Eight Tibetans arrested for communication with 'outside forces', report suggests

China abroad | China at home

According to Radio Free Asia, a 22-year-old Tibetan man died in Gansu province after self-immolating January 12. This arrives with news of the arrest in Tibet of eight individuals - including one monk - who reportedly have been accused of communicating with 'splittist outside forces' regarding the current situation in the autonomous region.

Travel website Travelbite reports restrictions on visas to Tibet have been relaxed, and art depicting the region's numerous self-immolators has recently been released from both Chinese and Japanese artists.

China abroad

Bloomberg
-- China Export Surge Spurs Data Skepticism at Goldman, UBS China’s unexpected surge in exports last month renewed concern from analysts at Goldman Sachs Group Inc., UBS AG and Australia & New Zealand Banking Group Ltd. (ANZ) that statistics from the nation can be unreliable.
-- China to Use Forex Reserves to Finance Overseas Investment Deals The increased support may further boost Chinese non- financial investment overseas that rose 25 percent in the first 11 months of 2012 to $62.5 billion amid slower growth at home. The Chinese government has been encouraging companies to buy assets overseas through a “going out” strategy to secure energy and commodity resources, buy technology and build internationally competitive businesses.

China Daily
-- Australia conveys message of neutrality The Australian foreign minister conveyed Canberra's neutral stance on Japan's territorial dispute with China to his Japanese counterpart on Sunday. Their meeting came amid Tokyo officials' attempts to win regional countries' support for their plans to rein in China on maritime issues.

New York Times
-- China Hints at Far Wider Welcome to Overseas Investors In what would be a drastic liberalization of China’s huge but still cloistered capital markets, the country’s top securities regulator said Monday that foreign investment could be allowed to rise as much as tenfold.

Scouting NY
-- Why Everyone Films At The Same Damn New York Chinese Restaurant “Few homegrown Chinese take nourishment in these places, because they feel kind of out of place and they hate to break in on the nice white people from uptown and Brooklyn. But the waiters are all Chinese, for the same reason that the walls have Chinese dragon tapestry.”

China at home

dossiertibet
-- Tibet : Chinese authorities arrest eight tibetans for sharing information with outsiders The only female among the detainees, Sonam Kyi was earlier arrested for allegedly sharing information with outsiders on the 2008 mass uprising in Tibet’s capital Lhasa. She has since been banished and forbidden from visiting the capital city by Chinese authorities.

Economist
-- Great expectations Reform of the labour-camp system would be welcome, but more change must come soon

Free More News
-- Another Tibetan dies after self-immolation in China Tsering Dhondup, 22, set himself on fire around noon on Saturday in Xiahe County, Gansu Province. After the incident, his body was returned home. Monks gathered at his house prayed and held a small ceremony. Local authorities has cut telecommunications in the area, and the news was blocked immediately.

Global Voices Online
-- Outspoken Critic's Silence at Book Launch Echoes Across China I suddenly discovered that the Communist Party has made creating a buzz into an art. Li Chengpeng’s book signing was just a small ordinary event, but after the Communist Party's handling of it, it became a work of performance art that has spread throughout the world.

New Paradigms Forum
-- Off Sinocentrism for the Information Age: Comments on the 4th Xiangshan Forum For those PLA participants, therefore, achieving strategic trust required that the non-Chinese world undertake something somewhat akin to a Maoist self-criticism session...For this group, apparently, having trust required eliciting the other side’s acceptance of one’s own characterizations of history and endorsement of key elements of one’s own world view.

People's Daily
-- 周星驰担任广东省政协委员 Stephen Chow begins role as a member of the Guangdong provincial committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference.

Seeing Red in China
-- Perspective on Southern Weekend Incident: Root, Failure & Future, by Mo Zhixu Southern Weekend has a clear liberal leaning that can be summed up as: Recognition of the importance of a market economy, globalization and rule of law; warmth toward individual rights, universal values, and political reform. There is nothing extraordinary about such a stand, it should be said, and it does not even exceed the Party’s official narrative, let alone step over red boundaries.

SinoShip News
-- The Chinese economy in 2013 The Chinese Academy of Social Sciences (CASS) believes the adjustment in real estate market will lead to investment declining. CASS sees GDP growth next year of 8.2% in the world’s most populous nation.