Since Deng Xiaoping China’s leaders did have relatively limited power. But all that is changing under current president Xi Jinping, writes policy analyst Victor Shih at the Policy Forum, and that might not be good news. “The policy-making environment has changed completely.”Read More →
Western analysts have been criticizing China’s One Belt, One Road initiative with loads of negative comments. Time to take a more positive approach, says China veteran and rock star Kaiser Kuo, after discussing the issue with many former US leaders, at SupChina. Read More →
Explaining China’s position on a global stage, that is the underlying purpose of Howard French’s book Everything Under the Heavens: How the Past Helps Shape China’s Push for Global Power. As an emerging world power, we need to understand China, in a similar way we now understand the US, Britain, Russia and other current and past global powers, he explains to the South China Morning Post. “Tianxia” is the key concept to understand.Read More →
Prostitution is a mirror of society, tells Beijing-based author Zhang Lijia at the BBC. Her book Lotus: A Novel shows some of China’s most urgent problems related to prostitution: migration, the gap between men and women and moral decline.Read More →
An estimated 350 million Chinese are hooked to different religions, looking for a way to deal with the lack of morality of their current society. The Spectator reviews positively Ian Johnson’s book The Souls of China: The Return of Religion After Mao, and describes a major change in China’s cultural fabric.Read More →
Howard French, author of Everything Under the Heavens: How the Past Helps Shape China’s Push for Global Power explains at the Pulitzer Center how China is searching for power at an international stage, and how the global power might change its relationship with Hong Kong and Taiwan.Read More →
Staying away from foreign involvement is key in the massive religious revival China is going through, author Ian Johnson of The Souls of China: The Return of Religion After Mao tells NPR. Religion is condoned as long as the new movements stick to a few unwritten rules in its sensitive relations with the Communist Party.Read More →
Beijing is regaining its position of China’s spiritual universe, writes author Ian Johnson of The Souls of China: The Return of Religion After Mao in the New York Times. While much of its past has been destroyed, the city where Johnson lives is now regaining its position of China’s spiritual capital. A struggle between commerce, communist and traditional values.Read More →
China is inching up as a world power, and author Howard French of Everything Under the Heavens: How the Past Helps Shape China’s Push for Global Power finds it about time to dive deeping into what moves the country’s political thinking, says the Irish Times in a review. French: ” “China will wish to restore itself to the pinnacle of affairs in East Asia.”Read More →
South-Korea was the latest country to suffer from economic boycott measures from China after it deployed THAAD missiles on its soil. Tourism backed out and Korean factories suffered surprise inspections. A standard procedure, says business analyst Shaun Rein to CBS. Norway, France, Japan, Taiwan and other suffered from similar boycotts.Read More →
The Guardian praises Ian Johnson’s book The Souls of China: The Return of Religion After Mao and his well-documented tour along Taoist musicians, rebel Christians and celebrity Zen Buddhists, and where the CCP is still firmly in charge.Read More →
China’s emerging religious experiences have often been misunderstood by the West, says author Ian Johnson of The Souls of China: The Return of Religion After Mao in an interview with the New York Times. “I think the government is happy to see these things grow—almost as a form of stability.”Read More →