internet - Shanghai gay scene virtual presence

Colleague Jen Lin-liu reports in this weeks Far Eastern Economic Review about the internet radio Echo Chen has set up in Shanghai for Chinese lesbians. "The Internet had the biggest influence on my life. After finding a gay community on-line, I became much happier. I realized I could find someone to love, and that she would be female. If it hadn't been for the Internet, I'd probably be married to a man now. It's hard to know if that would have made me happy," Echo says in the (unlinkable) article. Echo Chen started a website for lesbians, as China only had them for gay men, now claiming about 30,000 visitors from all over China. Echo Chen: "I realized that lesbians in China need guidance--we even have users in Tibet. Many feel a lot of pressure once they find out they're gay. Gays abroad have a lot more freedom, but China is still very conservative. My Web site hasn't been censored so far, but maybe the authorities don't know about it yet! But then, even though China is pretty traditional, it's not as severe as people outside the country might think."
Here is more about the gay community in China.

economy - Guangzhou wages rise 9.2 percent

The recent drop in migrant workers in parts of southern China is having an effect: average wages in Guangzhou went up 9.2 percent between January and September of this year, the Asian Labour News reports. The annual average is now 22,446 Renminbi (USD 2,700).
Guangzhou lists number two in Guangdong after Shenzhen, where people earn slightly more.

internet - Dan Gillmor's Shanghai program

US journalist and weblogger Dan Gillmor, author of 'We, the Media' will join us in Shanghai in the weekend of 13 and 14 November, have meetings on Monday 15 November at the journalism school of Fudan and possible speak that evening for the Shanghai Foreign Correspondents' Club.
In between Dan is meet several IT-entrepreneurs to get a bit of a feeling what is going on in the technology scene in Shanghai.
We are still fine-tuning the program, so any additional ideas or comments are still welcome.

media - Chinese news with American characteristics

WOW – We observe the world – is the name of a new weblog that will be launched next week by the journalism school of the Beijing Foreign Languages University, their professor and US-journalist Joseph Bosco announced at his weblog, The LongBow Papers. Bosco has been hired by the university to teach the principles of free journalism, the First Amendment and all these things that are not typical for Chinese media. He was initially amazed himself, when he was being asked, he told me last month in Beijing. But he is convinced of the sincerity of the university and will launch a journalistic weblog to prove that.
Wow will be “will be a combination blog and online news magazine… The site will not be a place for lyrical prose from wistful Chinese college students. It will be a real news entity written by young adults majoring in journalism. Many of them already have experience working in media,” Bosco writes.

Economy – CSRC writes off half of the securities houses

Almost half of the Chinese brokerages are ‘risky’ or ‘very risky’, say official of the China Securities Regulatory Commission (CSRC) in a first effort to clean the industry, writes the Financial Times. The others need ‘monitoring’ or ‘close monitoring’.
The sweeping statement bears the hallmark of its new chairman, Huang Qifan, who has a reputation of calling things by their name.
Twelve years after the stock markets opened in China, the industry is still a huge mess. The value for the shares have been falling for over three years, bringing the overinflated market back to reality, but marred with fraud, manipulation and lack of interest by sincere investors.
The heavy losses carried by securities companies for a number of years, resulting from their practice of offering investors guaranteed returns, have been exacerbated by a sharp downturn in the market since April, writes the Financial Times. But the problems are much older.
The steep fall of the shares started early this century as policy makers suggested that the majority of non-tradable share, owned by state-owned companies should be sold to fill the empty coffers of the social security and pension fund. Such a tripling of the market would deflate the value, and many investors left the markets. That deflation has taken place anyway, inflating also the chances of using the remaining value for the lacking social funds.

media - State-owned companies suck, writes the People's Daily

At least that is how Danwei summerizes an artickle in the paper of the communist party on the 500 largest companies in China. And they suck, because they are state-owned.
The original article explains it in more difficult terms: "dependence inertia". Danwei offers the links and advises to read the Chinese text: "The Chinese version is easier to read [than the English version] even if your Chinese readings skills are not all that hot."

NGO's - More on the Yeti Lake



Now the players are gathering forces to save (or destroy) one of the more beautiful places in China to produce more electricity, I have collected a few resources that might be useful. Key will be the Mugecuo lake, or Yeti lake in Tibetian. The International Rivers Network gives a good and regularly updated overview of the environmental situation. Google shows more and other resources.
The Naxi belong to some of the better known ethnic minorities in China. While they are more direct affected by the construction of the new dam, not much is online yet about their participation.
Most interesting person at the Huaneng Group is most certainly its chairman Li Xiaoping, the son of former premier Li Peng, who has been pulling through the Three Gorges Dam against much oppposition. The family had the former power company as its base, and obvious they are still running the show there. The Huaneng Group belongs to one of five larger power producers in China. Li Xiaoping keeps himself rather on the background. While his company is listed almost everywhere where there is a stock exchange, I have not yet located a picture of Mr. Li.

NGO's - Battle on Unesco site emerges

Environmental groups have raised the alarm now construction for a dam has started that would flood a Unesco site, displace 100,000 people and destroy the traditional life of the Naxi people, writes the Independent. (And this was noted by the China Digital News).
The power producer Huaneng Group plays the role of the evil force against environmental groups and tribes, writes the British paper. "The stakes are extremely high. Chinese environmentalists have decided to make this their next major campaign," says Ma Jun, a consultant who was the first to produce a study on the dam's implications in The Independent. "I'm optimistic they will succeed because this case is a touch-stone of all the big talks on balancing environmental preservation with development."

poll - Who on the 2004 Top-100 Rich list will fall this year?

I wondered in my column for Chinabiz and in this weblog, after Yang Bin, Zhou Zhengyi and the Tang brothers of D'Long, who would be next this tims.
More evil-minded readers suggested that I should do a poll on this and came up with a few suggestions. In the poll you can find the result. Do you have other names? Please let us know, and give some of your reasons, so we might be doing a second poll.

economy - Inflation looms at volatile market



Eager buyers stormed the entrance of the Guangzhou Fair last Friday, the New York Times reports in a larger article about the volatile markets in China, that cause a plunge at some of the larger metal exchanges worldwide.
Higher prices for commodities - and increasing pressure on wages - are not compensated by the larger retailers, complain Chinese companies who then cut their reserves and stop buying raw material. Inflation might be expanding to more than only commodities.

economy - Planet Earth calling the WEF

What planet is the World Economic Forum (WEF) living on, Ruth Lea, Director of the Centre for Policy Studies in London wonders in a letter in the Financial Times.
The WEF placed China in its annual global competitive programme on the 46th place. "I admire the Scandinavian countries greatly but the notion that four of them are ranked among the top six for growth prospects, while China limps in at 46th, simply beggars belief. Forgive me, but just what planet is the WEF on?," Ms Lea writes. "Back here on planet Earth, I have little doubt that China will continue to power ahead over the next five to 10 years, experiencing growth rates that make Finland's and Sweden's look very modest indeed. I can only conclude that the WEF is institutionally biased towards fashionable, and implicitly occidental, notions of global competitiveness that are deeply flawed. And in doing so it has simply missed the point."

media - The future of foreign correspondents

A short revamp of a discussion about the future of foreign correspondence I have been pushing in Shanghai in the first half of this year, by my own lectures and a meeting with Rebecca MacKinnon, who left CNN to join the webloggers at NKzone on North Korea.

The Nieman Report of Harvard University just published in the Fall issue a set of articles - one written by be - on the issue. A good reason to resume the discussion and people who are interested can join us at a special mailing list for this subject: the foreign desk.

politics - No news on American school defectors

There is still no news from the North Korean refugees that were handed over to the Chinese police by the Shanghai American School, writes Rebecca MacKinnon on NKzone in an update about several cases. The hand-over caused a huge uproar. According to international law and humanitarian principles, the Shanghai American School could not have done this, many argued.