Watching Dissidents, a Booming Business

By Charles Hutzler on May 28, 2012

Every workday at 7:20 a.m., colleagues pick up Yao Lifa from his second-floor apartment and drive him to the elementary school where he taught for years. This is no car pool. Yao is a prisoner, part of a China boom in outsourced police control. By day, Yao is kept in a room, not allowed to work and watched by fit, young gym teachers and other school staff. At dinner time or later, he is sent back to the apartment that he shares with his wife and 3-year-old daughter. A surveillance camera monitors the building entrance, while police sit in a hut outside.

Politics

Can China Escape the Low-Wage Trap

By James Fallows on May 28, 2012

The news out of China this year has been relentlessly bad. The political system was embarrassed in front of its own people by the Bo Xilai scandal and in front of the world by the Chen Guangcheng incident. The Chinese economy has slowed and its stock indexes have been rocked, while its neighbors have been strengthening their ties with the United States.

Economy

Associated Press

on May 28, 2012

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The AP is one of the largest and most trusted sources of independent newsgathering, supplying a steady stream of news to its members, international subscribers, and commercial customers. AP is neither privately owned nor government-funded; instead, as a not-for-profit news cooperative owned by its American newspaper and broadcast members, it can maintain its single-minded focus on newsgathering and its commitment to the highest standards of objective, accurate journalism.

AP’s commitment to independent, comprehensive journalism has deep roots. Founded in 1846, AP has covered all the major news events of the past 170 years, providing high-quality, informed reporting of everything from wars and elections to championship games and royal weddings.

Today, AP employs the latest technology to collect and distribute content. It is in the process of overhauling its video and photography content: transitioning to high-definition, expanding its coverage and building a new, flexible, powerful infrastructure. AP has the industry’s most sophisticated digital photo network; a 24-hour continuously updated online, multimedia news service; a state-of-the-art television news service; and one of the largest radio networks in the U.S. Its commercial digital photo archive is one of the world's largest collections of historical and contemporary imagery. AP Mobile, the AP’s award-winning news app, has been downloaded over 9 million times since its launch in 2008, and AP has a strong social media presence, building new connections between AP and its members, customers and consumers.

AP, which is headquartered in New York, operates in more than 280 locations worldwide, including every statehouse in the U.S. Two-thirds of its staffers are journalists.

Rail Builders Shift Interest to Overseas Mines

on May 28, 2012

After a three-year wait, China Railway Construction Corp. Ltd. (CRCC) recently won permission to launch a major copper mining project in Ecuador.

The production agreement signed April 25 by Ecuador’s government and Corriente Resources, a Canadian company jointly controlled by state-owned CRCC and the Chinese state mining giant Tongling Nonferrous Metals Group Holdings Co. Ltd., clears the way for digging to begin at the Mirador pit.

For Ying Liang

By Richard Brody on May 27, 2012

Having just come back from a few invigorating, even exhilarating days of discussion and moviegoing at the Maryland Film Festival—which is one of the country’s leading showcases for the work of American independents—I’ve got independent filmmaking on my mind. I’ve always felt that independence is mainly a state of mind—that there’s no difference in kind between a major studio project and a movie made on video for virtually nothing. Both depend on invention and imagination; just as the studio director doesn’t deserve extra credit for the vast toolbox employed, the independent director doesn’t deserve it for the obstacles overcome in making the film. The platforms of release may be different and the bray of promotion may be vastly unequal, but no amount of money can buy good images and no admirable account of perseverance can overcome the lack of them.

Arts

Chinese Architect Blasts Demolition Culture

By Mure Dickie on May 27, 2012

The Chinese winner of architecture’s most prestigious award has criticised the wanton demolition that has left many of the nation’s cities fragmented and almost unrecognisable to their citizens. The comments from Wang Shu, who will on Friday receive the 2012 Pritzker prize in a ceremony in Beijing, highlight widespread complaints in China about urban planning amid a process of urbanisation that saw more than 20m rural dwellers move to cities last year alone.

Arts, Society, Urban Life
Architecture

What the Chinese Want

By Tom Doctoroff on May 27, 2012

Apple has taken China by storm. A Starbucks can be found on practically every major street corner in coastal cities and beyond. From Nike to Buick to Siemens, Chinese consumers actively prefer Western brands over their domestic competitors. The rise of microbloggers, the popularity of rock bands with names like Hutong Fist and Catcher in the Rye, and even the newfound popularity of Christmas all seem to point toward a growing Westernization.

Arts, Society, Urban Life

11 Flowers - Review

By Noémi Luciani on May 27, 2012

Eleven-year-old Wang Han lives in a small factory township hidden in the mountains of Guizhou province, southern China. The year is 1975 but he is unaware of the Cultural Revolution. He only sees some of the more distant ramifications of Mao's merciless crusade when they affect his own small world. He unquestioningly accepts the harshness of his existence, for he has never known anything else.

Arts

Microblogging in China

By Ai Weiwei on May 27, 2012

In the last several years, microblogs and social-media sites have become ubiquitous platforms for the exchange of information and ideas. This unique opportunity for expression has never before existed in China. Platforms such as Weibo have become the main force for people to question authority and share information, to demonstrate their will and political demands. New forms of technology are uncontrollable and pose an everyday baptism by fire for the authorities in China.

Arts, Society
Social Media

ArtAsiaPacific

on May 27, 2012

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Established in 1993, ArtAsiaPacific magazine is the leading English-language periodical covering contemporary art and culture from Asia, the Pacific and the Middle East. 

Published six times a year, AAP includes features, profiles, essays and reviews by experts from all over the world. AAP’s website offers up-to-the minute news reports, extracts from current and past issues of the magazine, as well as supplementary and exclusive multimedia content.

Since 2005, AAP has produced an annual Almanac edition, published in January, which surveys the past year in the 67 countries and territories covered in the magazine. In addition to news, exhibition, festival and country reports, the Almanac features special sections such as Five Plus One, which spotlights five outstanding artists from the previous year and one promising artist for the next year, and Reflections, a set of essays written by prominent curators and cultural figures.

AAP also publishes exhibition catalogs and artist monographs, more details of which can be found in the shop on this website.