China :: Commentaries

A woman who was raped and forced to provide sexual service by a hair salon owner fell in love with him and helped him organize prostitution in eastern Zhejiang Province. Xiao Yao, the 23-year-old woman from neighboring Jiangsu Province, didn't run away or call police after she was raped in 2009 and she was allowed to see her parents, Qianjiang Evening News reported today. Later she even helped the 29-year-old salon owner surnamed Zhou to lure and force other girls into prostitution. Her irrational behavior matched the description of Stockholm syndrome, a psychological condition in which victims of trauma or kidnapping sympathize with their captors, the paper said. The pair organized prostitution in several cities in Zhejiang Province to avoid police detection. They were arrested in the city of Fenghua after one of their girls escaped and called the police in December 2010, the paper said. The Fenghua People's Court sentenced Xiao Yao to seven years in prison and her rapist-love...

Flash Carbon capture and storage, or CCS, is believed to be one of the keys to averting global warming. China's Huaneng Group, the country's biggest power generator, has invested tens of millions of US dollars into this technology and to put in place a CCS facility in its coal-fired power plants. The goal is to make burning fossil fuels a cleaner way of power generation. Recycling carbon dioxide from burning coal - a pioneering technology believed to be one keys to dealing with climate change. The four-million-US dollar facility was developed by the Huaneng Group and is the first of its kind in China. A view of the Huaneng Gaobeidian Thermal Power Plant in Beijing. Zhang Lin, Engineer of Huaneng Beijing Thermal Power Plant, said "The gas we see now used to be directly released into the atmosphere from our chimneys. But now we recycle it in our capture systems before sending it to the refining unit for intensive processing. This is the final result - carbon dioxide with a p...

Scholar Christopher G. Rea is the editor of a new book of translations of Humans, Beasts, and Ghosts: Stories and Essays by Qian Zhongshu . In an article on The China Beat , Rea says Qian might be called the best Chinese writer youve never heard of. The book includes translations by Rea, as well as Dennis T. Hu, Nathan K. Mao, Yiran Mao, and Philip F. Williams and an introduction to Qian and his work. In the China Beat post linked above, Rea provides a short biography of Qian: One hundred years ago today, Qian was born into a scholarly family in Wuxi, Jiangsu province. Tutored in the classics from a young age, he went on to become modern Chinas foremost man of letters, in Ronald Egans words, accumulating encyclopedic knowledge of Chinese and Western literatures, and putting it to use in his scholarship and creative writing. A graduate of Tsinghua University, Qian studied European literature at Oxford and the Sorbonne before returning with his family to China in 1938 after the outbreak ...

Flash German Chancellor Angela Merkel, left, France's President Nicolas Sarkozy, center, and Italy's Prime Minister Mario Monti, right, during a press conference in Strasbourg, eastern France, Thursday, Nov 24, 2011. The leaders of Germany, France and Italy are set for debate on the European Central Bank's role in the region's debt crisis and on how to align eurozone economic policies. All eyes in the financial community are currently on Strasbourg, France where leaders of the eurozone's three largest economies are meeting to discuss how to tackle the worsening debt crisis. Markets are anxiously awaiting developments - to see whether French President Nicolas Sarkozy, German Chancellor Angela Merkel and newly-appointed Italian Prime Minister Mario Monti can resolve their differences. The talks were taken on new urgency after Wednesday's weak auction of German 10-year bonds. By meeting with Merkel and Sarkozy one day after talks with EU leaders in Brussels, Monti ...

A theft map pinpointing where thieves operate along subway lines in Nanjing was released Wednesday by local metro police, the Yangtze Evening Post reported. Theft-prone places have been marked by red triangles in this anti-theft map released by Nanjing subway police, Nov 23, 2011. [Photo/ Yangtze Evening Post ] The map marked theft-prone places on subway lines and around stations to help enhance people's awareness of thieves, the Nanjing-based paper said. Police concludes the most frequent locations for theft in subway stations, including entrances, escalators, ticket barriers, resting areas and ticket vending machines, the paper said. A total of 77 pickpocket cases involving 81 suspects have been cracked by subway police in Nanjing this year, the paper said. 1 2 Next

THE head of China's largest oil producer was one of 64 people punished for four major accidents in northeastern Dalian City, including oil pipeline explosions in July last year that led to the country's worst oil spill. Among the 64, 14, including officials from local firms that provided services to China National Petroleum Corporation's facilities when the explosions occurred, were suspected of criminal acts and had been handed over to judicial departments for criminal charges, Xinhua news agency reported yesterday. Xinhua said that several top executives, including Jiang Jiemin, president of CNPC, also known as PetroChina, were given disciplinary punishments by the Communist Party or the government. Disciplinary punishments from the Party could affect future promotions of those officials in their careers. In the long list of executives under punishment, Wang Lihua, president of PetroChina International, also known as Chinaoil, PetroChina's oil trading arm, received an...

The Ministry of Environmental Protection on Thursday announced a list of the first 15 rare earth metal enterprises that have passed the ministry's environmental protection check. The enterprises were selected from 84 companies that passed inspections by environmental watchdogs in 14 provincial divisions, said Tao Detian, the ministry's spokesman. China currently has more than 300 enterprises working in the rare earth metal industry. Environmental protection departments across China will not accept environmental impact assessment reports on any new rare earth projects unless they are submitted by enterprises that are on the list, Tao said. Without an environmental impact assessment report, no industrial projects can be legally approved in China. In April, the ministry started a nationwide inspection of rare earth enterprises, evaluating their environmental impact, pollution control measures and efforts to reduce emissions of greenhouse gases. According to the inspection, rare ea...