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Today’s Links:
THE ESSENTIAL EIGHT
1. 全军政治工作会议在古田召开 习近平出席会议并发表重要讲话_新闻频道_央视网(cctv.
Related: Xi stresses CPC’s absolute leadership over army – Xinhua To strengthen the army’s ideological and political development, Xi urged the troops to have a strong sense of Party principles and interests, giving priority to the CPC cause and the people’s interests. “Fighting capacity is the sole criterion for testing the troops and military officers’ assessment and promotion will focus on their ability of leading soldiers to fight and win battles,” said Xi, vowing to tighten the management of high-ranking and middle-level officers in the army. “We’ll never slacken the efforts to deepen the fight against corruption in the army,” said Xi, pledging to purify contingent of cadres and continue effective crackdown on graft in a regular manner.
Related: China’s Xi calls on army to remember past in graft fight | Reuters The armed services must “return to and make full use of their fine political traditions”, Xi said. Those traditions include the fair and honest promotion of officers, rigorous discipline and “sacrifice to the revolutionary spirit”, he added. “We must deeply recognize the importance of political work in the military and the important role it plays and pass on to the next generations the great traditions that were forged in blood by our ancestors,” Xi said. “Never slacken in the determination to deepen the fight against corruption.”
Related: 在强军兴军征程中充分发挥生命线作用 ——国防部网站
2. Taiwan Leader Stresses Support for Hong Kong Protests – NYTimes.com “If mainland China can practice democracy in Hong Kong, or if mainland China itself can become more democratic, then we can shorten the psychological distance between people from the two sides of the Taiwan Strait,” Mr. Ma said in an interview at the presidential palace here. The president’s public pronouncements on the Hong Kong protests — he also expressed support for them in a televised speech on Taiwan’s National Day, Oct. 10 — show a greater willingness lately to speak out on a delicate issue for the Chinese leadership. // The full transcript is here
3. 中央或送福建一“大礼包”：自贸区面积为上海十数倍_
Related: 习近平在福建平潭考察-新华网 Xi visited Fujian’s Pingtan Island, whose “experimental zone” has many inducements for Taiwanese businesses and institutions // 新华网北京11月1日电 据新华社“新华视点”微博报道，
Related: 杭州将申请网上自由贸易区 跨境电商便利化时代或来临_财经频道_一财网 Hangzhou to apply to Beijing to create an “online free trade zone”
4. China passes Counterespionage Law for comprehensive state security – Xinhua Formerly known as the National Security Law, it includes new rules that have proven effective in practice. The bill specifies espionage’s definition: foreign organizations and individuals who conduct espionage activities or who instigate and sponsor others in conducting them will be punished, as will domestic organizations and individuals who spy on the country for foreign organizations and individuals. It grants national security agencies the authority to ask an organization or individual to stop or change activities considered harmful to national security. If they refuse or fail to do so, the agencies will be entitled to seal or seize related properties. The agencies are also entitled to seal and seize any device, money, venue, supplies and other properties that are related to espionage activities, according to the bill.
Related: 授权发布：中华人民共和国反间谍法-
5. Religion in China: Cracks in the atheist edifice | The Economist Some Chinese also discern in Christianity the roots of Western strength. They see it as the force behind the development of social justice, civil society and rule of law, all things they hope to see in China. Many new NGOs are run by Christians or Buddhists. There are growing numbers of Christian doctors and academics. More than 2,000 Christian schools are also dotted around China, many of them small and all, as yet, illegal. One civil-rights activist says that, of the 50 most-senior civil-rights lawyers in China, probably half are Christians. Some of them have set up the Association of Human Rights Attorneys for Chinese Christians. Groups of well-paid urban Christian lawyers join together to defend Christians—and others—in court. // crackdowns probably not a coincidence?
6. What Should Obama and Xi Say to Each Other at APEC? | A ChinaFile Conversation Chen Weihua, Hugh White, Amb. Wu Jianmin so far…should Obama use the term “new model of big power relationship”?
7. Rule of law in China: China with legal characteristics | The Economist A “Leader” this week // Mr Xi’s initiative is good news in two ways. First, it has encouraging implications for his anti-corruption campaign. Xi-watchers are uncertain whether the campaign is a sincere effort to clean up the country or an excuse for a purge of officials the president has taken against. That he is emphasising the rule of law, rather than just continuing to pick off his enemies, suggests that the target really is corruption. // surprised this Economist leader makes no mention of the point seemingly most emphasized in official media about the 4th Plenum decision: ” “Party’s leadership is the most essential feature of the socialism with Chinese characteristics, and the most fundamental guarantee of socialist rule of law,” Xi said, according to his interpretation.”
Related: Politics: Rules of the party | The Economist Official English translations refer to the importance of “rule of law”. But Mr Xi’s tactics appear better suited to a different translation of the Chinese term, yifa zhiguo: “rule by law”. His aim is to strengthen law to make the party more powerful, not to constrain it. Randy Peerenboom of La Trobe University in Melbourne says Mr Xi’s measures seem intended to make China’s courts work better and more consistently, “more like [in] Singapore”—a country that Chinese officials sometimes hold up as a model of benign authoritarianism
8. China and Russia thwart plan for Antarctic ocean sanctuary | Reuters The Commission for the Conservation of Antarctic Marine Living Resources (CCAMLR) wound up a 10-day meeting in Hobart, Australia on Friday without the consensus needed for a deal to conserve and manage the marine ecosystems in the Southern Ocean. While Russia blocked conservation proposals for a fourth consecutive time, China’s refusal to back the international plan came as a surprise to many delegates after previous statements of support for conservation and marine protection. Ukraine, which previously took the same stance as Russia, this year voted in favor of the proposals…China “challenged almost every conservation mandate that was presented” during the two weeks of talks, Andrea Kavanagh, a delegate and director of the pro-conservation Pew Charitable Trusts told Reuters. China was “an across the board conservation-spoiler” to the plan, she added.
BUSINESS, ECONOMY AND TRADE
China Manufacturing Slows as Growth Pressures Deepen – Bloomberg The government’s Purchasing Managers’ Index was at 50.8 in October, trailing the 51.2 median estimate of analysts in a Bloomberg News survey and compared with September’s 51.1. Readings above 50 indicate expansion.
易纲：存款保险制度建立接近成熟 _财经频道_一财网 PBoC Deputy Head Yi Gang, speaking 10.30 at the “2014 Financial Street Forum”, makes it sound like deposit insurance scheme is getting close // “根据国务院的部署，
沪港通重启测试下周或定启动时间_股票频道_一财网 repor
POLITICS AND LAW
Corruption in the housing market: To those that have | The Economist research by Hanming Fang of the University of Pennsylvania, and Li-An Zhou and Quanlin Gu of the Guanghua School of Management at Peking University suggests that the housing market is a source of illicit riches, as well as a place to park them. The authors find that Chinese bureaucrats consistently pay less when buying houses, receiving on average a 1% discount. // just 1%? Most officials probably get no more than the standard discounts people can usually negotiate, with a smaller percentage actually getting corruption-fueled, large discounts?
Zhou Yongkang yet to be prosecuted in corruption probe, senior court official reveals | South China Morning Post Jiang Bixin, the deputy head of the Supreme People’s Court, China’s highest court, said yesterday the country had yet to start legal proceedings against the highest-profile figure to be caught in a government crackdown on corruption. He was responding to a journalist’s question about Zhou’s fate at a news conference in Beijing that was carried live on the website of the state-run China News Service.
‘China Strikes Back’: An Exchange by Perry Link | The New York Review of Books What is more, if one substitutes the word “pride” for “confidence,” it allows for another complementary, but also somewhat contradictory, set of forces—namely patriotism and nationalism—to be factored into the China equation. In my experience many Chinese are very patriotic and quite naturally want to feel pride in their country’s accomplishments, even as they may remain quite dubious about the durability of their country’s current political system. As Link points out, this wariness about the future makes the wealthy send their kids abroad to be educated, buy real estate overseas, put funds in offshore banks, and seek US green cards and even citizenship, hardly hallmarks of confidence in their own country’s domestic future. But this does not mean that they are not still proud of their country’s accomplishments or incapable of feelings of nationalism. And here there is a dangerous combination brewing.
The law at work: No more rooms | The Economist Mr Qiao’s story is far from unique. Since the mid-1990s, tens of millions of Chinese have lost their land. In many cases, only minimal compensation has been offered. Researchers believe that, of thousands of “mass incidents” of rural unrest occurring each year, the majority are about land. In one of the worst recent cases, nine people were killed in mid-October in Yunnan province in the south-west in a dispute over evictions.
Internet moguls urge rule of law in cyber space – Xinhua Ren Xianliang, deputy director of the Cyberspace Administration of China (CAC), the country’s top Internet watchdog, said officials in charge of Internet supervision should learn from past experiences and try to explore new ways to manage the virtual world. “An important aspect of proper website management is to spread positive energy,” Ren said at a seminar on the management of websites held in Nanjing, capital of east China’s Jiangsu Province. Ren’s words came on the heels of a key meeting of the Communist Party of China last month, which focused on rule of law in China. Late last month, the CAC echoed the Party’s embrace of rule of law by pledging to govern online space in accordance with the law. // 国家网信办“依法办好网站 讲好中国故事”座谈会在苏州举行
China amends law to support citizens suing gov’t – Xinhua China’s top legislature adopted an amendment to the Administrative Procedure Law Saturday, aiming to expand the people’s right to sue the government. Members of the Standing Committee of the National People’s Congress (NPC) passed the amendment through a vote at the close of the week-long, bi-monthly legislative session, saying it is in line with the reality of administrative litigation and makes it easier for citizens to take the government to court. Courts will launch administrative proceedings if the government is sued for violating agreements on land and housing compensation and commercial operations franchised by the government, according to the amendment, which was deliberated on three times by national legislators.
行诉法24年来首修 12种“民告官”法院应受理_国内_新京报网 The Beijing News notes plaintiffs suing the government usually can’t find a court willing to hear their case, and when they do they rarely win // “民告官”三大“顽疾”- 立案难 -近年来全国法院年均受理行政案件仅有十几万件 北京市行政诉讼平均立案率仅为30%左右 …一审判决行政机关败诉的仅约10% 2013年，全国行政诉讼案件上诉率高达72.7% … 行政机关拒绝履行判决，法院除了发司法建议，
广东两民政官员因火葬任务买尸火化 涉盗尸罪被诉–财经–
小吃不容大腐败（今日谈·抓作风不放松）–观点–人民网
FOREIGN AND DEFENSE AFFAIRS
Bright Future for China-India Ties-Carnegie-Tsinghua Center Since Indian Prime Minister Narenda Modi came to office, he has received a flurry of international guests, including Chinese President Xi Jinping. This visit demonstrates Beijing’s revived interest in engaging with India. Carnegie–Tsinghua’s Paul Haenle and the China Reform Forum’s Ma Jiali analyzed the impact of a rising India in the Asia-Pacific region and explained the significance of President Xi’s trip to India for the broader bilateral relationship.
China’s unmanned lunar orbiter returns home, first in nearly four decades – Xinhua China succeeded Saturday in the world’s first mission to the Moon and back in some 40 years, becoming the third nation to do so after the former Soviet Union and the United States. The test lunar orbiter, nicknamed “Xiaofei” on Chinese social networks, landed in Siziwang Banner of China’s Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region early Saturday morning.
我国加强海外追逃追赃 外国帮忙可分享“赃款”_新闻_腾讯网 China says it will split with assisting governments the proceeds from property confiscated with corrupt officials who have fled overseas
Can China Rise Peacefully? | The National Interest It is important to emphasize that my focus is not on how China will behave in the immediate future, but instead on how it will act in the longer term, when it will be far more powerful than it is today. The fact is that present-day China does not possess significant military power; its military forces are inferior to those of the United States. Beijing would be making a huge mistake to pick a fight with the U.S. military nowadays.–Editor’s Note: The following is the new concluding chapter of Dr. John J. Mearsheimer’s book The Tragedy of the Great Power Politics // you may not agree with Mearsheimer but you can’t ignore him; the Chinese certainly do not
New PACAF commander seeks China air safety dialogue – Pacific – Stripes Gen. Lori Robinson said she anticipates a speaking engagement at China’s biggest air show later this month will allow her to renew dialogue on the issue. “The dialogue is beginning. I think that’s very, very good for the region,” Robinson said in a telephone interview from Hawaii. // wonder what her PLA counterparts think of a woman in such a senior position
Nuclear Arms Control in China Today – All Things Nuclear Discussions of Chinese nuclear doctrine and strategy were also on the agenda in Hangzhou. Chinese presenters repeated their nation’s commitment to no first use of nuclear weapons and gave no indication of forthcoming changes to China’s nuclear weapons policy. There are persistent U.S. rumors that China is engaged in an effort to alter the strategic balance of nuclear forces, but the Chinese presenters argued that China’s efforts to modernize its delivery vehicles are aimed at increasing their ability to survive a first strike as well as to penetrate U.S. missile defenses. Chinese strategists appear content to maintain what one Chinese presenter described as an “asymmetric stability” between China and the United States predicated on the continued existence of a large imbalance between U.S. and Chinese nuclear forces.
HONG KONG, MACAO AND TAIWAN
British banker held over double murder in Wan Chai flat | South China Morning Post A spokeswoman for the Foreign and Commonwealth Office in London said: “We can confirm that a British national has been arrested in Hong Kong. We are in touch with the local police and stand ready to provide consular assistance.” Security was tight at the 40-storey block last night. One person who has lived at J Residence for about a year said he had noticed an odd smell recently. “There was a stink in the building like a dead animal,” he said. “It was a shock because you would never expect something like this to happen in Hong Kong.” He said the building’s occupants were mainly expatriates
TECH AND MEDIA
Disgraced entertainers banned from CCTV’s annual Spring Festival Gala | South China Morning Post While the list of disgraced artists is common knowledge, speculation has been rife about which stars CCTV may have been referring to when the director talked about “vulgar and low-brow style performances”. Xiao Ying, a philosophy professor at Tsinghua University, told website China News that Zhao Benshan – China’s reigning king of comedy and a regular performer at the gala – may again be absent from the gala’s line-up this year. Zhao’s comedy routine often contain jokes in poor taste, sometimes directed at disabled people or farmers. Zhao was thought to have fallen out of favour when he was not invited to President Xi Jinping’s talks with Chinese artists in mid-October.
小马奔腾再现乱局：创始人遗孀曝股东带走公章_财经频道_一财网
广电总局要求引进剧先审后播 同步看美剧成泡影_南都网手机版 forthcoming GAPPSARFT rules on foreign videos on showing foreign films and TV shows on Chinese online services may be harsher than expected
SOCIETY, ART, SPORTS, CULTURE AND HISTORY
Kidnapped British journalist’s link to China’s founding father | South China Morning Post The kidnapped British journalist was most recently seen in a video, purportedly filmed in the embattled Syrian town of Kobani, asserting that Islamic State fighters were defying US-led air strikes to close in on the town. But what most television viewers – and probably the Islamist kidnappers – won’t realise is that Cantlie’s family has a long association with revolution. Indeed, his great-grandfather saved the life of Sun Yat-sen, the founder of modern China. Sir James Cantlie was a doctor in Hong Kong who, in 1887, co-founded the Hong Kong College of Medicine for Chinese, later the University of Hong Kong.
Mark Zuckerberg Speaking Chinese: Brave, Foolish, or Both? – The Atlantic A seven-year-old native speaker of Chinese would get all the tones right. That’s what native speakers do, and that is what was wrong with the “like a seven-year-old” headline. The real point was closer to, “He speaks it like some cab driver from [name your bad-accent country] you can barely understand.” All this is to introduce a guest post by an American who has made learning Chinese a larger part of his life effort than Zuckerberg, as CEO of a gigantic and fast-growing company, could do
Two or Three Things about Mr. Lu Xun – Caixin The remarkable re-emergence of Confucius in China has been quietly paralleled by the slow diminishment of the status of Lu Xun
人民日报：豆腐渣工程频现是精神垮塌的结果_网易北京房产频道
ENERGY, ENVIRONMENT, SCIENCE AND HEALTH
China To Send Elite Army Unit To Ebola-Hit Liberia The PLA squad, which has experience from a 2002 outbreak of Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS), will build a 100-bed treatment center in Liberia, the first such facility in the three countries most impacted by Ebola to be constructed and run by a foreign country, said Lin Songtian, director general of the ministry’s Department of African Affairs. The center will be open for operation in a month’s time, he told a briefing in Beijing. China will also dispatch 480 PLA medical staff to treat Ebola patients, he said.
最高检证实工程院院士李宁贪污2千万被查_新闻_腾讯网
Tuna firm’s bungled IPO exposes China’s flouting of global fishing rules | Guardian Sustainable Business | The Guardian I wanted to contact China Tuna for comment on these statements. The IPO revealed that China Tuna is a transnational corporation under the communist Chinese flag, operating Japanese and Chinese vessels and registered in the Cayman Islands. Its primary shareholders are Li Li, a 24-year-old woman with a passport from St Kitts, and her dad, Li Zhenyu. As I tried to track down Li Li’s tuna giant, I discovered that like many big fishing companies, China Tuna is hard to reach. Seeking a phone number for the firm’s operations office in Hong Kong, I found that not only is China Tuna’s office number unlisted – the company doesn’t even have an office.
Guangzhou clarifies size of African community amid fears over Ebola virus | South China Morning Post A deputy mayor of Guangzhou has sought to allay fears over Ebola disease, saying yesterday that 16,000 African people live in the city, contrary to rumours there were nearly half a million. A Guangzhou airport official also said the city was handing out free mobile phones to visitors from Ebola-hit countries so the authorities could keep in touch with them. City border checkpoints recorded 430,000 arrivals and exits by nationals from African countries in the first nine months. But only 16,000 live in Guangzhou.
北京铁腕治污打硬仗（京津冀协同发展·大气污染防治）–环保-
FOOD AND TRAVEL
Scenery of lake Rakshastal in SW China’s Tibet – Xinhua | pictures, as beautiful as they are, don’t do this area justice. I want to go back // Photo taken on Oct. 22, 2014 shows the scenery of Lake Rakshastal (La’nga Co) in Ali Prefecture of southwest China’s Tibet Autonomous Region. Lake Rakshastal, at an altitude of 4,573 meters and to the east of sacred Lake Manasarovar (Mapam Yumco), is called “lake of the demon” due to its desolate landscape
罂粟化名“樱粟”网上当调料卖 老板称只卖熟人_新闻_腾讯网 sounds like the use of poppy shells in food not uncommon, as reporters discover
BOOKS AND LITERATURE
著名作家陈超跳楼自杀 曾获鲁迅文学奖(图)–文化–人民网
BEIJING
Another celebrity detained by Beijing police for drug use – Xinhua Hu, 45 years old from Hangzhou City of east China’s Zhejiang Province, confessed that he had been using crystal methamphetamine and tested positive for the drug after his nabbing on October 16, the police revealed without giving the actor’s full name. On the same day, a Beijing local media wrote on Sina Weibo, the Chinese equivalent of Twitter, that Hu Dong, a Chinese actor and model, had been detained by police for taking drug and later released. But Hu denied.
北京多家公园高档餐厅关停或推平价菜_国内_新京报网 The Beijing News finds that many high-end restaurants in Beijing parks have closed or changed their menus to cheaper fare // 11月1日起，历史建筑、公园等公共资源中将禁设私人会所。