Find of the Week: Sarnies' Sandwiches

Find of the Week: Sarnies' Sandwiches
Lonely Nanjing woman rents a mom for Spring Festival
Former CCTV presenter charged over 'extreme porn' collection
Adopt Eevee the gentle ginger from SCAA
A New China Book List
We can remember it for you wholesale
Kaifu Lee, former head of Google China, banned from Weibo
What the world is getting wrong about China and climate change
Senior official offered 200,000 yuan to swim in polluted river
Giant LED screen in Zhongshan displays porn for 20 minutes (NSFW-ish)
The groundwater of 90% of Chinese cities is polluted
Photos: 5,000 workers queue up for their Spring Festival bonus
Has Bloomberg proved that the People's Liberation Army is hacking the US?
BJC’s Year In Videos: Purple Panda, Bieber Cow, Hurdler Who Does Not Care
The Situation Is Excellent: The Week That Was At Beijing Cream
Come one, come all, and watch this young performer have his arms dislocated!
Presented By:
Shenzhen toddler drowns in a bucket while mother plays mahjong
Hong Kong are the world champions... in snow polo
Food Central: Closed and Moving

Posted: 18 Feb 2013 07:00 PM PST

Date: Feb 19th 2013 11:36a.m.
Contributed by: geofferson

Save cash and eat well at our favorite sandwich shop

Lonely Nanjing woman rents a mom for Spring Festival

Posted: 18 Feb 2013 07:00 PM PST

While young people across China rented fake boyfriends and girlfriends for the Spring Festival, one Nanjing woman paid over 10,000 yuan to rent a mother for the holidays. [ more › ]

Former CCTV presenter charged over 'extreme porn' collection

Posted: 18 Feb 2013 06:00 PM PST

Poor Sen Luo was just trying to write a 'Chinese Sex and the City-style book.' Sen wanted the life of a writer: he left his presenter job at CCTV, moved to England, and downloaded '800 video images on his laptop and hard-drives showing women being tortured and bestiality.' It's the classic story of a writer who finally develops his own voice, and then gets arrested for breaking a 2008 UK act criminalizing the possession of 'extreme pornographic images.' [ more › ]

Adopt Eevee the gentle ginger from SCAA

Posted: 18 Feb 2013 05:00 PM PST

For more information on giving Eevee a forever home, please visit SCAA's website, contact foster@scaashanhai.org or visit them at Adoption Day on Sunday, February 24th at Shanghai Brewery (15 Dongping lu, at Hengshan lu) // (东平路15号, 近衡山路) from 11AM - 1PM. [ more › ]

A New China Book List

Posted: 18 Feb 2013 05:42 AM PST

Michael Cormack of Agenda Beijing (a consistently good read, BTW) just did an article, entitled, "What China Books" on the China books Cormack finds "most interesting." Cormack was spurred to write his article after reading Kaiser Kuo's list of tips to expats seeking to "acclimatise into life in China," which included reading books on modern Chinese history.

Cormack's list consists of the following:

China: Fragile Superpower, by Susan Shirk. This book examines "the tensions on the fault-lines of China's national security structure." I have not read this book so I cannot comment.
Designated Drivers: How China Plans to Dominate the Global Auto Industry, by G.E. Anderson. According to Cormack, "this book is a marvelous introduction into Chinese economic policy and the numerous actors – and just because several are state actors does not mean that they are homogenous – behind the scenes, through the prism of the car industry." I have not read this book either, but I have read a lot of G.E. Anderson and I have many friends who know him well. From my readings and from my friends, I have absolutely no doubt that this is a superb book. Anderson clearly knows China and he clearly knows its auto industry.
When China Rules The World, by Martin Jacques. I have read this book and it is okay. Jacques makes some excellent points and has some deep insights into China. In particular, this book is a great way to see China from a perspective different from that usually presented by the Western media. But in the end, this book is too much a leftist paean to a China that does not exist and will never exist.
The China Twist, by Wen-Szu Lin. Amazon describes the China Twist as "the firsthand story of two Wharton MBAs who brought a beloved U.S. food franchise to China and encountered outrageous obstacles that will make anyone in business laugh, cringe, and think twice about doing business in Asia." Cormack says that "Every single entrepreneur or businessperson thinking about entering the Chinese market should first read this." I also have not read this book, but I plan to do so. A couple people have read it to me and it is just the sort of book I tend to like.
The Party: The Secret World of China's Communist Rulers, by Richard McGregor. If you want to better understand China's government, this is the book.
On China, by Henry Kissinger. I hate to admit that I have not read this book, though I have read many excerpts. Not surprisingly, Cormack thinks it an important tome on US-Sino relations.
Behind the Red Door: Sex in China, by Richard Burger. According to Cormack, Burger "takes the reader through a whirlwind tour of attitudes and practices, from the permissive Tang to the ludicrously repressive Maoist epochs, and divides subsequent chapters into useful sections, like The Family", "Homosexuality", "Dating and Marriage", "The Sex Trade" and does so without ever being prurient. Burger is a friend of mine and one of the best China bloggers ever, writing masterpieces at Peking Duck since 2002! I plan to read this book because I am certain it is excellent.

Cormack then lists out the following books he has not read as possibly "useful":

When A Billion Chinese Jump, by Jonathan Watts. Definitely a worthwhile read.

China's Urban Billion: The Story Behind the Biggest Migration in Human History, by Tom Miller. I have heard good things too, but not read it.

China Airborne, by James Fallows. I consider Fallows to be one of the best writers on China in our era and I also recommend his other book, Postcards from Tomorrow Square: Reports from China

The Great Rebalancing: Trade, Conflict, and the Perilous Road Ahead for the World Economy, by Michael Pettis. I have not read this book but I am a Pettis fan as he is one of the few real economists out there covering China 24/7 and writing about it.

What Chinese Want: Culture, Communism and the Modern Chinese Consumer, Tom Doctoroff. This is one of the best books I have read on the Chinese consumer. I reviewed this book last year, in a post entitled, "What The Chinese Consumer Wants. Hint: They Were Not "Born In The U.S.A."

I also recommend the following books and apologize in advance because I know that I will be leaving out other must reads in doing so:

The Fragile Bridge: Conflict Management in Chinese Business, by Andrew Hupert. G.E. Anderson (see above) goes so far as to say that if you are serious about doing business in China, you need this book. Only if you think it important to know China business tactics/psychology.

China in the 21st Century, by Jeffrey Wasserstrom. This is the best China beginner book I have read. It is accurately subtitled "What Everyone Needs to Know" and it consists of a blissfully short and easy 192 pages. It is meant to be basic and it is, but it is not in any way simplistic.

Out of Mao's Shadow: The Struggle for the Soul of a New China, by Phillip Pan. I like books that help me to better understand what influences present day China. This book accomplishes that in spades and it is beautifully written to boot.

If you have not read a Peter Hessler book, you absolutely should/must. Hessler is a great writer and reading his books is both a pleasure and a learning experience. Pick from Oracle Bones: A Journey Through Time in China, River Town: Two Years on the Yangtze, or Country Driving: A Journey Through China from Farm to Factory.

Chinese Lessons: Five Classmates and the Story of the New China, by John Pomfret. My comments about Out of Mao's Shadow hold true with equal force regarding this book.

Though somewhat dated, I still also highly recommend James McGregor's One Billion Customers: Lessons from the Front Lines of Doing Business in China or Tim Clissold's Mr. China: A Memoir for those looking for China business books.

Cormack ended his article by asking for additional recommended books and I will do the same. What other books should people new to China be reading?

We can remember it for you wholesale

Posted: 17 Feb 2013 05:00 PM PST

We've been trying to keep our feature film project under wraps and don't want to do the whole Kickstarter thing, but if anyone knows the Spielberg brothers tell them to answer our emails, because we only need a bit of cash to start shooting at this point and the story basically sells itself. I mean... if someone else made this movie, we would probably see it a couple of times in the theater at least. Multiply that by the number of people in China and you'll have a sense of what this can mean.

The concept? We're working from an original script, but imagine something like Inception except on Mars and with a spy angle as well. And we don't even need to cast: we've already got provisional commitments from Kate Bekinsale, Anne Hathaway and David Tennant. Granted, not everyone has signed on paper yet, but as soon as they see our concept art it'll be impossible to pry the pens from their fingers. And since everyone will be speaking Chinese, Steven will finally have a shot at that Best Foreign Language Oscar.

This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now

Kaifu Lee, former head of Google China, banned from Weibo

Posted: 18 Feb 2013 06:30 AM PST

Former head of Google China and current CEO of Innovation Works, Kaifu Lee, said he has been banned from posting on Weibo, where he has over 30 million followers. [ more › ]

What the world is getting wrong about China and climate change

Posted: 18 Feb 2013 06:53 AM PST

Pressing ahead too fast with emissions cuts will cause pain down the line for China, says senior climate strategist Zou Ji

Zou Ji is deputy director of China's National Centre for Climate Change Strategy

chinadialogue: How has China's role in the global response to climate change evolved over the past decade?

Zou Ji: I divide it into three stages. First, from 1989 to 1995, China learned about climate change and started to participate in international discussions. It mainly went along with the global process.

Then, from 1995, when substantive climate negotiations started, to the Bali roadmap in 2007, China shifted from adjustment and familiarisation to active participation in response to calls from other countries. During the negotiations over the 1997 Kyoto Protocol, the Chinese media commonly rejected the demands and requests of the international community, and that made a deep impression on other nations.

Since 2007, China has become more active, entering a stage of full and positive participation.

Driving this last stage has been the global trend towards low-carbon development and, more importantly, a change in domestic circumstances. During the 10th and 11th Five-Year Plans, China's economy grew exponentially, bringing alarming increases in energy consumption, spending on power plants and emissions. Ten years ago, China had less than 500 gigawatts of generating capacity – now it has over 1,000 gigawatts. In six or seven years, more capacity was added than in the 50 years after 1949.

Those figures are enough to rattle any economist or China expert. Coal is China's primary source of energy, and those hundreds of gigawatts of power rely on the burning of coal. Huge numbers of people are at work in coal mines, both large and small, and about half of rail freight capacity is used to move coal. That's quite something. In the early 1990s, China was an oil exporter. Today, we depend on imports for almost 60% of our consumption. This is unimaginable, in terms of oil price, economic cost and energy security. We have hit the limit of this type of growth.

So China has started to rethink things. The decades leading up to 2050 are crucial for China's shift from a middle-income developing country to a middle-income developed country, and we can't yet be sure we'll hit that goal. What we can be sure of is this: if we carry on with our current model of development, there's little chance of success.

To sum up, China's role has shifted from being asked to act, to acting of its own accord. That was determined by the prospects, the basic interests, of China's billion-plus population. And China has affirmed that approach through its national strategy – everyone has seen the action taken to close down obsolete production and adjust economic structure.

cd: Cutting emissions isn't easy for an industrialising and urbanising economy. Is the rest of the world asking too much? Forget for a moment the political tussles over how much CO2 can and should be cut – what's China's actual ability to reduce emissions?

ZJ: China does have some advantages, such as the opportunity for adjustments in the world economy due to the financial crisis. Also, China has become the world's second largest economy and the gap with the US is shrinking. Spending on institutional measures and research and development that in the past would have been unthinkable is becoming feasible.

Although the world is still led by the developed nations, the status and negotiating strength of the developing world is also on the increase.

But at the same time, China suffers from some obvious disadvantages.

The international community has some misconceptions, such as believing China is now a developed nation. This could mean China ends up taking on more global responsibility than its capabilities allow. We've held the Olympics and sent astronauts into space, but you can't look at the richest parts of Beijing and Shanghai and assume the whole country is like that. The welfare of hundreds of millions of rural residents isn't yet assured. Healthcare, unemployment benefits, pensions, all of these are weak. Many Chinese people have no safe drinking water, and our per-capita GDP ranks ninety-something globally. Overall, China is still a developing nation.

Another important disadvantage is the make-up of our natural resources.

Brazil gets 90% of its energy from hydropower. It is fortunate enough to have those resources. If China could replace coal with oil as a primary source of energy, emissions would drop by one third. If we could replace coal with natural gas, they would drop by two thirds. But China's main resource is coal. We only have limited amounts of other sources of energy, and obviously a reliance on imports is unrealistic. Moving to clean energy is a massive challenge.

Meanwhile, we still need to urbanise and educate hundreds of millions of rural residents. Quality of life needs to be improved. There can be no disagreement about that.

Domestically, there are two dangerous trends we need to steer clear of. One is sticking too rigidly to our traditional way of doing things. The other is changing too quickly, trying to create a low-carbon economy in a Great Leap Forward manner and misjudging China's circumstances and technological ability.

China can only do its best as it is able. Moving too quickly will actually hold back low-carbon development.

cd: Will China take a different path to that of the Kuznets curve (the idea that certain environmental indicators start to improve once development has reached a certain stage)?

ZJ: In the current world economic system, it is difficult for a developing nation to cut emissions. China currently accounts for 70% of new emissions each year, and the pressure and expectations it faces are increasing. But China is still on the left-hand side of the Kuznets curve, while the EU is on the right-hand side, beyond the peak. The type of emissions of the two different stages aren't the same, they can't be compared. China's high emissions come mainly from industry and are driven by investment. The EU's emissions come mostly from building and transportation, and are due to consumption.

At their peak, France's per-capita emissions were 19 tonnes, while Germany's approached 15 tonnes. We shouldn't forget that. You can't ask China to get to 7 tonnes and level off or fall. It goes against the basic laws of developmental economics. Japan and Australia have per-capita GDPs of US$40,000, but their emissions still haven't peaked. China's per-capita GDP is US$5-6,000. The curve is still going up.

China can peak at a lower level than the US and EU did historically. But even a per-capita peak of 10 tonnes means total emissions of 13 billion tonnes. That's more than I can imagine. It's a huge challenge for China.

cd: Historically, EU countries cut emissions by exporting production. We can't do that this time, so where can China cut emissions?

ZJ: Through technological advances. Energy efficiency will be the key battlefield.

China's population will continue to increase for the foreseeable future. But even if that growth is very small, the imports and exports, investment and consumption that per-capita GDP depends on must continue to rise. Currently, that growth is mostly driven by investment, but consumption would similarly increase emissions and energy use, through transport and buildings.

For decades, China has sought to adjust its economic structure in favour of the service sector. But if that means increased use of transportation and freight, emissions will still grow. The service sector as a whole has low emissions, but that kind of industrial structure needs a certain GDP level. It's not just a numbers game.

In manufacturing, there is a clear distinction between low-end operations – with high emissions and low profits – and high-end operations, with low emissions and high profits. Again, we see the importance of technology.

Increased manufacturing and urbanisation will continue for the foreseeable future. What would be the easiest way to cut emissions? To send everyone to the fields overnight. But that's not possible, that would just increase poverty. Some expectations are over-simplistic. China still needs to supply safe drinking water for hundreds of millions of rural residents and ensure houses don't collapse in medium-strength earthquakes. More concrete and steel means more energy consumption – that's the basic situation.

And energy-hungry EU and US lifestyles have had a huge impact. They have a sense of superiority and leadership, and their culture informs the youth of developing nations – the consumers, managers, chairmen and professors of the future. Every day they see adverts for cars, big houses, SUVs, for high consumption, and they think that's what success is.

If we're going to change things, then the world needs to act together and change our ways of life.

Senior official offered 200,000 yuan to swim in polluted river

Posted: 18 Feb 2013 05:00 AM PST

As Erik reported on Sunday, China has more than its fair share of polluted rivers. An entrepreneur in Zhejiang, fed up at local government inaction on protecting the environment, is offering a 200,000 yuan reward if a local official will swim in a polluted river for 20 minutes. [ more › ]

Giant LED screen in Zhongshan displays porn for 20 minutes (NSFW-ish)

Posted: 18 Feb 2013 04:00 AM PST

Shoppers in Zhongshan, Guangdong province, got something of a shock on Saturday when a giant LED screen above a KFC in downtown Fuye Square displayed a porn film... for 20 minutes. [ more › ]

The groundwater of 90% of Chinese cities is polluted

Posted: 18 Feb 2013 11:22 AM PST

The holiday is over, and here's some news to bring you right back to down to earth. Or even further down underneath the earth where its apparently pretty smelly. The front page of the Strait Times (海峡都市报) from Fujian province today reports that the groundwater of 90% of Chinese cities is polluted to some degree, and that of around 60% is "severely polluted". These depressing findings were recently uttered by an official from the China Geological Survey (中国地质调查局) at an international groundwater forum.

Strait Times today also reports on the Weibo river campaign recently launched by Deng Fei on his microblog, and one man who took Deng's campaign a step further by promising openly to give the head of a city environmental protection office 200,000 yuan if he swam for 20 minutes in a polluted river.

Strait Times also note a separate report from Xinhua of a study of 118 cities in China which found that the groundwater of 64% of cities is severely polluted, while that of 33% is mildly polluted. Only a measly 3% of cities have clean groundwater. An official from the Beijing Public Environmental Research Center summed up the full significance of this: the sources of drinking water in China's cities have been polluted, and especially so with what he described as heavy metal contamination (金属污染) containing organic matter pollution that is extremely difficult for traditional water treatment methods to process.

Strait Times also reports today on the brouhaha kicked off on 12 February by the activist Deng Fei, who launched a tirade on his microblog accusing a number of chemical and paper companies in two cities in Shandong province of using high-pressure wells to pump sewage water 1,000 meters underground without the authorities knowing anything about it.

The accusations kicked up by Deng Fei on the Internet initially got scant responses from the relevant authorities in the two cities, yet on the 17th of February one of the cities, Weifang, belatedly responded when an official in the city told Xinhua that an investigation had been launched in the city on the 15th. By the 17th a total of 715 companies had been investigated, but no transgressions were found. This response, however, met with some suspicion online with various people questioning how 715 companies could have been effectively monitored in only three days.

The same Deng Fei recently posted a message on his microblog asking people to upload pictures of the rivers in their hometowns (see Tea Leaf Nation for more details on Deng Fei's campaign and how the Internet censors became involved). Various pictures were uploaded of rivers both clean and polluted, but one man from Hangzhou took Deng's campaign a step further. On 16 February, the chairman of a company manufacturing spectacles in Hangzhou in Zhejiang province named Jin Zhengmin (金增敏) noted on his Sina Weibo microblog that a river in Ruian (瑞安市) in Wenzhou, Zhejiang province, was badly polluted. He himself grew up in Ruian and remembers when the river was clean enough to do laundry in. So Jin challenged the head of the environmental protection office to swim in the river for 20 minutes, and if he did, Jin would give him 200,000 yuan. On the 17th, the Ruian official in question, Bao Zhenming (包振明), told reporters that the river was really only contaminated with domestic garbage, not industrial waste. So I guess that made it OK? Apparently he still hasn't taken the swim.

Links and sources
Strait Times (海峡都市报): 城市地下水只有3%基本清洁; 企业将污水排到千米地下?; 企业家悬赏20万请环保局长游泳
Tech in Asia: Deng Fei Launches Weibo Campaign to Share Images of Water Pollution
Tea Leaf Nation: Chinese Activist Web Users Take Aim at Water Pollution, and Censors Strike Back

Photos: 5,000 workers queue up for their Spring Festival bonus

Posted: 18 Feb 2013 03:00 AM PST

While you were working this weekend to make up for having the temerity to go on holiday (communism, ain't it grand!), 5,000 Tencent employees were happy to go into the office. The workers queued for hours to receive a special Spring Festival cash bonus. [ more › ]