Around the Web: Janus-Faced Links

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Date of this Version

12-10-2009

Document Type

Article

Citation

December 10, 2009 in The China Beat http://www.thechinabeat.org/

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Copyright December 10, 2009. Used by permission.

Abstract

As December moves on, assessing the highs and lows of 2009 takes up more and more of our time — and this year, we have the added task of summing up the entire “00” decade. Below, some recent stories that say goodbye to 2009 (a little bit early), and one that says hello to 2010 (also a bit early).

1. We’ve recently seen several “best books of the year” lists, but not many of their selections have links to China — reflecting the fact that 2009 was something of an off-year in the China-related publishing field (especially compared to the deluge of releases during the Olympic year of 2008). Of the “100 Notable Books of 2009”chosen by the New York Times, only Hannah Pakula’s biography of Madame Chiang Kai-shek made the cut; Mathieu Borysevicz’s Learning From Hangzhou was featured in the NYT “Art and Architecture” holiday gift guide. Over at The Economist, Poorly Made in China by Paul Midler was picked as a best book of the year.

2. On the whole, though, China is a big story — more accurately, it’s the big story, according to calculations of the “Top News Stories of the Decade,” discussed at theWall Street Journal’s “China Real Time Report”:

The results weren’t even close. GLM says the “Rise of China” (it searched the phrase itself and related word groupings) had a score 400% that of the No. 2 Internet story – the Iraq War. China also beat out the 9/11 terrorist attacks, the election of Barack Obama, the global recession, and even the death of Michael Jackson (No. 5). And actually, China placed twice: The No. 11 News Story of the Decade, GLM says, was the Beijing Olympics.