At 79, Ex-Party Official Lambastes Chinese Leaders
The frail 79-year-old in a pale brown shirt with close-cropped hair sitting at a fast-food restaurant table looks absolutely unremarkable. But Bao Tong has a lightness in his eyes, a confidence that...
View ArticleIn China, A Ceaseless Quest To Silence Dissent
China is about to get new leaders for the first time in a decade, and it comes at a crucial moment for the world's most populous nation. Economic growth, which surged for decades, has slowed. Demands...
View ArticleChina's Assertive Behavior Makes Neighbors Wary
As China's global stature grows, Beijing appears to be flexing its muscles more frequently on the international stage. As part of NPR's series on China this week, correspondents Louisa Lim and Frank...
View ArticleHighly Scripted, China Moves Toward New Leaders
Two days after the U.S. election, another major political development is unfolding on the other side of the world. China began its once-in-a-decade transition of power on Thursday with the opening of...
View ArticleFor China's Rising Leader, A Cave Was Once Home
Far from the political theater of China's Communist Party Congress in Beijing this week is a cave that the country's next leader once called home.Just 15 at the time, Xi Jinping was sent by his family...
View ArticleRecording The Untold Stories Of China's Great Famine
Second of a two-part series. Find the first part here.A young man trudges doggedly around his village, notebook in hand, fringe flopping over his glasses. He goes from door to door, calling on the...
View ArticleWill China's First Lady Outshine Her Husband?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3vFS9zA6mcshttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gyymxqps8KYhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_9pHWXGRxDE
View ArticleChina's Communists Declare War ... On Boring Meetings
Suffer from insomnia? The droning rhythm of a Chinese Communist official reading a work report out loud will likely do the trick.It certainly does for many party members: Just 10 minutes into any party...
View ArticleA Tumultuous Year, Seen Through North Korean Eyes
North Korea is preparing to launch a long-range rocket as it rounds off a tumultuous year marked by the sudden death of leader Kim Jong Il last December, the ascension of his 20-something son, and the...
View ArticleHunger Still Haunts North Korea, Citizens Say
While North Korea has long struggled with dire food shortages, the United Nations now assesses its food situation as being the best in many years. But NPR has had unusual access to five North Koreans...
View ArticleChina Pledges Reforms To Labor Camps, But Offers Few Details
China has indicated that it will stop handing down sentences to its controversial labor camps, which allow detention without trial for up to four years. According to Chinese media, some 160,000...
View ArticleBecome A Successful Chinese Bureaucrat, In 5 Easy Steps
Forget Fifty Shades of Grey. In China, "bureaucracy lit" is flying off bookstore shelves. With the books' stories of Machiavellian office politics, they're read avidly, both as entertainment and as...
View ArticleBeijing's Air Quality Reaches Hazardous Levels
In China's capital, they're calling it the "airpocalypse," with air pollution that's literally off the charts. The air has been classified as hazardous to human health for a fifth consecutive day, at...
View Article'Friends' Will Be There For You At Beijing's Central Perk
Almost a decade since the end of the hit American TV series Friends, the show — and, in particular, the fictitious Central Perk cafe, where much of the action took place — is enjoying an afterlife in...
View ArticleAmerican Woman Gives Domestic Abuse A Face, And Voice, In China
The faces of American Kim Lee and her Chinese husband, Li Yang, both in their 40s, once graced the covers of books that sold in the millions.
View ArticleIn China, Baby's Brutal Death Raises Questions For Many About Nation's Values
A tale of two car thefts has transfixed China, sparking a new bout of soul-searching. It's generated far more attention online than the ongoing legislative session in Beijing, despite leaked orders...
View ArticleWhile U.S And South Korea Militaries Drill, 'Bombast Continues' From The North
As NPR's Louisa Lim reported Monday on Morning Edition, a week of inflamed rhetoric from North Korea — including talk of a preemptive nuclear strike on the U.S. — is being followed by word that the...
View ArticleTibetan Customs Include Horse Races ... And Paramilitary Police?
In the exiled Tibetan calendar, March 10 is an emotive day, the anniversary of a failed uprising in 1959.
View ArticleFrom Police Chief To Political Office, Jobs Are For Sale In China
China's new president, Xi Jinping, who was formally elected Thursday, is already engaged in his own anti-corruption campaign, threatening to go after the key players — the tigers as well as the...
View ArticleNorth Korea's Stepped-Up Rhetoric: Is It More Than Talk?
North Korea has cut its last military hotlines with South Korea and yet again stepped up its rhetoric, rattling nerves in the region.Thousands of North Koreans rallied in central Pyongyang, chanting...
View Article
