Conversation
01.10.17Can Beijing’s Ivory Ban Save the Elephants?
On New Year’s Eve, Beijing announced it will ban the ivory trade in China, potentially shutting down the world’s biggest ivory market. Why did Beijing decide to curb the ivory trade? Will it put enough muscle behind it to enforce the decision? What...
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01.10.17Don’t Blame the Weather For China’s Smog
Fortune
China’s air quality has been particularly bad so far this winter. Severe smog or haze episodes have occurred one after another with short breaks in between,
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01.09.17China’s Neighbors Are Getting a Whiff of Its Terrible Pollution
Quartz
Turns out China isn’t the only country choking on its smog. In the first week of 2017, more than half of Chinese cities suffered from air pollution, and 31 of them issued a red alert, which requires measures like limiting car usage and closing...
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01.06.17China to Plow $361 Billion into Renewable Fuel by 2020
Reuters
China will plow 2.5 trillion yuan ($361 billion) into renewable power generation by 2020, the country's energy agency said on Thursday, as the world's largest energy market continues to shift away from dirty coal power towards cleaner...
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01.05.17China’s Electric Vehicle Strategy Paved With Potholes
Wall Street Journal
By the numbers, China looks like it’s on the way to dominating the global electric car industry. But
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01.04.17China’s Largest Freshwater Lake Is Shrinking
Huffington Post
China’s largest freshwater lake is under serious threat, and it seems no one can agree on how to save it. Poyang Lake can swell to over 1,700 square miles, an area larger than Rhode Island. But photographs released by China’s state-run Xinhua News...
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01.03.17China Gets Tough on Smog Offenders
CNN
China has slapped millions of dollars worth of fines on alleged offenders for violating anti-pollution rules, according to state media.
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01.02.17China Smog: Millions Start New Year Shrouded by Health Alerts and Travel Chaos
Guardian
Millions in China rang in the New Year shrouded in a thick blanket of toxic smog, causing road closures and flight cancellations as 24 cities issued alerts that will last through much of the week. On the first day of 2017 in Beijing, concentrations...
Conversation
12.30.16Rex Tillerson at State: What Will He Mean for U.S.-China Relations?
On December 13, President-elect Donald Trump’s transition team announced the selection of ExxonMobil Chief Executive Rex Tillerson as Secretary of State. We asked ChinaFile contributors to respond to the choice with a specific focus on how Tillerson...
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12.28.16Bike-Sharing Revolution Aims to Put China Back on Two Wheels
Guardian
From Shanghai to Sichuan, schemes are being rolled out to slash congestion, cut air pollution – and spin a profit
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12.27.16China Replaces Anti-Pollution Charges with Beefed Up ‘Green’ Tax
China will start collecting environment protection taxes in 2018 to strengthen enforcement that authorities said local governments had interfered with
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12.22.16Students in China Were Made to Take Exams Outdoors in Toxic Smog
Time
Widely circulated photos of the students, sitting at desks while blanketed in choking pollution, starkly dramatize the Chinese "airpocalypse"
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12.21.16Smog Refugees Flee Chinese Cities as ‘Airpocalypse’ Blights Half a Billion
Guardian
Thousands head to pollution-free regions as haze descends on the country’s northern industrial heartland
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12.21.16Step Inside China’s Hellish, Illicit Steel Factories
Wired
Kevin Frayer's photographs of illegal Chinese steel factories look like postcards from the dawn of the Industrial Revolution
China in the World Podcast
12.21.16China Rises to Challenge of Battling Climate Change
from Carnegie China
With the U.S. leadership role in the fight against climate change now being called into question, China has found itself in the unique position of being a global leader of the cause. In this podcast, nonresident Carnegie-Tsinghua scholar Wang Tao...
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12.20.16China Chokes on Smog So Bad that Planes Can't Land
USA Today
Major cities across northern China choked Monday under a blanket of smog so thick that industries were ordered shut down and air and ground traffic was disrupted
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12.16.16China Has Made Strides in Addressing Air Pollution, Environmentalists Say
New York Times
Ma Jun, the director of the Institute of Public and Environmental Affairs, says transparency is up and pollution is down
Viewpoint
12.15.16The Missing Topic in Trump’s Tough Talk on China
President-elect Donald Trump’s rhetoric suggests he will push China on many issues, not just one. Some observers have held on to the hope that his phone call with Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen, his burst of anti-China tweets, and his most recent...
Environment
12.13.16Chinese Consumers Adopt Greener Lifestyle
from chinadialogue
For the last two years, Helen Ni has hosted low-carbon technology workshops for local kids and their parents. The informal gatherings take place at her ground-floor apartment in the Shanghai suburb of Minhang, close to Jiaotong University, one of...
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12.13.16China to Set Date to Close Ivory Factories
Guardian
Preparation is under way in China to bring in a ban on their domestic ivory trade, following a promise made with the US earlier this year
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12.12.16China Riot Police Seal Off City Center After Smog Protestors Put Masks on Statues
Guardian
Clampdown in Chengdu after protesters place masks on statues in anger at air pollution choking the city
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12.12.16Going Green in China, Where Climate Change Isn’t Considered a Hoax
Salon
Chinese leaders want to improve the quality of life in their nation's cities
The China Africa Project
12.09.16Does One Man in China Control the Fate of Africa’s Elephants?
In the powerful new Netflix documentary The Ivory Game, Elephant Action League Executive Director Andrea Crosta ominously warned that the entire fate of Africa’s elephants is in the hands of a single man, Chinese President Xi Jinping. Only President...
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12.07.16China is Outsourcing Its Pollution
Foreign Policy
Beijing's diplomacy is increasingly green, but its international trade is getting ever more coal-black
Environment
12.06.16The World’s Saddest Polar Bear
from chinadialogue
Pizza, “the world’s saddest polar bear,” is to be granted at least a temporary reprieve from the display case in which he lives in the Grandview shopping mall in Guangzhou, southern China. This follows a global outcry, a one-million-signature...
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12.05.16Through Climate Change Denial, We’re Ceding Global Leadership to China
Los Angeles Times
Remember when China was the climate change outcast? What a difference a few years — and an election — can make
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11.30.16Despite Climate Change Vow, China Pushes to Dig More Coal
New York Times
Desperate to deliver coal before power stations run out, China mobilizes trains and half-mile lines of trucks
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11.29.16Author’s Vision of a Future Beijing Looks to China’s Present
New York Times
Meet Hao Jingfang, author of "Folding Beijing,” the science-fiction novelette that beat out Stephen King to win a Hugo Award.
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11.28.16China Risks Wasting $490 Billion on New Coal Plant, Say Campaigners
Guardian
Carbon Tracker says many plants running at overcapacity but China reluctant to wean itself off coal, fearing unemployment and unrest
Viewpoint
11.22.16Making China Great Again
China loomed large in Donald Trump’s presidential campaign. He accused the country of stealing American jobs and manipulating its currency for trade advantage. He famously tweeted that global warming was a concept created by the Chinese to “make U.S...
Conversation
11.21.16Will China Take the Lead on Climate Change?
At a time when the world is looking to China and the United States, the leading emitters of greenhouse gasses, to cooperate under the terms of the Paris Climate Change Agreement of 2015, will China now take the lead in fighting climate change?
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11.21.16As Trump Tweets about SNL and Hamilton, China’s Xi Embraces a New, Powerful Role
Quartz
Trump’s talk of increasing trade barriers and disdain for global organizations and agreements could create a more isolationist US, leaving China to fill the gap
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11.21.16China is No Longer Ruining Their Livelihoods, but These Filipino Fishermen are Not Entirely Grateful
Los Angeles Times
“We cannot forget China’s aggression towards us. They bumped our boats, they fired their water cannons on us"
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11.18.16Smog May be Easing, but in Parts of China Water Quality Worsens
Reuters
Despite commitments to crack down on polluters, the quality of water in China's rivers, lakes and reservoirs in several regions has deteriorated significantly
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11.17.16China Tells Trump Climate Change is Not a Hoax
Washington Post
Trump’s Twitter claim that China created the “concept of global warming” to undermine U.S. manufacturing has elicited a response from the Chinese government
China in the World Podcast
11.16.16Electing Donald Trump: The View from China
from Carnegie China
Donald Trump’s election in the 2016 U.S. presidential race ushers in a period of considerable uncertainty in regard to the future of U.S. policies in the Asia-Pacific and vis-à-vis its relationship with China. In this podcast, Paul Haenle spoke with...
Environment
11.16.16The Future of Public Interest Litigation in China
from chinadialogue
China has seen a rapid growth in environmental public interest legal challenges since January 2015, when a revised version of the Environmental Protection Law (EPL) came into effect. Nearly 100 lawsuits have been filed by both NGOs and public...
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11.16.16China’s Arctic Ambitions Take Shape in Remote Iceland Valley
Washington Post
In a valley near the Arctic Circle where the wind whips the coarse yellow grass, China and Iceland are preparing to look to the sky — and a shared future
Environment
11.11.16Trump Presidency May Spell Disaster for Climate
from chinadialogue
The election of Donald Trump may prove a disaster for the climate and especially for climate change negotiations if he sticks to the threats made during his campaign. But it may provide the developing world—especially China—with an opportunity to...
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11.11.16Trump Win Opens Way for China to Take Climate Leadership Role
CNBC
Trump's election is likely to end the U.S. leadership role in the fight against global warming, and may lead to the emergence of an unlikely champion: China.
Conversation
11.09.16How Should Trump Deal with China, and How Should China Deal with Trump?
Donald J. Trump, president-elect of the United States, spent much of his antagonistic campaign blaming China for many of America’s economic ills, and repeatedly making thinly veiled threats of a U.S. trade war with Beijing. How should Trump engage...
Depth of Field
11.08.16Dongbei’s Last Match Factory, Capital Straphangers, Retracing the Long March...
from Yuanjin Photo
In October, several publications marked the 80th Anniversary of the Chinese Communists’ Long March. We have chosen two stories that revisited this event and that were standouts, visually. Elsewhere, photographers followed stories both large and...
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11.01.16In a Rare Move, China Criticizes Trump Plan to Exit Climate Change Pact
Reuters
"I believe a wise political leader should take policy stances that conform with global trends," China's veteran climate chief said
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10.27.16In China, It’s Always Greener on the Other Side
Salon
China is making the difficult transition to cleaner energy, but their efforts will help mitigate climate change
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10.26.16China Officials Stuff Cotton Gauze into Air Monitoring Equipment to Falsify Results
Telegraph
The environmental officials had also tampered with computers to alter the results of pollution monitoring in the northern city of Xi’an
Environment
10.25.16China is Demanding Cleaner Shipping—So Should the Rest of the World
from chinadialogue
Last year, in response to growing awareness of severe air pollution problems in China’s coastal cities, the Chinese government adopted a ground-breaking program to cut pollution from ships. At its core is a commitment to reduce the sulfur content of...
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10.25.16Resettling China’s 'Ecological Migrants'
New York Times
These are the people the government has relocated from lands distressed by climate change, industrialization, and poor policies to hastily built villages
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10.24.16Living in China’s Expanding Deserts
New York Times
People on the edges of the country’s vast seas of sand are being displaced by climate change
Environment
10.21.16Will Chinese Money Transform Pakistan?
from chinadialogue
The development of the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) has spurred debate in all quarters. Some perceive it as a form of neo-colonialism and criticize Pakistan’s government for promoting unethical business practices at the cost of ordinary...
Environment
10.17.16Green Growth Could Boost China’s Economy Six-Fold
from chinadialogue
China’s economy could grow six-fold by 2050 with renewable energy accounting for 69 percent of national electricity supply if it transforms its energy system and increases efficiency across the industrial, transport, construction, and electricity...
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10.13.16China Returns to Pedal Power
Bloomberg
With roads becoming less navigable by the day, citizens, entrepreneurs and the government are looking for alternatives. The solution: bring back the bike
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10.11.16Death Toll from East China Residential Building Collapse Rises to 22
Xinhua
The latest survivor is a young girl, pulled from the rubble protected by the bodies of her parents, who were killed in the collapse.
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10.05.16America’s Best Idea May Now Be China’s Too, as It Expands It’s National Park System
Los Angeles Times
With U.S. guidance, China is launching a pilot project that spans nine provinces
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09.28.16Typhoon Megi: Deadly Storm Batters Taiwan and Mainland China
BBC
At least 5 have been killed, hundreds injured
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09.27.16China Tops WHO List for Deadly Outdoor Air Pollution
Guardian
More than 1 million people died from dirty air in one year
Media
09.23.16In China, Organic Food Is Gaining Ground
Wan Li, a young Beijing professional in her late 20s, is at her desk when her cell phone rings. She picks up. “North entrance?” She confirms. “I’ll be right out.” An electric delivery scooter has just pulled up to Wan’s office with her order of...
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09.23.16China’s Coal Cap Will Bite
Bloomberg
Can the shift to more domestic output be met without blanketing China's cities in smog?
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09.22.16Meet Pizza, the World’s Saddest Polar Bear
Quartz
Pizza is just one of thousands of “wild” animals languishing in China's malls
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09.20.16US and China Release Fossil Fuel Subsidy Peer Reviews
Guardian
With public assessment of their subsidies, China and the US take a big step on transparency, but inch forward on reform