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.
China Continues Rights Abuses Even as Labor Camps Ditched—Amnesty
China is increasingly using extra-judicial “black jails” and drug rehabilitation centers to punish people who would formerly have been sent to...
Books
12.17.13
Ping-Pong Diplomacy
The spring of 1971 heralded the greatest geopolitical realignment in a generation. After twenty-two years of antagonism, China and the United States suddenly moved toward a détente—achieved not by politicians but by Ping-Pong players. The Western press delighted in the absurdity of the moment and branded it “Ping-Pong Diplomacy.” But for the Chinese, Ping-Pong was always political, a strategic cog in Mao Zedong’s foreign policy.
Conversation
12.17.13
Why Is China Purging Its Former Top Security Chief, Zhou Yongkang?
Pin Ho:
[Zhou Yongkang’s downfall] is the second chapter of the “Bo Xilai Drama”—a drama begun at the 18th Party Congress. The Party’s power transition has been secret and has lacked convincing procedure. This [lack of...
Caixin Media
12.17.13
Are Changes to China’s Family-Planning Rules Too Little, Too Late?
Among the sixty areas covered in the Communist Party’s “decision” document released after the third plenum of the Eighteenth Central Committee, the most popular among ordinary people is a revision to the family planning policy to allow some...
Kerry Criticizes China, Announces New Maritime Security Aid to SEAsia
Taking clear aim at China’s growing aggressiveness in territorial disputes with its smaller neighbors, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry announced Monday that the United States will boost maritime security assistance to the countries of...
Is North Korea Unwinding Economic Ties With China?
These are grim days not only for the friends and family of recently executed North Korean official Jang Song Thaek, but also for people and programs he had supported—including economic relations with China, which Jang had overseen.
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.
Asian Nations Urge Peace in Sea Disputes, Unlikely to Blame China
Japan and the Philippines have reaffirmed their commitment to freedom of flight over the East China Sea as concerns grow over China's new air...
China’s Corruption Purge: The Fall of Zhou Yongkang
New reports confirm that Zhou Yongkang, China’s third most powerful politician, is under investigation for murder, corruption, and plotting to overthrow the government.
China Spins Mandela to Fit Its Political Narrative
State-run newspaper Global Times dismisses Western media comparisons between recently deceased anti-apartheid campaigner Nelson Mandela, who spent 27 years in prison in South Africa, and veteran Chinese human rights advocate, Liu Xiaobo, now...
Japan, S.Korea Hold Joint Sea Drill in China Air Zone
The navies of Japan and South Korea, two Asian democracies, carried out a joint maritime rescue drill in international waters covered by China's new air defence identification zone (ADIZ).
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.”...
U.S. Colleges Finding Ideals Tested Abroad
Like U.S. corporations, American colleges are extending their brands overseas. But colleges claim to place ideals over income. As professors abroad face consequences for what they say, most universities are doing little more than wringing their...
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.
If You Can't Beat the Shanghai Smog, Change the System
As the smog that has choked Shanghai for much of the last week reached hazardous levels, the city’s...
China Puts Former Security Chief Under House Arrest—Sources
China has put Zhou Yongkang—one of the most powerful politicians of the last decade and the most senior official to be ensnared in a graft scandal since the Communists came to power in 1949—under virtual house arrest while the ruling Communist...
China: Here Are Some Great Things About Toxic Air
China's state-run TV tries to put a positive spin on toxic haze. Nice try, guys, nice try.
Sinica Podcast
12.10.13
Joe Biden and the ADIZ Fracas
On the weekend of November 23, Beijing announced the establishment of a new Air Defense Identification Zone. Covering a large swath of the East China Sea, the move was intended to assert China’s control over disputed islands in the region, and...
Joe Biden’s Unfinished Business With China
Joe Biden’s trip to northeast Asia has left some in Japan feeling abandoned. By not demanding that China roll back its new “air-defense identification zone,” the U.S. vice president tacitly accepted the controversial zone as a fait accompli.
Abe Calls for China Talks Citing 2006 Trip as Tensions Rise
Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe called for a summit with Chinese President Xi Jinping after an escalation in bilateral tensions since China’s declaration last month of an air-defense zone that overlaps with Japan’s over the East China Sea.
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...
Media
12.06.13
China’s Viral, Nationalist Screed Against Western Encroachment
“You are nothing without your motherland.” It’s a trite phrase, one that seems unlikely to stir the blood of even the most dyed-in-the-wool nationalist—but it has found recent currency in China. An essay with that title has been...
The NYRB China Archive
12.05.13
The Surprising Empress
from New York Review of BooksIn the mid-1950s, when I was a graduate student of Chinese history, the Manchu Empress Dowager Cixi (1835–1908) was invariably condemned as a reactionary hate figure; Mao Zedong was admired. In the textbooks of that time, leading American...
The AIDS Granny in Exile
In her one-bedroom apartment, Dr. Gao Yaojie — known to many as “the AIDS Granny” — moves with great difficulty through her tidy clutter and stacks of belongings. In the small kitchen, she stirs a pot of rice and bean porridge, one of the few...
Son of Former Chinese Security Chief Helping with Graft Probe
If Zhou Yongkang, 71, one of China's most powerful politicians of the last decade, were directly implicated in the probe, he would be the most senior...
China’s ADIZ and the Implications for North East Asia
China’s recent declaration of an Air Defense Identification Zone (ADIZ) in the East China Sea has stimulated much debate and concern and interpretations have varied widely. The Chinese government has asserted that the ADIZ is in accordance with...
Biden Urges Restraint by China in Airspace Dispute
Chinese leaders pushed back at visiting Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. on Wednesday over what they assert is their right to control a wide swath of airspace in the bitterly contested East China Sea. But the Chinese also indicated that they...
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....
Sinica Podcast
12.03.13
One Journalist’s Journey through China
from Sinica PodcastThis week, Kaiser and Jeremy are pleased to be joined by Isabel Hilton, a longstanding British journalist whose youthful interest in China got her blacklisted by the British security services and the British Broadcasting Corporation and...
Conversation
11.27.13
Why’s the U.S. Flying Bombers Over the East China Sea?
Chen Weihua:
The Air Defense Identification Zone (ADIZ) is not a Chinese invention. The United States, Japan and some 20 other countries declared such...
Media
11.25.13
Former Committee to Protect Journalists Honoree Says Bloomberg Chief Should Not Chair Press Freedom Dinner
A prominent Hong Kong-based journalist has called on Daniel Doctoroff, Chief Executive Officer of Bloomberg L.P., to step down from his role as chairman of the Committee to Protect Journalists’ (CPJ) annual...
Conversation
11.24.13
What Should the Next U.S. Ambassador to China Tackle First?
Mary Kay Magistad: Gary Locke succeeded in a way that few U.S. ambassadors to China have—in improving public perceptions of U.S. culture. Locke’s down-to-earth approachability and lack of ostentation certainly helped. So did the...
Sinica Podcast
11.22.13
Doubling Down on Dengism
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It’s an all-American (and all-star) lineup of guests this week, as Bill Bishop, Gady Epstein, and James Fallows join Kaiser for an in-depth discussion of the Third Plenary Session, the outcome of which has produced a...
Media
11.21.13
For Cash-Strapped Parents, Two Babies Are Too Many
Call it reproduction with Chinese capitalist characteristics. On November 15, authorities announced that the country’s One-Child Policy would be...
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.
The NYRB China Archive
11.21.13
Dreams of a Different China
from New York Review of BooksLast November, China’s newly installed leader, Xi Jinping, asked his fellow Chinese to help realize a “Chinese dream” of national rejuvenation. In the months since then, his talk has been seen as a marker in the new leadership’s thinking,...
Books
11.20.13
Empress Dowager Cixi
Empress Dowager Cixi (1835–1908) is the most important woman in Chinese history. She ruled China for decades and brought a medieval empire into the modern age.
At the age of sixteen, in a nationwide selection for royal consorts, Cixi was chosen as one of the emperor’s numerous concubines. When he died in 1861, their five-year-old son succeeded to the throne. Cixi at once launched a palace coup against the regents appointed by her husband and made herself the real ruler of China—behind the throne, literally, with a silk screen separating her from her officials who were all male.
Conversation
11.19.13
What Will the Beginning of the End of the One-Child Policy Bring?
Leta Hong Fincher:
The Communist Party’s announcement that it will loosen the one-child policy is, of course, welcome news. Married couples will be allowed to have two children if only one of the spouses is an only child, meaning...
Sinica Podcast
11.19.13
Partners and Rivals
from Sinica PodcastFew will dispute that the Sino-American relationship constitutes the most important bilateral relationship of our time, shedding a sort of lunar influence on international politics which helps shape not only the dynamic of global tensions, but...
Viewpoint
11.18.13
Xi Jinping Refills an Old Prescription
The reforms called for by the Third Plenum of the Eighteenth Party Congress have been, like so much else in China over the past few decades, part of an ongoing Chinese...
Caixin Media
11.18.13
What Do Investigative Reporters Do?
With the recent Chen Yongzhou scandal, many have called for an “investigation” into the investigative reporting...
China to Move Slowly on One-Child Law Reform
China's family-planning agency is projecting a slow rollout for an easing of its one-child policy, underscoring reluctance by the government in moving too quickly to let some couples have two children and a law in place for decades.
China to Ease Longtime Policy of 1-Child Limit
The Chinese government will ease its one-child family restrictions and abolish “re-education through labor” camps, significantly curtailing two policies that for decades have defined the state’s power to control citizens’ lives.
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...
Media
11.14.13
Westerners Aren’t the Only Ones Flummoxed by China’s Reform Plans
After the Third Plenum, a high-level meeting to discuss China’s future, ended on November 12, Beijing released a major document likely to affect many of its 1.3 billion citizens’ lives for years. Western media responded to the 5,000-plus...
How Jimmy Kimmel’s Joke Became an Issue for the White House
Earlier this week, Kimmel aired a segment of his Kids Table, where he asks small children to address complex issues. When asked how the U.S. could solve the $1.3 trillion trade imbalance, one 6-year-old answered “Kill everyone in China.” ...
China’s Party Platter of Overhauls
There is hope that the Third Plenum, an important meeting in the life cycle of each five-year Party Congress, could bring real change in the spheres of real estate, banking, state-owned enterprises and currency.
China’s Communists Want Unattainable Goal of Affluence Without Freedom
The upcoming meetings on economic reform are a chance for China to break free of the "middle income trap", the fate of countless states in Latin America and around the world which all failed to make the switch in time to a grown-up growth...
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...
Activists Challenge Beijing by Going to Dinner
On the last weekend of every month, government critics gather for unassuming meals in as many as 20 cities across the country to discuss issues from failures in the legal system to unequal access to education.
Explosions Kill 1, Injure 8 in North China City
The official Xinhua news agency said what appeared to be small-scale bombs went off outside an office building of the Shanxi Provincial Committee of the Communist Party. Taiyuan is the capital of Shanxi province.
Chinese Authorities Blocked Protest Voyage to Senkakus, Activist Says
Authorities barred a planned protest to the Japan-controlled Senkaku Islands in the East China Sea last month involving activists from both the mainland and Taiwan, but the protesters are now eyeing another try next month, one of the...