Blogs » Politics » A Video Host Rants Against China’s College Entrance Exam, Promptly Goes Viral
Blogs » Politics » A Video Host Rants Against China’s College Entrance Exam, Promptly Goes Viral |
- A Video Host Rants Against China’s College Entrance Exam, Promptly Goes Viral
- China: Space Missions or Social Development?
- Photo: Apartment building, Shangqiu, Henan, by Mark Hobbs
- Catchy Family Planning Slogans
- In Beijing, Succession Shuffle Begins
- Liang Fan’s Reverence for the Chinese National Flag
- Young female reporter mistakes artificial vagina for mystery mushroom
- China’s Real-Name Rail Policy Stops Would-Be Petitioner In Her Tracks
- Japan and South Korea’s History Divide
- Hu Xijin on Guiding Public Opinion
- Two Tibetans Self-immolate
- Analyzing the Five-Year Plan for Internet Development
- What Exactly Does It Mean to Be Sina Weibo’s “VIP”?
- China, Vietnam Escalate South China Sea Row
- Book Review: A Passion for Facts
- Rare White Paper Published on Rare Earths
- Photo: On The Shore, by Land of no cheese
- The Daily Twit (@chinahearsay links) – 6/21/12
- How Foxconn is Like a Salmon Boat
- United Film vs. China Film Group: Pay Attention, Foreign Studios
| A Video Host Rants Against China’s College Entrance Exam, Promptly Goes Viral Posted: 21 Jun 2012 04:33 PM PDT  Gives hitting the books a whole new meaning Although this year's gao kao (China's college entrance exam) has come and gone, the class of 2012 is still on pins and needles, awaiting the release of exam scores and college acceptance announcements. In this time of tension and anxiety, a 12-minute video of television host Zhong Shan (@我是钟山 ) delivering a passionate rant against the gao kao has gone viral on Weibo, China's Twitter. (Readers can see it in all its glory here.) In a segment of his television show on Hunan's HNETV station, Zhong rips apart the gao kao system and lists his general grievances against China's education system. He spits out in rapid fire fashion a series of shocking headlines that have recently emerged, some laughable and some truly tragic: parents poisoning a pond of frogs to prevent the animals' croaks from disturbing studies; neighbors being asked not to flush toilets in order to maintain silence during study hour; a weeping daughter leaving behind her bleeding mother, who was in a car accident on the way to the test center; a child finding out that her father's death had been kept from him for two months due to the looming exam. Zhong laments that far too much importance is given to the gao kao, to the point that it's unhealthy for individuals and society. "Some people may find these stories to be moving," says Zhong, "but I find them to be evidence of the distortion of human nature." Sensational stories aside, Zhong goes on to point out that although the test is advertised as egalitarian, a way for disadvantaged students to rise up in society, it fails to deliver on this promise. (At this moment, the video camera pans to a sign in a high school classroom that reads: "Without gao kao, how can you beat the children of the rich (富二代)?") He rattles off a series of statistics delineating the unfair advantage residency can give in college admissions.  Post-exam euphoria For example, students from Beijing are 41 times more likely to be admitted to the elite Peking University than those from Anhui province, while students from Shanghai are 274 times more likely to be admitted to also-elite Fudan University than those from Shandong province. The injustice doesn't stop there; Zhong complains of rampant corruption in universities, and laments the abysmal job market that awaits college graduates. "The gao kao can change your fortunes," concludes Zhong, "by making your life more tragic." On Weibo, netizens are in bitter agreement with Zhong, although they also point out that an obvious or immediate solution is not available. Still, many microbloggers were impressed by Zhong's courage to speak so frankly, some even fearing for his safety. And as @可人儿_湉湉君 pointed out, "Perhaps [this video] cannot change anything, but the more people want to ask these questions and are willing to ask these questions, the more changes will happen." As is common in discussions on China's social issues, some bloggers inferred that the present problem was the symptom of the flaws or weaknesses of the country's culture. @胡彦要潜心学习 exclaims, "Perhaps this is the remnants of China's feudalistic thinking! This is the sorrow of the nation!" On his own Weibo account, Zhong paired the video with an allusion to the traditional Chinese idiom, "throw a brick to bring out the jade" (抛砖引玉), a self-deprecating phrase that means to offer one's lowly services to solicit the services of those more talented. Now that Zhong has thrown the brick, it remains to see when the jade will appear. |
| China: Space Missions or Social Development? Posted: 21 Jun 2012 09:11 PM PDT On June 16, 2012, China successfully launched the Shenzhou-9 capsule, the country's fourth manned space mission. In order to celebrate this national feat, Chinese portal website Sina Weibo, has invited netizens to "write letters to the Shenzhou 9 capsule". However, some have taken this opportunity to criticize excessive spending on space mission, while the country is neglecting its basic social needs. Artist Ah Ping's cartoon on the subject has been shared widely on Sina Weibo. As explained by the China Media Project, the cartoon shows:  Artist Ah Ping's cartoon
The sentiment of the cartoon is echoed by many netizens who have pointed out that the space mission is far easier than solving social problems in China [zh]:
@我朝有点威武：The launching of the Shenzhou-9 capsule has proven again, that social issues such as education and healthcare for all are far more difficult to tackle than reaching the sky
＠tweetypie: After it [the capsule] reaches the sky, will forced abortions be stopped? Can we feel safe drinking milk? Will kids have their school buses? Will government officials stop their extravagant spending of taxpayers' money? Will chengguan [City Urban Administrative and Law Enforcement Bureau] stop beating up people? If the answers are no, what's the use of reaching the sky? Is it that difficult for you to do something for ordinary people?
@坐在村口的小妖：The school buses are not safe, high speed trains are not safe, even bicycles are not safe. The ultimate solution to the safety problem is to produce more Shenzhou capsules The news about the launch of the Shenzhou-9 capsule coincided with Myanmar opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi's delivery of her Nobel Peace Prize speech in Oslo, Norway. On Twitter, most information activists believed that national glory should be built upon people's rights rather than space missions. Dissident blogger Wen Yunchao points out [zh]:
@wenyunchao: People who hang around in Weibo are excited about Shenzhou-9 while people who hang around in Twitter are touched by Aung San Suu Kyi Tibetan dissent writer Degewa also raises her political concerns by retweeting a Tibetan microblog [zh]:
@degewa: retweet Tibetan microblog: Shenzhou-9 tells us that the path for Tibetans to Lhasa is more difficult than reaching the sky. Written by Oiwan Lam · comments (0) |
| Photo: Apartment building, Shangqiu, Henan, by Mark Hobbs Posted: 21 Jun 2012 09:58 PM PDT  Apartment building, Shangqiu, Henan © Sophie Beach for China Digital Times (CDT), 2012. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us |
| Catchy Family Planning Slogans Posted: 21 Jun 2012 09:24 PM PDT Offbeat China translates many harsh family planning slogans from rural areas, which were collected by Netease.
Most slogans are written in rhyme, and people are expected to remember them. Some include:
And there is even a bilingual slogan in Uighur and Chinese from Xinjiang.
See also: Abortion and Politics in China at Letters from China. Read more about the one-child policy via CDT. © Wendy Qian for China Digital Times (CDT), 2012. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us |
| In Beijing, Succession Shuffle Begins Posted: 21 Jun 2012 08:36 PM PDT As China approaches a once-in-a-decade leadership transition, and President Hu Jintao prepares to retire from the Chinese Communist Party later this year, Reuters reports that he may have already begun to take steps to retain influence by pushing ally and Beijing mayor Guo Jinlong as the capital's next party chief:
The report notes that another possible choice as Beijing party boss is Hu Chunhua, who currently serves as the party's top official in Inner Mongolia. © Scott Greene for China Digital Times (CDT), 2012. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us |
| Liang Fan’s Reverence for the Chinese National Flag Posted: 21 Jun 2012 07:30 PM PDT This week President Hu Jintao touched millions of his compatriots by pulling a sticker off his shoe. At a G-20 photo-op, he and all the world leaders had a small sticker of their national flag on the floor marking where they should stand. As they were leaving, the Chinese flag sticker got stuck to Hu's shoe, so he bent down to pick it up. The story reported in the Chinese blogosphere and media, however, was that Hu so revered the Chinese flag that he felt compelled to respectfully and gingerly bend down to save it as the other world leaders coldly discarded theirs. "I am deeply touched and proud of being a Chinese," People's Daily reported one netizen saying about Hu's bending over two feet to the ground, as China's first female astronaut continued orbiting hundreds of miles overhead unnoticed. The fawning over this incident reminded me of this lesson that Chinese children are taught in school. Perhaps there's a connection:
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| Young female reporter mistakes artificial vagina for mystery mushroom Posted: 21 Jun 2012 11:12 AM PDT
A TV news program in Xi'an has become a national laughing stock by mistaking a sex toy for men to masturbate with as mystery mushroom. The fungi-like object was discovered by villagers when drilling a new well in their village on the outskirts of Xi'an City, capital of Shaanxi Province. Believing it as a "fateful" discovery, villagers called up the TV Station. A young female reporter was soon sent to the spot, giving "a passionate and detailed description." They called it taisui, a type of rare lingzhi mushroom, and said that experts were being summoned to confirm, while giving it strokes, squeezes, and measuring it. The report has cracked millions of viewers up online as netizens soon recognized that it was in fact the artificial vagina. Netizens show understanding to the simple villagers, but felt surprised that the TV station even has such a lack of knowledge on reproduction and sex. See the following report from May Daily: A young female reporter from Xi'an TV Station mistakenly introduced a sex toy for men to masturbate with, claiming it was a rare mushroom (see video). The reporter claimed that an old farmer found what he thought was the rare lingzhi mushroom when digging a well near his house in Xi'an city, the capital of Shaanxi province. Lingzhi (灵芝) means "miraculous long life" and the mushroom has been used as a medicinal herb for at least 2,000 years in China, most notably by the Emperor Qin Shi Huang (259BC–210), who painstakingly sought it out in his search for immortality While villagers handled and stroked the sex toy, the reporter gave a passionate and detailed description. She then gave it a good squeeze and touched it up, saying the top of the "mushroom's" head had a mouth-like opening with a small hole. "It's really smooth to the touch," she commented. She said the villagers had checked on the Internet and were sure they had a rare lingzhi mushroom, while experts were being summoned to confirm. But it didn't take long for netizens to work out that it was in fact a sex toy, the rubber kind that simulate a woman's private part and men put over their penises to rub up and down until the point of blessed relief. The TV station admitted the mistake and apologized on its microblog, on Monday, saying its reporter was young and inexperienced. "We are sorry we misled viewers and made them feel uncomfortable," it said in a statement. |
| China’s Real-Name Rail Policy Stops Would-Be Petitioner In Her Tracks Posted: 21 Jun 2012 03:32 PM PDT  Chen Xiujuan, in a 2011 photo Now this is a bit Orwellian. Chen Xiujuan, a long-suffering villager from Anda city in chilly Heilongjiang province, recently found herself unable to purchase a train ticket to Beijing, where she had planned to bring her grievances to China's central government, because she was on a local government blacklist. An unfortunate history for Chen How did authorities know? According to a tweet by user @盛世恐龙 on Weibo, China's Twitter, Chen was a victim of China's recently implemented policy requiring that train tickets display the real name of their holder. While writers such as Tricia Wang have noted the policy is loosely enforced in practice, in this case it was enough to snag Chen. What makes Chen so threatening? According to a 2011 article on Boxun.com, a news portal for Chinese diaspora, Chen is a long-suffering farmer from Heilongjiang who has been petitioning China's government since 2003 with grievances ranging from forced evictions to brutal treatment in a "re-education through labor" camp. According to a text file tweeted by @盛世恐龙, Chen was planning to petition Beijing authorities again when she sought to buy a train ticket on June 18th. However, the ticket agent denied Chen, showing her a list of "important persons" approximately 20 people long. The ticket agent explained she could lose her job if she sold a ticket to the blacklisted Chen. Then, adding insult to injury, the agent charged Chen 8 RMB (about one US dollar) as a "processing fee." If true, this incident represents a perversion–or what some may call clever exploitation–of the real-name policy. As the BBC reported in February, the real-name policy helped lead to the arrest of hundreds of fugitives traveling during China's Lunar New Year. But it is another thing altogether for a traveler to be denied train access because of concerns they might protest after disembarking. High tech, low life? Netizen reaction ranged from anger, to alarm, to simple amazement at the government's power and ability to execute its policies. @昆山律师朱一业 wrote, "Whoa, technology and society's ability to control are advancing at the same pace. Terrifying!" @百草晓寒 marveled, "How great is the power of the system? How precise? How subtle? So wretched!" Many wrote they suspected that the true goal of requiring real names for train passengers had always been "maintaining stability" (维稳), a euphemism for quelling political unrest. @wgyd333 scoffed, "Did you think it was to stop thieves?" @Cn-Mars was enraged, fuming, "This is the characteristic of a police state. They have to put the power of the public inside a cage."  That'll be 180 RMB, and a promise you'll never petition Beijing Others were more resigned. @乐天无极 wrote, "Law is like a blank piece of paper. It's real [only] when directed at commoners." @祝和平 avowed, "From now on I'm just going to pay attention to gossip and to pretty girls." What it really means Netizen hand-wringing aside, the identification of Chen was in fact rather low-tech. After all, the ticket agent merely compared her ID card to names on a handwritten list. In fact, according to Hong Kong University's Weiboscope (which tracks images re-posted by popular users), a teacher at none other than Beijing's Public Safety University retweeted the image and asked, "Did this really happen?" His query was deleted within a day, but it suggests that some in China's capital are incredulous, or perhaps annoyed, that such a thing transpired. Even at its most benign, however, the incident again shows the power of local officials to interfere with citizens' right to make their grievances known to higher authorities. This is where Weibo, which ironically is also subject to (porous) real-name requirements, shows its power. It has allowed unhappy but isolated locals to traverse great distances in a single tweet. Why sit for hours on an uncomfortable train, only to be ignored in Beijing? China's netizens–which includes some of her bureaucrats–already have their ear to the Weibo wire. |
| Japan and South Korea’s History Divide Posted: 21 Jun 2012 02:56 PM PDT Memo #165 By Alexandra Sakaki – alexandra. sakaki [at] swp-berlin.org
What can be done to promote greater reconciliation between the two countries? Scholars have pointed to a civil society-led, "bottom-up" process of reconciliation. Non-governmental projects between Japan and South Korea are important and encouraging but significantly limited. For example, history textbook talks are widely acknowledged as an important tool in reconciliation efforts. Over the past decade, numerous civil society projects have published joint history textbooks. But public awareness remains limited and school adoption rates are low. To promote a transnational reconstruction of the past, history textbook talks should be officially endorsed by the government and supported by a critical mass of politicians. Government representatives lend legitimacy and credibility to history textbook projects and thus help to overcome domestic opposition. They are crucial actors who exert influence over history teaching guidelines and curricula. In this regard, Asia can learn from Europe's experience in settling disputes between former enemies. In the case of German-Polish history textbook consultations, a key requirement for success was that politicians actively pursued the dual goal of demonstrating high-level commitment to the work of historians, while proactively shielding the bilateral commission from nationalistic pressures. Reflecting on Europe's experience and keeping in mind the need for closer bilateral security cooperation, Japanese and Korean politicians must do more to settle ongoing history disputes. Holding history textbook talks under the auspices of UNESCO, for instance, would help create an environment more conducive to historians' discussions. As an intergovernmental organization, UNESCO underscores political backing, while its international authority and esteem cast legitimacy on the endeavor. If you enjoyed this memo, subscribe to our e-newsletter for free and receive new memos 2+ times per week via email. Links:
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| Hu Xijin on Guiding Public Opinion Posted: 21 Jun 2012 02:46 PM PDT Since 2010, the U.S. embassy in Beijing has maintained a Twitter feed with hourly air quality readings. Beijingers distrustful of the city government's reports found ways to surmount the Great Firewall and access the embassy feed. Enormous discrepancies between embassy and local air quality measurements, combined with a few exceptionally bad days of smog last winter, seem to have lead the municipal government to improve its air quality monitors. After the U.S. consulate in Shanghai started its own feed this month, China claimed that air quality monitors at any foreign mission are illegal. The U.S. insists its monitors are intended solely for the consular community, but that has not quelled Chinese government spokespeople. Nor do the authorities think America is solely to blame. Global Times Chief Editor Hu Xijin excerpted his paper's June 7 editorial, "Confronting an Increasingly Active U.S. Embassy," in a Weibo post:
Hu further commented on the article in a reply to his original post:
As usual, netizens had a field day with Hu. Below is a sampling of over 1000 comments. Read more on CDT Chinese. Translated by Deng Bolun.
© Anne.Henochowicz for China Digital Times (CDT), 2012. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us |
| Posted: 21 Jun 2012 02:28 PM PDT Two more Tibetans have set themselves on fire in protest and one has died. The Washington Post reports:
Since 2009, dozens of Tibetans have used self-immolation as a means to protest against Beijing policies in Tibet. Radio Free Asia reports on the two recent cases:
Authorities have waged a security crackdown in areas where self-immolations have been staged and have taken extreme measures to try to stamp out the protests. The Age reports:
Read more about protests by Tibetans and about recent self-immolations, via CDT. © Sophie Beach for China Digital Times (CDT), 2012. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us |
| Analyzing the Five-Year Plan for Internet Development Posted: 21 Jun 2012 01:48 PM PDT Last month, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology released a five-year-plan for Internet development. Rogier Creemers of China Copyright and Media blog has translated the document in full. Creemers has now also posted his analysis of the document:
© Sophie Beach for China Digital Times (CDT), 2012. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us |
| What Exactly Does It Mean to Be Sina Weibo’s “VIP”? Posted: 20 Jun 2012 07:00 PM PDT  Sina's investors are watching Perhaps it's time for a new approach. After announcing $13.7 million in losses this past quarter, Sina has rolled out new VIP services for its Twitter-like Weibo platform, available for 10 RMB (US$1.57) per month, in a bid to increase profitability. Whether or not the services will significantly impact Sina's profit margins, they are sure to change the way some use the service, perhaps for the better. The new VIP package includes 15 new special privileges, with six levels of VIP membership based on how long a user has been a VIP, and discounts are available for users who pay for several months or more in advance. The 15 services, translated fully here, are: Identity Functions Mobile Security Interestingly, five of the fifteen special privileges are new functions related to use of Weibo on mobile devices, and the increased integration of Weibo services with mobile devices will undoubtedly increase activity on Weibo. China's telecommunications sector is developing rapidly, and as Bill Bishop recently observed, an increase in mobile internet usage will have a significant impact on how China conducts its censorship. Will text messages pushed by SMS automatically bypass censorship to some extent? It seems that any lag or delay in this service would undermine the company's ability to follow through on its promise to help mobile users be the first to comment on celebrity posts.  Trust us, you're special Other functions allow users to change the way they connect and interact. The ability to block or hide a user from one's Weibo feed will allow users to direct their attention more efficiently, without having to worry about hurting other users' feelings. This is similar to the option to "unsubscribe" from someone on Facebook; though there is no similar option on Twitter, several applications like TweetDeck provide a work-around that accomplishes the same end. On the other hand, the option to anonymously follow a user on Weibo has no clear counterpart in mainstream Western social media, though a market undoubtedly exists among jilted lovers, worried parents, and anyone ashamed to admit to a love of Justin Bieber on the internet. Many of the new privileges fall into the category of identity promotion and individualization: Sina is banking on the fact that users will want others to know they are VIPs. The company has successfully offered VIP email service for years, so they have reason to believe this will draw in more paying customers. This may be one function that has a much larger market in China than elsewhere, due in part to a culture of conspicuous consumption that exists among some demographics. China is the second largest market for luxury goods in the world, and McKinsey has predicted it will surpass Japan to become number one in the near future. The issue of monetization aside, Weibo's new lineup reflects one idea about the direction of development for China's internet: a push towards an identity-centered, technologically integrated, and convenient social media. Time will tell how much of an impact the new services have on Weibo itself, but if even 1% of Weibo users opt to become "Weibo Members," millions of people will be changing the way they use Chinese social media. |
| China, Vietnam Escalate South China Sea Row Posted: 21 Jun 2012 08:23 AM PDT China may have gained a weather-induced respite from its South China Sea rift with the Philippines last week, but the conflict steams on with its other neighbors. The New York Times reports that China's foreign ministry summoned the Vietnamese ambassador to protest a his country's new law claiming sovereignty to the Paracel and Spratly Islands:
China shot back diplomatically by raising the administrative status of a group of islands that includes the Spratlys (Xisha), Paracels (Nansha) and Macclesfield (Zhongsha), Zhongsha and Nansha islands, according to Xinhua News:
© Scott Greene for China Digital Times (CDT), 2012. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us |
| Book Review: A Passion for Facts Posted: 21 Jun 2012 08:20 AM PDT Lam, Tong. A Passion for Facts: Social Surveys and the Construction of the Chinese Nation State, 1900-1949. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2011. xiii, 263 pp., $60.00 (cloth). By Maggie Clinton
Lam pursues three primary lines of argument. Although these lines do not always successfully intersect, each is provocative and unfolds with illuminating detail. First, the book addresses how nineteenth-century colonialist discourse, epitomized by the writings of Arthur Smith, disparaged Chinese people for disregarding time and concrete particulars, and for generally lacking facts about themselves. As China was subjected to imperialist violence that rendered it commensurate with global capitalism, the concomitant invalidation of indigenous forms of knowledge collectively traumatized Chinese intellectual and political elites and charted the winding road by which they came to embrace the social fact as a "medium for discerning the truth about the human world" (p. 6). Second, the book traces how the adoption of new enumerative modalities (in particular a revamped census) by the late Qing and Republican states not only rendered society legible to the state in new ways, but also disciplined citizens to recognize themselves as members of a coeval national community. By the 1930s, this generated what Lam, following Timothy Mitchell, calls the "state effect" by which social surveys, as well as state-affiliated surveyors, effectively conjured the state into being as an entity apparently distinct from society. Third, as per the word "passion" in the book's title, Lam argues that objective facts gathered by social surveyors inevitably contained traces of sentiment. These extra-scientific traces, which became manifest in surveyors' narratives of hardship and sacrifice, had to be locked away in what Bruno Latour has called a "black box" if facts so gathered were to successfully assume the position of authoritative truth. The six chapters plus introduction and epilogue that comprise Lam's study develop these points and many others. The introduction and Chapter 1 establish the historical and theoretical stakes of the project. Chapters 2 and 3 chart transformations in Qing state methods for knowing and tabulating Qing subjects. These chapters pivot around a fascinating analysis of the 1909 census that attempted to collect population data "using a singular enumerative framework," as well as the anti-census riots that revealed popular dissatisfaction with the invasive, homogenizing efforts of the modernizing state (p. 63). Chapters 4 through 6 turn to the 1920s and 1930s, highlighting the ways in which the by-now widespread practice of social survey research functioned to gather "empirical evidence of the nation," in particular at the hands of surveyors employed by the Nationalist state and affiliated research institutes (p. 93). Here, Lam elaborates on how Nationalist-sponsored surveys and censuses graphed Chinese society as uneven and heterogeneous, blighted by "backwards" and "immoral" populations, which in turn prepared the ground for state expansion and biopolitical intervention. Lam also sheds light on the ways in which researchers, many of them trained in methods of American positivist social science, came to see the endurance of hardship and toil as a necessary precondition for the production of truthful facts. Particularly telling are elite characterizations of life among the impoverished, such as researcher Li Jinghan's exhortation to investigators to accustom themselves to "the peasants' smell, their disgusting food, and their unhygienic condition" (p. 163). The book's insights are too numerous to summarize here, but an important one involves Lam's attention to the speed and enthusiasm with which certain liberal intellectuals turned colonial derision of China's ostensible factual deficiencies and general "backwardness" against fellow nationals, in particular subaltern populations. Lam presents Hu Shi's character "Mr. Chabuduo," who supposedly embodied Chinese imprecision, in this light, as well as James Yen's frustration with Ding county peasants who refused to yield the kind of factual information he desired. Much of Chapter 6 discusses liberal researchers who criticized the urban bias of the Nationalist state that provided an umbrella for their own endeavors, and who also characterized the peasantry as ignorant and uncivilized. This chapter is careful to note that Republican-period social scientific practice was neither standardized nor politically univocal; investigators worked with "different assumptions, methods, theories, and conceptual categories," and society itself was "far from a stable and well-defined object" (p. 142). In this vein, Lam discusses the rural surveys of Mao Zedong and Marxist Chen Hansheng, but the overarching point is to underscore Republican-period struggles between "which vision of truth … would be elevated and implemented" and which vision would be "delegitimized and suppressed" (p. 143). Although this was certainly at issue, Lam might have reflected more deeply on the ways in which certain methodologies and social perspectives countered rather than facilitated capitalistic development and hierarchical national integration, and how the plurality of approaches to "the social" suggest fissures in the Nationalist "state effect." Lastly, Lam might have pushed his conclusions about the role of affect in the production of objective truth a bit further, in particular regarding its gendered implications. For instance, how did the emphasis on hardship and long hours in the field render the production of knowledge a masculine endeavor? What did this mean for truths generated about the emergent social category "women"? As these questions are intended to suggest, readers will find A Passion for Facts compellingly written, thoroughly researched, and thought-provoking.
© 2012 by Twentieth-Century China Editorial Board. All rights reserved. |
| Rare White Paper Published on Rare Earths Posted: 21 Jun 2012 07:59 AM PDT China's State Council on Wednesday issued its first white paper on the controversial rare-earth metal sector, hailing its developmental achievements but also acknowledging the environmental consequences of and promising tighter standards for its mining practices. China Daily published the full text of the document:
The white paper likely drew scrutiny from China's trading partners, specifically the United States, European Union and Japan, who filed a WTO case in March to protest the export quota system China enforces on the rare earth industry. China defends its tight control over rare earth exports as a byproduct of its willingness to take on the environmental burden of extraction, and the white paper not only addressed the environmental angle extensively but also challenged foreign estimates of China's reserves. Most importantly, but perhaps not surprisingly, it also gave no sign that China would lift export quotas. Xinhua reports that the chief of the Rare Earth Office said that China meets global market demand despite the export controls, while another official defended the policy in a news conference, according to The New York Times:
For The Diplomat, editor Jason Miks asks University of Connecticut specialist Nicholas Leadbeeater about the environmental dangers related to rare earth mining:
© Scott Greene for China Digital Times (CDT), 2012. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us |
| Photo: On The Shore, by Land of no cheese Posted: 21 Jun 2012 07:09 AM PDT  On The Shore © Samuel Wade for China Digital Times (CDT), 2012. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us |
| The Daily Twit (@chinahearsay links) – 6/21/12 Posted: 21 Jun 2012 05:10 AM PDT Nothing dramatic today in Beijing, which is expected as the city is stifling under a humid veil of what I'm going to refer to as Heavenly Mucus. Others know it as smog. Hard to get excited about anything with this sort of thing up in the sky. But the news goes on: Reuters: China factories in eighth month of contraction — The export market still blows, and it's been that way for a while now. Folks are now talking about a U-shaped recovery. Worse than a V, but hopefully not an L, or even a W. God forbid we experience a & or a @. Bloomberg: China Crude Imports From Iran Climb to Highest This Year — At the same time the U.S. is looking to crack down on Iran and tighten sanctions, the May numbers remind us all that China has other concerns. Reuters: China tests troubled waters with $1 billion rig for South China Sea — Two issues here. China needs energy in a bad way, and the South China Sea geopolitical disputes are going to stick around for a while. IHT: From Milk to Peas, a Chinese Food-Safety Mess — Nothing new here, but a very good round-up of recent food scandal news. If you're into that sort of thing. Good place to start if you are new to the topic. Global Times: 6,000 local residents deputized as food inspectors — Apparently someone in Shanghai was nostalgic for the days when armies of grannies with armbands policed neighborhoods looking for troublemakers. This seems like a rather clumsy way to fix the food safety problem, but I guess if the problem is this bad and your human resources are so lacking, some creativity is necessary. Beyond Brics: China makes it easier to buy equities — China has lowered thresholds and requirements for qualified foreign investors. The stock market here has been hating life amidst slow economic growth, so getting more cash into the market must sound like a good idea. There's a sucker born every minute who thinks he/she can pick winners better than the local competition. Good luck, guys. Morning Whistle: Rumour: Lashou cancelled IPO after accounting fraud exposed — As a socially responsible resident of China, I really shouldn't pass on rumors, but what the hell. Yesterday, the news was that Lashou had pulled out because the market for IPOs, particularly Chinese companies, sucks balls. Now the story gets more complicated. We'll have to keep an eye on this one. Bloomberg: Evergrande Slumps On Short-Seller Report: Hong Kong Mover — The latest target of short-seller Citron Research. Stock tanked in HK, so I guess mission accomplished. Whether the allegations are true or not remains to be seen. Financial Times: Forget Grexit, it's time to fret about 'Chindown' — Finally, and just for the record, columnist David Pilling has made it onto the China Hearsay "Enemies of Mankind" list for his use of the term "Chindown," which refers to the PRC economic slowdown and the effects on global demand. Pilling might be trying to poke fun at the execrable term "Grexit," but two wrongs do not make a right. Cut that shit out, Financial Times. © Stan for China Hearsay, 2012. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us |
| How Foxconn is Like a Salmon Boat Posted: 21 Jun 2012 02:47 AM PDT When I was in college (~1990) in California, the romantic summer job for those kids in desperate need of cash and willing to do anything to get it (like lose an arm) was to work on a salmon boat up in Alaska. I can't recall the details, but basically you worked insane hours for six weeks stuck on a boat. Some of those jobs paid very well, you didn't have the time or opportunity to spend your money, and you didn't even have to spend your entire summer vacation doing so. So here's my prediction for future expats: internships in Asian factories. Might be here in China, might be elsewhere, and I don't know which sweatshops will be around in a decade or two. But mark my words, this is eventually going to look attractive to Western kids with no other options:
No, really. Paid internships are getting hard to find in places like the U.S., and while the Foxconn wages of roughly $240/month are still way too low to attract American kids on summer break, at least there's some money there. Let those wages rise a few more years and you never know. Give 'em some iCrap at cost, and they'll work for free. Besides, a few years from now, Foxconn might start having trouble finding Chinese kids willing to take these jobs. Spin this as a great CV builder and life experience, and they'll attract plenty of middle-class kids from the West. Of course, they'll be terrible workers, but nothing's perfect. © Stan for China Hearsay, 2012. | Permalink | One comment | Add to del.icio.us |
| United Film vs. China Film Group: Pay Attention, Foreign Studios Posted: 21 Jun 2012 02:23 AM PDT
Since the U.S. and China struck a deal on the foreign film quota, most of the talk has been about how it was a great win-win. Foreign studios get more of their product into the country, and local distributors will enjoy their piece of the action. With China's box office receipts rising quite dramatically over the past couple of years, everyone seems happy. Yes, but hold on a moment. I've seen a lot of distribution/licensing and Joint Venture deals over the past 13 years or so, and while everyone is still enjoying the honeymoon period, I have a pretty good idea of what might be coming in the out years. Coincidentally, one rather obvious potential area of friction between foreign studios and distributors is in the news, although this dispute concerns two domestic companies:
You don't need any special knowledge of the entertainment industry to understand what's going on here. Very familiar territory for most companies in China and quite a few foreign enterprises as well. Essentially, United Film was the owner of a product and made a deal with China Film Group to sell that product in return for a percentage of the revenues. Could have been anything — in this instance the product was the theatrical film "My Own Swordsman." Now that the product has been sold, the two parties are arguing over that revenue. As we've seen countless times before, the distributor is being accused of under-representing sales. (The accusations might also involve cost issues, but I'm assuming the dispute relates to gross receipts). If the allegations are true, that would mean the China Film Group actually sold more of the product than it disclosed to United Film, pocketing all the revenue from those sales itself. Sound familiar? I've had many clients who have either had this problem or have had to prepare against the possibility. For me, this typically crops up when negotiating and drafting a license/manufacturing/distribution agreement. The licensee is motivated to fake the documentation, so the agreement should always give the licensor the ability to perform local inspections, audit sales records, etc. Keeping multiple sets of books is a widespread practice that should be assumed. So the good news is that the legal system, and commercial agreements, gives parties like the studios the ability to investigate and keep their partners honest. Theoretically. The bad news is that it's easier said than done. One huge problem is that companies are quite expert at hiding information, and even if you pop in on someone to inspect their books, that doesn't necessarily mean that you will find the right data. Additionally, at least in my experience, many companies fail to utilize audit powers, even when they have local staff in China who could do so at low cost. It might be extremely difficult to uncover fraud, but if you don't even bother doing spot audits, you will definitely fail. I'm a cynic and usually look for the poor outcome. But here, we already know that games are being played with box office receipt records (the United Film dispute is not unique), and we know how foreign licensors fare in these kinds of situations. In other words, look for more of this in the future. How will the foreign studios react? Well, considering that many of the titles in question would have been barred entirely from the market in the past, I expect that the studios will be happy with whatever they can get and build from there. Beggars can't be choosers. On the other hand, that acceptance won't last forever, and eventually they will end up confronting their China distributors. Won't be for a few years, but it will happen eventually. © Stan for China Hearsay, 2012. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us |
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