From AP, via Forbes (link): China’s government is trying to boost public interest in its figurehead parliament and its companion advisory body by setting up Web logs for members as they meet this week. Called “bo ke” in Chinese, blogs are popular with young people despite strict censorship rules. In one posting, National People’s Congress […]
Read MoreFrom the Financial Times (link) China is abandoning most numerical economic targets from its decades-old planning system as part of an effort to change the country’s obsession with growth at the expense of social programmes and the environment. The National Development and Reform Commission, the chief planning agency, said economic targets in the country’s latest […]
Read MoreAn old woman dancing traditional Yangge in the Spring Festival, via Xitek.com
Read MoreFrom the Guardian (link); China’s prime minister, Wen Jiabao, yesterday promised an extra 42bn yuan (¬£3bn) in spending for poor rural areas, in a key policy speech aimed at addressing the strains that have emerged in the world’s fastest growing yet most unbalanced large-scale economy. Amid growing unrest in the provinces, Mr Wen said the […]
Read MoreFrom the New York Times (link): The actress and filmmaker Xu Jinglei, who won an award at the San Sebastian Film Festival in Spain for directing the movie “A Letter From an Unknown Woman,” also writes a popular blog. Now, five months later, Ms. Xu, 31, is the country’s most popular blogger, and her runaway […]
Read MoreFrom Foreign Policy (link): The lost boys of Prof. Albert Macovski are upon us. Twenty years ago, the ultrasound scanning machine came into widespread use in Asia. The invention of Macovski, a Stanford University researcher, the device quickly gave pregnant women a cheap and readily available means to determine the sex of their unborn children. […]
Read MoreFrom Reuters (link): A Chinese journalist has been charged with sending subversive Hotmail e-mails abroad under a pseudonym amid accusations Yahoo recently provided evidence that led to the imprisonment of two Chinese Internet writers. The bill of indictment said Li Yuanlong, 45, a reporter with the Bijie Daily in the southwestern province of Guizhou, sent […]
Read MoreFrom ABC News (link): China’s top government advisor on population issues has called for strict measures to stop rich people from having too many children and violating the country’s “one-child” policy. The Xinhua news agency quotes population expert Yang Kuifu as saying an increasing number of business tycoons or rich celebrities have been having two […]
Read MoreFrom the International Herald Tribune (link): Over the past two years, China has escalated beatings, imprisonment and harassment of dissenters: intellectuals, social and economic justice activists, journalists and even farmers who attempt to present their grievances to authorities. Many Westerners might never have heard about the recent attacks if not for the response of a […]
Read MoreFrom AFP, via China Daily (link): The face of Cui Jian, the godfather of Chinese rock and roll, graced the cover of the first Chinese edition of the classic American rock and roll magazine, Rolling Stone. The venerable bible of pop culture launched its Chinese edition this month focusing on Asia’s emerging youth culture, while […]
Read MoreChinese Premier Wen Jiabao made the country’s deteriorating environment a centerpiece of his opening remarks at the annual meeting of the National People’s Congress yesterday. AFP has a basic summary here: Wen was introducing lawmakers assembled at the Great Hall of the People to energy-saving policies and other efforts planned for the next five years. […]
Read MoreFrom China Daily, via China Environmental News Digest: Swimming in Pearl River was once a must activity in the summer for people in Guangzhou, the capital of South China’s Guangdong. But since the 1970s it has become a risky pastime because of increasing amounts of consumer and industrial waste in the water. With clean-up efforts […]
Read MoreFrom the Associated Press (Link): There are no official statistics tallying the toll in suffering, but by most accounts, after nearly two decades of neglect, China is confronting a rural health crisis on a monumental scale. Up to 90 percent of the 800 million people in China’s countryside lack affordable medical care. Children go unvaccinated. […]
Read MoreFrom AP, via Yahoo News (link): China’s economy will grow by “about eight percent” this year, Premier Wen Jiabao was to say in his opening address to the annual session of parliament, according to a copy of the speech. “GDP (gross domestic product) should grow by about eight percent and energy consumption per unit of […]
Read MoreFrom Japan Times, via A Glimpse of the World: Our plane looked new and well maintained, but as we headed off into the void on the atlas far, far to the northwest of Shanghai, I still wondered if I had made a mistake by not buying some of the “Air Unexpected Insurance” on offer at […]
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