The Sinocism China Newsletter For 11.25.12

"Sinocism is the Presidential Daily Brief for China hands"- Evan Osnos, New Yorker Correspondent and National Book Award Winner

Spread the word by forwarding this email to your friends, follow me on Twitter @Niubi or Sina Weibo @Billbishopsupport Sinocism.

Just links today, still in a bit of a turkey coma:

BUSINESS AND ECONOMY

Job hunters pack into job fair in Wuhan – Xinhua | English.news.cn–Pictures – Job hunters pack into the venue of a job fair in Wuhan, capital of central China’s Hubei Province, Nov. 24, 2012. The job hunting fair, providing nearly 10,000 vacancies, attracted over 50,000 job seekers on Saturday.

China’s Wenzhou unveils reform plans as bad loans climb | Reuters – Under the plans announced by the municipal government, the wealthy coastal city of Wenzhou, aims to channel private money into local businesses through formal institutions – mainly small credit firms, the official Securities Times said, citing officials.

Why Chinese Firms’ Cross-Border Deals Fall Apart – Laurence Capron and Will Mitchell – Harvard Business Review – So although many Chinese acquirers are becoming more adventurous in their deal-making deals, they need to reduce the cancellation rate of their announced acquisitions. To do so, they must:

 

POLITICS AND LAW

Insurer’s Regulatory Win Benefits a Chinese Leader’s Family – NYTimes.com– second story from David Barboza on Ping’an and Wen Jiabao’s family// Western and Chinese bankers and lawyers involved in Ping An’s 2004 Hong Kong stock listing and a subsequent 2007 listing in Shanghai said they did not know that relatives of Mr. Wen had acquired large stakes in the company. Executives at Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs, which once held sizable stakes in Ping An and served as lead underwriters for the Hong Kong public offering, also said they were never told of the holdings. At Ping An’s urging, the two investment banks had also appealed in 2000 to Mr. Wen and other regulators for the waiver from the breakup rule. The private equity divisions of the two investment banks sold their combined stakes to HSBC in 2005 for about $1 billion — a 14-fold increase on their initial investment.

Desmond and Whitney Shum Fellows – Details | Fairbank Center – Whitney is the English name of Duan Weihong. So whether or not corruption was involved in the accumulation of wealth from the Ping’an stake, Harvard and some of its graduate students benefit//The Fairbank Center for Chinese Studies is pleased to announce the Desmond and Whitney Shum Fellowship, which supports graduate students undertaking social science research projects in China. Harvard doctoral candidates from any school within the university specializing in a field of the social sciences are eligible, with preference given to students of government, public policy, public administration, economics, law, and sociology.

Ex-lawyer demands probe of his wrongful persecution under rule of China’s fallen politician Bo – The Washington Post – The former defense lawyer, Li Zhuang, is demanding a thorough investigation of his case, which has raised questions about how Bo ruled Chongqing — a metropolis in China’s southwest — as its party chief until his downfall in March.

李庄:有人说重庆打黑没收上千亿 国库入库才9.3个亿 _资讯频道_凤凰网 – Li Zhuang: some say up to 100B RMB of assets were confiscated in Chongqing under Bo Xilai, but only 930m when to the state

龚刚模称遭重庆专案组警察逼迫陷害李庄_网易新闻中心 – Gong gangmo supports li zhuang, says he was forced by chongqing police to implicate li zhuang

习时代中国面临大变局 政改困境亟需打破_多维新闻网 – there are some who are optimistic about reform//【多维新闻】中共十八大刚刚落幕,京城自由派随即召开题为“改革共识论坛”的讨论会,集中讨论民主法治、后十八大展望等,中共元老李锐、法学泰斗江平等自由派老人也集体出席。随后赵紫阳政治秘书鲍彤也借自己生日之机邀请多位海内外自由派人士,对外表态。种种迹象似乎都在表明,习近平的上台让中国自由派开始再次发声,自由派的这种“姿态”也被很多观察人士认为是在试探新一届领导班子“红线”。即将成为中国国家总理的李克强也在11月22日宣称“改革是最大的红利”,被外界认为是在展现“完全改革派”的姿态。

China Cracks Down On Poet Li Bifeng And Dissident Writer Li Yuanlong – The Daily Beast – Even as the country’s new leaders promise reform, in the past week, officials have jailed a famous pro-democracy poet, a Twitter prankster, and an investigative journalist. Duncan Hewitt reports on the disconnect between party promises and the ongoing silencing of public critics.

China denies removing man over deaths of five homeless children | World news | guardian.co.uk – A commentator for Caixin magazine pointed out there were 58 million left-behind children in China, warning that without further action “the tragedy in Bijie is bound to happen again”

 

FOREIGN AND DEFENSE AFFAIRS

China never accepts Japan’s “control” of waters near Diaoyu Islands: FM spokeswoman – Xinhua | English.news.cn – “China has always stressed that Japan’s so-called existence on, or control of, the sea area adjacent to the Diaoyu Islands is illegal and invalid, which China never accepts,” Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying told a daily press briefing on Thursday.

China conducts flight landing on aircraft carrier – Xinhua | English.news.cn

辽宁舰进行歼-15起降飞行训练_网易军事 – Pictures of the j-15 flying off the Liaoning

The Chinese road to ruin and prison–Brisbane Times– won’t help with the returnee marketing// AN AUSTRALIAN cardiac surgeon has been jailed in China after his local partner allegedly stripped him of the business he founded and listed it on the Nasdaq stock exchange.The case of Du Zuying, who was a heart and lung transplant specialist in Melbourne and Sydney, is perhaps the most startling in a series of murky prosecutions of ethnic Chinese Australians since the 2009 arrest of Rio Tinto iron ore executive Stern Hu. The company Dr Du founded, China Biologic Products, supplies blood plasma products to Chinese hospitals and is worth about $300 million.

Pressure mounts on Carr over China rights abuses-Sydney Morning Herald-Garnaut– PRESSURE is mounting on Australian Foreign Minister Bob Carr to take an open and forthright approach to legal abuses in China. This follows revelations that another successful Chinese Australian entrepreneur has been quietly jailed.

CBPO Profile | China Biologic Products, Inc. Stock – Yahoo! Finance –

China Biologic Products,Inc. –

 

HONG KONG AND TAIWAN

Macau police arrest five, gangster Broken Tooth release due | Reuters – Police in the world gambling capital Macau arrested five people on Saturday on suspicion of planning to commit murder as the territory off the coast of China braces for the imminent release from jail of a notorious gang leader.

 

TECH AND MEDIA

New censorship on weibo. | GreatFire.org – Back in October, we mentioned that weibo rolled out new semi-censorship. Apparently this is not enough.  Now weibo has four different ways to censor keywords.

 

SOCIETY, ART, SPORTS, CULTURE AND HISTORY

China’s ‘Beijing Blues’ wins at Taiwan film fest– “Beijing Blues” portrays the lives of the urban dwellers through the work of a squad of plainclothes crime-hunters. In receiving the award, director Gao Qun Shu was visibly shocked, and he thanked the “globe” for giving an inexperienced director like him such honor and recognition.

神探亨特张—在线播放—《神探亨特张》—电影—优酷网,视频高清在线观看 – Beijing Blues full version on Youku, need a PRC IP address to stream it

Movie review: ‘Beijing Blues’ – China.org.cn – 神探亨特张// Director Gao Qunshu is known as one of China’s best TV series directors. His film “Beijing Blues” is based on the real-life story of renowned detective Zhang Huiling. Most of the actors that appear in the movie are amateurs, so viewers can expect something of a reality show.

Is This Leica Luxus Worth $230,000? – Scene Asia – WSJ – Leica is killing it in China. Major status symbol among a certain set, and of course great camera// Camera collecting peaked in the 1990s, said Jon Baddeley, managing director at Bonhams, but the vintage market has seen a resurgence as collectors from emerging markets have gotten involved. A Chinese bidder earlier this year paid $2.8 million for a rare 1923 prototype model, a new auction record, Mr. Baddeley noted, prompting this week’s sale.

 

FOOD AND TRAVEL

Ski fields in Urumqi opens for business – Xinhua | English.news.cn – hear the skiing out there is very good// People ski at a ski field some 38 kilometers south of Urumqi, northwest China’s Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, Nov. 24, 2012. Ski fields in Urumqi opened for business on Saturday as snow continued in northern Xinjiang this week