Walter Hutchens’ Blog

Well, I have learned a few things. 1) The PRC censors blogspot.com. No blogs there can be seen from inside mainland China, at least not without using a proxy server. 2) With assistance from the Smith School help desk, particularly Alice Zhang who went above and beyond the call of duty, I have moved my blog to the UMD server. 3) Despite the frightening look of the HTML code on the template page, I can add links without fundamentally wrecking the page. 4) Despite my best intentions, I did become obsessed and lost a night’s sleep to learn all the above. But at least in three days’ time I have progressed, as PRC commentators often say of their country’s stock markets, from naught to something, cong wu dao you, 从无到有.

In my initial excursions in blogland I came across a number of interesting things, including a very likeable site by Ernie the Attorney. That led me to something calling itself the China Law Blog, maintained by a PRC law firm in Beijing, one that includes foreign attorneys. I also discovered China Web Log, maintained by a young Canadian China aficionado. It has a useful list of links to China-related blog sites. There I found a China-focused blog by Joseph Wang, who often posts interesting monologues to CLNET, a listserve Don Clarke established for people interested in Chinese law. I have become an active (perhaps some would say annoying) subscriber to CLNET, frequently posting snippets about PRC securities law developments and my opinions concerning them. There are only a small number of people seriously interested in this topic, but through CLNET I have managed to find some of them. One fellow is in Germany, another is getting a PhD at Cornell. There are scattered others of course, though they mostly lurk on CLNET. Over the next few years, however, the number of PRC sec reg nerds may increase, as banks make hires in their research departments because of the QFII program and the new ability, gained as part of China’s WTO accession, to establish foreign-invested joint venture fund management companies and security companies in the PRC.

. . . Well, before I become too exhilarated for having launched my blog and solved (with help) a few minor technical problems, let me contemplate this: I also have discovered the blog of Lawrence Lessig, a cyberlaw guru at Stanford. While Lessig was on vacation, he had presidential candidate and Vermont governor Howard Dean make a guest appearance on his website. Now that’s a blog! (And maybe an indication the Chinese Communist Party is right to be on guard?)