ChinaFile Recommends
05.14.14Chinese Police Charge British Former Head of GSK in China With Bribery
Reuters
The case is the biggest corruption scandal to hit a foreign company in China since the Rio Tinto affair in 2009, which resulted in four executives, including an Australian, being jailed for between 7-14 years.
ChinaFile Recommends
05.14.14Philippines Challenges China Over Disputed Atoll
New York Times
The Philippines has protested signs of land reclamation by China aimed at expanding a disputed coral atoll near the southern Philippines, the latest in a series of disputes pitting China against its neighbors.
Media
05.13.14Why Are There No Credit Scores in China?
Few would dispute that Chinese society suffers from a serious trust problem. After surviving crafty scams and shoddy products for years, Chinese people have become guarded with strangers and cautious in business dealings. Given all that, it would be...
ChinaFile Recommends
05.13.14China Isn’t Overtaking America
New York Times
Twenty-first century rivalry between the United States and China will be as much about economic might as military power.
Media
05.06.14Chinese to the World: Ignore Our GDP
The U.S.-based World Bank grabbed everybody’s attention by announcing that China was poised to displace the United States as the world’s largest economy based on purchasing power. But a survey of the Chinese web shows people at home aren’t buying it...
ChinaFile Recommends
05.06.14Rights Lawyer Detained Ahead of Tiananmen Anniversary
New York Times
Pu Zhiqiang, 49, has been detained by the Beijing police one month before the 25th anniversary of the deadly crackdown on the Tiananmen protest movement.
ChinaFile Recommends
05.04.14Why India Will Soon Outpace China
Forbes
India’s decentralized, often chaotic economic model has been seen as inferior to China’s authoritarian, top-down model. A reappraisal of that view may soon be in order.
ChinaFile Recommends
05.04.14China's Half-Year Report Card on Economic Reform: Slow, Safe and Steady
Reuters
Incremental steps promise to reach enough critical mass to sustain reform momentum and help the world's second-largest economy shift down fairly smoothly after decades of red-hot growth.
Sinica Podcast
05.03.14Shoptalk on Publishing
from Sinica Podcast
This week on Sinica, Jeremy Goldkorn is pleased to be joined by two people navigating the English-language publishing industry as it involves China: Alice Xin Liu, Editor of Pathlight magazine, and Karen Ma, first-time author of the well-received...
Conversation
04.30.14Will China’s Economy Be #1 by Dec. 31? (And Does it Matter?)
On April 30, data released by the United Nations International Comparison Program showed China’s estimated 2011 purchasing power parity (PPP) exchange rate was twenty percent higher than was estimated in 2005. What does this mean? China's...
Media
04.30.14Five Lessons From the Axing of ‘The Big Bang Theory’
It’s a plot twist few saw coming. Not long ago, China’s video streaming sites were trying to clean up years of copyright violations by paying big bucks to license popular U.S. television shows. For their part, Chinese fans had begun to abandon the...
ChinaFile Recommends
04.29.14Why China is Censoring ‘The Big Bang Theory’ but not ‘Game of Thrones’
Quartz
While authorities speak of “cleaning the web” of offensive content, they may be more worried about reminding the country’s flourishing private internet firms that the government is still in charge.
ChinaFile Recommends
04.28.14Bill Gates Urges China’s Wealthiest to Give to Charity...Again
Guardian
Businessman makes plea in People's Daily for country to improve bad philanthropic record by investing in the poor.
ChinaFile Recommends
04.28.14Apple, Be Afraid: China's Xiaomi Going Global
Forbes
Xiaomi’s Mi3 in China is cheaper than the iPhone 5c—1,999 yuan versus 4,488. No wonder Xiaomi outsells Apple, shipping 7.3 million phones in the fourth quarter of last year over Apple's 7 million.
ChinaFile Recommends
04.28.14China Forces Four U.S. TV Shows Off Web
Wall Street Journal
'Big Bang Theory' and 'Good Wife' are among programs taken down from popular video streaming sites Sohu, Youku Tudou, and Tencent, as government control of the Internet and over foreign entertainment content intensifies.
ChinaFile Recommends
04.27.14China Releases Japanese Wartime Documents: State Media
Reuters
The publication comes during a fraught period in Japan-China relations. Last week, Japan's Mitsui O.S.K. Lines paid $29 million for the release of a ship seized by China over a dispute that dates back to the 1930s.
Media
04.25.14Bieliebers They Are Not—Chinese Outraged by Singer’s Tokyo Shrine Visit
Justin Bieber has once again displayed his talent for seemingly effortless international gaffes. The twenty-year-old Canadian pop princeling, who last year wrote “hopefully she would have been a Belieber” in the guestbook on his visit to the Anne...
ChinaFile Recommends
04.25.14Alibaba Works Magic for China's Taobao 'Treasure Hunters'
USA Today
Alibaba's eBay-like marketplace Taobao allows budding entrepreneurs to set up and run an online store, for free. The site has steven million sellers offering hundreds of millions of items.
ChinaFile Recommends
04.25.14The Shadow over Obama’s Asia Trip: 3 Ways China Scares the U.S.
Washington Post
The Balance of Power in the Pacific; China’s global footprint; and friendship with Russia
ChinaFile Recommends
04.24.14Obama: U.S. To Defend Japan In Territorial Disputes With China
NPR
President Obama is in Japan for the start of his four-nation Asia visit. The trip aims to assure U.S. allies that they're not forgotten, even as China gets more bullish with its neighbors.
ChinaFile Recommends
04.24.14China’s Police Will Carry Guns Unlike Any Others
Wall Street Journal
Arming regular beat patrols is a significant policy change for a nation with some of the world’s most restrictive gun laws.
ChinaFile Recommends
04.24.14I Sold Out to China
Aeon Magazine
You know that censorship has won its war on truth-telling when journalists happily police themselves.
ChinaFile Recommends
04.23.14Russia, China Block Central African Republic Blacklistings at U.N.
Reuters
The United States and France proposed U.N. sanctions of former Central African Republic President Francois Bozize for "engaging in or providing support for acts that undermine the peace, stability or security."
Caixin Media
04.23.14Graft Inquiry at CNPC Uncovers Shady Deal
A little-known deal related to an equally little-known, yet highly productive oilfield has come to light as a graft investigation unfolds at oil giant China National Petroleum Corp. (CNPC). A businessman with strong ties to officials is behind the...
Media
04.23.14Welcome to Uighur Web—Now Watch What You Say
China’s Internet is vast, with millions of sites and more than 618 million users. But nested within that universe is a tiny virtual community comprising just a few thousand websites where China’s Uighur, the country’s fifth-largest ethnic minority...
Media
04.17.14Ai Weiwei’s Reach Draws New Yorkers’ Attention to Free Speech
“Ai Weiwei retweeted me!” exclaimed a young blonde woman, laughing and waving her iPhone in the air with excitement. She and some two hundred other New Yorkers had gathered on the steps of the Brooklyn Public Library at Grand Army Plaza to show her...
ChinaFile Recommends
04.16.14Why Ukraine Crisis has China in a Bind
CNN
Concerns that Chinese hardliners could seek to use Crimea as a precedent for moves against disputed territories in the Asia-Pacific should not be overplayed.
ChinaFile Recommends
04.15.14China is Reportedly Screwing Up the Search For MH370
Gawker
With a handful of countries still searching the Indian Ocean for missing Malaysia Airlines Flight 370, the one country annoying the others is China.
ChinaFile Recommends
04.15.14The Mystery Shrouding China’s Communist Party Suicides
Wall Street Journal
At least 54 Chinese officials died of “unnatural causes” in 2013, and that more than 40 percent of those deaths were suicides.
ChinaFile Recommends
04.15.14In China, A Big Jet Becomes a Status Symbol
New York Times
Chinese buyers are enthusiastically opting mostly for so-called heavy metal jets—big, long-range luxury jets that can cost $50 million or more before extras like fancy cabin fixtures.
Media
04.15.14Captain America Conquers China
SHANGHAI—This week, while U.S. Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel’s trip to China was underscoring bilateral tensions between the two powers, the Chinese masses were busy embracing another U.S. visitor. The Marvel superhero sequel Captain America: The...
ChinaFile Recommends
04.14.14China Cancels Human Rights Dialogue with Britain
Guardian
Beijing accuses UK of using rights issues to interfere in its internal affairs and axes dialogue that resumed after diplomatic freeze over Dalai Lama
ChinaFile Recommends
04.14.14China Property Collapse Has Begun
Forbes
Walmart will be closing its Zhaohui store in Hangzhou on April 23 as a part of its overall plan to dump marginal locations—about nine percent of the total—in China.
ChinaFile Recommends
04.14.14Can Forbidden Rules Teach Officials How to Behave?
Global Times
A Sichuan newspaper listed "ten forbidden behaviors" for officials—such as don't talk to the public with hands behind your back and don't ask others to carry the suitcase for you.
ChinaFile Recommends
04.14.14Chinese Signaling in the East China Sea?
Washington Post
What to make in the decline of Chinese patrols of the territorial waters around the Diaoyu / Senkaku Islands since September 2013.
Media
04.11.14Is Jesus Really Hotter Than Mao on China’s Social Media?
It’s easier to talk about Jesus than Chinese President and Communist Party General Secretary Xi Jinping on Weibo, China’s massive Twitter-like social media platform.The atheist Chinese Communist Party, known for its sometimes heavy-handed policies...
ChinaFile Recommends
04.08.14Conflicting Reports of Potential Flight 370 Pings shows China’s confused status in investigation
Washington Post
Despite China's interest in finding Flight 370 and its efforts in the search, the Chicago Convention on International Civil Aviation does not offer it an official role.
Conversation
04.06.14Spy Vs. Spy: When is Cyberhacking Crossing the Line?
Vincent Ni: For a long time, Huawei has been accused by some American politicians of “spying on Americans for the Chinese government,” but their evidence has always been sketchy. They played on fear and possibility. I don’t agree or disagree with...
ChinaFile Recommends
04.03.14China’s Mobile Commerce Spending to Surpass $50 Billion in 2014, Nearly Double Last Year’s Total
Tech in Asia
Now that smartphones account for over 80 percent of China’s new phone sales, it’s inevitable that the m-commerce sector is growing faster than the ecommerce industry itself.
Environment
04.03.14China’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...
ChinaFile Recommends
04.02.14Alibaba’s IPO Architect Lays Out Blueprint for E-commerce Empire
Reuters
Joe Tsai, executive vice chairman of the world's largest e-commerce company, sees an Alibaba future that stretches from banking to education, travel to entertainment.
ChinaFile Recommends
04.02.14Apology to Wife in Sex Scandal Breaks Online Record in China
Associated Press
Actor Wen Zhang’s apology to his actress wife following rumors of his infidelity has set a record for comments and retweets on China’s version of Twitter.
ChinaFile Recommends
04.02.14While Warning Of Chinese Cyberthreat, U.S. Launches Its Own Attack
NPR
New documents show that the U.S. National Security Agency penetrated the large Chinese telecommunications firm Huawei, gathering information about its operations.
Media
04.02.14The Future of Democracy in Hong Kong
Veteran Hong Kong political leaders Anson Chan and Martin Lee describe some of the core values—such as freedom of the press—that they seek to maintain as Beijing asserts greater control over the territory seventeen years after Britain handed it back...
ChinaFile Recommends
04.01.14China’s Alibaba Launches Crowdfunding-Like Service for Film Investment
Hollywood Reporter
China's largest e-commerce company, Alibaba, launched a micro-finance service for movies.
Conversation
03.26.14The Bloomberg Fallout: Where Does Journalism in China Go from Here?
On Monday, March 24, a thirteen-year veteran of Bloomberg News, Ben Richardson, news editor at large for Asia, resigned. A few days earlier, company Chairman Peter Grauer said that the news and financial information services company founded in 1981...
Media
03.26.14A Wrinkle to Those Hot Chinese Tech IPOs
Investors, ready your wallets. In the past week, Sina Weibo, China’s massive microblogging platform with 280 million users, and Alibaba, the operator of China’s largest online marketplace which generated $1.84 billion in revenue in the fourth...
Media
03.25.14China, We Fear You
On March 18, thousands of students began a sit-in of Taiwan’s Legislative Yuan in the capital, Taipei, a historic first that has paralyzed the island’s lawmaking body. Students have amassed to protest an attempt by the Kuomintang, the island’s...
Media
03.21.14“We’ll Know It When We’re There”
Martin Johnson (not his real name), is a co-founder of the China-based Internet freedom advocacy collective GreatFire.org. On the condition that he not be photographed, he gave the following interview to ChinaFile at an outdoor cafe in Manhattan...
Features
03.21.14Punching a Hole in the Great Firewall
In January, when the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists published its exposé of the use of offshore tax havens by Chinese politicians and business moguls, the Chinese government blocked access to the consortium’s website and to...
Conversation
03.19.14What Should Michelle Obama Accomplish on Her Trip to China?
Orville Schell: Looking at the challenges of rectifying U.S.-China relations and building some semblance of the "new kind of a big power relationship" alluded to by presidents Obama and Xi at Sunnylands last year, will most...
Media
03.17.14‘Self-Media’ Pushes and Beijing Pushes Back
Michelle Song, twenty-four, studies international relations at Beijing’s prestigious Peking University and lives in a dormitory, so she doesn’t watch television regularly and doesn’t subscribe to newspapers. But this has not hampered her ability to...
Media
03.14.14The Other Shoe Drops
Welcome to the big leagues, WeChat.For the past year, the mobile chat app WeChat, or Weixinin Chinese, has been the fresh new face in China’s hyperactive social media, stealing millions of members—not to mention mojo—from its wounded but still...
Viewpoint
03.13.14How Chinese Internet Censorship Works, Sometimes
Earlier this week, Chinese Internet services blocked searches for the phrase mìshū bāng (秘书帮). Roughly translated as “secretaries gang,” the term relates to the speculation surrounding government probes into public officials linked to former...
ChinaFile Recommends
03.11.14To Play The Part, Actors Must Talk The Talk — In Chinese
NPR
The success of the Netflix series House of Cards lies in the details, yet episodes featuring actors speaking in Chinese are one detail the show doesn't get quite right.
ChinaFile Recommends
03.11.14A Parting Shot at U.S. Ambassador, Inspired by Mao
New York Times
Following departing United States ambassador Gary F. Locke's farewell news conference in Beijing, China News Service published a scathing review of his tenure.
ChinaFile Recommends
03.11.14U.S. Ambassador Urges China to Respect Human Rights
ABC
At his final news conference as ambassador, Gary Locke said that Washington is "very concerned" about the case of a minority scholar charged with separatism and a recent increase in the arrests of activists and...
ChinaFile Recommends
03.11.14Fears for Press Freedom in Hong Kong After Influential Editor Stabbed
Hollywood Reporter
Kevin Lau, recently fired as chief editor of a Chinese-language daily known for its hard-hitting reporting, was knifed by unknown assailants who rode off on a motorcycle.
Caixin Media
03.11.14Li Ka-shing’s Remedy for ‘Coddled’ Hong Kong
Hong Kong tycoon Li Ka-shing is again in the media spotlight after he mentioned in late February the possibility of publicly listing his retail business A.S. Watson Group, which is part of the Hong Kong-listed conglomerate Hutchison Whampoa."No...
Conversation
03.10.14Should China Support Russia in Ukraine?
Alexander V. Pantsov: The Chinese Communist Party leadership has always maintained: “China believes in non-interference in internal affairs.” In the current Ukrainian situation it is the most we can expect from the P.R.C. because it is not able to...