Choking To Death: Health Consequences Of Air Pollution in China

Yanzhong Huang
Council on Foreign Relations
 The number of lung cancer-caused mortality in China has increased by 465 percent in the past three decades, due to severe air pollution. 

Caixin Media

03.02.13

Poison Eaters of Gansu Province

Barely any rainfall on a bone-dry landscape has always made crop farming in the province of Gansu a rough gamble between the sky and local irrigation policies. But now, farmers reap only sorrow from fields that experts say are severely contaminated...

Media

02.22.13

China’s State-Run Media Shares Powerful Map of “Cancer Villages” Creeping Inland

It appears that Chinese environmental activism is going further mainstream. The Sina micro-blogging account of Global Times, a well-known Communist Party mouthpiece, has just shared news about the horrific proliferation of “cancer villages” in China...

SF Minister Spreads Gospel Of Sex In China

Don Lattin
San Francisco Chronicle
In March 2013, Rev. Ted McIlvenna will lead a delegation of 10 sex experts to China to help an emerging class of financially independent Chinese women achieve female sexual empowerment.

Books

02.19.13

Every Grain of Rice

Fuchsia Dunlop
Fuchsia Dunlop trained as a chef in China’s leading Sichuan cooking school and possesses the rare ability to write recipes for authentic Chinese food that you can make at home. Following her two seminal volumes on Sichuan and Hunan cooking, Every Grain of Rice is inspired by the vibrant everyday cooking of southern China, in which vegetables play the starring role, with small portions of meat and fish. Try your hand at stir-fried potato slivers with chili pepper, vegetarian “Gong Bao Chicken,” sour-and-hot mushroom soup, or, if you’re ever in need of a quick fix, Fuchsia’s emergency late-night noodles. Many of the recipes require few ingredients and are ridiculously easy to make. Fuchsia also includes a comprehensive introduction to the key seasonings and techniques of the Chinese kitchen. With stunning photography and clear instructions, this is an essential cookbook for everyone, beginner and connoisseur alike, eager to introduce Chinese dishes into their daily cooking repertoire. —W. W. Norton & Company

Illicit Meth Trade Between China and North Korea Reveals A Lot About Their Relationship

Economist
Border police, especially in the North, are known to take bribes to allow illicit trade to pass. One illegal North Korean export causing social problems is crystal meth, a drug known in China as bingdu, or “ice.”

Staying Safe During Spring Festival: A Teacher’s Advice to his Students

Jeremiah Jenne
Rectified.name
An actual email from one foreign teacher to his Chinese students—he thought it also might be useful to any first time Spring Festival-ers out there.

Eye-Stinging Bejiing Air Risks Lifelong Harm to Babies

Daryl Loo and Natasha Khan
Bloomberg
Air quality in the Chinese capital deteriorated beyond World Health Organization safe limits every day last month as smoke from coal-powered generators, factory emissions, car fumes, and dust amassed over the city of 20 million people.

Op-Ed: China’s Big Divorce Case Highlights a Hidden Epidemic of Domestic Violence

Zhang Lijia
Guardian
Kim Lee’s victory over celebrity husband Li Yang is in stark contrast to the treatment handed out to many Chinese women.

Opinion: Re-education Revisited

Nicholas Becquelin
New York Times
How much of a reformer is China’s new leader, Xi Jinping? The January announcement that China is going to stop “Re-education Through Labor” by the end of the year could offer an important clue.

China’s Pollution: The Birth Defect Angle

James Fallows
Atlantic
There are persistent rumors that the horrendous pollution in China has led to a huge increase such births in China. 

Caixin Media

01.26.13

Garden of Lost Children

It started with a baby that was left in the doorway of a hospital bathroom. Yuan Lihai took in the girl with a cleft lip while working at a Henan province hospital in 1989. At the department of gynecology and obstetrics, she was paid 20 yuan for...

Peak Toil

Economist
In the first of two articles about the impact of China’s one-child policy, The Economist looks at China's shrinking working-age population.

One of China’s Early AIDS Heroes Hounded into Hiding Identity

Kaijing XIao
ABC
Tian Dawei was the first Chinese man to being a gay, HIV-positive man on state TV. He wanted to help people understand, but in China AIDS still carried a strong stigma. 

Opinion: Will China End the One-Child Rule?

Vikas Bajaj
New York Times
Historically, China's supplied workers to the world. But as it ages the country might seek to recruit immigrants as labor. 

Caixin Media

01.19.13

Shandong’s Slippery Gutter Oil Man

It’s oil with an extra something, but there’s nothing virgin about it. Pumped from sewers outside restaurants and drained from dumpsters, it’s cooking oil born from waste both human and mechanical.Known in China as “gutter oil,” it’s commonly used...

Books

01.14.13

Governing Health in Contemporary China

Yanzhong Huang
The lack of significant improvement in people’s health status and other mounting health challenges in China raise a puzzling question about the country’s internal transition: why did the reform-induced dynamics produce an economic miracle, but fail to reproduce the success Mao had achieved in the health sector? This book examines the political and policy dynamics of health governance in post-Mao China. It explores the political-institutional roots of the public health and health care challenges and the evolution of the leaders’ policy response in contemporary China. It argues that reform-induced institutional dynamics, when interacting with Maoist health policy structure in an authoritarian setting, have not only contributed to the rising health challenges in contemporary China, but also shaped the patterns and outcomes of China’s health system transition. The study of China’s health governance will further our understanding of the evolving political system in China and the complexities of China’s rise. As the world economy and international security are increasingly vulnerable to major disease outbreaks in China, it also sheds critical light on China’s role in global health governance. —Routledge

Environment

01.08.13

Officials Failing to Stop Textile Factories Dumping Waste in Qiantong River

from chinadialogue
The Qiantang River is the most important river in China’s eastern Zhejiang province, one of the country’s most developed regions. On its banks, textiles plants work to supply fashion labels around the world. But they are polluting the environment in...

Environment

01.07.13

Taxi Drivers in China Have Highest PM2.5 Air Pollutant Exposure

from chinadialogue
A study conducted by Greenpeace has revealed that taxi drivers suffer the greatest levels of exposure to PM2.5 air pollution: three times that of the average person, and five times the world standard.The study, carried out by Greenpeace in...

Opinion: Cheap Meth! Cheap Guns! Click Here

Nicholas Kristof
New York Times
How about cracking down on Web sites that sell guns and drugs, while leaving be those that traffic in ideas and information?

Why 'Breaking Bad' Should be Set in China

Eveline Chao
Motherboard
Records of large drug busts involving meth in recent years--an increasingly common occurrence--tend to show a trail that leads back to China.

Telling China's Stories Through Food

Rebekah Denn
Seattle Times
Former Associated Press reporter Audra Ang, talks about To the People Food is Heaven, her journey through a complicated, sometimes maddening, sometimes breathtaking society.

Caixin Media

12.28.12

Desperate Cash Infusions Driving Blood Trade

The tumor was growing, and the family of cancer patient Xia Jianqing was growing desperate.Doctors at a military hospital in Beijing had warned Xia’s family that he would die without the blood needed for a lifesaving operation. But the hospital had...

Food For Thought

The Economist
Economist
Food companies play an ambivalent part in the fight against flab. China's packaged food sales are 3-4 times their 2002 level. 

Video

12.20.12

Stars in the Haze

Joshua Frank
Flying kites is the quintessential Chinese pastime. But “wind zithers” or “paper sparrow hawks,” as they are known in Chinese, also have a long history as tools. Over millennia, Chinese have used them for measuring the wind, gauging distances, and...

The Hungry Years

Pankaj Mishra
New Yorker
Pankaj Mishra reviews two new books on Mao Zedong and the Great Famine of 1958-62.

The Price of Blood: China Faces HIV/AIDS Epidemic

Madison Park
CNN
Near World AIDS Day, China's Vice Premier Li Keqiang said HIV/AIDS is "not only a medical issue but also a social challenge." 

Media

12.01.12

Chinese AIDS Activist Endures “Degradation” in New York, Determined to Finish What She Started

Chinese people translate “New Yorker” into “New York Ke” to designate people living in New York City, including Chinese immigrants. But in Chinese, “ke” means “visitor” or “guest.” It has been a sad word in Chinese literature and poems for thousands...

Pressure Mounts on Carr over China Rights Abuses

John Garnaut
Sydney Morning Herald
Australian Foreign Minister Bob Carr is faced with confronting Beijing with rights abuses after an Australian doctor was quietly jailed.

Forced ‘Vacation’ for Man Who Broke Dumpster Death Story

Josh Chin
Wall Street Journal
The journalist who publicized the deaths of five young boys in southwestern China last week, has been forced to take a “vacation.”

Caixin Media

11.05.12

Thanks, But No Thanks

On the last day of Zhao Xiang’s short life, her request to donate every organ possible to save the lives of others was brushed off by the president of Shenzhen Liulian Hospital.Zhao, her parents, and transplant specialists from the Shenzhen branch...

Online Poll Shows Overwhelming Support For End to China’s One-Child Policy

David Wertime
Out of 30,006 votes cast, 71.7% support abrogating the one-child policy, and only 28.3% want to keep it. The poll was conducted after a study by the China Development Research Foundation emerged, recommending an abolition of the...

One-Child Policy Up for Reform in China?

Alexa Olesen
Associated Press
The unpopular policy should be phased out, says a Chinese government think tank.

The Battle for Breakfast

D.W.
Economist
 Chinese love fast food but no Western chain has figured out how to please the hungry in the morning.

China Now Eats Twice As Much Meat as the United States

Malcolm Moore
Telegraph
Chinese demand for meat has quadrupled over 30 years and the nation now eats a quarter of the world supply.

China-Made Treats Linked to Dog Deaths

Amy Worden
Philadelphia Inquirer
News late last week that China-made dog treats have been linked to the deaths of 360 dogs - and 1 cat - and sickened another 2,000 should prompt pet owners to do one thing: read the labels. The...

Chinese AIDS Patients Topple Gate of Government Office

Gillian Wong
Associated Press
About 300 AIDS patients and their relatives tore down the main gate of a government office in central China during a protest Monday over unmet demands for financial assistance.

Environment

08.15.12

Official Shrugs Off Public Food “Panic”

from chinadialogue
Wang Guowei heads up the policy and legislation department at the State Council Food Safety Commission. He spoke to Xu Nan and Zhou Wei about the nature of China’s food safety problems and the ongoing policy response.chinadialogue: Compared with...

China, the Olympics and the Swimmer

Evan Osnos
New Yorker
The People’s Daily, the flagship of China’s state-run media empire, tried, in all honesty, to make sense of the opening ceremony at the London Olympics—an event, the paper noted, that cost not only a fraction of the opening ceremony four years ago...

Chinese Olympians Subjected to Routine Doping

John Garnaut
Sydney Morning Herald
Chinese Olympians were subjected to a state-sponsored doping regime which was modelled on eastern Europe, says a retired Chinese Olympic doctor.Steroids and human growth hormones were officially treated as part of ''scientific training...

Reports of Forced Abortions Fuel Push to End Chinese Law

Edward Wong
New York Times
Recent reports of women being coerced into late-term abortions by local officials have thrust China’s population control policy into the spotlight and ignited an outcry among policy advisers and scholars who are seeking to...

Violence Against Doctors on the Rise

Unattributed
Economist
AFTER a growing number of attacks on medical staff in China, doctors and nurses are finding hospitals increasingly unsafe. According to figures from the Ministry of Health, more than 17,000 “incidents” aimed at hospitals and their staff occurred in...

Time for China to Abandon Its Population Control Policy

Yanzhong Huang
Council on Foreign Relations
Last week, the government of the Philippines announced plans to allocate nearly $12 million towards contraceptive supplies for community clinics. Yesterday, the London Summit on Family Planning brought together government leaders, representatives...

China Needs To Ease One-Child Policy, State Researchers Say

Zheng Lifei
Bloomberg
Chinese government researchers called on the nation to ease its one-child policy as soon as possible to cope with an aging population and labor shortage. One option is allowing all people to have a second child, three researchers including Yu Dong...

Environment

07.04.12

Dirty Truth about China’s Incinerators

from chinadialogue
Xie Yong could be called a pioneer. He is one of very few to date to sue a Chinese government agency over its unlawful refusal of requested data. His crusade for change has little to do with civic altruism, however. Xie’s struggle is personal in...

Explaining the U.S. Healthcare Debate in China

Evan Osnos
New Yorker
The farther away one stands from the Obamacare cases, the more curious they look against the portrait we usually imagine of ourselves. By now, America’s declining place in rankings of global health is so well known at home that it has lost its...

Snapshots from a Rising China

Jane Weizhen Pan, Martin Merz, Ling Wang
Sina Blog
Mention China and people think of the Great Wall, tofu, kung fu, and of course, Confucius. They might also think of the skyscrapers in Beijing and Shanghai, and the unforgettable 2008 Olympics which heralded China’s rise as a great nation. People...

Reports

06.25.12

U.S.-China Public Perceptions Opinion Survey 2012

Committee of 100
The re-establishment of U.S.-China relations in 1971 marked a strategic step that ended China’s isolation and transformed the global balance of power. Since that historic milestone, the United States as an established superpower and China as an...

Caixin Media

06.20.12

China’s Food Fright

There’s no denying that the gastronomic horizons of Chinese cuisines sometimes verge on the infinite. But on factors of food quality, there’s little subtlety or nuance for safety standards.In the past five years, the number of public food and drug...

Abortion and Politics in China

Evan Osnos
New Yorker
China convulsed this week around the story of Feng Jianmei, a twenty-three-year-old expectant mother, who was escorted from a relative’s home in Shaanxi province by local family-planning officials, shoved into a van, and driven to a hospital. She...

Netizens Agree China's Rape Law Must Be Reformed

David Wertime
How can a little girl be a “prostitute?” Many in China are asking this question after a set of government officials in Lueyang, Shaanxi province, were caught having sex with a minor but found guilty of the lesser crime of “patronizing an underage...

Wal-Mart in China Faces New Food-Safety Complaints

Laurie Burkitt
Wall Street Journal
Beijing's Food Safety Administration said Thursday that it accused Wal-Mart of violating food-safety standards in March by selling sesame oil exceeding standard amounts of benzopyrene and squid containing hazardous levels of cadmium. The agency...

Epidemic of TB Fueled by Deficient Treatment

Kanoko Matsuyama
Bloomberg
One third of new cases and one half of people with previously treated TB in 2007 had a form of the disease that didn’t respond to medicine, according to research published in the New England Journal of Medicine today. At 5.7 percent, the presence of...

In Chinese Blogosphere, Consensus on Abortion

A Capella
What does it mean to be a “pro-life” Chinese person? Recently, many Western media have been calling Chen Guangcheng, the Chinese dissident who fled China by seeking protection at U.S. embassy in Beijing, a pro-life activist. Conservative websites...

New Standards for Chinese Paper Cups

Zheng Xin
China Daily
Most paper cups available on the Chinese market would not meet the new national standard, which comes into effect on June 1, according to industry insiders. The country's first regulation on disposable cups will focus on raw materials,...

Sinica Podcast

09.23.11

The Gutter Oil Podcast

Kaiser Kuo, Jeremy Goldkorn & more from Sinica Podcast
“It was really distressing for me to talk to a WHO expert and have him tell me, ‘I have no idea where it’s safe to buy food here ...’” — Sharon LaFraniere.When Luoyang journalist Li Xiang broke China’s latest food scandal last week, exposing the...

Reports

07.26.11

Toward a Healthy and Harmonious Life in China

Shiyong Wang, Patricio Marquez, and John Langenbrunner
World Bank
China’s 12th five-year plan (2011-2015) aims to promote inclusive, equitable growth and development by placing an increased emphasis on human development. Good health is an important component of human development, not only because it makes people’s...

Reports

06.01.11

“My Children Have Been Poisoned”: A Public Health Crisis in Four Chinese Provinces

Human Rights Watch
Over the past decade, numerous mass lead poisoning incidents have been reported across China. In response, Environmental Protection Ministry officials have become more outspoken, directing local officials to increase supervision of factories and...

Reports

01.01.11

Equity and Public Governance in Health System Reform: Challenges and Opportunities for China

Hana Brixi, Yan Mu, Beatrice Targa and David Hipgrave
Sara Segal-Williams
World Bank
Achieving the objective of China's current health system reform, namely equitable improvements in health outcomes, will be difficult not least because of the continuously growing income disparities in the country. The analysis in this paper...