Rebecca MacKinnon concluded her blog entry on Chinese media control following the Weng’An riot with the following line:
Continue reading »
Jul 15
minipost-Chalk it up to the list of toxic exports from the U.S.
Written by: DJ | Filed under:-mini-posts | Tags:China, media control, Rovism
31 Comments » newest
31 Comments » newest
Jul 13
minipost-Can smog be used as a smokescreen?
Written by: DJ | Filed under:-mini-posts | Tags:China, olympics, polution, smog
41 Comments » newest
41 Comments » newest
Claire Fox is rather perceptive in her blog entry “Beijing Olympics: China’s green critics should get a grip“: Continue reading »
Jul 10
Here is a quick summary of Francesco Sisci’s take of what the G8 want with China’s currency RMB: Continue reading »
Jun 27
Is Fiat too clever?
Written by: DJ | Filed under:Analysis, News | Tags:China, commercial, Fiat, media, Richard Gere
45 Comments » newest
45 Comments » newest
The story of Fiat apologizing to China for its Richard Gere and Tibet themed ad for a new car was first reported on June 20. At that time, I quickly dismissed it as nothing but another blunder by the marketing department of a global company that should have known better. The ad itself wasn’t problematic per se. But it was clearly created with Richard Gere’s Tibet oriented activism in mind. Somebody should have foreseen that it would be perceived as provocative by some (or a lot) people.
So my first impression was quite similar to how Stan Abrams reacted in his China Hearsay blog.
Someone should get fired for this, and not because of the political overtones themselves. No, someone should be fired for incompetence. Through the whole vetting process for this ad, no one thought this was a bad idea? Really?
But interestingly, the story didn’t just die. I keep seeing reports of this matter in the English based media, perhaps because Fiat was also rather loudly insisting that the commercial would continue to air. “That’s odd,” I thought, “What’s the point for Fiat to apologize in the first place?”
Tim Johnson, in his China Rises blog, offerred an explanation.
Maybe it is a new corporate strategy. Mount an ad campaign. Anger Chinese. Capture lots of newspaper headlines. Issue an apology. Keep the ad campaign running anyway.
Jun 25
On China and Religion
Written by: Oli | Filed under:Analysis, culture | Tags:China, culture, featured, government, Policy
71 Comments » newest
71 Comments » newest
For different cultural, political and historical reasons, the Chinese government officially recognises Buddhism, Taoism, Islam, Catholicism, and Protestantism as religions. As in the realm of commerce, medicine, the legal profession or any other human endeavours, China, like many nations and for her own reasons have chosen, as it is her right, to lay down a legal and regulatory framework within which religions are practised.
Within the above five religions, the government does not prefer one religion to another and neither does it care about ecclesiastical or inter-faith doctrinal differences. It does not care whether Jesus is the Son of God, one of the Prophets of Allah or just a mere rabbi. It does not care whether the Virgin Mary or the Saints ought to be worshipped and much less whether the Quakers are pacifists who live according to personal beliefs. Like any other governments in the world, what it does care about are whether they break China’s laws while in China and whether a belief system contravenes the public interest.
In no countries are the clergy or religious institutions free from or above the temporal laws of the land. An American Catholic priest convicted of paedophilia, fraud or mere speeding in America is still guilty and may suffer the appropriate judicial consequences, irrespective of the fact that he is a priest. Should the Church as an organisation in any way be involved, it too is liable to criminal as well as possible civil lawsuits.
Just as there is no such thing as absolute political and commercial freedom, neither is there such a thing as absolute religious freedom. There are only varying degrees of religious freedom that is regulated in turn by ecclesiastic rules, doctrines, temporal laws, social customs and traditions in accordance with the demands of the relevant state and society. For example, many in the UK believe in Fengshui, but nevertheless in a test case before the English Court of Appeal, the Judges, as it is within their remit, chose not to recognise it as a religion, just as they do not recognise any religion that is not monotheist as a matter of policy. By contrast, because of its Chinese community Indonesia recognises Confucianism as a religion when China only sees it as a school of philosophy, so that just because something is lawful in one country does not make it so in another.
Jun 13
[Update inserted at the end]
The U.S. Fed chairman Bernanke gave some amazing recycled remarks to the International Monetary Conference on June 3, 2008. In that speech, he offered some gems of wisdom such as:
In the financial sphere, the three longer-term developments I have identified are linked by the fact that a substantial increase in the net supply of saving in emerging market economies contributed to both the U.S. housing boom and the broader credit boom. The sources of this increase in net saving included rapid growth in high-saving East Asian countries and, outside of China, reduced investment rates in that region; large buildups in foreign exchange reserves in a number of emerging markets; and the enormous increases in the revenues received by exporters of oil and other commodities. The pressure of these net savings flows led to lower long-term real interest rates around the world, stimulated asset prices (including house prices), and pushed current accounts toward deficit in the industrial countries–notably the United States–that received these flows. … The housing boom came to an end because rising prices made housing increasingly unaffordable. The end of rapid house price increases in turn undermined a basic premise of many adjustable-rate subprime loans–that home price appreciation alone would always generate enough equity to permit the borrower to refinance and thereby avoid ever having to pay the fully-indexed interest rate. When that premise was shown to be false and defaults on subprime mortgages rose sharply, investors quickly backpedaled from mortgage-related securities. The reduced availability of mortgage credit caused housing to weaken further.
As Mike Whitney so nicely summarized for Bernanke: “It’s all China’s fault. Really.”
Whew. That’s a pretty long-winded way of saying the Chinese are to blame for everything that’s gone wrong in the markets for the last 10 months.
May 31
Lesson on physics: a stone sinks deeper if it keeps on digging
Written by: DJ | Filed under:media, News | Tags:China, earthquake, Hollywood, media
17 Comments » newest
17 Comments » newest
Alright, I have to concede, after a few days of reflection, that I might have been a bit too harsh on Sharon Stone.
Some of the commentators, both on this blog and else where, have suggested/recommended leaving her alone for it was not worth the ink (or the LCD backlight decay) to argue over her remarks. I see the wisdom of such perspectives now. All I really should have done is to stand aside and watch her pushing the proverbial high heel and the attached flesh ever deeper down into her throat.
So Sharon, please keep going. And would you like a bigger shovel?
PS: Could anyone explain to me why Google News, when the term “Sharon Stone” is queried, would return a top ranked link titled “Actress Stone Contrite Over China Comments” whereas the referenced NYT article is actually titled “Actress Stone and Dior Differ Over Apology”?
May 26
Sharon Stone reveals her dark basic instinct
Written by: DJ | Filed under:media, News | Tags:China, dalai lama, earthquake, Hollywood, media
95 Comments » newest
95 Comments » newest
While being interviewed at the Cannes film festival, Sharon Stone shared some candid words on her reactions to the Sichuan earthquake, which to date is estimated to have killed more than 80,000 (including confirmed fatalities and those missing) and left millions homeless. I would strongly urge everyone to listen for yourself at this YouTube link. The following is a transcript I took down from the video clip as precisely as possible. The capitalized words reflect her own emphasized tones.
[EDITED to break the transcript into more readable parts]
Sharon Stone: … Well you know it was very interesting because at first, you know, I am not happy about the ways the Chinese were treating the Tibetans because I don’t think anyone should be unkind to anyone else. And so I have been very concerned about how to think and what to do about that because I don’t like THAT.
And I had been this, you know, concerned about, oh how should we deal with the Olympics because they are not being nice to the Dalai Lama, who is a good friend of mine.
And all these earthquake and stuff happened and I thought: IS THAT KARMA? When you are not nice that bad things happen to you.
And then I got a letter, from the Tibetan Foundations that they want to go and be helpful. And that made me cry. And they ask me if I would write a quote about that and I said, “I would.” And it was a big lesson to me, that some times you have to learn to put your head down and be of service even to people who are not nice to you. And that’s a big lesson for me.
May 22
Some rabid Falun Gong followers show their ugly side in Flushing, NY
Written by: DJ | Filed under:media, News | Tags:China, earthquake, Falun Gong, featured
358 Comments » newest
358 Comments » newest
China’s crackdown on Falun Gong (FLG) is frequently cited in the west as evidence of human rights abuse and suppression of religion. On the other hand, some of the FLG followers make it really difficult to sympathize with their cause.
Case in point, there are reports of FLG followers publicly cheering the Sichuan earthquake as a karmic response from heaven on the Chinese Communist Party. ESWN provided a translation of a report from Ming Pao dated May 21, 2008:
The confrontation between Queens county residents and the FLG practitioners is now on its fourth day …
Yesterday at 10am, several dozen FLG member appeared in front of the Flushing Public Library. Just like the past three days before, they unfurled banners that pronounced “The Heavens destroy the Chinese Communists,” “Experts sent Sichuan earthquake prediction report confidentially to authorities” and so on to show the passer-bys. Some of the FLG members said that they have been criticising the Chinese Communist regime and they thought that the Sichuan earthquake revealed the evil nature of the Chinese Communists. Some FLG members even said that the Sichuan earthquake was the result of the violent rule of the Chinese Communists.
…
May 09
– written by Brandon
It has been the case for well over 2000 years that with a huge population and rich diversities in custom, cuisines, dialects, culture, religions, ethnicities, and political views, it’s always a challenge for any Chinese government to unit its people. However, recent events provided the Central Empire another silver bullet in its arsenal to achieve just that, the butterfly effect.
It takes a real expert to explain the effect in details. The short and layman version is that a butterfly’s wings might create tiny changes in the atmosphere that ultimately cause a tornado to appear. In other words, a small disturbance might have huge and unintended consequences somewhere and somehow.
Examining what happened since middle of March will better illustrate my point.
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