ChinaFile Recommends
02.25.15China Starts Massive Promotion of Xi Jinping’s Political Theory the ‘Four Comprehensives’
South China Morning Post
Xi has created a slogan and formulated principles to guide his style of government.
ChinaFile Recommends
02.24.15ChinaFile Recommends
02.24.15The China-Russia NGO Crackdown
Diplomat
Authorities in both countries apparently aim to cripple NGOs with foreign patrons or partners.
The China Africa Project
02.18.15
Chinese Studies at the University of Botswana
It’s long been said that while China may have an Africa policy, Africans do not have a China policy. In particular, too many Africans do not understand the language, culture, and politics of their new number one trading partner. The University of...
ChinaFile Recommends
02.18.15Ringing In the Lunar New Year, Whatever It’s Called
New York Times
Because Han Chinese culture developed in regions where herders and goats prevailed, many think the zodiac talisman must be a goat.
ChinaFile Recommends
02.17.15Soft Recruits Hinder China’s Military Modernization
New York Times
Many of China's army conscripts have been raised as spoiled children of the one-child policy and need toughening up, a RAND report says.
Conversation
02.12.15
Is Mao Still Dead?
It has long been standard operating procedure for China’s leaders to pay tribute to Mao. Even as the People’s Republic he wrought has embraced capitalist behavior with ever more heated ardor, the party he founded has remained firmly in power and his...
ChinaFile Recommends
02.12.15China’s Internet Censorship Anthem Is Revealed, Then Deleted
New York Times
Cyberspace Administration employees Sang lines like, “An Internet power: Tell the world that the Chinese Dream is uplifting China.”
ChinaFile Recommends
02.11.15China’s Wealthy Parents Are Fed Up With State-Run Education
Foreign Policy
Forget rote memorization and pressure-packed tests—Western, alternative learning is the new rage.
ChinaFile Recommends
02.11.15Parent Meddling Makes for Unmerry Marriages in China
Wall Street Journal
"Parental matchmaking is robustly correlated with lower marital harmony,” says a new World Bank report.
ChinaFile Recommends
02.09.15China Tells Schools to Suppress Western Ideas, With One Big Exception
New York Times
Some teachers and students reject the idea that foreign pedagogy and textbooks pose a threat to the government.
ChinaFile Recommends
01.30.15China Says No Room for ‘Western Values’ in University Education
Agence France-Presse
Education minister says books which ‘smear socialism’ will be banned.
Conversation
01.29.15
Is China’s Internet Becoming an Intranet?
With Astrill and several other free and paid-subscription virtual private networks (VPNs) that make leaping China’s Great Firewall possible now harder to use themselves after government interference "gummed" them up, the world wide web...
Environment
01.28.15
China to Appoint Academic as New Environment Minister
from chinadialogue
The head of Beijing’s Tsinghua University is likely to be appointed to the top environmental job in in China’s Ministry of Environmental Protection, according to reports, as the country’s leadership moves to defuse public anger about worsening air,...
ChinaFile Recommends
01.22.15Study Examines How Overseas Chinese Students Respond to Criticism of Their Country
Inside Higher Ed
Do conversations between domestic and foreign students result in mutual understanding and friendly feelings?
ChinaFile Recommends
01.15.15American Film On A Tibetan Migrant Finds Unlikely Success In China
NPR
Journalist Jocelyn Ford spent years documenting the life of Zanta, a Tibetan migrant who fled her poor, mountain village to build a life for herself and her son in Beijing.
ChinaFile Recommends
01.05.15Inside a Chinese Test-Prep Factory
New York Times
One minute later, at precisely 11:45, the stillness was shattered. Thousands of teenagers swarmed out of the towering front gate of Maotanchang High School. Many of them wore identical black-and-white Windbreakers emblazoned with the slogan, in...
Other
12.30.14
A Look Back at 2014
It’s hard to believe, but ChinaFile is almost two years old. It’s been an exciting year for us, and, as ever, an eventful year for China. It was a year of muscular leadership from Xi Jinping, who has now been in office just over two years and who...
Infographics
12.15.14
Is Studying Abroad Worth the Cost?
from Sohu
The number of Chinese students who choose to study abroad has increased by more than 1,000% since 2000. Yet education costs abroad also continue to rise. This infographic looks at reasons why Chinese students are choosing an education overseas.
ChinaFile Recommends
12.09.14Xi Jinping: The Growing Cult of China’s ‘Big Daddy Xi’
Telegraph
The construction of a cult of personality around president Xi represents a dramatic direction change for a country that sought to rule collectively after the devastation wrought during Chairman Mao's three-decade monopoly on power.
ChinaFile Recommends
12.01.14Teachers’ Strikes Spread Across Northeast China
New York Times
Teachers are asking for raises and for the government to end a requirement that teachers make payments to a pension plan as part of an experimental policy. China National Radio reported that one teacher was making less than $400 a month after...
The China Africa Project
11.28.14
A Career in China-Africa Research
Dr. Yoon Jung Park is among the most well-known Sino-Africa scholars in the field. Park has taught and done research on China-African affairs for over 20 years at universities in both the U.S. and Africa. Now based in Washington, D.C., where she co-...
ChinaFile Recommends
11.24.14China’s Rich Want to Send Children Abroad for Education
China Daily
The report said that some 80 percent of the country's rich people have plans to send children abroad, the highest ratio in the world. By contrast, Japan has less than 1 percent and Germany has less than 10 percent of its rich people having such...
Media
11.20.14
The Invisible Candidate in Taiwan’s Elections
Almost 80 percent of Taiwan, an island of 23 million off the coast of China, is expected to head to the polls November 29 to vote in local elections with more than 11,000 seats up for grabs. Voters will choose candidates ranging from mayors in...
ChinaFile Recommends
11.17.14Newspaper Calls on Chinese Academics to Cut the Criticism
New York Times
Liaoning Daily, a Communist Party-run newspaper in northeast China, published the article, “Teacher, Please Don’t Talk About China Like That: An Open Letter to Teachers of Philosophy and Social Science,” last week in response to a comment it...
ChinaFile Recommends
11.03.14Is China’s Grand Ethnic Experiment Working?
BBC
In a gleaming classroom at Chong Hua High School in the northern Chinese city of Tianjin, students peer at onion slices under microscopes. Their biology teacher calls on Abdurrahman Mamat to explain what he sees."Plasmolysis," he replies...
ChinaFile Recommends
11.03.14Manual on How to Spot a Spy Circulates in an Increasingly Wary China
New York Times
“On the Internet, nobody knows you’re a dog.” Or an American spy. Or a “hostile foreign force.” So says the “China Folk Counterespionage Manual,” a “how to spot a spy” guide circulating on the Internet.
Media
10.21.14
Chinese Doubt Their Own Soft Power Venture
On September 27, Chinese Vice Premier Liu Yandong read aloud a letter written by President Xi Jinping at a ceremony in Beijing celebrating the tenth anniversary of the Confucius Institute (CI) program, an international chain of academic centers...
Environment
10.09.14Locals Attack Factory After Children Poisoned with Lead
from chinadialogue
Villagers from the township of Gangkou in Jiangxi province, southeast China, have smashed up a new lead recycling plant which was due to begin operating.Unconvinced by reassurances from the owners and local government that there would be no...
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.
Environment
10.02.14
China ‘Not Ready to be a World Leader’ on Climate Change
from chinadialogue
The U.N. Climate Summit 2014 in New York last week passed, as expected, with public statements of intent but no sign of firm commitments to reducing climate emissions.If a deal is to be reached in Paris next year, at the latest “last hope” climate...
Conversation
10.01.14
Is This the End of Hong Kong As We Know It?
Over the past week, tens of thousands of Hong Kong people have occupied the streets of their semi-autonomous city to advocate for the democratic elections slated to launch in 2017. The pro-democracy protestors have blocked major roads in the...
ChinaFile Recommends
09.28.14The Revolution Will Not Be Instagrammed
Mainland Chinese felt no effects from the protests roiling Hong Kong—until Beijing pulled the plug on another social network.
Books
09.24.14

A Chinaman’s Chance
From Tony Hsieh to Amy Chua to Jeremy Lin, Chinese Americans are now arriving at the highest levels of American business, civic life, and culture. But what makes this story of immigrant ascent unique is that Chinese Americans are emerging at just the same moment when China has emerged—and indeed may displace America—at the center of the global scene. What does it mean to be Chinese American in this moment? And how does exploring that question alter our notions of just what an American is and will be? In many ways, Chinese Americans today are exemplars of the American Dream: during a crowded century and a half, this community has gone from indentured servitude, second-class status and outright exclusion to economic and social integration and achievement. But this narrative obscures too much: the Chinese Americans still left behind, the erosion of the American Dream in general, the emergence—perhaps—of a Chinese Dream, and how other Americans will look at their countrymen of Chinese descent if China and America ever become adversaries. As Chinese Americans reconcile competing beliefs about what constitutes success, virtue, power, and purpose, they hold a mirror up to their country in a time of deep flux. In searching, often personal essays that range from the meaning of Confucius to the role of Chinese Americans in shaping how we read the Constitution to why he hates the hyphen in "Chinese-American," Eric Liu pieces together a sense of the Chinese American identity in these auspicious years for both countries. He considers his own public career in American media and government; his daughter's efforts to hold and release aspects of her Chinese inheritance; and the still-recent history that made anyone Chinese in America seem foreign and disloyal until proven otherwise. Provocative, often playful but always thoughtful, Liu breaks down his vast subject into bite-sized chunks, along the way providing insights into universal matters: identity, nationalism, family, and more. —PublicAffairs {chop}
ChinaFile Recommends
09.15.14Q. and A.: Yong Zhao on Education and Authoritarianism in China
New York Times
Yong Zhao, a professor of education at the University of Oregon, is the author of "Who’s Afraid of the Big Bad Dragon: Why China Has the Best (and Worst) Education System in the World.”
Caixin Media
09.08.14
Gaokao, China’s National College Exam, to Carry Less Weight
The Ministry of Education announced reforms on September 4 that will lessen the weight that the gaokao, the country's national college entrance exam, carries for university enrollment. The changes are to come into effect by 2020.The...
ChinaFile Recommends
09.08.14For Australia, a Celebration of China in Theme Park Form
New York Times
Get ready for Chappypie China Time, a $500 million, 39-acre Chinese culture theme park that aims to bring Australia a replica of the Forbidden City.
ChinaFile Recommends
08.29.14Will China Vet Hong Kong Election?
Christian Science Monitor
The occupation of Hong Kong's central financial district could start early next week, after Beijing releases its guidelines Sunday on how the city's next leader will be elected.
ChinaFile Recommends
08.27.14Sport in China: What’s Wrong with Winning?
CNN
China has a fixation on training elite champions in select sports and an education system that considers sports a luxury and not a priority.
ChinaFile Recommends
08.18.14Mao’s Little Red Book, Meet Xi Jinping’s Collected Speeches
Wall Street Journal
Since its publication not quite two months ago, the somewhat turgidly named “A Reader of General-Secretary Xi Jinping’s Important Speeches” has already sold 10 million copies, its publisher reports.
Features
08.14.14
Making It in China and the U.S.
Emily Parker is a creator of Green Electronics: A U.S.-China Maker Challenge. The Green Electronics Challenge was an unprecedented collaboration between the New America Foundation, Arizona State University, Slate Magazine, China’s Tsinghua...
ChinaFile Recommends
08.14.14My Chinese Education
New York Times
One Tibetan recounts how Beijing’s education system suffocates minority culture serving to unify the country under the rule of the dominant Han ethnic group.
Conversation
08.11.14
Simon Leys Remembered
Isabel Hilton: When I heard the news of the death of Pierre Ryckmans, better known by his pen name, Simon Leys, I began to hunt in my bookshelves for the now yellowing and grimy copies of Chinese Shadows and The Chairman’s New Clothes: Mao and the...
ChinaFile Recommends
08.04.14China Sees Boom in Illegal Surrogate Motherhood
New York Times
Rising infertility and a relaxation of the one-child policy have given rise to a booming black market in surrogacy that experts say produces well over 10,000 births a year.
ChinaFile Recommends
07.31.14Zhang Tiesheng: From Leftist Hero to Multimillionaire
Guardian
Zhang was 22 when he came to national attention in 1973, after he wrote to leaders excoriating the examination as a return to the capitalist model of education. Now 63, he is a major shareholder in the publicly-traded Wellhope Agri-Tech.
ChinaFile Recommends
07.18.14Helping China’s Doves
New York Times
Since Beijing wants to focus on domestic problems the international community should ask itself one simple question: What can we do to help the doves?
Sinica Podcast
07.18.14
Debating Societies in China
from Sinica Podcast
This week on Sinica, we’re happy to welcome back Jeremy Goldkorn in conversation with David Weeks, founder and President of the National High School Debate League of China, a debating society currently established in twenty-seven cities throughout...
ChinaFile Recommends
07.17.14Blacklisting Scholars
New York Times
China is increasingly denying entry to foreign scholars to punish those who work on issues that Beijing deems to be politically troublesome. If the government hopes to drive foreign scholars into self-censorship, this policy is self-defeating.&...
Infographics
07.16.14
Learn English, Chinese Style
from Sohu
In 2009, the number of people studying English in China was roughly equal to the population of the U.S. In 2012, Chinese people spent a total of $4.8 billion on English lessons. China is the world’s biggest market for English-as-a-foreign-language...
Sinica Podcast
07.14.14
Education in China
from Sinica Podcast
This week on Sinica, Kaiser Kuo and David Moser are joined by Jiang Xueqin, deputy principal of Tsinghua Fuzhong Affiliated High School and author of Creative China, for a discussion of the education system in China. Specifically, we’re curious to...
Environment
07.10.14
U.S.-China Climate Cooperation More Crucial Than Ever
from chinadialogue
As the governments of the United States and China meet in Beijing this week for the Sixth U.S.-China Strategic and Economic Dialogue (S&ED), one area worth watching closely is clean energy and climate change cooperation. While this topic may...
Conversation
07.01.14
The Debate Over Confucius Institutes PART II
Last week, ChinaFile published a discussion on the debate over Confucius Institutes–Chinese language and culture programs affiliated with China’s Ministry of Education—and their role on university campuses. The topic, and several of the...
Conversation
06.23.14
The Debate Over Confucius Institutes
Last week, the American Association of University Professors joined a growing chorus of voices calling on North American universities to rethink their relationship with Confucius Institutes, the state-sponsored Chinese-language programs...
ChinaFile Recommends
06.22.14Young Men Who Are Anything Short Of Wealthy In Urban China Face Brutal Girlfriend Reality
Business Insider
China has at least more than 30 million more men than women. As a result, finding a girlfriend there is extremely difficult.
ChinaFile Recommends
06.19.14Do Chinese Classrooms Need to Talk About Sex?
CNN
Sex education is taught inadequately in school and avoided by parents, resulting in generations of Chinese children growing up wondering if babies come out of armpits, or from the garbage dump, as others have also cited.
Environment
06.19.14
What China Should Say at the U.N. Climate Change Summit
from chinadialogue
With a little more than 100 days to go, countries are gearing up for Ban Ki-moon’s New York climate summit, the first climate convention of world leaders since Copenhagen and a meeting that aims to catalyze new commitments and mobilize political...
ChinaFile Recommends
06.11.14Ten Questions Cambridge University Must Now Answer Over the Chong Hua Donation
Telegraph
The news that one of China's most powerful political families has endowed a professorial chair at Cambridge University raises profound and disturbing questions, both about the integrity of British academia and the reach of China's soft-...
ChinaFile Recommends
06.09.14Commentary: China, India Strategic Partners, not Rivals
Xinhua
China and India have had more high level exchange this past year than in nearly 60 years because they know common development can only be achieved through a strategic cooperative partnership.