Must-read China news by Danwei

Murdering Murderer

Fri, 10 Jul 2009 08:53:42 +0700

The Golden Rock doesn't like the new Aaron Kwok horror film Murderer (杀人犯):

As a Chinese person, if I sat down in a movie theater and saw a movie with Caucasian actors taping their eyes to appear slanted speaking fake “ching-chong” Chinese and making each other eat “fried lice” for 120 minutes, I would only have half the anger and shock I did coming out of Roy Chow’s Murderer.

6.0 earthquake shakes Yunnan

Fri, 10 Jul 2009 08:50:47 +0700

Go Kunming reports on an earthquake:

A 6.0 magnitude tremor rattled Yao'an County (姚安) in Chuxiong Yi Autonomous Prefecture yesterday, with damage reports only just beginning to be released to local media. As of 12:00 am today, more than 620,000 people have been affected by the quake, with 56 seriously injured and 28 lightly injured.

More details at China Daily and Bloomberg.

A letter from Kashgar

Fri, 10 Jul 2009 08:48:24 +0700

The New Dominion posts a letter from a foreign traveller currently in Kashgar, Xinjiang.

Biased reporting about Xinjiang

Thu, 09 Jul 2009 15:46:40 +0700

Netizens in China are once again on the case of what they perceive as biased reporting from the Western media about ethnic incidents in China. From the China Daily via Xinhua:

"The whole news structure shows that CNN is like the propaganda machine for the World Uyghur Congress, other Chinese are completely silenced, and how can the world learn about the whole truth in this way?" a netizen said.

In using the videos provided by Chinese media, the Western media coupled them with biased commendatory that the Chinese government is suppressing ethnic minority groups and transferring huge numbers of Han Chinese into Xinjiang to dilute the Uyghur culture .

Cat snatching in Shanghai

Thu, 09 Jul 2009 11:23:49 +0700

The Shanghaiist reports on some wily cat-snatchers going around with cages and sparrows.

Grief in China's ethnic strife

Thu, 09 Jul 2009 09:42:06 +0700

The New York Times Edward Wong interviews a family from Henan who lost their son during Sunday's riots in Xinjiang:

She cried for three hours until she dared go out to look for him.

“I thought, if I don't find a body, then maybe he’s in hiding and still alive,” she said. “But I quickly found the body.”

Mr. Lu's father identified his son on Wednesday from a photograph at a police station.

"After we cremate the body, we’ll go home with the ashes," Ms. Zhang said. The father stared at cigarette butts strewn across the floor. "We'll never come back," he said.

Liu Zaifu on Eileen Chang

Thu, 09 Jul 2009 08:41:27 +0700

A lengthy essay by critic Liu Zaifu on Eileen Chang's fiction, its appraisal by C.T. Hsia, and the distinction Hsia draws between communist and non-communist writers, appears in a translation by Yunzhong Shu at the MCLC Resource Center:

Isn't it a tragedy that a writer who had remained intent on writing about eternal human nature and achieved her success by resisting the dominant political trend of her time ended up using her fiction as political propaganda? It can be said that as she wrote Love in Redland Eileen Chang had lost her aesthetic, artistic direction, because what she wrote by order was precisely what she had been opposed to ten years earlier. So Love in Redland marks an unfortunate deviation in her career as a literary genius.

Four Rio Tinto employees detained for spying

Thu, 09 Jul 2009 08:34:32 +0700

Four employees of Australian mining company Rio Tinto, three Chinese and one Australian, have been detained on suspicion of espionage, CNN reports. This comes after the company broke off a proposed deal with Chinalco, but Australian Foreign Minister Stephen Smith played down suggestions of a connection:

Smith brushed aside speculation that the detentions are linked to the deal.
"I've seen no evidence and I have no basis for any such speculation," he said. "But I do underline that when our officials were advised of the reasons for the detention, that came as a surprise to us, as it came as a surprise to Rio Tinto, Mr. Hu's employer."

Two restraints + one leniency

Wed, 08 Jul 2009 17:44:02 +0700

DJ at Fool's Mountain translates an article by an ethnic Han who grew up in Xinjiang's Production and Construction Corps that describes how minority policy backfires.

Anger on the internet during Uighur clashes

Wed, 08 Jul 2009 15:04:29 +0700

Malcolm Moore of the Daily Telegraph writes about Chinese Internet reactions on the Xinjiang conflict.

Moore is also updating his Twitter feed with the latest from Xinjiang.

"Crack down upon mafia-like groups"

Wed, 08 Jul 2009 11:47:34 +0700

Public security minister Meng Jianzhu spoke about the need to prevent gangster groups from infiltrating the political sector, Xinhua reports:

Police authorities should target on major gangster groups and root out the "protective umbrella" behind them, the police chief said.

Police forces should prevent Communist Party and government officials from being corrupted by those underworld organizations, and also prevent those organizations from manipulating grassroots elections and other political issues by violence, threats and bribery, Meng said.

Iraqi oil goes to China

Wed, 08 Jul 2009 10:35:42 +0700

Forbes reports that Chinese oil companies are moving quickly for follow-up bids following a license granted to China to develop an oilfield in Iraq:

The consortium formed by CNPC and BP ( BP - news - people ) won a contract to develop the Rumaila oilfield in southeast Iraq, the largest known oilfield in Iraq, discovered in 1950s. According to CNPC’s announcement, the alliance was granted a 20-year technical service contract, with a possible 5-year extension thereafter.

Images from Tuesday Urumqi demonstrations

Wed, 08 Jul 2009 09:46:13 +0700

The New Dominion discusses the "woman vs. armed police" photograph from Urumqi.

Riots in Xinjiang and the price of omission

Tue, 07 Jul 2009 19:02:16 +0700

Imagethief looks at the narratives of the riots in Xinjiang:

...to summarize, in the broad Western media narrative, Uighurs ground down by decades of colonial oppression and incited by racism have erupted in rebellion. In the one told by Chinese media, "splittists" let by the Uighur exile Rebiyаh Kаdeer have engineered an outbreak of groundless violence (中) directed largely at innocent ethnic Han.

Condensing as they must a long and complicated history from different political points of view, both narratives are hobbled. The Western narrative is hobbled by a reflexive sympathy for any group arrayed in opposition to a Chinese state that is well established in the role of bogeyman.... The Chinese narrative is hobbled by a national myth-making apparatus that allows no room whatsoever for the acnowledgment of Uighur grievances.

Fresh protests in Xinjiang

Tue, 07 Jul 2009 15:39:15 +0700

From The Guardian, both in audio and text:

Chinese armed police and Uighurs clashed in extraordinary scenes in the capital of the north-western region of Xinjiang this morning – two days after at least 156 people were killed in vicious ethnic violence.

Uighur residents erupted into protests during an official media tour of the riot zone in the face of hundreds of officers. Thousands of riot and armed paramilitary police have flooded the southern part of the capital.

Women in the market place burst into wailing and chanting as foreign reporters arrived, complaining that police had taken away Uighur men. Authorities have arrested 1,434 people in connection with Sunday's unrest.

Also from The New York Times: New Protests in Western China After Deadly Clashes and Daily Telegraph: Han Chinese mob takes to the streets in Urumqi in hunt for Uighur Muslims.

Three years in China

Tue, 07 Jul 2009 11:37:09 +0700

The BBC's James Reynolds recaps the major stories he's covered during his three years reporting from China.

Buddhist protests and Muslim riots

Tue, 07 Jul 2009 10:55:00 +0700

Adam Minter at Shanghai Scrap compares two New York Times articles and their treatment of Uighurs and Tibetans.

The new New York is Beijing

Mon, 06 Jul 2009 14:20:10 +0700

From Adrianne Mong, for MSNBC:

"There’s just more opportunity, not just to make a name for yourself, but to make a difference," said Edgar, another former New Yorker who enjoys teaching her staff about the fine wines they collect and serve to guests. "I can do so much more here in regards to being creative or training some other people."

The flip side to this desire for new things, however, is the erosion of old traditions.

"[Chinese] cooking is a big cultural identity that is on the brink of being lost," said Lillian Chou, a former writer for Gourmet magazine who moved to Beijing from New Jersey four months ago to study the language and the food.

Torrential rain leaves 20 dead

Mon, 06 Jul 2009 12:49:09 +0700

From AFP:

At least 20 people have died and more than 670,000 had to be evacuated in China after torrential rain and floods destroyed houses, damaged roads and caused rivers to overflow, state media said Sunday.

Instant bio of Michael Jackson

Mon, 06 Jul 2009 10:23:24 +0700

China Daily reports on a new biography of Michael Jackson, Moonwalk in Paradise, that was prepared in two days. What's even scarier:

More than 10 Chinese publishing houses are also planning to launch instant books about Jackson.