Viewpoint
04.10.15
Bury Zhao Ziyang, and Praise Him
Zhao Ziyang, the premier and general secretary of the ruling Chinese Communist Party (CCP) in the 1980s, died on January 17, 2005. At a tightly controlled ceremony designed to avoid the kind of instability that the deaths of other controversial...
ChinaFile Recommends
04.10.15TV Presenter Insults Mao at Private Dinner
Guardian
CCTV is investigating a top presenters after he was caught calling Mao a “son of a bitch” at a private dinner.
The China Africa Project
04.10.15
Chinese Dreams and the African Renaissance
Leaders in both China and Africa have articulated new visions for their respective regions that project a strong sense of confidence, renewal, and a break from once-dominant Western ideologies. In both cases, argues East is Read blogger Mothusi...
ChinaFile Recommends
04.09.15We Traveled Across China and Returned Terrified for the Economy
Bloomberg
China’s steel and metals markets, a barometer of the world’s second-biggest economy, are “a lot worse than you think.”
ChinaFile Recommends
04.05.15China Escalates Hollywood Partnerships, Aiming to Compete One Day
New York Times
Chinese studios are moving up the value chain, helping to develop, design and produce world-class films and animated features.
Environment
04.02.15
‘Wolf Totem’ Trainer Sees Risks, Rewards for Hollywood in China
from chinadialogue
Wolf trainer Andrew Simpson has just wrapped up three years in Beijing coaching wolves to perform in the film version of the novel Wolf Totem. The Sino-French adaptation of Jiang Rong’s best-selling 2004 novel opened in Beijing and Europe in...
ChinaFile Recommends
04.02.15The Chinese Billionaire Zhang Lei Spins Research Into Investment Gold
New York Times
Starting 10 years ago with $20 million from Yale’s endowment, Zhang was an early backer of Tencent and JD.com.
Features
04.02.15
Frank Talk About Hong Kong’s Future from Margaret Ng
Following is the transcript of a recent ChinaFile Breakfast with Margaret Ng, the former Hong Kong legislator in discussion with Ira Belkin of New York University Law School and Orville Schell, ChinaFile Publisher and Arthur Ross Director of the...
Media
04.02.15
‘Obama Is Sitting Alone at a Bar Drinking a Consolation Beer’
Danish and Chinese netizens have just shared in a collective guffaw at America’s expense. The online lampoonery came after Denmark announced on March 28 its intent to join the Asian Investment Infrastructure Bank (AIIB), a China-led initiative...
Conversation
04.01.15
New Chinese Cyberattacks: What’s to Be Done?
Starting last week, hackers foiled a handful of software providers that promote freedom of information by helping web surfers in China reach the open Internet. The attacks that drastically slowed the anti-censorship services of San Francisco-based...
ChinaFile Recommends
03.31.15China Ban Hits Google’s Search Ad Share; Baidu Gains
International Business Times
Google’s share of 2015’s $81.59 billion search ad market at 54.5%, down from 54.7% in 2014 and 55.2% in 2013.
ChinaFile Recommends
03.31.15Mystery Surrounds Disappearance of Xinjiang Article and Related Apology
New York Times
An article on a Muslim couple jailed for beard and burqa appeared Sunday in state media but was gone Monday.
ChinaFile Recommends
03.31.15Chinese Authorities Compromise Millions in Cyberattacks
Great Firewall of China
Hijacking the computers of millions of innocent Internet users around the world shows China's disregard for Internet governance norms.
The China Africa Project
03.30.15
A Chinese Perspective on the #RacistRestaurant Scandal in Kenya
The Chinese restaurant in Nairobi that barred Africans after 5pm sparked a frenzied week of news coverage on both local and international media and, of course, on Twitter. The actions of this small, inconsequential restaurant seemingly took on much...
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03.30.15China Appears to Attack GitHub by Diverting Web Traffic
New York Times
In recent attacks on sites that try to help Internet users in China circumvent censorship, the Great Firewall appears to have been used as a weapon.
ChinaFile Recommends
03.30.15Q. and A.: Adam Fisk on Evading Internet Censorship in China
New York Times
GreatFire.org’s “mirrored” websites and the Internet bandwidth-sharing service Lantern have allowed users to access the open Internet.
ChinaFile Recommends
03.29.15U.S. Coding Website GitHub Hit With Cyberattack
Wall Street Journal
The attack appears to underscore how China’s Internet censors increasingly reach outside the country.
ChinaFile Recommends
03.27.15Beyond Ai Weiwei: How China’s Artists Handle Politics (or Avoid Them)
New Yorker
Westerners are often criticized for looking at Chinese art through a narrow political lens.
ChinaFile Recommends
03.27.15Apple is Hitler, says Chinese CEO
Verge
Chinese tech firm LeTV is rumored to be entering the smartphone market.
Media
03.26.15
Brother, Can You Spare a Renminbi?
Who deserves to be poor in modern China? One man in China’s southern Zhejiang province certainly seemed sympathetic: Each day, he pushed himself along the street on a homemade wooden skateboard, his apparently paralyzed legs tucked under his body,...
Media
03.25.15
Was Lee Kuan Yew an Inspiration or a Race Traitor? Chinese Can’t Agree
When Lee Kuan Yew, the founding father of Singapore, passed away at the ripe age of 91 on March 23, the elderly statesman was as controversial in death as in life—and nowhere was the debate more vigorous than in China. While state media was full of...
ChinaFile Recommends
03.24.15Seeing Through the Smog
China Open Research Network
Potential impacts of the documentary Under the Domes on China’s Civic Participation.
ChinaFile Recommends
03.23.15In Lee Kuan Yew, China Saw a Leader to Emulate
New York Times
Singapore won an outsize influence with China after they embarked on an experiment with controlled capitalism.
ChinaFile Recommends
03.19.15China (Finally) Admits to Hacking
Diplomat
An updated military document for the first time admits that the Chinese government sponsors offensive cyber units.
ChinaFile Recommends
03.19.15China’s Biggest Anti-Censorship Service is Under Attack
Variety
GreatFire.org has been under an unprecedented denial-of-service attack, receiving more than 2 billion requests per hour.
ChinaFile Recommends
03.19.15Yahoo to Shutter China Office and Cut “Around 350” Jobs
BBC
The move not a huge surprise as Yahoo has been retreating since 2013 when it ended email servies in China.
ChinaFile Recommends
03.18.15Party Investigates CNPC Executive Once Seen as Company’s Next Leader
Liao Yongyuan, who oversaw gas pipeline project crossing country, becomes target of inquiry by party graft-buster.
ChinaFile Recommends
03.17.15The Constant Adaptations of China’s Great Firewall
Wall Street Journal
Firewall-hopping technologies see activist programmers and Chinese censors engaged in a cat-and-mouse game.
Media
03.10.15
China’s Good Girls Want Tattoos
“It seems that Chinese men don’t want to marry a girl with tattoos,” complained one such girl on the Chinese online discussion platform Douban. She posted a picture of her body art, an abstract design on her lower back. “In East Asian cultural...
Media
03.09.15
China’s Real Inconvenient Truth: Its Class Divide
China is talking about its pollution problem, but its equally serious class problem remains obscured behind the haze. Smog leapt to the forefront of Chinese national discourse after the February 28 release of "Under the Dome," a 103-minute...
ChinaFile Recommends
03.09.15China Blocks Web Access to ‘Under the Dome’ Documentary on Pollution
New York Times
The drama over the video has ignited speculation over which groups supported it and which sought to kill it.
ChinaFile Recommends
03.06.15China’s Real Inconvenient Truth: Its Class Divide
Foreign Policy
Solving China's air and water pollution will require addressing the gap between rich urbanites and rural peasants.
Books
03.05.15
Has the American Media Misjudged China
Thirty-five years after China's opening to the world, some of the key assumptions that have guided coverage are being tested by the presidency of Xi Jinping. This book is must reading for anyone involved in U.S.-Chinese relations or for anyone who is just plain curious about how the assumptions that have guided American media coverage of China are now being challenged by the presidency of Xi Jinping. He has a very different vision of his country's future than the one often presented in some media accounts. —William J. Holstein {chop}
ChinaFile Recommends
03.05.15China’s Premier Vows to Promote Film, TV Industries, “Core Socialist Values”
Hollywood Reporter
Li Keqiang pledging to promote entertainment industry as delegates renewed calls for film classification system.
ChinaFile Recommends
03.05.15China Lowers 2015 Economic Growth Target to Around 7 Percent
Xinhua
The growth target is lower than the 7.4-percent economic growth in 2014, its weakest annual expansion since 1990.
ChinaFile Recommends
03.04.15How China Uses J-Visas to Punish International Media for Critical Coverage
Committee to Protect Journalists
A new report finds Chinese authorities are "treating journalistic accreditation as a privilege rather than a professional right."
ChinaFile Recommends
03.04.15In Beijing, Political Pomp Abounds as China Kicks off 'Two Meetings'
Los Angeles Times
The dual sessions do telegraph the general national agenda for the coming year.
ChinaFile Recommends
03.04.15China Says Tech Firms Have Nothing to Fear From Anti-terror Law
Reuters
Obama this week said China would have to change the draft law if it were "to do business with the United States".
Caixin Media
03.03.15
Can Market Mechanisms Clear China’s Air?
The Chinese government recently responded to rising public discontent over environmental degradation by introducing tougher rules for industrial emissions.Meanwhile, a non-governmental organization and a state-run newspaper are coordinating a...
Media
03.03.15
The Word That Broke the Chinese Internet
It might be gibberish, but it’s also a sign of the times. The word duang, pronounced “dwong,” is spreading like wildfire throughout China’s active Internet—even though 1.3 billion Chinese people still haven’t figured out what it means. In fact, its...
ChinaFile Recommends
03.03.15Beijing Quietly Curbs Discussion of Documentary on Air Pollution
Wall Street Journal
Censors stepped in to tamp down the buzz around an air-pollution documentary that drew 100 million views.
ChinaFile Recommends
03.02.15Travels with My Censor
New Yorker
China’s reading public has begun to discover nonfiction books about China by foreigners.
ChinaFile Recommends
03.02.15ChinaFile Recommends
03.02.15Pollution Documentary ‘Under the Dome’ Blankets Chinese Internet
Wall Street Journal
Pollution Documentary ‘Under the Dome’ Blankets Chinese Internet http://blogs.wsj.com/chinarealtime/2015/03/02/pollution-documentary-under-the-dome-blankets-chinese-internet/
ChinaFile Recommends
03.02.15China’s Coal Use and Estimated CO2 Emissions Fell in 2014
Huffington Post
Glen Peters of the Global Carbon Project calculates that China's CO2 emissions have also fallen, by 0.7 percent, for the first time this century.
ChinaFile Recommends
03.02.15China Box Office Tops U.S. for First Time Ever
Hollywood Reporter
A Lunar New Year brought in $650 million in the second-largest movie market.
ChinaFile Recommends
03.02.15The Film That Is Going to Change China
Business Spectator
Chai Jing's stunning documentary on the smog problem was viewed more than 100 million times in little over two days.
ChinaFile Recommends
02.26.15Xi Jinping Hopes to Count in Chinese Political History With ‘Four Comprehensives’ -
Wall Street Journal
Chinese President Xi Jinping has uncorked his own ordinal political philosophy.
ChinaFile Recommends
02.25.15China’s Feminists Stand up Against ‘Misogynistic’ TV Gala
Washington Post
The most widely watched television show on earth was peppered with jokes at the expense of women.
ChinaFile Recommends
02.25.15China Starts Massive Promotion of Xi Jinping’s Political Theory the ‘Four Comprehensives’
South China Morning Post
Xi has created a slogan and formulated principles to guide his style of government.
ChinaFile Recommends
02.24.15ChinaFile Recommends
02.23.15In China, Oscars Ceremony Touches Nerves Over Hong Kong, Snowden
Washington Post
Common spoke about dreams of better lives, including “people in Hong Kong fighting for democracy."
Media
02.23.15
Five Predictions for Chinese Censorship in the Year of the Sheep
Blocked websites, jailed journalists, and nationalist rhetoric have long been features of the Chinese Communist Party’s media control strategy. During the Year of the Horse, which just ended on China’s lunar calendar, President Xi Jinping and his...
Viewpoint
02.19.15
Beijing Touts ‘Cyber-Sovereignty’ In Internet Governance
It has been a difficult few weeks for global technology companies operating in China.Chinese officials strengthened the Internet firewall by blocking the use of virtual private networks (VPNs), reasserted demands that web users register their real...
ChinaFile Recommends
02.18.15Ringing In the Lunar New Year, Whatever It’s Called
New York Times
Because Han Chinese culture developed in regions where herders and goats prevailed, many think the zodiac talisman must be a goat.
ChinaFile Recommends
02.16.15With Lunar New Year Show, Another Link to China for a New York Fireworks Family
New York Times
The Central Academy of Fine Arts, China’s largest art academy, is involved in the celebrations this year.
ChinaFile Recommends
02.12.15China’s Internet Censorship Anthem Is Revealed, Then Deleted
New York Times
Cyberspace Administration employees Sang lines like, “An Internet power: Tell the world that the Chinese Dream is uplifting China.”
ChinaFile Recommends
02.11.15Learn the History of Modern China Through Photobooks
Time
A new book and exhibition reveals the untold history of photobook publishing in China.
Media
02.10.15
Chinese Corruption, Now Officially Hilarious
Corruption is finally funny—at least, according to the Chinese Communist Party. That’s because comedic performances in the upcoming February 18 performance of China’s annual New Year Gala, a variety show on China Central Television (CCTV) expected...