"Sinocism is the Presidential Daily Brief for China hands"- Evan Osnos, New Yorker Correspondent and National Book Award Winner
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Nasty cold, just links today:
BUSINESS AND ECONOMY
Hot Money Drove up Value of Yuan by 0.75Pct in Oct.-Caijing – Global market capital has been pouring into emerging market including China led by Hong Kong following U.S. QE3, said a Citi’s weekly report which traces capital flows globally.
More Proof That The Worst Of The Chinese Slowdown Is Over [CHARTS] – Business Insider – green shoots..haha. i prefer mine w ginger// This latest data adds to Ting’s argument that the Chinese economy has bottomed out and that there is increasing amount of evidence for green shoots in the economy.
上海一手房成交价创新纪录 每平米21.56万_地方经济_新浪财经_新浪网 –
China Economic Watch | Avoiding the Visible Hand of the State – Perhaps the most important takeaways from this data – besides proving that private not state investors are driving investment growth – is the resilience of private investors to the current slowdown… Although it is unlikely we will see private investment recover to the rapid growth rates of the past, the fact that private investors continue to outpace the state – enough to drive a recovery in fixed investment this year – is a good sign that China is finding better ways to navigate the new world of slower GDP growth.
张维迎：改革靠理念推动不靠顶层设计 市场机制缺失致腐败严重-财经网 – Caijing publishes transcript of interview w Zhang Weiying// 现在我们看到有很多政府部门，
Taking Financing Platform Companies off Their Pedestals – Caixin – There are also investment opportunities hidden in platform companies’ bonds. The market has been hypersensitive to news in this field. Any isolated incident may evolve into a full-blown, indiscriminate selloff of all platform companies’ bonds. Some of the bonds could be undervalued. For investors with enough liquidity, these bonds may present an opportunity worth more attention than property stocks.
市场经济体制再探源-财经网 – 中国的改革绝不可能走回头路，
财富与爱情 中国式豪门婚变 – following rumors that vanke ceo wang shi is divorcing his wife, first financial looks at how expensive divorces are for china’s richest
经济参考网–地方保护阻碍兼并重组 – local protectionism blocking needed consolidation in certain industries
人民日报：我国经济潜在增长率出现下降趋势_证券时报网 – 人民日报10月30日发表文章《
POLITICS AND LAW
China’s leadership transition facing ‘chaos’-John Garnaut–Li Yuanchao’s fate has been linked to Mr Ling, this time in relation to the manner in which Mr Ling conducted a ”straw poll” in May that was intended to help guide the leadership transition. ..Both Mr Li and Mr Ling are key proteges of Mr Hu…Several party insiders say Mr Li’s fate is the subject of a deepening power struggle between Mr Hu and his predecessor as president, Jiang Zemin.
An interview from 2000 with China’s Vice President Xi Jinping. Translated into Western language for the first time | Nordic Institute of Asian Studies – In August 2000, Xi Jinping gave a rare interview to the Chinese magazine Zhonghua Ernü. NIAS, Nordic Institute of Asian Studies hereby issues a translation of the interview in Danish and English. To our knowledge this the first time the interview has been translated into a Western language.
Cheng Hong, wife of Li Keqiang, a low-profile scholar | South China Morning Post – so does Li Keqiang like Thoureau too? // Like many who lived through the Cultural Revolution, Cheng Hong felt she’d had enough excitement to last a lifetime. It was in 1995, while she was a visiting scholar in the United States at Brown University, Rhode Island, that these thoughts crystallised… In Tranquillity Is Beyond Price, Cheng writes about the 19th century naturist and philosopher Henry David Thoreau, paying tribute to his best-known book, Walden, a reflection on the tranquillity of living amid nature, based on Thoreau’s experience of living for two years in a cabin he built in rural Massachusetts.
Insight: China grassroots democracy challenge awaits new leaders | Reuters – China has experimented with limited democracy since the 1980s, holding nationwide village chief elections and giving people a voice in low-level government budgeting in some locales. But China experts say most of these efforts have fizzled because of opposition from within the Communist Party, and that mass protests are still frequent
CHINASCOPE – Deng Yuwen: The Political Heritage of Hu and Wen – The following is a translation of part 2 of his article
China’s Top Future Leaders to Watch: Biographical Sketches of Possible Members of the Post-2012 Politburo (Part 4) | Hoover Institution – The composition of the new Politburo, including generational attributes and individual idiosyncratic characteristics, group dynamics, and the factional balance of power, will have profound implications for China’s economic priorities, social stability, political trajectory, and foreign relations. This final entry in a four-part series provides concise profiles of possible members of the next Politburo, focusing on the following three aspects: personal and professional background, family and patron-client ties, and political prospects and policy preferences.
宁波市政府：镇海事件中扣留51人 无恶性事件无人员死亡-财经网 – 51 detained over Zhenhai protests–Ningbo Government
Clubs and cameras: stability preservation in the age of Weibo – China Media Project– boom in cheap smartphones having growing impact, not just weibo but also tencent’s weixin/wechat having growing impact. discussed a few times on Sinocism// Many images and video posted to Chinese social media from the scene in Ningbo have already been deleted — and some users reported Sunday that Ningbo-based users were unable to post content. But Sina Weibo and other platforms remain the primary source of information on this story. In a further illustration of how the propaganda game is shifting in China, Chinese authorities have found themselves levering the strength of social media to attack the reliability of social media — even as they choke off all reliable information not of government origin, thereby further fueling demand for “rumors” (true or not).
Protests in China Get a Boost From Social Media – Businessweek – The Beijing-based environmentalist Ma Jun, honored earlier this year with the internationally prestigious Goldman Prize, sees it as no coincidence that the frequency of middle-class protests in China’s more prosperous cities has increased alongside the use of social media. “Social media is a game changer,” he says. “People can educate themselves and share information.” The marches in Ningbo, Shifang, and Dalian were all organized largely through micro-blogs, smartphone apps, and text messages.
Global Times:Protests over PX Plants not Endgame-Caijing – Some claim the people in Ningbo scored a victory. But we hold that when deciding a heavy chemical project through such protests, there is no winner but the whole country loses.
Environmental protests in China on dramatic rise, expert says | South China Morning Post – The number of major environmental protests in China grew by 120 per cent from 2010 to 2011, according to Yang Chaofei, vice-chairman of the Chinese Society for Environmental Sciences.
Chinese Blogging Superstar’s Strange But Effective Rant Against Over-Construction | Tea Leaf Nation– At play, Li [Chengpeng] writes, is something called “the Lucifer effect.” He compares the Party government to a fallen angel, “who thought he was always right.” He writes, “Our officials think they represent the truth, that they are fighting a holy war, and that they stand for the interests of the people. In the end, plunder is called development and thieves are called angels.” Li closes by assailing the government’s apparent efforts to be more responsive. He believes the question is not whether the government sometimes “listens attentively,” but whether it ever “has the power to punish those who hold opposing views.” As long as it keeps that power in reserve, Li writes, it will continue to be an autistic giant—or is that a fallen angel?
Pressure takes its toll on Beijingers: survey |Society |chinadaily.com.cn– 2005-2011/
Unrest in the cities: Middle-class blues | The Economist – expectations gap growing// The words “are you happy” in Chinese happening to sound identical to “are you surnamed Fu”, the worker replied to the question by answering, “My surname is Zeng”. CCTV’s willingness to air this clip was an unusual deviation from its propaganda-driven norm. Xinhua blamed the responses of Mr Zeng and others on “the pressures of life” in a fast-changing China. Such pressures, as recent events in Ningbo have shown, are generating restlessness even among beneficiaries of the country’s economic transformation.
Chinese Law Prof Blog: The Wen family fortune and Party disciplinary rules – The story at no point accuses Wen or his family members of doing anything illegal. But what about Party disciplinary rules? Here there may be a problem, even though (as I’ll explain) it’s because the rules as written are arguably tighter than is reasonable.
China’s People’s Daily launches attack on The New York Times – Telegraph – within hours of the People’s Daily publishing its lengthy assault on the American newspaper’s journalistic integrity it emerged that much of the Chinese newspaper’s critique had in fact been plagiarised from other sources.
《纽约时报》近年来丑闻叠出声望下降–国际–人民网 – P
David Barboza Answers Reader Questions on Reporting in China – NYTimes.com –
Questioning China’s governance | FT Alphaville – Wedeman doesn’t believe Chinese corruption is harmful enough to cause a crisis on its own. But he says the nature of the corruption has evolved — while it might be less pervasive in day-to-day life, China’s corruption now is is higher up, and bigger scale. As he told the China Economic Review: “That shapes perceptions.”
FOREIGN AND DEFENSE AFFAIRS
传胡锦涛贴身秘书陈世炬出任军办主任_多维新闻网 – anot
Insight: Unable to copy it, China tries building own jet engine | Reuters – China has so far failed to build a reliable, high performance jet engine. This may be about to change. China’s aviation sector is striving for a breakthrough that would end its dependence on Russian and Western power plants for military and commercial aircraft. Beijing is evaluating a 100 billion yuan ($16 billion) plan to galvanize a disjointed and under-funded engine research effort, aviation industry officials say.
M. Taylor Fravel: The Dangerous Math of Chinese Island Disputes – WSJ.com– worrisome from an expert who is not known for hyperbole// China’s standoff with Japan over the rocky Senkaku (Diaoyu) Islands has entered its second month. The current confrontation, however, is more dangerous than is commonly believed. China’s past behavior in other territorial disputes demonstrates why the Senkaku standoff is primed to explode.
The Hindu : News / International : Xinjiang militant groups active in Syria, says China – Chinese officials have said members of separatist militant groups based in the country’s far-western Xinjiang region were being organised to fight against the Syrian government in the on-going war, and had forged ties with Al Qaeda and other terror groups.
‘No embargo’ of rare earths on Japanese firms |China-Japan Ties |chinadaily.com.cn – No embargo has been placed on Japan over the Diaoyu Islands, Liu Yinan, vice-chairman of the China Chamber of Commerce of Metals, Minerals and Chemicals Importers and Exporters, said. The drop in exports to Japan reflects a general trend, Liu said, adding that exports of rare earths may experience an overall decline this year.
PLA, US army bands hold joint concert – Xinhua | English.news.cn – The PLA Military Band was invited to hold public concerts with the Pershing’s Own in the United States last May. The musical exchange was described by the U.S. as “part of the U.S. Army’s and PLA’s ongoing relationship-building initiatives.”
Committing to Smart Trade With China – Bloomberg Editorial – The global trading system suffers from a lack of leadership. The U.S.’s narrow focus on China’s bad behavior and its own agenda of preferential trade deals underscores the point. Although the multilateral system has survived the global economic slump better than many expected, it’s no thanks to the efforts of governments to strengthen it. The U.S., as the architect of the WTO system, should reaffirm its commitment to the larger idea. So should China.
HONG KONG AND TAIWAN
Taiwan’s China Spy Problem-Diplomat – Doubly damaging to Taiwan’s reputation and defense cooperation with the U.S. is the fact that in either scenario, Taipei is damned: Failure to arrest spies supports the view that a large chunk of ice, filled with traitors, lies underwater, eating away at the nation’s defenses; conversely, arrests often serve as bad publicity for the armed forces, providing “confirmation” to those who have called on Washington to cease its defense cooperation with the island that its defense apparatus is penetrated to the core. Needless to say, the benefits for China are equally two-fold, with undetected agents providing crucial information about Taiwan’s defenses, while news of those who are caught in the act further strain the defense relationship between Taiwan and its sole guarantor of security.
TECH AND MEDIA
Baidu Profit Exceeds Estimates as Qihoo Poses Competition – Bloomberg – but q4 estimates below expectations//
Special delivery from China: New iPad browser from a mobile giant | PandoDaily – did they get their latest funding round closed? heard from a few VCs who passed in it at a 500m valuation// A week and a half ago, I met with UCWeb’s CEO Yu Yongfu in San Francisco, and he told me the company had “unofficially launched” an English-language version of the iPad app. Now that I’ve had a chance to have a decent look at it, I can report that it is clearly targeted at an American market.
Hollywood Film Summit Draws Chinese Movie Monguls | ChinaFile Beta – Hollywood and Chinese movie makers and industry hangers-on will gather Tuesday at the third annual Asia Society U.S.-China Film Summit on the campus of the University of California Los Angeles.
Challenging Apple by Imitation – NYTimes.com – 4B valuation// Xiaomi differs from other smartphone companies in that it allows users to help design their operating systems…In the past, fans have been asked to weigh in on how much memory they want in their phones, how thick the next generation model should be and whether there should be a flashlight on the back of the phone. “Apple is very conceited,” Mr. Lei said. Their attitude is, ‘I don’t need any feedback.”’
Game Boy: Billionaire William Ding Lei Has A Few Fantasies Of His Own – Forbes – Not content with being a videogame billionaire, Ding has begun to explore organic farming. His plan is to incentivize some of the hundreds of millions of rural peasants who have fled their inefficient fields for China’s factory towns to return, producing quality food for decent wages so that capital flows into the countryside. The first phase is a piggery in Zhejiang Province due to start rearing animals by year-end
Dazzled By China’s $2 Billion Movie Box Office? Try Getting Paid – Forbes – how much of the money goes back to the movie producers and their financial backers? The answer seems to depend on who they are, and their relationship with the mighty China Film Group (CFG), a state-owned producer, exhibitor, importer and, crucially, distributor of movies.
SOCIETY, ART, CULTURE AND HISTORY
探秘武汉跑车俱乐部 养车一年至少花10万–图片频道–
Follow me on Twitter @niubi or Sina Weibo @billbishop, spread the word by forwarding this to your friends, support Sinocism.