Chinese Society 'Very Fragile,' Warns Dissident Artist Ai Weiwei
Suffocated by censorship, Chinese society is "very fragile," warned dissident artist Ai Weiwei on Thursday.
U.S. to China: Take Back Your Undocumented Immigrants
China was taking steps to provide the paperwork needed to expel undocumented immigrants from the U.S.
How Chinese and Americans Are Misreading Each Other—And Why It Matters
Young Chinese don't like it when Americans see China as a monolith.
Guo Meimei, Chinese Web Celebrity, Gets 5-Year Sentence on Casino Charge
A woman notorious for a lavish lifestyle while claiming to work for a charity was convicted of running a casino.
Chinese Television Program Features LGBT Rights Panel
In any authoritarian country, controlling the flow of information is always key to the survival of the regime.
Culture
09.09.15
The Met Goes to China
In July, while in New York, I toured The Metropolitan Museum of Art’s much buzzed about “...
Caixin Media
09.08.15
Amnesty As a Stepping Stone to Rule of Law
A recent amnesty declaration affecting convicted criminals deemed no threat to society was a poignant reminder of China’s tradition of prudent punishment, support for human rights, and progress toward of rule of law.
The recent decision by...
No Coins, No Red Faces: Apps Change Chinese Attitudes to Splitting Bills
Splitting the bill is a relatively new idea to most Chinese, but now it's being embraced by cash-strapped young people.
Sinica Podcast
08.31.15
A ‘China Watcher’s China Watcher’ Decamps
from Sinica PodcastAs anyone who reads the Sinocism newsletter knows, Bill Bishop is among the most plugged-in people in Beijing with an uncanny ability to figure out what is actually happening in the halls of power. But as casual readers may not be aware, he is...
Media
08.27.15
Chinese Media Jumps on Tragic Virginia Shooting
On the morning of August 26, a reporter and a cameraman for a local Virginia television station were fatally shot during a live television...
Conversation
08.18.15
How Should the U.S. Conduct the Xi Jinping State Visit?
As tensions increase between China and the United States over the value of the yuan, human rights violations, alleged cyber attacks, and disputed maritime territories, among other issues, how should the Obama administration conduct the upcoming...
In China, Single Women Live by Their Own Rules
Though many single women have recently begun to push back on the term, traditional attitudes among China’s older generation still prevail: Get married young or risk becoming unwanted goods. Klaudia Lech, a photographer based in Oslo, was...
P&G Tripped Up by Its Assumptions About Diapers in China
Pampers diapers fall behind after aiming too low at the growing middle class.
Media
08.13.15
Sorry China, the Internet You’re Looking for Does Not Exist
The long arm of China’s massive internal security apparatus just reached further into the heart of the country’s web. On August 4, China’s Ministry of Public Security announced that it would embed law enforcement officers at major...
Learning to Speak Lingerie: Chinese Merchants and the Inroads of Globalization
All told, along a three-hundred-mile stretch, I found twenty-six Chinese lingerie dealers: four in Sohag, twelve in Asyut, two in Mallawi, six in Minya, and two in Beni Suef. It was like mapping the territory of large predator cats: in the...
Viewpoint
08.07.15
Here’s What’s Wrong With Most Commentary on the Beijing 2022 Olympics
Upon hearing that Beijing would be hosting the 2022 Winter Olympics, we wondered what the Chinese government was thinking. The decision seemed counterintuitive, to say the least: For one thing, it barely snows in Beijing, or even...
Media
08.05.15
Beijing’s Ban on Smoking Is Actually (Sort of) Working
They rarely trash hotel rooms or boast about drugs, but Chinese rock stars could at least be counted on to smoke. Now even that’s starting to change in the face of a smoking ban in China’s capital that shows little sign of burning...
For China’s Gay Men, Beijing Park Offers Haven
Though illegal, Chinese media regularly report on gay home weddings and gay couples getting marriage certificates in the U.S.
The Ad That Cracked China’s Infertility Taboo
The country's infertility rates are rising rapidly among couples of child-bearing age, reaching 12.5 percent in 2012, compared with 3 percent in 1992, ...
Caixin Media
07.27.15
Tech Takeoff Lifts Drone Industry to New Heights
A tech evolution and falling production costs have allowed drones to make the flight off military bases and Hollywood production lots to the hands of ordinary people and government agencies.
It has become routine to see these small...
If China Wants More Children, It Needs to Get out of the Nation’s Bedrooms
The social and economic impacts are well...
Sinica Podcast
07.27.15
Beijing’s Great Leap Forward: Microbrew in China
from Sinica PodcastGreat Leap Brewing is an institution. As one of the earliest American-style microbreweries in China, not only has the company rescued us from endless nights of Snow and Yanjing...
Palace Intrigue: Chinese Soldiers Storm Replica of Taiwan Presidential Office
Is Beijing doubling down on its longstanding threat to reclaim Taiwan by force?
Confucius Says, Xi Does
Since he came to power in 2012, Mr Xi has sought to elevate Confucius—whom Mao vilified—as the grand progenitor of Chinese culture.
Media
07.23.15
Why Taylor Swift’s 1989 Merchandise Is Not Going to Get Her Banned in China
On July 20, one of China’s largest e-commerce websites, JD.com, announced that it is partnering with popular American singer Taylor Swift...
China May Adopt 'Two-child Policy, Demographic Timebomb Looms
China could be on the verge of introducing a two-child policy, under which all Chinese couples would be allowed to have two children.
China Targeting Rights Lawyers in a Crackdown
Beijing is mounting a broad crackdown on human rights lawyers, contending that they have exploited contentious cases to enrich themselves and attack the party.
Chinese Police Seize Ashes of Tibetan Monk Tenzin Delek Rinpoche
Chinese police forcibly seized the ashes of a prominent Tibetan monk whose death in prison set off public demonstrations.
Xi Turns Back the Clock on Women’s Rights in China
Although it is unthinkable today, two decades ago 30,000 women from around the world converged outside Beijing to promote a host of social and political causes.
This Instagram Account Offers a New Perspective on China
Some photographs show the surprisingly mundane moments in the life of regular Chinese, such as Albertazzi’s image of a group of men playing cards in their swim shorts on a hot summer afternoon in Beijing; others are images from long-term...
Media
07.21.15
China: The Best and the Worst Place to Be a Muslim Woman
A woman’s solitary voice, earthy and low, rises above the seated worshipers. More than 100 women stand, bow, and touch their foreheads to the floor as a female imam leads evening prayers at a women-only mosque during the first...
Want to Circumvent China’s Great Firewall? Learn These 9 Phrases First
A story about the newly updated e-book Decoding the Chinese Internet: A Glossary of Political Slang”
6 Arrested in China After Dressing Room Sex Video Goes Viral
A 19-year-old man was charged with disseminating obscene material. The couple pictured and three others were detained.
Tibetans Protest to Demand Release of Monk's Body in China
Dozens of Tibetans shouting "return the body" protested outside a prison in China after a prominent Tibetan monk died in jail, reflecting anger amongst his supporters and family, who believe he was murdered.
China Detains South Africans, Britons Accused of Viewing 'Terror' Videos
China detained nine foreign tourists including South Africans, Britons and an Indian national.
The NYRB China Archive
07.09.15
A Blind Lawyer vs. Blind Chinese Power
from New York Review of BooksIn early 2012, Chen Guangcheng, a self-taught lawyer who had been blind since infancy, lived with his wife and two children in the village of Dongshigu, where he’d been raised, on the eastern edge of the North China plain. They were not there by...
Thailand Deports 100 Muslim Uighurs to China
Thailand deported some 100 members of a Turkic Muslim minority group wanted by China as illegal migrants, drawing a rare rebuke from the United Nations and causing protesters in Turkey to storm a Thai consulate.
China's Richest Lost $195 bn In One Month
The country’s stock market has been a wild ride this year, especially for millions of rookie retail investors who rushed to open their accounts for the first time.
China Stock Slump Spreads as Alibaba to JD.com Whipsaw Investors
U.S.-traded Chinese stocks tumbled at least four years before rebounding in late trading as the rout that’s wiped $3.2 trillion from the value of mainland equities spreads.
At Least Eleven People Killed in a Bus Crash in China
Eleven people died in a bus crash after the vehicle fell off a highway bridge in north-eastern China.
Sinica Podcast
07.01.15
Who Will Save Us from the Self-help Revolution?
Someone desperately needs to call a fumigator, because China’s self-help bug is eating up the woodwork. Train station bookstores may always have served the genre’s trite pablum to bored businessmen legging it cross-country, but in recent months...
China Parliament Ratifies BRICS Bank Agreement
The BRICS Bank, is one of two international development banks that China is promoting as an alternative to western institutions such as the World Bank.
Taiwan Youth to China: Treat Us Like a Country
Activists tie themselves up in chains, block mountain roads, scale fences and throw red paint balloons in a wave of anti-China sentiment to turn politics in the next election.
Thousands Protest on Anniversary of Hong Kong’s Return to China
As Hong Kong marks the 18th anniversary of its handover from Britain from China, thousands take to the street to rally for democracy.
Who Would China Vote for in 2016?
Though media discussion of domestic politics remains muzzled in China, people there generally enjoy greater freedom to debate international news and politics.
The Truth About China’s New National Security Law
China’s national legislature passed a national security law who's mandate covers politics, the military, finance, religion, cyberspace, and even ideology and religion.
The Chinese Ride-Hailing Startup That’s Out-Ubering Uber
Didi Kuaidi is taking on Uber for the title of largest ride-hailing company in the world’s largest country--or, Uber appears to be trying to unseat the homegrown favorite.
Airbus Wins $18 Billion China Deal, Plans Jet-Completion Site
Airbus Group SE wins an order from China for 75 A330 jets worth $18 billion as it finalizes an agreement to open a facility for fitting out and painting the plane.
A Scientific Ethical Divide Between China and West
Experts worry that medical researchers in China are stepping over ethical boundaries.
Media
06.26.15
‘Why Do Chinese Lack Creativity?’
On June 19, the University of Washington and elite Tsinghua University in Beijing announced a new, richly funded...
Techies Are Trying to Get Chinese Consumers to Rack Up Debt
In recent years, as the growth of the Chinese economy has slowed—thanks to declining demand for exports and new real estate projects—the government has been desperate to get its thrifty citizens to spend, spend, spend and drive economic growth...
The China Africa Project
06.25.15
South Africa Tourism in Crisis as Chinese Reject New Visa Regulations
South Africa’s tourism sector is in crisis as a series of new visa regulations have prompted dramatic falls in arrivals, particularly from the...
Rare Access to China's Restive Far West
Raphael Fournier's "Around Taklamakan," is a series of photographs from China's Xinjiang province which emphasize cultural tensions and daily life.
Teaching Uighur Children Mandarin will not Bring Stability to Xinjiang
More schools move to use Chinese only, except a few hours each week in Uighur literature. President Xi Jinping emphasizes this policy as a way to fight terrorism.