Results tagged “hujintao”

• You could just call it good business, or you could call it a complete disregard for humanity - China's $7 billion resource deal with the African nation of Guinea (currently under a regime without legitimacy) has basically screwed Guineans out of their lifeline out of poverty. [The Independent]
• Want an explanation of what the Obama-Hu collaboration for clean energy and climate change really means? So do we. So here's one. [Green Leap Forward]
• Want to see a Chinese interview of President Obama? Here's the one Southern Weekly did. [Southern Weekly]

Well, President Obama's first trip to China is now officially over. A lot of things happened, a lot of people talked about it, but nothing too groundbreaking occurred. Obama seemed to have a good trip: he visited famous Chinese landmarks, met with his brother, even talked a bit of politics along the way. But a lot of us were ultimately left with a feeling something like disappointment: for various reasons, the mythic qualities of the American president were overwhelmed by the totalizing nature of China and Chinese politics.

Now that we've had a good night's rest, we can sit back and reflect on the general meaning and importance, both literal and symbolic, of President Obama's town hall in Shanghai yesterday. We've come to a sort of peace with the entire affair: yes, it was scripted, but could you expect more from such an unprecedented meeting between citizens and the populist president of a staunchly democratic country in a Communist state? No, Obama didn't seem to have a substantive, overarching message for a meeting that his administration fought tooth and nail to arrange: but in his first appearance in China, having yet to even meet with President Hu Jintao, were we really expecting something earth shattering?

There's a general energy in the air over Obama's upcoming visit. Judging by the many, many taxi and motorcycle drivers who have conversations with us to the effect of "美国好," Obama has become a cultural icon for the Chinese. While the American president represents a polar change in policy and practice for Americans, the Chinese seem to view him as an intelligent and fair man who will directly or indirectly help China in its ascendant world superpower-dom.

President Obama's itinerary has just been released, with a little under a week before his first visit to the mainland. And the best part? He's going to start his tour in Shanghai!

Jackie Chan may be an adorable and well-liked kung fu superstar, but he sure doesn't seem to know when it's time to stop talking. We've recorded several of his gaffes before, including one made earlier this year when he insinuated that Chinese need to be controlled... but this latest interview really takes the cake.

• 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..."

• 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."

• Puer Tea: China's Next Hot Commodity? [Time] "There is Champagne, France; Tequila, Mexico; and Parma, Italy — all places turned trade names known for their unique, high-quality foods. Now, if China has its way, there could be another: Puer. This lush corner of Yunnan province in China's south is home to one of the world's hottest teas. Puer tea may not look like much — it is typically sold in heaps resembling cow patties — but one mug of these aged leaves can fetch up to $1,000."
• China's Hu visits Xinjiang, no riot trials this week [Reuters] "Chinese President Hu Jintao visited the restive region of Xinjiang this week for the first time since the July 5 riots, urging officials to maintain stability, state television said on Tuesday. The report about Hu's Aug. 22-25 visit to the frontier region came as a press official in Xinjiang denied a state media report that trials of people suspected to be involved in the riots would begin this week."

Which one of these adorable little High School kids went on to become the leader of China?

Screenshot was taken from People's Daily online, in an article about a Guizhou tourism official who caught the attention of netizens for being so beautiful. From the picture, it seems that nationalistic fervor in China was a little more amorous than we thought.

• 70 sick in China after eating tainted pig organs [The Associated Press] "At least 70 people in southern China fell ill after eating pig organs contaminated by a banned animal feed additive, state media said Monday. Three people were in the hospital, while the rest were discharged after being treated for stomach aches and diarrhea over the weekend."
• Beijing's Olympic building boom becomes a bust [Los Angeles Times] "By Rodman's calculations, 500 million square feet of commercial real estate has been developed in Beijing since 2006, more than all the office space in Manhattan. And that doesn't include huge projects developed by the government. He says 100 million square feet of office space is vacant — a 14-year supply if it filled up at the same rate as in the best years, 2004 through '06, when about 7 million square feet a year was leased."
• The flaws in Chinese business: Time to change the act [The Economist] "The rapid collapse of economic activity around Dongguan indicates that China’s private companies are being subjected to the same battering as their counterparts in many other countries. Yet it also raises questions about the long-term survival of many of these companies. They have been among the most dynamic components of China’s fast rise towards prosperity. Their turmoil may be transient. Then again, there are also worries that it is in fact tied to profound flaws in the Chinese economy."

CCTV's new year gala this year was presented in French, Spanish, English and Chinese. Top temples around China, including Fuzhou's Gu Shan Yong Quan Si, Mount Emei's Baoguo Si, Sanya's Nanshan Si, Suzhou's Hanshan Si, and Luoyang's Baima Si, rang in the new year by chiming their bells simultaneously.

The road to Obama's inauguration has the world equally fixated as the election itself. Jeffrey Garten, former undersecretary of commerce under the Clinton administration poses an interesting proposition: that the President-elect, in his first presidential trip abroad, makes China the first stop. Not only that, Garten says Obama should bring his all-star cast to Beijing: Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, Secretary of the Treasury Timothy Geithner, Secretary of Defense Robert Gates and his appointed ambassador.

• Kongzhong has released its role playing game "Tian Jie Online" on China Mobile's Mobile Online Game Platform, the first of three mobile online games to be released on China Mobile's new game platform.
• Shanghai doesn't seem the ideal place to buy a MP4 Player, according to a report from Shanghai Administration for Industry and Commerce, 75 percent of MP4 Players on sale are substandard, with inadequate capacity and abnormal radiation leaks.
• Chinese e-trading site Taobao have blocked the search engines of Baidu, Google and Yahoo. According to the site, this move is to protect its customers from fraud. Some online merchants optimize their general search results pages through technical and commercial methods, with the aim of gaining higher rankings and attract consumers to click their links and pages. Taobao hopes to curb this by blocking the search engines.

Or a genuine case of twins? You decide...

Photo courtesy of China Daily.

This picture you see on the right taken during President Hu Jintao's meeting with Emperor Akihito during his trip to Japan (just before the earthquake struck) appeared on the front page of the May 9 edition of Jiefang Daily 《解放日报》[screenshot here just in case]. As you can see, President Hu is talking to the Emperor and Mrs Hu is talking to the Empress. Take a careful look. Do you see what's there coming out from under the First Lady's chair?

... and so says the — surprise, surprise — China Daily! This most unlikely piece of news comes from the nation's favourite English paper shortly after we heard that China Philharmonic's been performing for the Pope:

Evangelist Franklin Graham said in Beijing on Friday that he wants his organizations to become more involved in China.

Continue reading "Evangelist Franklin Graham "hopes to do more for China""

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.

Continue reading "WSJ: Nary a white strand of hair in the Politburo Standing Committee"

This World AIDS Day, we witnessed an extraordinarily well-coordinated effort by Chinese media to raise AIDS awareness among the populace and to communicate the resolve of the central government to win the battle against the disease. This small sampling of stories that appeared in state-run English-language media is enough to give you an idea of what went out on Chinese news: President Hu: HIV/AIDS not scary President Hu tells HIV carriers, communities not to be...

PLUS LEE KUAN YEW AND HIS ROLE IN SINO-SINGAPORE RELATIONS The last week has seen top leaders zipping between China and Singapore to cement ties and sign new deals. Let's take you through the high-profile visits one by one before diving deeper into more detail (Warning: Long article!): Goh Chok Tong visits new Shanghai party chief and the Singapore-Suzhou Industrial Park Last week, Singapore's Senior Minister Goh Chok Tong swung by Shanghai to visit her...

The video includes two images of Kevin Rudd cleverly photoshopped into old communist propaganda posters (yes, the type that you'd find in the Dongtai Lu antique market), and classic lines among the subtitles (which are supposed to the translation for the rubbish Chinese voiceovers) include "Rudd impress and frighten Australian person with his earnestness offensive," and "He unnerve decrepit Howard by deploying clever principle of 'similar difference'. Leader Rudd declares swift and violent Education Revolution." Ingenious. And as the Sydney Morning Herald notes, political parties with their multi-million dollar advertising budgets have a thing or two to learn from guerilla tactics such as these.

In this day and age, you can define "torture" however you want to, and for a long time, we considered the practice of inputting Chinese characters on a Mac to fulfill our definition. OS X has a built-in simplified Chinese input that does the job, but doesn't really hold a candle to any of the Windows XP input methods—and when Sogou came out with their input method, and Google copied it, we considered that battle to be over.

Industrial and Commercial Bank of China(ICBC), the world’s largest bank by market capitalization, is buying 20 percent of South Africa’s Standard Bank Group Ltd. Standard Bank is based in Johannesburg and has branches in 18 African nations. The USD $5.5 billion price tag marks the most expensive overseas investment by a Chinese firm to date. Earlier in the week, CITIC Securities, also a state owned company, swapped USD $1 billion worth of equities with Bear Stearns. Both tie-ups are just the latest examples of corporate China’s aggressive international merger and acquisition binge, started back in 2004 when Lenovo bought IBM’s PC business.

The Chinese Communist Party, the world's largest political party with some 64 million members opened its 17th Party Congress yesterday. With over 2,200 delegates from all over the nation, the congress was opened by parliament chief Wu Bangguo with the national anthem, followed by a moment of silence marked for Mao Zedong, Zhou Enlai, Liu Shaoqi, Zhu De, Deng Xiaoping, Chen Yun and other "martyrs of the revolution" before President Hu Jintao began addressing the party. A great sense of expectation there as you can see on the video now that the party has just begun, but as the days go by, we will no doubt see more and more of these scenes instead.

China issued a sweeping denunciation of Taiwanese President Chen Shui-bian on Thursday, accusing him of stirring animosity between the sides to divert attention from his personal scandals.

... and the rumor-mill is running in overdrive. Recent reports suggest that Shanghai Party Chief Xi Jinping's (习近平) recent entry into the race - apparently at senior leader Zeng Qinghong's (曾庆红) insistence - has shaken things up; forcing Hu Jintao to make some last-minute maneuvering.

Here, Shanghai, were your favourite stories for the month of September:

Shanghai is back in Beijing's good books. Or so an article published by the People's Daily two weeks ago indicates, claims the Associated Press. The article, titled "Glad to hear the new good tidings from Shanghai", lavished praise on Shanghai for it's recent successes. "A golden breeze refreshes Shanghai; one important, auspicious event after another" gushed the lead article. It is a sign, claims AP, that the fallout from last year's pension scandal has started to settle. As AP points out:

...such propaganda is a cue that top communist leaders have come to a consensus that the scandal was confined to a few "bad elements" and that China's biggest and richest city has Beijing's support.