Not even officially off his ambassadorship to China yet (which ends April 30), Jon Hunstman has already become a political target ahead of his expected bid for the Republican ticket in the upcoming US election. Two letters Huntsman penned to Obama and Clinton have been leaked in what could be an effort, by either side really, to disrupt his potential campaign. Take a look at his love letter to Obama, which is sure to twist the panties of Republicans, and turn the stomachs of pretty much everybody, everywhere: more ›

• West miscasts Tiananmen protesters [Financial Times] "To say the demonstrations were to “demand democracy” is an oversimplification. The truth is that the students in the square had only the haziest understanding of western-style democracy."

As mentioned before, US expatriates are, for the first time, able to vote in a global primary, meaning that they get their own set of delegates during the primaries, which decide each party's respective presidential candidate. This particular event, held on Tuesday at the ecologically sound and coolly designed URBN hotel, was well attended. Computers were set up to help people register, liquor and hors d'ouevres helped people mingle, and Barack Obama's victory speech from the South Carolina primary was played on a big screen. Melanie McGanney was there and wrote about it on the Huffington Post. Youtube has a video of the speech here, and you can see some more of our photos here. more ›

China’s party officials have been learning the niceties of diplomatic protocol according to this recent FT report:

“The person tasked with transforming these officials into Little Mr and Miss Manners was Laura Efurd, deputy assistant to former US president Bill Clinton. Unsurprisingly, one of Efurd's presentation slides instructs her students on the art of The Hug, as made famous by Clinton.”

Gold and silver ingots have arrived at the Shanghai Mint for processing into Olympic medals! Quentin Sommerville of the BBC speaks to Clinton Dines of BHP Billiton China. more ›

By JFK Miller more ›

Yesterday's copy of the Wall Street Journal has a very interesting observation: that few of China's top political and business leaders these days have white hair:

It is possible that could have something to do with genes, but something else is involved, too. For aging men of influence here, the dye job appears to have become as commonplace as the Mao suit once was. more ›

Shanghaiist is going to give Senator Clinton the benefit of the doubt -- that she actually knows better but is just being the politician that everybody expects her to be. But the following infuriatingly pandering comment puts Senator Clinton right up there with the lovely Senator Schumer on this Shanghaiist's "too-political-for-America's-own-good" list:

"We have to have tougher standards on what they import into this country," she said. I don't want to eat bad food from China or have my children having toys that are going to get them sick," said Clinton.

We told you about the Made-in-China scare that is happening outside of China, but let's take another look at what's happening right here right now. A CCTV program (click link for video in Chinese) has investigated a herbal weight loss patch (美国七点瘦) which its manufacturers claim to have helped Chelsea Clinton shed 12 kilograms in less than a month. Users are instructed to stick the patch to the area of the body where they want to lose weight and then just wait for the patch to miraculously suck the fat out of them through the skin (yes you heard that right). more ›

This has nothing to do with Shanghai, or China for that matter. But we can't get enough of these Japanese television commercials for Suntory Boss coffee drink featuring Oscar-winner and Harvard-grad Tommy Lee Jones. Jones has been appearing in Boss ads for a year now, we think, but we first learned of the campaign recently after a friend returned to Shanghai from Japan confused about the billboards he saw all over the place featuring huge, and not particularly flattering, head shots of the craggy-faced Mr. Jones. more ›

think. It just made us wonder: if it were up to the -ist-a-verse, what would we be voting for? more ›

Seattlest saw a house party get senselessly attacked with a shotgun and end in seven dead. A local senator is debated and their version of the big dig is investigated. To truly get to the bottom of it they interview the writer Jonathan Raban. more ›

No wonder the Chinese love Bill Clinton -- because he loves them back. The former president loooooooves China. Always has. Ever since he was a little boy in Arkansas, playing around in his uncle Buddy's munitions factory. How do we know this? Well, it was printed in the illegal and erroneous Chinese version of Clinton's My Life memoir, which hit China's streets in July 2004. Harper's Magazine was nice enough to translate and publish some of the more Sinopurfluous sections in a hilarious piece they called "Bubba Tea." An excerpt: more ›

China's favorite symbol of public health, the inflatable oversized condom, made an appearance at Huaihai Park yesterday to mark both National Men's Health Day and the coordinated unveiling of two men's health hotlines and 10 men's health educational centers in Shanghai. more ›

Former American President Bill Clinton -- no stranger to downloading porn, we're sure -- will visit Hangzhou on September 10 to address the 2005 China Internet Summit. The theme of the get-together organized by Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba will be "Connecting China To The World" ... well, just the parts of the world the Chinese government deems suitable for the Chinese people. Also expected to speak are CEOs from industry lightweights like Google, Amazon, Yahoo and Sohu. Hopefully one of the seminars will be entitled "How We Can Make Shanghaiist's Internet Connection Less Shitty." more ›