business - Why wants Amazon to sell DVD's in China?

Just watched this afternoon "Lost in translation" at a friend's home, since my neighbors are redecorating. I could pick it from hundreds of DVD's that are available for almost nothing at the streets in Shanghai.
Of course, there might be a slight possibility that in Inner-Mongolia distribution of illegal DVD's outside the cities is not as well organized as in Shanghai, but according to my estimation mostly those people also have no access yet to the e-bookshop that can sell them online.
So, why is Amazon then paying over 70 million US dollar for a business that is rather limited. It really beats me. Selling books is also not easy, as the German media group Bertelsmann has discovered the hard way. I have no clue how their bookclub is doing now, but compared to a few years ago it could on go better. Selling music online seems also a bit of a joke.
Access, says CEO Jeff Bezos. I bet they have gotten so used to losing money, they do not want to quit the habit fully.

blogging - A much needed upgrade

Got yesterday together with Isaac Mao, so we could exchange some ideas on a practical level again. He advised me to get an upgrade for this weblog and even promised to mobilize some help. Seems like a good idea, but still having a busy agenda with many other things too. With my new project 'Connecting China' slowly taking off, it would be worthwhile to pay some attention to the looks and the usability of this weblog too.
The number of Chinese webloggers is steadily going up, now about 470,000, according to Isaac's estimation. Both little and much. Compared to the US, China might have now the largest number of webloggers in the world. But as a percentage of the population it is still too small to create a buzz. Still a million or so to get.
We also discussed BloggerCon III that will take place at Stanford University on 6 November, two days after the presidential elections in the US. In April we organized together with Living in China a get together for bloggers in Shanghai. It was meant to watch and discuss the BloggerCon II, but since the technology failed, we ended up talking to each other. And that was in the end much better.
No clue whether we should repeat it in November again: the Americans seem to focus very much on the presidential elections, and that is a bit less our piece of cake.

connecting China - Beating the corporate firewall - Lilliane Li




Lillian, the second participant in "Connecting China", pops for the first time up as she asked permission to join my list at skype.com. She works for a US company in Shanghai that has actually banned MSN messenger from the LAN, so she uses other skype.com to chat during work time. “Sometimes I can also use the wireless access number of my colleague,” Lillian says, “then I can use MSN messenger anyway during work.”
Qian Qian is her favorite Chinese nickname, and it means as much as ‘simple’. Chinese women do try to do as if they are really simple, although that is very seldom the case.
The word proxy does not ring a bell, initially, “but only because my English is so poor,” she wines. “I know of course the way to get around the blocks on the net.”
Lillian is living with her 5-month old baby Ciyu with her parents, since her husband is on a lengthy business trip to Africa. “So they take care of the baby, while I’m working.”
Lillian was an early user of the internet, she got her first email address in 1996, very short after Chinese citizens got access to the internet. Now she is an active user, online between two and six hours per day, both through the corporate LAN and an ISDN connection at home.
Her MSN-connection she mainly uses to chat with old classmates and colleagues from work. But skype.com she uses to make new from and she chats with foreigners, “but not very often,” she adds. She would be very nervous to really meet me in real life, although she is living on walking distance from my office, Lillian says. “My spoken English is also too poor and I'm really shy.”
She does not want me to put a picture of her Ciyu on this site, although the baby is rather cute. Lillian is certain: “I do not want to get my baby involved in this.”

blogging - The WEF is trying to have a conversation...

Nina Joyce wrote this entry: "Fons Tuinstra links to conversations with Chinese internet users. We're trying to build a community of China-based bloggers for our China Business Summit in September. I hope that Fons will comment on the World Economic Forum weblog from Shanghai.."
But unfortunately, her weblog is on typepad and when I try to access through a proxy I'm kicked out by the typepad security guards. Has anybody a easy solution, very fast for Nina and the WEF? I'm not enough of an IT-guy to help her out.

economy - Mixed academic views on the labor shortage

The Asian Labour News found this excellent overview of academic viewpoints on the current shortage of migrant workers in the southern parts of China. For the time being their viewpoints vary very much, and that makes the issue only more interesting. More coverage you can find here.

media - LiC moves into city blogs


Blogger portal Living in China has been moving quietly into city blogs for both Hong Kong and Shanghai. Living in China is part of a larger initiative that wants to become the blogging portal of nothing less than the planet. Expansion beyond that is certainly also on the agenda.
While the lay-out looks beautiful, the concept is purely based on technology and in that way very different from a competing initiative like metroblogging, where only a selection of bloggers that fit within the format is allowed to publish, and where there is actually a focus, unlike the open approach of LiC.
While the number of bloggers is increasing fast, the main problem with both Asian city blogs is still the lack of content, so being too selective or picking a focus might only increase that problem at this stage.

media - Market remains closed for foreign investors - official

China is not going to open its publishing market for foreign investors, an official of the General Administration of Press and Publication (GAPP)said yesterday in Beijing, according to state newswire Xinhua.
While repeating only existing policies, Yu Yongzhan, deputy director of GAPP might cool down unrealistic expectations abroad. Yu remembered that the publishing industry was not part of the WTO-agreements and repeated that the domestic industry could not yet face foreign competition.
Only the retail market for publication allows foreign investments. At the backdoor of many Chinese media, foreign investors are struggling to get in, for example by participating in non-editorial activities of the media. Chinese private enterpreneurs are already much longer trying to erode state-ownership in one of the last remains of the planned economy.
Foreign publishing organizations can also not set up branches in China, Yu reminded.

On porn and technology - the WTO column

(Tomorrow at Chinabiz)

Shanghai - When the official newswire Xinhua announced that China would use the latest technology in its ongoing People’s War against Pornography, I woke up from my little summer nap behind my computer.
The war is mostly raging online, since traditionally porn has been worldwide the most used service and has been from the very beginning the only only financial viable business model. Why should the Chinese be different than the rest of the world?
More than 700 websites deemed pornographic have been closed, over three hundred people have been arrested, and one woman has been sentenced for earning a 30,000 renminbi by running a member-based webcam event. That is considerably more arrests than all the political cyber dissidents together, and this in just one campaign. The foreign organizations that are normally up in arms when free speech is involved stayed remarkably quiet this time, they obviously shied away from condemning this infringement of free speech.
My principle about free speech is that you do not have to like what is being said, to be in favor of free speech. But for pornography and the hundreds of people waiting in jail for their trial we apply double standards.
In a deadly blow to the evil of the flesh the censors also dusted off their internet filters, I discovered while I was preparing for my inspection tour of the first sex toy exhibition in Shanghai. When I used Google to look op ‘sex toy China’, my screen turned blank. When I changed my search into ‘adult toy China’, a wealth of useful information slipped onto my screen – potentially shocking for the inaugurated.
This high-tech devise also blocked searches for ‘sex education’ and of course also closely related subjects like ‘sextant’, but ‘fellatio’ and other more exotic words were not banned. It is all a matter of drawing the line and that is no easy task.
The outside world is rather concerned when China uses its internet filters and even the founders of Google had to deal with questions from the magazine Playboy last Friday about their dealings with the Chinese censor. They denied there were any dealings. I believe them: Google would have done a better job.
I’m not going to say here that the People’s War against Pornography was a failure; that might be too early. But in terms of technology the exercise was rather primitive. According to the Chinese media the most effective instrument being used was the telephone as thousands of concerned citizens called the authorities with information on pornographic sites.
Now, that is what I call effective, but not very sophisticated, a telephone. Last week China signed a deal with Zimbabwe, offering the government in this African country assistance in filtering the internet. Zimbabwe will get a big black box that will make noises and do nothing. And they will get a phone to accept calls from concerned citizens.
The internet has been shaped by engineers who tell me every time they can solve every problem. They should become more modest: technology is not a panacea for every problem. In the case of internet I believe only education can help, every technical barrier will be circumvented.

Fons Tuinstra

politics - A debate on corruption with Chinese characteristics




I did not yet publish on the debate triggered off by an open letter by Huang Jingao, of Lianjiang County Committee Secretary, Fujian Province. He published an open letter on corruption in the People's Daily's website, that got pulled and now Huang got into trouble for writing this letter. The details you can find at this excellent weblog, following this and more debates in China.
A typical case where bureaucrats try to stop an important exchange of ideas that has reached the internet and will not be stopped. We will see much more of this. (The picture shows Mr. Huang).

internet - Google denies deals with censor

Google has never negotiated with China on filtering the internet - unlike other portals, says Sergey Brin, one of the founders of search engine Google in last Friday's interview with Playboy, reprinted in their IPO-prospectus.
In the fall of 2002 the Google search engine was no longer accessible and for some time visitors were redicted to other websites, including Chinese search engine Baidu.com. A resumption of the service led to widespread speculation on whether Google had brokered a deal with the Chinese censor. Google, other search engines and IT companies are regularly accused of assisting China in filtering the content of the internet.
Google is one of the first to answer concrete questions on the issue and denies it has ever negotiated. "There was enough popular demand in China for our services—information, commerce and so forth—that the government re-enabled us," says Brin in Playboy. " He says Google never agreed to any conditions set by China. Brin: "And China never demanded such things. However, other search engines have established local presences there and, as a price of doing so, offer severely restricted information. We have no sales team in China. Regardless, many Chinese Internet users rely on Google. To be fair to China, it never made any explicit demands regarding censoring material. That’s not to say I’m happy about the policies of other portals that have established a presence there." Brin does not elaborate on what sites do cooperate, since that would be "secondhand rumors".
What would Google do when they would have to choose between access to China or compromising their searches? Brin: "There are difficult questions, difficult challenges. Sometimes the "Don’t be evil" policy leads to many discussions about what exactly is evil. One thing we know is that people can make better decisions with better information. Google is a useful tool in people’s lives. There are extreme cases, we’re told, when Google has saved people’s lives. "

metroblogging - Another very cool site

One of my readers pointed me at this very cool site from New York, good for one million bloggers, where bloggers are organized by subway station. I guess Shanghai first needs more subway stations, isn't it, Isaac?

debate - The Balkanization of the internet

I jumped into a discussion at the weblog of Stanford Law professor Lawrence Lessig (who has lent out his weblog this week). While I agree with the basic problem, people only being interested in their own backyard, some of the examples were way out of line with reality.
My comment: "Sorry for messing up your idea about balkanization: I write this from Shanghai. While I still think your idea might be valid, the technological means you mention are not as powerful as cultural barriers. On a practical level: China has no walled intranet - some government departments have been playing with the idea years ago, but it has never materialized. Censorship does exist, but technological means have failed to do their job. In fact, the ongoing People’s War against Pornography did not rely that much on technology but on email addresses and phone numbers where concerned citizens could complain.I do think it is a good idea when you guys at your side of the fence have an idea what is happening here. I’m in the early phases of a project here, but you can already have a peek at www.chinaherald.net/connecting.html."
Join the frenzy if you feel like it.

internet - the newest trend: metroblogging

I'm not really looking for another brilliant idea to make my life even more busier, next to the China Wage Indicator, Chinabiz, the Connecting China project and some other smaller activities. But metroblogging is the trend, London has it, Chicago has it and very soon Tokyo will also have it. And they work already together. So why should Hong Kong, Beijing and especially Shanghai not have it.
Wang Jianshuo is already doing a good job, and he has been playing with a similar idea. Why is not just somebody getting things done?

connecting China - "Gals are too sissy" - Lee Yantsai


Meet Bonbon, as this university student calls herself online, while eating dimsum in her home town Guangzhou. In "Connecting China" at the China Herald you can meet some of the 90 million internet users in China, and talk to them.

culture - No nudes yet in Hangzhou

Ellen Sander picked up the latest by Reuters on the nude swimming in Hangzhou, a item I signalled earlier. "We do still want to do it, once related regulations are sorted out. I would say there are as many people who support the scheme as oppose it," says spokeswoman Wang Xiating. Creating consensus does take time in China

internet - Blogging in Beijing

There is a small but growing chance I might be attending and blogging from the business summit of the World Economic Forum in Beijing on 12 and 13 September. That would be a good opportunity to organize a bloggers' dinner on for example Saturday 11 September. In Shanghai it would be not problem to pull off such a meeting, but how is the blogger' scene in Beijing, if any?

landing - Mixed messages on the economy

News about the speed or even the crash of the Chinese economy varies again very much depending on what paper you look at The International Herald Tribune reprints an article of the New York Times, giving a very gloomy picture of the top-end real estate in China. The Financial Times deals with the current shortage of migrant workers at the east-coast and tells us it is only temporary.
"The shortages, confined to coastal areas and believed to be temporary, challenge conventional wisdom about China's manufacturing prowess, based to a large degree on a limitless supply of low-cost workers," the FT writes. These labor costs could rise 20-30 percent in the coming year, says on analyst in the FT.
I would think the labor problem is a more serious one than the real estate, where only the rich might lose some money. In the case of the shortage of labor, higher wages are in the long run good for the Chinese economy (unlike higher oil prices, where the money leaves the country), but the inflation might be the bad side of that problem. It will reduce China's competitiveness, but that seems not a real problem in the short run.

connecting China - A special corner on my blog

You can follow the 'Connecting China' project now on a special page I have created on my blog. Do not expect too much at this stage, I will let you know when it starts rolling.

connecting China – The first candidates

The first few candidates for my Connecting China project are coming in. Amy Gu from Shenzhen asked me to rephrase my plan: “The short-term plan is to let Chinese internet users tell the rest of the world how the internet has changed their life. First, through my weblog, where I will create a special corner when things move on, with a personal file of all the participants. I will start asking questions, but when things go well, the readers can also join in. For that reason I prefer to have participants whose English is ok – it does not have to be perfect: that makes it in the beginning easier to have a conversation with the outside world. As things move on we can use different internet tools like video-conferencing to add to this experiment. When I have some time and possibly also funding available, I want to visit a selection of the people in this project, each of them a few days, and use the material both for my weblog and for a book.”
I will provide participants with a special chinaherald.net email account. That not allows me to keep an eye on what is happening, but allows them to join in discussions without plastering their private email addresses all over the internet.