Must-read China news by Danwei

Yu Huafeng left a prison in the southern city of Panyu on Friday and immediately returned to his nearby home, according to a receptionist at the Southern Metropolitan Daily and Paris-based Reporters Without Borders.

The operator refused to give her name and said she had no details.

Yu was the third prominent journalist detained in China to gain release this month, following Li Changqing, the former editor of Fuzhou Daily, and Ching Cheong, a Hong Kong-based correspondent for Singapore's The Straits Times newspaper.

Reporters Without Borders said the releases showed Beijing was responding to pressure and urged campaigners to step-up efforts ahead of the Beijing Summer Olympic Games in August.

Posted by Joel Martinsen at 9:29 PM | Permalink

From forcing the rescue of hundreds of brick kiln slave laborers last year and seeing it through long after local bodies gave up to being analytical piranhas when dealt obvious official lies, and numerous examples in between, it seems some netizens have realized their comparative advantage over local government authorities and this hubris now brings us the China Netizen Party. These are its founding bylaws:

Posted by Joel Martinsen at 10:35 AM | Permalink

Depending on how you look at it, the Chinese government’s attempt to rein in the Internet is crude and slapdash or ingenious and well crafted. When American technologists write about the control system, they tend to emphasize its limits. When Chinese citizens discuss it—at least with me—they tend to emphasize its strength. All of them are right, which makes the government’s approach to the Internet a nice proxy for its larger attempt to control people’s daily lives.

Posted by Joel Martinsen at 10:20 AM | Permalink

Posted by Joel Martinsen at 12:12 AM | Permalink

Long since having established his reputation as a complete weirdo and occasional jack-ass, in 1934 Dr. Khalid Sheldrake somehow came to the attention of the Uyghur government of the short-lived Khotan Emirate established alongside - but separate from - the equally brief East Turkestan Republic. There are some unverified suggestions that Sheldrake was an agent for the British foreign intelligence service, and that his appointment was arranged in an attempt to extend British influence in Xinjiang and Tibet.

Posted by Joel Martinsen at 3:51 PM | Permalink

The world's most populous nation began its week-long Lunar New Year holiday on Wednesday, but hundreds of thousands of -- perhaps millions of -- people will probably spend the biggest festival of the year in the cold and dark...

...Radio, in particular, is now one of the most popular commodities as the city has endured 12 consecutive days of power blackouts and water cuts as of Wednesday

'We cannot watch TV, so my family will sit together and listen to the CCTV evening gala for Spring Festival aired by radio tonight,' said a local resident Xiaotan.

Posted by Jeremy Goldkorn at 5:51 PM | Permalink

In early 2006, Mengniu developed a new milk based on "OMP research" that claimed to contain certain proteins that are helpful towards calcium retention and bone formation. This milk was sterilized through the UHT process and priced at about RMB 16 per liter. In response, in September of 2006 Guangming released a new product called Youbei, or Ubest, basing the product's claim to superiority on three factors: a slight price advantage over Mengniu, that the milk cows are high-quality imported Holsteins raised on special eco-ranches, and that the milk is sterilized through pasteurization, a process that preserves more of the milk's nutrients.

This was just the beginning. Guangming soon realized that demand for Youbei was strong even though it cost around twice as much as normal UHT milk, and also faced new pressure from Mengniu. When the Mongolian competitor developed a new, pasteurized version of its premium milk solely targeted at discriminating consumers in the Shanghai market, Guangming had to react.

Posted by Joel Martinsen at 11:22 AM | Permalink

In Hu's calculus, reining in Shanghai's notorious centrifugalism will go a long way toward establishing the party-and-state headquarters' authority over the nation's "warlords", a reference to recalcitrant regional cadres who refuse to heed Beijing's edicts.

This is despite that many outside the CYL cabal are disturbed by the fact that Hu has planted his underlings in more than half of China's 31 provinces and directly administered cities. Hu, also CCP general secretary and chairman of its Central Military Commission (CMC), has entrusted the job of taming Shanghai to Politburo member Yu Zhengsheng, who took over from "Fifth-Generation" rising star Xi Jinping as party boss of the super-rich city three months ago.

Posted by Joel Martinsen at 9:48 AM | Permalink

Posted by Jeremy Goldkorn at 10:52 PM | Permalink

Don't expect the oversea Chinese to think in a way like Chinese in mainland due to the difference of educational systems, background. Actually, it's quite interesting to know the thoughts of these oversea Chinese to their 'mother land', about the politics, society and etc. We should be better to hear the different voices from others. He said to me that the initiative of coming to China was to learn more about his 'roots'. Camera is his tool. When he first time arrived in China, it raised conflicts in him. He met many Chinese people and watched their deeds and behaviour.

Posted by Joel Martinsen at 6:21 PM | Permalink

Posted by Joel Martinsen at 5:53 PM | Permalink

Posted by Joel Martinsen at 5:44 PM | Permalink

China has freed Ching Cheong, a Hong Kong reporter for The Straits Times sentenced to five years for spying for Taiwan, Hong Kong's RTHK reported on its website on Tuesday.

The International PEN, which champions writers' freedoms in 101 countries, had urged China's President Hu Jintao to free 40 jailed dissident writers and journalists, including Ching, ahead of the 2008 Beijing Olympics.

Mr Ching, who was reportedly in poor health and whose family had pushed for an early release on medical grounds, was freed on Monday ahead of the Lunar New Year holiday and was expected back in Hong Kong on Tuesday afternoon. No details were immediately available.

He had been detained in China since April 2005 and then sentenced to five years in jail in a high-profile case underscoring China's curbs on the media and dissent.

Posted by Jeremy Goldkorn at 3:07 PM | Permalink

Posted by Joel Martinsen at 11:14 AM | Permalink

The Yanzhao Metropolis Daily editorial is probably right that China could deal more effectively with emergency situations by permitting the growth of an active civil society. But Chinese leaders are terrified of the political implications of a society of do-gooders and people who actively care. Which is why veteran journalist Zhai Minglei asked rhetorically after the shutdown of Minjian last year: "What is the most difficult thing to do in China? The good deed."

"The Chinese people have never lacked good-hearted individuals or the force of charitable action," Shu Shengxiang writes. "What they do lack is institutional support (制度安排) for the effective mobilization of charitable action and giving."

Posted by Joel Martinsen at 3:38 PM | Permalink

Posted by Joel Martinsen at 2:20 PM | Permalink

In southeastern Guizhou, another hard-hit area, officials said there had been extensive loss of winter crops, like wheat. Power has been out there for weeks.

"In towns and villages life now depends on primitive means," said Lu Jiang, a spokesman for Southeast Qian Prefecture. "We get light from burning pine, and families grind grains with stone mortars. It’s not difficult to survive, but to live the way we did before the snow began, we will have to wait until the next season."

Posted by Joel Martinsen at 2:02 PM | Permalink