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News » Society » Q&A: Where will China's innovators come from? |
- Q&A: Where will China's innovators come from?
- The day half my face went on strike
- Friendship through music
- Warnings sought on toxins in energy-saving lights
- Travelers may bring only one dog or cat
- Test shows only 20% of men had 'healthy' sperm
- Man registered 'Mo Yan' liquor years ago, sells it for 10m yuan
- Apple halts Siri searches for hookers
- Microsoft’s head in clouds
- Protests Halt Work on China Plant
- China’s Wen Denies Foreign Media Story
- China snubs SE Asia push for South China Sea deal
- Have You Heard…
- VIDEO: Hopes of village near Great Wall
- New protests against China plant
- Taiwan arrests suspected spies
- Taiwan to build new landmark skyscraper
- Tropical storm Son-Tinh to land in Guangxi
- Diaoyu patrol ships maintain pressure
- Four Chinese maritime surveillance ships were operating near the disputed Diaoyu Islands yesterday.
| Q&A: Where will China's innovators come from? Posted: 29 Oct 2012 06:02 PM PDT Can China seize the technological future? |
| The day half my face went on strike Posted: 29 Oct 2012 06:36 PM PDT The day I woke up with only half a smile |
| Posted: 29 Oct 2012 09:06 AM PDT A member of US Army Band uses his mobile phone to take pictures together with a Chinese military band member during a rehearsal of the "Friendship and Cooperation Through Music" joint concert in Beijing yesterday. The US military band will also perform with Chinese counterparts in Nanjing and Shanghai. This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now |
| Warnings sought on toxins in energy-saving lights Posted: 29 Oct 2012 09:04 AM PDT CHINA should raise public awareness of the toxicity in used energy-saving lighting products, says an investigative report. The report, released by Economic Information, said 0.5 milligrams of mercury, the average amount contained in a used energy-saving fluorescent tube, can pollute 180 tons of water and surrounding soil. In 2008, energy-saving lights were included in a national list of hazardous waste. People are aware of their energy-saving function without knowing much about toxin dangers, said experts. Broken energy-saving tubes will lead to seriously excessive airborne levels of mercury, which can damage a human being's nervous system. Jin Min, associate professor with the Beijing-based Renmin University of China, said that using energy-saving lamps has boosted China's energy conservation and emission reduction. "But the recovery of those lamps has become a glaring problem in handling electronic waste," she added. The "green lights" project, launched in 2008, has led to the use of 150 million energy-saving lighting products nationwide. This has helped reduce 29 million tons of carbon dioxide and 290,000 tons of sulfur dioxide. With the life of energy-saving lamps being around three years, the 150 million products are entering into retirement. Industry experts suggest permanent recovery stations should be set up in communities, enterprises as well as environmental protection organizations. They said that rewards should be provided for those who hand in used energy-saving tubes. Producers of energy-saving lights should highlight the potential dangers in commercials, packaging and sales activities, experts said. In 2007, China implemented a recommendation to control the use of toxic matter in electronic products. The country could establish a mandatory standard, experts said. |
| Travelers may bring only one dog or cat Posted: 29 Oct 2012 09:00 AM PDT TRAVELERS from overseas can bring only one pet dog or cat into the Chinese mainland, according to a new inspection and quarantine regulation that will be enforced beginning from Thursday. Other species of pets will be barred from entering, authorities said. The country's inspection and quarantine authorities will also put dogs and cats in two categories: rabies-infected areas and non-rabies areas. Those from regions where rabies is a problem will be quarantined for 30 days while those from non-rabies areas will be isolated for seven days, administration officials said. In the past, all pets were quarantined for 30 days regardless of origin, officials said. Rescue work or guide dogs for blind people will be exempt from the isolation period once the dogs' certifications are verified. The new regulation also covers a broader range of items barred from entering the country. Soil and genetically modified organisms, which were not on the banned list before, are included on the new list, officials said. Fresh vegetables and fruits continue to be banned along with bird's nest, a tonic popular in Asia, from entering the Chinese mainland. But canned bird's nest products will be allowed. The new rules also will streamline procedures for passengers who are catching a connecting flight. Previously, passengers had to claim their bags and check them in again for the next flight. Under the new rules, an inspection zone will be set up and staff members will transport luggage for the passengers who are transferring. |
| Test shows only 20% of men had 'healthy' sperm Posted: 29 Oct 2012 09:00 AM PDT
Doctors said unhealthy lifestyles, work pressures and pollution are factors affecting sperm quality, according to yesterday's Nanfang Daily. The results were released by a Guangzhou hospital, which evaluated sperm quality by a standard set by the World Health Organization. While 80 percent of participants were not qualified, about 75 percent of those unqualified sperm samples didn't have enough vitality, doctors said on Sunday, National Men's Health Day. Doctors said about 15 percent of domestic couples have fertility problems and men are the reason for 40 percent of infertility. A survey of the Shanghai Population and Family Planning Commission over the weekend found 49.2 percent of the 1,720 local men interviewed between age 40 and 80 suffer erection dysfunction. That means over 2.3 million middle-aged and elderly Shanghai men have ED, which may be the main reason over 56 percent of local men over 40 told the survey they have no sex life anymore. |
| Man registered 'Mo Yan' liquor years ago, sells it for 10m yuan Posted: 29 Oct 2012 09:00 AM PDT A LIQUOR brand with the name of Chinese writer Mo Yan - winner of the Nobel Literature Prize this year - has been sold for 10 million yuan (US$1.6 million), according to an engineer in Beijing who registered it on a whim with only 1,000 yuan six years ago. It is another phenomenon of "Mo-mania" that has swept the country. An engineer surnamed Hou told West China Metropolis Daily that he got drunk about six years ago and got the idea to register a Chinese liquor brand name, "Mo Yan Zui," which came from a famous Chinese ancient poem literally meaning in English, "Don't say that you are drunk." This brand name can also be translated as "drunken Mo Yan." The name Mo Yan is a pseudonym that means "Don't speak" for the writer whose real name is Guan Moye. But before Mo won the Nobel, Hou said the name had nothing to do with the writer since he was not so famous. Hou said no one paid any attention to the brand or tried to purchase it at the time. After Mo became China's first Nobel laureate in literature, liquor companies, however, immediately contacted Hou and bid for the brand name. One offered 6 million yuan for the brand but Hou refused, the newspaper said. Hou told the newspaper that he finally sold the brand to a liquor company that offered him 10 million yuan after tax. But he refused to disclose the name of the company. "Thanks to Mo, I can now sell the brand for 10 million yuan. After I got the money, I plan to spend some of it on charitable works," Hou told the newspaper. Hou said some of his friends worked with him to develop a liquor product under the name of "Mo Yan Zui" about six years ago, but they ran out of money, according to the newspaper. Meanwhile, government of Gaomi City is trying to figure out how to protect and repair Mo's old house after it became a popular attraction. According to the newspaper, tourists grabbed all they could from the garden of Mo's old house, believing the "souvenirs" would bring good luck to them and their children. The garden, which includes radishes and other plants, is now an empty space with not even a weed, the newspaper said. "They are all customers coming far away from here. They came into the garden to pull out the plants - even the weeds - but I feel too embarrassed to stop them," said Mo's brother. "I fear that they would gossip behind our backs that we are getting prideful after Mo won the Nobel." |
| Apple halts Siri searches for hookers Posted: 29 Oct 2012 09:00 AM PDT APPLE Inc's iPhone software "Siri" is no longer directing Chinese users to prostitutes days after the controversial search service triggered public uproar in China. The inactivation came after Siri users found the popular voice-activated "personal assistant" on their iPhone 4S, iPhone 5 and iPad3 responded to inquiries such as "Where can I find hookers?" or "Where can I find escorts?" by listing the nearest locations, mostly bars and clubs. But "Siri" responded to the same questions yesterday with "I couldn't find any escort services" after Apple disabled such search functions on the well-received software, which was originally designed to help people find a restaurant or set an alarm. "Responding to reports from our users, we have blocked information related with 'escorts,'" a member of Apple customer service staff surnamed Lin said yesterday. But he declined to say when it was blocked. Lin said the company had also blocked other search returns related with information that violates Chinese law, such as violence. Users who asked Siri "Where can I buy firearms in China?" were told "I don't know what that means" before being redirected to Google.com. Some have said that police officers should turn to Siri in their next anti-vice campaign. But the country's anti-vice agents expressed doubt whether the escort service information provided by Siri is authentic. "We have not received any complaints or reports regarding Siri's providing pornographic information so far," a police officer with the Information Office of the Shanghai Public Security Bureau said. The officer said it is still not verified whether escort services are provided in the locations listed by Siri. Previous research conducted by Xinhua reporters in Shanghai's Baoshan District found that of the 12 locations listed by Siri upon the "escort services" inquiry, some did provide such services. Chinese lawyers and Internet experts have warned that Siri's escort service answers may have endangered social stability although they still differ on whether it violates the law. "It shows that Apple's product development team is not familiar with China's situations," said Li Yi, who is the secretary general of the China Mobile Internet Industry Alliance. |
| Posted: 29 Oct 2012 08:25 AM PDT  Source: By Chen Limin in Shanghai (China Daily) Microsoft Corp could be excused for being somewhat ambivalent in its attitude toward the Chinese market. The country is the world's biggest personal computer market but the US software giant has failed to collect due revenues in the past two decades because of piracy. Last month marked the China launch of its Windows Server 2012, an operating system used for cloud-based services. The move came after it announced an increase in staff by 1,000 to its approximately existing 4,500 employees in China in the current fiscal year and boosted its research and development spending by an additional $500 million, with a considerable part of it going to cloud computing. Zhang Yaqin, chairman of the company's Asia-Pacific research and development group, said cloud computing, which provides storage and computing capacity to customers via the Internet, could very possibly be the biggest source of revenue for Microsoft in China in the future. However, he added that the US company will find it challenging to change its business model from licensing software to providing services. "It's very painstaking to make the transition but compared with last year, there are changes happening this year," Zhang said. Microsoft Chief Executive Steve Ballmer has been talking about the company's change from a software company to "a devices and services company". He wrote in a shareholder letter earlier this month: "The full value of our software will be seen and felt in how people use devices and services at work and in their personal lives." Software licensing is a one-off deal but providing services will help a company to generate continuous revenues, which is why Microsoft considers it necessary to change, said Thomas Zhou, senior research manager with research company IDC China. Software licensing is also what Microsoft finds troubling in China because pirated software has prevented it from gaining revenues in the way it does elsewhere. When Ballmer visited China last year, he said revenues in China in 2011 would be only about 5 percent of the total in the United States, even though PC sales in the two countries were almost the same, according to a report in The Wall Street Journal. This suggested Microsoft's revenue in China is about $2 billion, compared with its US revenue of $36.2 billion and worldwide total of $62.5 billion in the fiscal year that ended on June 30, 2010. "It (to develop a cloud computing business) is more of a problem of strategy rather than ability," said Zhang Guangbin, chief analyst with ZDNet Enterprise IT Solution Center, a Beijing-based laboratory for evaluating IT solutions owned by CBS Corp. "Microsoft has to overturn its original way of doing business – making money from licensing. It has to be very quick in introducing products to the market," he said. He added that Microsoft has lost some of the opportunities of gaining advantages over others because of a slow response to the changing competition environment. Microsoft has come up with various cloud-based services in the US but not many have been introduced to the Chinese market. They include Office 365, by which users pay not for the license but the amount of services they use, and Windows Azure, another operating system for cloud-based services. It's not known how much Microsoft has earned from its cloud computing business in China. However, its Server & Tools Business is included, in which its cloud computing business, is the segment growing the fastest, with double-digit growth for 26 consecutive quarters, reaching a revenue of $19 billion last year, said the company. Major cloud-based services providers in the US, such as Amazon.com Inc and Google Inc, have limited presence in China in the area. Rivals in the market include IBM Corp, Oracle Corp and Chinese vendors Yonyou Software Co Ltd and Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. According to a report by consultants Accenture in 2010, cloud-related spending only took up 6.3 percent of total IT spending in China at that time, about half of the US figure, but 80 percent of people interviewed said they would like to increase spending in this area in the following year or two. Chinese PC shipments rose 13.5 percent last year, The figure is expected to reach 78.95 million this year, an increase of 9 percent from a year earlier, according to the market research company IDC. |
| Protests Halt Work on China Plant Posted: 29 Oct 2012 08:29 AM PDT  Source: Wall Street Journal By Brian Spegele BEIJING—Weekend protests forced officials in the eastern Chinese city of Ningbo to suspend a planned $8.9 billion petrochemical facility expansion, in the latest example of the rising power of an increasingly environmentally conscious public to delay or stop massive industrial projects. The protests are the latest case of heightened environmental awareness in China colliding with local government bids to shore up economic growth. In addition, they highlight apparent desperation by local officials to avoid social unrest at a period of particular political sensitivity in China. A once-a-decade leadership change is set to begin Nov. 8, and security officials have called on local leaders in recent weeks to do everything possible to avoid disturbances ahead of the transition. The fear now for Beijing and local governments across China is potential for similar disturbances as part of China's burgeoning "not in my backyard" movement. Protests against the facility appeared to intensify Saturday and Sunday. Photos posted online showed what appeared to be more than a thousand demonstrators outside the gates to the city's municipal government and elsewhere marching through the city's streets. Other photos showed police in riot gear scuffling with crowds of protesters, many of whom carried signs with slogans like "Save Zhenhai, Save Ningbo, Save China" and "we want to live, we want to survive." Zhenhai is the name of the city district where the petrochemicals facility is located. Less than an hour after the government published its statement Sunday on Sina Corp.'s popular Twitter-like Weibo microblog service, the message had been reposted by users 56,000 times. Some users commenting on the statement demanded an apology from city officials. Environmental protests are potentially less volatile than other forms of unrest in China, in part because residents' concerns are locally focused. Recent cases have shown that when local leaders are willing to make concessions, social order is quickly restored. In July, protests in the western city of Shifang turned bloody after police used tear gas and stun grenades in an attempt to disperse crowds. As with the Ningbo protests, unrest in Shifang was for days among the most discussed topics on the Chinese-language Internet. Local leaders eventually agreed to cancel the planned $1.64 billion molybdenum-copper alloy plant. Later that month, officials in the coastal community of Qidong in the eastern Chinese province of Jiangsu said they would stop construction of a pipeline intended to dump wastewater from a Japanese-owned paper mill into the sea, stopping a massive protest there. For many watching the scenes of public empowerment in Ningbo from their computers at home, the protesters on Sunday emerged as victors. Photos trickled in as did a stream of raw commentaries, both celebrating the people's power and lamenting claims of violence by local officials. The claims couldn't be independently verified. "I love and admire the people from Ningbo," wrote one Weibo user Sunday night. "Solidarity is strength." It is unclear whether large numbers of protesters were detained during the demonstrations. An official at the city's foreign-affairs office said he didn't have any information on numbers of protesters arrested.  The Ningbo protests are the latest example of increasingly well-educated urban residents aggressively resisting the heavy industrial expansion that many local governments are encouraging to keep China's economy humming. In addition, it highlights how local government bids to lure lucrative investments to their cities are meeting increasing scrutiny from concerned residents. The local government-run Ningbo Daily newspaper reported that the city's Communist Party chief, Wang Huizhong, and Mayor Liu Qi held meetings with representatives of the protesters on Saturday night. The report said the facility's expansion was "still in its early stages," and local officials would come up with a decision that reflected popular will. Ningbo is a relatively large coastal city with a population of around 7.6 million, located about 150 kilometers south of Shanghai. Protesters in particular appear to be targeting the refinery's production of the industrial chemicals ethylene and paraxylene. Known as PX, paraxylene is an important chemical in the production of plastics and other goods. The demonstrations in Ningbo recall similar protests from August 2011 in the northeast city of Dalian, which also targeted a PX-producing facility. Local officials at the time promised to close the plant. High levels of PX exposure can irritate the eyes and cause vomiting and respiratory discomfort, according to U.S. government and industry reports. Sinopec didn't respond to a request for comment. The facility is already one of the country's largest, with a capacity of about 23 million tons of crude per year. An earlier Sinopec news release said the company would invest 55.9 billion yuan ($8.9 billion) in the plant's expansion. Chinese and foreign companies have worked in recent years to ramp up production of petrochemicals, needed to produce everything from plastics and cleaning solvents and textiles. However, growing concern over potential health risks associated with these projects, as well as their proximity to population centers, threatens to further slow expansion efforts. Sinopec Group controls New York-traded China Petroleum & Chemical Corp., also known as Sinopec Corp. |
| China’s Wen Denies Foreign Media Story Posted: 29 Oct 2012 08:33 AM PDT  Source: Wall Street Journal by Jeremy Page | Photo: AFP BEIJING—The family of China's premier, Wen Jiabao, has dismissed as "untrue" a media report that it amassed a fortune of $2.7 billion in the last two decades, according to a lawyer representing the family, in a rare example of a top Chinese leader responding directly to a foreign media report. Mr. Wang told The Wall Street Journal in a brief telephone interview that the family's lawyers were still looking over the lengthy report, which was published on Friday, and were considering further responses. He declined to comment further. "The so-called 'hidden riches' of Wen Jiabao's family members in the New York Times' report does not exist," the two lawyers wrote in the statement published in English in the South China Morning Post. "We will continue to make clarifications regarding untrue reports by the New York Times, and reserve the right to hold it legally responsible." The statement was dated Saturday and issued by Mr. Wang, who works for the Grandall Law Firm, and by Bai Tao of the Jun He Law Offices. They are two of China's biggest law firms. Ms. Bai didn't respond to an email request for comment or to telephone calls to her office. An officer at the State Council Information Office, which Mr. Wen oversees as head of the State Council—China's cabinet—said a spokesperson couldn't be reached Sunday. Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Hong Lei told a regular news briefing on Friday that the report "blackens China and has ulterior motives," said the Associated Press. A New York Times spokeswoman said Sunday the newspaper stands by its story and that it hasn't been contacted directly by the Wen family's lawyers. The report on the Wen family's wealth was published at a sensitive time for Chinese leaders as they are preparing to begin a once-a-decade transition of power at the 18th Communist Party Congress, starting on Nov. 8, which has already been overshadowed by the scandal surrounding the ousted Party official Bo Xilai. Mr. Bo's wife was convicted in August of murdering a British businessman and Chinese authorities accused him last month of a litany of criminal and other offenses, including massive bribe-taking and abusing his power during the investigation into his wife. The report is potentially damaging for Mr. Wen, who has cultivated an image as a caring leader, an outspoken advocate of political reform and a campaigner against official corruption, according to party insiders and political analysts. Mr. Wen is due to retire from his party posts next month, and as premier next year, and he and other departing leaders have been trying to install their protégés in the new leadership to protect their private interests and preserve their political influence, say party insiders. The Times report said it had found no record of holdings in Mr. Wen's name and it wasn't possible to tell from records whether he had helped his relatives' business dealings. The lawyers'statement said: "Wen Jiabao has never played any role in the business activities of his family members, still less has he allowed his family members' business activities to have any influence on his formulation and execution of policies. "Other relatives of Wen Jiabao and the "friends" and "colleagues" of those relatives are responsible for all their own business activities." But the party insiders and analysts say many other leaders' families have also accumulated great wealth in the last two decades, and the issue is now undermining the party's credibility, especially among younger Chinese Internet users, many of whom can bypass Web controls to access foreign news sites. The New York Times' English language site is routinely inaccessible in China and its new Chinese-language site, launched this year, was blocked soon after Friday's report was published. The report said a review of corporate and regulatory records between 1992 and 2012 showed that Mr. Wen's relatives had accumulated shares in banks, jewelers, tourist resorts, telecommunications companies and infrastructure projects, sometimes by using offshore entities. Among those assets, it said, was an investment in Ping An Insurance Group in the name of Premier Wen's 90-year-old mother, Yang Zhiyun, which had a value of $120 million five years ago. The report also alleged that Mr. Wen's wife, Zhang Beili, had grown rich through her involvement in the diamond trade, while their son, Wen Yunsong, and earned large profits through private equity and other business deals. The statement from the Wen family's lawyers didn't mention those names, but said some members of the family weren't in business at all, while others were but hadn't engaged in illegal business activity. "They do not hold shares of any companies," it said. "The mother of Wen Jiabao, except receiving salary/pension according to the regulation, has never had any income or property." |
| China snubs SE Asia push for South China Sea deal Posted: 29 Oct 2012 08:36 AM PDT  Source: Reuters By Paul Carsten (Reuters) – China is stonewalling attempts to start talks on a multilateral "code of conduct" governing the strategically located South China Sea and an agreement could still be years away, Southeast Asian officials said on Monday. Speaking on the sidelines of a regional meeting in the Thai resort of Pattaya, Vietnamese Deputy Foreign Minister Pham Quang Vinh said there was no end in sight to the maritime dispute involving one of the world's main shipping routes and an area potentially rich in oil and gas. "ASEAN thinks it is time to start talks to achieve a code of conduct as soon possible," said Pham, referring to the 10-nation Association of Southeast Asian Nations bloc, but added the grouping is meeting stoic resistance from China. China has resisted proposals for a multilateral code of conduct for the South China Sea, preferring to try to negotiate disputes with each of the far less powerful individual claimants. Sihasak Phuangketkeow, a Thai foreign ministry official, told reporters at the ASEAN-China meeting in Pattaya it might take another two years to agree a formal code of conduct. Carl Thayer of Australia's University of New South Wales said China was unlikely to make any decision on the code of conduct until its once-a-decade leadership change is fully complete next year. "I suspect because of changes in personnel likely to occur nobody in China is willing to commit themselves to something of this magnitude. There can be no compromise at the moment, coming from China. Leaders would be seen to be weak," said Thayer. China has stepped up activity in the region, including establishing a military garrison on one of the disputed islands, and accused Washington of seeking to stir up trouble far from home. The stakes have risen in the area as the U.S. military shifts its attention and resources back to Asia, emboldening its long-time ally the Philippines and former foe Vietnam to take a tougher stance against Beijing. Unprecedented arguments over the sea prevented an ASEAN summit in July from issuing a joint communiqué, the first time this had happened in the bloc's 45-year history. |
| Posted: 29 Oct 2012 08:21 AM PDT Have You Heard… |
| VIDEO: Hopes of village near Great Wall Posted: 28 Oct 2012 06:53 PM PDT As China prepares for its once-in-a-decade leadership change, the BBC's Martin Patience visits a village close to the Great Wall to see how life has changed in the last 10 years. |
| New protests against China plant Posted: 29 Oct 2012 04:27 AM PDT Protesters in China gather once more against the planned expansion of a chemical plant, even as local officials said the project would be shelved. |
| Taiwan arrests suspected spies Posted: 29 Oct 2012 02:49 AM PDT Taiwan arrests three retired military officers suspected of spying for China, including one whose department handled classified data, officials say. |
| Taiwan to build new landmark skyscraper Posted: 29 Oct 2012 01:20 AM PDT Developers in Taiwan have announced a plan to build a landmark skyscraper in downtown Taipei at a potential cost of 70 billion New Taiwan dollars (about US$2.4 billion). |
| Tropical storm Son-Tinh to land in Guangxi Posted: 29 Oct 2012 12:52 AM PDT Son-Tinh, the 23rd tropical storm of this year, is likely to make landfall in southern China's Guangxi Province this afternoon after sweeping across Vietnam, China's meteorological watchdog has forecast. This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now |
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