“even the Internet is far freer than ever before.”
Classic 🙂

January 20, 2010 @ 10:30 am | Comment

You’ve got to lick where the sun don’t shine of the one who feeds you.

January 20, 2010 @ 10:35 am | Comment

Rein should be ashamed of himself. How condescending can one be about a people and a culture? In his efforts to make China look good, he repeatedly insults China and the Chinese with his moronic teenager analogy. This dimwit is found the “new school” of journalism: write anything, unsubstantiated or not, repeat it often, quote one’s self. I can understand why you are left speechless.

January 20, 2010 @ 10:35 am | Comment

Most of all I love the plug for his marketing firm in the 2nd graf, as well as the plug at the end. I sure wish I had his job.

And then there’s this gem: “Real poverty is pretty much gone.”

January 20, 2010 @ 10:41 am | Comment

He’s right about China being just like a teenage boy, but he draws the wrong conclusions:

Teenage boys need discipline; they sometimes need to be told that certain behaviors are unacceptable in adult society; they need a line to be drawn.

No one else seems willing to draw that line, so good on Google!

January 20, 2010 @ 10:45 am | Comment

How do I get a job being a China Expert? I can make shit up at least as well as this guy.

January 20, 2010 @ 12:10 pm | Comment

Despite having a wonderful 5,000-year history, China is in many ways like a teenage boy.

I hope he didn’t mean that. 5000 is a long and tedious number, try a shorter one next time.

January 20, 2010 @ 12:17 pm | Comment

“Despite having a wonderful 5,000-year history, China is in many ways like a teenage boy.”

I hope he didn’t mean that. 5000 is a long and tedious number, please try a shorter one next time.

January 20, 2010 @ 12:18 pm | Comment

Wow, that is indeed shockingly bad.

January 20, 2010 @ 12:23 pm | Comment

Brendan, you could do it a lot better. Though that’s setting the bar awfully low (like, underground).

Bob, it’s about as bad as they come.

January 20, 2010 @ 12:33 pm | Comment

Steve, be nice.

Richard

January 20, 2010 @ 12:49 pm | Comment

Holy crap indeed.

January 20, 2010 @ 1:05 pm | Comment

Words totally fail you?

How about puerile, egregious, dishonest, banal, cretinous, and — to put a British slant on it — bollocks.

January 20, 2010 @ 1:11 pm | Comment

@Brendan
For you,I send a mail to SHA office to see if there is a fortune.Awaiting.

@Richard
I see you jealousness toward this guy.If the world is fair,you should have your own talkshow in China,and he do your incumbent job.

January 20, 2010 @ 1:43 pm | Comment

Sojourner, that about sums it up.

Smatter, you hit the nail on the head. I am terribly jealous of this guy. I wish I could churn out column after column cookie-cutter style – columns in which every commenter tells me what an idiot I am.

If I’m going to be jealous of someone, it’s going to be someone like James Fallows or Philip Pan or James Kynge. This fellow doesn’t quite make it to their category.

January 20, 2010 @ 1:49 pm | Comment

Following Mr. Rein’s train of thought is that why China had a woody for Google? Who knew…

January 20, 2010 @ 1:50 pm | Comment

Wow. Words fail me too.

Wait, he got PAID for that?!

January 20, 2010 @ 2:12 pm | Comment

[…] get to see and hear all kinds of wild things. Today it was delivered to me via The Peking Duck here. It gave a link to a Forbes article here by Shaun Rein. China has its share of shortcomings. Far […]

January 20, 2010 @ 2:30 pm | Pingback

Maybe The Onion has bought Forbes and they brought Rein in …..

January 20, 2010 @ 4:13 pm | Comment

Hahahahahahahahaha…. Can anyone take this guy seriously?

January 20, 2010 @ 4:31 pm | Comment

Maybe he had to write such article to get his visa extended….

January 20, 2010 @ 4:38 pm | Comment

What a total and utter tool. He makes no reference to any information source other than other articles written by him and research produced by his company. And basically makes the rest up. China expert? I am reminded of the classic definition:

“Expert, pronounced ‘ex-spurt’, as in :-ex = a has-been, spurt = a drip under pressure”

Ladies and gentlemen, I think we’ve found the new Chris Devonshire-Ellis.

January 20, 2010 @ 7:52 pm | Comment

He really is a tool.
His likening of China to a teenager worried me… I couldn’t shake the thought that China was like two teenagers – Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold – we’d all rather hadn’t ever existed.
I feel the same about Shaun.

January 20, 2010 @ 8:10 pm | Comment

Gawd help me, but I can’t resist the urge to join the scrum, to pile on a bit more. How on earth did Rein achieve this feat of derring-do? In one short article, he manages to gravely insult – and yet shamelessly pander to – both the Chinese government and the Chinese people. Remarkable and execrable, and certainly over-paid. Seems like the really interesting angles to this story are: (1) how (and whether) the Google fracas will aid (or hinder) progressive elements within the CCP and Chinese society and (2) how bureaucratic rivalries will affect the government response. That’s the real story, the sort of analysis we so desperately need right now. Do you think Rein lacks access, or ability, or just the will to translate access into meaningful analysis?

January 20, 2010 @ 8:46 pm | Comment

It is not a teenage boy. As I previously note, China is a fat, unhealthy kid.

January 20, 2010 @ 9:04 pm | Comment

Real poverty is pretty much gone

What the hell is Real poverty? Does it involve mega-rock concerts and lot of images of children with their guts bloated and their scum encrusted eyes and lips swarming with flies?

January 20, 2010 @ 9:27 pm | Comment

lisa, I’m good at creative writing. I’m sure I could write something as out-of-touch with reality as that was if I was paid for it.

January 21, 2010 @ 7:55 am | Comment

His quote on poverty (“But life is getting better for the average Chinese. Much better. Real poverty is pretty much gone.”) rang a bell in me…
http://za.china-embassy.org/eng/zgxw/t511211.htm
“So if the proposed 1,300-yuan-a-year (186 dollars) income (equivalent to 1 dollar a day in other countries) becomes the new threshold, the number of Chinese living in poverty would almost double to 80 million.”
and
http://www.china.org.cn/english/features/poverty/178978.htm
“At the end of last year, China had 23.65 million people living below the poverty line.

But China’s poor actually totaled 120 million to 130 million, using the internationally-accepted US$1 per day guideline, said Wu.

“The 23.65 million below the Chinese poverty line are actually people struggling in abject poverty and even food, clothing and shelter are a problem for them,” he told an international symposium on poverty and international cooperation in Chengdu, capital of Sichuan Province.

“So another 100 million poor people have not been categorized as poor and therefore are not getting the help they need,” he added.”

January 21, 2010 @ 10:37 am | Comment

Looks like the 50 cent party is already making the rounds on the comments section of the article: “China will collapse surely if Google is allowed to distribute porn in China. Porn is 1000 times more addictive than Opium. The CPC must do everything in their power to stop the U.S from exporting their porn in the name of Freedom of Speech.”

January 21, 2010 @ 10:55 am | Comment

Considering that China was established only 60 years ago by the CCP, it is not too inappropriate to compare China to a teenage boy. Therefore, whatever wrong-doing committed by this young boy could be exonerated as immature pranks and innocent mistakes. It is also a good boy, who doesn’t deserve to be bullied.

This is just another article, which can be translated into Chinese by the Chinese propaganda dept and used to insult the collective intelligence of the misled and ignorant mass in China

January 21, 2010 @ 12:42 pm | Comment

[…] written about Forbes columnist and China-based marketer Shaun Rein before, notably here, here and here. All I tried to do in these posts was to throw his own words back at him to show why I disagree […]

February 22, 2011 @ 3:39 am | Pingback