economy - VW slashes China investment by 22 percent

The German car manufacturer Volkswagen will reduce its investments in its Chinese joint ventures by 22 percent to 2.1 billion euro as a part of a worldwide cost cutting operation, the Financial Times writes today.
VW is the first automotive industry in China that hits the brakes in a major way, after have several fat years. Over the past few months sales have done down, despite major price cuts, export is still no option and overcapacity is hitting the industry. VW lost this year its leading position in the Chinese sedan-market to GM, but because of the high investment still on its way by competitors, more cuts in investments can be expected.

NGO's - New magazine on civil society

Asia Labour News points at yet another magazine that pushes the limits, the China Labor Study. You can download it as a pdf-file, but it seems rather massive. This might be another step towards a civil society, or problems for the author of course.

media - FHM already pushed the enveloppe



Danwei notes that the other men's magazine in China FHM is already getting close to how its international editions look like. Even before Playboy hits the market (a still unconfirmed rumor) the competition seems to be heating up.

media – A successful outdoor meeting

The People’s Daily is actually carrying the news about the successful strike in Guangzhou. That in itself is a breakthrough, and might be the beginning of much more. It is funny though, to see how it describes the strike as an “outdoor meeting” that “blocked traffic around the factory as workers called for timely payment of their wages, increased overtime pay and one day off per week.” The word ‘strike’ probably a banned word in the official editing software.

change – Colonel Jin Xing is halfway

Yesterday the Shanghai Foreign Correspondents Club organized a viewing of the beautiful documentary ‘Colonel Jin Xing, a unique destiny’. Jin Xing, China’s first transsexual, started a dancing career in the troupe of the People's Liberation Army and is now Shanghai’s most famous dancer and choreographer. She is widely praised by the Chinese media, who do avoid not mention she changed gender halfway her career.
Jin Xing (33) just flew back from Switzerland. The way she had changed over de past few years was the most amazing discovery I made that evening. During an earlier viewing a few years ago, it was not clear whether she would actually mingle with the crowd, because she did not feel at ease at all. She did in the end, but was very shy and as far as I remember she did not say that much.
How different was that yesterday. She joined a heated discussion we had while we were waiting for a second viewing, spoke perfect English and described how the different media focus on different issues. The American media always want to talk about politics, she said, and the Asian media on whom she is dating.
Later, after the first viewing, she took the stage and was even more outspoken in her statements, describing how in China people hopelessly confused being gay and a transsexual and how she refused to join the American minorities politics. By labeling people according to their sexual preferences also life in China has lost much of its innocence, she said.
In a next phase of her life, when she was in her 50s, she would probably make a good TV-host, being able to share her experiences with many more other people. She certainly needs a bigger stage than we could offer her with the 50+ people in Shanghai.

trends - Chinese top in Durex-index

Chinese have on average 19.3 sexpartners, says the most recent Durex survey and are far ahead of the worldwide average of 10.5, write Chinese media. Only three years ago, another Durex survey revealed the Chinese were the most loyal partners, where 70 percent would have only one sex partners, while in Germany, France and the US only 11 percent of the people said they only had one partner.
While both statements can be true at the same time - when the remaining 30 percent works hard enough - it mainly seems a solid way for Durex to get publicity, as some of the Chinese media remark.
The crew of The Guardian of course discovered the sexual revolution in Shanghai too, as every new foreign journalist has done over the past fifteen years. No new discoveries here, but some nice observations as the reporter notes the huge differences between women in their early twenties and those around their thirties. As my favorite academic on Shanghai's sexual revolution James Farrer would say: "In Shanghai a generation only lasts for about five years."

media – The third evil force

ESWN offers again a rather unusual insight in how the Chinese traditional media still work. In a translation from the New Century Net, Liang Zhi describes his viewpoint on the way the “third evil force” works, a term people often use to describe the media.
“The first evil force refers to government organizations. They abuse their power over the people. The second evil force refers to the triad organizations on mainland China. To list the news media alongside the triad gangs is quite appropriate. I was a reporter for about seven to eight years at a newspaper in western China, and I can summarize what I personally observed as follows: a fucking gangster newspaper!”
What makes the emotional account interesting is the large number of little facts, on what media cannot report (“When the stock market began to fall successively last year, several companies requested to be suspended from trading. These could not be reported because of the fear of causing stock market turmoil”) or what they should report, often hundreds of instructions from different departments.
As ESWN notes, not all crows under heaven are black. As the Guangdong media had to change to beat off the competition from Hong Kong, the rest of the media will be facing the competition by the internet. When traditional media cannot match the information the internet is offering, they will see their position erode even faster than the traditional US media are undermined by the internet.

blogging - Webloggers calling HKU journalism school


At the second meetup Webloggers meeting in Shanghai we had Andrew Lih of the HKU journalism school as a guest and had a rather animated evening. New member Maria Trombly not only provided her apartment, pizza, but also an internet connection. In the first part of the evening we linked up with Andrew's class in Hong Kong, where Dan Gillmor had taken over the classes on online media.
Although technology was not working on its best, it was fun to have this direct exchange between webloggers in Shanghai and media students in Hong Kong. It would have helped if we could have heard each other better, but then, we are still in the stone age of the internet. That might work out next time.

civil society - Succesfull strike in Guangdong

A two-days strike at a small Guangzhou factory ended in victory for the strikers and might have set a precedent, writes The Standard. "Hundreds of workers at an electronics factory in Guangzhou's Panyu district staged a successful two-day strike that forced their employer to promise to pay wages on time and increase overtime payments."
The province has been hit by labor shortages in the past six months, offering workers an opportunity to ask for better wages.
Labor conflicts are getting more attention, as the government seems to leave more of the negotiations open to the different parties involved.

Economy – Mobilized savings undermine credit crunch

An estimated 120 billion US dollar worth of deposits has been flooding last in the economy, writes the International Herald Tribune today, quoting Tao Dong, chief China economist at Credit Suisse First Boston. That equals about three percent of all deposits in China.
The flood undermines efforts of the financial authorities in Beijing to slow down the economy, but might also challenge the traditional financial institutions. The so-called Wenzhou stir-fry is expected to shake world markets, because of China’s increased leverage in the global economy.

media - Playboy and the China market

(from the German edition)
The rumor that Playboy is ready to enter the Chinese market is already going around for some time and has been generally perceived as a false one. Well, not anymore and that might be a smart move, but also a daring one in this overwhelming conservative country.
The government is trying to educate its citizens concerning AIDS and other sexually transmitted diseases, but focusing only on sex in relation to terminal diseases might be a bit limited. Will be able to tell you more in December. Meanwhile you can have a look yourself already, even without a proxy.

Watching the crystal ball – the WTO column

(Soon at Chinabiz)

One of China’s leading economists, Zhang Jun, asked himself in an analysis this week in the China Daily whether China can maintain another thirty years of sustainable economic development.

I know enough business people who would be happy to know whether that is the case for their industry in the coming three months. It makes reading the media more fun as business people are trying to read the future in their tea leaves. But just what happens is as clear as watching in a crystal ball, where you will see in the best case a distorted picture of yourself.
Much of those predictions and statements of business people in the media bring back a beautiful statement of the chairman of the Dutch association of laundries who, in an effort to stop the downfall of his industry, accused the Dutch of being unhygienic people who did not wash their clothes too often. It did not stop the downfall.
So when Bloomberg quotes an investment banker who says that after a fall of more than three years the Chinese stock markets have reached the bottom of the market, I associate him with that picture of my brave laundry man. Of course we all know that the stock markets can and will drop further.
When automotive executives announce that the current slump in car sales in China is over, I only have to look at the website of the average Chinese car owner, Wang Jianshuo, to see that things are actually getting worse. Prices are dropping, but customers stay away and the storages of the retailers are getting filled.

The question whether or not China will be able to mitigate its amazing economic growth is only one part of the issue. Whatever will happen, it will have major effects, and the number of corporate blood noses will increase. Commodity markets will be worldwide in turmoil when China actually slows down, and when not energy shortages and disruptions of the logistical chain will do so.
With some exceptions, companies in China work against very small margins that are unheard of in other parts of the world. So when changes take place, industries will suffer, flourish and very often it is very hard to tell in advance. Chinese companies might be more equipped for that change compared to foreign companies who have not yet learned how to deal with long-term economic growth.

Media love sweeping statements on the recent interest increase, the possible revaluation of the Renminbi, the labor market, the growth of the GDP and other developments. But each move of the economy will have both positive and negative implications, that make such general statements nonsensical.
As the movements of China’s roller coaster economy become more and more of international importance, a more detailed look at what is happening exactly might be more useful than the sweeping statements of the past.

Fons Tuinstra

media - All is well at the internet - People's Daily

For those who are familair with the new media, this article in today's People's Daily really looks rather funny. In a desperate effort to control information on the media the central government has designated eight central media websites and 24 local ones as the main sources for China-related news. All the other online media should get their information from those sources, or else. But for those familiar with the new media it is becoming clear is that the internet a disruptive force, changing the traditional media beyond recognition. Traditional barriers between media, audiences and their sources disappear, one of the main themes of Dan Gillmor's book "We, the Media" on the changes in the media because of the internet.
Gillmor will give speeches and attend panels. For more information, go to:

media - The Guardian's visit to "China's miracle"

The British Daily The Guardian takes off with a weeklong set of reports from Shanghai, as the China Digital News was the first to notice. Fifteen of their reporters visited the city for a week. "For months the world's attention has been focused on the White House race but, while we weren't watching, a quiet revolution has been gathering pace - transforming the earth's most populous nation from stunted giant into aspiring superpower. In an attempt to capture a snapshot of this dizzying change, 15 Guardian journalists will be reporting all this week on every aspect of Chinese life from the stock market to sex and shopping. Here, foreign reporter of the year James Meek asks if China has found a third way between capitalism and communism."

AIDS – Government starts to deliver after promises

SARS has served last year really as a wake-up call for the central government. Earlier this year international organizations like UNAID praised the Chinese government extensively for their 180-degree turnabout regarding AIDS. Until the beginning of this year AIDS was merely ignored or information was actively suppressed.
Now it seems that we did not see empty promises, as might have happened in too many cases. Doctors who were previously prosecuted for trying to raise the attention for this deadly disease now enjoy celebrity status. In Guangdong the government actually organizes a sex festival for the youngsters to raise the awareness. It will be a long way, but at least the subject remains high on the political agenda.

civil society - Petition system needs revamp

Only 0.2 percent of the petitions received by the central government in Beijing from its citizens has any effect, is one of the more shocking conclusions in a detailed overview by ESWN of the current petitioning system. Despite that, many citizens make the traditional way to Beijing to complain, according to some reports in September 3.1 million.
But even if it is only a safety valve for people to let off steam, such a small success rate might work counterproductive.
"According to reports, the Chinese authorities are thinking about revising the 1995 National Petition Regulations," says one of the quoted media reports. "Earlier, a report from the Chinese Academy of Science titled "The Flaws Of The Petitioning System and Their Political Consequences" also got the attention of the upper echelon in China. According to information, the Chinese officials believe that the petition system has reached a stage where it must be reformed. The Chinese government will follow the instructions from Hu Jintao and set up a new petitioning system."

blogging - The Guardian reviews "We The Media"

Another raving review, this time in The Guarduan, of Dan Gillmor's book: 'We The Media'. Dan will be speaking Monday November 15 at a meeting of the Shanghai Foreign Correspondents Club, but there will be more meetings. Please check with the websites or mail me.