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

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Happy Lantern Festival 元宵节!

Today’s Links:

THE ESSENTIAL EIGHT

1. China’s Xi underscores CPC’s leadership in news reporting – Xinhua Chinese President Xi Jinping on Friday ordered news media run by the Communist Party of China (CPC) and the Chinese government to strictly follow the Party’s leadership and focus on “positive reporting.” Speaking in a symposium Friday afternoon after touring China’s three leading news providers, the People’s Daily, Xinhua News Agency and China Central Television, Xi, also General Secretary of the CPC Central Committee, called Party- and government-run news outlets the “publicity fronts” of the party and the government. All news media run by the Party must work to speak for the Party’s will and its propositions and protect the Party’s authority and unity, Xi said…Marxist journalistic education must be promoted among journalists, Xi added, to make them “disseminators of the Party’s policies and propositions, recorders of the time, promoters of social advancement and watchers of equality and justice.”

Related: Mirror, Mirror On the Wall — China Media Project — Medium The February 20, 2016, edition of the People’s Daily — essentially a bold red birth announcement for Xi Jinping’s fully-developed media policy — tells us even more: What kind of reflection China’s leaders hope to see of themselves in the great mirror of domestic and international public opinion. Xi Jinping’s media policy, which we might call “Control 3.0,” is a map for all-dimensional control (全方位控制) — that’s our term, not the Party’s — involving Party domination of the message as reflected in both domestic and international public opinion, across all imaginable media platforms (including advertising and entertainment).  // Comment: The best English-language analysis of Xi’s propaganda pilgrimage so far. I am not sure why so much western media coverage of Xi’s visit to CCTV, Xinhua and People’s Daily referred to those propaganda organs as “state media”. They are Party media, as all the Chinese coverage makes very clear. People trying to understand what is going on in China need to be clear on that point. The Party is back to the fore in a way it has not been for many years, and do not expect that to be a good thing. Foreigners toiling for Party media like CCTV America should understand that the Party views them not as journalists but as “news workers” in the service of the Ministry of Propaganda in its external propaganda efforts, efforts Xi that made clear in his comments last week should be expanded…There had been hopeful rumors going around since 2013 that Xi was somehow not in control of the propaganda apparatus and that the leftward tilt in propaganda and ideology was some nefarious plot to undercut him. I never believed it, but even for those who still wish it were so, Xi’s visit last week may put those fantasies to rest. This depressing note in that vein been going around Wechat the last few days: “”五十来年前，因为一句“党天下”而成右派的储安平“活不见人，死不见尸”，当时正值威望巅峰的毛把储所说的那三个字用到了极致。后来邓的党政分离、政企分离就是对毛思想做法的一种矫正。现在那三个字又得到重申。不要再相信“国师们”所谓舆论口挖坑的臆想了，七不准不能错怪老刘，谁家的孩子谁抱”

Related: [视频]习近平在党的新闻舆论工作座谈会上强调 坚持正确方向创新方法手段 提高新闻舆论传播力引导力新闻频道央视网(cctv.com) 王沪宁、刘延东、刘奇葆、栗战书和中央有关部门负责同志分别陪同参加调研和座谈会。中央新闻舆论单位负责同志、北京市有关方面负责同志、中央新闻单位编辑记者代表约180人参加座谈会。

Related: [视频]习近平总书记重要讲话和调研指导在中央电视台引起强烈反响新闻频道央视网(cctv.com) 习近平总书记要求媒体加强国际传播能力建设，增强国际话语权，讲好中国故事，着力打造具有较强国际影响的外宣旗舰媒体。 中央电视台北美分台台长麻静：“总书记提到了国际传播，要求我们要能够讲好中国故事，全面准确地报道中国。过去四年以来，我们和西方媒体同台竞技，已经获得了30多次国际重大奖项，很多西方的主流媒体也对我们北美分台的建设和发展进行了大篇幅的报道，他们在报道当中肯定了我们节目的质量。” 央视北美分台创意总监亚历克斯·希尔兹：“我认为21世纪是中国的世纪，央视北美分台很重要，因为我个人认为，需要众多不同的声音，我们同样需要来自别国的声音，尤其是来自像中国这样的世界大国。” 新闻工作者表示，党的新闻舆论工作是治国理政、定国安邦的大事，必须切实增强政治家办报意识，牢记社会责任，为实现中华民族伟大复兴的中国梦凝聚起强大的精神力量。

Related: Senior official stresses Party’s leadership in publicity, culture work – Xinhua Departments of publicity and culture must follow the leadership of the Communist Party of China (CPC), put the people at the center of their work and support the country’s development, a senior official said Sunday. Liu Yunshan, member of the Standing Committee of the Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee, made the remarks at a meeting to urge publicity and culture workers to learn and implement the spirit of the speech on the Party’s media work by Xi Jinping// 刘云山：认真履行党的新闻舆论工作的职责使命 

Related: 人民日报社论：担负起新闻舆论工作的职责和使命–观点–人民网 舆论历来是影响社会发展的重要力量。新闻舆论工作作为党的一项重要工作，自党成立起就肩负着神圣职责与光荣使命。

Related: Ode to Autocracy: Viral Poem Highlights Cult of China’s Leader | TIME So wrote Pu Liye, a deputy director at China’s official Xinhua news agency — and apparent passionate poet, on Feb 19. The object of his ardor was Chinese President and general secretary of the Chinese Communist Party Xi Jinping, who on Friday visited the offices of Xinhua, as well as those of the party mouthpiece, the People’s Daily, and CCTV, the national broadcaster.

Related: 国平：新闻工作是一种崇高的职业-中共中央网络安全和信息化领导小组办公室 “习大大萌帅萌帅哒！”这是今天成千上万网民留言中的一个。习总书记与媒体工作者交流、并通过媒体与一线联系，表达出始终如一的对人民的情怀。其谆谆话语激励着媒体工作者们创造新的辉煌。（国平）

Related: 人民日报：从全局出发把握新闻舆论工作–传媒–人民网 重视党的新闻舆论工作，是我们党的优良传统和重要法宝。全党都要认真学习贯彻习近平总书记在党的新闻舆论工作座谈会上的重要讲话精神，真正从全局出发把握新闻舆论工作，推动新闻舆论战线适应形势发展，积极改革创新，全面提高工作能力和水平，开创党的新闻舆论工作新局面。

Related: 习近平:坚持正确方向创新方法手段 提高新闻舆论传播力引导力- CCTV infographic of Xi’s comments at news and public opinion work conference

2. China Has Deployed Missiles to Disputed Island Before, US Admiral Says | Military.com In fact, Swift said, this is at least the third time that Woody Island has housed HQ-9 missiles; twice previously, China has sent missiles to the island for exercises. “So that context is important. This isn’t exactly something that’s new,” he said. During one of those exercises, Swift said, the Chinese actually employed the weapons system, using an HQ-9 missile to shoot down a drone. “So there’s an end-to-end test that the system is operational and it works,” he said. But unlike previous missile deployments to Woody Island, this one had no association with an exercise, Swift said.

Related: Seeing the Forest through the SAMs on Woody Island | Asia Maritime Transparency Initiative Chinese actions suggest that its leaders are intent on providing the islands with both an anti-access umbrella and a power projection capability. Chinese features would certainly be vulnerable in a conflict, but they would provide a substantial edge over other regional claimants during a crisis and would present an additional military challenge to U.S. forces, which would already be stretched thin in a contingency. Such efforts would also help China enforce a South China Sea Air Defense Identification Zone in the months or years ahead. Thus, the tactical importance of the deployment of SAMs to Woody Island pales in comparison to the signal the deployment sends about China’s long-term strategy in the South China Sea.

Related: China’s Missile Provocation – The New York Times Editorial The decision to deploy the missiles now — Fox News said photos from ImageSat International showed the batteries were put in place between Feb. 3 and Sunday — may have been intended to deliver a contemptuous political message. On Tuesday, President Obama finished hosting a summit meeting of Southeast Asian leaders, who are most affected by the South China Sea controversy and reasserted their commitment to resolving their differences peacefully. China risks destabilizing the region by seeking to impose its will rather than reconciling the competing claims.// Comment: Who leaked the photos to Fox News?

Related: Crunch Time for Washington and Beijing in the South China Sea | Foreign Policy China’s new gambit has top U.S. lawmakers seeing red and calling for a more forceful U.S response. “The United States should consider additional options to raise the costs on Beijing’s behavior,” said Senate Armed Forces Chairman John McCain (R-Ariz.), who decried what he called China’s “militarization” of the region and “coercion” of neighbors. He said that even “conducting occasional freedom of navigation operations are inadequate,” and that to really push back against Beijing, the United States must adopt “policies with a level of risk that we have been unwilling to consider up to this point.”

Related: Chinese missiles apparently deployed in South China Sea as Obama meets rivals – The Washington Post Gregory Polling, director of the Asian Maritime Transparency Initiative at the Center for International and Strategic Studies, also drew the distinction between the Paracels and the Spratlys. “Assuming the report is accurate, it further reinforces China’s ability to control the airspace and waters around the Paracel Islands, though not really the Spratlys farther south,” he said. “It is also important to note that the Paracels did not fall within President Xi Jinping’s Rose Garden pledge not to militarize; he only said China didn’t intend to militarize the Spratlys.

Related: Exclusive: China resorting to old style of ‘might makes right’, says Obama – Channel NewsAsia In an exclusive interview with Channel NewsAsia on the sidelines of the US-ASEAN summit in Sunnylands on Tuesday (Feb 16), the US President said the US will “continue to test” whether China is sincere in its pledge not to militarise the South China Sea.

Related: Commentary: Washington’s destabilizing role in South China Sea – Xinhua If there were a ranking for destabilizers in the South China Sea, there’s no doubt Washington would top the list. China’s practices in the region are defensive in nature, and it sees direct talks between rival claimants rather than military means as the best way to resolve any dispute. For the sake of regional stability and the common good, let’s hope the United States honor its previous commitment of not taking sides on the issue or stirring up tensions. Only then can the South China Sea be home to calm waters.

Related: 5 Myths About China’s Missile Deployment on Woody Island | The Diplomat The United States’ criticisms of China in the South China Sea are misleading — likely intentionally so.  // Comment: From his bio on The Diplomat, the author “previously served with the People’s Liberation Army of China as a professional officer and was an international communications and public relations officer for the UNESCO Asia-Pacific Center of Education for International Understanding.”

3. Political Backlash Grows in Washington to Chinese Takeovers – The New York Times  Fairchild’s decision shows the effect of broader political suspicion in the United States toward Chinese investment in the high-tech sector. Last summer, a similar but much larger deal was derailed before it even made it to regulators. The $23 billion bid for the American memory chip maker Micron by a Chinese state-controlled firm was undone by concerns about its political feasibility. In that case, Senator Chuck Schumer, Democrat of New York, voiced worries about the deal’s effect on national security in a public letter to Treasury Secretary Jacob J. Lew. But Republicans are now starting to take up the issue, which means that it could take on a partisan dimension in an election year. // Comment: More like legitimate national security backlash, calling it political demeans the real substance behind the concerns.

Related: Chinese Bid for Chicago Exchange Draws Congressional Concern – Bloomberg Business The buyer — Chongqing Casin Enterprise Group — has many of the “traditional opaque qualities” of a Chinese company and is involved in sectors that likely require close ties to the government, 46 members of Congress said in a letter to the Committee on Foreign Investment in the U.S. “This proposed acquisition would be the first time a Chinese-owned, possibly state-influenced, firm maintained direct access into the” $21 trillion U.S. equity marketplace, wrote 45 Republicans and one Democrat.

Related: A China Tech Takeover That Shouldn’t Ruffle U.S. Feathers – WSJ The Ingram Micro deal should receive less scrutiny from U.S. regulators. After all, shipping computers and printers around the globe doesn’t involve intellectual property the way making chips does. And given that so many technology products—iPhones included—are assembled in China, it is hard to argue that letting a Chinese company distribute them would pose serious threats to the U.S. Anyway, for insurance, Ingram would receive up to $400 million from the acquirer if the U.S. blocks the deal. The deal looks less like an expression of China’s technology ambitions than it does a continuation of HNA Group’s logistics empire-building.

4. China outlines roadmap to build better cities – Xinhua Chinese central authorities on Sunday issued guidelines on urban development, two months after leaders met for the Central Urban Work Conference and promised to make China’s sprawling cities more livable and green. The document, from the Communist Party of China Central Committee and the State Council, set the basic principles, key tasks and targets for future urban development and management, aiming to ensure the cities are “orderly constructed, properly developed, and efficiently operated”. // 中共中央 国务院关于进一步加强城市规划建设管理工作的若干意见

Related: 中央提新建筑方针:多采用单行道 限制”奇怪建筑”_网易新闻中心 Comment: New plan for cities to limit “strange architecture”, SOHO China founders have been smart to get their family and much of their money overseas

5. Reuters Gets It Wrong on Apple, Encryption, and China – The Mac Observer The assertion apparently is that if Apple lets China see Apple’s source code, it’s somehow akin to letting the government see what is on every person’s iPhone. This maybe one of the most profoundly misguided assertions about encryption software ever made. It is laughable to anyone that knows anything about cryptography. Showing the source code in no way reveals the magic encryption keys generated by the source code and maintained in secret on peoples’ individual devices.

Related: Why Apple’s fight with the FBI could have reverberations in China – LA Times “This move by the FBI could snowball around the world,” said Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), a member of the U.S. Senate Select Committee on Intelligence. “Why in the world would our government want to give repressive regimes in Russia and China a blueprint for forcing American companies to create a back door?” Doing so, the senator said, wouldn’t just result in further suppression of individuals in those countries, but also a rise in theft of U.S. trade secrets.

6. ‘Rule by Fear?’ | ChinaFile Eva Pils, Taisu Zhang, Isabel Hilton, Xiao Qiang, Edward Friedman, Isaac Stone Fish, Jerome A. Cohen, Robert Daly. Daly:The last time China had a domineering, charismatic leader who required bureaucrats and diplomats to embody the belief system of the party-state, China was isolated from the rest of the world and the pain was felt primarily within China’s borders. What are the international implications of a Chinese leadership that views its authority as all-encompassing and self-justifying, but that is deeply engaged with the rest of the world and has the will and ability to influence international norms and to shape global standards for the treatment of individuals and information? It’s an urgent question, regardless of whether China is ruled through confidence or fear.

7. Chinese ministries scramble to get on-message – FT.com Investors buffeted by turmoil in China’s markets have lambasted Beijing for its poor communications. Now the government has responded with its own definition of good communications — instructing ministries to tell the world that everything is really just fine. Premier Li Keqiang urged “better communication” by government ministries in a weekend speech carried extensively by Chinese media. The message should be that China “has sufficient policy weapons” to cope with its challenges, Mr Li told the State Council, or cabinet, in comments heavily loaded with military metaphors. But he added: “We don’t want to use our weapons when we’re not fully prepared.”

Related: China commerce ministry denies massive capital outflow – Xinhua China’s Ministry of Commerce (MOC) on Wednesday denied speculation of capital outflows from the country. “The fundamentals of Chinese economy and market remain sound, and there is no foundation for the yuan to keep depreciating, hence no drastic capital outflows,” MOC spokesperson Shen Danyang told a press conference.

8. 坚定中国自信，迈向伟大复兴——党的十八大以来中国特色社会主义政治制度开创新境界述评-新华网 道路决定民族命运，制度护航复兴之路。党的十八大以来，以习近平同志为总书记的党中央高举中国特色社会主义伟大旗帜，坚持党的领导、人民当家作主、依法治国有机统一，积极稳妥推进政治体制改革，开辟了中国特色社会主义政治发展新境界。

BUSINESS, ECONOMY AND TRADE

Chinese Securities Regulator Is Out, but Little May Change – The New York Times “This will be a positive for the stock market, but the key will be the economic policies issued by the government in the next few months,” said Chen Bo, an Beijing-based investor and independent political scholar. Without them, he said, the “short-term gains in the stock market in the next couple of months could be followed by another serious slump.” But Mr. Xiao’s replacement, Liu Shiyu, may not necessarily offer the bold change the markets need. Mr. Liu, chairman of the Agriculture Bank of China, has little experience in equity markets

China Cuts Taxes, Blocks Land Sales to Lift Market | Mingtiandi China’s central government is aiming all of its bureaucratic weapons at the housing market in the early months of this year, to add some spark to one of the traditional engines of the mainland economy.

上海352套千万级新房一天被抢光 一线城市房价波动快到按周计_一财网 Shanghai real estate market heating up-CBN

Zoomlion confirms offer for U.S crane maker Terex | Reuters Connecticut-based Terex has 97 so-called priority-rated contracts with the U.S. government that could attract CFIUS scrutiny. It also provides mobile harbor cranes in ports that are seen as a critical part of U.S. infrastructure.

Hedge funder’s attack on renminbi draws scrutiny and doubt – FT.com Mr Bass’s letter found a receptive audience because it played into two popular themes: alarm at capital flight and scepticism over Chinese statistics, which many people presume to be fabricated. There is just one problem: one of Mr Bass’s key claims about China’s foreign exchange reserves data — and thus the central bank’s ability to defend the exchange rate against further depreciation — does not hold up to scrutiny, experts say.

Indebted Steelmaker ‘Not Making Repayments Agreed upon in 2014’-Caixin So far only China Development Bank (CDB) has been able to get any money – 2.5 million yuan – from the debt-ridden firm headquartered in Yuncheng, in the northern province of Shanxi, he said. Shanxi Highsee’s creditors have also found that the company is further in debt, owing nearly 25 billion yuan, than it had said earlier, the source said. In November 2014, Li told Xinhua that the firm was 10.5 billion yuan in the red. The company only has 7 billion yuan in assets, not the 10 billion yuan that Li claimed, the person close to the meetings with Shanxi Highsee said.

ICBC laundering probe: Chinese embassy expresses concern as five Madrid bank directors are arrested | South China Morning Post The bank is suspected of allowing funds earned through the alleged crimes of smuggling, tax fraud and labour exploitation to be transferred “to China in a way that appeared legal”, police said in a statement. The EU police agency Europol, which supported Spanish authorities in their investigation, announced the five arrests in a separate statement.

Mindsets for Thinking about Innovation In — and Competition from — China – Andreessen Horowitz Whatever else one thinks of China, we need to accept that: Chinese companies are truly innovating, not just copying — if not in tech, then certainly in product, path to market, or monetization; Chinese companies are hyperscaling more intensely than U.S. counterparts because the TAM is much larger; Lots of Chinese companies are getting funded and competing in a super intense way (through a combination of long hours and “we’re at war” mentality) — so winners will emerge very strong; and Chinese companies can serve as both a source of inspiration in the short term and as a formidable source of competition in the future (and part of the art of partnering with them is realizing this; more on that later).

Sheldon Adelson Bets It All | Mother Jones That same weekend, Adelson also met with the mayor of Beijing, who asked him for some help: Congress was considering a resolution to protest China’s bid to host the 2008 Olympics, based on the country’s human rights violations. “We’re standing in a parking lot of the Beijing convention center. Sheldon picks up his cellphone and calls Tom DeLay in Houston,” Weidner later said in a deposition. Adelson reached the House majority whip at a Fourth of July cookout. “You can hear him—Tom DeLay talks very loudly over the phone. Tom says, ‘I’m chewing on my fourth piece of rubber chicken.'” DeLay was a co-sponsor of the resolution, which had overwhelming bipartisan support and was particularly popular among evangelicals concerned about Chinese persecution of Christians. But Adelson had taken DeLay to Israel and lavishly supported Republican campaigns. DeLay said he would see what he could do. “Three hours later,” Weidner said, “DeLay calls and tells Sheldon, ‘You’re in luck. I’d like to get that bill, but I can’t do it—we’re not going to be able to move the bill.’ Sheldon goes to the mayor and says, ‘The bill will never see the light of day, Mr. Mayor. Don’t worry about it.'” // Comment: And we wonder why Beijing sees the US system as corrupt too…

Regulators Leave Wealth Management Industry Unplugged-Caixin Against a backdrop of loose supervision, banks and financial firms are taking big risks with investors’ funds

Don’t Panic About China’s Slowdown, Goldman Says – Bloomberg Business “Some people are making extreme arguments to say the whole machine is not working,” said Song. “That’s not what we see. Overall, the plane is moving in the direction it should be and it’s broadly under control.” This week, policy makers stepped up support for the economy, with the nation’s chief planning agency making more money available for local infrastructure projects, according to people familiar with the matter.

Sainty Marine Becomes First Listed Shipbuilder to Go Bankrupt-Caixin The company received no orders last year and 6 billion yuan worth of orders for 2014 were cancelled, a search of the international maritime resource database HIS Sea-web found. The Sainty Marine employee said the cancellations were the result of the cash-strapped firm delaying delivery.

铁总夺回高铁定价权 市场化改革促引资宏观一财网 自主定价更为重要的意义是将带动目前铁路缓慢的体制改革。在价格浮动实现以后，饱受民资诟病的话语权和铁路清算体系将逐步改善，这对于已经成为中国经济重要拉动力的铁路来说，有着非凡的意义。

楼继伟：劳动合同法不利于提高全要素生产率 下一步应调整经济宏观频道首页_财经网 – CAIJING 新浪财经讯 “中国经济50人论坛2016年年会”定于2月19日在北京召开。财政部部长楼继伟出席并演讲。 楼继伟认为，劳动合同法对企业的约束，很大程度上降低了劳动力市场的灵活性，不利于全要素生产率的提高，最终导致劳动生产率太低。 //  Lou Jiwei wants to adjust the Labor Contract Law because he says it is too onerous on companies, reduces flexibility on the labor narkets

POLITICS AND LAW

Hard times: China’s challenges demand bigger role for centralised leadership, says Communist Party mouthpiece | South China Morning Post State media have sought to justify attempts to consolidate Xi Jinping as the “core” of the ­Communist Party’s leadership, arguing that expanded centralisedauthority is needed to meet the complex and arduous ­challenges facing the country. An article released on Wednesday night through the WeChat account operated by the overseas edition of People’s Daily said Xi would have more “authority and commitment” to “reshape China’s political landscape” and “take overall responsibility for various party tasks”.

王岐山警告“红二代” 反腐大震动将临？_中国-多维新闻网 近期，有香港媒体爆料称，中共中纪委和中组部分批召见了200多名中共“红二代”进行谈话，并给出“六个不准”。根据媒体披露的消息称，自今年新年以后，中纪委、中组部分批召见了中共红二代进行谈话、警告。虽然此消息还有待证实，但是值得注意的是，中共反腐力度在2016年尚未有减弱的迹象，曾经有观点认为反腐不会波及“红二代”的说法已经被事实刺破。//  Comment: Hong Kong media reporting that the CCDI called in several members of the “red second generation” to warn them about corrupt activities. One of the pieces of “evidence” for the reductionist view that the corruption crackdown is fake and just about power is that no significant members of the “red second generation” have been taken down/ First, find one who has not changed his/her behavior since the crackdown began. Second, given how target-rich the environment is, and how hard it is to consolidate power, why would Xi first go after members of his own cohort? 

山西省新闻出版广电局党组书记、局长齐峰被调查—中央纪委监察部网站 head of Shanxi SAPPRFT under investigation

中办国办印发《关于全面推进政务公开工作的意见》————要闻——中央纪委监察部网站

Save Our Statue: dramatic protest in China to save ex-leader Hua Guofeng’s figure from being demolished | South China Morning Post Residents had on January 27 erected the bronze statue of Hua, Mao Zedong’s hand-picked successor who led the party from 1976 to 1981, at a square outside Hua’s cemetery in Jiaocheng county.

Dai Huang, labelled a ‘rightist’ for doubting Mao, dies at age 88 | South China Morning Post In 1957, during the Communist Party’s “rectification” movement, Dai gave a speech on opposing the “deification” of Mao and the special privileges enjoyed by high-ranking cadres and was branded an “anti-party” element and a “rightist”. For his doubts, he was sent in 1958 to do forced labour in the countryside. His first wife divorced him and his younger daughter was given away for fostering. It wasn’t until late 1978, when liberal party leader Hu Yaobang cleared millions of political victims of false charges, that Dai Huang was able to return to his job at Xinhua.

孙立平：危机意识谈 | 孙立平的共识网·思想者博客 当维稳成为一种基本思维方式和工作模式之后，不但形成一种耗费大量人力物力财力的维稳体制，而且使得一些重要社会变革无法进行。因为好像一动就会影响社会稳定。为什么前些年腐败积重难返?很大程度上就是因为这个。直到现在，这个问题依然存在。三中全会提出的市场化改革，四中全会提出的依法治国，本来都是很好的方向，但却难以推进，一个重要的原因也在这。 　　因此，准确判断危机的性质和程度，摆脱维稳思维的束缚，以真正的自信，推进实质性的社会变革，才是真正的出路。

6名落马高官牵涉同一房产商 其中3人为其“爹”新闻腾讯网 法制晚报记者发现，包括王敏在内，至少有6名“落马”的省部级干部都与同一个人有关，这人就是房地产商赵晋。被赵晋坑了的6老虎中3人是他“爹”。其父赵少麟，曾任江苏省委常委、秘书长，赵少麟在退休8年后被查；第二个是国家行政学院常务副院长何家成，他是赵晋的“干爹”；第三个就是河北省委原书记周本顺，赵晋是其妻子的干儿子。 //  Comment: The case of corrupt real estate developer Zhao Jin, son of former Jiangsu official Zhao Shaolin, seems to be coming to a head

学习时报-把党的群众路线坚持到底 ——学习习近平总书记关于党的群众路线重要论述 党的十八大以来，习近平总书记围绕坚持党的根本宗旨、贯彻党的群众路线、保持党同人民群众的血肉联系，发表了一系列重要讲话和论述。这些讲话和论述着眼于坚持和发展中国特色社会主义，着眼于实现“两个一百年”奋斗目标和中华民族伟大复兴中国梦，着眼于巩固党的执政地位和党执政的群众基础，体现了鲜明的人民立场，体现了强烈的爱民情怀，体现了马克思主义的群众观，是新形势下广大党员干部特别是各级领导干部增强宗旨意识、践行群众路线、加强和改进作风的行动指南。

朝阳群众 城市根须 无处不在综合新京报网 朝阳群众”在网友眼中曾经是个神秘的组织，它开创了城市综合治理的新模式，已成为北京城市管理的“名片”。据悉，“朝阳群众”共19万人，去年前十个月共提供21万多条线索，其中有价值线索4378条，侦破案件1023起，刑拘810人。 // Comment: more praise for the “Chaoyang Masses” model of enlisting the masses to help with social management

栗战书赴中办定点扶贫县河南光山调研：确保2020年全脱贫中国政库澎湃新闻-The Paper 他强调，要深入学习贯彻习近平总书记关于扶贫开发工作的重要指示和中央决策部署，以更细致、更艰苦的工作做到精准扶贫，确保到2020年现有贫困人口全部脱贫。

FOREIGN AND DEFENSE AFFAIRS

Chris Smith- Smith Delivers Historic Speech on Human Rights at NYU-Shanghai Campus Smith, Chairman of the bipartisan Congressional-Executive Commission on China (CECC), pulled no punches during his speech— the first public speech by an elected official since the campus opened there in 2012—which was open to NYU faculty, students, and the general public with a standing room only crowd. // Comment: Hope his remarks don’t lead to curtailing the special privileges NYU-Shanghai really does seem to have

Speak Uighur? Have Good Vision? China’s Security Services Want You – The New York Times Titled the “Shanghai State Security Bureau Preliminary Selection Announcement for 2016 Graduates,” the ad has since been taken down, but a cached version still exists. Contacted by telephone, a person working at the career center who gave her name as Ms. He confirmed that the ad was genuine but expressed surprise that it had circulated publicly since such ads are generally only for internal use.

Combing Through an Invaluable Resource on the People’s Liberation Army The launch of wide-ranging Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) restructuring at the end of November may lead some would-be readers and China specialists away from The People’s Liberation Army as Organization v2.0. Nothing could be worse for developing a meaningful appreciation for what is occurring in China and its military. As the PLA moves forward with its most dramatic restructuring in a half century, detailed understanding of its organization will prove critical in the coming months as external observers try to track the reforms.

Military Intelligence at a Crossroads | The Cipher Brief The need to support the senior-most decision-makers in the CMC and the Party’s Leading Small Groups probably will ensure that a single officer remains responsible for overseeing intelligence affairs. This officer almost certainly will sit in Joint Staff Department, where Chinese-language reports place Admiral Sun Jianguo, who was a deputy chief of the General Staff Department (GSD) with the intelligence portfolio. Sun probably will oversee the core components of the military’s human intelligence and analytic service, the former GSD Second Department, while its technical collection resources may be moved to the Strategic Support Force or the theater commands.

中纪委机关报刊文：正风反腐无军事禁区，当铁帽子王绝无可能舆论场澎湃新闻-The Paper 从这个意义上说，一条信访检举专线，照见了军队正风反腐的决心，强化了清理军队蛀虫的恒心，坚定了正风反腐无“军事禁区”的信心。“铁一般纪律”，这是任何人都不能逾越的红线。从近年来的反腐败斗争成果中，不难发现，诸如郭伯雄、徐才厚、谷俊山等军队“大老虎”纷纷落马，官位和军阶不是护身符，想当“铁帽子王”也绝无可能。相反，真正让军队反腐没有死角、没有禁区，还军队作风一片晴朗天空，就需要在建章立制上下功夫、在具体措施中找抓手。否则，如果有问题不能反映，有举报无处申诉，何谈从严治军？

HONG KONG, MACAO AND TAIWAN

China Labels Protesters ‘Radical Separatists,’ and They Agree – The New York Times The violence in the bustling Mong Kok district, which left more than 80 police officers and scores of protesters injured, was the most startling sign yet of the rise of a local movement with an appetite for confrontation — and the unlikely goal of a Hong Kong independent of China. Formed after the so-called Umbrella Movement protests of 2014, which failed in their goal to bring about more fully democratic local elections, Hong Kong Indigenous prefers aggression to peaceful demonstrations, which Mr. Leung said were tried in 2014 but failed.

TECH AND MEDIA

China to Ban Foreign Companies From Online Media Business-RFA “These regulations take national security as their starting point,” Hu Xingdou, professor of economics at the Beijing University of Science and Technology, told RFA. “It means that they want to prevent ‘foreign forces’ from exerting any influence on China’s online content industry,” Hu said. “Of course, this is going to affect foreign companies who have already invested in this industry in China,” he said. // China Law Translate | 网络出版服务管理规定  Full translation -Provisions On Network Publication Services Administration-updates out of date 2002 rules

Visual China to invest US$100m in Getty Images – Business News | The Star Online Chinese image licensing company Visual China Group said it plans to invest up to US$100 million in Getty Images as the Shenzhen-listed firm expands its footprint in the global picture library. The deal comes a month after Corbis Entertainment, the image licensing company owned by Microsoft Corp co-founder Bill Gates, sold its picture library business to Visual China for an undisclosed sum.

China’s Xiaomi to use smartphone chips designed in-house – source | Reuters The in-house smartphone application processor chips are designed for Xiaomi’s mid- to low-priced smartphone model RedMi Note series, but it is unclear how many Xiaomi is planning to make this year, said the source, who declined to be named because the information is not public. The move comes as Beijing ploughs billions of dollars into home-grown chip companies in a bid to end China’s reliance on foreign semiconductors.

Uber is losing more than $1 billion a year in China-Mashable “We are profitable in the U.S., but in China we’re losing over a billion dollars a year,” Travis Kalanick, the CEO and cofounder of Uber, said during an on-stage appearance at Vancouver’s Launch Academy on Monday, which we watched later via Periscope.

SOCIETY, ART, SPORTS, CULTURE AND HISTORY

LeTV Sports Said to Pay 2.7 Bln Yuan to Show CSL Games for Two Years-Caixin State-backed Ti’ao Dongli Sports Communication Co. Ltd., which holds the video rights to Chinese Super League (CSL) games from 2016 to 2020, resold the rights for the first two seasons to LeTV Sports Culture Develop (Beijing) Co. on January 26, the sources said.

No country for Phoenix man | Chublic Opinion The feminist backlash against the peasant class is the most intriguing turn of events in this saga about one silly dinner. It is hard to tell how much of that can be attributed to the systematic removal of the “root cause critique” from public discourse. As observer Song Zhibiao puts it: “Prejudice is often de-politicized. From the very beginning there is no mention of the government, as if the Chinese countryside is an isolated utopia, a self-contained sin that has nothing to do with the cities. It only deserves to die by itself, silently.” In 21st century China, its aging, sick and disenfranchised countryside is faced with another menace: urban public opinion turning unforgiving.

ENERGY, ENVIRONMENT, SCIENCE AND HEALTH

Renowned Chinese physicist dies – Xinhua Xie Jialin, a physicist and academic with the Chinese Academy of Sciences, died of natural causes on Saturday morning in Beijing at the age of 96. Xie was key to the research and development of high energy accelerators in China. Born in northeast China’s Heilongjiang Province in 1920, Xie graduated from Yenching University in 1943, and gained his doctorate from Stanford University in 1951.

China’s Thirst Threat by Brahma Chellaney – Project Syndicate Glacier-water mining has major environmental costs in terms of biodiversity loss, impairment of some ecosystem services due to insufficient runoff water, and potential depletion or degradation of glacial springs. Moreover, the process of sourcing, processing, bottling, and transporting glacial water from the Himalayas to Chinese cities thousands of miles away has a very large carbon footprint. Bottling glacier water is not the right way to quench China’s thirst. A better alternative, both environmentally and economically, would be to boost investment in treatment facilities to make tap water safe in cities. Unfortunately, China seems determined to remain on its current course – an approach that could do irreparable and severe damage to Asia’s environment, economy, and political stability.

AGRICULTURE AND RURAL ISSUES

Price Controls Irritating Rice Storage Crunch-Caixin Policies that encourage farm output have filled China’s granaries to overflowing and some say distorted the market

EDUCATION

Sentenced to prison for assault, teenage ‘parachute kids’ deliver warning to adults in China – LA Times On Wednesday, Zhang, now 19, was sentenced to six years in prison for his role in brutal gang attacks against two fellow parachute kids.

BEIJING

China to build ventilation ‘corridors’ in Beijing to help tackle air pollution | The Guardian Construction in zones created by connecting parks, rivers, lakes, highways and low building blocks, will be strictly controlled and obstacles to air flow removed

Beijing to raise threshold for issuing air pollution ‘red alerts’ | Reuters In future, the highest alert will only be issued when the daily average air quality index (AQI) is forecast to exceed 500 for a day, 300 for two days in a row or 200 for four days, Xinhua reported, citing Beijing’s environmental protection bureau. At present, a red alert is issued when the AQI is forecast to exceed 200, a level the United States deems “very unhealthy”, for at least three days.

JOBS AND EVENTS

China Reality Check: China’s “Internet Sovereignty” Initiative: Origins and Consequences | Center for Strategic and International Studies MONDAY, FEB 29, 2016 | 2:00 PM – 3:30 PM

Hearing on China’s Shifting Economic Realities and Implications for the United States | U.S.-CHINA Wednesday, February 24, 2016   Room 337, Hall of the States, 444 North Capitol Street NW Washington, D.C. 20001

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