Viewpoint
02.25.13Xi Jinping Should Expand Deng Xiaoping’s Reforms
A month after the conclusion of the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) 18th National Congress, the new Secretary General of the CCP and Central Military Commission, comrade Xi Jinping, left Beijing to visit Shenzhen, the first foothold of China’s...
Media
02.22.13China’s State-Run Media Shares Powerful Map of “Cancer Villages” Creeping Inland
It appears that Chinese environmental activism is going further mainstream. The Sina micro-blogging account of Global Times, a well-known Communist Party mouthpiece, has just shared news about the horrific proliferation of “cancer villages” in China...
Media
02.21.13In Face of Mainland Censorship, Taiwanese Revisit Reunification Question
Within twenty-four hours of registration, Sina Weibo (China’s equivalent of Twitter) deleted the microblog account of Frank Hsieh, former premier of Taiwan’s pro-independence Democratic Progressive Party (DPP). Ironically, Hsieh’s last tweet before...
Media
02.20.13On China’s Twitter, Discussion of Hacking Attacks Proceeds Unblocked
As The New York Times reported yesterday evening, U.S.-based cybersecurity firm Mandiant has just released a deeply troubling report called “Exposing One of China’s Cyber Espionage Units.” The report alleges wide-spread hacking sponsored by the...
ChinaFile Recommends
02.20.13‘Loser Dance’: The Harlem Shake With Chinese Characteristics
Wall Street Journal
The latest viral music video craze has managed to catch on with the world’s largest population of Internet users not long after conquering banned-in-China YouTube.
ChinaFile Recommends
02.20.13SF Minister Spreads Gospel Of Sex In China
San Francisco Chronicle
In March 2013, Rev. Ted McIlvenna will lead a delegation of 10 sex experts to China to help an emerging class of financially independent Chinese women achieve female sexual empowerment.
Books
02.19.13Every Grain of Rice
Fuchsia Dunlop trained as a chef in China’s leading Sichuan cooking school and possesses the rare ability to write recipes for authentic Chinese food that you can make at home. Following her two seminal volumes on Sichuan and Hunan cooking, Every Grain of Rice is inspired by the vibrant everyday cooking of southern China, in which vegetables play the starring role, with small portions of meat and fish. Try your hand at stir-fried potato slivers with chili pepper, vegetarian “Gong Bao Chicken,” sour-and-hot mushroom soup, or, if you’re ever in need of a quick fix, Fuchsia’s emergency late-night noodles. Many of the recipes require few ingredients and are ridiculously easy to make. Fuchsia also includes a comprehensive introduction to the key seasonings and techniques of the Chinese kitchen. With stunning photography and clear instructions, this is an essential cookbook for everyone, beginner and connoisseur alike, eager to introduce Chinese dishes into their daily cooking repertoire. —W. W. Norton & Company
ChinaFile Recommends
02.19.13“China’s Leonard Cohen” Calls Out Political Corruption
NPR
On “These Tiny Grapes,” Zuoxiao Zuzhou’s new album of edgy ballads focusing on the woes of modern-day China, he hones in on rampant corruption, food scandals, injustice and abuse of power.
ChinaFile Recommends
02.18.13In China, Families Bet It All on College for Their Children
New York Times
Wu Yiebing has been going down coal shafts practically every workday of his life, wrestling an electric drill for $500 a month in the choking dust of claustrophobic tunnels, with one goal in mind: paying for his daughter’s education.
ChinaFile Recommends
02.18.13Return to Rivertown
National Geographic
In 1996 a Peace Corps volunteer arrived in Fuling, a sleepy town on the Yangtze, to teach English. He went back recently to find the landscape—and his former students—transformed.
Media
02.16.13NBA Star Debuts on Chinese Social Media, Fans Clamor: #I want to speak to Kobe#
Tea Leaf Nation editor David Wertime spoke on February 15 on Public Radio International’s The World about NBA star Kobe Bryant (@KobeBryant), who has recently opened an account on Sina Weibo, China’s Twitter. Listen to the full two-minute interview...
The NYRB China Archive
02.15.13Dancing in Empty Beijing
from New York Review of Books
The Lunar New Year began last week as it always does, with a new moon. The empty sky seemed to empty Beijing of up to half its residents—authorities estimate that an incredible nine million people left the city, which usually has a population of...
ChinaFile Recommends
02.14.13Chinese Netizens Liked Seeing Partisanship at State of the Union
Asia Blog
The partisan dissonance exhibited at President Barack Obama’s State of the Union address was a sight for sore eyes for some users on Sina Weibo, China’s microblogging platform.
ChinaFile Recommends
02.13.13Five Ways China Could Become a Democracy
Diplomat
Few have seriously thought about the probability and the various plausible scenarios of a regime transition in China—until now.
Media
02.13.13Officer Draws Gun on Drunk Driver—To Overwhelming Online Applause
A policeman draws his gun to stop a desperately escaping criminal. It may sound sensational, but this is technically what happened in the southern Chinese megalopolis of Guangzhou on January 31. As traffic policemen were manning a drunk driving...
ChinaFile Recommends
02.12.13Zhuang Zedong, Skilled in China Foreign Relations and Ping-Pong, Dies at 72
New York Times
In 1971, at the world table tennis championships in Japan, an American player mistakenly boarded a bus carrying the Chinese team. The team had been told not to talk to Westerners, and an awkward silence descended. Ten minutes elapsed. Then the best...
ChinaFile Recommends
02.12.13In China, Shock and Acceptance of Pope’s Resignation
New York Times
In China, where official relations with the Vatican are a “never ending crisis,” as the Vatican Insider put it recently, the news of the resignation of Pope Benedict has been slow to spread. The Chinese state doesn’t recognize the Pope as the leader...
Media
02.12.13Joke About Gay Romance on Chinese New Year Gala Lights Up Blogosphere
Is “bromance” in the air? Not according to state-run China Central Television (CCTV).{vertical_photo_right}Thousands of fans yelled “Get together” in unison when piano prodigy Li Yundi made a guest appearance at Chinese-American pop sensation Leehom...
ChinaFile Recommends
02.11.13In China, A Vast Chasm Between the Rich and the Rest
New York Times
The passing coal miners in remote Shaanxi Province took one look at our marooned Audi and walked on, leaving us stuck on the sleet-covered mountain road. As dusk fell, I managed to mingle with some young migrant workers, and trek with them through a...
ChinaFile Recommends
02.11.13Province By Province, A Portrait of China
New York Times
A Swiss couple thought it would be a good project to photograph all of China's provinces. They got a great portrait series, and then some.
Viewpoint
02.11.13A Beginning for China’s Battered Women
Like it or not, it takes an American woman to give a face, bring a voice, and deliver a victory to battered women in China. On February 3, a milestone court decision in Beijing granted a divorce to Kim Lee, a victim of domestic abuse, from her...
ChinaFile Recommends
02.11.13Staying Safe During Spring Festival: A Teacher’s Advice to his Students
Rectified.name
An actual email from one foreign teacher to his Chinese students—he thought it also might be useful to any first time Spring Festival-ers out there.
The NYRB China Archive
02.09.13Blogging the Slow-Motion Revolution
from New York Review of Books
Huang Qi is best known in China as the creator of the country’s first human rights website, Liusi Tianwang, or “June 4 Heavenly Web.” A collection of reports and photos, as well as the occasional first-person account of abuse, the site is updated...
ChinaFile Recommends
02.08.13Snakes On a Lane
Global Times
Beneath the creepy exterior lies a misunderstood goddess. What pops up in your mind when it comes to the concept of snake? Cold-blooded, dangerous, sly, or even a symbol of evil? It seems that all words related to it are negative. And even though we...
ChinaFile Recommends
02.08.13Vipers and Beasts in the Year of the Little Dragon
China Story
A certain wariness surrounds the Snake, one of the twelve zoological signs of the traditional Chinese calendar, and not only because the reptile inspires fear and repulsion.
Sinica Podcast
02.08.13Revenge of the Call-in Show
from Sinica Podcast
Curious what happened to Sinica last week? Well ... as it turns out, our call-in show from two weeks ago wasn’t exactly pleased with how quickly we managed to replace it, and took out its anger on the laptop we use to record new shows, smashing the...
Media
02.07.13Chinese Beverage Maker Turns Legal Setback Into Viral Ad Campaign
This is no tempest in an herbal tea pot. The JDB Group, maker of China’s most popular herbal tea—one that raked in approximately 20 billion RMB (USD $3.2 billion) in revenues in 2012—lost another legal battle in its epic trademark war with the state...
ChinaFile Recommends
02.01.13Defining the Chinese Dream (Editorial)
Amid growing rivalry with the U.S., Beijing’s diplomats must clearly explain their country’s values to ease the concerns of neighbors.
ChinaFile Recommends
01.31.13From Alberta to China, With Nine Kids in Tow
Calgary Herald
Cory and Michelle Coles, both 36, and nine of their 10 children are flying off to China for nine months with the hope of learning Mandarin and understanding more about the fascinating culture behind the emerging superpower.
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01.31.13China’s Ethnic Manchus Rediscovering Their Roots
Los Angeles Times
Aristocracy is no longer a dirty word in China, and those with ties to the nation's last imperial rulers are now embracing their past.
Media
01.30.13Chinese Web Erupts With Widespread Calls for Change as Beijing Endures Airpocalypse 2.0
Beijingers are choking on their air—again. Just seventeen days after Chinese cyberspace erupted with complaints about air so bad that it was “beyond index,” denizens of the Chinese capital awoke once again to a city blanketed with smog. Over the...
ChinaFile Recommends
01.30.13Opinion: Re-education Revisited
New York Times
How much of a reformer is China’s new leader, Xi Jinping? The January announcement that China is going to stop “Re-education Through Labor” by the end of the year could offer an important clue.
Caixin Media
01.26.13Garden of Lost Children
It started with a baby that was left in the doorway of a hospital bathroom. Yuan Lihai took in the girl with a cleft lip while working at a Henan province hospital in 1989. At the department of gynecology and obstetrics, she was paid 20 yuan for...
ChinaFile Recommends
01.26.13Eastern Promise in LIttle Africa
Globe and Mail
Chasing their slice of China’s raging appetite, tens of thousands of African traders are settling uneasily in the ghettos of Guangzhou.
Media
01.25.13Former China State TV Director Bemoans Anti-Japanese Propaganda: “Where’s the Creativity?”
Are Chinese audiences growing weary of anti-Japanese propaganda? It would seem that some, at least, are growing sick of the pathetic villains, superhuman heroes, and lame endings that many Chinese movies and television series about World War II, or...
Sinica Podcast
01.25.13The Call-in Show
from Sinica Podcast
So our show this week isn’t technically a call-in show, given the lack of phones in our studio, but it is as close as we can get it, so thanks to everyone who sent us a pre-recorded question. We had a lot more responses than we expected, and the...
ChinaFile Recommends
01.20.13China’s Inequality Index Highlights Urgency for Distribution Reforms
Global Times
The first rich-poor index for the past decade paints a far-from-rosy picture of what must be done to bridge the wealth gap.
ChinaFile Recommends
01.19.13Opinion: Will China End the One-Child Rule?
New York Times
Historically, China's supplied workers to the world. But as it ages the country might seek to recruit immigrants as labor.
Media
01.16.13Their Horizons Widening, China’s Web Users Look Abroad — And Want More
Last week, Google Executive Chairman Eric Schmidt urged North Korean leaders to embrace the Internet. Only a small proportion of that country’s 24 million people can access the World Wide Web, and the majority of the 1.5 million mobile phones there...
ChinaFile Recommends
01.16.13Analysis: New China Leaders Must
Reuters
Xiang Songzuo, the Agricultural Bank of China's chief economist says “stabilizing growth is a pre-condition for delivering on reform.”
Viewpoint
01.13.13Is Xi Jinping a Reformer? It’s Much Too Early to Tell
Last weekend, Nicholas Kristof wrote in the pages of The New York Times that he feels moderately confident China will experience resurgent economic reform and probably political reform as well under the leadership of recently installed Communist...
Caixin Media
01.13.13Police to Stop Camps This Year, Politburo Member Says
The notorious system that lets police send detainees to labor camps without trial will be halted this year, said Meng Jianzhu, secretary of the Central Politics and Law Commission, at a conference on January 7.Meng said the Communist Party’s Central...
Caixin Media
01.13.13Shutter Labor Camp System for Good, Legal Experts Urge
Legal experts have called on the government to follow through with hints at abolishing the country’s notorious system of labor camps.On January 7, Politburo member Meng Jianzhu said at a top conference that the system would “cease to be used.” His...
ChinaFile Recommends
01.11.13China's Twitter Goes Hollywood
Daily Beast
A weibo message from Brad Pitt set off a buzz this week, and he’s not the only overseas star invading the microblog.
Infographics
01.10.13What Does China Think?
Are Chinese citizens happy with the direction their country is taking? Do they believe in a market economy? Do they believe that hard work brings success?
Each year, the American think tank Pew Research Center asks questions like these to...
Media
01.09.13Why is a Mediocre, Low-Budget Comedy Taking China’s Box Office by Storm?
December 2012 saw hot competition in Chinese cinema. It began with Life of Pi, which was directed by Ang Li, an Oscar-winning director, followed by 1942, a historical movie by director Feng Xiaogang, and The Last Supper, by up-and-coming director Lu...
Media
01.08.13Online and Off, Social Media Users Go to War for Freedom of Press in China
When Mr. Tuo Zhen, the propaganda chief of Guangdong province, rewrote and replaced the New Year’s editorial of the Southern Weekend newspaper without the consent of its editors, he probably did not think it would make much of a splash. Indeed, Mr...
Media
01.07.13“Help Me Pay This Bill”: A Short But Incisive Send-Up of Chinese Corruption
It is a social media classic, a send-up of the corruption and profligacy that so often enrage Web users in China. A very short story variously titled “I Did Not Eat For Free” and “Help Me Pay This Bill” has been making the rounds for months on Sina...
Caixin Media
01.04.13Twisted Tongues
China’s cultural progress in the year 2012 can be summed up with eight words: weibo (microblog), diaosi (commoners), yuanfangti (a Yuanfang-like inquiry), shejian (tip of the tongue), yangsheng (keeping fit), shisanchai (thirteen hairpins, from a...
Media
01.03.13How a Run-Down Government Building Became the Hottest Item on China’s Social Web
It is perhaps a sign of the times in China that an image of nothing more than a ramshackle county government building could echo so widely. Since its posting on Sina Weibo, China’s Twitter, hours before New Year’s Eve, the image (see below) has been...
Environment
01.02.13China’s New “Middle Class” Environmental Protests
from chinadialogue
China’s urban residents (or the new “middle class”) protest on the streets only very rarely. Discontent is expressed almost exclusively online, via angry typing. But this has changed over the last five years—protests have come offline and on to the...
My First Trip
12.31.12After Ping Pong, Before Kissinger
My first trip to China apparently began in Montreal.It was April 1971, and the American ping-pong team had just been invited to China, opening the public part of the complex diplomacy that eventually brought Richard Nixon to Beijing and direct...
Caixin Media
12.28.12Desperate Cash Infusions Driving Blood Trade
The tumor was growing, and the family of cancer patient Xia Jianqing was growing desperate.Doctors at a military hospital in Beijing had warned Xia’s family that he would die without the blood needed for a lifesaving operation. But the hospital had...
Caixin Media
12.28.12Uncertain Future for Architectural Treasures
Nestled between mountains and a winding river in a scenic corner of Shanxi province is Zhongyang County, the home of an exquisite Confucian temple built during the Ming dynasty.The colorful wooden temple graced this idyllic valley for hundreds of...
ChinaFile Recommends
12.26.12Buy, Sell, Adopt: Child Trafficking in China
New York Times
In the past two and a half years, according to government statistics, some 54,000 children have been rescued from traffickers.
ChinaFile Recommends
12.26.12China's Anti-Corruption Tool Kit: No Flowers, Expensive Booze or 'Empty Talk'
Time
China's new leadership has made combating the country’s endemic corruption one of its publicly stated missions.
Media
12.24.12The Most Popular Chinese Web Searches of 2012
What did China search for in 2012? It wasn’t the hotly disputed Diaoyu Islands or the widely-watched London Olympics.On Baidu.com, China’s homegrown search engine commanding about eighty-three percent of the Chinese search market, the most popular...
ChinaFile Recommends
12.21.12Food For Thought
Economist
Food companies play an ambivalent part in the fight against flab. China's packaged food sales are 3-4 times their 2002 level.
The NYRB China Archive
12.21.12Beijing’s Doomsday Problem
from New York Review of Books
Over the past ten days, China has been riveted by accounts of what authorities say are its very own doomsday cult: the church of Almighty God, which has prophesized that the world will end today. Authorities have said the group staged illegal...
The NYRB China Archive
12.20.12The New Chinese Gang of Seven
from New York Review of Books
In traditional Chinese religion, a fashi, or ritual master, will recite a set of phrases to turn an ordinary space into a sacred area where the gods can descend to receive prayers and rejuvenate the community. The ceremony can last days, with breaks...