Also central government starts to fear nationalist anger

An online artist has neatly summerized the feelings of nationalists in China toward the United States(h/t Shanghaiist). Indeed, the dilemma might be the same as like a few years ago when Japan's diplomatic missions and restaurants were under attack.
China Digital Times gives an overview of the efforts by the central government to let patriotic fever not getting out of hand, without right away dismissing it. Quoted from the LA Times:

Chinese censors have quietly warned cyber-police and Internet businesses to delete all information related to protests against Western policies, nations or companies that have proliferated in the wake of demonstrations surrounding the global Olympic torch relay and high-level calls to boycott the opening ceremony of the Summer Games in Beijing.

The notice issued this week by China’s “Internet Inspection Sector” instructs recipients to reset the keywords used to block access to certain websites, relay the instructions through all Internet distribution channels and delete the notice in a timely manner.

Discussion about labor contract law resumes

ACFTU-logo
via WikipediaChina's most prestigious financial magazine Caijing reports about new trouble as the legal arm of the state council, China's highest administrative organ, will approve a more detailed edition of the new labor contract law. The law on labor rights came into force after a two-year, sometimes heated debates.
The debate goes between the only permitted trade union ACFTU and representative of the trade unions (that sounds very much like how these debates would go in Holland!):

Xie Lingmin, deputy head of ACFTU's law department, recently wrote that any labor law should help balance the unequal relationship between laborers and employers. Its goal should include promoting harmonious relations at an enterprise, which can provide a better internal environment for sustainable development of the business...
One skeptic is Huang Mengfu, chairman of the All-China Federation of Industry and Commerce and vice chairman of the National Committee of China People's Political Consultative Conference. Under the labor law, he said, “medium and small private enterprises with meager profits cry for cost compensation. The impact is also huge for labor-intensive enterprises which used to contribute the most to labor employment in China.”

Caijing gives a nice overview of the debate.

Trade union goes after GE

Image via WikipediaChina's only allowed trade union ACFTU has taken action against GE and its subsidiaries after ongoing stories the US company was not complying with the labor laws, writes China CSR.
Trouble started for Xiamen Topstar Lighting Co. Ltd, a joint venture of GE, when a US-based organization reported about workers making unpaid overtime in the company. The ACFTU would ask to company to rectify its mistakes.

Have foreign students to leave during the Olympics

Chinese store via WikipediaConvincing rumors suggested a few days ago that foreign students might be forced to leave China for two months during the Beijing Olympics, even when they want to continue studying after September. Shanghaiist summarized the rumors and finds also a source denying the story, after it broke in Dutch media.
Since there seems a certain degree of panic at the level of the central government, this story might still go into two directions. Very uncertain times, indeed.

Mixed signals on boycott movement

Image via WikipediaEfforts by angry online citizens to organize a boycott of foreign goods and services, especially focusing on the French retailer Carrefour, has triggered off both praise and warning by the central authorities, reports Reuters.
The comment is already very carefully in not condemning the actions:

The official commentary [by state news agency Xinhua] that appeared late on Thursday said the boycott demands were an ”unadorned expression of patriotic zeal and a sincere demonstration of public opinion”.
But it balanced the praise with a warning not to challenge the government’s policies of opening to foreign investment. ”Patriotic zeal must enter onto a rational track and must be transformed into concrete actions to do one’s own work well,” said the commentary widely distributed in the Chinese media.

More updates on the visas issue

The temple of heaving in Beijing
via WikipediaDuring my short leave at another weblog, fortunately other have been keeping up with the latest developments on the new rules for visas in China, like Shanghaiist here. And AllroadsleadtoChina here.

I have heard from a number of sources that at the Canton Fair (the biggest fair ever), you can hear crickets. Attendance levels are off 30% or more, and some of the manufacturers we have spoken with decided not to attend last minute as they have heard that it is bad…

Most drastic story is a quoted source at Shanghaiist, suggesting the for 33 countries it is no longer possible to get their visas in Hong Kong or Macao. It is still unclear how long it takes to get a visa under the new rules, since the situation is for everybody rather chaotic. I advise people who need to go to China to start proceeding for visas as soon as possible.
Several strategies are discussed to survive the coming months, based on the assumption that after the Beijing Olympics everything will be back to normal.
I'm happy I have a one-year visa with multiple entries, so for my upcoming visit to Beijing in May, I should not have a problem.

Carrefour singled out for flame-boycott

Image via WikipediaChinese nationalistic anger for the disturbances in London, Paris and San Francisco, now for rather unclear reasons seem to focus at the French retailer Carrefour.
Some suggest that this is great news for France as a brand name, since few Chinese consumers actually knew it was a French company at all. The boycott should get in place between May 8 and May 24, explaining the backed parking spots at the Carrefour outlets in the past few days.
There is of course a fair chance there will be a new target (say India) before this boycott might be realized. While debate is certainly heated, it seems rather unclear whether anything is going to happen at all.

Returning from the Wage Indicator conference

Image via WikipediaYi Dinghong

I just returned from the Global Wage Indicator Conference in the Netherlands and have spent another half a day in touring around with the new team of Renmin University that is going to try to pull off the wage indicator in China.
It was an intensive conference, with many teams of the now 35 countries represented. Just like two year ago a much needed moment to get all the noses into the same direction. I was there as a back-up MC and showed a bit what can be done with a weblog during such a conference. I think I made a few convicts.
Team leader Yi Dinghong belongs to the Renmin University in Beijing, a university that has been heavily involved in the reforms of labor in China in the past few years. Apart from leading the wage-indicator team Yi Dinghong is also writing a study on the reform of China's only trade union, the ACFTU.
Getting wage information was an important global challenge, told a representative of the Internationa Labor Organization (ILO) at the meeting and getting them from larger countries like China and India is crucial. China has the huge advantage of a huge and fast increasing online population, unlike India, where the project sees enormous challenges, since so few people are online.
"More microdata and international comparison was crucial," says Yi Dinghong, and the wage-indicator can do that, unlike some of the existing commercial initiative in China. "Also we are able to improve our technology every year, something other projects cannot do."
Today we had a break and I toured with the Chinese team the Dutch tulip fields and the beautiful city of Leiden. Tomorrow, it should be business as usual again.
(I'm still adding material to the wage indicator weblog, but should have things in place after the weekend. Things were sometimes just going too fast.)

Attending the Global Wage Indicator conference

Image via WikipediaI have just arrived at the site of the Global Wage Indicator Conference in Bussum, the Netherlands and will start blogging for the coming days here. It is going to be a nice international gathering, where I have to teach some new media tools for the large number of national websites. That means that blogging at the China Herald will be light, although I might still be able to follow some of the emerging crises.
Feel free to join in, although the subject might be too specialized for outsiders.

Chinese government wins the Olympic PR-war

Image by Ric e Ette via FlickrDanwei is still using a question mark, asking who is winning the Olympic PR-war, but - it remains always the question whether such a war can have a winner - China's government is clearly on the winning side. That has always been an obvious question for the domestic audience, although that was not right away clear for outside observers.
Other feature in this PR-war is now the growing support of developing countries for China and a call for the boycott of French goods, including Carrefour. This mouse is getting a very long tail, and we are not even close to the Olympics.
No additional news on the visa problems, but that will emerge as the consular section of the Chinese diplomatic missions open in Europe.

Friedrich Naumann Foundation under Chinese fire

San Francisco last week
by Ric e Ette via FlickrChina's official news agency Xinhua has identified the German Friedrich Naumann Foundation as a major force behind the anti-Tibet riots, worldwide. The German foundation, closely related to the liberal FDP-party, is also active in China. The consequences could be pretty huge for the foundation that is in China mainly working with the trade unions. According to the Xinhua dispatch:

"the campaign is being orchestrated from a Washington-based headquarters," it added. "It had been assigned the task of organizing worldwide 'protests' at a conference organized by the Friedrich Naumann Foundation in May 2007," the report said.
According to a news report by Canadian journalist Doug Saunders, the Brussels conference organized by the Friedrich Naumann Foundation (FNSt) gave the impetus to the current anti-Chinese Tibet campaign that forced the interruption of the Olympian Torch Relay in Paris last Monday.

Most of the evidence does not come from the article, which does not mention the foundation at all, but from some home work by Xinhua journalists. The original story, published the end of March in the Globe and Mail, you can find here.
In the story I have seen and was the basis of the Xinhua attack that there is no link to the German foundation. It is a nice and detailed account of how the coordination between the anti-China campaigns has been organized, but even Germany as a country is only mentioned once in a totally unrelated way.
The Xinhua attack relates to this meeting, mentioned in the article:

Last May, the Dalai Lama's Tibetan government-in-exile put together a meeting in Brussels of all the major Tibet organizations — there are hundreds, and they're organized under a Washington-based umbrella group, the International Tibet Support Network. There, the exiled Tibetans decided that the Olympics should be the single focus of their activities for the next 15 months, and they hired a full-time organizer for the Olympic-disruption campaign.

I guess, for Chinese standards this conspiracy has been proved and that might have severe consequences for the China-based operations of the Foundation.
(Spelling name corrected!)

Tourism might take a hit, despite Olympics

Zhongdian, Tibet in Yunnan
by fredalix via FlickrTour operators were already suggesting a drop in interest for China among tourist, well ahead of the riots in Tibet and the recent visa restrictions. China's authorities hope that by the summer Tibet might be ready for tourists again, as Reuters says here, but the question is whether tourists are also ready.
High prices and limited flight ability caused by the 2008 Olympics in Beijing have already made many people rethink their plan of visiting China this year. Now Tibet, one of the more popular tourist destinations, has dropped off the list of destinations and the expected restrictions for tourist visa might add to the problems at least until the Olympics and the Paralympics are over in September.
As always, the creative people at the official news agency Xinhua could give a positive turn to all this, here according to Reuters:

"Tourists visiting the city these days will find that they needn't stand in line for the usually hard-to-get tickets for popular attractions," it reported from the city.

Last year four million tourists have visited Tibet, greatly contributing also to its economic wellbeing.

China's loyal youth

via WikipediaYet another great piece in the New York Times (h/t RConversation) by Matthew Forney, the former Beijing Bureau chief for Time Magazine, debunking much of the misunderstandings the outside world has about the recent developments in China.

Educated young Chinese, far from being embarrassed or upset by their government’s human-rights record, rank among the most patriotic, establishment-supporting people you’ll meet.

I'm just afraid that - despite the large number of 220 million internet users in China - conversations between this overwhelming (70 percent is under 30 years old) group of people is hardly taking place, despite the technical possibilities.

The China-Tibet link: both parties lie

by Carolincik via FlickrA very timely piece by the historian Elliot Sperling, picked up by the China Digital Times from the New York Times, both by the Tibetan and the Chinese propaganda machines.

Here are the facts. The claim that Tibet entertained only personal relations with China at the leadership level is easily rebutted. Administrative records and dynastic histories outline the governing structures of Mongol and Manchu rule. These make it clear that Tibet was subject to rules, laws and decisions made by the Yuan and Qing rulers. Tibet was not independent during these two periods. One of the Tibetan cabinet ministers summoned to Beijing at the end of the 18th century describes himself unambiguously in his memoirs as a subject of the Manchu emperor.

But although Tibet did submit to the Mongol and Manchu Empires, neither attached Tibet to China. The same documentary record that shows Tibetan subjugation to the Mongols and Manchus also shows that China’s intervening Ming Dynasty (which ruled from 1368 to 1644) had no control over Tibet. This is problematic, given China’s insistence that Chinese sovereignty was exercised in an unbroken line from the 13th century onward.

China's past is as interesting as complicated and does not meet any linearly propaganda tools.

Chinese intellectuals losing trust in the US

by Scott Eaton via FlickrJohn Pomfret describes how the position of the US among Chinese intellectuals has changed from critic less admiration to the current disillusion. Pomfret quotes one of his commentors.

3) China's OK, I'm OK. China’s real successes since 1989 - a doubling, almost tripling of GDP and significant advances in individual rights (something almost totally overlooked in the recent coverage of China) - sparked a widespread sense of patriotic pride among the Chinese. (Note to skeptics: The biggest demonstration in Tiananmen Square after the ’89 crackdown occurred on July 13, 2001, when the IOC awarded China the Olympic games. And it was spontaneous.)
And finally, 4) Get off my back, or what Alec called "collective ennui" toward Western "lecturing and chastising" about China. As the great Chinese blogger Hong Huang says: "I am tired of people treating me like I live in a concentration camp." This alienation has brought many Chinese in the elite to the conclusion that while their one-party system doesn’t deserve three cheers, it could, like ours, deserve two. And it's convincing others - in Africa and the Middle East - as well.

(I have overlooked this interesting item, but fortunately, Jan van de Bergh linked to it on his Facebook account. Jan is posting continuously interesting links to other articles.)

Unsubscribing from good weblogs

via WikipediaI recently discovered a new kind of routine I have been developing in reading other weblogs, and it might happen to others in a similar way.
First, a bit of history on the English-language weblog scene focusing on China. When this new tool developed and slowly entered also the habit of China-based internet users. At first every newcomer in the block was greeted with enthusiasm, regardless of the quality or the focus of the block.
But their numbers started to grow and I had to make for the first time a selection. I then made a few enemies by kicking out all the English-language teachers who had nothing else to offer apart from their rather basic observations of what was happening in China. What makes weblogs interesting is if people have a real life beyond the classroom and have something to say. Most English teachers did not belong to this category.
Now I'm subscribed to almost 300 rss-feeds, 200 of whom go to other weblogs and website (the rest would be links to Google News feeds for specific searches). But yet again, I have to skip too many weblogs entries, but I discovered I'm actually unsubscribing from weblogs that are actually very good, but too specialized.
There is a great number of weblogs that have become actually very good but way to specialized. What am I talking about? Cars, Chinese law, music, intellectual property, logistics, sourcing, to mention a few. I would still religiously read all stuff I can find on the (new) media, internet but might have to start sifting here too.
I would still go back to those specialized weblogs, but only if they are being mentioned by others. The English-language online media on China is still a niche market, but really a niche market that is getting too big for me.
How do you manage your information overflow?

My friends, what do you want from us?

via WikipediaA nice summary of Western attitudes towards China. (h/t China Digital Times)

What do you want from us?

When we were called “sick man of Asia”, we were called peril.
When we billed to be the next superpower, we’re called the threat

When we closed our doors, you smuggled drugs to open markets.
when we embrace free trade, you blame us for taking away your jobs.

when we’re falling apart, you marched in your troops and wanted your fair share.
when we’re putting the broken pieces together, “Free Tibet” you screamed! “it was invasion.”

So we tried communism, you hated us for being communist.
So we embraced capitalism, you hate us for being capitalist,

Then we have a billion people, you said we’re destroying the planet.
Then we limit our numbers, you said it was human rights abuses.

When we were poor, you think we’re dogs,
When we loan you cash, you blamed us for your debts.

When we build our industries, you called us polluters.
When we sell you goods, you blamed us for global warming,
When we buy oil, you called that exploitation and genocide.

When we were lost in chaos and rampage, you wanted rule s of laws for us.
When we uphold law and order against violence, you called that violation of human rights.

When we were silent, you said you want us to have free speech.
When we were silent no more, you say we were brainwashed.

Why do you hate us so much? We asked. “No”. You answered, “we don’t hate you”.
We don’t hate you either Bud, do you understand us?? “of course we do”, you said, “We have CNN, BBC, and CBC”.

But why, we still feel, your western people are not happy with us.

What do you really want from us??

My friend, What do you really want from us??

Zong: China Mobile goes to Pakistan

I was just checking out this new weblog on my radar screen Golden China Brands, after an exchange with the producer when I bumped into this story on the launch of Zong, an operation of China Mobile in Pakistan. That caught my attention right away.
This is the story in a nutshell:

In 2007, China Mobile acquired Paktel, the fifth largest mobile communications operator in Pakistan. Until now, it has invested up to US$860 million in Pakistan. This year, China Mobile plans to invest an additional US$800 million in Pakistan to enhance the communications network coverage and after-sales service there and to create ZONG into a top brand of the region.
The operator has already secured 375,000 new subscribers in January, putting it second in the market in terms of growth and competing with players like Mobiling, Telenor, Warid and Ufone.

Why did it catch my attention? On paper China Mobile is the largest mobile telecom provider in the world, one of China's largest state-owned companies, but up to now all its efforts to start a substantial operation outside China itself seemed to have ended in a disaster. Of course, it does not mean that its Pakistan-operation is already heading for a success, but it for sure is an operation to watch.
Well, up to now at least and interesting enough this is the first time the deal showed up on my radar. Reason enough to add Golden China Brands on my rss-reader.

Update: Hey, and then they had Shaun Rein too in a podcast, one of the more famous speakers at Chinabiz Speakers.
Update: Meanwhile I have joined the China Speakers Bureau as a principal partner. You will find our celebrity speakers now at their new home.