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Never before has someone convicted of embezzlement consistently received so much respect and love from their own workplace colleagues. Even when when was in prison, Old Yu went on as normal issuing strategies and suggestions. During those years, from the executives at Southern Media Group down to the ordinary employees, group after group paid him visits, sending joint letter joint letter of appeal. Old Yu suffered for Southern Daily Group, and for the cause of press freedom in China, and to have defended this "criminal", I feel truly proud.
Because sucking up to government bigwigs has served Murdoch very well on several continents, Dover writes, the tycoon believed that China's hostility to Star, which he bought into in 1993, could be overcome. If he could sit down with the proper political leaders, he was certain he could reach an accommodation that benefited all.
But the powerful Chinese potentates routinely snubbed Murdoch, dispatching him and his underlings to speak with powerless junior officials. Dover writes that the "Chinese were well aware of his proclivity to involve himself in a nation's politics if it were to the advantage of his business interests," and they weren't going to budge. The prospect of a Westerner beaming uncensored TV signals directly into Chinese homes appalled the country's leaders.
The Chinese economy, the basis of the country’s power and the source of wellbeing of its people, is today dependent on the import of key inputs. This has been the case since the 1990s. This is also probably the first time in China’s some 4 000-year history that the country has been so dependent on such crucial imports.
This must have created a degree of insecurity among China’s topmost decision-makers in the government, the Communist Party and the People’s Liberation Army (PLA). But businesspersons are not famed for their knowledge of, or sensitivity to, history.
The PLA – this is the name for the Chinese armed forces as a whole – is also the second most powerful institution in China after the Communist Party itself. Its influence spreads far beyond purely military matters, and it is doubtful that anyone at BHP Billiton ever bothered to try and meet with key figures in the PLA General Staff.
The protestors gave me a newspaper article (available here in Chinese), even though it is from the People's Daily it does explain the story a bit. Apparently they drivers had to pay a high license registration fee, several tens of thousands of RMB (they told me 20,000rmb or US$3000), but the government changed the blue truck taxi policy to be more liberal, for there to be more competition. So the requirements for people who wanted to get the license later on was lower and the new drivers didn't have to pay such high fees. The old drivers think this is quite unfair, to waste all their money on a large fee that was then reduced and at the same time having to enter into greater competition.
Via Global Voices OnlineCould this be that rare popular movie that transcends its normal limits and become serious social commentary?
At first it certainly seems possible. The father and son duo are squatters living in a dilapidated and half-destroyed concrete block; Mr. Zhou works overtime every night at dangerous construction projects so he can afford to send his son to a private school. For these two, eating rotten apples is a treat; flushing out and stomping on cockroaches is a pastime.
I found it hard to live in Beijing and write about London. So, when it came to my third book, I was determined that I should write a mystery set in Beijing, and that's how The Pool of Unease was written. It is set in Beijing, in Anjialou, a neighbourhood just down the road from where I live, and has a Chinese protagonist, private detective Song Ren.
In a long conversation that stretched way past midnight at Mao's residence on February 17, 1973, the cigar-chomping Chinese leader referred to the dismal trade between the two countries, saying China was a "very poor country" and "what we have in excess is women."
He first suggested sending "thousands" of women but as an afterthought proposed "10 million," drawing laughter at the meeting, also attended by Chinese premier Zhou Enlai.
Kissinger, who was President Richard Nixon's national security advisor at that time, told Mao that the United States had no "quotas" or "tariffs" for Chinese women, drawing more laughter.
via The Granite Studio.In May 2006, Kean University attracted national attention for its announcement that it would "be the first American university to open an extensive and newly constructed university campus on Chinese soil in September 2007." As the New York Times reported at the time, "Glasses clinked, toasts were made and then leaders of this 151-year-old institution were calling it the most important moment in its history."
Well, it’s now February 2008, and there’s been no such announcement of the historic campus opening. In response to multiple inquiries on the project’s status, a university spokesman offered only brief answers over e-mail. "Kean University is continuing to pursue plans to open a campus in Wenzhou. The application was approved by the municipal and provincial governments and is now with the Ministry of Education for review," Stephen Hudik said in one.
The Chinese have a long tradition of submitting to fate. Throughout China's thousands of years of civilization, with one disaster striking after another; the commoners fastened their hopes one phrases like "the bad will one day turn into the good" and "the struggle with forces of heaven brings endless pleasures". Disasters did not herald the unraveling of society because common Chinese became impassioned by working through them and maintaining obedience to their kings. After each catastrophe, their lives returned to normal until the next one came.
Modern society can not deal with disasters in this way. In face of disaster, the public needs not only remedies, but also explanations and the ability to criticize. And taking these storms as an example, even though the government has shown strong emergency response capabilities, everyone knows that the government's response has been far from perfect.
China's decision to block the shoot of the Weinstein Co.'s "Shanghai" has left some talking of a backlash within the country against foreign influence and wondering about damage to the Chinese industry's progress. Helmer Mikael Hafstrom, who has been in China since September working on pre-production of the Gong Li-John Cusack starrer, said he doesn't know why a shooting permit has been refused....
Sources close to "Shanghai" say that seven other co-productions may have been blocked, but that has not been confirmed. News was apparently communicated to TWC by China's Film Bureau, which regulates the industry. Sources close to the production say that following the controversy that surrounded "Lust, Caution," which raised the call for a ratings system once again, Chinese authorities are now increasingly concerned that other films may tarnish the image of the country, portray aggressive foreign powers or depict drug use. Set during 1941 upheavals, the "Shanghai" plotline includes drugs, sex and war with the Japanese.
But after the first year, in 2001, Siping Municipal Water failed to pay Suez's joint venture for water, claiming to be financially strapped. Without the money, Siping Sino French Water Supply, the joint venture, has been unable to pay taxes, repair equipment, or pay wages.
Suez is now having trouble figuring out who to pressure to get its money. Siping Municipal Water's management began privatizing the state-owned enterprise in 2001 and eventually transferred all of its assets to a newly restructured company called Siping Longyuan Water. The new entity actually competes head-to-head with Suez's joint venture in offering water treatment services. Without operating assets, Siping Municipal Water applied for bankruptcy in 2006, claiming it owes creditors, including the Suez joint venture, $2 million.
Most modern Chinese architecture is raced up as fast and as cheaply as possible, leaving precious little time for original thought or craftsmanship. Yet the three major Olympic buildings have been almost five years in the making.
And they are not just for the summer Games. Each has something to offer a new, specifically Chinese architecture that might yet emerge - against the political and economic odds - in the coming years. For this alone, each deserves a gold medal, though the spellbinding Bird's Nest deserves a special award of its own.
People of my age who are fond of schlocky movies may remember the John Carpenter/Kurt Russel classic, "Big Trouble in Little China". In that movie the Chinese sidekick tells our hero in a moment of peril, "the Chinese have a lot of hells". I always thought this was Hollywood color, but it turns out to be true. Almost. Technically it's more correct to say that the Taoists have a lot of hells. Or, to be perfectly accurate, that they have one hell with a lot of departments. There is no heaven, only hell. Some parts of hell are, well, hellish, while others are not so bad.
In fact, Taoist hell really looks like a mirror of earthly government. It's mostly bureaucracies, some of which happen to be in charge of things like "implementing fifteen kinds of violent death" (十五种恶死司). Others are in charge of anodyne things like "signing documents".
With the celebrity sex photo saga devouring media headlines for days on end and the insider share trading settlement story involving a banking celebrity paling in comparison yet still catching several bloggers’ attention, one might wonder if the rattling repercussion is intense enough to rouse deeper contemplation in society. Is Hong Kong’s social fabric about to undergo some profound positive change? There is always hope.
For a run-down of the Edison Chen scandal, see ESWN.