Unplanned pig roast

Last July I posted a report on exploding vehicles.

Another report this week is closer to the subject matter of this blog. On the afternoon of February 21 in Shanghai, a truck carrying a load of over 100 pigs suddenly caught on fire. The fire quickly spread to the cab, but the driver escaped. The pigs, of course, could not escape and observers reported their loud squealing.

Firefighters arrived quickly and put out the fire. In cleaning up the debris it was determined that 10 of the pigs died of burns or smoke inhalation.

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Xi Jinping's Doctoral Thesis

Xi Jinping is the vice president and presumed next president of China but little is known about him. In this post the dimsums blog offers its contribution to the genre of Xi Jinping-ology by conveying Xi's decade-old views on agricultural markets. Ten years ago Xi Jinping wrote a thesis, "Tentative Study of Agricultural Marketization" (中国农村市场化研究) for a Doctor of Law degree at Tsinghua University in Beijing, a top breeding-ground for Chinese officials. The dimsums blogger has spent several hours poring over the 200-plus page tome to see what it reveals about Dr. Xi. The thesis is remarkably close to what China has been doing lately in agricultural policy, suggesting that Xi (or the person who actually wrote the thesis) has a major say in policy or is at least in agreement with what's being done. There is nothing adventurous, controversial (or insightful) in the thesis. It seems to be the work of a wonkish technocrat who is not prone to talk out of turn or wander from...

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Dim Sums: Agricultural Markets in China

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