Maldives Crisis Could Stir Trouble between China and India

Mujib Mashal
New York Times
As the Maldives’ autocratic president, Abdulla Yameen, cracks down on opposition to consolidate power ahead of another election, analysts and diplomats warn that the small nation’s troubles could provoke a larger crisis that draws in China and India...

China’s All-Seeing Social Control Network Brings an End to Fugitives’ Festive Fun

Nectar Gan
South China Morning Post
With most of China getting into the swing of the Lunar New Year holiday, two crime suspects in the southern city of Guangzhou could have been forgiven for thinking the local police force was taking a break too.

Harry Harris, Trump’s Pick for Australia Envoy, Slams Beijing’s Asia Ambitions

Ben Westcott
CNN
China is seeking to “undermine” the international order in the Asia Pacific, Adm. Harry Harris, US President Donald Trump’s nominee for ambassador to Australia, said in Washington on Wednesday.

Conversation

02.15.18

Is American Policy toward China Due for a ‘Reckoning’?

Charles Edel, Elizabeth Economy & more
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.”...

China and Russia Are Catching up with Military Power of US and West, Say Leading Defence Experts

Kim Sengupta
Independent
China and Russia are challenging the military supremacy of America and its allies and the West can no longer rely on the strategic advantage it has enjoyed until now, a leading think tank states in its annual report.

“Shameless” and “Two-Faced”: China’s Astonishing Rebuke of Its Former Internet Czar

Zheping Huang
Quartz
China’s former internet czar was expelled from the Communist Party and will be prosecuted for corruption, the party’s top graft-busting agency said yesterday (Feb. 13).

‘You Are Our Lucky Star’: Chinese Media in Overdrive on Xi Jinping’s New Year Tour

Tom Phillips
Guardian
Xi Jinping has flown into one of rural China’s most deprived corners to champion his war on extreme poverty before the country’s week-long Lunar New Year holiday.

Sinica Podcast

02.14.18

China’s Rise and America’s Myopia

Kaiser Kuo, Jeremy Goldkorn & more from Sinica Podcast
China, as we say at the beginning of each Sinica Podcast episode, is a nation that is reshaping the world. But what does that reshaping really look like, and how does—and should—the world react to China’s role in globalization?

The ‘Globalisation’ of China's Military Power

Jonathan Marcus
BBC
China’s modernization of its armed forces is proceeding faster than many analysts expected.

Former Chongqing Party Chief Charged with Bribery in China

Edward White
Financial Times
A former top Chinese official once tipped as a potential successor to Xi Jinping has been charged with corruption, state media reported on Tuesday.

Britain to Test China by Sailing Ship in Disputed Sea

Jamie Smyth and Tom Hancock
Financial Times
Anti-submarine frigate to sail through contested waters of South China Sea.

China to Select Theaters Nationwide to Show Propaganda Films

AP
CNBC
The state will boost the box office of these propaganda movies with group sales, discounted tickets and other financial backing.

How China Is Getting Serious About Financial Risk

Bloomberg News
Bloomberg
Chinese leaders pledged to make controlling financial risk a top priority. Their challenge is to do so without derailing the economy.

Trump Taps Harry Harris, Known for Being Tough on China, as Australia Envoy

Jaqueline Williams
New York Times
Trump announces plans to nominate a vocal critic of China as ambassador to Australia.

Catholics Warn of Church Schism If Vatican Makes a Deal with China

Simon Denyer
Washington Post
Influential Catholics expressed shock and disappointment about the Vatican's potential deal with Beijing.

Where China’s Leaders Go in Africa May Surprise You

Eric Olander, Cobus van Staden & more
Over the past 10 years Chinese leaders have made 79 official visits to 43 different African countries, according to new data from the Beijing-based consultancy Development Reimagined. Where the senior leadership goes offers some fascinating insights...

An Indian-Russian Supersonic Missile Could Be a Problem for China

Nyshka Chandran
CNBC
BrahMos Aerospace, a joint venture between India and Russia, has developed what it calls the world’s fastest supersonic cruise missile. The namesake rocket may now be exported globally — a potentially concerning development for the world’s second-...

Germany’s Daimler Issues ‘Full Apology’ to China over Dalai Lama

BBC
Daimler has issued a second emphatic apology to China after its subsidiary, Mercedes Benz, quoted the Dalai Lama in an Instagram post on Monday.

China Loves Trump

Benjamin Carlson
Atlantic
In January of last year, around the time of the presidential inauguration, as jitters about the relationship between Donald Trump and China mounted, I regularly joined the mob of reporters at the Chinese foreign ministry’s daily briefings in Beijing.

China Is Placing Underwater Sensors in the Pacific near Guam

Anthony Kuhn
NPR
China’s official People’s Daily newspaper reported in December that Chinese scientists had lowered acoustic sensors into the Mariana Trench, at the bottom of the Pacific Ocean.

China Tries to Charm Tech-Savvy Taiwanese Youth as Political Ties Fray

Brenda Goh and Jess Macy Yu
Reuters
A start-up incubator on the outskirts of Shanghai is laying out sweeteners for budding entrepreneurs: Free office space, subsidized housing rent, tax breaks and in some cases, cash of up to 200,000 yuan ($31,211.47).

China Detains Executive Close to Family of Former Prime Minister

David Barboza and Michael Forsythe
New York Times
The authorities in China have detained a wealthy investor who went into business with relatives of the previous prime minister, a sign that the anticorruption campaign initiated five years ago by President Xi Jinping may again be closing in on a...

Sinica Podcast

02.06.18

China’s Uighur Muslims, Under Pressure at Home and Abroad

Kaiser Kuo, Jeremy Goldkorn & more from Sinica Podcast
By traveling not just to China’s Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region, where 10 to 15 million Uighurs live, but also to Syria, where some have fled and taken up arms with militant groups, Associated Press reporter Gerry Shih sought to answer the most...

China Confirms Detention of Hong Kong Bookseller Snatched from Train

Te-Ping Chen
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.

Philippines’ Duterte Reneges on China Deal, Bans Foreign Research Ships

Manuel Mogato
Reuters
Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte has banned all foreign scientific research off the country’s Pacific coast and told the navy to chase away unauthorised vessels, despite earlier allowing Chinese oceanographers to operate there.

Photos Show Beijing’s Militarisation of South China Sea in New Detail

Tom Phillips
Guardian
Beijing has been accused of building “island fortresses” in the South China Sea after a newspaper in the Philippines obtained aerial photographs offering what experts called the most detailed glimpse yet of China’s militarisation of the waterway.

With Everyone Focused on Russia, China Is Quietly Expanding Its Influence across Europe

Rick Noack
Washington Post
Two new studies suggest that European leaders appear to too willing to overlook China’s authoritarian ambitions.

Mystery of Suspected China-CIA Spy Draws Lawmaker Scrutiny

Josh Meyer
Politico
Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Charles Grassley (R-Iowa) and other senior members of Congress are asking why the FBI took more than five years to arrest former CIA China hand Jerry Chun Shing Lee after it first became suspicious of him.

Conversation

02.05.18

Is the Belt and Road Anti-Democratic?

Nadège Rolland, Tim Summers & more
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...

Who Killed More: Hitler, Stalin, or Mao?

Ian Johnson from New York Review of Books
In these pages nearly seven years ago, Timothy Snyder asked the provocative question: Who killed more, Hitler or Stalin? As useful as that exercise in moral rigor was, some think the question itself might have been slightly off. Instead, it should...

China’s Plans for Creating New International Courts Are Raising Fears of Bias

Nyshka Chandran
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.

Britain’s May Discusses Trade Barriers with China’s Xi

Erika Kinetz and Christopher Bodeen
Washington Post
British Prime Minister Theresa May said Friday she discussed with Chinese President Xi Jinping the importance of removing barriers to commerce, especially for British food, drink and financial services, as the two countries move toward a future...

Media

02.02.18

Chinese Civil Society in 2018: What’s Ahead?

Wang Yongmei, Anthony Saich & more
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...

Conversation

02.01.18

Should Pacific Island Nations Be Wary of Chinese Influence?

Jenny Hayward-Jones, Graeme Smith & more
British Prime Minister Theresa May’s three-day visit to China, from January 31 to February 2, has amplified ongoing debates in Europe about the costs and benefits of engagement with China and of Chinese investment. Attention to China’s role in...

Viewpoint

01.31.18

The U.K. Needs to Rethink Its Engagement with China

Paul Irwin Crookes & Kyle Jaros
As British Prime Minister Theresa May arrives in Beijing today, where is the U.K.’s relationship with China heading? Despite a complex history, U.K.-China relations have remained a relative bright spot in China’s engagement with the West in recent...

Theresa May Pledges to Raise Hong Kong and Human Rights with China

Tom Phillips and Jessica Elgot
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.

CIA Chief Says China ‘as Big a Threat to US’ as Russia

BBC
Chinese efforts to exert covert influence over the West are just as concerning as Russian subversion, the director of the CIA has said.

Trump Alarms China with ‘Cold War’ Rhetoric in State of Union Address

Simon Denyer
Washington Post
China raised alarms Wednesday over what it called President Trump’s “outdated Cold War mentality” after an address that described Beijing as a global rival and set an increasing tough line against China’s economic and military reach.

Vatican, Eager for China Ties, Asks ‘Underground’ Bishops to Step Aside

Ian Johnson
New York Times
The decision in December came amid what observers describe as an extraordinary effort by the Vatican to advance negotiations to restore ties with Beijing after a nearly 70-year schism among Catholics in the world’s most populous nation.

China’s Retired Anti-Graft Tsar Wang Qishan Holds on to Top Legislature Spot to Stay in the Political Game

Jun Mai
South China Morning Post
Wang is set to take on the vice-presidency but his power will depend on what Xi Jinping needs him to do, analyst says.

Taiwan Retaliates Against Chinese Airlines, Hampering Lunar New Year Travel

Chris Horton
New York Times
Tens of thousands of Taiwanese working in China are at risk of being unable to return home for the Lunar New Year in mid-February as a result of an escalating battle over airspace in the Taiwan Strait.

Theresa May Declines to Endorse China’s Belt and Road Initiative

George Parker
Financial Times
UK prime minister to raise concerns on visit aimed at boosting trade ties.

U.S. Firms in China Fear Fallout from Tit-For-Tat Trade War

Wendy Wu
South China Morning Post
American business group says Beijing could target sectors to send a political message across the Pacific.

China “Gifted” the African Union a Headquarters Building and Then Allegedly Bugged It for State Secrets

Abdi Latif Dahir
Quartz
In an investigation published by French newspaper Le Monde, China, which also paid and built the computer network at the AU, allegedly inserted a backdoor that allowed it to transfer data.

How Trump’s Vulgar Comments Towards Africa Play Right into China’s Hands

Eric Olander, Cobus van Staden & more
Somali-British freelance journalist Ismail Einahse joins Eric and Cobus to discuss his recent opinion column, “Trump’s Insults Will Nudge African Nations Closer To China.” The article, published on NPR.org, reflects a contentious debate going on...

Features

01.26.18

A Most Immoral Woman: George E. Morrison's Life in Turn-of-the-Century China

Linda Jaivin
My historical novel “A Most Immoral Woman” tells the story of Morrison’s passionate and unconventional affair with Mae Perkins, an independent and wealthy young American libertine, in 1904. It’s a tale that roams the landscape of a dynasty in...

Books

01.26.18

A Village with My Name

Scott Tong
When journalist Scott Tong moved to Shanghai, his assignment was to start up the first full-time China bureau for Marketplace, the daily business and economics program on public radio stations across the United States. But for Tong, the move became much more—it offered the opportunity to reconnect with members of his extended family who had remained in China after his parents fled the communists six decades prior. By uncovering the stories of his family’s history, Tong discovered a new way to understand the defining moments of modern China and its long, interrupted quest to go global.A Village with My Name offers a unique perspective on the transitions in China through the eyes of regular people who have witnessed such epochal events as the toppling of the Qing monarchy, Japan’s occupation during World War II, exile of political prisoners to forced labor camps, mass death and famine during the Great Leap Forward, market reforms under Deng Xiaoping, and the dawn of the One Child Policy. Tong’s story focuses on five members of his family, who each offer a specific window on a changing country: a rare American-educated girl born in the closing days of the Qing Dynasty, a pioneer exchange student, an abandoned toddler from World War II who later rides the wave of China’s global export boom, a young professional climbing the ladder at a multinational company, and an orphan (the author’s daughter) adopted in the middle of a baby-selling scandal fueled by foreign money. Through their stories, Tong shows us China anew, visiting former prison labor camps on the Tibetan plateau and rural outposts along the Yangtze, exploring the Shanghai of the 1930s, and touring factories across the mainland.With curiosity and sensitivity, Tong explores the moments that have shaped China and its people, offering a compelling and deeply personal take on how China became what it is today. —University of Chicago Press{chop}

Exclusive: China to Name Harvard-Trained Liu He as Vice Premier Overseeing Economy - Sources

Reuters
China is set to name Liu He, a Harvard-trained economist who advises President Xi Jinping, as a vice premier overseeing the economy and financial sector, five sources familiar with the development said.

Online Sales of Illegal Opioids from China Surge in U.S.

Ron Nixon
New York Times
Nearly $800 million worth of fentanyl pills were illegally sold to online customers in the United States over two years by Chinese distributors who took advantage of internet anonymity and an explosive growth in e-commerce, according to a Senate...

China ‘Holding at Least 120,000 Uighurs in Re-Education Camps’

Tom Phillips
Guardian
At least 120,000 members of China’s Muslim Uighur minority have been confined to political “re-education camps” redolent of the Mao era that are springing up across the country’s western borderlands, a report has claimed.

Media

01.24.18

China’s Animated Underbelly

Jonathan Landreth from China Film Insider
A tousled-haired young man in a third-tier Chinese city is desperate to fix the botched plastic surgery done on his fiancée’s face. At knifepoint, he steals a satchel of one million yuan from a local gangster, setting off a chain-reaction of greed...

Conversation

01.24.18

Is China Really a ‘Threat’ to the U.S.?

James Holmes, Zha Daojiong & more
In a move presaging tougher policies towards China, the Department of Defense’s National Defense Strategy announced that the “revisionist powers” China and Russia are the “central challenge to U.S. prosperity and security.” And on January 22, Donald...

Top U.S. Sanctions Envoy Presses China to Expel North Korean Agents

Jeremy Page and Ian Talley
Wall Street Journal
The Trump administration’s top sanctions envoy pressed China in high-level meetings this week to deliver on commitments to expel North Korean agents helping finance Pyongyang’s nuclear weapons and missile programs.

‘Me Too,’ Chinese Women Say. Not so Fast, Say the Censors.

Javier C. Hernández and Zoe Mou
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.

Taiwan President Says Does Not Exclude Possibility of China Attack

Reuters
“No one can exclude this possibility. We will need to see whether their policymakers are reasonable policymakers or not,” Tsai said in an interview on Taiwan television broadcast late on Monday, when asked whether China could attack Taiwan.

Viewpoint

01.23.18

Who’s to Blame for Hong Kong’s Weakening Rule of Law?

Alvin Y.H. Cheung
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...

Chinese Police Seize Publisher from Train in Front of Diplomats

Chris Buckley
New York Times
A Hong Kong-based book publisher with Swedish citizenship who was secretly spirited to China and held in custody for two years, igniting international controversy, has disappeared again in dramatic fashion — snatched from a train bound for Beijing...

Asia & Pacific China to U.S.: It’s Your Fault We Are in the South China Sea

Emily Rauhala
Washington Post
Beijing has a message for the Trump administration: The more ships you send to the contested waters of the South China Sea, the more we will bolster our presence there.

Trump Is 'Determined to Bite Somebody, and China Is the Most Likely Target,' Trade Expert Says

CNBC
A year after President Donald Trump took office, the United States' trade deficit with China looms larger than ever.

China to Enshrine Xi's Thought into State Constitution Amid National 'Fervor'

Reuters
China’s ruling Communist Party will enshrine President Xi Jinping’s political thought into the country’s constitution, state media said on Friday, further solidifying his power following its addition last year to the party constitution.