Former US ambassador to China Jon Huntsman has decided to leave the circuit of crazy wingnuts to themselves by quitting the GOP nomination race for this year's presidential elections. The news comes barely a week after Huntsman declared that his third-place finish in the New Hampshire primary was a "ticket to ride" in South Carolina. more ›

A few links to start off your day: more ›

James Fallows talks with China analyst Damien Ma about the recent elevated security within China since calls for a "Jasmine revolution" surfaced earlier this year. Ma observes that China has shifted from being more externally aggressive to internally aggressive in 2011, a shift that may be a reaction to the Arab Spring, but is also likely due largely in part to nervousness surrounding the coming political transition next year. more ›

That's the big question that political pundits in the US of A have been asking over the last few days. It all began on Sunday when Newsweek published a report speculating that the former governor of Utah, and current US ambassador to China, would make a bid for the presidency in 2012 (that's next year). more ›

Looking back on the year in review, we've had a lot of wonderful videos that could use a second viewing. In fact, some of our favorite content from the past year has been in video form: from the crazy ghost town of Ordos to utterly ridiculous Chinese viral videos, these videos have caught our collective fancies. Without further ado, Shanghaiist presents the best videos of 2009. more ›

The recession is really damaging to national self confidence: 44% of Americans now believe that China is the world’s leading economic power, as opposed to the 27% who (correctly) believe that it is the United States. Compare those latest Pew poll stats from those from February 2008, when 41% identified the US as the leading nation (with 30% identifying China). more ›

A Beijing divorce court has started allowing evidence other than sperm tests for divorce cases relating to infidelity. As the aforementioned physical evidence is rarely conclusive, most divorce courts' judicial criteria involve assessing the "emotional connection" of the couple. Needless to say, raunchy text messages are definitely a step up. [China Daily] more ›

We've long known about the racist policies many Chinese schools have in place when choosing English teachers, but - for some reason - it comes as a surprise to find out they're ageist too. Maybe it's all those talks we had with our parents about how Chinese venerate the old. Yet, according to James Fallows, the country is not purging foreign teachers over the age of 60, refusing to let them renew their visas. more ›

When they changed over the system from Maoist Communism to "Socialism with Chinese characteristics" (as Hu Jintao put it during the last 60th anniversary parade), the CCP apparently decided not to tell anyone what the C in their name really meant. At least according to this video by Doing Business in China, which asks a bunch of Chinese people (some of whom are famous) to define "communism" - with dumbfounding results. more ›

James Fallows introduces readers of The Atlantic to Brian and Jeanee Linden, a couple who are trying to turn Xizhou Ancient City in Yunnan into a lush, environmentally friendly haven for traditional Chinese arts and handicrats as well as for creative artists around the world: more ›

Looks like someone in the censorship bureau has an itchy trigger finger and Andrew Sullivan's The Dish has become the latest casualty. Yep, the rest of The Atlantic is completely unbanned, including James Fallows' corner - which is where most of the publication's China-related content is stored. We've mulled over it, but we have no idea why this one got GFWed. The most recent post is about Balkanization, hardly something China feels strongly about. The last post on China was a discussion of Jim Crow-like laws which diverted into why white faces get hired as English teachers more. Its jump off point: James Fallows' (who, we repeat, is unblocked) picture of a "No Uyghurs should apply" sign at a Xinjiang restaurant. We guess it just goes to show that anything and nothing can get you blocked here. more ›

Ever wanted to look at Shanghai through the lens of one of those older Sim City games? While we've discovered this 3D map of Shanghai before, James Fallows over at the Atlantic brought it to our attention again (it has been two years since we last swooned over it, after all) and we've re-realized how cool it is. It's called Edushi.com more ›

Didn't manage to make it to all the Shanghai Lit Fest authors you wanted to see? CityWeekend, already having done us a great service by liveblogging the event, was nice enough to record a bunch of podcasts for everyone who couldn't be there. Currently, they've got Week 1 and Week 2's writers up, and Week 3 is supposedly going to be added soon. Head over there to listen to the people you couldn't catch live... or just the people you want to hear again. We know we'll be re-listening to the James Fallows podcast. Maybe on repeat. more ›

Go here to listen to Terry Gross' interview with Beijing-based (and formerly Shanghai-based) writer James Fallows, The Atlantic's "man in China." Fallows discusses a variety of topics, including China's extensive investment in the United States (see his Atlantic story on the topic here), his new book of China essays (excerpt on Danwei), internet censorship and his recently deceased father. Around the 24-minute mark, Fallows makes some interesting statements about how he thinks Chinese people would have voted in the recent U.S. election — we're curious how his observations compare to what Shanghaiist readers saw and heard leading up to November 4. more ›

This World AIDS Day, we witnessed an extraordinarily well-coordinated effort by Chinese media to raise AIDS awareness among the populace and to communicate the resolve of the central government to win the battle against the disease. This small sampling of stories that appeared in state-run English-language media is enough to give you an idea of what went out on Chinese news: President Hu: HIV/AIDS not scary President Hu tells HIV carriers, communities not to be... more ›

Do yourself a favour this morning and read James Fallows' latest post. You will be glad you did. Share with us how you see Shanghai, or China! Simply post your photos on Flickr, tag them with "shanghaiist", and we'll select one favorite image per day. Or you can simply email your photos to photos[at]shanghaiist.com.... more ›

Okay, Shanghaiist has got several hundred blogs on his RSS that he scans through everyday. Some things scream at us, others are quickly forgotten and yet others are hidden in some corner of our brain for (mostly useless) information ready to be used at some future point in time. There are all these bloggers that you've never met personally that you can form an impression of only after a long period of reading their blogs. You're reading them every single day, and sometimes it almost feels as though they're your friend, even though you don't really know them. It's most surreal. more ›

So in the meanwhile, it's become kind of fashionable to blame Beijing for the mess in "Myanmar". Sure, Russia and India have gotten some of the blame for failing to rein in Burma's ruthless junta. ASEAN has also been put to shame for its impotence in handling Burma, and even Singapore's conservative Straits Times (subscription required) has begun to wonder aloud if it's not the right time to suspend Burma's membership in ASEAN, admitting that the "1997 Asean decision to admit Myanmar under the current military leadership without any conditionality was a mistake". more ›

The latest issue of TIME Magazine has an interesting story of a US-based company that has just set up shop in where else but Inner Mongolia, to feed the millions of hungry Chinese who are now looking to eat something other than pork: more ›