Notes from ChinaFile
03.30.23
For China’s Urban Residents, the Party-State Is Closer than Ever
In a recent working paper, scholars Yutian An and Taisu Zhang argue that local urban governments in China emerged from the COVID-19 pandemic with far more muscle and clout than they have ever had before. Unlike in the past several decades, the sub-...
Conversation
06.16.22
China’s Record Urban Youth Unemployment
China has recorded its highest level of unemployment among urban youth since the country began tracking it in 2018. In March, 16 percent of Chinese city-dwellers aged 16 to 24 were unemployed, compared to 13.6 percent a year earlier. In May, that...
Photo Gallery
09.13.19
Searching for Home
Balloons over a wire fence, plastic toys hanging from a man-made rock, a few printed tiles on a wall, a pink sleep shirt with a sketch of a butterfly and dandelions: Peng’s photos capture the colorful glimmers of modest, unabashed desire. She seems...
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08.02.18China’s Introverts Find a Kindred Spirit: A Stick Figure From Finland
New York Times
The “Finnish Nightmares” comic series documents the social challenges faced by Matti, a mild-mannered stick figure who abhors small talk. The series has been trending on Chinese social media, and it even spawned a new word for social awkwardness in...
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02.07.17Using Stealth, and Drones, to Document a Fading Hong Kong
New York Times
If history was any guide, the explorers said, the building the drone was filming—a 1952 theater with unusual roof supports—would eventually be demolished because it is not on Hong Kong’s list of declared monuments.
Caixin Media
12.15.16
Attempts to ‘Clean Up Beijing’ Target Low-Cost Migrant Homes
Li Yi, a young computer engineer working in Beijing, said authorities forced him out of his apartment in a village in Haidian district in November, days after his power supply was cut off even though he had paid the bills.Li (not his real name) is...
Features
09.13.16
The Destruction of Baishizhou
Early this spring, the Chinese character for “demolish” (“拆”) showed up in red spray paint on a strip of shops in Shenzhen’s Baishizhou neighborhood. Wang An, 41, has been selling women’s underwear from one of these shops for the last 10 years. “...
Infographics
05.18.15
Submerged
Urban planner and cartographer Jeffrey Linn mapped a possible future for China’s coast, where some 43% of its population currently lives, when the earth's polar ice caps and glaciers have all melted and the sea rises if the planet’s temperature...
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08.14.14China Tells Citizens to Walk, Bike, and Snitch in “United Struggle” to Breathe Easier
Quartz
The environmental ministry has published a set of guidelines for citizens, which encourage them not only to reduce their personal environmental imprint, but to also turn in polluting and wasteful neighbors.
Reports
05.01.07
Pension Reform in China: The Need for a New Approach
International Monetary Fund (IMF)
The rapid aging of China's population over the next few decades makes it important for a new pension system with broad and adequate coverage to be put in place quickly. Pension reforms, first initiated in 1997, have become bogged down in...