links for 2009-07-29
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China Development Brief's Chinese edition is still going.
California apologizes to Chinese Americans; U.S. Congress next?
Chinese migrants in California faced discrimination, violence, and forced expulsion from their homes on many occasions beginning in the mid-19th century. One historian’s account found almost 200 “roundups,” in which Chinese were pushed out of jobs, homes, and cities by those who resented the competition for jobs or mining spoils, or simply didn’t like Chinese people.* A lot of people are not around to hear the state of California apologize.
From Ling Woo Liu in Time Magazine:
On July 17, the California legislature quietly approved a landmark bill to apologize to the state’s Chinese-American community for racist laws enacted as far back as the mid–19th century Gold Rush, which attracted about 25,000 Chinese from 1849 to 1852. The laws, some of which were not repealed until the 1940s, barred Chinese from owning land or property, marrying whites, working in the public sector and testifying against whites in court. The new bill also recognizes the contributions Chinese immigrants have made to the state, particularly their work on the Transcontinental Railroad.
The website of Assemblymember Paul Fong (D-Cupertino), who sponsored the measure, reports that Gov. Schwarzenegger approved the apology measure on July 20. And Fong’s efforts are not to stop in California. Liu writes that Fong will seek a U.S. Congressional resolution apologizing for the Chinese Exclusion Act.
Full text of the resolution available here.
* Pfaelzer, Jean. Driven Out: The Forgotten War Against Chinese Americans. New York: Random House, 2007. p. xxv.
links for 2009-07-21
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New Scientist image on Internet population and penetration in the world.
links for 2009-07-20
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Crampton: "TeleGeography’s map of intra-Asia Telecommunications Traffic Flows shows a few interesting things about how Asians communicate (or not).
The measure is millions of minutes of telecommunications traffic over one year on the public telephone network. (Total combined volume for Asia is more than 100 million minutes)."
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"It's important that those who consume the products being made all around the world to the benefit of America — and it's our own consumption activity that's causing the emission of greenhouse gases, then quite frankly Americans need to pay for that," Commerce Secretary Gary Locke told the American Chamber of Commerce in Shanghai."
links for 2009-07-17
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"中国古有“以夷制夷”之道，今有“港人治港”之法，而看来美国正在仿效实施“以华说华”之术。"
links for 2009-07-16
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"If approved, the plan by TracFone Wireless in Miami would make Colorado the 17th state it has settled into with free cell service for the indigent, a form of wireless welfare that proponents say taps into one of the last untapped markets for the telecom technology."
links for 2009-07-14
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This is a very thorough look at the "'arrogance and prejudice' of the western media" surrounding the recent events in Xinjiang. From a major state-sponsored news site.
links for 2009-07-13
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"Apple may have blinked first in the ongoing battle with the Chinese government to allow the company to sell a Wi-Fi-enabled iPhone in that country.
The back-and-forth battle between Apple and China's Ministry of Industry and Information may be coming to a close. According to a BusinessWeek report, Apple has applied for a Network Access License that would allow the company to begin selling the iPhone without Wi-Fi."
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Danwei interview posted by Alice with Jiamin, one of three founders of the Yeeyan translation community.
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Assistant Professor of Organizational Studies and Political Science, University of Michigan
–via orgtheory. networks and political science. new blog.
links for 2009-07-12
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Dru Gladney writes of the "viral" transmission of news and expansion of the recent events in Xinjiang.
"All pandemics have three aspects: the initial virus, the vector transmission and an available host. The viral pre-conditions for this epidemic include severe unemployment, unequal opportunities, uneven distribution of wealth and ethnic discrimination. The new media that allow for rapid global dissemination provide many different vectors for transmission of information as well as dis-information. The available hosts are now dispersed worldwide through an active and increasingly connected Uighur diaspora, who are concerned for their people and seek to effect change in their homeland."
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In an effort to reduce “white pollution”, the country restricted the sale, distribution and manufacture of flimsy plastic sacks. Is the effort working? chinadialogue joined the discussion in Beijing.
China’s restrictions on the plastic bags came into effect on June 1, 2008. How well have the rules been implemented? What problems have arisen? What changes are still needed? chinadialogue, the internet portal Sohu’s environmental channel and the Global Village Environmental Culture Institute of Beijing (GVB) recently held a forum to mark the anniversary and to explore these questions.
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The East-West Center has just published a policy study with an interesting, big-power-rivalry take on the Uighur unrest in China: Ethno-Diplomacy: The Uyghur Hitch in Sino-Turkish Relations, by Yitzhak Shichor. Policy Studies 53. Honolulu: East-West Center, 2009. xii, 72 pp. (Available free online.) Here's the abstract:
links for 2009-07-09
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The total eclipse begins at local dawn, 00:51:17 UT on July 22 in the Arabian Sea, just off the coast of India. The path is already over 200km wide here, and the eclipse will last 3 minutes 30 seconds. It crosses over central India, and passes between Nepal and Bangladesh, clips Bhutan and Myanmar, and then enters China. It crosses right over China to the coast around Hangzhou, at around 01:40 UT. By this time the path width is up to 249km, and the total eclipse lasts 5 minutes 56 seconds on the centreline.
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All but invisible in Latin America a decade ago, China now is building cars in Uruguay, donating a soccer stadium to Costa Rica and lending $10 billion to Brazil's biggest oil company.
It's supplanted the United States to become the biggest trading partner with Brazil, South America's biggest economy.
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Director of Princeton U Press makes the case that books are the best medium to deliver "hard ideas." Perhaps some good strategies here for uni presses, but not a word in the way of justifying the central assertion.
