"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
Majority in China expect war with Japan – FT.com The Genron/China Daily survey (pdf) found that 53 per cent of Chinese respondents – and 29 per cent of the Japanese polled – expect their nations to go to war. The poll was released ahead of the second anniversary of Japan’s move to nationalise some of the contested Senkaku Islands in the East China Sea.
Related: Japanese People Hate China More Than Ever – China Real Time Report – WSJ People in Japan overwhelmingly have a poor opinion of China and vice versa, according to new polls, although Chinese views of Japan have become slightly less chilly. The percentage of Japanese respondents who said they had a negative impression of China increased to 93% from 90% a year earlier, according to a poll by Genron NPO, a Tokyo-based nonprofit group. In a parallel poll conducted by China Daily, 87% of respondents said they had an unfavorable impression of Japan, a slight improvement from last year’s record high of 93%.
Lu Wei: China’s Internet “orderly management.” – WantiNews rough translation of SIIO head Lu Wei’s Tianjin Davos comments…here are his comments in Chinese 鲁炜：互联网治理要“多边、民主、透明” Lu’s comments a reiteration of the Chinese view of developing the global Internet that Beijing is increasing trying to sell overseas, and is getting interest // Lu Wei, director of China’s State Internet Information Office, said on the 10th in Tianjin, China’s Internet management and orderly Internet space governance is the most important common ground, should follow the ‘multilateral, democratic transparent ‘criteria. In the 2014 Summer Davos Forum, Lu Wei said that the spread of information on the Internet has no boundaries, but the management of the Internet there is a territory In the ‘network economy in the future,’ the sub-forum, the moderator will Lu Wei called ‘China CEO ‘of the Internet.
Related: China Internet Regulator to Qualcomm: ‘We Should Make Money Together’ – WSJ China’s top Internet regulator publicly challenged the president of Qualcomm Inc., saying half the company’s revenue comes from China and that “we should make money together.” The comments Wednesday from Lu Wei, China’s minister of cyberspace affairs, come amid an investigation into the U.S. chip maker by Chinese antimonopoly officials. Qualcomm has said it is cooperating. // “minister of cyberspace affairs”, don’t believe that is an official title, even though ICANN used it. Lu Wei is head of the State Internet Information Office (SIIO) and the office of the Internet Security and Informatization Leading Group. Regardless he is without a doubt the leading day-to-day regulator of the Internet now…
21世纪网涉严重经济犯罪：“保护费”伤害了谁_新闻_腾讯网
China asserts paternal rights over Hong Kong in democracy clash | Reuters After the formal smiles and handshakes with Zhang Xiaoming, the head of China’s Liaison Office in Hong Kong, the mood soured. Pro-democracy lawmaker Leung Yiu-chung asked Zhang whether Beijing would allow any democrat to run for the city’s highest office. Zhang, 51, dressed in a black suit and a navy blue striped tie, delivered a blunt response. “The fact that you are allowed to stay alive, already shows the country’s inclusiveness,” he answered, according to two people in the room who declined to be named. Zhang’s office did not respond to several faxed requests for comment.
Chinese Rejecting Hong Kong Stocks as Link Startup Looms – Bloomberg Jiang’s misgivings provide a look into why 77 percent of mainland investors surveyed by CLSA Ltd. last month said they won’t participate in a planned exchange link between Shanghai and Hong Kong. Their lack of interest contrasts with Hong Kong traders’ growing appetite for mainland stocks, which are luring record inflows through exchange-traded funds.
Related: 5 Things: Stock Trading Between Shanghai, Hong Kong – WSJ Shanghai and Hong Kong are in the midst of a vast project to link up trading on their stock exchanges. Here’s a guide to what it could mean for investors inside and outside China.
Release of iPhone 6 Delayed in China – NYTimes.com On Wednesday, Apple told China’s three big state-owned mobile service providers that it would not release the iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus in mainland China on Sept. 19, when sales start elsewhere. The carriers had already booked advertising campaigns for the phones. The move set off consternation among Apple’s partners in China, as well as with consumers who had been eagerly awaiting the introductions. Apple did not explain the delay, executives at the carriers said, but it appeared the phones had not received approval from Chinese regulators to go on sale.
Related: iPhone6 NFC支付或将与银联合作_金融频道_财新网 Caixin reports that Apple is working with UnionPay to bring Apple Pay to china // 据财新记者了解，中国银联也将和苹果公司合作，
[视频]北京：教改新政缓解择校热_新闻频道_央视网(
Riding Beijing’s subway end to end: 88km of queues and crushes on a 20p ticket | Cities | The Guardian Beijing’s metro system has already grown bigger than the London Underground – and by 2020 it will more than double in size again. Tania Branigan takes its longest journey to see how the city is coping with such staggering growth // you can’t visit Beijing without taking a ride on the subway at rush hour
BUSINESS, ECONOMY AND TRADE
新预算法 搭建现代财政制度框架–时政–人民网 Minister of Finance Lou Jiwei discusses the new budget in an interview on p6 of Thursday’s People’s Daily // 为体现对地方政府债务的从严控制和管理，规范地方政府举债行为，
Li Keqiang’s speech at Summer Davos opening ceremony — full text – Xinhua Creating New Dynamism Through Reform and Innovation Address at the World Economic Forum Annual Meeting of the New Champions 2014
Chinese Law Prof Blog-US Chamber of Commerce releases report on (actually, indictment of) Chinese competition law enforcement I just finished reading the U.S. Chamber of Commerce’s indictment of Chinese antitrust enforcement that was made public yesterday. [Text | NY Times story] It’s very well done – quite detailed and terrifically sourced. My congratulations to the anonymous authors for great research. The main complaint is twofold: First, that what I have called “enforcement” isn’t really enforcement of law as such; it’s more in the nature of case-by-case extortion having very little to do with whether laws were actually violated. After all, if that were the concern, why is the National Development and Reform Commission (which seems to be the main culprit here) warning targets that they had better just do what they’re told and not call in their lawyers? Second, that “enforcement” is biased against foreigners
Shenzhen’s Qianhai Zone Joins Overseas E-Commerce Pilot – Caixin The Qianhai special economic zone in the southern city of Shenzhen has allowed qualified e-commerce companies to buy wholesale goods overseas, store them in bonded warehouses and delay making tariff payments until they are sold to retail customers. The September 9 move makes Shenzhen the seventh city to join the trial program, which allows domestic customers to shop on foreign websites and have their order shipped home under the customs’ supervision. The others are Shanghai, Hangzhou, Zhengzhou, Ningbo, Chongqing and Guangzhou.
Guest post: China’s problem is not property oversupply, but too few modern homes – beyondbrics – Blogs – FT.com a bit of a head scratcher…and what about affordability? // In reality, part of the increase in the permanent urban population over the past decade has been due to the expansion of towns and cities into rural areas. Arguably, this has not generated demand for urban houses given that these rural residents, who have been reclassified as urban, already have homes. Up to 30 per cent of the increase in the number of permanent urban households is due to this reclassification, according to academic studies. Even if this part of the urban population is excluded from our calculations, there are still only enough commodity houses for 39 per cent of the remaining households. Rafael Halpin is Head of Quantitative Research at FT Confidential, a research service at the Financial Times
China scraps demand for iron ore | Business Spectator China so far hasn’t recycled too many of its old cars, appliances or construction material for fresh use in steel, simply because it didn’t have many metallic objects idling around. But China’s breakneck growth in the past decade should mean more scrap is available. For instance, cars can be recycled 5 years to 10 years after production, says CLSA’s Ian Roper. So the vehicles purchased by consumers in the automotive buying boom that started in 2009 may soon make their way to steel furnaces. China last year boasted 127 million registered cars and trucks on its roads, from 27 million a decade ago, according to data provider CEIC. The new local supply of scrap is already making its presence felt in trade. Imports of iron-related scrap between January and July fell by nearly half from last year. And they are a fifth of the amount in 2009, when China needed all the steel it could get as the government sought to stimulate the economy.
For Alibaba’s Small Business Army, a Narrowing Path As Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba plans an initial public offering (IPO) on the New York Stock Exchange expected to raise approximately $20 billion as early as Sept. 18, celebration is surely in order for the company’s executives. But for millions of small entrepreneurs who’ve invested blood and sweat to build their business on Taobao, Alibaba’s consumer-to-consumer e-commerce platform, life has gotten harder, leading many to inflate sales, operate at a loss, or abandon the platform altogether. In that sense, Alibaba is increasingly a microcosm of modern Chinese development: the initial gold rush that has allowed a great number of enterprising upstarts to improve their stations in life has yielded to a game in which those with the most capital win.
Short-Seller Carson Block Says He’s Wary of Alibaba – NYTimes.com “If Alibaba wanted to defraud investors, it absolutely could,” Mr. Block, the founder of Muddy Waters Research, told an audience of accounting students and aspiring investors at Baruch College in Manhattan on Wednesday. // well, so could any company
经济参考网 – 多地或再掀自贸区申报潮 津粤有望率先突围，年底前敲定框架设计 Free Trade Zone rush is back
Tianhe Says E-Mail Hacked, Fends Off Fraud Allegations – Bloomberg Tianhe Chemicals Group Ltd. (1619), a Chinese company accused of fraud by a stock research firm connected to the Anonymous online hacking collective, said its e-mail system was broken in to. Tianhe discovered yesterday that the system had been hacked, it said in a statement after the close of trading. The Jinzhou, Liaoning-based company said the risk of communications being leaked prompted it to publish a point-by-point rebuttal of the allegations.
Is China’s ‘State Capitalism’ Dead? Another View – China Real Time Report – WSJ other China hands say, no way. China’s government and party still play a huge role in the economy, they say, as exemplified by the important role of state-owned firms. The Lardy book is bound to open a debate on how much China’s economy has changed. American Enterprise Institute scholar Derek Scissors takes a first crack at this important issue as Mr. Lardy is scheduled to unveil his book today at a Peterson Institute luncheon in Washington DC. Below is Mr. Scissors’s analysis.
Speculators Go Online Chasing Profits as Home Prices Drop – Bloomberg Deng and about 300 other investors bought a 14.9 million yuan townhouse in June in the southern Chinese city of Dongguan and sold it in August for 16 million yuan. The vehicle: a peer-to-peer lending and financing website called Tuandai, which is testing a crowdfunding product that meets developers’ desire to quicken sales by tapping demand for better returns. “Now I can tell people I once owned a townhouse, which I could never afford myself all my life,” Deng, an accountant at a technology company in Dongguan, said by phone. “We know that local governments have started loosening home-purchase restrictions. As soon as banks ease mortgage curbs, home prices will quickly rebound.” // what could go wrong?
Xiaomi Leads $37M Investment in Chinese Peer-to-peer Lending Site JimuBox – TechNode JimuBox (Jimu means building block in Chinese), an online peer-to-peer lending service, announced today it has raised US$37.19 million in Series B funding led by Xiaomi Corporation, the Chinese smart device and Internet service company, and Shunwei China Internet Fund, a venture capital fund co-founded by Xiaomi CEO and co-founder Lei Jun.
POLITICS AND LAW
银行官员遭亲属举报：全家双国籍 其女5个身份证_新闻_腾讯网 A senior official from the Longjiang Bank in Heilongjiang is under investigation after a relative rats him out to authorities, claiming among other things that his entire family has dual PRC-New Zealand citizenship and his daughter has 5 national IDs…wonder when he did to, or didnt do for, the relative // 昨天下午，中央纪委监察部网站发布消息称，
China’s Tough New Internet Rules Explained | ChinaFile – Hu Yong On August 7, the State Internet Information Office issued a new set of guidelines entitled “Provisional Regulations for the Development and Management of Instant Messaging Tools and Public Information Services.”..Let’s take a careful look at these new provisions and try our best to tease out all the implications.
Dalai Lama hints that he might not have a successor – WSJ Mr. Barnett said the Dalai Lama’s remarks appear to be an attempt “to put pressure on the Chinese to come to a resolution on the question of Tibet.” Mr. Barnett also said that if the Dalai Lama made a definitive statement ending the centuries-old tradition of having a Dalai Lama, it could put the Chinese in a difficult position. “If they defy the Dalai Lama’s pronouncement and declare a Dalai Lama, Tibetans won’t accept the person they appoint,” Mr. Barnett said. “And if they don’t appoint one, they will be seen as acting on the Dalai Lama’s authority, which they don’t want.”
A strong foundation for the roof of the world – The Hindu When asked about the Dalai Lama and prospects of talks with Tibetans living in India, Chinese officials normally follow a hard line by portraying the 14th spiritual leader of Tibetan Buddhists as being a “splittist,”and his supporters across the world as being secessionists, even “terrorists.” This is why the response of Wu Yingie, the second most important person in the Chinese communist party in the Tibetan Autonomous Region (TAR), came as a bolt from the blue. “Talks with the Dalai Lama are ongoing and smooth,” he told journalists from the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) countries visiting Tibet last month. “What we are discussing, however, is not Tibet’s future, but his own.” The remarks were significant for two reasons.
河南省农科院党委书记郭鹏亮接受组织调查——案件查处——
国资委巡视组：部分企业领导大办丧事收礼敛财_新闻_腾讯网 C
北京中秋节封存公车防私用 节前上交车钥匙_新闻_腾讯网 Beijing government ordered many official cars off the road over the Mid-Autumn Festival, forced drivers to hand over the keys, to prevent personal use // 新京报讯 （记者郭超 邓琦 温薷 李禹潼 吴振鹏）中秋假期三天，各区县、委办局接到了北京市政府“
央媒密集聚焦福利发放：重拳反腐之下哪些福利可以发_
FOREIGN AND DEFENSE AFFAIRS
China’s Island Factory-BBC lots of multimedia // New islands are being made in the disputed South China Sea by the might of the Chinese state. But a group of marooned Filipinos on a rusting wreck is trying to stand in the way.
Seabed move to hold China at bay – The Japan News Tuesday’s Cabinet decision on an ordinance to extend the country’s continental shelves in the Pacific Ocean is aimed at ensuring Japan’s maritime rights and interests through proper legal processes, and putting a brake on China’s provocative and aggressive maritime expansion. Abundant marine resources are believed to lie untapped under the seabed of continental shelves, prompting expectations that the resources could be used in the future.
Japan, U.S. discussing offensive military capability for Tokyo – Japan officials | Reuters Japan and the United States are exploring the possibility of Tokyo acquiring offensive weapons that would allow Japan to project power far beyond its borders, Japanese officials said, a move that would likely infuriate China. While Japan’s intensifying rivalry with China dominates the headlines, Tokyo’s focus would be the ability to take out North Korean missile bases, said three Japanese officials involved in the process.
China, Vietnam trade accusations over boats in disputed waters | Reuters China said on Wednesday that its forces had boarded a Vietnamese trawler last month in disputed waters in the South China Sea and confiscated explosives used for fishing, rejecting accusations from Vietnam that its ships had been attacked. ..Vietnam said two Chinese rubber dinghies took control of one Vietnamese fishing boat that was fishing near the Paracel islets, confiscating property. Chinese personnel “intruded and destroyed” the boat and beat up fishermen, the Vietnamese Foreign Ministry said in a statement on Tuesday.
China denies reports of pilots killed in J-15 tests – IHS Jane’s 360 In a report published on 7 September, People’s Daily journalist Yan Jiaqi quoted military sources as saying that the citations are incorrect and that the persons who died were not pilots in the carrier wing but “comrades” who died while working on the J-15 project. The report also emphasised that the deaths were not related to the carrier tests. However the paper has stopped short of elaborating on the fatalities. The report also partially blamed microblogging sites in China for proliferating what it calls the “inaccurate reports”.
[视频]张高丽会见美国得克萨斯州州长_新闻频道_央视网(
Xi pledges to boost China-Tajikistan ties, SCO development – Xinhua Xi made the pledge in an article published Wednesday in Tajikistan’s People’s Gazette newspaper on the eve of his trip to Tajikistan for an SCO summit and a state visit to the country. Tajikistan is an important neighbor of China and China attaches great importance to its ties with Tajikistan and regards the country as an important cooperation partner, Xi wrote. Xi expressed the hope that his visit will consolidate political mutual trust, deepen mutually beneficial cooperation in various fields, strengthen strategic coordination and collaboration, and carry forward China-Tajikistan relations. Tajikistan is an important country along the Silk Road, and the construction of the Silk Road Economic Belt initiated by China in September 2013 was received positively by various countries, including Tajikistan, Xi said.
On China-Kazakhstan Border Lies a Lopsided Free-Trade Zone | EurasiaNet.org On the Chinese side of the border, a four-story shopping mall offers Kazakhstani shoppers a stunning variety of duty-free goods—from iPhones to auto parts and children’s clothes. Visitors can stay in a well-appointed hotel and enjoy solicitous service at a number of Chinese banks. It’s a far different story on the Kazakhstani side of the free-trade zone, which both countries hail as indicative of burgeoning cooperation: Chinese tourists can buy some candy inside a metal shipping container. And that’s about it. The 528-hectare Khorgos International Center for Boundary Cooperation (ICBC) officially opened on a windswept patch of the Chinese-Kazakh border in December 2011.
China to replicate Shanghai Free Trade Zone in Gawadar Pak-China Joint Chamber of Commerce and Industry (PCJCCI) president Shah Faisal Afridi has said that China has planned to replicate the model of Shanghai free Trade Zone at Gawadar. He informed that under the Early Harvest Programme, China had planned to pump $50 billion up to 2017 into a host of projects in Gawadar including coal, solar and wind energy units enabling Gawadar to create a nexus between Pakistan, Iran, China and Central Asian States that would ultimately generate billions of dollars in revenues along with endurable job opportunities.
China’s space station to be established around 2022 – Xinhua Yang Liwei, also China’s first astronaut, said at a press conference of the annual meeting of the Association of Space Explorers that after the launch of the Tiangong-2 space lab around 2016, the Shenzhou-11 spacecraft and Tianzhou-1 cargo spacecraft will be launched to dock with it. Around 2018, a core experimental space module will be launched ahead of the space station being completed in around eight years’ time, according to Yang, who became China’s first astronaut in 2003, in the Shenzhou-5 manned space mission. A new launch center in the southernmost province of Hainan is almost completed and can already launch space vehicles, he added.
HONG KONG, MACAO AND TAIWAN
In Hong Kong, You Can Find a Home Where the Buffalo Roam – Bloomberg “The cow is very political,” said Ho Loy, a former thespian who now campaigns full-time for the buffalo of Lantau Island, site of the city’s Chek Lap Kok airport and Disneyland theme park. “It’s about development, about land rights, zoning, planning and animal policy.” Depending on your point of view, the bovine are either beloved emblems of a pastoral past or annoying traffic obstacles. For decades, herds of cows freed from shuttered farms prowled the fallow rice paddies and fields in the villages of both Lantau and the New Territories, the area bordering China.
TECH AND MEDIA
Canadian embassy’s social media ‘fans’ in China mostly zombies – The Globe and Mail “With Weibo, it seems to be institutionalized, with zombies being generated by the company itself rather than third-party scammers,” said Mark Rowswell, or Da Shan, a well-known Canadian entertainer in China. After building up a million followers, he noticed an odd pattern: He was getting a steady 2,000 to 3,000 new followers a day, regardless of whether he posted anything. Other top-tier bloggers have told him similar stories. “This isn’t about the embassy, it’s standard operating procedure at Sina. They ‘gift’ zombie followers to account holders that the company likes,” he said. “You can tell because minor users with very few followers suddenly are reposting your stuff with the exact same quirky and individualized comment.”
Yahoo’s Yang Is Back Playing Alibaba-Board Power Broker – Bloomberg Yang, 45, the onetime hotshot entrepreneur who co-founded Yahoo while at Stanford University with David Filo in 1994, is now putting his deep ties to China’s largest e-commerce provider and his considerable Silicon Valley Rolodex to work as Alibaba prepares to go public this month. The moves underscore Yang’s re-emergence after he stepped back from Internet pioneer Yahoo in 2012. The comeback is set to be cemented by Alibaba’s initial public offering, with the Hangzhou, China-based company saying in June that Yang will rejoin its board after the public-market debut.
For $390 you can illegally buy an elite university email account on China’s biggest online marketplace – Quartz A gas can full of snake bile, breast-milk soap, the head of Tom Cruise—those are just some of the odd things you can buy on Alibaba’s Taobao, China’s biggest consumer-to-consumer online marketplace. Add to that a fake or stolen university email addresses. In an investigation last week, IT security company Palo Alto Networks found email accounts from 42 universities for sale on Taobao, ranging from 0.98 yuan to 2,400 yuan ($0.16 to $390). What “.edu” accounts were up for grabs? The 19 US universities included many Ivy League colleges, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Duke, Stanford, as well as some less obvious choices to claim as one’s fake alma mater (e.g. University of California, Merced).
SOCIETY, ART, SPORTS, CULTURE AND HISTORY
Appreciating educators: An apple for teacher (but no iPads please) | The Economist Since Xi Jinping came to power, though, Teachers’ Day has been changing. Last year the government released a draft amendment proposing to shift the day to September 28th (widely held to be the birthdate of Confucius). In 2012 there was a crackdown on gift-giving at schools, part of the president’s anti-corruption campaign that has also put a brake on lavish banquets, solid gold mooncakes and the drinking of expensive liquor. A few days ago, the Ministry of Education accordingly took the opportunity to issue a ban on gift-giving and extravagance in all types of educational institutions. In previous years shopping sites sold Teachers’ Day gift cards with as much as 1,000 yuan ($160) on them. This year most of the advertised presents are small and cheap, such as a pen holder or a gold foil rose.
Freshmen of Beijing Dance Academy take military training – Xinhua for some reason this slideshow is almost entirely pictures of female students
人民日报评论：习近平批评去中国化是在批评谁_新闻_腾讯网 X
唐诗天空的日和月（观天下）|黄老|李白_凤凰财经 so far this Thursday morning this essay on a meeting between Tang poets Li Bai and Du Fu is the most read item on People’s Daily online paper site
Back to School, to New Marching Orders – NYTimes.com Some parents in Beijing have also been subjected to a surprising new regimen. This year, school officials said, the police demanded that every foreign child attending a state school have an independent student visa. Previously, minors were on their parents’ visas. The order arrived in late May, catching parents off guard. Obtaining a visa would require returning to the country of the child’s citizenship and applying at the nearest Chinese Embassy or consulate. But many families had already made vacation plans, and paid for them. // I have heard nothing about this for our kids who attend the international department of a local Beijing primary school. Hoping it is just for new students, guess we will find out soon
Sex in China: An Interview with Li Yinhe by Ian Johnson | NYRblog | The New York Review of Books But you don’t think that overall the status of women in China has declined since the economic reforms of the 1980s? There have been some losses but it’s not uniform. Women’s income has slid from 85 percent to 70 percent of men’s. Also, there are more women not working and a lot of companies don’t want women with children, and if women get pregnant they lose their jobs. But it’s not all negative. In the 1980s, for example, the ratio of women to men at university was one to three. Now it’s 51 percent women. In fact, some universities have had to reduce admission standards for men to maintain some sort of equality—because women study harder than men! If you look at the situation of women entrepreneurs, there’s been a big improvement. Some reports say that many of the world’s top self-made female entrepreneurs are Chinese. In the past, managers were all men.
ENERGY, ENVIRONMENT, SCIENCE AND HEALTH
Gov’t Moves to Separate Hospitals from Medicine Sales to Lower Costs – Caixin The government has published a notice saying it will try separating medical services and drug sales in pilot cities across the country, a move interpreted as an attempt to lower the high cost of medicines. The Ministry of Commerce published the notice on its website on September 9. It said it is working on the reform with several other government bodies, including the National Health and Family Planning Commission.
BEIJING
北京前8个月处分608名干部 涉及5名局级官员_网易新闻中心 Beijing Municipal Government says it has disciplined 608 officials from January- August this year…are all the detentions in the corruption crackdown getting reported?