On July 15, 1971, a historic day for both China and the United States, President Richard Nixon announced his intention of traveling to China and meeting with Chinese premier, Zhou En Lai, to discuss normalizing relations between the two superpowers as part of a campaign to ease global tension in the testy "Cold War" political climate. Nixon, a formerly staunch anti-communist, proclaimed; more ›

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 ›

The Economist has posted an interview with "Mao's translator," Sidney Rittenberg (李敦白). Arriving in China in 1944, Rittenberg befriended Mao, Zhou Enlai and other top Communists. During his long involvement with the Chinese Communist Party, Rittenberg was imprisoned twice. The first time in 1949, after being falsely fingered as a "spy" by Joseph Stalin, he spent six years in solitary confinement and the second time in 1968, for ten years when labelled a "May 16^th element" (五一六分子). more ›

By Wm Patrick Cranley more ›

So the story goes: When Chairman Mao visited Shanghai he asked, 'I know there is a Shanghai (上海：on the sea), but is there a Xiahai (下海：under the sea)?' We assume that this was followed by uncomfortable forced laughter as none present (save possibly Zhou Enlai) had the heart (read: cojones) to tell him that the joke stunk. more ›

In this day and age, you can define "torture" however you want to, and for a long time, we considered the practice of inputting Chinese characters on a Mac to fulfill our definition. OS X has a built-in simplified Chinese input that does the job, but doesn't really hold a candle to any of the Windows XP input methods—and when Sogou came out with their input method, and Google copied it, we considered that battle to be over. 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 ›

If you are familiar with drinking heavily or going to Chinese banquets (basically the same thing), you've probably been forced to chug try some Maotai. Deemed "China's national liquor" by Reuters, Maotai or máotáijiǔ (茅台酒) is one of the most famous brands of Chinese rice wine (or báijiǔ). Although dignitaries like Margaret Thatcher and Richard Nixon have put this put-hair-on-your-chest drink to their conservative lips, the popular liquor is now threatened. You see, Maotai is... more ›

Photo by kumo36 taken from the Shanghaiist Contribute page. To see your photos on our Contribute 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 ›

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 ›