Looking for a place to invest in China? How about Xinjiang, or the “New Frontier,” as the northwestern autonomous region is known in Mandarin? Home to the Uighur people—a Turkic group that briefly helmed two self-proclaimed republics called East Turkestan in the 1930s and ‘40s—Xinjiang seethes with resentment toward the …
Another day, another crackdown in China. This time the country’s raucous virtual community, with 485 million Internet users, is feeling the heat. State censors have always policed what appears on the domestic social media sites that have flourished even as Western sites like Facebook and Twitter have been blocked. But various new rules
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Over the past week, as I’ve traveled across Asia, I’ve discovered an unlikely partner in my continental peregrinations: China’s security chief Zhou Yongkang. The senior Chinese envoy’s travels have taken him to Nepal, Laos, Cambodia and Tajikistan. The final stop is Mongolia, where Zhou is expected to head on Tuesday.
In …
The Tibetan National Martyrs’ Memorial is a black obelisk in Dharamsala, the Indian hill station that serves as the headquarters of exiled Tibetans who have fled their Chinese-ruled homeland. Usually the slender monument is surrounded by a colorful tangle of Tibetan prayer flags. But on August 16, the base of the memorial was …
Who is Ershidin Israil? An Islamic terrorist? A brave journalist? Or a Chinese spy? This much appears to be clear. In 2009 after riots convulsed Xinjiang, the tumultuous northwestern region of China that is home to the ethnic Uighur people, the 38-year-old teacher decamped to neighboring Kazakhstan. Ershidin’s friends and relatives …
It isn’t just because he’s 2.26 m tall. Yao Ming, the towering center who played for the Houston Rockets basketball team, is the world’s most famous living Chinese. And while he may not have reached the lofty heights of other great NBA centers because of the chronic injuries that ultimately ended his career on July 20—the …
Twelve-year-old Chen Le is a typical Chinese kid. He loves flying paper airplanes, plays Ping-Pong and dreams of becoming a scientist. And he aims one day to join the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) so, as Chen puts it, “I can puff out my chest and say I am a party member.” The public school that Chen attends in China’s southwestern …
Who’s the world’s new superpower? China, according to a poll by Pew Research Center’s Global Attitudes Project, which surveyed more than 27,000 people globally:
In 15 of 22 nations, the balance of opinion is that China either will replace or already has replaced the U.S. as the world’s leading superpower…This especially is
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In 2004, China outlawed the construction of new golf courses. The move was supposed to save a water-parched land and cut down on flashy displays of wealth by China’s nouveaux-riches. But you wouldn’t know about any such ban if you looked at the newly manicured greens ringing China’s growing cities. Indeed, the People’s Daily, …
The TIME cover showed a lissome young woman in a red cocktail dress—and it generated a firestorm. Twenty-year-old Guo Meimei became a lightning rod in China after she posted pictures of her white Maserati and orange Lamborghini online, along with images of her flying in business class and riding a horse. What, wondered China’s …
Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia’s capital, has always been a city redolent with tropical blooms. In recent weeks, the country’s opposition has been hoping to add a note of jasmine—of the political, not floral variety—to the air by calling for nationwide electoral reform. On Saturday, however, another scent was added to Kuala …
Is he or isn’t he? Around 11 pm on July 5, China’s blogosphere began trading in rumors that Jiang Zemin, the former leader of the People’s Republic, had died. By midnight local searches on this topic had become very popular. But within half an hour, the heavy hand of China’s censors descended. Chinese language searches for …
Take a map of China, and begin pressing thumbtacks into it for each spasm of violence: an eruption of ethnic Mongol anger against majority Han citizens in the northern region of Inner Mongolia a few weeks ago; bomb blasts set off last month by disgruntled citizens in eastern Jiangxi province and northwestern Gansu province; and …
