Compared with five years ago, when the Chinese leadership promised to ease restrictions on foreign journalists as part of reforms unveiled during the Beijing Olympics charm campaign, the atmosphere has clearly chilled.
As the smog that has choked Shanghai for much of the last week reached hazardous levels, the city’s environmental authority adjusted standards downward to ensure that there won’t be so many frequent air-quality alerts.
China has put Zhou Yongkang—one of the most powerful politicians of the last decade and the most senior official to be ensnared in a graft scandal since the Communists came to power in 1949—under virtual house arrest while the ruling Communist Party investigates accusations of corruption against him.
A new study shows that while distrust on both sides of the U.S.-China relationship is high, most Chinese see the United States as a competitor rather than an outright enemy.
China's state-run TV tries to put a positive spin on toxic haze. Nice try, guys, nice try.
Polluted air is a fact of life for many Chinese citizens, and it’s currently smothering parts of the country—but that’s not all bad, according to one state media outlet’s widely-ridiculed attempt at positive spin. A recent bout of noxious smog has hit China hard: in the southern city of Nanjing, schools closed on December 5 so children did not have to venture outside.
On the weekend of November 23, Beijing announced the establishment of a new Air Defense Identification Zone. Covering a large swath of the East China Sea, the move was intended to assert China’s control over disputed islands in the region, and predictably antagonized Beijing’s relations with Taiwan, South Korea, and Japan. The move also prompted escalated tensions with the United States, which sent an unannounced flight of B-52 bombers through the airspace on Monday.
An IKEA toy wolf whose name in Cantonese, Lo Mo Sai, sounds like the offensive phrase "mom’s c***," was thrown at Hong Kong’s chief executive, Leung Chun-ying on Sunday. "Throw Lo Mo Sai" in Cantonese sounds like "f*** your mother."
Joe Biden’s trip to northeast Asia has left some in Japan feeling abandoned. By not demanding that China roll back its new “air-defense identification zone,” the U.S. vice president tacitly accepted the controversial zone as a fait accompli.
When China denied veteran journalist Paul Mooney’s visa request in November, neither the State Department, Administration officials nor anyone on Capitol Hill said anything publicly about a U.S. citizen appearing to be punished for his speech.
