Every year, the Southern People Weekly compiles a list of top public intellectuals in China. The magazine defines public intellectual as those: 1) with academic background and professional standing; 2) with active participation in the discussions of public affairs; 3) with a sense of criticism and morality. In an article this month, Liu [...]

The debate over China’s role in Africa continues to rage. One side contends that China is a rapacious neocolonial oppressor, while the other sees it as a miraculous alternative to decades of failed Western aid. To a large extent, however, facts on the ground have rendered this debate [...]

Vanishing Grasslands is a mixed media project documenting desertification in northern China. Over 400 million people in China are being affected by desertification today. Over population, over grazing and poor management practices have degraded grasslands to the extent the land has become unfarmable and unsustainable. Sands from the north are [...]

From among the most outspoken of critics of the 2003 U.S.-led invasion to topple Saddam Hussein, China has emerged as one of the biggest economic beneficiaries of the war, snagging five lucrative deals. While Western firms were largely subdued in their interest in Iraq’s recent oil auctions, China snapped up three contracts, shrugging off [...]

It was the first day of summer in Beijing. It also happened to be the May holiday, when Chinese people had three days off in honor of International Workers’ Day. Holiday is a rare treat in the booming city, and the metropolitan youth poured into public parks to [...]

Rebecca Karl, who teaches at New York University and is known in Chinese studies circles as the author of important studies of nationalism during the final years of the Qing Dynasty (1644-1912) and the development of Marxist thought between the 1920s and the present, has a new book coming out soon. Titled Mao [...]

Even as both economies struggle to recover from the recession, complaints about China have grown: that China gives unfair support to its export-oriented manufacturers, has failed to abide by World Trade Organization agreements, permits the theft of American intellectual property and protects its domestic industry from competition from abroad.
“We do not [...]

China has the world’s largest population, so it easily lends itself to superlatives. Even so, its 350 million smokers and the sheer scale of its tobacco industry overshadow others. “The China C.D.C. likes to point out that the Chinese tobacco industry is bigger than the next seven [...]

When Google pulled out of China back in March, it must have hoped that other Western technology heavyweights would show a little solidarity. Not that it expected others to follow suit, but at least some declaration of support. It didn’t happen. In fact, Bill Gates suggested that Google’s move was nothing more [...]

As labor costs continue to climb, is China set to lose its coveted spot as the world’s workshop?
Rising labor costs are inevitable. China’s government introduced tough labor laws and a minimum wage in 2008. Recent policies to improve rural economic conditions have slowed the flow of migrants from the countryside. Workers are demanding [...]

The 303-year-old Yuanmingyuan, or the Old Summer Palace, will have a new theme park and a culture square on its periphery, according to urban plan-ning authorities.
“The adjacent neighborhoods around the Yuanmingyuan Park are in total disorder,” reads a February 3 statement on the website of the district government.
“A floating population and illegitimate buildings [...]

Lots of labor stories in the news these days, the two most popular being Foxconn’s wage hikes and reorganizations, and Honda’s repeated strike problems with its China labor force. It’s enough to make one think that collective bargaining is gaining the upper hand in China and that a golden age of workers’ rights is [...]

There were fresh reports on Thursday of strikes at foreign-owned factories in at least five other cities. But all of these strikes appeared to have ended quickly as managers, faced with an acute labor shortage, sought to address workers’ demands.
Chinese-owned companies tend not to disclose when strikes have occurred, and it is [...]

© Sophie Beach for China Digital Times (CDT), 2010. |
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The United States is pressing China to rein in North Korea, voicing “dismay” that the Asian power has not put more pressure on its ally as tensions build over the sinking of a South Korean warship.
China has offered condolences over the March sinking of the Cheonan but has not placed blame on North Korea, [...]

The world’s largest search engine is asking U.S. and European governments to put more pressure on China to stop censoring the Internet.
Google’s top attorney, David Drummond, described the practice as an unfair barrier to free trade and said Western governments should defend the flow of information the same way they do products. The West [...]

Honda, which sold 17 percent of its cars in China last year, has idled its four local factories on and off since May 24, since a first strike at a wholly owned transmissions maker in the southern city of Foshan.
A second strike, at a maker of exhaust pipes and other parts, also in [...]