China Readings for April 17th

"Sinocism is the Presidential Daily Brief for China hands"- Evan Osnos, New Yorker Correspondent and National Book Award Winner

  • 赵本山回应移民传闻自称老人参不怕炖-《财经网》 Zhao Benshan denies rumors that he is in trouble// 4月15日，辽宁铁岭市，赵本山捐助修缮的开原莲花中学更名为本山中学，莲花中学是赵本山母校。在“本山中学”奠基仪式暨“本山何氏光明行”活动中，面对近期网络传相关部门限制其出国、移民等一系列热点问题，他一一进行说明和反驳。他称自己是“老人参”，经得起网络的热炒和乱炖，对于网络传言已经习惯，懒得去理。小蛇/CFP
  • China Adds Treasuries for Second Month on Reserve Growth – Bloomberg  China, the largest foreign U.S. creditor, increased its holdings of U.S. government securities in February for a second month as the country’s foreign-currency reserves resumed rising. Holdings rose by 1.1 percent to $1.18 trillion in China’s first months of consecutive gains in Treasury debt since July, U.S. Treasury Department data released yesterday show. Net foreign purchases of Treasuries (HOLDTOT) rose $41.2 billion, or 0.8 percent, to a record $5.1 trillion, the data show.
  • Dangdang Announces CFO Resignation – MarketWatch  smart to jump while his options still worth something// BEIJING, April 16, 2012 /PRNewswire via COMTEX/ — E-Commerce China Dangdang Inc. (“Dangdang” or the “Company”) DANG -15.31% , a leading business-to-consumer e-commerce company in China, today announced that Conor Chia-huang Yang, the chief financial officer of the Company, has tendered his resignation for personal reasons. Conor will remain with the Company for a transition period up to three months. Meanwhile, the Company will commence searching for qualified CFO candidates soon.
  • P.L.A. is target of Bo media blitz | SCMP.com  Beijing’s unusually high volume of commentaries is aimed at warning army supporters of former Chongqing chief to toe the party’s line, analysts say.. The day after the attempt of his former right-hand man Wang Lijun to defect to America, Bo made a high profile visit to the 14th Group Army in Yunnan, which was formed by his father. That prompted rumours that Bo was planning a coup with Politburo Standing Committee member Zhou Yongkang . “Bo’s connection to army personnel makes his case more serious than Chen’s,” said Zhang Lifan , a current affairs commentator formerly with the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences. “The army usually does not meddle with political affairs. However, as Bo has influential supporters inside the party and the military, the handling of his case certainly causes friction within the party. “That’s why the authorities mobilised the military to explain their stance to forge stability.” Qiao Mu , director of the International Communication Research Centre at Beijing Foreign Studies University, said the authorities had stepped up their propaganda efforts because of greater public resentment towards the government compared with six years ago. “The government has to release some information because the case involves a British citizen, but it also attempts to impose unified thought on the public,” he said. “Any mishaps in the handling of Bo will create complexity for the party congress.”
  • Overseas Money Transfers Alleged in Bo Xilai Scandal – NYTimes.com  fairly tenuous source, no? almost like hearsay// Wang Kang, a Chongqing filmmaker, quoted friends of the Bo family as saying Ms. Gu had “felt betrayed by” Mr. Heywood, a 41-year-old business consultant who had ingratiated himself with the Bo family since the 1990s, when Mr. Bo was mayor of Dalian in northeastern China.
  • U.K. Raises Brit’s Death in China Talks – WSJ.com  British government ministers are raising the death of British businessman Neil Heywood in China during meetings with senior Chinese officials who are visiting London this week to discuss trade and cultural matters.
  • More Chinese get US green card|Society|chinadaily.com.cn  More than 87,000 Chinese-born people became legal permanent residents (LPR) of the United States in 2011, the second largest number among countries gaining green cards in the US. Chinese-born people make up 8.2 percent of the total 1.06 million people gaining green cards in 2011, according to a report on new LPRs issued by the US Department of Homeland Security last week.
  • 22 nabbed for toxic drug capsules|Society|chinadaily.com.cn  Police in east China’s Zhejiang Province said Monday they have captured 22 people who allegedly produced and sold pharmaceutical capsules containing excessive levels of chromium.By Monday noon, police had detained 11 suspects from four capsule manufacturing companies in Xinchang county, according to a spokesman from the county’s public security bureau. On Sunday, an investigative report from China Central Television revealed that several companies in Xinchang, a major pharmaceutical production hub in China, had manufactured drug capsules with industrial gelatin, which contains a greater amount of chromium than edible gelatin and is illegal to use for making drug capsules.
  • 三峡库区滑坡塌岸风险大增 近10万人面临搬迁_新闻_腾讯网  据中国之声《全国新闻联播》报道，2009年以来，三峡工程已经进行了3次175米试验性蓄水，据国内外水库建设的普遍规律，新建水库蓄水后至高水位初期3到5年内将集中产生大量的新生滑坡和塌岸，地质灾害防治形势非常严峻，大约10万人将面临搬迁。
  • The Power Shift in China – Brookings Institution–Cheng Li  The spectacular fall of Bo Xilai, a charismatic but notoriously ambitious Politburo member, is only the latest episode in the Middle Kingdom’s long history of power politics. Still, the prevailing views of overseas China analysts have changed dramatically in response. Prior to the Bo crisis, many believed that Chinese political institutionalization was sufficiently developed to make the upcoming leadership succession as smooth and orderly as the previous one in 2002. Now, as the crisis unfolds, many regard Bo’s dismissal as just another political purge, a restoration of the normal pattern of vicious power struggle. ..Both views can be highly misleading, as neither adequately links its analysis of leadership politics to broader shifts of power in present-day China. The challenge for analysts is to provide a balanced, deep-rooted assessment of the trends underlying this recent drama. Three parallel trends in shifting power deserve special attention. … Troubles within the CCP leadership do not indicate that China as a whole is weak. Among the profound differences between the Tiananmen incident in 1989 and the Bo crisis is that in the latter case, at least so far, China’s economy and society have been hardly disrupted. This reflects the maturity of Chinese society and the country’s strength. …Although these shifts in power have caused new tensions in the PRC’s governance and a sense of uncertainty, viewed from a broader perspective they should be considered encouraging developments. Factional checks and balances within the leadership, dynamic interest groups, and the widely-shared perception of China as a rising power could all become factors in a democratic transition. In the near future, the focus of China analysts should not only be on how effectively the CCP leadership uses legal procedures to deal with the Bo case, but also whether the leadership can boldly adopt more electoral mechanisms in its selection of senior leaders and search for new sources of legitimacy.
  • Neil Heywood death: the hotel where British businessman died in China – Telegraph  The Nanshan Lijing Holiday Hotel, also known as the Lucky Holiday Hotel, is one of the Chinese city’s most secluded spots, a six-floor main building and three rows of villas, ten in all, each with a view of the sprawling metropolis below.Three sources have confirmed that this was where the body of the 41-year-old businessman was found last November, but yesterday there was a remarkable effort underway to hush up the news. “The situation is not clear, we have had no information from our superiors,” said one of the five receptionists manning the front desk, before staring down at her lap
  • Helen Keller海伦凯勒眼镜官方网站-太阳镜,墨镜,遮阳镜,男士女士运动偏光太阳镜品牌,眼镜品牌批发-你看世界，世界看你-海伦凯勒眼镜 www.helenkeller.cn – a chinese sunglasses brand. keeping this classy…
  • In Milan, more residents answer to Hu than Ferrari – CSMonitor.com – when the local council published a list of the most common names in the city last week, many were surprised to find out that Milan has many more residents known as “Mister Hu” than “Mister Brambilla.”..
    when the local council published a list of the most common names in the city last week, many were surprised to find out that Milan has many more residents known as “Mister Hu” than “Mister Brambilla.”
  • Ma Jun helps Chinese find out who’s polluting and shame corporations into cleaning up – CSMonitor.com – 2012 Goldman Environmental Prize winner Ma Jun enlists ordinary Chinese to help clean up China’s pollution…
    The six annual prizes, which were first awarded in 1989, give a $150,000 prize to environmentalists working in the six inhabited regions of the world (Africa, Asia, Europe, islands and island nations, North America, and South and Central America) to help further their work. As in the case of Ma, Goldman winners often undergo considerable personal risk in pursuing their goals.
  • China Asks Internet Users to Stop Spread of Rumors, Xinhua Says – Bloomberg – China’s Internet users should be vigilant against the spreading of false information, Xinhua News Agency reported, citing government officials.
    The government and Internet operators must make joint efforts to address online rumors, the official news agency said, citing Liu Zhengrong, a senior official with the State Internet Information Office. China has closed 42 websites since mid-March and detained six people as it cracks down on rumor-mongering.
  • US and China engage in cyber war games | Technology | guardian.co.uk– The US and China have been discreetly engaging in “war games” amid rising anger in Washington over the scale and audacity of Beijing-co-ordinated cyber attacks on western governments and big business, the Guardian has learned.State department and Pentagon officials, along with their Chinese counterparts, were involved in two war games last year that were designed to help prevent a sudden military escalation between the sides if either felt they were being targeted. Another session is planned for May.Though the exercises have given the US a chance to vent its frustration at what appears to be state-sponsored espionage and theft on an industrial scale, China has been belligerent.”China has come to the conclusion that the power relationship has changed, and it has changed in a way that favours them,” said Jim Lewis, a senior fellow and director at the Centre for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) thinktank in Washington.

    “The PLA [People’s Liberation Army] is very hostile. They see the US as a target. They feel they have justification for their actions. They think the US is in decline.”

    The war games have been organised through the CSIS and a Beijing thinktank, the China Institute of Contemporary International Relations. This has allowed government officials, and those from the US intelligence agencies, to have contact in a less formal environment.

    Known as “Track 1.5” diplomacy, it is the closest governments can get in conflict management without full-blown talks.

  • Chinese Student Rapes Woman in US, Parents Try To Bribe Victim – chinaSMACK – China News Service April 14th report, in Iowa state of the United States, 21-year-old Chinese overseas student Tang Peng (transliteration) has been accused of raping a female landlord 2 weeks ago on the pretense of wanting to rent an apartment. After being arrested, he did not admit guilt. After his parents rushed to America, they attempted to bribe the victim to change her testimony, and have also been prosecuted by the police.
  • Groupon中国滑铁卢 高朋、F团1+1＜2 – IT·科技 – 21世纪网 – 不少员工都不愿意去F团。4月16日，一位高朋市场部员工告诉记者，在得知高朋要与F团合并之后，那批名校毕业、有外资企业工作背景的高朋员工…
  • 中纪委督办：无锡原市委书记毛小平落马前后 – 宏观 – 21世纪网 – 核心提示：江苏省无锡市原市委书记毛小平涉嫌严重违纪一事终于尘埃落定。
  • Obama Bid to End Too-Big-to Fail Undercut as Banks Grow – Bloomberg– what obama bid? he is complicit//Two years after President Barack Obama vowed to eliminate the danger of financial institutions becoming “too big to fail,” the nation’s largest banks are bigger than they were before the credit crisis.
    Five banks — JPMorgan Chase & Co. (JPM), Bank of America Corp., Citigroup Inc., Wells Fargo & Co., and Goldman Sachs Group Inc. — held $8.5 trillion in assets at the end of 2011, equal to 56 percent of the U.S. economy, according to the Federal Reserve…
    “Market participants believe that nothing has changed, that too-big-to-fail is fully intact,” said Gary Stern, former president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis.
    That specter is eroding faith in Obama’s pledge that taxpayer-funded bailouts are a thing of the past. It is also exposing him to criticism from Federal Reserve officials, Republicans and Occupy Wall Street supporters, who see the concentration of bank power as a threat to economic stability.
  • U.S., Philippines Start Drills Amid Territorial Spat With China – NYTimes.com – American and Filipino troops launched two weeks of annual naval drills on Monday amid a territorial stand-off between China and the Philippines as the United States seeks to reinforce its influence across the Asia-Pacific.
  • With Enterprise 2.0, Sina Weibo Looks to Cash in on Social Ads | TechRice– Sina Weibo is the most attractive social platform in China for marketers. I’m speaking from the perspective of a social media professional in China: I’ve had countless meetings with clients who want Sina Weibo as the focus of their social media strategy. Despite the vast potential, Sina Weibo has yet to deliver a respectable product for its ad clients.Sina Weibo Enterprise 2.0 changes that. One week ago, I was granted a test account of the product, and two days ago I also received information about a “Sina Weibo Ad Package” from contacts at several Chinese ad agencies. This is clearly Sina Weibo’s most robust and realistic attempt to monetize so far.
  • Annals of the Security State, Khan Edition – James Fallows – National – The Atlantic – This news has been all over the Indian press but not so much here. Short version: India’s version of Brad Pitt / Matt Damon / Bruce Willis was held up — again — on arrival in the US by Homeland Security officials, because his last name is the ever-suspicious “Khan.” As a reader puts it:
    I haven’t seen much of any attention paid to US airport security detaining Shah Rukh Khan (right), one of Bollywood’s biggest stars, for 2+ hours at Newark Airport on his way to accepting a major award [as a Chubb Fellow] at Yale.  University officials had to intervene on his behalf to get him released.  Imagine the uproar if another country detained Brad Pitt.  Very embarrassing.
  • Exclusive: Briton killed after threat to expose Chinese leader’s wife | Reuters– so he was an experienced money launderer? foreigner in china 101, never threaten a politburo family//Bo’s wife, Gu Kailai, asked Heywood late last year to move a large sum of money abroad, and she became outraged when he demanded a larger cut of the money than she had expected due to the size of the transaction, the sources said.She accused him of being greedy and hatched a plan to kill him after he said he could expose her dealings, one of the sources said, summarizing the police case. Both sources have spoken to investigators in Chongqing, the southwestern Chinese city where Heywood was killed and where Bo had cast himself as a crime-fighting Communist Party leader.Gu is in police custody on suspicion of committing or arranging Heywood’s murder, though no details of the motive or the crime itself have been publicly released, other than a general comment from Chinese state media that he was killed after a financial dispute.

    The sources have close ties to Chinese police and said they were given details of the investigation.

    They said Heywood – formerly a close friend of Gu and who had been helping her with her overseas financial dealings – was killed after he threatened to expose what she was doing.

    “Heywood told her that if she thought he was being too greedy, then he didn’t need to become involved and wouldn’t take a penny of the money, but he also said he could also expose it,” the first source said.

  • 重庆南山丽景度假酒店 – the hotel in chonging were gu did in heywood?
  • Nanshan Lijing Resort (Chongqing, China) – Resort Reviews – TripAdvisor – the place where neil heywood died?
  • Managing Editor for City Weekend Beijing’s Parents & Kids Magazine at City Weekend in China – Job | LinkedIn – City Weekend Beijing is hiring a managing editorfor our Parents & Kids Magazine and related digital products. Thesepublications directly serve Beijing’sdynamic community of families. Parents & Kids comes out 10 times a year.
  • Business Leader, Public Policy – Greater China at MasterCard in Beijing, CN-11 – Job | LinkedIn – To be a trusted strategic advisor to the Area Management team in the Greater China (China, Hong Kong & Taiwan) offices focusing on developing how MasterCard’s interests in Greater China could be advanced through engagement with the government and other influencers in the markets. This role will, in consultation with the businesses, drive the development of a strategic engagement plan with government stakeholders and play a critical role in the execution of such plans for Greater China.
  • Yu Keping: Prizing the Will of the People – China Media Project– Yu Keping’s Chinese title, Prizing the Will of the People, in fact expresses the core idea of his book, that the popular will as expressed in public opinion is the only true basis for the legitimacy of political leadership in China.Yu, the deputy director of the Central Compilation and Translation Bureau, is one of China’s most prominent political scholars, his research covering such areas as political philosophy, comparative politics and civil society development. Yu, who is closely associated with the Hu-Wen administration, sparked debate in China about “democratic politics” in 2006 with the publication of his book Democracy is a Good Thing.
  • Murong Xuecun’s funny yet depressingly accurate short story about car accidents in China | Hao Hao Report – Lawyer Wei is en route to meet his girlfriend when he hits trouble in this short story by Murong Xuecun, translated by Harvey Thomlinson
  • Amazon Low Prices Disguise a High Cost – NYTimes.com – Why the crumbling book business is worthy of so much attention from Justice while Wall Street skates is a broader question we’ll leave for another day
  • F.C.C.’s Google Case Leaves Unanswered Questions – NYTimes.com– “I appreciate that the F.C.C. sanctioned Google for not cooperating in the investigation, but the much bigger problem is the pervasive and covert surveillance of Internet users that Google undertook over a three-year period,” said Marc Rotenberg, executive director of the Electronic Privacy Information Center. He said that on Monday he would ask the Justice Department to investigate Google over wiretapping.Google said Sunday that it disagreed with the F.C.C.’s characterization of its lack of cooperation, but that its collection of what is called payload data — Internet communications, including texts and e-mails — was legal, if regrettable. “It was a mistake for us to include code in our software that collected payload data, but we believe we did nothing illegal,” a spokeswoman said.
  • John Cleese on the 5 Factors to Make Your Life More Creative | Brain Pickings –
  • Railway to use face recognition technology – People’s Daily Online– The Beijing-Shanghai high-speed railway plans to use a facial identification system at three key stations to help police detect and catch fugitives.Media reports said yesterday the project’s biding process will start soon. The system will be set up at Shanghai Hongqiao Railway Station, Tianjin W. Railway Station and Jinan W. Railway Station.
  • Commentary: Law and Party disciplines brook no violation (2) – People’s Daily Online– The current Party Constitution, adopted in September 1982 and revised five times thereafter, clearly stipulates that the Party must conduct its activities within the framework of the country’s Constitution and laws. The Party Constitution also says that everyone is equal in front of Party disciplines.The CPC has issued key documents, such as clean governance standards for Party members and cadres and regulations on leading cadres reporting personal matters, to set strict restraints on cadre’s behaviors, and no one is allowed to violate them.
  • 网络谣言与现代谶纬 – FT中文网– 而无论是网络的造谣传谣，还是私下的造谣传谣，说到底不过是民间自我的社会事务。例如碘盐事件，到头不过是一场闹剧，先抢盐，后退盐，商家倒是纷纷扰扰了一阵子，可是与社会而言，可曾引起什么暴动与骚乱？既然社会上总归有那么一群人要扰攘，那就让他们扰攘去便罢了，打什么紧？一个真的平静无事的社会，便是一个死水一潭的社会，有什么创造力和向上力？反而是公权力的介入，令人更加信其有了。社会事务，应当由社会自理，若无作奸犯科，公权力不得干涉，这方才是现代社会管理的原则吧？现代社会分层清晰，而分工也应当清晰。既然已经有了社会这个层面，那便应当把社会的管理权限，还政于民，由他们自理。网络谣言这件事，应当由网络社会自己去处理，而实在不需劳烦央视这样的老大哥出来指手画脚。如果管理结构确有余裕，并且对此忧心忡忡，何不多费时间考虑如何让信息的流通更加透明，谣言无处藏身呢？
  • 中国政府的审查永远打败不了互联网 | Comment is free | guardian.co.uk – 在审查所设置的障碍中绕行是一件很有趣的事儿，但是在互联网时代自由是无法阻挡的。
  • China’s censorship can never defeat the internet | Ai Weiwei | Comment is free | The Guardian– China may seem quite successful in its controls, but it has only raised the water level. It’s like building a dam: it thinks there is more water so it will build it higher. But every drop of water is still in there. It doesn’t understand how to let the pressure out. It builds up a way to maintain control and push the problem to the next generation.It still hasn’t come to the moment that it will collapse. That makes a lot of other states admire its technology and methods. But in the long run, its leaders must understand it’s not possible for them to control the internet unless they shut it off – and they can’t live with the consequences of that. The internet is uncontrollable. And if the internet is uncontrollable, freedom will win. It’s as simple as that.
  • Web becomes strong force in public opinion|Society|chinadaily.com.cn – The country now often faces social hot-button issues due to the mounting pressure of public opinion, and weibo, Chinese for micro blog, has been playing a big role in driving social changes, a report said.
    A report analyzing the frequency and content of keyword searches on baidu.com, a leading search engine in China, has classified 349 issues as “hot online topics”, up 30 percent from 2010.
    “If you break it down, you’ll find almost one incident took place each day on average last year (meaning that) Chinese society has entered an age where hot-button issues are common”, said Yu Guoming, a professor at the Beijing-based Renmin University of China, who headed the research.
    The research showed issues of most concern to web users were “living standards, public safety and social responsibility”, according to the frequency of searches on Baidu.
  • Goldman Sachs Said to Raise $2.5 Billion in ICBC Sale – Bloomberg – Goldman Sachs Group Inc. (GS) is selling a $2.5 billion stake in Industrial & Commercial Bank of China (601398) Ltd., said two people with knowledge of the matte
  • 殷秀梅_百度百科 – 殷秀梅，当代著名戏剧女高音歌唱家,祖籍山东省济南市平阴县东阿镇，1956年1月出生于黑龙江省鹤岗市。1970任鹤岗市文工团独唱演员；1976年任中国广播艺术团独唱演员；1980年考入中央音乐学院歌剧系，师从著名男高音歌唱家，著名声乐教育家沈湘教授；1983年毕业后，历任中国人民解放军总政歌舞团、中央“心连心”艺术团独唱演员演员，中国广播艺术团国家一级演员。歌曲《我爱你，塞北的雪》是她演唱的名作，由她首唱的《党啊，亲爱的妈妈》、《长江之歌》、《妈妈教我一支歌》、《中国大舞台》等歌曲已走进千家万户，成为群众喜爱的优秀歌曲。
  • 让权力在阳光下运行_重要文章_求是理论网– Wen Jiabao’s ani-corruption essay in latest seeking truth, adapted from a March 26 speech一个政府要让人民满意，必须做到为民、务实、清廉。多年来，我们坚持在政府各项工作中全面贯彻反腐倡廉的要求，加强政府改革建设，实行科学民主决策，坚持依法行政，加强对权力运行的监督制约，有针对性地解决突出问题，注重抓好长期性基础性工作，创造条件让人民群众监督政府。
  • 人民日报-房价调控到位了吗？ – 坚持调控不动摇
    无论是买是租，让普通百姓住得起房，终究是中国楼市发展无法回避的问题。
    政府提出要通过调控，促进房价回到“合理价位”。人们计算房价收入比，剖析房价成本……但无论以哪个标准看，不少城市的房价仍然处于过高的水平。
  • 人民日报-网络谣言害人害己 社会公众勿信勿传 – people’s daily goes after Internet rumors on page 1 today
  • 人民日报今日谈：摒弃特权思想 珍惜人民信任–观点–人民网 – 近日参观周恩来故居，看到一份特殊的“家规”。在这份“家规”中，周总理特别叮嘱自己的侄辈，“要做个普通学生、普通劳动者”，“不能因为伯父是国家总理，你们就有任何特权思想，更不能要求特殊照顾，这是我们共产党与其他政党的不同所在”。
  • 重庆日报：中央调查薄熙来是重庆之大幸_新闻_腾讯网 – 继中共中央决定调整重庆市委主要负责人之后，最近中央又决定对薄熙来同志严重违纪问题立案调查、公安机关公布对尼尔·伍德死亡案依法复查结果并将犯罪嫌疑人移送司法机关，这是党之大幸、国之大幸、重庆之大幸，深得党心、顺乎民心。