Must-read China news by Danwei

A video and translation on China Study Group, with the following introduction:

Apparently a number of people have been meeting in a public square in Luoyang for some time to ‘publicize Mao Zedong Thought‘, most of the time without incident. Recently, however, the city government in Luoyang has taken a dim view of their actions, and begun to crack down on the participants, urging them not to gather. It is not entirely clear, but the precipitating event may have been an anti-GMO rally earlier this year, wherein the introduction of GMO grain was viewed as an example of the collusion between foreign interests and ‘traitors’ (the officials that approved the deal).

Posted by Joel Martinsen at 5:48 PM | Permalink

Should the media hold off on reporting on school attacks for fear of inspiring copy-cats?

Posted by Joel Martinsen at 5:37 PM | Permalink

The BBC reports on the latest incident, this time in Shandong:

Five young children have been hurt at a school in north-eastern China after a man attacked them with a hammer before killing himself.
...
The man, said to be a local farmer, grabbed two children before setting himself on fire at the pre-school in Shandong province's Weifang city.

The children were pulled to safety, and all five - plus an injured teacher - were said to be stable in hospital.

Posted by Joel Martinsen at 5:31 PM | Permalink

China Geeks translates a China Youth Daily editorial that puts part of the blame for high housing prices on corruption among government officials.

Posted by Joel Martinsen at 1:38 PM | Permalink

Xinhua has published an article about the new state secrets laws, explaining them from the Chinese government's point of view:

China's parliament on Thursday adopted a revision to the Law on Guarding State Secrets which narrowed the definition of "state secrets," in an effort to boost transparency...

...Local officials often use the excuse "state secrets" to avoid answering inquiries from the public properly.

After the amended law takes effect in October, governments under the county level will have to respond to public questioning with more openness and without the power to classify information as a state secret, Wang said...

...The amended law requires Internet operators and other public information network service providers to cooperate with public and state security departments and prosecutors in probes of state secret leaks.

Prof. Wang said, "Such stipulations are necessary," as fast information transmission can easily cause leaks of state secrets and many countries have similar requirements on network operators.

Posted by Jeremy Goldkorn at 11:59 AM | Permalink

Malcom Moore in The Daily Telegraph:

The most entertaining event in Shanghai at the moment is not the humourless Shanghai Expo.

Instead, head for the north end of the Bund and the old Royal Asiatic Society building, which has been taken over by an army of creaky robots, rickety helicopters, homemade submarines and even a makeshift aircraft carrier.

Cai Guoqiang, the artist curating the exhibition ... is one of China’s most famous artists, and ... responsible for the fireworks at the Beijing Olympics, has toured the country collecting the inventions in order to put them on show.

Posted by Jeremy Goldkorn at 6:41 PM | Permalink

Wallflower Dispatches interviews Helen Lee, one of China's primary designers.

Posted by Alice Xin Liu at 4:07 PM | Permalink

ChinaSMACK has some before and after Photoshopped images showing the sisters Kong who are legendary for their long thin legs.

Posted by Alice Xin Liu at 3:53 PM | Permalink

On the personal website Linshu's Translations are digital interviews with new music masters such as Yan Jun.

Posted by Alice Xin Liu at 3:49 PM | Permalink

Nels Frye at Stylites gives retro fashion a name and a shop.

Posted by Alice Xin Liu at 3:14 PM | Permalink

The USA Today reports:

China was stripped of a bronze medal from the 2000 Sydney Olympics on Wednesday for fielding an underage gymnast, with that women's team medal now going to the United States.

The International Olympic Committee acted after investigations by the sport's governing body determined that Dong Fangxiao was only 14 at the 2000 Games. Gymnasts must turn 16 during the Olympic year to be eligible.

"I'm really just proud to know that justice prevailed," said Dominique Dawes, a member of the U.S. squad in 2000. "My teammates are very well-deserving of the bronze medal, and I'm sure each and every one of us will be thrilled. We will cherish it."

Posted by Alice Xin Liu at 11:16 AM | Permalink

The domestic film industry pits itself against Hollywood blockbusters.

Posted by Joel Martinsen at 6:27 PM | Permalink

Cfensi translates some press coverage of Daniel Wu, who is appearing with Yuan Quan in Clara Law's Like A Dream:

He’s also wary of acting in any type of costume movie....“To put it simply, Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon succeeded because it was a love story, not a historical movie or a complicated cultural movie. In fact, it’s just a simple wuxia movie with a love story added to it — two very simple things added together. But now it’s become that no one is clear what constitutes a costume movie and what constitutes a wuxia movie, to the point where foreigners don’t know what Chinese movies are saying.”

Posted by Joel Martinsen at 3:11 PM | Permalink

The Chinese Law Prof Blog discusses how debt hostages are treated in Chinese law:

Remarkably (to me, anyway), even the formal legal system treats hostage-taking as less reprehensible when it's coupled with a demand for debt repayment. Although the 1979 Criminal Law curiously did not directly prohibit kidnapping for ransom, it did prohibit kidnapping for sale, and made unlawful detention punishable by up to three years' imprisonment. The 1997 Criminal Law contains a new provision punishing kidnapping for ransom by up to life imprisonment (Art. 239). The taking of debt hostages, however, is not considered a type of kidnapping for ransom. Instead, it is assimilated into unlawful detention (Art. 238) and punished by no more than three years' imprisonment. (I suppose this is progress; the specific mention of debt hostages is new to the 1997 Criminal Law, and presumably is there to make clear that hostage-taking is still unlawful even when you think you've got a good reason for it.)

Previously on Danwei: Hospital holds newborn hostage when parents can't pay their bill

Posted by Joel Martinsen at 1:14 PM | Permalink

A New York Times story on Expo-related papering over of Shanghai's trade in bootleg DVDs includes this interesting juxtaposition:

When asked last week what was going on, clerks at Even Better Than Movie World (across the street from its rival Movie World) readily acknowledged to a visitor that they had been told to hide the illegal goods, and that inspectors would pretend not to notice the clandestine backroom operation.

After a few months, they say, the wall will come down and the store will go back to selling illegal DVDs out in the open.

But later, when the same visitor returned, identified himself as a journalist and asked the same question, the clerks pretended there were no secret rooms.

“I don’t know about the existence of that small room,” a clerk at Movie World said last week. Pressed, she said: “I’m not the boss.”

Posted by Joel Martinsen at 10:35 AM | Permalink

From The China Daily

The Chinese government announced Tuesday the lifting of the 20-year-old ban on entry for foreigners with HIV/AIDS, sexually transmitted diseases and leprosy.

According to a statement released Tuesday by the State Council, after gaining more knowledge about the diseases, the government has realized that such ban has a very limited effect in preventing and controlling diseases in the country. It has, instead, caused inconvenience for the country when hosting various international activities.

Posted by Jeremy Goldkorn at 10:26 AM | Permalink

For the last three months, a hospital in Dongguan has refused to release a newborn whose parents have made no payments on their 40,000 RMB hospital bill.

Posted by Joel Martinsen at 2:39 PM | Permalink

A translation of a Southern Weekly report on the work of monks in the earthquake relief effort.

Posted by Joel Martinsen at 2:37 PM | Permalink

A Q&A with Karen Smith, whose book Shanghai, A History in Photographs 1842 - Today, co-authored with H.S. Liu, was just released.

Posted by Joel Martinsen at 2:31 PM | Permalink

CNN talks to Wang Jun, author of two best-selling books on urban history and planning in China about urbanization, the mistakes made in Beijing's development since 1949 and prospects for the future of the city of enternal tranquility.

Posted by Jeremy Goldkorn at 2:19 PM | Permalink

AP reported via The Independent:

A Tibetan writer who signed an open letter critical of the Chinese government's earthquake relief efforts in western Qinghai province has been detained by police, according to a family friend.

The writer, who publishes under the name Zhogs Dung but whose real name is Tagyal, was among eight signatories of a letter that expressed sorrow for the disaster – which left more than 2,000 people dead – but urged wariness of Chinese government relief efforts.

Last Friday, six police officers arrived at the Qinghai Nationalities Publishing House in the regional capital of Xining, where he worked, and escorted him away, according to a blog written by a friend. They searched his home and confiscated his computers.

Posted by Alice Xin Liu at 12:03 PM | Permalink

The Asia Society has a feature on the melting glaciers of the Khawa Karpo, in Shangri-la.

Posted by Alice Xin Liu at 11:48 AM | Permalink

China Hush has the story.

Posted by Alice Xin Liu at 11:29 AM | Permalink

From China Daily:

'Tangjialing Brothers' Li Liguo and Bai Wanlong perform in an underpass in downtown Beijing to raise money for the quake-struck Yushu on April 24, 2010. The two artists live in Tangjialing on the outskirt of Beijing. They are part of the "ant tribe", recent college graduates who live in suburban villages of big cities such as Beijing and Shanghai. They work in various jobs and their income is lower than the average for graduates working in big cities.

Posted by Alice Xin Liu at 11:24 AM | Permalink

GoChengdoo has a story on Wang Chongchong, the woman who survived two earthquakes.

Posted by Alice Xin Liu at 11:09 AM | Permalink

The Global Times reports that following the April 5 rescue of 115 trapped miners, the remaining 38 have been found dead.

Posted by Joel Martinsen at 8:49 AM | Permalink

Digicha, a blog about digital media in China by Bill Bishop, has a good post on Baidu's launch of Qiyi, a Hulu clone, and the prospects for online video companies in China.

Posted by Jeremy Goldkorn at 12:48 PM | Permalink

Not be outdone by CCTV, the state-owned news agency Xinhua is upping the ante. From The China Daily:

The National Financial Information Building is set to become the tallest in Beijing, extending 360 m and edging past the capital's highest structure - the 74-story China World Trade Center III - by some 30 m.

Xinhua News Agency, owner of the building that started construction at the weekend, said it will serve as a center for the collection of information, as a data center and as a site for research and development and be used by Xinhua 08, a computer terminal-based financial information service.

"The National Financial Information Building will reach a height of 360 meters and be the landmark building in Lize business district," Qiu Ming, director of the finance office in Fengtai district, was quoted as saying in Beijing Evening News.

Posted by Jeremy Goldkorn at 12:42 PM | Permalink

From The New York Times:

NIAMEY, Niger — For China, the transition seems smooth.

Just a few months ago, China was widely derided here as the financial backbone propping up an autocratic president, Mamadou Tandja, giving him the confidence to ignore international condemnation as he chopped away at Niger’s democratic institutions.

But now that Mr. Tandja has been overthrown, China appears to be settling into a new role: business partner to the good-government-preaching military officers who ousted Mr. Tandja under the banner of restoring democracy.

Posted by Jeremy Goldkorn at 9:57 AM | Permalink

Xinhua reports on the long-rumored sacking of Wang Lequan, who was criticized for his handling of the Urumqi riots in July 2009:

Zhang Chunxian has been appointed as the Party chief of northwest China's Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, according to a decision of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee announced Saturday.

Former secretary of the CPC Xinjiang regional committee Wang Lequan has been appointed as deputy secretary of the Political and Legislative Affairs Committee of the CPC Central Committee.

Wang Lequan, 65, had held the post since December 1995. Wang was transferred from east China's Shandong Province to Xinjiang in 1991.

Before the appointment, Zhang served as the secretary of the CPC Hunan provincial committee starting from December 2005.

More analysis at The Times and the BBC.

Background at East Asia Forum.

Posted by Joel Martinsen at 4:48 PM | Permalink

At the Washington Post, John Pomfret describes how the Chinese state media's efforts to expand its influence outside of China have not been entirely successful:

Much of the $6.6 billion budget hasn't been allocated because Chinese media companies have come up with unworkable ideas, Chinese government sources said. For example, a scheme to place TV screens showing pro-China content in European supermarkets hasn't materialized because China is having difficulty finding a firm to downlink the satellite feeds.

Beijing bureaucrats ended a program that allowed reporters on the recently relaunched U.S. edition of the China Daily, a Chinese state-owned newspaper, to do original reporting and not simply reprint stories provided by headquarters.

But even reprinting the party line has caused problems. Chinese journalists broadcasting to overseas markets have been punished for repeating reports of state-owned media in China. Chinese diplomats complained that those reports -- in one case about China's mining disasters -- were hurting China's image abroad.

Posted by Joel Martinsen at 4:36 PM | Permalink

From ChinaSMACK:

April 22 afternoon, Deputy Director Wu Hao of the Yunnan Provincial Party Committee Propaganda Department appeared at the Renmin University Cisco Live Broadcast Studio, to participate in the special Wu Hao speech organized by the Remin University School of Journalism. Here, he was showered with wu mao (50 cent) RMB cash notes/paper bills by a self-professed netizen.

Posted by Jeremy Goldkorn at 4:04 PM | Permalink

On April 21, pop star Michael Wong posted an update about washing his dog and incurred the wrath of mainland netizens who accused him of ignoring the situation in Yushu. ChinaHush translates:

Today afternoon Michael Wong’s (光良) Renren page was under attack.

Why? Because Michael Wong’s status update said that he was going to shower his pet dog. So here comes the fenqing, standing tall on high moral ground, pointing Michael Wong’s nose and said “How dare you showering your dog! You don’t love the country!”

Posted by Joel Martinsen at 2:15 PM | Permalink

Adam Minter at Shanghai Scrap continues his coverage of the Shanghai World Expo with a look at Day 2 of the "soft opening":

I don't think that it's at all surprising that Shanghai is running behind on a project that covers 5 square kilometers, costs billions, and requires management of hundreds of thousands of employees and volunteers. In fact, I think that any country would face similar problems. But that's not how it was supposed to be. For the last two years - when people in Shanghai discussed Expo, there was an assumption that - because this is Shanghai - things would be different. The conversation (which has occurred dozens of times in my presence alone) often went something like this:

A: Do you think they'll finish the Expo site on time?

B. Of course! It's China.

Posted by Joel Martinsen at 2:10 PM | Permalink

The AFP reports:

The destructive earthquake in northwestern China last week killed 207 schoolchildren, state media reported, as it also raised the overall death toll by four to 2,187.

The collapse of school buildings in the 6.9 magnitude quake was responsible for 35 percent of the student deaths, Xinhua news agency said in a report late Thursday, quoting a Qinghai province education bureau official.

The overall toll climbed to 2,187, with another 80 people still missing, it reported. More than 1,400 of those injured were in serious condition.

Posted by Alice Xin Liu at 12:04 PM | Permalink

An article by Bert de Muynck on how "illegal copying of architecture books is beneficial both to architects and consumers" in China.

Posted by Jeremy Goldkorn at 5:25 PM | Permalink

The Guardian writes about the Expo, which has already had its trial opening.

Posted by Alice Xin Liu at 4:11 PM | Permalink

ESWN highlights the hearing on allowing mainland students into Taiwan.

Posted by Alice Xin Liu at 4:00 PM | Permalink

Formerly China's richest man, Huang Guangyu is in the dock today. From Xinhua:

Huang Guangyu, former chairman of Gome Electrical Appliances Holdings, went on trial in Beijing Thursday on charges of illegal business dealings, insider trading and bribery.

The court hearing was opened at the Beijing No. 2 Intermediate People's Court Thursday morning.

Posted by Jeremy Goldkorn at 10:23 AM | Permalink

NGOs in China writes about the temporary shut-down of Ngo.cn, the Chinese website that aggregated many different groups' resources.

Posted by Alice Xin Liu at 6:23 PM | Permalink

A Southern Weekly journalist, Liu Jianqiang, writes that the Ministry of Environmental Protection has done little in the last two years to alleviate pollution problems. From China Dialogue.

Posted by Alice Xin Liu at 6:23 PM | Permalink

Not many foreigners are real veterans of the China media scene. Tom Gorman is one of the few: he started a media company in 1975 and went on to launch Fortune's Chinese edition, amongst many other accomplishments.

The China Business Network has a short interview with him, published as podcast and transcript.

Posted by Jeremy Goldkorn at 2:11 PM | Permalink

On the Rude Noon blog:

Melissa Chan, Al Jazeera’s China correspondent, has written about the The gathering of the monks in Jiegu (aka Gyegu, Jyekundu), the county seat of the Yushu Tibetan Autonomous Region (TAR) which is the devastated center of the latest fatal earthquake in China. Monks from the entire Tibetan cultural region have traveled to Jiegu to offer both physical and spiritual support to the ravaged Tibetan community. It is clearly a potentially volatile situation – a large congregation of monks is a nerve-wracking development for official China. Chan, who does some very good reporting of China, writes,

Surely authorities are looking at the situation very closely, and very nervously. Why they even allow this to be happening is a mystery.

Actually, there is no mystery to it all. What other choice does official China have?

Posted by Jeremy Goldkorn at 1:59 PM | Permalink

Mourning ceremonies in Qinghai, minutes of silence and flags at half mast all around the country; today, no entertainment facilities are allowed to be open, either.

Posted by Alice Xin Liu at 11:45 AM | Permalink

Newspapers and news portal websites go gray on April 21 to mourn the victims of the April 14 earthquake in Yushu, Qinghai Province.

Posted by Joel Martinsen at 11:40 AM | Permalink

Far West China writes about the the Xinjiang Flying Tigers vs the Guangdong Southern Tigers game at the CBA Basketball Finals, where an American team member of the Xinjiang team retaliated on another player.

Posted by Alice Xin Liu at 11:10 AM | Permalink

via Mark's China Blog comes "Cultural Crossover: Basketball in China," the musings of a writer from Kansas teaching English and playing pick-up basketball in Shandong:

As one o’clock turns into 1:30, people start trickling onto the courts. Some more players – particularly tall ones, at that – conglomerate on the opposite baseline, watching the proceedings. Our game is interrupted when one of the players scurries to the sidelines to answer his cell phone. After a momentary pause – like he was being given a chance to end the call quickly – the guy who gave me the Mao wave does the same to the hoard of giants at the other end of the court. Six guys stroll over; four of them are taller than 6-foot-1, and three of them must be at least 6-4.

It continues in Part II, and the rest of the blog's entries are well worth a read, most recently a two-part series about meeting some local teenage rascals on the court. Also, basketball vocabulary.

Read full article

Posted by Joel Martinsen at 12:05 PM | Permalink

Beijing Calling talks rents in the trendy neighborhood of Nanluoguxiang:

I just read the other day that Nanluoguxiang 南罗鼓巷, one of my favourite places to check out periodically is becoming a ghost town after greedy landlords decided to jack up rents -- in a bid to become obscenely rich.
...
We met up in a restaurant called Fish Nation, which offers fish and chips so I was shocked to read that the place had shut down recently. That's because the landlord for Fish Nation was demanding a 400 percent rent increase from 150,000RMB to 600,000RMB ($21,961 to $87,844). While business is good there, particularly on weekends, the restaurant owners in no way can pay such a high rent.

Posted by Joel Martinsen at 11:57 AM | Permalink

The New York Times reports on the new bureau:

The new bureau marks the latest outgrowth to a morass of agencies tasked with regulating online business and communications in China. People informed of the expansion say the authorities are retooling their media apparatus to deepen their leverage over the Web, and regulators are jostling for the growing power and privilege at stake.

Posted by Alice Xin Liu at 11:25 AM | Permalink

Maev Kennedy writes for the Guardian.

Posted by Alice Xin Liu at 11:15 AM | Permalink

Calum MacLeod and Sunny Yang write about Xiaogan, and a home for disabled children, established in January by Chen Fuqiao.

Posted by Alice Xin Liu at 12:27 PM | Permalink

CBC reports:

Chinese President Hu Jintao flew to a remote Tibetan region of western China on Sunday to meet with earthquake survivors as the death toll from the disaster rose to more than 1,700.

Hu cut short an official trip to South America to deal with the aftermath of Wednesday's 6.9-magnitude quake.

Amid heavy security, he visited a village on the outskirts of Jiegu then headed to a field hospital beside the area's sports stadium.

Posted by Alice Xin Liu at 11:16 AM | Permalink

China Daily has a report:

The death toll from a 7.1-magnitude earthquake in northwest China's Qinghai Province has risen to 760, rescuers said Friday. The latest statistics show that 243 people were missing and 11,477 injured, 1,174 severely, said a spokesman with the rescue headquarters in the Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture of Yushu in southern Qinghai.

Posted by Alice Xin Liu at 12:57 PM | Permalink

Isaac Stone Fish reports for Newsweek on the ethnic issues involved in the Qinghai earthquake:

This week's earthquake—and footage of the devastation—is allowing the average Chinese to see both the poverty and humanity of a region they're used to seeing only in political terms. "It's very hard to see real Tibetans" through the media, says Yang [Hengjun]. "On TV, they're dancing all the time, shaking hands with leaders, celebrating, or shown as troublemakers. This is an opportunity to realize that Tibetans live and suffer like we do." In addition, the sensitivity about minority issues—especially Tibetan ones—in China has choked off civic opportunities for Tibetan-Chinese connections. The earthquake is bringing "unprecedented" Chinese-Tibetan grassroots understanding, "and this could be a very good thing," says Yang.

Posted by Joel Martinsen at 11:12 AM | Permalink

China Geeks translates Wen Jiabao's People's Daily piece on Hu Yaobang.

Posted by Joel Martinsen at 9:03 AM | Permalink

Veggie Discourse translates a physics problem.

Posted by Joel Martinsen at 8:55 AM | Permalink

The Chinese Mirror translates a feature on actress Tang Wei, who hasn't been seen on mainland screens since being blacklisted after Lust, Caution.

Posted by Joel Martinsen at 8:49 AM | Permalink

Seagull Reference translates a story about parents "selling" their leukemia-suffering son for 60,000 yuan.

Posted by Alice Xin Liu at 12:52 PM | Permalink

The Twitter account of Aoi Sola (苍井空), Japanese AV actress famous for large breasts, was discovered by Chinese netizens. "Scaling the GFW" ensues. On April 15, Aoi replies at length on her blog.

Posted by Alice Xin Liu at 12:08 PM | Permalink

A story in the New York Times about five Mister Softee trucks that prowl the streets of Suzhou. Oddly, no mention is made of the brand's popularity in Hong Kong.

Because Mr. Softee, which is based in Runnemede, N.J., is a foreign company, there were “a lot of forms to fill out, a lot of red tape,” Mr. Sparks said. A hygiene license had to be obtained, and company officials met repeatedly with Suzhou’s traffic police to explain a concept they had little knowledge of: selling products out of a truck. Mr. Soft Heart trucks were assigned specific routes and parking spots, with no deviating allowed.

In a reversal of New York’s noise restrictions, the trucks were allowed to play the Mr. Softee jingle only when parked.

Posted by Joel Martinsen at 9:29 AM | Permalink

The China Daily reports the latest information from Yushu, Qinghai Province.

15:23 - Updated from 589.

Posted by Joel Martinsen at 9:24 AM | Permalink

The Seattle Times reports on an investigation by the National Labor Committee into one of Microsoft's suppliers in Dongguan:

Kernaghan estimated that as many as 5,000 people worked in the factory, located in Dongguan, and owned by Taiwanese company KYE. While the factory also has female workers between 18 and 25 years old, the factory also hired about 1,000 16- and 17-year-olds on summer work-study programs from high schools, the report said.

The workers live in dormitories, and their meals are deducted from their wages, which brings their hourly wage to 52 cents, Kernaghan said. He estimated that the Microsoft mouse assembly line made 2,000 units a shift, with 20 to 30 workers on the line, and he calculated that each worker made 9 cents per mouse. In 2009, workers reported to the labor group that they were working 83 hours per week.

Posted by Joel Martinsen at 9:17 AM | Permalink

Sinosplice breaks down Sheldon's Mandarin dialogue in the US sitcom The Big Bang Theory.

Posted by Joel Martinsen at 11:05 PM | Permalink

Howard French, former Shanghai correspondent for the New York Times who has also reported extensively from western and central Africa takes a trip to the Congo to look at Chinese investment there and elsewhere in Africa.

Posted by Jeremy Goldkorn at 10:05 PM | Permalink

GoChengdoo has the latest on the earthquake that has killed over 300 in Yushu, Qinghai.

Posted by Alice Xin Liu at 6:27 PM | Permalink

GoKunming has the story:

Kunming city management officers, aka chengguan, have become involved in another incident that has attracted negative local media attention. Yunnan Information News is reporting that chengguan backed over a man whose home they had just demolished and dragged him 50 meters.

The government-run newspaper is reporting that yesterday 33-year-old Li Chun (李春), who is deaf, brought his father, who has lung cancer, back from a hospital visit to their home in Banqiao Town (板桥镇) in southeast Kunming.

The two discovered upon their return that chengguan had overseen the demolition of their two-story concrete house while they were gone. As the chengguan prepared to depart, Li lay down underneath an unmarked chengguan van to prevent the officers from leaving.

Posted by Alice Xin Liu at 6:25 PM | Permalink

Xinhua is reporting that 300 people have been killed and another 8,000 injured in the earthquake that struck Qinghai early Wednesday morning.

Posted by Joel Martinsen at 5:13 PM | Permalink

The New York Times reports:

A powerful earthquake in northwest China killed at least 67 people and left many others buried under debris early Wednesday, the state said.

The quake, which struck at 7:49 a.m. in Qinghai Province, was reported as having a magnitude of 7.1 by China’s earthquake administration. The United States Geological Survey recorded it as 6.9.

Posted by Alice Xin Liu at 2:25 PM | Permalink

The China Study Group examines a troubled attempt to develop Wuhan's East Lake into a center for commerce and tourism:

Two villages and a fishery have already been evicted and demolished, starting immediately after the lease was signed last December, and a third villager is in the process of eviction. Villagers and fishery workers claim that part of the compensation promised by OCT has been pocketed by government officials, and when they petitioned the government about this they were assaulted by hired thugs. Most of these petitioners have backed down, but about 50 families in the third village are still holding out. All of this went largely unnoticed by Wuhan’s urban population and the news media for three months.

Posted by Joel Martinsen at 10:58 AM | Permalink

The South China Morning Post glossed Hu Jintao's name with the Chinese for activist Hu Jia. Hong Kong media wonders why. ESWN translates.

Posted by Joel Martinsen at 10:55 AM | Permalink

From Bill Bishop's blog Digicha:

Today China’s largest Internet firm Tencent announced a $300m investment into Russia’s Digital Sky Technologies Limited (DST). DST is the most powerful Russian Internet firm, and has investments across Eastern Europe as well as in Facebook and Zynga in the US. South Africa’s Naspers owns 35% of Tencent, is an active investor in digital media in many emerging markets, and shares investments (including Mail.ru) and partnerships with DST in Russia and Eastern Europe.

Are we now seeing the emergence of a global Internet power bloc along the lines of the BRICs, one that, if we want to be facile, perhaps we can call the SARCs?

Posted by Jeremy Goldkorn at 3:29 PM | Permalink

The China Daily reports that Chinese authorities may launch a probe into "suspected monopoly abuse" by Rio Tinto, Vale, and BHB Billiton:

Rio Tinto said in last Friday's statement that it was negotiating with clients about the quarterly pricing plan. The newspaper said the three mining giants are highly coordinated in supply, transportation, pricing and timing, indicating a clear monopoly abuse.

"Iron ore prices are not totally determined by the three mining giants rather than the market rules," an unnamed person from a state-owned steel company said. Although China's steel companies are the biggest buyer of iron ore, they have no say in the talks, the person added.

In other industry news, Xinhua is reporting that the Ministry of Commerce will impose anti-dumping duties on imports of electrical steel from the United States and Russia.

Posted by Joel Martinsen at 3:20 PM | Permalink

Micah Sittig talks to Sinosplice about taking courses for a Master’s in Education from a US university program in Shanghai:

It’s an intensive, two-year master’s offered by the University of Oklahoma. The College of Education sends professors to Shanghai during vacations for one week of class, 62 hours total, including a practicum that we’re just finishing now. It’s a general Master’s in Education that is meant for teachers from preschool up through high school, and includes courses like Intro to Teaching and Learning, Educational Psychology, Theory and Research in Education, and Instructional Technology. Enrollment was not limited to foreigners, but only 3 out of 15 students are native Chinese, probably because the entire program is being conducted in English. I suspect that some of the professors were mentally prepared to teach a majority Chinese class, but that doesn’t mean they lowered the pace or difficulty of the material.

Posted by Joel Martinsen at 2:07 PM | Permalink

Andy Yee at China Geeks pulls together some commentary on the issue of stability:

There are many reasons why mass incidents are increasing both in number and intensity. On one hand, people are now more aware of their rights, but proper channels to express them are lacking. On the other hand, government officials’ high-handedness in dealing with the public only makes the matter worse. Many scholars and intellectuals argue that enforcing this ‘rigid stability’ is not sustainable. Here we translate some extracts from three recent pieces written by Leung Man Tao, a recognized media professional and ‘public intellectual’ from Hong Kong, Du Guang, a veteran Central Party School scholar, and Sun Liping, a sociology professor at Tsinghua University.

Posted by Joel Martinsen at 1:38 PM | Permalink

For Real Time magazine, Dan Edwards writes about documentaries in China.

Posted by Alice Xin Liu at 6:33 PM | Permalink

In American Interest magazine, Charles Horner and Eric Brown look at the history and possible future of China's interaction with the Islamic lands beyond its borders.

Posted by Jeremy Goldkorn at 5:48 PM | Permalink

James Fallows has more on the ongoing Bob Dylan saga:

Finally for now, another kind of first-hand testimony, from George Conk of New York...

I live in Washington heights and walk my dog each night about 11. So do my neighbors who also have a Labrador Retriever.

[My neighbor] is Bob Dylan's road manager. I bumped into him Tuesday night. He just came back from touring in Japan and Korea with Dylan.

He says there never was a China trip planned. the whole thing is a story concocted by a promoter and that Dylan had nothing to do with planning any China tour.

Posted by Alice Xin Liu at 4:28 PM | Permalink

Steve at Fool's Mountain blog presents a look into Taiwanese pop music (with Youtube clips).

Posted by Alice Xin Liu at 3:00 PM | Permalink

The Chinese Law Prof Blog posts a translation of an essay by Li Dun on the system of re-education through labor:

The legislation changing "re-education through labor" into "education and correction for illegal acts" was not passed in the 10th National People's Congress, as some had hoped. The 11th Congress just held its third session, and again a draft proposal was put forward. Public debate has been unceasing. There is a saying that the difficulty with this law is in reconciling two interests: that of "protecting the lawful rights and interests of those subject to re-education through labor," and "to let the RETL system play its role in protecting social order and stability." They may be labeled as "parties to re-education" or in other places are labeled as those stripped of their liberty "in order to protect the rights of the great majority" or those who have their rights "controlled" or "cut down" (克减). But are protecting people's rights and preserving social stability really in conflict?

Posted by Joel Martinsen at 1:41 PM | Permalink

A pigeon exploded on a building in Shenzhen yesterday, 500 meters from a city government building. China Geeks translates a news report on the incident.

Update: According to the Southern Metropolis Daily, Shenzhen police have denied the bomb reports and are saying that the pigeon died in mid-air and the "explosion" was nothing more than the sound of it hitting the ground.

Posted by Joel Martinsen at 11:07 AM | Permalink

Wuyue Sanren has an op-ed butchered by The Beijing News. ESWN translates both versions and the author's response.

Posted by Joel Martinsen at 8:42 PM | Permalink

With four Rio Tinto employees sentenced for bribery, The Economic Observer tracks down the Chinese companies that paid the bribes:

The EO also learned that Tan Yixin, head of Shougang Group's iron ore trading office, was the first person to be exposed for his dealings with Stern Hu. Tan was arrested on July 7 last year.

It's alleged that over the past two years, Stern Hu helped dozens of private mills acquire long-term ore contracts.

To award Stern Hu for his help in helping them sign a long-term contract, a Hebei-based private mill paid him 1 million yuan in cash and another steel mill in Tangshan sent him 798,000 US dollars through an affiliate company in Hong Kong.

Posted by Joel Martinsen at 6:10 PM | Permalink

The West China City Daily reported that the Chinese Writers' Association, an arm of the literary establishment that everyone loves to hate, lodged in the Presidential Suite and dined on 2,000-yuan-per-table feasts during its congress meeting in Chongqing. It apparently fabricated the whole story.

Posted by Joel Martinsen at 5:05 PM | Permalink

Tania Branigan reports in The Guardian, following AP's interview near Gao's house:

An outspoken Chinese human rights lawyer whose 13-month disappearance caused international concern has said he is abandoning activism in the hope of being reunited with his exiled family.

Gao Zhisheng, who resurfaced last month at a retreat in Shanxi province after being seized in February 2009, today said he did not want to discuss his disappearance and whether he had been held or mistreated by the authorities.

Reporters from the Associated Press who spoke to him in Beijing said he appeared thinner and more subdued than in the past, adding that his reluctance to discuss the past and roundabout answers raised questions about whether he was under police surveillance.

The AP report is here.

Posted by Alice Xin Liu at 1:52 PM | Permalink

Chinatravel.net has an interview with travel writer Michael Woodhead about tracing the footsteps of 1920s adventurer and scientist Joseph Rock.

Posted by Alice Xin Liu at 3:50 PM | Permalink

If you are interested in South African politics, here's a piece of advice for Julius Malema by Danwei's Jeremy Goldkorn:

In the wake of Julius Malema's visit to Zimbabwe, news agencies reported that the young firebrand plans to visit "Brazil, China, Chile, Cuba and Venezuela on a tour of nationalisation programmes". Perhaps this would be a good place and time for some tutoring?

Posted by Jeremy Goldkorn at 3:43 PM | Permalink

The Far West China blog writes about a documentary shown at the 34th Hong Kong International Film Festival dealing with the fire of 1994.

Posted by Alice Xin Liu at 3:41 PM | Permalink

Jamil Anderlini in The Financial Times:

China has begun to prepare the ground publicly for a shift in exchange rate policy, days after the US Treasury said it would postpone a decision on whether to name China a “currency manipulator”.

A senior government economist told reporters in Beijing on Tuesday China could widen the daily trading band for the renminbi and allow it to resume the gradual appreciation it halted in July 2008 in response to the global credit crisis.

Posted by Jeremy Goldkorn at 3:15 PM | Permalink

Another sign that Google's exit from China may not be as good for Baidu as their current share price suggests, as reported by China Tech News:

With the slogan of "Soso knows you better", the Chinese Internet company Tencent has announced plans to set up its fifth major business division for the development of search engine services in 2010.

Tencent said that it will create individualized, socialized, intelligent and mobile search engine services with Tencent characteristics at its Soso.com search engine.

Posted by Jeremy Goldkorn at 2:54 PM | Permalink

Sascha at Chengdu Living profiles Adam Meyer, an architect who found work with a Singaporean company doing projects in Chengdu after he was laid off from a firm in the United States.

Posted by Joel Martinsen at 9:23 AM | Permalink

In March, Peking University dissolved its association with four research institutions, including the Center for Women's Law & Legal Services. The Chinese Law Prof Blog brings a statement from Center director Guo Jianmei.

Posted by Joel Martinsen at 9:18 AM | Permalink

From the blog of Marc van der Chijs, co-founder of leading Chinese video website Tudou.com:

Baidu’s search results turning into pure advertising

Baidu.com, China’s leading search engine, has always been more commercial than Google was. It’s common knowledge that its results are often not as good as those from Google’s algorithms. But because its entertainment results were ‘different’ (=easier to find illegal material) and most Chinese searches are related to entertainment, it still managed to keep a big lead over Google.

One big difference between Baidu and Google is how the paid results are mixed with organic search results. Both sites insert paid results, but Google gives them a yellow background so that it’s clear that they are different from the normal search results. Baidu does not do that, they look exactly the same as normal results, except for the characters 推广（tui guang) after the ad. Normal results have 白度快照 (Baidu kuai zhao). Of course the average Chinese netizen probably does not know this.

This is nothing new, they have done this for a long time already. But what changed over the past few weeks, is that they now don’t sell 2 or 3 paid positions, but for some keywords up to 10 positions!

Posted by Jeremy Goldkorn at 5:55 AM | Permalink

Xinhua reports:

The five children who were injured in a knife attack that left eight children dead at an east China elementary school last month are out of danger, doctors said Tuesday.

Four students had been moved out of intensive care to receive rehabilitation, while the fifth, Zhang Xuexin, was still in the ICU for observation, said Chen Xiaojie, deputy president of the No.1 Hospital of Nanping City, Fujian Province.

Posted by Alice Xin Liu at 12:24 PM | Permalink

Rolling Stone reports on Dylan's no-show.

For other interpretations of the cancellation, see these posts from James Fallows.

Posted by Alice Xin Liu at 11:58 AM | Permalink

At Shanghai Scrap, Adam Minter asks some questions about two recently-released documents related to the US Expo 2010 pavilion:

The letter attached to the memo has previously been released, and is known as the LOI, or “Letter of Intent,” authorizing Eliasoph and Winslow to begin formal work on a US pavilion, including fund-raising. It makes clear that a final agreement – the Memorandum of Agreement – including a participation agreement with Shanghai, is contingent upon Winslow and Eliasoph raising all necessary funds for a pavilion. But the previously withheld memo, and not the letter, is the real point of interest here. To show why, I’d like to highlight a few passages from it highlighting just how woefully unprepared Eliasoph and Winslow – two private citizens, only one of whom had experience with an Expo pavilion – were to assume the task that State had just awarded them.

Posted by Joel Martinsen at 11:05 AM | Permalink

Adam Cathcart compares CCTV's Chinese-language and English-language coverage: one of them mentions China's presence in the city, the other doesn't.

Posted by Joel Martinsen at 11:01 AM | Permalink

A section chief for the Zhaoyang district education bureau in Zhaotong dies in the local procuratorate. GoKunming has more.

Posted by Alice Xin Liu at 4:17 PM | Permalink

Veggie Discourse writes about Bai Yansong's censored statements.

Posted by Alice Xin Liu at 4:06 PM | Permalink

Richard Burger at the Peking Duck reviews Peter Hessler's Country Driving.

Posted by Alice Xin Liu at 1:42 PM | Permalink

From The Telegraph:

Rescue workers have pulled 114 men from the mine in China's northern Shanxi province, sparking cheers from the 3,000 men who had worked round-the-clock shifts for more than a week to reach their stranded colleagues, according to China's state news broadcaster.

Posted by Alice Xin Liu at 1:08 PM | Permalink

Inside-Out China translates an interview with Wu Si from the special "Lies" edition of New Weekly:

Wu Si: Yes, it is necessary for ruling, but we should also look at particular times. For example, in the Mao era, especially pre-1953, the government intellectuals' subjective feeling was that they had truth in their hand, not lies. They confidently carried out reform on others. At the time intellectuals at large were the subject of reform, many hid their true thoughts and said things against their own will. What is truth, what are lies, the subjective standard is in favor of the government. After the Great Leap Forward, lies were burst, with extremely serious consequences, even by the subjective standard, government intellectuals became the main producer of lies. But intellectuals at large then didn't dare to talk much, the pressure after the anti-rightist movement was too high, so they produced lies in a differently way – by faking belief.

Posted by Joel Martinsen at 12:25 PM | Permalink

The complete story of the staff uprising at the magazine Science Fiction World against a short-sighted chief editor.

Posted by Joel Martinsen at 1:45 PM | Permalink

Dee Hsu and Kevin Tsai of the popular talk show Kangxi is Coming (康熙来了) are featured in a recent Esquire cover story. Danwei translates a commentary piece about the program's risque content.

Posted by Joel Martinsen at 1:38 PM | Permalink

GoChengdoo has a story about a mysterious beast caught in Sichuan:

"In all my 90 years, I've never seen such a creature. I have no idea what it is," Liu Chang said, shaking his head, as he peered unflichingly into a cage housing the small animal. "Badgers, bobcats, I've seen them all, but I've never seen this."

On March 24, villagers in Suining's Jinyuan Town, Daying County flocked to Ke Suying's residence to see what the fuss was about: this never-before-seen creature was the talk of the town.

At around 3 a.m. on March 23, Ke Suying was awakened by the calling of a rooster. She listened carefully: The sound was coming from her own chicken coop, leading her to believe a thief had entered her property. She immediately woke up her daughter-in-law, and, flashlight in hand, they went down to the coop.

Posted by Alice Xin Liu at 3:08 PM | Permalink

The Guardian writes about the death of Martin Jacques' wife in a Hong Kong hospital, and the court verdict:

He said: "The hospital authority settling is basically admitting that Hari's treatment was indefensible. I fought to get hospital records and I started to get a picture of what happened and the picture was that her treatment was outrageous. There's absolutely no reason why someone should die from epilepsy. Hari's death was utterly unnecessary and utterly avoidable. I have always believed that if Hari had been white or Chinese she would still be alive today. The trouble is, after a death like that you're never the same person. I've learned to handle it, but the pain never goes away."

Posted by Alice Xin Liu at 12:49 PM | Permalink

From The New York Times:

Daimler, the German carmaker, dismissed market talk on Tuesday that it could divest its Maybach super luxury brand, after Chinese media reported that a Chinese company was considering buying it.

The Guangzhou Daily and other local media said Monday that the Chinese car and battery maker BYD was weighing a possible acquisition of Maybach from Daimler and that it would make a move once the brand was put up for sale, Reuters said.

“Maybach is an important part of Daimler’s product portfolio. There is no other decision,” a Daimler spokesman told Reuters.

Posted by Jeremy Goldkorn at 7:22 AM | Permalink