media - MSN blocks another journalist' site

Non-violence resistance points at other journalist's site, blocked by MSN Spaces: Chen Feng.

media - MSN Spaces is also evil, but slightly smarter

ESWN gives an overview of the censorship battlefield. While both domestic and foreign companies have their own policies in censoring weblogs in China - and are both evil in different degrees - at least MSN Spaces is a bit smarter, says Wang Ning, whose blog got blocked by MSN Spaces. Domestic hosts of weblogs and podcast have a daunting task in checking the content themselves, MSN Spaces just wait until they get an order from the goverment. That does save a lot of trouble.

News from the second largest economy - the WTO-column

(later also at Chinabiz)

Now the amount of information passing my computer screen keeps on going up dramatically, I increasingly use some tricks to scan the headlines and divide them up in categories. I look whether a headline appeals to my interests of the day, how trustworthy the source might be and of course whether the article is not too long. Very long interesting-looking articles I put aside for later and then I mostly forget about them

There is a special category, where I save articles for my own entertainment. There are two descriptions of China that qualifies a article right-away for my ‘fun’ category: when they call China ‘communist’ or when they add it is ‘the second largest market in the world’.

We all know China has very little to do with communism, unless you have to put an official label on it. But the qualification ‘second largest market’ is more interesting. Especially US investment bankers have been pushing their companies into impossible positions, even caused them to forfeit their mission statements, to enter what they perceive as the ‘second largest’ market in the world.

I will limit myself to the IT-market, especially the recent adventures of Yahoo, Microsoft and Google, since they have been most telling. But the argument works for more industries. And I expect that the investment bankers on the background are really the most important factor is driving the current hype.

When you look at the superficial figures the IT-market in China looks indeed rather impressive. In ten years time it got 110 million citizens online, more than 350 million now have a mobile phone and some of staggering growth figures is very realistic.

But when you look at it from financial terms, there is not that much reason for foreign companies to be very enthusiastic at this stage. China might have millions of citizens online, but they tend to spend much less than those in the largest economy of the world, the US. And even Japan and Europe outrun China as an economy still in gigantic terms.

As for example Billsdue pointed out, the maximum revenue Google could earn on the Chinese market would equal about two days of its current revenue at best. You must wonder whether that possible gain would justify way this company has been damaging its key image: ‘do no evil’, by offering to clean up its search engine services according to governmental requirements.

Asiapundit followed that same line. Google earned in 2005 3.75 billion US dollar in the US. Yahoo Japan earned 1.48 billion US dollar in 2005. Baidu.com, the largest search engine in China, expects a revenue stream of 13 million US dollar for the fourth quarter in 2005. Very tiny compared to the global revenue streams.

The telecom industry in China earned in 2005 about 115 billion US dollar and it is for good reason that China has kept that industry up to now pretty closed for foreign involvement. That is going to change, and gains might be possible together with Chinese telecom companies. In all terms the internet industry has caused massive changes in China, but remains pretty tiny in financial terms.

Old-timers in China like Unilever and P&G have learned in the past decades the hard way how tough the market for the average Chinese consumers is to enter and still make a profit. Entering this consumer market only to gain market share might not outweigh the possible gains a foreign company (or a Chinese) can make.

Depending on the industry, the competitive situation and the relations with the government, foreign companies can also work and make a profit in China. But getting enough money out of the Chinese consumers might need some very special talents.

Local competition, rigid government regulations, an unequal playing field and a relative low average income might be in the way of making a profit. Profits are possible, but whether they outweigh jeopardizing a global corporate image, like happened in the case of Yahoo, Google and Microsoft, seems less than smart.

Fons Tuinstra

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events - Bird flu puzzles government

And in the category miscellaneous news, according to different news agencies, Chinese goverment officials are also puzzled by the spread of the bird flu. Eleven people who have caught the potentially nasty virus are living in place where there have been no sick or dead birds. Seven people have died, as have millions of birds.
Just a guess: people have been hiding their chickens?

internet - Yes, MSN Spaces blockes another Chinese journalist

When MSN Spaces blocked at the end of December the weblog of Chinese journalist Michael Anti that became a huge issue and MSN decided to issue rules to clarify when and where they would do it again. It would only be when they got an official order from the government and the site would only be blocked inside China.
Well, they kept their word and blocked this weblog:

(This anonymous Chinese journalist was the first who noted it.) Now the guessing can start why the weblog was blocked: probably they illegally copied the naked women from the official Xinhua site.
When you try to open it in China without a proxy it reads:

Space Not Available

Sorry, we are required by an order of the Chinese government to block access to this Space due to its content.

And when you check the traffic from Beijing, you see it gets stuck in the Microsoft servers:



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ngo's - First report on gay communities in China

Another notable development: China has its first report on the gay communities, according to the official newswire Xinhua. The dispatch does not make us very much wiser, but mainly tells us that the report - supported by the Ford Foundation - is huge. Homosexuals have become an acronym, MSM's, so they must be pretty official now too.

This report written by famous scholar and writer Tong Ge includes over 400 cases of MSM and personal experience of sexual intercourse. These cases show the real status of Chinese gay groups' aesthetic desire, approaches of sexual intercourse, emotions and self-value assessment.

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media - And there is a lot of censorship in the air

The reports on censorship actions in the air. Maybe a good moment for those whose memory does not go further than the previous case to remind them that next month the National People's Congress is gathering in Beijing and that is traditionally a moment for - both real and symbolic - censorhip action.
A few interesting articles too, like this one in Business Week on Bill Xia who is fighting the censorship from North Carolina. His organization - funded by the US propaganda broadcaster Voice of America and some human rights organizations - is doing rather valuable work. Himself, part of the banned Falun Gong, sounds rather optimistic about China's future and his work to break holes in the big firewall:

Every time something momentous happens in China -- and Beijing smothers news about it -- more people use his software, Xia says. In 2003, when the SARS epidemic peaked and Chinese authorities seemed to be withholding information, the number of DIT users spiked by 50%, he says -- and they doubled after reports surfaced in December that Guangdong police had shot protesting villagers.

ESWN details the case of yet another sacked editor because he wrote about the poor english at the official website of the central government. Yes, you can also get sacked of not that heroic things. Abundant source by ESWN, who can translate faster than I can read.
And there is this new academic report about censorship in China, I hope to read this weekend.

Update: Almost forget to mention the heated discussion on another, older case where the Paris-based Reporters without Frontiers said Yahoo had provided also information that has jailed a journalist. Rebecca summerizes the case here. While opinions are very divided on what company to blame (if any) Yahoo or Alibaba, a seperate discussion on some mailing lists embarked on whether our French organization was paid by and following the political line, by ignoring the problems of journalists in US custody. More later.

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a longstanding tradition

economy - Authorities get serious on tobacco

China gets serious in banning the building of new tobacco companies, at least that is what official announcements suggests, here in summery by CDT.
Attractive revenue from tobacco and souring costs of cancer treatments have always been battling for political priority, but now a new line has been set, writes Reuters, as new factories including foreign joint ventures have been banned. Despite high investments, foreign tobacco companies never got a legal presence in China, although their products could be bought everywhere, as illegal imports or counterfeits.

Beijing would also impose strict controls on existing tobacco production, including taxes on tobacco leaf and industry reorganization, Xinhua News Agency quoted Sha Zukang, the ambassador to United Nations agencies in Geneva, as telling a conference.

media - Jiefang Daily banned as news source?

CDT translates this rather strange list of Chinese media being banned bij the Beijing Municipal propaganda officials. Part of the piece:

We understand that the current limits on copying news are not easy to implement, but before we find better solutions, please cooperate with us. We will also keep guard for you, and penalize each of those sites that we find fail to follow the rules.

Now the list includes very, very official papers like the Jiefang Daily from Shanghai, the daily of the Shanghai Communist Party. I got the strong feeling that somebody is playing a practical joke here.

media - A tale of increasing press freedom

A good summary by Howard French in the International Herald Tribune on how, despite severe setbacks, by and large press freedom in China has creased greatly in the recent past.

Tired of the limitations imposed by editors or by censors, untold thousands of Chinese journalists are now operating blogs, giving them an outlet to write about what they could not in their day jobs.

internet - a visit to the internet police

ESWN translates this report of a reporter of the Wenxue City of an actually rather boring visit to a department of the internet police. The initial excitement of the report:

This reporter was elated for a few days about the opportunity of working with the Internet police. It was going to be a vacation looking for harmful information on the Internet compared to gathering news out in the field!

Fizzled out very soon as no crimes of even minor problems could be reported. ESWN treats us with a nice count down of what the (in my eyes mainly mythical presence) of 30,000 internet police actually means.

Here is a myth: there are 30,000 Internet police in China who sit around all day looking for harmful information. 30,000 is a big number, since it could fill a soccer stadium. But with respect to 100 million Internet users, 30,000 is woefully inadequate to patrol all possible Internet content material (that is, one Internet police officer has to keep an eye on 3,333 users at the same time, or less than 10 seconds per user per day).

I do want to stress that even the number of 30,000 is largely unconfirmed and just meant to make clear to the Chinese citizens (possibly wrongly) the government is looking after them.

economy - Smart internet marketing by Motorola

I was just scanning the material I could find by the Back Dorm Boys when I stumbled into this unbelievable clever piece of marketing by Motorola. At the end of this movie you see the guys picking up their mobile phones and Huang Yixin get a women on the line complaining about being neglected. That came back in this promotion for Motorola.
It fits all too nicely to have been done by the boys themselves (like the clear voice from the mobile phone is quite an achievement unless you have the equipment to mix it). Very nicely done, I must say.

internet - The Back Dorm Boys

I'm running a little bit behind in covering this latest trend, but a Dutch magazine asked me to tell a bit about one of the latest (internet) trends in China. Is that all, what their reaction when I sent them this movie. To be honest: that was my first reactions too but now we are millions of downloads further and both art students from Guangdong have solid contracts with Sina.com and Motorola.
It does show how easy it might be to beat mainstream TV.

censored for your service

media - BBC makes also goverment-friendly site

Asiapundit noted this new service by the BBC that seems to be trying to please the Chinese censors. After MSN, Yahoo and Google have been selling out, is the Beeb the next?
The news site of the BBC has been one of very few mainstream media that has been blocked all way through, while the rest of the online censorship became rather symbolic. I'm not sure whether such a move by the BBC would actually change their position as the main blocked mainstream media. Then the censor would have to pick somebody else as a symbol of censorship.
Too many media company are sitting in their US or European headquarters, trying to figure how to please the censor and meanwhile making not only a fool of themselves but give in on what their core asset is in China: being an uncensored service.

internet - The Google-Ganji connection

Billsdue points at an interesting story in the ongoing Google.cn tale. Google obviously did not obtain a Chinese permission for an internet site themselves, but partnered with Ganji.com, one of many Chinese companies trying to copy the US success of Craigslist. Now they are operational in Beijing, but seem to plan a nationwide roll-out. That is quite different from a search engine, although Google itself plans to introduce online classified themselves.
Terms of the agreement are unclear, but it seems clear that Google has no independent license to operate in China, even not through their own Chinese staff members. That means most likely that if Google.cn has an issue with China Telecom, like being blocked or other minor details, they might have to go through Ganji to negotiate.

life - Springfestival loses its attraction

"Every year there are the same celebrations, and the same TV programs," said Zhang Zhongwei, one of the survey respondents. "People have nothing to do except eat. I'm getting so tired of it."

Shanghai residents do not enjoy Springfestival as much as they did in the past, discovered the Shanghai Daily. Only 30 percent of over 7,000 residents said they enjoyed themselves in China's largest annual holiday. The increasing boredom might explain why so many people go online during the holidays.

A picture of the ambush

protest - The Zhanjiang clash

ESWN collects the available sources describing the violent clash on 3 February between two villages in Guangdong, Daimeichen and Xiaomeichen. The scene look very much like the classic Chinese warfare tricks.
Bombs were thrown, shots were fired in the fight close to the city of Zhanjiang over a longstanding dispute concerning farmland. Twenty four people ended up in hospital, mostly women. The government official present fled the scene.

During the battle, the Wuchun county party secretary Gao Yongyuan was at the scene, but the villagers completely ignored him and went on with the battle. The party secretary required police escort to get away from the scene. There were more than 20 police officers at the scene but they were numerically overpowered. The Huangpo town police station director was wounded in the head, and another police officer was injured in the leg.

no money from the stock exchange

economy - Shanghai heads for financial crisis

Shanghai is seriously strapped for income now most of its regular sources have dried up, says Access Asia in their weekly update. While Shanghai might not easily go bankrupt, as the update says, the problems seems rather obvious as even the Shanghai tax offices have increased their demands with 100 percent.
Now the real estate sector is dead, the stock exchange still dead while costs remain the same, there is enough reason for some local panic.
Costs for the new port in Yangshan as been higher as assumed (don't they always) and the major investments for the Worldexpo 2010 are laying ahead. It looks unlikely the central government will abandon Shanghai on these prestigious project, belt tightening might for the first time be on the agenda too.
Many other projects seems to have come to a halt, although increased traffic would need more investments in stead of less.

internet - Destroying a corporate image

Our slower but more thoughtful colleagues of the weeklies (like here in Newsweek) get their act together and give their thoughts about the Google-China disaster that keeps on hitting the headlines.
Maybe I'm also in cyberspace terms a bit old-fashioned, but I do think that search engines should not be in the business of censoring. Google has done their image a great disservice, hurt the goodwill search engines had and brought us much closer to a situation where we have to fear them as corporate giants who present us search results that match their agenda.
It brings also closer the nightmare painted in EPIC 2014, where search engines and companies manipulate information up to a very personal level. It might not be that close, but every step in this wrong direction is one step too much.

economy - The emerging force of Chinese women

I have been regularly been opposing the way how Chinese women are often painted in the West as one of the groups who have 'lost' in modern China, compared to the old planned economy when women's position was much more protected. Often quoting sociologist James Farrer, you see that women in China today are better educated than ever in China's history and they are wrongfully not seen as the most important upcoming force in China.
AFP issued a nice story (we can only read her in German in Der Spiegel, since AFP does not allow Google to index their stories) illustrating the emerging economic power of women, where women even earn more than men in China. It quotes professor Yang Xiaoyan of the Guangdong University of Foreign Studies:

... because of the explosive growth of the service sector. Often for women it is easier to find jobs, especially for women at the country side, compared to the men. They can earn as sales women or ayi's often more than their husbands.

A useful story, since more often women themselves like to see - and portrait themselves - as the weaker sex. We should realize how deceptive that image is.