Danwei Picks is a daily digest of the "From the Web" links found on the Danwei homepage. A feed for the links as they are posted throughout the day is available at Feedsky (in China) or Feedburner (outside China).

Very yellow, very violent: 2008 is barely a week old and already the Chinese blogosphere is exploding with snark about a badly made, CCTV propaganda program about the dangers of the Internet. The program featured a young girl who claimed to have seen a shocking web page that was 'very yellow [i.e. pornographic], very violent'.

ESWN has translated the juice of the story.

China's rise: a critical Chinese view: John Garnaut of the Sydney Morning Herald profiles Qin Hui, a Tsinghua University economic historian and public intellectual who has some strong views:

Qin argues China's phenomenal market success lies in stripping its peasants and workers of their rights to associate and bargain.

''Apart from the traditional advantages of low wages and welfare, China artificially lowers the prices of the four prime factors of production (human capital, land, financial and non-renewable resources) with its 'advantage' in 'low human rights'.''

Christmas and Christians in China: b. cheng at the Modern Lei Feng blog shares some photos of a Christmas Eve concert at the Shenzhen Sea World.

Liaoning officials come to Beijing to harass journalist: At China Media Project, David Bandurski tells and translates the story of some Liaoning officials who are traveling cross country to intimidate a journalist who wrote about their malfeasance.

The followup: Public opinion will not lose"

How will Murdoch deal with libel case against FEER?: In an article on the Sydney Morning Herald's website, Eric Ellis, familiar to Danwei readers as the author of a recent profile of Rupert Murdoch's wife Deng Wendi, explains the background to a libel case against the Far Eastern Economic Review brought by the family of Lee Kuan Yew, the island state's patriarch.

The Far Eastern Economic Review is owned by Dow Jones. The article looks at how Rupert Murdoch, new king of Dow Jones, is likely to act in the face of intimidation from one of Asia's most powerful families.

Giant Beijing steel plant slows down for Olympics: From Bloomberg.com:

China's Shougang Corp., parent of the only publicly traded steelmaker based in Beijing, will cut its production by 4 million metric tons this year to improve the environment as the capital city hosts the summer Olympic Games.

...Beijing Shougang is China's second-biggest producer of construction-grade steel.