Japan Protests Intrusion of Armed Chinese Vessel Into its Waters

James Mayger and Yuji Nakamura
Bloomberg
The vessel was formerly a People’s Liberation Army Navy ship and is now operated by another department.

Conversation

12.23.15

China in 2016

Andrew J. Nathan, Bethany Allen-Ebrahimian & more
What should China watchers be watching most closely in China in 2016? What developments would be the most meaningful? What predictions can be made sensibly?

Media

12.22.15

‘New Yorker’ Writers Reflect on ‘Extreme’ Reporting About China

Eric Fish from Asia Blog
While international reporting on China has improved by leaps and bounds since foreign journalists first started trickling into the country in the 1970s, major challenges remain in giving readers back home a balanced image. That was the message from...

A Wordless Elegy for China’s War Dead

DIDI KIRSTEN TATLOW
New York Times
Mr. Wang explained why he wanted to write a requiem about a war that ended 70 years ago.

Books

12.10.15

Pacific

Simon Winchester
Following his acclaimed Atlantic and The Men Who United the States, New York Times bestselling author Simon Winchester offers an enthralling biography of the Pacific Ocean and its role in the modern world, exploring our relationship with this imposing force of nature.As the Mediterranean shaped the classical world, and the Atlantic connected Europe to the New World, the Pacific Ocean defines our tomorrow. With China on the rise, so, too, are the American cities of the West coast, including Seattle, San Francisco, and the long cluster of towns down the Silicon Valley.Today, the Pacific is ascendant. Its geological history has long transformed us—tremendous earthquakes, volcanoes, and tsunamis—but its human history, from a Western perspective, is quite young, beginning with Magellan’s sixteenth-century circumnavigation. It is a natural wonder whose most fascinating history is currently being made.In telling the story of the Pacific, Simon Winchester takes us from the Bering Strait to Cape Horn, the Yangtze River to the Panama Canal, and to the many small islands and archipelagos that lie in between. He observes the fall of a dictator in Manila, visits aboriginals in northern Queensland, and is jailed in Tierra del Fuego, the land at the end of the world. His journey encompasses a trip down the Alaska Highway, a stop at the isolated Pitcairn Islands, and a trek across South Korea and a glimpse of its mysterious northern neighbor.Winchester’s personal experience is vast and his storytelling second to none. And his historical understanding of the region is formidable, making Pacific a paean to this magnificent sea of beauty, myth, and imagination that is transforming our lives. —HarperCollins{chop}

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.

You Can't Understand China Unless You Know How the Communist Party Thinks

Zheng Bijian
Huffington Post
The CPC came into being in 1921, almost a century ago.

Caixin Media

12.02.15

Zhang Zhixin: The Woman who Took on the ‘Gang of Four’

Sheila Melvin
Next year marks the 50th anniversary of the start of the Cultural Revolution (1966-1976). The desire not to dwell on that tumultuous decade, after half a century has passed, is understandable, but the failure to reflect on its impact, offer a full...

Viewpoint

11.30.15

Court in China Adds Last-Minute Charge Against Rights Leader During Sentencing

Yaxue Cao from China Change
On August 8, 2013, Guo Feixiong (real name Yang Maodong) was arrested and then indicted on charges of “gathering a crowd to disrupt order in a public place.” The heavy sentence came as a shock to everyone following the case. More shockingly, the...

Tibet, Taiwan and China – A Complex Nexus

Tshering Chonzom Bhutia
Diplomat
Recent developments in cross-strait relations raise interesting questions for Tibet’s leadership in exile.

Ever Wonder How China Got Back Into International Diplomacy After the Cultural Revolution?

Robert Farley
Diplomat
China’s successful entry into the international scene after the Cultural Revolution bears lessons for other pariah states.

Would India Dare Risk Antagonizing China?

Daniel Markey
Council on Foreign Relations
I found a striking consensus about the relative stability between the two giant Asian neighbors.

Hong Kong May Be A Little Insecure, But It's No 'Slave'

Kenny Hodgart
South China Morning Post
I don't much care to weigh in on the subject of Hong Kong remaining a place where non-Asians are able to prosper.

China Is Trying to Warn Taiwan Voters

Noah Feldman
Bloomberg
The possibility of conflict between China and Taiwan is dangerous to the world’s security.

Why 2,500-Year-Old Tale Gives Ma Hope for Chinese Democracy

Adela Lin Chris Anstey
Bloomberg
Taiwanese President Ma Ying-jeou said history gives him hope for political change on the Communist-ruled mainland.

Conversation

11.19.15

Is China a Credible Partner in Fighting Terror?

Andrew Small, Chen Weihua & more
In the wake of the terror attacks in Paris China’s foreign minister Wang Yi said, “China is also a victim of terrorism. The fight against the ‘East Turkestan Islamic Movement’… should become an important part of the international fight against...

McDonald's China Heritage Outlet Criticised

BBC
The opening of a McDonald's outlet in the home of former Taiwanese leader Chiang Ching-kuo in Hangzhou, China has sparked a controversy.

Conversation

11.18.15

How Can China’s Neighbors Make Progress at APEC?

Le Hong Hiep & Brian Eyler
Ahead of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) Summit next week, we asked a group of experts from China’s neighboring countries what they thought the main thrust of discussion in Manila should be. If host, the Philippines, under pressure from...

India-China Talks Fail To Make Progress on Border Dispute

Vivek Raghuvanshi
Defense News
"This is the highest level defense delegation to visit India in the recent years. The visit signifies the enhanced defense exchanges between India and China."

China Tired of the Boiler Suit

Lena Jeger
Guardian
“Why can people who glory in color and fun and variety wear a uniform of boiler suits that brings drabness and dreariness to every gathering?”

Q. and A.: Ezra F. Vogel on China’s Shifting Relations With Japan and Taiwan

JAVIER C. HERNÁNDEZ
New York Times
Mr. Vogel is working on a book that will explore moments in history when China and Japan were in closest contact.

Nancy Pelosi Made Rare Visit to Tibet, China Says

EDWARD WONG
New York Times
Nancy Pelosi, the Democratic leader of the House of Representatives, visited Lhasa, the capital of Tibet.

Caixin Media

11.10.15

Mao’s ‘Proud Poplar’: Yang Kaihui

Sheila Melvin
Yang Kaihui—who was killed 85 years ago this month—was the first of Mao Zedong’s three freely chosen wives. (Mao was forced by his parents to wed an older neighbor when he was just 14 but did not consider this a true marriage.) Yang’s dramatic, and...

Media

11.09.15

Can the China Model Succeed?

Daniel A. Bell, Timothy Garton Ash & more
Is this a new model? Is authoritarian capitalism, Leninist capitalism, something that has durability? Have the rules changed about how countries develop? That used to be, remember, that open markets led ineluctably to open societies. How does it...

Leaders of Taiwan and China Hold Historic Meeting

Economist
It was a brief encounter—an hour of discussions followed by a low-key dinner—but one of great historical resonance.

Meeting With Taiwan Reflects Limits of China’s Checkbook

AUSTIN RAMZY
New York Times
For the past eight years, the Chinese government has showered its former enemies in Taiwan with economic gifts.

Media

11.06.15

‘A Brutality Born of Helplessness’

Alexa Olesen
When China finally scrapped its one-child policy after more than three decades of brutality, almost no one lamented its passing. But Paul R. Ehlich, a Stanford-educated biologist and author of the 1968 fear-baiting classic The Population Bomb, was...

Conversation

11.05.15

The China-Taiwan Summit

Richard Bernstein, Andrew J. Nathan & more
This Saturday, for the first time since 1949, the leaders of China and Taiwan will meet face to face. Xi Jinping and Ma Ying-jeou will meet in Singapore, not as Presidents, but—to sidestep one of many lingering areas of conflict since the Chinese...

3 Things Taiwan Wants From China

Mark Rivett-Carnac
Time
Here are three issues that are likely to be on the top of Ma’s agenda after seven decades without a face-to-face meeting.

Call Me Mister: Taiwan, China Presidents to Hold Historic Meeting

Greg Botelho, Kevin Wang and Katie Hunt
CNN
The leaders of Taiwan and China plan to meet in Singapore on Saturday for the first time since the Chinese civil war ended in 1949.

How China Wants to Rate Its Citizens

JIAYANG FAN
New Yorker
In certain respects, a national credit system of some kind is long overdue in China.

Q. and A.: Chan Koonchung on Imagining a Non-Communist China

DIDI KIRSTEN TATLOW
New York Times
We’re in Beijing — no, Beiping — Dec. 10, 1979.

China, Japan and South Korea Relations 'Completely Restored' After Summit

Tiffany Ap, KJ Kwon and Yoko Wakatsuki
CNN
"All sides shared the view that trilateral cooperation has been completely restored in this meeting."

Amartya Sen: Women’s Progress Outdid China’s One-Child Policy

AMARTYA SEN
New York Times
The abandonment of the one-child policy in China is a momentous change.

Yan Lianke: Understand the Enemy

Huffington Post
"I think that my fate cannot be separated from literature."

Two-Child Policy Is Too Little, Too Late

Adam Minter
Bloomberg
When Chinese leaders convene this week for a four-day meeting on the future of the country’s economy, the biggest news might have to do with babies.

‘Kingdom of Daughters’ in China Draws Tourists to Its Matrilineal Society

AMY QIN
New York Times
It was morning in the lakeside village of Luoshui here in southwestern China.

India Is Spending Billions to Populate a Remote Area Claimed by China

Natalie Obiko Pearson
Bloomberg
"If China is developing on their side of the territory, we should develop on our side."

Caixin Media

10.23.15

Hemingway's Literary Escape

Sheila Melvin
One noonday in 2002, a friendly acquaintance of mine—I’ll call him Q—left his office in a Beijing concert hall to go to lunch and never returned. After a series of inquiries, his wife and colleagues learned that he had been arrested. Various charges...

How Hungry Is China for the World's Food?

John W. Schoen
CNBC
China's transformation from an agrarian economy remains a work in progress.

Beijing Says Won't Give up Position that Taiwan's Part of China

Ben Blanchard
Reuters
Chinese people have a "sacred mission" to ensure Taiwan is always considered part of China.

Human Rights: What Is China Accused of?

Camila Ruz
BBC
China's human rights record has been criticised for years.

Nobel Renews Debate on Chinese Medicine

IAN JOHNSON
New York Times
As China basks in its first Nobel Prize in science, few places seem as elated, or bewildered, by the honor as the China Academy of Chinese Medical Sciences.

The Bloodthirsty Deng We Didn’t Know

Jonathan Mirsky from New York Review of Books
“Deng was…a bloody dictator who, along with Mao, was responsible for the deaths of millions of innocent people, thanks to the terrible social reforms and unprecedented famine of 1958–1962.” This is the conclusion of Alexander Pantsov and Steven...

Conversation

10.20.15

Britain: ‘China’s Best Partner in the West’?

Isabel Hilton, Sebastian Heilmann & more
This week, Xi Jinping is in Great Britain for a state visit, his first since assuming leadership of China nearly three years ago. Britain’s government under David Cameron has signaled—increasingly loudly in recent months—that it hopes to usher in a...

Conversation

10.16.15

Is There a China Model?

Daniel A. Bell, Timothy Garton Ash & more
The most recent public event in our ChinaFile Presents series, which we held October 15 in New York, was a discussion of the philosopher Daniel A. Bell’s controversial book, The China Model: Political Meritocracy and the Limits of Democracy, co-...

A Remote Corner of China Wants Access to the Sea. The Obstacle Is North Korea.

Anna Fifield
Washington Post
You can almost smell the sea air from here, at the point where China, Russia and North Korea meet.

Ai Weiwei Memoir Coming in Spring 2017

STAV ZIV
Newsweek
Crown Publishing Group announced that it will publish a memoir by the artist in the spring of 2017.

Ancient Teeth Found in China Challenge Modern Human Migration Theory

Georgia McCafferty and Shen Lu
CNN
Scientists in southern China have discovered human teeth dating back at least 80,000 years.

The Chinese Oscar Winner that Wasn’t

BETHANY ALLEN-EBRAHIMIAN
Foreign Policy
Wolf Totem is a spectacular film, but its soul is missing. That's just how Beijing wants it.

Mao and Other Cultural Inspirations

RANDY KENNEDY
New York Times
“An army without culture is a dull-witted army,” Mao Zedong wrote, “and a dull-witted army cannot defeat the enemy.”

China Burnishes Xi Jinping’s Legend With TV Drama of His Years in Rural Hamlet

Tom Phillips
Guardian
Chinese bloggers label 45-part drama called Liangjiahe as latest homage to omnipotent ‘Big Daddy Xi’.

Lenin’s Chinese Heirs

Evan A. Feigenbaum and Damien Ma
Foreign Affairs
For Xi, Politics Comes First and Economy Second.

Survivors Tell the Camera the Hidden Tale of China's Great Famine

Jonathan Kaiman
Los Angeles Times
When Li Yaqin was 16, she ate what her family could scavenge.

'Hunting' for China at the Democratic Debate

Emily Rauhala
Washington Post
Jim Webb wanted to talk China.The rest of the candidates? Not so much.

Japan May Halt Funds for UNESCO Over Nanjing Row With China

KIYOSHI TAKENAKA
Reuters
Japan's military aggression before and during World War Two still haunts ties between Asia's two biggest economies.

Top China Paper Says U.S., Russia Playing Cold War Game in Syria

Ben Blanchard
Reuters
The United States and Russia seemed to be using Syria as a proxy for diplomatic and military competition, as during the Cold War.

A Land China Loves and Hates

Murong Xuecun
New York Times
The Chinese hostility to America is first and foremost the result of government propaganda.

When Palace Museum Meets Creativity

China Daily
In the minds of most people, Emperor and his concubines lived their lives solemnly.