Zhang Jiancheng was a rebel with a cause. His detention with four other protesters in December sparked a stand-off in the southern Chinese village of Wukan, where 13,000 people faced down police in an 11-day siege.
After the provincial Guangdong government intervened in March and promised free elections, Mr Zhang, 26, was elected to the village committee. But after only six months in office, he is worried.
Many have ascribed the vehemence of the protests to deep-rooted anti-Japanese sentiment linked to injustices committed by Japan eighty years ago. But there is little evidence to support this. Rather the protests appear to have everything to do with the interests of China’s current rulers, at a moment when the top leadership in Beijing is in turmoil.
President Obama’s patience with China had been fraying for months, and by November 2010 he was fed up. Meeting with President Hu Jintao in Seoul, South Korea, Mr. Obama warned that if China did not do more to curb North Korea’s bellicose behavior, he would have to take steps to shield the United States from the threat of a nuclear missile attack from the North.
The “kidneys” of the Tibetan plateau are failing.
The Zoige Wetland National Nature Reserve, which sits on the northeastern fringe of western China’s Qinghai-Tibet plateau, contains the largest alpine peat wetlands in the world. It is also the catchment area for the Yangtze and Yellow Rivers; known as the “kidneys of the plateau,” these wetlands provide at least 30 percent of the water flowing into the upper reaches of the Yellow River.
Over the past few days, angry crowds in more than thirty Chinese cities have trashed Japanese stores, overturned Japanese cars, shouted “Down with Japan,” and carried banners that demand Chinese sovereignty over the uninhabited Diaoyu Islands in the East China Sea. Japan also claims ownership of these islands, which it calls the Senkakyus. Chinese protests have reached some peculiar extents.
A reality-talent TV songfest popular in more than forty countries around the world has become an instant hit in China, underpinning enthusiasm for an experimental business model linked to media sector reform.
The Voice of China’s debut show in July immediately won high audience ratings in the forty-two cities where it appeared. Viewer ratings nearly doubled for the show’s second weekly broadcast, and rose another 30 percent soon after.
With over 1.2 billion viewers globally, including millions in the United States, China Central Television (CCTV) reaches the world’s single largest audience. The official mouthpiece of the Chinese Communist Party, CCTV is also a dynamic modern media conglomerate, fully reliant on advertising revenue and aggressively competitive both within China and on the global media scene. Yet this hugely influential media player is all but unknown to the west. Two Billion Eyes tells its story for the first time.
For this unprecedented look inside CCTV, noted Chinese media expert Ying Zhu has conducted candid interviews with the network’s leading players, including senior executives, noted investigative journalists, and popular news anchors, as well as directors and producers of some of CCTV’s most successful dramatic and current affairs programs.
Examining the broader story of CCTV in a changing China over the past quarter century, Two Billion Eyes looks at how commercial priorities and journalistic ethics have competed with the demands of state censorship and how Chinese audiences themselves have grown more critical, even as Party control shows no signs of loosening. A true inside account of one of the world’s most important companies, this is a crucial new book for anyone seeking to understand contemporary China. —The New Press
A former Chinese police chief helped to cover up the murder of a British businessman by the wife of Bo Xilai, the Communist official toppled from power this year, but he also secretly collected evidence used to convict her, according to a lawyer for the police chief and an official account released Tuesday at the end of his trial.
Defense Secretary Leon E. Panetta declared on Wednesday that the United States was not trying to contain a risingChina, and he stressed that with patience and effort current tensions between the giant rivals on opposite sides of the Pacific could be resolved.
Li Chengpeng, an influential writer and social commentator, has published an article on his blog denouncing the boycott of Japanese goods and the violent anti-Japan sentiment currently sweeping China as the two wrangle over the Diaoyu Islands, called the Senkaku in Japanese. Li made news in 2010 when he ran for political office as a candidate not sponsored by the Communist Party. Despite losing the election, he remains an outspoken advocate and activist with a sharp wit. His latest post, titled “Confessions of a Traitor” (一个卖国贼的自白) has gone viral on Sina Weibo, China’s Twitter, with more than 200,000 views and 19,000 comments in less than two days.
