With his decision to flee to Hong Kong, Edward Snowden, the whistleblower behind the bombshell leak that exposed a highly classified U.S. intelligence program, has taken a serious legal risk, one that may very well result in his extradition to the United States to face charges.

Though formally under Chinese sovereignty, Hong Kong maintains its own extradition agreement with the United States. And if Snowden is to avoid being sent back to the United States (Republican lawmakers are already calling for his extradition), he may have to convince a judge that he is being persecuted for his political beliefs.

In doing so, he is taking a huge gamble. In 1997, the British government handed over sovereign control of Hong Kong to China, and just prior to the transfer the Clinton administration negotiated -- with the consent of Beijing -- an updated extradition treaty with Hong Kong. That agreement includes a provision allowing either side to deny an extradition "if the offence of which that person is accused or was convicted is an offence of a political character." 

Crucially, the agreement between the United States and Hong Kong does not define what constitutes a political crime, and according to Julian Ku, a professor of international law at Hofstra University, there is scant precedent in Hong Kong to indicate how its courts would rule on the question of whether Snowden's prosecution would be "of a political nature."

"Obviously, he's in a better position than if he had committed murder, but [the legal strategy] is not necessarily a winner for him," Ku says.

The United States and Hong Kong have a long-standing and successful relationship in exchanging suspects. If U.S. prosecutors and diplomats are able to cast his indictment as an ordinary criminal prosecution, the courts are likely to approve his extradition.

The Snowden leaks have now been referred to the Justice Department, and U.S. prosecutors have several options available to them. According to Ku, prosecutors may avoid charging Snowden under the Espionage Act -- which could be considered a political prosecution by courts in Hong Kong -- and indict him under a different statute.

Among the crimes listed on the U.S.-Hong Kong agreement as within the bounds of extradition, one offense in particular stands out: "the unlawful use of computers." 

"My best guess is that if the U.S. government makes the request and they're smart about it, the courts have a hard time finding it as a political offense," Ku says.

In short, Snowden's legal strategy depends on convincing a judge that he is the victim of political persecution, a legal strategy that has little precedent in Hong Kong (Reuters, which notes that Hong Kong authorities can hold Snowden for 60 days while U.S. officials prepare a formal extradition request, reports that Snowden could also argue that his alleged criminal act is not considered a crime in both countries). Taken together with the fact that Snowden could have fled to a country without an extradition treaty with the United States -- or followed in the footsteps of Julian Assange and sought asylum in Ecuador -- Snowden's decision is extremely perplexing. 

Snowden's flight to Hong Kong has added a geopolitical dimension to his case and sparked speculation in the media that his fate will be decided by Beijing. Unfortunately, this speculation may be based on a misreading of the extradition agreement. While the treaty includes language that allows both Hong Kong and the United States to decline extradition for reasons relating to "the defence, foreign affairs or essential public interest or policy" of China and the United States, it appears to state that this exception only applies to the extradition of American citizens to Hong Kong and Chinese citizens to the United States (see Article 3). 

This language has been used to imply that China has the ability to bulldoze Hong Kong's court system, but the island's judiciary has consistently demonstrated a remarkable degree of independence, even after China's assumption of sovereignty over the territory. Not only is Hong Kong's judicial system modeled on the British system, but many of its judges are British holdovers.

The Clinton administration also expressly negotiated a new treaty with Hong Kong prior to the handover in order to maintain an important operational aspect of the island's sovereignty. In a letter to the Senate introducing the treaty, then-Secretary of State Madeleine Albright explained that extradition decisions would be made by Hong Kong's courts, not Beijing.

According to Ku, that promise has largely been delivered on, and there has been very little if any interference from Beijing on issues relating to extradition. Still, the temptation to interpret Snowden's potential extradition as a great power standoff in the making remains. Here's Josh Marshall with a nice summary of that argument:

[T]he decision to go to China inevitably colors his decision and sets up what could be a very uncomfortable diplomatic stand-off. I've seen people linking to the current US-Hong Kong extradition treaty. Call me naive but I think this is going to come down to how Beijing wants to play this. If they don't want a fight over this, Snowden's toast. If they like the optics of it, I don't think it matters what that extradition treaty says. China's a big enough player and the US has enough other fish to fry with the Chinese, that the US is not going to put the bilateral relationship on the line over this guy. And the Chinese might relish granting asylum to an American running from the claws of US ‘state repression'.

But before we get ahead of ourselves, consider a recent instance of China getting involved in Hong Kong's affairs. Late last year, Hong Kong's supreme court referred a case to Beijing involving a dispute over whether domestic workers should have residency rights there, launching a hail of criticism from liberals in Hong Kong. (Note also that China did not choose to get involved in the case but that it was referred to authorities in Beijing -- another unlikely step that, according to Ku, would probably have to be taken in order for Chinese officials to get involved in the Snowden case.)

Just as China is trying to repair relations with the United States, would it really want to poke Washington in the eye? Doing so could also provoke anger in Hong Kong -- and all in exchange for what might ultimately prove a hollow diplomatic victory and a stale source of information. That doesn't sound like smart politics.

Update: Snowden has said that he would like to seek asylum in Iceland, but according to Johannes Tomasson, a spokesperson for the Icelandic interior ministry, Snowden has not submitted an application for asylum there. Meanwhile, John McAtee, the senior information officer at the Hong Kong Economic and Trade Office in Washington, said in an email only that Hong Kong continues to monitor the story but would not comment on an individual case. 

China's Global Times - that reliable purveyor of the sublimely ridiculous, the terrifyingly nationalistic, and the just generally offensive -- struck again on Wednesday, with a quick nine-paragrapher that may just manage to combine all three offerings in one: "American Indians descend from Hunan, says expert."

The tabloid reports on the findings of Du Gangjian, dean of Hunan University Law School, who, on a recent trip to study Native American tribes in the United States (the article doesn't specify which ones), made the discovery that "American Indians have many rituals, habits and working tools that are very similar to the ones that exist among Hunan people."

The article goes on:

"The history textbooks in the world should be rewritten," he said.

According to most of the history textbooks, Columbus was the first person to discover the American continent.

Du's claims rest on the theory that famed Chinese Admiral Zheng He -- who accomplished many incredible things, there's no question! -- also made it all the way to the North American continent (a theory also put forth by British writer Gavin Menzies). This he almost certainly did not do.

As Twitter user @BrianGlucroft put it, in reference to the so-called "nine-dashed line" delineating China's territorial claims in the South China Sea, "Time to add some dashes to that line..."

On Thursday, China's Ministry of Public Security announced that the police had arrested 63 traders accused of buying rat, fox, and mink meat and then selling the meat as mutton. Apparently, the crime ring had been mixing the meat with gelatin, red dye, and nitrates before selling it in Shanghai and neighboring Jiangsu province. How appetizing.

It has been quite a year for food scandals, what with IKEA's horsemeat meatballs and China's floating dead pigs. To China's credit, the country appears to be tackling the food safety issue head on (state media report that Chinese law enforcement officials have arrested more than 900 people for selling fake or tainted meat in the last three months). But this latest revelation has shocked more than reassured, leaving many in China to wonder whether the "mutton" stewing on their stoves is really made of lamb after all.

But never fear! Foreign Policy reached out to North Carolina-based artist Laura Ginn, who, after organizing a rat-themed five-course dinner in New York last year, has become somewhat of a rat meat connoisseur. With her help, we hereby offer you five ways to know you're eating rat.

1. It smells like rat. Rats secrete an oil onto their skin that gives them their distinct "rodenty" odor. Some compare the smell to that of a warm tortilla, says Ginn, while others compare it to urine. Regardless, it's distinctive. While it's true that the odor lessens after the rat is skinned, and again after the rat is cooked, no amount of cooking can ever completely get rid of the smell.

2. It tastes like rat. The oil rats secrete gives them a distinctive taste as well. Ginn describes it as quite pungent and gamey -- most similar to raccoon or rabbit. Blended with other meats, rat becomes a lot less distinctive, so you'd have to be rather discerning to notice it.

3. It tastes delicious when brushed with a moonshine glaze and barbecued. Of all the ways Ginn has eaten rat, this is her favorite preparation. A close second is smoked rat jerky served on brioche French toast. So, if you happen to be savoring a moonshine-BBQ dish, or think there is something slightly "rodenty" about the gamey and delicious jerky you are consuming, you might want to check the ingredients.

4. It looks like lamb. When it's raw, pinkish/red rat looks very much like lamb. Unfortunately for the Chinese, when ground, rat can look a lot like any generic ground meat. When cooked, rat looks more like rabbit, Ginn thinks, just because of the shape of the cuts.

5. You're in Asia. According to Ginn, rats are most commonly eaten in Asia because of the rice crop. In areas where rats feed off rice paddies rather than garbage, the rodents are considered safer to eat. Of course, it isn't clear whether the rats marketed as mutton in China were healthy, rice-fed rats or sewer-dwelling, garbage-eating, Templeton-esque rats. The New York Times reports that the arrest announcement "did not explain how exactly the traders acquired the rats and other creatures." Rats are also disease carriers, so when Ginn organized her meal she ordered hers from a company that supplies specially raised, grain-fed rodents to zoos.

Bon appétit!

Michael Mann -- director of the venerable Al Pacino/Robert De Niro movie Heat and The Last of the Mohicans -- is working on a new film, and its plotline sounds, well, unrealistic.

According to the Hollywood Reporter, the still-untitled movie will feature U.S. and Chinese cyber agents -- not duking it out across the Internet, as might be expected, but working together. To stop a hacker. From the Balkans. The film is said to center around a pair of "Chinese hacker siblings"; Mann was reportedly in Hong Kong this week scouting potential lead actors and actresses.

Is this completely implausible? Well, not completely. Sure, there are some hackers in the Balkans. And sure, the United States and China occasionally make gestures toward increasing cooperation on cybercrime. But it is cybercrime from China -- particularly of the state-backed variety -- that is by far the bigger concern for business leaders and policymakers.

Is this another incident of Hollywood kowtowing to China and its enormous potential audience (expected to be the biggest film market in the world by 2020)? Sure seems like it, at least. 

In her article for FP today, Laurie Garrett wonders whether thousands of dead pigs washing up in Shanghai's rivers and two Chinese citizens dying of a new flu strain are early symptoms of the next big pandemic. What's more, she writes, the potentially contaminated pork has already entered the Chinese food supply. "On March 25," Garrett notes, "Chinese authorities seized manufactured pork buns that were found to be made from Zhejiang pigs that had died of the mysterious ailment."

The prevalence of dicey food products -- including dead, diseased, or otherwise dodgy pork -- has long been an issue in China. But the recent tide of dead hogs sweeping through Shanghai -- said to partially stem from a crackdown by authorities on the dead-pig trade -- has produced some fascinating reporting that gives us a more detailed look at the economics driving China's market for illegal pig meat.

It's pretty straightforward: farmers who can't send a pig to be butchered once it has died don't want to totally write off their investments -- not when there's a chance to still make some of the money back. But according to recent reports, Chinese authorities have some policies in place that aren't exactly making the problem better.

According to this report, from the Oriental Morning Post, a 100-kilogram (roughly 220-pound) pig sells for about 600 yuan ($100) -- still a hefty sum in rural China. Feed costs total at least 150 yuan ($25).

Since July 2011, the central government has had a policy in place to pay some farms -- those that raise more than 50 pigs a year -- compensation of 80 yuan ($13) for every dead pig, according to the South China Morning Post. But 89 percent of the pigs raised in the city of Jiaxing -- thought to be the main source of the hogs that wound up in Shanghai's Huangpu river -- come from small farms, according to the report, and don't qualify. Even those that do often don't see the money.

To make matters worse, this thorough Shanghai Daily primer on the illegal pig trade says farmers in Zhejiang province were supposed to pay 50 yuan ($8) per carcass to so-called "dead pig collectors" hired by the local government who would then dispose of the carcass. Not surprisingly, most farmers opted not to pay this fee when illegal pig traders were around who were happy to pay 1 yuan per 500 grams of pig flesh. The result? Jiaxing pig collector Lu Gensong told Shanghai Daily he didn't collect a single carcass between 2009 and 2012. ("You Shanghai residents just don't realize how many dead pigs you have eaten before," one restaurant owner told Xinhua.) 

And those illegal pork butchers? They seem to be doing pretty well for themselves -- perhaps well enough to pay even more than they're already shelling out for dead pig flesh if necessary. A CCTV investigation into the dead pig trade found that three butchers -- sentenced to life in prison last November -- had processed 77,000 carcasses, making almost 9 million yuan ($1.5 million) in profit.

If you're wondering why you'd pay to have your pig carcasses disposed of when you can be paid for them instead, well --it seems some farmers in Zhejiang province have been wondering the same thing.

The Chinese government on Tuesday continued to deny that a Chinese frigate locked its radar on a Japanese destroyer earlier this year. The denial comes a day after Tokyo-based Kyodo News quoted unnamed "senior Chinese military officials" admitting for the first time that it happened -- but only by accident, they said.

It's worth noting, especially in light of Beijing's official denial, that we don't know who these Chinese officials are, or why they're speaking up now. But the report, if true, is disturbing precisely because the alleged standoff happened accidentally. According to the officials, the radar lock was an unplanned, "emergency decision" taken by the commander of the frigate -- one that did not include communication with fleet command or navy headquarters. This line in particular from Kyodo's report does not inspire confidence:

"The communication system used by the Chinese navy is not as advanced as those of Japan and the United States, a senior official said, explaining why the commander did not seek guidance."

Great. At a time when Chinese authorities seem to be making efforts to dial down tensions with Japan over disputed islands, could a war between East Asian superpowers be sparked by accident -- by some frigate commander gone rogue?

That nuclear war could come about in just such a scenario was, of course, a major concern during the Cold War. But decades of tension, as well as apocalyptic visions of global annihilation as a result of the U.S. and U.S.S.R. locking horns, produced carefully designed systems to minimize the damage any one rogue actor could inflict (only the president can access the nuclear codes), and to minimize misunderstandings from more minor incidents (the Kremlin-White House hotline).

But East Asia -- relatively free of military buildup until recently -- doesn't have these same systems in place. A soon-to-be-released report from the International Institute for Strategic Studies highlights the danger that emerges when a region's military systems develop faster than its communication mechanisms, and finds that accidental war in East Asia is a real possibility:

Across East Asia, advanced military systems such as anti-ship missiles, new submarines, advanced combat aircraft are proliferating in a region lacking security mechanisms that could defuse crises. Bilateral military-to-military ties are often only embryonic. There is a tangible risk of accidental conflict and escalation, particularly in the absence of a strong tradition of military confidence-building measures."

The Senkaku-Diaoyu Islands dispute has been marked by an increasing number of deliberate provocations on both sides: surveillance vessels entering nearby waters, patrol planes making passes by the islands, scrambled fighter jets. These are planned actions, designed to incrementally heighten tensions. But the more fighter jets that get scrambled without good communications systems in place, the higher the chances that these deliberate moves escalate beyond what either Japan or China is anticipating.

That being said, it's important to note that historians still question whether any wars have truly been started by accident. (War "is almost by definition a deliberate and carefully considered act," writes Michael Howard.) The origins of World War I -- sometimes dubbed the accidental war -- are still hotly debated, for example. But Reuters recently noted that China, while seeking to cool tensions with Japan, is at the same time taking steps to increase central control over its military (putting paramilitary agencies under a single command, for instance) to prevent accidents -- a sign, at least, that one party in this conflict is taking the possibility seriously.

When the government of the Philippines announced last month it was taking China to court over territorial claims in the South China Sea, it was seen by some as a surprising but savvy move -- a first step toward establishing some sort of law and order in East Asia's waters, which, up until now have been a sort of aquatic Wild West, with nations planting flags on rocks, roping off shoals, and building up tiny reefs to stake their claims.

The hearing was to determine the validity of China's claims to a wide swath of ocean that encompasses waters near the Philippines, Vietnam, Malaysia and Brunei, among other countries. Manila even generated some buzz by hiring D.C. lawyer Paul Reichler to argue its case, a man who's made his name as a "giant-slayer" in the world of international law for his often-successful track record of suing the U.S. Russia, and Britain on behalf of countries like Nicaragua, Georgia and Mauritius.

Then, on Tuesday, China made clear it had no plans to participate in any international court arbitration. Though the hearing will go on without China's participation, the decision, some may think, doesn't bode well for hopes that China might abide by a ruling that doesn't go its way.

Still, Reichler, who was hired by the Philippines last year, thinks the rising power could come around.

"They're very smart people," he said in an interview last week. "And I think they might come to understand that in the long run their best interests are served by being a responsible member of the international community."

Reichler's faith in the power of international law to wrangle even the largest of powers comes from his success suing the United States. He took America to The Hague on behalf of the Sandinista government of Nicaragua in the 1980s, over U.S. support of the Contras, and won -- an effort that earned him the ire of figures like John McCain. As a result of the victory - and the international pressure that accompanied it -- he says, Congress cut off funding for Contra support.

"It's a very high cost to prestige to be branded as an international wrongdoer and then not comply," he said.

The decision not to take part in the arbitration is "unfortunate," Reichler said in an email (China has long said it doesn't want to its territorial conflicts "internationalized").  "They had an opportunity to demonstrate their commitment to the international legal order, to show respect for its procedures, and to agree to be bound by its rules. Had they seized this chance, they would have proven that they are not only a great power, but a responsible one."

But the pressure on Beijing to comply with an unfavorable ruling - even if it doesn't participate - will still be there, Reichler said.

"To me, China has always denounced imperialism, denounced unilateralism, has denounced violations of the U.N. Charter," he said. "This is an opportunity for China to really show its true colors."

Chinese government officials considered using an armed unmanned aerial vehicle to target a drug trafficker hiding in Myanmar, according to an interview with Liu Yuejin, the director of China's Public Security Ministry's anti-drug bureau that appeared in Global Times on Monday. The target, Naw Kham, wanted for a drug-trafficking related attack that killed 13 Chinese sailors, was eventually captured last April in a joint Chinese-Laotian operation in Laos and is now appealing a death sentence in China. Yuejin's comments are an unusual glimpse into China's considerations for the use of drone strikes, a tactic that is no longer used exclusively by the United States.

The proposed Chinese strike would have occurred in Myanmar's restive north, where the Naypyidaw government has struggled to control ethnic conflicts and a thriving drug trade. Much like the U.S. official rationale as for strikes in Pakistan, Yemen, and Somalia, China could have either sought Naypyidaw's support or credibly claimed that the government was "unwilling or unable to suppress the threat posed by the individual being targeted," in the words of the Obama administration's white paper on its own targeted killing program. Similarly, as a violent drug trafficker tied to the deaths of Chinese sailors, China could have justified the potential drone strike under the white paper's loose definition of the "imminent threat of violent attack" against the homeland -- much as the United States justified targeting al Qaeda militants tied to the bombing of the USS Cole with drone strikes, beginning Abu Ali al-Harithi in 2002 (well before the white paper was authored).

The admission that the Chinese government considered a drone strike comes as its relationship with Myanmar has become increasingly strained amid stalled economic projects and new competition for influence with the West. China also appears to have placed special emphasis on their UAV programs in recent months, unveiling new models (that look suspiciously like U.S.-made Predator and Reaper drones) and retrofitting old Shenyang J-6 jets to fly by remote control.

Yuejin told Global Times that the drone strike option was passed over because of instructions to capture Naw Kham alive, but his comments demonstrate that China is weighing targeted killings seriously. When -- almost certainly not "if" -- China conducts its first drone strike, it will join just three other nations -- the United States, Britain, and Israel -- and place itself among the drone powers in the ongoing international assessment of the legality of these operations and whether they abridge international law and the established concept of sovereignty.

More than 800,000 Americans packed the National Mall in Washington, D.C. on Monday to listen to President Obama deliver his second inaugural address, but many more were listening around the world. Here are a few interesting global reactions:

CHINA

In the Chinese media, Obama's promise to "try and resolve our differences with other nations peacefully" and argument that "engagement can more durably lift suspicion and fear" than military force was taken as a sign that the U.S.-China relationship will be at the top of his foreign policy agenda for the next four years. Of course, as the state-run Global Times notes, there's a bit of skepticism that the president will live up to his words:

"If the president really lives his words, he would agree that for the sake of the world's peace and prosperity, it is important for the United States and China to foster mutual trust, for trust is the cornerstone for every relationship, no matter between people or between nations...The words also show that he agrees that the two nations should properly solve their disputes, either economic or political."

News agency Xinhua was a little more positive, describing the overall approach Obama outlined in his Monday address as "balanced" and "decidedly progressive."

BRITAIN

One Guardian writer described Obama's speech as "urg[ing] Americans to reclaim from conservatives the spirit of the founding fathers" and as "more inspirational than 2009," praising Obama's strong support of climate change and gay rights. Another was more cautious in hispraise, maintaining that Obama's speech was less of a populist manifesto and more of a "to-do list [covering] what he has still to do to make good on the economic promises of his first term."

While Peter Foster of the more conservative Telegraph granted that Obama's speech was well-received by the spectators on the Mall, he reminded readers just how deeply divided the United States still is: "It was apparent," writes Foster, "that only half of the nation had showed up to listen to [Obama's] call...Overwhelmingly, the crowd of 800,000 people was filled with the faces of the young, female, urban, African-American coalition that ensured Mr. Obama's re-election for a second term last November. They were Obama's people, and they were there to celebrate their victory."

AUSTRALIA

In his article for the Australian, Troy Bramston praised Obama's rhetoric, but argued that Obama cannot rank amongst the truly great American presidents until he "translate[s] a presidency of promise into a presidency of action."

That may be hard to do, claims Janet Hook in another article for the Australian, in which she points out that Obama's speech made little effort to readch out to the GOP.

SAUDI ARABIA

After the inaugural address, the headline of Saudi-owned, pan-Arab daily A-Sharq Al-Awsat read "The decade of war is over," referencing a line from Obama's speech. Yet in an op-ed for the same paper, Abdul Rahman Rashed, though praising Obama's experience in Middle Eastern affairs, was not so sure about peace in the coming decade. "Obama's second term will possibly be reconciliatory, particularly after John Kerry and Chuck Hagel join his administration...but who can tell if the region will be in a reconciliatory mood?"

PALESTINE

In his article for Palestinian-run, London based newspaper Al-Quds Al-Arabi (translated into English by the Times of Israel), Abdel Al-Bari Atwan writes that Obama "completely shut the door on any military intervention, stressing that a decade of wars has ended and that the only way to peace is dialogue." "President Obama's message is very clear," the article continued. "In short, he said that he does not intend to militarily intervene in Syria; will not wage a war on Iran, succumbing to Israeli pressure; and will focus on rescuing his country from its crippling economic crisis."

Atwan continues: "Obama disappointed many of his allies in the Middle East by neglecting to mention any of them in his speech." (Obama didn't mention any foreign countries by name in his address.)

MEXICO

Obama's equal opportunity rhetoric made news in Mexico. In its coverage of the inaugural address, El Universal highlighted Obama's commitment to immigrants, women, and gays. The article quoted Obama's statement promising immigration reform:

"Our trip (as a nation) will not be complete until we find a better way to welcome the hopeful, striving immigrants in the U.S. are still the land of opportunity, until the brightest students and engineers are listed on our strengths work instead of being expelled from our country."

The headline of the article read, in Spanish, "Obama calls for welcoming immigrants."

CANADA

The president's inaugural address was a chance for Canadians to pat themselves on the back, the Ottowa Citizen snarkily reports:

"On the key issues that President Barack Obama pledged to dedicate his second term to in his inaugural address, Canada has already made substantive progress: on supporting democracy around the world; on providing equal rights to gays and lesbians; on creating an aspirational immigration system."

It doesn't stop there either. The column went to on say that Canada has also beat Obama to the punch in securing a budget deal and repairing its economy.

When Canadian Foreign Minister John Baird hosted a largely American gathering at the Canadian embassy on Monday, he was more tactful. "This is not a time for long speeches," he said. "We have very different systems, so we don't exactly want to be bragging," a Canadian embassy spokesman said.

For many Americans, there's a sense that the United States has not fared well in the comparisons inevitably invited by the attacks that occurred on the same day in elementary schools in Newtown, Connecticut and Guangshan, China. In Newtown, 20 children were killed. In Guangshan, 22 may have lost fingers, or ears, but they survived.

"That's the difference between a knife and a gun," wrote James Fallows in the Atlantic. Writing on Salon, Mei Fong asked "what good is freedom of speech and a democratic system, when these rights can't prevent the slaughter of innocents?"

But the societal soul-searching on the Chinese side has focused more on the aftermath of the tragic attacks, and many, including some state-owned media, have voiced admiration for the humanity and compassion displayed by U.S. public officials following the attacks, as well as the transparency with which the Sandy Hook shooting has been handled.

In a story headlined "Anger at attack response" published Monday, the typically nationalist Global Times newspaper reported that no local officials have visited the Guangshan hospital where many of the injured children have been treated, while a report from Xinhua, noting that no village officials could be located after the attack and that the only employee to be found was playing video games has prompted widespread disdain.

Xinhua also reported that news of the attack at Guangshan, in which a man knifed 22 children in central Henan Province, was initially deleted from the website of the local party committee, and that a news conference on the attack planned by the local government for Saturday was cancelled without explanation. The China-watching site Tea Leaf Nation notes that the names of the children injured in the attack have yet to be released.

Meanwhile, Chinese internet users have watched the aftereffects of the two tragedies play out with disapproval.

"We know much about the American killer, even his family and childhood, but know little about the Chinese suspect," wrote Weibo user and writer Zheng Yuanjie.

"In an instant, information about the deadly gun attack in an American school that claimed 28 victims blanketed Chinese media," wrote economist Han Zhiguo. "On the same day, there was a campus attack in Henan province's Guangshan county, in which 22 students were injured with lacerations....you could only find information about it on Weibo. Was mainstream media's difference attitudes [toward the two incidents ] because Chinese children's lives aren't valuable?"

The perspectives generated by these same-day tragedies on contrasting societal strengths and weaknesses may be interesting to note; still, it's worth remembering that neither society's grass is looking particularly green at the moment.

H/t Tea Leaf Nation

This is a guest post from Liz Carter, a DC-based author and translator of several Chinese textbooks:

China's 18th Party Congress began yesterday; delegates from across the country gathered in Beijing, ostensibly to make important policy decisions and determine the make-up of the top leadership ranks for the next five years or more.

China's chattering classes, on the other hand, tend to analyze the significance of the meetings from their carriage and appearance, that is, when they're not mocking it. Delegates' expensive clothing and accessories are recurring hot topics: delegate Yang Lan, a Chinese talk show host, was spotted carrying a Marc Jacobs handbag and wearing a Giorgio Armani jacket at a less important Congress earlier this year. Yesterday, as in sessions past, netizens also saw the apathy of delegates as yet more proof of the meetings' meaninglessness. Pictures of a bored and yawning former President Jiang Zemin went viral before disappearing from Chinese social media.

Attempts by authorities to reinforce the legitimacy and security of these meetings - of which the party congress is arguably the most important - have backfired; the recent ban on the sale of kitchen knives in Beijing led to widespread mockery of officials' paranoia. Well-known Weibo (Chinese for microblog) user Zuoyeben, reposted an image - since deleted - to his more than four million followers: of a sign warning the reader not to open a window during the party congress "or else." The writer Tian You simply remarked "Absurd."    

With the dawn of the Weibo era, in which social media often serves as a watchdog for China's officialdom, it is harder to control public opinion and easier to be controlled by it than ever before. Still, this has not stopped China's censors from influencing online discussion of political events. Several previously prevalent homonyms for the 18^th party congress, including "Sparta," have been blocked as search terms on Weibo and commentary about the sessions had been scrubbed.

With control so tight, many see disruption as the only opportunity for meaningful action. Chinese Twitter user and signer of pro-democracy petition Charter 8 Dai Xindong wrote  "I'd like to pay my respects, in advance, to the first journalist at the 18^th party press conference who is brave enough to ask where the funding for these sessions came from."

Analysts, journalists, and China watchers have put forth a variety of theories about how to interpret the congress's official pronouncements - the Hong Kong-based China Media Project even ran a series of articles analyzing the official language used in the party congress reports that postulated what the appearance and frequency of certain political buzzwords like "Mao Zedong Thought" might mean. Still, foreign and Chinese onlookers alike have acknowledged that the paucity of actual information is ridiculous. On Weibo, many users commented, "I agree!" and "Long live the Communist Party!", but with many internet users paid to guide public opinion, it is impossible to determine how much of that is genuine.

It may be that only the powerful know what they powerful are doing. CEO of the investment bank China eCapital and Weibo celebrity Wang Ran remarked, "A colleague of mine said, ‘In China, if you do business but don't pay attention to the 18^th party congress reports, it just shows that your business must not be very big.'" One netizen agreed that, "that's just how state capitalism is," while another said: "If you're really doing a lot of business, you would have already picked up on everything before the party congress. If you're doing alright, you're paying attention during the party congress. Everybody else should just read the tabloids." But ultimately, Chinese and China-watchers continue to watch the congress, not because its informative, but because of the lack of information available elsewhere; in a one party state it's the best show in town.

In February, 2010, the International Herald Tribune published an article by then columnist Philip Bowring about Asian political dynasties, in which he included Singapore. A month later The New York Times, which owns the IHT, published a very bizarre apology: 

In 1994, Philip Bowring, a contributor to the International Herald Tribune's op-ed page, agreed as part of an undertaking with the leaders of the government of Singapore that he would not say or imply that Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong had attained his position through nepotism practiced by his father Lee Kuan Yew. In a February 15, 2010, article, Mr. Bowring nonetheless included these two men in a list of Asian political dynasties, which may have been understood by readers to infer that the younger Mr. Lee did not achieve his position through merit. We wish to state clearly that this inference was not intended. We apologize to Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong, Minister Mentor Lee Kuan Yew and former Prime Minister Goh Chok Tong for any distress or embarrassment caused by any breach of the undertaking and the article.

In 1994 lawyers representing Singapore's leaders had taken the newspaper to court for the article mentioned above and another one (which, ironically, suggested that some Asian leaders relied "on a compliant judiciary to bankrupt opposition politicians" without even mentioning Singapore.)  The IHT apologized, settled the $678,000 in libel damages, and, as part of the settlement Bowring agreed that he would not say or imply that Lee Hsien Long took office through nepotism. (Singapore has been ruled by Lee Hsien Long since 2004; his father Lee Kuan Yew ruled as prime minister from 1959-1990 and then behind the scenes after that.) Singapore courts found the newspaper and Bowring guilty of libel in 2010--because they broke the terms of their 1994 agreement to refrain from alleging that Singapore's leaders engaged in nepotism--and the newspaper paid $114,000 in damages and costs.

Singapore, a city-state of 5 million people armed with some of the world's strongest libel laws, successfully coerced the world's most prestigious newspaper into retracting coverage that was only mildly critical.  

Fast forward to Thursday October 25, when The New York Times published a damning investigation into the family of China's Premier Wen Jiabao, uncovering that his family has controlled assets worth at least $2.7 billion. It was the third story published by Western media this year (Bloomberg published the other two) that discovered great, possibly ill-gotten wealth in the families of high-ranking Chinese officials. On Friday, China's foreign ministry spokesman Hong Lei said the article "smears China and has ulterior motives."

The website of the official newspaper of the Communist Party, the People's Web, published a poorly crafted critique of the New York Times. The website of the New York Times English and Chinese language site was blocked, and the New York Times business in China is likely to suffer. Up until this point, China's reaction to the article had been standard and, besides some lost traffic from the blocking, ineffective; smoke and no fire. 

But worringly, on Sunday, two lawyers representing Wen's family issued a statement in a Hong Kong newspaper claiming that "the so-called 'hidden riches' of Wen Jiabao's family members in the New York Times' report does not exist," and adding that "we will continue to make clarifications regarding untrue reports by the New York Times, and reserve the right to hold it legally responsible."

What if Wen and his family decide to take the New York Times to court and sue it for defaming Wen Jiabao or the Communist Party? Sure, Wen and his family would likely prefer the embarassing story to fade away, especially as it's just weeks away from the 18th Party Congress, where Wen and his peers are expected to formally begin to yield power to the next generation of Chinese leaership. And because China has a far worse reputation for cracking down on press freedom than Singapore does, one can expect the Times to fight much harder this time. But this is a case that Wen and his family could surely win in a Chinese court.

Back in April 2010 the then New York Times public editor Clark Hoyt wrote an article addressing the Singapore apology. He explained the outsized importance of Singapore as a market for English-language media, expressed how Singapore's leaders had never lost a libel suit in their own courts, and quoted Stuart Karle, a former general counsel of the Wall Street Journal, saying, "If you want to be a global paper, it has lots of banks, lots of commerce, a highly educated, English-speaking population...It's hard to turn your back on that.

Hoyt added: "For The Herald Tribune and all the other news organizations that have paid damages to Singapore's rulers (The Wall Street Journal, The Economist, Bloomberg) or had their circulation limited there (Time, The Asian Wall Street Journal, The Economist), the choice has been to stay."

Singapore's successful authoritarianism has long been seen as a model for China. China's market is also much larger than Singapore's. For the sake of press freedom, here's hoping that the Times is not forced to apologize to China. 

In the wake of a series of cyber attacks from Chinese I.P. addresses at the height of the Senkaku/Diaoyu island dispute, Yomiuri Shimbun reports that Japan is pushing a plan to create a "cyber defense network" consisting of Japan and 10 ASEAN countries.

"Under the system, the government intends to share information about cyber-attack patterns and technology to defend against the attacks. It also plans to carry out exercises to verify the effectiveness of the system within the current fiscal year."

More details will be discussed during meetings on information security in Tokyo this week, but the countries reportedly interested in participating include Thailand and Indonesia.

While the network's present plans -- sharing technology and information about attack patterns -- don't seem particularly innovative or groundbreaking, the fact that the network is being formed could be seen as another sign of widespread, cross-border fears of Chinese hackers.  

More than a dozen Japanese websites belonging to banks, a government minister, a hospital, and some courts were hit during the row over the Senkaku Islands, many altered to display Chinese flags or to proclaim that the Diaoyu islands belong to China.  Similar attacks took place on websites in the Phillipines - again related to a territorial spat over an island - earlier this year (although in fairness, Filipino hackers struck back) while last week saw a flurry of reports claiming that Chinese hackers had targeted the White House in a cyberattack (the White House said the attacks were a simple spear-phishing email, and that no harm had been done). 

Yomiuiri Shimbun also reports that ASEAN countries might be interested in the network because their protections against cyberattacks haven't kept up with the increased use of computer equipment that has accompanied economic development.

It's been a rough year for China's one percent. Just yesterday Reuters reported that demand for Chinese luxury brands -- down of late -- is unlikely to rebound after Beijing imposed a "frugal working style" on government employees in an effort to curb conspicuous consumption (read conspicuous corruption.) Now the Financial Times is reporting (behind the paywall) that the number of US dollar billionaires in China fell last year for the first time in seven years:

In its annual report on China's super-wealthy, released on Monday, Hurun [Rich List] said China had 251 people worth $1bn or more, down 20 from last year but still sharply up from 2006, when there were just 15...Nearly half of the 1,000 richest people in China saw their wealth shrink in the past year, 37 of them by more than 50 per cent. The average wealth of the top 1,000 also fell 9 per cent to $860m, at a time when growth in the Chinese economy has also decelerated, the property market has declined and the stock market has fallen sharply. Chinese GDP growth hit a three-year low of 7.6 per cent year on year in the second quarter of this year.

Reduced Chinese demand for luxury cars has also forced Toyota to scale back the production of Lexus cars for export to China. With the economic outlook so grim, there's no telling what could be next -- party officials might even be forced to think twice about buying Porsches for their kids!