This is a combination of news from the last two days as well as the first days of the summer.  For those in the alternative education industry and training sector, there may be opportunities to tap into a growing customer base dissatisfied with the traditional education system (see links below).  Also recommend reading that petro article from FT at the very bottom.  Thanks to Matt L and James M for some of the links.

• Marlboro in the Middle Kingdom: Chinese Kids Know Their Smokes from The Wall Street Journal
• European Taxi Hire Service Expands To China from China Tech News
• China’s Software Industry Revenue Up 24.5% In H1 2013 from China Tech News
• TravelSky, Sugon Team For Big Data Aimed At China’s Travel Sector from China Tech News (travelsky is an SOE that has a monopoly over domestic bookings)
• A Freshman Year, Far From Home from The Chronicle of Higher Education
• China’s Higher Education Bubble from ChinaFile
• Some Chinese Students Stay Home to Get Ahead from The Wall Street Journal
• Education is Useless says penny-pinching Chinese father from The World of Chinese
• Is a college degree worthless in today’s China? from Offbeat China
• Millions at risk as China’s prosperity brings diabetes epidemic from The Independent (12% of population has diabetes)
• China ‘Catastrophe’ Hits 114 Million as Diabetes Spreads from Bloomberg
• Chinese No. 1 Li Na out of China Open from Xinhua (last couple months have been tough for her)
• Baijiu-Maker Kweichow Moutai Sobers Up from The Wall Street Journal (a complete u-turn in 1 year due in part to legal prerogatives from up top)
• Chinese Think Tank Puts Shadow Banking at 40% of GDP from The Wall Street Journal (see my friend describe alternative wealth management products)
• How Upstart Xiaomi Rattled China’s Smartphone Race from The Wall Street Journal
• China Food-Safety Woes Soar from The Wall Street Journal
• Huawei, CCTV Reach Big Data Cooperation For Chinese Media Storage from China Tech News
• In China, Avoiding The ‘Great Firewall’ Internet Censors from NPR
• Kingsoft Gained Net Profit Of CNY381 Million In H1 2013 from China Tech News (xiaomi founder worked at Kingsoft for over a decade before moving on, kingsoft is probably best known domestic software company)
• Why Chinese Have Shiny Nails After Visiting the Showroom from Bloomberg
• Why China’s Farms Are Failing from The Atlantic
• Rackspace Attempts To Take Back The China Internet Market from China Tech News
• Hey, big spenders from China Daily (chinese tourists abroad)
• PISA’s China Problem from The Brookings Institution (great post, PISA scores in 2009 that were reported only included Shanghai.  an apples to apples should have been OECD cities, not entire countries)
• Asian Messaging Apps Challenge Silicon Valley from The Wall Street Journal
• Twitter and its plans for China from The Next Web
• Wooing China’s Princelings by Minxin Pei
• American Execs Say China is Getting Expensive, and Profitable from The Wall Street Journal (here is the full report)
• China raises hurdles for foreign banks from Financial Times
• Sip of Death Plagues Cancerous River Villages from Caixin (i used to live and work in Bengbu, which is bisected by the Huaihu.  the college students i taught there would joke about throwing someone into the river because it was very dirty)
• The new gas guzzler from Financial Times (very interesting piece with some very detailed information and stats about the petroleum industry)
• Video: Inside China’s Social Media Platforms from The Wall Street Journal