Politics - Anti-Chinese riots in Spain

"Chinese out," about 500 demonstrators shouted on Thursday in the industrial zone Carrus of Spanish Elche, the Crackpot Chronicles reported earlier today. Demonstrators burned down the warehouse of a Chinese shoe shop, causing close to one million USD of damage.
"The story is all over the Chinese media and I found one Australian link, but so far, not much, if any visibility in Western media," writes Ellen Sander. It was not the first worrying anti-Chinese incident in this region, according to a BBC-report.
Spanish shoemakers are complaining that Chinese shoes take away almost all their business, by undercutting their prices, party through illegal means.
Chinese competition has been pretty low on the political agenda. Even in the Kerry-Bush debate China was only mentioned in relation to North Korea. But an undercurrent of anti-Chinese feelings can be noted in more European countries and the US.

media - Is Jingjing doing it?


In my selection of new participants for the Connecting China project, I try to find out how they get their information together and what kind of subjects keeps them busy. Well, it is not the Kerry-Bush debate or North Korea, but what is happing between Olympic Gold winner Guo Jingjing and the grandson of a Hong Kong tycoon, Kenneth Fok Kai-hong.
Guo Jingjing was seen with the grandson first after the F1 races in Shanghai, on Monday morning at two o'clock at Park 97. She then used state news agency Xinhua to deny speculations in Hong Kong papers the two had developed a 'special' relationship. But celebrities are no longer safe in Shanghai too, as this picture was of the couple in a less then business-like position. The picture (obviously copied from a print publication) is going around at the internet now, my sources told me.

Media – Classic stories from China

Today I had a pleasant lunch with a colleague from Beijing and she noted in Beijing (less so in Shanghai) an influx of new colleagues, replacing others. That means that they are also discovering stories, we already did five or ten years ago, while the stories are sometimes already much older.
Top story is now that Chinese are actually drinking coffee (five years old) and red wine (at least ten years old). Very soon they will find out Chinese are going to the disco (15 years old) and the very diligent once discover that a sexual revolution has changed China (at least twenty years old).
No problem, we did the same kind of classic stories when we arrived in China. Most funny ones are those that think they might get into trouble with the government if they think they write about the sexual revolution.

debate - Should the American school have protected the NK refugees?

An emotional debate is evolving at the NK zone after the Shanghai American School decided on Monday to hand over nine (not eight as originally reported) North Korean refugees to the Shanghai police. The refugees had entered the school, asking for political asylum.

"Any Western educator in China who does not know the fate of repatriated North Korean refugees should be sent on a field trip to the Auschwitz death camp. What a bunch of losers," writes one of the commenters.
But a parent defends the decision: "As a parent whose children are often in international schools, I am very sympathetic to the position of the school board...These institutions should never be made pawns in a geopolitical struggle--schools should be neutral territory and it is irresponsible to jeopardize that equilibrium."
Others say it was even against international law to hand the asylym seekers to the police: "In this case, this policy had terrible, arguably criminal implications. So, Mr. Sandhu was clearly obligated by a moral imperative, as well as international law - an international treaty to which both the US and China are signatory, to disobey them."

Google's self-censorship - Is stupidness evil?

Is compromise evil, Danwei wonders, in a variation on the famous Google-slogan 'Do No Evil'. Danwei summerize the current discussion on Google censoring its China News search engine from sites that are banned in China.

Well, after ten years in China, compromise it not a strange word for me, believe me. But a compromise in my view is the outcome of a struggle, a fight, and then you give in until a certain degree, or back off of course. After that you go to your constituency - whoever that might be - and try to explain and defend your compromise; they might accept that or not. Then you go ahead with your compromise. Or not.

In this case there has not been a trace of a fight or even contact between Google and any Chinese department. In the famous Playboy-interview both CEO's deny there has been even any contact. It seems very unlikely somebody from Beijing will call them in the US.

So they turn around the whole process: first they put their censorship system in place. Their constituency discovers it and starts screaming. Then Google uses sloppy arguments to defend their act, and they even repeat it.

Next on the agenda must me negotiations with China. Damned, what an neat litte negotiation position they have put themselves in. Compromising has only started. 'Don't be stupid', I would say.

Politics – Shanghai American Schools hands NK refugees over to police

A gigantic dilemma came upon the Shanghai American School as North Korean refugees entered their premises, asking for political asylum, Rebecca MacKinnon on her weblog on North Korea. The story was earlier published in South Korean media.
The group of eight entered the school on Monday and was told a school could not provide them with political asylum. “They were traumatized and in shock,” an eyewitness writes. “No staff or students were hurt but they had to stand by helplessly and watch the police physically remove these woman and their children from the school. When our Korean translator explained to the women that they were not on embassy grounds the look of terror that crossed their faces stunned everyone present. That was when everyone realized that as soon as they were returned to North Korea by the Chinese government they would most likely be put to death or worse, wish they were dead.”
The school informed its staff later and said: “We informed them, however, that as an educational institution, we would not prevent them from leaving the campus before the police arrived.” That obviously did not happen.

economy – Volkswagen cuts parts’ prices


I’m just updating the automotive part of the German translation of my Dutch book on “15 misunderstandings about China and the Chinese” and had to grin when I saw this dispatch by Xinhua today. In an effort to halt the fast erosion of its market share of sedans in China Shanghai Volkswagen has announced price reduction on the parts of its Passat and Polo, varying between 25 and 80 percent.
Now the question is who is going to pay the difference of this desperate action to help Shanghai Volkswagen to attract more customers? My guess is that Volkswagen has talked to the suppliers of their parts. They are going to suffer.
Shanghai Volkswagen has of course another problem. At this stage most of the private buyers (and probably also more government departments) belong to the more wealthy section of the Chinese populations. They have often too much money and very little ways to invest it now the real estate market is difficult, the stock markets keep on going down and investing it abroad is only possible after taking the capital out in a suitcase. Volkswagen is associated with the old planned economy and that is something the current buyers want to avoid.

economy - National traffic jam day


When my experiences yesterday in Shanghai are an indication of what is going to happen, National Day will be national traffic jam day. Traditionally the internet slows down to a trickle, since everybody who is not on the street is likely to be online. But the streets will be gruesome.
Already yesterday two days ahead of national day, I got on my way back from a lunch with the Dutch Consul General stuck in a traffic jam. He onfortunately lives in Hongqiao and getting back in the middle of the afternoon was almost impossible. The trip took more than an hour, while fifteen minutes would have been normal. On the way we saw many other taxis, explaining why finding a taxi is so hard in Shanghai, even when it is not raining. Fortunately, some colleagues joined me in the car, there was a mobile phone, but otherwise it reminded me of my first years in Shanghai when the elevated high ways were only under construction.
Down at Yanan Road the situation looked so bad that we left the taxi and walked up to Nanjing Road, that proved to be much better. Guess that tomorrow and the rest of the holiday week will see seven worse traffic jams.
Well, have fun coming week, whatever you are doing, online or offline.

Internet – Dan Gillmor in Shanghai?


Famous US blogger and journalist Dan Gillmor, author of the book ‘We – the media. Grassroot journalism by the people, for the people’ is likely to visit Shanghai in November this year. Dan will be teaching at the Hong Kong University and wants to take the opportunity to see this important part of China too.
Dan has been one of the earliest webloggers, operating from Silicon Valley as a journalist for the and is on of the key people defining the relationship between the internet and traditional media in the United States. Not only is he speaking at almost every conference on the new media that matters, he recently also publish a book depicting the paradigm changes taking place in the media.
In China his book is expected to be translated into Chinese in a collaborative wiki-project.We are in the early phase of getting a small program together and think this is a good chance for the Chinese blogging and journo communities to get some stimulating input. Please do not hesitate to join in here with any ideas.

internet - Google sticks to self-destructive argument

The new Google search services has triggered off quite some discussion by excluding banned website from its searches. The China Digital News gives an overview.
"For users inside the People's Republic of China, we have chosen not to include sources that are inaccessible from within that country," Google says in a statement. In many of the online and offline discussions I had in the past week, people did expect Google to come up with something more creative. Their argument is simply not valid.
The interesting part is that most of the organizations stick to their believe that the internet blocks are information effectively away from the internet users in China. In my experience the technical barriers are highly symbolic and I see a huge cultural barrier that is conveniently ignored.

Labor – Trial against workers might turn against Taiwanese employer

In an emotional plea defense trial lawyer Gao Zhisheng summerizes arguments in favor or one of eight workers on trial, after a massive incident against Taiwanese shoe producer Stella International shoe factories in Dongguan turned ugly earlier this year. The Asian Labour News pointed me at this report of the China Labour News (proxy needed).
On 21 April thousands of workers staged a mass protest against their employer, because of poor payment and poor working conditions. Since then the labor situation in the whole region has deteriorated and the government has started nationwide actions to encourage migrant workers to keep on going to work in the factories in the Pearl Delta.
The incident turned ugly two days later during a protest of about 1,000 workers and twenty of them were arrested. Their trial behind closed doors is over, but no verdicts have been announced.
Lawyer Gao pleaded with the court: “Your Honour, when I met with my client Chen Nanliu [in jail] on 18 August, I saw before me an extremely thin and poorly looking young man of just over 20 years of age; and three times during our meeting he had to rest his head on the table out of sheer exhaustion and ill-health. Frankly speaking, I was utterly shocked by his general condition. I appeal to this Court to take full notice of the social factors I have outlined in my statement here today, and to show sympathy toward my client for the high spiritual and psychological price that he has already had to pay. I ask you – on the basis of law, humanity and conscience – to find the defendant Chen Nanliu innocent of all charges, in order that the judgment of this Court may stand the test of history.”
His plea might have more chance now working conditions in general have become a restraint for China’s economic growth.