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Earlier today, at the World Economic Forum in Dalian, the ever so smug and smart-alecky CCTV host Rui Chenggang (芮成钢), successfully put himself in the limelight once more by asking US Ambassador to China Gary Locke, "I hear you flew here coach. Is that a reminder that US owes China money?" more ›

New on the Sinica podcast -- Kaiser Kuo, Baidu's Director of International Communications; Josh Chin of the Wall Street Journal and Christine Larson of Foreign Policy discuss the recent NIMBY protests against the PX plant in Dalian. more ›

Last week, when tropical storm Muifa rolled into town, Dalian residents watched anxiously as high waves breached a tidal wall protecting a new paraxylene (PX) chemical plant located only 20km from the city center. Though no leaks were reported and the plant appeared to be safe, residents voiced their concerns about the proximity of the toxic plant to the city and worried about future environmental disasters with the Dalian oil spill remaining fresh in their minds. Yesterday, those concerns came out in a big way as 10-20,000 residents protested outside of government offices in the aptly named People's Square demanding that the plant be shut down and relocated further away. more ›

Today in adorable animal videos: Another pair of bear cubs were rejected by their mother just hours after they were born. That's not the adorable part...seeing them hand fed and reared by breeders at Dalian's Laohutan Ocean Park is. The parents of these cubs were gifts from Finland to China in 2001. more ›

We had heard about one of the relief workers at the Dalian oil spill being drowned underneath the crust, but it felt like just another unfortunate China statistic until we saw photos of it. One Chinese photographer captured the whole event (Zhang Liang's drowning, and the rescue of his coworker) in harrowing detail - and as shocking and frustrating and anger-inducing as it was to see animals drenched in oil from BP's recent gulf spill, to look at a human struggling in the slick is even more so. more ›

While the Dalian Port oil leak has now basically been cleared, the efforts revealed just how woefully unprepared China was for an environmental accident of this scale, according to Tim Collard at the Telegraph. Local fishermen cleaned up the sludge without any protections (face masks or even rubber gloves) and one relief worker has already been drowned under the oil crust. The good news: The fact that it was reported in local media at all, showing that "China is moving on from the times when an environmental disaster was purely the business of the State Council Information Office and their media-manipulation apparatus." more ›

While Forbes joked about how China would respond to an oil spill like BP's in the Gulf Coast, probably nobody expected us to find out so soon. Two pipeline explosions in Dalian on Friday sent an estimated 1,500 tons of crude oil into the sea. more ›

Late last week at a conference in Dalian, a shoe was thrown at real estate mogul Ren Zhiqiang (任志强), chairman of Beijing's Huayuan Property and member of Beijing's CPPCC by an irate member of the audience. The outspoken tycoon shot to the forefront of attention late last year when he suggested that young people should not be able to afford houses and that people who aren't able to afford houses should return to their village (买不起房就该回农村). In 2009, Ren Zhiqiang took the top spot in CEO salaries in a ranking of 258 listed companies which disclosed their annual reports. more ›

How times have changed! 21 years ago, when a couple of students decided to kneel on the steps of the Great Hall of the People with a petition to the government, nobody would give them the time of day. Well, we all know what happened subsequently. These days, if you're a mayor and you have people kneeling outside your door, you'd better pay attention because not doing so could cost you your job, 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."