Learn from Reuters, copy Reuters and replace Reuters

Jane McCartney's columns from Beijing for the London Times are consistently worth reading. Her round-up of the Xinhua shenanigans is as good a summary as I've seen. She suggests that the head of Xinhua, as well as implying the sentiments in the title of this post has the expressed aim "...to oust every Reuters and Bloomberg terminal from the desk of every banker, broker and trader in China and offer them a Xinhua alternative (to be created). Because, after all, the big bucks are in selling information to the markets".

If she's right, then he's right (that last sentence anyway) and the battle should provide continued entertainment for some time to come.