Asia

Divestment campaigns. Boycotts. UN-approved sanctions. Economic pressure– driven by both governments as well as NGOS, human rights groups as well as some pension funds– is an increasingly contentious part of the debate about Iran (and its nuclear program) and Darfur (and its ongoing human rights travesty).
China is at the center of …

Journalism, as practiced in China by genuine Chinese journalists—genuine in the sense of trying to report something other than the Party line– is a tough business. Reporters and editors constantly have to figure out much of the Party’s ire they can risk without having the hammer come down on them. Dismissal—or worse—can always …

Peter Parks / AFP / Getty

Our office received a visit today from 杜斌/ Du Pin a Chinese photographer who has spent much of his time in recent years recording the lives and suffering of China’s millions of petitioners. These are individuals who have exhausted their formal legal avenues of redress and are obliged to resort to an …

From AFP, an interesting story about veteran journalist Peter Arnett teaching for a semester at Shantou University in Guangdong. Arnett says he found the environment much more open than he expected:

But while the Chinese government appears to be tightening its already formidable control over all forms of information, Arnett says he has

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The Director of China’s Family Planning Office, warned yesterday that “the world’s most populous country could face a ‘population rebound’ because the newly rich are ignoring population control laws and because of early marriages in rural areas.” The English-language China Daily reports that Zhang Weiqing went on to expand on his point, …

The China chapter of Hoop Nation (which probably comprises about, oh, 350 million people, ie, more than the entire United States) is in a deep funk today after the Houston’s Rockets’ inconceivable game seven loss at home last night to the Utah Jazz in the first round of the NBA playoffs. Once again, Yao Ming, Tracy McGrady & Co. …

Censorship in China marches on. A report from RFA on the death—or at least neutering—of one of the few muckraking print publications, called “Commoners,” here in China. Since the RFA site is not–surprise!–accessible in China, I’ll reprint the entire story below.
Commoners, RIP. (And remind me again, when does the much …

In response to comments, I am posting a somewhat better picture pf the torch design that I think makes the connection to the jinqubang clearer. I do concede that “western demons” was an unhappy phrase and somewhat facetious to boot. Regarding the point about Monkey as a rebel, I am posting what seems to me an interesting comment by …

Tuesday is the start of China’s Golden Week holiday, when tens of millions of people head out on vacation. Last year 415,000 of them came to Hong Kong, and many restaurants, shops and hotels saw an uptick in business. Now people wonder whether recent reports of local stores selling fake watches and jewelry to mainland tourists will …

Is it just us or does the just-released design of the Olympic Torch look amazingly like…..

Jingubang, the magic cudgel carried by the legendary Sun Wukong, Sage of Emptiness and Monkey King? Jodi Xu of our Beijing bureau thinks so. “When the unveiling ceremony was held on April 27 in Beijing,” she writes, “the host of the …

Numbers in China, as has been noted elsewhere in this blog, are squishy, too put it mildly. With the Health Ministry numbers I referred to below, I cite them as they indicate a trend rather than thinking they represent an exact statistical number. Allegories for the reader’s edification like Biblical stories, and for both, having faith …

The horrors of health care (or lack of it) in China are a constant topics in the Chinese media, where tales of fraudulent doctors (and even fraudulent hospitals), blatant overcharging, over-prescription and deadly mis-diagnosis and so on are common. The Ministry of Health yesterday released statistics for last year that show these are …

Another example of the sort of Olympics-related protests we have mentioned will be increasingly common. This one was at the base camp for Mount Everest and about Tibet. See the story here unless you are in China (in which case you should have figured out how to slip around the Great Firewall by proxy anyway). There’s also a video on …