Asia

Amidst the hyperbole about serried ranks of gleaming new skyscrapers, the swelling middle class, the dazzling preparations for the Olympics and so forth, it is always worth getting a solid reality check about what underlies that rosy picture, the fact that China remains a highly repressive authoritarian state. I met recently for a …

Beijing –or at least the small corner of it where the Time office is located- is currently in the grip of an unpleasant stomach virus. The virus is making its rounds with sickness’ usual randomness, here three out of four people in an office struck down, next door, none; here three kids mildly affected and one parent out of commission …

Last month my colleague Susie Jakes wrote about her surprise that Shanghai party officials said they had been able to track down every last cent of the $407 million that disappeared in the Shanghai pension scandal. Today a story came out in the South China Morning Post that might help explain how that was possible. Former Shanghai party …

As many of you know, Jim McGregor’s book, “One Billion Customers, Lessons From the Front Lines of Doing Business in China, ” is one of the best `China books’ of the past couple of years. Jim’s a former reporter–WSJ Bureau Chief in Beijing–who went on to bigger and better things. His book paid implicit homage to a memoir written by one …

Four of China’s most prominent and provocative public intellectuals have written an open letter to the mega-portal sina.com challenging the site’s censorship policy and in particular its lack of transparency. Their letter has been translated at you can find it along with Roland Soong’s commentary at EastSouthWestNorth.

The authors all …

This summer Hong Kong will mark the tenth anniversary of the return of the colony from Britain to Chinese rule. So over the next few months we will begin to see all sorts of assessments over how the place has fared since the handover. It’s a complicated question, with the answer likely to be based as much on who you are asking as on what …

Another new development in Beijing’s Olympic prepations. Again big headlines, big news: Beijing is launching a campaign to get people to stop spitting and form orderly lines. Yes, here we go again. Another year, another campaign against the spittists. This year’s version will feature fines of 50 yuan, as well less-punitive measures like …

Apologies. The website in my last post is Chinadialogue not “diaologue.” I’ve fixed the link.

A post last week on the various films coming out on the Nanjing Massacre prompted several heated comments. Most said they didn’t believe the Japanese had fully come to terms with the wartime aggression of their country, while others pointed out that Japanese leaders have apologized repeatedly in the past. I think the emotional replies …

One of our former colleagues Maryann Bird wrote this morning to ask if we were aware of the the website she’s now working for. It’s called Chinadialogue and it’s a bilingual site (in Chinese and English)offering commentary on China’s environment. We didn’t know about it and we’re glad we now do. Currently on its homepage you’ll find …

Take dried pigs blood, mix in some chicken feathers. The result is a bogus “silkworm chrysalis amino acid compound,” and pride of first mention in a list of China’s ten biggest fake food cases last year. A state agency announced the stomach churners earlier this week. (There’s a Chinese-only version here). It must have been hard to …

Last week I mentioned the reports that Kim Jong Il’s oldest son has been spotted in Macau, the former Portuguese territory near Hong Kong. On Friday I headed over with a colleague to see if we could find him. Here’s a report on our search. And here’s a link to some video shot by a Japanese TV crew of a man believed to be Kim Jong Nam, …

My last entry on efforts to standardize translation of signage in Beijing drew a lot of commentary.

I agree with Brittany, who writes that more visitors to China ought to learn Chinese, though I’m not as worried as she is that more precise translation of signage is a threat to Chinese culture.

I also agree with those of you who said …