Dalai Lama drops demand for independence

The Dalai Lama no longer advocates independence for Tibet, he says in an interview with CNN, here quoted in a dispatch by the German news agency DPA. He seems to react to an offer of premier Wen Jiabao for talks if the Dalai Lama would drop his demand for an independent Tibet.
Similar moves have been made in the past by the Dalai Lama and were not very much appreciated by his more radical followers. In the interview he makes enough remarks to please those followers and irritate the central government in Beijing, while meanwhile accepting Wen's demand.

"The past is past. When the People's Liberation Army came to Tibet, according to legal experts, Tibet was a de facto independent nation. Therefore, we consider it an occupied land. But that doesn't mean we are seeking independence," he said in the interview, which was published on the channel's website and is due to be broadcast later.

He also maintains that Tibet has been "ruled by terror".

Undercover journalists revealed food chain trouble

from the newspaper

Months of undercover investigations by journalists have been at the basis of the current labor problem of Pizza Hut, McDonalds and KFC, a report in the New Express reveals, here in a translation by ESWN, called "McWages in China".
The detailed report is for sure going to cause the companies involved more trouble and might signal a strategy more companies will have to face. Only after the journalists filed official complaints the labor authorities reluctantly decide to investigate the reports.

This woman is 43-years-old. She claimed to have been laid off from her previous job and her husband had died from cancer. She worked at KFC and earned 4.7 RMB per hour. At first, KFC told her to sign a full-time contract. Then they wanted her to sign a part-time contact. This woman worked at least seven hours per day. She had never taken Lunar New Year off in eight years. However, she is coming up to ten years of employment and KFC does not intend to renew the contract with her.
According to the law, any employee who works for ten years cannot be dismissed.
This woman was in tears: "KFC claims to have helped so many impoverished students and hardship cases in China. I am a single mother and I need this job to feed my family. On the last week at the end of my eighth year contract, I received a rating of 100 for my work. Now they are saying that I am too old and they won't renew my contract."

The strategy of the companies when they smelled trouble looks dubious at best: the reissued new backdated contracts. That does not sound like a company who is complying with the law.

The future of the foreign correspondents Clubs

Yesterday, during the weekly journo-drinks at the Cotton Club, one of the newcomers brought up the subject of the future of the foreign correspondents Clubs. Well, that was a nice subject.
Both Maria Trombly and me have very outspoken ideas about that, so we gladly delivered our two cents.
The classic foreign correspondents as we knew them from last century are gone or on the way out. That is for me already an old story.
While cities like Hong Kong and Tokyo still have prestigious places where foreign correspondents used to go to, most correspondents have fled those cities. Since most journalists cannot afford the high fees (and certainly do not get them reimbursed anymore from their bosses), its mostly bankers and other business people who keep those clubs running.
When we set up the Shanghai Foreign Correspondents Club at the beginning of this century, we realized that membership fees for journalists would have been low, otherwise there would be no club at all. The new style foreign correspondent has little money and hardly any time for those clubs.
According to Maria Trombly the word fee in the US for journalists was in the 1950s one US dollar and that fee has not gone up since: the average word fee is still one US dollar. Well, local tariffs in Shanghai are down to one Renminbi per word, about ten percent of that fee. Experienced journalists who a desperate for work sign up as interns for China-based media and work for free. One idea floating around was let those journalists in the future pay for their China-experiences, so at least we would have a decent business model.
Maria, who focuses on payment systems worldwide, has probably found one of the better paid niche market: payment systems. When you work for such a global niche market, yes, you can survive as a journalist in Shanghai in the future. And you need to employ many interns so you can go out and have drinks, like Maria does.
Journalism schools worldwide still churn out every year larger numbers of students that are being prepared for jobs that will not exist anymore in the future. They should save some money, so they can afford an internship in Shanghai.

Google, Yahoo reject shareholders motion against censorship

Both Yahoo and Google are advising their shareholders to vote against a resolution of the New York State Pension Fund that call for an end to their corporate censorhips, reports RConversation.
Both companies do not give a reason for their negative advise and refuse to talk to the media about the issue. The annual shareholders meetings are to be held on May 10 (Google) and June (Yahoo).

KFC, McDonalds, Pizzahut to cooperate with authorities

Both McDonalds and KFC has said on Thursday they were cooperating with the authorities in a probe into labor law infringements that has been expanding over the whole country, writes AP.

"No one cares more about our workers than we do," McDonald's China said in a statement seen Thursday. "The fact is, government officials make decisions on local labor laws. That's why we continue to work with local officials to get further clarity on their recently amended labor laws," it said.

The companies said they were looking for clarification of the law.

"McDonald's China always adheres strictly to the relevant national and local regulations, and we are consulting with the proper authorities to get the facts," it said, noting that the results of the investigation had not yet been disclosed.
A spokeswoman for Yum in China said the company was also seeking clarification but did not have any new statements.

Crisis, but no crisis management at food chains

More than a week old is the current PR-mess for KFC, McDonalds and Pizzahut, but for the time being the companies think they can get away by ignoring the crisis. I think they are wrong, but we will see.
What helps a bit is that - against my expectations - the issue is not really taken up in a massive way on the internet. I guess that most KFC-employees cannot afford internet access.

China power list: the top 50

Hu Jintao: nr.1

The Chatham House in London has published a first edition of its top-50 most influential people in China. A good initiative that for sure is going to cause a lot of debat.
One solid criterium is that you have to be alive, but otherwise everything goes.
Some of the longer explanation:

The list has two useful functions. First, the people on it really do have the power to affect the lives of citizens around the world, and we need to know much more about them. Second, the list will illuminate common points of power in modern China and in the outside world. Is China in 2007 as dominated by the influence of the wealthy as is the United Kingdom? Or does "purer" political influence - a good background, good political connections - matter more?

You will find people like Bill Gates and the younger George Bush on the list and that is causing some debate already. Of cause, in this digital age, you can not only see the list, but also add, comment and vote here

Added value of 10 China business trips: 70,000 euro

Provincial legislators of the tiny Dutch province Friesland asked for an investigation of five official trips by government officials and local companies to China, and five return visits of Chinese delegations in 2005 and 2006. The province claims, as does every village outside China, a special relationship with China.
Those ten visits have now led to a whopping turnover of 70,000 euro, reports the local nieuwspaper (in Dutch of course). There was no overview of the total costs of the ten trips and will most likely have been shared between the provincial government and the companies. A liaison office in Sichuan was supposed to be self supporting by the beginning of this year, but the province decided to prolong its grant for another six months.
This kind of investigations cannot be done enough.

Google is learning Chinese

Google has released its new way of using pinyin to write Chinese on computers and one sentence in the (short) review by Shanghaiist made me thinking.

If an user simultaneously logs into his Google account while typing, GP will analyze and learn his word entry habit, and overtime optimize character output to save user time. How cool is that?

That is not only very cool but also very smart. While my verdict on their newly released translation tool was not very mild, the build-in ability of the system to learn was promising for the future. It is similar for its book-scanning projects. It looks like Google has started a rather intensive Chinese class, helped by millions of users. (The same of course goes for all the other languages, but Chinese is of course a special challenge.) It would be interesting when somebody would lift the lit a bit of this interesting operation.

Lunch: up 20 percent

On Saturday China's financial regulators told they would act fast on inflation. Unfortunately, my regular provider of lunch boxes was not reached in time, so I ended up paying 20 percent more for my food. On top of that he announced he would no longer serve single meals: two meals would be a minimum.
He tried to camouflage his evil deeds by first skipping the cheapest dishes and adding more expensive ones. On top of that he added two prawns. Tomorrow I will check some new suppliers, but it looks that the inflation rate for my lunch box this quarter will be 20 percent.
The damage for me is limited, the price went up from 10 to 12 yuan and a gin tonic tomorrow at the Cotton's bar might cause more financial damage, but on a macro-level, with millions of white-collar workers paying 20 percent more, the central bank should start to worry.

What is next for KFC, McDonalds and Pizzahut?

The temperature has been rising for the foreign food chains that have come under scrutiny for the - according to an investigation - breaking of the labor law.
China Hearsay has a "seen it, done it" approach of the case and paints the standard procedure for this kind of cases. I have to argue against it, since this does not look like a standard operation, this is real politics and the managers in charge of this crisis have reason enough to feel the beginning of a panic.
First, for Chinese standards this looks like a pretty well organized action. It was very clear after the trade union started to organize Wal-Mart and Foxconn against the will of the companies, they could not just go back to their offices and continue drinking tea. This looks like the plan for the moment and if I would be working at KFC, Pizzahut or McDonalds I would take this very seriously. This does not go away by itself.
Second, it is part of a policy shift on several levels. Until a few years ago, almost anything you did to encourage economic growth was ok and nobody really bothered about the negative side-effects. The different governmental institutions (and for the time being the trade union ACFTU is still one of them) are building a case, both for their bosses upstairs, but also for the Chinese citizens.
So, what is to be done? Raising the salaries over the minimum wages, paying the wrongly not paid wages and deeply, deeply apologize for mistakes being made. And set up a trade union of course. Again: this is not going over by itself.
Next, this is going to be a successful action on the part of the government and the trade unions. There is no ways this can be writing up by the state media without being a resounding success. That will cost some money, but will have consequences for other foreign companies too who will be next. In the long run, ok the very long run, it will also have consequences for the Chinese companies, since the Chinese workers know they will get support when they ask for their legal rights.

Trade Union confirms labor law violations

An investigation has shown that KFC, McDonalds and Pizzahut in Guangdong have indeed violated the labor regulation by not paying their workers the minimum wage, according to a senior ACFTU-leader today in the China Daily.

The fast-food giants must correct their wrongdoings and pay the workers retroactively, said Li Shouzhen, a senior official with the All-China Federation of Trade Unions (ACFTU).
"A joint investigation by the Guangdong provincial trade union and the labor authorities confirmed media reports about the companies' unlawful practice," Li told a news briefing in Beijing. "The federation will uncompromisingly fight any practice that violates workers' rights," he added.

It is another signal the heat will be turned up for the foreign food chains involved.

Lenovo tops Greenpeace' guide

Lenovo, China's largest manufacturer of PC's, head a Greenpeace listing on green policies, report ChinaCSR and China Tech News.

"Given the growing mountains of e-waste in China - both imported and domestically generated – it is heartening to see a Chinese company taking the lead, and assuming responsibility at least for its own branded waste," said Iza Kruszewska, Greenpeace International Toxics Campaigner, "The challenge for the industry now is to see who will actually place greener products on the market."

Ethical dilemma's in signing up speakers

Rupert Hoogewerf

Today we are signing up a few new speakers for our upcoming speakers bureau. Yes, we can now include Rupert Hoogewerf, the founder of the China Rich List, on our list.

We already knew that we could not include any politicians that are still in office, and since Chinese politicians very seldom leave office, that pool will be rather small for the time being. But for our first "big name" assignment we had also listed some really famous business people (no, I cannot give names here), but they also seem to have a problem in earning money as a professional speaker. They cannot do that for ethical reasons.

While I see the logic here, I had never any misgivings as a journalist to take money for my speeches (although in those days I did sell my soul for fairly little money). University professors, TV-anchors, lawyers and other consultants do not have a problem to sign up. Maybe because in those occupations doing speaking assignments is anyway considered to be part of the business.

The only way out is perhaps that of Bill Clinton: he makes an average of US$200,000 per speech, but passes 80 percent on to his own charity foundation. The other 20 percent goes of course to his speaking bureau, we have to make a living too.

Shanghai on a hazy day

The weather was awful today, and many people complained about the pollution. But still, it resulted in beautiful picture on People's Square.

Deal on Chongqing house

Yee reports that China's most famous house, the nailhouse in Chongqing, is now being demolished after a deal has been reached.

New deadline for Chongqing nailhouse

Josie Liu points at her (fairly new) weblog at the press conference by Huang Yun, the Chongqing districthead in charge of China's most famous house. At the picture he shows how beautiful the area is going to be after the nailhouse has been removed.

Huang announced a new deadline for demolishion: April 10, the third time a court has issued such an order.

Mr. Yang and his wife Wu Ping have refused to accept more than 2.4 million yuan ($300,000) of cash the developer would pay to them, but asked for an unit of the same position and area as their current property in the new business compound to be built on the same location, which happened to be a major commercial area in the city.

Pizza-hut, KFC, McDonalds on hitlist trade union

The ACFTU, China's only allowed trade union, has warned foreign foodchains not to underpay their employees, reports the China Daily. A trade union official was over the weekend interviewed by CCTV after media reports from Guangdong signalled that employees of KFC and McDonalds possibly did not receive the legal minimum wage.

Other media reports indicated similar problems in Taiyuan, Zhengzhou and Fuzhou

The foodchains have denied they are not following the labor law and local regulations.

Update: CNN quotes Beijing News, saying the problem may exist in at least ten cities, including Beijing and Shanghai.

Go West, young man - the WTO Column

The famous saying "Go west, young man", minted during the Gold Rush in the United States, is now often used (Go East) when talking about the new gold rush, the rush to China. So, for a few of the foreign gold-diggers in China it must be rather disturbing to see that the motto for Chinese and Chinese companies is again "Go West, young men and women". I'm not only talking about the Chinese who go abroad to pick up an education they cannot get at home, and often stay there. There is a new rush developing, especially among the internet companies, to refocus their attention at the US market. On the internet there are only two relevant markets, the Chinese and the US markets because of their relative size.

First, the Chinese internet companies learned how to beat the US competitors on their own home markets. Global winner Google has been kept on a second place in China by domestic search engine Baidu. China's Alibaba gave Ebay a run for its money and took over Yahoo's China operation. Giant Tencent from Shenzhen kept Microsofts' MSN and its webhosting services out of reach of a topposition.

Now, there are rather concrete rumors in the market that Chinese internet companies are not happy with their domestic successes but, with Sun Tze under their belt, will continue the hot pursuit.

There is still a world to win for those companies in China - Tencent only recently moved into video-sharing - but there are a growing number of signs that indicate that Chinese internet companies are ready to jump for global markets. Those initiatives involve smaller players like Anothr.com, still in beta and delivering rss-feeds to Skype and Gmail. But also the bigger companies are moving. Tencent is preparing a major upgrade of its English IM-system , suggesting it is going after Microsoft's home market. Second Life's clone HiPiHi will launch this summer, most likely both in Chinese and in English. And the market rumor suggest more similar moves.

There is a good reason for this strategic move, because the Chinese companies know better than their foreign competitors that the hype about the Chinese middle-class is just that: a hype. According to macro-economist Arthur Kroeber, editor of the China Economic Quarterly, as an economic category the middle class in China will only have the size of the current US middle-class of 280 million people in ten years time. Then the spending power of the Chinese middle-class will still be only a quarter of the US middle-class.
Chinese consumers do not only have less money to spend, they are most likely going to spend it differently. Consumer spending as a percentage of the national GDP in China has actually reduced over the years, argued professor Tan Kong Yam of the business school at Nanyang University in Singapore recently. Because as a percentage of the GDP China's government spends very little on health care, education and social security, the citizens have to spend that money themselves, leaving even less room for consumer spending.
Then, there are a few industry-specific reasons for internet companies to look for greener fields. Because of the way the industry is regulated much of the freedom is also limited, although it is much better than under the traditional media. But with gatekeepers like China Mobile, literally curtailing the ability to make money, it is no wonder that companies start to look west.

Fons Tuinstra

Heineken's first ad in HiPiHi

That's China points at the first ad showing up at the virtual life site HiPiHi: from Heineken. The Dutch beer makers has a reputation for good ads, better than their beer and their sales in China.

Do not hurry out to get your virtual pint: the launch is only planned around the summer. They do have already information available in English, suggesting that they do not want to stick to the Chinese market, just like giant Tencent. This promises to become a very interesting year for the internet in China and outside.

The digital divide - the WTO-column

When we talk about the digital divide, it is mostly associated with poverty, the have's and the have nots. Of course: not being able to connect to the internet firmly locks you out from the wealth of digital knowledge. But there is another digital divide in the way people use and consume media. On one hand you have the digital vanguard who would blog, twitter, Skype and get their information through RSS-feeds on Google reader.

But for a vast majority of my friends the usage of the internet is limited to email and some daily browsing of their favorite websites, including some online media. On both sides of the fence there is typically very little patience for the other side, I'm not really an exception.

When you are caught by this 24-hour cycle of news and information, when you have learned how to manage that flow and still have a life, there is no way back.

Journalists tend to be on the wrong side of the fence and mostly stick to the rather traditional way of collecting information. When my digitally more advanced colleague Maria Trombly suggested her colleagues of the Shanghai foreign correspondents club to start a weblog to improve the information exchange, her proposal was met with an eerie silence. You only need a peek at their website to see that online communicating is not the strongest point of the Shanghai FCC.

Last Friday I received the first copy of a new English weekly on Asia, Asia-Weekly. That wants to build on the great tradition of now mostly defunct English-language weeklies like Asiaweek (where I used to be a contributor) and the Far Eastern Economic Review (it that still around?). Unfortunately, I forgot the copy at the office, so cannot quote from it since it has no real online presence, really a shocking discovery. I recall there was very little about China - the Asian country I'm really interested in - and not surprisingly the news was at least a week old. They had some very nice ads, so at least they have found some of advertisers who believe in the concept. I do think that when Asiaweek and FEER would have sticked to their old format, they would have been able to hold on to their existing - although declining - audiences. The old concept does not work with the new audiences. Sticking to the old media is very useful, especially when you are servicing an aging audience. To capture a new audience, new concepts are needed.

Even when you are in the business of explaining the world to others, as journalists are, it is very hard to accept that your own world is changing beyond recognition. At most journalism schools students still expect to get a job at a paper or a TV-station and very few educators realize they have to prepare their students for a whole new digital world. Like when the tsunami hit, some watched the waves coming in without expecting anything. Obliviance is a grace, until you are gone of course.

The past few weeks saw this beautiful story developing on the nailhouse in Chongqing. It was one of those typical stories that are nowadays driven by the internet. A 24-hour news cycle, without deadlines or professional journalists is changing the media world beyond recognition. Many deplore that and for very legitimate reasons. The tsunami was also very beautiful to see.

Fons Tuinstra

PS: This Jipjap movie (What we call the news) gives a hilarious view on US TV journalism. Worthwhile although the registration procedure is somewhat troublesome.

Yet another easy way to get to blogspot, livejournal, wikipedia

Yee posts a more complete way to go around the IP-blocks by the internet censor. You do need a little bit of programming skills to get this done, but the reactions are pretty enthusiastic. I'm happy with my current proxies, but the more tools go around, the better it is.