A list of what the Wall Street Journal’s reporters in China are reading and watching online, periodically updated throughout the day. (NOTE: WSJ has not verified items in the ‘News’ section and does not vouch for their accuracy.) Last updated: 8:08 pm Beijing time.
News Items:
- A new report warns Chinese consumers not to buy cucumbers still bearing fresh flowers as they are loaded with hormones extracted from birth control pills. (Shanghai Daily, via Shanghaiist)
- Experts say better hearing and stronger hind legs could help pandas with breeding. (Xinhua)
- Newly released Wikileaks cables show the U.S. sizing up China’s next leader and China using it’s U.S. Treasury holdings to exert pressure on Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner and other U.S. officials. (Reuters)
- More on food safety: Merchants have been caught treating beef ligaments with formaldehyde and hydrogen peroxide to double their weight. (Shenyang Evening News via Danwei)
- Warren Buffet-invested Chinese automaker BYD announces it’s slashing prices. (Financial Times blog)
Fun With Numbers:
- Altantic guest blogger Damien Ma matches China’s wealthiest provinces with equivalent countries in terms of GDP.
- Fortune’s Finance blog juxtaposes a pair of charts to illustrate how most Chinese remain poor despite the country growing rich.
Web Watch:
- Fang Binxing, known as the “father of the Great Firewall,” tells Global Times he has up to six VPNs on his home computer to access the free Internet. “But I only try them to test which side wins: the GFW or VPN,” he says.
- As rumors swirl about a possible Facebook play for the China market, ZDNet notes that the number of Facebook users in China has septupled in the last month despite the social network being blocked by the Great Firewall.
- China Digital Times has published its latest compilation of Chinese censorship directives, including notices on abducted children, the sacking of China’s railway minister and the ever-sensitive topic of real estate regulation.
“Is China the Next Egypt?” Watch:
- Princeton’s Perry Link argues in the New York Review of Books that the protests in Egypt, Tunisia and elsewhere have “broadened the vision” of China’s democracy activists.
Just Because:
- How unpalatable? The Financial Times’ beyondbrics blog examines the viability of China’s infamous baijiu as an export product.
–compiled by Josh Chin. Follow him on Twitter @joshchin
@Larry King, @hanmeng, @Editor!: Typo has been fixed. Thanks for flagging, again. Just something irresistible about that apostrophe key this week…
Oh, those ‘it’s’ in place of ‘its’!
Too see this in the WSJ is disturbing. Please edit.
Gee, I wish Josh Chin knew the difference between “it’s” and “its”.
For @#!% sake, CRTR, the possessive is ITS, not “it’s”!! You did it twice. Come on!
Better, stronger hind legs have definitely helped me with breeding.
That’s some crazy creativity by Chinese farmers, injecting cukes with birth control hormones. Too bad no one will eat their produce now! There’s a limit to cheating and fakery.
I bought some baijiu in China but, having a gas stove, am afraid to open it.
Is WSJ becoming a tabloid?
Will the world end in 2012?
Elvis is spotted jogging with Bruce Lee in the USA?
Michael Jackson was abducted by Alien and a dead clone was left in his place?