UK's 'golden era' with China in balance after Queen comments | TheNews Linzer

Monarch heard accusing Chinese officials of being rude to ambassador in connection with President Xi’s state visit last year



China has refused to say whether a “golden era” of relations with Britain still exists, after the Queen was caught on camera accusing Beijing officials of being rude.

In a discussion with a senior Metropolitan police officer, the Queen was heard accusing unnamed Chinese representatives of being “very rude” to the British ambassador in connection with President Xi Jinping’s first state visit to Britain last year.

The Queen was apparently unaware that the camera had picked up her comments to Metropolitan police commander Lucy D’Orsi, filmed by a pool cameraman working on behalf of British broadcasters during a garden party at Buckingham Palace on Tuesday.

When D’Orsi was introduced as the officer responsible for security during the visit, the Queen was heard to say: “Oh, bad luck.” Continue reading...





Published By - Theguardian.com- Tech News, Politics news, UK and world political comment and analysis: Wednesday 11 May 2016 11.10 BST

From Uber to Eric Schmidt, tech is closer to the US government than you'd think

Twitter was scrabbling to defend the appointment of a Chinese head with government ties, yet US tech has a busy revolving door with its own government

What’s worse for a Silicon Valley executive: ties to the Chinese military or friends in the US Defense Department? 

Twitter found itself confronting that question this week after it hired Kathy Chen, a former engineer for the People’s Liberation Army (PLA), to head up ad sales and business development in China, Hong Kong and Taiwan. Internet freedom activists and Chinese dissidents, who have to skirt Beijing’s digital censors to use Twitter, said it was a betrayal.

The spat illustrates the delicate balancing act technology companies face as they are forced to expand overseas to grow. In the US, Silicon Valley, like any industry, has embraced and relied on close relationships with former government officials both for technical talent and to help grease the wheels as they confront regulatory issues.

Alphabet’s executive chairman, Eric Schmidt, recently joined a Department of Defense advisory panel. Facebook recently hired a former director at the US military’s research lab, Darpa. Uber employs Barack Obama’s former campaign manager David Plouffe and Amazon.com tapped his former spokesman Jay Carney.

Published By - Theguardian.com - Sports New, LifeStyle News, Politics news, UK and world political comment and analysis: Thursday 21 April 2016 19.47 BST

Twitter's appointment of new chief in China incenses rights activists

Kathy Chen criticised by pro-democracy activists for her government and military background as she joins social media site still blocked by Beijing

China’s Communist party-controlled media has criticised “narrow-minded” and “prejudiced” online activists who are questioning Twitter’s decision to appoint as its first regional chief a former member of the People’s Liberation Army who once had ties to the country’s security services. Kathy Chen – a former Microsoft manager whose Twitter handle describes her as a “curious explorer” – was named as the social network’s managing director for mainland China, Hong Kong and Taiwan last week.

Chen’s appointment has incensed Chinese dissidents and pro-democracy activists in Hong Kong who use Twitter, a service that has been blocked in mainland China since mid-2009. Continue... 

Published By - Theguardian.com - Sports New, LifeStyle News, Politics news, UK and world political comment and analysis: Wednesday 20 April 2016 07.53 BST

GreatFire activist urges western firms to help end Chinese censorship

Western companies 

The Western companies need to end their hypocrisy over free speech in China, and start helping to end censorship in the country. The co-founders of GreatFire, an organisation dedicated to fighting the so-called Great Firewall of China. 

So the technological heart of state censorship in the country, said it hurts to see companies such as Apple citing Chinese censorship in their battles with western governments, while co-operating with authoritarian state in order to earn money from its burgeoning middle classes and take advantage of its enormous manufacturing base.

But technology firms, including Apple, often cite China when arguing with western states about repressive internet restrictions. So instead working hand-in-glove with the Chinese state o profit from the country’s vast internal market. He also praised Google for their decision in 2010 to stop censoring search results and pull out of mainland China.

Censorship

The Google was tempered with caution, however, due to reports that the company might be re-entering the Chinese market to sell smartphone apps through the Play Store. (What is that going to involve?) he asked. So i think people are going to be very wary and attentive to how Google goes back into China. And hopefully they’re going to show us that there is a way to go back in without having to censor.

So Play Store is particularly sensitive, because it’s one of the primary outlets through which GreatFire works, releasing anti-censorship tools such as FreeBrowser. So the group was founded in 2011 to raise awareness about the Great Firewall of China, primarily through cataloguing which sites were blocked internally In recent years. Unlike most previous sites censored by the state.

Important there are sites that are too valuable for the authorities to block, mainly for economic reasons, He says. So that’s when we started to work on this strategy of collateral freedom. So the GreatFire used the collateral freedom approach to develop apps, as well as post uncensored content on cloud services such as Amazon’s AWS, where it could not be blocked by the Chinese authorities without taking down vast swathes of the net.

Issue Companies

Most other companies weren’t as eager as Github and Amazon to help GreatFire. In October 2013, the group finished its FreeWeibo app, which archives posts that have been removed from Weibo, China’s Twitter. He said. It was available on the app store, people could download it and the app could be updated. And we kinda got round all the restrictions that the authorities put in place there. Important company Apple said yes. And it was gone and that was it.

So Apple’s are why Smith says he has an issue with companies citing China when arguing against repressive government measures in the west. For instance, in its battle with the FBI over whether it could be forced to weaken the security on its own hardware, Apple repeatedly brought up China. But UK, arguments against the (snooper’s charter), a bill that gives the British government huge power to eavesdrop on encrypted connections, have also been made with regard to China. The bill, some worry, would embolden the country to demand its own repressive changes.

So at least, have changed in the three years GreatFire has been chipping away at the Great Firewall. Not always for the better: In 2015, the censorship authorities, So apparently realising that the collateral freedom approach was bearing fruit, switched tactics, turning on what was described as the (Great Cannon). So that is a  modified version of a conventional hacking tactic known as a (distributed denial of service) attack. But cannon was pointed at Github and at GreatFire’s Amazon hosting. 

He said, (over soon) doesn’t necessarily mean China dropping its web censorship. But Smith sees two ways the standoff can end: (So one possibility is that the state eventually gets over its fear of what the people would do if they saw the real internet). Often That’s not going to have a revolutionary outcome though.

So the other possibility is that the (collateral freedom) approach fails, and the country drops the firewall still further, blocking sites such as Github and Amazon. So even that would be a victory of sorts, pushing the country into a direct standoff with its people, and economic success.

Art Basel Hong Kong Opens to Less Frenzy | The Reporter25

The first floor of the Centre for conventions and exhibitions in Hong Kong was already full when Lin have arrived at the opening of Art Basel Hong Kong, most important art fair in Asia.

In the three years since I started buying art, Mr. Lin, a collector based in Beijing, and his wife, Wanwan Lei, both 28, have created a collection at the speed of lightning, the acquisition of more than 298 works. But to the previous view V.I.P. in the art fair in Hong Kong on Tuesday, neither Mr. Lin and the Sra Lei was in a mood to make quick decisions. In fact, some traders noted that the environment, in general, seemed more moderate than the last year, with a smaller number of collectors in attendance, especially in Europe and North America, and less frenetic first day of purchase - not entirely unexpected, given the recent economic slowdown in China.

We just bought a couple of works at TEFAF, so don't we rush to buy anything here, Mr. Lin said, in reference to the European fair of fine arts this month in the Dutch city of Maastricht. On the other hand, he and Ms. Lei were more interested in navigation and the promotion of cockpits M Woods, his Museum of contemporary art in the Art Beijing 797 district.

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Some traders were strong sales of reports. David Zwirner, which is scheduled to open a gallery in Asia, presented a stand of figurative paintings mostly, including five works of Michael Borremans made especially for the fair. The five were bought by Asian collectors, among them the Museum long in Shanghai, at prices ranging from $ 240,000 $ 1.5 million.

And Leo Xu Projects, a gallery of Shanghai, reported that it had sold eight works by the Chinese artist Cui Jie from $7,600 and $27,000 in the first 30 minutes of the V.I.P. advance.

Mr. Lin is one of a growing number of young collectors from mainland China, a group described as motivated, knowledgeable dealers and with a taste more adventurous than the older generation of Chinese collectors.

Collectors from mainland China more young people can have a respect for the heavyweight blue-chip Western contemporary artists, said Nick Simunovic, general director of the Gagosian Gallery in Hong Kong. But they are also actively seeking work, which could not have imagined collectors from mainland China who pursue five years ago.

Some dealers noted that some young Chinese collectors do not have the purchasing power of their elders. However, while auctions do not can be looking with their purchases, many are studying and collecting the lesser-known artists. And unlike their older counterparts, who are more likely to have spent time abroad. As a result, traders say many are less concerned about the nationality and feel more comfortable engaged in the purchase of artists who are not Chinese.

personal collection of Mr. Lin, for example, includes works by Tracey Emin and John Currin, but also less established artists like Richard Lin, Ouyang Chun, Florence Lai and Charles Harlan. Recently, Mr. and Mrs. Lin Lei, who earned a degree in administration of the arts at Columbia University, have shown a great interest in the old masters.

Their eclecticism was screened on Tuesday, when Mr. Lin focused on the several works of the architect and artist Bijoy Jain in the booth of Gallery Chemould Prescott Road of Mumbai, India.

It was the closest Mr. Lin came to buy anything on Tuesday. For the next four hours. The Sra Lei; and Presca Ahn, the American director of the Museum, only to take in the spectacle.

Recent slowdown of china's economy seems to have put a brake on the purchase of art for all collectors of the continent, regardless of age, with total sales in the Chinese market's have fallen 22 percent, to $11.7 billion in 2015, according to the Tefaf report. Last year, Britain supplanted China as the second-largest market for sales of art, after the United States, according to the report.

While dealers say that the economic slowdown has been felt more forcefully in the auction houses, the final results of Art Basel Hong Kong still are being studied as an important measure of the situation on the market of art in Asia.

In general, there was the feeling among traders and collectors that the quality of the works at the Hong Kong fair, which this year included a 238 galleries, was stronger than in previous years.

Aspects highlighted among Western galleries including Hauser & Wirth, which brought (Spider couple), a bronze giant Louise Bourgeois sculpture between 2003 and 1967 mobile by Alexander Calder (spider's Web in the morning). Marianne Boesky Gallery presents a solo exhibition of Frank Stella, including a 12-foot-tall wooden star.

Hauser & Wirth said it was in talks with a Museum of Asia about the bourgeois sculpture. The Gallery sells a series of works, including a painting by Mark Bradford for $1.4 million, as well as a painting by Alexander Calder, for an undisclosed amount.

So we decided to bring a different kind of booth this year, big pieces centered around the theme (the spider), so we were hoping that this year will be more about the education of sales, said Neil Wenman, senior director of Hauser & Wirth in London. But we are also very pleased with the sales. We were actually able to connect with a different level of a collector in Asia.

Asian galleries also did a great performance, with Taiwan's Eslite gallery presents a solo exhibition of David Diao. For his first exhibition at the fair, with Beijing-based Studio ink brought a stand dedicated to the Chinese artist Li Huasheng.

The fair has had a reputation for being a dump of galleries, said Adeline Ooi, director for Asia of Art Basel. So But that is changing, and people are taking seriously our clientele.

So although Mr. Lin, who grew up in Beijing and studied in Singapore and Britain, refused to say how much it had invested in the art from 2013, projected that it would spend close to $3 million this year. To configure M Woods, which opened to the public in 2014, estimated its cost at around $1.4 million.

He said part of that money had been lent to him by his parents, both members of an old military which are now in the business. However, he said that most of his wealth came from a public relations firm from a luxury brand founded and real estate investments.

Some people might think that I'm just doing this because I have no money and I'm looking for a hobby, Mr. Lin said, taking a break to drink a little water of coconut in the fair. As well, but for me, art is no longer just a hobby. Art has become a company for me. It could take decisions quickly, but it really is something that I love.