A first-hand account of China’s wild changes and rise in the 1990s and then equally rapid fall.
In 1985, I was invited to work as a “foreign expert” in Beijing for the magazine China Pictorial, which was published by the Foreign Languages Press under China’s Ministry of Culture. China Pictorial was a government-owned propaganda publication distributed through embassies overseas. It stretched to 24 pages a month, consisting of grainy pictures with paragraph-long captions about China’s happy national minorities and agricultural achievements.
Exclusive longform investigative journalism, Q&As, news and analysis, and data on Chinese business elites and corporations. We publish China scoops you won't find anywhere else.
A weekly curated reading list on China from David Barboza, Pulitzer Prize-winning former Shanghai correspondent for The New York Times.
A daily roundup of China finance, business and economics headlines.
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Bob Fu's relationship with China has gone through phases. First, he thought money would solve his problems there; then he joined protesters at Tiananmen Square, thinking the politics could change. In the end, he determined, only God could save China, and he's been fighting for religious freedom in China ever since he resettled in Texas. With his nonprofit, ChinaAid, prospering like never before, he says the U.S. is finally catching on.
A podcast about how the two nations, once friends, are now foes.
Hear why things are so complicated now. Host Jane Perlez, former New York Times Beijing bureau chief, talks with diplomats, spies, cultural superstars like Yo Yo Ma, and more to understand why the dangers are so high, and why relations went awry.