Tag: Shandong Province (China)

China Is Winning in Solar Power, but Its Coal Use Is Raising Alarms

Media Library

China is installing about as many solar panels and wind turbines as the rest of the world combined, and is on track to meet its target for clean energy six years early. It is using renewables to meet nearly all of the growth in its electricity needs. Yet there is another side to that rapid expansion, one that is causing consternation in Washington at a critical period of climate diplomacy: China is also building new power plants that burn coal, the dirtiest of the fossil fuels, at a pace that…

China to Its People: Spies Are Everywhere, Help Us Catch Them

Media Library

Beijing sees forces bent on weakening it everywhere: embedded in multinational companies, infiltrating social media, circling naïve students. And it wants its people to see them, too. Chinese universities require faculty to take courses on protecting state secrets, even in departments like veterinary medicine. A kindergarten in the eastern city of Tianjin organized a meeting to teach staffers how to “understand and use” China’s anti-espionage law. China’s Ministry of State Security, a usually covert department that oversees the secret police and intelligence services, has even opened its first social media…

In China, Artists Create Miniature Homes From Memories

Media Library

Not long after Shen Peng’s grandfather died, his grandmother visited the site of the house where she and her husband once lived. The government had demolished the house, in northern China, nearly 15 years before as part of a redevelopment project. The site still hadn’t been developed, and she could barely walk around the family’s old plot because the grass was so overgrown. Mr. Shen wondered: Could he help her relive her memories another way? For more than six months, he labored in secret after his day job as a…

Inside the Barbecue City That Is China’s Hottest Tourist Destination

Media Library

The flame-shaped neon archway was visible from miles away, which was good since there was little other reason for anyone to be in that part of town, an expanse of fields outside an industrial city in eastern China. The lights flickered between icy blue and red-hot, leaping toward the night sky beside a jumbo sign: “Zibo Barbecue Experiential Ground.” And what an experience awaited. Inside this Coachella for barbecue, visitors could pose with a mascot dressed like a meat skewer. They could watch a concert against an LED backdrop of…

China’s GDP Data Hint at Heavy Cost of its Zero Covid Strategy

Chin@Strategy

BEIJING — Faced with its worst Covid-19 outbreak yet, China has been enforcing an expanding number of mass quarantines, strict lockdowns and border controls. The measures may yet work, but official data released on Monday show they are exacting a grim toll on the world’s second-largest economy. China’s economy expanded 4.8 percent in the first three months of this year compared to the same period last year. That pace was barely faster than the final three months of last year, and it also obscured a looming problem. Much of that…

From the U.S. to China: A 3-Month Quarantine Horror Story

Chin@Strategy

Before boarding his flight from Los Angeles to the Chinese city of Guangzhou, Xue Liangquan, a California-based lawyer, knew he was in for a bit of a headache. To visit his parents in eastern Shandong Province in January, for the first time since the coronavirus pandemic began, Mr. Xue, 37, had already shelled out $7,600 for airfare. He had submitted negative test results to the Chinese authorities, as required for entry. Upon arrival, he would have to do three weeks of quarantine. Even so, he never could have foreseen just…

What Default? With Confetti and Fanfare, Evergrande Says It’s Ready to Build.

Chin@Strategy

To mark the completion of a residential complex called World City, the indebted property giant China Evergrande Group held an elaborate red carpet ceremony on Monday, with eight cannons firing off confetti before a cheering crowd. The company then released a series of images featuring newly completed buildings covered with bright red decorations. Just weeks earlier, Evergrande had been declared in default. The developer has unpaid bills in excess of $300 billion and has struggled to pay back its creditors and business partners. Some in China saw the company’s celebrations…