law - Chinese fugitive arrested in Amsterdam

Yang Xiuzhu

A Chinese colleague asked me whether I could could provide more details about the arrest in Amsterdam last month of the fugitive Zhejiang offcial Yang Xiuzhu who has been accused of taking bribes worth about 30 million US dollar. Apart from a weblog referring to an AP dispatch I could not find anything yet.
The case should raise some attention since the collaboration between Interpol and the Chinese police has not been that extensive up to now when it concerns the extradiction of convicted criminals. On the other side China has not been very forthcoming in accepting its citizens back who were illegal in Europe. It might indicate a wider cooperation of police forces, that could potentially raise human rights concerns.
Will keep you informed on possible developments.

Books on Interpol

blogging - Low due to difficult access

Apart from some regular columns, blogging low and might even get lower. For the time being I have to rely on internet café's for access. My reading glasses (forgotten in Shanghai) have not yet been delivered in Brussels and the blogger-interface often does not let me make links. Next week volume might even be lower as I will be travelling much of the week in Holland. We will see (if the glasses arrive, of course).

Hu did it – the WTO-column

(later also at Chinabiz)
The new central leadership is in charge for over two years and, with a discount given for SARS in their first months, media worldwide have been giving an assessment of what is has achieved. Giving such an assessment about China is both easy and hard. Easy, since in a huge and diverse country like China things can go very wrong and very good at the same time, so depending on once personal perception, it is fairly easy to pick some incidents that fit one’s own agenda, whether positive or negative.
Zhao Qizheng, the head of the information office of the State Council, complained in May that Western media focused too much on those things going wrong. Journalists and academics continue to be incarcerated for rather unclear reasons so it is all too easy to paint a gloomy picture of China’s recent development. By then blaming China’s president personally for rounding up people who have or report on dissenting views, it becomes very easy to frame China in the classic way as an evil force.
While I do think it is important to pinpoint those distressing incidents, allow me there to take a helicopter view and look at some really new developments that make the current leadership different from the previous one. In China, where all politics is local politics, pushing a new policy at a central level is hard enough. Former Prime Minister Zhu Rongji complained more than once that he was already happy when one out of three laws would have an impact in the whole country. My overview:

1. The move of emphasis from the larger cities, one of Jiang Zemin core policies, to the country side has had a major effect. Obviously helped by last year’s bumper harvest, the abolishment of agricultural taxes and other measures have improved income at the country side. Millions of migrant workers decided last year and this year that going to their poorly paid jobs in Guangdong and Fujian was not longer worthwhile, causing a major shock in the southern parts of China where low wages still define much of its economy. The abolishment of the largely symbolic “Go West” policies (read Paul French here) also symbolizes the current leadership is more familiar with the country-side, compared to their city-oriented predecessors.
2. Critics have been castigating the central government after it introduced the so-called anti-secession law earlier this year. While the jury is still out on how the new initiatives on Taiwan are going to work out, it signaled the end of the old policy that could have been called stagnant at best. For twelve years only rhetoric dominated Beijing’s lack of new policies, while now the government is taking an active approach. Again, a major change compared to the previous regime. My take on the anti-secession law was that the policy change started with a basic rhetoric move to accommodate conservative forces in China, before the government could move on in setting really new policies.
3. Last year’s dramatic change towards AIDS, according to all accounts still one of the more important ticking time bombs China still has to diffuse to survive. Premier Wen Jiabao’s visits to AIDS-patients have been most widely published, but the nationwide campaigns to promote safe sex have illustrated a dramatic change from previous efforts to hide the problem altogether.
4. A different attitude towards non-governmental organizations is also in the making. While most of them are technically by-and-large still illegal entities, they are included regularly in the list of organizations the government calls upon for help. By including NGO’s into the daily mantras of the state media, the society is being prepared for the introduction of what we know outside China as a civil society.

Those are four important changes I have seen emerge over the past two years and they define the strategic way I look at China. They define some of the important trends and present an undercurrent in the historic events taking place in China today.

Fons Tuinstra

Books on framing

Life – the business card dilemma

When foreign business people come for the first time to China the most basic information they get is about the number of business cards they should take. I always ask how many they need and then the multiply it with twenty or thirty, depending on whether their nation is known for being tightfisted or not. They always end up having to few business cards anyway.
Last night at a meeting at the Dutch embassy in Brussels I was confronted with the flipside of that dilemma. With a hundred business cards burning in my pocket, I thought in this way very little could go wrong.
Things turned out very differently. I was able to hand out a dozen of my business cards, but almost felt like I was dealing drugs. Not of the other participants, apart from an advisor of the European Commission – yes, that is an honorable job in Brussels – nobody returned any. Even the Dutch diplomats present said they had forgotten theirs, but I felt that was only an excuse. They just do not use them. Fortunately, I brought a pen, so I could write down some key information, but it felt really awkward: using a pen.
So, I met several really interesting people, but will never be able to recall their basic information. My information gathering system is based on those bloody business cards. I hate them when I have to go through hundreds of them to find a person I met before, but without those sheets of paper, even that is not possible.
Not yet sure what do to. After a decade of China, I have given up the ambition of change a continent. But not having business cards is such a nuisance.

protest - Dealing with an environmental problem

ESWN gives another account of the Huaxi riot in April in Zhejiang province; It closes in a slightly positive tone:

On April 19, the Dongyang City government organized a special meeting to discuss the environmental protection problem in the Huaxi Industrial park, and accepted the proposed environmental protection program. The local newspaper did not report on the details of that program. Director Chen of the Dongyang City External Propaganda Department said, "We have formed a leader group on the environmental protection project, led by the mayor. We must deal with the environmental protection problem, because it was the principal cause of the clash." Director Chen also said, "As for how the villagers will be dealt with, or the compensation problem over the damages to the vehicles, the government does not have an opinion as yet."

Internet – On RSF’s CIA connection

“In China you must deal now and then with Reporters without Borders, isn’t it,” asked one of my new Belgium friends, who eagerly admitted to have a Maoist past. Of course I had be in touch with the Paris-based organization RSF and earlier this year I actually refused their kind offer to nominate this weblog for a new kind of weblog freedom award. As an non-Chinese, not writing in Chinese getting such an nomination for a China-focused weblog seemed odd to me, to put it mildly. “Google ‘RFS’ in combination with ‘CIA’ and you will get some interesting articles,” my friend added. “It is very similar to how they operated in the past.” ‘They’ referred in this case to the CIA.
Indeed, today I had some time and the result proved that despite on the internet many interesting stories remain within the internet garden of a language or culture despite the technical possibilities to jump over the fence. This issue never reached the English or Chinese language blogosphere or the traditional media? As far as I know.
Then story itself is two years old, but the colorful accusations put RSF in a perspective that is rather different from the way their actions are mostly framed by Western media:

Il y a déjà plusieurs années que Ménard et RSF sont arrivés à pénétrer les salles de rédaction de plusieurs médias de communications français et d’autres internationaux, déguisé en activiste des droits humains, version impérialiste, plaidant pour le droit à l’ingérence dans les affaires intérieures de chaque pays, justifiant les interventions bellicistes de ses maîtres. (Already for some year Menard and RSF have entered the editorial desks of the French and other international media, disguised as human rights activists.....)

Since then the same organization has continued its struggle against, expanding it to Bagdad and giving more details on how RSF has been financed and defended US interests. It is very hard to judge at this stage about the ongoing actions of French solidarity organizations. Her the founder of RSF, Robert Menard - at the center of the accusations, explains how RSF works and gets funded. Again, what amazes me is that this kind of stories on the relationship between the RSF and the CIA go around and have been profoundly ignored by most other media.


Books on the CIA

Media and the establishment – the WTO-column

(later also at Chinabiz)
Brussels – My arrival in Europe coincided with a major political debate in this relatively new political entity: should a proposal for the new European constitution be accepted or not? The political establishment of all denominations, ruling parties and larger opposition parties, in Europe had made up their minds: Europe would be ungovernable without this new constitution after the recent extension of this young political entity to 25 countries. In two countries, France and the Netherlands, the major political parties were so confident about the issue they would even allow their people to give their vote in a referendum.
Then an amazing development occurred for those established parties: a massive and successful ‘say no’ campaign emerged, challenging that very political establishment. What I found intriguing, looking at it with Chinese glasses, was the way how the media dealt with the issue. Despite all possible differences, media in Europe and China are both part of the establishment of their societies. That works out fine as long as those establishments are not challenged in one way or another. But when the establishment is taken on, the media reaction could not be more different.
On prime-time Dutch TV political leaders and leaders of the ‘say no’ campaign issued verbal hits in every direction, in a friendly but decisive way and contributed in that way to the authority of those media in a way that would be unthinkable in China. In China media have to toe the political line, especially when the establishment is challenged in a more fundamental way. Even more, the authority of Chinese media depends on the level of their relationship with the state.

The idea that for example the anti-Japanese demonstrators would make it to Chinese TV in another capacity than that of repenting criminals would have been unthinkable. While the Chinese media have minimal leeway to offer a wider range of opinions when their leadership is divided, in most cases they act as an extension of the state, despite all the efforts of the media to professionalize, commercialize and popularize.
What defines the authority of all medium, in China and in Europe, is about one percent of its total coverage: what are they doing when the emotions get heated up?
While China has shown an exceptional performance in building up a new infrastructure, the so-called ‘software’ is still lagging. With the exception of some of the Guangdong media, toeing the official line is the standard reaction of all media in China. That is not really meant to criticize those media: I do see they often have to react in that way. But it does mean that the discussion in the society looks for other outlets, since the media are not doing that job. Traditionally Chinese would rely on the rumors they would hear from their neighbors and friends and that would define their view on the world – although it would consist often of rather unreliable gossip. Now the internet has added an amplifier to those traditional rumors that were in the past geographically constraint. In that ways the internet adds to the erosion of the old media as the official messenger.
Getting a message across has become harder for government departments, companies and upcoming non-governmental organizations, despite the much improved infrastructure providing access to media. Identifying ‘leading’ media in China, whether you want to sell an idea or toothpaste, is almost impossible. The authority of Chinese media is still defined by their relationship to the state and the wide range of upcoming media does not seem to have caused a real paradigm change. The few Guangdong papers who tried got curtailed and some of their editors jailed.
Those little steps towards editorial independence seem to be the only way forward, although it proves to be a long, tiresome way with many barriers thrown up by conservative forces within the bureaucracy.
Five years ago I suggested a colleague of Shanghai TV they should hire me or one of my foreign colleagues to help them ask more nasty questions during the very boring sessions their were broadcasting when interviewing foreign business people. “That is too early,” she said then. “And anyway, we know what nasty questions we could ask, but we are just not allowed.” That has not yet changed and STV is still a solid way to fall asleep when all other methods fail.

Fons Tuinstra

Books on Chinese media

travel - Spreading the China story

After a hectic first week in Brussels, I'm getting my act a bit together and can start planning spreading the China gospel and try to dispell some of the ongoing misunderstandings about China; While the vote on the European constitution is leading the news, the upcoming trqde war with China is a good second.
In the coming week I will be meeting some companies with aspirations to enter China or expand their China-operation. Next week a short trip to Holland where I will have talks with representatives of the trade unions and a famous MBA - apart from of course meeting family and friends. Saturday 11 June there will be an informal get-together in Amsterdam.

Old countries, old habits – the WTO column

(later also at Chinabiz)
Brussels - As a kind of therapy I’m currently spending some time at the old continent of Europe. The dazzling economic growth of China is not only a challenge for its environment and natural resources, but it is also rather tiresome for its human participants. So, every now and then I take my R&R in continents that change at a lower pace.
Nice weather, a wealth of terraces, Belgium beer and a relaxed atmosphere make it rather easy to unwind.
Brussels, the capital of Europe, has saved much of its past and culture between also clear signs of change. A wealth of holidays and a Sunday with quite building sites and only few shops open, still slow down pace in an artificial way. Unlike any city in the Netherlands, where I’m from, Brussels has an international flair, fashionable people, with a wide variety of people with different languages and nationalities moving between international institutions and companies. But getting adjusted to some of the old traditions has also been painful. Already in the last leg of my flight, from Munich to Brussels, I noted that most people were reading newspapers, sometimes even several. I found it so much last century.
I have cancelled my last hardcover subscriptions now two years ago and replaced the habit of reading ink on dead trees with selecting online information, sometimes traditional media repackaged, sometimes new sources of information. I know that more conservative news consumers really want to pay for a package of printed papers to arrive at their door, long after the same news has been available online, but that is a dying generation of dinosaurs. At least, that is what I thought, until I arrived in Brussels. There is a reason traditional media survive longer here in the old continent. Compared to China, getting online for a new arrival is pretty hard.
I’m living in a service apartment in the center of Brussels and the idea that an online connection is part of the utilities such a facility should offer has not yet been accepted here. So, every now and then, I’m tempted to actually pick up a paper, as I walk from internet café to internet café.
The first news items I saw on Belgium TV – yes, boredom drove me even to traditional TV again in the evening – was about the exceptional high prices of their broadband connections. They pay 40 euro (400 renminbi) per month for a basic subscription, about three times more than their neighbors in France, where competition has led to much more reasonable prices. Shanghai charges about 12 euro (120 renminbi) per month.
But what is worse, you also have to sign a contract for at least a year. When you are here for a few months, getting connected is almost unaffordable. Officially there is a system to use a dial-up for a local fee, but that screwed up my computer, allowed me to spend money while I could not even reach the website of its provider Belgacom.

I have been complaining a lot in the past about the poor connectivity in China. Of course it offers little consolation to know it can even be worse elsewhere, but you see how the differences in government policies can cause a huge difference in connectivity – and economic development. The few providers in Belgium try to maximize their profits and hurt in that way the economic progress of their country. In China the telecom providers have profitability only on the second place of their agenda, after the development targets of the country.
Well, that now might be a nice example of what is commonly called a market economy with socialist characteristics. Belgium still has its fair number of socialists too, but I do not see their agenda back in the targets of the internet providers.

Fons Tuinstra

Books on Brussels

media - Is China's exploding market sustainable?

Media watchers see how the Chinese domestic market for daily papers overtook that of Japan in an exploding Asian market, according to the 58th World Newspaper Congress. I have my doubts.
Any figure coming from China should not be taken for granted. China lacks any official or trustworthy system for auditing the circulation of its papers. While both revenue from ads and the number of new titles are exploding, there are serious doubts about the long-term sustainability of that current expansion. Established titles like the Xinmin evening News in Shanghai are losing ground and some market share of new titles is so tiny, it cannot be measured. Since last year for example China has four dailies claiming to be the Wall Street Journal of China, but none of the few dozen financial publications has been able to establish itself as an authorative publication.

Update: Bingfeng Teahouse adds some facts to my doubts on the circulation figures in China.

Books on newspapers

economy - Patriottic sentiments hit also Dell, Lenovo

Bingfeng Teahouse reports on this other sino-US trade war where Dell tries to mobilize anti-Chinese feelings m,ong IBM customers. Supposedly coming from the email of a Dell sales person:

"From a IBM perspective, and please do not think I'm throwing stones. As you know Lenovo is a Chinese government owned company that recently purchased IBM's desktop/notebook business. While the US government has given its stamp of approval (no US secrets are in jeopardy) to continue to purchase these units people must understand that every dollar they spend on these IBM systems is directly supporting/funding the Chinese government."

More links at Bingfeng's page and certainly worthwhile to investigate.

economy - War on textile could have been avoided - FT

Arthur Kroeber of the China Economic Quarterly accuses in the Financial Times world leaders of lack of leadership.

"The recent surge in China’s textile exports to Europe and America, which threatens to spark a trade war, was an entirely predictable problem whose political impact could easily have been prevented by more intelligent economic leadership last year.
"The textile battle is, moreover, merely a symptom of deeper imbalances in the world economy, which can only be resolved by strong economic leadership from a traditional source (America) and a new one (China). So far neither side has shown itself up to the task."

Shulan offers in the comments another perspective 'Can China bee contained', as the headline already suggests, from an American perspective.

Books on China trade

labor - Migrant workers join trade unions - People's Daily

The figure of 35 percent of the migrant workers that have joined trade unions, according to the People's Daily, is certainly propaganda. But the signal that the previously moribound official trade union intends to organize the migrant workers it has ignored in the past two decades is certainly worth noting.

Brussels - A disappointing Chinatown

One of the visits in my first week in Brussels was of course its Chinatown. After struggling through herd of pickpockets (already three efforts in four days, more than a decade in Shanghai) it was very easy to miss the few streets that are called Chinatown here. We passed nour time with a Belgium Beer and a very disappointing dinner at a Zhejiang restaurant called Xuyi. Since we were the only guests there, most other people must have discovered that the core business of this place was not its cooking.

Books on Chinatown