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...
Environment
09.17.15
Beijing Welcomes World’s First Smog-Eating Tower
from chinadialogue
Beijingers enjoyed a rare breath of fresh air this week. The city’s smog levels fell to their lowest levels in recent years, as authorities scrambled to shut down factories and curb car use so that China’s Second World War victory military parade...
ChinaFile Recommends
09.04.15Seoul to Begin Discussions with Beijing on Unification
Korea Times
Park Gyun-hye said that Kim Jong-un is expected to take provocative actions in the future and it is important to deter them.
Sinica Podcast
08.31.15
A ‘China Watcher’s China Watcher’ Decamps
from Sinica Podcast
As anyone who reads the Sinocism newsletter knows, Bill Bishop is among the most plugged-in people in Beijing with an uncanny ability to figure out what is actually happening in the halls of power. But as casual readers may not be aware, he is also...
ChinaFile Recommends
08.31.15Donald Trump Meet the Chinese American Cook and the Father of ‘Birthright Citizenship’
Washington Post
All born or naturalized in the US and subject to jurisdiction thereof are citizens of the state where they reside.
ChinaFile Recommends
08.28.15U.S., China Stress Positives Ahead of Xi Trip
Reuters
The world's two largest economies have mutual interests, like trying to rein in North Korea's nuclear program, sevear deep disagreements exist.
ChinaFile Recommends
08.28.15A Mainstay of Presidential Campaigning: China-bashing
CBS News
Presidential candidates Trump, Walker, Rubio, Clinton and others are making politcal hay out of pitting the U.S. against China.
Environment
08.21.15
Beijing Tells Mayors of Chinese Cities to Clean Up Their Air
from chinadialogue
In China, “APEC blue” was the sarcastic term used to refer to the unusually clear skies Beijing enjoyed when an Asia-Pacific leaders summit was in progress late last year.A similar phenomenon is now being seen in smaller Chinese cities, as mayors...
Conversation
08.18.15
How Should the U.S. Conduct the Xi Jinping State Visit?
As tensions increase between China and the United States over the value of the yuan, human rights violations, alleged cyber attacks, and disputed maritime territories, among other issues, how should the Obama administration conduct the upcoming...
ChinaFile Recommends
08.17.15Obama Administration Warns Beijing About Covert Agents Operating in U.S.
New York Times
The warning reflects escalating anger in Washington about intimidation tactics used by the agents.
Environment
08.12.15
Beijing’s Air Quality May Finally Be Improving ... But it Still Ain’t Great
In February, a Chinese celebrity journalist named Chai Jing released a video on the Internet about the damage air pollution was causing her country. During the week it was online (before Chinese censors pulled it down), people viewed the video 200...
ChinaFile Recommends
08.10.15China Shares Post Biggest One-Day Gain in a Month
Wall Street Journal
Weak economic data boosts stimulus hopes; investors signal confidence in Beijing’s support.
ChinaFile Recommends
08.10.15China Read Emails of Top U.S. Officials
NBC News
First codenamed "Dancing Panda" by U.S. officials was detected in April 2010, according to a top secret NSA briefing from 2014.
Conversation
08.05.15
Should the U.S. Extradite Chinese Wanted by Beijing?
This week, The New York Times reported that Chinese officials have asked the U.S. government to help in apprehending Ling Wancheng, a wealthy Chinese business man and the brother of one of the highest-level officials to have been targeted in Xi...
ChinaFile Recommends
08.03.15For China’s Gay Men, Beijing Park Offers Haven
Los Angeles Times
Though illegal, Chinese media regularly report on gay home weddings and gay couples getting marriage certificates in the U.S.
ChinaFile Recommends
07.31.15ChinaFile Recommends
07.19.15As Beijing Becomes a Supercity, the Rapid Growth Brings Pains
New York Times
The planned megalopolis, a metropolitan area that would be about six times the size of New York's, is meant to revamp northern China's economy.
Caixin Media
07.14.15
Uber CEO Enjoying a Fast China Ride
Demand for cross-town transportation is at the heart of an urban lifestyle that is defining modern China. It is also giving the American car-hire service Uber Technologies Inc. an incredible ride.Few are enjoying the ride more than Uber CEO Travis...
ChinaFile Recommends
06.22.15China Voice: Cooperation Prevails Over Confrontation in China-U.S. Ties
Xinhua
The dialogues will help pave the way for President Xi Jinping's state visit to the U.S. in September.
ChinaFile Recommends
06.09.15Uber Spends Heavily to Establish Itself in China
New York Times
Fat with almost $6 billion in venture capital, San Francisco-based Uber is doling out bonuses up to three times its fares.
Postcard
06.03.15
Beijing Autumn
Then even August ended. China was disappearing from the news, as portentous events elsewhere thrust themselves to the forefront.South Africa had started to come out of the dark age of apartheid. Eastern Europe had begun the march to unshackle itself...
ChinaFile Recommends
04.14.15Can the US and China Save the World?
Diplomat
The Department of Commerce emphasized Obama's commitment to fighting climate change through clean energy development.
Sinica Podcast
03.02.15
Keep in Touch, Nightman
from Sinica Podcast
In 1997, Beijing was smaller city, and Keep in Touch, Jamhouse, and Nightman were the hippest venues around. There was no traffic on the ring roads, and if you got tired of Chinese food you might take a trip to Fangzhuang to visit this Italian...
Conversation
02.05.15
What’s the Case for Heads of State Meeting the Dalai Lama?
On Thursday in Washington, the Dalai Lama attended the annual National Prayer Breakfast hosted by President Barack Obama, angering China's leaders in Beijing who have long called the exiled Tibetan spiritual leader a "splittist" and...
Environment
01.23.15
China’s Air Pollution: The Tipping Point
Last November, Beijing saw a stretch of solidly clear skies and the Chinese media coined a phrase to describe them: APEC blue. After the diplomats and businesspeople gathered in China’s capital for the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation forum...
Photo Gallery
12.30.14
Seeing China in 2014
In 2014, ChinaFile published great original work in photography. As always, we worked to look beyond stereotypical images of the country to find nuanced representations of the new and ChinaFile contributors’ commentary on it. Still, many of our...
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11.11.14Unable to Clean Air Completely for Apec, China Resorts to Blocking Data
Washington Post
China has made a gargantuan effort to clear Beijing’s smoggy air for an important regional summit this week, closing hundreds of factories and forcing cars off the road, but its efforts have only been partially successful.
ChinaFile Recommends
10.31.14Beijing Subway Bans Halloween Costumes
Financial Times
The Chinese capital banned Halloween costumes from its subway system, warning they could cause “panic” and “stampedes.”
ChinaFile Recommends
10.27.14Troubles in China Rattle Western Banks
Wall Street Journal
Foreign lenders in China have been stung by a string of suspected fraud cases and problem loans in the country as Beijing investigates company executives and seizes assets in a crackdown on corruption.
ChinaFile Recommends
10.21.14"Like Running on Mars" - Runners share their Beijing Marathon Stories
That’s
To run or not to run? That was the question faced by entrants in Sunday’s Beijing marathon, as they awoke to find hazardous levels of pollution engulfing the city.
ChinaFile Recommends
10.21.14Thomas Sauvin’s Beijing Silvermine
New Yorker
Thomas Sauvin estimates that he has sifted through more than half a million images, taken by ordinary citizens, between 1985 and the early aughts, that depict everyday life, leisure, and travel, both in China and abroad.
ChinaFile Recommends
10.13.14China Approves $3.25 Billion Universal Theme Park in Beijing
Hollywood Reporter
The facility will cover a 300-acre site in the suburbs of China's capital.
Sinica Podcast
10.10.14
The Sounds of Old Beijing
from Sinica Podcast
This week on Sinica, Kaiser and Jeremy are joined by Colin Chinnery from the Beijing Sound History Project, a recording project that aims to preserve the distinctive clangs, songs, and shouts of traditional Beijing life. In addition to sampling some...
ChinaFile Recommends
08.26.14Could Beijing be the Healthiest City in China?
Quartz
Beijing, despite its reputation for dangerous levels of air pollution, choking traffic, and food scandals, is the healthiest city in China.
ChinaFile Recommends
07.10.14PM2.5 Index Reduced in Beijing
Shanghai Daily
Beijing's average PM2.5 index of 91.6 micrograms per cubic meter in first half of 2014 represents an 11.2 percent year-on-year decrease.
ChinaFile Recommends
06.12.14Capital Mobilizes Anti-Terrorism Volunteer Force
China Daily
Beijing has deployed an anti-terrorism force of about 850,000 urban volunteers to patrol its streets following recent terrorist attacks across the country.
ChinaFile Recommends
05.29.14Missing Plane Believed to Be Beyond Search Area
New York Times
The search area in the Indian Ocean that recovery teams have been scouring for more than a month is probably not the final resting place of a missing Malaysia Airlines jetliner.
ChinaFile Recommends
05.28.14China’s Two Problems with the Uyghurs
Los Angeles Review of Books
Beijing has two problems with the Uyghurs, the Turkic-speaking, Central Asian people from China’s northwestern Xinjiang region. One problem is terrorism; the other problem is civil rights.
ChinaFile Recommends
05.28.14Why Scrapping 6 Million Cars is Not Going to End China’s Pollution Problem
Washington Post
While studies have shown some success from these measures, the fact that this bigger ban is being proposed is perhaps a sign it wasn't enough.
ChinaFile Recommends
05.12.14China Tightens Security in Beijing
BBC
China has deployed armed police patrol vehicles in Beijing after three attacks at transport hubs around the country.
Caixin Media
05.06.14
Growing Pains for a Megalopolis in Transition
Twenty years of on-and-off government discussions have yielded little progress toward the goal of coordinating urban and industrial development in a key Chinese megalopolis—the region encompassing the nation's capital Beijing, neighboring Hebei...
Environment
04.16.14
Ten Steps to Cleaner Air in China’s Cities
from chinadialogue
Earlier this year, former San Francisco planning advisor Eugene Leong looked at the legacy of air pollution in San Francisco. Here he draws out ten key policy lessons for China's leadership.Recognize PM2.5 pollution as a complex problem that...
ChinaFile Recommends
03.11.14Beijing Buys a Waste Management Company to Solve Its Pollution Problems—But It Won’t Work
Quartz
Beijing’s municipal government controls its own infrastructure company, the Beijing Capital Group, which means it can spend $798 million to buy New Zealand’s biggest waste management company.
ChinaFile Recommends
03.11.14Happy and Unhappy in China
Atlantic
The new video “Happy in Beijing,” shot over the past few days of worse-than-ever airpocalypse in Beijing, is worth noticing for several reasons.
ChinaFile Recommends
03.04.14China Must Reduce ‘Unbearable’ Smog, Government Adviser Says
Bloomberg
China's air pollution has reached intolerable levels and the country should aggressively cut its reliance on coal, according to the government’s climate-change adviser.
Media
02.14.14
A Kapital Idea
Matthew Neiderhauser is a photographer and artist whose work is influenced by his studies in anthropology. He lived in Beijing for six years and recently returned to the United States. His pictorial book Sound Kapital, published in 2009, documented...
ChinaFile Recommends
02.08.14Senate Approves Max Baucus as China Ambassador
Associated Press
Longtime Sen. Max Baucus, a lawmaker well-versed in U.S. trade policy but with little expertise about military and other issues that have raised tensions with Beijing, has been confirmed the new U.S. ambassador to China.
Environment
01.30.14
This Chinese Filmmaker Can’t Stop Talking Trash
Documentary filmmaker and photographer Wang Jiuliang spent four years, between 2008 and 2011, documenting over 460 hazardous and mostly illegal landfill sites around Beijing.His award-winning film Beijing Besieged by Waste (2011) provoked intense...
ChinaFile Recommends
01.23.14Beijing Population Tops 21 Million
Xinhua
This includes an estimated increase of 100,000 senior citizens every year until 2020.
ChinaFile Recommends
01.16.14Beijing Air Pollution At Dangerously High Levels
Associated Press
The PM2.5 density was calculated at 26 times higher than what is considered safe by the WHO.
Sinica Podcast
01.03.14
Birds of Beijing and the Air They Fly In
from Sinica Podcast
This week, Sinica responds to the fevered requests of the Azure-Winged Magpie society with a show all about birding in Beijing. And why not? Because despite the air pollution that wracks our fair city, Beijing remains one of the best places in the...
ChinaFile Recommends
11.08.13Jeep Crash in China’s Tiananmen Square Leaves Five Dead
Guardian
Authorities have blamed separatist groups for stirring up trouble, but exiles and human right groups argue that the government has been too quick to identify violent incidents as the work of terrorists.
Video
11.05.13
Small Part, Big Screen
Every morning outside the imposing gate of the Beijing Film Studio, a throng gathers to try to find a way inside. These aren’t fans, exactly. Look at their faces, the practiced way they crane their necks or square their shoulders when the man with...
Conversation
10.22.13
Why’s China’s Smog Crisis Still Burning So Hot?
Alex Wang:On Sunday, the start of the winter heating season in northern China brought the “airpocalypse” back with a vengeance.Harbin, the capital of Heilongjiang Province and home to 11 million people, registered fine particulate (PM2.5) pollution...
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10.07.13Beijing's 20 Most Interesting People
Beijinger
Even if nothing interesting could be written about 99 percent of Beijing's approximately 20 million people, there would still be 200,000 great stories remaining.
Sinica Podcast
09.06.13
A Goodbye to the Magistad
from Sinica Podcast
Can it have been merely a few weeks ago that we sequestered Evan “The Turncoat” Osnos in our studio and grilled the celebrated writer on his decision to leave China for what must have myopically seemed like greener pastures? At the time, we intended...
ChinaFile Recommends
09.05.13Beijing Toughens Pollution Rules to Clean Up Air
Xinhua
In a five-year clean air action plan (2013-2017), the Beijing municipal government said 1,200 polluting companies will be ordered to upgrade or close parts or all of their facilities in the coming years to 2016.
ChinaFile Recommends
08.29.13Model Gives Glimpse of Old Beijing
China Daily
A model on a sand table, made 64 years ago, replicating the city's landscape in 1949, will provide a bird's eye view after it is fully restored later in September. The model, in the Beijing Urban Construction Archives Museum,...
Environment
08.29.13
Beijing Water Shortage Worse Than the Middle East
from chinadialogue
Beijing’s annual water consumption has reached 3.6 billion cubic meters, according to statistics released by the Beijing Water Authority, far more than the 2.1 billion cubic meters locally available.The per capita annual water availability is now...
Environment
08.14.13
Beijing’s Neighbors Hesitate at Pollution Cuts
from chinadialogue
The recent announcement of plans to lower air pollution levels in the next five years are far greater than any proposed before, some being several times tougher than those included in the Twelfth Five Year Plan (FYP) period, which was only finalized...