China is holding some of its most extensive military exercises this week off its eastern seaboard, and although rival Japan is unperturbed, they are causing massive disruptions in civilian air traffic in Shanghai and other cities. Live-fire drills will be… Read More ›
Traffic at the Maritime Self-Defence Force base at Sasebo, Nagasaki Prefecture, is typically dominated by Japanese and U.S. warships, but in July it saw an unusual variety of vessel. An Indian frigate and destroyer docked en route to joint exercises… Read More ›
Muslim extremists from China’s far western region of Xinjiang have gone to the Middle East for training and some may have crossed into Iraq to participate in the upsurge of violence there, China’s special envoy for the Middle East said… Read More ›
The snowball has begun. In the past, the escalation might be seen as linear. This week, that changed. Though the curve is slight, it’s clearly curving. Beijing and Hong Kong are mutually paranoid; Beijing is paranoid of the West and… Read More ›
China‘s overgrown and smog-hit capital Beijing has passed new rules banning the expansion of polluting and resource-intensive industries, the local government said on Friday. In a list of restrictions published on its website (www.beijing.gov.cn), the municipal government said it would… Read More ›
A waterway in eastern China has mysteriously turned a blood red color. Residents in Zhejiang province said the river looked normal at 5 a.m. Beijing time on Thursday morning. Within an hour, the entire river turned crimson. Residents also said… Read More ›
Oil executive Jiang Jiemin rose to power in Communist China in time-honored fashion: by hitching his star to a mighty mentor. In Jiang’s case, that patron was another oil man, Zhou Yongkang, who went on to become the chief of… Read More ›
Andrew Forrest’s grand plan for a China food deal will progress next week when the Business Council of Australia hosts a forum with industry representatives and state and federal farm ministers led by Barnaby Joyce. The meeting in Sydney on… Read More ›
With dancing robots and smiling soldiers and to the strains of British singer George Michael, China cracked open the door on its secretive armed forces on Tuesday during Beijing’s annual attempt to assuage worries about its growing military might. China… Read More ›
Hundreds of flights to and from eastern China were cancelled or delayed Monday and state media warned that more disruptions should be expected in the next few weeks. Around 200 flights were canceled at Shanghai‘s two airports — Pudong and… Read More ›
Reuters today reported on Xi Jinping’s goal of pushing for the developing world’s rights. Reuters quote Chinese President Xi Jinping as saying in an interview with South American media, “China would try to better play the role of a responsible… Read More ›
On July 18, shortly after Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 crashed over eastern Ukraine, extinguishing 298 lives, China’s Xinhua state news agency cautioned against making snap judgments. The U.S. and other Western nations had begun to finger pro-Russian rebels in Ukraine… Read More ›
The week of “mixed messages”… Western headlines relating to Southeast Asia were about “helping” Hong Kong, early this week. Thursday, the Pentagon announced that China will join the US and Australia in an infantry exercise this October… mixed messages. Atop… Read More ›
A party crasher from China’s navy is enjoying an intelligence buffet at the world’s largest maritime gathering – and the feasting will make it hard for Beijing to condemn similar foreign activities in international waters close to China. U.S. Pacific… Read More ›
The Philippines is pushing for a meeting among four Southeast Asian nations with conflicting claims to waters in the South China Sea so that they can hammer out a common stand in dealings with China, Manila‘s foreign minister said on… Read More ›
China is on the verge of destroying a geopolitical miracle. In 1980, its economy was less than one-tenth that of the United States. In 30 years, China rose to become No. 2 in the world, without disrupting the world order…. Read More ›
I described the prospects of a thaw in Sino-Japanese relations in a previous post due to Japanese Prime Minister’s verbal message to Chinese President Xi Jinping expressing his hope for a summit meeting with Xi in Beijing in the period… Read More ›
Having endeavoured to become a major technological power and reduce its dependence on the West, China has built the second largest collection of supercomputers after the U.S., including the world’s fastest supercomputer, the Tianhe-2. But it seems a lot of… Read More ›
A Chinese oil rig has left disputed waters near the Paracel islands in the South China Sea, a month earlier than scheduled, and more than two months after its deployment to waters also claimed by Vietnam. China claims to have… Read More ›
China Daily Mail features a mixture of reposted articles about China, as well as original feature articles and opinions from over sixty contributors. Most of the reposted articles are blocked in parts of China, or the whole country, and these… Read More ›
(Audio) Few disguised blessings are less disguised than Israel. One article uses a map to explain the strength that one small country has against Statist Islam. Israel is all that stands between the West and the Middle East, the East and the… Read More ›
It’s perhaps coincidence, but Reuters’ report on China’s Xi Jinping not making global impact comes on the same day when Hong Kong newspapers SCMP and Ta Kung Pao report on China’s poor image in Africa due to Chinese people and… Read More ›
Taiwan is using unmanned surveillance drones to monitor possible missile launches in the Taiwanese strait has aimed across the Taiwan Strait, according to local news accounts. According to an article published in the Taipei Times, Taiwan’s military has begun expanding… Read More ›
The word for the week is “rhetoric”. There has been a lot of talk and analysis of the situation with China and Southeast Asia. China continues to bully. The US calls for calm. In Asian thinking, China’s aggression is “polite.”… Read More ›
China‘s capital city, Beijing, will enforce the use of cleaner low-sulphur coal from August 1st in a bid to tackle the soaring levels of air pollution that frequently clog the country’s major cities, the official Xinhua media agency said on… Read More ›
Japan, Vietnam and the Philippines have been forming an alliance against China, as China has been moving to annex other countries’ territories in the South and East China Seas. Relations between Vietnam and China have become particularly hostile since China… Read More ›
The United States must respond more aggressively to China’s territorial claims in Asia, an influential U.S. Republican said on Thursday, warning that failure to do so would bring “death by a thousand cuts.” Mike Rogers, chairman of the U.S. House… Read More ›
The US is developing new military tactics to deter China’s slow but steady territorial advances in the South China Sea, including more aggressive use of surveillance aircraft and naval operations near contested areas. The rethink comes in the wake of… Read More ›
What I’ve learned from conversations with bloggers and others who are Chinese language speakers, and therefore have a stake in this, is that even thoughtful Chinese people have unwittingly accepted very authoritarian definitions of language and dialect: only officially recognised… Read More ›
India under the leadership of Narendra Modi may be able to ease the symbolic tension between China and Japan, and also rise quickly to join them to co-lead a new age of politico-economic vicissitude in East-to-South Asia in the wake… Read More ›
China and the United States need to manage their differences, the leaders of both countries said on Wednesday at the start of annual talks expected to focus on cyber-security, maritime disputes, the Chinese currency and an investment treaty. The two-day… Read More ›
Japan on Tuesday vowed to make a stern protest to China after a regional Chinese newspaper printed a map of the country with mushroom clouds hovering over the cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki and accused the Japanese of wanting war… Read More ›
Hong Kong was regarded as a goose that laid gold eggs when it was handed back to China. The “One Country Two Systems” policy aims at maintaining the goose’s ability to lay golden eggs for China. It has never been… Read More ›
First the bad news: The People’s Republic of China now believes it can successfully prevent the United States from intervening in the event of a Chinese invasion of Taiwan or some other military assault by Beijing. Now the good news:… Read More ›
“Cantonese is just a dialect, it’s not a language.” I’ve heard this meme many times since coming to Hong Kong four years ago. They always say it as if it’s some sort of linguistic fact. My interest here is in… Read More ›
IBM Corp has signed an agreement with the city of Beijing to use advanced weather forecasting and cloud computing technologies to help tackle the Chinese capital’s persistent smog. After a series of pollution scares and scandals, China’s central government has… Read More ›
This week’s international smack-talk of China took a more academic tone. China’s evidential first enemy: the global super-giant (little old Taiwan), still not thwarted by the near-2,000 missiles aimed at the island, is appearing in more and more news articles… Read More ›
The following is translated from Chinese media: Due to instability in the Middle East, China has determined to extract the oil and gas in the disputed waters in the South China Sea. China has the equipment and technology to do… Read More ›
A number of government departments in China’s Xinjiang province have banned Muslim staff from observing the fast during the month of Ramadan in yet another attack on the rights of the country’s religious minorities. Activists have accused Beijing of exaggerating… Read More ›
Though it is already home to the world’s largest building – in the form of the New Century Global Centre in Chengdu – China is seeking to create the world’s tallest structure as well. Designed by UK-based Chetwoods Architects and… Read More ›
China has made no secret that it will one day enforce its claims on much of Eastern Russia, which it sees as rightfully belonging to China. With Russia fast becoming the weaker partner in the alliance formed after the west… Read More ›
With the United States once again preoccupied with events in the Middle East China has made another strategic adjustment to its claims in the South China Sea. It seems clear by now that Beijing has found a new way to… Read More ›
Since the dawn of the internet age, there has been no shortage of stories about hackers, malware-peddling malcontents, online scams and identity theft. Add to that the growing consensus that wars in the future will be fought online through “cyberwarfare… Read More ›
A leading Chinese analyst says political leaders in Beijing are committed to a strategy that will cause territorial disputes to get worse. His comments are significant because Chinese officials have repeatedly absolved themselves from responsibility for dangerous territorial disputes that… Read More ›
Foot binding, the cruel practice of mutilating the feet of young girls, was once pervasive in turn-of-the-century China, where it was seen as a sign of wealth and marriage eligibility. For a millennium—from the 10th to 20th centuries—the practice flourished… Read More ›
As tens of thousands gathered in Hong Kong on Tuesday to demand greater democracy and freedom from Beijing’s control, China’s military garrison stationed in the freewheeling capitalist hub launched its own offensive – to charm them. The People’s Liberation Army… Read More ›
Tens of thousands of Hong Kongers have joined pro-democracy protests on the streets of the Chinese territory in a massive show of defiance against Beijing’s vision for the city’s political future. Pro-democracy protests on July 1 — the anniversary of… Read More ›
The calls started months ago to the recruitment office in the eastern Chinese province of Jiangxi, asking how much it would cost to pass this year’s tests to join the army. The going rate, depending on your “guanxi,” or connections:… Read More ›
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