The website Anti-CNN was launched in 2008 by a group of young Chinese students, led by Rao Jin, who was dissatisfied with the biased and distorted reporting of China by Western media. In 2009, former CNN Beijing Bureau chief Rebecca MacKinnon had an interesting conversation with the group of young Chinese behind Anti-CNN. She...
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In today’s Global Times is this tiny tidbit from Xinhua. What I’m quoting here is the entire story as the GT printed it: The government of the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region has promised to find and take home native Xinjiang street children, many of whom have to make a living by begging or stealing....
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While the central government is busy rounding up everyone who might have once glanced at Ai Weiwei, and simultaneously instituting what appears to be some kind of “no lawyer left behind” detention policy, the rest of China is mostly ignoring it. That’s not a surprise, of course; it isn’t being reported in the media...
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Tainted milk. Poisoned milk. Radioactive spinach1. Contaminated mantou. Fake wine. Additive-addled pork. Genetically-terrifying strawberries2. Heavy-metal rice. And most of that just in the past few weeks. It seems that even as food prices continue to rise, the quality is going down the tubes. Or at least, we’re finally learning what kind of food we’re...
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In my last post, I stated that China has the right to prosecute Ai for economic crimes if he’s committed them. And that’s certainly true. But it does gloss over the fact that Ai’s arrest probably had nothing to do with “economic crimes.” Reader Mitch sent me an email with some helpful links, which...
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The Global Times (as one would expect) has decided to take this whole Ai Weiwei nonsense head on. For those of you who have trouble reading between the lines of Chinese newspapers (i.e., no one), we’re providing a translation. Note: this is our first ever gibberish-to-English translation1 Political activism cannot be a legal shield...
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Many of you know that I’m currently working on my own documentary with the ChinaGeeks team. Some of you even gave me money (but we spent it all already, and need more)! Anyway, mine is not the only cool documentary project around. In fact, here are two that are cooler and more professional than...
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Details are scarce and I have nothing of value to add; here’s the story as written by Tania Branigan and Jonathan Watts for the Guardian: China’s best-known artist, Ai Weiwei, has been detained in Beijing and police have searched his studio, confiscated computers and questioned assistants. The 53-year-old remains uncontactable more than 12 hours...
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