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• Eastern Promise in Guangzhou’s Little Africa
• In New Macau, Triads Keep the Peace
• Photo: Rainy Night, by Svend Erik Hansen
• Netizen Voices: Xi Jinping’s Macho Dream
• Hexie Farm (蟹农场): The New Clothes of Reform

Eastern Promise in Guangzhou’s Little Africa Posted: 28 Jan 2013 07:47 PM PST While China's presence in Africa attracts ever more attention, Kit Gillet explores the other side of the coin in Guangzhou's "Little Africa": "When it comes to Africa, the US and Europe think about aid, whereas the Chinese think about trade. They have a very organised vision of what they want," says Deborah Brautigam, author of The Dragon's Gift: The Real Story of China in Africa, from Washington, DC. "Over the last five or six years there has been a huge increase in engagement between China and Africa across all fronts: trade, loans, finance, migration." Nowhere is this more evident than in Little Africa where, in among the city's wholesale textile markets and electronics stores, black faces are almost as numerous as Asian. English is the common language of trade, though you can also hear French, Igbo (an ethnic language of Nigeria) and Cantonese. There are at least 20,000 Africans, mostly from West African nations such as Nigeria, Ghana and Mali, living legally in Guangzhou, a city of about 12 million. The number could be as high as 150,000 if you include the many illegals and those temporarily in the city chasing business opportunities. See also Brautigam's comments on the article and more on Africans in China via CDT. © Samuel Wade for China Digital Times (CDT), 2013. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us Post tags: Africans in China, diaspora, Ghana, Guangzhou, Mali, migration, Nigeria, trade Download Tools to Circumvent the Great Firewall

In New Macau, Triads Keep the Peace Posted: 28 Jan 2013 07:36 PM PST Benjamin Carlson recaps how the Chinese government reeled in the triad gangs and cleaned up post-colonial Macau, where one former criminal leader emerged from prison recently to find "a city utterly transformed." From Foreign Policy: In the years leading up to Macau's handover to China, triad violence surged as gangs vied for a bigger share of the pie that would be left after Portuguese power receded. The high point was 1999, the year of the handover, when 42 people died in gang-related attacks. Broken Tooth's triad torched cars and was believed to have killed a Portuguese gambling official near the Casino Lisboa. At Wan's disco, Heavy Club, a mannequin dressed in a police uniform reportedly dangled from a noose tied to the ceiling. Under Portugal, a somewhat reluctant colonial power, the city had a sleepy air and a sluggish economy to match: a combination of triad violence and the Asian financial crisis caused Macau's gross domestic product to contract by 6.8 percent in 1998. Portugal repeatedly tried to return Macau to China as part of its 1970s decolonization push, but Beijing refused to retake sovereignty until 1999. At the time of the handover, textile manufacturing dominated Macau's economy, and the relatively small casino industry was controlled entirely by Stanley Ho. Seen in Macau as a sort of roguish, eccentric patriarch — part Howard Hughes, part Donald Trump — Ho allegedly earned the money to start his first business as a reward for single-handedly defeating pirates who attacked an employer's ship during World War II. Nowhere is the contrast between then and now more apparent than in the Lisboa, Ho's landmark property and one of the city's oldest and most iconic casinos. It was also Broken Tooth's old haunt. Wan allegedly had a $50 million stake in a VIP room at the Casino Lisboa and was arrested in a suite at its hotel back in 1998. Then, the casino — a tacky structure resembling a multicolored onion — was guarded by a battalion of cops wielding automatic weapons. Today, the automatic weapons are gone, the casino has expanded with an enormous, glitzy addition shaped like a golden lotus flower, and the lobby is filled with tourists elbowing each other to pose in front of a life-sized gingerbread house. (The seamier side remains: A basement hallway below the Lisboa has a parade of prostitutes perpetually cat-walking between a restaurant and a fruit stand.)   © Scott Greene for China Digital Times (CDT), 2013. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us Post tags: gambling, macau, organized crime, triads, violent crime Download Tools to Circumvent the Great Firewall

Photo: Rainy Night, by Svend Erik Hansen Posted: 28 Jan 2013 07:28 PM PST Rainy Night © Samuel Wade for China Digital Times (CDT), 2013. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us Post tags: Download Tools to Circumvent the Great Firewall

Netizen Voices: Xi Jinping’s Macho Dream Posted: 28 Jan 2013 04:20 PM PST Is the "emperor" of China man enough to defend the Communist Party at all costs? (@badiucao) Any hope that Xi Jinping would prove himself a reformer has been dashed by a leaked internal speech from December in which he asserts the Soviet Union fell because none among its leadership "was man enough to stand up and resist" the uprisings of the late 1980s. In her analysis for Deutsche Welle Chinese, translated by Yaxue Cao, Gao Yu connects Xi's criticism of Gorbachev and Hu Jintao's 2004 denunciation of the Soviet Union's last leader as "the chief culprit of Eastern Europe's transformation and a traitor of socialism." Xi insists that the regime "stand firm on the Party's leadership over the military" lest it succumb to the fate of the old Eastern Bloc. Xi's remarks recall the cold calculation China's leadership made made during the Tiananmen Square protests in 1989. Netizens react on Weibo: @MrSodapop: Brother Tao's enhanced version. @可乐泡饭先生：涛哥加强版。 @majinwei: He's hinting that he's the "man enough" one. @不再管闲事：他是暗示，他就是那个男儿。 @wuyuerugou: Fine then, he's hopeless. @深色错觉：好吧，对他不抱希望 @dustinthewind: This proves the Russians are rational enough to distinguish love of country from love of party. @风里逐尘：证明俄罗斯人还是理智的，分得清爱国和爱党的区别 @mylifeperfect: Xi is using his fight against corruption to win us over and pave the way for his authoritarian regime. If you're dreaming that he'll implement constitutional government, dream on. @沈勇平：习想建立一个威权政府，以反腐收揽人心。想幻想其行宪政，绝无可能。 @SunShudong: Don't forget the words of our nation's founder: "In the mighty tide of global change, those who swim with the current prosper; those who fight it perish." @孙蜀东：别忘了国父遗训："世界潮流浩浩荡荡，顺之者昌逆之者亡"。。。。 Via CDT Chinese. © Anne.Henochowicz for China Digital Times (CDT), 2013. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us Post tags: Gorbachev, Hu Jintao, Netizen Voices, political reform, Xi Jinping Download Tools to Circumvent the Great Firewall

Hexie Farm (蟹农场): The New Clothes of Reform Posted: 28 Jan 2013 02:32 PM PST For the latest installment in his CDT series, cartoonist Crazy Crab of Hexie Farm revisits the fairy tale of the Emperor's New Clothes to comment on a recent speech by Xi Jinping, in which he blasts Gorbachev for overseeing the dissolution of the Soviet Communist Party. This speech, which was only released internally to Party cadres, throws cold water on hopes that Xi's incoming administration will permit or even encourage reforms to China's political system. In this cartoon, Xi Jinping, like the emperor from the fable, is surrounded by supporters admiring his fancy new robes of political reform, which don't exist. The New Clothes of Reform, by Crazy Crab of Hexie Farm for CDT: Of course, the concept of "naked officials" has another meaning to Chinese netizens as well. Read more about Hexie Farm's CDT series, including a Q&A with the anonymous cartoonist, and see all cartoons so far in the series. [CDT owns the copyright for all cartoons in the Hexie Farm CDT series. Please do not reproduce without receiving prior permission from CDT.] © Sophie Beach for China Digital Times (CDT), 2013. | Permalink | One comment | Add to del.icio.us Post tags: Gorbachev, hexie farm, political reform, Soviet Union, Xi Jinping Download Tools to Circumvent the Great Firewall

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