Censorship Reaching 1,000 Miles Exposed on China’s Twitter

Yueran Zhang
Netizens exposing public servants' taste for expensive timepieces has sparked an online and newspaper crackdown.  On October 9, Wang Keqin (@王克勤), an Economic Observer (@经济观察报) reporter posted on Sina Weibo, China’s Twitter, that...

Noda Calls for China Talks as Island Spat Threatens Growth

Matthew Winkler, Isabel Reynolds and...
Bloomberg
PM calls for talks to contain economic damage from dispute with Japan's No. 1 trade partner.

Over A Distressed Europe, It's Super China To The Rescue

Kenneth Rapoza
Forbes
China is considering lending even more money to bail out the region’s recessionary economies.

Five Points on the Deeply Flawed U.S. Congress Huawei Report

Graham Webster
Transpacifica
Chinese telecomms firms painted as shady, but evidence to back up allegations is hidden in report's classified sections.

As Romney Repeats Trade Message, Bain Maintains China Ties

Sharon LaFraniere and Mike McIntire
New York Times
China-related holdings by funds in which Mr. Romney has invested are a reminder of how he inhabits two worlds. 

China Gets Back to Work

Bill Bishop
New York Times
After China's Golden Week holiday, a round-up of important recent stories on economy and politics.

What Han Han's App Means for Chinese Censorship

Liz Carter
By publishing "The One" as an iPhone app, China's superblogger bypassed the State Administration of Radio Film and Television.

The Pivot (Video)

Mike Chinoy
University of Southern California, U.S.-China Institute
The Obama administration has made Asia a top priority for U.S. foreign policy. The move has been dubbed "The Pivot," and it has the potential to be one of the most enduring legacies of the Obama presidency.

No Ancient Wisdom for China

James McGregor
YaleGlobal Online
The much-vaunted China Model has morphed in the past decade to a one-of-a-kind system of authoritarian capitalism that is in danger of terminating itself – and taking the world down with it. It is also proving incompatible with global trade...

Review of Ai Weiwei at the Hirshhorn

James Panero
Wall Street Journal
Ai Weiwei will probably be regarded as the most important artist of the past decade. He is certainly its most newsworthy and arguably its most inspiring. Over the repressions of Chinese authorities, he has used a wide range of resources to broadcast...

Huawei Fires Back at the U.S.

SIOBHAN GORMAN And JURO OSAWA
Wall Street Journal
Chinese telecommunications giant Huawei Technologies Inc. lashed out Monday at a scathing congressional report, calling allegations that it may be spying on Americans and violating U.S. laws "little more than an exercise in China-bashing."

Former Wife of Fallen Chinese Leader Tells of a Family’s Paranoid Side

EDWARD WONG and DAVID BARBOZA
New York Times
Just months before his fall from power, Bo Xilai asked the brother of his first wife to meet him at a government compound in the southwest metropolis of Chongqing.

Fu Manchu Returns

Jeffrey Wasserstrom
Wall Street Journal
Fear of China is back. But it's a nebulous fear, and this creates both an opportunity and an obstacle for the male and female anti-heroes of Christopher Buckley's latest look at the surreal world of lobbyist, the uneven but occasionally...

Ralls vs. CFIUS: What Are the Implications for Chinese Investment?

Daniel H. Rosen and Thilo Hanemann
Council on Foreign Relations
First, this was not a political move by the President to position himself as tough on China, as suggested by some. The timeline of the review through the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS) and the Presidential...

The Mixed Bag of Socialism

Qian Gang
China Media Project
Ahead of the 18th National Congress, the phrase “socialism with Chinese characteristics” is as strong as ever.

What the U.S. Presidential Debate Looked Like From China

Lily Kuo
Atlantic
 Chinese netizens shared mixed views of the U.S. election, some cynical, some optimistic.

Mistresses and Corruption

Adam Minter
Bloomberg
Which came first? The corruption or the mistresses? In China, they most often go together. The stories abound: from the corrupt official in Fujian who, in 2002, held the first (and only) annual competition to judge which...

Han Han: “Why Aren't You Grateful?”

Ian Johnson
New York Review of Books
When looking for Chinese reactions to the anti-Japanese riots that took place in late September, it was probably not much of a surprise that the Western press turned to Han Han, the widely read Shanghai-based blogger. In characteristic form, Han...

Beijing Blocks Dissident’s Art Company

Edward Wong
New York Times
Liu Xiaoyuan, a lawyer friend of Ai Weiwei, the artist and frequent critic of the Communist Party, has said in an online posting that Chinese officials have revoked the business license of Mr. Ai’s art production company, Beijing Fake...

Disgraced Chinese Official’s Son Defends Him

Edward Wong
New York Times
The youngest son of Bo Xilai, the former Communist Party leader who is expected to be tried on a wide range of criminal charges, has released a statement defending his father as “upright in his beliefs and devoted to duty.”

Sensitive Words: Bo Xilai’s Expulsion

Anne Henochowicz
China Digital Times
Since Bo Xilai’s expulsion from the Communist Party and announcement that he would face criminal charges, a number of Sina Weibo terms related to Bo which were previously blocked from search results are now live once again...

National Identity: Pictures of the Enemy

N.D.
Economist
The national identity has become so unfortunately bound up with demonstrations against Japan. So we turn from recent differences to subjects less timely. The horrors of the Nanjing massacre of 1937 have long stoked the imagination of...

Han Han: ‘Why Aren’t You Grateful?’

Ian Johnson from New York Review of Books
When looking for Chinese reactions to the anti-Japanese riots that took place in late September, it was probably not much of a surprise that the Western press turned to Han Han, the widely read Shanghai-based blogger. In characteristic form, Han...

Bo Xilai's Case: China's Pandora's Box

Evan Osnos
New Yorker
The Chinese Communist Party has just done something it hates to do: hang its dirty laundry out in public. With a level of force and lurid color that surprised just about everyone who pays attention to these things, on Friday the...

Ousted From Party in China, Bo Xilai Faces Prosecution

Edward Wong
New York Times
Chinese leaders announced on Friday that Bo Xilai, a disgraced Communist Party aristocrat, had been expelled from the party and would be prosecuted on criminal charges, as the date for the 18th Party Congress, climaxing China’s once-a-decade...

Caixin Media

09.28.12

Bo Xilai Ousted from Communist Party

The Communist Party has expelled Bo Xilai, the former party chief of Chongqing, who’s been embroiled in corruption allegations since early this year.The Politburo made the decision on September 28, the official Xinhua News Agency said. Bo will next...

Chinese Female Official Aspires to Top Role

Leslie Hook
Washington Post
Most of the 25 members of China’s Politburo are uncannily similar, with their black-dyed hair, dark suits and science degrees, but one stands out.With her trademark blue skirt-suit and pearls, Liu Yandong, 66, the top official in charge of health,...

China Politics Stall Overhaul for Economy

Andrew Jacobs
New York Times
When it comes to confronting economic slowdowns, the Chinese government has not been shy about making bold moves. Faced with the contagion of global recession four years ago, policy makers created a $585 billion stimulus package that helped...

Reports

09.27.12

China Analysis: Gaming North Korea

Nathan Beauchamp-Mustafaga, Antoine Bondaz, François Godement, and David Péneau
European Council on Foreign Relations
China and North Korea have had an uneasy relationship in recent years. While the PRC has sometimes played the role of buffer state in North Korea’s dealings with the United States, South Korea, and other nations, Chinese leaders have also expressed...

Protests Roiling, China’s Mainstream Media Showed an Alternate Reality

Sandra
It’s already entered the annals of China’s brief but rich Internet history: On Sina Weibo, China’s Twitter, posts showing massive anti-Japan protests in China went viral on September 15th and 16th. Out in the real world, protestors across dozens of...

China’s Lost Decade

Ian Johnson from New York Review of Books
It’s hard to believe, but just twenty years ago China was on the verge of abandoning the market reforms that have since propelled it to its current position as a world power. Conservatives had used the 1989 Tiananmen massacre to reverse the country’...

What the Foxconn Riot Says About China

Evan Osnos
New Yorker
Day by day, Chinese workers expect better conditions and greater guarantees that when companies go bust, the employees will not. And, yet, China permits no independent trade unions or free collective bargaining. Complaint and mediation procedures...

Still a Model? Revisiting the Rebel Village of Wukan

Josh Chin
WSJ: China Real Time Report
A little over a year ago, residents of the small southern Chinese fishing village of Wukan ransacked the offices of the local government in protest over a land grab by local officials. The death in police custody of one of the protest leaders a few...

China Shows Off an Aircraft Carrier but Experts Are Skeptical

Jane Perlez
New York Times
In a ceremony attended by the country’s top leaders, China put its first aircraft carrier into service on Tuesday, a move intended to signal its growing military might as tensions escalate between Beijing and its neighbors over islands in nearby...

The Persistence of Problems in China’s Factories

Stanley Lubman
Wall Street Journal
A riot involving 2,000 workers at a factory in the northern Chinese city of Taiyuan on Sunday night once has once again shined a light on conditions at factories owned by Apple Inc. supplier Foxconn. The cause of the riot appears to have been a...

Media

09.24.12

Law Professor He Weifang on Why Wang Lijun’s Trial Scared Him

Amy Qin
Today, the Chinese state news agency Xinhua announced that Wang Lijun, the former Chongqing police chief, has been found guilty by a court in Chengdu of four criminal charges, including defection, abuse of power, taking bribes, and bending the law...

Chinese Official Linked to a Murder Scandal Is Convicted

Edward Wong
New York Times
Chinese court officials have found Wang Lijun, a former police chief, guilty of four criminal charges after he fled to a United States Consulate last February and told diplomats there that the wife of a senior politician had murdered a British...

Who Stripped the Law of Its Dignity

Hu Shuli
A common refrain in official statements and court documents is: "China is a socialist country run by the rule of law. The dignity and power of law shall not be trampled." But how Bogu Kailai and her accomplices were able to disregard...

Verdict on Wang Lijun Expected

Christopher Buckley
Reuters
The ex-police chief who triggered China's most spectacular political upheaval for decades is virtually sure to be convicted on four charges on Monday, turning attention to the fate of his disgraced former boss, Bo Xilai.A court in southwest...

Qian Gang: The Power of Separation

Qian Gang
China Media Project
If I suggested to my audience that “separation of powers,” the tripartite model of state governance common to many of the world’s democracies, exists in the Chinese Communist Party too, they would probably revile me. “You must be...

Lunch with the FT: Chen Guangcheng

Jamil Anderlini
Financial Times
As we start our meal, I ask Chen how he likes the food in New York. His wife gives him a piece of pizza, telling him what it is and that he can use his hands to eat it. He smiles and says he likes all kinds of cuisine, especially Japanese and Indian...

In Shark-Infested Waters, Resolve of Two Giants Is Tested

Martin Fackler
New York Times
 The voyage to these remote islands at the center of one of Asia’s most heated territorial disputes is a bone-jarring seven-hour boat ride from one of Japan’s southernmost ports, a long enough journey that the fishermen who brave...

The Chinese View of Obama and Romney

Evan Osnos
New Yorker
China has been pulled into the center ring of the U.S. Presidential campaign in recent weeks, with the candidates seeking to outdo each other on pledges to harden up on trade, currency, and security. In the Times...

Sinica Podcast

09.21.12

The Island Imbroglio

Kaiser Kuo, Damien Ma & more from Sinica Podcast
As Xi Jinping has stepped back into the public eye this week, the reappearance of China’s heir apparent has been upstaged by large demonstrations across the country as tensions mount over territorial claims to the Diaoyu (or Senkaku) Islands. As...

China and Japan Must Break Out of History’s Trap

Pankaj Mishra
Bloomberg
So what about the Sino-Japanese relationship periodically enrages nationalists in both countries? What is this trap of historical memory and nationalist myth-making in which both countries find themselves?

State to Tighten Oversight of International NGOs

He Dan
China Daily
By amending existing law, China will set clear rules for international NGOs to register on the mainland and will strengthen supervision of their activities. Li Liguo, minister of civil affairs, made the announcement at a news conference inBeijing on...

Chinese Villagers Threaten Fresh Protests

Rahul Jacob and Zhou Ping
Financial Times
Zhang Jiancheng was a rebel with a cause. His detention with four other protesters in December sparked a stand-off in the southern Chinese village of Wukan, where 13,000 people faced down police in an 11-day siege.After the provincial...

Beijing's Dangerous Game

Perry Link
New York Review of Books
Many have ascribed the vehemence of the protests to deep-rooted anti-Japanese sentiment linked to injustices committed by Japan eighty years ago. But there is little evidence to support this. Rather the protests appear to have everything to do with...

Obama’s Evolution to a Tougher Line on China

Mark Landler
New York Times
President Obama’s patience with China had been fraying for months, and by November 2010 he was fed up. Meeting with President Hu Jintao in Seoul, South Korea, Mr. Obama warned that if China did not do more to curb...

Caixin Media

09.20.12

Hit TV Show Sings Song of Media Model Success

A reality-talent TV songfest popular in more than forty countries around the world has become an instant hit in China, underpinning enthusiasm for an experimental business model linked to media sector reform.The Voice of China’s debut show in July...

Beijing’s Dangerous Game

Perry Link from New York Review of Books
Over the past few days, angry crowds in more than thirty Chinese cities have trashed Japanese stores, overturned Japanese cars, shouted “Down with Japan,” and carried banners that demand Chinese sovereignty over the uninhabited Diaoyu Islands in the...

Trial of Ex-Police Chief in China Scandal Ends in a Sign of Leniency

Edward Wong
New York Times
A former Chinese police chief helped to cover up the murder of a British businessman by the wife of Bo Xilai, the Communist official toppled from power this year, but he also secretly collected evidence used to convict her, according to a...

In China, Panetta Says U.S. Focus on Asia Is No Threat

Thom Shanker and Ian Johnson
New York Times
Defense Secretary Leon E. Panetta declared on Wednesday that the United States was not trying to contain a risingChina, and he stressed that with patience and effort current tensions between the giant rivals on opposite sides of...

Prominent Chinese Writer: I Am a Traitor

Sijia Song
Li Chengpeng, an influential writer and social commentator, has published an article on his blog denouncing the boycott of Japanese goods and the violent anti-Japan sentiment currently sweeping China as the two wrangle over the Diaoyu Islands,...

Total Denial and the Will to Forget

Qian Gang
China Media Project
Anyone who regularly observes the topsy-turvy world of Chinese politics understands that the past, even the remote past, can exert a powerful influence on the present and future. Major historical anniversaries — like that of the 1989 Tiananmen...

State Media Call For “Rational” Patriotism

David Bandurski
China Media Project
After two days of violent anti-Japanese protests in China stemming from a territorial dispute over a chain of islands in the East China Sea, media in China are now calling on the public to remain calm and “rational,” apparently concerned about how...

Beijing both Encourages and Reins in Anti-Japanese Protests, Analysts Say

William Wan
Washington Post
As anger increases over a territorial dispute between China and Japan, Chinese authorities have been playing both sides of the issue by quietly encouraging recent anti-Japanese protests, then publicly reining them in.Experts point to signs that...

In Car Country, Obama Trumpets China Trade Case

Mark Landler
New York Times
In a vivid display of the powers of incumbency, President Obama on Monday filed a broad new trade case against China at the World Trade Organization, announcing the action in this industrial battleground where Mitt Romney has pressed his argument...

China Warns of ‘Further Actions’ as Anti-Japan Protests Resume

Ian Johnson and Thom Shanker
New York Times
China drove home its opposition to Japanese control of a contested group of islands on Tuesday, with angry protests in dozens of cities and a warning from its defense minister that “further actions” were possible.