"Sinocism is the Presidential Daily Brief for China hands"- Evan Osnos, New Yorker Correspondent and National Book Award Winner
Today’s Links:
THE ESSENTIAL EIGHT
Xi calls for more strategic trust between China, U.S. – Xinhua “It has become more important than ever for China and the United States to work with each other as the international situation continues to undergo profound and complex changes,” Xi said during the meeting. He said China stands ready to build a new model of major-country relations with the United States based on non-confrontation, non-conflict, mutual respect and win-win cooperation to ensure bilateral ties move forward on a sustainable track. Strategic trust constitutes a cornerstone for the “tower” of the new model, said the president. The Chinese people are striving for the dream of national rejuvenation, which demands a peaceful and stable international environment, Xi said.
Related: [视频]
Related: China Asks U.S. to End Close-Up Military Surveillance – NYTimes.com Gen. Fan Changlong, vice chairman of the Central Military Commission, gave the warning on the last day of Ms. Rice’s visit to China, her first since she took up her post 15 months ago. It came with Chinese-American relations at their coolest in years. General Fan told Ms. Rice that the United States should take the “correct” view of the development of the Chinese military, and “decrease and even end close-in ship and aircraft surveillance of China,” according to Xinhua, the state-run news service. American forces have watched China closely for decades.
Related: Chinese Reporters Press US Navy Chief: P-8s, Go Home! « Breaking Defense – Defense industry news, analysis and commentary Adm. Jonathan Greenert devoted his opening remarks at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace to naval cooperation in the Pacific – especially with China – where he spent four days in July and met for the fourth time in 12 months with his Chinese counterpart, Adm. Wu Shengli. The CNO pointedly did not mention the August incident during which a PLA Navy fighter did a dangerous barrel roll over top of a US P-8 Poseidon surveillance plane, an unnerving echo of a 2001 incident in which a Chinese pilot buzzed a P-3 Orion so closely the planes collided and crashed. The moment the floor opened to questions, however, a Chinese journalist took the mike and asked about the “encounter.” Had Greenert and Adm. Wu made any “progress [on] the issue of the US surveillance activities in international [air]space near by China?” the reporter asked in a thick accent. “Are you concerned that similar encounters will happen more frequently in the future? “I am concerned that such unprofessional activity — and we have clear documentation that it was unprofessional — … would happen in the future,” Greenert replied. // now that Rice has finished her Beijing trip, why not release the video from the encounter?
王缉思：中美与中日关系同时滑坡并非有利局面_言论_国际网 W
At Alibaba, the Founder Is Squarely in Charge – NYTimes.com As Alibaba grows, the company is not shaking up just bricks-and-mortar retailers, but also venturing into state-dominated industries like media, finance and telecommunications. To help quell any government opposition, friends say Mr. Ma has increasingly cultivated ties to Beijing. Alibaba, for example, was one of the main sponsors of the Youth Business Council, a state-backed charity set up by Gu Liping, the wife of Ling Jihua, at the time an aide to the country’s president who was considered one of China’s most powerful officials. Mr. Ma also serves as vice president of the China Cultural Industry Association, a nonprofit that operates under the Ministry of Culture.
Related: Jack Ma, ‘capital-lite’ model impress at Alibaba’s Boston IPO event | Reuters One major concern among U.S. investors has been a 2010 decision to spin off Alipay to a company Ma controlled. Ma told about 150 people in Boston that the Alipay decision was the hardest of his life, but it was necessary for the growth of the company. He added that “history will judge,” said Adam Grossman, a research analyst for Middleton & Co. // the Alipay expropriation and the shifting rationales for it, including the initial statements that were clearly not true, are an overhang for some, but reality is will be very hard not to own this stock if you want a piece of China in your portfolio. I am planning on buying some, though I won’t get any until secondary market
Related: Could China’s anti-Japan propaganda hurt Alibaba’s image at home? | Offbeat China Softbank’s stake in Alibaba doesn’t resonate well with the Chinese at all. The success of Alibaba in domestic market has been a point of national pride for many, especially in contrast to the failure of eBay and Amazon in China. The realization that the biggest shareholder of their “national hero” is a Japanese company left many feel “cheated.” “So Alibaba is actually a Japanese company? Down with this traitor!” One netizen commented angrily.
Ahead of Xi trip, China says not seeking to contain India | Reuters Assistant Chinese Foreign Minister Liu Jianchao said that the leaders of China and India had pledged to work together to manage and control their differences, adding that they shared common interests as large developing nations. “India is a country with which China has been friendly for thousands of years,” Liu told a news briefing. “China has never, and will not, use so-called military or other means to try and hem in India,” he added. “There is no strategic competition between China and India in our relationship and there is certainly no such word as ‘surround’.”
Related: Xi may offer India new route for Kailash yatra – Hindustan Times In a major political gesture, Chinese President Xi Jinping is expected to announce the opening of a new safe route for Indian pilgrims visiting Kailash and Manasarovar in Tibet via Sikkim during his forthcoming visit to India. Besides a package of major investments, Xi may announce the opening of the route sought by Prime Minister Narendra Modi during their first meeting in Fortaleza in Brazil in July this year. Chinese officials say the proposal is under serious consideration.
Related: Xi to attend SCO summit – Xinhua Xi is scheduled to attend the 14th meeting of the Council of Heads of the SCO member states on Thursday and Friday in Dushanbe, the capital of Tajikistan, said Qin Gang. After the meeting, Xi will also pay state visits to Tajikistan, the Maldives, Sri Lanka and India at the invitation of Tajik President Emomali Rahmon, Maldives President Abdulla Yameen, Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapaksa and Indian President Pranab Mukherjee, according to Qin.
全面深化改革大潮正起–时政–人民网 Long People’s Daily page 1 from Tuesday on how tidal wave of deepening reform just beginning // “今年是党的十八届三中全会提出全面深化改革的元年，
China can’t rely on easy credit policy for growth -Premier | Reuters Speaking at a forum in China’s northern city of Tianjin, Li obliquely referred to a surprising slump in China’s credit supply in July by saying that the data remained within a “reasonable range” despite its recent volatility. A broad measure of liquidity in China’s economy, also known as total social financing, or TSF, unexpectedly tumbled to a six-year low in July, alarming global investors already worried about the country’s cloudy growth outlook. Li assured the audience that China’s economy could grow by around 7.5 percent this year as targeted by the government, but reiterated Beijing’s view that a healthy job market was more important than delivering a certain level of economic growth.
Spectre of Corruption Haunts Huawei – Caixin More than 100 company employees at Huawei Technologies, China’s biggest telecoms equipment maker, have been implicated in allegations of graft, triggering tightened internal scrutiny on its employees and sales agents. At an internal meeting in Beijing on September 4, Huawei executives highlighted the company’s urgent attempt to fight against corruption in deals involving rebates in corporate businesses. According to the company, as of August 16, Huawei detected 116 employees on suspicion of corruption in cases which were linked to 69 sales agents of the company. Four employees have been handed over to the judiciary system for further investigation.
被忽视的雾霾元凶_新世纪周刊频道_财新网 latest Caixin cover story on ammonia pollution, which it calls the ignored, chief cause of smog // 氨污染已成为重度雾霾天气的最大元凶；
BUSINESS, ECONOMY AND TRADE
U.S. Group Says China Could Be Violating Trade Accords – NYTimes.com a new report, released on Monday by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, which is based in Washington, raises the possibility of a new approach to China’s increasingly vigilant antitrust actions: lodging a complaint at the World Trade Organization, which China joined in 2001. “To the extent that China’s enforcement of the A.M.L. is discriminatory, it arguably violates commitments that China undertook when it acceded to the World Trade Organization,” said the report, referring to the antimonopoly law. “If China applies the A.M.L. in a manner inconsistent with its W.T.O. obligations, this would arguably constitute a violation of W.T.O. law despite being imposed under the guise of competition law.”
China’s Antitrust Probes Mostly Target Local Firms, Premier Says – Bloomberg isn’t reform architect Liu He a vice chairman of the NDRC? // Foreign companies are the target of 10 percent of China’s anti-monopoly probes, Premier Li Keqiang said, rebutting allegations the investment climate has worsened and the government is singling out overseas firms. The numbers show China isn’t targeting specific enterprises, Li told foreign executives in Tianjin yesterday. His remarks, made ahead of the World Economic Forum’s “New Champions” meeting in the northern Chinese city, were posted online by the official Xinhua News Agency.
China fines three cement makers $18.6 million for price fixing | Reuters A Chinese regulator said on Tuesday it has fined three domestic cement makers 114 million yuan ($18.6 million) for price fixing as Beijing intensifies its crackdown against monopoly pricing on goods from cars to premium liquor. The firms were units of Jilin Yatai Group Co Ltd, China National Building Material Co Ltd and Tangshan Jidong Cement Co Ltd, the National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC) said in a statement. // 发改委“动刀”水泥垄断 三巨头吉林串谋被查
China Researcher Blasts Antitrust Probes as ‘Absurd, Ridiculous, Stupid’ – China Real Time Report – WSJ Many analysts have wondered why the NDRC and not the Ministry of Commerce is leading China’s antitrust charge. Recent comments by a commerce ministry-affiliated researcher illustrate how the NDRC-led crackdown isn’t winning too many fans from Commerce Ministry bureaucrats. “How absurd, ridiculous and stupid the idea is,” Ma Yu, a senior researcher at a think tank affiliated with the Ministry of Commerce, wrote in a blog posted to the popular Internet portal Sina.com. The commerce ministry declined to comment on the matter, saying only that the views expressed in Mr. Ma’s post are solely those of the author. Mr. Ma wasn’t immediately available for comment. Officials at the NDRC declined to comment.
Gov’t Cobbles Together Funding for Slum Renovation Projects – Caixin The central government wants to finish the renovation of 15 million homes by the end of 2017, and by 2020 have another 10 million homes redone. Estimates from China Index Academy, a property research institute, show that total investment will be 3.75 trillion yuan if homes are an average of 50 square meters and cost 3,000 yuan per square meter. This figure still did not include the cost of land acquisitions and infrastructure. In the future, the projects will mainly be in the country’s central and western regions, in isolated mining areas and in resource-exhausted regions, where local governments have little revenue.
Will Education Firm New Oriental Learn or Lose? – Caixin New Oriental, which reported a US$ 215.7 million profit on net revenues of US$ 1,138.9 million in the fiscal year ended May 31, still dominates the market for extracurricular self-improvement and professional English-language education in China. But the market is changing, and so is the landscape for market players. New Oriental enjoyed 20 years of growth, beginning as a company with one teacher in a rented classroom in 1993. Today, it has a presence in every major Chinese city. New Oriental has a sterling reputation that’s made it the English education channel of choice for young Chinese preparing to study abroad. Some analysts and company insiders, however, wonder whether New Oriental’s business is reaching its limit. It’s certainly at a turning point. That long, steady growth period may be ending, particularly as increasing numbers of learners choose programs that rely on online services.
China Posts Record Surplus as Exports-Imports Diverge – Bloomberg Exports increased 9.4 percent from a year earlier, the Beijing-based customs administration said today, compared with the 9 percent median estimate in a Bloomberg survey. Imports unexpectedly dropped 2.4 percent, leaving a trade surplus of $49.8 billion.
China May Set Up Security Fund for Trusts, Business News Reports – Bloomberg The fund, to be established by the China Trustee Association and its members, will monitor industry risks and participate in the disposal of assets and restructuring of trust companies that are closed or suspended, the newspaper said, citing people it didn’t identify.
Exclusive: GSK China Consumer Healthcare Unit Linked To DOJ Probe In 2012 – Business Insider A U.S. anti-bribery probe into GlaxoSmithKline Plc touched on the firm’s Chinese consumer healthcare business in 2012, internal documents show, suggesting the drugmaker’s compliance problems in China could go wider than previously revealed.// zero sympathy for GSK…
PBOC Adrift Without Policy Anchor Amid Credit Slump – Bloomberg The People’s Bank of China’s removal of state controls on borrowing costs last year has left Governor Zhou Xiaochuan struggling to influence rates with tools such as adjusting some banks’ reserve requirements and targeted liquidity injections. Those steps haven’t stopped new credit and money-supply growth from slowing.
Looking Beyond China, Some Companies Shift Personnel – NYTimes.com The many frustrations of doing business in China have made some difference in the plans to move executives here — choking air pollution, countless regulations that favor local competitors and weak protection for intellectual property. A rising wave of economic nationalism has also manifested itself in large-scale raids on the Chinese offices of multinationals in the automotive, pharmaceutical and technology sectors. Police officials are copying large numbers of computer hard drives and interrogating employees without allowing access to legal advice.
China’s shadow banks: A moving target | The Economist it is far too soon to call time on China’s shadow banks. Whenever they have been faced with regulatory obstacles in the past, they have evolved to get around them. That seems to be happening again. The latest regulation aimed at reining them in—the central bank’s document #127, which went into effect in May—has left a big loophole. Funds transferred to shadow lenders previously appeared on banks’ balance-sheets as “assets for resale”, a low-risk category requiring little capital. The central bank has banned this practice. But banks have simply started to book more of the assets as “investment receivables”, an only slightly more burdensome category. Analysing the first-half results of midsized Chinese banks, the most eager lenders, The Economist found that their shadowy receivables have risen by 46% since the end of 2013. “Non-standard credit” now accounts for a fifth of their assets (see chart).
China 2013 outbound investment hits record high – Xinhua China’s outbound direct investment (ODI) reached a record high of 108 billion U.S. dollars in 2013, making it the world’s third largest investor for the second year. The amount is 22.8 percent up on the previous year, in contrast to the 1.4 percent gain in global outbound investment, according to a report released by the Ministry of Commerce (MOC), National Bureau of Statistics and State Administration of Foreign Exchange. // 中国对外投资首设负面清单模式
揭秘央企巡视新风：加强负责人监督_财经频道_一财网
POLITICS AND LAW
曝芮成钢涉间谍案 恐面临死刑[图]_中国-多维新闻网 verified Weibo account of a CASS researcher claims CCTV anchor Rui Chenggang is under investigation for espionage, could face the death penalty. // 微博实名认证用户“王国乡”中秋节爆料，
Provincial Police Force Shaken to Core by Graft Inquiries – Caixin Abundant coal reserves and decades-long reliance on the mining industry has made Taiyuan, the capital of the northern province of Shanxi, a busy city, crowded with mine owners, traders, brokers and officials. Now, Communist Party anti-graft investigators can be added to the mix. The city’s police system is especially in the spotlight. In recent years, three public security chiefs in Taiyuan have lost their jobs one after another. Little official information has been released, but all have been placed under investigation.
CPC leadership stress persistence in “mass-line” campaign – Xinhua supposed to end this month // The leadership of the Communist Party of China (CPC) have urged continued momentum in the ongoing “mass-line” campaign to ensure “an ending as attentively achieved as the beginning”. The “mass-line” campaign was launched in June last year by Chinese leaders to boost ties between CPC officials and the public, while cleaning up undesirable work styles such as formalism, bureaucracy, hedonism and extravagance. As part of the design, Xi and six other Standing Committee members of the Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee, are each allocated a county to supervise. Xi, who also holds the position of general secretary of the CPC Central Committee, has been paired with Lankao county in Henan.
Xi Jinping rules out Western-style political reform for China | South China Morning Post President Xi Jinping dismissed notions of Western-style political reform and underscored the importance of one-party rule in a speech delivered at the Great Hall of the People yesterday. In remarks celebrating the 60th anniversary of the National People’s Congress, Xi said China must have a unified leadership to ensure the country’s development would not be diverted. // in other news, dog bites man and sun rises in the east…anyone who is surprised by these comments has not been paying attention
Killings by China anti-terror cops raise concerns–CAIXIN “In China, terrorists are to be treated as a contradiction between enemies and not contradictions amongst the people. They are afforded very few protections under the law,” Wong said. In that sense, China’s counterterrorism effort bears similarities to the United States’ anti-terror practices post-9/11, including assertions that deadly military force against terrorists— even if U.S. citizens — might outweigh their constitutional rights, he said. Xi has cast the campaign in patriotic, militaristic terms, in one instance evoking the memory of a Ming-era Chinese military leader who fought Japanese pirates. “Sweat more in peacetime so you will bleed less in wartime,” Xi said in a pep talk to Xinjiang police during a high-profile April tour.
The daily grind of a junior civil servant in Beijing – no money, no respect | China Labour Bulletin Last month, China Youth Daily talked to a young civil servant in Beijing, Li Ming, who was anxious to dispel some of the myths about the service. He earned just over 3,000 yuan a month, about the same as a factory worker in Shenzhen, and said that nearly all of his salary was gone by the end of the month. Li explained that the government’s austerity drive and clampdown on corruption meant that no one had any chance to earn grey income anymore or spend the public’s money for their own benefit. Even his bosses, he said, were now going around on bicycles rather than in cars.
Former N China official commits suicide – Xinhua when an official dies before being detained/convicted, does his family get to keep the benefits they would normally get after the death of an official not in trouble? // A former chairman of the Municipal Committee of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference of Hohhot, in north China’s Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, committed suicide on Monday, said local police on Tuesday. Around 10 p.m. on Monday, police received a report that Zhang Penghui had died after slitting his wrists in his office.
SPC encourages petitions by video chat – Xinhua China’s top court will discourage petitioners from taking their grievances to Beijing by offering them video chats with officials, it announced on Friday. The move, which will be targeted particularly at repeat petitioners, will make it more convenient and efficient for people to seek redress over court decisions, according to the Supreme People’s Court (SPC). All petitioners can apply for video chats with SPC judges at local courts, it said.
也议周永康案的根本启示-杜导正 2014年第9期 炎黄春秋杂志 91 year old Du Daozheng in Yanhuang Chunqiu on the Zhou Yongkang case, need for political reform // 现在我既不是激进派，也不是保守派。
Xi’s missing terms emerge again – China Media Project As I wrote in my last post, the 18th Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party will meet for its 4th Plenum next month. Party media have already reported that the meeting will “research the thorough promotion of rule of the nation by law.” I posed the question: would the Xi Jinping statements that “rule of the nation by law means, first and foremost, ruling the nation in accord with the constitution” or “the crux in governing by laws is to govern in accord with the constitution” appear at the 4th Plenum? Now, one month ahead of the Plenum, Xi Jinping’s September 5 speech seems to have raised the probability that we will see these watchwords next month. I urge observers of Chinese politics to watch these words closely. Though of course, things are never quite so simple. I noticed, for example, that while the full text of Xi Jinping’s September 5 speech as released by Xinhua News Agency does have both of these terms, Xinhua’s official news release on the meeting did not mention them at all. Nor did the news about the meeting on the front page of the People’s Daily make any mention of them.
How a robbery led to the downfall of Shanxi political heavyweight | South China Morning Post Caijing, a prominent mainland news magazine, reported yesterday that the handling of the robbery at the home of former Shanxi Coking Coal chairman Bai Peizhong prompted scores of retired senior provincial officials to file complaints against the then deputy provincial party chief, Jin Daoming. The report, citing anonymous sources including senior Shanxi police and those who had knowledge of the coking coal company, revealed a complex network of top police officers, coal business executives and senior government officials. // 揭秘撕破山西政商贪腐关系网源头：
Plane turns back to Dulles so FBI can arrest mom in parental kidnapping case – The Washington Post need to throw the book at her to make an example…// Lindsay Ram, a spokeswoman for the FBI’s Washington field office, said the mother, Wenjing Liu, was arrested Thursday under probable cause of international parental kidnapping. Her plane, which took off from Washington Dulles International Airport around noon Thursday, landed back at the same airport at 5 p.m., Ram said. According to court documents, she was charged with knowingly and unlawfully attempting to remove her son from the United States with intent to obstruct the lawful exercise of parental rights.
党报：一些人借反腐之名省掉应有的职工福利_网易财经 中央“
光明日报：用“据传”写报道有违新闻真实性原则–观点–
FOREIGN AND DEFENSE AFFAIRS
China’s Military Gets More Bang for the Buck – Bloomberg View Whenever anyone brings up the rising military power of China, Russia and other U.S. rivals, some pundit usually pops up to remind us that America is still overwhelmingly dominant both in terms of military capability and spending. The pundit will generally offer you a chart like this one, which shows American military spending dwarfing everyone else’s. The message, of course, is that the U.S. outspends all its rivals, ensuring its continued military dominance. But there are several problems with this perennial talking point.
From China to Jihad? by Richard Bernstein | NYRblog | The New York Review of Books Among the many recent stories concerning foreigners setting out to fight in Syria, the allegations about the Uighurs arrested in Songkhla stand out. In fact, these people, along with another couple hundred recent Uighur escapees from China, most of them seized near the Thai-Cambodia border, signal something new in the movement of refugees around the world. China’s Uighurs, who now number some ten million and are concentrated in western China, are a mostly Muslim, Turkic-speaking people that has been increasingly restive under Chinese rule, The signs are that more and more of them, escorted by well-paid people smugglers, are making the long, arduous journey south, escaping what they say is harsh Chinese repression in Xinjiang. They are like other refugees in this sense, but with one major difference. The Uighurs arriving in southeast Asia have triggered a tense, mostly behind-the-scenes tug of war between China, which is pressuring Thailand to send the Uighurs back, and the West, including the United States, which has entreated the Thais to reject China’s demand, arguing that giving in to it would subject the Uighurs to savage mistreatment.
China’s Communist Party takes online war to Twitter – Telegraph no surprise, Beijing making it clear that the global Internet is a key front in its re-invigorated ideological war with the West // Online smear campaign against outspoken Chinese author highlights Beijing’s growing attempts to influence discussion on Twitter
World Media Summit WMS Global Awards for Excellence The WMS Global Awards for Excellence, launched by the World Media Summit, is the first comprehensive news awards covering multiple media formats, including press, photo, video and integrated media. The awards, designed to become an authoritative, credible and globally influential news showcase, are open to news agencies, newspapers, TV stations and news websites around the world. The WMS Global Awards for Excellence honors “TRUTH, OBJECTIVITY, EXCELLENCE” in journalism. The awards encourage all people working in the media sector to keep honing their professional skills and pursue excellence, while inspiring media setups to work with the times in the spirit of innovation. // besides the New York Times, have any other western media groups pulled out of the World Media Summit?
People’s Daily: Telling China’s Story Well in a New Converged Media Structure | China Copyright and Media This article was originally published in People’s Daily on 19 August
Xi Jinping’s July 2014 Trip to Latin America – Michael Swaine – Carnegie Endowment for International Peace Xi Jinping’s ten-day July 2014 trip to Latin America constitutes an important milestone in the development of China-Latin America relations, marking the first major visit to this increasingly important region for a top Chinese leader since the extensive trip taken by Hu Jintao in 2004 and occurring during an increase in various economic difficulties between Beijing and the region after a multi-year period of rapid growth. Xi’s trip was intended in part: (1) to revitalize Beijing’s economic relationship with some key South American states through new trade and investment deals and initiatives; (2) to counter the impression in some quarters that the BRICS nations (and China-Brazil relations) were losing their luster; and (3) to strengthen political ties with the region by (a) deepening bilateral strategic partnerships, (b) linking China-Latin American ties with the larger global trend toward greater South-South cooperation, and (c) eliciting local support for several key, long-standing Chinese international principles and undertakings, most notably state sovereignty and a UN-based, state-centered structure of internet governance. Although of some concern, in general, such actions do not necessarily constitute a threat to the United States.
China says Turkey will decide in its ‘own interests’ on missile system | Reuters China said on Tuesday that Turkey would decide in its “own interests” after Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan said the country was in talks with France on buying a missile defense system following disagreements with Beijing. U.S. and NATO officials have said Turkish collaboration on the system with China, which was originally awarded the tender, could raise questions of compatibility of weaponry and of security.
Why I Just Can’t Become Chinese – WSJ Let China make it hard for outsiders to become Chinese. The great competition today isn’t really between China and the U.S. It’s between the static illusion of purity and the propulsive reality of hybridity. If we choose well, my country will still prevail. —Mr. Liu is the founder and CEO of Citizen University and the author, most recently, of “A Chinaman’s Chance.”
Two PLA Pilots Have Died Testing Fighters for Chinese Carrier – USNI News At least two People’s Liberation Army Air Force pilots have died in testing jets slated to operate from the Chinese carrier Liaoning, according a little noticed report published by Chinese state-controlled media. “Two test pilots of the squadron sacrificed their lives during the tests,” read the Aug. 27 report that went on to list a series of citations for the test pilots who flew the Shenyang J-15 Flying Shark in testing on China’s first modern aircraft carrier.
HONG KONG, MACAO AND TAIWAN
China-Taiwan Relations Turning Sour | Asia Sentinel “When Ma Ying-jeou became president, he had indeed wanted to achieve unification with China,” said Chang An-lo, aka the White Wolf, the leader of Taiwan’s China Unification Promotion Party, in an interview with Asia Sentinel. “But he has since changed his mind and is now working hard on delaying it.” A former gangster boss who hid in China for years, Chang is believed to maintain such close ties to high-ranking Chinese officials that his view of Ma likely reflects theirs. After Mainland Affairs Council Deputy Minister Chang was ousted as a suspected Chinese spy, Chinese officials have been at pains to play down the significance of the incident, with Chinese media portraying it as a reflection of KMT infighting nurtured by Ma’s very weak domestic standing.
Taiwan Reels From Gutter Oil Scandal – NYTimes.com The authorities in Taiwan are scrambling to control a tainted-cooking-oil scandal that has affected hundreds of manufacturers and raised fears about health risks posed in many commonly consumed food items. The scandal comes during the Mid-Autumn Festival and has dampened enthusiasm for giving and consuming mooncakes, a traditional seasonal snack.
TECH AND MEDIA
Baidu hires top Microsoft executive | Business Spectator seems like the only interesting job at Microsoft in China is running the new XBox venture // Microsoft has lost a top executive in China to Chinese search giant Baidu, in another setback for the U.S. company there. Zhang Yaqin will become Baidu’s president for new business, effective Wednesday, the Chinese company said Monday. He previously served as Microsoft’s vice president and chairman of its Asian-Pacific research and development group.
Alibaba Taps Chinese Diaspora as Global Battle With Amazon Looms – Bloomberg There are nearly 50 million people of Chinese descent living outside the country, larger than the population of Argentina, and more than 1 billion people who speak Mandarin. “Alibaba seems to have strong connections with the immigrant population,” said David Lee, executive director of the Chinese American Voters Education Committee in San Francisco. “It makes sense to go after this market.” Targeting this group is a strategy others are already using. Xiaomi Corp., which toppled Samsung Electronics Co. last quarter to lead smartphone sales in China, is targeting overseas Chinese to lead its global expansion as it starts sales in Singapore, Indonesia, Thailand and India.
Alibaba Sees Mobile Games as Latest Trove – WSJ but does Alibaba have a mobile platform through which to promote? // To woo game makers quickly to its mobile platforms, Alibaba is letting them pocket 70% of the revenue generated by each game they supply—more than what many other game platforms offer. Tencent mobile-game executive Bo Wang said in a recent interview that the company’s revenue-sharing terms vary for different games, but declined to give specifics.
WeChat helps Apple rack up bonus points in China | Reuters A big part of WeChat’s success has been with casual games – highly addictive hits like Candy Crush Saga and Temple Run that are often free to download but let users pay for in-game upgrades. WeChat has its own stable of games, and also publishes Candy Crush in China. Games integrated with WeChat and Tencent’s other mobile social network, Mobile QQ, generated revenues of 3 billion yuan ($489 million) for Tencent in April-June, up from around 1.8 billion yuan in January-March.
SOCIETY, ART, SPORTS, CULTURE AND HISTORY
College Consultant ThinkTank Guarantees Admission for Hefty Price – Businessweek After signing an agreement in May 2012, the family wired Ma $700,000 over the next five months—before the boy had even applied to college. The contract set out incentives that would pay Ma as much as $1.1 million if the son got into the No. 1 school in U.S. News’ 2012 rankings. (Harvard and Princeton were tied at the time.) Ma would get nothing, however, if the boy achieved a 3.0 GPA and a 1600 SAT score and still wasn’t accepted at a top-100 college. For admission to a school ranked 81 to 100, Ma would get to keep $300,000; schools ranked 51 to 80 would let Ma hang on to $400,000; and for a top-50 admission, Ma’s payoff started at $600,000, climbing $10,000 for every rung up the ladder to No. 1.
革新中国传统历史观-资中筠 2014年第7期 炎黄春秋杂志 改革开放之初，我首次作为访问学者访美，
女性遇害案增多与关闭快播有关？人民日报驳斥“完全错误”_
习近平：我很不赞成从课本中去掉古代经典诗词(图)_凤凰资讯
ENERGY, ENVIRONMENT, SCIENCE AND HEALTH
Warnings for Mekong and Chao Phraya – The Nation THAI authorities have put people living along the Mekong River on high alert because a dam in Yunnan province in southern China needs to release a huge volume of water soon due to heavy rainfall upstream. “If the discharge from China’s Jinghong Dam reaches 8,000-9,000 cubic metres per second, the water level will increase by about three metres (within days),” Songklod Duanghaklang, director of the Chiang Rai Marine Office, said yesterday.
Quenching Beijing’s thirst may stunt regional growth | Reuters The $62 billion South-North Water Transfer Project is one of the world’s biggest infrastructure projects. Starting in October, stage two will see a massive 9.5 billion cubic meters of water per year pumped through 1,500 kms (932 miles) of canals and pipes from the Danjiangkou reservoir in central Hubei province to the northern provinces of Henan and Hebei and to Beijing. The water project will provide more than a third of Beijing’s water supply.
Dyslexia in Chinese: Disability of a different character | The Economist Until recently it was assumed that dyslexia had a universal biological origin, whatever language a person was reading. But being dyslexic in Chinese is not the same as being dyslexic in English, according to Wai Ting Siok of Hong Kong University. Her team’s MRI studies showed that dyslexia among users of alphabetic scripts such as English and of logographic ones such as Chinese was associated with different parts of the brain, just as different parts of the brain were involved in reading the two types of language. Chinese reading uses more of a frontal part of the left hemisphere of the brain (called the left middle frontal region), whereas reading languages with an alphabet uses a posterior part of the brain (the left temporoparietal region).
BEIJING
Gov’t Again Cracks Down on Schools for Migrant Workers’ Children – Caixin Many budget kindergartens in rural Beijing mostly catering to the children of migrant workers were ordered to close ahead of the new school year, with some citing safety concerns, but once again local governments did not tell parents how else to educate their offspring. Teachers and administrators at the schools said they started receiving notices from local governments in May requiring them to close. Some have followed the order, but others were defying it.