Worldcrunch
BEIJING – To stem surging housing prices and curb speculation, China has recently issued a new policy that enables local governments to impose a 20% tax on profits earned from the sale of a second home. This is a huge hike from the current 1-2% tax. The move immediately triggered panic among the affluent class […]
China’s basketball legend Yao Ming wants to save the sharks. Wang Haifeng wants to save 500 jobs. Who are you rooting for? Have you ever tried shark fin soup?
The two world powers and BRICS nations enjoy friendly relations, and both have an interest in expanding economic and political links. Still, there is another big player always looming.
Too many Chinese have taken their pursuit of happiness to the United States, and elsewhere in the West. China must ask itself why are there still so many good reasons for leaving.
BEIJING – Less than six months ago, U.S. Under Secretary of State Robert D. Hormats gave an exclusive interview to Caixin, in which he said that one of the most important tasks in US-China relations was to define differences on intellectual property rights protection and find common solutions within the next six months. On Feb. […]
–Editorial- BEIJING – It is a well-known fact that Chinese people don’t like to spend money. Since the 1998 financial crisis, China’s policy makers have been trying to expand domestic demand, and in particular Chinese consumption, to let the “caged tiger” loose. In other words, it is time that people dig into their savings. Since […]
SOUTH CHINA MORNING POST (China), BBC NEWS (UK), Worldcrunch BEIJING – One day after formally appointing Xi Jinping as the country’s new president for the next 10 years, China leaders have named Li Keqiang for a five-year term as premier, the last leg of a well-oiled generational transition of power. Although Xi and Li hail […]
More and more elderly Chinese people are living far awar from their children, bringing the reality of aging “empty nesters” to the country. The social impact is huge.
XINHUA (China), ABC (Australia) Worldcrunch BEIJING – China’s annual parliamentary session formally appointed Xi Jinping as the country’s president for the next ten years on Thursday. The vote at the annual National People’s Congress only drew one “no” vote and three abstentions amongst nearly 3,000 delegates, reports ABC. The NPC is largely considered a “rubber […]
SINA, CHINA DAILY, JIAXING DAILY (China) BBC (UK) Worldcrunch SHANGHAI – The first reports came Sunday, and were shocking enough: more than 1000 dead pigs were fished out of Huangpu River in Shanghai, China Daily reported. But by Wednesday the count was approaching 6,000. According to the labels pinned in the ears of the pigs […]
BEIJING – The 18th century British scholar Thomas Malthus predicted that when population growth exceeded agriculture’s capacity to support new population numbers, it would lead to starvation and misery. His prediction was wrong, because he did not take into account the impact of scientific and technological progress. His name has since become an adjective for […]
-OpEd- BEIJING – A few days ago in the northeastern city of Changchun, a man left his baby in his SUV while he went inside a convenience store. He returned to find his car, which he had left unlocked and running, stolen, along with the baby. After 48 hours of public mobilization and searches, Zhou […]
China’s incoming President has promised to tackle bribery and abuse of power. The country’s digital citizen-reporters will hold him to his word.
-OpEd- BEIJING – The four foreign criminals who murdered 13 Chinese sailors in 2011 on northern Thailand’s Mekong River were put to death by lethal injection on March 1. I support the death sentence in this case and the execution of these men. The significance of this execution is three-fold. First, whoever commits a crime, […]
KCNA (North Korea), AP, REUTERS, CNN Worldcrunch PYONGYANG– With the UN set to vote on imposing sanctions against North Korea for its recent nuclear test, Pyongyang issued perhaps it’s most virulent threat to date, saying it would exercise the right to pre-emptive strikes against Washington. “Since the United States is about to ignite a nuclear […]
-Analysis- BEIJING – One of the stated functions of the Ministry of Environmental Protection is to monitor the environment, and to publish the findings. But when a Beijing lawyer asked the Ministry to publish its national soil pollution survey, he was turned away. The reason? The findings were a state secret. In China, the “state […]
BARCELONA – Bas van Abel brought a novel idea to the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona. The 35-year-old Dutch entrepreneur is currently at work, with ten others, on the first “FairTrade” smartphone – a phone that will contain no gold mined in war zones, will not be assembled in a soulless Chinese factory, and will […]
LE MONDE (France), XINHUA (China) Worldcrunch BEIJING – According to Le Monde, the opening of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC) on March 3, was more like a star-studded film premiere than a political event. The CPPCC is a 2,200-member body that meets annually to debate policy and advise government. It includes politicians, but […]
BEIJING – Before even leaving for the United Kingdom, we had already decided to try out the local cuisine as much as possible. It shouldn’t be too difficult to avoid Chinese food – even though there are Chinese restaurants in every corner of the world these days. After all, we were only spending a dozen […]
HERALD SUN (Australia), SKY NEWS (UK) Worldcrunch SYDNEY –Australian police have seized 585 kilograms of pure methamphetamine in Sydney bound to flush the major Australian cities. The haul was estimated at $438 million in street value, in what is largest seizure ever of methamphetamine down under. Police had been tipped off in September about “suspicious […]
Hung Huang has come to Paris to unlock the secrets of the Chinese fashion market.
CHINA DAILY, SOUTHERN METROPOLIS DAILY (China) Worldcrunch GUANGZHOU – An organization of parents of gay and lesbians in China has sent an open letter to China’s National People’s Congress (NPC), demanding the legalization of same-sex marriage, according to the Southern Metropolis Daily. “Some of our children have been living with their partners for nearly 10 […]
ECONOMIC OBSERVER (China) Worldcrunch BEIJING – From Brangelina to Bradillac? You have to be in China, but car lovers and movie fans now have a new automotive pinup after Brad Pitt was named official spokesman for the luxury Cadillac XTS sedan, being rolled out especially for the Chinese market. The parent company of the Cadillac […]
BEIJING – Over the past three years, a growing number of high-ranking officials in China have committed suicide, according to data from the Legal Weekly journal. In just the last two months alone, three officials — Qi Xiaolin, Deputy Secretary of Guangzhou’s Municipal Public Security Bureau, Zhang Wanxiong, Vice-President of Liangzhou Court of Justice in […]
BEIJING – After it was recently revealed that the entire family of a top housing administration official in the northern Chinese city of Zhengzhou had two sets of identity papers (or hukou), people have taken to joking online that China doesn’t really have 1.3 billion people, as many people have a “dual hukou.” The hukou […]
MANDIANT, NEW YORK TIMES, CNN (USA) Worldcrunch An American cybersecurity firm has linked more than 100 cyber attacks on U.S. companies to to the Chinese government. In a 60-page long document entitled APT1: Exposing One of China’s Cyber Espionage Units,, the Virginia-based firm Mandiant traced 147 cases of corporate cyber espionage over a six-year period […]
-OpEd- BEIJING – During and after the 18th Communist Party Congress, party and state leaders re-stated that the country should be ruled by law and governed according to the Constitution. They also said that the supervision of power should be tightened, including oversight through public opinion by news media. The 17th Party Congress report of […]
BEIJING – On the night of Aug 8, 1975, a line of people frantically piled sandbags atop the Banqiao Dam, in the central Henan Province, while being battered by the worst storm ever recorded in the region. They raced against the rapidly rising Ru River to save the dam and the millions of people that […]
XINHUA, CHINA.ORG.CN (China), Worldcrunch BEIJING – There’s a new study in China aimed at finding out more about the lives of the corrupt. Among the findings of the study, dubbed the “Officials’ Image Crisis Report,” was that 95% of Chinese officials being investigated for corruption also kept mistresses, according to Xinhua. The link between political […]
CHINA AND TAIWAN MEET FOR HISTORIC GOVERNMENT TALKS Representatives of the China and Taiwan governments met today in the Eastern Chinese city of Nanjing, the first face-to-face meeting of cross-strait officials since the end of the Chinese civil war in 1949, which saw the separation of the two states. While no official agenda was released […]
A landslide last month in Zhenxiong County in southwestern China killed 46 villagers. Once the bodies were recovered, the local authority — without any prior agreement from family members — cremated them. This set off a storm of protest from relatives of the deceased, and widespread criticism from the public. Zhenxiong authorities sparked further outrage […]
BEIJING – Recently, pharmaceutical company Renhen Pharmacy went through a public relations nightmare after a doctor wrote on the popular Chinese micro-blogging site Weibo that its children’s cold medicine was dangerous. Could better preparation and response on Weibo have substantially mitigated the damage to Renhe’s image? On Jan. 21, a Weibo post about Renhe Pharmacy […]
PHNOM PENH – A few years ago this scene would have played out in China. More specifically, it would have played out in a Chinese coastal region to which millions of rural folks had arrived looking for work. A huge hangar, piles of fabrics of all colors at both ends, and some 200 heads lowered […]
How the intersection of show biz and state power looks from China.
The dispute over the Diaoyu islands, which Japan calls the Senkaku islands, is prompting some Japanese firms to consider closing Chinese operations. They quickly run into roadblocks.
XINHUA, JIANGXI, GLOBAL TIMES (China), WANT DAILY (Taiwan) JIANGXI – The Chinese New Year is the worst holiday to be single in China – the family pressure is too intense. “With or without money, get married to have a better New Year,” goes the Chinese proverb. The Chinese New Year– also called the Spring Festival […]
ASSOCIATED PRESS, XINHUA (China) Worldcrunch BEIJING – At least 26 people were killed Friday in central China after a truck carrying Chinese New Year’s fireworks exploded and caused the collapse of a highway bridge. It remains unclear how the truck’s load detonated, but the blast was powerful enough to destroy an 80-meter stretch of the […]
NEW YORK TIMES, REUTERS, ATLANTIC WIRE (US) Worldcrunch BEIJING –The New York Times says that it has been repeatedly targeted by Chinese cyber-attacks over the past four months, following a report the newspaper had published detailing allegations of hidden wealth of China’s Prime Minister Wen Jiabao. The American Newspaper claimed that these hacking attempts failed. […]
HIGH LEVELS OF RADIATION AT UK NUCLEAR SITEAll nonessential workers at a nuclear reprocessing plant in the British town of Sellafield were instructed to remain at home after elevated levels of radioactivity were detected at the site, The Guardian reports. But the company explained that the levels didn’t represent a risk for the public or […]
Chinese GDP is growing — but it is ever more at odds with the better life Chinese people aspire to. Despite new leaders’ best intentions, China’s ambitions could all come undone.