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

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• Taylor & Francis Online :: Response to David Wright’s Commentary – Journal of Strategic Studies – Volume 34, Issue 5 –
• Taylor & Francis Online :: Response to ‘Space, China’s Tactical Frontier’ by Eric Hagt and Matthew Durnin – Journal of Strategic Studies – Volume 34, Issue 5 –
• Taylor & Francis Online :: Space, China’s Tactical Frontier – Journal of Strategic Studies – Volume 34, Issue 5 –
• Symantec Still Selling Huawei Equipment – to the Dept of Defense | Digital Dao – Even worse, as General James Cartwright and others in the U.S. government rail against China, the Department of Defense, Boeing, Lockheed Martin and CSC are all buying Huawei Symantec hardware according to one Huawei Symantec channel partner that I spoke with privately.
• Letter from China: After Kim Jong-il : The New Yorker –
• Currency Data Shows Unprecedented Second Month of China Capital Outflows – Bloomberg –
• Tibet’s resource curse: China’s plans for lithium extraction to meet demand for electric cars and smart phones will cause irreversible environmental damage | chinadialogue – China plans to scale up lithium extraction to meet demand for electric cars and smart phones. But environmental damage to the fragile Tibetan plateau will be irreversible, warns Gabriel Lafitte.
• North Koreans weeping hysterically over the death of Kim Jong-il – YouTube – like after death of Mao in 1976
• Chinese-language coverage of Wukan – China Media Project –
• Netease Weibo On Kim Jong Il’s Death And The Importance Of Losing Weight | Sinocism – Netease is known for its aggressive editorial department and it has extended that style to its microblog service–Netease Weibo.

  On a day of serious propaganda around the death of North Korean leader Kim Jong Il, Netease has set up a special topic page on his passing with the title “从金正日之死看减肥重要性  Kim Jong Il’s Death Shows The Importance Of Losing Weight”. Screenshot below

• Tight restrictions on Cantonese broadcasts set for 2012 | Nanfang Insider – nice timing by wang yang the "reformer"//
  Here’s some shocking news for those who speak Cantonese as their mother tongue:
  “National” standard language of Guangdong province regulations were published on the Guangdong provincial government website on December 12 declaring that as of Marc 1, any radio, TV or film content containing spoken Cantonese or other local dialects will need prior permission from the State Council or the local government media regulators before airing. For films and TV broadcasts which receive approval, Cantonese segments will be required to have subtitles.
• China party official warns members over religion – Yahoo! News – Merry Christmas Comrade//
  BEIJING – A Chinese Communist Party official says growing religious practice among members is threatening its unity and leadership.
  Zhu Weiqun reinforced the demand that party members not believe in religion or engage in religious practice. He said religious practice is a growing trend, especially in areas inhabited by ethnic minorities, and must not be tolerated.
• 北京推微博实名制新规 加强网络监管-华尔街日报 –
• Hong Kong Luxury Rents Reach ‘Tipping Point’ – Bloomberg –
• Giant Rabbits and Double Rainbows: The 10 Most Insane Delusions of Kim Jong-il –
• Will China Break? – NYTimes.com – For what it’s worth, statements about economic policy from Chinese officials don’t strike me as being especially clear-headed. In particular, the way China has been lashing out at foreigners — among other things, imposing a punitive tariff on imports of U.S.-made autos that will do nothing to help its economy but will help poison trade relations — does not sound like a mature government that knows what it’s doing.

  And anecdotal evidence suggests that while China’s government may not be constrained by rule of law, it is constrained by pervasive corruption, which means that what actually happens at the local level may bear little resemblance to what is ordered in Beijing.

  I hope that I’m being needlessly alarmist here. But it’s impossible not to be worried: China’s story just sounds too much like the crack-ups we’ve already seen elsewhere. And a world economy already suffering from the mess in Europe really, really doesn’t need a new epicenter of crisis.

• Why Predicting China’s Economic Growth is So Hard – China Real Time Report – WSJ –
• BBC News – N Korean leader Kim Jong-il dies – North Korean leader Kim Jong-il has died at the age of 69, state-run television has announced.

  His death was announced in an emotional statement read out on national television.

  The announcer, wearing black, said he had died on Saturday of physical and mental over-work.

• Burma’s military junta accused of torturing and killing ethnic rebels | World news | guardian.co.uk – War on Kachin rebels has intensified but gone entirely unnoticed, with abuses overshadowed by drive for political reform
• China’s Humbling Lessons for Russia and the West: Pankaj Mishra – Businessweek –
• 2011: When Chinese Social Media Found Its Legs – Damien Ma – International – The Atlantic –
• Tweets About Sina Weibo | DigiCha – I write a lot more on Twitter than on this blog. As Twitter now makes it easy to embed tweets in WordPress I am going to start occasionally reposting Tweets here.

  Congratulations to those who bought Sina ($SINA) near the lows Friday. I have not traded Sina in over a year and have no stake in the direction of the stock price. I just want to try to make a tiny contribution towards helping investors have as much information as possible, especially when so many professionals have been so off target and so many have investors underestimated the political risks to a product as disruptive as Weibo.

• Myanmar Tycoons Embrace Change – WSJ.com –
• Cool runnings|Travel|chinadaily.com.cn – Chinese ski resorts can compete with some of the best slopes anywhere
  China's nascent skiing industry has been building up in the past decade to experience its current boom. In 1996, there were fewer than 10,000 skiers and nine small-sized ski resorts across the country. At the end of last year, there were about 5 million skiers and 200 resorts, figures from the China Ski Association show.
• Goodbye Delicious, hello Pinboard: why we’ll pay for internet plumbing | Technology | guardian.co.uk – Guardian Technology is switching its bookmarking system over from the ex-Yahoo Delicious service (now owned by the YouTube founders) to Pinboard, a paid-for service. You won't notice any difference. But the internet might.
• The Fall of a Safe Haven and the Peak of Gold Rush in China | China Bubble Watch – we might be witnessing the peak of China’s gold rush: there are more and more signs of a liquidity crunch in China, and more importantly, the perception of gold as a safe haven is fundamentally shaken by the volatility of gold price in the past several months.
• Real names on Weibo points to progress – The Beijing municipal government on Friday issued new rules to demand Weibo users register their real names before being allowed to post. This is an opportunity to establish a high-quality public opinion environment for online expression. Microblog operators and administrators should carefully implement these new rules to make Weibo a more serious and powerful means for communication.  Otherwise, the culture of open expression formed on Weibo will come to nothing.

  After the release of the new rules, some expressed their support for the new regulations while some opposed them. There are worries concerning whether the freedom of  expression on Weibo will be restrained or whether public opinion online will lose its vitality.

• 豪宅大降价开发商退钱6亿 业内认为房价加速回归_中国经济网――国家经济门户 – 知名房企星河湾16日称，将上海的两个项目价格下调15%-20%，同时对老业主进行差价补偿，预计补偿资金将达6亿元。被视为业内“标杆”的豪宅项目首次推出大幅降价、差价补偿的行为，给楼市带来震动。
• China’s foreign policy not a matter of tough vs. soft – At a foreign policy seminar in Beijing yesterday, Assistant Foreign Minister Le Yucheng pointed out that the international community, especially certain Western countries, has been complaining about China being "increasingly assertive." At the same time within the country, public opinion has been labeling Chinese foreign policy as "too soft."

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