The village is called Liangjiahe. Via Vimeo: This film was made to go in a special edition of ABC’s Newsline to accompany the 18th Congress of the Chinese Communist Party in November 2012. Xi Jingping took over as leader of this huge institution at this congress so we made a profile of him for this special episode.... Read more »
Peng Liyuan, who’s warming up to her role as China’s “First Lady” — a term that, lest you forget, has basically never been applied to the wives of Chinese leaders — is currently traveling with her husband in Africa as part of Xi Jinping’s first overseas trip as Chinese head of state, and it’d be... Read more »
Xi Jinping sat down with foreign media yesterday for the first time since becoming CPC chairman, speaking with reporters from BRICS countries — Brazil, Russia, India and South Africa — ahead of the BRICS summit later this month. This historic occassion drew almost no English-language media coverage, leading Foreign Policy’s Isaac Stone Fish to ask,... Read more »
It’s been said before by many commentators — e.g., Eric Fish of Sinostand (“The Catholic church and CCP: estranged brothers?”) and Adam of Visions of Paradise (“Several times in the past I’ve read quotes stating that Communist governments learned how to manipulate their citizens by imitating the Catholic Church”) — that the Chinese Communist Party... Read more »
Few will accuse Hu Jintao of being photogenic (note: some have tried), but the above picture takes the cake. By Jason Lee of Reuters, captioned via Yahoo: “An attendant serves tea to China’s President Hu Jintao (L) next to China’s Communist Party Chief Xi Jinping (R) during the opening ceremony of the National People’s Congress (NPC)... Read more »
Less than a week after outing himself as the microblogger behind the super popular “Study Xi Fan Club,” migrant worker and college dropout Zhang Hongming may be calling it quits. According to SCMP: Zhang, who has more than 800,000 followers, wrote: “Goodbye. I was happy when I came here, but I’m leaving today with deep... Read more »
Who’s the person behind the most popular Xi Jinping microblog in the world, Xuexifensituan (Study Xi Fan Club [the image icon reads "Hao Hao Xue Xi," Thoroughly Study Xi]), with its 737,000 followers? Just a really big Xi Jinping fan, it turns out, who happens to be a college dropout. As revealed by Associated Press:... Read more »
Um, delivering a doe. I said doe in this post, not Komodo dragon. Xi Jinping has his work cut out for him to top this. We suggest, for his next act, helping deliver a doe in the fields. The hoi polloi will lap it up! This picture comes Xi Jinping’s unofficially endorsed Sina Weibo account, Hao Hao Xue Xi (“Thoroughly... Read more »
Chinese Vice Premier Li Keqiang made an unexpected visit to a farmer’s family in Baotou, Inner Mongolia earlier this week. How unexpected? According to Sina Weibo, the farmer’s son was still sleeping (half-)naked in the room, so the father told him to go hide in the cupboard. With CCTV cameras rolling, the kid ran out of oxygen,... Read more »
Japan’s highly respected daily The Asahi Shimbun suggested in an article on Monday that Xi Jinping was unhappy with the way the “media control division” handled last week’s Southern Weekly ordeal. Specifically, Xi was unhappy with the way Liu Yunshan, chief of the propaganda department and a longtime Hu Jintao guy, forced newspapers around the... Read more »
