10/19 Reader

Authors

Date of this Version

10-19-2009

Document Type

Article

Citation

October 19, 2009 in The China Beat http://www.thechinabeat.org/

Comments

Copyright October 19, 2009. Used by permission.

Abstract

1. This is a rather belated link, but in case you missed it at China Digital Times, you might be interested to read their translation of a piece on “‘The Wall’ and ‘Climbing Over the Wall’” by Tu Zifang from Southern Metropolis Weekly.

For so many years, the busiest people on the Chinese internet are those who make the Wall software and the “Climbing the Wall” software. It has been said that those people all have something in common: 1. They are all Chinese, 2. They all made a fortune, 3. They all have studied in the US. The only difference is that those who write the Wall software have come back from the US and those who write the Climbing the Wall software are still in the US.

2. Last week, we ran an image of the Expo buildings from contributor Jonathan Hwang. For more amazing pictures–including workers doing quite a high-wire act against the structure’s frame–check here.

3. The new issue of The Journal of Current Chinese Affairs is now available. Articles of interest include “The Chinese Communist Party: Recruiting and Controlling the New Elites” by Cheng Li and “Climate Change in China — The Development of China’s Climate Policy and Its Integration into a New International Post-Kyoto Climate Regime” by Andreas Oberheitmann and Eva Sternfeld.

4. Timothy Garton Ash had a review essay in this weekend’s New York Review of Books titled “1989!” Though none of the books under discussion are related to the 1989 event that will most likely spring to mind for China Beat readers–instead they focus entirely on the events in Eastern Europe–Garton Ash calls for a reinvestigation of ’89’s events that rings close to home for those interested in China 1989:

So, in a classic Rankean advance of historical scholarship, we know more than we did at the time about these traditionally documented areas of high politics. By contrast, we have learned little new about the causes and social dynamics of the mass, popular actions that actually gave 1989 a claim to be a revolution, or chain of revolutions.