Page 2 n THE ASIAN REPORTER
ASIA / PACIFIC
August 1, 2016
China sentences HK journalists to up to five years in prison
BEIJING (AP) — A southern Chinese court has handed down prison terms to
four people, including at least two Hong Kong journalists, on charges of running
an illegal business after they reportedly sent copies of their sensitive political
magazines to mainland China. A court in Shenzhen said the four individuals
received prison sentences of up to five years each. The sentencing follows the
high-profile disappearance of five Hong Kong booksellers that raised questions
about the semiautonomous territory’s status as a free press haven for material
banned on the mainland. Two of those convicted in Shenzhen included Hong
Kong magazine publisher Wang Jianmin and editor Guo Zhongxiao, who were
arrested in 2014 in the border city, according to Hong Kong media. The two men
published New Way Monthly and Faces, two journals that often delved into
high-level Communist Party power struggles. It’s unclear whether the two other
convicted people were Hong Kong residents or what role they played at the
publications. Reports cited Wang’s lawyers as saying their clients were not
running a mail-order business and had sent only eight copies of the magazines to
friends in China. Wang was also convicted of collusion and bribery charges.
Hong Kong has served for decades as a clearing house for information about
sensitive mainland topics and publishers once considered themselves beyond
Beijing’s reach.
Tiger mauls woman to death in Chinese wildlife park
BEIJING (AP) — Siberian tigers at a wildlife park in Beijing mauled a woman
to death and wounded another when they stepped out of their car in an
enclosure, a Chinese state-run newspaper said. A tiger pounced on one of the
women after she got out of a private car in which she was touring Beijing
Badaling Wildlife World, the Legal Evening News reported. The second woman
was attacked by another tiger that leapt at her after she stepped out of the
vehicle to try to help her companion, the report said. The Yanqing district
government confirmed in an official microblog post that the tiger attack took
place at the park, which is located at the foot of the Great Wall. It offered few
details, but said the injured person was being treated. Visitors are allowed to
drive their own vehicles around the park, but are forbidden from getting out
while in certain enclosures, the report said. A woman who answered the phone
at the park refused to comment on the attack, saying only that the park was
closed for two days due to forecasts of heavy rain.
Vietnam’s rubber-stamp assembly re-elects Quang
HANOI, Vietnam (AP) — Tran Dai Quang was sworn in as Vietnam’s
president for the second time in four months after being re-elected by the
country’s rubber-stamp National Assembly. Quang, who was first elected
president in early April by the outgoing assembly, won 485 votes from the 494
deputies of the Communist Party-dominated assembly, the government said on
its website. Vietnam’s top leaders include the Communist Party chief, the
president, and the prime minister, though the position of president is more
ceremonial than the other two. In his acceptance speech, which was broadcast
live on state television, Quang pledged to “speed up the reform process in a
comprehensive and synchronized manner, engage in proactive integration,
build a growing, strong, and prosperous nation, and heighten Vietnam’s position
in the international arena.” Vietnam launched the reforms in the mid-1980s,
switching from a central command economy to a market economy. This
transformed a poor country that had just emerged from long wars against the
French and then the Americans into one of the fastest-growing economies in
Asia. Quang, who was the minister of public security before becoming president,
also vowed to “firmly defend the sacred national independence, sovereignty, and
territorial integrity” and to “maintain political and social stability and create a
peaceful environment for national construction.”
HIP HELP. Reika Oozeki, a Japanese Vine artist, speaks while showing her work on a smartphone during an interview
with The Associated Press in Tokyo. Companies attempting to appeal to Japanese youngsters are getting help from teen-
age stars on Vine, the social network devoted to six-second videos. Oozeki, age 19, became a sensation overnight on Vine
when she was just 17 years old, offering snarky sketches of life. (AP Photo/Yuri Kageyama)
Japan companies seek hipness
through teens posting to Vine
By Yuri Kageyama
AP Business Writer
OKYO — What’s helping turn Japa-
nese youngsters into stars on Vine, the
Twitter-owned social network devoted
to looping, six-second video clips, is the
stodginess of the nation’s business world.
Japan Inc. companies, both big and small,
are generally so clueless about appealing to
youngsters — especially young women and
especially on social networks — they need all
the help they can get from teenage Viners for
marketing.
Reika Oozeki, age 19, became a sensation
overnight on Vine when she was just 17 years
old, offering snarky sketches of life.
“I was studying for tests and I was bored,”
says Oozeki, who started out using her
cellphone to shoot videos of herself in pajamas
or at school. “I was so surprised it caught on.”
Now she has more than 730,000 followers
and her videos have looped over viewers’
screens nearly 850 million times. Most of her
clips are closeups of her face. She might coo
pretending to be with a date, and then
suddenly switch to a growl when she is
supposedly with girlfriends.
She has appeared on television shows, was
cast in a movie, and is signed with a production
company. She is also training to become a
swimming coach for children, who adore her
because she is famous on Vine.
When companies approach her to make Vine
clips, Oozeki is often given free rein. She is
sometimes not even required to say the
company name. In the clip she made for Intel
Japan, she merely snarls Interru haitteru,
Japanese for “Intel Inside.”
Vine is unique as a social network in that
T
people post entirely video, much of it taken on
cellphones. Each clip is a six-second loop.
There are 200 million people who watch
Vine videos every month, and, although Vine
does not break down viewers by country,
Japan is one of Vine’s largest markets outside
of the United States.
Kota Furukoshi, chief executive of Tokyo-
based web marketing consulting startup
Ninoya, says Japanese companies, which still
tend to be dominated by old men, are generally
resigned to their lack of online savvy. Instead
of trying to acquire and build such skills
in-house, they tend to turn for outside help for
online marketing, he said.
Popular Vine creators in Japan represent a
break from old-style Japanese who tend to be
shy, inhibited, and inept at self-expression,
said Kota Furukoshi, chief executive of Tokyo-
based web marketing consulting startup
Ninoya.
“They’re very creative. They’re stylish.
They’re sharp,” Furukoshi said. “They know
how to build their personalities online.”
Vine translated well in Japan, unlike other
companies that had a culture clash.
LinkedIn, for instance, failed, and was even
frowned upon in the culture where job hopping
is not as common as in the U.S. and is seen as a
betrayal by employers, said Furukoshi.
Vine is at a disadvantage compared to You-
Tube or Facebook as a moneymaker because
most Vine users are too young to be big spend-
ers. But some companies — like the Japan unit
of Intel and Japanese candy maker Morinaga
& Co. — are using Vine, seeing it as a worth-
while investment for brand recognition.
There are signs the Vine craze may have
Continued on page 7
Japan investigating possible North Korean defector
TOKYO (AP) — Japanese media says a man who turned up in a western city
claims he is North Korean and took a boat across the sea to defect. The reports
say the man was found in Nagato, a city across the Sea of Japan from the Korean
Peninsula. The Asahi newspaper cited police as saying the man wants to defect.
The man said he left North Korea on a wooden boat and jumped into the sea off
Japan, according to Asahi. He reached shore holding onto a plastic container.
NHK says he told police another man on the boat returned to North Korea. The
man on shore was turned over to immigration officials to determine if he is a
defector.
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Seaplane crashes on inaugural flight in China
BEIJING (AP) — A seaplane making its inaugural flight crashed into a
highway bridge outside Shanghai, killing five people on board, state media
reported. The Cessna 208B operated by Joy Air General Air was carrying two
crew members and eight invited guests, according to the state-run news site The
Paper. The other five on board were sent to a hospital for treatment, The Paper
said. A woman who answered the phone at Joy Air’s offices declined to give any
information, saying all company executives were at the crash site. Joy Air,
China’s largest seaplane operator, did not release an official statement. The
cause of the crash is under investigation. The seaplane took off from suburban
Shanghai’s Jinshan district and was bound for the Zhoushan islands, about 47
miles to the south, The Paper reported. The route is designed for tourists and
sightseers who want to escape to the islands from the sprawling financial center.
Local media were invited to tour the seaplane before it took off as part of a
publicity campaign to promote the airline’s new coastal service.
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78.405
4094.0
6.6705
2.0721
7.7573
67.146
13137
30589
105.87
8100.5
4.079
107.45
104.83
3.1696
47.207
65.786
3.7502
1.3567
1134.3
145.9
32.056
34.99
22305
