"Sinocism is the Presidential Daily Brief for China hands"- Evan Osnos, New Yorker Correspondent and National Book Award Winner
- Wenzhou Gov’t Moves to Quell Protest Over Company Losses_英文频道 Caixin Online – A Wenzhou government official said the government will attempt to maintain regular operations to prevent a cascade of insolvencies
(Wenzhou) – The Wenzhou municipal government stopped a massive protest involving thousands of investors at Center Group, a major manufacturing company, at the company headquarters September 21.
- Should the U.S. Continue Selling Arms to Taiwan? – Room for Debate – NYTimes.com – China won't give US anything for "concessions" in Taiwan, since to China they would not be viewed as concessions but just as a recognition of Chinese sovereignty and power, and as sign of US weakness and lack of resolve.
- Crowded Shandong Grabs Sea for Future Growth_英文频道 Caixin Online – Land reclamation, including island-building, is a booming business along Shandong's 3,345-kilometer coast
Rock by rock, a barren hill in the city of Longkou is being dismantled, trucked and dumped into the sea to create what's expected to be China's largest artificial chain of islands by 2014.
The labor-intensive, 10 billion yuan project is just one example of a huge push to create more commercial, industrial and residential space in Shandong Province by reclaiming the sea…
Local governments that sell artificial islands can get around the central government's land-use restrictions, too. Reclaimed land "doesn't use the country's precious farmland, where urban construction projects are strongly restricted by the central government," an official at the Shandong Provincial Ocean and Fisheries Bureau told Caixin.
"There are none of the kinds of issues that pop up in land requisitions, such as compensating homeowners and farmers who must be relocated, or in some cases forced out by the demolition of existing homes," the official said. "Finally, the costs of land reclamation for artificial islands are relatively low."
- Policy Shift Squeezes Developer in Kunming_英文频道 Caixin Online – Land developer Yunnan Urban Investment is sinking in an unreliable sea of government policy change
Two years ago, stock watchers predicted profits would skyrocket past 10 billion yuan for Yunnan Urban Investment Real Estate Co. The predictions pushed the government-backed developer's stock price to a high of 34.20 yuan at the end of 2009.
But on September 6, the company's shares hit a 52-week low, closing the day at 8.57 yuan on the Shanghai Stock Exchange. Yunnan Urban's stock value has declined 35 percent so far this year.
Yunnan Urban's demise points to the risks in China for companies that rely on a single, government policy-oriented business model. The company has worked with the Kunming city government, which sources say has become an unreliable partner in a major property development.
Yunnan Urban's business is all about land requisition, tearing down old buildings and installing the necessary infrastructure to prepare a site for new development. It's relied on city government control of the land market, including development and land-use rights.
But Kunming authorities have tightened their grip on land control to protect revenue sources in the past year. And in the process, Yunnan Urban got squeezed.
- Closer Look: On the Fence with VIEs_英文频道 Caixin Online – The Ministry of Commerce has said it will look into clamping down on the use of variable interest entities following the Alibaba controversy, but harder choices could lie ahead
- Beijing urged to expand chip implants in dogs to keep rabies in check – how long until chips to track people?//
Beijing lawmakers have urged the municipal government to implant digital identification chips in the city's roughly 2 million pet dogs to prevent unvaccinated dogs spreading rabies.
Beijing's dog registration rate is too low, giving the authorities too little information about pet dogs' vaccination situation, Lei Decai, head of the rural affairs committee of the Beijing municipal people's congress, said Saturday.
- 洛阳性奴案警方4责任人停职 公安局长向市民公开道歉_资讯频道_凤凰网 – phoenix on the luoyang sex slave clase. nice drawings
- 40平米紧箍咒：刹车公租房乱象 – 宏观 – 21世纪网 –
- China’s Midterm Jockeying: Gearing Up for 2012—Part Five: Party Apparatchiks | Hoover Institution – The apparatchiks, or functionaries, of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), a group that includes several heavyweight contenders for the new top leadership, are particularly important at a time when the Chinese leadership is undergoing a large-scale generational change. These Party apparatchiks control the two most crucial functional domains of the Chinese political system: organization and propaganda. The Central Committee’s Organization Department is responsible for supervising or coordinating the turnover of thousands of current CCP officials in favor of younger colleagues from the central down to the township level, a process that began early this year and will conclude at the 18th Party Congress in the fall of 2012. Meanwhile, the Central Committee Propaganda Department’s recent tightening of media control and the return of old-fashioned Maoist propaganda (as evident in Chongqing’s propaganda fanaticism, which is endorsed by some top leaders) seems to reflect the growing tension between the continuation of rigid ideological indoctrination on the part of the Party apparatus and an increasingly pluralistic and rapidly changing society. This essay assesses the career paths, factional identities, and political status of the top 56 Party apparatchiks, and also analyzes a number of contending governance mechanisms in the now 90-year-old party, which has been struggling for survival or revival.
- The Politburo Standing Committee under Hu Jintao | Hoover Institution – During Hu Jintao’s tenure as general secretary, the Politburo Standing Committee of the Chinese Communist Party has operated under a structure intended to promote collective decision-making on the basis of informed deliberation and consensus and to reinforce stable oligarchic rule. This structure is a refinement of top decision-making arrangements first set down in the 1950s, then restored in the early 1980s by Deng Xiaoping, and revised by Hu’s predecessor Jiang Zemin. While Hu’s presumed successor Xi Jinping is not bound by any explicit provision in the party constitution to replicate the structure and associated policy-making processes of the Hu era, their intended purpose would seem to constrain his freedom to reshape them arbitrarily.
- China Leadership Monitor current issue | Hoover Institution –
- VIE监管定调新老划断 国务院法制办已介入-搜狐IT – 投资界和法律界都严阵以待，在近几日的采访中记者发现，国内数家知名律师事务所都在不停地开会研究VIE之事，外资基金也开始寻找新的具有可操作性的方案。
上海一家外资VC合伙人透露，他们已经开始在法律层面和资本运作模式层面上寻找新的突破，希望通过技术手段先行“升级”此前设立的VIE案例。
法律界也开始探索操作层面中的突破。不止一家律所已经打算近期正式向商务部提交一个外商投资的案件的报请批准，以“10号文”中所要求的模式上报商务部批准，试探在VIE之路不畅通之后，商务部能否在正式审批在这条路径上释放出新的信号。 - China Detains Journalist for Article on Sex Slaves – NYTimes.com – For a nation not yet inured to lurid and senseless crime, a report that a former civil servant in central China kept six women enslaved in an underground bunker — and that he killed two of them — was shocking enough.
But perhaps almost as disturbing, at least to some readers, was that the journalist who exposed the crime more than two weeks after the suspect’s arrest was detained by security agents who accused him of revealing state secrets
- Did Han Han seriously dis Barack Obama? | Imagethief –
- IPO VIEW-China Web IPO flow to US threatened by crackdown – Chinese Internet companies could have a tougher time listing on U.S. stock exchanges because of an expected Beijing clampdown on a favored corporate structure.
It is unlikely to halt all new U.S. listings of Web companies that want to follow in the footsteps of heavyweights such as Baidu Inc (BIDU.O) and Renren Inc (RENN.N), but it could prevent some and slow the progress of others.
Earlier this week, Reuters reported legal sources saying the China Securities Regulatory Commission has authored a request to the Chinese government's equivalent of a cabinet, the State Council, asking it to take action against the structure, known as a Variable Interest Entity, or VIE.
- China Banking Regulator Said to Evaluate Trust Company Loans to Developers – Bloomberg – a problem, but at least china has banking regulators who try to regulate//
China’s banking regulator is looking into financing of developers through trust companies as part of a broader evaluation of real estate lending, a person familiar with the matter said.
The inquiries by the China Banking Regulatory Commission are part of regular monitoring and aren’t targeting any individual company, said the person, who declined to be identified because the regulator’s queries were meant to be private.
- Blackstone Said to Sell Shanghai Shopping Mall to New World Development – Bloomberg – who is the smart money in this deal?
- Silvercorp Sues Chinastockwatch.com Alleging Attempt to Drive Down Shares – Bloomberg – have to be careful blogging//
Silvercorp Metals Inc. (SVM), a Canadian miner of silver in China, sued two websites and their operators for allegedly spreading false information in an effort to drive down the company’s stock price.
Chinastockwatch.com, a New York-based website that posts reports on public companies, and operator Jerry Katz published “false, defamatory and fraudulent statements,” Silvercorp said in the complaint filed yesterday in New York State Supreme Court in Manhattan.
Alfredlittle.com website operator Alfred Little and an editor, Simon Moore, also were named as defendants in the lawsuit. Silvercorp seeks punitive damages of at least $10 million and compensatory damages of more than $1 million.
- Geithner slams China’s intellectual property policies – Yahoo! News – Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner said on Thursday that China is holding to its decades-old strategy to steal American intellectual property, in a pointed statement reflecting U.S. officials' growing impatience with Beijing.
"They have made possible systematic stealing of intellectual property of American companies and have not been very aggressive to put in place the basic protections for property rights that every serious economy needs over time," Geithner told a forum in Washington. - Closer Look: On the Fence with VIEs_英文频道 Caixin Online – The Ministry of Commerce has said it will look into clamping down on the use of variable interest entities following the Alibaba controversy, but harder choices could lie ahead
- Beijing urged to expand chip implants in dogs to keep rabies in check – how long until chips to track people?//
Beijing lawmakers have urged the municipal government to implant digital identification chips in the city's roughly 2 million pet dogs to prevent unvaccinated dogs spreading rabies.
Beijing's dog registration rate is too low, giving the authorities too little information about pet dogs' vaccination situation, Lei Decai, head of the rural affairs committee of the Beijing municipal people's congress, said Saturday.
- 洛阳性奴案警方4责任人停职 公安局长向市民公开道歉_资讯频道_凤凰网 – phoenix on the luoyang sex slave clase. nice drawings
- 40平米紧箍咒：刹车公租房乱象 – 宏观 – 21世纪网 –
- China’s Midterm Jockeying: Gearing Up for 2012—Part Five: Party Apparatchiks | Hoover Institution – The apparatchiks, or functionaries, of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), a group that includes several heavyweight contenders for the new top leadership, are particularly important at a time when the Chinese leadership is undergoing a large-scale generational change. These Party apparatchiks control the two most crucial functional domains of the Chinese political system: organization and propaganda. The Central Committee’s Organization Department is responsible for supervising or coordinating the turnover of thousands of current CCP officials in favor of younger colleagues from the central down to the township level, a process that began early this year and will conclude at the 18th Party Congress in the fall of 2012. Meanwhile, the Central Committee Propaganda Department’s recent tightening of media control and the return of old-fashioned Maoist propaganda (as evident in Chongqing’s propaganda fanaticism, which is endorsed by some top leaders) seems to reflect the growing tension between the continuation of rigid ideological indoctrination on the part of the Party apparatus and an increasingly pluralistic and rapidly changing society. This essay assesses the career paths, factional identities, and political status of the top 56 Party apparatchiks, and also analyzes a number of contending governance mechanisms in the now 90-year-old party, which has been struggling for survival or revival.
- The Politburo Standing Committee under Hu Jintao | Hoover Institution – During Hu Jintao’s tenure as general secretary, the Politburo Standing Committee of the Chinese Communist Party has operated under a structure intended to promote collective decision-making on the basis of informed deliberation and consensus and to reinforce stable oligarchic rule. This structure is a refinement of top decision-making arrangements first set down in the 1950s, then restored in the early 1980s by Deng Xiaoping, and revised by Hu’s predecessor Jiang Zemin. While Hu’s presumed successor Xi Jinping is not bound by any explicit provision in the party constitution to replicate the structure and associated policy-making processes of the Hu era, their intended purpose would seem to constrain his freedom to reshape them arbitrarily.
- China Leadership Monitor current issue | Hoover Institution –
- VIE监管定调新老划断 国务院法制办已介入-搜狐IT – 投资界和法律界都严阵以待，在近几日的采访中记者发现，国内数家知名律师事务所都在不停地开会研究VIE之事，外资基金也开始寻找新的具有可操作性的方案。
上海一家外资VC合伙人透露，他们已经开始在法律层面和资本运作模式层面上寻找新的突破，希望通过技术手段先行“升级”此前设立的VIE案例。
法律界也开始探索操作层面中的突破。不止一家律所已经打算近期正式向商务部提交一个外商投资的案件的报请批准，以“10号文”中所要求的模式上报商务部批准，试探在VIE之路不畅通之后，商务部能否在正式审批在这条路径上释放出新的信号。 - China Detains Journalist for Article on Sex Slaves – NYTimes.com – For a nation not yet inured to lurid and senseless crime, a report that a former civil servant in central China kept six women enslaved in an underground bunker — and that he killed two of them — was shocking enough.
But perhaps almost as disturbing, at least to some readers, was that the journalist who exposed the crime more than two weeks after the suspect’s arrest was detained by security agents who accused him of revealing state secrets
- Did Han Han seriously dis Barack Obama? | Imagethief –
- IPO VIEW-China Web IPO flow to US threatened by crackdown – Chinese Internet companies could have a tougher time listing on U.S. stock exchanges because of an expected Beijing clampdown on a favored corporate structure.
It is unlikely to halt all new U.S. listings of Web companies that want to follow in the footsteps of heavyweights such as Baidu Inc (BIDU.O) and Renren Inc (RENN.N), but it could prevent some and slow the progress of others.
Earlier this week, Reuters reported legal sources saying the China Securities Regulatory Commission has authored a request to the Chinese government's equivalent of a cabinet, the State Council, asking it to take action against the structure, known as a Variable Interest Entity, or VIE.