By WO KOU
Sovereignty Correspondent

‘Look – there’s a diplomat. Let’s have a rational debate!’

BEIJING (China Daily Show) – Across Chinese cities, thousands poured into the streets yesterday to express a diverse range of considered musings concerning the controversial issues raised over a quintet of uninhabited islands in the South China Seas.

The Diaoyu Islands, currently claimed by Japan and China, as well as Taiwan, have become the recent subject of a heated political dispute.

Today, concerned protestors around China used a sensitive anniversary to publicly call for delicate diplomacy and plead for measures to prevent the clumsily-handled dispute from escalating into a potentially devastating confrontation.

Thought-provoking banners were in abundance, many proclaiming prudent slogans such as “Remember the tragic 1931-1945 war! End all violence, seek diplomatic solutions” and “We condemn the provocative actions of the right-wing Tokyo nationalists but urge the Chinese government to seek a bilateral solution,” as crowds called for a tactful end to the immature stand-off.

“It’s about peace and free love, man,” smiled one long-haired citizen, waving a sign playfully urging fellow citizens to “Fuck the Japanese.”

“We will not stand for any more bullying!” insisted another poster; its owner, Beijing shopkeeper Lao Ping, 52, explained he was sickened by the recent acts of cowardly violence and looting committed against foreign-owned businesses.

Many placards bore the images of incumbent leaders Hu Jintao and Wen Jiabao, as well as President-in-waiting Xi Jinping, because, as one demonstrator explained, “they’re the ones who are supposed to be in charge of defusing this mess.”

Tomorrow, millions of Chinese plan to march to their local libraries, in order to research the thorny, unresolved historical issues surrounding the partially submerged outcrop and seek more informed opinions.

“But at the end of the day, they’re just rocks,” shrugged one.

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By WO KOU
Sovereignty Correspondent

Aggrieved at Japan’s clear flouting of international maritime law, four-year-old Li locked himself in his bedroom yesterday and wept

SHENZHEN (China Daily Show) – The parents of plucky toddler Li Beibei say he’ll be showing his patriotism the only way he knows how this week: by refusing to eat raw fish.

As demonstrations against the Japanese nationalization of the Diaoyu Islands spread across China, young Li spent much of his weekend angrily playing Playstation 3.

Incensed by what he sees as Japan’s violation of China’s sovereignty, the plucky four year old began his sushi boycott on Sunday.

“Please, Daddy, I don’t like that stuff,” Li protested, his heart burning for the motherland and nose wrinkling at a plate of uncooked seabass, wasabi and raw, dripping mackerel, wielded by his 46-year-old father.

Little Li’s distaste for Japan’s national cuisine demonstrates an unflinching support of the motherland, his parents claim.

“Look how much he cares about ancient sovereign territory,” beamed proud mother Mrs Zang, watching her four-year-old son begin to wail and cry as his father thrust a live, wriggling squid – dripping with soy sauce – into Li’s mouth. “That’ll show the dogs.”

“The boy’s hatred of sushi will certainly foment and harden into a rational loathing of the Japanese nation,” grunted Mr Li, as he later dangled a glistening slice of sashimi in front of his terrified son. “Just give it a few more hours.”

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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.”

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By HUI JIA
Hurt Feelings Correspondent

Stateside Jeremy Lin fans are seen to urgently lack PRC flags

BEIJING (China Daily Show) – As “Linsanity” continues to sweep both sides of the Pacific, an increasingly heated territorial dispute concerning the “rights” to Jeremy Lin has embroiled China, the US and Taiwan.

Lin, point guard for the New York Knicks, became an overnight sensation after scoring 25 points and leading the Knicks to victory against the New Jersey Nets on February 4.

Only hours after Lin’s astonishing performance, a top military panel – known as the People’s Liberation Army General Assembly Guarding against Americanism, or PLA-GAGA – met in a secret bunker outside Beijing.

Six hours later, a confidential memo was issued, asserting Lin was now ancient Chinese property. Within days, a team of experts had compiled the appropriate response: a well-worded editorial, published on Xinhua, offering Lin the Holy Grail of Chinese citizenship.

“We’re not the Americans. We don’t shoot first and ask questions later,” a source revealed. “We ask questions – then start shooting.”

Beijing suspects the star player is being held at an undisclosed Las Vegas location. A source told China Daily Show that Lin is under constant guard by US agents disguised as cheerleaders.

Yesterday morning, a special session of the United Nations Security Council saw Chinese and US delegates lock horns over exploration rights to Lin, with the Chinese representative at one point removing his slip-on loafer and banging it on the table, screaming, “We will bury you!”

Meanwhile, the British – completely in the dark as to who Jeremy Lin was, and why he mattered – are being urgently briefed on the matter.

Today, the unsightly turf war threatens to go public, as each side offer their own version of events.

Taiwan’s government has waded into the debate, claiming the breakout star belongs to Taipei. “He’s the child of Taiwanese immigrants. A pure-blooded son of our glorious island,” diplomat Ch’en Ch’ing-Chiew told reporters. “We have plans to name a food street after him. It’s a done deal.”

The US State Department responded with its own soft power in the form of an attractive Times Square advert, lushly directed by Tom Hanks.

“Why, hush my mouth… ol’ Jeremy’s as American as apple pie,” actress Kathy Bates coos over alternating scenes of a shirtless Lin draped with an American flag and footage of steaming, fresh-baked pies at a small-town Fourth of July parade. “If some no-good railroad-buildin’ varmints want him, why, they are welcome to come on over ‘n’ try!”

With reports that Lin, a devout Christian, has been in talks with religious organizations aimed at securing citizenship in the Kingdom of Heaven, the controversy shows no sign of abating.

Analysts suggest the tough US stance could be in response to the Bush administration’s unpopular decision to cede sovereignty over Jackie Chan to China. The deal was struck in 2007, in exchange for mutual assurances that Chan wouldn’t make another Rush Hour.

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By Ken Deji
Politics Correspondent

Mao Zedong believed that unifying China's rooster shape in 1951 gave him a 'heavenly mandate' to behave like a cock.

BEIJING (China Daily Show) — A senior Ministry of Interior Affairs official has claimed that the principal reason behind China’s annexation of Tibet and Xinjiang was to ensure future maps of Chinese territory form the exact shape of a giant chicken, documents released by WikiLeaks have revealed.

The highly emotional meeting, between minister Lu Penghuai and US diplomats, took place in June 2008, after riots in the Tibetan “tail feathers” region were dramatically quashed by state security forces.

If true, the documents could provide a tantalizing explanation as to why Beijing is so keen to retain regions whose non-Han populaces have plainly displayed great antipathy towards the Chinese government.

“The world’s greatest cultures all stemmed from countries shaped like recognizable objects,” Lu remarked to his anonymous American counterpart.

“Italy, cradle of the Roman Empire and later founder-nation of both fascism and the shoe industry is shaped like a boot. Australia, leading light of the Southern hemisphere and dogged participant in both World Wars, looks like the noble head of a Scottish terrier.

“And, of course, the UK, birthplace of the world’s largest empire, is shaped like a giant witch with a pig under her arm. If we allowed the great China’s chicken’s wings and tail to be clipped, how could we hope to succeed as a nation?” Lu asked bemused diplomats.

“It was a firm belief of Chairman Mao’s [Zedong, the former Communist leader who invaded Tibet in 1950] that if China were shaped like a chicken it would give us the feng shui edge over the United States,” explained Professor Wang Ying of the National Cartography Bureau. “Mao used to joke that the US looks like nothing and that, if you ditch Alaska and Hawaii, its closest resemblance is to Cyprus, which he found pathetic.”

Tibet, conjoined with Yunnan and Sichuan provinces, form the chicken’s “thighs and buttocks,” said Professor Wang as he elaborated on the concept, while its wings spread over the Yangtze and Yellow river basins. The addition of Xinjiang allows the bird to “spread its wings.”

Mao’s ‘Reunite the Chicken’ campaign remained a secret Politburo strategy throughout the first few decades of Communist rule. Sympathy with China’s plight during World War Two, when, in Wang’s words, “our great bird’s head [Manchuria] was sliced off by the vicious katana of Japanese imperialists,” secured the return of the three large provinces in the north east from former allies the Soviet Union, before the relationship between the two soured after Stalin’s death.

Today, every schoolchild knows the country as the Dong Fang Xiong Ji or ‘Oriental Rooster’ and Chairman Mao’s war diaries and political works are full of references to the chicken as the “most resourceful of all birds.”

In his popular 1948 essay, On Poultry and the Exploitation of the Masses, Mao remarks: “How like the Chinese peasant are the fowl he tends! We eat their meat and eggs, stuff mattresses with their feathers, make soup from their bones and use their droppings as fertilizer. What better symbol for the Chinese people, so useful when broken down into their component pieces?”

Historians had previously assumed that Tibet and Xinjiang –  in which incidents of ethnic unrest   have left 14 dead and 27 dead in July alone – were seized to create buffer zones against the then-Soviet Union in the North and India in the South, as well as ensure control over their precious natural resources.

But during a fraught exchange that took place at the Ministry of Interior Affairs, an annoyed Minister Lu is said to have lost patience with that view.

“[Tibet and Xinjiang] are impractically remote, poor as dirt and [the native Tibetan and Uighur peoples] all hate us. They drain massive amounts of money to remain even barely functional. Who the hell would want them?” leaked cables report Lu as screaming.

“Unless, of course, incorporating them into our sovereign territory allowed our national border to form the shape of a barnyard animal,” he said, pausing to catch his breath before adding, “Which they do, and it’s great.”

This admission explains why former US President George W Bush’s alleged clucking and making of ‘chicken-wing’ gestures during bilateral talks in the run-up to the 2003 invasion of Iraq failed to prevent China opposing UN sanctions against Saddam Hussein. “We thought it was a compliment,” remarked Lu.

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By HUI JIA
Foreign Correspondent

Thakrat Samranpong, sole populant of Shadui, pictured in the newly founded provincial capital

SHADUI (China Daily Show) – A castaway on an obscure South China Seas deserted island has become the subject of a fierce nationality dispute, after vast deposits of rare minerals were uncovered in nearby waters.

Thakrat Samranpong is the only recorded inhabitant of the island of Shadui, several hundred miles off the south coast of Vietnam. The island is claimed by China, however, as well as every other nation within swimming distance.

Samranpong, 51, a former commodities trader from Bangkok who was stranded on Shadui after his yacht capsized during a solo fishing trip in 2005, has subsisted on raw shellfish and plant roots after Thai authorities failed to mount a rescue operation.

He was officially declared dead in Thailand in March 2006 and offered Chinese citizenship Saturday.

A China Citizenship Reclamation and Rescue (CCRR) patrol boat arrived after a three-day voyage to Samranpong’s island home where CCRR representatives sat down with the man Beijing is already calling the “newest addition to China’s diverse minority ethnicities.”

Over a state banquet of raw crab and palm root – samples of which are now being promoted in government canteens as typical Shadui culinary heritage – Chinese officials proposed to make Samranpong a Chinese citizen.

“He was dubious at first,” admitted Sanranpong’s legal representative, Ma Zhou. “After all, he would be the first person in the world to ever actually request Chinese citizenship. But after they offered him a meal, bed and a hot shower, he signed all the releases.”

China has now appealed to the UN to acknowledge the “now-populated” nation of Shadui as its sovereign territory and is already busy promoting Shadui’s intangible cultural heritage.

New additions to the minorities exhibition of the National Museum of China – the  largest and most heavily censored museum in history – have been ordered by officials. The media this week was granted a sneak preview of forthcoming Shadui exhibits, which include Samranpong’s non-functioning mobile telephone, a single cuff link and a rock formerly used to smash crabs.

Samranpong is also due to appear in a hastily scheduled TV gala being arranged to mark the upcoming Dragon Boat Festival. He will perform a medley of songs and skits used to entertain himself during his lonely six-year vigil.

Artist's impression of typical Shadui daily life, customs and traditions

“The honor of singing and dancing for the benefit of viewers is cherished by our minority peoples,” said a Ministry of Entertainment spokesman. “China embraces our newest brother and all his mineral deposits close to the motherland’s bosom.”

The diplomatic initiative has left other nations scrambling in the dust. Vietnam’s coastline is technically much closer than China to Shadui and officials there are said to be furious at this latest intervention in the disputed waters.

“You can’t argue that the teeming, newly-liberated masses of Shadui is due his rights as a Chinese citizen,” said Chinese Minister of Foreign Affairs spokesman Yang Jiechi. “These islands are populated by a Chinese citizen. Other nations must relinquish their claims immediately.”

Samranpong himself, whose language has reportedly devolved through long isolation into a series of grunts and Thai, was unreachable for comment.

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By XING CHOUWEN
Entertainment Correspondent

The ending of the ban is good news for both pornographers and fishermen

BEIJING (China Daily Show) – Servers crashed and internet connections slowed to a crawl yesterday, after Japan ended its recent ban on Chinese exports of specialist pornography, in what is being seen as a diplomatic gesture of seasonal goodwill.

But the move, part of a thawing of diplomatic relations after an unsteady few months, left millions still without proper access, as Internet providers buckled under the strain of the sudden pornfall. Some users were this morning being told that “holiday hand-relief” was effectively canceled until after Chinese New Year.

Senior Chinese ministers were last night demanding to know who was responsible for the lack of preparation, which they said embarrassed China and left it looking like a “developing country, like Vietnam or Great Britain or something.”

Lack of access to porn is seen as a major potential cause of social instability in China. In November, Japanese officials blocked all exports of so-called “rare” pornography as part of a tit-for-tat controversy between the two nations over a sovereignty dispute in the Diaoyu – or Senkaku –  Islands.

Japan, fondly known  in China as “Nipporn”, has long specialized in such erotic exports but the November ban left to an upsurge in fake or shanzhai product, which many described as lacking the production skill and high cinematography values of the real thing.

User Yao Ten, 23, downloaded a copy of Calamari Co-eds 5 only to find it was an inferior Chinese knock-off.  “I found myself watching a group of Shandong women awkwardly rubbing each other with dead eels. A total turn-off,” Yao told China Daily Show.

Since the prohibition was lifted, schools and universities across the country have reported widespread truancy, which is expected to last well into late January.

Undergraduate Yu Men, 24, describes himself as an angry, bitter nationalist to the point of almost total ignorance. Yet he was quick to praise its adult cinema industry: “Japan is highly superior in the quality of their adult videos compared to China, mainly because they are perverted, barbarian running dogs,” he said, adding, “I’ll give them their due, though: their porn is top-notch.”

Search engines and forums pledged this morning to put their engineers on full alert to maintain connectivity, while UNAIDS ambassador and TV personality James Chau has promised those unable to download authentic squid porn free access to an infamous full four-hour bootleg sex tape, featuring Chau, that recently surfaced on the web.

In a public ceremony yesterday attended by international media, Japanese Foreign Minister Yamata Hatanzi handed Politburo representative Li Fu a specially commissioned copy of Conger Conga 4, featuring AV star Erika Sato with a cast of thousands of fish and underage schoolgirls.

Accepting the gift on behalf of senior Chinese officials, Li said: “Our countries may disagree on some things but fundamentally see eye-to-eye over the need to maintain a constant balance of trade between cheap, disposable plastic goods and 90-minute DVDs of Japanese women being molested by octopi.”

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