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October 10, 2008

China and Japan get ivory from South Africa

Under a special exemption for a one-off deal, South Africa will sell 51 tons of ivory to China and Japan:

Ivory trade was banned globally in 1989, but reviving elephant populations allowed African countries to make a one-time sale a decade later to Japan, the only country which had previously won the right to import. In July, the convention said that China should also be allowed to bid for the ivory at auction later this year as it had dramatically improved its enforcement of ivory rules....

Five years ago, the Chinese government confessed to the convention that it had lost track of 121 tons of ivory -- the equivalent to the tusks from 11,000 dead elephants -- between 1991 and 2002 and indicated that it probably was sold on illegal markets.

But since then Beijing has tightened its surveillance. Chinese law provides for capital punishment and life imprisonment for smugglers.

Posted by Joel Martinsen at 5:48 PM |

An appetite for Florida turtles

There are no restrictions on turtle harvesting in the state of Florida, reports the St. Petersburg Times, and local populations are being ravaged by over-harvesting:

A rising demand in China for turtles for food and medicine has led to the round-up of thousands of turtles from Florida's lakes, ponds and canals.

Exporters are shipping up to 3,000 pounds of softshell turtles a week out of Tampa International Airport, according to the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission. A Fort Lauderdale seafood company is buying about 5,000 pounds of softshell turtles a week. They're worth about $2 a pound to the harvesters.

Posted by Joel Martinsen at 9:16 AM |

October 9, 2008

Screw the elderly, I'm keeping my bus seat

A young woman who belongs to an online group dedicated to keeping their seats even when the elderly ask them to get up is the subject of an unfavorable news report.

Posted by Joel Martinsen at 8:26 PM |

Parents journey to Beijing to petition about their lost children

Forty parents of missing children traveled to Beijing to petition the goverment for help. At Global Voices Online, Oiwan Lam translates a first-person account of the obstacles they faced during their encounters with CCTV, the Beijing police, and officials from their hometowns sent to take them back home.

Posted by Joel Martinsen at 10:28 AM |

Claptrap written purely to titillate

Paper Republic translates a Xinmin Weekly article on Yan Lianke's newest novel, Elegy and Academe, which made a splash upon publication because of a portrayal of Tsinghua and Peking Universities that some scholars have accused of being slanderous.

Posted by Joel Martinsen at 9:51 AM |

Melamine standards set

The Chinese Health Ministry has announced standards for the amount of melamine that is acceptable in dairy products, reports Edward Wong at the IHT:

When asked what the previous standards were, the officials declined to give an answer and implied that there had been no limits before the milk scandal erupted last month.

Wang Xuening, the deputy chief of the ministry's health inspection and supervision department, said the new limits act as guidance for how much unintentional seepage of melamine into food can be permitted by inspectors.

People who purposefully add melamine to food will be prosecuted, he said.

Posted by Joel Martinsen at 9:10 AM |

October 8, 2008

An action star meditates on violence

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Donnie Yen is martyred on the cover of the latest Esquire. Inside, he pens a letter to young people seduced by violence, admonishing them that harmony, not fighting, is the true spirit of martial arts.

Posted by Joel Martinsen at 5:17 PM |

Mine explosion cover-up blown open

A Xinhua report exploring the cover-up of a July mine accident has hit web portals throughout China, the China Media Project says:

According to the Xinhua release, officials and local mine bosses in Hebei's Yu County worked together to suppress news of the explosion, and secretly buried the bodies of the dead in a neighboring county.

The news is the second national embarrassment for officials in Hebei this fall, after reports last month revealed that local officials in the province covered up problems in July with milk powder manufactured by Shijiazhuang-based Sanlu Group, the company at the center of China's ongoing dairy scandal.

Posted by Joel Martinsen at 2:18 PM |

No such thing as 'made in China'

Alice Xin Liu writes for the Guardian's "Comment is free" section about the "gawk factor" of Chinese youth culture.

Posted by Joel Martinsen at 10:54 AM |

Life inside China's pop echo-chamber

At Outdustry, Ed Peto examines the online music phenomenon in China:

What has resulted is a kind of echo-chamber effect, in which only low common denominator, crowd approved pop music is fed back into the network through these curated bottlenecks. The priority for the Chinese labels is to please the network and make it into these bottlenecks, not push musical boundaries forward, as failure to make it into these top strata of recognition brings with it a hefty price. As one of the only other major sources of music industry income, brands focus the bulk of their sponsorship monies on the highly visible hit artists, compounding the relatively anonymous non-chartees to further suffering.

Posted by Joel Martinsen at 10:40 AM |

White Rabbit resumes production

The famous candy, which was pulled from shelves during the melamine milk scandal, is back in action after securing a safe supply of milk powder, the Guardian reports.

Posted by Joel Martinsen at 10:35 AM |

New magazines optimistic about the economy

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Two new business magazines, The Founder and Rich Weekly, hit newsstands this fall. They're both optimistic that the economic downturn holds out opportunities for nimble entrepreneurs and investors.

Posted by Joel Martinsen at 12:06 AM |

October 7, 2008

Liuzhou photos

Photos from Liuzhou by Michael of the blog ExpatriateGames.wordpress.com.

Posted by Jeremy Goldkorn at 9:26 PM |

Dealers, pimps and outdoor dining in Beijing

Eye of Modok lists the top ten signs that the Beijing Olympics are really over.

Posted by Jeremy Goldkorn at 7:57 PM |

Tourism plan for Beichuan quake zone

From The China Daily:

Beichuan, one of the counties in Sichuan province most devastated by the May 12 earthquake, has formulated an ambitious 19.7 billion yuan ($2.89 billion) tourism restoration plan, local officials said.

Posted by Jeremy Goldkorn at 7:54 PM |

A death on train 1291

A disruptive passenger is taped to his seat and later dies. ESWN translates a news article that reports some eyewitness accounts.

Posted by Joel Martinsen at 1:18 PM |

China cancels military contact with U.S.

In reaction to the announcement of a US$6.5 billion arms deal with Taiwan, China has notified the US it will not be participating in certain military and diplomatic activities. From the AP:

The Chinese action will not stop the country's participation with the United States in international efforts over Iran's and North Korea's nuclear programs, U.S. officials said.

But it does include the cancellation of an upcoming U.S. visit by a senior Chinese general, other similar visits, port calls by naval vessels and the indefinite postponement of meetings on stopping the spread of weapons of mass destruction, the officials said.

Posted by Joel Martinsen at 1:14 PM |

China mulls land privatization

China Worker discusses the implications of a proposal by Hu Jintao to allow farmers to transfer land rights:

Advised by liberal economic theorists, the leadership are portraying the new policy of 'transfer' rights (privatisation) as a means to empower the lowly peasant and end the above named abuses. Initially, it is quite possible that many peasants will welcome this policy, as the (good) reception for Hu Jintao in Xiaogang village would suggest. This is more likely if the government package their policy to appear as if they are giving the land to those who farm it. In reality, however, this policy would be an unmitigated disaster for the majority of the rural population, who are the biggest losers also under the present situation.

Posted by Joel Martinsen at 12:47 PM |

MIT report on China's energy sector

An investigation written up in the paper Greener Plants, Grayer Skies? A report from the front lines of China's energy sector suggests that outmoded technology and poor government regulation are not to blame for China's air pollution woes:

After detailed survey and field research involving dozens of managers at 85 power plants across 14 Chinese provinces, Steinfeld and his co-authors, Richard Lester and Edward Cunningham, found that in fact most of the new plants have been built to very high technical standards, using some of the most modern technologies available. The problem has to do with the way that energy infrastructure is being operated and the types of coals being burned.

Posted by Joel Martinsen at 10:27 AM |

Bid to save world's rarest turtles fails

An attempt to mate two of the last remaining Yangtze giant soft-shell turtles has failed, reports the Telegraph:

The pair of geriatric turtles are the only remaining Yangtze giant soft-shell turtles, or Rafetus Swinhoei. The existence of another male in Hoan Kiem Lake in the centre of Hanoi is thought to be merely a legend, while a fourth turtle, found in the wilds of North Vietnam in 2007, is now dead.

Posted by Joel Martinsen at 10:22 AM |

Pangong Lake is border flashpoint between India and China

From the Indian Express:

While the frequency of incursions by Chinese troops on Indian territory in and around the lake has not increased over the past few years -- three to four incidents of transgression on both land and water are reported every week -- the calm is still very much only on the surface.

On the lake itself, 45 km of which is in India while the remaining 90 km lies in China, both sides carry out regular patrols. While the standard drill when two boats from opposite sides come face to face is holding up flags saying "Hindi-Chini bhai bhai" by soldiers from both countries, the subdued aggression sometimes surfaces.

Posted by Joel Martinsen at 10:17 AM |

October 6, 2008

What have I done for my country?

ESWN translates part of a Southern Weekly feature in commemoration of this year's National Day. Also: What has my country done for me?.

Posted by Joel Martinsen at 11:28 AM |

Tax invoice spam

114 spam messages send to a China Mobile number from July 22 through September 20.

Posted by Joel Martinsen at 10:02 AM |

To die poor is a sin

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An excerpt from Factory Girls, Leslie T. Chang's new book about female migrant workers and the author's own family history of leaving home in search of a better life.

Posted by Jeremy Goldkorn at 10:01 AM |

Jesse James of the Xi'an ad industry

Iacob Koch-Weser looks at a report on advertising copywriters who sing the praises of New Development Zones near Xi'an, Shaanxi Province.

Posted by Joel Martinsen at 9:53 AM |

China authorizes short selling, margin trading

Reuters reports that China's stock market regulators have opened up new techniques for investors:

The changes, which have been approved by the cabinet, will initially be made on a trial basis by a small number of brokerage businesses and gradually expanded to other securities companies, the China Securities Regulatory Commission said.

The introduction of short-selling in China would contrast with recent regulatory moves in much of the rest of the world. In response to the global crisis, U.S., British, French, Italian and German regulators in recent weeks temporarily banned short-selling of financial stocks, while Australia, Singapore and Taiwan restricted the practice.

Posted by Joel Martinsen at 9:26 AM |

October 5, 2008

Selling out patient privacy to the milk industry

A sales manager for a milk powder producer describes how his company spends several million yuan every year to obtain the personal information of pregnant women and millions more to curry favor with hospital administration and staff.

Posted by Joel Martinsen at 10:03 AM |

Joseph Needham and Chinese science

A review by John Keay of Simon Winchester's Bomb, Book and Compass, and Donald B. Wagner's Science and Civilization in China.

Posted by Jeremy Goldkorn at 12:17 AM |