The challenge to Beijingoism

A successful Olympics will give the party a bit more of a swagger, but success will depend on curbing its instinct to lash out at its critics. The games will not usher in democracy to China, but they will help to acclimatise both the leadership and the public to the world’s concerns about how the country is developing.

For China’s Journalism Students, Censorship Is a Core Concept

The mountainous territory has always been an inalienable part of China, they were told, and the Dalai Lama is a sly traitor hiding behind his Buddhist religion to promote secession. The lecture, a rendition of China’s standard government line, put some students to sleep, but most listened patiently.

Top ‘Jokes’ in China 2007

“If there is something that you don’t understand, just remember that this is China and you will understand!” 

Deans: Building Confucius Institutes into a “world-acknowledged brand”

Observers believe Confucius Institutes, as a “cultural export”, will provide effective leverage to boost China’s traditions and win the country friendship and appeal around the world…

 “The institutes paid full respect to the culture and customs of respective countries, and successfully promoted the Chinese culture with the theme of harmony and prosperity,”

CHINA: Reading the Lessons of History – Selectively

While China’s economy has matured rapidly over the last 20 years of market reforms and now ranks fourth in the world, the official history of modern China — taught to more than a billion people, remains largely unrevised and dominated by communist dogma. As China’s global influence rises, experts begin to ponder the consequences of nurturing a nation on a censored version of its own past.

Wenzhou University Security [guard] beats a dog to death in front of everybody

..amidst howls of protest from onlookers. Click here.

Bloggers In China

The respected Chinese blogger Hong Bo, known as Keso, last week posted a question to an online discussion forum in China. “If one day Taiwan goes independent,” he wrote, “what harm will it do to us?”

Why China cracked down on my nonprofit

“You can be the government of China’s friend or our enemy; there is no other way.”

Shared pasts, different futures

Abdel-Moneim Said* on why the Chinese don’t leave bombs on the London underground

“The” way vs “a” way (Japan v China dept)

With usual caveats against sweeping generalization, what this made me think was: Japan is all about the way of doing things. Practice, ritual, perfectionism, as much fanatical attention to the process as to the result. China is all about finding a way to do things. Improvisation, little interest in rules, putting up with whatever is necessary to attain the result.