Must-read China news by Danwei

It is probably wrong to say that sexual inhibition is the only reason why Japanese women are the object of fenqing’s sexual fantasies. In the mind of a radical nationalist, a woman’s body is placed alongside sea and air as something that belongs to a country’s sovereignty. Occupying or destroying a woman’s body is another way of defeating the enemy and a way of carrying forward the national spirit....Once you understand this principle, it is easy to see why the nationalistic spirit of fenqing and their sexual fantasies are difficult to separate.

Posted by Joel Martinsen at 3:49 PM | Permalink

Xinhua reports: 'Xinhua News Agency on Saturday authorized four overseas news agencies including Reuters to release news and information in China after they passed an annual assessment'. Does this new approval actually mean anything?

Posted by Jeremy Goldkorn at 9:08 PM | Permalink

Xinhua yesterday said that it had approved four overseas news agencies including Reuters 'to release news and information in China after they passed an annual assessment'. Last September Xinnhua demanded that foreign news agencies start working through Xinhua to distribute news in China. Although this latest article mentions those rules, they do not seem to have been enforced, and Reuters will probably be getting on with business as usual. The fact that the news was published on Saturday may indicated Xinhua wants to downplay its significance.

Posted by Jeremy Goldkorn at 10:41 AM | Permalink

Jonathan Ansfield provides more information about the new regulations from GAPP seeking to control the publication of online magazines.

Posted by Jeremy Goldkorn at 10:38 AM | Permalink

From Josie Liu's blog: 'An incident of burning dogs in the city of Nanjing drew nearly 17000 comments from web users on Thursday and triggered a huge debate about dog rights.'

Posted by Jeremy Goldkorn at 10:33 AM | Permalink

China announced on Friday that Yang Jiechi is to replace Li Zhaoxing as foreign minister. Yang is a graduate of the London School of Economics and currently China's ambassador in Washington. Li had also been ambassador to the U.S. before his appointment. The change took effect on Friday. New ministers of land resources and science and technology were also appointed.

Posted by Jeremy Goldkorn at 10:16 AM | Permalink

Hollywood's hired gun in DC is threatening a movie business boycott of China if piracy is not stopped. David Wolf of Silicon Hutong has a belly laugh about it and explains why the anti-China noise coming out of LA and DC is counterproductive.

Posted by Jeremy Goldkorn at 11:49 AM | Permalink

The Mutant Palm blogger registered an account on MySpace.cn and searched for words that China's Net Nanny really doesn't like. The Chinese site also searches the U.S. site, so he found plenty of American MySpace members that the Chinese government won't want as 'friends'.

Posted by Jeremy Goldkorn at 8:13 PM | Permalink

In 2005, mobile content provider KongZhong produced a musical parody animation starring a chicken. Now the musician who wrote the original tune is suing them for 2 million yuan. KongZhong's defense: it's fair use because the short is a PSA about bird flu.

Posted by Jeremy Goldkorn at 4:37 PM | Permalink

A U.S. advertisement for furniture that plays on fears of China, on Ellen Sanders's blog.

Posted by Jeremy Goldkorn at 12:57 PM | Permalink

Mark Clayton of The Christian Science Monitor reports: 'In a bid to cut energy costs, boost energy security, and reduce air pollution, [China] could be essentially creating the largest greenhouse-gas-reduction plan on the planet.'

Posted by Jeremy Goldkorn at 12:24 PM | Permalink

From a Daily Telegraph article by Richard Spencer: 'Zhang Yihe, a historian whose latest banned book was a collection of biographies of Peking Opera singers, has sent a flood of open letters and petitions to the government demanding a change to censorship laws.'

Posted by Jeremy Goldkorn at 11:59 AM | Permalink

MySpace China opened for business on Friday April 27, and a Wall Street Journal story reveals that Rupert Murdoch's wife, Wendi Deng, is officially on the board of directors.

Posted by Jeremy Goldkorn at 10:02 AM | Permalink

The Financial Times reports: 'Chinese retail investors are opening new share trading accounts at a faster rate than ever before, in spite of increasing signs of a bubble in the mainland market. In the last week alone, more than 1m new accounts have been opened, taking the total for the last four months to more than 10m – greater than the previous four years combined.'

The FT article does not mention the fake People's Daily editorial about stock market policy tightening that has been circulating on the Internet, as reported earlier on Danwei.

Posted by Jeremy Goldkorn at 9:30 AM | Permalink

And so the yelling from both sides continues, and both sides can fire their zingers at one another and pat each other on the back. Powers examines the English literature produced by both sides, I believe, for a clear reason: because the battle is really one fought on Capitol Hill, not in China. Tibetan activists continue portraying the Chinese public as a swarm of indistinguishable drones incapable of independent thought or political power, even depicting them as foot soldiers in a massive campaign to dilute Tibet with faceless hordes, an outdated Cold War notion that suggests that all that CIA funding until the 1970s has left them in a time warp. No, the [...] movement sees only the power of Washington D.C. and American corporations as capable of swaying China, though 50 years of a failed approach apparently isn't enough to convince them they're beating a dead yak. Meanwhile, the Chinese government must think of them as an annoying pain in the ass, constantly disrupting their diplomatic visits or causing PR headaches like this most recent stunt. But make no mistake, as long as the exile movement continues to ignore the Chinese people and look abroad for action, the PRC will be overjoyed. Go ahead and unfurl your banners in English at the Olympics, shout your slogans, treat Chinese people as brainwashed morons - they'll love the Party even more. But hey, at least you can feel good about yourself back in Sausalito.

Posted by Joel Martinsen at 8:57 AM | Permalink

The Communist Party's propaganda department decided to impose a six-point penalty on Lifeweek magazine after an investigation.

The propaganda department recently introduced the points system for the print media to tighten its control ahead of a crucial party congress this autumn. Media outlets can be closed if they incur a deficit of 12 points.

The magazine's executive editor, Miao Wei, was also disciplined with a "serious internal warning".

Disciplining of media officials ranges from "internal criticism"; "internal warning"; "serious internal warning"; and removal from office and party membership.

In a reshuffle, two deputy editors were appointed recently to strengthen the editorial work.

In November the propaganda department and the media regulator ordered the magazine to reform after the publication of three issues seen as politically sensitive.

Posted by Joel Martinsen at 7:40 AM | Permalink

Eight government departments (headed by GAPP) have issued regulations forcing Internet gamers to register with their real names and ID numbers. Players normally collect 'experience' (i.e. points). The new system seeks to give under 18s diminishing points the longer they play in one sitting. ESWN translates a Beijing News story about the regulations and how people have already figured out how to work around the system.

Posted by Jeremy Goldkorn at 5:23 PM | Permalink

On ESWN: Police in Changchun discovered a group which organized pornographic performances for online distribution, but the spectators are registered users in Taiwan who subscribe to a Taiwan-registered website. The Mainland police could not even watch the performances by normal means. So is there even a crime?

Posted by Jeremy Goldkorn at 5:12 PM | Permalink

Reporter: As a journalist, am I right to understand that once the ordinance goes into effect, as long as the content [I’m looking for] is to be released [under the provisions of the ordinance], government organs should not avoid my request for coverage (or "gathering of news" / 采访)?

Zhou: I can only say that the media's right to interview and the citizen's right to know are different, and that media are not vested with special rights. The content stipulated in this ordinance focuses centrally on protecting the citizen's right to know.

That is to say, if a government at whatever level understands information release as holding a single press conference then they are wrong. But in the ordinance as it was publicized, this point is not sufficiently clear, and that’s one regrettable aspect of the ordinance.

Posted by Joel Martinsen at 1:33 PM | Permalink

From The Financial Times: 'Unscrupulous Hong Kong tour operators could soon need to be a bit more cautious about conning compatriots from the Chinese interior: that gullible-looking sightseer waving a wad of red renminbi might really be an undercover agent.'

Posted by Jeremy Goldkorn at 11:21 AM | Permalink

A blog post by Josie Liu about the General Administration of Press and Publication's new moves to regulate online magazines.

Posted by Jeremy Goldkorn at 11:17 AM | Permalink

From The Wall Street Journal: 'China Petroleum & Chemical Corp. said it won't scale back operations in Africa despite Tuesday's fatal shootings of contractors at one of its exploration blocks in Ethiopia.

The shootings, which killed 74 people, including nine Chinese, underline the risks that big oil companies face when drilling for oil in Africa, even when they have the support of the host country. China has used loans and aid to woo African governments and to secure greater access to oil assets for its state-owned oil giants.'

Posted by Jeremy Goldkorn at 11:12 AM | Permalink

In The New Yorker, Zha Jianying contemplates her dissident brother's status as a political prisoner in China: "I'm visiting my brother, Zha Jianguo, a democracy activist serving a nine-year sentence for 'subverting the state'."

Posted by Jeremy Goldkorn at 1:43 AM | Permalink

A schoolboy [in Guangxi] who climbed over a fence into a crocodile enclosure and taunted the animals with sticks and a catapult was dragged into the water and eaten.

Posted by Jeremy Goldkorn at 11:11 AM | Permalink

From an article by Shai Oster in The Wall Street Journal writes "China is set to surpass the U.S. as the world's top emitter of greenhouse gases this year -- much earlier than forecast -- because of its raging economic growth, according to the International Energy Agency...

...Mr. Birol said China's growing carbon-dioxide emissions, which stem from its near-total reliance on highly polluting domestic coal to power its economy, are expected to dwarf any reductions in emissions from Europe, the U.S. and Japan."

The article does not quote any scientific or technical sources for the forecast. It does have a contrasting quote from Ned Helme, president of the Washington-based Center for Clean Air Policy, saying that China is making serious efforts to reduce emissions.

Posted by Jeremy Goldkorn at 10:53 AM | Permalink

Long Xinmin, director of the General Administration of Press and Publication (Gapp), would soon be transferred to the Central Party Literature Research Centre as a deputy director, a source close to Gapp said. Mr Long will have the same administrative rank but it is seen as a significant demotion.

The source said Mr Long's departure could be a result of his poor handling of the opposition to a Gapp decision earlier this year to ban eight contentious books. But another source said Mr Long's transfer was related to an investigation into the activities of Zhou Liangluo, head of the capital's Haidian district.

Mr Zhou and his wife have reportedly been detained over allegations he was involved in corrupt land deals.

The source said Gapp deputy Liu Binjie would replace Mr Long. A spokeswoman from Gapp's information department said yesterday she was not clear about Mr Long's departure.

Posted by Joel Martinsen at 9:58 AM | Permalink

The government moves to regulate talent in the arts, proposing a set of exams for dozens of occupations. Talent competition producers have expressed their support for the system, but critics counter with examples of famous folk performers who would find it difficult to get certified.

Posted by Joel Martinsen at 6:26 PM | Permalink

The Wall Street Journal reports that today, for the first time since 1949, foreign banks will accept deposits in yuan from Chinese individuals, and offer loans as well. The approved banks are Citibank, HSBC, Standard Chartered and Bank of East Asia.

Posted by Jeremy Goldkorn at 10:19 AM | Permalink

ESWN translates from Zhao Shilong's blog: In Foshan, a neighborhood is in the process of being relocated and several hundred 'scavengers' appeared conveniently to loot and vandalize the homes in order to assist the householders' decision:

According to an April 16 Yangchang Wanbao report, 300 households in the center of Foshan city were subjected to "assault, looting and robbery." On the same night when the news report was released, another mass assault occurred.

On the early morning of April 17, the police and the Dongjian Company which is doing the relocation, summoned the media to a press conference and announced that the "mass assault was made by scavengers." Thus, the most awesome scavengers in history came to light.

Posted by Jeremy Goldkorn at 10:06 AM | Permalink

Multinational carmakers are vigorously courting Chinese consumers and lobbying the government over their competing alternative fuel cars as China emerges as a potentially decisive battleground for the new generation of vehicles.

Posted by Jeremy Goldkorn at 9:59 AM | Permalink

Excerpt:

A 52-year-old farmer turned developer is as plain as his company's English name - Country Garden. But the company's debut Friday on the Hong Kong stock exchange has put him in the record books.

Shares of Country Garden soared 35 percent on the opening day of trading in one of the hottest Chinese initial public offerings of the year. When trading ended later in the day, this little-known real estate developer based in southern China was valued at $15 billion, making the family of Yang Guoqiang, a dirt-under-his-fingers real estate tycoon, perhaps the richest in mainland China.

Posted by Jeremy Goldkorn at 2:32 AM | Permalink

An article by Li Datong — translated into English — in which he argues that there can be no meaningful public opinion on Sino-Japanese relations until there is real freedom of expression and debate in China.

Posted by Jeremy Goldkorn at 2:17 AM | Permalink

In a case touching on the question of journalist identity in China and recalling the recent Lan Chengzhang story, a local Zhejiang court overturned a prior verdict in the "news extortion" case of Meng Huaihu (孟怀虎), former Zhejiang bureau chief for China Commercial Times, who was accused of extorting money from companies using the threat of negative news reports.

Posted by Joel Martinsen at 12:20 PM | Permalink

The story is believed to be the most detailed account ever written about one of the world's most interesting and – through her marriage - most powerful women.

After receiving the story several weeks ago, editor Judith Whelan this week decided not to publish – although Crikey is unaware whether Fairfax senior executives or board members were consulted in making the decision. But given its enormous sensitivity, not to mention the fact that News Limited is currently a 7.5% shareholder in Fairfax, it seems almost impossible to believe that the most senior figures at Fairfax were not consulted in the decision to kill the story.

Posted by Joel Martinsen at 10:08 AM | Permalink

Could it be that bloggers will now fill the gap and provide some of the investigative journalism that is missing from the equation? Unlikely, say leading Chinese journalists. Despite greater freedom that has been promised to foreign journalists during the period leading up to the Beijing Olympics in 2008, Chinese journalists are operating under rules that could get stricter rather than looser. In an interview earlier this year with RFA, Li Datong, former editor-in-chief of a groundbreaking investigative magazine that belonged to the China Youth Daily, expressed doubt that the Olympics would bring any positive change. Li himself was fired last year after publishing a number of sensitive articles, and his magazine supplement, Freezing Point, was shut down.

Posted by Joel Martinsen at 4:49 PM | Permalink

I believe that more than one English-language website has cited this story and so how could the mainstream media (especially the television stations that are following this story) not be aware of it? How could the many continuously updated newspaper websites not be aware of it? But they did not cite this story. Why? It is for the reasons that I listed in my response to the netizen. But most of the Chinese-language websites cited the story and they even omitted name the source in those citations. This gives the readers the impression that they obtained the information themselves. It is understandable that the Chinese-language websites want to report on a case involving "shooting"+"Chinese." But precisely because the rumored shooter was Chinese, they should have considered the misleading effects from an inaccurate source.

Posted by Joel Martinsen at 12:30 PM | Permalink

Late last month, a husband-wife migrant laborer couple from China’s poverty-stricken Henan province working in Beijing killed themselves, leaving two teenage children to fend for themselves. Last week, Beijing-based Sohu blogger Li Yuanyuan took her camera and went to the younger child’s school to see how the community has reacted. In less than a week, the post has already received over 1,200 comments and been viewed over 48,000 times.

Posted by Joel Martinsen at 10:33 PM | Permalink

That's a possible secondary reason for limited coverage of Monday's killings. I have no idea if it was part of the decision-making process or not. But there is a very clear need for a serious rethink of policy. If the killer had been Chinese, China's censorship of the story would have turned a crime committed by one disturbed individual into an international story about China. The propaganda bosses would have produced the very thing they were trying to avoid. Do they understand this at all?

Posted by Joel Martinsen at 4:58 PM | Permalink

Biganzi: I noticed in your SMS you advertised the Christian stations?

Zhang: Yes. Especially the Chinese language channel from Taiwan. A lot of people here are really want looking for it, but they don't know how to get it. It's called hao xiaoxi. Good TV (好消息衛星電視台). It's from Taiwan.

B: Would you say the Christian channels are your biggest selling point?

Z: Maybe not the biggest. Phoenix might be the biggest. But demand for the Christian channels is pretty big.

B: I've noticed that even when all the other channels are jammed, the Christian channels are fine. Why is that?

Z: That's because they don't add encryption their signal. So there's no code to descramble

B: Why? Because they want to spread the gospel?

Z: I suppose so. They hope that everyone can watch.

Posted by Joel Martinsen at 4:46 PM | Permalink

Children speak like Hong Kong movie gangsters. A brave new world for modern Chinese? Or the end of civil discourse? Educator and columnist Wu Fei looks back at the language of the Cultural Revolution for clues to the effects of this new slang.

Posted by Joel Martinsen at 8:34 AM | Permalink

Chen Chunfang, one of the hospital administrators, summed up the purpose succinctly. “The Olympics are coming, and everyone wants to show their best,” she said.

Beijing, of course, is a sophisticated city that is the cultural and political capital of China. Nor it is alone is being accused of public boorishness; some people have even accused, say, New Yorkers of occasional displays of foul language and unflattering public behavior.

Still, some Communist Party officials have publicly fretted that Beijing may not measure up. One delegate at the country’s annual political meetings in March recommended heavy fines and a public education campaign to curb spitting, cutting ahead in line, smoking and foul language.

Posted by Joel Martinsen at 8:25 AM | Permalink

Wahaha’s shareholder structure is extremely complicated, according to this newspapers investigation, there are only over 100 companies that have the three letter name “Wa Ha Ha”. According to Zong Qinghou, among them are: the post-restructuring Hangzhou Wahaha Group Co, 39 subsidiary JV companies with Danone, and there are even more employee (management) stock held “NJVEs”

These NJVE’s began to grow in strength after the 2000 reorganization, Danone’s President for Asia Fan Yimou stated: “Especially in the last 18 months” the NJVEs have had explosive growth. Until present, the total sum of these companies has reached 61 with total assets reaching 5.6 billion yuan, and in 2006 only, total profits reached 1.04 Billion Yuan.

The NJVE’s made Danone furious and they put forward the demand of buying 51% of shareholders rights for a price of 4 Billion yuan.

Posted by Joel Martinsen at 7:52 AM | Permalink

Dingzihu (钉子户) is a Chinese word that means a household or person who refuses to vacate their home to make way for real estate development. Virtual China translates the word as 'nail house' because "they stick out like nails in an otherwise modernized environment".

Posted by Joel Martinsen at 3:15 PM | Permalink

Wang is not afraid to poke fun at sacred cows or to curse China's excitable young Internet users. His acerbic style and sense of humor have made him your correspondent's favorite Chinese blogger. In person, he does not disappoint.

We discussed Beijing culture — or the lack of of it — swearing, idiots on the Internet, Northeastern Chinese jokes about sex, blogging, and the meretricious behavior of Sina.com. This ten minute program was cut from 40 minutes of tape. If you understand Chinese, you can listen to the whole interview as an audio podcast on this post.

Posted by Joel Martinsen at 2:10 PM | Permalink

On the eve of Chinese New Year in 1961, our father gave us one line from a couplet and asked us to make up the second line. His line was 'The big stomach gets a meal.' My elder brother responded with 'The bottom of the wok is empty.' It didn't really make a couplet but it became a family saying nonetheless. None of us has forgotten it.

The second half of 1960 was the worst of all. I'd just started my fifth year of primary school and all we ever had for breakfast was watery rice porridge. Sometimes we didn't even have that. For lunch I'd buy a bowl of pulpy noodles at the neighborhood mess hall. Thinking about it now I realize that the mess hall was a remnant of the Great Leap Forward. You couldn't really call them noodles because there were hardly any there; it was just slop with a few bits of vegetable floating in it, and those were mostly rotten or the outer leaves that you'd normally throw away. How could you produce a big bowl without them?

Posted by Joel Martinsen at 1:17 PM | Permalink

Foreign journalists are almost never permitted into Tibet except on once-a-year trips organized and monitored by the Foreign Ministry. I requested formal approval to come from a high-level Foreign Ministry official, and was referred to his counterpart in Lhasa, the Tibetan capital. No answer. So I came in as a tourist on the train. State security sniffed our little group out immediately.

Since arriving in Tibet, one travel agency has blocked our attempts to go anywhere except an innocuous trip to see some glaciers. A well dressed man, Mr. Chen Yong, who claims to be the agency's manager but has the bearing of a state security official, has offered me lengthy lectures on how I should not talk to any Tibetans because of my status as a "tourist." After ordering our forcible return over the weekend, the agency said we could finally go to Everest on Tuesday. On Monday evening, the agency informed us that our trip was called off. They have retained the traveling papers of one companion, making him temporarily stateless.

We've been warned again to stay in our hotel rooms.

Posted by Joel Martinsen at 12:16 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)