China’s Crackdown on Social Media: Who Is in Danger?
There is a Chinese proverb that says one must kill a chicken to scare the monkeys, which means to punish someone in order to make an example out of them. That is what many believe happened last Sunday when outspoken investor and Internet...
China’s Rule-of-Law Trial
The just-concluded trial of former Communist Party boss Bo Xilai was unprecedented in opening up a high-profile legal proceeding to public scrutiny, says legal scholar Jerome A. Cohen.
China’s Press Corps Ordered to Study Marxism
The nation’s 307,000 reporters, producers and editors will soon have to sit through at least two days of Marxism classes, the Communist Party’s Propaganda Department has announced along with the press association and the state press...
Ai Weiwei on China’s Trial of the Century
Ai Weiwei’s commentary on the twisted courtroom drama provided by the trial of Bo Xilai and what implications it holds for the future of “rule of law” in China, both for citizens and officials of all ranks.
30-Year Throwback: What Fodor’s Was Saying About China Three Decades Ago
When asked to give examples of China's transformation over the last three decades, you may first be tempted to cite year-to-year G.D.P. growth figures. Yet in 2013, we may also find some of these answers tucked inside a Fodor's People's...
Censorship, Sex, and the Bo Xilai Trial
By allowing the ousted politician to have a say at all, and by releasing portions of the daily transcript the Party has highlighted its progressiveness and successfully deflected attention from the theatrical nature of a masterfully...
China’s “Seven Base Lines” for a Clean Internet
Run down the list of the “Seven Base Lines” and it is painfully obvious that this is part of a new government initiative to assert stronger control over online speech. This is yet another internet tightening in China ostensibly carried out...
Today’s Alarming Japan-China Charts
Due to a variety of factors, the amount of Japanese people who dislike China and the amount of Chinese people who dislike Japan are on the rise, while those with positive feelings about the other country descends, according to recent polls.
Police Break Up Beijing Independent Film Festival
Directors, jury and invited guests who had come from as far as Sweden were told the 10th Beijing Independent Film Festival were threatened with power cuts and the arrest of Wang Hongwei if they persisted in holding the festival.
China Across the Divide
Understanding China’s world role has become one of the crucial intellectual challenges of the 21st century. This book explores this topic through the adoption of three conceptual approaches that help to uncover some of the key complex and simultaneous interactions between the global and domestic forces that determine China’s external behavior.
Citizens Movement Leader Xu Zhiyong Arrested
Xu is one of the founders of a loose network of campaigners known as the New Citizens Movement, who, among other things, have called for people to get together on the last Saturday of each month for dinner to discuss China’s constitution...
The Chinese Migrants Who Shocked Singapore
The 2012 strike by Chinese bus drivers in Singapore offers a close-up look at a major issue facing the Southeast Asian city-state today: The growing number of migrant workers who underpin Singapore’s economy and the social tensions that...
The East is Still Red
China’s Left believes that only a stronger Communist Party could solve the country’s problems of corruption, inequality, and moral torpor. Those on the Right believe unbridled state power is actually the problem, as China learned during the...
A Path to the World for Chinese Directors
CNEX, a nonprofit, has unique connections in the Chinese Communist Party which help insulate budding documentarians from undue interference so they can film and release films on a broader array of issues.
‘Trouble in the Middle’: How Foreign Companies SHould Confront Corruption in China
Navigating the significant and sometimes dangerous differences between Western and Chinese business culture is the focus of “Trouble in the Middle,” the very well-timed new book by Steven Feldman, professor of business ethics at Case...
Li Na, China’s Tennis Rebel
Li Na might prefer that we forget about China and judge her by her character and accomplishments alone. Hers, after all, is the tale of a conflicted working-class girl who rose to become one of the finest, richest and most influential...
Why China’s Farms Are Failing
In the process of emerging as the globe’s manufacturing center, China has severely damaged its land and water resources, compromising its ability to increase food production for a wealthier population that’s demanding ever-more meat....
Bo Xilai Supporters Demonstrate in Shandong on Eve of Trial
About 10 people held up signs outside the courthouse in the eastern city of Jinan in Shandong province, where Bo is set to appear in public on Thursday for the first time in 17 months to face charges of bribery, corruption and abuse of...
At Bo Xilai Trial, a Goal to Blast Acts, Not Ideas
In a delicate balancing act, China’s leaders aim to simultaneously parade Mr. Bo as a criminal and silence his most vocal supporters while avoiding tarring the leftist policies he championed or alienating important revolutionary families....
Can China’s Show Trial Show the Way to Reform
The Communist Party and its mouthpieces will celebrate the decisiveness of the Bo Xilai verdict as proof that the party - and the courts it controls - won’t tolerate corruption in its ranks. But who will believe this?...
Ancestral Intelligence
In Ancestral Intelligence, Vera Schwarcz has added a forceful and fascinating work to her ever-growing list of publications depicting the cultural landscape of contemporary China. Here, she has created stunning “renditions” of poems by a mid-20th century dissident poet, Chen Yinke, and has added a group of her own poems in harmony with Chen Yinke’s. Like his, her poems show a degradation of culture and humanity, in this case through comparison of classic and modern Chinese logographs. —Antrim House {chop}
How to Get Hired in China: The J.P. Morgan Case
The credibility of the Chinese political and economic system has always rested partly on its assertion that it is a well-functioning meritocracy. With the investigation of nepotism between JPMorgan and China’s Railway Ministry, that image...
Property Mogul Wang Emerges as China’s Richest Person
Wang Jianlin, owner of China’s biggest commercial land developer, is the nation’s wealthiest person, based on regulatory filings that show his non-real estate businesses are more valuable than previously calculated.
Teach About Sex? Attitudes Start to Shift Slowly in China
Professor of sociology Li Yinhe never thought she would see the day she’d be allowed to host a safe-sex education exhibition at a public institution in conservative China. That it was permitted at all highlights a shift in “traditional”...
China’s Original Social Media: Bathroom Graffiti
The men’s room in the passenger station in Qujing, Yunnan province will be familiar to anyone who has answered the call of nature in one of China’s provincial bus stations. Dim fluorescent lights give a clinical blue pallor to the bleary-eyed,...
Visitors Flock to China’s ‘Kingdom of Women’
Lugu Lake, situated in the mountains on the border between Sichuan and Yunnan provinces, is the historical home of the Mosuo, an ethnic minority with a population of 40,000 that forms one of the last matrilineal societies on Earth....
China in Big Push Against Opinion-Leading Blogs
Popular microbloggers were asked at a meeting in Beijing to agree to seven standards: obey the law, uphold the socialist system, guard the national interest, protect individual rights, keep social order, respect morals and ensure factuality...
China: When the Cats Rule
from New York Review of BooksIn the Northwest corner of Beijing’s old city is a subway and bus workshop. It was built in the early seventies on the site of the Lake of Great Peace, which was filled in as part of a plan to extend the city’s subway system. In the bigger...
Turning the Tables on Sinica
from Sinica PodcastThis week sets a new record for introspective profanity as we reverse our usual format, in a show that features David Moser and Mary Kay Magistad turning the tables on Jeremy Goldkorn and Kaiser Kuo with an interview that explores how both view...
Inside China’s Hoop Dreams
When it comes to cracking the Chinese market, Hollywood could take a page out of the NBA’s playbook. “The love for basketball here is just incredible,” says Kobe Bryant.
Shaolin Temple Denies Abbot Sex Scandal
The Henan Shaolin Temple denies Spanish newspaper allegations that abbot Shi Yongxin has a mistress in college in Beijing, a son in Germany and an overseas bank account.
Infrequent Flying Snarls Civil Aviation Sector
Getting away for a little surf and sand ought to be easy for Beijingers like Mr. Wang, who recently boarded one of the daily, four-hour flights that link the capital and sub-tropical Hainan Island in China’s far south.
But airport delays...
David Moser Interviews Mark Rowswell
from Sinica PodcastIf you are a long-timer in China, this is a show that needs no introduction. One of the most famous foreigners in China, Mark Rowswell (a.k.a. Dashan), shot to fame in the early 1990s after a fortuitous break on Chinese television. In this live...
Buffett-Style Dinner Auctions Lure Chinese Seeking Just Society
Proceeds from a Taobao store go to support human rights activists and the families of jailed political dissidents. The site’s following means a growing number of Chinese are willing to take small actions that together pose a challenge to...
Dalai Lama’s Chinese Website Infecting Visitors, Expert Warns
A prominent computer security firm has warned that the Dalai Lama’s Chinese-language website has been compromised with malicious software that is infecting computers of visitors with software that could be used for spying.
The Olympics’ Leadership Mess
Members of the I.O.C. will vote for a new president for the first time in 12 years. This may be the last chance for many years to reform the committee’s approach to repressive governments that seek to host the games.
What’s China Got Against the U.S. Constitution?
The Communist Party mouthpiece, People’s Daily, attacked America’s constitutional structure, claiming that “there is no such thing as democracy and freedom under U.S. constitutional governance.”
Is the Shark-Fin Trade Facing Extinction?
China’s embrace of conspicuous consumption has manifested itself at the dinner table. One item, more than any other, has possessed the power to confer face and status upon the host: shark fin soup.
Too Much, Too Fast: China Sees Backlash From Massive Growth
At a time when much of the world is mired in economic torpor, China still enjoys enviable growth rates. Yet there’s no question that its economy is growing more slowly these days.
Monster Zombie Spider to Crush Super Mario’s China Dreams
Can Nintendo’s Super Mario take on Tencent Holding’s giant, undead Spider? As the country ends a 13-year ban on consoles, a generation of gamers have grown used to a free online model and increasingly migrating to mobile devices.
Family of Murdered Briton Seeks Up to $8.2 Million Compensation in China
The family of a British citizen murdered in China is seeking compensation of up to $8.2 million from his convicted killer, the wife of former top leader Bo Xilai, a lawyer with knowledge of the talks said on Monday.
Is Support for Transgender Rights Increasing in China?
In the last few weeks of July, the story of a young transgender couple who transitioned together, which had previously gone viral in the Western media, trended on Sina Weibo, China’s popular microblogging platform. Although some Chinese netizens...
See You Again, Old Beijing
Banned for more than five years, The Last Days of Beijing was cleared and the author allowed to visit on a book tour. It was said to be banned because the map of China shaded Taiwan a different color than the mainland.
Prominent Chinese Activist Releases Jail Video
Supporters of Chinese lawyer Xu Zhiyong have released a video, filmed inside an undisclosed detention center, of the prominent rights activist proclaiming his willingness to pay any price for social progress.
From Maoist Criminal to Popular Hero?
China will begin one of the most sensational trials in its modern political history, when Bo Xilai, the former rising star in the Politburo and Communist Party boss in the megacity of Chongqing, faces corruption charges.
From Maoist Criminal to Popular Hero?
At a time of rampant corruption and social injustice, many see Bo Xilai as a charismatic leftist who at least dared to challenge the status quo of organized crime and official self-dealing and to revive Mao’s socialist, egalitarian ideals...
Chinese Judges Disciplined for Cavorting With Prostitutes
Two judges and an official of the Shanghai high court have been expelled from the Communist Party and dismissed from their jobs after being seen on video apparently consorting with prostitutes in glitzy nightclubs.
China Fines 6 Milk Suppliers in Price-Fixing Probe
China announced Wednesday it has fined six milk suppliers, including Mead Johnson and New Zealand’s Fonterra, a total of $108 million for price-fixing after an investigation that shook the country’s fast-growing dairy market.
Opposing Editorials Reflect Ideological Rift in Communist Party
The People’s Daily and Study Times, ran editorials expressing their opposing views on the issue of constitutionalism: limiting the government’s power by a higher system of laws that protects citizens’ rights.
Books of the Times—“Five Star Billionaire”
Shanghai For Strivers: Tash Aw’s new novel captures China’s changes.
Move Over Bordeaux: French Premium Winemakers Eye China Vintage
In a country where cheap plonk and overpriced mediocre wines still define the domestic industry, the French are partnering with Chinese investors to produce super-premium wines for increasingly discerning drinkers at the...
Huayi's Chairman Joins Ranks Of China Movie Billionaires; Stock Climbs To Record
Huayi’s shares have climbed by more than 160% in the past year amid rising prospects for home-grown entertainment industry content in China. They gained 5.5% today at close at an all-time high of 42.2 yuan.
Success Brings Scrutiny to Chinese Mystic
Wang Lin, an exponent of the ancient Chinese practice of qigong, claims he has used his powers to cure cancer and has performed other mysterious feats, like conjuring snakes out of thin air. But none of his abilities were enough to ward off the...
China Urbanization Cost Could Top $106 Billion a Year
The figure is based on the assumption that 25 million people a year settle in cities, with the government spending the money on making sure they enjoy the same benefits in healthcare, housing and schools that city residents have, the Chinese...
Myanmar-China Gas Pipeline Goes Into Operation
As well as diversifying China's sources of fuel, by supplying energy to the vast and less developed west the Myanmar-China gas pipeline could help Beijing's attempts to promote economic growth there.