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• Defying Mao, Rich Chinese Crash the Communist Party
• Chinese Scientists Measure Speed of Gravity
• Photo: Mao Music, by Michael Steverson
• Sensitive Words: Photoshop Strikes Again

Defying Mao, Rich Chinese Crash the Communist Party Posted: 28 Dec 2012 03:26 PM PST The Wall Street Journal's James T. Areddy explores the intersection of wealth and power in today's China: China has been grappling of late with political and social tension over its murky policy-making process and its growing income disparity. The party has been especially sensitive this year during the leadership change about revelations about fortunes amassed by the offspring of political leaders, known as "princelings," by leaders of state businesses and by other politically connected people. Many ordinary Chinese blame high prices, poor quality food and pollution on guanshang guojie—meaning, roughly, officials in bed with businessmen. […] It is difficult to pinpoint precisely how holding political positions advances the business interests of the wealthy, if at all. They may do better because of their political positions, or, conversely, they may owe their positions to their business success. There are a multitude of reasons for Chinese companies to be on good terms with political leaders. Chinese companies routinely do business with the government, borrow money from state banks, even negotiate their tax bills with local authorities. The web of political power and business interests is mapped in a dense and extensive infographic accompanying the report. Areddy also points to an illustrative series of deals involving former Chongqing Party boss Bo Xilai and Wen Jiabao's son Wen Yunsong. The transactions began when officials in Chongqing's government who answered to Mr. Bo sold shares of a state-run grocery and electronics chain to an investment group led by New Horizon Capital LP, a firm founded by Premier Wen's son, Wen Yunsong. After first buying 25% of the chain-store business, the New Horizon-led group increased its holdings to 39%, according to regulatory filings and government reports. The investment group effectively became a partner of the Chongqing government in the retail business. In October 2009, Chongqing Department Store Co., 600729.SH -1.56% a bigger retailing group also controlled by the local government, bought the chain in a 3.921 billion yuan ($574 million) all-stock merger. That deal valued the private-equity group's initial 25% stake at 980 million yuan, almost 2.8 times what it had paid 18 months earlier. The Wall Street Journal report coincided with a major Bloomberg investigation, also published on Boxing Day. At Bloomberg View, William Pesek discussed the implications of the Bloomberg report, and of David Barboza's October exposé of Wen's family's wealth at The New York Times. When you peruse many of the reader responses to foreign press reports about Chinese graft, conspiracy theories abound: The western media want to undermine China's rise and is doing the bidding of officials in Washington and Tokyo. That, of course, is silly. Only a fool would hope for a crash in the world's No. 2 economy and for 1.3 billion people to struggle to find enough to eat. Global economics isn't a zero-sum game. When hundreds of millions of people get rich, that will benefit all of us, whether you work for Rolex, Nike Inc. or Toyota Motor Corp. […] The sad truth is that hundreds of millions of Chinese aren't rolling in yuan the way Deng might have hoped. It's getting harder to hide that reality from China's masses, and that poses a growing threat to the Communist Party. Closing international-media websites, as China does at the sight of an unflattering article, can't hide the internal decay as wealth becomes more and more concentrated. […] No industrializing economy has ever avoided a crash, and neither will China. Possible catalysts include pollution and surging living costs. Yet the one that China's leaders are probably most loath to confront is the sight of Communist Party officials becoming modern-day Rockefellers and Vanderbilts. It surely never occurred to Deng that finding wealth would be China's undoing. When you follow the money, it's hard to conclude otherwise. © Samuel Wade for China Digital Times (CDT), 2012. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us Post tags: Bo Xilai, communist party, National People's Congress, rich list, wealth, wealth gap, Wen Jiabao, Wen Yunsong Download Tools to Circumvent the Great Firewall

Chinese Scientists Measure Speed of Gravity Posted: 28 Dec 2012 01:54 PM PST Chinese scientists announced this week that they have conducted the most precise measurement yet of the speed of gravity. Their finding that gravity's influence propagates at the speed of light supports both earlier, less precise measurements and the predictions of general relativity. By conducting six observations of total and annular solar eclipses, as well as Earth tides, a team headed by Tang Keyun, a researcher with the Institute of Geology and Geophysics under the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), found that the Newtonian Earth tide formula includes a factor related to the propagation of gravity. "Earth tide" refers to a small change in the Earth's surface caused by the gravity of the moon and sun. Based on the data, the team, with the participation of the China Earthquake Administration and the University of the CAS, found that gravitational force released from the sun and gravitational force recorded at ground stations on Earth did not travel at the same speed, with the time difference exactly the same as the time it takes for light to travel from the sun to observation stations on Earth. […] By applying the new data to the propagation equation of gravity, the team found that the speed of gravity is about 0.93 to 1.05 times the speed of light with a relative error of about 5 percent, providing the first set of strong evidence showing that gravity travels at the speed of light. The first measurement of the speed of gravity was announced by Ed Fomalont and Sergei Kopeikin in 2003, but was considerably less precise and has since been disputed. From Hazel Muir's report on Fomalont and Kopeikin's experiment at New Scientist: John Baez, a physicist from the University of California at Riverside, comments: "Einstein wins yet again." He adds that any other result would have come as a shock. Isaac Newton thought the influence of gravity was instantaneous, but Einstein assumed it travelled at the speed of light and built this into his 1915 general theory of relativity. Light-speed gravity means that if the Sun suddenly disappeared from the centre of the Solar System, the Earth would remain in orbit for about 8.3 minutes – the time it takes light to travel from the Sun to the Earth. Then, suddenly feeling no gravity, Earth would shoot off into space in a straight line. But the assumption of light-speed gravity has come under pressure from brane world theories, which suggest there are extra spatial dimensions rolled up very small. Gravity could take a short cut through these extra dimensions and so appear to travel faster than the speed of light – without violating the equations of general relativity. © Samuel Wade for China Digital Times (CDT), 2012. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us Post tags: physics, science Download Tools to Circumvent the Great Firewall

Photo: Mao Music, by Michael Steverson Posted: 28 Dec 2012 01:20 PM PST Mao Music © Samuel Wade for China Digital Times (CDT), 2012. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us Post tags: Download Tools to Circumvent the Great Firewall

Sensitive Words: Photoshop Strikes Again Posted: 28 Dec 2012 12:08 PM PST Pictionary Curse: Fish (鱼 yú) plus veggie chicken (素鸡 sùjī) plus 7-Up (七喜 Qīxǐ) may sound like it equals a delicious meal, but in Shanghai-accented Mandarin, it spells "Go die, Secretary Yu." This and many images like it have been pulled off the Internet. As of December 25, the following search terms are blocked on Sina Weibo (not including the "search for user" function): Studies in Leadership: Xinhua launched a profile series of China's new central leadership this Sunday, showcasing the human side of incoming president Xi Jinping and Politburo Standing Committee (PSC) members Li Keqiang, Zhang Dejiang, and Yu Zhengsheng. Netizens are going after the egregious Photoshopping of Li Keqiang, glaring omissions from Yu Zhengsheng's story, and an outlandish statement attributed to Zhang. - Li Keqiang + PS (李克强+PS): "PS" can mean "Photoshop" or "to Photoshop." A 2004 image of Li accompanying his profile is clearly Photoshopped. - Xinhua + PS (新华社+PS) - Yu Zhengsheng + older brother (俞正声+哥哥): Yu Qiangsheng's defection to the United States in 1986 has become a hot topic following the release of the Yu Zhengsheng profile. - Yu Zhengsheng + family (俞正声+家族) - Veggie chicken (素鸡): "Fish Veggie Chicken" emerged as a nickname for Yu Zhengsheng during his tenure as Party secretary of Shanghai. The nickname alludes to "Secretary Yu" (俞书记) pronounced in a Shanghai accent. "Fish Veggie Chicken" was first blocked in early September, when word that Yu could be nominated to the PSC began to circulate. - Zhang Dejiang + power car (张德江+动车): Power cars are used in high-speed trains. The Xinhua profile of Zhang states that after the July 2011 high-speed rail crash in Wenzhou, Zhang "gave a clear instruction that no one should bury the wreckage." Church of Almighty God: Authorities continue the crackdown on this cult, which saw a resurgence of activity around Mayan "Doomsday" predictions. - Almighty God (全能神) - Real God (实际神) - Eastern Lightening (东方闪电) Other: - seven Standing Committee members (七常委) - often atrophy (常萎 cháng wěi): Sounds the same as "Standing Committee members" (常委) - long atophy (长萎): Same as above. - elders (长老): Refers to the PSC. - River Elegy (河殇): The groundbreaking 1988 CCTV documentary about the decline of Chinese civilization. All Chinese-language words are tested using simplified characters. The same terms in traditional characters occasionally return different results. CDT Chinese runs a project that crowd-sources filtered keywords on Sina Weibo search. CDT independently tests the keywords before posting them, but some searches later become accessible again. We welcome readers to contribute to this project so that we can include the most up-to-date information. To add words, check out the form at the bottom of CDT Chinese's latest sensitive words post.  You can see all of CDT's collected sensitive words in this bilingual Google spreadsheet. © Anne.Henochowicz for China Digital Times (CDT), 2012. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us Post tags: blocked words, censored words, censorship, church of almighty god, filtered words, high-speed rail crash, Internet censorship, leadership transition, Li Keqiang, Ministry of Truth, Photoshop, Politburo Standing Committee, River Elegy, sensitive words, sina weibo, weibo, Xinhua, Yu Qiangsheng, Yu Zhengsheng, zhang dejiang Download Tools to Circumvent the Great Firewall

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