Gender

A newly wed couple pose for pictures on Valentine's Day at a marriage registration office in Hangzhou, Zhejiang province, China, 14 February 2023. (China Daily via Reuters)

China is cracking down on exorbitant bride price rates to save marriages

While a bride price or dowry is a marriage custom in China, the monetary value of the bride price has been getting out of hand in many places. At the top of the list is Jiangxi province, where bride prices can go as high as US$116,000. Zaobao’s China Desk examines the phenomenon and what is being done about it.
A woman walks along a street with two children in Beijing, China, on 3 February 2023. (Jade Gao/AFP)

It's not just China: Asia faces a shrinking population

Lianhe Zaobao associate editor Peter Ong looks into why Asian countries are facing a declining population, especially those that have witnessed successful economic transformation. What social conditions have led to the staggeringly low birth rates? And is migration a solution?
Two women and their babies pose for photographs in front of the giant portrait of late Chinese chairman Mao Zedong on the Tiananmen Gate in Beijing, China, 2 November 2015. (Kim Kyung-Hoon/File Photo/Reuters)

From Mao ideals to the American dream: What China's 'sent down youths' sacrificed to chase a better tomorrow

The post-50s Chinese generation of intellectuals who were heavily influenced by Mao had the practice of leaving their children behind as they single-mindedly sought to achieve success abroad. US academic Wu Guo remarks that this generation of people who had been sent down to the rural areas, travelled abroad, and finally gained a foothold and settled down in the US, have always been motivated by a religious zeal for chasing a dream.
New Politburo Standing Committee members Xi Jinping, Li Qiang, Zhao Leji, Wang Huning, Cai Qi, Ding Xuexiang and Li Xi arrive to meet the media following the 20th Party Congress of the Communist Party of China, at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing, China, 23 October 2022. (Tingshu Wang/Reuters)

Unlike Taiwan, mainland China lacks top women leaders

Taiwanese academic Chang-Ling Huang explains the importance of gender quota laws in pushing forward women’s representation in politics, observing that while China and Japan have had poor women political representation, Taiwan has managed to be a bright spot in East Asia.
A man wearing a face mask following the Covid-19 outbreak walks past a Chinese flag in Shanghai, China, 2 August 2022. (Aly Song/Reuters)

Female representation in the Chinese leadership: Countdown to CCP's 20th Party Congress

Li Cheng, director of the John L. Thornton China Center of the Brookings Institution, notes that while the Mao-era slogan of "women hold up half the sky" is often repeated, only one woman serves on the current 25-member Politburo (4%), and no woman has ever served on the Politburo Standing Committee, the supreme decision-making body in the country. He asks: what are the prospects for women leaders at the 20th Party Congress? Who are the prominent female candidates for the upper echelons of the CCP leadership? 
A worker wearing protective gear and standing behind a fence in a residential area under Covid-19 lockdown talks with a man on a scooter in the Xuhui district of Shanghai, China, on 16 June 2022. (Hector Retamal/AFP)

Singaporean in China: The Chinese netizens speaking up for their fellow men

Chinese netizens may get things wrong or even be out of line sometimes, but it is also their persistence in speaking up on Chinese social media that has got the authorities on their toes. At the very least, their willingness to make a stand shows they have a certain faith and hope in their fellow countrymen and their government to effect change.
Cartoon: Heng Kim Song

ThinkCartoon

Heng Kim Song has been the freelance editorial cartoonist

The Tangshan incident revealed that the gangsters' violence derives from the age-old patriarchal ideology pervading Tangshan to some extent. (Illustration: Lorna Wei)

A personal account of Tangshan's dreadful societal culture

The Tangshan assault case unearths deeper societal issues such as an insidious guanxi culture that has condoned the practice of turning a blind eye. Worse, ordinary folk no longer even bat an eyelid at such “norms” anymore. When that happens, is the recent violence enough to jolt society and the authorities to do things differently?
Liu Yang is China's first female astronaut in space, and a prominent member of the Shenzhou-14 crew. (CNS)

China’s Shenzhou-14 crewed mission: Mother of two an astronaut in space

China’s Shenzhou-14 spacecraft launched on 5 June, with the three astronauts on board taking on a six-month stint in space. Among them, the greatest focus has been on Liu Yang, China’s first woman in space and a vice-president of the All-China Women's Federation. Zaobao correspondent Yu Zeyuan tells us more about this prominent astronaut.