Environment
07.15.15Scientists Call for More Emission Cuts
from chinadialogue
It is still possible to limit average global temperature rise to two degrees Celsius (2˚C) and avoid catastrophic climate change, but the remaining global carbon budget—the amount of carbon that can be safely released into the atmosphere if this...
Caixin Media
07.14.15Uber CEO Enjoying a Fast China Ride
Demand for cross-town transportation is at the heart of an urban lifestyle that is defining modern China. It is also giving the American car-hire service Uber Technologies Inc. an incredible ride.Few are enjoying the ride more than Uber CEO Travis...
The China Africa Project
07.14.15China’s Rapidly Changing Views on Wildlife Conservation in Africa
A dramatic shift in Chinese public opinion about animal welfare and global wildlife conservation appears to be underway. Supported by high-profile celebrity campaigns by NBA legend Yao Ming and actress Li Bing Bing, there is growing awareness in...
Conversation
07.08.15Are China’s Limits on Greenhouse Gas Emissions Meaningful?
Last week, Premier Li Keqiang said China would cut its “carbon intensity”—the amount of carbon dioxide emitted per unit of GDP—to 60-65 percent of 2005 levels by 2030. Visiting Paris, the site in September of the United Nations Climate Change...
ChinaFile Recommends
07.08.15The Philippines Takes China to Court
Al Jazeera
The Philippines argued at a closed that an international court should intervene in its dispute with China over rights to exploit natural resources and fish in the South China Sea.
Books
07.07.15Meeting China Halfway
Though a U.S.–China conflict is far from inevitable, major tensions are building in the Asia-Pacific region. These strains are the result of historical enmity, cultural divergence, and deep ideological estrangement, not to mention apprehensions fueled by geopolitical competition and the closely related "security dilemma." Despite worrying signs of intensifying rivalry between Washington and Beijing, few observers have provided concrete paradigms to lead this troubled relationship away from disaster. Meeting China Halfway: How to Defuse the Emerging US-China Rivalry is dramatically different from any other book about U.S.-China relations. Lyle J. Goldstein's explicit focus in almost every chapter is on laying bare both U.S. and Chinese perceptions of where their interests clash and proposing new paths to ease bilateral tensions through compromise. Each chapter contains a “cooperation spiral”―the opposite of an escalation spiral―to illustrate the policy proposals. Goldstein not only parses findings from the latest American scholarship but also breaks new ground by analyzing hundreds of Chinese-language sources, including military publications, never before evaluated by Western experts. Goldstein makes one hundred policy proposals over the course of this book, not because these are the only solutions to arresting the alarming course toward conflict, but rather to inaugurate a genuine debate regarding cooperative policy solutions to the most vexing problems in U.S.-China relations. ―Georgetown University Press {chop}
ChinaFile Recommends
07.02.15Fears Raised as "A Third" of China Great Wall Vanishes
CNN
About 30%, of the ancient fortification built in the Ming Dynasty era has disappeared due to natural erosion and human damage, according to the Beijing Times.
ChinaFile Recommends
07.02.15China Nears Completion of Controversial Airstrip in South China Sea
Guardian
The runway is large enough for heavy military transport planes and fighters. It is only a third complete, showing that it has since been constructed at a rapid rate.
Environment
07.01.15China Deepens Planned Cuts to Carbon Intensity
from chinadialogue
China has mapped out how it will try and peak greenhouse emissions by 2030 or before, details that could have a major bearing on U.N. climate talks aimed at delivering a deal in Paris later this year.The world’s largest emitter of greenhouse gases “...
ChinaFile Recommends
07.01.15See China’s Rapid Island-Building Strategy in Action
Washington Post
New satellite imagery of remote islands in the South China Sea shows Chinese island-building projects and how attention has turned to building military bases.
ChinaFile Recommends
06.25.15Why is China's Female Prison Population Growing?
BBC
Women comprise just 6.3% of China's prison population. If trends continue, within five years, China will imprison more women than the United States.
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...
ChinaFile Recommends
06.25.15Outcry in Russia over China land lease
Financial Times
Plans to hand a stretch of remote Siberian territory to Chinese investors triggers protests in Russia, underlining how the relationship between both countries is undermined by deep-rooted distrust.
ChinaFile Recommends
06.25.15China plays favorites with endangered species
CNN
“The Chinese government has put so much money and so much effort into preserving pandas but there are so many other species that need addressing.”
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...
ChinaFile Recommends
06.24.15Gas Leak Raises Fears Over China Network
Financial Times
A brand new natural gas pipeline operated by CNPC in Yunnan sprung a leak, raising worries about the safety of China's network of oil and gas pipes.
ChinaFile Recommends
06.24.15100,000 Tons of Smuggled Meat, Some From 1970s, Seized Across China
New York Times
Smuggled frozen meat has been seized across China, some of it more than 40 years old and valued at up to $483 million.
ChinaFile Recommends
06.24.15China Opens New Land Route to Tibet for Indian Pilgrims
New York Times
The crossing of Nathu La, between India and Tibet, signals the opening of a new pilgrimage route for Indian pilgrims to holy sites.
ChinaFile Recommends
06.22.15The Village and the Girl
BBC
The destruction of rural China became for pig farmer Xiao Zhang a liberation and an opportunity.
ChinaFile Recommends
06.19.15China’s Annual Dog-Eating Festival Prompts Social Media Firestorm
Washington Post
At a solstice festival in China 10,000 canines are said to be beaten, killed and cooked for human consumption.
Books
06.16.15The Yellow River
Flowing through the heart of the North China Plain―home to 200 million people―the Yellow River sustains one of China’s core regions. Yet this vital water supply has become highly vulnerable in recent decades, with potentially serious repercussions for China’s economic, social, and political stability. The Yellow River is an investigative expedition to the source of China’s contemporary water crisis, mapping the confluence of forces that have shaped the predicament that the world’s most populous nation now faces in managing its water reserves.Chinese governments have long struggled to maintain ecological stability along the Yellow River, undertaking ambitious programs of canal and dike construction to mitigate the effects of recurrent droughts and floods. But particularly during the Maoist years the North China Plain was radically re-engineered to utilize every drop of water for irrigation and hydroelectric generation. As David A. Pietz shows, Maoist water management from 1949 to 1976 cast a long shadow over the reform period, beginning in 1978. Rapid urban growth, industrial expansion, and agricultural intensification over the past three decades of China’s economic boom have been realized on a water resource base that was acutely compromised, with effects that have been more difficult and costly to overcome with each passing decade. Chronicling this complex legacy, The Yellow River provides important insight into how water challenges will affect China’s course as a twenty-first-century global power.―Harvard University Press{chop}
ChinaFile Recommends
06.16.15China to Halt Its Building of Islands, but Not Its Projects on Them
New York Times
China will soon halt island building in the South China Sea but will continue constructing military and civilian facilities.
ChinaFile Recommends
06.15.15Nicaragua Canal Protest: Thousands Oppose Atlantic-Pacific
BBC
Some protesters, who were mostly farmers, accused President Daniel Ortega of selling Nicaragua to the Chinese.
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...
The China Africa Project
06.10.15China’s Proposed Ivory Ban: Breakthrough or B.S.?
China’s surprise announcement that it will phase out the trade and manufacturing of ivory came as a rare piece of good news for Africa’s rapidly shrinking elephant population. While most major international wildlife groups welcomed Beijing’s new...
Reports
06.08.15China’s “New Normal”: Structural Change, Better Growth, and Peak Emissions
American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research
China has grown rapidly—often at double-digit rates—for more than three decades by following a strategy of high investment, strong export orientation, and energy-intensive manufacturing. While this growth lifted hundreds of millions out of poverty,...
Conversation
06.06.15Should the U.S. Change its China Policy and How?
The past several months have seen a growing chorus of calls for the U.S. to take stock of its policy toward China. Some prominent voices have called for greater efforts by the U.S. and China to forge “a substantive sense of common purpose,” while...
ChinaFile Recommends
06.05.15With Over 440 Expected Dead, the Yangtze River Cruise Sinking is China’s Worst Boating Disaster
Quartz
Rescuers initially heard voices of those trapped inside the overturned ship's hull.
ChinaFile Recommends
06.05.15Survivor Accounts Raise Questions About Yangtze Ship’s Final Moments
New York Times
Four days after the ship, the Oriental Star, flipped over in a ferocious storm, leaving 442 dead or missing.
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...
ChinaFile Recommends
06.04.15China Tries To Put A More Positive Spin On Cruise Ship Sinking
NPR
Dozens are confirmed dead and the number is expected to pass 400.
ChinaFile Recommends
06.03.15Divers Comb Capsized China Ship, Hopes Fade for Survivors
Reuters
Rescuers have not slackened off, even though about 200 divers face difficulties such as cabin doors blocked by tables and beds.
ChinaFile Recommends
06.02.15Ship Sinks in China’s Yangtze River with 458 Aboard
CNN
The captain and chief engineers were among the only 15 survivors and five bodies recovered as of Tuesday night.
Conversation
05.29.15Did the Game Just Change in the South China Sea? (And What Should the U.S. Do About It?)
As the 14th annual Asia Security Summit—or the Shangri-La Dialogue, as it has come to be known—gets underway in Singapore, we asked contributors to comment on what appears to be a recent escalation in tensions between the U.S. and China over the two...
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...
ChinaFile Recommends
05.25.15Paris Can’t Be Another Copenhagen
New York Times
The U.S. and China must rapidly increase collaboration on climate change both within and beyond the framework of the conference.
ChinaFile Recommends
05.25.15China Warned Over ‘Insane’ Plans for New Nuclear Power Plants
Guardian
He Zuoxiu, a leading scientist, says China is not investing enough in safety controls after the Fukushima disaster in Japan.
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...
ChinaFile Recommends
05.21.15Why the U.S. Needs to Listen to China
Atlantic
And why China needs to listen to the U.S. The importance of the mutual economic criticisms between two major world powers.
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...
ChinaFile Recommends
05.20.15Traces II
Granta
Few rivers have captured the soul of a nation more deeply than the Yellow River. Historically a symbol of enduring glory, a force of nature both feared and revered, it has provided water for life downstream for thousands...
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...
ChinaFile Recommends
05.18.15Duck-Rice, Honey Bees and Mandarins
China Policy Institute Blog
There has to be a financial model which allows the farmers to see the impact of restoration on their business.
ChinaFile Recommends
05.18.15Despite Tension, Xi says U.S.-China Relations are Stable
Reuters
John Kerry's trip has been dominated by security concerns about Beijing’s maritime ambitions in the So China Sea.
Infographics
05.18.15Submerged
Urban planner and cartographer Jeffrey Linn mapped a possible future for China’s coast, where some 43% of its population currently lives, when the earth's polar ice caps and glaciers have all melted and the sea rises if the planet’s temperature...
ChinaFile Recommends
05.15.15Kerry Expected to Bring Up China’s Sea Claims During Visit
New York Times
The U.S. might send ships and aircraft to within 12 nautical miles of built-up reefs near the Philippines.
ChinaFile Recommends
05.15.15Dredging For Disaster
Foreign Policy
Beijing’s massive So. China Sea island-building is destroying the region’s irreplaceable coral reefs.
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...
ChinaFile Recommends
05.12.15Searching for Identity in China’s Outer Lands
New York Times
“ ‘China’s Outer Lands’ is about people instinctively looking for their own identity, between conformity or originality or autonomy or dependence,” Mr. Sakamaki said. “It’s natural, it’s happening in not only China, it’s everywhere.”
ChinaFile Recommends
05.11.15China Tilts Towards Liberal Latin American Economies
Financial Times
China is promoting a Chinese-built, cross-Andes rail link that would allow Brazilian ore and soya to be shipped from Pacific ports in Peru to Asia.
ChinaFile Recommends
05.08.15China, Russia Prepare $2 Billion Agricultural Investment Fund
Wall Street Journal
The fund will develop agricultural projects in the two countries and set up a free-trade zone between their key farming belts.
ChinaFile Recommends
05.06.15China Issues Guideline for Eco-Friendly Development
Xinhua
Safeguarding the environment lags China’s economic status—limited resources and severe pollution preventing sustainable growth.
ChinaFile Recommends
05.03.15China, Pursuing Strategic Interests, Builds Presence in Antarctica - NYTimes.com
New York Times
China, Pursuing Strategic Interests, Builds Presence in Antarctica http://www.nytimes.com/2015/05/04/world/asia/china-pursuing-strategic-interests-builds-presence-in-antarctica.html?hpw&rref=world&action=click&pgtype=Homepage...
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...
Books
04.30.15Fantasy Islands
The rise of China and its status as a leading global factory are altering the way people live and consume. At the same time, the world appears wary of the real costs involved. Fantasy Islands probes Chinese, European, and American eco-desire and eco-technological dreams, and examines the solutions they offer to environmental degradation in this age of global economic change.Uncovering the stories of sites in China, including the plan for a new eco-city called Dongtan on the island of Chongming, mega-suburbs, and the Shanghai World Expo, Julie Sze explores the flows, fears, and fantasies of Pacific Rim politics that shaped them. She charts how climate change discussions align with U.S. fears of China’s ascendancy and the related demise of the American Century, and she considers the motives of financial and political capital for eco-city and ecological development supported by elite power structures in the U.K. and China. Fantasy Islands shows how ineffectual these efforts are while challenging us to see what a true eco-city would be. —University of California Press{chop}
Conversation
04.29.15Is China Building Up Soft Power by Aiding Nepal?
A devastating earthquake has struck one of China’s smallest neighbors, the mountainous former kingdom known, since 2008, as the Federal Democratic Republic of Nepal. Surrounded on three sides by India—known in Nepali as a “friendly nation”—Nepal...
ChinaFile Recommends
04.29.15Bat-Winged Dinosaur Fossil Discovered in China
USA Today
The new dinosaur is named Yi qi (pronounced "ee chee") and means "strange wing" in Mandarin.
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...