35 years ago today, China's first premier Zhou Enlai (周恩来) passed away from cancer at the age of 77. A skillful negotiator and able diplomat, Zhou quickly rose through the ranks of the Chinese Communist Party and became crucial in its rise to power. During the Cultural Revolution, Zhou's efforts at containing the Red Guards earned him great popularity among the people. This led to a protracted factional struggle between leftist radicals led by the Gang of Four (which included Mao's wife Jiang Qing), and the moderate camp led by Zhou. After he was diagnosed with cancer, Zhou began to delegate his responsibilities to his protege Deng Xiaoping (邓小平), who would later on become the paramount leader of the People's Republic. Zhou's death, some eight months before Mao, led to massive protests against the Gang of Four (who had by then gained control of most of the central government) when they banned all displays of mourning. This eventually sparked off the April 5 Tiananmen Incident of 1976 (not to be confused with the 1989 protests). While Zhou remains arguably the most popular politician among China's first echelon of leadership, new biographies and reports have appeared in recent years, suggesting that he frequently caved in to Mao's whims instead of mitigating them and protecting all those he could have. more ›

Deng Xiaoping's widow, Zhuo Lin, passed away from illness yesterday at 12:30pm in Beijing. According ot the General Office of the CPC Central Committee, Zhuo's medical treatment had failed. She was 93. Zhuo became a member of the Communist Party in 1938 and was married to Deng a year later in front of a cave dwelling in Yan'an. During the Cultural Revolution, she helped him survive a series of political purges, and at one point was sent to live in exile in Jiangxi Province. When she died, the CPC saluted her as a "time honored loyal Communist fighter." Source: Xinhua more ›

From JLM Pacific Epoch comes rumors that China is planning to issue a new RMB 500 bank note in November - one which would feature the face of Deng Xiaoping. Currently, the most valuable note you can get in China is the 100, which can get kind of ridiculous considering how many deals are still done in cash. Still, the chances of this rumor proving true are pretty darn low. Not only has the People's Bank of China gone out of its way to deny plans for a 500, it's also not the first time we've seen news like this circulate. Still, we do find JLM's take on the psychological impact even speculation of a Deng has on the market interesting. In their words, the "big banknote... mirrors a big problem": the frailty of China's economic recovery considering its basis in loosey goosey monetary policy. more ›

Jimmy Carter, the former US president who formalised ties with China 30 years ago, meets Premier Wen Jiabao (温家宝) in the same room where he first met the late Deng Xiaopeng (邓小平). Carter said he visited China as a young man when he was in the navy and always thought of his life and destiny as being "very close to China". Accompanying Carter were other leading former US officials, including former US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger and National Security Advisers Brent Scowcroft and Zbigniew Brzezinski. more ›

Chinese state-owned media have been going on ad nauseum lately marking the 30th anniversary of China's market reforms. When Deng Xiaoping launched his open door policy, he undoubted had this village in mind, Huaxi, 100 miles north of Shanghai in Jiangsu Province, which is commonly known today as China's richest village. Melissa Chan of Al Jazeera visited the village, and found people there living in huge houses complete with all the latest home appliances and cars and what have you. Life appears to be so good there we ourselves were momentarily tempted to move there. more ›

Shanghaiist has been living in this town for five years now, and while we often get the "哇！你是老上海了！“ ("Wow, you're an old Shanghai hand") remark, there are days when we think we actually moved here too late (sadistic thought, some might say). Although we have witnessed some pretty breathtaking changes ourselves, we have to defer to the experience of Chris Devonshire-Ellis of China Briefing who founded his own law firm 15 years ago in his... more ›

So, like we told you, the word "democracy" (民主) was mentioned 60 times in President Hu's report to the 17th Party Congress. The China Media Project fills us in on other top buzzwords. “Socialism with Chinese characteristics” (中国特色社会主义) was mentioned 52 times, “scientific development” (科学发展) was a distant second at 38 times, “opening and reform” (改革开放) was mentioned 34 times, just edging out “harmony” (和谐) at 33. “Deng Xiaoping Theory” (邓小平理论) made 10 appearances and former President Jiang Zemin's pet phrase “Three Represents” (三个代表) racked up 9 appearances. See how the occurence of these phrases have risen/fallen over the past Party Congresses (totally useless information that you can try to use to impress your date with). more ›

The Chinese Communist Party, the world's largest political party with some 64 million members opened its 17th Party Congress yesterday. With over 2,200 delegates from all over the nation, the congress was opened by parliament chief Wu Bangguo with the national anthem, followed by a moment of silence marked for Mao Zedong, Zhou Enlai, Liu Shaoqi, Zhu De, Deng Xiaoping, Chen Yun and other "martyrs of the revolution" before President Hu Jintao began addressing the party. A great sense of expectation there as you can see on the video now that the party has just begun, but as the days go by, we will no doubt see more and more of these scenes instead. more ›

Weekenders looking for a break from the usual club and pub offerings should consider these two interesting events this weekend. more ›

Are there any Living Buddhas among the enlightened readership of this blog? You have been informed: With immediate effect, all your reincarnations must receive government approval, and if not, they will be deemed "illegal or invalid" by the State Administration for Religious Affairs (SARA). more ›

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Are you in the Chinese stock market? No, this isn’t a reprint of the post from last month. We ask because yesterday, both the Shanghai and Shenzhen exchanges dropped about nine percent, registering their biggest decline in a decade, surpassed only by the sell off the day after late reformist leader Deng Xiaoping died in 1997. more ›

Foreigners gobsmacked by Shanghai cab spittoons reads the headline of a Reuters report. The report refers to the reactions of "foreigners" to the spit bag idea, but only seems to cite a letter written by a foreigner into the Shanghai Daily. If we had known journalism could be this easy, we could have saved ourselves a lot of tuition money. But one thing's for sure. We need to spend more time reading British, because we had not idea what it meant to be "gobsmacked." more ›

For more del.icio.us links, visit the Shanghaiist Contribute page, which is updated throughout the day. more ›

It's good news for those of you who stand accused of one of the nearly 70 offenses that are punishable by death in China. Under legislation enacted on Tuesday, as of January 1, all death sentences handed out by provincial courts must be reviewed and ratified by China's Supreme People's Court. This reverses a 1983 law which gave such powers to the provincial courts in an effort to crack down on rising crime and corruption that occurred early under the reforms implemented under Deng Xiaoping. However, such liberal use of the death penalty in the world's most populous country and in a poor legal environment led predictably to large numbers of death sentences, many of them carried out on innocent people. Last year, a woman in Hunan reappeared 16 years after her accused killer had been executed for her murder. more ›

The Italian journalist Oriana Fallaci died recently at the age of 77. Known during most of her career for aggressive, throw caution to the wind type interviewing, she's had an audience with movers and shakers from the Ayatollah Khomeini to Henry Kissinger and Deng Xiaoping. In the New York Times obit/article linked to above, we found links to several of her interviews, including one with Deng Xiaoping in 1980. The interview is interesting as it takes place at a critical juncture in Chinese history -- Deng had assumed control two years earlier and launched the reforms that set the country on a drastically different path than the one Mao had envisioned. The interview deals with the legacy of Mao, the Gang of Four, the Cultural Revolution, and what the consequences of China's reforms. more ›

Photo by Moriirom taken from the Shanghaiist photos page. To see your photos on our photos page, use Flickr and tag your photos “shanghaiist”. Or you can email your photos to photos@shanghaiist.com and they will automatically appear on our site. more ›

This sounds like a cool job: go out and search for a Shanghai's soul. That's what this reporter from the Sydney Morning Herald was sent to do. However, in the course of this he makes some observations that we found debatable, or in other cases, flat-out wrong. Here's one part of it: more ›

• Rent a car in Shanghai, drop it off in Beijing a couple days later -- all for RMB 1,200. We have our doubts whether this deal is available to foreigners, but right now it is only open to Shouqi Car Leasing Co.'s 10,000 members. Why? They don't want people driving off with their cars: "The high proportion of people who rent cars but fail to return them has been a major hurdle in China. About 6 percent of the entire Beijing rental fleet of 20,000 were stolen last year." Ouch.
• The Masters Cup Tennis Tournament will stay in Shanghai until at least 2008.
• Maybe someday it won't be all about the Maojamens. Replacing Mao's image on Chinese banknotes with Sun Yatsen and Deng Xiaoping, and other CPPCC proposals of interest.

Chinese Communist Party officials will be forced to make known their extramarital indiscretions after a very public break-up between one disgruntled mistress and her CCP-employed ex-lover. more ›

Don't worry comrades, Chairman Mao's mug still dominates Chinese currency. Online forum rumors about a new 500 yuan note bearing the likeness of Deng Xiaoping were just rumors (and a rather mediocre Photoshop effort, if you ask Shanghgaiist). The People's Daily was not amused: "Expert noted that the netizen probably published the counterfeit 500-yuan RMB note online just for fun. However, this action has violated relevant law." The Central Bank has no plans of issuing large denomination notes, the paper said, because "the issuing of such notes will raise the unnecessary guess over inflation, which requires cautious attention." [Via Danwei] more ›