Chinese Answers

On the outside, China's answer to Silicon Valley doesn't look the part: It's a crowded mass of electronics malls, fast-food joints and office buildings in northwest Beijing, bisected by congested highways.

Inside China's Version of Silicon Valley, Wall Street Journal, Dec 4, 2013.

Large parts of eastern China, including its prosperous and cosmopolitan commercial capital Shanghai, have been covered in smog over the past week or so. The provincial government has cancelled flights, closed schools and forced cars off the road – and also warned children and the elderly to stay indoors. A cold front arriving yesterday saw the pollution start to clear.

Users of Sina Weibo, China’s answer to Twitter, also vented their outrage over the CCTV and Global Times’ comments.

Positive Spin on China's Smog Crisis Baackfires, The Scotsman, 11 Dec, 2013

Over 86,000 micro-credit practitioners, China's answer to Muhammad Yunus, the Bangladeshi banker credited with pioneering the concept of micro-finance, have been going door to door to visit small business owners and farmers to offer them financial advice and services.

Rags to Riches Tales Expected from Micro Financing Growth, Xinhua Insight, 14 Dec, 2013

China Telecom’s subsidiary Jiangsu Telecom, in Jiangsu province on the east coast of the country, posted the offer on its website. Translated details were scarce, but it appears customers have the chance to use bitcoin instead of yuan to pre-order Samsung’s 2014 clamshell form-factor Android phone.

Payments are processed through BitBill, China’s answer to BitPay.

China's Third Largest Mobile Network Now Accepts Bitcoin, Coindesk.com Nov 29, 2013.

58.com, China’s answer to Craigslist, surged nearly 42 per cent to $24.12 in its debut on the New York Stock Exchange on Thursday, in a sign that sentiment towards US-listed Chinese companies could be turning after two years of accounting scandals and critical reports from short-sellers.

China's Answer to Craiglist Surges on US Debut, FT.com, Nov 1st, 2013

 

Human Rights Blighting China's Future

Sick and tired of having do-gooders like Europe and America slamming the terrible human rights record in China, China has once again pointed out that only Chinese people can really attack the terrible human rights record in China.  If they're not already in jail for doing so that is.

Yesterday was, of course, International Human Rights Day, according to the UN General Assembly.  You'd think that with their recent appointment to the UN Human Rights Council, China would've at least started to pull their punches when it  come to be dishing out beatings to the poor folks that trek to Beijing to file petitions against corrupt officials, and other grievances they might have.  Not so, according to a retired army officer, Gao Hongyi, who went to Beijing's UN offices.

"After I got there, the place was packed with people and large numbers of police," Henan petitioner Shi Yuhong told RFA's Cantonese Service. "We were all put onto buses and taken to the holding centers," he said. "I was put on the 47th bus [to Jiujingzhuang detention center]," he said.

So everything's going well in that department, then.  Fearful that Chinese people would criticise the Chinese stance on human rights, the authorities went even further, making sure that no one at the train stations wouldn't get a chance to file their petitions, or make their opinions heard on what was supposed to be a day of building awareness about human rights violations.

They detained a few more people near the southern railway station in Beijing," said a petitioner surnamed Liu from the northeastern province of Jilin. "A lot of people are planning to head up to the UN at Liangmaqiao and the new premises of China Central Television to call for better human rights," Liu said.

"I saw a lot of police and their vehicles by the southern railway station," he added. "They treat petitioners as the enemy."

All of this is, of course, par for the course, when it comes to dealing with complaints made by the little people in China, it doesn't say much for a government which claims to have fought a revolution in the name of the rural poor.  Over the past year, censorship and suppression of protestors have increased, ranging from high profile arrests of troublemakers on Weibo to the quiet detentions of activists placed under house arrest.  Treatment of minorities in places like Xinjiang have gone from bad to worse, with arbitrary executions taking place without due process or supervision.

China treads a fine line between presenting itself as a modern, rising economy and superpower, but the actual mechanics underneath the shock and awe PR haven't changed since tanks were ordered to clear Tiananmen Square.  Despite the best efforts of the Chinese government, they just can't get away from the thuggish tactics that haven't worked in the past, and continue to blight China's future.

Related articles

• Thousands of Petitioners Arrested in Beijing on International Human Rights Day


• On Human Rights Day, I'll be thinking of my father in a Chinese prison | Ti-Anna Wang

Chinese Declare Internet Victory

If you've every wondered what your dad would sound like if he was put in charge of cleaning all the porn off the Interwebs then take a look at what Ren Xianliang had to say when his office issued forth a proclamation that the Internet is now like Disneyland, with barely a bad word to say about the CCP.

A study by an Internet opinion monitoring service under the party-owned People's Daily newspaper showed the number of posts by a sample of 100 opinion leaders declined by nearly 25 percent and were overtaken by posts from government microblog accounts.

Using his Jedi powers, Zhu Huaxin, general secretary of an Internet opinion monitoring service (such a thing does exist, apparently) weighed in, assuring us that positive energy (The Party) has regained control of the Intertubes, defeating negative powers (everyone else on planet Earth).

"The positive force on the Internet has preliminarily taken back the microphone, and the positive energy has overwhelmed the negative energy to uphold the online justice,"

The impressive statistics mean nothing, as was pointed out by a number of overseas analysts.  The mere fact that people aren't stupid enough to go public with their dissenting views means that they're being unpatriotic on more secure platforms, being driven underground and ultimately radicalised.  But then, the politicians in Beijing have already thought of that, right...?

Related articles

• China claims victory in scrubbing Internet clean


• CCTV Producer Says He Was Dismissed for Questioning Coverage

One Child Policy Reform Already Boosting Stock

In the opposite way that the dearth of copulating couples in Japan is having a crippling effect on the kiddie entertainment industry, a number of companies that cater for kids have seen their stock rise, giving the Hang Seng is biggest boost in two years.

One of the biggest problems has been that the retiring elderly don't have enough of the younger generation to take over their jobs.  The size of the retiring population prompted analysts to predict that there would be a drop of 3.25% of China's annual growth rate.  While the uneven population demographics have made China look like a developed country, China has little in the way of most developed countries social welfare, which, you can imagine isn't a good thing to have happen.

Writing on a blog post for China Gaze, Kirsten Korosec of Smart Planet also pointed out

The country’s one-child policy initially provided an economic boost. China’s working age population rose in the past 20 years, pushing up incomes and productivity as young people headed into cities to work in factories. But the share of working-age folks has since declined and is expected to fall between 2010 and 2030 nearly as fast as in Japan, the U.S. and other developed, rich nations.

Not awesome.  The good news is that as younger couples become wealthier, they are more inclined to have a second child should the reforms go through.  Of 26,000 Weibo users surveyed, the vast majority responded that they would have more children, law permitting, some of the responses to the proposed reform were pretty lukewarm, citing rising living costs and the raging property bubble as other worries to consider when thinking about becoming a parent.

 

Related articles

• Don't Go Crazy Over China's Tweaked One-Child Policy


• Easing of one-child policy may boost baby product sales


• China is relaxing its infamous one-child policy as it seeks to unlock new economic growth


• China relaxes its One Child Policy

Diaoyu Islands: A Very Dumb, Risky Move

Having thumbed through Zapp Brannigan's Big Book of War, China extended it's air defence zone, whatever that is, five days ago to included the disputed Diaoyu/Senkaku Islands.

The new zone, which has been pretty much ignored by everyone, including that guy with the gyrocopter in Mad Max 3, is essentially nothing more than dick-measuring/pissing contest with China pitched in a battle of will against, er, China.

Technically, the ADIZ requires flight plans and radio frequencies to be registered with China when flights are routed through the airspace.  The deep sighs from the Pentagon were palpable when a spokesman reiterated American's non-compliance with the redefined zone.

Washington “continued to follow our normal procedures, which include not filing flight plans, not radioing ahead and not registering our frequencies”.

Of course, docking about diplomatically comes naturally to Chinese politicians, who have managed to pick the worst place in the world to play chicken.  The China Daily, usually so thoughtful and even-minded about such issues once again choked on it's own baozi writing that

“The Japanese and U.S. complaints that the ADIZ is a 'unilateral' move that changes 'the status quo' are inherently false.  The U.S. did not consult others when it set up and redrew its ADIZs. Japan never got the nod from China when it expanded its ADIZ, which overlaps Chinese territories and exclusive economic zone. Under what obligation is China supposed to seek Japanese and U.S. consent in a matter of self-defence?

The obligation of starting a war with two countries would probably be a pretty big obligation, but China must play the role of the victim in all of this, even though they're the ones that changed the rules in the first place.

Where Japan is involved, there's lots of complaining that nothing is fair, and that the evil Japanese devils will invade the motherland given half a chance, which given the rate at which China is claiming obscure islands in the area, won't be far off.  The China Daily piece goes on (and on and on) saying that the new zoning doesn't target any specific country, just like Homeland Security doesn't target any specific racial group.

The ADIZ is completely unenforceable, unless Xi Jing Ping plans to go a bit Kim Jong Il on y'all by shooting down commercial passenger aircraft, and taking potshots with anti-aircraft fire at US Air Force planes probably isn't going to secure a Nobel Peace Prize.

China complained (as loud as ever) that the US is taking sides, although with a large military presence in both South Korea and Japan, it was hardly surprising that the US couldn't give tinker's cuss about the new ADIZ.  Psychotically changing rules and regulations in the bi-polar way that characterises Chinese diplomacy might well bolster support for the Party with the Chinese, but I just get the feeling China really has to wake-up around to the idea that no-one  gets it's deal with posturing and preening instead of actually doing something.

Related articles

• US interference over disputed islands risks causing 'collision' with China


• US and China unlikely to clash over Beijing's ADIZ: expert


• Japan to expand air zone in light of China's ADIZ: report

Guangdong Police Tape Up Mouths of 23 Suspects

Thinking out of the box doesn't exactly come easily to the average Chinese, and given what happened when police in Huizhou arrested 23 men in connection with over 100 thefts, Chinese people are like the proverbial dog with two bones: An ingenious solution presents itself, but then creates more problems than it solves because no one thinks ahead.

Which is exactly what happened with the coppers realised that they couldn't actually understand what the suspects were saying because of their thick accent.  This kind of stuff happens and lot in China, for the uneducated western reader it's best to think of China as a collection of small countries grouped together under the banner of "The PRC" rather than a country that shares the same spoken language.  The solution?  Tape up the mouths of the prisoners rather than let them chat together and figure out what their story is when it comes to the interrogation.  Sadly, the pictures ended up on the Chinese intertubes, and then out onto the real Internet.  

Of course the idea that they have to improve their interrogation skills never actually occurred to the police, who will probably be releasing a statement soon saying "it's not our fault if we ask stupid questions during the interrogation of prisoners, this was the best way of not getting stupid answers.".  The actual excuse given wasn't far from the truth when the police claimed it was done to protect the rights of the prisoners to stop them confessing to the crimes "accidentally".

Here's hoping that no one on the UN Human Rights Council saw the photos.

Related articles

• Cops in Huizhou wrap suspects in tape so they can't conspire in native dialect

Sandra Bullock: Diplomat

Studio execs have been dribbling over the prospect that Gravity might just make everyone in Hollywoodland gajillionaires in China.  Projected revenues for the China release alone stand, at worst, at $60m, it stands to reason then that when the Chinese distributors wanted to have a chat with it's leading lady, on Ms. Sandra "there's a bomb on the bus" Bullock, the erstwhile producers didn't see much of a problem.

Ingratiating herself with the Chinese bean counters in Beijing, everything was going smoothly, until it came to an awkward moment when an invitation to visit China was extended to the starlet.  Gracefully declining as only she could, citing her demanding shooting schedule for the next couple of years, the short conversation proceeded quite cordially.  Until, that is, Ms. Bullock mistook a momentarily silent line to mean that the other party had hung up, whereupon she took the opportunity to confide to an aide that "at least now I don't have to visit fucking China.".

Hopefully the gaffe won't affect the box office performance, and the producers have a large fruit basket winging it's way to the offices at The Film Bureau.

Related articles

• Sandra Bullock 'soothed' by Clooney


• Alfonso Cuaron's alternate ending for 'Gravity': Sandra Bullock gets killed by...?!