An add to the post below about the replacement of the Finance Minister. It was formally announced yesterday along with some other changes in the cabinet. As I said expect more to come. This is merely an appetizer for Zhongnanhai (the Communist Party HQ in Beijing) junkies and tea leaf readers who will be jiggling with impatience in the 6 …

Part two of my conversation with Thomas PM Barnettt, big think Pentagon strategist, author of the “Pentagon’s New Map,’’ “Blueprint for Action,” and the forthcoming “The Coming Realignment: Reconnecting American Grand Strategy to a World Transformed” (due in 2009). Tom in his second book argues that the US and China …

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The people moving my stuff to Beijing are not the sort to let a few things go astray. So I should have expected this email that came yesterday:

Dear Austin,

I got the information from the customs that due to the China not allowed to import Anti-Goverment books.

So, there are two books was sequestrated by customs and

…

As a foreign journalist, it’s hard enough to travel to China. Every time I go, even if it’s just to go sightseeing in Xi’an or shopping across the border in Shenzhen, I must first check in with the foreign ministry in Hong Kong. And I stand no chance of getting a coveted multiple-entry sticker, nor can I enjoy the full 30 days most …

China’s Finanace Minister Jin Renqing has stepped down. This is interesting as any move that’s even slightly anomalous in the top ranks of the government always attracts attention. Mr. Jin’s sudden departure (which Chinese officals steadfastly refuse to confirm) definitely seems to fall firmly into that category: the Reuter’s story …

I recently had a long talk with Thomas P.M. Barnett, one of the most interesting defense and foreign policy thinkers in the United States. For years Tom served in the Center for Naval Analysis and was part of the Pentagon’s brain squad—big think guys whose job it is to mull the strategic future for the United States. He routinely …

Whenever the foreign press in China mentions the 1989 Tiananmen massacre, there’s always a contingent here that likes to say, among other things, that it occurred XX years ago and that we should all forget about it. I’m beginning to wonder if those whitewashers should start filing similar complaints with the China Daily. Earlier this …

A quick follow up on the post below. According to Zeng Jinyan. she received a call on Sunday from Yuan Weijing to say that she was back home in Shandong, having been forcibly taken back by local police, and is once again under house arrest. Yuan reportedly said she was was stopped by airport customs officers after checking in and taken …

A troubling update to our earlier posts about Yuan Weijing, the wife of jailed blind activist Chen Guangcheng. When last we visited her in July, Yuan –who was effectively under house arrest in her home province of Shandong– had evaded her guards and traveled to Beijing where she and her two year old daughter put up at the apartment of …

A few weeks ago reports surfaced of an online game called “Incorruptible Warrior” (清廉战士) that had been released by a local government in central China. (This is the link to download the game but although you can download, the game doesn’t run, or at least I couldn’t get it to run). The game was set in ancient China (hence the …

天无情人有情共产党最有情

A picture in the South China Morning Post shows this slogan on a banner hanging over the mine in northeastern Shandong province where 172 miners were trapped by a flood last Friday. As the accompanying story points out, some of the hundreds of relatives of the miners waiting outside the gates of the …

Chinese papers are obviously very tightly controlled indeed but with the approach of the 5 yearly Party Congress—due in the next month or so—at which major and minor political changes are announced, the media is practically frozen in lockstep. Yesterday’s front pages of the People’s Daily to three other major organs were …