The NYRB China Archive
05.09.18
After-Shocks of the 2008 Sichuan Earthquake
from New York Review of Books
The province of Sichuan is a microcosm of China. Its east is flat, prosperous, and densely settled by ethnic Chinese. Its mountainous west is populated by poorer minorities, but possesses resources that help make the east rich.In Sichuan, the...
Photo Gallery
04.11.18
23 Days, 1,300 Miles, and Some Very High Expectations
“We were at an altitude of 15,000 feet on Mount Haizi. It started to hail. The temperature dropped to 40 degrees. We were only wearing t-shirts. They didn’t stop biking.” It was photographer Wang He’s second time on the Tibetan Plateau. The first...
Other
10.31.17
Down from the Mountains (Reader-Friendly Version)
At 14 years old, Wang Ying doesn’t want to be a mother. She scowls darkly as her younger brother and sister squabble in the corner while she does the housework. But she grudgingly cleans up after them and cooks them a potato stew, which they eat...
Video
10.31.17
Down From the Mountains
At 14 years old, Wang Ying doesn’t want to be a mother. She scowls darkly as her younger brother and sister squabble in the corner while she does the housework. But she grudgingly cleans up after them and cooks them a potato stew, which they eat...
Excerpts
10.06.17
Nearly Dead on Arrival
I was a six-foot-two-inch rake whose strongest muscle was my mouth: at college I once talked down a mugger pressing a knife against my gut, and twice lost fistfights after telling off racists. I never felt big, but in China my size usually made me...
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08.09.17Quake in China’s Sichuan Kills 19, Including Tourists; Injures 247
Reuters
A 7.0—magnitude earthquake struck a remote, mountainous part of China’s southwestern province of Sichuan, killing 19 people, including eight tourists, and injuring 247, the provincial government and official media said on Wednesday.
Photo Gallery
06.21.17
Inside the World of Chinese Bitcoin ‘Mining’
From the outside, the buildings with the bright tin roofs don’t look like places where money is made. High in the remote mountains of the region of China’s Sichuan province that borders Tibet, economic life has mostly centered on grazing and...
ChinaFile Recommends
12.01.16Full-Sized Replica of the Titanic Begins Taking Shape in Landlocked Southwest China
South China Morning Post
Tourist attraction aims to recreate the thrills and horror of doomed voyage
ChinaFile Recommends
10.14.16Police Recover 300 Million Yuan Worth of Stolen Sichuan Relics
The two-year operation ends with 70 arrests and breakup of 10 criminal gangs
Depth of Field
05.31.16
Families, Weddings, and Beekeepers
from Yuanjin Photo
This month’s Depth of Field column brings the stories of Chinese adoption; the marriage ceremony of Hu Mingliang and Sun Wenlin, a gay couple who filed the first civil rights marriage lawsuit to be accepted by a Chinese court (they lost); beekeepers...
ChinaFile Recommends
05.24.16China Pouring Billions Into Majority Tibetan Ganzi Prefecture
NBC News
Beijing aims to spend nearly $30 billion over a five-year period in the majority Tibetan prefecture of Ganzi in western Sichuan province.
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...
ChinaFile Recommends
03.08.15The Cowboys (and Indians) of Sichuan: Photographers Search for China's Billy the Kid
South China Morning Post
The people of remote Tagong in the southwestern grasslands resemble the cowboys and Indians of North American history.
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...
Caixin Media
08.25.14
His Start in Oil Fuelled Zhou’s Rise to Top Cop
Zhou Yongkang, a former member of the Politburo Standing Committee, the Communist Party's supreme decision-making body, has been the highest ranking Party cadre to be a target of a corruption investigation.The Party's graft fighters...
Caixin Media
04.15.14New Sichuan Petchem Plant on Shaky Ground
A controversial petrochemical project in the southwestern province of Sichuan quietly went into operation in March, but questions about the China National Petroleum Corp. (CNPC) facility continue to linger.The project is in Pengzhou, a city of 763,...
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02.20.14Local Government Threatens Severe Punishments for Families of Tibetan Self-Immolators
South China Morning Post
A county in Sichuan province has issued guidelines aimed at punishing family members of Tibetans who have set themselves on fire to protest Chinese rule in their homeland.
ChinaFile Recommends
09.26.13China Opens World’s Highest Airport
Associated Press
China has begun flight operations at the world’s highest civilian airport in a bid to boost tourism and tighten political control over the country’s restive west.
ChinaFile Recommends
07.22.13China: 115-Year-Old Woman Could Be World's Oldest Person
Guardian
A 115-year-old woman from southwest China has applied for a Guinness World Record naming her as the world's oldest living person. Fu Suqing, from Chengdu, Sichuan, was born in 1897 and she has 48 grandchildren, great-grandchildren and great-...
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07.11.13Mudslide in Western China Buries 30
Wall Street Journal
Flooding in western China, the worst in 50 years for some areas, triggered a landslide Wednesday that buried about 30 people, trapped hundreds in a highway tunnel and destroyed a memorial to a devastating 2008 earthquake.
Caixin Media
05.04.13
Earth Moves, China Rallies
Rapeseed was ripening in the lush fields ringing the village of Renjia when a local farmer, forced from his home, stepped into the sea of green stalks and pitched a tent.Less than a day earlier, the farmer and each of his more than 3,000 neighbors...
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04.26.13Mother Loses Son, Then Daughter In Both Sichuan Earthquakes
South China Morning Post
Life has not been fair for 50-year-old Lu Jingkang, who lost her teenage daughter in the 7.0-magnitude earthquake that hit Yaan on April 20, 2013. Barely five years earlier, she lost her son in the other catastrophic Sichuan earthquake, in...
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07.03.12Sichuan City Suspends Factory Construction Following Protests
New York Times
A municipal government in southwestern China has suspended at least temporarily the construction of a metals factory after bloody street protests on Monday, in the latest sign of the growing strength of the country’s environmental movement.
Photo Gallery
05.06.12
My Uncle, My Father
In Aguwa village, Yunnan province, the Mosuo continue to practice their ancient tradition of matriarchy. Women rule the tightly-knit families as heads of households, while men practice “walking marriages,” fathering children whom they seldom help...