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

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• Yuan Loses Feel of One-Way Bet – WSJ.com – The Chinese currency, once seen as the surest bet in global financial markets, is testing the confidence of investors as it tumbles, then jumps amid global market turmoil.

• 万科坚拒业主“降价补偿” 王石称楼市软着陆可期 – 产经 – 21世纪网– no sympathy in China for homeowners protesting for compensation after price cuts in their developments. nor should there be. but we live in a bailout word//新浪网、搜房网等发起的网络调查也显示，这一轮维权业主们并没有得到舆论和大众的支持。
• GM: thank goodness for China | beyondbrics | News and views on emerging markets from the Financial Times – FT.com – Europe might be in the doldrums and the US is still just muddling through. But thank goodness for China. The world’s biggest auto market was the sole bright spot in General Motors’ third quarter earnings results.
• FT Alphaville » What’s missing from China-Eurozone debate, RMB edition – But the elephant in the room is surely the following question:  how could China save Europe if its currency is not convertible? In short, structural deficiencies in China’s currency regime could torpedo any bid to be a large and efficient provider of global liquidity.
• China to form national office for IPR infringement, fake products crackdown– BEIJING, Nov. 9 (Xinhua) — A national office will be established to facilitate China’s efforts to crack down on infringement of intellectual property rights (IPR) and counterfeit products, the State Council, or the Cabinet, said Wednesday.China faces an arduous task in fighting IPR infringement as well as the production and sale of fake products, therefore, greater administrative and law enforcement efforts are needed, according to a statement issued after a State Council executive meeting.
• Gao Xiaosong released after 6 months in jail-Digicha– After 184-days in jail, Gao Xiaosong has been released from jail in Beijing.The 42-year-old singer, music producer and director was found guilty of drink driving on May the 9, after a car crash which resulted in a four vehicle pile up.

  He has became the first celebrity to be punished under tough new traffic rules which came into effect on May the 1st.

• Russian Internet Content Monitoring System To Go Live In December | Techdirt – any foreign firms participating?
• Most Solar Manufacturers May Vanish by 2015, Trina CEO Says – Bloomberg – likely Chinese
• Meet Yifei Li — A Martial Arts Champion, Former MTV Exec And Now Man Group’s Frontwoman for China –
• Lashou IPO Roadshow [SlideShare] | iChinaStock –
• Asia Unbound » Time to Move Bangkok? – In an excellent story by Agence France Presse , reporters in Bangkok examine why the Thai capital is likely, in years to come, to face similar if not worse floods. Such floods could repeatedly devastate Thailand’s manufacturing base and threaten the millions of people in the capital, which dominates Thailand as the country’s political, cultural, and economic epicenter. Urbanization in the city’s outlying areas has reduced regions of vegetation that absorbed water in the past; overbuilding in the city core has done the same. The capital, built on swamp, is still sinking every year, and with global temperatures rising and weather patterns changing, Thailand is likely to face a longer, more intense rainy season for years to come — which would in turn make the city harder to drain and would more consistently overflow the Chao Praya River. The OECD has classified Thailand’s capital as one of the ten most endangered cities in the world, according to the AFP report. “In 50 years… most of Bangkok will be below sea level,” Anond Snidvongs, an expert on water management, told AFP.
• Asia Unbound » The United States in the New Asia … Revisited – by Evan A. Feigenbaum
  For the next several days, President Obama is hosting leaders from around the Asia-Pacific region in Hawaii for the annual summit of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) forum. And so this seemed like a good time to repost a Council on Foreign Relations special report on Asian regionalism that I co-wrote with my colleague, Bob Manning, in the run up to the 2009 meeting.
  Our report, The United States in the New Asia, is two years old. But in my view, it’s still deeply relevant.
• JP Morgan: New Report on China Healthcare Reform | Asia Healthcare Blog –
• CSCL | Committee to Support Chinese Lawyers – new report issued: legal advocacy and the 2011 crackdown in china: adversity, repression and resilience
• 中国版权保护中心:网络视频盗版监测效果显著_中国经济网??国家经济门户– 　　记者9日获悉，中国版权保护中心网络视频音频版权监测及调查取证服务平台自去年6月成立以来，在国内外权利人和权利人组织的委托下，已累计监测出侵权盗版链接逾41万条，并为权利人发送删除通知函2400余封，删除侵权链接40余万条，有效地维护了权利人的合法权益。　　此外，中国版权保护中心日前还发布《中国版权保护中心网络视频音频版权监测及调查取证服务规则》，明确规范网络视频音频版权监测及调查取证服务平台的服务和工作流程。
• China Telecom, Unicom Face Broadband Antitrust Probe | Marbridge Consulting – China Telecom News– The antitrust division of China’s National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC) has confirmed that it is investigating China Telecom (NYSE: CHA; 0728.HK) and China Unicom (NYSE: CHU; 0762.HK; 600050.SH) for monopolistic practices in China’s broadband market. The two telecom operators may face penalties in the billions of RMB.Li Qing, head of the NRDC’s price monitoring and antitrust division, told CCTV that the division launched an investigation in H1 2011 after receiving complaints that the two operators held monopoly control over national broadband pricing
• China drug executive sentenced to death for graft – Yahoo! News –
• Tencent Party Committee Founding Meeting Held– On July 14, 2011, the Tencent Party Committee inauguration meeting was held. Hu Jin, Deputy Secretary and Organization Department Director of the CPC Nanshan District Committee, and Charles Chen, Chief Administrative Officer (CAO) of Tencent, jointly attended a grand plaque unveiling ceremony for the Tencent Party Committee.During the meeting, all delegates listened, deliberated on and unanimously adopted the Work report of the CPC Party General Branch Committee of Tencent Technology (Shenzhen) Co., Ltd. delivered by Guo Kaitian on behalf of the previous Tencent Party General Branch, and elected 9 members and 1 secretary of the new Tencent Party Commitee according to law. Guo Kaitian, former Secretary of Tencent Party General Branch and Tencent Senior Vice-President, was elected Tencent Party Committee Secretary.

  Charles Chen representing Tencent and Hu Jin representing the CPC Nanshan District Committee both made speeches to congratulate the establishment of the Tencent Party Committee and encourage the Tencent Party Commitee to closely center on corporate operations and development, persist in step up Party building through central tasks, prompt development by serving the overall situation and strive for fulfilling Tencent’s vision to become “the most respected Internet enterprise”.

  The upgrading of the Tencent Party General Branch into a party committee represents a progress as the CPC celebrates its 90th anniversary and as the number of Party members continuous grows at Tencent, marks Tencent’s effort to fulfill its social responsibility and constitutes an important part of Tencent’s corporate culture. Through the influence of the Party organization, Tencent will further put into practice its corporate values of “Integrity, enterprising, cooperation and innovation” and make worthy contributions to achieving the change from excellence to outstanding.

• Weibo gives rumors no time to thrive|Society|chinadaily.com.cn – Based at Sina’s Beijing headquarters in Zhongguancun, a hub of high-tech activity, the rumor control office consists of 10 people, including Tan, and is staffed 24 hours a day.
  Working in eight-hour shifts, members trawl micro blogs and follow up users’ complaints about erroneous posts while a duty editor checks and verifies information.
  The average age of the team is 28 and most are senior journalists recruited from Sina’s media center.
  “Having a good news sense was an important factor when we were hiring,” said Tan. “The work needs people to be keen-eyed and good communicators.
• Bear raid shoots up lending fees on China property-Reuters– Hedge fund managers seeking to bet against China property developers are seeing the cost of borrowing shares skyrocket as investors have piled into the stocks expecting a real estate market slump.With home sales dropping and prices falling on the mainland, short-selling volume in shares of Chinese developers has risen sharply, underscoring the sentiment that deeper pain is setting in across the sector.

  Short interest in many of the most-liquid names has been high since late July, sometimes accounting for a third of all trading. Most stocks, on average, have about 5 percent of shares shorted. Short-sellers borrow shares, sell them to the market, then try to buy them back when the stock has fallen, pocketing the difference.

• Tencent Announces 2011 Third Quarter Results_20111109_1426 – 1.18B USD revenue in Q3, 471m USD operating profit, 300m+ weibo users
• Iran’s Nuclear Program and China – NYTimes.com– But as Iran nears the nuclear threshold, the best way to stop it may be by punishing the Chinese companies that supply Tehran and enable its nuclear progress.The Obama administration seems to understand this. The late September visit to China by David S. Cohen, the Treasury Department’s new under secretary for terrorism and financial intelligence, included the most explicit warning yet to Beijing that its banks and financial institutions could face sanctions if they continued to do business with Iranian entities.
• Govt disowns Sh40bn geothermal deal – News |nation.co.ke– The move came as Energy Permanent Secretary Patrick Nyoike faced MPs to shed light on how the Chinese contractor clinched the multi-billion geothermal deal.Speaking Tuesday when he appeared before the House Committee on Energy, Mr Nyoike said that his ministry was not aware of the deal with Great Wall Drilling Company (China) to sink the wells in Kenya’s bid to boost it power capacity.

  “It is a fake contract. I have checked with KenGen, they have never seen it. KenGen does not even have a draft contract. I have checked with Great Wall Drilling Company, they have not seen it. That’s a fake. I don’t know where it came from” said Mr Nyoike.

• Increditable! IMF’s Lagarde Joins China’s Top Microblogging Site Sina Weibo – China Real Time Report – WSJ – why don’t obama, geithner and clinton have weibo accounts?
• 记者节当日《京华周刊》被当局关闭 全体记者下岗_多维新闻网 – 【多维新闻】11月8日是中国大陆的记者节，但就这一天大陆媒体圈传出这样一条消息，2011年1月17日创刊，至今未满一年的《京华周刊》的记者收到通知，他们将被遣散。
  据知情人士透露，《京华时报》归属北京之后，《京华周刊》的刊号被《人民日报》收回。要求杂志下面的员工，要么回《京华时报》，要么自寻出路。被解散的原因可能是因为《京华时报》移交北京市委宣传部主管之后与原主管单位《人民日报》之间的矛盾升级，内容生产受到严重干扰，如今索性下令停办。另有一种说法称“刊号回到人民日报，杂志不走市场化”。
• Economist Zhang Weiying: China, U.S. Both Need Freer Markets, Better Leadership – China Real Time Report – WSJ – Peking University economics professor Zhang Weiying said at a panel discussion in New York on Tuesday that both China and the U.S. rely too much on their respective governments to solve social and economic problems, and they both need better leadership to move their countries ahead.
• Major Chinese dialect to be saved in database|Society|chinadaily.com.cn – The eastern coastal province of Zhejiang plans to build a vocal database to preserve Wu Chinese, a millennium-old dialect that was once used to chant China’s ancient poems.
• China’s Lawyers Under Siege by Jerome A. Cohen | NYRblog | The New York Review of Books – On November 1, the Congressional-Executive Committee on China held an emergency hearing about Chen Guangcheng, a blind human rights lawyer who has been persecuted by the Chinese government. The following is adapted from testimony given at the hearing by Professor Jerome A. Cohen, a scholar of Chinese law.
• Alibaba Group Gains More Revenue Than Baidu in Q2, Yahoo! Report Shows | iChinaStock– Alibaba Group’s revenue in Q2 reached $631 million, an increase of 81.33% year on year, according to Yahoo’s Q2 report. Its net income surged 173.21% to $137 million.In comparison, Baidu’s revenue in Q2 grew 78.4% to about $530 million in the period. But the Chinese search engine is apparently much more profitable than Alibaba, with net income hitting $252.6 million
• Tweeting Sina Q3 Earnings Call | DigiCha –
• Economic Musings – A $SINA bull turns bearish – quick hits from today’s earnings release – While it’s still “early” in some senses, you have to start to seriously question what’s happening at SINA.  Can they really eventually leverage Weibo all the while shielding off competitors?  They have been saying “monetization” is coming for quarters on end now. What are the true costs of censorship that SINA is looking at down the line?  Can we trust management with the recent string of bewildering investments?  For now, all I’ll say is that my next trade of SINA has a better of being on the short side.
• Ackman to Lose ‘Lot of Money’ on H.K. Bet: Tsang – Bloomberg – William Ackman, founder of hedge fund Pershing Square Capital Management LP, will “lose a lot of money” on his bet that Hong Kong will amend its currency peg to the dollar, city Chief Executive Donald Tsang said.
• Beijing opens air-quality monitoring center to public– Beijing is to open its air-quality monitoring center to the public on a regular basis after criticism mounted over the methods it uses to gauge the city’s notorious pollution.The move, announced Tuesday, is meant to allow ordinary citizens to learn by themselves how the air quality in Beijing is monitored, said Hua Lei, vice head of the municipal government’s environmental protection monitoring center.

  “With their rising quality of life, Beijing residents are increasingly concerned about the environment,” Hua said. “We hope the new move can allay the public’s fears.”

• Nation’s top leaders head to polls as Beijing kicks off local legislative election– BEIJING, Nov. 8 (Xinhua) — President Hu Jintao cast his ballot at a voting booth in downtown Beijing Tuesday, among the city’s 9 million voters, to elect new lawmakers at district and township levels.”I’m glad to exercise my right as a voter of the Xicheng District of Beijing,” Hu said at the voting booth in Zhongnanhai, where the central government offices are located.

  Out of 6,615 district-level candidates and 15,145 township-level counterparts, Beijing will elect 4,349 deputies to district people’s congresses and around 9,941 deputies to township people’s congresses.

• Can cinema help China tackle 4,000 years of history? | Film | guardian.co.uk – From Zhang Yimou to Wayne Wang and Ang Lee, film-makers are playing a key part in reshaping China’s relationship with its past
• CCTV ad auction draws record bids|Economy|chinadaily.com.cn – The auction, widely perceived as a barometer of the country’s economic situation, drew bids totaling 14.26 billion yuan ($2.25 billion), up 12.54 percent from last year.
  The bidding pool rose further than the 10 percent or so that the industry had anticipated, but advertising sources said that the gain might have actually been too modest in light of the nation’s high inflation rate and soaring costs. The sources said that the bid total highlighted stagnancy in the growth of traditional advertising.
• Chinese help Ai Weiwei after huge tax bill – YouTube –
• Chinese Web Users Target Air Pollution – WSJ.com– Tens of thousands of people, including several Chinese celebrities, have used an unofficial online vote to press the government to measure air pollution more accurately, illustrating how the Internet–and especially Twitter-like microblogging–is challenging Beijing’s control of information.The vote appears to represent small, but significant, progress for quiet efforts by the U.S.—whose Beijing embassy has Tweeted its own air readings since 2008—to use social media to reach out directly to Chinese citizens and to pressure Beijing to address the true scale of China’s environmental problems.
• China’s confident consumers – McKinsey Quarterly – Retail & Consumer Goods – Sectors & Regions –
• Moral Parallels: Foshan China, Penn State – James Fallows – National – The Atlantic– In several items (first, second, and third) about last month’s horrific episode in Foshan, China —  in which 18 people walked or biked past an injured 2-year-old lying in the road, until she was run over a second time and mortally wounded — I mentioned that such “not my problem” behavior was a failing of human nature rather than of any one nation’s culture. But the uproar over the episode inside China showed that it touched a nerve there. Specifically, it was a trigger for mounting concerns about the social and cultural effects of the me-first rush for riches these past few years.It’s worth recognizing how much the details of the grand jury report of (alleged) multi-victim, multi-year sexual predation in Penn State’s football program make it a moral parallel of the toddler video. People who were not themselves “to blame” for a terrible situation also did not take responsibility for rescuing its victims.
• U.S. Sees Visa Demand Surge From Middle Class in China, Brazil – Businessweek –
• Virginian cast as center of Hong Kong plot – The Washington Post– HONG KONG — Mark Simon, a 47-year-old businessman from Falls Church, was until recently just another American lured by the opportunities offered by Asia’s economic boom.Today, the portly Virginian has a dashing but, he says, “extremely unpleasant” new role at the center of a political thriller scripted by China’s Communist Party and its allies in Hong Kong. It features espionage, slush funds and U.S. plots to bring chaos to the former British colony and, says Simon, “intense lies.”
• How Walmart Is Changing China – Magazine – The Atlantic – written before chongqing shutdown?//
  The world’s biggest corporation and the world’s most populous nation have launched a bold experiment in consumer behavior and environmental stewardship: to set green standards for 20,000 suppliers making several hundred thousand items sold to billions of shoppers worldwide. Will that effort take hold, or will it unravel in a recriminatory tangle of misguided expectations and broken promises?
• Sina swings to Q3 loss, but core profit beats view – MarketWatch –
• SINA Reports Third Quarter 2011 Financial Results – MarketWatch– “the decrease in non-GAAP advertising gross margin was mainly due to increased spending on bandwidth and content, as well as increased personnel-related costs” how much from weibo censorship/content management efforts?already written down the mecox lane investment.
• 深圳联防队员强奸毒打女子续：5名官员被停职_新闻_腾讯网 –
• 多地房企变招应对房价下行趋势 部分降幅达40%_新闻_腾讯网 – 当前楼市已经进入整体下行阶段。从市场反映的现象看，继一线城市部分楼盘降价后，降价趋势正在向二三线或更大范围蔓延。而由于销售萎缩、库存积压使得包括行业龙头在内的房地产企业不得不选择降价促销、以量变现等最现实的生存法则。接受《经济参考报》记者采访的业内分析人士认为，调控持续已成定局并在逐渐落实到降价环节。
• Daley’s Demotion: How Washington Elites Got Obama Wrong — Daily Intel –

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