continuously updated blog about China & India
You will be living in their world, very soon
Beware the Waking Dragon
A tea company in Wande county of Jinan city, capital of East China\’s Shandong province, shared nearly a million yuan ($165,200) in year-end bonuses with its tea growers, on Jan 20, 2014.Some growers got about 200,000 yuan.Li Taishan Tea Co was established after thevillage piloted a land circulation project in 2003.
via Tea growers get big year-end bonus[1]- Chinadaily.com.cn.
The Economist: “AS REPORTERS gathered in Jinan, the capital of the coastal province of Shandong, none (except perhaps the 19 Chinese journalists who were allowed into the courtroom, presumably because of their organisations’ unquestioning obedience to the Communist Party) had any idea how the authorities would choreograph China’s most sensational trial in decades. Still less did they know how the accused, Bo Xilai, a former member of the Politburo, would play along.
Two other trials related to Mr Bo’s case, that of his wife Gu Kailai and of his one-time police chief, Wang Lijun, suggested that the authorities would reveal only bare details of the proceedings. Those trials were conducted a year ago, before a new leadership came to power in November. Mr Bo’s case was a legacy of the outgoing regime that the incoming party chief, Xi Jinping, would rather not have inherited. But rather than follow the usual secretive pattern Mr Xi (for surely he made the decision) has allowed the court in Jinan to release lengthy transcripts of the hearings. Instead of showing a browbeaten rival meekly accepting allegations of corruption and abuse of power, the transcripts revealed Mr Bo in typical feisty form (see them here, in Chinese).”
via Bo Xilai’s trial: Straying from the script | The Economist.
WSJ: “Many China watchers see the trial of Communist Party insider Bo Xilai as scripted and staged, unveiling flaws of a closed Chinese judicial system. Yet amid the criticism, some are seeing positive signs emerge from Jinan, the northeastern Chinese city in Shandong province where Mr. Bo is facing corruption charges, including allegations that he took bribes with the aid of his wife.
The following are opinions of legal experts who have been following the trial:
Many Western critics of the Bo trial are comparing it to the stage-managed show trials of China’s past, including Jiang Qing [the wife of Mao Zedong] and victims of the Cultural Revolution. But this criticism misses the point. The Bo trial is exactly 180 degrees different in nature. In the show trials of China’s past, the politics would drive the criminal prosecution. In other words, the target would fall out of favor politically and then be legally persecuted as a result. In this trial, we have the opposite: the criminal prosecution is driving the politics. A towering and influential figure is being prosecuted in spite of his political influence, and the trial is driven primarily by the criminal allegations against him. Instead of being accused of serious crimes because his political standing has collapsed, his political standing has collapsed because he has been accused of serious crimes. –Geoffrey Sant, adjunct professor at Fordham Law School and special counsel at Dorsey & Whitney LLP
Despite the degree of supervision provided for the trial, there are nevertheless grounds for opening up the administration of justice to the supervision of the people. We’ve seen that in China there are many cases and trials that are not open, that attendance is constrained. Yet leaders have shown that they are willing to open up this case—to a certain extent—to the media, creating the perception that they are moving toward creating a more accessible judicial system.
Leaders are going farther than they could have to make the trial available. It’s a show trial, but not all trials are for show in China. To the extent that openness reveals shortcomings of the judicial system and promotes civil liberties is a positive thing. –Lester Ross a Beijing-based attorney with U.S. law firm WilmerHale.”
via In Bo Xilai Trial, Some See Positive Signs for Legal System – China Real Time Report – WSJ.
SCMP: “With detailed online transcripts carried by China’s version of Twitter, Beijing is making an unprecedented effort to show its people that the trial of ousted politician Bo Xilai is fair and above board, but the court case is little more than theatre.
Never before has the stability and unity-obsessed ruling Communist Party allowed the gritty and colourful details of such a sensitive trial to be publicised almost real-time to the population at large.
None of this means, however, that China has turned a corner in efforts to push the rule of law and official transparency.
Making a microblog public is just their ruse, it’s meaningless ZHANG SIZHI, DEFENCE LAWYER
Bo, the 64-year-old former party chief of the southwestern city of Chongqing, has been charged with illegally taking almost 27 million yuan (HK$34 million), corruption and abuse of power and will almost certainly be found guilty in China’s most political trial in decades.
The party is almost certainly preventing any really embarrassing outbursts from Bo from appearing, has banned the world’s media from the courtroom and is certainly not broadcasting it live on national television.”
via China makes big show of Bo Xilai trial, but it’s still just theatre | South China Morning Post.
See also: https://chindia-alert.org/2012/08/12/bo-xilai-scandal-gu-admits-neil-heywood-murder/
AAJ News: “Robots bringing up food, doing dishes and preparing food, doesn’t it remind you of a cartoon from the 90s called ‘The Jetsons’? What if the very same concept is no longer fiction but something real?
A restaurant in downtown Harbin, China, Owned by the Harbin Haohai Robot Company, has 18 types of robots, each sliding out of the kitchen to serve your dish, with specialty robots including a ‘dumpling robot’ and a ‘noodle robot’.
The restaurant has become a center of attraction due to its specialty of having robots performing various tasks, from cooking to serving and even singing while you have your dinner.
Chief Engineer Liu Hasheng, said they invested 5 million Yuan (about £500,000) in doing the restaurant, with each robot costing 200,000 to 300,000 Yuan (around £20,000 to £30,000). Having costly robots serving the dinner might seem like a costly idea but that isn’t the case. The average cost of a dinner is £4 to £5, with over 30 dishes on the menu to choose from.
Liu Hasheng, comments, “Staff in the computer room can manage the whole robot team.
‘After the busy times during the day, the robot will go for a “meal”, which is electricity’. Liu added that after a two-hour charge the robot can work continuously for 5 hours.
The first robot restaurant established was also in China; in a city called Jinan, which had a dozen of robots that served food and drinks and also danced and entertained customers.”
via Robot restaurant established in China | AAJ News.
continuously updated blog about China & India
continuously updated blog about China & India
continuously updated blog about China & India
CHINDIA ALERT: You'll be living in their world, very soon 