« April 13, 2008 - April 19, 2008 | Main | April 27, 2008 - May 3, 2008 »

April 26, 2008

574 million mobile phone users

From The China Daily:

The mobile phone subscribers in China has risen to more than 574 million by March, as more fixed-line users switched to mobile services on lower rates, according to the Ministry of Industry and Information...

The nation's fixed-line operators lost 4.4 million subscribers in the first quarter, reducing the total fixed-line users to 361 million by the end of last month...

...The telecom industry reported revenue of 194.1 billion yuan (27.7 billion U.S. dollars), 10.8 percent higher than a year ago.

Posted by Jeremy Goldkorn at 8:30 PM |

April 25, 2008

Hello, Dalai: talking again

Melinda Liu blogs at Newsweek's Countdown Beijing in response to the news that China may start up talks with representatives of the Dalai Lama.

But institutionalized talks between the two sides broke down in 2006. When my colleague Sudip Mazumdar and I interviewed the Dalai Lama in Dharmsala on March 20, he said he'd received private messages of sympathy from ordinary citizens, and even some officials, in China. And he expressed his extreme willingness to talk with President Hu Jintao and Premier Wen Jiabao, for whom he professed "great respect".

Posted by Joel Martinsen at 8:37 PM |

Back to Our Motherland

The Mutant Palm comments on a website that instructs fed-up Chinese Canadians in how to renounce their citizenship and go back to mainland China.

More at Amoiist and Black and White Cat.

Posted by Joel Martinsen at 5:46 PM |

Sweatshop report: Nine Dragons Paper a top exploiter

Interlocals reports on an investigation by Students and Scholars Against Corporate Misbehavior (SACOM) into working conditions at Nine Dragons Paper, a major corporation whose chair, Zhang Yin, has been quite vocal in her opposition to the new labor law:

Instead of giving proper response to the criticism, Zhang Yin tried to politicize the issue by saying that SACOM has been receiving European fund for badmouthing Chinese corporations. Zhang claimed that "they are targeting at the Olympic!"

Labour Unions in Guangdong and Dongguan have started to investigate the Nine Dragons paper labour condition, and they confirmed that the corporate had had the policy for fining workers who were victims of industrial accidents. However, they supported Zhang Yin’s claim that SACOM is organized to badmouth Chinese corporate and has been contributing to boycott on China product.

Posted by Joel Martinsen at 5:36 PM |

Darkness in the "White House"

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A district government building in Fuyang, Anhui Province, that's called the "White House" by locals (though it looks more like the US Capitol) is at the center of a suicide and corruption scandal.

Posted by Joel Martinsen at 5:15 PM |

China tries to reassure France

Xinhua's English website is today full of stories about China's good intentions to France, such as this Xinhua story titled 'President Hu: China values ties with France, unwilling to see events hurting Chinese feelings'.

Posted by Jeremy Goldkorn at 10:09 AM |

The art of translation

At Artforum, Lee Ambrozy reflects on a debate between author Jiang Rong and translator Howard Goldblatt over perceived imperfections in the English translation of Wolf Totem:

How is it exactly that we go about viewing and interpreting art at an axiomatically global moment? While the appreciation of fine art does not require knowledge of a vocabulary or grammar (two eyes and visual references will do—perhaps one reason why Chinese art has been so much more widely circulated in the West than Chinese fiction), this candid dialogue between the most respected translator in the field and his subject demonstrated that not even professional eminence and the best of intentions can mitigate utter misunderstanding. One wonders how many similar conversations have unfolded between Chinese artists and the foreign curators and critics of their works.

via Sinopop

Posted by Joel Martinsen at 10:01 AM |

April 24, 2008

Interview with a bullish environmentalist

Daniel Beekman has interviewed Wu Dengming, a former PLA officer who has dedicated himself to fighting for China's forests and rivers for the last 20 years.

Posted by Jeremy Goldkorn at 10:40 PM |

China Daily: Nude photos of supermodels

Special thanks to China Daily for offering us free previews of nude photos of Kate Moss and Gisele Bundchen that will be auctioned off for thousands of dollars.

Posted by Jeremy Goldkorn at 9:08 PM |

Rock fest harmonized

At Newsweek's Countdown Beijing blog, Jonathan Ansfield reports on the cancellation of the Midi Festival due to security concerns, and takes a look back at the festival's history:

Even the district government where the park is located was invested in Midi 2008. Despite speculation that clamps on non-Olympic events pre-Olympics would do in the rockfest, the Haidian District was kicking in 500,000 yuan, according to Chinese reports. But it apparently would take a lot more than money right now for Midi to hire police, who are already required to provide heavy security for the fest to get the go-ahead from police. But no security means no permit, either.

The tbjblog also has a report.

Posted by Joel Martinsen at 12:39 PM |

The best building in Beijing

At the Bejing by Foot blog, Eric Abrahamsen describes the history and current situation of the New World Shopping Center:

This four-story building provided entertainment in the form of music, shows and dining, and all the fanciest people were seen there. It had a rooftop garden and was one of three buildings in Beijing to sport an elevator. Its glory days were short however: a guest committed suicide here in 1918, and shortly after that the walls of another nearby pleasure-palace collapsed, killing yet more partygoers. That killed the local vibe, and marked the end of Xiangchang Lu as the Sunset Boulevard of its day.

Posted by Joel Martinsen at 12:08 PM |

The boy in the Black Hole

David Bordwell visits Martin Chappell, the sound designer for Milkyway films like PTU and Sparrow:

It’s important to have a recorder with you all the time. You never know when some drunk is going to burst into song whilst lying in the gutter. In Sparrow, Simon Yam challenges Ka Dung to steal the cop’s handcuffs when they’re outside a bar late at night. So I just pulled the recording I’d made earlier of some drunk guys singing karaoke. It was late one night, I was walking back from the pub, and I heard it echoing out an alleyway.

I feel I’m incredibly lucky. I went out one night to get fresh recordings of a minibus for Linger. I’d scouted the spot, but when I got there the heavens opened and I didn’t have an umbrella. I ran to a nearby bridge—serendipity. I realize it’s next to a tram road, so I recorded buses and trams in the rain, and these sounds feature prominently in Sparrow.

Posted by Joel Martinsen at 11:57 AM |

Who to blame for empty search results

ESWN translates an account by a Qianlong reporter who attempted to show western media bias on the Lhasa riot issue by searching for keywords in the online databases of major news wires, and a response by a blogger who critiques the reporter's search skills and points out that "this page cannot be displayed" means that the keywords have tripped China's filters.

Posted by Joel Martinsen at 10:04 AM |

Australia, BOCOG tussle over torch security rules

The Herald Sun reports on a press conference that "descended into farce" when capital police got into an argument with the Beijing representative over who gets to guard the torch:

They were "trained security personnel with the ability to cover and evacuate the torch bearer in the case of an emergency", Mr Qu said as he read from the BOCOG relay manual. "Flame attendants are deployed alongside and behind the torchbearer to respond to any immediate threat against the flame or the torchbearer."

It is believed the BOCOG document also contains clauses, not read out by Mr Qu, stating that any security activity by the flame attendants would have to be at the behest of local authorities.

A clearly furious [ACT Chief Minister John Stanhope], sitting metres from Mr Qu, said there were "communication issues& about the Chinese guards' role."

Posted by Joel Martinsen at 9:32 AM |

Saving Beijing’s reservoirs

Gaoming Jiang, professor at the Chinese Academy of Sciences’ Institute of Botany, writes for China Dialogue on how Beijing can ensure an adequate supply of clean water:

Beijing could, at no great cost, change the way upstream agriculture operates and encourage the use of organic fertilisers instead of chemicals; the use of straw to feed livestock; dung to fuel methane power generation; and the by-products used as fertiliser – rather than being dumped into rivers. Beijing’s consumers could enjoy organic products produced upstream, the farmers could have a secure income and the rivers would be cleaner.

Posted by Joel Martinsen at 9:00 AM |

April 23, 2008

The retrial of Xu Ting

Two legal experts talk to The Economic Observer about the retrial of Xu Ting, who had his life sentence for ATM theft reduced to five years after a media outcry led the courts to reconsider:

When the case was returned to the lower court, the latter was under the impression that its superior was unhappy with the severe judgment, thus it started reviewing the case by arguing that the nature of "theft" in this case was unique as it was due to ATM malfunctioning. To alter the verdict, the lower court needed a legal ground, and found article 63 (2) of the Criminal Law that allowed the penalty to be mitigated based on unique circumstances of the case and with approval from the Supreme Court.

During the top legislative meets (in March), some higher court officials have openly commented through the media that the penalty on Xu was too harsh, this action is against the principle of judiciary independence, against the independence of the local court and the judge to carry out trial. Judicial proceeding should not blindly succumb to public pressure, however, it should pay attention to public opinion, this has been a practice in many countries.

Posted by Joel Martinsen at 9:31 PM |

Crazy English: the national scramble to learn a new language

Evan Osnos writes for the New Yorker about Li Yang's motivational English training program:

Li professes little love for the West. His populist image benefits from the fact that he didn’t learn his skills as a rich student overseas; this makes him a more plausible model for ordinary citizens. In his writings and his speeches, Li often invokes the West as a cautionary tale of a superpower gone awry. "America, England, Japan—they don’t want China to be big and powerful!" a passage on the Crazy English home page declares. "What they want most is for China’s youth to have long hair, wear bizarre clothes, drink soda, listen to Western music, have no fighting spirit, love pleasure and comfort! The more China’s youth degenerates, the happier they are!" Recently, he used a language lesson on his blog to describe American eating habits and highlighted a new vocabulary term: "morbid obesity."

via Pinyin News, which promises a critical study of Li Yang's methods in the near future.

Posted by Joel Martinsen at 4:55 PM |

China faced with severe botnet problem

IDG News Service reports on recently-released data from China's National Computer Network Emergency Response Technical Team (CNCERT):

the estimate shows Chinese computers are disproportionately affected by the problem, accounting for 58 percent of all bot-controlled computers around the world. Moreover, the CNCERT numbers imply that 4.6 percent -- nearly 1 in 20 -- of the 78 million Chinese computers capable of accessing the Internet and in use at the end of 2007, based on a survey by the China Internet Network Information Center, were bot-controlled.

Posted by Joel Martinsen at 1:27 PM |

Chinese flags go overseas

China Daily reports that national flags donated through online appeals are being sent - sometimes free of charge - to various cities along the torch relay:

"We received 13,000 national flags since last Friday, when the appeal was made online," Jiang Ziniu, Sohu's media relations director, told China Daily Tuesday. Sohu has sent more than 3,500 flags to 24 cities in Australia, South Korea, the United States, Canada, Malaysia, Britain and France, he said.

An official at Beijing's postal authority said the flags are being mailed free of charge - and through express service - to such destinations as Canberra, where the torch relay is tomorrow.

Posted by Joel Martinsen at 12:58 PM |

Everybody is forced to take a side

Author and professional auto racer Han Han has been blogging about the Carrefour boycott. China Digital Times translates some excerpts:

Why is our patriotism so fragile and superficial? When others called us a mob, we cursed them and appeared to be aggressive. And then we claimed, "We are not a mob." It’s like when somebody calls you an idiot, you hold up a big sign in front of his girlfriend’s dog, protesting that you are not stupid. Although this message would be received by that person, he would still believe that you are an idiot.

Posted by Joel Martinsen at 11:15 AM |

Don’t Mass in Sheshan

Adam Minter of Shanghai Scrap explains why certain highways have restricted access "From 5am-5pm on April 30 and May 1, 4, and 24":

That is to say: It will be next to impossible to reach the church after 5 AM unless you want to walk (like pilgrims of old, I suppose). April 30 is the traditional start to the pilgrimage; the May 1 mass is typically said by Shanghai’s bishop (this year, too) and is always the best-attended; May 4 is the first Sunday of May, so that probably accounts for restrictions on that day; and the May 24 mass should be well-attended since it is - arguably - the most important in the 400 year history of the Shanghai diocese....

That is to say, the authorities have rendered this year’s pilgrimage inaccessible to anyone who wakes after 4 AM. Brilliant.

Adam also presents a vibrating water table in honor of Earth Day.

Posted by Joel Martinsen at 10:51 AM |

April 22, 2008

Beijing has become the guardian of the Chinese brand

Globe and Mail correspondent Doug Saunders reflects on his current status as the Chinese media's foreign journalist who gets it:

It tells you something about the current dangerous state of events that millions of people inside China are willing to believe that there is a vast Western plot against them, and to congratulate me for "proving" this. But it tells you even more that hundreds of thousands of people living outside China are apparently willing to believe the same thing, despite having full access to free media — in fact, the social-networking sites of Web 2.0 have created a worldwide explosion of ethnic-Chinese nationalism.

Posted by Joel Martinsen at 9:11 PM |

Mandela envy

In this article on Slate, Christopher Hitchens looks at the history of Robert Mugabe's Zanu PF and South Africa's PAC, both of which enjoyed Chinese support while the ANC and Mugabe's rival ZAPU led by Joshua Nkomo were supported by the Soviet Union.

He also ponders the possibility that Mugabe's primary motivation may be Mandela envy.

Posted by Jeremy Goldkorn at 7:37 PM |

Bob Mugabe's ship of guns

This Danwei post is tracking the Chinese ship transporting arms for Robert Mugabe's government in Zimbabwe.

Posted by Jeremy Goldkorn at 7:20 PM |

Scalping clamp down at Olympic venues

Although live events and performances in Beijing are often 'sold out', you can inevitably get tickets from scalpers outside. But not at the Olympic venues it seems, not even before the Olympics have even started, at least according to the report linked here. The link is to China Sports Today, a new website from the comrades at the GoKunming collective.

Posted by Jeremy Goldkorn at 5:42 PM |

Publishing China Week: What you will be reading next (II)

From the London Book Fair, Access Asia's Paul French looks at upcoming China titles, ranging from journalist memoirs to business analysis, history to thrillers. Also, bad titles:

There's always a few with really bad titles. A candidate for this year's most over-hyped and unimaginative title is China Fireworks: How to Make Dramatic Wealth from the Fastest-Growing Economy in the World by Robert Hsu and out in May, closely followed by Becoming Your Own China Stock Guru: The Ultimate Investor's Guide to Profiting from China's Economic Boom by Jim Trippon.

See also Gary Bowerman's overview in Publishing China Week: What You Will Be Reading Next, Part I

Posted by Joel Martinsen at 5:13 PM |

Anti-Carrefour mob attacks American in Hunan

Shanghaiist has published an email from a volunteer teacher in Zhuzhou, Hunan Province: 'a chilling account of an attack on his colleague by an anti-Carrefour mob'.

More sober follow-up here.

Posted by Jeremy Goldkorn at 3:26 PM |

Olympic Torch relay in North Korea to be successful

But you knew that, didn't you. Xinhua reports:

The torch relay in Pyongyang will enhance friendship between the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) and China, the DPRK's Olympic chief said Monday.

The event will promote the cooperation and exchanges in sports between the two countries, and will show their traditional friendship to the world, said Park Hak Seon, chairman of the National Olympic Committee of the DPRK.

Posted by Jeremy Goldkorn at 10:56 AM |

Olympic torch relay in southeast Asia

At Global Voices, Mong Palatino rounds up the views of some southeast Asian bloggers:

Jotman.com liveblogged the torch relay in Bangkok. The China Mogul remarks that the Thai police prepared not only for pro-Tibet protesters:

"In the Thai capital, police prepared not only for pro-Tibet protesters but also for demonstrators who are unhappy with China's support of army generals ruling in neighboring Myanmar."

Posted by Joel Martinsen at 10:27 AM |

April 21, 2008

The strange death of Tan Jing

On April 6, the New Express reported that a "half naked woman dropped from thirty-floor of Dongfeng Plaza, three foreigners suspected of throwing her out" Tan was later confirmed to be a model and actress, instead of prostitute as was previously speculated. The cause of her death is still unsettled.

Posted by Joel Martinsen at 6:06 PM |

When China learned to say no

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The 1996 bestseller China Can Say No was a broadside against liberal intellectuals enamored with the west. Two of the book's authors recently reflected on the growth and expression of Chinese nationalism over the last decade.

Posted by Joel Martinsen at 5:43 PM |

Brainwashing in China, then and now

The Mutant Palm looks at the term "brainwash" (洗脑):

In contemporary China, "xinao" is a bit of a curious word. It is often used precisely as we would use it in the West, right now across the Internet in reference to CNN, or more loosely when author Wang Shuo called the 80s generation brainwashed by Hong Kong and Taiwan pop culture. Numerous stories appear talking about pyramid schemes "brainwashing" people into scams. But then there are the political campaigns mentioned online, such as "City and Rural Party Branches Hand in Hand", which says that in tackling rural poverty, material donations are not enough but city and rural party members must go to each others areas to "brainwash" and "liberate their thinking".

Posted by Joel Martinsen at 3:53 PM |

C-N-N

ESWN has translated a Wang Xiaofeng blog post about the anti-Western media movement, which also refers to the controversial intentional closure of his Massage Milk (see this Rebecca MacKinnon post) which was reported by Danwei, as well as Reuters and other Western media as censorship.

Posted by Jeremy Goldkorn at 2:30 PM |

Zimbabwe arms ship leaves South Africa

The New York Times: has a full report on the Chinese ship An Yue Jiang that was carrying a cargo of arms bound for Zimbabwe.
After the South African government said it could not interfere with the shipment, the local union refused to unpack or move the cargo, and the ship left South African waters, possibly bound for Mozambique.
There is more information about the case on Africa Files.

Posted by Jeremy Goldkorn at 11:47 AM |

China Returns to Africa - book review

The Times has published a book review of a 'hefty volume ... [of] essays by 24 academics of a dozen nationalities, who possess exceptional knowledge of China's operations in Africa.'

Successive chapters address such diverse subjects as the social influence of the 750,000-strong Chinese diaspora in the continent; Chinese medicine; the history of the disastrous Tanzanian railway; and, most important, the progress of Beijing's drive to buy into oil and mineral resources the length and breadth of the continent.

Posted by Jeremy Goldkorn at 11:40 AM |

Seeking China law blogs

The Black China Hand, a lawyer - blogger himself, is looking for other blogs by lawyers and about law and China.

Posted by Jeremy Goldkorn at 10:22 AM |

Richard Quest on speed

Richard Quest, the bellowing CNN presenter, was arrested in Central Park, New York last week with amphetamines in his pocket, and, according to the New York Post, 'a rope around his neck that was tied to his genitals, and a sex toy in his boot'.

Posted by Jeremy Goldkorn at 10:15 AM |

Patriotic merchandise

Love China? Wear it on your T-shirt: Shanghaiist has trawled auction site Taobao.com for the best in nationalist T-shirt fashion.

Posted by Jeremy Goldkorn at 10:05 AM |

April 20, 2008

The jingoistic genie

Occasional online commentator and veteran hack Me Old China wonders what rough beast now slouches towards Beijing to be born.

Posted by Jeremy Goldkorn at 12:32 PM |

Clinton adviser quits over China rhetoric

From Politico:

A top expert on China has resigned as an informal adviser to Hillary Rodham Clinton’s campaign in the wake of the candidate's increasingly harsh anti-China rhetoric.

Richard Baum, a political science professor at the Center for Chinese Studies at UCLA, resigned in light of what he called 'grossly misguided accusations' made by Clinton about China.

Posted by Jeremy Goldkorn at 9:54 AM |

Xinjiang 2021 Watch

From The Opposite End of China:

Back in 2006, the folks over at neweurasia asked me to write up a possible political/military scenario for Xinjiang in 2021. Ever since then, there has been a steady erosion in the perceived — and perhaps actual — stability of the region. What seemed like wild speculation at the time doesn't seem quite so outrageous now.

Posted by Jeremy Goldkorn at 9:49 AM |