What is this picture about? Why is this poor woman being blocked out by hundreds of Chengguan (City Urban Administrative and Law Enforcements)? [Netease] On December 17, Wuhan City organized over 800 law enforcement officers to forcefully demolish nearly 40,000 square meters of illegal buildings that are near the Wuhan City to Huangshi City railway construction site. The phenomenon of local famers rushing to “grow houses” is very common.

What does “growing houses” mean?

It is yet another unique phenomenon in China, formed in the last couple of years of amazingly fast social and economic development. When the entire nation is being modernized, countless high raises are erected every year, cities are expending and county’s infrastructures are also expending in order to support the economic growth. Highways, railroads and airports; bridges, tunnels and subway systems… are being built in almost every corner in China. This means some of the existing residential and farmland in the rural areas might be in the blue-print of a governments’ huge project. The government pays for development compensations for every house they have to tear down in order to build the development project. This motivated the farmers to build houses everywhere in the rural area of China. When some of them are permitted by the government but most are illegally and cheaply built. They even start to build houses in the agricultural fields therefore people say the farmers are “growing houses” instead of growing food.

» » » » Continue reading ‘Chinese farmers are “growing houses” instead of growing food’

In early 2007, Niall Ferguson coined the term “Chimerica” to describe the economic relationship between the United States and China. At first, in 2007, Ferguson said Chimerica “seemed like a match made in heaven” – the Chinese did the lending, the Americans the borrowing. China and the US accounted for 40 percent of global growth from 1998 to 2007.

» » » » Continue reading ‘The disaster of “Chimerica” – Can both sides be losers?’

International Herald Leader reporter Liu Ke and Pan Linqing reporting from Beijing and Jinan: A highway across Jining Jinxiang county, Jinxiang town in Shandong Province, dense piles of garlic can be seen everywhere on both sides of the road. A few kilometers away, South Dianzi Street is the largest Garlic market in China. People and cars are going in and out of the market; trucks loaded with garlic speeds by. People on the trucks seem to be in a hurry, but they cannot hide their excitement.

“I am not exaggerating, when two people meet here, the topics of the conversation cannot avoid garlic.” 48-year-old Sun Guangcai said, he is a garlic farmer in Jinxiang County. This county is the nation’s largest garlic planting base. Among the 800,000 mu of cultivated land 700,000 mu grows garlic all year round. It has lived up to its name of “China’s garlic capital”. (1 mu = 0.0667 hectare, 1 hectare = 2.471 acres, s0 1 mu = 0.1648 acres)

Since the Spring Festival (Chinese New Year) this year in February, the price of garlic here already rose from 80 cents per kilogram to 8 yuan per kilogram.

» » » » Continue reading ‘The crazy garlic’

“Made in China, it is everywhere”, recently the Commerce Department produced an advertisement of a international image promoting “Made in China” brand and started to air on CNN Asia. This ad is deliberately made to rebuild and strengthen the “Made in China” reputation in the global market.

» » » » Continue reading ‘“Made in China” ad campaign, and its “secrets”’

[NetEase] Since July 24^th, Taobao (ebay like online retail marketplace) started operation: “honesty self-inspection” and closed down over 12,000 stores suspected of serious “hype fraud” (hype up the product by give fake ratings and reviews). Many Taobao sellers questioned the reliability of the operation. Some sellers said that this action might have wrongfully closed down many honest sellers. Taobao said they will not wrongly accuse any honest sellers. This triggered already formed “Anti-Taobo Alliance” organizing varies attacks against Taobao.

» » » » Continue reading ‘Taobao Crack Down on “Rating Fraud”, Anti-Taobao Alliance Strikes Back’

From Reuters: New York city has yellow cabs, London has black cabs and soon China will also have black cabs. In a joint venture with a Chinese company, London’s black cabs will soon be out on Chinese streets. » » » » Continue reading ‘London’s Iconic Cabs Hit China’

From Financial Network, Beijing, Intern reporter: 王奇华
China internet department on June 18 announced to impose penalty to “Google China” website (google.cn) to suspend foreign internet searches, also the feature that automatically suggests different search keywords once start typing in search textbox. Google is being punished for linking to pornographic content. Chinese government ordered its rectification to immediately cleaning up pornographic and vulgar content.

» » » » Continue reading ‘China Orders Google to Suspend Foreign Internet Searches’

From: June 2^nd, 2009 “Oriental Outlook Magazine” Journalist Wenming DAI (戴闻名), Special Contributor Dan QIU (邱丹) | Reports in Shanghai

—Exclusive Interview with the director of Shanghai Municipal Foreign Employment Center, Mr. Hande SUN (孙汉德)

» » » » Continue reading ‘How Many Foreigners are in Shanghai “Gold Rush”’

From Oriental Outlook: reporter: Dai Wenming (戴闻名)

Oxford University graduate Jerome Vaughan (方哲伦) came to Shanghai in 2002, in his mind was only “the Bund (外滩) skyline” which was just started to appear in the western newspapers at the time.

» » » » Continue reading ‘“Swimming Style” Survival’

From NetEast:

Editor’s note: The Boao Asia forum 2009 annual meetings are held on April 17th- 19th in Boao, Hainan, this annual meeting subject is “the economic crisis and Asia: The challenge and the forecast”, the following is the factual record of the Central Europe International Industry and Commerce Institute Professor Xu Xiaonian’s answers to the reporter’s questions.

» » » » Continue reading ‘Xu Xiaonian: Shanghai Forever Cannot Catch Up with Hong Kong’

From NetEast

Recently, China Unicom CEO Chang Xiaobing (常小兵) while attending IT leaders’ summit in Shenzhen said the rumor of China Unicom is currently about to reach an agreement on a deal with Apple is not accurate. China Unicom is still negotiating with Apple on the deal however the negotiation could succeed or fail.

» » » » Continue reading ‘China Does Not Need iPhone’

From NetEast, similar article from USA Today
U.S. 2009 January automobile sales were lowered by 37.1%, it is the lowest ever in 27 years, sales for the first time is lower than China.

» » » » Continue reading ‘U.S. January automobile sales declined to lowest point in 27 years, lower than China for the first time’