Today’s China Readings June 4, 2012

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

Today’s anniversary is challenging Sina Weibo censors. Shanghaiist reports that Candles flicker out, Hong Kongers gagged on Weibo but I found many related posts in my stream. You can see some of the interesting ones in screenshot form here, here, here, here, and here. The Sina filters are still quite permeable, and either Sina is allowed to permit some venting about June 4 or Weibo may need to go down for maintenance. There is no way they can keep up otherwise.

Those expecting the collapse of China’s economy and political system should go back and read many of the predictions penned in the wake of 1989. 23 years ago very few people thought China would continue much longer as a one party, authoritarian state, and in fact much of US policy towards China seemed rooted in the assumption that growing economic engagement would eventually topple a “weakened” Communist Party. Perhaps this time is different, or perhaps 23 years has not been long enough to see the full ramifications of that June tragedy, but caution is advised for those betting on a near- to medium-term change in the status quo, even though, as Jamil Anderlini writes in the Financial Times, the Ghost of Tiananmen stalks China’s elite.

If you think today may be a good day to just drink, check out Sunday’s Sinocism post Xi Jiu, A Baijiu Bet on Xi Jinping. Consider drowning your sorrows while getting a piece of what some marketing folks claim could be China’s next great investment…

Today is also a good day for brevity, and reflection.

The best way to see this blog is to subscribe by email, especially if you are in China, as Sinocism is still blocked here. The email signup page is here, outside the GFW. You can also follow me on @niubi or Sina Weibo @billbishop. Comments/tips/suggestions are welcome, and feel free to forward to recommend to friends, as the more readers I have the better the content will become. And of course if you are feeling generous donations are always appreciated. Thanks for reading.

  • 甘肃卫生厅长号召练真气无药治病_网易新闻中心 Gansu Provincial Health Bureau head calls on people to use Qigong, not medicine, to cure their ills
  • Breath of fresh air: Gansu health chief swears by qigong｜Society｜News｜WantChinaTimes.com
    Liu Weizhong says the traditional exercises have kept him healthy. (File photo/CNS)The provincial health department head of Gansu in China’s northwest, Liu Weizhong, said May 23 that the practice of Chinese qigong exercises has helped him remain healthy
  • Xi Jiu, A Baijiu Bet on Xi Jinping | Sinocism
    Xi Jiu historically has been a mid-tier Baijiu brand, but 2012 may turn out to be Xi Jiu’s year. Xi Jiu has two things going for it, in addition to having a name that is a homonym for 喜酒, or “wedding banquet liquor”. One, it may be more acceptable for bureaucrats to imbibe, if Wen’s crackdown is real. Two, and more important, the character for the “Xi” in “Xi Jiu” is the same character 习 as the surname of Xi Jinping 习近平, China’s presumed next leader.
  • 习酒_百度百科
  • Chinese boy confirmed with bird flu in Hong Kong｜Society｜News｜WantChinaTimes.com
    Hong Kong health authorities said on Saturday that a 2-year-old boy from Guangzhou has been confirmed as having H5N1 Influenza A — or avian flu — and urged the public not to panic.
  • Was Zhang Ziyi framed by rival Fang Bingbing?｜Politics｜News｜WantChinaTimes.com
    unlikely//
    Well-known Chinese playwright and film critic Bi Chenggong said on his microblog that “a movie star” framed Chinese actress Zhang Ziyi of sleeping with Bo Xilai, the ousted former Communist Party secretary of Chongqing, in exchange for over US$100 million. Bi’s comments have been interpreted by the Chinese media as a reference to actress and singer Fang Bingbing, according to our Chinese-language sister newspaper Want Daily.
  • 视频：实拍上海世博园区内战马怒踹法拉利_新浪视频_新浪网
    Horse kicks ferrari in shanghai. Video
  • Kazakh head says terrorist act behind border deaths | Reuters
    Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev said on Friday he believed a “terrorist act” caused the deaths of 14 border guards and a civilian at a border post at the frontier with China.
  • Foreigners in China: Weibo vs. Reality « Sinostand
    Like with any country, China has plenty of unmitigated racists. But at least for me, they’ve never amounted to anything more than a very rare nuisance in my day-to-day life. So if you’re not in China, don’t get the impression from recent events that the country is a cesspool of xenophobia and hatred. And if you are in China, try not to let the recent coverage of online opinion skew the way you see things. The status quo for Chinese opinion about foreigners has been and will be for a long time more or less the same: Somewhat ignorant, but good-natured and curious.
  • Chinese copycat phone makers flock to high-end devices｜Economy｜In-depth｜WantChinaTimes.com
    The surge of smartphone sales in China is giving suppliers of knock-off handsets a new lease on life as companies in the country’s south have been “hacking each other to death” with merciless price cuts.
  • Chinese developer unveils replica Austrian village – AP
    A group of Austrians whose scenic mountain village has been copied down to the statues by a Chinese developer attended Saturday’s opening in China for the high-end residential project but were still miffed about how the company did it.Minmetals Land Inc.’s replica of Hallstatt, a quaint Austrian alpine hamlet, is located in subtropical southern China.
  • Mutually Assured Cyberdestruction? – NYTimes.com
    Does the United States want to legitimize the use of cyberweapons as a covert tool? Or is it something we want to hold in reserve for extreme cases? Will we reach the point — as we did with chemical weapons, and the rest of the world did with land mines — that we want treaties to ban their use? Or is that exactly the wrong analogy, in a world in which young hackers, maybe working on their own or maybe hired by the Chinese People’s Liberation Army or the Russian mob, can launch attacks themselves?
  • Remarks at the Festival of Economics, Trento Italy | George Soros
    We need to do whatever we can to convince Germany to show leadership and preserve the European Union as the fantastic object that it used to be. The future of Europe depends on it.
  • 突然绽放的罂粟花：“消费返利”骗局调查 – 宏观 – 21世纪网
    随着福州谊生科技发展有限公司运营的百分百返利商城一夜之间分崩离析，风头正盛的以“消费返利”为幌子的网络传销带来的冲击波正在扩大。
  • 电商暗战：自建物流的成本账 – IT·科技 – 21世纪网
    核心提示：上海奉贤肖塘镇，占地4万平米的易迅网上海物流中心外围静悄悄。走入仓储，则一片繁忙，十多辆小车不停忙碌得穿梭在货架与打包不超过数百米的距离之间。
  • The sorry fate of a tech pioneer Halsey Minor and historic Virginia estate Carter’s Grove – The Washington Post
    Carter’s Grove may have finally met its ruin, however, in the unlikely form of Halsey Minor, a brash 40-something technology investor living in San Francisco.
  • Bank run in Fujian as online Ponzi scheme collapses｜Society｜News｜WantChinaTimes.com
    A financial website based in Fujian province in southeast China went bankrupt last week, reportedly causing a panic among investors across much of the country. A bank run occurred in the city of Wuyishan on Thursday as rumors said the government would wipe the accounts of investors, reports our sister Chinese-language newspaper Want Daily.The headquarters of the website bfbfl.com in the provincial capital Fuzhou was ransacked and destroyed by angry investors on Monday evening who left nothing behind, the security staff of the building told the Guangzhou-based 21st Century Business Herald.
  • Wave of Tibet Self-Immolations Challenges Chinese Rule – NYTimes.com
    At least 38 Tibetans have set fire to themselves since 2009, and 29 have died, according to the International Campaign for Tibet, an advocacy group in Washington. The 2,000 or so monks of Kirti Monastery in Sichuan Province have been at the center of the movement, one of the biggest waves of self-immolations in modern history. The acts evoke the self-immolations in the early 1960s by Buddhist monks in South Vietnam to protest the corrupt government in Saigon.

The best way to see this blog is to subscribe by email, especially if you are in China, as Sinocism is still blocked here. The email signup page is here, outside the GFW. You can also follow me on @niubi or Sina Weibo @billbishop. Comments/tips/suggestions are welcome, and feel free to forward to recommend to friends, as the more readers I have the better the content will become. And of course if you are feeling generous donations are always appreciated. Thanks for reading.

Digest powered by RSS Digest