Tech Companies: A Model for China?

Two Chinese tech companies show that they’re leading the pack, albeit in very different ways.

China’s answer to Facebook, Renren.com, is mulling a potential U.S. IPO. If the track record of other Chinese tech stocks listed in both the U.S. and Hong Kong is anything to go by, investors have a lot to get excited about, particularly if Renren.com goes public before its Western peers do, which would make it the first social-networking site to go public.

But not all is well in the fast-growing Chinese tech sector as the problem of fraud rears its head in one of the country’s most well-known and respected companies.

Continue reading on our sister blog Exchange

China Watch: “Blood-Sweating” Horse, Judging Jasmine

A list of what the Wall Street Journal’s reporters in China are reading and watching online, periodically updated throughout the day. (NOTE: WSJ has not verified items in the ‘News’ section and does not vouch for their accuracy.) Last updated: 7:51 pm Beijing time.

News Items:

• A low-ranking official has fled to Canada after embezzling $14 million, state media report. (AFP)
• A discovery in a 2,000-year-old mausoleum revives the legend of the “blood-sweating” horse. (Xinhua)

Video: Little Progress at G-20 on China

With pressure continuing on China to move faster on yuan reforms, the G-20 reached agreement on measuring global economic imbalances that’s open to interpretation. On Asia Today, WSJ’s Jake Lee and Heard on the Street Editor Mohammed Hadi discuss what, if anything, has been achieved with the flexibly worded document.

NBA Dunker Straddles China-U.S. Divide

The NBA’s all-star weekend is over, and Saturday night’s slam dunk contest was won by hometown favorite Blake Griffin of the Los Angeles Clippers, who jumped over a car to win the title. But the second-place finisher, JaVale McGee, made a statement on Sino-U.S. relations with his choice of shoes.

Mr. McGee, a center with the Washington Wizards, delivered his final dunk attempt—a reverse jam from under the backboard—wearing seemingly mismatched sneakers: one in red, white and blue and another in red and yellow. It was no accident, though.

Mideast Protests a Concern for Party, not Police

• Commentary

Russell Leigh Moses is a Beijing-based analyst and professor who writes on Chinese politics. He is writing a book on the changing role of power in the Chinese political system. Read more by Mr. Moses

How worried are Chinese leaders that unrest rampaging through the Middle East could wheel into Beijing and disrupt social harmony?

The fact is that Beijing is getting very good at preventing color revolutions—Jasmine or otherwise–from becoming a national conversation about the shortcomings of governance. If Chinese leaders are nervous, it’s not so much because Chinese society is ripe for revolution. Their main concern is the way that events in the Middle East could play out within the Communist Party.

Report: China’s Big Oil No Beijing Pet

China’s major oil companies are supposed to be the emblems Chinese state-capitalism: Spawned from government bureaus, they remain virtually state-owned (two are essentially ministries). Their top officers hold ranking Communist Party positions. They expand internationally in a quest for national security and their business information is treasured in Beijing as a national secret.

Yet an eye-catching new report from the International Energy Agency argues that China’s oil majors — China National Petroleum Corp. (CNPC), China Petroleum & Chemical Corp. (Sinopec) and China National Offshore Oil Corp. (CNOOC) — don’t always act as extensions of the state.

Beijing Goes on the Hunt for Hidden Lending

2010 was a tough year for China’s financial regulators, as banks hid lending off-balance-sheet despite Beijing’s calls to end stimulus spending.

Though the China Banking Regulatory Commission has been trying to bring wayward lending back onto the books, the genie is out of the bottle. And in a country where new loan data is one of the key determinants of monetary policy, that’s a real problem.

Moves are now being made to do something about it, but will they work?

New Shanghai Apple Store Will Be Biggest in China

Size over speed appears to be Apple’s new strategy for tackling the China market.

The company is planning to open a new store–its biggest in China–on Shanghai’s famous Nanjing Road, an Apple spokesman has confirmed to China Real Time after news of the plan appeared in Thursday’s Beijing Youth Daily.

Will Massive Debt Derail China’s High Speed Train Plans?

Is China’s much-hyped and fast-expanding network of high-speed railways bracing for a slowdown?

After the head of China’s Ministry of Railways, Liu Zhijun, was removed last week because of an investigation into possible corruption, questions are being asked by various high-speed train experts whether the sacking of its leader would force the ministry to revise its plans to expand high-speed rail links across China.

Those questions are even more pertinent now with the revelation this week that the railways ministry under Mr. Liu’s stewardship has run up debts possibly in excess of 2 trillion yuan, or roughly $303 billion.

New Data, But No New Light, on China Property Prices

With China’s property sector coming under increasing public scrutiny, the country’s National Bureau of Statistics announced yesterday that it was reforming the way it calculated property prices. But new data released today does little to dispel worries about the quality of information the government is producing.