ChinaFile Recommends
11.20.12Why Is China Censoring a Fake Photo of its Leaders Doing 'Gangnam Style'?
Washington Post
A doctored photo of China's top officials doing a popular South Korean dance went viral 'til Chinese censors pulled it down.
ChinaFile Recommends
11.20.12Corruption in China's Orphanages
Financial Times
One of my children is from an orphanage where the director, a government official, has created a nice little business in orphan homecomings, which include a lavish meal, hugs from the caregivers, and a shower of gifts for the returning child. The...
ChinaFile Recommends
11.19.12America and China in the Aftermath of Election and Succession: Paths and Pitfalls
Brookings Institution
Panel discussion with Li Cheng, Kenneth Lieberthal and Ambassador Stapleton Roy
ChinaFile Recommends
11.19.12The Key to Bringing Democracy to China
Foreign Policy
For many years, Western leaders have couched the argument for greater political openness and democratization in China in moral terms, citing the universality of both human rights and the aspirations for freedom and independence. In May, defending...
Media
11.19.12
A Conservative Commentator Calls Out Chinese Liberals, and Liberals Shout Back
Speech on the Chinese Internet, it seems, is beginning to thaw once more following the country’s leadership transition. After months of speculation, new Chinese leader Xi Jinping was announced on November 16 at the close of the 18th Party Congress,...
ChinaFile Recommends
11.19.12The Headache of Mo Yan, China’s Nobel Prize Winner in Literature
Washington Post
Mo Yan had a tuxedo made for the December 10 prize gala in Stockholm and is studying the waltz, in case he's invited to dance.
ChinaFile Recommends
11.19.12China: The Mao Dynasty Moves Toward Democracy And Human Rights
Forbes
China is visibly evolving toward liberal republican governance. Ten years, rather than life, tenure for its leaders is a major step.
Photo Gallery
11.19.12
China’s Footprint in Myanmar
President Barack Obama’s visit to Yangon (also known as Rangoon) today shines a spotlight on a story that has already captured the world’s attention: namely, the remarkable political transformation that has been underway over the past year in...
ChinaFile Recommends
11.19.12Getting Over Ai Weiwei
Randian
There are, though, significant dangers in the upholding of Ai as our sole representative/mediator of artistic resistance to authority within China. While Ai’s bluntly confrontational and often bombastic stance can be readily digested within Western...
ChinaFile Recommends
11.17.12The Saturday Profile: Peng Liyuan, First Lady of China
New York Times
The top pop-folk icon is beloved for a glass-cracking soprano and her range of roles, from Tibetan yak herder to stiff-lipped general.
ChinaFile Recommends
11.17.12China Says Does Not Want South China Sea Overshadowing Summit
Reuters
China's claim to a stretch of water off its south coast also claimed by neighbors makes it Asia's biggest potential military hot spot.
Caixin Media
11.17.12
Political Reform: The Way to Go
Sections of the 18th National Party Congress report that have justifiably generated the most attention are references to political reform.Anyone who did not harbor unrealistic hopes about the congress and its outcome can read the report and find...
Caixin Media
11.17.12
As 18th Congress Ends, a Peek into the Process
Over the past twenty years, economist Zhang Zhuoyuan has witnessed and actively participated in building the nation’s economic policy.He participated in the drafting of reports at each of the Communist Party’s three previous national congresses,...
ChinaFile Recommends
11.16.12China's Top Censor's New Leadership Role Raises Fears
Agence France-Presse
Chinese propaganda boss Liu Yunshan has risen to the country’s top leadership in what could be a perilous sign for online debate.
Sinica Podcast
11.16.12
The State of the Navy
from Sinica Podcast
After two weeks focusing on developments at the Eighteenth Party Congress, and with the next generation of China’s leadership now public news for the world to digest, this week on Sinica we take a break from China’s leadership transition and turn...
ChinaFile Recommends
11.15.12China’s New Chief
New Yorker
When it was all over this morning, and the seven men had returned once again to the secluded backstage of the Great Hall of the People, trailed by their security, and the stage where they had stood was suddenly empty. I walked up to the spot where...
Viewpoint
11.15.12
Age of China’s New Leaders May Have Been Key to Their Selection
Earlier this week, before the new Politburo Standing Committee (PBSC) and Politburo of the Chinese Communist Party were announced, I argued that the Party faces the difficult problem of how to allocate power in the absence of an open and legitimate...
Environment
11.15.12An Insight into the Green Vocabulary of the Chinese Communist Party
from chinadialogue
After years of neglect, the environment is gradually gaining more attention from China’s leaders. The most noticeable manifestation of this is in their vocabulary.Six months ago, Hu Jintao, speaking at the opening of a study session for provincial...
ChinaFile Recommends
11.15.12Habemus Papam! China Unveils its New Leaders
Economist
With its unique and mystifying blend of pageantry, ritual and secrecy, China’s ruling Communist Party has named its seven new leaders.
ChinaFile Recommends
11.15.12The New Member's of China's Ruling Body
New York Times
All of China’s new Politburo Standing Committee, the group of politicians who rule country, have close connections with former leaders.
Viewpoint
11.14.12
The Future of Legal Reform
Carl Minzner, Professor of Law at Fordham University, talks here about the ways China’s legal reforms have ebbed and flowed, speeding up in the early 2000s, but then slowing down again after legal activists began to take the government at its word,...
Viewpoint
11.14.12
Change in Historical Context
China’s Communist Party has only ruled the country since 1949. But China has a long history of contentious transfers of power among its ruler. In these videos, Yale historian, Peter C. Perdue, an expert on China's last dynasty, the Qing, puts...
Viewpoint
11.14.12
Are You Happier Than You Were Ten Years Ago?
“Many Chinese feel that they have not participated in the economic benefits of an economy that has been growing very rapidly,” says Michael Evans, a vice chairman of the Goldman Sachs Group and head of growth markets for the Wall Street...
ChinaFile Recommends
11.14.12Chinese Authorities Putting Pressure on Businesses to Help Censor the Web
New York Times
Web police units directed companies, including U.S. joint ventures, to buy and install hardware to log traffic, block select sites, and connect with police servers.
ChinaFile Recommends
11.14.12Opinion: Don't Expect Radical Reforms in China
Financial Times
If Li Keqiang walks on stage second it will suggest the premier post has been upgraded to a position of greater political clout.
ChinaFile Recommends
11.14.12Zhou Seen Exiting PBOC as China Installs New Economic Leadership
Bloomberg
Top finance official Vice Premier Wang Qishan will move to a new role and Commerce Minister Chen Deming is also likely to exit.
ChinaFile Recommends
11.13.12The Real China Model
New York Times
As a historian, however, I cannot let pass unchallenged the characterization of premodern Chinese political culture as “meritocratic.” Over the last 20 years, research has shown that the keju was far from the “ladder of...
ChinaFile Recommends
11.13.12China’s Great Political Leap Backward
Wall Street Journal
After years of parsing China's political jargon, I wasn't expecting anything dramatic from the 18th National Congress of the Communist Party of China, which opened in Beijing last week. It was foolish, I knew, to look for bold statements...
ChinaFile Recommends
11.13.12At Mao-style Conclave, China Embraces Twitter Age
Associated Press
Dozens of the more than 2,000 party delegates, among them Chairman Mao's grandson, are using social media to wax rhapsodic about China's rise and Party General Secretary Hu Jintao's live 90-minute reading of highlights from this year...
Viewpoint
11.13.12
China’s Next Leaders: A Guide to What’s at Stake
Just a little more than a week after the American presidential election, China will choose its own leaders in its own highly secretive way entirely inside the Communist Party. What’s at stake for China—and for the rest of the world—is not just who...
ChinaFile Recommends
11.13.12The U.S.-China Reset
New York Times
The leaders of the U.S. and China may not want to say it out loud, but they would privately admit that U.S.-China relations are in trouble.
ChinaFile Recommends
11.12.12China Dodges Politcally Sensitive Questions at Key Congress
Reuters
In pre-Olypmics 2007, officials took solo interviews and overseas reporters were encouraged to ask questions. Not so this time.
ChinaFile Recommends
11.12.12China Mandates 'Social Risk' Reviews for Big Projects
New York Times
The move is aimed at curtailing the large and increasingly violent environmental protests of the last year.
ChinaFile Recommends
11.12.12Xinhua Insight: China Will Never Copy Western Political System
Xinhua
Xinhua says Hu Jintao wants China to support state power and at the same time improve the system of community-level democracy.
ChinaFile Recommends
11.11.12Recording the Untold Stories of China’s Great Famine
NPR
A young man trudges doggedly around his village, notebook in hand, fringe flopping over his glasses. He goes from door to door, calling on the elderly.The young man has one main question: Who died in our village during the Great Famine?This is the...
ChinaFile Recommends
11.11.12Exclusive: Hu Jintao Set to Step Down as Military Chief
South China Morning Post
Outgoing President Hu Jintao will formally relinquish his position as military chief at the end of the 18th party congress this week, according to sources.His decision to opt for complete retirement surprised many analysts, who had expected him to...
ChinaFile Recommends
11.11.12China Film Regulator: Don't Blame us for Hollywood Hiccups
Wall Street Journal
Beijing says it was the market that decided to bar imported films from domestic cinemas this summer, not film regulators.
ChinaFile Recommends
11.11.12Building China's Enlightenment
Sydney Morning Herald
China's most ambutious, radical and consequential think tank behind the scenes at the 18th Party Congress.
ChinaFile Recommends
11.11.12China, at Party Congress, Touts its Cultural Advances
New York Times
Party guidance is the "soul” of China's moves to privitize and promote industries that can spread soft power abroad.
ChinaFile Recommends
11.10.12China Turns Corner on Economy as Party Chooses New Leaders
Reuters
The world's No2 economy has stopped slowing, the economic planning agency said, forecasting 2012 GDP growth of 7.5 percent or more.
Sinica Podcast
11.10.12
Eighteenth Party Roundup
from Sinica Podcast
This week on Sinica, our hosts Kaiser Kuo and Jeremy Goldkorn are joined by Gady Epstein from the Economist and we turn our attention to the Eighteenth Party Congress, which officially started in Beijing earlier this week. As China’s capital...
Postcard
11.09.12
Where to, China?
The windows of buses and taxis going by Tiananmen Square have been taped shut. The paramilitary police stand at attention at all major traffic intersections—even near the old alleyway where I live some five kilometers away. Those are sure signs that...
ChinaFile Recommends
11.09.12Opinion: Meritocracy Versus Democracy
New York Times
Without much fanfare, Beijing has introduced significant reforms and established an elaborate system of what can be called “selection plus election.”
ChinaFile Recommends
11.09.12Two Rising China Leaders Say Open to Wealth Declarations
Reuters
After report on Wen Jiabao's "hidden riches," Guangdong and Shanghai party bosses said officials will eventually have to declare assets.
ChinaFile Recommends
11.09.12Is China Better at Picking Leaders than the U.S.?
Washington Post
The case for China is that its leaders can emphasize long-term planning and difficult decisions over short-term politics and voter-appeasement.
Books
11.09.12
Strong Society, Smart State
The rise and influence of public opinion on Chinese foreign policy reveals a remarkable evolution in authoritarian responses to social turmoil. James Reilly shows how Chinese leaders have responded to popular demands for political participation with a sophisticated strategy of tolerance, responsiveness, persuasion, and repression—a successful approach that helps explain how and why the Communist Party continues to rule China.Through a detailed examination of China's relations with Japan from 1980 to 2010, Reilly reveals the populist origins of a wave of anti-Japanese public mobilization that swept across China in the early 2000s. Popular protests, sensationalist media content, and emotional public opinion combined to impede diplomatic negotiations, interrupt economic cooperation, spur belligerent rhetoric, and reshape public debates. Facing a mounting domestic and diplomatic crisis, Chinese leaders responded with a remarkable reversal, curtailing protests and cooling public anger toward Japan. Far from being a fragile state overwhelmed by popular nationalism, market forces, or information technology, China has emerged as a robust and flexible regime that has adapted to its new environment with remarkable speed and effectiveness. Reilly's study of public opinion's influence on foreign policy extends beyond democratic states. It reveals how persuasion and responsiveness sustain Communist Party rule in China and develops a method for examining similar dynamics in different authoritarian regimes. He draws upon public opinion surveys, interviews with Chinese activists, quantitative media analysis, and internal government documents to support his findings, joining theories in international relations, social movements, and public opinion. — Columbia University Press
Viewpoint
11.09.12
Pragmatism and Patience
Hamid Bilgari, Vice Chairman of Citicorp, the strategic arm of Citigroup, is a leader in international investment banking.
Bilgari says that pragmatism and patience are the dominant qualities exhibited by cultures facing major change, such as...
ChinaFile Recommends
11.08.12Ex-President of China, Said to Be Ill, Appears in Beijing
New York Times
Jiang Zemin, the former Chinese president who was said to have fallen gravely ill in July, appeared at a ceremony in Beijing on Sunday, fanning speculation about his health and the role he might play in power struggles accompanying the long-planned...
ChinaFile Recommends
11.08.12In China, Self-Immolations Continue as Party Congress Opens
Los Angeles Times
As China launched its 18th Communist Party congress on Thursday, a record number of Tibetans immolated themselves in a stark illustration of the internal tensions facing the country's new leadership.Over a 48...
ChinaFile Recommends
11.08.12Party Report Suggests Old Guard is Strong
China Media Project
My preliminary conclusion: conservative forces within the Party are still very powerful. According to the line marked out by the political report to the 18th National Congress, there is very little prospect that substantive moves will be made on...
ChinaFile Recommends
11.08.12China Decides (Series)
Foreign Policy
The world's other superpower is having its own “election” this week. And if all goes according to plan, on Nov. 14 nine (or seven) men (and possibly one woman) will stride across the stage in Beijing’s massive Great Hall of the People as the...
ChinaFile Recommends
11.08.12On Way Out, China’s Leader Offers Praise for the Status Quo
New York Times
Capping 10 careful years at the helm of the Communist Party, China’s top leader is stepping into history with a series of rear-guard actions. The leader, Hu Jintao, 69, is scheduled to step down as the party’s general...
Reports
11.08.12
China 3.0
European Council on Foreign Relations
China’s once-a-decade leadership change is currently underway in Beijing. The new leaders will take power at a crucial time for China, as it enters the third stage of its development since the revolution. How they deal with the challenges ahead will...
Viewpoint
11.08.12
Who is Xi Jinping?
In an era of great change and economic uncertainty around the world, one might expect a leadership transition at the top of one of the world’s rising powers to shine a light on that country’s prospective next leaders so the public might form an...
ChinaFile Recommends
11.08.12China's Communist Party Congress Opens with a Warning
Christian Science Monitor
Outgoing President Hu Jintao warned that the Communist Party faces 'collapse' if it fails to clean up corruption.
ChinaFile Recommends
11.08.12China Prepares for Party Congress
New York Times
Hu Jintao told party-picked that China faces a period of major change and “complicated domestic and international circumstances."
ChinaFile Recommends
11.07.12China’s Leadership Transition: What to Look For
Atlantic
Now that the U.S. election is behind us, time to turn to the next most important political transition in years: the Chinese Communist Party's 18th Congress. Seventeen congresses have gone by and hardly anyone has paid much attention, including...
ChinaFile Recommends
11.07.12Unwelcome at the Party
New York Times
I don’t belong to a political party and have never felt that Communist Party meetings are any of my business. But my home is in Beijing. I am a writer, and Han Chinese. My wife, Woeser, is also a writer, and Tibetan. The other...
Viewpoint
11.07.12
Peering Inside the ‘Black Box’
Just hours after the United States voted for its next president, China, too, is preparing for a leadership change—although much less is known about that process, which begins Thursday with the start of the 18th National Congress of the Communist...
ChinaFile Recommends
11.06.12China’s Security Ministry Suspected Slain Businessman Was a Spy
New York Times
China’s external intelligence agency, the Ministry of State Security, suspected a British businessman of being a spy before his murder last year at the hands of a senior politician’s wife, according to people with close ties to Chinese state...