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...?!

ProPublica's Weibo Censored Image Archive

Weibo, and the army of censors that police the platform is proving to be a valuable tool when it comes to penetrating the veil of secrecy that the state censorship machine operates behind.  For the last couple of years, institutions have been poking the Great Firewall with a stick to find out what makes it tick, and China has managed to create a market in exporting it's web monitoring tech.

Since May, ProPublica has been collecting and archiving the images that have irked the powers that be, prompting them to be purged from the Chinese Internet.  The interactive feature that they've put together allows you view the images by category and gives background on the whys and wherefores of the censorship.

Related articles

• How to Get Censored on China's Twitter


• Pictures censored by China revealed


• The Faces of Social Media Censorship

China Pot Calls US Kettle Black

If you want true idiocy, if you want really find those people who have a  face palming, woeful misunderstanding of how their own country operates, go no further than the China Daily.  To whit, the headline that grabbed out attention - "US Spying Agencies are Out of Control".

The China Daily, English language mouthpiece for the Chinese Community Party, the political party that has presided over the worst famine in human history, and the longest period of systematic human rights abuses in the world has taken it upon itself to slap the wrists of US spy agencies.

 

Why Chinese People Buy Empty Properties

The BBC reports on why exactly Chinese are buying not just second homes, but third and fourth homes - some of them haven't even been built yet.