guangzhou wealth and discontents

Guangzhou, the chaotic export capital in southern China, appeared to hit a major Chinese milestone this month, becoming the country’s first city to reach a per capita income of $10,000 — more than five times the nationwide figure and a rough threshold for becoming a “developed” country.

But in a measure of just how problematic prosperity can be here, the city will institute a ban on motorcycles and motorized bicycles on Monday, hoping to quell a crime wave that has been building to more than 100,000 offenses a year.

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The Complex and Evloving Social Fabric China

For Chinese punks today, it might take screaming to be heard. They make up a small slice of the music industry here, and they play to a largely underground scene. But their struggle to gain attention provides a glimpse of what it’s like to be a rebel in a country that suppresses dissent and individuality, and an artist in a culture that worships money and Western fads. Sociological phenomenon. Political implications?

Dog Lovers arrested in rare Beijing Protest

The Internet Keeps the Tianenman Spirit Alive

Washington Post on Internet Censorship

The Cauldron Boils

People's Daily Online

Read The People’s Daily Here Newspaper articles in the People’s Daily are often not read for content so much as placement. A large number of articles devoted to a political figure or idea is often taken as a sign that that official is rising.

The People’s Daily is the party’s leading official newspaper. Therefore editorials in the People’s Daily are also still regarded as fairly authoritative statements of government policy. It is important here to make the distinction between editorials, commentaries, and opinions.

The Tank Man

After all others had been silenced, his lonely act of defiance against the Chinese regime amazed the world. What became of him? And 17 years later, has China succeeded in erasing this event from its history?

Watch this PBS Frontline Episode free and explore the site for further insight. Feel free to join the discussion on the weblog section.

A symphony of civilizations

Used to innumerable discourses on the differences between the West and the East, one is not prepared to recognize two facts.
First, although Europe and China have been slowly elaborating two distinct civilizations, they cannot be absolutely separated. Having in common long maturations over millennia, the two old worlds have developed affinities and, despite all the exotic representations, the two edges of Eurasia are closer than they seem.

Second, one should not reduce the West to the US: that country, which from a colony has been rising to the rank of global hyperpower in only 230 years…

It is precisely based on their affinities that Europe and China have to build a partnership that goes beyond ever-varying trade, scientific or even political interests. In other words, by placing culture as the keystone of their relationship, the two Eurasian civilizations would enter a really stable and meaningful cooperation having over time global constructive impact.

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Does the Future Belong to China?

Fareed Zakaria reminds us (warns us?) that China, “is a country whose scale dwarfs the United States. 1.3 billion people, four times America’s population. For more than a hundred years it was dreams of this magnitude that fascinated small groups of American missionaries and businessmen. 1 billion souls to save; 2 billion armpits to deodorize, but it never amounted to anything. China was very big, but very poor. All that is changing. But now the very size and scale that seemed so alluring is beginning to look ominous.”

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