China talks the talk when it comes to innovation, with recent national conferences on the topic attended by high-ranking Communist party leaders. But scratch the surface, and you’ll find something that is the very opposite of innovation.
Tag: china
CAIXIN, UNITED DAILY NEWS (China) Worldcrunch BEIJING – It was last Saturday when the heavens opened above the Chinese capital, bringing the most deadly rain storm to hit here in at least six decades. Now, five days later, the municipality of Beijing has finally updated the death toll, which officially stood Thursday at 77, including […]
CENTRAL NEWS AGENCY, UNITED DAILY NEWS, TAIWAN NEWS (Taiwan) Worldcrunch BEIJING – According to Xinhua News, Beijing mayor Guo Jinlong, resigned from his post on July 25 along with the vice-mayor, Ji Lin. The very short report did not give an explanation for the resignation of the city’s top officials. Wang Anshun, a Beijing city […]
THE STANDARD, HONG KONG OBSERVATORY (Hong Kong), CHINA DAILY (China) Worldcrunch More than a hundred people were injured on Tuesday as a typhoon lashed Hong Kong, with winds over 140 kilometers per hour. “Vicious Vicente” ravaged the city, said the Standard, disrupting services on land, air and sea. Schools were closed and outpatient clinic services […]
Analysis: China and Japan have little room for compromise as tensions rise over the disputed Senkaku islands. Still, it is part of a broader dance between the region’s two biggest powers that is short-wired — at least for now — to try and avoid
Essay: Europe and the West are considered the “developed” world, while countries such as China are said to be “developing.” But such mentalities don’t really match the respective realities of wealth, in all its
Essay: China is consumed by the ethical rot that seems to pervade society, from official corruption to tainted food. State TV and others in Beijing are quick to blame market forces for this “moral debacle.” But one writer takes a closer
CHINA TIMES (Taiwan), SOHU NEWS (China) Worldcrunch QINGHAI – Some say China is using up all of its innovative energy in inventing new ways of showing off. The latest status symbol has four legs and is open for some geopolitical interpretation: the Tibetan mastiff. The China Times reports that as the numbers of luxurious villas […]
Chinese athletes won’t be able to explore any of London’s many global cuisines, or even eat the special food prepared at the Olympic Village. Just internal, government-approved grub. Why? Fears that banned substances might slip into thei
CAIXIN (China), EPOCH TIMES (USA) Worldcrunch BEIJING – Internet freedom in China has taken another blow this week. But by the very nature of the medium, every blow to digital access necessarily prompts a blowback. Caixin media reports that the latest attempt to clamp down was the joint announcement of an official “Notice as to […]
With a recent crackdown on child trafficking in China, a journalist recalls the shock of an earlier visit to the same remote Sichuan Province area where wretchedly poor women willingly sold their newborns — and didn’t want them back.
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What’s Wrong With Chinese Education
China’s education system produces students highly adept at reciting back what their teachers tell them, and teachers who focus only on regurgitating what the state textbooks contain. What’s lost is the curiosity and creativity that motor
From the Ming Dynasty to Hong Kong gangsters, shark fin was once the symbolic ingredient of Chinese people of wealth and status. But times and tastes are bound to change.
SING TAO (Hong Kong), LIANHE ZAOBAO (Singapore) Worldcrunch HONG KONG – The Chinese political system is one of “progress, selflessness and solidarity.” And the “Western” alternative of multiple political parties? Well, that’s sure to bring “malignant party struggle, and it’s the people who pay…” Such keen analysis is standard fare from the corridors of China’s […]
NANFANG DAILY (China), GUCHENG.COM (China) Worldcrunch GUANGZHOU – For a country like China, founded on the precepts of fairness and justice, where the proletariat are supposedly the masters, this wasn’t supposed to happen. Thanks to photographs posted this week by a Chinese blogger, we see the space under a viaduct in Guangzhou city covered with […]
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Giant ‘Pig King’ Gets Buddhist Funeral
CHANGJIANG NEWS NET (China), HUNAN ONLINE (China) Worldcrunch WENZHOU – A few days ago a special Buddhist funeral ceremony was held in a temple at Taishun in Zhejiang province. But it was not a person being laid to rest, but rather a renowned “Pig King” from a nearby village, the Hunan online reported. Dozens of […]
Essay: There is something deeply revealing about the Chinese that the nation is so consumed by the ‘regular guy’ persona of US Ambassador Gary Locke.
Jiang Dalong beat out a dozen competitors to win a bid to takeover failed Swedish carmaker Saab. Having made his millions in renewable energy, Jiang talks to Caixin about Saab’s (green) road back from the dead.
Worldcrunch TIANFU MORNING POST (China) CHENGDU – These days in China, marriage proposals are over-the-top and the richer you are the better it is. Last month, the spotlight was on 11 very rich men looking for wives, kicking off a high-profile search in ten major cities. Needless to say, the ladies the men were looking […]
The bumps and bruises continue 15 years after Hong Kong returned into Chinese hands. Now it’s up to both to try harder.
Zhou Yinzi moved last year from China to Plainsboro, NJ. Used to dreary classes, she discovered a new world of sexy principals and crushworthy teachers, piercings and booming T-shirts. An exchange student’s love letter — to her teachers, most of
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China’s Power Gap
Essay: Why do powerful officials break the rules and earn promotions, while a migrant mother faces bureaucratic traps that don’t allow her child to go to school? Facing up to the question of administrative power is fundamental for China’
Exclusive: Two weeks ago she sparked an international uproar in her defense with a grisly photo of her dead would-be second child, after a forced abortion for violating China’s one-child policy. Feng is now being hounded by locals, and her husban
Chinese multinationals are growing faster than their competitors anywhere else in the world, but they still have a long road ahead until they can become truly global.
Worldcrunch IL MESSAGERO, LA REPUBBLICA (Italy) MILAN – Under mounting pressure from the Chinese government, Milan’s city council cancelled a vote planned this week that would have awarded honorary citizenship to the Dalai Lama, the Italian daily Il Messagero reported. The Tibetan spiritual leader, who has gathered similar honors over the years from Rome, Venice […]
Analysis: Shaming suspects, parading them in the streets – in China, police believe public humiliation is the best method to deter criminals, a practice dating from ancient times.
Worldcrunch LE FIGARO (France), AFP BEIJING – Chinese artist and political dissident Ai Weiwei said Thursday that he’d been barred from attending a hearing on a tax evasion case that the Chinese government has ordered against a firm he founded. Chinese police authorities also warned Weiwei that he was not authorized to leave the country, […]
From a difficult childhood in China to playing for President Obama and Queen Elisabeth II, pianist Lang Lang’s “Journey Of A Thousand Miles” has taken him a long way indeed.
XI’AN UP CLOSE, 56.COM (China) As he was drilling a new well near his home in western China, a villager found a weirdly shaped, fungus-like object. Not knowing what to make of the discovery, he called the local TV station to come and have a look. The investigative program Xi’an Up Close quickly sent reporter […]
Worldcrunch CENTRAL NEWS AGENCY (Taiwan) BEIJING – One can never guess these days what will come out of Sina Weibo, the Chinese equivalent of Twitter. After last weekend’s sucessful launch of the Shenzhou 9, the Chinese spacecraft carrying China’s first female astronaut, Sina Weibo initiated a campaign called “Write a letter to the Shenzhou 9 […]
Worldcrunch SINA NEWS, CHUTIAN DAILY (China) HUBEI – A few weeks ago, reports Sina News, a man showed up in front of the Hunan University female dormitory with a cortege of BMWs. The 11 cars were parked in two rows of five, while the lead car was parked next to a red carpet running from […]
From 7-Eleven convenience stores to the retail giants Muji and Uniqlo, Japanese brands are rapidly expanding across China, with 50,000 stores and counting.
In China, e-sellers harass consumers in some particularly disturbing ways if they’ve written negative reviews about their products.
Worldcrunch CAIXIN MEDIA / SINA NEWS (China) CHINA TIMES (Taiwan) BEIJING – China officialy has its first female taikonaut, as “astronaut” is called in Chinese. Liu Yang (below) will be on board for Saturday’s launching of the Shenzhou 9 spacecraft, scheduled for 18:37 local time, Chinese official media have confirmed. Liu, a native of Henan […]
China’s local family planning officials — and the country’s one-child policy — are under fire after a woman took an extreme and public response to a late-term forced abortion. Caixin speaks to the heartbroken would-be mother.
Op Ed: What happened in Chinese society for nepotism and corruption to become so entrenched that children already have it in mind as they make plans for the future.
Worldcrunch CENTRAL NEWS AGENCY (Taiwan), VOA TAIPEI – These are not the kind of words that typically go “viral.” Following the mysterious June 6 death in China of prominent dissident Li Wangyang, a growing number of Chinese human rights activists in China have been using Twitter and other microblog services to personally declare: “I will […]
Analysis: Much has been made about China’s move toward a market economy. But seen from up close, the private sector is still a second-class player in the face of state-run economic interests.
LA TRIBUNE (France) BORDEAUX – Bordeaux wines have become so popular in China, reports La Tribune, that they are now widely targeted by counterfeiters. Wine consumption in China – a relatively new phenomenon – has doubled in the past five years, and should continue to become more and more mainstream. So much so that China […]
WorldcrunchCAIXIN / CHINA DAILY (China) BEIJING – As far as mass national mobilizations go, nothing can quite match the Spring Festival transportation rush around the Chinese New Year. But in China, another massive annual event is the “Gaokao,” when millions of high school graduates take part in the National College Entrance Examination in 7300 test […]