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Spot the Fake

                                                    A mortifying lapse of security around the famed terracotta warriors that stand as they have for centuries -- although now on display in a huge hangar-like museum.

They were joined at the weekend by a young German arts student said to be obsessed with the figures. The trouble was, after his daring leap down into the pit the security guards had some trouble finding the fake warrior and then evicting him.

Marx and Markets. Money and Media.

Question: What are the choices for a state-controlled news agency that wants to make some money while at the same time ensuring its stories toe the government line? It's a tough situation. And it is the predicament of China's Xinhua news agency.

Answer: Play to your strengths. Set yourself up as both regulator and competitor. Take a cut of the earnings of foreign information providers.

    

Mao's 100 Kuai Note

A funny thing happened to me on the way to the mausoleum. It has been many years since I last joined the crowds to traipse past the body of Chairman Mao Zedong, lying in state in a blockish pillared building in Tiananmen Square. Little had changed. The queue was long, the guards bossy and officious. But something was a little different.

Mao currency counts for plenty, I found. Corruption, it seems, has penetrated to the very foot of the chairman's crystal sarcophagus.

Lost in Translation

This morning China's premier, Wen Jiabao, granted a rare audience to five news publications. The Times was one of those fortunate enough to be chosen for the small group interview before he sets off on a European tour that will take him to Finland, Britain and Germany.

The interview lasted an hour. It was only 13 hours and 43 minutes after it was all over that the government issued its official transcript in Chinese and in English.

Justice is Blind

Why does China's exercise of justice this week seem far from blind? The courts sentenced two men who in their different ways had challenged the system. Both were convicted of crimes that appear to be somewhat petty. The jail terms handed down by the courts appeared to be rather long when considering the offences of which they were convicted, raising howls of anger from their lawyers.

Did the case of rural legal activist Chen Guangcheng and the case of journalist Zhao Yan in fact put the Chinese justice system itself on trial?

 

Seek Truth From Facts

Deng Xiaoping urged China to do just that.

The China Daily, the country's premier state-owned English-language newspaper, had a similar suggestion today. Although perhaps with a slightly updated approach. It is one that Deng appeared to espouse in an early youthful incarnation working in the media but which seemed to bother him less in later years. Is the newspaper hinting that his successors may not remember his maxim?

Protesters, Police and Diplomacy

It was a beautiful day for a protest. The sun was shining for the first day in what feels like weeks, the smog had lifted, the sky was blue and it wasn't even too hot.

But the demonstration outside the Japanese embassy this morning drew a crowd of scarcely more than a dozen protesters. They were vastly outnumbered by plainclothes police, uniformed police, police cars, vans and buses. I would guess the ratio was around 15 to one. Were the police perhaps overdoing it?

There Goes the Neighbourhood

The bulldozers are gouging out the alleys around my home. Yet another ancient corner of Beijing is being trampled underfoot by the march of modernity. Only this time I can almost hear from my own small courtyard the sound of bricks tumbling as yet another once-proud aristocratic house and the grimy single-storey homes surrounding it disappear.

Love or Commerce?

It's Chinese Valentine's Day. The idea was utterly unavoidable today, with headlines plastered across the front pages of major newspapers and web sites devoting acres of the ether to the event. Chinese Valentine's Day?

What has happened to the centuries-old legend of young star-crossed lovers? What of the Weaving Girl and the Cowherd who can meet once a year on the seventh day of the seventh month?

   

The Sky High High Rise

New regulations out this week mean I could buy my own home in Beijing. These rules are specific to foreigners and seem to be part of a series of measures to try to cool the property market in China.

How effective can all these measure be? Is China seeing a property bubble? Or is it just encountering the consequences of decades of pent-up demand and years of saving?