ChinaFile Recommends
04.13.16China’s New Security Challenge: Angry Mom-and-Pop Investors
Wall Street Journal
As they watch their nest eggs dwindle, some hit the streets in protest.
ChinaFile Recommends
03.25.16China Warns Officials: No Unrest, Or Lose Your Job
Wall Street Journal
The policy announcement comes two weeks after hundreds of unpaid coal workers took to the streets in the gritty northeastern city of Shuangyashan.
ChinaFile Recommends
02.09.16Hong Kong Riot Police Fire Warning Shots in Bloody Street Clashes
Reuters
In the worst violence since 2014 pro-democracy protests, clashes erupted in Hong Kong when authorities tried to remove illegal street stalls.
ChinaFile Recommends
12.15.15China’s Workers Are Fighting Back as Economic Dream Fades
Wall Street Journal
For workers like Li Jiang, factory closings represent a failed promise of a better life earned far from home.
Conversation
09.30.15
The Future of Autonomy in Hong Kong
Yesterday, the governing board of Hong Kong University, one of the territory’s most esteemed institutions of higher education, voted to reject the promotion of Johannes Chan, a former law school dean, over the objections of the faculty and students...
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09.29.15ChinaFile Recommends
09.23.15Rights Protesters, China Supporters Greet President Xi in Seattle
Reuters
About 100 people protesting against human rights abuses in China greeted President Xi Jinping in Seattle.
ChinaFile Recommends
07.06.15Chinese Tourists Warned over Turkey Uighur Protests
BBC
China advised citizens against travelling to Turkey after it said several tourists were attacked in protests over the Chinese government's treatment of Uighur Muslims.
Features
07.01.15
Hong Kong’s Umbrella Protests Were More Than Just a Student Movement
For almost three months in late 2014, what came to be known as the Umbrella Movement amplified Hong Kong’s bitter struggle for the democracy its people were promised when China assumed control of the territory from Britain in 1997. Originally a...
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...
Viewpoint
05.19.15
Hong Kong’s Not That Special, And Beijing Should Stop Saying It Is
As political wrangling in Hong Kong continues over changes to how the city’s chief executive will be selected in 2017, Beijing marks the 25th anniversary of the promulgation of the Hong Kong Basic Law—the Special Administrative Region’s...
ChinaFile Recommends
05.18.15China: Protests For High-Speed Rail Line To ‘Abandoned' City’ Triggers Violent Clashes
International Business Times
China: Protests For High-Speed Rail Line To 'Abandoned' City Triggers Violent Clashes http://www.ibtimes.com/china-protests-high-speed-rail-line-abandoned-city-triggers-violent-clashes-1926516
Media
05.06.15
Online Reaction to Baltimore Protests Reveals Much About Chinese Tension with African Immigrants
Several days ago, a Chinese friend and I were discussing the protests in Baltimore that erupted in response to the death of resident Freddie Gray in connection with his April 12 arrest by city police officers, who have since been charged with crimes...
Media
04.30.15
Will China Ban Katy Perry?
On April 28, American pop singer Katy Perry gave her first-ever concert in Taipei, the capital of Taiwan, the self-governing island which mainland China considers to be its sovereign territory. Tense relations between Taiwan and mainland China mean...
ChinaFile Recommends
04.13.15China Restricts Travel By Shenzhen Residents To Hong Kong
NPR
The move is designed to assuage Hong Kongers angry with mainlanders who buy up goods.
Features
04.02.15
Frank Talk About Hong Kong’s Future from Margaret Ng
Following is the transcript of a recent ChinaFile Breakfast with Margaret Ng, the former Hong Kong legislator in discussion with Ira Belkin of New York University Law School and Orville Schell, ChinaFile Publisher and Arthur Ross Director of the...
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04.01.15Claims of Retaliation in Detention of Chinese Anticorruption Campaigner
New York Times
Ou Shaokun, 61, gained prominence by advising Guangzhou petitioners protesting government land seizures.
ChinaFile Recommends
02.23.15Hong Kong Delegates to China’s Parliament Seek Mainland Security Laws to Counter Protests
Reuters
The last time Hong Kong tried to pass national security legislation was in 2003.
ChinaFile Recommends
01.14.15Hong Kong’s Leader Says Concessions to Protesters Could Lead to Anarchy
New York Times
Leung Chun-ying, the chief executive of Hong Kong, offered the proposals in his first major policy package since the street demonstrations ended last month. Since Mr. Leung came to office in 2012, he has repeatedly vowed to redress the city’s...
ChinaFile Recommends
01.12.15Firebombs Thrown at Jimmy Lai’s Home and Company in Hong Kong
New York Times
Apple Daily has been a vocal advocate of the recent demonstrations for expanded democracy in Hong Kong. Mr. Lai frequently attended the protests, which saw several main thoroughfares occupied for more than two months. He was arrested and released in...
Conversation
01.08.15
What Does Hong Kong’s Post-Protest Report Signal For Relations with Beijing?
This week, we saw the release of the official government “Report on the Recent Community and Political Situation in Hong Kong.” It concluded: "It is the common aspiration of the Central Authorities [in Beijing], the [Hong Kong Special...
Media
12.18.14
Hong Kong, the Resilient City
The tents have folded. After 75 days of camping on the street, braving police crackdowns, occasional civilian attacks, and the city’s (admittedly mild) winter chill, Hong Kong’s pro-democracy protesters have cleared out. As promised, police moved in...
ChinaFile Recommends
12.15.14China Shocked by Fatal Riot in Madagascar
Huffington Post
"We hope the Madagascar government will take necessary measures to properly handle the attack at the Morondava sugar plant and to erase the ill impact this incident has brought to the country's international image and its ability to...
ChinaFile Recommends
12.15.1479 Days That Shook Hong Kong
Time
Photo Essay: Hong Kong's street occupations have ended, but many demonstrators say this is only the beginning of their fight for free elections.
ChinaFile Recommends
12.09.14Hong Kong Democracy Protesters Brace for Final Camp Shutdown
Washington Post
The operation reflects the waning support for demonstrators after more than two months of civil disobedience and clashes that began over Beijing’s role in directing elections in the former British colony.
ChinaFile Recommends
12.08.14China Sentences 8 to Death for Attacks in Xinjiang
ABC
The Urumqi Intermediate People's Court in the capital of Xinjiang also handed out suspended death sentences to five others, China Central Television said, without mentioning when the trials were held.
Media
12.05.14
Repeat After Me: Taiwan’s Recent Elections Had Nothing to Do With Hong Kong
If China was in fact the invisible candidate in Taiwan’s local elections, it just lost in a landslide. On November 28, voters on the self-governing island, which mainland China considers a renegade province, selected candidates for over 11,000...
ChinaFile Recommends
12.02.14Hong Kong Protests Have Produced No Real Winners
Guardian
There appear to be no real winners from Hong Kong’s umbrella movement: not the demonstrators—who have failed to win the concessions for which they have fought so persistently—nor the authorities, who have veered between aggressive intervention and...
ChinaFile Recommends
12.01.14How Hong Kong’s Umbrella Movement Folded
Al Jazeera
An effective boycott by the relevant interlocutors, in the form of government officials, and for two months the lack of a face-to-face oppressor, in the form of police—who until last week appeared to have learned that gassing protesters was the...
ChinaFile Recommends
12.01.14China’s Crackdown in Hong Kong May Fuel a Long-term Democracy Movement
Washington Post
China's Communist authorities are nothing if not predictable. With a high-profile international summit hosted by President Xi Jinping this month behind them, they are ready for authorities in Hong Kong to crack down on a pro-democracy protest...
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11.26.14LIVE: Stand-off Ensues Between Protesters and Police in Mong Kok
South China Morning Post
Crowds of protesters are involved in stand-off with police in Mong Kok after officers earlier took control of the junction of Shantung Street and Sai Yeung Choi South Street by forcing people back on the pavement.
ChinaFile Recommends
11.26.14China Fires Journalist Who Tweeted In Support of Occupy Central
Radio Free Asia
Wang Yafeng, who wrote editorials for Communist Party mouthpiece the Jiaxing Daily in the eastern province of Zhejiang, lost his job after sending out tweets highly critical of state media's line on the Hong Kong protests on his personal...
ChinaFile Recommends
11.21.14“Hunger Games” China Release Date canceled, Likely Due to “Revolutionary” Political Content
That’s
The film's sudden withdrawal may be due to the film's apparently incendiary content, depicting a fictitious revolution aimed at toppling a dystopian future government. It's feared that movie-goers might draw parallels to Taiwan's...
ChinaFile Recommends
11.17.14China’s New Old Financial Capital
Wall Street Journal
Hong Kong’s democracy protests are often said to be futile because the city is no longer China’s golden goose, protected from Beijing’s wrath by its economic importance. But Monday’s big news shows that things aren’t so simple: The opening of a “...
ChinaFile Recommends
11.05.14Britain Soft on China over Hong Kong Crisis, Says Chris Patten
Guardian
Patten, the last British governor of Hong Kong before the 1997 handover, said China’s actions were “spit in the face” of the 1984 Joint Declaration on the conditions under which Hong Kong would be handed over.
ChinaFile Recommends
11.03.14Is China’s Grand Ethnic Experiment Working?
BBC
In a gleaming classroom at Chong Hua High School in the northern Chinese city of Tianjin, students peer at onion slices under microscopes. Their biology teacher calls on Abdurrahman Mamat to explain what he sees."Plasmolysis," he replies...
ChinaFile Recommends
11.03.14Taiwan Leader Stresses Support for Hong Kong Protests
New York Times
“If mainland China can practice democracy in Hong Kong, or if mainland China itself can become more democratic, then we can shorten the psychological distance between people from the two sides of the Taiwan Strait,” President Ma Ying-jeou said.
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
10.31.14In Hong Kong Photographer, China Sees Image of Spy
New York Times
Dan Garrett, a gnarled, tattooed former Pentagon intelligence analyst, has attracted more stares than usual lately when he prowls the streets here with a camera fitted with a 300-millimeter lens, snapping images of pro-democracy demonstrations,...
ChinaFile Recommends
10.31.14Hong Kong Politician Likens Protesters to African-American Slaves
New York Times
“American slaves were liberated in 1861, but did not get voting rights until 107 years later,” she was reported as saying by The Standard, an English-language Hong Kong newspaper. “So why can’t Hong Kong wait for a while?”
ChinaFile Recommends
10.29.14Nine out of 10 Hong Kong Activists Say Will Fight on for a Year
Reuters
The most tenacious protests since the former British colony returned to Chinese rule in 1997 have already persisted beyond most expectations.
ChinaFile Recommends
10.29.14Taking Back Hong Kong’s Future
New York Times
Since the return of Hong Kong to China in 1997, less than a year after I was born, the people of this city have muddled through with a political system that leaves power in the hands of the wealthy and the well-connected.
ChinaFile Recommends
10.27.14China’s Crackdown on Dissent Shows How Nervous Its Leaders Are
Washington Post
The legal assault on a critic of Mao gives a flavor of the current climate. Tie Liu is the pen name of Huang Zerong, 81, who has collected and published memoirs of people who were purged by Chinese dictator Mao Zedong in the 1950s and 1960s.
ChinaFile Recommends
10.27.14The Secret History of Hong Kong’s Stillborn Democracy
Quartz
By September 29 peaceful protesters had been clogging Hong Kong’s downtown for less than a day, but to the Chinese Communist Party this already smacked of ingratitude.
ChinaFile Recommends
10.27.14China Began Push Against Hong Kong Elections in ’50s
New York Times
Beginning in the 1950s, the colonial governors who ran Hong Kong repeatedly sought to introduce popular elections but abandoned those efforts in the face of pressure by Communist Party leaders in Beijing.
ChinaFile Recommends
10.27.14Pro-Democracy Movement’s Vote in Hong Kong Abruptly Called Off
New York Times
The referendum boiled down to two simple questions: Did voters endorse demanding that the Hong Kong government press Beijing to make democratic concessions on election rules, and did they agree that the changes should apply to city Legislative...
Media
10.24.14
Hong Kong Documentary Explores the Roots of Dissent
To many observers, Hong Kong’s “Umbrella Movement”—thousands of students and other citizens in the streets demanding to choose their own political leaders—seemed to unfurl, fully formed, out of nowhere. Residents of the former colony were supposed...
ChinaFile Recommends
10.21.14Hong Kong’s High Court Orders Protesters Off Roads in Mong Kok and Admiralty
South China Morning Post
In an interview with The New York Times, Chief Executive Leung Chun-ying hinted at possible intervention by the central government if the situation remained unresolved.
Viewpoint
10.21.14
‘We Can Only Trust Each Other and Keep the Road’
Snip. Snip. Snip. The officer’s face shows concentration as he cuts one yellow ribbon after another along a metal fence on Queensway in the Central district of Hong Kong. Next to him, other policemen have just finished dismantling the barricades...
ChinaFile Recommends
10.21.14Hong Kong’s Leader Blames Foreigners for Fanning Protests
Bloomberg
“There is obviously participation by people, organizations from outside of Hong Kong,” Chief Executive Leung Chun-ying said in an interview on Asia Television Ltd.
ChinaFile Recommends
10.21.14Unrest in China Leaves 22 Dead Following Xinjiang Attack
Financial Times
A new ethnic clash in the restive region of Xinjiang, on China’s central Asian frontier, saw 22 people killed after Uighur assailants attacked Han Chinese merchants at a wholesale food market near the border with Kyrgyzstan.
ChinaFile Recommends
10.20.14The Hong Kong Protesters Who Won't Negotiate
Atlantic
Pro-democracy protests took a violent turn in Hong Kong, as police officers clashed with demonstrators in the territory's Mong Kok neighborhood.
ChinaFile Recommends
10.20.14What China Means by ‘Rule of Law’
New York Times
There’s plenty of evidence that China sees the rule of law in nuanced and complex ways.
ChinaFile Recommends
10.20.14The U.S. Is No Role Model in Hong Kong’s Democracy Fight
Quartz
C.Y. Leung explains the protests that continue to paralyze parts of Hong Kong, after thwarting a police crackdown over the weekend: they are being supported by “external forces."
ChinaFile Recommends
10.14.14LIVE: Police With Shields and Batons Push Back Protesters On Lung Wo Road
South China Morning Post
Hundreds of police with power tools tore down protesters’ barricades on Queensway in Admiralty, following a swiftly executed dawn operation to remove a number of blockades in Causeway Bay.
ChinaFile Recommends
10.13.14Hong Kong Heats Up Again
Economist
Masked men attacked pro-democracy protesters for the second time in as many weeks on the morning of October 13th near Hong Kong’s Admiralty business district.
ChinaFile Recommends
10.13.14The Unrest In Hong Kong And China's Bigger Urban Crisis
Forbes
China, whose urban growth has been a great success story, now must consider changing development patterns, perhaps looking at lower density and more dispersed development.
ChinaFile Recommends
10.10.14Taiwan Leader: China Should Try Democracy—Starting with Hong Kong
Los Angeles Times
Taiwanese President Ma Ying-jeou's comments reflect popular local support for the tens of thousands of Hong Kong residents who launched democracy protests on Sept. 27 in the semi-autonomous Chinese territory.
ChinaFile Recommends
10.08.14Chinese Communist Party as the Mafia Boss
China Change
The next surprise for the protesters came as assaults from members of the mafia, posing as ordinary citizens. We now have enough evidence that the Anti-Occupy Central crowd, emblazoned with blue ribbons, can count on the government’s support, if not...