Sovereignty
Recently we’ve been treated to a few events that have brought out the reactions of Chinese netizens across the spectrum of opinion, from the reform-minded to the nationalistic, and what we have read in the state-owned media and in the comments on Sina Weibo helps to shed a bit of light on Chinese society. Chinese [...]
Calcified Culture, or Unique Characters?
This essay might sound a bit familiar, if you read this blog, as I seem to be circling the idea of change as a possibility. Last essay I wrote on this topic was Silk Roads and Great Walls, and that dealt briefly with the high-level impediments, this one here is a look at the grassroots [...]
Bo Xilai’s Dream
Something is happening across China, something impossible to stop and with consequences difficult to foresee. It began with the death of Deng Xiaoping, continued with the Jiang Zemin-Zhu Rongji era and has now reached the point just before chaos. It helped give rise to Bo Xilai and his pretentions to the throne, defined his entire [...]
Speaking of rumors …
The Bo Xilai Incident will not die a quiet death. The plodding censors in the Chinese government are stirring up the rumor pot, and no one is sure if that is the goal or just a byproduct of incompetence and the absurdity of Web censorship in general. According to a recent CNN article, “Heavy hand [...]
A different take on the Wang-Bo Scandal
I didn’t have the confidence to step into the Wang-Bo scandal that has raged across the mainstream Western media (and parts of the Weibosphere) because I just couldn’t confirm anything. And neither can anyone else, but that doesn’t seem to stop them. For the West, the sacking of Wang – or whatever you call having [...]
What the people say