Asia

Evan Osnos, who last appeared here when he was traipsing across Sichuan for the Chicago Tribune, has a new blog on China for the New Yorker. I told him recently that it will only be a true China blog once he starts larding posts with photos of the view from his window (examples of the form here, here and here.) Today Evan complied, …

A rash of optimism –or maybe forlorn hope–has been breaking out among some economists who are taking a variety of recent economic signals as a sign that China’s economy may have hit bottom– or even begun a rebound. This seems a clear case of hope triumphing over experience considering the state of the rest of the world, but is worth a …

It had the makings of a pretty good story. Three Chinese warships patrolling against pirates in the Gulf of Aden–an unusually remote mission for the Chinese navy–were stalked by an Indian submarine. The Indian interloper is discovered, pursued and eventually forced to surface by the Chinese convoy. You have two rising powers squaring …

Some economist see reason for optimism in an officially-backed survey released here today. The purchasing managers’ index (PMI) is a measure of orders and output expectations from officers of Chinese companies. The latest number was still in negative territory, indicating that a continued slowdown is likely. But it was higher than last …

You can see why the thrower picked this particular grungy specimen to chuck towards Wen Jiabao. More evidence of malice aforethought…..

Further to Austin’s post below, academic Victor Shih out of Northwestern University has a closer look at that 20 million number here. His conclusion on back-of-the-envelope calculation is that China’s real unemployment rate is around 8 percent. Interestingly, that would make it just about the same as the rate in the U.S. right now. Many …

The latest official numbers now say that 20 million out of China’s 130 million migrant workers are unemployed. The figure is double what the estimates were just a few weeks ago when I was down in Hunan province talking with people who had returned from factories on the coast because of a lack of work. That was before Chinese New Year. …

China’s Premier followed in the footsteps (as it were) of former (hurray!) President Bush by having someone throw a shoe at him while speaking at Cambridge University. No footage (wire story here) unfortunately so we won’t be able to see his reaction. Probably didn’t miss a beat, knowing him. There’s plenty of footage from youtube (I …

A nice piece by Jessie Jiang here.