Today’s Links:
THE ESSENTIAL EIGHT
1. Chinese General Xu Caihou Dies of Cancer Amid Graft Investigation – WSJ “His case is serious and leaves a vile impact,” the party leadership said in a statement quoted by Xinhua at the time of his expulsion. “The party will not harbor corrupt members nor will the armed forces.” The military would deal with his “illegal gains” according to law, Xinhua said Sunday.
Related: 徐才厚癌症恶化医治无效死亡 – 中国军网 terse statement on the death of Xu Caihou // 新华社北京3月16日电 2015年3月15日，徐才厚因膀胱癌终末期，全身多发转移，多器官功能衰竭，医治无效在医院死亡。 2014年10月27日，军事检察院对徐才厚涉嫌受贿犯罪案侦查终结，移送审查起诉。经依法审查查明，徐才厚涉嫌受贿犯罪事实清楚，证据确实、充分，应当追究其刑事责任。由于徐才厚病亡，根据《中华人民共和国刑事诉讼法》第十五条的规定，军事检察院对徐才厚作出不起诉决定，其涉嫌受贿犯罪所得依法处理。
Related: 军网刊文谈徐才厚之死：其人已盖棺 反腐步不停新闻腾讯网 中国历来有“人死账消”的说法，基于这种传统，人们有理由担心，徐死后相关案件还能否彻查下去，那些与其沆瀣一气的贪腐分子，又是否会因此逃脱党纪军法的制裁……好在，流言止于智者，更止于公开。军方新年已两度发布查处重大案件信息，不再把这些“高度敏感、有损形象”的贪腐之事捂着掖着，而是自揭家丑、刮骨疗伤，主动回应世人关切，这彰显了本届领导人的高度执政自信，也反映了军队肃贪反腐的坚定自觉。军队对待腐败的态度，决定着这支军队的兴衰荣辱。唯有彻底与腐败划清界限的军队，唯有以打胜仗为使命的军队，才有勇气和魄力做出这样的回应。实际上，中国共产党也好，解放军也好，反腐正风从未停止过。对徐才厚的查处，不过是军队重拳肃贪、铁腕反腐的延续和必然，当然这是个更具标志性的案件。2014年3月15日启动组织调查，6月30日开除其党籍，7月30日开除其军籍，10月27日公布侦查终结、移送审查起诉，可谓雷霆之势、令人侧目。我相信徐虽因癌症而死，但其他涉案人员决不会不了了之。因为强国强军的大业需要轻装前行，哪能被贪腐分子逍遥再拖累？
Related: Was news of Xu Caihou’s death buried? Speculation mounts on demise of former PLA general | South China Morning Post “Xu was expected to die many days ago, but it would have been impossible to announce his death at the time because there is a rule that no one and nothing can be allowed to shift the focus away from the ongoing National People’s Congress.” On March 7, rumours started to circulate on the internet that a retired senior leader suffering from bladder cancer had died at 10.09am on that day.
2. Q. and A.: David Shambaugh on the Risks to Chinese Communist Rule – NYTimes.com Chris Buckley interviews Shambaugh, gets more detail on his reasons for saying the CCP is doomed. Is it just me or does he come across as a little defensive in this interview? Were Jiang Zemin and Zeng Qinghong, patron of Zhou Yongkang, really such progressive reformers? // The question is: What do Leninist parties do to cope with the atrophy and stave off inevitable decline? Essentially, they can be reactive and defensive — ruling by repression, in effect — or they can be proactive and dynamic, ruling through opening and trying to guide and manage change. From roughly 2000 through 2008, under Zeng Qinghong’s aegis, the party chose the latter. But in the middle of 2009, after Zeng had retired, it abruptly shifted, in my view.
3. Stiffer Bank-Technology Rules Loom in China – WSJ and sales for the foreign firms to the banking sector may fall of a cliff now as it will take time for the Chinese banks to hit the goal of 75% domestic IT by 2019… // Technology-company executives say privately that they think China might back down on demands for source codes, the thorniest issue. But as China seeks to wean itself off foreign technologies, global tech companies are weighing a number of limited options: hand over proprietary information in return for market access, form joint ventures with Chinese firms, create products or services only for the Chinese market that meet Beijing’s requirements, or leave. Industry insiders say the rules are being interpreted as government orders for banks to switch to Chinese vendors and that the requirements would seriously hurt the major U.S. companies that supply the sector.
4. China to reveal detailed “Belt and Road” roadmap – Xinhua China will release the implementation plan for the Belt and Road initiatives when the 2015 Boao Forum for Asia opens at the end of the month in south China. Sources told Xinhua that the implementation plan will include a detailed list of major infrastructure projects concerning railways, roads, energy, information technology and industrial parks to be started in the coming years. The number of these major infrastructure projects could reach hundreds and will spread Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Pakistan and China’s other neighboring countries, said the sources.
Related: 经济参考网 – 一带一路重大工程清单亮相在即 总计几百项 记者从权威人士处获悉，将于3月26日至29日召开的博鳌亚洲论坛，有望成为“一带一路”对外宣示的重要窗口。参会的各方还将在论坛期间签署重要经济合作协议。该人士进一步透露，即将出台的“一带一路”规划，将包括一份详细的重大工程项目清单，规划未来几年将要签约、开工的项目，涉及铁路、公路、能源、信息、产业园区等总计几百项重大工程。在2015年争取新开工的项目中，中国周边友好邻邦占据主体，中南亚方向的中塔公路二期、喀喇昆仑公路、瓜达尔港项目将集中亮相。
5. Qiu He, top Yunnan official, ousted for corrupt land deals – East by Southeast sure looks to the more politically sensitive here that the net may be closing in on Li Yuanchao // Originally from Jiangsu province, Qiu was known as an anti-graft crusader and free market reformer. He began his meteoric rise in politics as the Party secretary of northern Jiangsu’s Suqian city, where he privatized local hospitals and schools and reformed the city’s infrastructure. In Kunming, Qiu began his tenure by organizing a taskforce to ensure city officials arrived to work on time and limited their lunch breaks to thirty minutes. Within a week of taken office in 2007 he instituted a policy linking local political futures of local officials to waste water pollution into the feeder rivers of Kunming’s Lake Dianchi, one of China’s most polluted bodies of water. His passionate speeches on Yunnan’s development often highlighted the need to turn Yunnan from a backwater frontier province into a fast-developing regional hub.
Related: Two NPC Members Detained at Hotels after Legislature’s Meeting Ends – Caixin Qiu was detained after attending the closing ceremony of this year’s NPC meeting and returning to the downtown Beijing hotel where he and other deputies from Yunnan were staying, a source close to the situation said. The inquiry is related to land deals and building projects in Kunming, the capital of the southwestern province, sources with knowledge of the investigation said. Some of the Yunnan deputies expressed surprise that Qiu was taken away, but others said there have been rumors he was in trouble since late February.
6. Tesla China has a Record Unsold Inventory of 2301 cars | CarNewsChina Reports in Chinese media say Tesla China has a record inventory of 2301 Model S cars. The number is based on a comparison of the 2014 sales number and the 2014 import number: in 2014 Tesla sold 2499 Model S cars in China, but the company imported 4800 cars, leaving a gap of exactly 2301. It is the first time that the exact 2014 sales number for Tesla in China has been revealed, 2499 accounts for 208.25 cars a month. The numbers have been confirmed by various Tesla employees and ‘insiders’, speaking anonymously to said media.
Related: China’s BYD takes aim at Tesla in battery factory race | Reuters Shenzhen-based BYD plans to add 6 gigawatt hours of global production for batteries in each of the next three years, and hopes to keep adding at that pace afterwards if demand is solid, Matthew Jurjevich, a spokesman for the company, said on Friday. That means BYD could ramp up from 10 GWh capacity at the end of this year to about 34 GWh of batteries by the beginning of 2020. This would put it about even with Tesla’s planned $5 billion Nevada gigafactory.
7. China: Tibetan Buddhist monks unveil sacred painting of Buddha at Labrang Monastery [Photo report] beautiful photos // Buddhists and tourists from around the world gathered at the Labrang Monastery in Xiahe County, in northwest China’s Gansu Province, to witness the unveiling of a giant painting of Buddha. Getty Images photographer Kevin Frayer captured the colourful ritual as it took place on 3 March, 2015. The annual spectacle known as “the basking of Buddha” or the “sunbathing Buddha festival”, is part of the Monlam prayer festival, a magnet for pilgrims from the Tibetan-populated areas of China. Monks carried the silk painting known as a thangka, measuring 20 metres wide and over 30 metres long, up a hill overlooking the monastery. They unveiled it before dawn, hoping the first rays of sunlight would illuminate the sacred painting.
8. The unfrothing of Alibaba | FT Alphaville The units — albeit at a post-IPO low — are still above the IPO sale price, $68. But there’s reason to wonder how much longer, since on March 18 the 180-day post-float lock-up expires. At which point potential liquidity rises by 437m shares … That’s $35bn of the stuff. Yes, in a week’s time the Alibaba free float will rise by almost 60 per cent.
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