Danwei.org- review

 "Jacking off is ok," writes Danwei.org on 5 March and the entry about a cartoon on masturbation and a good illustration of the way this weblog works, combining decent information with a rather light tone. International Women's Day is celebrated with an entry on bra's and sex-blogger Muzi mei got even a seperate category.

Read more at Danwei

internet - Weekly chat on Wednesday (BT)

Every week I will (try to) host a chatroom so this whole venture can become a bit more interactive in the long run. I have planned to do this every Wednesday at 9:30 AM Beijing time. Please click here or on the logo to get connected. It provides your access to the IRC-channel of the China Herald and is for free, although you might need to register if you have never used the system. You do not have to pay for the usage.
Please write to me if you encounter any problems.

Session will be at 8:30 PM EST/5:30 PM PST on Tuesday in the US if my timing is correct and on a rather inconvenient hour for Europe. Some people at the US West coast and Europe have told me timing is not good for them. I'm planning to change both timing and the system I use, but simply did not have time to attend to it on time.

education - Lack of qualified managers restraints growth

The lack of qualified managers in China keeps the French company Danone from growing in the way it wants, says China chairman Qin Peng today in the Wall Street Journal.
"In its cookies business, the company is expanding from its base in east China around Shanghai to focus on north China, which includes Beijing, nearby Tianjin and surrounding Hebei province," writes the WSJ. "Mr. Qin said a dearth of qualified managers was a key constraint to growth, explaining why Danone hasn't been more active in wealthy Guangdong province. "We are facing a challenge that most companies face. Quite frankly, right now we don't have people of sufficient caliber" to expand at the pace the company would like, Mr. Qin said."

internet - On human rights and democracy

Is the internet going to work beneficial on human rights and the introduction of democracy in China? This evening I had a pleasant talk with a newly arrived colleague from Spain and such an event is always good to check whether traditional viewpoints of the world on China are still firmly in place.
They are.
After witnessing from nearby the boom and bust of the US internet hero Howard Dean, the question even looks funny. Has the car brought democracy? Has the plane improved human rights? I guess there is always a way to argue about that, but in general we talk about rather useful tools, that can also be used for warfare and destruction.
The internet is not different, although it is causing a revolution in many industries. Howard Dean raised more money than ever from mostly ordinary Americans thanks to the internet. But that did not mean a majority would support his stand against the war in Iraq or even support his presidency. Internet users increasingly reflect the majority of a country.
In stead of promoting human rights and democracy, the internet in China might as well cause lynch parties, patriotic outcries and a firm anti-foreign attitude. The internet is just a tool and might reflex also the nasty side of a country.
Otherwise no complaints: the internet is going to make a massive change, we only do not know what direction it will take.

photo - Caught in the act

Illegal majong players in Chengdu


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Logistics - A the verge of a breakdown

The pressure on China's logistical systems have risen dramatically over the past six weeks, report the New York Times today.
Coal supplies are in trouble in Southern China. Shortages in generating capacity have caused blackouts, bringing factories to a standstill. Imported iron ore and steel cannot leave the ports because of the shortage of transportation.

media - The future of foreign correspondence


This weblog on China is part of something bigger, just in case you might have missed it. :-)
The classical way the world would get information through foreign correspondence is changing and weblogs are coming up as an alternative. With a group of colleagues and other stakeholders we are discussing those changes and are in the process of setting the new media agenda. Much of that discussion has been dominated by rather technical issues, while media organizations and more often individual journalists have been working on interesting projects in isolation.
Through a mailing list we have started a first exchange of ideas on the future of foreign correspondence. The mailing list is open for all people, who consider themselves to be a stakeholder and can stand our rather boring and not-to-the point discussions.
I will addressing the same issue on a meeting of the Shanghai Foreign Correspondents' Club on Tuesday 16 March at 7:30 PM in Sasha's.

Money or principles - the WTO column

(tomorrow at Chinabiz)

Europe is eager to tap into the expected flood of tourists from China that can fill seats in airplanes, hotel rooms and swamp tourist attractions, like they do in most parts of Asia. The pressure on the European governments by the airline companies and tourist industry is huge, especially after Germany started last year to accept tour groups from China, although that was not in line with the so-called Schengen agreement.
In the Schengen agreement most European countries decided to lift their internal borders, but would need a common approach for its new borders. Thanks to Germany that policy has failed in the case of the Chinese tourists.
Although Europe was eager to legalize and expand the already existing visits of Chinese tourists, disguised as business people, it decided to add conditions to the negotiations with China. What sense do negotiations have if there is nothing to ask for?
Traditionally China would not take back illegal immigrants very easy, officially because it would be unable to establish their identity. One of the US presidents asked during a state visit former leader Deng Xiaoping to allow his citizens more freedom. “How many millions do you want?” Deng wanted to know. China does not miss them.
All participants agree that the chance of overstaying Chinese tourists would be rather limited. The illegal visitors tend to use other channels. But European countries saw the negotiations also a chance to put the position of other illegal Chinese migrants at the agenda.
Officially that is still the sticking point. China and most European countries have signed a few weeks ago an MOU, a Memorandum of Understanding, and Chinese tourist can get officially to Europe as soon as this little detail about returning illegal Chinese citizens is dealt with.

That is going to be fun.

Germany has already undermined the European arguments by accepting Chinese tourists last year and there is no sign China is really going to change its attitude, or might even be able to do so.
The Dutch government is volunteering as a guinea pig. At home has been unable to really improve the domestic economy and is now looking for other issues that might improve its popularity among the electorate. Large numbers of refugees without a legal status will be expelled in the months to come, including a fair number of Chinese.
In theory it is very easy for them to return to China, as long as they are willing to prove their identity. That now might not work out, since most of them are for different reasons not very eager to return and China is not going to accept them without a proof of their identity.

It is obvious that this issue will need a large scale face-saving operation on the European side, since they are the demanding party. I predict that Europe will give up, accept Chinese tourists without almost any conditions and illegal Chinese will not be expelled but forced into illegality. Even the Dutch government, when it has to choose between money and principles, will go for the Chinese tourists. Watch my words.

It could have been done differently. Just look at the USA, where Chinese tourists are not allowed and even academics and business people have a hard time in securing a visa. The US government goes for its principles, not for the money, even though it does mean that prestigious international conference have to move to Canada or Asia.


Fons Tuinstra

internet - BBC-site unblocked

The BBC is no longer blocked on the internet in China. That means the end of one of the oldest bockades on the internet. I was just looking a a fabulous new internet tool called ican when I realized this would have been previously impossible without installing a proxy.
Mostly China increases the censorship in the internet ahead of the National People's Congress, but this is an interesting reversal.

Update: And unfortunately not true, as people tell me by email and in the comments. The general site of the BBC was already accessible from 2001; and the news-site (news.bbc.co.uk) is still blocked. Maybe after the NPC :-)

traffic - Shanghai bans outside car licenses

The already swanking car policies in Shanghai took a new turn today as the city announced an agreement with 15 surrounding cities not to issue non-Shanghainese license plates to its citizens, writes the Shanghai Daily. Last year up to 20,000 people went to neighboring cities to avoid the limitations of Shanghai license plates. In 2002 the number was about 5,000.
Not only is the annual number limited, the licenses are auctioned off, raising prices up to 40,000 Renminbi (US$ 4,800). That difference is well worth a trip to Hangzhou.
Tracking down those cars after they were fined was only one of the problems Shanghai faced.
The question is now, whether Shanghai car owners will travel further to cities not included in the agreement or even find backdoor solutions in one of the 15 cities. The familiar cat-and-mouse game between the government and its citizens is in full swing.

economy - NPC to focus on finance, rural income

Finance and economy are going to be the focus of the opening speech of prime minister Wen Jiabao, tomorrow at the session of the National People's Congress in Beijing.
The interest of the current government focuses more on the country side, writes also Bloomberg.
In the past politics traditionally focus on the booming urban areas, while the rural areas took a back seat. Both the prime minister and president Hu Jintao have stronger roots in the country side, compared to their predecessors who were often groomed in Shanghai.

economy - Customs revenue rises despite WTO
One of the few losers after China's accession into the World Trade Organization (WTO) could have been its customs, as tariffs will drop dramatically. But China customs have been able to reverse that expected trend into a 37 percent growth in the first two months of this year, reports Dow Jones. Revenue went up to 73.2 billion Renminbi (US$ 8.8 billion). The article gives no explanation for the rise. Increased trade might be one, but experts also expected Customs to change their strategies to uphold the revenue stream.

economy - No news on a revaluation

The mantra on the Renminbi has not changed, headlines the International Herald Tribune today. Guess that this is not enough to kill the rumors and stories on the 'upcoming revaluation' of the Chinese currency will come very fast again.

Update: The investment bank Merrill Lynch is in urgent need of some publicity, we read in the Financial Times. They predict a 13 percent revaluation of the Renminbi. A very pathetic way to attract attention.

internet - When is Wen Jiabao going to blog?

Politicians start to learn the language of blogging. When are the Chinese politicians going global?

media - More mining accidents

Fellow weblogger Single Planet brings as 'breaking news' that he did not find any news on coal mine disasters today. That is of course because the mining disaster that was reported today took already place on Monday. Then 28 deaths (the report is not up to date) is quite a lot. We did have today 76 cases of food poisoning, but no deaths yet.

economy - Hit the brakes!

The economy might growth this year 7 percent, says Xinhua today, quoting a high government official.
We all know this is propadanga from the state news agency: economic growth will be much higher. They only tell us what the government wants us to believe. Efforts of the government to cool down the economy bring only down the figures in Xinhua. The Wall Street Journal (paid reg.)suggests that tightening the credit lines did not work. All international media only report on the effects of the unprecedented growth.
What we need is another Zhu Rongji, who brought the high-speed growth in the 1990s to a standstill, although the economic crisis in Asia also helped a bit.
Not only for economic reasons this is necessary, on a personal level economic growth is making us all crazy. After traveling for months in Japan, Europe and the US, where real economic growth only figures in the history books, I had almost forgotten how tiring China is. I lost track on the number of starting projects I'm involved in, some fortunately got killed in an early phase, but it is really inhuman. The speed and opportunities are just.
An urgent appeal on behave on the Shanghai citizens: stop the growth, help us!

internet - Are the chatrooms dying?

For years the chatrooms were the major driving force of the internet in China, where people would anonymously vent their feelings, although sometimes watched by volunteers who stepped in when chatters would cross a line. That was one of the reasons to put up a chatroom at this site too.
Major lynch parties took place through the chatrooms, as for example the manager of the Zhuhai hotel noticed last year when a sex party involving 400 Japanese men caused an uproar in the chatrooms and brought several people for years behind bars. More than once the government reacted on those sentiments in chatrooms.
But internet users seems to have lost their interest. Several eager chatters of the past told me that they have lost their interest, partly because the hate the anomous nature of chatting.
Interest in my chatroom has also been underwhelming, so I might drop this system. Any suggestions for other ways of communicating?
Check out www.skype.com: a way to make high quality computer to computer calls, avoiding the last telecommunication costs you might have.

Hong Kong - Financial scandal erupts

The reputation of Hong Kong as an international financial center got shocked as the story on a major scandal hits the media. UBS, on of Europe's leading banks, is involved.

economy - Urbanize or not: China's dilemma

A nice overview of the enormous dilemma's China is facing in today's Chinabiz article. The government want to urbanize 200 million people in the coming ten years (compared to 100 million in the past decade). Local officials took on that task very diligently.
Now, the central government wants to stop the overheating of the economy, but finds it very hard to stop those officials in their tracks. These are the real problems China faces and has a profound influences on hundreds of millions of people.

economy - Government wants to reduce 'official' cars

Potentially shocking news for the car manufacturers in China, because the government wants to get rid of the millions of official cars, that belong to the traditional remuneration package of higher Chinese officials. An overwhelming majority of 95 percent of the population in Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou supports such a measure, quotes AP the official newswire Xinhua.
That now cannot be true. Especially the 40 percent government officials in Beijing would not agree when their car would be taken away. This statistic looks like a evil fabrication.
In total there are officially 3.5 million government cars and probably more. Fortunately for the car manufacturers things are not that serious. Government reform will meet much internal resistance, especially on key issues like this.

internet - Weekly chat on Wednesday (BT)

Every week I will (try to) host a chatroom so this whole venture can become a bit more interactive in the long run. I have planned to do this every Wednesday at 9:30 AM Beijing time. Please click here or on the logo to get connected. It provides your access to the IRC-channel of the China Herald and is for free, although you might need to register if you have never used the system. You do not have to pay for the usage.
Please write to me if you encounter any problems.

Session will be at 8:30 PM EST/5:30 PM PST on Tuesday in the US if my timing is correct and on a rather inconvenient hour for Europe. Some people at the US West coast and Europe have told me timing is not good for them. I'm planning to change both timing and the system I use, but simply did not have time to attend to it on time.

refugees - The unsolvable problem

The latest from diplomatic circles in China. The agreement between the European countries and China on Chinese tourist groups only has the status of a MOU, a Memorandum of Understanding. One of the pending issues is indeed the way China deals with taking back citizens that stay back illegally in Europe.
"Getting a birth certificate or other proof of an identity is not really a problem, when people really want to go back," says one of my sources in Shanghai. "The problem is of course that many do not want to return. When they give a wrong name, a wrong birth date and a wrong place of birth, it will be hard to get a birth certificate. When they want it can be done in two weeks time."
People's hukou, or household registration is cleared after three years of absence, and some use that as an excuse, but other proofs of identity can easily be obtained.
For the MOU on Chinese tourists Europe is on the demanding side, they want to have this extra source of revenue for their economies. There are no signs at this stage that China really want to help in taking unwilling returnees back, for whatever reason they might have left the country.
And the European countries are going to give in, for economic reasons.

refugees - EU-countries develop a new issue

The Dutch government is speeding up the eviction of refugees who did not get an official status and develops itself into a guinea pig for new EU-China policies. I got in a week time already a couple of requests about Chinese who have to return and bump into a bureaucratic wall.
What happened until recently was that illegal Chinese could not return to China, because China would not acknowledge them as a citizen. Mostly they would remain as illegals.
A few weeks ago the so-called Schengen-countries (the part of the EU without borders) have signed an agreement with China to allow Chinese tourists in. Other EU-countries will be following fast. That decision was forced upon them by Germany who last year already decided in a bilateral treaty to allow Chinese tourists in, although that was going against the arrangements in the Schengen treaty.
Part of that agreement was also the commitment of China to take back its illegal citizens. The details of that agreement are not yet very clear and seems to run into problems already. The Dutch government has for domestic political reasons decided to speed up the eviction of refugees and is testing now the Chinese willingness to take back citizens without a legal status.
The Chinese embassy demands a birth certificate before it takes people back, they do not have that, they cannot get that very easy, so that seems an interesting stale mate. The victims are of course the refugees.
Unclear is what the arrangement now is, whether assistance is available for returning refugees, even whether refugees will return. In any case: European countries have developed themselves a problem.

economy - How a stronger yuan could hurt the U.S. - NYT

Always fun to see how somebody can turn an argument around. Eduardo Porter argues that a stronger Chinese currency would be bad for the US economy in the New York Times.

Photo - Caught in the act



Do not forget to send your contribution to my email box for next week's 'Caught in the act'.

economy - Consumer prices remain stable

Consumer prices in Shanghai have been pretty stable, according to my first observations. While steel, fuel and other construction material have gone up in price because of the ongoing boom in China, that is not yet reflected in the prices the consumers pay.
A coffee at Starbucks, a visit to the hairdresser (an excellent way to start the week in Shanghai) and the larger food chain still ask the same prices.
Some prices went up, says marketing manager Scott Shi. He just bought a new apartment and had to refurnish his place. "Copper was 30 percent more expensive than two months ago, but otherwise I see no change," he says.
The difference lays more in the money you can spend nowadays in Shanghai. This morning I had a minimal breakfast for 1.4 Renminbi, about one percent of the costs of a very nice dinner yesterday evening. But that is not really inflation, is it?

internet - Weekly chat on Wednesday (BT)

Every week I will (try to) host a chatroom so this whole venture can become a bit more interactive in the long run. I have planned to do this every Wednesday at 9:30 AM Beijing time. Please click here or on the logo to get connected. It provides your access to the IRC-channel of the China Herald and is for free, although you might need to register if you have never used the system. You do not have to pay for the usage.
Please write to me if you encounter any problems.

Session will be at 8:30 PM EST/5:30 PM PST on Tuesday in the US if my timing is correct and on a rather inconvenient hour for Europe. Some people at the US West coast and Europe have told me timing is not good for them; interest in the chat has been rather underwhelming up to now, so a change in timing is on the agenda.

life - a bed in Puxi

A beautiful story by Wang Jianshuo on why he decided to stay at Puxi, the west-side of the sity, and not move to the new Pudong area, the east-side.
The old saying in Shanghai: "Better a bed in Puxi than a house in Pudong". Pudong has changed and improved a lot, but Puxi still attracts most people.

Internet - Developing at light speed

When I look at the overview of internet stories regarding China in foreign media, controlling seems to be the major issue. Also today AFP reports on a statement of “Reporters Without Borders” in Paris who slams the Chinese minister of culture who asked for tighter control of the internet.
Unfortunately for Chinese ministers of culture, both culture and ministers have not that much influence on life in China.
I just got a call from a friend at the local office of China Telecom. After a few months abroad I had forgotten that Shanghai has a 24-hours economy and you can also apply for an internet connection in the weekend. Shanghai, and other cities in China, treat the internet as an utility, like water or electricity.
So, I rush on Sunday afternoon to their office and on Tuesday they will install my broadband connection that will cost me about US$ 15 per month. Both in term of service and pricing a remarkable achievement. It is not the most exciting story, but says more about the influence of the internet in China than statements of the minister of culture.

Update: Just got a reaction from my technicaassistantent' in Singapore, who is of Indian descent. According to her China is doing much better than Inadia, where the telecom offices are also closed during the weekdays.

Economy - A socialist bus screwed over

. What is a socialist market economy? The question comes up every now and then and mostly I can avoid giving an answer. This afternoon I discovered a nice illustration after my return to Shanghai and saw the socialist market economy in action.
The most convenient way to leave my current residence is bus number 620, at least, it was bus number 620 when I left late last year. The bus was always packed and the ten-minute trip would cost one Renminbi.
I just returned from the US and there even having a public bus is already pretty socialist. It is not as bad as having weapons of mass destruction, but it is close. People who use a bus, do not buy a car and that is structurally bad for the market.
China is still developing that feeling. For the time being they just make busses very hard to find, just like weapons of mass destruction, so they have at least something in common.
Bus no 620 did not show up today. What did show up was bus number 970 that carried a sign saying “the old 620”. The bus itself was new and so was the fee: two full Renminbi! Double what I paid last year! I let the first bus pass and asked other victims of the socialist market economy whether the old 620 was still around. They confirmed my worst worries: bus 620 is no more.
In a socialist society you cannot just double the bus fees. The government has realized that and raising the bus fees is a matter only the central government can decide. The interests of the poor have to be safeguarded.
In a market economy such a bus system would not survive. A city cannot buy new buses to show off during the Worldexpo 2010 when people pay only one Renminbi for a trip, even when large numbers pay that price. So what happens is that an old line is cancelled and a new bus line shows up, of course with a different number. It takes the same route, stops at the same bus stops and asks double the fee. Since it is a new bus line, the central government has no say over it.
That is a socialist market economy. Very simple, basically