Rebecca MacKinnon who teaches journalism at the University of Hong Kong, has a great, insightful post on the Forbidden City Starbucks hubbub and the ways it has been portrayed in the Western media. MacKinnon knows China very well (she was Beijing Bureau Chief at CNN in the late 1990s).
Among the things she points out is that Rui …
A reader takes me to task for being insensitive:
Simon: Is your comment on Indians and Egyptians not being able to afford Starbucks coffee supposed to be a poor joke? I’m not from either country, but found your lame attempt at humor vicariously offensive. Have you actually traveled to either place? Perhaps you should get out of China …
The campaign to pick Hong Kong’s next Chief Executive has started, and the first big issue seems to be … whether incumbent Donald Tsang should have used his official car and bodyguard while visiting his campaign office. Perhaps these sort of procedural debates are to be expected, given the lack of experience with elections in the …
Last Friday a middle-aged couple from Jiangsu province came to our office seeking justice. This is something that happens on a fairly regular basis. A few times a month, sometimes as often as several times in a given week, Chinese people with grievances against the courts, against the police, against their local governments will call the …
Over the weekend Shang Fulin, the head of China’s Securities Regulatory Commission, declared that mainland stock exchanges were on shaky foundations, and that healthy performance wasn’t assured. At the same time, some top analysts have advised investors to be wary of high-priced Chinese stocks. So how did the markets respond? They …
It’s been hard to avoid the news that Hillary Rodham Clinton has entered the race for the U.S. presidency, an election that is nearly two years away. Hong Kong has an election coming up too, and though it is just two months away the man who is almost certain to win has yet to announce his candidacy. Chief Executive Donald Tsang has …
I’ve always thought having a Starbucks in the Forbidden City was pretty tacky. But actually, when you look at it in the context of all of the other retail outlets, the ones pushing plastic jade beads and the cigarette lighters that play “The East is Red,” the coffee shop seems pretty innocuous. So one question I’d ask Rui and co is, “Is …
China’s blogosphere/webworld/netnation or whatever is a fascinating, still evolving (maturing?) animal. When mobilized, China’s netizens can by collective effort accomplish noble ends. Take the case of Foxconn, a Taiwanese company with a factory in the southern boomtown of Shenzhen. After two local journalists published an article …
As Simon noted in his post about the continuing horrors of China’s coal industry, a rookie reporter named Lan Chengzhang was beaten to death in Shanxi last week while investigating an illegal mine. The debate about Lan’s status as a journalist and the allegation of blackmail have diverted some focus from the fact that a man was killed, a …
More depressing news from China’s mines. The most blood spattered of all the country’s industries, The news is rarely good but lately it has been particularly bad. Rookie reporter Lan Chengzhan of the Beijing-based China Trade News was beaten to death while attempting to report a story about coal mine safety in Shanxi province, itself …
That’s the word from Simon Clegg, chief executive of the British Olympic Association, regarding next year’s Beijing Olympics. China is, as Clegg points out, in the midst of an incredible effort to prepare its athletes for the Games. It’s not just gearing up for strong showings in events like diving, where it’s a traditional powerhouse. …
Yesterday, Hong Kong got tough with cross-border threat. It wasn’t currency speculators, or bird flu carriers. No, it was pregnant women.
The growing numbers of them arriving here from the Chinese mainland has become a serious political concern. They come to Hong Kong as tourists late in their terms so their children will be born here …
Via the ever-useful Docuticker, I just came across an interesting new report put out by the U.S. Justice Department on Asian transnational crime. It takes a look at gangs in several places in Asia, including mainland China, Hong Kong, Macau and Taiwan, and considers their influence on the United States. A couple years ago I spoke with …
