Stories about hospital staff being beaten up by angry patients and their families have become all too common in China´s media. Corruption and underfunding are the base of that violence, says author Zhang Lijia, who pleads for health care reforms in the South China Morning PostRead More →
Author Zhang Lijia and her female class mates were the victim of sexual abuse when she studied in Nanjing, she recalls in the New York Times. Scandals have put sexual abuse on the official agenda, but that might not be enough, she fears.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 →
Migrant workers suffer from a wide range of mental disorders, caused by their working situation, tells author Zhang Lijia at the CNN-website. Her findings are based on recent research by Yu Cheng,Sun Yat-sen University, Guangzhou. More action on the workplace is needed.Read More →
Most people in China still fail to understand what Mao Zedong did right, and what he did wrong, argues author Zhang Lijia in the South China Morning Post. Especially now current president Xi Jinping is lending some of his legacy, an open debate is urgently due, although it is unlikely to happen.Read More →
The Vagina Monologues have sparked off a lot of debate, but nowhere as ugly as in China, writes author Zhang Lijia on her website. “The online assault on the students was a brutal reminder that beyond this circle of enlightened women, many do not favour gender equality.”Read More →
Violence used by patients against doctors has hit the headlines a few times. Author Zhang Lijia can understand from her own experience how the culture of bribes drives patients to desperation, she tells in KTEP.Read More →
Looking back at its own history is not popular in China, notes author Zhang Lijia on her website. She welcomes the apologies of a growing number of former Red Guards who committed violence during the Cultural Revolution. Soul-searching is needed to avoid another Cultural Revolution, she argues.Read More →
One of the reasons corruption in China is hard to eradicate is because everybody is guilty. Author Zhang Lijia describes for CNN how her family ended up bribing corrupt officials in Nanjing.Read More →
For the communist party, fighting corruption is a matter of life and death, author Zhang Lijia told CNN’s anchor Kristie Lu Stout in “On China”, focusing on the crackdown on corruption by the current leadership. “They will catch a big tiger from each province. But again you guess, which tiger will get caught. The most corrupt one, or the most politically weak?”Read More →
China’s recent history had a fair share of man-made disasters, including the Great Famine and the Cultural Revolution. The few years after the 1949 revolution have always been considered to be a golden period. Wrong, says Frank Dikotter in a recent book, The Tragedy of Liberation. Author Zhang Lijia disagrees with him at the BBC.Read More →
Author Zhang Lijia looked for the BBC World Service back at the Bo Xilai thriller, an event that kept many Chinese glued to their computer screens, mobiles and sometimes even TV-screens. Some of the motives behind an unprecedented open political trial.Read More →