In the chill of late January, around the time Chinese were celebrating the Lunar New Year, the police chief of this foggy southwestern metropolis pressed Bo Xilai, the ambitious Communist Party official who ruled the area, with evidence that Mr. Bo’s wife had been involved in a murder.
China’s urbanites use a lot of water. Every day, more than 4,000 water-treatment plants supply 60 million tons of water to 400 million people living in Chinese cities. Despite the impressive figures, the water industry is grappling with widespread criticism as concerns grow about the quality of its product.
In Chan Koonchung’s dystopian science fiction novel The Fat Years, set in China in 2013, the whole month of Feburary 2011 has disappeared from people’s memory. In reality, the month that is closest to being spirited away is the month of June 1989 when the Communist Party of China (CPC) commanded a crackdown on the pro-democracy student protests in Tiananmen Square. Since then, the CPC has entered into a race with information technology to erase people’s memory of that month.
Today is the gaokao, when parents across China send their senior high school students off to take the most important exam of their lives, offering such helpful, encouraging words as “If you do badly your mother will die in a pauper’s grave.” Clearly in today’s China-A-Go-Go, competition for elite, urban jobs is intense. You don’t want to be left behind in a rapidly stratifying society, and since most families have only one shot at exam success, let’s just say there are a few stressed-out teenagers and parents around town this morning.
From their website:
Jeremiah Jenne is a writer and historian based in Beijing since 2002. He taught Chinese history and philosophy for nearly 10 years. He has written extensively on China for a number of publications including The Economist, The Atlantic Monthly, Journal of Asian Studies, Asia Society,Los Angeles Review of Books, and The World of Chinese. His work can be found in the anthologiesChina in 2008: A Year of Great Significance, The Insider’s Guide to Beijing, and the 2015 collectionWhile We’re Here: China Stories from a Writer’s Colony. He has been a frequent guest on the public affairs podcast Sinica and is often asked to speak on Chinese culture and history to company and school groups. Jeremiah also maintains the popular Chinese history website Jottings from the Granite Studio and produces the new Chinese history and culture podcastBarbarians at the Gate.
Roughly every decade, China’s political system cracks, its veil is rent, and its inner workings are laid bare. 2012, the Year of the Dragon, is turning out to be one of those periods when the country’s high priests can’t quite carry out their rituals as planned.
China-focused news editors have had numerous causes for celebration in the past few months. The various scandals surrounding the dethronement of Bo Xilai, the dramatic nighttime escape of blind activist Chen Guancheng, and the upcoming Party leadership have provided a maelstrom of newsworthy scoops and sensational headlines.
The following piece is a response to a May 29, 2012, editorial in the Chinese-language Global Times called “Fighting Corruption is a Crucial Battle for Chinese Society”. The article created a sensation last week on China’s internet, where some portals used an altered headline: “China Must Permit Moderate Corruption, the Public Should Understand”. The term “moderate corruption,” or shidu fubai (适度腐败), quickly became an online buzzword, drawing scorn from many Chinese.
Soon after self-taught lawyer Chen Guangcheng escaped from illegal house arrest, local officials entered the house of his nephew, Chen Kegui, without any notice or warrent. Chen Kegui lashed out with a kitchen knife, then ran away. None of the officials he injured died, but Chen Kegui, now in custody, is charged with attempted murder. [Chen Guangcheng spoke out about his brother's and nephew's situation upon his arrival in New York.]
