"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
Rule of law elusive as Beijing adds topic to leaders’ agenda $$ – FT.com Even if there are few concrete measures this week, some observers see the fact the topic is up for discussion at all as a sign of progress. “I have no big hope for this meeting, but you have to remember that even repeating the old political slogans is quite significant,” says Lin Zhe, a professor specialising in anti-corruption at the Communist party’s main school for training leaders and future leaders. “By repeating these slogans again and again it shows they weren’t able to solve the problem in the past but it also shows they at least know there is still a problem.”
Related: China must chart own course to rule of law – Global Times The ongoing Fourth Plenary Session of the 18th Central Committee of the Communist Party of China (CPC) will deliberate and pass the decision on major issues concerning comprehensively advancing the rule of law. Global public opinion has paid much attention to the plenum, mirroring the extraordinary significance of it. But noticeably, mainstream Western media have questioned whether the Party or the law is paramount in China. This may lead to the meeting being misread. In their analyses, the leadership of the CPC and the rule of law are contradictory. Such stereotyped political logic of the West has long affected part of China. These misperceptions must be swept away. Official documents such as the report to the 18th National Congress of the CPC and leaders’ speeches in recent years have repeatedly cast light on the combination of the CPC’s leadership, the position of the people as masters of the country and the rule of law. This emphasizes that “the Party should lead legislation, ensure law enforcement and set an example by abiding by the law.” // the original Chinese version 社评：推进依法治国莫受西方舆论干扰
Related: Why Even Minor Legal Reforms Are Important in China – China Real Time Report – WSJ A four-day meeting of the Chinese Communist Party’s Central Committee scheduled to begin in Beijing on Monday has as its central theme “governing the country according to law.” Major changes to the party’s control over the legal system have always been unlikely. They are even less likely now, following protests in Hong Kong and violence in the northwestern territory of Xinjiang. Nevertheless, there are certain steps the party-state can take with regard to law that can help it improve its legitimacy without giving up ultimate control.
Related: ‘Rule of Law’ or ‘Rule by Law’? In China, a Preposition Makes All the Difference – China Real Time Report – WSJ The thrust of this week’s plenum, scholars say, is probably most accurately reflected in a longer phrase official media have used to describe the agenda: 依法治国, or “ruling the country according to law.” That more obviously Legalist formulation dovetails with the nature of the proposed judicial reforms, which aim to give courts independence from local government but still keep them within the cage of Communist Party control. Mr. Delury is not alone in thinking state media may be intentionally trying to send a different message to foreign readers. “My strong hunch is that official Xinhua translators are savvy about this of/by distinction, and the choice of ‘rule of law’ is a deliberate and careful choice,” Mr. Moser says. “Most foreign readers are probably unaware of the preposition distinction, but for the few sensitive to it, ‘of’ sends the right message.”
Related: Strengthening the rule of law will be a long journey | South China Morning Post Following the plenum, the authorities are expected to speed up efforts to curb officials’ meddling in judicial decisions by having local courts report to more senior judicial bodies instead of to local governments, and by recruiting a greater number of legal professionals to the judiciary. The main takeaway from the meeting should be the further consolidation of “recentralising power” away from the local authorities – a process started by Xi as soon as he came to power nearly two years ago. For the pessimists, recentralisation is simply part of Xi’s plans to consolidate his power and strengthen the rule of the Communist Party.
Related: Rule of law and rule by party can coexist, party scholar says | South China Morning Post The rule of law does not conflict with the Communist Party’s rule because the country’s legal system was established by the ruling party, a mainland scholar says. Central Party School professor Xie Chuntao delivered the assessment yesterday as the party started its fourth plenum
China’s Economy Grows More-Than-Estimated 7.3% in Third Quarter – Bloomberg Gross domestic product rose 7.3 percent in the July-September period from a year earlier, the statistics bureau said today in Beijing, compared with the 7.2 percent median estimate in a Bloomberg News survey of analysts. September industrial production also exceeded projections.
Hong Kong Leader Reaffirms Tough Stance on Elections and Economic Discontent – NYTimes.com He spoke on the eve of talks, scheduled to be televised, between his government and student leaders, who have portrayed him as defending a political system stacked against ordinary citizens. Mr. Leung said that if “you look at the meaning of the words ‘broadly representative,’ it’s not numeric representation.” “You have to take care of all the sectors in Hong Kong as much as you can,” he said, “and if it’s entirely a numbers game and numeric representation, then obviously you would be talking to half of the people in Hong Kong who earn less than $1,800 a month.” “Then you would end up with that kind of politics and policies,” he continued. // once those people would have been the CPC’s core constituency…
Related: Hong Kong ‘lucky’ China has not stopped protests, says CY Leung $$ – FT.com “We’d like to listen to the students as to what they have on their minds, and what their proposals are,” said Mr Leung at his official residence. “We are all ears.” Mr Leung said that the make-up of the nomination committee – due to be decided during a round of public consultations later this year – might offer some room for manoeuvre in striking an agreement with the students. The current plan would use the 1,200-member election committee that chose Mr Leung in 2012 as a template.
Related: Hong Kong’s High Court orders protesters off roads in Mong Kok and Admiralty | South China Morning Post The High Court yesterday ordered pro-democracy protesters to leave main roads in Admiralty and Mong Kok immediately, as top officials and student leaders explored ways to make progress in talks on political reform, due to begin today. A government source said the administration had recognised it was unrealistic to try to disperse protesters by force and expected the demonstrations that have paralysed parts of the city since late last month could continue for at least another month.
China collecting Apple iCloud data; attack coincides with launch of new iPhone | GreatFire.org This is clearly a malicious attack on Apple in an effort to gain access to usernames and passwords and consequently all data stored on iCloud such as iMessages, photos, contacts, etc. Unlike the recent attack on Google, this attack is nationwide and coincides with the launch today in China of the newest iPhone. While the attacks on Google and Yahoo enabled the authorities to snoop on what information Chinese were accessing on those two platforms, the Apple attack is different. If users ignored the security warning and clicked through to the Apple site and entered their username and password, this information has now been compromised by the Chinese authorities. Many Apple customers use iCloud to store their personal information, including iMessages, photos and contacts. This may also somehow be related again to images and videos of the Hong Kong protests being shared on the mainland // this morning I updated iOS to 8.1. Apple servers wouldn’t verify update until my VPN, w a non-China IP address, was turned on. Is that a security measure, or an anomaly?
(1)周小平：我待祖国如暖男_周小平同志_新浪博客 late
Silver Screen Industry Strikes Investor Gold – Caixin Chinese movie fans are paying more money than ever to watch their favorite stars on the silver screen. Nationwide box office sales in 2013 exceeded 20 billion yuan – double the 2010 total, according to the State Administration of Press, Publication, Radio, Film and Television. Many in the industry are predicting annual ticket sales will hit the 1 trillion yuan mark within a few years.
Facebook CEO Joins Board of Beijing Business School – Bloomberg in its long march to finding a way to set up operations in China, Facebook should consider copying Amway’s program with Harvard and the CPC Organization Department, but do it in Silicon Valley, perhaps with with Stanford, and focus on “innovation” // Facebook Inc. (FB) Chief Executive Officer Mark Zuckerberg is joining the board of a Beijing business school, as his company takes steps to increase its influence in China. Zuckerberg is becoming a member of the advisory board of Tsinghua University School of Economics and Management, alongside International Business Machines Corp. CEO Ginni Rometty and Anheuser-Busch InBev NV CEO Carlos Brito, the school said in a statement. The board meets this week.
【特稿】吕梁的黑金十二年_政经频道_财新网 Caixin on Lvliang, Shanxi and its 12 year “black gold” [coal] boom // 过去的12年，是吕梁因煤而勃兴的12年，
BUSINESS, ECONOMY AND TRADE
Why China May Avoid a U.S.-Style Property Crash – China Real Time Report – WSJ China’s housing sector is in terrible shape, says a new report by Goldman Sachs GS +2.51%. But even if the market were to collapse, the consequences may not be as bad as they were for housing busts in the U.S. and Japan.
经济参考网 – 超140县推农地确权颁证试点 颁证后的承包年限成技术难题，中央提出要抓紧论证早日破题
Market mayhem globally, Credit kleptocracy in China | George Magnus on Anderson of EM Advisors Group has a fascinating report out (subscriber only) in which he develops a particular theme about the credit boom that leads to the conclusion that enormous amounts of loans have been made to agents and entities that haven’t spent the proceeds. Jon’s best explanation? A massive money laundering scheme in which funds have been, in effect, stolen. He has allowed me to summarise his argument, and, whatever we may think, it’s worth thinking about (some additional comments of mine in italics). He concludes that the downswing in credit expansion has to be allowed to continue, and probably will, but the impact of unwinding a ‘virtual’ credit boom on the real economy will be limited, while the impact on banks is significant.
China Growth Seen Slowing Sharply Over Decade – WSJ – WSJ PDF of report // Nicholas Lardy, a China expert at the Peterson Institute for International Economics, said the Conference Board conclusions are too gloomy. “China is far from exhausting productivity gains,” he said. It would get a big lift, for instance, from opening for competition the oil, gas and other sectors dominated now by China’s big state-owned firms, he said. The International Monetary Fund and World Bank also expect China’s economy to slow over the coming years, but at a more modest clip. The Conference Board forecasts are “eye-popping,” said David Dollar, a China scholar at the Brookings Institution who formerly ran the World Bank’s office in China. He called the report “a pessimistic take on whether China will aggressively pursue structural reforms.”
The Chinese Housing Market | The View from the Bottom A demand problem makes a Giffen good problem. When homebuilders need to raise cash to pay their debts, they do what every business does– liquidate inventory by cutting price. The problem with homes is that meaningfully lowering the price in turn lowers demand. This is painful. My inbox is filled with research analyst reports from around the world projecting that price cuts will sell housing inventory and raise cash – stabilizing troubled homebuilders. It never happens. So what China is going through now, as lower prices beget lower demand, is not unique and is to be expected. The land aspect of housing is where China gets interesting because individuals in China cannot own land; only the government can own land.
China Nears Deal with Mexico to Export Bullet Trains for First Time – Caixin The consortium consists of four Mexican firms and four Chinese companies: China Railway Construction Corp. Ltd., China Railway International Group, China Railway Construction Corp. (Mexico) S.A. de C.V. and CSR Corp. Ltd. The latter is one of the country’s largest makers of railroad equipment. The consortium presented US$ 4.3 billion plan to build high-speed passenger trains and a 210 kilometer line linking Mexico City and the central city of Queretaro, Mexico’s ministry of transport said. The trains would be built in China.
China Said to Appoint Central Bank Official Liu as AgBank Chief – Bloomberg China appointed Liu Shiyu, a deputy governor of the central bank, as head of Agricultural Bank of China Ltd., the nation’s third-biggest lender, a person familiar with the matter said. Agricultural Bank may make an announcement as soon as today, said the person, who asked not to be identified as he’s not authorized to speak publicly.
Shorter wait: China’s M&A watchdog halves time taken to approve deals | Reuters But the introduction of a new procedure in April for what MOFCOM describes as “simple cases” has nearly halved the length of time it takes to win clearance. Lawyers say the move is part of a broader strategy to increase efficiency at the resource-strapped regulator and to help improve its professional image. This month, MOFCOM also published its most comprehensive data set yet tracking both transaction filing and approval dates. Lawyers say it is a milestone for the agency, which has become notorious for its opacity.
China Economic Watch | Is China Unwinding its Foreign Exchange Reserves? Not Just Yet This has led many to question whether China is experiencing a large capital outflow, or whether China is starting to sell their large holdings of US debt. However, if the change in reserves is adjusted for movements in the major reserve currencies, the change in reserves is flat. Exhibit 1 shows the monthly rolling 3-month change in headline reserves versus the figure adjusted for currency movements.
POLITICS AND LAW
Ten arts one-liners from “Big Daddy Xi” – China Media Project readers can also turn to Chinese state media, which have compiled a list of “10 Arts One-Liners From Big Daddy Xi” (习大大的10句文艺妙语) which conveys some of the key points in Xi’s address to the recent symposium. We’ve included a translated version along with the original below: // interesting, though 习大大 should not be translated as daddy or big daddy xi…it really means uncle, 伯父
China likely will never open all files on painful past, official says | Reuters Xie Chuntao, Director of the Party History Teaching and Research Department of the Party School, which trains rising officials, said the party had reflected deeply on its mistakes. But former paramount leader Deng Xiaoping’s conclusion that Mao made mistakes remains the correct way to broadly view the period, Xie told a news conference. “I believe this summation is still, to this day, authoritative and has withstood the test of time,” he said, in rare public comments by a party official on the country’s fractious communist past. The mistakes of the party’s past are still being learned today by its members, and he himself teaches his students about the Great Leap Forward, Xie added.
云南晋宁惨案背后:超2500万征地补偿款去向不明_
带血的土地_高清图集_新浪网 slideshow of Jinning, Kunming in wake of recent clash over land
地方债务纳入政绩考核样本 防止违规和过度举债-新闻频道-和讯网 local debt levels to be included in cadre evaluations // 广西、辽宁等地探索将地方债纳入政绩考核之后，
遏制“人肉搜索”不影响网络反腐|网络|司法解释_凤凰资讯 “
FOREIGN AND DEFENSE AFFAIRS
China’s strategic presence in Central Asia | China in Central Asia Overall, China will continue to cement its economic investment and security cooperation with Central Asia. In doing so, it may use its economic leverage to influence security policy in the region. With the NATO drawdown looming, it will need to assist its Central Asian neighbours to ensure the internal stability and border security that China itself needs for Xinjiang. Furthermore, it may have to take a more active role mediating disputes in Central Asia itself. Some of the more ambitious infrastructure projects that China is planning have met with huge opposition from neighbours, such as Kyrgyzstan’s resistance to a railway line planned from Kashgar in Xinjiang to Uzbekistan. With Central Asia being integral to China’s strategic policy embodied in the Silk Road Economic Belt, Beijing may well find itself rethinking its official position of non-interference to achieve such a policy
FBI — NOAA National Weather Service Employee Indicted for Allegedly Downloading Restricted Government Files Xiafen “Sherry” Chen, 59, of Wilmington, Ohio, was indicted in U.S. District Court for allegedly accessing restricted U.S. Government files. Chen is a hydrologist currently employed at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s (NOAA) facility located in Wilmington, Ohio. Carter M. Stewart, United States Attorney for the Southern District of Ohio, Kevin R. Cornelius, Special Agent in Charge for the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) in Cincinnati, Ohio, Dr. Kathryn Sullivan, the NOAA Administrator and George Lee, Special Agent in Charge of the U.S. Department of Commerce’s Investigations and Threat Management Division announced the indictment today. The indictment alleges that on various dates in May 2012, Chen illegally accessed restricted areas of a protected U.S. Government computer database and downloaded sensitive files from the National Inventory of Dams. This database is maintained and controlled by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers in conjunction with the National Dam Safety Review Board.
Vietnam Plans Hotline to China to Manage Tensions – WSJ – WSJ only useful if someone answers when there is a problem // Vietnam said that it and China have agreed to set up an emergency hotline between their defense ministries to help resolve disputes, as the neighbors struggle to manage increasingly tense disputes over the South China Sea.
Britain is a world leader in exporting creeps » Spectator Blogs Not to be outdone, British leftists are back, bending the knee this time to Communist China. Chinese liberals call them ‘the panda huggers’: Western intellectuals, who tell Chinese people how lucky they are to live under communist rule. The independent Chinese news service Beijing Cream has passed me the details of the latest tourist to fly in and flatter his hosts. The full story is on its site but briefly, you may remember John Ross, from Socialist Action, a Trotskyist entryist group into the Labour Party. If you do not remember him, your taxes still paid for him. Ken Livingstone hired Socialist Action activists on six-figure salaries because he knew they would be loyal to him in all circumstances: cultishness and subservience to the leader being natural bedfellows. Ross and the rest of the clique went on to take redundancy of around £200,000 a head from the London taxpayers when the voters threw out Livingstone in 2008.
China, Russia held anti-terror drill – Xinhua Chinese and Russian police held a anti-terror drill on Monday in north China’s Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, to boost coordinated ability to fight terrorism in the border region. Held in Manzhouli city by China’s Inner Mongolia and Russia’s border city of Zabaikalsk police forces, the drill involves planning hostage rescues and physical competitions between both squads, according to Chinese police.
HONG KONG, MACAO AND TAIWAN
Website won’t delete posts targeting cops-EJInsight A Hong Kong website said it will not stop online posts after a man was arrested for inciting protesters to retake Mong Kok district in an internet discussion forum. Joe Lam, chief executive of HKGolden.com, said he is not in a position to determine their legality, so he would not delete them, am730 reported Monday. On Saturday, a 23-year-old man was arrested after urging people in an HKGolden.com post to re-occupy Mong Kok hours after police cleared it.
TECH AND MEDIA
Years Later, CCTV May Finally Be Moving Into Its Headquarters – China Real Time Report – WSJ CCTV is considered the most important arm of the Chinese government’s propaganda apparatus. Its flagship 7 p.m. Chinese news program, “Xinwen Lianbo,” is seen by hundreds of millions of viewers each day. Still, employees say the bulk of CCTV’s programming, including all its news operations, remain at its aging headquarters across town on Beijing’s west side. If CCTV International successfully moves into the new headquarters, it could mark a turning point for the building, whose floors remain mostly empty, employees say. Although a handful of departments have moved in–such as the station’s Spanish, French, sports and culture teams–many pre-tape their shows and send them back to the old headquarters for broadcast, employees say.
China Mobile Posts Fifth Straight Profit Drop on Costs – Bloomberg Net income fell 12 percent to 24.9 billion yuan ($4.1 billion) in the third quarter, according to figures derived from nine-month results the Beijing-based company reported yesterday. That missed the 26 billion-yuan median of four analyst estimates compiled by Bloomberg. Rising costs to roll out its fourth-generation network, which added 11.4 million users in September, are causing analysts to estimate net income will drop about 10 percent this year, the biggest fall since 1999. Chief Executive Officer Li Yue is cutting $2 billion in smartphone subsidies after the government ordered carriers in July to reduce such spending to boost profit
习近平文艺座谈握手冯小刚：你有什么大作？-搜狐新闻 Feng Xiaogang tells Xi Jinping he is working on a new movie–“War to Resist U.S. Aggression and Aid Korea”. Maybe Lang Lang can play the soundtrack // 总书记握手的时候问冯小刚，
北平无战事_百度百科 enjoying the miniseries “All Quiet in Peking” // 1948年，国共两党已届决战，国统区经济全面崩溃。
Apple’s China sales dropped 3% sequentially, grew just 1% Y/Y new iPhones not released in China in this latest quarter…going to need a huge iPhone 6 boost to grow again. Sounds very possible, though some of the China demand may have shifted to other markets with the delay in the China release. Apple’s challenge is that is already so big in China it needs huge absolute sales increases to move the growth needle
Sticker Shock Doesn’t Stop the Chinese From Buying iPhones – Bloomberg The iPhone 6 goes for 5,288 yuan ($864) at the Apple Store. That’s a pricey phone no matter where you’re from, but especially in China, where the most popular Xiaomi smartphones go for about a third of the price. Yet, the Chinese are buying iPhones. Last quarter, iPhone sales to customers were up 32 percent in Greater China compared with the same period last year, and that’s without a new phone release during the quarter. (The iPhone 6 just came out in China on Friday.) “When I look at China, I see an enormous market where there are more people graduating into the middle class than any nation on Earth in history, and just an incredible market where people want the latest technology and products that we’re providing,” Cook said on the call. “So we’re investing like crazy in the market.”
SOCIETY, ART, SPORTS, CULTURE AND HISTORY
Famed US-born translator and Chinese citizen, dies aged 98 | Reuters Shapiro was born in New York in 1915 and first came to China in 1947, having been selected by the U.S. army to learn Chinese during World War Two. He married a Chinese actress who was a supporter of the Communist Party, which at the time was fighting a civil war with the Nationalists, and did not visit the United States again until 1971. He remained in China after the Communist revolution in 1949, when many Western foreigners left, and became a Chinese citizen in 1963 – an honour reserved only for a select few foreigners judged to have performed special services for China.
Chinese pianist Lang Lang, sting to perform at UN Day concert – Xinhua Chinese pianist Lang Lang, who is also United Nations Messenger of Peace, will perform in a concert at the UN Headquarters Friday in celebration of UN Day. He will be joined by Grammy Award-winning musician Sting and an international youth orchestra conducted by Manuel Lopez-Gomez, a UN spokesman announced here Monday.
Ceramics database launched to help regulate art market – Xinhua Jointly built by Chinese art works authentication recording center under the Copyright Society of China and Jiangxi entry-exit inspection and quarantine bureau, the database has collected such information as the microscopic structure, chemical constitution, physical performance, and three-dimensional pictures of different ceramic crafts. Art collectors and appraisers can log on the database’s website www.ccloudb.com for reference when trying to identify the authenticity of a ceramic work.
ENERGY, ENVIRONMENT, SCIENCE AND HEALTH
China unveils rule to curb research funds misuse – Xinhua China will reform state research fund management, delegating power to independent institutes in a bid to curb academic corruption and sharpen innovation. The government will no longer be in direct charge of research projects. Instead, professional institutes will manage state funding in a transparent manner, according to a new rule that will be unveiled soon by the ministries of science and technology, and finance. China already has such agencies, including the National Natural Science Foundation that was established in 1980s, said Zhao Lu with the Ministry of Finance. He said more professional institutes will be set up.
China gets ready for Ebola – Xinhua Hospitals designated to treat Ebola cases should secure supplies of apparatus, medicines, disinfectants and protective gear for necessary treatment as well as ambulances for patient transfers, the National Health and Family Planning Commission said in a statement. Hospitals were urged to map out detailed work flows to guide medical workers as emergency responses to the virus, it said, stressing effective quarantine measures and safe disposals of medical wastes.
Mass. General in preliminary talks with two partners to build full-service hospital in China – Metro – The Boston Globe Massachusetts General Hospital is in early discussions with two partners to build a full-service hospital with 500 to 1,000 beds in China, a country that is struggling to meet growing demand from its 1.4 billion citizens for top-quality medical care. Mass. General signed a “framework agreement’’ last week with a Chinese hospital that specializes in traditional medicine and a Chinese investment firm, allowing the three parties to exchange financial information and work on developing a definitive agreement to open a facility in an island city close to Hong Kong.
BEIJING
北京明年将丧葬补助纳入养老保险 每人5000元_网易新闻中心 晨报讯 市人力社保局昨日发布《
单价600万红旗车承担APEC礼宾接待_网易新闻 cars for APEC leaders next month include several 6m RMB Red Flag Limos…slideshow // 2014年10月20日，