Beijing police finds Hash House Harriers in terror plot

via WikipediaAfter the head of the international police organization Interpol has warned that Beijing might be targeted by terrorism plots during the Olympics, we can hardly blame the Beijing coppers to be a bit on the edge. So, when they were informed a bunch of foreigners were running around at night, spreading a white powder on the street, the police force jumped into action.
Of course, the Beijing police did not know the tradition of the Hash House Harriers, who sometimes divert from their tradition of loud public singing and drinking and go for a run, explains here a Cup of Tea. The trail of the 8 km run was set out by a trace of flour, actually so much flour the trail became rather flimsy during the run, causing some disorder in the group.
A part of the group was taken to the police station and a serious crime investigation started, putting the group in the impossible position to explain what the Hashers were and why they used flour (and not detergent) for their trail. From the report:

Before the hashers could officially leave however, they were given a stern lecture on never using flour again. As they were walking out the door, one member of the hash invited the police to join their next hash. He didn’t look impressed.

So at 3:57 am, no less that 5 hours later, the Hashers were finally free to go. With one last look they noticed the countdown to the Olympics clock had changed to 105 days.

Hefei Carrefour in pictures

ESWN comes with a whole set of pictures about the protests at the Hefei Carrefour, mostly made by Zhang Fei of the Bright Dairy & Food company, but also from other sources. Ar the picture here you see the trucks, summoned by the police, in front of the store to prevent protesters from storming it.
The police was out in force, but apart from some relatively minor damage to the store, the protest seemed largely peaceful.

China' richest woman fights labor misuse allegation

Zhang Yin

Zhang Yin, China's richest woman in 2006, is fighting accusations that her famous Nine Dragon Paper factories in China have a most appalling labor record, writes Interlocals. An investigation by the NGO SACOM into two factories in Dongguan, Guangdong province and Taichang, Jiangsu province, employs about 1,500 workers.
The report reveals that the factories fine victims of industrial accidents and does not give most workers a labor contract, as is required by the newly installed Labor Contract Law since January 1. Zhang Yin, as a member of China's consultative body CPPCC has been trying to change the then draft labor law in the favor of employers.
Investigations by trade unions have confirmed the accusations. Zhang Yin has reacted by saying the NGO is funded by the European Union to badmouth China ahead of the Beijing Olympics. Interesting enough the trade unions support this part of Zhang Yin's allegation.

SACOM organizer Leung Pak Lang admitted that they had received small funding from “Bread for All” but the sweatshop report has nothing to do with Beijing Olympics. The organization has been very active in monitoring European corporate such as Disney, HP, Apple and Nokia. Moreover, Nine Dragons Paper is a Hong Kong corporate rather than Mainland corporate.

Beijing Olympic sponsorship is a waste - Shaun Rein

Shaun Rein

I already praised Shaun Rein, first on our April top-10 speakers list, last night for knowing how to play the traditional media, and today he does it again in Forbes. The Beijing Olympic sponsorship is a waste of money, he says in another attention-grabbing contribution.
There is a lot of money going around, he writes:

Companies like Adidas and Internet portal Sohu have coughed up serious money to sponsor the Beijing 2008 Olympics. Estimates have computer maker Lenovo paying $80 million to $100 million to be the official sponsor of the games. Eleven global sponsors--including Coca-Cola and McDonald's--spent a combined $850 million to sponsor the Turin and Beijing Olympics.

Shaun Rein Market Research Group decided to figure out how effective this money is being used and helps to increase the brand awareness of those sponsors and they conducted hundreds of interview in ten different Chinese cities.
Result: most consumers had no clue who the Olympic sponsors where. In the case of sponsor Adidas, non-sponsor Nike ran actually away with the honor:

Ultimately, 40% of respondents felt that Nike was the official Olympic sponsor, vs. 50% for the actual sponsor, Adidas, and 10% for Chinese brand Li Ning. Despite a great marketing campaign featuring the Chinese people carrying China's Olympic stars on their shoulders and an emphasis not only on the events but on China's entrance onto the global stage, Adidas has not made their sponsorship stand out.

Brands are better off when they target for the long-term, not short term hits to convince the Chinese consumers, Rein writes.
Shaun Rein is a speaker at Chinabiz Speakers. Are you interesting in having him as a speaker? Do drop me a line.
Update: Meanwhile I have joined the China Speakers Bureau as a principal partner. You will find our celebrity speakers now at their new home.

European chamber concerned about visa policies

The European Chamber of Commerce in China has expressed its concern about the sudden and unannounced change last week in China's visa policies, making entering the country much tougher for business people.

n the last few days, the European Chamber has received complaints from many of its members regarding these matters and has expressed its concerns to China's Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

They miss the point though when they complain about the lack of transparency of the visa regulations:

Currently, the European Chamber is not aware of any official statement from the Government of the People’s Republic of China concerning a formal change in visa rules. The European Chamber hopes that normal visa services will be restored very shortly, and is seeking clarification from the Chinese authorities.

The rules for visas have never been very clear and most countries do have rather murky strategies for the way they let foreigners enter their country. That was no problem when the multiple entry F-visa could be obtained for a year, then nobody was complaining about transparency. I'm quite sure nothing will change, at least until the Olympic Games are over.

Most sought speakers - April 2008

Shanghai via WikipediaThe shortened holiday is around the corner and many readers seem to be already packing for different holiday destinations. So, before everybody's mind is on other things, we have an earlier edition of the Most Sought Speakers at Chinabiz Speakers for the month April.
As I already predicted in the top-10 for March 2008, Shaun Rein's march to the top will be upstoppable. This month Shaun has driven long-term winner Tom Doctoroff to the second place with a pretty huge margin, based on Shaun's diligent way of working with the traditional media.
Biggest surprise is Rowan Gibson on the third place, coming in from absolutely nowhere. He is the first speakers without clear China-credentials getting to high in our rankings. We have added Rowan Gibson to Chinabiz Speakers, because he is a leading expert on innovation and some of his authoritative books will appear this year in Chinese. Obvious, that was a good choice.
Also in the tail of our top-10 five remarkable newcomers, also because we have a shared 10th position for both Maria Trombly and Mark Schaub.
What helps very much to go up in the rankings, is getting into the media. In those terms also Jeremy Goldkorn is fast gaining celebrity status; Rupert Hoogewerf had already that status, but has been working hard to get the 10th year anniversary of his Rich Lists in the publicity. I'm using Twitter and can follow so Isaac Mao's international endeavors: also very impressive.

The April top-10 (March in brackets)

1. Shaun Rein (2)
2. Tom Doctoroff (1)
   
3. Rowan Gibson (-)
   
4. Rupert Hoogewerf (7)
   
5. Zhang Jun (3)
   
6. Kaiser Kuo (-)
   
7. Jeremy Goldkorn (9)
   
8. Isaac Mao (-)
   
9. Warren Liu (6)
   
10. Maria Trombly & Mark Schaub (-)
    

Tax cut lifts Shanghai stock market

Shanghai Stock Exchange
via WikipediaJust when I believed the financial authorities in China could not nothing to stem the downfall of the Shanghai Stock Exchange, they did just that - at least for today. The decisions to cut the tax on trading share, as reported here by the Financial Times, lifted the index of the stock market with more than 9 percent!
The FT:

The government will reduce the tax on each share trade from 0.3 per cent to 0.1 per cent from this morning, state television reported last night.

This is by all mean a symbolic gesture, after the stock market dropped 50 percent in value. All the experts say this will be a short-term effect. For sure, I will not yet return to the market (after I got out at the highest point), but investors very seldom listing to experts or watch the global markets.

To get it better, you need an audience

When emotions fly high and information is scarce, is is very hard for media - old and new - to get things right. Western media have been told they did it wrong, and since the Chinese media are for important issues still at the leash of the censor, they hardly matter in finding the truth.
Online media have hardly been performing better, and also here we wrongly reported that a Dutch flag had been burned at Hefei and an American teacher had been attacked in Zhuzhou.
Getting it right has always been tough for any media, but nowadays we have a great new asset: our audiences. In the past they would sometimes gett annoyed by mistakes in the media, incidentally write a letter to the editor and sometimes it would get published, weeks after the incident.
Now the audience can hit a button and write back right away. That does not mean my commenters are always right: also my audience can make a mistake. But that is much better than the old situation.

American denies being attacked by a mob

via WikipediaAlso the China Herald reported the breaking story at Shanghaiist that an American teacher in Zhuzhou, Hunan province, was supposedly attacked by anti-Carrefour protesters. Shanghaiist now has a follup-up where the teacher, named James Galvin, denies to have been attacked.

Galvin's version of events is less extreme than the version we were originally provided, but it is clear he believes he was in an uncomfortable position that required police intervention. According to Galvin, although he found himself among a crowd of protesters, he was not attacked by a mob, instead he was attacked "very slightly and unsuccessfully by one youth." He said the majority of the crowd was "non-violent."

The initial too sensational story did triggered off a whole set of events, including US diplomats getting involved, that was not justified by the initial event. More details at Shanghaiist. The article justifies why a false story has been published, but also suggests that in a similar case they would do the same. I will be a bit more careful in using stories by Shanghaiist.

Idea: Special Strike Zones

ACFTU via WikipediaAs you might have noticed, a huge number of reforms are hitting China's labor markets. We have seen the Labor Contract Law came into place, on May 1 the same will happen to the Labor Arbitration Law. China's only trade union ACFTU organized Wal-Mart initially against its will and most recently the ACFTU started a campaign to introduce collective bargaining nationwide.
After so many changes in a relatively short time, you can wonder what will be next. From what I have heard, the debate is still inconclusive, but one idea seems very interesting: experiments with the right to strike. When that is going to be done, it will be restricted to some carefully picked areas. It is a very Chinese style to introduce reform in a limited way, so not the whole country gets turned over at the same moment.
My proposal: call them Special Strike Zones, just like the Special Economic Zones that spearheaded economic reform in the 1980s and 1990s. I guess that by then former president Jiang Zemin will have had a few sleepless nights.

Burning a Dutch flag in Hefei

This is the right one
via WikipediaWhen Chinese mobs go out rioting, subtlety is far away. Not only do they attack an American, thinking that he is French (not that physically attacking French would be in order), they also start to burn the Dutch flag in Hefei, thinking it is the French tricolore, reports the China Digital Times.
It looks like Dutch backpackers, who often put the Dutch flag on their clothes expecting to get a friendly welcome, should for the time being look for another flag.
Pretty busy at those gatherings at Carrefour, according to this picture, but then it does not take much in China to get a bit of a crowd. I will start repeating: "Wo bu shi faguo ren, wo shi fiji ren". Better safe than sorry.

Rising costs to operate a business

Made in China
by Nemo's great uncle via FlickrIt might not come as a surprise for many companies in China, but now also the leading financial magazine Caijing tells us that doing business in China is becoming more expensive.

Low-cost manufacturing centers in other countries are outshining China as attractive destinations for foreign businesses, according to a report by the American Chamber of Commerce in Shanghai and consulting firm Booz Allen Hamilton. Among manufacturers surveyed for the report from the United States, Japan and Western Europe, more than a half think the rising value of the yuan and increasing labor costs have diminished China's competitiveness as a base for inexpensive manufacturing.

The costs, according to the survey, increase up to ten percent per year. On top of that an immature logistical system, lack of qualified staff, a deteriorating environment and problems with intellectual property. Still, most companies are prepared to ride out the storm, says Caijing.

Some are ready to take the heat. Su Laide, president of the Taiwan Compatriot Investment Enterprises Association of Kunshan, in the Yangtze River Delta, told Caijing that Taiwanese companies have suffered 30 percent to 40 percent increases in costs in the past two or three years, mainly due to rising costs for labor and materials, the cancellation of tax preference policies, and yuan appreciation. However, only a small group of these enterprises have been closed or moved from the region, he said. Most Taiwanese companies in Kunshan are high-tech manufacturers.
“None of our member companies withdrew from the market under rising costs,” said James M. Zimmerman, chairman of the American Chamber of Commerce in China, adding China has many opportunities for U.S. companies to explore for the long term.

Drop in China holidays does not come unexpected

via WikipediaDanny Levinson at BDL-media points at my earlier entry about the expected drop in tourists visiting China in its Olympic year. The news does not come as a surprise, he says, quoting the CFO of Ctrip.com:

I heard the Ctrip.com CFO speak a few weeks ago and she said the company might see a drop in revenue during the Olympic quarter and hotels under the IHG, Starwood, and Marriott brands won't see an uptick in their numbers either. Yes, the couple of weeks during the Olympics room rates will increase dramatically, but this will not offset the loss of income from the few weeks before and few weeks afterwards where tourists typically stay away from Olympic cities. Plus, with most 4- and 5-star hotels making up to 40% of their revenue from MICE, and F&B accounting for up to 30%, that is a BIG hit to these hotels who might only rely on rooms to create up to 50% of their revenue.

The ongoing rioting in China is of course another deterrent in the period when many European are planning their summer holidays. I guess the main benefit of having the Olympics is an increasing branding of a country as a holiday destination. We still have to see whether China will benefit from that.

Anti-Carrefour mob attacks American

via WikipediaShanghaiist was the first to break the story, but it is now all over the English language internet in China: the attack in Zhuzhou, Hunan province, of an American teacher by an anti-Carrefour mob. I'm not in China right now, only returning in May, but this is indeed very scary.
Similar violent was reported a few years ago when student demonstrations were held against Japanese institutions, shops and restaurants. Then the government was able to calm down the students and that process in itself seems very interesting. Control over the universities is still reasonably strict, but now it seems to move far beyong the universities and this might be harder to control. The internet has become a powerful tool, and can be as destructive as constructive.

China out of grace as holiday destination

The White House is more popular
via WikipediaChina as a holiday destination has seen a record fall in interest, reports the ANVR, the Dutch lobby organizations for travel agents, according to the Dutch news agency Novum (in Dutch). The Olympic games in Beijing are seen as the major reason for the drop of 31 percent in inquiries for holidays to China this summer.
Another explanation could be the very cheap US dollar. Growth of the number of Dutch tourists to the United States is up 51 percent.
It was not clear whether those figures would represent a global trend, but there are more signals that the Olympics drive up hotel prices and tickets to China.

What did the French do more wrong?

Compared to the British and the Americans, what have the French done more wrong, I wonder when I read this summery by Shanghaiist, reporting Carrefour trouble in Hefei, Qingdao, Wuhan, Shenzhen, Xuzhou, Zhengzhou, Luoyang, Jinan and Kunming.
ESWN has nice pictures and translates the weblof of the always critical journalist Wang Xiaofeng, talking about Western journalists:

Among the western reporters that I have made contact with, some of them will report on things based upon the professional code of journalists. But there are other reporters who do so based completely on their own subjective judgment. It does not matter what you say to them. They don't understand China, they are not interested in understanding China, they are just doing their job and their work is done when they turn in a report. Whether the report is objective and fair is of secondary importance, because the main thing is whether the report fits their news values. If the foreign correspondents are like that, it is only too normal for Jack Cafferty to say those stupid things.

More pictures and links at Shanghaiist.

RFA: Misleading Western opinion on Tibet

Hui, praying
via WikipediaRadio Free Asia, technically a private enterprise, is a tool of the US government, used to mislead Western opinion, most recently on Tibet. That is the conclusion of a well-researched piece on the Daily Kos, a leftish blogger in the United States. "Unconfirmed" reports by the spindoctors RFA were often at the basis of much of the wrong information, used by Western media.
Together with the China Digital Times we find the following shocking:

Watch and listen to this from Exile Government spokesperson Dawa Tsering as he explains how they gather information for dissemination on RFA and more shockingly, his rationalization that beating Chinese and Hui people is “non-violent” and that the deaths of the 5 young girls, the 10 month old baby and others that were immolated as they hid from the rioters were “accidents” because they didn’t run away fast enough. This is the epitome of bad PR and irresponsible journalism as well as a heretical view of non-violent Buddhism.

CNN websites under attack

picture from Shanghaiist

Traditional protesting, sending a letter, waving a banner, throwing an egg, occupying a building of the enemy is also suffering under the new media: hacking the websites of CNN has been the latest tools of the pro-China protesters, writes Shanghaiist nin its latest update on the anti-CNN actions by supposedly Chinese hackers.
This is of course much easier than in what sometimes is called the good old days. Then you had to print your own leaflets, identify a friendly audience that was willing to take your leaflets and then actually go out on the streets to hand them out, one-by-one.
At least the Chinese hackers, who have been practicing a lot, have at least a non-violent tool that attracts a lot of attention. And they can just have a cup of tea or a beer while doing their jobs.

Lonely Chinese kids drawn to the internet

One of the reasons for the popularity of the internet among China's youngsters is the one-child policy, says William Bao Bean in a video made by Thomas Crampton.

Growing up in a one-child household makes Chinese children lonely and keen to connect, hence the obsessive use of the Internet by China’s young generation. Chinese, Bean says in this 2-minute video, are much more likely to connect with people than their counterparts in other nations.

William Bao Bean, partner at the Softbank China & India Holdings, is also a speaker at Chinabiz Speakers. If you want to retain him as a speaker, do drop me a line.

Minor protests against BBC, CNN and Carrefour

Debating Tibet
by edwardoneill via FlickrPro-China demonstrations against the BBC, CNN and Carrefour have been taking place over the weekend and are announced for May, according to this summery by the China Digital Times. It quotes the Washington Times:

At the French Embassy, a short line of cars carrying banners that read “Tibet Belongs to China” in Chinese, English and Japanese circled the perimeter, with at least one car blaring the Chinese national anthem, according to witness reports. Police, some in riot gear, quickly cordoned off the area, and the protesters left after about 30 minutes. Streets around the embassy remained blocked into the evening.

It all sounds pretty smallish, for example compared with the riots at the Japanese diplomatic missions in China. That might come as a relief to France, Carrefour and possibly also the central government, who has been eager this new box of Pandorra on time before the protest got really big.

Update: Although, looting Carrefour would be a protest that is too attractive to resist. More also at the Financial Times.

China enters US presidential campaign thru Clinton's backdoor

A Hillary mask
by talkradionews via FlickrIn what seems a last-ditch effort by Senator Hillary Clinton to save her nomination as the Democratic candidate for the US presidential elections, she has introduced fierce anti-China rethoric in her campaign, writes Politico. The change in China-policies by Clinton has triggered off the condemnation of major China-experts, including Richard Baum, a political science professor at the Center for Chinese Studies at UCLA. Baum was also an informal advisor of the Clinton campaign and he resigned from that position, after Clinton started to urge current US president George W. Bush not to attend the opening ceremony of the Olympic Games in Beijing. Bush has already rejected that call. Baum:

“As a lifelong Democrat, it saddens me that Sen. Clinton has chosen to take the low road in her effort to gain our party’s presidential nomination,” Baum said in an e-mail to Politico.

Planning a Wage Indicator meeting in Beijing

After attending in the past week the Global Wage Indicator conference in the Netherlands events are speeding up really fast. The project focuses on collecting wage information online and will have by July 25 countries online, including China. The plan is to expand the coverage to 175 countries as part of a plan to develop a global grid of globally comparable wages.
That is no minor task, but I see moving things very fast. Apart from China in Asia India and South-Korea are already participating in the project, but compared to for example Latin-America and Europe, Asia is still lagging behind.
I'm quite happy to participate then in a briefing at the ILO-offices in Beijing on 12 and 13 May, illustrating a bit what kind of support the Wage Indicator is generating. At the meeting of course the team of Renmin University, led by vice-professor Yi Dinghong will be present, but when things are go well also representatives from South-Korea and India might be present, although timing is rather tight.
Most teams consist of a combination of leading academics and major (online) media, so I could imagine at in Beijing there might be more interest to hear about this project. If so, let me know soon, as I'm now in the profane business of booking flights to Beijing and it does not look we will be hanging around in Beijing long after the ILO-briefing.