ChinaFile Recommends
08.08.18China Ignores Trump Threat on Iran, Says Business There Will Continue
CNBC
U.S. sanctions against Iran came into effect Tuesday and President Donald Trump has warned that countries who trade with Tehran will not be able to do business with the U.S. Trump also said he will expand the punitive measures in the coming weeks to...
Conversation
08.07.18![](https://www.chinafile.com/sites/default/files/styles/system/public/assets/images/article/system/48756_sm.jpg?itok=X1kIyaUx)
We’re a Long Way from 2008
On August 8, 2008, China’s then Chairman Hu Jintao told a group of world leaders visiting Beijing to attend the Olympics that “the historic moment we have long awaited is arriving.” Indeed, awarding the Games to China in 2001 sparked a fierce debate...
ChinaFile Recommends
08.07.18How Taming the Mekong Could Give China Unprecedented Power
Bloomberg
The deadly collapse of one of the dozen or so dams dotted along the Mekong River and its tributaries has highlighted the rapid development of a waterway that is increasingly important strategically for China and its neighbors.
ChinaFile Recommends
08.07.18China’s Gas Tariffs Are a Permian-Size Problem for Oil
Bloomberg
The latest bit of America’s energy sector to feel the over-the-shoulder lash is the liquefied natural gas-export business. On Friday, LNG joined the list of goods that China will hit with tariffs in retaliation for U.S. ones. This...
ChinaFile Recommends
08.07.18Chinese Audiences Will Not See Disney’s New Movie Starring Notorious Outlaw Winnie the Pooh
Slate
Christopher Robin, which is already in theaters in the U.S., is the second Disney movie to be rejected in China this year, following A Wrinkle in Time. Another source told THR that Christopher Robin was not...
ChinaFile Recommends
08.07.18‘We’re a People Destroyed’: Why Uighur Muslims across China Are Living in Fear
Guardian
Gene A Bunin has spent the past 18 months talking to Uighur restaurant workers all over China. These conversations reveal how this Muslim minority feel the daily threat of arrest, detention and ‘re-education’
ChinaFile Recommends
08.07.18China Claims to Have Successfully Tested Its First Hypersonic Aircraft
CNN
The China Academy of Aerospace Aerodynamics (CAAA), based in Beijing and part of the state-owned China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation, conducted the first test of the "Starry Sky-2" aircraft last Friday.
ChinaFile Recommends
08.06.18Australia’s China Reset
It’s no secret that Professor Francis Fukuyama got it wrong in his classic “End of History” treatise, published in the dying days of the Cold War. More interesting is why he got it wrong. His conclusion that the Western model of...
ChinaFile Recommends
08.06.18Ai Weiwei Responds To Chinese Authorities Destroying His Beijing Studio
NPR
In Beijing, the AFP reports that authorities have slated the neighborhood surrounding Ai's studio for redevelopment. According to the AP, Beijing has destroyed "large swaths of the suburbs over the past year in a building safety campaign...
ChinaFile Recommends
08.06.18China's Yuan, Shares Fall as Trade Row Overshadows Policy Shift
Bloomberg
The onshore yuan slipped 0.17 percent to 6.8402 per dollar as of 4:02 p.m., while the Shanghai Composite Index closed down 1.3 percent at its lowest since February 2016. The ChiNext gauge of small caps and tech stocks fared even worse, tumbling 2.8...
ChinaFile Recommends
08.06.18Worries Grow in Singapore Over China’s Calls to Help ‘Motherland’
New York Times
Growing up in Singapore, Chan Kian Kuan always took pride in his Teochew heritage — the dialect, the cultural traditions and the famous steamed fish. But after visiting his ancestral village in Teochew, in Guangdong Province, China, and seeing the...
Viewpoint
08.02.18![](https://www.chinafile.com/sites/default/files/styles/system/public/assets/images/article/system/donate-sus.jpg?itok=12JXBfBS)
Remaking China’s Civil Society in the Xi Jinping Era
Given his past animosity towards civil society, Xi’s actions have been seen by some as moving China towards a new form of totalitarianism and a closing of the space for civil society. I would argue instead that we should see Xi’s ascendancy,...
ChinaFile Recommends
08.02.18China’s Currency Slide Risks a Horrible Misunderstanding with Trump
Telegraph
China’s currency slide is graduating from benign neglect to something more deliberate. Whether or not you deem it currency warfare, it is playing with political and financial fire.
ChinaFile Recommends
08.02.18Pakistan Puts a Spotlight on China’s Opaque Loans
Financial Times
Imran Khan, Pakistan’s former cricket captain and newly elected prime minister, is on a sticky wicket. His victory in last week’s polls was secured in part on a pledge to ramp up spending on public services. Yet the coffers are empty and a balance...
ChinaFile Recommends
08.02.18Germany Toughens Stance and Blocks China Deal
Sydney Morning Herald
Merkel's cabinet on Wednesday voted to block the potential purchase of German machine tool manufacturer Leifeld Metal Spinning by a Chinese investor. The government took the precautionary measure even though the Yantai Taihai Group indicated at...
ChinaFile Recommends
08.02.18China Says U.S. Trade Pressure Won’t Work
Wall Street Journal
China fired back after the Trump administration threatened to double proposed tariffs on $200 billion in Chinese goods, saying it won’t yield to White House pressure.
ChinaFile Recommends
08.02.18China’s Empire of Money Is Reshaping Global Trade
Bloomberg
China is building a very 21st century empire—one where trade and debt lead the way, not armadas and boots on the ground. If President Xi Jinping’s ambitions become a reality, Beijing will cement its position at the center of a new world economic...
Conversation
08.01.18![](https://www.chinafile.com/sites/default/files/styles/system/public/assets/images/article/system/iran0-sys.jpg?itok=wWiLKz4e)
What Would a U.S. War—or Peace—with Iran mean for China?
China is the largest buyer of Iranian oil, Iran’s largest trading partner, and arguably its most important positive political relationship. What do Trump’s threats to Iran mean for China’s relationship with the country? And how would a war between...
ChinaFile Recommends
08.01.18As China’s Woes Mount, Xi Jinping Faces Rare Rebuke at Home
New York Times
China’s top leader, Xi Jinping, seemed indomitable when lawmakers abolished a term limit on his power early this year. But months later, China has been struck by economic headwinds, a vaccine scandal and trade battles with Washington, emboldening...
ChinaFile Recommends
08.01.18U.S. Defense Bill Seeks to Counter China
Wall Street Journal
Congress is preparing to enact a defense-policy bill that some lawmakers say is tougher on China than any in history, as a bipartisan movement to confront Beijing gathers steam. The measure, an annual policy bill that will authorize $716 billion in...
ChinaFile Recommends
08.01.18As Trump’s Tariffs Start to Bite, China Pledges It’ll Keep Its Economy Stable
CNBC
In a statement carried by China’s state media after a meeting of the Politburo, a top decision-making body of the ruling Communist Party, Beijing said it will take targeted measures to solve issues in the economy. The Chinese economy is facing “some...
ChinaFile Recommends
08.01.18Chinese Surveillance Expands to Muslims Making Mecca Pilgrimage
Wall Street Journal
The state-run China Islamic Association published photos of Chinese Muslims at the Beijing airport departing for Mecca in Saudi Arabia in recent days wearing customized “smart cards” on blue lanyards around their necks. The devices, which include a...
ChinaFile Recommends
08.01.18Trump’s Tariffs Push Electronics From China to Southeast Asia
Bloomberg
A number of Taiwanese firms that form a crucial plank of the global supply chain have in recent days signaled their intention to diversify away from the world’s No. 2 economy. Delta Electronics Inc., which supplies power components to Apple Inc.,...
ChinaFile Recommends
08.01.18China’s Plan to Win Friends and Influence Includes Ski Slopes and Spas
New York Times
In Thailand, a theater rigged with hydraulic seats will give moviegoers the sensation of flight. In Australia, an indoor ski slope is going up near the beaches of the Gold Coast. In the Czech Republic, a spa with Chinese medicine is under...
ChinaFile Recommends
07.31.18Kazakh Trial Throws Spotlight on China’s Internment Centres
Financial Times
The trial of a Chinese citizen who fled to Kazakhstan has offered rare insight into China’s secretive internment system, with Beijing’s security campaign in the western region of Xinjiang increasingly putting neighbouring countries in central Asia...
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07.31.18Disgraced Former Chinese Internet Tzar Lu Wei Charged with Bribery
CNN
Lu Wei “accepted a large number of bribes” during his time as national propaganda chief, head of the Cyberspace Administration of China, deputy head of the official Xinhua news agency, and as a Beijing city official, according to state media.
ChinaFile Recommends
07.31.18China in Africa: Win-Win Development, or a New Colonialism?
Guardian
As their hand-built wooden dhow approaches the shore, Ibrahim Chamume and his fellow fishermen take in the sail and prepare to sell their catch to the small huddle of villagers waiting on the white sand. He has been making a living like this on the...
ChinaFile Recommends
07.30.18From a Space Station in Argentina, China Expands Its Reach in Latin America
New York Times
The giant antenna rises from the desert floor like an apparition, a gleaming metal tower jutting 16 stories above an endless wind-whipped stretch of Patagonia. The 450-ton device, with its hulking dish embracing the open skies, is the centerpiece of...
The China Africa Project
07.26.18![](https://www.chinafile.com/sites/default/files/styles/system/public/assets/images/article/system/gettyimages-939646392_sys.jpg?itok=piFV1_ya)
Where Does Africa Fit in Xi Jinping’s Worldview?
The Forum on China-Africa Cooperation summit will take place at a delicate time for Chinese President Xi Jinping, as he confronts enormous challenges related to the ongoing trade war with the United States and, at the same time, huge opportunities...
ChinaFile Recommends
07.26.18Facebook’s Return to China Thrown into Doubt
BBC
The company, like all major US tech platforms, has been blocked in the country since 2009. Facebook said on Wednesday it had secured a licence to set up an “innovation hub to support Chinese developers, innovators and start-ups”. But 24 hours later...
ChinaFile Recommends
07.26.18More of Africa Finds Itself in China’s Debt
Wall Street Journal
Chinese President Xi Jinping has signed a slate of investment deals during a weeklong tour of Africa, feeding into concerns in the West and on the continent over ballooning levels of indebtedness to Beijing and its expanding political footprint.
ChinaFile Recommends
07.26.18China Hasn’t Delivered on Its $24 Billion Philippines Promise
Bloomberg
Of the 27 deals signed between China and the Philippines during Duterte’s visit to Beijing in October 2016, China originally agreed to provide $9 billion in soft loans, including a $3 billion credit line with the Bank of China, with a further $15...
ChinaFile Recommends
07.26.18Lone Suspect Wounded in Blast near U.S. Embassy in China
Reuters
The explosion happened on the street outside the southeast corner of the embassy compound. Beijing police said the suspect, a 26-year-old man from China’s Inner Mongolia region, had injured his hand and been taken to the hospital. Police did not...
Books
07.26.18![](https://www.chinafile.com/sites/default/files/styles/system/public/assets/images/books/system/stephen-paltt.jpg?itok=84j8veTH)
![](https://www.chinafile.com/sites/default/files/assets/images/books/covers/imperial-twilight-jkt.jpg)
Imperial Twilight
Alfred A. Knopf: As China reclaims its position as a world power, Imperial Twilight looks back to tell the story of the country’s last age of ascendance and how it came to an end in the 19th-century Opium War.When Britain launched its first war on China in 1839, pushed into hostilities by profiteering drug merchants and free-trade interests, it sealed the fate of what had long been seen as the most prosperous and powerful empire in Asia, if not the world. But internal problems of corruption, popular unrest, and dwindling finances had weakened China far more than was commonly understood, and the war would help set in motion the eventual fall of the Qing dynasty—which, in turn, would lead to the rise of nationalism and communism in the 20th century. As one of the most potent turning points in the country’s modern history, the Opium War has since come to stand for everything that today’s China seeks to put behind it.In this dramatic, epic story, award-winning historian Stephen Platt sheds new light on the early attempts by Western traders and missionaries to “open” China—traveling mostly in secret beyond Canton, the single port where they were allowed—even as China’s imperial rulers were struggling to manage their country’s decline and Confucian scholars grappled with how to use foreign trade to China’s advantage. The book paints an enduring portrait of an immensely profitable and mostly peaceful meeting of civilizations at Canton over the long term that was destined to be shattered by one of the most shockingly unjust wars in the annals of imperial history. Brimming with a fascinating cast of British, Chinese, and American individuals, this riveting narrative of relations between China and the West has important implications for today’s uncertain and ever-changing political climate.{chop}
ChinaFile Recommends
07.25.18Trump Says China Is ‘Being Vicious’ and Targeting U.S. Farmers on Purpose
CNBC
Trump’s comment comes after the administration announced a $12 billion bailout plan for farmers hit by tariffs on their goods. Earlier this month, China slapped a 25 percent tariff on U.S. soybeans, one of the biggest U.S. exports to China.
ChinaFile Recommends
07.25.18China Stimulates Again, but Don’t Expect Fireworks
Wall Street Journal
The country’s main stock benchmark was up 1.6% Tuesday, after a call from China’s cabinet overnight for more fiscal spending, abundant liquidity, and—perhaps most significant—support for the “reasonable” fundraising needs of local governments’...
ChinaFile Recommends
07.25.18Giving In to China, U.S. Airlines Drop Taiwan (in Name at Least)
New York Times
You can book a ticket to Taipei from New York on a major American airline. Just don’t ask them which country you are going to. American, which was the first to make the switch, listed Taipei Taoyuan International Airport, the city’s main airport, as...
ChinaFile Recommends
07.25.18China and India Launch Investment Spree in Africa Ahead of Key Summit
CNBC
Chinese President Xi Jinping and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi have continued to lend in tandem to African countries ahead of a major emerging markets summit in Johannesburg, South Africa, beginning on Wednesday.
ChinaFile Recommends
07.25.18One in Five Arrests Take Place in ‘Police State’ Xinjiang
Guardian
Analysing publicly available government data, the advocacy group Chinese Human Rights Defenders (CHRD), found 21% of all arrests in China in 2017 were in Xinjiang
China in the World Podcast
07.25.18![](https://www.chinafile.com/sites/default/files/styles/system/public/assets/images/article/system/tech_war-sys.jpg?itok=ZWOvvZFo)
U.S.-China Tensions over Trade and Technology
from Carnegie China
Chen says deteriorating bilateral relations are due to both the Trump administration’s trade policies and to a growing U.S. consensus that foreign policy toward China should be reevaluated. The Chinese government’s view that industrial policy is a...
Viewpoint
07.13.18![](https://www.chinafile.com/sites/default/files/styles/system/public/assets/images/article/system/copy_of_liu_xiaobo.jpeg?itok=d_mBm99j)
‘Liu Knew His Responsibility in History’
He was risking not the immediate arrival of soldiers, but the inevitable and life-threatening imprisonment that befalls all people who challenge state power in China today. This was not an active decision to die, but a willingness to do so. The...
ChinaFile Recommends
07.12.18China’s Effort to Control Debt Loses Steam
Wall Street Journal
China is letting up on its drive to keep a lid on debt growth as it faces a softening economy at home and escalating trade tensions with the U.S.
ChinaFile Recommends
07.12.18US-China Trade Brawl Threatens America’s Booming Oil Exports
CNN
China is America’s second-biggest crude oil customer, and Beijing has threatened to retaliate against President Donald Trump’s trade crackdown by imposing tariffs on US crude oil.
ChinaFile Recommends
07.12.18Chinese Professor Accused of Sexual Harassment Is Barred From Teaching
A major university in southern China has barred a professor from teaching after female students went public with sexual harassment allegations against him, unhappy that the university had not taken swifter, firmer action.
ChinaFile Recommends
07.12.18Surveillance Fears Cloud China’s ‘Digital Silk Road’
CNBC
A major element of China’s continent-spanning Belt and Road Initiative has nothing to do with roads, ports or power plants.
ChinaFile Recommends
07.12.18China Is Better Able To Withstand A Trade War Than In The Past
NPR
As President Trump threatens to heap more tariffs on Chinese imports, he’s got one important fact on his side: The United States remains China’s biggest single export market, buying some $500 billion in goods last year alone.
ChinaFile Recommends
07.12.18China’s Human Rights Record, Aggressive Military Expansion Damage Its Soft Power Rating
South China Morning Post
China’s soft power has been weakened by its hard line on foreign policy and human rights, according to an annual survey released on Thursday.
Conversation
07.12.18![](https://www.chinafile.com/sites/default/files/styles/system/public/assets/images/article/system/trump-eu-sys.jpg?itok=VJ5bF6-r)
Can China Replace the U.S. in Europe?
The G7 debacle reminded Europeans the problems with relying on a fraying transatlantic partnership. Meanwhile, China has been playing a larger role on the continent, increasing its investment and its political influence. On July 6-7, Bulgaria held...
ChinaFile Recommends
07.11.18Uighur Children Fall Victim to China Anti-Terror Drive
Financial Times
On a quiet street in the ancient Silk Road city of Kashgar, a house lies empty, padlocked from the outside, the family who lived there gone.
ChinaFile Recommends
07.11.18Crisis in U.S. Nuclear Talks With Pyongyang Not China’s Doing, Experts Say
Foreign Policy
President Donald Trump has suggested that China might be to blame for an apparent crisis in nuclear talks between the United States and North Korea — arguing that Beijing could be undermining the agreement because of anger over the escalating trade...
ChinaFile Recommends
07.11.18Qin Yongmin: Prominent Chinese Dissident Jailed for 13 Years
BBC
One of China’s highest-profile democracy campaigners has been sentenced to 13 years in prison for “subversion of state power”.
ChinaFile Recommends
07.11.18New Round of U.S.-China Trade War Rattles Global Markets
New York Times
President Trump’s escalating trade war with China rattled global markets on Wednesday.
Books
07.10.18![](https://www.chinafile.com/sites/default/files/styles/system/public/assets/images/books/system/lianxi-sys.jpg?itok=WBdNcjrk)
![](https://www.chinafile.com/sites/default/files/assets/images/books/covers/book_cover_hq.jpg)
Blood Letters
Basic Books: The staggering story of the most important Chinese political dissident of the Mao era, a devout Christian who was imprisoned, tortured, and executed by the regime.Blood Letters tells the astonishing tale of Lin Zhao, a poet and journalist arrested by the authorities in 1960 and executed eight years later, at the height of the Cultural Revolution. Openly and steadfastly opposing communism under Mao, she rooted her dissent in her Christian faith—and expressed it in long, prophetic writings done in her own blood, and at times on her clothes and on cloth torn from her bedsheets.Miraculously, Lin Zhao’s prison writings survived, though they have only recently come to light. Drawing on these works and others from the years before her arrest, as well as interviews with her friends, her classmates, and other former political prisoners, Lian Xi paints an indelible portrait of courage and faith in the face of unrelenting evil.{chop}
Sinica Podcast
07.09.18![](https://www.chinafile.com/sites/default/files/styles/system/public/assets/images/article/system/kurt-campbell-sys.jpg?itok=0eaMXpU1)
Kurt Campbell on U.S.-China Diplomacy
from Sinica Podcast
Kaiser talks to former Assistant Secretary of State for East Asia and Pacific Affairs Kurt Campbell about his career, his critique of engagement, and the fascinating events that happened on his watch—including the extrication of blind activist...
ChinaFile Recommends
07.03.18Exclusive: China Presses Europe for Anti-U.S. Alliance on Trade
Reuters
China is putting pressure on the European Union to issue a strong joint statement against President Donald Trump’s trade policies at a summit later this month but is facing resistance, European officials said.
ChinaFile Recommends
07.03.18Trump Moves to Block China Mobile's U.S. Entry on Security Concerns
Reuters
The U.S. government has moved to block China Mobile (0941.HK) from offering services to the country’s telecommunications market, recommending its application be rejected because the firm posed national security risks.
ChinaFile Recommends
07.03.18How Britain Went to War With China Over Opium
New York Times
In 1840, Britain went to war with China over questions of trade, diplomacy, national dignity and, most importantly, drug trafficking. While British officials tried to play down the illicit origins of the conflict, opponents gave it a name that made...
ChinaFile Recommends
07.03.18China’s Massive ‘Belt and Road’ Spending Spree Has Caused Concern around the World, and Now It's China’s Turn to Worry
Business Insider
Since announcing its Belt and Road Initiative five years ago, China has spread billions of dollars around Asia, Africa, and Eastern Europe, supporting a variety of infrastructure projects and stoking concern about Beijing's growing global sway.
ChinaFile Recommends
07.03.18As ‘Health Attacks’ Persist, U.S. Pulls More Americans Out of China
Wall Street Journal
The U.S. has evacuated at least three Americans from Beijing after they reported unusual health symptoms, in the latest evacuations since unexplained health incidents first affected U.S. diplomatic personnel stationed in Cuba in 2016.
ChinaFile Recommends
07.03.18China Issues U.S. Travel Warning Amid Trade Tensions
Reuters
China’s embassy in Washington has issued a security advisory to Chinese nationals traveling to the United States, the latest such warning as trade tensions escalate between the two countries.