"Sinocism is the Presidential Daily Brief for China hands"- Evan Osnos, New Yorker Correspondent and National Book Award Winner
- Australia Looks to China for Iron Ore Project – WSJ.com – Western Australia invited China to invest in a A$5.94 billion (US$6 billion) port and rail project that aims to open up a new iron ore province in the state’s Mid West after Wednesday stripping a Mitsubishi Corp.-led venture of exclusive development rights.
- Expat Parents in Hong Kong Feel School Squeeze – WSJ.com – Over the past two years, the number of expatriates moving to Hong Kong has surged, lured by China’s booming economy. But the steady influx of newcomers has created a huge bottleneck in another area: the region’s international educational syste
- China property – FT.com – In the year ahead, investors should get used to studying Chinese apartment prices and transaction volumes as closely as they do housing starts in the US. This market was managed pretty erratically on the upside. The downside should be no different.
- Hu Deping on Wukan and Land Rights – China Digital Times (CDT) | China Digital Times (CDT) – Hu Deping, son of former Communist Party General Secretary Hu Yaobang, contributed this commentary to a forum discussing the December 22 People’s Daily editorial “What Does ‘Wukan’s Turn’ Mean for Us?” The discussion was posted December 27 on the website Hu Yaobang Historical Data.
- Kim Jong Il Funeral Limos THE EPITOME of Capitalist Excess: ’75 Lincoln Continental (!) –
- Beijing Launches GPS Rival – WSJ.com – The Beidou Navigation Satellite System started providing initial positioning, navigation and timing services to China and its “surrounding areas” on Tuesday, Ran Chengqi, a spokesman for the system, told a news conference.
- 北斗网 Official Site For Beidou, China’s GPS –
- PR Director | Asia at Meltwater Group in Shanghai, Beijing, Hong Kong – Job | LinkedIn –
- Food security to be concern in 2012|Economy|chinadaily.com.cn – Seeds have long been a cause of concern for many observers of China’s agriculture industry, not because of their performance but because of their provenance. Industry data show that corn seeds from Pioneer Hi-Bred International Inc, a subsidiary of E.I. du Pont de Nemours and Co, were sown in more than 2 million hectares of the country’s cornfields up to 2011. One variety of Pioneer’s seeds has become the third most common in the country, analysts said.
In the vegetable seed market, foreign companies have 15 percent of the market share for those products in China, according to data from the Ministry of Agriculture. The figure indicates their formidable presence in China’s seed market, analysts said.
Worryingly to some Chinese observers, foreign companies continue to expand….
China has found it impossible to grow all of the food it needs and has consequently formed closer ties with the world food market.
Many have benefited from the country’s growing demand. In 2011, China surpassed Canada to become the largest importer of US agricultural goods, according to the US Department of Agriculture.
Agricultural imports supported more than 1 million jobs in the US. By the end of 2012, the value of US agricultural exports is expected to reach a new high of $137 billion, the department said.
China’s trade in agricultural products with African and Latin American countries is also expected to increase. The country was expected to start importing Argentine corn in 2013.
Against this background, the concern about China’s food security seems more reasonable. The total amount of food traded in the international market can hardly meet half of China’s demand. The world cannot afford a failure as big as China. - China’s energy consumption double world average|Media Digests|chinadaily.com.cn – China’s energy consumption per GDP is 2.2 times the world average, said Zhang Ping, director of the National Development and Reform Commission, the Legal Evening News reported.
- China to build world’s 2nd-tallest skyscraper|Photos|chinadaily.com.cn – Work crews have completed the foundation for the world’s second tallest building one month ahead of schedule and are now rushing to construct the ground structure of the 632-meter Shanghai Tower, second only to the 828-meter-tall Burj Khalifa in Dubai.
- Vale’s Giant Iron-Ore Ship Reaches China Port for First Time – Businessweek –
- U.S. Seeks Yuan Gains; Avoids Branding China a Manipulator – Businessweek –
- Watch Kim Jong-il’s Can’t-Look-Away Bizarre Funeral –
- Kuwait Doesn’t Want Anonymous Accounts on Twitter – the “democracy” Americans saved with blood and treasure
- China Announces Another Cut In Rare Earth Exports –
- Gerald O’Driscoll: The Federal Reserve’s Covert Bailout of Europe – WSJ.com –
- Former Fed VP Accuses Bernanke Of Bailing Out Europe Via Currency Swaps | ZeroHedge –
- China Censors Hong Kong Drama Involving Cannibalism – China Real Time Report – WSJ – “When Heaven Burns,” a bleak portrayal of humanity produced by broadcaster Television Broadcasts Ltd., has been banned in mainland China in what the Hong Kong media said was the first such move against a Hong Kong soap opera in more than two decades.
- Letter from China: Han Han Finds a New Crowd To Irritate : The New Yorker –
- Why isn’t the West reacting to China’s crackdown? – The Washington Post– with what credible levers that the near bankrupt West would be willing to employ? China can and will act with impunity when it comes to human rights//By Editorial Board
- Under Obama, an emerging global apparatus for drone killing – The Washington Post– The Obama administration’s counterterrorism accomplishments are most apparent in what it has been able to dismantle, including CIA prisons and entire tiers of al-Qaeda’s leadership. But what the administration has assembled, hidden from public view, may be equally consequential.In the space of three years, the administration has built an extensive apparatus for using drones to carry out targeted killings of suspected terrorists and stealth surveillance of other adversaries. The apparatus involves dozens of secret facilities, including two operational hubs on the East Coast, virtual Air Force cockpits in the Southwest and clandestine bases in at least six countries on two continents.
- China slams Railways Ministry over deadly crash – Yahoo! News –
- The Jamestown Foundation: The Last Year of Hu’s Leadership: Hu’s to Blame? – As the Hu Jintao era enters its final year, Chinese elites have started to review his administration, revealing many observers share a profound sense of disappointment. Hu Jintao has been criticized for his “inaction” (wuwei)—a frequently-used term in both Chinese blogs and daily conversations in the country. Some prominent Chinese public intellectuals have called openly the two five-year terms of the Hu leadership “the lost decade.” Recent Chinese nostalgia for retired leaders—particularly evident in Jiang Zemin’s extensively-publicized appearance last October and the public’s rush to buy Zhu Rongji’s recently-published work—further illustrate Hu’s unpopularity.
- The China Threat – NYTimes Magazine –
- China begins scramble for Afghanistan’s oil reserves – Telegraph – China began the scramble for Afghanistan’s untapped oil reserves by announcing an exploration contract with Kabul – the first such international agreement in decades.
- 组图：金正日葬礼举行 金正恩扶灵举城痛哭_新闻_腾讯网 – pictures of kim jong-il funeral today
- Chinese officials blamed for bullet train crash – Yahoo! News –
- 温家宝主持召开国务院常务会议<br/> 听取“7•23”甬温线特别重大铁路交通事故调查情况汇报 –
- We won’t fall like USSR, Beijing vows | China News Watch | Latest Hong Kong, China & World News | SCMP.com –
- ‘Hard Target’ North Korea Poses Challenge to U.S. Spy Efforts – Businessweek –
- Top 10 Problems in 2011 China, CASS Survey of Chinese Public – chinaSMACK –
- Questions Remain Over Mengniu Milk Scandal, Experts Say – Caixin Online –
- Chinese Internet Takes on Dairy Giant Hit By Tainted Milk Findings – China Real Time Report – WSJ –
- Ideas about China’s Cyber Command « Asia Unbound –
- SarahLacy.com | Golden Age of Tech Blogging Done? I Couldn’t Disagree More –
- With Essays on Democracy, Chinese Blogger Stirs Debate Among Reformers – NYTimes.com –