Author: Jeremy Wallace
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More of the Same
The Wall Street Journal has two interesting stories related to China in the past week while contemplating its potential future under Rupert Murdoch. China Toils Over New Labor Law and What China 4000 Means Both have been 0ft-discussed here (I could link, but really, just scroll down a bit). These stories add two interesting tibits.…
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It Could Have Been a Brilliant Career
I follow sports. As I am someone interested in China, I have followed the Chinese sports establishment. As I am someone born and raised in Indiana, I love basketball. Thus, I am a fan of Yao Ming. Alas, the Houston Rockets (Yao’s team) disappointingly lost in the first round of the playoffs this past week.…
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Bubblicious
A new piece by the Economist on China’s stock market gets it. Tens of millions of Chinese are risking their shirts in a stockmarket frenzy. If it goes wrong, things could get nasty WOULD-BE share punters, keen for a piece of China’s booming stockmarket, are queuing to open accounts at a Beijing branch of China…
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The Personal in the Political
The following title from a NYT story turned my mind to a topic that political scientists tend to ignore. Turning Bush-Abe Alliance Into Friendship The story also uses the ubiquitous statement by Bush on Putin: “I looked the man in the eye,” Mr. Bush said then, adding, “I was able to get a sense of…
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Opaque Transparency Decision
Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao signed a regulation to improve government transparency on Tuesday. Various headlines about the move: Government-controlled China Daily:Statute to make government open, cleanWashington Post, 2007.04.24:China Announces Rules to Require Government DisclosuresNew York Times, 2007.04.25:China Sets Out to Cut Secrecy, but Laws Leave Big Loopholes This crux of the matter comes out at…
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Planning for a New Delhi
More than simply architectural, the plan is to transform vast slums into vertical apartment complexes. The difficulties India will face here are key to understanding why the PRC strictly controlled urbanization until recently. A Plan to Tame the Architectural Chaos of India’s Capital By 2021 the city’s population is expected to rise to 23 million…
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Arable Land Statistics
This CCTV story gives official arable land losses of 300,000+ hectares in 2006.* I question these statistics. The central government has made maintenance of arable land a priority a few years ago. The change in the numbers was immediate: subnational data that I have examined show a dramatic reduction in land losses. Two possible reasons:…
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Rags to Riches
Journalists: combining multiple threads of my interest is a nearly fool-proof way to make it onto this blog. Nearly is a necessary qualifier as you never know when I might be traveling for research or having family members join me for some fun. As Matthew left for the States a few days ago, I have…
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Will China’s Hot Growth Burn Us All?
Other title puns considered were: Toasting Chinese Growth until We Are Burned; Let Them Eat, But No More Coal…. Salon’s How the World Works and the FT.com both have mentions of China’s economic growth and increase in greenhouse gas emissions today, respectively here and here. As I have written below, I think that the developed…
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Gambling
Luckily there is no market for betting on how many times blogspot.com will be blocked and unblocked by China’s internet nanny. Two and a half weeks ago I said changes would be fewer than 2.5 times by July when I leave. Well, blogspot is open for business again, so my prediction is looking perilous.
Jeremy Wallace 