Asia

People like to draw comparisons between the extremes and absurdities of the Chinese economy today and what the U.S. and Europe went through more than a century ago. It’s never an exact fit, but sometimes the comparison makes for an interesting point, like to give context to the development of intellectual property protection.

So it’s …

One of the brightest, most interesting voices writing about a critical piece of the China story is Michael Pettis, a Professor of Finance at Beida (Peking University). He blogs at www.piaohaoreport.sampasite.com and writes intelligently about the Chinese economy, the increasing bind the government is in over its mounting current …

I was recently talking with Zhang Hongjun, a former senior official with China’s State Environmental Protection Administration, about the prospects of Beijing cleaning up its bad air ahead of the Olympics. His response surprised me, twice. First, he was confident that the city could get the problem under control. And second, he wasn’t …

China’s Olympic fervor is reaching new heights. Last week, movie star Jackie Chan recorded the one-year Olympic countdown song, We Are Ready. You can watch a performance here. (Warning: the catchy chorus might get stuck in your head for hours). This weekend, Xinhua reported on a fellow in Mudanjiang, northeastern China, who constructed …

There are days living in China, particularly in a relatively affluent city like Shanghai, when life can seem very normal to someone who grew up in the United States. This weekend was sunny and pleasant (the autumn is by far the nicest time of the year here), and I watched my daughter play outside with one of her best friends—a …

I forgot to add this picture to those in the previous post. Some of you may remember the non-controversy stirred up on the Chinese internet over the presence of the Starbucks in a corner of the Forbidden City. After years trying to look inconspicuous, the Seattle company was finally booted out earlier this year. Quite absurd in my …

It rained heavily Saturday and the smog vanished and was replaced by glorious, clear blue skies and sunshine. I went for a stroll in the north eastern end of the Forbidden City. In the interests of fairness, I am posting a couple of pictures to offset the fog-bound image below. Middle-aged Chinese friends say they recall many days like …

With reference to the last post about air quality, here’s a link to an interesting piece in Slate that explains how the pollution might not only cause events to be delayed as the IOC has repeatedly warned and affect athletes’ health, it could also impact their performance, something that had never occurred to me before. That explains …

As I remarked earlier this week, the Olympics Inspectors are in town. This Beijing style pea-souper is what they get to see. When the fog descends, pollution concentrates, the air stinks and instead of actually doing something about it, officials tell us –once again– that the elderly and the young shouldn’t go outside. And we haven’t …

Comment by a reader on my post about how China selects its leaders:

I do not think any political system is designed to select the most competent leaders. The best they can get is the most accepted leaders by ALL PARTIES who has a say at the time. Look at Bush. It is pretty hard to find a more incompetent leader than him. AND he got

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CCTV

This from my colleague in Beijing Lin Yang:

I have become a TV fan at a very unlikely time. When all channels are playing the 17th Party Congress materials during prime time, there is one channel that stands out. Instead of playing hard-core propaganda, it is playing a “dramaganda,” as I call it, about the People’s Liberation

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