The Chongqing city government stepped in to the “Nail House” issue yesterday. The South China Morning Post reports that Mayor Wang Hongju said “the government would try to solve the standoff between the villa owner and the developer ‘appropriately’ but would not tolerate an exorbitant price or unreasonable demands.” This doesn’t bode …

Regarding the post below, a kind reader had pointed out that the State Council (which is an administrative body) couldn’t announce the new party chief in Shanghai. That one line notification came from the Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party, of course. Another equally kind reader (calling me an “ignorant babbling poltroon” …

As Austin notes below, Donald Tsang’s “election” as Hong Kong’s chief executive was a foregone conclusion in which the electors were all carefully selected by Beijing. That didn’t stop the Beijing-published English-language China Daily from hailing his “landslide win.” And yet, although the attempt to make the selection of the …

No need to pick up the papers today. The news was already called months ago. As expected, Donald Tsang was re-elected Chief Executive of Hong Kong, the territory’s highest political office. The only drama Sunday was whether Tsang’s final vote count would be less than the 641 nominations he received last month. It wasn’t. In the final …

This is the type of disturbance that occurs with increasing frequency in China, if not every day, then pretty close to it: one dead, ten injured in the aftermath of a land grab in a small Pearl River Delta village. But since the all-wise, all-knowing authorities believe government officials (not to mention citizens) are best treated …

I was going to say file this under the “Only in China” category but reflected that disputes between developers and stubborn residents are pretty common. Still, there’s something about this one, which is currently underway in the Sichuan city of Chongqing that is particularly dramatic, not to mention emblematic of the tide of destruction …

For the past several years most every story about Hong Kong’s poor air quality has put a hefty amount of the blame on neighboring Guangdong province. It is, after all, a global manufacturing center with a power supply problem that has often forced manufacturers to rely on diesel generators. A survey released by the Hong Kong government’s …

A group of enterprising Chinese reporters on the corruption and sloth in the health care system here, something that’s been a spur to civil disturbances in the past in various places throughout the country, and no doubt will be again. (Those of you who are tea drinkers may want to pass on this item…)

BEIJING, (Reuters) March 21-

…

One of the privileges of being a Time reporter is working with great photographers. I get a thrill out of seeing them approach an ordinary scene and produce and extraordinary image. I find this particularly intriguing as, despite an keen appreciation of good photography, I am a fairly lame photographer myself. Still, I enjoy shooting now …

I knew there was a reason I should’ve taken those damned piano lessons my parents wanted me to take when I was a kid…
This from today’s New York Times, on the match between musicality and mandarin…

March 20, 2007
Skilled Ear for Music May Help Language
By ERIC NAGOURNEY

Anyone who has tried to learn Chinese can attest to how …

If there’s one thing that can get people riled in Hong Kong, it’s money. Recently, it’s been bad money. Fake $1,000 HK bills (worth about $128 US) have been showing up around town, and retailers and consumers are spooked. I have managed to remain calm, mainly because the “gold bull,” as the yellow note is known here, rarely makes its way …

I forgot to post this from the just-finished National People’s Congress, or rather from Premier Wen Jiabao’s Press Conference afterwards. A pretty impressive turn out, I thought, though the guy next to me said he was there reporting for the Inner Mongolian Yurt Builders Weekly…or was it the Hothot Times?

Anyway, it struck me …

A few months ago Hong Kong was waiting for an election campaign. Now it has one, and it’s surprisingly lively. Chief Executive Donald Tsang’s re-election is a foregone conclusion, after all. So why the debates, open-top bus rides, and flesh pressing with people who won’t have a say on March 25?

While most people in Hong Kong can’t vote …