Mr. Wang, 57, is regarded as one of the most successful Chinese real estate tycoons. His $17 billion empire includes huge commercial property developments, five-star hotels, tourist resorts, a film and television production company and Asia’s largest cinema network.

Now, by paying $2.6 billion to acquire AMC, the Wanda Group is extending its reach globally. The deal, announced Sunday, is still subject to the approval of United States regulators, though there are no hints it will be blocked. The purchase signifies a new era for Mr. Wang and in China’s development. Companies here are moving away from low-cost manufacturing and going abroad in search of natural resources and global consumer brands, part of an effort to upgrade the nation’s economy.

…

Wanda is a private company in a nation dominated by state-owned enterprises. But the AMC deal is closely aligned with the Chinese government’s priorities, which include encouraging Chinese companies to “go global,” pushing an overhaul of Chinese media and entertainment properties and placing greater emphasis on consumer spending.

Policy makers in Beijing also want to bolster China’s “soft power” capabilities to extend its cultural influence internationally, and the film industry is considered one of the most promising avenues for doing so.

The article also notes that Wang got his start in Dalian, the coastal city where Bo Xilai kickstarted his political career, though Wang dismissed any notion that his ties to Bo would threaten Wanda. AMC’s chief executive hailed the proposed deal, which both sides claim will create the world’s largest cinema operator, as a “unique combination.” For the Los Angeles Times, Richard Verrier and David Pierson write that Wanda’s bid for AMC may spur other purchases by Chinese investors:

The deal announced Sunday — which pairs China’s biggest theater operator with the second-largest chain in the U.S. — marks the largest investment to date by a Chinese company in the U.S. entertainment industry. Most of the deal making has been Hollywood companies striking business deals in China.

But Wanda’s move to buy AMC could turn the traffic in the other direction, setting the stage for a string of similar moves by other Chinese investors looking to diversify and raise their global profile by scooping up blue-chip American entertainment properties. AMC is owned by Apollo Investment Fund, Carlyle Group and other investors who bought the company in 2004.

Some see parallels with the late 1980s and early 1990s, when Japanese companies acquired a number of prized U.S. assets, including Hollywood studios such as MCA-Universal and Columbia Pictures and crown jewels such as New York’s Rockefeller Center and California’s Pebble Beach golf course.

“More and more Chinese companies are going to try to come in and buy American businesses, just like Japanese companies did in the 1980s,” said Sean Yu, a Los Angeles-based executive director at Morgan Stanley Smith Barney who advises Chinese investors. “They want to increase their prestige and their reputation.”

© Scott Greene for China Digital Times (CDT), 2012. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: AMC Entertainment, Bo Xilai, dalian, hollywood, soft power, Wanda Group, Wang Jianlin
Download Tools to Circumvent the Great Firewall

I’m taking my Godfather into battle!

Hot Topics:

• BJDaily (BJ日报): Beijing Daily
• Show-Off Girl (炫富女), Ma Lihong (马力宏): Weibo user Yang Zilu (@杨紫璐) wrote that her godfather chartered a plane for 8.88 million yuan for himself and Yang to see the London Olympics, posting snazzy photos as well. Some netizens think the “Lihong” Yang mentions is not the pop star Wang Lihong, but instead Zhejiang Province Communist Party Party Provost Ma Lihong.
• Ma Chi + Ferrari + Singapore (马驰+法拉利+新加坡): Reportedly, Ma Chi is the wealthy Sichuan man who died while driving recklessly in Singapore.
• Liu Mingze (刘明泽): Blogger Han Han sued Liu Mingze in January following allegations by Fang Zhouzi that Han Han’s writing is produced by ghostwriters. Liu is said to have sent information about the ghostwriters to Fang. But Han Han withdrew his case against Liu just one day after he had filed at the Shanghai Putuo District Court. Danwei details the Han Han v. Fang case.

Internet “Nicknames” for Security Chief Zhou Yongkang, an alleged backer of Bo Xilai:

• Zhouyong (周永)
• zyKang (zy康)
• zYongK (z永K)

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

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.

© Anne.Henochowicz for China Digital Times (CDT), 2012. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: Beijing Daily, Bo Xilai, Fang Zhouzi, Ferrari, filtered words, Han Han, sensitive words, sina weibo, Wang Lihong, weibo, Zhou Yongkang
Download Tools to Circumvent the Great Firewall

The deal announced late Sunday would give China’s Dalian Wanda Group Corp. access to AMC’s 346 multiplex theaters with more than 5,000 screens, mostly in the U.S. and Canada. As part of the deal, Wanda plans to invest up to an additional $500 million in AMC, which the U.S. chain can use to update its cinemas’ technological innovations and reduce debt.

In a statement, Wang Jianlin, chairman and president of Wanda, said the acquisition “will help make Wanda a truly global cinema owner, with theater and technology that enhance the movie-going experience for audiences in the world’s two largest movie markets.”

The deal is subject to regulatory approval from U.S. and Chinese authorities, the companies added.

© Scott Greene for China Digital Times (CDT), 2012. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: AMC Entertainment, hollywood, movies, Wanda
Download Tools to Circumvent the Great Firewall

Last year 438 rhinos, nearly all of them of the white (meaning wide-lipped) species, were known to have been illegally killed in South Africa, their horns often hacked off while they were still alive. That compares with an annual average of just 15 before 2008. This year more than 200 have already been poached, an average of 50 a month, with the year’s final tally expected to top 600. If that trend continues, more rhinos will be being poached than born by 2016, sending the world’s population into a decline that could be irreversible. Around 20,000 of the surviving white rhinos on earth live in South Africa ….

Long prized in South-East Asia for its supposed medicinal and aphrodisiac vim, rhino horn is now being peddled as a cure for cancer too. With growing wealth in China and Vietnam unaccompanied by growing wisdom, demand seems insatiable. The horn, which is merely agglutinated hair, the same stuff as finger nails, has no pharmacological value. Yet its street price has soared to over $60,000 a kilo, more than for the same weight of cocaine or gold—a proven aphrodisiac.

Other animals are also vulnerable: the Associated Press reported on Wednesday that Thai police had seized two tiger carcasses thought to be bound for China. But with interception rates low—around 10% for internationally trafficked ivory, according to Interpol—measures to cut off supply must be accompanied by efforts to reduce demand. In the case of elephants, this can involve challenging the widespread myth that tusks drop out naturally and harmlessly. At Rectified.name, Karlis Rokpelnis, an ethnoecology PhD candidate at Beijing’s Minzu University, suggests hard research, however unprofitable, into the supposed medicinal properties of rhino horn and other exotic ingredients. Rokpelnis also draws on recent stories of human baby flesh pills reportedly seized by South Korean customs, and the theme of cannibalism in historical ethnic smears and Lu Xun’s ‘Diary of a Madman’.

While the current media and online furor could — and probably should — be dismissed as one of the many rumors and otherworldly accusations floating around the Internet, it does point to a striking failure of science as it relates to traditional Chinese medicine. How to separate the quackery from the possible, particularly in regards to practices which so abominable as to be nearly unbelievable, but also debunking medical myths involving the use of ingredients — such as bear bile, rhino horn, and tiger portions — which do great harm to biodiversity and the protection of endangered species ….

While the moral impact of a middle-aged man spending prolifically on concoctions to enhance his amorous life seems benign (as long as he stays away from the damn rhinos!), what to make of the 2007 half a year prison term to Guangdong parents who stole another couple’s deceased child to make a healing soup for their sickly child …?

If sound qualitative data of the clinical results of using rare animal species as medicine would be available, this could be used as a way of addressing demand for them directly. After all, who would buy tiger bone liquor if its benefits for sexual potency were shown to be non-existent?

At least one reason might remain. From the BBC’s legendary 2006 report on a Beijing penis restaurant, on a $5,700 tiger penis dish:

“So what does it taste like?” I ask.

“Oh, the same as all the others,” she says blithely.

And does it have any particular potency? “No. People just like to order tiger to show off how much money they have.”

(As Lijia Zhang noted last year in a Guardian opinion piece on the “racist” Western fascination with strange Chinese eating habits, the restaurant’s menu “is not something that runs deep in Chinese culture – there are only two penis restaurants in China, and both belong to the same owner.”)

© Samuel Wade for China Digital Times (CDT), 2012. | Permalink | One comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: animal protection, elephant poaching, elephants, ivory trade, tigers, traditional medicine
Download Tools to Circumvent the Great Firewall

Like the Bird’s Nest and the Water Cube – signature venues for the 2008 Beijing Olympics – the CCTV building is part of a new architectural wave that is redefining Beijing.

[...]CCTV looked worldwide for the design of its new headquarters in 2002, shortly after China joined the World Trade Organization and won its bid to host the Olympics.

Construction began in 2004 and by summer 2008, its exterior was completed.

But then disaster. A fire in February 2009 engulfed an adjacent building in the complex that was to house a luxury hotel.

An illegal fireworks display to mark the end of the Lunar New Year was to blame. One firefighter died and eight others were injured.

The disaster became an embarrassing episode for CCTV. Its head, Zhao Huayong, was replaced and 20 people sent to prison.

The postmodern project is part of the architectural new-wave that is defining Beijing’s modern cityscape. An article in the Washington Post quotes chief architect Ole Scheeren on the project’s societal significance:

“One thing this building has done is it has asked a lot of questions. It has questioned what is architecture, what can architecture be, what can it do,” Scheeren told The Associated Press. “This question can be answered far more deeply and interestingly now that the building will start to live and will start to be utilized.”

[...]China “was set to appear on the world’s stage in a new era,” Scheeren said. “That psychology of a very future-oriented moment was very important to make this project possible.”

[...]Scheeren declined to reveal the project’s cost, though outside estimates have put it at hundreds of millions of dollars.

He said the architects hope the building can be a force of progress in China’s development.

“It’s mainly the end of our work, but it’s actually the beginning of its life,” Scheeren said. “From here on, the building finally will be what it’s made for.”

While the 44-story marvel’s unorthodox design has won it the nickname “big underpants” (one of many not-so-flattering epithets for the structure), World Architecture News explains the conceptual significance of the abstract structure:

The CCTV Tower provides the infrastructure for the entire television production process, using the idea of a single continuous loop of interconnected activities throughout the building, creating a ‘three-dimensional experience of geometric and social continuity.’ Through the implementation of this looped network it will allow for the whole building to run simultaneously in a unified cycle, from start to finish, both architecturally and in terms to production.

There are future plans to open a ‘visitor’s loop’ in the tower, a path that allows the public to flow through the building as a tourist attraction, providing views across the entirety of Beijing and allowing the visitors to experience the production process in television in the building.

© josh rudolph for China Digital Times (CDT), 2012. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: architecture, Beijing architecture, CCTV, CCTV tower
Download Tools to Circumvent the Great Firewall

The following are all by deeply knowledgeable writers with original observations (rather than a pastiche of the conventional wisdom), and, most unusually, there is not book among them with a dragon on the cover. This list is emphatically incomplete, but in the spirit of another one of my favorite sites, here are five recent titles from the Letter from China bookshelf that are surprising or entertaining or useful.

Read more recommendations of books about China from the Five Books’ website, via CDT.

© Sophie Beach for China Digital Times (CDT), 2012. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: book reviews, Evan Osnos, five books
Download Tools to Circumvent the Great Firewall

If the drama over Mr. Chen’s fate has placed a harsh spotlight on China’s capacity for repression and created a diplomatic migraine for the White House, it has also been something of a boon to Mr. Fu, 44. His organization, ChinaAid, is at the crossroads of a growing movement among American Christians agitating for religious freedom in China and the wider dissident network inside the United States, as well as members of the underground church in China trying to practice their faith in a hostile environment ….

But some critics say that Mr. Fu’s high-profile role as an advocate for religious freedom is a double-edged sword. It has raised awareness of human rights abuses. But his close association with Republicans and evangelical Christians, the critics say, risks stoking China’s fears that foreign forces are plotting to subvert the ruling Communist Party.

“Bob’s heart is in the right place, but sometimes in his zeal to bring attention to his cause he gets sucked up into the partisan maelstrom of Washington,” said one American human rights advocate who works closely with ChinaAid and spoke on the condition of anonymity because he did not want to offend Mr. Fu.

Fu speaks for himself at Foreign Policy, explaining “why I’m working to save my homeland, one soul at a time.”

ChinaAid, the organization I run, attempts to advance religious freedom and rule of law in China, softening the soil for the Gospel. We provide money and training for legal activists and sponsor the only nationwide house-church magazine, of which 80,000 copies are distributed nationwide.

We aid non-Christians as well; through our network of supporters, we helped Chen — who by God’s common grace advanced the rule of law and protection of life in China– take his case to the American people ….

In the Bible, the book of Romans says, “Love must be sincere. Hate what is evil and cling to what is good and always serve each other in love.” With this kind of message, Christianity will blossom. This is the only way freedom — both individually and nationally — will spread in China.

© Samuel Wade for China Digital Times (CDT), 2012. | Permalink | One comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: CECC, Chen Guangcheng, China AId, China Aid Association, Christianity, Christopher Smith, house church, religion, religious freedom, religious persecution
Download Tools to Circumvent the Great Firewall

“I’ve demanded the auction house return the manuscript because it’s an item I couldn’t be more familiar with,” he said. “I’m so happy that we can still see it after more than 40 years, though I’d never expected it to surface this way ….”

The auction house said yesterday that the family had been unable to provide it with “a list of looted items” or a document proving its ownership, both requested by its lawyers. “Based on that, we believe that what they’ve said is not enough for us to withdraw the item from auction,” it said ….

Tsinghua University sociologist Li Dun said it was absurd to ask the family to provide a list and the ownership of the manuscript was obvious, given the Cultural Revolution context. He said the legal battle would involve uncertainty because there were few legal precedents and a lack of legal enforcement on looted items.

Zhou Zuoren was the brother of Zhou Shuren, more commonly known by the pen name Lu Xun.

© Samuel Wade for China Digital Times (CDT), 2012. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: Cultural Revolution, lu xun, South China Morning Post, Tsinghua University, writers, writers and literature
Download Tools to Circumvent the Great Firewall

Ai has fused a lot of perennially popular art-world tropes into a single conceptual life-as-art juggernaut. He’s a figurehead of the once-burgeoning Chinese art market, an artist who keeps the line between life and work fluid; an auteur who creates his work in collaboration with other people, like the traditional craftsmen who used post-and-beam construction to assemble “Fragments” without a nail or screw, just a thwack of hammer sending wooden peg through perfectly aligned cut holes. He’s also destroyed artifacts, like the Han Dynasty urn he broke in a triptych of 1995 photos. He’s worked as an architect; sent 1,001 people from China to roam the streets of Kassel, Germany, in one of the works he displayed in the German megashow documenta XII in 2007; made films documenting the physical transformation of Beijing; protested corruption and human-rights violations in China on his blog, which was a part of his art, as well. Yet he’s said he wants his works to be judged on their merits as objects rather than ideas.

So: the objects. “Fragments” — here in its first American showing — is defined by its material: Ai collected the wood and thought about how best to use it. It’s an embracing physical presence, dominated by the warm darkness of the old wood. But the wood, hacked and muted, embodies a complex narrative about culture and value: Once-holy temples become meaningless and are discarded to make room for progress, then are reclaimed as ruins and reassembled into an object that ends up being even more venerated.

See a video of the installation of Fragments:

Meanwhile, in New York, a portion of the tiny sunflower seeds commissioned by Ai for an exhibit at London’s Tate Gallery sold at auction at Sotheby’s for $782,500.

Read more about Ai Weiwei and contemporary art in China via CDT.

© Sophie Beach for China Digital Times (CDT), 2012. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: Ai Weiwei, artists, contemporary art
Download Tools to Circumvent the Great Firewall

“The essence of rock n’ roll is energy and personality,” he told his fans who gathered in Beijing this week to commemorate his breakout performance.

“The burst of energy in the artistic creation comes from the suppression of personality.”

[...]Organizers gave each guest a piece of red cloth. Some tied it on their arms, others on their foreheads — a nod to the red blindfold Cui often wore when he sang his politically-charged love song, “A Piece of Red Cloth.”

His supporters were left heady with nostalgia.

“That time, we really had nothing,” recalled Bai Qiang, producer of the 70-minute video. “We had no fridge, no camera, no cell phone, nothing. But we were full of spirit. Today, we are much better off but we feel have lost something. Something is still missing.”[...]

Also see Asia Society’s recent interview with Jonathan Campbell, which traces the rise of rock music in China from Cui Jian and into the future.

© josh rudolph for China Digital Times (CDT), 2012. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: Cui Jian, music, rock music
Download Tools to Circumvent the Great Firewall