06.27.12
America is not the only great power struggling with how to handle the future of foreigners in its midst. As the Supreme Court indicated in its mixed decision Monday on Arizona’s immigration-enforcement law, the question of how we regard those who arrive on our shores has both philosophical and practical components. The philosophical argument in...
06.24.12
It used to be that the American expats in China were the big shots. They had the money, the status, the know-how. But that's changed. What's it like to be an American living in China now? And what do they understand about China that we don't?
06.20.12
Imagine if David Stern, after his retirement as commissioner of the N.B.A., was led off in leg irons for taking bribes. His predecessor goes with him on a ten-year hitch behind bars. And, for good measure, throw in a couple of members of the winningest team in international competition—let’s say, Magic and Jordan from the 1992 Olympic team—sent...
06.16.12
China convulsed this week around the story of Feng Jianmei, a twenty-three-year-old expectant mother, who was escorted from a relative’s home in Shaanxi province by local family-planning officials, shoved into a van, and driven to a hospital. She was blindfolded and given a document to sign. It didn’t matter that she couldn’t see it; she knew why...
06.13.12
What do we mean when we say a Chinese company has “close ties to the government”? Or is “connected to the military”? And does this matter? It is a problem that writers on China have encountered for years, and it can be difficult get firm evidence. But now Congress is getting interested in those questions, and the results (if they go public) could...
06.11.12
Living in Beijing, writing about politically sensitive things now and then, you get used to the idea that somebody, somewhere, might be watching. But it is usually an abstract threat. I opened my Gmail account a couple of mornings ago and found this message stripped across a banner in a pleasing shade of pink: “Warning: We believe state-sponsored...
06.05.12
China experienced a bizarre numerological happening this week. The Shanghai Composite Index started yesterday morning at 2346.98, which, when read from right to left, shares an uncanny similarity to yesterday’s highly sensitive anniversary: twenty-three years since the June 4, 1989, crackdown on pro-democracy demonstrations in Beijing, an event...
05.20.12
When Chen Guangcheng landed in New York—still on crutches from a daring nighttime escape from house arrest—he found himself giving a press conference in which his abundant thanks extended to Chinese officials for “dealing with the situation with restraint and calm.” It might not have been the first thanks on everyone’s lips. One could read that as...
05.18.12
How do you have a feeding frenzy when you can’t—officially, at least—see what’s being served? This is the strange dynamic that runs through the flurry of Chinese debate this week about Facebook. In China, the site’s I.P.O, on Friday, is not simply an event; it is an existential problem—an object of admiration, envy, and, from the government’s...
