Reports
04.09.13![](https://www.chinafile.com/sites/default/files/styles/epsacrop_160x200/public/assets/images/whitepaper/image/screen_shot_2013-04-09_at_8.02.22_pm.png?itok=rTfX7RlP)
Toward a New Phase of U.S.-China Museum Collaborations
Orville Schell
Asia Society
The 2012 U.S.-China Museum Directors Forum, organized by Asia Society and the Chinese People's Association for Friendship with Foreign Countries, brought together 17 Chinese and 15 American museum leaders for a two-day dialogue to assess common...
The NYRB China Archive
04.09.13Tibet: The CIA’s Cancelled War
from New York Review of Books
For much of the past century, U.S. relations with Tibet have been characterized by kowtowing to the Chinese and hollow good wishes for the Dalai Lama. As early as 1908, William Rockhill, a U.S. diplomat, advised the Thirteenth Dalai Lama that “close...
Reports
04.08.13![](https://www.chinafile.com/sites/default/files/styles/epsacrop_160x200/public/assets/images/whitepaper/image/dangerous_waters_icg.png?itok=vXXA09-r)
Dangerous Waters: China-Japan Relations on the Rocks
International Crisis Group
The world’s second and third largest economies are engaged in a standoff over the sovereignty of five islets and three rocks in the East China Sea, known as the Diaoyu in Chinese and the Senkaku in Japanese. Tensions erupted in September 2012 when...
Excerpts
04.05.13Living Underground
They are called rats, and they have become a symbol of Beijing’s red-hot real estate market. Because of soaring housing costs, there are at least a million people living underground, only able to afford a rented room in the basements of skyscrapers...
Sinica Podcast
04.05.13![](https://www.chinafile.com/sites/default/files/styles/system/public/assets/images/article/system/154437806.jpg?itok=VmmclHIK)
The Transgressions of Apple Computer
from Sinica Podcast
While foreign media coverage these last two weeks has focused on environmental disasters, over-fishing, and emerging forms of the avian flu, the Chinese state media has turned its gaze towards the transgressions of Apple Computer, which found itself...
The NYRB China Archive
04.04.13Will the Chinese Be Supreme?
from New York Review of Books
During the turbulent Maoist era from the 1950s to 1970s, China clashed militarily with some of its most important neighbors—India, Vietnam, the Soviet Union—and embarked on disastrous interventions in Indonesia and Africa. But by the 1980s, Deng...
Books
04.03.13![](https://www.chinafile.com/sites/default/files/styles/system/public/assets/images/books/system/cf_books_fuentes-dragons.mov_.still003.jpg?itok=1kcBoUhu)
![](https://www.chinafile.com/sites/default/files/assets/images/books/covers/from-the-dragons-mouth_panel.jpg)
From the Dragon’s Mouth
From The Dragon’s Mouth: Ten True Stories that Unveil the Real China is an exquisitely intimate look into the China of the twenty-first century as seen through the eyes of its people. This is one of the rare times a book combines the voices of everyday Chinese people from so many different layers of society: a dissident tortured by the police; a young millionaire devoted to nationalism; a peasant-turned-prostitute to pay for the best education for her son; a woman who married her gay friend to escape from social pressure, just like an estimated 16 million other women; a venerated kung fu master unable to train outdoors because of the hazardous pollution; the daughter of two Communist Party officials getting rich coaching Chinese entrepreneurs the ways of Capitalism; among others. —Penguin{chop}{node, 3048, 4}
Reports
04.01.13![](https://www.chinafile.com/sites/default/files/styles/epsacrop_160x200/public/assets/images/whitepaper/image/council-on-foreign-relations_logo_9.jpg?itok=ypyc-59G)
Enter the Dragon and the Elephant
Luo Xiaoyuan
Council on Foreign Relations
Among the emerging powers, China and India have long been critical to successfully addressing global health problems. Historically, infectious diseases that originated in either country have altered epidemiological patterns worldwide. The first...
Books
03.29.13![](https://www.chinafile.com/sites/default/files/styles/system/public/assets/images/books/system/3035-thelittleredguard.png?itok=OsGkRN0l)
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The Little Red Guard
When Wenguang Huang was nine years old, his grandmother became obsessed with her own death. Fearing cremation, she extracted from her family the promise to bury her after she died. This was in Xi’an, a city in central China, in the 1970s, when a national ban on all traditional Chinese practices, including burials, was strictly enforced. But Huang’s grandmother was persistent, and two years later, his father built her a coffin. He also appointed his older son, Wenguang, as coffin keeper, a distinction that meant, among other things, sleeping next to the coffin at night. Over the next fifteen years, the whole family was consumed with planning Grandma’s burial, a regular source of friction and contention, with the constant risk of being caught by the authorities. Many years after her death, the family’s memories of her coffin still loom large. Huang, now living and working in America, has come to realize how much the concern over the coffin affected his upbringing and shaped the lives of everyone in the family. Lyrical and poignant, funny and heartrending, The Little Red Guard is the powerful tale of an ordinary family finding their way through turbulence and transition. —Riverhead Books
Reports
03.29.13![](https://www.chinafile.com/sites/default/files/styles/epsacrop_160x200/public/assets/images/whitepaper/image/international-monetary-fund_logo_44.jpg?itok=FDKjAxo0)
China’s Path to Consumer-Based Growth
Luo Xiaoyuan
International Monetary Fund (IMF)
This paper proposes a possible framework for identifying excessive investment. Based on this method, it finds evidence that some types of investment are becoming excessive in China, particularly in inland provinces. In these regions, private...
Sinica Podcast
03.29.13![](https://www.chinafile.com/sites/default/files/styles/system/public/assets/images/article/system/164374738.jpg?itok=6e0L4Mcv)
Xi Jinping Goes to Russia
from Sinica Podcast
Xi Jinping’s trip to Moscow earlier this week, his first journey abroad as China’s new Head of State, has raised interesting questions about China’s ambitions in Asia, and coupled with Washington’s “pivot to Asia” is resurrecting the specter of a...
Books
03.28.13![](https://www.chinafile.com/sites/default/files/styles/system/public/assets/images/books/system/screen_shot_2013-03-27_at_2.50.18_pm.png?itok=zFLgEDGN)
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China Goes Global
Most global citizens are well aware of the explosive growth of the Chinese economy. Indeed, China has famously become the “workshop of the world.” Yet, while China watchers have shed much light on the country’s internal dynamics—China’s politics, its vast social changes, and its economic development—few have focused on how this increasingly powerful nation has become more active and assertive throughout the world.In China Goes Global, eminent China scholar David Shambaugh delivers the book that many have been waiting for—a sweeping account of China’s growing prominence on the international stage. Thirty years ago, China’s role in global affairs beyond its immediate East Asian periphery was decidedly minor and it had little geostrategic power. As Shambaugh charts, though, China’s expanding economic power has allowed it to extend its reach virtually everywhere—from mineral mines in Africa, to currency markets in the West, to oil fields in the Middle East, to agribusiness in Latin America, to the factories of East Asia. Shambaugh offers an enlightening look into the manifestations of China’s global presence: its extensive commercial footprint, its growing military power, its increasing cultural influence or “soft power,” its diplomatic activity, and its new prominence in global governance institutions.But Shambaugh is no alarmist. In this balanced and well-researched volume, he argues that China’s global presence is more broad than deep and that China still lacks the influence befitting a major world power—what he terms a “partial power.” He draws on his decades of China-watching and his deep knowledge of the subject, and exploits a wide variety of previously untapped sources, to shed valuable light on China’s current and future roles in world affairs. —Oxford University Press
Reports
03.28.13![](https://www.chinafile.com/sites/default/files/styles/epsacrop_160x200/public/assets/images/whitepaper/image/international-monetary-fund_logo_45.jpg?itok=NvPzJWuW)
China’s Demography and its Implications
Luo Xiaoyuan
International Monetary Fund (IMF)
In coming decades, China will undergo a notable demographic transformation, with its old-age dependency ratio doubling to 24 percent by 2030 and rising even more precipitously thereafter. This paper uses the permanent income hypothesis to reassess...
Reports
03.27.13![](https://www.chinafile.com/sites/default/files/styles/epsacrop_160x200/public/assets/images/whitepaper/image/international-monetary-fund_logo_46.jpg?itok=Trjdm9zM)
How Effective are Macroprudential Policies in China?
Luo Xiaoyuan
International Monetary Fund (IMF)
This paper investigates macroprudential policies and their role in containing systemic risk in China. It shows that China faces systemic risk in both the time (procyclicality) and cross-sectional (contagion) dimensions. The former is reflected as...
Reports
03.27.13![](https://www.chinafile.com/sites/default/files/styles/epsacrop_160x200/public/assets/images/whitepaper/image/china_2030_world_bank.png?itok=Nf6edkka)
China 2030: Building a Modern, Harmonious, and Creative Society
World Bank
Can China’s growth rate still be among the highest in the world even if it slows from its current pace? And can it maintain this rapid growth with little disruption to the world, the environment, and the fabric of its own society? This report...
Books
03.22.13![](https://www.chinafile.com/sites/default/files/styles/system/public/assets/images/books/system/pressues.mov_.still001.jpg?itok=HW0Fnesx)
![](https://www.chinafile.com/sites/default/files/assets/images/books/covers/pressures_and_distortions_cover_panel.jpg)
Pressures and Distortions
Pressures and Distortions looks at the design, building, and interpretation of cities from the point of view of their residents.The cities chronicled in depth include examples from China (Shanghai and Shenzhen), Latin America (Bogotá and Mexico City), and Indonesia (Banda Aceh). Shorter sections cover Lima and Rio de Janeiro. The authors show how residents respond creatively to environmental disaster, poverty, housing shortages, and surging urban population. They also show how governments, international relief agencies, architects, and planners can shape better urban environments. Throughout, residents present their experiences in their own words and through careful documentation of their living environments.Pressures and Distortions began in 2008 with the Research Program’s international call for proposals. A competitive process selected four teams, with researchers based in Mexico, Colombia, China, Australia, France, and the US. Each team received a research grant from Rafael Viñoly Architects and worked independently.With over 400 pages, Pressures and Distortions contains more than 500 original full-color photographs, plans, and drawings, as well as a DVD with over 100 video and audio recordings from the streets of Bogotá. —Rafael Viñoly Architects PC
Sinica Podcast
03.22.13![](https://www.chinafile.com/sites/default/files/styles/system/public/assets/images/article/system/unsavory-elements_tom-carter_cover-e1368070066294.jpg?itok=NTDOh7rX)
Unsavory Elements and Earnshaw Press
No, this week’s Sinica isn’t an attack on Element Fresh. Rather, it’s a discussion hosted by Kaiser Kuo about the new book Unsavory Elements, an anthology of stories and essays about the experiences of expats in China. And joining us for this...
The NYRB China Archive
03.21.13![](https://www.chinafile.com/sites/default/files/styles/system/public/assets/images/article/system/pamela-1936-studio-portrait.jpg?itok=MSnXIO_a)
Who Killed Pamela in Peking?
from New York Review of Books
An ordinary winter evening in the Legation Quarter of Peking, where foreign embassies and consulates were located, January 7, 1937. Cold. The heavy sound of Japanese armored cars, out on patrol down the busy shopping streets that flank the Forbidden...
Books
03.20.13![](https://www.chinafile.com/sites/default/files/styles/system/public/assets/images/books/system/joanna-lewis.jpg?itok=ThQfkT3E)
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Green Innovation in China
As the greatest coal-producing and consuming nation in the world, China would seem an unlikely haven for wind power. Yet the country now boasts a world-class industry that promises to make low-carbon technology more affordable and available to all. Conducting an empirical study of China’s remarkable transition and the possibility of replicating their model elsewhere, Joanna I. Lewis adds greater depth to a theoretical understanding of China’s technological innovation systems and its current and future role in a globalized economy. Lewis focuses on China’s specific methods of international technology transfer, its forms of international cooperation and competition, and its implementation of effective policies promoting the development of a home-grown industry. Just a decade ago, China maintained only a handful of operating wind turbines—all imported from Europe and the United States. Today, the country is the largest wind power market in the world, with turbines made almost exclusively in its own factories. Though setbacks are possible, China could one day come to dominate global wind turbine sales, becoming a hub of technological innovation and a major instigator of low-carbon economic change. —Columbia University Press
Sinica Podcast
03.15.13![](https://www.chinafile.com/sites/default/files/styles/system/public/assets/images/article/system/163074906.jpg?itok=xoaPFmeV)
A Discussion with Geremie R. Barmé
from Sinica Podcast
On March 8, Kaiser Kuo hosted a conversation at Capital M in Beijing with Geremie R. Barmé, the well-known Sinologist and now Director of the Australian Centre for China in the World, as part of the Capital Literary Festival. This week on Sinica, we...
Sinica Podcast
03.08.13![](https://www.chinafile.com/sites/default/files/styles/system/public/assets/images/article/system/158087952.jpg?itok=GUSl7Tqc)
Mo Yan and the Nobel Prize
from Sinica Podcast
When Chinese author Mo Yan won the Nobel Prize for literature last year, many critics were fast to pounce on his selection, accusing the committee of making a political choice that glossed over what many consider to be pervasive self-censorship in...
Reports
03.07.13![](https://www.chinafile.com/sites/default/files/styles/epsacrop_160x200/public/assets/images/whitepaper/image/bsr_between_the_lines_image.png?itok=2pD18ZAi)
Between the Lines: Listening to Female Factory Workers in China
BSR
Women are crucial to China’s manufacturing sector. While women comprise more than 44% of the overall workforce, they represent about 60% of workers who migrate from rural areas to cities to work in factories. These female workers are diverse, with...
Reports
03.01.13![](https://www.chinafile.com/sites/default/files/styles/epsacrop_160x200/public/assets/images/whitepaper/image/population_council_logo.jpg?itok=B4CFEf1S)
Population, Policy, and Politics
Population Council
One of the main puzzles of modern population and social history is why, among all countries confronting rapid population growth in the second half of the twentieth century, China chose to adopt an extreme measure of birth control known as the one-...
Reports
02.28.13![](https://www.chinafile.com/sites/default/files/styles/epsacrop_160x200/public/assets/images/whitepaper/image/screen_shot_2013-03-14_at_2.05.01_pm.png?itok=l6i86XhS)
Challenged in China
Committee to Protect Journalists
As Xi Jinping takes office as president of China, the citizenry he governs is more sophisticated and interconnected than any before, largely because of the Internet. A complex digital censorship system—combined with a more traditional approach to...
Reports
02.27.13![](https://www.chinafile.com/sites/default/files/styles/epsacrop_160x200/public/assets/images/whitepaper/image/screen_shot_2013-08-01_at_9.46.17_am.png?itok=4Z6nz_nD)
China’s Central Asia Problem
International Crisis Group
Since the collapse of the Soviet Union, China and its Central Asian neighbors have developed a close relationship, initially economic but increasingly also political and security. Energy, precious metals, and other natural resources flow into China...
Books
02.25.13![](https://www.chinafile.com/sites/default/files/styles/system/public/assets/images/books/system/harold-brown-book-interview.jpg?itok=15AK8H5D)
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Star Spangled Security
Former U.S. Secretary of Defense Harold Brown served during the hottest part of the Cold War when the Soviet Union presented an existential threat to America. In Star Spangled Security, Dr. Brown, one of the most respected wise men of American foreign policy, gives an insider’s view of U.S. national security strategy during the Carter administration, relates lessons learned, and bridges them to current challenges facing America.Brown describes his part in the SALT negotiations, the normalization of relations with China, the Camp David Accords, the development of a new generation of ballistic missiles, and more. Drawing on his earlier years as the director of the Lawrence Livermore Laboratory, as director of defense research and engineering, as Air Force secretary, and as president of Caltech, Brown uses his hard-won wisdom, especially during the painful Iran hostage crisis, to offer specific recommendations and key questions to ponder as America copes with challenges in a turbulent world.Highly readable, Star Spangled Security is for anyone wishing to better understand the debates about defense and its budget, its effect on the entire economy, and America’s relationship with allies during conflict and peace. Brown’s access to the leading forces in national security over sixty years spans ten presidents, giving the reader entrée into the inner circle of decision makers.Since leaving public office, Brown has served on the boards of directors of a dozen corporations. His unique economic, military, research, university, and government experience—at the top of all institutions he served—makes his a voice well worth heeding. —Brookings Institution Press
Sinica Podcast
02.21.13![](https://www.chinafile.com/sites/default/files/styles/system/public/assets/images/article/system/168645277.jpg?itok=SvZ_mxsQ)
Death, Fraud, and Corporate Skullduggery
from Sinica Podcast
This week on Sinica, we talk shop about Caterpillar’s discovery of massive accounting fraud and subsequent $580 million write-down from a Chinese company the American equipment manufacturer acquired. We also look at the mysterious death of an...
Books
02.19.13![](https://www.chinafile.com/sites/default/files/styles/system/public/assets/images/books/system/fuchsia-dunlop-book-video.jpg?itok=uvhAot4I)
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Every Grain of Rice
Fuchsia Dunlop trained as a chef in China’s leading Sichuan cooking school and possesses the rare ability to write recipes for authentic Chinese food that you can make at home. Following her two seminal volumes on Sichuan and Hunan cooking, Every Grain of Rice is inspired by the vibrant everyday cooking of southern China, in which vegetables play the starring role, with small portions of meat and fish. Try your hand at stir-fried potato slivers with chili pepper, vegetarian “Gong Bao Chicken,” sour-and-hot mushroom soup, or, if you’re ever in need of a quick fix, Fuchsia’s emergency late-night noodles. Many of the recipes require few ingredients and are ridiculously easy to make. Fuchsia also includes a comprehensive introduction to the key seasonings and techniques of the Chinese kitchen. With stunning photography and clear instructions, this is an essential cookbook for everyone, beginner and connoisseur alike, eager to introduce Chinese dishes into their daily cooking repertoire. —W. W. Norton & Company
The NYRB China Archive
02.15.13![](https://www.chinafile.com/sites/default/files/styles/system/public/assets/images/article/system/weishan_yongchang_five_tigers_shaolin.jpg?itok=CMaB3Jid)
Dancing in Empty Beijing
from New York Review of Books
The Lunar New Year began last week as it always does, with a new moon. The empty sky seemed to empty Beijing of up to half its residents—authorities estimate that an incredible nine million people left the city, which usually has a population of...
Books
02.12.13![](https://www.chinafile.com/sites/default/files/styles/system/public/assets/images/books/system/zhao_ziyang_and_chinas_political_future_wu_guoguang.jpg?itok=gKKzZh2X)
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Zhao Ziyang and China’s Political Future
What legacies have previous reformers like Zhao Ziyang left to today’s China? Does China have feasible political alternatives to today’s repressive ‘market Leninism’ and corrupt ‘state capitalism’? Does Zhao’s legacy indicate an alternative to the past and for the future?For those who are familiar with the development of Chinese politics since the reform years, Zhao is now widely regarded as a major architect of the nation’s profound transition. His contributions to China’s post-Mao development are rich and multi faceted, including those on rural and urban economic reforms extending to accountable governance, liberal policies concerning domestic affairs and China’s foreign relations.Featuring contributions from leading experts in the field such as Richard Baum and Xiaonong Cheng, this book explores the historical development of China’s political reform issues, and how his political legacies are relevant to China’s political development since the 1980s to the future. Using recently translated recollection articles by veteran reformers who worked with Zhao in the 1980s, like Du Runsheng, An Zhiwen, Li Rui, Bao Tong, Zhao Ziyang and China's Political Future is a valuable contribution for students and researchers interested in the Chinese politics, Asian politics and political development in Asia.—Routledge
The NYRB China Archive
02.09.13Blogging the Slow-Motion Revolution
from New York Review of Books
Huang Qi is best known in China as the creator of the country’s first human rights website, Liusi Tianwang, or “June 4 Heavenly Web.” A collection of reports and photos, as well as the occasional first-person account of abuse, the site is updated...
Sinica Podcast
02.08.13![](https://www.chinafile.com/sites/default/files/styles/system/public/assets/images/article/system/160944130.jpg?itok=a9Ec7_V8)
Revenge of the Call-in Show
from Sinica Podcast
Curious what happened to Sinica last week? Well ... as it turns out, our call-in show from two weeks ago wasn’t exactly pleased with how quickly we managed to replace it, and took out its anger on the laptop we use to record new shows, smashing the...
The China Africa Project
02.03.13![](https://www.chinafile.com/sites/default/files/styles/system/public/assets/images/article/system/453245154.jpg?itok=voQK4w5i)
Rally Cry for the U.S. to Catch Up to the Chinese in Africa
In this episode of the China in Africa Podcast, hosts Eric Olander and Cobus van Staden focus on Delaware Senator Chris Coons' warning that unless the United States places a greater emphasis on Africa, it will be too late to catch up to the...
Books
01.31.13![](https://www.chinafile.com/sites/default/files/styles/system/public/assets/images/books/system/yang-jisheng-tombstone.jpg?itok=4mokxlWB)
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Tombstone
An estimated 36 million Chinese men, women, and children starved to death during China’s Great Leap Forward in the late 1950s and early ’60s. One of the greatest tragedies of the twentieth century, the famine is poorly understood, and in China is still euphemistically referred to as the “three years of natural disaster.”As a journalist with privileged access to official and unofficial sources, Yang Jisheng spent twenty years piecing together the events that led to mass nationwide starvation, including the death of his own father. Finding no natural causes, Yang lays the deaths at the feet of China’s totalitarian Communist system and the refusal of officials at every level to value human life over ideology and self-interest.Tombstone is a testament to inhumanity and occasional heroism that pits collective memory against the historical amnesia imposed by those in power. Stunning in scale and arresting in its detailed account of the staggering human cost of this tragedy, Tombstone is written both as a memorial to the lives lost—an enduring tombstone in memory of the dead—and in hopeful anticipation of the final demise of the totalitarian system. —Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Sinica Podcast
01.25.13![](https://www.chinafile.com/sites/default/files/styles/system/public/assets/images/article/system/166368004.jpg?itok=LHenEWAb)
The Call-in Show
from Sinica Podcast
So our show this week isn’t technically a call-in show, given the lack of phones in our studio, but it is as close as we can get it, so thanks to everyone who sent us a pre-recorded question. We had a lot more responses than we expected, and the...
Books
01.24.13![](https://www.chinafile.com/sites/default/files/styles/system/public/assets/images/books/system/michaelyamashita-shangrila.jpg?itok=rJK8aqWt)
![](https://www.chinafile.com/sites/default/files/assets/images/books/covers/shangrilabookcover_panel.jpg)
Shangri-La
The legendary Chamagudao, the Tea Horse Road, winds through dizzying mountain passes, across famed rivers like the Mekong and the Yangtze, and past monasteries and meadows in a circuitous route from Sichuan and Yunnan provinces in western China to the Tibetan capital city of Lhasa. Actually a network of roads, trails, and highways, rather than one distinct route, the Chamagudao once stretched for almost 1400 miles (2350 km)—a conduit along which the historic trade between the mighty Chinese empire and the nomadic Tibetans linked remote villages and ethnic groups. The Chinese military needed strong horses for their wars against Mongol invaders from the north, and the fiercely religious Tibetans desired tea for sacred rituals and sustenance. Once tea was introduced into Tibet around the 10th century, demand for it grew. Tea soon became a staple for Tibetans, especially when combined with their other staple, yak butter. But with Tibet’s extreme temperatures and altitudes, tea cultivation on a large scale was impossible. This set the stage for the tea-horse trade, which, by the 11th century, flourished along the Chamagudao, continuing until the 1950s. But getting these prized commodities to their growing markets was no easy feat. To transport the tea over the mountains meant many months of hard and dangerous travel for the hundreds of porters.Today, as Chinese culture merges with and even absorbs Tibetan traditions, the Tea Horse Road is a relic of a vastly different time. The Chinese are rapidly paving dirt roads to make highways for cars and trucks. Soon there will be little evidence of this once vital trade route. Though horses are no longer a military imperative for the Chinese army, Tibet has a new commodity that is in much demand in China. A homely caterpillar infected by a parasitic fungus has replaced the horse trade in Tibet. The yartsa gombu is prized for its medicinal qualities. Now Tibetans nomads drive Land Cruisers and motorcycles instead of horses, thanks to the profits they make collecting and selling the miracle mushroom worth more than gold. So trade continues, even though relics of the tea-horse trade are becoming harder to find. Following the Chamagudao, this book is a rare intimate look into the changing world of Tibet—both ancient and modern, sacred and commonplace, the rarefied and the gritty—before the legends and mysteries of the Tea Horse road disappear into the Tibetan mist. —White Star {chop}
Sinica Podcast
01.18.13![](https://www.chinafile.com/sites/default/files/styles/system/public/assets/images/article/system/147328136.jpg?itok=SoIyICRT)
China’s Urban Billion
from Sinica Podcast
Lurking silently behind practically every story on Chinese economic growth over the last thirty years has been the country’s unprecedented shift from being an overwhelmingly rural society to what is now a largely urban one, with almost 700 million...
Books
01.14.13![](https://www.chinafile.com/sites/default/files/styles/system/public/assets/images/books/system/governing_health_-_yanzhong_huang.jpg?itok=5Vls1x_9)
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Governing Health in Contemporary China
The lack of significant improvement in people’s health status and other mounting health challenges in China raise a puzzling question about the country’s internal transition: why did the reform-induced dynamics produce an economic miracle, but fail to reproduce the success Mao had achieved in the health sector? This book examines the political and policy dynamics of health governance in post-Mao China. It explores the political-institutional roots of the public health and health care challenges and the evolution of the leaders’ policy response in contemporary China. It argues that reform-induced institutional dynamics, when interacting with Maoist health policy structure in an authoritarian setting, have not only contributed to the rising health challenges in contemporary China, but also shaped the patterns and outcomes of China’s health system transition. The study of China’s health governance will further our understanding of the evolving political system in China and the complexities of China’s rise. As the world economy and international security are increasingly vulnerable to major disease outbreaks in China, it also sheds critical light on China’s role in global health governance. —Routledge
Sinica Podcast
01.11.13![](https://www.chinafile.com/sites/default/files/styles/system/public/assets/images/article/system/159119828.jpg?itok=6fqvAE9Y)
The Southern Drama
from Sinica Podcast
Mere months after China’s handling of the Eighteenth Party Congress suggested the country would undergo a peaceful leadership transition, the issue of freedom of the press surged to attention this week after a censored editorial in Southern Weekly (...
Reports
01.08.13![](https://www.chinafile.com/sites/default/files/styles/epsacrop_160x200/public/assets/images/whitepaper/image/cato_logo_1.jpg?itok=U4DS46k3)
China, America, and the Pivot to Asia
Luo Xiaoyuan
Cato Institute
Despite the United States’ focus on the Middle East and the Islamic world for the past decade, the most important international political developments in the coming years are likely to happen in Asia. The Obama administration has promoted a “pivot...
The NYRB China Archive
01.08.13The Old Fears of China’s New Leaders
from New York Review of Books
I felt a shudder of déjà vu watching the mounting protests inside China this week of the Communist Party for censoring an editorial in Southern Weekend, a well-known liberal newspaper in the southern city of Guangzhou. It is all too similar to the...
Books
01.04.13![](https://www.chinafile.com/sites/default/files/styles/system/public/assets/images/books/system/john_garnaut_riseandfall_copy.jpg?itok=PEYH_QpI)
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The Rise and Fall of the House of Bo
When news of the murder trial of prominent Communist Party leader Bo Xilai’s wife reached public attention, it was apparent that, as with many events in the secretive upper echelons of Chinese politics, there was more to the story. Now, during the biggest leadership transition in decades, as the Bo family’s long-time rival Xi Jinping assumes the presidency, China’s rulers are finding it increasingly difficult to keep their poisonous internal divisions behind closed doors.
Bo Xilai’s breathtaking fall from grace is an extraordinary tale of excess, murder, defection, political purges and ideological clashes going back to Mao himself. China watcher John Garnaut examines how Bo’s stellar rise through the ranks troubled his more reformist peers, as he revived anti-“capitalist roader” sentiment, even while his family and associates enjoyed the more open economy’s opportunities.Amid fears his imminent elevation to the powerful Standing Committee was leading China towards another destructive Cultural Revolution, have his opponents seized their chance to destroy Bo and what he stood for? The trigger was his wife Gu Kailai’s apparently paranoid murder of an English family friend, which exposed the corruption and brutality of Bo’s outwardly successful administration of the massive city of Chongqing. It also led to the one of the highest-level attempted defections in Communist China’s history when Bo’s right-hand man, police chief Wang Lijun, tried to escape the ruins of his sponsor’s reputation.
Garnaut explains how this incredible glimpse into the very personal power struggles within the CCP exposes the myth of the unified one-party state. With China approaching super-power status, today’s leadership shuffle may set the tone for international relations for decades. Here, Garnaut reveals a particularly Chinese spin on the old adage that the personal is political.
—Penguin
Sinica Podcast
12.28.12![](https://www.chinafile.com/sites/default/files/styles/system/public/assets/images/article/system/158741050.jpg?itok=yQYZH7aC)
Return of the China Blog
from Sinica Podcast
All of you Sinica old-timers might remember a show we ran two years ago on the death of the China blog, in which Jeremy, Kaiser, and Will Moss mused about whether the combined forces of Twitter, Facebook, and Bill Bishop would manage to drive a...
Sinica Podcast
12.22.12![](https://www.chinafile.com/sites/default/files/styles/system/public/assets/images/article/system/157834909.jpg?itok=NCQzTGF1)
China Versus the SEC
from Sinica Podcast
An ongoing battle between the American Securities and Exchange Commission and China over whether Chinese accounting firms can release accounting information required by U.S. law or whether these constitute “state secrets” is pushing China and the...
The NYRB China Archive
12.21.12Beijing’s Doomsday Problem
from New York Review of Books
Over the past ten days, China has been riveted by accounts of what authorities say are its very own doomsday cult: the church of Almighty God, which has prophesized that the world will end today. Authorities have said the group staged illegal...
The NYRB China Archive
12.20.12![](https://www.chinafile.com/sites/default/files/styles/system/public/assets/images/article/system/156431744.jpg?itok=4-jWs7QP)
The New Chinese Gang of Seven
from New York Review of Books
In traditional Chinese religion, a fashi, or ritual master, will recite a set of phrases to turn an ordinary space into a sacred area where the gods can descend to receive prayers and rejuvenate the community. The ceremony can last days, with breaks...
Books
12.17.12![](https://www.chinafile.com/sites/default/files/styles/system/public/assets/images/books/system/socialism-vanquished-socialism-challenged.jpg?itok=FlMO6m_y)
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Socialism Vanquished, Socialism Challenged
Socialism Vanquished, Socialism Challenged examines the twenty-year aftermath of the 1989 assaults on established, state-sponsored socialism in the former Soviet bloc and in China. Editors Nina Bandelj and Dorothy J. Solinger bring together prominent experts on Eastern Europe and China to examine the respective trajectories of political, economic, and social transformations that unfolded in these two areas, while also comparing the changes that ensued within the two regions. The volume features paired comparisons, with one chapter on the countries from the former Soviet bloc and one on China for each of the following themes: the reinstitutionalization of politics, the recasting of state-society relations, the reform of economic systems, changes in economic behavior, and transformations of social institutions. Despite differences in the specific substantive focus and disciplinary grounding among individual chapters, all chapters share a concern with the fate of the state in postsocialism. They elaborate on topics such as the transformations of the old socialist state and its nature, activities and roles; civil society before and after 1989; the ways in which the state has, or has not, acted to encourage new forms of economic behavior; and the state's responsibility for societal trends, whether in family formation, in protest or in inequality. Taking a unique approach to understand twentieth-century socialism on a global scale, Socialism Vanquished, Socialism Challenged uncovers insights about political models and economic patterns that have emerged in the grand project of the transition from socialism. —Oxford University Press
Sinica Podcast
12.14.12![](https://www.chinafile.com/sites/default/files/styles/system/public/assets/images/article/system/143980372.jpg?itok=yTc_OcA2)
China 3.0
from Sinica Podcast
Today on Sinica, join us for a discussion on economics, politics, and geopolitics with Mark Leonard from the European Council on Foreign Relations. Our specific focus is China 3.0, the council’s recent compendium of essays on contemporary Chinese...
Books
12.12.12![](https://www.chinafile.com/sites/default/files/styles/system/public/assets/images/books/system/chinas-search-fo-security_andrew-nathan_1.jpg?itok=dLzhp9pv)
![](https://www.chinafile.com/sites/default/files/assets/images/books/covers/china-search-for-security_panel2.jpg)
China’s Search for Security
Despite its impressive size and population, economic vitality, and drive to upgrade its military capabilities, China remains a vulnerable nation surrounded by powerful rivals and potential foes. The key to understanding China’s foreign policy is to grasp these geostrategic challenges, which persist even as the country comes to dominate its neighbors. Andrew J. Nathan and Andrew Scobell analyze China’s security concerns on four fronts: at home, with its immediate neighbors, in surrounding regional systems, and in the world beyond Asia. By illuminating the issues driving Chinese policy, they offer new perspective on China’s rise and a strategy for balancing Chinese and American interests in Asia. Though rooted in the present, Nathan and Scobell’s study makes ample use of the past, reaching back into history to contextualize the people and institutions shaping Chinese strategy. They examine Chinese views of the United States; explain why China is so concerned about Japan; and uncover China’s interests in such trouble spots as North Korea, Iran, and the Sudan. The authors probe recent troubles in Tibet and Xinjiang and establish links to forces beyond China’s borders. They consider the tactics deployed by both sides of mainland China and Taiwan’s complicated relationship, as Taiwan seeks to maintain autonomy while China tries to move toward unification, and they evaluate the strengths and weaknesses of China’s three main power resources—economic power, military power, and soft power. The book concludes with recommendations for the United States as it seeks to manage China’s rise. Chinese policymakers understand that the nation’s prosperity, stability, and security depend on cooperation with the U.S, and if handled wisely, relations between the two countries could produce mutually beneficial outcomes in Asia and throughout the world. —Columbia University Press
Sinica Podcast
12.07.12![](https://www.chinafile.com/sites/default/files/styles/system/public/assets/images/article/system/141692703.jpg?itok=GKtLcAN7)
Time to Leave China?
from Sinica Podcast
It wasn’t very long ago that the Chinese blogosphere became engrossed with two near-simultaneous and very public posts by well-known expats marking their decisions to leave China for greener pastures. While grumbling about this country is nothing...
The NYRB China Archive
12.06.12![](https://www.chinafile.com/sites/default/files/styles/system/public/assets/images/article/system/153979929.jpg?itok=3W-tN4Iu)
Does This Writer Deserve the Prize?
from New York Review of Books
On October 11 Peter Englund, permanent secretary of the Swedish Academy in Stockholm, announced that the Nobel Prize in Literature for 2012 will go to the fifty-seven-year-old Chinese writer Guan Moye, better known as Mo Yan, a pen name that means “...
Books
12.04.12![](https://www.chinafile.com/sites/default/files/styles/system/public/assets/images/books/system/davidshambaugh2_2.jpg?itok=4QNFioBk)
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Tangled Titans
Tangled Titans offers a current and comprehensive assessment of the most important relationship in international affairs—that between the United States and China. How the relationship evolves will have a defining impact on the future of world politics, the Asian region, and the citizens of many nations. In this definitive book, leading experts provide an in-depth exploration of the historical, domestic, bilateral, regional, global, and future contexts of this complex relationship. The contributors argue that the relationship is a unique combination of deep interdependence, limited cooperation, and increasing competition. Never in modern history have two great powers been so deeply intertwined—yet so suspicious and potentially antagonistic toward each other. Exploring this cooperative and competitive dynamic, the contributors offer a wealth of detail on contemporary Sino-American relations unavailable elsewhere. Students will find Tangled Titans essential reading to understand the current dynamics and future direction of relations between the world’s two most important powers.—Rowman & Littlefield Publishers
Reports
11.27.12![](https://www.chinafile.com/sites/default/files/styles/epsacrop_160x200/public/assets/images/whitepaper/image/international-monetary-fund_logo_47.jpg?itok=FaMtX-JW)
Is China Over-Investing and Does it Matter?
Luo Xiaoyuan
International Monetary Fund (IMF)
Now close to 50 percent of GDP, this paper assesses the appropriateness of China’s current investment levels. It finds that China’s capital-to-output ratio is within the range of other emerging markets, but its economic growth rates stand out,...
The NYRB China Archive
11.22.12![](https://www.chinafile.com/sites/default/files/styles/system/public/assets/images/article/system/51398180.jpg?itok=2N5EVzm9)
China: Worse Than You Ever Imagined
from New York Review of Books
Last summer I took a trip to Xinyang, a rural area of wheat fields and tea plantations in central China’s Henan province. I met a pastor, a former political prisoner, and together we made a day trip to Rooster Mountain, a onetime summer retreat for...
Culture
11.21.12![](https://www.chinafile.com/sites/default/files/styles/system/public/assets/images/article/system/xubing3.jpg?itok=c0AjsJ-v)
A New Tower of Babel
Xu Bing, the renowned Chinese artist whose many laurels include a MacArthur Foundation “genius” award and an appointment as vice president of China’s Central Academy of Fine Arts, has long demonstrated a fascination with the written word.His...
Books
11.20.12![](https://www.chinafile.com/sites/default/files/styles/system/public/assets/images/books/system/mao_the_real_story_alexander_pantsov.png?itok=VKhSV08d)
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Mao: The Real Story
Mao Zedong was one of the most important figures of the twentieth century, the most important in the history of modern China. A complex figure, he was champion of the poor and brutal tyrant, poet and despot.Pantsov and Levine show Mao’s relentless drive to succeed, vividly describing his growing role in the nascent Communist Party of China. They disclose startling facts about his personal life, particularly regarding his health and his lifelong serial affairs with young women. They portray him as the loyal Stalinist that he was, who never broke with the Soviet Union until after Stalin’s death.Mao brought his country from poverty and economic backwardness into the modern age and onto the world stage. But he was also responsible for an unprecedented loss of life. The disastrous Great Leap Forward with its accompanying famine and the bloody Cultural Revolution were Mao’s creations. Internationally Mao began to distance China from the USSR under Khrushchev and shrewdly renewed relations with the U.S. as a counter to the Soviets. He lived and behaved as China’s last emperor. —Simon & Schuster
Sinica Podcast
11.16.12![](https://www.chinafile.com/sites/default/files/styles/system/public/assets/images/article/system/175810426.jpg?itok=ipVwqEvs)
The State of the Navy
from Sinica Podcast
After two weeks focusing on developments at the Eighteenth Party Congress, and with the next generation of China’s leadership now public news for the world to digest, this week on Sinica we take a break from China’s leadership transition and turn...
Sinica Podcast
11.10.12![](https://www.chinafile.com/sites/default/files/styles/system/public/assets/images/article/system/156252133.jpg?itok=sYBLGZ6u)
Eighteenth Party Roundup
from Sinica Podcast
This week on Sinica, our hosts Kaiser Kuo and Jeremy Goldkorn are joined by Gady Epstein from the Economist and we turn our attention to the Eighteenth Party Congress, which officially started in Beijing earlier this week. As China’s capital...
Books
11.09.12![](https://www.chinafile.com/sites/default/files/styles/system/public/assets/images/books/system/cf_books_james_reilly.png?itok=ylziGZzw)
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Strong Society, Smart State
The rise and influence of public opinion on Chinese foreign policy reveals a remarkable evolution in authoritarian responses to social turmoil. James Reilly shows how Chinese leaders have responded to popular demands for political participation with a sophisticated strategy of tolerance, responsiveness, persuasion, and repression—a successful approach that helps explain how and why the Communist Party continues to rule China.Through a detailed examination of China's relations with Japan from 1980 to 2010, Reilly reveals the populist origins of a wave of anti-Japanese public mobilization that swept across China in the early 2000s. Popular protests, sensationalist media content, and emotional public opinion combined to impede diplomatic negotiations, interrupt economic cooperation, spur belligerent rhetoric, and reshape public debates. Facing a mounting domestic and diplomatic crisis, Chinese leaders responded with a remarkable reversal, curtailing protests and cooling public anger toward Japan. Far from being a fragile state overwhelmed by popular nationalism, market forces, or information technology, China has emerged as a robust and flexible regime that has adapted to its new environment with remarkable speed and effectiveness. Reilly's study of public opinion's influence on foreign policy extends beyond democratic states. It reveals how persuasion and responsiveness sustain Communist Party rule in China and develops a method for examining similar dynamics in different authoritarian regimes. He draws upon public opinion surveys, interviews with Chinese activists, quantitative media analysis, and internal government documents to support his findings, joining theories in international relations, social movements, and public opinion. — Columbia University Press
Reports
11.08.12![](https://www.chinafile.com/sites/default/files/styles/epsacrop_160x200/public/assets/images/whitepaper/image/screen_shot_2012-11-08_at_5.46.08_pm.jpg?itok=rATxeNEs)
China 3.0
European Council on Foreign Relations
China’s once-a-decade leadership change is currently underway in Beijing. The new leaders will take power at a crucial time for China, as it enters the third stage of its development since the revolution. How they deal with the challenges ahead will...