Ri Yong-gil was said to be executed in Korea. He wasn’t seen in his usual place in public with Great Successor Un. This just after the satellite launch, which led to more sanctions approved by the Senate. Hong Kong cracked… Read More ›
Government of the People’s Republic of China
Cool War: United States and China in the future of the global competition
Are we on the edge of a new Cold War era? Or, alternatively, every power struggle mindset has to be considered a lost legacy of the XX century and we’re headed to a new era of global cooperation? These are… Read More ›
Cadence of Conflict: Asia, June 22, 2015
The MERS virus in South Korea is having a social-networking effect on the young generations of Taiwan and Hong Kong. With the virus in South Korea, flights are being cancelled and students in both countries who planned to visit South… Read More ›
Prelude to Conflict: Asia, November 17
The week of deliberation, choices, and ring around the rosy. Someone sets an unpopular policy, someone else finds a way around. World leaders came together. Rhetoric repeats, “China can grow; China must learn.” Hong Kong’s Umbrella Movement continues to wane… Read More ›
China: The world remembers Tiananmen massacre 25 years later
Here’s an uncomfortable truth confronting Chinese President Xi Jinping: It’s 2014, but the pro-democracy, pro-rights sentiments that manifested across China as demonstrations in 1989 are still alive and well. For 25 years, the Chinese government has tried to expunge the… Read More ›
A rare visit with Ai Weiwei, China’s loudest rebel
The subject of the smartphone photo was one of the most prosaic imaginable: a cat, drinking from a stone trough. The man behind it, however, was Ai Weiwei, one of the world’s most famous artists. Only after the picture has… Read More ›
Can China stop organ trafficking?
Guo Bin, a six-year-old boy from Shanxi province, in northern China, thought the sky had gone permanently dark when he woke up, one day this summer, bloody-faced and crying near his parents’ home. “We originally thought he had fallen down… Read More ›
China’s commodity subsidising problems are only getting worse
Bloomberg recently reported that China, in order to aid its own cotton farmers by supporting cotton prices, has been buying up excess production into government stockpiles. The world’s biggest producer and user of cotton will have 12.7 million metric tons… Read More ›
China’s Xi Jinping outlines significant reform pledges
Party General Secretary Xi Jingping has outlined plans for significant economic and social reforms in a communiqué following the third plenum (a four-day meeting of the Communist Party), which ended on November 12th. The plans, included in a 60-point document, outline a… Read More ›
China broadcasts “confession” of Chinese-American blogger
Chinese state television on Sunday broadcast a startling video of a famous blogger in handcuffs, renouncing his Web posts and saying how dangerous the Internet would be if left uncontrolled by the government. The 10-minute news report featuring Charles Xue — a… Read More ›
China eliminates 76 non-essential official awards
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 ›
Millions face arsenic contamination risk in China
Nearly 20 million people in China live in areas at high risk of arsenic contamination in their water supplies, according to a study published on Thursday. The Chinese government has labelled arsenic contamination, which it first diagnosed in China in the 1970s, as one… Read More ›
Mooncake crackdown: China’s annual Mid-Autumn Festival centrepiece banned
First baijiu, then red carpets, and now mooncakes. For Chinese government officials, the list of taboos keeps getting longer. One month before the country celebrates its annual Mid-Autumn Festival, Chinese authorities said Wednesday that they are barring officials from buying… Read More ›
Will China’s economy crash?
After many years of euphoria over China’s rapid growth and the country’s apparently inevitable rise to global economic dominance, the China story has taken a serious turn for the worse. China, it now seems, is about to collapse, and along… Read More ›
How the world benefits from Chinese piracy
Kal Raustiala and Christopher Sprigman have a fantastic article in the latest issue of Foreign Affairs about IP laws and piracy in China. The title, which I love, is “Fake It Till You Make It,” and the gist is clear: Given that Chinese… Read More ›
Economic motivation behind China’s dam building
The Chinese government has given preliminary environmental approval for construction of what would eventually be the country’s largest hydroelectric dam. The project, on the Dadu river in the southwestern province of Sichuan, is expected to take 10 years to construct… Read More ›
Chinese companies claim they are ‘treated unfairly’ by Australia
China‘s state-owned companies may be deterred from investing in Australia because they are being treated unfairly, a Chinese business leader says. Chairman of the China Chamber of Commerce in Australia, Hu Shanjun, said Australia was still a popular place for… Read More ›
Easing Chinese inflation helps to mask monetary problems
Recently, MarketWatch reported that CPI and PPI information were released for the month of March for all of China. According to official data, the consumer price index showed that prices only grew 2.1% year on year, while the producer price… Read More ›
28,000 rivers disappeared in China
As recently as 20 years ago, there were an estimated 50,000 rivers in China, each covering a flow area of at least 60 square miles. But now, according to China’s First National Census of Water, more than 28,000 of these rivers… Read More ›
Being a Chinese official: Not all it’s cracked up to be
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 ›
China Foreign Teachers Union scams expats
The thing to remember about China is that all unions are state controlled. Independent unions are illegal. Yet China Foreign Teachers Union (CFTU) claims to be the one exception in the whole country. It seems impossible to believe that the Chinese… Read More ›
Troubles with airport expansion in China
China’s current transportation development plans call for huge numbers of new airports, but building them looks to be untenable, both economically and environmentally.82 new airports by 2015 The Twelfth Five-Year Plan’s goal of building 82 new airports by 2015 will… Read More ›
$2.34 trillion untaxed income in China every year
The Chinese hide as much as 14.7 trillion yuan [2.34 trillion US dollars] in income per year from the government’s official numbers, deputy director of the National Economic Research Institute Wang Xiaolu reported during a recent talk at the Finance Museum. China‘s grey… Read More ›
Chinese nationalism vs Australian pride
Wumao are Chinese nationals paid by the government to stir anti-western sentiment on the internet. The name derives from the fact that they get the pittance of 0.5 yuan, or 50 mao (Wu mao in Chinese), for each post they… Read More ›
The China Beige Book questions China’s economic data
For a city enthralled by intelligence work, like Washington, D.C., provocative intellects are a rare breed. So Leland Miller didn’t expect a warm reception when he rolled into town recently, declaring that everything everyone thinks he knows about China’s economy… Read More ›
The danger of Chinese overproduction
Coal, iron ore, steel, cotton, clothing, heavy equipment, ship-building, solar cells, LEDs, and property. All of these commodities at one point or another in the last year have been a hot topic due to overstocks caused by government-influenced overproduction. Falling… Read More ›
China harshens tone towards Japan over Senkaku dispute
China continued its hard line on its claim to disputed islands in the East China Sea, threatening Japan with more retaliation and talk of war in an editorial in Monday’s Global Times, an influential daily tabloid under the auspices of the state-controlled People’s… Read More ›
Chinese state media says China makes American Christmas possible
Not so long after the Chinese government persecuted Christians, sometimes violently, its largest media outlet is boasting that Christmas would not be possible without China. The state-run People’s Daily on Monday announces, “American fellows, it is Christmas time, a time… Read More ›
Great Firewall upgrade hits China’s web users
Chinese internet users who are skilled at evading the country’s online blocks have suddenly found they are again being denied access to some websites. In China, if you want access to forbidden websites including Facebook or Twitter, one of the… Read More ›
China’s rich on the move
The South Beauty chief Zhang Lan, a businesswoman known for her high-end restaurant chains in China and her celebrity daughter-in-law, recently sparked a heated debate on the emigration of rich Chinese after she was found to possess a foreign passport…. Read More ›
Western China’s rise set to ecplise that of the East; Chengdu seeks to become a global financial hub
Chinese development has always been a tale of two nations. There is the China we read about in the news, a booming 21st century metropolis primed to dominate the world economy and finance the expansion of the Communist Party. But… Read More ›
China’s government hires people to distort web conversations
The Chinese government hires people to distort or deflect conversations on the web. Ai Weiwei persuades an “online commentator” to tell all. In February 2011, Ai Weiwei tweeted that he would like to conduct an interview with an “online commentator”…. Read More ›
Google is blocked in China as party congress begins
All Google services, including its search engine, Gmail and Maps, were inaccessible in China on Friday night and into Saturday, the company confirmed. The block comes as the 18th Communist Party Congress, the once-in-a-decade meeting to appoint new government leadership,… Read More ›
The ethereal China dream
On my recent trip to China I kept thinking about Thomas Freidman’s article “China Needs Its Own Dream”. In it he discusses the fact our planet cannot sustain China following the American path of consumption simply for consumptions sake. I was drawn… Read More ›
China and the CCP in the next decade
As we approach the upcoming leadership transition at the Chinese Communist Party Congress on November 8, the trend in China news and reporting is decidedly negative. In addition to a focus on the Bo Xilai scandal, East China Sea standoff,… Read More ›
Chinese netizen speaks out: “China spending as much on calming civil unrest as US on war effort”
Even putting current tensions between the country and Japan aside for the moment, China has seen a great deal of civil unrest in recent months. With citizens losing faith in their government, and the gap between the poor and the… Read More ›
French architect in China scandal back in Cambodia
A French architect embroiled in the scandal surrounding the ousted Chinese Communist Party official Bo Xilai has left China and returned to his adopted homeland of Cambodia, according to French and Cambodian government officials. Patrick Henri Devillers flew to China… Read More ›
Modern Chinese ethical dilemmas
Two pieces of news out of China in the last few weeks really caught my eye. I specifically focus on these as neither is directly related to the upcoming transition of power, the Bo Xilai scandal, or the current Sino/Japanese… Read More ›
China: Where in the world is Xi Jinping?
A NY Times article talks about the fact that the expected New President of China, Xi Jinping, is currently “whereabouts unknown”. Over the last week he has cancelled meetings with two Prime Ministers and the US Secretary of State. The fact he… Read More ›
Myanmar’s Kachin refugees forced back by China
China is forcing back thousands of Kachin refugees fleeing ethnic violence in northern Myanmar, activists and aid workers say. “The latest reports are that the push-backs are still going on and the Chinese government is refusing to face the reality… Read More ›
China needs less stone lifting and more communication with Japan
The current increase in anti-Japanese fervour in China is a worrying trend. Neither Japan nor China is free and clear in the escalation of tensions, with hawks from both sides seeking to take advantage of the situation for their own… Read More ›
Can China extend its colonisation to Africa?
It seems that no Western power has succeeded in their colonisation in the past, and their influence in their previous colonised countries is limited now. However, Chinese people were extraordinarily successful in their colonisation in South East Asia when China… Read More ›
China censors Chinese villains from Men in Black 3
Censors in Beijing cut the latest Hollywood blockbuster, Men in Black 3, by 13 minutes to remove all Chinese baddies from the film. The makers of Men in Black 3 might not have realised that setting parts of the film… Read More ›
First batch of 20,000 North Korean workers in China
Hong Kong’s Singtao Daily reports: According to South Korea’s “Korean Daily”, the Chinese government is issuing work visas to allow 20,000 North Koreans to work in the three Northeast provinces. The Korean paper cites diplomatic sources in Seoul, that in… Read More ›
Chen Guangcheng’s super wisdom
The following is a personal opinion from Chan Kai Yee, author of Tiananmen’s Tremendous Achievements. Chen Guangcheng certainly proved his super wisdom with his miraculous escape, but Chinese dissidents in America such as Tiananmen heroine Chai Ling were disappointed that… Read More ›
Chen speaks positive of China, Chai Ling fears he is under control
Ming Pao reports: Former student movement leader Chai Ling says that blind Chinese rights lawyer Chen Guangcheng spoke positively of the Chinese government when he arrived in the United States, giving her the impression that Chen is under control when… Read More ›
Foreign gunboats’ action blocked by Chinese ship
According to Global Times, on May 18, China Fishery Administration 310 successfully frightened away three foreign gunboats and made them cease their chasing of Chinese fishing boats. It has thus protected five Chinese fishing boats. The newspaper says: Having just… Read More ›
North Koreans demand RMB1.2 million ransom for 3 Chinese fishing boats
China’s caixin.com reports that on May 8, four Chinese fishing boats were held by unidentified armed North Koreans, some in uniform but others in plain clothes. One of the boats was released, but three of them, including twenty-nine crew, remained… Read More ›
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