This a rough translation of Fan Gui's response to Sun Liping's essay (which we wrote about here): 1. Regarding Sun's first point, I believe that he has ignored a very crucial fact—the growing gap between rich and poor. 20% of the population controls 80% of the wealth, how can you say that such a status quo has "flexibility"? While Professor Sun divides the population into urban and rural, does he mean that the urban poor......

On Friday, the People’s Bank of China raised mortgage interest rate and hiked minimum down payment needed for purchasing investment and commercial properties. In a joint announcement with China Banking Regulatory Commission, the PBoC said It is clear that the rapid rise in real estate prices is due to irrational factors and the market risks for commercial lenders are increasing. Just two weeks earlier, Wu Xiaoling, the vice governor of the PBoC was quoted by......

Beijing's housing market bubbles [IHT] Prices for high-end homes in China's capital have been bouncing to record new levels all year, even with dramatically fewer transactions, rental prices flat and many new units empty. Beijing Knocks Down Petitioners' Houses [Guardian Unlimited] Chinese authorities knocked down part of a rundown neighborhood in Beijing on Wednesday where people live, sometimes for months, while petitioning the central government for help fighting grievances in their hometowns. Though water is......

The Aluminum Company of America, better known as ALCOA sold its entire 7 percent stake in its largest Chinese counterpart, Aluminum Company of China, or CHALCO for short (ALCOC just doesn’t quite have the same pizzazz, not to mention potentially misleading). ALCOA acquired the Chalco stake for roughly USD $200 million back in 2001 when the Chinese firm went public in Hong Kong. And six years later, the same stake just exchanged hands for 10......

Recently while out of town, our landlord called us on our cell phone to inform us that he wanted his apartment back ASAP. Why, we asked? He wanted to renovate it, he said, but we were not convinced. You see, the few of us have been living in this apartment for coming to 3 years now, and there was this implicit agreement that we could stay on for as long as we liked, so some......

Security guards in a Suzhou housing complex found a nude man lying dead on a platform on the second floor while on their regular walkabouts. Police found that the man, surnamed Geng, was a tenant on the 12th floor of the complex and was working in a sauna in the neighbourhood. The night before, a woman living on the 16th floor returned home at around 3am in the morning, only to discover there was an......

Gil Kim is a professional baseball player from Pottsville, Pennsylvania, which we are sure you all know is the home of Yuengling Lager (and is not too far from Bloomsburg, which we are sure you know is home to the Bloomsburg Fair). After graduating from Vanderbilt University, where he was "primarily a role player," Kim spent 2006 playing with the Omron Pioniers, a minor league team in Amsterdam, Netherlands. In 2007, he was signed by......

In a report just released an hour ago, Reuters tells us that Shanghai housing rights activist, Chen Xiaoming, who was one of seven Chinese activists awarded the 2006 Housing Rights Defender Award by the Geneva-based Centre for Housing Rights and Evictions, "has died hours after he was released on medical parole". From the Reuters report: Shanghai authorities had repeatedly rejected applications by Chen Xiaoming's family to release him on parole for treatment for a chronic......

Harshing the mellows of college kids all over China, the Ministry of Education has announced a ban on off-campus student housing:In a notice issued on Friday, the ministry instructed all universities to make the dormitories "another front for political and ideological education" to create "a good climate for the students' growth." The ministry told the universities to strengthen the administration of dormitories, in what it says will ensure the safety of students and heighten communication......

Housing evictions and tenants' rights have become hot button issues in Chinese society today, a flash point in the conflict between ordinary citizens, land developers, and the government. The most famous case of this, at least in recent memory, was the Chongqing nailhouse, which became an internet-fueled media phenomenon. And now, a similar situation has appeared in the Fengtai district of Beijing. A group of residents who did not agree to conditions offered them by......

From wodingg.com we discovered that Google China (soon to be China Google?) has come out with a new search engine function called Google Sheng Huo (生活), which you can use to search for stuff like housing, jobs, and stuff to buy. Basically what it does is to gather results from other websites and search engines. For example, if you want a job, you select the criterion (place, industry, salary, date information was released, etc.) and......

Chinese athletes are run into the ground "But four years after she retired at 26 with nothing but an elementary school education and a body crippled by sports injuries, the former marathon champion says she has been duped." What if Beijing's rivers ran clear? "Beijing's waterways suffer from severe pollution. But even if they did not, the residents of the capital might present an even greater threat, writes Dongting Lu." Cities in Danger of......

Property agents in Shanghai have come up with a novel way of giving house buyers important information about the home they intend to buy. Ask them about neighbourhood construction plans for malls, motorways and high rise appartments and they may take you to the third floor of the Urban Planning Museum in People's Square. There lies the model of the grand plan of the city centre for Expo 2010. Western countries have turned the house......

This morning, Chinese language news portal 163.com had a great scoop, and revealed the future planning for Shanghai and China's Maglev railway system. Shanghaiist's Chinese ability is sadly limited, but using the new-fangled internet technology we reported on earlier this week, we were able to get the gist of the 163.com article. The article reveals that the current 30km long section of the Pudong Airport-Longyang Road Maglev line will be extended to eventually form a......

We're guessing most of you are hungover from St. Patrick's Day. We are too. But still, we're going to muddle on through our green haze and give you (drum roll please...) this Week In -ists. We start with SFist which broke the -ist record for comments with nearly 500 comments on a post about our Mayor's girlfriend. She responded back on charges that she's not a "girl's girl" and, whoo boy-- the floodgates? They did......

Zakaria: The Sky Isn't Falling in China "It might be time to admit that we really don't understand China. The country simply does not conform to our most basic beliefs about what makes nations grow." Curbs sought on violence in Chinese films "China needs a law to restrict a 'violent culture' in films and Internet to protect the youth from being corrupted, a Chinese lawmaker said Tuesday." China is source of bird flu virus,......

Chinese man dies during gaming session "The 26-year-old man, surnamed Zhang from the city of Jinzhou, died Saturday after a marathon gaming session from what a doctor said was overwork and obesity." Tom Online apologizes to The Beijing News for copyright violation "Tom Online apologized to The Beijing News for republishing articles from the paper without authorization between 2003 and 2006 and will provide compensation, Tom Online said in a statement." China Confirms Human......

China has moved a step closer to diversifying its US$1.07 trillion in foreign reserves, with the yet-unofficial appointment of two senior officials to head new vehicles that will seek to invest a portion of China's reserves, which are the largest in the world. According to The Standard:Guo Shuqing, chairman of the third- largest lender, China Construction Bank, is tipped to become head of a new state-owned investment company that will adopt Singapore's Temasek model, China......

RIP Wulihe Stadium of Shenyang. Built in 1989, this stadium is best known for being the place where China qualified for the World Cup Finals by beating Oman 1-0 in October 2001. It was razed to the ground in a little over six seconds on Feb. 12, 2007. When Beijing won the Olympics, Shenyang applied to host some of the soccer games and was granted approval. Everyone assumed that these games would be held......

Lots of juicy transportation news today: A new displacement order has been released by the Xujiahui Housing, Land and Resource Administration Bureau which is likely related to work on an extension of the Maglev to Hongqiao Airport.At the ongoing Shanghai People's Congress, representative Lei Guofen submitted a proposal asking that the commercial advertisements after stop names announced on metro cars (including the ubiquitous and therefore infamous Christine Bakery) be replaced by announcments of "public and......

As the world holds it's breath, teetering precariously on the cusp of the Super Bowl (well, at least in America), the wheels of the -ists keep on turning. Austinist was in a musical frame of mind as they listened to the new Shins album, updated the SXSW band listings and got called "punk rock" for their efforts by MTV. And an ice storm swept through the area. Bostonist said goodbye to John Kerry's plans for......

There appears to be a push (or maybe a slight nudge) to save an old house on Taojiang Lu that for four years in the 1940s was occupied by Soong Ching Ling, also known as Madame Sun or Sun Yat Sen's wife. The two story villa, which is very close to O'Malley's, is currently occupied by 40 workers from the Shanghai Qianggu Construction Engineering Company. From the story: After 1949 when the People's Republic of......

On a recent stroll near the Bund, Shanghaiist chanced upon a curious joint that was billing itself as a restaurant, design house, hair studio, live music joint, and art gallery. Ma.Design, it was called. We were intrigued. We started sniffing around, much to the dismay of the staff and the marketing manager who looked as us if we were crazy. They don't want business? Who knows. It's a neat little space inside though. On the......

China Southern airlines discovers that it takes about a liter of fuel to flush the toilets on a plane and is now urging flyers to get it out of their system prior to flying. Or you could just not flush -- hey, others do it.This news is about a week old, but looks to be on-going: protests near the Hongqiao airport about unfair housing compensation. Several weeks ago their protests ended up blocking traffic, and......

Shanghaiist has been wary of taking pictures of protesters, as it's gotten us in a wee bit of trouble with the authorities before. We got a call a couple of a days ago from some of the folks connected with the housing demolitions and tenants' rights "movement" here in Shanghai, telling us that something was going to happen on Monday. We went, and saw this man (pictured here), making one last stand on the roof......

It’s true, the first Pompidou Centre in China is landing in Shanghai. According to this report (in Chinese) by Oriental Morning Post, Renaud Donnedieude Vabres, culture minister of France, and Bruno Racine, president of the Pompidou Centre (we're going to call it the "PC" from now on), the first PC in Shanghai is going to cover 10,000 square meters at the intersection of Huaihai Zhong Lu and Songshan Lu, near the site of the old......

Let's take a look back at a week that raised this Zen koan: if Kevin Federline got into a wrestling ring with a wrestler, who would you root for? Austinist was in an entertainment state of mind as they covered the dickens out of the Austin Film Festival, depicted all the Big 12 football coaches as South Park characters, and interviewed Jose Gonzalez. Chicagoist talked about the passion as they bid adieu to Bell's Beer,......

Tipped by scRambler, we checked out Shanghai Daily's slick new Live in Shanghai website ... and we have to say we are impressed. Helpful and comprehensive, the site covers most of the basics any newcomer to the city would want to know. We wish a site like this existed, oh, four years and six weeks ago. Live in Shanghai is split up into four major sections -- Fast Facts, Transport, Housing and, of course, Miscellaneous......

Somehow, the world of -ists managed to make it through the week despite news that Jen & Vince broke up. -Chicagoist had fall on their mind as they made squash and fudge, read "House of Leaves" and ">tried to figure out what's next for the Cubs. Not fall related, but still of utmost concern, the whole skinny black pants thing. -Torontoist fought off an evil scourge of raccoons and went to go see who would......

A woman is on trial for attempting to smuggle heroin by soaking it into panties -- fifteen panties, to be precise. However, Wang's lawyer queried the investigating police's methods, who derived the quantity of heroin by weighing the drug-soaked underwear, the paper said. Couldn't they have licked the panties, like they no doubt would have in the movies?We reported earlier that Apple had done an investigation into the working conditions at their iPod factories. A......