« January 13, 2008 - January 19, 2008 | Main | January 27, 2008 - February 2, 2008 »
Propaganda Department Minister:
My pen is pointed; the brush is round,
I've written hundreds of thousands of articles,
I've published thousands of hundreds of articles
Was a single sentence true? No!
Bruce Dover, an Australian, was Mr Murdoch's man in Beijing until 1998. He has written a rare insider's account of how the Chinese got the better of a businessman who usually gets what he wants.
The venture, Baosteel Victoria Iron & Steel Co Ltd in the southern Brazilian state of Espirito Santo, will be Baosteel's first steel mill outside China, the report said.
Construction on the first phase of the project will begin in 2009 and production will start in 2011.
Baosteel holds 60 pct of the venture with CVRD holding the remainder.
Major League Baseball will play its first games in China in March and hopes to broadcast them on local television in a push to internationalize America's pastime, league executives said here Thursday.
MLB, which earned $6 billion in revenue in 2007, is huge in Japan, South Korea and Taiwan, but so far China has contributed little due to minimal TV coverage. Moreover, the game is due to make its last appearance as an Olympic sport for the foreseeable future in August in Beijing.
"We are here to show that baseball is truly a world game and worthy of being in the Olympics," said Paul Archey, MLB senior vp international business operations. "The potential to grow the sport in China is tremendous."
Uniformed workers fanned out and blocked the front gates of city hall, said a woman who watched the protest unfold while manning a door at the People’s Hall across the street. Then the group sat on the ground. They did not shout any slogans or carry any banners, she said, so she had no inkling of what they were on about. "Who were they?" she asked blankly. Public security and military police vehicles soon showed up and officers secured the scene.
Company officials were not aware of the sit-in until it was in-progress, the contact recounted. The Dragon Aromatics general manager, Lin Yingzong, got to the scene from the plant in Haicang district in the late morning. He and other company supervisors met with city officials to discuss the matter and helped persuade the employees to move along. "They still abide by what our company says." The firm sent buses to transport the demonstrators back to the Xianglu campus. They were dispersed within a short period of time without any incident or detentions, a military police official told one local journalist.
The most interesting thing to me about Gan's films are that they're coming from a point of view that's less concerned with dogma and theology and more with the role of spirituality in everyday life, something that's almost totally absent from most modern Chinese films. And he can sound downright dangerous at times.
"The most important thing is whether a person has something to hope for inside. I think a religion, whether it is Christianity, Islam or others, has a major role because it tells us that in the eye of God, we are very precious."
An article in this morning's Metro Express commuter paper reported that a Yum Enterprises spokesperson has confirmed the closing of Shanghai's two Taco Bell Grandes, at People's Square and in Gubei, as well as the chain's single Shenzhen location. Instead of pushing Americanized Mexican food in a tough market, the owners of KFC and Pizza Hut have chosen to concentrate on expanding their new Chinese 'quick service' venture East Dawning (东方既白)
Heilan first came into being in 1996, as a traditional paper literary magazine. It was started by Chen Wei (the other site administrator) in Nanjing, and only put out one issue before being closed down. "You know that period of time," says Zhao, "the authorities were very anxious then. It was an unofficial publication, and even though there was no sensitive content, the fact that it was unlicensed was enough to get it shut down."
Six years later, Heilan found its next incarnation as a website. It began life as a BBS forum, and within a year had added most of its present elements: the monthly magazine, digital publications, and the literary prize. The forum currently boasts 14,000+ members, though Zhao cautions that fake IP addresses probably mean the real number is about half that – respectable for a highbrow literary site, but nothing compared to the likes of Qidian. The monthly 'publication' (网刊, wǎngkān) draws its content from the site members, and gets anywhere from a few hundred to a few thousand readers every month.
if it’s not worth mourning on a scientific basis, it is worth mourning on a historical basis: That telescope and observatory is one of Shanghai’s last links to the great Jesuit scientists responsible for many of the city’s most important institutions, including many of its universities (including, indirectly, Fudan), hospitals, museums (including the much-maligned Natural History Museum), and public laboratories. In contemporary Shanghai, these origins are mostly unknown and increasingly irrelevant; but sixty years ago they were not only relevant, but pertinent: the Jesuits were the key piece in the city’s scientific establishment.
EO: In the coming years, what will be the biggest challenge for or sticking point in China's administrative management system reform?
Shi: First, we must affirm the positive role of the system. If we deny this, then the great achievements it has made during the past 30 years would be unimaginable. At the same time, we must admit that the current system has many problems, and limits the governments’ ability to perform their duty accordingly. If we don't change it, and continue economic, education, medical, cultural, scientific, and social reforms, all of them will encounter numerous difficulties.
As recently as two decades ago, such broad-scale immorality had been considered only an American patent. When I, as a graduate student in the Chengdu Branch of Chinese Academy of Sciences, married an American man in 1988, the director of the Education Department of the institute advised me to leave him.
"American men are notoriously unfaithful. He will abandon you in no time," the director had said. He would be disappointed to learn that my marriage is still intact today, while I hear an increasing number of extramarital scandals from my Chinese acquaintances.
In a filing to the Shanghai Stock Exchange, Bank of China said: 'In line with our initial, unaudited 2007 operational data and taking into consideration ... provisions for possible subprime losses, our bank's post-tax profit will still rise in 2007 against the previous year.
'Our bank believes the SCMP report is completely groundless and we don't know its sources,' the statement said.
• a tendency to refer to ‘the Chinese’ or ‘China’, as if the various Chinese actors all shared the same interests;
• a tendency to focus excessively on China’s interests in oil over other commodities;
• a decided preference for focussing on China’s negative impacts on the continent, and within that, on issues and places of violence, disorder and corruption (e.g. Zimbabwe, Sudan, Angola) over other negative issues (e.g. trade imbalances, undermining domestic manufacturing sectors);
• a tendency to portray Africans as victims or villains; and
• a frequently complacent account of the role and interest of different western actors in Africa.
Monday July 29, 1940
On Japan's crowded list of public enemies, few rate higher than burly, tousled, tough-tongued, 39-year-old Carroll Duard Alcott, who broadcasts thrice daily from Shanghai bold news & views on matters Asiatic. A veteran American newshawk from Des Moines, who has covered a China beat for the past 13 years, Alcott took to the air at the outbreak of the Sino-Japanese hostilities.
Tokyo has lost face almost every time he has opened his mouth. Last week he was one of the six Americans whom Japan's puppet Chinese Government 'ordered' expelled from China. Last week, in a bulletproof vest that fitted snugly around his 220-lb. frame, Alcott was still holding forth over Station XMHA, on Race Course Road.
It’s a great piece, in that it not only covers the tensions between the Senegalese locals and the roughly 1000 Chinese in Dakar, but also the considerable and occasionally violent tensions that flare between the Chinese themselves. Still, to my eye, the most interesting news in the Fitzsimmons article comes down to a single sentence:
Many shopkeepers in Centenaire came from Hunan province and say they received funding from the Chinese authorities to move to Senegal.
Focus Media Holding Limited , China's largest digital media group, today announced that its wholly-owned subsidiary, Hua Kuang Advertising Company has entered into a joint venture agreement with Dentsu to form a new Internet advertising company in China.
The newly established company will focus on providing Internet advertising related services to clients of the Dentsu Group companies in China and will work closely with Focus Media's Internet advertising division...
What followed was a sublimely human moment. President Hu leaned over, cupped his hands, and drank from Zheng Jichao's faucet. It was this dramatic scene that captured the particular attention of Chinese blogger "Zuo You Yi Guo Hui" (左右一锅烩).
"I saw the news today of President Hu Jintao’s visit to the home of that peasant, where he takes a drink of cold tap water, and naturally I was moved," the blogger wrote on January 18. "So I made note of the peasant's name."
Putting "Zheng Jichao" through a search engine, Zuo You Yi Guo Hui found that the villager had had at least seven visits from party leaders within a period of just two months. The blogger's post included the key graphs of officials news stories going back to November 2007, with working links to official news sites on which the stories appeared.
When I heard about Hu Jia, I was full of admiration. I even felt he should be a model for young people to follow. A 27-year-old young man who sought neither fame nor fortune, doing countless things to protect the environment and wearing himself out until he got hepatitis. He had just left the hospital, but often worked until two or three o’clock in the morning. Every day my colleague’s email inbox would contain a large quantity of messages about the work he was doing. The things he cared about and dealt with were extremely diverse and even trivial, but he was extremely passionate about all of them. Full of doubt, I asked my colleague if he was sick. My colleague said yes, he’s got hepatitis. No, I said. I mean sick in the head.
There are many benefits to being a Xinhua employee: prestige domestically, opportunity to travel, comprehensive insurance, access to information and job security (you have to be a spy to get sacked round here). But watching some hugely talented, creative people donning shackles every day is not particularly pleasant viewing. Some may argue: "What do they expect? Their role is to spread governmental love." But I have met numerous graduates (Xinhua only employs fresh-faced university students so they have no time to develop any style other than "Xinhua-style"), who have joined Xinhua and, after a few months work, almost all have admitted the job is very different to what they anticipated - and not in a positive way.
We're sorry to see him go, and we wish him the best of luck wherever he ends up next.Air China Ltd., the nation's largest carrier by market value, fell the most in three years in Hong Kong trading after China Eastern Airlines Corp. snubbed a bid to buy a stake.
The airline dropped 15 percent to HK$8.38, after China Eastern said it 'doubted the sincerity' of an offer from an Air China affiliate to buy as much as 30 percent for at least HK$14.9 billion ($1.9 billion).
China Eastern's opposition may frustrate Beijing-based Air China's attempts to establish a hub in Shanghai and a dominant position in Asia's biggest aviation market. China Eastern's management aims to revive an alliance with Singapore Airlines Ltd. that was vetoed by minority shareholders earlier this month.
When Fang Yibo was dispatched to Africa in April 2003, he expected some surprises - but the biggest of all was being made a tribal chieftain.
On a November day in 2007, under the scorching sun of Nigeria, Fang was formally crowned chieftain by the Akam Oba (king) in Ogun State.
Along with the title came 33 hectares of land, which Fang, 44, can bequeath to his offspring.
'The title is not nominal. It is inheritable. But I won't participate in local affairs. After all, I'm a foreigner here in Africa...
Fang is a project manager with Shandong Third Electric Power Company. When he was sent to Nigeria to build a joint venture power station, the biggest of its kind in the country, he didn't know what to expect.
As a major popularizer of social Darwinist thought, Liang applied it to various subjects. According to Barry Sautman, he wrote that since Hungary was founded by the Huns, it was "established by the yellow race on the territory of the whites." The ideas colored everything he wrote: when writing on education, he combined the idea of foetal education, a traditional belief that the mothers of great men, such as Mencius, had sat up straight and spoke no evil, thus contributing to the moral character of the foetus, with a micro-level view of Darwinism. If the child evolved right, then the nation would too. Women's education was necessary, he argued, because without it they could only teach their children to be materialistic and shallow, and the nation would suffer. Rote memorization would block the development of the brain, and the nation would suffer. Competitive sports were necessary, for both men and women, as he wrote in On Martial Spirit, because without every "new citizen" engaging in physical competition, the nation would be weak... and yes, suffer.
Is China proving that developing countries are better off under an authoritarian regime that focuses on developing the economy, rather than under a democratic regime that gives emphasis to political participation? And if the enjoyment of human rights improves with economic prosperity, isn’t it wiser to restrict them in the short term and allow them only once income levels take off?
According to Randall Peerenboom, a law professor at University of California, Los Angeles and the director of China programs for the Oxford Foundation of Law, Justice and Society, the answer is a resounding “yes” on both counts.
China has ended more than a century of South African dominance of the gold mining industry to become the world’s biggest producer of the ore.
Chinese gold output jumped to a record high of 276 tonnes last year, a 12 per cent increase over 2006, while South Africa produced 272 tonnes, the London-based precious metal consultancy, GFMS, said on Thursday.
Mark Bristow, the South African chief executive of London-listed Randgold Resources, said: 'China is not overtaking South Africa, South Africa is shrinking below China.' South Africa has been the world’s largest gold producer since 1905....
...The scale of the industry has been steadily diminishing since 1970 when it produced 1,000 tonnes a year, about three quarters of the world’s supply at that time.
Shao Longtu, creator of the Shanghai 2010 World Expo mascot, has had a tough few weeks since the unveiling of his 'Haibao' character in December. The blue animation was mocked, ridiculed and compared to everything from toothpaste swirls to Durex condoms. And now, it’s been accused of being stolen from an episode of one of America's finest 80's sitcoms, Growing Pains, staring Alan Thicke, Kirk Cameron, Tracy Gold, and later on of course Leonardo DiCaprio.
Winter is here! But the sky is gray. Help Fuwa fight the clouds and bring back the blue sky.