« April 15, 2007 - April 21, 2007 | Main | April 29, 2007 - May 5, 2007 »
Hollywood's hired gun in DC is threatening a movie business boycott of China if piracy is not stopped. David Wolf of Silicon Hutong has a belly laugh about it and explains why the anti-China noise coming out of LA and DC is counterproductive.
The Mutant Palm blogger registered an account on MySpace.cn and searched for words that China's Net Nanny really doesn't like. The Chinese site also searches the U.S. site, so he found plenty of American MySpace members that the Chinese government won't want as 'friends'.
In 2005, mobile content provider KongZhong produced a musical parody animation starring a chicken. Now the musician who wrote the original tune is suing them for 2 million yuan. KongZhong's defense: it's fair use because the short is a PSA about bird flu.
A U.S. advertisement for furniture that plays on fears of China, on Ellen Sanders's blog.
Mark Clayton of The Christian Science Monitor reports: 'In a bid to cut energy costs, boost energy security, and reduce air pollution, [China] could be essentially creating the largest greenhouse-gas-reduction plan on the planet.'
From a Daily Telegraph article by Richard Spencer: 'Zhang Yihe, a historian whose latest banned book was a collection of biographies of Peking Opera singers, has sent a flood of open letters and petitions to the government demanding a change to censorship laws.'
MySpace China opened for business on Friday April 27, and a Wall Street Journal story reveals that Rupert Murdoch's wife, Wendi Deng, is officially on the board of directors.
The Financial Times reports: 'Chinese retail investors are opening new share trading accounts at a faster rate than ever before, in spite of increasing signs of a bubble in the mainland market. In the last week alone, more than 1m new accounts have been opened, taking the total for the last four months to more than 10m – greater than the previous four years combined.'
The FT article does not mention the fake People's Daily editorial about stock market policy tightening that has been circulating on the Internet, as reported earlier on Danwei.
And so the yelling from both sides continues, and both sides can fire their zingers at one another and pat each other on the back. Powers examines the English literature produced by both sides, I believe, for a clear reason: because the battle is really one fought on Capitol Hill, not in China. Tibetan activists continue portraying the Chinese public as a swarm of indistinguishable drones incapable of independent thought or political power, even depicting them as foot soldiers in a massive campaign to dilute Tibet with faceless hordes, an outdated Cold War notion that suggests that all that CIA funding until the 1970s has left them in a time warp. No, the [...] movement sees only the power of Washington D.C. and American corporations as capable of swaying China, though 50 years of a failed approach apparently isn't enough to convince them they're beating a dead yak. Meanwhile, the Chinese government must think of them as an annoying pain in the ass, constantly disrupting their diplomatic visits or causing PR headaches like this most recent stunt. But make no mistake, as long as the exile movement continues to ignore the Chinese people and look abroad for action, the PRC will be overjoyed. Go ahead and unfurl your banners in English at the Olympics, shout your slogans, treat Chinese people as brainwashed morons - they'll love the Party even more. But hey, at least you can feel good about yourself back in Sausalito.
The Communist Party's propaganda department decided to impose a six-point penalty on Lifeweek magazine after an investigation.
The propaganda department recently introduced the points system for the print media to tighten its control ahead of a crucial party congress this autumn. Media outlets can be closed if they incur a deficit of 12 points.
The magazine's executive editor, Miao Wei, was also disciplined with a "serious internal warning".
Disciplining of media officials ranges from "internal criticism"; "internal warning"; "serious internal warning"; and removal from office and party membership.
In a reshuffle, two deputy editors were appointed recently to strengthen the editorial work.
In November the propaganda department and the media regulator ordered the magazine to reform after the publication of three issues seen as politically sensitive.
Eight government departments (headed by GAPP) have issued regulations forcing Internet gamers to register with their real names and ID numbers. Players normally collect 'experience' (i.e. points). The new system seeks to give under 18s diminishing points the longer they play in one sitting. ESWN translates a Beijing News story about the regulations and how people have already figured out how to work around the system.
On ESWN: Police in Changchun discovered a group which organized pornographic performances for online distribution, but the spectators are registered users in Taiwan who subscribe to a Taiwan-registered website. The Mainland police could not even watch the performances by normal means. So is there even a crime?
Reporter: As a journalist, am I right to understand that once the ordinance goes into effect, as long as the content [I’m looking for] is to be released [under the provisions of the ordinance], government organs should not avoid my request for coverage (or "gathering of news" / 采访)?
Zhou: I can only say that the media's right to interview and the citizen's right to know are different, and that media are not vested with special rights. The content stipulated in this ordinance focuses centrally on protecting the citizen's right to know.
That is to say, if a government at whatever level understands information release as holding a single press conference then they are wrong. But in the ordinance as it was publicized, this point is not sufficiently clear, and that’s one regrettable aspect of the ordinance.
From The Financial Times: 'Unscrupulous Hong Kong tour operators could soon need to be a bit more cautious about conning compatriots from the Chinese interior: that gullible-looking sightseer waving a wad of red renminbi might really be an undercover agent.'
A blog post by Josie Liu about the General Administration of Press and Publication's new moves to regulate online magazines.
From The Wall Street Journal: 'China Petroleum & Chemical Corp. said it won't scale back operations in Africa despite Tuesday's fatal shootings of contractors at one of its exploration blocks in Ethiopia.
The shootings, which killed 74 people, including nine Chinese, underline the risks that big oil companies face when drilling for oil in Africa, even when they have the support of the host country. China has used loans and aid to woo African governments and to secure greater access to oil assets for its state-owned oil giants.'
In The New Yorker, Zha Jianying contemplates her dissident brother's status as a political prisoner in China: "I'm visiting my brother, Zha Jianguo, a democracy activist serving a nine-year sentence for 'subverting the state'."
A schoolboy [in Guangxi] who climbed over a fence into a crocodile enclosure and taunted the animals with sticks and a catapult was dragged into the water and eaten.
From an article by Shai Oster in The Wall Street Journal writes "China is set to surpass the U.S. as the world's top emitter of greenhouse gases this year -- much earlier than forecast -- because of its raging economic growth, according to the International Energy Agency...
...Mr. Birol said China's growing carbon-dioxide emissions, which stem from its near-total reliance on highly polluting domestic coal to power its economy, are expected to dwarf any reductions in emissions from Europe, the U.S. and Japan."
The article does not quote any scientific or technical sources for the forecast. It does have a contrasting quote from Ned Helme, president of the Washington-based Center for Clean Air Policy, saying that China is making serious efforts to reduce emissions.
Long Xinmin, director of the General Administration of Press and Publication (Gapp), would soon be transferred to the Central Party Literature Research Centre as a deputy director, a source close to Gapp said. Mr Long will have the same administrative rank but it is seen as a significant demotion.
The source said Mr Long's departure could be a result of his poor handling of the opposition to a Gapp decision earlier this year to ban eight contentious books. But another source said Mr Long's transfer was related to an investigation into the activities of Zhou Liangluo, head of the capital's Haidian district.
Mr Zhou and his wife have reportedly been detained over allegations he was involved in corrupt land deals.
The source said Gapp deputy Liu Binjie would replace Mr Long. A spokeswoman from Gapp's information department said yesterday she was not clear about Mr Long's departure.
The government moves to regulate talent in the arts, proposing a set of exams for dozens of occupations. Talent competition producers have expressed their support for the system, but critics counter with examples of famous folk performers who would find it difficult to get certified.
The Wall Street Journal reports that today, for the first time since 1949, foreign banks will accept deposits in yuan from Chinese individuals, and offer loans as well. The approved banks are Citibank, HSBC, Standard Chartered and Bank of East Asia.
ESWN translates from Zhao Shilong's blog: In Foshan, a neighborhood is in the process of being relocated and several hundred 'scavengers' appeared conveniently to loot and vandalize the homes in order to assist the householders' decision:
According to an April 16 Yangchang Wanbao report, 300 households in the center of Foshan city were subjected to "assault, looting and robbery." On the same night when the news report was released, another mass assault occurred.
On the early morning of April 17, the police and the Dongjian Company which is doing the relocation, summoned the media to a press conference and announced that the "mass assault was made by scavengers." Thus, the most awesome scavengers in history came to light.
Multinational carmakers are vigorously courting Chinese consumers and lobbying the government over their competing alternative fuel cars as China emerges as a potentially decisive battleground for the new generation of vehicles.
Excerpt:
A 52-year-old farmer turned developer is as plain as his company's English name - Country Garden. But the company's debut Friday on the Hong Kong stock exchange has put him in the record books.
Shares of Country Garden soared 35 percent on the opening day of trading in one of the hottest Chinese initial public offerings of the year. When trading ended later in the day, this little-known real estate developer based in southern China was valued at $15 billion, making the family of Yang Guoqiang, a dirt-under-his-fingers real estate tycoon, perhaps the richest in mainland China.
An article by Li Datong — translated into English — in which he argues that there can be no meaningful public opinion on Sino-Japanese relations until there is real freedom of expression and debate in China.