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• Air Freight Rates From China Skyrocket As Apple Buys Up Space For iPad Shipments –
• China’s Mystery Missile Launcher | Defense Tech – What are those mysterious Chinese mobile ballistic missile launchers that were spotted online last week? At first I thought they mght be carrying the DF-31/31A ICBMs to their launch sites that the Federation of American Scientists just discovered. But the trucks shown in these pictures don’t match older images of the DF-31 mobile launchers that appear to be much larger than the truck shown above.
• Seven stunning beauties from Xinjiang – Xinhua | English.news.cn –
• Uncle Lei Feng’s legacy valued as egoism prevails – Xinhua | English.news.cn– BEIJING, March 5 (Xinhua) — Rising NBA star Jeremy Lin has won over many young basketball fans in China, but not Shi Shuaijun, who says his hero is an altruist revered by generations of schoolchildren as Uncle Lei Feng.Lei Feng has won Shi’s admiration for making sacrifices to benefit others, which may come as a surprise considering the boy lives in a country where decades of market-oriented reform have resulted in an economic boom and the emergence of self-interest.

  The 12-year-old boy studies at a school named for the icon dubbed “Chairman Mao’s good soldier.”

• China’s new Syria statement explained – Xinhua | English.news.cn – BEIJING, March 5 (Xinhua) — China on Monday explained its recent six-point statement for the political resolution of Syria’s problems, saying it fully revealed China’s responsible and constructive attitude in addressing the crisis.
• Behind The Wall – New twist on Peking opera pushes boundaries – But director Chen Shi-Zheng hopes to change those impressions with a new, modern production of the classic Chinese folk tale, “Farewell My Concubine” that just premiered in Beijing last month.
  “We want to reconnect young people with Peking Opera and make it relevant to their lives,” Chen told NBC News, “This is a story of love and tragedy – a classic tale that young people can relate to.”
• China to launch moon-landing orbiter in 2013|Sci-Tech|chinadaily.com.cn – China’s third lunar probe, Chang’e-3, is expected to be launched next year and conduct a moon landing and lunar explorations, its designer said.
• China Raising 2012 Defense Spending to Cope With Unfriendly ‘Neighborhood’ – Bloomberg – The U.S., with an economy less than three times the size of China’s, has a military budget about between five and six times as big. The Pentagon is asking for $613.9 billion next year, which also includes $88.5 billion in supplemental spending for wars. Unlike China’s, the U.S. defense budget is shrinking. The Pentagon’s request is $31.8 billion less than the amount enacted by Congress for 2012.
  China’s defense spending increased an average of 16.2 percent a year from 1999 to 2008, according to figures from a defense white paper published in 2009.
• China’s National People’s Congress News – Bloomberg –
• Holder: Killing U.S. Terror Suspects Abroad Lawful – Bloomberg – The U.S. can lawfully kill terrorism suspects abroad, including American citizens who pose an immediate threat and can’t feasibly be captured, Attorney General Eric Holder said.
  Holder’s comments, in a speech being delivered today in Chicago, marked the Obama administration’s highest profile defense of killings that target terror suspects since an American drone strike in Yemen last September killed Anwar al- Awlaki, a U.S.-born al-Qaeda recruiter and propagandist.
• China Settles In for Lower Growth – WSJ.com – By lowering China’s growth target to 7.5% this year, Premier Wen Jiabao has signaled that an era of supercharged expansion may be coming to an end, a shift with profound implications for countries like Australia and Brazil that have prospered from red-hot Chinese demand for commodities.
• Do You Feel the Lei Feng Love? China Revives a Communist Folk Hero – China Real Time Report – WSJ – China’s most famous Communist do-gooder died 50 years ago Monday, and as the nation’s legislature opens its biggest political meeting of the year, the government is promoting his memory with gusto, as part of national “Study Lei Feng” day.
• 新闻出版总署署长：不赞成禁止记者异地监督_新闻_腾讯网 –
• 团宝CEO任春雷现身 公布与投资人激烈交锋短信_行业动态_投资界 – on the implosion of group-buying site groupon.cn (no relation to groupon)
• Caribbean nations get caught in China-Taiwan tug of war – CSMonitor.com – More than half the countries with diplomatic ties to Taiwan are in Central America and the Caribbean.  Some, like Grenada, are finding that switching allegiances can be expensive.
• Announcing “A Traveler’s Guide to Cyber Security” | Digital Dao –
• Baidu and Lei Feng –
• Former Official “Takes Own Life” | SCMP.com – Sources say Shui Zhengkuan, 72, committed suicide in Chongqing – the latest blow for the municipality after ex-police chief’s reported defection attempt
• Goldman’s Asia Unit Lost Money First Time Since 2008 on Soured Stock Bets – Bloomberg –
• THE TAIWAN LINK: Chinese Provincial Leader Visits to Taiwan: Opportunities for U.S.-Taiwan Relations? –
• Learning How to Argue: An Interview with Ran Yunfei by Ian Johnson | NYRblog | The New York Review of Books– People are saying that this year might be a year of reform. The leadership will change in the autumn and there seems to be more recognition about the need for reform in official thinking. There was a widely read People’s Daily editorial last week calling for more reform.I saw it but you have to understand that People’s Daily always has some articles like this to give intellectuals false hope. They are talking about reform. Even Global Times talks about it. They see there are problems but I’m doubtful it will lead to political reforms. Maybe some more economic reforms.

  The good news is that blogging and the Internet have damaged the CCP’s monopoly on information. So change is happening slowly, from the grassroots. But the damage of years of living under this system is profound. You, as a foreigner, can live here and learn to use chopsticks and learn Chinese perfectly but you might not know how Chinese people think, especially in sensitive areas.

• The Washington Monthly – The Magazine – We Can Live with a Nuclear Iran – Fears of a bomb in Tehran’s hands are overhyped, and a war to prevent it would be a disaster.
  By Paul Pillar
• Iran Drumbeat Watch: AIPAC Edition – James Fallows – International – The Atlantic– I can’t think of another situation where an American president, speaking to an American audience on American soil, would find it necessary or dignified to plead his bona fides in a similar way.  (About England? Italy? Canada? Mexico?)I recognize the uniqueness of Israel’s history and the importance of “trust” in a president’s word and intent. But the oddity of the AIPAC ritual is worth noting, and not in a good way.
• An Open Letter by a Tibetan Cadre – High Peaks Pure Earth has translated an open letter to the Chinese leadership written by Luo Feng, a Tibetan cadre, about the Communist Party Secretary of Ngaba (Ch: Aba), Shi Jun. The letter was written in the wake of a major promotion of hardliner Shi Jun from regional Party Secretary to the Director-General of Public Security for Sichuan province.

• China Cuts GDP Target to 7.5% as Exports Slow – Bloomberg –
• Reaching consensus on China’s reform – China Media Project –
• China’s Second-Richest Man Says ‘Monopoly’ State Needs More Entrepreneurs – Businessweek –
• China’s Defense Spending Dilemma – China Real Time Report – WSJ– We believe there is a real chance that the PLA will, more quickly than it expects, end up in a position where it is spending significantly more of its budget on personnel than it is on procurement. The U.S. military is challenged similarly, but the issue is even more pressing for China. The PLA is still struggling to create a force that has comprehensive technologies equivalent to what the NATO militaries had by the late 1980s, whereas the U.S. already has modern equipment, trains intensively and is weighing rising personnel costs against its desire for cutting-edge equipment for the future.Thus, the challenge China’s leaders face with regard to balancing personnel, training, and equipment costs resembles that of the Chinese economy more broadly, which has become huge in absolute terms, but remains relatively poor in per capita terms. China’s defense “pie” is growing rapidly, but the cost of key ingredients is rising faster still.