Top-of-the-Week Links: On the New York Times, Wen Jiabao, Xi Jinping, Ningbo, and a Chinese man successfully suing his wife for being ugly

Top-of-the-Week Links: On the New York Times, Wen Jiabao, Xi Jinping, Ningbo, and a Chinese man successfully suing his wife for being ugly
The Daily Twit – 10/29/12: The NIMBY Winning Streak Continues
What Does Huawei Think About the U.S. House Intelligence Committee Report?
Top 10 Search List (October 29, 2012)

Top-of-the-Week Links: On the New York Times, Wen Jiabao, Xi Jinping, Ningbo, and a Chinese man successfully suing his wife for being ugly

Posted: 29 Oct 2012 05:25 AM PDT

Via China Media Project: "ABOVE: Protesters outside the government offices in Ningbo on Sunday, October 28, 2012. Image shared by a Guangdong-based user on Sina Weibo."

Lot of things happened in the last three days. Here we go with links.

From the public editor. "There surely was less harmony for advertisers on The Times's Chinese site, whose ads also were blocked from millions of viewers. // Nor could there have been much harmony for those at The Times who deal with advertising revenue, a difficult enough proposition as a discouraging third-quarter earnings report made clear on Thursday. // The episode is an extreme example of an enduring newspaper-world fact: journalism and business interests don't always go hand in hand." [NY Times]

cranky mother in law reaction 2 nyt wen story: "wow,these westerners know so little about china.this is such old news. what's the big deal?"

— Bill Bishop (@niubi) October 28, 2012

Now that NYT has gone public about Chinese govt pressure, I can admit that we got death threats after Bloomberg story on Xi Jinping

— Leta Hong Fincher(@LetaHong) October 27, 2012

Britishman Daniel Foa will soon be part of China's first family. "His wife, and the mother of his child, is Hiu Ng, the niece of Xi Jinping, China's next paramount leader. // …'I have no negative opinions about him at all. But I did not consider him likely to be able to penetrate China to the extent that he has. How does a guy like that make contact with the niece of Xi Jinping?' said one former member of Shanghai's expat community. // The answer, according to another friend who knows the couple, is that they moved in the same expat circles. // 'She studied abroad and her English is so good she could pass for a foreigner, and she spent more time in the expat scene than the Chinese scene,' he said. // Until recently, few friends were even aware that Mrs Ng is the daughter of Xi Jinping's younger sister, Xi Qianping, a low-profile businesswoman who lives in Australia." [The Telegraph]

Corruption in China. "When investors and diplomats consider the risks facing China, they often assume that its corruption is of the kind we saw in Korea and Taiwan (or Chicago, for that matter), in which a political machine pulls money out of the state to give to favored friends and businesses, but does not ultimately kill the goose that laid the golden egg. But when Wedeman looked at the data, he concluded, to his surprise, that 'corruption in China more closely resembled corruption in Zaire than it did corruption in Japan.' In short, he found, 'the evidence suggests that corruption in contemporary China is essentially anarchy.' // …The Party is running out of time not because corruption is a drag on the economy—it can outrun that effect—but because the public is losing confidence. Last year, when two trains crashed on a stretch of China's new railways, citizens were not inclined to see it as an example of the inevitable problems that accompany an ambitious new improvement to public transportation. Instead, they circulated an anonymous message that read, in part: 'When a country is so corrupt that one lightning strike can cause a train crash … none of us are exempt. China today is a train rushing through a lightning storm…. We are all passengers.'" [Evan Osnos, The New Yorker]

Foreigners: welcome to Ningbo! "According to people who were at the scene, the two journalists (one is found to be Angus Walker from ITV) were welcomed by protesters like long-lost family members. Like netizen Ccccccccbr, a protesting student at the scene, commented: 'Seeing those foreign journalists is like seeing long-lost beloved ones. The people of Ningbo welcome you.' // And Ccccccccbr wasn't along. 我们呛声 remembered: 'The crowd willingly made room for the two British journalists. Some even lifted the camera man up so that he can have a better view. It was such a touching moment. When they were about to leave, an old lady said to them, "Please don't leave. As soon as you guys leave, they [riot police] will start beating protesters."' Why did the old lady say so? Netizen 果果陈 described a scene that may explain: 'Seeing two foreign journalists approaching with cameras, the riot police retreated behind the gate of the municipal government headquarter. People started to cheer. An old gentleman besides me said, "After so many years of liberation, we still need to depend on foreigner."' [Offbeat China]

Mad Men as depiction of slice of life in present-day China. "While Americans may see 'Mad Men' as an escapist retro-cool trip to their parents' boozy, bygone, better-dressed era, Ji and many of his fellow fans view the program through a different lens. In this country — where 63% of workers are exposed to cigarette smoke on the job, the divorce rate is rising as fast as GDP and boardrooms remain bastions of men who banquet — the AMC show is less like a portal to a lost past and more like an oddly relatable snapshot of the present, or maybe even the desirable future." [LA Times]

Chinese man successfully sues wife for being ugly. "He was shocked by the child's appearance, calling her 'incredibly ugly' and saying she looked like neither one of her parents. // Mr Feng was so outraged that he initially accused his wife of cheating. // Faced with the accusation, his wife admitted to spending around £62,000 on plastic surgery which had altered her appearance drastically. // She had the work done before she met her husband and never told him about it after they met. // Mr Feng filed for divorce saying his wife had deceived him and convinced him to marry her under false pretenses. // The judge agreed with him and awarded him the damages." [Daily Mail]

Xi Jinping's mandate. "The Chinese Communist Party has a powerful story to tell. Despite its many faults, it has created wealth and hope that an older generation would have found unimaginable. Bold reform would create a surge of popular goodwill towards the party from ordinary Chinese people. // Mr Xi comes at a crucial moment for China, when hardliners still deny the need for political change and insist that the state can put down dissent with force. For everyone else, too, Mr Xi's choice will weigh heavily. The world has much more to fear from a weak, unstable China than from a strong one." [The Economist]

Han Han: "The main contradiction in China today is between the growing intelligence of the population and rapidly waning morality of our officials." [NPR]

Tiger Woods and Rory McIlroy "duel" in China. "Golf fans have been waiting all season for Tiger Woods and Rory McIlroy to go head-to-head with a title on the line. On Monday, in a match being promoted as 'the Duel' at Jinsha Lake Golf Club in Zhengzhou, China, they'll finally get their wish. // The Duel will be staged as a two-man exhibition, with both stars going mano-a-mano for 18 holes in match play. The match begins at 12:30 a.m. Eastern and will be live streamed on Golf.com.au." [Golf]

Imitation is a form of flattery in this culture, but we're not sure about identity theft. Will the person impersonating Charlie Custer on China-related articles cut it out, or at least be funnier? "Just a very quick thing: it has come to my attention that someone is using my name (Charles Custer) to comment on China articles at various news sites (see this and this for examples). This person is not me." [The Real Charles Custer, China Geeks]

World's highest national park opened on Friday. "The Qomolangma National Park, located at the border of China and Nepal, covers six counties of the region's Xigaze Prefecture with a total area of 78,000 square kilometers. // It includes five mountain peaks with altitudes of more than 8,000 meters, such as Mount Qomolangma. More than 10 others are over 7,000 meters, according to Sun Yongping, deputy chief of the region's tourism bureau." [Global Times]

Pandas eating lunch interlude:

Finally…

The A to Z of Chinese politics. [John Garnaut, The Age]

The Beijinger's gallery of Halloween photos. [the Beijinger]

The National Party Congress cracks down on fun. [Barbara Demick, LA Times]

On Iron Man 3′s half-Asian, half-European, definitely not Chinese villain. [io9]

A denial. A denial. A denial. A denial. [Chinese Law Prof Blog]

Finally, finally…

Big suit in Liaoning province, via Xinhua

The Daily Twit – 10/29/12: The NIMBY Winning Streak Continues

Posted: 29 Oct 2012 06:30 AM PDT

As the U.S. braces for a killer storm, which thanks to climate change we should get used to, China is dealing with more neighborhood-level environmental challenges. We appear to have had yet another victory for NIMBY (not in my backyard) protesters, this time in the city of Ningbo, where the government has suspended work on a chemical plant.

Reuters: Police disperse east China chemical plant protesters — A report from Saturday before the local government capitulated.

Guardian: Chinese protest over chemical factory — Wire service coverage from Sunday.

Ministry of Tofu: Following Ningbo's civil protests over chemical project on Weibo — Photos, descriptions from folks in Ningbo, etc.

Danwei: Ningbo will 'resolutely not have the PX project' — Neither the protest nor the suspension of the project made the local papers in China, but it did receive prominent treatment by the Ningbo Daily.

Associated Press: China steps carefully with protesting middle class — Why was this protest, and others like it, successful? Timing issues aside, it was nonpolitical and local.

Caixin: Background: NIMBY movements in China — Nice infographic, if you're into that sort of thing.

BBC News: Renewed protests against China chemical plant — Looks like these guys are not ready to call it quits just yet. Apparently there is some distrust over the "suspension" announcement. I'm not exactly shocked.

If you want to read some non-NIMBY-related China news:

Michael Pettis: Will a weaker yuan necessarily aid the Chinese economy? — Answer: no. Export competitiveness is not just about the value of the currency.

Stanley Lubman: Reading Between the Lines on Chinese Judicial Reform — Prof. Lubman takes a look at the judicial reform white paper that was issued last week.

China Daily: Campaign aims to overhaul antibiotics use — We've been hearing about this problem for years now, but it does appear as though an actual system will be put in place to start limiting the use of antibiotics. Enforcement is always a problem, though, and without an overhaul of the way hospitals are operated in China, I have my doubts about this new program.

Gordon Chang: The Great Chinese Stampede: Hot Money Leaving the Country — Yet another article on the Global Financial Integrity report. Chang thinks the GFI numbers are too high and yet sees significant risk here.

LA Times: 'No' tops the agenda ahead of China's 18th Party Congress — Amusing/scary look at some of the security measures implemented for Beijing in the run up to the 18th Party Congress.

Wall Street Journal: Romney Ad Escalates China Auto Controversy — This might be the last big China bashing push of the 2012 election cycle.

What Does Huawei Think About the U.S. House Intelligence Committee Report?

Posted: 29 Oct 2012 05:40 AM PDT

Since the U.S. House Intelligence Committee Report on Huawei and ZTE was issued earlier this month, we haven't heard much from either of the two Chinese telecom companies. I'm not sure anything they say at this point matters that much in terms of government action or public opinion, but I'm sure many of us have lots of questions about their strategy and plans for the future.

CNN has the goods on this story, scoring an interview with Scott Sykes, Huawei's vice president for corporate media affairs. I'm not going to cut and paste the entire interview, but I'll give you the questions and the gist of the answer, with a few comments of my own thrown in for entertainment.

1. What was your reaction to the House Intelligence Committee report?

It is just very disappointing. We engaged with the committee in good faith throughout the investigation.

What followed was a list of all the ways Huawei cooperated with the investigation. As I said a few weeks ago, I tend to believe them. They did give the investigators unprecedented access, and as a result may indeed be slightly dumbfounded at the result. However, this is a company that has had transparency issues for years, and "unprecedented access" did not translate into "adequate access."

Sykes also suggests that Huawei should be treated the same as any foreign telecom company. I agree in principle. I would also guess, however, that if Ericsson was scrutinized in the same way, it would probably be more transparent and therefore pass muster quite easily. It sucks and must seem incredibly unfair to Huawei (and a lot of other folks), but from the perspective of the U.S. government, the problem really is that Huawei is a Chinese company.

2. Where does Huawei go from here?

We need to keep talking and sharing our story.

Maybe I'm just too cynical, but it seems to me that the House investigation was the opportunity to do just that, and it didn't work out. I'm therefore not all that optimistic that a near-term PR blitz is going to help Huawei all that much.

3. It has been suggested that listing Huawei on an international exchange would take some heat off the company. Have you hired bankers to look at options?

Sykes answered in the negative, and I'm not sure at this point whether that would help all that much anyway. Yes, listing would force Huawei to disclose certain information, but the main sticking point, Huawei's relationship with the Chinese government (or lack thereof) wouldn't be resolved with the kind of disclosure required by an IPO.

4. What else can you do to encourage trust? Can you show governments your source code?

Yes, and we are already doing that today.

I wonder whether this would have helped the House investigation? I'm skeptical. Keep in mind that the House report basically says that the worry was future activities, and that the investigation was not necessarily looking for evidence of past/current wrongdoing.

Looking towards the future, this might help, but again, so much damage has already been done that I'm not even sure when Huawei will even be in the position to offer up its source code in the hopes of getting a stamp of approval.

5. Did the House Intelligence Committee ask to see your source code?

There was no specific request as far as I know. But are we willing to do it? Of course.

If neither side brought it up during the investigation, perhaps that tells us something, hmm? Actually, several possibilities, including: 1) it wouldn't have mattered anyway; 2) the House committee wasn't looking for current problems; and/or 3) Huawei wasn't throwing out creative solutions of its own.

6. The House committee claimed to have uncovered criminal wrongdoing by Huawei officials, including fraud and bribery. Their report said those cases would be referred to the Justice Department. Have you been contacted by any law enforcement officials?

Sykes responded with a "no," saying that since the parts of the report that cover these issues are classified, Huawei doesn't even know how to respond. He then talked about rule of law, how the evidence should be released, etc. I understand Huawei's frustration, particularly since these vague charges were just thrown out there, and Huawei was left to twist in the wind with no way to respond. If the House committee was looking to intentionally screw around with Huawei's public image, they certainly did a good job of it.

But that's the House committee. If there is indeed an investigation being conducted by the Justice Department, that agency has a formal procedure, and Huawei will be notified at the appropriate time if and when this is going to proceed to something serious.

7. Are you seeing much return on your lobbying and public relations efforts in Washington?

I think it is having an impact.

I'm not sure what Sykes means by "impact," and whether it's good or bad. And I'm not trying to be flippant here. This House investigation was a huge setback, so it's hard for me to take this statement seriously. I know Huawei has spent a few years, and a lot of money, on PR and lobbyists, but I'm simply not seeing the concrete results. Originally, I thought the investigation and committee hearing was the fruition of all that effort, but that did not exactly go as planned, did it?

8. Is there a risk that, despite your investments and lobbying, the U.S. market will never open to Huawei?

The tone is slowly changing. I think the fact we are engaging is helping, and telling our story is helping.

I'm sorry, but this seems like wishful thinking. Sykes does admit that it will take time. So I guess the question is what kind of timeline are we looking at here?

9. Huawei founder Ren Zhengfei is notoriously media-shy. Would more openness on his part help improve the company's position with U.S. lawmakers?

It is true that he has never given any media interviews. And I would speculate that he probably never will, at least not in any prolific way.

It's kind of like: "Tell me why I should?"

If pressed, I think I could come up with a good reason.

Top 10 Search List (October 29, 2012)

Posted: 28 Oct 2012 10:46 PM PDT

1) 李晨石头事件 (Li Chen shítóu shìjiàn, Li Chen's stone affair) – Actor and host Li Chen said on his weibo account that he is in a relationship with actress Zhang Xinyu, who later posted the photo of a heart-shaped stone, a gift from Li. A few days later, a model/dance teacher posted another heart-shaped stone with the question "did you get these from a wholesaler?" and the girl fit the profile of Li's ex-girlfriend. Internet users gave Li the nickname "the man who gives stones." Li appeared on a popular talk show Saturday and shed tears over this whole stone business. Chinese story here.

2) 加拿大地震 (Jiānádà dìzhèn, Canada earthquake) – A magnitude 7.7 earthquake struck off the west coast of Canada, but there were no reports of major damage. English story here.

3) 孔书英 (Kǒng Shūyīng, Kong Shuying) – Kong is a sports TV hostess in South Korea and considered a "baseball goddess" by her fans. She is going to be the face of a new online game. Chinese story here.

4) 科尔-阿尔德里奇 (kē' ér-ā' érdélíqí, Cole Aldrich) – Oklahoma City sent former Kansas University center Cole Aldrich and forwards Daequan Cook and Lazar Hayward to Houston and acquired guards Kevin Martin and Jeremy Lamb. English story here.

5) 拉扎尔-海沃德(lāzā' ér-hǎiwòdé, Lazar Hayward) – See the story above, about Cole Aldrich.

6) 中学课间操江南style (zhōngxué kèjiānchāo Jiāngnán style, Gangnam Style during high school class break) – a high school in Chongqing replaced their routine class break exercise with gymnastics incorporating some of the signature moves from the hit K-Pop music video by PSY, "Gangnam Style." Anyone else sick to death of this yet? Chinese story here.

7) 于正超(Yú Zhèngchāo, Yu Zhengchao) – Yu is the boyfriend of Taiwan actress Lin Yichen (Ariel Lin) and Lin told reporters that her boyfriend loves her hit drama which won her the Best Leading Leading Actress at the Golden Bell awards yesterday. Chinese story here.

8）哈登 (hādēng, Harden) – A stunning trade sent James Harden — the reigning sixth man of the year — to Houston from Oklahoma City late Saturday night. English story here.

9) 老外吐槽娶中国老婆的下场 (láowài túcáo qú zhōngguó láopó dē xiàchǎng, foreigners "complained" about marrying Chinese wives) – An online post titled "foreigner complained- the consequences of getting a Chinese wife" got more than 3 million comments. The writer interviewed several foreigners who married Chinese and described their complaints humorously—if you marry a Chinese wife, you are married to her entire family; no privacy at home; Chinese eat all living creatures, you know the rest. Here are some of the more memorable quotes: "I like all the food they cook, as long as I'm not told what it is", "my in-laws follow me everywhere in the house to turn off the lights I left on", "carpet, remote and piano are all covered in plastic". Chinese story here.

10) 毕古麻姆 (bìgúmámú,Bigmom) – Bigmom is a character mentioned in the latest episode of the popular Japanese carton series—"One Piece". Chinese story here.