media - SARFT 'killed' Super Boys Show

Amy Gu notes that the relevant authorities at SARFT decided to ban a 'Super Boy' Show to prevent more TV-shows people would really like. But the Super Girl show cannot be stopped anymore.

internet - How to view blocked weblogs

Virtual China links to the weblog of David Churbuck, vice-president of global web marketing at Lenovo. David discovered how to view blocked weblogs when visiting Beijing. Welcome to the club!

internet - A fast changing country

Simon World points at this article in The Economist on the profound changes the internet is imposing on China's political system.

For foreign companies, the internet business in China is certainly a moral minefield. But the internet should not be dismissed as merely an instrument of control for the Communist Party. In the past three years, China has seen far more extensive use of the internet and the rapid development of groups that share views online that are by no means always the same as the party's.

The market is going to be the winner, is the conclusion of the story. It closes with with Jack Ma:

“China is changing, it's improving,” says Jack Ma, head of Alibaba, which last year took over the running of Yahoo!'s Chinese operations—for, despite an early start in China, Yahoo! has been elbowed aside by domestic rivals. “Ten years ago, 20 years ago, in Chairman Mao's time, if we came here to talk about these things [government censorship],” he begins. Then he puts an imaginary pistol to his head and, with a grin, fires it. That, of course, was when power just grew out of the barrel of a gun. Now it also grows out of the infinite, albeit virtual, barrels of the internet.

media - The best multimedia experience

A Dutch magazine is making a (very short) article about the multimedia experience in different countries, especially focusing the news, since the magazine is writing for journalists. So, they asked me what I feel is the best multimedia site in China. I do not mind to compare apples and pears in 200 words, but perhaps with your help I can find a few extra nice online media experiments. What is your favorite: you can email me or put your remarks in the comments.

internet - India, China close digital gap with developed world

Some parts of China and India, like Shanghai and Bangalore, do not differ in terms of connectivity from much of the developed world, says a study by IBM and the Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU) on 'e-readiness'. Developing countries have been developing faster than expected. In a Reuters' story:

Within China and India, regions such as Shanghai and Bangalore have almost the same level of Internet and mobile phone connections as developed nations, said
Peter Korsten, European director at IBM's Institute for Business Value.
"This is the first time we see a level playing field between developed and developing
nations in terms of connectivity. It's up to governments to take advantage with
education and other initiatives," he said.

economy - Europe wants to centralize visa

Well, that is what the EU wants, according to some media reports. China is going to be the coutry where the EU wants to experiment. I do not see that happen very soon. For many embassies and especially the consulates issuing visas is their core business. When they give up on that, they might as well close down. Many European consulates in Shanghai have just renewed their visa-sections to accommodate the growing flow of travellers from China. No way this is going to happen soon.

books - The Lenovo Affair

Just received the book The Lenovo Affair. The Growth of China's computer giant and its takeover of IBM-PC" by the Shanghainese journalist Ling Zhijun (so the Shanghai Foreign Correspondents Club might have a good subject for the coming month.) I might be quiet for a few days.

economy - Faking a company

The unbelievable scale of piracy in China becomes clear in this fascinating article in the International Herald Tribune on how not a few products, but the whole Japanese company NEC got duplicated. No longer a few obscure factories copy some products, but organized crime has taken piracy onto a higher level.

media - For you academic exchanges

Just got an email from John Kojiro Yasuda pointing at a new website on academic research on China, called Chinacubed.com. A very cool website, that could help China-research very much. I have seen it for other countries, but not yet for China.
It is clearly in its early phase, so forums and weblogs (yes, you can have your own weblog here) are not yet very active, but it adds much more functionalities than the few mailing lists I know in this field. The website is unfortunately not offering RSS-feeds: that would of course improve the interactivity very much.

labor - China trade creates thousands of jobs in the Netherlands

China is mostly associated with the loss of jobs, but a research firm in the Netherlands has estimated that in the coming two years more than 100,000 jobs will be created, partly due to the trade with China.
Because the Netherlands is the gateway to Europe for many products from Asia and especially China, trade services, logistical companies and other business services are expected to grow very fast in the coming two years.

stats - What is happening in Denmark?

I just had a short look at my stats for this weblog and (different from the past) I can see how much traffic is going to different countries, or to domain names that come from that country. No surprises in the top-2: the United States and China. But number three is a strange one: Denmark.
Hello, Denmark, are you listening? Why are you more interested than people in Hong Kong, India or Australia?

telecom - executives warn China on 3G: you might get isolated

Spindoctors are making overtime as China is getting into gear for the roll out of the Chinese standard for the third generation mobile phones, the TD-SCDMA. In an interesting piece telecom executives warn in a Reuters' dispatch the largest market in the world, with 400 million subscribers, they might get isolated when they focus on their own standard.
Of course: the race is still in a very early phase, but the question who is isolating whom might be a legitimate one.

Liu Zhongde not thrilled

media - "Down with the Super girls"

Danwei points at this latest effort (an interview in the China Times) to make Chinese media to the most boring in the world. Liu Zhongde, one of the leading figures in the communist part on culture, is heading the attack against the super girls. Just have a good laugh:

The audience watches this program with a distorted mentality, and this presents a dire picture to a nation and a nationality. The audience watches the program under a distorted mentality and in an unhealthy condition. Open the doors and windows to let in fresh air, and flies and mosquitos are bound to come in too. This is nothing to be surprised at; it is completely understandable. The problem lies in how we face these mosquitos and flies. We cannot let our youth be contaminated in the midst of entertainment and laughter.

labor - The talent crunch

The International Herald Tribune documents the tough struggle to get qualified people on board.

"It's become a very big problem," said Li, client partner at Corporate Resources International, a Beijing-based recruiting agency. "Just because people accept your offer doesn't mean they will join your company."

While pushing out high numbers of graduates is not really the problem, most of them often do not qualify for a job. "Some you even have to teach how to use a fax machines," told me an employer recently. According to a recent report by McKinsey China would not have millions of engineers available, but only 160,000 - comparable to the UK.
Fast growing industries have to rely again on expats, people coming from outside China to join their companies.

"Now the whole thing has been reversed," said Ogilvy's Beijing-based managing director, Chris Reitermann. "We hire many more expats simply because we can't get the quality locally. Good senior local people are as precious as diamonds."
Official statistics suggest Ogilvy is not alone in relying heavily on recruiting from overseas. The number of expatriates working legally in China has doubled to 150,000 since 2003, the Ministry of Labor and Social Security said this month.

media - The Economist writes it...

... so it must be true. A great article about the ongoing media revolution by the Economist with many great quotes about how many miss the new era of personal conversation:

Almost everywhere, download speeds (from the internet to the user) are many times faster than upload speeds (from user to network). This is because the corporate giants that built these pipes assumed that the internet would simply be another distribution pipe for themselves or their partners in the media industry. Even today, they can barely conceive of a scenario in which users might put as much into the network as they take out.

telecom - Is Shanda abandoning ship?

Billsdue picks up an interesting quote from the spokesperson of the once very succesful online game-firm Shanda. Rumor says that the authorities want to ban its rather unsuccessful new device that should have turned the market around. And what does the spokesman say?

Shanda's (SNDA) spokesperson Zhuge Hui said that Shanda had not received any notice, and that would effectively ignore it if they did, which is an interesting way to deal with regulators.

It indeed is: you can only afford this attitude when you have nothing to lose.

telecom - Internet companies refocus on mobile for profit

The emerging 3th generation mobile phones is giving internet companies new chances, says for example Baidu CEO Robin Li to Xinhua: (just watch the rather optimistic prediction)

Robin said the number of internet users is only a little over one third of mobile phone users in China. "It is an opportunity as well as a challenge", he said.
He predicted that with the application of the third generation of mobile communications technology, denoted as 3G, mobile users become the most potential users of the Internet.
It can increase China's internet users by 100 million to 200 million in two or three years, Robin Li predicted.

labor - Guangdong focuses on social responsibility companies

Wu Zhong explains in The Standard from Hong Kong that the Guangdong government intends to improve working conditions in its province. That will add to the pressure on local companies, next to the shortage of migrant workers.

Though sweatshop manufacturing has contributed to Guangdong's economic boom, there has been a crackdown on these conditions. The most striking move was taken by the Shenzhen government. Earlier this month Shenzhen's labor authority announced it would launch an incentive policy to encourage enterprises to accept their "social responsibility." The government will set standards for "social responsibility" and certify those enterprises that meet them.

The question with all good intentions in China is of course whether the provincial governments will deliver. The tendency is worth to note.

Shenyang lady in trouble

law - Jaywalker to prison

Sometimes it is hard to explain to people that not everybody in China ends up in prison. But now even I have to stop being apologetic about China. Shanghaiist notes that this jaywalker is now on her way to prison.
Shanghai has tried a lot to get its pedestrians in line with the basic traffic rules, but now, enough seems to be enough.
Of course they had to take a lady from a far away prison. The police officers would never have dared to do this with a real Shanghainese lady.

internet - "Ebay is gone in China" - Jack Ma

Alibaba's Jack Ma is attacking competitor Ebay at home in California, talking to local journalists.

Jack Ma, chief executive of Alibaba.com, China's leading Internet marketplace, said that early mistakes by eBay have made it difficult for the company to gain traction in what is an increasingly important beachhead for e-commerce.
"In China, they are gone," Ma said during an interview Friday with members of The Chronicle's business staff. "They have made so many mistakes in China -- we're lucky."

According to research firm Analysys Ebay had in 2005 still a market share of 31.5 percent, but then I find it very hard to believe any figure from this research firm. When a spokesman of Ebay was quoted saying they are in China for the long term, I was certainly they were losing out. Who is in China not making money now, should count their blessings and stop losing money.

life - Hating your elementary school teacher

Chinese official TV mostly portraits teachers as do-gooders who in exchange for a small fee educate poor farmer kids at the country side. Well, forget also about this fairy tale, writes Non-violent Resistance. What can make Chinese really violent (and vocal online) is what they remember from their elementary school teacher.

internet - Has Google deleted Tibet?

That is at least suggested by Birdhouse who has checked Google Earth. Dan Gillmor suggests this is Google trying to brown-nose the Chinese government. If that is so, they seem to have picked a rather strange way. Is Taiwan still there? And Hong Kong? The nice thing of those satellite pictures is that you do not have to color all these places, so everybody is free to dream who is in charge.
Can you imagine the Chinese government to ask Google to delete Tibet? If I would be in charge to those things in Beijing, deleting Tibet would really make me upset. We have seen this more often, Google trying to imagine what Beijing would imagine when.... Just one advise: do not try to imagine those things behind your desk in California.

FLG-follower Wang Wenyi heckles Jiang Zemin (a discovery by ESWN)

politics - The heckler analysed

I have skipped most of the state visit by Hu Jintao, since I thought the rest of the world would have more time to write about that. But I want to make an exception for this summery by Rebecca MacKinnon regarding FLG-follower Wang Wenyi, who posed as a reporter at the White House in Washington and got her chance to shout at Hu. Wang got the same opportunity in 2001 in Malta with Jiang Zemin (see picture by Darren Zamnit Lupi).
That all has caused some heated discussions on the Chinese internet. Most people, even those who dislike the Chinese one, have now turned against the US government too, says Rebecca.