As Cannabis is Widely Legalized, China Cashes in on an Unprecedented Boom

Ian Johnston
Independent
Almost 5,000 years ago, Chinese physicians recommended a tea made from cannabis leaves to treat a wide variety of conditions including gout and malaria.

Major Leadership Shake-Up at China Film Group

Clifford Coonan
Hollywood Reporter
La Peikang will take over from Han Sanping as the new head of the all-powerful state-backed film company, in a rare power transition for the Chinese industry.

Bremmer: China, Japan 2014’s Most Dangerous Spat

Rebecca Blumenstein
Wall Street Journal
Political-risk expert Ian Bremmer of the Eurasia Group calls the bilateral conflict between China and Japan the "greatest geopolitical danger in the world in 2014" and discusses what reform means for China under new leader Xi Jinping.

China Renews Western Journalists’ Visas After Months-Long Standoff

William Wan
Washington Post
Several Western journalists who faced expulsion from China were issued renewed visas by the Chinese government, ending a months-long standoff. But China is still on track to force at least one New York Times reporter to leave for the second year in...

Confucius Comes Home

Evan Osnos
New Yorker
In my fifth year in Beijing, I moved into a one-story brick house beside the Confucius Temple, a seven-hundred-year-old shrine to China’s most important philosopher.

China: Reeducation Through Horror

Ian Buruma from New York Review of Books
Here are two snippets from a Chinese Communist journal called People’s China, published in August 1956:In 1956, despite the worst natural calamities in scores of years, China’s peasants, newly organized in co-operatives on a nation-wide scale,...

Why are China and Japan Accusing Each Other of Being Voldemort?

Justin McCurry
Christian Science Monitor
Ill-tempered media exchanges between the Chinese and Japanese ambassadors to London invoked the universal cultural icon to embellish attacks over islands in the Asia-Pacific. 

What Could Happen in China in 2014?

Gordon Orr
McKinsey & Company
Gordon Orr predicts corporate focus on driving productivity, increased interest in CIOs, bankrupt shopping malls, and European investment in Chinese soccer clubs. 

Moon Landing ‘100pc Made in China,’ says Xi Jinping

Patrick Boehler
South China Morning Post
Contrary to Xi's claims, scientists have noted that the design of the moon rover has borrowed heavily from previous Soviet and American versions. 

Guardian Website Blocked in China

Gerry Mullany
New York Times
The newspaper said that it may be due to a recently run article about ethnic tensions in the western region of Xinjiang.

China Confronts the Online Rumor Mill

Yu Hua
New York Times
(Op-ed) Hoewever unlikely, the best way of putting an end to Internet rumors is for the government to stop disseminating them. 

Caixin Media

01.08.14

How Shanghai’s Free Trade Zone Works

At a conference table surrounded by bookshelves in his Shanghai office, the city’s party boss Han Zheng recently polished the image of a commercial crown jewel—the China (Shanghai) Pilot Free Trade Zone—during an exclusive interview with Caixin.Han...

Media

01.07.14

Grand Theft China: Tase Corrupt Officials in New Online Game

Official corruption in China is a serious matter: In January 2013, Chinese President Xi Jinping openly vowed to tackle it, and a 2013 Pew study found that fifty-three percent of Chinese consider it a “very big problem.” But fighting bribery,...

A New Exhibit at the Metropolitan Museum Puts a Modern Face on Chinese Art

Melik Kaylan
Daily Beast
The art world has embraced the evolution of Western art, but when it comes to China, we seem stuck in the past. A new exhibit at the Met wants to shake up these stereotypes.

Caixin Media

01.07.14

Chinese Firm Linked to CNPC Suspected of Fraud in Iraq

Just after the December 29 celebration of the Muslim holiday Ashura in southern Iraq, heads of the Iraqi subsidiary of China National Offshore Oil Corp. (CNOOC) received a letter titled “Suspending all activities of Hermic.”The sender of the letter...

China Risks Hobbling its Economic Development with Too Many Policy Goals

Stephen Roach
South China Morning Post
(Op-ed) China's economic planners need to prune and prioritise their myriad policy objectives so the country can move with purpose towards the goal of structural rebalancing. 

Conversation

01.06.14

Will Xi Jinping Bring a Positive New Day to China?

Paul Mooney, Andrew J. Nathan & more
Chinese President Xi Jinping, just over a year in office, recently made a rare appearance in public in a Beijing restaurant, buying a cheap lunch and paying for it himself. Shortly thereafter, President Xi delivered a brief televised New Year...

Media

01.03.14

2013, According to the Chinese Communist Party

What did the year in foreign policy look like in Chinese official circles? Divining the thoughts and motives of China’s leadership is a famously abstruse exercise even for Chinese citizens, who are often left to parse bland quotes or keep their ears...

China’s Kaifeng Jews Rediscover Their Heritage

Tiffanie Wen
Daily Beast
In Kaifeng, where Sephardic Jews from the Silk Road settled in the 12th century, their descendants are rediscovering long-last religious practices and petitioning Israel for recognition.

Excerpts

01.02.14

Global Development and Investment

Elizabeth Economy & Zha Daojiong
Framing questions: In what ways do the U.S. and Chinese approaches to development and foreign investment differ? Are they evolving, and how? What are the benefits and drawbacks of each approach both to the investing country and the recipient? In...

Beijing Turns Cold Shoulder to Japan

Xinhua
Beijing has declared Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe “not welcome” by the Chinese people and said Chinese leaders won’t meet him.  

Remarks by Yang Jiechi on Abe’s visit to the Yasukuni Shrine

Xinhua
Chinese State Councilor Yang Jiechi said Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's visit to the Yasukuni Shrine was in total disregard of international opposition, and blatantly paid homage to Class-A war criminals of World War II.

Caixin Media

12.30.13

The Rise and Fall of a Local Official Obsessed

A November 27 statement by the Communist Party’s anti-corruption watchdog confirmed that the Deputy Governor of Hubei Province, Guo Youming, was being investigated for graft.Three days later, Guo was removed from his post, becoming the thirteenth...

How Andy Warhol Explains China’s Attitudes Toward Mao

Julian Gewirtz
Atlantic
The sheer number of Warhol’s screen prints of Mao’s face—at once persistent and reinvented—that captures, with unusual clarity, the attitude of China’s leaders today toward Mao, coloring and recoloring this legacy within an enduring outline.&...

Other

12.26.13

2013 Year in Review

As the year draws to a close, we want to take a moment to look back at some of the stories ChinaFile published in 2013. We hope you’ll find something that interests you to read—or watch—over the holidays.It’s hard to remember a recent year that didn...

On Chairman Mao’s Birthday, a Conflicting Legacy for Xi Jinping

Jeremy Page
Wall Street Journal
Mr. Xi and the six other members of the Politburo Standing Committee–the top decision-making body—bowed three times at the mausoleum holding Mao’s body in a glass sarcophagus on Beijing’s Tiananmen Square, state media said. Mr. Xi then addressed a...

Japanese Premier Visits Contentious War Shrine

Hiroko Tabuchi
New York Times
Prime Minister Shinzo Abe of Japan visited a contentious Tokyo war shrine early on Thursday, provoking swift condemnation fromChina and South Korea, both victims of Japan’s wartime aggression.

Are You Qualified to Be a Journalist in China? Take the Test

Mia Lee and Bree Feng
New York Times
The test is seen as another step in tightening the party’s control over media. At a conference in August, President Xi Jinping called for the “consolidation of mainstream ideology and opinion” to ensure a correct political direction by media outlets...

Paying a Price to Cross China’s Border

Perry Link
Washington Post
For Chinese critics of the government, the border long ago acquired a political toll booth: Whichever way you cross, you pay a price.

Other

12.23.13

[Transcript] One Year Later, China’s New Leaders

J. Stapleton Roy, Susan Shirk & more
Nearly a year to the day after seven new leaders ascended to their posts on the Standing Committee of China’s Politburo, the Asia Society held a public conversation with The New Yorker’s Evan Osnos; Dr. Susan Shirk of the University of California,...

In the Satellite Technology Race, China Hitched a Ride from Europe

David Lague
Reuters
The Beidou navigation system—developed with E.U. help—is a striking example of Beijing’s global dragnet for military know-how.

China Lashes Out at Japan Defence Plans

Al Jazeera
Japan will increase military spending by 2.6 percent over five years, leading China to accuse Tokyo of raising tensions.

The New Face of Chinese Propaganda

Murong Xuecun
New York Times
Not too long ago, the party’s Propaganda Department was renamed the Publicity Department. Old militant expressions like “overthrow,” “thoroughly destroy” and “strike hard,” and images of muscular workers and peasants in heroic postures, have been...

Top Chinese Security Official Is Investigated

Edward Wong
New York Times
Li Dongsheng, a vice minister of public security, is being investigated by the Communist Party for “suspected serious law and discipline violations,” according to Xinhua, the state news agency.

Viewpoint

12.20.13

‘Community Corrections’ and the Road Ahead for Re-Education Through Labor

Robert Williams
Chinese and foreign observers welcomed the recent announcement that the Chinese government will “abolish”—not merely reform—the administrative punishment system known as re-education through labor (RTL). The proclamation, part of a sixty-point...

Culture

12.19.13

Chinese Literature Online

Michel Hockx
In July of last year, Brixton, U.K.-based novelist Zelda Rhiando won the inaugural Kidwell-e Ebook Award. The award was billed as “the world’s first international e-book award.” It may have been the first time that e-writers in English from all over...

Media

12.19.13

Chinese Admiral to U.S. Navy: ‘We Will Block You’

On December 5, the U.S. missile-carrying cruiser Cowpens almost collided with a Chinese ship in international waters. The Cowpens was observing the maiden voyage of China’s new aircraft carrier, the Liaoning, when a vessel accompanying it cut across...

Bitcoin in China

Suwatchai Songwanich
Nation (Thailand)
Bitcoin, a virtual stored-value system not regulated by any country or banking authority, has been a huge phenomenon this year and much of the action has been driven out of China.

China Continues Rights Abuses Even as Labor Camps Ditched—Amnesty

Megha Rajagopalan
Reuters
China is increasingly using extra-judicial “black jails” and drug rehabilitation centers to punish people who would formerly have been sent to forced labor camps, rights group Amnesty International says.

Books

12.17.13

Ping-Pong Diplomacy

Nicholas Griffin
The spring of 1971 heralded the greatest geopolitical realignment in a generation. After twenty-two years of antagonism, China and the United States suddenly moved toward a détente—achieved not by politicians but by Ping-Pong players. The Western press delighted in the absurdity of the moment and branded it “Ping-Pong Diplomacy.” But for the Chinese, Ping-Pong was always political, a strategic cog in Mao Zedong’s foreign policy. Nicholas Griffin proves that the organized game, from its first breath, was tied to Communism thanks to its founder, Ivor Montagu, son of a wealthy English baron and spy for the Soviet Union. Ping-Pong Diplomacy traces a crucial inter­section of sports and society. Griffin tells the strange and tragic story of how the game was manipulated at the highest levels; how the Chinese government helped cover up the death of 36 million peasants by holding the World Table Tennis Championships during the Great Famine; how championship players were driven to their deaths during the Cultural Revolution; and, finally, how the survivors were reconvened in 1971 and ordered to reach out to their American counterparts. Through a cast of eccentric characters, from spies to hippies and Ping-Pong-obsessed generals to atom-bomb survivors, Griffin explores how a neglected sport was used to help realign the balance of worldwide power.  —Scribner{chop}

Conversation

12.17.13

Why Is China Purging Its Former Top Security Chief, Zhou Yongkang?

Pin Ho & Richard McGregor
Pin Ho:[Zhou Yongkang’s downfall] is the second chapter of the “Bo Xilai Drama”—a drama begun at the 18th Party Congress. The Party’s power transition has been secret and has lacked convincing procedure. This [lack of transparency] has triggered...

Caixin Media

12.17.13

Are Changes to China’s Family-Planning Rules Too Little, Too Late?

Among the sixty areas covered in the Communist Party’s “decision” document released after the third plenum of the Eighteenth Central Committee, the most popular among ordinary people is a revision to the family planning policy to allow some couples...

Kerry Criticizes China, Announces New Maritime Security Aid to SEAsia

Matthew Lee
Associated Press
Taking clear aim at China’s growing aggressiveness in territorial disputes with its smaller neighbors, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry announced Monday that the United States will boost maritime security assistance to the countries of Southeast...

Is North Korea Unwinding Economic Ties With China?

Christina Larson
Businessweek
These are grim days not only for the friends and family of recently executed North Korean official Jang Song Thaek, but also for people and programs he had supported—including economic relations with China, which Jang had overseen.

Apple Blocks Anti-Censorship ‘FreeWeibo’ App in China

Agence France-Presse
U.S. technology giant Apple has removed the FreeWeibo application intended to allow users to read sensitive postings on Sina Weibo, a Chinese equivalent of Twitter, from its Chinese app store on orders from Beijing. 

Asian Nations Urge Peace in Sea Disputes, Unlikely to Blame China

Elaine Lies
Reuters
Japan and the Philippines have reaffirmed their commitment to freedom of flight over the East China Sea as concerns grow over China's new air defense identification zone. 

China’s Corruption Purge: The Fall of Zhou Yongkang

Wenguang Huang and Ho Pin
Daily Beast
New reports confirm that Zhou Yongkang, China’s third most powerful politician, is under investigation for murder, corruption, and plotting to overthrow the government.

China Spins Mandela to Fit Its Political Narrative

Dan Levin
New York Times
State-run newspaper Global Times dismisses Western media comparisons between recently deceased anti-apartheid campaigner Nelson Mandela, who spent 27 years in prison in South Africa, and veteran Chinese human rights advocate, Liu Xiaobo, now serving...

Japan, S.Korea Hold Joint Sea Drill in China Air Zone

Agence France-Presse
The navies of Japan and South Korea, two Asian democracies, carried out a joint maritime rescue drill in international waters covered by China's new air defence identification zone (ADIZ).  

Environment

12.12.13

China’s Coal Industry at a Crossroads

from chinadialogue
Times are getting rough for Wang Guangchun, a ten-year veteran sales manager of a state-owned coal company.“During the golden era of the past, clients came to find me,” Wang said. “Starting last year, we had to go looking for them.”Wang is employed...

U.S. Colleges Finding Ideals Tested Abroad

Tamar Lewin
New York Times
Like U.S. corporations, American colleges are extending their brands overseas. But colleges claim to place ideals over income. As professors abroad face consequences for what they say, most universities are doing little more than wringing their...

Journo for a Journo

Joshua Keating
Slate
If China kicks out U.S. journalists, should the U.S. do the same to Chinese journalists?

Is Beijing About to Boot The New York Times?

Isaac Stone Fish
Foreign Policy
The Chinese government’s crackdown on Bloomberg and “the paper of record” reaches a head.

Foreign Correspondents in China Do Not Censor Themselves to Get Visas

Hannah Beech
Time
Compared with five years ago, when the Chinese leadership promised to ease restrictions on foreign journalists as part of reforms unveiled during the Beijing Olympics charm campaign, the atmosphere has clearly chilled. 

If You Can't Beat the Shanghai Smog, Change the System

Adam Minter
Bloomberg
As the smog that has choked Shanghai for much of the last week reached hazardous levels, the city’s environmental authority adjusted standards downward to ensure that there won’t be so many frequent  air-quality alerts.

China Puts Former Security Chief Under House Arrest—Sources

Benjamin Kang Lim and Benjamin Blanchard
Reuters
China has put Zhou Yongkang—one of the most powerful politicians of the last decade and the most senior official to be ensnared in a graft scandal since the Communists came to power in 1949—under virtual house arrest while the ruling Communist Party...

China: Here Are Some Great Things About Toxic Air

Emily Rauhala
Time
China's state-run TV tries to put a positive spin on toxic haze. Nice try, guys, nice try.

Sinica Podcast

12.10.13

Joe Biden and the ADIZ Fracas

Kaiser Kuo & Peter Ford
On the weekend of November 23, Beijing announced the establishment of a new Air Defense Identification Zone. Covering a large swath of the East China Sea, the move was intended to assert China’s control over disputed islands in the region, and...

Joe Biden’s Unfinished Business With China

Bloomberg
Joe Biden’s trip to northeast Asia has left some in Japan feeling abandoned. By not demanding that China roll back its new “air-defense identification zone,” the U.S. vice president tacitly accepted the controversial zone as a fait accompli.

Abe Calls for China Talks Citing 2006 Trip as Tensions Rise

Isabel Reynolds
Bloomberg
Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe called for a summit with Chinese President Xi Jinping after an escalation in bilateral tensions since China’s declaration last month of an air-defense zone that overlaps with Japan’s over the East China Sea.