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August 2005 - Posts

Q: What Unfortunate Thing Do the US and China Have in Common?

Posted Wednesday, August 31, 2005 11:34 PM by will
The New York Times has published a long account of the incarceration and non-trial of Times employee Zhao Yan, written by Beijing-based journalist Jim Yardley. The article provides more background on Zhao and how his arrest came about, over a cockroach Read More...
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Shock Story: Net-Using Chinese are Naked and Lovin' It

Posted Wednesday, August 31, 2005 8:52 PM by will
What with all this hoopla about Furong Jiejie, the world probably thinks that Chinese Internet users are a pack of attention-starved narcissists. Apparently, that's true. The AP reports on the salacious trend of nude web-chats in China. XXX citing! Chinese Read More...
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Imagethief is in PR Hell

Posted Tuesday, August 30, 2005 11:03 PM by will
Tomorrow will probably be post-lite. Sorry about that. It's 10PM, I don't look like getting out of the office any time soon, and tomorrow is breakneck all day. Hopefully September 1st will prove more congenial. I always liked September. Mooncakes. Autumn Read More...
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Want to Reduce Smoking in China? Ban Restaurants

Posted Tuesday, August 30, 2005 10:45 AM by will
From the AP, via CNN.com, Earth-shattering news that China has ratified an international treaty that restricts tobacco advertising and sales. No doubt this will be pursued with the same vigor and enthusiasm with which China has pursued its intellectual Read More...
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Furong Jiejie Played Us All for Fools! Burn the Witch!

Posted Tuesday, August 30, 2005 10:22 AM by will
There is an interesting article in Red Herring , spotted by Fons Tuinstra , on the reaction generated by Chinese blogstress Furong Jiejie's recent claims of censorship. For those living in buckets in Darfur, or the United States, who are unfamiliar with Read More...
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Shanxi is Sinking, and I Don't Want to Swim

Posted Monday, August 29, 2005 6:30 PM by will
Unintended consequences are a bitch. Add this to the woes of China's terminally sketchy coal mining industry. According to the China Daily (font of all that is true), large portions of Shanxi province are, well, sinking. So what? you ask. What's a few Read More...
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Remedial Reading and a Duck Dinner

Posted Monday, August 29, 2005 5:29 PM by will
Real life, real wife and, most definitely, real job. Imagethief was entertaining various friends from out of town over the weekend, which left precious little time for blogging, despite several interesting articles in his inbox. Hopefully, over the next Read More...
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Rotting Pig Bowels: The Nastiest Story I Ever Read

Posted Friday, August 26, 2005 2:31 PM by will
From the unlinkable South China Morning Post , this exquisite story of intestinal perfidy in Guangzhou province. I couldn't find it online, even with our SCMP subscription, but I thought it was so important, I actually transcribed it for my readers: Lard Read More...
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Bai-down

Posted Friday, August 26, 2005 1:29 PM by will
Via China Digital Times , anyone who parked the life savings in shares of Baidu a couple of weeks ago is hurting large: From AP , via the Miami Herald: Baidu.com Inc.'s bubble has already deflated remarkably, less than three weeks after its U.S. stock-market Read More...
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Only 79,000 Attempted Intrusions? Chinese Cyber-Spies are Slacking!

Posted Friday, August 26, 2005 10:27 AM by will
This is the headline story of the hour on CNN.com, and was also written up in this morning's Washington Post (and no doubt elsewhere, now). In a sinister move, Chinese hackers are apparently, um, reading large quantities of declassified material freely Read More...
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The Real Oil Rivalry: China vs. India

Posted Friday, August 26, 2005 10:00 AM by will
Oil has been a topic on this blog and the Peking Duck recently, so I was interested when I stumbled across a short but interesting Business Week article this morning (or, rather, it was delivered to me by my Google News "China" alert). It explains how Read More...
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Nasty

Posted Thursday, August 25, 2005 9:41 PM by will
It's 8:40 PM and I just finished cleaning up a big, nasty spreadsheet. Also nasty is the stagnant mug of mixed green tea and san qi hua that has been sitting on my desk for the past week. I've been hoping in vain that ahyi will get tired of it and clean Read More...
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Thursday PR Blog: That's Not An Air Crash, It's...

Posted Thursday, August 25, 2005 1:53 PM by will
...an emergency landing with no landing gear. This was the statement apparently made by a spokesperson for TANS Peru, operators of the latest plane to pile in down in Central America. From the China Daily's article : The pilot began his approach to the Read More...
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Dammed If You Do...

Posted Thursday, August 25, 2005 1:19 PM by will
Go read Other Lisa's post on the dams of China, cross posted as a guest-post on Peking Duck and on her own site . It gets into a very interesting issue: the messy confluence of China's thirst for energy, environmental desperation, and utter lack of central Read More...
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China Nipple Phobia to Make Imagethief a Billionaire

Posted Thursday, August 25, 2005 10:43 AM by will
This is the beginning of my inevitable slide into Chinese fashion. Anyone who has spent time in China during the summer will have noticed Chinese men's peculiar habit of rolling up their T-shirts to just below the nipple line in order to adequately ventilate Read More...
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Remain Calm, Oil's Well

Posted Wednesday, August 24, 2005 2:25 PM by will
Not suffering from SUV guilt yet? This interesting article from the New York Times Magazine might help. It discusses the delicate balance between producers and consumers of oil, and explains how oil shocks don't require a shortage of oil, just an imbalance Read More...
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Desperate Office Girls

Posted Wednesday, August 24, 2005 1:35 PM by will
It's 1230PM and the Chinese girls in my office are gathered around the television in the pantry watching “Desperate Housewives”, proving yet again that there is no cultural gulf so wide that it cannot be crossed by brainless, network television Read More...
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Imagethief Succumbs to Panic, Builds a Flu Bunker

Posted Wednesday, August 24, 2005 10:37 AM by will
For many years, my mom kept a red, plastic garbage can in the garage filled with drinking water, canned food and other emergency supplies. This wasn't in case the Reds dropped the bomb (in which case our tinder-wood three bedroom bungalow in the shadow Read More...
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America Upgrades Its Religious Zealots to Compete With Jihadi Mullahs

Posted Wednesday, August 24, 2005 10:03 AM by will
Is there any form of life lower than Pat Robertson? I wrote a post about this last night and then dumped it because I figured it was just too far off topic for me. But I can't resist any more. Question: If our religious leaders (such as they are) are Read More...
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Flacks Implicated in American Corporate Graft! Imagethief Headed Up The River?

Posted Tuesday, August 23, 2005 8:46 PM by will
Busted! This is an interesting article from The Washington Post on the ethical problems American companies are running into when they try to do business in China: In interviews, China-based executives, sales agents and distributors for nine U.S. multinational Read More...
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Singapore Already Meeting Government Fun Targets

Posted Tuesday, August 23, 2005 10:46 AM by will
That's a relief. When it comes to some of its pettier regulations, it's too easy to make fun of the Singapore government, really. And most of the time it doesn't deserve the rough treatment. After all, you have to give them credit. When they launch a Read More...
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The Other Meaning of "One Country, Two Systems"

Posted Monday, August 22, 2005 9:01 PM by will
In a country where the Buick is a swank, luxury car , anything is possible. That's why I had passing interest in this report from FortWayne.com (Gordon, pay attention!), home of the Journal-Gazette, and a site that proudly bills itself as “Fort Read More...
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Dark Table-Tennis Match of the Soul

Posted Monday, August 22, 2005 10:26 AM by will
The Western stereotype of Chinese people, and Asians in general, is that they are inscrutable. This is balls. They are as scrutable as anyone else. Thick face, black heart; Art of War ; it all feeds the mythology. As one of my colleagues, an experienced Read More...
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Why Chi Haotian's Sinister "Take-Over America" Plan Will Come to Naught

Posted Sunday, August 21, 2005 8:49 PM by will
I actually wrote this as a reply to a comment from Martyn , but in a show of self-contratulatory narcissism, I've elevated it to a post. Martyn pointed me at the conspiratorial "Take Over America" speech allegedly made by Chinese Defence Minister, Chi Read More...
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Kia Ora! New Zealand Has Always Been Part of China, and Other Weekend Reading

Posted Saturday, August 20, 2005 1:56 PM by will
It's Saturday, so I am going to go out and have a real life away from the glow of the Powerbook. But before I do, here are a few interesting stories for your weekend China reading. First, I know that there is a certain element in Taiwan that wants to Read More...
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What Kind of Great Power Does China Want to Be?

Posted Saturday, August 20, 2005 1:16 PM by will
This has been blogged elsewhere, but for the benefit of my readers who don't regularly troll the other China blogs, this short article , by New York Times and International Herald Tribune journalist Howard French, is worth a read. It's about China's maturity Read More...
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Only-In-Beijing Moment No. 261

Posted Saturday, August 20, 2005 1:05 PM by will
Last night as I was waiting for my wife in front of my office building a Xiali taxi stalled in the pickup area. That's not so unusual. I've had to abandon stalled Xialis before myself. Sometimes the hamster in the wheel simply dies. What was unusual about Read More...
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MRI Machines: Medical Miracles or Sinister Comedy Deathtraps?

Posted Saturday, August 20, 2005 12:58 PM by will
The New York Times has run an article on the hazards of MRI machine magnets that is at once tragic and hilarious. And, bonus, it has photos (which come from this website ): Scanners can also pose a danger during emergencies. In Freiburg, Germany, a fireman Read More...
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Rating Meddlesome Foreign Bloggers and Other Suggested Online Polls for Xinhua

Posted Friday, August 19, 2005 2:48 PM by will
The blocking of Blog City, a surge in troll-like behavior on several blogs and an ongoing flame-war on the China Daily's comment thread on foreign bloggers has made me think that it is time for a broader sampling of Chinese public opinion. For such an Read More...
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Good Stuff from Richard's Guest Bloggers

Posted Thursday, August 18, 2005 8:31 PM by will
Other Lisa and Martyn are filling in for the travelling Richard at the Peking Duck. Both have put up interesting posts today that are worth a look: Other Lisa covers the South China Morning Post's fascinating story on how an editor at one major, Chinese Read More...
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The Solution for China's Internet Addicts: High Voltage & Army Discipline

Posted Thursday, August 18, 2005 2:42 PM by will
Parents of China: Is your little dragon or plum-blossom in danger of failing out of school because of countless hours spent prowling the Internet? Is he or she mainlining digital p*rnography like some kind of hardened wire junkie? If you stand behind Read More...
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Nostalgic for "Really" the Troll?

Posted Thursday, August 18, 2005 12:02 PM by will
At some prompting from Sam , I had another look at Johan's site (blocked in China) where Johan and Really are in something of a dialogue. If you're nostalgic for Really, you may wish to have a look . (Here's a proxy link for those in China.) It's like Read More...
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Pity the Audi Drivers: Gas Queues in China

Posted Thursday, August 18, 2005 10:17 AM by will
How 1970s. Next thing you know, Welcome Back Kotter will be on CCTV. I once read that the average driver in Beijing has had their license for three years -- I forget where, so don't quote me on that. But any spin on the roads (and “spin” is Read More...
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Petty Theft or Flatulence Powered Tricycle?

Posted Wednesday, August 17, 2005 10:49 PM by will
There's little I can add to this. This is a photo from National Geographic of a boy stealing natural gas in China. This seems like one of those stunts that could go wrong in so many ways. I hope his old man doesn't smoke. The link above leads to the accompanying Read More...
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Blog City Incurs Wrath of Nanny

Posted Wednesday, August 17, 2005 10:39 PM by will
It looks like another round of nannification is under way. Gordon of The Horse's Mouth reports by SMS that Blog City is blocked inside China (several cities reporting). Typepad, the most recent victim of a temporary "just getting your attention" block Read More...
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If Cell Phones Attracted Lightning Everyone In China Would Cook

Posted Wednesday, August 17, 2005 2:43 PM by will
First, let me point out that it's a lovely day in Beijing. Four days of rain has scrubbed out the air. It's pleasantly cool out, there is blue sky and white clouds scudding by, and the mountains to the west are razor sharp against the horizon. All of Read More...
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Japan Waffles, Even I Begin to Lose Patience

Posted Wednesday, August 17, 2005 10:29 AM by will
ESWN has linked to a good story from the UK's Times on Japan's most recent apologies for its wartime conduct. Normally I am among the first telling China to get over it and move on. In fact, I have an un-published post to that effect from a couple of Read More...
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XXX Domain Sends Politicians on Global Clue Hunt

Posted Tuesday, August 16, 2005 2:44 PM by will
Is there anything so inevitable in life as politicians either missing the point, or willfully ignoring it? I live in a part of the world where taxes are not inevitable, so perhaps only death and nationalism are in the same league. Today's fit of mass, Read More...
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Some Ice Creams Not Worth Licking

Posted Monday, August 15, 2005 8:32 PM by will
Jeez. First beer , now ice cream. Is no, simple, summer pleasure safe in Beijing? (By the way, that's the actual China Daily headline, above. It was so good, I didn't even need to rewrite it.) I'm crushed. I don't know what to say. This is so depressing. Read More...
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Stupidity 2.0: The Internet Bubble Oozes Over to China

Posted Monday, August 15, 2005 2:51 PM by will
There is no mistake so colossal, so notorious, that people won't make it again. In fact, the opposite is probably true. The bigger, the balder, the more idiotic the situation, the more likely it is to be repeated. How else to explain that China is whipping Read More...
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Dogs of War Feed on our Lowered Expectations

Posted Monday, August 15, 2005 10:24 AM by will
This isn't China related, but after spending all day yesterday on China + UFOs I needed to dwell on something else for a while. Two interesting stories about the Iraq War were published over the weekend. One, from The Washington Post , discusses how the Read More...
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ET 给家打个电话: China Catches UFO Fever!

Posted Sunday, August 14, 2005 8:38 PM by will
I don't even know where to start with this one. It seems like North Americans have some kind of strange mental illness that forces us to compartmentalize Chinese into one of two stereotypes: The terrifying yellow horde that will sweep across the planet Read More...
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Run Silent, Run Cheap

Posted Friday, August 12, 2005 9:00 PM by will
Weeks after the Pentagon's “ Military Power of the People's Republic of China ” report was released, the Chicago Tribune has decided it's time for an article on the dastardly threat posed by China's growing fleed of diesel-electric submarines Read More...
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Misleading Headline of the Day

Posted Friday, August 12, 2005 6:23 PM by will
I am so disappointed. From CNN.com: Thousands stranded by air strike Cool , I thought, mayhem ! (So I'm a bloodthirsty news-junkie. Whaddaya want from someone who grew up on a diet of Arnold Schwarzenegger movies?) But, nah, they're talking about the Read More...
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Coal Black Hearts

Posted Friday, August 12, 2005 10:10 AM by will
The state of coal mining in China is one of the problems officially sanctioned for discussion, and the newspapers are full of mournful editorials about it as the government tries to improve conditions. But it will be an uphill climb. The Washington Post Read More...
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Tropical Pain Forest

Posted Friday, August 12, 2005 9:57 AM by will
It's a particularly squalid day in Beijing. It's already been damp and gray the past couple of days. I don't think there's been any direct sunlight since last week. Now it's rained all night, and the result is a squelchy combination of steamy heat and Read More...
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Hollywood and Pentagon Team Up to Rescue America From Stupidity

Posted Thursday, August 11, 2005 10:48 AM by will
No, really. What are you laughing at? These two insitutions, both legendary for there cerebral prowess, are here to ensure that America doesn't become a nation of illiterate, mouthbreathing trogs. But first, some background. Three weeks ago, Fortune was Read More...
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More Technology, Rising Protests

Posted Thursday, August 11, 2005 10:14 AM by will
This is not a new issue, but it's always interesting to watch. The Washington Post reports (again) on the influence of new communication technologies on the spread of protests in the Chinese hinterland as people seek redress for any of a number of grievances, Read More...
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Strike Hard at Cultural Revolution Cliches!

Posted Thursday, August 11, 2005 9:53 AM by will
Danwei, the indispensable Chinese media blog, has published a funny article from a reader roasting Time magazine for an article on Beijing's pet dogs that dutifully recycles an encyclopedia's worth of lazy, Cultural Revolution/China emergence cliches. Read More...
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The New Masters of Propaganda

Posted Wednesday, August 10, 2005 8:42 PM by will
Every technology comes with its dark side; the unintended consequence that is somehow inextricable from the benefits. The Internet is no different. From the time I first discovered it, in late 1993 or early 1994, I was fascinated by its potential as a Read More...
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Would Sir Like a Rubdown With His Press Release?

Posted Wednesday, August 10, 2005 7:06 PM by will
The consultants on my team are tremendously bright and work in English far better than I do in Chinese, but I still do a lot of proofreading here, for obvious reasons. Caught in huge, red, boldface type in a presentation going to a client tomorrow morning, Read More...
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Keep Your Filthy Orgy off of Our Wall

Posted Wednesday, August 10, 2005 11:26 AM by will
Plaintive protest in today's China Daily that the annual Great Wall raves are soiling China's greatest monument. I have to say that the headline had me expecting something a little more exciting. It turns out, though, that by “orgy” they simply Read More...
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So Many Newspapers, So Little to Say

Posted Tuesday, August 09, 2005 8:26 PM by will
Most of my PR work involves local media. Although we're based in Beijing, we do a lot of national announcements and national press events. To give you an idea of what this is like, here's a Xinua article via the People's Daily Online on the size of the Read More...
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A Bittersweet Chinese Story

Posted Tuesday, August 09, 2005 5:28 PM by will
Paper Tiger has posted a fascinating story from a certain Hong Kong newspaper that shows, in equal measures, the compassion and callousness that people are capable of. Originally I'd written “in China” at the end of that sentence, but after Read More...
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The Endless Debate Over Tibet

Posted Tuesday, August 09, 2005 2:27 PM by will
An extremely critical article on Tibet in the Independent , one of the UK's freer-thinking newspapers, has riled up the blogosphere a bit. The article itself is well worth a read, but I had a mixed reaction to it. I had thought about blogging it yesterday Read More...
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Herds of Megacephalous Headquaters Sweeping Across the Prarie

Posted Tuesday, August 09, 2005 9:59 AM by will
Yeah, I know we all write about this, but this is the world we live in and sometimes you have to share it to keep from going insane. A lot of the zaniest Chinglish isn't so much the result of poor English skills on the part of Chinese copywriters as the Read More...
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Monday PR Blog: Salon Dumps on Everyone's Favorite Mega-Store

Posted Monday, August 08, 2005 11:02 PM by will
A friend of mine sent me a link to an interesting article in Salon.com about the organized PR campaign being waged against Wal Mart stores in the USA. (You can follow the link, but you'll need to watch an advertisement.) The article is interesting because Read More...
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Unforgiveable Bartending Sins

Posted Monday, August 08, 2005 10:29 AM by will
There's a new bar in my apartment building. It's one of the “British pub in a kit” models that dot college campuses and bar strips all over the world. I think the proprietors are actually Russian, but I guess the “Russian pub in a kit” Read More...
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Freedom of Speech Means Allowing the Unpopular a Say

Posted Sunday, August 07, 2005 6:47 PM by will
The Washington Post has published an interesting editorial about Russia's decision to ban ABC following their airing of an interview with Chechen rebel leader (or terrorist, depending upon your point of view) Shamil Basayev. The strongest argument in Read More...
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It's the Internet plus China -- How Could You Go Wrong?

Posted Sunday, August 07, 2005 6:26 PM by will
China Herald has been following the froth over the Baidu IPO. Baidu, China's most successful search enginer, quadrupled on its IPO, apparently fueled by people smitten by the gleam of Google+China. (I mean, the Internet and China? How could go wrong? Read More...
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ESWN Deconstructs New York Times' Ching Cheong Coverage

Posted Sunday, August 07, 2005 6:19 PM by will
ESWN thinks the Times has done a total hack on their latest coverage of the detention and charging of Hong Kong journalist and Singapore Straits Times senior China writer, Ching Cheong. His criticism makes interesting reading. And I'll forgive the sideways Read More...
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Goodbye China, Hello Saudi Arabia

Posted Saturday, August 06, 2005 2:48 PM by will
The Economist has written an epitaph to CNOOC's bid for Unocal . As befits its laisser-faire approach to business, The Economist was not in favor of political intereference to block the bid. It was, however, skeptical of the wisdom of the investment or Read More...
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ESWN: Chinese Authorities Use Lure of CCTV to Snare Dissidents

Posted Saturday, August 06, 2005 2:25 PM by will
ESWN has summarized a Yazhou Zhoukan article on the use of the promise of CCTV interviews to entrap dissidents and other people wanted by the authorities in China. (For those who don't live here, CCTV is China Central Television, the state TV broadcaster Read More...
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No Half-Life for China's Half Pints

Posted Saturday, August 06, 2005 2:09 PM by will
Interfax, the Russian news agency, has reported that China has cracked down on videogames that allow players to kill other players. Think of such first-person shooters as Half-Life, Quake and, more importantly for China's online games market, massively-multiplayer Read More...
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He's Banned

Posted Saturday, August 06, 2005 11:06 AM by will
In the words of Popeye the Sailor Man, that's all I can stands, I can't stands no more! I tried to be reasonable. I tried to be inclusive. It was thrown my face and the face of everyone else who reads and comments on this blog. So he's banned. Of course Read More...
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Fistful of Yuan

Posted Friday, August 05, 2005 1:32 PM by will
I'm headed back to the USA for my brother's wedding in next month. Lack of available flights has forced me to break a long-standing, self-imposed rule: only fly Asian airlines to and from the US. Unfortunately, I'll have to submit myself to the torture Read More...
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A Home for Anding's Unwanted Children

Posted Thursday, August 04, 2005 8:51 PM by will
Given how much bad news we pick out, it's nice to see a story that, while sad in some ways, is also inspiring. China is not without its heroes. From the Los Angeles Times , this is the story of an old couple in Gansu province's Anding village, on the Read More...
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Star Wars: Backstroke of the West -- Why That Pirated Chinese DVD is so Cheap

Posted Thursday, August 04, 2005 4:50 PM by will
Now I am really sorry I didn't pick up the pirate DVD here in China. This is three weeks old, which is about 90 in blog-years, but it was just sent to me by a friend and it is hysterical. From a blog called “ Matthew in Beirut ”, It is a set Read More...
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Why I Empathize With the WSJ's American Expats in Chongqing

Posted Thursday, August 04, 2005 3:40 PM by