Danwei Picks is a daily digest of the “From the Web” links found on the Danwei homepage. A feed for the links as they are posted throughout the day is available at Feedsky (in China) or Feedburner (outside China).
Video: Please Vote for Me: From China Digital Times:
Please Vote for Me, an award-winning documentary directed by Weijun Chen, takes a closer look at an interesting social experiment with democracy in China.
The link contains a Youtube clip.
“The more they want to cut, the more people want to see it.”: Variety’s Kaiju Shakedown blog presents a fascinating interview with Fang Li, a film producer who has been banned from the industry for two years following controversy over the movie Lost in Beijing. Fang discusses his complicated relationship to SARFT and the Propaganda bureau, as well as the changing climate of film censorship in the run-up to the Olympics:
This has nothing to do, really, with the censors. This is because of pressure from the top – from a very high level. That’s why it has happened before the Summer Olympics, the Chinese government wants to have so-called "clean air." In their language, LOST IN BEIJING has created a very negative image of society. On the internet someone released a pirated copy of the film containing sexual imagery that was cut from the movie and that’s why the situation is so severe. The Propaganda Department became concerned about this and the pressure is probably coming from the Political Bureau.
The censors say that this is something they don’t want to do, but it is something no one can stop. This is the first time they have suspended an individual for something posted on the internet. Previously, when a director or producer has been banned they will call you into SARFT and have a conversation with you and notify you of the situation. They didn’t do that this time. According to my inside information, they were told that they have three days to deal with this.
New Chinese drinking songs: Xiao Qiang of China Digital Times translates some drinking songs circulating on the Chinese Internet:
Propaganda Department Minister:
My pen is pointed; the brush is round,
I’ve written hundreds of thousands of articles,
I’ve published thousands of hundreds of articles
Was a single sentence true? No!
Shanxi slave scandal: it’s not over: Global Voices has translated posts by prominent Chinese bloggers like Luo Yonghao who are asking for donations of cash to be distributed to the parents of some of the children who were working as slaves in a brick factory in Shanxi Province until the affair was exposed on the Internet.
Although the government subsequently sacked local officials and liberated the children, some of them had sustained injuries for which their parents cannot afford treatment. Other parents have been unable to locate their children after the closure of the factory.
The Global Voices post has also translated the details of how to donate the the bloggers’ fund that aims to assist parents of the slave children who need financial assistance.
Rupert’s Adventures in China: The Economist has published a review of Rupert’s Adventures in China: How Murdoch Lost a Fortune and Found a Wife. by Bruce Dover.
Bruce Dover, an Australian, was Mr Murdoch’s man in Beijing until 1998. He has written a rare insider’s account of how the Chinese got the better of a businessman who usually gets what he wants.
Chinese steel giant to build plant in Brazil: Baoshan Iron & Steel Co Ltd (Baosteel) is the largest steel manufacturer in China and the sixth largest in the world. It has received permission from the Brazilian government to build a plant in Brazil. Xinhua Finance reports:
The venture, Baosteel Victoria Iron & Steel Co Ltd in the southern Brazilian state of Espirito Santo, will be Baosteel’s first steel mill outside China, the report said.
Construction on the first phase of the project will begin in 2009 and production will start in 2011.
Baosteel holds 60 pct of the venture with CVRD holding the remainder.