Tea Leaf Nation

Don’t look away, even for one minute. Events have taken a dramatic turn in the case of Chen Guangcheng, the celebrated rights lawyer-turned daring escape artist-turned diplomatic impasse. Much of China now knows that after his daring escape from house arrest, Chen spent six days in the United States embassy before being reunited with (some [...]

High value target in China slips past tight security cordon and makes way to U.S. embassy in dramatic escape.  Sound familiar?  No, not Wang Lijun redux. This time it’s Chen Guangcheng (陈光诚), a celebrated human rights lawyer in China who has slipped the bonds of his extra-legal detention in Shandong province and allegedly made his [...]

Break out your decoders, dear readers; a politician is talking. At a Tuesday luncheon with U.S. Vice-President Joe Biden, Chinese Vice President and heir apparent Xi Jinping defended China’s human rights record by saying, “There’s no best, only better.” China’s netizens, who are seemingly as unsure as Western observers as to what Xi’s ascendance means for [...]

Han Han, the provocative blogger cum novelist cum race car driver cum high school dropout, has done it again. Only this time, he has drawn heavy fire from some of China’s liberal intellectuals with his most recent blog entries “On Revolution” and “On Democracy.” The long, rambling “On Revolution” offers a rather pessimistic view of [...]