Must-read China news by Danwei

Taiwan to open memorial museum for 228 incident

Thu, 05 Nov 2009 12:10:36 +0700

Taipei Times reports. The museum will be open for memorials in 2010.

World Bank: China's economy to grow 8.4% this year

Thu, 05 Nov 2009 11:52:46 +0700

The New York Times reports:

The bank now expects the Chinese economy to grow 8.4 percent this year, according to its latest quarterly review of the country, up from the 7.2 percent it forecast in June. It predicts growth of 8.7 percent next year.

The new 2009 estimate is just shy of the 8.5 percent being projected by the International Monetary Fund, which likewise raised its forecast for China and the rest of Asia last week, and also echoes recent upward revisions by economists at several private banks.

AFP also has a report, via The Telegraph.

Hundreds protest after man died in Kunming

Thu, 05 Nov 2009 11:46:23 +0700

ChinaSMACK has a translation of a story about a man in Kunming beaten to death by the Chengguan.

Soong Mei-ling and Christianity

Thu, 05 Nov 2009 11:23:39 +0700

Biographer Hannah Pakula has written an biography of Soong Mei-ling. The New York Times has an extract about her religious upbringing:

Religion had made Charlie Soong's life. The Methodist Church had educated him and given him a place in the world. This was not necessarily the case with his third daughter. Required to live up to the behavior of her three older siblings, May-ling found daily prayers "tiresome" and "hated the long sermons" in church on Sunday. Family prayers were little better, and she often pled thirst in order to slip out of the room. "I used to think Faith, Belief, Immortality were more or less imaginary," she wrote in 1934. "I believed in the world seen, not the world unseen. I could not accept things just because they had always been accepted. In other words, a religion good enough for my fathers did not necessarily appeal to me."

On silk farming in Wuzhen

Thu, 05 Nov 2009 11:13:29 +0700

David at Randomwire posts on his visit and witnessing of cocoons boiled and silk extracted, with photos.

Actor fakes multiple illnesses in commercials

Thu, 05 Nov 2009 11:12:29 +0700

ESWN presents reports and videos featuring xiangsheng actor Hou Yaohua, who has promoted dodgy medicines in ten television commercials.

At the China Daily as well.

Follow-ups to Wen Jiabao's DPRK trip

Thu, 05 Nov 2009 11:06:56 +0700

Adam Cathcart rounds up some reactions to various episodes of the Premier's recent visit to Pyongyang, including this classic, noisy Arriflex camera one North Korean journalist used to film the proceedings.

Obama's Shenzhen-based brother publishes novel

Wed, 04 Nov 2009 14:52:39 +0700

This report from Reuters does not say where the novel will be published.

U.S. President Barack Obama's half-brother made a rare appearance on Wednesday in southern China, his home for seven years, to launch a novel he says draws on his painful childhood under an abusive father.

Mark Okoth Obama Ndesandjo -- who had the same, late, father as the U.S. President -- has kept a low public profile since reports surfaced last year that he was living and working in the southern Chinese capitalist and manufacturing haven of Shenzhen...

... After repeatedly shunning media attention, Ndesandjo's first major public appearance to launch his debut novel comes less than two weeks before the U.S. president travels to China for the first time.

Han Han: metrosexual and carefully groomed

Wed, 04 Nov 2009 11:39:02 +0700

TIME's Simon Elegant interviews Han Han:

"It's stupid to try to evaluate one's own works," he says, lacing his answer with frequent expletives. "If you are too humble, people won't take you seriously; and if you think too highly of yourself, it's not good for you either." As for other writers, Han flaps a manicured hand: "I don't do this kind of comparison. And frankly, I don't think your readers will be interested in Chinese literature at all."

Disney theme park approved for Shanghai

Wed, 04 Nov 2009 10:03:21 +0700

From The New York Times:

After a courtship of about 20 years, the Walt Disney Company has won approval from the central government of China to build a Disneyland-style theme park in Shanghai, Robert A. Iger, Disney’s chief executive, said Tuesday...

...Analysts estimate the initial park — not including hotels and resort infrastructure — will cost $3.5 billion, making it one of the largest-ever foreign investments in China.

The initial resort, with a mix of shopping areas, hotels and a Magic Kingdom-style theme park, will sprawl across 1,000 acres of the city’s Pudong district — with the theme park occupying about 100 of those acres ... It is expected to open in five or six years.

Julia Lovell on Lu Xun

Wed, 04 Nov 2009 09:30:49 +0700

On The China Beat:

[A]n excerpt from the introduction of Julia Lovell’s forthcoming translation of Lu Xun’s fiction. Lovell examines the uses (and abuses) of Lu Xun’s writings by Mao Zedong in the decades after the author’s death, pointing out the ways in which the CCP smoothed over rough edges and ignored inconvenient truths as it disseminated Lu Xun’s work for the Chinese public to study.

Saturday football club

Tue, 03 Nov 2009 11:58:34 +0700

A video set to music with no narration of a bunch of Chinese children playing football in Beijing, by China-Files.com (link to Italian language website with Vimeo video player).

GAPP suspends World of Warcraft approval;Ministry of Culture peeved

Tue, 03 Nov 2009 11:46:21 +0700

GAPP has suspended approval for World of Warcraft, Blizzard's wildly popular online game whose Chinese operation Netease recently took over from The9. Reuters reports:

Citing "gross violations" of regulations, the General Administration of Press and Publication said it had halted and returned NetEase's application to operate "Burning Crusades" -- the latest version of the game licensed from Activision.

The regulatory body posted a statement on its Web site that demanded the NetEase affiliate company that operates World of Warcraft to suspend charging users to play the game, and disallow new account registrations.

This is turning into a major inter-ministry spat: the Ministry of Culture, which previously approved Netease's application, now says that GAPP exceeded its authority by interfering into the operation of World of Warcraft.

Inside Ai Weiwei's head

Tue, 03 Nov 2009 11:42:34 +0700

China Geeks has a scan of a letter from Ai Weiwei's German doctors about his brain damage and threat to life, although with the conclusion that he will fully recover.

The seventh Taiwan Gay Parade

Tue, 03 Nov 2009 10:46:22 +0700

Education Minister Zhou Ji sacked

Mon, 02 Nov 2009 11:10:29 +0700

and replaced by Yuan Guiren, vice-minister of education and former president of Beijing Normal University. China Daily uses an AP story in conjunction with their own:

The removal also comes just weeks after two senior administrators at Wuhan University in Hubei province were arrested over allegations of bribery.

Zhou has never been linked publicly with the matter, but he has spent the majority of his career in Wuhan's education sector and served as city mayor for two years before being promoted to vice-minister of education in 2002.

The alleged corruption at the university sums up the challenges facing China's college system, say analysts.

Global Times also reports that Zhou Ji has been appointed deputy Party Secretary of the Chinese Academy of Engineering.

China-Africa forum in Egypt this year

Mon, 02 Nov 2009 09:47:55 +0700

From AP on New York Times:

China will set the future direction of its burgeoning ties with Africa at a multinational forum in Egypt this month, Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi was quoted as saying on Sunday.

Premier Wen Jiabao plans to attend the Nov. 8-9 Forum on China-Africa Cooperation in the resort of Sharm el-Sheikh, Yang said in an interview with the official Xinhua News Agency.

Corruption as the fabric of governance

Mon, 02 Nov 2009 09:19:16 +0700

Gady Epstein of Forbes writes in his online column about interviewing a corrupt coal mine boss in Shanxi:

"The inspection teams who went to check the coal mines, they asked for money. If you didn't give them money, they would close down the mine," Lian says. "How much you paid depended on the title. The bureau chief and the office director and the staff all have different prices."

Epstein's piece on the subject in the magazine is called Black Future.

China's "father of space program" dies

Sun, 01 Nov 2009 18:06:54 +0700

From Xinhua:

The death of China's legendary scientist Qian Xuesen has plunged many Chinese into deep sorrow and people across the country mourned the scientist, known as China's "father of space program," in different ways.

Qian, also known as Tsien Hsue-shen, died of illness in Beijing Saturday morning at the age of 98. He led the country's missile and aviation programs and played a significant role in developing China's first man-made earth satellite.

First snow in Beijing, heavier by "artifical means"

Sun, 01 Nov 2009 17:49:45 +0700

From Xinhua:

Biting cold and strong wind gripped Chinese provinces on Sunday as Beijing embraced its first snowfall this winter...

...In Beijing, a snow, which started in the wee hours and got heavier in the morning, covered most of the city proper, capping roofs and lawn in every neighborhood.

Beijing Weather Modification Office said they had used artificial means to increase the snow to ease the lingering drought.

"We wont miss any opportunity of artificial precipitation since Beijing is suffering from the lingering drought," said Zhang Qiang, who is in charge of the office.