Stories about Chinese from November, 2009
China: Law or Justice?
According to Chongqing Evening News, by November 15th 2905 suspects had been arrested during a massive crackdown on gangs in the municipality of Chongqing, a major city with 30 million population and provincial status. The campaign was unprecedented both in its scope and its depth as it brought down a large number of government officials including...
Could the U.S. learn something from China?
Could the world's lone but weary superpower actually learn something from China? This is a question the Time magazine posted when President Barack Obama began his first visit to China. The article said this is a time when China has ‘emerged as a dynamo of optimism, experimentation and growth’, while...
China: Children who are left behind
On November 12, several days before the International Children's Day, an explosion erupted in an illegal fire cracker factory in Guangxi which resulted in 2 children workers dead and 11 others injured. According to the Southern Weekend's report, these children victims were left behind by their parents, who are migrant...
China and Japan: Feng Zhenghu at Narita airport
Shanghai human rights activist Feng Zhenhu has been living and waiting in the hall of Japan's Narita airport since November 4 when he was barred from entering his own country by the Shanghai immigration the eighth times. Feng is an economist and a human rights activist. After the Tiananmen Massacre...
Taiwan: Science park expansion dispute
Recently, the Executive Yuan in Taiwan has passed a bill in favor of Central Taiwan Science Park (CTSP) fourth stage expansion. The construction plan has drawn the attention of ecologists and caused heated discussion in the Taiwan blogosphere. Jeremy explains the problem of the construction plan in a blog post...
The 5th Chinese blogger conference: micro power and a broader world
The 5th Chinese blogger conference took place last weekend in a rural county Lianzhou in northern part of Guangdong province. Despite the inconvenient traffic, there were around 150 participants from China and overseas attended the conference. The conference slogan this year is “Micro power and a boarder world”, the organizing...
China: Drought and the Three Gorges Dam
Since September this year, China’s Three Gorges Dam, the world’s largest hydropower scheme, has began a plan to raise its reservoir to its ideal height of 175 metres. In October, there has been severe drought in the provinces of Hunan and Jiangxi provinces along the middle and lower reaches of the Yangtze River. Is there any co-relation between the Dam and the drought?
Rape in China: a ‘temporary’ crime?
A prominent topic circulating throughout China’s blogosphere is the light sentencing on 29th October of two civilian police assistants charged with the rape of a young girl in Huzhou, in Zheijang province. What netizens have been rampantly discussing is not the crime itself, but the court’s ruling that the convicts were guilty of a “temporary crime on a whim”, drawing important attention to how rape is dealt with in the People’s Republic and its vibrant online communities.
China: Made-in-China Snow
This past Sunday on Nov. 1, Beijing saw its earliest snowfall in 22 years. The sudden change in weather, which blanketed the entire city in snow, surprised many residents. But the news media later reported that the snowfall had actually been enhanced by the city’s weather modification office. The reasoning...
China: Electoral Reform
China’s top legislature, the National People’s Congress, has started discussion on a draft amendment to the Electoral Law, which will ensure voters in the countryside have as much influence as voters in the cities. The draft amendment tabled for first reading at the bimonthly legislative session of the 11th NPC...
About our Chinese coverage
Oi wan Lam is the North East Asia editor. Email her story ideas or volunteer to write.
