Bo’s trial ends, verdict to be announced later reported Xinhua in a long summary of the trial. I am ignoring most of the commentary and predictions about the trial for now.

It is worth noting that open defiance of the state’s case usually does not serve a defendant well in China but I have learned my lesson about making Bo-related predictions. That said, if any oddsmakers have a bet set up on Bo’s sentence I am willing to take a punt.

Now that the case is nearly closed is there any chance the US government will release the transcripts of what Wang Lijun said in the US Consulate in Chengdu?

There is of course lots more going on in China beyond the Bo show.

Today’s Links:

THE ESSENTIAL EIGHT

[视频]薄熙来案一审开庭结束 法庭宣布依法择期宣判_新闻频道_央视网 2nd to last segment of Monday CCTV Evening News on the Bo Xilai Trial and its conclusion…3 minute summary of the court process..//.法庭辩论阶段，在审判长的主持下，公诉人宣读了公诉意见书，被告人薄熙来作了90分钟的自行辩护，辩护人发表了辩护意见。控辩双方就定罪、量刑的事实、证据和适用法律等问题发表意见。辩论终结后，法庭保证被告人充分行使最后陈述的权利。被告人薄熙来作了最后陈述。随后，审判长宣布休庭，案件将择期宣判。

Related: [视频]人民日报评论员文章：用法治思维和法治方式反腐败_新闻频道_央视网 The Bo Xilai segment was followed by a preview of a page 1 commentary in tuesday’s People’s daily on using the rule of law to fight corruption and praising the Bo Xilai trial as an example of rule of law //

Related: 用法治思维和法治方式反腐败 本报评论员 《 人民日报 》 the page 1 commentary in tuesday’s People’s daily on using the rule of law to fight corruption // 坚定不移惩治腐败，是我们党从严治党的一贯要求。对薄熙来一案的审理充分表明，惩治贪污腐败，我们有党纪之严，更有国法之束。腐败的实质是权力的滥用，反腐败的核心是制约和监督权力。用制度约束权力，使权力正确规范地行使；在法治框架下查处腐败，使反腐败走向规范化、制度化，这是我们党反对腐败、建设廉洁政治的根本方向。近期查处的一系列大案要案都表明，对于贪污腐败，不管涉及谁，不管涉及哪一级，我们都会坚持一切皆断于法。这种对法治的共识，贯穿于治国理政的每一步，体现在反腐倡廉的每一个环节。 党的十八大报告强调，“更加注重发挥法治在国家治理和社会管理中的重要作用，维护国家法制统一、尊严、权威”。坚持用法治思维和法治方式反腐败，我们就能让人民群众在每一个司法案件中都感受到公平正义；就能从源头上、根本上遏制特权思想、预防权力腐败、维护法律尊严.

Related: Commentary: Combating corruption with legal mind – Xinhua The essence of corruption is power abuse, so the key to anticorruption is to restrain and supervise power via systems, or combating corruption through the legal framework, the commentary said. A series of recent graft cases show whoever commits crimes will be punished according to law. “Only after we fight corruption with legal mind will people feel fairness and justice in every single legal case,” said the commentary, noting that only in this way will the “special privilege” mentality be fundamentally contained.

Related: Dollop of Romance Is Added to Intrigue at an Ex-Chinese Leader’s Trial – NYTimes.com The most explosive revelation of the trial came when Mr. Bo asserted in his closing speech that Mr. Wang had had a final falling out with Mr. Bo and fled to a nearby American consulate in late 2011 in large part due to tensions that boiled over from his infatuation with Ms. Gu. The wife and the police chief had been close for years, Mr. Bo said, ever since a young tycoon, Xu Ming, introduced Mr. Wang to Ms. Gu. Mr. Wang won Ms. Gu’s confidence when he investigated Ms. Gu’s suspicions that she had been poisoned, and he became a constant presence in the Bo household. “Because he and Gu Kailai were stuck together as if by glue, Gu Kailai took him at his word, and Wang Lijun infiltrated my household because of his association with Gu Kailai,” Mr. Bo said. “So now such a serious thing has occurred.”

Related: Bo Xilai trial nods to China’s nascent civil society, fragmented power of elites–John Garnaut returns to comment on the Bo trial Li Zhuang, a lawyer whose own courage and suffering helped bring Bo undone, believes an historic precedent has been set. “This trial is extraordinary,” Li told my colleague, Phil Wen, who is reporting in Jinan. “This is a first in China. This has almost reached a genuine level of … transparency.” In the West it took hundreds of years to create the rule of law, where rulers could no longer operate above the rules they set for other people. The rise and fall of Bo Xilai suggests that China does not have that long.

How the Media Got the Bo Xilai Trial Wrong | FP Passport Beijing managed to keep much of the Bo saga — and the elite machinations that precipitated it — from the foreign press. As humbling as it may be to admit, we know very little about what goes on at the highest levels of Chinese politics. The most honest headline I’ve seen recently — and it must have driven its editor crazy — came from Voice of America in early August: “China’s Biggest Corruption Trial in Decades Remains a Mystery.”

万亿投资暗启-财经网 latest Caijing cover story on a “hidden” 1 trillion RMB stimulus/investment package in 2H 2013..article emphasizes how different it will be from the 2008-9 4 Trillion package… // 与五年前的狂欢盛宴不同，新一轮的投资将注重优化结构，“以长带短”，慢热释放。启动投资的同时，决策层亦在推动经济体制改革，下放审批权，引导民间资本进入垄断和公共事业领域

Chinese Oil Executive Comes Under Investigation – WSJ.com No doubt this may spur more speculation about a bigger target. Is it just a coincidence this was announced on the last day of the Bo trial? // In a one-sentence statement, China’s Ministry of Supervision said on Monday it was investigating Wang Yongchun, a vice president at state-owned China National Petroleum Corp. for “severe disciplinary violations.” Though it didn’t disclose further details, such phrasing is typically used by Chinese officials when investigating cases of alleged corruption.

Related: 王永春落马背后：接管大庆油田后腐败案频发_网易财经 据悉，自2008年2月起，王永春就开始掌管中石油大庆油田的经营管理大权，而大庆油田腐败案也自2008年后频频曝光。同时，《每日经济新闻》记者采访部分大庆油田员工了解到，部分员工就克扣工资、福利待遇、子女招工等问题，多次到中石油总部反映油田存在的问题。一些员工还向中纪委写过举报信。大庆油田一位员工还向记者表示，她曾因自己被非法解除劳动关系，起诉作为大庆油田法定代表人的王永春，一审胜诉，大庆油田方面提起上诉，二审将于近日开庭。

Debt Drags on China’s Growth – WSJ.com There are few signs of imminent crisis. Bad debt levels in China’s banks are low. A high savings rate means bank deposits continue to accumulate, and a tightly controlled capital account makes it hard for funds to go anywhere else. And Beijing has multiple tools to manage problems. In many cases, lenders and borrowers are both state-owned. Central government debt is low. Even without a crisis, though, rising costs of repayment still threaten to choke growth, already testing a 20-year low…”It’s a debt trap, firms will have to borrow more and more just to repay loans,” said Wei Yao, China economist at Société Générale, whose own calculations put the cost of servicing China’s debt at around 38% of GDP at the end of 2012.

Related: The debt dragon: Credit habit proves hard for China to kick – FT.com Late last year the worries about debt stopped being hypothetical for Guiyang City Investment. Regulators deemed it unable to make interest payments in full and China Development Bank, a large lender, refused to advance it any more money, according to a local government notice.

Related: Local debt crisis not likely in China: People’s Daily – Xinhua China is not likely to fall into a local government debt crisis as local debts were invested mainly in construction projects, according to a commentary in Monday’s People’s Daily… ( 人民日报：地方债都转化成资产 不可能爆发危机 ) The commentary noted that many countries hit by the debt crisis used their debts for paying civil servant salaries, pensions and other expenditures, and the money was used without producing further economic benefit. In contrast, China’s local government debt was primarily used for construction projects, such as the construction of railways, expressways and water facilities. The debts eventually became government assets, the paper said. // guess the audit is going well

Foreign couple detained for personal information trafficking – Xinhua Peter William Humphrey, a 57-year old British national, and Yu Ying Zeng, 60, who was an American and identified as Peter’s wife, have been arrested by police on Aug. 16, according to the police. Investigation found that the couple illegally trafficked a huge amount of personal information on Chinese citizens to seek profits via registering so-called research companies in Hong Kong and Shanghai since 2003. Among the 500 investigative reports seized by police, more than ten were found to have infringed on Chinese citizens’ right of privacy, police said. The personal information traded by the couple included residence addresses, family members, exit-entry information and real estate, according to police

Chinese entrepreneur sells electronic voting machines to dispel distrust in politics – AJW by The Asahi Shimbun But Gao, founder of a Shanghai-based company that develops and sells electronic voting systems using mark sense cards under the Quan Hui Tong brand, noted that many elections are held in China. “More than 100 million people are estimated to vote in residents’ committee elections each year across China,” he told a planning meeting of a major appliance maker. Only four corporations, including Gao’s firm, handle electronic voting systems in China. // who would have expected this market opportunity?

China’s domestically-made smartphones take 60 pct market share – Xinhua China’s domestically-produced smartphones have boomed in sales and recorded more than 60 percent market share at the end of June. About 130 million domestically-produced smartphones were sold in the first half of 2013, up 115 percent from the same period in 2012. The leading brands in sales included Lenovo, Coolpad, Huawei and ZTE.

Related: China market: Smartphone replacement demand is still growing Initial sales of new smartphones launched by some vendors in China in the third quarter, such as Xiaomi Technology’s Hongmi smartphone, have been brisk, indicating that replacement demand for smartphones in China is still growing, according to market observers.

Related: From Intern to VP: Meet Baidu’s 29-Year-Old Boss of Mobile – Bloomberg Li Mingyuan, who began at the company in 2004 as an intern, last month became the youngest vice president ever of China’s largest search engine. And he’s taking on no small task: head of the mobile and cloud division for a company worth $49 billion. Baidu is betting that Li’s new face will lead the company into the next era as competition heats up with Tencent Holdings and Alibaba Group Holding. “Li Mingyuan has proven to be a person of vision,” said Lucy Zhang, a Beijing-based analyst at Internet consulting group IResearch. “The past strategies that he did have proven to be the right direction that the company needs to head toward.” //the person in charge of Baidu’s foreign PR is vastly underpaid…

Resistance to a Two-Child Policy – Economic Observer Summary：With a rapidly aging population, many demographers say it’s time to relax the One-Child Policy and increase the number of people who can have two kids. However, the family planning system, which relies on fines on people who’ve given birth “illegally” for an estimated one-quarter of its revenue, is pushing back.

 

BUSINESS AND ECONOMY

China economy showing clear signs of stabilization: stats bureau | Reuters The issue of local government debt also remained under control, the National Bureau of Statistics said at a briefing organized by the foreign ministry that may have been aimed at allaying global concern about China’s slowdown. “We are confident that the economy is sustaining the positive momentum in the second half and confident of meeting the economic growth target,” said Sheng Laiyun, the NBS’s spokesman.

China Growth Can Sink Closer to 6% on Waning Job Needs: Economy – Bloomberg Chinese officials shifting the economy away from exports and investment can allow growth to sink closer to 6 percent within the next five years without triggering a destabilizing jump in unemployment. The pace of expansion needed to absorb new entrants to the labor force will slip to 6.4 percent in 2018 from 7.3 percent this year, according to the median forecast in a Bloomberg News survey of 12 economists last month. Premier Li Keqiang is targeting a 7.5 percent expansion in 2013.

Market reform eats into bank profits – Xinhua As part of the drive to revitalize the economy through pumping more market impetus, the central bank scrapped the floor on lending rates in July, freeing banks to issue loans as cheaply as they wished. Under the previous system, the central bank set guidelines for lending and deposit rates for commercial banks which were willing to lend to state-backed firms at artificially high rates. The man-made rates gap became the major source of profits for state-backed banks. The reform has bridged the gap, but not as much as people anticipated, said Zhao Qingming, a researcher with CCB. “Credit remains a rare resource, and banks have strong bargaining power, so the rates gap remains wide.” he noted.

108家银行存款利率上浮到顶 地方行揽存压力大_网易财经 perhaps a sign of distress at smaller banks..108 banks have set deposit rates at the maximum, seem desparate to attract deposits // 据银率网的统计，从去年央行设置了存款利率上浮10%的上限以来，已有108家银行都在执行上浮到顶的存款利率了，其中以城市商业银行为主。对于108家银行具体上浮到顶的存款期限，银率网没有细说，也没有列出108家银行名单。《每日经济新闻》记者通过网上查询发现，确实很多地方银行都执行了最高存款利率，比如广东地区的华兴银行、华润珠海银行等。记者还查阅了其他区域的部分城商行，包括华融湘江银行等，均将自己所有存款的存款利率上浮到最高水平。

发改委谈反垄断困境：协会上来就对我们拍桌子|反垄断|发改委|企业_新浪财经_新浪网 NDRC official on the difficulty of taking on monopolies…poor guy sounds very stressed out // 这是一个强势部门的“弱势”素描。我国反垄断风暴不断扩延的同时，也面临着重重阻力。8月25日，国家发改委价格监督检查与反垄断局局长许昆林再次做客央视对话栏目，他表示接下来要对石油、电信、汽车、银行等行业进行关注。不过，许昆林也承认，我国的反垄断工作正遭遇着中国式的尴尬，压力不断涌来。“近来坐飞机都要听《拉德斯基进行曲》，通过这样的方式给自己加把劲，实际上(反垄断)不是那么容易的。”发改委反垄断局调查二处处长徐新宇说。

Daimler’s Mercedes-Benz to outline strategic plan for China | Reuters The plan, a key component of Mercedes’ broader “2020 initiative”, aims to boost sales of Mercedes-Benz cars in China by a third to more than 300,000 cars a year by 2015, according to two individuals familiar with the matter. Daimler’s new China chief, Hubertus Troska, and his management team are expected to unveil details of the plan, which also includes expanding manufacturing capacity and the sales network, in Beijing and Chengdu this week.

多地酝酿上调基准地价_网易财经 many localities planning to raise the reference price for land sales…they need the cash // 中国证券报记者26日获悉，随着土地征收成本提高，近期多个地方政府酝酿上调基准地价。此举可能抬高未来土地出让底价，进而为地价上涨提供动力。基准地价是指，对不同级别的土地按照不同用途进行评估，并由市、县以上人民政府公布确定的平均价格。土地出让底价往往以基准地价为基础，根据土地的使用年限、地块大小、形状、容积率、微观区位等因素，综合评估而确定。通常而言，基准地价越高，土地出让底价就有可能抬升…地方债务偿债压力是提高基准地价的重要原因。

China Suspended PMI Details Over Accuracy Concerns, Bureau Says – Bloomberg The statistics bureau and the China Federation of Logistics & Purchasing suspended the release of some industry-specific PMI data to subscribers, starting with the June numbers published in July. That halt underscored concerns over China’s economic statistics, from exports inflated by false invoicing to a national unemployment rate that excludes the nation’s millions of migrant workers. “I don’t buy NBS’s explanation — industry-specific data has been there for years and proved very useful in reading the Chinese economy,” said Xu Gao, chief economist with China Everbright Securities in Beijing, who previously worked for the World Bank. “Without these specific data, the credibility of China’s headline official PMI indicator is undermined,” Xu said, adding his firm has subscribed to the data for more than three years.

Shandong may show the way in reforming China’s financial sector | South China Morning Post A former chief securities regulator and now governor of Shandong province, Guo Shuqing, has launched a range of financial experiments that observers say could become an example for Premier Li Keqiang in overhauling the nation’s financial sector.

China PBOC Rolls Over More 3-Yr Paper In Long-Term Fund Freeze | MNI The PBOC rolled over CNY75.5 billion of a CNY86 billion batch of three-year sterilization paper earlier this month in a move that traders said underscored the bank’s determination to keep a lid on liquidity conditions in the interbank system. That said, the PBOC is expected to continue to inject short-term liquidity during Tuesday and Thursday’s open market operations to shore up market sentiment following its disastrous effort to force banks to deleverage in late June…Despite the criticism levelled at the bank for its heavy-handedness, the PBOC appears to be having some success in restoring order to the financial system. Traders said Monday that the typical end-of-quarter scrabble for funding has yet to begin because many institutions are now keeping adequate funding to hand following the June liquidity crunch.

Hugh Hendry Latest Thoughts, Portfolio And Holdings Update | Zero Hedge 2013 has not been kind to Hugh Hendry, whose Eclectica Absolute Macro fund has posted an unchanged performance year to date, broadly underperforming (alongside the bulk of the hedge fund community) the market…The Fund was down 1.1% in July. The main negative contributors were our China and EM short expressions but the true culprit lay in the equivocal nature of monetary policy pronouncements from the US Fed…The Chinese economy slowed for a second quarter, with weaker growth in factory output and fixed-asset investment. However, with SHIBOR returning to more normal levels and lead indicators turning higher, most China-related equities rallied in July. Inter-month trading saw us record a loss of 16bps from our short positions in Chinese index futures. ..Nevertheless, the economies of those commodity producers that rely heavily on sales to China continued to weaken last month. This was particularly the case in Australia, where the month saw further unwinding in mining construction, weak housing numbers, slowing retail sales and export activity. The Fund gained 24bps from a bullish curve steepener in Australia…Heading into August, we retain a short bias toward China and EM currencies.

July aluminium production – we were right | Black China Blog The official figures for July’s production of primary aluminium in China have now been released, and show that China produced 1.84 million tonnes for the month. This represents a daily production rate of 59,300 tonnes.   Although that is 10% higher than July 2012, importantly, it is also some 2,000 tonnes per day lower than June 2013. It’s funny how people raced to announce that the June number was 4,000 tonnes per day higher than the May rate, yet nobody in the reports I have seen have reported this apparent reversal in July.

Baosteel reports huge drop in profit –  – Globaltimes.cn The company attributed its falling profit to growing steel supply during the January-June period. Among 86 large domestic steel companies monitored by the China Iron and Steel Association (CISA), 35 recorded losses in the first six months. The steel makers’ business in the first half was hurt by declining steel prices amid rising production and stagnant steel demand, Qu Xiuli, deputy secretary-general at the CISA, told the Global Times Sunday. Also on Saturday, Baosteel separately announced a plan to make another 12 billion yuan of investment in its steel project in Zhanjiang, South China’s Guangdong Province, fueling concerns over a possible increase in the overcapacity in the sector.

U.S. Short Seller Targets Chinese Vegetable Producer – NYTimes.com Shares in China Minzhong Food Corp. fell by half in Singapore on Monday following the release of a damning report on the company by Glaucus Research Group, a short-selling firm based in California. // the report PDF.

 

POLITICS AND LAW

Party newspaper suggests technology-intensive scrutiny of officials – Xinhua China should pay closer attention to Internet whistleblowing, wrote an article （ 学习时报_2013-08-26_党的建设_堵住反腐败中的制度漏洞 ） published in the Study Times, a weekly newspaper affiliated with the Party School of the Central Committee of the CPC. The country’s anti-graft agencies should give as much attention to Internet informants as those using traditional channels and should set up a special unit to respond to them, the article said. Plans should be drafted on how to respond to online public opinion about corrupt officials and inform netizens about the progress and results of investigations, said the article. The article also suggested that a national real estate ownership registration database, which has not yet been available in China, could help supervise officials and restrain corruption. //the database that local officials are refusing to put on line..latest deadline was June 30…

多地警方突击网络犯罪 数百案例集中于三大罪名_网易财经 several hundred Internet-related arrests across China in the last few days

薛蛮子嫖娼被拘引热议：不包养女星在住宅区嫖_新闻_腾讯网 微博名人薛蛮子8月23日嫖娼被行政拘留，一时舆论哗然。曾经受过他帮助的人惊呼真不敢相信，但网络舆论还是认为犯错就是犯错，犯法就是犯法。不过，一码归一码。专家认为，如果薛蛮子确系美国国籍，有可能收容教养以后，被驱逐出境。//speculation that Xue Manzi may be deported after released from detention…tragedy for him and his family…much made of his us citizenship…a few of the Big Vs hold foreign citizenship

Xue’s case reminder to opinion leaders – OP-ED – Globaltimes.cn Xue’s active participation and deep involvement in China’s politics on the Internet has made him highly influential. But this means he has to bear special pressure and scrutiny over his personal conduct. People who are addicted to raising up political confrontations should be clear that without a clean conscience, they are engaging in a groundless undertaking. However, the government should be cautioned that no matter what accusations Xue is charged with, his detention must strictly follow the provisions of law and proceed in an impeccable manner. Such an action will bring about a sensational discussion among the public, which will verify whether the authorities’ actions were legitimate. A single loophole in the process will not only make the case backfire but enormously impair the public trust of the government and the authority of the law

温州样本：农村土地产权交易提速 新华社——经济参考网 Economic Information looks at Wenzhou’s new policy towards rural land rights transactions…could be an interesting model // 浙江省温州市近日发布的《温州市农村产权交易管理暂行办法》规定，自10月1日起，包括农村土地承包经营权、农村房屋所有权、农村集体经营性建设用地使用权等12类农村产权将在农村产权服务机构进行交易。值得一提的是，非城镇户口人员可以在县域内参与农房买卖。温州的改革举动一向引人注目。在重庆、成都、广东、武汉等地相继试点推进农村土地产权交易的背景下，兼具国家级农村改革试验区和金融综合改革试验区身份的温州，或成为农村土地改革的新样本.　有关专家告诉《经济参考报》记者，现在很多地方土地产权交易试点并不成功，温州作为城镇化程度较高地区，经中央批准后可以进行封闭试验；但是，目前稳定农村土地产权比推动建立产权交易市场更为重要。

 

FOREIGN AND DEFENSE AFFAIRS

Chinese president to visit central Asian nations – Xinhua Chinese President Xi Jinping will pay state visits to Turkmenistan, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan from Sept. 3 to 13, a Foreign Ministry spokesman announced on Monday. Xi will visit at the invitation of Turkmenian President Gurbanguly Berdymukhamedov, Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev, Uzbek President Islam Karimov and Kyrgyz President Almazbek Atambaev, spokesman Qin Gang said in a statement. Xi will attend the eighth Leaders’ Summit of the Group of Twenty (G20) to be held in St. Petersburg from Sept. 5 to 6. He will attend at the invitation of his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin, said Qin.

Xi wants ASEAN’s understanding of China – Xinhua Chinese President Xi Jinping on Monday called for understanding and support from the Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN) on China’s major concerns while meeting with Singaporean Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong in Beijing. Lee is on an official visit to China from Sunday till Saturday at the invitation of Chinese Premier Li Keqiang.

经习近平主席批准总政颁发规定 规范大型文艺演出 加强文艺队伍教育管理 《 人民日报 》 Xi signs order to rein in the PLA literature and arts corps…and Li Tianyi case goes to trial this week…very embarrassing // ●严格控制文艺单位人员参加地方电视台选秀类节目 ●专业技术三级以上文职干部不得称将军或者文职将军● 文艺创作人员每年深入基层部队体验生活不少于1个月 ●总政治部歌舞团和各单位文工团每年为部队各类演出不少于100场

China’s Mystery Satellite Could Be a Dangerous New Weapon — War is Boring — Medium More precisely, one of the satellites, known as SY-7, was moving all over the place and was appearing to make close-in rendezvous’s with other satellites. It was so strange, space analysts wondered whether China was testing a new kind of space weapon — one that could intercept other satellites and more or less claw them to death. It’s not as crazy as it sounds. The U.S. has experimented with anti-satellite weapons, and is even researching how to cannibalize satellites in orbit. China has even blown up one of its own satellites with a missile. That caused an international outcry considering the giant cloud of debris which has come close to imperiling space travel for a century.

China Launches Three ASAT Satellites | Washington Free Beacon Gertz’s take on the war is boring report // China’s military recently launched three small satellites into orbit as part of Beijing’s covert anti-satellite warfare program, according to a U.S. official. The three satellites, launched July 20 by a Long March-4C launcher, were later detected conducting unusual maneuvers in space indicating the Chinese are preparing to conduct space warfare against satellites, said the official who is familiar with intelligence reports about the satellites.

The Mach-3 Drone That Spied on China — War is Boring — Medium Subsequent tests were spotty, with a number of equipment failures and bad luck. When the drone didn’t crash or get lost, its film pod sometimes either failed to eject or sank. Nevertheless, the program soldiered on, and ultimately four operational flights succeeded in photographing China’s Lop Nor nuclear test site between 1969 and 1971. The last D-21 crashed in China and its wreckage eventually wound up in Russian hands.

Chinese military helicopter launches air-to-air missile – Xinhua | English.news.cn China’s first self-developed modern military attack helicopter WZ-10 has launched its first air-to-air missile and successfully intercepted low-altitude targets. The WZ-10, meaning “armed helicopter”, carried out the launch during a live-fire drill involving army aviation troops of the People’s Liberation Army in the eastern waters off south China’s Guangdong Province last week.

 

HONG KONG, MACAO AND TAIWAN

Party slams Hong Kong junkets for business delegations | South China Morning Post Each year dozens of local and provincial government delegations travel to Hong Kong, hosting investment promotional campaigns to increase their foreign direct investment (FDI) figures, one of the major economic indicators used by the party to gauge officials’ performance. Often, the more underdeveloped the regions are, the more active their officials are in hosting the grand events to attract Hong Kong investors.

 

TECH AND MEDIA

惠普新设中国区董事长 毛人凤之子毛渝南获任(图)_网易新闻中心 HP hires Mao Yunan as new Chairman of China. Mao is the son of Mao Renfeng, a famous KMT spy…

Qihoo 360 Technology Company Limited – Investor Relations – Press Release stock near 80 after hours // “During the quarter, we gained notable search traffic share and we believe that we are well on our way to reaching our year-end goals. Through continued product improvement and technology innovation, we believe we are in an excellent position to capture significant share of the search market and help reshape the competitive landscape of this vast industry in China. Although we just started monetizing our search and mobile products a few months ago, we have made very encouraging progress. As we continue to execute our business plan and strategy, we believe that search and mobile monetization will drive substantial long-term growth for our business,” concluded Mr. Zhou.

Closer Look: Xiaomi Pulls a Knife, Sword on Electronics Industry – Caixin Three-year-old smartphone maker Xiaomi Mobile Internet Co. is again in the spotlight as it draws closer to the debut of much-awaited electronic gadgets. The firm has sent out numerous letters inviting people to attend a press conference on September 5. Printed on the letters are a unique sword and knife, a clear reference to a novel that every Chinese person with the slightest interest in kung fu probably gets. He who owns the sword or the knife can rule the kingdom, or so the novel says. If anything speaks more loudly than ever of Xiaomi’s founder Lei Jun’s ambition for industry supremacy, this is it.

京东封杀微信 为夺移动支付投奔易信_网易财经 Jingdong bans employees from using Weixin, citing security concerns, says Yixin is OK. // 上周，腾讯旗下的易迅网宣布将在PC网页版、Android及iOS手机客户端全面支持微信支付。昨日，其竞争对手京东作出反击——京东发布内部邮件称：为了保护公司信息安全，所有员工在交流业务时，只能选择易信作为唯一的移动即时通讯工具，不允许再使用其他的移动通讯工具。

China’s first top-100 global brand? | Inside Story No technology is entirely safe, and the average WeChat user is more interested in what the app can do for them than what others can do with their personal information. If WeChat becomes China’s first global brand, it will reveal as much about youth attitudes towards privacy and information-sharing online as the changing dynamics of China and its global reach.

Denial-of-Service Attack Shut Down Chinese Internet on Sunday Morning – China Real Time Report – WSJ The attack, which was aimed at the registry that allows users to access sites with the extension “.cn,” likely shut down the registry for about two to four hours, according to CloudFlare, a company that provides Web performance and security services for more than a million websites. Though the registry was down, many service providers store a record of parts of the registry for a set period of time, meaning that the outage only affected a portion of websites for some users.

Adultery Website Is About To Enter China, Where Demand Is Already Huge – Business Insider The founder of a dating service promoting adultery is setting his sights on China’s cheating hearts after a controversial launch in Hong Kong. “It is a reality of life, we are an unfaithful society,” said Noel Biderman, the founder of the Ashley Madison “married dating” service.

ENERGY, ENVIRONMENT, SCIENCE AND HEALTH

Heilongjiang sees worst flooding in century – Xinhua－－Pictures

China’s Lofty Goals for Shale Gas Development Just Pipe Dreams, Experts Say – Caixin Lack of innovation, technology and capital likely mean that the ambitious targets set for the next few years are not attainable

 

BEIJING

北京地下飙车族入圈规则：必须80后 跑车60万起_网易新闻中心 Beijing Evening News looks at street drag racing in Beijing