Asia

Although news is still sketchy it is clear that there have been fresh and much more serious demonstrations in the Tibetan capital Lhasa today. Activists, academics and residents said the protests, which had been peaceful until now, turned violent. Unconfirmed but credible reports spoke of police vehicles and a large market in flames. …

The hijack story is fading fast, partly because of other stories replacing it in the news cycle and also because the lack of new information or coverage (the People’s Daily never did mention it at all) is killing it, presumably as the government wishes. However, in the interests of updating –and fairness (having been skeptical and still …

Here’s a link to some tourist video and stills from Tibet, where the three days of protests by monks have been contained but the security situation remains extremely tense, with the three main monasteries cordoned off and reports beginning to surface of possible hunger strikes or even suicides. This is a nightmare scenario for Beijing. A …

Well, as expected, the inflation bear is coming out of hibernation and has a very sore head indeed. February’s rate was 8.7 per cent, the worst for 11 years. As we noted recently, this is a huge issue the Communist Party and is a major problem for ordinary people. Interestingly enough, the announcement about inflation was matched by one …

So Exiled Uighur leader Rebiya Kadeer says the whole supposed hijacking incident over the weekend was a sham:

“It’s completely untrue. All these allegations are falsified,” the separatist figurehead, who joined her US-based husband in 2005 after six years in a Chinese jail, told AFP through an interpreter. “The real goal of the Chinese

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Over the weekend I visited 798, Beijing’s booming art enclave that was once an East German built factory area. I was looking for an exhibition by a friend, artist Zhao Gang, but had a tough time, what with the crowds, traffic and plethora of new galleries. Anyway, here’s a video:

Last week we mentioned the development of the Beijing airport, which will be the main entry point for the athletes, journalists and visitors coming to town this summer. My friend and fellow Iowan Josh Kucera recently took a road less traveled to the Chinese capital. His series of reports has been running this week on Slate. An excerpt …

Premier Wen Jiabao opened the National People’s Congress on Wednesday with the usual “work report” to the delegates. t took two and half hours but there was no question then and in subsequent comments by senior officials that inflation is very much on their minds. Wen said their target for the year is 4.8 per cent, which seems optimistic …

I asked for and got some smart, considered replies on the rubber stamp issue (and a fair amount of abuse, too, for the record). The thrust was that I was probably right in being uneasy using the term because of all the baggage it carries: Bottom line is that the NPC does do important work but that it isn’t anything like a representative, …

In my last entry I succumbed to the reporter’s original sin and referred to the National People’s Congress, the annual meeting of some 2800 or so selected delegates that is a sort of Chinese parliament, as China’s “rubber stamp” parliament. So today, reflecting, I thought maybe that I was being was lazy, using a cliche …

So China is to raise its official military spending by nearly 18 per cent. According to a spokesman at the National People’s Congress, the rubber stamp parliament whose annual session begins today, military spending in 2008 will reach 417.8 billion yuan ($57.2 billion). This comes on the heels of a Pentagon report which sounds the alarm …

Back in June, the people of the coastal city of Xiamen came out onto the streets for two successive days to protest plans to allow a billion-dollar chemical plant to be built within city limits. It was an unprecedented but entirely peaceful demonstration and, after considerable twists and turns, eventually resulted in the municipal …