A Radical Realist View of Tibetan Buddhism at the Rubin

Ian Johnson from New York Review of Books
For many, Buddhism is “a religion of peace” and its adaptation for political purposes, even to inspire violence, feels flat-out wrong. That makes the exhibition at the Rubin Museum of Art, “Faith and Empire: Art and Politics in Tibetan Buddhism,” an...

Media

06.11.19

ChinaFile Presents: Erasing History—Why Remember Tiananmen

Nicholas D. Kristof, Zha Jianying & more
On the evening of June 3, ChinaFile hosted a discussion on the Chinese government’s efforts to control, manipulate, and forestall remembrance of the Tiananmen Square protests of 1989 and the bloody crackdown that ended them. Participating in the...

Viewpoint

06.05.17

China Has a New Domestic Violence Law. So Why Are Victims Still Often Unsafe?

Su Lin Han
In rural Hunan province, about two hours from the city of Changsha, a young woman named Zhang Meili married a violent man. According to local police, Zhang had trouble coping with her husband’s strong sexual appetite and he became jealous and...

Features

04.03.17

Boxing For Survival in a Chinese Fight Club

Robert Foyle Hunwick
“I was supposed to be fighting some IT guy,” Bo Junhui groaned afterward. Instead, the 18-year-old student was up against someone a year older, ten pounds heavier, and a lot hungrier. Xia Tian has never worked behind a desk; he’d spent the last few...

When the Chinese Were Unspeakable

Ian Johnson from New York Review of Books
The Xiao River rushes deep and clear out of the mountains of southern China into a narrow plain of paddies and villages. At first little more than an angry stream, it begins to meander and grow as the basin’s 63 other creeks and brooks flow into it...

Chinese Middle Class in Uproar Over Alleged Police Brutality

Associated Press
New York Times
Thousands are signing online petitions to protest the dropping of a police brutality case, representing a rare display of white-collar outrage with Beijing

China: The Virtues of the Awful Convulsion

Ian Johnson from New York Review of Books
For decades, Beijing’s Beihai Park has been one of the city’s most beloved retreats—a strip of green around a grand lake to the north of the Communist Party’s leadership compound, its waters crowded with electric rental boats shaped like ducks and...

It’s So Dangerous Being a Bridesmaid in China that Some Bride are Hiring Professionals Instead

Yang Hu
Quartz
From commoners to renowned celebrities, Chinese bridesmaids are vulnerable to verbal harassment as well as physical and sexual abuse

Researcher Uncovers How Victims of China’s Cultural Revolution Really Died

Violet Law
Los Angeles Times
Her persistence has pierced the official silence enforced by the Chinese government. As time goes on, families of those who died are more willing to open up

Teenager is Convicted of Murder in 2014 Beating Death of USC Grad Student from China

Marisa Gerber
Los Angeles Times
The defendants told detectives they’d targeted Xinran Ji because he was Chinese and they suspected he had money

Video of Beatings Amid Demolition in China Leads to Official Reprisals

Austin Ramzy
New York Times
Officers wearing law enforcement uniforms brandishing clubs, striking women and children cowering at the foot of a wall.

Conversation

11.19.15

Is China a Credible Partner in Fighting Terror?

Andrew Small, Chen Weihua & more
In the wake of the terror attacks in Paris China’s foreign minister Wang Yi said, “China is also a victim of terrorism. The fight against the ‘East Turkestan Islamic Movement’… should become an important part of the international fight against...

Kids Get Violent: China's School Bullying Epidemic

Shen Lu and Elaine Yu
CNN
Liu Lizhu was not aware her shy, 15-year-old son had been bullied at school until he ended up in hospital with a ruptured spleen.

Media

08.27.15

Chinese Media Jumps on Tragic Virginia Shooting

Bethany Allen-Ebrahimian
On the morning of August 26, a reporter and a cameraman for a local Virginia television station were fatally shot during a live television interview. The alleged gunman, now dead, apparently shot himself before being apprehended by police.The...

Chinese 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.

At Least 18 Dead in Ramadan Attack on Police Checkpoint in Xinjiang

Joshua Lipes, Mamatjan Juma
Radio Free Asia
18 dead after a knife and bomb attack by a group of Uyghurs on a checkpoint in Xinjiang amid harsh restrictions on observance of Ramadan.

China Blacklists 38 Cartoons, Violence, Porn Cited

Clifford Coonan
Hollywood Reporter
Among the banned are a 2014 animated TV series set in a Tokyo after a terrorist attack has destroyed the city.

China Malls Rise Amid Growing Xenophobia in South Africa

Cobus van Staden & Mingwei Huang
Chinese immigrants in South Africa have not been spared from the violent, anti-immigrant riots that have swept across Durban and Johannesburg, two of the country’s largest cities. There have been reports of injuries along with at least 40 business...

China Says Thousands Forced to Flee Myanmar Fighting

Ben Blanchard
Reuters
The Yunnan government said that since Feb. 9 there had been more than 30,000 trips by border residents both into and out of China.

Caixin Media

02.17.15

Prosperity, International Cooperation, Civil Rights Key to Defeating Terror

The global fight against terrorism has entered a new stage with the emergence of the Islamic State (IS), and the battle lines have never been so clearly drawn all over the world.On February 18, Washington will host the Summit on Countering Violent...

Flash of Anti-Chinese Xenophobia in the DR Congo

Eric Olander, Cobus van Staden & more
Anti-government protestors filled the streets of the Democratic Republic of the Congo capital Kinshasa on January 19 and 20 to protest against a new election law making its way through the National Assembly. The new law calls for a national census...

Sinica Podcast

01.19.15

China and Charlie

Kaiser Kuo & Jeremy Goldkorn from Sinica Podcast
First there were the terrorist attacks in Paris. And then there was the global reaction to the attacks, with its spate of frenzied free-speech cartooning. And then there was the counter-reaction to the initial reaction, which played out mostly on...

Conversation

01.16.15

Why Did The West Weep for Paris But Not for Kunming?

Bethany Allen-Ebrahimian, Taisu Zhang & more
In the days since the attacks that killed 12 people at the offices of the satirical newspaper Charlie Hebdo in Paris, Chinese netizens have watched the outpouring of solidarity. As our colleagues at Foreign Policy reported earlier this week, the...

China Enlists Citizens to Patrol Border with North Korea

Sui-Lee Wee and Megha Rajagopalan
Reuters
China is sending civilian militias to help secure the border it shares with North Korea in the wake of two reported killings of Chinese citizens by North Koreans that could strain ties between Pyongyang and its sole major ally.

Media

01.13.15

‘Where’s Our Unity March?’ China Wants to Know

Bethany Allen-Ebrahimian & Rachel Lu
The January 7 terrorist attack on satirical French newspaper Charlie Hebdo that left 12 dead has mostly inspired unity in the West, but the massive march held in its aftermath is spurring controversy, and even some disdain, in China. While the...

China’s Booming Africa Trade in Torture Devices

Eric Olander, Cobus van Staden & more
Amnesty International and the Omega Research Foundation recently published a new report that alleges China is selling hundreds of millions of dollars in so-called "torture tools" to African governments. Despite mounting evidence these...

China Increasingly Producing ‘Tools of Torture’ for Export: Amnesty

Megha Rajagopalan
Reuters
The Chinese equipment, such as spiked batons, fuels human rights abuses by law enforcement authorities in African and Southeast Asian nations, the international human rights group said in a report.

Under the Knife

Christopher Beam
New Yorker
 Why Chinese patients are turning against their doctors.

Dozens Dead or Injured in Xinjiang ‘Terror,’ but Facts Are Few and Far Between

Emily Rauhala
Time
Two vastly different accounts have emerged about the a violent incident that occurred on the first day of the ‘Id al-Fitr festival, highlighting the difficulties of getting reliable information from the increasingly restless region.

Books

06.25.14

Tiananmen Exiles

Rowena Xiaoqing He
In the spring of 1989, millions of citizens across China took to the streets in a nationwide uprising against government corruption and authoritarian rule. What began with widespread hope for political reform ended with the People's Liberation Army firing on unarmed citizens in the capital city of Beijing, and those leaders who survived the crackdown became wanted criminals overnight. Among the witnesses to this unprecedented popular movement was Rowena Xiaoqing He, who would later join former student leaders and other exiles in North America, where she has worked tirelessly for over a decade to keep the memory of the Tiananmen Movement alive. This moving oral history interweaves He's own experiences with the accounts of three student leaders exiled from China. Here, in their own words, they describe their childhoods during Mao's Cultural Revolution, their political activism, the bitter disappointments of 1989, and the profound contradictions and challenges they face as exiles. Variously labeled as heroes, victims, and traitors in the years after Tiananmen, these individuals tell difficult stories of thwarted ideals and disconnection that nonetheless embody the hope for a freer China and a more just world. —Palgrave Macmillan {chop}

Books

06.18.14

The People’s Republic of Amnesia

Louisa Lim
On June 4, 1989, People's Liberation Army soldiers opened fire on unarmed civilians in Beijing, killing untold hundreds of people. A quarter-century later, this defining event remains buried in China's modern history, successfully expunged from collective memory. In The People's Republic of Amnesia, NPR correspondent Louisa Lim charts how the events of June 4th changed China, and how China changed the events of June 4th by rewriting its own history.{node, 5555}Lim reveals new details about those fateful days, including how one of the country's most senior politicians lost a family member to an army bullet, as well as the inside story of the young soldiers sent to clear Tiananmen Square. She also introduces us to individuals whose lives were transformed by the events of Tiananmen Square, such as a founder of the Tiananmen Mothers, whose son was shot by martial law troops; and one of the most important government officials in the country, who post-Tiananmen became one of its most prominent dissidents. And she examines how June 4th shaped China's national identity, fostering a generation of young nationalists, who know little and care less about 1989. For the first time, Lim uncovers the details of a brutal crackdown in a second Chinese city that until now has been a near-perfect case study in the state's ability to rewrite history, excising the most painful episodes. By tracking down eyewitnesses, discovering U.S. diplomatic cables, and combing through official Chinese records, Lim offers the first account of a story that has remained untold for a quarter of a century. The People's Republic of Amnesia is an original, powerfully gripping, and ultimately unforgettable book about a national tragedy and an unhealed wound. —Oxford University Press {chop}

Deadly McDonald’s Attack Highlights Fears About Cults in China

Julie Makinen
Los Angeles Times
The perpetrators were six members of a religious cult, including a middle-age man, his two grown daughters and his 12-year-old son, who became angry when refused a phone number.

Media

05.23.14

“What’s Been Done to My Beautiful Homeland?”

Nigel Maiti, an ethnically Uighur host for Chinese state broadcaster CCTV, is a well-known and popular entertainer with more than 1 million followers on the social media site Sina Weibo. After 31 were killed by a coordinated bomb and truck attack at...

Media

05.20.14

Netizens Complain Chinese Government Was Slow to Respond to Violence in Vietnam

On May 18, Hong Lei, a spokesman for China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, said China “will suspend some of its plans for bilateral exchanges with Vietnam in response to the deadly violence against Chinese nationals in the country,” according to...

Tiananmen: How Wrong We Were

Jonathan Mirsky from New York Review of Books
Twenty-five years ago to the day I write this, I watched and listened as thousands of Chinese citizens in Beijing’s Tiananmen Square dared to condemn their leaders. Some shouted “Premier Li Peng resign.” Even braver ones cried “Down with Deng...

Shoe Maker Yue Yuen Suspends Vietnam Production Amid Protests

Donny Kwok and Rachel Lee
Reuters
Vietnam accounts for about a third of Yue Yuen's global production capacity, which amounted to 313 million pairs of shoes last year.

Protestors Torch Factories in Southern Vietnam as China Protests Escalate

Euan McKirdy
CNN
Properties in the Vietnam-Singapore Industrial Parks (VSIP) I & II in Binh Duong were targeted by thousands of protesters demonstrating over China's deployment of an oil rig in disputed waters.

China Maoming Environmental Protest Violence Condemned

BBC
Authorities have condemned an environmental protest in southern China that turned violent, calling it "serious criminal behavior.”

After 3/1: The Dangers of China’s Ethnic Divide

Evan Osnos
New Yorker
The pressure posed by ethnic unrest is the biggest story on the Chinese horizon, and that struggle—the pressure from below, and the response it will bring—just moved into the foreground.

Was Chinese Train Massacre ‘Terrorism’?

Nisid Hajari
Bloomberg
Chinese might want to think twice before they start adopting the U.S.’s politically charged, post-Sept. 11 enthusiasm for labeling terrorists and terror attacks.

China’s Muslims Will Pay a Heavy Price for the Kunming Knife Attacks

Isabel Hilton
Guardian
There’s no evidence that the Kunming station attack had any connection to global jihad, but that won’t prevent a crackdown.

China’s Netizens React To Kunming Station Attacks With Anger, Grief

Kevin Tang
Buzzfeed
Panic, calls against racial profiling, and anger at Western coverage permeate Weibo in absence of ongoing TV coverage of terror attacks.

After Train Station Massacre Labeled ‘China's 9/11,’ a Wide Search for Culprits

Christina Larson
Businessweek
Although no details about the identities of the assailants have been released, state-run newswire Xinhua attributed the Kunming railway station massacre to “terrorists from Xinjiang.”

Kunming Rail Station Attack: China Horrified as Mass Stabbings Leave Dozens Dead

Barry Neild
Guardian
State media blamed the killings at Kunming in Yunnan province, south-west China, on militants from Xinjiang in the country's restive north-west. 

At Least 28 Dead, 113 Injured in Kunming Railway Station Violence

Xinhua
The railway station attack in the southwest Chinese city of Kunming was an organized, premeditated violent terrorist attack, according to the authorities.

Dozens Dead in Knife Attack at China Train Station

Calum MacLeod
USA Today
China suffered one of its deadliest ever acts of terror when more than 10 knife-wielding men killed at least 29 people and injured over 130 in a brutal assault at a train station in southwest China's Kunming.

China Sees Wave of Violence Against Hospital Staff

John Sudworth
BBC
A nurse left paralysed in Nanjing, a doctor with his throat slashed in Hebei and another beaten to death with a pipe in Heilongjiang are not isolated cases, but the latest in a growing crisis of violence at the heart of China's healthcare...

Sinica Podcast

03.07.14

Wealth and Power: Intellectuals in China

Kaiser Kuo, Jeremy Goldkorn & more from Sinica Podcast
This week, Kaiser and Jeremy are joined by David Moser and Orville Schell. While long-time listeners will of course know of David Moser as one of our favorite resident sinologists, if you haven’t also heard of Orville Schell we think you should have...

Caixin Media

03.03.14

Kunming Attack Is ‘China’s 9/11,’ State Media Says

In the days after a major terror attack in Kunming, state media outlets are calling for a united front to combat terror and warning against excusing the attackers or criticizing the government’s policies on minorities.On the evening of March 1, a...

Media

03.03.14

‘Enemies of Humanity’ — China Debates Who’s to Blame For the Kunming Attack

It’s already being called “3.01,” or “three oh one,” a date that will likely burn in China’s collective memory for years to come. According to Xinhua, China’s state news agency, on the evening of March 1, around 9:00 p.m. Beijing time, ten or more...

China’s Television War on Japan

Murong Xuecun
New York Times
The state prohibits content that “incites ethnic hatred,” yet according to Southern Weekly more than 70 anti-Japanese TV series were screened in China in 2012. The result of this stream of rancor is just what you’d expect. &...

China: Reeducation Through Horror

Ian Buruma from New York Review of Books
Here are two snippets from a Chinese Communist journal called People’s China, published in August 1956:In 1956, despite the worst natural calamities in scores of years, China’s peasants, newly organized in co-operatives on a nation-wide scale,...

China’s Communist Party HQ Hit by Series of Explosions

Tom Phillips
Telegraph
Media reports claimed that improvised explosive devices packed with metal ball bearings and nails and concealed in roadside flowerbeds were detonated at around 7:40 in the morning in Taiyuan, the capital of coal-rich Shanxi province. 

Explosions Kill 1, Injure 8 in North China City

Reuters
The official Xinhua news agency said what appeared to be small-scale bombs went off outside an office building of the Shanxi Provincial Committee of the Communist Party. Taiyuan is the capital of Shanxi province. 

China’s State Media Calls for Strong Action on Tiananmen Attack

Reuters
Chinese state media demanded severe punishment on October 31 after the government blamed militants from restive Xinjiang for an attack in Tiananmen Square, as the exiled leader of the region’s Uighur minority called for an independent probe.&...

Chinese Police Hunt for Two Xinjiang Men After Tiananmen Crash

Tania Branigan
Guardian
Chinese police are hunting for two or more men from the troubled region of Xinjiang amid growing suspicion that a fatal car crash and explosion in Tiananmen Square on Monday was a suicide attack. 

Tiananmen Square Crash Photos Scrubbed from Internet

Emily Rauhala
Time
Images posted on social media and blogs showed the S.U.V. completely engulfed in flames, smoke visible hundreds of meters away. But authorities made quick work to contain the situation. 

Police Examine Possible Xinjiang Link in Deadly Tiananmen Crash

Andrew Jacobs
New York Times
After the car crash in Tiananmen Square, Chinese authorities have now named two suspects from Xinjiang, the troubled western region whose ethnic Uighur population has become increasingly disenchanted with Chinese policies.