It’s hard to believe, but ChinaFile is almost two years old. It’s been an exciting year for us, and, as ever, an eventful year for China. It was a year of muscular leadership from Xi Jinping, who has now been in office just over two years and who appears to be successfully consolidating his power within the Chinese Communist Party as he tightens his grip on a whole range of areas of Chinese life.
In 2014, ChinaFile published great original work in photography. As always, we worked to look beyond stereotypical images of the country to find nuanced representations of the new and ChinaFile contributors’ commentary on it. Still, many of our favorite images available through our subscriptions to Getty Images and Zuma Press didn’t find a home in our day-to-day coverage.
The investigations into Ling Jihua, Vice Chairman of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference, and his two brothers, Ling Zhengce and Ling Wancheng, have shed light on a powerful family that had a grip on both government resources and business wealth.
China-watchers, friends of Tibet, and admirers of Pope Francis were amazed and disappointed last week when the Pope announced he would not be meeting the Dalai Lama during the Tibetan leader’s visit to Rome. The Dalai Lama was there with other winners of the Nobel Peace Prize, who—ironically—had gathered in Rome after a planned meeting in South Africa did not take place because Pretoria refused to grant the Dalai Lama a visa. In the end, the pope declined to meet with any of the Laureates. In view of Francis’ extraordinary reputation for open-mindedness, how could this be?
Yu Zhengsheng proposed both sides enhance political trust and build consensus, strengthen guidance in public opinion, properly handle their maritime disputes, and promote pragmatic cooperation in various areas.
un Hongzhi is "suspected of serious violations of party discipline and law" and was being investigated by the ruling Communist Party's anti-graft watchdog, Xinhua news agency said, using the usual euphemism for graft.
China's trade will grow 3.5 percent in 2014, implying the country will fall short of a current 7.5 percent official growth target, according to a report on the Ministry of Commerce's website that was subsequently revised to remove the numbers.
Eager to glaze their products with the sheen of international sophistication, many homegrown retail brands have hit upon a similar formula: Choose a non-Chinese name that gives the impression of being foreign.
The explosion of the commercial media sphere in China over the last decade hasn't been particularly subtle, especially if you're anything like us and walk past multiple Chinese newsstands in the morning.
Laborers walk past apartment buildings under construction in Beijing as they leave work at the end of their shift.
