Environment

11.11.14

China Reforms National Parks to Improve Environmental Protection

from chinadialogue
China’s central government is reforming the way major tourist attractions are run. It plans to create a unified national parks management system in a bid to halt environmental damage within its protected areas. The new, unified system will cut...

Unable to Clean Air Completely for Apec, China Resorts to Blocking Data

Simon Denyer and Xu Yangjingjing
Washington Post
China has made a gargantuan effort to clear Beijing’s smoggy air for an important regional summit this week, closing hundreds of factories and forcing cars off the road, but its efforts have only been partially successful.

China Criminal Gang Floods Market with 100 Metric Tons of Toxic Tofu

Adam Jourdan
Reuters
The gang added industrial bleaching agent rongalite to make dried tofu sticks brighter and chewier, the Shanghai Daily reported on Monday, citing official media in Shandong province.

Caixin Media

11.10.14

Popular Mental Health Treatment Has No Benefits, Experts Say

A widely used and expensive mental illness treatment that many patients have turned to for help is in the spotlight due to suggestions it offers little help.A college student name Xiaolei and his father travelled more than 500 kilometers from the...

China Ramps Up Efforts to Combat Ebola

Christina Larson
Science
Already about 200 medical workers and advisers from China are now stationed in the three West African countries fighting Ebola outbreaks: Sierra Leone, Liberia, and Guinea. George Gao, deputy director-general of the Chinese Center for Disease...

"Like Running on Mars" - Runners share their Beijing Marathon Stories

Steve George
That’s
To run or not to run? That was the question faced by entrants in Sunday’s Beijing marathon, as they awoke to find hazardous levels of pollution engulfing the city. 

Dengue Kills Six in ‘Worst China Outbreak in Decades’

BBC
The outbreak is thought to have been exacerbated by the week-long holiday celebrating China's National Day. Daily health reports indicate that there are more than 1,000 new infections a day.

Chow Yun-fat, Andy Lau Speak Up Against Use of Tear Gas on HK Protesters

Channel NewsAsia
Both famous actors spoke against the police use of tear gas, and urged that the safety of the student demonstrators should be a priority.

China Increasingly Producing ‘Tools of Torture’ for Export: Amnesty

Megha Rajagopalan
Reuters
The Chinese equipment, such as spiked batons, fuels human rights abuses by law enforcement authorities in African and Southeast Asian nations, the international human rights group said in a report.

Ebola Crisis in West Africa: Fair to Compare U.S. and China Aid?

Eric Olander & Cobus van Staden
When the ebola crisis first struck West Africa, China was among the only major powers to not only keep its personnel in the affected countries but to also send tens of millions of dollars in badly needed aid. The U.S., by contrast, was visibly...

Environment

09.19.14

Here’s How This Giant Chinese Forest Disappeared

Michael Zhao
In early August, Greenpeace China’s forest campaigner Wu Hao wrote a piece in the environmental section of the newspaper Southern Weekly about China’s astonishing rate of deforestation. He posted dramatic before and after satellite images of forests...

Viewpoint

09.18.14

More Exploitation, More Happiness

Kevin Slaten
It was one of the deadliest industrial disasters in recent Chinese history. On August 2, a massive metal dust explosion killed 75 workers and injured another 186 at a factory in Kunshan, in Jiangsu province, that supplied wheels to General Motors...

How China Maneuvered to Buy U.S. Pork Giant

Nathan Halverson
Reveal
The Center for Investigative Reporting spent four months digging into the deal and produced two pieces that aired on PBS NewsHour over the weekend. The reporting was funded in part by the McGraw Center for Business Journalism at...

Environment

09.10.14

The Dark Side of the Boom

Isabel Hilton from chinadialogue
Just over a year ago, in July 2013, a report published in the U.S. journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, put the health impacts of air pollution in China into an unusually clear framework: residents of south China, the report said...

China’s Toilet Paper Makers Flush With Cash

Shu-ching Jean Chen
Forbes
China’s invention of toilet paper in the 6th century, came well ahead of the availability of modern toilet paper in the United States, where inventor Joseph Gayetty first marketed it in 1857.

The ‘Facekini’

Nick Kirkpatrick
Washington Post
: From the beaches of China to pages of a fashion magazine.

China to Allow Foreign Ownership of Hospitals

Fanfan Wang
Wall Street Journal
China will let foreign companies own and operate hospitals in some parts of the country as part of an effort to overhaul its health-care system.

Sport in China: What’s Wrong with Winning?

Kristy Lu Stout
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.

China Steps up in West Africa to Help Fight Ebola

Eric Olander & Cobus van Staden
China appears to be leveraging the Ebola crisis in West Africa to radically improve its controversial foreign aid record. In contrast to Western countries, many of whom have evacuated their medical personnel from the region, China has sent teams of...

Under the Knife

Christopher Beam
New Yorker
 Why Chinese patients are turning against their doctors.

Heinz Recalls Four Batches of Infant Food in China

Sui-Lee Wee
Reuters
Heinz took action after food safety regulators in eastern Zhejiang province said they had found "excessive amounts of lead" in the company's AD Calcium Hi-Protein Cereal.

Environment

08.12.14

China Grows An Interest in Organic Foods

Michael Zhao
Late last month, news broke that a major Chinese supplier of American fast food brands was peddling meat that violated food safety standards.How do such scandals affect the way people in China feed themselves and their families? Chang Tianle, a...

China Jails Foreign Sleuths

Nicola Davison
Economist
A Shanghai court sentenced British corporate detective Peter Humphrey to 2.5 years in prison for illegally obtaining private information on Chinese citizens for pharmaceutical firm GlaxoSmithKline. 

China Will Ban All Coal Use In Beijing By 2020

Business Insider
Beijing’s Municipal Environmental Protection Bureau posted the plan on its website Monday, saying the city would instead prioritize electricity and natural gas for heating.

China Sees Boom in Illegal Surrogate Motherhood

Ian Johnson and Cao Li
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.

Strong Quake in China Topples Thousands of Homes, Kills At Least 367

Associated Press
Los Angeles Times
The magnitude-6.1 quake struck at 4:30 p.m. at a depth of 6 miles, according to the U.S. Geological Survey. Its epicenter was in Longtoushan township, 14 miles southwest of the city of Zhaotong, the Ludian county seat.

Death Toll Rises to 75 in Chinese Factory Blast

JACK CHANG
ABC
The death toll in for an explosion at a Chinese auto parts factory has risen to 75 people, as investigators fault poor safety measures and news reports reveal that workers had long complained of dangerous levels of dust at the facility.

China Experiences a Booming Underground Market in Surrogate Motherhood

Ian Johnson & Cao Li
New York Times
As in most countries, surrogacy is illegal in China. But a combination of rising infertility, a recent relaxation of the one-child-per-family policy and a cultural imperative to have children has given rise to a booming black market in surrogacy...

Why China’s Second-Baby Boom Might Not Happen

Christina Larson
Businessweek
Six months since China announced the loosening of its restrictive one-child population policy, it is still too early to judge the ultimate impact. But experts now express more modest expectations.

Congratulations! Inoculations!

Economist
The World Health Organization gives China a glowing report for its lowering of infant and maternal mortality rates.

Meat-Supplier’s CEO Apologizes for China Unit

LAURIE BURKITT and JACOB BUNGE
Wall Street Journal
OSI Group Inc., the Ilinois-based parent of the Shanghai operation under scrutiny, dispatched a team of its “global experts” to address the problems in China as its CEO vowed that the “completely unacceptable” missteps wouldn't happen again.

Dozens Placed in Quarantine After China Plague Death

BBC
Part of a city in north-west China has been sealed off and dozens of people placed in quarantine after a man died of bubonic plague, state media say.

Environment

07.23.14

Moving a Mountain, of Trash

from chinadialogue
On July 1, tough new standards for pollution from waste incinerators came into effect. The move is an attempt to end the conflict between communities across China and the nearby rubbish-burning plants they believe threaten their health and house...

Five Held in China Food Scandal Probe, Including Head of Shanghai Husi Food

BRENDA GOH AND PAUL CARSTEN
Reuters
The five detained include the head of the company—Shanghai Husi Food Co Ltd, a unit of U.S.-based OSI Group LLC—and the firm’s quality manager, the police said in an online statement. It gave no other details.

China Food Scandal Spreads, Drags in Starbucks, Burger King and McNuggets in Japan

ADAM JOURDAN
Reuters
McDonald’s Corp and KFC’s parent Yum Brands Inc apologized to Chinese customers on Monday after it emerged that Shanghai Husi Food Co Ltd, a unit of U.S.-based OSI Group LLC, had supplied expired meat to the two chains.

China Supplier Sold McDonald's, KFC Expired Meat

AP
Associated Press
McDonald's and KFC in China faced a new food safety scare after a Shanghai television station reported a supplier sold them expired beef and chicken.

Super Typhoon Rammasun Bears Down on Southern China

Euan McKirdy
CNN
Downgraded as it passed over the Philippines, the storm has gained strength again over the South China Sea and is now battering Hainan, with its inner eye wall hugging the island's coast.

The 2008 Milk Scandal Revisited

Yanzhong Huang
Council on Foreign Relations
Since the regulation of food safety incorporates several mutually reinforcing activities and involves various stakeholders, it is highly unlikely that pure top-down, state-centric regulatory and legal frameworks will be sufficient to defuse China’s...

Environment

07.17.14

The Legacy of Hunan’s Polluted Soils

from chinadialogue
This is the second of a special three-part series of investigations jointly run by chinadialogue and Yale Environment 360 with the support of the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting. You can also read parts one and three.Cao Fushe spent much of 2013...

Environment

07.17.14

China Faces Long Battle to Clean Polluted Soil

from chinadialogue
This is the third of a special three-part series of investigations jointly run by chinadialogue and Yale Environment 360 with the support of the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting. You can also read parts one and two.Luo Jinzhi is 52 and lives in...

Caixin Media

07.15.14

Silencing a Health Reformer’s Voice

Dr. Liao Xinbo is struggling to square his enormous popularity and thirst for healthcare reform with a recent demotion that, in his words, marked the culmination of his frustrated work life.Liao served as Deputy Director of the Guangdong Province...

China Looking to Play Larger Role in Funding Brazil’s Infrastructure

Paulo Trevisani and Rogerio Jelmayer
Wall Street Journal
Chinese officials are expected to announce investments in Brazil's transportation, energy and food sectors.

PM2.5 Index Reduced in Beijing

Shanghai Daily
Beijing's average PM2.5 index of 91.6 micrograms per cubic meter in first half of 2014 represents an 11.2 percent year-on-year decrease.

As China Gets Fatter, World Bank Calls for Health Care Reform

Mark Magnier
Wall Street Journal
As China has lifted hundreds of millions of people out of poverty and grown increasingly wealthy, its people are suffering from many lifestyle diseases endemic to developed countries.

Coca-Cola Offers Expats China Pollution Hazard Pay

LISA MURRAY AND ANGUS GRIGG
Australian Financial Review
American beverage giant Coca-Cola is offering a hefty “environmental hardship allowance” to its China-based expatriate employees, as foreign companies struggle to attract and retain staff with many people scared off by chronic pollution.

Environment

07.03.14

The Victims of China’s Soil Pollution Crisis

from chinadialogue
This is the first of a special three-part series of investigations jointly run by chinadialogue and Yale Environment 360, with support from the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting. You can also read parts two and three.When Zhang Junwei’s uncle died...

China ‘Baby Hatch’ Inundated With Abandoned, Disabled Children

Connie Young
CNN
In just 11 days, 106 children, all with disabilities or medical conditions, were dropped off at the Jinan Orphanage, according to local state media. That is more than the 85 orphans the city accepted the entire previous year.

Do Chinese Classrooms Need to Talk About Sex?

Jemimah Steinfeld
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.

Caixin Media

06.18.14

China’s Retiring Migrant Workers Have No Place to Call Home

A generation of Chinese people from rural areas who moved to the big cities to find work is reaching retirement age, but many are finding they have been left outside the country's urban pension system despite extensive reforms in recent years...

Costco Keeps Selling Treats From China Despite Dog Death

Kathy Tomlinson
CBC News
Costco is under fire for continuing to sell pet jerky treats from China, despite being warned by an owner whose veterinarian believes treats purchased there killed her Yorkshire terrier puppy.

Get Rich or Die Trying: The Chinese Herbal Medicine "Death Sentence" in Uganda

James Wan
Think Africa Press
200,000 Ugandans have signed up to a company believing it will cure all their illnesses and help them make a fortune. But it is more likely to do the opposite.

China Scrambles to Adjust to Baby Boomlet

Laurie Burkitt
Wall Street Journal
China's health officials are taking steps to accommodate two million more births annually after a landmark decision last year to relax population controls.

Why Scrapping 6 Million Cars is Not Going to End China’s Pollution Problem

Adam Taylor
Washington Post
While studies have shown some success from these measures, the fact that this bigger ban is being proposed is perhaps a sign it wasn't enough.

Books

05.22.14

Age of Ambition

Evan Osnos
From abroad, we often see China as a caricature: a nation of pragmatic plutocrats and ruthlessly dedicated students destined to rule the global economy—or an addled Goliath, riddled with corruption and on the edge of stagnation. What we don’t see is how both powerful and ordinary people are remaking their lives as their country dramatically changes.As the Beijing correspondent for The New Yorker, Evan Osnos was on the ground in China for years, witness to profound political, economic, and cultural upheaval. In Age of Ambition, he describes the greatest collision taking place in that country: the clash between the rise of the individual and the Communist Party’s struggle to retain control. He asks probing questions: Why does a government with more success lifting people from poverty than any civilization in history choose to put strict restraints on freedom of expression? Why do millions of young Chinese professionals—fluent in English and devoted to Western pop culture—consider themselves “angry youth,” dedicated to resisting the West’s influence? How are Chinese from all strata finding meaning after two decades of the relentless pursuit of wealth?Writing with great narrative verve and a keen sense of irony, Osnos follows the moving stories of everyday people and reveals life in the new China to be a battleground between aspiration and authoritarianism, in which only one can prevail. —Farrar, Straus, and Giroux {chop}

Caixin Media

05.13.14

China Comes to Grips with Poisons Underfoot

Pollution that is easily perceptible in China's rivers and urban air has gotten a lot of attention in recent years.Now a less obvious environmental concern with equally serious repercussions—soil contamination—is getting the attention it...

Environment

04.16.14

Ten Steps to Cleaner Air in China’s Cities

from chinadialogue
Earlier this year, former San Francisco planning advisor Eugene Leong looked at the legacy of air pollution in San Francisco. Here he draws out ten key policy lessons for China's leadership.Recognize PM2.5 pollution as a complex problem that...

China’s Losers: Disillusioned Office Workers

Gady Epstein
Economist
Amid spreading prosperity, a generation of self-styled also-rans emerges.

Environment

04.10.14

With Dietary Shift, China Facing Health Crisis

from chinadialogue
Tom Levitt: What are the dietary changes going on in China today?Barry Popkin: There are three or four big changes taking place. Firstly, people in China are purchasing more and more of their food from retailers, be they convenience stores, medium-...

Environment

04.03.14

China’s Air Pollution Reporting is Misleading

from chinadialogue
China’s air pollution is being reported in a misleading way, blocking public understanding and enabling official inaction. Outdoor air pollution in China causes an estimated 1.2 million premature deaths and 25 million healthy years of life lost...