For a guy who lost his job and saw his publication closed down, Li Datong seems like a remarkably upbeat guy. The former editor of Freezing Point, a supplement of the China Youth Daily that was shuttered by propaganda authorities in 2006 in response to his critical stance, spoke to a media association in Hong Kong last night. While …

The China Fantasy debate rocks on…

David Lampton, a leading US China scholar at Johns Hopkins, excoriates Jim Mann, author of the recently published “The China Fantasy”, effectively saying that the political/business establishment view of China in the US has NOT held out the prospect of eventual political liberalization, driven (in …

More than other city in China—and maybe the world?—Shanghai has one thing on its mind: money and how to make it. That is intensely true right now, with the city wholly in the grip of stock market mania. (Market up again today, to another record.)
This can get a little tedious; you can’t go anywhere without hearing somebody talking …

More on divesting Darfur, with Chinese companies again in the crosshairs. Jody Williams, the Nobel Peace Prize Winner for her work (I think) in banning landmines, and (retired?) actress Mia Farrow take on the Oracle of Omaha directly in a WSJ piece today about why Americans should divest any holdings they may have in Chinese oil …

Flying back to Beijing from Sichuan, I come across a jolly group of newly-minted parents in the Chengdu airport. It’s a familiar sight to anyone who has traveled in China in the last decade or more, middle-aged westerners, some awkwardly cradling Chinese babies, others chasing after toddlers, their faces filled with a peculiar …

They held the debate, sponsored by NPR (public broadcasting in the United States) I posted about last week in New York; am posting now a transcript of the entire thing for those interested. According to a poll of the live audience attending, those arguing AGAINST the motion “A booming China spells trouble for America” prevailed. …

So the People’s Bank of China has spoken, but will China’s legions of punters listen? Of course not. On Friday after the market closed, the central bank imposed three separate new measures aimed at curbing liquidity and slowing economic growth–and also reining in the current stock market frenzy. There were always doubts about whether …

Trying to get a sense of China’s place in the American public consciousness—to the extent it exists at all– isn’t easy. As we’ve seen, China barely registers in presidential campaign, and when it does (as in the Republican debate the other night) the subject tends to elicit absurdly simplistic soundbites (which ,as I write …

From Hong Kong blogger Roland Soong, here’s a wrap-up of the coverage (and noncoverage) of Hong Kong politician Ma Lik’s recent claim that the June 4, 1989 killings in Beijing don’t qualify as a massacre. Soong has also translated a couple posts by newspaper reporters who were present at Ma’s chat. Their attitude is one of resigned …

Vice premier Wu Yi has a piece under her name on today’s OP ED page in the Wall Street Journal, trying to get China’s message out in advance of next week’s talks in Washington. It’s linked here
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB117935928306905535.html?mod=opinion_main_commentaries

Frog in a Well, a group of collaborative Asian history blogs, has posted a fascinating series of U.S. State Department documents from 1945-50. The material, which was compiled by Harvard PhD student Konrad Lawson, includes a request by Communist general Zhu De for a $20 million wartime loan from the U.S., a series of U.S. propaganda …

Back to numbers. I forgot to mention, in reference to Bill’s 1.8 million manufacturing jobs lost from the U.S. to China, that in our briefing at Diaoyutai (which by the way means “Fishing Deck” hence my lame headline) we were told that according to calculations by somebody whose name I didn’t catch U.S. consumers have saved $600 billion …

To the state guest house Diaoyutai yesterday for a briefing on the upcoming talks between the U.S. and China on prickly trade and economic issues. A bunch of reporters from U.S. publications sat on one side of long table and chomped our way through a 8 course feast ranging from stewed duck and mushrooms to steak and pea soup as senior …