Coming in the wake of an increasingly petulant North Korea threatening to rain fire and brimstone over East Asia and beyond, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry’s first official visit to China was only ever going to be about one issue: getting North Korea’s closest thing to an ally to take a tougher stance against [...]
This article also appears in The Atlantic, a Tea Leaf Nation partner site. To many outside China, it might have seemed like another straightforward heroine-and-villain celebrity divorce story. He is the founder of a hugely popular English learning program known as Crazy English, and is a household name in China. She was his American wife. [...]
It barely registered in the International media, but plans by the Russian parliament to prevent officials from holding assets abroad have made waves in the Chinese media, and found vociferous support in the Chinese blogosphere. Online, discussions centred around a post on Sina Weibo, China’s Twitter, by investor and online personality Charles Xue (@薛蛮子) laying out the [...]
It has been billed as the answer to rampant property speculation, local government reliance on revenue raising through land sales, and even income inequality. But a recent announcement from Finance Minister Xie Xuren, giving further details on China’s property tax reform, has been greeted with contempt by some observers in China’s blogosphere. The reforms would [...]
This article also appeared in The Atlantic, a Tea Leaf Nation partner site. Sina Weibo, China’s most active and influential micro-blogging platform, has long been heralded as a revolution in the way Chinese interact with the state and with each other. But on the eve of a power transition taking place behind closed doors, many [...]
Follow Tea Leaf Nation