Despite recent crackdowns on feminists and human rights activists, China´s judicial systems is slowly but surely moving into a more independent force in China´s bureaucracy, says Judge Jiang Huiling of the Supreme Court in an interview with journalist Ian Johnson for the New York Times. Courts get more autonomy, be it limited.Read More →

Compared to his predecessor Hu Jintao, China seems on the move under president Xi Jinping. But is he really. Journalist Ian Johnson wonders in the New York Review of Books after three years of Xi rule whether under the cosmetic moves, so much is changing.Read More →

Chinese are looking for new meanings in their life, says journalist Ian Johnson. They are looking for religious values, both condoned by the government or illegal, but also shop around for other spiritual values. And mostly the government supports that search, as long as there are no foreign links.Read More →

Are you still looking for ways to monetize quality content? Watch China, says managing director William Bao Bean of the ChinaAccelerator in Analyse Asia. Mobile applications in China are on average 2 to 3 years ahead of the US, he tells. Mobile commerce 3.0 is highly social, very competitive and does away with the classic ways of making money through advertising. China can focus on mobile innovation, because it has a home-base of 700 million mobile users.Read More →

While China is still executing more prisoners than any other country, those numbers are dropping fast. Author Zhang Lijia looks at the sometimes fierce debate on capital punishment in China for the IA-forum. Most Chinese support the death penalty, but that support is dropping fast, she writes.Read More →

Polling Chinese about religion is a field where western researchers fast get lost in translation, journalist Ian Johnson argues in The New York Times, looking at a Win/Gallup poll. Last year Johnson forced the Pew Research Centre to retract their conclusions on atheism in China. Why is it so hard to get a poll on religion in China right?Read More →

Reform of the health care is high on the political agenda, but to eradicate the massive inefficiencies will prove to be tough, writes analyst Sara Hsu in the Diplomat. “Some reforms, however, will take longer than others, particularly improving the quality of health care and changing patient views regarding local and private hospitals.”Read More →

Journalist Ian Johnson will be in Berlin from half June to half September, and is available to share his insights on civil society, culture and religion. He is a Beijing-based writer for the New York Review of Books, and his stories also appear in the New York Times and ChinaFile.Read More →