One of the things I do as part of my “day job” is to produce a weekly online newsletter with curated news stories from China. I usually include a few dozen stories, but there are always a few that, for some reason, stand out. Here are three news stories out of China that caught my…
Current Affairs
China By the Numbers
On March 5, Premier Li Keqiang delivered the 2016 government work report at the opening session of the annual National People’s Congress in Beijing. As government work reports go, it follows a very strict script: listing of all the glorious accomplishments of the past year and then setting forth all the glorious things that the…
Get Your “Four Comprehensives” On
The Chinese Communist Party is at it again — promoting it’s own awesomeness with an animated rap video (with a side of Beethoven). Here’s a sampling of the lyrics: “Listen to me: four comprehensives, four comprehensives, building a moderately prosperous society is the goal; Repeat after me: four comprehensives, four comprehensives, reform is the impetus;…
Where Are the Liu Mei?
In the late 1990’s, I had the chance to study Chinese one-on-one with a professor in Beijing. At the beginning of my very first lesson, in a small classroom at the college where he taught, Professor Y’s first words to me were, “I’m not a member of the Party, and so we can discuss any…
Thirteen Five
The “China watcher” corner of The Internet nearly ground to a halt on Monday night and Tuesday after Xinhua, China’s official news agency posted this bizarre video to YouTube. It’s a video designed to promote the upcoming release of the the government’s five-year economic plan (yes, China is still socialist enough that they do this), the 13th such…
Make it look like a parade
Years ago I had a poster hanging in my room that said: “When you’re being run out of town, get in front and make it look like a parade.” I thought of that this morning when I read an article in the People’s Daily (Chinese Communist Party mouthpiece) that referenced the hundreds of thousands of people who took…