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At Salon, Andrew Leonard explains how ginseng came to North America:
Ginseng exports have a long history in North America -- in fact, one could argue that ginseng, as possibly the first trade item ever exported to Asia from the Americas, was a key factor in embedding the colonies in what passed for globalization in the 18th century.
Eric Abrahamsen writes for The National about China's reception at the Frankfurt Book Fair:
Speaking under condition of anonymity, one writer said that officials from the General Administration of Press and Publication had spoken to all the authors beforehand, wanting to know what they planned on saying. “They asked us, ‘What do you think of so-and-so? What do you think of Ma Jian? What do you think of Rebiyah Kadeer?” the writer recalled. “Then they offered to ‘help’ us draft responses to various potential questions. We said, ‘no thanks, we can handle it ourselves!’ That’s progress, though. Ten years ago that would have been an order, not an offer.”
The writers’ assessment of the German media was almost equally disparaging. They had answered interview questions about censorship, political prisoners and Tibet – everything except their novels.
Adam Cathcart translates some netizen opinions on how North Korea is portrayed in Chinese and western media:
...a rather strange story in the Chinese press...held up an idealized view of North Korea. Why was Xinhua holding up the DPRK as a kind of patriotic utopia, and what would be the response of the largely young readership of the Huanqiu Shibao, a publication known for its nationalism?
The New York Times reports on the results of tests of Chinese-sourced drywall that has been the focus of homeowner complaints in the United States:
Federal investigators reported Thursday that imported Chinese drywall that homeowners have linked to health problems and odors had higher levels of some chemicals than its domestic counterparts.
The investigators, however, were unable to link the chemicals, sulfur and strontium, to the health problems and smells in thousands of homes built during the recent housing boom, and said further testing was under way to determine any possible connection.
China Daily reports:
The chief architect for the new headquarters for China's state broadcaster said Wednesday that preparations are under way to begin reconstruction on part of the complex that burned in a massive fire triggered by illegal fireworks earlier this year.
Architect Ole Scheeren said in an interview with the Associated Press that the high-level investigation into the fire that damaged a China Central Television building is "almost near its conclusion" and plans are under way to begin rebuilding soon.
"The reconstruction has not yet officially begun," he said. "However preparations are underway for the start, but no specific date has yet been set."
Xinhua reports (also at the China Daily):
Groups of students were found infected by the disease and the arrival of flu season also challenged A/H1N1 flu prevention and control endeavor, said a statement issued after an executive meeting of the State Council.
The State Council, or the Cabinet, ordered government departments at all levels to beef up measures to prevent large-scale outbreak of the disease and vaccine producers to speed up their production.
husunzi at the China Study Group reports on a protest by construction workers at a hotel in Chengdu.
Reuters reports:
China has begun looking for the remains of a U.S. Air Force bomber and its crew that crashed over the southern part of the country some six decades ago during the Korean War, state media reported.
The B-29 "Superfortress" caught fire and came down in Raoping county, Guangdong province, on November 5, 1950, Xinhua news agency said in a report late Monday. Villagers found 15 bodies, four of which were buried on the site of the crash.
The Wall Street Journal Real Time blog discusses the fiasco between People's Daily Online and Google. People's Daily Online accused Google of exacting revenge for the accusation that they were infringing the copyright of Chinese books:
And the drama continues. Now, the Web site of the People’s Daily is accusing Google of “malicious revenge” after Google searches for the People’s Daily Online’s books section turned up warnings that read: “This site may contain malicious software that could harm your computer.” An article posted on the People’s Daily books page, from the Beijing Times (in Chinese), quoted an official with the People’s Daily site as saying he had received numerous calls from readers who said they were unable to access the site through Google.
From The China Daily:
The parents were under the mistaken belief the salesmen were trying to smuggle children.
GoChengdoo has news about a tubby taxi-grabber, who help the desperados of the city grab a taxi:
At 5:33, a taxi rolls into the square, and while it's still moving, he grabs onto it with both hands. When it finally comes to a stop, he pulls open the door, lets the passengers out, and then the woman at his side steps in.
In this month's New Yorker magazine, Peter Hessler has a piece on art production in Lishui. A multimedia package outlines the article, which is subscription only.
Veteran journalist Qian Gang of the China Media Project asks "How should we best understand the extravagance that marked China’s recent National Day celebrations?" and answers it by looking at the four anthemic songs chosen for the parade.
Jonathan in China writes about a 1985 New Yorker feature on the life of John Zeidman, an American who visited China in 1979, came back as an exchange student in 1981, and died of Japanese B encephalitis in 1982:
C. Custer at ChinaGeeks posts some photos of propaganda slogans from Wang Keqin's blog post on an Aids village.
The New York Times reports on a rule imposed on kids in a provincial county:
Education officials promoted the saluting edict to reduce traffic accidents and teach children courtesy. Critics, who have posted thousands of negative comments about the policy on China’s electronic bulletin boards, beg to differ. “This is just pitiful,” wrote one in a post last year. Only inept officials would burden children with such a requirement rather than install speed bumps, others insisted.
Greenpeace publishes an interview:
Greenpeace: What can China do to persuade its growing middle class not to have the same environmentally-damaging aspirations as the West – eg. multi-car ownership, international travel, a house stocked with the latest electronic gadgets?Monbiot: It’s very hard, especially as the West has made no serious moves in this direction. If our governments had demonstrated that they were serious about this, China might be more inclined to follow suit. But we are in a very weak position when it comes to lecturing other countries about how much they should consume.
Xinhua does a special report:
During the 22 hours in Pattaya, Wen used all possible chances to hold talks with the leaders at the summits and meet journalists, transmitting China's determination and confidence in overcoming the global financial crisis and pushing forward East Asia cooperation...
During the following six months, the Chinese government decided to set up a 10-billion-U.S. dollar China-ASEAN investment cooperation fund, establish the China-ASEAN Free Trade Area, and provide financial support to ASEAN countries. Trade between China and ASEAN has entered into the period of recovery since September.
There are a series of reports on Xinhua on the topic.
Peter Ford reports at the Christian Science Monitor: young people like diamonds more than gold jewelery to signal love:
Fueled by the growing popularity among young couples of diamond wedding rings, Chinese imports of polished diamonds rose 12.7 percent over the first six months of this year to a record $300 million, according to the state-run Xinhua news agency.
As diamond sales in Japan slump because of the economic crisis, "the Chinese market will inevitably grow because Chinese people's love of diamonds is growing," says Wang Fei, a researcher specializing in luxury goods at the University of International Business and Economics in Beijing.
A foreign man just released from Beijing No. 1 Detention Center sent Danwei a description of his daily life there.
The Strait Herald reports on Shi Liliang, a monk who has trained himself to race across thin plywood sheets laid out across the surface of a lake.
From The China Daily:
A blog that falsely proclaimed that a Hebei province woman is HIV positive was a hoax by an ex-boyfriend intent upon revenge...
...The [Beijing] local government is considering holding a press conference to reveal the latest development of investigation.
The hoax that emerged on the Internet last week accused Yan of being a prostitute and said that her 279 cell phone numbers belonged to "former clients."
The IP address of the blog and the photos' IP address are from Beijing, the police said.
Beijing Chaoyang District Police Bureau was not available to comment the case Monday.
From The China Daily:
A TV producer who struck sex deals with teenage twins and other girls seeking acting roles was sentenced to 10 years in prison after a Beijing court found him guilty of organizing prostitution yesterday.
Hu Weidong, a 49-year-old from Henan province, had coerced Beijing twins, Qin Qing and Qin Yun, known as "Baobao and Azi," to have sex with him, his assistants and wealthy clients before the twins legally became adults at age 18...
...Hu appeared angry after he was sentenced and immediately decided to appeal.
"The girls are valuable commodities. It is inevitable for them to have relationships with investors and directors," the man told reporters outside court.
From The China Daily
China is attempting to rein in overcapacity in the country's solar energy sector despite the government's ambitious goal to increase solar capacity from 50 megawatts in 2008 to between 10 and 20 gigawatts by 2020.
Enterprises flocking to boost markets in industries such as steel and cement have been common in recent years, with the government then stepping in to correct potential overcapacity.
The central government last week announced plans to curb the expansion of six industry sectors by withholding approval for new investments and tightening financing.
Surprisingly, considering its role in the fast-growing renewable energy sector, polysilicon, which is used to make solar panels and wind power equipment, was included in the industry sectors targeted by the government.
From ARTnews, the story of unauthorized 19th Century Chinese copies of classic works of art, including Gilbert Stuart's classic portrait of George Washington:
The situation bothered the painter so much that collectors of his portraits had to sign an agreement stating that only he had the right to reproduce the image. There was no American copyright law covering works of art, and forged and unauthorized copies of Stuart’s portraits of Washington had become something of a growth industry.
“There was also a considerable demand for the Chinese Washington portraits in oil on canvas,” wrote Crossman. One popular subject was the Apotheosis of Washington, which shows the president born aloft by angels. A glass version is in the collection of the Terra Foundation of American Art in Chicago. The original engraving, Apotheosis of George Washington (1802), was by John James Barralet (1747–1815).
Crossman noted that China trade paintings on glass based on American prints were also sought by American collectors. Among the favorites were Liberty, John Paul Jones, America, Battle of Lexington, and The Landing of the Pilgrims.
Adam Cathcart looks through the Stanford University archive of the papers of Iris Chang, which show her approach to writing Rape of Nanking and her reaction to the book's immense popularity.
Part 2 is here.
The Chinese Mirror presents a list of pre-revolutionary Chinese films adapted from foreign works.
Portrait of an LBX talks to members of the Jewish community in Kaifeng, Henan Province:
We walked to the second floor where Li Bo unlocked and reeled up a rolling metal door, behind which was a treasure trove of surprises. Maybe 50 square meters in total, the little room contained some long tables, chairs, a menorah, a whiteboard full of Hebrew, several photos of old Kaifeng Jews, a bookshelf full of Hebrew books, and a big Israeli flag. It was in this, their community center, that Hebrew class was given on Fridays by an American Jewish study abroad student, Eric, and where holidays were collectively passed. The Hebrew on the board was lyrics to a song which Eric had recently taught his class. Li Bo informed us that between 10 to 20 Kaifeng Jewish students showed up for the weekly Hebrew classes, and around 30 show up for holidays. The price for the center? 3000 yuan annually, split among the community.
From Reuters:
China Nonferrous Metal Mining (Group) Co Ltd terminated its bid for Lynas Corp, owner of the world's largest undeveloped deposit of rare earths, citing stiff conditions imposed by Australia's Foreign Investment Review Board.
From Miadhu.com:
More than 5,000 Chinese laborers, engineers and technicians are working around the clock to complete the SR6.5 billion monorail project that will link Makkah with the holy sites.
The project will be ready for use to 35 percent of its capacity by next year’s Haj season (1431-2010) and fully operational in two years time. When it reaches full capacity, the 18.1 km long railway will transport about 72,000 passengers every hour between Makkah, Mina, Arafat and Muzdalifah...
...The China Railway Company has reinforced with concrete the foundations of the hanging bridge on which the train will be moving to avoid pedestrian crowds below...
From China Tech News:
China's National Working Group of Eliminating Pornography and Illegal Publications has announced achievements that it has made since campaigns were launched earlier this year against illegal online and mobile phone publications.
NWGEPIP stated on October 20 that since the special campaigns were launched to crack down on vulgar online and mobile phone content, China had seized 1414 illegal online literary works, closed 20 websites that were found spreading pornographic information, and deleted a total of more than 30,000 links to illegal web pages.
From Marbridge Daily:
Chinese media provider Shanghai Media Group (SMG) has announced that, in accordance with broadcast industry restructuring plans laid out by China's State Administration of Radio, Film and Television (SARFT), SMG will split into two entities: Shanghai Radio & TV and Shanghai Oriental Media Group.
Shanghai Radio & TV will retain SMG's current operations structure, and be managed by the Shanghai Municipal Administration of Culture, Radio, Film & TV under the guidance of the CPC Shanghai Municipal Committee's Propaganda Department. SMG's current broadcast assets and departments involved in "news production," including its program editing committee, station editor's office, broadcast frequencies, television channels, central broadcast control room, television news center, and broadcast news center, will become part of the station.
The newly established Shanghai Oriental Media Group will be a separate legal entity, with its shares held by Shanghai Radio & TV. The new company will continue to use the English acronym SMG, and will take control of all of SMG's non-news production related assets...
So they are split up, but not really.
Simon Elegant at Time Magazine has a piece on the recent Chongqing crackdown on gangs and official involvement:
Thousands of suspects were questioned, some 1,500 were arrested, bribes in the tens of millions of renminbi were revealed and nearly a quarter of the city's police force was devoted to the ongoing investigation. Even more astonishing — almost unprecedented — is the fact that so many senior police officers and government officials are on trial, virtually all of them stalwart members of the ruling Communist Party.
Amongst other media, The Guardian also reported on the gang crime and sentencing.
State news agency Xinhua reports:
The Chinese economy expanded 8.9 percent year on year in the third quarter of this year, and 7.7 percent year on year in the first nine months, the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) said here Thursday.
The growth rates for the first quarter and second quarter were 6.1 percent and 7.9 percent, respectively.
NBS spokesman Li Xiaochao told a press conference that China's gross domestic product (GDP) totaled 21.78 trillion yuan (about 3.18 trillion U.S. dollars) in the first nine months.
ChinaHush has posted a gallery of scenes of pollution in China taken by W. Eugene Smith grant winner Lu Gang.
Adam Cathcart looks at the latest dispatches from North Korea:
Well, North Korea may be on fire, but the wise Chinese Communist Party has apparently decided that releasing the news in the PRC would disturb social harmony. Or otherwise interfere with its evolving master narrative on North Korea. As Professor Jonathan Pollack reminds us, the PRC narrative now includes sticks as well as carrots, and features some unprecedented public criticism of North Korea.
So instead of a story in regional news outlets in Yanbian on the North Korean fires which might stir sympathy (or open up a can of “indeed, why is the air so bad anyway, comrade?” whoopass), we get a story derived from the Huanqiu Shibao which is actually quite sympathetic to South Korea and the U.S. about the dangers of an “elite-level North Korean hacking unit.”
From Xan Rice at The Guardian:
The De Xin Hai, carrying 76,000 tonnes of coal from South Africa to India, was captured 550 miles north-east of the Seychelles yesterday morning. Reuters quoted a gang associate in Haradheere, a noted piracy town on Somalia's east coast where the captured vessel may be headed, warning against any military operation to free the sailors.
"If they try that we will execute the whole crew … we tell them to change their mind regarding any rescue, otherwise they will regret it," said the man identified only as Hassan
China Daily also has a piece called China vows to save crew held by Somali pirates.
China Daily reports Rebiya Kadeer's visit:
China strongly condemns Japan's issuing of a visa to Uygur separatist Rebiya Kadeer, the Foreign Ministry said yesterday.
"We have exchanged views with the Japan side on the issue and we express strong dissatisfaction that Japan has granted Kadeer the entry to facilitate her separatism activities despite China's severe objection," Foreign Ministry spokesman Ma Zhaoxu told reporters at a regular news briefing yesterday.
"Any separatism scheme to split China will not result in anything," Ma said.
The New York Times has another piece on Kadeer's landing in Japan.
Austin Ramzy at Time writes a piece about the Frankfurt Book Fair, where China is the Guest of Honor,
China's cultural ministries saw Frankfurt as a way to boost the country's clout overseas. The General Administration of Press and Publication sponsored the translation of more than 100 Chinese books into German and English to be sold at the fair, part of China's $7.5 million investment in the event. The writers who were approved for the official program in Frankfurt included Yu Hua, an author of earthy, sometimes profane novels of human struggle including To Live and Brothers. While Yu's sex- and drug-laden writing could have been banned as late as the 1980s, it now has an official stamp of approval because he avoids overt criticism of Communist Party rule.
There are various other reports from the fair and its exclusion of noted dissident writers Dai Qing and Bei Ling, for example a meeting with Dai written up in Der Spiegel.
The WSJ's China Journal looks at objections to the Google Books settlement from Chinese authors:
Google introduced its digital library to China in 2007, but most Chinese writers are still not familiar with the service. According to a critical report aired last week by state broadcaster CCTV, Google has converted to digital format and published nearly 18,000 books written by more than 570 Chinese writers, most of whom are unaware of the move.
Soon after the post appeared on the Web site of CWA, it caused a stir within the community of Chinese writers. Many are annoyed at the meager settlement amount offered by Google. Writer Chen Cun said that he would never accept the payment settlement. “Go scan Harry Potter and then pay J.K. Rowling $60, see whether she’ll take it!” Mr. Chen said in an interview with Chinese-language media.
Der Speigel online interviews the Peggy Yu, founder of Dangdang.com:
SPIEGEL ONLINE: What do you mean by that?
Yu: We are constantly in a good mood. Everything moves forward, upward, the stock exchange, the gross domestic product, even pensions. But there is not enough self-reflection, not enough criticism.
SPIEGEL ONLINE: Which is exactly what authors should do.
Yu: Correct, but they don't. China distributes many products to the world. But in comparison to other countries, we don't offer good literature that is influential internationally. That worries me. Indian, Mexican, Brazilian and Turkish writers have produced great works in the last couple of years, but not any Chinese writers.
The Economist's More Intelligent Life magazine's blog reviews Sound Kapital:
Just as the 100 Club and CBGB fostered punk movements in London and New York City, Beijing's D-22 nightclub serves as the epicentre for its burgeoning alternative music scene. Michael Pettis, a Peking University professor who was once a fixture in New York's East Village, founded the dive bar three years ago. Though the idea of an "underground scene" is often associated with punk, D-22's small stage hosts a variety of acts, from glam rock to experimental electronic, classic rock 'n' roll and Mongolian folk music. Many bands have hard-rocking frontwomen in the vein of Karen O from the Yeah Yeah Yeahs; some sing in both Chinese and English. All eschew the country's mainstream affection for saccharine pop.
Jonathan Watts writes in the Guardian about China and India:
Their influence expanded in other areas. After enormous growth over the past 30 years, China is now poised to overtake Japan as the world's second biggest economy; if current trends continue, it will replace the US at number one around 2035. India's GDP is just a third of China's, but its growth rate of more than 6% a year lifted average incomes over $1,000 for the first time.
The Washington Post reports:
The president of the University of Toulon and two top aides were suspended Monday over charges of irregularities in the admission and graduation of Chinese students allegedly ready to pay bribes for the prestige of a French diploma.
The suspension, decided by Higher Education Minister Valerie Pecresse, was an unusual public stain on France's cherished tradition of opening its largely free education system to students from around the world. It underlined some of the pressures created by a skyrocketing number of Chinese students who go abroad, sometimes unprepared, to win the honor of a foreign diploma in China's increasingly competitive job market.
From The China Daily:
The name of the Chinese bulk carrier hijacked in the Indian Ocean earlier on Monday has been identified as DE XIN HAI, a spokesperson of the EU naval force said, adding there are 25 Chinese aboard the ship...
...The ship was hijacked in the Indian Ocean, 350 nautical miles northeast of the Seychelles and 700 nautical miles off the east coast of Somalia, the EU naval force said in a statement from its headquarters in Britain.
In The Sydney Morning Herald, John Garnaut looks at the rise of red rhetoric, a new push for state domination of pillar industries, and some of the voices against it.
Were they closed "for the children," or to quash the spread of an anti-government rumor? ESWN translates.
Was National Day on October 1 the 60th birthday of the PRC, of China, or of the "motherland"?
Zhou Litai explains to The Beijing News why he has chosen to defend accused gang members swept up in Bo Xilai's campaign against organized crime in Chongqing.
Wen Jiabao sits in on a geology class and gets confused over the three types of rocks. Xinhua prints his elegant apology.
In The New York Times, Jonathan Ansfield and Steven Erlanger review reactions to China's official and unofficial participation in the Frankfurt Book Fair.
China Study Group takes a look at an agriculture project in Anlong, a village within Chengdu, Sichuan Province:
This project was first initiated by the Chengdu Urban Rivers Association – an NGO spun off of the Chengdu government’s 10 year project to clean up the rivers in 2003. CURA discovered that 60% of the remaining pollution was coming from agro-chemicals, so it embarked on a project to promote organic farming in the villages upstream from Chengdu, starting with Anlong village in Pi County as a pilot site. In 2005 CURA met with the villagers and began to work out a project, starting with 20 volunteer households. Originally they didn’t focus on marketing or certification, since these households farmed mainly for use, relying on migrant labor and business for cash income. But several households decided to use their organic-ness as a selling point for marketing their produce, and after a couple years of experimentation, worked out an arrangement that cosmopolitan NGO supporters likened to the North American “CSA” system, but seems to me more like European experiments with “social agriculture,” in that the farmers – especially the Gao family – are trying to make their relations with consumers more than one-dimensional buyer-seller relations by developing friendships with consumers and periodically organizing open-house events in the village, where the farmers teach the city-slickers how to farm.
For at least a decade, there has been talk of China launching a Nasdaq style stock exchange to list new and hi tech companies. According to media reports, the new board will at last launch this week. From The Financial Times:
China will this week launch its long-awaited Nasdaq-style stock market with 28 companies lined up to list on the new exchange, including China's first listed film company.
Shang Fulin, chairman of the China Securities Regulatory Commission, on Saturday said the new market would open on October 23, according to the official Xinhua news agency.
Investors have not demonstrated overwhelming appetite for the first companies to conduct IPOs ahead of listing on China's new Growth Enterprise Market. The Shenzhen-based market is aimed at funding technology and innovation-driven start-up companies...
In The Daily Telegraph, Malcom Moore covers the fall out from the recent gangster trials:
A mafia trial in Chongqing, the world's largest city, has stirred up Chinese anger at the infiltration of the Communist party by gangsters.
Josh at Far West China has a list of how things have changed in Xinjiang since July:
Long distance calling has been shut down even tighter. While previously I could use a specific phone card to call home or at least receive incoming calls late at night, it seems that this "loophole" has been discovered and fixed. Communication with my family is virtually nil right now.
Dunhuang has become Xinjiang's most important city. And it's not even located within Xinjiang...it's in Gansu! Pretty much the first city outside of Xinjiang with internet access, Dunhuang has become the place for all businessmen and foreigners to go to regain access to email and business contacts. Hotels and coffee shops tell me they've seen a noticable increase in Xinjiang traffic.
Believe it or not, Beijing's air is getting cleaner, reports the New York Times:
China may have a hard-earned reputation for long-neglected and fearsome environmental problems, from poisoned rivers to chemical-belching smelters. But the nation’s capital, Beijing, is trying hard to clean up its dirty air.
The results show up not only in recent pitch-perfect October days, but in the data that for years have presented a bleak picture of pollution here.
For the Chicago issue of Granta, Bei Dao writes about two artists who came to the city 25 years ago:
Most modern success stories are the same except for a few details: the usual mixture of packaging and self-promotion. I’ve seen several of my friends sink and decay into wealth and fame, but not the Zhou brothers. Wearing their flat, sharp leather shoes, they’ve ridden the wave of success with astonishing skill. Actually, what surprises me the most is how two destitute boys managed to make their way out of China’s interior into the rest of the world. Chance has certainly played its part, but one thing that’s certain is their inner compulsion – and the stronger the compulsion, the further one goes.
In the same issue, Jeffrey Yang, who translated the piece, discusses Bei Dao's language and his own difficulties with simplified characters.
ChinaSmack has translated a post from Mop.com by a woman claiming to be prostitute who is HIV positive. Her post includes a list of mobile phone numbers of her clients whom she says she has infected with the virus.
Note that Mop.com is notorious for publishing information of questionable origins in order to drive traffic.
UPDATE According to a police source quoted by The China Daily, the post was "sick hoax by an angry ex-boyfriend".
Peter Foster blogs about the 56 pillars that were installed around Tiananmen Square for the National Day festivities:
I’ve canvassed a few Chinese acquaintances who say they find the place not so much beautiful, but rather ‘solemn’ and ‘impressive’. A symbol of national pride and strength and I can quite easily empathise with this view, even if I don’t share it.
Perhaps this faintly sacred regard for Tiananmen Square is the reason behind a growing row about plans to make 56 giant columns – erected during the 60th Anniversary to celebrate China’s ethnic diversity and harmony – a permanent fixture of the square.
The Wall Street Journal has a piece about the publishing industry and Penguin China, led by Jo Lusby:
Penguin wants to take advantage of signs of buoyancy and change in China's 6.5 billion yuan ($950 million) publishing market, long strangled by censorship and a bewildering mass of regulatory controls. Things gathered pace in April when Liu Binjie, minister of the General Administration of Press and Publication (GAPP), announced de facto legalization of the country's 10,000 private publishers...
For Ms. Lusby, it's a step away from Penguin's parent company in London, a process of devolution she believes will grow as publishers globally increasingly respond to local demand. "Rather than us sitting halfway round the world asking for other people to please publish this book for us because we actually believe it will work, it's us being able to take the ball and run with it," said Ms. Lusby in an interview last week.
The Wall Street Journal reports on the case of Mike Yu, who has been charged with stealing trade secrets from Ford Motor Company:
According to the indictment brought by Terrence Berg, the U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Michigan, Mr. Yu, a Chinese national, worked for Ford from 1997 to 2007 and had access to Ford trade secrets, including the auto maker's design documents.
In December 2006, Mr. Yu accepted a job at the China branch of Foxconn, PCE Industry Inc. The indictment alleges that on the eve of his departure from Ford in January 2007 and before he told Ford of his new job, Mr. Yu copied some 4,000 Ford documents onto an external hard drive, including sensitive Ford design documents.
Rose Luqiu Luwei of Phoenix TV summarizes her trip to Pyongyang covering Premier Wen's talks with Kim Jong-il (pictured). She compares her experiences with those growing up in China and makes a commentary on her media chaperoning.
At Degenerate Films, Shelley Kraicer talks about his job selecting films for the Vancouver International Film Festival and China's indie film scene:
There exists, down some dusty grey hutong alleyway of Beijing, a Chinese Indie Director’s Discount Emporium. You want to make a film? Step right in and assemble your movie at bargain prices. The shelving on the left is stocked with cast members: long-haired village boys, out of school, drifting aimlessly. At the back is a set of grainy, dusty, brown-grey village-scapes, ready to be populated by said drifters. To the right, useful equipment.
The Law Professors blog has a write-up on the minors law that was proposed in Hubei:
There has recently been a minor tempest over regulations passed by the Hubei Provincial People's Congress Standing Committee on July 31, 2009. The provincial regulations implement the national Law on the Protection of Minors.
One provision that excited a lot of comment was the rule supposedly forbidding parents from seeing the text messages of their children. (The headline of this report, for example, is "Hubei legislation forbidding parents from checking their children's text messages is criticized as not conforming to China's situation." And the English-language Global Times reports, "Parents barred from peeking at kids' emails." ) But a look at the actual text suggests that this is a misreading.
The Wall Street Journal publishes an appraisal of Wen Jiabao's latest visit to Pyongyang:
After a visit last week by Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao to Pyongyang, where he held extensive talks with leader Kim Jong Il, North Korea said it was willing to return to the six-party talks -- which also include South Korea, Japan, and Russia -- but indicated that it wanted separate talks with the U.S. first. That raised questions about whether
Xinhua reports via AP hosted on Google:
The official Xinhua News Agency reported Thursday that six new defendants were sentenced to death and three other people were given life sentences by the Urumqi Intermediate People's Court.
The New York Times' LENS blog reports that Lu Guang, a Chinese freelance photographer, has won the W. Eugene Smith Grant in Humanistic Photography for his project, “Pollution in China.”
It is not just Mr. Smith’s work that comes to mind when looking at Mr. Lu’s depiction of the dark social and environmental consequences of China’s modern industrial revolution. There is a bit of Charles Sheeler and Edward Burtynsky. And Hieronymus Bosch.
“Because China’s economy is moving so fast, the pollution is incredibly severe,” he told us Wednesday through a translation by Orville Schell at the Asia Society. “As I became aware of the pollution as China opened up the western area, I felt that people needed to know about this.”
Included is a small gallery of some of Lu's photos.
The New York Times reports:
A Chinese official said Tuesday that a recent visit by the Indian prime minister to a Himalayan territory in northeastern India that China claims as its own land has jeopardized China-India relations.
The official, Ma Zhaoxu, a spokesman for the Chinese Foreign Ministry, was criticizing a visit on Oct. 3 to the state of Arunachal Pradesh by Manmohan Singh, the Indian prime minister.
China Sports Review looks at the upcoming 11th National Games, to be held in Shandong from October 16 to 28:
Unlike other sports events in the rest of the World, I dare say that China’s National Games ranks the first in sending out medals before it officially kicks off. Up until now, still two days to the Opening Ceremony in Jinan, the capital city of Shandong, there’re 24 teams that won 238 gold medals already. Why so many? Partly because if a team member won a gold in the Beijing Games last summer, it counts for two golds for them in the National Game’s medal tally. If a player won in group sports in the Olympics, then it’s one gold for his or her team in the National Games. Another reason, according to the organizing committee, is that certain teams need to compete in some upcoming World champs.
Then there's the judging scandal, translated at China Sports Today.
On The China Beat, China's most wanted fugitive visits a fourth-year Chinese history class at Simon Fraser University:
In his responses to student questions, Lai alternated between innocent charm and aggrieved combativeness. He denied giving officials cash-filled briefcases and providing them with modern-day concubines. But he admitted that he actively sought out and took advantage of loopholes. In order to avoid customs duties when importing oil and luxury cars to China, Lai said that he had his oil tankers unload when nobody was watching. His overarching goal was to make more money, he said, so he was constantly looking for opportunities. When local officials announced that new businesses would be exempt from taxes for three years, Lai opened a series of ventures, and then shut them down and changed their names before they hit the three year mark, managing to perpetually avoid taxes.
Shanghai Scrap visits East Seward Road in Hongkou, Shanghai:
Brick by brick, Shanghai loses its history, its buildings, and its traditional ways of life. In many cases, the bricks in the buildings now crumbling on East Seward Road are the bricks that built the buildings that preceded them (and were destroyed by fighting with the Japanese). They will not get a third chance – at least, they won’t get that chance in Hongkou. Instead, they’re being carted away, perhaps to be landfilled, or perhaps to become anonymous contributors to projects elsewhere in Shanghai. The workers who will lay them for the third time won’t know that they survived the Japanese invasion, and just like that, the remarkable history of modern Hongkou will disappear into a city too busy, and too rich, to care, anymore.
Calum MacLeod reports for USA Today:
It's what's called the "big plane" project here. It symbolizes the country's stepped-up efforts to get into the commercial passenger jet business in a big way and challenge U.S. plane-making giant Boeing and European rival Airbus, which dominate the global jetliner market. And it will be a showcase for China's ambition to be more than a low-tech producer of consumer goods for the world.
"To develop the large-scale airliner is a strategic decision of the Chinese government and one of the major programs for building up an innovation-oriented country," Chinese Vice Premier Zhang Dejiang said last month, according to the Xinhua state news agency.
China Daily reports:
Tropical storm Parma has caused heavy economic losses in south China's Hainan Province since it landed Monday, the provincial government said Tuesday.
In Wenchang City alone, more than 7,600 people were relocated and the direct economic loss, mainly in the agriculture and fishing sectors, stood at 24.6 million yuan ($3.6 million).
Evan Osnos presents some highlights from a speech made by Sidney Rittenberg:
If you had a second party alternative in China now, I think it would be an anti-foreign party. What else could you see as a platform to challenge the Communist Party, but to oppose the foreigners who are “buying up Chinese resources”?… There has to be a period of generally unfolding democracy. Not bang, all at once. And I think that will happen. I think it’s happening much too slowly.
The China Daily reports:
China National Offshore Oil Corp (CNOOC), the country's leading offshore oil producer, is seeking to invest in a giant oilfield in Ghana to enhance its overseas development plans...
...The Jubilee field is said to hold 1.8 billion barrels of oil and would produce 120,000 barrels of crude a day. It is one of the largest oil discoveries in recent years and holds a type of light, sweet crude oil.
With nearby discoveries in Sierra Leone, the region in which Jubilee is located is emerging as a major new oil region and Ghana is expected to be an oil exporter by the end of next year.
Xujun Eberlein remembers her own family's involvement with Zhang Shenfu, the Chinese engineer killed by the Soviet Red Army (or perhaps by local thugs) in 1946. Zhang Shenfu was the grandfather of Leslie Chang, author of the book Factory Girls, in which she recounts her family's version of the story.
China Economic Review summarizes a South China Morning Post report:
Over two-thirds of mainland financial magazine Caijing's business staff have resigned, the South China Morning Post reported. General Manager Daphne Wu Chuanhui and eight of her nine business directors resigned, and a Caijing staff member said that 70% of the 100-person business department have resigned or will do so soon. The exodus has caused speculation that charismatic founder and managing editor Hu Shuli may also be preparing to leave.
China Daily reports:
Russian firms plan to sign over $5.5 billion worth of deals with their Chinese partners during the visit of Prime Minister Vladimir Putin to Beijing next week, Putin's deputy said during an interview with Reuters.
The 34 deals will range from a $500 million loan agreement between China's Development Bank and its Russian equivalent VEB to joint projects in transport, infrastructure, construction and mineral extraction, a draft list obtained by Reuters showed.
Russia's trade with China soared to $56 billion in 2008 from $9.3 billion in 2002. The share of oil in Russia's exports stands at 56 percent, metals at 5 percent while the share of machinery stands at 4.4 percent.
From Reuters:
A court in southern China has handed out a death sentence to a man involved in a brawl in July blamed for being the trigger to deadly riots in the restive far western region of Xinjiang.
State media said the fight erupted between a group of Han Chinese and ethnic Uighur workers from Xinjiang at a factory in Shaoguan, Guangdong province, after a rumour spread that some Uighurs had raped two women.
Adam Cathcart translates an interview with Rainier Schwartz, German translator of Dream of the Red Chamber:
When I went to middle school, the first time I saw Franz Kuhn’s translation of it, the earliest version. From 1958 to 1963, I was at Berlin’s Humboldt University East Asian Studies and History period, I got my first impression via Kuhn’s translation along with the original Chinese, and noticed that the two were not completely the same. In 1966, at Moscow International Bookstore I bought four books of the Chinese version (Renmin Wenxue Chubanshe, 1963). This was my first encounter with the complete Chinese text. From spring 1971- autumn 1975, I was a translator for the German Democratic Republic embassy , frequently in Beijing. At this time I began to earnestly read 红楼梦. In 1978, a publisher made a suggestion that I translate it and in 1980, I got a contract to do that. From this point I began the work of translating it, using ten years. In 1990 I basically finished it.
Other recent posts of interest:
Blood & Treasure relays and comments on an Observer article about Akmal Shaikh, a British man facing execution in China for drug smuggling:
Shaikh, who is said to be severely mentally ill, will become the first British citizen to be executed in China; his lawyers warn that he could be killed imminently by a gunshot to the back of his head. Foreign Office officials said there were reports last week that his second appeal had failed, but had yet to receive "official confirmation" or any news from the Chinese authorities.
Emails seen by the Observer reveal that Shaikh was recruited in a sting operation involving criminal figures in Poland, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan. His defence was that he was duped by the gang and had no knowledge of the drugs.
Shaikh, who is married to an Englishwoman and has five children, genuinely believed the gang were his friends and were grooming him for pop stardom. In fact, say lawyers and friends, he was, and is, suffering from delusional psychosis.
Blogstar.TV, a new bilingual web-based video series set in Shanghai, posts its first episode, Window to the West.
Creator Oli also blogs at Oli's Shanghai Blog.
Tim Hathaway at Southern Weekly translates an editorial by Guo Guangdong that ran in the newspaper on October 1:
Which statement is best able to capture the sentiments of Chinese 60 years ago? Which statement is best able to mark the moment when the People’s Republic of China was founded? Without a doubt, it is the following:“The people of China have stood up!”
This rather plain utterance was actually more influential than the legal proclamation made on October 1, 1949 during the ceremony for the founding of the nation: “The government of the People’s Republic of China is hereby established this day!” This is because the mere announcement of a change in authority was not enough to mark the difference between the old and the new. Nor was it enough to express the fervent hope of people under the flag of the new leadership.
A deal to sell Hummer to a Chinese company that had appeared to have fallen through has been revived. From The Financial Times:
China is set to gain a toehold in the North American car market through Sichuan Tengzhong Heavy Industrial Machinery's acquisition from General Motors of Hummer, the hulking symbol of Americans' fading love affair with gas guzzlers.
The two sides said yesterday that they had reached a "definitive agreement", which remains subject to US and Chinese government approval. Terms were not disclosed. The purchase price, understood to be about $150m, could be affected by conditions set by the two governments.
Rupert Murdoch gave a speech yesterday in Beijing at the "Wolrd Media Summit". The Financial Times has a story on it titled Murdoch calls for free media in China.
Paidcontent.org has posted the full text of Murdoch's speech. Three excerpts below:
The Philistine phase of the digital age is almost over. The aggregators and the plagiarists will soon have to pay a price for the co-opting of our content. But if we do not take advantage of the current movement toward paid-for content, it will be the content creators, the people in this hall, who will pay the ultimate price and the content kleptomaniacs will triumph...
... There is a ... problem for these potentially influential Chinese [media] companies. They operate in a market that is sheltered and so they are not exposed to the competition that would prepare them for the rigors of the global marketplace...
...India, which is far, far earlier in the economic development cycle, has been more welcoming of competition and so Bollywood has come to influence Hollywood, financially and creatively.
The Chinese Mirror introduces Wu Pen Ji, a 1927 film about the famed Lord Bao, and compares Bao to "Judge Dee," the subject of an upcoming film directed by Tsui Hark and starring Andy Lau:
But while [Robert] van Gulik made Dee much better-known in the West, the more familiar literary detective in China is "Judge (or Lord) Bao," [Bao Zheng 包拯 (999-1062), aka Bao Qingtian (包青天)] , like Dee a real historical person. Bao's fictionalized cases have long been the subjects of books, classical Beijing operas, and numerous TV films and miniseries (including children's versions, both live action and animated). In fact, the number and variety of the TV versions is similar to that of Sherlock Holmes in the West, with such spinoff series titles as "The New Cases of Bao Qingtian," "Young Bao Qingtian," (the hero as a young man) and "Young Detective Bao Qingtian," (the hero as a child), etc. In China, when I would tell a friend or colleague how much I had enjoyed Judge Dee, the usual reaction would be similar to what a British person's might be if a visitor from another culture said he had avidly read "all the Doctor Thorndyke mysteries, and I've even read a couple about that other fellow, Sherlock what's-his-name."
In an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal, Tony Blair writes about his views on modern day China and the change the country has experienced since his first visit 20 years ago:
A few weeks ago, when I was in Guizhou province outside Guiyang city, standing in a small village to see a pilot project in solar lighting, I reflected on what I had seen. I had seen the city center, with its fashion shops like Christian Dior and its bustling nightlife, but also housing tenements urgently in need of renovation. I had witnessed a stunning music and dance show celebrating the region's indigenous heritage. I met the Muslim governor. And in the village, I saw newer homes, but also many that were as poor as some in Africa.
Xinhua reports from the World Media Summit, which opened today in Beijing with a speech from president Hu Jintao:
"We sincerely hope that media organizations from around the world can make new contribution to deepening the world's understanding of China, and helping consolidate and develop friendship between the Chinese people and those in the rest of the world."
The government also supports the Chinese media in enhancing exchanges and cooperation with their foreign counterparts in news communication, human resources, information technologies and business development, he said.
At Fool's Mountain, Berlin Fang discusses Herta Müller's Nobel win, cross-cultural literature, and China's own Nobel prospects.
Robert Kaplan, writing in The New York Times:
In Afghanistan’s Logar Province, just south of Kabul, the geopolitical future of Asia is becoming apparent: American troops are providing security for a Chinese state-owned company to exploit the Aynak copper reserves, which are worth tens of billions of dollars.
GoKunming visits a theme-park on the outskirts of Kunming that employs more than eighty little people in a "Dwarf Empire":
Chinese visitors to the park are obviously attracted by the novelty of a dwarf village, but there does not appear to be any belittling of the park's residents. Most visitors spend a couple of hours in the park, taking photos of – and with – the dwarves, maybe having a coffee and then leaving after the performance or staying around for beer and barbecue at night.
According to Wu it was initially difficult for the park to attract employees, due to concern by families of dwarves that they would be exploited or scammed. In order to allay such worries the park made relocation fees part of the employment package for its dwarf employees. Almost all of the 80 dwarves living in the park take part in the daily performances, with a handful working as food and gift vendors or janitors.
See also: A Google translation of an Italian-language report on Cinaoggi about the park.
The China Daily reports on a story that Xinhua has so far not mentioned:
DUBAI: A prominent Al-Qaida militant on Wednesday threatened to attack Chinese targets in "reprisal" for the July 5 riots in Urumqi, capital of the Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region.
He urged Uygurs in Xinjiang to "make serious preparations" for a "holy war" against the Chinese government and called on fellow Muslims for support.
Abu Yahya al-Libi, in a video posted on an Islamist website yesterday, called for "a true return to their (Uygurs) religion and ... serious preparation for jihad in the path of God the Almighty and to carry weapons ..."
Q&A with David Spindler, independent scholar of the Great Wall, about his collaborative exhibition with photographer Jonathan Ball.
USC's US-China Today profiles Peking University's School of Transnational Law:
The professors at STL admire their students. "They have a hunger that most Americans, myself included, lack. This is their only opportunity -- higher education," said Frank Wu, visiting Professor of Law at Peking STL.
But STL remains an outlier in Chinese legal education. STL's curriculum lacks the staple criminal, civil law, and administrative rule courses that are found in Chinese law schools—the school's aim is not to produce lawyers for the domestic market, but for an international one. "Most of STL's courses are on business law or transnational law," he said. "The emphasis is on training business lawyers who will serve the global market."
From Xinhua in The China Daily:
The Chinese company Sinohydro suffered an attack on Sunday by unidentified gunmen close to the town of Beni in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC)'s eastern province of North Kivu, the commercial representative of the company in Kinshasa, Luo Xiaowei, told Xinhua.
Gunmen launched the attack at the construction site along the National Road No. 4 (RN4), Luo said on Monday, without reporting casualties.
Eastern Congo is one of the more chaotic and violent places on the planet; the attack is less noteworthy than the fact that that Xinhua reported it.
From the China Daily:
US President Barack Obama will not meet the Dalai Lama during his five-day trip to the US capital that began on Monday.
Obama instead intends to wait until after his November summit with President Hu Jintao before meeting the Dalai Lama, possibly sometime in December, US officials said.
This will be the first time in 18 years the Dalai Lama would have visited Washington without seeing a US president.
The Washington Post published an article by a special envoy to the United States for the Dalai Lama, Lodi Gyaltsen Gyari who responded to the reports:
The Oct. 5 front-page article "Obama's Meeting With the Dalai Lama Is Delayed" captured some of the complexity of this issue but failed to state clearly that we were involved in the decision for President Obama to meet His Holiness after the U.S.-China summit and not during his visit to Washington this week. We came to this arrangement because we believe that it is in our long-term interests.
Far West China has an account of ongoing internet blackouts in Xinjiang as well as quarantine after traveling away from the province during the National Holiday:
The China Beat also runs an article from a student of the University of Colorado, Boulder, about Xinjiang.Contrary to local conventional wisdom, I have refused to become too fearful, taking a few motorcycle trips around the province and not wearing a face mask to protect myself from the crazy flu. I also left the province during this October holiday, another risk I was advised against (“You’ll be quarantined when you get back for one full week!”), which is how I am typing this message right now. I’m in a hotel room not even 50km from the Xinjiang border, soaking in the internet like it’s a miracle from heaven.
From the Wall Street Journal:
Hasutai is at the vanguard of an explosion of ethnic awareness and pride across China. The nation's 1.3 billion people are overwhelmingly Han Chinese, but roughly 9% of the population are ethnic minorities: Manchus and Mongolians, Uighurs and Tibetans as well as dozens of others. Although their numbers are small, minorities live on nearly half of China's territory, including most of its borderlands. Over the past two years they have been at the center of bloody riots that claimed hundreds of lives.
AP reports (via Huffington Post):
Conservative Egyptian lawmakers have called for a ban on imports of a Chinese-made kit meant to help women fake their virginity and one scholar has even called for the "exile" of anyone who imports or uses it.
The Artificial Virginity Hymen kit, distributed by the Chinese company Gigimo, costs about $30. It is intended to help newly married women fool their husbands into believing they are virgins.
Xinhua reports:
PYONGYANG, Oct. 5 — Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao and Kim Jong Il, top leader of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK), held talks here on Monday...
Unlike Bill Clinton, Wen smiled for the photos.
Reuters:
China overtook the United States as South Africa's biggest export destination in the first half of 2009, reinforcing the Asian country's push to build trade links with Africa...
...Data for South Africa -- Africa's biggest economy -- showed exports to China stood at 27.6 billion rand [
USD 3.7 billion] for the year to June, against 4.8 billion rand [USD ] for the whole of 2008......China's overall trade with Africa has increased tenfold over the past decade, hitting $107 billion last year, narrowly eclipsing the United States.
deerawn translates the preface and first few pages of Du Lala's Promotion, a bestselling novel of office life that's being turned into a movie starring Xu Jinglei:
It's a really, well, good-natured piece of writing. I wonder if a book like this could ever make it in the world of Western pop fiction, a book that attempts to be didactic and entertaining. There are lots of books in Western pop fiction that are teaching lessons to the target audience or whatever, but not quite as explicitly as Du Lala's Promotion, I don't think. I'm sure there are some examples, but is there anything that, like Du Lala's Promotion, combines novel and practical handbook for office politics, a work that provides the reader with a primer on the vocabulary used in the offices of multinational companies, and a book that charts a course for upwardly mobile middle class women? I feel like Western office drones must have a hugely different conception of the officeworld and their role in it, based on my own personal experience: they're putting in shorter hours and there's less at stake and the office job doesn't represent the same heavy thing that it represents to a Chinese white collar worker. This is sort of a hybrid of a Japanese OL manga and bureaucracy novels, and neither of those genres are a going concern in the West.
See also: The Global Currency Reform Conference, a translation of a 1922 satirical essay by Xu Zhuodai.
Will the officials slogans of the 60th anniversary of the founding of the People's Republic last? NPR talks to Jeff Wasserstrom, who also suggests some new slogans of his own.
Portrait of an LBX goes to Qingdao and ends up in a hotel filled with hookers.
A profile by Richard McGregor in the Financial Times of a key government organ that rarely speaks its name:
Little known even within China, the body ... known as Zhongzubu – the Central Organisation Department – has emerged from the country’s economic upheaval of the past three decades as indispensable to the party’s hold on power.
Tell It Like It Is (实话实说) goes off the air. Is this the end of truth on state television?
China Film Group head honcho Han Sanping discusses Founding of a Republic and the role of a state-owned film production company.
A move intended to foster local talent, I'm sure. China Music Radar reports, and relays the statement from Modern Sky:
Modern Sky regrets to announce that due to unforeseen circumstances, the 14 international acts originally scheduled to perform at the 2009 Modern Sky Festival will be unable to attend. We offer our sincerest apologies for the disappointment.
However, the organizers are determined to move forward as planned. The time and place of the festival – October 4-7 at Beijing’s Chaoyang Park – has not changed.
Andy Best notes that International Noise Conspiracy has been pulled from a show at Yuyintang in Shanghai, and suggests that foreign bands are off stages nation-wide.