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The Law in China: Sometimes Brutal, Sometimes Brilliant

The Telegraph’s Peter Foster points out a forthcoming BBC series following an itinerant judge in Hubei. He argues that the series offers a rare and valuable glimpse at China’s legal system as it exists for most...

A Country on the Edge – John Pomfret

In the Washington Post, John Pomfret reviews Fragile Superpower by Susan Shirk: At a time when much writing about China frothily presumes the unstoppable rise of a global titan, it is refreshing that a respected academic and former government official (Shirk was the deputy assistant secretary of state for East Asia during the second Clinton […]

China’s Role in Burma’s Crisis Under Global Scrutiny

From The New York Times: See No Evil, Speak No Truth After decades of brutal military rule, Myanmar’s people have taken to the streets to demand democracy, and they are being mowed down. China, India and Russia have the means ” but apparently not the will ” to stop Myanmar’s vicious junta from murdering more […]

Political Games – Ian Buruma

Ian Buruma writes about the potential impact, or lack thereof, that activists will likely have on the 2008 Olympics: For the first time, thousands of reporters from all over the world will be able to look around the...

China’s Conquest of Africa – Andreas Lorenz and Thilo Thielke

In a lengthy article in Germany’s Der Spiegel, Andreas Lorenz and Thilo Thielke examine the consequences for Africa of China’s powerful presence on the continent: In the early 1990s, Zambia abandoned its socialist planned economy, Kaunda withdrew from politics and the ongoing slump in copper prices precipitated an economic crisis. In the late 1990s, when […]

Trouble in the Green Zone – Sarah Schafer

Newsweek gives the low-down on an ambitious project to build an environmentally-correct village gone wrong: According to plan, by now the Huangbaiyu project should have been well on its way to becoming a world model for environmentally friendly living, not to mention the kind of international cooperation between the developed and developing world that many […]

I Wanna Know, Where Did My Taxes Go?

Posted on blogger Hu Chan’s site, by an anonymous writer, translated by CDT: Today is the deadline for reporting personal taxes if annual income is above RMB 120,000. I look at the calendar and felt a struggle in my heart. I’m not sure if I should be serious, or I should be silent to show […]

Leaping Tiger, Drowning River – Patrick Symmes

Outside Magazine has published a lengthy account of a raft trip down the Yangtze River and an examination of what the ecological consequences will be for both China’s soaring energy demands, and the numerous dams planned on China’s rivers to satisfy that demand: Roughly the size of Germany, Yunnan is a hothouse of 20 endangered […]

Corruption Stains Timber Trade – Peter S. Goodman and Peter Finn

From the Washington Post, a report on corruption in the logging industry which is allowing Chinese firms to deforest land from Siberia to Papua New Guinea to the Amazon, in order to make furniture and other goods for American and European consumers: Some of the largest swaths of natural forest left on the planet are […]

China Has Come Full Circle – Bao Tong

RFA Mandarin service broadcast an essay by Bao Tong on Friday about the new property law, and has now posted a translation on RFA Unplugged: The Property Law of the People’s Republic of China was passed by a majority of 97% in the National People’s Congress. What does this mean? It means the final bankruptcy […]

Photos: Female Terracotta Warriors Exhibited in Beijing

Reuters and CNS all reported on the female terracotta warrior sculptures by Norwegian artist Marian Heyerdahl, who had her exhibition in Beijing’s 798 Art District. Heyerdahl made her works by duplicating the original terracotta warriors from Qin Shi Huangdi’s mausoleum in their original scale. From last September Heyerdahl lived in Xi’an Lintong to closely observe […]

I Want to Go Out of the Mountain – Wang Lixiong

From Boxun, Translated by CDT: On the train from Lhasa to Shanghai, I met a Tibetan woman who was on the bunk across from mine. Her hometown is in Deqin County (Âæ∑Èí¶Âéø) of Diqing District (Ëø™Â∫ÜÂ∑û), Yunnan Province. Across a river is the Tibet Autonomous Region. She was in Lhasa seeing her parents, who were […]

China’s Green Pledges Are as Deep as a Coat of Paint – Isabel Hilton

In the Guardian, Isabel Hilton follows up last week’s news of a mountain being painted green in southwestern China’s Fumin County with a commentary on what the incident reflects about China’s approach to environmental problems: The episode resonates with a long Chinese tradition of confusing appearance with reality. When, in the 1950s, Mao Zedong decreed […]

The Colbert Report Takes on China

The Comedy Central fake news pundit show, The Colbert Report, is celebrating the Year of the Pig with a special China report. In one segment, Colbert introduces his new term for the China-U.S. relationship: “Frenemy” (“The biggest way that China is our friend is that they are our enemy”). He also interviews journalist Sheryl WuDunn. […]

Video: Gao Yaojie, the AIDS Fighter (1/4) – YouTube

Dr. Gao Yaojie, the 80-year-old veteran AIDS fighter and national hero, was recently barred by the local government from going to Beijing to get her US visa to receive an award from US senator and presidential candidate Hillary Clinton. Here in the first part of a series of videos, you can learn about how Gao […]

“Trade-offs” Of China Entry

The floodgates are open. The ground rules have softened. But not all the correspondents coming to China ahead of the Olympics can take full advantage. In October last year, the Foreign Desk editor of one media outlet emailed the following memo to his Greater China staff. Biganzi happened upon it and on checking with an […]

U.S.-China Relationship: Economics and Security in Perspective – James Mann

Journalist and author James Mann recently testified before the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission, where he presented his view that political change in China is not inevitable and the U.S. should stop treating it as such: In our dealing with China, the problem of the wrong paradigm comes from the opposite direction. It’s not […]

China’s New Diplomacy Faces Test on Hu’s Africa Visit

Stephanie Kleine-Ahlbrahndt and Andrew Small write in the International Herald Tribune about a crucial shift in China’s diplomacy, as seen in their recent actions toward Sudan and North Korea: China’s foreign policy transformation has been a while in the making. Its long-standing protection of the Sudanese regime was already unraveling during the China-Africa summit meeting […]

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