Uber Backers Said to Push for Didi Truce in Costly China War

Alex Barinka, Eric Newcomer, and Lulu...
Bloomberg
Several institutional investors are pushing Uber to ink a partnership agreement with Didi Chuxing.

Features

07.12.16

You Ask How Deeply I Love You

Anna Beth Keim
“Back when I was a soldier on Kinmen, around 1975, the water demons still sometimes killed people,” Xu Shifu (Master Xu) said. The laugh-lines at the corners of his eyes were not visible now, even in the white fluorescent light shining down from the...

Pokémon Chasers in China Hit Brick Wall

Eva Dou and Juro Osawa
Wall Street Journal
The popular app is unavailable in China, but players are still trying....

China Was Once a Hot Destination for African Migrants, Not Any More

Eric Olander, Cobus van Staden & more
It was not that long ago that entire neighborhoods in the southern Chinese city of Guangzhou were overflowing with African migrants. Although there are no precise figures, scholars estimated that between 20,000-100,000 African immigrants used to...

Sinica Podcast

07.11.16

The Street of Eternal Happiness

Kaiser Kuo, Jeremy Goldkorn & more from Sinica Podcast
Rob Schmitz, China correspondent for Marketplace, has been living in China on and off since 1995. He is the author of Street of Eternal Happiness: Big City Dreams Along a Shanghai Road, a book about the people living and working on Changle Lu in...

China to Pillory, or Praise, Cities Based on Water Pollution

Edward Wong
New York Times
Water and soil pollution have received less attention than foul air but are just as hazardous, if not more so.

China’s Devastating Floods Can Be Traced Back to Corruption and Overbuilding

Zheping Huang
Quartz
Scandals are not uncommon in China’s flood-control projects.

This Dystopian Film From Hong Kong Shows Exactly Why Activism Matters

Isha Aran
Fusion
“Ten Years” depicts the ripple effect of the Umbrella Movement in China past two years....

Depth of Field

07.01.16

Tornados and Drag Queens

Ye Ming, Yan Cong & more from Yuanjin Photo
Being a photojournalist involves reacting to breaking news, a dedication to long-term projects, and everything in between. This month’s showcase of work by Chinese photographers published in Chinese media underscores this range of angles: from the...

‘Destined to Disappear’: The Last Generation of China’s ‘Bang-Bang’ Army

Chris Buckley
New York Times
Itinerant porters face a vocational extinction in the towering hills of Chongqing....

Uber Positions Its China App as More than a Ride-Hailing Service

Megan Rose Dickey
TechCrunch
Uber’s new vision for China includes two new offerings, UberLIFE and Uber + Travel, which will roll out across China this year.

Conversation

06.24.16

Is Europe Prepared to Deal with the China Challenge?

Mikko Huotari, Jan Weidenfeld & more
Chinese President Xi Jinping is on a grand tour of the western end of the “New Silk Road,” in visits to Serbia and Poland this week before he returns to Beijing via Uzbekistan, a more eastern outpost on China’s expanding 21st Century trade route. Xi...

Trainer Seen on Video Spanking Bankers For Poor Performance

CBS News
Bad press for corporate motivational coach who is wacking employees for not reaching full potential....

China’s New Love Affair With Dogs—As Pets, Not Food—Presents Environmental Problems

Irene Banos Ruiz
Deutsche Welle
A culture shift could have an effect on China’s CO2 emissions....

Uber Rival’s $28 Billion Valuation Shows Size of China’s Ride-Sharing Market

Paul Mozer and Michael J. de la Merced
New York Times
Recent fund-raising rounds in the ride-sharing market show that China is one of the most expensive markets in the world.

Books

06.15.16

Street of Eternal Happiness

Rob Schmitz
Modern Shanghai: a global city in the midst of a renaissance, where dreamers arrive each day to partake in a mad torrent of capital, ideas, and opportunity. Marketplace’s Rob Schmitz is one of them. He immerses himself in his neighborhood, forging deep relationships with ordinary people who see in the city’s sleek skyline a brighter future and a chance to rewrite their destinies. There’s Zhao, whose path from factory floor to shopkeeper is sidetracked by her desperate measures to ensure a better future for her sons. Down the street lives Auntie Fu, a fervent capitalist forever trying to improve herself with religion and get-rich-quick schemes while keeping her skeptical husband at bay. Up a flight of stairs, musician and café owner CK sets up shop to attract young dreamers like himself, but learns he’s searching for something more. As Schmitz becomes more involved in their lives, he makes surprising discoveries which untangle the complexities of modern China: A mysterious box of letters that serve as a portal to a family’s—and country’s—dark past, and an abandoned neighborhood where fates have been violently altered by unchecked power and greed.A tale of 21st century China, Street of Eternal Happiness profiles China’s distinct generations through multifaceted characters who illuminate an enlightening, humorous, and at times heartrending journey along the winding road to the Chinese Dream. Each story adds another layer of humanity and texture to modern China, a tapestry also woven with Schmitz’s insight as a foreign correspondent. The result is an intimate and surprising portrait that dispenses with the tired stereotypes of a country we think we know, immersing us instead in the vivid stories of the people who make up one of the world’s most captivating cities. —Crown Publishers {chop}

Disney Shares Keys To Magic Kingdom With China

David Barboza and Brooks Barnes
New York Times
A much needed partnership leaves the Communist Party with final say in everything from admssion price to ride design....

China’s Call To Young Men: Your Nation Needs Your Sperm

Javier Hernandez
New York Times
Sperm banks get creative with cash and iPhone incentives....

China Evicts Hundreds To Make Way For Disney Park

CBS News
Shanghai residents and businesses are displaces with little to no compensation....

L’Oreal Is Setting A Dangerous Global Precedent By Bowing to China Over Free Speech

Vivienne Chow
Quartz
Lancome cancels concert to appeal to the mainland, sacrificing freedoms for their parnerships....

Depth of Field

05.31.16

Families, Weddings, and Beekeepers

Ye Ming, Yan Cong & more 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...

Green Space

05.18.16

Time Traveling Through Dramatic Urbanization in China Over Decades

Michael Zhao
Twenty-six years ago, only 26 percent of the Chinese population lived in urban areas. Since then, China’s urbanization rate has risen to almost 56 percent, meaning hundreds of millions of people have packed themselves into the country’s 662 cities...

Depth of Field

04.29.16

April’s Best Chinese Photojournalism

Yan Cong, Ye Ming & more from Yuanjin Photo
Over the past few weeks, the publications Sina, Tencent, Caixin, China Youth Daily, and the publishing duo Sixth Tone/The Paper published photo stories on the intimate, the industrial, the private, and the political. Journalists Yan Cong and Ye Ming...

Supertall 101

Roman Mars
99% Invisible
Starting in the late 1990s, the government of Taipei began looking into how they could turn global attention to their city, the capital of the small island of Taiwan.The initial idea was to create two 66-story...

When It Comes to Luxury, China Still Leads

Christopher Horton
New York Times
A younger and more sophisticated generation of shoppers is emerging, who are educated, well-traveled and tech-savvy.

China Minister Warns on Subsidies As Uber, Didi Battle

Agence France-Presse
Ride-booking services have threatened the old-style taxi sector and contributed to cab drivers' protests.

Victoria's Secret, Nike Cashes in On Rising Girl Power in China

Marianna Cerini
Forbes
Despite the country’s recent economic downturn, Chinese female consumers are willing to buy.

China Desperately Needs Low-Income Migrant Workers to Buy Homes and Save the Economy

Simina Mistreaunu
Quartz
You can't ignore the lower-end demand because there is none at the higher end.

Gate-Crash! China’s New Housing Rules Irk the Gilded Classes

Hannah Beech
Time
New directive says roads in private housing estates should “gradually open up” to the public.

China: No More Weird Buildings

Matt Rivers and Chung Fun
CNN
New guidelines will forbid the construction of "bizarre" and "odd-shaped" buildings that are devoid of character or cultural heritage.

India and China Have Most Deaths from Pollution

Suryatapa Bhattacharya
Wall Street Journal
Indian and Chinese fatalities accounted for 55% of pollution-related deaths worldwide.

Sinica Podcast

02.09.16

Sauced: American Cooking in China

Kaiser Kuo & David Moser from Sinica Podcast
Kaiser Kuo and David Moser are joined this week by Howie Southworth and Greg Matza, creators of the independent video series “Sauced in Translation,” a reality show that journeys into the wilder parts of China in search of local Chinese specialties...

Millions of Chinese Migrant Workers Head Home for New Year

Voice of America
Every year tens of millions of Chinese migrant workers head home in the largest annual mass migration of people.

The Unreal, Eerie Emptiness of China’s Ghost Cities

Laura Mallonee
Wired
Kangbashi is one of hundreds of sparkling new cities sitting relatively empty throughout China, built by a government eager to urbanize the country.

How China's Celebration of the Year of the Monkey Breaks Down by the Numbers

Jonathan Kaiman
Los Angeles Times
Here’s a further look at the celebrations and some more related numbers.

China Sends 6,000 Police to Quell New Year Train Station Chaos

Tom Philips
Guardian
Tens of thousands still waiting for transport at Guangzhou main rail depot.

Caixin Media

01.26.16

How Serial Killers Terrorized China’s Disorganized Elder Care Industry

The 45-year-old caregiver was calm on the witness stand, but her words were jarring. He Tiandai admitted during her murder trial that she killed a 70-year-old woman she cared for by poisoning her soup with sleeping pills and pesticide, injecting her...

Environment

01.11.16

Chinese Cities Most at Risk from Rising Sea Levels

from chinadialogue
A study by Climate Central, a non-profit news organization focusing on climate science, showed that 12 other nations have more than 10 million people living on land that would be destroyed should the earth’s temperature rise to 4 degrees Celsius.As...

China's Two-Child Policy Comes into Effect

Deutsche Welle
The Chinese government implemented the law after concerns related to the country's shrinking population and aging workforce.

Chinese Official Vows Punishment Over Shenzhen Landslide

Chris Buckley
New York Times
Ma Xingrui expressed remorse during a televised news conference five days after dirt and waste smothered buildings and buried 75 people.

Sinica Podcast

12.17.15

Out of Africa: the Swifts of Beijing

Kaiser Kuo, Jeremy Goldkorn & more from Sinica Podcast
With amazing research now suggesting that Beijing swifts, the tiny creatures most residents pass by without noticing, are some of the most well-travelled birds on the planet, averaging an astonishing 124,000 miles of flight in their lifetimes,...

Media

12.15.15

The Proletariat Experience of Beijing’s Airpocalypse

On December 8, a Tuesday, a man surnamed Cao piloted his electric scooter along Beijing’s profoundly hazy streets, parking in front of one towering apartment complex after another to deliver packages. Although the government had just issued a “red...

Xi'an City Wall: How China Turned A Military Site Into A Unique Park

Shen Lu
CNN
Xi'an, China's 637-year-old city wall is a relatively new kid on the block.

Why China's Millennials Are Happy to Own Nothing

Bloomberg
Two decades ago, Tyler Xiong and his parents had to live in a commune guided by the strict socialist teachings of Mao Zedong.

The Sham Marriage App Helping China’s Gay Community

Telegraph
With homosexuality illegal until 1997 and prejudice still rife, gays and lesbians are increasingly joining forces with the help of matchmaking apps

Beware of China's Safety Record

Murong Xuecun
New York Times
Chinese people have paid heavily for a flawed system. Now that Chinese-style construction and management are going global, what price is the world prepared to pay?

China's Middle Class Isn't What We Thought It Was

Linette Lopez and Lucinda Shen
Business Insider
For years, multinational companies have been rubbing their hands together in anticipation of the growth of the Chinese middle class.

Caixin Media

11.18.15

Government Enlists NGOs to Help Homeless

Drivers roll up car windows as an autumn wind chills a traffic-clogged overpass in western Beijing’s Liuliqiao area. And under the concrete overpass, homeless people are gathering for a chilly night’s rest after wandering city streets.Among the...

The Young Foreigners Embedded in Chinese Local Government

Ben Bland
Financial Times
Communist China has a long history of recruiting foreign experts to advise state-owned companies and teach at universities.

China's Napoleon Complex

Clarissa Sebag-Montefiore
Foreign Affairs
With Deng’s political reforms in the 1980s and 1990s came increased discrimination based on appearance.

Sinica Podcast

11.16.15

The Pace of Change in Beijing: Live at the Bookworm, Part I

Kaiser Kuo, Jeremy Goldkorn & more from Sinica Podcast
This week’s Sinica podcast was recorded last month during a special live event at the Bookworm literary festival, where David Moser and Kaiser Kuo were joined by Jeremy Goldkorn, fresh off the plane from Nashville. Topics in this podcast: Beijing...

Postcard

11.13.15

The Watch

Hai Zhang
On a trip back to China in 2011, photographer Hai Zhang came across a crowd in the People’s Square of Wushan, a town outside of Chongqing. People had gathered to watch a gala sponsored by a local real estate developer to promote his new residential...

How Smartphones are Solving One of China’s Biggest Mysteries

Ana Swanson
Washington Post
For decades, China has been engaged in a building boom of a scale that is hard to wrap your mind around.

20 Photos That Show How Insanely Crowded China Has Become

Jack Sommer
Business Insider
China has reportedly dropped its long-standing one-child policy, which was first enacted decades ago in an effort to curb overpopulation.The current population rests at around 1.4 billion after having the policy in place for over 35 years. Only time...

Crouching Trekker, Hidden Buildings: China's Urban Explorers

Tom Phillips
Guardian
Intrepid urbexers are wandering through the industrial wastelands of China.

Hong Kong Is the Happiest Place in China, According to WeChat Posts

Richard Macauley
Quartz
Hong Kong is home to the happiest people in Greater China, closely followed by Taiwan, according to Tencent.

Caixin Media

10.20.15

Moving 2 Million People for Beijing’s Urban Reset

Nearly 2 million Beijing residents will be moved to the city’s outlying districts from the center by 2020 as part of a massive urban revamp designed to better control people, traffic, and smog.The movers include up to 1 million government workers...