WorldcrunchStay updated with comprehensive news on China from Worldcrunch. Discover insights on Chinese politics, economic developments, societal issues, and cultural landmarks with translations from top international sources. Highlights include Beijing, Shanghai, and events like the Chinese New Year.
QUINGGOU — It was back in the mid-1990s, amid China’s major economic reforms. Liu Changxia and other men in the village of Qinggou felt it was “time to leave home” because the farm wasn‘t bringing in enough and their families needed to be provided for. The whole country was talking of nothing but economic growth. […]
-OpEd- This is the time of year when American colleges inform applicants whether they’ll be accepted or not. Admission to prestigious universities grows tougher every year. Stanford University“s acceptance rate has fallen from 22.4% in 1970 to 5.7% in 2013. It’s the same for the University of Chicago, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Harvard University, […]
SHANGHAI — After the excellent performance of Shanghai children in the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA), an expert delegation led by British Education Minister Elizabeth Truss paid a visit to Shanghai recently to learn from the city’s experience in teaching – and teaching math, in particular. The local press reported that the visiting delegation […]
LANZHOU — Over the last few days, panic has been spreading about the drinking water in Lanzhou, the capital city of the northwest Gansu Province. The water contains dangerously high levels of benzene, a cancer-causing substance. Television reports show the public madly rushing to the supermarkets for bottled water. What if this also happens to […]
History says a hegemonic power and a rising power may be inevitably bound for war. What both Washington and Beijing can do to avoid that.
BEIJING — A friend of mine recently made an appointment for his heart problem at the cardiac unit of a very well-reputed hospital. When he finally managed to see the chief physician, the doctor’s first question wasn’t “What’s the matter with you?” or “How long have you been feeling unwell?” but instead, “What guanxi have […]
A French reporter is the first Western journalist to get inside the village of Lukqun where in June 2013, 27 people were killed under unclear circumstances before access was shut off.
BEIJING — Since Malaysian Airlines flight MH370 disappeared on March 8, two dozen nations have joined in the search and demonstrated a true spirit of international cooperation. But absent the timely release of information by certain countries — because of profound fear of compromising national security data — cooperating countries haven’t been able to wholly […]
One year after rising to power, Chinese President Xi Jinping shows no signs of turning back on major reforms…or sweeping purges.
Employees who toil long hours for low wages at the Chinese factories that assemble the iPhone are part of the dark side of the country’s rush to urbanization.
-Opinion- BEIJING — After trying it out for less than two months, China’s southeast city of Guangzhou has announced it will suspend the “safe baby hatch” program, which provided a secure place to leave abandoned babies to increase their chance for survival. Since Guangzhou’s Children’s Social Welfare Home launched the arrangement earlier this year, 262 […]
BEIJING — China is far from being a central character in the Ukrainian crisis drama. Still, it has the potential to become an important mediator on the global stage between Russia and the West. China’s influence in the past was limited to its vote in the UN Security Council, but since the Crimea crisis emerged, […]
KASHGAR — The Matang nut cake and skewered kawap (mutton), an ancient Kingdom reduced to ruins in a desert, and the simple imagery of folk singing and dancing: These are the stereotypes most Han Chinese have of the Uyghur people. It made sense for me to travel to find out more in their native land, […]
The massacre of 29 people in Kunming this month is related to Xinjiang, a province where the relations between the Han Chinese and Uyghur are more tense than ever.
HONG KONG — Rarely do Chinese names appear in news stories about people donating their art collections to museums. That is especially true in the realm of contemporary visual art. But prominent Chinese art collector Guan Yi recently made an exception by donating 37 pieces of his collection to Hong Kong’s M+ Museum, which is […]
BEIJING — McDonald’s is planning to expand franchising in China’s biggest cities, such as Shanghai and Shenzhen, for the first time since its entry into the country. Since its founding in 1955, McDonald’s has relied on its franchisees to play a major role in the company’s global success. Franchisees account for 80% of the 30,000 […]
BEIJING — The continuous heavy haze over Beijing is an ever-present reminder of the country’s losing battle with pollution. But it may also have been the engine to jump start the Chinese government’s recent push to promote the sale of and use of electric vehicles. Beijing officials, who had instituted incentives for purchasing electric cars, […]
Outrage in China has followed the Kunming attack that killed 29, not just for the violence, but for the way the West has (and hasn’t) defined what happened. Making sense of the *T* word.
As Chinese Premier Li Keqiang rolled out the country’s new ‘war on pollution,’ Le Monde paid a visit to the city that has registered the dirtiest air in China.
BEIJING — There is a career crisis in China’s judiciary, and it’s especially acute here in the capital. First the numbers. According to statistics obtained by Li Yuanfang, a National People’s Congress member, of the 2,053 judges recruited in Beijing between 2008 and 2012, 348 have since resigned. That’s 16.9% of new recruits leaving their […]
BEIJING — China’s central government has imposed new requirements to severely limit the population in the country’s “mega-cities.” In the booming capital, whose population has topped 20 million, the focus has been on using economic regulations to stem the rising number of inhabitants. “Controlling the population by controlling business categories” is one of the key […]
China has its fashionista culture, and it is increasingly original rather than a knock-off of someone else’s city chic.
BEIJING — Chen Dongsheng has amassed a fortune with attention to both the mundane of insurance and the glamour of fine art. He is the founder of three completely divergent enterprises — China Guardian Auctions, the first Chinese auction company to specialize in the sale of Chinese artwork; Kangtai Life, one of China’s largest life […]
BEIJING — Wang Jianlin, chairman of Dalian Wanda Group, calmly states that he has set a goal of $99 billion (600 billion RMB) in revenue by 2020 for his real estate development company. Just as calmly, he then adds that he’ll retire that year to write his memoirs. In mid-December, in front of dozens of […]
HANGZHOU — It’s well known that nobody in Wahaha, China’s biggest beverage empire, dares challenge the word of Zong Qinghou. But the cult of personality surrounding the group’s founder, dubbed the “beverage king,” goes much further: There are reports of how employees at a Wahaha dealers’ meeting shout Viva Wahaha! Viva Zong Qinghou!, and the […]
After building Beijing’s Olympic Park for the 2008 Games, a Chinese-American urban planner and Israeli architect continue to help develop green cities in a largely polluted China.
-Commentary- BEIJING — Reports about rich Chinese men snapping up French chateaux for big bucks have been prolific lately. Many Chinese are astonished that these French cultural relics are available to private buyers at all, much less foreign ones. But I believe this represents not so much how open France is but rather how closed […]
The 45-year-old founder of Baidu, dubbed the “Google of China,” says technology offers great opportunity for success – but also means failure can arrive at any moment.
BEIJING — It was 30 years ago at the 1984 Los Angeles Summer Olympics that a 20-year-old Chinese gymnast named Li Ning captured three gold medals, two silvers and one bronze with an array of never-before-seen flips and twists that he had invented himself. Li, now 50, became China’s most decorated athlete and won the […]
China tries to come to terms with its not-so-distant past.
BEIJING — When he was 17, Zhao Bowen was a bored student who made an audacious decision. In a country where the cult of diplomas knows no boundaries, he quit school and decided not to take the exam that would have allowed him university entry. “All that fuss just to learn things that you can […]
China’s notorious re-education-through-labor system, abbreviated as laojiao in Chinese, has come into the spotlight with the recent reform announcement by the Standing Committee of the National People’s Congress. The system was born out of the “Campaign to Suppress Counterrevolutionaries” and the “Anti-Rightist Movement” of the Mao era. It was designed to eradicate opposition elements after […]
A new study says some 90 percent of investments by China’s businesses in American operations don’t succeed. Chinese experts explain.
BEIJING — Last week Maison Boulud Beijing, a French restaurant owned by the three-Michelin-star chef Daniel Boulud, shut down. Just before closing its doors for good, the restaurant suddenly became busy. Eating the foie gras, a Belgian expatriate couldn’t help but sigh: “It’s one less place to dine out and experience French haute cuisine.” Maison […]
For this Chinese writer, Rupert Murdoch’s ex-wife is a symbol of all that’s wrong with the power women of the new century.
BEIJING — For many Chinese, the successful Dec. 14 moon landing of the Chang’E-3 spacecraft was a moment of particular pride and joy. China has become the third country in the world to independently achieve a soft landing on the Moon and begin a round of lunar prospecting. It is also a milestone in China’s […]
China is asking hard questions about what it takes to make a big nation a great nation.
BEIJING — Winter has come to the capital, and Wang Jie (a pseudonym) feels particularly cold. The multinational communication equipment company where he’s worked for 20 years has just announced widespread layoffs in the marketing, sales and service departments. Wang’s name was on the list. When he joined the firm in 1994, he was part […]
Tuesday, January 6, 2014 GERMANY DIVIDED AS PEGIDA PROTESTS GROWA record 18,000 people gathered in the eastern German city of Dresden last night for a weekly “anti-Islamization of the West” march, while similar protests are spreading across the country in cities like Berlin, Cologne and Stuttgart. The protesters were met with smaller, opposing rallies denouncing […]
Dubbed the new ‘cave dwellers’ of Beijing, these people were recently found living in the city’s underground water system. Society’s lowest rung raises hard questions about modern China.