Ai Xiaoming is one of China´s leading documentary makers, and all of them are officially banned in the country. Journalist Ian Johnson sits down with her for the NY Review of Books and discusses how it is to make banned documentaries, and (amongst many other subjects) why China has no intellectuals.Read More →
If the presidency of China over the G20 in Hangzhou has showed anything, it is that a more self-confident nation needs the rest of the world not as much as in the recent past, says political analyst Arthur Kroeber to LA Times. “The U.S. has less leverage to get things it wants.”Read More →
China´s economy seems to have steered clear through the turbulance of the past few years, says economist Arthur Kroeber, author of China’s Economy: What Everyone Needs to Know® to Bloomberg. “I’d guess that Xi Jinping is feeling pretty confident about things.”Read More →
President Xi Jinping might be the most powerful leader in China for decades, it does not mean he enjoys overwhelming support at the country´s political elites, says political scientist Victor Shih, author of Factions and Finance in China: Elite Conflict and Inflation, a leading publication on China´s elites in the Economist.Read More →
An almost forgotten episode under Communist rule was the Third Front, an 200 billion Renminbi effort to move from 1964 much of the economic power to China´s inland. Journalist Ian Johnson with historian Covell Meyskens his work on an upcoming monography and his weblog with 5,000+ pictures for the New York Times.Read More →
President Xi Jinping has developed into one of the strongest leaders in China since Deng Xiaoping, and it looks like he is going to stay on longer as party secretary, says political analyst Victor Shih to AFP. Since there is no obvious successor, China´s political elites might have to accept that, as they gather for their annual conclave at the Beidaihe beach resort .Read More →
Although there is no reason to believe China´s economy is heading for a crash, the lack of real structural reforms still makes investors worried, writes economist Arthur Kroeber for the Brookings Institute and author of China’s Economy: What Everyone Needs to Know? While the state sector was supposed to shrink, it continues to grow.Read More →
The world´s most populous country is facing an unprecedented crisis, as its population ages fast, tells former New York Times Shanghai-bureau chief Howard French to PBS. The fast rising demand for social security, health care and a diminishing work force, will narrow down China´s economic expansion in the near future. The aging crisis not only shows the immense failure of the one-child policy, it will also force the country to become more welcoming to much-needed immigrants.Read More →
China´s state-owned shipping industry has already seen massive mergers over the past 18 months, and this week the State Council – the country´s highest administrative body – announced more mergers. But China veteran Paul French warns in Splash 247 to read too much into the announcement. Just an announcement does not mean it is a done deal.Read More →
A range of food scandals with milk powder for babies has caused a wild-west market for mainly foreign instant formula, doing good business in China. Lawyer Mark Schaub warns that regulators are catching up, and new tough registration rules have a deadline for October 1, hard to manage for import products, he writes in Lexology.Read More →
Getting the US-China relations right is tough because so many misunderstandings persist in the US when it comes to China. Recently returned China veteran Kaiser Kuo sits down with The Diplomat trying to deal with some of those wrong perceptions. “China has been far more of a rule-taker than it has been a rule-maker.”Read More →
President Xi Jinping has been addressing the nation on the 95th anniversary of the Communist Party and the tough Marxist tone has been striking, says political analyst Victor Shih. Where his predecessors followed a more flexible road on economic development, Xi goes for a nationalistic approach, he tells AP.Read More →