The newsagent at the end of my lane in Shanghai always sold out of Nanfang Zhoumo ('Southern Weekend') within hours. For those reporting on China, this famous - and to the Communist Party leadership, maddening - investigative weekly published in Guangzhou was, and still is, essential reading. One week it might contain a serious discussion on the death penalty, the next a critique of the restrictions imposed on migrant workers, or an exposé of the penetration of the China market by US agribusiness. None of these topics is explicitly forbidden, but they are all sensitive subjects that the Communist Party prefers not to air.

LRB 8 July 2004 | PDF Download