Results tagged “frankfurtbookfair”

• Once seen as spies, Taiwan eases China media curbs [Reuters] "Taiwan has relaxed rules for Chinese media, long regarded as spy organizations for the Communist government, as relations warm between the two long-time political rivals, officials said on Wednesday. Effective immediately, Chinese media, which include state-run giants such as Xinhua News Agency and China Central Television, can increase staff from two to five people apiece and travel to any part of Taiwan or its outlying islands, officials said."
• Chengdu traffic gives rise to new profession: taxi chasing [GoChengdoo] "We've written before about how frustrating catching a taxi in Chengdu has become in the last few years. And although 800 cabs were allegedly added to Chengdu's streets last month, it doesn't seem to be getting any easier. But now help is on the way, in the form of a "chubby figure" who chases down cabs for passengers, collecting 2 RMB each time."
• In modern China, no place for totalitarian anthems [China Media Project] "How should we best understand the extravagance that marked China’s recent National Day celebrations? In the wake of the pomp and circumstance, a good friend of mine summed it up with a single phrase: “Four portraits and four anthems.” By portraits he was referring of course to the four massive portraits of state leaders - Mao Zedong, Deng Xiaoping, Jiang Zemin and Hu Jintao - that gazed over the celebration."

We've always marveled at the immense chasm between the Chinese book market and the rest of the world. Of course, issues of translation and appeal abroad have kept the market pretty domestic, but that seems to be changing slowly. Chinageeks makes a great point in response to the coverage of Frankfurt Book Fair: it seems that the only interest the west can muster towards Chinese literature is when the book or author carries some sort of scandal with it, leaving the vast majority of authors and books unnoticed. There's a lack of foreign awareness of books that split the difference between banned-in-China and sterilized-by-censorship that leaves a big old lacuna where books by talented Chinese authors should be.

• Party Elder Still Jousts With China’s Censors [NYTimes] "For nearly two decades, the Communist Party strove to wipe out the national memory of Zhao Ziyang, the reform-minded party secretary who opposed the use of force against pro-democracy protesters in 1989. So when a former aide of Mr. Zhao’s, Du Daozheng, disclosed in May that he had helped secretly record Mr. Zhao’s memoir for posthumous publication, Mr. Du’s daughter refused to let him walk outside alone for fear of possible repercussions. She need not have worried. On June 25, a top official in charge of propaganda showed up at Mr. Du’s western Beijing apartment with a reassuring message from Zhongnanhai, the headquarters of the Communist Party and the government. Mr. Du said he was told that, as an old friend of Mr. Zhao’s, “Zhongnanhai and party central can understand why you did this.”"
• Olympic chief in ‘secret China deal’ [Times Online] "China made a secret deal with International Olympic Committee president Jacques Rogge to support his election to the post in return for Rogge's lobbying for Beijing to win the 2008 Olympics, according to an explosive new book by China's sports minister at the time, Yuan Weimin. The former minister says Rogge explicitly bargained with him to win Chinese votes at the Moscow meeting of the IOC in 2001, which awarded the games to Beijing and three days later elected Rogge as president."
• China corruption trial exposes capital of graft [Telegraph] "Huang Guobi lost her husband four years ago to gangsters who brutally dismembered him with machetes before beating her senseless. When she took the case to her local police station, she found it was run by the nephew of the gang-leader. As she worked her way up the Chinese justice system, pleading for someone to bring the killers to account, she found each level riddled with corruption. This week, however, 47-year-old Mrs Huang stood outside the Number Five Intermediate People's Court in downtown Chongqing, filled with anger and satisfaction. Around her, 300 other people, many with similar stories, stood waiting for justice to be done. Inside, the first trial of China's largest-ever criminal investigation was under way, the culmination of five months of police work that has turned the city of Chongqing upside down."