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Picturesque Chinese Landscapes are Actually Disguised Photos of Landfills | Colossal

Take a few steps back or perhaps just squint your eyes and these images by artist Yao Lu might resemble traditional Chinese landscape paintings of cliffs, waterfalls, and mountains. Look a bit closer and your perspective may change. Lu digitally assembles each of her images using photographs of landfills and other aspects of urbanization draped in green mesh to mimic idyllic scenery.

(via fashionable-nonsense)

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Chart: The “black triangle” of coal strangling Beijing.

“A Chinese scientist says that humans used to eat pandas.”

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Mitt Romney’s Stake in Chinese Stocks

The GOP candidate invested in 10 Chinese companies recently—including ones that embezzled, partnered with Iran, and stole US trade secrets. The lowdown is here.

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On a warm, sticky winter morning, I waited nervously in a parking lot in Foshan, a city in southeastern China’s smog-choked Pearl River delta, for a man I’d never met. His name was Mr. Ou, and he ran the sprawling factory in front of me, a jumble of offices, low-slung buildings, and warehouses. Though the factory was teeming with workers, a Subaru SUV and BMW coupe were the only cars in the lot. Drab, gray worker dormitories loomed nearby, and between them ran a dusty road that led to the factory. At last a young man emerged from an office building. He motioned for me to follow him in…

Your morning must-read: Our (fiction-free) investigation of Walmart’s China factories.

Illustration by John Hendrix

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China’s latest craze: dyeing pets to look like pandas. Via CNN

The Tea Party Allies’ Questionable TV Ad:

1) Critics have alleged that the ad is racist. Is it? CAGW calls the ad “Chinese Professor.” But hey, I’ll let you judge.

2) More important, the ad’s argument exhibits all the logic of a purple-specked sea urchin trying to explain the relevance of Nash equilibria to international trade-regimes’ behavior with some tin foil, a stick of spearmint gum, and an egg noodle.

The China Syndrome:
The country’s currency manipulation costs 900,000 US jobs. So why are Republicans stalling efforts to end the practice?

“Chinese currency manipulation is the single biggest reason why so many Americans are still jobless,” says Peter Morici…But attempts to address the problem have hit a Great Wall here at home. Senior House Republicans…oppose [a bill ending] it, says an inside source familiar with the negotiations, because “US multinationals with operations in China really don’t like it.”

Read Josh Harkinson’s full story here.

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