Journalist Ian Johnson, author of The Souls of China: The Return of Religion After Mao, has won the 2019 Best In-Depth Newswriting on Religion Contest, says the website of the American Academy of Religion (AAR). Read More →
New tariffs are not the main worry, as new shots are fired in the trade war between China and the US, says economist Arthur Kroeber according to Barron’s. Next is the upcoming disengagement between both economies and the question of what domains will be involved.Read More →
Author Zhang Lijia tells in The Millions how she became interested in prostitution in China, after discovering her grandma was a ‘working girl’. It took years to write her bestselling novel Lotus: A Novel.Read More →
Investor Jim Rogers tried to buy an ice-cream in Beijing but discovered you cannot buy it for money, you need a mobile. Alibaba and Tencent have become giant technology firms that have changed day-to-day life.Read More →
China promised to open up its financial industry under the pressure of the ongoing trade war. But the industry was not right away impressed: they had heard this song often enough. Financial analyst Sara Hsu looks at how China is keeping its promises this time and says the country is still underdelivering, she writes in China Focus.Read More →
Despite desperate efforts by the government to push the events of June 4, 1989, at Tiananmen Square into collective amnesia, new documents have shed light on the events. Journalist Ian Johnson reviews the latest publication, The Last Secret: The Final Documents from the June Fourth Crackdown, for the NY Review of Books, and summarize what we have been learning over the past 30 years.Read More →
Devaluating the Yuan and dumping US treasuries regular pop up as ‘nuclear options’ China has in its trade war with the US. Financial and political analyst Victor Shih explains why that might be a wrong idea. “These options are not credible, because they conflict with other important policy objectives of China,” he writes at the China File.Read More →
Tradition and an unequal political system hamper women in their development in China, says author Zhang Lijia at the Addison Gazette. “Women are being left behind in terms of political participation and the salary gap between men and women is becoming wider.”Read More →
One hundred years ago students protested in Beijing for patriotism and democracy. President Xi Jinping has jumped on the centennial anniversary by praising the patriotism of the May Fourth protests. Commentator Zhang Lijia notes that he ignored that democracy was an inherent part of its legacy, she writes in the South China Morning Post.Read More →
Religion is on the rise in China, despite worries from the government. China’s diaspora’s are a source of Christianians, as a growing number of Chinese return home with their newly found religious feelings, says journalist Ian Johnson, author of The Souls of China: The Return of Religion After Mao, at CNN in a story on Kenya.Read More →
For the outside world, Xi Jinping looks like the effective authoritarian leader, killing effectively public debate in the country. But journalist Ian Johnson noted over the past few months an amazing growth of opposition inside the Party, he writes in the NY Review of Books.Read More →
In its fight against an economic slowdown, China has opened the bank vaults again and pumped more credit into its financial systems, again, says political analyst Victor Shih, author of Factions and Finance in China: Elite Conflict and Inflation to the New York Times. It is an old solution in a country where debts are already at dangerous levels, he says.Read More →