May 17, 2012 ZGBriefs is a condensation of news items gathered from published sources. ZGBriefs is not responsible for the content of these items nor does it necessarily endorse the perspectives presented. Get daily updates from ZGBriefs on Twitter @ZG_Briefs. To make a contribution to ZGBriefs, please click here and then select Donate Through Paypal. FEATURED ARTICLE Ten Myths About Modern China (May 16, 2012, Forbes, by Kenneth Rapoza) In his new book, What China Wants, Tom Doctoroff, a top executive at multinational advertising giant J. Walter Thompson, writes that much of Western analysis on China has been overly alarmist. China will not implode. Its road to superpower status will be bumpy, even rocky in parts, but the fundamentals of sustained macroeconomic expansion are in place and, for the large part, enduring, he writes. He says people have 10 popular misconceptions about China. And here they are: GOVERNMENT / POLITICS / FOREIGN AFFAIRS China denies preparing for war over South China Sea (May 11, 2012, AFP) China has denied it is increasing combat readiness in response to a territorial row with the Philippines over a disputed shoal in the South China Sea. The tense stand-off, which erupted last month, centres on Scarborough Shoal, a tiny rocky outcrop in the South China Sea about 230 kilometres (140 miles) from the Philippines’ main island of Luzon. The dispute began when Philippine authorities detected Chinese ships fishing there. They attempted to arrest the crew, but were blocked by Chinese surveillance vessels that were quickly deployed to the area. China’s defence ministry denied military units were getting ready for war, despite warnings in state media that China is prepared to fight to end the stand-off. Blind China activist speaks by phone to Congress (May 16, 2012, AP) For the second time in less than two weeks, Chinese dissident Chen Guangcheng has spoken by phone to a U.S. congressional hearing and alleged persecution of his relatives. Chen complained Tuesday that his elder brother and nephew had both been beaten by Chinese authorities since Chen fled house arrest in late April. Chen said a charge of homicide brought against his nephew was “trumped up” as he was acting in self-defense after being subjected to a three-hour beating that left him bleeding. “This is a pattern,” Chen said. “This is not the first time it happened against my family.” Rights activist Bob Fu, who translated Chen’s comments, earlier testified that Chen’s nephew, Chen Kegui, using a kitchen knife, had injured several people who had burst into his home without warrants. Chen is awaiting Chinese permission to travel to study in the U.S. China veterans urge sacking of politician Zhou Yongkang (May 16, 2012, BBC News) A group of veteran Communist Party members in China have written to President Hu Jintao to ask him to sack leading politician Zhou Yongkang. Mr. Zhou is currently in charge of China’s security apparatus. In an open letter to President Hu, the party’s general secretary, the veterans suggest Mr Zhou is part of a movement to revive the China of Mao Zedong. Speculation has been growing about the future of Mr Zhou since the downfall of another top politician, Bo Xilai. It is not often that party members make such a daring plea to their boss. The letter urges the president to sack Mr Zhou from his post as head of China’s police force, its courts and its spy network. He is also a member of the standing committee of the Chinese Communist Party, the country’s highest decision-making body. The letter’s authors, who all know each other, also want him out of that job too. David Cameron’s Dalai Lama meeting sparks Chinese protest (May 16, 2012, BBC News) David Cameron’s decision to meet the Dalai Lama has provoked an angry response from the Chinese government. The prime minister met the Tibetan spiritual leader in London on Monday. China’s foreign ministry said the meeting “seriously interfered with China’s internal affairs” and “hurt” Chinese feelings. Downing Street said the Dalai Lama was “an important religious figure” but the UK did not want to see its relationship with China “disrupted”. Mr Cameron and Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg met the Dalai Lama privately on Monday at St Paul’s Cathedral. China pushes North Korea to drop nuclear test plan: sources (May 16, 2012, Reuters) China has been quietly and gently pressuring North Korea to scrap plans for a third nuclear test, said two sources with knowledge of closed-door discussions between the countries, but there is no indication how the North will react. If North Korea goes ahead with the test, China would consider taking some retaliatory steps, but they would not be substantive, a source with ties to Pyongyang and Beijing told Reuters. North Korea has almost completed preparations for the test, Reuters reported in late April, a step that would further isolate the impoverished state after last month’s failed rocket launch that the United States says was a ballistic missile test. “China is unhappy and urged North Korea not to conduct a nuclear test near Changbai Mountain,” said the source, who declined to be identified because of the sensitivity of the matter. China feared a radiation leak and damage to the environment from a blast, the source added. China blind activist to get passport ‘within 15 days’(May 17, 2012, AFP) Blind activist Chen Guangcheng said on Thursday China had agreed to issue him a passport within 15 days, allowing him to go to the United States, after a bitter row between Beijing and Washington. It was the first indication of when the 40-year-old legal campaigner would be allowed to leave China since he left the US embassy more than two weeks ago, after seeking refuge there following his escape from house arrest. Speaking to AFP by telephone from the hospital where he is being treated, Chen also said authorities had promised to investigate murder charges brought against his nephew, which he has said are motivated by revenge for his escape. Chinese fishing boats held by North Korea (May 17, 2012, The Guardian) Three Chinese fishing boats with 29 sailors on board have been seized by a North Korean gunboat which is demanding a ransom for their release, Chinese media has reported. The Chinese owners of the boats said they were hijacked on 8 May in the Yellow Sea, between China and North Korea, the Beijing News said. The owners said the vessels were fishing in Chinese waters. North Korea has not made any public comment on the case. The North Koreans holding the boats demanded 1.2 million yuan (119,000) for releasing them, then cut their price to 900,000 yuan and set a deadline of Thursday, Zhang Dechang, owner of one of the captured boats told the newspaper. He described the demand a “ransom”. The 29 sailors who were on board the boats are now in North Korea, said one captured seaman in a call with an owner, the newspaper added. RELIGION New translation of Bible to be released in China? (May 12, 2012, Mission Network News) English Bible translations have made it easier for average Christians to understand God’s Word. The way English was written and spoken 200 years ago is far different than the way it’s written and spoken today. Languages evolve. That’s what has happened in China, and Biblica is doing something about it. “Biblica has come out with a new version this last year,” says Biblica’s East Asia Director Somporn Sirikolkarn. “We call it the Chinese Contemporary Bible. It’s a modern translation near to the NIV English Bible, using similar philosophy of translation.” Sirikolkarn says there’s a reason this translation is needed. “The church Bible, that the church has been using, [was translated] in 1919. But because the language has been changingespecially the last 50 years, there’s been a lot of changing of the language. Beijing launches anti-cult month (May 16, 2012, Xinhua) In the latest battle against cultish beliefs, the city is bringing a campaign into communities, turning families into the new beachhead in its war on heresy. Beijing will focus work on promoting the “families say no to cults” campaign in the city’s “anti-cult educational month,” according to a press release-like article in yesterday’s Beijing Evening News. The anti-cult month started yesterday, said the director of the secretary’s office of Beijing Anti-Cult Association (BACA), who asked to be identified only by his surname, Pang. BACA is a nongovernmental organization undertaking the campaign on behalf of an anti-cult arm of the municipal committee of the Communist Party of China (CPC). BACA handed out more than 100,000 brochures yesterday to community representatives at a launch ceremony of the new campaign in Fengtai district, Pang told the Global Times. These materials urge the readers to walk away from cultish teachings, Pang said. HEALTH Hand-foot-and-mouth disease kills 19 in C China (May 15, 2012, China Daily) A total of 19 children died of hand-foot-and-mouth disease (HFMD) in April in Central China’s Hunan Province, according to the provincial health authority on Tuesday. The provincial health bureau tallied 20,078 cases of HFMD infections in April, which was about three times higher than that recorded March. The bureau’s report showed that an average of about 70 severely infected children were admitted to hospitals in the province every day. The bureau has warned of the high prevalence of the disease and other infectious diseases such as paratitis and measles in the season. SOCIETY / LIFE Beijing starts crackdown on illegal aliens (May 15, Xinhua) Foreigners living in Beijing may find themselves greeting police at their doors amid a crackdown on foreigners illegally entering, residing or working in the city that began on Tuesday. The campaign, which will run until the end of August, will include household checks in Wangjing, Sanlitun and Wudaokou, areas of the city known for their high concentration of foreign residents, as well as on-the-spot street checks that will require foreigners to present valid identification, according to a spokesman from the Beijing Municipal Public Security Bureau. Police have also opened a tip hotline and will tighten reviews of visa applications during the period, the spokesman said, adding that the tasks will be completed by officers capable of speaking foreign languages and trained in the handling of related matters. Foreigners found to be violating relevant laws may face penalties ranging from fines or detention to deportation, according to the police. Nearly 90% own their houses or flats: report (May 15, 2012, China Daily) Nearly 90 percent of Chinese families own their houses or flats, a figure much higher than the world level, which stands at about 60 percent, according to a report issued by Southwestern University of Finance and Economics and the People’s Bank of China on Sunday. According to interviews with nearly 4,000 urban families, 85.4 percent of them own their homes. The rate of home ownership is even higher in rural areas, reaching 94.6 percent, according to the report. Each urban household owns 1.22 apartments on average, higher than the number of 0.74 released by China International Capital Corporation in 2010. US politicians start micro blogs in China (May 15, 2012, China Daily) A total of 14 American politicians have started micro blogs in Chinese on Sina Weibo since Huang Jinbo, the first Chinese-American mayor in the US, opened his account in August 2009. Among US politicians, Neil Bush, brother of former US president George W. Bush, is the most popular, with 119,000 followers at present. US politicians use their Chinese micro blogs to communicate directly with Chinese netizens, both in China and in US communities, a spokeswoman for weibo.com, Sina Weibo’s domain name, told China Daily. American politicians are welcomed enthusiastically by Chinese netizens, who are mostly interested in visas, tourism and study in the US. China’s Distinctive CCTV Headquarters Is Completed (May 16, 2012 AP) he futuristic building with two leaning towers linked with a 90-degree twist at the top has attracted much controversy since the day its design debuted a decade ago. Now, it is ready for occupation by China’s staid state TV broadcaster, China Central Television. Construction of CCTV’s new headquarters officially concluded Wednesday 10 years after Dutch architectural firm OMA envisioned a skyscraper that would symbolize China’s rise on the world’s stage. Officials from the powerful CCTV, inspectors, engineers and architects did a final walk through the 54-story, 234-meter (772-foot) structure on Wednesday, chief architect Ole Scheeren said. Airline cuts number of flights to Philippines (May 16, 2012, Shanghai Daily) China Southern Airlines, one of the three major Chinese airlines, yesterday announced it was cutting flights to the Philippines as tourist numbers shrink amid tensions in the South China Sea. The airline will reduce its flights between China’s Guangzhou city and Manila, capital of the Philippines, to just one a day on certain dates from May 26 to June 30. The airline normally operates two flights daily on the route. A spokesman for the airline said the adjustment was made in accordance with the cancellation of “a large number of tourist groups” lately. Direct flights connect Nanning and Taipei (May 16, 2012, Xinhua) A direct air route will be opened on May 25 between Nanning, capital of south China’s Guangxi Zhuang autonomous region, and Taipei, Taiwan, according to sources with the Guangxi airport. Using a Boeing 737-800 aircraft, the service will be operated by Shenzhen Airlines each Friday, said a statement issued by Guangxi Airport Group on Wednesday. After the route is opened, the number of flights between Nanning and Taipei each week will stand at 14. Man stabs foreign tourist in Beijing to publicize his case (May 17, 2012, Shanghai Daily) A man who stabbed an American tourist in Beijing yesterday to draw media attention to his grievances has been detained, Beijing police said. Wang Taicun, a 61-year-old resident from east China’s Shandong Province, allegedly stabbed the American tourist in his hip at the historic Qianmen Gate, one of Beijing’s most famous sights, yesterday afternoon. Wang said he came to Beijing to submit his grievances to central government authorities and injured the foreigner to draw wider attention, Beijing Times reported today. The American has been sent to a hospital for treatment and an investigation is ongoing. SCIENCE / TECHNOLOGY / ENVIRONMENT China rainstorms kill dozens in Gansu province (May 12, 2012, BBC News) Some 40 people are now reported to have died in rain and hail storms in north-western China. The official Xinhua news agency also said another 18 people were still missing following the storms on Thursday in Gansu province. The agency said more than 350,000 people had been affected by the storms – with 30,000 of them forced to evacuate homes. Relief teams are said to have reached the affected area in Minxian county. China, Japan, US to witness ‘ring’ solar eclipse (May 16, 2012, AFP) At sunrise in some parts of China and Japan and by sunset in the western United States, a partial solar eclipse is set to slink across a narrow swath of the Earth on May 20 and 21. Depending on where people are in the eclipse’s path, some may be able to witness an annular eclipse in which the moon blocks out all but a ring of the Sun’s light. Others will see the Sun as a crescent, partially obscured by the moon, for a period of around four to five minutesThe path of the annular eclipse will span “a 240 to 300 kilometer-wide (150-185 mile) track that traverses eastern Asia, the northern Pacific Ocean and the western United States,” according to the US space agency. The eclipse begins at sunrise in southern China at 2206 GMT Sunday, which is early Monday local time, and swiftly travels eastward to the southern coast of Japan, NASA said. BUSINESS / ECONOMICS / FOREIGN TRADE China allows banks to lend more in bid to boost economy (May 13, 2012, BBC News) China has cut the amount of funds banks have to hold in a reserve, in a bid to boost its economy. It is the third time the central bank has made such a move in six months. It follows recent economic data suggesting that the Chinese economy is slowing down. In April industrial output growth slowed to 9.3% – the slowest rate since 2009. The People’s Bank of China says banks will have to hold half a percentage point less in reserve. For the nation’s biggest lenders it means they will have to hold 20% of their assets in cash reserves. The move should free up banks to lend billions of yuan. Foreign investment in China falls for sixth month (May 15, 2012, BBC News) Foreign direct investment (FDI) in China fell for a sixth straight month in April. Investment fell 0.7% from a year earlier to $8.4bn (5.2bn), said the Ministry of Commerce in Beijing. In March investment dropped by 6.1%. A ministry spokesman said the fall was partly because of the lacklustre global economy Data released last week also indicated that China’s economy is slowing. China to increase residential land supplies this year (May 15, 2012, Xinhua) China will increase residential land supplies by more than 20 percent this year in order to further restrain property prices, according to a plan released by land resource authorities Tuesday. The Ministry of Land and Resources said in a statement that the government plans to provide a total of 172,600 hectares of residential land this year, up 21.3 percent from 2011. The amount of land to be doled out is double the annual average of 87,300 hectares supplied over the last five years, the ministry said. The ministry said 79.3 percent of the land supplies will be used for affordable housing development, as well as for small- and medium-sized commercial housing, up 0.7 percentage points from last year. China’s search giant Baidu releases low-cost smartphone (May 15, 2012, BBC News) Baidu, China’s search giant, has announced the launch of its first smartphone. It is the firm’s first move into the mass smartphone market. Built by Foxconn, the low-cost Changhong H5018 is powered by Baidu’s own mobile operating system, Cloud. Analysts say it is extremely important for the company to secure significant presence in the booming mobile industry in China, which has the largest number of smartphone users in the world. The phone will be the first mobile device to run on Baidu’s Cloud Smart terminal platform and will come with 100GB of cloud storage on Wangpan, the local equivalent of Dropbox and Google Drive. With a price tag of less than 1,000 yuan ($158; 99), it will face fierce competition at the Chinese low-end smartphone market. China Mobile in talks with Apple over iPhone (May 16, 2012, AP) China Mobile, the world’s biggest mobile operator by subscribers, said Wednesday the company is in talks with Apple to offer the popular iPhone to its users in the Asian nation. The company’s domestic rivalsChina Unicom and China Telecomalready offer the iPhone to their subscribers. “Both sides have been making contact with each other. And both sides are willing to boost cooperation,” Lei Yu, a spokeswoman for China Mobile, told AFP in response to a question over negotiations for the iPhone. She declined to give further details. China Unicom began selling the iPhone in 2009, joined by China Telecom in March this year. If China Mobile also started offering the handset, it could help boost sales for the US technology giant in Chinathe world’s biggest mobile phone market. The Apple brand is wildly popular in China, where products such as the iPhone and iPad are coveted by wealthy consumers. LINKS TO DETAILED ARTICLES AND ANALYSIS China’s Bob Dylan-inspired pioneer still rocking (May 11, 2012, CNN, by Jamie FlorCruz) Cui Jian burst onto the music scene in China 26 years ago with his signature number, “Nothing To My Name.” He was one of the first Chinese musicians to bring rock ‘n roll to China during the 1980s as the country began to open up to western influences.He is still making waves today with his fusion of western and Chinese styles. The emperor does know (May 12, 2012, The Economist) But the emperor does know, and the emperor rewards. Although there has been an expansion of social and economic freedoms in many areas, under the Communist Partys system of cadre evaluations, local officials are graded on the basis of a series of internal targets that have little to do with the rule of law. Echoing Out of Texas, Chinese Voice of Dissent for Religious Freedom (May 12, 2012, The New York Times, by Andrew Jacobs) If the drama over Mr. Chens fate has placed a harsh spotlight on Chinas capacity for repression and created a diplomatic migraine for the White House, it has also been something of a boon to Mr. Fu, 44. His organization, ChinaAid, is at the crossroads of a growing movement among American Christians agitating for religious freedom in China and the wider dissident network inside the United States, as well as members of the underground church in China trying to practice their faith in a hostile environment. Journalist expelled from China reflects on experience (May 14, 2012, The Los Angeles Times, by Rosanna Xia) After filing 400 stories from China, reporter Melissa Chan never thought she’d wind up in the headlines herself. Chan returned to Southern California last week as the first accredited foreign correspondent to be expelled from China in 14 years, an act that sparked a flurry of news reports and expressions of solidarity from fellow journalists. Chan, who was the sole Al Jazeera English correspondent in China, said she knew she was on shaky ground for most of this year. Sister acts (May 15, 2012, China Daily, by Tom McGregor) Shi Junfang may appear similar to most young, Chinese single women in her 30s. She is hard working, loves chatting and telling jokes and exudes charm with a quick smile. Yet, her character is remarkable since she has devoted her life as a Catholic nun caring for disabled orphans in Biancun Village, a rural community in Central China’s Hubei province. She works with 17 other sisters of the St.Theresa of the Child Jesus order. They live at the Liming orphanage, which houses 130 of their charges. Chinas Obsession With Stability Can Come at the Cost of Laws (May 14, 2012, The New York Times, by Michael Wines) There is no evidence that the central government in Beijing ordered this harassment, all of which is illegal under Chinese law. But neither is there any indication that Beijing wants it to stop. A Tale of Two Brothers: One in China, Other in US (May 15, 2012, The World, by Yowei Shaw) When you meet Bill and Fred Engst, its hard not to ask questions, especially when you hear them talk. They speak English with a Chinese accent. Fred and Bill were born in China, the sons of two Americans who moved there in the 1940s to be part of the Communist Revolution. They grew up on a dairy farm in Xian, where they were the only Americans and the only Caucasians. Bill Engst said they got used to curious looks sometimes theyd even stop traffic. Philippines feels the economic cost of standing up to China (May 15, 2012, Christian Science Monitor, by Ariel Zirulneck) The South China Sea dispute between China and the Philippines is beginning to take its toll on the Philippine economy, which is heavily dependent on Chinese demand for its exports. Inside the China-Philippines Fight in the South China Sea (May 15, 2012, International Herald Tribune, by Didi Kirsten Tatlow) The recent bout of trouble began in April, when Philippine Navy personnel boarded Chinese fishing vessels at Scarborough Shoal, an area about 800 kilometers, or 500 miles, south of China and over 160 kilometers west of the Philippines that is claimed by both countries. China: Growing old before it can grow rich? (May 16, 2012, BBC News, by Mukel Devichand) China’s economic miracle has been accompanied by astonishingly rapid population ageing. Could growing old too fast end China’s irresistible march out of poverty? China Needs the Rule of Law (May 16, 2012, Reason, by Ronald Bailey) What the fall of a Communist princeling and the jailbreak of a blind pauper tell us about China’s prospects. Blind dissident’s plight revives China rights movement (May 16, 2012, Reuters, by Sui-wee Lee) China may have sown the seeds of its next human rights row with the United States even as it looks to end the current one over blind dissident Chen Guangcheng, with its treatment of him inspiring a band of lawyers to join his human-rights battle. The Other Chens (May 16, 2012, Foreign Policy, by Paul Mooney) There are other brave prisoners of conscience besides Chen Guangcheng worth fighting for and protecting in China. As China’s Role in the World Changes, So Does Mandarin’s Role in China (May 16, 2012, The Atlantic, by Helen Gao) The Chinese national identity has long been tied up with its language, for natives and foreigners alike. Photos: China Braille Library in Beijing (Xinhua) LINKS TO BLOGS Chinese Economy Unexpectedly Slows; Will the Bubble in China Babble Burst? (May 12, 2012, via Meadia) Authoritarian modernization always works until it quite suddenly doesnt; many observers hailed Stolypins reforms in late Czarist Russia and spoke in awe about Russias rapid industrial growth in the years before World War One. At Via Meadia were not able to give assign a date to the China correction that lies in store; the current slowdown could be a blip on the screen or the start of something more consequential. The soft power of meeting eye to eye (May 14, 2012, China Media Project) Chinese users poked fun at what some clearly saw as the governments inexplicable objection to honest, genuine and fundamentally human gestures. How exactly should Ambassador Locke act? The following Weibo post, for example, jokingly depicted Locke being subjected to a struggle session of the kind that would have been seen during Chinas Cultural Revolution, a placard around his neck listing out his crimes, including carrying his own backpack. A Sunday Service Among the Akha (May 14, 2012, Old World Wandering) The church was almost full. From my pew near the back, between two bulky headdresses, I could see a young Chinese woman with a pudding basin haircut and an open hymn book, standing on the stage. Beneath their various ornaments, the headdresses were simple cloth caps dyed blue-black Chinese Netizens Say Time To Clean Up Foreign Trash (May 15, 2012, Tea Leaf Nation) Reading through a small sample of the 114,000 comments to the recent news, Tea Leaf Nation found netizens roundly and angrily supportive of the measure. Many argued this step was overdue and better late than never (). Many from other cities chimed in to call for similar measures in Dalian, Shanghai, and Guangzhou. Media potshot on U.S. ambassador backfires (May 15, 2012, China Media Project) The Beijing Daily, the official mouthpiece of Beijings top city-level Party leaders, shamed itself earlier this month in the eyes of many Chinese on social media when it led a campaign of propaganda against the United States, criticizing its involvement in the Chen Guangcheng case. The reaction against the paper was so strong that Beijing Daily was within hours defined as a sensitive search keyword on Sina Weibo, one of Chinas most popular microblog platforms. Two propaganda flops in less than two weeks: Is Beijing losing its touch? (May 15, 2012, Christian Science Monitor, by Peter Ford) The official Chinese media appear to have it in for US Ambassador Gary Locke. But their angry attacks against him are backfiring with Chinese Twitterati. In China, English teaching is a whites-only club (May 15, 2012, Behind the Wall) Speak a little English and are willing to relocate? Well, youre probably qualified to be an English-language instructor in China. As long as you are white, that is. Five Books on China (May 15, 2012, Letter from China) This list is emphatically incomplete, but in the spirit of another one of my favorite sites, here are five recent titles from the Letter from China bookshelf that are surprising or entertaining or useful. What I learned slogging through Chinas official version of history (May 16, 2012, Seeing Red in China) The first thing that I noticed from the exhibit was that Chinas default status in the world is glorious, and that this glory comes from the Party. This is hardly a surprising claim, but its importance in the foundational myth is worth noting. A Bite of China: Documentary of Chinese food (in Chinese) (May 16, 2012, Offbeat China) A Bite of China is a 7-episode documentary series by CCTV which gives a 360-degree introduction to Chinese food. The first and the second episode were aired on the nights of May 14 and 15 at 10:40 pm on CCTV1. Each is about 49 minutes long. Is Chinas crackdown on foreigners about crime or illegal immigration? (May 16, 2012, Behind the Wall) China has launched a 100-day crackdown against illegal immigration and illegal employment in the wake of a high-profile sexual assault case involving a British national who was videotaped allegedly attempting to force himself on a Chinese woman. Chinese Netizens Still Spoiling For Fight With Philippines (May 16, 2012, Tea Leaf Nation) However, the mainstream conversation on Sina Weibo, Chinas Twitter, gives little quarter to the arguments against the military contingencies. For most contributors the calculus is far simpler: Huangyan Dao is an indisputable part of Chinese territory; Chinas honour is at stake; and the Philippines deserves to be punished. Protecting rights, checking power but how? (May 16, 2012, China Media Project) We are now anywhere from five to seven months away from Chinas 18th Party Congress, to be held, presumably, later this year. And earlier this week, we had our first clues through Chinas official media of how the agenda of political reform might be addressed by Party leaders at this important political session. Who is the Mightier? (May 17, 2012, Analects) The two biggest personality-driven stories of the season, those swirling around Bo Xilai of the Politburo and Chen Guangcheng of Dongshigu village, have provided not only two extraordinary tranches of grist for the journalism-mill but also two very different sorts of vision for the future of China. Whose story matters more? ARTICLES IN CHINESE (May 15, 2012, Gospel Times) (May 16, 2012, Tianyashe08 Blog) (May 16, 2012, Gospel Times) (Pushi Institute for Social Sciences) (Pushi Institute for Social Sciences) (Pushi Institute for Social Sciences) LINKS FOR RESEARCHERS China’s Cultural Revolution: portraits of accuser and accused (February 24, 2012, The Guardian) The Cultural Revolution was a time when pupil turned on teacher, when friend turned on friend Now artist Xu Weixin has painted both victim and perpetrator. Tania Branigan asks him why and hears the personal stories behind the portraits. Julia Lovell on the Opium War (The Browser) The 19th century opium war marked the clash of the worlds great empires of the age Britain and China. The historian says its legacy of Chinese humiliation is still felt keenly in Beijing RESOURCES Congressional-Executive Commission on China Annual Report, 2012 (United States Congress) Biblica Click to view this email in a browser If you no longer wish to receive these emails, please reply to this message with “Unsubscribe” in the subject line or simply click on the following link: Unsubscribe Click here to forward this email to a friend ChinaSource Partners, Ltd. Unit B / 17F Wing Cheung Industrial Bldg 58-70 Kwai Cheong Road Kwai Chung,, New Territories 00000 HK
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