THE KOREAS: N. Korea Threatens to Halt All Talks With Seoul

January 16, 2010

By CHOE SANG-HUN

SEOUL, South Korea — North Korea, denouncing South Korea for drawing up a contingency plan to deal with the potential collapse of the North’s government, warned Friday that it would cut off all dialogue with the South and exclude it from all negotiations concerning the security of the Korean Peninsula. North Korea will also wage a “pan-national holy war of retaliation to blow away” the South Korean government, said a statement from the North’s highest ruling agency, the National Defense Commission, which is headed by the national leader, Kim Jong-il.

“It is deeply regrettable that the North makes such a threatening statement against us based on unconfirmed reports,” Chun Hae-sung, a spokesman of the South Korean government’s Unification Ministry, said in a statement.

The threat was surprising less for its stridency, which is not unusual in diatribes against the South and the United States, than for its timing. On Thursday, North Korea had proposed holding talks with the South on reviving joint tour programs, which have been stalled for more than a year over the shooting death of a southern tourist and the North’s anger over Seoul’s policies.

And only minutes before North Korea’s official news agency broadcast the statement, South Korea had announced that the North Korean Red Cross had accepted 10,000 tons of food aid offered by its South Korean counterpart.

The two gestures from the North fit within a recent series of conciliatory signs from the North — until Mr. Kim’s National Defense Commission waded in with its denunciation.

The commission apparently was angered by news reports this week of a South Korean contingency plan for North Korea. According to the newspapers Munhwa and Chosun, South Korea recently dusted off and revised the plan, apparently in the belief that Mr. Kim’s uncertain health and the North’s deepening economic woes under international sanctions have made the country more unstable .

The news reports, which quoted unidentified officials in Seoul, said that the plan addresses five possibilities: the death of Mr. Kim; a coup; a popular uprising; a huge outflow of refugees; and more sanctions or military attacks from the outside. It also envisions South Korea establishing on territory in the North an “administrative headquarters to liberate the North.”

South Korea said that it and the United States had a contingency plan for unrest in North Korea but refused to reveal its details.

“This is a plan to topple our republic,” the North Korean statement said on Friday.

“We will start a pan-national holy war of retaliation to blow away the den of South Korean authorities, including the presidential Blue House, who have led and supported the drawling up of this plan,” it said.

North Korea did not elaborate on what a “holy war” might entail, but said it would involve “all our revolutionary military power and all Korean compatriots both in the North and the South and abroad.”

The North also demanded that South Korea apologize. Otherwise, it said, it would exclude the South from “all talks on improving ties between the North and the South and negotiations on securing peace and stability on the Korean Peninsula.”

North Korea had previously threatened a “holy war” against its external enemies, especially the United States.

On Monday, North Korea proposed new talks to negotiate a peace treaty with the United States that would formally conclude the 1950-53 Korean War, which ended in a truce and left the peninsula technically in a state of war. Seoul and Washington rejected the proposal, insisting that they can start such talks only after the North returns to six-nation nuclear disarmament negotiations and begins dismantling its nuclear weapons programs.

View Article in The New York Times

CHINA: Where U.S. Internet Companies Often Fail

Published: January 15, 2010

By DAVID BARBOZA and BRAD STONE

SHANGHAI — If Google pulls out of China because of frustration with government restrictions, it will not be the first time an American Internet giant has retreated from the country.

Hyungwon Kang/Reuters

Jerry Yang, the co-founder of Yahoo, looked at Gao Qin Sheng, the mother of the dissident Shi Tao, at Congressional hearings in 2007. Yahoo reported Mr. Shi to authorities.

EBay and Yahoo arrived with high hopes for a market that failed to live up to their expectations. Social sites like Facebook, MySpace and Twitter have never managed to gain a significant foothold in China, partly because of government blocking and censorship and partly because most major Chinese Internet companies offer popular social networking features of their own.

In fact, no major American Internet company has dominated its field in China, which by some measures is the world’s largest Internet market. Many experts thought Google would be the first.

“There’s no U.S. Internet company close to being a leader here,” says Gary Rieschel, founder and managing director of Qiming Venture Partners, a venture capital firm. “And most of the wounds are self-inflicted.”

While each failure has been different, analysts say the cases may help explain why Google is frustrated — not just by government censors but by its inability to catch its big Chinese rival, Baidu.

Google, an Internet Goliath with $22 billion in revenue and some of the smartest people on the planet, is getting clobbered in China, holding 33 percent of the search engine market to Baidu’s 63 percent. Google has gained significant market share since it formally entered China five years ago, but almost all of that has come from smaller rivals. Baidu also gained market share in that time.

No one expected it to be this way. America’s bleeding-edge technology giants came here armed with cash, intellectual property and an ability to manage complex networks and introverted workers. They each bought or invested in local Internet companies and hired Chinese executives, and they worked to show sensitivity to the byzantine social customs of the world’s most populous country.

But all of them were outsmarted in different ways.

Google set up its China business in 2006, after it invested in Baidu and then reportedly tried and failed to buy it outright. Baidu, founded in 2000 when the Chinese Internet was just beginning to bud, carved out a strong presence by offering something that Google, at first, would not: easy links to download pirated songs, TV shows and movies from Chinese Web sites.

Baidu claimed this was legal because the media files were not on its own computers. Google itself finally introduced a free online music service in China in 2009, with the permission of the music labels, but it has never managed to make up the lost ground.

“Searching for music is what people did early on in China,” said Felix Oberholzer-Gee, a professor at Harvard Business School who has studied the Chinese Internet market. “It was huge, and Google didn’t have it.”

Google has said that its threat to leave China has nothing to do with financial considerations.

Perhaps no company tripped up as badly in China as Yahoo. It bought a local Internet company in 2004 to expand its Web presence and compete with Baidu and the local portal Sina.com. After it failed to gain ground, Yahoo abruptly reversed course, paying a billion dollars for a 40 percent share in Alibaba, a local Internet giant, which then took over its Chinese business.

Yahoo reaped a financial windfall when Alibaba stock soared in an initial offering in 2007, much as Google did when it sold its stake in Baidu. But operationally Yahoo had failed in the country — and it was only beginning to pay for that failure.

In 2004, the nonprofit group Doctors Without Borders reported that Chinese dissidents had been jailed because Yahoo released the contents of their e-mail accounts to the Chinese government. In subsequent years, Yahoo executives, including Jerry Yang, a co-founder, were hauled before Congress and berated over the incident.

EBay was the only technology giant that got a fast start in the Chinese market. In 2003, eBay bought EachNet, the leading Chinese auction house, and briefly controlled 80 percent of the Chinese e-commerce market.

Then it was completely outmaneuvered. EBay charged for listings, while a local upstart, Alibaba’s consumer-oriented auction site Taobao.com, did not. EBay also did not offer ways for buyers and sellers to chat online, fearing they would close their transactions off the site to avoid paying fees. Taobao executives understood that live conversations were necessary for Chinese consumers to cultivate trust, and offered an instant-message service to allow them to haggle over deals.

EBay also put its Chinese auctions on Web servers outside the country, resulting in a sluggish service that was difficult for some Chinese citizens to access.

EBay surrendered and left China in 2006, leaving the market to Taobao, which also now dwarfs Amazon’s Chinese e-commerce site.

The most recent underachiever in China was MySpace, owned by the News Corporation, which set up a locally owned Chinese business in mid-2007. But millions of people already use the social services of local Internet companies, like Tencent, which operates an online entertainment bazaar and has a stock market value of $37 billion, bigger than eBay’s. Tencent’s QQ instant messaging software is a huge cultural phenomenon in China, used by hundreds of millions of people.

Tencent has also led the way on social games and virtual currency, a field in which American social networks are only now beginning to catch up. MySpace shook up its Chinese subsidiary in 2008, and its chief executive departed.

American high-tech companies declined to comment this week on their China misadventures. But many high-tech executives and American experts on China complain that it is not an even playing field. American companies must operate in China through locally owned firms, creating a cumbersome ownership structure that limits their flexibility. They are also handicapped by one factor completely out of their control: government censorship and favoritism of local firms.

Google executives have said they are frustrated by censors who constantly scrutinize Google’s local search engine and try to control or erase its contents. Access to Twitter and Facebook is routinely blocked by the Chinese government. Local companies, on the other hand, often maintain close ties with regulators, which helps them anticipate new policies as the government increasingly worries that the Web might become a forum for antigovernment dissent.

Some in China say the American companies could work harder at thinking locally. Tu Jianlu, who used to work at Yahoo China, says Yahoo struggled here because its executives did not understand the Chinese market, did not trust local executives and often brought in outsiders to run things.

“When Yahoo China came up with new ideas and strategies, we had to report to the headquarters and wait for their feedback,” he said. “It usually took a long time to get their agreement. And when we got it, it was too late, too late for us to compete with local competitors.”

Ultimately though, Chinese Web entrepreneurs have done a good job of building Web sites that are tailored to the Chinese market.

Despite government restrictions, the Chinese Web over all is both vibrant and chaotic. There are thriving local blogs, entertainment and online gaming sites, a booming trade in virtual currency and even pornography (nude video chat rooms come and go).

Meanwhile, Chinese Internet tycoons like Jack Ma of Alibaba, Robin Li of Baidu and Pony Ma of Tencent are national figures, celebrated for their instincts and intelligence, much as Jeffrey P. Bezos, Sergey Brin and Larry Page are in the United States.

“The problem here is when you get down in the weeds and talk about flexibility and tactics, Chinese entrepreneurs are hard to beat,” says Mr. Rieschel at Qiming Ventures.

Bao Beibei contributed research.

A version of this article appeared in print on January 16, 2010, on page B1 of the New York edition.

Link to the Original Article in The New York Times

Technorati Tags: China,Internet,Google,Yahoo,Baidu,EBay,MySpace,doing business in China,censorship

JAPAN: New Arrests in Japan Fund Raising Scandal

January 16, 2010

By MARTIN FACKLER

TOKYO — Prosecutors arrested two former aides of a leading member of Japan’s ruling party on Friday, adding to a growing scandal over campaign finance that has dogged the new government.

Prosecutors also requested an arrest warrant for a third former aide of Ichiro Ozawa, the secretary general of the ruling Democratic Party, as they investigate some $4 million in improperly reported money used to buy land in Tokyo.

The arrests, announced late Friday night, highlight the financial problems that have plagued the administration of Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama, who last month faced a similar investigation by prosecutors into fund raising irregularities. While the scandal failed to unseat Mr. Hatoyama, it did erode public support for his administration, which swept into power last summer with promises to end money-driven politics.

Friday’s arrests seem certain to feed calls for the resignation of Mr. Ozawa, a shadowy political operator who is perhaps the most controversial and powerful figure in the new Japanese government. Respected by some, reviled by others and feared by all, Mr. Ozawa is widely seen as the organizer and strategist who helped the Democrats end the Liberal Democratic Party’s half-century rule.

Mr. Ozawa has so far rejected a request by prosecutors that he appear voluntarily for questioning, saying he was too busy. But the pressure seems to be rising on him, after prosecutors raided his office two days ago for evidence in the investigation.

Mr. Hatoyama has so far stood by Mr. Ozawa, telling reporters on Thursday that Mr. Ozawa would stay on as secretary general, the party’s No. 2 spot after Mr. Hatoyama himself.

“He is a unique politician, a one-of-a-kind,” Mr. Hatoyama told reporters. “He worked hard for the Democratic Party to win power, and we want him to continue to work hard for us in the future as well.”

Still, the arrests of Mr. Ozawa’s former aides appear certain to embarrass the Democrats, coming just a day before the party’s first convention since taking power. The investigation has drawn public attention to Mr. Ozawa’s use of similar financing methods and backroom deal-making as the now discredited and demoralized Liberal Democrats.

It is the second investigation by prosecutors into Mr. Ozawa’s campaign finance practices, following a probe last spring that forced him to resign as party head.

On Friday, prosecutors arrested Tomohiro Ishikawa, 36, a Democratic lawmaker, and Mitsutomo Ikeda, 32, and requested a warrant for Takanori Okubo, 48. All three men are former political secretaries for Mr. Ozawa.

According to reports in the Japanese news media, prosecutors have focused on the role of Mr. Ishikawa, who did record keeping at Mr. Ozawa’s political funding raising group. Mr. Ishikawa is suspected of failing to record some or all of the 400 million yen, or some $4 million, in question, much of which was used to buy land in a possible effort to hide the money, the reports said.

Reports said Mr. Ishikawa has already told prosecutors that the cash was handed to him by Mr. Ozawa himself.

View Article in The New York Times

CHINA: A Chinese Imperial Feast A Year In The Eating

January 9, 2010

by Anthony Kuhn

Ninety-nine years after the fall of its last dynasty, China is experiencing a resurgent interest in things imperial. If you care to taste this fascination, there are restaurants in China that purport to recreate imperial feasts, in which scores of exotic courses were served over several days.

You may find the price astronomic, the authenticity questionable, and the animals on the menu too cute to eat, but the feast remains a legendary part of China's culinary culture.

In a traditional courtyard not far from Beijing's Forbidden City, two waitresses in elaborate Manchu costumes bring a first course for me to sample into a private room at the Cui Yuan restaurant.

A waitress announces a soup said to be a favorite of the 18th century Manchu emperor Yongzheng. The little brown cubes in the soup, she points out, are deer's blood.

Sun Xiaochun is the restaurant's head chef and vice chairman of the Chinese Culinary Association. His specialty is the Manhan Quanxi, or Manchu and Han imperial feast. The Han are China's ethnic majority.

Sun himself is an ethnic Manchu. His teacher's teacher, he explains, was a court chef at the summer palace in Chengde, a mountain resort town northeast of Beijing.

Xiao Kaijing for NPR

Deer's lip, garnished with vegetables.

"The Manchu emperors would spend the summers hunting and drilling troops at this summer retreat," Sun says. "This place produced a unique source of ingredients, cooking methods and dishes."

Sun's menu is heavily populated with wild game.

The $54,000 Feast

Next up on my plate is a deer's lip, soft and smooth with a chewy outside layer. After that there's sea cucumber with the meat of a swan goose, a rare waterfowl found in Manchuria.

The swan goose tastes almost too light to be meat. I have to go ask the chef about this.

In the kitchen, chef Liu Yabin puts down a large wok and explains that the breast of the swan goose has been mashed into a puree, then formed into little white nuggets. That explains that.

Back in the dining room, Sun says that his modern-day imperial feast is free of endangered species.

Xiao Kaijing for NPR

Sea cucumber with swan goose meat.

"There are many ingredients we can no longer use, such as tiger meat," Sun says. "The imperial feast used to include a tiger's tail. Some rare species can now be raised on farms such as hazel grouses, swan geese, deer and mandarin ducks."

His point is well taken, as I am next served chunks of peacock drumsticks, stir-fried with hot peppers and peanuts.

You can forget about getting a quick takeout from Sun's restaurant. His imperial feast contains 268 dishes, not including appetizers and deserts. His clients take up to a year to sample all 268, for which Sun charges them just over $54,000.

Sun dismisses popular lore about the imperial feast, which holds that the events lasted for three days and comprised the auspicious total of 108 dishes. He says weeklong banquets were the norm, usually for the emperor's birthday and similar events.

Imperial Hubris

For a dispassionate eye — and palate — on all this, I turned to Eileen Wen Mooney, author of the book Beijing Eats. She says Chinese imperial cuisine in general tends to be gimmicky and reliant on fancy presentation. She argues that locals order it more to impress guests than for the taste.

Xiao Kaijing for NPR

Chunks of peacock drumsticks with chili peppers and peanuts.

"That's kind of misleading; people think Chinese people love to eat this kind of thing," she says. "It's not like Chinese people really have this habit of loving exotic [foods] …You call it 'exotic' in quotes …That doesn't represent what Chinese people like to eat."

As for claims of authenticity, Mooney says this is a moot point, as nobody alive today has tasted a real imperial feast.

Chef Sun adds that while recipes for all 268 of his dishes can be found in imperial court cookbooks, imperial cuisine has evolved over centuries, and it continues to do so today.

"There may be some dishes which have lost their original taste," he admits. "It may be the same dish, with the same ingredients and the same name and the same preparation, but we have to improve it to satisfy modern people's tastes."

For all his compromises to contemporary tastes and wildlife laws, Sun seems to be doing well at preserving a tradition of what you might call imperial hubris of the culinary variety.

CHINA: Chinese Government Warns Internet Companies To Obey Controls

January 14, 2010

by Louisa Lim

One day after Google threatened to leave China, the Chinese government is warning Internet companies to obey government controls. A foreign ministry spokeswoman said China welcomed foreign companies to take part in Internet development, according to the law. Google says it wants to stop censoring its Chinese-language search engine; and if this isn't possible, it says it will leave China.

TRANSCRIPT

STEVE INSKEEP, host:

Well, China's not going to give up right away on Internet censorship. As we've been telling you this week, the giant search engine company Google says it may leave China if it has to keep censoring its service there. The Chinese answer is that Google should do as it's told and go along with government controls. NPR's Louisa Lim reports from Shanghai on a test of wills.

LOUISA LIM: Two years ago, civil rights lawyer Teng Biao found his Gmail account had been hacked into and his email addressed used to send viruses to contacts. And the electronic interference didn't stop there. He's convinced the Chinese authorities are involved. He describes what happened when he typed up a plan to investigate labor camps and detention centers in China.

Mr. TENG BIAO (Civil Rights Lawyer): (Through Translator) I saved this research plan in my mailbox and I didn't tell anyone about it. But when the police came to talk to me, they mentioned this plan. This shows they know clearly what's in my mailbox, even draft documents. I asked them how they knew, and they said they had all types of methods.

LIM: Such interference is the reason behind Google's threats to leave China. If it does so, it will be sacrificing any potential profits in the world's largest and fastest growing Internet market. China has an estimated 360 million Internet users. That creates a search engine market worth $1 billion last year. Google, in second place, enjoys around 36 percent market share behind market leader, the Chinese search engine Baidu. But the operating environment for Western businesses has been changing.

Mr. DUNCAN CLARK (Chairman, BDA China): There has certainly been a hardening of the climate in terms of foreign businesses in China over the last six to 12 months.

LIM: Duncan Clark, chairman of BDA telecoms consultancy in Beijing. He says multinationals are battling a Chinese attempt to enforce domestic encryption technology on their operations.

Mr. DUNCAN: There has been a sort of queasy feeling developing that protecting their own intellectual property or protecting their customer's IP has been called into question, as well as a raft of other measures, such as Chinese government agencies seeking to buy China - limiting the sales of Western companies in China. China is awash with cash. They don't necessarily need multinationals, perhaps, as much as they used to.

LIM: But some local Internet users certainly still feel they need Google. For a second day, they presented flowers at Google's office here in Shanghai.

Unidentified Man: (Foreign language spoken)

LIM: So this is a very high-tech type of action. There's a couple of people here who've all got mobile phones, and they're tweeting, they're taking pictures of everything. And now security has arrived, and they're escorting us out of the building.

Some like Sun Lee(ph) are unhappy about the prospect of Google's departure.

Mr. SUN LEE: (Through Translator) If they really cared about information freedom, they'd stay in China and resist the Chinese government. The biggest beneficiary of Google's move is the Chinese government. And the biggest victims will be us netizens.

LIM: It's difficult to gage how widely that sentiment is shared. One local paper, The Global Times, ran on online poll asking if Google should be allowed to run an unfiltered search engine. At first, only 30 percent of respondents said yes. Then the number of those calling for an uncensored search engine suddenly soared dramatically. The paper stopped the poll and blamed the result on interference.

Louisa Lim, NPR News, Shanghai.

Google Executive Weighs In On China, Censorship

January 14, 2010

Melissa Block talks to David Drummond, senior vice president for corporate development, and chief legal officer for Google, about Google's announcement that it would stop censoring its search results in China. Google has said that they recognize the move may lead to shutting down operations in China.

TRANSCRIPT

ROBERT SIEGEL, host:

From NPR News, this is ALL THINGS CONSIDERED. I'm Robert Siegel.

MELISSA BLOCK, host:

And I'm Melissa Block.

In Beijing, Internet users have been leaving bouquets of flowers and notes of support outside the offices of Google. This week, Google threatened to pull out of China and shut down its search engine there after it discovered what it called a highly sophisticated and targeted attack on its network. Specifically, hackers targeted the email accounts of human rights activists. Many other large companies were targeted as well. We are joined by Google's chief legal officer, David Drummond, to talk about what happens next. Mr. Drummond, welcome to the program.

Mr. DAVID DRUMMOND (Chief Legal Officer, Google): Well, thanks, Melissa, for having me.

BLOCK: And Google has said it would stop censoring search results in China. Have you actually lifted the filters that you've had on your search engine?

Mr. DRUMMOND: No, we haven't done that yet. What we've said is that going forward, we're going to end that practice. We have asked the government to start some discussions with us about how we can operate an unfiltered search engine in China and failing that, we will have to shut it down, but - or do something else. But as of right now, it's sort of operating as we were until we talk to the government.

BLOCK: Well, it seemed like you got rebuffed from the Chinese government today. They said foreign Internet companies have to follow the law. They didn't seem to be offering any concessions on your demands. So, how does Google respond to that?

Mr. DRUMMOND: Well, we hope that there will be some more conversations. We understand that was an initial response and, you know, at the end of the day, if it's their view that an uncensored search engine - you know, that we can't do that in China, then we will have to do something different, could be shutting the site down.

BLOCK: Just to be clear here, is Google holding the Chinese government directly responsible for the hacking, for these cyber attacks?

Mr. DRUMMOND: No. We don't have definitive evidence, one way or the other, the government was involved. We know that it was a highly sophisticated attack. It was an organized attack and it was politically motivated in the sense that there seemed to be clear targeting of human rights activists who were interested in China.

BLOCK: Let's talk about the whole censorship issue here because when Google started up in China four years ago, you agreed to censor certain sensitive topics, such as Tiananmen Square, the massacre there, or the Dalai Lama. Looking back, would you say that Google scarified principles and essential values of free speech in favor of a business deal, making money in China?

Mr. DRUMMOND: No, I don't think that's accurate. You know, it's never been a big market for us, you know. Even now, it's an immaterial portion of our revenues. I think we wanted to serve the Chinese market and feel that we had a responsibility to do that and there are sort of two different moral arguments you can make, you know. One of them is to say, look, there is censorship and we're not going to have anything to do with it, which was our position for a longtime with China.

And the other one is to say, well, maybe it's better in a place like China, given its scope in the world, its impact in the world, to go there and try to be a force for opening it up and though temporarily you might have to - you might have to do something that you normally don't want to do, perhaps you could be on the side of more openness, by being there and that's the position we took.

BLOCK: But do you think that, that with those initial agreements where you would censor your search engine, did Google send a message to the Chinese government that said basically, look, stepping on free speech and Internet freedom is fine, maybe you contributed to the restrictive environment that you're talking about now?

Mr. DRUMMOND: No, I don't think that's really true. Yeah, I think we've been a bit of thorn in the government side since we've been there. You know, we've always censored quite a bit less than any of the local competitors. We didn't locate any of our Gmail servers there, for instance. So, it would be impossible for the government to come to us and get information. We operated in a different way and we pushed back at every opportunity.

BLOCK: We were looking - we were sort of fishing around on the Google.cn site today, searching for terms, such as Tiananmen Square massacre, and stories were coming up. One site that did come up was the official site of the Dalai Lama, for example, which was surprising to me that I could have access to that.

Mr. DRUMMOND: Well, it's certainly possible. You know, the Internet is an unruly thing.

(Soundbite of laughter)

Mr. DRUMMOND: And which is one of our points when we - whenever we talk to censors or those who have an interest in censoring content. In other words, it's a difficult thing to do really well, which is good.

BLOCK: Do you have people on Google's staff who are actively filtering information in China?

Mr. DRUMMOND: Well, we - in order to operate the site as we have, there has been, you know, variety of mechanisms to comply with the law there. So, we do have people who work on that.

BLOCK: And you're saying that even with this recent standoff with the Chinese government, everything is working exactly the same, those same people who are filtering sites before are still filtering sites now?

Mr. DRUMMOND: As I said, this is not going to be the - in other words, we will stop doing that. We're going to end the censoring very soon.

BLOCK: Very soon. Can you give some sense of the timetable for that?

Mr. DRUMMOND: Can't give you an exact timetable. But it will be - I expect that this will resolve itself relatively quickly.

BLOCK: David Drummond is the chief legal officer for Google. Mr. Drummond, thank you very much.

Mr. DRUMMOND: Thanks very much for having me, Melissa.

Copyright ©2009 National Public Radio®

CHINA: Police In Beijing Block 'Mr. Gay China' Pageant

January 15, 2010

by The Associated Press

Police shut down what would have been China's first gay pageant on Friday an hour before it was set to begin, highlighting the enduring sensitivity surrounding homosexuality and the struggle by gays to find mainstream acceptance.

Organizers said they were not surprised when eight police officers turned up at the upscale club in central Beijing where the pageant, featuring a fashion show and a host in drag, was set to take place.

"They said the content, meaning homosexuality, there's nothing wrong with that, but you did not do things according to procedures," Ben Zhang said. Police told him he needed official approval for events that included performances, in this case a stage show.

"I kind of saw that coming," Zhang said.

Chinese police frequently cite procedural reasons for closing down gatherings that are deemed to be politically sensitive. Though the pageant did not have any overt political agenda, similar events in the past — such as a parade during the Shanghai Pride Festival last year — have been blocked by authorities.

"It totally has to do with moral standards and culture," said contestant Emilio Liu, 26. "If most people can't accept it, then the government won't let it happen."

Zhang had said he hoped the pageant would raise awareness of homosexuals in a country where gays are frequently discriminated against and ostracized. Eight men were competing for the title and a spot in the Worldwide Mr. Gay pageant, to be held next month in Oslo, Norway.

The Mr. Gay China pageant had attracted a great deal of press attention and even the normally staid state-run media reported on the event this week. Tickets, which cost 100 and 150 yuan ($14.60 to $22), sold out three days ago.

"I feel really sad. This was going to be a very good event to show a positive image of gay people," said Wei Xiaogang, a pageant judge and host of Queer Comrades, a popular Internet talk show on gay issues.

Guests began trickling in after Zhang's announcement to the 50-plus journalists at the club. Some guests hugged each other after learning the show would not be taking place after all, while suit-clad club staff members began stacking up the chairs. Still, the mood was not entirely somber.

"I'm a bit disappointed but I can also relax now. I don't have to be on a diet anymore," Liu joked.

Contestant Simon Wang, who had planned to perform a self-choreographed dance to Lady Gaga's "LoveGame," struck cheeky poses for the cameras, while wearing green trousers and black straps across his bare chest, topped with furry maroon shoulder pads.

Someone had scribbled on the black backdrop behind him: "The revolution has not succeeded, comrades need to work harder." Comrade is the slang term for gays in China.

Organizers still planned to send a China representative to Oslo and will probably ask the pageant judges to choose someone from the contestants, organizer Ryan Dutcher said.

Gay rights in China have come a long way since the years just after the 1949 communist revolution when homosexuality was considered a disease from the decadent West and feudal societies, and gay people were persecuted. Sodomy was decriminalized in 1997, and homosexuality was finally removed from the official list of mental disorders in 2001.

But tellingly, most of the contestants interviewed asked The Associated Press to use their English names instead of Chinese names, to better protect their identities at home. While treatment of gays has improved in recent years, many are still reticent to draw attention to their homosexuality, particularly in the workplace.

Chinese authorities had appeared to be more open toward addressing gay issues in recent months. The country's first gay pride festival was held in Shanghai, the nation's commercial capital, last June. That month also featured the five-day Beijing Queer Film Festival — an event that police blocked in 2001 and 2005.

China is officially atheistic, and without religious reasons for opposing homosexuality, attitudes are slowly shifting among city dwellers from one of intolerance to indifference. Gays living in big cities, like nearly all the men participating in the pageant, said their biggest challenge was dealing with parents and deeply ingrained expectations for them to get married and have children.

But Liu said he thought it would be 10 years before anyone can successfully organize a gay pageant in China.

"Cultural change needs time, society isn't going to change tomorrow," he said.

Link to Original Article on NPR