Our good friend Yang Rui will probably not like to hear this but a draft guideline being proposed by the State Council that will seek the OK for foreigners to legally work in posts involving China's state secrets. They will, however, first have to be approved by central or local government agencies. more ›

Minxin Pei, Professor of Government at Claremont McKenna College, argues that the downfall of former Chongqing party chief Bo Xilai has busted the notion that the Chinese Communist Party's rule is based on meritocracy. He says the government is "riddled with clever apparatchiks like Bo who have acquired their positions through cheating, corruption, patronage, and manipulation". more ›

"Countless events have proven the fact that real innovation in China does not exist in culture, but in food and medicine. If only just 1% of this creativity was applied in the film industry, Chinese films would no doubt be the world's best." more ›

The London Book Fair opened -- and closed -- this week amid harsh criticism of the decision by the British Council to allow China’s General Administration of Press and Publications, the government body that regulates and censors print media, to have full say over which writers to invite to the fair. One writer, Ma Jian, whose work has been banned here since 1987 and who now lives in London, has slammed the fair as “giving tacit approval to China’s suppression of free speech” and "giving the Communist party a stage on which to perform its propaganda show.” more ›

Uh oh. Weekly columnist and former editor-in-chief of The Observer Will Hutton has predicted that there will be a public uprising in China in the near future. The comments came amidst a debate on the global economic downturn in which Hutton stated "I'm expecting there to be a Chinese Spring within the next three to five years." more ›

Land rights lawyer Ni Yulan (倪玉兰), who has now been permanently disabled due to police torture, has been sentenced to jail by a court in Beijing along with her husband Dong Jiqin (董继勤). more ›

The Anonymous hacking group claims to have defaced almost 500 Chinese websites. Each one carried a message of protest against the government's repressive policies, encouraging citizens to join Anonymous and stage their own protests. In English, with no Chinese translation. more ›

"'You are a journalist and a mouthpiece of the Party. Who are you serving, the people or the Party?' questions an official in Bijie, Guizhou Province during an interview. The public is quite familiar with words like these, since a Zhengzhou official uttered the same three years ago. The reappearance of such shocking words in officialdom and almost the exact same words at that -- it's a slap on the face of the people. Criticise as you will, they say; I will continue to say what I want to say. That's a provocation and debasement of public sentiment." more ›

Some officials spend 70% of their time on banquets, and if they don't have any banquet, they still want a drink, says a professor of Beijing Normal University. more ›

The government manufacturing Steve Jobs: this idea itself is unscientific. How could Steve Jobs be manufactured? The government cannot manufacture him. He was created by the market environment. In working in science and technology, the government must not spoil things by being too enthusiastic. I advocate following the “mushroom theory”: the government creates an environment, and with the right air, moisture levels, and humidity, mushrooms will grow by themselves. The government doesn’t need to go plant mushrooms, or choose specific mushrooms, just create an environment, an ecology. more ›

"There are now many government Weibo accounts, and that is definitely a good thing, but it depends what you do with it. If your department's Weibo account is just a showcase, saying good things about yourself and ignoring the criticism of others, you think you can gain ground? What you get in fact is minus marks. So, if you think you've got what it takes to open a Weibo account, go for it. If not, forget it." more ›

Zong Qinghou, China’s second-richest man, talks about the economy and the government's economic policy. Zong, the 66-year-old self-made billionaire who is chairman of Hangzhou Wahaha Group Co., is a member of China’s legislature. He also discusses Europe's sovereign debt crisis and his company's legal disputes with Danone SA. He spoke on March 3 in Beijing with Bloomberg Television's Stephen Engle. (Source: Bloomberg) more ›

I don't agree when the Communist Party describes themselves as "great, glorious and correct." The party is complicated and should be humble. At the same time, I also don't agree with some describing the party as a "dictatorship." It is nonsense. The organization of the CPC is open to the whole of society, and its highest levels are dynamic. more ›

"I agree that loving the country is not equal to loving the government. But I think it would be even more correct to say that loving the country is not opposing the government. Is there anyone who opposes this point? It is common sense that the country is different from the government. The US government is not going to care more about China and the interests of the Chinese people than the Chinese government. Isn't it plain common sense? Patriotism will always contain impurities. Even if it isn't as pure as 24K, it's still gold if it's 18K. Otherwise how did the Chinese resist the Japanese so unanimously in those years? Patriotism doesn't split according to political attitudes. Those of you that are against the system, don't use patriotism as an excuse. OK?" more ›

Various news sites have reported that Politburo member and King of Chongqing Party Secretary Bo Xilai tendered his resignation from the Politburo yesterday, in the wake of his former right-hand man and Chongqing police chief Wang Lijun's alleged defection scandal that took place earlier this month. more ›

Government officials are more tolerant than members of the public when it comes to the "naked officials" phenomena, according to a new report, "Rule of Law Blueprint 2012", by the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences  (CASS). The term "naked officials" refers to civil servants whose spouses and children have all migrated abroad. more ›

Hu Siyi (胡四一), Vice Minister of China's Water Resource Ministry, said Chinese water resources per capita is only 28% of the world average, during a press conference hosted by the State Council's Information Office. more ›

A new report in the state-owned Tibet Daily claims that Tibetans are praising a new government program that provides them with basic public amenities and propaganda material. more ›

"The Chinese government has never really learnt how to 'speak.' You see a lot of politically correct language, and too little self-criticism. Subjects like Wang Lijun are deemed too sensitive to even be touched upon. China is generally a country that does not too bad on the whole, and the hard results are out there. If something has happened, we should talk about. The more you refuse to talk about it, the more you shroud the matter in mystery. But when you choose to talk about it, people think, oh, it's just that. Society needs criticism all the time. The more the government criticizes itself, the less the public will criticize it. The more good news there is on official media, the more bad news and rumors there will be on Weibo. That's just how things balance up." more ›

Chinese President Hu Jintao expressed his concerns on Monday about the Westernization of the Chinese culture, and called for greater efforts to strengthen China's cultural influence worldwide. The remarks are the latest in a growing series of attempts by the Communist Party to control promote Chinese culture. more ›

Shanghai Daily reports: "Three local officials are among the six men detained for having sex with two teenage girls in Lueyang County, northwest China's Shaanxi Province, according to the police." more ›

A kindergarten school bus collided with a truck in Puyang, Henan province this afternoon. All 10 children and 2 adults were saved and only suffered from slight injuries. more ›

Henan, China's most populous province, has passed new legislation to allow couples to have a second child, provided that both husband and wife are from one-child families. With this move, all of China's 22 provinces, 4 municipalities, 5 autonomous regions now allow couples made up of single children on both sides to have a second child. more ›

China has donated school buses to Macedonia, and these buses were handed over to the south-eastern European country yesterday. more ›

The number of weibo users has now reached 300mln, according to the 11th China Cybermedia Forum. more ›

The State Administration of Work Safety has informed the press that the probe report will be released soon on the website of the official Xinhua News Agency. However, the safety watchdog did not tell the exact date of the report's release, only saying that it won't be "long". more ›