mobile Commerce Spending to Surpass $50 Billion in 2014, Nearly Double Last Year’s Total
Now that smartphones account for over 80 percent of China’s new phone sales, it’s inevitable that the m-commerce sector is growing faster than the ecommerce industry itself.
Environment
04.03.14
China’s Air Pollution Reporting is Misleading
from chinadialogueChina’s air pollution is being reported in a misleading way, blocking public understanding and enabling official inaction. Outdoor air pollution in China causes an estimated 1.2 million premature deaths and 25 million healthy years of life lost...
Alibaba’s IPO Architect Lays Out Blueprint for E-commerce Empire
Joe Tsai, executive vice chairman of the world's largest e-commerce company, sees an Alibaba future that stretches from banking to education, travel to entertainment.
Apology to Wife in Sex Scandal Breaks Online Record in China
Actor Wen Zhang’s apology to his actress wife following rumors of his infidelity has set a record for comments and retweets on China’s version of Twitter.
While Warning Of Chinese Cyberthreat, U.S. Launches Its Own Attack
New documents show that the U.S. National Security Agency penetrated the large Chinese telecommunications firm Huawei, gathering information about its operations.
Media
04.02.14
The Future of Democracy in Hong Kong
Veteran Hong Kong political leaders Anson Chan and Martin Lee describe some of the core values—such as freedom of the press—that they seek to maintain as Beijing asserts greater control over the territory seventeen years after Britain handed it back...
China’s Alibaba Launches Crowdfunding-Like Service for Film Investment
China's largest e-commerce company, Alibaba, launched a micro-finance service for movies.
Conversation
03.26.14
The Bloomberg Fallout: Where Does Journalism in China Go from Here?
On Monday, March 24, a thirteen-year veteran of Bloomberg News, Ben Richardson...
Media
03.26.14
A Wrinkle to Those Hot Chinese Tech IPOs
Investors, ready your wallets. In the past week, Sina Weibo, China’s massive microblogging platform with 280 million users, and...
Media
03.25.14
China, We Fear You
On March 18, thousands of students began a sit-in of Taiwan’s Legislative Yuan in the capital, Taipei, a historic...
Media
03.21.14
“We’ll Know It When We’re There”
Martin Johnson (not his real name), is a co-founder of the China-based Internet freedom advocacy collective GreatFire.org....
Features
03.21.14
Punching a Hole in the Great Firewall
In January, when the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists published its exposé of the use of offshore tax havens by...
Media
03.17.14
‘Self-Media’ Pushes and Beijing Pushes Back
Michelle Song, twenty-four, studies international relations at Beijing’s prestigious Peking University and lives in a dormitory, so she doesn’t watch television regularly and doesn’t subscribe to newspapers. But this has not hampered her ability...
Viewpoint
03.13.14
How Chinese Internet Censorship Works, Sometimes
Earlier this week, Chinese Internet services blocked searches for the phrase mìshū bāng (秘书帮). Roughly...
To Play The Part, Actors Must Talk The Talk — In Chinese
The success of the Netflix series House of Cards lies in the details, yet episodes featuring actors speaking in Chinese are one detail the show doesn't get quite right.
A Parting Shot at U.S. Ambassador, Inspired by Mao
Following departing United States ambassador Gary F. Locke's farewell news conference in Beijing, China News Service published a scathing review of his tenure.
U.S. Ambassador Urges China to Respect Human Rights
At his final news conference as ambassador, Gary Locke said that Washington is "very concerned" about the case of a minority scholar charged with separatism and a recent increase in the arrests of activists and journalists.
Fears for Press Freedom in Hong Kong After Influential Editor Stabbed
Kevin Lau, recently fired as chief editor of a Chinese-language daily known for its hard-hitting reporting, was knifed by unknown assailants who rode off on a motorcycle.
Caixin Media
03.11.14
Li Ka-shing’s Remedy for ‘Coddled’ Hong Kong
Hong Kong tycoon Li Ka-shing is again in the media spotlight after he mentioned in late February the possibility of publicly listing his retail business A.S. Watson Group, which is part of the Hong Kong-listed conglomerate Hutchison Whampoa....