Chinese dissident artist Ai Weiwei talks on his mobile phone as he walks near the entrance to his studio in Beijing June 20, 2012.

BEIJING | Mon Mar 11, 2013 6:47am EDT

BEIJING (Reuters) - Dissident Chinese artist Ai Weiwei announced plans on Monday to release a heavy-metal album that he said would "express his opinion" just as he does with his art.

The burly and bearded Ai said 81 days in secretive detention in 2011, which sparked an international outcry, triggered his foray into music.

"When I was arrested, they (his guards) would often ask me to sing songs, but because I wasn't familiar with music, I was embarrassed," Ai, 55, said in a telephone interview. "It helped me pass the time very easily.

"All I could sing was Chinese People's Liberation Army songs," Ai said. "After that I thought: when I'm out, I'd like to do something related to music."

A court in September upheld a $2.4 million fine against Ai for tax evasion, paving the way for jail if he does not pay. Ai maintains the charges were trumped up in retaliation for his criticism of the government.

The world-renowned artist has repeatedly criticized the government for flouting the rule of law and the rights of citizens.

Ai's debut album - "Divina Commedia", after the poem by Italian poet Dante - is a reference to the "Ai God" nickname in Chinese that his supporters call him by. "God" in Chinese is "Shen", while "Divina Commedia" in Chinese is "Shen qu".

Two songs are about blind legal activist Chen Guangcheng, whose escape from house arrest last April and subsequent refuge in the U.S. Embassy embarrassed China and led to a diplomatic tussle.

One song on the album is called "Hotel Americana", a dig at the U.S. Embassy for sheltering Chen. Another is "Climbing over the Wall" - a reference to Chen's scaling of the walls in his village to escape, and Chinese Internet users circumventing the "Great Firewall of China", a colloquial term for China's blocking of websites.

Ai said he was not worried about government persecution for his album, which will be out in about three weeks. But he is gloomy about the prospects of it being sold in China, saying he will distribute the album online "because music is also subject to review" in China.

Ai said his time in the recording studio did not mean that he was moving away from art.

"I think it's all the same," he said. "My art is about expressing opinion and communication."

Ai said he was working on a second album, with pop and rock influences, that he hoped people would sing along with.

"You know, I'm a person that's furthest away from music, I never sing," Ai said. "But you'll be surprised. You'll like it."

(Reporting by Sui-Lee Wee; Editing by Nick Macfie)

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BEIJING | Thu Jan 10, 2013 7:24am EST

BEIJING (Reuters) - China's carbon intensity, or its emissions relative to economic output, fell more than 3.5 percent in 2012, outperforming its average annual target, China's chief climate change official said on Thursday.

China aims to cut carbon intensity by 17 percent during the 2011-2015 period, which means an annual average target of around 3.5 percent. Intensity is the amount of carbon dioxide emitted per unit of gross domestic product.

"The situation last year was relatively good. Based on a preliminary estimate, China could achieve a more than 3.5 percent fall in carbon intensity," said Su Wei, director general of climate change department of National Development and Reform Commission.

Cutting carbon intensity allows China to meet international demands for it to curb emissions and also keep its priority that development must come first while many Chinese still live in poverty.

The government is currently drawing up a national plan on climate change till 2020, which is expected to be finalized soon, Su said.

China recently published a new industrial carbon emissions plan. Steel, nonferrous metals and petrochemical sectors are required to cut CO2 intensity by 18 percent by 2015 compared with the 2010 level.

By 2020, China aims to cut its carbon intensity by 40 to 45 percent versus the 2005 level, a target that is stimulating a sharp increase in investment demand in energy efficiency and renewable energy.

Its efforts to control emissions are also paving the way for creation of a carbon market, which requires accurate measurements of the carbon emitted.

China's biggest listed steelmaker, Baoshan Iron and Steel, is among the industrial companies that must participate in a pilot carbon trading scheme in Shanghai, the local government said last month.

China will need 1.24 trillion yuan ($199.2 billion) in energy conservation investments in 2011-2015, an increase of 50 percent from the level in 2006-2010, according to a research report released by Tsinghua University on Thursday.

The investment in China's renewable energy sector in 2011-2015 will increase 37.5 percent to 1.8 trillion yuan, the report showed. ($1 = 6.2262 Chinese yuan)

(Reporting by Wan Xu and David Standway; editing by Jane Baird)

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Chinese writer Mo Yan (L) talks to the media during a news conference in his hometown Gaomi, Shandong province October 11, 2012. Mo won the 2012 Nobel prize for literature on Thursday for works which the awarding committee said had qualities of ''hallucinatory realism''.

STOCKHOLM | Thu Oct 11, 2012 5:41pm EDT

STOCKHOLM (Reuters) - Chinese writer Mo Yan won the 2012 Nobel prize for literature on Thursday for works which combine "hallucinatory realism" with folk tales, history and contemporary life in China.

Mo, who was once so destitute he ate tree bark and weeds to survive, is the first Chinese national to win the $1.2 million literature prize, awarded by the Swedish Academy.

He said the award made him "overjoyed and terrified".

Some of his books have been banned as "provocative and vulgar" by Chinese authorities but he has also been criticized as being too close to the Communist Party.

While users of a popular Chinese microblogging site offered their congratulations, dissident artist Ai Weiwei said he disagreed with giving the award to a writer with the "taint of government" about him.

Mo, 57, who grew up in the town of Gaomi in Shandong province in the northeast of the country and whose parents were farmers, sets his works mainly in the land of his birth.

Mo Yan is a pen name which means "Don't Speak". His real name is Guan Moye and he was forced to drop out of primary school and herd cattle during China's Cultural Revolution.

Speaking to the state-run China News Service, Mo said he was happy to have won.

"But I do not think that my winning can be seen as representing anything. I think that China has many outstanding authors, and their great works should also be recognized by the world.

"Next, I'm going to put most of my efforts into creating my new works. I will keep working hard, and I thank everyone. As to whether I go to Sweden to receive the prize, I will wait for word from the organizers about arrangements."

"AT HOME WITH HIS DAD"

Peter Englund, head of the Swedish Academy, said Mo was "at home with his dad" when he was told of the award.

"He said he was overjoyed and terrified," Englund told Swedish television. "He has such a damn unique way of writing. If you read half a page of Mo Yan you immediately recognize it as him."

The award citation said Mo used a mixture of fantasy and reality, historical and social perspectives to create a world which was reminiscent of the writings of William Faulkner and Gabriel Garcia Marquez.

At the same time, he found a "departure point in old Chinese literature and in oral tradition", the Academy said.

Englund said Mo offers "a unique insight into a unique world in a quite unique manner."

His style is "a fountain of words and stories and stories within stories, then stories within the stories within the stories and so on. He's mesmerising," Englund told Reuters television.

Mo is best known in the West for "Red Sorghum", which portrayed the hardships endured by farmers in the early years of communist rule and was made in a film directed by Zhang Yimou. His books also include "Big Breasts and Wide Hips" and "The Republic of Wine".

"My works are Chinese literature, which is part of world literature. They show the life of Chinese people as well as the country's unique culture and folk customs," Mo told reporters in his hometown, Xinhua news agency reported.

The last Chinese-born winner was Gao Xingjian in 2000, although he was living in France by that time and had taken French citizenship. His Nobel was not celebrated by the Chinese government.

CHINA HAS "WAITED TOO LONG"

Communist Party mouthpiece the People's Daily praised the win in a commentary on its website (www.people.com.cn).

"This is the first Chinese writer who has won the Nobel Prize for Literature. Chinese writers have waited too long, the Chinese people have waited too long," it wrote.

Mo, a vice chairman of the government-backed Chinese Writers' Association, said he had nothing to say about Liu Xiaobo, the jailed dissident who won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2010 and whose name has been banned from public discussion in China.

"His winning won't be of any help for Liu Xiaobo, unless Mo Yan expresses his concern for him," said Ai Weiwei.

"But Mo Yan has stated in the past that he has nothing to say about Liu Xiaobo. I think the Nobel organizers have removed themselves from reality by awarding this prize. I really don't understand it."

Beijing-based writer Mo Zhixu said Mo Yan, who once copied out by hand a speech by Chairman Mao Zedong for a commemorative book, "doesn't have any independent personality."

Yu Shicun, a Beijing-based essayist and literary critic, said Mo Yan was a puzzling choice for the prize.

"I don't think this makes sense," said Yu in a telephone interview. "His works are from the 1980s, when he was influenced by Latin American literature. I don't think he's created his own things. We don't see him as an innovator in Chinese literature."

On the streets of Beijing, there was pride in Mo's achievement.

"I think this is an unprecedented breakthrough, because before this they spoke of Chinese nationals getting the Nobel prize, but it was only the peace prize, never the others such as the literature, the physics and chemistry prizes," said Xu Jiebiao, 28-year-old IT consultant.

"So a Chinese getting the Nobel prize for literature will increase the national pride."

The literature prize is the fourth of this year's crop of prizes, which were established in the will of Swedish dynamite inventor Alfred Nobel and awarded for the first time in 1901.

The writer, who was in the People's Liberation Army before progressing to academia, was one of the favorites to win the award this year, according to British bookmaker Ladbrokes, along with Japanese author Haruki Murakami.

(Additional reporting by Johan Ahlander, Simon Johnson, Anna Ringstrom, Niklas Pollard, Sui-Lee Wee, Ben Blanchard and Lucy Hornby; Writing by Giles Elgood; Editing by Peter Millership)

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1 of 2. A customer walks past a glass case displaying Maotai liquors with different price tags at a supermarket in Shenyang, Liaoning province August 8, 2012.

HONG KONG/SHANGHAI | Thu Aug 9, 2012 10:59pm EDT

HONG KONG/SHANGHAI (Reuters) - The makers of China's fiery liquor baijiu, a pricey, potent drink that is a staple at state dinners, say it inspires poets and can even ward off dementia.

For investors in the largest baijiu makers Kweichow Moutai Co Ltd and Wuliangye Yibin Co Ltd, the appeal is more mundane: the companies paid out huge dividends and raised earnings forecasts when a slowing economy had prompted dozens of Chinese firms to issue profit warnings.

Demand for high-grade liquor at state banquets and premium pricing helped Moutai post an operating profit margin last year that was more than double that of tech giant Apple Inc, the world's most valuable company, Thomson Reuters data shows.

Moutai is even a partner of the Chinese Olympic Committee, pushing out a commemorative brew for the London 2012 games.

But the stellar first-half results that these companies are expected to report this month may mark the high point if Beijing cracks down on lavish baijiu-drenched banquets.

Moutai posted a 43 percent increase in first half net profit late on Thursday, yet its shares fell almost 4 percent on Friday as the growth fell short of what some analysts had predicted. Wuliangye is expected to announce its interim results after markets close on August 19.

Premier Wen Jiabao pledged in March to ban the use of public funds for luxury items including baijiu, which retails for about $300 per standard bottle and well into the thousands for rare, aged varieties.

"It really depends on how strongly the government would like to execute this policy," said Melinda Zhang, a manager in the consumer and retail practice at the consultancy Booz & Co, who has studied the baijiu sector.

"In the long term, we see the China baijiu market keeping stable growth," she added. "The demand is there. Consumption behavior of businesses and the government will not have significant change."

DRYING UP

At the five-star Okura Garden Hotel in Shanghai, a top banquet venue, the beverage manager, surnamed Liao, said baijiu sales had dropped more than 20 percent since March.

In Tianjin, a bustling port city near the capital Beijing, Moutai sales were down by as much as 50 percent over the past half year, the official China Daily reported in late July.

Some localities have introduced their own rules, like prohibitions on drinking at lunch, to improve the image of government officials. In Jiangsu province's Siyang county, public expenditures on receptions had been cut by two-thirds, the Shanghai-based Oriental Morning Post reported.

The clamp-down on government profligacy, a hot-button issue in China where ordinary people sometimes associate officialdom with boozy banquets and corruption, comes ahead of the sensitive once-in-a-decade political transition later this year.

Yet fund managers and sell-side analysts have remained almost uniform in their bullishness on Moutai and Wuliangye, in part premised on the companies' ambitious earnings guidance. Wuliangye is predicting a 51 percent jump in first-half profit.

Of the 22 analysts tracking Wuliangye, 21 rate it a 'strong buy' or 'buy,' according to Thomson Reuters StarMine. For Moutai, 17 of 18 have a 'buy' or 'strong buy' rating.

While onshore Chinese stock markets fell 33 percent over 2010 and 2011, Moutai was a standout outperformer, surging 25 percent. Wuliangye rose a more modest 3.6 percent.

In 2012, Shanghai-listed Moutai is up 35 percent, while Shenzhen-listed Wuliangye is up 14.2 percent. This compares with a 2.8 percent gain in the CSI300 Index of the top Shanghai and Shenzhen listings.

"In the awful (stock) market conditions of the last two-and-a-half years, the outperformance of baijiu stocks has got to do with their earnings visibility," said Cao Xuefeng, head of research at Huaxi Securities in Chengdu. "Growth for the sector will stay high, but rates of growth will slow down."

Moutai and Wuliangye currently trade at 16.6 and 13.2 times their respective forward 12-month earnings, at the low end among shares of companies classified as "consumer staples" in China.

Wuliangye did not respond to repeated interview requests and Moutai declined to comment for this story.

BRIDGE TO THE WORLD

Baijiu, which translates to "white spirits," traces its roots back centuries and is made from a mixture of grains including rice, wheat and corn. It packs a punch similar to vodka, with an alcohol content typically above 50 percent, and is normally downed fast and neat in tiny shots.

On their websites, Moutai and Wuliangye both boast of their firms' long histories. Moutai also claims health benefits, saying moderate drinking "keeps the dementia away" and even helped a 92-year-old man re-grow his teeth.

But it is demand from the Communist Party that drives sales.

"As liquor for state banquet, Wuliangye has become an envoy and bridge between China and the outside," Wuliangye said on its website, adding that "many famous scholars, poets (and) generals in history have got addicted to the marvelous flavor."

That bridge to the outside has reached investors including BlackRock Asset Management, which is listed among the top 10 shareholders in both Wuliangye and Moutai.

But the alcohol itself has found few foreign fans. Some 98 percent of Wuliangye's 20.35 billion yuan ($3.19 billion) in revenue last year was domestic. For Moutai, 97 percent of its 18.4 billion yuan in revenue last year came from within China.

"There is almost no export market. 'Laowais' (foreigners) don't drink that thing," said Hong Hao, chief equity strategist at Bank of Communications International Securities.

Indeed, some foreigners have likened drinking baijiu to swallowing razor blades or jet fuel. That suggests China will struggle to follow the lead of Japan, which succeeded in making sake a popular global drink.

British drinks company Diageo Plc is trying. Last year, Diageo bought a majority stake in Sichuan Swellfun Co Ltd, maker of Shui Jing Fang baijiu, a deal that the company said would "enable us to bring one of the leading Chinese white spirits brands to international markets."

So far, those international markets are limited to places such as San Francisco and London, where wealthy Chinese tourists snap up baijiu because it is cheaper overseas and buyers believe they run less of a risk of picking up a counterfeit bottle.

Paul Mathew, a British bar owner and drink consultant living in Beijing, said he did some baijiu experimenting for Diageo. One example was the Shui Jing Fang Grapefruit Sour, which mixes a shot of baijiu with pink grapefruit juice, lemon juice, cinnamon syrup and an egg white.

Derek Sandhaus, an American living in Chengdu, Sichuan, who chronicled his conversion from baijiu hater to enthusiast in a blog entitled "300 Shots at Greatness," said he developed a taste for the liquor after 75 attempts. The title of his blog, however, refers to one study that estimated it takes 300 shots to start to enjoy the stuff.

"There's definitely a cultural barrier in terms of cocktails," Sandhaus said.

HOME SHOPPING NETWORK

That leaves domestic consumption as the main driver.

But as demand slows, supply is building. Credit Suisse analysts said inventory growth hit a record high of 35 percent in 2011, outpacing sales growth.

"It doesn't matter if you have superior pricing power like Moutai does right now. That will disappear when there's oversupply," BoComm International's Hong told Reuters.

With an operating margin of 67 percent last year -- triple the industry median according to Thomson Reuters data -- Moutai can afford to lose a little pricing power. Wuliangye's margin was a relatively modest 42 percent, still double the industry median.

"In terms of margins, Kweichow Moutai has the advantage because most of what they produce is higher-quality liquor," said Yi Yangfang, a fund manager at Guangzhou-based GF Fund Management, which manages $7.9 billion worth of assets that includes stakes in both Kweichow Moutai and Wuliangye.

Some long-time China watchers said the government's crackdown on lavish banquets may not last long.

Paul French, a veteran Shanghai-based market consultant with the firm Mintel, said campaigns like the one launched by Wen, who is due to retire early next year, have tended to be cyclical and easy to circumvent.

"Every time they try to do anything like this people find a way around it... If you sit around long enough you'll come up against that story again in a few years," he said.

(Editing by Emily Kaiser and Ryan Woo)

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