Enemies of the State? (2005)

By Hannah Beech on May 19, 2012

The men with the poison-filled syringe arrived two days before Li Juan's due date. They pinned her down on a bed in a local clinic, she says, and drove the needle into her abdomen until it entered the 9-month-old fetus. "At first, I could feel my child kicking a lot," says the 23-year-old. "Then, after a while, I couldn't feel her moving anymore." Ten hours later, Li delivered the girl she had intended to name Shuang (Bright). The baby was dead. To be absolutely sure, says Li, the officials--from the Linyi region, where she lives, in China's eastern Shandong province--dunked the infant's body for several minutes in a bucket of water beside the bed. All she could think about on that day last spring, recalls Li, was how she would hire a gang of thugs to take revenge on the people who killed her baby because the birth, they said, would have violated China's family-planning scheme.

How Gay-Friendly is Hong Kong? It Depends.

By Isabella Steger on May 19, 2012

Hong Kong’s LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender) community may have received a boost from local pop star Anthony Wong’s very public coming-out last month, and there may have been visible improvements in public attitude in recent years—the city has hosted a number of Pride parades since 2008—but a new survey shows that hostility continues in the workplace.

A Fair in Transition

By Lara Day on May 19, 2012

Two years ago, Art Basel directors Marc Spiegler and Annette Schönholzer came to this city on a mission: to start a new contemporary art fair in Asia. But after scoping out the competition, they decided to change tack. The Hong Kong International Art Fair, also known as Art HK, “was not only a popular show, but a show whose quality was rising from year to year,” said Mr. Spiegler. After that, he said, “this idea of working with the existing team made a lot of sense.” Art Basel’s owner, MCH Group, bought a majority stake in the Hong Kong fair last year.

Chen Man: East Meets West

By Chen Man on May 19, 2012

From influential singer Faye Wong horse-riding through a neon-pink field for Harper’s Bazaar to Dolce & Gabbana playing mahjong with actor Gao Yixiang for Men's Uno, celebrated photographer Chen Man curates a selection of personal picks from her archives. A 2005 graduate of Beijing’s Central Academy of Fine Arts, Man was introduced to the fashion industry by make-up artist Li Dong Tian and quickly made a name for herself through vibrant imagery and a self-confessed excessive use of post-production. She went on to create a groundbreaking series of covers for avant-garde Chinese lifestyle magazine Vision, and her portfolio now includes editorials for Vogue China, Elle and i-D, as well as portraits of celebrities like actress Shu Qi and internationally renowned model Du Juan. Inspired by and passionate about her homeland, Man's work often features the nation’s modern citycapes and historical buildings as a backdrop to references from street culture, animation, sci-fi and pop sources. “My work is always a hybrid mix,“ she explains. “It is East and West; mainstream and alternative; of the present and the future; tacky meets elegant. It features ancient Chinese culture as its software, and Western contemporary culture as its hardware.” Man has exhibited in international institutions including the V&A Museum in London, MOCA Shanghai and Today Art Museum in Beijing. Here the illustrious camerawoman discusses her revolutionary approach.

TIME 100: Heroes and Pioneers

By Hannah Beech on May 19, 2012

He may have lost his sight as a child, but Chen Guangcheng's legal vision has helped illuminate the plight of thousands of Chinese villagers. Last year officials initiated a forced abortion and sterilization campaign against women in Shandong province who were deemed ineligible to bear another child under China's strict family-planning policy. Even though national regulations prohibit such brutal measures, no one except Chen was willing to confront local officials, who may have felt that lowering the number of extra births would help their political careers. By filing a lawsuit on the women's behalf, he became a hero in Shandong and an important player in China's nascent civil society. "Someone has to fight for people with no voice," he said last fall. "I guess that person is me."

Barefoot Lawyers (2002)

By Melinda Liu on May 19, 2012

Shandong native Chen Guangcheng, for instance, hails from a flyspeck village 200 kilometers from the provincial capital of Jinan that barely gets a television signal. "If it rains," says the chatty 32-year-old, "no one can watch TV." In 1998 he traveled to Nanjing to study at the Traditional Medicine University; he majored in acupuncture and massage, while picking up a bit of legal knowledge on the side.