China is Replicating Manhattan’s Financial District Including the Twin Towers

<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="480" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/WkkFidVJRMI?rel=0" width="853"></iframe><br /><br /><div id="posttext" style="text-align: justify;"><a href="http://thechinachronicle.com/chinas-manhattan-knock-off-aspires-to-be-bigger-and-better-than-the-real-thing/" target="blank"><b><span style="font-size: large;">The China Chronicle</span></b></a><br />Wade Shepard<br /><br /><span style="font-size: x-large;">A</span><b>pparently not content with allowing New Yorkers to remain the sole beneficiaries of their city, a group of enterprising developers and government officials have engaged upon the most extensive and ambitious knock-off in human history: the creation of a Manhattan themed financial district — in China. </b><br /><br />The Chinese version of Manhattan’s business district is called Yujiapu, and it is slowly arising out of the heart of Bīnhǎi New District, which itself is a new area of Tianjin, a provincial level municipality 85 miles from Beijing. In 2008, an ancient fishing village was swept off the face of the earth and a forest of skyscrapers were planted in its place. Scheduled for completion in 2019, Yujiapu isn’t just a copy of Manhattan’s FiDi, but is set to be even larger than the original. At 3.86 sq km in area, it is to become the “largest single financial center on the world.” So not only is this a colossal knock off, it’s a colossal development in its own right.</div>

China is Replicating Manhattan’s Financial District Including the Twin Towers

The China Chronicle Wade Shepard A pparently not content with allowing New Yorkers to remain the sole beneficiaries of their city, a group o...

Read more »

China Clones Austria Hallstatt Village

<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="480" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/BhNbBOKJ37E?rel=0" width="853"></iframe><br /><br /><div id="posttext" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">C</span><b>hina has replicated the Austrian mountain town of Hallstatt, Austria, a UNESCO World Heritage site.</b></div>

China Clones Austria Hallstatt Village

C hina has replicated the Austrian mountain town of Hallstatt, Austria, a UNESCO World Heritage site.

Read more »

Chinese Museum Closes Because It’s Collection of 40,000 Artefacts Alleged To Be Forgeries

<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="480" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/IlWfUIkRp1s?rel=0" width="853"></iframe><br /><br /><div id="posttext" style="text-align: justify;"><a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/07/16/china-museum-artifacts-fake_n_3607040.html" target="blank"><b><span style="font-size: large;">Huffington Post</span></b></a><br /><br /><span style="font-size: x-large;">T</span><b>he Jibaozhai Museum in Jizhou, China closed amid internet ridicule because nearly all its 40,000 artifacts are alleged to be forgeries. One online satirist suggested it should reopen as a museum of fakes.</b><br /><br />The museum has 12 vast exhibition halls and cost 60 million yuan (about $9.8 million) to build, opening its doors in 2010. China is currently in the midst of an unprecedented museum boom with nearly 400 new museums opening in 2011 alone, according to government figures. Unfortunately, it’s hard to fill that many museums, and China also has a prolific faking industry.<br /><br />Some Jizhou residents have accused the museum’s curator, local party chief Wang Zongquan, of misappropriating the funds and covering it up with cheap counterfeits.<br /><br />“Most of the historic relics are fake, but the real ones are in Wang’s home,” resident Liu Xin-liang told Global Times.<br /><br />Shao Baoming, the museum’s deputy curator, told Shanghai Daily that half of the artifacts in the museum were real. Even if that was true, the museum would still contain around 20,000 counterfeit items.<br /><br />For his part, Wang claimed that “even the gods cannot tell whether the exhibits are fake or not.”</div><br /><iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="480" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/gQtDn0IqFo4?rel=0" width="853"></iframe>

Chinese Museum Closes Because It’s Collection of 40,000 Artefacts Alleged To Be Forgeries

Huffington Post T he Jibaozhai Museum in Jizhou, China closed amid internet ridicule because nearly all its 40,000 artifacts are alleged to...

Read more »

Li Guangnian | Fake Chinese Official

<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEih81t51qaXtbwpP7KNkAD5gOFAmEnIFF_rOjLNcOnRQxXP1oDkXgEWqdjLNK_uiDuFEX60S6zEnvcs-WjYytbZlFyry6WPpgiXJ2664-ofBBjaToXX1kGrZh-c6JCIKxdAn3zJOJVbE1E/s1600/3.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEih81t51qaXtbwpP7KNkAD5gOFAmEnIFF_rOjLNcOnRQxXP1oDkXgEWqdjLNK_uiDuFEX60S6zEnvcs-WjYytbZlFyry6WPpgiXJ2664-ofBBjaToXX1kGrZh-c6JCIKxdAn3zJOJVbE1E/s1600/3.jpg" /></a></div><br /><div id="posttext" style="text-align: justify;"><a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=564009107862031725" target="blank"><b><span style="font-size: large;">The Washington Post</span></b></a><br /><br /><blockquote class="tr_bq"><span style="font-size: large;">“China has too big a government, with too much power, and everything relies on the government. Those who can, rely on officials; those who can’t, swindle.”</span> ~Zhang Ming, a political science professor at Renmin University</blockquote><br /><span style="font-size: large;">I</span><b>n a country that has perfected the art of imitation, Li Guangnian was just another copy: a fake official with a fake organization peddling a false promise — of credibility and contacts, according to people who worked with and encountered him.</b><br /><br />He had the swagger and the trappings of a senior party cadre, and a natural authority that made him hard to contradict. The walls of his office in the heart of the Chinese capital were adorned with photographs of him next to retired generals and government officials. He drove a top-of-the-range Audi and a Mercedes-Benz, and, in his 50s, had an 18-year-old mistress.<br /><br />All over China, a country where the bureaucracy fills almost every available space with myriad organizations and where unimaginable sums of money can be made if you just know the right people, growing ranks of swindlers are peddling the ultimate currency — influence with the political elite.</div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi0uk4Yf2qGgGJGxPW5Ec5sfTgHl-B4Pq_7eP3uS6AHwTFuaZBiB9kJMyqDI85Z7XJFMw45aQBasNYVgaxa3tLTcQIBf4yvg1jC5vdvUcstgl3jRLTx_bL7FzSPWLKfDEajjLDZj5-5_DY/s1600/2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi0uk4Yf2qGgGJGxPW5Ec5sfTgHl-B4Pq_7eP3uS6AHwTFuaZBiB9kJMyqDI85Z7XJFMw45aQBasNYVgaxa3tLTcQIBf4yvg1jC5vdvUcstgl3jRLTx_bL7FzSPWLKfDEajjLDZj5-5_DY/s1600/2.jpg" /></a></div><br /><div id="posttext" style="text-align: justify;">But Li was a cut above your average con man, establishing an official-sounding organization in Beijing and then franchising out the use of that name for large sums of money to hustlers or social climbers around the country, according to interviews with those he dealt with. He was undone only when his relationship with his young mistress was exposed on the Internet and the party disowned him.<br /><br /><blockquote class="tr_bq"><span style="font-size: large;">“It is very difficult for ordinary people to identify swindlers, because officials are estranged from people. The sense of distance between officials and the public is what swindlers live on.”</span> ~Yi Shenghua, a lawyer who met Li in 2011</blockquote><br />Qiao Xinsheng, a professor at Zhongnan University of Economics and Law, said that for centuries, China has been an excessively centralized state, where emperors would dispatch envoys to far-flung corners of their lands to exercise their power.<br /><br />“This provides fertile soil for political swindlers. There is an information asymmetry that they take advantage of to swagger and deceive people,” he said. “Anyone who has a connection with central-government officials, or even their relatives, will encounter no problems with local governments.”<br /><br />Like a growing number of dishonest officials — or would-be officials — Li was exposed because of his relationship with a young woman.</div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiJ1t37kwaKJ68YD6tbulBw2Z1YFCutVqwk6Qr16rZIGu48hdELVjz4GEEK8gU9o5TtW55uHAqcU9iz0pUiJ2pv454Qs2XQsju1RhmDNgDr-8_v0l3z87OOIMvc2vSsaa4-1X8wUkAjs9Q/s1600/1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiJ1t37kwaKJ68YD6tbulBw2Z1YFCutVqwk6Qr16rZIGu48hdELVjz4GEEK8gU9o5TtW55uHAqcU9iz0pUiJ2pv454Qs2XQsju1RhmDNgDr-8_v0l3z87OOIMvc2vSsaa4-1X8wUkAjs9Q/s400/1.jpg" width="362" /></a></div><br /><div id="posttext" style="text-align: justify;">When photographs were <a href="http://bbs.tianya.cn/post-free-3410773-1.shtml" target="_blank">posted on an Internet forum</a> in June showing a shirtless Li on a bed beside the doe-eyed teenager, Internet users thought they had caught another corrupt and creepy cadre. Soon, though, the party disowned him and his organization. Disgraced, Li dropped out of sight, his Web site closed down and his office was shuttered.<br /><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhrtSRN3RE9804gwGq4U7ylI1m6_kaDLMaNdzlP-XzXJWtzBOJdAFLZFDMOUW4VRX1Is9q_nRfMUPhKCVj_Ph5nEwnJHrFXtpt4YQHz58WGUAWL1qPkedNgwEWwtmwkTtE4Cfn-phRALWQ/s1600/4.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhrtSRN3RE9804gwGq4U7ylI1m6_kaDLMaNdzlP-XzXJWtzBOJdAFLZFDMOUW4VRX1Is9q_nRfMUPhKCVj_Ph5nEwnJHrFXtpt4YQHz58WGUAWL1qPkedNgwEWwtmwkTtE4Cfn-phRALWQ/s400/4.jpg" width="300" /></a></div>

Li Guangnian | Fake Chinese Official

The Washington Post “China has too big a government, with too much power, and everything relies on the government. Those who can, rely on of...

Read more »

Pei-Shen Qian is Now a Famous Artist

<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiaHfcQ5u4reMmUEDdZd7tOHnu0fGd6nwcG7dOEH-V3dAJnFMG-rGh2CfpHaYbwmLvQ7-DycP5Q7LkW_oRsn5Cso_0Wr_T3FefgahI1zs3_HuxJ09ED0X5DMvEShz3DjL6cd0QGw3u6UoM/s1600/1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiaHfcQ5u4reMmUEDdZd7tOHnu0fGd6nwcG7dOEH-V3dAJnFMG-rGh2CfpHaYbwmLvQ7-DycP5Q7LkW_oRsn5Cso_0Wr_T3FefgahI1zs3_HuxJ09ED0X5DMvEShz3DjL6cd0QGw3u6UoM/s1600/1.jpg" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Pei-Shen Qian</td></tr></tbody></table><br /><div id="posttext" style="text-align: justify;"><a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2013/08/17/nyregion/struggling-immigrant-artist-tied-to-80-million-new-york-fraud.html?pagewanted=all"><b><span style="font-size: large;">The New York Times</span></b></a><br /><br /><span style="font-size: x-large;">P</span><b>ei-Shen Qian’s paintings hang in an American embassy, a museum and are displayed at international exhibitions. But the artworks do not have his signature.</b><br /><br />Mr. Qian, who immigrated to New York four decades ago, is revealed as the painter who created dozens of works modeled after America’s Modernist masters that were sold as their handiwork.<br /><br />These creations by Mr. Qian are so convincing that they were purchased for millions of dollars although he received only a few thousand dollars for each painting. <br /><br />Pei-Shen Qian’s neighbors on 95th Street in Woodhaven, Queens, knew he scratched out a living as an artist: he often dried his paintings in the sun, propping them up on the weathered white siding of his modest house.</div><br /><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiVjIdORy1E1GJtwrZDR-nvF43NZJUebLETZ4X1NDsTE6CAl_VFseWDpyLzLxSedNKqkCLSkSJcFYFPPqC3gkRaiok765Yh0NlCEAXVkk8q_2x7q-TWhIEGnWd5MZyndzjiuPPz-SbdRA4/s1600/2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiVjIdORy1E1GJtwrZDR-nvF43NZJUebLETZ4X1NDsTE6CAl_VFseWDpyLzLxSedNKqkCLSkSJcFYFPPqC3gkRaiok765Yh0NlCEAXVkk8q_2x7q-TWhIEGnWd5MZyndzjiuPPz-SbdRA4/s1600/2.jpg" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Pei-Shen Qian lived and worked in this house on 95th Street in Woodhaven, Queens.<br />Photo: Robert Stolarik for NYTimes</td></tr></tbody></table><br /><div id="posttext" style="text-align: justify;">Over a period of 15 years, court papers claim, the painter, working out of his home studio and garage, churned out at least 63 drawings and paintings that carried the signatures of artistic giants like Jackson Pollock, Barnett Newman, Robert Motherwell and Richard Diebenkorn.<br /><br />Long before Mr. Qian settled in Queens, he worked as an artist. He grew up in the island city of Zhoushan and in Shanghai, according to a 2004 interview with a Chinese television station. In 1981, Mr. Qian came to New York, where he and his friend Mr. Zhang took art classes together at the Art Students League on West 57th Street. Continue reading at <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2013/08/17/nyregion/struggling-immigrant-artist-tied-to-80-million-new-york-fraud.html?pagewanted=all">The New York Times</a>.</div>

Pei-Shen Qian is Now a Famous Artist

Pei-Shen Qian The New York Times P ei-Shen Qian’s paintings hang in an American embassy, a museum and are displayed at international exhibit...

Read more »