… “I think the tax would not be the problem because we have followed the instructions and paid the bond [the first required payment] and they seemed quite satisfied. For them that was winning a victory.

“That’s why I feel it’s not dangerous for her. If there was anything they were going to do it would come to me directly ….”

The artist added: “I’m worried, but nothing can help because when my arrest and release happened, it never had an explanation. When you know your worry will not help then you have to give it up. This is not something where you can find a solution.

“It seems there are two different logics co-existing in this world. They must have a strong reason but we will never have it and they will not communicate.”

Ai’s associate Liu Yanping later reported on Twitter [zh] that the questioning had been similar to that on earlier occasions, covering Lu Qing’s personal circumstances and Fake Cultural Development Ltd’s designs for construction in Ordos. However, Lu is now considered a suspect, rather than merely a witness, and has been instructed not to leave Beijing.

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Post tags: Ai Weiwei, Ai Weiwei detention 2011, drinking tea, Ordos, police conversation, tax evasion
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Read more about Ordos via CDT.

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It is clearly not enough for the Chinese to be the most numerous people on earth, nor to emit the most greenhouse gases, nor even to win the most gold medals at Olympic Games. No global record, it seems, however daft, is beyond their ambition.

On Friday, China secured another world record, of the sort registered by the Guinness Book of these things: The most human dominoes.

Translation: 10,267 people in Ordos, in Inner Mongolia, sat down cross-legged in lines and slowly collapsed backwards into the lap of the person behind, one after the other, like toppling dominoes.

Video from ITN:

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Regions are vying to outdo one another in a race to develop alternative-energy sources and reduce pollution. Gansu Province in western China is building a wind farm equivalent to about 20 nuclear power facilities. In the east, Zhejiang Province is installing solar panels on roofs. Beijing bans motorcycles from the city center in favor of electric bikes.

Their efforts demonstrate that China, the world’s largest producer of the emissions blamed for global warming, will continue to accelerate development of energy from renewable sources, even as it resists binding targets for reducing carbon emissions ahead of a U.N. summit meeting in Copenhagen next month aimed at forging a new treaty to curb greenhouse gases.

Some regional officials now see environmental projects as a way to bolster their economies after decades when companies were allowed to poison the air and water without penalties while expanding output.

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Post tags: global warming, green technology, Ordos, renewable energy, sustainable development
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China’s economy is continuing to grow despite the global recession, helped by a massive government stimulus package of $585bn.

But doubts remain whether such strong growth can be sustained by public spending alone.

Al Jazeera’s Melissa Chan reports from Inner Mongolia, where a whole town built with government money is standing empty.

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Post tags: economic recovery, economic stimulus plan, Inner Mongolia, Ordos
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Yesterday is the day when Wu Baoquan goes from the detention center in the city of Ordos (Inner Mongolia) into the local prison. If his appeal fails, Wu Baoquan will have to spent the next one year and eight days in prison.

On April 27, Wu Baoquan was arrested in Shenyang city because he made comments on the Internet that insulted and libeled the government as well as individual persons. After a series of judicial steps including a trial, an appeal, an increased sentence, another appeal and a sustained sentence, Wu learned on April 17 that the Ordos Middle Court has upheld the original sentence and he will have to serve prison from April 29, 2008 to April 28, 2010.

On April 19, this newspaper reported this Inner Mongolian case that was analogous to the Wang Shuai case. The difference was that Wang Shuai received an official apology as well as state compensation. But Wu Baoquan was arrested out of state, sentenced to one year in prison at the first trial and had the sentence increased to two years at the second trial. This story created a stir on the Internet at the various major forums. But at the Ordos forums at Baidu and elsewhere, discussion was limited.

Update: See also posts from the Siweiluozi blog about this case and another recent case of a Sichuan forestry bureau worker who was put on trial for “defaming” his superiors in an online post over allegations of misconduct in a reforestation project.

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“Basically, Ordos is Texas,” explained Michael S. Tunkey, an American architect based in Shanghai whose firm has designed an opera house that, along with half a dozen museums and a boutique hotel, will anchor Mr. Cai’s new cultural district.

He was referring to the wide open spaces, the frontier attitude and the seemingly endless flow of money (at least in good times) from natural resources. Ordos has rapidly become wealthy, largely because of huge deposits of coal, the primary fuel for China’s economic expansion.

Not long ago, residents of this region 350 miles west of Beijing lived in elaborate tents called yurts. Now, with a population of 1.5 million, many live in homes that would make New Yorkers jealous. According to Bao Chongming, the regional vice-mayor, they have the second highest per-capita income in China (trailing only Shanghai, the country’s financial capital) and an annual economic growth rate of 40 percent.

Urbane magazine, an English-language architectural publication based in Beijing, has also written about Ordos in this month’s issue. Download the pdf of their feature articles here.

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Post tags: architecture, Inner Mongolia, Ordos
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