One of Andrew Sullivan’s correspondents today, an English teacher in Shenzhen, wrote the following about how the recession is playing out in China: …it’s surprising how well China’s Maoist legacy acts as a safety net inside a capitalist economy. Shenzhen and cities like it, effectively, have half of their population living not as citizens, but [...]
The controversy over Chas Freeman, who recently withdrew after being appointed by President Obama as the chairman of the National Intelligence Council, has elicited a number of strong opinions in the blogosphere since his appointment was first announced in mid-February. For those unaware of Freeman and this particular kerfuffle, a useful time line can be [...]
So I guess those non-smoking signs on the Beijing-Tianjin high speed trains are more than just decoration: A man was given three days in detention for breaking a non-smoking rule on a new high-speed rail line, Chinese state media said, an unusually severe punishment in a country where smoking bans are routinely ignored. He was [...]
As some of you know, a small bomb detonated inside Salvadors’ Coffee House in Kunming on Wednesday, fatally injuring one man. No one else was seriously injured, as the bomb exploded at 10:30am when there were few customers inside. The police have come but thus far a clear explanation of what happened has not emerged. [...]
Two interesting articles on China from the American media: 1. From the Washington Post, the Chinese government has arrested a dissident for signing a petition calling for political reform. 2. From the New York Times, Chinese exports are down, signaling worry. The two events might seem unrelated; after all, one is a purely political story [...]
GoKunming reports today that China Eastern has launched a weekly flight between Kunming and Taipei, capital of Taiwan. As Chris notes in the post, this news would have been absolutely unthinkable only a few years ago. In fact, when I moved to China the big Taiwan Strait news was China’s enactment of an “anti-secessionist” law, [...]
Is it just me, or has the usual Christmas-shopping rush been especially violent this year back at home? First, crazed Wal-Mart shoppers trampled a poor employee to death in suburban New York. Then, two fellows chased each other with guns (result-double fatality) in Palm Desert, California of all places. Now, even here in Kunming there [...]
In 1989, the Chinese government opened fire on groups of protesting students in a large square in Beijing, killing thousands. That same year, Guns’n’Roses was the most popular rock band in the United States after releasing their classic album, Appetite for Destruction. Two years later, the Soviet Union collapsed and several ex-Communist states established nominal [...]
Felt a pretty decent-sized earthquake here about ten minutes ago…biggest one I’ve felt since the “big one” of 1989. No details just yet, though I suspect some will emerge a bit later. Stay tuned. UPDATE: I pieced together a short piece for GoKunming about the earthquake, to which Chris had added more information. Apparently, roughly [...]
I still recall turning on the television on September 29, 2004, the first full day I ever spent in China. On CCTV9 (the only channel I got that was in English), I noted with amazement at the number of advertisements there were for the Beijing Olympics, then nearly four years away. After all, the previous [...]