Engineers running a country

With all the news about the 60th celebration, everyone, including Scott Adams has China on his mind.  His latest blog post is rather thought-provoking.  An excerpt below:
The bad news for China is that their up-and-coming leaders have backgrounds in law, economics, and history. In time, the lawyers will start passing lots of laws that individually [...]

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Chimerica

Christopher Clarke wrote a very nice piece published in the Yale Global Online titled: US-China Duopoly Is a Pipedream. 
Here’s the exerpt and the jist:
In short, Sino-American economic symbiosis has come to look more like a mutual death grip in which neither side dares make a precipitous move for fear of going over the cliff with [...]

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Why June 4th still matters

This year in particular, I find myself spending more time reflecting on what happened 20 years ago.  I ponder whether with all the progress China has had over the past two decades, June 4th could have repeated  itself.  Disturbingly, I find myself thinking that it could.  Not in the same way or same form, but [...]

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Today is June 4th.

Here is a  reflective piece on the Tiananmen Square incident 20 years ago. 
On that note, I am planning to read Zhao Ziyang’s memoir just recently released called Prisoner of the State: The Secret Journal of Premier Zhao Ziyang.
Update: there are some good coverage this year.  Here are a couple from the Financial Times: West miscasts Tiananmen [...]

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Danger of self-censorship

Jackie Chan’s recent remarks has gotten him quite a bit of press.  Apparently the actor went on some rantings about his personal political view that “Chinese needs to be controlled”.  There were some debate about whether “controlled” is the appropriate translation and he might have really meant “regulated”.   Where he got the most heat, however, [...]

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Scott Adams on China

I just want to put in a link to Scott Adam’s blog (the creator behind Dilbert for those who care).  It is China in Dilbert’s eyes if you may.  Here is the link, and here is an exerpt. 
First of all, there are 1.3 billion Chinese, but only 73 million of them are members of the [...]

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Global Recession Hitting China: Reading List

Here are some articles that gives a flavor of how China’s coping with the global economic downturn… The last article republished in the Asia Times is particularly insightful. It highlights the challenge for the emerging economy: resource allocation.  Not to sound cliche, crisis = opportunity, but risk also goes along with it. 
China’s SMEs closing by the thousands (Strait Times)
Why [...]

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More Tibet

The Tibetian problem is quite similar to that of Israel/Palestine.  Both sides think they’re right, and everyone has an opinion.  It is not just a fight between the two governments (or leaders), but a fight between the people.  For Tibet, this goes back thousands of years; the Hans vs. non-Hans.  It is a social/ethnic conflict; [...]

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Oh Tibet.

By now, I’m sure you’ve read a lot about Tibet.  But this will not be a China blog if I do not mention this very significant event.   I don’t know enough about the history of Tibet.  I also don’t trust any media in giving an unbiased perspective.  Thus, I won’t elaborate too much here…  I [...]

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Joining the Poker Table

 A friend from Beijing is in town this week… and as always, we have interesting conversations sharing different perspectives.  One analogy he used I find extremely relevant.  China’s emergence is like a new player joining your poker table.  You need to spend time to observe and understand their behavior, their sentiments.  Make small bets, test [...]

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