The NYRB China Archive
03.14.18
Chairman Xi, Chinese Idol
from New York Review of Books
For nearly sixty years since it opened in 1959, the Great Hall of the People has been the public focus of Chinese politics, a monumental granite block that extends 1,200 feet along the west side of Tiananmen Square. It is where the country’s leaders...
Conversation
03.13.18
When Trump and Kim Meet, What Will Xi Do?
On March 8, South Korea’s National Security Advisor announced that Donald Trump had agreed to meet with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un by May. Although now-ousted Secretary of State Rex Tillerson previously downplayed the announcement, a summit...
ChinaFile Recommends
03.09.18Xi Jinping Says China’s Authoritarian System Can Be a Model for the World
Quartz
Chinese president Xi Jinping has repeatedly told the world that China is ready to lead on issues like free trade and climate change.
Media
03.08.18
Weibo Whack-a-Mole
from Weiboscope
China might be the world’s second-largest economy, and have more Internet users than any other country, but each year it is ranked as the nation that enjoys the least Internet freedom among the 65 sample nations scored by the U.S.-based Freedom...
ChinaFile Recommends
03.07.18Francis Fukuyama: China’s ‘Bad Emperor’ Returns
Washington Post
Since 1978, China’s authoritarian political system has been different from virtually all other dictatorships in part because the ruling Communist Party has been subject to rules regarding succession.
ChinaFile Recommends
03.07.18New Chinese Agency Could Undercut Other Anti-Corruption Efforts
Brookings Institution
China’s National People’s Congress is expected to ratify legislation during the next two weeks to create a new supra-agency, the National Supervision Commission, to institutionalize President Xi Jinping’s signature anti-corruption campaign as a...
Sinica Podcast
03.06.18
Courts & Torts: Driving the Chinese Legal System
from Sinica Podcast
“Having read hundreds and hundreds of these cases, I have decided that I’m never going to drive in China.” That is what Benjamin Liebman, the director of the Center for Chinese Legal Studies at Columbia University, concluded after his extensive...
Conversation
03.06.18
China’s Military Spending
On March 5, during the opening of the National People’s Congress, China’s annual parliament, Beijing announced it plans to spend U.S.$175 billion on its military in 2018, an 8.1 percent rise from 2017. China’s military budget is the world’s second...
ChinaFile Recommends
03.01.18A Summer Vacation in China’s Muslim Gulag
Foreign Policy
Since announcing a “people’s war on terror” in 2014, the Chinese Communist Party has created an unprecedented network of re-education camps in the autonomous Xinjiang region that are essentially ethnic gulags.
Viewpoint
03.01.18
Maybe the Law Does Actually Matter to Xi Jinping
The February 25 announcement that the Chinese Communist Party (C.C.P.) has proposed a constitutional amendment that would remove term limits on the office of the presidency is arguably the most significant Chinese political and legal development in...
ChinaFile Recommends
02.27.18China: Big Data Fuels Crackdown in Minority Region
Human Rights Watch
Chinese authorities are building and deploying a predictive policing program based on big data analysis in Xinjiang, Human Rights Watch said today. The program aggregates data about people – often without their knowledge – and flags those it deems...
ChinaFile Recommends
02.27.18Xi’s Power Grab Gives a Short-Term Boost with Long-Term Ramifications
Brookings Institution
China’s stock market and currency rallied Monday on news that the country would revise its constitution to abolish term limits for the president.
Conversation
02.25.18
Xi Won’t Go
In a surprise Sunday move, Beijing announced that the Communist Party leadership wants to abolish the two-term limit for China’s president and vice president, potentially paving the way for China’s 64-year-old President Xi Jinping to stay in power...
The China Africa Project
02.23.18
Hong Kong Millionaire’s Arrest Exposes Chinese Corruption in Africa
Former Hong Kong Secretary for Home Affairs Patrick Ho Chi-ping pleaded not guilty last month to corruption charges brought by a U.S. federal court in New York after he was accused of offering bribes worth a total of U.S.$2.9 million to prominent...
ChinaFile Recommends
02.22.18China Probes Report of Possible North Korea Sanctions Breach at Sea
Reuters
China said on Thursday it is investigating a Japanese report that a Chinese ship may have carried out a ship-to-ship transfer with a North Korean vessel in breach of U.N. sanctions.
ChinaFile Recommends
02.22.183M and H&M Probe Claim They Used Chinese Prison Labor
CNN
Three big Western companies are investigating allegations that prisoners in China made packaging bearing their brand names.
ChinaFile Recommends
02.20.18Battleground Malaysia: China Extends Crackdown on Uygurs across Borders
South China Morning Post
Malaysia has emerged as the latest battleground pitting Chinese efforts to export its security notions against principles of the rule of law.
ChinaFile Recommends
02.20.18China Wages War on Funeral Strippers
Telegraph
China has launched its latest crackdown against a phenomenon which just won’t seem to die in rural areas - funeral strippers.
ChinaFile Recommends
02.20.18Who Owns Red Envelope Cash – Parents or Children? A Chinese Court Decides
South China Morning Post
Chinese internet users have been arguing about whether red envelopes – filled with cash and given as gifts during the Lunar New Year – should go to children or their parents, after a court published rulings on several cases.
Viewpoint
02.15.18
A Clash of Cyber Civilizations
There has been little need for the term “cyber sovereignty” among democratic states: the Internet, by its nature, operates under an aegis of freedom and cooperation. However, as the international system slips away from American unipolarity, a...
Conversation
02.15.18
Is American Policy toward China Due for a ‘Reckoning’?
Former diplomats Kurt M. Campbell and Ely Ratner argue that United States policy toward China, in administrations of both parties, has relied in the past on a mistaken confidence in America’s ability to “mold China to the United States’ liking.”...
ChinaFile Recommends
02.06.18China Confirms Detention of Hong Kong Bookseller Snatched from Train
Wall Street Journal
China confirmed it was holding Swedish citizen Gui Minhai and that he would be dealt with according to Chinese law, as Stockholm stepped up criticism of Beijing for its “brutal” treatment of the Hong Kong bookseller.
Conversation
02.05.18
Is the Belt and Road Anti-Democratic?
During her visit to Beijing, Shanghai, and Wuhan January 31-February 2, Prime Minister Theresa May attempted to improve her country’s trade relations with China—an increasingly important partner for the post-Brexit United Kingdom. And yet, May was...
ChinaFile Recommends
02.02.18China Considers Legal Gambling on Hainan Island
Bloomberg
China is drafting a proposal to allow gambling on Hainan Island, people familiar with the talks said, in what would be an unprecedented move that could reshape gaming in China’s territories and transform the economy of a strategic southern province.
ChinaFile Recommends
02.02.18Pyramid Schemes Cause Huge Social Harm in China
Economist
The authorities call them “business cults”. Tens of millions of people are ensnared in these pyramid schemes that use cult-like techniques to brainwash their targets and bilk them out of their money.
ChinaFile Recommends
02.02.18China’s Plans for Creating New International Courts Are Raising Fears of Bias
CNBC
Multi-jurisdictional dealings between Chinese entities and their emerging market counterparts can pose immense regulatory challenges, especially in the realms of financing and execution.
ChinaFile Recommends
02.02.18Pyramid Schemes Cause Huge Social Harm in China
The authorities call them “business cults”. Tens of millions of people are ensnared in these pyramid schemes that use cult-like techniques to brainwash their targets and bilk them out of their money.
Media
02.02.18
Chinese Civil Society in 2018: What’s Ahead?
The impetus for this event is it’s about a year since the new Foreign NGO Law was implemented in China. There was also another law implemented in 2016, the Charity Law, that governs how domestic NGOs function in China. But there’s a lot more going...
ChinaFile Recommends
01.31.18Theresa May Pledges to Raise Hong Kong and Human Rights with China
Guardian
Theresa May has insisted she will raise human rights and Hong Kong’s political situation with China’s leaders this week, amid criticism of Britain’s “pusillanimous” response to Beijing’s increasingly hard line.
ChinaFile Recommends
01.24.18‘Me Too,’ Chinese Women Say. Not so Fast, Say the Censors.
New York Times
They call themselves “silence breakers,” circulate petitions demanding investigations into sexual harassment and share internet memes like clenched fists with painted nails.
Viewpoint
01.23.18
Who’s to Blame for Hong Kong’s Weakening Rule of Law?
Rimsky Yuen, Hong Kong’s third Secretary for Justice, stepped down in early January. He leaves his department, and the city’s reputation for rule of law, markedly worse than they were when he took office in July 2012.According to the Department of...
ChinaFile Recommends
01.22.18Chinese Bank Fined over Multibillion-Dollar Bad-Debt Cover-Up
South China Morning Post
China’s banking regulator has slapped a 462 million yuan (US$72 million) fine on a bank branch over a massive shell company fraud, as Beijing continues to crack down on financial risks.
ChinaFile Recommends
01.22.18China’s Vpn Crackdown Is about Money as Much as Censorship
Financial Times
For years, Beijing has played a cat-and-mouse game with anyone trying to breach its Great Firewall of internet censorship. Recently, however, it has switched gears from high-tech censorship to old-fashioned shakedown, as the Ministry of Industry and...
Viewpoint
01.19.18
China’s Leaders Are Poised to Strike a Blow to Its Legal System
President Xi Jinping has escalated China’s war on corruption with a proposed new law that would expand the reach of the Party in an unprecedented manner. Under current law, two formally separate entities deal with cases of corruption: A Party...
ChinaFile Recommends
01.17.18Joshua Wong Sentenced in Hong Kong for Role in Umbrella Movement
New York Times
Mr. Wong had pleaded guilty to contempt of court for refusing to obey a court order to leave a protest site in the last days of demonstrations, known as the Umbrella Movement, that paralyzed parts of Hong Kong without winning any political...
ChinaFile Recommends
12.27.17China to Look at Changing Its Constitution
Financial Times
China’s Communist party will meet next month to deliberate revisions to the country’s state constitution that would mark the document’s first amendments since 2004.
ChinaFile Recommends
12.27.17China Says Part of Hong Kong Rail Station to Be Subject to Mainland Laws
Reuters
China’s parliament on Wednesday said part of a high-speed railway station being built in Hong Kong would be regarded as mainland territory governed by mainland laws, an unprecedented move that critics say further erodes the city’s autonomy.
Conversation
12.19.17
Trump’s National Security Strategy and China
On December 18, U.S. President Donald J. Trump announced the United States’ new national security strategy. He called China a “strategic competitor,” and, along with Russia, called it a “revisionist power.” Those two nations, Trump said, are...
ChinaFile Recommends
12.18.17Thousands in China Watch as 10 People Sentenced to Death in Sport StadiumThousands in China Watch as 10 People Sentenced to Death in Sport Stadium
Guardian
A court in China has sentenced 10 people to death, mostly for drug-related crimes, in front of thousands of onlookers before taking them away for execution.
Viewpoint
12.14.17
Can Environmental Lawsuits in China Succeed?
Air and water pollution are rising in China, and so is the number of lawsuits against polluters. Access to the courts is growing: Chinese prosecutors and some NGOs have been empowered to sue polluters, and activist lawyers increasingly participate...
Conversation
12.13.17
Is Chinese Investment Good for Workers?
China’s Belt and Road Initiative is a $1 trillion plan to deepen economic relations between itself and up to 60 other countries worldwide through large investments in infrastructure, construction, and other projects. Many commentators have...
Conversation
12.06.17
Apple in China: WTF?
In November, the non-profit watchdog Freedom House called China “the worst abuser of Internet freedom” of the 65 countries it surveyed. And yet, on December 3, Apple CEO Tim Cook keynoted China’s annual World Internet Conference. “The theme of this...
ChinaFile Recommends
12.04.17Special Report: Hidden Peril Awaits China’s Banks as Property Binge Fuels Mortgage Fraud Frenzy
Reuters
While property prices in China continue to rise, mortgage fraud remains largely a hidden danger, much as subprime loans in the United States remained mostly out of sight ahead of the 2008 global financial crisis.
ChinaFile Recommends
11.29.17In China, Fears That New Anticorruption Agency Will Be Above the Law
New York Times
China’s leader, Xi Jinping, is pushing to establish a new anticorruption agency with sweeping powers to sidestep the courts and lock up anyone on the government payroll for months without access to a lawyer — a plan that has met surprisingly vocal...
ChinaFile Recommends
11.27.17Three Things to Know About China's Kindergarten Abuse Scandal
Time
A public firestorm has erupted in China over allegations of teachers abusing children at a kindergarten in Beijing. At the kindergarten in Xintiandi run by RYB Education, a New York-listed education chain that is well known in China, children were...
ChinaFile Recommends
11.21.17China Jails yet Another Human Rights Lawyer in Ongoing Crackdown on Dissent
Washington Post
Jiang Tianyong, 46, is the latest lawyer known for defending government critics to be jailed. More than 200 have been detained over the last two years in the ongoing crackdown on criticism in China.
Viewpoint
11.10.17
Bathed in the Xi Jinping Bromance
Sitting in a grand salon of the Great Hall of the People in Tiananmen Square and awaiting the official arrival ceremony of President Trump was to be taken back to that period of Sino-Soviet amity when Stalin was Mao’s “big brother” and the Chinese...
Viewpoint
11.09.17
Protecting the Rights of the Accused in U.S.-China Relations
As President Donald Trump visits China, the Chinese government wishes that billionaire fugitive Guo Wengui would follow suit and board a plane to Beijing. For months, he has regaled the world from his luxury apartment in Manhattan with stories of...
Conversation
11.02.17
Trump Goes to Asia
Chinese officials like to talk about practicing “win-win” diplomacy. Their American counterparts sometime joke that this means China wins twice. From November 3 to November 14, Donald Trump will visit Japan, South Korea, Vietnam, the Philippines,...
Conversation
10.27.17
What’s the Takeaway from the 19th Party Congress?
The day after the Party Congress ended on October 24, Xi Jinping strode across the stage of the massive Great Hall of the People with the six newly announced members of the 19th Politburo Standing Committee, the body that rules China. What might...
ChinaFile Recommends
10.23.17China’s Pursuit of Fugitive Businessman Guo Wengui Kicks Off Manhattan Caper Worthy of Spy Thriller
For months, Guo, from his self-imposed exile, had been using Twitter to make allegations of corruption against senior Chinese officials and tycoons.
ChinaFile Recommends
10.20.17Dark Horses, Sure Bets: Who Could Rule China in the Next five Years (and Beyond)
CNN
In the world's most populous nation, seven men sit atop 1.4 billion people...
Viewpoint
10.17.17
Stein Ringen: ‘The Truth About China’
Democracies have found it difficult to deal with the great dictatorships. So now with China. The first difficulty is to recognize just what we are up against, and to avoid wishful thinking.In his first five years, Xi Jinping has reshaped the Chinese...
Conversation
10.06.17
Is China the Future of Bitcoin, or Its Past?
China often dominates the market for Bitcoin, a virtual currency managed by a decentralized network of computers: at points over the last few years, China may have accounted for more than 75 percent of Bitcoin trading. Energy subsidies there make it...
Conversation
09.27.17
How are NGOs in China Faring under the New Law?
In September 2016, Beijing implemented a new law governing charities, which changed the ways domestic charitable organizations can register and fundraise. Then in January 2017, Beijing began implementation of a new law on the management of foreign...
ChinaFile Recommends
09.26.17China's Cricket Catchers Cashing in on Insects That Can Float Like a Butterfly and Sting Like a Bee
South China Morning Post
An annual cricket craze is sweeping a rural area of east China as demand for the leaping insects soars among “trainers” who use them for fighting and gambling, online media reported.
ChinaFile Recommends
09.25.17China Considers Rule Change That Could Aid Tesla
Wall Street Journal
The move could pave the way for Tesla Inc. to manufacture vehicles in China.
Conversation
09.21.17
What Will China Do if the U.S. Attacks North Korea?
During a speech at the United Nations General Assembly on September 19, U.S. President Donald Trump warned that if North Korea threatened the United States or its allies, he would “totally destroy” the nation. As tensions continue to rise between...
Media
09.18.17
Asia’s Reckoning: China, Japan, and the Fate of U.S. Power in the Pacific Century
The following is an edited transcript of a live event hosted at Asia Society in New York on September 7, 2017, and named for a new book by Richard McGregor, the former Beijing Bureau Chief of the Financial Times, “ChinaFile Presents: ‘Asia’s...
Viewpoint
09.15.17
The Unprecedented Reach of China’s Surveillance State
The Chinese Party-state is building a social credit system for collecting information about all of its citizens by police, courts, and other institutions. This enables the government to reach into society to a degree unprecedented in history...