A postcard from Beijing
While in the United States last month, I spent a lot of time answering questions about China and listening to the way that people talk about the place. Part of my reaction to that experience was that I...
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China gets soft power right.
The past few months have been discouraging -- oh, let's be honest, disastrous is the word -- for China's push toward more global soft power. Beijing's plans to grow its brand as a reasonable, friendly...
View ArticleA death in China
The story of Qian Yunhui's death, which I wrote about last week, isn't going away. The village leader from a small town in the coastal province of Zhejiang was crushed under the wheel of a truck on...
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What have we learned lately about China's leaders?
After typing the headline of this post I was tempted to just paste the above picture (President Hu Jintao at the center, taking up the entire top half of China Daily's front page) followed by the...
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More on a death in China -- a payment is made
I've written a couple times about the life and death of Qian Yunhui, a local village leader who was crushed to death under the tire of a truck on Christmas morning. Qian was a remarkably persistent...
View ArticleThe State of the Union, competition and China
While much of President Obama's State of the Union address on Tuesday night was a spirited call to domestic action -- pointing to the "vacant storefronts of once busy Main Streets" -- reading it here...
View ArticleChina, the Internet and bunnies gone wild
Wang Bo, the manager of a Beijing cartoon company, had a daring idea for a video greeting card to mark the upcoming Year of the Rabbit. He and his team produced a clip in which a world of rabbits...
View ArticleA postcard from the world's largest annual human migration
After lunch today I took a walk to see the crowd at the central Beijing train station, a few blocks to the south of my office. I wasn't sure if I was looking for an interview about the Chinese New...
View ArticleChina shows video in Qian Yunhui case. Questions remain. Chinese netizens...
It was supposed to be slam dunk evidence that proved the government's contention that rural activist Qian Yunhui was killed in a traffic accident, and not murdered by men in uniform. But when a video...
View ArticleA postcard from the Year of the Rabbit
The New Year's Eve fireworks in China are unlike anything I've ever seen. It's hard to put into words -- fireworks blossoming overhead, raining down in the distance, rocketing in every direction....
View ArticleChina and unrest in the Arab world
I recently did a podcast interview about "What Beijing hears in Egypt's revolution" (using Russia as a sort of triangulated point of comparison). The conversation can be found by clicking here. For...
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Under construction on Wangfujing: China's reaction to protest attempts
Last Sunday, the McDonald's at the Wangfujing Street shopping area in Beijing was the scene of a planned protest that wasn't really a protest. As has been widely reported, the crowd was made up mostly...
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Can China's police state tactics, censorship and economic growth stop wide...
A policeman surrounded by cameras at Wangfujing last Sunday On February 1, we ran a story about a controversial Chinese New Year's video greeting card -- a world in which cartoon rabbits (this...
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In the morning, a speech by the premier. In the afternoon, police crack down
By Tom Lasseter McClatchy Newspapers BEIJING _ Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao on Sunday held an online forum in which he promised to focus on making the lives of ordinary people in China more comfortable...
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A long afternoon at the Chinese Foreign Ministry
Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Jiang Yu on Tuesday What is it like to sit through roughly an hour and a half of Chinese Foreign Ministry press conference? Your answer is here: Part One and Part Two...
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In China, the police are always ready to help!
One of those moments in Beijing… I went yesterday to the Xidan shopping district, a place where there were rumors of rumors of protests that everyone knew weren't going to happen. When I came out of...
View ArticleOut of town note and an old conversation with Ai Weiwei
I've been out of China for a few weeks, on assignment elsewhere, and haven't been diligent with my blog duties. This will continue for a few more weeks. In the interim, I'm reposting an interview with...
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Scenes from a drought
I spent a few days in China's Hubei Province last week reporting a story about the country's ongoing drought and lingering questions about whether the Three Gorges Dam has made things worse. Am passing...
View ArticleChinese Internet CEOs wave the red flag
According to a fascinating blog entry at the Wall Street Journal today, "More than 60 of the biggest names from China’s high-flying Internet sector gathered recently at a museum marking the site of the...
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After the riots
I filed a story this week looking at the causes of recent unrest in China, concentrating on riots that began in Dadun Village in Guangdong Province. My story and others covered the complex set of...
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