As many of you know, Jim McGregor’s book, “One Billion Customers, Lessons From the Front Lines of Doing Business in China, ” is one of the best `China books’ of the past couple of years. Jim’s a former reporter–WSJ Bureau Chief in Beijing–who went on to bigger and better things. His book paid implicit homage to a memoir written by …

Two years ago the U.S. decided it didn’t like the idea of CNOOC, the oil company, buying L.A. based UNOCAL. What ARE the CHinese going to be allowed to buy…in the U.S. and the rest of the world? It’s a question the world better start asking, as this OP-ED piece in the Wall Street Journal suggests, because a wave of CHinese foreign …

We’ve mentioned a few Chinese New Year pastimes, like visiting family, setting off fireworks, battering your way through crowds, but have yet to touch on a granddaddy, the Spring Festival program on China Central Television. It’s a four-hour Busby Berkeley extravaganza of song, dance and comedy routines. Since its start in the ’80s it …

During Chinese New Year, Hong Kong does its best impersonation of a ghost town. Stores close, newspapers halt publishing and passengers can get a seat on the subway with ease. That’s not to say the city’s bustle disappears completely. More like its transferred to all things related to the New Year, like the Victoria Park flower market, …

After a week in bed with the flu, the festivities in my neighborhood for Chinese New Year’s eve were a rousing way to rejoin the living. This was the scene outside my front gate from about 10:00pm until 1:00am last night. Twelve hours later the air is still filled with sound and smoke.

I’ll be on the road for the next week, driving …

By any standard it was a pretty big scam. Wang Zhendong allegedly bilked investors of $380 million, and a court in northeast China sentenced him to death on Wednesday. What truly made the story unique was the nature of the fraud. It was an ant-breeding pyramid scam. The victims in this case were sold ants, which are used in Chinese …

Yes, it’s true, The Colbert Report has a special report on China. (Thanks to China Digital Times for pointing it out.) It includes an interview with Sheryl WuDunn and use of the word “frenemy” to describe the relationship between the U.S. and China. How are China watchers even supposed to compete?

I noticed a fascinating story about the confrontations between Japanese whalers and their opponents in the Southern Ocean. It occurred to me that this Antarctic battle could be the frontier in the clash over what degree of protection societies should give animals. After all, one skirmish ended with some anti-whalers mooring their damaged …

Amidst the hyperbole about serried ranks of gleaming new skyscrapers, the swelling middle class, the dazzling preparations for the Olympics and so forth, it is always worth getting a solid reality check about what underlies that rosy picture, the fact that China remains a highly repressive authoritarian state. I met recently for a …

Beijing –or at least the small corner of it where the Time office is located- is currently in the grip of an unpleasant stomach virus. The virus is making its rounds with sickness’ usual randomness, here three out of four people in an office struck down, next door, none; here three kids mildly affected and one parent out of commission …

Last month my colleague Susie Jakes wrote about her surprise that Shanghai party officials said they had been able to track down every last cent of the $407 million that disappeared in the Shanghai pension scandal. Today a story came out in the South China Morning Post that might help explain how that was possible. Former Shanghai party …

As many of you know, Jim McGregor’s book, “One Billion Customers, Lessons From the Front Lines of Doing Business in China, ” is one of the best `China books’ of the past couple of years. Jim’s a former reporter–WSJ Bureau Chief in Beijing–who went on to bigger and better things. His book paid implicit homage to a memoir written by one …

Four of China’s most prominent and provocative public intellectuals have written an open letter to the mega-portal sina.com challenging the site’s censorship policy and in particular its lack of transparency. Their letter has been translated at you can find it along with Roland Soong’s commentary at EastSouthWestNorth.

The authors all …