South China Morning Post

The bombshell revelations about a scheme by which wealthy parents in the US allegedly conspired to fraudulently get their children accepted into elite universities have opened the door to wider criticism of the injustices in university admissions.

These include the ongoing debates about affirmative action, accusations of racism, and legacy admissions, among others.

Yet this most recent scandal overshadowed another case that made headlines this month and which sheds light on another issue…

Chinese goths have mounted a social media campaign to protest a Chinese subway station’s move to bar a woman from taking a train because her makeup was said to be “too scary.”

The woman said last week that she had been stopped from entering a subway station in the southern metropolis of Guangzhou while wearing a long black dress, dark red lipstick and purple eyeshadow.

Security officers said she looked “problematic, too scary,” and told her to remove the makeup before entering the station,…

In the torrent of heartbreaking news last week, perhaps the only silver lining was that none of it was created by a Donald Trump executive order.

Leave aside the US president’s denial that the massacre in Christchurch was part of a rise in white nationalism, and we can at least consider it a week free of efforts by him to alienate strategic allies, disrupt global supply chains, dismantle environmental safeguards or demean minorities.

For China, there was another hopeful titbit. As the…

“Hi everybody, I'm Wang Gang. Today I will teach you how to make braised salamander.”

With that, this Chinese chef famed for his cooking tutorial videos uploaded himself into the center of a debate that highlights an increasing environmental awareness in China.

The Chinese giant salamander Wang butchered on film and chopped into pieces is endangered and protected in the wild, but legal to eat if farmed. But by the time Wang clarified in a subsequent video that he had cooked the farmed kind,…

It’s the last place you’d want to receive an electric shock.

But a recent inspection by Shanghai authorities found that nearly 40% of the so-called smart toilet seats sold on China’s shopping sites were faulty.

Smart toilet seats, which come with functions including heated surfaces, warm water rinsing and air drying, are popular among China’s middle class.

And while in the past consumers had to travel to Japan to buy the inventions, these products are now widely available in Chinese malls…

The US and China are set to negotiate an end to the trade war between the world’s two largest economies. But don’t expect a deal to resolve the underlying problems, say Stephen R. Nagy and Bryan Mercurio.

11 million: the number of urban jobs China promises to add in 2019.

The Chinese government says it will create more than 11 million urban jobs this year – equivalent to the entire population of Ohio – to keep a growing group of college graduates happy. China created 13 million new urban jobs last year.

Premier Li Keqiang made the promise at his once-a-year press conference on March 15, adding that employment has become a new priority in China’s economic policymaking.

“We will not let the…

When the leaders of China and 16 countries in central and eastern Europe gather in southern Croatia early next month, Beijing will be looking to one project as a symbol of what they can achieve.

The project, the Peljesac Bridge, is funded by the European Union and is being built by a Chinese state-owned firm. When completed, it will be the longest bridge in Croatia, with the second-longest span in Europe.

The bridge exemplifies the strategy that China has promoted under the country’s trade…

The phrase “Go back to China” is usually encountered in two very different ways.

When you’re Asian and the words are flung in your face by someone who isn’t, it’s a slur intended to dismiss you, diminish you, exclude you; to turn you into a foreigner who doesn’t belong in the country you’re presently occupying.

But when you’re someone of Chinese ancestry, it’s also a term you’ll hear regularly around the dining table, delivered sternly or with earnest warmth by immigrant parents or…

In the Inkstone index, we break down China into the simplest possible chunk: a single number. What can one number tell us about China? Quite a lot.