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Archive for the 'AP China' Category

Labor Abuse in China at Foxconn

Wednesday, January 18th, 2012

Mike Daisey was a self-described “worshipper in the cult of Mac.” Then he saw some photos from a new iPhone, taken by workers at the factory where it was made. Mike wondered: Who makes all my crap? He traveled to China to find out.

It seems that our fetishization of new technology has blinded us to blatant abuse of the workers of the world. This is a much needed reminder and a critical view of Foxconn.

Wikileaks: no bloodshed inside Tiananmen Square, cables claim

Wednesday, January 11th, 2012

Secret cables from the United States embassy in Beijing have shown there was no bloodshed inside Tiananmen Square when China put down student pro-democracy demonstrations 22 years ago.

“James Miles, who was the BBC correspondent in Beijing at the time, admitted that he had “conveyed the wrong impression” and that “there was no massacre on Tiananmen Square. Protesters who were still in the square when the army reached it were allowed to leave after negotiations with martial law troops [ ...] There was no Tiananmen Square massacre, but there was a Beijing massacre”.

What!?

Why did he “convey the wrong impression”?

Well at least there was still a Beijing Massacre. I guess.

Two articles on China and religion

Wednesday, December 28th, 2011

Two short articles. One on China and Tibetan Buddhism, the other on China vs. the Vatican.

Liberalism under attack in China

Wednesday, December 28th, 2011

On May 23rd four people went to a police station in Beijing with a petition demanding justice. Victims of official wrongdoing often make such trips, and usually they are given short shrift. But this was no ordinary group of the downtrodden. The petition bore the names of nearly 10,000 people accusing a liberal intellectual of slandering Mao Zedong and attempting to overthrow the Communist Party itself. Emboldened by a chill political wind, diehard Maoists in China are rising to confront their critics.

The Maoists’ appeal for the arrest of Mao Yushi, a well-known economist (and no relation of the late chairman), is their most concerted public attempt in many years to put pressure on the government. A clutch of Maoist websites frequently vilify intellectuals such as Mr Mao. But campaigning openly for someone to be put on trial is unusual. It is a symptom of a recent escalation of ideological struggles between China’s West-leaning liberals and conservative hardliners.

China: The Long March to Capitalism

Thursday, November 24th, 2011

A four part cartoon series chronicling China’s transition to capitalism. Really interesting.

China’s Communist party: Searching for its softer side

Sunday, November 13th, 2011

In the past several days, China has been doing much soul-searching. More than 300 of the Communist Party’s most powerful leaders met in Beijing and discussed ways of boosting the nation’s “cultural soft power”: an admission that for all the country’s economic prowess it lacks the magnetic draw of a country like America. Ordinary Chinese, however, have been more preoccupied with a hit-and-run accident that caused the death of a two-year-old girl. A dearth of what one Chinese newspaper commentary called “moral soft power” has been widely blamed for her demise and the seeming cold-heartedness of passersby.

Talent shows in China voting please, we’re Chinese

Sunday, November 13th, 2011

HAS China returned to the days of central planning? Or is it just stomping on anything that smacks of democracy? The Chinese government’s decision to suspend the airing of “Happy Girl”, a television talent show with hundreds of millions of fans, has whipped up a storm of questions far tougher than any that its dolled-up contestants had to face.

A special report on China: Rising power, anxious state

Tuesday, July 19th, 2011

In less than a decade China could be the world’s largest economy. But its continued economic success is under threat from a resurgence of the state and resistance to further reform.

The Economist offers another special report on China. I’ve excerpted the most relevant articles.

 

Remebering the Boxer Rebellion

Monday, July 18th, 2011

The Boxer Uprising, 11 years before the collapse of China’s last imperial dynasty, was portrayed in Western accounts as a savage outburst of primitive xenophobia directed at the West and its civilising religion, Christianity. The northern Chinese peasants with their red headscarves, who believed in a magic that protected them from foreign bullets and in the power of ancient martial arts that could defeat the industrial world’s most powerful armies, were described with a mixture of fear and racist scorn. But in China the Boxers are officially remembered as somewhat misguided patriots.

Great piece on how the Boxer Rebellion is (mis)remembered in China today.

The United States and China During the Cold War

Monday, July 18th, 2011

Warren Cohen of University of Maryland offers this concise summary of Sino-US policy during the Cold War.

Here is the response sheet

 

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