economy - My traditional anti-auto rant

Last year I had to limit my tendency of declaring the automotive manufacturers insane. I would allow myself only a anti-car rant for every billion US dollar they would invest into China. Today, I'm seriously overdue with my WTO column and many billions have been flowing into the China market since my last rant. But what has happened in the past six months has even made me lose steam.
Fortunately, I got a call from a few European friends who are around and have been investigating the automotive industry. I guess they still want to invest, but be prepared for another rant this weekend.

internet - A visiting editor

Today a relaxing day strolling around Shanghai with Melissa Ludtke, editor of the Nieman Report, her Chinese daughter Maya and their friend Christine. I did not see yet their summer edition, but Melissa was eager to hear my opinion on two pieces written about the internet in China.
Back online I checked of course right away. Xiao Qiang, director of the Berkeley China Internet Project had actually a very good piece, focusing on the social change caused by the internet in China. I would disagree with his conclusion that the government control on the internet is still effective, I think this battle has been lost by the government. But that is more a matter of how to look at things, the government is certainly still playing a role, and is certainly having an effect.
I was a bit more worried by the contribution by Jonathan Zittrain of Harvard University, the Berkman center. Already during the China internet conference in Berkeley I found his contribution there out of touch with reality in China. While his research into the filtering techniques China uses is useful, he does not realize that the system is not very effective and is easily circumvented. During the few periods China really used those filters, the economic fallout was so damaging, it had to be stopped again. When China has proven one thing, then it is that technology is not going to stop people.
Maybe I should write a letter to the editor of the Nieman report.

internet - Flood of RSVP for Rebecca's meeting

Already 15 RSVP's arrived within 24 hours for Tuesday's weblogger's meeting with Rebecca MacKinnon. A few less for dinner: you have still time to reply until Monday at fons@chinaherald.net.

blogging - A public conversation with Rebecca MacKinnon


The former Beijing and Shanghai bureau chief of CNN Rebecca MacKinnon left early this year her job at CNN, joined the Shorenstein Foundation at Harvard University as a fellow and started a new life as a weblogger on North Korea. With the help of diplomats, business people and journalist she developed a style of participatory journalism that developed into an example for the way that the internet might or might not change the face of traditional media and foreign correspondence.

Rebecca will be next week in Shanghai and on Tuesday 22 June she will attend two events of our events. Around nine o’clock a public conversation with Rebecca will start at the third floor of Sasha’s, attended by a diverse audience of foreign correspondents, future Chinese journalists, webloggers and people who are interested in North Korea. The mildly moderated session will cover her experiences with the traditional media, how she thinks the internet and weblogging can contribute – or undermine – foreign correspondence, and on North Korea itself. Can weblogging develop into a credible source of information, a viable financial source of information, or should we forget about that? Should traditional media adopt webloggers, and should webloggers let themselves be adopted?

Drinks are available for 30 Rmb, entrance and finger food will be free. Sasha’s as also free Wifi-access so blogging is possible. Sasha’s can be fond at the corner of Hengshan Road and Dongping Road.

Before that we will have at 7:30 PM a traditional webloggers dinner for all that are interested nearby at a rather affordable price. Place will be announced to those who RSVP as soon as we have an idea about how many people will attend.

Please do RSVP before Monday 21 June noon to participate in this unique event at fons@chinaherald.net
Do tell me which of the two events you want to attend and how many people you want to take along.

Do check my weblog at www.chinaherald.net for more background and pointers for available papers.

media - That's titles under threat again


In the first week of April I cheered, because That's seemed to be official from then. But Interfax reports that new trouble has emerged. (Thanks Danwei for the tip.)
The Chinese publisher is copying the content in a competing publication, eroding the value of the brand name. You can do it not only with washing powder and cars, also with content.

internet - How dubious is Baidu.com ?

Chinese search engine Baidu.com got a financial injection of US$ 100 million of a consortium of seven investors, including Google. While I wish Baidu all the best for its upcoming IPO - or that of Google itself, there is still a nasty rumor from its past that should be cleared up.
Two years ago China's internet censors got new filters installed and to make good money out of something bad traffic was redirected to a set of Chinese commercial sites. So, many internet users that looked for Google ended up in the arms of Baidu.
Baidu was swamped by angry emails and after a few weeks traffic was no longer redirected and eventually most of the filtering ended after a few months.
Nasty rumors said that Google was actually banned on the request of Baidu, so there would at least be enough traffic to redirect. Those rumors have never been confirmed or denied. That would be a bit of a skeleton, US investors would not like to find after the IPO.

censorship - Postings on 'participatory censorship'

Both Andrea and Isaac react on an earlier pieces by Xiao Qiang of the Berkeley Journalism School on the changing direction in the internet censorship.
There is indeed a tendency to expand the self censorship and move away from direct control and repression, although the blocking technology is doing overtime in the past few week. More than in the past useful websites like wikipedia and the blogger interface have been blocked, creating at least a bit of a nuisance.

internet - Does banning Chinese spammers help?

Last week I got an email from Holland complaining that my email addresses bounched. There are large problems concerning email, including spam, viruses and a general overload of information, but I had no clue why this one person in Holland could not get through to me.
Today I discovered that my provider at Shanghai Telecom is blacklisted. That also was not such a shocking announcement, since much of the spam seems to originate from China. Wat surprised me was that banning my provider had so little effect. What sense does a blacklist have, when only one in a million emails is actually stopped?

internet - Blogger meeting expected on XXXXX Tuesday

Rebecca MacKinnon will be in Shanghai on XXXXXX Tuesday 22 June and a meeting of both webloggers and foreign correspondents is being planned for that evening around eight o'clock. Exact time, place and other modalities are still under consideration, but keep your agenda's free for XXXXXXX Tuesday evening.
(Sorry for mixing the days up)

costs of living - Chinese cities slightly more affordable

China's largest cities have dropped marginally in terms of costs of living, compared to other world cities, the new ranking by HR-firm Mercer shows.
Tokyo, London and Moscow take the top three positions, with London as the fastest climber. Hong Kong was pushed from the fourth to the fifth position, while Beijing dropped from five to eleven. Shanghai dropped to the 16th position, down from eleven.
Main climbers are the cities in the Eurozone, who suffered from a strong Euro, while only New York kept a place in the top 20 most expensive cities.

internet - Protest turns political

The internet proves yet again to be a way to raise nationalistic sentiments in China.
Taipei Times - archives: "Taiwanese pop diva Chang Hui-mei (???), better known as A-mei, was forced to cancel a performance in China on Saturday night due to a protest by students from Zhejiang University (????) who accused her of being a supporter of Taiwan independence."
It is part of a larger online action: Taipei Times - archives: "The users of China's two major Internet sources have identified more than 20 'green performers.' They singled out pop singers Jay Chou (???), Wu Bai (??) and Tsai Chen-nan (???), and program hosts like Pung Chia-chia (???) and Chen Mei-feng (???)."

visits - Patrick at the Racquet Club

Patrick Delaney has set up shop at the Shanghai Racquet Club and sounds a bit dislocated.
homoLudens:: "I feel a bit like Peggy Ashcroft's character in the Jewel and the Crown series: pleased enough by human courtesy, but puzzled by the deference that proximity to wealth incurs. This sort of expat opulence, the sheer creature comfort of it, is not China, can never be China, and yet all of China and the world would want to live in this sort of place. It invites its undeserving beneficiaries to a a subtle sense of superiority. White businessman (German, I think. Maybe Dutch? Naw - couldn't have been Dutch, right?) got nasty with line cutting at the passport check in queue. 'We're entitled!' I sense a softer dismissiveness in the treatment of 'clubhouse' waiters. "
They are most likely Dutch, Patrick, since this is a loss-making project of the Dutch ING-bank.. Most of the inhabitants are teachers at the school and expat managers of the bank. Guess you have seen a Dutch manager in action. You must feel at home, though.

internet - IHT calls China Wifi-backwater

IHT: Wi-Fi dead zone: China lags after an early lead: "So for now, foreign business travelers represent the largest user base for Wi-Fi. The trouble is that the marketing of the service to non-Chinese visitors has been so poor that few seem to know how to track down the nearest hot spot.
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True: the number of laptop users is fairly small and for non-residents it is almost impossible to get a connection. I'm happy (most of the time), but I do agree that the telecom providers could do a much better job.

censorship - Blocks are up in force

I’m confused. It is weekend, there is nothing really sensitive going on as far as I know and loads of websites are being blocked. Yahoo, blogger.com, icq.

Others are working fine. And then suddenly everything is working again. Guess the filters are not children-proof. Who is playing around with the buttons?