It was an interesting November for spectators on the island of Taiwan. Taiwan’s media has been paying close attention to the results of the U.S. presidential election and the recently-concluded 18th Congress of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). Taiwan is awkwardly positioned between two giants, having close relations with the U.S. and an undetermined political […]
Much has changed in China over the past decade, from the tens of millions of former peasants who are now members of the middle class, to the Prada, Hermès, and Gucci boutiques that now crowd the malls of Beijing and Shanghai — but not the fashion stylings of China’s top leaders. The single-breasted navy two-button […]
The recent NIMBY movement against a PX chemical plant in the Chinese city of Ningbo ultimately followed the same trajectory as did protests in Shifang and Qidong in July, 2012. After a tense confrontation between citizens and the government and violent but ineffective intervention by SWAT agents, the government backed down on October 28 by […]
Two historically momentous events will unfold in the next few days. The Americans will decide who will run their country for the next four years, and the Chinese Communist Party will bring in a new leadership that would be responsible for shaping the world’s second-largest economy for the next decade. While there is little similarity […]
JUST after the 18th National Congress of the Chinese Communist Party, which starts in Beijing on November 8th, a short line of dark-suited men, and perhaps one woman, will step onto a red carpet in a room in the Great Hall of the People and meet the world’s press. At their head will be Xi […]
Thirty years ago, a young government official with a plum job in Beijing made an odd request: reassignment to a poor rural area. At the time, millions of young people were still clawing their way back to China’s urban centers after being exiled to the countryside in the Mao era. But 30-year-old Xi Jinpingbucked the trend, […]
The strange disappearance from public view of China’s presumptive new leader is turning a year that was supposed to showcase the Communist Party’s stability into something of an annus horribilis. Over the past week, the new leader, Xi Jinping, has missed at least three scheduled meetings with foreign dignitaries, including Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton last Wednesday […]
looking beyond borders 