John Kennedy · September, 2006

Latest posts by John Kennedy from September, 2006

China: Killing chickens, not for bird flu

  29 September 2006

A corruption probe has led to the dismissal of Chen Liangyu, the highest-ranked Communist official in Shanghai and key member of former Chairman Jiang Zemin‘s Shanghai Gang, a rival faction to the current administration headed by Chairman Hu Jintao and Premier Wen Jiabao. Where the hundred million dollars has gone...

China: Cows, pigs and balls

  21 September 2006

Last week, two women at Bullog.cn—a blogger's portal unique in that it was set up by prominent bloggers themselves as opposed to a large media corporation—acted on dissatisfaction with what they saw as an old yellow guys club (the Chinese name is Bull Blog) and started their own blog, Cow...

China: Italian journalist inspires

  19 September 2006

Earlier this month when Chinese state-owned news agency Xinhua forbid mainland news media from printing foreign news agency content not purchased directly from Xinhua itself, there was lots to be said from the blogsphere. Here [zh] is journalist-blogger X Marden's take: 新华社之声誉 Voice of Xinhua 《外国通讯社在中国境内发布新闻信息管理办法》,为业界所鄙视。本以为新华社之用心,实乃”司马昭之心,路人皆知”。不料还有网友在blog为新华社”申冤诉苦”,认为其扮演”网络警察”之职能败坏国际声誉。某中央媒体极力撇清与”未签约色鬼导演”的关系,刘同学对此不以为然:他们以为自己还有声誉可以维护么?是的,新华社还有什么声誉需要维护的么? The regulations on foreign...

China: Video save taskforce needed

  12 September 2006

When tens of thousands of Ruian, Zhejiang citizens came out to protest the official conclusion of an investigation into the death of high school teacher Dai Haijing, it didn't take long for the news—despite being banned from mainstream media—to flash through Chinese blogs and BBS’. When short videos were taken...

China: Mao Who?

  10 September 2006

Saturday marked the thirtieth anniversary of Mao Zedong‘s death. Like the closeted bones some families would rather just forget about, China seems to be serious about moving on from the helter-skelter days of high Communism, both at The Party level and at the grassroots. Wu Zuolai, whose Sina.com blog was...

China: Don't anger the youth

  8 September 2006

Trolls with dozens of axes to grind, China's angry youth (愤青) are the single loudest and mobilized group on the internet in China. Nationalist, racist, sexist and more, they embody pretty much every ugly extreme to be found in contemporary China. While most rational netizens ignore them, their dominant online...

China: What's up with the web

  3 September 2006

The newly-born portal for progressive bloggers Bullog was booted from its host server in Inner Mongolia late last month, and relocating to Beijing hasn't seemed to help as the site—as well as its backup home at niubo.org—has been unaccesible for the last few days. None of this has slowed down...

China: Lists

  1 September 2006

Blogger's block, we all get it sometimes. Ruthless readers, our editors, don't have time for excuses. So what's a blogger to do? Lists! Here are few from the last few days of the Chinese blogsphere, ordered with a certain amount of thematic continuity:

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