ChinaFile Recommends
12.14.14China’s Water Diversion Project Starts to Flow to Beijing
Guardian
The project has roots in an offhand comment by Mao Zedong who, on an inspection tour in the early 1950s, said: “The south has plenty of water, but the north is dry. If we could borrow some, that would be good.”
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12.12.14China: Inside an Internet Gaming Disorder Rehab Center
Al Jazeera
There are about 113,000 Internet cafes and bars in China, according to official figures. Lower-end establishments are typically a sole means of accessing the Web for China’s migrant labor population and the poor—or at 24-hour locations, a place to...
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12.12.14Patent Fiction
Economist
“What has long been predicted has now become a reality: China is leading the world in innovation.” So declares a press release promoting a new report by Thomson Reuters, a research firm, called “China’s IQ (Innovation Quotient).”
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12.12.14The Sony Hack: China’s Half-Hearted Defense of North Korea
Businessweek
It’s not easy being one of North Korea’s only allies. Chinese President Xi Jinping doesn’t seem particularly fond of Kim Jong Un, the third-generation Kim scion who rules China’s erstwhile client state.
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12.09.14China Flexes Its High-speed Rail Muscles by Rolling out 32 New Routes in One Day
Quartz
China has lofty expectations of becoming a global leader in high-speed rail technology, with projects in over a dozen countries, as well as plans to more than double its own domestic network of high-speed rail, which is already the world’s largest.
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12.09.14Warm West Coast Reception for China’s Web Czar (Chillier in Washington)
New York Times
Mr. Zuckerberg, the chief executive of Facebook, pointed to the book, “Xi Jinping: The Governance of China” last week while giving a tour of the company’s office to Lu Wei, the de facto head of Internet policy in China.
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12.08.14Chinese Online Giants Eating Into U.S. Dominance of Digital Media
Hollywood Reporter
China now accounts for two of the six companies with the highest online media revenues and four of the 10 fastest-growing, according to a report from the global research and advisory company Strategy Analytics.
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12.05.14Thousands of Local Internet Propaganda Emails Leaked
China Digital Times
The archive includes correspondence, photos, directories of “Internet commentators” (网评员), summaries of commentary work, and records of the online activities of specific individuals, among other documents. Over 2,700 emails are included in the...
Conversation
12.03.14
Can China Conquer the Internet?
Lu Wei, China’s new Internet Czar, recently tried to get the world to agree to a model of information control designed by the Chinese Communist Party. Regular contributors comment below and we encourage readers to share their views on our Facebook...
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12.03.14Mutual Governance of Cyberspace Called For
China Daily
In Washington, Internet Czar Lu Wei Lu pointed out that the two countries should also respect each other instead of engaging in confrontation and accusation.
Reports
12.03.14
Warring State: China’s Cybersecurity Strategy
Center for a New American Security
Research Associate Amy Chang explores the political, economic, and military objectives of China’s cybersecurity apparatus; reveals drivers and intentions of Chinese activity in cyberspace; and analyzes the development of Beijing’s cybersecurity...
Caixin Media
12.02.14
Clearing the Air With a Sino-U.S. Climate Pact
A long-anticipated, Sino-U.S. agreement aimed at curbing greenhouse gas emissions was announced on November 12 at the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation meeting in Beijing.The deal marked a surprise turn toward compromise for the world's largest...
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12.01.14Gregarious and Direct: China’s Web Doorkeeper
New York Times
When a major Chinese-American Internet conference convenes in Washington on Tuesday, a middle-aged Communist Party propaganda chief will be seated amid a room full of tech industry executives, American officials and web luminaries.
Sinica Podcast
11.25.14
Internet Wrangling in Wuzhen
from Sinica Podcast
Kaiser Kuo hosts alone this week as we turn our attention to the World Internet Conference (English site) last week, when a last minute attempt by Chinese organizers to foist the so-called Wuzhen Declaration on participants provoked an international...
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11.21.14Google Looks to Get Back Into China
Wall Street Journal
Google Inc. is considering bringing a version of its Play mobile-app store to China, a tentative but important step back into a country that Google mostly exited in 2010.
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11.21.14In China, Even Creating a Pollution Tracking App Is a Risky Business
Tech in Asia
It was mid-October 2011, and the air quality in Beijing was quite bad, as you may imagine. It came to my mind that if we could check the air quality on our phones and receive pollution notifications, that would be quite helpful and handy. After some...
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11.17.14Driverless Cars Compete in China
BBC
China has been holding its sixth driverless car competition, with the unmanned vehicles having to navigate their way through various obstacles.
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11.17.14First China-Made Plane Coming To U.S. Skies
Forbes
“This purchase marks the first time for any Chinese-made planes to enter an advanced market, and the U.S. has the highest standards, so this testifies to the achievement of Chinese aircraft manufacturing,” said Li Xianzhe of Avicopter to the South...
Caixin Media
11.17.14
Visa and MasterCard Confront China’s Stacked Deck
Visa and MasterCard executives eager to expand in China were thrilled recently when Premier Li Keqiang seemed to suggest that a door would open to them for bank card yuan business in the country.But they had read Li wrong: The premier's...
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11.11.14China to Debut Fighter Jet as U.S. Brass Attends Airshow
Bloomberg
Manufactured by the Shenyang subsidiary of Aviation Industry Corp of China, also known as AVIC, the J-31 is a test of the country’s ability to deliver cutting-edge defense technology.
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11.11.14Alibaba Smashes Its Sales Record On China’s Singles’ Day Shopping Bonanza
TechCrunch
In case you missed the media hype and have no idea why November 11 (11/11) is significant, it’s China biggest e-commerce sales day. Think of it as an amalgamation of all of North America’s biggest online retail days into one… on steroids.
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11.10.14Shanghai-Hong Kong Link to Start in a Week as China Opens
Bloomberg
The program allowing a net 23.5 billion yuan ($3.8 billion) of daily cross-border purchases will begin on November 17, regulators said in a joint statement today after weeks of investor speculation on the start date.
Caixin Media
11.10.14
Popular Mental Health Treatment Has No Benefits, Experts Say
A widely used and expensive mental illness treatment that many patients have turned to for help is in the spotlight due to suggestions it offers little help.A college student name Xiaolei and his father travelled more than 500 kilometers from the...
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11.07.14Ali Baba’s Cave and Pandora’s Box
China Media Project
When Lu Wei — the man who reportedly led the crackdown on the “Big V” Weibo account holders last year — was asked at a press conference why sites like Facebook (which is blocked in China) had been “shut down,” he responded with a homespun metaphor.
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11.07.14China Announces Import Support Measures as APEC Leaders Arrive
Financial Times
China tossed a bone to trading partners attending the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation meeting this week by announcing a series of measures including more bank credit for high-tech imports and quicker approvals for meat and seafood shipments.
Media
11.05.14
Tim Cook Coming Out Has Turned China Into a Nation of Fifth-Graders
"Let me be clear," wrote Apple CEO Tim Cook in a Bloomberg Businessweek article published on October 30. "I'm proud to be gay."Within an hour of the article's publication, Cook's first public announcement of his...
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11.04.14Why China Won Mexico’s High-Speed Rail Project
Diplomat
Underlying Mexico’s decision to choose China, and what may have made it the only country able to meet to proposal deadline, was its decision to finance 85 percent of the project through the Export-Import Bank of China.
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11.04.14Chinese Courts Are Selling Seized Assets on Alibaba’s Taobao
CNN
Ever wonder what it's like to live large like a corrupt Chinese businessman or official? This is your chance.
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11.04.14In Pictures: Designed in China
BBC
The Guo Shoujing Telescope, or Large Sky Area Multi-Object Fiber Spectroscopic Telescope, is named after the 13th Century Chinese astronomer and is aimed at bringing Chinese astronomy into the 21st Century.
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11.03.14China Celebrates Successful Moon Probe
Telegraph
The mission to the Moon was “another step forward for China's ambition that could eventually land a Chinese citizen there,” Xinhua, China’s official news agency, said. It was “the world's first mission to the Moon and back for some 40...
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11.03.14Is China’s Grand Ethnic Experiment Working?
BBC
In a gleaming classroom at Chong Hua High School in the northern Chinese city of Tianjin, students peer at onion slices under microscopes. Their biology teacher calls on Abdurrahman Mamat to explain what he sees."Plasmolysis," he replies...
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11.03.14Manual on How to Spot a Spy Circulates in an Increasingly Wary China
New York Times
“On the Internet, nobody knows you’re a dog.” Or an American spy. Or a “hostile foreign force.” So says the “China Folk Counterespionage Manual,” a “how to spot a spy” guide circulating on the Internet.
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11.03.14Wanted: 500,000 Pilots for China Aviation Gold Rush
Reuters
The aviation boom comes asChina allows private planes to fly below 1,000 meters from next year without military approval, seeking to boost its transport infrastructure.
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10.27.14Japan Builds Response to Chinese Area-Denial Strategy
Defense News
Japan’s response to Chinese anti-access/area-denial threats rest on three planks: increasingly large helicopter carriers, next-generation 3,300-ton Soryu-class submarines and new Aegis destroyers.
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10.27.14Using Cash and Pressure, China Builds Its Chip Industry
New York Times
Beijing is starting programs to increase investment by the state and to gain expertise from foreign chip companies. Experts say the chip industry is one focus of Chinese espionage efforts.
Sinica Podcast
10.24.14
Chomping at the Bitcoin
from Sinica Podcast
After a shocking expose of Jeremy Goldkorn’s criminal past, Sinica this week moves on to examine the Bitcoin phenomenon in China. Joined by Zennon Kapron, owner of the Shanghai consultancy Kapronasia and recent author of the book Chomping at the...
Environment
10.23.14
Tesla-Unicom Deal Could Spark China’s Electric Vehicle Market
from chinadialogue
Electric vehicle firm Tesla’s major new deal with China Unicom to build EV charging infrastructure unites what is seemingly the only EV success story, pursuing a business model targeting elite customers, with China’s second largest mobile phone...
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10.21.14Thomas Sauvin’s Beijing Silvermine
New Yorker
Thomas Sauvin estimates that he has sifted through more than half a million images, taken by ordinary citizens, between 1985 and the early aughts, that depict everyday life, leisure, and travel, both in China and abroad.
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10.21.14China’s Aircraft Carrier Trouble—Spewing Steam and Losing Power
Medium
There’s no more of a conspicuous and potent symbol of China’s growing naval power than the aircraft carrier Liaoning.
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10.06.14Busan: China’s Online Movie Revenues Forecast to Match Box Office in 5 Years
Hollywood Reporter
China's online giants, who are launching a big push into the film business, have been a significant presence at the South Korean festival this year, popping up as buyers, sponsors and producers.
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10.06.14Great Job on the Railroad. Now Go Back to China.
New York Times
The narrative at the New-York Historical Society’s vigorous and imaginative new exhibition is not just of China’s impact on United States history or of the experiences and suffering of Chinese immigrants. It is how Chinese-American identity came to...
Media
10.01.14
They Can Take Our Freedom, But They Will Never Take Our Instagram
When thousands of Hong Kong protesters clashed with police on Sunday, September 28, many residents of the city immediately took to the photo-sharing platform Instagram. There, they uploaded images of police violence and demonstrations that shocked...
Reports
10.01.14
‘Not an Idea We Have to Shun’
Institute for National Strategic Studies
China’s expanding international economic interests are likely to generate increasing demands for its navy, the People’s Liberation Army Navy (PLAN), to operate out of area to protect Chinese citizens, investments, and sea lines of communication. The...
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09.29.14Not Even the Great Firewall Can Shut Out News About Hong Kong’s Protests
Businessweek
Sometime late Sunday, Instagram was blocked in mainland China, presumably to stop images from the tear gas-filled streets of downtown Hong Kong from being shared on the popular social network.
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09.29.14China’s Decision to Expel Journalists to Hong Kong is Now Blowing Up in its Face
Vox
Hong Kong has one of the highest rates of Western journalists per capita of any non-Western city in the world, including a number of the best foreign correspondents in the business.
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09.29.14Censors in China Keep Mainlanders in Dark about Hong Kong Protests
Los Angeles Times
A near-complete information blackout by Chinese censors has blocked most people in mainland China from seeing sriking photos, videos and news about Hong Kong’s ongoing democracy protests.
Viewpoint
09.25.14
How Bad Does the Air Pollution Have to Be Before You’d Wear a Face Mask?
“Mommy, why don’t I wear a face mask?” asked my nine-year-old daughter Maggie nearly every day during the first few weeks of school. Two of her expat classmates had been in Beijing less than a year, but it seemed as if they wore theirs all the time...
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09.22.14China Surpasses EU in Per-Capita Pollution for First Time
Bloomberg
If pollution continues at the current rate, the limit for carbon will be reached in 30 years, the scientists concluded in a report issued on the eve of a United Nations summit designed to step up the fight against climate change.
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09.21.14China Clamps Down on Web, Pinching Companies Like Google
New York Times
China's government has draped a darker shroud over Internet communications in recent weeks, a situation that has made it more difficult for Google and its customers to do business.
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09.21.14Beijing’s Rising Smear Power
New York Times
Chinese dissidents are constantly subject to all sorts of harassment, including a vicious online smear campaign.
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09.16.14Report Says The iPhone 6 Won’t Be In China Until 2015
Business Insider
There was a brief post on Apple's website that said the devices would be available in China on September 26th, but that post has since been removed.
Caixin Media
09.16.14
Grappling with Ammonia in China’s Haze
Chicken farmers and auto designers follow different career paths, but soon both may be changing how they do their jobs as part of a campaign to clean up China's polluted air.Emissions from poultry waste and auto engines alike can contain...
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09.15.14China, the Climate and the Fate of the Planet
Rolling Stone
If the world's biggest polluter doesn't radically reduce the amount of coal it burns, nothing anyone does to stabilize the climate will matter.
Media
09.10.14
iPhone 6: Designed in California, Leaked in China
China’s cyberspace is bursting with anticipation for the iPhone 6—never mind that it promises to cost more than most citizens make in a month. Apple, the U.S.-based company that designs and sells the iPhone, had scheduled a major announcement about...
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09.09.14Alibaba Begins Wooing Wall Street
New York Times
On Monday, Ma, the company’s executive chairman and co-founder, told a crowd of more than 800 potential investors gathered for the first big marketing pitch for Alibaba’s initial public offering, that he was back to ask for a little more money.
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09.08.14The Jack Ma Way
New York Times
At Alibaba, the founder Is squarely in charge ahead of the e-commerce giant's U.S. initial public offering.
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09.06.14As Its Initial Offering Nears, Alibaba Gets Ready for a Splashy Debut
New York Times
The Chinese Internet commerce giant's whirlwind tour, which will encompass 100 meetings in 10 days, will begin not in Hong Kong but in New York, where shares of the company are expected to begin trading on Sept. 19
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09.04.14China to Limit Foreign TV Shows on Video-Streaming Sites
Wall Street Journal
Regulators expected to cap amount of imported television content at 30 percent.
Caixin Media
09.03.14
Beijing Must Address Claims of Anti-Foreign Bias
Once mocked as a “toothless tiger,” China’s anti-monopoly law is finally demonstrating some bite, six years after it took effect.The three agencies responsible for enforcing it—the National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC), the Ministry of...
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08.27.14China’s Supersonic Submarine? Not Gonna Happen
Time
To hear Chinese military sources tell it, the country is on its way to developing a submarine that can travel 6,100 mph—which is why you should never listen to Chinese military sources.