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.

The Shadow from Yasukuni

Rana Mitter
Project Syndicate
Around this time of year, speculation in Asia always runs high as to whether Japan’s prime minister or other prominent politicians will visit the Yasukuni Shrine to honor, among others, more than a thousand indicted war criminals.

Where Is China’s Gorbachev?

Matt Schiavenza
Atlantic
Why China hasn’t had—and isn’t likely to have—a political reformer in the mold of the former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev.

Caixin Media

08.19.13

Infrequent Flying Snarls Civil Aviation Sector

Getting away for a little surf and sand ought to be easy for Beijingers like Mr. Wang, who recently boarded one of the daily, four-hour flights that link the capital and sub-tropical Hainan Island in China’s far south.But airport delays seriously...

The Man Who Got It Right

Ian Buruma from New York Review of Books
1.Near the beginning of Simon Leys’ marvelous collection of essays is an odd polemic between the author and the late Christopher Hitchens, fought out in these very pages. Leys takes Hitchens to task for attacking Mother Teresa in a book entitled The...

No ‘How-To’ Book from the West Can Curb Corruption in China

Eric Li
South China Morning Post
 Roots of corruption are unique everywhere and, in China, it stems from a disconnect between political authority based on a selfless moral claim and economic realities. 

What’s China Got Against the U.S. Constitution?

Benjamin Carlson
Global Post
The Communist Party mouthpiece, People’s Daily, attacked America’s constitutional structure, claiming that “there is no such thing as democracy and freedom under U.S. constitutional governance.”

Prominent Chinese Activist Releases Jail Video

Josh Chin
Wall Street Journal
Supporters of Chinese lawyer Xu Zhiyong have released a video, filmed inside an undisclosed detention center, of the prominent rights activist proclaiming his willingness to pay any price for social progress.

From Maoist Criminal to Popular Hero?

Pin Ho
New York Times
At a time of rampant corruption and social injustice, many see Bo Xilai as a charismatic leftist who at least dared to challenge the status quo of organized crime and official self-dealing and to revive Mao’s socialist, egalitarian ideals.&nbsp...

Is This Lazy Panda China’s Zuckerberg?

Adam Minter
Bloomberg
State-owned China Network Television has installed more than 30 cameras at a panda reserve in Western China, designed a fancy website providing access to the cameras, launched a mobile app so the pandas can be watched on-the-go, and then...

Postcard

08.08.13

Portraits of the Faceless

Katharina Hesse & David M. Barreda
Nine years ago, photographer Katharina Hesse began to make portraits of North Korean defectors. To protect their identities she asked only that they “give something” of themselves to the photographs. Her subjects bury their faces in their hands, or...

Media

08.08.13

Chinese State Media: Online Critics “Incite Political Unrest”

While the Internet has become the site of almost constant political arguments in China, few articles have generated as much debate as a recent piece by blogger Wang Xiaoshi. On August 1, Xinhua News Agency, a state-run media outlet, posted Wang’s...

Conversation

08.07.13

What Will Come out of the Communist Party’s Polling the People Online?

David Wertime, Duncan Clark & more
David Wertime:Simon Denyer’s recent article (“In China, Communist Party Takes Unprecedented Step: It Is Listening,” The Washington Post, August 2, 2013) provides a valuable look at some of the ways that Chinese authority mines domestic micro-...

Chinese Judges Disciplined for Cavorting With Prostitutes

Jane Perlez
New York Times
 Two judges and an official of the Shanghai high court have been expelled from the Communist Party and dismissed from their jobs after being seen on video apparently consorting with prostitutes in glitzy nightclubs.

Opposing Editorials Reflect Ideological Rift in Communist Party

Cary Huang
South China Morning Post
The People’s Daily and Study Times, ran editorials expressing their opposing views on the issue of constitutionalism: limiting the government’s power by a higher system of laws that protects citizens’...

Books

08.05.13

China Threat?

Lionel Vairon
From the long-term threat of nuclear war between the U.S. and China, to the disappearance of the African elephant due to Chinese demand for ivory, each week brings a new round of critique and denunciation of the risks China poses to the stability of the entire planet. While critics raise a certain number of fundamental questions that bear asking about this nascent superpower, the answers put forth are usually based on ideological or economic considerations. Lionel Vairon systematically challenges these views in this first English language edition of China Threat?With an incisive review of China’s economic strategy, deployment of resources, national defence, political reform, ethnicity and religion, terrorism, and developments in human rights, Vairon amply demonstrates that China poses no threat to the world. On the contrary, China Threat? shows that China’s peaceful rise should be a matter of positive news across the globe.  —CN Times Books {chop}

The Chinese Communist Party Has Embraced the Internet—For Public Polling

Adam Pasick
Atlantic
Beijing has started to glean political intelligence from the same systems they restrict access to.

Life in a Toxic Country

Edward Wong
New York Times
Before this assignment, I reported from Iraq, where foreign correspondents talked endlessly of the variety of ways in which one could die. I survived those threats, only now to find myself wondering: Is China doing irreparable harm to me and my...

China Media on the Snowden Saga

BBC
Media in China see further embarrassment for the United States after whistleblower Edward Snowden gets temporary asylum in Russia.

Japan Looking for Ways to Restart Top-Level Meetings with China

Asahi Shimbun
Japan and China have not held high-level meetings since the Japanese government placed the Senkaku Islands in the East China Sea under national ownership in September 2012.

China Condemns U.S. Senate Over Sea Dispute Resolution

Ben Blanchard
Reuters
China said on Thursday it had lodged a formal complaint with the United States after the U.S. Senate passed a resolution expressing concern about Chinese actions in the disputed East and South China Seas.

Conversation

08.01.13

How Dangerous Are Sino-Japanese Tensions?

Jerome A. Cohen
Sino-Japanese relations do not look promising at the moment. Obviously, the Diaoyu-Senkaku dispute is not the only factor in play but it does focus nationalist passions on both sides. Yet both countries are capable of wiser conduct if their leaders...

Ties With Japan Face ‘Grim Test,’ China Naval Researcher Writes

Henry Sanderson
Bloomberg
“Japan, of course, wants to have it both ways; it wants to share in the dividends from China’s economic growth, while maintaining a hardline stance in its relations with China,” Xing wrote. “It is therefore extremely unlikely that there will be any...

China’s Bo To Plead guilty, But Maybe Not To All Charges

Benjamin Kang Lim, Ben Blanchard
Reuters
Disgraced Chinese leader Bo Xilai has agreed to plead guilty at a trial likely to be held within weeks, three sources said, in an apparent bid to earn a more lenient sentence and allow authorities to close the door on the country’s biggest...

China Threat? Former French Diplomat Says No

Heng Shao
Forbes
Former French diplomat Lionel Vairon believes that the fear of a rising China results from the inability of Western countries to recognize China’s legitimate national interests. China will become problematic only if dominant powers attempt to...

GAPPRFT Portfolio Published

Sophie Beach
China Digital Times
As part of a government restructuring program initiated at the National People’s Congress in March, the General Administration of Press and Publications was merged with the State Administration of Radio, Film and Television.

Myanmar-China Gas Pipeline Goes Into Operation

Global Post
As well as diversifying China’s sources of fuel, by supplying energy to the vast and less developed west the Myanmar-China gas pipeline could help Beijing’s attempts to promote economic growth there.

Caixin Media

07.29.13

Why a Reporter Feels Sympathy for an Airport Bomber

These past few years as a reporter, I have met some people with nothing left to live for and now another person can be added to the list. Ji Zhongxing, the disabled man who set off a bomb in a Beijing airport on July 20, is that person.Ji and I are...

China Orders Government-Debt Audit as Growth Risks Rise

Bloomberg
China will start a nationwide audit of government debt this week as the new Communist Party leadership investigates the threats to growth and the financial system from a record credit boom. The State Council, under Premier Li Keqiang,...

Chinese, With Revamped Force, Make Presence Known in East China Sea

Jane Perlez
New York Times
The large number of Chinese and Japanese maritime vessels in dangerous proximity in the East China Sea at a time of high tensions over the islands has raised alarm in Washington about clashes that could lead to larger conflict.

Europe and China Agree to Settle Solar Panel Fight

James Kanter, Keith Bradsher
New York Times
The European Union’s trade chief said on Saturday that a deal had been reached with China to settle a dispute over exports of low-cost solar panels that had threatened to set off a wider trade war between two of the world’s largest economies.

Fallen Leader Is Indicted in China

Edward Wong
New York Times
Bo Xilai, the disgraced former Communist Party official, was indicted on Thursday on criminal charges of bribery, corruption and abuse of power, paving the way for a prominent trial expected to start within weeks.

China Sets Timeline for Resolving Bo Xilai Scandal

Bloomberg
China set a timeline for the prosecution of disgraced Politburo member Bo Xilai, moving to resolve a scandal that overshadowed a once-in-a-decade transfer of power and tested the unity of new Communist Party leaders.

China Orders Ban on New Government Buildings

Keith Bradsher
New York Times
The new directive, which bans the construction of government buildings for the next five years, showed clear signs of being a continuation of the anticorruption campaign, describing the ban as “important for building a clean government” and...

Former China Party Highflier Bo Xilai Is Charged With Corruption

WSJ: China Real Time Report
The indictment accuses Mr. Bo of taking advantage of his position “to seek profits for others” and accepting an “extremely large amount” in money and property, Xinhua said. “He also embezzled a huge amount of public money...

Chinese VP’s Visit to North Korea Prompts Détente Watch

WSJ: China Real Time Report
All eyes will be watching for signs of détente over North Korea’s nuclear-weapons program when Chinese Vice President Li Yuanchao becomes the highest-ranking among China’s new leadership to visit Pyongyang this week.

Environment

07.25.13

Comment: Polluters Shouldn’t Be the Judge of Other Polluters

from chinadialogue
If the law sets a criminal to catch other criminals what do you think those criminals will think? My colleagues have discovered that new legislation threatens to do just that.A new draft revision of the Environmental Protection Law is now online for...

Bo Xilai Charged With Corruption, Bribery, Abuse of Power

Bloomberg
“Defendant Bo Xilai used his official state position to seek benefits, illegally accepted an extremely huge amount of property from others, embezzled a huge amount of public money, and abused his power, resulting in huge losses to the nation and the...

China Orders Ban on New Government Buildings

Keith Bradsher
New York Times
The ban is the latest in a series of initiatives by President Xi Jinping to discourage corruption and foster frugality at a time of broad popular resentment against high-living bureaucrats. 

Former China Party Highflier Bo Xilai Is Charged With Corruption

Jeremy Page and Lingling Wei
Wall Street Journal
The indictment accuses Mr. Bo of taking advantage of his position “to seek profits for others” and accepting an “extremely large amount” in money and property, Xinhua said.