Media
06.26.15‘Why Do Chinese Lack Creativity?’
On June 19, the University of Washington and elite Tsinghua University in Beijing announced a new, richly funded cooperative program to be based in Seattle and focused on a topic that has become a sore point in China: innovation. Republican...
Media
06.26.15A Chinese Feminist, Made in America
In August 2010, two weeks after turning 18, I traveled about 6,700 miles from Beijing, China to attend Amherst, a liberal-arts college in Massachusetts in the northeastern United States. I packed a copy of Harvard economist N. Gregory Mankiw’s...
Environment
06.25.15Growing Pains for China’s New Environmental Courts
from chinadialogue
In recent years, China has set up hundreds of new environmental courts as part of institutional reforms that aim to encourage greener growth and curb pollution, but the country will have to speed up training and recruitment to ensure judges have the...
Environment
06.24.15High Off the Hog
Hongshaorou—“red braised” pork belly, a classic Chinese dish—is cooked with ginger, garlic, and soy sauce until the squares of fatty meat are so tender they dissolve in the mouth. Once a luxury, this succulent delicacy was known to be a favorite...
Caixin Media
06.22.15Why Fukuyama Still Beats a Drum for Democracy
American author and political scientist Francis Fukuyama has long extolled the virtues of democracy against the backdrop of the Soviet Union’s collapse and the end of the Cold War.Fukuyama’s best-selling book The End of History and the Last Man...
Caixin Media
06.17.15Is China Knocking on Deflation’s Door?
China’s last war against deflation was waged in 1998, the year the nation’s consumer price index and producer price index suddenly plunged in tandem.The central government responded by launching economic and administrative reforms, hastening steps...
Media
06.17.15American Students in China: It’s Not as Authoritarian as We Thought
For some American students about to embark on a study abroad trip to China, the U.S. media reports of Chinese Internet censorship, jailing of dissidents, and draconian population control laws may dominate their perception of the country. But after...
Features
06.16.15Does Xi Jinping Represent a Return to the Mao Era?
Following is an edited transcript of a live event hosted at Asia Society New York on May 21, 2015, “ChinaFile Presents: Does Xi Jinping Represent a Return to the Politics of the Mao Era?” The evening convened the scholars Roderick MacFarquhar and...
Environment
06.15.15China’s Greehouse Gas Emissions Likely to Peak by 2025
from chinadialogue
China’s output of greenhouse gases could peak in 2025, five years earlier than it has promised, meaning that the world’s largest emitter may be able to quicken the pace of cuts in coming decades, according to a new paper published June 8 by the...
Media
06.11.15Zhou Yongkang’s Mask of Fear Falls Quietly Away
Zhou Yongkang—erstwhile oil czar, former chief of China’s dreaded state security apparatus, a man once swaggering and fit enough to perform 50 to 100 pushups in front of fawning onlookers—has completed his transformation into a sad historical...
Viewpoint
06.11.15Why I Publish in China
A couple of weeks ago, I received a request from a New York Times reporter to talk about publishing in China. The topic has been in the news lately, with the BookExpo in New York, where Chinese publishers were the guests of honor. In May, the PEN...
Caixin Media
06.09.15China’s Cabinet Unveils Plan to Improve Rural Schools
The State Council has released a plan for improving the quality of education in rural areas over the next five years—a move the cabinet says is aimed at improving the quality of teaching at primary and secondary schools in the country’s less-...
Media
06.09.15Chinese Censorship of Western Books Is Now Normal. Where’s the Outrage?
In September 2014, I was commissioned by the New York-based free speech advocacy group PEN American Center to investigate how Western authors were navigating the multibillion-dollar Chinese publishing world and its massive, but opaque, censorship...
Media
06.05.15Hong Kong’s Long-Standing Unity on Tiananmen Is Unraveling
June 4, a day that changed mainland China forever, has become a cross that the city of Hong Kong bears. Each year, thousands of the city’s residents gather on an often steamy night and share anxious memories of 1989, when tanks rolled by bloodied...
Caixin Media
06.04.15China Uses Drones to Monitor Pollution Problems from Above
China’s environmental regulators want to increase the use of drones watching pollution levels, supplementing the existing monitoring system.In the central city of Wuhan, drones were sent to urban areas to inspect emissions from chimneys that are...
Postcard
06.03.15Beijing 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...
Caixin Media
06.02.15The South China Sea Is a Litmus Test for Sino-U.S. Relations
American officials were recently quoted in The Wall Street Journal as saying the U.S. military will send warships and fighter jets to the South China Sea as a show of its concern over maritime safety. They said U.S. warships would come within 12...
Media
06.02.15Top Chinese Authors Show Up at Book Expo, but Where Are the Readers?
Last week, 20,000 publishers convened in New York’s Javits Center for BookExpo America (BEA), the publishing industry’s annual trade show. Among their ranks was a delegation from China 500 strong, attending the convention in the capacity of “guest...
Media
06.02.15Chinese Netizens to Fiorina: You’re Right, We Don’t Innovate
Carly Fiorina, the former CEO of Hewlett-Packard and a declared Republican candidate for U.S. president, evidently has strong opinions about the capacities of Chinese people. “Yeah, the Chinese can take a test,” Fiorina told an Iowa-based video blog...
Culture
06.01.15Chinese Writers and Chinese Reality
My first encounter with Liu Zhenyun was in 2003. At the time, cell phones had just become available in China and they were complicating people’s relationships. I witnessed a couple break up because of the secrets stored on a phone. I watched people...
Media
05.29.15Is the Shanghai Stock Market Bubble Finally Bursting?
A customer strolls into a bookstore, goes the popular Chinese joke, and tells the salesperson: “I’m looking for a book with no killers, but much bloodshed; with no love, but great regret; with no spies, but constant paranoia. Can you make a...
Environment
05.28.15Chinese Posters Warn of the Dangers of Smog
from chinadialogue
{slideshow, 16211, 4}An exhibition of smog-inspired posters is touring the polluted cities of northern and eastern China this month to draw attention to the impending environmental disaster.Created by a group of Chinese designers, the 300 posters...
Two Way Street
05.28.15What China’s Lack of Transparency Means for U.S. Policy
from Two Way Street
I am a political scientist and former diplomat who has studied China for more than forty years, and yet I still can’t answer some of my students’ most basic questions about China’s policy-making process. Where—in which institutional arena and at...
Media
05.26.15Weighing Mao’s Legacy in China Today
At the May 21 Asia Society event ChinaFile Presents: Does Xi Jinping Represent a Return to the Politics of the Mao Era?, a discussion of author Andrew Walder’s new book, China Under Mao: A Revolution Derailed, sparked a lively debate about the...
Caixin Media
05.26.15Time for Reform Advocates to Step to the Fore
As the reform of China’s economy and society deepens, attention is turning to the people tasked with the job of spearheading and carrying out change. Thus, it was gratifying to hear the call by President Xi Jinping, made at the 12th meeting of the...
Environment
05.21.15China’s Role in Illegal Trade of Toxic E-Waste Rising Sharply
from chinadialogue
Discarded smartphones and other gadgets are poisoning the environment and people in developing countries, where most of the world’s electronic waste (e-waste) is being dumped illegally and now involves criminal gangs, the UN’s environment arm warned...
Environment
05.20.15Can China Really Meet Its Clean Energy Goals? And How?
China is the world’s largest energy consumer, and its energy use is dirty and inefficient. But it is working hard to change that. Currently, coal accounts for nearly 70 percent of China’s total energy consumption, and this, coupled with an aging...
Media
05.20.15China Liked TPP—Until U.S. Officials Opened Their Mouths
After a brief but frightening setback for proponents, U.S. congressional leaders looked set on May 13 to pass legislation for an eventual up-or-down (“fast-track”) vote on what would be one of the world’s largest trade accords, the U.S.-led Trans-...
Caixin Media
05.19.15Why Xinjiang’s Economy Is Sputtering
It has been almost one year since a terrorist bombing in Urumqi, the capital of the Xinjiang region, shocked the nation and brought economic woes and social conflicts in the largely Uighur-populated area into the spotlight again.I arrived by train...
Viewpoint
05.19.15Hong 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...
Environment
05.19.15Dredging For Disaster
from Foreign Policy
Tensions are rising in the South China Sea. On May 16, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry arrives in Beijing for talks which will likely focus on the territorial disputes. But China’s controversial effort to assert its sovereignty in the South China...
Environment
05.14.15Nepal Earthquake Highlights Dangers of Dam-Building in Tibet
from chinadialogue
Although the precise picture is still unclear, it’s likely that Nepal’s huge earthquake in April 2015 wreaked major damage on more than a dozen hydroelectric projects in Nepal.This should sound a shrill warning for projects across the border in...
Two Way Street
05.12.15Share and Be Nice
from Two Way Street
Having followed the progress of the People’s Republic of China for more than half a century, it is disquieting to now find the atmosphere between Americans and Chinese so stubbornly cool. Indeed, in certain key ways there was a greater sense of...
Two Way Street
05.12.15We Need to Stay Coolheaded
from Two Way Street
In recent years, a noticeable change has occurred in China-U.S. relations. The “problem areas” where the two countries tend to clash are increasing in both number and scope, and there has been a greater degree of hostility in judgments about the...
Caixin Media
05.12.15The Urgency of Continuing with Reform
Concern about the middle-income trap has grabbed public attention again. The minister of finance, Lou Jiwei, recently said at Tsinghua University that China had a “50-50 chance” of sliding into it in the next five to 10 years. However, many...
Media
05.11.15Interactive Map: Follow the Roads, Railways, and Pipelines on China’s New Silk Road
Foreign Policy has put together an interactive guide tracking Beijing’s victories and obstacles along the new Silk Road. The list of participating countries is still not finalized, but with China forking out billions in trade deals and preferential...
Environment
05.08.15It’s Time to Fix China’s Food Safety Conundrum
from chinadialogue
Food safety scandals have become so common in China that people are losing confidence in what they eat. The government has consistently emphasised the need for better regulation of the food industry, and it’s established an inter-ministerial...
Features
05.06.15Invasion of the Body Snatchers
On the morning of March 16, 48-year-old Huang Shunfang went to her local hospital located in Fanghu Township in the central Chinese province of Henan. Her doctor diagnosed her with gastritis, gave her a dose of antacids through an IV, and sent her...
Media
05.06.15Online 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...
Caixin Media
05.05.15A Byronic Hero for China’s Supremo
A little known vignette about Xi Jinping’s fondness for Song Jiang, a fictional hero in the 14th century classic novel The Water Margin, gives a peek into the private thoughts of China’s most powerful man. For someone born with a red spoon in his...
Environment
04.30.15‘Blue Sky’ App Gets China’s Public Thinking About Pollution Solutions
from chinadialogue
The Blue Sky Map app, which was officially launched April 28 by the Institute of Public and Environmental Affairs (IPE), enables the public to check up on air and water quality and local sources of pollution, and scrutinize emissions from 9,000...
Media
04.30.15Will 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...
Media
04.28.15Give Me Your Tired, Your Poor, Your Chinese Fugitives
Meet China’s 100 international most-wanted: a history professor, a driving instructor, and a government propaganda office cashier. Chinese graft-busters want you to know that one of them might be your neighbor.On April 22, China’s dreaded Central...
Features
04.28.15Where Do We Draw the Line on Balancing China?
from Foreign Policy
Is it time for the United States to get serious about balancing China? According to Robert Blackwill and Ashley Tellis, the answer is an emphatic yes. In a new Council on Foreign Relations report, they portray China as steadily seeking to increase...
Caixin Media
04.28.15Saudi Aramco’s Al-Falih on China Collaboration
Saudi Arabian Oil Company President and CEO Khalid A. Al-Falih has seen global oil prices rise and fall through at least six market cycles during his more than 30 years with the world’s largest crude producer and exporter.Al-Falih, 55, joined the...
Environment
04.24.15Fracking May be Needed in China to Wean it Off Coal
from chinadialogue
Fracking of China’s huge shale gas reserves will only have a modest impact on the environment if anti-pollution controls—many of them new—are enforced rigorously, says a new report from the U.K.-based Overseas Development Institute (ODI).The ODI...
Viewpoint
04.23.15China’s Leftists Are Embracing Confucius. Why?
When Jennifer Pan and Yiqing Xu posted their new paper, “China’s Ideological Spectrum,” last week, it marked the first time that anyone has provided large-scale empirical data on the ideological shifts and trends within the Chinese population. China...
Viewpoint
04.22.15Will China’s New Anti-Terrorism Law Mean the End of Privacy?
A newly drafted Chinese anti-terrorism law, if enacted in its current form, will empower Beijing to expand its already nearly unchecked policing of the Internet to reach web traffic and other online data flows emanating from both domestic and...
Caixin Media
04.22.15China’s Anti-Corruption Drive: Don’t Stop Now
Beijing’s fight against corruption is now two years old. Some significant results have been achieved, winning strong public support. But it’s becoming increasingly difficult to move the campaign forward.The general public and government officials...
Media
04.21.15This Chart Explains Everything You Need to Know About Chinese Internet Censorship
What goes through a Chinese web user’s head the moment before he or she hits the “publish” button? Pundits, scholars, and everyday netizens have spent years trying to parse the (ever-shifting) rules of the Chinese Internet. Although Chinese...
Environment
04.16.15Petrochemical Plant Explosion Vaporizes Government Safety Assurances
from chinadialogue
Opposing the construction of petrochemical plants making Paraxyline (PX), a key ingredient in plastic bottles and polyester clothing, has been one of the most common forms of environmental activism for China’s urban residents in the past decade.On...
Media
04.15.15Online Support–and Mockery–Await Chinese Feminists After Release
On April 13, Chinese authorities released on bail five feminist activists detained for over a month without formal charges. Despite tight censorship surrounding their detention, support on Chinese social media and thinly veiled media criticism...
Caixin Media
04.14.15Bulldozing the Cadre Who Revamped Kunming
Warm, sunny Kunming brimmed with charm before Communist Party leader Qiu He brought an autocratic style of governance to town and spurred the urbanization campaign that preceded his downfall.Today, this historic city in southwestern China is a...
Media
04.14.15Henry Paulson: ‘Dealing with China’
from Asia Blog
Speaking at Asia Society New York on April 13 with New Yorker correspondent Evan Osnos, former U.S. Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson explained that it’s impossible to predict the timing or magnitude of a financial crisis, but any country with...
Media
04.13.15The Chinese Internet Hates Hillary Clinton Even More than Republicans Do
On the afternoon of April 12, Hillary Clinton announced her long-expected decision to run for president in 2016. Within hours, Chinese news sites shared the announcement on Weibo, China’s most popular micro-blogging platform, provoking thousands of...
Culture
04.10.15A New Opera and Hong Kong’s Utopian Legacy
This year, the 43rd annual Hong Kong Arts Festival commissioned a chamber opera in three acts called Datong: The Chinese Utopia. Depicting the life and times of Kang Youwei (1858-1927), a philosopher and reformer of China’s last Qing dynasty, it...
Viewpoint
04.10.15Bury Zhao Ziyang, and Praise Him
Zhao Ziyang, the premier and general secretary of the ruling Chinese Communist Party (CCP) in the 1980s, died on January 17, 2005. At a tightly controlled ceremony designed to avoid the kind of instability that the deaths of other controversial...
Caixin Media
04.06.15Tycoon Said to Bring Down a Deputy Mayor, Control Key Beijing Land Deal
A recent business dispute between a state-owned technology conglomerate and a private property developer has put a low-profile but powerful businessman in the spotlight. The businessman is believed to have brought down a former Beijing deputy mayor...
Environment
04.02.15‘Wolf Totem’ Trainer Sees Risks, Rewards for Hollywood in China
from chinadialogue
Wolf trainer Andrew Simpson has just wrapped up three years in Beijing coaching wolves to perform in the film version of the novel Wolf Totem. The Sino-French adaptation of Jiang Rong’s best-selling 2004 novel opened in Beijing and Europe in...
Features
04.02.15Frank 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...