Don Weinland

An American journalism student and translator of Chinese, interested in urbanization, reform, and socio-economic change in China and Asia.

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Latest posts by Don Weinland

China: ‘Ditch oil’ floods restaurants

  28 November 2010

An economic investigation team detained a Hubei oil refiner Nov. 10 who pumped more than 60 tons of “ditch oil” into the local restaurant industry during the past three years, Hubei’s Jingzhou...

China: Hebei’s “Great Leap Forward”

  27 May 2010

More than 1000 residents of Hebei Province will be subject to forced evictions before June 5, in a government development project online opinion has dubbed a “Great Leap Forward.” Guangping...

China reconnects Xinjiang

  14 May 2010

After more than 10 months of near to complete online darkness, internet service resumed Friday in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, according to a notice from the Xinjiang Government News Office,. The...

China: expelling the unemployed from Shenzhen

  10 May 2010

Ridding the city of those unemployed for longer than three months—that’s what Shenzhen’s vice mayor and police chief suggested April 29 in response to security problems in this special economic...

China: New real estate policy hits market

  26 April 2010

A new housing policy in China issued on April 17 is being called “the strictest in history.” The State Council has requested a steep increase in down payments on loans for second homes.

China: Premier Wen remembers Hu Yaobang

  17 April 2010

In an open letter published Thursday in the People’s Daily, Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao recalled an enlightening journey with purged and disgraced former Premier Hu Yaobang.  The letter commemorates the...

China: The brief lives of Chinese buildings

  10 April 2010

At a construction and energy conservation conference that opened March 29 in Beijing, a Ministry of Housing and Construction official revealed that construction in China only has a 25–30 year lifespan.

China: Official Nudity

  24 March 2010

A township government in Sichuan Province is being called “China’s first completely nude government” after township officials issued salary and expenditure information online.  The reference to nudity recently found in...

China: Revaluing the One-Child Policy

  20 March 2010

Amidst talk of an aging society and a depleting demographic dividend, appeals for a reconsideration of China’s One-Child Policy were voiced during the annual meetings of the National People’s Congress and the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference.

China: Increasing Trend in Mass Incidents

  14 February 2010

Protests, known in Chinese as “mass incidents”, grew fiercer and more violent in 2009, while methods of protest grew in variation, says a Chinese Academy of Social Sciences researcher. In...

China: More Violence Over Salary Dispute

  19 January 2010

A migrant worker from Hebei was stabbed Jan. 9, resulting in the loss of a kidney, after requesting withheld salary from a subcontractor in Beijing, reports the Yangcheng Evening News.  The incident has been...

China: New Ticketing System For Train Riders

  10 January 2010

As “Chunyun”—the travel season before, during, and after the Chinese New Year—approaches, two of China’s largest rail lines are adopting a “real-name” ticketing system. Information Times reported Friday that passengers traveling on...

China: Development's Toll on Laborers

  17 December 2009

A second wave of pneumoconiosis cases has been reported among drilling and blasting workers in the southern city of Shenzhen. An article in Beijing Youth Daily reports 119 suspected pneumoconiosis...

China: Putting cadres to work

  13 December 2009

A Chinese scholar is asking why the Chinese socialist tradition of “cadre labor participation” is no longer practiced among current leadership and suggests its discontinuation may be linked with deteriorating work...

China's Perspective on Xinjiang

  15 November 2009

TrueXinjiang.com is a Web site that appeals instantly to the western eye.  The site, designed specifically to disseminate a Han-Chinese version of life in the remote autonomous region of Xinjiang,...