Twice last week China´s stock markets were forced to stop trading, sending panic signals across the globe. That drove even economist Arthur Kroeber to despair, writes the Washington Post. China´s financial authorities did not learn their lessons from last year´s disaster, he writes.Read More →

China is not only struggling to manage its unruly financial markets, North-Korea´s latest nuclear test shows that international diplomacy is not yet one of its strong point, says political analyst Paul French in America Magazine. Managing North-Korea from Beijing is no longer possible.Read More →

North-Korea´s lastest nuclear test came not really as a surprise, writes Pyongyang-watcher Paul French. And they might most likely get what they wanted: a resumption of the 6-party talks, led by China, he writes for Reuters.Read More →

Despite recent crackdowns on feminists and human rights activists, China´s judicial systems is slowly but surely moving into a more independent force in China´s bureaucracy, says Judge Jiang Huiling of the Supreme Court in an interview with journalist Ian Johnson for the New York Times. Courts get more autonomy, be it limited.Read More →

For more than a decade the Hong Kong newspaper South China Morning Post has been destroying its image as a quality paper it still was in the 1990. Key journalists were fired or walked away voluntarily. The purchase by Alibaba gives observers new reason for worry. It does not make sense, says business analyst Shaun Rein in the Star Beacon Herald.Read More →

“Should I bother to come to China, people ask often, The answer generally is: No.” William Bao Bean talks to a group of Israeli startups in Tel Aviv. “When you use your gut feeling in China, you are mostly wrong. In China technology is not important, its about cash, friends or both.” Lessons from a seasoned investor, who says you can only succeed if you have an “unfair advantage”.Read More →

Beijing underwent for the first time a code red for pollution: officially the worst air quality ever. But the air had been worse before, even a week earlier. Beijing-based journalist Ian Johnson sees a silver lining on the code red: the people and the politicians start to see things have to change, he writes in the New York Review of Books. And that is good new for the Paris talks.Read More →

President Xi Jinping´s “China Dream” comes along with a slick propaganda campaign. But the center piece of the campaign, a clay figurine of a chubby peasant girl in a red smock, has split the artisan Tianjin family who made the image, discovered journalist Ian Johnson for the New York Times.Read More →