CHINESE WHISPERS

“By peddling a product we want, namely Chinese language study, the Confucius Institutes bring the Chinese government into the American academy in powerful ways […] They can say, ‘We’ll give you this money, you’ll have a Chinese program, and nobody will talk about Tibet.’ In this economy, turning them down has real costs.”

Jonathan Lipman, professor of Chinese history at Mount Holyoke College, Massachusetts

Businessweek

"After I went to high school and university, my family suffered constant attacks in the successive political campaigns […] In 1960, my father was also investigated for so-called 'historical problems'. He could no longer teach and was sent to work on a farm on the outskirts of the city tending pigs. My father was an honest man, hardworking and diligent throughout his life."

Wen Jiabao

The Telegraph

“We all know it’s going to be excellent […] Bo Xilai wants to record who was holding the umbrellas [providing political protection] for the mafia. [...]It was officials,”

Huang Shu, a Chongqing police officer, describes plans for a “Godfather”-style movie about the criminal underworld attacked by by Communist Party secretary Bo

New York Times

“In our country the freedom of a citizen is adequately protected, and the use of any compulsory measures is based on law.”

NPC official’s response when asked the legal basis for the detention of blind activist Chen Guangcheng

Wall Street Journal

"As white-hot inflation is tamed, there will undoubtedly be some loosening of policies and increase of new loans in the last two months of 2011,"

Ding Zhijie from the University of International Business and Economics in Beijing.

China Daily

CHINA BY NUMBERS

150 driverless trucks at Rio Tinto iron ore mines in Western Australia

Rio Tinto says worker shortages contributed to a decision to boost the number of driverless trucks at its WA iron ore mines from ten to 150.

Australian Broadcasting Corporation

$3

Price of a bootleg paperback copy of the as-yet-unpublished Steve Jobs biography at a Shanghai subway Station

@AdamMinter

5 billion yuan

Size of emergency fund in Wenzhou

China Daily

7- 7.5 trillion yuan

Analysts estimate of total bank lending for 2011

China Daily

3,000 yuan

Reward to laowai heroine for possessing "traditional Chinese virtues":

Shanghaiist

Picture from Shanghai Daily