By MEI SHIER
Stability Correspondent

This guy brings it

BEIJING (China Daily Show) – Facing mounting social unrest and an economy in slowdown, a defiant Chinese government hit back yesterday with the announcement that most – if not all – of its biggest problems would be solved “in about three years.”

The upbeat remarks were made at a remarkably freewheeling and unorthodox press conference held by State Council spokesman Zhang Gong (pictured, right).

Responding to a question about whether China would follow in America’s footsteps and reform its ageing health-care system, a poised Zhang surprised foreign media with his ebulliently affirmative answer.

“Sure. We can fix this within, say – three years,” Zhang said.

“It’s important not to give specific timeframes to issues where the manners of the solutions are themselves very much unresolved,” added Zhang. “All the same, I’d like to try.”

With questions being lobbed from reporters scrambling to deal with the unusual situation, Zhang replied quickly and sure-footedly.

“Food safety… a year, surely, max. How hard can it be?” he wondered to laughter.

Other mounting pressure-points include an increasingly restrictive hukou (household registration) system and the lack of independent judiciary.

“Every other country solved that shit six centuries ago. C’mon, this is China – we can build anything inside six months or less,” Zhang quipped to fist bumps and cries of “P-R-C!” from an increasingly animated press corps.

Only the question of financial reform – which caused Zhang to steeple his fingers and massage his forehead several times, while jotting numbers down on a napkin – remained unanswered.

“I guess I would have flunked my maths gaokao,” he admitted, as cheers and applause filled the room.

By lunchtime, however, state officials were attempting to downplay the calculations.

“Zhang was simply making an abstract point about forecasting data for a number of unspecified questions of national importance, according to circumstances that have not yet been agreed upon by a group of representatives who aren’t yet elected,” insisted a senior State Council official.

“Sometimes, we just need to come up with a number.”

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By FEI ZHOU
Culture Correspondent

South Sudanese President Salva Kiir wore a traditional Stetson during his national delegation’s marathon line-dancing routine

BEIJING (China Daily Show) – China has surprised aid agencies by announcing plans to restrict all further overseas aid only to countries displaying both “the ability and the willingness to sing and dance.”

The landmark policy shift was made by China’s State Council Wednesday. In the past, China has generally restricted its development aid to countries with rich natural resources.

However, with oil, diamonds and uranium now depleted in many regions, China has begun to look towards other commodities prized by its plutocratic leadership as a potential bargaining tool for impoverished nations.

“The richest untapped resources of Africa and South America, in particular, are the joyous, carefree dances of their amusing, fruit-hatted populations,” ran the official statement. “It is this cultural wealth which our nation would most like to develop and refine.”

The policy shift – dubbed ‘Rhythm for Resources’ – would explain the behavior of South Sudanese leader Salva Kiir at a recent summit with President Hu Jintao.

Salva led his delegation in a display of traditional Sudanese line dancing which the Chinese president applauded as “show-stoppingly quaint.”

The highly stylized routine, set to a bongo-based rehash of Dolly Parton classic Nine to Five, allegedly clinched a number of lucrative contracts, allowing China exclusive access to South Sudan’s oil wealth in return for an unspecified sum of cash.

The move comes as the country grows increasingly bored of the stale musical numbers regularly performed by the country’s 52 officially recognized “lesser ethnicities.”

As part of the country’s move to promote its soft power, while curtailing ‘undesirable’ foreign elements, the Ministry of Culture has invited the submissions of new, differently coloured minority peoples.

A special inspection committee has been assigned to remove sexually-suggestive dance moves, while setting traditional folk dances from around the world to a state-approved traditional instrument – the Yamaha PSR-19 synthesizer.

“We must move with the times,” Hao observed, during the nine-hour press conference. “Why not groove with the times?”

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