ChinaFile Recommends
10.21.14China, U.S. Working to Ensure Positive Results from Obama's Upcoming China Visit: Senior Chinese Official
Xinhua
Chinese State Councillor Yang Jiechi saluted "new and positive progress" that has been made in various aspects of the China-U.S. ties since last year's summit held by Obama and Chinese President Xi Jinping in California.
ChinaFile Recommends
10.21.14China’s Aircraft Carrier Trouble—Spewing Steam and Losing Power
Medium
There’s no more of a conspicuous and potent symbol of China’s growing naval power than the aircraft carrier Liaoning.
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
10.21.14China Focus: By Rule of Law, China On the Way to Improving Governance
Xinhua
At 7:00 a.m., Shanghai-based lawyer Zhang Jie opened his computer at home, logged onto the Judicial Opinions of China website, and read a court ruling on a case he had offered legal aid to. The whole process took no more than one minute.
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
10.21.14China Launches Massive Rural ‘Surveillance’ Project to Watch Over Uighurs
Telegraph
They arrived at the fringes of China's modern day empire in early March, setting up base in a family planning center with riot shields, helmets and two sharp 6-foot spears propped up inside the front door.
Caixin Media
10.21.14Revision of Securities Law Is Chance to Liberalize Market
China's securities law is to undergo a comprehensive revision almost a decade after the last major overhaul. Public consultation is due to start in the first half of next year, following recent comments from officials, scholars, and market...
Viewpoint
10.20.14‘A Power Capable of Making Us Weep’
This September, the editors of the online edition of the 21st Century Business Herald—a leading Chinese business newspaper based in Guangzhou and owned by Southern Media Group (Nanfang Baoye Jituan)—came under investigation on charges of extortion...
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."
The NYRB China Archive
10.19.14China’s Unstoppable Lawyers: An Interview with Teng Biao
from New York Review of Books
Teng Biao is one of China’s best-known civil-rights lawyers, and a prominent member of the weiquan, or “rights defenders,” movement, a loosely knit coalition of Chinese lawyers and activists who tackle cases related to the environment, religious...
Conversation
10.17.14Rule of Law—Why Now?
In a recent essay, “How China’s Leaders Will Rule on the Law,” Carl Minzner looks at the question of why China’s leaders have announced they will emphasize rule of law at the upcoming Chinese Communist Party plenum slated to take place in Beijing...
The China Africa Project
10.16.14The Dalai Lama Forces China to Overplay its Hand in South Africa
Pretoria’s apparent refusal to grant Tibetan spiritual leader the Dalai Lama a visa to attend a summit of Nobel peace laureates has sparked outrage in South Africa. Critics allege the government is bowing to China, undermining South African...
Media
10.15.14Jiang Zemin Unplugged
Given the leadership styles of Hu Jintao and Xi Jinping, who have been China’s supreme leaders over the past twelve years, it is an almost shocking experience to look back at these two videos (the first of which circulated last week on social media...
Viewpoint
10.15.14How China’s Leaders Will Rule on the Law
Last week, as the world watched the student demonstrations in Hong Kong, China’s Politburo announced the dates for the Communist Party’s annual plenary session would be from October 20-23. As in previous years, top leaders will gather in Beijing to...
ChinaFile Recommends
10.14.14When Hong Kong Protests Are Over, Where Will the Art Go?
Wall Street Journal
As Hong Kong's pro-democracy protests wane, what will become of the iconic artwork Umbrella Man, the Lennon Wall of sticky notes and all the banners?
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
10.14.14Cultural Reflection Can Improve Modern Governance
Xinhua
During the latest in a series of collective studies among the Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee, Xi said the CPC should follow successful examples in Chinese history to learn from their merits and avoid shortcomings.
Viewpoint
10.14.14On Dealing with Chinese Censors
It was a hot afternoon in June in the East China city of Jinan. I was returning to my hotel after an afternoon coffee, thinking of the conference I had come to attend and trying to escape the heat on the shady side of the street. My cell phone rang...
Conversation
10.14.14Will Asia Bank on China?
Last week The New York Times reported U.S. opposition to China's plans to launch a regional development bank to rival the World Bank and the Asian Development Bank. If, as some say, the the launch is a fait accompli, should Washington focus...
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.
ChinaFile Recommends
10.13.14China Detains Scholar, Bans Books in Crackdown on Moderate Voices
Reuters
China has detained prominent scholar Guo Yushan, who helped blind dissident Chen Guangcheng flee to the United States two years ago and has banned books by eight writers in a crackdown on dissent.
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
10.12.14Once a Symbol of Power, Farming Now an Economic Drag in China
New York Times
Frustrated by how little they earn, the ablest farmers have migrated to cities, hollowing out this rural district in the Chinese heartland.
ChinaFile Recommends
10.12.14All Eyes Will Be On China This Week
Reuters
China's economy, the second largest in the world, gets a spot check this week with a barrage of data due that should indicate how successful Beijing has been in supporting growth.
ChinaFile Recommends
10.10.14Chinese Media Accuse Japanese Manga Star Doraemon of Subverting Youth
Guardian
“Doraemon is a part of Japan’s efforts of exporting its national values and achieving its cultural strategy; this is an undisputed fact,” the local communist party newspaper Chengdu Daily said in an editorial.
ChinaFile Recommends
10.10.14China ‘Strongly Displeased’ by U.S. Rights Report
ABC
Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Hong Lei said at a news briefing that the independent U.S. Congressional-Executive Commission on China "twisted facts and attacked China on purpose" in its report.
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
10.10.14U.S. Taiwan Policy Threatens a Face-Off With China
Wall Street Journal
Taiwan celebrates its National Day on Friday commemorating the 103rd anniversary of the Wuchang Uprising, which eventually brought down the Qing Dynasty and led in 1912 to the creation of the Republic of China—today more commonly known as Taiwan.
Media
10.10.14China Bans Law-Breaking Actors From Movies and Television
Amid an ongoing government campaign against drugs, prostitution, and other moral vices, a powerful government agency has reportedly issued new regulations banning actors with histories of drug use or prostitution from appearing in movies and...
ChinaFile Recommends
10.10.14Getting Real About China
New York Times
China’s harsh suppression of political dissent, from Hong Kong to Xinjiang, and its close ties to Russia, Iran and North Korea, have finally laid to rest the dream many Western leaders have had since the 1990s.
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...
Viewpoint
10.08.14‘We Do Not Want to Be Persuaded’
Over the past week, it has been hard to make sense of the threats and ultimatums the Hong Kong protesters have faced. On Sunday, the South China Morning Post splashed on its front page that Hong Kong had “hours to avoid tragedy.” University deans...
ChinaFile Recommends
10.08.14China Detains Poet Wang Zang and 7 Others Ahead of Hong Kong Event
Huffington Post
On Sept. 30, Wang Zang had posted on Twitter a picture of himself raising his middle finger and holding an umbrella, a symbol of solidarity adopted by the protesters demanding open nominations for Hong Kong's chief executive.
ChinaFile Recommends
10.08.14China’s Soft-Power Fail
Bloomberg
This was not the reception that the Chinese government had in mind in 2004 when it inaugurated the Confucius Institute program as a means of improving its image abroad and projecting “soft power.”
ChinaFile Recommends
10.08.14China Media Criticize North Korea’s Nuclear Program
BBC
Suspicious of North Korea’s “flip flop attitude” and its motives, an article in the Beijing News reminds that one should observe North Korea’s actions instead of its words as Pyongyang's foreign policy is “usually inconsistent”.
ChinaFile Recommends
10.08.14Picture Mixed Over Anti-Foreigner Bias of Chinese Regulator
Financial Times
The alleged anti-foreigner bias of China’s National Development and Reform Commission, which enforces pricing provisions of the 2008 Anti Monopoly Law, has become an increasingly common complaint among multinational executives working in the country.
ChinaFile Recommends
10.08.14China’s Economy Just Overtook The U.S. In One Key Measure
Huffington Post
Here's another way of looking at it -- China's share of the global economy is now slightly bigger than America's, at 16.5 percent to 16.3 percent.
ChinaFile Recommends
10.08.14Japan, US Revising Defense Plans With Eye on China
ABC
The revision, the first since 1997, comes at a time of heightened Japan-China tensions over islands claimed by both countries in the East China Sea, as well as continuing concern about North Korea's missile and nuclear weapons development.
ChinaFile Recommends
10.07.14Protests in Hong Kong: Three Things to Know
Council on Foreign Relations
Former Los Angeles Times Beijing bureau chief Barbara Demick tells us the Hong Kong protests are Not Tiananmen, show Broken Promises and reveal Hong Konger's Basic Complaints.
ChinaFile Recommends
10.07.14A Cinematic Context for Hong Kong’s Turmoil
New York Times
Hong Kong’s film industry, commercial and broad-based as it is, has always provided a mirror of the territory’s political anxieties, and a record of its complex history.
ChinaFile Recommends
10.07.14Hong Kong Protests
Colbert Report
"The People's Republic of Amnesia" author Louisa Lim talks with Stephen Colbert about the growing civil unrest in Hong Kong and China's efforts to contain it.
ChinaFile Recommends
10.07.14Read the Anti-Hong Kong Rant That’s Going Viral in China
Foreign Policy
Hong Kong's real problem is that most people have no awareness of changing patterns of development, and thus are not psychologically prepared for economic restructuring.
ChinaFile Recommends
10.07.14Out of Tiananmen’s Shadow
Foreign Affairs
Similarities to the protest and crackdown at Tiananmen Square have indeed been striking -- and unnerving, given the outcome of that beautiful and terrible spring.
The China Africa Project
10.06.14‘China Halts Arms Sales to South Sudan’ (Wait, What?)
In June, China’s ambassador to Juba, Ma Qiang, publicly declared that Beijing would not sell weapons to any side of the ongoing civil conflict in South Sudan. So it was a bit of a surprise when it was discovered that $38 million of weapons had been...
Caixin Media
10.06.14Lost in Translation
Is selective translation of news articles from the foreign media more insidious than no translation at all? The debate was sparked by a garbled translation of the cover story of the Economist headlined "What Does China Want?"In a...
ChinaFile Recommends
10.06.14Penn State Latest School to Drop China’s Confucius Institute
Wall Street Journal
The action signals increasing discontent on university campuses over the institutes' hiring practices and refusal to acknowledge unflattering chapters of Chinese history.
ChinaFile Recommends
10.06.14A Chinese Artist Confronts Environmental Disaster
New Yorker
What were all these sick animals—lions, wolves, camels, monkeys, gazelles, pandas, and zebras—doing on this dilapidated Chinese fishing boat, sailing past the famous frieze of colonial banks, trading houses, and clubs that make up Shanghai’s Bund?
ChinaFile Recommends
10.05.14Hong Kong Protesters Promise to Keep Up Occupation
Guardian
The student federation said it would not end the protests as no progress had been made on political reform and because the police had yet to address their handling of violent attacks on protesters.
ChinaFile Recommends
10.03.14Hong Kong Isn’t the Only Protest Chinese Leaders Are Worried About
Businessweek
Hong Kong’s democracy movement could jeopardize one of China’s main goals: weiwen, or maintenance of stability. For more than a decade the government has been defusing labor unrest.
ChinaFile Recommends
10.03.14What China Promised Hong Kong
Washington Post
The peaceful demonstrators in Hong Kong, with their umbrellas and trash bags, will not be swept off the streets like garbage or bullied into submission by tear gas and pepper spray.
Media
10.03.14Under Different Umbrellas
“Dozens of mainlanders were taken away by the police because they openly supported Occupy Central and at least ten of them have been detained…They are in Jiangxi, Shanghai, Shenzhen, Beijing, Chongqing, Guangzhou, etc,” Hong Kong-based blogger and...
ChinaFile Recommends
10.03.14Hong Kong Celebrities Largely Mum on Protests Gripping City
Los Angeles Times
Hong Kong celebrities are known for their omnipresence and outspokenness, but the city's galaxy of stars and starlets has been almost entirely out of sight during the pro-democracy sit-ins.
ChinaFile Recommends
10.01.14In Hong Kong Protests, Both Sides Are Wondering How This Will End
Washington Post
As many thousands of Hong Kong residents kept up their occupation of the streets Wednesday night, leaders on both sides began strategizing with an eye toward the endgame.
ChinaFile Recommends
10.01.14China Issues Warning Over Hong Kong ‘Illegal’ Protests
BBC
China's Foreign Minister Wang Yi, visiting Washington, also warned that the matter was an "internal affair" for China.
ChinaFile Recommends
10.01.14China is Hong Kong’s Future – Not its Enemy
Guardian
Protesters cry democracy but most are driven by dislocation and resentment at mainlanders’ success.
Viewpoint
10.01.14‘The City Feels New’
Down on the streets occupied by the striking students, the city feels new: roads normally accessible only on wheels look like familiar strangers when suddenly you can walk down them. Big, immovable concrete partitions still separate the lanes, and...
Media
10.01.14Media Portrays Hong Kong Protests as Either Inspiring or Dangerous
The second and third days of mass protests to demand broader democracy in Hong Kong ended with none of the violence and confrontation seen on September 28. Thousands of protesters continued to gather on the streets of the city’s busiest shopping and...