rolling china thread 2011

http://news.xinhuanet.com/english2010/china/2011-10/19/c_131200476.htm

part of the great wall is collapsing due to mining hollowing out the ground underneath it

http://www.chinadialogue.net/article/show/single/en/4418

bohai oil spill - hadn't heard about this before. good job, chinese media!

http://lawprofessors.typepad.com/china_law_prof_blog/2011/10/the-most-dangerous-man-in-china.html

good overview of the level of security detail around chen guangcheng

btw the old lady who saved the 2 year old toddler is being accused that she only did so to become famous

"A lot of people are now saying that I'm doing it to get famous, and to get money. Even my neighbours are now saying so!" she said. "That really wasn't my intention, and I'm so afraid of hearing what people are saying that I don't dare to watch the news. I'm not out for fame or money."

http://bbs.ifeng.com/viewthread.php?tid=4109251

prison built for officials convicted of corruption

http://i.imgur.com/A3xmE.jpg

looks like it was built by Marriott

what a cruel fate for those officials

so common & vulgar

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/23/books/review/deng-xiaoping-and-the-transformation-of-china-by-ezra-f-vogel-book-review.html?pagewanted=all

pretty good 5 minute overview of deng

I know people who love to point out deng as the true savior of china and not mao but guess what dengs hands are dirty too

what do ilx china hedz think of peter hessler

the dude who won the macarthur? I read an interview with him in chinese once and he seemed to have insights but I haven't checked out his books

he's moved on to other topics now hasn't he?

yeah but he has 3 books on china that a friend recommended

he was the nyer china correspondent for years, i remember digging his pieces, but i thought maybe hes just an orientalist like the rest of them

you should probably read them then

thx for the advice <thumbs up>

glad I could help ;)

http://www.globaltimes.cn/NEWS/tabid/99/ID/680047/Condom-app-lifts-off.aspx

condoms @ your door

i like peter hessler a lot

first book about teaching in really remote sichuan is enjoyable
oracle bones is the most impressive

tumblr, twitter, facebook, blogger, wordpress... give them back to me

just ordered river town, ill do oracle bones next

river town is the best in the little microgenre of MAN SPENDS YEAR IN CHINA books, i think.

others that aren't terrible: iron and silk by mark salzman (it's okay), the last days of old beijing by michael meyer (good)...

i read iron and silk a long time ago and thought it was funny but dont remember it very well

i guess zachary mexico's china underground fits into the category, too: pseudonymous kid hangs out in shanghai with uighur stoners and other zany characters.

you had your own thread of wild china travelogue writing too didn't you?

i don't recommend that

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/25/world/asia/attempted-visits-to-chen-guang

lol, fair enuff

from what I can tell there is actually a grassroots movement inside China to visit chen guangzheng, pretty cool, you can't throw them all in jail huh

according to my mom xi jinping is more reform minded and will hopefully curb some of the excesses when he takes the stage

http://the-diplomat.com/china-power/2010/10/20/who-is-xi-jinping/

not too particularly promising

but wikileaks cables say he really loved 'saving private ryan'

http://behindthewall.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2011/10/25/8476025-china-cracks-down-on-economic-leaks

good overview of what constitutes a state secret other than keeping dead hookers in your basement

re: the chinese toddler

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/04/24/hugo-alfredo-tale-yax-doz_n_550854.html

According to the Financial Times’ Geoff Dyer, Xi is also sympathetic to pro-market reforms. Writing in the FT on Monday, Dyer said:

‘He is the son of…an important ally of Deng Xiaoping in the introduction of market reforms in China in the 1980s (and) spent much of his career in some of the export strongholds of the Chinese economy.

‘As a result, many see him as a natural supporter of continued economic reform. (Hank Paulson, the former US treasury secretary, famously once called him “the kind of guy who knows how to get things over the goal line.”)’

what is meant by "pro-market reforms," exactly?

letting the wealth gap increase at a rate never before seen, obviously

that sucks.

actually, is that all it means?

i wish i knew more about the chinese economy, so i could wrap my head around this. what further pro-market reforms are on the horizon in china? maybe he's talking about less topdown control of the economy or something. or maybe it does just mean letting the wealth gap increase at a rate never seen before.

when it comes to market reforms, i mostly hear a lot of "more of the same": building domestic demand, building the middle class. people talk about guys like bo xilai being liberal or whatever, but i can't quite figure out what it means in real terms. i don't know anything.

yeah I was being facetious. I guess the thinking is that since xi jinping's father was such a revolutionary hero, was imprisoned for 16 years during the cultural revolution, etc. and that xi jinping seems to have wholeheartedly bought the narrative of the people, that means he will be more of a reformer and institute policies more favorable to the middle class and to rural farmers and migrant workers.

or 'pro-market' could mean he favors a reagonomics approach, that a rising tide floats all boats and we'll let capitalism continue unfettered and even supported by the state's money, and migrant workers will eventually be able to purchase toothpaste at regular intervals.

*shrug*

I suppose this was going to happen eventually

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/oct/26/china-social-media-censorship?CMP=twt_gu

Analysts believe that officials will not shut down social media sites because they are simply too popular, and closing them would create a backlash. Chinese authorities have sought to use social media proactively, launching their own accounts.

Instead, they are likely to step up pressure on the operators, who have large in-house teams of staff to monitor, block and remove sensitive content.

"The more important risk we see for Sina Weibo and other (microblogs) is that they self-regulate out of business (interests) … and that they self-neuter and that makes the platform so boring no one wants to use it," said Michael Clendenin, managing director of RedTech Advisors, a research company.

http://www.echinacities.com/dalian/city-in-pulse/dalian-to-build-china-s-first-floating-city-in-2014.html

jealous?

extremely

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/30/magazine/the-dangerous-politics-of-internet-humor-in-china.html?pagewanted=all

http://www.jamestown.org/programs/chinabrief/single/?tx_ttnews%5Btt_news%5D
=38585&tx_ttnews%5BbackPid%5D=25&cHash=af92db93d512ed71f3894bf20441f385

or just click here

that censorship article is good but seems like it prob puts that guy in even more danger?

the guy in beijng or the guy in hong kong

beijing

probably, but I guess he doesn't care

my friend taught me an expression in chinese "the bird who sticks its head out gets shot first"

I think the thing w/ that internet rebellion humor article is that it needs context. what % of chinese internet-users are aware of this? what % actively participate? etc.

and I guess that's prob hard to measure. but a couple million people is still a drop in the bucket, really.

that's true, but a person who has the knowhow to use weibo and is interested in getting around censorship via slang and double entendres is likely to be in the middle class/upper middle class. china has 1.3 billion, true, but I'm pretty sure the majority of that number are farmers.

it's the velvet underground theory, only 100 people saw that tweet but they all went and wrote a blogpost about it