As promotional stills and trailers were released for the American-Chinese co-production The Great Wall, much controversy arose from the film’s alleged whitewashing of a Chinese story. A historical fiction action film, The Great Wall tells the story of a group of international warriors, led by the American actor Matt Damon, who band together to fight monsters on the Great Wall of China. The most … Continue reading The Great Wall: Zhang Yimou’s Mythic China

   Like a broken record on repeat, the border police at each checkpoint would peer into our van and, seeing a set of Chinese faces, would always say: “Pakistan China dos.” Dos means friends in the local language. If they wanted to vary the tune a little bit, some would venture to say “Pakistan China brothers.”    The continued goodwill and longevity of China-Pakistan relations—the last … Continue reading China-Pakistan Relations

   Why can’t China innovate? That was the question the authors of a 2014 Harvard Business Review article set out to answer. In a country often perceived as “a land of rule-bound rote learners, efforts to leap ahead in innovation were ultimately limited by the country’s rigid hierarchies and limits on intellectual freedom, the authors concluded.    Skepticism about China’s innovative prowess is not new. For … Continue reading In Tech, China Marches Forward