China is securing sub-Saharan Africa’s natural resources at a staggering rate. With the buying spree comes contracts, workers, and of course, politics. (Part 1 of a 6 part series, rest here)

The CIA’s declassified account of the two decades two young officers spent as captives after being shot down over China during the Korean War.

Forty-five days of avoiding the coronavirus.

Inside China’s vast new experiment in social ranking.

The paper reports on a battle of its own.

While political leaders trade threats, the pandemic has made Americans even more reliant on China’s manufacturers.

How the social networks that popped up in Facebook’s absence—the site is not available behind the Great Firewall—are changing Chinese culture.

As labels big and small attempt to gain traction in the world’s largest market, they’re learning that selling pop is never simple in the epicenter of piracy.

Fentanyl is quickly becoming America’s deadliest drug. But law enforcement couldn’t trace it to its source—until one teenager overdosed in North Dakota.

“None of this should have ever happened. It makes absolutely no sense at all. It’s truly crazy.”

“We’re trying really hard to make things better,” said one former Apple executive. “But most people would still be really disturbed if they saw where their iPhone comes from.”

Previously: “Apple, America and a Squeezed Middle Class”

China is neither a Marxist fundamentalist regime nor a universally-surveilled open-air prison, in which one is free to do nothing but worship the party and carry out its edicts. That is however the impression created by quite a bit of the media. I think that’s not the fault of individual journalists, instead more structural explanations are at work. News bureaus are highly concentrated in Beijing, due in part to natural corporate consolidation, but mostly because the government maintains a strict cap on foreign journalist visas. As a result, the bulk of journalists are based in the part of China that has the most politics and the least sense of growth. Everything here is doom and gloom, a fact well conveyed to the outside world.

We stopped at a service station where there were old truck drivers, their vehicles festooned with red banners: “All-out war against the virus, weather hard times together.” The drivers wore their masks down around their chins as they smoked. I asked for water at the only open shop, and the assistant pulled his jacket up to cover his mouth before saying “over there.”

On the world’s biggest polluter.

The culturally-bound mechanics of comedy.

On the railways of China and a trip aboard its latest spectacle, a $32 billion line carrying passengers between Shanghai and Beijing at 170 MPH.

Solving the mystery of Wilbur Ross’ missing fortune.

How a touring dance company battles the Chinese Communist Party.

On boot camps designed to break kids of their web addiction.

An investigation into the killing of Maltese journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia.

On “If You Are the One”, the smash hit Chinese dating show that raised the ire of censors.

JD.com is expanding its consumer base with drone delivery and local recruits who can exploit villages’ tight-knit social networks to drum up business.

The attack by Chinese spies reached almost 30 U.S. companies, including Amazon and Apple, by compromising America’s technology supply chain.

An alleged rape and one woman’s futile quest for justice in modern China.

In the ’90s, a gynecologist named Gao Yaojie exposed an AIDS epidemic in rural China and the ensuing government cover-up. Forced to leave, she’s now 85 and living alone in New York.