Damn it - if only I was born 30 years later.

The stats assume that the one-way permit holder trend will continue. There are 150 PRC citizens allowed in each day, most of which are adult women. This initiative allows mainly wives to join husbands and let's assume they will build families. I would expect that once the husbands are reunited with their PRC spouses, and that the female imbalance is clearly recognized, that the HKSAR authortities will make a change. I said 'expect'. It would be highly unusual that the authorities would allow some form of demographic time bomb explode here, so don't get too wound up, too early.

"with only 698 men to cater to the needs and desires of 1,000 women."

Well, I'm doing my bit.

Philip Bowring is related to Governor Bowring. Source - himself.

Don't know about the Standard reporter though.

Good to hear, Conrad, although despite the efforts of Ho Kom-Tong, Fuk-Tong and his descendants (including one casino tycoon), polygamy remains illegal...:)

Thanks anon for the link between the Bowrings. That has always aroused my curiosity...

Yes, it is indeed an important cause for people living in Asia, particularly in China. My father was a hepatitis B carrier because he inherited it when he was born from his mother. Both my grandmother and my father died from hepatic cellular carcinoma (liver cancer), which developed out of their cirrhotic livers. I greatly admire you for promoting this cause, and will do what I can to help. I had not heard of Answer to Cancer before.

I still don't know why islamic people hate pigs so much... anyway, this is really dirty...

Everything would be solved if only muslims simply got a taste of delicious barbeque jerked pork! My mouth is watering even now.

This reminds me a little of the rugby sevens. Protests because they eat dog. Who are we to impose on anothers beliefs?

The Chinese in Africa thing is much better sourced than the Menzies argument about Chinese in the Americas. Nicholas Kristof, at the New York Times, is a big promoter of this factoid. He's probably right, but, as you note, the significance of it is a great deal less than either he or the Chinese make of it.

Hi Jonathan,

Point taken, I should have been more specific when spearating fact from speculation. I do believe the Chinese voyages of discovery made it to Africa (although I'm not sure how far they got up the West African coastline).

What I wanted to highlight was that much is being made of what appears even superficially to be very tenuous 'proof' in order to illustrate China's benign intentions in foreign relations and the vastness of those relations in history.

But then again, what China has done is not so different, really from myths about Portugal's Prince Henry the Navigator, which I blogged about a few weeks ago on my own site.

Let's see how successful this Zheng He PR campaign turns out to be! I wonder if Mugabe has mentioned it in his ongoing visit. Certainly Singapore has made a great deal of the history of Zheng He (plastered on posters all along Orchard Road), given the admiral's visits to nearby Malacca, once even with an Imperial Chinese Princess in tow for marriage to the local ruler. But his visits to that region are unquestionably fact.

Dave (and others), check out this link to a book debunking (or at least casting serious doubt on) Menzies' claims: "1421" Voyages: Fact and Fantasy [monograph Number 1] by Rivers, P. J.(http://www.selectbooks.com.sg/titles/36572.htm)

Another interesting book at:
http://www.selectbooks.com.sg/titles/36905.htm

Zheng He and the Treasure Fleet 1405-1433

"The Chinese admiral Zheng He undertook seven remarkable voyages in the early 15th century to Melaka, Indonesia, Sri Lanka, the Malabar Coast, the Persian Gulf and the Swahili Coast of Africa."

The "Swahili Coast" is on East Africa, where Kenya is and the region where Mwamaka Sharifu, who comes from an island off Kenya, belongs to. But as to West Africa..I certainly won't go as far as that.

It is true that Zheng He did explore and sail through vast (relatively, for his time) areas of Southeast Asia to East Africa.
My stand is that, however, all else is pure speculation at this point.

Thanks for the link Rick. As I mentioned, my issue is not with the fact that Cheng Ho visited Tanzania and East Africa, but with the tenuousness of the connections with which a new global PR campaign is being launched, and the self-congratulatory tones in which I am now hear that America was 'discovered' by the Chinese before Columbus. It just seems that a light skinned girl on an island that has a village called Shanga on it doesn't really mean or prove much.

I agree that the voyages of Zheng He are interesting in of themselves, and the realities of those documented voyages are far more interesting than speculative connections now being generated about bloodlines and discoveries.

I wonder what the Chinese Govt would make of the fact that the great admiral was a Muslim!!

I wonder what the Chinese Govt would make of the fact that the great admiral was a Muslim!!
Posted by Fabian at July 28, 2005

That the Chinese practiced religious tolerance in the 15th century while Europeans were busy having Inquisitions and persecuting Jews, Huguenots, etc? I dunno, what's your point?

Rick, the links that you provided do not work.

Proven facts remain that the Chinese had large ocean-worthy ships, navigational ability using compass and astronomy, superior logistics, and even the know-how to ward off scurvey. In other words, they had the ability to reach far-flung places. Question is: did they?

Unfortunately for historians, much of the state archives and records were destroyed when the Ming Dynasty began a self-imposed period of isolationism after Zheng He's death. But it is possible that some maps, documents, or artifacts may have survived the purge.

The IHT article states that there was an exhibition in Singapore which displayed maps of Mongol and Korean origin which clearly shows North America. These are maps that were on public display and subject to scrutiny, not some made-up stuff. Furthermore, the new archaeological site in Nova Scotia is producing evidence of a large settlement that is unquestionably Chinese and pre-European. They found canals, smelters, mines, Buddhist tombs, Islamic graves, and barracks. Buddhist tombs and Islamic graves in Nova Scotia! Unless the Vikings were practicing Buddhism and Islam, it is unquestionable of Chinese or Mongol origin. More evidence will arise from that site in the future as they proceed with DNA analysis and carbon-dating.

I remain cautiously optimistic about it, rather than dimissively complacent. I believe it is possible that more and more evidence will materialize with time. The entire record of maps, documents, artifacts, archaeological digs, and DNA analysis of bones may allow us to reasonably conlude that Chinese or Mongols had reached the Americas and Australia before Europeans. Based on what we know already, there's no reason why it wouldnt have been possible. If it does indeed turn out to be true, then it is a heritage that all Chinese and Asians can be proud of.

bluejives, on your comments section, you need to either copy and paste my links or click on them, both ways making sure that you remove the closing bracket in the URL. I don't know why it comes out like that on your site, but if it was somthing I did, then I apologise.

Thanks for filling in the gaps in my knowledge about historical Chinese exploration. I am not being dismissive, merely skeptical. For example, the statement in the IHT article referring to Chinese maps (implied as being of the Americas) dating back to 2200 B.C. actually draws us back to yet another debatable issue: that Chinese civilisation was already so advanced at that time...and to go traipsing halfway around the world as well!

As far as I'm concerned about the extent of Chinese and/or Mongol settlement in the new world, the phrase 'the jury is still out' comes to mind.

Somewhat like Dave, I am more concerned about the Chinese govt using this as a public relations exericse to show that they are somehow 'benign' in their expansions, based on historical events.

(actually I can imagine one possible scenario for a political fiasco: if the site in Nova Scotia is found to be from the Mongol-Yuan dynasty of China, then all well and good. But what if turned out to be pre-Yuan (or post-Yuan) Mongolian? Would the present-day Mongolian government claim some sort of historical affinity/ownership/credit for it then? Whoop-de-doo, watch the fireworks fly!)

As an ethnic Chinese (I'm not a citizen of the PRC), I am rightly proud of historical figures like Zheng He. But please do not confuse that with pride in the CCP government. Let Chinese culture spread its wings in the modern world, but let's not be deceived by politically-motivated exercises.

I believe Fabian was trying to suggest that the Chinese govt would have an interesting time trying to square their historical pride in Zheng He, a Muslim, with their treatment of the Muslim minority today in regions like Xinjiang. Or maybe more accurately, trying to square their historical record of religious tolerance (as you mentioned) with what is happening today.

(Btw, minor point: Europeans of various types and allegiances were persecuting each other. It was exactly not a case of "Europeans were busy having Inquisitions and persecuting Jews, Huguenots, etc" like you mentioned. Rather, there were French Catholics vs French Protestants (Huguenots); German Protestants vs German Catholics; Protestants persecuting other Protestants, etc.)

Dave,

I think I'm going to go with what's behind door number 2.

The Chinese are accustomed to doing everything as a collective group. People here really aren't use to independent travel, but given the way society is changing here and the way the rich look at themselves, I'd be willing to bet that in the coming years we will see more and more independent Chinese travelers.

What do you think?

Bet a beer on it?

I think you're right, Gordon. The outbound Chinese market is mostly packaged-based at the moment, but the Chinese that have the money prefer to do things their own way. In Hong Kong, a lot of the people that sign up for 'tours' end up ditching their guides and striking off on their own.

Also, there are marked differences in how northern Chinese and southern Chinese travel. The Hong Kong Tourism Board has noted that northern Chinese tend to be more interested in history and culture, whereas the more earthy Cantonese, for instance, tend to place greater emphasis on food and shopping.

However, beyond these massive generalizations, I shall posit an even greater one - Western tourists toting Lonely Planets tend to be cynical, authenticity-craving visitors. LP's massive success over the last two decades attests to the triumph of these attitude to tourism in the West. However, Chinese tourists are still fascinating by the spectacle, the traditional dances, etc. When that will change is open to question. Is the Western mode of travel more sophisticated or advanced? Or is it just different? Many people assume the former because Western tourists thirty or fourty years ago also liked that sorts of thing, but on the whole seemed to 'grow out of it.' But whether that will also be happening in China is really anyone's guess...

Good question, Dave,
I believe if Chinese tourists could surmount certain obstacles, they would prefer the independent tour for sure. For example, they have to be able to speak or read basic english to get around. They may need an international driver license to rent a car... However, only a small percentage of Chinese tourists is confident enough to travel Brittain independently regarding their language and other surviving skills for now. I am not sure how many percentage will be added in the next 10 years. Although this trend will be positive, probably you can only partition those with some international experience already into the market for independent tourists?

By the way, forgive my ignorance, is "lucky dog" really an American slang?
Sorry, one more silly question, Anyboby use "running dog" in english?
looks like the Guardian reporter pictured Ma in his interesting article as a "running dog" or I am just too sensitive-:)

Hi Lin,

Thanks for your comments. I think you are right, many people from China will take the package tour route first until they feel comfortable enough to branch out on their own. It just seems to me though (this is an impression, not a statistic) that more wealthy Chinese speak more English than do Japanese of the equivalent income level. That may mean faster movement towards a 'comfort zone' in terms of independent travel.

"Lucky dog" is an American slang, but you generally do not use it to describe yourself. It often refers, in jest, to another person's prowess in regard to members of the opposite sex. "Running dog" means collaborator, and was a particularly popular in regard to native people that co-operated with Western colonial regimes (i.e. imperialist running dog). But it has fallen out of common usage for the time being...

My observation is that the age of the travelers tends to be the determining factor. Group travel takes care of language barrier, airport in-out procedure, local transportation, and the most important of all: food. I see few elderly Chinese that can go on a diet of western food for a week or two without complaining. The tour package operators usually arrange mainly Chinese restaurants in the itinerary with some local food eateries thrown in as a token representation. Group tour will remain popular as evident in Taiwan and HK.

There is very little independent travel guide book in Chinese. English speakers tend to take for granted the availability of information. I remember meeting some of young Japanese backpacker in youth hostels. They all have this same series of travel book similar to Lonely Planet in Japanese. I suppose that when there are more LP type guide books available in Chinese, I think we may see a few more young adventurous Chinese independent travelers.

Thank you, Dave!
Thus the girl in the Guardian's report didn't use the slang correctly, neither did I -:)
Somemtimes it's just difficult to tell those subtle differences. And your words also remind me that I might have confused or even hurt some people at some places (such as pekingduck) without knowing it. :P
I think Michael's partitioning using the age is just brilliant.
In order to dig the business out from this "new" market, look like instead of "pull", a "push" strategy has to be used, which may not be easy for a small firm?
By the way, I don't think the influence of guide books may be relavant for mainland Chinese. From my limited experience, Chinese tend to use travel forums while they are planning their independent tour. "Sina", "Ctrip" and many other onlince communities have accumulated a humongous amount of info for domestic travelers. The traveler board at "mitbbs" also has a lot of foreign traveling experiences and tips from oversea's Chinese students' prospectives. Few people use books as I know even if they understand english.

What is the Pentagon's official view of China's military strategy? PINR also comment on the Defense Department's report. (Intelligence Brief: US-China Relations, http://www.pinr.com/).

>The report. . . was supposed to have been completed in March, but had been delayed because of conflicts within the Bush administration between the Defense Department [Pentagon] and State Department over its tone and judgments.Under the direction of Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, the State Department has sought to move Washington's foreign policy away from the unilateralism favored by neo-conservatives to a traditional balance-of-power diplomacy that includes greater engagement with Beijing on issues of trade, North Korea's nuclear weapons program and security in East Asia. In contrast, under Donald Rumsfeld the Defense Department has remained wedded to the view the Beijing is Washington's "strategic rival."

So, the 1st round, Gen. Powell lost;
this round, Miss Rice won?
Or it's just a retraction for a further attack in the near future?

IJ, it seems like the prevailing view at the Pentagon and the DoD is that China has the potential to become a threat, if not to the US then to its neighbors, but it is not entirely clear yet that it should be perceived as such. I think a substantial portion, albeit a minority, of the intelligence community, do not hold the view that China is slowly building towards taking a more belligerent stance.

Lin, I may be wrong, but my perception of recent moves from the Department of State and from Condoleeza Rice seems to indicate that the White House intends to use more of American 'soft' power than was evident in the 1st Bush term. Iraq has exposed the limits of American conventional military might, and using influence-peddling to achieve American interests seems more on the front-burner these days.

Just another reason why we need to remain vigilant against taro-ists in our airports.

Ugh:)...Yes I suppose Bush would also support the "War on Taro" given his stance against both money laundering and expanding waistlines.

Didn't she know the smart money is buying Renminbi? Why she is smuggling HK$ OUT of China. She should have been buying $RMB with them. Come the HUGE revaluation, she will be rich beyond her imagination.

This is why I wonder whether China liberalizing its exchange regime in the long run will mean a RMB rise. Given the chance, money flows away from countries without rule of law, arbitrary justice, corruption and unsound money towards those that protect property, have rule of law and hard money policies.

If people start smuggling money out of Korea like this, then the taro-ists have won.

I seem to recall a fable that was apparently one of Mao's favorites. It was about a man who woke up one morning and arbitrarily decided that there was a mountain blocking his view. He went to the top of the mountain with his sons and chipped away at it, bringing what was chipped off down in buckets; he then went back up to the top and repeated the process. When one of his neighbors told him he was insane and that his efforts would never make a difference, he replied: "I may not bring down the mountain. But my sons will follow in my footsteps, and their sons after them, and eventually the mountain will be gone." To Mao, it symbolized the triumph of the human will (yes, the Riefenstahl reference is deliberate) over nature. To me, it is an arbitrary and senseless waste of human capacity.

I think that although you may find cultural differences repugnant explanations of economic development, it seems that you have tentatively concluded that they are the only explanations for the differences between a place like Hong Kong and a place like China.

I think though that culture in fact explains a great deal - particularly the political culture of a polity, and the individual work ethic. David Landes wrote an excellent book on the role of culture in innovation and economic development entitled: "The Wealth and Poverty of Nations." Politics is not separate from culture - political culture is a fundamental determinant of a person's worldview. In that sense I would argue someone brought up in China is very different from those brought up in Hong Kong. The British had a much more sensible approach to government than those various governments of Republican China, and it is the institutions, not the individuals, that make the difference. It is by making that distinction that cultural explanations for relative levels of development cease being repugnant and simply explain why success or failure occurs within given systems.

Andres,

Glad to see you posting here, and in your usual thoughtful manner.

I think there is a cultural difference between HK and the mainland that explains a lot. Those that fled to HK were willing to risk everything to get away from the oppression. They were naturally risk takers, explorers, people who yearned for freedom and less intrusive government. Coupled with the fact that HK allowed risk takers to reap the benefits of their success, means you have a very different culture here than over the border. And different genes in the gene pool.

It was one of the strengths of the US, and although ebbing now (welfare state means many are Coming to America for the handout, not the opportunity) it is still a poweful force for why intelligent and entrepreneurial individuals leave their homelands to work in America.

Dave,

I think you might have misunderstood that sentence about moral repugnance and intellectually illogical. I was talking about the view that different races have different DNA and that that explains how some societies are more developed than others.

Your last paragraph pretty much encapsulates what I was trying to get at. As for there being fundamental differences between Hong Kong and Mainland culture because of the differences in political rules of the two places, I don't know really. I guess it depends on what we define as political and how political we believe humans are. I don't have good thoughts on either questions (yet!).

Not to hijack the discussion...

> welfare state means many are Coming to America for the handout, not the opportunity

Who are these people who come for handouts? By far the biggest rgoup of immigrants (legal or illegal) is Mexicans, and any landscaper will tell you they work as hard as anyone they've ever seen. My cousin employs a lot of Mexicans in his business and he's amazed at how hard they work and how much they save to send back home. And the illegals are scared to death to reveal their identity to any government agency. As a result, many of them pay social security & medicare taxes on a fake social security number, which means they never receive the benefits. In other words, they pay *more* in taxes and take out *less* in benefits than the average American citizen.

Aside from Mexicans, who live next door, it's actually very hard for poor people to get in the US. As an example, a friend of mine married a woman from Thailand that he met while lieving there for a couple of years. It was a huge PITA to get her into the country, and practically impossible to bring any of her relatives.

My wife is from China (which is part of the reason I read Simon World). She is now an American citizen, but it was still rather difficult to bring her mother here to visit last year.

Hi Andres,

Yes, I apologise if I sounded like I was splitting hairs. I am very much in your corner when it comes to deterministic, social eugenics type arguments, based as you say on race and DNA which I think is a throwback to Huxley and the theories that engendered Nazi Germany.

I fear, though, that the sacrifice of the individual at the expense of the state has far from been exorcised from the Chinese national consciousness. I could not believe, for instance, how many people loved Zhang Yimou's Hero, even though its basic message was that no human life is worth the sovereignty of the state and of the emperor, even if the emperor is wrong. I was doubly offended when I was told by someone it was 'un-Chinese' not to like the film, which I thought was attractive but dangerous load of nationalistic bollocks.

I have just started reading "The Wealth and Poverty of Nations" and so far I really like it. Interesting historical background on Europe vs. "Islam" if you will vs. China social/political/economic influences and how backwards Europe, circa 1000 AD could dominate the world by 1500 (or so).

I can't believe the circumstances, I was just getting ready to blog about culture and economic developement in part inspired by the mention of David Landes whom HK Dave mentions. However, my conclusions are rather different than yours and I think the whole cultural explanation to success is a load of self-serving hogwash.

Unfortunately my wordpress database seems to have died so I can't post, but my blogspot host is up!

Disney thinks all dogs go to heaven. No qualm in being dog killers.

Yes, I seem to remember an episode of Looney tunes about dogs in heaven. It is amazing though, how the gulf between the ideal espoused in the cartoons and the reality of Disney's efforts to deliver shareholder value is so vast.

An anecdote to link the two strands of your story together: Mrs M and I headed over to Macau one weekend to check out, amongst other things, the Sands (if only we had known about the audio walking tour!!!). We ascended to the gambling den and watched large dollops of cash go into the casino coffers. Most people were playing bacarat, a game I know little about. So I asked the friendly hostess for a guide on playing. Certainly, she replied - would you like Chinese or Portugese.

"Any English?" I asked.

"No sir. We get a lot of people asking for English guides, but we don't print them."

The moral: learn Portugese before you go to the Sands.

I think I'm aware of HK people's relative lack of love for buying books and bookshelves! However, I've never seen it quite so succinctly (sp?) put mate.

From the HK-ers I know, they read books for professional exams (i.e. more potential moolar) and comics (Oops sorry--"graphic novels") and the HK gossip magazines like East Weekend.

If you've seen how thick those comics and gossip mags are, then o wonder they don't have time for contempoary fiction!

Good luck with your stand-in Simonworld stint.

Oh, by the way, I thought I heard that the Sands opening day rush was because they were giving away free HK$20 to use in the casino (?).

I have seen many people on the train with English versions of Harry Potter. That or adult manga.

It seems most Hong Kongers enjoy 'people mountain people sea', rather than buying/reading books?

Hi,

I found at 2 good bookshops at Nathan Road & 1 at Central, while aimlessly wandering in the city during a May trip.

regards
Martin

Martin: there are quite a few excellent English-language bookshops dotted around HK, mainly Central, Causeway Bay and TST. Please let me know if you want to know where all the best bookshops are.

Hi Martyn,

Will definitely check with you if I'm back at HKG again!

Thanks!

More fun with the meaningless statistics pumped out by the NBS and then quoted ad infinitum by those with an investment to sell in China, try looking at FDI in China over 2004-5 and reconciling the claimed 3.2 percent fall y-o-y in first half 2005 to USD28.6 billion when a look back in time shows that the same officials claimed first half 2004 FDI was USD33.9 billion. Using my (non-Chinese) calculator, that should mean that FDI fell in 2005 by 15% y-o-y. Quite frankly, Chinese economic statistics are not worth the paper they are written on.

Even if that paper is worth 2.1% more today than yesterday.

An adjusted 9.5% is a relatively more trustable number than other norminal numbers, I believe. As the head of NBS pointed out a long time ago, nominal number is not just the combination of real GDP and inflation as you have learned in the textbook, but the combination of the former 2 factors plus bluffing number by whoever would benefit from. Among them, fixed asset investment is most unreliable one.(as you know why)
I am not sure why you are still so surprised by the "chinese calculator". NBS's admitted using "it" a long time ago because nominal numbers got to much "water" inside. The calculator is for squeezing out the "water", that's all.
dylan, don't believe FDI too much either, because it's also a political acheivement of certain officals in China. Probably last year, the bluffing was considered relatively safe than this year.

Remeber, 40% (an almost unreal figure) of china's economy/output dependson FDI. One thing china is very wary of is gving the world any kind of news that would stop this money flowing in.

Re dylan's above comment. I've heard those same statistics and agree.

Easy - the counterbalancing negative plug for GDP is the new loans going bad at the "banks" and the corrupt money being whisked off to far-away places on behalf of Party members. Once you subtract those state secrets, it probably balances out just fine.

My first economic speculation:
Hey, if you are in US, grab some nice pants immediately before....
vendors realize the 2% yuan apprecicated would lead to more than much higher cost in textiles products from China. If you get a nice cloth deal this weekend, go for it-.

My 2nd speculation is more trivial if you're living in US, sell your house??!! :p

Tough war for some.

Haven't the Mormons moved to that gleaming new faux-colonial building on Gloucester Rd?

You got it right:

Elder Kuen Tony Ling, Asia Area Authority 70, revealed, ¡¥The Church¡¦s growth in Hong Kong and throughout Asia meant that a larger facility was needed. At the present time, a 13 story building, due for completion in 2005, is being constructed on Gloucester Road, Wan Chai, near Central Plaza. There were approximately 1,700 members of the Church in the Hong Kong area in 1960, and today there are over 22,000.

Yes Stanley Ho was indeed very fortunate during the war. It is said he later fled to Macau with only $10 in his pocket. But while there, the dashing young man got married to Clementina Leitao a member of a leading Macau family. This connection later enabled him obtain the gambling monopoly in the early 1960s. He was also asked by the Macau government to negotiate with the Japanese during the war for basic foodstuffs like rice, which he was obliged to do. The man has had a very interesting life.

And yes, I think the Mormon Temple-cum-office building in the middle of the heaving, throbbing Wanchai district (actually near a bunch of bathroom fixture stores). They had 'given up the ghost' on the old location after they realized they needed more space. But they actually also own a number of other temples all around the city. I guess real estate becomes second nature to anyone that lives here long enough.:)

You can see another of their temples from the Airport Express train. From memory it is near Tsing Ye station. It's a small, non-descript building stuck on a hill side besides a freeway.

Dear Simon,
The comrade Hu Jintao has received your reports, and his comments on your reports was “transfer to comrade Wen Jiabao”, Comrade Wen Jiabao suggested transfering them to economist comrade Wu Jinlian. Wu transferred his students and his students transferred to me. ME said : follow the party core, everything will be solved by great long living comrade Hu.

Why?
Comrade Hu is constructing his harmonic society.
So what?
This is a new left policy!
What the hell?
This will beef up the middle class.
So?
10 years (or 20 years?) later, a new consumer driven economy will emerge, and 70% (or 60%?) of Chinese will live in cities.
Great!
This is why I always say: Don’t worry, follow our communist party; follow the core!

Nice to know these reports make their way up (and back down) the chain...

;-)

Speaking of studies on China's economy, there's a book that I am currently reading which is very good as well, on the role of FDI in china during the reform era (80's) - "Selling China: Foreign Direct Investment during the reform era" by Yasheng Huang.

Although the book's main focus is only on FDI and the reform era, nevertheless it gives you an idea, and some understanding on how China becomes what it is now, I think it ties in well with this report.

Mainlanders are involved in prostitution in HK? Who knew?

They're the ones not marching through Lan Kwai Fong to gawk at the gweilos.

But but I did Victoria's Secret in China last week...with links to gratuitous shots from Agent Provocateur in HK...and I even included a link to the Pink Panty P0ker site! Surely no blog post about Victoria's Secret would be complete without the Pink Panty P0ker Site!

My take? Seriously? I kind of think that they might need another revolution, actually.

A reveolution won't help. The problem is that things are moving so fast that there is not enough time to correctly allocate resources. This is not just a Chinese proble but applies to India, Korea and a host of similarly developing countries which are foreign reserve rich. Totatally different conditions to Africa where there just are enough resources.

The "revolution" needed is to contain corruption and evolve a transparent and equitable sustainablity. While then western world continues to consume the way it does, I'll follow the money rather than the heart.

I assume the second quote is meant to read "China would have been able to deter or defeat Japanese aggression."

Naturally I agree and you can take these points further. It is not just on an economic plane where having an engaged China matters. Geopolitically, the closer China is bound to the rest of the world the lesser the chance of confrontation. China clearly has red lines (pardon the pun), especially over Taiwan. But if America and the rest of the world engages China as a strategic partner rather than a strategic rival, it will mean a more peaceful Asia/Pacific, a better chance of resolving the North Korea issue and continued improved living conditions for literally millions of Chinese. And these have knock-on effects onto regional neighbours and even the US.

As I've said before, China's only a threat if it is treated as such.

what is your opinion, MAJ?

I would like to echo the opinions of both HK Dave and Simon on this one - those countries that have been able to embrace globalisation are the very same countries whose living standards are rising, while countries like those of many Africa nations that have been unable to globalise have suffered the opposite fate - deteriorating living standards.

A close examination of the United States' policies towards China regarding the Taiwan issue reveals, I think, a general level of support for the mainland position, and that's because there is a real awareness that a strong, stable China is necessary for the long-term health of the global economy.

And I definitely agree with HK Dave's
argument that "the indirect poverty alleviation brought about by cheap consumer goods far outweigh" the more sensitive issues of human rights. Most Chinese will certainly agree with that. The CCP, for all of its undeniable faults, has played a significant role in helping to bring about the stability and the necessary environment to have enabled this economic transformation to take place, and so their legacy, while mixed, remains, overall, a positive one I think.

Regards,
Mark Anthony Jones

Glad to hear a chorus of agreement! I think the Americans that want an immediate revaluation of the yuan and immediate democratization of China must realize the huge structural (and personal) pain and sacrifice China has gone through to reach this point in its history, and how it is actually naturally positioned to be an ally or at least a benign force in many of the issues central to America.

Overholt actually makes the case that cheap Chinese goods, far from hurting America, has made at least material well-being much more achievable for a large number of lower-income Americans. Too bad there's no PAC for them...

Thanks for noting the rather huge mistake in the original post, Simon, I stand corrected (as has been the post itself).

I think you are all a bunch of commie sympathizers who are out to destroy the West by empowering her enemies. No doubt your underwear is pink where it is not green from your own unadulterated greed at making a profit from slave labour. Klintoon's treasonous machinations have already spread far, but it is not too late to rally the allies of liberty (Britain, New Europe, India, and Japan) who share our values to demonstrate to the Chinese fascist autodidacts and their Islamiscist allies that the American way is the ONLY way!

God Bless.

Sorry Simon - you can delete this as soon as you read it - I tried to post it in the other thread, but you have already closed it.

I really didn't realise that his surname was meant to be such a secret - afterall, it's mentioned by many, on numerous sites, including this one.

So if you don't want readers to discover Richard's surname "here" on this site, then you had better delete from your archives all instances where you have mentioned his surname. Eg. [edit]

Regards,
Mark Anthony Jones

MAJ - I've deleted it from that previous post as well.

Now you've made your point, several times over. It's enough. Leave it alone.

The 20th century could have been made much more peaceful by one wiser decision -- the British allowing the Germans to march through Belgium in 1914.

A strong China might be nice. But it is not "needed."

ps that previous comment was made with my tongue firmly planted in cheek, just clearing it up so people don't get the wrong impression thats all.

No worries Jing, if you consider libertarians like myself commie sympathizers then I'd hate to speculate on the color of your underpants!

Dan, perhaps the world might have been a better place if the Schlieffen Plan had worked and we hadn't had a crackpot Austrian like Hitler take over Germany.

But I very much think that FDR and yes, even Churchill would have preferred a strong, stable China to a civil-war ridden basket case that could not effectively defend itself from the Japanese. And today I think (as Overholt argues) we'd likely in the midst of a major global recession if it were not for China's new spending power (particularly Japan), and its new capacity to produce cheap consumer goods for the world. Not to mention becoming the banker to an increasingly indebted United States...

No wonder your blog is so great, Dave. Your boss William H. Overholt is a real American patriot. Coincidently I put his congress testimony on last Tuesday. His reading is really inspiring:

Today China is the country that sends missions throughout the world seeking best practice. It adapts not just foreign technology and foreign corporate management techniques but also a wide variety of foreign institutions and practices: international accounting standards; British, U.S. and Hong Kong securities laws; French military acquisition systems; a central bank structure modeled on the U.S. Federal Reserve Bank; Taiwan-style regulations for foreign portfolio investment; an economic development strategy adapted from South Korea, Singapore and Taiwan; and many others. Among the most important of these changes are the decision to adopt the Western concept of rule of law; adoption of competition as a centrally important economic practice; and adoption of English language as virtually a second language for the educated Chinese population.

China today has huge advantages and huge problems. It is like a running man chased by a lion. If you focus on the man, he is running very fast. But if you focus on the lion, the man will likely be eaten by the big cat.

I would be much happier about a strong China but for a few niggling points. A disproportionate percentage of China's GNP is devoted to building, as rapidly as possible, a military capability several times in excess of any conceivable threat. That capability is complemented by very agressive saber rattling. China continues to work to destabilize it's as yet unassimilated neighbors. I do not see how we can come to any conclusion other than that China is preparing for war, and that makes those who choose to see it very nervous. Nor do I see how the evidence can be ignored.

Furhter, the assumption has been that economic openess will lead to social and political openess. This has clearly not happened, nor is it in the offing. The Party retains undisputed control, and will not brook the slightest whisper of dissent.

Finally, the ointment of the economic miracle has two flies in it. Fist, China is not competing on the level playing field as it claims to be. As long as the vast majority of Chines enterprises are dummy corporations which are in fact wholly owned subsidiaries of the Chinese governemt market reforms can never truly penetrate their economic system. Secondly, the level of lying, cheating and corruption endemic to the Chinese cultural system cuts it off from reality based standards necessary to truly become a member of the World Economy. Nobody, and I do mean literally nobody, has a clue as to what is really happening to China's economy. As far as I can see, the whole of the Chinese economy is a titanic Ponzi scheme which will not only devastate China itself, but all those whose economies are linked with it.

A strong China would be a good thing, but China is not truly strong. It gives the illusion of strength by dint of self agrandizing propaganda, bolstering their claims with militaristic bluster and reams of falsified statistics. Were that China were strong, the world doesn't need another failed state, especially not one of such magnitude.

This text is specious and naive.

Reading it makes me feel being back to the mid-nineties :
Globalization, globalization, globalization.
By the way, what is globalization? How to define country's strength? Then, in absolute terms or relative terms?

Another tiny thing but very illustrative of this essay's speciousness : The author claims malnutrition has disappeared from China. I read on this blog a few days ago a post entitled "The Fat (and the thin) Of The Land"...

Thanks to Lin, Tanquam, and Leo for your comments.

Lin, totally agree with you in your admiration for Overholt's succinct prose and excellent analogies. I just want to clarify that Overholt *used* to be my boss - he gave me my first job as a research assistant at Bankers Trust in his department. A really fascinating man, with an incredibly interesting resume and experiences to back up his opinions. Didn't want to give the impression I work for RAND.

Tamquam Leo Regiens, interesting perspectives. But I think it may be a bit of an exaggeration to say China is a titanic Ponzi scheme - if it was I doubt so many foreign companies would go there to set up manufacturing operations if they were not genuinely profitable. There are many troubled companies and banks, it is true - hence why Lin's second quote from Overholt about the lion is so apt.

I think also having grown up in Hong Kong and Singapore, and seeing the examples of Taiwan and South Korea, one can appreciate how prosperity can bring about change in the social contract between the rulers and the ruled - it is just that change in success stories is generally gradual rather than through revolution.

As for the military build-up, RAND actually has done a study on the subject for the US military on the website I link to in this post. It's 200 pages, but you may want to check it out! I'll blog about it while Simon's away (I have to read it first!).

As for Leo, well, I think you'll need to give me more than 'specious' and 'naive' if you want real debate. I do bristle somewhat at the suggestion that Overholt is naive given his experience in China and in top US government and intelligence circles. He was also possibly the first, in 1970, to forecast the rise of the Asian Tigers in his Ph.D thesis at Yale. But if you'd like to discuss specific points I'd be happy to do so.

Thanks, David. I'll look up that article you mention, and really try to read the whole thing. I remain concerned, and I've really not seen anything that allays that concern.

I saw those same pics of the rally for Raymond Wong, too, on Flickr. What's the story on this? Does his allegation stand up?

There's no doubt he was sacked, as others have been. The question is whether it is all about censorship or contractual disagreements. As usual, it's likely a mixture of the two.

Thanks for the plug Simon!

As for the always excellent Bowring, I thought his article really defined the crossroads that Hong Kong was in. I found myself loving all the suggestions he made, and some turns of his phrases were spectacular, in particular:

"Without the sparks that fly from its freedoms, Hong Kong will never translate its cultural hopes into realities that justify bold architectural monuments."

Yet as I read his prescription for making Hong Kong a better place, I was struck by how much intervention that would require on the part of the government. You could already argue that we have a very interventionist government, but it seems to create the utopian Hong Kong that would retain and grow its competitive advantages we would fundamentally need to change Hong Kong's character. I think Hong Kong's fundamental problem is that people here don't like thinking long-term, don't like investing in anything without immediate returns. To get them to do what Bowring suggests, you'd need to convince people here what the payoff here is for investing in the arts or in the environment.

Arguably more people are appreciating how that pay-off works, but not enough of them are in positions of power...

In other places there are often tax incentives or subsidies to encourage that kind of pay-off. Again, that's not ideal. It comes down to creating long run incentives that can overcome people's natural short term greed.

That's not gratis. I want fifty bucks , by tomorrow, bucko!

The cheque's in the mail, old boy.

...when they refuse an offer to speak on an uncensored show on English television?

This coming from the most self-censored TV station in HK? Please excuse me as I roll on the floor laughing...

But they did offer, spacehunt. It is curious these guys didn't take up the offer. There's a letter in today's SCMP also asking if the fired radio hosts are busy shouting down anyone who argues:

Y. K. Wan hits the nail on the head ("Unilateral free speech", July 18). It does seem that Albert Cheng King-hon and Wong Yuk-man want absolute freedom to ridicule their opponents as well as silence their responses.

The fact is that RTHK, as well as the South China Morning Post, usually cater for this unilateralism. They have probably both done a great deal of damage not only to individuals but to the government. Even my favourite programmes on RTHK, Newsline and Letter to Hong Kong, invite more anti- than pro-government speakers.

I would also like to express my agreement with the Civil Human Rights Front, as headlined in the article "Protest alliance in danger of breaking up" (July 18). The July 1 marches have from the beginning been hijacked by the advocates of universal suffrage in 2007 and 2008. The real complaints of the public have been lost in this move, intended for western political support.

I agree in principle with the NGO cause. The G8 nations seek globalisation for the expansion of their new colonial capitalism at the cost of workers' wages and working conditions. Unfortunately some violent demonstrators damage their movement, and for that reason I cannot join them. I believe that violence is self-defeating.

Instead of trying to prevent aggressive Korean workers attending demonstrations, the WTO nations would do well to take immediate action on their grievances. Suicide bombings should, after so many years, have taught the rich nations that frustration ends in violence. Most world leaders are ignorant of the needs and frustrations of the major part of the world; the underpaid workers. Total harmony is hardly possible, but at least a little more understanding would do wonders, among politicians and in the world.

ELSIE TU, Kwun TongAnd the previous letter referred to:

I refer to the column by Albert Cheng King-hon on freedom of speech ("Spiralling towards silence", July 9), and wish to express my view on something which has been bewildering me for years.

During my college time in the UK, Hyde Park speaker's corner was my favourite spot on Sunday afternoon. Anyone could stand there and say what they wanted. But a speaker could only stay on if he successfully argued with the audience when they disagreed. This is the rule of the game - what I call "bilateral" freedom of speech.

In their Hong Kong radio talk shows, Wong Yuk-man and Mr Cheng bore a similarity. It is their "I can speak, but not you" style. Whenever an audience member phoned up the shows to disagree, the hosts kept the exchange brief and then cut the line abruptly. This is what I call "unilateral" freedom of speech.

Many friends and colleagues considered the persistence of these talk shows for so many years as a Hong Kong miracle. Personally, I have refused to listen to Commercial Radio for more than five years in protest against these two hosts because they did not respect the spirit of freedom of speech. Rather, they used it as their tool. Now Mr Cheng accuses Commercial Radio of eroding freedom of speech. Is this meant to be a joke?

Y. K. WAN, Yuen Long

Yes, they did offer. And many of them have been burned by how these pro-Beijing media twists what they have to say into nonsensical blathering. Perhaps their English channel is different, but it is very obvious what ATV did to their News department in order to secure broadcasting rights in the Guangdong province.

It really comes down to whether they want to be used as a tool to further the attacks on them or not. And in this case they decided not to.

Now don't get me wrong, I'm not your Y.M. Wong apologist. I also have issues with their style on radio. But at least on their radio shows they allow the callers to shout out "YOU LOT OF UNPATRIOTIC DOGS, STOP COLLUDING WITH OVERSEAS FORCES" before Wong cuts their line (it happened on every show when Wong still had his Monday-Friday slot.) What happened when Wong tried to call in to CRHK after he got sacked? He wasn't even allowed to speak one word before the line was put on hook.

It is also possible that they might want to live in Hong Kong and hope to able to work again.

Simon, I've forwarded this post to a local Chinese BBS HKDay; actually a few days passed before somebody bothered to read through the whole English passage. :( Anyway, a guy called chenglap replied to Chugani's op-ed, and have asked me to translate his reply into English. Here it is:

If those are indeed their reasons, it exposes the pathetic mindset of the people who claim to crusade for our press freedoms. Defending press freedom, in my mind at least, means fighting every battle on every front to win as many supporters as you can.

I actually think this is a bit of a warped argument.

Freedom has no set boundaries; there are very many different fronts, whether they are newspapers, radio, television, Internet, or physical gatherings. To defend freedom in every single place would require an impossibly huge amount of time and resources; hence, people can only choose ones that suit them best, ones where they excel in, as their own front.

Let me put it this way, I myself speak for the freedom of speech on the Internet, however I have never done so on Net radio; does that mean I have never done as much as I could to defend freedom of speech? Am I required to speak on Net radio? If I have, naturally I would have less time to spend posting on BBSes, and the total time and energy I spent actually stays about the same. Furthermore, speaking of winning more supporters, fighting on more different fronts does not equal to winning more supporters; for foreigners who are accustomed to living in freedom and democracy, they might not have any particular profound feelings for the demands and views on freedom by the likes of these Hong Kong personalities. It's very probable that they won't actually be able to convince much, which in turn becomes the weakening of time and human resources [were they to turn up on English TV].

This is only one of many reasons. The key point is that "fighting every battle on every front to win as many supporters as you can" is a really harsh request; if this also makes sense, does this mean that all patriotic Chinese shall all prepare their own vessels and all rush to the Diaoyu/Senkaku Islands, otherwise they are unpatriotic?

(Original here (Big5 encoding))

I know the linklets have been getting longer at times. I am actively trying to cut down on the number of links in each edition, trying to make it a "best of" rather than an all in link fest. However sometimes there's just far too much interesting stuff being written out there to ignore. Don't blame me, blame those linked.

As always, feedback and comments are appreciated.

This entry of mine is very off topic, I know, but it may interest all those who share a concern for the issues of free speech and of cyber censorship, as well as those interested in the study of ethnocentrism, and in the ways that Westerners view countries like China though ethnocentric eyes.

It is addressed to KLS, a contributor to Richard's Peking Duck site:

Dear KLS,

I have just finished reading the comments on the weekend thread of Peking Duck, and noticed that you are unhappy with the type of site that Richard runs.

Let me begin here, by stating, for the record, that I do not hold any animosity towards you for "exposing" on Peking Duck the fact that I frequently copy and paste from other peoples' articles without always acknowledging the source. It was never a secret though. I openly discussed this practice of mine with Lirelou way back as far a last November or December - and on the pages of Peking Duck. I discussed this again with Conrad more recently. The way that Richard presented this habit of mine though was, as far as I am concerned, clearly way over the top. He invited his readers to join in on a witch hunt, and his copying and pasting of a baby photo from somewhere was clearly designed to humiliate me.

I admit that it is bad practice to copy and paste significant passages from other peoples' articles without acknowledging the source - but what Richard fails to appreciate is that I normally copy and paste from a variety of sources - sometimes from a dozen in one entry - in order to present an argument of my own. I produce a collage, in effect. Sometimes I place what I paste in quotation marks and acknowledge the source or the author, sometimes I don't. It depends largely on how much of a hurry I'm in, or on how lazy I'm feeling at the time. What I do really, is little different from what any journalist or academic writer does when they're putting together an essay or a polemic, except that I do not take the time and the care to properly acknowledge all of my sources. I should, I know, but Peking Duck is only a blog site for Christ's sake - I'm not writing for publication, or anything like that. I simply push a particular discourse, to test its strength. Usually, the discourse reflects roughly what I myself actually believe. I'm not the big fraud that Richard makes me out to be.

O.K. I accept the criticism though. It is bad practice, and I have already apologised to his readers for not taking the trouble and the care to always acknowledge all of my sources.

My response to this situation, as you would know, was to present myself merely as a creation, as a persona, no different from Dr Myers. This, to some extent, is true. I did create Dr Myers, and the Mark Anthony Jones that I present on Peking Duck is in many ways not the Mark Anthony Jones that I present to my friends and colleagues, who is different again from the Mark Anthony Jones that I present to say, my grandparents for example. We all, I think it is fair to say, alter our behavioural patterns quite automatically, depending on the social scene we're in.

So why did I create Dr Myers, and why has the Mark Anthony Jones Peking Duck persona changed over time? Well, that really is an easy question to answer. I'm bored!

I work as the Academic Director for a Chinese company licensed to manage training centres that deliver a university foundations program. I'm paid very well, but we have no training centres open yet, and I have been here in this job for just over one year. This is my fourth year in China though.

So basically, for the last 13 months, I have been paid to sit in a nice air conditioned luxury office, in front of this computer, but with absolutely no work to do! I'm not exaggerating when I say that. I sit here from 9 to 5 each week day, in front of this computer. I'm the only foreigner here in this office, and normally the only other person here is the secretary. So reading Peking Duck is one of the ways I entertain myself while at work. I am often busy here though, but not with work. I correspond with many friends, family members too, and I also contribute to other blogs (not China blogs).

Now, why has the Mark Anthony Jones persona changed over the last 13 months? Well, not merely because I am bored, that I seek entertainment. The change also reflects my changing attitude towards Peking Duck. I simply don't take the site seriously. I don't take Richard seriously either.

For the first three months, I seriously thought that Richard Burger was somebody aged in his early to mid twenties. I got this impression from his writings - from his hysterical rants, etc. From the way he interacted with me, often in ways I found to be irrational and juvenile. It came as a real surprise to discover, after doing some research on him online, that he is aged about [edit]. He may even be [edit].

He is definitely lacking in the maturity one might expect from a man of his age - he is emotionally volatile, and is prone to hysteria. For example, he once banned me from his site because I described one of his ideas as "ridiculous". That's right! I kid you not! I was always polite to him, I never used expletives, not towards anybody. I described one of his ideas as "ridiculous" and that one adjective was enough to get me banned. He sent me an email saying "I'm offended. You're banned." I had, at the time, absolutely no idea why I had been banned, what it was that I had done to offend him. He deleted the offending sentence, and banned me! And yet, he can trivialise me as a "sad Marxist", label me an "American basher" and distort my views, and that's quite acceptable behaviour!

On another occasion, Richard baked a photo of a grossly overweight woman sitting at a park bench, with her panties showing beneath her dress. The woman clearly wasn't aware of this. Richard wrote beneath the photo something to the effect that: "Just what I want to see on a lovely spring day!" In other words, he was inviting his readers to enter comments that make fun of this woman. And of course, they did. "She makes me feel like vomiting" wrote one commentator. You can imagine the rest: the comments were sexist and misogynistic. I of course, launched into a massive attack against both Richard and all of his other commentators, accusing them all of being misogynists, and questioning the maturity and ethics of such puerile behaviour.

Richard's response: he deleted the entire thread - photo as well as every comment. He was clearly embarrassed by the entire episode. All traces were deleted!

And then there was the SARS debate - I argued that SARS was a storm in a teacup, and that the Western media exploited the scare to push a particular discourse - that China is inferior, incapable of coping with crises of this nature, etc. Well, Richard accused me of taking an immoral stand, completely twisted and distorted my entire argument, and then closed the thread, preventing me from being able to make a reply! I stopped contributing for about two or three months out of protest. I admit here too, that I was so pissed off at the time that I rather irrationally and immaturely threatened him with a lawsuit for defaming me, and I am embarrassed about that. But still, his behaviour was outrageous.

When I resumed, I did so on the grounds that I was merely going to play around, to provoke a little, to stir things up a little, to entertain myself. O.K. Juvenile of me, I know - creating Dr Myers, Steve L, and Bryce. I even turned myself, Mark Anthony Jones, into more of a persona, and at times engaged in a little self-parody.

Peking Duck does attract some intelligent readers and contributors, true, and sometimes some really interesting conversations do develop. I really did appreciate the debate I had with Conrad about the legality of the US base on Guantanamo, for example. I pushed a discourse (that pushed by members of Cuban Solidarity groups, and yes, I did paste a slab from such a website, but I also on that occasion acknowledged the author of those views, and once again, my comments took the form of a collage. The point is, Conrad engaged meaningfully with me on that one, and he successfully destroyed two of my three arguments. I really did benefit from that exchange, because now I have a clearer understanding of the legal issues of that case. He wasn't able to completely destroy the argument that I presented, but he smashed two thirds of it.

But in my opinion, Peking Duck isn't much better than most of the other China blog sites. They're all pretty disappointing as far as I am concerned. Gordon's site, The Horses' Mouth, would have to be the most puerile, spiteful outpouring of bile that I have ever come across. It's just utter crap. Most of these people know little about China, most of them are not fluent in Chinese, and they seriously lack balance. They produce hate sites! I've said that to Richard before, and he was mortified by it, but I stand by the claim. It's a hate site, and one which encourages a pack mentality. If somebody addresses any of the positive legacies of the CCP, then they are labelled as CCP operatives and are then promptly gang raped and bashed.

And the Chinese, more generally, are viewed through ethnocentric eyes, which explains the condescending nature of many of the more "China-friendly" comments.

Filthy Stinking No.9, who supposedly has a PhD in history, projects a typically ethnocentric world view, his comments about the French and the Chinese are sometimes bigoted and chauvinistic, and yet he tends to be one of the more level-headed among the regulars. He has had the hide to accuse me on several occasions of being “anti-American” – well, I have NEVER said anything ever that is inherently anti-American, but he always labels me as such on the basis that I am very critical of US foreign policy. I have actually praised certain US foreign policies on Peking Duck – like certain aspects of the Bush administration’s Taiwan policies, but that is overlooked. FSN.9 though, by contrast, does say things that are fundamentally inherently anti-another nation. He said, in an earlier thread for example, quite explicitly, that “The French are scum.” So FSN9 is quite a French-basher, quite a racist bigot, it would seem, yet he presents himself as a scholar, as an academic, a China authority worth listening to.

Martyn can call me a "sad fu*k", a "sad shit" and tell me to "fu*k off", and another commentator here got away with telling American Man to go "fu*k himself and his dog" - and this was quite acceptable. But I got banned, about six or seven months ago, for politely suggesting that one of Richard's arguments was "ridiculous".

As I said, I do not take this site seriously. Eight months ago a guy named Greg wrote his first comment on Peking Duck, in which he argued that there is some reasonable cause for optimism about China's ability to adequately address its environmental problems. Richard responded by viciously attacking not only his views, but him personally - "you know nothing about China" said Richard. Greg responded by asking Richard why he responded to his first comments on the Duck in such a condescending manner. Richard's response to this was to ban Greg immediately – though Greg, I believe, also behaved provocatively BUT NOT initially!

A lawyer named Kevin, who currently resides in Shanghai, on another occasion, posted a comment accusing Peking Duck of being a hate site that spews out little more than “puerile bile” though he also acknowledged some of its strengths and potential. No expletives were used, yet Kevin's comment was deleted as soon as it was discovered, and Kevin was banned.

Greg, Kevin and I are by no means the only people to have been the victim of Richard’s censorship practices either. Sam from Shenzhen Ren has written about his run-in with Richard, and how he was banned, and if you log onto the following site “The Peril and Agony of Free Speech” (www.urielw.com/bosco1.htm) who can read all the details about Richard’s censorship of Uriel.

So here we have Richard, who constantly criticises the CCP for its censorship, also censoring almost everybody who criticises his views or his site. He can allow some people to make personal attacks against others, using the most foul of language, and that's O.K. That's entertainment. But one single polite adjective like "ridiculous" is totally unacceptable, if it is used to describe one of Richard's own ideas.
Just take a look at today’s open thread - if you’re honest with yourself, you will appreciate why I think Peking Duck is hardly a site to be taken seriously. We have two conversations going on, both of which are ridiculous: one is condescending, rude, disrespectful and outright ethnocentric, in that it takes an incident in which a mother allegedly allowed her child to sh*t on somebody’s floor, and then proceeds to belittle the Chinese. Gordon, rather typically, joins the rant, saying that it reminds him of the post where he “ranted about the woman letting her dog sh*t on the floor in front of the elevator.” Simon then joins in by telling American Man that if he “had taken a photo, it could've become like that Korean chick with her dog sh*tting on the train” and then Gordon, once again, in his usual rude and spiteful manner, seeks to humiliate Binfeng by saying to him, “Bingfeng, did your parents let you sh*t on the floor when you were a baby?” Quality reading, right? And such maturity too!
The other conversation taking place on this thread revolves around the ridiculous question of whether or not China may go to war with the US, and here we get commentators like American Man belittling the Chinese yet again, saying that they all “still live in caves west of Xi’an”. This of course, will be seen as humourous by the majority of Richard’s regulars, and probably by Richard himself – but of course, this is not a hate site. It doesn’t mock and belittle the Chinese people, it merely serves as an anti-CCP platform, right? Yeah, sure? Anybody capable of reading will know the subtext.

And so entered Dr Myers, to mock and to parody, but without the need to resort to any expletives. I had fun with her, while it lasted, as juvenile as the entire exercise may have been. And being Mark Anthony Jones was fun too. Together, they helped to expose the worst in Richard and many of his other regulars. Cyberspace, as I discovered through what really did, towards the end, develop into a deliberate conscious social experiment, resembles very closely the schoolyard! Blog communities can indeed, when not supervised by mature adults, degenerate into the kind of situation explored by William Golding in Lord of the Flies. Richard is a little like the character Jack, telling his readers what they want to hear about China, and instigating attacks and smear campaigns against those who dare to challenge the orthodoxy of his views. And as for his readers, for his flies, well, they provide yet further evidence to support Golding's view that people will always band together to single out others as scapegoats, especially when directed to do so by their perceived leaders. Richard is a little Hitler, or another Mao! (O.K. So I'm unfairly exaggerating perhaps, but you get my point!)

I’m tempted to post this letter onto his site, just for a stir! But I will refrain from doing so - I'm trying to behave like the 35 year old that I am!

Or maybe…? Well, maybe I will post it on the Duck after all. I mean, to do so would be no less puerile than harping on about how uncivilized the Chinese allegedly are for allowing their babies to shit on somebody’s floor. My above comments might be dismissed by many as the product of sour grapes, but that’s fine. It will nevertheless hardly detract anything from the overall “quality” of this site. And if everybody else can behave like an adolescent in cyberspace, than so too can I. Peking Duck, thanks to Richard, has given us all such a license!

Best regards,
Mark Anthony Jones

MAJ,

Your beef is primarily with Richard. If you want to take it further, set up your own site and go for it. You certainly have the time.

I'm happy to leave your comment here despite you engaging in the very personal attacks you pretend disgust you on TPD. You've always had the right not to read Richard's site, yet you choose to anyway. It is Richard's site, not yours. He can delete your comments and block you (and others) if he sees fit. That's up to him.

Sometimes the threads at Richard's site are frivilous. That's not a crime. If you don't like it, or find it juvenile, skip it. There's plenty of other posts and sites.

Your accusations of ethnocentrism are correct. But who doesn't view a place through their own ethnocentric eyes? You have cultural biases, whether you recognise them as such. For example you dismiss your plagarism because it was only done on a blog, in your words. For many others, stealing words without accreditation is wrong on blogs as much as it is in academic papers or in the media. Again, you always have the choice to not read those comments. The internet is a big place. You can go and find someone "mature" enough for you to spend your idle days.

Dear Simon,

What you say is fair enough, but surely it is also reasonable for a person to politely criticise others for practicsing censorship - especially when they devote an entire blog site to criticising the CCP for doing just that - for censorship.

These personal attacks are constructive criticisms - nowhere do I call people names or use expletives. I do criticise people's sites and their behaviours and attitudes, but surely this is reasonable.

Richard can censor the opinions of those he doesn't like - he is indeed free to do that. I am simply questioning the ethics of it.

Surely it is not unreasonable for me to raise these concerns publically on blog forums such as this?

I acknowledge the criticisms of me in regards to my [past] habit of copying and pasting - and I have apologised for this. Still, this practice of mine was never a secret, and his response was nevertheless over the top, was it not?

Best regards,
Mark Anthony Jones

Richard's response was his own and he's explained himself elsewhere.

I understand your point re censorship, but my point remains: it is his site. You are welcome to set up your own. It is his soap box, his rules, his ideas of "reasonable". There's no question of ethics. You want a soapbox? Get one of your own.

MAJ,

You're hardly the person to be lecturing anyone on ethics and as far as personal attacks go, you made several of them under the guise of Dr. Anne Myers.

You are a very strange individual.

Dear Simon,

Peking Duck is Richard's soap box, and yes, I agree, if he wants to censor people's ideas and criticisms, then that is entirely up to him. But surely readers and commentators alike are not unreasonable to draw attention to it, or to comment on the hypocrisy of it, or to draw attention to his inconsistent standards. That's all I'm doing here. I'm not arguing that he is legally obliged to refrain from censoring people. He has every right to do so. The question is, how seriously can we take his claim to be against censorship? How seriously can we view his criticisms of the CCP, when he himself behaves in ways that are quite similar? Uriel also points this out, in the link I provide in my comments above.

Dear Gordon,

I take your point that I too launched into attacks under the guise of Dr Myers - though I never employed the use of expletives, and initially, "her" criticisms were mild, more in the form of parody. But yes, I did, in later posts, go over board. I have no legitimate excuse for that, agreed, though once again, I was, by this stage, merely entertaining myself, merely seeking to provoke, to see how people respond as a pack. It didn't start off as an experiment, but it certainly did turn into one.

But I accept your criticism, and I have already, openly, on the pages of Peking Duck, sincerely apologised for any offense that I may have caused people.

Best regards,
Mark Anthony Jones

Mark,

Richard runs a website, who is supposed to represent.... um, no one.

The CCP is a government, who is supposed to look after the lives and well-being of over 1.2 billion people. Censorship in the two cases is very different, and although I do take your point, Richard *IS* free to do as he pleases, whereas the CCP, as a bastion of the Chinese self-interest, isn't really, or not if they want to be a helpful and respectful government. Now, you may argue that they are being helpful and respectful of their citizens, and others will argue differently. Regardless, the CCP has civic duty towards its denizens, and Richard does not.

Simon also makes an excellent point about your plaigarism. Some find it acceptible, some do not. The current system in the academy would have hung you out to dry, and it would have been the end of your career.

You say you've sincerely apologized, when every few minutes I get emails like this:

Richard - I am speaking here as Hillary's creator now, not as Hillary. Gordon's comment has just come to my attention, and so I want you to know that I am most certainly not stalking you. I am writing this particular email reluctantly in fact, and only because I certainly don't want you to panic, or for your imagination to run wild with anxiety. I said a few days ago that I have no intentions of contributing to your site ever again, in accordance with your wishes, using any of my cyber creations. I conveyed to you earlier today, through the words of Hillary, the fact that, should others post comments on your site under the names of any of my cyber creations, which appears to have occured on the new open thread this morning, then please ban the culprit/s if possible. I don't want you or your readers to think that I have broken my word, and that I am playing further havoc with your site. All of the characters of mine who ever contributed to your site have now all been put to death - none of them exist anymore, and their email accounts have all been closed - though each of these will continue to receive emails for 30 days, even though I can no loger access them in the case of yahoo accounts, and in order to do so for the hotmail accounts, I would need to do so by reactivating them within the next 28 days. Yahoo accounts, unlike hotmail, cannot be reactivated once closed. I don't mind you posting Hillar's lemail to you, but I, as her creator, would appreciate it if you would fix her surname name, which is Anthony-Johnson, not Anthony Jones.

And this:

Richard: This is just one last confirmation for you that my creator (the writer formally known as Mark Anthony Jones, Dr Myers, Bryce, Steve.L, etc, and who is now temporarily writing as me, Mark Anthony James, has decided to put to rest all of the above mentioned cyber characters, including me, Mark Anthony James. None of the above mentioned cyber characters will be contributing to Peking Duck from this moment on. Their email addresses have all been closed, and my email address, this one that I am using now, will also be closed a little later in the day - as I too am about to be put to death. My creator wishes to assure you that he/she bares little and in most cases no resemblance to any of the above cyber characters, though he/she does take full responsibility for his/her creations, and apologises to you and to all of your readers for any loss of face, humiliation or offense caused by their appearances on your site. My creator's use of your Peking Duck site for his/her experiments into the way people interact with one another on blog sites has now formally reached its conclusion, and so he/she wishes to assure you that he/she has no intentions of ever introducing other cyber characters onto your site at any time in the foreseeable future. My creator would also like to thank you for your overall toleranace over the past nine months, which was sometimes deliberately pushed to test its limits, and would like to acknowledge his/her appreciation to you for providing for him/her with a public forum in which to carry out his/her inductive research into the various ways that people interact with one another in cyberspace, when blogging. My creator has indeed, through his/her careful observations, been able to detect various patterns and regularities in behaviour, thus enabling him/her to formulate some tentative hypotheses, which he/she will need to further explore at a later date, but this, my creator would like to assure you, will be carried out using new cyber characters, and on a different blog site.

And this:

Dear Richard, I have decided to cease, in accordance with your wishes, posting contributions on your Peking Duck website. I enjoyed the entertainment, while it lasted, but my last post, addressed to Sam will be my last. I would like to assure you though, that, depite July's findings regarding Dr. Myer's similar copying and pasting of material, that I am not Dr. Myers. I have not been writing under her name. Conrad can thus feel assured that it was not me who was interested in accessing photos of his penis! Perhaps you might like to pass on this assurance to him on my behalf. I would appreciate that, in fact. I understand the reality though, that many commentators on your site will most probably continue to surmise on this matter - on the question of Dr Myers' identity - and that they will enjoy imagining that it was me merely writing under her name, and that jokes will continue to be made at my expense on this subject. I accept that. That's fine. I'm a big boy - not the cry baby that you imagine me to be!

Simon, I'm glad you find this amusing. If you were in my position, you might find it less so, though it's been educational.

Of course, a few minutes later he admitted he was indeed "Dr. Anne Meyers." A great and reliable source for information and opinion, dontcha think? Can you imagine what kind of person does this? So don;t take my word as to the veracity of MAJ; his own words are all you need.

Anyone with questions about exactly who we're dealing with should see the comments to this post and join the fun!

Simon, MAJ's antics have passed from merely crazy to something bordering on stalking/personal vendetta.

I really didn't expect you of all people to offer this great site as a platform for this lunatic. By engaging him, you're only encouraging him and allowing him to vent even more spleen.

I sincerely hope that he doesn't one day turn his "boredom" onto you mate and move his crosshairs over to simonworld and Simon.

It's your site and you have the right to keep or delete as you see fit mate but giving this lunatic bandwidth is a mistake in my opinion. Thanks.

Richard,

I have to say, you can't invite people to take part in the fun if in fact they can not. (comments are closed on that thread)

Actually I think Simon is just giving MAJ the rope he needs...

I can understand Richard's not wanting to host MAJs' mad comments, but did it ever occur to you that maybe Simon just wants to study MAJ for a change?

Besides, his IP addresses are being logged all over the place now....

Hey Simon, thanks for the shout out on my new HK edition. Look forward to reading more of your site (i'll be honest, I don't gaze upon HK blogs enough..) and maybe we can meet up in the future.

Cheers!

Dezza

Thanks Gordon - comments are open. And people can always use the latest open thread.

Oh and here's his latest: 218.18.35.146

I'm pretty ambivalent about all this excitement, being a forgive and forget, live and let live kinda KLS, but shall register my displeasure at reading an essay-full of MAJ squabbling masquerading as a letter addressed to me. don't rope me into this bemusing feuding. all the best now.

Dezza - you're welcome.

Everyone else - believe it or not, MAJ is welcome to comment here. The only commenters to get banned here are spammers and those that step over the line. Where's the line? In the end, that's up to me, but I'm pretty tolerant and broad minded. As long as we avoid defamatory and personal attacks, racism and panda pron, anything goes...within reason. As my disclaimer says, if you say it, you need to stand by it. It only reflects on you, not me.

As always, I reserve the right to change my mind with or without reason or explanation.

After further research on this entire fiasco, I'm going to recant on my previous comments encouraging Simon to allow MAJs' letter to remain in public view.

Instead of impersonating a psychologist, he needs to go see one.

Dear Laowai,

I must take issue with you I'm afraid, when you try to justify Richard's censorship on the grounds that he is representing nobody but himself, whereas the CCP are responsible for an entire nation. I mean really Laowai, that is surely obvious, isn't it?

The question isn't whether Richard's practice of censorship is more harmful or significant than that of the CCP's. Of course, it goes without saying that when the state censors its citizens, that that is far more serious in its impacts and implications than the censoring of blog commentators by the owner of a blog site. Perhaps you are just trying to be disagreeably facetious?

The problem with Richard is that he publically claims to be appalled by the CCP's use of censorship, presumably because he regards censorship as being socially irresponsible, undemocratic, and morally wrong. If he is to be taken seriously, if he is sincere, then surely he ought to set a good example? Surely his own behaviour ought to be consistent with the principles he claims to espouse and to value? Otherwsie, how can anybody take him or his site or his criticisms of the CCP seriously?

And if you want yet another example of how spiteful and childish Richard can be, he has, since yesterday I have noticed, removed his link to Binfeng's blog, the Binfeng Teahouse, as a punishment to Binfeng for posting my criticisms on his site - yet he has not removed his link to Simon World.

This brings me to another problem with Richard's behaviour - he is not fair on his contributors. In order to be seen as being fair, one must ACTUALLY be fair - and to be fair, one must ALWAYS be consistent. Well I'm sorry, but Richard is everything but consistent. He censors and bans those who mildly and politely criticise some of his views, while allowing others to make personal attacks on other readers using the most foul of language. Bellevue was banned for using bad language when insulting others, but it is quite acceptable for Martyn or Sam or American Man to use such language - in fact, when they employ the use of expletives to personal insult others, it is excused as humour.

And now, today, we have Binfeng punished for posting my comments, but Simon left untouched.

Regards,
Mark Anthony Jones

Simon, he posted the same comment on at least five different blogs. That means he went from blog to blog posting the identical message to meet a need (be it attention, or whatever). That is what spam is. Isn't it? If not, tell me, an I welcome to duplicate all my posts here? Would you like that? But of course, I would never do that. Normal people don't do that sort of thing. Sorry if I sound annoyed, but I am disappointed.

You've lost one daily reader. Sorry mate. I'd say the same if this vendetta was aimed at you. Fortunately it isn't.

All - If there is more going here than meets the eye, then let me know. Until such time, there is nothing MAJ has said that is outside the bounds of acceptable commenting at this site.

Matryn - I'm sorry you feel that way. You are always free to skip the comments section.

Richard - I understand where you are coming from. MAJ has posted the same comment in several places, partly because it was deleted under pressure from other sites. As I've said, there is nothing in his comments as they appear here that are out of line. If there are other issues, let me know so I can make an informed decision. Until that time, his comments stand.

MAJ - to some extent you are right. But you miss the point. Richard's or any site is the properitors' property, with which they can do as they like. You may find it hypocritical. As I've said several times, go and start your own site and create your own content and comments policy.

Dear All:

What we have here speaks for itself.

Look, my behaviour over at Richard's Peking Duck blog has been explained. I explained my bizarre behaviour in my comments above, and whether I am insane or not is hardly a significant issue for most people.

I have simply raised what I see are a few legitimate problems with Richard's Peking Duck site regarding censorship issues. Richard has responded by pressuring those blog owners who have allowed me the space to raise my views by removing links to their sites, and now we once again see the pack mentality in action, with some of his supporters (followers) stating their intentions to boycott sites.

Well, I may behave immaturely at times, yes. I'm the first to plead guilty on that one. But I'm hardly alone, it would seem!

Simon - we may disagree on many issues, like Iraq, but I do admire and respect both you and Binfeng for not caving in to pressure by those who cannot bare to tolerate criticism from others. I noticed that Uriel, in the link I provided in my comments above, also acknowledged respect for you for refusing to give in to pressure from Richard over a similar issue.

Best regards,
Mark Anthony Jones

Dear Simon,

I don't think that I have missed the point here, as I have already acknowledged the fact that Richard has every right to censor as he pleases.

I am merely questioning the wisdom of this. Once again, the question I raise is over whether of not Richard can be taken seriously when he criticises the CCP for censorship, when he himself practices censorship. How sincere is he, when he argues that the CCP's use of censorship is undemocratic and "evil"? If he does not practice what he preaches, then how can he and his site be taken serioulsy? That's ALL I'm saying. Richard, I think, needs to think about this - he needs to engage in a little self-criticism, perhaps?

And if he wants to be seen as being a fair-minded person, then he needs to formulate some very clear rules, and he then needs to follow them very consistently.

Now look, if he doesn't want to be seen as being fair, if he doesn't mind being seen as a hypocrite, if he doesn't mind not being taken too seriously, then fine! He has, as you say, every right to continue running his site as he has been.

Regards,
Mark Anthony Jones

Dear Simon,

I have just noticed that Richard, being the mature [edit] man that he is, has also now removed his link to Simon World as a punishment for giving me a voice in cyberspace.

I was not expecting him to punish other blog owners in this way, and it is not in my interests to damage your site in any way. I will not, therefore, be too upset if you remove my comments - though if you do decide to remove them, I would appreciate it very much if you would let it be known that you did so at my invitation.

Best regards,
Mark Anthony Jones

MAJ,

richard is not always fair, nobody is always fair, i had violent debates with richard and compared with commentators who stood with his views, i was treated not fairly enough (like some name callings towards me not handled properly), but as simon adn others indicated, peking duck is richard's kingdom, he has the right to do things good or bad in his kingdom, we could complain and protest but we couldn't force it to change, you just can't force a person to become "mature". many of your points do make sense, but distibuting letters like this one doesn't solve the problem, if you believe many commentators in peking duck are not balanced enough, tehn why don't you make your contributions there or establish your own blog? i have posted your letter at teahouse and won't remove it, now may i suggest you to do something more constructive - like making intelligent comments here in simon world. if you don't like peking duck, just ignore it and move on ... as for richard's removing the teahouse link, it's fine with me, i'm pretty sure he is now as emotional as you but still he understands simon world is much more influential than teahouse, calling it racism or pragmatism, it shows richard somehow trying to control his emotion ...

and again, MAJ, you can make very intelligent comments when your energy is directed towards more constructive topics

I'll echo what Bingfeng said, MAJ.

What Richard does on his site is his perogative, as what I do on this site is mine. If he chooses to link or not to my site, it's up to him. I won't lie - it's disappointing. But it's his decision.

OK, it's fair to say this topic is spent. Let's move on.

Dear Simon and Binfeng,

Allow me to have the last word - sorry, some old habits I'm afraid, do die hard :)

Once again, I acknowledge and understand that Richard has every right to run his site the way he wants to. I have NEVER suggested otherwise! I am merely commenting about the way he runs it, critically, yes, but my criticisms I beleive are valid ones.

I agree with the both of you, that it is time for me to move on, and to find alternative blogs sites to contribute to. I do already contribute to other sites, but not China-related ones. Because I live in China though, I do have an interest in continuing with a China blog, and so perhaps I will frequent Simon World and Binfeng Teahouse instead from now on - and I will certainly take more care to ensure that I acknowledge all of my sources from now on - I have learnt a lesson in this respect! Even though I may only be making blog comments, there is still a need to take greater care when using sources. O.K. I can appreciate that more clearly now. I had my fingers burnt, and have since been very sensitive to the touch, though they are now almost healed.

Thanks again to the both of you for taking such an honourable stand in not allowing Richard and his henchmen to pressure you into censoring my comments.

Best regards,
Mark Anthony Jones

At Richard's very reasonable request, all references to his age and his surname have been removed. Please refrain from referring to either.

Well, Richard has put Simon World back up as a link, but not Binfeng Teahouse - even though both have now removed all references to his age and surname. Why the inconsistent treatment, I wonder?

Mark Anthony Jones

Guys, my blogroll is a very personal thing. I link to sites I respect and read. If I stop reading them, I stop linking. I am reading Simon and I link to him. I am no longer reading BF's site so I don't link to it. Peace to all of you, and I hope that those here who think for themselves can see what MAJ is up to. It is not normal and it's not healthy. Look at how he's done here what he did at my site - turned the comments into a forum all about himself. He himself acknowledged his comments were a game to see the kinds of reactions he could ignite. So, I have to admit that right now I am acting as his pawn, as are the rest of us. So let me go. Meanwhile, I am relieved he will make this his new home. Simon, he's all yours.

Who are you kidding Richard? Yesterday Binfeng Teahouse was included in your list of links. He posts my comments, and the very following day the site is removed from the list, and shortly afterwards, Simon World is also removed, and because Simon had commited the same crime.

You then put Simon's site back up, but not the Binfeng Teahouse - and you expect everybody to believe that you deleted it from your list simply because you personally no longer read it! A little childish and irrational, don't you think?

Mark Anthony Jones

No, you have it all wrong. After BF hosted your bizarre post about me, divulging aspects of my personal life, I stopped reading his site, and therefore stopped linking to it. It's that simple. If I stop reading it, I stop linking. But why are we here discussing my blogroll? Is it of that much interest to you? Is it also of such interest to dig up personal information on me and paste it wherever you can to embarrass me? Is it the best use of your time? I realize someone who says he is a 64-year-old female doctor one day and someone named Bryce the next and the someone named Steve L. has to be going through some confusion. But really, just tell us: Why are you doing this? Do you think this makes you look good? Admirable? Noble? What's up?

Rich, you are delighting Simon. Look at how many comments are here because of you! This is a goldmine for Simon, and you are playing into Jones' hands by responsing to him. Nip it here. Most of us know psychosis when we see it, and Jones has no credibility anymore. And engaging him does you no favors. You can't win when you are dealing with a psychopath. Email me later; some of us have some great ideas about how to handle Jones.

Look Richard - I am not out to embarrass you by mentioning your age or name. How is your surname an embarrassment to you anyway? I came across it by accident - it is mentioned elsewhere on Simon World, in Uriel's posts (the link to one of them is above), and elswhere. There is even a nice photograph of you on the web.

I acknowledge and accept most of your criticisms of me, of my recent behaviour. I am simply raising a few criticisms of my own, and I think they are valid and reasonable criticisms. I am not being over the top here am I, surely?

It's O.K. for you to launch into a vicious anti-MAJ campaign, even days after I posted a comment into your first initial help thread, offering you financial assistence in the event that you ever visit Shenzhen! You quickly deleted the thread, not wanting anybody to see that I had behaved so warmly towards you, and you then, a few days later, encouraged all of your readers to join in on a witch hunt. And I'm the psychopathic vindictive sadist, and you're not, right? We seem to have an awful lot in common with one another, don't we Richard?

And Boo, you and all of Richard's other henchmen can gather together to see what you can do to prevent me from expressing my views on other people's blog sites - that's fine. I have nothing to hide. I even met up with Sam from Shenzhen a few days ago for a drink. My identity is no secret, nor is my address or the company I work for. And my age and surname is no secret either!

Best regards,
Mark Anthony Jones

Boo - this might surprise you, but I'm not doing anything here. MAJ posted, others have responded. It is how my comment section works. I'm not sure how you are able to guage my emotions, my "delight" or otherwise at this thread. That said, you hit the nail on the head. Everyone's comments are open for all to see. People can draw their own conclusions.

"When you argue with a fool, he's doing the same thing."

-- American folk saying

MAJ, just like most things richard's site has plenty of merits and also some demerits. but the fact that you deliberately wound everyone up there means you have no credible platform on which to denounce the demerits.
yes, he doesn't like certain criticism. and he gives free rein to certain commenteers who I became allergic to.
but it's not like he's a public figure or anything, so why take your campaign into other people's blogs? as has been mentioned repeatedly, if people don't like the site, they leave the site.

speaking of sites, where else has MAJ's "letter" been published? as the addressee I feel I have an interest.

final though, MAJ may be a moron, but you've got to enjoy sentences like this:
"and whether I am insane or not is hardly a significant issue for most people"!!!

Dear Gaijin Biker - wise saying you have there. I agree, when I'm arguing with a fool like Richard, he is doing the same thing. And when he argues with a fool like me, I too, likewise, am doing the same. I don't pretend otherwise - I have already acknowledged and accepted Richard's criticisms of my behaviour. But I think some of my criticisms about his lack of consistency, and about his use of censorship, are fair and valid nevertheless.

Regards,
Mark Anthony Jones

MAJ,

in no matter what circumstances, disclosing other's real name, age, IP address, etc. without getting approval is an unacceptable behavior.

as i said before, you have made some good points, and for those who have the capability of self-reflecting, they will learn soemthing from your comments. that's enough. you don't have to degenerate it into a nasty personal war to make your points more persuasive.

pls relax, have some beer and do some sports, then setup your own blog, maybe?

Dear KLS,

I think it must be clear by now that I am deliberately acting the part of "moron" - and I'm enjoying it. Why should I have to be sensible and level-headed all the time? Cyberspace can be quite liberating!

I have posted my criticisms on the Binfeng Teahouse site and on Paper Tiger, though the Other Lisa deleted the Paper Tiger entry. So as far as I am aware, it exists only on this site, and on Binfeng's site.

As far as your other question goes, well, why take any campaign anywhere? What is fundamentally wrong with me stimulating some conversation on this site about the issues of censorship, using Peking Duck as the vehicle, or stimulus, if you like?

Regards,
Mark Anthony Jones

Dear Binfeng,

With all respect, I don't think that I am being in any way "nasty" towards Richard by making a few valid cricisms about his use of censorship. I agree with most of his criticisms of me and my behaviour, and I am simply making a few criticisms of my own - and I have phrased my criticisms in a polite, friendly language.

I take your point about me mentioning his age and surname, but this information is already available on the net - it is hardly much of a secret. His name is mentioned elsewhere on Simon World, on Uriel's sites, etc.

And as for disclosing people's IP addresses - I have NEVER done that. Richard, on the otherhand, has disclosed my IP address on his Peking Duck site, and on this site as well.

best regards,
Mark Anthony Jones

There are far better things we could all be discussing than this. For example, I recommend reading Why we need a strong China.

Dear Binfeng,

Richard has revealed, both on his own site and on this one, my personal IP address. Nobody attacks him for this.

I refer to him by his full name, and I mention his age, and I am attacked for revealing "personal" information without his permission.

But look, I have Not revealed anything about Richard which he himself and others have not already revealed on the web. Richard himself also happily reveals his age on the following web site, for ALL the world to see: [deleted]

Now look - HE (NOT ME) has revealed his age and his surname, on the WEB for all the world to see! And Simon World, and Uriel have both referred to Richard's full name in the past, once again, on the web, for all to see. See Uriel's site, for example, which also details Richard's practice of censorship. It's titled "The Perils and Agonies of Free Speech" (at www.urielw.com/bosco1.htm)

I have NOT revealed anything about Richard that he himself and others have not already revealed on the web. He however, has revealed my IP addresses!

regards,
Mark Anthony Jones

MAJ and others, I will say this only once more. Richard has requested and I have agreed to NOT post his full name or age. You will respect my decision and you will NOT post his full name or age on this site.

This is the last warning. I've allowed this discussion MAJ, but you need to respect my rules. It may be you can find this information through other means, but not through here.

With that, this thread is closed.

Since when does obesity have anything to do with the rich, except in novels and cartoons?

Fat people tend to be fat, too, when they can't afford to eat correctly.

Seriously.

How many obese people do you see in poor countries? Obesity is a disease of plenty, not of want.

Great paragraph. I'm reading the SCMP online now but can't find this article. Is it in today's paper?

Yep, in today's lawyer's underwear section.

Simon: Go to Mexico sometime. You'll see plenty of poor obese people.

OK, I've been to Mexico once, many years ago, so I'll take Joe's word for it. It doesn't alter my main point - obesity is a disease of plenty, not want. Obesity is NOT a major health problem in almost all poorer countries, and it IS a major health problem in richer countries. Is that correlation or causation? Given the richer a country the higher the rate of obesity, it would appear to be causation.

I'm happy for people to point out contrary research.

Lawyers underwear? You've lost me.

Speaking of obesity, I travelled through Puero Rica twice last winter. Now there's a place full of large people. Never seen anything like it before.

Briefs, Martyn.

Aaahhhh! Thanks. I always do the non-cryptic crosswords.

Cryptics are sooooo last year. It's all sudoku now. I'm finding you can tell a lot about a newspaper's target audience by how easy/difficult they make their Sudoku puzzle.

Sudoko? Never tried it because, er, I'm so last year. I did hear that it was (is?) a major hit in the UK.

It is in Oz now too. It's a good little number game. The Standard in HK has started it, and the SMH has it but you've gotta pay. The Sun in the UK has it, but they basically give you most of the numbers.

A good time waster (outside of blogging, of course).

You said that, not me.

Here

''This book helps us understand that the rising trend in obesity and overweight is part of a worldwide demographic and epidemiological transition and that this trend is not a concomitant manifestation of development. The 12 articles presented in the covers the situation in Latin America and the Caribbean but also that of impoverished populations in developed countries."

and it goes on. my point, really, is that thinking that fat means rich is just an old concept that has more to do with movies and stereotypes than the logical processes of daily life. poor people cannot afford to buy healthy food in developing or increasingly industrialized countries.

''Current research on obesity now seems to focus on socioeconomic factors as a primary cause of this dangerous disease and empirical evidence suggests that poor people are the highest risk of becoming obese. This is largely because those living below or close to the poverty line usually have poor standards of living. Arguably their state of poverty deprives them from having a stable diet. The growing numbers of working mothers find it increasingly difficult to allocate time for preparing family meals, leading to increasing dependence on fattening fast foods.''

You can read more here

those links are all messed up above. i linked to two other articles, funded by ngos that point to an amazing epidemic in poor countries.

china is a poor country more than it is a rich country. hopefully you can fix the links for me, simon, but your idea that obesity is about having too much is poorly thought out, according to research.

The links worked for me, Doug.

OK, I accept what you say. But go back to the original article. It clearly points to this correlation - there are obese in richer Beijing and malnutrition in poorer rural areas. Or take it another way. Obesity has only recently become a widespread disease in human history. Why? Well partly no doubt because of processed foods and dietary changes. And partly because we are able to afford more food, more cheaply than ever before.

It might seem like conventional wisdom, but your links notwithstanding the causation overall still seems clear. I'll read your links more fully and come back to this.

Regarding your point #3: read the fine print. I tried to do that as soon as the shops offered the 1:1 exchange rate (at a Fortress IIRC), but they wanted to see my PRC passport. The only passport I hold is the Aussie one. :(

Would this sort of thing be illegal under the proposed anti-racism laws?

Simon, thanks as always for the Daily Linklets.

Did you see that article "Foreign investment slips on rising costs" in the China section of today's Weekend Standard? It sort of adds to The Coming China Crunch post you had yesterday.

http://www.thestandard.com.hk/stdn/
std/China/GG14Ad01.html

Thanks Martyn. There's also a linklet today about China's slowing economy. It's all happening, but people haven't woken up to it yet. The nail in the coffin, so to speak, will be a summer revaluation of the yuan, just as growth slows and when it's least needed. But the revaluation has never been about economics.

> The problem with this theory is in
> capitalism such looting has consequences

I agree in principle, but there since "capitalism" is an abstraction, the devil is in the details. In theory private property rights make this stealing, but of course rights need a functional governing institution to enforce them. Here in the US the Supreme Court just radically reinterpreted the takings clause of the Constitution, basically allowing one capitalist to use the government to in effect steal from another with the blessing of the institutions that are supposed to enforce private property rights.

The photo as posted in this blog has clearly been altered. For a less close up, but clearer picture of what night looks like in North Korea, check out the image in NASA's Blue Marble site (http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Newsroom/BlueMarble/Images/land_ocean_ice_lights_2048.jpg)

You'll note that Pyongyang is clearly lit up, and there are faint spots of light in a few other places.

The photo on this site was taken directly from the SCMP.

That other photo simply makes this one appear even more suspect.

Putting up statues for Chiang Kai Shek? That's the funniest thing i've seen all week. While the KMT are busy trying to forget about Chiang (while deifying his son), the CCP are honouring him. I'd love to see the reaction in Taiwan if the KMT proposed putting up a(nother) statue to CKS ...

These are strange times, David.

He who controls the past controls the future. The big brother knows it too well.

If the bottom really drops out of the US housing market and people end up holding mortgages worth more than their properties that might be enough to make China's export market go splang without any further protectionist measures being required. At which point our esteemed congressmen could forget about textile quotas and a the deluge of teddy bears and concentrate their full attention on Chinese buyouts of mediocre American companies.

The mind quakes.

Say, doesn't it help to decrease the trade deficit if we sell off our bum companies to the Chinese? It seems to me we finally found the product we can export back!

'I've never heard of, much less met, a Hong Kong libertarian.'

How about Professor Steven Cheung, a leading Chicago School economist? I would think many Hong Kong students (like me) are deeply influnced by Professor Cheung's views on market economy.

I am also curious if Caplan has ever read Hong Kong Economic Journal (Shun Po) / Next Magazine, both support and promote economic liberties.

How about the '71 Demonstration' in 2003 fighting for civil liberties? Half a million Hong Kongers turned out. After all, civil liberties are closely linked to economic liberties, are they?

Part of the problem is HK's libertarians have not really used the term to describe themselves. The underlying ideology does have a strong following here.

The voices of working class people are irrelevant anyway. In a laissez-faire society, money talks!

How? Because when politicians become accountable to voters rather than special interests, they need to educate the electorate on the value of their policies.

Well in a proper democracy politicians would need to cater to more than just special interests in order to secure their seats in the parliament. Hence politicians would be naturally inclined to educate voters about their platform. A very vivid example was the 1999 Victorian state election.

There's nothing "unlibertarian" about cartels, unless those cartels exist due to help from the government.

Libertarians do not believe in anti-monopoly laws - legislation is the cause of monopolies, not the cure.

Hong Kong is the most economically Libertarian country in the world, unless you count tiny tax havens like Vanuatu.

A large part of this is because of the lack of democracy in Hong Kong's history. The history of democracy is also the history of social welfare and vote-buying.

Why try to explain economic concepts to voters when promising them a bunch of someone else's money is so much easier and more effective?

Most of the free-market, low tax countries have either no history of Democracy or only a very recent one.

Hong Kong, Singapore, Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, Monte Carlo, The Caribbean Islands and various South Pacific Fiefdoms have either never had democracy or have only had it since WW2 or later.

Yobs, I'll have to disagree. While it might be anti-liberatarian to have antitrust laws, surely the Hong Kong experience has proven that in relatively small and concertrated economies that cartels naturally emerge. Cartels tend to operate suboptimally economically, and the ones in Hong Kong in particular. There is thus a loss of general economic welfare as the cartels capture excess profits at the expense of consumers.

The other problem I have is with this linkage between democracy and liberal (in the true sense) economic policy (and BTW, you missed Chile). The best example is the US, a country that is relatively liberal economically and yet the home of democracy for more than 200 years. It is effectively taking the view that voters will always put their short term interests above long term ones. That may or may not be true, but its up to them to decide, not an elite. You know, who watches the watchers and all that.

I understand your cyncicism but I don't subscribe to it. If you've got links to academic studies or research on it, point me the way.

A final point - Hong Kong might seem libertarian prima facie, but scratch the surface and you'll see the dead hand of Government far more than you'd suspect. Government's share of GDP has doubled since the 60s.

"Yobs, I'll have to disagree. While it might be anti-liberatarian to have antitrust laws, surely the Hong Kong experience has proven that in relatively small and concertrated economies that cartels naturally emerge. Cartels tend to operate suboptimally economically, and the ones in Hong Kong in particular. There is thus a loss of general economic welfare as the cartels capture excess profits at the expense of consumers."

I'm not arguing that Simon. There may well be a net economic penalty, but that doesn't make it "unlibertarian".

"A final point - Hong Kong might seem libertarian prima facie, but scratch the surface and you'll see the dead hand of Government far more than you'd suspect. Government's share of GDP has doubled since the 60s."

It still has one of the lowest taxation rates and % of GDP of any country in the world. All the other countries have been increasing at the same time.

The case of the US is an outlier to a general trend. Don't forget that their constitution forbade taxation by the federal government until the early 1900's. US history since that point is the history of creeping government expansion.

I'll defer to your greater knowledge, Yobbo. All I know is I love the low tax rate.

According to the Water Supplies Department, yes. But they don't say how much.

Thanks for that. I've rung them and they're getting back to me, but this report says it is around 0.48 mg/L. The WHO guideline is 1.5 mg/L...

Simon, it behooves me to regretfully inform you that Sina has not quite outdone Xinhua on the flesh factor quite yet. As I mentioned at the Peking Duck, the woman on the picture isn't quite a woman. Thats a transgendered man. :)

Hey, I'm non-discriminatory...as is Sina.

'There's only ONE winner here, and it is the Hong Kong Jockey Club.'

Perhaps not. It will save Beijing an estimated 1.1 billion yuan (HK$1.03 billion) in expenses, reported The Standard. So it really is a win-win situation, in a way.

Point taken, although someone mentioned Beijing might be hit for any shortfall.

Grrrr...Such a long post and not even a link.

Gordon, the SCMP is unlinkable.

I have to say Simon, I am a bit surprised and nonplussed that you linked to DJ Mcguire. Reading his entry, I had to resist the urge to put on my tinfoil beanie. Apparently his reputable sources consist the Worldnetdaily and Newsmax. Even further accounting for the tone of his commentors,

"You are so right that the world will have no peace until Communist China is terminated. I only hope Fox News has the guts to invite you for a discussion on your book."

"As soon as I heard about the bombings i knew that this was a CCP attack to take the spotlight off them at this time. Never the less they will fall and the world will know the truth ."

The entire thing seems like fruitcake central. I've seen their type time and time again at the Free Republic. People who are so paranoid and conspiracy ridden they can't see facts written on the walls. (refer to the comments on this thread for proof. http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1350794/posts) I wouldn't put it past them to be one of the whole "sino-soviet schism is a communist myth/Soviet Union's demise is a ruse to deceive the US and they will strike when the guard is down" believers.

Jing, I was very wary of linking to that piece, but I figured I'd link it and people could draw their own conclusions. Oh, and I had my tin foil hat on at the time.

Just in case.

interesting blog u've got here.. i love the layout

and the contents of course ...

Thank you, I aim to please.

Re: the Zheng He link, check out the synopsis of this book for a critical rebuttal of Menzies'.
http://www.selectbooks.com.sg/titles/36572.htm

'It's not for the taxpayers.' Quite so. But the angle is absent in TVB and ATV news.

well if the park is 4 times the size of HK Disney, and it opens in 2010, then it figures they should be on site building the thing no later than this xmas. Can the eagle eye readers in Shanghai spot any huge flattening of land in pudong?

I noticed Bruce Lee was on the list of the 10 most influential people in Chinese film. Wasn't he from Hong Kong too?

that would really have confused Tommy

I was reading those comments, and was completely outraged, I felt ashamed.

Better still, was the BBC interview of an American tourist. Quoth the BBC reporter, ''You seem impressed by the security reaction to the bombings.'' Actually, the woman had indicated no such thing. Her response, anyway, was classic and a good taste of black humor.

''Oh, yes. Back in the States we are totally not used to this kind of stuff.'' Clearly the response of a confused adn bewildered woman.

And I don't think the CNN guy was intentinoally corrolating the lawyer's response of pity to bewilderment and confusion. I think he was probably stuck on saying that at the end, regardless. You know how tv reporters are, always saying the fucking obvious.

It was certainly a pre-meditated ending, but it put a sting in the interview, especially given the guy said "pity" instead of "revenge". I suppose it was too much to expect more than one person in the interview to be rational.

Ask them again in a couple of days...sigh...you really can't expect them to put coherent sentences together after what they've just been through...

I am glad you picked this up. I have been following the whole thing start to now on my blog. What an unbelievable tragedy. I am appalled by the total lack of concern I have seen from the Hong Kongers I have encountered so far.

I'm not a kos kid, but they're got a huge thread going about this over there, the only place I've seen so far that's got a lot of active commenters. This is nuts, but I think the British reaction will be much different than the US reaction to 9/11. Hopefully they will temper any rage with some clear headedness.

I was watching one of the news channels but had to walk away, I'm pig-sick of these cynical organisations talking up the death counts!

i saw that on CNN replay. the man was interviewed for quite long and described his experience. it was detailed, precise and astonishly restrained (that is, about the fact that the passengers were left in the subway without any explanation while smoke was coming into the car for 30 minutes, he could only bring himself to say that 'it was almost negligent' because he did not want to condemn the subway operator or the police without evidence).

I resent the "temper any rage" comment for a multitude of reasons the most important being that I view the US response to 9-11 as being entirely reasonable. The second reason being the sheer magnitude of 9-11 as it far exceeded any terrorist attacks in the Western world that come to mind, a modicum of rage seems warranted.

I just look at the TV, at the BBC News website, and I think: I was just there. It looks just like that.

And I can't believe it's really here, in my backyard.

As simon said earlier, and i would add--no matter what we deal with--we explain things by talking about what we already know.

We already know the british are restrained, so was this man remarkably restrained? There were probably =plenty of other people who were not. Kudos to him for keeping it together, but I do think that it depends on how used you are to these types of things, right?

And to the gentleman or the woman who said he/she was astonished by the lack of concern by the Hong Kong people...I'm not sure how to react to that.

I really don't know what to say, because I'm not sure how you measure concern. I measure it in what they say, and I've heard no Hong Kong person say, ''I don't really give a shit.'' I've heard much differently expressed views.

I should be more clear:

a single londoner on CNN does not a story make.

a single CNN correspondent does not define the news culture

that kind of thing...

This troll's comments have been replaced...because they are an idiot with an IP of 165.21.154.12 just so you know.

We've dealt with the IRA in the past, and no-one gave a blind bit of notice. But I still find it galling to be in Hong Kong now and not have the same coverage that the US got when they were attacked.

We simply didn't die in large enough numbers. The scale isn't important, the terror is the same.

Trust me, most Londoners do despise those that did this. But there is a certain stoic dignity and civil temperance to adversity that you wouldn't quite understand unless you've lived and grown up there.

doug, i agree with the single case proves nothing. but i have already seen that interview twice on cnn already (and not including simon's first mention). they won't let it drop and they therefore regard it as it as a landmark case. it is their fault, then.

I understand that, ESWN.

Having lived in London as well as Washington, D.C., my thoughts are with londoners. Sorry about the terror attacks and CNN. I don't think they are the same things, but I guess people need a place to put their anger and CNN needs a place to put their revenue earning.

A few things:

1. Unfortunately London is a city used to dealing with terrorism, thanks to the IRA. Perhaps that's why the reaction is more stoic.
2. Unfortunately many were expecting such an attack. Again that's why the shock and awe of 9/11 is not being repeated here.
3. From all the Hong Kongers I know, both local and expat, the reaction has been one of horror. However see point 2.

Now some even more important points:

The people that did this are murderers. Not freedom fighters. Not insurgents. Murderers. There is no excusing, or rationalising these actions. That said the right thing to do, and this is implied by the man interviewed on CNN, is to NOT sink to their level, but to pursue them to the full extent of the laws and freedoms we cherish. It is also important not to generalise. All the anger and ire can only be directed at those that did this and those that incite them to do this.

As for Doug's point, he's right that this one interview is not the be all and end all of the media coverage. Watching BBC last night was far more enlightening. But I was highlighting the obvious bias in the "reporter's" interview. It should open our eyes to the agendas that drive many so-called journalists. The sooner they admit they are not objective, the better their coverage will be.

But then there/s also just bad reporting.

right on simon.

Absolutely, here here Simon.

As you say, 30 years of IRA terror as well as what London Major Ken Livingstone said following the Mardrid bombing about how miraculous it would be if London were not attacked partly explain the reaction of Londoners.

Also, if yesterday's attack, which police now estimate as using a total of 10lbs of high-explosive, is the best that al Queda-inspired terrorists can come up with then we must assume that the anti-terror initiatives carried out by western govts have taken their toll.

That's what I'm personally deducing from yesterday's attack anyway.

My officemate at a Hong Kong English language daily newspaper who covers the Jockey Club says that the Jockey Club will pony up HK$800,000,000 and that Beijing will clean its stalls of the remainder to finance this boondoogle. Thus leaving the SAR itself to pay nada.

But that's still $800 million that could have been spent on a new hospital, or helping the poor, or even existing HKJC programs. It's displacing welfare money in a blatant land grab.

I'd say you're right about the US not wanting the Philippines, but if you look at it from the Navy War College article about Taiwan and Melos you linked to today, there's a map of the region. It may illustrate a grain of truth. If China indeed becomes the ultimate enemy in American strategic thinking, Clark and Subic are going to start looking mighty good again...:)

Giving up Subic Bay was a massive mistake by the Americans. It would have been clear even then how strategic and potentially useful such a base could have been in the future to contain a growing China. The Americans now have to rely on Guam.

At the same time, having military bases does not imply neo-colonialism. Look at Japan and South Korea for a couple of Asian examples.

Addictive Indian food isn't limited in Malaysia only...

Have to agree with you. That guy was off his rocker, and a dependencia holdover from the 1970s. Even the great exponent of that theory, Cardoso, ended up becoming a market-driven leader of Brazil!

By the way, I have a hard time believing, even in 1930s China, that the average age of first sexual experience was 26! Maybe I've just read too much about Shanghai in that era...

That's the age people admit to having their first experience. It probably reflects as much a change in morality and attitudes to sex as it does the age people really did it. Funnily enough back in earlier times, by 16 you were expected to be producing kids already...that's why Shakespeare's Juliet is a 15 year old.

How things change.

I guess the hue and cry is to be expected in a city where efficiency is prized above creative, lateral thinking. I agree with you though, the less laws the better...

this is a lot of material, but quite difficult since it is verbose and the detailed data are not present (which would be easier for me).

here is what i regard as the most fundamental constraint: 800 million peasants live on arable land which covers only 7% of the nation, for an average of 1 hectare per person.

how much money can you squeeze out that one hectare? let us say technology doubles the productivity and price support doubles it again. so instead of 1,000 yuan per person per year, you yield 4,000 yuan per person and then you have nowhere left to go. there is no exit under the pure agricultural model. they better look at something else.

If you click the link you can download the original report, which has 30-odd pages of data in the appendicies, including some good charts.

In the long run, you're right. Agriculture will only get the country so far. But in terms of poverty alleviation, it is just about the only thing that deals with the problem. As China gets richer, more people will leave the farm for the city. Eventually some of those farmers will become more successful and grow larger, taking over their neighbours' plots and becoming true commercial farmers. But that's way into the future.

Even based on the numbers you've suggested, a 400% improvement in incomes from land is a great result, and it will see even more people rising out of poverty. They can worry about where next down the track.

Yes, as we all know, it's government policy to eventually increase the urban population to much, much higher than it is today.

For this reason alone, I imagine that the goverenment are also aware, or at least partially aware, of the fact that rural reforms can only go so far and if it wants to build a real world-class economy in the long run, then it will have to try even up the urban-rural population divide.

i think it is wrong to move more and more people into the existing big cities.

i would like to see a reverse migration of the migrant workers, who have accumulated enough capital and knowledge that they would want to go back home and build small enterprises. this would be supplemented by large private and public investments to generate rural employment. this is hard, because all the right micro-level decisions have to be made (and the Huaxi/Huankantou riot was the result of attracting chemical factories and destroying the environment). the central government can direct the large infrastructe investments (electricity plants, road, etc), but they can't assure the efficiency and correctness of all the micro-level projects.

one example that i thought of is Lijiang, from the poorest county in the nation to a tourist center that provides direct employment to tens of thousands. but not every place can be transformed into a tourist center.

China needs to find a way to compete agriculturally by growing their agriculture to the point of being able to export food in large quantities. Most country's sustain their agriculture through subsidies. This could be one item.
Another would be to build the transportation infrastructure to the point where it is no longer adventageous to produce on the east coast (close to ports). The USA did this with cross country interstate highways. China is currently working on several of these highways...but witht he high tolls on these highways, many truckers are reluctant to use them as they bleed their profits. Subsidize highways and create, what the USA has, 'free-ways.'
Finally...cut taxes. The tax rates here are brutal. A moderately middle class income here pays roughly 40% in taxes. As you mentioned in your article...get the government out of the pocketbooks (and the internet!)

Well, Simon, you did it again! I am happy to see you continue the topic of new left. I feel the one of most important underlying official policy now is to expand the cities and force peasants to lose or leave their land. Making farming hardly profitable is necessary for this situation. As long as the labor can be absorbed continuously, this will be a huge sustainable engine for China's economy in the future. One thing the government has to do now is to publish a set of policy to encourage the small private business instead of subsidizing SOEs. However suitable banking, credit system and law enforcement are not there. The leader has to have courage to implement a gradual institutional change even with the obvious risk to accommodate this change. The former prime minister Zhu failed with the high salary of government employee as the only result. Wait and See what Hu will do. By the way, simon, I absolutely disagree that decreasing the government intervention will be the answer for the problem. Chicago boys failed in Chile 30 years ago. The lesson is that moderate governmental intervention has to be maintained, especially in the transition. Hopefully Hu can learn sth from Alejandro Foxley.

Lin, can you explain how the "Chicago boys" failed in Chile? Chile is South America's most prosperous and stable economy and has been for 30 years. While clearly the Pinochet regime was a human rights disgrace, at least economically they got it right.

ESWN: a natural consequence of economic development is a shift of populations from rural to urban areas. Why? Because people like living in cities, because farms become more productive, because farms need less labour as they use more capital. I don't think there's a single example where there's been a reverse migration in a developing country. That said, you're right that in rural areas there is a need for diversification to encourage further economic development.

ESWN

I ca see where you're coming from with theory that migrant workers could return to their villages and, with govt support, build the rural economy.

It's a interesting thoery, despite what Simon rightly points out above about people generally prefering to live in cities and rural migration increasing economies of scale by reducing the farming population/icreasing size of farms, the fact remains that China's urban/rural divide must be better balanced to reflect global norms if it ever wants to achieve a higher standard of living for the population at large.

At the moment (I might go off and chase up the figures in a minute) China's rural population is too large and lop-sided and this will hamper China's development more and more in the years to come. Some of the reasons are mentioned earlier in this thread.

Simon, probably tomorrow I will google the whole story of Chicago boys for you. Now I only remember that under Chicago boys' administration, poverty rate had gone up from 20ish% to somewhere above 40% from 1973-1998. The average growth rate was only 3.5% sth...The price that a society paid has not all been counted into these numbers yet. Chile has really boomed only after a new socialist government took the power based on a center-left coalition. Look at Clinton's, Blair's and Chilean's success, I can't help trusting the "NEW" LEFT! Or you guys called them neo-liberal or sth else?

Lin, I look forward to the story of the Chicago Boys.

I must admit that I don't know much about chile (apart from the fact that's it extremely nationalistic---according to one of the British Consulate guys here in Guangzhou who was there for a bit) but I know that just before and after Margaret Thatcher came to power in Britain in 1979 she sent political advisors to Santiago many times in order to study Chile's Hayek-esque form of Darwin-sink-or-swim type capitalism.

Therefore, I've always assumed the opposite of what you are saying about Chile.

Lin, I look forward to the article. But your two examples of "New Leftists" perfectly prove my case: both Blair and Clinton followed the doctrines of right wing economics to the letter - fiscal surpluses, independent monetary policy, welfare reform...they out-Tories the Tories and out-Republicaned the Republicans. That was Al Gore's mistake - he chose to veer left and got pounded.

Thanks for proving my case.

Because it's a long article, so only some data are presented here, you can see More here

The Chicago School of Economics got that chance for 16 years in Chile, under near-laboratory conditions. Between 1973 and 1989……………….. The results were exactly what liberals predicted. Chile's economy became more unstable than any other in Latin America, alternately experiencing deep plunges and soaring growth. Once all this erratic behavior was averaged out, however, Chile's growth during this 16-year period was one of the slowest of any Latin American country. Worse, income inequality grew severe. The majority of workers actually earned less in 1989 than in 1973 (after adjusting for inflation), while the incomes of the rich skyrocketed. Conservatives have developed an apologist literature defending Chile as a huge success story. In 1982, Milton Friedman enthusiastically praised General Pinochet (the Chilean dictator) because he "has supported a fully free-market economy as a matter of principle. Chile is an economic miracle." (1) However, the statistics below show this to be untrue. Chile is a tragic failure of right-wing economics, and its people are still paying the price for it today…………………. After the IMF loans came through, the Chilean economy began recovering in 1984. Again, it saw exceptionally high growth, averaging about 7.7 percent a year between 1986 and 1989. (11) But like the previous cycle, this was mostly due to actual growth, not potential growth. By 1989, the GDP per capita was still 6.1 percent below its 1981 level. (12)……………… So what was the record for the entire Pinochet regime? Between 1972 and 1987, the GNP per capita fell 6.4 percent. (13) In constant 1993 dollars, Chile's per capita GDP was over $3,600 in 1973. Even as late as 1993, however, this had recovered to only $3,170. (14) Only five Latin American countries did worse in per capita GDP during the Pinochet era (1974-1989). (15) And defenders of the Chicago plan call this an "economic miracle!" Aggregate statistics are somewhat better. Between 1970 and 1989, Chile's total GDP grew a lackluster 1.8 to 2.0 percent a year. That was slower than most other Latin American countries, and slower than its own record in the 60s. (16)……….. By all measures, the average worker was worse off in 1989 than in 1970. During this period, labor's share of the national income fell from 52.3 to 30.7 percent. (17) Even during the second boom (1984-89), wages continued to fall. The following index shows the decline in both average and minimum wages:

By 1989, Chile's poverty rate was 41.2 percent, one-third of them indigent or desperately poor. (19) Shanty towns known as poblaciones grew around Santiago and other major cities, kept alive by las comunes, or soup kitchens. In 1970, the daily diet of the poorest 40 percent of the population contained 2,019 calories. By 1980 this had fallen to 1,751, and by 1990 it was down to 1,629. (20) Furthermore, the percentage of Chileans without adequate housing increased from 27 to 40 percent between 1972 and 1988, despite the government's boast that the new economy would solve homelessness. (21)

Chile's income inequality also became the worst on the continent. In 1980, the richest 10 percent took in 36.5 percent of the national income. By 1989, this had risen to 46.8 percent. By contrast, the bottom 50 percent of income earners saw their share fall from 20.4 to 16.8 percent over the same period. (23)

How did the Chicago boys accomplish this war against workers without the people rising up in revolt? The answer lies in Pinochet's reign of terror.

Alejandro Foxley is an famous economist who turned right wing economic policy toward the center after chicago boys. And he, is a big believer for Political economy.

INTERVIEWER: What would be your final verdict on the Pinochet years in terms of economy?

ALEJANDRO FOXLEY: It's a very mixed performance. The average growth rate in the 17 years of Pinochet was a mediocre 3.5 percent. That's an average. In 10 years of democracy, we doubled our rate [to] 7 percent a year. So in that respect, I don't think they have much to show. But having said that, in terms of the deeper transformation of the economy, they certainly were able to anticipate what became a global trend afterwards. They were able to start a process of deregulating the markets, opening up the economy, and allowing everybody to have a share in world markets, to be able to compete, and the need to increase productivity. All of those things later became a global trend. That was their contribution. They were able to anticipate a global trend, and Chile has benefited from them.

INTERVIEWER: But at a terrible price?

ALEJANDRO FOXLEY: At a very high price. Believe me, at a very high human price.

back to top

Towards a New Development Strategy

INTERVIEWER: Tell me about the people you got to know in Boston [in the early '80s], and what outlook you shared.

ALEJANDRO FOXLEY: Well, I was at MIT at the time, as a visiting fellow. I got to know Domingo Cavallo and Pedro Aspe very well. Pedro Aspe became the minister of finance in Mexico when I was the minister of finance in Chile, and Cavallo in Argentina. And we developed a view that wasn't as rigid as the one the Chicago Boys had developed, in terms of development strategy. And I think that it shows. If you look at what Cavallo is doing in Argentina today, you will certainly see a much more pragmatic type of economist, someone who believes, as Jeffrey Sachs does, that development is an effort that you have to, in some way, conduct, that you have to awaken the creative forces, and just freeing up the markets will not always do that job for you.

You can find all interview materials here

By the way, Simon, I am not denying that Clinton and Blair moved to the right a little bit in order to wow the center. That's why I called it center-left coalition, and "NEW" left. However don't mistakenly consider them implementing right wing economics. First of all, Pro-business nature are universal for both right and left. It should not be counted in the right or the left.
Ok, we have seen Clinton raised tax for richest people, pay a fortune for public education, social security and medicare. Take a look at what right wings doing: Cut tax (mainly for richest people), teachers and government employee laid off, tuition skyrocketed, plan to privatize pensions......(hey, what if stockmarket collpase as it did swiped out chilean's pension...)
So you are saying Clinton out-Republicaned the Republicans?

Lin, I'll have to read the article over the weekend. But on a quick skim I've already noticed one thing - while Chile's average growth might have been 3.5% per annum over that period, its neighbours went through various economic catastrophes. That Chile managed stability in an ocean of turmoil is a helluva achievement.

I am saying Clinton did out-Republican the Republicans...but Gore blew it.

When did those on the left become pro-business?

Just in case you are curious Simon, but the link about Chinese game farmers contains a lot of BS. I have personal experience with much of what is described in the CGW article and can say with some confidance that a lot of it is sensationalized rubbish. For one thing, the secondary market for digital medium isn't nearly as large as described nor is anyone really pulling consistant 6 digit incomes from it. Most of the secondary market is not handled by professional farmers but rather by ad hoc personal sales between individuals via ebay or some other similar site. Simply because there is no business overhead and most resalers happen to be just getting rid of an account or inventory they are no longer using. The simple fact is although PC gamer demographics are fairly diverse, those who have the most time and effort to devote to MMORPG's universally have little purchasing power and potential customers are limited. The most critical factor that prevents the long-term viability of digital gaming markets is simple economics. Most mmorpg's have a limited shelf-life and eventually after a year start bleeding subscribers who are otherwise potential customers. Also of course is the in-game economic system. There is a simple truth, the addictive factor of MMORPG gaming is the accumulation of capital and (digital) power, this formula keeps players coming back and playing when otherwise boredom would set in and people would stop playing. To retain players, the players must be able to retain whatever they gain to have a sense of progress, unfortunately this is against the natural flow of economics since to keep player satisfaction such games forgo continuous expense (food, rent, clothing, etc in laymen's terms). What this results in is immediate and rapid inflation as the currency continues accrueing but it is not leaving the game economy fast enough. While the in game professional farmers can create millions of the artificial currency, the more they create and the more time that progresses makes it worth less and less. Eventually games reach a saturation point where there is so much currency in the game and the price of the digital currency is so low as to be fairly ridiculous. By this time the incentive to buy digital currency with actual money is nearly gone because those most attached to the game have already plateued (maximal capital and power accretion). This is why digital currency sellers have to operate in so many in games because after a given amount of time, depending of the popularity of the game in the first place it simply ceases becoming profitable. You simply cannot make a consistant living and those mysterious people claiming 6 digit salaries are more than likely either one of a kind or flat out lieing. The farmers create more artificial currency than they actually sell and will attempt in game currency manipulation to keep the dollar value of their digital assets stable. This is however a sysphean task because their work is constantly being devalued. In addition their financial security is at the complete total mercy of game administrators. Despite the convoluted descriptions of digital money laundering, the sources, accounts, etc of farmed currency can readily be tracked since all the information is stored in server databases and an occassional sweep will wipe out a number of mule accounts.

Thanks Jing, that's really interesting.

Wow, quite an explanation Jing. Appreciated.

Thanks Simon for making my blogging debut such a happy one! This has made my day, it really has.

Interesting to see that The China Herald also picked up on the Japanese Ministry of Trade and Industry's white paper as well. I thought it was only me that thought it interesting.

You see, I'm not as boring as everyone seems to think!!

Martyn, I'm glad something so simple has made you so happy. Mind you, I might have to start charging next time...

Blogging is even better when it doesn't throw up random errors for no apparent reason.

Sorry about that. Still working on it.

Pixy, you never need to apologise.

Hahaha! That was a sweet analysis done.

That article don't make no sense towards the end. And I obviously don't agree with it, mostly due its very cautious explanatinos about blogging.

Why do we have to legitimize blogging? Or even try making it ''real'' by sayign that it is becoming mroe like the offline world? It is what it is, and it's working, so leave it alone, right?

Yes Doug, but most people find a need to deal with new things by categorising in terms of what they already know. Clearly there are issues here...let's go back to your childhood.

There was this one time, sniff, I didn't mean to, but, sniff...my sister, she was performing on stage, and....sniff....i vomited on the crowd...sniff... and then..and then...oh god..

What a load of rubbish. This woman is approaching from her own viewpoint of how she would write her own personal blog, should that be her style. Should she get down from her high-horse armchair, she could maybe get to know that personal blogging comes in all shapes and forms, and that those with anonymity can often do away with the "polite lying" and "the falseness of a political spin". For some people, what they blog is really who they are.

While I can agree that blogs generally fit a few bills-there are any million political blogs, as well as any million blogs that are written in such a style that I would rather pick out ingrown toenails than subject myself to them, that doesn't mean that blogging is so straightforward. She's got them pegged into styles, and being pegged is somethign that blogging just can't do.

When will people stop trying to define and legitimize blogging, and jsut let it be whatever it is?

My inner child can beat up her Freud. Anyday.

to answer your last question, last year? Last month? INdia is plenty violent.

I will have to second Doug. Indian domestic politics isn't really my element, but if you think domestic unrest is unique to China alone, or even excessive, you would be wrong. India faces the same sorts of problems, and dissaffected farmers haven't simply been rioting against the government, some have even taken up arms. Besides the sectarian violence in Jammu & Kashmir, unrest in India's impoverished Northeast provinces are commonplace. There are literally still Maoist guerillas operating in India, launching attacks against government and police forces.

OK, point taken. But set that aside...this interview is still pretty startling.

I know what you mean Simon, the statements made by agricultural vice-minister are textbook Orwellian. Riots are democracy, censorship promotes government response, Black is White, War is Peace, etc etc.

The only thing he has half right is the last statement is that these incidents of unrest are inevitable to a certain degree. Economic liberalization, while good for the many will leave some behind feeling marginalized. Irrespective of the quality of government this is not going to change and the only way to put a stop to them is to either reverse course or suppress them with force.

What is startling is what I won't say because of my conflict of interest, but what we are all thinking....regarding, well...the repo...

I googled 'Chen Xiwen' and 'democracy'. It seems that our Mr. Chen is quite fond of using the 'D' word.

I, however, have to wonder if he knows it's true meaning.

I mean, does anyone remember that Chinese official, forget his name, who was mobbed by HK/mainland reporters during the ridiculous patriotism debate in HK coming out of some hotel. He lost it with the reporters and told them all that they were 'violating his human rights'. Scary stuff.

The point made by Chen that everybody seems to miss (especially ESWN who ignores it completely) is his clear statement that village democracy IS NOT going to be expanded beyond villages (which don't count as administrative units in the CPC hierarchy) to townships or counties. Any experiments in this regard are deemed "illegal" by Vice Minister Chen.

Hmmm, I think I missed that as well. Time for a re-read. Thanks Dylan.

the election of town-level or above officials was not the point in the Chen Xiwen interview. he is involved in agricultural policy, not political reforms. he may be able to give some personal opinions, but that won't be official position.

in any case, the argument against town-level or above arguments are obvious.

a village may have 2,000 residents living in close proximity. everybody knows the candidates. it will be an informed vote, and the voters will be able to watch in close-up what the new leader does.

a town might have 50,000 residents scattered in 20 villages. some villagers may have never been to some of those other villages. most residents don't personally know the candidates. who wins the election? the outside experience is simple: the guy with a lot of his own money, support from black gold, slick ads, owns media porperties, owns factories and shops that employ many peole, and has no compunction about lying and triangulating issues. do these properties guarantee that he will be a good town leader? most probably, they will probably mean that he is going to be one bad dude. it is true that you can toss him out in three years' time, but that's three lost years, after which you will elect someone else like him.

i don't think democracy is bad per se. i just don't accept on face value happy talk like "good things are guaranteed if only we are allowed to hold elections." it is not guaranteed, but people don't want to think about what pre-conditions and safeguards are necessary.

you can move up the ladder in geography. who wins the election for mayor of hefei city? the governor of sichuan province? the same set of characteristics listed above. add another doubt: what does the winner of the election know about running sichuan province with more than 100 million people?

Dylan, you didn't expect a vice minister of the CCP to say wider democracy was a good idea, did you?

ESWN's point is right - democracy is not just about people voting once every few years. It is about proper rule of law, accountability via a free media and working courts, firm property rights and plenty more besides. That said I disagree that greater voting rights won't work above village level. No one said voting is perfect, but with the other pieces and institutions also in place, it's the best system we've got. It allows people a say, it creates accountability from those in charge.

It's the only system that has sustainably worked over long periods of history.

the democracy bit wasn't in quotes, how do we know chen said it? (yes, yes, he may very well like the d word, but he wasn't quoted with it here.)

if you look at what he said in quotes it was roughly 'they know their rights and that's a good thing'. that doesn't necessarily equal democracy.

Sentence of the year by ESWN:
"i don't think democracy is bad per se". Hu Jintao should be proud of you.

Another pearl "most residents don't personally know the candidates". Ah, ok, great argument against democracy. Now, I'm convinced: I think I'm going to turn myself in a CCP dictatorship apologist as soon as possible. And, of course, no more voting in my decadent western country: fuck to these bourgeois conventions! Thank you.

The more I read ESWN the more I realize that a picture is better than a thousand words.

Really, how Simon can seriously answer such statements is beyond me.

Best.

Enzo

i'm current reading the book by the Henen AIDS doctor Gao. in one section, she has gone to an AIDS village and distributing free drugs bought from money that she raised. more than a hundred people have queued up. the next person in line said, "You are so wonderful. Did Chairman Mao send you?" Gao had to patiently explain that Chairman Mao died more than twenty years ago. Enzo, if you think that there can be a rationally determined direct election in Henan province, population 100 million mostly in such rural areas, GOOD LUCK! It will be won by the person who legally changes his/her name to Mao Zedong, or a television actor. And that will surely help to improve the lot of the AIDS villages!

ESWN quotes from two articles about Chen Xiwen's statements, one from SCMP, but completely ignores the other article in SCMP about Chen's statements where he is directly quoted on village/township democracy and the illegality of experiments in township democracy. The article to which I refer is by Cary Huang "Shake Up of Grass Roots Government in Pipeline".

Excuses.

Best.

Enzo

ESWN, I'm not convinced. It sounds rather patronising to say villagers aren't ready for democracy and they will vote for Mao. If real candidates feel there is something worthwhile to campaign for, and so long as corruption can be kept in check, the candidates will have an incentive to educate the electorate in the merits of their case.

Echo, I tracked down the below article which actually quotes Mr. Chen unlike the SCMP:
-------------------------------
"It shows farmers' democratic awareness is improving, but unfortunately their sense of law and order has not improved as quickly," Chen, who was in charge of agricultural policy, was quoted as saying.
-------------------------------
From Reuters alertnet.org:
http://tinyurl.com/7645m

Hey, I think a Chinese offical made a joke just there! Good one.

"It sounds rather patronising to say villagers aren't ready for democracy"

america's founding fathers didn't think americans were ready for democracy either. that's why they insisted on that pesky electoral college thing.

Maybe they should start going to Fenwicks...

Wouldn't know what you're talking about, old boy.

Hmmm, I know you said that the geograpihical data isn't that reliable but only 3.3% from China? I find that figure stunning as I'm in China and via regular reading of pekingduck, I know that many others in China read simonworld.

I've just returned to China but I remember reading simonworld a few years ago (pre-Daily Linklets of course---BTW that was quite a brainwave you had there although it must take up a bit of time to search for the best links each day I imagine) when you had only a couple of hundred visitors each day.

Now it's 1,700+. COngratualtions mate, all well deserved via hard graft I'm sure.

Still, it's good to see that you've now become a bit of a leading China pundit these days and I notice you're now the Winds Of Change China boy. Onwards and Upwards!

I'm one of the 965 that added you to their Firefox Bookmarks this month. I'm just wondering how on earth you know if someone added you to their bookmarks/favourites?

Thanks very much, Joe. I get the numbers from my hosting package.

You're right on geography - it depends where the server is based, so any users of proxy servers will show up as USA. That's why I put the timezone share up as well, as it likely gives a better feel for where readers are.

very nice blog....
keep it up....

"Even more curiously, it doesn't seem to have registered on the Singaporean blogosphere."

see:

http://www.djourne.net/singaporeink/index.php/archives/2005/06/29/ignorant-students-parents/
http://ivan.ivanandxia.com/history/2005-06-27/pointless/
http://tomorrow.sg/archives/2005/06/27/singaporean_students_idolizing_h.html

The last one has more links to others; check also discussion in the comments section.

The most that can be concluded is that there is only a limited degree of reflexive urge to talk about such topics in the SG Blogosphere... From experience, most Singaporeans who know their history would not have been 'fascinated' with Nazism in any unhealthy way; those who don't... well, they don't.

Actually you'd be surprised to hear that so many locals using Hitler as an English name. When asked why the general response is "He was a strong man."

I stand corrected.

I sat next to a girl on the MTR three days ago who was wearing a complete Nazi uniform, complete with epaulets, insignia and shiny buttons. She did not, however, have black boots or trousers. A very interesting moment.

Is that right doug? Amazing.

Absolutely true. I did not take a mobile phone pic of her, but even if i did, I don't have the technology to upload it here.

Jesus, despite what we're talking about here, just picturing the scene is, well, what can you say? I'm pretty speechless. The word 'insensitive' springs to mind. Ignorance isn't an excuse.

I'd imagine that the equivilent of that would be someone standing on the London Tube or the 'A' Train in New York in full Japanese Imperial Army regalia.....but the difference is that wouldn't happen (unless someone knows otherwise of course).

Can you imagine, if that did happen and the Chinese press caught wind of it?

Speaking of Jews, if you compare 2,000 years of pograms topped off by the Holocaust, it really does make the Chinese victim mentality complex truly, truly laughable.