Lucius Fox
Chief Executive Officer of Wayne Enterprises
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In Focus: The Last Maoist Village in China
In Nanjie Village, locals still wake to loudspeakers blaring “The East Is Red,” the classic anthem of People’s Republic of China during the Cultural Revolution in the 1960s. Nanjie, with more than 3,100 residents, is touted as one of the last models of communist China, where the principles of the late Chairman Mao still strictly guide the people’s daily lives. In the 1980s, when the rest of China was introducing market reforms, Nanjie went the other direction, collectivizing its farms and industries. Aside from free housing, healthcare, food rations and education, locals working in the village’s factories receive an average salary of 2,500 yuan (about $400 USD). Reuters photographer Jason Lee recently traveled to Nanjie, coming back with the photographs below.
See more. [Images: Reuters/Jason Lee]
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COMMENT | The Diminishing Returns of China’s North Korea Policy | 38 North
By STEPHANIE KLEINE-AHLBRANDT
North Korea’s economic dependence on China may have reached an all-time high, but Kim Jong Un is determined to set a course for greater political independence from Beijing. This has left China in a state that one insider has referred to as ‘desperate’ over its rocky relations with the country since Kim Jong Un came to power. But given that Beijing’s priority is to maintain a stable and divided peninsula, it seems set to continue to bankroll its belligerent neighbor even as their once-close political relationship unravels.
Photo: huneycuttaddison/Flickr
Panasonic’s previously announced layoff plans reportedly may include closing its plasma panel production facility in Shanghai this year.
Prominent Chinese dissident Chen Guangcheng has left the US embassy in Beijing, a week after seeking shelter following his escape from house arrest.
Ai Weiwei, artist and activist who had been imprisoned, then released, by the Chinese government but is still on probation and house arrest, in an op-ed piece in the Guardian. He is optimistic that China will ultimately realize censorship won’t work: “In the long run, its leaders must understand it’s not possible for them to control the Internet unless they shut it off – and they can’t live with the consequences of that.” Earlier this month, China placed limits on blogs — which some credit with helping expose scandals that the state-run media doesn’t — after the downfall of Chongqing Communist Party leader Bo Xilai.
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[Government control/censorship] is putting this nation far behind in the world’s competition in the coming decades. You can’t create generations just to labour at Foxconn. Everyone wants an iPhone, but it would be impossible to design an iPhone in China because it’s not a product; it’s an understanding of human nature.
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From World Water Day, one of 36 photos. Here, a journalist takes a sample of polluted red-colored water in the Jianhe River in Luoyang, Henan province, China, on December 13, 2011. According to local media, the sources of the pollution were two illegal chemical plants discharging their production waste water into the rain sewer pipes. (Reuters/China Daily)
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