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

 

China's 8-Year-Old Lung Cancer Girl

With a 56% rise in lung cancer rates in a mere nine years, it can't be argued that the air quality in most of China is bad for you.  Horror stories have trickled out of the mainland, but none quite like the latest: an eight year girl being treated for lung cancer.  Proof, if proof were needed, that living next to a busy main road in Jiangsu and spending most of your time breathing in air that only slightly cleaner than an airport smoking lounge is actually not helping your lungs.

Politicians in the country have been adamant about blaming other things, from the Chinese "style" of cooking to the exhaust fumes of the millions of cars on the road - in fact anything that didn't include factories and coal fired electricity generators.

At the end of last month, Fang Li, deputy head of the Beijing Municipal Environmental Protection Bureau said  "Beijing is an open city. All social forces will be mobilized and international advanced technologies and enterprises are welcome," when he announced that the city plans to invest 1 trillion RMB into cleaning up the air.  Whether those plans involve punishing factories that illegally pollute and routinely escape punishment because of the guanxi that their CEO has is another matter entirely.

 

China's Economy Could be $1tr Smaller

China's economy could be smaller than it says it is.  $1tr smaller.

Christopher Balding, a professor at Peking University, lays out the case in a new working paper that finds some very strange patterns in China’s official statistics, which have long been viewed with skepticism. He believes the government manipulated housing price data between 2000 and 2011 to produce lower inflation results. Balding makes four key observations:

Of course, the Chinese fudging numbers to save face isn't a shocking new tactic by the government, but cooking the books to add an extra trillion dollars is kinda ballsy.

Or, if you don’t believe him [the report's author], prepare yourself to believe this fact from China’s national statisticians: From 2003 to 2011, the only consumer prices that rose in China were for food, which made up 99% of the official increase in consumer prices.

The worrying state of Chinese finances gives anyone pause for thought, but officials are keen to reassure us all that Chinese debt is completely manageable, even if you do live in Jiangsu.

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China's Weird Weather

Xinhua's China Focus highlights some of the more extreme weather that China (you may have noticed) has been experiencing over the summer.  Shanghai, has been particularly hit:

After sweating through the hottest July on record, Shanghai upgraded its daily high-temperature alert from orange to red, the highest on the country's three-tiered color-coded heat alert system, at 10 a.m. on Tuesday, as the weather forecast showed a high of 40 degrees Celsius.

Tuesday also marked the fourth hot day in August for Shanghai, which saw a record-high temperature of 40.6 degrees Celsius on Friday.

The previous record was set in 1934, when a temperature of 40.2 degrees Celsius was recorded.

Shanghai's municipal government has requested that all companies and units ensure safe working conditions in the severe heat, especially for those working outdoors.

Meanwhile in Jiangsu, the demand for power for airconditioners has put a strain on the national grid.  In July, residents sucked 50 billion kilowatts per hour trying to keep cool in the summer heat.  In the south, The heatwave has left around 5.95 million people without drinking water, leaving land unfarmable and livestock, er, unlivable.

Conversely in the north of the country, rainfall has caused major flooding, with Gansu receiving double the amount rain that it usually gets at this time of year.  Torrential rains hit Sichuan, leaving 31 people dead, and the northern provinces continue to be battered with heavy rain

Twenty-four people died and one person was reported missing after rainstorm-triggered floods and flows of mud and rock hit Tianshui City in Gansu on July 25.

Four rounds of downpours swept Tianshui City in July, triggering floods, landslides and mud-rock flows in seven townships and affecting 1.22 million people.

 

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