Tea Leaf Nation

Han Zhiguo (@韩志国), a social-media savvy economist profiled in these pages, has tweeted his (somewhat depressing) “Five Secrets of the Chinese Economy” on Sina Weibo, China’s Twitter: 1. The driving force behind development is the over-issuance of currency. In September the ratio of M2 to GDP was 2.46:1, [while] Europe and the U.S. don’t exceed [...]

This is the last installment of Tea Leaf Nation’s series profiling the key players on Weibo. Please see Part 1, Part 2, and Part 3. “Fifty Cents”  - @染香(320,000+ followers): The unverified blogger Ran Xiang purports to be a well-endowed and sharp-tongued hottie who vehemently argues against democracy and liberalization. Combative and mysterious, the self-proclaimed “Chairman of the Fifty Cents [...]

To celebrate the arrival of 2012, Tea Leaf Nation is bringing you a roadmap to the key players on Weibo, China’s Twitter. Please see Part 1 here, Part 3 here, and the last installment Part 4 here. [Update: in January 2012, all three of the following academics left Sina Weibo. Citing censorship, Professor Yu and Zhang switched [...]

To ring in the New Year, Tea Leaf Nation is pleased to bring you a road map to the key players on Weibo, China’s answer to Twitter. This cast of characters is inspired by a popular Weibo tweet, and all descriptions and commentary are from Tea Leaf Nation. See Part 2 here, Part 3 here, and the [...]