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

Subscribe Now

• 人民日报-李长春观看大型原创舞蹈诗剧《金面王朝》 –
• Saab Owner in Talks to Attract Investment in Carmaker from Chinese Bank – Bloomberg –
• State Construction Engineering Plans U.S. Takeover in Its $2 Billion Push – Bloomberg – China State Construction Engineering Corp. (601668), the nation’s biggest builder by market value, intends to buy a U.S. construction company next year as it begins investing as much as $2 billion in the world’s largest economy.
• Chow Tai Fook May Beat Prada to 2011 Hong Kong Record in $2.8 Billion IPO – Bloomberg –
• Hedegaard Says EU Needs More Detail From China on Climate Pact – Bloomberg –
• Martial-Arts Theme Park Planned for China – WSJ.com– A Los Angeles-based entertainment group is expected to announce later on Monday plans to co-develop a $3.1 billion theme park and resort in China’s Hubei Province with a local investment firm, two people familiar with the project said.Ikonic Entertainment Group will plan and design a martial-arts themed park, as well as a $50 million live show, one of the persons said. The development will take place at Wudang Mountain in Hubei Province, which is famous as a center of Chinese martial arts.
• Yamaha Lines Up Gold Golf Clubs for China – China Real Time Report – WSJ –
• Syphilis rising in South China|Society|chinadaily.com.cn –
• Super pumpkins on display|China|chinadaily.com.cn – seeds imported from USA
• China to double wind power generation capacity | Industries | chinadaily.com.cn –
• Exposure to smog is severe hazard|Society|chinadaily.com.cn – BEIJING – Experts are worried that particulate matter in the air, which is in higher concentrations in North China because of the heavy fog since the weekend, may lead to various respiratory diseases including lung infections and cancer.
  Shi Yuankai, vice-president of the Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences Cancer Hospital, said longtime exposure to particulate matter especially the particulate matter smaller than 2.5 micrometers (PM2.5) which can go directly to the alveoli of the lungs, is a major health hazard.
  “Even if we can manage to keep the country’s smoking rate flat, the lung cancer rate is expected to keep rising for 20 or 30 years and worsening air pollution could be the major culprit,” he said.
• The China “Threat” Rises Again » Counterpunch: Tells the Facts, Names the Names –
• Washington’s Clumsy China Containment Policy | The National Interest Blog –
• CitronResearch.com » Qihoo : Fraudulent Financials,Terminal Business, Or Both….You Decide. Citron maintains price target of $5 –
• China dispatches senior diplomat to mediate Sudanese oil row – Telegraph –
• 北京PM2.5超极限：中外资暗战百亿“污染生意” – 产经 – 21世纪网– changes to china’s air quality monitoring standard may be boon to foreign equipment firms中国新标准的推出，以及即将覆盖全国地级以上城市的环境空气质量监测网络，自然也看在外资设备巨头的眼中。
• 赫比国际震荡：外企低成本用工难维系 – 产经 – 21世纪网 –
• Journalists Should Be Government Mouthpieces, Chinese Media Leader Says – NYTimes.com – Apologies for the excerpts quoting me today, but since blogging is an unpaid hobby i enjoy the rare narcissistic compensation//
  The resurfacing of Mr. Hu’s earlier comments comes as some China observers have noted an uptick in the official language targeting the spread of rumors online, especially on Chinese social networks like the popular Twitter-like microblog Sina Weibo.“In the last week there have been multiple articles in official Chinese media about the importance of the proper handling of microblogs and the dangers of Internet rumors,” Bill Bishop, an American blogger living in Beijing who writes on China and the Internet, wrote on his blog DigiCha on Sunday.
• Why an Army colonel is retiring early — to become a high school teacher – The Washington Post– Paul Yingling-However, security is merely instrumental; peace and freedom make a good life possible but not inevitable. Especially in a democracy, we ought to respect most those who foster the character traits that make self-government attainable — parents and teachers, coaches and ministers, poets and protesters. When I hear the Army motto, “This We’ll Defend,” it’s them I have in mind.I’ve served five combat tours in Desert Storm, the Balkans and Iraq, and I’ve had cause to reflect on what it means to live well. It has little to do with money or social status or proximity to power. Instead, amid the clamor of a youth baseball practice, I’m part of a conversation on character that echoes in eternity. The opportunity to engage in that conversation more often is why I want to teach.
• Victory for U.S. Embassy as Beijing Chokes on ‘Heavy Fog’ – China Real Time Report – WSJ –
• 央行官员发短信向15人泄露CPI数据被判6年 – 机构 – 21世纪网 – 6 years in jail 4 PBOC official wu chaoming for leaking CPI data to 15 people
• tang niao bing 糖尿病 | needles and herbs – diabetes and chinese medicine
• Pictures of Beijing Air last 14 Days From Fixed Location –
• 震惊！广州区委书记享艳福包养五名绝色空姐 ! –
• China Vitae : Biography of Jiao Li –
• 焦利_百度百科 –
• The politics of Yahoo – The Term Sheet: Fortune’s deals blog Term Sheet – What all of this means is that Yahoo has a serious challenge ahead, if it does receive the Alibaba-led offering: How does it structure the deal so that the U.S. private equity firms are able to hold operational control. And then how does it get that message out to U.S. consumers. I stand by my earlier argument that such a transaction is preferable to the 20% sales, but also felt the need to acknowledge the corresponding political risks. As always when dealing with Yahoo, nothing comes easy.
• 阎学通：中国争夺道义制高点需结交盟友_国际先驱导报_新华网 –
• Crackdown Coming? China Compares Internet Rumors to Drugs – China Real Time Report – WSJ– The language about drugs and drug dealing are reminiscent of crackdowns from an earlier era, Bill Bishop, a Beijing-based Chinese Internet expert, wrote in a blog post on Sunday. That “may be a sign of an impending harsh crackdown on those who spread Internet rumors” amid “concern about social stability, especially in the worsening economic environment, and increasing conservatism in the run-up to the leadership change at the 2012 18th Party Congress,” he wrote.Officials have yet to suggest specific punishments or further regulation of Chinese Internet companies, which must adhere to government censorship rules in order to keep operational licenses. But their actions clearly indicate that that Beijing is watching the companies and their websites more closely.
• Beijing pollution gets so bad… | beyondbrics | News and views on emerging markets from the Financial Times – FT.com –
• China eases grip on blind Chinese activist: sources – Yahoo! News – China has eased some restrictions on a blind legal activist whose smothering, secretive detention in his village has become the focus of protests at home and condemnation abroad, sources close to his family said.
  Activists said the government of Linyi in eastern Shandong province in October allowed Chen Guangcheng’s 77-year-old mother to leave Chen’s home village to buy supplies for the family — a hint that officials have softened some of the harshest restrictions on him and his family, all of whom have been under house arrest for nearly 15 months.
• SARFT Goes After TV Shopping Programs. Latest Move in China’s Cultural Reform Campaign? | China Hearsay –
• AFP: China web users criticise new state TV boss – Thousands of Chinese web users lashed out at the new head of the state-run China Central Television (CCTV) network over a speech in which he said journalists were “propaganda workers”.
• Goebbels in China? – China Media Project– There have been unrelenting signals since August that Chinese leaders plan to act more robustly to control domestic social media platforms, which have been influential on a range of stories this year — from the Guo Meimei scandal to independent local people’s congress candidates. A series of pronouncements in Party publications over the past week, thankfully summarized in one place by Bill Bishop at DigiCha, seem to mark an intensification of the anti-rumor rhetoric that kicked off following the July 23 Wenzhou train collision.The anti-rumor push, which focusses moralistically on false and misleading information — and, yes, politically uncomfortable information — as a socially dangerous scourge to be rooted out, can be seen as part of a broader attempt to legitimize the intensification of information controls. It is no surprise, therefore, to see that state media fulmination against “rumors” is drumming home the idea of rumors as “drugs” that threaten the well-being of society.

  Of course, mobilizing society to accept and legitimize information controls is an increasingly difficult proposition in a country where ordinary people are growing ever more conscious of censorship and its ills. And perhaps one of the best examples of this can be seen in the online controversy brewing this weekend over the past remarks of Hu Zhanfan (胡占凡), the former Guangming Daily editor-in-chief who was appointed last month as the new head of the state-run China Central Television.

• China says U.S. solar ruling smacks of protectionism | Reuters –
• Beijing’s Home Sales Hit Record Low – The average price of pre-owned apartments in Beijing dropped to a 15-month low of 22,018 yuan (3456U.S. dollars) per square meter in November, according to latest report by the Beijing Municipal Commission of Housing and Urban-Rural Development(BNCHURD) on Dec 2nd.
• PressTV – China must protect Iran even with WWIII– A professor from the Chinese National Defense University says if Iran is attacked, China will not hesitate to protect the Islamic Republic even by launching the Third World War.Major General Zhang Zhaozhong said, “China will not hesitate to protect Iran even with a third World War.”
• Fund file: are China bulls blind? | beyondbrics | News and views on emerging markets from the Financial Times – FT.com– China is going to find it hard to repeat its past success, writes Edward Chancellor, a member of the asset allocation team at investment manager GMO, in a column in Monday’s FTfm.China bulls might choose not to see what is clearly visible, argues Chancellor, but consider what has happened in the past few years: Since 2008, the stock of private credit (or ‘social finance’) has grown from 120 per cent to nearly 180 per cent of GDP. The recent pace of credit growth in China has exceeded that of the US in the years prior to the Lehman bust.
• Guodian Said to Seek Up to $643M in IPO – Bloomberg –
• If We’re Nearing ‘Peak Newt,’ It’s Time to Talk More About Huntsman – James Fallows – Politics – The Atlantic – For good measure, I round off this report with an item from Bill Bishop’s Sinocism blog, out of Beijing, which suggests that Huntsman’s most redoubtable point of expertise, his experience as the Obama Administration’s Ambassador to China, may be causing a complication he didn’t have in mind just now. (Short version: in the latest debate Huntsman said that free expression via the Internet was “gonna take China down,” a remark now being used by the Chinese authorities to justify tighter Internet controls — not that they are ever lacking in excuses to do so. Read the Bishop’s item for the whole perspective.) And also note the new air quality emergency reported by all friends in Beijing.
• The new face of China? | Prospect Magazine – Bo Xilai, the “rock star” of Chinese politics, is on the rise
• China Unicom, China Telecom Ask Regulator to Halt Probe – WSJ.com– China’s two major fixed-line network operators, China Telecom Corp. and China Unicom [Hong Kong] Ltd., separately said Friday that they asked Chinese regulators to suspend an investigation of their pricing practices, and pledged to address problems they found in internal evaluations.The moves appear aimed at defusing the concerns of China’s top economic planner, the National Development and Reform Commission, whose probe of the companies is a big test of China’s three-year-old antitrust law. The probe, which is aimed at the companies’ pricing of Internet-dedicated leased-line access services, marks the highest-profile domestic monopoly case yet against major state-controlled companies.
• China’s Central Bank Calls Property Market ‘Turning Point’ – WSJ.com– In a statement summarizing a recent meeting between the People’s Bank of China and property and banking industry executives, the PBOC said real-estate developers’ cash flows have become tighter, while growth in property loans has slowed.”A turning point for property prices has emerged,” the PBOC said, citing the conclusions of two of its reports discussed at the meeting.
• Coke Says China Juice Drinks Aren’t Toxic – WSJ.com –
• Self Storage in Shanghai | Love Box Self Storage – Muddy Waters’ Carson Block’s Storage firm in Shanghai. Wonder when Tax bureau/SAIC will harass? Or someone will plant illegal goods in storage, then call the police. Lots of people want payback from Block, no matter how much or how little he now owns of this storage firm
• China Clamps Down on Even a By-the-Book Campaign – NYTimes.com –
• 中国企业非洲投矿风险调查 海外投资“步步惊心” – 宏观 – 21世纪网 –
• China Gets Religion! by Ian Johnson | The New York Review of Books –
• Review & Outlook: ‘Black Hands’ in Hong Kong – WSJ.com – The coming year will be a critical one for Hong Kong politics. Here’s one way to tell: The pro-Beijing media’s smear campaigns are plumbing new depths of defamation.
• 阎学通：中国争夺道义制高点需结交盟友_国际先驱导报_新华网 –

Subscribe Now