The editor of one of China's most independent newspapers is being punished for an interview with visiting President Barack Obama:

Xiang Xi, the top editor of the Southern Weekend weekly newspaper who interviewed Obama during his visit to China in mid-November, has been named as "executive" editor-in-chief and placed under a new top editor this week after pressure from the ruling Communist Party's propaganda department, said three employees of the paper.

They all requested anonymity, saying they feared punishment for speaking about the move, which has also been discussed on Chinese-language Internet sites.

Xiang's demotion could revive debate in Washington about the impact of Obama's visit. It underscored the contention between Washington and Beijing over censorship and access during Obama's visit, when U.S. officials' pressed for opportunities for him to speak directly to the Chinese public.

"The propaganda department was certainly unhappy about the interview," said Michael Anti, a Chinese blogger and media commentator based in Beijing who follows censorship.

The White House had specifically requested an interview with the paper, which is known for its investigative reports on social problems and official corruption. They got the okay from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, but apparently not the Party Propaganda Department, which forced the paper to cut most of the interview, leaving a blank space on their front page.

None of the articles I've read have suggested what Obama might have said in the interview to draw the censors' ire. 

While speaking to Chinese university students during his trip to China in November, the president declared himself a "big believer in openness when it comes to the flow of information." Ironically, that event was also partially censored after Chiense authorities denied the White House request that it be broadcast nationwide. 

This afternoon in Shanghai, U.S. President Barack Obama held a townhall-style meeting with university students. It was an event that his staff had worked hard to include on his China trip itinerary. After a brief speech extolling the importance of core values to the success of the United States as a nation and Americans as individuals, Obama took questions from the audience and online.

It has since come to light that not all of the questions came from bonafide students. One questioner was a vice director of daily affairs for the Communist Youth League; another was a young-looking teacher. Obama's answers about Internet freedom weren't heard by most remote audiences because several networks, including CNN, mysteriously cut away for commentary at that moment. The response among expats in China was, by and large, negative -- with many complaining Obama had minced his words, talking for instance of "universal rights" rather than "human rights." If one is looking to be cynical, there's plenty of fodder.

On the other hand, from the point of view of most Chinese I've spoken, these official efforts at censorship might have been silly, or nefarious, but they didn't have much impact. The notion of a president taking questions, not a frequent occurrence in China, was itself the point. The symbolism was more arresting, to them, than the content. "Why does he want to talk to Chinese students?" one 29-year-old Chinese woman asked me, without irony. She was puzzled, impressed, and a bit amused at the spectacle. 

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Say what you will about Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao, the man does not want to mislead the public about rocks. Grandpa Wen wrote this self-correcting letter to Xinhua this week:

In my article "Teachers Are the Pillars of Our Education," which was published by your agency yesterday, the categories of petrology ought to be "sedimentary, igneous, and metamorphic". I wish to make this correction and to express my apologies to all readers.

Wen had originally written "volcanic" instead of "metamorphic". Danwei.org's Eric Mu writes:

Needless to say, the apology burnishes the established reputation of Wen as a humble, down-to-earth, grandfatherly leader, even if, as a graduate of the Beijing Institute of Geology, he really ought to have known such basic information.

I can think of a few things I'd rather the Chinese premier apologize for, but I guess this is a start. 

Last week, the Hurun Report released the top two on its 2009 China rich list, a ranking of the wealthiest people on the mainland: Wang Chuanfu at $5.1 billion, whose company makes electric cars and batteries, and Zhang Yin at $4.9 billion, whose company produces recycled paper products. The rest of the list comes out this month.

A few things about these two titans and the rich list and its older versions interested me. First, as the United States' billionaires are getting fewer and poorer, China's are getting more plentiful and richer. There are now 131 dollar billionaires in China -- compared with around 350 in the United States.

Second, an exceedingly obvious point but one to marvel at: Rich people in China own companies which make things. The country remains the organ that produces the world's stuff -- batteries, cars, paper, widgets, tires, you name it. And these companies remain relatively undiversified, vertically, not horizontally. One member of the rich list, for instance, owns a company that produces pig feed. 20 years from now, he might own a conglomerate that makes pig feed, feeds it to pigs, slaughters them, and sells the meat. Then, 20 years from then, he might own a holding company which subcontracts out all of those functions to workers and producers in cheaper markets.

In contrast, the 10 richest people in the United States (in descending order: Bill Gates, Warren Buffet, Larry Ellison, assorted Waltons, Michael Bloomberg, and Charles and David Koch) run diversified companies which trade in finance, technology, information, and real estate.

I also took a bit of interest in the producer of the Hurun Report -- one Rupert Hoogewerf. He's a Luxembourgian alumnus of the accounting firm Arthur Andersen who produced Forbes' China rich list between 1999 and 2003. At that point, it seems that Forbes fired him, possibly due to "public doubts and questions of the accuracy and authority of the wealth ranking year after year," according to state paper China Daily. It added: "It is understood that he received no compensation settlement from Forbes."

The official line is that Forbes simply decided to have a Shanghai editor manage the production of the list. But I like the idea of list-maker Hoogewerf going rogue. Does make you wonder about the accuracy of those lists, though...

On the day of China's big 60th anniversary parade, the Beijing sky was bright blue -- thanks to some strategic short-term factory shut-downs and and a fleet of 18 aircraft equipped with rain-clouds disperal chemicals. The female militia units, clad in red mini-skirts and go-go style white boots, goose-stepped to perfection. The procession of nuclear missiles, some capable of striking Washington, went off without a hitch. China sure can put on a stellar parade.

And President Hu Jintao's ten minutes speech .... yawn. He gave no clues as to new directions or aspirations for the country, the economic or environmental crossroads China now finds itself at, his proposed solutions or looming questions. Riveting excerpts include:

The development and progress of New China over the past 60 years fully proved that only socialism can save China and only reform and opening up can ensure the development of China, socialism and Marxism ...Today, a socialist China geared to modernization, the world and the future has stood rock-firm in the east of the world."

It might seem odd to American audiences that Beijing's political elite would put more apparent energy into enforcing a pigeon ban within a 125-mile radius of Tiananmen Square, than into prepping the Chinese president for his 10 minutes in the global spotlight -- a chance to make a big statement about China's place in the world at this significant milestone. 

At Washington Monthly magazine, where I previously worked as an editor, my boss was Paul Glastris, a former speechwriter for Bill Clinton. After every State of the Union Address, a swarm of foreign news outlets, such as the BBC, would call him to dissect the meaning of particular presidential turns of phrases, exploring how each speech measured up in the canon of great presidential oratory.

But expectations are radically different in China. One of the results of a political system that doesn't hold elections is that its political leaders aren't required to kiss babies, craft compelling personal narratives, or learn how to inspire the public with speechs that exhalt the spirit or signal new directions for the country.

In a sense, public speeches in China are a bit like Madlibs; the major nouns (dates, names, countries) are duly swapped out, but the essential structure and enduring slogans remain the same.

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After a slate of big speeches yesterday at the U.N. climate summit in New York, the jury is still divided on how significant the new carbon mitigation steps announced by China, India, Japan, and other countries are. (There's even a range of opinions on this site. But there seems to be a growing consensus on one thing: the US is increasingly seen as falling behind, isolated.

Funny that, in China, they saw this coming. This summer in Beijing, I spoke with one of the leading private-sector Chinese energy analysts, someone present at the last big round of climate negotiations held in Bonn. In between meetings, he and some of his colleagues had joked about something they called the "Chinese conspiracy." The gist was, as he put it, to view future climate talks as "an opportunity" and "to keep America off the table at Copenhagen."

He was kidding, of course, and even were he serious, he wouldn't have been speaking for the government. But as it happens, something like that scenario may be unfolding.

In the final weeks before Copenhagen, several countries, including China, are rushing to claim the mantle of leadership, to define what "success" means, and to offer their own proposals. At a press conference this morning in Washington, the director general of climate change for Mexico's ministry of the environment was talking about his country's proposal for the architecture of a redistributive "green fund," which would collect money from the world's economic leaders and then steer money toward green-friendly development in poorer countries. Next up, rumors are swirling of a coalition of Latin American countries preparing to offer their own pre-Copenhagen proposals.

Danwei.org shares this pretty adorable video from the Chinese newspaper Southern Metropolis Daily showing schoolchildren returning to class on the first day of the term. The reporter asks the children what they want to be when they grow up and most give standard answers like fireman or pilot. Around 1:55, though, one little girl goes a little off-script:

“I want to be an official”
?Reporter:] “What kind of official?”
“A corrupt official, because corrupt officials have a lot of things.”

A disturbing report from The Telegraph suggests that China may soon cut off the world's supply of the metals needed for many modern electronics:

A draft report by China’s Ministry of Industry and Information Technology has called for a total ban on foreign shipments of terbium, dysprosium, yttrium, thulium, and lutetium. Other metals such as neodymium, europium, cerium, and lanthanum will be restricted to a combined export quota of 35,000 tonnes a year, far below global needs.

China mines over 95pc of the world’s rare earth minerals, mostly in Inner Mongolia. The move to hoard reserves is the clearest sign to date that the global struggle for diminishing resources is shifting into a new phase. Countries may find it hard to obtain key materials at any price.[...]

New technologies have since increased the value and strategic importance of these metals, but it will take years for fresh supply to come on stream from deposits in Australia, North America, and South Africa. The rare earth family are hard to find, and harder to extract.

 Danger Room's Nathan Hodge comments:

[I]t’s a reminder of the role that strategic resources play, especially for the high-tech military of the United States. [...]

Of course, China is not the only country that’s figuring out how to play the mineral wealth hand in geopolitics. For several years now, Russia has used natural gas supply as a way to exert less-than-subtle pressure on its neighbors. Energy, the Kremlin found, is a more effective instrument than an aging nuclear weapons stockpile: You can actually turn the gas taps off when you feel like punishing someone.

As an old piece of wisdom from Strategic Air Command put it: “When you have them by the balls, their hearts and minds will follow.”

The Financial Times reports that an essay posted on a Chinese defense Website caused some controversy in India during recent Beijing-New Dehli border talks:

“China can dismember the so-called ‘Indian Union’ with one little move!” claimed the essay posted last week on China International Strategy Net, a patriotic website focused on strategic issues. The writer, under the pseudonym Zhanlue (strategy in Chinese), argued that India’s sense of national unity was weak and Beijing’s best option to remove an emerging rival and security threat would be to support separatist forces, like those in Assam, to bring about a collapse of the Indian federal state.

“There cannot be two suns in the sky,” wrote Zhanlue. “China and India cannot really deal with each other harmoniously.” The article suggested that India should be divided into 20 to 30 sovereign states.

Such was the outcry about the article that the Indian government issued a statement reassuring the country that relations with China were calm.

“The article in question appears to be an expression of individual opinion and does not accord with the officially stated position of China on India-China relations conveyed to us on several occasions, including at the highest level, most recently by State Councillor Dai Bingguo during his visit to India last week,” the foreign ministry in New Delhi said in a statement, referring to mutual pledges to respect territorial integrity and sovereignty. [...]

DS Rajan, director of the Chennai Centre for China Studies, brought the essay to his countrymen’s attention. “It has generally been seen that China is speaking in two voices,” he said. “Its diplomatic interlocutors have always shown understanding during their dealings with their Indian counterparts, but its selected media is pouring venom on India in their reporting.”

According to Jeremy Goldkorn of Danwei.org, the essay has actually been floating around the Chinese blogosphere in various forms since at least 2005, a fact not mentioned in the FT article or, presumably, by Rajan.

It seems odd at first that one essay on a nationalist Website could cause such an uproar. (Imagine if someone tried a draw conclusions about U.S. foreign policy from a glance at, say, WorldNetDaily.) But given the extent to which the Chinese government censors content it doesn't approve of online, they can hardly complain when articles that do appear on the Chinese Internet are assumed to have tacit government approval. 

Beijing appears to be following the Kremlin's lead in a campaign to sever NGO's from foreign sources of funding. The Christian Science Monitor reports:

It began with a tax notice for $200,000. Three days later, on July 17, officials raided the group's Beijing office and seized its computers. Then, just before dawn on July 29, police detained its founder, Xu Zhiyong at his home

On the same day, government officials went to the office of Yi Ren Ping, another nongovernmental organization, and confiscated copies of its newsletter on the grounds that it didn't have a publishing license.[...] The two NGOs are among a growing number here using the law to hold authorities to account on issues such as food safety, patient rights, and illegal detention.

But they share another common thread: Both received grants from American and other foreign donors. The tax fine for Open Constitution Initiative, the group headed by Mr. Xu, was assessed largely on a donation from Yale Law School. Xu, a lawyer and elected legislator, is being detained on suspicion of tax evasion, according to an OCI official.

The harassment of these and other foreign-funded NGOs in Beijing has raised fears of a Russian-style squeeze on civil society. Since 2006, Russia has stripped the tax-free status of many foreign foundations and forced NGOs to report their activities in exhaustive detail, while accusing foreign-funded human rights groups of being Trojan horses for Western powers. It recently amended its NGO law, easing some of these controls.

Two days ago, the Chinese government expressed "strong dissatisfaction" with the visit of exiled Uighur activist Rebiya Kadeer to Japan. The Japanese government (whose record on Chinese human rights issues is not particulary strong) chose to let the visit go ahead anyways, despite China's assertions that Kadeer helped spark the riots in Urumqi earlier this month (an accusation Kadeer has denied).

What China probably feared most has happened: Kadeer said today in Tokyo that "The nearly 10,000 (Uighur) people who were at the protest, they disappeared from Urumqi in one night." Kadeer called for an internation investigation to uncover more about the riots. China claims that 197 people died in the riots, with a further 1,000 detained.

While China's attempts to pressure other countries (and a movie festival in Australia) over the Uighurs have been pathetic, one point should be made in its favor: the Western media response has been rather curious - numerous publications are carrying the quotes, but none that I've seen mention any further proof, even from Kadeer herself, whereas the AP account before her visit to Japan noted that "China has not provided evidence" of Kadeer's alleged role in the riots. This is not to question Kadeer's account (China's reputation for forging the facts when advantageous is well-established), but to ask: why merely repeat her words? 10,000 people in one night is a serious accusation by any country's standards, and similar claims about other countries would not (and do not) get the same benefit of the doubt. 

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China's Economic Observer has put together the following map of overseas expansion by China's big three oil giants, CNOOC, CNPC, and Sinopec. Click through for the interactive version.

Notably absent from this map is Sudan, where CNPC has extensive and very controversial holdings. 

In the last two weeks, two senior Chinese officials have been hospitalized for binge drinking, one of them fatally:

Jin Guoqing, a district deputy director of water resources in Wuhan, the capital of central Hubei province, fell unconscious while entertaining guests at an official banquet last week and died on the way to the hospital, the official China Daily said.

Hospital records indicated the 47-year-old's excessive drinking triggered a fatal heart attack, the English-language newspaper said.

Also last week, Lu Yanpeng, a district chief in southern Guangdong province, fell into a coma after drinking heavily while having dinner with a local Communist Party chief. Lu was rushed to a hospital, where he remains unconscious, the paper said.

"Drinking with official guests or other officials at alcohol-soaked events is considered part of the job," Professor Li Changyan of Peking University was quoted as saying. Li said banquets are a mandatory exercise in welcoming VIPs and are usually covered by government funds. 

I'd be curious to see some data -- though I suspect it would be near impossible to come by -- on the relationship between quality of governance and alchoholism among government officials. The fact that this level of excess is tolerated -- and in some cases even encouraged -- is not a promising sign for the Communist Party's professionalism.

Yeah, "electro-convulsive therapy" doesn't quite sit well with me, either:

China's ministry of health has banned the use of electric shock treatment to cure internet addiction. [...]

An earlier report by the Information Times claimed patients received electroconvulsive therapy if they broke any of the centre's rules, which included eating chocolate, locking the bathroom door, taking pills before a meal and sitting on Yang's chair without permission. It said parents had to sign a contract acknowledging their child would be given ECT before admission.

Seems like this Yang fellow was on something of a power trip (no pun intended). Does this make for two cases in which Beijing's intervention was a good thing?

I suppose not abusing one's patients is a step forward, of sorts.

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