During the turbulent Maoist era from the 1950s to 1970s, China clashed militarily with some of its most important neighbors—India, Vietnam, the Soviet Union—and embarked on disastrous interventions in Indonesia and Africa.
David Wertime:
From The Dragon’s Mouth: Ten True Stories that Unveil the Real China is an exquisitely intimate look into the China of the twenty-first century as seen through the eyes of its people. This is one of the rare times a book combines the voices of everyday Chinese people from so many different layers of society: a dissident tortured by the police; a young millionaire devoted to nationalism; a peasant-turned-prostitute to pay for the best education for her son; a woman who married her gay friend to escape from social pressure, just like an estimated 16 million other women; a venerated kung fu master unable to train outdoors because of the hazardous pollution; the daughter of two Communist Party officials getting rich coaching Chinese entrepreneurs the ways of Capitalism; among others. —Penguin
Before February 2012, when his name exploded onto the front pages of newspapers around the globe, most people outside of China had never heard of Bo Xilai, the now-fallen Communist Party Secretary of the megacity of Chongqing.
Xi Jinping, the newly appointed Chinese President, unfolded his presidency with a grand foreign tour to Russia, Tanzania, South Africa, and the Republic of the Congo. While this series of state visits unequivocally underscored China’s diplomatic emphasis on its neighboring power and traditional friends in Africa, what really caught the media’s attention was the charm offensive of China’s new First Lady, Ms. Peng Liyuan, a renowned Chinese folk vocal artist.
Jeremy Goldkorn:
On March 22, before the foreign media or Apple themselves seemed to have grasped the seriousness of the CCTV attacks on the Californian behemoth, I wrote a post on Danwei.com that concluded:
When three household brand names in China announced they would cooperate to form a company offering insurance services on the Internet, excitement naturally was the order of the day.
Last year, Alibaba Group, Tencent Holdings, and Ping An Insurance Group announced they would form Zhong An Online Property Insurance Co., which would sell insurance policies and settle claims online. In February, the regulator gave the green light for limited business to go ahead.
Who’s steering China’s carefully managed financial system? Speculators were busy name-guessing before and for several months after the Communist Party’s 18th National Congress in November.
Finally, the dust started to settle with formal appointments announced a few days after the National People’s Congress session concluded in March. Additional appointments to regulatory and state-bank posts were expected soon.
Among the emerging powers, China and India have long been critical to successfully addressing global health problems. Historically, infectious diseases that originated in either country have altered epidemiological patterns worldwide. The first known pandemic of cholera began in the Ganges River delta, and many major disease outbreaks, including the 1957 Asian flu, the 1968 Hong Kong flu, and the 2003 SARS epidemic, originated in China. The negative effects of health crises are unlikely to remain within national boundaries and could have serious implications for regional and global stability, security, and prosperity. This paper examines China’s and India’s involvement in GHG in three core areas: health-related development assistance, the development of global health rules, and the promulgation of ideas for GHG. While both countries have been increasingly active in participating in GHG, they are not yet in a position to offer a viable, sustainable alternative to the existing governance paradigm.
