Blogs » Politics » ‘Cloud Atlas’ Lands in China, 35 Minutes Lighter
Blogs » Politics » ‘Cloud Atlas’ Lands in China, 35 Minutes Lighter |
- ‘Cloud Atlas’ Lands in China, 35 Minutes Lighter
- China’s Resistance Art Beyond Ai Weiwei
- Announcement Hints at Jiang’s Waning Influence
- US Grounds Boeing 787, Can’t Blame China, But In Denial
- From Chinese and Japanese Web Users, Strikingly Similar Vitriol on Islands Dispute
- Accounting Firms’ Gold Rush Puts US Credibility on the Line, by He Qinglian
- Diaoyu Tensions Hang Over Envoy’s Beijing Visit
- Forced Silence Amplifies Li Chengpeng’s Voice
- Imprisoned Rights Lawyer Allowed Family Visit
- Worker Deaths Linked to Political Connections
- Ministry of Truth: Kim Jong-un’s Face-Lift
- Bringing a Hired Love Interest Home for the Holidays
- Word of the Week: Relevant Department
- Photo: The Butcher Reads, by Michael Steverson
- Presidential Inbox: The Constant Irrititant of Cybersecurity in Asia
- Former China State TV Director Bemoans Anti-Japanese Propaganda: “Where’s the Creativity?”
- CIA’s role in anti-Chinese genocide
- 100 Years Later, 1913 Rings Eerily Familiar
- China: Uyghur Pizza
- Skills of a Chinese Police Porn Examiner
| ‘Cloud Atlas’ Lands in China, 35 Minutes Lighter Posted: 23 Jan 2013 10:34 PM PST The genre-spanning Cloud Atlas debuts in China on January 31st in an incarnation almost a quarter shorter than the original cut, courtesy of the State Administration of Radio, Film and Television. From Ernest Kao at South China Morning Post:
Details of changes to the latest Bond film, Skyfall, also emerged last week following its belated Beijing premiere. While The Atlantic's Matt Schiavenza dismissed the edits as "little more than a government tailoring a popular film for its audience", Xinhua reported that the altered film had prompted calls for a less capricious censorship process:
While money from the mainland has attracted attention recently, SCMP's Vivienne Chow wrote that Cloud Atlas' financing suggests a role for Hong Kong in the global film industry:
© Samuel Wade for China Digital Times (CDT), 2013. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us  |
| China’s Resistance Art Beyond Ai Weiwei Posted: 23 Jan 2013 09:34 PM PST Oiwan Lam at Global Voices Online looks at Chinese art-activist Li Ning and his art group, the Body Art Guerrilla Group, Made-in-J Town. Their work examines forced demolition in Shandong, opposes fees for selecting schools, and laments the negative power of money:
See Li Ning's works:
© Mengyu Dong for China Digital Times (CDT), 2013. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us  |
| Announcement Hints at Jiang’s Waning Influence Posted: 23 Jan 2013 07:38 PM PST Chinese state media reported Wednesday that former president and Communist Party chief Jiang Zemin, who emerged as a key power broker during China's leadership transition last year, asked that his name be moved down the party's order of seniority. From the South China Morning Post's Choi Chi-yuk:
The South China Morning Post had reported Jiang's tumble in the pecking order on Tuesday, before state media claimed the change came at the former leader's own request. Still, one Beijing-based political analyst told the South China Morning Post on Thursday that Jiang "had most likely been forced to take a step back." Chris Buckley of The New York Times noted that Jiang was listed third in a similar mourning announcement just two months ago:
One observer, however, told NPR's Louisa Lim that it's too soon to say whether Jiang had really relinquished his behind-the scenes influence on party affairs:
© Scott Greene for China Digital Times (CDT), 2013. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us  |
| US Grounds Boeing 787, Can’t Blame China, But In Denial Posted: 23 Jan 2013 07:30 PM PST http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887323301104578257862879948292.html An almost sad tribute to Boeing's 787 above, attributes the recent Infernal Batteries problem of two 787 a week apart from each other, both while in normal operations, to the growing pain of "innovation". Except, this was not "innovation". Using such batteries in airplanes perhaps, but the battery technology, Lithium Cobalt Oxide type, is not new. It was invented in the late 1970′s, and have been in prolific use in cell phones and laptops since 1990′s. Back in the early 2000, there began rumors around the world of incidents where cell phones exploded. First, it became an urban legend attributing such explosion to sparks generated by an operating cell phone near a gas refilling station. But this was quickly denounced as "urban legend". https://canadasafetycouncil.org/safety-canada-online/article/cell-phones-risks-and-rumour Then some users noticed that it was actually the batteries that were exploding or bursting into flames (even in laptops). Companies attributed and blamed the problem on "counterfeit batteries" from China. http://web.archive.org/web/20060109013055/http://www.kyocera-wireless.com/news/20041028_2.htm, recalling proactively batteries to look for "counterfeit", but unfortunately, no report was ever made on the search.
Others simply dismiss the various documented incidents to "user error", "external short" (another way of saying user error). But then quietly and occasionally, Companies were aware of the problems, and began a few recalls. http://en.wikinews.org/wiki/Nokia_issues_BL-5C_battery_warning%2C_offers_replacement http://www.mukamo.com/nokia-n91-cell-phone-explodes/ http://pubs.acs.org/cen/news/84/i34/8434notw4.html http://www.theinquirer.net/inquirer/news/1042700/dell-laptop-explodes-japanese-conference In March 2007, Lenovo recalled approximately 205,000 batteries at risk of explosion. In August 2007, Nokia recalled over 46 million batteries at risk of overheating and exploding. In December 2006, Dell recalled approximately 22,000 laptop batteries from the US market. Approximately 10 million Sony batteries used in Dell, Sony, Apple, Lenovo/IBM, Panasonic,Toshiba, Hitachi, Fujitsu and Sharp laptops were recalled in 2006. Governments, including US, bought into the "theory" of "external short" as the main cause of many Flaming batteries, and imposed restrictions on travelers carrying Li Ion batteries in 2008, http://www.robgalbraith.com/bins/content_page.asp?cid=7-9206-9211. (with new revisions to be enacted in 2013). But this theory didn't explain many of the incidents where the batteries combusted while appearing in normal operations (ie. no "external short"). And then, like magic, the reports of the incidents died down, public interests waned, and recalls became less public (while still occasionally happens: http://www.cpsc.gov/cpscpub/prerel/prhtml11/11234.html HP recall in 2011, About 162,600 batteries (54,000 and 70,000 batteries were previously recalled in May 2010 and May 2009, respectively)). * If one does some careful search, one can find a continuous documented history of the SAME exploding batteries across industries of various applications and devices, from 2004 to today. How can industries and companies continue to make such dangerous products without knowing exactly what's causing the problems? Well, it's easy, call it a "bad batch" or "counterfeit", and blame it on someone else, like China. Yet, the problem keeps showing up again and again. Additionally, the same battery type is used in the Chevy Volt, which encountered 2 separate incidents of battery explosions (1 spontaneously while parked) in 2011 and 2012. US FAA recorded more than 100 incidents linking lithium ion batteries in "CARGO" hold to onboard fires over the last two decades, as more and more companies are shipping the batteries around the world in planes. A recent 2011 report on failure analysis of Lithium Ion Batteries seemed to placate the industry's dismissive attitude about the dangers of the batteries, by attributing most of the Cargo plane incidents to "external shorts", see Page 79 Table 7 in http://www.nfpa.org/assets/files/pdf/research/rflithiumionbatterieshazard.pdf. Yet, contrarily, most of the personally transported battery explosions were attributed to "internal fault" (Ie. some battery defect), Table 8. What is clear is that the Industries and the Companies, never accepted the idea that these batteries could actually "spontaneously" combust while not in operation (as in the case of the Chevy Volt), and even if they did combust IN operation, there must be some other reasons (such as "over charging"/ user error). * Unfortunately, sooner or later, this kind of place blame elsewhere will catch up with you. Forward to today, why did Boeing 787′s catch fire in their batteries? Because the Industry thought, based upon its own previous 2 decades of assumptions about the Lithium Ion batteries (Cobalt Oxide type), that these batteries were already "proven" technology, (discounting and dismissing all of the recalls and problems as someone else's fault). If I was an engineering manager with such beliefs, I would also be as confident about the Li-Ion batteries as the Boeing managers. So for their showcase 787′s, Boeing contracted a reputable Japanese Battery maker that also supplies batteries for NASA and the International Space Station. They took the battery design of the cell phones and effectively multiplied it by over 100 times, put all that highly energized chemical into a big metal box, and stuffed it in the underbelly of the new 787 (VERY CONFIDENTLY). FAA was infected by the confidence of so many engineers and managers around the world. A few cautious voices didn't stop the course of the 787, because America needed it to compete with Europeans' next Airbus, and to show off its "innovation". * I don't mean to sound to gloat. Fortunately, no one was injured in these incidents with the 787′s. But several airlines are being seriously impacted financially by this, among them, Japan Airline and Air India, and several others, like China Eastern, are canceling their orders of the 787′s. Part of all this history, must place the burden of some blame on the Western media, who effectively stopped questioning the industries in the past 20 years, even though there are plenty of data to point to a pattern of problems in the technology. And they believed too much in the superiority of their own "innovation" and quality, while becoming naively willing to place the blame of problems to "others", such as China. Those of us who worked in the industry and had our doubts, did our parts to highlight the problem. (I personally sent many emails to managers and colleagues about this issue). Boeing Executives today are still confidently announcing that they believe they can "fix" the problem "soon". I don't know how many rational engineers and scientists can make such bold claims without actually knowing the EXACT nature of the problem. I only hope that the 787 problems will spark a serious debate and investigation into the 20 year old technology issue, instead of just letting it slide again on some other "blame others" excuses. (Some even blamed this on "outsourcing", or "green technology" in general). As a former engineer, I always believed that ALL technologies have problems, and one can ONLY solve them by facing them, not avoiding them. Blaming this problem on "outsourcing" and others don't get to the REAL cause of the problem, which has NOTHING to do with who made them (as 20 years of history can attest to). While the engineers should work on this problem, the MEDIA needs to get real and stop deluding the public into believing a simplistic explanation. The TRUTH is, that the tendency for fire in the Lithium-Cobalt-Oxide type batteries is a SERIOUS problem with yet unknown cause, for the last 20 years! Sooner the media and the public understand the magnitude of that technological set back, the better we can appreciate the potential danger we are all in today. |
| From Chinese and Japanese Web Users, Strikingly Similar Vitriol on Islands Dispute Posted: 23 Jan 2013 09:17 AM PST  A Coast Guard patrol vessel passes by Uotsuri, the largest island in the Senkaku/Diaoyu chain. (Al Jazeera English/Flickr) Five months since Japan's "nationalization" of the disputed Senkaku islands, called Diaoyu in Chinese, the issue remains as combustible as before — and now, with U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton sounding off on the topic, the reactions of Chinese and Japanese social media users highlight the uneasy reality of geopolitics over these remote isles. Last September, during the height of the anti-Japan demonstrations in China, Secretary Clinton "urged that cooler heads prevail, that Japan and China engage in dialogue to calm the waters." On January 18, 2013, following her talks with Japanese Foreign Minister Fumio Kishida at the State Department, Clinton reemphasized that "the United States does not take a position on the ultimate sovereignty of the islands" and, once again, urged "all parties to take steps to prevent incidents and manage disagreements through peaceful means." But this time, her calls for peace and cool-headedness came with an unexpected twist — the islands are, Clinton stated, "under the administration of Japan and we oppose any unilateral actions that would seek to undermine Japanese administration." "The above comments made by the U.S. side disregard the facts and confuse right and wrong," Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Qin Gang stated on the ministry's official website. "The Diaoyu Island and its affiliated islands are China's inherent territory. This is based on historical and jurisprudential evidence which no one can deny." Qin also issued what can be seen as a warning to the US, urging it to be "responsible on the Diaoyu Islands issue, be discreet in word and deed and take concrete actions to safeguard regional peace and stability as well as overall interests of China-U.S. relations so as to win trust from the Chinese people." Chinese reactions Many of Chinese's social media users responded in outrage to what they saw as the United States' indirect warning for China to withdraw its claim over the disputed islands, showering Secretary Clinton with stinging attacks. "Maybe a few days before her brain arteries got clogged and damaged her brain, that's why she's babbling nonsense," Web user @云里雾里山中人 commented on Sina Weibo, China's Twitter. "She just wants to show herself off before leaving office," said another user, @陆地巡洋舰-. "I just don't understand, two people are fighting, and this woman on the other side of the planet wants to take sides in this fight? What, are you the world police?" asked @北京古古. Some turned personal attacks on Clinton into a general attack on the U.S. and Japan. @大鹏金鹰, whose handle ironically translates to "Roc," or Golden Eagle, a mythical bird of prey, commented, "You bombed our embassy, you're using little Japanese devils as eggs to throw at us…and you think you're so awesome?" "It's a matter between China and Japan—what is it to the U.S.? You think you're the lord of the entire world? The U.S. and Japan are both shameless," wrote @Sometime2046. And, of course, this storm of anger and derision ultimately turned to Japan. As Web user @想养一匹奥巴马, whose handle roughly translates to"I want to raise a pet–Obama," put it, "The Japanese dogs once again go to their daddy for support." Japanese reactions Chinese Web users were not the only ones who reacted en masse to Secretary Clinton's recent comment. Reactions flooded Channel 2, or ni channeru, Japan's largest Internet forum. While not as widely used as China's Sina Weibo, Channel 2 has over 11 million users who can freely post with complete anonymity, voicing opinions that often remain suppressed in Japan's mainstream media. Some Japanese Web users viewed Japan as Washington's helpless protégé — or, more crudely put, pet dog — and wrote self-mockingly. "Although Japan is the main player involved, no one pays attention to us. Other people just go past our heads and take the matter straight to the 'master' [the U.S.]," one user commented. Many other Japanese Web users interpreted Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Qin Gang's reaction to State Secretary Clinton's comment — that the U.S. "oppose[s] any unilateral actions that would seek to undermine Japanese administration" — as marked by fear. "It was just supposed to be another anti-Japan 'performance,' [the Chinese] didn't expect it to turn into such a big deal, but now they can't go back, either. Now that the U.S. is really involved, China is scared out of its mind," commented one user anonymously. Others were more vulgar: "Haha China's scared shitless now. They stopped dispatching planes. What a loser," sneered another. "You think you're equal to the U.S.? It's beyond ridiculous — totally pitiful," another user jeered. The growing nationalist "hysteria" As on Sina Weibo, unrestrained, emotional attacks run rampant on Channel 2. Contrary to stereotypes, which often depict Japanese citizens as peaceful, reticent, and law-abiding, Japanese Web users were as venomous and vociferous as Chinese Web users, voicing resentment both for China and Japan. Although it is unlikely that Japanese and Chinese Web users read each others' posts, many posts, such as "Go to hell, Sina dogs" and "Japanese dogs get the hell out of Diaoyudao," resemble each other in tone, and even in word choice. As the internationally acclaimed Japanese author Haruki Murakami wrote in an opinion piece for the Asahi Shimbun, one of the major liberal newspapers in Japan, the "Territorial issue ceases to be a practical matter and enters the realm of 'national emotions.'" Murakami sharply criticized both Japan and China for using nationalist rhetoric, calling it "cheap alcohol" that "makes you hysterical…speak loudly and act rudely… but after your drunken rampage you are left with nothing but an awful headache the next morning." As Japan and China send fighter jets to the disputed region and the issue continues to escalate, dialogue between the two nations is crucial to avoid a military clash. Despite China's past calls for negotiations, Japan has repeatedly refused, insisting that there is no territorial issue to discuss because Japan holds sovereignty over the islands. With mounting belligerence on both sides, the islands dispute seems more and more like a ticking time bomb.         |
| Accounting Firms’ Gold Rush Puts US Credibility on the Line, by He Qinglian Posted: 23 Jan 2013 06:51 PM PST
The Securities and Exchange Commission in December charged the Chinese affiliates of five big accounting firms Deloitte, Ernst & Young, KPMG and PwC and BDO for failing to comply with laws requiring access to the work papers of their audit on Chinese companies. The SEC was supposed to make a decision at the end of the December, including the possibility of delisting all Chinese companies in the US exchange. But the "deadline" has long passed and we haven't heard the outcome of the suit. I am afraid it has probably disappeared into the black box called "diplomatic solutions." The fate and the practice of the five accounting firms in China are tied to one word: professional standing. In 2001 when native Chinese accounting firms were embroiled in fraud scandals, the Chinese government granted special audit concessions to the five largest US accounting firms for their trustworthiness, and the big five's China business has subsequently skyrocketed. But now the Big Five are embroiled in alleged fraud in their Chinese business. Over the last 12 years, the Big Five's attitude towards their own reputation has undergone quiet change, and it all has to do with them seeking gold in China. In this article, I would like to examine four issues: I. Did the Big Five know that Chinese companies had falsified their financial documents? The SEC said that the Big Five refused to provide required documents partially because their accountants believed that "the law of the People's Republic of China" prohibited them from providing them. It's very clever for the Big Five to place the burden of "Chinese law" that the SEC couldn't do anything about. But the key issue remains: Did the Big Five know whether Chinese companies had falsified their financial documents when they conducted audits? When a Chinese company issues an APO in the American exchange, it must hire American-trained professionals in order to understand financial literature. It was possible that, at the beginning of the APO business, the American executives of the Big Five didn't know what their Chinese subordinates were doing, but it's hard to believe they still didn't know by 2004. China's APO industrial chain started around 2001. Some US-trained Chinese professionals, in cooperation with accountants, lawyers and investment banks in the US, scouted Chinese companies suited for reverse merger and acquisition. After a few years of practice, an APO industrial chain matured between 2003 to 2005 that helped Chinese companies to issue APOs in the US market. During this period, there had been a stream of bad news coming from the US market about Chinese stocks. In 2005, 90% of the 70+ Chinese companies had become trash stocks in less than a year after they had been issued. It's hard to believe that, faced with such a deluge of bad news, the American executives of the five accounting firms did not suspect a possible audit on their Chinese subordinates. But common interest had already made it difficult for them to cut their connections. II. Chinese business is an enormous gold mine for the Big Five The five largest accounting firms entered China in the 1990s one after another. Arthur Andersen bankrupted in 2001 because of its involvement in the Enron scandal, so the Big Five became Big Four. But a few years later, BDO joined the other four, so it was the Big Five again. In their earliest days in China, the American brand and reputation brought these firms good fortunes. In 2001, the Chinese government dropped them a big piece of cake. That year, many native Chinese accounting firms were implicated in a series of accounting scandals such as Guangxia (银广夏), Baiwen (郑百文), Lantian (蓝田股份), and as a result, the Chinese Securities Regulatory Committee (CSRC) implemented supplementary audit policies requiring all public companies to provide not only the statutory audit by a domestic accounting firm, but also a "supplementary audit" by an international audit firm, when issuing an IPO or refinancing. With the statutory requirement, in place to correct rampant accounting fraud in China, the business of these international firms exploded. According to statistics of the Chinese Institute of Certified Public Accountants, the total revenue of Deloitte, Ernst & Young, KPMG, and PwC (before BDO joined them) in 2002 was close to RMB1.7 billion, or 38.23% of the total revenue of China's 100 biggest accounting firms. In 2005, the percentage increased to 49.46%. In a matter of a few years, while more than 5,600 Chinese accounting firms had to tear each other into piece to fight for piecemeal businesses, the Big Five had monopolized China's high-end audit business and the entire audit business of all of China's companies listed overseas. Of the 1,400 plus companies issuing RMB denominated common stocks (or the A stocks), over 40% of the assets were audited by the Big Five. Director of Economic Security Research Center Jiang Yong (江涌), of China Institutes of Contemporary International Relations, thought this situation "seriously threatened the security of China's financial information." In China where the government routinely fabricates statistics, it's very difficult for outsiders to know just how strictly the Big Five have conducted their audits, and what they have done to stay clean of all sorts of accounting scandals. But this much I can say for sure: the Big Five would not be able to have so much business in China without conceding to China's "hidden rules." Several hundred Chinese companies had gone public in the US exchange through "back-door listing," each audited by one of the Big Five. But soon, accounting problems plagued Chinese stocks in the US, and many Chinese companies were suspended by SEC. In March 2007, CSRC announced that public companies in the category of finance were no long required to undergo supplementary audit by an international firm, the reason being "to ensure fair competition between international and domestic accounting firms." CSRC had thus far hoped to regulate Chinese stock market by granting special status to Big Five, knowing perfect well about accounting frauds among Chinese companies. Now, since the Big Five did the same things as their Chinese colleagues, CSRC had no reason to give them privileges. But CSRC would never let the US know what they knew, because China stood to benefit, without consequences, from disqualified Chinese companies going public in the US stock market. III. Have the Big Five been knowingly engaged in helping clients to cheat? The Chinese white-collar elites, who serve in the Big Five, would no doubt see problems in the books of Chinese companies, and they have chosen to "package" these companies, with the assent of their bosses, to make them meet the American requirements in appearance. Providing "packaging" is the business secret of the Big Five. The Big Five know very well the truth about their clients. I will give Ernst & Young's flip-flop on Bank of China's bad debt for example. On May 4, 2006, Ernst & Young stated in an annual report that the Bank of China had a staggering $US 911 billion bad debt. The Chinese government protested angrily, as the Bank of China was due to be listed in overseas markets on May 25. Paul Ostling, Global Chief Operating Officer at Ernst & Young at the time, ordered an internal investigation on its report, and concluded that its report on the bad debts of China's four biggest state-owned banks had errors, didn't pass Enrst & Young's formal review procedures before it had been issued, and promised "such an embarrassing situation will not happen again"(link in English). However, Enrst & Young had its "Achilles' heel": its current report contradicted its audit report on ICBC the year before. If you look up news in 2005, you will know that China's state-owned banks had been making preparations for listing in Wall Street, and hired American accounting firms for audit. Enrst & Young was the auditor of ICBC. Now, if Enrst and Young insisted its numbers of Chinese banks' bad debts were accurate, then its audit on ICBC and a few other banks couldn't possibly be true, and its reputation would suffer greatly. If it insisted the ICBC audit was correct, then the veracity of its report on the bad debts would be called into question. Between the two traps, Enrst & Young chose the one that hurt itself less. Enrst & Young had issued hundreds of reports before and was highly regarded by its peers. And the conclusions of the 2006 report did not differ from other independent financial advisors, including PwC, that examined China's bad loans. On May 16, 2006, Financial Times asked "Has Ernst & Young forgotten the importance of being independent?" wondering whether Enrst & Young had made a "Faustian bargain" with China as Microsoft and Google had done." The episode in 2006 might have faded into the past, but now, Enrst & Young and the other major international accountancies are facing fresh allegations from the SEC. IV. Do China and the US have a legal compatibility problem, or have Chinese companies cheated on purpose? China has never been known for information transparency, and it finds all sorts of excuses to evade it, security reason being a favorite excuse. This time around, the excuse is that the Chinese law prohibits handing audit working papers to the SEC. Inside China, there were people who defended China and the Big Five by claiming that the two countries' laws have a compatibility problem. This last defense is rather far-fetched. Chinese companies of course have to obey American laws if they are to be listed in the US market. In 2004, China's Construction Bank and ICBC attempted to go public on Wall Street, but after about a year of public relation campaigns and lobbying, including the courting of the American banking industry by both Hu Jintao and Wen Jiabao, these banks failed to gain approval for not meeting SEC's criteria. I remember on August 11, 2005, Congress held a specific hearing on the issue of China raising capital in the United States. From the remarks of the participants, we get the sense that the accountants and lawyers involved in auditing Chinese companies knew very well that China's state-owned banks fell short of the SEC requirements. But Donald Straszheim, former chief economist for Merrill Lynch, believed that the US decision makers should trust the judgment of the market, and should not impose special restrictions on Chinese state-owned enterprises seeking to be listed in the US stock market. Robert DeLaMater, partner at Sullivan & Cromwell, had advised many Chinese companies in their securities offerings, suggested in his testimony that, if the US set the threshold too high for overseas issuers, the American capital market might lose its attractiveness. Without naming the "special restrictions," both Straszheim and DeLaMater were referring to the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, a law passed in 2002 after the Enron and Worldcom scandals. What the two were really advocating was to lower standards, and open up special channels outside the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, for Chinese companies. Looking back now, the SEC was wise not to have done that, given that Chinese state-owned banks have been mired in loans by local governments. Or the American stock market would have been the best place for Chinese state-owned banks to rid of its bad loans and financial risks. This time around, the question is, for the safety of the American capital market, should the SEC make concessions to the Big Five who are allegedly playing a part, along with Chinese corporations, in financial fraud? To be sure, the Chinese players will not provide audit working papers, because those papers will only confirm the Big Five's collaboration with China. It is in the interest of the Big Five to stay in sync with Beijing and to keep the SEC from finding out the truth. The US really doesn't have too much choice. It either relaxes its regulatory demands in exchange for temporary "Chinese interest", or holds steadfast the principles and punishments for cheaters. How the US handles the case would be an indication of how much the US cares about its national credibility. Filed under: Current Events Tagged: Accounting firms, BDO, Big Five, Big Four, China, China Shrouded in Fog, Chinese Securities Regulatory Committee, CSRC, Deloitte, Ernst & Young, He Qinglian, KPMG, PwC, SEC, The Pitfalls of Modernization   |
| Diaoyu Tensions Hang Over Envoy’s Beijing Visit Posted: 23 Jan 2013 06:12 PM PST A Japanese envoy visited Beijing on Tuesday to discuss simmering tensions between the two sides, according to the Associated Press. From the South China Morning Post:
On Wednesday, Reuters reported that two sides did not discuss the Diaoyu Island issue directly. Still, the People's Daily commented that the visit signals that neither side wants to see the confrontation escalate beyond control:
© Scott Greene for China Digital Times (CDT), 2013. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us  |
| Forced Silence Amplifies Li Chengpeng’s Voice Posted: 23 Jan 2013 02:13 PM PST At The Economist's Analects blog, Sascha Matuszak profiles liberal writer and microblogger Li Chengpeng, from his exposure of corruption in Chinese soccer to his recent book tour dogged by enforced silence and political scuffles.
Li has answered questions about the silent signing in Chengdu on Sina Weibo, explaining why he opted to go through with the event, and why a book published through official channels had encountered such opposition. Introducing his partial translation at China Media Project, David Bandurski commented that the disruptions have only made Li's voice louder.
See more about and by Li Chengpeng via CDT. © Samuel Wade for China Digital Times (CDT), 2013. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us  |
| Imprisoned Rights Lawyer Allowed Family Visit Posted: 23 Jan 2013 12:56 PM PST Human Rights in China reports that two family members visited rights lawyer Gao Zhisheng in prison earlier this month. This was their first contact since an earlier prison visit almost ten months ago, before which Gao had not been seen for almost two years. Long periods without communication and his reported torture during an earlier detention in 2007 (.pdf) have repeatedly raised fears for his life.
See more on Gao's case at Human Rights in China and at CDT. © Samuel Wade for China Digital Times (CDT), 2013. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us  |
| Worker Deaths Linked to Political Connections Posted: 23 Jan 2013 12:54 PM PST Fatal accidents are five times more frequent at Chinese companies with political connections, new research claims. The finding adds weight to accusations that executives' political ties allow them to get away with placing profits ahead of worker safety. Provincial rules linking promotions to safety records, though, appear to have borne some fruit. From Raymond Fisman and Yongxiang Wang at Harvard Business Review (via Ray Kwong):
© Samuel Wade for China Digital Times (CDT), 2013. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us  |
| Ministry of Truth: Kim Jong-un’s Face-Lift Posted: 23 Jan 2013 12:40 PM PST The following censorship instructions, issued to the media by central government authorities, have been leaked and distributed online. Chinese journalists and bloggers often refer to these instructions as "Directives from the Ministry of Truth."
CDT has collected the selections we translate here from a variety of sources and has checked them against official Chinese media reports to confirm their implementation. Since directives are sometimes communicated orally to journalists and editors, who then leak them online, the wording published here may not be exact. The original publication date on CDT Chinese is noted after the directives; the date given may indicate when the directive was leaked, rather than when it was issued. CDT does its utmost to verify dates and wording, but also takes precautions to protect the source. © Anne.Henochowicz for China Digital Times (CDT), 2013. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us  |
| Bringing a Hired Love Interest Home for the Holidays Posted: 23 Jan 2013 12:02 PM PST Al Jazeera's The Stream reported today on a global trend toward women marrying later and advancing their own education and careers before creating a family. The show focuses on India and China, where, as Leta Hong Fincher has written, women who are unmarried after age 27 are known as "leftover women" and looked down on in society. Al Jazeera interviews Joy Chen, whose books "Do Not Marry Before Age 30″ is a best-seller in China. As the Lunar New Year approaches, many young people in China are heading home to visit their families. Those who are single often don't want to confront family pressure to find a spouse, and so to avoid it they hire strangers to play the role of love interest for family visits. The New York Times blog reports:
Meanwhile, Shanghaiist reports that marriages between women and men who later come out as gay may soon be able to be anulled in order to give the women a greater chance of remarrying. Some gay men in China who fear they will not be accepted by their families marry women to fulfill societal expectations:
© Sophie Beach for China Digital Times (CDT), 2013. | Permalink | One comment | Add to del.icio.us  |
| Word of the Week: Relevant Department Posted: 23 Jan 2013 12:00 PM PST The Word of the Week comes from China Digital Space's Grass-Mud Horse Lexicon, a glossary of terms created by Chinese netizens and frequently encountered in online political discussions. These are the words of China's online "resistance discourse," used to mock and subvert the official language around censorship and political correctness. 有关部门 (yǒuguān bùmén): relevant department(s)  Relevant Department agent. Government jargon and a source of frustration to many Chinese people. Sometimes the "relevant department" is clear from context, but more often it remains ambiguous. A government spokesperson may assure people that "the relevant department" is taking care of a particular crisis without elaborating which particular department that may be. Or a request for information may be turned down and the person seeking the information directed to ask the "relevant department" (without identifying which department that is). Chinese Uncyclopedia elaborates:
© Anne.Henochowicz for China Digital Times (CDT), 2013. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us  |
| Photo: The Butcher Reads, by Michael Steverson Posted: 23 Jan 2013 11:34 AM PST  The Butcher Reads © Samuel Wade for China Digital Times (CDT), 2013. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us  |
| Presidential Inbox: The Constant Irrititant of Cybersecurity in Asia Posted: 23 Jan 2013 08:45 AM PST  Mr. President, as you look toward Asia in your second term, cybersecurity will be a grain of sand in the eye, a major irritant but not one that blocks the larger vision of what you hope to accomplish in the region. That grain, namely Chinese cyber espionage, is not going away any time soon, but there are things you can do to make it slightly less annoying. Moreover, many of the policies to mitigate the situation will overlap with other efforts to re-energize the U.S. presence and boost ties to allies and friends in the region. There seems little hope that the speck of sand will just come out on its own. Cyber espionage attacks are accelerating, up 75 percent from 2011 to 2012, according to the Defense Security Service. Over the course of your first administration, numerous officials raised the issue with their Chinese counterparts. It was on the agenda at the 2012 Security and Economic Dialogue and was raised during U.S. Secretary Hillary Clinton's meeting with Chinese Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi and U.S. Secretary Leon Panetta's dialogue with Chinese Defense Minister General Liang Guangjie. It is time, however, for you to raise the issue, Mr. President. If you want the leaders in Beijing to think this really matters to the United States, you have to tell them yourself. It may also be time to start showing the stick. In his October 2012 speech to Business Executives for National Security, Secretary Panetta suggested that the United States was making progress on attribution: "Potential aggressors should be aware that the United States has the capacity to locate them and to hold them accountable for their actions…" There are bound to be some costs in showing how capable the United States truly is, but you should consider having your administration provide evidence that Chinese-based hackers are behind the espionage attacks. And once that evidence is public, policy makers can either consider trade sanctions or criminal cases against firms or individuals that benefit. The Department of Justice is reportedly preparing to indict hackers or state-owned enterprises that benefit from stolen intellectual property. You can also lean more on our allies and friends. The Liberal Democratic Party is well placed to "reinforce cybersecurity as national security" in Japan. Revising the war contingency bill to include cyber attacks and enacting a law to protect classified information should make it easier for Tokyo to cooperate with Washington. South Korea will host the third International Cyberspace Conference (the first was in London, the second in Budapest), and the World Bank and Korea Communications Commission recently signed a deal for the joint development of a "Global Cybersecurity Center." Delhi has announced a five-year plan to reform the country's cybersecurity institutions as well as new cooperation with the United Kingdom and expanded dialogue with Japan on cybersecurity. The United States and Australia have declared that their mutual defense treaty applies to cyberattacks, and Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard announced on Wednesday the establishment of the Australian Cyber Security Centre. You need to do more capacity building. Many characterized the breakdown of the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) World Conference on International Telecommunications as the beginning of the "Internet cold war." While it is true that there was a divide between those who support an open Internet and those who want more state control, not all of those who eventually signed the treaty did so for ideological reasons. Instead, they have real security problems, lack technical expertise, and see the ITU as a credible partner (signatories in Southeast and East Asia include Vietnam, Singapore, China, Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand, Cambodia, and South Korea). The United States, along with Japan and Australia, has to provide an alternative through on-the-ground technical assistance. In short, don't avoid taking on China directly over cyber espionage, Mr. President, but don't expect much from it either. The good news, however, is that there is much the United States can do with its friends and allies in the region.
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| Former China State TV Director Bemoans Anti-Japanese Propaganda: “Where’s the Creativity?” Posted: 23 Jan 2013 08:41 AM PST  (iStock photo) Are Chinese audiences growing weary of anti-Japanese propaganda? It would seem that some, at least, are growing sick of the pathetic villains, superhuman heroes and lame endings that many Chinese movies and television series about World War II, or what Chinese refer to as the War of Resistance Against Japan, have to offer. Where's the creativity? On January 19, 2013, former China Central Television director Xia Jun (@夏骏) posted on microblogging platform Sina Weibo, "What's up with China's TV industry? Take a look around Hengdian [a major Chinese television studio] and you'll see 40-50 casts and crews fighting [Japanese] 'devils.' Where's the creativity?" Mr. Xia's statement was reposted 10,000 times and garnered over 2,600 comments on Sina Weibo, China's Twitter-like microblog platform. Most of those responding to Xia's post seemed to share his concern. User @浩淼冷影 remarked, "The scripts are rotten, ridiculous and hypocritical. It's unbearable. The actors, directors, and all those who watch them with such relish…are f-ing obscene." @月夜舞清影 wrote, "It's just so self-indulgent. It's base and laughable stuff!" Some attributed the abundance and poor quality of anti-Japanese propaganda to the fact that anti-Japanese sentiment is surging in China, so audiences will watch it no matter how bad it is. In the words of user @车开车爆胎, "As long as ratings are high, who [among directors] is going to care about creativity?" The deeper history But according to Chinese media veteran Qin Liwen, there is more to the story than undiscerning demand from Chinese viewers: the Chinese authorities are actively promoting anti-Japanese propaganda as a "central theme" for movies and television. As a result, most mainland Chinese directors are loath to spend time and money filming other subject matter, which authorities might be more inclined to censor. The troubled relationship between the Chinese Communist Party and the Kuomintang, for example, is a subject prone to censorship, according to a quote attributed to director Xia Jun that circulated on Twitter in 2010. The tweet also stated that the Korean War and early days of Communist Party rule, which included disastrous events such as the Great Leap Forward and Cultural Revolution, were also off limits. Shows set in ancient China are kept under 20% of total content, and even contemporary dramas must tread lightly around sensitive topics like China's wealth disparity, corruption and labor conditions. As Weibo user @卤豆腐唐 put it, "other than the [Japanese] 'devils,' who are we going to fight? Corrupt officials?" In early Fall 2012, a promotional article was published online outlining how China's screenwriters and directors had worked over the summer to turn the current "central theme" — the War of Resistance Against Japan — into a series of hit television shows, while ensuring that "historical facts" were respected along the way. According to the article, among the innovations directors had come up with in 2012 were barely literate roughneck heroes whose lack of polish is more than made up for by their patriotic fervor, as well as the addition of family drama set against the backdrop of Japanese aggression. But though the piece received over a thousand responses, many of those who voiced an opinion did not share the author's positive take on this year's batch of anti-Japanese propaganda. One commenter replied, "Anti-Japanese shows are the fakest! They rape the intellects of viewers!" Another lamented the greater implications of China's seeming obsession with demonizing Japan: "I boycott this type of show as a rule. They just make me feel ashamed. It is an ill-fated nation which portrays its modern history in this manner." In early fall 2012, when the censorship notes for director Jiang Wen's 2000 film "Devils on the Doorstep" were obtained and published online by the U.S.-based China Digital Times, China watchers gained a rare peek into just how the Chinese authorities dictate and censor the content of films set during Japan's occupation of Mainland China.The film had won the Grand Prix at 2000 Cannes Film Festival, but was subsequently banned in China. Among the many scenes from "Devils on the Doorstep" singled out for criticism by authorities was one in which a Chinese village elder says kindly to a captured Japanese soldier and his turncoat Chinese interpreter, "In my eyes, you too are just children." For this, the film was accused of "displaying common Chinese people as stupid and ignorant, failing to differentiate between foe and friend." The film was also accused of aggrandizing Japanese soldiers because it portrayed them showing restraint towards Chinese villagers. Anti-Japanese propaganda here to stay Last Fall in Beijing, a Chinese scholar referred to the widespread anti-Japan protests as "grassroots deterrence"; a way to pressure Japan by citing the will of the Chinese public. But as with the protests themselves — where the government reportedly bused protestors in and equipped them with signs and bottled water — Beijing plays an active role in forming and promoting negative attitudes towards Japan. In the current political climate, where the Chinese government has come under increasing pressure from the public to reform, Beijing's promotion of anti-Japanese sentiment is unlikely to disappear. It was during just such a legitimacy crisis two decades ago that the Communist Party first initiated an aggressive anti-Japanese propaganda campaign to bolster support for the government following the Tiananmen Square protests. Anti-Japanese sentiment has since become a primary fixture of Chinese nationalism — a rare rallying point in China upon which the rich and poor agree. As one Weibo user exclaimed, "Even our anthem is about resisting the Japanese invasion." Some Chinese Web users will likely continue to complain about the "unbearable" propaganda, but they had better get used to it.     |
| CIA’s role in anti-Chinese genocide Posted: 23 Jan 2013 05:01 AM PST The ethnic Chinese in Indonesia has faced many decades of racism and sometimes pogroms from Indonesians envious and suspicious of the Chinese. What is lesser known is that the US and especially the CIA played a cunning, covert role in spreading the defamatory lies and colluded with the racist Islamic government of Indonesia inciting the racial violence and ethnic cleansing against them. The ethnic Chinese population is roughly 2-4% of Indonesia's total population but there are persistent rumors that they own >70% of the wealth. This perceived economic success (which may not even be accurate due to the systematic discrimination the Chinese have endured for centuries in the country stretching all the way to Dutch colonial rule to prevent them from attaining certain degrees of success) has caused distrust and envy among many Indonesians mirroring the antisemitism during the early part of the twentieth century in Europe.
Anti-Chinese race riots and government sanctioned targeted paramilitary massacres in Indonesia have occurred since the 60s. But one of the principle causes for these organized massacres (much of which seemed to have been backed by the Indonesian government) is CIA black propaganda. Black propaganda is defined as false information purporting to come from one side of a conflict when its actually from another source. Take the Protocols of the Elders of Zion. This was purportedly from a council of powerful Jewish elders who plotted to take over the world when in fact it was written by anti-Semites trying to defame Jews. The CIA during the 50s, 60s and 70s were notorious for their use of black propaganda around the world in their efforts to destabilize regimes and political parties they did not like often pitting one ethnic, religious or political group against another. One tactic was to use leaflets made to look like propaganda from one group which advocated atrocities and domination of another group when this was actually CIA forgeries used to create enmity between the groups. We know from the CIA's own records released through the Freedom of Information Act that the CIA did this throughout the world creating ethnic, political conflict, strife and even wars. The CIA's central role in Indonesia during the 60s was to spread anti-communist propaganda. Moreover they tried to cast a shadow over the ethnic Chinese population in Indonesia in portraying them as all agents of Beijing with the intent of "colonizing" Indonesia or to turn it into a godless, anti-Islamic, communist satellite. CIA propaganda hinting that China was trying to colonize Indonesia and had conspired to overtake the society from within was spread with the help of the Indonesian government. The aim was to spread rumors about armed coups, government subversion, social and economic domination, subversive political control and foreign imperialism by ethnic Chinese people and the PRC. None of these rumors have ever been substantiated. But during large scale anti-communist massacres in the 60s, the ethnic Chinese population were one of the primary targets of Suharto's brutal regime. These were not just anti-Communist massacres but anti-Chinese. The Suharto Indonesian dictatorship made what they termed the "Chinese problem" one of their main concerns and they considered their association with the CIA to be part of the "final solution" to that problem. Anti-Chinese genocide and ethnic cleansing of tens of thousands of Chinese people were the result in one of the most forgotten and least mourned genocides of the 20th century. As I have already noted elsewhere, it's important to keep in mind that much of the propaganda directed against China is also directed at the Chinese people. Much of it is inherently racist. Suharto also made speaking Chinese, Hanzi characters, and even Chinese names illegal. These no doubt are great examples of genuine incidents of cultural genocide. More than 30 years later, the Suharto regime was still in power but before the end of its long rein of terror in 1998, his regime coordinated one last death spasm resulting in an anti-Chinese pogrom leaving at least 1500 dead ethnic Chinese and hundreds of rapes against Chinese women and girls. The Indonesian government has since launched an investigation into these crimes but there has been no prosecutions and many of the Indonesian politicians and military provocateurs who spurred on anti-Chinese racism by directing rioters to target Chinese people and their business (many signs read "Ganyang Cina!" or "Crush the Chinese!") during that time and thus inciting the violence have rerun for office. That shouldn't be surprising as the Indonesian government again, seems to have been culpable in spurring on anti-Chinese racism and coordinating attacks. These incidents provide another example of when international intervention is not only permissible but probably obligatory. Mainland China's seeming indifference and inaction during those times angered many ethnic Chinese all over the world. Protests at the Indonesia embassy took place in Beijing. Chinese in Taiwan, Hong Kong, Malaysia, Singapore and many other places rallied and demanded the world take action and the government of Taiwan threatened sanctions. But mainland China remained as closed off as ever. The west also seemed muted and indifferent. When these incidents were reported, often the racial, genocidal, ethnic cleansing element was left out. Sometimes the victims were blamed for causing economic inequality in the country and the issue was framed into one of the poor masses turning against an elite ethnic group (despite the fact that most of the Chinese Indonesians victims were living in abject poverty along with other Indonesians). As China gains its strength, realizes its place in the world it will hopefully do more than it has, perhaps even conduct military operations against countries that persecute their Chinese minority. Changes in its view of its place in the world seems to be taking place since 1998 spurred on by events such as those in Indonesia. If the west is truly interested in protecting human rights and stopping genocide and ethnic cleansing it would assist China's efforts to stop them but history has shown that it has always played the role of perpetrator, aider and abetter of these crimes.
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| 100 Years Later, 1913 Rings Eerily Familiar Posted: 23 Jan 2013 03:17 AM PST "2013 eerily looks like the world of 1913, on the cusp of the Great War," claimed Charles Emmerson in Foreign Policy this month:
While Emmerson concedes that China's recent rise can't serve as a perfect parallel to Germany in 1913, China's foreign policy has grown increasingly aggressive as it pursues its national interests. And last week, the United States crept further into the fray when comments by Hillary Clinton about the disputed Diaoyu Islands set off media spin machines in both China and Japan. For the International Herald Tribune's Rendezvous blog, Didi Kirsten Tatlow wrote that Emmerson's 1913 echoes with familiarity in Asia:
© Scott Greene for China Digital Times (CDT), 2013. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us  |
| Posted: 23 Jan 2013 01:23 AM PST  Uighurbiz.net has a photo feature story on Uyghur Pizza at Kashgar city, Xinjiang Written by Oiwan Lam · comments (0) |
| Skills of a Chinese Police Porn Examiner Posted: 23 Jan 2013 01:04 AM PST Alia from China Beat puts together a picture about the work and requirement of being a police Porn examiner in China:
Written by Oiwan Lam · comments (0) |
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