It looks as if rumours of a staff revolt at China's biggest and most influential business magazine, Caijing, are true (more reports here and here).
It has been noted in the Australian media that the Lowy Institute had organised a conference with Caijing, to be held in Sydney in September. I also reported in July that we had started an online collaboration with Caijing, with Interpreter articles appearing regularly on Caijing's blog.
Due to problems on Caijing's side, the conference was cancelled and the online collaboration has stalled. While we first thought this might be fallout from recent bilateral diplomatic tensions, particularly the Stern Hu matter, it looks like the source of the problems are more Chinese and deeper than any link to the China-Australia relationship.
It will be interesting to monitor Evan Osnos' blog over coming days. Evan is a Beijing-based journalist who recently wrote a glowing profile (subscribers only) of Caijing's founding editor Hu Shuli for the New Yorker. He's well placed to make sense of recent events, but I see nothing on his site yet.
Photo of the latest Caijing front page courtesy of Caijing.
