Why is the Chinese Communist Party so Afraid of Legal Activist Xu Zhiyong?
Some fear that Xu and his fellow activists in the New Citizens Movement had formed an “anti-CCP clique”.
Who is Xu Zhiyong?
Four people whose lives were change by Xu Zhiyong describe how he helped them.
Media
01.28.14
Why China’s Li Na Won’t Thank Her Homeland
After winning the Australian Open on January 25, Li Na set off a media blitz in her native China, where the thirty-one-year-old tennis star made the...
Jailed Dissident’s Wife: ‘I Don’t Want You to Give Up’
A public letter from the wife of Xu Zhiyong shows the emotional burden imposed on the family members of jailed dissidents.
Map Visualizes Chinese New Year Migration
An estimated 3.65 billion trips will be made during the world's largest seasonal migration.
Caixin Media
01.27.14
Time for Overhaul of China’s Land Market
The expected launch of land reform is dividing opinions. At a work meeting this month, the Minister of Land and Resources, Jiang Daming, said the central government would limit land supply in cities with more than five million residents. His...
China: Reverse Judgment in Show Trial of Xu Zhiyong
The harsh conviction and four-year sentence of Xu Zhiyong is a pretext to chill popular protests against corruption.
China's Deluxed Hotels: Modern Sumptuary Laws
The new humility of both officials and hotels is a response to Xi's campaign against lavish spending.
China Accuses Uighur Intellectual of Separatism for His Advocacy Work
The news comes at a time of intensifying bloodshed in Xinjiang despite a growing security presence by Chinese personnel.
A Dream Deferred
The challenge the ICIJ expose poses to Xi's reputation as an anti-corruption crusader, is a vindication of Xu's advocacy.
Beijing Population Tops 21 Million
This includes an estimated increase of 100,000 senior citizens every year until 2020.
Survey: Fewer Americans Support the Japan-U.S. Security Treaty
Some observors say the decline may be due to a reluctance to involve the U.S. in Sino-Japanese disputes.
Media
01.23.14
Carpe Coin: Crowdfunding Could Change Chinese Politics
Crowdfunding, which allows web users to contribute small sums of money to fund collective projects like concerts and films, is taking off in China—and just how far it will go is more than a business question. By allowing netizens to vote with...
Amid China’s Anti-Extravagance Sweep
Chinese hotels are downgrading to attract business from officials who are limited by “morality” campaigns.
Why It Matters That Ellen is the First U.S. Talk Show in China
The show may be a spark for change in attitudes toward LGBT Chinese.
How the Chinese Internet Ended Up at a House in Cheyenne, Wyoming
In trying to block Chinese traffic going to Sophidea, the Great Firewall's operators accidentally diverted more traffic there.
China Suffers Massive Internet Outage, Analysts Suspect Hackers
The state-run China Internet Network Information Center blamed the blockage on a “malfunction in root servers.”
China’s Temporary-Worker Ploy
Scandals are often blamed on lin shi gong, or “temporary workers," but why have they been hired in the first place?
A Globe-Trotting Serial Entrepreneur Finds Roots in China’s Start-Up Scene
From information technology and gaming, to local comedy, Richard Robinson knows what is going on in China.
A Globe-Trotting Serial Entrepreneur Finds Roots in China’s Start-Up Scene
From information technology and gaming, to local comedy, Richard Robinson knows what is going on in China.
Chinese Novelist Guo to Jonathan Franzen: American Lit. ‘Massively Overrated’
“The worst way to be universal is to try to be universal,” Franzen said in response.
Back in China, Watching My Words
Back in China after many years in the U.S., Yuxin Gao feels alienated and silenced, and many ask why she returned.
The Trial of the Chinese Dream
Xu Zhiyong tried to change China from the inside, but now he will be tried by the inside.
Chinese Activists Test New Leader and Are Crushed
Prominent activist, Xi Zhiyong, is indicted in a harsh warning to the New Citizens Movement.
Beijing Air Pollution At Dangerously High Levels
The PM2.5 density was calculated at 26 times higher than what is considered safe by the WHO.
In Rare Video, Wife of Jailed Nobel Laureate Reads Poems While Under House Arrest
The video was filmed by the Independent Chinese PEN Center, a free-speech advocacy group established by Ms. Liu.
The People's Republic of Television Portraits from 1980's China
“Soon, photographs of people and their televisions began appearing around China.”
Foxconn Reportedly Ships Nearly 1.5M iPhone 5s Units for China Mobile launch
Apple sales slow in the face of competition from Samsung, Lenovo, Yulong and Huawei.
Chinese Drivers Pollute Without Guilt
Chinese demand for private transportation soars while air-quality plummets.
China Pouring Billions into London Real Estate
Chinese investment in London real-estate has risen 1,500 percent since 2010.
Chinese Theme Park Plans Replica Titanic (And Yes, It Will Hit an Iceberg)
The $165 million project will be completed in two years.
‘Cultural Threats’ Among Five Focuses of New National Security Panel, Colonel Says
Government committee is established to manage western threats to cyber and national security.
Bowed and Remorseful, Former Red Guard Recalls Teacher’s Death
“How a country faces the future depends in large part on how it faces its past,” said former Red Gaurd in public apology for past violence.
Is China's Economy Headed for a Crash?
A growth model dependant on financial repression of the household sector has run out of steam.
White House Responds to Jimmy Kimmel’s China Controversy
A joke concerning the killing of Chinese people to avoid paying down U.S. debt was said live on ABC.
Earthbound China
01.10.14
Historical Value: A Chinese Town Appraises Its Past
The once-grand entrance of the Mingxian Hall is locked and hidden behind splintered boards and overgrown greenery. Wang Shouchang, a sixty-seven-year-old farmer from Bishan village, leads us into the cramped kitchen of the farmhouse next door and...
China Fines ‘House of Flying Daggers’ Director for Breaching One-child Policy
Film-maker Zhang Yimou, who has three children with wife Chen Ting, has to pay £750,000 for breaking law.
Confucius Comes Home
In my fifth year in Beijing, I moved into a one-story brick house beside the Confucius Temple, a seven-hundred-year-old shrine to China’s most important philosopher.
China Confronts the Online Rumor Mill
(Op-ed) Hoewever unlikely, the best way of putting an end to Internet rumors is for the government to stop disseminating them.
Media
01.07.14
Grand Theft China: Tase Corrupt Officials in New Online Game
Official corruption in China is a serious matter: In January 2013, Chinese President Xi Jinping openly vowed to tackle it, and a 2013...
A New Exhibit at the Metropolitan Museum Puts a Modern Face on Chinese Art
The art world has embraced the evolution of Western art, but when it comes to China, we seem stuck in the past. A new exhibit at the Met wants to shake up these stereotypes.
Media
01.03.14
Coming to Chinese Headlines in 2014
Chinese people have spent another year breathing dirty air,...
China Introduces Shelters Where Parents Can Leave Babies Safely and Anonymously
The announcement of the baby shelter, literally the "baby abandonment island" in Chinese, provoked a national media outcry, this time with critics claiming that such a scheme would encourage more parents to dump their unwanted children.
China Formally Passes Law Easing One-Child Policy
China's legislature on Saturday formally eased two restrictive social policies of its authoritarian system, allowing some couples to have a second child and ending a form of extralegal detention. The standing committee of the National People's...
Chinese Netizens Give Max Baucus a Chinese Name
The new U.S. Ambassador to China, Max Baucus, asked for suggestions for his Chinese name. Everyone unanimously replied, “Meikesi? Baokesi.” [“He hasn’t...
Why Eating Chinese Food on Christmas is a Sacred Tradition for American Jews
The Hebrew year is 5774 and the Chinese year is 4710. That must mean, the joke goes, that against all odds the Jews went without Chinese food for 1,064 years. In fact, Jewish love for Chinese food is neither hallucinated nor arbitrary. It is very...
Paying a Price to Cross China’s Border
For Chinese critics of the government, the border long ago acquired a political toll booth: Whichever way you cross, you pay a price.
Viewpoint
12.20.13
‘Community Corrections’ and the Road Ahead for Re-Education Through Labor
Chinese and foreign observers welcomed the recent announcement that the Chinese government will “abolish”—not merely reform—the administrative punishment system known as re-education through labor (RTL). The proclamation, part of a sixty-point...
Sinica Podcast
12.20.13
Rectifying Chinese Names
from Sinica PodcastLiving in a community of China watchers, we are unceasingly assaulted by words and phrases for which definitions are unclear, or ambiguous, or over which there is controversy or disagreement. And so, bearing Confucius’ admonition that the most...
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.
Media
12.11.13
Pollution Has ‘Five Surprising Benefits,’ says State TV, but Chinese Unamused
Polluted air is a fact of life for many Chinese citizens, and it’s currently smothering parts of the country—but that’s not all bad, according to one state media outlet’s widely-ridiculed attempt at positive spin. A recent bout of noxious smog...
The NYRB China Archive
12.10.13
China: Five Pounds of Facts
from New York Review of BooksNo one seems to have measured exactly how old Chinese civilization is, but Endymion Wilkinson can probably give a more precise answer than anyone else. “1.6 billion minutes separate us from the Zhou conquest of the Shang,” he informs us at the...
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...
A Homecoming
Shot in big cities and small towns across China in recent years, Shen Wei’s photographic project “Chinese Sentiment” is a personal journey to recapture bygone Chinese life in both private and public space. Born and raised in Shanghai, Shen Wei...
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...