"You know, quite a lot of mainland tourists now, more than 2.6 million, have come to Taiwan. They have done a lot of consumption in Taiwan, and spurred a tourism boom. At the same time, moreover, they have also got a sense of Taiwan’s democracy and freedom. A lot of them didn’t go out during the evening. Instead, they lock themselves up in their hotel rooms, watching the political talk shows to see our people criticizing their president. [laughter] Well, that’s democracy. That’s, you know, freedom of expression. But after a while, they began to ask why they couldn’t do the same when they go home? So, this is a very powerful question, and gradually they will make some changes, not only in our cross-strait relations, but also in their own internal system." more ›

We learned a few weeks ago that That's Shanghai had to pull an interview they'd done with Richard McGregor over his incindiary (if you're a Chinese official) new book, The Party. But while it's not surprising that an expat mag reliant on the ok of government censors would sometimes have to nix things, what shocked me this morning was finding out that The American Chamber of Commerce pulled out too, citing that "their magazine is sent to 1,000-odd government officials." As McGregor says, " self-censorship by a stalwart publication promoting the virtues of American openness is very telling." If that's piqued your curiosity about the book, you can buy it... well, not in China. more ›

The battle to bring the U.S. pavilion to the World Expo in Shanghai seems to just get more complicated as the days count down. According to China Daily, a Chinese-American oil industry executive called James I.C. Chiang is now planning his own vision of what the pavilion should look like: more ›