For Beijing, managing perceptions of the country’s military modernization program is no easy task. On one hand, it is important for China’s leaders to show, both to citizens at home and potential rivals abroad, that they are cultivating a capable and powerful fighting force. At the same time, too enthusiastic a display of armed …
More than a month after an online call for anti-government protests in major Chinese cities, a crackdown on dissent continues. On Friday writer Ran Yunfei, who has been in police custody since February 19, was formally arrested on suspicion of “inciting subversion of state power,” the advocacy group Human Rights in China …
He’s known as Michael Anti to Harvard and Hillary Clinton, among others. But in January, Facebook deleted the account of the Chinese media commentator because he didn’t use his legal name, Zhao Jing. Anti says Facebook’s decision cost him a profile with more than 1,000 friends and professional contacts. At first Anti says he …
I read Fareed Zakaria’s cover story this week about the decline of the U.S. first from the perspective of an American, but I couldn’t help thinking about what it had to say about China. China is of course seen as the leading rival to American dominance. He quotes Harvard historian Niall Ferguson on the background of how this came to …
After the paranoid and sometimes violent response to yesterday’s thwarted “jasmine rallies,” a question hangs in the air: why would a government that seems so strong react with such fear? After all, few think that China will experience its own Middle Eastern-style “jasmine revolution.” The story from yesterday’s protest sites, at least …
Any hint of “jasmine revolution” in Beijing was swept away Sunday, first by legions of police, then by trucks spraying water onto a shopping street in the center of the Chinese capital. There was no sign of protest, and once again the turnout was largely security forces, foreign reporters and curious tourists.
Anonymous organizers …
The call to meet with the police came at about 5 p.m. on Friday. I suggested that as it was getting late, perhaps we could meet next week. The caller declined, and instead she gave me a rapid-fire review of China’s reporting rules, namely that reporters must get subjects’ permission before conducting interviews. The reason for the …
Days after an unsuccessful attempt at importing the Arab spring uprisings to China, a group of anonymous online organizers is trying again. In a posting on an overseas website popular with Chinese dissidents, they’ve called for further demonstrations every Sunday in 13 major Chinese cities. Last Sunday’s attempted “jasmine …