Reports
06.01.15Demand-Driven Data: How Partner Countries are Gathering Chinese Development Cooperation Information
United Nations
As China becomes one of the major development partners and South-South cooperation (SSC) providers globally, there is increasing demand from partner countries for more information on China’s financial flows. China has been taking initiatives to...
The China Africa Project
05.27.15Chinese Racist Views Towards Blacks and Africans
When riots broke out in the U.S. city of Baltimore in May 2015, the reaction across the Chinese social web was sadly predictable as Internet users posted countless anti-black racist comments. However, what was interesting about their posts is how...
The NYRB China Archive
05.27.15China’s Invisible History: An Interview with Filmmaker and Artist Hu Jie
from New York Review of Books
Though none of his works have been publicly shown in China, Hu Jie is one of his country’s most noteworthy filmmakers. He is best known for his trilogy of documentaries about Maoist China, which includes Searching for Lin Zhao’s Soul (2004), telling...
Sinica Podcast
05.26.15Identity, Race, and Civilization
from Sinica Podcast
It doesn't take much exposure to China to realize the pervasiveness of identity politics here. Indeed, whether in the Chinese government’s occasionally hamfisted efforts to micromanage ethnic minority cultures or the Foreign Ministry’s soft-...
Reports
05.20.15Censorship and Conscience
Alexa Olesen
PEN International
In this report, PEN American Center (PEN) examines how foreign authors in particular are navigating the heavily censored Chinese book industry. China is one of the largest book publishing markets in the world, with total revenue projected to exceed...
The NYRB China Archive
05.15.15Mao’s China: The Language Game
from New York Review of Books
It can be embarrassing for a China scholar like me to read Eileen Chang’s pellucid prose, written more than sixty years ago, on the early years of the People’s Republic of China. How many cudgels to the head did I need before arriving at comparable...
Conversation
05.14.15The Future of NGOs in China
Last week, China’s National People’s Congress released the second draft of a new law on “Managing Foreign NGOs.” Many foreign non-profits in China have operated in a legal gray area over the years. The law [full English translation here] establishes...
Sinica Podcast
05.11.15India Comes to China
from Sinica Podcast
This week’s Sincia Podcast is about the upcoming visit to China of Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who served from 2001 to 2014 as Chief Minister of Gujarat and was sworn into office almost one year ago this month. Modi’s visit comes at an...
Environment
05.08.15It’s Time to Fix China’s Food Safety Conundrum
from chinadialogue
Food safety scandals have become so common in China that people are losing confidence in what they eat. The government has consistently emphasised the need for better regulation of the food industry, and it’s established an inter-ministerial...
The China Africa Project
05.07.15China Malls Rise Amid Growing Xenophobia in South Africa
Chinese immigrants in South Africa have not been spared from the violent, anti-immigrant riots that have swept across Durban and Johannesburg, two of the country’s largest cities. There have been reports of injuries along with at least 40 business...
ChinaFile Recommends
05.06.15Pool of Migrant Workers Expands Slower than in Past
Workers are also making more, National Bureau of Statistics says, and they are finding work closer to their rural homes.
Features
05.06.15Invasion of the Body Snatchers
On the morning of March 16, 48-year-old Huang Shunfang went to her local hospital located in Fanghu Township in the central Chinese province of Henan. Her doctor diagnosed her with gastritis, gave her a dose of antacids through an IV, and sent her...
Media
05.06.15Online Reaction to Baltimore Protests Reveals Much About Chinese Tension with African Immigrants
Several days ago, a Chinese friend and I were discussing the protests in Baltimore that erupted in response to the death of resident Freddie Gray in connection with his April 12 arrest by city police officers, who have since been charged with crimes...
Books
05.05.15Meet Me in Venice
When Ye Pei dreamed of Venice as a girl, she imagined a magical floating city of canals and gondola rides. And she imagined her mother, successful in her new life and eager to embrace the daughter she had never forgotten. But when Ye Pei arrives in Italy, she learns her mother works on a farm far from the city. Her only connection, a mean-spirited Chinese auntie, puts Ye Pei to work in a small-town café. Rather than giving up and returning to China, a determined Ye Pei takes on a grueling schedule, resolving to save enough money to provide her family with a better future.{node, 15611}A groundbreaking work of journalism, Meet Me in Venice provides a personal, intimate account of Chinese individuals in the very act of migration. Suzanne Ma spent years in China and Europe to understand why Chinese people choose to immigrate to nations where they endure hardship, suspicion, manual labor, and separation from their loved ones. Today, all eyes are on China and its explosive economic growth. With the rise of the Chinese middle class, Chinese communities around the world are growing in size and prosperity, a development many westerners find unsettling and even threatening. Following Ye Pei’s undaunted path, this inspiring book is an engrossing read for those eager to understand contemporary China and the enormous impact of Chinese emigrants around the world. —Rowman & Littlefield{chop}
Books
04.30.15Fantasy Islands
The rise of China and its status as a leading global factory are altering the way people live and consume. At the same time, the world appears wary of the real costs involved. Fantasy Islands probes Chinese, European, and American eco-desire and eco-technological dreams, and examines the solutions they offer to environmental degradation in this age of global economic change.Uncovering the stories of sites in China, including the plan for a new eco-city called Dongtan on the island of Chongming, mega-suburbs, and the Shanghai World Expo, Julie Sze explores the flows, fears, and fantasies of Pacific Rim politics that shaped them. She charts how climate change discussions align with U.S. fears of China’s ascendancy and the related demise of the American Century, and she considers the motives of financial and political capital for eco-city and ecological development supported by elite power structures in the U.K. and China. Fantasy Islands shows how ineffectual these efforts are while challenging us to see what a true eco-city would be. —University of California Press{chop}
Media
04.30.15Will China Ban Katy Perry?
On April 28, American pop singer Katy Perry gave her first-ever concert in Taipei, the capital of Taiwan, the self-governing island which mainland China considers to be its sovereign territory. Tense relations between Taiwan and mainland China mean...
Media
04.28.15Give Me Your Tired, Your Poor, Your Chinese Fugitives
Meet China’s 100 international most-wanted: a history professor, a driving instructor, and a government propaganda office cashier. Chinese graft-busters want you to know that one of them might be your neighbor.On April 22, China’s dreaded Central...
ChinaFile Recommends
04.28.15Chinese Feminist Wants to be the Country’s First Openly Lesbian Lawyer
Washington Post
Li Tingting is determined that police harrassment will not stop her.
Sinica Podcast
04.27.15Nationalism and Censorship
from Sinica Podcast
Christopher Cairns joins the hosts of Sinica for a discussion of his forthcoming paper, co-authored with Allen Carlson, scheduled for publication in China Quarterly. Why are we so interested in this topic? Because Cairns and his colleagues at...
ChinaFile Recommends
04.24.15A Bittersweet Reprieve for Chinese Woman Who Killed Abusive Husband
Wall Street Journal
The verdict left lawyers and activists doubtful of the Chinese legal system’s ability to protect women.
Viewpoint
04.23.15China’s Leftists Are Embracing Confucius. Why?
When Jennifer Pan and Yiqing Xu posted their new paper, “China’s Ideological Spectrum,” last week, it marked the first time that anyone has provided large-scale empirical data on the ideological shifts and trends within the Chinese population. China...
Sinica Podcast
04.20.15China’s Ideological Spectrum
from Sinica Podcast
Last week, Harvard doctoral student Jennifer Pan and MIT graduate student Yiqing Xu co-released a paper, “China’s Ideological Spectrum,” that has garnered a tremendous amount of attention in China-watching circles. And the reason for the fracas?...
ChinaFile Recommends
04.18.15China Cracks Down on Golf, the ‘Sport for Millionaires’
New York Times
Party officials in Guangdong, home to the 12-course Mission Hills Golf Club, are now forbidden to golf during work hours.
Environment
04.16.15Petrochemical Plant Explosion Vaporizes Government Safety Assurances
from chinadialogue
Opposing the construction of petrochemical plants making Paraxyline (PX), a key ingredient in plastic bottles and polyester clothing, has been one of the most common forms of environmental activism for China’s urban residents in the past decade.On...
Conversation
04.16.15How Much Consumerism Can China Afford?
This week, a blockbuster movie celebrating speedy cars and the racing life landed atop China’s box office. The Hollywood import Fast and Furious 7 grossed $63 million in one day (as reported by Bloomberg), the most-ever for a single title in that...
Media
04.15.15Online Support–and Mockery–Await Chinese Feminists After Release
On April 13, Chinese authorities released on bail five feminist activists detained for over a month without formal charges. Despite tight censorship surrounding their detention, support on Chinese social media and thinly veiled media criticism...
ChinaFile Recommends
04.15.15Wild Pigeon
Daylight
“The underlying theme I heard when talking to people was that how you interpret things is how they will be, so its best to look at the bright side of things. You don’t mention bad dreams, or you try to interpret them in a positive way. People told...
Media
04.14.15Henry Paulson: ‘Dealing with China’
from Asia Blog
Speaking at Asia Society New York on April 13 with New Yorker correspondent Evan Osnos, former U.S. Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson explained that it’s impossible to predict the timing or magnitude of a financial crisis, but any country with...
Media
04.13.15The Chinese Internet Hates Hillary Clinton Even More than Republicans Do
On the afternoon of April 12, Hillary Clinton announced her long-expected decision to run for president in 2016. Within hours, Chinese news sites shared the announcement on Weibo, China’s most popular micro-blogging platform, provoking thousands of...
Sinica Podcast
04.13.15Styling It in China
from Sinica Podcast
Sociologist Ben Ross, a doctoral student at the University of Chicago, focuses on Chinese labor migration and related issues. He first got noticed by Sinica in 2007 while writing a blog about working as the only foreign "hair-washing trainee...
The NYRB China Archive
04.13.15China: What the Uighurs See
from New York Review of Books
Xinjiang is one of those remote places whose frequent mention in the international press stymies true understanding. Home to China’s Uighur minority, this vast region of western China is mostly known for being in a state of permanent low-grade...
The China Africa Project
04.03.15This Little Bridge Connects Guangzhou and Africa
The southern Chinese city of Guangzhou is home to China’s largest African migrant population, predominantly from Nigeria. In the city’s Little North Road neighborhood there is a small pedestrian bridge where immigrants from all over the world go to...
Features
04.02.15Frank Talk About Hong Kong’s Future from Margaret Ng
Following is the transcript of a recent ChinaFile Breakfast with Margaret Ng, the former Hong Kong legislator in discussion with Ira Belkin of New York University Law School and Orville Schell, ChinaFile Publisher and Arthur Ross Director of the...
ChinaFile Recommends
04.02.15‘Masturbation Will Lead to Homosexuality’: China’s LGBT Sex-Ed Problem in Chinese
Nation
In a country where sex and sexuality remain taboo topics of discussion, such misinformation remains common.
ChinaFile Recommends
03.31.15Why Chinese Students Find it Hard to Make Friends on US Campuses
Hong Kong Economic Journal
Chinese students complain that American students are misinformed, prejudiced and offensive on Chinese current events.
The China Africa Project
03.30.15A Chinese Perspective on the #RacistRestaurant Scandal in Kenya
The Chinese restaurant in Nairobi that barred Africans after 5pm sparked a frenzied week of news coverage on both local and international media and, of course, on Twitter. The actions of this small, inconsequential restaurant seemingly took on much...
Sinica Podcast
03.30.15Comfort Women and the Struggle for Reparations
from Sinica Podcast
Kaiser talks with Lucy Hornby, China correspondent for the Financial Times and author of a recent piece on China’s last surviving Chinese comfort women and their longstanding and often futile attempt to seek reparations in both China and Japan.Also...
The China Africa Project
03.26.15Who Knew? Madagascar Has Africa’s Third Largest Chinese Population
The Chinese population on the east African island of Madagascar defies many of the poorly-informed, albeit widely-held, stereotypes about Chinese migrants on the rest of the continent. First, the community in Madagascar isn't small or isolated...
ChinaFile Recommends
03.26.15Skiing Is the Latest Obsession for China’s Wealthy
Wall Street Journal
Winter sports are catching on as Beijing bids to host the 2022 Winter Olympics.
Media
03.26.15Brother, Can You Spare a Renminbi?
Who deserves to be poor in modern China? One man in China’s southern Zhejiang province certainly seemed sympathetic: Each day, he pushed himself along the street on a homemade wooden skateboard, his apparently paralyzed legs tucked under his body,...
Caixin Media
03.24.15Kissinger: China, U.S. Must ‘Lead in Cooperation’
Henry Kissinger, the former U.S. Secretary of State and the architect of former president Richard Nixon's historic visit to China in 1972, has continued to influence the shaping of the two countries' relations and America's foreign...
Sinica Podcast
03.23.15In Manchuria: A Village Called Wasteland
from Sinica Podcast
Kaiser Kuo and David Moser are joined by Michael Meyer, the author of The Last Days of Old Beijing and now In Manchuria, a part literary travelogue and part journalistic account of three years spent living with family in rural Jilin.{...
Books
03.18.15Confucius
Confucius is perhaps the most important philosopher in history. Today, his teachings shape the daily lives of more than 1.6 billion people. Throughout East Asia, Confucius’s influence can be seen in everything from business practices and family relationships to educational standards and government policies. Even as western ideas from Christianity to Communism have bombarded the region, Confucius’s doctrine has endured as the foundation of East Asian culture. It is impossible to understand East Asia, journalist Michael Schuman demonstrates, without first engaging with Confucius and his vast legacy.Confucius created a worldview that is in many respects distinct from, and in conflict with, Western culture. As Schuman shows, the way that East Asian companies are managed, how family members interact with each other, and how governments see their role in society all differ from the norm in the West due to Confucius’s lasting impact. Confucius has been credited with giving East Asia an advantage in today’s world, by instilling its people with a devotion to learning, and propelling the region’s economic progress. Still, the sage has also been highly controversial. For the past 100 years, East Asians have questioned if the region can become truly modern while Confucius remains so entrenched in society. He has been criticized for causing the inequality of women, promoting authoritarian regimes, and suppressing human rights.Despite these debates, East Asians today are turning to Confucius to help them solve the ills of modern life more than they have in a century. As a wealthy and increasingly powerful Asia rises on the world stage, Confucius, too, will command a more prominent place in global culture.Touching on philosophy, history, and current affairs, Confucius tells the vivid, dramatic story of the enigmatic philosopher whose ideas remain at the heart of East Asian civilization. —Basic Books {chop}
Caixin Media
03.17.15Chinese Businesses Eye Purchasing Power of LGBT Community
Chinese businesses are starting to show interest in the purchasing power of the lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) consumer market, often referred to as the “pink dollar,” a trend led by e-commerce giant Alibaba Group...
Excerpts
03.16.15The Education of Detained Chinese Feminist Li Tingting
It is probably fair to say no woman has ever taken more flak for walking into a men’s room than Li Tingting. In the run-up to Women’s Day in 2012, the feminist college student was distressed by the one-to-one ratio of public restroom facilities for...
Books
03.16.15The China Collectors
Thanks to Salem sea captains, Gilded Age millionaires, curators on horseback, and missionaries gone native, North American museums now possess the greatest collections of Chinese art outside of East Asia itself. How did it happen? The China Collectors is the first full account of a century-long treasure hunt in China from the Opium Wars and the Boxer Rebellion to Mao Zedong's 1949 ascent.The principal gatherers are mostly little known and defy invention. They included "foreign devils" who braved desert sandstorms, bandits, and local warlords in acquiring significant works. Adventurous curators like Langdon Warner, a forebear of Indiana Jones, argued that the caves of Dunhuang were already threatened by vandals, thereby justifying the removal of frescoes and sculptures. Other Americans include George Kates, an alumnus of Harvard, Oxford, and Hollywood, who fell in love with Ming furniture. The Chinese were divided between dealers who profited from the artworks' removal, and scholars who sought to protect their country's patrimony. Duanfang, the greatest Chinese collector of his era, was beheaded in a coup and his splendid bronzes now adorn major museums. Others in this rich tapestry include Charles Lang Freer, an enlightened Detroit entrepreneur, two generations of Rockefellers, and Avery Brundage, the imperious Olympian, and Arthur Sackler, the grand acquisitor. No less important are two museum directors, Cleveland's Sherman Lee and Kansas City's Laurence Sickman, who challenged the East Coast's hegemony.Shareen Blair Brysac and Karl E. Meyer even-handedly consider whether ancient treasures were looted or salvaged, and whether it was morally acceptable to spirit hitherto inaccessible objects westward, where they could be studied and preserved by trained museum personnel. And how should the U.S. and Canada and their museums respond now that China has the means and will to reclaim its missing patrimony?—Palgrave Macmillan {chop}
ChinaFile Recommends
03.13.15China’s Growing Middle Class Chafes Against Red Tape
New York Times
As China’s middle class—wired, ambitious and worldly—grows, its members increasingly are intolerant.
Environment
03.11.15China’s Polluted Soil and Water Will Drive up World Food Prices
from chinadialogue
China’s push for more intense farming has kept its city dwellers well-fed and helped lift millions of rural workers out of poverty. But it has come at a cost. Ecosystems in what should be one of the country’s most fertile regions have already been...
ChinaFile Recommends
03.11.15China Celebrates International Women’s Day By Arresting Women’s Rights Activists
Huffington Post
Many women’s rights groups activists who also work on LGBT issues have gone into hiding.
Media
03.10.15China’s Good Girls Want Tattoos
“It seems that Chinese men don’t want to marry a girl with tattoos,” complained one such girl on the Chinese online discussion platform Douban. She posted a picture of her body art, an abstract design on her lower back. “In East Asian cultural...
ChinaFile Recommends
03.08.15The Cowboys (and Indians) of Sichuan: Photographers Search for China's Billy the Kid
South China Morning Post
The people of remote Tagong in the southwestern grasslands resemble the cowboys and Indians of North American history.
Environment
03.04.15Clearing Skies
from Sierra Club
After dark is when the pollution arrives on the outskirts of Shanghai. On a bright night, when moonlight refracts through the smog, you can see black clouds of soot pouring out of small workshop smokestacks silhouetted against the sky. In case you...
Media
03.03.15The Word That Broke the Chinese Internet
It might be gibberish, but it’s also a sign of the times. The word duang, pronounced “dwong,” is spreading like wildfire throughout China’s active Internet—even though 1.3 billion Chinese people still haven’t figured out what it means. In fact, its...
ChinaFile Recommends
02.27.15Chinese Babies Should be Trained to Play Football—President Xi
BBC
Beijing has approved the country's "football reform plan," and says being good at soccer is the "ardent wish of the whole nation."
ChinaFile Recommends
02.26.15Civic Groups’ Freedom, and Followers, Are Vanishing
New York Times
Accepted activities are narrowing, sparking fear that openness in the political landscape may disappear.
ChinaFile Recommends
02.25.15China’s Feminists Stand up Against ‘Misogynistic’ TV Gala
Washington Post
The most widely watched television show on earth was peppered with jokes at the expense of women.
ChinaFile Recommends
02.25.1539 Hours Inside The Biggest Human Migration On Earth
Huffington Post
China's Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Year's rolled into one, the holiday unfolds on an entirely different scale.