This week, Kaiser and Jeremy welcome back Bill Bishop, the force behind the invaluable Sinocism newsletter and the man Evan Osnos once referred to as “the China watcher’s China watcher.” Starting with a look at Bill’s past and how he ended up in China, our discussion moves on to why he decided to start his esteemed newsletter before segueing into his take on the most important but overlooked China stories of the past month.
Michael Zhao:
On a recent trip to China, meeting mostly with former colleagues at the Chinese Academy of Sciences, I got a dose of optimism and hope for one aspect of the motherland. In terms of science, or laying down a solid foundation for better science to come, things are going really well in China.
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The 19-year-old case has again become so blazing hot on Chinese social media that as of Saturday, the name of the victim, Zhu Ling, was censored on Weibo. But it's too late: The case has been brought to the attention of tens of millions of Chinese people.
Notable is the recent aggressive outreach to Chinese audiences by Iron Man himself, Robert Downey Jr. Not only did he visit China for the first time in his life to talk up the film, but Downey also set up a personal account on Sina Weibo.
Two weeks ago the Chinese sent an unusual number of military patrols into a remote high-altitude desert at the northern tip of India. As its economic might has grown, China has become increasingly assertive in its territorial claims across Asia.
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GlobalPost is a leading native digital news site with a primary focus on world news coverage.
Under half a century of dictatorship, dissidents used the arts to express outrage that would otherwise bring them long prison sentences. Now, they're speaking out in solidarity with villagers whose anti-mine protests are captivating the nation.
When the tiny city-state of Singapore gained independence in 1965, its social, economic, political, and environmental constraints appeared so formidable that many of those looking in from outside predicted a future of dismal dimensions.
Forty years on, the reality looks very different. Within a few decades, the state— just 714 square kilometers and with very limited natural resources— has turned itself into a role model: a country with increasing per capita GDP, a clean environment, and vibrant innovation. From China to Myanmar, “learn from Singapore” has become a common refrain.
Little Lu, Little Zhang, and Little Liu waited for me at the end of the bridge. They were ten, twelve, and fourteen years old, respectively, and they had come from the same village in northern Sichuan Province. They said that they had dropped out of school and migrated to the south because their families were too poor to afford the school fees. I had met them three days earlier in downtown Shenzhen, where they had tried to sell me pornographic video disks.
