Processed gutter oil is expected to be used as bus fuel within two years in Shanghai, as part of efforts to advance a circular economy and prevent recycled cooking oil from returning to the kitchen.

The Shanghai Municipal Food Safety Committee will cooperate with Tongji University and six businesses that process used cooking oil into biodiesel that can power vehicles, said Yan Zuqiang, the committee’s director, in an interview with a local news portal on Saturday.

[...]“On the one hand, we emphasized cleaning up illegal oil collectors. On the other, we looked for ideal ways to use the recycled oil. Using it as auto fuel is one of them,” he said.

This is part of Shanghai’s attempts to innovate its public transportation system. Sun Jianping, director of the Shanghai Municipal Transport and Port Authority, said on Sunday that people will only opt for public transportation when they feel it is “more convenient” to take buses and subways. [Source]

In April, biofuel developed in part from recycled cooking oil powered the 85-minute flight of a China Eastern Airline jet. Also see Caixin coverage (via CDT) of the recent trial of a Shandong “gutter oil tycoon,” CDT’s Grass-Mud Horse Lexicon entry for “ditch oil,” and prior CDT coverage of food safety.

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Post tags: alternative energy, alternative fuel, biodiesel, biofuels, food safety, food scandal, oil, public transportation, recycling, Shanghai
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Trade between Germany and China reached around 144 billion euros ($185.7 billion) in 2012, according to official German data.

German motor vehicles and auto parts, machinery and electrical goods have a vast export market in China, the world’s second-largest economy. China, on the other hand, utilizes technology from Germany. More than half of its solar panel output is exported to Europe.

During their encounter, Chinese and German representatives signed 17 declarations and agreements on bilateral trade projects and German-Chinese cultural ties. China’s Confusius Institute, which offers language courses, is to work closer with Germany’s 16 regional states or Länder. [Source]

Li’s Berlin visit follows his criticism of intended EU probes and tariffs against Chinese solar and telecoms equipment. While in Switzerland yesterday, Li signed a free trade agreement that he lauded as a “powerful message to the rest of the world” against what he sees as a European trend towards protectionism. In a joint statement from Berlin today, Li and Merkel both affirmed a commitment to free trade. From Reuters:

German Chancellor Angela Merkel and Chinese Premier Li Keqiang on Sunday called for an end to a trade row between Europe and China over solar panels and wireless equipment, telling a joint news conference they were both for free trade.

[...]Merkel said Germany would do everything it could to prevent the trade dispute from escalating to the point where the European Commission imposed import duties on Chinese panel makers.

[...]Li, standing next to Merkel at the briefing that followed the signing of a range of business agreements, said a trade dispute between the EU and China would harm both sides and benefit neither. [Source]

Bloomberg outlines the heightening trade tensions between China and the EU:

The European Commission, the EU’s regulatory arm, expects to introduce levies on solar products by June 6 to punish Chinese manufacturers for selling in the 27-nation EU below cost, a practice known as dumping. The duties will be the preliminary outcome of an inquiry that is due to end in early December, by which time EU governments must decide whether to impose “definitive” anti-dumping duties for five years.

The Alliance for Affordable Solar Energy, a Brussels-based lobby group, had urged Merkel to defuse the looming trade conflict and “actively push” for a mutual solution as tariffs would only hurt jobs and undermine solar energy growth. The Obama administration has also engaged in preliminary talks with the EU and China to settle the solar dispute, according to people familiar with the discussions.

The EU is poised to penalize imports of Chinese solar products after Solarworld AG (SWV), Germany’s biggest panel maker, lodged an anti-dumping complaint with the commission. Import tariffs would hurt manufacturers such as China’s Trina Solar Ltd. (TSL) and raise costs to build power plants in Europe, the world’s largest market for solar products and one largely supplied by Chinese manufacturers. [Source]

Amid this tense trade environment, AFP reports on the “special relationship” that may have prompted Li to choose Germany as his only EU stop, and on the two country’s interests in quickly resolving tensions:

Germany is the only stop among the EU’s 27 member states for Li on the trip, in a sign that Beijing wants to continue their special relationship, analysts say.

“From the German side, it’s all about trade. Germany sees China essentially as a large export market on which it’s increasingly dependent,” Germany expert Hans Kundnani, of the European Council on Foreign Relations, told AFP.

Merkel made two trips to Beijing within just seven months last year and said Sunday the two sides wanted to further bolster their already “close” relations, citing four areas — industry, IT, urbanisation and agriculture.

But for China, Germany is not only economically important in providing much-needed technology but also plays a strategic part in helping to combat Beijing’s fear of the US and Europe teaming up against it, Kundnani said.

[...]EU exports to China totalled $212 billion, with imports of $334 billion in 2012. [Source]

Also see prior CDT coverage of trade disputes, and of China’s relationship with Germany and the EU.

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Post tags: Brussels, EU, european union, Germany, Germany relations, protectionism, renewable energy, solar power, tariffs, telecommunications, trade disputes
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Ghost Street, Beijing

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Three Detained in Guangzhou After Applying for Tiananmen Commemoration: Li Weiguo, Xu Xiangrong, and Li Wensheng were detained by the police in Guangzhou, the capital of Guangdong Province, after they applied for city approval for a public Tiananmen Massacre demonstration. RFA reports [zh].

• Li Weiguo (李维国)
• Xu Xiangrong (徐向荣)
• Li Wensheng (李文生)
• 24th anniversary (24周年): This year marks the 24th anniversary of the massacre.
• youxing: Pinyin spelling of “march” (游行 yóuxíng)
• march (游行): retested（复测）

• Bao Pu (鲍朴): Founder of New Century Press in Hong Kong, which publishes books on subjects banned in mainland China. New Century will release Tiananmen democracy activist Chen Yizi’s memoir on June 4 [zh], the anniversary of the crackdown.

All Chinese-language words are tested using simplified characters. The same terms in traditional characters occasionally return different results.

Browse all of CDT’s collected sensitive words in this bilingual Google spreadsheet.

CDT Chinese runs a project that crowd-sources filtered keywords on Sina Weibo search. CDT independently tests the keywords before posting them, but some searches later become accessible again. We welcome readers to contribute to this project so that we can include the most up-to-date information. To add words, check out the form at the bottom of CDT Chinese’s latest sensitive words post.

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Post tags: 1989 protests, censorship, Censorship Vault, Directives from the Ministry of Truth, Ministry of Truth, propaganda
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Solutions must come from ordinary citizens, who can take responsibility for their environment and express it daily in choices such as riding bicycles or taking public transportation instead of driving. The voice of society is growing, and the government is starting to respond, albeit reluctantly, to the air-pollution crisis. The US Embassy in Beijing posts its air-quality readings on Twitter, and activists have been re-posting the readings on Sina Weibo (China’s answer to Twitter, which is blocked in the country). The hashtag “I don’t want to be a human vacuum cleaner” attracted more than 1.7 million comments. And when the real-estate titan Pan Shiyi asked his millions of Weibo followers: “Do you agree that PM2.5 should be monitored in 2011? Do you agree that the clean-air act should be stricter?”, the replies in favour far outnumbered those against.

[...] In recent years, local protests have successfully blocked the construction of individual polluting projects, including plants in Xiamen and Dalian, which would have produced the industrial chemical paraxylene; a trash incinerator in Panyu; and a wastewater treatment plant in Qidong. China is witnessing the beginnings of a civil society in which the Chinese people spontaneously defend their right to a healthy environment, independent of organizers, political goals and commercial interests.

Chinese citizens who want to drink clean water can buy a water purifier; those worried about poisoned milk can buy imported milk. But when the air is polluted, there is no option but to fight. The various stakeholders of China’s environment — government, non-government organizations and industry — should seize the opportunity provided by the growing popular involvement, and promote a civil society that stands up for the environment. The air of the people should be protected — by the people, for the people. [Source]

Meanwhile, a report from National Public Radio looks at the government’s role in combatting air pollution, and the ways in which the leadership has already taken action while also dealing with a variety of vested interests, including powerful oil companies:

Wagner says China’s state-owned oil companies serve two masters: the government and shareholders.

“They should feel the responsibility, as the entire Chinese government does, to improve people’s livelihoods and reduce air pollution,” Wagner says. “But they also serve the market, and these are publicly traded companies, and so their responsibility is to produce fuel at the cheapest cost possible.”

But January’s dreadful air pollution led to a breakthrough of sorts.

Sinopec Chairman Fu Chengyu surprised people and took some responsibility for the problem, and the government set a dramatically lower national fuel standard that matched those in Europe. Wagner says the new standard essentially removes all sulfur from the fuel and could reduce emissions 90 percent to as much as 99 percent.

That’s the good news. The bad news: The deadline for implementing that new standard is more than 4 1/2 years away, and it isn’t clear who will pay for all that clean technology. [Source]

Read more about environmental protests in China, via CDT.

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Post tags: air pollution, civil society, environmental activism, environmental protection, environmental protests, Kunming PX
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Hand, Guangzhou

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In telling the North it should return to the negotiating table, Mr. Xi appeared to strike a stern tone, saying, “The Chinese position is very clear: no matter how the situation changes, relevant parties should all adhere to the goal of denuclearization of the peninsula, persist in safeguarding its peace and stability, and stick to solving problems through dialogue and consultation.”

The Chinese leader called for resuming the so-called six-party talks, the diplomatic effort among six countries including China and the United States that collapsed in 2008 when North Korea walked out.

American experts on North Korea say it is unlikely that North Korea would agree to the talks, largely because the United States and South Korea would insist on preconditions like a pledge from North Korea that it would abandon its nuclear program.

The warning Friday from Mr. Xi follows a clear message the Chinese president delivered at a conference in April at Boao in southern China, when he said that “no one should be allowed to throw a region and even the whole world into chaos for selfish gain.”

While the envoy, Vice Marshal Choe Ryong Hae, agreed in principle to rejoining the talks, it is unclear if or how Pyongyang would follow through. Choe delivered a letter to Xi from Kim Jong-un, but the contents were not revealed. From AP:

The official China News Service said Choe delivered the handwritten letter from Kim to Xi at an afternoon meeting at the Great Hall of the People in central Beijing. It gave no details about the letter’s contents.

North Korea is willing to work with all sides to “appropriately resolve the relevant questions through the six-party talks and other forms,” Choe was quoted as saying by Chinese state broadcaster CCTV. He said Pyongyang was “willing to take active measures in this regard.”

Choe offered no details on how North Korea planned to resume talks. North Korea walked away from the six-party nuclear disarmament talks in 2009 over disagreements on how to verify steps the North was meant to take to end its nuclear programs. Foreign observers often claim that North Korea has a history of raising tensions in an attempt to push its adversaries to negotiations meant to win aid.

Since its third nuclear test, in February, North Korea has repeatedly said that any future diplomatic talks would have to recognize it as a nuclear power. That’s at odds with the basis of the six-party talks and puts Pyongyang at loggerheads with Washington, which says it won’t accept North Korea as an atomic power and demands that talks be based on past commitments by the North to abandon its nuclear programs.

Read more about China-North Korea relations and the six-party talks, via CDT.

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Post tags: North Korea nuclear, North Korea relations, six party talks
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Central Propaganda Department: Firmly reign in the degree of coverage of the Shenzhen Binhai power plant. Prevent malicious sensationalization. (May 23, 2013)

中宣部：对深圳滨海电厂的报道要把握好度，防止恶意炒作。

The plan to build the coal-burning Binhai plant was approved by Liu Tienan [zh], a senior official in the National Development and Reform Commission currently being investigated for disciplinary violations. The Shenzhen city government stated on May 21 that only research on the project has been approved, not any actual construction plans [zh]. The Guangdong Province Propaganda Department issued a directive about media coverage of Binhai on May 18.

CDT has collected the selections we translate here from a variety of sources and has checked them against official Chinese media reports to confirm their implementation.

Since directives are sometimes communicated orally to journalists and editors, who then leak them online, the wording published here may not be exact. The original publication date on CDT Chinese is noted after the directives; the date given may indicate when the directive was leaked, rather than when it was issued. CDT does its utmost to verify dates and wording, but also takes precautions to protect the source.

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Post tags: censorship, Directives from the Ministry of Truth, Guangdong, Liu Tienan, media censorship, Ministry of Truth, power plants, propaganda, Shenzhen
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Post tags: Robert Hughes
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It is the year 2049. China’s economic development has so disturbed the world’s other major powers that the United States, Japan, and Russia form an alliance and invade China. Fierce battles break out on the plains of northeast China, where Japanese troops and U.S. fighter jets besiege Chinese infantry. Caught by surprise, China’s army nonetheless stages a glorious counterattack by deploying levitating tanks, and employing a strategy based on lessons learned from the Anti-Japanese War and the Resist America War (better known in the West as WWII and the Korean War, respectively).

Such is the plot of The Last Counterattack, a serial novel published on Blood and Iron Reading, a Chinese military literature website. In one of the latest installments, published on May 2, U.S. government-sponsored hackers have infiltrated the Chinese military’s network and accidently launched a Chinese nuclear missile directed at the United States. The anonymous author’s online profile says he is a former colonel in the People’s Liberation Army and currently a staff officer in charge of operations and reconnaissance in the 12th Armored Division at China’s 21st Army Group. Going by the online pseudonym “the Old Staff Officer,” he told FP in an interview conducted over the Chinese messaging service QQ that he “enjoys the feeling of letting [his] imagination fly.” But Li, as I’ll call him, believes that what he’s writing may actually come to pass. In an April blog post, he explained his thinking for the book: “The world besieges China and attacks it from all sides. Is this possible? Yes!”

There are thousands of Chinese war fantasy novels on the Internet — too sensitive to be published in book form, they circulate on blogs, and websites like Blood and Iron Reading. Most languish, but the more popular ones get read millions of times. As a rising China struggles to define its military aspirations, and as the country’s vast propaganda apparatus encourages citizens to define their version of President Xi Jinping’s vague slogan “Chinese Dream,” these military fantasy novels provide insight into what Chinese people’s war dreams look like. [Source]

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Post tags: blogs, censorship, Japan, military, online novels, People's Liberation Army, QQ, United States
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To fund the urbanization plan, local governments would issue long-term bonds to finance spending on roads, housing and social safety nets, Reuters reported in March, quoting sources with ties to the leadership.

But a fiscal overhaul is needed because local governments don’t have steady tax revenues to back the issuance of bonds. Under China’s tax structure, in place since 1994, the central government gets most receipts while local governments do the spending, forcing them to rely on land sales for survival.

To support the process, Beijing needed to overhaul its land and tax codes as well as free up the rigid residency registration, or “hukou”, system to give migrant workers access to education, health and other services where they work, experts have said. Li wanted more detail on these sorts of reforms in the plan, the sources said. [Source]

While Reuters also reported that Li and President Xi Jinping preferred reform to any short-term economic stimulus, The Economist asks why they can’t pursue both:

Just as structural reforms have implications for demand, the converse is also true: efforts to boost demand can affect the course of structural reform. China’s 2009 stimulus lending was successful in reviving demand. But it also had some damaging structural side-effects. It further skewed the economy in favour of investment, especially property construction; it made a mess of local-government finances; and it forced China’s banks to serve government ends, thus delaying their evolution into commercial lenders.

The stimulus had one other damaging side-effect—on China’s economic philosophy. Many analysts now seem to believe that all stimulus measures delay reform, if only because they ease economic pain without which policymakers will not act.

That is a mistake. Stimulus does not need to be at odds with reform. Cutting taxes or increasing social spending would both stimulate the economy and help rebalance it towards consumption and services. Likewise, many structural reforms, such as removing barriers to entry in industries now dominated by state-owned enterprises, would also simultaneously help to boost spending. The Chinese economy clearly needs reform and may soon need revival. There is no reason why the leadership cannot do both. [Source]

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Post tags: economic reform, Li Keqiang, National Development and Reform Commission, reform, stimulus, urbanization, Xi Jinping
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Chang has based her biography on “long and detailed” research in newly opened Chinese and western archives, said publisher Jonathan Cape, and has revealed “a totally different picture” of Cixi “to the one that has prevailed for a hundred years”. One of Emperor Xianfeng’s 3,000 concubines, Cixi rose through the ranks by producing an heir, Tongzhi, and when Xianfeng died in 1861 she ousted other contenders and installed herself as sole regent for her son, ruling China for 47 years.

[...]Her “groundbreaking” new biography will “comprehensively overturn … the conventional view of Cixi as a deeply conservative and cruel despot”, said Jonathan Cape, and show how she abolished foot-binding, developed foreign trade and diplomacy, and revolutionised China’s education system. [Source]

Just as her new biography is expected to question the mainstream reputation of the empress, Chang’s last book, 2005′s iconoclastic Mao: The Unknown Story, challenged the official history of the PRC’s revolutionary hero.

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Post tags: authors, Chinese history, history, jung chang, qing dynasty
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In just 30 years, China has risen from long-standing poverty to being the second largest economy in the world – faster than any other country in history.

From angry farmers to weary migrant workers, powerful politicians and everyone in between, what China says and does, has become of undeniable importance to the entire world.

Episode 1: The Dramatic Rise, focuses on the divides created in Chinese society by the rapid economic reforms:

Episode 2: Power and the People, looks at how Chinese citizens get their voices heard in the Internet age:

Episode 3: The Fire Inside, examines the fight for women’s equality in China:

Episode 4: Made in China, has not yet been broadcast but will look at China’s role in the global economy.

Read more special media reports on China, as well as more about China’s rise, via CDT.

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Post tags: China's rise, manufacturing, migrant workers, online expression, special reports, urban rural divide, women's rights
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The New York Times reports on just how pervasive hacking is in Chinese society, and on the many free-agents who contract their hacking skills for corporate, official, and illicit projects (and often, all of the above). While joint operations between military and academic institutions are covered to describe China’s “complex universe of hacking and cybersecurity,” the Times also quotes a former hacker, who explains that western assertions of state-sponsored hacking may be misinformed:

The culture of hacking in China is not confined to top-secret military compounds where hackers carry out orders to pilfer data from foreign governments and corporations. Hacking thrives across official, corporate and criminal worlds. Whether it is used to break into private networks, track online dissent back to its source or steal trade secrets, hacking is openly discussed and even promoted at trade shows, inside university classrooms and on Internet forums.

[...]Corporations employ freelance hackers to spy on competitors. In an interview, a former hacker confirmed recent official news reports that one of China’s largest makers of construction equipment had committed cyberespionage against a rival.

[...]Another former hacker said the monolithic notion of insidious, state-sponsored hacking now discussed in the West was absurd. The presence of the state throughout the economy means hackers often end up doing work for the government at some point, even if it is through something as small-scale as a contract with a local government office.

“I don’t think the West understands,” he said. “China’s government is so big. It’s almost impossible to not have any crossover with the government.”

[...]“In China, everyone is struggling to feed themselves, so why should they consider values and those kinds of luxuries?” the former hacker said. “They work for one thing, and that’s for money.” [Source]

At his Washington Post blog, Max Fisher also reports on the legions of freelance Chinese hackers, focusing on the damage they are wreaking upon China’s economy:

A year of stunning revelations has made many Americans aware that Chinese hackers, some of them believed to be associated with the country’s military, have infiltrated just about every powerful institution in the District, from federal agencies to think tanks to, yes, media organizations. But less well-known are the freelance and industrial hackers operating within China, where they’re estimated to have caused $873 million in damage to Chinese economy in 2011 alone. [Source]

For more on cyber espionage, hacking, and China’s “patriotic geeks,” see prior CDT coverage.

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Post tags: cyberattacks, cyberespionage, cybersecurity, hackers, hacking, People's Liberation Army, PLA
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In the cartoon, pigs keep guard over Tiananmen with tanks and AK-47s. The slogan, “Long Live the Four Legs” is a reference to Animalism in Orwell’s Animal Farm. Meanwhile, the pig leaders tell each other, “Our belief is the truth of the universe!”

What We Believe In, by Crazy Crab of Hexie Farm for CDT:

Read more about Hexie Farm’s CDT series, including a Q&A with the anonymous cartoonist, and see all cartoons so far in the series.

[CDT owns the copyright for all cartoons in the Hexie Farm CDT series. Please do not reproduce without receiving prior permission from CDT.]

© Sophie Beach for China Digital Times (CDT), 2013. | Permalink | One comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: hexie farm, orwell, political cartoons, political reform, Xi Jinping
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