Hao Hao ReportThe best China news and blog posts

A newspaper published by China's ruling Communist Party is blasting the latest Guns N' Roses album as an attack on the Chinese nation.

The overall subject was how democracy was faring in the region and how that related (or not) to the lack of democracy. Larry Diamond from the Hoover Institution favored the more Modernization Theory approach and Big Bang aspect of turning around a country’s economy by quickly embracing democracy whereas Kishore Mahbubani noted that in fact what matters more is the role of good governance.

A balanced write-up and summary of the situation unfolding in Tibet.

I wanted to note some areas of disagreement on a wonderful New York Times article that makes me happy to see some journalists really caring about the US/international affairs contrary to this past 8 years

Taiwan has revised its high-school history textbooks to show that Taiwan is an independent country and not part of China, media reports said Monday.

The China Times said that on the education ministry's order, the title of the national history textbook for high-school - to be used after the winter vacation - has been changed from 'National History' to 'China History'.

In this textbook, terms like 'our country,' 'this country' and 'the mainland' have been changed to 'China' to indicate that Taiwan is not part of China, the daily said.

NY Times asserts China is sucking "lost iPhones" from US market. Same analysis I did three weeks ago, with revenue impacts in US & UK markets.

A Tibet expert believes that Tim Johnson misquoted him in an article about the relocation of Tibetans (see article recommended by Pandapassport). This proves that the Western media edits articles about Tibet to match a pre-ordained perspective.

From the article:
The Tea-Leaf readers will look at [the recent media rules], nod their heads sagely, and in hushed tones suggest that this is a part of Hu Jintao's ongoing effort to deepen his hold over the media as he continues his soft purge of Jiang Zemin supporters left in government. That might be true in part, but as with most things in China, that is at best only part of the real reason (and possibly only a political fig-leaf for the action.)

In reality, I suspect this is as much about money as politics.

Howard French ponders the word "Laowai," and wonders why the pre-Olympic push for politeness doesn't include getting rid of this term altogether.