I’ve been enjoying this new site which has aspirations of becoming what Living in China used to be – the Chinese blogosphere’s water cooler, where many of us used to hang out to enjoy the convenience of a comprehensive blog aggregator bringing us the lastest posts as they came in. It’s still in beta stage and there are some bugs to be ironed out, but it definitely has promise. I suggest you register your own blog there and take a look at how it works.

In the words of the site creator: “The Chinalyst is an informal community for China related English-language blogging. The goals of the community are to encourage the growth and development of English content about China and to serve as a platform for finding and discussing up-to-date China related information and news.
In order to achieve these goals, Chinalyst provides a steady stream of updates from member blogs writing about China, and community members are invited to read, comment, rate and discuss blogs content and related issues.
The Chinalyst is an equal opportunity community with no overarching agenda. All political leanings and viewpoints are welcome. Our mission is also yours if you choose to accept it. Chinalyst is an open community welcoming all China-related blogs and all interested readers.”

Let’s hope it takes off as intended.

In an article appropriately titled Broken China, guest writer James Grant paints one of the funniest and saddest portraits of China’s banking industry you’re ever likely to read. Here’s how it starts.

Out of a population of 1.3 billion, there must be one honest Chinese citizen. It defies belief that there wouldn’t be. Yet this singular uncorrupted individual is making himself scarce. Scandal chases scandal in the People’s Republic. Misdeeds seem especially prevalent in the bustling city of Shanghai, where a dustup surrounding the alleged misappropriation of assets from the $1 billion city pension fund has led to the forced resignation of three senior executives at the Shanghai Electric Group. And the Shanghai branch of Huaxia Bank has been exposed by a government audit in a scheme to underreport its nonperforming loans, according to Chinese news reports.

But the Chinese press, though sometimes damning, is sweetness and light compared with Chinese prospectuses. Tales of bribery and embezzlement fill the “risk factors” section of the offering documents of the big Chinese banks. You’d swear you were reading the Shanghai police blotter. Insofar as the world depends on China’s growth, the state of the Chinese banking system is the world’s problem.

There is a lot to laugh about in this story, especially Gran’t quotations from some of the big banks’ prospectuses, which blandly note the crimes for which their former executives were fired and/or arrested (“Mr. Wang Xuebing, our former chairman and president and the former general manager of our New York branch, was convicted of accepting over 1 million renminbi…”). Only in China. The Wild, Wild East indeed. This is great reading, but it’s another of those stories where you keep having to wonder whether or not it’s satire.

Via this blog, via this site.

You have to see it to believe it.

This is the official list, with pictures. I report, you decide.

This time, the breadth and depth of her hypocrisy is truly astounding. Suddenly she’s willing to give 100 percent of the benefit of the doubt to convicted terrorists – just so long as they are Christians. When it’s Moslems we’re talking about, arresting them illegally, torturing them and generally treating them as swine is just fine with Ms. Malkin-Belsen. Greenwald’s post, which is spreading rapidly through the blogs, is a classic.

[UPDATE: Live-blogging the Thai military’s coup, complete with great photos and on-the-street interviews. Go there.]

I’ll be back in Thailand in three week with my family, so this story certainly caught my eye. We’ve all heard about it by now, and all I can say is that I’m amazed.

In Thailand’s first coup in 15 years, military leaders seized control of Bangkok on Tuesday night, suspended the Constitution and declared martial law in the capital, effective immediately.

There were no reports of violence.

The moves came while Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra was in New York preparing to address the United Nations. He declared a state of emergency on Thai television, but was cut off in mid-speech. Later, he canceled his address to the General Assembly.

The coup, led by the army chief, Gen. Sondhi Boonyaratkalin, also ‘terminated’ both houses of Parliament, the cabinet and the Constitutional Court.

The events on Tuesday returned Thailand to a time that most experts here thought was finally past, raising questions about the future of Thai democracy and the stability of a country that is a prime tourist destination with strong economic links to the West.

The coup came at the height of a drawn-out political crisis. In April, Mr. Thaksin was forced by huge street protests to step aside despite an overwhelming electoral mandate. In fact, though, he continued to lead the government and to wage political battles against his opponents.

I never liked Thaksin, and while I’m not sorry to see him ousted, it’s never a good thing to see a democracy in peril. (Thaksin of course ignored the democracy, continuing to rule after he was voted out.) Where this will lead is anyone’s guess, and I suspect all eyes will soon be on the king, whom the Thai people adore with a religious fervor. Small wonder the first thing the army did was swear its allegiance to him. This will be one to watch closely.

Now this is an odd one. Here is the entire short piece.

Chinese authorities have shut down an online survey that found most respondents would prefer a different nationality if they were born again. According to the South China Morning Post, two editors of the host website, NetEase, have also been fired in the past few days, prompting speculation that they have been punished for organising the poll.

Electronic surveys are popular in China, but while the authorities tolerate voting for TV pop idols they are uneasy about polls on sensitive political subjects. This did not deter NetEase, which asked readers of its 163.com game site: “Would you like to be Chinese if you had a second life?”

The survey was supposed to run until the second week of October, but it has closed and news editor Tang Yan and opinion editor Liu Xianghui have been sacked. NetEase declined to answer The Guardian’s request for an explanation.

At least two blogs, however, claim to have maintained a record of the results. If correct, they suggest greater insecurity about national identity than is usually reported. Of the more than 10,000 respondents, 64% said they would not want to be Chinese if they were reincarnated. The main reason, given by almost 40% of the respondents, was that Chinese citizens lacked human dignity. Among those who wanted to keep Chinese nationality in a future life, the main reason was love of the country, given by 19% of the total.

I’m trying to find more information on this and hope to expand this post later in the day. Based on the above, it sounds like more of the same: you craft the news to support the party line and make China look good, and if you do otherwise by telling the truth you can lose your job or worse. Nothing new there, but the suppressed results of the survey are definitely intriguing. But not really so surprising.

Thanks to the reader who flagged this for me.

Never liked them. Never will.

Infuriating. Punishing Americans and the environment for the sake of “protecting” our farmers. Money quote: “Yes, you read all this right. We tax imported sugar ethanol, which could finance our poor friends, but we don’t tax imported crude oil, which definitely finances our rich enemies. We’d rather power anti-Americans with our energy purchases than promote antipoverty.”

Dumb as We Wanna Be
By THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN
Published: September 20, 2006

I asked Dr. Jose Goldemberg, secretary for the environment for Sao Paulo State and a pioneer of Brazil’s ethanol industry, the obvious question: Is the fact that the U.S. has imposed a 54-cents-a-gallon tariff to prevent Americans from importing sugar ethanol from Brazil ‘just stupid or really stupid.’

(more…)

I’ve been called names, but this is a new first.

I graciously accept the designation; if Chinese politics and human rights issues don’t make you angry, what will?