Must-read China news by Danwei

Tania Branigan in The Guardian:

Money. Power. Even sex, albeit offstage. Wang Xiaofang's novels capture it all – in the dog-eat-dog world of Chinese bureaucracy. Personal ambition, political intrigue and detailed renderings of the country's land management system fuse in the unlikely literary phenomenon known as "officialdom fiction".

Wang is king of the genre, -– general secretary might be more apt – having sold 3m copies of catchily titled works such as Director of the Beijing Reception Office.

Posted by Jeremy Goldkorn at 8:43 PM | Permalink

The BBC:

China has removed 13 offences from the list of 68 crimes punishable by death.

But death penalty campaigners say the revision of the country's criminal code will not necessarily lead to a significant fall in the numbers of criminals executed.

The offences were all economic crimes for which the death penalty was rarely if ever applied.

They include tax fraud, the smuggling of cultural relics or precious metals, tomb robbing and stealing fossils.

Posted by Jeremy Goldkorn at 8:34 PM | Permalink

China Elections Blog translates an article from Window of the South:

Yin Hui, a popular petitioner for the residents of Nanyin village and a stubborn troublemaker for the local government and the Party-branch committee, was elected head of the Villager Committee of Nanyin, Jiangsu province in October 2010, earning more than 70% of the valid votes. However, the power transition process did not go as smoothly as he expected. Before Yin Hui took office, the Part-branch committee and the Villager Committee made a change to take back the decision-making power in Nanyin. Also, the accounting department remains independent from the newly elected village committee. Without financial support and the ability to control the village budget, Yin Hui is actually taking charge of an empty shell.

Posted by Joel Martinsen at 12:36 PM | Permalink

The China Youren blog has a post titled "Get out of Here, Your Excellency!":

I was very disappointed when I read this story about the US ambassador in Beijing taking part in the so-called “Jasmine” protests last Sunday. This is very bad news for Chinese supporters of democracy (yet again).

First of all, let’s be serious. The idea that the ambassador didn’t know what was going on is an insult to intelligence, his appearing on camera lying to a Chinese passer-by only makes things worse…

…Don’t American politicians understand that democracy can only win if it is seen as homegrown? What would happen if the French ambassador was seen joining a protest for, say, the health reform in the US, would this help further the Democrats’ agenda? Does this kind of action help the millions of real, anonymous Chinese who hope for a more open system? Certainly not.

Posted by Jeremy Goldkorn at 10:27 AM | Permalink

Dan Edwards at Screening China looks at two documentaries by Guangzhou-based filmmaker Zhou Hao:

In this sense, Using adds little to previous films about the culture surrounding heroin, apart from revealing its existence in present-day China. The film's emotional nexus, however, lies elsewhere, in the knotty relationship between filmmaker Zhou Hao on the one hand, and Ah Long and his girlfriend Ah Jun on the other. The on-again off-again nature of their “friendship” is established straight after the film's introductory sequence, when inter-titles tell us police cleared out the derelict building shortly after Zhou Hao filmed there. Ah Long disappears for six months and Zhou Hao gives up hope of ever seeing him again – until Ah Long calls out of the blue and they are reunited over a meal.

Posted by Joel Martinsen at 2:18 PM | Permalink

Mary Ann O'Donnell introduces a fable about trade imbalance that appeared on the left-leaning Utopia BBS:

However, one day there was an earthquake on Piggy Island, which sank into the ocean. In short, Piggy Island disappeared. At this news, the Donkey King went crazy, worried that this mode of production had been upset. What were they to do?

The Donkey King asked his ministers. An especially smart Minister said, “Immediately block this news. Do not tell the people that Piggy Island has vanished. Donkey Island can continue producing grain as before. Then send the grain to the docks and have it shipped to where Piggy Island used to be.”

Posted by Joel Martinsen at 2:13 PM | Permalink

The Global Times profiles Lu Liping and Sun Haiying, well-known Chinese actors who also happen to be Christian:

With those words, given as she accepted a Best Actress award at the 47th Taipei Golden Horse Film Festival last November, Lü Liping became the first Chinese mainland actress to express her "gratitude to God" at an international film festival award ceremony in a decade.

Chinese mainland media such as the Oriental Morning Post later reported Lü was "too nervous [and] delivered an incoherent and confused speech."

Posted by Joel Martinsen at 1:31 PM | Permalink

In Time

Writer Murong Xuecun prepared these remarks on censorship as an acceptance speech for a Chinese literary prize. But, as he approached the platform, he was abruptly barred from speaking. He delivered this version of the talk at Hong Kong's Foreign Correspondents Club on February 22, 2011.

[Excerpt:]

In another place I said that someone's fart had the 'flavour of India.' I must admit that this could be regarded as a bit vulgar, but surely either way it was hardly of great importance? But the editor insisted that I make a change because of the reference to India.

On this point he was unyielding: Indian-flavoured flatulence is not permitted. I sympathised with him, because apparently he was genuinely afraid of causing a diplomatic incident between China and India. But I also wondered whether China and India would really start a war over a solitary fart.

Posted by Jeremy Goldkorn at 11:54 AM | Permalink

China Digital Times has translated a blog post by Jason Ng, a timeline of the Jasmine non protests in China and some thoughts on what happened:

If the government hadn’t had such a big reaction, I believe that not so many people would have participated in the Jasmine Revolution.

Unfortunately, for those who have guilty consciences, at a certain point, demons can be heard in the sound of the midnight wind.

Posted by Jeremy Goldkorn at 11:44 AM | Permalink

For Outside magazine, Yang Xiao spins a tale "In which a team of Chinese men travel to the United States for the first time to hike the legendary Appalachian Trail—and find its manicured paths a little wimpy."

Posted by Joel Martinsen at 4:27 PM | Permalink

ChinaGeeks:

[R]ecently, we (and every other news source on the face of the earth) posted about Sina microblogging account Prof. Yu Jianrong set up for reposting photos of beggar children. At the time, the campaign was rapidly gaining momentum, the Chinese media was all over it, and Sina was making special efforts to build up followers on Yu Jianrong’s account.

Then, perhaps inevitably, came the backlash.

Posted by Jeremy Goldkorn at 3:02 PM | Permalink

Taiwan's Next Media Animation covers the so-called "protests" over the weekend.

Posted by Alice Xin Liu at 1:12 PM | Permalink

Hao Leifeng writes for the Global Times to defend the delicate virtue of Chinese women against the perverted attention of western-influenced microbloggers. Read and be convinced:

Young people need to spend their time focusing on their studies, not such unhealthy interests. It is important that young women are not distracted by dating, until, of course, they graduate. Then they should listen to their parents' advice and marry immediately.

This so-called iPhone "contest" makes a link between sexual attractiveness, and the acquisition of luxury goods, which is of course completely misleading and could give young people the wrong idea of how life works in modern China.

Posted by Joel Martinsen at 12:33 PM | Permalink

Digicha on Sina Weibo:

I have put together a simple presentation about Sina Weibo, as despite the huge run in Sina’s (NASDAQ:SINA) stock due to Weibo most non-Chinese have limited knowledge of the product itself. The document does not address censorship (See China’s Internet: The Invisible Birdcage for a longer discussion of Internet controls). We all know it is there, and Sunday we got a real time look at some of the layers of control, but this powerpoint focuses on the commercial and product aspects of Weibo.

Posted by Alice Xin Liu at 12:16 PM | Permalink

The Wall Street Journal reports on Alibaba's fraud case:

Sellers on Alibaba.com can display Gold Supplier credentials on the site after filing business-verification paperwork to Alibaba for a fee. But Alibaba.com said 100 sales personnel, out of its sales force of about 5,000, as well as supervisors and sales managers were "directly responsible in allowing the fraudsters to evade" the company's authentication measures.

The result is that some buyers were duped into doing business with fraudulent companies, in some cases paying for goods they didn't receive.

Posted by Joel Martinsen at 11:49 AM | Permalink

Jane Leung Larson writes for China Beat on the baohuanghui:

Chinese civil society took a big step forward in 1899 with the founding of the Chinese Empire Reform Association, or the Baohuanghui 保皇会 (literally the “Protect the Emperor Society”), in Victoria, Canada. In effect a proto-political party, the Baohuanghui was founded on the premise that the first step in reforming China was the launching of an organization of like-minded Chinese who believed in its mission and would support a variety of methods, from uprisings to newspapers, to achieve their goals. This kind of voluntary association, or qun [群 group], was distinguished from the traditional Chinese organizations that formed around native place, clan, guild, or religious identities, which only reinforced the cliquishness and infighting of Chinese people. From the qun, it was hoped, would come the guo [国 the nation].

Posted by Joel Martinsen at 10:31 AM | Permalink

A Sinica podcast with Kaiser Kuo, Gady Epstein and Will Moss discussing the Egyptian revolution, Groupon's troubles in China, and the recent campaign on Weibo to identify kidnapped children who have been forced into begging.

Posted by Jeremy Goldkorn at 12:35 PM | Permalink