ChinaFile Recommends
05.15.17Why China Will Never Put America First
National Interest
The Trump administration will eventually awaken to the fact that Beijing cannot, and has no desire to, deliver on North Korea.
ChinaFile Recommends
05.15.17Kenya President Urges Rebalance of China-Africa Trade
Financial Times
President Uhuru Kenyatta of Kenya has called on China to rebalance an increasingly skewed trade relationship between Africa and the rising superpower, arguing that Beijing must do more to tackle a widening trade deficit.
ChinaFile Recommends
05.15.17China Pledges More Than $100 Billion in Belt and Road Projects
CNBC
China is pledging more than $100 billion to finance projects under its “One Belt, One Road” strategy, an ambitious initiative to strengthen the world’s second-largest economy’s investment, influence and trade links to the rest of the globe.
ChinaFile Recommends
05.15.17China’s Summit for Its New Silk Road Is Missing 44 Heads of State from the 65 Nations Involved
Quartz
World leaders are gathering in Beijing this weekend for a big summit touting China’s infrastructure spending spree to connect Europe, the Middle East, Asia, and Africa. The project, known as the Belt and Road Initiative—or “One Belt, One Road” (OBOR...
ChinaFile Recommends
05.08.17Syria Says up to 5,000 Chinese Uighurs Fighting in Militant Groups
Reuters
Up to 5,000 ethnic Uighurs from China's violence-prone far western region of Xinjiang are fighting in various militant groups in Syria, the Syrian ambassador to China said on Monday, adding that Beijing should be extremely concerned about it.
ChinaFile Recommends
05.04.17After North Korea Criticism, China Says Wants to Be Good Neighbor
Reuters
China said on Thursday it wants to be good neighbors with North Korea, after the isolated country’s state news agency published a rare criticism of Chinese state media commentaries calling for tougher sanctions over the North’s nuclear program.
ChinaFile Recommends
05.01.17Asian Nations Pulled into China’s Orbit as Trump Puts America First
Reuters
Across Asia, more and more countries are being pulled into Beijing’s orbit, with the timid stance adopted by Southeast Asian nations on the South China Sea at a weekend summit a clear sign this fundamental geostrategic shift is gathering momentum.
ChinaFile Recommends
05.01.17Trump Warns North Korea on Missile Tests, Says ‘We’ll See’ If Military Action Is Needed
NBC News
President Donald Trump declared that neither the U.S. nor China would be “happy” if North Korea tested more missiles, and said “we’ll see” if military action would be needed to curb the country’s nuclear ambitions.
ChinaFile Recommends
04.26.17China Finds U.S. Businesswoman Guilty of Stealing State Secrets, Orders Deportation
Newsweek
A Chinese court on Tuesday sentenced a U.S. citizen to three-years and six-months in prison for espionage but then ordered she be deported, her lawyer said, in a case that has added to U.S.-China tension.
ChinaFile Recommends
04.24.17China Is Sending the U.S. a New Message about North Korea
CNBC
Beijing appears to be sending fresh signals about its view on North Korea, in order to convince U.S. President Donald Trump to take less aggressive action against the rogue nuclear state, several political analysts say.
ChinaFile Recommends
04.24.17China Is Squeezing North Korea - but Not Too Hard
CNN
China wields huge influence over the North Korean economy, accounting for more than 80% of its smaller neighbor’s foreign trade and serving as its main gateway to the rest of the world.
ChinaFile Recommends
04.21.17China Needs Its Friend the Philippines More Than the Philippines Needs China
Forbes
If China can choreograph its own relations with all four Southeast Asian nations that dispute its aggressive, decade-old expansion in the same 3.5 million-square-kilometer sea, it can easily ignore threats from the United States, the world court or...
ChinaFile Recommends
04.20.17China Left as Observer as Tensions Rise on Korean Peninsula
Washington Post
China’s foreign minister recently likened the U.S. and North Korea to two speeding trains hurtling toward each other, an analogy that would seem to place China in the role of helpless bystander. And indeed, while tensions have risen, Beijing has...
ChinaFile Recommends
04.19.17China Names Areas in Region Disputed with India to Assert Claims
Reuters
China has issued standardized spellings of the names of six places in a region disputed with India, in what China’s foreign ministry said on Wednesday was an assertion of sovereignty.
ChinaFile Recommends
04.19.17China Says Ivanka Trump Trademark Requests Handled Properly
Chicago Tribune
China is defending its handling of trademark applications from President Donald Trump’s daughter Ivanka and her company, saying that all such requests are handled fairly.
ChinaFile Recommends
04.17.17China’s Korea Policy ‘in Tatters’ as Both North and South Defy Sanctions
Washington Post
On Monday, South Korea announced that it would press ahead with the “swift deployment” of a U.S. missile defense system, despite vociferous Chinese opposition.
ChinaFile Recommends
04.14.17China Warns of ‘Storm Clouds Gathering’ in U.S.-North Korea Standoff
New York Times
China warned on Friday that tensions on the Korean Peninsula could spin out of control, as North Korea said it could test a nuclear weapon at any time and an American naval group neared the peninsula in a show of resolve.
ChinaFile Recommends
04.07.17Dalai Lama’s Journey Provokes China, and Hints at His Heir
New York Times
It has been a hard journey for the 81-year-old Dalai Lama, perhaps his last over the mountain passes at the edge of China, to a town that has played a fateful role in his life, and in the history of Tibetan Buddhism.
ChinaFile Recommends
04.03.17Xiongan District Becomes Hot Property in China
BBC
A sleepy district in Hebei province has suddenly become the center of China’s latest property craze and the talk of the country.
ChinaFile Recommends
03.28.17China Calls for Explanation After Paris Police Shoot Dead Chinese Man
Reuters
French police said on Tuesday they opened an inquiry after a Chinese man was shot dead by police at his Paris home, triggering rioting in the French capital by members of the Chinese community and a sharp reaction from Beijing.
Books
03.27.17
Wish Lanterns
If China will rule the world one day, who will rule China? There are more than 320 million Chinese between the ages of 16 and 30. Children of the one-child policy, born after Mao, with no memory of the Tiananmen Square massacre, they are the first net native generation to come of age in a market-driven, more international China. Their experiences and aspirations were formed in a radically different country from the one that shaped their elders, and their lives will decide the future of their nation and its place in the world.Wish Lanterns offers a deep dive into the life stories of six young Chinese. Dahai is a military child, netizen, and self-styled loser. Xiaoxiao is a hipster from the freezing north. Fred, born on the tropical southern island of Hainan, is the daughter of a Party official, while Lucifer is a would-be international rock star. Snail is a country boy and Internet-gaming addict, and Mia is a fashionista rebel from far west Xinjiang. Following them as they grow up, go to college, and find work and love, all the while navigating the pressure of their parents and society, Wish Lanterns paints a vivid portrait of Chinese youth culture and of a millennial generation whose struggles and dreams reflect the larger issues confronting China today. —Arcade Publishing{chop}
ChinaFile Recommends
03.24.17China to Plant ‘Green Necklace’ of Trees Around Beijing to Fight Smog
New York Times
The pollution from the factories is responsible for much of the smog in Beijing, a city of more than 22 million, and other parts of northern China.
ChinaFile Recommends
03.21.17China Steps up Battle against Property Bubble
Financial Times
Big cities escalate efforts to curb the soaring prices that are stoking anger
ChinaFile Recommends
03.06.17The Dalai Lama Told John Oliver That China’s Leaders Are Not “Using the Human Brain Properly”
Quartz
British comedian John Oliver recently flew to the north Indian town of Dharamsala, where the Dalai Lama has lived in exile for more than five decades.
ChinaFile Recommends
03.05.17China Congress: BBC Team Forced to Sign Confession
BBC
The story reveals more about the exercise of power in China than any interview ever could. It is one that involves violence, intimidation and a forced confession—in which I found myself apologizing for “behavior causing a bad impact” and for trying...
ChinaFile Recommends
02.23.17We Must Resist until China Gives Hong Kong a Say in Our Future
Guardian
If Beijing allows human rights to deteriorate in Hong Kong, then the whole country will lose all hope of reform
ChinaFile Recommends
02.21.17Media
02.14.17
Surprise Findings: China’s Youth Are Getting Less Nationalistic, Not More
Anyone who’s spent any length of time following Western press coverage of China is familiar with the notion that China’s leaders are obligated to look tough in order to appease a rising nationalism. Much has been written about the online activities...
ChinaFile Recommends
02.08.17Surprise Findings: China’s Youth Are Getting Less Nationalistic, Not More
Foreign Policy
Harvard and Peking University researchers just upended conventional wisdom.
ChinaFile Recommends
02.01.17China Billionaire’s Disappearance from Hong Kong Revives Autonomy Concerns
Reuters
The uncertain fate of Xiao Jianhua, a China-born billionaire who was last seen at a luxury Hong Kong hotel a week ago, has raised fresh fears about the city’s autonomy amid media reports he may have been abducted by Chinese agents.
Sinica Podcast
01.31.17
Talking ’Bout My Generation: Chinese Millennials
from Sinica Podcast
Alec Ash, a young British writer who lives in Beijing, has covered “left-behind” children in Chinese villages, the “toughest high-school exam in the world,” and Internet live-streaming, among many other subjects. He is the author of Wish Lanterns,...
The China Africa Project
01.24.17
How Taiwan Became a Divisive Political Issue in South Africa
South Africa’s opposition party, the Democratic Alliance (DA), now sees the ruling African National Congress (ANC) party’s close ties to China as a vulnerability that the DA aims to exploit. Evidence of this new strategy came in December when the DA...
ChinaFile Recommends
01.03.17China Gets Tough on Smog Offenders
CNN
China has slapped millions of dollars worth of fines on alleged offenders for violating anti-pollution rules, according to state media.
Caixin Media
12.15.16
Attempts to ‘Clean Up Beijing’ Target Low-Cost Migrant Homes
Li Yi, a young computer engineer working in Beijing, said authorities forced him out of his apartment in a village in Haidian district in November, days after his power supply was cut off even though he had paid the bills.Li (not his real name) is...
ChinaFile Recommends
12.13.16Attempts to ‘Clean Up Beijing’ Target Low-Cost Migrant Homes
"They came and banged on tenants' doors every day until they agreed to move out, and they cut off their power supply for a week"
Depth of Field
11.08.16
Dongbei’s Last Match Factory, Capital Straphangers, Retracing the Long March...
from Yuanjin Photo
In October, several publications marked the 80th Anniversary of the Chinese Communists’ Long March. We have chosen two stories that revisited this event and that were standouts, visually. Elsewhere, photographers followed stories both large and...
ChinaFile Recommends
10.31.16Seeking Lower Rent, Chinese Artists Cut Path for Themselves Outside Beijing
New York Times
A small and decidedly nondescript city called Yanjiao, about an hour’s drive from Beijing, has been experiencing an influx of artists
Photo Gallery
10.05.16
Beijing’s Skinheads
from Jiemian
Punk, as with most modern Western rock music, took root in China abruptly and unevenly starting in the early 1990s. Beijing skinhead Ma Ke—pictured here with a teardrop temporary tattoo—was born in 1976, around the same time as punk itself. One of...
Conversation
09.07.16
The Hong Kong Election: What Message Does it Send Beijing?
On September 4, Hong Kong elected a batch of its youngest and most pro-democratic lawmakers yet. Six new legislators, all under 40, won on platforms that called for Hong Kongers to decide their own fate. The youngest is 23-year-old Nathan Law, a...
ChinaFile Recommends
06.07.16Are European Companies Falling Out of Love With China?
CNBC
Beijing has left 41 percent of European companies pessimistic and re-evaluating their China operations—including through headcount reduction....
Green Space
02.04.16
Rescuing China’s Abused Animals
We start with a heartwarming note, which I recently heard about in a New Year’s greeting from Animals Asia, a NGO started by Jill Robinson, originally from the U.K., in Chengdu to rescue Asian bears from their torture-chamber-like cages throughout...
Environment
01.11.16
Chinese Cities Most at Risk from Rising Sea Levels
from chinadialogue
A study by Climate Central, a non-profit news organization focusing on climate science, showed that 12 other nations have more than 10 million people living on land that would be destroyed should the earth’s temperature rise to 4 degrees Celsius.As...
Culture
01.05.16
In ‘Mr. Six,’ China’s Changing and Staying the Same
from China Film Insider
Playing an aging gangster railing against the “little punks” who kidnapped his son in Beijing, Feng Xiaogang gives a solid performance as the title character of Mr. Six: a gravel-throated vigilante shaken when his go-it-alone rescue effort puts him...
Video
12.30.15
Drinking the Northwest Wind
Like so many of Mao’s pronouncements, it sounded simple. “The South has a lot of water; the North lacks water. So if it can be done, borrowing a little water and bringing it up might do the trick.” And thus, in 1952, the spark was lit for what would...
Green Space
12.22.15
Nu River Saved, Jack Ma Buys Preservation Land
A great piece of news came from China on the night of December 16, that the Yunnan provincial government in southwest China has announced its decision to not develop hydro-electric projects on the Nu River, also known as the Salween (link in Chinese...
Sinica Podcast
12.17.15
Out of Africa: the Swifts of Beijing
from Sinica Podcast
With amazing research now suggesting that Beijing swifts, the tiny creatures most residents pass by without noticing, are some of the most well-travelled birds on the planet, averaging an astonishing 124,000 miles of flight in their lifetimes,...
Media
12.15.15
The Proletariat Experience of Beijing’s Airpocalypse
On December 8, a Tuesday, a man surnamed Cao piloted his electric scooter along Beijing’s profoundly hazy streets, parking in front of one towering apartment complex after another to deliver packages. Although the government had just issued a “red...
The NYRB China Archive
12.08.15
Why Pollution is Good for China
from New York Review of Books
I am a member of a martial arts group that performs at annual temple fairs around Beijing. Half of our group are children, and almost without fail they meet at a park on the west side of town at around three in the afternoon to practice fighting...
ChinaFile Recommends
12.07.15Beijing Issues Air Pollution Red Alert for the First Time
Bloomberg
Beijing issued its most severe smog warning for Tuesday.
Green Space
12.03.15
Smog and Imagination
The last few days of November, air pollution was back in the headlines and social media feeds of millions of Chinese. Here are a few highlights:The creative WeChat post “Beijing Smog: Use Your Imagination When You Go Out,” shows a series of photos...
ChinaFile Recommends
12.02.15China's Blast of Fresh Air Quiets Calls for Beijing Mayor's Head
Bloomberg
A cold front that swept choking smog from northern China couldn’t have come sooner for Beijing’s mayor.
Sinica Podcast
12.01.15
Live at the Bookworm, Part II
from Sinica Podcast
This is the second part of the Live Sinica discussion recorded last month during a special event at the Bookworm literary festival. In this show, David Moser and Kaiser Kuo were joined by China-newcomer Jeremy Goldkorn, fresh off the plane from...
ChinaFile Recommends
11.23.15Hong Kong's 'Umbrella Soldiers' Win Seats in Local Elections
Reuters
"The paratroopers are a new power, a challenge to the government and the central authorities in Beijing."
Caixin Media
11.18.15
Government Enlists NGOs to Help Homeless
Drivers roll up car windows as an autumn wind chills a traffic-clogged overpass in western Beijing’s Liuliqiao area. And under the concrete overpass, homeless people are gathering for a chilly night’s rest after wandering city streets.Among the...
Sinica Podcast
11.16.15
The Pace of Change in Beijing: Live at the Bookworm, Part I
from Sinica Podcast
This week’s Sinica podcast was recorded last month during a special live event at the Bookworm literary festival, where David Moser and Kaiser Kuo were joined by Jeremy Goldkorn, fresh off the plane from Nashville. Topics in this podcast: Beijing...
ChinaFile Recommends
11.13.15China’s corruption crackdown is so vast, top officials from every single province have been nabbed
Quartz
The corruption campaign has finally spread to every province in the country.
Caixin Media
10.20.15
Moving 2 Million People for Beijing’s Urban Reset
Nearly 2 million Beijing residents will be moved to the city’s outlying districts from the center by 2020 as part of a massive urban revamp designed to better control people, traffic, and smog.The movers include up to 1 million government workers...
Environment
10.19.15
Can the South-North Water Transfer Project and Industry Co-Exist?
from chinadialogue
Sixty-two years after Chairman Mao first envisioned the South-North Water Transfer project, the Middle Route (SNWT-MR) formally began transferring supplies of water from Danjiangkou reservoir on the border of Hubei and Henan in December 2014.In the...
Sinica Podcast
10.05.15
Edmund Backhouse in the Long View of History
from Sinica Podcast
Edmund Backhouse, the 20th century Sinologist, long-time Beijing resident, and occasional con-artist, is perhaps best known for his incendiary memoirs, which not only distorted Western understanding of Chinese history for more than 50 years, but...
Reports
10.01.15
China’s Next Opportunity: Sustainable Economic Transition
Paulson Institute
China’s Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region, also known as Jing-Jin-Ji, presents a compelling opportunity to highlight the potential—and the challenges—in transitioning to a more sustainable economic growth model. The Chinese government has prioritized the...