Testy Tone Over Yuan Bodes Ill For Obama Visit To Beijing

An early sign of of some of the bickering over trade and exchange rates that will be going on behind closed doors during  U.S. President Barack Obama’s visit to China: At the APEC meeting in Singapore, the two countries couldn’t agree on the wording of the meeting’s communiqué in the part that referred to currencies. [...]

A Distant Prince Comes Calling, Whatever

In times far gone, China was a suzerain, extracting tribute from less powerful people on its periphery, controlling their foreign affairs but allowing them some domestic autonomy. As Imperial China was the center of the civilized world by its own lights, the periphery was everywhere else. That made for a straightforward worldview, and one not [...]

Central Bank Tightens Policy A Notch, But What Is It Saying About The Yuan?

Pay less notice to the latest monthly industrial production and retail sales figures — both up 16% in October from a year before, with the trade surplus almost doubling from September, to $24 billion, as the contraction in exports eased to its slowest pace this year — and more to the subsequent statement by the [...]

Ganzhou’s Giant Clock

Though pretty enough, surrounded as it is by mountains, Ganzhou isn’t much visited by tourists. Jiangxi province offers bigger draws such as the ceramics of Jingdezhen and the nearby resort of Lushan. But soon Ganzhou will have a rival attraction, Harmony Park,  a horology theme park which will boast the world’s largest mechanical clock. The [...]

China Law Blog

A tip of the hat, nay a tug of the forelock (had we forelock left to tug), in the direction of Dan Harris over at China Law Blog for words as generous as they are kind about this blog in his series reviewing CLB’s blog roll. Dan and his co-blogger Steve Dickinson set a high [...]

The Beijing Wall

The 20th anniversary of the opening of the Berlin Wall is taken to mark the fall of communism, but more accurately it was the fall of the Soviet empire. Communist parties still rule in Cuba, North Korea and, of course, China. But the anniversary does prompt a couple of questions, why did communism not fall [...]

Harbin To Host Humanoid Robot Olympics

The sporting calendar is becoming crowded for humanoid robots. There is already not one but two football World Cups and a RoboGames. Now China is adding an Olympic games. Harbin will host these next June with more than 100 universities from 20 countries expected to send entrants in 16 events from athletics to the non-traditional [...]

Beijing In No Rush To Buy IMF’s Gold

People close to the central bank are pouring cold water on the idea that China should buy the large stock of gold the International Monetary Fund is looking to unload. Li Yang, a former advisor to the bank, was quoted by Reuters as saying it would be cheaper to buy domestically mined gold than buy [...]

Chongqing, Corruption And The Next Generation of National Leaders

This Bystander will leave to others the more lurid details of the trial and conviction of the Chongqing “Godmother”, Xie Caiping. The 46-year old has been sentenced to 18 years in gaol for running  illegal gambling dens in nightclubs and casinos, harboring drug users, running protection rackets and bribing police. The court also fined her [...]

Qian Xuesen, Rocket Scientist, Dies

But for a twist of history, Qian Xuesen, whose death at age 98 was announced Saturday, might be being remembered as another immigrant rocket scientist who had made a significant contribution to America’s space technology rather than as the father of China’s space program.
After graduating form Jiao Tong University in 1934, Qian studied on a [...]