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Think of China’s economy as being like a big round Chinese dining table with one central pillar. The pillar is the state enterprises, the state banks that fund them, the Party, the government and the courts, all working together to support a common objective – the table top. The economy itself.

But a Chinese dining table, once it gets too big, with one pillar, collapses. So the real struggle in China is to move to a Western dining table, where the key players become different legs. They can hold up a much bigger table.

A summary of China’s current economic situation and the reforms it needs to move ahead, part of The World’s series “China Past Due.” Other segments cover social and political issues:

businessweek: Skype’s Watch List in China These are 20 of the more than 2,000 words and phrases, compiled by computer scientist Jeffrey Knockel, that prompt Skype in China to intercept written messages. Roll over the phrases to reveal the words the hackers were targeting. For the full story: Skype’s Been Hijacked in China, and Microsoft Is O.K. with It. Read more at Bloomberg Businessweek (Graphic by Jennifer Daniel) Anyone interested in the topic of online censorship in China should also follow the excellent Blocked on Weibo Tumblr. (And, in care you’re wondering, how fast do Weibo’s censors work? Fast. At near real-time speeds.) Click for high-res photo

businessweek:

Skype’s Watch List in China

These are 20 of the more than 2,000 words and phrases, compiled by computer scientist Jeffrey Knockel, that prompt Skype in China to intercept written messages. Roll over the phrases to reveal the words the hackers were targeting.

For the full story: Skype’s Been Hijacked in China, and Microsoft Is O.K. with It.

Read more at Bloomberg Businessweek

(Graphic by Jennifer Daniel)

Anyone interested in the topic of online censorship in China should also follow the excellent Blocked on Weibo Tumblr.

(And, in care you’re wondering, how fast do Weibo’s censors work? Fast. At near real-time speeds.)

(this post was reblogged from businessweek)

The (very) complicated Chinese family tree. Among the factors to consider when properly addressing or referring to the subject: which side of the family the subject is from, the subject’s gender, the subject’s age in comparison to the person from whom you’re basing the relationship, and whether the relationship is by blood or marriage.

How (not) to launch a search engine with Chinese characteristics

What do you get when the Chinese Communist party—an institution better known for restricting information than for disseminating it—wants to build a search engine? A hilarious disaster run by a ping pong star:

Deng [Yaping]’s vision was to build the search engine in the image of Google, as Caijing reports. The name, “Jike” (“instantly” in Chinese), was settled on because it sounded like geek,” a word the [party newspaper] People’s Daily thought of as “representing a computer expert or enthusiast.” But what those computer experts or enthusiasts created was an engine with a thick ideological filter.

And unfortunately for Jike, Chinese internet users either aren’t up for ideological filtration or don’t know the search engine exists. Jike’s market share is infinitesimal—as in, less than 0.0001%.

Well, at least they’re upfront about pilfering other people’s ideas this time. But to that end, isn’t Baidu doing a good enough job of copying Google already?

globalpost: SHANGRI-LA, China — The fabled land of Shangri-La is a “delightfully favored place,” where monks live for hundreds of years, in the shadow of a “dazzling pyramid,” the mountain Karakal. The air has a “dream-like texture.” Every breath yields a “deep anesthetizing tranquility.” That, at least, is how Shangri-La is described in “Lost Horizon,” British author James Hilton’s classic 1933 novel. “If I were to put it into a very few words, my dear sir, I should say that our prevalent belief is in moderation,” one of Hilton’s beatific monks says. “We inculcate the virtue of avoiding excess of all kinds.” Hilton’s mythical land is a far cry from this real-life Chinese village of Shangri-La: a dusty, dingy upstart that is flinging moderation to the winds to become a Disneyesque tourist trap. China attempts to manufacture “Shangri-La” Part 2: Profit quest imperils one of world’s most stunning landscapes Part 3: China’s Shangri-La for minorities Photo illustration by Kyle Kim/GlobalPost Click for high-res photo

globalpost:

SHANGRI-LA, China — The fabled land of Shangri-La is a “delightfully favored place,” where monks live for hundreds of years, in the shadow of a “dazzling pyramid,” the mountain Karakal. The air has a “dream-like texture.” Every breath yields a “deep anesthetizing tranquility.”

That, at least, is how Shangri-La is described in “Lost Horizon,” British author James Hilton’s classic 1933 novel.

“If I were to put it into a very few words, my dear sir, I should say that our prevalent belief is in moderation,” one of Hilton’s beatific monks says. “We inculcate the virtue of avoiding excess of all kinds.”

Hilton’s mythical land is a far cry from this real-life Chinese village of Shangri-La: a dusty, dingy upstart that is flinging moderation to the winds to become a Disneyesque tourist trap.

China attempts to manufacture “Shangri-La”

Part 2: Profit quest imperils one of world’s most stunning landscapes

Part 3: China’s Shangri-La for minorities

Photo illustration by Kyle Kim/GlobalPost

(this post was reblogged from globalpost)
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No society has swung more dramatically from extreme sexual openness to prudish orthodoxy and then to the sexually ambiguous atmosphere we see at present
Richard Burger, author of Behind the Red Door: Sex in China (via chinadigitaltimes)
(this post was reblogged from chinadigitaltimes)
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Global luxury sales and epic Chinese political corruption have become so inextricably intertwined over the last decade that the recent kerfuffles in Chinese politics—the investigations and convictions and pledges of propriety—have been nothing but trouble for the privileged few. That became clear last fall, when political disorder in Beijing made it difficult to know which faction would end up on top, and one luxury-brand representative told the Journal that sales were down because ‘no one knows who to bribe.’
Corruption is so ingrained in China that some officials see bribery as the right and natural order of the world. One convicted official, who was found to have amassed two hundred pairs of luxury shoes, was heard to chastise the prosecutor on her comparably unfashionable footwear. And a member of the Guangdong People’s Congress, apparently unclear on the concept, told reporters last month “officials are civil servants, not slaves to the people.”

(Source: newyorker.com)

thedailywhat: Stats Pr0n of the Day: Bejing is an Airport Smoking Lounge This chart from Bloomberg News shows Bejing’s average concentrations of PM2.5, or fine particulate matter that can cause airway inflammation and leave residents at a higher risk for lung and heart disease. As you can see here, on January 12th, the PM2.5 count reached a peak of 886, which is 532% of the daily average found in 16 U.S. airport smoking lounges. In 2012, Greenpeace estimated that exposure to PM2.5 in China led to more than 8,500 premature deaths in Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou and Xi’an. Hat tip to BoingBoing.

thedailywhat:

Stats Pr0n of the Day: Bejing is an Airport Smoking Lounge
(this post was reblogged from thedailywhat)
themorningnews: Jobs go begging in Chinese factories when university graduates believe the labor is beneath them. Click for high-res photo

themorningnews:

Jobs go begging in Chinese factories when university graduates believe the labor is beneath them.

(this post was reblogged from themorningnews)
A bright video screen shows images of blue sky on Tiananmen Square during a time of dangerous levels of air pollution, on January 23, 2013 in Beijing. (Feng Li/Getty Images) Click for high-res photo

A bright video screen shows images of blue sky on Tiananmen Square during a time of dangerous levels of air pollution, on January 23, 2013 in Beijing. (Feng Li/Getty Images)