The original 21st CBH story stated that China Mobile, currently listed in Hong Kong and New York, has already chosen underwriters and is likely to launch an initial public offering in the Yuan-denominated A-share market in Shanghai.

Xinhua, the Chinese Government’s news agency, republished the story with a little twist, reporting that “The booming Chinese mainland stock market will lure the country's largest mobile operator back from overseas bourses in the first half of next year…” .

On Tuesday, China Mobile spokesperson Rainie Lei denied and confirmed the rumors: “ I have not heard of any report regarding the A-shares listing application, but our management has previously said the company will go back to the China [stock] market for the listing.”

The Standard today reports most analysts are skeptical about the rumors’ validity, claiming the company does not need any cash and that operating through a Chinese company will increase costs. Analysts also add that such a move would require rarely seen flexibility from local regulators.

At face value, the move does not seem necessary or beneficial. Might there be another reason behind China Mobile’s flirting with this idea?

How’s this for a theory:

The Chinese government is currently “encouraging” more than a 130 state-owned companies who are listed abroad to come home. Shao Ning, vice director of the State-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission of the State Council, told Xinhua that “By returning to the mainland stock market, State-owned companies would make the domestic capital market more valuable to investors and set examples of standard operation and corporate governance improvements for other home-listed firms”.

China Mobile is the world’ largest mobile carrier by subscriber. It has a market cap in excess of US$170 billion. It is bigger than Google. Bringing China mobile home could fuel a slow but steady wave of Chinese companies that will choose to go public in China, in RMB. At a second stage, we can expect China to encourage companies from neighboring countries to raise capital in this side of the Pacific. This has strategic importance for Beijing, especially bearing in mind that Asia is the world’s most populated continent and is the centre of the World Economy’s growth for the past and next ten years.

OK, so we know what’s in it for Beijing, but what’s in it for China Mobile?

“There have been many companies who lost their greatness post their founders. There have been many companies who went on to greater greatness after their founders.... When did China get great? China didn't get great under Mao Zedong. China got great under -- in the recent years -- probably got great under Deng Xiaoping.”

Now, if Gates is Mao and Ballmer is Deng, does that make Larry Page Chen Shuibian?

Thanks to ValleyWag, Gawker Media's Silicon Valley Gossip Rag, for spotting this one.

The current round of violence in the north [ of Israel, D.P.]brings with it a tidal wave of opinions and analysis from our country's various commentators. Everyone is talking about Hezbollah, Lebanon, and Hamas. Some mention Syria. The brave ones point a flabby finger towards Iran. They talk about pressure from Europe, intervention from NATO, and the creation of a Saudi-Jordanian-Egyptian front. Didn't we forget someone?

As in other fields, the Israeli media reflects the dwellers of Zion's yearning towards the west - that group of civilized nations we see ourselves as a part of. Reality, on the other hand, is quick to remind us that we are rooted in the depths of the east. To the defense of the Israeli media we should note that most western journalists, as well as leaders, all seem reluctant to mix the matters of the Far East with those of the middle one.

So where is, after all, the connection? Without drowning in conspiracy theories, let us look at a few events from the last six months. Connect the dots.

January 18th, 2006 – Iran's Northern Drilling Company (NDC) signs an oil surveying agreement in the Caspian Sea with China Oilfields Services Ltd. The agreement, estimated at US33 billion, will enable Iran to expand its surveying efforts in the southern part of the Caspian Sea. Until then, Iran had no ability to survey potential oil fields deeper than 90 meters below sea level. A bit more than a year earlier, at the end of 2004, China and Iran sign a gas and oil estimated at US70 billion. As part of the agreement, Iran will supply China 250 million tonnes of liquid gas and 150,000 crude oil barrels a day for 30 years.

April 3rd, 2006 – China signs an agreement to purchase uranium from, and cooperation in nuclear development with Australia. The agreement is one of the cornerstones of the developing free trade agreement between the two countries. In the agreement, China vouches to use the supplied Uranium for peace purposes, in accord with the nonproliferation treaty for nuclear technology.

BEIJING–Peace may have broken out between eBay and Yahoo in the United States, but one of the bloodiest battles on the web—the contest over China’s online auction space—rages on between their Chinese allies.

Yahoo and eBay announced last week they’ll cooperate on their U.S. search, advertising, and online payment efforts (see Yahoo, eBay Ally on Ads). But that teamwork won’t extend to their affiliates in China, according to officials at the Asian operations.

Yahoo’s interests are tied with Alibaba.com, China’s leading online business-to-business platform, which owns auction site Taobao.com. Last August, Yahoo paid $1 billion in cash for a 40 percent stake in Alibaba as part of a $4-billion deal that gave Alibaba control over Yahoo’s operations in China (see Yahoo’s $4B Alibaba Move).

“The companies plan to expand an existing advertising and search relationship so that Yahoo becomes the exclusive third-party provider of all graphic ads throughout eBay. Yahoo will also have an exclusive deal on some of the sponsored search results on eBay, though the extent of those was unclear. Yahoo is also going to provide more current links to items for sale on eBay for users who do their searches from Yahoo’s site. As web-based advertising continues to prove its ability to bring in revenue, even web sites like eBay that have been strong e-commerce players are looking for ways to increase their profits from online ads and search.”

From a global perspective, the possible benefits of such an alliance are clear. In China, on the other hand, it gives birth to a perplexing situation: eBay’s largest competitor in soon-to-be the world’s largest online market is TaoBao.com. TaoBao.com is owned by Alibaba.com. As it happens, Yahoo! owns 40% of Alibaba, and Alibaba is responsible for all of Yahoo!’s activities in China.

This means that Yahoo! China is both eBay's biggest competitor and its strategic partner.

The war between TaoBao.com and eBay.com is probably the bloodiest one in the short history of China’s internet. Both companies are pouring money on advertising like there’s no tomorrow. eBay throws in the cash money it made in other countries, and TaoBao.com is spending the US 1 Billion its parent company received from Yahoo!. eBay is lagging behind TaoBao and earlier this year was forced to change its business model and stopped charging sellers a transaction fee.

On the other front, the situation of Yahoo!’s Chinese search engine is even worse, as it holds a market share of less then 10% and lags far behind Baidu and Google.

So, is Yahoo! international in a position to force Alibaba’s Jack Ma to cooperate with eBay? I think not. Alibaba and TaoBao are leaders in their market, while Yahoo! China’s search engine is (still) no more than a small fish that happens to carry a familiar name.

Things get even worse when looking at the two companies’ local brand names. IKEA’s Chinese name is YiJia (宜家), meaning something along the lines of “a proper home”. AIKA’s Chinese name is AiJia (爱家), meaning a “loving home” or “love home”. It sounds almost the same as IKEA’s YiJia, but adds the “love” element.

A few weeks ago, IKEA opened a new store in Beijing. The campaign to promote the new store features a new catchphrase - AiDeXinTiYan (爱的新体验). The official English version is “more to love” but the literal translation is closer to “a new experience of love”. Some may see this as IKEA’s jab at AIKA, trying to appropriate the local competitor’s signature emotion.

But it seems that IKEA is not the only one chipping away at AIKA’s brand name. AIKA is also the name of a famous Japanese anime star. Absolute Anime, a site containing detailed information about anime characters, describes AIKA as:

"a secret agent with the skills, the wits, and the little surprises to take on the impossible... Agent Aika is an action adventure full of pretty ladies, guns, action, drama, and a definite emphasis on the ladies: tons of panty shots and more than a little skin."

The latest episode in the Google China saga features the unveiling of the company’s local name, GuGe, (pronounced Goo as in “goo” and Ge(r) as in “girl” without the “rl”). As multinational giants forage into new markets, they are required to add a local dimension to their identity and make it easier for consumers to pronounce and remember their brand names. Most Asian languages cater for foreign names: Thai, Korean, Indian, and Vietnamese all have phonetic alphabets, and the Japanese have Katakana, a syllabary (yes, this is an English word) script commissioned exclusively to accommodate foreign words and expressions.

US lawmakers are increasingly concerned with the way in which companies from the Land of the Free cooperate with governments that don’t share the American way. To be specific, Cisco’s part in setting up the Great Firewall of China and moves by Internet companies Google, Yahoo!, and MSN to censor content from search engines and blogs in China are under scrutiny.

eBay paid billions of dollars to gain access to Skype’s technology and user base ( more than 250 million downloads to date). However, this is only the beginning. eBay makes money from facilitating trade. eBay users pay commission for sales they make through the site, sales leads, and for promoting their services on the web site. In the (near) future, a buyer could call a seller directly from eBay’s web site, using Skype’s technology. Imagine the increase in transactions this may bring.

These days, Google’s international services are normally accessible in China. The definition of normality, however, lies in the hands of the great leaders of the Middle Kingdom. And so, in times of national emergency, services such as Google news, GMail, and other web sites are suddenly inaccessible. In practice, routine events like protests in rural areas, toxic spills, floods, and the spread of Aviary Flu trigger blocks that disrupt access to information and personal communication.

Another thing that most people seem to forget, is that even when they are accessible from China, international search engines don’t always display the same search results to users in mainland China as they would to users in other countries. Search engines take into account each user’s geographical location in order to display the most relevant (and appropriate) search results. For example, a person in California that uses Google to search for “plumber” will see search results and text ads that are relevant to his area. In China, however, this and similar technologies are often used to deny local users access to information, even when using an international web site such as Google.com and Yahoo!. In the past, there have been reports from Chinese users that were not able to get any results for search terms such as “Jiang Zemin”, and even cases when a user’s internet connection would get disconnected for a few minutes or more. Any person living in China knows the feeling.

It is possible that the recent agreement between Google and Chinese authorities, and the consequent launch of Google.cn - hosted in China and catering specifically for the Chinese masses - will put an end to disruptions in access to Google’s international services. It is not less likely, however, that these disruptions will turn into a full block on all Google services not currently hosted within China. Only time will tell. In the mean time, denial of access to international web sites is not uncommon in China, as exemplified by the ongoing block of the BBC’s online news service and the free encyclopedia, Wikipedia.

“The bourgeoisie, by the rapid improvement of all instruments of production, by the immensely facilitated means of communication, draws all, even the most barbarian, nations into civilization. The cheap prices of its commodities are the heavy artillery with which it batters down all Chinese walls, with which it forces the barbarians’ intensely obstinate hatred of foreigners to capitulate. It compels all nations, on pain of extinction, to adopt the bourgeois mode of production; it compels them to introduce what it calls civilization into their midst, i.e., to become bourgeois themselves. In one word, it creates a world after its own image.”

Manifesto of the Communist Party, Karl Marx & Frederich Engels, 1848, p.6.
Image from Wikipedia.