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

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• 獨家：十八大帷幕拉開 省部要員票選常委_多維新聞網
  DUOWEI CLAIMS 18TH PARTY CONGRESS PREPARATIONS ON TRACK, SAYS REUTERS REPORTS OF A DELAY ARE WRONG
  【多維新聞】路透社兩度報道中共或將推遲召開十八大，在海外華文媒體中引起高度关注。据悉，本周早些時候，中共正省部級高官已在北京以民主投票方式開始推選十八大“入常”人選。這意味著中共十八大各項准備工作在穩步推進，外界所稱推延之說被進一步證實為消息不實。
• Censorship Alert: Two Provinces Suddenly Vanish from Baidu’s Tieba | Tech in Asia
  two major provinces — Chongqing and Liaoning — disappeared from Baidu’s Tieba. Apparently, just as Melissa Chan has become an unperson online in China, Chongqing and Liaoning have become unplaces.
• Interesting Times-Sinica Podcast
  Joining Kaiser Kuo and Jeremy Goldkorn on Sinica this week are special guests Gady Epstein from the Economist and Ed Wong from the New York Times, here to discuss what has been a surreal two weeks even by Chinese standards, bringing us the spectacle of a blind activist’s refuge in the American Embassy in Beijing, the ensuing diplomatic negotiations for his release, and an upsurge of popular Chinese outrage over a maritime dispute with the Philippines. Our guests also chat about “Ferrari-gate” and address the persisting rumors that a tuxedo-clad princeling drove up to the US Ambassadorial residence in a red Fe
• China Industrial Output, Inflation Boost Easing Odds – Bloomberg
  China’s industrial production grew the least since 2009 in April, new yuan loans missed estimates and inflation was below target, boosting speculation Premier Wen Jiabao will take steps to stimulate the economy.
• China’s Gold Demand Growth Seen Stagnating as Price Drops – Bloomberg
  Gold demand growth in China, the second-largest consumer, may stagnate this year as declining prices put off investors and slower economic growth crimps sales, according to the mainland’s biggest gold-jewelry maker.
• U.S. Senator Questions Fed on Chinese Bank Decision – Bloomberg
  A Federal Reserve decision to let Chinese banks acquire U.S. lenders was challenged by Senator Bob Casey, who said it could open the way for Chinese government-run institutions to undercut U.S. banks.
• The Jamestown Foundation: Chen Guangcheng Fiasco Shows Dim Prospects for Political-Legal Reform
  As things stand, there seems to be a strong consensus among the PBSC members—including Xi Jinping and Li Keqiang, who are expected to form the axis of the upcoming Fifth-Generation leadership—that the leadership must pull out all the stops to boost security and stability. The urge to preserve the Maoist “one voice chamber” has grown in light of fissures at the CCP’s top echelons exposed by the Bo Xilai scandal (“Beijing’s Post-Bo Xilai Loyalty Drive Could Blunt Calls for Reform, China Brief, March 30). As was the case in 1989, the party leadership appears anxious to prevent dissidents from exploiting factional strife within the CCP to “make propaganda” for Western-style political reforms. This perhaps explains why, despite Beijing’s pledge to continue “human rights dialogues” with the United States and other Western countries, the wei-wen apparatus has been cracking down even harder on so-called destabilizing agents.
• The Jamestown Foundation: State Council Highlights China’s Information Security Challenges
• Google Could Be Helping The Government Spy – Business Insider
  If Google is secretly helping the National Security Agency with its spying activities neither one of them has to say squat about it.
  So rules a DC court.
  The court turned down a request by the Electronic Privacy Information Center asking for information about Google’s relationship with the NSA. The request was filed under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) but the NSA fought the request and won.
  Had the ruling gone the other way, it might have slowed down the controversial bill known as the Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act (CISPA).
• How Wall Street Killed Financial Reform | Matt Taibbi| Rolling Stone May 10
  It’s bad enough that the banks strangled the Dodd-Frank law. Even worse is the way they did it – with a big assist from Congress and the White House.
• SIMON JOHNSON: Jamie Dimon Should Resign In Disgrace – Business Insider
• Lawyers for China dissident’s nephew say they face threats | Reuters
• Chinese Industrial Production – Business Insider
• Local Big Four partners face a big decision | China Accounting Blog | Paul Gillis
• ‘Goodbye to China, country of contradictions’ – Features – Al Jazeera English
• 博訊炮制陰謀 讀者哈哈以對_多維新聞網
  war of words escalating between Duowei and Boxun over rumor spreading and financial backers. Does the NED fund Boxun?
• 国家安全部部长：维护国家安全和社会政治稳定–时政–人民网
• The environment: Problems with trees | The Economist
  Plans to create greener Chinese cities are pruned
• Suppressing dissent: The emperor does know | The Economist
  How the system rewards repression, in the name of maintaining stability
• Torture Inquiry in Anticrime Drive of Deposed Chinese Leader – NYTimes.com
  A senior policeman who was released from prison after Mr. Bo’s purge is lobbying for redress and hopes to be reinstated in the police force, a friend of the policeman said. His family had also been detained and persecuted.
• 10 May 2012: China defines itself as a ‘near-arctic state’, says SIPRI — www.sipri.org
  Chinese Arctic specialists now refer to China as a ‘near-Arctic state’ and at the workshop the term ‘stakeholder’ was also used. The Chinese government has recently increased investment in Arctic research and commissioned a second Arctic ice-breaker.
• Chinese woman facing home’s demolition blows up herself, two others – latimes.com
  A Chinese woman distraught about the planned demolition of her home set off a bomb during a meeting with local officials, killing herself and two others.
  The suicide blast, relatively rare for China, took place Thursday morning near Zhaotong, a small city in China’s remote Yunnan province. The woman had been meeting with a small group of low-level community officials to sign an agre
• 大连2家大型国企董事长被免 1人曾任大连副市长|大连|国企董事长|被免_新浪新闻
  heads of 2 Dalian SOEs removed, one, xing liangzhong, was once a vice mayor
• 万达保利西双版纳上演圈地潮 白象湖被填埋建房_地方经济_新浪财经_新浪网
  Yunnan’s Xishuangbanna being destroyed by real estate developers?
• 北京日报：必须高扬爱国主义这面旗帜_资讯频道_凤凰网
• China’s Unique Economic Model Gets New Scrutiny – NYTimes.com
  with the recent political upheavals, and a growing number of influential voices demanding a resurrection of freer economic policies, it appears that the sense of triumphalism was, at best, premature, and perhaps seriously misguided. Chinese leaders are grappling with a range of uncertainties, from the once-a-decade leadership transition this year that has been marred by a seismic political scandal, to a slowdown of growth in an economy in which deeply entrenched state-owned enterprises and their political patrons have hobbled market forces and private entrepreneurship.
• Starbucks’s Schultz Says China Growth Sustainable: Video – Bloomberg
• More Wealthy Chinese Said to Seek Investor Visas – WSJ.com
  Some immigration lawyers have seen a new increase in the number of Chinese seeking foreign citizenship, a trend they suggest is tied to worries about political turmoil and economic slowdown in China, especially among businesspeople and politicians seeking to protect their families and wealth.”There’s definitely a surge in China for what I call ‘let-me-out-now’ product,” said Jean-Francois Harvey, an immigration lawyer based in Hong Kong who deals with clients throughout Asia.

• China’s Big Banks Look More Like Paper Tigers – Bloomberg
  After spending time combing through the financial reports of China’s biggest publicly traded, state- owned banks, I now understand what Jim Chanos, the famous short- seller, means when he keeps saying they are “built on quicksand.” He’s definitely on to something.
• Deepwater Robots Developed by Navy to Dive for Dangers – Bloomberg
  By U.S. Navy estimates, about 50 countries stock more than 250,000 maritime mines that could be dropped in the world’s oceans, Bloomberg Businessweek reports in its May 14 issue. China has the most extensive and sophisticated inventory of mines, according to naval analysts.
• Translation: Han Han Says Hong Kong, Taiwan “Protecting Chinese Civilization” | Tea Leaf Nation
• Lobbyists Arranged N.Y. Congressman’s $20,000 Trip To Taiwan – ProPublica
  Two days after Christmas last year, Rep. Bill Owens, D-N.Y., and his wife, Jane, boarded a first-class flight to Taiwan for a four-day tour of the island. Owens and his wife roomed at $500-a-night luxury hotels and enjoyed fine meals between meetings with Taiwanese officials and a day trip to Taipei’s famed National Palace Museum.
  The Chinese Culture University in Taiwan had ostensibly invited the congressman and his wife “to promote international cultural exchange.” In fact, lobbyists for Taiwan’s government had organized the trip..xchange.” In fact, lobbyists for Taiwan’s government had organized the trip..
  The episode also sheds light on Park Strategies’ work to influence Congress on behalf of Taiwan. The nation is constantly seeking greater military and diplomatic aid from the U.S. in its standoff with China, which considers the island a breakaway territory.
  Park also has worked to advance Taiwanese commercial interests in the U.S., including arranging meetings with a semiconductor manufacturer that has business in upstate New York.

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