Why Can’t China Make Its Food Safe?—Or Can It?
ALEX WANG, JOHN C. BALZANO, ISABEL HILTON (& authors)The month my wife and I moved to Beijing in 2004, I saw a bag of oatmeal at our local grocery store prominently labeled: “NOT POLLUTED!” How funny that this would be a selling point, we thought.But 7 years later as we prepared to return to the US, what was once a joke had...
Unrest in Beijing Over Mysterious Death of Young Woman
TEA LEAF NATION, RACHEL LUA rare protest in Beijing involving hundreds of people was documented by photos posted on China’s social media (scroll down to see a sample photo). The cause of the protest was the death of a twenty-two-year-old migrant worker, who fell several stories from an apparels...
Why Is a 1995 Poisoning Case the Top Topic on Chinese...
RACHEL LU, ANDREW J. NATHAN, SUSAN JAKES (& authors)With a population base of 1.3 billion people, China has no shortage of strange and gruesome crimes, but the attempted murder of Zhu Ling by thallium poisoning in 1995 is burning up China’s social media long after the trails have gone cold. Zhu, a brilliant and beautiful...
China and the Environment
SAM GEALLSixteen of the world’s twenty most polluted cities are in China. A serious water pollution incident occurs once every two-to-three days. China’s breakneck growth causes great concern about its global environmental impacts, as others look to China as a source for possible...
Poor Rural Residents in China Seen as Easy Target for...
CHINADIALOGUEChina today boasts a collection of ninety-five environmental courts, all of which were set up over the past six years. It is a trend that promises to re-shape Chinese environmental law.But simply trumpeting this initiative is no guarantee the environmental courts will live up to...
Cracking Down on Bond Market’s Knotty Traders
CAIXINIt was a typical workday morning at Wanjia Asset Management Co. in Shanghai’s downtown financial district, but the firm’s star bond trader Zou Yu was not at his desk.Zou, 31, had mysteriously failed to report for his job as head of Wanjia’s fixed-income department. And his...
China Export Policy Chokes on Vitamin Verdict
CAIXINInternet cafés covered by the city of Wuhan’s Internet Café Association agreed to set minimum prices for online access nearly a decade ago. And more than one hundred coking coal company-members of the Coke Association of Shanxi Province each agreed in 2005 to cut production...
A Day in the Life of a Beijing “Black Guard”
CAIXINAfter receiving his delayed wages, thirty-year-old Wang Jie decided to change professions.On March 7, he pressed a fingerprint onto a receipt that read: “Today I have received settlement of the 12,000 yuan in wages owed to me by Mr. Shao.”“Actually it was short by over 1,...
Who Killed Pamela in Peking?
JONATHAN D. SPENCEAn ordinary winter evening in the Legation Quarter of Peking, where foreign embassies and consulates were located, January 7, 1937. Cold. The heavy sound of Japanese armored cars, out on patrol down the busy shopping streets that flank the Forbidden City. (Japan would occupy the...
China’s New Leaders Say They Want to Fight Corruption...
ANDREW J. NATHAN, OUYANG BINIn his first press conference after taking office as China's new premier, Li Keqiang declared that one of his top priorities would be to fight corruption, because “Corruption and the reputation of our government are as incompatible as fire and water.” This put Li on message...
Ladders, Losers, and Direct-Marketing Schemes
CAIXINA skin cream customer pays an extra fee and, voilà, instantly becomes a company representative with the right to sell cream and other products, as well as recruit more dealers.Eventually, she persuades other women to buy the cream and join the marketing team by paying the fee....
Finding IPO Alley
CAIXINChina’s IPO action has been locked in ice since October by China Securities Regulatory Commission (CSRC) officials intent on boosting investor confidence and improving scrutiny of stock market hopefuls.Yet the heat is on for aspiring executives at more than 800 companies who,...