Don Weinland

An American journalism student and translator of Chinese, interested in urbanization, reform, and socio-economic change in China and Asia.

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Latest posts by Don Weinland

China: ‘Ditch oil’ floods restaurants

An economic investigation team detained a Hubei oil refiner Nov. 10 who pumped more than 60 tons of “ditch oil” into the local restaurant industry during the past three years, Hubei’s Jingzhou...

28 November 2010

China: Hebei’s “Great Leap Forward”

More than 1000 residents of Hebei Province will be subject to forced evictions before June 5, in a government development project online opinion has dubbed a “Great Leap Forward.” Guangping...

27 May 2010

China reconnects Xinjiang

After more than 10 months of near to complete online darkness, internet service resumed Friday in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, according to a notice from the Xinjiang Government News Office,. The...

14 May 2010

China: New real estate policy hits market

A new housing policy in China issued on April 17 is being called “the strictest in history.” The State Council has requested a steep increase in down payments on loans for second homes.

26 April 2010

China: Premier Wen remembers Hu Yaobang

In an open letter published Thursday in the People’s Daily, Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao recalled an enlightening journey with purged and disgraced former Premier Hu Yaobang.  The letter commemorates the...

17 April 2010

China: The brief lives of Chinese buildings

At a construction and energy conservation conference that opened March 29 in Beijing, a Ministry of Housing and Construction official revealed that construction in China only has a 25–30 year lifespan.

10 April 2010

China: Official Nudity

A township government in Sichuan Province is being called “China’s first completely nude government” after township officials issued salary and expenditure information online.  The reference to nudity recently found in...

24 March 2010

China: Revaluing the One-Child Policy

Amidst talk of an aging society and a depleting demographic dividend, appeals for a reconsideration of China’s One-Child Policy were voiced during the annual meetings of the National People’s Congress and the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference.

20 March 2010

China: Increasing Trend in Mass Incidents

Protests, known in Chinese as “mass incidents”, grew fiercer and more violent in 2009, while methods of protest grew in variation, says a Chinese Academy of Social Sciences researcher. In...

14 February 2010

China: More Violence Over Salary Dispute

A migrant worker from Hebei was stabbed Jan. 9, resulting in the loss of a kidney, after requesting withheld salary from a subcontractor in Beijing, reports the Yangcheng Evening News.  The incident has been...

19 January 2010

China: New Ticketing System For Train Riders

As “Chunyun”—the travel season before, during, and after the Chinese New Year—approaches, two of China’s largest rail lines are adopting a “real-name” ticketing system. Information Times reported Friday that passengers traveling on...

10 January 2010

China: Development's Toll on Laborers

A second wave of pneumoconiosis cases has been reported among drilling and blasting workers in the southern city of Shenzhen. An article in Beijing Youth Daily reports 119 suspected pneumoconiosis...

17 December 2009

China: Putting cadres to work

A Chinese scholar is asking why the Chinese socialist tradition of “cadre labor participation” is no longer practiced among current leadership and suggests its discontinuation may be linked with deteriorating work...

13 December 2009

China's Perspective on Xinjiang

TrueXinjiang.com is a Web site that appeals instantly to the western eye.  The site, designed specifically to disseminate a Han-Chinese version of life in the remote autonomous region of Xinjiang,...

15 November 2009