Top China stories of the week 12/11-12/18
The battle of Wukan, and Christian Bale’s trip to visit Chen Guangcheng dominated China related headlines recently, but several other important stories emerged this week:
- Beijing real-name registration rules for bloggers, bad news for Sina, from the Wall Street Journal, shows that new policies are being set in place that will mark the end of Sina’s reign as the top source of scandals. This is a very worrying turn for freedom of speech in China.
- China officials shut down outdoor Christmas party, from the Associated Press, shows that Chinese officials have been working overtime to make it on to Santa’s naughty list. This kind of clamp down is common around religious holidays.
- Gao Zhisheng, missing Chinese lawyer, get new prison term, New York Times, looks at another example of China ignoring the rule of law to silence dissidents. It is particularly troubling given that he has not been seen in 20 months, and until this week the gov’t denied that they had any knowledge of his whereabouts.
- Han student describes violence against Tibetans, is an account from a student’s RenRen (Chinese Facebook) page, recounting large scale violence against their Tibetan classmates.
- Protest or Sacrifice? China’s anti-imperialist propaganda backfires in Tibet, by Rebecca Novick, looks at the possible connection between the recent series of self-immolations by Tibetan monks and nuns and a video that China pushed in the region in the 90’s.
- Chinese fisherman kills South Korean coast guardsman, from the New York Times, summarizes a recent incident that has sparked nationalist protests from both sides.
- Chinese public opinion: Shaping China’s foreign policy, or shaped by it?, from the Brookings institute, debates the nature of China’s foreign policy, and is a very important topic to consider.
- Keeping the past alive, from People’s Daily, looks at an ongoing project to record individual accounts of the past 60 years. It is perhaps the most open article I have seen from the Chinese press on topics related to the Cultural Revolution, and a great read.
Could you please set your WordPress settings for email delivery to have the daily/weekly emails delivered in “full” rather than the current first paragraph. This will enable us to read your posts without having to resort to VPN. Thank you.
Thanks for the suggestion. I think I have successfully changed the settings. Please let me know if this remains a problem.
Thank you very much for the prompt response. I think it now works as today’s email was in full. Thoroughly enjoy your (and your colleagues’) writings.