China's authoritarianism is at times ruthless and at times, well… confused. A case in point is the decision to put Ai Weiwei, arguably China's best known artist (a co-designer of the "Bird's Nest" Olympic Stadium who also has current exhibit at the Tate Modern in London) under house arrest. Ai has been a longtime critic of the Chinese government, and he is increasingly in the international spotlight. If the authorities had wanted to merely silence him, they have their ways. If they had wanted to allow him to speak his mind -- perhaps as an example to the world that China is more open than its critics charge -- they could have done so.

Instead, here is what happened, as Christian Science Monitor's Peter Ford reports:

In what he described as a farcical series of visits by the police, Mr. Ai was told he would not be allowed to host a mass party he had planned to hold in Shanghai on Sunday as a protest against the authorities.

"They came at half past midnight and told me they did not wish me to go to Shanghai," Ai said by telephone from his walled compound home on the outskirts of Beijing. "I said that I had already announced the party and that I could not not go.

"They suggested I should announce that I was under house arrest," Ai said. "I told them I could not say that unless I was under house arrest."

After three more visits and continued discussion on Friday morning, Ai recounted, "they told me at 1:30 this afternoon that I was under house arrest."

The backstory is that Ai, who lives in Beijing, had planned a party of sorts to commemorate the destruction of his studio in Shanghai. The local government had declared the studio, not a dissident hotbed, but an "illegal structure" and so slated it for demolition.

The fact of the government taking action to restrict the movements of such a prominent figure is troubling, and in this case a bit surprising. The manner in which Ai  is being supressed is rather wobbly. It is "farcical," as Ford says Ai put it, and reveals something of the government's confusion or indecisivness (should we or shouldn't we arrest him?), also worth taking note of.

In a surprise move after it looked like the recent spat between Tokyo and Beijing was quieting down, China has just canceled a planned meeting between its premier Wen Jiabao and Japanese Prime Minister Naoto Kan on the sidelines of the East Asia Summit in Hanoi.

And it did so in spectacularly undiplomatic language, with Assistant Foreign Minister Hu Zhengyue (in remarks paraphrased by Xinhua, Beijing’s state-run news agency) accusing Japanese diplomats of “violating China's sovereignty and territorial integrity through statements to the media” and making “untrue statements about the content of a meeting between Chinese and Japanese foreign ministers held earlier in the day.”

Xinhua also said Hu accused “the diplomatic authority of Japan, in cahoots with other nations,” of trying to “create noises on the issue of the Diaoyu Islands in the East China Sea in the lead-up to the summits between ASEAN and its partners.”

Cahoots!

It’s no secret that China doesn’t much like Seiji Maehara, Japan’s new, unabashedly pro-American foreign minister, who after a 2005 speech characterizing China’s rise as a “threat” was all but declared persona non grata in Beijing. U.S. diplomats describe Maehara in glowing terms, a welcome breath of fresh air after a year of confused relations. Earlier this month, when Maehara described China’s reaction to the recent fishing trawler incident near the disputed Senkaku/Diaoyu island chain as “hysterical,” he drew a harsh rebuke from Beijing. (To be fair, he also recently complemented Chinese president-to-be Xi Jinping on his “very gentle-looking appearance.”)

Japan’s Mainichi News sees the cancelation of the Wen-Kan meeting as “aiming to deal a blow” at Maehara, who pissed off the Chinese again Wednesday by reiterating Japan’s claim of sovereignty over the Senkaku/Diaoyu islands during a press conference with U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. In their remarks, the two diplomats pointedly emphasized the security aspects of the U.S.-Japan relationship, and Clinton also drew China’s ire by bluntly saying the Senkakus “fall within the scope of Article 5 of the 1960 U.S.-Japan Treaty of Mutual Cooperation and Security” -- though she was only reiterating what Defense Secretary Bob Gates and Joint Chiefs Chairman Adm. Mike Mullen had already made clear.

Clinton’s speech Thursday, billed as a major statement of U.S. policy in 21st century Asia, was nuanced, but noticeably chilly toward China -- making it clear that the United States is going to remain a player in Asia for the indefinite future, and that it isn’t going to let Beijing push around America’s allies in the region.

Things are about to get chillier. The Diplomat’s Andy Sharp notes:

Another element that could pour oil on the territorial squabbling is that video footage of the collision between the Chinese trawler and two Japanese patrol boats will be shown to a restricted number of Japanese lawmakers in the Diet on Monday. While the content of the video won’t be made public (opposition Diet members are demanding its full disclosure – and surely its only a matter of time before it finds its way onto the Internet), the reaction of lawmakers on both sides of the house will likely be a hot topic in the coming weeks.

UPDATE: It looks like U.S. diplomats are assiduously trying to calm things down between China and Japan, and Kan and Wen apparently did meet briefly on the sidelines of the summit. But it's not clear to what extent that meeting was Wen freelancing, or whether it was a conscious attempt by China to lower the temperature. One good sign: The People's Daily reports that Clinton and Dai Bingguo, the top Chinese official on foreign affairs, had a good meeting.

China's latest film exports will not be on display at the 23rd annual Tokyo film festival thanks to a spat over Taiwan sovereignty:

The head of the Chinese delegation, Jiang Ping, told festival organizers that the Taiwanese delegation must not attend the festival under the name Taiwan, but as "Chinese Taipei," which Taiwan used while participating in the Olympic Games, shortly before celebrities began to walk down a green carpet to mark the start of the festival.

Jiang, also deputy director-general of the Film Bureau of the State Administration of Radio, Film and TV (SARFT), told reporters, "We protested against the organizers introducing the two delegations as 'China and Taiwan.' And our request to introduce Taiwan as "Chinese Taipei or China's Taiwan" was rejected by the organizers."

Of course, this will be seen as part of a larger issue than what Ang Lee's homeland gets to call itself. Anti-Japanese protests broke out in half a dozen Chinese cities over the weekend and the Japanese government has formally protested the presence of Chinese military patrol boats near disputed islands in the East China Sea.

Before he became Barack Obama's running mate, Joe Biden famously ripped his then opponent's lack of experience. "The presidency is not something that lends itself to on-the-job training," he said.

Nowhere is this more true than in China, where would-be leaders spend years toiling in the Communist Party's lower ranks, clawing their way to the top in a dog-eat-dog political culture that rewards loyalty, economic performance, and savvy backroom maneuvering.

Today, China announced that Xi Jinping has been named  the vice-chairman of the Central Military Commission, an important sign that he's successfully navigated this gauntlet and is destined to take over in Beijing once Hu Jintao retires in 2012. He'll have two years to learn the ropes as a civilian overseer of the world's second most powerful military, essential training for any Chinese leader.

Xi's ascent is probably a good thing as far as the West is concerned. Here's how China analyst Cheng Li described him few years back:

Xi has leadership experience in economic administration and favors pro-market reforms. In the provinces that he ran, Xi was particularly noted for his promotion of the private sector. His likely policy priorities lie in enhancing economic efficiency and promoting market liberalization, continuing China's high rates of GDP growth, and expanding China's integration into the world economy. 

The rap on Xi is that he's a "princeling" -- a Chinese politician who owes his career to family connections (guanxi ) rather than hard work (his father was a top party official). Many in China are critical of this youngish group of party leaders, but Xi seems to have acquited himself well thus far. In 2008, he oversaw the successful Olympic Games, and last year he headed China's 60-year celebrations. He has a law degree and a master's in chemical engineering, and has styled himself as tough on corruption. His wife is a famous folk singer.

At a meeting last week with Senate Finance Committee chairman Max Baucus, Xi pledged to work toward closer bilateral ties with the United States, though he's made undiplomatic remarks in the past. On a tour of Latin America in 2009, Xi seemed to catch a bit of the region's anti-yanqui fervor, telling a gathering of Chinese expats, "There are some foreigners who have eaten their fill and have nothing better to do than point their fingers at our affairs. China does not, first, export revolution; second, export poverty and hunger; or third, cause unnecessary trouble for them. What else is there to say?"

Though most analysts think Xi will succeed Hu, the appointment probably won't end the speculation over his putative rival Li Keqiang, a close protégé of Hu's with deep ties to the powerful Communist Youth League. Li's faction doesn't think much of the princelings, though there doesn't appear to be any rift between Xi and Li -- at least not one that has spilled into public view. Li is widely thought to be in line to succeed Wen Jiabao as premier, the No. 2 job in China's political system.

Fourteen Chinese dissidents and the Chinese Communist Party have finally agreed on something: Liu Xiaobo should not get the Nobel Peace Prize. While Chinese authorities have found his pro-democracy work worthy of 11 years of prison time and have made it clear to Norway that his victory would not be in its best interests, a group of overseas Chinese dissidents found Liu to be "unsuitable" for the award because they believed he has not adopted a strong enough line against the ruling Communist Party:

In a letter, the signatories accused Mr. Liu...of maligning fellow activists, abandoning persecuted members of the Falun Gong spiritual movement and going soft on China's leaders.

"His open praise in the last 20 years for the Chinese Communist Party, which has never stopped trampling on human rights, has been extremely misleading and influential," they wrote.

Chinese dissidents against Chinese dissidents? The New York Times accurately notes that the letter is symptomatic of the Chinese dissident community throughout the world, a "fractured group beset by squabbling and competing claims of anti-authoritarian righteousness." Well, it wouldn't be the first time exiled dissidents haven't gotten along.

In an inspired bit of YouTube surfing, Gawker has assembled a compilation of military recruitment commercials from around the world. There are a few clunkers -- three minutes is an awful long time to watch a Russian paratrooper sort of rapping in front of an obstacle course -- and I have my doubts that this Japanese ad is not an elaborate sophomoric hoax, but on the whole they make for pretty fascinating viewing.

Watching these as an American, the most immediately noticeable thing is how little time most of the ads spend overtly appealing to patriotism. There's Estonia, which does it cheekily, and Lebanon, which does it with a slow-motion sentimentality that would be cloying under other circumstances but is actually quite poignant in the context of a country that is eternally trying to keep things together. France and India, meanwhile, both hearken back to the U.S. military ads of the pre-9/11 era, in which we mostly see the life-advancing stuff that enlistment is supposed to get you, with a minimum of actual warfighting. (A career in the Indian army evidently prepares you for a lifetime of golfing and competitive diving.)

The Ukrainian army opts for an admirably straightforward "you'll get girls" approach. Singapore features a naval vessel transforming into a giant robot, presumably developed to contain the same giant lava monsters that have long plagued the U.S. Marines. Britain's jarring entry -- which a student of post-colonialism would have a field day with -- looks like it was directed by Fernando Meirelles. (This kind of "I dare you" approach to recruiting must work in the U.K. -- back in the '90s, when the U.S. Army was mostly promoting itself as a way to pay for college, the Brits ran magazine ads showing a Royal Marine eating worms as part of a survival training course.)

But the real winner here, I think, is Sweden, which is promoting military service to young women as a means of avoiding working as an au pair for awful Americans:

In an event seemingly designed specifically to guarantee a write-up on Passport, 10,276 people in China's city of Ordos, in Inner Mongolia, formed the world's largest human domino chain yesterday, besting the previous record of 9,234 Singaporeans desperate for a Passport mention.

The event  just gets better: Chinese basketball icon and former NBA center Mengke Bateer, who ESPN informs me averaged 3.4 points per game over his career, kicked off the chain by passing a basketball to the first "domino."

The volunteers, mostly high school students, spelled out "Beautiful Ordos." If they spell out "Passport" next time, I think I can get them on the front page.

In a move that counter-proliferation experts have called a step backward, the Wall Street Journal reports that the Obama administration is in "advanced negotiations" with Hanoi to share nuclear fuel and technology. Furthermore, in going against the model that the Obama administration used for other nuclear deals -- requiring the country to not enrich uranium -- the new agreement also reportedly allows Hanoi todo just that.  Although signatories of the UN's Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty have the right to enrich uranium, the United States has previously required countries interested in civilian nuclear cooperation to renounce that right. 

The WSJ found that many aren't too excited for the State Department-led negotiations that are expected to continue in the fall:

Congressional staff and nonproliferation experts briefed on the negotiations have been quick to criticize the State Department's position as a rollback of a key Obama administration nonproliferation platform. They also say Washington's position exposes it to criticism from Arab and developing countries that the U.S. is employing a double standard in pursuing its nuclear policies. […]

"It's ironic...as nonproliferation is one of the president's top goals that the U.A.E. model is not being endorsed here," said a senior Arab official whose government is pursuing nuclear power. "People will start to see a double standard, and it will be a difficult policy to defend in the future.

To make this even more interesting, China was completely uninvolved in the negotiations about the potential for uranium enrichment on its southern border. This comes after China criticized Secretary Clinton for supporting Hanoi's position on territorial disputes in the South China Sea…territorial disputes that seem to be ongoing.

Apparently, gambling and organized crime have become as entrenched in sumo wrestling culture as topknots and obesity.

Taking a page from the Gambino crime family, dozens of sumo wrestlers and their managers have admitted to betting on baseball games, mah jong, cards, and golf through gambling rings organized by the Yakuza -- the Japanese mafia. The Yakuza allegedly take a even more hands-on approach: sponsoring wrestlers and even positioning themselves in front-row seats at matches to communicate with their members in prison.

But this most recent scandal is especially embarrassing for the sumo industry -- the wrestlers are held to high moral and ethical standards, representing traditional values. The ancient sport which is believed to be at least 1500 years old, is part of the country's founding myth. (Imagine the shock when Americans discovered that Washington never actually chopped down the Cherry tree!)

And, in an unprecedented act of repentance, Hiroshi Murayama, the acting chief of sumo, stood among wrestlers inside the ring at this year's Grand Tournament in Nagoya, and apologized for the gambling scandals.

Single and ready to mingle in Taiwan? Then meet your new matchmaker: your government.

With a 2009 birth rate falling below half the replacement rate, the island's conspicuous lack of baby-making threatens to devastate the economy -- and officials have recently gotten creative about the problem-solving. They have previously launched an advertising campaign to entice "unattached" peoples to have children and subsidized fertility treatments for couples struggling to conceive. The health ministry, meanwhile, has begun occasionally closing their doors early to urge civil servants to go home and focus on populating that shrinking workforce of theirs.

Now, the Ministry of Interior (IOM) is taking direct action to make their citizenry be fruitful and multiply, subjecting its own dateless employees to mandatory fraternization. For starters, they will attempt to match up the female workers at the ministry with the high number of single male bachelors in the National Police Administration. They will also require each of its agencies to have an annual date night, featuring activities about which I can only speculate -- government-sponsored speed-dating, coed Taipei dance workshops, romantic comedy screenings in Taijiang national park?

What remains to be seen is if any of these devised aphrodisiac-inducing affairs can precipitate the 1.5-million baby boost needed to rejuvenate a populace that seems increasingly inclined to opt for celibacy -- or if the Taiwanese are merely too attached to their current personal preferences, too weary of concieving in the Year of the Tiger, or too terrified of that Hello Kitty-themed hospital to remedy the population decline.

In the wake of the sinking of the South Korean ship the Cheonan, Lee Myung-bak's government in Seoul threatened to resume propaganda broadcasts into North Korea, setting up loudspeakers along the demilitarized zone.

When the North  reacted with fury, threatening to shell the speakers, many in the South had second thoughts, and the move was reportedly put on hold.

Now,  some in the South Korean Defense Ministry are said to be proposing using "songs and music videos by manufactured girl bands such as Girls' Generation, Wonder Girls, After School, Kara and 4minute in so-called psychological warfare against North Korea," according to the Chosun Ilbo, a right-leaning South Korean newspaper.

It's clear from the official quoted in the story that no decision has been made, and in any case the girl groups would be just one of many measures directed across the border. But that didn't stop the  paper from speculating that "the revealing outfits worn by the performers and their provocative dances could have a considerable impact on North Korean soldiers."

Maybe they should broadcast South Korea's World Cup matches, too?

It's official: Benigno (Noynoy) Aquino III will serve as the 15th president of the Republic of the Philippines. But what can we expect after his inauguration on June 30? We know he chain-smokes, he is the proud offspring of pro-democracy icons, and his name rhymes -- but what could Noynoy's presidency really mean for his country?

Noynoy has got his feet in the start tracks of a gruelingly long hurdle race. He faces a decade's worth of setbacks -- spanning from the disintegration of the middle class to the weakening of government institutions -- left over from the presidency of Gloria Arroyo. Warlords and insurgencies incite violence throughout the Philippines (most notoriously on the eastern island of Mindanao), while the police and military remain disorganized and ineffective. The government is riddled with bipartisan battles, mudslinging, and crony capitalism. Mutiny is a very real threat, as Noynoy is hemmed in on all sides by political opponents (former dictator Ferdinand Marcos has immediate family members serving as governors, senators, and congressmen, while Arroyo will continue to amass power as a prominent congresswoman) and, if the laundry list of 20th-century foiled coup attempts is any indication, storming the Malacanang Palace is practically a pastime in Manila. Natural disasters threaten an already weak infrastructure and deficient health-care system. Unemployment rates are rising, and more than one-third of the country's rapidly expanding population (estimated at over 90 million) now live on no more than one U.S. dollar per day. To top it off, the public has recently eviscerated some of the president-elect's top prospects for cabinet positions, dissuading some from seeking them and generally setting a negative tone for the incumbent presidency. Not to mention, the public -- taking issue with that whole three-packs-a-day habit -- wants to strip poor Noynoy of his one means of stress relief.

So which hurdle will Noynoy jump (or crash into) first? A top priority is helping the poor. To do so, he has unveiled a three-pronged attack on corruption, taxes, and poverty. Noynoy has said that cracking down on taxes (though he supposedly won't raise them) and eliminating corruption will work mutually to bridge the socioeconomic gap between the poor and the seemingly ambivalent wealthy class. And the fight on corruption was indeed his campaign trademark, with promises of prioritizing government transparency and accountability and even talks of investigating Arroyo for allegations of electoral fraud. But the agenda doesn't stop there. He plans to boost industry, universalize health care, fix the school system, clean up the environment, and bolster the greatly weakened judiciary. To pacify a Philippines that seems to grow increasingly lawless, he aims to eradicate unofficial armed forces, initiate and continue peace talks with insurgents (particularly the notorious Moro Islamic Liberation Front), and even pardon Senator Gregorio Honasan, who led a group of rebel soldiers that fired shrapnel -- during a coup against the administration of Noynoy's mother, former President Corazon Aquino, in 1987 -- that remains embedded in Noynoy's neck.

Sounds impressive. But there's reason to be concerned about how much this president-elect can really get done following his inauguration in June. For starters, Noynoy is a bit too reminiscent of another relatively inexperienced world leader who rode into office on a wave of popular support like the "Noynoy Phenomenon," who presented a strong agenda but could not adequately address the ever-expanding mountain of issues he faced. If Aquino does indeed follow in that particular leader's footsteps, his presidency may soon face plummeting approval ratings and maybe even a diplomatic disaster or two. But add to that the familial shadow that leaves Noynoy -- criticized for lacking his father's courage or charisma -- looking like "Mr. Vanilla of Manila," and the unrelenting tumult that has long defined Philippine politics, and it appears Noynoy may merely be the next passenger to jump aboard the Malacanang roller coaster. Sure, he may ride it through a few peaks in his six-year presidential term; but Noynoy's ability to achieve any kind of long-lasting stability in the Philippines is much less certain.

Independent analysis of government policy is rare and generally unwelcome in China; it's even rarer for such advice to be followed. But an exception that proves the rule is when the advice-giver has a direct line to decision-makers, and when there's serious state money to be saved. 

While in southwest China recently, I caught up with Yong Yang, a rabble-rousing independent geologist who has previously faced death threats from businessmen and local officials for raising concerns about the feasibility of lucrative proposed projects. 

One story he shared seems particularly poignant now, on the second anniversary of the May 12 Wenchuan earthquake.  

At the time the earthquake struck on May 12, 2008, Yong was in the field conducting research when he received a mobile text message (voice-networks were down) from his son, a college student in the provincial capital of Chengdu: a big earthquake has struck Sichuan province -- go find a TV.  

Yong hunkered down at a local restaurant to watch broadcast of the devastation. He had previously warned government officials about the vulnerability of certain buildings in the quake-vulnerable zone, but to no avail. 

Now he knew that dams along the region's Minjiang River were in danger of collapsing, and if they did, several large hydropower stations along the river could be flooded and destroyed. He was already making arrangements to leave the next morning to conduct an investigation of the damage, but before he did he sent a text message to an influential friend who happens to be a former Vice General Secretary of the National People's Congress: turn off the hydro-power stations; watch for damage. 

Usually following the advice of environmental watchdogs would cost the government money, putting the kabosh on various money-making projects. But in this case, Yong's advice concerned how to save 30 billion RMB in state investments. 

And this time, his advice was followed. The next day, the government gave orders to release water from dams along the Minjiang River.  

Yong meanwhile continued on to the quake-stricken region, where he and a small band of fellow scientists tried to make sense of what to do next. Predictably, not all of their subsequent suggestions about rebuilding and conservation have been followed. But when Yong has information useful to the government that Beijing doesn’t have, at least he has an in. His next project is a study of glacier melt on the Tibetan-Qinghai plateau.

Data rockets across South Korea's broadband network at an average clip of 14.58 megabits per second. This makes the country's network the fastest of any in the world. (In comparison, the average American broadband connection chugs along at a sluggish 3.88 megabits per second, almost four times slower than what you'd find in Seoul.)

While South Koreans have been quick to embrace the many benefits fast broadband internet connections provide, increased use of a quicker, more efficient internet has brought with it new problems for South Korean society. Chief among such problems is an addiction to internet video games. According to a Washington Post article, in 2006, approximately 2.4 percent of 9 to 39-year-olds in South Korea suffered from full-blown addiction; another 10.2 percent were classified as borderline addicts.

Apparently the situation has only gotten worse. In 2005, a South Korean man died after a marathon 50-hour video game session, and in March, 2010, a South Korean couple allowed their three-month old baby to starve to death while they were occupied playing an on-line video game. In response, the Korean government has begun experimenting with a teenage video game curfew that will block young gamers' access to 20 different popular on-line role-playing games (RPGs) for 6 hours a day, every day.

Whatever happened to the good old days of underage drinking and loitering?