In a 3,600-word piece, Cathy Scott-Clark and Adrian Levy of Britain’s The Sunday Times lay bare the myth of Neil Heywood. They argue that far from being an intrepid power broker living astutely within the inner circles of China’s elite, the murdered Briton was a “failed businessman,” a “chancer,” an “irritant,” and a liar who... Read more »
Lingering effects from September’s Diaoyu Islands row have caused organizers of the November 25 Beijing Marathon to take the unprecedented step of barring Japanese competitors. Not explicitly, of course — rather, “Japanese” isn’t listed in the nationality section of the online registration page. If you’re from Japan, you can run, technically, just not as a... Read more »
Last Friday, before all-world basketball phenom Maya Moore’s first game in China, I wrote: Let’s play a game: how many points will Maya Moore score in her WCBA debut tomorrow for Shanxi Xingrui Flame vs. Bayi? I’m going to set the over/under at 59.5. She did not score 60 that game, topping out at 37. The next game,... Read more »
Winston Lord, who served under Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush as ambassador to China from 1985-89, recently spoke to Asia Society about this country's current leadership transition. The three-part interview is on Asia Society's blog. The first part is embedded above, in which Lord offers this soundbite:
Yesterday, China took down Google, the decision of a Net Nanny who gets off by watching Internet users like you squirm and suffer. But the collective howl of pain and rage that emanated from behind the Great Firewall was actually heard, because this morning, authorities unblocked Google’s services, including Gmail. So what happened? The website GreatFire.org – which... Read more »
Organizers of an auto show in Guiyang, Guizhou province has decided hiring topless models isn’t enough to attract attention, since everyone is doing it. They’ve upped the ante with snakes. We have no idea what cars are being displayed, but Car News China does. Pictures taken Thursday; more after the jump.
This interview never gets off on the right foot: the lag between the anchor and the reporter is a full five seconds, causing the anchor to make a “Why haven’t you acknowledged my greeting?” face. Reporter Feng Yuxian, live from Dubai (that’s the Dubai Tower Burj Al-Arab Hotel in the background), then delivers her correspondence... Read more »
Knowing that kids say the damnedest things, CPC organizers probably should have thought twice before letting a preteen saunter into their conference room and drop a bombshell of a question. At an 18th Party Congress event, 11-year-old reporter Sun Luyuan, representing Chinese Teenagers News, posed this to a group of high-level ministers: “I love snacks, but I don’t... Read more »
The latest Global Times column penned by an expat under a Chinese pseudonym is all about how to find a mate in the ‘Jing. (Ed’s note: Credit where it’s due if it’s actually a young Chinese writer, per comment; Yin Lu, you have our apologies.) It features lines such as, “If you see a beautiful... Read more »
