In the wake of the deaths of three Chinese teenagers in a plane crash in San Francisco two weeks ago, the city of Beijing has suspended for-profit overseas study tours—many of which charge students thousands of dollars for bare-bone “education” trips that involve a cursory stroll around a US university campus, plus a shopping trip.
Victims of organized crime don’t typically think to sue the mafia, unless they’re living Japan.
This week the 1.3 million Chinese online followers of the Japanese newspaper Asahi Shimbun woke up to find that instead of news coverage, there were only digital tumbleweeds—Asahi’s website was blocked by China’s Great Firewall and all four of its Chinese-language social media accounts were deleted.
Japan is slap-bang in the middle of an energy crisis—a near-nuclear meltdown and a catastrophic tsunami can do that to a country. Shinzo Abe’s government is facing widespread public opposition to restarting Japan’s shuttered nuclear reactors, but mounting natural gas costs are hindering the country’s fragile economic recovery. What’s an energy-hungry Japanese company to do?
Japan’s mood about the direction of the country is the highest it’s been since at least 2002, according to the Pew Research Center. Seven out of ten adults see Prime Minister Shinzo Abe favorably. But in the rest of Asia, perceptions of Japan have taken a sharp swing in the opposite direction: 90% of Chinese and 77% of South Koreans see Japan in a negative light.
The finance world has been getting used to the idea that China is slowing down, with a number of analysts adjusting their forecasts to reflect the fact that growth in 2013 may not be much more than Beijing’s official growth of 7.5%—the slowest rate in 23 years. But Chinese finance minister Lou Jiwei went well beyond that in Washington on Thursday, suggesting that 6.5% growth would not be a “big problem” and that he is confident only of 7% growth.
When a joint US-Chinese study found recently that coal burning in northern China had shortened residents’s lifespans by a total of 2.5 billion years in the 1990s, netizens despaired and southern real estate agents celebrated. China’s embattled environment ministry, on the other hand, went into deep denial.
Eight new Chinese cities will begin imposing restrictions on car ownership (paywall) in an attempt to reduce pollution and congestion, the nation’s car manufacturing association said on Thursday. The move to restrict the world’s biggest automotive market is unlikely to be popular among Chinese citizens, but only because it will be a minor hassle for them to find new ways to outsmart their local governments.
Radioactive water has been steadily leaking into the sea around the damaged Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant ever since it was hit by an earthquake and tsunami in March 2011, Japan’s nuclear watchdog announced on Wednesday. Plant operator Tokyo Electric Power Co, widely reviled for its inept response to the disaster, had long insisted that no leakage was taking place; in recent days it has backtracked to saying that it is “not sure” if there’s a leak.
Tributes to Masao Yoshida are ricocheting around the internet today. The 58-year-old was in charge of Japan’s Fukushima Dai-Ichi nuclear power plant when it was hit by a 13-meter tsunami in 2011. He died on Tuesday from cancer.
Google’s Android smartphone operating system uses source code contributed by the US National Security Agency. Especially in the post-Edward Snowden era, that’s a red flag for Beijing, and helps to explains why China has been so eager to encourage the growth of non-Android smartphones within its borders.
Zhou Shengxian, China’s environment minister, admitted on Tuesday that his ministry was one of the world’s “four major embarrassing departments.” He’s not wrong.
Local government debt is now so unwieldy in China that some desperate district governments have turned to the private sector for help to pay their employees.
A North Korean video propaganda outfit is using NSA whistle-blower Edward Snowden to blast Seoul for its subservient attitude to the US. The Uriminzokkiri video, translated by NKNews, overlays photographs of Snowden and Wikileaks founder Julian Assange with scrolling source code from The Matrix, while a narrator intones: “The funny thing is that South Korea is taking sides with its master by rationalizing the idea that any country’s intelligence agencies can collect clandestine information for its own national security.”
Chinese inflation hit a four-month high in June, worrying investors who fear that a central bank stimulus is now even less likely. Ordinary citizens are no better off—the biggest factor influencing the rise in prices was food, the one consumer product most associated with an unhappy populace.
What to watch for today
Samsung’s brand is going strong in Asia-Pacific, according to a Campaign Asia/Neilsen survey released on Monday. But despite the Korean firm’s home-field advantage and massive marketing advantage, Apple has closed the gap, and spent much less in the process.
Former China railway minister Liu Zhijun received a suspended death sentence on Monday for accepting $10.5 million in bribes over 25 years, making him the highest ranking official to fall prey to President Xi Jinping’s crackdown. But what really has media users agog is not the takedown of a big fish, but just how cheaply the favors of Chinese officials can be bought.
A Singaporean court ruled on Monday that a 31-year-old American engineer who was found dead at his home in the city last year committed suicide, with no foul play involved despite claims by his parents that he may have been murdered due to his work on advanced semiconductor research with potential military applications.
What to watch for today
South Korea and North Korea have finally agreed to hold talks this weekend aimed at re-opening the shuttered Kaesong industrial complex just inside North Korea near their border. Curiously, the weather appears to have played an important role—with the beginning of the rainy season, the South’s abandoned machinery is beginning to rust and the risk of prolonged power cuts is growing.
China’s Rongsheng Heavy Industries—the largest private shipbuilder in the world’s number one shipbuilding country—is in a bad shape. Struggling with plummeting orders and soaring debts, on Friday the company appealed to Beijing and its shareholders for help.
What to watch for today
Campaigning kicked off on Thursday across Japan as candidates fight to win control over parliament’s upper house. For prime minister Shinzo Abe the election is two things—a chance to wield even more economic clout, and the opportunity to win a vote of confidence in his economic policies known as Abenomics.
