Must-read China news by Danwei

There is such a thing as quality fade in China and we are always telling our clients to prepare for the fourth shipment. In our experience, quality fade tends to happen disproportionally on the fourth shipment, probably because it is at this point that the Western importer is feeling comfortable enough with its Chinese manufacturer to place a large order and the Chinese manufacturer is feeling comfortable enough to cut corners.

Despite my agreeing that quality fade is a reality in China, overall, I think the product situation in China is slowly improving and will continue to do so.

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Numerous news stories this past month have focused on concerns about the quality and safety of certain Chinese exports. In this opinion piece, Paul Midler, founder and president of China Advantage, a services firm that provides outsourcing and supply chain management to U.S. and European companies, discusses what he calls "quality fade" in China, which he defines as "the deliberate and secretive habit of widening profit margins through a reduction in the quality of materials."

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I brought up this point at work and another Xinhua journalist titillated me with the words, "Here's some inside information for you …", going on to claim the government has played a hand in playing down the film - although I have no idea to what extent. Apparently, it welcomed interest from overseas about the events of 1937 but seeing as there are already a few films on the subject by Chinese directors, it didn’t want to give "Nanking" too much coverage.

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China's response to his order was not without irony. Officials had been pursuing a policy of trying to discourage Tibetans from wearing their traditional dress as a way of stemming the trade in skins. But the priority for authorities in Yushu county was to counter the Dalai Lama. So they told locals that they must wear skins.

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Chinese and U.S. authorities are investigating whether a breakdown in security at their ports allowed an illegal shipment reportedly carrying more than 19 tons of a chemical intended for methamphetamine cartels to reach Mexico, the Mexican attorney general said Thursday.

The shipment led to what has been touted as the world's largest seizure of drug money and the arrest of Chinese-Mexican businessman Zhenli Ye Gon, who is accused in the United States and Mexico of supplying pseudoephedrine to Mexican cartels who then used the drug to make methamphetamines.

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Yin Jianzhong, a senior official of the anti-trafficking office of the Ministry of Public Security, said: 'Forced labor and sexual exploitation are the two new outcomes of human trafficking in China and the number of such cases is rising.'

Posted by Jeremy Goldkorn at 10:53 AM | Permalink

Chen Liangyu was expelled from the Communist Party of China (CPC) and dismissed from all government posts yesterday, the CPC Central Committee said.

The former Shanghai Party chief's case has been handed over to prosecutors, a CPC Central Committee press release said.

Posted by Jeremy Goldkorn at 10:43 AM | Permalink

More significant, where those sites still exist, they are mostly filled with domestically generated e-scrap - NOT imported material. To be sure, much needs to improve in Guiyu - but it is much better than it was twenty-six months ago, when Greenpeace's Toxic Tea Party took place.

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The Vatican must sever 'diplomatic relations' with Taiwan and stop interfering in China's internal affairs if it wants to normalize ties with Beijing, a leading Chinese Catholic leader said yesterday.

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His agenda includes visiting Qinghai Lake, China's biggest lake which is shrinking by the year. Apparently the visit is intended to highlight environmental concerns.

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An 'unprecedented' joint crackdown on software piracy by Chinese police and the US Federal Bureau of Investigation has led to 25 arrests and the seizure of counterfeit software worth $500m, the FBI said on Tuesday.

Microsoft ... said ... 'Countries around the world are expected to experience a significant decrease in the volume of counterfeit software as a direct result of this action.'

Posted by Jeremy Goldkorn at 11:53 AM | Permalink

Eleven students from Bronx Lab High School are headed for mainland China. They'll live with students from Shanghai's Luwan High School and teach classes on American culture to their counterparts on the other side of the world. For their once-in-a-lifetime, two-week experience, the New Yorkers will be sending dispatches to the New York Daily News Web site.

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Executions have a long tradition as public communication. That's why, historically, executions have either been public or very well publicized. Look what we do to murderers/ robbers/ adulterers/ royalists/ deserters/ partisans/ corrupt mandarins/ spin doctors, etc. It could happen to you, so stay in line. Whether or not executions are effective as a deterrent is debatable (and widely debated). But that they are used as communication is indisputable.

Posted by Joel Martinsen at 8:17 AM | Permalink

It seems that I do just the opposite after I started working with Tim. We are constantly looking for China's problems, especially wrongdoings of government and its officials. Sometimes I am worried that American readers get the impression that the Chinese government is doing nothing but evil through news stories about China, including those written by Tim and me. I actually support many of the Chinese government (and my government)'s policies, which I think are trying to seek justice and help the disadvantaged. On the other hand, I believe that problems should be exposed so positive changes can be brought about early on. Journalists should always be ready to pick faults with the government, like flies untiringly searching for rotten stuff. Foreign journalists could function as critical watchdogs in China, especially when the feet of Chinese journalists are bound.

Posted by Joel Martinsen at 12:11 PM | Permalink

In a briefing to local newspapers, the scientist given the enormous task of calculating China's "green GDP" said the project had been effectively killed off by political opposition.

His outspoken denunciation of the barriers put in his way is another challenge to the leadership of President Hu Jintao and prime minister Wen Jiabao, who have staked their local and international reputations on readjusting China's economic model to take more account of its social and environmental consequences.

Posted by Joel Martinsen at 12:09 PM | Permalink

Toby Eady, the literary agent who worked for seven years to get Jung Chang on to our shelves, now a consultant for Picador on Asian fiction, says:

"Two years ago,...English publishers went to the Beijing book fair for the first time. They bought blind without translators lined up. It was a piece of PR or corporate politics. A few years ago I was asked to speak to most of the major publishers about China and I said they had to respect its culture - publish quality in good translation, not tone-deaf translation. Next year there will be a lot published."

Posted by Joel Martinsen at 7:38 AM | Permalink

Kenneth Tan at Shanghaiist presents an Anhui TV report on Tao Xing, a student who's been lauded for taking care of his mother:

It all started when the owner of the store next to Tao Xing's school told his teacher-in-charge that the boy was buying sanitary napkins on a monthly basis. She had thought that the boy was "up to no good" and told him that he should spend his time studying instead.

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The Silk Street market in Beijing, popular among tourists for cheap goods, tarnished its reputation as authorities seized fake name-brand sneakers and sports wear in the latest raid at the market.

Law enforcement workers on Saturday confiscated 553 shoes of pirated Nike, 408 counterfeit Adidas shoes and 160 fake sports suits of the two famous brands after inspecting 11 booths at the market.

Posted by Jeremy Goldkorn at 10:14 AM | Permalink

President Nicolas Sarkozy of France is to push for a more assertive European Union exchange-rate policy towards China this autumn to try to shore up ailing exporters hit by the strong euro.

Posted by Jeremy Goldkorn at 10:04 AM | Permalink

Do you think that Chinese readers have different expectations of a work of fiction from Western readers, and that they're willing to give an author more leeway?
Absolutely. Partly because they believe that the writer can dictate the way things are said. And I think they had to read so much crap for so long that if they get something that's interesting they just can't let themselves put it down. They have no trouble with long, long, long novels - 400,000- 500,000-word novels. They pick up a book and read it. I think they just assume that that's the way it should be. There's a tolerance, an acceptance quotient that I think the younger generation doesn't have and we don't have here in the West. We're not going to be that tolerant.

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Dawang Township of Guangrao County (广饶县大王镇) in Shandong Province has dozens of awards, from "the most livable new town" to "living environment prototype award." But the nasty smell of the town is unmistakably loud while driving through the area. And locals are used to being awaken by the polluted air in the middle of the night.

Posted by Joel Martinsen at 10:53 AM | Permalink

...as the media has sprawled and opened up it's become easier for editors and academics to shoulder in on the ideological beltway and try to impact the speed and direction of reform. That especially has proven to be the case in the lead-up to the 17th Party Congress later this year. Debate over "political system reform" has spilled over into the pages of influential publications. In many cases, they are using the congress as a peg to reprint work published less visibly many months beforehand. And leading magazines and newspapers are covering the resultant buzz and debate, finessing their way around Propaganda warnings to not to rock the boat ahead of the congress. In turn we're gaining an unusual amount of information about the machinations behind the debate and the media's semi-independent role in hyping it.

Posted by Joel Martinsen at 10:39 AM | Permalink