media - Chen Yihong freed

A former editor of the Southern Metropolis in Guangzhou, Chen Yihong, has been freed in Guangzhou on Friday, the China Digital News reports, quoting the unlinkable South China Morning Post. His arrest in March and that of some of his colleagues at the renowned daily, known for its fierce stance against corruption.
While little is known about the reasons for his release, the China Digital News lists a fair number of articles about this case, illustrating the concern it caused.

videoblog - Recording in Sasha's garden

Doing my video blog from behind my computer would be rather boring, I realized. It is a bit like traditional radio with a bad picture on it. So, the plan is to record my first "Thoughts on Sunday morning" already tomorrow, Saturday in the Garden of Sasha's, or wherever it might be suitable. Sasha's not only offers beer, but also a wireless connection.
When you are around between 5:00 PM and 5:30 PM, please feel free to pass by. I only have ten minutes for my thoughts and that is rather limited.

A/V Blog by Userplane

media - Digital TV faces tough start - FT

Executives of China's Central TV (CCTV) indicated that the launch of digital TV, expected next week, might not be very successful and perhaps not take off at all, the Financial Times writes. Income from digital pay-TV should diminish the reliance on commercials, an official of the Shanghai Media Group, CCTV's largest competitor, said.
But for the time being very few customers seem to be perpared to pay for watching TV, now they have cheap illegal DVD's, free TV or the internet as alternatives at hand.

videoblog - Thoughts on Sunday Morning

Andrew Lih was kind enough to demonstrate this little toy. No clue whether it works, but it looks cool enough. (You need a proxy so see Andrew's blog!)
When it works, we will meet again on Sunday morning.

A/V Blog by Userplane

economy - Companies contemplate move to Poland

Start learning Polish, advises Paul French of Access Asia foreign managers in China in this piece in Chinabiz. He talked to half a dozen companies in Shanghai, five of whom are thinking of moving their operation to Poland. The country has become more attractive after it entered the EU, and it is not as far away as China is.

blogging - And Living in... is back



I should have complained earlier. Living in China just returned.

culture - Crossing the line

(Refused by Eurobiz, because it was considered to be libelous; what do you think? Very soon also in Chinabiz at the WTO column)

Getting permissions and doing things according to the regulations, how complicated, irrational and fuzzy they might be, is one of the headaches of doing business in China. Even the most law-abiding foreigner might find himself at the wrong side of the line, not in the last place because it is often very hard to see any line.
One moment of thoughtlessness and you are jaywalking with hundreds of other Shanghainese, buying a fake watch that is really a bargain or missing one of those unclear traffic signs. It is all a matter of balance, like so many things in China, so it is good to find some benchmarks here.

Obvious Randolph Hobson Guthrie III, a famous socialite in Shanghai, went too far by trading hundreds of thousands of illegal DVD with clients outside China. Randy, as we know this diligent business man from our frequent encounters in Shanghai’s social circles, crossed a line. Not only did he do naughty things, he boasted about his way of making an average of 25,000 US dollar per month whenever he could.
Then, Randy would possible have been able to continue his business a bit longer when State Councilor Madame Wu Yi hadn’t been forced to promise the US during her high-profile visit in April to really do something about the infringement of intellectual property rights. What is better to make a point then jailing a well-know US citizen?

Carrefour just made it in August into the top-5 of the retailers in China and that is a good moment to recall how they got there, and how they played their cards much better than Randy.
The French grocer Carrefour flaunted with any regulation on retail and expanded much faster than its law-abiding competitors, who carefully waited until the central authorities allowed them to expand. It must be an awful sight for any foreign company in China, who tries to stick to the law, seeing its competition running away with a giant market share in such a way.
But Carrefour had at least the right attitude. “We did not know it was against the law,” told one of their managers when challenged after they got reprimanded years ago by the central authorities in Beijing for crossing the line. They were of course French and did not read any of the media reports that were written in English or Chinese. “Then we went to Beijing and told them we were sorry,” said the Carrefour manger. “We actually said we were very sorry. And then it was ok.”

You might have one of those banned satellite dishes on your balcony? Very soon it is again the season to crack down on them. The relevant authorities will confiscate a truckload of them, to make their point, and make a few dozen of owners very unhappy. But hundreds of thousands will see the images on TV with relief: this year they were again not among them.

blogging - Will attend the World Economic Forum

It is 99 percent sure I will be attending the World Economic Forum at 12 and 13 September in Beijing and blog from there. Chinabiz thought it would be a good idea when I would represent them at what now seems a rather busy two days. I might also be contributing to their weblog, although my tendency to annoy the hell out of people has already brought me trouble with the second piece I wrote for Eurobiz, the magazine of the European Chamber of Commerce. I always thought that a low payment could be compensated by making fun of other people, but here I have reached the bottom line very fast.
At least, it is very hard to censor bloggers right away, although at the WEF they make a good start by publishing their weblog on a site that is generously blocked by the Chinese internet censor.
Not sure about the rest of my trip to the far north: expect to have after the Summit meetings in Beijing and Tianjin, but might also go around and recruit participants for Connecting China there.

blogging - Living in... already dead for days



The 'Living in China' portal is already out of order for three or four days. We at the internet know what technical problems mean, but very seldom they last that long. At LiC, and the family of related blogger-portals, only the main frame shows up.
Living in... has been expanding very fast over the world in the past few months, and perhaps it was a bit too much, technically or perhaps otherwise.
I had a look at the number of visitors at China Herald, since normally more than 15 percent of the referrals come from 'Living in...', so I expected a drop in visitors. But no drop, rather an increase of visitors could be seen, most likely cause by my new project, Connecting China. That opening page is now the most popular after the home page.

media - Where have all the Corros gone?

Missed it myself: a piece I wrote already ages ago for The Correspondent of the Hong Kong Foreign Correspondents' Club about the end of the classic foreign correspondent. Part of my sad task as the undertaker of the trade.

blogger - My RSS-feeds revamped

Do you have examples of US blogs, I was asked twice in 24 hours. "Look at the list of RSS-feeds," was my first reaction. Until I had a look at it myself: a wealth of information but rather messy. I have tried to divide them up a bit, so when you want to have an overview of what I read, look for the RSS-feeds at the right hand column.

Connecting China - A spy in training, Amy Gu - Shenzhen

Amy Gu, the next participant of Connecting China, works now for corporate giant China Mobile in Shenzhen, but will very soon start as "a spy in training" as she puts it herself on her weblog. She will join the journalism department of Hong Kong University, so technically she is not in Shenzhen anymore, but that is just a matter of a few miles and a border.
I hope we can get also the beautiful picture on here weblog here, since I had to cut off a waterfall first before it fitted.
Amy is an old-timer online: she got her first connection in 1996, about the same time I got access, but she is secretive about her age. In my short questionnaire she avoids that question. She is also chatting on at least three services: QQ, msn and yahoo, and spends on average five to seven hours online. That is, when she was still in Shenzhen, in Hong Kong it seems much harder for her to get online.
More about Amy Gu will follow soon.

Connecting China - "Online games drives some of us crazy" - Lan Dou, Weifang, Shandong


He himself has his online habits very much under control, says Lan Dou (20), a student at Weifang in the Shandong province, the next participant in Connecting China. “But some of my class mates really get crazy.” Lan Dou went online in 2002, after he went to university. “Before that I was to busy in doing my home work.”
During his holidays, he spends about 15 hours per day on the internet, chatting playing games and getting information. Back at university he intends to bring that back to less than an hour on average, because he has to work again very hard but also because his college has no internet connection, unlike the universities in the larger cities. Lan Dou wants to go there for his graduate study, to Qingdao, Beijing or even far away Shanghai. “So I have to work very hard.”
He is chatting on ICQ, QQ, MSN and sometimes Yahoo, and has at some services even multiple accounts. “That is quite common for internet users I know,” he says. “I have different accounts for class mates, for foreigners, for friends.” Also one account for talking to women? Lan Dou: “Hehe, maybe.”
Almost all of his class mates are online and the internet is very popular also among the 800,000 inhabitants of this trade and commercial center: his parents only pay 60 Rmb per month for their broadband connection, about half the rate in the larger cities.
He is quite sure he can cut back again his online time, once classes start. “I anyway do not like the environment of the internet cafés around campus,” he says. He even did not join at the last evening before the holiday when almost every student got online to play games and celebrate the upcoming freedom.
It is mostly a small group of male students that often stay up all night at the internet cafes and are really addicted, estimates Lan Dou. “Less than ten percent of the students.” Only a few girls join into the all-night online gaming. The university did some random checks of students ID, but Lan Dou thinks they should do more. “Especially for the ones who are addicted.”
Picture is of a Weifang kite, Lan Dou might send a picture when we find somebody in Weifang who has a scanner.

media - Journalism has become dangerous

"As journalists report more aggressively on crime and corruption—they face a new danger: violent retribution from individuals or groups implicated in their reports," writes Sophie Beach of the China Digital New about the news dangers threathening Chinese journalists as the market economy advances. They have become more important than "Censorship, detention, legal action, and arrest—the threats historically faced by journalists in China's tightly proscribed media environment." Beach published the report with the Committe to Protect Journalists.
"CPJ has investigated attacks against more than 20 journalists since 2002, and many more cases have been reported in the Chinese media. Zhongguo Qingnian Bao (China Youth Daily) listed 19 cases of journalists being beaten in 2003 alone. And the trade association representing journalists says it has been contacted hundreds of times by journalists attacked or threatened. In response to the upsurge, some insurance companies in China now list journalism as the third most dangerous career in the country, after police work and coal mining."

economy - Government now also bails out private companies

The central government has set aside US$ 1.8 billion in an action to save embattle private empire D'Long. China has already a tradition of saving state-owned entities when their collapse might endanger social order, but that has now been extended to the private sector too. Chinabiz summerizes the situation.

Connecting China - Want to join?

I'm still looking for participants in China for my Connecting China project, who want to join, especially outside Guangdong, Shanghai and Beijing, China's most wired places. In those places it is obvious easy to find people whose English permits them to have a conversation with the outside world, but elsewhere it might be harder. Also when you know people who might fit the profile you can suggest them to me.
I prefer Chinese people between 20 and 30 years old: they are old enough to tell stories, but are also busy in organizing their life: that is interesting for others to hear. English is of course a prerequisite, but it does not have to be perfect: we can help to improve it. Of course they should be active on the internet; that is what this project is about. Especially men should be encouraged. For one reason or the other women seldom say 'no' when I ask them to join, men are harder to get. While our panel cannot be a mirror of China's online populations - it is no science - I want to try and get as many men as women.
Write to me if you're interested.

economy - Non-performing wages

Why is China able to produce its goods so cheap? By allowing companies not to pay back loans to the state-owned banks used to be one method, but the 360 billion renminbi or 43 billion US dollar in overdue wages also have helped a bit. A part of the labor in China was not only cheap, but simply not paid.
The sudden shortage on the labor market might reverse that trend, at least for the time being. Vice-premier Zeng Peiyan, who has done the accounting to get this figure, pointed at governments and real estate developers as the major culprits.
"Some have remained unpaid for up to 10 years," said Zeng, who insisted that all arrears should be paid by the end of 2006, while pointing out the government campaign to clear up back payments had been initially successful, write the China Daily.

internet - the emerging bubble

The internet itself permits us in China now to witness more closely the emergence of the new internet bubble in the US, with China at its core. We saw already the first 'interesting' investments here, Google going for Baidu and Amazon buying Joyo.com. But we can see more dust at the horizon as Mary Meeker, dubbed the "Queen of the internet" at the previous bubble, is back with a major report on the internet in China. The hype is only starting: stay tuned.