John Wagner Givens is a Clarendon Scholar and Doctoral Candidate in the Politics department at Oxford University. He is a member of Saint Antony's College and is currently researching lawyers who sue the Chinese state. He has lived, studied and worked in China on and off for six years. He and his lovely wife Debra currently split their time between England and China.

Blog Entries by John Wagner Givens

Ford, GM, IBM and China: A Match Made in the Han Dynasty

Posted November 15, 2009 | 02:49 AM (EST)


On October 28, Ford announced that it had picked China's biggest carmaker, Geely, as the preferred bidder for its Volvo brand. In June, General Motors, the former car giant and current burden to the American taxpayer, announced that it would sell its Hummer brand to China's...

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On the Twentieth Anniversary of Tiananmen: It's Still the Economy, Stupid!

4 Comments | Posted June 4, 2009 | 08:50 AM (EST)


For China and the world, June 4th, the twentieth anniversary of the Tiananmen crackdown, is a time for reflection. One important question emerges from the narrative of this reflection: after 20 years, how could a protest of such magnitude and repression of such brutality have resulted neither in significant...

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Going to the Country: Unemployed Chinese Migrant Workers Return Home

Posted March 9, 2009 | 03:00 PM (EST)


In the world's biggest annual migration every Chinese New Year over one hundred million internal migrants take a break from their jobs and studies in China's swelling cities to return to their families in the countryside. In 2008, snowstorms disrupted travel across China, leaving tens of millions stranded at...

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China Bans Lip-Synching in Response to Olympics Pseudo-Scandal

Posted December 8, 2008 | 10:13 AM (EST)


On November 10th, China's Ministry of Culture published for public comment a draft of its new Regulations for Commercial Public Performances. Normally such minutiae don't make headlines, but Article 29 of the regulations is notable for barring performers who pretend to sing or play an instrument to pre-recorded music....

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