China, Japan Blame Each Other for Jet Encounter
The Chinese government released video that purports to show Japanese fighter planes flying dangerously close to a Chinese fighter planes over the disputed waters of the East China Sea.
U.S. Rep. Jim McGovern Introduces New Bill on Tibet
Mr. McGovern (MA-02) announced today that he has introduced HR 4851, The Reciprocal Access to Tibet Act, in the House of Representatives.
Angelina Jolie Angers China With Taiwan Comments
The star, promoting Maleficent in Shanghai, said that her favorite Chinese director is Ang Lee – who is from Taiwan, a country still seen by many Chinese as a rogue state.
Capital Mobilizes Anti-Terrorism Volunteer Force
Beijing has deployed an anti-terrorism force of about 850,000 urban volunteers to patrol its streets following recent terrorist attacks across the country.
Anson Chan on Beijing’s Pressure Tactics in Hong Kong
In an interview, Anson Chan talked about what she sees as increasing control from Beijing, which had guaranteed Hong Kong a high degree of autonomy until 2047 under the “One Country, Two Systems” formula.
Instagram Grows in China, Despite Ban on Parent Facebook
While Facebook itself is blocked by the Chinese government, Facebook-owned Instagram is growing fast in that country.
China Cultivates India Amid Tension With Neighbors
Amid fierce disputes with Japan, Vietnam and the Philippines, China is reaching out to India in a warming trend that could help ramp up economic exchanges and dissipate decades of distrust between the two giant neighbors.
Hong Kong Media Worries Over China’s Reach as Ads Disappear
In what may be a major escalation of pressure by mainland China on Hong Kong’s independent-minded news media, two major British banks have stopped advertising with one of the city’s biggest newspapers, a top media executive said.
China Media: White Paper on Hong Kong
Media in China give full support to an official document reaffirming total control over Hong Kong, while papers in the special administrative region express pessimism over the future.
Ten Questions Cambridge University Must Now Answer Over the Chong Hua Donation
The news that one of China's most powerful political families has endowed a professorial chair at Cambridge University raises profound and disturbing questions, both about the integrity of British academia and the reach of China's soft-power...
Japan Slams China Over Close Encounter of Jets
Japan lodged a diplomatic protest with Beijing on Wednesday after Chinese military jets flew near Japanese military aircraft over the East China Sea, an official said.
Crackdown on Fringe Sects in China Has Mainstream Churches Worried
Although their voices are muted by the censors, human rights advocates and some mainstream religious leaders in China say that the latest anti-cult campaign is misguided and that it frequently violates Chinese law.
Vietnam Says China Moving Rig; China Denies Sending Warships
Vietnam said on Wednesday a Chinese oil rig at the centre of an increasingly bitter territorial dispute appeared to be on the move again, as China denied Vietnamese accusations that it had sent warships to the scene.
China’s Anti-Graft Drive “A Testament of Xi’s Power”
Over 1,000 people have been marked as "naked officials" in China, suspected of funneling illicit gains to overseas relatives. Analyst Rebecca Liao says Beijing is resolved to block any escape route for corrupt officials.
Caixin Media
06.10.14
A Jesuit Astronomer in a Qing Emperor’s Court
Of the 920 Jesuits who served in the China mission between 1552 and 1800, only the Italian Matteo Ricci (Li Madou) remains well known. This is understandable—it was Ricci who first gained permission for the Jesuits to live in Beijing and who...
Despite Critics, China Asserts Democratic Progress in Hong Kong
A week after roughly 100,000 people turned out in Hong Kong in a protest directed at China’s Communist leadership, Beijing has issued a ringing of defence of its oversight of the territory.
How “Rogue” Is China's Aid?
Moisés Naím has called Chinese development assistance “rogue aid,” claiming that it is nondemocratic and harmful to progress and to average citizens.
Young Chinese Twitter User Arrested for Proposing Method to Spread Truth About June 4th Massacre
On Monday China’s state-run media outlet China News (中新网) reported that Beijing police had arrested a 22-year-old female for posting an article on Twitter that teaches how to use a pseudo base station “to send...
State Firms Barred from Vietnam Contract Bids
Vietnamese and Chinese ships have been clashing since China set up an oil rig near disputed island in the South China Sea last month. Tensions over the move caused anti-China riots in Vietnam.
Books
06.09.14
Voices from Tibet
Tsering Woeser and Wang Lixiong are widely regarded as the most eloquent, insightful writers on contemporary Tibet. Their reportage on the economic exploitation, environmental degradation, cultural destruction, and political subjugation that plague the increasingly Han Chinese-dominated Tibet Autonomous Region (TAR) is as powerful as it is profound, ardent, and analytical in equal measure, and not in the least bit ideological.
From China with Pragmatism
Americans see patronage as corruption, but Chinese recognize that giving money in a red envelope is good manners and important social grooming, and unrelated to graft.
Beijing, Vatican Prepare to Resume Talks for the First Time Since 2010
Meeting said to be in the works, but recent anti-church actions could complicate dialogue.
Newton Student Penalized for Democracy Notes in China
High school senior Henry DeGroot was visiting a school outside Beijing on a semester abroad this year when he decided to make a point by writing prodemocracy messages in the notebook of a Chinese student.
Iowa Signs Historical Cooperation Agreement With China
Iowa’s economic ties with China deepened Thursday as the state signed a cooperation agreement with the Ministry of Commerce of the world’s second-largest economy.
China Under-Reports Defence Spending, Says US
China has under-reported its 2014 defense spending by about 20%, according to an annual report put out by the US defense department.
China Admits to Failures Over Air Quality
Only three cities, or 4.1%, of the 74 major Chinese cities subject to air quality standards met the national standard for good air quality in 2013.
The Astrophysicist of Tiananmen
Fang Lizhi, the prominent astrophysicist, was incredulous when, In January 1987, when Deng Xiaoping launched the slogan “modernization with Chinese characteristics.”
Media
06.05.14
A Time-Lapse Map of Protests Sweeping China in 1989
Twenty-five years ago in the southern Chinese province of Hunan, a group of small-town high school students listening to shortwave radio heard news of a deadly crackdown on pro-democracy demonstrators nearly 1,000 miles away in the capital of...
China Escalates Its War on American Tech Firms
The Chinese government, angered by Washington's charge that Beijing engages in cyberspying, is looking for some payback.
Exiled Tiananmen Leader Slips into China
Zhou Fengsuo, 47, a student leader in 1989, spent two days in the capital—visiting Tiananmen Square and a detention center where his friends are being held—before the authorities caught him on June 3.
Scientists Warn Against China’s Plan to Flatten Over 700 Mountains
Environmental consequences of removing hills to create more land for cities not considered, academics say in Nature paper.
Never Before Seen Tiananmen Square Photos Found in Shoebox
I was searching through my parents’ photos for a piece I was writing on Tiananmen Square and my father, when I stumbled across two rolls of negatives that appeared to be from the 1989 student democracy protests in Tiananmen Square.
Where the Flame Still Burns
Hong Kong is the only place on Chinese soil where large public commemorations of the Tiananmen massacre take place; elsewhere memorials of the June 4th crackdown remain strictly forbidden.
After Tiananmen Square, New Lives On A New Continent
After the democracy protests were crushed in 1989, many thought China would turn inward. Instead, a million Chinese citizens moved to Africa. Howard French discusses his book China's Second Continent.
The Tiananmen Square Massacre, According to WikiLeaks
Diplomatic cables chronicle China’s quashing of pro-democracy movement.
See What China Sees When It Searches For “Tiananmen” and Other Loaded Terms
Blocked on Weibo is one of the most interesting websites on the internet: A list that explains the search terms that are censored on China’s massive microblogging site Weibo.
25 Years Later, Tiananmen Square Still Colors U.S.-China Relations
Today, the United States is asking of the Chinese government what we have asked for 25 years: to provide the fullest possible accounting of the Tiananmen events and to stop retribution against those who wish to remember them.
25 Years Later, Lessons From Tiananmen Square Crackdown
A quarter century after democracy protests ended in bloodshed, Chinese still clamor for clean government and courts.
Remarks by President Obama at at 25th Anniversary of Freedom Day
Barack Obama reminds Poles that while they voted for democracy twenty-five years ago this day, China crushed pro-democracy protests in Beijing's Tiananmen Square.
As China Booms, So Does Popular Unrest
In the quarter-century since the crackdown in Beijing's Tiananmen Square, China's economy has thrived and presented the world with an historic milestone. But at what cost to its people?
In Pictures, Remembering the Tiananmen Square Massacre
Twenty-five years ago on Wednesday, the Chinese government, acting under martial law, deployed 200,000 troops into Beijing's Tiananmen Square.
Tiananmen at Twenty-Five: "Victory Over Memory"
Today, technology and globalism are prying open the lives of China’s people. But, in matters of politics and history, the Party is determined to silence even the “few flies” that Deng Xiaoping once described as a bearable side effect of an...
Hong Kong Recalls Tiananmen Killings, China Muffles Dissent
Tens of thousands of people held a candlelight vigil in Hong Kong to mark the bloody crackdown on pro-democracy protesters 25 years ago in Beijing's Tiananmen Square, while mainland China authorities sought to whitewash the event.
Marking 25th Anniversary of China's Tiananmen Square Takes Creativity
Every year, political activists try to commemorate those who died in the 1989 crackdown at Tiananmen Square, and the Chinese government tries to prevent them, a cat-and-mouse game as classic as "Tom and Jerry."
Stuart Franklin: How I Photographed Tiananmen Square and 'Tank Man'
The Magnum photographer tells his story of the 1989 protests, from peaceful demonstration to bloody crackdown, the iconic 'tank man' – and how hamburgers gave him his big break.
China Follows USA With Emissions Pledge
One day after the United States said it would slash carbon emissions from existing power plants by 30% below 2005 levels, China, the world's largest emitter of greenhouse gases, said it would set an absolute cap on its emissions by 2016.
China Swaps Gusto for Rigor as It Learns From Africa
Cowed by capricious commodity prices, political instability and a string of lost investments, Chinese financiers aren’t as gutsy as when state-owned giants whipped up business abroad 15 years ago.
Tiananmen, Forgotten
To my generation, the widespread patriotic liberalism that bonded the students in the early 1980s feels as distant as the political fanaticism that defined the preceding decades.
The NYRB China Archive
06.03.14
The Tanks and the People
from New York Review of BooksTwenty-five years ago, before the Tiananmen massacre, my father told me: “Son, be good and stay at home, never provoke the Communist Party.”
My father knew what he was talking about. His courage had been broken, by countless political...
Tales of Army Discord Show Tiananmen Square in a New Light
In a stunning rebuke to his superiors, Major General Xu Qinxian said the Tiananmen protests were a political problem and should be settled through negotiations, not force.
China Escalating Attack on Google
The authorities in China have made Google’s services largely inaccessible in recent days, a move most likely related to the government’s broad efforts to stifle discussion of the 25th anniversary of the Tiananmen Square demonstrations.
Malaysia Seeks Code of Conduct for South China Sea
Malaysia urged a rapid conclusion to creating a long-stalled code of conduct in the South China Sea, as tensions grow over conflicting territorial ambitions in Asian waters between Beijing and neighboring countries.
25 Years After the Tiananmen Crackdown
The Asian American Arts Centre responded to the June 1989 events with an open-call exhibition of artworks related to the uprising and its suppression called “China: June 4, 1989.” To commemorate the event's 25th anniversary, Creative Time Reports...
A Media Mogul, Alone on the Island
Hong Kong's fiery beacon of the free press, Apple Daily, is under threat from shadowy forces. Can it survive if Beijing wants it dead or quiet?
