| Lots of Sellers, But Few Buyers In China Posted: 24 Aug 2012 01:13 AM PDT After a key indicator of manufacturing health fell to a 9-month low yesterday, Keith Bradsher of The New York Times details the mounting inventories of unsold goods weighing on Chinese businesses: The glut of everything from steel and household appliances to cars and apartments is hampering China's efforts to emerge from a sharp economic slowdown. It has also produced a series of price wars and has led manufacturers to redouble efforts to export what they cannot sell at home. The severity of China's inventory overhang has been carefully masked by the blocking or adjusting of economic data by the Chinese government — all part of an effort to prop up confidence in the economy among business managers and investors. But the main nongovernment survey of manufacturers in China showed on Thursday that inventories of finished goods rose much faster in August than in any month since the survey began in April 2004. The previous record for rising inventories, according to the HSBC/Markit survey, had been set in June. May and July also showed increases.
For The Globe and Mail, Mark MacKinnon writes that output woes in China and Europe have sent the world's central banks scrambling for answers: This latest batch of troubling signals – combined with fresh worries about the damage wreaked by the burgeoning European debt crisis – has triggered a selloff in global equity markets. As well, central banks in China, the United States and Europe are being called on to ride to the rescue with more stimulus and bailout measures. The trouble in the world's workshops stems from the recession in Western Europe amid a spreading debt crisis and the stumbling recovery in the United States. China, once viewed as the saviour that would reignite global growth, has not been able to replace falling demand from the United States and the European Union, by far its biggest customers, to keep its export-driven manufacturing machine humming.
© Scott Greene for China Digital Times (CDT), 2012. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: Europe, GDP growth, global economic slowdown, hard landing, inventory, manufacturing
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| Abuse of Foreign Journalists in China: Responses Posted: 23 Aug 2012 07:27 PM PDT Three China-based foreign journalists' groups issued a joint statement this week expressing alarm at recent cases of harassment, in some of which official security forces were involved. At Global Times, Liu Linlin maintained that local authorities did need to improve their handling of the media, but these incidents neither represented an orchestrated campaign nor specifically targeted foreign journalists: Foreign reporters had greater access to information in China after the 2008 Beijing Olympics, but it is still hard for them to get solid and useful information from some institutions that believe foreign reporters pursue their own political agendas. Zhang Zhi'an, an associate professor with the School of Communication and Design at Sun Yat-Sen University, told the Global Times that the cases are different in nature but not specially targeting foreign reporters. "When reporting on sensitive issues in China, it is hard for both foreign and domestic journalists to get information, because under pressure to protect local officials' interests, local governments may not act in line with the central government," Zhang said. […] Professor Zhang said local governments should learn to work better with foreign journalists since coverage of China by foreign press will inevitably grow in the foreseeable future.
A Wall Street Journal editorial responded on Thursday, suggesting that "beating up foreign reporters should have consequences for Beijing": The Chinese government has not responded to the journalists' protest letter. But the state-run Global Times did publish a report on Wednesday refuting the idea that foreign reporters are being targeted. A Shanghai photojournalist noted that "Chinese journalists often face a worse situation than their foreign counterparts." That is certainly true, and the rising number of attacks on local journalists deserves more attention. But foreign governments can more easily take action to improve treatment of their nationals working as reporters in China. Visas and accreditation for Chinese state-run media workers to enter other countries should be contingent on an end to state-sponsored thuggery.
Similar proposals have arisen before in the U.S., notably in the form of the probably doomed Chinese Media Reciprocity Act of 2011. Accusations of espionage by a former contributor to Xinhua's Ottawa bureau may further encourage proponents. But Bob Dietz, Asia Program Coordinator for the Committee to Protect Journalists, argued in June that the bill's retaliatory measures were misguided: CPJ's many objections to China's media policies, including its approach to foreign media, are well documented. But we don't believe that the best response to press freedom restrictions in China is to implement press freedom restrictions in the U.S. We don't approve of the use of specific visas for journalists in the first place, although we recognize that it is a widespread practice. In an ideal world, we would see as many journalists as possible in all countries, moving as freely as possible across borders. [… T]he U.S., or any country, should not threaten to drive possibly hundreds of journalists from within its borders for any reason. Such a move might feed some people's sense of justice, but would be short-sighted, counterproductive, and contradict one of the United States' cornerstone liberties. […]
© Samuel Wade for China Digital Times (CDT), 2012. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: foreign journalists, freedom of information, media conditions, news media, police brutality, press freedom, reporters
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| Xinhua Accused of Monitoring China Critics in Canada Posted: 23 Aug 2012 06:03 AM PDT When Canadian MP Bob Dechert was found to have sent flirtatious emails to a Toronto-based Xinhua correspondent last year, it stoked suspicions that China's official news agency doubles as an arm of its intelligence apparatus. A former Xinhua contributor in Ottawa has now accused the agency of using parliamentary press accreditation to gather information meant for official eyes only. From Kathryn Blaze Carlson at National Post: "They tried to get me … to write a report for the Chinese government on the Dalai Lama using my press credentials as a way of getting access I wouldn't otherwise have," Mr. Bourrie, a long-time freelancer who has written for several major Canadian newspapers, said in an interview with the National Post. He alleges there are individuals within Xinhua who are acting as spies, seeking to "monitor [practitioners of the spiritual movement] Falun Gong, the Dalai Lama and any other critics of the Chinese government in Canada. That, I know for sure." […] Mr. Bourrie said "90%" of his assignments were "normal" and that all of his own work was "legit," but he also said there were warning bells along the way. The first sounded in June 2010, when he was asked to determine not only the identities of those who protested Chinese president Hu Jintao's arrival at the G20 Summit in Toronto, but also where those protesters were staying. [… L]ater he said he started receiving "weird" requests, including an assignment to determine how Canada deals with what Mr. Zhang [Dacheng, Xinhua's Ottawa bureau chief] apparently called "evil cults" — more specifically, Mr. Bourrie said, he was interested in Falun Gong.
Bourrie left Xinhua in late April. But Zhang has denied any suggestion of espionage, according to Mike Blanchfield at The Canadian Press: Zhang told The Canadian Press that Xinhua's policy is to "cover public events by public means" and his bureau's job is to cover news events and file the stories to Xinhua's editing rooms. It is up to them to decide how and what to publish, Zhang said, calling those decisions internal matters. […] "Nobody told him to pretend to be a journalist and act for a foreign power," Zhang said. "That is his Cold War ideology."
Bourrie himself was dismissive of such accusations in the midst of last year's Dechert scandal, writing at Ottawa Magazine that: It makes for wonderful copy when a middle-aged backbencher sends lusty e-mails to a Xinhua reporter, but if Xinhua is typical of a Chinese spy agency, we have nothing to worry about. […] It does follow the comings and goings of Falan Gong and the Dalai Lama. If anyone is being spied on by Xinhua, it's them. Still, the Dalai Lama's handlers accredited Xinhua for a speech last week in Montreal by the exiled Tibetan leader. There's a strong anti-China lobby whose front men are ex-CSIS agents who are being quoted in this country's best papers saying Xinhua is an arm of Chinese intelligence. They're right that anything you tell Xinhua is being told to someone who might tell someone in Beijing. Giving anything sensitive or secret to any reporter is a dumb thing to do. When dealing with any journalist, Xinhua or New York Times, don't tell them anything you don't want on a billboard. Simple as that.
© Samuel Wade for China Digital Times (CDT), 2012. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: Canada, Dalai Lama, espionage, Falun Gong, Hu Jintao, spy, Xinhua
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| The Daily Twit – 8/23/12: Fixing Old Problems Posted: 23 Aug 2012 05:53 AM PDT Today's theme (since we gotta have one) is "same old, same old." Or to put it another way, lots of chatter about long-term issues. Perhaps the best example is the "new" anti-corruption campaign announced this week by the government, but I'll throw in a few more for you as well: Businessweek: China Prepares New Plan to Fight Graft That Threatens Its Image — As I mentioned yesterday, we'll just have to wait and see if this plan works any better than the last 517 programs. All Roads Lead to China: Food Safety in China. Where Everything is Suspect. — Always a bummer to read this kind of thing, but yeah, still a huge systemic problem. Telegraph: Pentagon plans new missile defences in Asia — Uh oh, not this again. I have very bad memories of all the money wasted in the 80s on the Strategic Defense Initiative in the U.S. This tech sucks and is a money pit. Reuters: More easing seen as China factory survey disappoints — Bad numbers from the manufacturing sector. The hits just keep coming. Helen Gao: Diaoyu in Our Heart: The Revealing Contradictions of Chinese Nationalism — More discussion of the sketch comedy that is the South China Sea dispute. The Diplomat: Much Ado About The Sansha Garrison — More on the South China Sea, the official Chinese part specifically. Global Times: Time to finally abolish unconstitutional system — A rather forceful Op/Ed about China's much maligned reeducation-through-labor system, which has recently been under renewed fire. Daniel Bell: Political Meritocracy Is a Good Thing (Part 2): Improving Meritocracy in China — The second part of Bell's China Model series. China Daily: Huawei and ZTE hit by US patent probe — New dispute, very old problem (unfortunately) for Huawei, which continues to have trouble with the U.S. market. Financial Times: Chinese acquisitions in U.S. near record — Yet another story on outward M&A from China. Yes, the numbers have gone up, but no, the levels are still comparatively small. Wall Street Journal: Child Protesters: New Tactic in the Fight for Migrant Workers' Wages? — Another new tactic in an old fight. I have mixed feelings about this. These people are desperate, but using kids like this gives me pause.
© Stan for China Hearsay, 2012. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us
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| Thousands to Move, Again, from Three Gorges Posted: 23 Aug 2012 05:22 AM PDT The Three Gorges Dam finally reached full power output in July, but geological risks are forcing some 120,000 people living along its reservoir to relocate, many for the second time. From Reuters' Sui-Lee Wee: Landslides in Huangtupo had been exacerbated by changes in water levels in the reservoir, said Fan Xiao, a geologist for a government-linked institute in southwestern Sichuan province, who studied conditions there in 2006. Dam officials lower water levels by as much as 30 meters during the summer in anticipation of floods, and raise them in winter. The change softens the slopes along its banks, Fan said. "It's like a person who's standing in place, if you push and pull him, he'll definitely not be as stable as before," he said. […] A shop owner, surnamed Qing, has been told she has to move in the second half of the year. She relocated the first time in 2000 when water from the reservoir flooded her home. Asked if she thought the government would compensate her this time, she scoffed. "The more we move, the poorer we get," she said.
Despite this, officials claim that the dam has been a major boost for the local economy, accelerating development by as much as a century. Flood prevention, another of the dam's major selling points, has also become a source of some scepticism according to Deng Quanlun at chinadialogue: Since the Three Gorges reservoir was filled, there have been no repetitions of the severe flooding of 1998, which killed more than 3,700 people and left 15 million homeless. [… But] Informed sources say that local governments downstream of the dam have all asked the operators to release less water in order to reduce flood risks, meaning the dam is under pressure from both sides. The dam has long faced such difficulties. Upstream, the city of Chongqing complains that the dam makes flood prevention more difficult – that "Chongqing drowns to save Wuhan". Downstream, there are complaints that it continues to release water even when there are flood risks. Cai Qihua, head of the Yangtze River Commission, said this is a misunderstanding: when the dam holds back floodwaters, the reservoir level does rise, but this has little or no impact on Chongqing upstream. The rising waters in Chongqing are due to water coming from the Jin, Min and Jialing rivers, and water backing up at the Tongluo Gorge, downstream of Chongqing, Cai said. The dam's role in flood prevention is to control water coming from the upper reaches of the Yangtze. When it comes to regional flooding downstream, it can only play an indirect role. Weng Lida, formerly head of the Yangtze River Commission's Water Resources Protection Bureau, explained that the dam can retain water from upstream, but if there is heavy rain downstream, there is nothing it can do. Nor can the dam store all of the floodwaters – it can only hold back those which cannot be safely released into the rivers downstream. "The flood prevention ability of the dam is limited – it can't do everything," said Weng.
© Samuel Wade for China Digital Times (CDT), 2012. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: Chongqing, dams resettlement, floods, landslides, Three Gorges Dam, wuhan, Yangtze River
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| Does India’s Exodus Vindicate Web Control? Posted: 23 Aug 2012 03:39 AM PDT In India, online rumours of ethnic violence have driven hundreds of thousands from their homes and, as self-fulfilling prophecies, left dozens dead. From Ishaan Tharoor at TIME: In the world's largest democracy, recent fears of pogroms and ethnic violence have highlighted just how fractious and febrile India's social makeup is. Rumors circulating last week of planned attacks on migrants from the Indian Northeast saw tens of thousands of Northeasterners in some of India's main cities cram onto trains bound for their remote homelands. The "exodus" — as it was branded in bold block letters by the Indian media — followed earlier incidents of ethnic strife in the northeastern state of Assam, where members of the indigenous Bodo tribe clashed with Bengali Muslim settlers, driving hundreds of thousands of Muslims out of their homes. Mass SMSes, emails and posts over Facebook and Twitter warned of (and, in some cases, encouraged) Muslim reprisal attacks on Northeasterners in cities like India's tech capital, Bangalore, as the Muslim holy month of Ramadan drew to a close, sparking a nationwide panic.
The government's efforts to stem the panic included a flurry of take-down requests to Google, Twitter and Facebook, as well as limited blocks on webpages from Al Jazeera, The Telegraph, the Australian Broadcasting Corporation and Wikipedia. While there has been some speculation about ulterior motives behind this response, The Atlantic's Max Fisher wrote that the episode raises difficult questions about the role of social networks in spreading the hysteria. Technology didn't cause any of this, of course. But social media and text messaging, both of which are becoming increasingly common in reaches of India's enormous lower and middle classes, accelerated the flow of rumors and of inflammatory images. Some of the material turns out to have been fake: doctored images and videos showed anti-Muslim attacks that never happened. Because the rumors can be self-fulfilling, their lightening-fast spread across India's vast population, much of which is very newly connected to the web, can be costly. The original 1993 crisis displaced an estimated 20,000 people, but this most recent manifestation has already displaced 300,000, and killed 80. No doubt there are many factors that might explain the new severity of this old crisis, but with the spread of rumors apparently playing a significant role, the recent explosion in Indian Internet access rates (the 100 millionth Indian web users logged on in December) could be relevant. The government, unable to counter the destabilizing rumors, shut down some of the means of their dispersal. […] When world governments in places like Ethiopia or China censor the internet, they tend to cite some version of the same basic idea: free discussion is a threat to "national stability." Typically, web freedom activists perceive this as little more than an excuse for online authoritarianism, and they're probably often correct. But what if, in India's case, the government could actually be right? Can Photoshopping up some "evidence" of ethnic attacks be akin to inciting violence? What about sending a text message falsely claiming such attacks, for which a Bangalore man was arrested? At what point does a Facebook rumor become a cry of "fire" in the crowded theatre of Indian ethnic anxieties?
Chinese authorities have long used the "cancer" (or bats) of potentially destabilising online rumours to justify Internet controls. The exodus in India, argued Global Times, demonstrated the danger posed by "unchecked websites", and the need for tough measures to control them: […] What happened in India can help us understand more objectively whether the Internet can foment social instability and how it does so. The exodus was a result of public panic that was easily ignited by rumors. It takes more than working with social networking websites to appease the agitated public and prevent this from happening again. But New Delhi's worries that the Internet promoted the rumors didn't come out of nowhere. As the inventor of social networking sites, the US has experience in regulating them. But these websites have caused disturbances in other countries. The unrest in the UK last summer exposed the side effects of these networking sites, prompting the government to ponder blocking Internet information flow in times of emergency, a decision that led to an outcry. […] India is a poor country. Survival is top priority for the majority of the population. Every piece of information carried by the Internet or cell phone looks real to grass-roots people. China's situation is relatively good. It is hard to imagine rumors causing an exodus. The government's reaction and public's ability to discern false information are much better. But the mass of information flowing through the Internet still presents a challenge to governance. The Internet has become deeply integrated in Chinese society, but can still create a disturbance.
© Samuel Wade for China Digital Times (CDT), 2012. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: Facebook, Global Times, Google, India, Internet censorship, social stability, Twitter
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| China to Crack Down on Corruption, Again Posted: 23 Aug 2012 03:36 AM PDT Party Discipline chief He Guoqiang has announced a new five-year plan to rein in corruption, to be implemented after the looming 18th CPC National Congress. From Bloomberg: "The work of constructing a system of punishing and preventing corruption has shown to be effective," He Guoqiang, head of the party's Central Commission for Discipline Inspection, said yesterday, according to the People's Daily newspaper. The plan is part of broader efforts to burnish the party's image before the once-a-decade leadership transition. China's leaders are seeking to recover from a series of scandals including the downfall of former Chongqing Party Secretary Bo Xilai, and Premier Wen Jiabao warned in March that corruption could endanger the government's survival. "In the past ten years, the more they fight corruption, the more plans and agencies they set up, the worse the corruption gets," said Zheng Yongnian, director of the East Asian Institute at the National University of Singapore. "A truly clean government comes from the rule of law."
The precise timing of the congress is not yet known, but He's announcement and signs of tightening security in Beijing suggest a sooner-than-expected start next month, according to The Hindu's Ananth Krishnan. Xinhua's report on the announcement shed little light on the next five-year plan's specifics: The spirit of the 18th CPC National Congress should be fully implemented in the formation of the next five-year plan to fight corruption, He said. He said China has always paid great attention to fighting corruption and creating a clean government, adding that the country has created its own unique methods to combat corruption. […] The formation of the new five-year plan should be based on the results of the previous plan, as well as past experience, He said.
The government has much past experience to draw on. TIME's Austin Ramzy pointed out a 2001 China Daily article promising that corruption would be under control within five years "as effective legal and structural measures become more perfect."
© Samuel Wade for China Digital Times (CDT), 2012. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: anti-corruption, Bo Xilai, corruption, He Guoqiang, history, party congress, rule of law, Wen Jiabao
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| China Strategies: Walmart and Starbucks Posted: 23 Aug 2012 03:24 AM PDT After building an empire on cheap imports from China, Walmart is trying to attract the country's new rich with low prices online, as economic slowdown dampens conspicuous consumption. From Marcus Wohlsen at Wired: Walmart faces challenges in the Chinese market that simply don't apply in the U.S., where the Bentonville, Arkansas-based chain enjoys almost mythological status as the invincible low-price slayer of all competition, including mom-and-pop small businesses. In China, European and domestic retailers vie competitively with Walmart for the coveted Chinese consumer's yuan. Walmart's image took a hit when authorities in the city of Chongqing shut down several Walmart stores and detained dozens of employees over allegations the stores mislabeled conventional pork as organic. Foreign companies must also navigate a government bureaucracy that exists in part to keep non-Chinese businesses from gaining too much control over domestic markets. But with its takeover of Yihaodian, an established Chinese online retailer of groceries and other everyday items, Walmart gains instant access to an established brand already well-known among China's hundreds of millions of online shoppers. This access comes at a time when the number of Chinese consumers both shopping online and seeking bargains is spiraling upward. The vast ranks of China's new middle class have spent the past few years displaying a nouveau riche disregard for price in pursuit of conspicuous consumption. But during the current slowdown, Chinese shoppers have quickly developed a taste for discounts. And if Walmart knows anything, it's how to market lower prices.
Starbucks, against the odds, has already taken root in China's major commercial districts. Helen Wang at Forbes examines how Starbucks cracked the country's long-standing tea culture, and how other Western companies might learn from it: If there is one company that should have failed in China, it would be Starbucks. China has thousands of years of history drinking tea and a strong culture associated with it. No one could have guessed that Chinese would ever drink coffee instead of tea. Starbucks literally created that demand. Now you can find a Starbucks almost on every major street of the coastal cities in China. Even my 90-year old father in China began to tell me how he drank coffee after meals, rather than tea, to help his digestion. Starbucks has revolutionized how Chinese view and drink coffee.
For more on western companies' China strategies, see 'Cheese-Makers Chase Huge New Market in China' and 'Behind in Quantity, McDonald's Touts Quality', via CDT.
© Mengyu Dong for China Digital Times (CDT), 2012. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: coffee, foreign business, starbucks, Wal-Mart, western food in china
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| What’s Causing the Spike in HIV Infection in Old Chinese Men? Posted: 23 Aug 2012 01:10 AM PDT  Perhaps someone can help me out with this, but after reading in the China Daily this morning of a dramatic rise in the incidence of HIV in a specific population of old men in China, I had questions, one big one in particular.
First the background: People aged 50 and older in China have seen a large increase in HIV/AIDS cases in recent years, a trend that is apparently unique, a senior health official said on Wednesday. In South China's Guangxi Zhuang autonomous region, men aged 50 and older accounted for nearly 40 percent of newly reported HIV cases in recent years, government epidemic surveillance statistics showed.
That's troubling, yeah? My first reaction, probably the same as yours, was to ask what was behind all this. Actually two questions: 1) what kind of transmission is at play here; and 2) why is this happening now? The answer to number one is . . . wait for it . . . hookers! "Worldwide, the new trend is so far detected only on the Chinese mainland, and most of the older carriers were infected via prostitution," Wu Zunyou, director of the National Center for AIDS/STD Control and Prevention, told China Daily at an awareness-raising event in Beijing.
Satisfactory explanation? Perhaps. On the other hand, the incidence of female-to-male transmission of HIV is much, much lower than other types of transmission for males. Is it possible that all these guys were infected by prostitutes? Maybe. On the other hand, I'm wondering if there are other explanations that folks just don't want to talk about (e.g., drugs, homosexual intercourse). Culturally, I would guess it's much easier to say you got the HIV from a hooker, yeah? By the way, if the truth is being massaged here, it wouldn't be the first time. Prostitutes/women have been blamed for HIV/AIDS transmission in many countries, particularly in Africa. It's ironic as hell considering that male-to-female transmission is much higher than the other way around (this is apparently not settled science, but I think it's still the prevailing opinion). What about that timing issue? Why is this happening now? [Wu] said the new trend was related to many factors, including a longer sexually active period of Chinese men and better economic conditions.
So for these men, they are living longer and sucking down Viagra like it was candy. I guess I buy that. What else? Ge Xianmin, a key official with the HIV/AIDS prevention and control office in Guangxi, said that those with little education and low income have the highest risk of infection. By the end of June, nearly 93 percent of newly reported HIV/AIDS cases in Guangxi were due to unprotected sex, and 30 percent of those cases were older men, he said. A growing number of rural women left behind by husbands who sought employment in cities entered the sex trade, targeting mainly older men in rural areas, he said. "That's a key reason for quickly rising HIV prevalence among local senior men," he added.
Ultimately, it's the migrant workers' fault, you see. They leave their wives at home with no money, who then turn to prostitution and infect old men. Imagine that. I confess to not knowing enough about the latest research on the transmission of HIV to fully run with my skepticism here, but something seems odd about these numbers. If someone out there can explain, please feel free to chime in with a comment or email. Right. Well, assuming that all this is exactly the way they say, what's the solution? Probably a great deal of educational efforts amongst the old folks for a start. And that sounds like a challenge. Talking to old guys about sex is already awkward, but old guys out on the farm? At the risk of sounding like an urban elitist, God knows what sort of superstitious sexual beliefs these guys have that will get in the way of science-based prevention. On the other end of all this, you've got a large number of women who are so poor that they turn to the sex trade. Sounds like a problem looking for a governmental solution, doesn't it? Even cutting these women a check every month for a few hundred RMB would no doubt save the State money in the long run. Microloan programs would be another worthwhile initiative. In the long run, of course, the goal would be to ensure that those workers don't need to leave home in the first place. But that's a topic for another time.
© Stan for China Hearsay, 2012. | Permalink | 2 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: AIDS, HIV, public health, rural poverty, sexually-transmitted diseases
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