Category: Uncategorized
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Kentuckization of Xinjiang
Eurasian Crossroads, an extremely readable history of Xinjiang by James Millward of Georgetown University, discusses the ‘Kentuckization’ of Xinjiang. Perhaps it is necessary to take a step back. The most prominent American fast food chain in China is KFC. It should be noted that KFC tastes better here than in the States. I have heard…
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Ant Power
On the back of the airline seat on our flight to Urumqi was this advertisement: It reminded me of this story: A Chinese business executive was sentenced to death for swindling $385 million from investors in a bogus ant-breeding scheme, a court official said Thursday. Unfortunately, these are otherwise unrelated stories.
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Brief interruption – for PORK
Normally when political scientists write about ‘pork,’ they are referring to the pet projects that legislators wiggle into budgets. I am a literalist. When I talk about pork, I mean pork – pig meat. (Actually, the Chinese for most types of meat follows this pattern: name of animal + meat. Pork is different. It is…
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Slideshow
Here is a photo slideshow of our adventures in Xinjiang. Link to the pictures here. A substantially larger set of pictures, taken by Jessica who was not addled by altitude sickness on the Karakoram Highway, is here. As is perhaps unsurprising, there is a substantial amount of political content in the photos. Propaganda slogans and…
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Cross-Currents
A list of the websites that I accessed during the brief writing of the previous post. From Kashgar to Taxkorgan: the Karakoram Highway | China ExpatGoogle remembered how to spell the highway, even though I didn’t, and after politely suggesting this spelling, offered me the above link which is very similar to our escapades in…
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More Vanilla Will Not Turn the Flotilla
Richard McGregor of the Financial Times has an interesting piece on China’s macroeconomic situation. Brad Setser of Roubini Global Economics dissected the piece thoroughly here from an economic perspective. The time-worn analogy of turning around a supertanker is often used to illustrate the government’s policy task. It might be more accurate to liken the Chinese…
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More of the Same
The Wall Street Journal has two interesting stories related to China in the past week while contemplating its potential future under Rupert Murdoch. China Toils Over New Labor Law and What China 4000 Means Both have been 0ft-discussed here (I could link, but really, just scroll down a bit). These stories add two interesting tibits.…
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It Could Have Been a Brilliant Career
I follow sports. As I am someone interested in China, I have followed the Chinese sports establishment. As I am someone born and raised in Indiana, I love basketball. Thus, I am a fan of Yao Ming. Alas, the Houston Rockets (Yao’s team) disappointingly lost in the first round of the playoffs this past week.…
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Bubblicious
A new piece by the Economist on China’s stock market gets it. Tens of millions of Chinese are risking their shirts in a stockmarket frenzy. If it goes wrong, things could get nasty WOULD-BE share punters, keen for a piece of China’s booming stockmarket, are queuing to open accounts at a Beijing branch of China…
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Back to Work
Matthew was here visiting me in Beijing for the past couple of weeks. This explains the lack of posting and the fact that I was at the Wall again. I had previously only been to Simatai. Matthew and I chose to go to the repaired and nearby, yet still not overly traveled Juyongguan. It was…
Jeremy Wallace 