The recent devastating floodwaters that hit China’s capital ten days ago may have receded, but thousands of residents who dwell in Beijing’s basement tenements–many migrant workers with few other options in the expensive capital–have been left homeless, their subterranean flats flooded. And it appears that authorities, as well as many netizens, couldn’t seem to care less.
Protests in the eastern Chinese city of Qidong ended with victory for opponents of a government-run pipeline project that they claimed would increase pollution in local waters . But it also appears to have exacerbated anti-Japanese sentiment both locally and on the Chinese Internet. Officials who oversee Qidong, a coastal city that faces Shanghai across the Yangtze River in China’s Jiangsu province, said Saturday they would “permanently halt” a pipeline construction project intended to pipe water away from a paper mill owned by Japan’s Oji Paper Co. Local officials will now consider other ways to clean or transport the water that will come from the mill, which Oji Paper said is worth $1.95 billion.
China lashed out at the Western media when doping accusations were made against its champion swimmer Ye Shiwen. Orville Schell, a long-time China observer and author, says in a certain sense, the Western media is biased, though China is not wholly free of blame. Part of it, Schell says, comes down to the fact that not many non-Chinese are rooting for the Chinese at the Olympics and that China manipulates its image to come across flawlessly, deprives people of gladness at their success.
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The decision to cancel the metal refinery project in Shifang last month after protesters clashed with the police has been widely reported in the Chinese and global media. This is not the first time a project has been shelved due to public demonstrations. The same happened in Xiamen in 2008 and Dalian in 2011.
CHINA'S property market was once described as the "most important sector in the known universe" by Jonathan Anderson, formerly of UBS, a Swiss bank. It certainly felt that way on a recent visit to Sanya, the resort city in Hainan, known for its sea air and speculative vapours. Finding a real-estate agent in Sanya is as easy as buying a bucket-and-spade. Flyers advertising flats sprinkled the beachfront like sea-spray. A man on a bike handed them out to swimmers emerging from the sea. A flyer kept the sun off one man's neck and the sand off another man's shorts. I saw a couple walking along the beach with badminton rackets, a shuttlecock and, of course, a property flyer.
With its parks, centuries-old palaces, history and culture, Beijing should be one of the more pleasant capitals of the world. Instead, it's considered among the worst to live in because of chronic air pollution.
