"Sinocism is the Presidential Daily Brief for China hands"- Evan Osnos, New Yorker Correspondent and National Book Award Winner
- Videos: News & Business Videos – Businessweek – Bloomberg's Emily Chang reports on Chinese customs officials announcing the arrest of a man attempting to smuggle 30 iPhones into mainland China. Authorities have seized more than 3,000 devices this year. She spoke yesterday on Bloomberg Television's "Bloomberg West."
- 教育部要求将学雷锋纳入学生综合素质评价体系_新闻中心_新浪网 – Lei Feng is back. Ministry of Education wants more Lei Feng studies in primary/middle school
- Information Dissemination: Chinese Energy Security Policy –
- Close shot of China’s J-20 fighter – Xinhua | English.news.cn –
- The NYPD spying controversy: a microcosm for the 9/11 era – Glenn Greenwald – Salon.com – that is basically the story of the general civil liberties assault and the accompanying demonization of Muslims in America since 9/11. The Government spies on whomever it wants in total secrecy and with no checks or oversight. In those rare instances where it is revealed, those responsible immediately screech Terrorists! to keep fear levels high, while politicians in both parties, with rare exception, line up to support these assaults. The bigoted equation of Muslims with Terrorism is incrementally bolstered each time. And all of this becomes more and more normalized — not an aberration but the norm in American political life.
- Letter from China: What Does China See in Syria? : The New Yorker – What does China get out of Syria? For more, I checked in with Shi Yinhong, an influential international-relations specialist at Renmin University, who told me that, while China sees a “need to keep step with Russia” to some degree, the motivations are distinctly Chinese: “China’s worry about the resurgent Western ‘liberal interventionism’ is playing a substantial part, especially after the abuse by NATO countries” and Arab allies in Libya, he said. Shi, who is an adviser to the Chinese cabinet on foreign affairs, went on: “The Chinese government may feel that it has to stop at somewhere to hold on to the principle of sovereignty and non-intervention…. If this time it and Russia do the same as they did over Libya, very bad developments over Iran would probably come true—uglier and sooner.”
For China, in effect, Syria has become a firewall.
- China and the World Bank: 2030 vision | The Economist – But despite the World Bank’s efforts to persuade the Chinese government that reform is relatively easy to manage in good times, prospects for quicker action still look dim, at least in the near term.
- The Chinese Army Today: Tradition and Transformation for the 21st Century, 2nd Edition (Paperback) – Routledge –
- Why Are Clubby Silicon Valley Bloggers So Two-Faced About Patents? – Forbes –
- What It Means to Be a Rising Public Intellectual in China – Damien Ma – International – The Atlantic – Meet Eric X. Li, a believer in the Chinese model of governance who is pitching it to Western audiences.
- Sina Weibo and the Coming Weipocalypse | Tech in Asia –
- Torture, Riots, Burnt Korans: One Afghan Jail’s Dark History | Danger Room | Wired.com –
- Netease’s Cloud Notes App Hits 2 Million Users, Chases After Evernote | Tech in Asia –
- Calming Cabbies: Beijing Seeks Taxi Peace Amid Strike Threats – China Real Time Report – WSJ – China’s Ministry of Transport held a telephone conference with labor authorities to discuss “harmonious labor relations in the taxi industry” on Monday, according to authorities, amid widespread talk of a possible strike by Beijing taxi drivers over rising fuel costs.
- Wukan Elections Offer Hope With Strings Attached-Caijing – Some newly-elected village representatives in Wukan have expressed frustration with the frequency of voting and lengthy election process.
- Bear Bile Industry Expands on Unproven Health Benefits -Caijing – The positive health benefits of bear bile championed in Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) have never been proven through strict scientific testing.
- White House, NSA weigh cybersecurity, personal privacy – The Washington Post – The National Security Agency has pushed repeatedly over the past year to expand its role in protecting private-sector computer networks from cyberattacks but has been rebuffed by the White House, largely because of privacy concerns, according to administration officials and internal documents.
The most contentious issue was a legislative proposal last year that would have required hundreds of companies that provide such critical services as electricity generation to allow their Internet traffic to be continuously scanned using computer threat data provided by the spy agency. The companies would have been expected to turn over evidence of potential cyberattacks to the government.
- Shanghai Raises Minimum Wage 13% as China Seeks to Boost Consumer Demand – Bloomberg –
- Big Four auditors brace for big changes in China | Reuters – The foreign joint venture arrangements signed in China 20 years ago by KPMG, Deloitte and Ernst & Young expire later this year. PWC's joint venture expires in 2017, but it is also involved in restructuring discussions.
China's Ministry of Finance (MOF) is using the expiry milestone to force the global auditing giants to form special group partnerships, which in theory would mean all partners would need to hold notoriously tough Chinese accountancy qualifications.
But China's young accounting industry means there aren't yet enough experienced Chinese-qualified accountants to run these businesses, say people close to the Big Four, who did not want to be identified as they are not authorized to talk to the media.
- Golden statuette can help elevate cultural appeal – Despite high hopes, Zhang Yimou's domestic blockbuster The Flowers of War failed to make the list of nominees for the Acad¬emy Award for Best Foreign Language Film this year. Once again, Chinese dreams of taking home a golden statu¬ette have been shattered, begging a few questions: How can a film that was so well received domestically not even get recognized by the Oscars? Shall we focus on the shortcomings of the Chi¬nese film industry or ignore the slight? Is it even necessary for Chinese movies to enter the Oscar competition?
- Tweeting The Sina Q4 2011 Earnings Call | DigiCha – Sina reported disappointing Q4 2011 results and Q1 2012 guidance.
I tweeted the earnings call and have embedded some of my comments below. CEO Charles Chao did not sound confident and used the words “uncertain” and uncertainty” several times. The company is clearly concerned about the impact of real-name registration.
- Colonialism in Africa helped launch the HIV epidemic a century ago – The Washington Post –
- 目标永远是下一座高峰 – 延展阅读 – 当人对一件事情执著时，就会忘记周围的一切。从一名计算机网络博士生，锻炼成长为一名军区信息化建设领军人才，再到带出一批优秀的网络人才，入伍22年，一步一个脚印走过来，我始终把党的需要作为自己的毕生追求，把超越自我、超越梦想作为自己最大的幸福，心中的信念坚如磐石，朗如日月。
- Why Chinese Netizens Are Laughing at BBC Now | China Internet Watch – bad translation in the google+ "occupy" story
- Birth Defects An Increasing Concern for Physicians – China has seen the rate of birth defects increase by more than 70 percent between 1996 and 2010.
"The percentage of infant deaths associated with congenital disorders has also been rising on the mainland," said Fu Wei, deputy director of women and children's care and the community health department of the Ministry of Health.
Currently, 800,000 to 1.2 million babies are born with various birth defects each year on the mainland, accounting for 4 to 6 percent of births, Deputy Minister of Health Liu Qian said at a recent news conference.
From 1996 to 2010, the rate of birth defects increased from 87.7 per 10,000 births to 149.9 per 10,000 births, according to the Ministry of Health.
- 九部门部署网络和手机“扫黄”专项行动_互联网_科技时代_新浪网 – online porn crackdown time again
- Shanghai Halts Johnson Controls Lead Processing – WSJ.com – SHANGHAI—Shanghai authorities for the first time directly linked lead pollution that they said had sickened local children to emissions from a Johnson Controls Inc. battery plant and indicated the facility wouldn't be permitted to process lead in the future.
- Reader –