economy - The one-child policy: a success, a failure or a disaster?

a potential winner

Maria Trombly was kind enough to send me this link of the Eastwest Center on China's one-child policy, now 25 years in place. (They urgently need an RSS-feed!) While the piece by Wang Feng avoids the usual hysteria about the negative aspects of the policy, it still assumes too much. For example it assumes that the policy has been implemented in the whole of China, while there are strong indications that the country side has in different degrees not complied with the policy. Figures on China's population are unreliable and the 'hidden' population might still offer enough "people's power" to help in a aging society.

James Farrer says in my book that despite the lack of compliance, it still means that hundreds of million of Chinese have not been born, making the policy into a success anyway. He points also at the great benefits for Chinese women, who are the biggest winners of the one-child policy.

For the first time in the Chinese history, women have a position in society that is equal to that of men, getting the same education and chances in the society. Those hundreds of million often unmarried women are going to make a huge difference in China, Farrer thinks. "Chinese women will take the lead in getting social accomplishments for women in the 21th century."

economy - Is the growth sustainable?



One of the very relevant issues that came up last Thursday in the Q&A session after my talk at the meeting of the German chamber of commerce on my book was the question whether China's economic growth is sustainable. The question was brought up by the moderator, who had already read my book, and knew I had some outspoken viewpoints on that issue.
The question of economic sustainability is closely related to the question whether China's political regime survives. In the decade I have been living in China, I have noted a great number of doomsday scenario's, starting with the ailing Deng Xiaoping up to SARS as one of the more recent events. All those doomsday scenario's have on thing in common: they did not cause the collapse of China as a political entity. On the contrary, I have seen the political system only grow in terms of selfconfidence and strength. In that way I might be the prisoner of my own history with China, but I have become very sceptical about those doomsday stories.
That does not mean that there are no huge bears on the road that threathen China's economic growth. In fact, it will need all the skills of politicians to avoids big scale disasters, on its financial structure, the environment, the energy policy, AIDS to mention a few. But since media are only interested in those issues when they are a deadly threath to China's overall political future, decent coverage is often lacking. Media have been waiting for 15 years for a full-scale collapse, anything less might bore their audiences - and certainly my editors - to death.

media - The decline of the traditional media

Reading yet another report, this time by the Carnegie Corporation, about the decline in the traditional media and the revolutionary changes we are going through. At least there is a sense of panic in the US, that is still very far away in Europe, and certainly in China where the traditional media are exploding.
But the economic fundations of the mass media are eroding, and I do not see how Chinese media could escape from this media revolution, although it might take a different shape.

life - Spring fatigue

The sun is shining in Shanghai, temperature over 20 degrees and spring fatigue is hitting in a major way. Might also be a too busy week, with last night my speech for the German chamber of commerce, and taking to too many people. Anyway: today I want to sit in the sun and relax, no way out.
Sold a dozen or so books of, but could have sold up to 500 to a hotel chain when I would have had it in English, damned.

economy - Millionair Fair in 2006 in Shanghai

Millionairs in Amsterdam

A Millionair Fair, focusing on the very rich, will be held in Shanghai in 2006. A contract for a fair in Shanghai was earlier this week signed at the Fair in Moskou, the Dutch daily De Telegraaf reports. The initiative originates from Amsterdam in the Netherlands.

internet – Cybersex with Chinese characteristics



While I was looking for new subjects to bore you to death (China denies ebola report, Jiao Guobiao dismissed, Clampdown on property boom) Danwei kept fortunately a firm eye on the fun part of life.
They noted a report about Chinese adult toys that can improve your cyber sex life – provided you have one of course.

According to the instructions, a male partner can control the vibrator of a woman and talk to her on the microphone, whereas the female partner in her turn is able to manipulate the vagina of a man.

I still have a logistical problem here. Say, I buy the male version of the set, how do I find a partner on the internet that is also equipped with similar equipment? Or can you just buy a vibrator and every casual passerby can manipulate it. Or you go out with your preferred partner, purchase the equipment and then go remote? That sounds pretty boring. Guess I wait for some consumer reports.
The Bingfeng Teahouse summerize a week of sex in the Chinese blogosphere.

life - Female graduates cannot find Mr. Right

The problems is of all big cities in the world, but hitting now China in a larger way: female graduates - baptised the 'third' sex - find it harder and harder to link up with a man as they get better education. ESWN collected some material on this issue.
Professor Yu Jiangbao of Xiamen University blames partly also the picky women themselves:

On the one hand, the female graduate student hopes that their mates should have education not less than theirs. On the other hand, the males hope that the females should not have more education than theirs. These are the sides of the same coin, but it leads to the same inequality in choices by gender. These attitudes creates two consequences. On one hand, the female graduate student increases significantly their requirements: that is, on top of the usual standards of height, wealth and status is added education as a minimum requirement. This posed a barrier in the marriage market, and decreases the number of choices.

internet - Podcasting students from Fudan middle school

Podcasting - making your own radio show on the internet - is becoming the thing of the internet this year. Tee Lek Ying, an English teacher of the Fudan Middle School in Shanghai asked his students, 15-year olds, to make their own podcasts. Tek, who is also a member of our Shanghai Webloggers meetup is still struggling with 150 MB on material, but sounded enthousiastic. He is in the process of putting the material online, but the first podcasts are available here.
When they can do it, I should look into it too.

protest - Two different online petitons

Protesting online has become trendy. The protest against the new limitations on BBS's is nearing after a few year its 4,000th signature. But it cannot beat of course the over 10 million protests against the Japanese seat in the UN Security Council. The interesting development is of course that this tool is available for everybody.

media - Covering plastic in China



Those who are following my writings a bit longer know I'm still finishing off a mourning process regarding the demise of the foreign correspondent. Last year I wrote some articles for The Correspondent of the Hong Kong FCC and the Nieman Report of Harvard University. Also one of my first blogs was a notebook on this issue.
Covering a country is no longer en vogue, while the number of colleagues focusing on a very specific niche market is going: securities, automotive industry, education. As a joke I would say during speeches and discussions about the issue that I wondered why nobody was covering plastics in China.
This evening I realized I had to change my standard remarks, since we very soon will have a foreign correspondent in Shanghai covering plastics and I had a very pleasant conversation with him during this evening's meeting of the Shanghai Foreign Correspondents Club. It had to come, but still strange to take to somebody who has been subject of many of my jokes, before I actually knew he existed.

The revolution of the Chinese ants – the WTO-column

One of the key features of revolutions is that often changes are only qualified as revolutionary with hindsight. When the first cars hit the roads and the first airplanes tried to take off, most observers had a good laugh about those efforts to change the world.
While the original producers of those early cars and airplanes often had exaggerate expectations about how fast their products would change, in the end many of those expectations became true.
While the internet is still in its technological infancy, went through its first boom and bust cycle, it has rattled at the roots of many industries. Call it music, media, telecom, printing, gaming, they all felt what is called ‘the revolution of the ants’. The traditional players see their power positions undermined by the new technology that gives power to the small people and for many it has been, is and will be a “change or die” operation.

Who is familiar with the now embattled bulletin boards or BBS’s that have dominated the online life at Chinese universities for the past ten years has seen the ants in action. Many tens of thousands people engaged in sometimes heated discussions about almost any subject you can think of. Some of the larger BBS’s were really like an anthill, producing the best and the worst of the internet you can imagine.
They were an excellent tool for academic exchange and open debate at best. At worst they were the source of unfounded rumors, anonymous attacks on celebrities, outbursts of anti-Japanese hatemongering and extreme patriotism. In that way the internet is a tool, not different from a car. You can use it to go on a holiday or to rob a bank. While the latter use would certainly trigger off problems with the authorities, it would not be a reason to ban cars.
Unfortunately, that is what the educational authorities did with their BBS’s, when they got into hot water because of new rules on liability of online content. It caused an uproar, even demonstrations by upset students and others. By limiting most access to the students of their university, the BBS’s lost much of the benefits they brought to many of their users over the past decade.
The Chinese ants not only took on the streets, but organized an online petition to ask their president to reverse the draconian measure. The number of signatures is close to 3,000 when I’m writing this after the petition has been online for less than two day, but will be much higher when you are reading this.
Many of the users are going to find other ways to communicate with each other: the internet is about breaking down barriers, not building them and in the long run traditional forces who do not want to change, will be overrun by the ants.

Some players have learned from their earlier mistakes. The telecom industry is still missing the boat and does not realize we can talk with anybody everywhere almost for free. The media industry belongs to the slow adapters too. But the hard-hit music industry is now developing online revenue that actually pleases their customers. The book market has worldwide doubled in volume thanks to new searching techniques.
Universities, companies and individuals can try and destroy the anthills, but that will not kill the ants and their online revolution.

Also at BNN
Fons Tuinstra

media - Tom Group drops all mainland print deals

Danwei picked up this interesting piece from internet portal Netease. After the Tom Group lost a bid for the Shanghai bookstores of Xinhua in November, it lost its appetite for all print media in China. From a translation:

"We have basically stopped contact with Mainland media, inclusive Xinhua bookstores," said Tom Group CEO Wang Cheng during a press conference [held last
week] to announce the Group's 2004 results.

It is not the first media company to lose its confidence in the Chinese market. And it will not be the last one.

economy - Fake books make a profit

The China Media Monitor of Chinabiz has picked up a beautiful small story from the Beijing-based weekly Oriental Outlook that describes how some of the money-making bestsellers on the Chinese bookmarket were fakes. One bogus book invented a fake Harvard professor Paul Thomas. Also reviews of the NY Times review of books were faked.
You can subscribe to the RSS-feeds of those stories. When you wonder what an RSS-feed is, read here.

media - Whose statistics do you believe?




Chinabiz has started one of those famous unscientific polls on the internet. They ask whose statistics are more credible in China, those of the government, commercial researchers of academics. Fortunately, they asked my comment and I suggested to add the category "none of the above". At least the cynical me can now also vote.

protest - Open letter on BBS-restrictions to sign

A public register to co-sign a letter of protest against the recent restrictions on BBS's to president Hu Jintao has been opened for signing. New entries are coming in very fast: while I signed up it passed the 1,400 threshold. The sign-in form is not very foreigner-friendly: when you put their too many letters, you are not accepted.
There is also a weblog on the issue, as another blogger(whose url I lost) noted, but does not show more than articles from the traditional media.

internet - Is MSN spaces blocked or not?

Metro Society complaints in his first blog that he cannot see his weblog on this relatively blogging service without a proxy. I realized that I had not checked whether this very-easy to use and free blogging service was blocked by the Chinese censor or not.
Mostly I advise people to use the software I use, blogger, since I can help them a bit when they get into trouble, and host them on an independent hosting service, to avoid the blockade. Compared to other services the blogger-software sucks, since it has not been upgraded over the past two years, since Google bought the company. Rumors in the market say upgrades are on its way to fight off the better software of the competiton, but I should actually have a good look at MSN spaces too.
First: I switched off my proxy and could get to Metro Society without a problem. But when I pinged it, and checked the traffic, the results suggested there would be an IP-block in place. So, I'm confused. Any more experiences with MSN spaces in China?

internet - Blogging about the Shanghai Metro

Metro Society is a new kid at the blogging block here in Shanghai, first discovered by China Snippets. The subject of the weblog, the Shanghai subway, is a very well picked one. Apart from sex, no subject can influence the bloodpressure of anybody as good as the public transportation. And as we all know, that is good for the traffic to your weblog. I subscribed to his RSS-feed, at least I think it is a his, since the writer does not disclose his/her identity.

law - Corporate tax, to unify, not to unify

One of the nicest illustration on how decisions in China come into being is the discussion on unifying the corporate tax regime. The National People's Congress has not discussed the proposal, writes The Standard, a de facto refusal of the Chinese lawmakers to accept the proposal by the government.
The preferential tax treatment for foreign companies is already under discussion for a decade and in the Chinese media the government sounds each year very resolute in announcing the system will be unified. Foreign companies have been lobbying against a too speedy unification, but the domestic forces to preserve the preferential treatment might be stronger. Chinese companies have 'moved' their headquarters mostly to Hong Kong, when the taxation became cheaper for foreign companies, making them 'foreign' in name. Those Chinese companies in Hong Kong are the best guarantee that the tax regime will not be unified any time soon.

book - Talk on 'The Wild East' at German chamber



On Thursday 31 March I will talk at a meeting of the German Chamber of Commerce in Shanghai. I will focus on two misunderstandings out of the 15 in my book: the Chinese way of networking, and they way the government is organized. A limited number of books in German will be available. Ordering online is possible in China and outside China.

media - Will the real Li Xiguang stand up?


Some more issues to catch up with.
The famous dean of the journalism school at Tsinghua University, Li Xiguang, is already a case study at the Chinese journalism school for the strange way how he makes the right sounds in Western media about press freedom, but in Chinese does right the opposite. The recent crackdown on BBS's fits exactly the domestic agenda of Li Xiguang who does not want internet users to get online anonymously.
ESWN took the issue up and translated some of the Chinese material that sheds light on the split personality of this media professor. From an open letter by Liu Xiaobo:

Li Xiguang is the typical two-faced person, and he used English and Chinese to maximize his personal gains. In his essay titled "The Double Jeopardy of Chinese Journalism and the Dual Identities of Professor Li Xiguang", An Ti pointed out the following: Li Xiguang is a very peculiar person who can be split into two persons both named Li Xiguang. One of those persons uses the name "Lixiguang" when he speaks to the western media in English or pens essays in English to advocate the benefits of freedom of media and the perils of opinion suppression. The other person has the Chinese name 李希光 and is a hatchet person against freedom of expression inside China.

And an illustration by An Ti:

"During the SARS period, CNN interviewed him and asked him about why China imposed a national blackout on information. He bluntly pointed out that there was no need for the government to do so and that the media should be allowed to collect and publish news. Then he turned around and told the Chinese students that the whole SARS terror was manufactured by the foreign media."

ESWN blamese Western media like CNN for creating the confusion about what Li Xiguang is really representing:

Assuming that we accept that Liu Xiaobo's presentation is true (and you should not accept that as a certainty), who is to be blamed for the ascendancy of such a person as Li Xiguang? Alas, it is the western media (such as CNN) which accept his credentials and statements at face value without checking the record. In fact, you will probably be enchanted by two English-language links below. Indeed, one cannot blame the Chinese officialdom for wanting to shower even more praise and power upon him as long as he can hoodwink the western media.

Also at BNN.

internet - Podcasting at Fudan high school



I was just listening to a backlog of podcasts by Adam Curry, when I realized I had not announced a brilliant projects by one of our weblog meetup members. Tek is teaching at the Fudan high school and has asked his 15-year old students to make podcasts. He got 15 podcasts, that might be online very soon and during our next monthly meeting we will use these assignments to discuss our own plans on podcasting.