deutschlandfunk.de: "China möchte bis 2020 ein System aufbauen, das das Verhalten seiner Bürger bewertet. Es soll möglichst alles erfassen: Zahlungsmoral, Strafregister, Einkaufsgewohnheiten und soziales Verhalten. Chinas Kommunistische Partei möchte damit den moralisch einwandfreien und ehrlichen Bürger schaffen." Weiter
Vast new cities of apartments and shops are being built across China at a rate of ten a year, but they remain almost completely uninhabited ghost towns. It’s all part of the government’s efforts to keep the economy booming, and there are many people who would love to move in, but it’s simply too expensive for most. Video journalist Adrian Brown wanders through malls of vacant shops, and roads lined with empty apartment buildings… 64 million apartments are said to be empty across the country. So are the efforts to boost the economy going to end up having the opposite effect and creating a financial crisis for China? Read on
BBC: "Robert Worby reports from Shanghai on the range of new music being made in this rapidly-expanding metropolis. In tune with the city's futuristic skyline, he finds much of the musical creativity in electronic sounds, both in the lavishly-funded hi-tech E-Arts Festival, and in the thriving underground 'noise' scene.
Robert discovers the earliest Chinese electronic music in the archives of the Conservatory and finds composers such as Chen Qiangbin combining traditional Chinese instruments with electronic sounds. He also attends an underground gig featuring Porn Moon Twins." Listen here
BBC: "In the first of two reports from China, Robert Worby visits Beijing to investigate the thriving new music scenes, both official and unofficial. The programme includes electronic music by Zhang Xiaofu, who runs the city's electronic music festival, and a concert specially devised by the Beijing New Music Ensemble, playing music by three generations of Chinese composers. They range from Gao Weijie, of 'the lost generation' that had to go underground during Mao's time, to Zhang Shouwang, a twentysomething composer whose piece Xizhimen Traffic Lights was inspired by the incessant rhythms of downtown Beijing traffic." Listen here
npr.org: "The sky is high and the emperor is far away." The logic of the traditional Chinese saying is that the farther you are from the capital, the freer things are.
But in reality, a lot goes on in Beijing, right under the "emperor's" nose. Today's Beijing is home to rock 'n' roll rebels, subversive artists and a livelier alternative cultural scene than in any other Chinese city." Listen here
