The Beijing Bookworm — the city’s best known bookshop — holds its Literary Festival again from the 5th-19th of March 2010, and two Blacksmith authors are among the 70 writers taking part. First, on Saturday 6th March, Graham Earnshaw will be talking about how many pairs of shoes he has worn out during his epic [...]

Can common ground be found on the divisive issue of Tibet? First, it’s necessary to find out what the people involved think, and why. Chinese-speaking journalist Annelie Rozeboom worked as a foreign correspondent in China for ten years. During that time she was able to interview numerous Tibetan people inside and outside Tibet, as well [...]

Some years ago now, I crossed the border from Kazakhstan into Xinjiang in China’s far northwest, and found myself stuck in Urumchi with the equivalent of US$50 and no onward tickets. It wasn’t a problem; saving my cash for food, I ‘hitch-hiked’ on China’s trains by boarding them at small-town stations and then jumping off [...]

The sudden publication of Zhao Ziyang’s hidden diaries, in time for the 20th anniversary of June 4th 1989, reminded me of the occasion a couple of years ago when a human rights barrister in Hong Kong went to print with a book about the right to demonstrate. The text covered examples of rallies and demonstrations [...]

Beijing-based dealmaker Jack Leblanc’s book Business Republic of China has just been reviewed by the South China Morning Post: It has been just under 20 years since Belgian Jack Leblanc heeded a call to go to China and arrived in Chongqing with a suitcase of science books to teach at a university. The freshly minted [...]

“Successful negotiations in China require great reserves of the most precious commodity of all: Time. The ability to squander it as if you had a lifetime to wait will earn you the goodwill of your Chinese partners.” Jack Leblanc’s Business Republic of China has been recommended by the China Economic Review, Inside-Out China and, most [...]