117 « Week In China

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WiC 117 (Jul 29, 2011)

Rail & Infrastructure, Talking Point Tragic high-speed rail crash has consequences for the entire economy

China’s first railway fatality occurred in 1876. According to the historian Robert Blake, a worker was run down by a locomotive during the ...

Chinese Character He once offered Zhu Rongji a $2 billion bribe. Who is…

"If Lai Changxing was executed three times over, it would not be enough,” said former Premier Zhu Rongji in October 2000. Forget three times over: ...

Others Bertrand Russell made uncannily accurate China predictions 90 years ago

Many of the books written about China have a shelf life measured in months. The country changes so rapidly that by the time the author publishes, the ...

Energy & Resources After a lull in nuclear power announcements, Beijing makes a big…

In the northern forests of Finland, a network of underground tunnels is slowly being chiselled out of the bedrock. The tunnellers hope that by 2100, ...

Energy & Resources New report suggests Chinese oil firms are losing money on foreign…

Those looking for evidence of Chinese oil cunning often point to Iraq. While the US government spends $300 million a day on its troop presence in the ...

Property Is Bund skyline threatened?

SOHO China, one of the country’s largest and best known private property developers, has a reputation for sleek, modern apartment blocks. Last week ...

Entertainment A black comedy about industrial decline and redundancy – set in…

"Gentlemen, the lunchbox has landed.” Not all our readers will immediately fathom the true meaning of this remark. It comes from one of the ...

Who’s Hu Wang Xing

Serial-entrepreneur Wang Xing was educated at Beijing’s Tsinghua University where he studied Electrical Engineering. In 2001, he flew to the US to ...

Space Programme America may have ditched its space shuttle; China retains its lunar…

"We are first; we are the best; and we are so because we’re free” was Ronald Reagan’s confident take on the prospects for the International Space ...

Cartoons The search for profits is over

In a week when good news has been rarer than 60 year-old Scotch, enter Baidu. The Chinese search engine firm announced a 95% increase in its second ...

And Finally Web exposé causes controversy in Chengdu

Ask most ordinary Chinese where to look for the unvarnished truth, and the odds are that they won’t be rushing off to buy People’s Daily. Instead, ...