"Sinocism is the Presidential Daily Brief for China hands"- Evan Osnos, New Yorker Correspondent and National Book Award Winner
- 湖南卫视选秀节目停办一年 其他卫视未受影响_新闻_腾讯网 – Hunan satellite TV banned from broadcasting contest-based reality show competitions for 2012. Will hurt its IPO plans. Other broadcasters apparently not targeted by ban.
湖南卫视明年将被禁止办选秀的传闻已久，昨天凌晨，在结束2011《快乐女声》的全部赛事后，湖南卫视副总编辑、新闻发言人李浩终于开口，承认国家广电总局已经通报，停止湖南卫视2012年举办群众参与的选拔类电视活动。昨天，其他卫视均表示2012年的选秀不受影响，将照常举行。
- China ‘faces subprime credit bubble crisis’ – Telegraph – Cheng Siwei was head of Democratic Construction Party, whose head is always an NPC vice chair. Cheng influential, but not Party's "economic guru", and he is not a Communist Party Member. Inaccurate hyperventilating from Ambrose-Evans to support his bear case//
Monetary tightening in China threatens to pop the $1.7 trillion (£1.07 trillion) credit bubble in local government finance and expose the country's simmering "subprime" crisis, according to the Communist Party's economic guru.
- 二季度工业景气下滑 宝钢入冬 – 产经 – 21世纪网 Steeelmaker Baogang Seeing Big Slowdown – 宝钢半年报显示二季度国内工业景气度下滑，下游用钢行业销量增速下降，影响板材产品需求。
- Columbia Professor Is Linked to Insider Trading Case – NYTimes.com – more expert network cheating. good thing SEC/DOJ can't investigate in mainland China. Taiwan is enough for them
- AFP: Chinese search engine Baidu plans overseas expansion – Doubt Baidu will target US, but if it does will CFIUS start asking questions?//
The head of China's biggest search engine Baidu has said he aims to make it a household name in at least half the world within a decade, according to a company statement.
Baidu chief executive Robin Li made the comment in a meeting earlier this month with China's propaganda chief Li Changchun, a statement posted on the search engine's website late Thursday said…
"This has been a push of the Chinese government for years now, making Chinese companies go global," Jeremy Goldkorn, of the Beijing-based web research firm Danwei, told AFP.
"Perhaps their idea is that they stand the most chance of success in non-
anglophone markets where there are repressive governments."They can position themselves as something that is not American, and therefore less likely to be hostile."
- Kinmen Seeks to Evolve as China and Taiwan Improve Ties – NYTimes.com – Since 2008, as relations between Taiwan and China have warmed, Kinmen, once called Quemoy in the West, has stood as a test case for how some Taiwanese are calibrating their growing dependence on economic ties with China. The people of Kinmen consider themselves culturally closer to the nearby mainland province of Fujian than to Taiwan, and are debating how much to welcome mainlanders’ money and influence.
- Local Government Debt Is China’s Subprime – Bloomberg – Borrowing by thousands of companies set up by China’s local governments to fund construction is the nation’s equivalent of the U.S. subprime mortgage crisis, said Cheng Siwei, a former deputy head of the country’s top legislative body.
“Our version of the U.S. subprime crisis is the lending to local governments, which is causing defaults,” Cheng said at the World Economic Forum in the Chinese city of Dalian today. He served as vice chairman of the standing committee of the National People’s Congress from 1998 to 2003.
- China cuts childbirth mortality rate by promoting hospital births | World news | The Guardian – Deaths of mothers and babies fall by almost two-thirds after programme offering women money for hospital deliveries
- Bill Ackman’s HKD Revaluation Trade As Predicted By Deutsche Bank In 2010… And Why DB Thinks It Is Wrong | ZeroHedge –
- Sorry Yahoo But Jack Ma Is The Only Buyer Of Your Alibaba Stake | DigiCha – Realistically there is only one buyer for Yahoo’s China assets-Jack Ma and whatever investor group he arranges. Of course other groups can and may bid, and legally Mr. Ma can not block them from buying Yahoo’s ($YHOO) shares, but practically speaking he can torpedo any transaction.
- 鄂尔多斯星河湾秘笈：350平米“小户型”变形记 – 宏观 – 21世纪网 – disturbing real estate story out of Ordos
- The Jamestown Foundation: The 610 Office: Policing the Chinese Spirit – What is the 610 Office? How and why did it come to exist? Why is it carrying out measures ostensibly under the purview of the Ministry of Public Security?
The answers to these questions point to the establishment of a CCP-based, rather than a state-based, security organization, as well as a revival of the use of security agencies to enforce ideological compliance. Moreover, the 610 Office signifies a systemic arrangement by CCP leaders to avoid the reach of legal reforms when dealing with a perceived existential threat to their power. The willingness and ability of CCP leaders to take such actions has implications not only for how we understand the trajectory of rule of law development in China, but also for how we might anticipate the regime responding to present and future threats to its security.
- More Chinese loans for Venezuela | beyondbrics | News and views on emerging markets from the Financial Times – FT.com – But what Venezuela and China may lack in mutual cultural understanding is more than made up for in a burgeoning economic relationship, with a $4bn loan from the Chinese Development Bank confirmed on Thursday adding to existing lending from China of some $32bn.
- Great Wall Granola – "Beijing's first granola delivery service"
- Privileged kids anger Chinese public – CNN.com – A teenage boy has become the focal point of growing public anger in China at the bratty behavior of children from privileged backgrounds.
- The Obama administration’s bad week on Taiwan | The Cable – The White House's unannounced decision not to sell Taiwan new fighter planes, along with reports that the administration is taking sides in Taiwan's domestic elections, have angered its critics while alienating would-be allies
- Taiwan getting F-16s refurbished – Checkpoint Washington – The Washington Post – The Obama administration has assembled an arms sales package to Taiwan that involves refurbishing the island’s existing fleet of F-16 fighter jets but doesn't include any new F-16s, according to congressional staffers who were told of the plan Friday.
If no new jets are sold, the decision will be seen as a victory by Beijing, which has opposed any arms sales to Taiwan, and will infuriate Taipei. It has pressed since 2006 to acquire newer, more sophisticated F-16s.
- Ex-president of China Agricultural University accused of corruption — Shanghai Daily | 上海日报 — English Window to China New – SHI Yuanchun, the former president of China Agricultural University, said the academic corruption accusation by six experts against him was a "malicious libel," Beijing Times reported yesterday.
The six agricultural experts, including four professors from his university, wrote in an open letter that Shi cheated in his research to gain his position and academic awards.
- The Hindu : News / International : South China Sea project a "serious political provocation," Chinese paper warns India – An influential Communist Party-run newspaper on Friday called on the Chinese government to use “every means possible” to stop the Oil and Natural Gas Corporation (ONGC) Videsh from going ahead with exploration projects in the South China Sea, warning India that any deal with Vietnam would amount to a “serious political provocation” that would “push China to the limit.”