jingle jangle

The mall has seven zones modeled on international cities, nations and regions, including Amsterdam, Paris, Rome, Venice, Egypt, the Caribbean, and California. Features include an 25 metres (82 ft) replica of the Arc de Triomphe, a replica of Venice’s St Mark’s bell tower, a 2.1 kilometres (1.3 mi) canal with gondolas, and a 553-meter indoor-outdoor roller coaster.

Since its opening in 2005, the mall has suffered from a severe lack of occupants. Much of the retail space has remained empty, with over 99% of the stores vacant. The only occupied areas of the mall are near the entrance where several Western fast food chains are located and a parking structure repurposed as a kart racing track. A planned Shangri-La Hotel has not been constructed.

—http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_South_China_Mall

During the arrest, Shao Yuanchong (邵元冲 in Chinese), the incumbent minister of the propaganda department of the Kuomintang, died after he was hit in his testicles while attempting to climb over a fence. (Wikipedia: Xi’an Incident)

I have marked this in my bookmarks as “to-be-confirmed.”

The professor described a Sichuan teacher, Professor Hou Guangjun, who had designed research experiments in accordance with traditional practices, advocating “natural nonploughing” [ziran 1lliangeng} or “no till” agriculture. In the 1950s, after seeing his research plot in Yibin Prefecture, Changling County, a Party leader became convinced of the efficacy of his methods and gave him a large piece of low-yield land for his work. Yields rose through the no-till method. After the Leap began and his ideas became heresy, Hou escaped persecution only because he
had a political patron. The agriculture professor sighed at the lost opportunity:

“If Professor Hou’s methods had been adopted nationally, much wasted labor could have been avoided. The whole question of “taking grain as the key link” to raise agricultural yields could have been addressed in a more moderate way. Bur what leaders said counted, and what intellectuals said was ignored. We were targets for reform.”

Hou’s noninvasive approach, reminiscent of Daoist attitudes of oneness with nature and harmonious accommodation to its ways, was the very antithesis of the Leap’s coercive, labor-intensive interventionism.

—Judith Shapiro, Mao’s War Against Nature

Hu is weak at home…

I don’t think Hu is necessarily unpopular in China. He’s certainly respected more than beloved, which when compared to side by side to Wen Jiabao makes the contrast a bit starker perhaps. He’s definitely a solid technocrat and I don’t think I’ve ever seen him tied to corruption or scandal charges* the way Jiang and other past leaders were.

But Wen, now that’s a man the Chinese love. I remember during the Sichuan earthquake watching CCTVs wall to wall coverage . They broadcast over and over images of Wen wading into crowds of survivors and video of him directing the rescue efforts; in terms of political theater, it felt akin to Bush’s post-9/11 visit to Ground Zero (check out the bullhorn! [and here used as a prop ]), and definitely burnished his already well established reputation as a man of the people. That coupled with the fact that he looks like an adorable grandfather figure, well there you go, a the making of a popular politician.

But more interestingly is how he’s subtly pushing a “progressive” agenda within the CCP. He’s always been a pro-migrant, countryside guy, willing to stick up for less popular reforms (read: everything not related to economics), so his recent hints that China should at least consider political reform that he made in a CNN interview with Fareed Zakaria aren’t that shocking in a way— but still it takes some guts. There’s already been some pushback, but Wen is hugely popular and he’s survived this kind of thing before, so if anyone can influence political reform in China, he’s the man.

That’s my layman’s take on the topic anyway.

*His son, Hu Haifeng, known as the Teflon Princeling according to this Telegraph article (not quite the ring of Teflon Don…) was linked to a bribery scandal in Namibia. Looks like he’s escaped formal implication thus far.

(originally: http://www.metafilter.com/99724/A-little-apple-pie-goes-a-long-way#3475424)

If you’d really like some food for thought, focus on this bit of information pulled out by Andrew Batson at Real Time Economics—what could China buy with its more than $2 trillion in reserves?

• all the land and property in New York City, Los Angeles and Boston
• 73% of the market capitalization of the Dow Jones Industrial Average at the end of June
• 25% percent of the market capitalization of the S&P 500 at the end of June

http://www.economist.com/blogs/freeexchange/2009/07/what_city_shall_we_purchase_ne.cfm