Chinese gets 15 years for killing NZ taxi driver (AP)

SHANGHAI – A Shanghai court sentenced a Chinese man who admitted killing a New Zealand taxi driver before fleeing to his homeland to 15 years in prison Wednesday.

Shanghai's Second Intermediate Court handed down the sentence, citing Xiao Zhen's remorse over the killing as a reason for not imposing a harsher sentence.

The 24-year-old Xiao was arrested last year in China for the alleged murder of Auckland taxi driver Hiren Mohini, 39, in January 2010. He was tried in Shanghai because China and New Zealand do not have an extradition treaty.

The judge who read out the sentence did not make any further comment. Xiao was convicted not of murder but of the Chinese crime that can be translated into English as "intentional assault."

New Zealand police officer Hywel Jones, who attended but did not speak at the trial, said the verdict was "fair" and that he intended to return to New Zealand.

Xiao's aunt, Li Liping, said the family did not expect him to appeal the sentence.

"He should be punished," she said. "It is our fault that we did not teach him well."

New Zealand media reported the government was promised Xiao would not face the death penalty if convicted.

China by law does not extradite its citizens and says it can put them on trial itself regardless of where a crime occurred. The number of such cases should rise as more Chinese citizens travel and live outside the country, opening the door to legal complications.

Cooperation from foreign countries opposed to capital punishment in such cases, for example in providing evidence, often depends on whether authorities promise not to apply the death penalty — which is more often used in China than anywhere else.

___

Researcher Fu Ting contributed.

Yahoo! News

Chinese activists silent after release

Activist Hu Jia and his wife, Zeng Jinyan, pose in their home on the outskirts of Beijing in 2007.Hu Jia's wife says in a Twitter post that he is safe and needs to restAi Weiwei declines to answer questions from reporters outside his homeArtist Guo Jian says police visit him regularly and agents shadow him in the streetsActivists say the Chinese government is targeting dissidents, intellectuals and artists

Beijing (CNN) -- Chinese authorities released prominent human rights activist Hu Jia Sunday, days after freeing renowned dissident artist Ai Weiwei.

"A sleepless night -- Hu Jia arrived at home at 2:30. He's safe and I'm very happy," Zeng Jinyan, Hu's wife, said in a Twitter post Sunday morning. "He needs to rest for a while."

Hu, 37, denounced China's human rights record in a series of articles ahead of the 2008 Beijing Olympics and was later sentenced to 3.5 years in prison for "inciting to subvert state power." Ai, the conceptual artist turned government critic, was released Wednesday on bail after authorities detained him for nearly three months for tax evasion, the state-run Xinhua news agency reported.

The seemingly positive news, however, has been dampened by the noticeable silence of both once-outspoken activists.

While Ai declined to answer questions from reporters outside his home early this week, police Sunday guarded entrances to Hu's apartment compound and patrolled surrounding streets. Zeng, his wife, appeared unreachable via phone or the internet.

Zeng told CNN Friday that authorities started 24-hour surveillance on her several days before Hu's expected return. In an interview last December, she predicted a virtual prisoner's life for the couple in their housing complex, called Freedom City.

"Hu Jia told me that he won't change, and police told him they may put him under house arrest in that case," she said. "I'm prepared for it."

"As long as there's no democracy or the rule of law in China, our situation won't change at all."

Last year's Nobel peace laureate Liu Xiaobo, also a rights activist, was convicted of the same crime as Hu. Liu is still serving an 11-year jail term.

Activists say the Chinese government, worried about potential uprisings inspired by the Arab Spring, has been increasingly tightening its grip on freedom of expression, targeting not only political dissidents but also intellectuals and artists.

Guo Jian said he has noticed such chilling effects from his studio at the Songzhuang art village, not far from Hu's home.

The veteran artist has been working on a startling installation piece that shows the very symbol of state power being bombed and razed. In the still-untitled diorama, model warplanes hang by thin threads fly over a miniature Tiananmen Square. The heart of Beijing is dotted with bulldozers and tanks, with the iconic Tiananmen Gate and Chairman Mao's mausoleum smashed and half-destroyed.

"The police have sent someone to say, don't show your work or don't let other people know about it," he said. "They're really worried about what I'm doing."

Guo, 48, says for the first time in his 20-year career, police now visit him regularly and plainclothes agents sometimes shadow him on the streets.

Pointing to his unfinished diorama, Guo says the authorities' outdated mentality and methods -- silencing perceived dissent through intimidation and detention -- only reinforce the message in his work: the potentially explosive consequences of suppressing people's voices for too long.

While he feels heartened by the release of fellow-artist Ai and activist Hu, Guo remains concerned about the current crackdown and doesn't see it ending anytime soon.

"Even though we got someone back, the fear is there," he said.

CNN

Prominent Chinese dissident freed from jail (Reuters)

BEIJING, Jun (Reuters) – One of China's most prominent dissidents, Hu Jia, was reunited with his family early on Sunday after serving three-and-a-half-years in jail on subversion charges, but he needed rest and was not ready to speak in public, his wife said.

Hu, 37, was convicted in 2008 for "inciting subversion of state power" for criticizing human rights restrictions in China, and was seen by some supporters as a potential recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize before it went to another jailed Chinese dissident, Liu Xiaobo, last year.

"He is back home with his parents and me," his wife, Zeng Jinyan, told Reuters in a brief telephone interview.

"I don't know if he can speak later. At the moment, I want everything to be peaceful. I'm worried that doing interviews at this stage might cause problems. Please understand."

Hu's long-scheduled release followed this week's abrupt freeing from detention of the prominent artist and activist Ai Weiwei, and has come while Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao is visiting Europe on trips to Hungary, Britain and Germany.

Asked how Hu's health was, his mother, Feng Juan, said by telephone: "It's so so. He was in a very good mood. The first thing he did after coming home was to take a bath. Then he had a meal."

China's Communist Party has cracked down on dissent since February, responding to fears that uprisings across the Arab world could also inspire challenges to its one-party rule, especially ahead of a leadership succession late in 2012.

Many dissidents detained in that drive have been ordered by authorities to stay silent after their release. Hu's wife, Zeng, and other advocates have voiced concern that Chinese authorities might also impose restrictions on him amounting to house arrest after his formal release.

Zeng, a prominent activist in her own right, told Reuters in late May that she was worried by the trend of rights activists coming under informal house arrest after their release from formal detention or jail.

"If we are put under house arrest or disappear, I don't want our daughter to be with us when we endure life under house arrest," she said. "I have sent her to be with my relatives."

Zeng posted messages on Twitter, the micro-blogging site, describing harassment from authorities before Hu's release.

"A prohibition on contact with the media was a condition of Hu Jia's sentence, with the one year's deprivation of political rights on his release, and no doubt the authorities will remind him of that," said Phelim Kine, a researcher for Human Rights Watch, a New York-based advocacy group that has denounced the conviction of Hu and other Chinese dissidents.

"Given the current climate of oppression, he will be under extreme pressure to obey," Kine said by telephone.

ENERGETIC CAMPAIGNER

Hu and Zeng have live in an apartment complex in east Beijing called Bobo Freedom City. Many police officers and security guards patrolled the area on Sunday morning.

"A sleepless night and Hu Jia came home at 2:30. Peaceful. Very happy. Needs a period of time to recuperate," Zeng wrote in her latest Twitter entry in Chinese. Most Chinese people lack the know-how to read Twitter, which the government blocks with a censorship firewall.

Hu was detained in late 2007 and then tried and convicted in the following year on subversion charges that stemmed from criticism of the government he had made in Internet writings and interviews with foreign reporters.

China often uses the broad charge of "inciting subversion" to punish dissidents, and when Hu was convicted, state media said that he had bowed to the accusations against him.

Before he was jailed, Hu pursued an energetic career as an environmental protection campaigner, advocate for rural victims of AIDS, and vocal critic of China's restrictions on political dissent. Shaven-headed and wearing bookish spectacles, he was a familiar sight at activist gatherings in Beijing.

Hu is also a vegetarian and Buddhist who has criticized China's controls on that religion in Tibet and voiced sympathy for the Dalai Lama, the exiled Tibetan spiritual leader reviled by Beijing.

Asked about Hu's future plans, Zeng said her husband studied law in prison and has no plans to move abroad.

"According to law, if you have any criminal record you cannot become a lawyer. But he is studying to gain more comprehensive knowledge," Zeng said in May.

"I think he has very clear and fixed ideas about the future, but we don't know what the conditions will be like (after he gets out) ... I think he will (focus) on rights defending."

(Additional reporting by Michael Martina and Benjamin Kang Lim; Editing by Sanjeev Miglani)

Yahoo! News

Prominent Chinese dissident Hu Jia released from jail: wife (Reuters)

BEIJING (Reuters) – One of China's most prominent dissidents, Hu Jia, was reunited with his family in the early hours of Sunday after serving three and a half-years in jail on subversion charges, his wife said.

Hu was convicted in 2008 for "inciting subversion of state power" for criticising human rights problems in China, and he was seen by some supporters as a potential recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize before it went to another jailed Chinese dissident, Liu Xiaobo, last year.

"He is back home with his parents and me," his wife, Zeng Jingyan, told Reuters in a brief telephone interview.

"I don't know if he can speak later. At the moment, I want everything to be peaceful. I'm worried that doing interviews at this stage might cause problems. Please understand."

Hu Jia's release follows the abrupt freeing from detention of the prominent artist and activist Ai Weiwei, and has come while Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao is visiting Europe on trips to Hungary, Britain and Germany.

(Reporting by Maxim Duncan and Chris Buckley; Writing by Chris Buckley)

Yahoo! News

No interviews, Twitter, travel for Chinese artist (Reuters)

BEIJING (Reuters) – No talking, no tweeting and no travel for a year -- these are some of the conditions of Chinese dissident artist Ai Weiwei's release from more than two months in detention, underscoring Beijing's efforts to muzzle dissent.

The comprehensive gag on Ai, who is not allowed to post anything on Twitter or accept interviews for a year, raises questions about the Chinese government's repeated claims that his was purely an economic case.

"The key thing is these two conditions -- the media and the Internet," a source close to the family told Reuters on Friday.

Ai has freedom of movement within Beijing, but before he "goes out, he needs to report his whereabouts to them" for a year, the source said, but declined to elaborate who Ai needs to report to.

Prominent rights lawyer Pu Zhiqiang said it was illegal for the government to restrict Ai from tweeting or accepting interviews.

"A strong government that is ruled by law cannot impose conditions like these on its citizens," Pu said. "If there is indeed a criminal case, why isn't there a mention of it? Up until now, there hasn't been a notice of the case.

"This behavior is illegal -- it's in violation of the United Nations conventions."

Social networking sites like Twitter and Facebook are blocked in China, as authorities fear these websites could allow the government's critics to organize. But many people, including dissidents, use virtual private networks to circumvent the restrictions.

Ai has 89,117 followers on Twitter and has tweeted 60,162 times -- the last occasion being on April 3, the day he was detained.

The Foreign Ministry said Ai remained under investigation for suspected crimes, suggesting the government will keep up the pressure to prevent him from speaking out.

Analysts say Ai's release is far from a signal of a policy shift by the ruling Communist Party. Authorities have muzzled dissent with the secretive detentions of more than 130 lawyers and activists since February, amid fears that anti-authoritarian uprisings across the Arab world could trigger unrest.

Ai, who had a hand in designing the Bird's Nest stadium for the 2008 Beijing Olympics, was released the day before Premier Wen Jiabao left on a trip to Europe, where Britain and Germany have criticized Ai's detention.

The foreign ministry has said Ai, 54, is being investigated on suspicion of economic crimes, but police have issued no formal notice to explain why he is being held. Ai's family says the allegations are an excuse to silence his criticism.

Rights group Amnesty International called on China on Thursday to reveal the whereabouts of three of Ai's associates, who are still missing and presumed to be in secret detention.

(Reporting by Sui-Lee Wee; Editing by Ron Popeski and Sanjeev Miglani)

Yahoo! News

Chinese artist Ai Weiwei: Free in body, not voice (AP)

BEIJING – Outspoken artist and government critic Ai Weiwei talked about giving himself a haircut Thursday but said little else in his first day out of detention, living under a gag order that underscores concerns about China's growing use of extralegal methods to muzzle dissent.

The Chinese Foreign Ministry said Ai was released from nearly three months of detention late Wednesday after confessing to tax evasion and pledging to repay the money owed. His family denies the allegations and activists have denounced them as a false premise for detaining an artist who spoke out against the authoritarian government and its repression of civil liberties.

The Foreign Ministry said the conditions of Ai's parole require him to report to police when asked and bar him from leaving Beijing without permission for one year. A ministry spokesman did not mention the gag order, but ever since his unexpected release, Ai has told the foreign reporters thronging the gate to his suburban Beijing workshop and home that he is not allowed to talk.

On Thursday, he emerged from the doorway with freshly cut hair and wearing a T-shirt emblazoned with his name in giant black letters.

"I cut my own hair, looks more spirited," he explained in Chinese. But he said he couldn't give any interviews or say anything about his case.

"Of course, it's great to be home," he said.

In a sign of Ai's continued appeal among some Chinese, several supporters showed up outside his compound Thursday, despite a police presence. Two Chinese men pasted posters, one in English and other in Chinese, that read "I love you Ai Weiwei" to the door of his compound.

Internationally renowned for mocking, satirical art, the 54-year-old Ai became the highest profile casualty in a spring crackdown to stop Chinese from imitating the democratic uprisings in the Middle East and North Africa. Dozens of rights activists, lawyers and others have been detained, put under house arrest or disappeared, and several of those who have been released have kept almost totally silent ever since.

Like some others detained, formal charges against Ai have never been announced.

Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Hong Lei told reporters at a regular press briefing that Chinese investigators alleged Ai "evaded a huge amount of taxes and intentionally destroyed accounting documents."

Hong said authorities decided to release Ai because of his "good attitude in confessing his crimes and because of the chronic disease he is suffering from and his repeated expression of his willingness to pay the taxes he has evaded."

Human rights groups and Chinese legal experts, however, noted that even if the allegations were true, economic crimes are usually handled by fines.

Beijing-based rights activist and lawyer Pu Zhiqiang said Ai's detention was "politically motivated, and so is his release."

"The whole incident is only 'legal' in appearance," said Pu, a friend of Ai.

Jerome Cohen, a top expert on Chinese law at New York University, wrote in an editorial posted to the website of NYU's U.S. Asia Law Institute that Ai's release "has little to do with the rule of law, but everything to do with the untrammeled exercise of discretion enjoyed by Chinese authorities."

Cohen told The Associated Press authorities could reopen the case at any time, meaning Ai faces the ever-present threat of being detained again on the same accusations.

Ai's detention put a famous face on the crackdown the authoritarian Chinese government has vigorously pursued with little regard for China's laws. The U.S. had urged the release of the former New York resident, as did other Western governments.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel welcomed Ai's release, but said it "can only be a first step" to clearing the charges in a legal way, her spokesman said late Wednesday.

Amnesty International called on China to account for four of Ai's colleagues who have also gone missing. A driver, Zhang Jinsong, was expected to be released Thursday, said a studio employee who spoke on condition of anonymity because they feared official retribution. There was no word on the fate of the other three: studio assistant Wen Tao, accountant Hu Mingfen and designer Liu Zhenggang.

Why authorities chose to release Ai now remains unclear. Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao will soon travel to Hungary, Britain and Germany, and was likely to have heard loud calls for Ai's release, but the government has generally resisted such appeals.

On Thursday, China's government released another prisoner: Xu Zerong, a Hong Kong-based political scientist sentenced in late 2001 to 10 years in jail for leaking state secrets and another three years for illegal business operations. Rights groups say the main charge against him was that he had obtained and copied books on the Korean War and provided them to a scholar in South Korea.

Ai fearlessly challenged the government before his detention. He blogged and Twittered constantly on subjects including the deaths of students in shoddily built schools that collapsed during the 2008 Sichuan earthquake; children killed or sickened by tainted infant formula; and a deadly high-rise fire in Shanghai that killed 58 and was blamed on negligent workers and corrupt inspectors. He had also kept an informal tally on Twitter of people who disappeared into police custody.

Ai's Twitter account has remained dormant since his release. The last posting is from April 3, just before he disappeared.

___

Associated Press reporters Isolda Morillo and Christopher Bodeen contributed to this report.

Yahoo! News

Chinese workers flee Myanmar fighting: report (Reuters)

YANGON (Reuters) – More than 200 Chinese workers have returned home from Myanmar after separatist rebels attacked a hydropower plant in the northern border province of Kachin, state media in Myanmar said on Saturday, the first official comment on the recent fighting.

The Chinese ambassador had met Myanmar's foreign and border affairs ministers on Friday, media said, without giving details of the discussion.

An official statement in the daily New Light of Myanmar outlined several threats since April by the Kachin Independence Army against Chinese projects in Kachin State, including the Tarpein Hydropower Project.

"The project, which is equipped with four 60-MHz generators, ceased to operate as from 14 June, causing a great loss to the state and the people," it said.

Altogether, 215 Chinese employees assigned to the project returned to China from June 9 to 14, it said.

Responding to an attack by Myanmar's army, the KIA blew up 25 bridges in the region from June 14 to 16, it added.

Residents in the Kachin State capital, Myitkyina, said the region remained tense, but it was not clear if fighting was still going on.

Sources in Kachin have said hundreds of people had fled their homes in the mountainous region to escape eight days of fighting up until Thursday.

An estimated 2,000 people were reported to have sought shelter in a camp run by the Kachin Independence Organization (KIO), the rebels' political arm, and another 7,000 had set up tents and shelters in the jungle along the frontier.

The KIO has battled the central government for decades but agreed to a ceasefire in 1994 under which its fighters were allowed to keep their arms.

However, tension has been rising since last year, largely because the Kachin have resisted government pressure to fold their men into a state-run border security force.

Analysts say Myanmar's 10-week old government, the country's first civilian-led administration in five decades, is intent on seizing control of the rebellious states but is reluctant to engage in conflict with the numerous factions.

Chinese-built dams have been divisive projects in Myanmar, with ethnic minorities seeing construction as expanding military presence into their territory. Some analysts say Kachin rebels may be trying to hold the dams hostage in return for a share of the revenue from the projects.

The risk of fighting spreading in the heavily militarized border region is a worry for China, which is building oil and gas pipelines through its Southeast Asian neighbor to improve energy security.

(Reporting by Aung Hla Tun; Writing by Alan Raybould)

Yahoo! News

Bordeaux Breaks the Bank: Are Chinese Aficionados Fueling a Wine Bubble? (Time.com)

By THIERRY PHILIPPON / LE NOUVEL OBSERVATEUR / WORLDCRUNCH Thierry Philippon / Le Nouvel Observateur / Worldcrunch – Wed Jun 15, 5:40 am ET

This post is in partnership with Worldcrunch, a new global - news site that translates stories of note in foreign languages into English. The article below was originally published in Le Nouvel Observateur.

Asian millionaires' thirst for the best Bordeaux wines has sent prices skyrocketing, and the most prestigious ChAteaux have been turning astronomical profits as a result.

At a May 17 auction in Hong Kong, new Chinese millionaires were fighting over the few wines that ChAteau Latour - which was rated as First Growth under the 1885 Bordeaux Classification - brought out of its wine cellars. It took Christie's seven and a half hours to sell the 392 lots. ChAteau Latour, which belongs to FranCois Pinault, had planned to stimulate wine collectors' thirsts by putting 19th century wines up for auction, including one bottle dating back to 1863 which sold for 48,730 euros. (See "A Bordeaux Bubble.")

Was it record high? No. In October 2010, ChAteau Lafite Rothschild, which is located in the great wine-producing village of Pauillac and achieved First Growth status like ChAteau Latour, organized its first auction in Hong Kong since 1980. The highlight of the auction: buyers fighting over a bottle of ChAteau Lafite Rothschild 1869, which was sold for more than 160,000 euros.

But selling these almost unobtainable bottles also opens the way for winesellers to hike up the prices of their recent vintages. Christie's sold bottles of ChAteau Latour 2009 for 1870 euros a bottle, three times last year's price.

This incredible price surge reveals wine as a profitable investment, and has led to the blossoming of wine auctions in Hong Kong. The most prestigious ChAteaux go to Hong Kong to court Asian millionaires, whose passion for Bordeaux First Growths from the MEdoc and Saint-Emilion has led to record profits. (See 50 American wines.)

On June 19, at the Vinexpo - the international Wine Show which takes place in Bordeaux - two worlds will collide: For even while the top ChAteaux are booming, more modest Bordeaux wineries are sinking into recession.

These exceptional Bordeaux Growths are among big winners of the globalization of the wine market. "These ChAteaux are not producing more wine, but the number of people who want to drink a glass of ChAteau-Margaux at least once a year has increased very significantly," explains Pierre Lawton, a Bordeaux-based wine merchant for the Alias trading company.

"What is happening is unavoidable. Not a single prestigious ChAteau sells more than 200,000 bottles of its top wine," says HervE Berland, both owner of Mouton Rothschild and manager of Rothschild properties in the Philippines. "The wine market is increasingly globalized, we cannot fight that. If we want to sell less wine in China, they will go somewhere else to find it." (See how manufacturers are trying to make boxed wine look chic.)

Is this Chinese-spurred speculation creating a Bordeaux bubble? The ChAteaux want to believe that the wine market does not follow the traditional rules of economics: supply is very limited whereas demand is unlimited.

Hong Kong and China have become the two leading destinations for Bordeaux wines. Last year, according to the Bordeaux Wine Bureau, Hong Kong and China represent 27.5% of wine exports in the world.

The wine industry started booming in March 2008 when Hong Kong abolished wine taxes. The former British colony has become the world's number one market for the most expensive wine exports, followed by the US and UK.

That explains why auction houses have flocked to Hong Kong. "The Chinese buyers are seeking the prestige of having high-end wines," explains Charles Curtis, Head of Asia Wine Sales at Christie's. "This year, we are going to organize six auctions in Hong Kong. Last year, there was just one." (See "Should French Colleges Give Kids Wine Classes?")

Asian buyers have made a real, almost fetishist, cult of Lafite Rothschild. It may be in part the prestige of the Rothschild family, as well as the fact that this wine has been exported to China for a long time. "The price difference between Lafite and the other wines is so huge that many people decide not to drink them and resell their bottles instead to buy others," explains AngElique de Lencquesaing, one of the founders of the iDealwine.com website. She says a bottle of 1982 Lafite Rothschild worth 3,500 euros in France sells for 5,000 euros in Hong Kong.

Speculation is spreading even among wine lovers in Europe. Says Olivier Bernard, owner of the wine merchant company MillEsima: "I think that 35% of European private sales are speculative. In reality, the cases are resold in China."

Also from Worldcrunch:

Germany's Move Away from Nuclear Power Will Cost Europe
- Die Welt

Bilderberg: The Global Elite Meet Behind Closed Doors
- Le Temps

The Night They Served E. Coli For Dinner
- Die Welt

See how to pair the right wine with Asian food.

See 25 authentic Asian experiences.

View this article on Time.com

Most Popular on Time.com:

Yahoo! News

Chinese e-commerce giant opens furniture showroom (AP)

BEIJING – China's e-commerce giant is stepping up its heated rivalry with bricks-and-mortar retailers with the launch of a five-story home furnishings showroom in Beijing.

Alibaba Group's Taobao, an Internet platform through which an estimated 3 percent of all retail sales in China pass, opened the showroom Friday for customers to try out sofas, tables and other big-ticket items before placing an order online with one of its merchants.

The mall is a new intrusion into the territory of China's real-world retailers by e-commerce rivals that are growing so fast some suggest they could become the country's leading retail force — its version of Wal Mart.

"The dominant retailer in China someday may be an online retailer," said Morgan Stanley analyst Richard Ji.

Taobao says its Beijing mall is aimed at overcoming a hurdle hampering the growth of China's Internet commerce even though online retailers offer significantly lower prices: Customers don't like to buy furniture and other major items without examining them in person.

"It's hard for people to shop for home furnishings if they haven't seen them," said Justine Chao, an Alibaba spokeswoman.

Alibaba Group also includes Alibaba.com, a giant business-to-business Internet commerce platform. The company, in which Yahoo Inc. owns a 43 percent stake, operates Yahoo's China arm.

Global e-commerce outfits have struggled to gain a foothold in China in the face of aggressive local competition. eBay Inc. entered China by acquiring a local company but handed over control to Chinese managers. Amazon.com operates through a local partner, Joyo.

The Chinese industry has produced success stories including bookseller Dangdang Inc., traded on the New York Stock Exchange, consumer electronics retailer 360buy.com and Vancl.com, a clothing outlet.

Industry analysts expect China's online commerce to grow at explosive annual rates of 30 to 40 percent in coming years, defying early fears it might be hurt by low rates of credit card use and rudimentary delivery services.

A key part of e-commerce's appeal is lower prices in a society where many families get by on a few thousand dollars a year. With no need for an expensive chain of storefronts, Web merchants charge 30 to 50 percent less than traditional retailers.

Sales through Taobao alone totaled an estimated 400 billion yuan ($60 billion) last year, according to analysts. Taobao does not disclose its revenues from fees charged to retailers and other income.

Its platform has led to the emergence of a cottage industry of small retailers, many of them lone traders working from home, who sell clothes, shoes, toys, costume jewelry and other goods to a nationwide market.

Taobao says its 25,000-square-meter (250,000-square-foot) Beijing mall will display 22,000 items from some 300 suppliers. Orders and payment will only take place online. Taobao says it plans to open similar showrooms in other major Chinese cities.

Other Internet retailers such as jewelry seller Zbird.com also have opened showrooms to encourage customers to buy higher-priced items online.

Such outlets could help e-commerce sites compete even more aggressively with traditional retailers by boosting consumer confidence in a market where online sellers have an uneven reputation for quality, said Ji.

"By having a display room, it clearly will help raise the seller's credibility," he said.

On opening day Friday, shoppers at the Taobao Mall on the Chinese capital's east side were test-sitting sofas and flipping through channels on big-screen TVs.

"Compared with photos on the Web, I can really touch the things, so I can put more trust in them," said Yu Jingyuan, an engineer for a computer company who was looking at a stall displaying kitchenwares. "I can trust the sellers online."

China has by far the world's biggest population of Web users, with 457 million people online as of Dec. 31. But just 10 percent of them shop online, compared with the U.S. level of about 70 percent, leaving online merchants room to expand.

In contrast to the United States, Europe and other developed markets, China's online merchants enjoy the unusual advantage that they face no entrenched retail giants with decades of market dominance and strong brand names.

After decades of poverty and communist central planning, modern retailing began to replace drab, poorly stocked Chinese stores only in the 1990s. But that was followed just a few years later by the launch of online commerce.

Bricks-and-mortar retailing is fragmented, leaving competitors without the financial might of counterparts abroad. The top 20 account for less than 10 percent of China's annual sales, a far cry from the 50 percent market share of the U.S. top 20.

Alibaba and other companies have developed online payment systems to serve customers without credit cards. In response to concerns about product quality, some release the money only after the buyer is satisfied.

In big cities, delivery services that draw on China's abundant supply of low-cost labor can get purchases from local sellers to buyers the same day.

Taobao says it has no plans to open showrooms to display other goods, but the manager of its new Beijing mall had a warning for rivals.

"In the online world," said Ye Peng, "nothing is impossible."

___

Taobao.com: http://www.taobao.com

Alibaba Group: http://www.alibaba.com

Dangdang.com: http://www.dangdang.com

360buy.com: http://www.360buy.com

Yahoo! News

This post was made using the Auto Blogging Software from WebMagnates.org This line will not appear when posts are made after activating the software to full version.

Chinese e-commerce giant opens furniture showroom (AP)

BEIJING – China's e-commerce giant is stepping up its heated rivalry with bricks-and-mortar retailers with the launch of a five-story home furnishings showroom in Beijing.

Alibaba Group's Taobao, an Internet platform through which an estimated 3 percent of all retail sales in China pass, opened the showroom Friday for customers to try out sofas, tables and other big-ticket items before placing an order online with one of its merchants.

The mall is a new intrusion into the territory of China's real-world retailers by e-commerce rivals that are growing so fast some suggest they could become the country's leading retail force — its version of Wal Mart.

"The dominant retailer in China someday may be an online retailer," said Morgan Stanley analyst Richard Ji.

Taobao says its Beijing mall is aimed at overcoming a hurdle hampering the growth of China's Internet commerce even though online retailers offer significantly lower prices: Customers don't like to buy furniture and other major items without examining them in person.

"It's hard for people to shop for home furnishings if they haven't seen them," said Justine Chao, an Alibaba spokeswoman.

Alibaba Group also includes Alibaba.com, a giant business-to-business Internet commerce platform. The company, in which Yahoo Inc. owns a 43 percent stake, operates Yahoo's China arm.

Global e-commerce outfits have struggled to gain a foothold in China in the face of aggressive local competition. eBay Inc. entered China by acquiring a local company but handed over control to Chinese managers. Amazon.com operates through a local partner, Joyo.

The Chinese industry has produced success stories including bookseller Dangdang Inc., traded on the New York Stock Exchange, consumer electronics retailer 360buy.com and Vancl.com, a clothing outlet.

Industry analysts expect China's online commerce to grow at explosive annual rates of 30 to 40 percent in coming years, defying early fears it might be hurt by low rates of credit card use and rudimentary delivery services.

A key part of e-commerce's appeal is lower prices in a society where many families get by on a few thousand dollars a year. With no need for an expensive chain of storefronts, Web merchants charge 30 to 50 percent less than traditional retailers.

Sales through Taobao alone totaled an estimated 400 billion yuan ($60 billion) last year, according to analysts. Taobao does not disclose its revenues from fees charged to retailers and other income.

Its platform has led to the emergence of a cottage industry of small retailers, many of them lone traders working from home, who sell clothes, shoes, toys, costume jewelry and other goods to a nationwide market.

Taobao says its 25,000-square-meter (250,000-square-foot) Beijing mall will display 22,000 items from some 300 suppliers. Orders and payment will only take place online. Taobao says it plans to open similar showrooms in other major Chinese cities.

Other Internet retailers such as jewelry seller Zbird.com also have opened showrooms to encourage customers to buy higher-priced items online.

Such outlets could help e-commerce sites compete even more aggressively with traditional retailers by boosting consumer confidence in a market where online sellers have an uneven reputation for quality, said Ji.

"By having a display room, it clearly will help raise the seller's credibility," he said.

On opening day Friday, shoppers at the Taobao Mall on the Chinese capital's east side were test-sitting sofas and flipping through channels on big-screen TVs.

"Compared with photos on the Web, I can really touch the things, so I can put more trust in them," said Yu Jingyuan, an engineer for a computer company who was looking at a stall displaying kitchenwares. "I can trust the sellers online."

China has by far the world's biggest population of Web users, with 457 million people online as of Dec. 31. But just 10 percent of them shop online, compared with the U.S. level of about 70 percent, leaving online merchants room to expand.

In contrast to the United States, Europe and other developed markets, China's online merchants enjoy the unusual advantage that they face no entrenched retail giants with decades of market dominance and strong brand names.

After decades of poverty and communist central planning, modern retailing began to replace drab, poorly stocked Chinese stores only in the 1990s. But that was followed just a few years later by the launch of online commerce.

Bricks-and-mortar retailing is fragmented, leaving competitors without the financial might of counterparts abroad. The top 20 account for less than 10 percent of China's annual sales, a far cry from the 50 percent market share of the U.S. top 20.

Alibaba and other companies have developed online payment systems to serve customers without credit cards. In response to concerns about product quality, some release the money only after the buyer is satisfied.

In big cities, delivery services that draw on China's abundant supply of low-cost labor can get purchases from local sellers to buyers the same day.

Taobao says it has no plans to open showrooms to display other goods, but the manager of its new Beijing mall had a warning for rivals.

"In the online world," said Ye Peng, "nothing is impossible."

___

Taobao.com: http://www.taobao.com

Alibaba Group: http://www.alibaba.com

Dangdang.com: http://www.dangdang.com

360buy.com: http://www.360buy.com

Yahoo! News

This post was made using the Auto Blogging Software from WebMagnates.org This line will not appear when posts are made after activating the software to full version.

Kung Fu Panda 2: Hollywood works harder to win Chinese audiences (The Christian Science Monitor)

Chengdu, China – A decade ago, as China closed in on membership in the World Trade Organization (WTO), key negotiators now say, it wasn't talk of opening a huge market to grain or machinery that threatened talks: It was haggling over movies, the ultimate soft-power export.

Today, Chinese consumer confidence has soared. That has lifted movie ticket sales, which jumped 64 percent in 2010 to $1.5 billion, thanks partly to a 3-D craze and a mushrooming of cinemas in China. But what's also grown is official wariness of the influence of foreign media, so much so that Beijing – a WTO member since 2001 – has all but ignored a March WTO deadline to open film distribution to greater foreign participation, and has refused to discuss the annual cap of 20 imported films.

MONITOR QUIZ: Weekly news quiz for May 23- 27, 2011

In late May, taking a page out of China's 1972 playbook – when Beijing gave two rare black-and-white bears to Washington's National Zoo after Presi­dent Nixon's historic visit – envoys from DreamWorks Animation went to Sichuan Province bearing "Kung Fu Panda 2," part of DreamWorks's effort to establish a paw-hold in the globe's fastest-growing movie market. The China Film Group (CFG) released the film nationwide on May 27, dubbed into Chinese.

Their effort drew on lessons from the release of the first "Kung Fu Panda" in China right before the 2008 Beijing Olympics. Many loved it, making it the first animated feature film here to gross more than 100 million yuan ($15 million) in ticket sales. Others said DreamWorks's take on China's ancient culture fell as flat as its 2-D portrayal.

Fast-forward three years and the stakes are higher. Tickets costing as much as 120 yuan ($18.50) helped China become the No. 2 movie market after the United States for 20th Century Fox's "Avatar." After its January 2010 release, it went on to gross more than $200 million in China. Walt Disney Pictures's "Pirates of the Carib­bean 4: On Stranger Tides" recently topped the opening weekend figures for "Avatar."

Those kind of box-office numbers get the attention of US moviemakers. They ensure that the studios will increasingly take into account not only what will fly with China's middle-class audience but also with Beijing censors, who must approve every film.

Disney learns the hard way

Disney learned the hard way that media minders in Beijing watch for anything, anywhere, that questions China's unity and the supremacy of the Communist Party. In 1997, Disney, whose interests in China extend to publishing, merchandising, and theme parks, upset Beijing by releasing director Martin Scorsese's "Kundun," a film about the current Dalai Lama's exile to India after the People's Liberation Army's occupation of Tibet. Though it was never intended for release in China, insiders say Disney's initiatives in China were stalled for years afterward.

Beyond political considerations, US filmmakers are also trying to engage Chinese audiences more directly, instead of assuming that what plays well in New York will also be snapped up by filmgoers in Shanghai.

Fox International Productions recently made two Mandarin-language films that it distributed via Beijing-based partners Huayi Brothers Media. The romantic comedy "Hot Sum­mer Days," which FIP made for $2 million, grossed roughly $22 million. FIP then got Hollywood hitmaker Doug Liman, director of "The Bourne Identity," to boost a martial-arts comedy, "The Butcher, the Chef, and the Swordsman," at the Pusan International Film Festival in South Korea last October.

RELATED: The top 10 highest-grossing films

Hollywood studios complain about their limited access to China. But they are also currying favor with the CFG, gatekeeper to the wallets of Chinese moviegoers. CFG sees itself as the guardian of Chinese mores. Films must contain the proper "Chinese elements" to be approved for release.

The plot of Sony's doomsday picture "2012" featured Chinese ark-builders as saviors of the story's flood victims. The overwhelmingly positive attention the film received in the state-controlled press hints at China's eagerness for Hollywood to abandon its historical vilification and fantasization of China in favor of helping it look good to the world.

No more Chinese enemies in the movies

Hollywood seems equally eager to do so. MGM recently scrubbed all references to a Chinese enemy from its upcoming remake of the 1984 cold-war-era drama "Red Dawn," digitally replacing Chinese military insignias with North Korean ones in a late edit.

Betting that China's multiplex owners, like their counterparts around the world, want as many high-earning 3-D films as possible, DreamWorks is playing one of its strong cards: attention to detail.

"3-D technology forced us to give depth to the film and show off the research we did in China so carefully this time around," says Raymond Zibach, veteran DreamWorks production designer for "Kung Fu Panda," during a three-day promotional tour to this cradle of the panda.

Before the first "Kung Fu Panda," which took five years to make, Mr. Zibach fought with DreamWorks chief executive officer Jeffrey Katzenberg for a China visit. He was told it would be too costly. Then the movie grossed $633 million worldwide. On his second request, Zibach got his trip.

In November 2008, with much of the first film's core creative crew in tow, Zibach went to Beijing; to Chengdu, in central China, to see pandas face to face; and then, outside Chengdu, to Mt. Qingcheng, a wellspring of Taoist philosophy and home to its own kung fu tradition.

"The mountain changed how we went about making the second film," says the California native, revisiting Chengdu and Mt. Qingcheng in late May, on only his second trip to China. "We absorbed its colors, its misty atmosphere, and its magic."

His group took 40,000 photos on that first trip and have incorporated inspiration from China's architecture and color palette into the sequel's computer-generated imagery. Local audiences may perk up at the Chinese characters for Mt. Qingcheng carved into rocks in digital scenery. "That's not product placement. It was just a nod of 'thank you,' " Zibach says.

Not long before Zibach and his team arrived to research the sequel, Mt. Qing­cheng was a mess, its park and kung fu school closed in the wake of the magnitude-8.0 Wenchuan earthquake in May 2008, which collapsed thousands of buildings and killed some 68,000 people.

"We wanted to help in whatever way we could," Zibach says, "and I was so proud to hear from Chinese who saw the movie that they felt it was a part of them, that they'd had a hand in making it."

How a trip to China shaped Kung Fu Panda 2DreamWorks Animation's Ray­mond Zibach says the first "Kung Fu Panda" film was designed from books and Internet research, but he knew he had to go to China for "Kung Fu Panda 2": "We'd fallen in love with pandas from afar and had to go see them for ourselves to get the second film right," the production designer says.

Mr. Zibach digitally "painted" the film's sets based on photographs he took in the Forbidden City – the walled North China city of Pingyao, in Chengdu (the capital of Sichuan Province) – and on Mt. Qingcheng, a center of kung fu tradition.

The character of baby Po, the panda who grows up to be the film's hero, was drawn after studying the movements of a baby panda at a Chengdu panda breeding facility.

The movements of Lord Shen, the evil peacock villain, are based on a particularly flexible and captivating kung fu master Zibach observed at Mt. Qingcheng.

Architectural and landscape details were drawn from elements such as the ceramic animal tiles found along traditional Chinese sloping roofs and from the lush green bamboo forests. Classical Chin­ese painting and martial arts films of the past decade – think "Hero" and "House of Flying Dag­gers" – also played a role in the film's "look," Zibach says.

MONITOR QUIZ: Weekly news quiz for May 23- 27, 2011

Sign up for our daily World Editor's Picks newsletter. Our best stories, in your inbox.

Yahoo! News

This post was made using the Auto Blogging Software from WebMagnates.org This line will not appear when posts are made after activating the software to full version.

Apple probes blast at Chinese plant (Reuters)

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) – Apple Inc (AAPL.O) is investigating an explosion that killed two people, injured 16 and forced a production halt at a Foxconn Technology Group factory in China said to produce the popular iPad 2.

Foxconn, whose flagship unit is Taiwan's Hon Hai Precision Industries (2317.TW) group and Apple's main manufacturing partner, said in a statement the explosion happened at about 7 pm local time (1100 GMT) on May 20.

"Production has been suspended at the site of the explosion until the completion of the investigation," Foxconn said in a statement.

"The safety of our employees is our highest priority and we will do whatever is required to determine and address the cause of this tragic accident."

It did not name the affected plant or say what it made, but China's official Xinhua News Agency said it was the Hongfujin Precision Electronics plant in a high-tech industrial zone west of Chengdu, the capital of Sichuan province.

Hon Hai spokesman Edmund Ding said the company is still evaluating losses. He could not say whether group founder and chairman Terry Gou had gone to the site.

IPAD AFFECTED

Apple shares closed down 1.56 percent at $335.22 on the Nasdaq, which saw a broad sell-off on euro-zone debt worries.

The explosion could affect the supply of iPads and investors were watching closely. Apple spokesman Steve Dowling said the company was assessing the situation.

"We are deeply saddened by the tragedy at the Foxconn plant in Chengdu and our hearts go out to the victims and their families," he said. "We are working closely with Foxconn to understand what caused this terrible event."

Ticonderoga Securities analyst Brian White said the factory makes a lot of iPads because some production had been shifted to the facility from factories in the southern Chinese city of Shenzhen.

Apple's iPad 2 commands 80 percent of the burgeoning tablet market in which Motorola Inc (MMI.N) and Samsung Electronics Co Ltd (005930.KS) also compete.

Apple sold 4.69 million iPads last quarter and is scrambling to meet staggering demand for the mobile device, but is heavily backlogged. Executives had expected production to ramp up during the present quarter to meet demand.

The plant explosion is the latest setback for Foxconn, the world's largest contract manufacturer.

The company made headlines last year after reports emerged about poor working conditions at factories in southern China, which critics say may have helped drive several employees to suicide.

The company pledged to improve employee welfare.

Facing higher wages in the southern China manufacturing belt, the scene of labor disputes last year, some Taiwanese manufacturers have opted to shift some operations to the country's interior, where costs are lower.

Foxconn also has plants in North America and Mexico, as well as in European countries, including Slovakia and Poland.

(Additional reporting by Clare Jim in Taipei; Editing by Edwin Chan, Lisa Von Ahn, Richard Chang and Andre Grenon; Editing by Sanjeev Miglani)

Yahoo! News

This post was made using the Auto Blogging Software from WebMagnates.org This line will not appear when posts are made after activating the software to full version.

Jailed Chinese dissident's art unveiled in New York

Ai Weiwei was noticeably absent from his own exhibit in New York He was detained by his government last month for unspecified "economic crimes"Ai's work was nonetheless celebrated by Manhattan's art aficionados.

New York (CNN) -- A Chinese artist was noticeably absent from his own exhibit in New York after having been detained by his government for unspecified "economic crimes."

Ai Weiwei, considered among China's best-known contemporary artists, was arrested at Capital Airport in Beijing on April 3 by state authorities.

But his absence from the exhibit opening on Wednesday did not deter Manhattan's art aficionados from celebrating his work.

"Today, we stand in solidarity with the millions of people around the world who are hoping that Ai Weiwei is quickly and safely released," New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg told reporters.

"Even though he could not be here physically, he continues to speak to us, to delight us, and to challenge us through his art."

The exhibit is called "Circle of Animals/Zodiac Heads" and consists of 12 large bronzed animal heads, which represent the 12 animals of the Chinese zodiac.

The mayor said Ai's work is an effort to reinterpret a water clock-fountain that once stood at Yuanming Yuan, an elaborate imperial retreat of the Qing dynasty in Beijing that was pillaged by British and French troops in 1860.

Situated atop marble bases, each sculpture stands approximately 10 feet high and weighs nearly 1,000 pounds.

Ai, who has remained in detention, has been unreachable to family and friends, according to Larry Warsh, founder of Abbey Warsh Asia, a private organization that promotes Chinese art.

Warsh said that while Ai has been a harsh government critic, his work exhibited on Wednesday is rooted more in Chinese nationalism.

"He uses the old historical motifs and invents another language of communication."

"People might be a little scared or fearful of having his art if you're in mainland China," he added. "But in five or ten years, I think he will be a hero and an icon, just like father."

Ai was raised in a labor camp in China's remote northwestern region of Xinjiang. His father, Ai Qing, was a nationally regarded poet who was purged in the 1950s after being denounced as "an enemy of the state and a rightist."

The younger Ai helped design the iconic Bird's Nest stadium for the Beijing Olympics in 2008, but he later called for a boycott of the games because he said it was being used as propaganda.

"They crack down on everybody who has different opinions -- not even different opinions, just different attitudes," he told CNN last year. "Simply to have different opinions can cost (dissidents) their life; they can be put in jail, can be silenced and can disappear."

The pieces from Wednesday's exhibit are located on the Pulitzer Fountain, near Manhattan's landmark Plaza Hotel, where they will be on display through July 15.

Similar works are expected to be displayed in London, Los Angeles, Houston, Pittsburgh and Washington D.C.

CNN

This post was made using the Auto Blogging Software from WebMagnates.org This line will not appear when posts are made after activating the software to full version.

Chinese lawyer freed, another missing

Teng Biao is freed after 70 days in custodySoon after his release, another lawyer is seized by unknown people "We've seen a serious backsliding in human rights," a top U.S. diplomat says

Beijing, China (CNN) -- Chinese authorities freed a prominent lawyer held for more than two months shortly after a U.S. official called for his release, a rights group said.

Teng Biao was released Friday after 70 days in custody, according to a U.S. Embassy spokesman.

China Human Rights Defenders also confirmed that he was no longer detained.

His release comes after two days of talks between the U.S. and China in Beijing.

"We've seen a serious backsliding in human rights," said Michael Posner, assistant U.S. secretary of state for democracy, human rights and labor.

During his meetings with Chinese officials, Posner highlighted the lawyer's case along with a host of other activists, artists and religious groups.

Posner said Thursday that relations between the United States and China could suffer as a result of the crackdown on activists following calls for a revolution in February.

However, celebration of his release was quickly muted when another lawyer was taken into custody soon after.

Li Fangping was seized by unidentified people while leaving an office building in Beijing and has been out of contact since then, according to China Human Rights Defenders.

Li has represented several high-profile individuals, including lawyer Chen Guangcheng, who remains under house arrest in Shangdong Province following his release from prison.

He also defended Zhao Lianhai, an outspoken food safety activist and parent of a child contaminated by melamine-tainted milk powder in 2008.

China Human Rights Defenders said Li told his wife by phone on Friday that "I may be gone for a period of time ... can't talk more."

Attempts to contact Li since then have gone unanswered.

"Releasing Dr. Teng is welcoming news, but China cannot continue to play this game of letting one go and taking another in if China wants to be seen as a responsible international partner," Bob Fu, founder of the nongovernmental organization China Aid, said in a statement.

Calls to Chinese officials for comment were not returned.

CNN Top Stories

This post was made using the Auto Blogging Software from WebMagnates.org This line will not appear when posts are made after activating the software to full version.