China News: 2005 September | China Digital Times (CDT)

Date archive for September 2005

China seizes on Olympic fair play – David Lague

From the International Herald Tribune:

China has introduced measures to fight corruption in preparing the Beijing Olympics in 2008 that could become a blueprint for a wider campaign against graft, according to international anticorruption experts.

In cooperation with international advisers, the Chinese government has instituted a range of procedures to minimize the potential for corruption in contracts for the Games, which it estimates will be worth up to $16 billion.
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- September 29, 2005 1:46 PM
Globe and Mail special issue on Hong Kong

The Globe and Mail has published a special issue focused on Hong Kong. Articles include:

24/7 BOOMTOWN by Geoffrey York

Territory’s fortunes rise on China’s economic flood by Angela Barnes

What China lacks just makes its capitalist enclave stronger by Tom Grimmer

and more.
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- September 29, 2005 1:24 PM
China on the march – Michael Vatikiotis

From the International Herald Tribune:

The news that two major Chinese motorcycle manufacturers plan to build factories in Thailand to serve the regional market should serve as a wake-up call for everyone doing business in Asia. Yes, the Chinese are coming. Slowly, inefficiently, but surely, Chinese companies are on the march in Asia.
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- September 29, 2005 1:06 PM
The cauldron boils – Economist

From the Economist:

The Chinese government is getting increasingly twitchy about what officials say is a rapid growth in the number and scale of public protests. In its latest bid to quash them, this week it announced a sweeping ban on internet material that incites “illegal demonstrations”. Does China face serious instability? Probably not, for now at least. But in the longer term there are reasons to worry.
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- September 29, 2005 1:02 PM
Passing Through – Yiyun Li

From the 9/25 New York Times Magazine:

We were the only girls’ company, and we marched behind a battalion of boys; the road across the village was shrouded by dust. A water buffalo, used to the tramping, grazed undisturbed. A villager saw us and called out, “Girl-soldiers this time.” The villagers appeared in every door, bowls of rice in their hands, pointing at us with their chopsticks. “Girl-soldiers,” young children echoed, running along beside us. We smiled, waved and kept walking. An old woman was pounding dried peppers in a huge stone mortar. The breeze spread the fine powders, and many of us sneezed; the villagers laughed.
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- September 29, 2005 12:58 PM
On Chinese Television, What’s Cool Is No Longer Correct – Edward Cody

From the Washington Post:

At first glance, the new rules handed down by China’s broadcasting authority seemed natural enough in a country where the Communist Party feels duty-bound to set the tone for everything, even pop music.

Masters of ceremony on state television’s seemingly endless roster of variety shows, the regulations said, should avoid vulgarity, dress modestly and uplift their young viewers. “Hosts and hostesses represent the image of radio and TV stations and therefore have an unshakable responsibility to spread advanced culture and national virtue and to safeguard the country’s interests,” the authorities decreed.

But also in the latest set of rules, published Sept. 10 by the State Administration of Radio, Film and Television, was a less obvious stipulation: Masters of ceremony should always use standard Mandarin Chinese and should stop affecting Hong Kong or Taiwanese slang and accents
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- September 29, 2005 12:51 PM
Bullying The Bloggers – Patrick Moore

From Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty:

The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has taken new measures aimed at controlling citizens’ access to information through the Internet by slapping controls on bloggers. The question remains: can the authorities maintain a one-party dictatorship and at the same time give proper attention to the information needs of a vibrant economy?
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- September 29, 2005 12:47 PM
Concerns Grow Over Executions in China – Mark Magnier

From The Los Angeles Times:

Zhang Huanzhi, 61, hugs a small mound of dirt that holds her son’s ashes. Tears and mucous stream from her face as she cries out in pain: Why us, why our boy, why such injustice?

A few months ago, a state-run newspaper reported that someone else had confessed to the rape and murder for which her son had been executed. For years, few had listened as she insisted that Nie Shubin, 20, had been tortured into a false confession, then convicted after a two-hour trial. The only evidence of any note, she says, was the account of a witness who saw someone near the crime scene riding a blue bicycle. Nie owned a blue bicycle.
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- September 29, 2005 11:50 AM
China’s Hu: closet liberal or conservative? – Benjamin Kang Lim

From Reuters.co.uk:

Chinese Communist Party chief Hu Jintao is as much of an enigma today as he was when he rose to power almost three years ago, still keeping the world guessing whether he is a closet liberal or an ultra-conservative.

The 62-year-old Hu, who doubles as state president, has sent mixed signals in recent months, tempering crackdowns on perceived threats to Communist rule with a bold decision to rehabilitate a reformist predecessor, Hu Yaobang, whose death sparked the 1989 Tiananmen Square pro-democracy protests.
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- September 29, 2005 10:26 AM
Music downloading and sharing in China – Lucy Montgomery

From INDICARE:

At present, rates of music piracy are high throughout China’s audio-visual industries. Music industry executives generally quote piracy rates of between 75% and 95%. Disc piracy is common, particularly in wealthier cities along China’s eastern seaboard. People living in less affluent or developed areas still use pirated audio cassettes, which are cheaper to copy than digital media. Cassette players, which are capable of both playing and copying music, are much more affordable to people living in poor areas of China than computers. They are also easier for less educated sectors of the population to use: they do not require computer literacy or the ability to Romanise Chinese characters (pin yin). Expensive hardware investments are also unnecessary, allowing anyone with a tape recorder and a blank cassette to copy and share music using this format, regardless of their access to the internet.

At the same time, the development of an extensive broadband network in China’s cities and growing levels of PC ownership among the emerging urban elite are also resulting in high levels of music downloading. MP3 downloading is particularly common among university students and young professionals, who are more likely than other sectors of China’s population to have access to the Internet, an interest in music and the skills to engage in this activity.

Thanks to Philipp Bohn for providing this link.
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- September 29, 2005 10:01 AM
Photo: Taiwanese family outing, thanks to Camereye for the photo

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- September 29, 2005 4:00 AM
How to Keep Talking – Bryan Walsh and Elaine Shannon

From Time Asia:

Christopher Hill, it turns out, does his best work by moonlight. The U.S. Assistant Secretary of State and chief negotiator at the six-party North Korean nuclear talks had a Chinese draft proposal in hand that could jump-start the long-stalled negotiations…

So at a lavish Mid-Autumn Festival party on Sept. 17 hosted by Chinese Vice Foreign Minister and chief negotiator Wu Dawei, Hill went to work. According to a U.S. official, in between the Dynasty-brand wine, mooncakes and calls to U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, who was in New York buttonholing foreign ministers as they attended the U.N. World Summit, Hill nailed down agreements that the others would not help North Korea get its reactor until Pyongyang’s nuclear warheads and fissile material were eliminated. Confident that the U.S. line would be backed, Hill lit a cigar and indulged in some moongazing.

That was how the six-party talks were saved: China provided the foundation, and Hill and Rice closed the deal.
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- September 28, 2005 1:50 PM
Valley firms in China should unite to stand up for what’s right – Mike Langberg

From the San Jose Mercury News (registration required):

China is not a democracy and China’s government remains firmly committed to controlling what information reaches its citizens, a reality reinforced earlier this week by a new crackdown on freedom of speech online.

That’s a growing problem for Silicon Valley companies, which desperately want to be a part of China’s rapidly growing market — but don’t want to look like they are aiding and abetting government policies that are truly repugnant.
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- September 28, 2005 12:14 PM
China’s public intellectuals struggle – Merle Goldman

From the Taipei Times:

Is China’s political environment loosening up, or is the government cracking down? It’s hard to tell. Chinese President and Communist Party General Secretary Hu Jintao (ËÉ°Èå¶Êø§) sometimes seems to be going both ways simultaneously.

For example, Hu has decided to honor the memory of his mentor, former general secretary Hu Yaobang (ËÉ°ËÄÄÈÇ¶), in order to burnish his aura as a reformist. But, in many ways, Hu Jintao’s tenure as the head of the fourth generation of Communist leaders, which began when he became party secretary in 2002, differs sharply from that of his mentor.
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- September 28, 2005 11:56 AM
Gmail’s long-lost Chinese cousin? – Sumner Lemon

From Infoworld.com:

ISM Gmail is a free Web-based e-mail service offered by Beijing ISM Internet Technology Development Co., a small Chinese e-mail provider and domain registrar based in western Beijing.

Like Google’s own free Web e-mail service, the ISM Gmail service employs a logo comprised of blue, yellow, red, and green letters. And the sign-in pages of the two sites display a shared fondness for minimalist design; although Google prefers blue bars along the top and bottom of the page, while the bars on ISM’s site are green.

At first glance, it’s easy to assume that the Chinese site is just a knock-off of the better-known Google e-mail service. There’s just one problem: ISM claims that its Gmail service was here first. And there’s evidence to back up that claim.
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- September 28, 2005 10:13 AM