| The Shandong Gutter Oilman Posted: 20 Jan 2013 06:10 PM PST Caixin's Xie Haitao profiles Shandong gutter oil tycoon Liu Liguo, who stood trial last month. It's oil with an extra something, but there's nothing virgin-like about it. Pumped from sewers outside of restaurants, or pressed from trash, the oil is born from waste holes both human and mechanical. Known as "gutter oil" in China, it's commonly used at greasy spoon restaurants and canteens, many of which purchased the cheap oil processed by businessmen like Liu Liguo. […] The largest case of gutter oil manufacturing to date, Liu's story began with a modest biodiesel facility that later gave way to companies which sold off as much as 12,000 tons of the waste as cooking oil and raked in nearly 100 million yuan in sales since 2007. Though the oil can resemble edible oil, it can contain carcinogenic compounds and hazardous chemicals. […] A woman surnamed Feng from a nearby village said that Jinan Gelin Bioenergy was a heavy polluter. "It smelled like rotting dogs. The stench assailed the nostrils until you retched, and then your head ached." After the plant went into operation, roses planted nearby withered and died. Fruit on nearby trees turned black and fell to the ground. Rabbits and chickens died of respiratory tract infections. The local residents petitioned authorities several times to no avail. See more on food safety via CDT.
© Samuel Wade for China Digital Times (CDT), 2013. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: food safety, food scandal, oil, Shandong
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| Tripping Over a Me-First Foreign Policy Posted: 20 Jan 2013 05:24 PM PST Odd Arne Westad argues that China's foreign policy has become counterproductively aggressive in its narrow pursuit of immediate national interests, and that a more persuasive approach would serve the country and region better in the long run. China's more assertive foreign policy over the last two years has played a key role in getting two arch-conservatives — Japan's Shinzo Abe and South Korea's Park Geun-hye — elected to lead their respective countries. Some Chinese observers believe that Abe and Park will be forced by China's inexorable rise to come to terms with their giant neighbor. Don't count on it. To much of its region, China's behavior as it is coming of age as a modern superpower is eerily reminiscent of its past policy as a regional hegemon. For a very long time, imperial China dominated its wider region. The Chinese imperial court considered itself the indispensable center of a regional order in which China had the right and the duty to set international norms and standards, and to intervene if these were broken. It was an ideological system in which Chinese principles had to be the starting point for all things. […] China needs to learn from its past that a good foreign policy must be more than only seeking what is best for one's country to the detriment of others. It is rather to seek to create a region, and eventually a world, where as many as possible believe that China's rise can also be to their own advantage. The Council on Foreign Relations' Scott A. Snyder, on the other hand, suggests that Park's election might actually offer an opportunity for a fresh start in Sino-South Korean relations. At Bloomberg last October, Pankaj Mishra examined the argument that neighboring countries' historical experience has left them well equipped to deal with a resurgent China. At Foreign Policy, meanwhile, Stephen M. Walt summarizes his arguments from a recent Harvard-Peking University joint conference on Sino-U.S. relations, arguing that both China and the United States should exercise restraint in the pursuit of their respective strategic goals. […] If Chinese leaders are consistently smart, judicious, farsighted, clear-eyed, and wise, and if their American counterparts consistently exhibit similar qualities, then the two governments may be able to manage their future relations without serious trouble. But the history of both countries suggests that there is very little chance that these idyllic circumstances will prevail every year for the next several decades. Sooner or later, we are bound to get a cadre of foolish, impetuous, or incompetent leaders in one capital or the other, or maybe even both at the same time. If "wise leadership" is the prerequisite for managing Sino-American rivalry over the long haul, in short, history suggests one ought to worry. A lot. The bottom line is that Washington and Beijing have an obvious interest in taking steps now that might make their relationship easier to manage in the future. In particular, establishing rules of the road for naval activity (similar to the earlier Incidents at Sea agreement) might reduce the danger of an unintended clash on the high seas. Reaching an understanding on the use of unmanned drones or cyberattacks would help too. Military-to-military contacts and other forms of elite exchange would be a good idea as well, so that elites in both societies know the people with whom they are dealing personally and are less likely to misread or misinterpret what they may do while in official positions. None of these steps makes rivalry disappear, but together they could help keep it from boiling over. And that just might be the greatest contribution that these two states could make to international peace and security over the next 25 years.
© Samuel Wade for China Digital Times (CDT), 2013. | Permalink | One comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: East Asia, foreign policy, history, Japan, Japan relations, Shinzo Abe, Sino-U.S. Relations, south korea, South Korea relations, United States
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| Academic Outraged at U.K. Visa Hukou Demand Posted: 20 Jan 2013 04:07 PM PST Yu Jianrong, a professor of rural affairs at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, is to meet with the British ambassador after outsourced visa processing staff insisted on seeing his hukou household registration document. From Minnie Chan at the South China Morning Post: "I was deeply humiliated because I was not required to provide any hukou document when I was applying for visas to France and the United States after 9/11," Yu told the Sunday Morning Post. […] The incident comes amid growing calls to reform the system from inside and outside the government. Minister of Public Security Guo Shengkun yesterday ordered local police chiefs, who handle routine hukou matters, to co-operate with other agencies in reforming the system, state television reported. […] "I demand that the British government stop requiring Chinese applicants to provide a hukou document, which is a discriminatory system created under the planned economic era of the last century and conflicts with today's common international values," Yu wrote in an open letter to the British government. The hukou is not normally required for U.K. visas: Chan implies that the professor's customarily "tattered" clothing may have prompted the additional demand. Yu also spoke to Global Times about the incident. From Zhang Wen: "I'll never provide my hukou, even if it's at the cost of not being able to attend the conference in the UK. It's my principle," said Yu. […] "What made me even angrier is that when I said I would never show them the hukou, an agent standing at the next counter immediately told me that he could help me to get the visa without me providing it," Yu said. "It's blackmail. The agent is obviously familiar with the embassy employees," he said. […] Liu Guofu, an expert on immigration law from Beijing Institute of Technology said an embassy can ask for any supporting documentation it likes. For more on China's hukou system, see two recent conversations with Tom Miller, author of China's Urban Billion, via CDT.
© Samuel Wade for China Digital Times (CDT), 2013. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, hukou, public security, United Kingdom, urban rural divide, visa, visa laws, Yu Jianrong
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| Widening Discontent Among the Party Faithful Posted: 20 Jan 2013 03:36 PM PST The New York Times' Edward Wong connects several of the year's major stories so far, including the Southern Weekly anti-censorship protests and cases of severe air and water pollution in Beijing and elsewhere. Each of them, he argues, shows signs of dissatisfaction with "Wizard-of-Oz-style" government and a growing appetite for a political voice among China's elites and middle class. A widening discontent was evident this month in the anticensorship street protests in the southern city of Guangzhou and in the online outrage that exploded over an extraordinary surge in air pollution in the north. Anger has also reached a boil over fears concerning hazardous tap water and over a factory spill of 39 tons of a toxic chemical in Shanxi Province that has led to panic in nearby cities. For years, many China observers have asserted that the party's authoritarian system endures because ordinary Chinese buy into a grand bargain: the party guarantees economic growth, and in exchange the people do not question the way the party rules. Now, many whose lives improved under the boom are reneging on their end of the deal, and in ways more vocal than ever before. Their ranks include billionaires and students, movie stars and homemakers. Few are advocating an overthrow of the party. Many just want the system to provide a more secure life. But in doing so, they are demanding something that challenges the very nature of the party-controlled state: transparency.
© Samuel Wade for China Digital Times (CDT), 2013. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: air pollution, censorship, chinese communist party, economic growth, freedom of speech, Guangzhou, middle class, new york times, Shanxi, Southern Weekly, southern weekly protest 2013, transparency, water pollution
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| Photo: Respite, by Michael Steverson Posted: 20 Jan 2013 11:00 AM PST |
| Next Made-in-China Boom: College Graduates Posted: 20 Jan 2013 10:13 AM PST Although the number of college graduates getting jobs each year has gone up, CDT previously reported that many remain under or unemployed. Despite this problem, China is making a $250 billion-a-year investment to subsidize higher education costs for young people. While the aim is to build a more broadly educated public that rivals those in the West, critics are still unsure whether China will be successful. From The New York Times: To the extent that China succeeds, its educational leap forward could have profound implications in a globalized economy in which a growing share of goods and services is traded across international borders. Increasingly, college graduates all over the world compete for similar work, and the boom in higher education in China is starting to put pressure on employment opportunities for college graduates elsewhere — including in the United States. China's current five-year plan, through 2015, focuses on seven national development priorities, many of them new industries that are in fashion among young college graduates in the West. They are alternative energy, energy efficiency, environmental protection, biotechnology, advanced information technologies, high-end equipment manufacturing and so-called new energy vehicles, like hybrid and all-electric cars. "If they went to China for brawn, now they are going to China for brains," said Denis F. Simon, one of the best-known management consultants specializing in Chinese business. By quadrupling its output of college graduates in the past decade, China now produces eight million graduates a year from universities and community colleges. That is already far ahead of the United States in number — but not as a percentage. With only about one-fourth the number of China's citizens, the United States each year produces three million college and junior college graduates.
Aside from producing students to become part of the global workforce, Chinese state media is pushing a 'China Dream' of starting a business rather than vying for spots in the civil service, Xinhua reports: Tan Longchao, Ma Nan, Chen Zhe and Tang Ming opened a shop that sells native products at the end of 2011, after graduating from Beifang University of Nationalities in northwest China's Ningxia Hui autonomous region. During the college graduation and recruitment period, some young Chinese have been inspired to pursue their dreams. "After hearing about the Harbin story, I felt disappointed for the younger generation of our country. The four young men from Ningxia offer hope and I believe many youngsters will be inspired." said a netizen named "Xiaobudian". On his blog, "Xiaodong" said, "I was hesitating about starting my own business but I know I will be halfway to success if I am brave enough to follow my dream."
© Melissa M. Chan for China Digital Times (CDT), 2013. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: college students, education, higher education
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| China Lets Gini Out of the Bottle Posted: 20 Jan 2013 10:04 AM PST China has not made its Gini coefficient public since 2000. The Gini coefficient is a measure of income inequality, ranging from 0, or perfect equality, to 1, or perfect inequality. A figure above 0.4 is widely believed to indicate potentially destabilising inequality. A recent survey suggested that China's Gini coefficient was higher than other estimates at an unnerving 6.1, but Chinese state media reports that it stood at a more moderate 0.474 in 2012. From China Daily: Known as the Gini coefficient, the index has been retreating gradually since hitting a peak of 0.491 in 2008, dropping to 0.49 in 2009, 0.481 in 2010 and 0.477 in 2011, Ma Jiantang,director of the National Bureau of Statistics, told a press conference. The index stood at 0.479 in 2003, 0.473 in 2004, 0.485 in 2005, 0.487 in 2006 and 0.484 in2007, Ma said, citing NBS calculations. The Gini coefficient has stayed at a relatively high level of between 0.47 and 0.49 during the past decade, indicating that China must accelerate its income distribution reform to narrow the rich-poor gap, Ma said. "After the financial crisis in 2008, China's Gini coefficient gradually dropped from the peak of0.491 that year as the government took effective measures to bring benefits for its people," Ma said.
The World Bank also issues Gini coefficient findings, but has not done so for China since 2005, Reuters reports: "We should improve our efforts to divide the cake. When we are building our 'well-off' society, we should not only double people's average income and GDP, but also better distribute the national wealth and give mid-to—low income residents a bigger part of the pie," Ma said, echoing policy priorities among some fiscal reformers. Ma said the World Bank put China's Gini coefficient at 0.474 in 2008. The World Bank's last published figure – 0.425 – was for 2005. A recent survey by a Chinese university in Chengdu, the Southwest University of Finance and Economics, put the country's Gini coefficient at 0.61 in 2010. China has 2.7 million U.S. dollar millionaires and 251 billionaires, according to the Hurun Report, but 13 percent of its people live on less than $1.25 per day according to United Nations data. The average annual urban disposable income is just 21,810 yuan ($3,500).
Critics are skeptical of the new official numbers, the South China Morning Post reports: "A reporter called and asked me to comment on today's data, but wouldn't I be crazy to comment on a fake figure?" said Xu Xiaonian, a respected economist and professor at China Europe International Business School onhis Weibo, China's twitter-like service. "Speaking of our Gini coefficient, even in fairy tales they wouldn't dare to write like that," Xu said. "Haven't we always lived in a fairy tale?" commented a netizen. "All the rich people have emigrated and that's why our Gini coefficient is declining," said another.
Due to the yawning gap between rich and poor, some have called the numbers the "Lamborghini" coefficient, but Bloomberg reports that the apparent narrowing of the income gap is 'good news': The decline since 2008 reported today contrasts with the U.S., where the income gap between rich and poor grew to the widest in more than 40 years in 2011. U.S. Census Bureau data released in September showed the measurement rose to 0.463 from 0.456 in 2010. The figure has risen steadily from its 1968 low of 0.351. Ma said Gini figures for 2009 for countries with similar development levels to China showed Mexico at 0.48, Argentina at 0.46 and Russia at 0.4. While the narrowing shown in today's data is "good news," China's wealth gap continues to widen as property prices rise and homes become less affordable for migrant workers, Lu Ting, chief Greater China economist at Bank of America Corp. in Hong Kong, said in an interview today. "If migrant workers want to settle in Chinese cities it's getting much more difficult than before and it's a big barrier for urbanization," Lu said. "How can they afford to rent or own a home in urban areas?"
According Al Jazeera, estimates of the figures have varied, and inequality may have increased between urban and rural areas: However, Professor Martin Whyte, a sociologist at Harvard University who has carried out research on attitudes towards inequality in China, said he found the figure of 0.61 hard to believe. "The best survey research on income gaps leads to the same conclusion that the figure [Gini coefficient] is rising but is nowhere near these sort of figures," he said. Inequality may also have increased between the country's wealthy east coast, where the major cities of Shanghai and Beijing are located, and the rural interior. Earlier this year, the gap between urban and rural areas was highlighted with the news that students in an area of Hubei Province had to provide their own desks for school, in stark contrast with the air-conditioned schools in the country's largest cities. The gap between urban and rural incomes is about 26 percent higher than in 1997 and 68 percent higher than in 1985, according to a report by the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences. In an article for the Economic Observer, Sun Liping, a professor at Tsinghua University, reffered to research estimating that there were 180,000 protests, riots and other mass incidents in China in 2010. However, it is not known if any were directly related to income inequality, and Gan said he had found no evidence that the figure of 0.4 was a warning line for social unrest. But he added: "There is lots of research saying that it is not income inequality per se that affects social instability, it is unequal opportunities. If there [are] vastly unequal opportunities, people will feel unsatisfied." While income inequality is a major issue for Chinese citizens, commuters in Shanghai had confidence in the Chinese government's ability to solve the problem. "There is now a limitation of the top salary," said Sun Xue Hong "For the poor, the government is trying to increase their salary at the same time. So this way the gap can become smaller and smaller."
Aside from addressing the Gini coefficient, Ma also stressed the drop in the nation's working-age population, a shift which could have an impact on China's family planning policy and economy: What he went out of his way to stress was the drop in the nation's working-age population, covering those between 15 and 60 years old. The total slipped by 3.45 million over the year to 937 million. That's still a huge number, but Mr. Ma noted it was the first absolute drop in many years. Asked whether the new numbers might mean it's time for a change to the one-child rule, Mr. Ma moved ahead slowly. "As the statistics bureau chief, I am actually not well positioned to comment on our one-child policy," he said, before adding he would like to express some of his own thoughts. "After decades of population control, we are seeing some changes in labor force demand and supply, though the change is preliminary. To respond to the change, I think it's appropriate to research a more proper, scientific policy while insisting on control measures." He also said perhaps "there could be a flexible adjustment in the way we employ people and the limits on the working age." In a belated acknowledgement of the sensitivity of the issue, that remark later disappeared from the online transcript of the news conference.
See also CDT Money: Uncertainty Looms in 2013, via CDT.
© Melissa M. Chan for China Digital Times (CDT), 2013. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: economic divide, economic inequality, gini coefficient, inequality, one-child policy, wealth gap, World Bank
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