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International Law

China Hearsay

Commentary and analysis of law and business in China.
By Stan Abrams

Post Frequency: 8.4/day

Last Entry: May 03, 2010 at 11:04:24

Chemical Plant Protest Gets Some Results

Posted on August 02, 2009
Last Friday’s satirical post notwithstanding, I have been interested to see whether the folks in Hunan protesting against the actions of a chemical plant will be successful. As of today, it looks like some movement from the government: Authorities in central China suspended two environment officials and detained a chemical plant boss after hundreds of residents protested, [...

China Foreign Investment Advice: When In Doubt, Use Common Sense

Posted on August 02, 2009
For the past several days, I’ve been reading columns and blog posts commenting on one of the usual “China business horror story” articles, this time from the FT. I wasn’t going to write about it because there is nothing at all new or interesting in the original article, although I suppose the story is amusing as [...

Economist: Why Don?t More Chinese Support Torture?

Posted on August 01, 2009
From The Economist: Opinions on whether the use of torture should be prohibited appear to vary widely around the world. According to opinion polls conducted early in 2008 respondents in western European democracies such as Britain and Spain were most hostile to the idea of even some degree of use of torture, whereas residents in big [...

US Professor Convicted of Sharing Secrets With Chinese

Posted on August 01, 2009
This kind of story makes for great headlines, but once you dig in to the details, it becomes quite obvious that this was not an espionage case, the professor was not selling defense secrets, etc. In fact, the more I read about the case, the more sympathetic I become...

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US-China Trade Friction Turns Into Food Fight

Posted on August 01, 2009
Yes, get ready for food-related issues to come to the fore over the next several months. First, we’ve got both sides engaged in a cock fight — that is, a WTO dispute over Chinese chicken exports: China on Monday formally requested the World Trade Organization (WTO) to set up an expert panel to investigate and rule whether [...

Shocking Transcript Released of Hunan Chemical Factory Protest

Posted on July 31, 2009
More than 1,000 people protested for a second day in central China on Thursday over pollution from a chemical plant that they say has sickened locals and poisoned surrounding farmlands, residents said. Residents of the town of Zhentou in Hunan province demonstrated outside local government headquarters and a police station, demanding greater compensation for pollution from [...

Environmental Litigation in China: A Glimpse of the Future?

Posted on July 31, 2009
China is set to see its first lawsuit by an environmental interest group against a government department within a month, a local judge said Thursday. On Tuesday, Qingzhen municipal people’s court in Guizhou province accepted the suit by the All-China Environment Federation, an interest group under the Ministry of Environmental Protection...

China Worried About Abortion Rate

Posted on July 30, 2009
From a China Daily report (h/t WSJ): At least 13 million abortions take place each year in China, compared to 20 million births. A report in the China Daily notes the high rate of abortion and flags it as a cause for concern in a rare critique of the prevalence of abortion in China, where it is [...

China Econ Update - Small Sigh of Relief

Posted on July 30, 2009
Yesterday’s big news was that the stock market tanked and the government announced tighter lending. This made me happy. No, I’m not one of those people sitting around waiting for an economic disaster so I can sit back and watch the lovely chaos that ensues (e...

China Patent Porn from Tencent

Posted on July 30, 2009
From JLM: A Tencent executive said that the company holds 400 patents, International Finance News reported July 28. Tencent research and development department’s Patent Team Director Wang Huotao told the paper that more than 50% of Tencent employees are engaged in research and development...

More China Scare Tactics From the American Right

Posted on July 29, 2009
For years it’s been a closely held secret: The People’s Republic of China is an empire desperately trying to make the world think it’s a state. –Charles Hill, Hoover Institution (writing in Forbes) All I really need to say is that this guy is a douchebag, but I suppose that is already apparent from the above quote...

AmCham, Tell Us Something We Don?t Know

Posted on July 28, 2009
Foreign companies should view China more as a competitive manufacturing base and as a hub for an Asian growth strategy and less as a low-cost provider of labor and resources, the American Chamber of Commerce in Shanghai said in a latest survey. It suggested that foreign manufacturers in China develop a strategy to capitalize on the [...

The Coming US-China War, and the People Working to Make It Inevitable

Posted on July 28, 2009
Old subject, but I can’t resist sharing this batshit crazy language from U.S. Senator John Cornyn (R-Texas). Cornyn got into a little trouble a couple days ago for saying that the U.S. needed to continue funding a certain fighter jet for the coming conflict with ...

China Bans Online Mafia Games

Posted on July 28, 2009
On Monday, the Ministry of Culture issued a notice banning online games that feature Mafioso kingpins, marauding street gangs or any sort of hooliganism predisposed to organization. Such games, the ministry said, ?embody antisocial behavior like killing, beating, looting and raping? and ?gravely threatens and distorts the social order and moral standards, easily putting young people [...

US-China S&ED - Confusing Talk About IP and Greentech

Posted on July 28, 2009
I approach this topic with some trepidation as I am neither an expert in environmental matters nor government procurement rules. That said, Charlie had an interesting post today at CEL regarding the ongoing bilateral talks in D.C. There has been some speculation as to the meaning of some of Obama’s comments to the delegation, including this [...

China Growth, Decoupling, and Dishonest Economists

Posted on July 27, 2009
Big subject, but only a small point I want to make about the misuse of statistics. First, a debate has raged on for years about globalization, interdependence, and whether developing countries are so reliant on export markets that they are stuck with whatever business cycle problems afflict the developed world...

Copyright Infringement and the End of the World

Posted on July 27, 2009
OK, perhaps copyright infringement has nothing to do with the end of the world. You can’t blame me for conflating these two disparate things, though. The entertainment industry and their friends in the news media (part of the entertainment industry of course) are doing everything they can to show us how ruthless, evil, murderous and [...

And The Video Wars Go On

Posted on July 27, 2009
Yeah, I’m still here, enjoying the Summer doldrums and the lack of anything remotely interesting on the China beat. But life goes on, and the longstanding fight over video sharing sites and enterprise liability continues to heat up. Remember what’s at issue here...

China?s Foreign Film Quotas Actually Too Generous

Posted on July 22, 2009
A 14-year-old boy in China’s Sichuan Province has been drinking gasoline to become a ‘valiant fighter’ like his hero Optimus Prime in the movie ‘Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen’. That’s the problem with these transformer things...

China Judicial Survey and the Dangers of Snapshots

Posted on July 22, 2009
A Xinhua survey published yesterday found that 14 out of 30 provincial chief justices have had no legal training. Of the judges surveyed, fourteen possessed no prior legal training or had previously worked in China?s court system prior to their appointments...

Australian Gov?t Looks Like A Bunch of Petulant Xenophobes

Posted on July 21, 2009
As an American, I am more than familiar with xenophobic rhetoric. I know it when I see it, and when I see it, it makes me ill. The recent arrest of executives from Australian mining giant Rio Tinto has caused quite a stir in the foreign investment community, diplomatic circles, etc...

China?s GOP Going Strong in 2009

Posted on July 21, 2009
Slightly misleading post title. There are two reasons for this: There is absolutely no substantive news out there at the moment, and I’m reduced to petty tricks to draw in readers. Misleading people is fun. Seriously, outside feels like an oven, lots of folks are on holiday for the summer, and news organizations are focusing on minutiae and [...

Editorial Decisions Remain A Mystery To Me

Posted on July 17, 2009
Today is a really slow news day, at least at the China desk. Friday is usually a slow day for news, and we are now smack in the middle of the dog days of summer. So let’s turn to an issue about which I like to ponder once in a while: how editors choose stories...

Playing to the Home Crowd: USTR Announces New Trade ?Policies?

Posted on July 17, 2009
I’m not sure whether this will raise any eyebrows over here in Beijing. It’s possible, as several of the statements made are direct shots at China, but all in all, the new initiatives announced by the US Trade Rep yesterday in Pennsylvania (in steel country) are a lot more PR than they are substantive policy...

Forecasting the Coming Stock Market Crash

Posted on July 16, 2009
File this away in the “Weird Tales of Technical Analysis” folder. I have zero faith, and very little respect, for technical analysis, so this should be taken as snarky entertainment only, and not definitely not reasonable trading advice. If I ever choose technical over fundamental analysis, someone please put me out of my misery...

Creeping Global Protectionism May Lead to Doha Deal?

Posted on July 16, 2009
I don’t think I’ve used the word “Doha” (as in the Doha round of WTO talks) in many, many moons. Since talks broke down, there has been little discussion about reviving negotiations and absolutely no news that any breakthroughs on agriculture have been made...

Follow Up on Rio Tinto: Is Bribery Necessary to Do Business in China?

Posted on July 16, 2009
A couple of very good comments to my post yesterday on the government’s arrest of several Rio Tinto employees on charges of bribery/industrial espionage prompts me to tackle a recurring question about foreign investors and corruption. I can’t recall whether I’ve addressed this head-on before, but others certainly have...

Rio Tinto Reaction A Bit Troubling

Posted on July 15, 2009
First off, apologies for being offline for the past few days. I was attending the Annual Buckaroo Banzai Revival Festival out in the suburbs of Beijing and there was no Internet available. Amazingly successful event. I particularly enjoyed the afternoon workshops, live performances and (of course!) the evening encounter sessions...

Jim Cramer ? China Foreign Investment Expert

Posted on July 10, 2009
So there’s this US stock market TV show hosted by a fellow named Jim Cramer. I’ve never actually seen it, since I live in China, but I’m not that keen anyway on watching a bunch of traders and analysts tell each other what stocks to buy...

Global Trade Has Fallen Over A Cliff

Posted on July 09, 2009
Maybe this isn’t news to anyone, but if you’re into international trade and do not shy away from a few stats or a graph, I highly recommend this post at VoxEU. It’s a short article that tracks trade flows and compares individual country stats to some aggregate numbers...

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