Today's Links: Pandaphants, firewalls and China as Internal Combustion Machine

  • Will this stop the pandamonium? [Daily Mail] "It is a desperate cry - or rather a very loud trumpet - for attention. These elephants were painted black and white to look like the pandas who have stolen all their fans. The elephant is Thailand's national symbol, but the country has gone panda-crazy since the birth of a female panda cub to pandas Lin Hui and Xuang Xuang at Chiang Mai zoo in Bangkok."
  • Who’s Who Among China’s Sovereign Wealth Fund Advisers [WSJ] "China Investment Corp., the country’s $200 billion sovereign wealth fund, has finally unveiled its long-planned International Advisory Council, which The Journal wrote about Monday (Call us petty, but we can’t help noting - given that that one of council’s stated missions (In Chinese here) is to advise CIC on “increasing transparency” - that it took four days from the group’s first meeting for CIC to disclose its membership)."
  • Work resumes at Shaoguan toy factory [Danwei] "The fight at the Xuri toy factory in Shaoguan, Guangdong Province that has been called one of the causes of the current unrest in Xinjiang made the cover of today's New Express. A major fight broke out at the factory on June 26 between Han and Uighurs workers, leaving two men from Xinjiang dead, but according to today's paper, which features a big cover photo of smiling Uighur women working at the factory, production has resumed."
  • Freedom vs. Firewalls: The Senate can help fend off authoritarian censorship [Washington Post] "FROM TWITTERERS in Tehran to bloggers in Burma, citizens living under authoritarian regimes depend upon free access to the Internet for information, coordination and the ability to make themselves heard. That's why oppressive governments devote so much effort to online censorship: They, too, recognize the power of information to promote freedom. But some independent groups are pushing back against their control."
  • China: The World’s Internal Combustion Machine [24/7 Wall Street] "What China does not have in abundance due to the recession, and cannot replace, is exports. Soros seems to believe that China is a perpetual motion machine which will never be slowed by outside forces. That is, of course, not true. China’s economy will almost certainly undergo a recession at some point soon if consumers continue to hibernate as their only option for financial survival."
  • Cultural Norms As Law Enforcement Mechanism: Why Demand Letters Still Work In China. [China Law Blog] "Wikipedia defines a demand letter as a "letter stating a legal claim (usually drafted by a lawyer) which makes a demand for restitution or performance of some obligation, owing to the recipients' alleged breach of contract, or for a legal wrong." Typically, these letters conclude with the lawyer threatening to sue or the non-lawyer letter writer threatening to go his or her attorney. Such letters have become so commonplace in the United States that they most of the time fail to instill much fear into or much action from their recipient. China is different."
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By Elaine Chow in on July 9, 2009 8:30 PM Comments 2 Likes Likes

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