Sinica Podcast
03.07.14Wealth and Power: Intellectuals in China
from Sinica Podcast
This week, Kaiser and Jeremy are joined by David Moser and Orville Schell. While long-time listeners will of course know of David Moser as one of our favorite resident sinologists, if you haven’t also heard of Orville Schell we think you should have...
The NYRB China Archive
03.06.14The Brave Catholics of China
from New York Review of Books
Like most pilgrimage sites in China, the shrine in the village of Cave Gulley in Shanxi province is located partway up a mountain, reachable by steep stairs that are meant to shift worshipers’ attention from the world below to heaven above...
ChinaFile Recommends
03.05.14Nurturing History’s Miseries
Wall Street Journal
The lurch to the political right by the Japanese government of Prime Minister Shinzo Abe so fraught with danger because it plays into poisonous memories of Japan in China.
ChinaFile Recommends
03.05.14LinkedIn Opens Its First Site in China
TechCrunch
LinkedIn has established a joint venture with Sequoia China and C.B.C. for its entry into the Chinese market where it faces challenges different from those in any other country.
ChinaFile Recommends
03.05.14China Charges Prominent Uighur Professor with Separatism
Reuters
The government’s case against Ilham Tohti is the latest sign of its hardening stance on dissent in Xinjiang, where unrest in the past year has killed more than 100, including several police, according to state media.
ChinaFile Recommends
03.05.14China’s Awkward ‘Banana’ Slip
CNN
As Gary Locke wrapped up his tenure as United States ambassador to China, he was lambasted in a Chinese state media editorial which accused him of being a race traitor, ashamed or in denial of his true heritage.
Books
03.05.14Sporting Gender
When China hosted the 2008 Summer Olympics—and amazed international observers with both its pageantry and gold-medal count—it made a very public statement about the country’s surge to global power. Yet, China has a much longer history of using sport to communicate a political message. Sporting Gender is the first book to explore the rise to fame of female athletes in China during its national crisis of 1931-45 brought on by the Japanese invasion. By re-mapping lives and careers of individual female athletes, administrators, and film actors within a wartime context, Gao shows how these women coped with the conflicting demands of nationalist causes, unwanted male attention, and modern fame. While addressing the themes of state control, media influence, fashion, and changes in gender roles, she argues that the athletic female form helped to create a new ideal of modern womanhood in China at time when women’s emancipation and national needs went hand in hand. This book brings vividly to life the histories of these athletes and demonstrates how intertwined they were with the aims of the state and the needs of society. —University of British Columbia Press{chop}
Caixin Media
03.03.14Kunming Attack Is ‘China’s 9/11,’ State Media Says
In the days after a major terror attack in Kunming, state media outlets are calling for a united front to combat terror and warning against excusing the attackers or criticizing the government’s policies on minorities.On the evening of March 1, a...
Media
03.03.14‘Enemies of Humanity’ — China Debates Who’s to Blame For the Kunming Attack
It’s already being called “3.01,” or “three oh one,” a date that will likely burn in China’s collective memory for years to come. According to Xinhua, China’s state news agency, on the evening of March 1, around 9:00 p.m. Beijing time, ten or more...
Conversation
03.02.14A Racist Farewell to Outgoing U.S. Ambassador Gary Locke
Reacting to departing U.S. Ambassador Gary Locke’s February 27 farewell news conference in Beijing, the state-run China News Service published a critique by Wang Ping that called Ambassador Locke a “banana.”Kaiser Kuo:Banana or Twinkie for “white-on...
Viewpoint
02.27.14Why Frank Underwood is Great for China’s Soft Power
In depicting U.S. politics as just as vicious, if not more, sociopathic than its Chinese counterpart, House of Cards delivered a sweet Valentine’s Day gift to the Chinese government. The show handed the Chinese state an instant victory when the...
Media
02.26.14China, LinkedIn Would Like to Add You to Its Network
LinkedIn is now aiming its bow for the rocky shoals that have claimed Facebook, Twitter, Google, and even eBay: the Chinese market. On February 24, LinkedIn CEO Jeff Weiner announced the launch of LinkedIn’s Chinese-language site, still in beta,...
ChinaFile Recommends
02.25.14How Wrong is Your Time Zone?
Slate
All of China’s clocks are set to Beijing time. In defiance of the government, many members of the region’s Uighur minority observe their own time.
Sinica Podcast
02.24.14The Disabled in China
from Sinica Podcast
This week on Sinica, Kaiser and Jeremy are joined by James Palmer and John Giszczack for a discussion of the disabled in China. Join us as we discuss how the Chinese language defines the concept of disability, what public attitudes are prevalent...
ChinaFile Recommends
02.20.14Local Government Threatens Severe Punishments for Families of Tibetan Self-Immolators
South China Morning Post
A county in Sichuan province has issued guidelines aimed at punishing family members of Tibetans who have set themselves on fire to protest Chinese rule in their homeland.
Sinica Podcast
02.14.14Dissecting the 2014 Spring Festival Gala
from Sinica Podcast
A casual survey suggests that ninety-eight percent of Sinica listeners have at some point joined Chinese friends or family in watching the annual television spectacular known as the “Spring Festival Gala.” Sadly, whether from excessive pork...
Features
02.14.14It’s Hard to Say ‘I Love You’ in Chinese
“We didn’t say ‘I love you,’” said Dr. Kaiping Peng, Associate Professor of Psychology Emeritus at the University of California at Berkeley. I’d ventured over to his China office on the campus of Beijing’s mighty Tsinghua University to talk to him...
Media
02.14.14A Kapital Idea
Matthew Neiderhauser is a photographer and artist whose work is influenced by his studies in anthropology. He lived in Beijing for six years and recently returned to the United States. His pictorial book Sound Kapital, published in 2009, documented...
Media
02.13.14Did President Xi’s Dumpling Outing Create a Pilgrimage Site?
Beijing, China—It’s well after lunch and Liu Fengju still hasn’t gotten her food. The sixty-seven-year-old wife of a retired railway worker came to Beijing to spend Spring Festival, the annual seven-day Chinese New Year celebration, with her niece...
ChinaFile Recommends
02.13.14Two New Reports Slam Hong Kong Media Self-Censorship
Hong Wrong
Hong Kong fell to 61st in the Reporters Without Borders Press Freedom Index, behind Burkina Faso, Moldova and Haiti.
Culture
02.10.14Will Xi Jinping Stop the Music?
In late November of 2013, I sat chatting in a California concert hall with one of the PRC’s most famous first-generation pianists. Normally at this time of year, the pianist told me, he would be heading off to China to perform multiple New Year’s...
Media
02.07.14Why Chinese Media Is Going Soft on Sochi
Ready or not, Putingrad (aka Sochi) is now on prime time. The opening ceremony of the Winter Olympics will take place in the subtropical Russian resort town on February 7. In the Twittersphere, Western journalists and visitors have assailed Sochi’s...
ChinaFile Recommends
02.06.14China’s Way to Happiness
New York Review of Books
The return of collective religious traditions is part of Chinese people's search for meaning and stability.
ChinaFile Recommends
02.06.14The Censorship Pendulum
New York Times
People like to hear voices critical of the government, so social media companies can’t silence them entirely.
Books
02.05.14By All Means Necessary
In the past thirty years, China has transformed from an impoverished country where peasants comprised the largest portion of the populace to an economic power with an expanding middle class and more megacities than anywhere else on earth. This remarkable transformation has required, and will continue to demand, massive quantities of resources. Like every other major power in modern history, China is looking outward to find them.In By All Means Necessary, Elizabeth C. Economy and Michael Levi explore the unrivaled expansion of the Chinese economy and the global effects of its meteoric growth. China is now engaged in a far-flung quest, hunting around the world for fuel, ores, water, and land for farming, and deploying whatever it needs in the economic, political, and military spheres to secure the resources it requires. Chinese traders and investors buy commodities, with consequences for economies, people, and the environment around the world. Meanwhile the Chinese military aspires to secure sea lanes, and Chinese diplomats struggle to protect the country’s interests abroad. And just as surely as China’s pursuit of natural resources is changing the world—restructuring markets, pushing up commodity prices, transforming resource-rich economies through investment and trade—it is also changing China itself. As Chinese corporations increasingly venture abroad, they must navigate various political regimes, participate in international markets, and adopt foreign standards and practices, which can lead to wide-reaching social and political ramifications at home.Clear, authoritative, and provocative, By All Means Necessary is a sweeping account of where China’s pursuit of raw materials may take the country in the coming years and what the consequences will be—not just for China, but for the whole world. —Oxford University Press{chop}
Viewpoint
02.04.14In Slickness and in Wealth
Under the harsh glare of a studio spotlight, bride-to-be Tong turns her face until it is almost completely in shadow. Tong is posing for a three-day session of wedding photographs at Shanghai’s premier Princess Studio, where couples spend between 3,...
The NYRB China Archive
02.04.14China’s Way to Happiness
from New York Review of Books
Richard Madsen is one of the modern-day founders of the study of Chinese religion. A professor at the University of California San Diego, the seventy-three-year-old’s works include Morality and Power in a Chinese Village, China and the American...
ChinaFile Recommends
02.03.14In Pictures: Chinese New Year Around the World
BBC
A Chinese folk artist performs at the opening ceremony of the Spring Festival Temple Fair in Beijing, one of millions of people around the world celebrating ahead of Chinese, or Lunar, New Year.
Reports
02.01.14The State of Journalism in China
The Nieman Foundation for Journalism at Harvard
The Communist Party has long striven to control freedom of speech in China. Websites from around the world are blocked. Major social media cannot be accessed, and advanced software is used to delete “sensitive” entries from the Internet. Domestic...
Media
01.31.14Closing Time? China’s Social Media Crackdown Has Hit Weibo Hard
Findings by East China Normal University (ECNU), a research university in Shanghai, commissioned by respected U.K. outlet The Telegraph and released January 30, lodges concrete data behind what frequent users and analysts of Chinese social media...
ChinaFile Recommends
01.30.14United Against China?
New York Times
Japan invests in India, and the two countries prepare for potential hostility from China.
ChinaFile Recommends
01.29.14“Most Well-Known and Beloved Chinese Role Model”
New York Magazine
Chinese tycoon wants to buy the Times; is he ploy by the CCP, or just crazy?
ChinaFile Recommends
01.29.14Beijing Forces U.S. Reporter to Leave China
USA Today
“The government is punishing the Times for the content of its coverage...it seems as simple as that.”
ChinaFile Recommends
01.29.14Virgin Galactic Bans Chinese Tourists from Space Flights Fearing Espionage
Asian News International
Tycoons willing to pay 250,000 dollars for the tickets have been advised to get another nationality's passport to board the flights.
ChinaFile Recommends
01.28.14Why is the Chinese Communist Party so Afraid of Legal Activist Xu Zhiyong?
Foreign Policy
Some fear that Xu and his fellow activists in the New Citizens Movement had formed an “anti-CCP clique”.
ChinaFile Recommends
01.28.14Who is Xu Zhiyong?
Telegraph
Four people whose lives were change by Xu Zhiyong describe how he helped them.
Media
01.28.14Why China’s Li Na Won’t Thank Her Homeland
After winning the Australian Open on January 25, Li Na set off a media blitz in her native China, where the thirty-one-year-old tennis star made the front page of most major papers. Much discussion surrounded Li’s post-victory speech, where she once...
ChinaFile Recommends
01.28.14Jailed Dissident’s Wife: ‘I Don’t Want You to Give Up’
Wall Street Journal
A public letter from the wife of Xu Zhiyong shows the emotional burden imposed on the family members of jailed dissidents.
ChinaFile Recommends
01.27.14Map Visualizes Chinese New Year Migration
Wall Street Journal
An estimated 3.65 billion trips will be made during the world's largest seasonal migration.
Caixin Media
01.27.14Time for Overhaul of China’s Land Market
The expected launch of land reform is dividing opinions. At a work meeting this month, the Minister of Land and Resources, Jiang Daming, said the central government would limit land supply in cities with more than five million residents. His words...
ChinaFile Recommends
01.27.14China: Reverse Judgment in Show Trial of Xu Zhiyong
Human Rights Watch
The harsh conviction and four-year sentence of Xu Zhiyong is a pretext to chill popular protests against corruption.
ChinaFile Recommends
01.27.14China's Deluxed Hotels: Modern Sumptuary Laws
Economist
The new humility of both officials and hotels is a response to Xi's campaign against lavish spending.
ChinaFile Recommends
01.27.14China Accuses Uighur Intellectual of Separatism for His Advocacy Work
New York Times
The news comes at a time of intensifying bloodshed in Xinjiang despite a growing security presence by Chinese personnel.
ChinaFile Recommends
01.27.14A Dream Deferred
Foreign Policy
The challenge the ICIJ expose poses to Xi's reputation as an anti-corruption crusader, is a vindication of Xu's advocacy.
ChinaFile Recommends
01.23.14Beijing Population Tops 21 Million
Xinhua
This includes an estimated increase of 100,000 senior citizens every year until 2020.
ChinaFile Recommends
01.23.14Survey: Fewer Americans Support the Japan-U.S. Security Treaty
Asahi Shimbun
Some observors say the decline may be due to a reluctance to involve the U.S. in Sino-Japanese disputes.
Media
01.23.14Carpe Coin: Crowdfunding Could Change Chinese Politics
Crowdfunding, which allows web users to contribute small sums of money to fund collective projects like concerts and films, is taking off in China—and just how far it will go is more than a business question. By allowing netizens to vote with their...
ChinaFile Recommends
01.23.14Amid China’s Anti-Extravagance Sweep
Wall Street Journal
Chinese hotels are downgrading to attract business from officials who are limited by “morality” campaigns.
Media
01.23.14Out of the Dark Room
Photographers document China’s breakneck development in fractions of a second every single day. Yet the work of Chinese photojournalists remains largely unseen outside their homeland. Of the thousands of images of the country illustrating the pages...
ChinaFile Recommends
01.23.14Why It Matters That Ellen is the First U.S. Talk Show in China
Time
The show may be a spark for change in attitudes toward LGBT Chinese.
ChinaFile Recommends
01.22.14How the Chinese Internet Ended Up at a House in Cheyenne, Wyoming
Washington Post
In trying to block Chinese traffic going to Sophidea, the Great Firewall's operators accidentally diverted more traffic there.
ChinaFile Recommends
01.22.14China Suffers Massive Internet Outage, Analysts Suspect Hackers
CNN
The state-run China Internet Network Information Center blamed the blockage on a “malfunction in root servers.”
ChinaFile Recommends
01.22.14China’s Temporary-Worker Ploy
New York Times
Scandals are often blamed on lin shi gong, or “temporary workers," but why have they been hired in the first place?
ChinaFile Recommends
01.21.14A Globe-Trotting Serial Entrepreneur Finds Roots in China’s Start-Up Scene
New York Times
From information technology and gaming, to local comedy, Richard Robinson knows what is going on in China.
ChinaFile Recommends
01.21.14A Globe-Trotting Serial Entrepreneur Finds Roots in China’s Start-Up Scene
New York Times
From information technology and gaming, to local comedy, Richard Robinson knows what is going on in China.
ChinaFile Recommends
01.21.14Chinese Novelist Guo to Jonathan Franzen: American Lit. ‘Massively Overrated’
Wall Street Journal
“The worst way to be universal is to try to be universal,” Franzen said in response.
ChinaFile Recommends
01.21.14Back in China, Watching My Words
New York Times
Back in China after many years in the U.S., Yuxin Gao feels alienated and silenced, and many ask why she returned.
ChinaFile Recommends
01.21.14The Trial of the Chinese Dream
New Yorker
Xu Zhiyong tried to change China from the inside, but now he will be tried by the inside.
ChinaFile Recommends
01.16.14Chinese Activists Test New Leader and Are Crushed
New York Times
Prominent activist, Xi Zhiyong, is indicted in a harsh warning to the New Citizens Movement.