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Unusually appalling weather in a large chunk of southern China couldn’t, it seems, come at a worse time. Unrelenting snow and cold have persisted for much longer than usual, meteorologists say, and show no sign of letting up. Already, hundreds of millions of dollars of damage have been reported …

A Beijing newspaper reported Wednesday what has long been expected, that there will be serious restrictions on vehicles during the Olympics in August. While the details weren’t released, it’s likely they will follow the pattern from a trial run last year, when passenger vehicles were limited to alternating days—odd numbered license …

In the category of always looking on the bright side, two researchers from the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace write in an op-ed for the Financial Times that China could use a crash to push through need reforms in its stock market:

While Beijing should resist the calls to bail out investors, it must respond to public pressure

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Traveling in Jiangsu Province with photographer Ryan Pyle, we came across this grim reminder of the nearly 100,000 who die a year on China’s roads. The sign says, simply: “Speeding, 3 dead, one injured.” The sight didn’t seem to affect our driver, who happily kept his foot pressed to the floor and was still passed by cars on …

Southern Weekend, the Guangzhou based weekly known over the years for its willingness to publish controversial stories (sometimes in defiance of the authorities) details in its January 16 issue the depressing facts behind a case of a badly contaminated anti leukemia drug, produced by a Shanghai based pharmaceutical company, leading to …

This is so sad. In October, restaurant chain Meizhou Dongpo became the first in Beijing to ban smoking. Now China Daily reports that the Sichuan chain might have to close shop because they’ve lost so much business. Some guests even locked waitresses out of VIP dining rooms so they could puff away. Here are some shocking stats about …

Some thoughts from our sometime intern and current student of International Affairs at Tsinghua University, Mike West:

Last Sunday night I sat down with my girlfriend to enjoy an evening of unadulterated, brain-rotting Chinese television. After back-to-back episodes of a Song-dynasty murder mystery (大宋题型官 Da Song Tixingguan if

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The effect of public pressure on top-level athletes is tricky to judge. Earlier this month I mentioned Chinese hurdler Liu Xiang and what he’s facing these days. It seems like a serious burden to me, but of course my ideas of athletic pressure were formed in the crucible of the Des Moines metro league’s ’88-’89 season. For the …

One of the most amazing intellectual property rights stories out of China is the saga of an American adhesive manufacturer who accuses a Hunan-based company of ripping off their product line and their corporate identity. The Hunan company’s boss was arrested in London last fall. He faced extradition to the U.S. and was scheduled to …

Gentle Readers: this is to advise you that we are altering our commentary system. From now on those wishing to comment will have to register. This is because we have been suffering a concerted spam attacks for weeks that send out hundreds of messages that clog up the comments pages. The new system simply requires you to prove you are a …

We have written often about the rights activist Hu Jia, most recently here) after he was formally arrested in December. He’s been detained a number of times and was also under house arrest for a while but this time he’s been formally arrested and charged with “inciting the overthrow of the state” (煽动颠覆国家), which makes it all …

In a recent piece for TIME.com I mentioned how the Chinese government’s approach to elections in Taiwan is changing. In ’96 they fired missiles, but 12 years later Beijing is far more restrained. It’s clear that any aggressive moves by Beijing only energize supporters of Taiwan’s independence-leaning Democratic Progressive Party.

The …