Don’t Trust a Chicken Nugget That’s Visited China

Adam Minter
Bloomberg
China’s poultry processors have no intention of meeting U.S. food-safety standards. That may explain why the U.S. Department of Agriculture waited until just before the long weekend to announce that it had ended a ban on...

Conversation

09.09.13

What Are Chinese Attitudes Toward a U.S. Strike in Syria?

Chen Weihua, Vincent Ni & more
Chen Weihua:Chinese truly believe that there is no military solution to the Syrian crisis. On the contrary, a U.S. air strike would only worsen the situation there. Chinese have seen many failures of U.S. intervention in the Middle East in the past...

Beijing Toughens Pollution Rules to Clean Up Air

Xinhua
In a five-year clean air action plan (2013-2017), the Beijing municipal government said 1,200 polluting companies will be ordered to upgrade or close parts or all of their facilities in the coming years to 2016. 

Deng Xiaoping’s Lessons for Today’s China

Bloomberg
The earthy Deng, father of reform-era China, favored a Chinese phrase to describe the current anti-corruption maneuvers being undertaken at Xi Jinping’s behest: killing a chicken to scare the monkeys. 

China’s Corruption Purge Continues Against Zhou Yongkang

Wenguang Huang and Pin Ho
Daily Beast
As the Chinese public is eagerly awaiting the verdict of Bo Xilai, China’s anti-corruption agency is taking down another target: the 70-year-old Zhou Yongkang, dubbed by overseas media as China’s security tsar, has been put under...

Activist’s List of Chinese Political Arrests

Patrick Boehler
South China Morning Post
Wen Yunchao, who has been monitoring arrests and convictions in this year in China from New York City, insists his records show a growing trend of repression under Xi Jinping.  

Zhou Yongkang, Former Security Tsar Linked to Bo Xilai, Faces Corruption Probe

South China Morning Post
Sources said top leaders made the decision in view of the rising anger inside the party at the scale of the corruption problem and the vast fortune that Zhou's family has amassed. Xi ordered officials in charge of the case to “get to the bottom...

Conversation

09.05.13

To Reform or Not Reform?—Echoes of the Late Qing Dynasty

Orville Schell, John Delury & more
Orville Schell:It is true that China is no longer beset by threats of foreign incursion nor is it a laggard in the world of economic development and trade. But being there and being steeped in an atmosphere of seemingly endless political and...

Blood and Money

Economist
Of all the investigations and lawsuits affecting financial firms in America, few have wider ramifications than a reported probe by the S.E.C. into whether JPMorgan Chase hired the children of senior Chinese officials in order to help the bank win...

Rape Trial Casts Spotlight on Offspring of China’s Elite

Chris Buckley
New York Times
Like the recent trial of Bo Xilai, the fallen former politician, the case has become an intensely watched and debated parable about the privileges and limited accountability of the Communist Party’s highborn. 

The Confessions of a Reactionary

Teng Biao
China Change
When Xu Zhiyong and I received the “Ten People in Rule of Law in 2003” award at CCTV, neither of us, nor the two sponsors of the event would have thought that, in a few years, the two of us would become “the enemies of the state.”...

Viewpoint

09.04.13

The Confessions of a Reactionary

Teng Biao
This article first appeared in Life and Death in China (a multi-volume anthology of fifty-plus witness accounts of Chinese government persecution and thirty-plus essays by experts in human rights in China). When I wrote it [on the evening of June 3...

China’s Rule-of-Law Trial

Council on Foreign Relations
The just-concluded trial of former Communist Party boss Bo Xilai was unprecedented in opening up a high-profile legal proceeding to public scrutiny, says legal scholar Jerome A. Cohen.   

Ai Weiwei on China’s Trial of the Century

Ai Weiwei
Bloomberg
Ai Weiwei’s commentary on the twisted courtroom drama provided by the trial of Bo Xilai and what implications it holds for the future of “rule of law” in China, both for citizens and officials of all ranks. 

Censorship, Sex, and the Bo Xilai Trial

Jiayang Fan
New Yorker
By allowing the ousted politician to have a say at all, and by releasing portions of the daily transcript the Party has highlighted its progressiveness and successfully deflected attention from the theatrical nature of a masterfully choreographed...

China’s “Seven Base Lines” for a Clean Internet

David Bandurski
China Media Project
Run down the list of the “Seven Base Lines” and it is painfully obvious that this is part of a new government initiative to assert stronger control over online speech. This is yet another internet tightening in China ostensibly...

How the Media Got the Bo Xilai Trial Wrong

Isaac Stone Fish
Foreign Policy
Beijing managed to keep much of the Bo saga - and the elite machinations that precipitated it - from the foreign press. As humbling as it may be to admit, we know very little about what goes on at the highest levels of Chinese politics. 

Citizens Movement Leader Xu Zhiyong Arrested

Associated Press
Xu is one of the founders of a loose network of campaigners known as the New Citizens Movement, who, among other things, have called for people to get together on the last Saturday of each month for dinner to discuss China’s constitution and other...

Political Staging in Trial of Fallen China Official

Edward Wong and Jonathan Ansfield
New York Times
The courtroom spectacle is an effort by the party to convince Bo’s elite party allies and ordinary supporters that he had his say in court, and that the long prison sentence he is expected to get is based on evidence of crimes committed, not...

Bo Xilai Trial Transcripts Expose a Privileged World of Wealth

Barbara Demick
Los Angeles Times
The corruption trial of Bo Xilai is offering the world a peek past the vermilion walls of the Chinese leadership compounds and through the tinted glass of their motorcades into a private sphere of immense entitlement. 

Sinica Podcast

08.30.13

The Trial of the Century

Kaiser Kuo, Jeremy Goldkorn & more from Sinica Podcast
The spectacular trial of Bo Xilai seized the media’s attention last week as the fallen politburo member—still widely admired in Chongqing and Dalian and heavily connected among the Party elite—defended himself with unexpected vigor against charges...

Prosecutors Say Disgraced Chinese Politician Knew About Bribes

Jonathan Ansfield and Edward Wong
New York Times
Prosecutors in the trial of Bo Xilai presented testimony on Friday asserting that he knew about a villa on the French Riviera bought for his family by a tycoon and about demands for compensation from the manager of the villa who...

6 Things You Need to Know About Bo Xilai’s Trial

Isaac Stone Fish
Foreign Policy
Day one of disgraced Chinese politician Bo Xilai’s trial on charges of bribery, corruption, and abusing his power has come to an end. For those who didn’t spend last night glued to their devices, here’s what you missed. 

Bo Xilai Trial As Blogged by the Court

BBC
The court at which disgraced Chinese politician Bo Xilai is being tried has taken the unprecedented step of posting live updates of his trial on Sina weibo, one of China’s Twitter-like microblogs. 

38 Lenders Linked to Embattled Conglomerate

Wen Xiu and Yu Ning
Xu Ming, the billionaire chairman of Shide Group, a conglomerate based in Dalian has been missing since March 14. Following his disappearance banks have started reviewing loans made to Shide. 

China Boss’s Fall Puts Focus on a Business Ally

David Barboza
New York Times
Entrepreneur Xu Ming allegedly funneled millions of dollars in bribes to Bo Xilai and his family, including paying for trips and perhaps even giving the family a $3.5 million villa on the French Riviera, according to people briefed on the indictment...

Bo Xilai Trial Draws Comparisons to China’s Greatest Courtroom Drama

Barbara Demick
Los Angeles Review of Books
In 1980, the Gang of Four trial was widely mocked in the West as a political show trial in which Deng Xiaoping purged his enemies. While there are many differences between that trial and Bo’s it is the long ago trial that is likely to prove more...

Bo Xilai Supporters Demonstrate in Shandong on Eve of Trial

Reuters
About 10 people held up signs outside the courthouse in the eastern city of Jinan in Shandong province, where Bo is set to appear in public on Thursday for the first time in 17 months to face charges of bribery, corruption and abuse of power.&...

Mardi Gras In Jinan: Foreign Correspondents Flock To The Party Of The Century

Anthony Tao
Beijing Cream
If you’re a China correspondent, you’re likely in Jinan, Shandong province right now, where disgraced former Chongqing Party Chief Bo Xilai, 64, will stand open trial for corruption tomorrow at the Jinan Intermediate...

Can China’s Show Trial Show the Way to Reform

Adam Minter
Bloomberg
The Communist Party and its mouthpieces will celebrate the decisiveness of the Bo Xilai verdict as proof that the party - and the courts it controls - won’t tolerate corruption in its ranks. But who will believe this? 

Conversation

08.28.13

Beijing, Why So Tense?

Andrew J. Nathan, Isabel Hilton & more
Andrew Nathan:I think of the Chinese leaders as holding a plant spritzer and dousing sparks that are jumping up all around them.  Mao made the famous remark, “A single spark can start a prairie fire.”  The leaders have seen that...

Media

08.27.13

The Surprise Loser of China’s Trial of the Century: Its Corruption Watchdog

It seems like everybody has something to gain from Show Trial 2.0, a.k.a. the semi-live tweeting of fallen politician Bo Xilai’s day in court.Bo Xilai the showman takes a bow with a flourish; Gu Kailai, the scorned wife, exacts sweet revenge;...

How to Get Hired in China: The J.P. Morgan Case

Evan Osnos
New Yorker
The credibility of the Chinese political and economic system has always rested partly on its assertion that it is a well-functioning meritocracy.  With the investigation of nepotism between JPMorgan and China’s Railway Ministry,...

China’s Fallen Former High-Flyer Bo to Stand Trial

Benjamin Kang Lin and Ben Blanchard
Reuters
The long-awaited trial of Bo who is still popular with conservatives and the disaffected, will be the country’s highest-profile hearing since the 1976 downfall of Mao Zedong’s widow, Jiang Qing, and her Gang of Four at the end of the Cultural...

Struggling Immigrant Artist Tied to $80 Million New York Fraud

Sarah Maslin Nir, Patricia Cohen and...
New York Times
Pei-Shen Qian, a quiet 73-year-old immigrant from China, is suspected of having fooled the art world by creating dozens of works that were modeled after America’s Modernist masters and later sold as their handiwork for more than $80 million.&...

Viewpoint

08.22.13

How Bo Xilai Split the Party and Divided the People

Ouyang Bin from Chinese Law Prof Blog
After the 1989 Tiananmen Incident, Chinese political struggles became milder and more mundane. Members of the Politburo and politicians of higher rank rarely were toppled (except for Chen Liangyu in 2006) and ideology seldom triggered significant...

Conversation

08.21.13

Is Xi Jinping Redder Than Bo Xilai Or Vice Versa?

Michael Anti & Shai Oster
Michael Anti:Competing for Redness: The Scarlet Bo vs the Vermilion Xi?Bo Xilai, the fallen Chinese princeling famous for leading a “Red Songs” communist campaign in southwest China's megacity Chongqing, is on trial today, live-Twittered from...

Liu Xiaobo’s Brother-in-Law Liu Hui to Serve 11 Years After Losing Appeal

Tania Branigan
Guardian
 Family angered over confirmation of verdict seen as persecution of the Nobel prize-winner’s family.

China to Phase Out Use of Prisoners’ Organs for Transplants

Li Hui and Ben Blanchard
Reuters
China will phase out its decades-long practice of using the organs of executed prisoners for transplants from November as it pushes to mandate the use of organs from ethical sources.

China’s Overdue Payments to Hollywood Could Happen This Week

Patrick Frater
Variety
Hollywood studios expect to be paid every penny of revenue that has bee earned in China, which is currently held up by a payment dispute. Studio sources suggest that an announcement will be made  within a week.

No 'How-To' Book from the West Can Curb Corruption in China

Eric Li
South China Morning Post
 Roots of corruption are unique everywhere and, in China, it stems from a disconnect between political authority based on a selfless moral claim and economic realities. 

Chinese Foot-Dragging

The Editorial Board
New York Times
The South China Sea is one of the world’s most strategically important waterways. China has fanned hostilities with other nations with sovereignty claims and confrontations over disputed islands and even specks of rock.

Can China Clean Up Fast Enough?

Economist
China is going through an industrial-powered growth spurt and the urge to get rich outweighs the desire for clean air. However, China is beginning to clean up its act.

Family of Murdered Briton Seeks Up to $8.2 Million Compensation in China

Ben Blanchard and Benjamin Kang Lim
Reuters
The family of a British citizen murdered in China is seeking compensation of up to $8.2 million from his convicted killer, the wife of former top leader Bo Xilai, a lawyer with knowledge of the talks said on Monday.

Media

08.12.13

Is Support for Transgender Rights Increasing in China?

In the last few weeks of July, the story of a young transgender couple who transitioned together, which had previously gone viral in the Western media, trended on Sina Weibo, China’s popular microblogging platform. Although some Chinese netizens...

See You Again, Old Beijing

Michael Meyer
Slate
Banned for more than five years, The Last Days of Beijing was cleared and the author allowed to visit on a book tour. It was said to be banned because the map of China shaded Taiwan a different color than the mainland.

China Box-Office Standoff: Hollywood Could Receive Back Payments Soon

Clifford Coonan
Hollywood Reporter
A solution in a tax dispute that has resulted in delays in box-office payments to Hollywood studios could be coming soon as China Film Group explores interim solutions ahead of a more permanent resolution in coming weeks.

Prominent Chinese Activist Releases Jail Video

Josh Chin
Wall Street Journal
Supporters of Chinese lawyer Xu Zhiyong have released a video, filmed inside an undisclosed detention center, of the prominent rights activist proclaiming his willingness to pay any price for social progress.

From Maoist Criminal to Popular Hero?

Pin Ho
New York Times
China will begin one of the most sensational trials in its modern political history, when Bo Xilai, the former rising star in the Politburo and Communist Party boss in the megacity of Chongqing, faces corruption charges.

China Detains Prominent Bo Xilai Supporter Ahead of Trial

Reuters
Song Yangbiao, a reporter for the magazine the Time Weekly, was detained on Sunday according to friends and supporters, apparently after using his Sina Weibo microblog to denounce the trial and call for an uprising to oppose it. ...

China Fines 6 Milk Suppliers in Price-Fixing Probe

New York Times
 China announced Wednesday it has fined six milk suppliers, including Mead Johnson and New Zealand’s Fonterra, a total of $108 million for price-fixing after an investigation that shook the country’s fast-growing dairy market.

China Box-Office Standoff: Cabinet to Discuss Tax Issue

Clifford Coonan
Hollywood Reporter
China’s State Council, or cabinet, will discuss ways to resolve a tax standoff that has delayed box-office payments to Hollywood for months and jangled the nerves of overseas producers keen to access the world’s second-biggest film territory.&...

China May Let More Families Have Second Child, Xinhua Says

Alexandra Ho
Bloomberg
China is studying whether to relax its one-child policy to allow more couples to have two children, the official Xinhua News Agency reported, citing the National Health and Family Planning Commission.

Chinese Court Rules Against J&J in Monopoly Suit

Joe McDonald
Associated Press
Health care giant Johnson & Johnson has become the latest global company accused of misconduct in China after a court ordered it to pay damages to a distributor in a lawsuit brought under an anti-monopoly law.

China Media on the Snowden Saga

BBC
Media in China see further embarrassment for the United States after whistleblower Edward Snowden gets temporary asylum in Russia.

Corporate Sleuths On Edge After China Detains Foreign Consultants

Alexandra Harney
Reuters
The detention by Chinese authorities of a British corporate investigator and his American wife in the wake of a corruption probe into pharmaceutical giant GlaxoSmithKline has had a chilling effect on other risk consultants working...

China's Bo To Plead guilty, But Maybe Not To All Charges

Benjamin Kang Lim, Ben Blanchard
Reuters
Disgraced Chinese leader Bo Xilai has agreed to plead guilty at a trial likely to be held within weeks, three sources said, in an apparent bid to earn a more lenient sentence and allow authorities to close the door on the country's biggest...

Conversation

07.30.13

Is Business in China Getting Riskier, Or Are Multinationals Taking More Risks?

Arthur R. Kroeber, David Schlesinger & more
Arthur Kroeber:The environment for foreign companies in China has been getting steadily tougher since 2006, when the nation came to the end of a five-year schedule of market-opening measures it pledged as the price of admission to the World Trade...

Caixin Media

07.29.13

Why a Reporter Feels Sympathy for an Airport Bomber

These past few years as a reporter, I have met some people with nothing left to live for and now another person can be added to the list. Ji Zhongxing, the disabled man who set off a bomb in a Beijing airport on July 20, is that person.Ji and I are...

Fallen Leader Is Indicted in China

Edward Wong
New York Times
Bo Xilai, the disgraced former Communist Party official, was indicted on Thursday on criminal charges of bribery, corruption and abuse of power, paving the way for a prominent trial expected to start within weeks.