Economist Arthur Kroeber argued last week that China´s leadership accepts that its authoritarian strength triggers off collateral damage: it will never become a leader in technology or soft power, including censorship. Journalist Ian Johnson disagrees in the ChinaFile, the people might not accept that trade-off.Read More →
Journalist Ian Johnson meets James Leibold, eminent researcher on China´s policies on ethnic minorities. After a dive into China´s historical take on Xinjiang, both dive into the current tense situation and recent violence. Ian Johnson asks questions for the New York Times.Read More →
Journalist Ian Johnson interviewed civil-right lawyer Teng Biao on the current political situation, just ahead of the annual plenum of the Communist Party for the New York Review of Books. A fragment about the Re-education Through Labor Camps.Read More →
China celebrates on Tuesday its first ´martyrs´day´ on September 30, a expression of new-found patriotism to remember those who died in fights with foreign powers. Journalist Ian Johnson at the New York Times digs into the reasons for this new celebration.Read More →
The much awarded journalist Ian Johnson is joining today the China Speakers Bureau. Working in China since 1984, Ian worked for the Wall Street Journal as feature writer and bureau chief for twelve years.He is currently living in Beijing and Berlin as an independent journalist, working both for the New York Review of Books and the Wall Street Journal.Read More →
Hong Kong´s political future, and how its leader is being elected, has caused major upheaval in the past month. Those political choices have a profound influence on the city´s economic future, warns financial analyst Sara Hsu in the Diplomat.Read More →
When the Hu-Wen government abolished the agricultural tax, everybody sang high praise. But it robbed local governments from their only source of income, apart from land sales and its corrupt practices. The National Audit Office is now trying to correct some of those wrongdoings, writes financial analyst Sara Hsu in Triple Crisis.Read More →
Anti-trust actions, anti-corruption drives and safety issues have made corporate life for foreign firms in China tougher than 10, 15 years ago. Whether they will actually leave China in larger numbers depends on how the costs of doing business develop, writes financial analyst Sara Hsu in the Diplomat.Read More →
Author Howard French of China’s Second Continent discusses at CNN how China´s Africa relations are developing, and how the US can react. Ebola might slightly derail a current conference in Washington, but trade and economic relations will remain high on the international agenda.Read More →
For those who have missed it: corruption is high on China´s hitlist for the past year, just ask executives at pharmaceutical companies. Author Paul French argues in Ethical Corporation the crackdown on foreign firms could have been expected, and will last.Read More →
China´s urbanites are expected to growth with a few hundred million over the coming yers. But can cities grow in a sustainable way, wonders urbanization expert Sara Hsu in The Diplomat. There is room for both doubt and for hope, she writes.Read More →
President Xi Jinping certainly has a good PR guy, jokes author Zhang Lijia, while she is interviewed about China´s powerful leader, in front of the food shop where he showed up a few months ago to buy his own food.Read More →