Friday, July 3, 2009
From New York Times: As the United States takes its first steps toward mandating that power companies generate more electricity from renewable sources, China already has a similar requirement and is investing billions to remake itself into a green energy superpower. Through a combination of carrots and sticks, Beijing is starting to change how this country generates [...] Read more »
From the Financial Times: When Bank of America was negotiating to take a stake in China Construction Bank four years ago, advisers who worked on the investment gave it the code name “Project Solidgold”. Yet the landmark “strategic” relationship between the US and Chinese lenders has conspicuously failed to glister. BofA was among a wave of overseas [...] Read more »
From THR.com/Asia A little-known deputy film censor has been promoted to oversee China’s rapidly growing movie industry, sources inside the State Administration of Radio Film and Television told The Hollywood Reporter on Thursday. On June 25, Zhang Pimin was promoted to vice-director of SARFT, where he formerly was deputy director of the Film Bureau responsible for helping [...] Read more »
From the New York Times: On July Fourth, we think about our country and its future. But these days it’s impossible to think about America and its future role in the world without also thinking about China. This was the subject of a combative discussion this week at the Aspen Ideas Festival. The agent provocateur was Niall [...] Read more »
The Times of India reports that Sri Lanka has created a SEZ near the city of Colombo exclusively for Chinese companies: This is one of the decisions taken during meetings between Chinese leaders and Sri Lankan Foreign Minister Rohitha Bogollagama over the past two days. The move is apparantly driven by Colombo’s desire to attract large [...] Read more »
From AFP: China may allow foreign firms with investments inside the country to list domestically, as part of efforts to boost trader confidence during the global downturn, according to an official. “We will continue to actively work with relevant authorities to study and complete the policy of allowing foreign-invested companies to list in the country,” Vice Commerce [...] Read more »
From Bloomberg: China will allow companies to use the yuan to settle cross-border trade and let them keep their entitlement to export tax rebates, seeking to reduce the reliance of importers and exporters on the U.S. dollar. The People’s Bank of China will encourage banks to offer yuan settlement services from today, the bank said in the [...] Read more »
From AP: Until last week, Alice Li’s summer plans were simple: work part-time at a convenience store, study for graduate exams and go to the amusement park with friends. The upcoming celebration of 60 years of communist rule in China has changed all that. For many students in Beijing, the summer holidays will instead center around government-mandated [...] Read more »
From Bloomberg: Taiwan will allow investment from mainland China in 100 industries and projects, helping the island’s economy to benefit from the warmest cross-strait relations in 60 years. Taiwan will open up 64 sectors in manufacturing, 25 in services and 11 public infrastructure projects from today, the Ministry of Economics Affairs told a briefing in Taipei. Foundries [...] Read more »
The Australian profiles imprisoned dissident Liu Xiaobo: Liu’s last interview before his arrest was with The Australian. “No matter how rich a society is, as long as it is ruled by a privileged class (that) gains its wealth from an unbalanced and opaque system, there will be strong discontent,” he said. “And any defence of this group’s [...] Read more »
From the New York Times: Shi Pei Pu, a Beijing opera singer and spy whose sexually convoluted love affair with a French Embassy worker created one of the strangest cases in international espionage and was the inspiration for the Broadway show “M. Butterfly,” died in Paris on Tuesday. His death was announced to Agence France-Presse by an [...] Read more »
The Guardian reports on the death of a suspect in police detention: Junior officers have claimed that a senior official told his men to “use violence to control violence” before they interrogated Wan. The official denied the allegation. Local press have also reported claims that heavy publicity surrounding the case – concerning the deaths of six people [...] Read more »
From the Chosun Ilbo: Many Internet users in China are celebrating after Beijing delayed implementing its order that Internet-blocking software be installed in all new computers. News of the delay turned a scheduled Internet boycott into an all-day celebration on Wednesday. Hundreds of opponents of the plan flowed in and out of a tucked-away restaurant in Beijing’s [...] Read more »
From Economic Observer Online: China has edged closer to levying an environmental tax on polluters, but remains divided over how to introduce the tax. Although the idea of reforming the system by which polluters are taxed was first proposed two years ago, it was fast-tracked in May, along with changes to resource and property tax, by the [...] Read more »
From AP: The United States on Thursday named a career diplomat with wide-ranging experience in East Asia to be the new head of its de facto embassy in Taiwan. The American Institute in Taiwan said William Stanton, currently the No. 2 U.S. diplomat in South Korea, will replace outgoing institute head Stephen Young in August. Taiwan’s Foreign Ministry [...] Read more »
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