AsiaPundit is pleased to report that central planning is alive and well in the new ‘wired’ China. Via 活龙行天下, a summary of key work areas of the Ministry of Information Industry (MII).:

Overall requirements: Guided by the Deng Xiaoping theory and the important thoughts of Three Represents, the spirits of the Sixteenth National Congress of the Party, the 5th Session of the Central Committee of the Party and the Central Economic Working Conference; to implement the Concept of Scientific Development, make China a telecom and electronic giant, focus on structural adjustments and strategic transformation, improve the quality and efficiency of development, center on technological innovations and strengthen the core competitiveness of the information industry; to transform the functions of the government, create a good environment for the development of the industry; to apply information technology (IT), strengthen the IT promotion and application, to base on the people-first principle, provide good products and services to the public and promote the sustained, rapid, coordinated and healthy development of the information industry.

Much more below the jump, if you can tolerate it.

Technorati Tags: asia, china, east asia, northeast asia

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While watching from Morning Musume (h/t Japundit), Asiapundit despaired for the sanity of the mighty archipelago, and then further despaired that China’s broadcasters have not yet thought up something as creative as strapping raw meat to the heads of young women and having them face a carnivorous lizard.:

CCTV take note.

Technorati Tags: asia, china, east asia, japan, northeast asia

Ian Lamont, who is doing content research on Xinhua at Harvard, is excited by a discovery of an online depositary of almost a decade’s worth of North Korean propaganda.:

This is awesome! Someone in California has taken North Korean propaganda from the Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) from 1996 to the present, and dumped it into a searchable database with a Web interface.

Asiapundit is also impressed, particularly with the random insult generator.:

In the wake of the blog-city ban, Imagethief has developed some possible surveys for Xinhua.:

Which lickspittle, Anti-China foreign hate-site should be banned next?
A) The Peking Duck
B) The Horse’s Mouth
C) Angry Chinese Blogger
D) Imagethief
E) Ban ‘em all, and have the authors beaten with rubber hoses! In fact, ban all media.

Unfortunately, they’ve all been banned except for Richard. Speaking of which, I haven’t been missing his absence from the Duck. Other Lisa and Martyn are doing an excellent job as guest bloggers. Lisa delivers an opus on China’s internet censorship. Martyn brings us a must-read on the China no one talks about.:

While China’s surge certainly may continue, it’s also possible that the
awakening giant may stumble badly, a notion not on enough radar screens
in Washington. And a failed China could damage American interests to a
greater extent than a strong China. That’s hardly the conventional
wisdom, but it’s worth examining.

While Korea may have missed out on the iPod craze, Jason at Wandering to Tamshui notes that there is another Northeast Asian economy where Apple still shines.:

Yet another reason to buy an iPod: they play a huge role in Taiwan’s tech economy.
It’s
no secret that most of the world’s notebook computers come from Taiwan,
but not a lot of attention is paid to the fact that most of the guts
found in the ubiquitous iPod are made by Taiwanese companies (some of which have production facilities in China).

Kudos to Mr Wang, the Library of Congress has approved his blog as an official electronic resource.:

Isn’t this amazing? The US Library of Congress cites me as an electronic resource on politics in Singapore.
I’d be really flattered, except that (1) I personally wouldn’t trust
myself very much as a library resource, and (2) looking at the list of
cited Singapore blogs, I really don’t get the impression that the list
was carefully chosen.

This is a true rarity, "good news about governance in the Philippines."

This is another rarity, the Onion is again becoming worth reading. India blog Chapati Mystery points to this:

Calcutta Fire Marshal: Many Indian Homes Lack Bride Extinguisher

CALCUTTA, INDIA—Failure to own or use a bride extinguisher results in
millions of rupees of property damage in India annually, Calcutta fire
marshal Prasad Chandra said in a press conference Monday. "This tragedy
occurs far too often when well-meaning husbands, attempting to collect
on a dowry, ignite their brides indoors. The damage is often compounded
when a burning bride attempts to escape and spreads the flames to other
homes," Chandra said. "If you absolutely must burn your bride, avoid
additional destruction with an affordable bride extinguisher. And, if
possible, confine the burning to your backyard bride pit."

And Younghusband at Coming Anarchy spots an item on the newest member of the nuclear club.:

WASHINGTON, DC—A report released Monday
by the Defense Intelligence Agency suggests that there is reason to
believe that the former Soviet republic of Nukehavistan may be
manufacturing nuclear weapons.
"New intelligence indicates that the likelihood of Nukehavistan
possessing nuclear weapons is moderate to strong," said DIA Director
Vice Adm. Lowell Jacoby in a press conference Monday.

In the US, two things are inevitable: death and taxes. In India, things work differently.:

If you are a tax-paying Indian, you will no doubt be delighted to know that some of your money is every month by the government in Delhi to dead people. Yes, dead people. About 10,000 of them.

I try to find at least one gratuitous image of the female body for each set of daily links. We can thank Manish at Sepia Mutiny for bringing us today’s model.

Kingfisher Beer has put its ‘swimsuit’ calendar
online. It’s just like the CNN site which annoys me daily (‘we
interrupt you with breaking news: Model of the Day!’), but with lotus
pads: zen cheesecake, if you will. There are so many floating flowers in the frame, you’d think it was pitching feminine products instead of beer.

Miss August.

Snopes reports an enduring urban legend from Thailand.

Anwar Ibrahim has been having lots of good fortune since moonbat Mahathir Mohamad retired as Malaysia’s Prime Minister. Now he has a real fortune.:

Yesterday, he won another court victory and claims "I’m Completely Vindicated". For his libel suit against Datuk Abdul Khalid @ Khalid Jafri Bakar Shah, the author of the book 50 Dalil Mengapa Anwar Tidak Boleh Jadi PM
(50 Reasons Why Anwar Cannot Become PM), Justice Mohd Hishamudin
awarded AnwarnRM4.5 million, RM4.0 million for defamation, RM500,000
for "conspiracy to injure", plus all legal costs.

If the Russia-China wargames are a sign of an emerging alliance of interests, Justin at the Moderate Voice ponders what the Russia-India games are a sign of.:

For Russia this is basically a middle finger to Beijing for its wish to
utilize the current ongoing war games with Moscow as a very direct
threat to Taiwan and its American backer. India’s obviously no friend
of China, so Russia’s very visible military cooperation with New Delhi
can be considered a reminder of its true, Russo-centric intentions.
Also, such cooperation will, at least in Putin’s mind, increase Indian
dependence on Russian military tech and help bring the country over
into Russia’s sphere of influence sometime down the line. If China is
the impetus for such an alliance, then so be it for Putin — India’s a
rival power, but its sights are not directly set on the former Soviet
Republics of Central Asia as China’s are.

Have a fun weekend. I’m off to spend an evening with the stars.:

More at the Shanghaiist.

When I lived in Taiwan from 1996-98, it seemed as if Japanese popular culture was making the biggest impact on East Asia, but now South Korea looks to be stepping in as the driving force of the entertainment industries of not only Northeast Asian countries, but also in Thailand, Vietnam, Malaysia, Mongolia, and Uzbekistan:

South Korea, historically more worried about fending off cultural
domination by China and Japan than spreading its own culture abroad, is
emerging as the pop culture leader of Asia.
From well-packaged television dramas to slick movies, from pop music to
online games, South Korean companies and stars are increasingly
defining what the disparate people in East Asia watch, listen to and
play.

OxBlog’s Patrick Belton receives a letter from Bangladesh:

IT is the new buzz here, but it is unclear whether it actually exists
besides one sad-looking internet café with two computers in the
“wealthy” part of town (read: less than abject poverty). Both times I
went there was no current and hence no internet, but in theory you
could check your email. Dhaka still does not have a McDonald’s nor any
other international chain, although it does have a Dominous pizza (note
the ingenious way around copyright) and a restaurant that has stolen
the Chili’s logo and sells Thai food. The country has trouble
attracting foreign investment because it has one of the highest
corruption rates in the world, exacerbated by a political system run
almost entirely by two political families who trade off power almost
every election…

When I was here before, women did not adhere strictly to purdah and
many ventured into the marketplace wearing only hijab. Now, women are
largely kept to their homes and are required to wear a burkah in
public. However, some advances have been made in women’s health. Birth
control in the form of contraceptive pills from India is now available,
although apparently the local Madrassa has organized a campaign against
its use (not that it seemed to be having much effect; most of the women
see it as a Godsend)…

The biggest difference has to be the proliferation of cell phones and
televisions. Now, every third person seems to have a cell phone. The people in the
area may still not have reliable electricity, or safe drinking water,
or indoor plumbing, or much of anything else, but now many families do
have a television. The children look just as malnourished but now they
can sing Bollywood songs. Because of this, the people have a greater
awareness of the outside world than they did four years ago.[OxBlog]