Must-read China news by Danwei

A fist-chop in the throat and surveillance by secret police seems to have put a swift end to the career of China's most popular investigative blogger Zhou "Zuola" Shuguang, but judging from his post earlier this month 'Zhou Shuguang's understanding of citizen reporters and citizen media', if you were to ask him: "is citizen journalism dead?", you'd stand a very good chance of being told that bloggers like him can and must "do journalism", and why. Throw in the way he coldly describes personal accounts as sample specimens below, in addition to making a few criticisms and judgments, and you might just leave seeing citizen media as both an art and a science:

Posted by Joel Martinsen at 10:07 PM | Permalink

Despite momentary disagreements and terse words over exports and the renminbi, many economists believe that China is well on its way to becoming an economic powerhouse on par with the G-7 nations. Although the future tenor of U.S.-China trade relations is likely to include more than a few challenges, Robert J. Barro, senior fellow at the Hoover Institution, takes an optimistic approach: "We should avoid the protectionist policies that now seem so threatening. And we should enjoy the flow of low-priced Chinese imports—this great deal won't last forever."

Posted by Joel Martinsen at 5:16 PM | Permalink

that's: You've dubbed the film for the Chinese mainland. Tell us more about this decision.
WKW: Norah Jones is dubbed by Dong Jie, Jude Law by Cheng Chen, and David Strathairn is done by Jiang Wen. I thought at first that this could be a bit strange, but after making this version I don't think so anymore. I think this version helps the Chinese viewer get into the film. Now I feel it can be shared. The dubbing methods here still belong to the '60s, like when they dubbed Russian or Yugoslavian films. There isn't a creative process – it's a strict translation. But I believe dubbing should be a creative process. It should be like this the world over. This isn't just a traditional dubbed version; it's more.

Posted by Joel Martinsen at 11:39 AM | Permalink

The only time, if ever, most non-disabled people will have interaction with a blind person is when they go to get a massage. There are many of the 12.3 million visually impaired or blind people who do have canes, but the number who would dare to venture out alone with a cane is very, very small and of those, almost none are totally blind. I am starting to feel like a broken record, but the article hints at really how useless Ping's guide dog is. The article offers the quote: "'We were not allowed to enter subway stations, buses and sometimes even taxis,' Ping, a torchbearer for the 2008 Olympic Games, said."

Posted by Joel Martinsen at 7:07 PM | Permalink

Posted by Jeremy Goldkorn at 11:25 AM | Permalink

SCMP Group Ltd., publisher of the South China Morning Post newspaper, rose the most in more than four years in Hong Kong after receiving a HK$2.37 billion ($304 million) buyout offer from controlling stockholder Robert Kuok...

...The publisher's stock slumped to record lows last month on concern a government decision to stop requiring companies to publish corporate announcements in newspapers will hurt sales. SCMP profit doubled in the past five years as Hong Kong's economic expansion lifted advertising revenue...

...Kuok, 84, bought a controlling stake in SCMP from media tycoon Rupert Murdoch in 1993. The company's sales declined to HK$1.2 billion last year from HK$2.4 billion in 1997, when the U.K. handed Hong Kong back to China after controlling it for more than 150 years.

Kuok was rated by Forbes Inc. this year as Malaysia's richest man, worth $7.6 billion. He also has interests in property and sugar manufacturing.

The South China Morning Post's audited circulation fell to 102,013 in the second half of 2006, from 104,415 in the first half, according to its annual report published in April. That is just over a quarter of the sales of Chinese-language Oriental Daily News, Hong Kong's best-selling newspaper with a daily circulation of 400,000, according to BNP Paribas.

Posted by Jeremy Goldkorn at 10:55 AM | Permalink

[Geologist Yong Yang] opened a spreadsheet. On one side was a series of estimates, based on Yong's research, of the volume of water in the Yangtze. On the other side were the official estimates prepared by the government's Yellow River Conservancy Commission. The government data was supposed to be secret, but Yong had obtained it from a network of friends and former colleagues inside the government.

Yong found that the official figures were often "way off." In one section of the river, the government's plans call for diverting between 8 and 9 billion cubic meters of water north each year. However, Yong's research—supported by thirty years' worth of reports from hydrology monitoring stations—indicates that the average annual water flow for that section includes a low estimate of 7 billion cubic meters. This means that when the river flow is low, the government would be hoping to divert an amount of water greater than the total volume in the river. Moreover, no sound engineering plan should call for redirecting all of the water in a river, since downstream communities, including Shanghai, will still depend upon the Yangtze for agriculture, industry, and hydropower.

Posted by Joel Martinsen at 10:53 AM | Permalink

At the time I thought that I wanted to hold an attitude that we are friends and not enemies. If I have to make a joke, I should be able to. I ignored all the formal rules and regulations of the meeting. Ultimately, I had faith in the quality of the citizens. Most of the citizens are on the same side as the government -- we are all working for Xiamen. Only a small minority want to cause trouble.

Besides, more than 50% of the forum participants were young people who are easily excitable. If the forum was mismanaged, it would only cause resentment.

For each step, we had several proposals to choose from. We consulted the Internet opinion, especially the negative opinions. We disclosed all the details so that no one can complain. Since people accused the government of staging a show, we decided to reveal to them everything that we were doing. For example, the selection of speakers was supposed to be done by adults; since someone said on the Internet that the drawing was fixed, we asked children to draw the numbers. Although there was no reason to draw out all 200 numbers, we drew all 200 numbers sequentially to show that no number had been excluded.

Posted by Joel Martinsen at 10:20 AM | Permalink

Recent buzz in literary and publishing circles has painted this hub, which straddles the East and West, as the coming of age literary centre of Asia. Hong Kong, long obsessed with celebrity gossip and the feng shui of success, is now stepping forward in a very different limelight. The city has an up and coming literary festival, its own literary magazine and recently inaugurated an international prize aimed at boosting the profile of Asian literature.

But despite these nascent stirrings writers here say the cluster of companies that control the global publishing business has been slow rediscovering Asian literary works after the demise of the colonial era. Their pursuit of instantaneous hits has shut many literary gems out of the global market, allowing only a small number of non-English books to enter the inner sanctum of English-language audiences.

Even as interest in original voices from Asia -- a continent still perceived as full of exotic allure in the West -- flares anew, Asian writers are struggling to get their works published and recognised outside of their home countries.

Posted by Joel Martinsen at 11:36 PM | Permalink

You simply could not make it up. Ten Hollywood screenwriters locked in a closet with a kilo of blow, a brick of twenty dollar bills, your sister and a cigar-smoking chimpanzee in boxer shorts wouldn't come up with this. Even if they weren't on strike. Only China comes up with this. And not only does China alone come up with this, but the story also nicely draws together all the threads of the modern, Chinese narrative and ties them into a pretty bow. Just look at what this story offers: Social Issues...Sex...Corruption...Mass incidents...Ants...The whole thing was harmonized

Posted by Joel Martinsen at 2:17 PM | Permalink

Since Hu's pronouncements came out last October, we've gotten a glimpse of what the above passage means — basically, more media commercialization under party control. It means the creation of bigger, more powerful, more consolidated Chinese media groups that do the party's bidding, an intensification of Hu's earlier policies of the "Three Closenesses" (三贴近) and "media strengthening" (做强做大).

It was no mere coincidence when GAPP minister Liu Binjie (柳斌杰) announced on October 17 that China would now allow "comprehensive listings" (of both business and editorial sides) by media companies and invite an infusion of capital from major state-owned enterprises. Nor was it a surprise when news followed on November 20 that Liaoning Publishing & Media Company Limited (辽宁出版传媒股份有限公司) had become the first Chinese media company to make a so-called "comprehensive listing."

Posted by Joel Martinsen at 1:29 PM | Permalink

In 2003, this was, all in all, a very good idea. And, had China decided to maintain the strict quarantine/inspection procedures that it instituted during SARS, that would have been justifiable: protecting China's population from imported disease is in the national interest, under any definition. But, no surprise, as SARS ebbed, so did the strict quarantine procedures, and eventually - say, within a year of SARS - those procedures had been reduced to the quarantine forms. Since then, everybody - including China’s health authorities - has realized that that the quarantine forms are silly. It was just a matter of finding the right excuse to get rid of them.

Posted by Joel Martinsen at 1:25 PM | Permalink

Before you start griping that blogs are going to take CNN down a peg (and I'm not griping about that at all), consider what it's like when your CNN is CCTV, when your AP is Xinhua. Remember the Chongqing Nail House? Or the PX plant in Xiamen? Not a whole lot of coverage there in China Daily.

Now think about countries that don't even have that much news. Heard much out of Africa lately?

When you actually want to find out in countries that aren't overflowing with media, that don't have 24-hour cable networks following Larry Craig into the bathroom and checking into where Hillary Clinton is getting her campaign money (as they should), places that only make headlines when they get wiped out by tsunamis, who else is out there?

Posted by Joel Martinsen at 12:09 PM | Permalink

Beijing's plan to invest $5 billion in Morgan Stanley caps a milestone year for China's deal makers: For the first time, Chinese companies and the government bought more overseas than foreign buyers have invested in China.

Chinese buyers have spent $29.2 billion acquiring foreign companies so far this year, while investors from the rest of the world have bought $21.5 billion of Chinese companies, according to Thomson Financial.

The investment in Morgan Stanley will give state-run China Investment Corp. -- a sovereign-wealth fund, essentially the government's money pile -- as much as 9.9% of the Wall Street giant

It is the latest in a string of bailouts of financial giants by foreign investors as the firms struggle with souring mortgage-related investments. Indeed, yesterday Morgan Stanley reported a $9.4 billion write-down for its fiscal fourth quarter on its U.S. subprime and other mortgage investments...

Posted by Jeremy Goldkorn at 11:17 AM | Permalink

The World Bank has agreed to work with Chinese development bodies on aid programmes in Africa and elsewhere as part of an effort to transform relations with a country that is fast rivalling its influence as a lender.

Robert Zoellick, the World Bank president, said on Tuesday that he had agreed with Li Ruogu, the head of the Ex-Im Bank, a big state-owned lender, to seek joint projects in Africa.

Posted by Jeremy Goldkorn at 6:13 PM | Permalink

Voracious demand for books and a crackdown on small, polluting paper mills have caused a paper crunch in China, pushing up the price of paper by 10 percent so far this year and forcing printers to delay books and publishers to raise prices.

So far the problems have been largely confined to China, but experts say that if the trend is unchecked, publishers worldwide could find themselves paying higher costs - and consumers facing higher book prices.

Posted by Joel Martinsen at 5:28 PM | Permalink

Shares in top Chinese milk processor Mengniu Dairy slid nearly 4 percent on Wednesday after France's Danone said it was pulling out of their dairy venture before it had got off the ground, citing slower-than-expected progress.

Danone's pullout raises questions over the French company's other partnerships in China -- a market that yields close to one-10th of its global revenue -- especially after ties with national drinks champion Wahaha soured when the two publicly accused each other of trademark violations.

Danone, the world's largest food and drinks maker, owns more than one-fifth of Huiyuan, China's biggest producer of juice drinks, and has partnerships with several other well-known local firms including Shanghai's Aquarius.

Posted by Joel Martinsen at 4:21 PM | Permalink

An old friend of mine was recently made director of a county-level environment bureau. He recently paid me a visit and I congratulated him on his appointment, but he simply shook his head and told me he was troubled.

County-level directors, he said, are in a difficult position. In theory, they are subordinate to higher-level environment bureaus, but they are managed by the county Communist Party and government committees, meaning they take orders from local government officials. And while these officials may support environmental protection, they are more worried about GDP, finances and the evaluation of their performance. For instance, generating income from taxes to pay public sector workers such as teachers is accorded a far higher priority than the environment. The local government will often side with polluters, but the environment bureau is supposedly responsible for preventing pollution, so will take the heat for any failure.

Posted by Joel Martinsen at 3:28 AM | Permalink

I had seen craptaculicious extravaganzas on CCTV of course, and was always struck by how similar they all seemed - the lights, the costumes, the dance spectacles, the music, the Las Vegas cheesiness, everybody smiling so wide you fear they'll get some kind of lip infection.... But seeing it up front was intense. I have to admit, I was mesmerized and in awe; it' so overwhelming, you've little choice but to be in awe - - at least for a while. The performing isn't necessarily bad. In fact, some of the singers were quite talented, and the comedian with the odd bald head with a splotch of hair on the side had an amazing ability to imitate the sounds of animals and whistles of birds.

Posted by Joel Martinsen at 9:06 PM | Permalink

Compared with Li Xinjun and A Sheng, Li Chenchen seems to be closer to his dream. Like Wang Baoqiang, who was picked for a leading role in Blind Shaft, Li Chenche was chosen by director Jia Zhangke to act as worker "Er Guniang" in his film The World in 2003. But fate seems to favor him less than it does Wang Baoqiang, who later became well-known by A World without Thieves and won even wider praise through Soldier Sortie. The World didn't end Li's wandering life at the studio's gate. Since then, he has only acted as "insignificant characters that did not impress the audience".

Posted by Joel Martinsen at 5:12 PM | Permalink

Posted by Joel Martinsen at 11:51 AM | Permalink

I don't like the Regulation getting rid of group renting. Sometimes I just feel helpless and hopeless since I am not a Shanghainese and if there is no cheap, clean and convenient place to live, how could I work here anymore?

Posted by Jeremy Goldkorn at 11:21 AM | Permalink

Chinese citizens will soon be able to buy shares and mutual funds in London and New York through their local banks after a regulatory reform that marks a further step in the export of Chinese capital into global markets.

A scheme under which Chinese can now legally buy shares in Hong Kong will be extended to include London under an agreement between the China Banking Regulatory Commission and British regulators.

Posted by Jeremy Goldkorn at 10:53 AM | Permalink

The Zhenghui Clothing Factory is located in Xinhuo village, Sandong Avenue, Huadu district, Guangzhou city. According to the worker named Ah Guo, the company distributed a "VG Company investigative questionnaire" to the workers more than two months ago. There were ten questions with answers listed on this sheet. The workers were ordered to memorize these answers. On payday, the people from the Finance Department and Human Resources Department would go down to the factory floor and quiz the workers. When a worker provides an incorrect answer, his pay would be withheld until he memorizes the answers and passes a re-test. Basically, the workers will not be paid until they get all the answers right. December 5 was payday but many workers have still not gotten their October pay because they gave the wrong answers.

Posted by Joel Martinsen at 6:46 PM | Permalink

Posted by Joel Martinsen at 6:24 PM | Permalink

Posted by Joel Martinsen at 4:46 PM | Permalink

The spokesperson said the State Forestry Administration (SFA) would not "go beyond its position" to evaluate authenticity of these photos. At the end of the press conference, the deputy director of the State Forestry Administration (SFA), Zhu Lieke said: "There are a lot of photographs of the Loch Ness Monster in the museum. People care about the existence of the monster rather than the authenticity of the photos." This response again generated furious criticism from netizens. In one online survey, participated in by 71,000 Internet users, 90% of participants were not satisfied with the government's response.

On December 8th, CCTV's News Investigation program had a full hour program entitled: "Questions on the Photos of the Huanan Tiger." The anchor Chai Jing (柴静) interviewed all related parties and her sharp questions and investigation further revealed the inconsistencies in Zhou Zhenglong's and local officials' denials and obscuring of the truth.

CDT's Fan Linjun translated the following article, by Wang Heyan, from Caijing Magazine on December 11, 2007, which illustrates that the significance of this "Tigergate" event has gone beyond the authenticity of a group of digital photos. Rather, it is a reflection of the existing crisis of public trust in China society.

Posted by Joel Martinsen at 1:58 PM | Permalink

The trade union representing workers at Hangzhou Wahaha Group has filed a lawsuit against joint venture partner Groupe Danone, claiming that Wahaha's interests have been damaged by the French group's legal actions.

Speaking on Friday, Danone's Asia-Pacific president, Emmanuel Faber, said that the company is willing to suspend all legal moves if the Wahaha Group takes 'concrete action' that would lead to further negotiations on the dispute.

Posted by Jeremy Goldkorn at 11:48 AM | Permalink