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).

China’s feudal county cadres: "defamed" and dangerous: At the China Media Project, David Bandurski suggests that the Xifeng defamation is merely one example of the failure of local political power:

But the Xifeng case is all the more disturbing when you understand just how commonplace it really is. The truncheon of "defamation" has come down hard on ordinary Chinese citizens in recent years — the Chongqing Pengshui (彭水诗案) SMS case, the Shanxi Jishan (山西稷山) Open Letter Case, the Henan Mengzhou (河南孟州) Case.

Aside from charges of "defamation," all of these cases have one thing in common. They involve the abuse of public power by county officials to silence dissent, cover up their tracks and attack political enemies. They are what columnist Xiong Peiyun (熊培云) termed the use of "public power to vent personal anger" (挟公权泄私愤).

In fact, the story of China’s capricious county cadres is as old as the hills.

Internet literature: Shen Haobo: At Paper Republic, Eric Abrahamsen talks to Shen Haobo of Xiron about online literature and his love of poetry:

Shen's idea is that the web is hospitable to certain types of writing, ill-suited to others. It's just the thing for avant-garde poetry: short pieces, a small but rabid fanbase, and no hope of publication via traditional channels. "Everything that needs to happen in the world of poetry can happen online," he says. "We can write, publish, read and discuss each others' poems. Reputations rise and fall, schools of poetry form and disperse. This all happens online, independent of the traditional publishing industry or government interference."

Long genre novels are also successful, as their fast pace and easy digestibility make up for the awkwardness of online reading. More literary short stories and novels, however, fall through the cracks – too challenging to keep the average reader interested, and not targeted enough to attract a loyal core following.

Mass incidents in China this week: John Kennedy at Global Voices Online rounds up some online reactions to some recent protests:

Still several months to go until the Olympics, yet just the past few days have seen a number of unrelated mass incidents take place around the country, from the large protest at the Tianmen Party headquarters and a taxi driver strike in solidarity following the the recent beating to death of a local business leader, to the anti-Maglev neighborhood protests that have taken place in downtown Shanghai over the past few days, videos of which have been posted on YouTube by users ubuoo3, qsommerville and tooodou.

Gays in the China Daily: The China Daily has published a sympathetic series of interviews with three gay Chinese men. The online version is illustrated with the type of photo not seen often in China's State-owned media.

Soft opening for new Beijing subway lines: According to Xinhua 'Beijing unveiled three new subway lines including the airport line, line 10 and the Olympic branch line yesterday. The three lines will be put into use before the Olympic Games in August.'.

The lines are not yet open to the public.

A case of cultural confusion: Richard Spencer comments on attempts by Zhao Qizheng, former head of the State Council Information Office, to address "misunderstandings" that afflict China's relationship with the rest of the world:

I am curious to learn more of these misunderstandings, for the reasons given above and also because western journalists are especially criticised for misunderstanding China. I am perfectly prepared to accept that I misunderstand China, but rarely do the people who accuse us of misunderstanding China say how we do so: misrepresenting, yes - such critics say we focus too much on the negative, and not enough on positive changes that are undoubtedly occurring, in parts; of being generally ignorant and inadequate in our language skills too, though this is often harder to substantiate, requiring hard evidence. But rarely is it explained what exactly the great mystery we are misunderstanding is, when we are told off for attacking China's human rights record or whatever.

Sadly, the article, and Zhao's lectures, seemed to concentrate entirely on cultural clashes and did not help here.