Following up on Bill’s post about the anti-Maglev train protests in the heart of Shanghai, we have noticed that not only can you see video on youtube but also within China’s Great Firewall at sina.com, which is a whole other kettle of fish. “Oppose Maglev, Defend our Homes!” they chant, a formulation that echoes down the centuries …

Here’s some footage, posted on YOUTUBE, of a January 6 demonstration against the MAGLEV in Shanghai. The site is Renmin (People’s) Park in central Shanghai. That big white building the demonstrators are standing and shouting in front of is home to the municipal government. Most of the time the demonstrators are simply shouting, …

Anyone who follows the news from China will be familiar with the huge number of eruptions of public disorder which even the government acknowledges amount to tens of thousands a year (though how exactly those incidents are defined remains the subject of much debate.) Human rights activists, academics and professors often have remarked to …

As green issues go plastic bags are fairly mundane, but the differing ways they are being handled in China says a lot about how environmental policy gets made. Plastic bags fill up landfills and require significant amounts of petroleum to produce. They are also convenient and have become an integral part of the Chinese shopping …

This is a follow up to Bill’s post below about Beijing air quality. I was going to post on this story– which confirms everything we cynical types always suspected and much more–but he beat me to it. Still, the story is behind a payserver so I am going to imitate my esteemed colleague and post the entire thing. The details are amazing, …

There is no shortage of candidates for the biggest issue facing China these days, but one Chinese magazine has named its choice: land ownership. In its latest issue China Newsweek writes (per translation by China Digital Times):

The most serious economic, social and even political issues nowadays are all, directly or indirectly,

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A good piece on the Op Ed page of the Wall Street Journal today, written by a guy who used to work in the Beijing office of the Natural Resources Defense Council, one of the most established environmental lobbying/research groups in the United States. Key takeaway sentence comes in the last paragraph.

In 2006, of the 84 major cities in

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China’s State Administration for Radio, Film and Television (widely known in English by its appropriately awful acronym: SARFT) recently issued new regulations that at first glance appear to be a pretty serious tightening of censorship over video and audio material, both on the airwaves and on the net. Coming as they do around the same …

A visit to Beijing’s biggest gay club last night as part of a story looking at the gay and lesbian community in Beijing and China. It’s on the same strip as a bunch of other huge clubs at the west gate of the Workers’ Stadium, but is smaller and more discrete than they are, no two story neon signs or barkers outside tempting punters in …

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It’s hard to feel bad for Chinese hurdler Liu Xiang. He has the world record in the 110 meters, an Olympic gold from Athens, a world championship crown from Osaka last fall and his face on every other billboard, bus and Coke can in China. Still you have to worry for the guy. In November one of his coaches announced …

Wow. What a concept. In the spectacularly inane US Presidential race—and I do mean spectacularly (and yes, that’s a shot at the US political press,which appears utterly unaware that it’s become a straight-out-of-Comedy-Central-parody of itself…)– one of the leading contenders has actually broadcast a television ad on the eve of …

I went skiing with my family over the Christmas break. My expectations were pretty low as I had heard that skiing in China is a pretty basic experience. I had also been regaled with lots of stories about how the slopes were dangerously crowded with rank beginners dressed in business suits hurtling down the slopes and crashing into other …

Building bridges between China and the World can be a tricky business.