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In July, 2001, after arriving in Beijing, Adelson and Weidner saw Olympic banners flying along the streets. They soon learned that the country was waiting to find out whether it would be selected as the site for the 2008 Summer Games. In addition to seeing the Vice-Premier, Adelson and Weidner met with the mayor of Beijing, who asked Adelson for help with a matter pending in the U.S. House of Representatives, which he believed was threatening China’s chance to host the Olympics. (In the United States, China was widely perceived as the frontrunner, and it is not clear that Congress’s position would have had any impact on its chances.) Adelson said in court that he immediately made calls on his cell phone to Republican friends in Congress—including Tom DeLay, then the majority whip—who had received generous support from Adelson. DeLay told him that there was indeed a resolution pending about China and the Olympics. (Representative Tom Lantos, then the highest-ranking Democrat on the House International Relations Committee, had introduced a resolution opposing China’s Olympic bid, saying, “China’s abominable human rights record violates the spirit of the games and should disqualify Beijing from consideration.”)

Dr. Yu started his remarks by underlining how Hu Jintao, only a year after he was made vice-president, made his national debut in 1999 following the Belgrade bombing—at the height of anti-American protests—and urged for calm and reason from the angry mobs when then-President Jiang Zemin was at the height of his power. Hu’s show of grace, which stood in strong contrast to the often crass measures descriptive of Jiang’s leadership, has led some notable China watchers to predict that Hu is a visionary leader. However, Dr. Yu argues that Hu is not visionary, and the hysteria against the Dalai Lama is an example of Hu’s pedantry of the traditional Chinese political psyche.

The number of Internet users in China hit 228.5 million in March -- for the first time surpassing the number of users in the United States, 217.1 million, according to the Beijing-based research firm BDA China.

Central bank purchases of traditional reserve assets still dwarf sovereign wealth fund purchases of riskier assets -- as well as central bank purchases of equities. But over time, it is reasonable to expect that many over-reserved sovereigns will diversify their portfolios. The recent decision to increase the share of the CIC's initial $205-210 billion in capital that it can invest abroad and SAFE's increased willingness to purchase equities as well as bonds are examples.

A far more challenging issue is how the huge increase in financial assets managed by potentially non-economic agents will affect the efficiency of the global capital market and the allocation of risk and resources. ….

And then there is China. China enormous foreign asset growth in the first quarter implies that it might be able to add more to its reserves and sovereign fund in 2008 than all the oil-exporters combined even if oil stays at its current levels.

其实无数中国人的意识中间还是有那么多思维定势。虽然越来越多人的头脑已经很开放，却也无法摆脱这种定势的影子。来源自教育，来源自媒体的轰炸，也来源自心底那些尚未设定的信念，或者难以实现的分享主义自由状态。其实民主绝不是洪水，却可能是猛兽，但是猛兽可以进化。

中国需要2.0，中国的经济总量增加到如今的地步得益于多样性的产能和输出渠道，却无法继续还靠这种模式腾飞起来。

选举就是一种群体智能的形式，结果自身也在迭代的进化中，关键是开关要打开，否则就永远不知道智慧的世界在哪里？

As the world’s attention turns to Buddhist protests against Chinese rule and cultural domination in Tibet, another neighbor of China is protesting in a less peaceful manner. In Mongolia, anti-Chinese sentiment has taken a nasty turn. The neo-Nazi group Blue Mongolia, for example, shaves the heads of women caught sleeping with Chinese men. “It is for their own good,” says Gansuren Damdinsuren, a Blue Mongolia board member.  “A small nation can only survive by keeping its blood pure.”

I will never forget my first visit, in 2003, to the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences (CASS) in Beijing. I was welcomed by Wang Luolin, the academy's vice-president, whose grandfather had translated Marx's Das Kapital into Chinese, and Huang Ping, a former Red Guard. Sitting in oversized armchairs, we sipped ceremonial tea and introduced ourselves. Wang Luolin nodded politely and smiled, then told me that his academy had 50 research centres covering 260 disciplines with 4,000 full-time researchers. As he said this, I could feel myself shrink into the seams of my vast chair: Britain's entire think tank community is numbered in the hundreds, Europe's in the low thousands; even the think-tank heaven of the US cannot have more than 10,000. But here in China, a single institution—and there are another dozen or so think tanks in Beijing alone—had 4,000 researchers. Admittedly, the people at CASS think that many of the researchers are not up to scratch, but the raw figures were enough.

China, according to the new political thinkers, will do things the other way around: using elections in the margins but making public consultations, expert meetings and surveys a central part of decision-making. This idea was described pithily by Fang Ning, a political scientist at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences. He compared democracy in the west to a fixed-menu restaurant where customers can select the identity of their chef, but have no say in what dishes he chooses to cook for them. Chinese democracy, on the other hand, always involves the same chef—the Communist party—but the policy dishes which are served up can be chosen "à la carte."

This lack of freedom stunts any real debate on the future of China. Thinking is still circumscribed. There are areas that are still taboo or where intellectuals can only hint at what they mean. In three vital spheres, this is deeply damaging to China’s national interest. The first is foreign policy. China has evolved in less than a generation into a world power, one now placed alongside America in a newly minted category of G2. But the country is uncertain how to exercise this power. And as long as the party restricts the debate to a known ideological framework, it cannot mobilise China’s vast intellectual capabilities to address this. The second area, intellectual property, is equally damaged. As long as there is no real freedom to question the foundations of society, China will not produce innovators. It will be able to copy and develop, but not to outstrip competitors and set the framework for the world. And the third area is the legitimate assertion of religious and regional identities alongside Chinese citizenship.

Message on the Twentieth Anniversary of Tiananmen SquareHillary Rodham Clinton Secretary of State Washington, DC June 3, 2009On this the 20th anniversary of the violent suppression of demonstrations in Tiananmen Square by Chinese authorities, we should remember the tragic loss of hundreds of innocent lives and reflect upon the meaning of the events that preceded that day. Hundreds of thousands of protesters took to the streets for weeks, in Beijing and around the country, first to honor the late reformist leader Hu Yaobang and then to demand basic rights denied to them.A China that has made enormous progress economically, and that is emerging to take its rightful place in global leadership, should examine openly the darker events of its past and provide a public accounting of those killed, detained or missing, both to learn and to heal. This anniversary provides an opportunity for Chinese authorities to release from prison all those still serving sentences in connection with the events surrounding June 4, 1989. We urge China to cease the harassment of participants in the demonstrations and begin dialogue with the family members of victims, including the Tiananmen Mothers. China can honor the memory of that day by moving to give the rule of law, protection of internationally-recognized human rights, and democratic development the same priority as it has given to economic reform.

I can read Wikipedia, but I heard from other people it's hit & miss. I had no problem with porn sites though. I always thought this censoring by Chinese government is really stupid. Today I read a excellent column on NY Times by World-is-flat author Tom Friedman, towards the end of the article, it struck a chord with me:

For the benefit of the China and Chinese people's future, Mr. Hu, Tear down this great fire-wall. (tear down this wall). 胡哥, 这墙拆了得了.

China seems to have lost its stomach for these tiffs lately.

Rebecca McKinnon reports on 27 year-old blogger Zhou Shuguang, aka "Zola," whom the Chinese government have banned from leaving the country as a "potential threat to state security." Snip:

How can official China possibly do such a clumsy and self-defeating job of presenting itself to the world? China, like any big, complex country, is a mixture of goods and bads. But I have rarely seen a governing and “communications” structure as consistent in hiding the good sides and highlighting the bad.

Australia and Canada got up early to be at the front of the line, and both expressed concerns about the Chinese government's human rights record. The UK and other European governments expressed concern later on. But voices of praise for the Chinese government's human rights record predominated. Overall, the session was considered a victory for the Chinese government's position that it is on the right track when it comes to respecting the rights of its people. Where was the U.S. delegation in this line? U.S. diplomats made no attempt to stand in this line. Much to the outrage of human rights groups, the Obama administration chose to merely sit on the sidelines and quietly take notes.

Hu Jia (China; December, 2007): “For posting his vocal critiques of human rights abuses and environmental degradation in China and calling the Olympics a ‘human rights disaster.’”