China Daily

China blocks rights lawyer from meeting Merkel
Chicago Tribune
BEIJING (Reuters) – Chinese police blocked a prominent human rights lawyer from attending a Beijing dinner hosted by German leader Angela Merkel, the lawyer said on Friday, the latest example of restrictions on unorthodox views in a sensitive year.
China and Merkel do diplomatic Euro debt dancemsnbc.com
China not out to purchase Europe: WenChina Daily
Germany Seeks China's Help on IranVoice of America
Reuters -Deutsche Welle
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China Daily

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Wall Street Journal

News:

* The anti-corruption bug bites a PLA general (FT)

* Wen Jiabao says maybe China will bail out Europe after all (Bloomberg)

* China’s largest fresh water lake, now a puddle (Guardian)

* The NBA goes cold in China (NYT magazine)

* U.S. ambassador Gary Locke, salesman in chief (Reuters)

Analysis and Commentary:

* No sweat? Why China doesn’t need to worry about “minor unrest” in Tibetan areas (Global Times)

* An infographic primer on the evils of shark fin soup (Shanghaiist)

Just Because:

* The world’s most popular blogger’s fight with China’s science cop (Danwei)

* Photos: China’s “friendship gifts” to developing countries (Ministry of Tofu)

News:

* Skype use and a poem threaten to send another Chinese dissident to jail (Guardian)

* Morgan Stanley’s prediction for iPhone sales in China in 2013: 24 to 36 million (Fortune)

* North Korea is apparently taking delivery of Chinese rice (AFP)

* Prepare for a hard landing? Economy blamed for fizzle-less fireworks sales over Lunar New Year (China Daily)

* How CCTV is and isn’t like Al-Jazeera (AP)

Analysis and Commentary:

* How to prepare for the end of cheap China (China Law Blog)

* Former U.S. ambassador Winston Lord and other venerable China hands debate how much credit Richard Nixon should get for China’s rise (Asia Society)

* Former Japanese Defense Minister Yuriko Koike argues China has learned some soft-power lessons in Taiwan (Project Syndicate)

Just Because:

* A ticket to see the Terra Cotta Warriors costs 5.84 Big Macs, more than twice as many burgers as the Louvre (Ministry of Tofu)

* Not so bad after all? Video shows long lines of job applicants outside Apple supplier Foxconn’s in Zhengzhou (M.I.C Gadget)

Getty Images

A shop in Tahrir Square is spray-painted with the word Twitter after the government shut off Internet access on Feb. 4 in Cairo, Egypt.

Twitter’s announcement late last week that it can now censor tweets within specific countries may not be aimed at earning entry into China, but it has nevertheless earned the company kudos from a state-run Chinese newspaper.

“It is impossible to have boundless freedom, even on the Internet and even in countries that make freedom their main selling point,” read an editorial published Monday on the English-language website of the Global Times. “The announcement of Twitter might have shown that it has already realized the fact and made a choice between being an idealistic political tool as many hope and following pragmatic commercial rules as a company.”

In a move that may or may not be related, Global Times editor-in-chief and censorship advocate Hu Xijin on Sunday night started an account on Twitter, dipping his toe into the Twitterverse with a message in English:

Twitter’s revelation of its new ability to selectively censor posts set off a speculation that the company might be laying the groundwork for a move into China, where it is currently blocked, and prompted threats of a boycott from some of its Chinese users. People in China need Internet workarounds, like proxy services, to access Twitter.

A lawyer for Twitter sought to calm the flurry of criticism the next day, arguing that country-specific filtration would allow Twitter to avoid having to remove posts globally. “We don’t want to enter a country that would compromise [our] ideals,” he added.

Beijing-based investor and Chinese Internet watcher Bill Bishop told China Real Time on Friday that he doubted Twitter was making a play for China, saying the company would have to be “incredibly naïve” to think it could compete in a market already saturated with microblogging services that had earned the trust of the government. The main question, Mr. Bishop said, was whether Chinese state media would seize on the announcement as evidence of the need for Internet censorship.

He didn’t have to wait long for an answer.

In its editorial, Global Times, a nationalist-leaning tabloid published by Communist Party flagship newspaper People’s Daily, described selective censorship as “normal practice” and “a necessary step in the evolution of Twitter.” It’s important for Twitter “to respect the cultures and ideas of different countries so as to blend into local environments harmoniously,” the paper added.

While the editorial may have been expected, the appearance on Twitter of Mr. Hu, a staunch defender of China’s need to censor the Internet, was something of a surprise. A number of China-based Twitter users, including long-time Chinese media watcher Jeremy Goldkorn, immediately questioned what Internet proxy the Global Times editor had used to access the service.

Mr. Hu faced additional questions from Twitter users, including whether the account was real and what he thought of the use of guns in putting down recent protests by Tibetans.

The editor didn’t immediately answer those questions, but he did offer a job description: “I regard my work as reporting a complicated China and commenting on a complicated world,” he wrote in English.

Reached Monday afternoon, a man surnamed Yin and identifying himself as Global Times’s office director confirmed to China Real Time that the account was real but said Mr. Hu was in meetings and therefore not available to offer details about how or why he started using Twitter.

– Josh Chin, with contributions from Kersten Zhang. Follow him on Twitter @joshchin