blogging - The WEF wonders...

Nina Joyce at the World Economic Forum in Geneva wonders in her weblog whether any bloggers will attend next month WEF China business Summit in Beijing. Nina is using a typepad domain name, that is blocked in China, so do use your proxy when your screen goes blank.

internet - Sohu banned for spamming

I read that China Mobile has banned internet portal Sohu for a year from its SMS services for spamming. I'm a bit biased, because I just went through my daily 200+ spam messages I get delivered from China Telecom in my mailbox. Analists - for whatever it is worth they say - said it was a devastating blow for Sohu.

connecting China - The first responses

Yesterday I launched this idea of telling the world how China is changing because of the internet.

Andrew Lih, associate professor at the journalist department of the Hong Kong University wrote
"I like the idea a lot. Let me know how progress goes and if you need any help. I think a radio-type show on a weekly or biweekly basis would be quite cool, for example."
Amy Gu, weblogger in Shenzhen wrote: "I saw your plan, and though it was interesting. So it is aiming at telling the world the status of the Chinese internet users. How do you know the world know little about that?" And I wrote back: "I have to deal with the outside world on a daily basis: I see what my colleagues are writing about, the issues they focus on. Even at UC Berkeley in April we (the bloggers from the mainland) had a hard time to convince people what was going on. At this stage I have not clue where all this will bring us, but I sincerely feel we should let the internet work. So, I do not want to do this by myself, but also test the force of the internet."
And Andrea Leung, one of the founders of Living in China, wrote: "I am the most happy to hear that there will soon be more perspective coming outside from BJ & SH and into the real China. I'll take the liberty to write a short blurb about it in Chinese and post it to Robert Mao's UUZone, one of the many places where Chinese netizens gossip - and that's the nature of social networking on the Chinese front."
Still looking for more feedback and candidates to talk to.

internet - Begging employees...


Fortunately, the Asian Labour News had also some pictures to go along with the story.

economy - Highest inflation since 1997

Consumer prices went up 5.3 percent in July, the highest level since 1997, domestic and foreign media tell us today. The record inflation sparked off speculation on a possible spike in interest rates. The central bank, the People's Bank of China, said in the past this would be possible when the inflation would pass the 5 percent threshold.
Inflation is one of the signs of an overheating economy, a tight labor market and high trade deficit are two other criteria. The economist Joseph Stiglitz said only last month in Shanghai that China was on all three counts not yet in the danger zone.

internet - Connecting China

I have a plan, or better, the beginning of a plan and I want your help.
By early next year China will have a 100 million internet users, people who are getting connecting. The outside world knows very little about this revolutionary change in the way this all affects people’s life in China.
First, I want link up with preferably Chinese internet users in different places in China. Shanghai and Beijing is no problem, but I’m actually more interested in what is happening in the rest of China. Send me an email, or hook up at my Yahoo messenger and I will ask you questions. I will report on my advances here on this weblog. And I will come back and ask you more questions. And when it is fun, we might set up a webcast.
And you can also help me think about the project. Am I asking the right questions? Where can I find other interesting people? What is the right way to move forward. I'm a pretty stubborn person, but can be convinced.
The long term plan is that I will visit a group of people, pending funding and a good way to publish this story. But it should be in part your story, and you can help me in developing it.
Remember that I want to publish all your little secrets: please tell me when you confidentialities should remain between you and me.
Contact details you find at the right hand column.

internet - Government badly connected

Very soon 100 million Chinese citizens is online, but the city governments are doing very bad in connecting with them, says - eh - the government. Main problem: most governmental websites do not let their citizens talk back, says the article of state-news agency Xinhua. Over 90 percent of 336 major cities did have a governmental website, mostly showing orders and laws by that government. "The public are still doubting whether the government could solve their problems via the Internet," Zhang Lingbao, director ofthe Anhui provincial economic and information center.

media - Embarrassing scene at CCTV-9

Most of us would probably never have taken notice of the joint venture the British insurer AVIA started yesterday to operate the Beijing market. But yesterday they caught the new general manager Rex Tang for an interview at CCTV-9 I stumbled into and it was one of the most embarrassing scenes I have ever seen.
Those interviews are barely hidden propadanga, where managers of companies we would otherwise never hear off, can talk freely, mostly not disturbed by intelligent questions. When they have a story to tell, the result can be tolerable for the viewers.
Last night was a disaster, as Mr. Tang demonstrated he had no clue how to deal with the insurance market. He would every possible mean to sell his product, not focus on one or two main sales channels like everybody else does. And he qualified Beijing as an attractive market, hiding that he was forced to operate there, whether the market was attractive or not.
Fortunately for Mr. Tang not many people watch the program; I will try to avoid it in the future too.

media - Newsweek cannot keep up with change in China



Danwei was the first to note it: Newsweek uses for its cover a 10-year old picture to illustrate an article in its Asian edition on the growing acceptance of avant-garde art in Beijing among authorities. Danwei suggest a new slogan for the weekly: "Be the last to know".

disclosure - Advising iResearch

There is a fair chance I will be advising the Chinese internet research company iResearch on the expansion of their international operation. I tell you, just in case you might find some wildly enthusiastic reviews of their research reports here. :-)

blogging - 'We the Media' translated into Chinese

The already legendary book 'We the Media' by US journalist and weblogger Dan Gillmor is currently being translated under the 'Creative Commons' that allows more freedom to use intellectual property than the traditional copyright laws, announced Gillmor himself.
The project site for the translation is available here.

internet - China sells surveillance equipment to Zimbabwe

Zimbabwe is buying high-tech equipment from China to bug the internet, writes Zim Online. While details are lacking, China seems to tap into yet another IT-market where it claims to have a competitive edge.
Foreign IT giants have traditionally been blamed by human right activist of assisting China by controlling the internet, but the country now seems to be confident enough about its own progress to sell it elsewhere.
The question whether this kind of technology is really working is still an open question. China is in the middle of a People's War against Pornography on the internet, but seems mostly to rely on phone calls from concerned citizens and less on technology.

survey - CFO's choice of preferred companies online

The CFO survey into the most preferred companies in China by Euromoney China is now available online.

labor - Shortages: different takes on the development

Monday morning and more news and discussions on the shortage on the Chinese labor market that has been hitting the headlines in yesterday's Chinabiz and the China Daily. ""Nearly 90 percent of the factories in Dongguan are in dire need of workers, so I came to Guangzhou, once the shrine for millions of migrant workers from China's vast countryside," said Zhang Zhichun, an employee with a labor service agency of Dongguan, a city of South China's Guangdong Province in the China Daily.
Not everybody agrees with one of the reasons mentioned in Chinabiz, that the improved prices for agricultural products add to the pressure of migrant workers to stay at home. "Government propaganda," said one of my colleagues this morning. He thinks - and that is certainly an additional reason - that the fast rise in demand for labor is more important.
"This year's labor force market of the Pearl River Delta presents the characteristics of what experts decribe as an olive shape: the demand for workers with advanced techniques and rich experiences and that for manual workers able to do heavy physical labor are great while the demand for general workers is basically saturated," says the China Daily.
"Now traditional labor-intensive industries including those making clothes, shoes, toys, furniture, machinery are being discarded by migrant workers as businesses with better working conditions and higher income, such as electronic factories, have become their first preference when seeking a job," said Liu Qiusheng, executive vice director of the Taiwan Merchant Association of Shenzhen.

media - Reports on soccer defeat vary

I just had a short look at the first report on the unfortunately loss last night when Japan won from China in the Asian Cup Final 3-1. While the China Daily - copying a report by Xinhua - tells
that the way Japan won was disputed, the report lacks details the newswires did report. They do mention that the Dutch coach Arie Haan was rather upset, but failed to point out he even refused to join the celebrations afterwards and did not collect his runner-up medal, the strong anti-Japanese sentiments that dominated the event, and the - minor - rioting that took place outside the Workers' Stadium after the match. AP reports the anti-Japanese were modest, compared to earlier events.