Posted by Will on May 15th, 2010
The latest Sinica podcast is up. In this episode, hosted by Jeremy Goldkorn of Danwei.org, Forbes Beijing bureau chief Gady Epstein, Chinese journalist Qin Liwen and I discuss the recent rash of school attacks in China. It was great to have Liwen on board both because she has recently written about this issue and becase [...]
Posted by Will on May 1st, 2010
To listen to people moan about the fact that China has sixty “Confucius Centers” in the US to America’s zilch-nada in China you’d think the Chinese were wrapping up hearts and minds around the planet while America gets relegated to the public diplomacy junk-heap alongside the usual despotic malcontents. While I’ll concede that China has [...]
Posted by Will on April 20th, 2010
I recently finished listening to a podcast of a long interview of writer Peter Hessler by Ken Pomeranz, China Beat contributor and UC Irvine history professor. It’s nearly an hour and a half long, and a few weeks old, but well worth a listen if you like Hessler’s writing or China journalism in general. Particularly [...]
Posted by Will on April 9th, 2010
The latest Sinica podcast is online now:
This week: how should we interpret signs that China may be preparing for an about-turn on Iranian sanctions? Have recent Israeli visits hardened Beijing’s position, or are we seeing quid pro quo linked to American pressure on currency manipulation and upcoming nuclear disarmament talks? And what is going on [...]
Posted by Will on March 30th, 2010
Should Google have been in China? Did they make the right move in pulling out? Will this influence the Chinese government? What does it mean for foreign businesses in China? Are they evil or not? Who knows? Not me. And none of these questions are going to be answered in this post.
But stick with me, [...]
Posted by Will on March 4th, 2010
Well, that didn’t take long.
A couple of days ago foreign media reported on a book by PLA Senior Colonel Liu Mingfu calling for China to seek global military supremacy. Today, the China Daily carries a follow-up titled, “China’s military not a threat – Major General.” It would seem, what with the “Lianghui” dual political meetings [...]
Posted by Will on March 3rd, 2010
There’s an interesting article in the Washington Post from former Beijing bureau chief (and author of the good book Chinese Lessons) John Pomfret and his colleague, Steven Mufson looking at the rising “red scare” meme in the US. The two journalists do their best to inject a needed dose of reality into a heated issue. [...]
Posted by Will on March 1st, 2010
Another day, another soldier shooting his mouth off (metaphorically). Or, more accurately, publishing a book calling for China to work toward military primacy. From Reuters:
China should build the world’s strongest military and move swiftly to topple the United States as the global “champion,” a senior Chinese PLA officer says in a new book reflecting swelling [...]
Posted by Will on January 15th, 2010
Note: This is cross-posted from the old Imagethief blog. The original post is here.
A quick pointer to an excellent post at the Wall Street Journal’s China Real Time blog, which busts several myths concerning Google in China that have been widely repeated in the past few days, including those concerning the health of Google’s business [...]
Posted by Will on January 7th, 2010
Note: This is cross-posted from the old Imagethief blog. The original post is here.
As a general rule, Imagethief dislikes business books, especially instructional ones. I find them tedious and most of them age faster than caviar on a car dashboard. There are, however, exceptions. Most of these are either books based on journalistic reporting of [...]