The cases are piling up. Canadian Robert Schellenberg faces execution on drug charges after an unusually abrupt, accelerated and public retrial this week in a Chinese court. Two Canadians, Michael Kovrig and Michael Spavor, are being held by China for… Read More ›
As a foreigner in China, you get used to hearing the retort “You don’t know China!” spat at you by locals. It’s usually a knee-jerk reaction to some uncomfortable modern issue or in defense of one of the many historical… Read More ›
Of all the civilisations of premodern times, none appeared more advanced, none felt more superior, than that of China. Its considerable population, 100-130 million compared with Europe’s 50-55 million in the fifteenth century; it’s remarkable culture; it’s exceedingly fertile and… Read More ›
On Saturday, on the front page of The Australian, there was an article declaring that Australia’s spy agency had identified 10 local and state political candidates with ties to Chinese intelligence, part of China’s plans to interfere in Australian democracy…. Read More ›
A Chinese man has had his conviction for rape and murder overturned, 21 years after he was executed. Nie Shubin was killed by firing squad in 1995 at the age of 20 after being found guilty of killing a woman… Read More ›
According to a source in Beijing close to China’s top leadership, Chinese Communist Party leader Xi Jinping has made his first significant move against the former Party boss, and his chief rival, Jiang Zemin. The source said that Jiang and… Read More ›
Even before his name appeared on the “most wanted” list, holes had emerged in the immigrant success story of Wei Chen. His business partner sued him last year, alleging that nearly $50 million was missing from their development project in… Read More ›
China’s extensive crackdown on government corruption, which has already ensnared hundreds of thousands of officials in the People’s Republic, is now spilling over the country’s borders. The State Department recently confirmed that China’s legal authorities had provided a list of… Read More ›
Few economies in the world are more closely watched than China’s. It is the second largest and fastest growing economy, so there’s a lot of attention being paid to who’s running things. Chinese President Xi Jinping is the most authoritarian… Read More ›
The following is based on reports in Chinese media: Hong Kong’s Singtao Daily and SCMP both carry a report on petitioning taxi drivers conducting a mass suicide attempt last Friday, in a busy street in Beijing, in protest of local… Read More ›
The recent development of Xi Jinping’s anti-corruption storm is the investigation of fourteen People’s Liberation Army (PLA) generals including Major General Guo Zhenggang, the son of Guo Boxiong, who retired as vice chairman of the powerful Central Military Commission (CMC) in… Read More ›
President Xi Jinping of China and his top graft-buster Wang Qishan may be targeted by assassination attempts from corrupt officials who have been allegedly buying high-powered sniper rifles from the United States, reports Boxun News, a US-based citizen journalism outlet… Read More ›
China has dropped some of the world’s leading technology brands from its approved state purchase lists, while approving thousands more locally made products, in what some say is a response to revelations of widespread Western cybersurveillance. Others put the shift… Read More ›
China needs to put the law above the needs of the Communist party. For many foreign observers, the key issues facing China are the management of the economy and the direction of foreign policy. Inside China itself, however, the central… Read More ›
Chinese authorities on Monday executed a former mining tycoon connected to the eldest son of retired domestic security chief Zhou Yongkang, himself the focus of a high-profile corruption investigation, state media reported. The High People’s Court in the central province… Read More ›
China has solicited the help of foreign governments in tracking down and seizing the assets of corrupt Chinese officials, but the extent to which each country can help may be limited by their respective laws. In July 2013, China began… Read More ›
A New Yorker journalist famed for his reporting from China wrote that the state-run newspaper China Daily faked an editorial under his byline after interviewing him. Peter Hessler said on Facebook on Tuesday that he didn’t write the piece posted… Read More ›
China’s official government news agency Xinhua claims China has arrested 288 fugitives suspected of committing economic crimes as part of an aggressive anti-corruption effort aimed at individuals who have fled abroad, the official government news agency Xinhua said. The campaign,… Read More ›
In its report “China anti-graft watchdog finds gold, cash in official’s home” on Friday, Reuters says that according to Chinese state media, China’s anti-graft watchdog has discovered 37 kg (82 lbs) of gold, documents for 68 houses and 120 million… Read More ›
Zhao Kuangying (927-976), the founding emperor of the Song Dynasty (960-1279) , ordered all the succeeding emperors to promise by oath to respect intellectuals. As a result, Song emperors themselves received good education and were fond of intellectuals. However, they… Read More ›
Australian police have agreed to assist China in the extradition and seizure of assets of corrupt Chinese officials who have fled with hundreds of millions of dollars in illicit funds, the Sydney Morning Herald newspaper reported on Monday. The joint… 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 ›
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 ›
Beijing subjected rush-hour passengers to an extra layer of security checks and gave orders allowing SWAT teams to shoot terrorists on sight, as it ramped up policing after a string of attacks on the mainland. This morning, hundreds of passengers… Read More ›
Hubei’s Xianning City Intermediate People’s Court gave the death penalty to Sichuan tycoons Liu Han and Liu Wei and three of their accomplices for organised crimes. Liu was the leader of a mafia-style organisation, of which 36 members have been… Read More ›
Chinese President Xi Jinping plans to use a purge of senior officials suspected of corruption to put his own men and reform-minded bureaucrats into key positions across the Communist Party, the government and the military, sources said. Xi hopes that… Read More ›
China‘s smog is making it harder for foreign firms to convince top executives to work in the country, the American Chamber of Commerce in Beijing said on Wednesday, offering some of the strongest evidence yet on how pollution is hurting… Read More ›
More than twenty policemen lined up at the gate of a massive mansion in a village in the central province of Henan at midnight on January 12, 2013, loading heavy crates onto two military trucks. Hours later—loaded with twenty crates… Read More ›
Former premier Wen Jiabao has insisted on his innocence and integrity in a letter to a Hong Kong newspaper columnist in a bid to contain damage from claims that his extended family accumulated massive wealth during his tenure at the… Read More ›
Mao’s saying “Political power comes out of gun barrels” is regarded by some as a talented invention due to ignorance of Chinese history. I explained in my book Tiananmen’s Tremendous Achievements: “For over two thousand years, since the fall of… Read More ›
China’s anti-corruption typhoon goes on with the latest casualty being Tian Xueren, former Jilin vice governor. According to Beijing Wanbao (Beijing Evening News), on 85 occasions, Tian took bribes worth 19.19 million yuan ($3 million) but on November 1, he… Read More ›
In the early days of Chinese President Xi Jinping’s drive to clean up the Communist Party’s image, disciplinary authorities benefited from the work of a group of accusers with particularly intimate knowledge of corrupt bureaucrats’ nefarious activities: their extramarital lovers…. Read More ›
Since Bo Xilai was given the verdict of life imprisonment, China’s mass line campaign has been developing into an anti-corruption campaign. On September 24, Reuters reported that China would audit military officials in a move to fight graft. On September… Read More ›
I’ve frequently come across the view that China is on track to become like Japan but with 10 times the population. It is a form of wishful thinking that drives a great deal of investment in China in the hope… Read More ›
The following story was supplied to us by one of our readers, and serves as a warning to expats not to trust recruiters when looking for teaching jobs in China. Previously respected expat websites are increasingly and knowingly promoting these… Read More ›
In March last year, after getting government approval to go ahead with a $900 million refinery expansion in China’s southeastern Fujian province, state-run oil giant Sinopec Corp warned the team handling the project against taking bribes. “Project engineering and construction… Read More ›
Chinese rule-of-law and reformist factions’ power struggle against Bo Xilai and his faction was a vital battle for the establishment and implementation of the rule of law and further economic reform. In a nutshell, the fight concerned the rule of… Read More ›
China will crack down on penalties paid by families flouting strict family planning rules after a National Audit Office probe found $260 million in fines had been levied illegally, state media reported. There has been growing public anger about the… Read More ›
China said on Wednesday that 76 official awards, most little known, will be liquidated in the fight against wasteful and irresponsible spending, which is part of the crusade led by President Xi Jinping against corruption. Under the new rules, government… Read More ›
A rising political star. A murderous wife. An attempted cover-up. A runaway police chief. A playboy son. A secret French villa. A corrupt official. A political downfall. This conflagration of events surrounding the former high-ranking Chinese official Bo Xilai has captured… Read More ›
The trial of Bo Xilai started to turn into an episode of Maury. Revelations about the tangled web of strained and complicated relationships within his family were used as his testimony, particularly when the evidence seemed most piled up against… Read More ›
The people of China are tired of party officials and their families thinking they are above the law. The children of party officials are especially criticized and seen as “spoiled” because of their behavior. The feelings of outrage surrounding the… Read More ›
Fallen politician Bo Xilai put up a feisty defence on Thursday as he faced China’s most political trial in decades, saying he was framed in one of the bribery charges against him and had admitted to it against his will during… Read More ›
The trial of disgraced senior Chinese politician Bo Xilai will start on Thursday, when he will face charges of bribery, corruption and abuse of power in China’s most divisive and dramatic case in decades. The long-awaited trial of Bo, 64,… Read More ›
The acting president of the Shanghai High Court has been accused of corruption and abuse of power during his time as a provincial police chief. The accusations levelled at Cui Yadong were contained in a letter signed by 70 police… Read More ›
A Chinese academic says the military must prepare to fight hi-tech wars in future, and he confirms that a senior officer faces a corruption investigation. The Chinese military should spare no effort to wipe out corruption and initiate creative reforms… Read More ›
China charged disgraced senior politician Bo Xilai with bribery, abuse of power and corruption on Thursday, paving the way for a potentially divisive trial that President Xi Jinping will want smoothly handled as he pushes major economic reforms. Bo, 64, could… Read More ›
Authorities in central China executed a former Communist Party official for raping 11 underage girls, state media said on Wednesday, following an online uproar about the latest case of abuse of power. Li Xingong, who was the party’s deputy head… Read More ›
Being a Communist Party cadre has its advantages. But there are risks, too. Life as a Chinese government official isn’t what it used to be. Lavish, liquor-heavy banquets have been outlawed. It will soon be harder to get those military license plates,… Read More ›
Xinhua quotes economist Wu Jinglian as saying, in quite a few years in the past, Chinese authorities have earned profits of nearly $5 trillion in selling to property developers the land they expropriated from peasants. In the course of large-scale urbanisation,… Read More ›
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