A Chinese marine vessel was blocked from entering Vietnamese waters in October, and by the looks of it, the conflict between the two former Brothers in Socialism won't resolve itself anytime soon. more ›

An unidentified Chinese warship demanded that the Indian amphibious assault vessel INS Airavat identify itself and explain what it was doing in the South China Sea, after the ship left Vietnamese waters in late July. An Indian official has defended his country's right to transit through the international waters of the South China Sea, stating that questioning the right of passage by any other nation is "unacceptable." While the Vietnamese Foreign Ministry has confirmed that the INS Airavat docked in Vietnam from July 19th to the 22nd, they claim to have no knowledge of the incident. Though the incident is the first ever reported confrontation between the two navies in the South China Sea, it's merely the latest case of Chinese vessels harassing foreign ships this year. Reports surfaced in May of a Chinese fishing boat cutting the cables of a Vietnamese survey ship, leading to a series of protests that continued well into August. If we were one of the fenqing, we'd be all like, "Guess India and Vietnam didn't get that memo about the waters being called the South China Sea, and not the Eastern Vietnamese Sea (or Far Eastern Satellite Indian Ocean)?" more ›

Meanwhile, has anyone else started noticing that maps of China now include islands in the South Island Sea? "Vietnamese police detained scores of people taking part in an anti-China rally in Hanoi on Sunday in defiance of a government order to end a string of demonstrations that has stretched three months and put authorities on edge. One witness said plainclothes police forced around 40 demonstrators onto two public buses and drove them away within minutes of the start of the demonstration. A blogger who has chronicled the demonstrations and has contacts among the regular protesters said at least one bus left with 19 people aboard. It was the 11th anti-China rally in an unprecedented series of public protests that have taken place nearly every Sunday since early June against what Vietnamese see as China's violations of their country's sovereignty in the South China Sea." [Reuters] more ›

It's summertime, and the world's navies have been cruising each other in the warm waters of the world's oceans as if it were some kind of brawny maritime love parade. Indeed, there has been a flurry of naval action in the Asian theatre recently - some of it routine and annual, some related to the Cheonan incident, but also chest thumping and jostling for position in territorial claims all over the place. more ›

• Arrests made over audio porn [Shanghai Daily] "City police approved the arrest of a Shanghai native surnamed Gong, 30, the general manager of ilisten.cn, for allegedly making a profit by spreading pornography. Other suspects in custody include two of Gong's employees - a local in charge of the company's technical department, and an Anhui Province native who worked in the department. A 23-year-old Shandong Province woman surnamed Ma was caught in Beijing. She was allegedly hired to record some of the audio books, police said."
• The world’s most lucrative social network? China’s Tencent beats $1 billion revenue mark [VentureBeat] "A billion dollars in revenue in a single year? Not even MySpace, currently the most profitable social network outside China, has managed to accomplish that. But publicly traded Tencent, a leading Chinese web portal, instant message client, social network, game developer and more has done it, and largely through the use of virtual goods and other 'Internet valued-added services,' like avatars, dating services, online memberships, music and community sites."
• Dissident warns Taiwan on China [Taipei Times] Yuan Hongbing (袁紅冰), a Chinese democracy activist living in exile in Australia, yesterday warned Taiwanese to beware of the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) “two-faced” approach to diplomacy. Yuan made the remarks at a press conference in Taipei after 15 Chinese academics were blocked from leaving the country to take part in a conference on the development of liberalism in China, despite calls for more cross-strait cultural and intellectual exchange by the Chinese leadership.

• Developers hope to avoid 'skyscraper curse' [China Daily] "Hoping to avoid the "skyscraper curse," China's cities continue to reach for the sky. While most of the world's major construction projects have been put on hold, new skyscrapers are under construction in Beijing, Shanghai, Shenzhen, and several smaller cities, defying the global economic slowdown. Developers believe China will prove to be an exception to the "skyscraper index" - popularly known as the "skyscraper curse" - proposed by financial analyst Andrew Lawrence. In 1999, Lawrence noted that major financial crises often follow the construction of record-breaking skyscrapers."
• Grape Wall Challenge: Top ten white wines under RMB100 [Grape Wall of China] "On March 13, a dozen expert and consumer judges met in Beijing for the Grape Wall Challenge and tasted 23 red wines that retail for less than RMB100 in China."
• Prepaid card woes multiply in Shanghai [China Daily] "The Shanghai Committee of Consumers' Rights and Interests Protection yesterday urged consumers opting for prepaid cards to be on guard, in view of the rise in related complaints in the city. The committee said it received more than 4,000 complaints in 2008, up 14 percent than in 2007. Most of these complaints have to do with beauty and hair salons or fitness clubs that often shut down without notifying their clients, said the commission. The credit remaining on the cards issued by them thus becomes invalid."