media - Dancing against terrorism

The China Daily shows today a drill by Chinese police people in Chengdu, preparing for a terrorist attack and other emergencies.

internet - Blogs: 4.5 million tools for the elderly

I have been scanning the Guo Liang survey for some details on weblogs. Based on his survey I can estimate the number of regularly maintained blogs in China on about 4.5 million. The survey says that 3.1 and 1.4 percent of the respondents keep their weblog 'often' or 'always'; on 100 million internet users that would be about 4.5 million.
The more troublesome statistic comes from the age group involved: mainly for those between 45 and 65 years old the weblogs are a popular tool. In absolute number those between 16 and 24 years old might still have more weblogs, but only as a percentage it is only half of the older internet users.

media - Chinese tend to trust domestic media more

As a media professional I tend to mistrust all media - I know how they work. So, it is good to note the conclusion by Guo Liang that most Chinese (whether internet user or not) tend to believe domestic media. That is noteworthy for all those observers (including me) who have serious doubts about the quality of media. Guo writes:

Generally, people trust domestic news more than foreign news, and they trust television, newspapers, and the radio more than online news. Among the respondents, 88.6% trust domestic television, 79% trust domestic newspapers, 74.9% trust domestic radio , 58.9% trust foreign television, 45% trust foreign radio, 43.9% trust domestic online news, and 29. 6% trust foreign online news.
With respect to online news, Internet users tend to trust domestic Web sites more than overseas Web sites, and they trust the news provided by the traditional media more than the news provided by e-mail.

To me it seems rather unlikely that audiences in Europe or the US would trust their media as much as the Chinese tend to do according to this research.

internet - How AFP wants to make its own point

AFP really had a very entertaining way to open their article on the new Guo Liang report today. It read: "Internet in China may become powerful political tool. Of course, they quoted Guo correctly by letting hem say:

The Internet is supposed to be the information highway but according to our survey, for many Internet users in China, it is an entertainment highway.

But that did not stop them from giving their own political bias to his words. As they wrote further on:

But survey respondents had "strong expectations" that the Internet would change politics in China, which is today -- according to global media watchdog Reporters without Borders -- the "world's biggest prison for cyber-dissidents."

My estimation is that in this case 'change' means something different for the internet users than for AFP.

internet - Users too poor or not willing to buy online?

I'm still working my way through the excellent report by Guo Liang on the internet users in China. There is one major difference I saw with earlier data, for example by the 6-monthly CNNIC-reports. Those data, based on information by individual users, shows that most Chinese occupants of cyberspace are each time younger and partly for that reason without the means to purchase online - even if they wanted to.
Guo Liang sees increased internet use as the income goes up, perhaps he uses households as a sampling method. Because mostly children go online, who are poor as an individual, they might be more wealthy when you look at them as a part of a household. Also in Guo's research internet users do not buy online, but more because they do not trust the way of buying online, not because they do not have the means.
Both methods are of course valid, you can use both individuals or households as the basis for your research. But when the results are that different, it is still be bit confusing.

Guo Liang

internet - Users want government control and do not buy online, survey

A new survey of professor Guo Liang of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences into the 103 million Chinese internet users has come up with some interesting material. Here is the survey in pdf-format.
The survey, presented on Thursday at the Brookings Institute in the US was the second done with international funding of also the Markle foundation and has already widely been quoted in the US media, like the International Herald Tribune and CNN. A few of the key findings, according to CNN:
- The overwhelming majority of Chinese feel some Internet content -- such as pornography and violence -- should be regulated;
- although the average Chinese Internet user spends nearly three hours a day online, 75 percent have never made an Internet purchase and 42 percent never use a search engine.
- Eighty-five percent spend their time viewing mainland Chinese-language content, while only three percent viewed overseas foreign language content.

media - Paul French on North Korea

Chinabiz author, Access Asia director Paul French, who gave here his comments on both Chris Patten and EU-commissioner Mandelson, is here interviewed by blogger Austin Arensberg about his book on North Korea.

podcast - "Blowing up the WTO would be the worst scenario", Ari van der Steenhoven

"Blowing up the WTO would be the worst possible scenario," says Ari van der Steenhoven, former China-manager of the Dutch chemical concern DSM from Shanghai in a reaction on my article on the competition between China and Europe. He point at the influence of foreign companies in China, where I disagree.
Van der Steenhoven remains outspoken on the way politicians and higher civil servants. "They underestimate the problem we are having," he says. "They say, we have had this before, we will survive this." Van der Steenhoven is less sure
Listen our our full conversation here.
Do you want to react? Send me an email or Skype me. (Still a bit too much busy with the technical side of this experiment, but that should improve over time.)
Here are Van der Steenhoven's remarks on my article:
Did you take into account that:

1. China's export is more than 50% by FIE's, most probably paying their taxes, fees and taking care of the environment?
2. That the reduced inflation during rising oil prices is caused by the lower costs of goods from China, making it responsible for a higher standard of living in the West?
3. That the baby boom retirement makes it common sense that governments will increase the retirement age and lower pension liabilities before the welfare system bankrupts?
4. That commodities and other products where unskilled and semi skilled labor costs are important, are indeed moving to China to the last product, whatever you do or might want to support? (Indeed the goivernments have no effect on it, unless they blow up WTO).
5. That those companies that want to retain those facilities in Europe are bypassed by competition that does not?
6. That in China the unemployed rate is still > 50% and the government's number 1 priority is to get that figure down?
7. That a significant welfare system in China would increase costs that would slow down the economy's growth and reduce employment?
8. That taxes and welfare already amount to 50% of the average salary, going up to 70% for higher salaries.
9. That Chinese do not understand why it would be the God given right of Europeans to have a job, to have a higher living standard, long holidays, good welfare and Chinese would not?
(Oh yes: I used Powergramo to record all this.)

internet - Verso sells 'vapourware', says Skype

Skype hits back at the Atlanta-based firm Verso that announced last week it will try to sell filter technology to China to stop Skype. In the Financial times, picked up by Shanghaiist, Skyp-CEO Niklas Zennstrom hits back:

...Mr Zennström said Skype had found no Chinese operator that was using or reviewing Verso’s product and suggested the US company had played a “smart PR trick”. “I don’t think they really have a product. I think it’s much more of a PowerPoint, press release, ‘vapourware’ thing.” rather than a real product.” he said.

Skype expect to get into business with Chinese telecom providers, but did not wanted to give any possible timeline.

internet - This blog is worth 70,000 euro

Bingfeng Teahouse has a nice overview of the value of some of the more popular English language blogs on China. Wang Jianshuo leads the pack with half a million euro, while both Bingfeng Teahouse and China Digital Times surprisingly score no value at all.
More entertainment than real value of course, although for a 100,000 euro you might convince me to sell. You would have to hire me then to maintain this weblog, unless you find somebody who would not be able to set up an account with blogger.com.

internet - Baidu gets free MP3-songs

Leading domestic search engine Baidu has signed a contract with 16 Chinese recording companies that allows it to download songs of about 100 performers in exchange for promotion, writes the China Tech News.
A smart move, compared to the more rigid US recording companies and possibly a way to outsmart also Baidu's local competiton.

EU commissioner Janez Potocnik for research

Lagging behind, Europe – the WTO column

(later also in Chinabiz)

Brussels - The EU-commissioner for science and research Janez Potocnik struck me as a rather realistic guy, this week in Brussels. At a major conference about European science in a globalizing world, he counted his blessings. Potocnik can spend annually five billion Euros on research. “Daimler-Chrysler spends every year 5.9 billion Euros,” he said. “But we should not only look at my budget.” He wants to double it, but that struggle is still ongoing.

But also in a percentage of its GDP with 1.9 percent, Europe is lagging behind the US (2.6 percent), Japan (3.2%) while China is catching up very fast with 1.6 percent and growing 10 percent annually.

What is more troublesome than the limited budgets is the attitude in Europe towards the internet as a disruptive technology for almost all industries. Two times this week in Europe decision makers told me it was better not to email them “since I never read them anyway”. When you are familiar with China, you might forget that this kind of dinosaurs can survive in a fast globalizing world. In Europe they can, and that is a bad sign.

Even my mother of 85 is on the internet and sends me regularly emails. But as a chief negotiator for the international trade unions you can live without. Even worse, the second person without an email connection was in charge of content on one of the major websites of the EU. Dealing with a major information provider for the EU and not even having an email address. How much funnier can it get?

I joined as discussion of a few scientists, who were complaining about the accessibility of this major website on scientific research. I was interested right away, since I had been struggling through their overload of information and could only agree.

In China so many governmental website works so much more efficient than this major EU-project.

They had an answer, since the criticism was obviously not new. They had made a brochure that should guide us through the website. How much more past century can you get? A brochure to guide you through their website, how much funnier can it get? Unfortunately, I lost the brochure as I dumped kilos of useless dead trees the organizers had dumped on me.

China and the US have the advantage of at least a nationwide written language, compared to the patchwork of languages in Europe. That explains partly why the development of digital content and conversation models in Europe are lagging behind. Here they can learn from China.

Fons Tuinstra

economy - China's IT companies "doing agressive business"

Rebecca MacKinnon reports from the WSIS-conference in Tunis about the efforts of larger Chinese IT-companies like ZTE and Huawei, focusing on the developing countries.

They point out that not only is their pricing competitive, but having cut their teeth in a country where peasant farmers make up the majority, they say they’re simply better at meeting the needs of developing countries than their Western competitors. They also take markets in poor nations more seriously.

They are using a strategy defined in 1949 by Mao Zedong say some: “surround the cities from the countryside.”

labor - Hong Kong imports 5,000 textile workers

The Standard reports that Hong Kong has agreed to get 5,000 mainland textile workers, on the condition they will get minimum wages. That does not seem to be a practise in this industry.
It is a bit going against the tide, since manufactering moved north of the border for wage reasons. For a long time, crossing the border was for mainland Chinese harder than jumping over the Berlin Wall. Reversing the economic trend seems a tough thing to do, I feel.

life - Chinese most optimistic in the world

A study of a leading research institute in the USA says that the Chinese are the most satisfied people in the world, writes the International Herald Tribune. The Pew Center noted that 50 percent of the Chinese respondents saw an improved personal situation, the highest in the world. 31 Percent said they had "lost ground".

Many Chinese people feel they have made substantial progress in the past five years, think they will be much better off in another five years and are satisfied with the state of the nation, according to the survey, released Tuesday. In the survey, conducted over the last 10 days of May in major mainland Chinese cities, 76 percent of respondents were found to be optimistic about improving their quality of life within five years. This ranked the Chinese at the top of 17 countries in which the global attitudes survey was conducted.

There might be a bit of a cultural bias, as asking about your hapiness seems a rather American approach. Many of my Chinese friends have often struck me as rather pessimistic, perhaps induced by their past. When you expectation start at a low level, it might be easier to become happy. But this is a very unscientific, personal observation.
The conclusions of the Pew Center might concur also with my observations earlier: no reason to expect a revolution in China soon.

Rebecca MacKinnon

internet - The divided blogosphere

Rebecca MacKinnon went to Beijing after the Chinese Webloggers Conference and reports about the deep divisions between different sections webloggers, something she did not yet see a few weeks ago.

When speaking at the Shanghai Bloggers conference, Kevin Wen, who now works for Bokee, China’s largest blog-hosting company with ambitions to list on NASDAQ, didn’t even mention his company’s name because most of the attendees have a strong dislike for Bokee. The Shanghai attendees are part of a group of Chinese bloggers who I’ve begun to call the “open source-open access group.” Centered around the group blog CNblog and the Social Brain Fund, their emphasis is on the importance of free software and community tool development which, they believe, will empower individuals to communicate, network, and realize their full social potential – whether it be in education, high tech, or running a charity.

While still speculating about a regime change (a typical US-induced habit), she does not longer see the internet as the tool that is going to trigger off that kind of change.

Too many people have too much to lose, and many tech entrepreneurs who have benefitted from the Party’s economic reforms over the past quarter-century are working actively to help prevent that critical mass from ever forming.

That is the real dilemma: the people who have the tools to change the regime, have no interest in that change, since they will lose too much. And poor, land-less farmers are not having the leverage to trigger off change.

labor - Chinese managers earn double compared to Indians

The average pay packages in China is double of that in India, reports the website Management Consulting, based on a report of Mercer Human Resource Consulting. Mercer compared 42 positions. The differences tend to increase as the jobs go up in the hierarchy.
HR managers earn an average of USD 28,800 in China, compared to USD 13,700 in India.

Mark Sullivan, worldwide partner at Mercer, said: 'While it is far cheaper to employ staff in both China and India than Europe or the US, India appears to have the advantage of slightly lower wage costs.

'Although wage costs are lower in India, there is a high demand for skilled workers there, particularly at the executive level. If demand continues to outweigh supply then we can expect wages to increase substantially over the next few years.'

'The challenge for employers is to make sure they retain their top staff and equip lower-level employees with the necessary skills to move up the organisation', Sullivan added.

Update: The Globe and Mail has more.

Steve Gross, the Mercer partner who heads its reward strategy consulting, agrees that the 248 Indian firms and 415 Chinese firms in the survey tend to be large in size and multinational organizations. "Small domestic firms do not complete surveys."

He said that while there may be differences in the absolute level of salaries inside each country, Mercer's conclusion that average Chinese wages far exceed those of India remains valid.

Shanghai taxi driver license

life - Taxi companies blacklist their customers

Shanghaiist points at this beautiful little initiative of Shanghai taxi companies. They have already a ranking system for their drivers and a creative Chinese mind decided to turn that around.
So, when it is very busy and you have to wait longer than ten minutes for a taxi, you might have entered their computer system as a 'difficult customer'.

“When we have many orders coming in, we will show the drivers the callers’ credit history and they can choose to pick up the one with a good record,” [a representative of the taxi's] said.

He said the customer ratings are based on several criteria, but he wouldn’t say exactly how they are determined. The whole system is computerized, and ratings are linked to the phone number used to book a cab.

Since there does not seem to be an appeal system, you might have to switch your SIM card to get a taxi after you turned nasty to your driver.

media - Eco-terrorist as a Guardian correspondent - Private Eye

The Chatter Garden points at an article in the Private Eye on Benjamin Joffe-Walt(although it did not provide the link to the article), who shot to fame as he got entangled in the struggle for democracy in China. I know he had served as a human shield in Bagdad, but was not yet aware he was also a supporter of the "American eco-terrorist group" Earth Liberation Front.

Quite how such a person managed to resurface within two years as a trusted foreign correspondent for the Guardian remains a mystery. No doubt the readers’ editor is looking into it.

As you might have seen, the Guardian has looking into the issue, but that did not include the hiring process as far as their reports go.

internet - Europe's lacking competitiveness

I just returned from a major EU conference where European research should give a boost to the lacking competitiveness of this continent. Despite the presence of 3,000 participants among whom very enthusiastic and stimulating academics, I started to wonder whether it will work. Later I will write about it, but the short meeting with the person in charge of one of the major online networks of the EU ("Do not send me an email, I never read them") made me slightly depressed. This indeed is the old country.
Later more in comparison with both the US and China. Now some short updates on interesting developments in the past few days I missed because of this mainly offline social event.

internet - Attending a EU conference II

Amazingly, at the EU-conference and there is internet access. Af ew more sockets would have been helpful. Anyway, not so much to report related to China, so I will probably go under in the delegates and do some networking.

internet - Attending a EU conference

In the first half of coming week I will be attending a EU conference in Brussels on science and communication, the CER 2005. I have been checking their website and while they have really interesting subjects on the way how communication change, I fear connectivity might be a problem. They mention 24 terminals for the over 2,500 participants and nothing is mentioned regarding any wireless access. The press center might be better equipped, but that is rather seperated from the main events.
Expect few postings; first a cocktail party - yes, life is tough.

Riots

Reporting a crisis – the WTO column
(later also at Chinabiz)

Brussels – Just imagine the following purely imaginary crisis scenario.

Panic is reaching the capital Beijing as severe unrest is reported from different provinces around the country.

Reports from the southern province indicate the most severe crisis since 1949. Riots take place in 200 cities simultaneously during two weeks. Cars and government buildings have been burned down by thousands. Guangdong governor Chi Raque has been hiding in despair while two contesters of his position are fighting in public about the line to follow, a hard line or a more soft line. A curfew is in place and police is out in force. Sporadic rioting is also emerging in Fujian and Zhejiang provinces.

A few bloggers who have been writing about the riots have been arrested and are awaiting conviction for inciting to violence.

In Shandong province the governor Bu Lai-er is supporting his security forces in getting more powers to stop domestic violence after a set of bloody bombings in his province. Local party officials are colluding against their governor, because they fear that with new powers, the security forces might become a threat against themselves too.

Meanwhile Shanghai is the scene of bloody exchanges between the local mafia. Twice a week internal warfare causes public executions in front of the shocked shopping Shanghainese, especially one at Xintiandi.

In a Shanghai prison for convicted foreigners a fire kills eleven inmates. The vice-mayor in charge, Ri Ta, decides to evict the remaining prisoners to their own countries, as they become an embarrassment for her. She is accused of murder, violating basic human rights and anything else that is banned under the rule of law. In an effort to gain public support Ri Ta suggests a shoot-to-kill attack on her life by political opponents. Officials at her department admit a day later the suggestion was not true.

Meanwhile, the central government in Beijing in is panic as reports come in from the different parts of the country. The first burning cars have been seen in the outskirts of Beijing too.

Just imagine how the Chinese and the western media would report on those issues.

The Chinese media would report that calm is returning in Guangdong province as only less than 500 cars and one police station were burned. In Shandong Bu Lai-er has settled for an agreement with his opponents. In Shanghai the authorities and local media declare that Ri Ta has their full support and deny any responsibility for the death for the foreigners in their custody, since it was one of them that started the fire anyway.

Western media have been crying foul of course. For the editorials the conclusion is very obvious. For China, the end is near.

Fons Tuinstra