Schedium

In any major city grabbing a seat on the metro can be a stressful experience. But in China  disputes between passengers may lead to violent clashes, like the one which happened a few days ago in Wuhan city, capital of China's Hubei Province. According to local media, on April 20 at around noon a middle-aged couple got on a train of Wuhan metro . The wife put a bag on the seat next to hers. Shortly afterwards, an older couple, about 60 years of age, asked the woman to free the seat. However, the woman refused. The old man insisted that she ought to yield her seat to elderly people, but she would not back down. At that moment, the woman's husband intervened and started cursing the old man, who instead of turning away yelled back. In a fit of rage, the younger man pushed the other away, thus giving rise to a fight  between the two couples.

Mao Zedong once said that Communist cadres "must be models in applying the Party's democratic centralism, must master the method of leadership based on the principle of 'from the masses, to the masses', and must cultivate a democratic style and be good at listening to the masses".  "Listening to the masses" - whatever this may mean - has become a common catchphrase of Xi Jinping 's new vision for China's Communism . In perfect Maoist rhetorical style, Xi coats his ideology in vague high-sounding phrases, a vagueness that suits a Party leader who doesn't have to engage in debates with opponents and who needs ideological ambiguity in order to rule. Xi's last attempt at reviving the old Maoist principle of "listening to the masses" is the strengthening of Communist China's system of popular petitions , the so-called xinfang (信访).  The xinfang system dates back to 1951, when the Government Administration Council is...

The World Health Assembly (by Tom Page - licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0) In 2009 Taiwan received a historic invitation to participate in the World Health Assembly (WHA) as an observer. That was the second year of President Ma Ying-jeou 's administration, a time in which relations between Beijing and Taipei were improving on the basis of the " 1992 consensus ", an unofficial agreement between the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and the Guomindang . Since the World Health Organization (WHO) recognises the one-China principle, Taiwan could not participate with its official name "Republic of China". Taiwan was therefore represented with the name " Chinese Taipei " (中華台北).  The Republic of China (ROC) was a founding member of the WHO, but after the United Nations shifted recognition from the ROC to the People's Republic of China (PRC), the Executive Board of the United Nations passed resolution EB49.R37 recommending to the WHA to adopt a sim...

Yesterday I was walking with a friend in Causeway Bay, when she suddenly pointed at one of the countless colourful billboards that decorate the shopping district's building facades and said, "That's the bookstore of the missing booksellers !". The bookstore is called " Causeway Bay Books " (銅鑼灣書店) and it's located on the second floor of a building on Lockhart Road. I and my friend went upstairs and, of course, the bookstore was closed. Next to the entrance door there were messages written on the wall by sympathetic citizens.

Hong Kong 's Chief Executive Leung Chun-ying (梁振英) and his wife Regina Tong Ching Yee (唐青儀) allegedly used their political influence to violate airport's security regulations.  According to Apple Daily , on March 28 Leung Zung-jan, daughter of the Chief Executive , was waiting at an airport lounge for a Cathay Pacific flight bound to San Francisco. She then realised that she had forgotten her hand luggage outside of the security area.  Her mother, who had accompanied her to the airport, asked the airline's staff to bring the hand luggage to her daughter. Her request was turned down because, according to existing security regulations, passengers need to exit the security area and claim their luggage personally. Mrs Leung reacted angrily. "Do you know who I am?", she allegedly said. "There are no drugs or forbidden items inside [the luggage]". 

(source: Wikipedia ) On March 22 J. Michael Cole published an interesting piece about Taiwan independence vs Republic of China independence . I usually disagree with Cole's opinions, but not this time. Cole is a great investigative journalist and political analyst, however his point of view is often biased and more similar to that of a political activist than to that of a journalist.  In his article about the independence issue Cole explained something that I have been arguing for quite some time. In a nutshell, it is not true that the Guomindang is pro-Beijing (in the sense that it supports unification with the People's Republic of China) while the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) is in favour of Taiwan's independence. Both the Guomindang and the DPP oppose unification with Communist China. But while for the Guomindang independence means that the Republic of China is an independent sovereign state, the DPP holds that Taiwan is an independent nation. Cole rightly...