Beingfeng Teahouse reports a Dell is facing a PR disaster in China. As a commenter there says: Wouldn't that be a nice add: "Don't buy at Walmart, with every dollar you spend there you are supporting the Chinese government!"
Tim Worstall catches the European Commission lying over crucial data in the China textile quota war. What the EU also fails to acknowledge is while its producers are suffering, its consumers are benefitting from cheaper textiles. But since when has the EU been about consumer welfare?
Phil asked me by email why I've not commented on Schapelle Corby. My reply:
I toyed with the idea but really I don't care enough. [Ed. - But I've posted this, thus contradicting myself. Who ever said consistency was important in this case?] I find the general Aussie reaction has been incredibly patronising ("those stupid Indonesians don't know how to run a trial" or "the cops set her up") and the sainthood of this woman has been based on nothing more than newspaper beat-ups. Given none of us were in the court, saw the evidence etc. it seems incredible to me that 90%+ of Aussies "know" she's innocent. And all this nonsense of boycotting Bali makes no sense whatsoever.
I agree with your post. There are a couple of aspects that prima facie don't make sense to me, but as I said I don't know the full facts and it is up to the defense to provide them in the case. That said the Indonesian justice system doesn't come out too well either- 3 judges who had never acquitted, for one.
I'll add that Mr Brown makes a pertinent point on the relative sentencing in Indonesia. And that the Indonesian police forensic team could do with some training.
I doubt if the reaction would have been the same if it was an overweight 50 year old Australian man in the dock. Or if it had been an Indonesian woman caught at Sydney airport with 4kg of grass in her bags. But the story has filled many metres of newspapers and hours of radio and TV. Pretty young female heroine (pun intended), dodgy third world trial, shoddy courts and cops...it's a media wet dream. They'll be flogging this one until kingdom come.
There is no need to worry about Chinese authorities' censorship of the press, a senior International Olympic Committee (IOC) member said yesterday, citing Beijing's eagerness to ensure the 2008 Games are a success. "There will not be censorship," said Australian Kevan Gosper, a senior member of the IOC's co-ordination commission who was taking part in an inspection trip to Beijing yesterday.
"It is essential that broadcasters and members of the media respect the way this country operates. On the other hand, I believe this country respects the way the media operate in other countries," he added.
A one-time pro-Beijing journalist was arrested in Guangzhou more than a month ago while attempting to track down a manuscript of interviews with late Communist Party leader Zhao Ziyang in advance of the sensitive June4 anniversary of the Tiananmen Square crackdown.
Ching Cheong, 55, a Hong Kong citizen and the respected China correspondent for the Singapore Straits Times, had insisted on entering China even though he knew mainland agents could be targeting him, his wife Mary Lau alleged Monday. Lau said she had heard from both Hong Kong and mainland sources that Ching could soon be charged with "stealing national secrets,'' a charge frequently levelled against journalists in the mainland.
Ching, a one-time deputy editor-in-chief of the pro-Beijing Wen Wei Po newspaper, was arrested in a Guangzhou hotel on April 22 after receiving the Zhao interview manuscript, which he had been chasing for months.
Richard wonders if this brands China as a police state. Police state or no, China's following the "talk softly but carry a big stick" approach. Sports stories and puff pieces are tolerable. True reporting is not.
But wait, there's more.
What is the esteemed Straits Times doing about the arrest of their reporter?
The Straits Times confirmed the arrest.
"We have been told by a spokesman for the Chinese Embassy in Singapore that Ching Cheong is assisting security authorities in Beijing with an investigation into a matter not related to the Straits Times,'' the paper's spokesperson said in a statement.
That's sounds OK, doesn't it? But the SCMP points out something interesting:
Ching, who works for Singapore-based The Straits Times, was taken into custody on April 22...His newspaper has not reported the detention.
The Singaporean embassy in Beijing said it was not involved. It is understood Ching held Singaporean permanent residency, but not citizenship.
A source said the newspaper lost contact with Ching in late April. The Straits Times was understood to have tried in vain to secure his freedom.
I understand that papers are put in difficult positions when reporters are arrested. On one hand it is news-worthy, but on the other the reporting of the arrest would likely further imperil the reporter. The New York Times and Washington Post manage to report such arrests of their staff. It's an interesting contrast with the Straits Times approach.
I saw Star Wars: The Final Merchandising Grab yesterday. Given the low bar Lucas had set with the first two movies in this half of the trilogy, it worked. But I feel for Anakin/Darth Vader and his new Master. They don't stand a chance, and all because of a simple mistake.
Why call it "The Dark Side of the Force"? Why be represented by a guy with wrinkles and wonky eyes and another voiced by James Earl Jones and wearing a shiny black outfit? Five minutes with a marketing guru can tell you its all wrong.
Far better would be to call it "The Cool side of the Force" or "The Fun side of the Force". Start labelling Obi Wan and Yoda as "The Goodie Goodie side of the Force". Offer a few key bloggers the chance to become Sith Lords themselves, helping to spread the word and adding to the "hippness" factor. Instead of a withered old man, hire Angeline Jolie to be the Empress in an appropriately tight-fitting uniform.
Speak of a PR Flack and he appears, rather like the Devil. I actually think what you want is a *marketing* person to make the Dark Side relevant to the attractive demographic that Anakin represents (mid 20s, beginning to have some earning power, sexually frustrated, fashion conscious etc.).
We PR people would take an entirely different, more jargon driven approach. So you'd hear about:
"The value-added side of the Force" or
"The empowering side of the Force" or even "The side of the Force offering the lowest total cost of ownership*".
*According to a Microsoft and Palpatine-sponsored survey of Sith lords in management roles at Fortune 500 Empires.
As you can see, marketing is probably preferable. But any time the Dark Side needs a press release, hey, I'm there.
Most Hong Kong offices keep their temperature at between 21 (70 Fahrenheit) to 22 degrees Celsius (72 Fahrenheit) _ with the coldest office measuring 17.6 degrees (64 Fahrenheit) _ well below the recommended 25 degrees (77 Fahrenheit)...
Lawmaker Choy So-yuk was quoted as saying in the statement that she has on occasions left legislative meetings to get more clothing because the building was too cold.
Clearly the study did not include Hong Kong's taxis, which have the air con set at 7 degrees Celcius all year around. They also clearly excluded movie theatres, hosptials and any other enclosed space in this city. But if not for these Arctic conditions, how would the city's tai tais be able to parade their winter fashions?
David Webb discusses the adjustments to Hong Kong's currency arrangements: Yam's Thick Peg. A "gratuitous job support" scheme for bankers? More interesting is the gradual move away from a currency board system and towards a more typical central bank system. Slowly Yam's HKMA is grabbing back control of monetary policy (and naturally power for itself). Will he do better than a system that has served HK well for over 20 years?
The Daily Linklets have superceded the previous Asia by Blog roundups. I've decided to turn Asia by Blog into a weekly summary of the most popular links of the previous week. I judge this using mybloglog and taking the 10 top links that you clicked on. It's not perfect but it should provide an interesting summary of what interested most people during the week that was.
ESWN has translated a report from The Sun, a Chinese language Hong Kong paper, from just after the alleged murder was discovered. WARNING: this article contains typically graphic pictures. EastSouthWestNorth: The Nancy Kissel Case.
The English language press has no new reports today.
Today's (unlinkable) SCMP reports on a Beijing medical centre catering to net addicts. Can one for blogging addicts be far away?
An estimate based on surveys puts the number of teenage internet addicts at 4.4 million - or 15 per cent of teenage internet users...Like many of the people at the medical centre, which can accommodate 14 people at a time for stays of between 10 and 15 days at a cost of 400 yuan a day, Cui was forced there by his parents.
Tao Ran, director of the centre which is linked to the Beijing Military Hospital, said all the patients had psychological problems. They suffered from anxiety and stress. Half were depressed, while compulsive behaviour and communication difficulties were also common.
Regardless of their similarities or differences, medical experts say one thing all internet addicts share with each other - and other addicts - is a chemical imbalance in the brain.
An organic compound released when the mind is stimulated, 5-HT, transmits feelings of euphoria or depression throughout the body. When the compound is being secreted, it can trick the body into thinking it does not need sleep or food. And the body craves 5-HT, meaning people experience withdrawal symptoms - such as sweating, an increased heart rate, anxiety, headaches and sore muscles - if the level of release is too low or irregular. Physical dependency can be cured by injections, but the key problem is changing the underlying psychology...
"Internet addiction is just a reflection of anxiety, an absence of a sense of security, and a loss of traditional values and beliefs in the rapidly developing Chinese society," Dr Tao said.
The Don is anxious to start lobbying, says the SCMP, but needs to wait for Beijing to officially accept his resignation before he can begin. In the meantime 2 of his carp have taken ill or died (reports are unclear), a bad omen. The Don is again under pressure from the usual Beijing lackeys to give up his knighthood to demonstrate his patriotism:
Ma Lik, chairman of the Democratic Alliance for Betterment of Hong Kong, said Mr Tsang, who Queen Elizabeth knighted in 1997, should consider relinquishing the honour so people with strong nationalistic sentiments would not find fault with him.
I didn't realise The Don would be subject to criticism sessions with "strong nationalistic sentiments" elements.
Given there is no doubt The Don will win the election, why is he bothering with this?
It is understood his 7,800 sq ft office occupying two floors is at present manned by about 20 staff, but their numbers are growing. David Li Kwok-po, the banking sector's representative in Legco, will be chairman of the office, while the former deputy chief executive of the Hong Kong Monetary Authority, Norman Chan Tak-lam, will become secretary-general...
The structure of the campaign office will be divided into three branches, with Fanny Wong Lai-kwan - a former assistant director of the Independent Commission Against Corruption and former political editor of the South China Morning Post - playing a key role in the publicity section. Other members of the team of spin doctors include former Information Services Department assistant director Harold Yau Fook-sang and veteran journalist Yau Suk-yi.
An administrative section will be headed by Mr Tsang's close friend, solicitor Lawrence Lam Yin-ming, while the head of the branch to liaise with electors has yet to be named.
Spin doctors? Ex-SCMP reporters? 20 staff? A floor of a Central office? Why? He's campaign in an electorate of only 800 votes. And those voters have the clear message The Don is the candidate to vote for. This could be the most expensive election campaign per voter in history.
It doesn't bode well the man in charge of Hong Kong is prepapred to waste so much money on a fiat accompli.
On the subject of the EU constitution, he is adamant. "Non! How can we compete with China?" Even in this remote region, every little village has a zone industrielle, an apparently abandoned enclave of prefabricated units in which - were it not for the evil forces of globalization - hundreds of highly productive French workers on 50,000 Euros a year, 35-hour weeks and two months' annual paid holidays would churn out huge quantities of world-beating textiles and electronic goods, leaving Shenzhen's workshops in the manufacturing dust.
Paul Krugman, I've two people and some facts for you to meet.
From J.K. Galbraith's The Affluent Society, Chapter 2 (The Concept of the Conventional Wisdom):
"We associate truth with convenience, with what most closely accords with self-interest and personal well-being or promise best to avoid awkward effort or unwelcome dislocation of life. We also find high acceptable what contributes most to self-esteem. [Economic and social behaviours] are complex, and to comprehend their character is mentally tiring. Therefore we adhere, as though to a raft, to those ideas which represent our understanding."
Just setting the stage. Conventional wisdom is often created by experts who can make "facts" fit prejudices. It becomes widely accepted because in this age of specialisation who has the time, the wherewithal and the patience to do the research to challenge a theory that seemingly fits the facts. Especially if it has the imprimatur of the New York Times to boot.
Via TPD and Saru, Paul Krugman expounding the conventional wisdom of China's dollar purchases:
Here’s how the U.S.-China economic relationship currently works:
Money is pouring into China, both because of its rapidly rising trade surplus and because of investments by Western and Japanese companies. Normally, this inflow of funds would be self-correcting: both China’s trade surplus and the foreign investment pouring in would push up the value of the yuan, China’s currency, making China’s exports less competitive and shrinking its trade surplus.
But the Chinese government, unwilling to let that happen, has kept the yuan down by shipping the incoming funds right back out again, buying huge quantities of dollar assets – about $200 billion worth in 2004, and possibly as much as $300 billion worth this year. This is economically perverse: China, a poor country where capital is still scarce by Western standards, is lending vast sums at low interest rates to the United States.
Yet the U.S. has become dependent on this perverse behavior. Dollar purchases by China and other foreign governments have temporarily insulated the U.S. economy from the effects of huge budget deficits. This money flowing in from abroad has kept U.S. interest rates low despite the enormous government borrowing required to cover the budget deficit.
Low interest rates, in turn, have been crucial to America’s housing boom. And soaring house prices don’t just create construction jobs; they also support consumer spending because many homeowners have converted rising house values into cash by refinancing their mortgages.
Now Mr Kurgman, meet Jake van der Kamp and the facts. I will repost from my Blame Japan entry:
Yes, these pundits from New York do not come to us one at a time. If we had barter trade - goods exports from China to the US against hot air exports at $1 per breath from the US to China - it would be the US that runs a big trade surplus with China, not the other way round.
Mr Krugman's point is the obvious one about how the balance of payments must balance. All those US dollars that China takes in from its big trade surplus must be invested somewhere outside of China. They are not invested in China because, if they were, China would not have a trade surplus.
And it is easy to see where that money is going, he argues. It is going into purchases of US government debt. Without this inflow to alleviate the pressure of a huge fiscal deficit, US interest rates would already be sharply up and they soon will be if China can no longer generate a big trade surplus.
Mr Krugman, do me a favour. Look at the second chart [at this link]. It shows that the big buyer of US government debt paper in recent years has been Japan, not China. Your own government's figures show that China's net purchases of Treasury bills, bonds and notes since that warmonger in the White House took office in 2001 amounts to less than 5 per cent of his blow-out in federal debt securities.
It was Japan that almost single-handedly took care of his growing fiscal deficit for more than two years until the end of last year.
But notice also that Japan has now grown tired of the game. It is buying no more. It wants out. If you now start to feel those painful withdrawal symptoms, Mr Krugman, look a little east of China for the reason.
Krugman won the Clark Medal, so you’ve got to assume he’s a competent economist even if you don’t like his politics. I’ve heard him mention the Bank of Japan several times, but that column you quote was written just recently, now that Japan has stopped buying.
In 2004 China’s reserves increased by more than Japan’s. The way the Chinese buy is not transparent, so the US figures don’t tell you the whole story. They buy through intermediaries in London, and they buy debt already held outside the States.
They have a huge current account surplus. If they aren’t buying dollars, what are they buying?
My problem is Krugman's allowed politics to get in the way of the facts. The ways the Chenese buy are as transparent as the Japanese - all of these holdings are closely tracked by the Federal Reserve because all Central banks hold accounts with the Fed to hold their Treasury and Agency securities.
It's not that I doubt Chena has played some role - it's that Japan has played an even larger one, yet is not the target of any protectionist pressures. As I said, the Yen is tightly capped as well, just not officially.
BTW - Japan hasn't stopped buying. They've scaled back their purchases, but they've not stopped. If the Yen starts strengthening again, watch their purchases skyrocket.
Great post. I hadn't seen the data for Treasuries presented in that way before. And you're right about the Japanese playing a huge role in keeping the dollar up and interest rates down. But I think we should make a distinction between dollar purchase and treasury purchases. One big differentiation between Japan and China is that the Japanese exchange rate is (ostensibly) floating. The BOJ has not intervened in the FX market since March of last year, which would probably explain the drop in their purchases of treasuries, as indicated in the graph you posted (b/c of less dollars to buy them with). If there is upward pressure on the RMB, then China has to purchase dollars to hold the peg. They may not dump those dollars into Treasuries, but they are sure buying like crazy. I don't have any data on hand, but if you can get a look at Chinese holdings of FX, you will quickly see what I'm talking about. What effect that might have on U.S. interest rates is something I'm not qualified to answer.
The creaky machinery of what passes for democracy in the Big Lychee saw The Don officially resign so he can begin his campaign for Chief Executive (CE). Why he's bothering to waste money on a campaign office in Central is beyond me, especially as Beijing is doing its damnedest to lock it all up. Appearances are everything, I suppose.
But it leaves a bigger question. Since Tung Che-hwa resigned, The Don has been acting CE in his role as chief secretary. Now he's quit. So who's running Hong Kong for the next 6 weeks while we wait for The Don to officially be "elected"? Secretary for Housing Michael Suen will be acting chief secretary. The same person in charge of the REIT debacle. I predict the next 6 weeks will see a new competition from the various policy secretaries: a scramble to enjoy the limelight until The Don assumes his throne.
The Standard also nicely summarises the various political futures now at stake. The Don is Beijing's choice and there are plenty of politicians with different agendas. The challenge is how he will manage this sea of jealousy and ambition. And most of all how he will respond to whatever challenges fate has in store.
In the interim, why not get the Link REIT IPO back up and running, Mr Acting Chief Secretary?
The attempt by the defense to have the Kissel case held behind closed doors was denied by the judge. The judge pointed out there can be no publication of what is said about disputed evidence and the evidence screening process. This is a re-iteration of a long held common law rule, as Phil discussed yesterday.
The SCMP reported the same events in more sinister tones:
A judge yesterday told the media not to report on preliminary hearings in the case of a woman accused of murdering her American banker husband...Mr Justice Michael Lunn said it had always been the media's practice not to publish pre-trial material.
Contrast that with The Standard's report:
A formal order to ban any publication of reports on the evidence screening process until the end of the trial was also denied, since the media should already be aware of this principle, said the judge...Nevertheless, the judge reminded the public and the press that no reports of the evidence screening process can be published until the end of the trial.
Same event but very different reporting.
For those following this case I will point out this is being conducted exactly like any other murder trial would be. The delay in bringing the case to court was due to requests by both the defense and prosecution and for a capital case it has not been unduly delayed. In common law based courts reporting on cases is very formalised and follows strict rules. Once the case proper begins reporters can only recount what transpired in court without speculating on the guilt or innocence of the defendant or on the status of the case. No Court TV style speculations, no breathless commentary on "another dramatic day". It is very different to reporting on American cases. Once the case is concluded the rules are relaxed.
Until then the kind of reporting reproduced above is the best you can expect. At least both English papers here are covering the case.
The unlikely diplomacy of Saaya Irie - a 11 year old Japanese girl being exploited but helping to calm Sino-Japanese tensions. If that's the way to calm tensions, I'd prefer to leave them be.
Bill Rice says rising nationalism will be China's undoing and he's asking for thoughts on China's short and long term diplomatic goals. I can give you the simple answer: all their diplomacy is aimed at keeping the CCP in power. To do that they need a growing economy with access to markets and resources, rising living standards, spreading wealth and a dash of nationalism now that Chinese Communism doesn't mean anything any more.
The Pentagon is preparing a report on the growing "China threat". They'd be remiss if they hadn't already prepared such a report. But as the excellent Robert Kagan article above points out, if you treat China as a threat it will become that threat.
Phil reports on the start of the Kissel murder trial and the request by the defense to hold the trial in camera. As Phil and Doug discuss, it seems hard to justify closing off the court due to media interest. At worst the jury can be sequestered or told to avoid reports on the trial and under common law rules you cannot publish notes or details of trials until they are finished.
I was trying to organise coverage of the trial but I was unsuccessful. It appears there will be some mainstream media coverage, although again as Phil points out it seems blogs have been far more prominent in providing information on the case. Vive le revolution.
Below the fold I've included the SCMP's article on the trial from today, which can also be found as the AP wire article the Phil found.
A murder trial began on Wednesday for an American woman accused of beating to death her husband, a senior executive at the Wall Street investment bank Merrill Lynch. Nancy Ann Kissel, 40, a Minnesota native who has pleaded innocent, looked calm as she appeared in Hong Kong’s High Court on a charge of murdering Robert Kissel, the Asia-Pacific managing director of debt markets at Merrill Lynch’s Hong Kong office.
Defence lawyer Gary Plowman sought permission from the judge to continue the hearing behind closed doors. He argued that both the local and international press had shown “considerable interest” in the case and the media reports might involve details that could jeopardize a fair jury trial for the defendant.
High Court Judge Michael Victor Lunn did not immediately rule on the request.
Kissel, born in Minneapolis, was arrested in November 2003 shortly after police found her husband’s body wrapped in plastic sheets and a carpet in an underground storeroom the couple had rented near their luxury apartment.
The victim, a native of New York, had died of head injuries. He had formerly worked for investment bank Goldman Sachs in Hong Kong.
Most people profess a love of freedom and modern history has given us many countries that have been made "free", from those of Eastern Europe to Ukraine. The implicit assumption is that capitalist democracy is the ultimate aim. Through a Darwinian survival of the fittest process, capitalist democracy has become the sole surviving (and most successful) political economic system. Note an important distinction here - all the talk of "clash of civilisations" between the West (read capitalist democracies) and Islam is a discussion of values, not political economy. While Islam has some economic impact and principles even Iran and Saudi Arabia do not have Islam-onomics. With the fall of the Berlin Wall and the end of the Cold War, the last true battle between different political economic systems ended in a decisive win for capitalist democracy.
The proof is in the counter-examples. Look at North Korea or Cuba - both are still clinging to classic Communist principles. On the other hand China has borrowed the capitalist element while doggedly resisting the democracy side - an experiment in capitalist dictatorship, as did Chile under Pinochet.
It seems clear to me that capitalist democracy has won the ideology evolution race - it is the distillation of thousands of years of human thought and history. It's not perfect but it's far better than any of the alternatives. Indeed it is hard to postulate what the realistic alternatives might be.
I agree, with the distinction that "liberty" would be a more important indicator of a regime's survivability than "democracy." Singapore is not a democracy but it allows enough personal and economic liberties to make the lack of democracy tolerable for most people. Hong Kong has long had liberty without democracy. Economically, both of the latter are more liberal than most western democracies. Urban coastal China is trying to follow the same path.
Point well taken, Chris. I suppose that's what I meant by democracy. I'm just wondering if this is the end of the road in terms of the development of a political economic system?
Hmm ... I've got no argument about the capitalism bit, but aren't you calling a win for democracy a bit early (especially given where you live)? I've got no doubt it's the best system, but my opinion doesn't seem to hold much weight with Hu Jintao. Also, there do seem to be several countries that are going in the 'wrong direction' (e.g. Zimbabwe, Pakistan, Venezuela).
As for further development: what about the development of international systems. Plenty of 'growing pains' around the UN & EU nowadays ... definitely a work in progress.
I started writing a comment about how you should read Francis Fukuyama because this sounds like something he wrote, but it got long so I blogged it instead. Not sure if the trackback worked, so:
David: to be confusing, I'm using the term democracy liberally. To some extent the CCP are being challenged to continue their legitimacy to hold on to rule, so in that sense they are responding to popular opinion (and far more often than is realised e.g. on Taiwan). China's far from perfect given its lax rule of law, dodgy courts and lack of voting to name but a few. But they are not immune to public opinion, especially given they only claim to rule in the name of the people.
Dave 2: good post. I do vaguely remember the fuss over Fukuyama's work although I never read it. Guess it goes to show there's no such thing as an original idea. I couldn't agree more that constant vigilence is needed to protect what we have. My Darwin analogy holds - it might have outlasted others, but predators still exist that will be happy to take it down should its guard be relaxed.
Francis Fukuyama came to a similar conclusion some years back (see his book "The End of History"): democracy and capitalism are the winners of the race, the only really successful countries, the "last men standing."
Of course, absolutist monarchies could have said the same a few hundred years ago. The winning idea is only winning as long as no one figures out something better.
It is true that no one, not even the Chinese Communist leadership, has confidence in any system except capitalist democracy. But it's also true that many people, from Islamic terrorists to the CCP leaders, are avidly *looking* for something better suited to their aims.
I don't know that they'll find a better answer than capitalism or democracy. Neither Islamic terrorists nor Communist leaders have a very good track record at political innovation. But it's conceivable that someone, somewhere, will find a "better answer." Democracy and capitalism have obvious vulnerabilities, even if every known alternative has even worse ones.
Consdier how awkward modern capitalist democracies are at handling global warming, budget balancing, health care reform, pension reform, certain types of education, trade secrets and copyrights, and crime prevention. In all these issues our current governments mostly do much worse than "best practice". And consider how bad most politicians are -- it's a strange thing to say that a system whose leaders' skills are often held in contempt is the best possible system.
So it's not as though democracy and capitalism leave no room for improvement. We should be humble and honest about the flaws in our system, even though we know it's the best system so far. Someday a superior approach could emerge.
But no, I don't expect any "new system" to come in time to preserve the Communist autocrats, let alone the Islamic terrorists.
My Darwin analogy holds - it might have outlasted others, but predators still exist that will be happy to take it down should its guard be relaxed.
As Fukuyama points out in Our Posthuman Future, it's not just predators from outside that can affect LD, but also evolution from within (as in biotech changing what people are, and that changes what society needs to be or can be). Where are the limits of personal autonomy, economic or otherwise, how will they change, and how will that recreate LD? Perhaps an opposition will form not from outside LD, but from within.
Indeed you could argue such groups already exist, Dave, such as the anti-globalisation movement. But they're not proposing alternatives in any real sense, either.
Daniel: I agree with the thrust of your argument but take issue with some of the details. To wit:
Consdier how awkward modern capitalist democracies are at handling global warming, budget balancing, health care reform, pension reform, certain types of education, trade secrets and copyrights, and crime prevention. In all these issues our current governments mostly do much worse than "best practice". And consider how bad most politicians are -- it's a strange thing to say that a system whose leaders' skills are often held in contempt is the best possible system.
There are very valid arguements that LD are best in each of these areas. A cap-and-trade market system is the basis of the Kyoto agreement for example. Australia has run budget surpluses for years; the current US deficit is the choice of that electorate, given Bush's clear mandate. I don't have numbers offhand but I can't imagine dictatorships or Communist countries are paragons of fiscal policy virtue. Even when it comes to crime there are trade offs between crime and its policing. If it is over-policed at a cost of liberties that is a trade-off many (if they had the choice) would not make.
That said the point about absolute monarchies being the best for a certain time rings true. But I'm (and Mr Fukuyama, it seems) asking if this is the most "superior" system we are likely to see. The system can do with improvement, but the basics of the system itself have proved durable for a couple of hundred years so far.
If we're to really stretch the discussion, what would such a superior system potentially look like? What flaws in the current one would it address and how?
While I generally agree that liberty and democracy are the "end of history" (as Fukuyama calls it), I also think there's huge possibility of backsliding driven by religion. This is most obvious in the Mideast, but IMO it's also showing up in the US. It's been a growing force for the last 20 years and shows no signs of slowing down anytime soon.
The CCP would obviously prefer it if Falun Dafa disappeared. (Which, now that I think about it, it practically has disappeared, or at least we never hear about it here in the US).
Of course, religion can be thought of as just another ideology, but the difference is that adherents are as focused on the unknowable afterlife as on the present, which is enough for some fanatics to justify such madness as committing suicide by flying a plane into a building.
Since the afterlife is scientifically unprovable, I fear that there will never be any reasoning with religious zealots. Our best hope IMO is to let them have their countries. In other words, the US should stop propping up Saudi Arabia, Egypt etc. and force the mullahs to confront modernity. The fervor tends to burn out when there's no dictator to rail against e.g. Iran. Of course, we still need to keep nuclear weapons out of their hands...
Derek you could easily argue that religion is playing a very big part in American politics, too. It's a slippery slope comparing religion with ideology. For mine, they're not the same thing. That's why I don't see the "clash of civilisations".
As for Falun Dafa, they are still around. Any visit to the Star Ferry terminal at TST here in Hong Kong will give you all the info you'll ever need.
Simon, we agree. While you can argue that religion is just ideology, the afterlife that many religions promise makes it qualitatively different. IMO it's more dangerous, but then again many explicitly atheistic movements have been unspeakably horrific, too. The common thread is that the perpetrators believe they are doing good. If someone believes what he is doing is for the greater good, he can be coached to do great evil. Someone who has doubts about the goodness of master will balk. Religion promises goodness. But so, apparently, do some secular ideologies and nationalist movements: Shining Path, Khmer Rouge etc.
Re: clash of civilizations, well, I've only read reviews & summaries of Huntingdon in magazines, so my knowledge is not that deep. But the recent brouhaha over alleged Koran desecration seems pretty clash-like to me. In the West, while many people revere the Bible, very few would argue that its physical manifestation as a book is anything more than, well, a book.
But my understanding (as of this morning) is that most Muslims view the Koran as a holy manifestation, at least according to http://www.marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2005/05/koran_abuse.html
If two civilizations, one dominantly Christian, the other dominantly Muslim, can disagree on something as fundamental as this, what other conflicts should we expect? Terrorism, er, "martyrdom."
The latest credibility rating of the local media is down 0.13 points to 5.92 on a scale of 0 to 10, a University of Hong Kong survey revealed. While 64 per cent of respondents said the media had given full play to the freedom of speech, 63 per cent believed it had misused or abused the right. Thirty-nine per cent thought the media had not practised self-censorship, while the same amount said it had. Twenty-seven per cent felt the media had scruples when criticising the government, but 54 per cent thought it was apprehensive when commenting on the central government. Television and newspapers remained the main news sources.
The surprise is the media got a passing grade.
This is an opportune moment for me to quote from an email I recently received from Cecilie Berg, author of an article on China racism I discussed a month ago: They (the SCMP) wouldn't let me write about racism in China the way I wanted because it's a "sensitive issue" and we have to always tiptoe around the fragile Chinese ego.
Hong Kong Disneyland is lying low in the controversy over its plan to serve shark fin soup. Doug Crets in today's Standard reports on the growing criticism from environmentalists and the start of an email campaign to Disney CEO Michael Eisner over the issue.
You can help.
Let's start by looking what Disney's own website says:
Identify and understand the direct and indirect impact that Disney facilities, operations, business practices, products and services may have on health, safety and the environment. Identify potential areas of concern and develop pro-active guidelines.
Conservation
Promote wildlife and habitat conservation through partnerships with the scientific and academic communities, and organizations committed to preserving the earth's biodiversity.
That doesn't gel with Disney's lame "but everyone else serves shark fin soup so we will too". Disney runs a Wildlife Conversation Fund and trumpets their "green" credentials. They even publish an "Enviroport" (what is it with Disney and mangled English?) showcasing their "significant environmental accomplishments".
So what can you do? Join the campaign. For a start you can go to HK Disneyland's website, go to the "Ask Jacky (Cheung)" section and ask why they plan to serve shark fin soup and watch Jade to see if he answers. Alternatively you can ask via their feedback form.
Brad Setser's 5 myths about China's currency. Scroll down to the comments by DOR and also note Setser continues to omit any reference to the main culprit in this economic game of poker: Japan.
The CCP has 69.6 million members, up 1.37 million from last year. Now let's wait for the Epoch Times' inevitable "CCP losing millions of members". The truth is out there...
Many blame China for high oil prices. So do falling gas prices in Beijing herald the end of the oil price rally? And will China start importing American SUVs, thus reversing the trade imbalance at the same time? Talk about win-win.
Today's NSFW link: "progressive education" for Party members. Sign me up for classes!
On the CCP membership article in Xinhua.
The net growth was 1.37 million.
The number of new members was 2.42 million.
Therefore, 1.05 million was lost, due to death, disappearance, expulsion, resignation, etc.
I later discovered that article to have been a hoax, so I removed it from my site. However, after I discovered that you had linked to it I put it back up with an update to notify others that it was a hoax.
Hong Kong Disneyland is copping flak for offering shark fin soup on its menu. You'd better stop complaining or they'll set the triads onto you. Don't believe me? If Tokyo Disneyland can use yakuza to clean, you can rest assured the Disney folks will stop at nothing...From now on expect all my posts about our friendly new Lantau neighbours to be bright and complimentary.
First there was "it's not you, it's me" and "not tonight, I've got a headache." But now there's another weapon in the ongoing war for sex between couples...
From the SCMP:
Couples have been warned not to rush into sex because the hormones released during orgasm can blind people to the true value of their relationship...it was "scientifically better to hold off being sexual" until a relationship matured from the infatuation stage to the "post-rapture" stage.
If you have sex too early in a relationship, you will have missed all the underpinnings of bonding. The later you have sex, the more discerning you can be about your relationship - it is only when infatuation ends that true love begins." It was these hormones that could blind couples to the issues that may eventually cause a relationship to fail, such as the lack of common values and respect for the institution of marriage
OK, fine. How long do you have to wait to get past this "lust" stage before you can get it on?
this process can take up to two years.
Forget it. Start with a bang. You'll have far more fun.
From the final paragraph of the Economist's obituary of the Gang of Four member:
By 1980, Mr Zhang and the others (of the Gang of Four) were scapegoats for his (Mao's) enormities. They were scapegoats, too, for the millions of Chinese who had helped to drive out neighbours, or chastise intellectuals, or hound local bureaucrats from office in the fervid days of Maoist upheaval. Mr Zhang's guilty silence in court was not only his, but theirs. It is a silence that China stills finds exceedingly hard to break.
But that is not today's topic. Instead I present Jake van der Kamp's lovely fisking of "know-it-all economist" Paul Krugman (sorry, Saru) on America's alleged addiction to Chinese dollar purchases. Read to the end, where Jake reveals the real buyer...
"In other words, the US has developed an addiction to Chinese dollar purchases and will suffer painful withdrawal symptoms when they come to an end."
Paul Krugman,
Know-it-all economist,
SCMP, May 21
Yes, these pundits from New York do not come to us one at a time. If we had barter trade - goods exports from China to the US against hot air exports at $1 per breath from the US to China - it would be the US that runs a big trade surplus with China, not the other way round.
Mr Krugman's point is the obvious one about how the balance of payments must balance. All those US dollars that China takes in from its big trade surplus must be invested somewhere outside of China. They are not invested in China because, if they were, China would not have a trade surplus.
And it is easy to see where that money is going, he argues. It is going into purchases of US government debt. Without this inflow to alleviate the pressure of a huge fiscal deficit, US interest rates would already be sharply up and they soon will be if China can no longer generate a big trade surplus.
Mr Krugman, do me a favour. Look at the second chart [below]. It shows that the big buyer of US government debt paper in recent years has been Japan, not China. Your own government's figures show that China's net purchases of Treasury bills, bonds and notes since that warmonger in the White House took office in 2001 amounts to less than 5 per cent of his blow-out in federal debt securities.
It was Japan that almost single-handedly took care of his growing fiscal deficit for more than two years until the end of last year.
But notice also that Japan has now grown tired of the game. It is buying no more. It wants out. If you now start to feel those painful withdrawal symptoms, Mr Krugman, look a little east of China for the reason.
I will merely add that recently we've seen a stronger US dollar and rising pricings of US Treasury bonds despite this decline in official offshore purchases. So will we soon hear pleas for Japan to allow the Yen to appreciate, for Japan to abandon it's unofficial currency peg (where the BoJ intervenes to prevent Yen strength)? Will protectionist measures be taken against Japan for such unfair currency manipulation? Oh, but I hear you say, Japan's economy isn't doing as well as China's. So what.
If American politicians want someone to blame, it's Japan. Don't hold your breath waiting for the change.
If you want to be welcomed by CCP authorities, a massacre against civilians is what you need:
The Chinese president Hu Jintao has officially invited Uzbek president Islam Karimov to visit China at the end of this month. The announcement, made less then a week after the Andijan massacre, was given by the spokesman for the Chinese foreign minister Kong Quan.
Dedicated to - among others - a few expat bloggers, some words by Norman Geras about their last political hero: George Galloway.
The contrast between the pieces by Baker and Hitchens and the more general coverage of Galloway's posturings is striking. Nothing so clearly reveals the soft, rotten spot at the heart of the dominant left-liberal consensus today than the tenor of that coverage. There are those who are content to treat Galloway as a lovable rogue, and there are those who, even though not finding him that lovable, have allowed themselves to draw satisfaction from his discomfiture of others: Tony Blair, the Labour Party, Republicans in Washington, and so on. That this is a man who, whatever the truth about his financial affairs, stood before Saddam Hussein and sang the latter's praises in the most servile and disgusting way has been no barrier to this reaction.
For, whatever doubt or discredit may hang over George Galloway for that episode, it seems to be less important within the dominant political orthodoxy than his blustering against - his 'standing up to' - political opponents closer to home. These seem to loom larger in the current left-liberal conscience than either the tyrannical monster whom Galloway saluted, or the number of his victims, or the public meaning of Galloway's act of obeisance.
Soft, rotten spot - due in some part, I would say, to unsettled discomforts about who dispatched Saddam Hussein's regime and who, on the other hand, loudly protested against its 'illegal', and apparently too early, demise.
Which bloggers and what is your point? Who is asleep? Sorry, GG is a veritable arsehole but apparently you meant something more and it went over my head.
What is history? Often it is taught as numbers and factoids to be memorised and repeated. But there is an alternative: the personification of history. First hand accounts of events from those that were part of them. This has the benefit of making history live rather than a mass of numbers. It also leads to the natural problem of all reportage: perspective. Those involved in events will never be neutral about them, although one could argue that using numbers only gives a vaneer of objectivity. History, especially modern history in the era of cheap information, benefits from memoirs such as Songs of the Azalea. One can allow for bias and it is far outwieghed by the human element. It turns two dimensional facts and figures into three dimensional real life.
Kenneth Ore retraces a living history of Hong Kong from the Japanese occupation through the troubles of the 1960s and to more recent times through the eyes of a reformed secret Communist. For anyone lover or student of this city and history it is a vital tool in understanding the mindset of those who have lived through such periods.
The book is framed around an apology to Ore's mother. She was a phenomenal woman who was dealt a crappy hand by life. The story of the young Ore's life under the Japanese gives an inkling into the depth of hatred many still hold. It is also the tale of a well educated woman and the extent she went to protect her family. As the story unfolds the feeling of disenfranchisement with the ruling Nationalists grows. The KMT's soldiers quickly lose there place as the defenders of the Chinese nation, at least in Ore's eyes, and he soon falls under the spell of the Communists. It is a testament to the power of propaganda that until Ore was well into middle age he still fervently believed the Communists were the answer to all China's problems, defenders of the peasantry and proletariat. Ore and his brother both become secret members of the CCP in Hong Kong, taking orders, recruiting, getting involved in riots, getting told who to marry and how many children to have. But an organisation as paranoid as the Communists would inevitably turn on even such loyal soliders as Ore, especially once he started challenging his fellow members when personal tragedy strikes. As the wool is removed from his eyes he sees that self-interest has overtaken (indeed, was likely was always) the ideals of the movement. Hell hath no fury like an ex-Commie scorned.
Within 280 pages anti-Japanese feelings, impressions of the KMT and Communists, the secret operations of the Communists in Hong Kong, the British Government in Hong Kong and how it dealt with leftists are all covered. The book shows the power of brain-washing and mass movements and the gradual awakening from indoctrination. For those who say "I would never be like that", Ore's account demonstrates how easily it is to fall under the sway of ideals. Ore amply demonstrates the personal costs of blind faith and adherence to ideology. Page 252, as Ore is kicked out of the Communists to whom he has devoted his life:
To lose all hope is a terrible sentence to bear. A man without hope is dead, even thought he continue to walk.
That's the true horror within its pages.
Like much history, there are parts that are relevant to today. Page 151:
Even after 1997, when the Hong Kong legislative members were "elected" from their local constituencies, the Communists called all left-wing supporters in each district to vote for the "selected" member.
They've made it even easier now. Just vote DAB. In the Epilogue, on pages 275-277, Ore discusses what became of his fellow comrades. One is a unversity vice-chancellor, another an adviser to the Chief Executive. He goes on:
Hok Yau Club continues to be a non-political student fellowship on the surface. However the Communist Party in Hong Kong is still up to its old tricks, placing members to work in various institutions...the Chinese Communist Party does not officially exist there, and many people are naively unaware of the Communists' agenda and opeations in their city.
Ore has far kinder words for the former colonial masters, the British:
...after the May Riot of 1967, the British did try to improve their governing with much more humane policies...For the majority of Hong Kong people, there was likely a great deal of sadness and more than a trace of apprehension with the lowering of the Union Jack on July 1, 1997.
Through covering small tragedies we also see the larger tragedy. A similar example is First they killed my father by Loung Ung, the story of a young girl living through the horrors of the Khemer Rogue. This personification of history has taught me far more than any number of textbooks.
To anyone interested in Hong Kong, the Chinese Communist Party, or simply a interesting story well told, I can recommend Songs of the Azalea. It should be handed out by the Immigration Department to anyone coming to live here.
The makers of Finding Nemo, the environmentally friendly yet culturally sensitive mouseketeers at HK Disneyland, are intending to serve shark fin soup. The BBC estimates Hong Kong alone imported the fins of 28 million sharks in 1999.
Disney public relations manager Esther Wong, who confirmed The Standard report, said in a prepared statement, "Hong Kong Disneyland takes environmental stewardship very seriously and we are equally sensitive to the local cultures. It is customary for Chinese restaurants and 5-star hotels to serve shark fin soup in Hong Kong as the dish is considered as an integral part of Chinese banquets.''
When asked if Hong Kong Disneyland had chosen to offer the dish, which is illegal in many countries, at the behest of the territory's tourism board, Wong denied this was the case. Disney's policy, found on its Web site, states the company will "work to identify issues that may not yet be identified in the law, but could result in adverse environmental effects.''
Disney is believed to be working a new variety of the soup...
In recent months China made much of Japan's interpretation of history. A justified response was China's failure to face up to its own recent past. A case in point: a private museum in Guandong looking at the Cultural Revolution has been met with official disapproval, a news blackout and general apathy.
From the SCMP:
Almost 30 years after the painful and shameful excesses of the Cultural Revolution ended, a museum dedicated to the upheaval has opened in the Chenghai township of Guangdong's Shantou city. But the privately funded museum's early days have already been overshadowed by official disapproval.
And many citizens are apathetic about the museum, probably more caught up with their daily concerns than with reflecting upon the catastrophe inflicted on millions of Chinese people from 1966 to 1976. The Cultural Revolution Museum received no publicity in its first four months until late last month when a local newspaper began to carry reports. Then the Southern Metropolis News and The Bund, a Shanghai paper, picked up the story. Two days later, the provincial publicity department not only clamped down on further coverage but also ordered the newspapers to explain their actions.
When told about the news blackout, a scholar at Huanan Normal University was stunned. "It's just an [informal] verbal request, isn't it? It can't be in black and white," he said. Another scholar, at Sun Yat-sen University, thought the time was right to open such a museum, saying people were mature enough to face up to what happened. Even so, when told the museum had opened, he immediately expressed fears it would be closed down.
The museum was still open early last week, despite the government's pressure. The man who initiated the official response is Shantou's former executive vice-mayor Peng Qian , who himself endured 300 "struggle sessions" during the Cultural Revolution. He turned down a meeting with a Sunday Morning Post reporter. The Huanan Normal University scholar said it was normal for some cadres to oppose the reopening of old wounds - in particular those who had risen to power during the Cultural Revolution.
But "there is no big threat to the party to admit its mistakes", he said.
"The party has grown by making mistakes and correcting them. The Cultural Revolution is just one in a series of mistakes." A senior journalist was less charitable. "We keep asking the Japanese to do some soul-searching, when we ourselves cannot face up to our own history. More people have died as a result of various campaigns than were killed by the Japanese in Nanjing," he said.
Scholars said the museum was significant because it was set up privately for ordinary people to reflect on the Cultural Revolution. It did not apportion blame to the party or to the Gang of Four, the clique arrested and blamed for what took place. "Until now, the introspection has been conducted on a political level - with the shouting of slogans - but that is not enough," the Huanan Normal University professor said. "There is a need for a monument to be built or a display of substantive materials."
But soul-searching is the last thing on the minds of villagers living at the foot of Ta Shan, where the museum is located. That is despite having lost dozens of their kin to the bullets of the People's Liberation Army during the revolution - called in by a neighbouring village that belonged to a different political faction.
One villager, who was nine in 1968, remembers neighbouring villagers overran his village, torched homes and blew up clan houses and granaries. "I don't talk about this unless I am asked, like now," he said, without emotion. "I have not told my children about what happened. Let bygones be bygones."
Chenghai suffered heavy casualties during the Cultural Revolution, with 400 dead and 4,500 injured. Despite the government's concerns, the museum is far from provocative. Its dominating feature is 623 black stone plaques - etched with words and pictures taken from a book titled Cultural Revolution Museum.
The only material reminders of what has been described as one of the worst catastrophes in Chinese history are a few small statues of the late chairman Mao Zedong and some books.
Nowhere to be seen are the era's posters covered with huge characters, the Red Guard memorabilia or tall dunce hats that were used in public denunciations - all of which would have probably agitated officials. Younger scholars are hoping Chenghai will spawn similar efforts all over the country, so people can come to terms and not forget their past. "We have never properly re-examined the past because ... for decades since the opium war, we have seen ourselves as the victims," the Sun Yat-sen University professor said.
China's communications censorship system is often criticised. But I've discovered it is in fact a means to an end rather than an end in itself. The system is, in fact, an economic one. It employs more than 30,000 people. It involves advanced and developing computer technology. And now it has become a valuable foreign policy tool and export item.
From the SCMP:
China is to supply Zimbabwe with new-generation spy equipment to help Robert Mugabe's regime crack down on illicit internet traffic and block dissident radio signals. According to South African website journalism.co.za, members of the feared Central Intelligence Organisation have said they are replacing "Soviet-era" equipment with hardware from China.
"We are not only targeting opposition members but including some suspicious and wayward Zanu [PF] members," said an officer quoted in the report. The report tallies with recent announcements that the Zimbabwean government has turned its focus from the tattered and ineffective opposition to dissidents within its own ranks. Several senior members have been caught supplying information to a South African intelligence agent and others, such as former information minister Jonathan Moyo, made a pre-emptive move earlier this year to seize the leadership of the ruling Zanu (PF) party from Mr Mugabe's control.
At the same time dissident movements based in London, South Africa and elsewhere have used websites such as newzimbabwe.com to provide alternative news on events in the country, where repressive media laws have all but shut down all non-government sanctioned websites.
The spy network has responded by monitoring suspected dissidents' telephone calls. The internet has proved more difficult to monitor, particularly as hundreds of internet cafes are to be found in urban areas, making it almost impossible to track an individual's online activities if "terminal hopping" is used. The internet has therefore become an important resource for swapping information.
Agents have taken to hanging out at cafes, peering over the shoulders of patrons to see if dissident websites or even international news portals are being accessed. The acquisition of new internet monitoring equipment will allow the agency to track internet activity and respond quickly.
Fascinating. I wonder where they're going to get the money for this, since the economy is collapsing. Also interesting to see that China has no qualms about doing business with dirty regimes.
Japan: The Tokyo Metropolitan Government's Transport Authority lets a "man" in a women-only train car. Read the story to know why "man" is in quotation marks.
Simon, congrats on your trip! Thanks for the updates on Indochine and Nancy Kissel. I'd love to hear your impressions of Cambodia. It and Burma have to be the least-heard-from nations from South East Asia in the American press. How fares the Kingdom?
I'll keep blogging until Monday, but all are relieved that the Maestro has returned. :)
Just got back from a week long tour of Laos and Cambodia. In both places it seems their Communist governments have been the best thing to happen to the people in a long, long time. I can highly recommend visits to both Seim Reip/Angkor Wat and Luang Prabang. Get there before they turn in Indochinese Disneylands.
Thanks so much to the guest blogging crew. They've done a great job, again.
I've been thinking about heading down to Laos for awhile. I heard a nasty rumor that you have to turn your passport over to the authorities during your stay, is that right?
About Cambodia, you kind of threw me for a loop on that one. I assume that you were referring to the former Cambodian government because Cambodia is currently a Constitutional Monarchy.
Cambodia is a constitutional monarchy. However the monarch has little power. Hun Sen's People's Party lead the overthrow of the Khemer Rogue and has ruled since 1979, although multi-party elections since the late 90s have seen two other key parties rise. Nevertheless, Hun Sen is still PM and he's a Commie. They're elected Commies.
Some updates on the Nancy Kissel trial. Today's SCMP:
The wife of investment banker Robert Kissel had her bail extended yesterday after a closed-door hearing at the Court of First Instance.
Nancy Ann Kissel, 40, has pleaded not guilty to one count of murder over the death of her husband, a top executive with US investment banking giant Merrill Lynch, whose body was found dead near their luxury apartment in Parkview, Tai Tam, in November 2003. Kissel's bail conditions were not known. The case was adjourned until Wednesday.
Yesterday's SCMP also reported Mrs Kissel pleaded not guilty and the Government objected to a bail extension. The defence asked for a postponement of the trial to continue study of the evidence.
I will post updates as I get them. Given I work full time it is impossible for me to cover the case first hand, but I'll post what is reported in the papers here.
As for why it's taken so long, there's a few answers. Firstly that's the criminal justice system - the same applies in the USA, especially for murder cases. Secondly there have been delays requested by both sides to gather more evidence or examine it in more detail. The main trial was due to begin last week but appears likely to be postponed as the defence needs more time.
All I can say is keep checking back here for more updates.
I moved to South Dakota from Iowa today. I am quite tired. I am having trouble comprehending simple articles. So my only entries are links to Zen Pundit, Coming Anarchy, and some projects created by my students (who approved public distribution).
This time tomorrow I will be moved back to South Dakota. It's a good movie, but I'm kind of melancholy about it. I like this town, this job, this apartment. But upwards and onwards....
The first political move of new Pope Benedict XVI is quite disconcerting. More than canonize Wojtyla in five minuts, his memory would be better honoured if Church didn't give in to CCP blackmails. But:
The Vatican is moving quickly to improve relations with Communist China, which has not recognised the Holy See since Chairman Mao drove out the papal nuncio more than half a century ago.
A former senior Vatican diplomat suggested ties could be renewed. "If they give us the possibility, we're ready tomorrow," Cardinal Jean-Louis Tauran said. But the price of rapprochement would be the cutting off formal ties with Taiwan, which Beijing regards as a non-negotiable condition for any country. Cardinal Tauran's weekend comments were apparent confirmation that Benedict XVI was referring to China last Thursday when he invited countries that did not have representatives in the Vatican to reconsider.
As if John Paul II, instead of supporting Solidarnosc, had backed Jaruzelski in exchange for some advantage.
I have less than 48 hours left in Iowa. My emotions: mixed. I'll be happy to move on, but I love my job, my apartment, and my town. Tomorrow I will have to move out my furniture and clean. Fun.
Newsweek claimed Americans desecrated the Koran at Gitmo. Afghans rioted. Newsweek lied, Muslims died. (OK, technically, Newsweek printed incorrect assertions due to faulty fact checking, but that doesn't rhyme!)
In the 1990s, the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan tried to kill local dictator/thug Islam Karimov with five suicide car bombings in one day. The fifth was at the same place at the first, as the terrorists figured he would try to comfort the wounded (he did, and almost died). If a day like that doesn't make your local Soviet President-for-Life psycho-tough, nothing will.
Sorry for the short post today. Today and Wednesday are big transition days for me, as I am moving from Iowa for South Dakota (in preperation for moving to Nebraska. Busy!). I'll try to make it worth your while tomorrow. In the meantime...
There's one thing I share with AP -I don't know what the hell's going on. Unfortunately, AP won't admit that fact. Who are all these al-Qaeda Number Threes who keep getting captured or killed. Why is it always Number Three? How come number one, two, four, five and six never get caught or killed? I know I'm not the first person to ponder these oddities. Either al-Qaeda need to rethink their organizational structure - by eliminating the number three - or the English language media need to re-learn the valuable meaning of skepticism.
Last night my plane landed at HKIA 30 minutes early, pulling into the gate at 8:30pm. I was in the car driving out the airport at 8:37pm. I made it home on Hong Kong Island at 9:20pm, or 20 minutes after the originally scheduled landing time.
The Mrs and I are heading for a week long, kid free holiday in deepest Indochina. The guest blogging duties will be taken up by the same excellent crew as last time. But before I go, a final few links for the week...
Phil looks at Hong Kong's next big concrete elephant. Given the 40,000 seat stadium in Causeway Bay is full for exactly 3 days a year, it's hard to see why Hong Kong needs a 70,000 seat stadium at Kai Tak.
Drug addicts: register with the cops or you'll be forced to register.
At the bottom of the SCMP's letters page, in small print, is the following:
We appreciate the public service represented by our many readers who contribute letters to the editor for publication on our Insight pages. These letters support community debate on a variety of important issues. Contributors should be aware, however, that upon submitting such letters, the writer has granted to South China Morning Post Publishers Ltd (SCMPP) the unencumbered right to edit and publish the contents of the letter, as well as to preserve it in SCMPP's database and archives. SCMPP also reserves the right to publish and/or reproduce the letters (in whole or in part) in any of its print, digital or electronic publications and websites.
I thank the SCMP for the public service provided its articles by its many reporters and henceforth will follow their example safe in the knowledge I have an unencumbered right to edit and publish the contents of each article, as well as preserving it on this website or any other such means.
The Falun Gong's newspaper, the Epoch Times, is facing closure in Hong Kong because its printer no longer wants to handle such a controversial publication. Likewise no other publisher in Hong Kong will touch it. Regardless of your view of the paper itself and the group behind it, this is another case where the invisible hand of Beijing is weilding influence via self-censorship. No sane businessman will have dealing with the Falun Gong crew, even in semi-autonomous Hong Kong.
Only last week the Court of Final Appeal exonerated eight Falun Gong members who were arrested in 2002. Frank Ching in the SCMP makes some interesting points:
The three Basic Law interpretations - beginning with the one on the right-of-abode issue in 1999 and culminating with the one last month on the term of the next chief executive - have caused considerable damage to Hong Kong's confidence in the rule of law. In contrast, confidence in the judiciary remains strong, especially in the aftermath of the decision last Thursday by the Court of Final Appeal exonerating Falun Gong practitioners who were arrested in 2002 while protesting outside the central government's liaison office in Hong Kong.
However, immediately after the decision was publicised, Wang Rudeng , assistant director of the liaison office, insisted that the Falun Gong members did cause an obstruction and had disrupted the order of the community. But he stressed that he respected Hong Kong's rule of law. There is now a fear, subdued but nonetheless real, that Beijing may disagree with the court ruling, and that the National People's Congress Standing Committee may issue another Basic Law interpretation.
Concern about a possible interpretation has also been voiced in another case being heard by the Court of Final Appeal. Legislator "Long Hair" Leung Kwok-hung asked Gerard McCoy, the government's lawyer, if he could guarantee that another interpretation would not be sought if the administration lost. He refused to make such a pledge.
Both cases have to do with the right to hold public protests. Already, legislator Ronny Tong Ka-wah has been quoted as voicing concern that the Standing Committee might issue another interpretation if the Court of Final Appeal's decision is "too liberal". He said that freedom of peaceful demonstration was within the ambit of Hong Kong's autonomy and there should not be a fourth Basic Law interpretation.
There is anxiety that if the Hong Kong government loses the "Long Hair" case, then even if it does not ask for an interpretation, the central authorities may, on their own, issue one to limit the right to express public dissent in the city.
Hong Kong was under considerable pressure from Beijing to take action against Falun Gong. In January 2001, the Hong Kong government was attacked by pro-Beijing elements for allowing Falun Gong to rent the City Hall for an international conference attended by more than 1,000 people. A few months later, then chief executive Tung Chee-hwa said in the Legislative Council that Falun Gong was, "more or less an evil cult". Mr Tung said that the government would "monitor closely" followers' every move in Hong Kong.
No doubt those words were meant for the central government's ears. But, while resisting legislation to make Falun Gong an illegal organisation, the Hong Kong government no doubt felt it had to act to assure Beijing that it would not allow the group to run rampant here. However, now that Jiang Zemin is no longer in office, Beijing's reaction to the Falun Gong ruling may well be more subdued. It was he, after all, who initiated the campaign against Falun Gong. Now that the group has been thoroughly suppressed on the mainland, President Hu Jintao and Premier Wen Jiabao may not consider it so important to ensure that Hong Kong continues to keep Falun Gong practitioners at bay.
However, if Hong Kong's highest court continues to issue rulings that Beijing regards as too liberal, it is entirely possible that the central government may consider another interpretation. Such a move would destroy Hong Kong as a free society, sounding the death knell for "one country, two systems".
The problem with these interpretations are no-one knows when they stop and when they apply. Is the Court of Final Appeal's decision really final? Not in the case of the Right of Abode. Potentially not now, either.
Sometimes Beijing doesn't need to do anything to infringe on Hong Kong's freedoms. That's power.
Falun Dafa will no doubt shift their Chinese publishing branch to Taiwan. I've heard that they are already using Taiwan as a base for the occassional satellite transmission hijacks.
FLG has become one of the largest spammers in China. I received their junk mails almost every week.
As most Chinese feel sick of their heathendom-natured bullshits, FLG changed their strategy by packing themselves with anti-CCP "theory".
i don't understand why some people in the west would like to associate with such a notorious name to promote democracy in China. But certainly I am not surprised that Taiwan secessionists find FLG is a good partner for their undertaking.
BTW, the junk mail from FLG is very funny. It starts by criticizing CCP (the "9 evilness of CCP") but ends with a short message like "FLG predicts that a big event will happen in year 2040".
I can't see the logic of it, but that's the way Guru Lee explains how the world works and why we should join his heathendom, not smarter than other heathendom masters in history.
Two pieces in today's SCMP on potential changes in the Hong Kong Government's land sale policy. This is another test for The Don - will he buckle to the developers and start publishing reserve prices? Of course in most auctions the reserves are not disclosed, and for good reason. And the developers need to be careful what they wish for or they may get a taste of their own medicine. I'll let Jake van der Kamp explain:
"The government should also announce the minimum reserve price of each site and be more flexible on the developers' proposed prices. Without knowing the base price, no one knows how much more they need to propose to make the government release a site for auction"
Ricky Wong Kwong-yiu,
Director,
Wharf Estate Development
I have a suggestion for you, Mr Wong. The next time your company releases some new flats for purchase by the public, I would like it to adopt a new system for selling those flats.
Under this system, you would fix and publish absolute minimum prices for these flats. You would then proceed by inviting bids from the public for them and by making two further binding commitments.
The first is that you will not sell the flats at all unless you are bid at least the minimum prices.
The second is that you will sell all the flats at their minimum prices if you are bid no higher.
It would put you in a bit of a bind, I know. What if you set your minimum prices too high and you get no bidders? By the rules of this system, you cannot just tweak your prices lower. You have to withdraw the project from the market if your committed minimum prices are not met. Your finance director will not be pleased.
Alternatively, what if you set those minimum prices too low? Unless demand is truly enormous, you will effectively invite potential buyers to bid only the minimum prices or a fraction above and, by the rules of this system, you will then have to sell the flats at those prices. Once again, someone will not be pleased.
But, Mr Wong, you would have no grounds for complaint either way. This is no more than what you are asking our government to do when it sells land to you under the application list system.
Would it not be better for you to establish minimum prices that you are willing to accept for your flats but keep those prices a secret? You can then invite the public to bid for the flats.
You may still decide not to accept the bids if you think they are too low, but you have not tipped your hand to the buyers. Your chances of getting a good deal more than your minimum prices are now much enhanced.
And this is essentially how the application list system works at the moment. You tell the government you would like to bid for a piece of land and if your bid is above the reserve price, which it keeps a secret, it will hold an auction for that land. If you are the only bidder, you will get it at your bid but, otherwise, you will have to chase the bids up as far as you think you can afford.
Of course, it may turn out that your original bid was well above the reserve price, that you are the only bidder and that you paid a good deal more than you had to pay. Tough luck for you and good luck for me because I am a taxpayer, and the more extra money that comes in from land sales the lower my taxes can remain.
Thus, when housing secretary Michael Suen Ming-yeung says, "We know many developers face many difficulties [with the application list] ... we will carefully consider their opinions", my advice to him, Mr Wong, is that he should not spend too much time considering your opinion.
Sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander. You do not sell your flats the way you want the government to sell you land and I think Mr Suen should take his lead from what you do rather than what you say.
If there is anything wrong with the application list system, it is certainly not that the government keeps reserve prices for land on the list a secret.
In fact, I do not think there is much wrong with the system anyway.
The biggest complaint that developers have is that these reserve prices are too high, that they cannot afford them and that Hong Kong will therefore not have enough new developed property in coming years unless the government becomes more accommodating.
There may be elements of truth in this. There is certainly evidence that supply of new residential property over the next few years may be considerably less than demand for it. This may also be true of office property.
But I was not absolutely certain that I could carry the load of my mortgage when I first bought a flat. Any interruption of employment and that mortgage could have been at risk.
I see no reason why developers should be given greater comfort, particularly with a rising property market that is likely to reward them with handsome profits on any minimum price the government sets for land.
I think Mr Suen should indeed carefully consider whether he is looking at a supply-demand imbalance in the future, but this proposal that he publish reserve prices is one that he should ignore.
The SCMP's editorial:
The brief, almost throwaway line from housing minister Michael Suen Ming-yeung on Tuesday suggested the government is considering another shift in its land-sale policies. Mr Suen promised to "carefully consider" calls from property developers for the application list system - by which land is put up for auction - to be changed. This remark hinted at a retreat by the government from its strong support for the system. Only last month, Mr Suen paid tribute to its "clarity, certainty and consistency".
Yesterday, tycoon Stanley Ho Hung-sun added meat to the bones of Mr Suen's comments. He confidently predicted that the system would soon be scrapped.
Certainty, consistency and clarity are qualities which the government should be striving for. Sudden policy changes deprive the market of the predictable conditions it needs. We have had too many twists and turns in the past. But reforms which make the system more flexible, transparent and market-oriented would be welcome. This is the direction in which the government should be moving. And changes to the application list mechanism could help.
The system has been described by the government as "entirely market-driven". But this is not the case. Officials decide which sites will be included on the list. Developers then make a bid for the site they wish to buy. If that bid meets the minimum price required by the government, an auction is scheduled. The site then goes to the highest bidder.
One of the complaints from property developers is that the minimum price set by the government is kept confidential. If their bids are too low, they are rejected. But they do not know how much higher they need to go to trigger an auction. This gives the government considerable control over the market. In practice, it limits the supply of land and pushes prices higher. The system was introduced to "stabilise" the market at a time when prices were plummeting. Now that the economy has rebounded, it gives the impression - despite government denials - that officials have returned to the high land-price policy of the past.
It is interesting to note that only six of the 17 sites on the application list last year were sold. This was at a time when the market was on the up. It suggests that the government was setting the minimum prices too high - even though the actual price secured when an auction had taken place tended to be much higher.
Mr Ho expressed the belief yesterday that the government would revert to a system under which land auctions are held at regular intervals - without any need for an application to trigger them. Certainly, the administration should make its long-term plans for land sales known. This would introduce the certainty which Mr Suen spoke of and ease concerns about a shortage of land.
But any review of property market policies should not stop there. If property developers are keen to see the application list system go, they should be prepared to accept other reforms. The arrangements for internal sales hit the headlines last month when a record $31,500 per sq ft was paid for a property in West Kowloon. These private deals are subject to little regulation, lack transparency and have the potential to distort the market. Restrictions on them were lifted in 2002 as part of a package of measures intended to halt the slide in prices. The current arrangements should now be reconsidered.
In the longer term, the government should be looking to distance itself from the property market as much as possible. This is very difficult to achieve so long as its traditional heavy reliance on land sales for revenue continues. Plans to broaden and stabilise the revenue base, preferably through a goods and services tax, should be put into action. This will make the sale of land less important to the government's coffers. Then, perhaps, the market will be allowed to decide when land is sold - and for how much.
This post has little to do with Asia, but a lot to do with blogs. I apologize for this diversion from your normal blog reading. If you own or manage a blog, this post may be important for you.
This morning I was responding to a post on a South Dakota, USA blog, when I saw my comment didn't turn up right away.
The blog's owner later emailed me. He said that posts with hyperlinks have to be approved by hand, because of all the comment spam from poker sites -- more than a hundred a day! Unethical businessmen make comments on blogs that are nothing more than ads for their online casinos.
One reason the casinos do this it to increase their position in search engines. Most people click on the #1 search engine link, so being the top spot in Google or Yahoo for gambling searches can add up to hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of dollars in revenue. Plus many of these sites will also try to install spyware, causing millions in lost productivity and computer repairs.
So far webmasters have been defensive -- creating "blacklists" that ban certain posters and approving some comments by hand. It is time for bloggers to be aggressive.
My solution is to link to reputable results for these searches on my blog. I chose to hyperlink to articles on Wikipedia, which is a community-based encyclopedia. But you can also reference Encarta, the Encylopaedia Britannica, New York Times articles on the subject -- anything!
I have long ago solved the comments issue by using a first time commenter email confirm - I don't have to do anything and all non confirmed comments get removed afrer five days.
My big problem is trackback spam. I use filters but it still gets through. I tried checking the page for the link but of course movable type/Typepad being a published system rather than databazse driven, the page does not exist until after the trackback is sent so it fails the test.
I am thinking of just removing trackback because I am struggling to come up with a solution for it.
The solution for trackbacks is what I have for comments: close them after (say) 15 days. It's easy for comments but doesn't appear possible (in MT, at least) for trackbacks. That would make life far more manageable.
Your intrepid correspondant today finds himself typing this in an airport lounge in South East Asia. It is always re-assuring when your hotel has a massive cast iron gate and two security men who perform a complete bomb sweep of your taxi before allowing you into the hotel compound.
Guan Xiangdong, a reporter for the China News Service, is more at home writing about tourism than about finance. But she was on duty in Hong Kong last Saturday while more financially savvy colleagues took the day off. And in a bit of enterprise, she put together a story on the impact of a possible appreciation of the Chinese currency. Her sources: bits and pieces of news and analysis gleaned from local newspapers.
Yesterday, her efforts roiled the world's trillion-dollar-a-day foreign exchange market and sparked panicky emails and phone calls among currency traders and fund managers from Singapore to Stockholm as the U.S. dollar tumbled. The dollar later recovered against major currencies.
How a reporter for an obscure, semiofficial Chinese news service managed to set off such chaos -- and losses for traders caught off guard by the market's gyrations -- is a tale of the modern electronic news media gone awry. Like the child's game of telephone, Ms. Guan's story hopped from one news outlet to another, changing significantly along the way. It also spotlights the jittery state of currency markets now that the U.S. is putting pressure on China to allow its currency to rise in order to help cut China's huge trade surplus with the U.S...
Ms. Guan, who says she has been a reporter for 20 years, was flabbergasted by the fuss. "I can't work out why it's got blown up like this," she said. She says that all she did was trawl through Hong Kong newspapers for views on how an appreciation of the Chinese currency would play in the city -- views that she attributed to "observers," not to the newspapers she was drawing from.
The online People's Daily got hold of her story and farmed it out to a translator who put it into English. The translation took her speculative musings and made them much more concrete. It stated that China had decided to revalue, by 1.26% within a month and 6.03% in 12 months. It gave no source for the story and neglected to mention China News Service. China News Service was set up in Beijing in the early years after the 1949 Communist revolution to channel news to Chinese living outside the country. It maintains close links to the Chinese State Council.
In London, yesterday morning, Bloomberg staff who monitor global currency markets were alerted to the People's Daily article. It was unearthed by software that Bloomberg uses to automatically search the Internet for new postings that contain key words.
The People's Daily article was written in clunky English, but the first sentence contained what could be construed as a major development: a revaluation of the yuan or an expansion of the band in which it trades "will be announced" after a meeting between Chinese and U.S. economic officials -- a meeting that actually did take place this week.
Based on the article, Bloomberg shot a headline around the world. An editorial staffer familiar with what happened said that before the Bloomberg story was published, a Bloomberg reporter contacted the People's Bank of China, and it declined to comment. (Later in the day, the bank denied the report.) Weighing that nonresponse along with the assumption that the People's Daily speaks for the Chinese leadership, Bloomberg decided to go with the story. "The key is that it's state-owned -- the People's Daily -- there it was on the Web site," said one Bloomberg staffer.
The Bloomberg story flashed across trading screens just as Asian currency traders were ending their day and European markets were opening...
It once was true that a story in the People's Daily really did have the imprimatur of the Chinese government. Foreign journalists would study every phrase in search of nuances that could signal a change of policy. But now the official Chinese media, under commercial pressure to compete, often in real time, sometimes struggle with basic accuracy. After all, reasoned J.P. Morgan's Mr. Piron, "The People's Daily is the mouthpiece of the government."
That logic helps explain why about $2 billion, by Mr. Piron's reckoning, was traded in the space of a few minutes after the Bloomberg story was issued. The widespread belief is that an appreciation of the Chinese yuan would trigger a wider revaluation of currencies around Asia, where central banks have been intervening massively to keep their currencies cheap and their exports competitive...
Bloomberg defended its handling of the story. "If China's government newspaper runs a story saying China is relaxing its currency peg, that is big news, and it's natural that it should be on Bloomberg," said Judith Czelusniak, Bloomberg's spokeswoman in New York. "We'd be remiss in not reporting it," she said. When the People's Daily announced their story was a poor translation "we reported that immediately," she added.
Reuters added to what turned out to be a chain of confusion. At one point, it flashed the news that Bloomberg was quoting the People's Daily as reporting a yuan appreciation.
It was the sudden downward movement in the U.S. dollar that caught the attention of reporters in the Singapore newsroom of Reuters PLC. "When the markets started moving, we covered that," says regional editor-in-charge Adam Cox.
Searching for a basis for the movement, he says, his team started hearing from currency-market traders that a Bloomberg report on China's yuan was responsible. When his team found a copy of the story, says Mr. Cox, publishing a Reuters version attributed to Bloomberg was an easy decision.
(Dow Jones Newswires, a financial news service owned by the publisher of this newspaper, did not publish a report of the supposed revaluation, nor did it pick up the Bloomberg report.)
After yanking the story, editors at the People's Daily online edition expressed regret, albeit defensively. "We are very sorry that the translation was not accurate -- it is our mistake," said one editor, who declined to be identified. But the editor also took a swipe at the China News Service: "Their reporter should be criticized. She put too many vague sentences in the story, which eventually caused our mistranslation."
There are several points here:
1. The Wall St Journal cannot help but take the high road over Bloomberg's mistake. Media hate missing a scoop, but love reporting a mistaken one. Schadenfrude.
2. The story demonstrates how the People's Daily gathers many of its articles. It acts as an aggregator...but usually without attribution. This wholesale and continual swiping of articles from others is not a good advertisement for China's IPR clampdown, nor does it reflect well on its major media outlets.
3. Xinhua has long been considered the only truly official outlet for the Government. New rule: if it's not on Xinhua, you need to check.
4. The poor reporter from Hong Kong who originally put the piece together basically had hobbled together some bits and pieces from a left-wing Hong Kong paper, the Ta Kung Po. Another demonstration of the recycling of news.
5. If you believed markets really were efficient, you need to ask yourself why this article caused such a big move. The article, even mistranslated, said the yuan would be revalued at exactly where the forwards had it priced. In other words, even if this was true it would be a case of the Government catching up to where the market already was. So if this information was already in the market, why would it move? Put it this way, if markets were truly efficient, there would be no such thing as a profitable finance industry.
6. The desperation for the next scoop seems to be coming at the cost of credibility. In a world that prizes speed above all else, you need to remember being first is not the same as being accurate.
7. The Chinese have already said they will make the revaluation a surprise. Announcing it a week in advance isn't a surprise.
8. Even when (it no longer seems an if) China revalues, what next? It won't solve America's trade deficit problems. What will politicians find to go after next? Why, another revaluation of course! Few have noticed the Chinese central bank limited offshoring (US dollar) borrowing by local banks and firms this week to again relieve pressure on the yuan. Without a liberalised capital account the revaluation means even less. Also little noted was Japan's foreign exchange reserves jumped another US$5 billion last month, to over US$840 billion. Where's the pressure on Japan? Oh that's right, that's soooooo 1980s.
There's plenty more by my plane is boarding. In the end the rule remains the same: don't believe everything you read.
If you believed markets really were efficient, you need to ask yourself why this article caused such a big move. The article, even mistranslated, said the yuan would be revalued at exactly where the forwards had it priced. In other words, even if this was true it would be a case of the Government catching up to where the market already was. So if this information was already in the market, why would it move? Put it this way, if markets were truly efficient, there would be no such thing as a profitable finance industry.
The (supposed) Chinese revaluation changed the rational expectation of investors of what China would do in the future. A Chinese government open to currency flexibility may trade the currency in a much wider range than one that doesn't.
Hi Simon,
I was reading your comments on the false alarm of China's RMB reform with great interest. Do you by any chance know where I can locate the English translation (on People's Daily) and the original Chnese-language story. Or maybe I should contact Stephen Green at Standard Chartered Bank instead.
I am currently researching news translation (English/Chinese) in the UK and find this piece of news fascinating and could turn out to be very useful materials.
The Eastern tunnel story refuses to die. Although the SCMP finally got its traffic disaster story...except it was chaos caused by storms, not the Cross-Harbour tunnel. Update Both Tom and Hemlock take issue with the lashing out at the Government due to the traffic chaos caused by the weather. Clearly in these godless times, Government has become the new God - that which is blamed for the unexplainable.
The SCMP reports Japan has translated its controversial history textbook into Chinese to prove it is "factual", with English and Korean versions to follow. It is available from the Japenese Soceity for History Textbook Reform website. Talk about adding fuel to an almost extinguished fire. Update: ESWN looks at the changes between the 2001 and 2005 editions of the textbook.
Cicero discusses a Guardian article about Huanxi, the scene of riots last month. Within my previous coverage I had linked to a Chinanews piece titled Huaxi Village: China's richest village written in December 2004. It does seem amazing that the Guardian's coverage is an echo of that previous piece, without mentioning the riots of last month at all. Especially when Jonathan Watts was the reporter on both pieces. It doesn't add up.
there are in fact two famous different villages named huaxi.
one of them is in jiangsu province, and is a famous economic model village.
the other is in zhejiang province,
and is the scene of the riot.
you can google them separately by adding the name of the province.
I think Bill Rice has jumped the geo-political gun so to speak on the Malaysia peice. I read the article he was quoting from closely, and nowhere does it mention that a U.S. military presence will be patrolling the Malacca strait. The news article only states that Robert Zoellick offered security aid and that the Malasyian defence minister made cooeing diplomatic noises as opposed to the usual rebuffs made (see Japan's recent overtures). The article doesn't mention at all whether or not Malaysia has accepted the U.S. offer and it is almost certain that it hasn't.
In any case, while the defense minister appears to be receptive, others in the Malaysian government are not. The New Straits Times reports that,
" Foreign Minister Datuk Seri Syed Hamid Albar said the ministerial-level meeting among the littoral states was crucial in ensuring their sovereignty as well as security of the waters.
Commenting on reports that the United States had offered to help Indonesia and Singapore with navy patrols, he said this was also vital in keeping away foreign mercenaries.
"We cannot allow mercenaries, civilians or armed guards to operate in the area. That is the responsibility of littoral states. Otherwise, they will be taking over the role of the navy and maritime agencies."
Simon. . . no offence, but I see there's a link at this end of this entry, after the " Posted by Simon at 12:23" part. If you don't know what I mean, I've saved the screen shot in my photobucket account and you can check it out at http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y11/angechrissy/screen.jpg
I've just clicked on the link and it directs me to a Japanese XXX site.
You work at an opinion polling firm. The boss strolls in with the week's assignments. You can imagine how many people jumped at this one:
From the SCMP:
Potty training in Hong Kong leaves a lot to be desired as a survey has found that one in five people do not wash their hands after using public toilets. Of the 371 public toilet users polled, 71 - or about 20 per cent - said they did not wash their hands. And here is the gender difference: 65 of them were men, according to People's Health Actions, an advocacy group, and the Hong Kong Toilet Association, which conducted the survey last month.
For the survey, volunteers...were sent to interview toilet users for eight to 10 hours at 20 public toilets on Hong Kong Island.
I'm sure no-one lied, either. I was wondering what those people with clipboards were doing hanging outside those toilets. I hope to God they were given gas masks to put up with the fumes.
are you skimping on the full survey results?
there were interesting statistics on average (and maximum) time spent on the number 1 and number 2 activities.
Every day Hong Kongers are practicising their welcoming slogan to the expected protesters for December's WTO meeting in Hong Kong: Sod off, swampy. Back in February I looked at the estimated costs and benefits of holding the December WTO meeting here. The Government estimated HK$100 million in tourism receipts against an estimated cost of HK$250 million. Not such a good return, given even Gweilofest cost only HK$100 million to stage.
However perusing Australia's Federal Budget this evening (thanks for the tax cuts, your top marginal tax rate is still only 31.5% higher than Hong Kong's) I noticed this line:
Australia's hosting of APEC 2007: Total cost A$215.3 million
The current $A/$HK exchange rate is close enough to 6:1. Australia is spending HK$1.292 billion on APEC 2007, a talkfest of declining relevence best known for its litany of silly shirts* (see below the fold). They must have some bloody good shirts lined up.
Hong Kong's getting a bargain!
* The APEC silly shirt gallery (please let me know if you find more):
Simon, seeing as APEC will be in Australia, you just know the shirt designs will be utterly repulsive, like something Ken Done's just thrown up (remember the Sydney Olympics volunteer uniforms?)
I know someone who is going to do well out of the WTO meeting. Quarterdeck Bar and Grill at Fenwick Pier. They are within the security zone. They expect to be completely booked out for the entire period.
The Global Voices project (and the impressive daily roundups) are part of the answer. The suggestion of "blog tours" for A-list bloggers is another. But I don't thing this puzzle has a full solution. The reality is blog readers go where they will; as Richard noted recently even links from A-lister Kevin Drum and Slate don't bring a noticeable jump in hits on topics such as China. I fear the problem is not just with bloggers but with the audience. Bloggers are more finely tuned to their readership (whether they admit it or not) than even the biggest of media companies. It's a function of the incredibly competitive marketplace that is the blogosphere. Bloggers don't become popular, in the main, by pointing to bloggers around the world. The readers aren't interested.
As much as we would like, we cannot force people to adopt a broader world view. It's frustrating that many cannot recognise there is a word outside their borders. One day that will change, whether the insular are ready or not.
I tried to read this post. But it didn't fit well with my world view and so I stopped. Maybe if someone else links to it I will!
Kidding, of course. In all seriousness, is this really a problem? Most people don't derive all their news from one source anymore. Blogs provide commentary on news and sometimes break news. I guess I'd be more concerned if no one picked up a newspaper and just read blogs.
Yesterday Danwei listed a collection of statistics on China's Golden week holiday. But as is so often the case, statistics in China aren't worth the paper they're written on. Numbers are servants of their masters, not ends in themselves.
Today's SCMP:
Officials deny falsifying holiday statistics
Tourism officials yesterday rejected allegations they had falsified figuers to show a boom during the just ended "golden week" holiday. Responding to claims by state media and academics, a spokeman for the State Administration of Tourism said there was no exaggeration of the national statistics jointly released by his administration and the State Bureau of Statistics.
"The figures were announced jointly by the most authoritative government ministries. How can they doubt the truthfulness of such statistics?" [Ed.- my emphasis]
...
Citing local tourism officials, the (China Daily) report said the figures were falsified at the instruction of local authorities to show a tourism industry boom during the holiday. A percentage increase was added to last year's figures "to avoid losing face in the competition with other provinces and disappointing higher-level authorities...Many provinces were impatient to release the statistics on the last day of 'golden week' holiday, and boast about marked increase in all of the statistics during the holiday."
As an aside, I find it interesting that both China and Japan can agree to call the holiday "Golden week", given the fragile and testy place names have in various disputes between them.
The article contains the seeds of the problem. Officials are judged by their numbers, not by their accuracy. Often the same official generates the numbers they are judged by. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to recognise the conflict of interest.
I'm reminded of a story from my university days when I was studying stats. A guest lecturer from an opinion polling firm gave a talk on his "real world" experience. Afterwards a few of us were talking and he revealed the truth: despite their best efforts to avoid it, often polling firms are told the desired outcome before the poll is conducted. Of course this man's firm was scupulous and refused to engage in such behaviour etc. But the truth is if someone is paying you and they want a particular result it puts the poller in a difficult position. The same applies to universities with fee paying students: their customers are literally expecting to get results.
In this case the answer is clear. Make stats the sole responsability of an independent agency answerable only to the Premier or President. Conduct open audits of information and publicly discuss data collection, calculation and adjustment techniques. In other words, give the data integrity.
Sometimes it will lead to a "loss of face". But if you're flying a jumbo jet, would you rather have the right numbers or be embarrassed you were wrong?
Despite numerous predictions overwise, China's currency was not revalued last week. May 18 looms at the next target date. Bear in mind the forwards imply interest rates as high as -28% at the moment - it ain't cheap betting against the yuan. Dinocrat also ponders a potential renminbi float.
Last week Hong Kong highest court freed 8 Falun Gong prisoners accused of assaulting police in a 2002 protest. As Riding Sun asks, will Beijing be able to resist interfering when it comes to the dreaded Falun Gong?
1. If you aren't comfortable with the idea of leaving your passport for 4 days with a South-East Asian Communist dictatorship, don't plan to visit Laos.
2. A one word movie review of The Interpreter: Don't.
3. Went to a walk around Central by Walk the Talk founders Stephan and David on Saturday (they also have Blog the Talk). An interesting walk although it seemed they were still testing out the material. More likely to be on interest for out-of-town tourists or new arrivals who would like a taste of the history of HK. I hope their idea takes hold - you simply buy a pack, dial a number from your mobile and enjoy the commentary. It's like those guided audio tours in museums. I'm looking forward to a forthcoming edition which guides people through the bars of Wan Chai. Now that's living history.
So I guess I saw the link to the Walk the Talk guys' blog here in the first place, since I was on that same walk on Saturday :-) As a newly-arrived out-of-towner, I found it quite interesting, although their presentation was a little uneven at times - and the streets of Central at the weekend aren't the absolute best place to give a history lecture. I did buy a copy of their Tsim Sha Tsui walk, which I'll probably do at the weekend...
Thank you both for coming, and glad to hear you enjoyed it overall. Apologies if at times we sounded a bit rusty - we've fallen into the trap of recording artists going back to doing live concerts after a hiatus...anyway, Simon, I'll definitely let you know if a Wanchai walk is forthcoming...:)
Senior lawyers yesterday described as worrying and shocking police attempts to raid the offices of the Legal Aid Department for sensitive documents. They said such actions risked breaching a cardinal principle of the rule of law - the guarantee of confidentiality to clients.
Jake van der Kamp, also in today's SCMP:
Bellicose Britain, confirming its warlike traditions, votes overwhelmingly for a government that has also abolished the right of habeas corpus. Ah well.
Google isn't as evil in China as they are often portrayed. It is a company that must operate within the parameters set in each country it is used. If you don't like the system, take it out on China's censors, not Google. And don't pin your hopes on Google being the tool to undermine the censor. They're a company, not an ideology.
Are you experiencing "link envy"? Why should you be upset that Kevin linked to a story most people don't know about? I had never heard about "freedom" being blocked this until I saw it at Washington Monthly, and according to all the comments, all his readers in China were shocked. If it is such common knowledge, why was everyone so surprised except you?
Simon, sorry that I (and the commenters on my blog) was unaware of the blocking of the F word in China. But don't you want the rest of the world -- especially those outside our own Asian blogosphere -- to know about it, too? I'd think you would want to thank Kevin for being one of the few superbloggers to write this up.
Will Kevin Drum link to me if I tell you Google won't return results for "triangle", "bitch" or "inc*st"?
I'm really curious why you wrote this. It doesn't sound like the Simon I've known and admired over the past two years.
I don't begrudge your link from Kevin Drum. My statement is a reflection of the frustration of getting recognition of these issues from so-called "top bloggers" and to demonstrate that there's a far bigger list of restricted words than just "freedom".
As you said, any publicity is good publicity. But I note you mention elsewhere the link didn't generate much extra traffic. Again it frustrates me that so many people who profess themselves concerned with freedom don't care for issues like this.
It isn't a reflection on you or your original post.
Simon, thanks a lot for clarifying. I though you were belittling me for not knowing that Freedom was a banned word. And you are quite right about the lack of interest from the big bloggers on this topic. Even the link from Slate failed to generate any traffic -- people see "China" and they skip to the next post.
it has been known for some time "freedom" is amongst the many words banned by China's net nanny
Actually, Simon, this ban hasn't been tightly enforced throughout China until recently. For one example, within the past two months, I could look up Freedom House's website for data and commentary, and most of the words on the CDT "ban" list were searchable from where I am. Not anymore. A pity.
Language experts agree that the best way to learn a language is to pick it up socially. Even the academic director of the Wall Street Institute's School of English, Tony Lee, admits that local Hong Kong people have a ready-made language centre waiting for them in the heart of Central. "There are English areas like Lan Kwai Fong. It's not a big place but we can take advantage of it," he said. Dr Lee said Hong Kong people could embrace the time-honoured trend of picking up a new language through dating, saying westerners frequently improved their Cantonese this way. He quickly added: "I do not suggest you meet a partner just to learn a language, but you should not be put off from making friends or meeting a partner because you don't speak English."...
But [Terence Loo Tai-ling, head of marketing and communications for Lan Kwai Fong Entertainments] agreed Lan Kwai Fong was the perfect place to brush up on your English. "The ideal way to learn a language is to practise it. It's more sociable and anyway, you always feel you can speak another language more fluently after two or three drinks."
Hong Kongers' English language ability is already under attack. Learning English from drunk expats in LKF will improve ability no end...and we'll have a city of slurrers. When they've finished their language courses they can head over to Wan Chai for some "culture".
I propose Shaky to run this new joint venture between Hong Kong Tourism, the Deparmtent of Education and the Cultural Services Department. Let the good times roll.
Naturally Hemlock takes issue with the integrity of the survey.
The news is grim this morning. ‘Hong Kong to collapse and disappear into obscurity as inhabitants take English less seriously than hunter-gatherers in Southeast Asian jungles’. According to a survey of such scientific integrity that it provides figures to two decimal places, a pitiful 50.79 percent of Hongkongers sometimes read English books or newspapers, versus 55.84 percent of Shakespeare-loving Thais. Even more shocking, only 61.2 percent of us in the fragrant harbour consider English to be important in education, business and employment, against 91.7 percent in the land of smiles. Looking through the report, I become curious. Where in Thailand did the researchers go to conduct this highly objective and academic inquiry? None of the overweight, middle-aged farangs guzzling beer in Patpong girly bars ever read anything, apart from the numbers on the dancers’ bikinis – so they obviously didn’t go there. Perhaps they asked folk in the Bangkok slums. I’m sure 91.729403 percent of them would reply ‘if we spoke English as well as people in Hong Kong, we wouldn’t be poor’.
And then what exactly is the Wall Street Institute, the important-sounding organization behind the study? I would shudder to think that they are just a pretentiously named language school, using the results of a meaningless opinion poll to create a non-news story to drum up business. The sort of place that hires English teachers with white faces but no relevant qualifications. Surely not. Otherwise, why would the South China Morning Post give them two whole columns on page three today?
Yet few bloggers pretend to represent the region, because few bloggers seem to be consciously trying to write "Asian" blogs. Instead, each blogger writes about his or her piece of Asia. The region comes out through the writing choices these bloggers make: in the locales from which they write, the dialects they use and the cultural icons they represent. Even while seeking their individual stamp, collectively, they are making choices that influence what comes to mind when others think of Asia.
Hong Kong's school debate championships covered the apt topic "The UN should admit Japan as a permanent member of the Security Council". ESWN covers the debate and what it shows about Hong Kong's attitude to Japan, freedom of speech and some debating tips.
Sunday is my birthday. It's also Mother's Day, so SF has got your Mother's Day needs covered.
Hong Kong's esteemed English newspaper of record continues to flog its dead horse: the tunnel congestion problem that didn't happen. Today's headline: Experts warn of time bomb as congestion threatens to build. The only time bomb is the day when the SCMP admits this story doesn't have legs.
Experts warn of time bomb as congestion threatens to build
Road congestion is expected to worsen today and transport experts are warning of a traffic "time bomb" unless urgent action is taken to better distribute vehicles among the three harbour tunnels.
The warning comes after Sunday's toll increase in the Eastern Harbour Tunnel sparked fears of gridlock on other routes. Today is expected to be particularly hectic, with Fridays usually the busiest day for delivery trucks and out of town travellers.
The Observatory has also forecast showers and thunderstorms, which could further slow traffic.
"Fridays are the busiest for goods vehicles because most companies try to get their orders before the weekend," said Stanley Chiang, chairman of the Lok Ma Chau Freight Association.
Traffic in the Western Harbour Tunnel and Cross-Harbour Tunnel stayed at the same level as of yesterday afternoon, but motorists continued to shun the eastern harbour route.
The Transport Department reported a 20 per cent drop, or 13,369 fewer vehicles, using the eastern route as of 8pm last night.
The number of cars using all three tunnels had fallen by 6 per cent, or about 7,600 vehicles, by 3pm compared with a normal Thursday. Many drivers have apparently taken to public transport amid dire warnings about traffic.
Hung Wing-tat, a Polytechnic University engineering professor who specialises in transport and traffic modelling, said traffic at the tunnels needs to be distributed evenly so resources were not wasted on the eastern and western routes. "It's a time bomb. If this problem isn't solved, it will continue to waste societal resources. We need to divert the traffic," he said.
Professor Hung said the government should take its own advice and solve the problem by raising the toll at the Cross-Harbour Tunnel in a profit-sharing agreement with the other tunnel operators.
Before I go on, I feel for the graphic artists at SCMP. Every day this week they've had to fill in the same template, outlining the traffic at each of the 3 tunnels. Today's example:
Each day the chart shows the same thing: traffic down in the Eastern tunnel but basically unchanged in the other two. The poor graphic artists are probably begging for any other assignment than another day of filling in the numbers. Same for the journalists assigned to the story.
All the fretting about traffic distribution can be easily solved with a toll rise in the Cross-Harbour tunnel and common sense.
Indeed Agnes Lam's Cab Chat, where the SCMP fills in a quarter page with the thoughts of local taxi drivers, today features Marco Yip:
I did a little survey myself after reading news reports about the increased toll for the Eastern Harbour Tunnel. I asked my customers if they would switch to other tunnels to avoid the expensive toll, and most of them told me time was the vital factor. They said they would not choose other tunnels unless they were in a hurry. And they would take the MTR if they had time. So, time is the most important consideration and money only comes second.
I think congestion problems at the Cross-Harbour Tunnel will not be solved because of its convenient location and it does provide the fastest route for going to Causeway Bay and Wan Chai. Hong Kong people are very good at adapting to the new environment. They will get used to the expensive toll very soon. Those private car drivers are only feeling furious and angry, and this is why they switch to other means of transport these days. I am sure they will use the Eastern Harbour Tunnel again after a while.
The Cross-Harbour Tunnel and the Eastern Harbour Tunnel will continue to be busy just like before. Though the traffic has been quite smooth in the past few days, I am sure the Cross-Harbour Tunnel will be very congested within one month. The traffic has been very well controlled in the past few days as the bus companies deploy extra buses and manpower at the stations in Hunghom and the government keeps reminding people to leave for work earlier.
The public just feel the urge to voice their anger against the new toll, but they will give in eventually. Who wants to get stuck in a traffic jam every day? I bet for sure drivers will choose the Eastern Harbour Tunnel once they calm down.
Time is also vital for taxi drivers. No driver can endure long waits in a queue. We can only make more money if we serve more customers, and congestion really affects our earnings. We are racing against time every day, and we cannot just sit around and wait to enter a tunnel that is troubled by congestion all the time.
While he isn't happy with the toll increase, he again demonstrates why Hong Kongers are the world's smartest people. Maybe the SCMP could offer Mr Yip his own column?
Despite no official announcement, word was passed around that to celebrate Starbuck's 5th birthday in Hong Kong there will be free coffees between 5pm and 6pm today. No doubt the clever PR person worked in the 05/05/05 angle.
That can mean only one thing: hundreds of people queuing for a free coffee. Your intrepid reporter photographed the queue at one Starbucks outlet in the city (below the fold). Let's assume these people earn HK$250,000 a year on average - likely on the low side. For an average 10 hour work day that equates to HK$68/hour. A coffee is around HK$25 at Starbucks (although I wouldn't know, I hate coffee with a passion). That is assuming it's not fake coffee.
But free is free.
Update: Giles reports the queue at 6:10pm (i.e. after the offer expires) was still snaking out the door, with plenty flocking from far and wide to join in.
Man, I hate coffee too! People don't believe I'm American. But the power of global marketing - sometimes I look at all these people sitting in Starbucks (and Pacific Coffee Co) and feel like I'm missing out on some kind of thing. Then I start to wish that I did like coffee, so I could join them and be fulfilled. And then I take another taste of coffee, spit it out and go on with my life.
Just an aside - but my cousin ordered up a coffee at Starbucks last month and got a mouthful of cleaning fluids. Scorched her vocal chords. Sounds like the stuff of urban legends, no?
Fons says not all guanxi are created equal. Connections do matter in Chinese business, but at the same timeit is easy for desperate Western businesses to be taken for a ride by frauds.
Faye Wong is not getting married...yet. Who do we thank for this news? Li Ya-peng's mother: the actor was forced to break his silence after his mother confronted him on whether he had secretly married the Beijing-born, Hong Kong-based singer.
(11:02) Hong Kong can forget about the West Kowloon Cultural District - we've got the Wan Chai artistic hub.
Odell shows me his Disney business card. Chief Guest Behavior Management Artist. He can’t hide his enthusiasm. “I’ll have a tall blonde girl as an assistant and these seven midgets with beards. The rules for visitors are simple. If they spit, they have to get on their hands and knees and wipe it up. If they smoke, they have to kneel on broken glass wearing a dunce’s cap. And if they push or shove or cut into a line – and it’s just hard-wired into some of these guys – they get a taste of the electric cattle prod and have to write a self-confession.†I’m impressed, but not totally surprised. Disney runs a tight ship. Look how methodically Mickey and Donald ate Western civilization. And now – who’s next? “Exactly,†agrees Odell. “That’s the motto on our T-shirts – ‘Don’t fuck with The Mouse’. In simplified characters.â€
(13:33) Today is election day in the UK. In the midsts of the campaign, the Armed Services Minister took some time out to answer Harry's concerns on swearing in the military. Nice to see British taxpayers' money at work.
Economics is called the dismal science for a reason. Tyler Cowen uses game theory on how to deal with torture. He misses the most obvious course of avoiding torture: subject your captors to a lecture on game theory.
Hemlock perfectly sums up that multinational corporation called Greenpeace:
A good couple of decades after the death of environmentalism, Greenpeace founder Bob Hunter passes away. Silent Spring was published in 1962 and written by someone born in 1907. (How many more people have died of malaria since the ban on DDT boosted mosquito numbers? Never mind.) By the time the Cuyahoga River last caught fire in 1969, it was already being cleaned up, with fish returning for the first time in decades. Greenpeace was formed just as the bandwagon was slowing down in the early 1970s. Thanks to impressive publicity stunts, it became the darling of the vegetarian-Tibet-organic-pacifist- whales-feminist-alternative scene of the 70s and 80s, attracting millions in donations. Hunter had left the organization by the time of its finest moment, in 1985, when the mighty and heroic French secret service saw fit to blow up the Rainbow Warrior.
In 1995 Greenpeace falsely claimed that Shell was going to sink the Brent Spar oil rig in the North Sea without draining it of pollutants. A gullible press publicized this lie, leading to a consumer boycott that cost the company – a core holding for many retirees – millions. The activists mumbled an apology. In 1999 Canada refused the group charitable status on the grounds that its activities served ‘no public interest’. Since then, Greenpeace has petrified Europeans by suggesting that genetically modified foods endanger their health. Seven thousand years ago, when the Incas first started cultivating crops, a cob of corn was an inch long. With no valiant environmentalists to stop them, greedy Incan corporatist biotech interests subjected the plant to selective and cross-breeding, leaving us with the unnatural foot-long monsters we now eat. Today’s technology can produce food of higher nutritious value in greater abundance with less pesticide and fertilizer – much to the benefit of the Third World. But Greenpeace fights it, putting its militant anti-capitalist, anti-imperialist and anti-science agenda first.
In Hong Kong, the city where trendy fads crawl to die, Greenpeace activists dress up in gas masks, protective suits and thick gloves, march into supermarkets, and emerge holding a packet of crackers in tongs – displaying it to dim-witted TV reporters as if it’s a lump of plutonium. How many of these people are evil, and how many cretins? Judging by their looks, I would say the ratio is probably ten to one. Bob Hunter was neither, but the world would surely be a better place if he had been a PR executive for Monsanto.
There was nothing heroic about the sinking of the Rainbow Warrior. And who cares if Shell is a "core holding of many retirees"? That has never, nor should ever be a reason for not taking a stand against a corporation. Besides, Shell's behaviour in Nigeria has been far from exemplary.
But on the point of the genetically modified food, I do agree.
It's clear he's joking about the Rainbow Warrior. As for Shell, he is right that Shell's sinking of the Brent Spar rig was in fact the best environmental outcome but that Greenpeace and others used it to whip hostility based on irrational fears but not the facts. His point on shareholders is to demonstrate that attacks on companies like Shell impact on the shareholders, many of whom are retirees - it's not just a faceless multinational (although Greenpeace is).
Point taken on Shell in Nigeria. But most of Hemlock's points here are right on the money.
Gordon's site is not blocked at all. When it is blocked, it is blocked everywhere in China. Anyway, the censor is on holiday, so pretty hard to get blocked these days. Feeling blocked is a common mental state among foreign internet users in China. Psychological help might be needed.
After my recent experience of being blocked in a middle-eastern country, I'm thinking of coming up with stickers/decals that go something like:
"Proudly blocked in "
Well, I'm still not able to access your site directly and it seems that they've found a way to block it through my rss feed reader too, because it shows up with a little "!" just like it does with the BBC.
However, I am able to arrive here through your profile on another page. Email me if you want to know where it is.
I am [not] surprised the censors are working this week
This is automatic keyword blocking; culprit seems to be your China's K. post - when that scrolled off the front page, things went back to normal (try this at home, kids, and you'll probably find that link inoperable). Since I can't load it up from Beijing, I'm not too sure what keywords, precisely, you misused...
[Posting now that simonworld is accessible after 10 minutes of blockage after trying the K link]
How many police officers does it take to deliver a defendant to the High Court in Hong Kong? By my count this morning, 32. On a semi-regular basis the traffic is blocked on Queensway while a dozen motorcycle cops and several police vans deliver the defendant. Dare I suggest overkill?
Meanwhile, the SCMP continues to deal with the tunnel problem that isn't. Today's non-headline: Tunnel chaos fails to materialise. Tomorrow's predicted headline: Paper drags out non-story for third day.
You may have noticed the new ad slots in the left sidebar. Blogging is one of those ventures that suffers from dis-economies of scale: the bigger a blog gets, the more expensive it is to run. Please give these reasonably priced ads a try (price list below the fold). Just go to Textads and signup. If you intend to buy something via Amazon, please consider using the search box on this page as I get a small commission on such purchases. Alternatively you can click through on some of the Google ads that appear on individual entries. Finally there is the Paypal donation button should you feel inclined to send a few bucks into the piggy bank.
All the revenues raised go into improving this site, funding it and new ventures. I am trying to keep them relatively unobtrusive. Any suggestions, comments or feedback are welcome.
Price list (in US dollars):
CPM: $2.00 per thousand page impressions (these ads are shown X number of times before expiring)
CPC: $0.20 per click (these ads are shown until they have been clicked X number of times)
Timed ads: $10.00 per week
There is a minimum purchase of $10 per individual ad.
I found textads to be a complete waste of time. They kept trying to push things on me which I didn't (and don't) want to be associated with such as: a smear campaign against a dentist; ads for online casinos; spam and associated products; etc.
Things would show up in my advertising bar which I'd have deleted if they showed up in the comments. Not good.
Also, I made almost no money from it.
I found that Google Adsense (https://www.google.com/adsense/home) was far more effective. Ads are chosen which match the content of the page and I've never seens anything objectionable there.
After days of eager anticipation, Hong Kong's media were disappointed by the world's smartest people avoiding the predicted traffic chaos of the Cross-Harbour tunnel. But there was a promise of chaos to come: the apparent lull was due to the fact that many factories in China were still closed for the May Day holidays and heavy lorries and container trucks would not be back on the roads until next week.
The SCMP has spent days preparing for the chaos, only to be forced to run photos of free-running traffic and people using trains; a time line of yesterday's peak hours with the stunning news that at 9:15am there was "No congestion on Kowloon side"; reports the MTR and ferries all had significantly more passengers; school students got to their exams on time; and best of all an article rehashing the results of an economics professor's findings that the raised toll will cost the city money. Fumier effectively dealt with the professor's findings a few days back.
But that doesn't stop the SCMP. Today's loaded "Talkback" topic: "Is it reasonable for the tunnel company's profit to come at a cost to society?" Are they prepared for the answers? Why stop at the tunnel company? Is it reasonable for any company to profit at a cost to society? From now on, all companies should provide their products cost-free so society can benefit. I expect my subscription will soon be refunded as the SCMP becomes a free paper, thus avoiding profit at a cost to society. The SCMP: Hong Kong's bastion of anti-capitalism.
The SCMP also posts a woolly editorial (reproduced below the fold) under the headline "Solution must be found to tunnel problem". It ends with this: Common sense prevailed yesterday. But a long-term solution must still be found. Dare I say common sense could be the long-term solution, too? The editorial says The objective must be to secure control over toll prices at the three tunnels so that the traffic flow can be regulated. See, they're for renationalisation. They're not just anti-capitalist, they're Communists!
Do the editorial writers read Jake van der Kamp's Monitor column in their business pages? His article is also in full below but the key paragraph: What is it with this dilly-dallying about an obvious measure? [Ed. - raising the Cross-Harbour tunnel toll] It could be done with ease in 1999. It can be done now. Yes, Jake, but at a cost to society. Your paper would not approve.
Chris points out public transport has long been cheaper and as convenient as driving in this city. It's a shame that Hong Kong's commuters show common sense while the newspapers and Government have none.
Solution must be found to tunnel problem
The predicted cross-harbour traffic chaos, resulting from an increase in tolls for the Eastern Harbour Tunnel, did not materialise yesterday. It was a victory for common sense - and provides much food for thought.
But serious congestion will soon arise unless the pragmatic and responsible approach adopted by motorists yesterday can be sustained. And that is probably too much to hope for.
The nightmare scenario had been that vehicles would shun the eastern route and head in large numbers for the cheaper Cross-Harbour Tunnel on the first working day after the toll rise. This, it was feared, would bring traffic to a virtual standstill in the centre of the city. There were concerns that ambulances would not be able to respond promptly to emergency calls and that schoolchildren would be late for their exams.
The reality yesterday was very different. The number of vehicles using the Eastern Harbour Tunnel plunged, as had been expected. But there was no surge in traffic using the more central alternative. The Transport Department's website reported that conditions at the Cross-Harbour Tunnel were normal. Many motorists, alerted by government warnings to the likelihood of long delays, decided to start their journeys earlier or leave their cars at home. There were thousands of extra passengers on the MTR. Buses were busier than usual and extra trains were laid on to cope with the demand. There were fewer vehicles on the roads - and therefore less pollution.
A lesson to be learned from this commendable reaction to the threat of a cross-harbour crisis is that Hong Kong does not stop working when people leave their cars behind and use alternative means of transport. This is a positive development. It would be good if it happened every day.
It is, however, likely that motorists will start using the Cross-Harbour Tunnel in greater numbers once they realise that the congestion has not been as bad as anticipated. There is still a need to find a solution to the inability of the government to manage the traffic flow. The problem arises because the eastern and western harbour tunnels are both in private hands. The government was powerless to stop the owners of the eastern tunnel steeply increasing its tolls on Sunday.
Only the Cross-Harbour Tunnel is publicly owned. It is the most popular route and, if market forces prevailed, should be the most expensive. But due to political pressure, the government has kept tolls at this tunnel low. The result is a distortion of the traffic flow. The Cross-Harbour Tunnel is too popular - and terribly congested at peak times.
The government has put forward a wide range of alternative ways the problem could be dealt with. The objective must be to secure control over toll prices at the three tunnels so that the traffic flow can be regulated. This might involve an expensive buy-back of the two that are in private hands. A new company could be established that would own all three. These options would take quite a lot of time to implement. It has also been suggested that the government build a fourth cross-harbour tunnel. This is not a sensible option. The three that already exist are not used to capacity. We do not need a fourth.
Extending the franchises of the eastern and western tunnels, in return for lower tolls, is another option. But it would not provide a long-term solution, nor would offering concessions to drivers using the more expensive routes - although this might help in the short-term. The government may want to consider increasing the tolls at the Cross-Harbour Tunnel during peak hours while it considers the way ahead. It would have to overcome strong opposition from lawmakers. But the alternative is to sit back and wait for the predicted chaos to occur.
Common sense prevailed yesterday. But a long-term solution must still be found.
Jake van der Kamp's Monitor column
Government can raise toll and revenue by revisiting tunnel vision
"...the administration has pointed out the positive impact on traffic management of the proposed toll increase. It is expected that with the proposed CHT (Cross-Harbour Tunnel) toll increase, 10,000 private cars will be diverted to the Eastern Harbour Crossing and the Western Harbour Crossing per day. This will greatly relieve the traffic congestion in the vicinity of CHT" Legislative Council paper
Ahem, yes, I did forget to mention one thing in quoting the excerpt above. That Legco paper was published in 1999. It dates back to the time the government resumed ownership of the Cross-Harbour Tunnel and decided forthwith to double tolls for private cars to $20.
The paper was also forthright about another reason for it - "The administration's reason for the toll increase ... is to raise revenue."
Of course, the usual dissenting voices had their say in Legco, most of them the same people now protesting against the Eastern Harbour Crossing's toll increase, and with the same objections - it is too big an increase, the time is not right, it is unfair to the travelling public.
All of it was to no avail. The protests were brushed aside and the measure was approved.
We shall ignore the objective of raising revenue. The government has now pretty much balanced its books again and does not really need the money. But if raising tolls on the Cross-Harbour Tunnel made sense on traffic management grounds in 1999, it does so even more now.
With the eastern crossing's tolls now up to $25 a car, how can we rebalance use of the harbour tunnels so the one in the middle, the most heavily used one, is not pushed too far beyond overcapacity with severe implications for traffic jams on either side?
The government has given itself 12 options for achieving this, including such things as buying out the private ownership of the other two tunnels (much too costly), extending their franchise (not a bad idea), forcing the other two to lower their fares (legally impossible) and building another tunnel (straight out of Fantasyland).
But the most obvious solution, raising tolls on the Cross-Harbour Tunnel, the one tunnel the government owns outright, was given short shrift.
According to a government press release, Deputy Secretary for Environment, Transport and Works Annie Choi concedes that "an overall increase in Cross-Harbour Tunnel tolls is the most direct and effective way to curb traffic. But considerable opposition from users is expected and it would require amendments to the Road (Government) Regulations."
This has me scratching my head. Did "considerable opposition from users" stop the government from deciding to double the tolls in 1999?
Is there not an even greater traffic management reason for raising them now? Get on with things and make that amendment, Ms Choi.
And if you think there may be justice in protests that a higher toll on the Cross-Harbour Tunnel is unfair, here are two points to consider.
We shall leave tolls for goods vehicles and buses aside for the moment (although there is equally good reason why they should go up). Let us consider only cars, for which the starting toll was $5 in 1972.
Now look at the first chart. The blue line represents the actual toll since that time (I am not absolutely certain that there was no increase pre-1984. We are talking ancient history here). The red line shows what it would have been if that toll had kept pace with inflation. It would now be more than $34.
The second chart shows you that cars in Hong Kong are still a luxury for the rich. There are fewer than six of them on the road for every 100 people. For an economy as wealthy as ours you would ordinarily expect the ratio to be nearer that of the United States.
There are reasons why that ratio is what it is, but it still says that those who would bear the cost of higher car tolls could probably afford it.
What is it with this dilly-dallying about an obvious measure? It could be done with ease in 1999. It can be done now.
The real meaning of laowai (via TPD). This past weekend I was discussing the word gweilo, a similarly pejorative term. But like many other such terms when those so labelled claim the term for themselves it loses its old sting and renders it neutral. An example of this is queer.
Where is China's Khrushchev? Will there be a Chinese leader brave enough to question Mao's legacy and begin the de-Maoification of China's Communist Party? Can China continue to avoid facing its modern history?
The sooner the de-deification of Mao begins the better. But how? Where is China's Khrushchev?
When you mention the title "Where is China's Khrushchev", someone's name will come up automatically. Sorry, that position is filled already.
Once upon a time during the cultural revolution, Liu Shaoqi was initially attacked not by name but as China's Krushchev. Everybody knew who it was, see for example this poster:
http://www.isop.ucla.edu/eas/images/khrush.htm
Nikita Krushchev was known in China not for his speech against Stalin, but for revisionism. That is what everyone will think of immediately. So you should look for another iconic figure other than Krushchev.
I'm more thinking of a circuit-breaker, a big name making the big speech renouncing Mao and what he did. And I don't think it's at 30%...more like 10%.
ESWN - point taken but it is Krushchev's deed I'm pointing to, not the man himself. It is revisionism - that's the whole point. China needs to adress it's view of Mao in history.
Well, it was a secret speech Nikita made. So who's to say it hasn't secretly happened in China?
I would suggest the book, 'The Tiananmen Papers' by Zhang Liang as a step in Krushchev's direction. The book was smuggled out of China and is purportedly authored by someone who was a part of the debate on how to handle the Tiananmen protests. It's reveals deep divisions at the top of the Chinese leadership.
It doesn't address Mao's horrors, but it does address Tiananmen. Some dispute its authenticity, but it is largely thought to be real. Of course, the real watershed moment would be a public disclosure of Maoism and Tiananmen's horrors. Not happening.
Yes, Praktike, Deng Xiaoping should count! Deng said 'to hell with ideology', a direct repudiation of Mao's SOP. But then, after much dilly-dallying, he crushed the demonstrators in Tiananmen, just as Khrushchev, after much dilly-dallying and Thatcherlike spine-strengthening advice from Chinese leaders, crushed the Hungarian revolt. Khrushchev only looks better because hindsight gets sharper with distance.
Have u ever been to China? have u ever learned about Chinese modern history?
well, i'm from China. and there were actually many people or leaders that are, as u called, china's khruchnev. and china's situation is completly different than the soviet's. Mao was not entirlly like Stalin.
New Hong Kong blog: Blog the talk. By the gents behind Walk the Talk, it covers history, architecture, identity and collective memory in urban spaces in Hong Kong and Macau. For example for May Day they take a look at Communists in Hong Kong. A site to watch.
While on Hong Kong blogs, it's good to have Phil of Flying Chair back in action.
Michael Auslin of Yale writes in IHT on the recent anti-Japan riots and says the current squabbles are a reflection of growing competition amongst emerging Asian powers. These powers (Japan, Korea, China) are working out how to relate to each other in this "new world order". Sooner or later they will realise they have more in common than they first suppose. For example it is in China's longer term interest for Japan to join it in the Security Council.
Bruce notes the KMT and Communists have finally made peace. It is remarkable. At the same time, however, it is also remarkable that an opposition party to be making contacts with an effective enemy of the state, undermining the duly democratically elected Government. In a very real sense it is subversive. While the aim of peace and reconciliation is laudable it seems to me the KMT is deliberately undermining President Chen. But that's the point.
Had dinner last week with Mr Brown, Miyagi, Cowboy Caleb and James Seng. Good beer, good satay and a good discussion. Singapore's blogosphere have their act together and are going through some exciting times - Tomorrow has been a great success.
Hong Kong's birth rate is the lowest in the world. I hope The Don's 3 child policy implements immediate tax breaks for those of us with 3 kids already.
MM has an interview from US Air Force Lt. Col. Mark Stokes, who was the USA's Defence country director for Taiwan for 7 years. He has some alarmist views on China's threat to Taiwan. Of course Taiwan is considering a massive purchase of US arms...
(12:39) Hong Kong's blogosphere proves the local mainstream media wrong when they try and cover the local blogging scene. Also Glutter tells the details of a TV interview she had that was severely edited. She intends to post the uncut version soon.
(14:05) Singapore uses defamation as an effective tool to supress free speech. A Singaporean blogger has closed their blog (one I regularly read) after facing threats of legal action. Naturally plenty of bloggers have been commenting and reacting, saying it is a sad day for Singaporean blogs. Sadly it has become another excuse to attack "big shot" Singapore bloggers for not being serious enough. And that misses the point entirely. The blogosphere is big enough to have many different voices. The whole point is those concerned with the "serious" can talk about it. Those who aren't can talk about whatever else they like. There's no point being judgemental. You can choose to visit or not visit any site you like. It's their website, their effort, their money that goes into it. If you are concerned, go write your own blog. Hell, some of those big shot blogs will likely link you soon enough.
Miyagi introduces the latest blogging tool: Graffiti.
Danwei has a good collection of China related links including fake management books, the Chinese cost myth and the origins of ice cream. They also note Mark Steyn is with me in the quietly optimistic camp on China.
A Chinese journalist, Shi Tai, was sentenced to 10 years in prison for illegally providing state secrets. ESWN looks into what were the "state secrets" involved.
Thank you to everyone else who also linked and visited.
As I did last month, some stats for April:
* 19,928 unique visitors made 46,835 unique visits, reading a total of 92,802 pages and drawing 7.45 GB of bandwidth.
* This equals 1,562 visits per day reading 3,093 pages each day. In other words each visitor read 1.93 pages on average. Each visitor returned on average 2.35 times during the month.
* 777 added this site their to favourites. 160 subscribe via Bloglines and 49 via Feedburner.
* 61.7% of you use IE, 21.8% Firefox, 3.2% Safari, 2.3% Mozilla, 2.1% Opera and 1.1% Netscape to browse this site. 85% of you use Windows, 6.2% Mac, 1.3% Linux.
* 13.5% of visits were via search engines, of which Google was 61.5% and Yahoo 26.3%. The top search phrases were "Hong Kong Disneyland", "Nancy Kissel" and "China's Population". Curiously 157 people searched for Simon World via search engines and landed at this site. I've got that top spot all tied up.
* The most visited individual pages were the "China/Japan tensions", "Best Singapore Blog" and "China's other riots".
My last post: three short messages and a personal note.
- Pu Zhiqiang's letter is, in my opinion, one of the most important (and bravest) political documents written by a Chinese over the last years. It's a shame it got so little attention.
- I quite understand why CCP is so scared of the spreading of democratic feelings all around. If in China, it would mean the end of its monopolistic rule. What I'll never understand (as if butter wouldn't melt in my mouth) is why so many people here and elsewhere share the same fear, ending up by parroting the same stale rhetoric.
Leave despots alone with their nightmares, guys. Let freedom ring. Don't be afraid.
Tyranny and its consequences are not facts of life. They are crimes.
It's the fundamental issue of our time: there are no excuses.
- To expat bloggers, usually so kind towards CCP dictatorial regime and so timid (with few exceptions) in denouncing it: you have a great responsibility and a great opportunity. Please, don't waste it.
Personal note: last summer I visited China with my girlfriend. Needless to say, it was one of the most interesting experiences of my life. We took more than 500 pictures: some of them are collected here, in my trip account (in italian). Every link is a photo. So, if you want, enjoy them and give me your feedback.
Thank you, readers. Thank you, Simon. I hope I haven't broken anything.
One of the problems of letting people guest blog on your site is they may show you up and I fear my talented guest bloggers did just that. I would be very appreciative if you have any feedback on any or all of the guest bloggers. I am working on ways to make the arrangement more permanent as the site benefits from a wider diversity of views and sources.
And there seemed to be many pics of hot looking women on the site. Curious. Your guest bloggers wouldn't possibly have been men would they? Men that aren't interested in the Asian equivalent John Cusack?
I'm just saying.
-H
(PS-seriously. They did a good job. Next time suggest you choose bloggers that spell using skater talk and bad grammer (like "thats so gr8!"), as you may indeed then be certain you will never be shown up by talented bloggers. Just a thought.)
Hong Kongers are purported to have the highest average IQ on Earth. Thus we are the perfect group to finally find that holy grail: the precise equation between time and money.
The tolls at Hong Kong's Eastern tunnel rose yesterday to HK$25, causing traffic chaos as even more cars used the Government owned HK$20 Cross-Harbour tunnel instead. Protests continue as much head-scratching amongst the great and good attempts to solve the "congestion problem" at the Cross-Harbour tunnel.
High IQed Hong Kongers will soon realise there are trade-offs to be had. Yes the toll is $5 more but there is now much less traffic, ensuring a quicker journey. There is less aggrivation from sitting in an hour long traffic jam plus the savings in petrol. On the other side if the private tunnel operators realise the higher tolls are causing a big drop in traffic they will quickly see a drop in profitability from falling revenue. The Government could help by imposing a peak-hour congestion charge for using the Cross-Harbour tunnel of HK$5, with the proceeds dedicated to improved public transport links.
It remains to be seen if the average high IQ Hong Konger can work all this out themself.
Meanwhile in Hong Kong Disneyland watch: the SCMP reports Disney is preparing to face its biggest challenge.
Smoking outside designated areas and spitting are expected to top the list of undesirable behaviour at Disney's Hong Kong theme park, despite efforts to educate guests who may be unfamiliar with park etiquette. "This is a challenge we have to face. We have to cope with it. We cannot fine them, but we can ask them to leave," a senior company source said.
Disney will also give each customer a brochure on proper behaviour in the park.
A guest post by Kelvin, because Simon hasn't stopped the party yet. :P
The Communist Party of China is an incredible entity: one moment it'd look like a bumbling buffoon, the next moment it's whipping the butt of its political opposition. Of course, the people of Hong Kong already well know how good the CCP is at making its opponents look like jerks. Now the folks in Taiwan get a glimpse of the CCP's dexterity. Consider, for example, how A-Bian and the DPP gets totally creamed by the CCP and KMT on the issue of the mainland's guided missiles:
In the press release from the President's Office, President Chen Shui-bian wishes Lien Chan a successful trip, and reminds Lien does not have authorization from the government, and cannot legally sign any agreement with the mainland related to national sovereignty or government authorities. Chen also anticipates meeting with Lien after his return to Taiwan.
Step two: the DPP admonishes Lien for, um, not doing anything serious.
Hu Jintao and Lien Chan agreed to work toward resuming talks, avoiding a military confrontation, and strengthening trade and investment relations. But Joseph Wu [Minister for the Mainland Affairs Council] points out that these are empty promises, and says that Lien's visit can be said to be the “five nots”: not making mainland China recognize the truth in the existence of the “Republic of China,” not making mainland China correctly understand the value of democracy and freedom in Taiwan, not making mainland China reduce its belligerence toward Taiwan and lowering its missile threat, not giving Taiwan the freedom to participate internationally with dignity, and not making mainland China correctly understand the extreme displeasure of the people of Taiwan against the Anti-Secession Law and non-peaceful methods.
Media in Taiwan are reporting that during Lien Chan's meeting with Hu Jintao, the issue of a cross-strait “peace agreement” came up. Hu actively proposed that if both sides returned to the foundations of the “Understanding of 1992,” eliminate belligerence, and both sides sign a peace agreement, then the mainland “can naturally remove the missiles.” The KMT side, however, understanding that they do not have government authorization, did not approach or reply to the offer.
End result:
CCP: look great by showing magnanimity, especially after the Anti-Secession Law.
KMT: look great by showing willingness to work with others, gain brownie points by being able to claim that the DPP are getting in the way of progress.
DPP: look bad by seeming like obstructionist ideologues who wouldn't let partisan bickering go in favour of the people's well-being.
EastSouthWestNorth has more on the impact of the CCP's new approach and how it's affecting Taiwanese politics.
CPC: Look good to one China types and bad to Taiwanese independence types.
KMT: Look good to one China types and bad to Taiwanese independence types.
DPP: Look bad to one China types and good to Taiwanese independence types.
Which is really not a major change from the status quo. The only major change is that the KMT is now holding hands with the CPC, realizing that the CPC is better equipped to realize the KMT's original vision: that of a unified, authoritarian China.
Which the DPP doesn't like. Again, not a major change.
Yah when you read the polls posted on ESWN, they're still split on partisan lines, but there's hints that independents are, at the very least, curious, and DPP supporters aren't totally dismissing the Lien visit. But this is just the first step: if you look at HK you really get the sense of what the CCP is trying to accomplish, and that is to slowly delegitimize its opponents. Pan-democrats expected big gains in the last LegCo election (gains that will overcome their inherent institutional disadvantage), but came up short. Likewise, this thing puts the brakes on pan-green momentum after the Anti-Secession Act. Remember that there were plenty of ROC flags (representing pan-blues) flying at that Taipei rally too: I doubt those faces will be as willing to play softball with A-Bian anymore.
I agree that this has been quite a coup for the KMT, and that the DPP have come out of it looking petty. However, I really don't buy into this "Chen Shui Bian is looking increasingly isolated" idea ... from an international (or mainland Chinese) perspective, that may be true; but from an internal Taiwanese politics perspective it's not.
Consider this equivalent situation: internationally GWB has looked increasingly isolated over his support for the war in Iraq. And yet he got reelected as a result of that war. (Replace GWB with John Howard, or Tony Blair in a week, and the statement is the same).
It'll be interesting to see how the KMT handle the relationship with the CCP in the future. A delicate relationship, if ever i've seen one!
Yah I can see your point about A-Bian not being isolated. But as I've said, this is a long-run thing. And the Iraq analogy is quite good, because if there is anything that the Lien visit accomplished, it's to rally the base on both sides.
![[boomerang]](http://simonworld.mu.nu/boomerang2.gif){kind=small}
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by Loung Ung, the story of a young girl living through the horrors of the Khemer Rogue. This personification of history has taught me far more than any number of textbooks.
