Week in Focus: Top Stories You Might Have Missed
What you need to know
Kick back with some of the stories and podcasts that tickled our fancy this week.
Each week, we'll be throwing up a digest of some of the best stories we enjoyed reading or listening to over the past week, with some important stuff and self-referential highlights thrown in for good measure.
The Strange Brands in Your Instagram Feed
The Atlantic's Alexis C. Madrigal recounts how shanzhai tat makes its way from AliExpress to your door by way of content marketing.
Close Up: Chinese Investments in America
As AT&T baulks at the idea of partnering with Huawei to sell smartphones in the U.S., MacroPolo offers up a state by state interactive map showing where Chinese companies have already made direct investments across the United States.
China’s War on Poverty Could Hurt the Poor Most
Foreign Policy's James Palmer ponders the fallout of China's efforts to move 100 million rural residents to cities by 2020.
China Is Winning Its War on Air Pollution, at Least in Beijing
Bloomberg reports findings from Greenpeace East Asia that suggest Beijing is finally making headway at battling its PM2.5 pollution problem.
Behind Taipei’s Safe Spaces for Women
The News Lens steps into the physical and virtual safe spaces where expat and local women from Taiwan's capital and beyond congregate for mutual support.
CARTOON: Kim and Moon Dance on Thin Ice
Our cartoonist Stellina Chen sees new life breathed into the peace process on the Korean peninsula.
There are 5,000 tunnels under North Korea, and US soldiers are training to fight in them
As Quartz issues a friendly reminder that the Koreas are still technically at war, and U.S. troops are readying to battle North Korea's "mole people."
Pod Fodder
Lies, Damned Lies, and Police Statistics: Crime and the Chinese Dream
Børge Bakken, a specialist in Chinese criminology, tells Chinoiresie's The Little Red Podcast that despite claiming to have one of the lowest murder rates in the world, "all Chinese crime statistics are falsified for political, propaganda, and administrative reasons."
The History of Chinese Philosophy
As part of The China History Podcast, Lazlo Montgomery spends a few hours explaining the importance of respecting your parents and how to become one with nature. Be sure to download the accompanying charts.