"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
Pro-Democracy Movement’s Vote in Hong Kong Abruptly Called Off – NYTimes.com even before the cancellation, the vote, intended as a display of unity, had brought into focus tensions among protesters over how to hone their broadly shared aspirations into durable demands and strategies. Such strains could deepen as the protesters face fatigue in their own ranks and the refusal of the Hong Kong government and Chinese Communist Party leaders to make the major concessions demanded by demonstrators, said David Zweig, a professor of social science at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology.// probably not confidence-inspiring for Hong Kongers on the fence
Related: Obama’s Hong Kong quandary – Josh Gerstein – POLITICO.com the West Wing has been quiet on the issue in recent weeks, as officials prepare for Obama’s meetings in Beijing with President Xi Jinping on Nov. 12. And no one at the White House has come under intense questioning from the media about the volatile situation. No reporter appears to have raised the issue in the past three weeks at White House press briefings either in Washington or on the road.
Related: 占中分子获港美中心支持 16名核心策动者被赠iPhone6|占中|香港高等法院_
China’s Missing Exchange Link Leaves Traders in Limbo – Bloomberg HKEx is at the “completion stage” of preparation for the link, Li said in a conference call with reporters yesterday, declining to speculate on a timeframe for the start date. “While the market will always appreciate advance notice, which we will strive to give, I’m not at this point stipulating any particular days,” Li said. Authorities said in April they may make further announcements on timing, yet they haven’t given any more details beyond their original statement that the link would start in about six months
Japan Builds Response to Chinese Area-Denial Strategy | Defense News Japan’s response to Chinese anti-access/area-denial threats rest on three planks: increasingly large helicopter carriers, next-generation 3,300-ton Soryu-class submarines and new Aegis destroyers. This strategy is further enhanced by plans to deploy 20 Kawasaki P-1 maritime patrol aircraft as replacements for the P-3C, and upgraded SH-60K sub-hunting helicopters.
食客在中越边境吃珍稀野生动物 有公务车就餐_新闻_腾讯网 Disturbing pictures and video from a wild animal market on Yunnan-Vietnam border
Related: 公务员开公车吃猕猴?云南否认 Yunnan denies cadres used official vehicles to drive to this area, to eat Macaques, but admits the report of the border market for wild animals is accurate // 中国网10月27日讯 近日，
Using Cash and Pressure, China Builds Its Chip Industry – NYTimes China is playing catch-up with global rivals. Last year, the country imported $232 billion of semiconductor products, eclipsing even the amount spent on petroleum. To narrow the gap, Beijing is starting programs to increase investment by the state and to gain expertise from foreign chip companies. Experts say the chip industry is one focus of Chinese espionage efforts. There’s also new bureaucratic determination. Vice Premier Ma Kai is leading a task force charged with making the country’s chip industry a world leader by 2030.
国资改革领导机构已在酝酿_财经频道_一财网 new body to oversee State-owned Assets reform in the works reports China Business News [Correction from the email edition, which said “SOEs”] // 接 近官方人士上周末对《第一财经日报》记者证实，随着高层的推动，
Related: China’s Assault on Corruption Enters Executive Suite – WSJ – WSJ The decision, which is backed by President Xi Jinping , is expected to cap the salaries of top executives at less than 10 times the average earned by the companies’ employees and make the executives go through more rigorous performance evaluations, according to Chinese officials briefed on the plan. Top executives also would lose golf-club memberships, gym memberships, physical-therapy cards and other perks. “Unreasonably high and excessive incomes” by those in charge of major state companies must be regulated, Mr. Xi said at an August meeting of the party’s leading reform group.// what about the argument that these pay reductions are designed to encourage some of the SOE executive teams to want to reform so that they can no longer be classified as state-owned and then pay themselves more?
经济参考网 – 天津自贸区定位凸显自由贸易港 业内称，将区别于上海，突出区域性项目特色 Tianjin looks to be getting a Free Trade Zone, differentiation will be that it will be a “Free Trade Port” // 酝酿多时的天津自贸区方案呼之欲出。《经济参考报》记者获悉，
王荣：打造以法治为基础的现代市场经济体系–理论-人民网 S
BUSINESS, ECONOMY AND TRADE
China’s Fourth-Quarter Growth May Slow to 7.2%, PBOC’s Song Says – Bloomberg China’s economic growth will slow to 7.2 percent in the current quarter, down from the previous three months, as domestic demand weakens, said Song Guoqing, an academic member of the People’s Bank of China monetary policy advisory committee. The nation’s economy will probably expand 7.3 percent next year, Song said at a forum in Beijing on Oct. 25. That view contrasts with a prediction by Fan Jianping, chief economist at a state research institute, who said he expects 7 percent growth in 2015 unless the central government imposes stronger-than-expected stimulus measures.
Xinhua Insight: China’s legal renaissance sounds death knell for Guanxi About ten years ago, foreign business got their advice basically from one book, “One Billion Customers: Lessons From the Front Lines of Doing Business in China” by James McGregor. The bestseller, once the “bible” for anybody doing business in China, advised businessmen to pull whatever strings they could to evade local laws and regulations as “rule by law” instead of “rule of law” was the norm in a country obsessed by social connections. Applying McGregor’s dubious wisdom today could be fatally misleading.
Understanding Chinese cash flow statements | China Accounting Blog | Paul Gillis A short selling research group called Anonymous Analytics (AA) published a short report on Hong Kong listed Tianhe Chemicals Group Ltd (1619:HK) on September 2. Tianhe, listed only this past June, was the seventh company at-tacked by AA. While the people behind AA are not identified, I am told by a re-liable source that I know all of them, which suggests they are prominent shorts operating under a pen name.
Troubles in China Rattle Western Banks – WSJ – WSJ Typically, according to bankers, the due diligence applied by Western banks to Chinese borrowers includes site visits, meetings with personnel and an analysis of the company’s books. But even with this degree of scrutiny, problem loans are emerging. “It is very difficult to get a handle on the financials of a Chinese company,” said Kroll’s Ms. Ho. “If a bank wants to have a very black and white due diligence questionnaire, they will be hugely surprised and disappointed.” To be sure, banks are aware of the risks faced when lending in China.
American-Made Financial Repression by Andrew Sheng and Xiao Geng – Project Syndicate A generation of development economists owe Ronald McKinnon, who died earlier this month, a huge intellectual debt for his insight – introduced in his 1973 book Money and Capital in Economic Development – that governments that engage in financial repression (channeling funds toward themselves to reduce their debt) hamper financial development. Indeed, McKinnon provided the key to understanding why emerging economies’ financial sectors were underdeveloped. At the end of his life, McKinnon was working on a related – also potentially groundbreaking – concept: a dollar-renminbi standard. In his view, such a system would alleviate the financial repression and fragmentation that is undermining global financial stability and growth. The question is whether the powers that be – particularly in the United States, which has long benefited from the dollar’s global domination – would ever agree to such a cooperative system.
Bluescope warns on China steel demand | Business Spectator BlueScope Steel chief executive, Paul O’Malley, has warned China’s steel boom is over, with customers moving back to the US where energy costs are lower, The Australian Financial Review reports. “What we’re seeing on the ground is a significant reduction in confidence domestically within China as it pertains to building and construction, which is where a lot of steel goes,” Mr O’Malley said, according to the newspaper.
POLITICS AND LAW
Princeling Hu Deping to head up embattled liberal magazine Yanhuang Chunqiu | South China Morning Post An embattled liberal magazine’s hopes of survival have risen with the appointment of the son of former party general secretary Hu Yaobang as its new publisher. The appointment of Hu Deping to oversee outspoken political magazine Yanhuang Chunqiu was the publication’s first step to fend off official moves to threaten its independence, outgoing publisher Du Daozheng said yesterday. Du, 91, said that Lu De, son of late vice-premier Lu Dingyi would be the magazine’s new deputy publisher and legal representative. Du would become an “honorary publisher”.
曝令完成曾任职新华社 利用关系揽金_中国-多维新闻网 王诚的公开履历包括：
北大培训领导干部30天收19.8万 强调老领导授课_新闻_腾讯网 The Beijing News on how cadres and educational institutions are getting around the ban on them attending EMBA programs by setting up all sorts of expensive “training classes”
四川腐败窝案继续发酵，川投能源副总谢洪先被调查 _能见度_澎湃新闻-The Paper another well-known Sichuan businessman under investigation // 继刘汉、周滨、李春城等一批四川官员落马后，
【舒立观察】依法治国 宪法为基_新世纪周刊频道_财新网 Hu Shuli’s take on the 4th Plenum // 四中全会公报首提“宪法精神”，引人瞩目。宪法永恒不变的精神，
人民日报评论员：把党的领导贯彻到依法治国全过程–
习近平的一天如何度过_网易新闻中心 a look at a day in the life of Xi Jinping from a reporter who was around him for a day… // 今天推荐的文章来自《上海观察》，作者官锦台。
人民日报人民论坛：从“塌方式腐败”说起–观点–人民网
《中国文艺》 20141019 向经典致敬 本期致敬人物——歌唱家郭兰英_中国文艺_视频_央视网 CCT
永远的生命线——写在古田会议召开85周年之际–时政–
FOREIGN AND DEFENSE AFFAIRS
China to offer $82 million in fourth round of Ebola aid | Reuters China said on Friday it would donate 500 million yuan ($82 million) to Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea to battle Ebola, its largest round of aid to help contain the spread of the deadly virus. This was the fourth round of Chinese aid against Ebola
中央军委推行军费绩效管理 专家:与徐才厚案有关_网易新闻中心 总后勤部近日印发《
美国贫富分化不断加剧（国际视点）–国际–人民网 Mond
Sacked Tibet commander Yang Jinshan worked for Bo Xilai’s father｜WantChinaTimes Hong Kong newspaper Ta Kung Po said Yang’s dismissal was revealed earlier than other sacked members of the central committee. It is also the fist time the Chinese communist party dismissed a member who was serving in the military during the session. The WeChat account of People’s Daily Overseas Edition confirmed that Yang’s downfall was unexpected. He worked for the 14th Field Army Bo Yibo had established for years and was a commanding officer for the Tibet Military Region.
HONG KONG, MACAO AND TAIWAN
台湾间谍拉拢策反大陆学生 有关部门已破获相关案件近40起–
SOCIETY, ART, SPORTS, CULTURE AND HISTORY
Meet Yang Li, a designer putting China on fashion’s biggest stage – The Washington Post Li, 26, established his eponymous collection in 2011, mounting his first runway show in Paris last year. He moved from start-up to a fully realized brand in what seemed like a blink of the eye; his label includes men’s and women’s attire as well as shoes. But it is the women’s clothes that are, for the moment, the center of attention. He put them on the runway at the Jeu de Paume — a contemporary art museum and one of this city’s statelier locations for a fashion show.
600-year-old Chinese book found in California | China Daily The manuscript of a unique volume of the Yongle Encyclopedia (Yongle Dadian), a 16th century Chinese encyclopedia, was uncovered by a Chinese archivist at the Huntington Library in southern California. The work will go on display at the library from Dec 13 through March 16, 2015. Dating from around 1562, the Yongle Encyclopedia was the Yongle Emperor’s attempt to preserve the knowledge of ancient and imperial China. It was the world’s largest known general encyclopedia at its time, only being surpassed by Wikipedia six centuries later.
Yale president-turned-Coursera CEO sees China soar | China Daily China has a friend in Richard Levin, the former president of Yale University who now heads up online education giant Coursera. “China is our fastest growing market, and our team is building initiatives and travels there all the time,” Levin said. “Many of the Chinese users are over college age and take the online courses either for personal fulfillment or to improve their job skills.”
ENERGY, ENVIRONMENT, SCIENCE AND HEALTH
Scientist Charges China’s “Thousand Talents” Grant Was a Rent-a-Laowai Scam – U.S. & China Visa Law Blog Physicist Ulf Leonhardt came to prominence when he published the theoretical framework for an invisibility cloak. Not long afterwards, he was recruited by the Centre for Optical and Electronic Research (COER) at South China University, at a salary of RMB 133,333 ($21,762) per month — three times his tenured position at the University of St. Andrews. COER helped him apply to a Chinese government grant program for attracting foreign talent, the Recruitment Program of Foreign Experts. But Leonhardt would subsequently come to suspect that much of his salary and grant money were being diverted to other uses. “The fraud they committed was so brazen,” charges Leonhardt.