After the topic of bulk sanitary napkins went viral online, the broader issue of the gap between rich and poor has come out of the shadows across the communist nation, including the availability of laptops for students.
country: China
Stay 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.
Eight months after cutting itself off from the world, the Chinese megalopolis is coronavirus-free and back to business as usual, albeit with a healthy dose of propaganda.
How is the Chinese economy doing these days? Start by asking Louis Vuitton, whose flagship Beijing boutique boasted record sales in August.
Authorities have decided to start cracking down on popular web programs featuring pretty vloggers with seemingly limitless stomachs. But are they really such a bad influence?
HONG KONG — Ten old college classmates had rented a room in a five-star hotel. There was plenty of laughing and joking and memories, but a sad feeling somehow lingered. The reunion was really a farewell party. In two weeks’ time, Apple and her family of three will move to London. Tianxin and her husband […]
The pandemic has taken a huge toll on the Chinese film industry. But it’s the movie houses themselves that have suffered most.
At the heart of Beijing’s health diplomacy, traditional Chinese medicine accounts for nearly 30% of the Chinese pharmaceutical industry’s turnover, and anyone who criticizes it could be punished.
Containing the COVID-19 outbreak came at a huge cost in terms of earnings and employment. And no one is taking a harder hit than China’s tens of millions of migrant workers.
-Analysis- BEIJING — How many disabled people are there in China? The number is 85 million, or 6% of China’s total population, according to the statistics of the Chinese Disabled Persons’ Federation. Yet rarely do we see any of them in China’s major cities. So where are they? Recently, a video from the southwestern city […]
Beijing seems to be abandoning the very strategy that allowed it to not only survive the collapse of the USSR, but also prosper.
Beginning last month, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security has tightened access to media visas for any journalist holding a Chinese passport. The validity period of each visa delivered will be shortened to 90 days, instead of being unlimited as before. Journalists who are citizens of Hong Kong or the Macao Special Administrative Region are […]
Chinese officials are realizing that the ‘soul’ of a city is key to strength and prosperity.
HONG KONG — The Beijing authorities have finally decided to set aside the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (SAR) Government and its Legislative Council and instead craft themselves a national security law for the former British colony. According to Wang Chen, deputy chairman of the National People’s Congress (NPC), the Chinese government’s rubber stamp agency, […]
After months of quiet amid the COVID-19 crisis, Hong Kong demonstrators attended an unauthorized rally this weekend to protest Beijing’s proposed security law that would tighten China’s control over the island territory. Police repeatedly fired tear gas,
The coronavirus pandemic has been both a boost and a challenge for delivery services like Chowbus, which specialize in Chinese fare.
After weeks of denial and manipulation, China wanted to play the role of a caring superpower. But something about its soft-power push went awry.
Our Slovenian writer’s bygone trip through a China still not plugged into the global economy reveals some clues for how the pandemic has brought us to this point.
BEIJING — On March 14th, Zhang Yuqing, a Chinese student studying in Chicago, finally made his way back home to Beijing. He had prepared ten N95 masks and a hand sanitizer for the trip that involved several airport connections and dozens of hours of travelling. As a volunteer of the “Million Masks North America Support […]
-Analysis- PARIS — In his most recent book, Chine, le Grand Paradoxe (China, the Great Paradox), Jean-Pierre Raffarin reminds us that, “the key to diplomacy is reciprocal respect.” Prime minister at the height of the SARS crisis, in 2003, Raffarin was one of the rare foreign leaders to proceed with a scheduled trip to China. […]
The virus could have been better contained if China had not tried to hush it up at the start. Autocracy comes at a price.
The epidemic unnerving the world originated in the Wuhan shellfish market, where other local delicacies are sold. But does that matter?
The Asian giant still trails the United States economically, but it is now the world leader when counting total number of embassies and consulates. Bad news for Taiwan — and for the rest of the world?
Traditional ideas about marriage still hold some sway among the Chinese, but more and more, couples are finally giving love a chance.
Loneliness, sex and economics rule among aging singles in the Chinese capital.
A Chinese dog meat festival has generated outrage in France. The controversy is a complex dance between animal rights, racism and consumer hypocrisy.
Adults have a lot of leeway when it comes to raising kids. But that doesn’t mean their power should be absolute — parents don’t, after all, have ownership of their children.
The Chinese leader may officially defend the idea of ‘one country, two systems’, but in fact his management of the crisis in the archipelago is in total contradiction with this principle. And the protests continue to grow.
Personal privacy seems to be fleeting in a world where technology is constantly advancing — and it’s no accident: Around the globe, authorities are creating new ways to collect information about their citizens, be it in the streets or in supermarkets. Identity verification is a growing business, and the market is expected to grow from […]
As Carrefour gets ready to sell a majority of its operations in China, lessons can be learned from the history of the French retail giant’s choices over the years.
The National Radio and Television Administration has issued a ban on historic melodrama in time for the 70th anniversary of the People’s Republic of China. A billion-dollar industry is turned upside down.
I was not at Tiananmen those weeks in the spring 1989, when thousands of students occupied the square, demanding more room in a modernizing China. Nor was I there in those horrid hours between the third and fourth of June, when under the cover of night the People’s Liberation Army first surrounded the area, then […]
Rather than fear the so-called Middle Kingdom, European companies should recognize its rapid ascent as an opportunity.
The center-right populist Italian government has recently bowed to Chinese flattery, announcing it was ready to sign a Memorandum of Understanding that will connect Rome and Beijing on a modern Silk Road. At the end of a long, slow path of decline and political confusion, Rome is in bad need of fresh investment to boost […]
How is it that analysis of the rising world power is reduced to an abstract notion from the field of genetics? Established experts on China are not looking at the future.
WASHINGTON — How long must you live, how strong must be your memory, to turn back and say: damn it, this world has really changed. Look at the millennials, they seem to be better educated than the boomers, but they are sui generis in their thinking, seemingly inspired and shaped by memes rather than historical […]
Three years after the end of the one-child policy, China’s fertility rates are now falling. To have, or not have, children ought to be built on personal and family wishes, something the government still hasn’t understood.
Facing severe social competition, China’s youngsters are under increasing academic pressure. Can a new government policy help ease their load?
WASHINGTON — My first encounter with China was, oddly, at the top of the Empire State Building. I was a young student, and climbing to the top of the Manhattan landmark was the last thing I did before returning home from my first visit to the U.S., where I now live. I was not particularly […]
Ethical concerns about last week’s CRISPR breakthrough in China are valid. But they can evolve quickly.
The U.S. has long enjoyed hegemony over the 2.7-million sq km Caribbean basin. But whether Washington likes it or not, Beijing is showing that it too wants a piece of the pie.