The New York Times reported today about a human rights activist who was beaten in a cemetery on tomb-sweeping day. Sun Wenguang, who is 75 years old, went to the cemetery to pay his respects to Zhao Ziyang. Apparently, that was enough to get him brutally beaten by “four or five men”. Zhao Ziyang...
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I hope everyone had a happy Serfs’ Liberation Day. Don’t know what I’m talking about? Well, you haven’t been reading the People’s Daily. In the past week or so, the government has launched a massive PR blitz on Tibet, even as security was tightened in the province and Tibetan ethnic regions and riots were...
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Last Sunday, I logged into our website with no greater intent than writing a post of some kind so as to keep to our unofficial one post per day quota. Finding an image I interpreted as racist on several Chinese blogs, I decided to write about the picture and the larger issue behind...
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Recently, browsing through the Chinese blogs in my favorites list, I came across a rather surprising image (click here for full size version, image after the jump), a mockup of "evolution" in several different countries parodying the classic from-monkey-to-man evolution image found in high school textbooks. The reason it was posted in...
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At the risk of boring everyone and getting this website swept under the Great Firewall, we’ll add a few short thoughts about Tibet. As the CCP keeps a lockdown on Tibet, information is scarce and hard to come by, even more than usual. There’s a certain sore spot on China’s part against the Western...
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Anyone that’s studied Chinese for period of time has come across the learner that one might dub “the anti-character snob.” While striving for oral perfection, the anti-character snob eschews the (admittedly infuriating) world of hanzi and deals solely in pinyin. There are even tales (unconfirmed, as this writer doubts these exist on the mainland)...
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A debate over China’s historical sovereignty over Tibet traditionally asks the question, “Was Tibet historically part of China?” It’s hard to deny that the answer to that question is in many ways a yes. Officially, Chinese influence over Tibet started from the 13th century onward. In reality, Tibet was under Chinese sway during the...
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Hillary Clinton is back from China and in some ways things haven’t looked rosier for US – China relations in the entirety of the CCP’s rule over the mainland. Questions about human rights in China are out of fashion in Washington and other, seemingly-less controversial issues that both parties are keen to cooperate on...
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In his remarks to the United States Congress on Tuesday, American President Barack Obama gave the Chinese government some unexpected props: We know the country that harnesses the power of clean, renewable energy will lead the 21st century. And yet, it is China that has launched the largest effort in history to make their...
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If you’re reading this post right now, chances are this isn’t the first thing you’ve read about China in English. And if this isn’t the first thing you’ve read about China in English, you’ve probably read about a Chinese government “crackdown” before. But what, exactly, does it mean when the Chinese government cracks down?...
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