Last night the Central Gov’t confirmed that rumors of Bo Xilai’s involvement in the death of a British national were true. The Party claims this as a victory that shows China as a country “ruled by law (and here),” even though information about this case began to surface months ago with Wang Lijun fleeing to the U.S. Embass [...] Keep reading »

We’re often presented with images of Beijing and Shanghai’s glittering skylines and are inundated with stories of economic success. We know that China has succeeded in bringing hundreds of millions of people out of poverty and that life in the countryside has never been better. But what does life actually look like in rural China for [...] Keep reading »

China’s foreign policy of non-involvement seems to stem from the Confucian teaching to “Never impose on others what you would not choose for yourself.” For the Party, this means avoiding situations like what is currently happening in Syria, which if the UN had its way would see the ouster of a gov’t for slaughtering its own [...] Keep reading »

Today the pro-Mao (and by extension pro-Bo Xilai) site Utopia announced it would be closed for a month. At the risk of over simplification, this would be like Mitt Romney shutting down Tea Party websites. While one of my co-workers seemed to think that this was “good news,” it’s not the victory for reformers that some might be tem [...] Keep reading »

The strange new trend with China’s young parents is arranging marriages for their toddlers. These virtual vows are being promoted by Babytree.com as well as a few other sites, which allow parents to create social network profiles for their infants and then review possible matches. While these online betrothals seem to be little more than se [...] Keep reading »

For some reason, I’ve been brought to a number of business meetings even though I am in no way a businessman. Yet, I’ve been a part of making decisions related to hiring and forging partnerships. Today I thought I’d share a few cases that may prove of some use to those of you looking to succeed in China. The case of the effusive b [...] Keep reading »

After reading an article about the myriad problems facing China’s health system, I asked the doctors in my medical English class to briefly reflect on the system based on their own ideas and opinions. Of the 17, 15 doctors wrote that China’s system faced serious challenges. The following are excerpts from their papers that I think accur [...] Keep reading »

“Chungking Jungle” is the name of the play, and it now enters Act III: Silence! Silence!, starting with arrests of “rumormongers,” sanction of websites, and a three-day suspension of comments on Sina and Tencent Weibo. Weibo now feels unreal because of the absence of what people are dying to do—rumormongering. Meanwhile, Jeremy Page of [...] Keep reading »

By Hu Ping Mr. Hu Ping (胡平) was a graduate student of philosophy at Peking University in 1980. On campus that fall there was a lively student campaign, and then election, for People’s Representatives of Haidian District in Beijing, an event that has not been seen since. Mr. Hu was one of the candidates. I remember all of a sudden the campus w [...] Keep reading »