Viewpoint

09.13.13

The Urgency of Partnership

Paula S. Harrell
While the media keeps its eye on the ongoing Diaoyu/Senkaku islands dispute, heating up yet again this week after Chinese naval ships and aircraft were spotted circling the area, a parallel, possibly game-changing development in China-Japan...

Conversation

09.13.13

What Can China and Japan Do to Start Anew?

Paula S. Harrell & Chen Weihua
Paula S. Harrell:While the media keeps its eye on the ongoing Diaoyu/Senkaku islands dispute, heating up yet again this week after Chinese naval ships and aircraft were spotted circling the area, a parallel, possibly game-changing development in...

Sinica Podcast

09.13.13

Petroleum and Purges

Kaiser Kuo, Jeremy Goldkorn & more from Sinica Podcast
The Beijing rumor-mill is back on overdrive. With the trial of Bo Xilai only barely concluded and the country now openly speculating on the length of the disgraced politician’s likely sentence, factional battles targeting Bo’s remaining supporters...

Books

09.12.13

Blocked on Weibo

Jason Q. Ng
Though often described with foreboding buzzwords such as “The Great Firewall” and the “censorship regime,” Internet regulation in China is rarely either obvious or straightforward. This was the  inspiration for China specialist Jason Q. Ng to write an innovative computer script that would make it possible to deduce just which  terms are  suppressed on  China’s most important social media site, Sina Weibo. The  remarkable and groundbreaking result is Blocked on Weibo, which began as a highly  praised blog and has been expanded here  to list over 150 forbidden keywords, as well as offer possible explanations why the Chinese government would find these terms sensitive.As Ng explains, Weibo (roughly the equivalent of Twitter), with over 500 million registered accounts, censors hundreds of words and phrases, ranging from fairly obvious terms, including “tank” (a reference to the “Tank Man” who stared down the Chinese army in Tiananmen Square) and  the names of top government officials (if they can’t be found online, they can’t be criticized), to deeply obscure references, including “hairy bacon” (a coded insult referring to Mao’s embalmed body).With dozens of phrases that could get a Chinese Internet user invited  to the  local  police station “for a cup of tea” (a euphemism for being detained by the  authorities), Blocked  on Weibo offers an invaluable guide to sensitive topics in modern-day China as well as a fascinating tour of recent Chinese history.  —The New Press{chop}

Political Maneuvering: The Plot Thickens

Economist
Xi Jinping has been taking down crooked officials in an attempt to consolidate power and make good on a promise to clean up the Party. But what does it mean now he’s set his sights on former chief of domestic security and one-time oilman...

U.S. Giving China a Free Pass on Syria

Josh Gerstein
Politico
As American officials bitterly denounce Russia for blocking the United Nations from endorsing action over Syria’s alleged use of chemical weapons, another global power that has taken a similar stand seems to be getting a free pass from the U.S:...

China’s Xi Tells Obama Syria Crisis Can’t Be Resolved with Military Strike

Sui-Lee Wee
Reuters
China has called for a full and impartial investigation by U.N. chemical weapons inspectors in Syria into the attack, and has warned against pre-judging the results. It has also said that whoever used chemical weapons had...

Communist Party Members May Be Ineligible for U.S. Green Card

U.S. and China Visa Law Blog
The U.S. Immigration and Nationality Act still makes ineligible for permanent residence any person who “is or has been a member of or affiliated with” the Chinese Communist Party (C.C.P.). There are certain exceptions and waivers, however...

Chinese Official Yu Qiyi ‘Drowned by Investigators’

BBC
Yu Qiyi, who was a Communist Party member of Wenzhou Industry Investment Group, died during the shuanggui process, an internal disciplinary procedure where officials are asked to confess wrongdoings. 

China Corruption Probe Reflects Struggle

Deutsche Welle
Analysts argue the investigation, which involves four other top executives of state-owned enterprises, is an attempt by Xi Jinping and Premier Li Keqiang to assert their authority over powerful S.O.E.’s. 

The Search for Sustainable Legitimacy: Environmental Law and Bureaucracy

Alex Wang
Social Science Research Network
This article seeks to offer insight into a number of broader ongoing debates — about environmental regulation in developing countries, accountability and regime survival in authoritarian states, and legal development in China. 

Caixin Media

09.10.13

Sober Day Dawns for China’s Baijiu Distillers

Distillers of China’s most popular spirits, baijiu, are sobering up to a business slowdown and tight financing after a decade of outstanding growth.Sales are off and company market values have fallen over the past year, prompting some investors to...

Reports

09.10.13

Threading the Needle: Proposals for U.S. and Chinese Actions on Arms Sales to Taiwan

Piin-Fen Kok and David J. Firestein
EastWest Institute
The sale of U.S. arms to Taiwan has been an enduring source of friction between the United States and China. To China, Taiwan is a “core” interest. Though the United States publicly committed itself, through the August 17, 1982 Joint Communique with...

Conversation

09.09.13

What Are Chinese Attitudes Toward a U.S. Strike in Syria?

Chen Weihua, Vincent Ni & more
Chen Weihua:Chinese truly believe that there is no military solution to the Syrian crisis. On the contrary, a U.S. air strike would only worsen the situation there. Chinese have seen many failures of U.S. intervention in the Middle East in the past...

Media

09.06.13

Follow the Money: Who Benefits from China’s One-Child Policy?

When debating China’s one-child policy, China’s domestic media and observers overseas mostly focus on its impact on the population structure or incidences of inhumanity involved in the implementation of the policy (such as forced abortion). Almost...

Deng Xiaoping’s Lessons for Today’s China

Bloomberg
The earthy Deng, father of reform-era China, favored a Chinese phrase to describe the current anti-corruption maneuvers being undertaken at Xi Jinping’s behest: killing a chicken to scare the monkeys. 

China’s Corruption Purge Continues Against Zhou Yongkang

Wenguang Huang and Pin Ho
Daily Beast
As the Chinese public is eagerly awaiting the verdict of Bo Xilai, China’s anti-corruption agency is taking down another target: the 70-year-old Zhou Yongkang, dubbed by overseas media as China’s security tsar, has been put under...

China’s New Leaders Exert Control Over Oil Company

Associated Press
The crackdown on China’s biggest company — also the second-largest oil company in the world — signals the new administration’s determination to exert control over the powerful sector, said Cheng Li, a Brookings Institution scholar. 

Zhou Yongkang, Former Security Tsar Linked to Bo Xilai, Faces Corruption Probe

South China Morning Post
Sources said top leaders made the decision in view of the rising anger inside the party at the scale of the corruption problem and the vast fortune that Zhou's family has amassed. Xi ordered officials in charge of the case to “get to the bottom...

Look Who’s Afraid of Democracy

New York Times
For all of China’s vaunted influence in the world, many of its top leaders are deeply fearful of losing control of their own country. That fear is reflected in the Bo Xilai trial and the recently revealed “Document No. 9” warning of subversive...

Conversation

09.05.13

To Reform or Not Reform?—Echoes of the Late Qing Dynasty

Orville Schell, John Delury & more
Orville Schell:It is true that China is no longer beset by threats of foreign incursion nor is it a laggard in the world of economic development and trade. But being there and being steeped in an atmosphere of seemingly endless political and...

Viewpoint

09.04.13

The Confessions of a Reactionary

Teng Biao
This article first appeared in Life and Death in China (a multi-volume anthology of fifty-plus witness accounts of Chinese government persecution and thirty-plus essays by experts in human rights in China). When I wrote it [on the evening of June 3...

Media

09.04.13

China’s Crackdown on Social Media: Who Is in Danger?

There is a Chinese proverb that says one must kill a chicken to scare the monkeys, which means to punish someone in order to make an example out of them. That is what many believe happened last Sunday when outspoken investor and Internet celebrity...

Caixin Media

09.04.13

China’s Shale Gas Development Goals Just Pipe Dreams

China wants to reap the benefits of a shale gas revolution similar to the one in the United States, but there are many obstacles to this happening, experts say.In the first half of 2013, fifty-six shale gas wells were in the exploratory phase in the...

Reports

09.04.13

How to Make China More Honest

Derek Scissors
The Heritage Foundation
Official Chinese economic statistics, from unemployment to arable land, are controlled by the Communist Party and therefore cannot be trusted. The prevailing American and global view of China as a rising, if presently troubled, economic superpower...

China Investigating More Top PetroChina Executives Over Corruption

Chen Aizhu and Charlie Zhu
Reuters
A high-level government probe into corruption at China's leading oil and gas firm widened on Tuesday, with three additional senior officials at the state-run giant being investigated over alleged wrongdoing, which is C.C.P. shorthand for graft...

Today’s Alarming Japan-China Charts

James Fallows
Atlantic
Due to a variety of factors, the amount of Japanese people who dislike China and the amount of Chinese people who dislike Japan are on the rise, while those with positive feelings about the other country descends, according to recent polls.

Books

09.03.13

China Across the Divide

Rosemary Foot (Editor)
Understanding China’s world role has become one of the crucial intellectual challenges of the 21st century. This book explores this topic through the adoption of three conceptual approaches that help to uncover some of the key complex and simultaneous interactions between the global and domestic forces that determine China’s external behavior. A central assumption of this study is that it is unhelpful to treat the global and domestic levels as separate categories of analysis and that the study of China can be enriched by a recognition of the interpenetrated nature of the domestic and international spheres.The first section of the book concentrates on the role of ideas. It examines Chinese conceptions, at both the elite and mass levels, of the country’s status and role in global politics, and how these conceptions can influence and frame policies. The second section provides evidence of Chinese societal involvement in transnational processes that are simultaneously transforming China as well as other parts of the world, often in unintended ways. The third section assesses the impact of globalization on China in issue areas that are central to global order, and outlines the domestic responses—from resistance to embrace—that it generates. This study adopts a multidisciplinary approach involving scholars in international relations, history, social anthropology, and area studies. It offers a sophisticated understanding of Chinese thought and behavior and illustrates the impact that China’s re-emergence is having on 21st century global order.  —Oxford University Press {chop}

Political Staging in Trial of Fallen China Official

Edward Wong and Jonathan Ansfield
New York Times
The courtroom spectacle is an effort by the party to convince Bo’s elite party allies and ordinary supporters that he had his say in court, and that the long prison sentence he is expected to get is based on evidence of crimes committed, not...

Bo Xilai Trial Transcripts Expose a Privileged World of Wealth

Barbara Demick
Los Angeles Times
The corruption trial of Bo Xilai is offering the world a peek past the vermilion walls of the Chinese leadership compounds and through the tinted glass of their motorcades into a private sphere of immense entitlement. 

Sinica Podcast

08.30.13

The Trial of the Century

Kaiser Kuo, Jeremy Goldkorn & more from Sinica Podcast
The spectacular trial of Bo Xilai seized the media’s attention last week as the fallen politburo member—still widely admired in Chongqing and Dalian and heavily connected among the Party elite—defended himself with unexpected vigor against charges...

Prosecutors Say Disgraced Chinese Politician Knew About Bribes

Jonathan Ansfield and Edward Wong
New York Times
Prosecutors in the trial of Bo Xilai presented testimony on Friday asserting that he knew about a villa on the French Riviera bought for his family by a tycoon and about demands for compensation from the manager of the villa who...

6 Things You Need to Know About Bo Xilai’s Trial

Isaac Stone Fish
Foreign Policy
Day one of disgraced Chinese politician Bo Xilai’s trial on charges of bribery, corruption, and abusing his power has come to an end. For those who didn’t spend last night glued to their devices, here’s what you missed. 

The East is Still Red

John Garnaut
Foreign Policy
China’s Left believes that only a stronger Communist Party could solve the country’s problems of corruption, inequality, and moral torpor. Those on the Right believe unbridled state power is actually the problem, as China learned during the Mao...

38 Lenders Linked to Embattled Conglomerate

Wen Xiu and Yu Ning
Xu Ming, the billionaire chairman of Shide Group, a conglomerate based in Dalian has been missing since March 14. Following his disappearance banks have started reviewing loans made to Shide. 

China Boss’s Fall Puts Focus on a Business Ally

David Barboza
New York Times
Entrepreneur Xu Ming allegedly funneled millions of dollars in bribes to Bo Xilai and his family, including paying for trips and perhaps even giving the family a $3.5 million villa on the French Riviera, according to people briefed on the indictment...

Bo Xilai Supporters Demonstrate in Shandong on Eve of Trial

Reuters
About 10 people held up signs outside the courthouse in the eastern city of Jinan in Shandong province, where Bo is set to appear in public on Thursday for the first time in 17 months to face charges of bribery, corruption and abuse of power.&...

At Bo Xilai Trial, a Goal to Blast Acts, Not Ideas

Edward Wong and Chris Buckley
New York Times
In a delicate balancing act, China’s leaders aim to simultaneously parade Mr. Bo as a criminal and silence his most vocal supporters while avoiding tarring the leftist policies he championed or alienating important revolutionary families. 

Kenya’s Kenyatta and China’s Xi Sign $5 Billion Deals

BBC
Kenya has signed deals worth $5 billion with China to build a railway line, an energy project and to improve wildlife protection, officials say. They were signed during Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta's first visit to China since his...

Cyber-Disconnect at Joint U.S.-China Press Conference

Anna Murline
Christian Science Monitor
Defense Secretary Hagel called a new U.S.-China cyberaffairs working group a ‘venue for addressing issues of mutual concern.’ His Chinese counterpart, General Chang Wanquan, denied there was a problem. 

Conversation

08.28.13

Beijing, Why So Tense?

Andrew J. Nathan, Isabel Hilton & more
Andrew Nathan:I think of the Chinese leaders as holding a plant spritzer and dousing sparks that are jumping up all around them.  Mao made the famous remark, “A single spark can start a prairie fire.”  The leaders have seen that...

Bo Guagua’s Statement

New York Times
 Bo Guagua released to The New York Times on August 19. Mr. Bo’s father, Bo Xilai, a former Chinese Communist Party official, is scheduled to go on trial on August 22 on charges of taking bribes, corruption and abuse of power. 

Political Rebalancing: Tilting Backwards

J.M.
Economist
The speed with which Mr Xi has moved to establish his conservative ideological credentials, having at first struck a somewhat more liberal tone, has still been a surprise to some observers.  

Media

08.27.13

The Surprise Loser of China’s Trial of the Century: Its Corruption Watchdog

It seems like everybody has something to gain from Show Trial 2.0, a.k.a. the semi-live tweeting of fallen politician Bo Xilai’s day in court.Bo Xilai the showman takes a bow with a flourish; Gu Kailai, the scorned wife, exacts sweet revenge;...

Caixin Media

08.27.13

Inner Mongolia: Where Bankers Sold Bunk

Underlying the trial of a woman authorities say drained bank accounts and kidnapped a banker’s wife are vexing questions about account security and teller supervision at China’s state-run bank branches in Inner Mongolia.Hundreds of millions of yuan...

China Takes Aim at Western Ideas

Chris Buckley
New York Times
Communist Party cadres have filled meeting halls around China to hear a somber, secretive warning issued by senior leaders. Power could escape their grip, they have been told, unless the party eradicates seven subversive currents coursing through...

China in Big Push Against Opinion-Leading Blogs

Didi Tang
Associated Press
Popular microbloggers were asked at a meeting in Beijing to agree to seven standards: obey the law, uphold the socialist system, guard the national interest, protect individual rights, keep social order, respect morals and ensure factuality...

China’s Fallen Former High-Flyer Bo to Stand Trial

Benjamin Kang Lin and Ben Blanchard
Reuters
The long-awaited trial of Bo who is still popular with conservatives and the disaffected, will be the country’s highest-profile hearing since the 1976 downfall of Mao Zedong’s widow, Jiang Qing, and her Gang of Four at the end of the Cultural...

China: When the Cats Rule

Ian Johnson from New York Review of Books
In the Northwest corner of Beijing’s old city is a subway and bus workshop. It was built in the early seventies on the site of the Lake of Great Peace, which was filled in as part of a plan to extend the city’s subway system. In the bigger picture...

Viewpoint

08.22.13

How Bo Xilai Split the Party and Divided the People

Ouyang Bin from Chinese Law Prof Blog
After the 1989 Tiananmen Incident, Chinese political struggles became milder and more mundane. Members of the Politburo and politicians of higher rank rarely were toppled (except for Chen Liangyu in 2006) and ideology seldom triggered significant...

Media

08.22.13

You Can’t Handle the Truth: Bo Xilai’s Courtroom Performance Wins Fans

A show trial this is not. But is a twist ending in the major blockbuster “The Life of Bo Xilai” in the offing?The long-awaited trial of Bo Xilai, once a rising star in the Chinese Communist Party, took place Thursday morning, but instead of the...

Conversation

08.21.13

Is Xi Jinping Redder Than Bo Xilai Or Vice Versa?

Michael Anti & Shai Oster
Michael Anti:Competing for Redness: The Scarlet Bo vs the Vermilion Xi?Bo Xilai, the fallen Chinese princeling famous for leading a “Red Songs” communist campaign in southwest China's megacity Chongqing, is on trial today, live-Twittered from...

Liu Xiaobo’s Brother-in-Law Liu Hui to Serve 11 Years After Losing Appeal

Tania Branigan
Guardian
 Family angered over confirmation of verdict seen as persecution of the Nobel prize-winner’s family.

Xi Jinping’s Overlooked Revelation on China’s Maritime Disputes

M. Taylor Fravel
Diplomat
Although unnoticed by foreign analysts, Xi Jinping recently signaled a desire to dial back tensions in the South and East China Seas.

China Vanke Chairman Wang Shi Defends Right to Speak out on Politics

Adrian Wan
South China Morning Post
Property tycoon Wang Shi has defended the rights of businessmen like himself to speak up on political issues, citing disgraced Politburo member Bo Xilai’s efforts to enlist his support for his controversial campaigns.

Dispatches From Xinjiang: Cultural Appropriation And The Singer Luo Lin, a.k.a. “Dao Lang”

Beige Wind
Beijing Cream
Luo Lin has in effect claimed ownership over a whole group of people, a sacred landscape and spiritual practice.

Steven Spielberg Aiming to Make a Film with Zhang Yimou in China

Andrew Pulver
Guardian
Renowned American director seeks collaboration with respected Chinese director on “international film”—their first possible contact since his withdrawal as consultant to Bejing Olympics in protest.

China to Phase Out Use of Prisoners’ Organs for Transplants

Li Hui and Ben Blanchard
Reuters
China will phase out its decades-long practice of using the organs of executed prisoners for transplants from November as it pushes to mandate the use of organs from ethical sources.

Japanese visits to shrine on war anniversary anger China

Antoni Slodkowski
Reuters
Japan's prime minister sent an offering to a shrine for war dead on the anniversary of Japan's World War II defeat, drawing harsh complaints from China and South Korea and risking tentative ties.

About That Tiananmen Tank Man Image In Cirque du Soleil’s Beijing Show

Anthony Tao
Beijing Cream
On opening night of Cirque du Soleil’s Michael Jackson: The Immortal World Tour in Beijing, the highly sensitive the Tiananmen Tank Man image was displayed on the giant big-screens above the stage in Wukesong MasterCard Arena.