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

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• Focus Media Plunges After Muddy Waters Issues ‘Strong Sell’ Recommendation – Bloomberg –
• Beijing stunned by aggressive American moves | SCMP.com – China will not confront the US or change its policies ahead of Xi Jinping’s visit to Washington next year, political analysts say
• Is the Chinese Navy targeting foreign vessels in the South China Sea? –
• Against the East Asia ‘pivot’ – Foreign and Defense Policy – AEI – what would you expect someone at AEI to say? written by David Blumenthal, who is advising Gov Rick Perry in his GOP presidential nomination run
• Muddy Waters Initiating Coverage on FMCN – Strong Sell | Muddy Waters Research – devastating. Shanghai TMT and Investing crowd will not be pleased at this report or its possible implications
• My Way News – American spies outed, CIA suffers in Lebanon – WASHINGTON (AP) – The CIA’s operations in Lebanon have been badly damaged after Hezbollah identified and captured a number of U.S. spies recently, current and former U.S. officials told The Associated Press. The intelligence debacle is particularly troubling because the CIA saw it coming.
• 4,500 march against land grab in Lufeng, Guangdong: Shanghaiist – Thousands of protestors from Wukan village marched today in what appears to be a well-organised, peaceful demonstration in Guangdong’s Lufeng city. They carried colourful banners with slogans against corrupt government officials and dictatorship as they demanded for the return of their farmland:
• Female special police in SW China_XINHUANET – Pictures
• When $3 trillion is not enough | Institute for New Economic Thinking – Though China has capital controls in place, export-driven growth necessitates a fairly open current account. Wealthy Chinese households can move money out of the country by over-paying for imports, and using the excess to create a deposit account abroad.
  The PBoC has $3T in reserves, but it cannot in practice liquidate all of that. For example, some substantial fraction may be invested in shares of Chinese banks, and selling those shares could spark a banking crisis. Shih estimates that these problems kick in by about the time that outflows reach $1T.
  Shih estimates, in the main empirical contribution of the paper, that the wealthiest 1% of urban Chinese households control something like $2T–$5T in deposits. The point is that if something made them nervouse, they could drain that $1T in a hurry. These households are likely to be sophisticated enough to take advantage of the current-account porosity, and may have other ways to get money out of the country as well. It is reasonable to suspect that the next 9% of households also control substantial deposits, and may also be able to move money fairly easily.
• Hot Money’s Hurried Exit from China – China Real Time Report – WSJ– More signs of bearish sentiment on China, this time from cross border capital flows.Data released Tuesday showed China’s banks were net sellers of foreign currency in October (in Chinese). That’s unusual because China’s trade surplus, combined with inflows of direct investment, mean the mainland’s banks are almost always net buyers of foreign currency.

  Indeed, the numbers normally suggest that in addition to the trade surplus, banks are buying up speculative capital flowing into the economy. Tuesday’s numbers suggest that now speculative capital might be exiting China

• 薄熙来拢络“网络水军” « 多维博客 –
• 23m rural children left behind in China|Society|chinadaily.com.cn – Left-behind children are those whose parents are migrant workers and working in urban areas away from homes.
• McClatchy blog | China Rises –
• Buy Richter, China Art: Investment Tips From Collector Olbricht – Businessweek –
• Youku Falls Again: Hyped IPOs Continue Their Falls – Seeking Alpha – down 55-86%, bankers earned their fees. $yoku $renn $dang $tudo
• Economic Importance Of Freedom of Information– Underground economy and corruption are a further blight on economic forecasting and investing. Both hide the price signals that make markets efficient and predictions accurate.Governments certainly contribute and one of the largest contributors is China. Li Keqiang, the man who is likely to be China’s next head of government, once described the country’s GDP data as “man-made” and “for reference only”.  Some assume that Beijing is the problem, but according to a recent book by Tom Orlick, it is a “recalcitrant sample set”. In other words the locals are lying.
• Mismanagement Should be Blamed for Wenzhou Train Collision: Report – It is the poor management and organization that probably have largely led to the deadly train collision in Wenzhou this July, rather than the failure in signaling equipments
• Chinese strip down for Ai Weiwei amid porn investigation – Yahoo! News – BEIJING (Reuters) – First it was money folded into paper planes that were flown over the walls of dissident artist Ai Weiwei’s home. Now Chinese Internet users’ latest show of solidarity with Ai has taken the unlikeliest form of protest: mass nudity.
• [toread] Global Education & Technology Group –
• Self-serving firms hurt delicate diplomacy – China’s future role in the international community is hotly debated both inside and outside the country. Should national policies be more assertive? How should China take on larger responsibilities? How does growing public power affect the government’s foreign policy? Global Times (GT) reporter Gao Lei talked to Matt Ferchen (Ferchen), a resident scholar at the Carnegie-Tsinghua Center for Global Policy, on these issues.
• 上将伐谋-西陆网 – website that collects the writings and utterances of PLA generals
• Li Ka-Shing Funds Cut Bank of China Holdings – WSJ.com – HONG KONG—Three charitable foundations set up by billionaire Li Ka-Shing cut their holdings of Bank of China Ltd.’s Hong Kong-listed H shares during the third quarter, amid a 35% drop in the bank’s share price.
• 方滨兴：未来网络的安全问题_大会演讲_通信世界网 – original chinese of great firewall father fang binxing’s speech on internet soveriegnty
• China: Father of GFW on Internet Sovereignty – Global Voices Advocacy – Fang Binxing, known as the “father of China’s Great Firewall,” recently recently made a speech on “The future of Internet security” which justifies the development of national network or national intranet by stressing the rights to Internet Sovereignty. Since Fang Binxing has great influence on the development of Internet infrastructure and censorship system in China, his speech may imply the future plan of the China Intranet.
• 北京空气污染指数 for iPhone 3GS, iPhone 4, iPhone 4S, iPod touch (3rd generation), iPod touch (4th generation) and iPad on the iTunes App Store – beijing air pollution app. free
• xinhua li hongmei-South China Sea matters not a whit to Philippines, U.S.– Hence, it is equally of no wit to play up the South China Sea issue in the world’s only economically dynamic region and at such a critical juncture.The Philippines will never be so naive that it would sacrifice its vested interests for an intangible and unreal promise from Washington to counterbalance China.
• China tightens control on diplomas of Sino-foreign educational programs – In recent years, China has seen a surge of Sino-foreign educational programs, along with frequent frauds on diploma granting by some schools, such as running such programs without official permits, enrolling more students than allowed.
• 95 pct of new buildings in China energy-inefficient: official – CHENGDU, Nov. 20 (Xinhua) — More than 95 percent of new buildings that go up every year are “energy-guzzling,” a senior government planner has said, urging the country to promote energy-efficient construction projects.
• Getting a Handle on China’s Online Shoppers – ZILA BLOG – Alizila –
• China now rehearses capture of Tibet passes – Indian Express – A year after conducting its first live military exercise in Tibet, China has for the first time rehearsed capture of mountain passes at heights beyond 5,000 metres with the help of armoured vehicles and airborne troops.
• UC Davis pepper-spraying raises questions about role of police – The Washington Post– police state USA//A half-century ago, many parents told their children to ask a cop for help in case of trouble. With police forces now defining their role as more military than civilian, viewing citizens with suspicion and often treating them with hostility, that has changed. Saying the wrong thing to a cop, asking for a warrant before a search, throwing a snowball at an unmarked cop car, legally taking a picture of an official building, questioning a Capitol police officer about why a public area has been closed can lead to threats of arrest, or worse.
• Book review: Chinese official statistics – fact or fiction? | beyondbrics | News and views on emerging markets from the Financial Times – FT.com– It is into this breach between the shoddy reputation and the undeniable power of Chinese data that Tom Orlik has stepped with a new book, Understanding China’s Economic Indicators.*Orlik has little time for the reflexive distrust of Chinese numbers that is often heard from critics. In an overview of the history of China’s data production, he shows just how far the government’s statisticians have progressed since the “rampant falsification” during Mao’s rule.

  The biggest problem now is “not the crude controlling hand of the Politburo dictating the GDP figure”, he writes. Political sensitivity surrounds some numbers, but the biggest challenges are more technical: “the difficulty of measuring a rapidly changing economy, imperfect surveying methods, a recalcitrant sample set”.

• Temple Restaurant Beijing | Contemporary European Cuisine –
• Bang the Gong: Temple Restaurant Now Open | the Beijinger Blog | Openings and Closings | Nov 21, 2011 | thebeijinger.com –
• The Pascometer red lines on China – macrobusiness.com.au | macrobusiness.com.au –
• How China Can Defeat America – NYTimes.com– OVER the next decade, China’s new leaders will be drawn from a generation that experienced the hardships of the Cultural Revolution. They are resolute and will most likely value political principles more than material benefits. These leaders must play a larger role on the world stage and offer more security protection and economic support to less powerful countries.This will mean competing with the United States politically, economically and technologically. Such competition may cause diplomatic tensions, but there is little danger of military clashes.

  That’s because future Chinese-American competition will differ from that between the United States and the Soviet Union during the cold war. Neither China nor America needs proxy wars to protect its strategic interests or to gain access to natural resources and technology.

  China’s quest to enhance its world leadership status and America’s effort to maintain its present position is a zero-sum game. It is the battle for people’s hearts and minds that will determine who eventually prevails. And, as China’s ancient philosophers predicted, the country that displays more humane authority will win.

  Yan Xuetong, the author of “Ancient Chinese Thought, Modern Chinese Power,” is a professor of political science and dean of the Institute of Modern International Relations at Tsinghua University. This essay was translated by Zhaowen Wu and David Liu from the Chinese.

• Jack Rodman | LinkedIn –
• Beijing Seen Vacant for 50% as Chanos Predicts Crash (Update1) – Bloomberg – from 2010. wonder hos his returns are//
  Feb. 12 (Bloomberg) — Jack Rodman, who has made a career of selling soured property loans from Los Angeles to Tokyo, sees a crash looming in China. He keeps a slide show on his computer of empty office buildings in Beijing, his home since 2002. The tally: 55, with another dozen candidates.“I took these pictures to try to impress upon these people the massive amount of oversupply,” said Rodman, 63, president of Global Distressed Solutions LLC, which advises private equity and hedge funds on Chinese property and banking. Rodman figures about half of the city’s commercial space is vacant, more than was leased in Germany’s five biggest office markets in 2009.
• Spying activities unacceptable|Op-Ed Contributors|chinadaily.com.cn – Shen Dingli on US maritime ISR in South China Sea//
  The US should not use freedom of navigation as a means to conduct unlawful intelligence gathering operations
• China Prepares for Used Car Pitches – WSJ.com– China’s auto industry is so new that there are few used-car businesses today and little involvement by big dealers. Buyers and sellers now meet at stadium-size, open-air markets, some with luxury-car sections.That’s about to change with used-car sales likely to reach 4.1 million vehicles this year, up 7% from last year, according to an estimate from Daimler AG’s Mercedes-Benz.
• 手机游戏开发商怒告百度索赔3000万_互联网_科技时代_新浪网 – china mobile game developers alliance sues baidu for 30m rmb for IPR violations $bidu
• China arrests head of school that ran packed bus – Yahoo! News – BEIJING – Chinese authorities have arrested the owner of a kindergarten that operated a severely overcrowded bus that crashed, killing 19 children, state media said.
  The privately run school will be closed and a new public school will open at the same location Monday, the city government said.
• China Investors Look to Dragon Baby Boom – Bloomberg – China’s emerging baby boom, driven by more-relaxed government policies and the year of the dragon, is fertile ground for both domestic and overseas companies.
  The world’s second-largest economy will experience a population boom from 2005 to 2020 and the country’s birth rate will reach its peak in 2016, the National Bureau of Statistics predicts. The Chinese population is expected to reach 1.388 billion by 2020 from 1.334 billion in 2009, according to the United Nations.
• China Diabetes Rise Threatens Bayer’s Lead – Bloomberg –
• (2) William Farris – Google+ – Fang Binxing, the ‘Father of China’s Great Firewall,’ Part… – At some point in 2011 Baidu relaxed its censorship of results related to Fang Binxing (方滨兴) and the Great Firewall. The screenshot shows searches for “Fang Binxing” on Baidu in May 2011 (top left) and November 2011 (top right). You can see that in May Baidu was still displaying a notice saying that some search results had been omitted, and was restricting search results to a white list of about dozen websites operated by the central government and the Communist Party. Today the notice does not appear, and Baidu’s top search results include those from sites such as Wikipedia, RenRen, and Sina.
• (2) William Farris – Google+ – Fang Binxing, the ‘Father of China’s Great Firewall,’ Part… – Fang Binxing (方滨兴) recently opened his second Sina Weibo microblog – http://weibo.com/fangbxbupt (I’ll talk about what happened with his first attempt in another post). His first post was to promote an article on the website of the Beijing University of Posts and Telecommunications Institute of Internet Governance and Law (北京邮电大学互联网治理与法律研究中心). Since the site was apparently immediately hacked (again, more on that in a later post), and given the GFW is back in the news (http://www.forbes.com/sites/andygreenberg/2011/11/17/chinas-great-firewall-tests-mysterious-scans-on-encrypted-connections/), I thought this might be a good time devote a few posts to a person who has had such a profound impact on so many people’s lives.
• 2011: The Year of Sina Weibo | TechRice –
• Hong Kong bust shows China cocaine boom – Business 360 – CNN.com Blogs –

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