» Radio Free Asia - China news in English

Experts say they have found toxic chemicals in the "pea-soup" smogs hanging over Beijing, Tianjin and surrounding areas in higher concentrations than were found in Los Angeles 60 years ago, official media reported.

A recent report from the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) said "large amounts" of organic nitrogen compounds were detected in Beijing smog in January—the beginning of the smog now being dubbed "airpocalypse."

The smog has returned to choke northern China with heavy and off-the-scale pollution this month too, especially with PM 2.5 particles, which tend to penetrate into the gas exchange regions of the lung.

The report blames the prolonged smog on a combination of intensive coal burning, car emissions, cooking pollutants and a particular weather pattern creating an inversion layer over the low-lying cities.

In Beijing, car exhaust was the biggest contributor to the toxic haze that envelops the capital, according to CAS atmospheric physicist Wang Yuesi.

Weather patterns?

A Beijing resident surnamed Liu said he believed weather patterns had little to do with the smog, however, because the weather in Beijing this year has been similar to previous years.

"Beijing is wreathed in smog right now," Liu said in an interview with RFA's Mnadarin Service on Tuesday. "We haven't seen anything like it in several decades."

"Usually, the skies are pretty clear during the winter, and the visibility remains until you get the dust storms in the spring."

He said this year's smog could only be the result of severe pollution, not the weather.

"As citizens, we are very worried that this is going to harm our health," Liu said. "I am constantly coughing."

'Political points'

Guangzhou-based rights lawyer Liu Zhengqing said the pollution was the direct result of officials who risked the people's welfare to gain high economic growth figures and good marks on their record.

"The government is basically all a! bout scoring political points," he said. "Even if they know about pollution, they don't care."

"They invest in these prestige projects like skyscrapers, to make it look like they're getting results, but they don't care about drainage, or air pollution," Liu Zhengqing said. "They don't care about things they can't see."

Organic nitrogen particles were found in the deadly photochemical smog that killed more than 800 people in Los Angeles during the 1950s and the famous "pea-soupers" of London.

They can cause coughing, shortness of breath and trigger asthma attacks, and are likely behind a spike in hospital admissions for patients with respiratory diseases in January, in the affected area.

However, CAS said photochemical smog was not currently found in Beijing, because not enough sunlight was getting through to form ozone at ground level, state-run CCTV reported.

Reported by Yang Fan for RFA's Mandarin service. Translated and written in English by Luisetta Mudie.

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3 Things To Look For In A Mentor

3 Things To Look For In A Mentor - 2asuccessdreamblog.com My Mentors are going in the same direction that I vision myself to be. Where do vision yourself? After you enter your email, you will see the vision of the leaders that will take you to your success dreams. 2asuccessdreamblog.com Connect with Alecia Stringer on her blog, for more insights: 2asuccessdreamblog.com "If you do not learn from your mistakes you are doomed to repeat them." Yes, you learn from your mistakes, but if that is the only way you learn, you are in for a long, slow process. Learn from your mistakes, and in addition seek the help of a mentor, guide, teacher, or coach. Always ask for help. Make it a principle. Regardless of what you do or aspire to do, there is bound to be someone who can help you move forward more effectively than you can even imagine − because you are not there yet! Learn from your mistakes certainly, and in addition learn from those who have travelled the road ahead of you. It is rash to imagine that you can attain your best without wise counsel, support, and mentorship. If you feel that you have gifts to offer the world why would you deliberately hold yourself back from doing all you can from maximizing your ability to share them? Professional athletes have coaches, great spiritual teachers have mentors, and organizations have consultants. Even the Dalai Lama still has teachers to instruct him. The best athletes may have an entire squad of coaches and trainers. Leaders with the ...Video Rating: 5 / 5

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Part of our series on the year that was in fun videos, fun rants, and fun posts.

平顶山张耀东被打致死，北京公安说病死/视频

In last year, the Chinese Communists eighteen, Pingdingshan City petitioners Zhang Yaodong liberating Pingdingshan municipal government officials incitement beaten to death, the deceased's sister Zhang Yao spent rushing for more than two months to report to the Beijing Municipal Public Security Bureau in Beijing, the Beijing Municipal Public Security Bureau has not I put on record.

was stunned breathe to the hospital diagnosis of death, said the Beijing Public Security-mortem examination is dying of a disease. Case, the Beijing public security is an accomplice!

Pingdingshan Zhang Yaodong was beaten to death, the Beijing Public Security said the dead / Video

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Thank You Tibet !: performance by Tenzin Kunsel and group

Presented by The Tibet Fund www.tibetfund.orgVideo Rating: 4 / 5

There’s been another tragic loss of lives in southwestern China. Five boys, aged between four and six-years-old, suffocated to death on Monday.

They were found in a house formerly used to cure tobacco in Guiyang, Guizhou province. Chinese state media reports four of them died at the scene. The fifth made it to the hospital, but didn’t survive.

Media reports say straw in the house caught fire and the boys suffocated as a result.

The boys were all from separate families but state media says their parents were all away at a wedding.

The deaths come three months after another five young boys died in Guizhou. They were inside a dumpster, and died from carbon monoxide poisoning after lighting a fire to keep warm. That case sparked outrage online, highlighting the lack of welfare for children in China’s rural areas.

Just One Child: Science and Policy in Deng's China

China's one-child rule is unassailably one of the most controversial social policies of all time. In the first book of its kind, Susan Greenhalgh draws on twenty years of research into China's population politics to explain how the leaders of a nation of one billion decided to limit all couples to one child. Focusing on the historic period 1978-80, when China was just reentering the global capitalist system after decades of self-imposed isolation, Greenhalgh documents the extraordinary manner in which a handful of leading aerospace engineers hijacked the population policymaking process and formulated a strategy that treated people like missiles. Just One Child situates these science- and policymaking practices in their broader contexts--the scientization and statisticalization of sociopolitical life--and provides the most detailed and incisive account yet of the origins of the one-child policy.

List Price: $ 29.95 Price: $ 22.23

» Radio Free Asia - China news in English

Amid growing public outrage at huge property portfolios held by some officials, authorities in a number of Chinese cities have begun to ban searches aimed at discovering the number of properties a person owns.

The new rules have been announced in Beijing, Guangzhou and Shanghai, as well as in smaller cities like Zhangzhou in the southeastern province of Fujian, and Yancheng in the eastern province of Jiangsu, official media reported.

The rules apply to requests for property registry searches, which could previously be placed using a person's name as search criteria.

"Now, only searches using the property location or the deed number will be permitted," said the new regulations, posted on the website of the Zhangzhou municipal government in Fujian.

An official who answered the phone at the property management bureau of the Yancheng municipal government in Jiangxi confirmed the new rules.

"We have published new methods for searching information," the official said, but declined to comment further.

However, a notice on the city government's website said the rules now stipulated that only lawyers, land registry departments and housing departments could carry out searches under personal names.

Requests from anyone else would be refused, it said, adding that there had been a number of "abnormal" leakages of personal information in some districts.

It said the rules had been issued in response to "security fears" among ordinary citizens.

'Corrupt officials are afraid'

But political analysts said the move was more likely aimed at blocking public attempts to unmask officials and civil servants with exceptionally large property portfolios.

"Corrupt officials are afraid that information about their properties will come to light, so they are talking about their so-called privacy," said Hu Xingdou, professor at the Beijing University of Science and Technology.

"However, the principle should be that officials have been entrusted ! with public power, and very likely making out of that power some kind of private gain," he said.

"So details of their properties have nothing to do with privacy. If they want to protect the privacy of their property investments, they should leave public life," Hu said.

In just one of a series of cases unmasked by netizens, authorities in the northern province of Shaanxi are currently investigating a former banking official accused online of amassing a huge Beijing property portfolio using forged identities.

Gong Aiai, a former deputy head of the Shenmu County Rural Commercial Bank in Shaanxi's Yulin city, was detained after allegations that she owned more than 20 properties under false names surfaced on the Internet, with evidence from whistle-blowers.

Gong, who is nicknamed online "the house lady," is thought to have accumulated more than 20 properties worth an estimated 1 billion yuan (U.S.$ 159 million) in Beijing using fake documents.

Retired Shandong University professor Sun Wenguang said netizens had been active via social media sites like Sina Weibo in trying to unmask similar cases across China using searches of land registries.

"The use of property information databases has become a major tool in the fight against corruption in China," Sun said.

"This has put fear into officials, because there isn't a single one of them who is not corrupt," he said.

Guangzhou rights lawyer Tang Jingling said that soon after a similar case to Gong's known as "house uncle" had emerged in Guangzhou, the local authorities had clamped down on land and property registry inquiries from the public.

"They basically made it much harder for members of the public to make information requests from the property databases," Tang said. "The impetus for these rules came from officials behind the scenes who thought it was too easy for people to get hold of evidence of corruption."

"They say they want to protect their so-called privacy, but in fact they want to cover up! evidence! of criminal activity," Tang said.

Privacy protection

According to an article published on the website of the Xinhua news agency on Monday, it was "extremely necessary" to protect the privacy of property owners' information.

It said the aims of privacy protection and the fight against corruption were "not incompatible."

Incoming president Xi Jinping, who takes over formally from Hu Jintao in March, has warned that the ruling Chinese Communist Party must beat graft or lose power, sparking a nationwide clampdown on corruption.

However, political analysts say that officials with friends in high places are unlikely to be touched by the crackdown, and reports suggest many are liquidating their assets and making moves overseas.

China scored poorly in an annual global corruption index published last year by Transparency International, which measures perceptions of corruption around the world.

Mainland China ranked 80th out of 176 countries, down five places from the previous year.

Reported by Wei Ling for RFA's Cantonese service and Yang Fan for the Mandarin service. Translated and written in English by Luisetta Mudie.

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Songs for Tibet - Art of Peace Foundation "Freedom is Expression"

www.ArtofPeaceFoundation.org. As a show of solidarity with the Dalai Lama and Tibet, 20 artists have come together to release this historic double album on the eve of the Beijing Olympics. These recordings - some original for the project and some acoustically driven recordings of previously released songs - express our common vulnerabilities and experiences in pursuing happiness, peace and freedom. Collectively, these tracks represent a heartfelt message of support for the path of compassion and non-violence championed by the Dalai Lama. Begun in May of 2008 and completed in two months, the outpouring of support from all corners of the world was unparalleled. Funds raised from the album by the Foundation will go to support peace initiatives and Tibetan cultural preservation projects important to the Dalai Lama. As the start of the Bejing Olympics nears, we applaud the athletes and the people of China in their accomplishment. Unfortunately promises made by the Chinese Government to the IOC have been broken over and over, including China's promise to remove the "Great Firewall of China" which blocks access to the internet and information. Journalists who are reporting on the Olympics are still being blocked and hindered as of today.Video Rating: 4 / 5

By The Dalai Lama London 2012

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What makes a city great? I just got back from a week in New York and I just love the place. I love that I can go to a place like Russ & Daughters, a Jewish food shop, staffed by South Americans and a Sherpa (yes a real Sherpa) who speak some Yiddish. I love that I can go to a home-style Japanese restaurant where everyone outside of my immediate group appears to be Japanese or Japanese-American. I love that there are literally hundreds of museums and cultural institutions. I have a friend who has a friend who when he retired said that he would go to a different museum every day for five days out of the week for a year and he did. I love the fashion and the stores. I love that I walk just about everywhere, without ever getting bored. I love the parks and the buildings. I love the history. I love the humor. I even love the cockiness. New York is a great city.

London is a great city. Paris is a great city. Istanbul is a great city. This is just my own list of places that immediately spring to mind. What they all share is that three months is not nearly enough time to take them in.

Does Shanghai belong among the greats? I kept asking this as I read a truly great article on Shanghai's development/history/architecture/urbanism, entitled, "Head of the Dragon: The Rise of New Shanghai." The article is an excerpt from A History of Future Cities, a very soon to be released book by Daniel Brook. The article on Shanghai is quite long, but also quite fascinating and I highly recommend it to anyone interested in China history, architecture or urbanism.

So is Shanghai a great city? Maybe. Its sheer scale is amazing. The Bund is great. Xintiandi is special. The Shanghai Museum is world class. But is Shanghai truly a great world city and, if so, what makes it so, and if not, why not?

What do you think?

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We loved the list of tips and tricks for living in Beijing that Kaiser Kuo wrote on Quora. We agree with them all (especially the last one). Not being able to top such comprehensive and impassioned advice, we thought we'd go a different route. Since we (YJ excluded) confess to occasionally both whining AND bitching, we've come to rely on a few simple hacks to avoid unnecessary bad China days.

Which ones did we miss? Leave us a comment and let us know your top survival apps!

Language Skills

Pleco
The indispensable dictionary app. The free included dictionary is pretty good, while for more heavy-duty purposes, serious language learners (or "grownups," as Brendan calls them) can purchase add-ons including dictionaries, optical character recognition, flashcards, and more. The ABC Chinese-English dictionary is particularly useful, and more advanced users will find the Xiandai Hanyu Guifan Cidian (现代汉语规范词典) indispensable.
Homepage Android iOS

Waygo Visual Translator
Too lazy and/or stupid to learn Chinese? Or perhaps you just want to be able to order a meal without having to learn the world's dumbest writing system first? Waygo Visual Translator has got your back: the free app offers remarkably good OCR for menus and street signs. Point your iPhone at a menu and get an instantaneous (and mostly pretty accurate) translation of dish names. Brendan used to recommend that anyone coming to China pick up a copy of James D. McCawley's The Eater's Guide to Chinese Characters; Waygo renders that excellent book more or less obsolete. So this is what living in the future is going to be like!
Homepage iOS

Xiaoma Hanzi (小马词典)
A nice little character study app that lets you quiz yourself on the pronunciation and meaning of random characters and search by stroke order, though not as comprehensive as Pleco.
Homepage Android

Sogou Pinyin Input (搜狗手机输入法)
China's most ubiquitous pinyin input software, developed by internet giant Sohu (also good for watching American TV shows, see below), Sogou Pinyin keeps up with the latest memes, brands and names, so when you enter a pinyin string more often than not the first one is the right one. Also not bad: Google Pinyin.
Homepage Android iOS

Shopping & Eating

Taobao (淘宝)
Russian MIGs and everything else made by the hand of man, plus rent-a-boyfriends.
Homepage Android iOS

Etao (一淘)
Great for comparison shopping across e-commerce sites in China and abroad (including Amazon.com).
Homepage Android iOS

Alipay (支付宝钱包)
Want that MIG? This is how you pay for it.
Homepage Android iOS

Dazhong Dianping (大众点评)
Find restaurants by location, cuisine, price, or user reviews.
Homepage Android iOS

MTime (时光电影)
Find movie theaters and showtimes in your area.
Homepage Android iOS

Wochacha (我查查)
Scan barcodes on books, food, or other stuff and compare prices at supermarkets in your area and e-commerce sites.
Homepage Android iOS

Social

Sina Weibo (新浪微博)
Keep your finger on the pulse of China's netizens, follow the latest celebrity gossip, and if you're really lucky, become popular enough that people notice when you're banned. There's also Tencent Weibo, but we've never met someone who intentionally posts anything there.
Homepage Android iOS

WeChat (微信)
Hot on the heels of Weibo, Tencent's annointed successor to the omnipresent QQ Instant Messenger features an impressive array of ways to waste time chatting with your friends.
Homepage Android iOS

Music

Xiami (虾米)
Streaming music service, keeps up with China, UK, Billboard charts and searchable for that song you've got to hear right now. Also lets you save 50 songs on your phone for offline playback. Click the album cover and follow along on the lyrics (they're not available for every song though, its hit or miss).
Homepage Android iOS

doubanfm Douban FM (豆瓣FM)
Internet radio station like Pandora. Develops a personalized station based on your favorites, also saves your latest favorites to the phone for offline playback. Particularly interesting are theme stations like those tailor for 80后 and 90后 generation listeners, playing nostalgic classics from their childhoods as well as new music popular with their peers.
Homepage Android iOS

Video

Youku (优酷)
Youku devoured their rival Tudou last year and has an impressive collection of legal, HD films and TV shows from around the world, plus a whole lot of other films and TV shows that may not be quite as legal or high-quality.
Homepage Android iOS

Sohu Video (搜狐视频)
Need to see Mad Men, Dexter, Homeland, Breaking Bad, or Big Bang Theory? Sohu licenses some of the US megahits that Chinese viewers really dig.
Homepage Android iOS

iQiyi (爱奇艺)
Baidu's online video platform offers a number of films and TV shows not available on Sohu or Youku.
Homepage Android iOS

Funshion (风行)
I've not used Funshion yet, but I hear good things, and they have Downton Abbey – good start.
Homepage Android iOS

Kascend (开迅视频)
Great for searching across multiple video platforms.
Homepage Android iOS

Flvshow (视频飞搜)
A good rule of thumb is to never download Android apps from outside the Android app store unless its directly from the official company website (like the Xiami links above), but this app came pre-installed on a nano PC I bought and its a pretty good aggregator of all the video sites, like Kascend. Download at your own risk – the link below is from phone manufacturer Meizu's app store:
Android

CNTV CBox (国网络电视台Cbox)
CNTV is CCTV's online arm, and the CBox app lets you watch CCTV stations live – good for catching that NBA game on CCTV-5.
Homepage Android iOS

Travel

Ctrip
Find and reserve air and rail tickets, hotel rooms, and travel packages.
Homepage Android iOS

UMeTrip (航旅纵横)
Track flight departures, arrivals and delays at mainland China airports.
Homepage Android iOS

Yidao Yongche (易到用车)
Stuck in Guomao and have dinner plans near Sanlitun? Fees average about 2-3 times the cost of a cab, but this GPS-based pay-as-you-go car service is great for those times when you really need to somewhere but can't count on a taxi being available. Automatic pick-ups and advanced booking available.
Homepage Android iOS

Utilities

全国空气污染指数 (National Air Pollution Index)
Check the PM 2.5 levels before you leave the house so you know whether to pack your filter mask/gas mask/stay in and cry.
Homepage Android iOS

Conversion Apps
Americans in particular need help learning to think about distance and weight the way most humans do, so an app like ConvertPad for Android or Converter Plus for iOS.

Helpful Tips

Want 3G but don't know which Chinese carrier to use? If you use AT&T or T-Mobile (WCDMA), you need China Unicom. If you use Verizon (EV-DO), you need China Telecom. You can only use China Mobile's local flavor of 3G if you buy a phone from China Mobile, because its a homegrown standard that hasn't caught on globally. 4G? Not here yet.
Don't use HiMarket or other Chinese app store versions of apps on an Android device with a SIM card or your personal info.
Guess what? English names of apps, movies, TV shows, companies, etc. are either translated or phoneticized, so if you want to find Hobo with a Shotgun, pop the English into Baidu (Android and iOS apps available) and usually it'll spit back the Chinese name (持枪流浪汉), and maybe even links to watch.

Don't Stop the Carnival: Advice for Staying in China

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Kim Jong Un is determined to become the modern Emperor Qin Shihuang (guy who built the Great Wall) ?

"There is no Korea but the one belongs to the Kim dynasty" ?

"And I'd annihilate anyone standing on my way ... including China" ? Don't laugh ... this is totally possible considering Genghis Khan who was once a nomadic horseman actually collapsed the giant and highly civilized Middle Kingdom more than a millennium ago. So, please don't laugh.

North Korea threatened South Korea with "final destruction" during a debate at the United Nations Conference on Disarmament on Tuesday, saying it could take further steps after a nuclear test last week. "As the saying goes, a new-born puppy knows no fear of a tiger," North Korean diplomat Jon Yong Ryong told the meeting. "South Korea's erratic behavior would only herald its final destruction." Jon's comments drew quick criticism from other ... Anyway,

Hail the Lord ! Hail the Almighty Commie Lord (Kim Jong Il ?) !

North Korea threatens 'final destruction' of South Korea: Secretive state attacks neighbour at U.N. after third successful nuclear test

North Korean diplomat's inflammatory language stunned U.N member states
Jon Yong Ryong made the comments at conference on disarmament
North Korea carried out a widely condemned nuclear test last week
South Korea warned it could strike if felt an attack from north was imminent

"Lil Kim is very sexy, yuh ?"

By Kerry Mcdermott @ Daily Mail

North Korea threatened South Korea with 'final destruction' during a debate at the United Nations Conference on Disarmament today, implying it could take further steps following its widely condemned nuclear test last week.

'As the saying goes, a new-born puppy knows no fear of a tiger. South Korea's erratic behaviour would only herald its final destruction,' North Korean diplomat Jon Yong Ryong told the meeting.

His choice of words left other member states stunned, with Britain's U.N. ambassador Joanne Adamson calling such inflammatory language 'completely inappropriate'.

'No fear': North Korean officials watched soldiers at a rally organised to celebrate the state's successful nuclear test last week

'It cannot be allowed that we have expressions which refer to the possible destruction of U.N. member states,' Ms Adamson said.

Jon Yong Ryong's comment also prompted sharp criticism from South Korea, France and Germany, while Spanish ambassador Javier Gil Catalina said it had left him stupefied and appeared to be a breach of international law.

'In the 30 years of my career I've never heard anything like it and it seems to me that we are not speaking about something that is even admissible, we are speaking about a threat of the use of force that is prohibited by Article 2.4 of the United Nations charter,' he said.

Since the North tested a nuclear bomb last week in defiance of U.N. resolutions, its southern neighbour has warned it could strike the isolated state if it believed an attack was imminent.

Warning: Soldiers in South Korea - which said in the wake of its northern neighbour's nuclear test that it could strike if it believed an attack was imminent - participate in a live fire drill

Pyongyang said the aim of the test was to bolster its defences given the hostility of the United States, which has led a push to impose sanctions on North Korea.

'South Korea's erratic behaviour would only herald its final destruction'
North Korean diplomat Jon Yong Ryong

'Our current nuclear test is the primary countermeasure taken by the DPRK (Democratic People's Republic of Korea) in which it exercised its maximum self-restraint,' said the North Korean diplomat Jon.

'If the U.S. takes a hostile approach toward the DPRK to the last, rendering the situation complicated, it (North Korea) will be left with no option but to take the second and third stronger steps in succession,' he said, without elaborating on what that might entail.

North Korea has already told key ally China that it is prepared to stage one or two more tests this year to force the United States into diplomatic talks, a source with direct knowledge of the message said last week.

U.S. Ambassador Laura Kennedy said she found North Korea's threat today profoundly disturbing and later tweeted that it was 'offensive'.

Training: South Korean soldiers fire live rounds during a training exercise in Cheorwon, South Korea

Poland's representative suggested North Korea's participation in the U.N. forum should be limited.

Impoverished and malnourished North Korea is one of the most heavily sanctioned states in the world.

It is still technically at war with South Korea after a 1950-53 civil war ended in a mere truce.

Washington and its allies are believed to be pushing to tighten the noose around North Korea's financial transactions in a bid to starve its leadership of funding.

Jon said last week's test was an act of self-defence against nuclear blackmail by the United States, which wanted to block North Korea's economic development and its fundamental rights.

'It is the disposition and firm will of the army and people of the DPRK to counter high-handed policy with tough-fist policy and to react to pressure and sanctions with an all-out counter-action,' he said.

Jon said the United States had conducted most of the nuclear tests and satellite launches in history, and he described its pursuit of U.N. Security Council resolutions against North Korea as 'a breach of international law and the height of double standards'.

Neither Russia nor China, which are veto-wielding members of the U.N. Security Council, spoke at the meeting in Geneva today.

Before its nuclear test, North Korea was already facing growing diplomatic pressure at the United Nations.

The U.N. Human Rights Council is widely expected to order an inquiry next month into its leaders' responsibilities for crimes against humanity.

» Politics » Tealeafnation

As The New York Times reported this morning, U.S.-based cybersecurity firm Mandiant has just released a deeply troubling report called "Exposing One of China's Cyber Espionage Units." The report alleges wide-spread hacking sponsored by the People's Liberation Army, which is controlled by the Chinese Communist Party. The report states, "Our research and observations indicate that the Communist Party of China is tasking the Chinese People's Liberation Army [PLA] to commit systematic cyber espionage and data theft against organizations around the world."

In particular, the report fingers the PLA's General Staff Department's 3rd Department, 2nd Bureau–also called Unit 61398–as the main source of such attacks. Mandiant describes the difficulty of finding online references that link Unit 61389 to the Chinese Government.

This does not mean, however, that one cannot read Chinese language discussion of Unit 61398. Tea Leaf Nation recently conducted searches for terms related to the Mandiant report on Sina Weibo, China's pre-eminent social media discussion platform, and found them all unblocked. These included "Mandiant," "61398," Chinese terms for the PLA units found to lie behind the hacking ("61398部队," "总参二局," and "总参三部二局") and words referring to particularized Mandiant terms, such as "Comment Crew" and "Apt1."

China's Ministry of Defense promptly replied that it "has never supported any hacking activities," further stating that "hacker attacks are a global problem. Like other countries, China also faces a serious threat from cyber attacks, and is among the world's major victims of hacker attacks." A number of mainstream Weibo outlets carried the news, including China Central Television or CCTV (@央视新闻), China News (@中国新闻网) and Breaking News (@头条新闻). On China's frequently censored Internet, the current state of play likely reflects a calculation by Chinese authorities that it is better to begin with a public challenge to the Mandiant allegations, perhaps allowing online discussion in order to glimpse how grass-roots Web users react to the official argument.

Among several hundred aggregate reactions to the Mandiant report, an outline of preliminary grassroots reaction could be clearly discerned.

Perhaps unsurprising in a country where the state remains heavily involved in its media, many commenters evinced a monolithic conception of the United States that linked Mandiant, media outlets, and the U.S. government. In particular, users responding to the CCTV post took a negative tack toward the U.S., telling the "yankees" that "America is always turning a little mirror towards others, and never towards itself!" Others felt that turnabout was fair–or necessary–play. One wrote that the U.S. "has been openly seeking top hackers; [it's] China that has been timid." Another commented, "China has far more people, American technology is better. In an online war, it would be 100 on 1."

But the domestic perception of China as an underdog remains, and many simply found it sensible for China's PLA to employ hackers. One wrote, "These days, can an army without hackers even be called an army?" Another observed that hackers were "today's special forces." One user cast hacking as a fact of life: "Where there's an Internet, there will be hackers." Another commented that "hacking attacks have long been a method used by every country."

One user sought to put the matter in historical context: "I think the U.S. hyping online warfare is like [President] Reagan's Star Wars [missile defense] program, which was the final straw that broke the Soviet economy." The user compared pursuing online warfare to an arms race in space: "China knows it can't beat the U.S., but it cannot remain uninvolved."
Commenters appeared split on whether to be proud or ashamed at the news. One said it was a "loss of face" that the unit had been discovered; another was "proud, but [does] not believe it."

As always, Weibo users fancied themselves sleuths. One user astutely noted that there appeared to be a white license plate or two in the New York Times photograph of the Shanghai apartment building from which Mandiant believes many Chinese cyber attacks originate. Chinese Web users are keenly aware that a white plate connotes PLA affiliation. In addition, a number demonstrated the Chinese Web's enduring fascination with Lanxiang (蓝翔), a school in Shandong province. As Tea Leaf Nation reported on January 31, although Lanxiang bills itself as a vocational school and "advertises tirelessly on local television as the training grounds for future tractor drivers, chefs, auto repairmen and hair dressers," Chinese Web users have continued to believe that Lanxiang is also a training ground for elite hackers.

Despite the evident lack of heavy censorship at this early stage, the volume commentary on this issue has thus far remained thin. While Chinese cyber attacks are deeply troubling to Americans, Chinese Web users must remain constantly aware of authorities monitoring, and sometimes deleting, their own words. In this respect, hacking, or its cousin, censorship, is a fact of life for China's online citizens. That perhaps explains why some users drew an explicit–if humorous–line between hackers and censors. Using the incisive gallows humor so common on the Chinese social Web, one user wrote, "It's a rumor! We don't call them 'hackers,' we call them 'Sina's little secretaries,'" slang for Sina's in-house censors. To one commenter, it actually showed "progress" if the PLA was in fact hacking the U.S.; "Before, the army was only able to oppress Chinese people."

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Mandiant: Chinese Military Unit Behind Sustained Cyber Attacks

China Won't Cut Its Cyberspying

New York Times

China is actively penetrating critical information infrastructure in the United States with hostile strategic intent.

The Chinese see no reason to abandon development of information technology for military purposes.

US Works to Head Off Cyber Threat

VOA News: Asia by Kate Pound Dawson, Jim Randle

While a U.S. computer security company links China’s government to scores of cyber attacks in the United States, there are fears in Washington that the U.S. risks losing a cyber-war. Analysts say computer hackers are attacking more often, and in more sophisticated ways. President Barack Obama has ordered government agencies to share information about cyber-threats with private companies, and Congress is considering new laws to increase protection for vulnerable firms.

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Counting the Cost - China: Money, power and politics

As the changing of the guard in the People's Republic of China draws closer, we look at just how financially-rewarding being in politics can be. Plus, Iran's currency crisis, and Vietnam's missed opportunities.
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» Radio Free Asia - China news in English

Two Tibetan teenagers have died after staging self-immolation protests in China's Sichuan province, highlighting the human rights plight of the new generation of Tibetans born under Chinese rule, sources inside Tibet and exile leaders said Wednesday.
Rinchen, 17, and Sonam Dargye, 18, set themselves on fire to protest against Chinese rule in the Ngaba (in Chinese, Aba) Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture's Dzoege (Ruo'ergai) county on Tuesday night, the sources said.
Both died on the spot and their bodies have been taken home by their families.
"The two boys were residents of Kyantsa town and they died in the protest against Chinese policy in Tibet," Tibetan monks Kanyag Tsering and Lobsang Yeshi said from India's hill town Dharamsala where they live in exile, citing local contacts.
"It is not clear what they specifically demanded before they succumbed to their burns," they said.
Rinchen and Sonam Dargye were elementary school classmates in Kyantsa.
Twenty of the 104 Tibetans who have self-immolated so far were 18 years old or under that age, according to figures compiled by the International Campaign for Tibet advocacy group.
The self-immolations by the new generation of Tibetans born under Chinese rule "are sending an unequivocal message to the world about the gravity of the situation in Tibet," said Dicki Chhoyang, Minister of Information and International Relations in the Dharamsala-based Tibetan exile government, the Central Tibetan Administration.
She told a meeting in Geneva on Tuesday ahead of the 2013 UN Human Rights Council session that China must be held accountable to the pledges it made to the world body to improve its human rights record.
More than 80 of the Tibetan self-immolators who have protested against Chinese rule and called for the return of Tibet's exiled spiritual leader the Dalai Lama have died in the burnings.
"What we hear are numbers, but behind each number there are really people like you and me," Dicki Chh! oyang said.
Message
She then read a short message left behind by Nangdrol, an 18-year-old boy, who self-immolated on Feb. 19 last year and died.
He wrote, "We are unable to remain under these draconian laws, unable to tolerate this torment that does not leave a scar, because the pain of not enjoying any basic human rights is far greater than the pain of self-immolation," Dicki Chhoyang said.
She charged that the self-immolations in Tibet were fueled by "China's political repression, economic marginalisation, environmental destruction and cultural assimilation."
The latest self-immolation protests by the two teenagers "show that despite China's recent crackdown, this form of protest is likely to remain a feature of the Tibetan response to Chinese occupation in 2013," said Stephanie Brigden, director of the London-based Free Tibet advocacy group.
"It also highlights the plight of Tibet's children, who face all the challenges of life under oppression, and are often full participants in the struggle to resist it," she said.
The United Nations Committee on the Rights of the Child has published a "list of issues to be taken up" with China following hearings in Geneva two weeks ago in which the country's record on protecting the rights of children was scrutinized, according to Free Tibet.
Evidence of 'abuses'
The panel had also considered a Free Tibet report, which included evidence about Tibetan self-immolations involving those under 18 and other "abuses" of children's rights, it said.
"The committee has demanded that China answers whether it has 'conducted a thorough and independent inquiry' into self-immolations of children in Tibet and asks what the state has done to 'identify the reasons for such desperate acts by children and prevent future ones,' Free Tibet said.
The panel had also demanded information about the use of "excessive force against peaceful demonstrations, arrest and arbitrary ! detention! of children, and abuse of their religious freedom and language rights in Tibet."
Beijing has defended its rule of Tibet and says the Dalai Lama and other Tibetan leaders in exile have orchestrated the self-immolations from their base in India.
But Tibetan exile leaders deny involvement in the burnings and have called on Tibetans in Tibet to exercise restraint.
Reported by RFA's Tibetan Service. Translated by Karma Dorjee. Written in English by Parameswaran Ponnudurai.

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His Holiness Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche - Part 4/5

CLICK Here for more Tibet Videos : www.youtube.com The Life of His Holiness Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche This film is an authentic portrait of Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche, one of Tibet's great contemporary teachers, considered to be a "Master of Masters" among the four schools of Tibetan Buddhism. Renowned as a great meditator, guru, poet, scholar and as one of the main teachers of the Dalai Lama, the Nyingma Lama Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche died in 1991. Ten years in the making, this film began in 1989 when translator Matthieu Riacrd and Vivian Kurz began taping extensive footage of their teacher. Shot in rarely filmed Kham, Eastern Tibet, as well as Nepal, Bhutan, India and France, the film shows the rich and intricate tapestry Of Tibetan Buddhism and is a witness to the strength, wisdom and depth of Tibetan culture. Narration by Richard Gere with music by Philip Glass. May all beings be happy
Video Rating: 4 / 5

By His Holiness Dalai Lama in Prague 2011

» Politics » Source

A 2008 expat Halloween party in Shanghai. (Jakob Montrasio/Flickr)

In recent months, the "China expat" has been making international headlines. Several longtime residents of China announced their intention to leave on public forums, explaining that living in China was not only hazardous to their health, but worse, an alienating experience.
However, their much-publicized exits seem to be the anomaly, not the trend. The Shanghai Daily reported that Shanghai's expat population now exceeds 173,000 – a 6.7% increase from 2011. What's more, that figure only accounts for a quarter of the total number of foreign residents currently residing in mainland China.

The rise of the expat
China's expat population has grown every year since 2000; in 2004, the government even introduced a green card system allowing foreign citizens to gain permanent residency. Before then, newcomers arrived in China to find a world stringently guarded against the outside. These early expats were the pioneers, the ones willing to carve out a life for themselves in cities bereft of cheese, English signage and sit-down toilets. Local food was dirt-cheap, and Western fare impossible to find outside of hotels. Instead of streets clogged with cars, dusty bicycles reigned supreme. Meanwhile, anyone with a white face and/or foreign passport was associated with wealth and prestige, regardless of their actual status.
Mark Kitto – a Welshman who has spent the last 16 years of his life in China, andwhose exit set off the aforementioned spate of farewell letters in the Sinophile blogosphere – puts it best: "When I arrived in Beijing [in the mid-'80s], China was communist … The basic necessities of life: food, drink, clothes and a bicycle, cost peanuts. We lived like kings – or we would have if there had been anything regal to spend our money on."

A changing climate
Life changed dramatically in the last decade, however, at least in China's major metropolises. These days, expats are practically spoiled for options, from Western grocery stores to pubs, international fast-fashion retailers to luxury brands, Burger King to Michelin-starred restaurants. Part of this can be attributed to the influx of expats, with local businesses adapting their offerings to keep up with demand, and part to expats themselves opening up restaurants, bars and boutiques that cater to foreign tastes.
But far more significantly, the market has been redefined by a burgeoning Chinese urban middle class with more spending power. In an interview with CNN Money, consultant Helen Wang notes: "The Chinese are shopping a lot more. Retail is booming like a wildfire in China. There are a lot more consumers and they are demanding a lot more services." This domestic growth, coupled with the economic downturn in America and Europe, has many Western companies expanding across the mainland, looking towards China to fill the gap.
At the same time, even more expats are flocking to China. Expat Clarissa Sebag-Montefiore, in an op-ed piece for The New York Times, explains: "[Besides] well-paid executives … there are also younger expats [who have been] pushed away from home by unemployment and pulled to Asia by work and travel opportunities, combined with lower living costs."

Shifting roles
What does this mean for China's expats? First off, they are less and less a novelty. Once upon a time, they were asked to pose for photos wherever they went. While this is still true in most areas, they are now hardly given a second glance in the trendier areas of big cities. With more of them around, expats have been demystified – and more opportunities for interaction have perhaps led local Chinese to a startling revelation: that many foreigners are poor students, or are struggling to make ends meet, while China's middle class is only growing more and more wealthy.
If "laowai" (a colloquial Chinese term for foreigners) are no longer assumed to be rich, of course they will be entitled to fewer privileges. In July 2010, China-based journalist Mitch Moxley wrote an article called "Rent a White Guy" for The Atlantic about his experience as a fake businessman in a third-tier city in China, where the "only requirements were a fair complexion and a suit."
Is this sort of scenario still possible? Absolutely. Will it be in another ten years? Probably not. At China's current rate of growth – The Guardian recently cited a U.S. Intelligence report that predicts China will be the largest economic power by 2030 – local Chinese will have plenty of rich people among them. Its urban areas will likely become less and less affordable for the young foreign college grads who have been drawn to China in recent years. (2009 already saw a 25% jump in housing prices in Beijing.)
Bloomberg Businessweekwriter Shaun Rein cautioned, "[foreigners] need to remember that operating a business here is not easy, and they need to be patient. China is no longer a cheap place to do business, and competition from domestic companies is fierce."
Exploring the fears surrounding this shift, French expat Benoit Cezard released a photo series, "China 2050," that reimagines expats as construction workers, maids and street vendors, taking on the roles traditionally filled by China's devastatingly poor migrant worker population.
Most telling are Chinese netizens' reactions to the pictures, which have since gone viral. On Sina Weibo, China's Twitter, @六耳猕猴在北京 said: "By 2050, China will be the economic superpower. The white devils who come to China will have to take on the low-paying positions. If only I could see this happen in my lifetime." @陈大瓏琦 commented: "This is a reminder to white people what the consequences of high welfare and complacency are." It's worth noting these commenters both conflate being foreign in China with being white; China's resident foreigners are more diverse than that.
While the expat underclass that Cezard imagines is an extreme rendition, he does make one important point: that the influence of expats is waning as China's world status grows. Does this mean that fewer opportunities will be available to them? Certainly, they will no longer be able to rely on their "exotic" looks to land a job. But an increasingly powerful China will continue attracting expats, who will simply have to adapt and face new challenges. And while that will make life less "interesting" for expats, it will also make life more fair.

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The Party: The Secret World of China's Communist Rulers

"Few outsiders have any realistic sense of the innards, motives, rivalries, and fears of the Chinese Communist leadership. But we all know much more than before, thanks to Richard McGregor's illuminating and richly-textured look at the people in charge of China's political machinery.... Invaluable." — James Fallows, National Correspondent for The Atlantic
The Party is Financial Times reporter Richard McGregor's eye-opening investigation into China's Communist Party, and the integral role it has played in the country's rise as a global superpower and rival to the United States. Many books have examined China's economic rise, human rights record, turbulent history, and relations with the U.S.; none until now, however, have tackled the issue central to understanding all of these issues: how the ruling communist government works. The Party delves deeply into China's secretive political machine.

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Eight people were injured in an earthquake near the border area of China's southwestern Sichuan and Yunnan provinces, local authorities said today.

The 4.9-magnitude quake, which occurred at 10:46 a.m. yesterday with an epicenter 6 km deep, toppled 72 houses and damaged 949 others in Yunnan's Qiaojia County, the county government said.
The injured, including two people in serious condition, have been sent to local hospitals, state-run Xinhua news agency reported.
"Many people ran out of buildings when the quake came, but there was no falling debris. The shopping mall resumed business shortly after," a mall shopper in the county said.
Rescue work is underway and local civil affairs authorities have dispatched relief materials such as tents and quilts to the area, the county government said.
The quake was followed by two more in Sichuan Province that both registered above magnitude 4.
A 4.5-magnitude quake jolted Yibin City, Sichuan Province, at 3:55 p.m., and another 4.7-magnitude quake hit Mianyang City at 10:17 p.m., according to the China Earthquake Networks Center.
Casualties and damages from the two quakes are not yet known.

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Cross-Strait Reunification’s New Enemy: Mainland Censors
» Politics » Source

A screenshot of Frank Hsieh's now-defunct microblogging account. (via Weibo)

One day after the Chinese microblog account was verified by Sina Weibo as belonging to Frank Hsieh, the former presidential nominee of Taiwan's pro-independence Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), it was stealthily erased.
But the disappearance did not go unnoticed; instead, it brought a tidal wave of online comments on China's social media.
No doubt the account was censored, but the swiftness of its demise still surprised many, since Hsieh only posted a few abstract musings on liberty and constitutionalism in his short Weibo career. Hsieh is considered one of the DPP honchos who takes a milder stance on Taiwan independence and showed his willingness to break the ice with the mainland through a visit in 2012.
Many mainland Internet users, who still cherish the idea of reunification with Taiwan, believe that such moves would only serve to undermine any chance of reaching that goal.

China's Spokesperson: I want to emphasize that China's Internet is open.

@XL微勃 wrote, "This censorship would allow Taiwanese-independence advocates to tell the Taiwanese people that, 'See, this is the mainland. They don't tolerate a Weibo account, how can they tolerate freedom?' Why in the world would they agree reunify? These moves by dumb-ass officials are turning Taiwan's popular opinion against the mainland. Are they spies sent by independence advocates?"
@白鸟摄影 agreed, "They won't tolerate Frank Hsieh, how can they earn the trust of more than 20 million Taiwanese? Reunification sounds like a pipe dream."
@王翊均 commented with anger, "This large country is afraid of a Weibo account of a DPP politician? Who is impeding reunification? Who is making it seem like there are two different countries across the Taiwan Strait?"
Some Internet users speculated that China's propaganda department, known for its tone-deafness, likely ordered the deletion to prevent Hsieh from winning hearts and minds on the mainland and advancing the independence agenda. The deletion of Hsieh's account followed censorship of Weibo posts of other prominent Taiwanese personalities, including businessman Kai-fu Lee and actress Annie Yi.
Hsieh tweeted before his account vanished, "Whether or not there is freedom of speech does not depend on how freely you speak when you criticize high officials or people in power, but whether you lose your freedom after you speak."

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Tracking hacking to China

	Tracking hacking to China Kristie Lu Stout asks Mandiant VP Grady Summers about the report linking China's military to a prolific hacking group. For more CNN videos, visit our site at www.cnn.com	From: CNN Views: 85 7 ratings
	Time: 05:27

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Netizen Voices: Shandong Pollution Hypocrisy

In response to widespread outrage on Weibo over allegations that companies were pumping industrial waste deep underground to avoid pollution regulations, environmental protection officials in Weifang City, Shandong Province announced a whopping 100,000 yuan (approximately US$ 16,000) reward to the first citizen to produce verifiable evidence of the “unscrupulous” practice. Not long after the prize was made public, media personality and environmental activist Deng Fei posted a weibo claiming that a moratorium on coverage of the pollution scandal had already been imposed by local newspaper Qilu Evening News. Deng also expressed concern that local authorities would lobby Beijing to prohibit reporting on the topic nationally.

@DengFei: #ALetterFromTheFrontLines# 'Brother Fei, we of the Qilu Evening News have already been banned. Tomorrow, five field reporters will be withdrawn. I'm afraid the two reports written today will not make it into the paper.' Brothers, keep up the fight! Commentary: Isn't the Weifang Environmental Protection Bureau offering a 100,000 yuan reward, encouraging netizens to report underground pollution? Now, Shandong has moved to seal off local media. Will they next travel to Beijing to lobby for a national ban, withdraw all reporters from around the whole country, and seal off national media?
@邓飞：#一封来自采访前线的来信#飞哥，我们齐鲁晚报已下禁令,明天五路记者将被撤回,今天采写的2版稿件恐难见报。弟兄们，请加油!评：潍坊环保局不是悬奖金十万，鼓励网友举报地下水污染线索吗?山东现封口本地媒体，他们会进京讨要禁令，撤回全国记者，封口全国媒体吗?

The allegations of government hypocrisy struck a chord with legions of Weibo users, who swooped into action, furiously reposting and commenting on Deng's post:

@HuangbuYitou: Fight on, Weifang! They certainly have the ability to shut the mouths of all the reporters in the country.
黄埔一投：潍坊加油！封全国记者的嘴一定能做到

@RecorderChenBaocheng: Expose every current Shandong official, sub-provincial-level and above!
记录者陈宝成:暴光山东籍宣传口副省级以上现任官员！

@JunoChen-SZ: Investigating pollution isn't what they're good at. Sealing things off, on the other hand, is.
JunoChen-SZ：查排污不是他们的特长，封口才是

@PrettyAngel003: They're willing to spend hush money, but they're not willing to spend money on fixing the problem. Isn't this their home, their country, too?!
美丽天使003：他们宁愿拿钱去封口也不愿拿钱去治理，难道这个家园不是他们的家园，这个国不是他们的国?!

@VisualPawnshop: I won't say a word. Just silently reposting. I hope popular attention can turn into power.
视觉当铺：什么都不想说了，默转，希望围观能成为力量。

@ChinaJarBrother: The National People's Congress and CPPCC are about to open their annual meetings–what a wonderful excuse to control public opinion in the name of maintaining stability.
中国坛子哥：全国2会即将召开，这是个极好的维稳控舆借口。

@ChenWeina: Rivers across the whole country are all polluted. How could it even be possible cover all of that up?
陈微娜：全国河流都污染，怎么能全捂住呢？

@TaoHaijunReporter: They've obstructed the voice of reporters, but can they obstruct the voice of the entire people?
陶海军记者:防了记者之口，能防全民之口？

Via CDT Chinese. Translated by Little Bluegill.

© Little Bluegill for China Digital Times (CDT), 2013. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: environmental activism, industrial waste, media censorship, Netizen Voices, Shandong, water pollution, weibo
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China Focus - Wang Lijun's Trial: What It Means

China Focus has moved to a new channel, Be sure to subscribe to www.youtube.com Wang Lijun—Chongqing's former police chief who fled to the US consulate back in February—went on trial this week. It ended without a verdict, after a secret trial Monday, and a partially public trial Tuesday. State-run media were the only media allowed at today's trial, so there's a lot that the public doesn't know. But that's also sparked a lot of speculation about what will happen to Wang, and what the trial means for other Communist Party officials. On China Focus, we talk about what we learned from the trial, why prosecutors went out of their way to explain Wang's mitigating circumstances, and how what wasn't said at the trial is just as important as what was.
Video Rating: 5 / 5

Cracking down on Chinese hackers

Kevin Mandia, CEO of security firm Mandiant, discusses how to stop hackers.

» Society » Chinafile.com

Jonathan Landreth:
With regular ChinaFile Conversation contributor Elizabeth Economy on the road, I turned to her colleague Adam Segal, Maurice R. Greenberg Senior Fellow for China Studies at the Council on Foreign Relations in New York. Segal said that "the time for naming and shaming has passed. That strategy is clearly not working."
Even if the Obama Administration plans to make it clearer to the incoming leadership in Beijing that cybersecurity is significant to bilateral relations between the world's two largest economies, the U.S. must take more concrete actions to solve the problem, Segal said in a telephone interview.
"First, the U.S. government has to put some of its own cards on the table in addition to those laid out by Mandiant," Segal said, referring to the Virginia-based information security firm whose February 19 report labeled a unit of the China's People's Liberation Army an "Advanced Persistent Threat" of the highest order. "I suspect that the U.S. has better intelligence than Mandiant."
Indeed, last October, outgoing Defense Secretary Leon Panetta, in a speech to the Business Executives for National Security, said that attribution is getting easier, which was clearly meant as a deterrant to Chinese and other hackers. But that hasn't happened yet, Segal said, adding that it must if American businesses are to be shielded from cyberespionage that threatens to undermine the American competitive edge. "Thus far, the U.S. and China are dealing through proxies in this war of words. We've been relying on Mandiant and the press to deliver the message, which is an effective tool to avoid making the issue too hot," Segal said. "But it's not an effective way to solve the problem."
If other countries—Russia, Israel, France, and the U.S. itself, to name but a few—are known to engage in cyber espionage, why all the attention on China now? Segal says that China is in the hot seat because while U.S. law makes it illegal to engage in industrial espionage, China does not recognize any distinction between economic espionage and military espionage or spying for the good of the nation. "China is trying to move up the value chain in the world economy, partly through cyber espionage. This is a threat to U.S. economic competitiveness," Segal said. "While Israel, France, and Russia may also be involved in these practices, it's about the pure scale of the attacks from China."
Why, then, if it's about safeguarding intellectual property and economic competitive edge might some of the attacks have been aimed at private firms that are linked to computer system controls of America's energy grid?
"In that case, the hacking is not going after industrial information but is China sending a message of deterrence, if there's a conflict over islands in the South China Sea, China wants Washington to understand that if they wished to they could see to it that the U.S. homeland also could be compromised." This is dangerous, Segal said, because while the U.S. has said the law of international armed conflict applies to cyberspace, China has signaled that cyberspace should be considered a new kind of turf altogether, one that requires new regulations.
"The potential for misperception is great, because we don't really know what set of assumptions under which the Chinese are operating."

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China Denies Anti-U.S. Hacking Operation

China's defence ministry Wednesday rebuffed a report linking its People's Liberation Army to sophisticated cyberattacks on US firms, saying there was no internationally agreed definition of hacking.

And more denials ...

China denies receiving North Korea nuke test plans

China’s foreign ministry Monday denied a report that it had received advance knowledge of North Korea’s preparation for fresh nuclear tests and a rocket launch, while appealing for relevant countries not to take actions that may worsen the situation on the Korean Peninsula.
Asked to comment on the report by Reuters, Hong Lei, a ministry spokesman, said he “did not know where the Reuters report came from.”
“The situation on the peninsula is currently sensitive and complicated. We appeal for all relevant parties to remain calm and not to take actions that may worsen the situation,” Hong said.
His remarks came in the wake of staunch warnings from the EU, the US, South Korea and Japan that Pyongyang would face tightened sanctions from each, unbound by potential sanctions by the UN Security Council after the North’s latest nuclear test on February 12.

CNN - Mandiant - China is sponsoring cyber-espionage

(CNN) -- The Chinese government is sponsoring cyber-espionage to attack top US companies, according to Grady Summers, vice president of security firm Mandiant. Virginia-based Mandiant published a 60-page report detailing allegations over a six-year period against a group of hackers -- known as Comment Crew -- which Summers linked to a secret division of the Chinese military. Summers told CNN: "China is attacking the US on a scale like we've never seen before... We believe that the Communist Party of China is very aware of this." Read more: Have the courage to deal with cyber war Mandiant says the activity can be traced to four networks near Shanghai -- with some operations taking place in a location that is also the headquarters of Unit 61398, the secret military division. Summers added: "Never before have we seen one state-sponsored entity like unit 61398 of the Chinese PLA attacking helpless commercial organizations in other countries." Read more: Chinese cyber attacks on West are widespread, experts say The espionage group mainly targeted US blue chip companies in 20 separate industries from aerospace to financial services. "It's really a who's who of American companies. Of 140 victims worldwide, 115 of them were in the US," Grady said. Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Hong Lei dismissed the hacking charges on Tuesday, insisting that China is the victim of many cyberattacks -- most originating in the United States. "Making baseless accusations based on premature

CNN - US cyber battle with China

CNN - US cyber battle with China The US believes that cyber warfare could begin to threaten the underpinnings of its relationship with China, New York Times journalist David Sanger told CNN's Christiane Amanpour on Tuesday. Sanger and two colleagues reported in the New York Times on Tuesday that a secretive unit of the People's Liberation Army, the Chinese military, is responsible for most of the many Chinese cyber attacks on US corporations and infrastructure. "This is, diplomatically, I think one of the most complicated problems out there," Sanger said. "The fact that your adversary would know that you could get into their systems and turn them on or off at any time -- whether it was cell phones or air traffic control or whatever -- might well affect your future behavior. So it doesn't mean that they're going to do it, or there's out-and-out war, but it does mean that they have a capability to do this by remote control." The New York Times reported last month that the newspaper was the victim of Chinese hackers -- brought on, they believe, by a report on the finances of Prime Minister Wen Jiabao. An internet security firm hired by the paper to investigate that attack has released a new report on Chinese hacking, and that report alleges the deep involvement of the Chinese military. In fact, the security company, Mandiant, says that the attacks originate from a single 12-story building on the outskirts of Shanghai. "It's got thousands of people working in it," Sanger said

Experts examine Vietnam's relations with China and the United States

	Experts examine Vietnam's relations with China and the United States Experts examine Vietnam's relations with China and the United States	From: RFAVideo Views: 1 0 ratings
	Time: 03:51

China denies launching cyberattacks on US but ...

China security officers chase CNN crew

Shanghai security officers chase a CNN crew attempting to record a building at the center of hacking allegations.

China condemns US hacking report
BBC

Twelve-storey building in Pudong, Shanghai

The BBC's John Sudworth was detained while filming the reported hub of the hacking operation

BBC reporter detained investigating China's military secretive branch of Hacking

BBC reporter detained investigating China hacking BBC reporter detained investigating China hacking BBC reporter detained investigating China hacking A secretive branch of China's military is most likely one of the world's "most prolific cyber espionage groups", a US cyber security firm has said. Mandiant said it had traced the hacking activities of APT1 to the site of a 12-storey building in the Pudong area of Shanghai. The BBC's John Sudworth went along to investigate but was stopped and briefly detained.

Satellite image showing the office building in Shanghai suspected of being the headquarters of the Chinese hackers

The US says it has repeatedly raised concerns with Beijing about cyber theft, as a report linked a hacking group with a Chinese military unit.

While not commenting directly on the report, a White House spokesman called cyber theft a "major challenge" in the national security arena.

The report identified a Shanghai high-rise used by the military as the likely home of a prolific hacking group.
China's Defence Ministry has denied any role in hacking.

Cyber sabotage, including hacking, was banned, China Daily quoted the ministry as saying, sentiments echoed by Foreign Ministry spokesman Hong Lei.

CNN - China is attacking the US - Hacking scale 'we've never seen before'

CNN - China is attacking the US - Hacking scale 'we've never seen before' Hacking scale 'we've never seen before' Security firm Mandiant says 'China is attacking the US' and that the firm has released the proof.

BBC World News: China denies hacking & cyber warfare claims of US firm Mandiant 19 Feb 2013 2301

The White House says its has raised concerns with China "at the highest levels about cyber theft" and hacking attacks - that it's claimed are coming from there. An American computer security company has alleged a military unit in China is behind the cyber strikes - having traced them to it's building - although Beijing has strongly denied the claim. This as Apple becomes the latest big company to admit it's been a victim of computer hacking. . Jonathan Josephs reports.

Analysis

Jonathan Marcus BBC Diplomatic Correspondent

The scale of the Chinese hacking alleged by the computer security firm Mandiant is striking. Until now the bulk of this hacking has been a digital version of old-fashioned industrial espionage - stealing designs and company secrets.
But there is a more sinister side to this activity as well. Chinese hackers are alleged to have a growing interest in gaining access to key parts of the US infrastructure - gas lines, power grids and waterworks. President Barack Obama himself warned during his recent State of the Union address that the nature of the cyber threat was changing.
Gaining access to critical systems is the key. Once inside the digital perimeter - especially if the intrusion is not identified, there is the possibility of causing real physical damage to the infrastructure that the computers control.

Hacking attacks were transnational and anonymous, he added. "Determining their origins are extremely difficult. We don't know how the evidence in this so-called report can be tenable."

'Cyber espionage'

The detailed report, by US-based computer security company Mandiant, looked at hundreds of data breaches, most of which it attributed to what it termed "Advanced Persistent Threat" actors.

The details it had uncovered, it said, showed that these groups were based primarily in China and that the Beijing government was aware of them.

The most prolific of these actors was APT1, Mandiant said, describing it as "one of the most prolific cyber espionage groups in terms of the sheer quantity of information stolen".

The firm said it had traced the hacking activities of APT1 to a Shanghai building. Unit 61398 of the People's Liberation Army "is also located in precisely the same area" and the actors had similar "missions, capabilities and resources", it added.

Table showing the industries most often targeted by the hackers

APT1, it said, was staffed by hundreds of proficient English speakers. It had hacked into 141 companies across 20 industries, stealing information including blueprints, business plans, pricing documents, user credentials, emails and contact lists.

Spokesman Jay Carney said the White House was "aware" of the Mandiant report and its contents. While not commenting directly, he described cyber espionage as a "very important challenge".

"We have repeatedly raised our concerns at the highest levels about cyber-theft with senior Chinese officials including in the military and we will continue to do so," he said.

State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland, meanwhile, said that the issue came up ""in virtually every meeting we have with Chinese officials".

"We consider this kind of activity a threat not only to our national security but also to our economic interests and [we are] laying out our concerns specifically so that we can see if there's a path forward," she said.

China has long been suspected of a role in cyber hacking. But the issue has become more high-profile in recent months following widely reported hacks into media outlets including the New York Times - in that case apparently linked to a report on the wealth of relatives of outgoing Premier Wen Jiabao.

Hackers have been 'let off the leash' by Chinese government

Cybersecurity expert Dr James Lewis says China's central leadership have effectively "blessed" the hacking activities that stole massive amounts of information from military contractors, energy companies and other industries in the US.

PLA Unit 61398 Recruitment Notice Found

This 12-story building on the outskirts of Shanghai is the headquarters of Unit 61398 of the People’s Liberation Army. China’s defense ministry has denied that it is responsible for initiating digital attacks. (New York Times)

China’s Ministry of National Defense quickly denied charges outlined in a widely circulated report from information security firm Mandiant that exposed a specific unit of the People’s Liberation Army as responsible forhacking against the U.S. and other countries.
Reuters reports a statement published on the Ministry’s official website called into question the evidence put forth by The New York Times, saying, “The report, in only relying on linking IP address to reach a conclusion thehacking attacks originated from China, lacks technical proof.”
Well, thanks to the shrewd detective work of Chinese netizens, we now have further evidence–a 2004 notice, still viewable on the website of Zhejiang University (at the time of this article’s publication), titled “China’s People’s Liberation Army Unit 61398 Recruiting Graduate Students” [zh].

The Graduate School has received notice that Unit 61398 of China’s People’s Liberation Army (located in Pudong District, Shanghai) seeks to recruit 2003-class computer science graduate students. Students who sign the service contract will receive a 5,000 yuan per year National Defense Scholarship. After graduation, students will work in the same field within the PLA.
Interested Zhejiang University 2003-class graduate students should please contact Teacher Peng in the Graduate Division before May 20. (Cao Guangbiao room 108; phone: 87952168)
Graduate Division
May 13, 2004

Via CDT Chinese. Translated by Little Bluegill.

Is China's Military Behind Cyber Attacks?

Feb. 19 (Bloomberg) -- Mandiant Corp CEO and Founder Kevin Mandia and Bloomberg Contributing Editor Richard Falkenrath discuss the risks from Chinese hacking and cyber attacks. They speaks on Bloomberg Television's "Market Makers." (Source: Bloomberg)

We don't support cyber-attacks: Chinese military

China's military on Wednesday said the country's armed forces had never backed any hacking activities and denounced as "groundless both in facts and legal basis" US cybersecurity firm Mandiant's report that it was behind cyber-attacks against US companies.
China's laws ban any activities disrupting cyber security and Chinese government always cracks down on cyber crimes, Geng Yansheng, spokesman with Ministry of National Defense, said at a briefing.
Mandiant Monday released a report which alleged that a secret Chinese military unit in Shanghai was behind years of cyber-attacks against US companies, reported Xinhua.
The spokesman said Mandiant's report was groundless because the report came into the conclusion that the source of attack came from China only with the discovery that attacks were linked to IP addresses based in China.
First, as known to all, it is a common sense and method on the Internet to conduct hacking attacks by peculating IP addresses, the spokesman said. "It happens almost everyday."
Second, there has been no clear and consistent definition on cyber-attacks around the world. The report is lack of legal basis to assert cyber espionage only by collecting some routine cyber activities, Geng said.
Third, cyber-attack is transnational, anonymous and deceptive with its source often difficult to be identified. Releasing irresponsible information will not help solve problems, he said.

Red Scarf Girl: A Memoir of the Cultural Revolution

It's 1966, and twelve-year-old Ji-li Jiang has everything a girl could want: brains, tons of friends, and a bright future in Communist China. But it's also the year that China's leader, Mao Ze-dong, launches the Cultural Revolution—and Ji-li's world begins to fall apart. Over the next few years, people who were once her friends and neighbors turn on her and her family, forcing them to live in constant terror of arrest. When Ji-li's father is finally imprisoned, she faces the most difficult dilemma of her life.
This is the true story of one girl's determination to hold her family together during one of the most terrifying eras of the twentieth century.

List Price: $ 8.99 Price: $ 3.42

By Alexander Abad-Santos | The Atlantic Wire

Today's news that Chinese authorities now have advanced navigation and weaponry to kill suspected criminals in a manhunt was as notable for what China can do — target a Myanmar drug kingpin suspected in the killing of 13 Chinese soldiers, unmanned, and from above — as for what it didn't: actually assassinate him with a drone. A look inside China's search for the notorious Naw Kham in today's Global Times reveals that a plan "to use an unmanned aircraft to carry 20 kilograms of TNT to bomb" the hideout of the Golden Triangle's most wanted gang lord "was rejected, because the order was to catch him alive," as Liu Yuejin, director of China's Public Security Ministry's anti-drug bureau, told the paper. But those with an eye on President Obama's foreign policy and targeting killing program say that the U.S. Justice Department's recently leaked and much critiqued "white paper" justifying drone targets would have allowed for China, if it used America's new legal boundaries with its own killer technology, to execute Kham from the sky.
RELATED: Women at the Olympics, Syrians in Iraq, and Discarded Pianos
As Foreign Policy's J. Dana Stuster writes, China could argue that going after Kham could is not unlike the way the "United States justified targeting al Qaeda militants tied to the bombing of the USS Cole with drone strikes, beginning Abu Ali al-Harithi in 2002 (well before the white paper was authored)." Stuster adds that a strike also could have been justified based on the argument that no one was helping to capture Kham:

Much like the U.S. official rationale as for strikes in Pakistan, Yemen, and Somalia, China could have either sought Naypyidaw's support [in Myanmar] or credibly claimed that the government was "unwilling or unable to suppress the threat posed by the individual being targeted," in the words of the Obama administration's white paper on its own targeted killing program.

The ultimate decision by Chinese law enforcement — one of restraint — gains context when you realize just how wanted Kham had become. The New York Times's Jane Perlez outlines his notoriety:

China’s law enforcement officials were under pressure from an outraged public to take action after 13 Chinese sailors on two cargo ships laden with narcotics were killed in October 2011 on the Mekong River. Photos of the dead sailors, their bodies gagged and blindfolded and some with head wounds suggesting execution-style killings, circulated on China’s Internet.
It was one of the most brutal assaults on Chinese citizens abroad in recent years. Naw Kham, a member of Myanmar’s ethnic Shan minority and a major drug trafficker, was suspected in the killings.

To be sure, just because China didn't rain fiery death from above this time doesn't mean that the Kham hunt hasn't proved that China can. The latest Chinese military technology was on display in November at an air show, with two new models very similar to U.S. Predator and Reaper drones. The Wing Loon drone, pictured above, comes in at a fraction of the cost of its Reaper cousin, and as Perlez notes, the CH-4 model can cover the distance over an area in dispute between China and Japan. So it appears that China has finally caught up to U.S. drone technology, if not exactly its ambitious justifications for using it — not even in one of the greatest manhunts known to the Far East. As the Times's "kill list" reporter Scott Shane asked of the drone arms race in the midst of China's catching-up — and the Kham manhunt — in 2011, "If China, for instance, sends killer drones into Kazakhstan to hunt minority Uighur Muslims it accuses of plotting terrorism, what will the United States say?" Well, we might have the beginnings of an answer now.

And ...

Chinese plan to kill drug dealer with drone highlights military advances

China considered using a drone strike in a mountainous region of Southeast Asia to kill a Myanmar drug lord wanted in the killings of 13 Chinese sailors, but decided instead to capture him alive, according to an influential state-run newspaper.

The plan to use a drone, described to the Global Times newspaper by a senior public security official, highlights China's increasing capacity in unmanned aerial warfare, a technology dominated by the United States and used widely by the Obama administration for the targeted killing of terrorists.

Liu Yuejin, the director of the public security ministry's antidrug bureau, told the newspaper that the plan called for using a drone carrying explosives to bomb the outlaw's hide-out in the opium-growing area of Myanmar in the Golden Triangle at the intersection of Laos, Thailand and Vietnam.

China's law enforcement officials were under pressure from an outraged public to take action after 13 Chinese sailors on two cargo ships laden with narcotics were killed in October 2011 on the Mekong River. Photos of the dead sailors, their bodies gagged and blindfolded and some with head wounds suggesting execution-style killings, circulated on China's Internet.
It was one of the most brutal assaults on Chinese citizens abroad in recent years. Naw Kham, a member of Myanmar's ethnic Shan minority and a major drug trafficker, was suspected in the killings.

A manhunt by the Chinese police in the jungles of the Golden Triangle produced no results, and security officials turned to a drone strike as a possible solution.

China's global navigation system, Beidou, would have been used to guide the drones to the target, Mr. Liu said. China's goal is for the Beidou system to compete with the United States' Global Positioning System, Russia's Glonass and the European Union's Galileo! , Chinese experts say.

Mr. Liu's comments on the use of the Beidou system with the drones reflects the rapid advancement in that navigation system from its humble beginnings more than a decade ago.
The experimental navigation system was started in 2000 and has since expanded to 16 navigation satellites over Asia and the Pacific Ocean, according to an article in Wednesday's China Daily, an English-language state-run newspaper. The Chinese military, particularly the navy, is now conducting patrols and training exercises using Beidou, the newspaper said.
As an example, China Daily quoted the information chief at the headquarters of the North Sea Fleet, Lei Xiwei, saying a fleet with the missile destroyer Qingdao, along with the missile frigates Yantai and Yancheng, entered the South China Sea on Feb. 1 using the Beidou navigation system to provide positioning, security and protection for the fleet.

As China has been vastly improving its navigation system, it is also making fast progress with drones, and many manufacturers for the Chinese military have research centers devoted to unmanned aerial vehicles, according to a report last year by the Defense Science Board of the Pentagon.

Two Chinese drones, apparently modeled on the American Reaper and Predator unmanned aerial vehicles, were unveiled at the Zhuhai air show in November. A larger drone that Western experts say is akin to the American RQ-4 Global Hawk is also known to be in the Chinese arsenal.

One of the Chinese drones, the CH-4, had a range of about 2,200 miles and was ideal for surveillance missions over islands in the East China Sea that are the subject of a dispute between China and Japan, an official with the China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation said at the Zhuhai air show.

China has acknowledged a pilot program that uses drones as part of its stepped-up surveillance of its coastal areas, as well as in th! e South C! hina Sea and the East China Sea.
By 2015, the State Oceanic Administration has said it plans to use drones along China's coastline on a permanent basis and would establish monitoring bases in provinces along the coastline for drones.

As for Naw Kham, the fugitive, he was captured by Lao authorities at the Mekong River port of Mong Mo after a six-month hunt in the jungles of the Golden Triangle by the combined police forces of China, Myanmar, Thailand and Laos. After his extradition to China, Naw Kham received a death sentence from a Chinese court in Yunnan Province and awaits execution, according to Chinese press reports.

"We didn't use China's military, and we didn't harm a single foreign citizen," Mr. Liu bragged after the arrest in April 2012.

Bree Feng contributed reporting.

Snow Falling in Spring: Coming of Age in China During the Cultural Revolution

Most people cannot remember when their childhood ended. I, on the other hand, have a crystal-clear memory of that moment. It happened at night in the summer of 1966, when my elementary school headmaster hanged himself.In 1966 Moying, a student at a prestigious language school in Beijing, seems destined for a promising future. Everything changes when student Red Guards begin to orchestrate brutal assaults, violent public humiliations, and forced confessions. After watching her teachers and headmasters beaten in public, Moying flees school for the safety of home, only to witness her beloved grandmother denounced, her home ransacked, her father's precious books flung onto the back of a truck, and Baba himself taken away. From labor camp, Baba entrusts a friend to deliver a reading list of banned books to Moying so that she can continue to learn. Now, with so much of her life at risk, she finds sanctuary in the world of imagination and learning.

This inspiring memoir follows Moying Li from age twelve to twenty-two, illuminating a complex, dark time in China's history as it tells the compelling story of one girl's difficult but determined coming-of-age during the Cultural Revolution.

Snow Falling in Spring is a 2009 Bank Street - Best Children's Book of the Year.

List Price: $ 9.99 Price: $ 3.98

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Analysis

Cybersecurity expert Dr James Lewis says China's central leadership have effectively "blessed" the hacking activities that stole massive amounts of information from military contractors, energy companies and other industries in the US.