A Note on City Size and Political Economy
Among the China superlatives that we have heard for the last two decades is the fantastic growth in city size - Pudong in Shanghai from fishing and farming villages to the world's most recognizable skyline; similarly for Shenzhen, Guangdong, and literally dozens of places most of us have never heard of.
Source: Lujiazui 2016.jpg
No Way Out, 2
Understanding the Chinese Constitution, the New Citizens Movement, and Document No. 9
The New Citizens Movement should not have been a big deal – a loosely organized group of activists campaigning against corruption and for “constitutionally protected rights” in China. Xu Zhiyong, a PhD from the Peking University Law School, was one of the leaders.
Xu Zhiyong, shortly before arrest Xu Zhiyong speaking at a meeting in Beijing in March, 2013, shortly before his arrest
Party’s Over October 9, 2018
The crackdown on expression hardens for CCP and anyone in government, even if not CCP
Jiayun Feng, reporting in SupChina This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. -
New Party rules to govern members’ online behavior
The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) is set to implement some new regulations for its members to monitor how they behave on the internet.
The new set of revised discipline rules was released by the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection on September 26, and is set to take effect on October 1. Party members are required to be hyperconscious about what they post on digital platforms, such as the popular messaging app WeChat.
Chinese artist who posted funny image of President Xi Jinping facing five years in prison as authorities crackdown on dissent in the arts. Independent, May 28, 2015
This is the executive summary of a report prepared by students in my Modern Chinese Economic History course in spring 2014.
At that time, every Chinese university was competing to admit foreign students, mostly from Africa and the middle east. University programs got put together on very short timeframes, with no training for staff and procedures more or less made up on the spot. The pawns in this process were the foreign students themselves, who often arrived unprepared for college work, unfamiliar with China, lacking any Chinese language, their first time out of the home country, and certainly unprepared for Chinese university norms. This work was an attempt to bring some efficacy, functionality (rather than efficiency) to the international student program. Although this report is from 2014, there is no doubt that international programs in China still require upgrading to bring them to a minimal acceptable standard of responsiveness and care.
Any student looking to attend school in China should read this, at least to get the jist of the boots-on-the-ground feel among foreign students. This is not to say, do not attend school in China. But forewarned is forearmed. The full report is available by emailing me.
This is the executive summary of a group research project conducted by students in my Modern Chinese Economic History course in spring of 2014.
This work could only have been conducted under my direction - no Chinese faculty member would dare to investigate the rampant cheating in the civil engineering department. In addition to the widespread academic dishonesty, the investigation found that there seems to be no civil engineering program in China - with the possible exception of a program at Tsinghua - that meets international accreditation standards - meaning that no graduate from a school in China will be eligible to take the PE exam for most countries without significant additional training or experience.
The full report is available. Contact me if interested.
