Migrant workers are being advised to save money and not return to Changhegong this New Year

By RONG REN
Defense Correspondent

DALIAN (China Daily Show) – Until yesterday, Chanhegong was a quiet fishing village in North-East China near the North Korean border with a population of 160,000, known for its clear sea and mackerel fishing.

As of this morning, however, Chanhegong is now a giant crater in the earth, known for its strong smell of death and two-headed fish, with a half-life of 72 years.

China’s leaders have called for peace, calm and the resumption of talks this afternoon, after an early Chinese New Year fireworks display by the village was apparently mistaken for aggressive military action.

North Korean artillery rained down over 400 uranium-enriched shells on the small town of Chanhegong, Liaoning Province, near the Port of Dandong,  after its townspeople let off firecrackers, Roman candles and sparklers during a New Year temple fair.

Despite reports of the devastating attack on Chinese soil, top officials and PLA officers showed no sign of wishing to retaliate, instead issuing a statement maintaining its “firm opposition” towards nuclear strikes by its troubled neighbour and erstwhile ally.

“We will talk about this with [North Korea leader] Kim Jong-un, as he always listens,” said Foreign Ministry spokesman Li Fu. “Probably sometime after New Year, though.”

Tensions have been raised on the Korean Peninsula since the 2009 sinking of South Korean warship the Cheonan and an exchange of artillery fire over the small island of Yeonpyeong in the Yellow Sea. On both occasions, China, North Korea’s sole chief ally, refused to join in the chorus of international criticism and instead urging a diplomatic solution to resolving the tensions.

But today, world leaders are asking just what North Korea has to do to provoke any kind of response from its seemingly placid neighbour.

Earlier this month, two North Korean diplomats treated senior Chinese PLA officers in Beijing to an impromptu Three Stooges vaudeville routine, slapping their heads, calling them “knuckleheads” and repeatedly tweaking the nose of one general while chanting, “Nuk, nuk, nuk.”

The Stooges are among the Kims’ favorite comedy acts and are considered essential viewing in North Korea.

In December, Kim Jong-un is reported to have commandeered a Chinese border train loaded with birthday presents and driven it around Hebei Province. “He was tooting the horn, laughing and letting off gunshots into the air,” an eyewitness told China Daily Show. “He then kidnapped a dozen peasants as souvenirs.”

Both events were dismissed as “horseplay” by Foreign Ministry officials.

Follow this and other breaking China news at @chinadailyshow on Twitter

By XI MEITI
Western Media Correspondent

Morris says this is his worst case of corporate espionage in nearly eight years of reporting on missing pets

BATON ROUGE (China Daily Show) – Twice-weekly local organ of record the Picayune Sun-Tribune Weekly has become the latest victim of infiltration by state-sponsored Chinese hackers, the newspaper claimed yesterday.

The news follows revelations that reporters working for at least three major Western media groups – the New York Times, Bloomberg and the Wall Street Journal – have suffered several overseas security breaches, believed to originate in China.

“We first noticed web hits began declining steadily in about 2011,” vice-editor Wilbur Morris wrote in a prepared statement.

“We now believe this is directly related to a middling review of the Lucky Golden Dragon restaurant by Food and School Fete Editor Martha Jones, published in a September 2010 edition of the Picayune.”

Jones reportedly spent several hours undercover at the Louisiana-based takeaway, sampling the prawn crackers and frozen spring rolls, before penning the inflammatory 236-word hit-piece, which accused the Cantonese eatery of serving “a chow mein that left this reviewer wondering what happened to the soy sauce!”

Jones: no intention of compromising an upcoming analysis of Jan’s Korean Bakery

Jones, 58, also questioned the lack of MSG in the Lucky Golden Dragon’s eight-dollar ‘Beef in Oytser sauce [sic],’ writing that “it could do with a little more” and even suggesting they offer customers a choice of dips in future.

Editor Morris says that since the review’s publication, several rambling emails he has sent to staffers have gone unanswered, while an old link to a syndicated article about clam chowder now simply returns a 404 error.

“I knew something was up… then I recently read about what happened to the New Yorker?” Morris told China Daily Show over a long lunch– referring to claims that several reporters’ email accounts had come under cyber-attack since penning investigative pieces about top Chinese leaders, including incoming President Xi Jinping and outgoing Premier Wen Jiabao.

“I contacted the FBI, but they told me they were busy solving crimes,” Morris revealed as the pudding course arrived. “Now that in itself tells you there’s something fishy going on.”

Have you been hacked lately? Contact cds@chinadailyshow.com – or follow the story with @chinadailyshow on Twitter

By LAO REN
Society Correspondent

Zhao is no racist but usually insists on being treated by an Asian doctor

BALTIMORE (China Daily Show) – Zhao Binglai, a veteran of the Long March and a former ousted official, confusedly shouted “This is China!” at care workers this afternoon at the Cedar Woods Homes Residential Community in Baltimore, Maryland.

Staff who helped Zhao, 78, back into bed were quick to offer him a ‘snack pack.’ After resting, Zhao told media that he realized that Baltimore was not, in fact,  part of China and suggested his orderlies drink plenty of hot water.

Local historian James Anderson, 62, says that Chinese people have been visiting Baltimore since 1859, when the first recorded Cantonese immigrant to the state was accidentally lynched.

Anderson says it is still quite normal for many elderly Chinese-Americans to refer to China’s sovereignty, simply in order to explain an absurd or illogical situation.

“This is China” is a commonly heard phrase in the People’s Republic, most often used when someone is badly losing an argument.

The phrase supposedly dates back to the early Qin Dynasty (221-206 BC), after the Emperor Qinsihuang was proudly surveying a map of the first unified, multi-ethnic and centralized China. When a courtier asked Qinsihuang why the map had to be drawn with slaves’ blood, the emperor retorted with the immortal remark.

The phrase went mainstream in 1951, when the 14^th Dalai Lama, after receiving a letter from the People’s Liberation Army, pointed at the grounds of the Potala Palace and said, “This is China?”

Follow breaking China news at @chinadailyshow on Twitter

by SHENG DANJIE
Consumer Correspondent

Shoppers peruse novelty Noel bollocks

DONGGUAN (China Daily Show) – The West may be facing its least-tacky Christmas in living memory, thanks to the recent slump in Chinese exports.

The ongoing Eurozone crisis, combined with disappointing unemployment figures from the US, have reduced demand for cheap, plastic seasonal ornaments manufactured in China by an estimated 46%, a recent World Bank report says.

Manufacturers in China are consequently feeling the pinch.

Hundreds of production lines in the Zhejiang and Guangdong factories, that produce the unsightly plastic bullshit which festoons European and American homes every year, are said to be standing idle.

Experts say this could mean the West’s most tasteful Christmas period in over two decades – when China first began to manufacture camp festive trinkets on an industrial scale in 1991, according to market analysts.

Market researcher Anders Hönigsen says that the recession will harm nearly all sectors of the Yuletide tat industry.

“Internally illuminated plastic dioramas of the first Nativity, multi-coloured spray-snow globes and animatronic, talking Santas: you name it,” Hönigsen told China Daily Show. “You won’t be seeing much of this crap in landfill come next year.”

This tacky fire hazard could become a thing of the past

First to feel the pinch will be the retailers of spindly, pathetic, artificial Christmas trees (pictured, left), experts say.

“These items already represented an utterly fruitless purchase for over 60% of median-income American and European households,” Hönigsen said. “Fortunately, they have now become unaffordable as well.”

With holly-and-ivy prices stagnant, a European mistletoe glut and reports of unprecedented three-for-one offers on IKEA pine-scented wax candles, it seems that – like it or not – many Western families will this year be spending the upcoming Christmas period surrounded by low-key, traditional decorations that can be recycled, and later enjoyed, again and again.

The thought has struck fear in the heart of the commercial sector.

Factory bosses are already hoping to reassure foreign importers that, at the last minute, Western consumers can probably be counted upon to revert to type and mindlessly purchase valueless ornaments – manufactured using precious mineral reserves – to ensure a Christmas as commercialized and soulless as any other.

RIP traditional headwear. But what will women wear now?

“We’re delaying our annual, tasteless churn-out until all our orders are through,” claimed Wang Li, president of Wang’s Harmless Toys, a tat company based in Dongguan, Guangdong province. “Waiting stimulates demand, which guarantees production of endless cut-price kitsch.”

Business leaders in Europe are appealing for families spending the holiday season together not to focus on the simple, homespun pleasures of Christmas, but instead to remember the importance of arguing over how much was spent.

“We may need to ratchet up future advertising, so next year’s Christmas marketing bonanza begins in, say, late August rather than early September,” said Alan de Soto of the European Retailers Association.

“Otherwise, we will be faced with the ugly spectre of a so-called modern Christmas – one with homes garlanded by holly, candles burning on the mantlepiece, carols sung around a living, natural tree, and the restrained enjoyment of good food and drink in the bosom of one’s family,” de Soto shuddered. “That’s not what Christmas is all about.”

Follow breaking China news at @chinadailyshow on Twitter

An Asian child puts the finishing fake touches to a uniquely shitty tree

By LUO GUAN
Corruption Correspondent

China: fuck yeah!

BEIJING (China Daily Show) – Mixed reactions have greeted the news that China’s unstoppable economic rise will soon hand it a dubious new honor: that of world’s most corrupt nation.

The International Corruption Index (ICI) is organized and compiled by Transparency Internationl and draws on some 130,000 publicly available sources to analyze 177 countries’ public-spending levels, incomes, transparency and general, outright chicanery.

The ICI currently ranks Somalia as number one and China as number eight, behind such failed states as Libya, East Timor, North Korea, Iraq and Egypt.

But the announcement of the latest 2012 survey came with a statement from Transparency International, predicting that China will overtake its African rivals by 2020.

Corruption has long been the bane of the Chinese public and senior Communist Party officials. Many believe it is now so rife, it has seeped into every aspects of public life, from bribing bureaucrats to approve a simple license to ‘tipping’ a teacher before class.

But the state media has angrily denounced the report, with the People’s Daily running a hot-headed leader immediately debunking the claims. “Some pseudo-scientists want to pour filth on China by tarnishing it with garbage ideas,” the editorial raged. “This is scientific factoid and the Chinese people will not be easily fooled.”

Others have cautiously welcomed the news, however – particularly, bent officials.

“Great Leap Forward for China! Roll on 2013, I move to US,” tweeted ‘thenakedofficial,’ an as-yet anonymous Weibo user seemingly intent on goading his four-million-strong following of enraged netizens with corrupt boasts.

Others saw the report as highlighting China’s lack of development internationally.

“Fucking Somalia,” raged one commenter on Redrants.com, a popular Maoist forum. “Always holding us back. Why must we wait eight more years? Come on, PLA: do something!”

“Somalian pirates may have a better navy but soon they will feel Chinese hostages’ hands in their pockets,” predicted another. “Taking your money, lol!”

The complex Chinese response to the index was perhaps best summarized by self-confessed loner, animal torturer and manic nationalist Shan Renping.

“Wherever China is number one, I feel proud,” wrote Shan, 17, on his blog The Global Times. “Number-one corruption, number-one pollution, number-one food scandal. Proud – yet sick at same time.”

Always follow breaking China news at @chinadailyshow on Twitter

By QIANG TOUCAO
Politics Correspondent

‘Ni hao – hey, who else here owns a NASCAR team?’

BEIJING (China Daily Show) – Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney has made a surprise U-turn on China, in apparent pursuit of the narrow demographic of independent US voters whose sympathies may lie with Beijing.

Romney smiled convincingly as he promised Americans that his five-point economic plan would put America “back on track – ahead of China” in terms of lack of social welfare.

The Republican nominee, trailing in the polls following another lackluster debate performance, made his comments at yet another rally in Ohio, this time alongside a photo-op with a group of Chinese peasants, surnamed Zhou – imported especially for the occasion.

Romney praised the Zhou family grandson for sending home his paycheck every month, so that Grandma Kangmei can prepare a bag of rice and pay the family’s coal bills. The grandson works for a “black jail,” detaining petitioners who appeal for proper regulation.

Kangmei needs every penny because son, best friend and husband Jianguo died from AIDS – all infected in a blood-selling scandal led by donor companies in cahoots with local officials.

“President Obama still believes in the failed European ideal of a socialist welfare state but in China, people don’t look to the government for help. They look after themselves,” said a grimacing Romney, as he posed beside the bewildered Zhous.

“Look at this family: they recently pooled all their blood together to raise money to send their children to work. Those… uh, those are the kind of hard-working American values I’m talking about.”

Continuing with a fixed grin, a manic-eyed Romney highlighted the country’s education system as key to China’s success.

“China’s emphasis on standardized testing ensures the country will always have a pool of unskilled laborers, thankful for work under any conditions; laborers who lack the critical skills to see through nationalistic rhetoric that blames their problems on other countries, instead of structural inequities.

“Heck, most lack even the basic ability to grasp the last sentence I just said, let alone do anything about it,” Romney said, gripping the shoulders of frail 87-year-old elder statesman Lao Father Zhou. “Isn’t that right, Grandma?”

With just 12 days to go before Americans go to the polls, Romney has vowed to say or do anything in order to secure stray votes, including those who may have been put off by his previous remarks about China.

But aides claim his new China stance is merely a coalescing of previous, leaked comments in which the former Massachusetts governor has expressed admiration for Oriental economic values.

“Under Obama, US regulators over-enforce the law and kill jobs,” a gluttonous Romney told a private donors’ dinner in mid-August. “In China, it’s the complete opposite. There is an official embedded in the heart of every major enterprise, asking: ‘How can we work together to make even more money?’”

Republicans and Beijing officials have more in common than one might think, said one senior Romney staffer on condition of complete deniability.

Both favor low taxes – with the ultra-rich often paying none at all – while China’s minimal enforcement of environmental and safety regulations have led to double-digit economic growth. For those who gain the most, the benefits outweigh the many hazards.

“Complain about pollution and melamine all you want, but what’s a little cancer compared to a trillion in cash reserves?” the staffer pointed out. “They’re eating our lunch. And we’re eating their lead-based products.”

According to the staffer, Romney has always embraced some aspects of Chinese culture – such as money.

Vote Romney: or, well, you get the picture

“The Chinese don’t believe in big government. They believe in Big Brother. And there’s nothing more important to real Americans than family,” he added.

But Romney’s speech today threw caution to the wind, claiming America requires a firm, dashing, attractive-yet-married venture capitalist at the helm, rather than a Mao Zedong-like statesman.

“The Chinese know that too much regulation, as they painfully experienced in the 1960s, is the very worst thing that can happen to an economy,” Romney argued in Ohio, his arms hanging uncomfortably around Mrs Zhou’s two pre-teen daughters.

“If every single able-bodied man doesn’t stop waiting for handouts and start their own business immediately, hungry Americans will hunt and eat each other to extinction,” warned Romney, checking anxiously to gauge some voters’ reactions before adding, “That may not have been elegantly stated.”

PICTURE CREDIT: Lola

Follow breaking China news with @chinadailyshow on Twitter

By FEICHANG WURAN
Environment Correspondent

Protestors demand China continue polluting

WASHINGTON (China Daily Show) – The piggybanks sit empty and silent. Wishing wells report a sharp decline in deposits. And across the continental United States, despairing thugs resort to filling socks with bottle caps in desperation.

The bloody Shifang protests in Sichuan, China may have ended with one in the win column for the little guy – but in the US, the decision to shut down this giant, polluting copper factory is already having dire consequences.

“Without copper sweatshops in China excreting toxins into the local water, the US will have to look elsewhere to make its pennies,” explained economist Paul Kruger.

The penny shortage is hitting Americans where it hurts the most – by causing minor inconveniences in their everyday lives.

“The other day, I needed to open the back of the remote, but… nothing. It’s not the kind of problem you expect to find in a developed country,” said exasperated student Ben Warner.

Amateur garden enthusiast Jim Thorne claims the drought has already claimed its first victim – Thorne’s own hydrangea bushes. The plants needed a pH boost, a common problem usually easily solved by planting a few pennies.

“They didn’t know what hit them. They died. And for what?” asked a bitter Thorne yesterday. “So that some kids in China don’t grow tumours?”

Meanwhile, panic buying of pennies has driving the price of pennies up to 1.5-2 pennies.

Faced with the prospect of having to do their own DIY, it seems many Americans are turning their anger on China. In Poolfield, Wisconsin, protestors outside a Chinese takeaway carried signs demanding, “Who will fix my wobbly table-leg?”

No one seems sure when the shortage will end – but from penniless towns across the nation, the message is clear: “Will Pollute China for Pennies.”

Follow this and other breaking news at @chinadailyshow on Twitter

Editor’s note: The State Council Information Office of the People’s Republic of China recently published its unannotated annual report, titled ‘The Human Rights Record of the United States in 2011’.

You can read it on Xinhua or catch the full drift here:

You could read China Daily’s report… or save time and boil your head

On Life, Property and Personal Security

1. The United States has mighty strength in human, financial and material resources to exert effective control over violent crimes.
2. However, during a visit to New York last year, Madame Jing (my wife) left her sunglasses in the taxi and they were not returned. The driver also did not recognize Madame Jing, nor praise her husband’s initiatives developing a prosperous Gansu, nor pass on compliments regarding the motherland’s first desert hydro-electric plant in the glorious scrublands of our home province. [Intern: check dam has not collapsed]
3. The US constitution guarantees its citizens the right to bear arms. And yet the US allows its citizens to carry guns.
4. [Intern: Will cut ’n’ paste lengthy bits from Western media about gun crime, with detailed statistics, then quietly insert major unverified claim to conclude] [Editor: Aw. They grow up so fast]

On Civil and Political Rights [Editor: keep it short, eh?]

1. [Intern: Use quote from ‘Occupy the Wall Street’ person, remove quote marks, attribute to Washington Post?] [Editor Good idea, but cut non-relevant parts about ‘Occupy’ news blackout in the motherland]
2. [Editor: Find YouTube clip of ‘Pepper Spray Cop’ to imbed (use my VPN). Contact Pepper Spray Cop. What’s his side of story, etc?]
3. The US military is secretly manipulating social media sites by using fake online personas to create a false consensus in online conversations, crowd out unwelcome opinions and smother commentaries or reports that do not correspond with its own objectives. [Editor: Excellent idea – totally stolen from us. Pls check (Note to self: write angry op-ed)] [Intern: Search results who did not comply with relevant laws and regulations]
4. Netizen comments to go here.
5. The US government is secretly corrupt [Use block quotes from US Congressional Hearings for proof]

On Economic and Social Rights

1. Just rehash some of that earlier stuff re Wall Street? [Editor: YESSSS]
2. AIDS
3. [Editor: mention what happened with the Cowboys and Indians] [Intern: You mean the movie? Think the word ‘cowboys’ now considered ‘offensive’?]

On Education

1. On the morning of April 13, 2011, Thomas Jefferson Junior High schooler Martin Perry, 11, requested his teacher grant a bathroom break. Citing the lesson’s imminent conclusion, and with malice aforethought, the teacher, Miss Pennywright, did deny M Perry’s rights, resulting in the unavoidable consequences of M Perry besmirching his shorts, and suffering further abuses at the hands of his classmates. In addition to M Perry’s psychological suffering, a cub reporter from the Jefferson Junior Journal was later threatened with a noogie by classmate Geoff ‘Jugs’ McBain while investigating the incident. Local newspapers refused to run the story, citing vague state laws regarding privacy, protection of minors and public interest. [Source: Jefferson Junior Journal]

On Cultural Rights [Editor: let’s wrap this up ASAP. Wife getting impatient]

1. [Editor: surely can use that Cowboys and Indians stuff here?]
2. Ted Nugent.
3. You’re still reading?

Xinhua related news:

• Most of Venice Beach left to fight suns imperialist rays by itself, blasts DPRK
• Mass grave in Gettysburg Cemetery has been located by successful local curator: report

• Some X% of US voters actually voted for McCain at some point, apparently
• American drop-outs denied full college-education: exclusive
• Income gap widens between women, certain blacks, children and 50-year-old American white guys

Follow all your China-US news at @chinadailyshow on Twitter, maybe?

By Minzhu Jiao
South China Seas Correspondent

A typical Scarborough newsstand yesterday

LUZON ISLAND (China Daily Show) – The ailing reef print-media industry suffered a blow this week, after a newspaper announced record losses just one week after publishing its first edition.

The Scarborough Bugle, incorporating the Panatag Shoal Times-Inquirer, was launched last week at a glamorous press conference held on the barnacle-riven peak of South Rock.

With a venture-capital injection from Aquino Asset Management of around 40 million pesos, the Bugle announced it was aimed at bringing readers “all the patriotic news and views fit to print in the Scarborough Shoal Bay Area.”

The debut issue launched with a cover splash pledging loyalty to the Philippines and an exclusive interview with Economic Secretary Arsenio Balisacan. Inside, a two-page spread revealed that Lethal Weapon 2 had been confirmed for a long-awaited cinematic release on Scarborough in July.

Investors had hoped the Bugle would pick up offshore readers from the nearby Spratly Sun, which was forced to close last year amid allegations of conch-hacking.

Initial sales have proved disappointing however, with the 32-page daily newspaper struggling to sell even a single copy on the godforsaken atoll.

At newsstands across the 150-square kilometer shoal, the level of consumer disinterest was said to be disappointing, even by Scarborough Shoal standards.

“I’ve seen more activity among the mono-cellular marine life in a stagnant lagoon,” one disgruntled vendor reported.

Bugle staff say they are baffled at the lack of success.

“It’s really hard to understand – the market is wide open. There’s pretty much zero competition,” said editor-in-chief Bentley Wilson III. “But the wankers just aren’t picking up a copy.”

Despite scoops such as ‘Scarborough officials to boycott chopsticks’ and ‘Giant wave washes away capital city,’ the newspaper posted losses of 80 million pesos within just hours of going to press.

Nightlife editor Pipa Sipin nevertheless predicted that sales would likely bounce back after the tourist season began.

“Though when exactly that is, it’s hard to say,” Sipin added. “But if you hear of any bar openings, drop me a line, would you?”

Headlines such as ‘Pet Seagull Missing’ failed to tempt readers

The losses may cause the publishers to cancel an upcoming Sunday literary supplement and replace the food correspondent, after a ‘101 best starfish recipes to crunch your way to that beach body’ feature led to widespread illness in the newsroom.

Wilson has promised an aggressive marketing campaign to be plastered across local coral reefs, targeting passing fisherman and Chinese naval patrols.

With this publicity tactic comes the fear of Chinese reef review rip-offs, however. “It’s a fucking nightmare,” admitted Sipin.

Editor Wilson remains defiant.

“A lot of people said that launching a daily newspaper on an uninhabited and partially submerged group of rocks in heavily disputed oceanic territory was just plain foolish,” Wilson admitted.

“They’re all wrong. I’m now more determined than ever to prove that maritime print-media still has a strong future in the deep abyssal plains of the Luzon Sea.”

Follow Scarborough Shoal and China news at @chinadailyshow on Twitter

By Hao Che
Food and Drink Correspondent

Kim finished off the brandy with his signature salute

PYONGYANG (China Daily Show) – A controversial lunch in Pyongyang went off without a hitch, North Korean media reported this weekend.

Over protests from the US, Japan and South Korea, Supreme Leader Kim Jong-Un successfully polished off a four-course pan-Asian banquet of cheeseburgers, rooster testicles and foie gras in front of an ecstatic crowd of 18,000.

The politically charged luncheon was televised to mark the 100th birthday of the late leader – and current president – Kim Il-sung, founder of the Deeply Democratic People’s Republic of Korea. The meal triggered alarm in the international community, however, with the UN suggesting it was an affront to the country’s poverty-stricken population and Japanese diplomats jeering that Jong-un was incapable of handling his desserts.

After the portly Jong-un finished the high-profile meal with a Campari-based apertif and amuse-bouche flourish, Chinese Preident Hu Jintao dispatched a congratulatory telegram, noting that “the whole of our country’s belly shares your sense of contentment and filling. I knew you could do this.”

Celebrations in the North Korean capital continued until well past 5pm, with the state television channel broadcasting the live KTV session direct from the Ministry of Truthfulness canteen.

Follow China news at @chinadailyshow on Twitter