Category: China
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Back in the USA
Thanks to the Beatles for expressing these sentiments (amended (slightly)): Been away so long I hardly knew the placeGee, it’s good to be back homeLeave it till tomorrow to unpack my caseHoney reconnect the phone Now, after I convince T-Mobile to give me a discount for using my own unlocked (thanks Zhongguancun!) phone, I will…
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The Wild, Wild West
From the 26th of May until the 3rd of June, I have been traveling with friends in Xinjiang. China’s northwest is dominated by Xinjiang, excuse me for the informality, by the Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region. Xinjiang is a majority minority district. According to the 2000 census, 59.4% of Xinjiang’s 18.5 million people are non-Han. Han…
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Cliche Research Techniques
It has literally become a joke that foreign correspondents or others writing about China base all of their observations on taxi drivers. In fact, sometimes it is even funny. From Sinocidal: You’ve just arrived in your 5-Star room at the Shanghai Hilton and unpacked your fancy new Apple laptop. As you pull the top off…
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Welcome Back to Chinese Society
I have just returned from a productive but exhausting research trip to the countryside of Heilongjiang, China’s most northeasterly province. In one county, I was 200 km from the Russian border. More on the adventures will come. I just had to repost this incredibly amusing piece that I found at Prof. Brad DeLong’s blog on…
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Opaque Transparency Decision
Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao signed a regulation to improve government transparency on Tuesday. Various headlines about the move: Government-controlled China Daily:Statute to make government open, cleanWashington Post, 2007.04.24:China Announces Rules to Require Government DisclosuresNew York Times, 2007.04.25:China Sets Out to Cut Secrecy, but Laws Leave Big Loopholes This crux of the matter comes out at…
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Arable Land Statistics
This CCTV story gives official arable land losses of 300,000+ hectares in 2006.* I question these statistics. The central government has made maintenance of arable land a priority a few years ago. The change in the numbers was immediate: subnational data that I have examined show a dramatic reduction in land losses. Two possible reasons:…
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Rags to Riches
Journalists: combining multiple threads of my interest is a nearly fool-proof way to make it onto this blog. Nearly is a necessary qualifier as you never know when I might be traveling for research or having family members join me for some fun. As Matthew left for the States a few days ago, I have…
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Will China’s Hot Growth Burn Us All?
Other title puns considered were: Toasting Chinese Growth until We Are Burned; Let Them Eat, But No More Coal…. Salon’s How the World Works and the FT.com both have mentions of China’s economic growth and increase in greenhouse gas emissions today, respectively here and here. As I have written below, I think that the developed…
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Gambling
Luckily there is no market for betting on how many times blogspot.com will be blocked and unblocked by China’s internet nanny. Two and a half weeks ago I said changes would be fewer than 2.5 times by July when I leave. Well, blogspot is open for business again, so my prediction is looking perilous.
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Historical Urban Bias
I think that it is a generally accepted fact that the CCP instituted policies with a distinct urban bias throughout its rule; however, that does not lessen the joy of finding evidence of it, especially when that evidence accords with my dissertation’s principal narratives. From MacFarquhar and Schoenhal’s Mao’s Last Revolution, pp. 374-5: Indigence led…
Jeremy Wallace 