China unveiled guidelines on its long-awaited income redistribution plan by saying it would boost income for the poor, tighten its grip on illegal income and ask state companies to contribute more profits to the government.
When 39 tons of the toxic chemical aniline spilled from a factory in Changzhi in China’s Shanxi province at the end of December, polluting drinking water for hundreds of thousands of people downstream along the Zhuozhang River and dangerously fouling the environment, it seemed a grave enough disaster. And it was.
One of my favorite pictures collected in the book Shangri-La: Along the Tea Road to Lhasa is of six pilgrims coming down an empty stretch of the Chamagudao, the Tea Horse Road. They are going to Lhasa, performing the chak tsal, the Tibetan Buddhist act of prostration. At the time this photo was taken, they already had been walking for three months.
The official mouthpiece of China’s ruling Communist Party roundly rejected claims of hacking attacks from China by American media outlets, hinting instead at ulterior motives by the U.S.
After the chaos of the Cultural Revolution, the surviving Communist Party leaders pursued a project that might sound familiar to those in the West: Write a constitution that enshrines individual rights and ensures rulers are subject to law, so that China would never again suffer from the whims of a tyrant.
On a visit to our offices last year, a U.S. lawmaker with knowledge of intelligence affairs explained that, when it comes to cyber-espionage, there are only two kinds of American companies these days: Those that have been hacked, and those that don't know they've been hacked.
The year 2013 has gotten off to an inauspicious start for China’s press, especially for its most outspoken members. At the end of last year, when many of the country’s media were heralding newly installed Chinese leader Xi Jinping’s visit to Guangdong province as a modern day analogue to Deng Xiaoping’s 1992 “southern tour” (which was itself modeled to recall the glories of his imperial predecessors), the local newspaper, Southern Weekend, tried to frame Xi’s trip slightly differently.
In Hong Kong, a business city trying to turn itself into a global “art hub” with a steely determination and large amounts of cash, art events now involve so many government and corporate entities that it almost squeezes the fun out of it.
The cameras could be rolling soon for long-anticipated stock listings by the nation’s largest movie producer and foreign flick importer China Film Group, as well as a smaller but ambitious rival, Shanghai Film Group.
The state-owned companies’ names were added January 11 to a list of IPO applicants queuing for mandatory reviews by the China Securities Regulatory Commission (CSRC). Each has asked CSRC for permission to trade A shares on the Shanghai Stock Exchange.
