| Crash Puts New Focus on China Leaders Posted: 21 Oct 2012 10:51 PM PDT In the midst of the breaking scandal amid accusations that Chongqing Party chief Bo Xilai abused his power and wealth to benefit himself and his family, a Ferrari crashed on a Beijing road at 4 am, killing the driver and severely injuring two passengers (one of whom later died). Rumors immediately started circulating about the identity of the driver, who has since been confirmed to be Ling Gu, the son of Ling Jihua, the chief of the General Office of the CCP Central Committee and a close ally of President Hu Jintao. The Wall Street Journal looks at how the two parallel scandals were handled and what it tells us about the upcoming leadership transition in China: The difference in how the party handled the Bo and Ling matters speaks volumes about the challenge it faces as it tries to conclude its most destabilizing political crisis in decades ahead of a sweeping leadership change beginning at the 18th Party Congress, which starts Nov. 8. The leadership has tried to portray Mr. Bo—now accused of offenses including bribe-taking, sexual impropriety and abuse of power in a murder investigation of his wife—as an anomaly. Broader-than-expected allegations announced last month appeared designed to restore the party's damaged credibility in the eyes of a public grown increasingly angry over the issues of official abuse that Mr. Bo embodies. Mr. Bo has disappeared from public view and is believed to be in detention pending his trial. But the Ferrari crash and its aftermath encapsulate some of the same issues, such as children of the elite enjoying expensive luxuries—demonstrating how limited the party's taste is for policing its own upper ranks except when politically expedient. The contrasting fates of Mr. Bo and Ling Jihua also reflect feuding and deal-making behind the scenes as outgoing leaders and former ones have tried to elevate protégés to conserve their interests and political influence.
© Sophie Beach for China Digital Times (CDT), 2012. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: 18th party congress, Bo Xilai, corruption, Ling Jihua
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| Hexie Farm (蟹农场): The China Models Posted: 21 Oct 2012 10:16 PM PDT For his latest installment of the Hexie Farm CDT series, cartoonist Crazy Crab plays on the term "China Model," which refers to China's unique political and economic system of authoritarian capitalism, by depicting the country's leaders as models in a naked fashion show. These models are showing off their accessories, which allude to their wealth and power, such as luxury watches and an axe. The models' state of undress makes them "naked officials," or those who have funneled illicitly obtained wealth overseas along with their families.
The China Models, by Crazy Crab of Hexie Farm for CDT: 
© Sophie Beach for China Digital Times (CDT), 2012. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: China model, corruption, hexie farm, naked officials
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| Women Power Up? Not Yet Posted: 21 Oct 2012 09:23 PM PDT Decades after Mao Zedong claimed that "women hold up half the sky", the women's rights movement in China is facing challenges. Ke Qianting at The Global Times says that cultural and systematic elements as well as the lack of gender education in schools are impeding women's development. Melissa Korn at the Wall Street Journal gives a detailed account of the discrimination against women in state-owned enterprises: Chinese women continue to make strides in corporate settings, but they're still a rare sight at the helm of Chinese companies – particularly at state-owned enterprises (SOEs) — according to a new study by Yan Zhang, a management professor at China Europe International Business School. Among companies listed on the Shanghai and Shenzhen Stock Exchanges, the proportion of female board chairs increased a modest 0.3 percentage points, to 4% in 2010 from 3.7% in 1997, while women made up just 5.6% of CEOs in 2010 (compared with 4.6% in 1997), Ms. Zhang found. Despite the Chinese government's official stance that women are just as capable as men in the workplace, women fare quite a bit worse at state-run companies: They made up 5.4% of non-SOE board chairs in 2010, but just 2.9% at SOEs, and they filled 13.7% of director seats at non-SOEs, compared with 10% in SOEs.
At the same time, higher barriers are set for female students in college admissions. Caixin reported last month that several girls shaved their heads bald to protest against gender discrimination in late August. Didi Kirsten Tatlow at New York Times investigates further: On the last day of August, Xiong Jing and two friends shaved their heads in Beijing to protest a growing trend in Chinese universities in which women increasingly must score higher than men to get in and face unofficial but widespread gender quotas that favor men. [...] The practice began at least as early as 2005, according to Chinese news reports, and was in response to the rising numbers of women getting into universities, where they are starting to outstrip men in some areas, especially languages. [...] "In science courses at the China University of Political Science and Law, the bar is at 632 points for women but 588 for men," the newspaper said, providing other similar examples from other colleges. [...] The rules affected students like Ouyang Le, according to Ms. Xiong. A fresh graduate from a Guangzhou high school, Ms. Ouyang had wanted to study at the University of International Relations. She scored 614 points on the gaokao, but as a woman, needed 628. If Ms. Ouyang had been a man, she would have needed just 609.
As Leta Hong Fincher showed in a recent International Herald Tribune op-ed, women are also discouraged from attaining higher education by official voices, including the All-China Women's Federation, which encourages women to marry and start a family before acquiring an advanced degree. The underrepresentation of women transfers up to the political arena as well. As a result, feminists hope that the possible promotion of Liu Yandong, the only female member in the 25-member Politburo, could send a positive signal in gender equity. From Tania Branigan at The Guardian: Besuited and fiercely disciplined, with a powerful family background and experience in the Communist Youth League, Liu Yandong appears much like other cadres jockeying for position in China's pending leadership transition, bar one very obvious difference: her gender. She is the only female member of the 25-member politburo and would be the first woman to reach its standing committee, the country's top political body. Though she is regarded as a long shot, "the door is not closed", said Cheng Li, an expert on Chinese politics at the Brookings Institution. [...I]n Chinese politics women remain a glaring absence. The annual session of the National People's Congress shows banks of dark-suited men; only a fifth of the largely rubber-stamp legislature is female, and barely one-sixteenth of the party's central committee. There is one female provincial party secretary and one governor. At the grassroots 2%-3% of village party chiefs and 22% of committee members are female. Feminists say better representation is crucial to addressing enduring, or even increasing, inequality. Many fear women face a deterioration in their status, citing changes to marital property rights that have disadvantaged women, incomes shrinking in comparison to men's and increasing gender stereotyping.
However, other critics believe that Liu Yandong is essentially no more than a rubber stamp and her chances of bypassing the systematic obstacles are slim. From Leslie Hook at The Financial Times: "She seldom . . . expresses her political opinions. Her role is not at the head of the table," said Pu Xingzu, a politics professor at Fudan University in Shanghai. [...] Liu has never been a provincial governor, a key resume item for most of China's top leaders. Her age could also count against her, because the party prefers to install younger people. The current nine-member standing committee could be shrunk to seven, reducing her chances further.
See more on the women's rights movement in China via CDT.
© Mengyu Dong for China Digital Times (CDT), 2012. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: college entrance exam, Gender discrimination, gender equality, liu yandong, universities, women in politics, women leaders, women's rights
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| Photo: School girls practice English at a park in Penglai, Shandong, by Mark Hobbs Posted: 21 Oct 2012 09:49 PM PDT |
| Old Building Restoration Taking a Hold in China Posted: 21 Oct 2012 08:44 PM PDT Starting from the reinvention of Dashilar, a historical neighborhood in Beijing, innovative architects are racking their brains to balance city development and cultural preservation. From Clarissa Sebag-Montefiore at The Los Angeles Times: Authorities have teamed with Beijing-based Approach Architecture Studio to breathe new life into alleyways largely considered slums, where residents cram into divided courtyard spaces without plumbing. Buildings in Dashilar, rather than being knocked down, are starting to be turned into galleries, studios or boutique shops. [...] The plans mark a change from the treatment of neighboring Qianmen Street — which was bulldozed only to be rebuilt in 2008 in a faux late-Qing dynasty style replete with Starbucks and H&M, a fake tram and a giant cement tree. By contrast, Dashilar residents can choose to sell or stay under the new scheme. Government-purchased buildings are being offered at low rents to designers who want to set up shop. Design Week has, in part, acted as a live mock-up to show skeptical local officials that this gradual approach, which demands a smaller initial capital investment than the knock down and rebuild model, can create dividends as foot traffic increases. A handful of businesses, including a Chinese film studio and a Dutch-owned gallery, have already signed up. Inhabitants will benefit from improvements to the area as the value of their properties rise in tandem, so the argument goes. [...] Waiter Yue Yao Tong, 22, who works at a bare-bones restaurant serving traditional Beijing snacks, is more optimistic. Above all, Yue does not want to see the old town demolished. "The old buildings are more attractive for visitors," he explained, sitting next to a vat of bubbling entrails. "You can see the [faux historic] buildings in Qianmen everywhere in China — but it's very hard to copy a place with history. We want very much to show foreigners that this is the true Chinese style."
See also the official website of 2012 Beijing Design Week.
© Mengyu Dong for China Digital Times (CDT), 2012. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: architecture, Beijing architecture, cultural preservation, historic preservation, hutongs, traditional culture, urban planning
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| Europe Screens Tainted Chinese Food Posted: 21 Oct 2012 10:30 AM PDT CDT previously reported on the shift in anxieties among Chinese people, including food safety. With recent food scandals, such as the testing of golden rice on Chinese children, China sought to increase their food safety regulations. Despite China's efforts, China Daily reports shoppers are still consumed with concerns over food safety: Food safety is a top concern for Chinese shoppers, especially regarding such produce as vegetables, meat, seafood, grain, cooking oils and dairy goods, according to a report from Ipsos. "Food safety incidents that have occurred in China attracted a lot of attention but the general public still has a very limited knowledge base on the issue. In the United States and European countries, there have been fully fledged food manufacturing practice and response measures toward safety issues," said Jennifer Tsai, managing director of Innovation and Forecasting at Ipsos Marketing in Greater China. More than 80 percent of the Chinese shoppers interviewed by Ipsos said they were eager to see the publication of food testing results, plus more transparency in this regard, besides the normal measures taken by competent bodies. More than 70percent of the public hoped that random inspections will be conducted and test results published. "Food companies have a broad range of measures that can betaken to inform customers, such as clearer logos, product composition and information regarding possible allergies. If possible, such companies could allow visits to be made by members of the public to their plants and post videos online for the public to watch. At present, the transparency issue for domestic companies is still poor."
Concerns over the safety of Chinese food products is not limited to China. Der Spiegel reports on the health hazards of food from China amid a recent norovirus outbreak in Germany: China, which already sews together our clothes, assembles our smartphones and makes our children's toys, is now becoming an important food supplier for Germany. Since China, as a low-wage country, doesn't exactly have a good reputation among consumers, the food industry usually doesn't mention the origin of the products it sells. Many Germans only realized how much of the food on their plates is harvested and produced in China when thousands of schoolchildren in eastern Germany were afflicted with diarrhea and vomiting two weeks ago in anepidemic thought to have been triggered by Chinese strawberries contaminated with norovirus. The biggest problem with Chinese food products is the local production environment, which includes the excessive use of toxic pesticides for crops and of antibiotics for animals, sometimes coupled with a complete lack of scruples. In 2008, some 300,000 infants in China were harmed by milk and baby formula products adulterated with the chemical melamine. Chinese producers had added the substance, which is especially harmful to the kidneys, to powdered milk. Chinese producers have also sold peas dyed green, which lost their color when cooked, fake pigs' ears and cabbage containing carcinogenic formaldehyde. Then there was the cooking oil that was captured in restaurant drains, reprocessed, rebottled and resold. The government newspaper China Daily has even reported on fake eggs.
Aside from contaminated food in Germany, other contaminates have been found in Chinese food products that were exported to Denmark, Italy, and Spain, according to The New York Times: Cypriot inspectors found arsenic in the frozen calamari. The Italians discovered maggots in the pasta. There were glass chips in the pumpkin seeds bound for Denmark, and Spanish regulators blocked a shipment of frozen duck meat because of forged papers. It has been a rough year for Chinese food exports to Europe. Wu Heng, a graduate student in history in Shanghai, once thought food safety was an issue for other people, something that existed mostly in the media or through gossip. He said he felt "like a frog in warm water," unconcerned about the rising temperature, unaware of the growing danger. But a story about cancer-causing additives being added to meat got his attention in April of last year, and he and some friends started a Web site that began charting reports of food scandals nationwide. The name of the site is a mouthful — Zhichuchuangwai, which means "throw it out the window." They name comes from the story of President Theodore Roosevelt having thrown his breakfast sausage out a window after reading "The Jungle," Upton Sinclair's 1906 novel that exposed the meatpacking industry in Chicago.
© Melissa M. Chan for China Digital Times (CDT), 2012. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: chinese food, Europe, food exports, food safety, Germany
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| China, North Korea Tensions Rise After Failed Venture Posted: 21 Oct 2012 10:24 AM PDT As China and North Korea deepen their ties with Kim Jong-Un's uncle's visit and the hiring of North Korean guest workers in China, the New York Times reports tensions between China and North Korea seems to be on the rise after a failed mining venture: Lured by cheap iron ore and low wages, the Xiyang Group, one of China's biggest mining conglomerates, took a significant risk, building a mine in economically backward North Korea that was designed to feed China's steel mills and provide much-needed investment to China's impoverished ally. The business spat came into the open last month when Xiyang posted a gritty, salacious blog item describing what the company called its "nightmare" in running the mine. It included details of high living by the North Korean managers when they visited China, where they were said to have demanded female escorts, expensive alcohol and cars. To the surprise of many, North Korea responded to Xiyang's accusations with some of its own, despite its heavy dependence on Chinese aid and the investment of Chinese companies. The Beijing office of the Joint Venture and Investment Committee of North Korea posted a note on its Web site saying that Xiyang had failed to provide up to half of the investment it promised even after several years, and that many laws and regulations had been passed to provide more legal protection for foreign investors. To stand a chance of real economic advancement, analysts say, he would need continuing support from China. About two-thirds of the 305 foreign investments in North Korea are Chinese, according to a list published by the Open Source Center, a United States government intelligence organization that analyzes publicly available material. Japan comes next with 15 investments, according to the list.
Despite this spat between North Korea and a Chinese company, Chinese state media is claiming that North Korea is becoming a field for Chinese firms to compete in, from The Global Times: As often with stories about North Korea, interest quickly faded once it was clear that this was not "the end of China's support for North Korea" as so often predicted but something more akin to the normal give and take of business activities. The Chinese position seems to be that North Korea is stable under its new leadership and, no doubt with proper precautions, can be a reliable business partner. Negative assessments of North Korea's economic development continue as regular features in most of the world's press. Journalists who manage to get to the country, or who rely on refugee reports, play down the signs of economic change. As with Myanmar about 10 years ago, some commentators see all Chinese activities as a seamless whole.
While speculations on China and North Korea's economic relationship continues, the North's relations with South Korea have been deteriorating as the South preparing to evacuate over 800 people at the DMZ . Amid mounting tensions, China is urging restraint between the two Koreas, Reuters adds: Impoverished North Korea said on Friday it would attack if Seoul allowed activists to drop anti-northern leaflets on its territory, in its most strident warning against its long-time foe for months. "As a close neighbor of the peninsula, China urges the two Koreas to resolve the conflict through dialogue and consultation," Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Hong Lei said in a statement. "We hope the two parties can stay calm and not make any provocative or radical actions." A looming presidential election in the south and plans to deploy longer-range missiles by the government in Seoul have angered the north and prompted an escalation of belligerent rhetoric from Pyongyang.
© Melissa M. Chan for China Digital Times (CDT), 2012. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: business disputes, mining industry, North Korea, North Korea relations, south korea
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| Would China Prefer a Romney Presidency? Posted: 21 Oct 2012 03:55 AM PDT The New York Times' Jane Perlez explores the reaction in China to the "tough talk" deployed by U.S. President Barack Obama and Republican challenger Mitt Romney, who have used China as a punching bag both on the campaign trail and in the recent debates, and explains the unease brewing among government officials, business leaders and academics: The relationship between China and the United States has become more brittle in the past two years, with differences over trade and strategic interests stoking American fears that China is infringing on the United States' longstanding influence in Asia. For their part, the Chinese watch with growing alarm as their country has become a frequent target of blame for the weakness in the American job market. "The U.S. general election, originally thought only a battle over domestic issues — the economy, fiscal deficit and health care — has now embroiled China as a punching bag," said Fred Hu, chairman of Primavera Capital, a private equity group in Beijing, and former Greater China chairman of Goldman Sachs. "The noises from the campaign trail are quite disconcerting. It remains to be seen whether the shrill campaign rhetoric about China will just remain as bombast." The fears over China in the United States, experts here note, are not limited to the campaign trail. Last month Mr. Obama cited national security concerns as the reason for ordering a Chinese company to divest its shares in wind farm projects near a Navy testing facility in Oregon. A scathing Congressional report called the Chinese telecommunications company Huawei a national security threat to the United States.
Although Perlez suggests that the Chinese government "would probably prefer a continuation of the Obama administration", Fudan University's Shen Dingli writes that "a President Romney might actually be better for China". From Foreign Policy: The truth is that it still matters to Beijing who's in the White House. And China won't have as much to worry about with a President Romney. If Romney wins in November, both he and presumably Xi Jinping will likely shake hands and forget what candidate Romney has said thus far, in much the same manner as both Beijing and Washington have moved beyond the rhetoric of the 2008 U.S. presidential campaign. But China has reason to be concerned that a second term for Obama — and the continuation of present policies — would present continuous challenges to the relationship. A new president would allow for a clean slate, one that wouldn't push the United States in a harmful direction with regard to China. And, frankly, the quiet truth is that even if President Romney were to intend irrationally to hurt China, there's little chance he would actually be able to chart a path to do so in which the United States remained unhurt by its own actions.
In a video posted on Tuesday, The Wall Street Journal's hina news editor Carlos Tejada discussed how Beijing is responding to the heated rhetoric used by the candidates. See also previous CDT coverage of the 2012 U.S. election, including how official media and netizens in China reacted to the first and second debates.
© Scott Greene for China Digital Times (CDT), 2012. | Permalink | One comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: Barack Obama, china bashing, Mitt Romney, Sino-U.S. Relations, U.S. election 2012
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