labor - Paper attacks sweatshop conditions

CSR noted this cartoon in the Yangcheng Evening news in Guangdong province going after a company that gave a 15-year old girl 30,000 renminbi in compensation after losing her fingers.

internet - Seeking 'bridge-bloggers'

Rebecca MacKinnon is seeking so-called 'bridge-bloggers':

Somebody who acts as a “bridge” between their blogging community and the rest of the world.

Please get in touch with Rebecca if you think you are one.

NGO's - Meant to 'serve the government'

China had by the end of the year 289,000 'civilian organizations' as they are called in this dispatch of the official Xinhua newswire. More remarkable is the pro-government twist this article gives to the fast expanding feature of the non-governmental organizations.

Chinese NGOs, different from some NGOs in western countries that take pride in anti-government practices, act under the principle of "supporting and cooperating with the government," according to Sun Gonglin, secretary general of the China Society for Promotion of the Guangcai Program, an NGO composed of private businesspeople to help reduce poverty.

and:

"Civilian organizations have become important social organizations in China and they have exerted positive influence in boosting China's economic growth and helping maintain social stability," said Li Yong of the Ministry of Civil Affairs.

life - Power cuts loom as heat continues

The temperature in Shanghai is acceptable again, friends tell me, but the ongoing heat wave is causing many energy problems, worse than last year. Like mostly the booming economy is being blamed, but the inefficient energy use in China is at least equally to blame. A few years ago the story was that to produce one US dollar worth of product, China needed about eight times the energy the US would need. I have seen no indication that this ratio really has changed.

protest - Official condones violent farmers' fight for rights

Howard French picked up this article in the unlinkable South China Morning Post where Chen Xiwen, vice-minister of the Office of the Central Leading Group on Financial and Economic Affairs, explaining why the spate of violent protests at the country side are actually a good sign:

“On the one hand, riots like the one in Dongyang are a tragedy and show that local authoritiesfailed to do a proper job,” Mr Chen said. “But on the other hand, they show that our farmers knowto protect their rights, which is a good thing.
“It shows farmers’ democratic awareness is improving, but unfortunately their sense of law andorder has not improved as quickly.”

Mr. Chen is a key policy maker for the central government on agriculture.

economy - China’s successful struggle against poverty

The World Bank has produced a useful paper on China’s successful, but rather uneven, struggle against poverty, a very useful contribution now poverty relieve in Africa is high on the agenda. (Tip from Simon World).
Between 1981 and 2001 the percentage of the poor in China dropped from 53 percent to 8 percent, a remarkable achievement. But the process has been uneven, both in time and varies greatly between provinces.

“… there were many setbacks for the poor. Poverty reduction stalled in the late 1980s and early 1990s, recovered pace in the mid-1990s, but stalled again in the late 1990s. Half of the decline came in the first few years of the 1980s.”

Some more conclusions: the bulk of poverty relief came from within rural areas not urban areas. Without the current inequality in development the number of poor could have been 1.5 percent in stead of the current 8 percent. Certainly worth a glance at this effort the complicate some of the existing clichés about China.

internet - Global voices in Chinese

Yesterday I wondered whether more information is always better, now the volume of information available is exploding in a dramatic way. Still, it seems to work. I just skyped with one of the contributers of this group blog, who told me he is translating some of my articles into Chinese, like this one on business ethics and he is working this one now. They translate a selection of mostly English articles they think are interesting for their constituency.
Not a large number of internet users is interested in this kind of issues, he told me. But enough to make it interesting.

economy - Profits car giants expected at least to half - FT

Unreasonable optimism has been one of the hallmarks of the automotive industry in China and even now the decline is clear, China's two largest car producers still expect a profit over the first half of this year, the FT reports.

Shanghai Automotive Company, the listed arm of Shanghai Automotive Industry Corporation (SAIC), and Chongqing Changan Auto both said at the weekend that lower prices, rising costs of raw materials and weaker demand were to blame for the likely drop in earnings.

The explanation explain the misplaced optimism. Listed Chinese companies have to tell us when they expect profits will be down with more than 50 percent. That might be a little bit more.

internet - Is more information also better?

In addition to my previous entry, some more of the problems I see emerge in getting my personal information organized. Because of heavy travelling and offline activities I have been unable to monitor the internet as good as I wanted to. But I noted that over the past few months some of the regulars on my RSS-list have dramatically increased their output, with negative side effects.
I preferred topix over the news aggregator of Google for my China-headlines because they did not offer me the deluge Google was offering. The same happened to Danwei and Global Voices. Both I used to read mostly from head to tail, but since their output has increased I only scan them superficially. Other weblogs I have deleted from my RSS-roll, since I was not able and willing to follow them.
While I appreciate the effort of offering more and better information, the flipside is that they do no work for me as they did. More information is not always better and it would be an interesting question for many of the active internet junks how they deal with the flood of information. I tend to skip subjects, continents (yes, including Africa) and discussions, because I cannot deal with them. 'Leading' aggregators where I can outsource my personal needs for information do not exist yet, and perhaps are too much contrary to the character of the internet. I'm learning to swim, but it certainly is not easy.

internet - Are Chinese bloggers feeling blocked ?

Rebecca MacKinnon has been trying to find out whether Chinese bloggers are being blocked, are using proxies, and Amy Gu summerizes some of the reactions from China of bloggers who disagree with Rebecca. (Btw. for both of their weblogs you might need proxies to see them :-)).
Amy describes her experience after having felt the freedom of the internet for a few years in Hong Kong.

But when I went back from HK after studying for a while, I felt that I lost my freedom, coz' I couldn't visit many interesting websites I used to go to in HK. 'That's bad", I always complain to my Chinese friend now. I am not happy now.

A far more interesting dilemma Amy also mentions is the question why most people, in China, the US and elsewhere are not interested in what happens outside the legal borders of their country and - even if they have the possibility of looking further than their own country, very few ever do.
While the internet is giving a wealth of new information on whatever we want to know, ways to deal and select between all those bits and bytes in an fruitful way still seem to be very far away, despite many efforts. As websites, weblogs and aggregators become better and more comprehensive, my desperation increases. Traditional media are losing their function as an filter to the world, but I do get convinced we need other and new filters to prevent the current floodings.

life - Not missing the Shanghai heatwave

While I do miss the Shanghai food (and even more its prices) here in Brussels, I'm rather happy I'm missing the sweltering heat. No reasons yet to share the official optimism on how China will deal with its energy shortages.

Tintin in Brugge

Still not time enough to keep up with all events I want to follow, but at least you can call me again during the day: +32 (0) 484758562

economy - How to beat Coca Cola and Pepsi

Zong Qinghou, the outspoken chairman of the Wahaha group in Hangzhou, favorite guest at many conferences, made it into the publication of Wharton Business School and again explains vividly how he is conducting his business.
Wahaha is the largest producer of beverages in China and a potential threath for the world's leaders Coca Cola and Pepsi. Or not? (A tip from Danwei.)

Zong: We have lower costs than Coca-Cola, and so we have higher profit margins. The combined profits at both Coca-Cola and Pepsi are lower than ours. They have a bigger market share than we do. But our total profits are higher than theirs. We make everything ourselves. They send expatriates here to be managers. So they have very high labor costs.

blogger - Lay-out back to normal

Apologies for the rather messy lay-out you had to bear for some time. Blogger.com has published a second patch, and this times it works.

economy - Japan's trade ministry warns for China risks

In a white paper the Japanese ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry warns Japanese companies of the increased risks of relying too much on its biggest trade partner China, writes the FT.

The white paper warned of China's "underdeveloped, opaque legal system", the poor enforcement of intellectual property rights, shortage of qualified local managerial staff and power outages.

The ministry asks companies to divide risks more between other Asian countries, including India.

It said there is no big difference between China and Asean countries with regard to production costs, and pointed out labour costs in hiring Chinese middle management are relatively high due to their scarcity.

NGO's - A HRIC-rep invited to, and arrested in Beijing

Sharon K. Hom of Human Rights in China (HRIC) describes in the unlinkable Wall Street Journalist how she was invited for a EU-China human rights dialogue, obtained a visa from Foreign Affairs and participated for the first time as an official HRIC-representative at the two-day seminar in Beijing June 20, 21.
After the seminar Beijing State Security tried to arrest her in what Hom describes as an effort to block this kind of initiatives.

It's only right to acknowledge and encourage the increasing openness and engagement of China's Ministry of Foreign Affairs that is demonstrated by its engagement in the international arena. But it ought to remain of deep concern to the international community that a powerful economic actor such as China has a domestic culture in which state-security police can operate with such impunity.
The kind of vague, Kafkaesque accusations leveled against me differ little from those that confront China's political and religious dissidents, independent journalists, lawyers and ordinary citizens on a routine basis. Unlike myself, these courageous individuals are obliged to face their interrogators alone, for hours, days or weeks at a stretch, and instead of safely boarding an overseas flight the next day, they all too often end up in a police van or unmarked car escorting them to the local prison or labor camp.

Hear, hear,

media - With an eye on Live8

Watching the impressive Live8 coverage with a half eye and try not to get too much upset. This kind of events needs of course a huge dosis of simplicity and the idea that poverty will be history seems even of an annoying simplicity.
Especially with China almost daily on my agenda, its success of ending a bit part of its crippling poverty has been an amazing performance, but not one that brings you many friends and certainly no concerts.