News roundup: Who will govern China’s economic centers in 2017?

TODAY’S TOP STORIES

A pair of Party promotions

The South China Morning Post reported today on a pair of important year-end promotions of Communist Party officials. Two of the most important subnational political posts, governor of Guangdong Province and mayor of Shanghai, are set to be filled by Ma Xingrui and Ying Yong, respectively. Ma is a rising star of the Party and the son of a coal miner. He will leave his already-respectable post as Party chief of tech hub Shenzhen (pictured above) to govern China’s most populous and economically powerful province. Ying is a “former close subordinate” of President Xi Jinping and a part of what some have termed the “Zhejiang Clique,” referring to the eastern province that Xi took charge of from 2002 to 2007.

Bye-bye, 2016: The week and year in review

On The China Project this week, we published a roundup of the top China news of 2016, featuring five summaries of big China news themes from the last year, and curated lists of the top headline stories from business, technology, politics, current affairs, society and culture. In case you missed it, last week we also published a video report on Chinese people in New York City and what they considered to be the most important news of 2016.

Another recent piece of The China Project content is “Ian Johnson on the Vatican and China,” a Sinica Podcast episode on the history of Catholicism in the country and on the recent negotiations between Pope Francis and the Communist Party. We also published “Chinese immigrants and students find community through running in Central Park,” the story behind a social-media-based running group for Chinese people in New York.

This week’s news roundups are:

• December 27: A new cybersecurity report may impact tech companies, plus China remembers George Michael
• December 28: Angry words and an aircraft carrier from Beijing over Taiwan
• December 29: Where to now for the Chinese tech industry?

More China news worth reading is linked below, with the more important stories at the top of each section.

BUSINESS AND TECHNOLOGY:

• Opinion: America and Europe should coordinate tougher economic policies on China / WSJ
• Troubled Chinese nuclear project in eastern China illustrates Toshiba’s challenges with staying on schedule / WSJ
• China invests heavily in airports to boost economy and ease passenger frustration over frequent delays / NYT
• U.S. authorities will allow a $5 billion takeover of German robotics maker Kuka by China’s Midea / Reuters

POLITICS AND CURRENT AFFAIRS:

• Chongqing mayor who survived China’s biggest political storm of modern times resigns / SCMP
• The major challenges faced by Xi Jinping in 2017 include political jockeying at home, the country’s economic slowdown and Trump / The Guardian
• Senior Communist official says Chinese Catholics should ‘run their church independently’ / Reuters
• China will prosecute Ma Jian, former vice minister for state security, on charges of bribery and abuse of power / Reuters
• Opinion: Is Trump’s appointment of Peter Navarro some kind of a joke? / Asia Times

SOCIETY AND CULTURE:

• WEI WATCH
  A regular feature about what’s buzzing on Chinese social media
  One out of nine million
  Sina Video produced a mini documentary that tells the true story of a rural child left behind by his parents, who migrated to big cities to look for jobs. This is a common phenomenon: Data recently released by China’s Ministry of Civil Affairs reveals that more than nine million children are left behind in China’s countryside when their parents go to cities to work. Many of them suffer from psychological and emotional problems: In June this year in Guizhou Province, four left-behind siblings aged 5 to 13 committed suicide by drinking poison.

• Beipanjiang Bridge, the world’s tallest, opens to traffic in rural China / The Telegraph
• Chinese netizens mourn demise of celebrity’s online talk show that tackled social and political topics / Financial Times
• As interest grows in great walls, the ancient Chinese fortress of Jiayuguan beckons / NYT
• World’s oldest male panda Pan Pan dies aged 31 / BBC News