labor - China wage indicator step closer

While traveling in Europe, some positive noises regarding the China Wage Indicator are emerging from Shanghai. I just met with our partners in Europe of the Wage Indicator Foundation and it looks like its initially European project is taking off worldwide in a sensational way.
When thinks indeed develop in the right way I might be back next week for an international conference on this wage indicator with speakers from Google and wage indicators from all over Europe. Should be there, I guess.
What they are clearly missing is a way to integrate their projects with the new media tools that are so useful. One of the first things I would do when a project like that takes off is, apart from RSS-feeds, get a decent weblog in place. Too many interesting stuff is kept internally, because most of the participants have no clue how to integrate their operation with the internet.

On international wages

labor - Dagongmei in Shenzen, review

Lengthy trips by train and no internet connection to get my attention diverted made it possible to go through Pun Ngai's 'Made In China', I already mentioned some time ago. I do not agree anymore with the positive notes of the review by the Taipei Times I quoted then, but still think it was a worthwhile read, but for very different reasons.
The ideological take of the book, part of the struggle against globalization, is a direction of the book I do not really like. Fortunately, it does not stop the author from telling sometimes compelling stories about the life of the Dagongmei or 'working daughters' in the factories of Shenzhen.
What is another drawback is that the basic research is ten years old, making it still interesting from a historical and academic perspective, but makes you wonder what has happened since.
The lengthy descriptions of the Taylorist way the factories are organized probably fits into a book like this, but apart from differences in time and place, those have been described before in length.
What I found really compelling is the way how the profound differences in gender, language, culture, kinship and almost ever characteristic that can be used to make a difference between the labor force in the factory she describes is used as a disciplining force. Those differences are much more important in dividing the work force than what they possibly might have in common. It would be interesting to know whether those differences between people in basically the same situation is still the same dividing force it was ten years ago.
In the big cities I do see that the importance of the place where people come from might sometimes lose some of its importance, but are then replaced by other alliances, that divide the Chinese. That lack of feeling of belonging to each other makes it very hard to develop any cooperation that surpasses region, educational and other divides.

Order 'made in China'

economy - EU, China avoid trade war on textile

Writes Reuters.

internet - Crackdown on blogs seems limited

Rebecca talked to Isaac Mao and writes down what the so-called registration drive of websites and weblogs in China means. As so often, the situation is a bit more complicated than the outside world expected and the term "crackdown"does not seem to be justified. Hosting in China still has its drawbacks, to adopt a blog is still a much needed action. But the large number of "crackdown stories" seem overdone, to put it midly.
Still traveling an mainly relying on 'strange'computers and had no time yet to listen to the podcast with Isaac.

labor - Working for a Chinese company

Chinabiz just published its monthy HR-newsletter with a few articles on foreigners working for Chinese companies. It still is a bummer for many foreigers who hope to make a living in that way: in most cases it does not work out.
An annual effort from the remaining planned economy to recruit foreign managers meets many doubts:

Such a theme, though, is not an idea raised by the companies based on their own demands, but rather dictated by administrative orders from the SASAC, as part of the plan to reform the SOEs, and there are several obstacles that may turn the theme into a flop show.

Relative low salaries keep qualified managers away and cultural barriers do make life hard for those few who join Chinese companies for a while.

La Chine, c’est chique – the WTO column

Brussels - I have been following with mixed feelings the announced action on July 2 by rock musician Bob Geldof and fellow artist to rally against the G8, the meeting of eight richest countries, bound to meet in Scotland a few days later, in an in itself honorable effort to wipe out poverty in Africa.
While there is more to say about it, there are two main arguments against the action. First, it associates the whole of Africa with poverty, while the very diverse continent has its fair share of problems, it ignores the fact that much in Africa is also going very well.
The local subway here is plastered with posters of Brussels Airline promoting its flights to Africa. “L’Afrique - c’est chique”, it reads, or “Africa – now that is fashionable” in a poor translation.
What I like about the slogan it that it goes against the musical struggle that has been announced by Mr. Geldof.
Also, the association between globalization and poverty seems to be less straight forward than demonstrators on Edinburough might hope for. In my youth the church I then belonged to was still collecting silver paper to relieve the poverty in China, but those days seem to be over and I believe not because of the large amount of chocolate I ate for this good cause. But nobody is praising China and organizing a worldwide concert to celebrate the way this country pulled hundreds of millions of its citizens out of poverty. Focusing on the positive side of the globalization does not bring demonstrators together, let alone famous artists to perform.

Africa is tolerated like beggars are tolerated in the world’s largest cities, because it makes the well-off feel good as they can drop an occasional euro or US dollar into their hats. But what happens when those beggars become better-off themselves? Nothing is more devastating for sympathy towards the poor as making them rich. The former Chinese beggars are now seen as people who are stealing our jobs in a sneaky way. In dumping their jumpers and TV-sets on our markets and destroying our valuable industries. Trade wars and political pressure they get in stead of praise in desperate efforts to safeguard our own interests. That is not the kind of beggars we like. Beggars should know their place.

I know it is easy to denounce initiatives like that of Mr. Geldof, but it just makes me feel so cheap to focus on the misfortune of parts of Africa only. Why can we only appreciate other countries as long as they are prepared to act like subdue beggars, waiting for another euro or dollar in aid?

Fons Tuinstra

internet - The weblog crackdown

The blogosphere it up on arm after different efforts to register China websites came into force on June 1. Sitting now in Brussels, and leaving for Holland tomorrow, it is very hard to get a right assesment of what is really going on. Of course, there is the ritual uproar outside China, here in an overview by Rebecca, but there are very few reactions from China itself.
Too often the registration drive in China just does not mean that much and I have seen no solid signs that would indicate it is different this time. A bit of a nuisance to be out of China right now.

internet - Baidu's strong arm delistings under attack

China's premier search engine has come under attack for delisting site that refuse an invitation to join its Adwords advertissement program, reports Danwei. An alliance of concerned webmasters has been set up to fight against this unfair policy.

labor - Guangdong strikers call for higher wages

Another high-profile strike has hit Guangdong province in southern China, the International Herald Tribune reports, based on reports in Chinese media.

The strife erupted on Friday morning at the Futai Wool Mill in Zengcheng, near Guangzhou, and eyewitnesses said as many as 4,000 workers were at the factory gates, blocking traffic and chanting "raise our wages," the Guangzhou-based New Express reported on Saturday.

What is interesting about this article is not the news of the strike, but the fact is has been brought to us by Chinese media. Why was this news not banned? That would have been the standard procedure.

internet - Crawler hunts for non-registered sites in Shanghai

Rebecca MacKinnon points at this article of interfax on a new technological goodie by the local branch of the Ministry of Information Industry in Shanghai, hunting at night for not-yet registered websites; Since June & all websites in China need to be registered in a special register. Says Interfax:

Meanwhile, by May 23 of this year, the MII had already received registration applications for approximately 430,000 domain names. However, the new "Night Crawler System" has already located 573,755 websites operating with Mainland Chinese IP address, the MII said, meaning roughly 26% of websites remain unregistered.

Unclear what is next, but I do expect a small exodus to non-Chinese IP-addresses, if that option is open.

Update: Unclear is what percentage of websites have complied and registered. The Blog Herald suggests only 10 percent in China has done so, Interfax mentions 75 percent in Shanghai, based on official (and even less trustworthy) figures.

internet - Craigslist takes off in Shanghai

Michael Ohlsson pointed me at the Craigslist in Shanghai that seems already up and running for some time, the first one in China. As expected, no entries yet under 'politics', while the personals are doing alright. Since it is English only, its scope might be limited and mainly hurt the online operations of the English-language sites of the entertainment magazines. In the US the Craigslist has erode some of the revenue sources of major print publications.

Books on Craigslist

media - Missing some key questions on P&G

When relative outsiders are going to write about China-operations of larger companies it seems rather easy to miss key issues. Rather entertaining was this piece of the Enquirer on P&G, that has all the symptoms of propaganda, as P&G managers even do not answer very obvious questions.

Wong has worked all but two years of her career in China and says she believes passionately in P&G's mission there, both as a business executive and as a Chinese woman.

Typically the kind of bullshit that might belong to the corporate culture, but I do wonder why a manager in charge of SK-II in China is not asked about the latest scandal? Of course P&G would never reveal how much money they still lose in China, but by mentioning only the revenue and not even registering a denial of P&G to answer the question about profitability degrades this article to really superficial propaganda.

Books on P&G, Unilever