In response to the recent announcement by Greenpeace that banned pesticides have been found in Lipton as well as domestic tea brands in China, officials from the Ministry of Agriculture and the Ministry of Health have come out to say that residues of illegal pesticides found on the tea was due to wind blowing it over from other crops. more ›

"Every time I see our famous professors, famous writers, famous doctors, famous actors, famous entrepreneurs, famous cultural figures, famous artists, famous investors, famous media professionals, famous anchorpersons and all other famous figures meeting with government officials with fear and trepidation, afraid to displease them, I feel a deep sense of grief, one that consumes my entire being. I am sad not just for myself but for the country I live in, because when communication requires such a position, the cost of communication and psychological pressure is immense." more ›

"'You are a journalist and a mouthpiece of the Party. Who are you serving, the people or the Party?' questions an official in Bijie, Guizhou Province during an interview. The public is quite familiar with words like these, since a Zhengzhou official uttered the same three years ago. The reappearance of such shocking words in officialdom and almost the exact same words at that -- it's a slap on the face of the people. Criticise as you will, they say; I will continue to say what I want to say. That's a provocation and debasement of public sentiment." more ›

Su Li (苏力), the party secretary of Wujiang district in the city of Shaoguan, was found dead after apparently hanging himself in his apartment this morning. Police have ruled out homicide as a possibility, though the investigation is still currently ongoing. Su was transferred to the position he held at the time of his death in September of last year. more ›

A female government official in Liaoning province has been executed almost a year after she was found guilty of corruption: more ›

China Daily reported on three surveys conducted among readers of various papers this week, and most of the results don't look so good. In a nutshell, nobody's happy, everybody wants to be an official, and the dual-pension system sucks. more ›

With the conclusion of the civil service exam last weekend, over a million of China’s best and brightest are now crossing their fingers for a position somewhere in the government. Getting the job might not be the end of their troubles, however, as a recent poll shows that over 45% of Chinese officials apparently feel they are “powerless” in a “vulnerable” economic position. more ›

Following a string of at least eight suicides among government officials this year, the state is taking action - by packing potential hires off to the shrink before taking them in. Wu Hanfei, chief of the examination and assessment center of the Communist Party of China announced at a leadership pow-wow on Sunday that those applying for official posts in government will soon have to undergo a psychological analysis during selection to assess their "psychological qualities" as well as "moral integrity". more ›

It took a little longer than what some people originally predicted, but Vice-President Xi Jinping has finally been annointed vice-chairman of the Central Military Commission. The promotion puts him one step closer to presidency when Hu Jintao steps down in 2012. What can we expect? His wife, popular folk singer Peng Liyuan, who appeared during the 60th Anniversary celebrations, says he's "frugal, hard-working and down-to-earth." more ›

It's quite amazing the lengths that some selfless cadres will go to in their official duties - even if it comes at the cost of their own life. One sad example is 29-year-old Zhu Jihong, whose promising career was cut short on July 24 after a well-deserved toilet break suddenly turned fatal. more ›

"Leading cadres at all levels should always maintain a spirit of moral character and be aware of the temptations of power, money and beautiful women" more ›

We were alerted to this interesting, if somewhat off-kilter opinion piece in China Daily that lists corrupt officials now in jail and their common hobby: writing books. It seems like a lot of officials, now that they have not much else to do, devote it to the pursuit - or at least recording - of knowledge. The list of previously politico scribes now in jail include: more ›

• A car in Shuijing was pasted with the slogan "The head of the Public Security Bureau is my father, I can commit murder and arson without fear!" in an attempt to attract attention to a murder case in the driver's hometown. [ChinaSmack]
• One columnist discusses the differences between Russia and China in terms of business and corporate governance... and China comes out on top. That makes us feel bad for Russia. [The Moscow Times]
• Speaking of regulatory policy, here's a couple of signs of things to come... kind of, since it's really hard to figure out what's to come even when you're listening to everything the government's saying. [WSJ]

Shanghai's thinking of putting a stop to revolving doors, debating new regulations for officials after their retirement or resignation in order to check "future corruption." The regulation draft stipulates that high-level officials should not work in profit-making organizations that had a direct link to their government jobs for three years after retiring or resigning. They would also be forbidden from things that might be in conflict with the public interest. Personnel departments are now being asked to keep records of ex-officials' jobs. Source: Xinhua more ›

This famous line was said by a very famous professor, Yi Zhongtian （易中天）, on CCTV. Yi Zhongtian, a professor at Xiamen University, is famous for his lecture series on CCTV-10 about the Han Dynasty and one of China's classic masterpieces, Romance of the Three Kingdoms （三国演义). more ›

A website set up specifically to help the populace report corruption has allegedly crashed after it was inundated with more visitors than it could handle, according to the BBC. www.12309.gov.cn was launced on Monday with an accompanying hotline number to inform central government officials about local corruption complaints, but the website was designed to cope with a maximum of 1,000 people making complaints at a time. The interesting thing about this story (besides it giving us a laugh at that whole "Officials, they're so corrupt, man" thing) is that it's strikingly similar to a Xinhua story from 2007. We guess the programmers didn't bother learning from their mistakes two years ago? more ›

Heating up the Chinese blogosphere is a comment made by an official in Henan: "Will you speak for the Party? Or will you speak for the people? (你是准备替党说话，还是准备替老百姓说话？)", insinuating that the two are mutually exclusive. Zhengzhou urban planning development vice director Lu Jun made the comment, allegedly in anger, to a reporter probing a suspicious property scheme. It was broadcast nationwide, nominated as the catch phrase for 2009, and Lu was named "the official who dares most to speak the truth" by Chinese netizens. Lu, who was suspended by his embarrassed superiors, has denied making the comment. Source: Shanghai Daily. Picture from SCOL (Chinese) more ›

Though Deng Yujiao, the 21-year-old waitress accused of killing a government official, may have been saved by the flurry of internet postings in her support, the same netizen fervor may be making it dangerous for reporters to get the full story. more ›

• Chinese Woman Accused of Murdering Official Freed on Bail [WSJ] "A female hotel employee whose arrest on murder charges sparked a wave of national sympathy in China after her lawyers said she was fighting off a rape attack has been released on bail. Deng Yujiao, 21, was arrested after she stabbed two local government officials with a fruit knife on May 10 in the Xiongfeng Hotel in central Hubei province, killing one of them. Ms Deng's lawyers said she acted in self defense when the men tried to rape her after she refused to have sex with them for money. The case has sparked public anguish over the issue of violence towards woman."
• China ties make Macau good bet to beat Vegas [Reuters] "The world economy may be slumping, but don't tell that to Macau -- the former Portuguese colony which is set to trump Las Vegas heading out of the worst global downturn since the Great Depression. In the smoke-filled gambling halls of Macau's MGM Mirage casino, hundreds of Chinese gamblers were crammed around tables flipping cards, playing roulette and rolling dice on a recent day, seemingly unaffected by the slowdown."
• Climate change a 'game changer' in US-China relations: Pelosi [AFP] "US House of Representatives speaker Nancy Pelosi said Tuesday that the fight against climate change was a "game changer" in China-US relations, as she visited Beijing on a trip focused on energy. Pelosi, a tough critic of China's human rights record and a vocal advocate of environmental protection, is leading a delegation from the US Congress to China on a working visit devoted to energy and climate change."

From the Netease forums comes the story of 皖怀希望小学 (Anhui Hope Elementary School), a grade school for migrant workers in Shanghai that was mysteriously vandalized and then shut down earlier this year. more ›

The local government in Xuzhou, Jiangsu province has just passed what looks like a wide-reaching law making it illegal for people to publish someone else's 'private information' on the Internet. Offenders can be fined up to 5,000 yuan and could be barred from using the Internet for half a year! The news comes one month after a district housing bureau chief in Nanjing was dismissed after netizens posted photos of him wearing a RMB100,000 watch and smoking a RMB150 a pack cigarettes. The pictures spread like wildfire on the web because those items were seen to be beyond the means of someone living on a civil servant's modest wages. more ›

• A man and a woman have been killed by a carbon monoxide leak in a downtown Shanghai apartment yesterday morning while two of theirr roommates remain in a coma.
• Taiwan is coordinating with mainland authorities on the possibility of increasing the number of charter flights to and from Shanghai for the convenience of Taiwanese residents looking to go home during the Lunar New Year season.
• North Carolina has opened its seventh foreign trade office in Shanghai. This is the state's second China trade office after Hong Kong.

This CCTV recording from a Shenzhen restaurant on Oct 29, carefully captioned by the wonderful guys from ChinaSmack, shows an 11 year old girl guiding a man to the restroom, and running away back into the restaurant soon after. She returns with her parents and brother to confront the man with the help of the restaurant, and a huge argument soon ensued. According to the girl, the man had grabbed her neck and tried to force her into the bathroom with him. more ›