China Readings for September 19th

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

  • Solar Energy Firms Leave Waste Behind in China–Washington Post – Washington Post on this story in 2008. this one about suntech in Henan. Dirty Solar, how China can undercut prices in rest of world, and kill solar firms in places like the US.
  • Solar panel factory protests tarnish China’s clean-tech efforts | Environment | The Guardian – solar not really clean energy when you account for true environmental costs of production in China//

    China's ambition to build a harmonious clean-tech economy lost some of its sheen on Sunday after a violent confrontation over pollution from a solar panel factory.

  • Tibetans embrace high tech, Internet — Shanghai Daily | 上海日报 — English Window to China New – when will we have the tibetan monks making beer?
  • Bundlers on target in deficit committee – Anna Palmer and Manu Raju – POLITICO.com – And people say China is corrupt…//

    Every special interest wants a piece of the congressional supercommittee, but an elite group of lobbyists has already staked its ground, sitting at the nexus of campaign cash and access to powerful lawmakers on the deficit-slashing panel.

  • Hero pig of China’s earthquake is cloned – Telegraph – 猪坚强

    A heroic pig who survived more than a month buried under rubble after the 2008 earthquake in China's Sichuan province has been successfully cloned, according to a report Sunday.

  • P2P Lending Firms Exploring Brave New Credit World-Caixin – Online and offline lending platforms are skirting regulations and raising new questions about lending in China
     
    Thousands of employees linked in a 30-city network that provides loan services across China are not working for a bank, nor even a company with a financial sector license. They work for China's leading, domestic peer-to-peer (P2P) lending concern, the microfinancier CreditEase…

    "The beauty of being in this business now is that no one is supervising it," said the head of one P2P company.

  • Censors kill off China’s ‘Super Girl’ – FT.com – SARFT can just as easily screw Youku and Tudou//

    Super Girl, China’s version of Pop Idol, is to be axed following government pressure, and will be replaced by programmes on public security, ethics and housekeeping, in a sobering reminder of the country’s arbitrary censorship regime.

    The show has been hugely successful – the final episode of the 2005 season was watched by more than 400m people – and helped Hunan Satellite Television, which broadcasts the show, become China’s most commercially successful provincial broadcaster.

  • Eager Chinese Shoppers Flock to Paris Stores – NYTimes.com – PARIS — It was once the Americans, then the Japanese, then the Russians. Now it’s the Chinese…

    In 2010, Chinese visitors spent about $890 million in France, 60 percent more than in 2009, according to Atout France.

    More Americans than Chinese come to Paris, of course, but they spend less. An American’s shopping expenditures run to 40 percent of a Chinese visitor’s. Only the Russian tourist spends more than the Chinese one, and only slightly.

    BUT NOT GOOD NEWS FOR FRENCH RESTAURANTEURS:

    In general, Chinese tour groups stay in large, cheaper hotels outside Paris and eat preplanned meals in Chinese restaurants.

  • Exclusive: Popular China company structure under threat – Yahoo! News – potential disaster for foreign investors if true//

    China's securities regulator is asking the government to clamp down on the controversial corporate structure used by companies such as Sina (SINA.O) and Baidu (BIDU.O) to list overseas, and employed in thousands of other investments by foreigners into domestic Chinese companies, four legal sources told Reuters.

    Lawyers at four different firms in China and Hong Kong said they have seen an internal report, dated August 17, said to come from the China Securities Regulatory Commission (CSRC) which asks China's State Council, or cabinet, to take action against the structures known as Variable Interest Entities (VIEs)…

    The move by the CSRC is apparently driven in response to the raft of fraud cases seen recently at Chinese companies listed in North America, many of which used the VIE structure. The CSRC has repeatedly stated that it often has no jurisdiction over these companies, which tend to be incorporated offshore, but the wider impact of the scandals on investor sentiment to China is putting them under pressure to act.

  • Global Times–Beijing Hospitals watch for patient attacks – Beijing's Municipal Bureau of Health, which oversees hospitals in the city, called on Friday for the capital's medical facilities to be vigilant in order to prevent attacks on their staff.

    The announcement was posted on its website, one day after a doctor in Beijing Tongren Hospital was stabbed by a patient.

    Xu Wen, 43, a chief physician in the hospital's otolaryngology department, was stabbed over a dozen times, the Legal Mirror newspaper reported on Friday.

    "The left biceps were slashed, the bones were exposed, nerves and tendons were damaged, the right forearm was fractured, and she was gashed on her left leg and forehead," said the newspaper.

    After an operation lasting nine hours, Xu was moved into intensive unit. "She is likely out of danger," one of the hospital's doctors, surnamed Guan, told the Global Times on Friday.

    Police arrested the suspect, a 54-year-old Beijing resident, two hours later. But the matter is still under investigation.

    According to a caing.com report Friday, the suspect was a calligrapher named Wang Baoming, who was angered by an alleged case of medical malpractice years ago.

  • Managing in Asia: Zhang Navigates Major Changes at Gome – WSJ.com – Zhang Dazhong says his aim as chairman of Gome Electrical Appliances Holding Ltd. is to bring a little respect to one of China's biggest retailers of consumer electronics. It's a frank assessment from the retail veteran who became chairman in March after a long power struggle at Gome, whose founder and largest shareholder Huang Guangyu is currently serving a 14-year prison sentence for bribery and other illegal business practices.
  • Villagers detained for destruction of company property-Global Times – solar is not a clean industry in china//

    Over 500 villagers from Hongxiao village in Haining (Zhejiang) gathered Thursday night at the gate of JinkoSolar Corporation, a firm producing photovoltaic products which had been accused of causing excess pollution on an online post. The villagers rushed onto the company's property, turning over eight cars and causing damage to office equipment, according to the Haining government's report.

  • In South China Sea, a dispute over energy – The Washington Post – When China’s largest offshore petroleum producer launched a $1 billion oil rig this summer from Shanghai, Lt. Gen. Juancho Sabban, the commander of Philippine military forces 1,500 miles away in the South China Sea, began preparing for trouble.
  • China’s Adoption Scandal Sends Chills Through Families in U.S. – NYTimes.com – The news, the latest in a slow trickle of reports describing child abduction and trafficking in China, swept through the tight communities of families — many of them in the New York area — who have adopted children from China. For some, it raised a nightmarish question: What if my child had been taken forcibly from her parents?
  • In China, what you eat tells who you are – latimes.com – In a nation reeling from tainted-food scandals, organic products are mostly reserved for the rich and political elite. Chinese government officials have exclusive suppliers, who do not advertise.