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In my opinion, one of China's greatest assets is its lack of current infrastructure. Imagine being able to design roads, dams, bridges, electricity generating plants, etc with 2005 technology without having to support an existing infrastructure.

We're going to hear more stories of bullet trains, monstrous dam projects and now advancements in nuclear energy production.

Good for China - start investing in them now.

Being as rampantly anti-american as i am (aka liberal) i welcome a future challenge to american political/economic hegemony. But looking at China's environmental history as evidinced in this book, including the mass devastation that occured in the three gorges dam project and the fact that China has allowed for themselves to become a major tech dumping ground for the worlds unwanted 386s and floppy drives and the like as became big news over two years ago. Perhaps this isnt the best thing for China and the worlds environmental health. Lets hope China's future bring both technological revolution and acknowledgement of environemtal respect!

As far as I'm concerned, it's lazy journalism.

It's not lazy journalism if he talked to BMG Music representative Rob Anderson and that's what the guy said. I agree with the original response, journalists talk to PR people to get more information. They can read press releases on their own, they don't need them regurgitated.

Sloppy journalism cannot be excused, even if it makes an argument you agree with ...

I totally agree with you here, but you shouldn't assume that things are assumtions, as you seem to imply in your post.

1) I know that China's black market is bad because I've heard about it in the news. Now you could say this is an example of xenophobic paranoia again. However, china online* talks about black martket problems too. Perhaps these countries [are] named to increase xenophobic paranoia, but you should support your point when you imply it is true. Maybe show that there are examples of black markets in the US. Support instead of stating blindly. For example:

2) Why** not? If they can, then they will, at least some of them. One possible reason is that the bootlegger was set up more recently than the legit distributor and so got the best stuff on the market, better than was avaliable to the legit guy, who hasnt been able to upgrade yet. I don't know if this is true, but at least I'm making a theoretically possible arguement.

ok, enough. My point is support arguements you make well, don't troll, and try not to make assumptions.

*this seems to be based in Chicago, kinda weird, but it is "for china" and all its articles focus on china, so I would argue that it is not xenophobic {towards china, at least}.
**saying the fuck doesn't help in most cases
I'm sorry if I misinterpretted the entire parent, and I'm also sorry for feeding a troll.

As far as I'm concerned, it's lazy journalism.

It's not lazy journalism if he talked to BMG Music representative Rob Anderson and that's what the guy said. I agree with the original response, journalists talk to PR people to get more information. They can read press releases on their own, they don't need them regurgitated.

Sloppy journalism cannot be excused, even if it makes an argument you agree with ...

I totally agree with you here, but you shouldn't assume that things are assumtions, as you seem to imply in your post.

1) I know that China's black market is bad because I've heard about it in the news. Now you could say this is an example of xenophobic paranoia again. However, china online* talks about black martket problems too. Perhaps these countries [are] named to increase xenophobic paranoia, but you should support your point when you imply it is true. Maybe show that there are examples of black markets in the US. Support instead of stating blindly. For example:

2) Why** not? If they can, then they will, at least some of them. One possible reason is that the bootlegger was set up more recently than the legit distributor and so got the best stuff on the market, better than was avaliable to the legit guy, who hasnt been able to upgrade yet. I don't know if this is true, but at least I'm making a theoretically possible arguement.

ok, enough. My point is support arguements you make well, don't troll, and try not to make assumptions.

*this seems to be based in Chicago, kinda weird, but it is "for china" and all its articles focus on china, so I would argue that it is not xenophobic {towards china, at least}.
**saying the fuck doesn't help in most cases
I'm sorry if I misinterpretted the entire parent, and I'm also sorry for feeding a troll.

Check company profile at China Online.

"Under Government/Regulatory Authority of: Sichuan Mianyang State-Owned Assets Bureau"

I guess someone in the Chinese government has something to do with this.

This is no different from where people gather on Amazon.com or slashdot.org or anywhere else to share imformation/experiences and bring ideas together. If you're afraid of a society where people are informed, then maybe you should live elsewhere.

Resettlement: In the 1980s, China passed regulations to protect the rights of those displaced by the dam projects and assure them of adequate compensation. But human rights activists asserted that rural dwellers are being discriminated, that they are not being consulted about their eviction, that they are often crowded onto poor land with unsatisfactory living conditions and few job opportunities, that they are not being taught new job skills, that corruption is diverting the funds meant to compensate them, that their local culture is threatened and that the government has provided no channels for them to express dissatisfaction

Why is anyone surprised by this? After all, practically none of the dot coms had a viable business model

Not really. Like this .com lives on the interests gain from its capital raised during .com boom; it doesn't generate much revenue but will still live forever. Even more, this .com acquired massive amount of capital in the same way and they even have spare money to invest.

They are running a very successful business model in a sense.

(Just in case you ponder, these are black jokes on real cases)

Next there will be a legal squabble if you are the first to register existing URLs in newly open languages like Japanese or Chinese ...

Which ever way you look at it Telstra will always have the monopoly in Australia.... They are moving in on Asian comms companies by the dozen and seem to barely even notice thier competitors leaving the game as quickly as they joined. And just when you thought Ziggy couldnt get any luckier.... the Australian Government has rushed to assist him by subsidising satelitte broadband for customers in remote locations (aka: the outback).... Oh, but its not about personal gain or pleasing shareholders, apparently its about delivery to Australia the technology that it deserves. Ahh.... making it easier!

There's a lot of stuff going on in China right now, a lot.

Xiagang (off of post)

Tons of people have been laid off by SOE (state owned enterprises), and don't have a viable source of income. This people are were the bulk of the current unrest is coming from (protests in small cities, usually not heard of in the western media).

Liumin (migrant workers)

Lots of people are moving from the countryside to find work in the big cities/coastal areas. They live in pretty crappy situations, and work crazy hours at construction sites or in factories.

wang ba (internet "bar"/cafe)

When I last visited (a bit more than a year ago), even relatively small cities (on the order of Portland or Omaha(?)) had a good chance of having an internet bar. Lots of college students had web access (although often just access to internal Chinese sites -- because it costs more money to access international lines). China has 1.x billion people, most are in the coutryside. Most don't use computers. Even with 15 million internet users, that's hardly more than a percent or 2. Thing will change fast, but I don't think that the average farmer is going to be surfing for a long, long time.

News sites

Voices of Chinese has China headlines from lots of newspapers both US and Chinese.

China News Digest an old volunteer run news site.

China Online mainly economic/finance news.

Inside China political news

Good book

River Town talks about a man's experiences in teaching English in rural China. Very, very insightful stuff about what the non-big city/coastal life is like.

Damn, I'll probably post more later on tonight -- I didn't get into what I think the Chinese are thinking about, etc, but I'll get to it.

Lastly: I'm really sick of china-haters on slashdot. There's a lot of problems about China, but there are really no easy solutions.

Whoa!!!! Sure American's might make an attempt to clean up some of their messes, but other countries certainly do as well (for example China) and many do a better job than the US. The US does the worst job of any country in cleaning up after itself in terms of greenhouse gas emissions (either per capita, or in total emmissions). I'm ashamed that my country (Australia) does second worst per capita.

Which is better -- people who just want to have their Big Macs and Budweisers

I must admit to being at a loss to understand why anyone would want either of these things. Real burger and real beer for me please :)