Other
12.30.14A Look Back at 2014
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...
Books
12.23.14Top Five China Books of 2014
As the editor of ChinaFile’s Books section, I have the privilege of meeting and interviewing some amazing writers covering China today—academics, journalists, scholars, activists. Based on these conversations, we create short videos of the...
Caixin Media
12.22.14Wild Stock Market Is Detrimental to Reform Efforts
Chinese leaders' pledge to strengthen risk control at last week's Central Economic Work Conference could not be more timely, given the frenzied exuberance in the stock market.In a statement released after three days of meetings, the...
ChinaFile Recommends
12.22.14China Offers Russia Ruble Help
Wall Street Journal
China says it is willing to provide assistance to Russia following recent sharp drops in the value of its currency, said a senior official, as President Vladimir Putin’s regime faces continuing strains with the U.S. and Europe.
ChinaFile Recommends
12.22.14In China, a Rapid Jump to Mobile Advertising
New York Times
Liu Xuelong, a television and documentary producer in Beijing, hasn’t used his television in years. He gets all of his entertainment on his iPhone 6 Plus, where he also taps a plethora of apps to buy plane tickets, pay bills, talk with clients.
Conversation
12.19.14Just How Successful Is Xi Jinping?
Last week, Arthur Kroeber, Editor of the China Economic Quarterly opined that “…the Chinese state is not fragile. The regime is strong, increasingly self-confident, and without organized opposition.” His essay, which drew strong, if divided,...
ChinaFile Recommends
12.19.14Here’s Where All Those Cheap Santa Hats and Plastic Snowmen Come from
Quartz
The Chinese city of Yiwu, about 250 kilometers from Shanghai, is often referred to as China’s “Christmas village” thanks to the massive amount of holiday-related merchandise made there. Xinhua, China’s state-news agency, claims that 60% of the world...
ChinaFile Recommends
12.19.14As Obama Opens to Cuba, China Experts Remember Benefits from U.S. Engagement
Washington Post
As Washington moves to restore diplomatic ties with Cuba after decades of trying to isolate and overthrow the Castro regime, Chinese people and China experts in the United States have been reminded of a much more momentous opening 36 years ago that...
ChinaFile Recommends
12.19.14China’s Housing Resists Efforts to Spur Market
New York Times
Every urban real estate market is different in mainland China, driven by myriad municipal and provincial regulations and the varying strength of local economies. But the outcome is the same: The property market is under serious pressure.
ChinaFile Recommends
12.19.14China's Economy Is worth $300 Billion More than It Thought
Fortune
China just discovered an economy the size of Malaysia’s hiding down the back of the sofa.
Sinica Podcast
12.19.14Cooperation or Exploitation
from Sinica Podcast
Exactly how exploitative are Chinese development activities on the African continent? What exactly is motivating the various resources-for-development deals inked by African governments over the last decade, and what strategies are these governments...
Media
12.18.14Hong Kong, the Resilient City
The tents have folded. After 75 days of camping on the street, braving police crackdowns, occasional civilian attacks, and the city’s (admittedly mild) winter chill, Hong Kong’s pro-democracy protesters have cleared out. As promised, police moved in...
ChinaFile Recommends
12.17.14Beijing Cannot Count on Easy Money to Sustain Its Economic Miracle
Financial Times
Just three months ago the main Chinese stock market was dormant. Since then it has surged 30 per cent and has started to show signs of the manic trading that normally does not appear until a bull market has been gathering steam for years.
ChinaFile Recommends
12.17.14Israeli Tech Startups Attract Chinese Investors
Wall Street Journal
As China scours the world for tech investments, it is increasingly flocking to Israel for the next big thing.
ChinaFile Recommends
12.17.14Maldives to Officially Join China's Maritime Silk Route Policy
Global Times
"With projects such as oil exploration and bridge construction in the agenda for discussion, the meeting will benefit economies of both countries. This is a great achievement to us as well," Minister of Economic Development Mohamed Saeed...
ChinaFile Recommends
12.17.14Diversity the New Game for Macau as Gambling Revenues Tumble
South China Morning Post
When inaugural chief executive Edmund Ho Hau-wah threw the liberalisation dice that took Macau's flagging gaming industry into the 21st century in 2002, few could have predicted its stellar rise to become the top city for global gaming, leaving...
Conversation
12.16.14What Must China and Japan Do to Get Along in 2015?
Last week, Akio Takahara, a professor at the University of Tokyo currently visiting Peking University, wrote a New York Times Op-Ed praising recent diplomatic efforts by Prime Minister Shinzo Abe of Japan and Chinese President Xi Jinping to deflect...
Viewpoint
12.16.14Why Marx Still Matters: The Ideological Drivers of Chinese Politics
In days of greater political brouhaha, “to go and see Marx” used to be a slang expression among Chinese Communists, to refer to death. More recently, a considerable number of commentators have pronounced the expiry of Marxism itself. China’s reform...
ChinaFile Recommends
12.15.14San Gabriel Valley’s El Monte Getting a Boost from Chinese Investors
Los Angeles Times
Trucks loaded with construction materials park in front of a vacant lot in El Monte, where a homeless man slumbers on the sidewalk next to a mountain of rags and trash bags. Overhead, colorful flags whip in the breeze, advertising opportunities for...
ChinaFile Recommends
12.15.14China Shocked by Fatal Riot in Madagascar
Huffington Post
"We hope the Madagascar government will take necessary measures to properly handle the attack at the Morondava sugar plant and to erase the ill impact this incident has brought to the country's international image and its ability to...
Infographics
12.15.14Is Studying Abroad Worth the Cost?
from Sohu
The number of Chinese students who choose to study abroad has increased by more than 1,000% since 2000. Yet education costs abroad also continue to rise. This infographic looks at reasons why Chinese students are choosing an education overseas.
ChinaFile Recommends
12.14.14China’s Baidu Set to Partner with Uber and Reportedly Invest up to $600M
TechCrunch
If Baidu does put money into Uber, it will be a significant expansion of its international portfolio of products and investments. Baidu has focused on emerging markets, including Southeast Asia, Egypt and Brazil, where it recently acquired e-...
ChinaFile Recommends
12.14.14Beijing Rejects Hanoi’s Legal Challenge on Spratly, Paracel Islands Disputes
South China Morning Post
Foreign Ministry spokesman Hong Lei dismissed the Vietnamese action on Thursday, describing its claims over the Spratly and Paracel islands—known in China as the Nansha and Xisha—as invalid.
ChinaFile Recommends
12.14.14Falling Oil Prices Push Venezuela Deeper Into China’s Orbit
Businessweek
The late Hugo Chávez cozied up to China as part of his drive to curb U.S. influence in the Americas. Maduro, like his predecessor, has relied on Beijing to underwrite Venezuela’s flagging socialist revolution and finance the country’s gaping fiscal...
Sinica Podcast
12.12.14Band of Brothers: China and South Africa
from Sinica Podcast
Pomp and ritual surrounded South African President Jacob Zuma's recent state visit to China, a trip that saw China roll out the red carpet in a very uncritical fashion, not often seen these days, with even Xinhua getting into the spirit of...
Viewpoint
12.11.14Here Is Xi’s China: Get Used To It
from China Economic Quarterly
The prevailing mood among China-watchers in 2014 was one of anxiety and skepticism. The year began in the shadow of Chinese assertiveness in the East and South China Seas. Economic concerns quickly took over: by February the property market seemed...
Caixin Media
12.11.14Sacked Deputy Reform Commissioner Gets Life in Jail for Graft
A former deputy head of the National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC) has been sentenced to life in prison for taking 35.6 million yuan (U.S.$5.8 million) in bribes between 2002 and 2012, according to a microblog post from a Langfang court...
Features
12.10.14Why Beijing’s Troubles Could Get a Lot Worse
from Barron’s
Few foreigners know China as intimately as Anne Stevenson-Yang does. She has spent the bulk of her professional life there since first arriving in 1985, working as a journalist, magazine publisher, and software executive, with stints in between...
ChinaFile Recommends
12.09.14China Flexes Its High-speed Rail Muscles by Rolling out 32 New Routes in One Day
Quartz
China has lofty expectations of becoming a global leader in high-speed rail technology, with projects in over a dozen countries, as well as plans to more than double its own domestic network of high-speed rail, which is already the world’s largest.
Caixin Media
12.09.14With New Fund, China Hits a Silk Road Stride
China's ambitious plan to expand trade links westward into Central Asia in the spirit of the ancient Silk Road is taking shape now that the government has decided to shift foreign currency into a special fund.The State Council will tap the...
ChinaFile Recommends
12.09.14China Tightening Curbs on Opaque Local Debt Spurs Market Tumble
Bloomberg
While the change caught traders off guard, authorities in the world’s second-largest economy are trying to rein in the use of lightly-regulated Local Government Finance Vehicles (LGFVs) as they promote the development of a more transparent municipal...
ChinaFile Recommends
12.08.14Why Beijing’s Troubles Could Get a Lot Worse
Barron’s
Anne Stevenson-Yang: China, for all its talk about economic reform, is in big trouble. The old model of relying on export growth and heavy investment to power the economy isn’t working anymore.
ChinaFile Recommends
12.08.14Labor Movement ‘Concertmaster’ Tests Beijing’s Boundaries
Reuters
When local officials warned striking shoe factory workers in China's Pearl River Delta this summer that they were breaking the law, a slight, bespectacled figure barely 5 feet 5 inches (1.65 meters) tall faced them down.
"Where is the...
The China Africa Project
12.06.14The BRICS Bank: China’s Drive to Shake Up Development Finance
Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa (aka the ‘BRICS’) are moving forward with an ambitious plan to shake up the clubby world of development finance. The new BRICS bank announced over the summer 2014 is expected to have a profound impact on...
ChinaFile Recommends
12.01.14Teachers’ Strikes Spread Across Northeast China
New York Times
Teachers are asking for raises and for the government to end a requirement that teachers make payments to a pension plan as part of an experimental policy. China National Radio reported that one teacher was making less than $400 a month after...
ChinaFile Recommends
12.01.14Hong Kong IPOs Become Losing Bets for Investors
Wall Street Journal
Hong Kong is one of the world’s top venues for initial public offerings, thanks to listings by Chinese companies over the years, but most of the IPOs have been a losing bet for investors, with the bulk of them lagging behind the market in recent...
Environment
11.26.14The People’s Republic of Chemicals
from chinadialogue
The name of China is almost obscured by a grey smudge on the title page of The People’s Republic of Chemicals, and this image proves to be apt. This book examines the crisis caused by toxic&...
ChinaFile Recommends
11.24.14China’s Rich Want to Send Children Abroad for Education
China Daily
The report said that some 80 percent of the country's rich people have plans to send children abroad, the highest ratio in the world. By contrast, Japan has less than 1 percent and Germany has less than 10 percent of its rich people having such...
ChinaFile Recommends
11.24.14Journeys Along the Seventh Ring
That’s
The story of Beijing’s Ring Roads is in many ways the story of Beijing’s urban development. The original ring (known confusingly as the Second Ring) was constructed in the early 1980s, at the behest of city planners, who, in embracing reform-minded...
ChinaFile Recommends
11.24.14Exclusive: China Ready to Cut Rates Again on Fears of Deflation — Sources
Reuters
Friday's surprise cut in rates, the first in more than two years, reflects a change of course by Beijing and the central bank, which had persisted with modest stimulus measures before finally deciding last week that a bold monetary policy step...
Sinica Podcast
11.22.14Banned but Booming: Golf in China
from Sinica Podcast
Despite China's legal moratorium on the development of the golf industry, a policy driven by concerns over illegal farmland seizures and the potential misallocation of agricultural land and water resources, the golf industry has experienced an...
Viewpoint
11.21.14What Will Make the U.S.-China Climate Deal Work
Nearly everyone agrees that the U.S.-China climate announcement is a big deal, but most observers have overlooked what truly makes it a game-changer: if the world’s two climate change superpowers limit their greenhouse gas emissions, it will have...
ChinaFile Recommends
11.21.14China Commits $45.6 Billion for Economic Corridor with Pakistan
Reuters
The Chinese companies will be able to operate the projects as profit-making entities, according to the deal signed by Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif during a visit to China earlier this month.
Infographics
11.20.14Who Really Benefits from Poverty Alleviation in China?
from Sohu
A series of reports issued by China's National Audit Office highlights problems in 19 counties that have received funding from national poverty alleviation programs. News of "impoverished counties’" constructing luxurious new...
The NYRB China Archive
11.20.14‘China Strikes Back’: An Exchange
from New York Review of Books
Letters in response to: “China Strikes Back!” from the October 23, 2014 issue of The New York Review of Books.To the Editors:In “China Strikes Back” [NYR, October 23], Orville Schell sounds a much-needed wake-up call about China’s recent attitude...
Conversation
11.19.14Was the U.S.-China Climate Deal Worth the Wait?
Last week, Ann Carlson and Alex Wang, environmental experts at UCLA Law School, called the November 12 U.S.-China Joint Announcement on Climate Change "monumental." "No two countries are more important to tackling the problem than the...
ChinaFile Recommends
11.17.14China’s New Old Financial Capital
Wall Street Journal
Hong Kong’s democracy protests are often said to be futile because the city is no longer China’s golden goose, protected from Beijing’s wrath by its economic importance. But Monday’s big news shows that things aren’t so simple: The opening of a “...
ChinaFile Recommends
11.17.14First China-Made Plane Coming To U.S. Skies
Forbes
“This purchase marks the first time for any Chinese-made planes to enter an advanced market, and the U.S. has the highest standards, so this testifies to the achievement of Chinese aircraft manufacturing,” said Li Xianzhe of Avicopter to the South...
Caixin Media
11.17.14Visa and MasterCard Confront China’s Stacked Deck
Visa and MasterCard executives eager to expand in China were thrilled recently when Premier Li Keqiang seemed to suggest that a door would open to them for bank card yuan business in the country.But they had read Li wrong: The premier's...
Sinica Podcast
11.14.14Behind the Curtain at APEC
from Sinica Podcast
With tensions between the West and Russia running high over Ukraine, China and Japan still wrangling over the Diaoyu islands, and America and China fighting over pretty much the same old petty stuff, it's easy to be cynical about APEC. But this...
ChinaFile Recommends
11.11.14What Brookings Experts Are Saying about Obama in Asia
Brookings Institution
Experts recently joined together in a full-day conference to examine the economic, environmental, political, and security implications of President Obama's trip to China and his interactions with President Xi Jinping.
ChinaFile Recommends
11.11.14China to Debut Fighter Jet as U.S. Brass Attends Airshow
Bloomberg
Manufactured by the Shenyang subsidiary of Aviation Industry Corp of China, also known as AVIC, the J-31 is a test of the country’s ability to deliver cutting-edge defense technology.
ChinaFile Recommends
11.11.14Obama’s Focus in China Is on Leader, Not Public
New York Times
The White House has also changed its approach to the Chinese news media. In 2009, Mr. Obama gave an interview to Southern Weekly, a newspaper based in Guangdong Province that is known for pushing the limits of China’s censorship rules. The...
Sinica Podcast
11.10.14Damned Lies, Statistics, and China
from Sinica Podcast
In a country where every single province frequently reports annual growth rates exceeding the national average, and the country’s premier is applauded for publicly ignoring his own National Bureau of Statistics, it isn't hard to take Mark Twain...
ChinaFile Recommends
11.10.14Xi Outlines Four Expected Achievements of APEC Meetings
China Daily
The first achievement will be the launch of the Free Trade Area of the Asia-Pacific (FTAAP) process, which points out the direction for Asia-Pacific cooperation, Chinese President Xi Jinping said.
ChinaFile Recommends
11.10.14Few Signs of Construction at Yujiapu, China's Manhattan Replica
NBC News
Complete with its own Rockefeller Center and Twin Towers, Yujiapu been billed as the world's largest financial center in the making. But this Manhattan still has a long way to go.
ChinaFile Recommends
11.10.14Shanghai-Hong Kong Link to Start in a Week as China Opens
Bloomberg
The program allowing a net 23.5 billion yuan ($3.8 billion) of daily cross-border purchases will begin on November 17, regulators said in a joint statement today after weeks of investor speculation on the start date.
Viewpoint
11.08.14Obama’s Chance to Get China Right
With much of his domestic agenda now stymied by the Republican sweep of Congress, President Obama’s room for maneuver remains greatest in foreign affairs. Yet with much of the Middle East in flames, an angry Vladimir Putin threatening Russian...
Sinica Podcast
11.07.14David Walker on China in the Australian Mind
from Sinica Podcast
{vertical_photo_right}This week on Sinica, Kaiser and Jeremy are delighted to be joined by Professor David Walker, Chair of the Australian Studies department at Peking University and historian with a special focus on Australian immigration policies...