Our cover photograph was provided to us by Yidi Wu, currently a graduate student in the history department at the University of California, Irvine. She and her cousin Liu Yiqing, a photographer working for China Water & Power Press in Beijing, visited North Korea as tourists in the summer of 2011, when Kim Jong Il was still in power. Liu took this snapshot of a tram in Pyongyang. On the side is written “Serving the People!” A peek into the windows shows passengers lost in thought, chatting with friends, reading, and, in one case, carrying a musical instrument. Photo used by permission.
This issue opens with both an “Asia Beyond the Headlines” and a “Trends” piece that, though very different, have two basic things in common. Each is concerned with contemporary China and, in part at least, economic issues. The first, Karen Eggleston et al.'s “Will Demographic...
