We all knew this was coming - along with the 60th anniversary holiday, there was bound to be strict traffic controls. The Shanghai Public Security Bureau has given us the details about what we can expect: Traffic will be controlled everyday between today and October 4th from 3:30pm to 11:30pm. more ›

Remember when text messaging wasn't that big of a deal? Way back before touch screens and T9, when your elders had barely gotten used to having a cellular phone on them? Well, the halcyon days of instant communication technology are long gone - if you're one of the "after 90" generation, you've grown up in constant contact with friends, family and the rest of the world. more ›

Coming hot on the heels of previous reports, more info has been released regarding the recent emails sent to journalists in China containing malware. It seems whoever is sending the emails has been targeting Chinese employees of major media organizations, hooking the reader’s interest by detailing a possible trip to China to research China’s role in the global economy. more ›

• It’s Mid-Autumn Festival time and you know what that means, yes mooncakes! By now you’re probably swimming in them, why not share the wealth and donate some of those delectable morsels to someone who really needs them. [City Weekend]
• If you’ve grown tired of the usual eats or if you have adventurous taste buds, there’s a bunch of new restaurants in town. Bon appétit! [Smart Shanghai]
• Need a good workout after sampling all that food, well waltz your way over to ballroom dance phenomenon Burn the Floor. How can you go wrong with Viennese Waltz, Tango, and Swing thrown into the mix? Simple you can’t. [Shanghai Talk]

• China's Worsening Water Crisis [Forbes] "China is facing an extremely severe water resources problem. This year, northern China is experiencing a huge drought, and it is a warning bell. Solving our worsening water problem is a difficult undertaking the Chinese government and people can no longer avoid. Since entering a period of rapid economic growth 30 years ago, China has had at its disposal only 7% of the world's arable land to meet the needs of 20% of the world's population. It has had to utilize these scare land resources with relatively low average per-capita water supplies and backward technology."
• A conversation with China's young Communists [CNN] "When we requested an interview with members of the Communist Youth League, I expected an army of suits with well-rehearsed answers. Instead, we met three students casually dressed in jeans, just 18 to 23 years old.The interview was arranged by the State Council Information Office, in advance of the upcoming 60th anniversary of the founding of the People's Republic of China."
• Beijing gets ready for H1N1 inoculations [China Daily] "Beijing is gearing up for a mass H1N1 flu inoculation of young students as its previous vaccination of hundreds of thousands of Chinese nationwide proved to be safe. No "serious adverse reactions" were detected among the recipients, the country's health minister, Chen Zhu, said Monday at a press conference, without elaborating on the definition of serious adverse reaction."

One report we've enjoyed is Melissa Chan of Al Jazeera's highlight on the Long March (on Youtube, unfortunately), when Mao led his forces on a strategic military retreat through China away from the pursuing Kuomingtang forces. The march, which started in Jiangxi, helped propel Mao Zedong to the forefront to the party. more ›

Sometimes it seems as though there is nothing the government can't do. As we know, Beijing is going out of its way to ensure National Day celebrations run as smoothly as possible. With everything planned so meticulously and all those security measures put in place, we would hate for it to rain on our National Day parade. more ›

Dinosaurs are cool. We always get excited when a new discovery is made, especially when fossils help elucidate the evolutionary process. And we get even more excited when scientists make an exceptionally intriguing discovery, like a dinosaur with four wings(!) Found in Liaoning province, the Anchiornis huxleyi provides an interesting link in the evolutionary chain between birds and dinosaurs. And it's from China, too! more ›

• China's censorship arms race escalates [RConversation] "Last week the China Digital Times reported that the photo above (click here to view full size original) has been making the rounds in Chinese blogs and chatrooms. It is an image of a "computer science float" for Thursday's National Day parade, onto which somebody has photoshopped a screenshot of the Internet Explorer error message familiar to anybody who has ever tried to access a blocked website in China: "This page cannot be displayed." As the 60th birthday of the People's Republic of China approaches, Internet users in China are complaining that the Internet has become even more difficult to use than ever before. Not only has the number of blocked websites increased, but the most popular censorship circumvention techniques and technologies have come under attack."
• 'City of Life and Death' wins Spanish film award [AP] "Chinese director Lu Chuan's film "City of Life and Death" has won the top prize at Spain's San Sebastian Film Festival. The movie, a sensitive and balanced depiction of a traumatic moment in China's history known as the Nanking Massacre, or the Rape of Nanking, deals with a six-week period in 1937-38 following the Japanese capture of the Chinese city of Nanking."
• Mao's revolution at 60: He wouldn't recognize it [The Globe and Mail] "This Thursday, as tanks and missiles roll through Tiananmen Square in Beijing and fireworks explode overhead to celebrate the 60th anniversary of the founding of Communist China, a retired factory worker will gather with her children and grandchildren in this historic city on China's booming east coast, and sigh a little - regret mixed with relief - at what those six decades have brought them."

It's tough being a student in China. In addition to all the regular adolescent troubles, like being bullied by your classmates and potentially your teacher, you've also got to worry about getting into college. And the college entrance exam is no easy task: the gaokao can make or break your entire future, depending on how far down the line of causality you want to follow it. Students will do anything to get good marks: cheating is rampant, and intensive study camps are a more ›

• Grameen China & Alibaba’s True Ambition [CNReviews] "Grameen Trust of Bangladesh and Alibaba Group just announced the launch of the Grameen China initiative, that will be run by the Grameen Trust, with an initial charitable gift of $5 million from Alibaba Group. The New York Times highlighted this gift as a sign of a shift by Chinese corporations toward charitable giving… While altruism may be a motivating factor, Alibaba also stands to gain unique insights into serving the very poor by partnering with the Grameen Trust. I believe that this announcement represents an important strategic thrust-not just corporate philanthropy-that belies Alibaba’s intention to be the dominant B2B trading platform serving small and medium sized businesses (SMB/SMEs) globally."
• Can China's Economic Recovery Last? [Newsweek] "In response to the economic crisis, China deployed massive fiscal boosts, aggressive expansions of credit, foreign-exchange interventions, and tax rebates for the export sector. The short-term results have been impressive. The Asian Development Bank projects China's GDP to grow by 8.2 percent in 2009 and 8.9 percent in 2010—up significantly from forecasts made earlier in the year. The result: job creation. As The New York Times pointed out last week, the image of workers streaming back into Chinese factories stands in sharp contrast to the United States, where the unemployment rate continues to march toward double digits. During this week's G20 summit in Pittsburgh, China will have more weight to throw around on everything from climate change to macroeconomic imbalances. How should we interpret China's swift recovery from the financial crisis and what it means for the future? Here the consensus breaks down into different camps."
• "The Chinese people have stood up": The famous Mao slogan, that he never even used [SCMP] "The slogan is a manifesto of the "Chinese dream", which aims to bring back the power and prosperity that the country had historically enjoyed. The propaganda machine has created many slogans in the past six decades, but this is one of the few that struck, and remain in, the hearts of ordinary people… Yet there is one problem. Mao did not say it in Tiananmen Square. He did not say it on October 1, 1949, either. And some historians say that - like "Let them eat cake", which Marie Antoinette never said, and "Play it again, Sam", which Humphrey Bogart never said - Mao never said the quote attributed to him."

Shanghaiist contributor Maggie Rauch had quite a startle today when an explosion destroyed a restaurant close to her in downtown Beijing this morning. more ›

• The final Expo participants' meeting was held today in Shanghai, with 800 representatives from the 241 countries confirmed to attend. The results of the meeting: construction, exhibition, management, and planning are progressing nicely. We hope so, with 800 million tickets sold. [People's Daily]
• If wandering around Shanghai as an ex-pat isn't scary enough for you, check out Shanghai's first haunted house! It's set up in a 1902 warehouse and sounds likes it's been pretty well thought out, creepy, and generally kick-ass. [SmartShanghai]
• Shanghai Premier League (SPL) is kicking off a new season, and the deadline for player fees is November 15. So start getting in shape, sign up for a team, cheer on the sidelines, or just come out and support your city's athletes. [Urbanatomy]

• A crowd-sourced translation of The Lost Symbol: is this copyright infringement? [Danwei] "His last book, The Da Vinci Code, was wildly popular in China and propelled translations of his earlier novels onto bestseller lists as well. The latest thriller, which follows the further adventures of intrepid symbologist Robert Langdon, should sell well over here too. Once it's translated, that is. People's Literature Publishing House expects a Chinese edition to be on shelves sometime in 2010. Chinese Internet users can't wait that long, so Yeeyan, a collaborative translation website, has launched a project to crowd-source the translation of The Lost Symbol into Chinese. They've already posted the prologue and the first two chapters."
• Baidu CEO touts growth of China's search engine [Cnet News] "Baidu CEO Robin Li, on a rare visit to Silicon Valley Wednesday, explained the rise of his company's search engine in China before a group of students more interested in entrepreneurial tips than censorship. Li ended a trip to the U.S. Wednesday at Stanford University, speaking to a crowd of several hundred students about the lessons he learned shepherding Baidu through the first dot-com bust and growing it into the Google of China. Baidu has 76 percent of the Chinese search market, he said, which consists of 338 million Internet users: larger than the entire population of the U.S."
• 11 indicted over factory brawl in S China [Xinhua] "Eleven people involved in a toy factory brawl on June 26 that left two employees dead in south China's Guangdong Province have been indicted for intentional injury and group affray, procurators said Wednesday. Xiao Jianhua and four other suspects were indicted for intentionally assaulting people during the Xuri Toy Factory brawl, the Shaoguan Municipal People's Procuratorate said."

Bullying is a part of adolescent school life: it's sad and disheartening when you're singled out for being different in an unfamiliar place. But, then again, it's probably worse when the bullying is facilitated by a teacher. Sina has a bizarre story on the hazing of an eight year old student, started by his teacher and ultimately ending with him being likened to a monkey's red ass. more ›

Gosh, we really have missed the antics of Sarah Palin ever since she stepped down from her post as Governor earlier this year. But we're holding out against all odds for a 2012 presidential run: can you imagine all the sound bytes? In any case, Sarah was in Hong Kong yesterday for her first commercial speaking engagement, a keynote address at the CLSA Investors' Forum. And to say the least, it was key-noteworthy. more ›

Everyone's excited about the upcoming 60th Anniversary: after all, it marks a significant milestone in the country's history. A lot has changed over the years, to say the least. To commemorate the many stages and changes of the PRC, in2marcom has a wonderful collection of China Pictorial covers. more ›

China, the youthful and ever growing country that it is, has taken many lessons from the rest of the world. As a result, great men from other countries have come to be revered by the Chinese for their advancements: from Issiac Newton to Michael Jordan, many have made lasting impressions on the Chinese psyche. In preparation for the 60th anniversary of the PRC, the Global Times compiled a list of the sixty most influential foreigners in the country's short history. We'll give you a few guesses. more ›

• Discounts! Bargains! Deals! This week there apparently a glut of savings at Plaza 353 where dozens of stores are beginning to offer promotions and steep discounts in anticipation of the impending national holiday [City Weekend]
• We'll need those savings if we're going to enjoy this hairy crab season. Reports have come out that prices will be about 10% higher than last year because of bigger crabs and higher water quality. [Shanghai Daily]
• In the mood for a classy night out living it up with the fashionistas but don't want to spend a lot? The Frau Ana fashion shows combines a party, fashion, and no cover this Friday. Oh, and there is allegedly free cotton candy. Sweet. [Shanghaiist]

• China party scholar hints at Xi Jinping promotion [Washington Post] "A Chinese Communist official on Tuesday held out the possibility that Vice President Xi Jinping could still be promoted to a military position, in a step toward ultimately taking over the nation's top leadership post. Some media had speculated that Xi, who is expected to succeed President Hu Jintao in 2013, would be anointed vice chairman of the Central Military Commission at a party plenum last week, reinforcing his succession claim. However, the plenum closed last Friday with no word of any personnel changes."
• China opens media center for coverage of 60th National Day celebrations [Xinhua] "A media center was opened Tuesday for journalists covering celebrations commemorating the 60th anniversary of the founding of the People's Republic of China on Oct. 1. The center, in the Media Center Hotel, will operate until Oct. 2 and will be responsible for providing reception and services for media personnel, such as issuing press passes and organizing interviews. Zhu Shouchen, deputy director of the center, said they had so far received applications from more than 4,500 journalists in and outside the Chinese mainland."
• What China's Hu Would Really Like to Tell Obama [Time] "Summit meetings, in particular those with 20 heads of state in attendance, are usually scripted, staid affairs. That's especially true when these get-togethers involve Chinese President Hu Jintao, whose private persona varies little from his public style. As befits someone who is running the world's most populous country, he is intensely disciplined and extremely cautious. On Tuesday, he will meet one on one with U.S. President Barack Obama on the sidelines of the U.N. General Assembly in New York City before heading off to Pittsburgh, Pa., for the G-20 summit on Sept. 24-25. This is what a more relaxed Hu might say to Obama, whose first major decision on trade was to slap a 35% tariff on tires produced in China — an action that generated a flurry of stories in the media about the possibility of a U.S.-China trade war..."

Wow. According to Thomas Crampton and the Shanghai Foreign Correspondents' Club, somebody out there is targeting journalists with emails containing malicious viruses. more ›

Who would've thought that the most populous city of a nation that contains one-third of the world’s smokers would have people proposing public area smoking bans so sweeping it even makes us gag? Yet another advocate has come out of the woodwork to join the growing call for a comprehensive smoking ban in Shanghai’s restaurants, pubs... and even individual rooms in karaoke bars. more ›

Lineage lovers take heed: another Mao has been added to the political mix! According to Singtao News, Mao Xinyu, the grandson of Mao Zedong, has become the youngest general in the Military at the ripe age of thirty nine. Besides being the youngest man to be appointed to such high office, he is also the first general to be born after 1970, which seems to explain his Aretha Franklin-eqsue hand movements. more ›

Take a closer look at the packaging next time you use a condom, as it may not be quite what you paid for- Recently an underground production line manufacturing fake brand-name condoms was uncovered in Shaoyang, Hunan Province. Among the counterfeit condoms were such recognizable brands as Love Card, NOX, and Durex. more ›

• Ghosts of the Machines - OR - Just where do all of those Chinese PCs go to die, anyway? [Shanghai Scrap] On August 28, Science, one of the world’s most prestigious scientific journals, ran a news item regarding ongoing studies of the health effects caused by environmentally unsound processing of e-waste (PCs, monitors, printers, etc) in south China… But there’s a problem with the Science story, and those like it: they insist on blaming China’s e-waste problems on foreigners, and thus deflect attention away from the fact that Chinese e-waste is the fastest growing and largest component of the waste stream arriving in South China (and, especially, into Guiyu, the notorious e-waste processing hub). And, in doing so, publications like Science provide cover to the Chinese government officials, and the Western and Chinese consumer electronics companies who have - collectively - failed to do much of anything about the problem."
• China's First Female Railroad Engineer [All-China Women's Federation] "Sitting in her airy and clean apartment, 80-year-old Tian Guiying, appears no different from any other retired senior citizen. But Tian has the distinction of being New China's first-ever woman locomotive engineer. Tian was the youngest of six daughters in a fisherman's family, resident in a poverty-stricken village near the coastal city of Dalian in northeastern Liaoning Province. To her parents, Tian's birth meant little more than a heavier burden."
• Party’s Agenda in China Seems to Fall Flat [New York Times] "China’s Communist Party elite had billed its four-day strategy session as an attack on “acute problems” that threatened the party’s political standing, like official corruption, China’s yawning gap between the rich and poor, and the lack of democracy within the party’s own ranks. But besides an anticorruption directive that would force officials and their families to disclose their property holdings and investments, initial reports from the meeting last week suggested that the Central Committee’s members either were reluctant to make major changes, or disagreed over how those changes might be made."

Take cover! Barricade yourself! Citizens of China must be protected from ...foreign… milk powder? China’s General Administration of Quality Supervision, Inspection, and Quarantine (AQSIQ) has rejected more than 150 imported food and cosmetic products from the US, Japan, New Zealand, Denmark, and several other European Union nations. My, how the tables have turned and as always, they've turned fast. more ›

With only a week and a half left before the 60th anniversary of the PRC, it seems the whole country has caught National Day fever. Capturing the excitement, Boston.com has a wonderful collection of photos from various sources depicting many different preparations around China. We particularly like the fashion military parade pictures: those outfits are fabulous! But amidst all the hoopla, it's a difficult time to be in Beijing. more ›

• China anniversary puts security jitters on show [Reuters] "The Chinese government is flooding Beijing with armed police and up to one million security "volunteers" to head off any unrest over October's sensitive anniversary of 60 years of Communist Party rule. The relentless security has grounded pigeons, lined streets with grandmothers, prompted warnings to stock up on food and left harried residents wondering who the festivities are really for."
• China jails four over stabbings [BBC] "Four more people have been found guilty of carrying out attacks with syringes in the western Chinese province of Xinjiang, state-run television says. The four received sentences ranging between eight and 15 years in jail. Three other people received prison sentences for similar attacks earlier this month."
• SCENARIOS: How US-China trade tensions might play out [Forbes] "U.S. President Barack Obama has slapped a 35-percent "safeguard" tariff on tire imports from China, inflaming trade relations and raising concerns about a possible trade war. Obama's decision, announced on Sept. 11, responded to demands from U.S. union groups, manufacturers and lawmakers who view the Asian export powerhouse as an unfair trader. That perception is shaped by the U.S. trade deficit with China, which hit a record $268 billion in 2008. Here are some ways the dispute could play out:"

Sometimes we wonder if China Daily isn't trying to take the piss out of us with these kind of stories. more ›

• Xinhua has a fun little photo gallery about a cooking competition that was held to greet the Shanghai World Expo. [Xinhua]


• Speaking of food, do you spend money on food like Kanye spends time in the spotlight? Then step up to the challenge and try to get breakfast, lunch, and dinner all for under 25rmb. [Urbanatomy]


• Here’s an update on the adjustment of the one child policy. Due to revisions in the policy some families will be able to have more than one child. Check it out. [BBC]

• Google Earth Used By Netizens To Discuss Urban Planning [chinaSMACK] "For those of you who lived in or been to any major city in China, you must have at one point gotten stuck for hours during the morning commute or being lost within the maze of side streets and intersections. Things apparently don’t look that much better from the bird’s eye view, as curious Chinese netizens shockingly discovered (thanks to Google Earth) that even cities in Africa have seemingly better city planning and layouts than Chinese ones. The crux of the arguments boils down to whether it was truly poor city planning or because that most Chinese cities, like Rome, were not built in one day."
• The Akamai Of The East [Forbes] "In the first seven months of this year, 40 million users plugged into China's Internet for the first time, about 7 million more than the entire population of Canada. For China's Web sites and telecoms, that's a server-straining, broadband-bending rate of growth. For a privately held Beijing company known as ChinaCache and its investors, it's the kind of statistic that opens champagne corks. As the top content delivery network (CDN) in mainland China, ChinaCache holds a near monopoly on the lucrative business of selling Internet-based companies a fast track through the country's congested cyberspace."
• Taiwan film festival pressured to drop film about Chinese dissident [Monsters and Critics] "After Chinese protests, the organizer of the Kaohsiung Film Festival came under pressure Thursday to cancel a showing of a film about the life of a Chinese dissident. The Kaohsiung Film Archive announced earlier this month that it planned to show the Ten Conditions of Love, a documentary about exiled Uighur leader Rebiya Kadeer, during its October 16-29 film festival in Taiwan's second-largest city."

What's up with all this Tiananmen-styled commemorative hair? We've been trying to burn the image of the hair replica of Tiananmen from our memories for quite some time now, but with only two weeks to go until the big day, we're bracing ourselves for more China-related hair. It just seems like human hair sculptures are the most fitting way to celebrate an occasion as important as the 60th anniversary of the PRC, for some inexplicable reason. more ›

We love pirates. Eyepatches, peg legs, swashbuckling- you name it, we love it. We even have a soft spot for the Somali pirates, because somewhere deep inside of us, we know that they're keeping the dream alive. Of course, these days it's pretty hard to be a pirate, and it's not as glamorous a lifestyle as it once was. Times have gotten hard: valuable cargo now has military escorts, or avoid the Gulf of Aden altogether. Heck, even Dolphins are getting in the way of your business. more ›

The saga of problems and setbacks that China has faced in attempting to implement the controversial Green Dam internet censorship software just keeps on going. After postponing the software's release indefinitely this summer, the government has attempted to find ways to censor the 'net without provoking massive public outrage. Which is funny, because the government is sneaking around trying to do things on the internet without anyone noticing, just like us! more ›

• Chinese Taste for Chicken Feet May Save U.S. Exports [NYTimes] "China is threatening to cut off imports of American chicken, but poultry experts have at least one reason to suspect it may be an empty threat: Many Chinese consumers would miss the scrumptious chicken feet they get from this country. “We have these jumbo, juicy paws the Chinese really love,” said Paul W. Aho, a poultry economist and consultant, “so I don’t think they are going to cut us off.”"
• Official Netizens’ Day Gets Little Attention Online [WSJ] "China officially marked Sept. 14 as the country’s first Netizens’ Day, as decreed by the official China Internet Society… China’s 338 million Web users, however, didn’t seem to muster much enthusiasm for the first official day specially designed to honor them. An online poll on NetEase.com showed that only 50 people out of close to 5,000 Web users surveyed said they “know about the Netizens’ Day/Netizen Cultural Festival”, while over 98% “have never heard of such a festival.”"
• Indian media declares war on China [India Today] "At the meeting of the National Security Council Advisory Board last week, a senior member argued for strong measures to control the media - especially the 24-hour news channels. He was reacting to media reports about Chinese transgressions along the border which are creating a war-like hysteria. In the last two months, news items about Chinese activities on the border have surfaced with remarkable regularity in the Indian media. Invariably these reports are leaked on a Sunday - a lean news day."

The Global Post is currently featuring an interactive online exhibit that portrays an "intimate look at China's migrant workers." Besides stories and pictures, they also have video slideshows and audio translations of actual migrant workers' thoughts. more ›

• Ai Weiwei, censorship and sacred facts [My Heart's in Accra] "My friend Michael Anti posted a tweet earlier today about Chinese artist and political activist, Ai Weiwei: "Ai Weiwei to undergo cranial surgery in Germany within hours, a month after beaten by Chengdu police. Let’s pray for him."The post caught my eye because Xiao Qiang, founder of China Digital Times, spoke about Ai’s increasingly vocal protests in talking about the Internet’s transformation of activism in China at the Cloud Intelligence symposium in Linz, Austria."
• Going Solar [Beijing Review] "Tight credit, weak demand, excess capacity, bloated inventories and escalating price competition all have hurt China's export-reliant solar power companies and have left many struggling for their lives during the global recession. But the largest of them, Wuxi-headquartered Suntech Power Holdings Co. Ltd., is about to breathe a little easier after securing several deals with the Chinese Government and opening factories in the United States to mitigate pressures from shrinking demand in European markets"
• Coca-Cola Says Another Former Worker Is Detained in China [New York Times] "Coca-Cola Inc. said Tuesday that a second manager who worked in the company’s Shanghai bottling plant has been detained by police on suspicion of accepting bribes or kickbacks. The announcement came just days after Coca-Cola confirmed that a middle manager at the same facility, the Shanghai Shenmei Beverage & Food Co., was detained earlier this year in a bribery investigation."

Computers that spontaneously combust are old news, but when a whole bus inexplicably catches fire it catches our attention. Nanfang Daily reported that a shuttle bus on its way to Foshan from Panyu burst into flames on the highway, forcing the driver and thirty seven passengers to evacuate the vehicle. But mere fire wasn't enough to stop the inferno bus: once the passengers and driver evacuated, the bus continued on its way towards Foshan for a full kilometer before finally burning out. more ›

• Learning from Billboards [WSJ] "Hangzhou may have reminded Marco Polo of his native Venice. What grabs 38-year-old American artist-curator Mathieu Borysevicz about Hangzhou is its signs. And signs and signs. In thousands of photos in his new book, “Learning From Hangzhou,” Mr. Borysevicz documents “the pluralism” of a dynamic Chinese city. It’s a study of how low-brow advertising and other visual messages inundate residents in Hangzhou, and truly, all of urban China."
• Shanghai growth glitters but lacks weight [MarketWatch] "There is scant evidence the financial crisis has dampened Shanghai's ambitions, as new subways and buildings are built at a record pace to be in time for the Shanghai Expo next year. Could this be the equivalent of London's Great Exhibition of 1851, except this time it will be China parading its industrial might? Small wonder so many visitors to Shanghai leave in a maximum bullish mode. But one thing that struck me driving past the impressive skyscrapers of Pudong was the muted neon. I had to ask my host whether they had turned all the lights on full, or if there was simply no one home. The Shanghai World Financial Center, also known as the "Mori Building" after the Japanese architect who designed it, is reportedly only 30% rented, while the nearby residential towers have even fewer signs of life (or light) in them."
• Obama's Tire Tariff Draws Beijing's Ire [BusinessWeek] "A Chinese government outburst in response to a stiff tariff imposed by the Obama Administration on Chinese-made tires appeared to raise the specter of trade protectionism at a time of a fragile global economic recovery. In official statements over the weekend, Beijing strongly protested the 35% tariff imposed by President Barack Obama in response to a complaint by the United Steelworkers. Beijing said it would investigate alleged dumping of U.S. automobile parts and chicken products in China and study the possibility of filing an unspecified trade complaint with the World Trade Organization."

It seems that the Chinese government was just getting started when it arrested employees from Rio Tinto this Summer. The newest company in the hot seat is Coca-Cola, which had an ex-employee arrested by the Shanghai police over corruption charges this weekend. more ›

Three Uighur have been sentenced in the wake of the recent mysterious syringe attacks in Xinjiang, but their jail terms have not eased the tension between the Uighur minority and the Han Chinese majority or addressed the controversy surrounding the case in the first place. more ›

Oh (golden) boy! News has it that celebrated track and field star and hometown favorite Liu Xiang will be competing at the Shanghai Golden Grand Prix later this month. The Golden Grand Prix will serve as both a comeback and a homecoming for the track star, whose presence on the international sports scene has been sorely missed by China. more ›

• Critics howl at pooch's pampering, price tag [China Daily] "A welcome worthy of a world leader that was given to a 4-million-yuan ($588,000) dog has raised the hackles of critics. The Tibetan mastiff, or Zang'ao in Chinese, arrived in his new masters' hometown of Xi'an, Shaanxi province, by air on Wednesday after he was bought for the colossal sum. After his safe landing, a motorcade comprising 30 Mercedes-Benz vehicles escorted the canine to his new digs."
• China and U.S.: Tire-d of Fighting [Forbes] "There was a time not too long ago when little seemed more important in U.S.-China relations than the politics of trade -- when a dispute over steel tariffs or the value of Chinese currency would bring out fire-breathers on either side of the Pacific. Now we'll find out if that time finally has passed. By Thursday Sept 17th, President Obama will take up the first big China trade issue of his presidency: tires, as in the cheap Chinese tires that millions of Americans have on their cars. Obama must decide whether to impose a tariff of as high as 55 percent that has been recommended to him by the U.S. International Trade Commission."
• High hurdles for China's commercial aviation ambitions [Reuters] "As Boeing and Airbus grapple with problems from global recession to manufacturing glitches, a longer-term worry looms: China's ambition to compete in the aerospace business. Beijing has declared its goal to manufacture large passenger jets with more than 150 seats and freighters capable of handling over 100 tonnes of cargo, with the explicit aim of taking on Boeing and Airbus."

• Just as a reminder, A Nice Set, the artistic placemat exhibition, starts tomorrow at 7pm! We'll be there, snapping pics of the artists and the Neocha Edge people! Check our calendar for more details. [Neocha Edge]
• Also happening this weekend is the Shanghai Sevens, Shanghai's first major international rugby sevens competition. We could care less about the rugby, but we'll be hollerin' at the rugby players all weekend. [Ultimate Rugby Sevens]
• Meanwhile, if you love pie (and who doesn't?), you could always head out to Kommune Cafe tonight to eat FREE ones, made by the delectable Shanghai Pie Company, tonight. You can even join the competition to eat as many pies as you can in 10 minutes. Scarf it up! [Urbanatomy]

• Black is White, White is Black [Asia Sentinel] "“Even now I still cannot calm down. Only rage, rage and rage. Only extreme (expletive) rage! I can never imagine how a government, a great nation, which has more or less squeezed itself in on the international stage, and which has earned a bit of status in the international community, can be so shameless, knavish, lawless, unable to tell right from wrong, black from white, turning a victim into an accused, twisting facts and twisting truths - how can such a nation and motherland be so thick-skinned as to tell Hong Kong people to be patriotic?"
• China unveils high-speed railways [BBC] "China has announced plans to build 42 new high-speed railway lines over the next three years. In a breakthrough, China has developed trains that can run on both high-speed and normal lines, said railway official Zhang Shuguang. A 500km/h train will be tested by the end of next year, Mr Zhang said. China will have added 13,000km of high-speed lines by 2012, shortening journey times considerably for the expected seven billion annual passengers."
• Thomas Friedman Demands Communist Revolution [Gawker] "Flat-earther Times columnist Thomas Friedman thinks we should probably "outsource" our form of government to China, where they have streamlined the whole process by eliminating the bit where idiots "vote." No, seriously, he is outright saying that the autocratic one-party Chinese government is superior to our own. There is no equivocation in this line: "There is only one thing worse than one-party autocracy, and that is one-party democracy, which is what we have in America today." And why are things better in China? Because the current "reasonably enlightened group of people" in charge of China, at the moment, can just impose "politically difficult but critically important policies" like raising gas prices to encourage clean power investment and so on."
• China tip-off 'sparked' fighting [Al Jazeera] "A senior Myanmar official has said that last month's clashes in the northeast of the country were sparked after a Beijing tipped them off about the location of an illegal arms factory. Up to 30,000 people fled across the border from Kokang into northern China during the fighting which followed the raid on the arms factory in the mainly ethnic Chinese region."

Numbers are very auspicious in China: everything from your cell phone number to your license plate are social symbols of affluence and good fortune. So it comes as no surprise that 9/9/09 was a huge day for marriages nationwide. Couples rushed to marriage offices in major cities all over the country, causing officials to kick their efforts into Vegas-style efficiency. more ›

We always thought farming was a pretty exciting lifestyle- all that cyclical plowing, sowing, cultivating, picking and selling sounds like a blast! If you're actually farming, though, the charm wears off after a while, and you feel the need to move on to something more adventurous. Building walking, talking robots is old news, so why not up the ante and build a submarine, an airplane or a tank? more ›

• Another Wal-Mart Shoplifter Is Killed [Huffington Post] "You steal, you die. That's the international policy apparently at Wal-Mart stores, where reports indicate another alleged shoplifter has died at the hands of a gang of overzealous Wal-Mart workers -- this time in China. According to the Associated Press report this week, Yu Xiachun, a 37-year-old woman, died 500 yards from the Wal-Mart store in Jiangxi province. Based on the local police report, Yu had exited the store and was on her way home on August 30th when she was surrounded by five Wal-Mart workers, who accused her of shoplifting... The police say that the Wal-Mart workers fought with Yu, and she was knocked to the ground. She was taken to the hospital, where she died three days later."
• Ethnic groups united in hostility towards leaders [Financial Times] "The government in Xinjiang has been caught off guard by the anger it faces from its own people. For decades its rulers brought in millions of people from China's Han ethnic majority to colonise the ethnically diverse far western region. They kept a wary eye on the Uighurs, the biggest local ethnic group, as the main security risk. But since Wednesday it has been Han marching in the streets of Urumqi, the regional capital, calling for Wang Lequan, Xinjiang's Communist party secretary, to step down."
• U.S. Company and China Plan Solar Project [NY Times] "Chinese government officials signed an agreement on Tuesday with First Solar, an American solar developer, for a 2,000-megawatt photovoltaic farm to be built in the Mongolian desert. Set for completion in 2019, the First Solar project represents the world’s biggest photovoltaic power plant project to date, and is part of an 11,950-megawatt renewable-energy park planned for Ordos City in Inner Mongolia."

According to a tipster, something has caught fire on the Bund! Details aren't especially clear, but it looks like the fire is coming from the dock right across from the old Bank of China building on Zhongshan Dong Yi Lu (中山东一路). The tipster has now sent in some photos, snapped with his iPhone. Seems that the stuff that caught fire is scaffolding and support beams for the Bund's underground traffic tunnel (built to reroute ugly traffic away from the main thoroughfare). more ›

Yikes! Just when we thought we were past the hateful racism directed towards Lou Jing, another blatantly insensitive forum thread popped up on KDS. This time, a netizen caught a few pictures of a Black-Chinese couple on the metro, and posted them to the forum site for general amusement and jeering. ChinaSMACK has a translation of some of the posts, which range from mockable to just plain offensive. more ›

Turned off by the stories of falling signs and failing rides at Happy Valley? Maybe the problem is that they let people in when they haven't officially opened yet! The real opening is this Saturday, apparently. [Shanghai Daily] more ›

• China says 35 killed in blast at coal mine [latimes.com] "Chinese officials says a blast in a coal mine has killed 35 in central Henan province and left 44 other miners trapped. The State Administration of Work Safety said the predawn explosion today happened at a pit in Pingdingshan city. A statement on the administration's website did not give a cause for the blast. It said 14 miners managed to flee to safety. Ninety-three men were working underground at the time of the blast, it said."
• China enters list of lower-middle-income countries: NBS [China Daily] "China's economic aggregate ranked third in the world as of 2008, pulling it into the list of lower-middle-income countries from low-income ones, according to a Sept 7 report released by the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS). The report, featuring the nation's 60-year development since 1949 when new China was founded, also said China has gradually become a large manufacturing country as it strengthened industrial infrastructure construction and expanded productivity."
• Taiwan premier quits over typhoon [BBC NEWS] "Taiwan's premier Liu Chao-shiuan has resigned, after the government was heavily criticised for its slow response to last month's typhoon. Mr Liu will be replaced by the ruling party's secretary general, Wu Den-yih. Mr Liu told reporters that someone had to take political responsibility for the fact that at least 600 people had died as a result of Typhoon Morakot."

There's a lot to protest about in China: ethnic tension in Xinjiang, forced eviction and resettlement, and even gay rights. Now you can add video games to that list as well. more ›

Scientists at the Purple Mountain Observatory in Nanjing supposedly caught footage of a UFO in the sky during July's solar eclipse. A UFO and an eclipse in the same day? What luck! more ›

• China's Top Muckrakers Stop Digging [Foreign Policy] "There are no pyres of magazines burning, no information police combing the newsstands every morning. Magazine censorship in China is banal. Almost all of the control has long been done in-house before publication, by reporters and editors who know just how far they can and cannot go. The closest many private magazines get to an official censor is someone they call "Teacher," sent from their own publishing houses, to patrol content. But these days, it's not just editors who are drawing in the lines. It's the investors — the owners and backers of China's few independent media outlets. And there is no better example than Caijing, China's leading business magazine, for which I used to work as an editor."
• Tanks out in Beijing in 60th anniversary rehearsal [The Associated Press] "Tanks, armored personnel carriers and rocket launchers rolled along a major Beijing boulevard Sunday in practice for a parade next month to mark China's 60th anniversary. The main east-west artery of Beijing was closed for a rehearsal of the elaborate military parade planned for Oct. 1, when the People's Republic of China celebrates six decades since its founding. The parade is intended to highlight accomplishments China has made in its defense sector."
• China Urged to Subsidize 'New Energy' Vehicles [WSJ] "The head of BYD Co., one of China's leading makers of electric vehicles, urged the Chinese government to subsidize private purchases of all-electric battery cars and other "new energy" vehicles, saying their widespread adoption in China depends on it. Speaking at an industry conference Sunday, BYD Chairman Wang Chuanfu said a lack of consumer incentives and subsidies has kept BYD from making a plug-in hybrid car available for private buyers. He warned that a continued lack of government assistance might doom all-electric cars and plug-in hybrids in the marketplace because of their currently high cost."

A lot has changed since we last reported on the recent syringe stabbings in Xinjiang. First, remember how we said that only a handful of people had been stabbed? Well, it turns out that the actual number is around 470, according to a recent post from AGI News in Beijing. What's worse, CCTV reported that the needles are now presumed to have been filled with AIDS contaminated blood. As a result, government officials have claimed the attacks were carried out by members of the Uyghur minority, which triggered a spat of protests by Han Chinese for more forceful persecution of Uyghur separatists related to the original protests in July. more ›

• Regulation on puppy love sparks controversy [China.org.cn] "The first local regulation in China to list puppy love as "misconduct" and suggest parents reprimand and stop it has sparked controversy across the country. Heated discussions on the regulation has spread across media and websites nationwide, after the Regulation for the Protection of Minors of Heilongjiang Province, the first of its kind to tackle puppy love, was revised and adopted by the local legislature last month."
• Drugs Don’t Work for Half of China’s AIDS Patients, Study Says [Bloomberg] "Half of China’s AIDS patients stopped responding to treatment over five years and didn’t have access to the back-up drugs available in developed nations, researchers found. Among 48,785 HIV patients who received free treatment under a government program from 2002 to 2008, the drugs curbed AIDS- related deaths but failed to treat 50 percent of the group over the period, researchers led by Fujie Zhang at China’s Center for Disease Control and Prevention found. The results are similar to those for other low- and middle-income countries, they said. "
• Chief of Google in China Leaving [NY Times] "In what is likely to be seen as a blow to Google’s ambitions in China, Kai-Fu Lee, the prominent head of the company’s operations there, is leaving to form a new venture. Google said in a news release early Friday in Beijing that Mr. Lee, who was president of Google Greater China and vice president for engineering, would leave the company in mid-September."

• Okay, we have to admit the Shanghai Corporate Pavilion looks pretty cool... and its structure is made out of recycled CD cases. Ah, remember when we used to use CDs? [Gizmodo]
• The Golden Grand Prix is this month and everybody's still wondering whether injured Shanghainese poster boy Liu Xiang will appear. [Reuters]
• Soho is opening in China and it's going to be in Jing'an. They are targeting Chinese, not foreign, businesses. [Forbes]

• When I grow up I want to be a corrupt official [Black and White Cat] "On the first day of term, Southern Metropolis Daily asked primary school children in Guangzhou what they want to be when they grow up. Here are some of the answers."
• China pupils told to love nation [BBC] "Chinese children are being told that the first lesson they must learn this school year is "love your country". The ministry of education has produced a special TV programme to encourage patriotism among the nation's youngsters. It is being broadcast as tens of millions of children head back to their classes after the summer holidays."
• U.S., Australia to Ask China to Exercises - Report [Reuters] "China will be asked by the United States and Australia to join military exercises to repair ties after a diplomatic row between Canberra and Beijing, a top U.S. military official said on Thursday. Following a meeting between Australia's military chief Angus Houston and U.S. Pacific Command head Admiral Timothy Keating, both countries agreed to approach China's defense ministry about joint naval and land exercises, Keating told the Sydney Morning Herald newspaper in an interview. "We are anxious to engage with them," Keating said."

You don't see this everyday-- a lowly garbage picker in Chengdu has captured the hearts of young girls, netizens, and the press. The story, picked up from the Chengdu Shangbao and translated by GoChengdoo, caught fire after someone posted a picture of the ragamuffin on the net. The rest is a testament to the incredible viral power of the Chinese internet community. more ›

• On the Arrest and Detention of a Man in China…As Documented By His Wife [Aimee Barnes] "This evening I picked up on a simple tweet from Beijing-based @niubi who wrote: “beijing haze: Arrest and Detention http://bit.ly/T9ENI wife blogs trying 2 get hubby out of beijing jail 4 seeing hooker….” While sexcapades with consequence in China aren’t altogether unusual, this particular storyline written from a wife’s perspective happened to catch my attention. I therefore proceeded to check out the links provided which led me to the blog, Beijing Haze, launched less than a month ago by an American woman..."
• Beijing sets 'recycling' day and offers door-to-door collection [China.org.cn] "Beijing's eight urban districts have set down the last Saturday of each month to collect recyclable waste materials such as used paper and plastic bottles. On Saturday municipal authorities set up 18 collection spots in various city communities and made public contact numbers for collection companies designated for each district. Now residents can enjoy door-to-door service by making a phone appointment with collection agencies."
• China Concubines Return Thanks To Increasing Capitalism [Huffington Post] "Concubines are no longer kept hidden away behind closed doors. In modern China's far more open society, concubines can be seen in the shopping malls and cafes of the cities, especially in the south, where there are thousands of what are known as "er nai" or "second breast". By some estimates, more than 90 per cent of the country's most senior officials punished on serious graft charges in the past five years have kept mistresses."

The test prep industry in China is cutthroat, to put it nicely. The South China Morning Post published an article on the intense competition amongst private tutors in Hong Kong, which sounds so fierce and backstabbing that it's just begging for a reality television show (if one's not in the works already). Popular tutors can make as much as one million HKD a month, provided that they have the hype and publicity to keep the students flowing in. more ›

• Somebody from ABC News has offered up her ways to see Shanghai on a "shoestring." Classic offenders Yu Yuan, Xintiandi and Nanjing Road are there, but what do you think of her other ideas? [ABC News]
• Roots & Shoots have told us that the Linkin Park concert did a little more good than just rockin' out the populace. 7RMB from tickets sold in Shanghai and Macau were donated to the charity's Million Tree Project - resulting in 6,597 trees to be planted next April.
• Zhang Ziyi was hanging out in our fair city yesterday to help launch the Omega 2009 Constellation watch collection at SOGO. She got the opportunity to "delve deeply into her fascination with watchmaking." Zhang! We never knew you loved to tinker! [Vialuxe]

In one of the more bizarre police conflict stories of late, over a hundred gay men congregated at People's Park in Guangzhou this week to protest police efforts to keep homosexuals out of the park. The police have used reports of petty crimes such as robbery and stealing to keep homosexuals out of the park, which serves as a meeting place for gay people. Protesters verbally clashed with the police after park guards attempted to force the group to leave the premises, and several protesters and volunteers were detained and questioned before the protest began. more ›

• More Battles Ahead for IPhone in China [PC World] "Apple has emerged from winding negotiations with an iPhone deal in China, but the handset will still face government pitfalls and look-alike competitors in the country. Local carrier China Unicom said Friday it had reached a three-year iPhone distribution deal with Apple, ending months of rumor about an impending agreement. The carrier will offer the iPhone 3G and iPhone 3GS, with the first handsets going on sale in the fourth quarter."
• Taiwan seeks to smooth ruffled Chinese feathers [AP] "China has canceled or postponed several events meant to underscore improving relations with Taiwan, apparently to show anger over the Dalai Lama's visit to the island, Taiwan's governing party said Tuesday. The visit of the Tibetan spiritual leader — aimed at offering comfort to the victims of Typhoon Morakot — has created the most serious challenge for relations between the democratic island and the communist mainland since Taiwanese President Ma Ying-jeou took office 15 months ago on a platform of ending 60 years of hostility."
• An unlikely victim of China's censorship [UPI Asia] "It is well known that Internet access is not unrestricted in China. But who would expect that New Threads (Xin Yusi, www.xys.org), an overseas Chinese-language website, would be among the inaccessible sites? A search of the term “New Threads” at Google inside China and at Baidu, a Chinese-language search engine, did not even generate links to the website. New Threads is not anti-Chinese government, nor is it pornographic or related to the banned Falungong cult. It is not about Taiwan independence, Tibet or Xinjiang. It simply reveals academic misconduct in China."

Now that the Qingdao Beer Festival is over, we've been looking for other places to go to satisfy our wanderlust. We'd love to visit some tourist sites, maybe a beach or two, but what we're really looking for is a scenic, historic city filled with culture, nightlife, and of course, beautiful women. Lucky for us, ChinaHush has a translated list from Netease of the top 10 cities in China for beautiful women. more ›