"Sinocism is the Presidential Daily Brief for China hands"- Evan Osnos, New Yorker Correspondent and National Book Award Winner
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- Amazon.com: Consent of the Networked: The Worldwide Struggle For Internet Freedom eBook: Rebecca MacKinnon: Kindle Store – now on kindle
- Google’s mapping service hits a bump in the road | Companies | chinadaily.com.cn – BEIJING – The search engine Google Inc is unable to provide "new" online mapping services in China. That's because the company has yet to receive a license to conduct the business from China's industry regulator, citing a deadline of Feb 1.
The news is a negative signal for the company's operations in the country, where its market share is declining, said analysts.
The State Bureau of Surveying and Mapping is examining a license application it received last year from the Chinese division of Google, the bureau said in an e-mailed statement to China Daily on Wednesday.
However, it didn't elaborate what "new" online mapping services refers to in its statement. - Integrity system to target Net dishonesty|Society|chinadaily.com.cn – SHANGHAI – Internet users in the municipality with a history of online dishonesty may be barred from certain business activities in real life, a senior official from Shanghai said on Wednesday.
"Those who lied or cheated during online transactions or other online activities may not be eligible to apply for mortgage loans and credit cards," said Zhang Xuebing, chief of the Shanghai municipal public security bureau.
The new rule by the city authorities is a preparatory step for the gradual establishment of credit archives that catalogue Internet users in the municipality. He said the measures send a clear message that "dishonesty online will lead to restrictions in all fields". - US group accused over cancer fraud|Sci-Tech|chinadaily.com.cn – A prominent Chinese science organization has slammed an American medical institute, accusing its doctors of deceiving Chinese patients with a controversial cancer treatment.
Li Qingchen, a doctor and member of Scientific Squirrels, a Chinese organization dedicated to the dissemination of scientific knowledge, said Thursday that the American Academy of Anti-Aging Medicine (A4M) has been using an unapproved cancer therapy to swindle Chinese patients.
Li added that the American Cancer Society has found no evidence that the cancer treatment being used by A4M benefits cancer patients.
The Chinese representative office of A4M claimed on its website that it could offer a "breakthrough cancer therapy" developed by Dr. Stanislaw Burzynski, who asserts that cancer can be treated with antineoplastons, a group of amino acids and petides normally found in urine and blood. - 79 pct of wetlands poorly protected |Society|chinadaily.com.cn – Seventy-nine percent of China's wetlands are poorly protected and their total coverage is shrinking as well, according to a survey released on Thursday, February 2, also known as World Wetlands Day.
- Actor nabbed in Beijing over marijuana|China photos|chinadaily.com.cn – Chinese actor Zhang Mo, son of noted movie star and director Zhang Guoli, was arrested Monday for taking marijuana, Beijing police said Tuesday night.
Zhang, 29, was arrested at around 10 pm Monday in a villa in Beijing's outer Shunyi district, near the Capital International Airport, a spokesman with the city's public security bureau said. - World’s Priciest Pigeon Goes for $328,000 – Scene Asia – WSJ – Wealthy Chinese have been snapping up contemporary art, top wines and some the world’s most expensive cars. Now they’re adding pigeons to their must-have list.
A Chinese shipping magnate last weekend spent 250,400 euros ($328,000) for a Dutch pigeon, a new world record according to Pipa, the firm that ran the online auction.
- Analysis: Canada plan to sell oil to China faces big hurdles – Yahoo! News – Prime Minister Stephen Harper may still be smarting from Canada's failed bid to ramp up oil exports to the United States, but his plan B could prove to be even tougher.
Harper heads across the Pacific next week in a bid to convince China to satisfy its growing energy appetite with Canada's vast oil reserves.
Though it appears a classic supply-demand match on the surface, the plan faces hurdles that range from how long it will take to build the pipeline to environmental dangers and questions about China's human rights record. - Should Facebook Friend or Poke China?: The Ticker – Bloomberg – Facebook will look foolish if it follows Twitter's lead and censors information to make China, or other authoritarian nations, happy.
Trouble is, many investors will demand the opposite approach. Facebook needs to monetize its site, attract advertisers and maintain its share price. China has 513 million Internet users, and investors will push Facebook to connect with all of them. Resisting China's call in the face of such pressure will require strong will on Zuckerberg's part.
Yet if Facebook is going to be true to its stated mission and connect the world as seamlessly, comprehensively and transparently as it says, China can wait. - China’s capital flight looks ready for take-off – FT.com – many of the smartest foreign exchange traders have reversed their bet on the swift appreciation of the Chinese currency. In December, renminbi deposits in Hong Kong dropped 6 per cent from November, the largest fall ever, reflecting broadened capital flows and more balanced current account dealings.
Mr Green notes that it is possible that hot money has been flowing out for years but in the past it has been overwhelmed by inflows and therefore was less visible. The visibility is a big part of the problem.
Arguably the biggest challenges facing China now are more social than economic.
Victor Shih, a US academic, has estimated that the liquid and property wealth of the top 1 per cent of the Chinese population ranges from a possible $2tn-$5tn. At the other end of the spectrum are those who are not even in the cash economy. The gap is too wide. - Angry Hong Kongers hit the streets to sing "anti-locust" song to mainland tourists: Shanghaiist – this will not end well//
We thought this was a joke but apparently it's dead serious. An "anti-locust choir" comprising of members of the Hong Kong Golden Forum (now apparently hacked and inaccessible) has been hitting the streets of Hong Kong and serenading tourists from the mainland with "Locust World", a new anti-mainlander song that has been going viral in the city.
Seven forum users — mostly young, hot-blooded Hong Kong males — responded to the post by a man nicknamed "Locust Exterminator Captain" 「滅蝗隊長」on the rabidly anti-mainlander online bulletin board. The "Captain" told Apple Daily he understood that the Locust vs Dog debate had polarised Hong Kongers and mainlanders, but insisted the anti-locust song was directed only at a "small number" of mainlanders, in particular those who "do not contribute to Hong Kong, but are here just to grab whatever resources they can from Hong Kong." - Philippine military kills wanted Jemaah Islamiyah, Abu Sayyaf operatives in airstrike – The Long War Journal – US Special Forces direct it?//
The Philippine Air Force force killed a senior Jemaah Islamiyah, a top Abu Sayyaf Group leader, and 13 others, including a wanted Singaporean terrorist, during an airstrike in Sulu province.
Zulkifli bin Hir, one of the senior most wanted leaders of the al Qaeda-linked Jemaah Islamiyah; Umbra Jumdail a senior Abu Sayyaf commander, and his son, Teng; and Muhamad Ali, another wanted JI operative, were killed in the early morning today in an airstrike, according to the country's top military commander.
- Japan Protests to China Over Undersea Gas Drilling – ABC News – Japan has accused China of unilaterally exploring gas deposits in the East China Sea, in violation of an agreement to jointly develop disputed areas.
- Have Chinese Had Enough? | China Power – “Look at Russia,” a student uttered during a heated debate at one university in Beijing, “When did Europe and America bully it? When it did not dare to clench a fist. Only with a strong leader, it got respected.”
That strongman in Moscow might have lost his prestige, but statements like these illustrate how China’s next generation of leaders is expected to play hardball in the international arena. With China’s economic future looking grim, those expectations could offer Party bosses like Xi Jinping a new opportunity to shore up their esteem with a much more troublesome brand of nationalism. And with thorny issues like Taiwan, the South China Sea, the disputed border with India, and various trade disputes moving again to the forefront, the Year of the Dragon could be a major turning point in China’s rise.
- Robert Barnett on Tibet | FiveBooks | The Browser – Discussions about Tibet are often reduced to arguments about China's right to run it. The Tibetologist says this obscures a much more subtle debate about what it means to be Tibetan in modern Tibetan society
- Auction House Beijing Poly Sets Opening Date For New York Office « Jing Daily : The Business of Luxury and Culture in China – Office To Be Dedicated To Sourcing, Rather Than Sales
- Web 2.0时代的世界政治_域外观察_求是理论网 –
- Asia Unbound » China’s Diplomacy 2.0 and Hu Xijin – Two years ago the Beijing-based techology analyst Bill Bishop argued that it would be hard for China to build soft power successfully without a global Internet strategy: hard to win hearts and minds when you censor Twitter and Facebook, language would be a barrier, and no major Chinese Internet firms would succeed in foreign markets. This seems right, but perhaps the Chinese have lowered their sights. The goal may be to stay safely in the Chinese Internet (and ensure the safety of the Chinese Internet from the outside) while only occasionally dipping in and out of the Internet in the West. At this point it is hard to tell if Hu Xijin thinks he can actively engage outside of China. As Tom Lasseter notes, right now Hu is only following one account on Twitter: The Global Times.
- AFP: Facebook hopes to re-friend China despite censors –
- China Cuts Subsidies for Pilot Solar-Power Projects on Declining Costs – Bloomberg –
- Eight Questions: Tim Wright on China’s Blood-Stained Coal – China Real Time Report – WSJ –
- China’s largest freshwater lake dries up | Environment | Guardian Weekly – For visitors expecting to see China's largest freshwater lake, Poyang is a desolate spectacle. Under normal circumstances it covers 3,500 sq km, but last month only 200 sq km were underwater. A dried-out plain stretches as far as the eye can see, leaving a pagoda perched on top of a hillock that is usually a little island. Wrapped in the mist characteristic of the lower reaches of the Yangtze river, the barges are moored close to the quayside beside a pitiful trickle of water. There is no work for the fisheries.
- Deal by deal, U.S. ambassador turns salesman in China – Yahoo! News –
- 秦晓：中国改革不能止步_新闻中心_金羊网 –
- Looking for News Value in People’s Daily IPO – Caixin Online – Pricing the value of a state-run news provider's website is tricky business in China, especially for People's Daily Online
- South Korean Man Faces Jail for Retweets –
- Hong Kong rails against invasion of Chinese ‘locusts’ – Telegraph – Resentment of mainland Chinese in Hong Kong is at an all-time high following the publication of an advertisement in a local newspaper comparing people from China to locusts.
- Harvard Targeted in Asian Discrimination Probe – Bloomberg – The U.S. Education Department is probing complaints that Harvard University and Princeton University discriminate against Asian-Americans in undergraduate admissions.
The department’s Office for Civil Rights is investigating a complaint it received in August that Harvard rejected an Asian- American candidate for the current freshman class based on race or national origin, a department spokesman said. - China’s Wen: May consider bigger role in EU rescue – Yahoo! News –
- Perry Anderson reviews ‘Deng Xiaoping and the Transformation of China’ by Ezra Vogel, ‘On China’ by Henry Kissinger and ‘The Generalissimo’ by Jay Taylor · LRB 9 February 2012 – Deng Xiaoping and the Transformation of China by Ezra Vogel
Harvard, 876 pp, £29.95, September 2011, ISBN 978 0 674 05544 5
BUYOn China by Henry Kissinger
Allen Lane, 586 pp, £30.00, May 2011, ISBN 978 1 84614 346 5
BUYThe Generalissimo: Chiang Kai-shek and the Struggle for Modern China by Jay Taylor
Harvard, 736 pp, £14.95, April 2011, ISBN 978 0 674 06049 4 - Chief Executive Officer at Wokai in Beijing – Job | LinkedIn –
- China’s central SOEs turn to websites to build soft power | Companies | chinadaily.com.cn –