China to Build $5 Billion High-Speed Rail Line in Indonesia

Rieka Rahadiana
Bloomberg
China Railway International Co. Ltd and a consortium of Indonesian state companies will build the rail line from Jakarta to Bandung.

This Is Where China’s Future Will Be Decided

Matt O'Brien
Washington Post
Lanzhou, China — The first thing you notice is the dust.

Taiwan Prepares For Turmoil As China Watches Its Elections From Afar

Martin Woollacott
Guardian
The basic question before voters in next year’s poll is whether they will still exist as a country.

Ai Weiwei Memoir Coming in Spring 2017

STAV ZIV
Newsweek
Crown Publishing Group announced that it will publish a memoir by the artist in the spring of 2017.

Culture Shock: Chinese Ministry Slammed on Not-so-Social Media

Josh Chin
WSJ: China Real Time Report
Watch the country’s culture ministry get eviscerated on social media.

Vietnam Accuses Chinese Vessel of Sinking Fishing Boat

Associated Press
Vietnam said that a Chinese vessel rammed into and sank one of its fishing boats near disputed islands in the South China Sea.

China's Xiaomi's Is Changing the U.S. Too

Clay Shirky
CNN
Xiaomi is the most important phone manufacturer you've never heard of.

Ancient Teeth Found in China Challenge Modern Human Migration Theory

Georgia McCafferty and Shen Lu
CNN
Scientists in southern China have discovered human teeth dating back at least 80,000 years.

The Chinese Oscar Winner that Wasn’t

BETHANY ALLEN-EBRAHIMIAN
Foreign Policy
Wolf Totem is a spectacular film, but its soul is missing. That's just how Beijing wants it.

Xi’s Visit to Kick Off a Golden Age of China-UK Relations

Shi Zhiqin and Lai Suetyi
Diplomat
A state visit next week is expected to spark a new era in bilateral ties.

China Tightens TV Censorship after Cleavage Controversies

Patrick Brzeski
Hollywood Reporter
New rules may require some Chinese shows to delay broadcasts by as much as six months.

Survivors Tell the Camera the Hidden Tale of China's Great Famine

Jonathan Kaiman
Los Angeles Times
When Li Yaqin was 16, she ate what her family could scavenge.

China’s Middle Class Has Overtaken the U.S.’s to Become the World’s Largest

Zheping Huang
Quartz
China has crossed another economic threshold.

'Hunting' for China at the Democratic Debate

Emily Rauhala
Washington Post
Jim Webb wanted to talk China.The rest of the candidates? Not so much.

A Land China Loves and Hates

Murong Xuecun
New York Times
The Chinese hostility to America is first and foremost the result of government propaganda.

How A 16-Year-Old Found Himself Caught Up in China’s Latest Crackdown

Emily Rauhala
Washington Post
He is not a lawyer, or a dissident. He is a 16-year-old with a bowl-cut fringe.

'A Brighter Future Beckons': China Tries to Get Xinjiang to Join the Party

Tom Phillips
Guardian
Yellow signs swing from lampposts urging citizens to “hold high the great banner of national unity”.

Escalator Death in China Heightens Safety Concerns

PATRICK BOEHLER
New York Times
A 4-year-old boy was killed after getting trapped in an escalator at a subway station in the southwestern city of Chongqing.

China Opens Communist Party Theme Park

Shen Lu and Maggie Hiufu Wong
CNN
Who needs Disneyland when you can have a theme park for youngsters to declare their loyalty to China's Communist Party?

When Palace Museum Meets Creativity

China Daily
In the minds of most people, Emperor and his concubines lived their lives solemnly.

China Turns Firepower to Soft Power to Try to Win Tiny Taiwan-held Island

YIMOU LEE AND FAITH HUNG
Reuters
"In Kinmen, we can do what Taiwan can't, what Taiwan doesn't dare do."

Chinese Hospitals Still Offering Gay 'Cure' Therapy, Film Reveals

Emma Graham-Harrison and Shaunagh...
Guardian
Channel 4’s Unreported World finds doctors prescribing drugs and electric shocks to gay men and lesbians despite Beijing legalising homosexuality in 1997.

Wartime Sex Slaves at the Heart of UN Battle Between Japan and China

Justin McCurry
Guardian
Both countries have submitted competing nominations for inclusion in Unesco’s Memory of the World programme.

Culture

10.07.15

Jia Zhangke on Finding Freedom in China on Film

Jonathan Landreth
Jia Zhangke is among the most celebrated filmmakers China has ever produced—outside of China. His 2013 film, A Touch of Sin, a weaving-together of four tales of violence ripped from modern-day newspaper headlines, won the Best Screenplay award at...

Yes, He Can: Sichuan’s Answer to Barack Obama Cashes in on His Moment in the Sun

Keira Lu Huang
South China Morning Post
A man from the southwestern Chinese province of Sichuan has been making a living by looking like US President Barack Obama.

A Year on, Mixed Views on What Hong Kong Protests Achieved

Vincent Yu
Associated Press
"Has the Umbrella Movement accomplished anything? If so, what?"

Once Seed Was Planted, Chinese Headwear Fad Grew Like Weeds

Chris Buckley
New York Times
Across China, grown-ups are sporting plastic decorations on their heads in the shape of vegetables, fruit and flowers.

Dalai Lama: China More Concerned About Future Dalai Lamas Than I Am

Mick Krever
CNN
"I have no concern," he told Amanpour in London, adding that it is "possible" he would be the last Dalai Lama.

The Chinese Government Is Cranking Up the Nationalism After Its Nobel Win

Gwynn Guilford
Quartz
In a way, the Nobel honor is a double-whammy for the Chinese government’s nationalist agenda.

Putting the Past Behind in China

Chris Horton
New York Times
The days of China’s relying on export manufacturing and infrastructure construction as drivers of economic growth are gone.

How hard does China work?

Tom Phillips
Guardian
A look at the realities of working life in China, following Jeremy Hunt’s suggestion that Britons need to work as hard as the Chinese.

China’s Xi Jinping Changes the Odds in Macau

Andrew Browne
Wall Street Journal
If there’s one skill that the U.S. gambling moguls who staked their futures here have mastered it’s calculating the odds.

HK Fined By Fifa For Fans Booing Chinese Anthem

BBC
The Hong Kong Football Association (HKFA) has been fined $40,000 Hong Kong dollars ($5,160; £3,400) by Fifa.

Japan's Abe Says TPP Would Have Strategic Significance If China Joined

Linda Sieg and Kaori Kaneko
Reuters
"It would contribute largely to our nation's security and Asia-Pacific regional stability, if China joined the system in the future."

Youyou Tu: How Mao’s Challenge to Malaria Pioneer Led to Nobel Prize

Tom Phillips
Guardian
Tasked in 1969 with finding a cure for malaria, China’s first laureate in medicine looked to nature and traditional medicine.

Seven Dead, 223 Injured as Tornadoes Brought by Typhoon Mujigae Ravage China’s Guangdong Province

Mimi Lau
South China Morning Post
Mujigae was the strongest typhoon to make landfall in at least six decades.

A Painting of China’s First Lady, Before a Rise to Stardom

Didi Kirsten Tatlow
New York Times
On the exhibition notes, the painting of Peng Liyuan by Jin Shangyi is identified only as “a well-known singer.”

China’s Middle-Class Dreams in Peril

Mark Magnier and Laurie Burkitt
Wall Street Journal
Smaller cities on the cusp of China’s transformation toward consumer-driven growth struggle to overcome ill effects of previous economic model.

Sinica Podcast

10.05.15

Edmund Backhouse in the Long View of History

Kaiser Kuo & David Moser from Sinica Podcast
Edmund Backhouse, the 20th century Sinologist, long-time Beijing resident, and occasional con-artist, is perhaps best known for his incendiary memoirs, which not only distorted Western understanding of Chinese history for more than 50 years, but...

Culture

10.02.15

In Zhang Yimou’s ‘Coming Home’ History is Muted But Not Silent

Eva Shan Chou
Coming Home, directed by the celebrated Zhang Yimou and released in the U.S. last week, begins as a man escapes a labor camp in China’s northwest and tries to return home. But he is captured when he and his wife attempt to meet, after their daughter...

More Working Women in China Freeze Their Eggs

LAURIE BURKITT
Wall Street Journal
Government limits fertility treatment, so career-focused women turn to U.S. for help in having babies.

Gay Couples in China Look Abroad to Start a Family

Laurie Burkitt
WSJ: China Real Time Report
Xu Zhe decided a few years ago that he wanted to get married and have a baby—typical life plans for a young man in China.

Q. and A.: Johannes Chan on Academic Freedom in Hong Kong

MICHAEL FORSYTHE
New York Times
The governing council of the University of Hong Kong rejected this week the nomination of Johannes Chan.

China’s Butler Boom

BIANCA BOSKER
New Yorker
On a recent morning at a butler-training school in Chengdu, China,;lessons began at 8 A.M.,with an exercise in “opening the villa.”

Troubles for the ‘China Model’

DANIEL A. BELL
Wall Street Journal
Meritocracy has worked for Beijing, but to survive, the system needs more openness.

Suspect in China Parcel Bombings Died in Explosion, Police Say

Bloomberg
Wei Yinyong, 33, a local man previously named as a suspect, was identified following DNA tests.

Media

10.02.15

Meet China’s Salman Rushdie

Bethany Allen-Ebrahimian
On a warm late afternoon in June, I sat with Perhat Tursun as he slowly exhaled a puff of smoke from a blue cigarette with shiny gold trim. Arrayed on the pale lace tablecloth before us was an assortment of nuts, sunflower seeds, and wine. The...

Gay Subway Proposal an Internet Hit in China

Pamela Boykoff, Shen Lu and Serena Dong
CNN
Attitudes towards gay rights are gradually shifting in China. Two decades ago, gay couples could face arrest under sodomy laws.

America’s Biggest Competitor Really Isn’t China

Ana Swanson
Washington Post
If you ask Americans who their country's biggest competitor is, many people will tell you China.

Children of the Yuan Percent: Everyone Hates China’s Rich Kids

Christopher Beam
Bloomberg
The fuerdai, China’s second-generation rich kids, are the most loathed group in the country.

On China’s National Day, Hong Kong Protesters Say That They Are Not Part of China

Rishi Iyengar
Time
Small groups of protesters waved the blue colonial flag.

China’s Latest Ally in Its Crackdown on Religion: The Pope

Zheping Huang
Quartz
This week, Chinese president Xi Jinping and Pope Francis missed each other on their back-to-back visits to the United States.

Jack Ma to US: Quit Worrying So Much About China

Everett Rosenfeld
CNBC
"You American people worry too much about the China economy," Ma said at the annual Clinton Global Initiative meeting.

China Micromanages Tibet, Floods It With Money to Woo Locals

Tablet
Nearly 6,500 civil servants have been dispatched to manage hefty budgets and shape Tibet's modernization.

The Thucydides Trap: Are the U.S. and China Headed for War?

GRAHAM ALLISON
Atlantic
In 12 of 16 past cases in which a rising power has confronted a ruling power, the result has been bloodshed.

Infographics

09.29.15

China’s New Roads Are Taking a Toll

from Sohu
On July 21, the Ministry of Transport issued a revised draft of its “Regulations on Toll Road Administration,” outlining planned adjustments to toll collection periods.Four Important Changes:{photo, 19386, 3}How Many Toll Roads Are There in China...

On U.S. Visit, China’s Xi Jinping Tries to Have It Both Ways

ANDREW BROWNE
WSJ: China Real Time Report
Xi Jinping often seemed caught between two audiences—his skeptical hosts who needed gentle reassurance and the crowd back home who admire his firm rule and tough nationalism.