Category: NYT

6 Charged With Smuggling Goose and Duck Intestines From China

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Some were in crates marked as “pet nail clippers.” Others were hidden under packaged rattlesnakes, a complaint filed in Federal District Court in Brooklyn said. The crates concealed exotic delicacies that were illegal contraband, the complaint said: raw goose and duck intestines, sent from China and destined for New York City shops and restaurants. Federal agents arrested six people on Tuesday and charged them with smuggling the organs through Los Angeles between August 2022 and May 2023, though the complaint also mentions illicit shipments as recently as January. The defendants…

Is China’s Era of High Growth Over?

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China’s real growth agenda China announced an official growth target of about 5 percent on Tuesday that’s already looking hard to pull off. The world’s second-biggest economy is facing headwinds, from a consumer slowdown to weak investor confidence and a trade war with the West. But the growth target only tells part of the story of how Beijing is rethinking economic policy. Left out of the pronouncements: a stimulus package. Investors watch the annual gathering of the National People’s Congress, the country’s rubber-stamp parliament, and a parallel meeting of China’s…

China’s Big Political Show Is Back to Normal. Sort of.

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Finally, it appeared, things were back to normal. As nearly 3,000 delegates filed into Beijing’s Great Hall of the People on Tuesday for the opening of China’s annual legislative meeting, none wore face masks. Officials pressed together to shake hands and pose for photos. Around them, reporters and diplomats from around the world milled about the cavernous lobby, many invited back for the first time since the outbreak of the coronavirus pandemic four years earlier. It was one of China’s highest-profile political stages, and the message being sent was clear:…

China’s New Economic Agenda, a Lot Like the Old One: Takeaways

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Beijing was abuzz with politics on Tuesday. China’s annual legislative meeting — the National People’s Congress, when Communist Party leaders promote their solutions for national ills — opened for business. The event is a chance for the leaders to signal the direction of the economy and outline how and where the government will spend money in the coming year. Yet while aiming high, they offered little. Officials signaled that they were not ready for any showstopping moves to revive an economy battered by a property crisis, the loss of consumer…

The Maldives Is a Tiny Paradise. Why Are China and India Fighting Over It?

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Between a few flecks of coral in the Indian Ocean, a ribbon of highway more than a mile long swoops up from the blue. Since 2018, the China-Maldives Friendship Bridge has connected this archipelago’s hyper-dense capital, Malé, and the international airport — expanded by Chinese companies — one island to the east. But China is not alone in chasing friendship with the Maldives. A 20-minute walk across the capital, next to Indira Gandhi Memorial Hospital, an even longer sea bridge will link Malé with islands to the west. This one…

China Sets Economic Growth Target of About 5%

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China’s top leaders on Tuesday set an ambitious target for growth as its economy is laboring under a steep slide in the housing market, consumer malaise and investor wariness. Premier Li Qiang, the country’s No. 2 official after Xi Jinping, said in his report to the annual session of the legislature that the government would seek economic growth of around 5 percent. That is the same target that China’s leadership set for last year, when official statistics ended up showing that the country’s gross domestic product grew 5.2 percent. Some…

China Scraps Premier’s Annual News Conference in Surprise Move

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China’s premier will no longer hold a news conference after the country’s annual legislative meeting, Beijing announced on Monday, ending a three-decades-long practice that had been an exceedingly rare opportunity for journalists to interact with top Chinese leaders. The decision, announced a day before the opening of this year’s legislative conclave, was to many observers a sign of the country’s increasing information opacity, even as the government has declared its commitment to transparency and fostering a friendly business environment. It also reinforced how China’s top leader, Xi Jinping, has consolidated…

These Downtown Los Angeles Towers Became a Graffiti Skyline

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It was a billion-dollar aspiration meant to transform a neighborhood. A trio of shimmering skyscrapers would feature luxury condos, a five-star hotel and an open-air galleria with retailers and restaurants. Among the amenities: private screening rooms, a two-acre park, pet grooming services and a rooftop pool. A celebrity fitness trainer would help curate a wellness lifestyle for residents. The vision was called Oceanwide Plaza, and the chief executive said it would “redefine the Los Angeles skyline.” An executive for the design firm said it would create “a vibrant streetscape.” The…

A Writer’s To-Do List: Learn History. Learn Chinese. Learn to Draw Comics.

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When Tessa Hulls set out to write a book about three generations of women in her family, she had few illusions about how hard the task would be. The tale was geographically sprawling, and spanned a century: Her grandmother Sun Yi, a journalist in Shanghai, fled China for Hong Kong in 1957, then slowly went mad; her mother, Rose, attended an elite boarding school in Hong Kong founded in part for the mixed-race children of European expatriates, then moved to the United States in 1970. Much of her family’s story…

Murder and Magic Realism: A Rising Literary Star Mines China’s Rust Belt

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For a long time during Shuang Xuetao’s early teenage years, he wondered what hidden disaster had befallen his family. His parents, proud workers at a tractor factory in the northeastern Chinese city of Shenyang, stopped going to work, and the family moved into an empty factory storage room to save money on rent. But they rarely talked about what had happened, and Mr. Shuang worried that some special shame had struck his family alone. It was not until later that he learned about the mass layoffs that swept northeastern China…