In a stunning move, an appeals court has overturned the guilty verdict of activist lawyer Chen Guangcheng. Chen was sentenced to four years in prison this past summer after launching a crusade against the forced sterilization of peasant women. Local officials had ordered the sterilizations as well as forced abortions in an effort to [...]
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There are a lot of myths about the Great Wall that need to go away. First of all: you can’t see it from the moon. Second: While portions of the wall have been constructed and linked and rebuilt in stages since before the Qin dynasty, the Great Wall that most people see today is [...] In 1862, three of China’s most prominent officials, Zeng Guofan, Li Hongzhang, and Zuo Zongtang, were locked in a mortal battle against the last hold outs of Hong Xiuquan’s Taiping Rebellion. Even as the armies of Zeng and Li used western weapons and troops (the Ever Victorious Army led first by the American Frederick Townshend [...] From Ryan’s Life in Suzhou Blog and ESWN: One woman dared to do what almost every foreign visitor to China’s cities wishes they could do at least once in their life: She took the law into her own hands, put her bike on the line, and enforced the traffic laws. A driver trying to sneak through [...] Starting this week, I will be a guest blogger/contributing writer over at Richard’s excellent The Peking Duck. TPD has been an institution in the blogosphere for many years and I am looking forward to joining in the always fascinating conversations on that site. This blog will still be my main focus and I will be [...] NYT reports this morning that the Hu/Zeng crime fighting dynamic duo have turned their sites on Beijing–and Standing Committee Member, Beijing party secretary, and Jiang Zemin ally Jia Qinglin could become the first member of that elite club to be purged for corruption since the CCP took power in 1949. In today’s Christian Science Monitor comes a story of peasants so desperate in their search for justice, that they bypass their local courts and bring their plaints and pleas to the gates of Zhongnanhai.
Rapid economic growth has transformed the lives of China’s poor, lifting hundreds of millions [...] A report from TMH (The Mighty Ho) out of Shanghai that as of this evening, blogger and blogspot are being blocked by the Great (Fire) Wall of China. Hopefully it’s a temporary setback. Curse you Chinabounder! You maniac! You blew it up! Ah, damn you! God…damn you all to hell!” (Insert your own pathetic Charlton Heston [...] Hu Jintao has put forward a bold vision for a harmonious society, promising to clean up the environment, end corruption, and bring economic prosperity to all–a veritable chicken in every hot pot. But as this excellent overview from the Economist points out, the devil is in the details and despite Hu’s utopian vision, nobody’s actually said [...] One of the funnier posts I’ve read recently is by Talk, Talk China regular Meursault recalling a day spent at his girlfriend’s apartment while the roommate from hell roamed the halls like a self-absorbed javelina. Like The 88′s classic in-laws post, Meursault’s story says a lot about China and the Chinese even as it transcends [...] I’ve been to Paris, it certainly has its moments. The French love their intellectuals, can’t pick up after their dogs, and can speak without the slightest trace of irony about ‘race relations in America’ whilst their suburbs burn in rings around their cities. (Anyone else notice how so many French suggest that the Blacks and Arabs [...] Interesting take by Jim Yardley in today’s NYT on the recent corruption purges and crackdowns in the PRC. Yardley argues that the endemic nature of corruption in China makes fighting corrupt practices difficult–if not impossible–without serious structural reforms.
In an economic boom gilded with excess and profiteering, official corruption is so widespread, and [...] What are the perils of trans-lingual negotiation? Lydia Liu’s The Clash of Empires: The Invention of China in Modern World Making explores the myriad roles language, and the process of translation, played in shaping the relationship between the Qing and the foreign powers (especially Britain) during China’s long nineteenth-century. The book itself [...] Anyone who has been to China has heard “The List.” The long itemization of all things great, small, and wonderful that the Chinese invented before Europeans could figure out which part of the spear was the “pointy/useful end.” On those thoughtless occasions at dinner when I make some critical comment about Chinese food, good friends never [...] Dave asked recently where the name 花崗齋之愚公 (Hua Gang Zhai zhi Yu Gong) comes from. In the old days, it was not uncommon for scholars to name their studio or office where they wrote. Usually the name had some connection with the location or had a classical allusion. I chose Hua Gang (Granite) Zhai (Studio) for [...] |
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