Gingrich and Romney [EDIT: Sorry, no Romney] try to out-dumb one another, and NY Times goes after Apple again

Via Shanghaiist, from the ATV 20th Miss Asia Awards in Hainan province

These are America's leaders:

"And I'd like to have an American on the moon before the Chinese get there." Newt Gingrich, everyone.

"I do not want to be the country that having gotten to the moon first, turn around and say, 'It doesn't really matter. Let the Chinese dominate space. What do we care?' I think that is a path of national decline. And I am for America being a great country, not a country in decline." Mitt RomneyGingrich, everyone.

THESE ARE AMERICA'S LEADERS.

Do you hear that, Chinese people? You have absolutely nothing to fear from the U.S. Now get off its back.

[Quotes via Shanghaiist]

EDIT: Well, that's embarrassing. Thanks to Kenneth Tan for pointing out my quote attribution error. But my feelings about the Republican field of nominees remains the same.

The NY Times on Apple, China... again. "People like Ms. White of Harvard say that until consumers demand better conditions in overseas factories -- as they did for companies like Nike and Gap, which today have overhauled conditions among suppliers -- or regulators act, there is little impetus for radical change. Some Apple insiders agree." Meanwhile, other Apple insiders designed to drink some orange juice. [NY Times]

The first thing that should signal something is awry is the subhead: "For China's rise to continue, the country needs to move away from the model that has served it so well." Stop doing what works... OK, gotcha. But I hate this headline for another reason. The Economist is implying that there are only two options: 1. Western, the model we know; 2. Anything else. And if you're doing "anything else," there's no chance of you succeeding, or mending the model so that it guarantees future success. Why? Because it's not the model we know. [The Economist]

Stan Abrams of China Hearsay then finishes the takedown. "Fourth, religion. Not surprisingly, I find this one laughable. China needs religion to help the poor and to offer people a meaning to their lives beyond economic growth? From reading The Economist over many years, I thought economic growth was an end in and of itself! // But seriously, the government is certainly capable of dealing with poverty on its own; indeed, modern China can boast of having lifted more people out of poverty than any other nation in the history of the world. Thanks, but no thanks, religion. As to the meaning of life, this was a throwaway line in the article not elaborated upon, so I think I’ll ignore it." [China Hearsay]

Paper Republic's Eric Abrahamsen writes about Han Han. "'When the drivers in China turn their high-beams down as they pass each other on the road, they will be ready for revolution,' writes Han Han. 'Of course, by then, revolution won’t be necessary.' Instead, he argues, the process will be a gradual one, in which the cultural values conducive to democracy evolve along with democracy itself. 'Democracy is a long process of negotiation.'" [LA Times blog]

The death penalty. The Economist reports on netizens' support for 31-year-old Wu Ying, sentenced to death for "illegal fundraising." Really, China should practice more leniency, and judging by many of the comments in these two China Smack posts, it seems the people feel the same. I know the government really, really hates drugs and all, but smuggling doesn't warrant a death penalty. Sorry, it doesn't.

A glowing review of James Palmer's Heaven Cracks, Earth Shakes. [The Peking Duck]

NON-CHINA READ: "The accelerating rate of incarceration over the past few decades is just as startling as the number of people jailed: in 1980, there were about two hundred and twenty people incarcerated for every hundred thousand Americans; by 2010, the number had more than tripled, to seven hundred and thirty-one. No other country even approaches that. In the past two decades, the money that states spend on prisons has risen at six times the rate of spending on higher education. Ours is, bottom to top, a 'carceral state,' in the flat verdict of Conrad Black, the former conservative press lord and newly minted reformer, who right now finds himself imprisoned in Florida, thereby adding a new twist to an old joke: A conservative is a liberal who’s been mugged; a liberal is a conservative who’s been indicted; and a passionate prison reformer is a conservative who’s in one." [New Yorker]