Seriously Hooked on Nationalism

Jeremiah Jenne
Rectified.name
This is the worst kind of dispute because everybody’s right and nobody’s right.  Japan and China have more than their share of nationalist nitwits, but nobody actually lives on these rocks and it’s not like you can go and ask the goats what...

Anti-Japan Protests in China Turn Violent, Cooler Heads Prevail Online

Jimmy
On Saturday protestors in dozens of Chinese cities took to the streets to voice their anger at the Japanese government’s nationalization of the Diaoyu Islands (Senkaku Islands in Japanese) in the East China Sea as a flagrant violation of Chinese...

China Commentary Slams Romney's "Foolish" China-Bashing

Ben Blanchard
Reuters
In a strongly worded English-language commentary, Xinhua said Romney's anti-China rhetoric, if converted into policy upon him assuming office, would trigger a catastrophic trade war and damage the already weak global economic recovery.

Panetta to Meet Xi Jinping on Extended Trip to China

David Alexander
Reuters
U.S. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta's trip to China has been extended by a day and will include meetings with Vice President Xi Jinping, U.S. defense officials said on Monday.

U.S. Files W.T.O. Case Against China Over Cars

Keith Bradsher
New York Times
The United States on Monday filed a broad trade case against China at the World Trade Organization, alleging unfair subsidies for exports of cars and auto parts.

China’s Anti-Japan Riots Are State-Sponsored. Period.

Charlie Custer
ChinaGeeks
But anyone who has followed domestic protests in China for even a short period of time should be clear on the fact that if it wants to, the government has the means to totally shut these protests down. They may have sent in the tanks back in ’89,...

As Scandal Shook China, Quiet Spy Game Unraveled

Jeremy Page
Wall Street Journal
In spy-speak it is known as a "walk-in"—an unsolicited approach to a diplomatic mission by a foreigner claiming to have sensitive information. And when an agitated former police chief, Wang Lijun, entered a U.S. consulate in early February...

The Anti-Japanese Eruptions in China

James Fallows
Atlantic
Six years ago, in the first article I filed after moving to Shanghai, I listed the things that struck me as different, compared with my initial visits to China 20 years before. At the top of the list was the increased virulence of anti-Japanese...

Envy and Spectacle: America’s Presidential Race Finds an Adoring Audience in China

Helen Gao
Atlantic
After the Democratic and Republican National Conventions closed, as candidates charged back to the campaign trail and as the American media moved on, the campaign speeches made their way across the Pacific Ocean to China, where they are still...

Caixin Media

09.17.12

How a Protest in Beijing Stuck to the Script

On the afternoon of September 16, rows of policemen and security personnel in black T-shirts lined Beijing’s Liangmaqiao Road near the Japanese embassy during protests over the Diaoyu Islands controversy. Security guards were visible everywhere,...

Caixin Media

09.16.12

No Excuse for the Excuses Officials Hand Us

Putting the right spin on one’s words is a science, and civil servants with fiduciary responsibility have to master this subject. It helps to shift blame to someone else; a child, a spouse, or a convenient foreigner will do.Several weeks ago Yang...

Ming Pao: Rules for Anti-Japan Protests

Anne Henochowicz
China Digital Times
Numerous mainland cities are experiencing days-long Anti-Japan protests in defense of China’s sovereignty over the Diaoyu Islands. Authorities have begun exerting increasingly strict control over the demonstrations. Police...

A Chinese Leader Returns Amid Tumult

Ian Johnson and Jane Perlez
New York Times
The reappearance on Saturday of Xi Jinping, a top Chinese leader who had vanished from public view, removes one question mark facing the Communist Party, but a wave of protests against Japan is a sign that internal power struggles are far...

Keywords: Preserving Stability

Qian Gang
China Media Project
The two-character Chinese phrase weiwen is an abbreviated form of the full phrase, weihu wending, meaning to preserve or safeguard stability. The Chinese Communist Party has many such shortened phrases, compact verbalisms that pack a political punch...

Reading Deep Red

Qian Gang
China Media Project
On the question of political reform, there is one important terminology in particular we should remain alert to if we hope to read, between the lines as it were, the larger political climate of the 18th National Congress: the “Four Basic Principles...

Off-Script Scramble for Power in a Chinese Leader’s Absence

Ian Johnson and Jonathan Ansfield
New York Times
With still no sign of China’s designated new leader, Xi Jinping, who has not been seen in public since Sept. 1, many insiders and well-connected analysts say the Chinese political ship is adrift, with factions jockeying to...

Review: Ai Weiwei's Blog (The Book)

Alec Ash
Los Angeles Review of Books
On May 28, 2009, the readers of artist and activist Ai Weiwei's blog — hosted on Sina, a popular Chinese internet portal — logged onto blog.sina.com.cn/aiweiwei to find the message "This blog has already been closed. If you have queries,...

Where’s Xi? Using New Code Words, China’s Netizens Speculate by the Thousands

Rachel Lu
It’s a cat and mouse game for netizens who are interested in Mr. Xi’s coming and goings. Certain code words for Mr. Xi, such as “Crown Prince (太子)” or XJP, are blocked search terms on Sina Weibo. However, netizens have invented others, such as heir...

Watchwords: The Life of the Party

Qian Gang
China Media Project
To outsiders, the political catchphrases deployed by China’s top leaders seem like the stiffest sort of nonsense. What do they mean when they drone on about the “Four Basic Principles,” or “socialism with Chinese characteristics”? Most Chinese are...

What "911" Means in Chinese

Liz Carter
Even in Chinese, “911” is shorthand for September 11 and the events that transpired 11 years ago today. Web users in China have taken to social media to mark the anniversary, some waxing philosophical about the passage of time and the elusiveness of...

China’s Presumptive New Leader Is Mysteriously Absent

Ian Johnson
New York Times
Speculation intensified on Monday over the whereabouts of China’s presumptive new president, Xi Jinping, who has been missing from public view in recent days as the country prepares for a crucial leadership change.

A Panoramic View of China's Cultural Revolution

Sim Chi Yin
New York Times
Li Zhensheng’s photographs of the Culutural Revolution are perhaps the most complete and nuanced pictorial account of the decade of turmoil ignited by Mao Zedong.Mr. Li was a photojournalist for the local paper in Harbin, capital...

Rumors Swirl as China's Xi Vanishes

Jamil Anderlini
Financial Times
Over the last week Mr Xi has cancelled at least four scheduled meetings with visiting dignitaries, including a Russian delegation, the prime minister of Singapore and US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton last Wednesday, and the prime minister of...

Amid Protest, Hong Kong Retreats on 'National Education' Plan

Keith Bradsher
New York Times
Faced with tens of thousands of protesters contending that a Beijing-backed plan for “moral and national education” amounted to brainwashing and political indoctrination, Hong Kong’s chief executive backpedaled somewhat on Saturday and revoked a...

The Ten Grave Problems Facing China

Geremie Barmé and Deng Yuwen
China Story
‘The Ten Grave Problems’ 十大文问题 forms the second section of a three-part feuilleton or ‘pamphlet’ (in its earlier rabble-rousing sense) by Deng Yuwen 邓聿文 titled ‘The Political Legacy of Hu-Wen’ 胡温的政治遗产. It appeared online in&...

Obama's DNC Speech and China

Austin Ramzy
Time
In his speech Thursday to the Democratic National Convention, President Obama’s mentions of China added up to just a couple dozen words, but they underscored a new and significant role the Asian power is playing in the 2012 campaign.

Caixin Media

09.07.12

Local Governments Bet Big on New Investment

They’re still hung over from a 4 trillion yuan spending spree initiated by the central government nearly four years ago, but local governments across China are pressing ahead anyway with huge new investment plans.In late August, for example, the...

Caixin Media

09.07.12

Long Ride for Justice

Lea Cao had his first inkling that something was wrong when he got a long-distance phone call from relatives in southeastern China.His family members in Fuzhou phoned Cao in New York to say that his parents and brother had failed to arrive at the...

Media

09.06.12

Michelle Obama’s DNC Speech

Peony Lui & Sun Yunfan
Something big is about to happen in China. After ruling the country for a decade, China’s current leadership, helmed by President Hu Jintao, will transfer power to a new group of leaders. The process will be opaque, the date of the transition is a...

Media

09.06.12

Tangled in the Party Line

Amy Qin
Netizens on China’s popular microblogging service Sina Weibo are in a fit of pique over remarks made by a PLA major general about the importance of Chinese TV commentators holding “unconditionally” to the Party line. Zhang Zhaozhong, a major general...

Chinese Netizens Find Michelle Obama’s Speech “Amazing”

David Wertime
First Lady Michelle Obama knew she was speaking to the American electorate when she took the stage yesterday at the Democratic National Convention (DNC) in Charlotte, North Carolina. But she may not have known the size–or, it turns out, the...

Romney’s Young ‘China’ Hand

Kenneth Rapoza
Forbes
Mitt Romney’s old China hand is more young than old, more Taiwan than China.Lanhee Chen, 34, is Romney’s policy wonk and one of Romney’s brains on China policy.  The California born policy director for the Romney campaign said that when it...

Late Nights, Mysterious Women, and Communism

Evan Osnos
New Yorker
The men who run China today are avid readers of history, especially of the decline and fall of the Soviet Union. They can recite its causes, and they are explicitly dedicated to avoiding a repeat of the experience. So I have to wonder if anyone this...

News Flash: Washington Source of All Beijing’s Problems

Elizabeth C. Economy
Council on Foreign Relations
U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s swing through Asia has been marked by a revelation in Beijing: the source of all China’s problems with its neighbors is the United States. A Xinhua editorial paints the United States as a “sneaky trouble...

Remarks from Hillary Clinton and Chinese Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi

Hillary Clinton and Yang Jiechi
Council on Foreign Relations
As I have said before, our two nations are trying to do something that has never been done in history, which is to write a new answer to the question of what happens when an established power and a rising power meet. Both President Obama and I have...

To Chinese, Obama and Romney Aren’t So Different

Adam Minter
Bloomberg
Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney’s promise to get tough with China may fall on receptive ears in the U.S., but in China his vow has barely registered, much less caused alarm. Unlike in 2008, when the Chinese media and bloggers...

Jesus vs. Mao? An Interview with Yuan Zhiming

Ian Johnson
New York Review of Books
In the intellectual ferment leading up to the 1989 Tiananmen protests, a much-watched series on Chinese television called River Elegy became closely identified with the hopes of China’s reformers. The six-part series, which used...

Doesn’t Matter If the Ferrari Is Black or Red

Gady Epstein
Economist
Salacious rumours had started swirling on the internet within hours of the spectacular crash in March: another Ferrari in Beijing, another Chinese leader’s son. But which leader? Months later the answer appears to be emerging into view,...

Online Criticism Leads to Suspension of Military Official over Flight Fight

Josh Chin
WSJ: China Real Time Report
A Chinese military official accused last week of assaulting a flight attendant has been suspended following an explosion of outrage online fed in part by rare criticism from state-run media. Col. Fang Daguo, a political commissar for the...

Editor at Communist Party Mouthpiece Blasts Leaders

Shi Jiangtao
South China Morning Post
A senior editor of Study Times, a Communist Party mouthpiece, has launched a blistering broadside at the country's outgoing leaders, who are about to step down in a once-a-decade shake-up, accusing them of stalling long-overdue political reform...

China Faces New Scandal Over Crash of a Ferrari

Ian Johnson
New York Times
China’s carefully scripted leadership transition appears to have suffered another glitch: a fatal car crash involving a Ferrari, a privileged son and two women.

Chinese Activist Chen Guangcheng to Visit Taiwan

Lily Kuo
Reuters
Blind Chinese legal activist Chen Guangcheng, whose escape from house arrest sparked a diplomatic crisis between Beijing and Washington, accepted an invitation on Friday to visit Taiwan, underscoring his drive to ensure his influence as a human...

Media

08.31.12

“Naked Official” Streaks to U.S.

Amy Qin
On Monday, the People’s Daily confirmed rumors that Wang Guoqiang, a senior official of Fengcheng city, Liaoning province, fled China in April to the United States. Though Wang has been absent since April, his case was only uncovered last Sunday,...

Caixin Media

08.31.12

In Guangdong, Tea Oil Greases Official Palms

In the financial documents for a Guangdong province grower and processor of tea seed oil is a list of key shareholders who also happen to be the relatives of local government officials.Off the record, Guangdong Xindadi Biotechnology Co. Ltd. and its...

China's Long History of Defying the Doomsayers

Jeffrey Wasserstrom and Stephen Platt
Atlantic
Thirty-six years after "Great Helmsman" Mao Zedong died of a heart attack, leaving his country briefly rudderless during a time of crisis and uncertainty, the Chinese ship of state is still sailing. But is it still seaworthy? Observers are...

China's Greatest Challenge: Not America, But Itself

Anka Lee
Diplomat
As China’s international profile continues to rise in tandem with its economic and political significance, one might conclude that the Chinese public is likely to expect Xi Jinping to carry a higher profile on the international stage. As the leader...

Does China's Next Leader Have a Soft Spot for Tibet

Benjamin Kang Lim and Frank Jack Daniel
Reuters
Few people know what Xi, whose ascent to the leadership is likely to be approved at a Communist Party congress later this year, thinks of Tibet or the Dalai Lama. But his late father, Xi Zhongxun, a liberal-minded former vice premier, had a...

Propaganda Bites Official

Cheng Jiulong
Economic Observer
Wuhan, the largest city in the central Chinese province of Hubei, has a reputation for being one of China's three "furnace" cities, but on this occasion the heat was on the government officials as they were about to appear on a...

A Diplomatic Incident in China

Evan Osnos
New Yorker
The Japanese ambassador to Beijing, Uichiro Niwa, and his wife were riding in their limo this week when an unknown Chinese man approached and tore the mini-flag off the hood. There is some debate about whether the limo was blocked...

Media

08.30.12

Chinese “Traitors” and the Foreign Press

Hu Yong
{vertical_photo_right}On June 2nd, local family planning officials forced Feng Jianmei, a twenty-two-year-old Shaanxi woman pregnant with her second daughter, to undergo an abortion, as a consequence of China’s One Child...

Jasmine in Beijing: Belated Blossoms

Economist
In the words of a senior foreign policy adviser to the Chinese government, the official attitude towards the Arab Spring can be summed up very simply: “Ever since it started, all they want is to keep it as far away from China as possible.”

Victims’ Sons in Tough Fight for Redress After China Rail Crash

Andrew Jacobs
New York Times
The crash killed 40 passengers, injured 191 and shook the nation’s confidence in its ambitious high-speed rail system. Mr. Cao, 33, a Chinese-American importer from Colorado, barely survived; he lost a kidney and his spleen, and head injuries have...

To Know What’s Wrong With China, Look At Her Construction

Li Chengpeng
Every time I walk down the street and see a new project about to break ground, I know that several billionaires are about to be made. Every time I see a project has been completed, I know that a few unknown “temporary workers” are about to become...

Assigning Blame for a Hard Landing

Eric Fish
Sinostand
Over the next few months we should start to see an answer to the “hard vs. soft landing” question. Since talk of a possible hard landing began, I’ve often wondered how China’s propaganda apparatus would respond if and when China’s economy takes a...

Reports

08.27.12

The China Toll

Robert E. Scott
Economic Policy Institute
Since China entered the World Trade Organization in 2001, the extraordinary growth of trade between China and the United States has had a dramatic effect on U.S. workers and the domestic economy, though in neither case has this effect been...

China Seeks to Increase Mutual Investments with India

Ananth Krishnan
Hindu
China has called for a move to boost mutual investments with India as a measure to strengthen trade ties and reshape what officials have acknowledged is an increasingly unbalanced and strained business relationship, as trade talks between both...

Caixin Media

08.25.12

Gu Kailai: Getting Away with Murder?

Closer Look: Nearly Getting Away with MurderBy Zhang JianjingShortly after Bogu Kailai received a death sentence with a two-year reprieve, four former high-ranking Chongqing police officers were sentenced to jail terms ranging from five to eleven...

Collapse of New Bridge Underscores China’s Infrastructure Concerns

Keith Bradsher
New York Times
One of the longest bridges in northern China collapsed on Friday just nine months after it opened, triggering a storm of criticism from Chinese Internet users and underscoring questions about the quality of construction during China’s rapid...

Diaoyu in Our Heart: The Revealing Contradictions of Chinese Nationalism

Helen Gao
Atlantic
There was another side to the anti-Japanese demonstrations that rocked Chinese cities this weekend, reacting to Japanese activists who had landed on a disputed island chain in the East China Sea. As Chinese protesters asserted their national...

Security Suggests Party Congress Is Nearing

Ananth Krishnan
Hindu
Even as Chinese officials have maintained a steady silence on when the Party Congress — the most important meeting in a decade — will be convened, the government has put in place security measures and issued corruption warnings — the first...