That’s the story from Obama’s Treasury Secretary nominee, Timothy F. Geithner, who apparently said during his confirmation hearing that Obama believes China is “manipulating” its currency. As the New York Times points out, the comment is sure to annoy Chinese leadership, if the news doesn’t somehow get lost in the bustle and traffic on...
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Given that it’s right around the corner and not much else seems to be happening in the Middle Kingdom right now, this seems as good a time as any for a historical detour into the holiday’s origins. First, the origin myth of Spring Festival (translated and with illustrations from this Chinese site): Tradition has...
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Yesterday, Obama was sworn in and became the 44th President of the United States of America, but the speech he gave was a little bit shorter for those that happened to be watching along on CCTV or following up later on the internet. Specifically, when Obama mentioned America facing down communism, the CCTV anchor...
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"A small group with ulterior motives", "the people unaware of the truth", "evil instigators behind the scenes"...Recently, shortly after large "mass incidents" one can always see the local government hastily determining in this way. Guizhou's "Weng'an Incident", Yunnan's "Menglian Incident", as well as Gansu's recent "Longnan Incident": early on...
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The “50 Cents Party” (五毛党) an informal nickname given to the “army” of web users who defend the Chinese government in blog posts and BBS forums online (The name comes from what these people are supposedly paid by the government, 50 cents per post). Western discussions of this phenomenon tend to venture into hyperbolic...
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This is an interesting month for US-China relations. January 1st was the thirtieth anniversary of formal relations between the two nations, celebrated with a variety of activities and various optimistic projections. Yet in a few days, Barack Obama will become the President of the United States, and some speculate he may provide more of...
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