"Where were the guys at Mattel?" - Bill Fischer

Bill Fischer

Blaming China for anything that goes wrong has become fashionable, writes IMD-professor and Chinabiz Speaker Bill Fischer in his latest column for Chinabiz.

... where were the guys at Mattel or the dog food companies when these products were being accepted for sales in foreign markets? Were they asleep? Are they not getting paid for doing a job that they didn't do? If you want to outsource anywhere, you need to be vigilant in ways and places that you didn't have to be before. And, if you can't do that, then it's not China's fault, it's yours!

How an academic gets himself in trouble

Always on the outlook for interesting Chinese speakers for Chinabiz Speakers on hot topics like the environment, I stumbled upon this dispatch by Beijing Newspeak. It found an article in the unlinkable South China Morning Post quoting Zheng Binghui, director of the Chinese Research Academy of Environmental Sciences.
Zheng spoke in English at an international meeting in Wuhan and details how strongly polluted China's water resources are. The SCMP:

Dr Zheng said nearly half of all urban drinking water sources failed to meet national standards in 1981, and, in 1998, the failure rate was more than 83 per cent, according to studies carried out by his institute.
Their latest survey suggests more than 450 drinking water sources in key national environmental protection cities could not meet the standards, a number six times higher than the official figure. But these results have not been made available to the mainland public.
“If we release these figures to the public, there will be total havoc … The figures we reported to the central government are classified,” he said. “There is only one correct figure you and Xinhua can report, and that is the official figure.”

That is the kind of speakers we want to have, but something tells me that Zheng might not be available for a while.

Ministry uses TV-show to save energy

vice-premier Zeng Peiyan

The failure of China to reduce energy usage and reduce polutions was illustrated this weekend again when hapless authorities turned to a TV-show to urge the masses to reduce their energy consumption. The China Daily:

Chinese vice premier Zeng Peiyan on Saturday called on ordinary people to help save energy and reduce pollution.
"Energy conservation and pollution reduction are related to the sustainable development of the whole society and economy, as well as the interests of the broad masses," Zeng told the opening ceremony of a nationwide campaign in Beijing.

While the campaign involves at least 17 government departments, it looks mainly like a display of dispair and hollow propaganda, as real measures like the increase of energy prices is politically not achievable.

Wuxi residents flee water crisis

More pictures here

Wuxi residents have started to flee their city because of an ongoing water crisis and a part of them is entering Shanghai to stay with their relatives. The Taihu lake that should provide the city with drinking water has been hit by algae, caused by a combination of pollution, lack of water and the higher temperatures. More cities depending on the Taihu lake, like Suzhou have not yet been affected.
Part of the water supply has already been halted at May 22, but the crisis seems to be far from over.
Chinese media focus on the positive side, supermarkets bringing in emergency supplies of water to their stores and plans to divert water from the Yangtze river. More details at the website of CCTV.

Update I: Foreign media have been pretty late in recognizing the severity of this environmental crisis. This report from Reuters is the first one I just saw and depends mostly on Chinese media.

Update II: Danwei summerizes the fallout at the internet.