China’s Presumptive New Leader Is Mysteriously Absent
Speculation intensified on Monday over the whereabouts of ...
A Panoramic View of China's Cultural Revolution
Li Zhensheng’s photographs of the Culutural Revolution are perhaps the most complete and nuanced pictorial account of the decade of turmoil ignited by Mao Zedong.
Mr. Li was a photojournalist for the local paper in Harbin, capital of China...
Rumors Swirl as China's Xi Vanishes
Over the last week Mr Xi has cancelled at least four scheduled meetings with visiting dignitaries, including a Russian delegation, the prime minister of Singapore and US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton last Wednesday, and the prime minister of...
Amid Protest, Hong Kong Retreats on 'National Education' Plan
Faced with tens of thousands of protesters contending that a Beijing-backed plan for “moral and national education” amounted to brainwashing and political indoctrination, Hong Kong’s chief executive backpedaled...
The Ten Grave Problems Facing China
‘The Ten Grave Problems’ 十大文问题 forms the second section of a three-part feuilleton or ‘pamphlet’ (in its earlier rabble-rousing sense) by Deng Yuwen 邓聿文 titled ‘The Political Legacy of Hu-Wen’ 胡温的政治遗产. It...
Obama's DNC Speech and China
In his speech Thursday to the Democratic National Convention, President Obama’s mentions of China added up to just a couple dozen words, but they underscored a new and...
Caixin Media
09.07.12
Local Governments Bet Big on New Investment
They’re still hung over from a 4 trillion yuan spending spree initiated by the central government nearly four years ago, but local governments across China are pressing ahead anyway with huge new investment plans.
In late August, for...
Media
09.06.12
Tangled in the Party Line
Netizens on China’s popular microblogging service Sina Weibo are in a fit of pique over remarks made by a PLA major general about the importance of Chinese TV...
Chinese Netizens Find Michelle Obama’s Speech “Amazing”
First Lady Michelle Obama knew she was speaking to the American electorate when she took the stage yesterday at the Democratic National Convention (DNC) in Charlotte, North Carolina. But she may not have known the size–or, it turns out, the...
Romney’s Young ‘China’ Hand
Mitt Romney’s old China hand is more young than old, more Taiwan than China.
Lanhee Chen, 34, is Romney’s policy wonk and one of Romney’s brains on China policy. The...
Late Nights, Mysterious Women, and Communism
The men who run China today are avid readers of history, especially of the decline and fall of the Soviet Union. They can recite its causes, and they are explicitly dedicated to avoiding a repeat of the experience. So I have to wonder if anyone...
News Flash: Washington Source of All Beijing’s Problems
U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s swing through Asia has been marked by a revelation in Beijing: the source of all China’s problems with its neighbors is the United States. A Xinhua editorial...
Remarks from Hillary Clinton and Chinese Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi
As I have said before, our two nations are trying to do something that has never been done in history, which is to write a new answer to the question of what happens when an established power and a rising power meet. Both President Obama and I...
To Chinese, Obama and Romney Aren’t So Different
Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney’s promise to get tough with China may fall on receptive ears in the U.S., but in China his vow has barely registered, much less caused alarm. Unlike in 2008, when the Chinese media and bloggers were...
Jesus vs. Mao? An Interview with Yuan Zhiming
In the intellectual ferment leading up to the 1989 Tiananmen protests, a much-watched series on Chinese television called River Elegy became closely identified with the hopes of China’s reformers. The six-...
Doesn’t Matter If the Ferrari Is Black or Red
Salacious rumours had started swirling on the internet within hours of the spectacular crash in March: another Ferrari in Beijing, another Chinese leader’s son. But which leader? Months later the answer appears to...
Online Criticism Leads to Suspension of Military Official over Flight Fight
A Chinese military official accused last week of assaulting a flight attendant has been suspended following an explosion of outrage online fed in part by rare criticism from state-run media. Col. Fang Daguo, a political commissar for the Armed...
Editor at Communist Party Mouthpiece Blasts Leaders
A senior editor of Study Times, a Communist Party mouthpiece, has launched a blistering broadside at the country's outgoing leaders, who are about to step down in a once-a-decade shake-up, accusing them of stalling long-overdue political reform...
China Faces New Scandal Over Crash of a Ferrari
China’s carefully scripted leadership transition appears to have suffered another glitch: a fatal car crash involving a Ferrari, a privileged son and two women.
Chinese Activist Chen Guangcheng to Visit Taiwan
Blind Chinese legal activist Chen Guangcheng, whose escape from house arrest sparked a diplomatic crisis between Beijing and Washington, accepted an invitation on Friday to visit Taiwan, underscoring his drive to ensure his influence as a human...
Media
08.31.12
“Naked Official” Streaks to U.S.
On Monday, the People’s Daily confirmed rumors that Wang Guoqiang, a senior official of Fengcheng city, Liaoning province, fled China in April to the United...
Caixin Media
08.31.12
In Guangdong, Tea Oil Greases Official Palms
In the financial documents for a Guangdong province grower and processor of tea seed oil is a list of key shareholders who also happen to be the relatives of local government officials.
Off the record, Guangdong Xindadi Biotechnology Co....
China's Long History of Defying the Doomsayers
Thirty-six years after "Great Helmsman" Mao Zedong died of a heart attack, leaving his country briefly rudderless during a time of crisis and uncertainty, the Chinese ship of state is still sailing. But is it still...
China's Greatest Challenge: Not America, But Itself
As China’s international profile continues to rise in tandem with its economic and political significance, one might conclude that the Chinese public is likely to expect Xi Jinping to carry a higher profile on the international stage. As the...
Does China's Next Leader Have a Soft Spot for Tibet
Few people know what Xi, whose ascent to the leadership is likely to be approved at a Communist Party congress later this year, thinks of Tibet or the Dalai Lama. But his late father, Xi Zhongxun, a liberal-minded former vice premier, had a close...
Propaganda Bites Official
Wuhan, the largest city in the central Chinese province of Hubei, has a reputation for being one of China's three "furnace" cities, but on this occasion the heat was on the government officials as they were about to appear on a program where they...
A Diplomatic Incident in China
The Japanese ambassador to Beijing, Uichiro Niwa, and his wife were riding in their limo this week when an unknown Chinese man approached and tore the mini-flag off the hood. There is ...
Media
08.30.12
Chinese “Traitors” and the Foreign Press
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On June 2nd, local family planning officials forced Feng Jianmei, a...
Jasmine in Beijing: Belated Blossoms
In the words of a senior foreign policy adviser to the Chinese government, the official attitude towards the Arab Spring can be summed up very simply: “Ever since it started, all they want is to keep it as far away from China as possible.”
Victims’ Sons in Tough Fight for Redress After China Rail Crash
The crash killed 40 passengers, injured 191 and shook the nation’s confidence in its ambitious high-speed rail system. Mr. Cao, 33, a Chinese-American importer from Colorado, barely survived; he lost a kidney and his spleen, and head injuries...
To Know What’s Wrong With China, Look At Her Construction
Every time I walk down the street and see a new project about to break ground, I know that several billionaires are about to be made. Every time I see a project has been completed, I know that a few unknown “temporary workers” are about to become...
Assigning Blame for a Hard Landing
Over the next few months we should start to see an answer to the “hard vs. soft landing” question. Since talk of a possible hard landing began, I’ve often wondered how China’s propaganda apparatus would respond if and when China’s economy takes a...
The China Toll
Economic Policy Institute
Since China entered the World Trade Organization in 2001, the extraordinary growth of trade between China and the United States has had a dramatic effect on U.S. workers and the domestic economy, though in neither case has this effect been...
China Seeks to Increase Mutual Investments with India
China has called for a move to boost mutual investments with India as a measure to strengthen trade ties and reshape what officials have acknowledged is an increasingly unbalanced and strained business relationship, as trade talks between both...
Collapse of New Bridge Underscores China’s Infrastructure Concerns
One of the longest bridges in northern China collapsed on Friday just nine months after it opened, triggering a storm of criticism from Chinese Internet users and underscoring questions about the quality of construction during China’s rapid...
Diaoyu in Our Heart: The Revealing Contradictions of Chinese Nationalism
There was another side to the anti-Japanese demonstrations that rocked Chinese cities this weekend, reacting to Japanese activists who had landed on a disputed island chain in the East China Sea. As Chinese protesters asserted their national...
Security Suggests Party Congress Is Nearing
Even as Chinese officials have maintained a steady silence on when the Party Congress — the most important meeting in a decade — will be convened, the government has put in place security measures and issued corruption warnings — the first...
Thucydides’s Trap Has Been Sprung in the Pacific
China’s increasingly aggressive posture towards the South China Sea and the Senkaku Islands in the East China Sea is less important in itself than as a sign of things to come. For six decades after the second world war, an American “Pax Pacifica...
Simmering Chinese Anger at Japan Is Now on the Boil
In angry mass protests and subdued smaller gatherings, Chinese citizens have taken to the streets to protest the landing by Japanese activists on some barren islands that are claimed by both countries. Protesters in about a dozen cities on Sunday...
China’s Show Trial of the Century
The trial, conviction, and suspended death sentence of Gu Kailai, the wife of purged Chinese leader Bo Xilai, has called into question not only China’s legal system, but the very unity of the Communist Party leadership.
Winning? China Internet Users React to Gu Murder Verdict
Gu Kailai has scored another courtroom victory. Such was the takeaway for many of China’s Internet users after it was revealed Monday that the wife of fallen Communist Party heavyweight Bo Xilai had been given a suspended death sentence after...
China Conflicted Over Anti-Japan Protests
Popular Chinese websites on Monday ran photos from anti-Japan protests across the nation, showing images of flipped-over and smashed Japanese-model cars in apparent reaction to a China-Japan dispute over a clutch of rocky islands.
But in a...
Anti-Japan Protests Erupt in China Over Disputed Island
Anti-Japanese protests spread across China over the weekend, and the landing of Japanese activists on a disputed island on Sunday sharply intensified tensions between the two countries.
Sheng Shuren: A Journalist in Mao’s New China
I came upon the name Sheng Shuren (盛树人) recently when I was reading one of the documents left behind by Uncle Liu Erning. From the reference I learned Sheng Shuren was a man arrested along with Uncle Erning in Xushui, Hebei Province, in the...
China Accused of Crackdown on Family and Friends of Dead Activist
Human rights groups have warned of a crackdown on relatives and friends of a veteran Chinese activists who questioned his strange death, after one was arrested for inciting subversion of state power. They believe Zhu Chengzhi is being punished...
Sinica Podcast
08.17.12
The Fourth Estate
from Sinica PodcastFollowing the Chinese media’s intense coverage of the blitzkrieg trial of Gu Kailai, those of us at Sinica want to take this opportunity to look back at the most riveting China story of the year. And while we’ve covered developments week-by-week...
Chinese Media Praises Landing of Activists on Diaoyu Islands
Wednesday afternoon, 14 activists from Hong Kong successfully landed on one of a set of disputed islands, over which Japan, China and Taiwan all claim sovereignty, and planted Chinese flags on the island as a gesture of declaring ownership....
The Bogu Kailai Case: Underwritten by Privilege
A review of Xinhua News Agency's account of the Bogu Kailai and Zhang Xiaojun murder trial released last Friday revealed a trove of fresh information. The details included the criminal charges, the type of evidence brought forward, expert opinion...
Black Box by the Sea
This week China’s Communist Party announced the election of the 2,270 delegates who will gather later this year in Beijing’s Great Hall of the People for the 18th National Party Congress. They will be tasked with determining a new roster of top...
The NYRB China Archive
08.16.12
News from the Dalai Lama
from New York Review of Books“I told President Obama the leaders of the Chinese Communist Party are missing a part of the brain, the part that contains common sense,” the Dalai Lama said to me during our conversation in London in mid-June.
But it can be
...
This Is Awkward: The Politics of a Chinese Orgy
Orgies are back in the news in Beijing, but this time it’s the Communist Party that has found itself in an...
“Twitter Is My City”: An Interview with Ai Weiwei
Ai, who lived in New York for much of the 1980s, has become a patron of China's disaffected urbanites, and here, in his tranquil garden, he holds court, offering advice to the thousands of fans, bloggers, activists, and petitioners who visit from...
Random Thoughts on the Gu Kailai Trial
Did she indeed confess to everything? All the reports state in various ways that Gu confessed. The Zhao Report says, “She fully admitted her acts in the case without reservation; she offered no objections.” The Xinhua...
Bo’s Brand of Justice Leaves Timebomb for China
China's fallen politician Bo Xilai left a timebomb as a parting gift for the Communist Party leadership that threw him out—the smoldering demands for redress from the many targets of his harsh...
2011 Foreign Policy Speech by Paul Ryan
Ryan also called for China to liberalize and become “integrated into the global order.” But, he said, Chinese leaders should not count on the decline of the United States as a great power. “We must demonstrate that planning for the post-American...
Portrait of a Gadfly—On New Documentary “Ai Weiwei: Never Sorry”
One artist, 90 minutes, 5196 children, 9000 backpacks, 81 days in prison and 40 cats, one of them can open the door. “Ai Weiwei: Never Sorry” is a short documentary, but it covers many different aspects of the famous Chinese artist-and-dissident’...