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Sep30
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If you are willing to know a little more about the roots of Chinese culture, I would recommend the following eight classics. These books may offer the explanations, in my opinion, about the country’s rises and falls in history.
1. 鬼谷子 Guiguzi – by Guiguzi (522 – 476 B.C.). This book is about diplomatic strategy.
2. 论语 Analects – by Confucius (551 – 479 B.C.). It tells the way to rule a nation.
3. 老子 Laozi – by Laozi (571-471 B.C.). Taoism – the laws of all societies.
4. 孙子兵法 Art of War – by Sunzi (544-496 B.C.). A classic military text.
5. 水浒传 Tale of Water Margin – by Shi Naian (1296-1370). This novel details one hundred and eight outlaws who cannot bear injustice or abuse during the Sung dynasty.
6. 三国演义 The Three Kingdoms – by Luo Guanzhong (1330-1400). This classic presents historical episodes about the 96-year-long battles among the three kingdoms for the supremacy of China, from 184 - 286 AD.
7. 西游记 Journey to the West – by Wu Chengen (1506-1582). This Chinese mythological novel narrates the adventures of a priest Tang Seng and his three disciples, Monkey, Pig and Friar Sand, as they travel west in search of Buddhist.
8. 红楼梦 Dream of Red Mansion – Cao Xueqin (1715-1763). A well-known love story embodies on a portrait of Chinese feudalistic civilization.
Have you read any of the above?
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Sep30
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In the past, the U.S. government had tried to contain Chinese on the development of space programs for the concerns of national security. However, the Chinese are going their way, and have become the third nation, after the United States...
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Sep29
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Yesterday, two influential senators Charles E. Schumer, a New York Democrat, and Lindsey Graham, a South Carolina Republican, dropped the legislation that would impose tariffs 27.5% on imports from China if it did not allow the value of its currency...
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Sep28
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Today, Senators Charles Schumer and Lindsey Graham agreed to drop their legislation to impose tariffs 27.5% on imports from China, a measure aimed at forcing China to raise the value of its currency. This was a right decision made at...
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The trade imbalance between U.S. and China drew many peoples’ attentions. Lately, a friend of mine visited China. He took a close look around China’s retail market, and told me that the urban Chinese middle class does consume a lot,...
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From Western Europe to North America in the early twentieth century, and from Japan to the four little Asian Dragons before the middle 1990s, the international harbor industry has always shifted its center along with the swing of world manufactures....
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On Sept. 9, U.S. and the China navy vessels conducted their first-ever exercises off the coast of southern California. In the operation, the crews of an American ship and a Chinese ship practiced how to save a third ship from...
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Sep27
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Last year, about 200,000 tourists from China visited the United States. Many U.S. travel agencies predict that the numbers will grow dramatically in the coming years. Travel reporter Peter Greenberg says it’s not a question of whether the Chinese tourist...
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Sep26
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Amaranth hedge fund, based in Greenwich, Connecticut, has admitted that the firm lost its clients’ 6 billion U.S. dollars this month by betting incorrectly on natural gas prices. The losses were caused by Brian Hunter, a 32-year old star trader,...
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Anson Chan, the most influential democracy activist in Hong Kong, announced last Saturday that she would not run for chief executive this winter. She criticized Beijing setting the rules for the selection of chief executives in this semiautonomous region. “The present...
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Sep25
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Chen Liangyu, the Shanghai Communist Party Chief, was placed under house arrest on Monday. He was accused for being involved in a 3.2 billion Yuan (404 million U.S. dollar) social security fund corruption case. According to Xinhua, Mr. Chen was...
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To strengthen the internal supervision and prevent the corruption, last month the Communist Party of China (CPC) announced that all leading officials had to report to the party within a month: 1. If they, their spouses, or their children who...
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A quarter-century ago, the private economy in China was somewhat unpopular, and was regarded merely as a minor supplement of the state owned economy. “We can terminate the private ownership by one night if necessary.” A high ranking Shanghai City...
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Sep22
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You probably already know that more and more Arctic sea ice is melting in the summer. Now, scientist found that the ice was shrinking not only in the summer, but in the winter as well. For more than 25 years,...
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A new personal income information system will soon be established to screen the actual status of high-income people, announced by the State Administration of Taxation of China on Thursday. “There are some loopholes in collecting income taxes from this group...
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Sep21
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A delegation of U.S. journalists formed by USA Today, Foreign Policy Magazine, Wall Street Journal Asia, and other U.S media arrived in Beijing on Tuesday. The purpose of the visit was to try to achieve a deeper and more dynamic...
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Data showed that the Honda’s overall sales in China climbed by 17 percent year-on-year, and 194,000 vehicles were sold in the first eight months of this year. Honda said China was now Honda’s third-biggest single market in the world after...
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Sep20
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Are you a cat lover? Would you like to adopt a really big cat? How big? How about a really, really, really big cat – a Manchurian tiger? I am not kidding. As of today, the Hengdaohezi Tiger-raising Center in...
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The United States and China issued an official statement on Wednesday that two sides would commit to meet twice a year for a high-level strategic economic dialogue. Henry Paulson, who took over the Treasury in July, had persuaded cabined colleagues...
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In recent years, learning the Chinese language has been a fashion around the world. In the meantime, the English was also gaining an increasing popularity throughout China. It is estimated that approximately one quarter to one third of the Chinese...
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Sep19
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“Admit it, your brain really loves being misled, lied to and deceived! Why? Because it is programmed to deny reality. Because it delights in being tricked by fantasies. Call it ‘entertainment’ if that helps rationalize your denial. But the truth...
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To the whole world, the low–cost imports from China have helped keeping the inflation rates in check for many years. Without that, inflation and interest rates would have been significantly higher. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, U.S. import...
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Sep18
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The falling gasoline prices have become a hot topic this week; most of the people seem to agree that the market supply and demand theory cannot explain the ups and downs of the gasoline price. There must be something else,...
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Earlier this year, many Wall Street analysts listed many possible reasons for oil supplies to be disrupted – terrorism, war, economic embargoes, hurricanes, supply exceeded demand, China’s soaring energy demand... you name it. Lately, the U.S retail gasoline prices have...
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Sep17
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An advertising video launched by China Hunan Province Satellite TV to promote one of its hit shows – Miss Star Pageant 2006 – has triggered a wide debate among Chinese netizens. In the promotion video, eleven beautiful girls, all topless...
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Sep16
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Henry Paulson, the U.S. Treasury Secretary, insists that the U.S. should keep its markets open. He also urged China to open up its own markets to a greater extent, so that it could assume its full role alongside with America...
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In 2004, Wall Street leading investment bank Goldman Sacks set up an investment-banking venture with Beijing Gaohua Securities Co, becoming the first oversea firm to tap Chinese capital-market business. In June 2006, UBS won approval to establish UBS Securities Co,...
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Sep15
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Contrary to the popular fear that China represented a threat to American prosperity and leadership, U.S. Treasury secretary Henry Paulson says that a strong Chinese economy is in the strategic and economic interests of the United States. Paulson will travel...
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An energy-saving building, designed by Italian architect Mario Cuclnella, has been completed in China’s Tsinghua University. With a total investment of 32.5 million U.S. dollars, the “C” shaped building is 40 meters high, and 20,000 square meters. It is said...
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Sep14
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In his first speech on the world economy since he took office as a U.S. Treasure Secretary two months ago, Mr. Henry Paulson called for a rethink of the U.S. economic policy towards Beijing with the focus on long-term growth....
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By the end of May 2006, Italy and China had signed 60 co-operation agreements on environmental protection. Two of them are about to use solar energy to provide water heating and air-conditioning for the Beijing 2008 Olympic Games. The first...
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After taking office as Italian Prime Minister for four months, Romano Prodi, who called himself as an old friend of the Chinese people, arrived in China on Wednesday, accompanied by four ministers, one junior minister, and three undersecretaries, plus the...
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In the 2002 World Championships in Indianapolis, the U.S. basketball team lost three times and finished with an embarrassing sixth. In the 2004 Olympics, the Americans lost again and settled for a bronze medal. The 2006 team still didn’t accomplish...
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Sep13
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Yahoo! China has been accused for forcing the installation of Hooligan software, mainly at Yahoo! Assistant on internet users. The software includes spyware, trackware and malicious software such as pornographic information. Yahoo! Assistant is a browser helper for Internet Explorer...
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China’s official news agency, Xinhua, issued the revised regulations last Sunday, requiring domestic subscribers to foreign news and financial news to register through the agency. The new rules explicitly forbid foreign news agencies to distribute news, information and data that...
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Sep12
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The United States has blamed the exchange rate of Yuan for its growing trade deficit with China. The trade surplus of China in the first eight months this year reached 94.65 billion U.S. dollars, escalating the calls for taking actions...
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According to Xinhua, China’s imports and exports reached US$1.1046 trillion for the first eight months, up 23.9% from last year. Of the total, the exports went up by 25.9% to US$599.63 billion while the imports also increased by 21.6% to...
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Sep11
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China launched its own permanent residency card-China “green card”-for foreigners in August, 2004. Foreigners eligible for the permits were those who held senior posts, such as major investors, university professors, or high-ranking managers of foreign companies. The permit-holders were allowed...
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Sep 8
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A Chinese dating agency recently has set up a so called “Beauty Bank” for the millionaires. Basically, it is a kind of dating service for male millionaires. The agency said women who wanted to apply for the Beauty Bank should...
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According to a recent survey, over 80 percent of diners in Beijing, the capital city of China, have wasted food at restaurants. These show-off manners at the table created a huge amount of leftover food waste – about 1050 tons...
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A survey found that the average cost of a wedding ceremony in Shanghai was nearly 190,000 Yuan, (about 24,000 US dollars), almost 400% higher than 4 years ago. More than 50% of the wedding costs relied on the parents’...
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Sep 7
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According to the China Consumer’s Association, the country’s advertising business was worth 141.6 billion Yuan (17.7 billion U.S. dollars) in 2005, ranking fifth in the world. However, an online survey showed that two-thirds of the respondents said the advertisements were...
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A survey conducted by the Hong Kong Women’s Commission showed that over seventy percent of parents admitted they had hard time when they tried to lecture their children. Most parents felt that it was difficult to understand what their children...
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Sep 6
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For understandable reasons, China has been described as a “threat” by some outsiders for many years. From “threat of national security” and “threat of human rights” in early days, to “threat of lower labor costs”, “threat of energy demand”, “threat...
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Some investors told me that they feared the world war argument, which has been gaining its own momentum in U.S. Last month, American political scientist Bernard Lewis wrote an article arguing that “our world is on the brink of another...
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Sep 5
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To respond to the U.S. trade representative Susan Schwab’s call for asking China to be more vocal than India and Brazil, on Monday the China Commerce Minister, Bo Xilai, expressed his concerns over the stalled WTO talks, urging the developed...
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According to the International Labor Organization, there were 300,000 labor disputes in China last year, and most of the disputes were related to unpaid wages or lower-than-expected pay. I guess the real labor dispute cases may be much higher than...
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Sep 4
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Last month, WTO talks were suspended due to the U.S., the EU, and other major traders such as India and Brazil, failed to agree on a plan to lower barriers on agricultural trade. Susan Schwab, the U.S. trade representative, tried...
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Sep 2
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Yesterday, Angry Bear quoted my previous post about a potential labor shortage in China, to show “potential future inward shift of available (labor) supply in certain regions.” In fact, that is only one side of the story. There are other...
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Sep 1
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The Top U.S. Trade official threatened to take China to the WTO if it backtracked on its promises to open up the key industries. Susan Schwab, the U.S. Trade Representative who was in Beijing for two days of talks, said...
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Susan Schwab, the newly appointed U.S. trade representative, said at an event hosted by American Chamber of Commerce in Beijing on Tuesday: “We are now, ourselves, major beneficiaries of China’s rapid development. The U.S. manufactures, farmers and service providers have...
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