It's a happy 50th birthday to the Xinjiang Urgur Autonomous Region (motto: the autonomy you have when you're not really autonomous).
To celebrate the People's Daily discusses Prosperous, stable Xinjiang - a pleasant surprise to foreigners. It appears progress and happiness, in the words of fluent Chinese speaker and American student Pam Ariand, is a warm bun: "Hamburgers were never seen here several years ago, but now you can easily find outlets of Kentucky fried chicken, pizza and many other western foods in Xinjiang."
Martyn at TPD has an excellent potted history in just four paragaphs - Xinjiang 50th anniversary: occupation or liberation? Make sure you read the comments at that link as well to hear the opinion of those who have lived there.
While on anniversaries, a very happy 56th birthday to the New China. Follow the link to read the pain of a 7 year old girl's history lessons, numerous counts of foreign aggression and surprisingly little mention of the Great Leap Forward, the Cultural Revolution and other weird political movements.
That's because any post my friend and fellow mu.nu hosted blog My Pet Jawa links to gets indexed by Google News, but it appears under his blog's name. It's a quirk in Google News and that's why we love Rusty's linkage.
Mark Thoma reproduces Reserve Bank of Australia Governor Macfalane's thoughts on global trade imbalances and states the problem is not caused by the USA but rather an Asian savings glut (although these days that glut extends to the oil exporters of the Middle East).
Simon, allow me to chime in on your recent post Hong Kong Boom Town with my two cents. I totally agree that the powers that be in Hong Kong are incredibly self-satisfied and complacent with their performance and that of the city. As those of us to remember the SARS episode, it seems Hong Kong is either busy patting itself on the back for a job well done, or it is wallowing in self-pity, misery and envy. There seems to be no middle ground.
That is made plainly obvious today in a press release made by the Chief Executive in response to a report by the World Economic Forum (WEF). The WEF, in their Global Competitiveness Report 2005-06, has released its rankings, which have Hong Kong dropping from 21st to 28th. Given the number 1 ranking of economic freedom by the right-wing Heritage Foundation think-tank, this came as a shock to local leadership. Allow me to quote the HK press release:
here is no sign of any deterioration in Hong Kong's competitiveness, Chief Executive Donald Tsang says. The World Economic Forum's accusation of weakening in the city's judicial independence and a rise in corruption is also ungrounded.
In the World Economic Forum's Global Competitiveness Report 2005-06, released yesterday, Hong Kong's rankings for the "Macroeconomic Environment Index" and "Technology Index" went up. However, there is a marked decline in the "Public Institutions Index" which led to a visible fall in Hong Kong's global competitiveness ranking from 21st to 28th.
Responding to the report today, Mr Tsang said he will study it in detail and see if there is room for improvement. The Government will contact the organisation to better understand their assessment criteria as there is no sign of any deterioration in Hong Kong's competitiveness.
The sheer hubris for Donald Tsang to suggest that Hong Kong may very well have no room for improvement is astounding and flabbergasting. For them to flatly deny that there is any basis for the WEF lowering their ratings on Hong Kong's judicial independence and corruption instead of a more measured refutation is quite astounding too, particularly coming from Elsie Leung (of Sing Tao fame, among other things).
The shock for the Government is not coming at the top of one of these surveys. They intend to send emmisaries to Geneva to point out the error of the surveyors' ways rather than ask if the survey makes any telling points. And it does. Hemlock said it best, in yesterday's entry:
By whining at absurd length like spoilt brats, our petulant officials only draw attention to the very faults identified by the WEF. The city’s constitution states that 10 years after 1997, we may reform our political system as we wish. It also says a new Chief Executive serves for five years. When we are ordered to accept totally different, politically-driven meanings for the words to those in the dictionary, there is a problem with rule of law. You either fix the problem, or shut up. You don’t wet your pants and issue a huge press release proclaiming everything is perfect. Huge sums of public wealth have been transferred to property tycoons, Richard Li, Disney and dozens of construction and engineering companies in exchange for no apparent net benefit to Hong Kong. You either stop doing such things, or shut up. You don’t go into hysterics, smashing your toys and running round screeching about level playing fields. The WEF report should have been seen as an invitation to quiet reflection.
Ian at False Positives has links to the Globe and Mail's survey on Hong Kong, looking at Hong Kong's booming economy, the return of Canadians to Hong Kong, an interview with the ubiquitous Allan Zeman and on the two systems theory. Ian also mentions three offline articles on HK Disneyland, the property market and praising Hong Kong's infrastructure. It seems the G & M journos managed to tick every box in the Hong Kong cliche toolbox. Ian notes the massive gap in the article - any discussion on the politics of the city.
By way of contrast Stephen Vines draws attention to the dichotomy of Donald Tsang: the difference between his vast personal ambition and his timidity in political reform:
Why is it that what is personally good for the chief executive is unrealistic for Hong Kong? As long as the SAR is prepared to aspire to no more than second best in terms of democratic development, the overall development of Hong Kong will be stunted. Realists demand the best and Hong Kong, if nothing else, is a city of realists.
Sir Donald and Guangdon's governor are heading to a number of North American cities for a "invest in HK & Guangdong" roadshow. That's why you see such a special report from G&M.
Everything old is new again. Confucius is quickly regaining his place amongst China's pantheon of heroes. Yesterday in Shandong there was a major celebration of Confucius's birthday in Qufu. The China Daily waxes lyrically, saying Confucius soundbites offer wisdom and laughter and stating Confucius probably ties with Shakespeare for the title of most quoted human ever and noting he scooped a guy called Matthew: Most Confucius aphorisms can easily cross boundaries of age, culture and religion. Actually parallels exist: "Do not do to others what you do not want them to do to you." This echoes the Golden Rule from Matthew 7:12: "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you."
For a long time the Communists had trouble with Confucius. The China Daily puts it delicately:
However, not every citation from the sage sounds palatable to the modern ear. Confucian overemphasis on filial piety and respect for authority was criticized during the May 4 Movement in 1919 as hampering social progress. In the early 1970s, Confucius became the target of character assassination as part of a weird political movement.
"Weird political movement" - what a great phase. I wonder if that will become part of the Party's official history.
...The world today is not in peace, this is mainly because of hegemony and terrorism...Confucius said, "A gentleman gets along with others, but does not necessarily agree with them; a base man agrees with others, but does not coexist with them harmoniously".
In case it's too subtle for you, I'll help you: U.S.A.
...Fifty years ago, the Chinese government, together with India and Burma (Myanmar), initiated the Five Principles of Peaceful Coexistence for handling international relations, and thus made major contribution to world peace.
The "one country, two systems" principle advanced by Deng Xiaoping has successfully solved the problem of the return of Hong Kong and Macao to the embrace of the motherland and it embodies China's traditional spirit of "harmony without uniformity", thus providing the world with a typical example for solving similar problems.
In case it's too subtle for you, I'll help you: Taiwan
Confucianism advocates benevolence: "One who, destining to develop himself, develops others and in destining to sustain himself, sustains others", "Don't do to others what you don't want others to do to you", and one should get along well with all peace-loving people. Refraining from seeking hegemony is a fine tradition of Confucianism.
U.S.A.
China's present peaceful rise is precisely an inheritance of the fine tradition. China's peaceful development will not constitute a threat to the surrounding countries. As Chinese President Hu Jintao said in his speech delivered at the summit marking the 60th anniversary of the founding of the United Nations on September 15: We should "adhere to the spirit of tolerance, jointly build a harmonious world. Difference in history, culture, social system and development pattern should not become obstacle to exchanges among various countries, still less should it be a reason for mutual antagonism". This actually is an emphasis on "harmony without uniformity".
That last paragraph is for everyone, with an emphasis on the U.S.A.
So the why is simple: Confucius hasn't changed, but the Communist Party has. "Harmony without uniformity" is the antithesis of the CCP's history.
Monty Python had a famous song about traffic lights. It began (the full version is below the jump):
I like traffic lights,
I like traffic lights,
I like traffic lights,
No matter where they've been.
I like traffic lights,
I like traffic lights,
I like traffic lights,
I like traffic lights,
I like traffic lights,
But only when they're green.
It appears China has taken the message to heart. Today's SCMP reports on the latest efforts to prepare China for a potential flu outbreak with....you guessed it, a set of traffic lights with Chinese characteristics. Below the jump is the flu system, with the added bonus of a blue light at the "don't panic" level. But this isn't the first time we've seen the blue/green/yellow/red lights. Only last month the Income Research Institute said China's income gap was approaching the yellow light area. I'm waiting for someone to introduce the "walk/don't walk" scale.
In a country where 100,000 people died last year from traffic accidents, it's a shame the only traffic lights that get noticed are in newspapers.
China's flu alert system
The full Monty Python traffic light song
I like traffic lights,
I like traffic lights,
I like traffic lights,
No matter where they've been.
I like traffic lights,
I like traffic lights,
I like traffic lights,
I like traffic lights,
I like traffic lights,
But only when they're green.
He likes traffic lights,
He likes traffic lights,
He likes traffic lights,
No matter where they've been.
He likes traffic lights,
He likes traffic lights,
He likes traffic lights,
But only when they're green.
I like traffic lights,
I like traffic lights,
I like traffic lights,
That is what I said.
I like traffic lights,
I like traffic lights,
I like traffic lights,
But not when they are red.
He likes traffic lights,
He likes traffic lights,
That is what he said.
He likes traffic lights,
He likes traffic lights,
He likes traffic lights,
He likes traffic lights,
He likes traffic lights,
But not when they are red.
I like traffic lights,
I like traffic lights,
I like traffic lights,
Although my name's not Bamber.
I like traffic lights,
I like traffic lights,
I like traffic lights,
I...Oh God!
In a related Python-moment:
I LIKE CHINESE
(Spoken)The world today seems absolutely crackers,
With nuclear bombs to blow us all sky high.
There's fools and idiots sitting on the trigger.
It's depressing and it's senseless, and that's why...
I like Chinese.
I like Chinese.
They only come up to your knees,
Yet they're always friendly, and they're ready to please.
I like Chinese.
I like Chinese.
There's nine hundred million of them in the world today.
You'd better learn to like them; that's what I say.
I like Chinese.
I like Chinese.
They come from a long way overseas,
But they're cute and they're cuddly, and they're ready to please.
I like Chinese food.
The waiters never are rude.
Think of the many things they've done to impress.
There's Maoism, Taoism, I Ching, and Chess.
So I like Chinese.
I like Chinese.
I like their tiny little trees,
Their Zen, their ping-pong, their yin, and yang-ese.
I like Chinese thought,
The wisdom that Confucious taught.
If Darwin is anything to shout about,
The Chinese will survive us all without any doubt.
So, I like Chinese.
I like Chinese.
They only come up to your knees,
Yet they're wise and they're witty, and they're ready to please.
[From Eric Idle Sings Monty Python: I like Chinese,
I like Chinese
We sometimes bomb theire embassies,
But we don't really mean to we thought they were trees]
All together.
[verse in Chinese]
Wo ai zhongguo ren.
Wo ai zhongguo ren.
Wo ai zhongguo ren.
Ni hao ma; ni hao ma; ni hao ma; zaijien!
I like Chinese.
I like Chinese.
Their food is guaranteed to please,
A fourteen, a seven, a nine, and lychees.
I like Chinese.
I like Chinese.
I like their tiny little trees,
Their Zen, their ping-pong, their yin, and yang-ese.
I like Chinese.
I like Chinese.
They only come up to your knees...(fade)
Music and lyrics by: Eric Idle
Arranged by: John Du Prez
The SCMP reports Seoul is looking at opening a Disneyland. In the meantime, there's its Erotic Art Museum. On a related note, Japundit links to porn of the past (that link's safe, the one on JP isn't).
First of all, let us be very clear about what has happened. In essence, this is exceedingly simple.
* Fact: The village committee director of Taishi is elected by popular vote. In April 2005, Chen Jinsheng was elected with more than 60% of the votes.
* Fact: According to Article 16 of the Rural Villagers Organization Law of the People's Republic of China, the people may ask for a recall referendum of the village director if 20% of the eligible voters sign a joint petition. The petition must include some valid reasons. An example of an invalid reason might be the 20% are men who object to a woman being the director, and such a petition may be rejected because it violates other laws against gender discrimination. An example of a valid reason might be failure to publish financial statements for the village. The listed reasons do not have to be proven. For example, the thrust of the Taishi petition is not necessarily about corruption, which leads to a debate over the evidence. The Taishi petition can be about competence: Why is this village running a budget deficit with an accumulated debt of 10 million RMB? Could another village director do better than this one? That is fair and sufficient for a recall vote.
* Fact: After a lot of twists-and-turns and ups-and-downs, most of which are unfair and unjust to the villagers, there was an election to select seven committee members to organize the recall. The seven candidates proposed by the government were resoundingly beaten by the people's own choices. There will be a recall referendum to be held some time in the near future. If the current director Chen Jinsheng is recalled (and this seems very likely), there will be an election for a new director...
Taishi is that big case study.
Yet all the hope of this long running drama has seemingly come to end with a win for the status quo. The SCMP reports the game is over:
Villagers in Taishi, Guangdong province, have given up a three-month battle to remove their unpopular village chief after repeated threats to their lives, according to a lawyer supporting the group. More than 1,000 villagers reluctantly signed a letter circulated by the Yuwoutou township government, which oversees Taishi village, to stop dismissal proceedings against Chen Jinsheng .
In another blow to the villagers' fight, the seven committee members elected to the board to oversee Mr Chen's dismissal on September 16 were replaced last week after they resigned. Allegations that Mr Chen misused village funds had led to a spate of protests, including petitions and hunger strikes, since July.
Tang Jingling , a Guangzhou lawyer providing help to the villagers, yesterday said he did not know the backgrounds of the seven new committee members or how they were selected. "But the villagers told me that the original seven-member committee was forced to withdraw from the election committee," he said, without explaining from where the coercion came.
Mr Tang went to Taishi with his lawyer colleague, Guo Yan , and Sun Yat-sun University Professor Ai Xiaoming on Monday to talk to villagers whose relatives were in custody for pushing for the dismissal of Mr Chen. Professor Ai said the group's taxi was chased and forced to stop by security guards who then smashed all the windows.
"The guards were in a frenzy. We were very scared and feared we could be killed," she said.
Miss Guo hitched a ride with a passing motorcyclist to seek help, but guards chased her on the highway and beat her on her head and leg with sticks. Professor Ai said Miss Guo had been left with bruises and a fever. While being chased in the taxi, they had used their mobile phones to call for police help, but no one came.
"We saw a police car drive past in the middle of the attack, but it didn't stop," she said. "We only succeeded in getting away when the taxi driver sped off and took us to Guangzhou police bureau." She said they reported the incident to the police.
Professor Ai, who was an observer of the Taishi village election on September 16, said Taishi was under "terrorist" control. "If people's lives are not safe in Taishi, how can one talk about other human rights," she said.
Professor Ai said the Taishi incident, hailed by outside media as a test case of grass-roots democracy on the mainland, had come to a tragic ending, but she hoped the country could learn from it.
By yesterday, 13 villagers were still in custody after a September 12 riot.
A letter dated September 15 from villagers' adviser Yang Maodong , better known as Guo Feixiong , was only delivered to his lawyer yesterday. It confirmed he had been officially detained since September 13.
Ten people have been jailed for between one and five years over a violent protest last month in which residents attacked government offices and destroyed cars in Hubei province. Earlier reports said thousands of residents, many unemployed, went on the rampage after police used dogs to try to break up a protest over a plan by authorities in nearby Huangshi city to annex the city of Daye.
Well, I have to say this must-read contains nothing but the same-old. Chinese may not be ready for a national level democracy. But democracy also need a constant exercise especially for Chinese who have no history, experience, and knowledge for democracy. If CCP will fall in 50 years, it is very important to start the small scale democracy exercise now, no matter from the bottom or upper level! The exercise may also start from elites, farmers, merchants, workers, residents or shanghaiese, hongkonger...may last for 20 years, 40 years, 60 years....may change according the responses....may stop while waiting for the independent judicial systems....may discontinue because of big mistakes....may take a slightly different style for different regions.....but whatever, we must start! when CCP still have power to control everything, and when we still have a little time to survive from the mistakes.
We can risk our nation by burying our heads in the sand praying that one day people will suddenly have the faith, have the experience in operating a whole new system, have the ability to accept the loss... have everything that is essential for a working democracy.
It will never happen without the work-out! And this work-out must be exercising democracy itself instead of just becoming city residents, becoming a high school graduate, becoming a regilious believer or something else... And this work out takes time!
I am not sure if HU is an ostrich or not, but I hope not...I hope he is not too stupid to be fooled by the fools. I hope he is not too timid to be scared by those bullies. As an engineer, he should immediately start experimenting ideas for the future massive democracy project of China.
Election of secretary of village committee of the CPC will no longer an internal affair of the Communist Party of China (CPC), as non-Party people have been allowed to attend CPC's grassroots election...In past decades, secretaries of all levels of CPC committees were elected merely by Party members and they were the top leaders of their administrative regions. But normally in one village, there were only dozens of Party members out of over 10,000 non-Party people. How could guarantee that the secretary elected by dozens of Party members could reflect the common will of all villagers?
That's an excellent question. Indeed extending that logic has profound consequences. How can you guarantee the provincial or national secretaries and officials elected by thousands of Party members reflect the common will of all?
There's an answer of sorts in the same article.
"...allowing non-Party people to participate in CPC's grassroots election will consolidate CPC's ruling foundation," said Ding Junping, head of the public administrative college under the Wuhan University...
...more than 20 provinces have admitted non-Party people to CPC's grassroots election on trial.
The professor is saying that these non-Party elected officials are de facto Party members, because they've been elected to their posts. Co-opting these officials is the only way the Party will be able to maintain its grip on power. Villagers will quickly realise the discrepency between being able to vote for their village leaders but not for their county or provincial or even national leaders. While village government is the one with most immediate impact on their lives, the likelihood of growing frustration with the ever-growing income gap with their urban cousins will one day spill over to frustration with Government at higher levels.
Another reason the CCP's primary focus is on rural development and closing the income gap.
Very interesting. I've just posted a translation of a satirical video in Cantonese that asks some of the same questions.
Posted by Stephen Frost at September 26, 2005 06:39 PM
Today's SCMP reports Disney are looking at opening a park in Seoul. The least the HK Government could have done is ensured Disney won't open another Disney in Asia for say 10 years, to give us a shot at getting the money back!
China's economic boom grabs headlines and inspires admiration around the world. However it comes at a steep price. China's economic growth is inefficient - it takes far more investment per unit of GDP than similar economies at similar stages of development (e.g. South Korea and Japan). More chillingly, it is built on a disgraceful and disgusting human toll. Chinese industrial "accidents" resulted in more than 136,000 deaths last year. That's one death per 100 million yuan of GDP, or 178 industrial deaths per million people employed, or 372 deaths per day.
What's worse is these numbers are conservative. Many deaths are not reported - for example mine bosses often pay off families with hush money to avoid exposure and to continue their shoddy practices. These numbers also do not reflect on those who are injured but not killed through workplace accidents, a far greater number but with devastating long term consequences.
At some point these stop being accidents and become more akin to homicides by negligence. It is yet another seedy underbelly of the "China miracle".
As you know, you'll get no argument from me over the general thesis here. You're right. And so is CNN. But I can't let CNN's data pass without three comments.
1. Industrial accident and death figures are somewhat troublesome because road accidents are included in workplace accident and death statistics in China, and if they are removed the figures are substantially reduced. In fact, traffic accidents account for 64.4% of all accidents and 78.2% of all deaths in the 2004 figures. If we look at the figures for industry, mining and commerce, which are generally thought of as industrial accidents, they come down from 130,000+ to 14,702 accidents and 16,497 deaths. This is not to say that things are okay. It's just to suggest that the 130,000+ figure gives the wrong impression.
2. In the story to which you link, it says "CNS didn't give a breakdown of the types of accidents." This is a disgraceful admission for an organisation with the resources of CNN. We produced just such a list online back in February that gave a breakdown (see here). That table was based on official Chinese figures.
3. Take a look at our list and tell me you'll catch a train again in China.
Posted by Stephen Frost at September 26, 2005 06:28 PM
Thanks, Stephen. I stand corrected on the figures, although it's still horrifying.
To be fair to CNN, they've just reprinted an AP story. Luckily sites and people like yourself keep 'em honest.
As for your point on trains - point taken. That said my rule is to never fly on an airline with "China" in it's name.
All the news that's fit to print (with Chinese characteristics)
Xinhua has announced new regulations for online news as part of China's ongoing clampdown on the net. Inevitably Mainland bloggers will be considered part of this regulation. Xinhua's report begins:
Online news sites that publish stories containing fabricated information, pornography, gambling or violence are facing severe punishments or even shutdown.
Thanks Simon. Yes, this is Richard's forte rather than my own but what the Chinese govt seem to be doing is just like it says on the tin: they want to "standardise" the flow of news and information and make the news reflect what the big guns of the Chinese official state madia are saying.
They're trying cut down on the number of voices within China's media and ensure that the news channles are speaking with one (party-approved) voice.
The number of media channels has exploded in China this last decade or so and so has the number of non-official voices in that media.
Also, the newspapers here, for example, are predominantly no longer state-owned, they are on their own and always looking to increase sales. These rules try to reign them in so that, at least the op-eds reflect the party line.
You'll have to judge the quality, but it's more that it's been a busy day at work and Monday is always a tough day for linklets as I've got a whole weekend to cover.
I have a beautiful wife, 3 beautiful children. Despite my tender years I have been fortunate enough to travel the world, live in two of the greatest cities on the planet and experience far more than I ever thought possible.
And after being in Melbourne and witnessing first hand yesterday's events, I can now die a happy man*.
* Not that I'm planning on doing that any time soon, but it's good to tick off the important stuff early, just in case.
Let's see, three reasons for saying 40 years:
1. I assumed you are 40 and the 32 years before that don't count, or
2. 72 years in "Southern Hemisphere Years" are the same as 40 years in "Northern Hemisphere Years", or
3. my mistake - congratulations! 72 years is a long time to wait!
Posted by Eaglespeak at September 25, 2005 09:27 AM
Lets hope we don't have to wait another 70 years.
Posted by javaricho at September 26, 2005 03:38 PM
about car pooling, i guess it is the pressure from taxi industry. (i could trace the source to oil price that pressed the taxi drivers, but i would rather not stretch it:) )
but note that in HK, it is illegal to share a taxi with a stranger as well. (Honger call it "Fishing" -- Diao-ni-mang/Due-nai-marn) the taxi driver will be fined if caught.
what these people do not realize is that allowing car and taxi pooling is exactly what would help to solve the problem created by further increase of oil price (get rid of price control).
It is illegal to share taxis in Hong Kong, just as it's illegal to negotiate fares...but it still happens.
They will struggle to ban car pooling - who's going to dob in the car poolers? It's if the car poolers start charging for the ride, effectively becoming taxis themselves, that will bring trouble.
And yet for anyone that's ridden a Chinese taxi, anything has to be an improvement.
An excellent site (with the exception of the advert for the execrable Capitalist Solutions)!
As an expat gweilo with interest in HK/Taiwan/China politics and culture, I really appreciate your comprehensive coverage, user-friendly links, and often astute commentary.
Geoffrey Fowler, a reporter at the Asian Wall Street Journal and a Harvard-trained anthropologist, gave an illuminating talk last night to the Hong Kong Anthropological Society about Hong Kong Disneyland and its meaning from a globalization perspective. The main thrust of his enjoyable thesis is that, far from being an agent of American cultural imperialism, Disney is subject to the whims of the true agents - the Chinese consumers. They are the ones that determine how the Disney characters and the Disney experience are to be interpreted. Specifically, Disney is struggling to understand and cater to the 'family revolution' occuring in China, and the fact that the one child of these families is effectively in charge of consumption.
Some key points:
1) Chinese prefer taking pictures to any rides or any particular 'experience'.
2) Marie the Cat, not Mickey Mouse, is the most popular character. Many because she looks like a certain character from Sanrio.
3) Disney decided to make an 'Anaheim in miniature' rather than an Asianized Disney, because that's what they thought Chinese consumers wanted.
Read more at my more substantive review of this talk on my personal blog.
On the third point, I agree. That's exactly what Martin Sklar, the original Imagineer, said about the Hong Kong Disneyland.
But, I'm not sure I agree with the thesis completely.
For one, the issue of Chinese taking pictures raised Disney's hackles, because they seemed unprepared for it.
I guess I'm saying that if they really thought the Chinese were the ones whose whims chose how the park was run, Disney should have done a little more research. All the scripts were written by Americans in Anaheim, and then taken to China , where they were interpreted and ''stylized'' by Cantonese and Mandarin speakers in Shanghai and in Hong Kong, according to an Imagineer I spoke to.
Seems like this guy was pitching for Disney, or his thesis, or your understanding of his thesis is not fully complete. Not that I am harping on you, HK Dave. I'm just sayin' is all...
Posted by doug crets at September 23, 2005 11:51 AM
Hi Doug, I think I may have mis-represented Geoffrey Fowler's thesis. From what I understood him saying, it seemed like their focus group research told them that Chinese visitors didn't want rides with the Monkey King or Mulan, they wanted the genuine Disney experience, which is why they felt compelled to bring over and re-create Anaheim as much as possible. But then already it seems as though they are having to change a lot of ways Disney is presented to the Chinese, simply because most Chinese haven't watched a Disney cartoon due to its having been blocked in China (although they may have seen it on T-shirts and such). The freedom of interpretation of Disney and its characters that provides the mainland consumers is forcing Disney into a lot of tweaks of its park to suit Chinese tastes. The fact that Chinese visitors aren't as interested in the rides as much as just photo opportunities is I think an interesting example.
I thought it was a very excellent talk. An amusing thing was that there was an employee from Disney in the audience, that perhaps was dismayed by this study that really put Disney's corporate practices under the microscope. He actually asked the final question to the speaker during the Q&A. It was, "Did you have a good time at the park?" Geoffrey Fowler answered, in a typical anthropologist style, that he was too busy observing to have a good time. But he said that while he enjoyed the space mountain ride, he really didn't think he'd be going back. He also mentioned that on two of his visits he followed a mainland kid and then two local teenagers around. The Chinese kid thought it was OK, but did not really associate well with the characters there beyond the picture taking element. The rides made the kid a little ill because he hadn't tried anything like it before.
The Hong Kong teens enjoyed the rides, but thought they were over too quickly. They also thought they were too expensive. They said next time they'd just go to Ocean Park and buy a new pair of shoes!
Fowler also mentioned that the Disneyland here, given its small size, is clearly just looking for first-time visitors, and will worry about repeat visitors later once they have gained the requisite confidence to expand the park.
It's kind of reassuring to know that what the papers have been reporting has been at least somewhat correct in an expert's eyes.
Here's the deal:
Disney in Hong Kong, from what experts say, will not give the government much money until 2010 or so, when Shanghai's park would open. Now, I ask you: this is just a test, isn't it? How can we be confident that Hong Kong's economically benefiting from this. I feel we cannot. And we should be dismayed.
Posted by doug crets at September 23, 2005 09:32 PM
Hello Kitty's copyright holders are threatening to sue FM Theater Power, a local drama troupe, for infringing its intellectual property rights, it was revealed Thursday.
The stage enthusiasts, a group of secondary students and drama lovers, said they received a letter Wednesday last week from local solicitor Victor Chu and Co representing Sanrio of Japan accusing them of stepping on Hello Kitty's copyright tail.
Sanrio requested that the drama group disclose all the details of activities connected with the production, promotion and staging of the play Kitty Hunter, including advertising materials, ticketing information, audience counts, revenue and profit...Banky Yeung, artistic director of the group and writer of Kitty Hunter, said the drama was simply a love story about a girl named Kitty, even though plush Hello Kitty toys are used as props and images similar to the cartoon character serve as promotion materials...
...the play has been staged 59 times in various places including the academy's theater and cultural venues managed by the Leisure and Cultural Services Department since 2000.
The good news for the theatre troup is this kind of publicity will do far more for ticket sales than any flyer.
Oh you could not be more wrong Simon. Hello Kitty is a martyr of Marxism-Leninism and strives to perpetuate socialist revolution. The red hair bow is symbollic of the blood of the prolitariet and the violent conflict that is required to create a classless society. Her lifeless eyes epitomize that suffering of the people under the yoke of the capitalist oppressors. The fact that she is a product of Sanrio, a tool of the state and symbolic the reactionary-military-capitalist nexus is even more fitting. Afterall, it was Lenin who said the capitalists would sell us the rope with which to hang them with.
"Gmail.cn", the domain name for Gmail in China, has been registered by a Beijing-based company instead. Gmail is a key product of Google. In fact, almost all the CN domain names for Google's such products have been registered by others.
Launching Gmail in April 2004, Google registered "gmail.com.cn". However, gmail.cn was registered by a Beijing-based company as early as in August 2003. Experts say, the time of the registration of "gmail.cn" was far earlier than the debut of Google's Gmail, so the possibility for the CN domain name to be recovered is rather slim unless the registration was vicious.
Months ago, Google recovered two domain names, i.e. "google.com.cn" and "google.cn" at high prices, but its troubles are far from this. It is shown at China Internet Network Information Center that the CN domain names for GoogleTalk, Google Earth, Googlelocal, etc. have all been registered by others.
Among the investor registers, there is the far-sighted such as a Guangdong-based company, who registered "googlelocal.cn" and "googlelocal.com.cn" in March 2004, far earlier than the one-week old GoogleLocal. There are also others who did it after the news on Google's redeeming the domain names with one million yuan was released. They registered "googlemap.cn" and "googleearth.cn". The time of the registration of "googletalk.cn" and "googletalk.com.cn" was along side with the official appearance of GoogleTalk.
It is really surprising that the registers could be so precise and fast.
Suspiciously surprising. There's some moral here about Communists, capitalism, cybersquatting, intellectual property and domain name rights, and Goliath Google against Guangdong Davids.
Interesting - but i'm not sure it's that important. The really interesting one is when Chinese domain names take off (i.e. 中中中.中国) who'll care about google.cn then?
I wonder what google has done to protect itself there ...
Harry Hutton live blogs today's Jetblue plane crash so you don't have to. Listening to CNBC, the anchor was visibly disappointed with the safe landing and asked the ACME expert "but what if it had gone wrong?" Not that the media are disaster merchants or anything. Has the pilot got a book and movie deal yet?
Zhuan Jia: if anyone tells me in future how much China is developing and "opening up", I will have to tell them that it still has a long way to get near to what we take for granted.
Billmon on appeasing North Korea: A nuclear breakout (and the warheads it's added to North Korea's arsenal) is a pretty expensive way for a president to learn that sometimes you have to call people "Mr." -- even if they are spoiled pygmy tyrants.
Actually, you m ight be on to something. Or on something.
Posted by doug crets at September 22, 2005 06:04 PM
That "blogger's handbook" sounds like a publicity stunt. It was commented that it can't be downloaded in China, so who is it aimed at? A bit like the Germans passing the Enigma machine to Bletchley Park.
You will notice that one of my advertisers is from Burmawatch.com, a blog that does what it says. Here is a guest post from them on Burma's plight:
c. Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman, or Degrading Treatment or Punishment
The authorities routinely subjected detainees to harsh interrogation techniques designed to intimidate and disorient. The most common forms of mistreatment were sleep and food deprivation coupled with around-the-clock questioning; some detainees also were kicked and beaten. Credible reports continue that prisoners are forced to squat or assume stressful, uncomfortable, or painful positions for lengthy periods.
There continued to be credible reports that security forces subjected ordinary citizens to harassment and physical abuse. The military forces routinely confiscated property, cash, and food, and used coercive and abusive recruitment methods to procure porters. Those forced into porterage or other duties faced extremely difficult conditions and beatings and mistreatment that sometimes resulted in death (see Sections 1.a. and 6.c.). In June security forces beat NLD members (see Section 2.b.).
There were frequent reports that soldiers raped women who were members of ethnic minorities, especially in Shan, Karenni, and Karen states, where the majority of armed encounters between the army and insurgents took place.
This from the 1998 State Department Human Rights Report, which may ( or may not ) be one of the first disturbing stories I ever heard of out Burma. I had been told of the oppression there but not in a way you would think, you see in high school I would wear a shirt which stated Mission to Burma, to me at that time it meant nothing more that a cool 70's punk band until one day I was pulled out of my class for making a political statement.
"Are you trying to say that the people of Burma are oppressed?" they asked. "It's just a rock band, you know music." A few years later I read the above report. I remember then thinking how odd it was that I was almost sent home for (accidentally) mentioning what was going on in Burma, to this day I meet many people who have no idea.
This all in a nation from which some in Burma wait to be saved. Actually the working theory among those educated in the fight for democracy is that there would be no need for a war, no need for America to actually save the people of Burma and I'll tell you why.
The conventional vision is that if the US showed up in Burma, all the people who are against the junta, which would included many in the military, would then stand up leaving so few left that are for the junta that surrendering would be the only option. That is the working theory anyways. And that is loosely how cluttered Burmese society is.
The Burmese are a mystical and wonderful people who once you get to know you can't help but admire.
Daw Aung San Suu Kyi
The first name Daw is just a formality, typical in asian culture and Kyi is pronounced chee. For those of you who don't know, she was democratically elected in 1990 for her party the National League for Democracy, but the junta refused to give up power and as of taday she has spent almost 10 years under house arrest. For a time last year there were report the Nobel Peace Prize winner was ill but she was not permited to see a doctor. Once or twice a year President Bush calls for her to be released, along with other leaders around the world but the media doesn't cover those calls, only people like me even know such words are said.
There are sanctions against doing business with Burma but that doesn't stop many nations and companies, and the US doesn't hesitate to do business with those doing business with Burma. Here is a wonderful list of companies profiting in Burma.
Tourism is booming in Burma. Obviously the junta gets most of your tourist dollars but over the years I have decided that what little business owners get is better that nothing which is the result of boycotts. But that is just my opinion, one that took me years to come to.
Through out the cities, the mountains and the jungles of Burma there are many different peoples, the Kachins, Karennis, Was, Palaungs just to name a few. Beggining to know Burma may be a bit confusing, but once your acquainted!
As I stated previously, the english name Myanmar was given to the land by the junta, to call be Burma is to be in defiance.
Actually Mission of Burma was an early 80s punk band.
And they released a new album in 2004 and are still doing a bunch of gigs. My old roommate came home with ringing in his ears and one of those huge grins.
As for Burma itself, there is also the whole nasty issue of how the map got drawn by the British to include many contentious minorities to create an inherently unstable colony.
Today the SCMP profiles Hong Kong's Times Square - not the Causeway Bay shopping centre, but Mongkok's Portland St. Just as New York City cleaned up Times Square, so Mongkok is being transformed. The opening of the massive Langham Place office/hotel/shopping centre complex has changed the area from a red light district to a fashionable tourist and entertainment mecca. The new centre has resulted in rising rents (by 75% according to the SCMP), forcing out the triads and brothels and bringing in wealthier shoppers and tourists. But hookers and triads don't disappear, they just move their place of business.
To that end I highly recommend reading Times Regained, from The New Yorker about the history and regeneration of Times Square. Much of it applies to equally to Hong Kong and Mongkok, with one important exception. Some excerpts (but read the whole thing):
...There are, of course, people who miss the old Times Square, its picturesque squalor and violence and misery and exploitation. Those who pointed at the old Times Square as an instance of everything that capitalism can do wrong now point to the new Times Square as an instance of everything that capitalism can do worse. Where once Times Square was hot, it is now cold, where once varied, now uniform, where once alive, now dead. Which just proves, as with the old maxim about belief, that people who refuse to be sentimental about the normal things don’t end up being sentimental about nothing; they end up being sentimental about anything, shedding tears about muggings and the shards of crack vials glittering like diamonds in the gutter...
The myth they [authors of two books on Times Square] want to dispel is that the cleanup of Times Square in the nineties was an expression of Mayor Giuliani’s campaign against crime and vice, and of his companion tendency to accept a sterilized environment if they could be removed, and that his key corporate partner in this was the mighty Disney, which led the remaking of West Forty-second Street as a theme park instead of an authentic urban street. As Traub and Sagalyn show, this is nearly the reverse of the truth...
The story follows, on a larger scale than usual, the familiar form of New York development, whose stages are as predictable as those of a professional wrestling match: first, the Sacrificial Plan; next, the Semi-Ridiculous Rhetorical Statement; then the Staged Intervention of the Professionals; and, at last, the Sorry Thing Itself...
Of all the ironies of the Times Square redevelopment, the biggest is this: that the political right is, on the whole, happy with what has happened, and points to Times Square as an instance of how private enterprise can cure things that social engineering had previously destroyed, while the left points to Times Square as an instance of how market forces sterilize and drive out social forces of community and authenticity. But surely the ghosts of the old progressives in Union Square should be proudest of what has happened. It was, after all, the free market that produced the old Times Square: the porno stores were there because they made money, as part of a thriving market system. Times Square, and Forty-second Street, was saved by government decisions, made largely on civic grounds. Nothing would have caused more merriment on the conservative talk shows than the luts regulations—imagine some bureaucrat telling you how bright your sign should be—but it is those lights which light the desks of the guys at the offices of Clear Channel on Forty-second Street, and bring the crowds that make them safe. Civic-mindedness, once again, saved capitalism from itself...
This last point is where the New York/Hong Kong comparison falls down. Here civic-mindedness is non-existent in Government circles. Make Tamar a park instead of building a new Legco building? Make West Kowloon a park and arts complex rather than a property development? Stop reclaiming the harbour for evermore roads and office projects?
A simple dose of civic-mindedness could do wonders for this city. It's a shame it will never happen.
Noooo ... Leave Mongkok alone! Never mind driving out the hookers and triads, I'm sure they're vastly outnumbered by the small legitimate businesses which make Mongkok the most interesting place on Earth. Another bit of heritage bites the dust.
Furthermore, the disturbing architecture of Langham Place is clearly indicative of some evil plot by the great Cthulhu.
Today's Standard carries an article that demonstrates the unpreparedness of the Hong Kong government for the vicious, idiotic thugs (who come up with the money to protest all over the world) that are the anti-globalization WTO protesters.
The government has chosen the Southorn playground, an open concrete area (in Wanchai proper) over half a kilometer away from the Convention Centre (Wanchai North) and importantly, on the other side of Gloucester Road, as the 'official protesting area'. They expect the know-nothing demonstrators to be happy to stay and protest there even though they are not anywhere near the site of the WTO meeting and will never be seen by the WTO delegates except on TV. Fat chance. They'll find a way to get a lot closer to the action. If you're going to place them that far away, why don't you bus them all up to the Big Buddha on Lantau? Then they can tell the Enlightened One all their problems.
The Wan Chai district councillors are protesting this decision, not because the protesters will likely make trouble closer to the scene anyway, but because they think the protesters that are actually willing to follow directions and chant slogans at Southorn, a place totally cut off from the WTO meeting, will trash and disrupt the business of nearby shops (like the girlie bars a block away).
I guess giving them the big space by the waterfront would not do though, given that the Convention Centre is made of glass, and would ruin the visit made by zillions of Mainlanders daily to the Golden Bauhinia (that sterile hybrid flower that is the symbol of Hong Kong - how fitting) who are told that the flower is ever-so-meaningful to people here.
I think what they ought to do is to give them some random area in Wanchai North. How about Tamar, next to the former Prince of Wales building, now the PLA Army HQ in Hong Kong? Have the molotov-throwing protesters demonstrate right next to the People's Liberation Army. That'll give them something to think about. Or maybe the Wanchai sports ground. It's also not too far from the Convention Centre, and you can lock them up and shoot all the tear gas you want at them in an enclosed space if necessary.
Maybe you should spread a rumour that the Falung Gong (misspelled I know) are behind the protest. that should get the PLA pretty fired up to deal with them. Maybe it would be better if they just refused them visas on arrival.As a lot of other governments should have done.
Posted by javaricho at September 22, 2005 10:05 AM
Or the Government could begin its new Legco building just at the protesters gather.
Yes, both excellent proposals. We should put the protesters at the Tamar site right next to the PLA headquarters so that if there is bad trouble we can find out what new crowd control techniques China has developed since 1989.
Donald Tsang will then be able to say that if the Tamar site is used for a government office that has Hong Kong's best view of the harbour, then it will prevent WTO protesters from gathering there in future. Also, we'll stop having any huge rock concerts that lose us hundreds of millions of dollars.
After a hard fought agreement, China already sees the North Koreans backsliding on the nuclear deal...and begs everyone (read North Korea) to live up to their promises. What's the betting that when the NK negotiators spoke with their superiors in Pyongyang, they got told they'd screwed up? China Hand talks about the talks, asking if they are a fiasco, business as usual or both? Oranckay wonders if the latest flap is the result of mistranslation. Andrew Sullivan says it was the Americans that blinked.
Thanks, as always for the links Simon. Yesterday's Linklets were the best ever in my opinion.
Congratulations also, on the UK Guardian newsblog link. It was funny, last night I was actually reading the Guardian newsblog, came across the Starbucks/Great Wall post and then realised that that the story had come from Simonworld. Could have knocked me down with a feather!
Thanks Martyn - yesterday's linklets did seem a particularly "heavy" edition.
As for the Guardian link, it was worth a few hits and it's always nice to get noticed by such places. Clearly no patch on your Instalanche...but I'll take it.
Unfortunatey, Insta-lanches happen but once in blue moon but I'm pleased that I was fortunate enough for it to happen to me once. When they do come around, it a makes for a hell of a time sitting watching 600-700 hits per hour come in.
I think we China people do well to have such a great blogasphere. I just wish all those Blogspot and Blog-City people would move to a non-blocked-in-China blog host.
After all, if I was a Chinese censor looking at the list of all the China-related blogs on Blogspot and Blog-City, I'd be feeling very pleased with myself.
You can't tell me that those blog hosting sites are way and above better than the hundreds of the blog hosting services.
Sorry, glad I got that off my chest. It's a bit of a pet peeve I have.
Unsurprisingly Hong Kong's Immigration Department allegedly has a "watch list" of those who pose a security risk and that list includes Falun Gong members, according to a court case reported by the SCMP:
Four Taiwanese Falun Gong practitioners were refused entry to Hong Kong to attend a religious conference two years ago because they were on the Immigration Department's "watch list", the Court of First Instance heard yesterday...immigration officers had revealed in court affirmations that the four posed a security risk to Hong Kong...
They were stopped at Chek Lap Kok airport in February 2003 after arriving from Taiwan to attend the Hong Kong Falun Gong Experience Sharing Conference, organised by the Hong Kong Association of Falun Dafa. They were among 83 overseas Falun Gong practitioners refused entry to Hong Kong at the time, 80 of them from Taiwan.
But perhaps times have changed...
The four were allowed to enter Hong Kong from Taiwan on Monday to attend yesterday's hearing.
They're too dangerous to have them sit and conduct breathing exercises, but not dangerous enough to stop them from attending court.
By way of contrast, Hong Kong continues to get ready to welcome all sorts of genuine security risks, in the form of WTO metting protesters. Wan Chai District Council, where the conference is to be held, has said they understandbly do not want to host the protesters at Sourthorn Playground. It's bad enough that most of Wan Chai will shut down for the duration of the December meeting. Schools will close. Roads will close. In short, Wan Chai will come to a standstill, the police are ready with riot gear and Hong Kong is bracing for the inevitable violence. Who's the real security risk?
I hope Wan Chai will be re-opening each night. Otherwise what are the WTO delegates to do? And I'm now taking wagers on the nationality and number of men who mysteriously wake up in their hotel room sans wallet and pants.
There's a massive irony when Communist China's space agency is showing captialist America's NASA how it's done. The SCMP:
Despite strict secrecy surrounding the launch date of the Shenzhou VI manned space flight, state television is already selling advertisements to promote the launch, state press reported yesterday. China Central Television is offering advertising slots ranging from 2.56 million yuan for five seconds to 8.56 million yuan for 30 seconds, the Beijing Modern Commercial Daily reported.
The flight, China's second manned space flight, is scheduled to take place next month, although no date has been announced. Two astronauts are expected to orbit the Earth for five days in a mission different from the Shenzhou V that orbited the Earth 14 times in a 21-hour flight in 2003.
Now if we can just work out how to cram some reality TV stars onto that rocket, we'll really be onto a winner.
...and if there is a weekly program on the training and selection of astronaunt (incorporate SMS to vote out astronaut candidate?), maybe they can even fund the flight!
It's official: after opening 140 other outlets in China, including inside the Forbidden City, Starbucks is opening a store at the Badaling section of the Great Wall. Any modern day Mongol hordes can stop for a latte before driving on towards China's old Imperial capital. Of course, the demand must be there for the savvy cafe-preneurs to be setting up shop at the Wall, from hordes admittedly coming from the capital, with new sections of wall created daily by the pile-up of the tour buses.
To be sure, a piping hot coffee would have hit the spot after my first encounter with the Badaling section of the Wall in February 1988, when the structure had been covered in ice and snow... Globalization waits for no one.
Clearly it's desperate days in the newspaper world. Last week the Asian Wall Street Journal (AWSJ) set up a booth offering cut price access to the paper and WSJ.com. This morning at Pacific Coffee there are free International Herald Tribune's and an offer of 2 weeks free delivery, with a stack of IHT's begging to be taken. Walking into the office, the AWSJ stand has morphed in a stack of free copies of today's edition, a pile that has remained static and high for most of the day.
At the same time Ian Lamont discusses his recent op-ed in the best locally produced English-language daily in East Asia* on the potential power of the internet and mobile phones amongst China's citizenry. Ian was paid a freelance fee that works out to about $200. I'm assuming that's US dollars, not HK dollars. With the typical mix of low quality op-ed pieces and cut-and-paste jobs from various syndicates or "big papers" on the SCMP's pages, that sounds like money for jam. There's plenty of good blogs out there (many of which I link to) which give you better and clearer analysis from people on the ground...for free. Note that this isn't having a go at Ian...his piece was the exception that proves the rule.
What's happening to newspapers? They can't even give them away for free.
* Incredibly, he's talking about the SCMP. Although what's the competition in that category?
I know. If my editor, Lin, say, was reading this and he saw that I had written that, I'd bet I'd get in trouble. Luckily, Lin has never read this before, at all, I'm sure.
Posted by doug crets at September 20, 2005 10:43 PM
Posted by doug crets at September 21, 2005 08:15 AM
The NYT laid off 500 people today and are now charging a hefty fee for receiveing their op-ed columns. They are in serious trouble. bad times indeed for newspapers everywhere.Not to mention news stations like CNBC. Especially international. No advertisers here in Asia except Malaysian tourism.
A Macanese bank is linked to North Korea and undergoes a run, losing 10% of deposits. Naturally one of its branches is in the Casino Lisbao. I was in Macau on the weekend and I didn't see one North Korean, but there was a brisk trade in matresses.
After years of failed talks, finally agreement is reached with North Korea over its nukes. The onus remains on the North Koreans to live up to their end of the bargain, but that's by the by. Far more interesting is what happened to force the issue? Why now?
The North Koreans are lavishing praise on their Chinese hosts. China's leadership remains petrified of a collapse of North Korea and the massive influx of refugees likely should that happen. Nor did it fancy the alternative of a potential American led invasion, leading to American troops literally on the border.
China has always held the whip hand in the talks. For example China supplies most of North Korea's electricity at friendly rates. Having North Korea annoy the Americans served as a useful foil for China and it kept Japanese and South Korean minds focussed on the threat from the North Koreans rather than any possible threat from China. But more recently both America and Japan have started viewing the potential strategic threat from China as a seperate issue from the Korean one. The North Korean problem turned from an asset to a liability.
So China saw the light, so to speak, and realised a resolution of the Korean nuclear issue was also in its interest. It doesn't hurt that this makes the Chinese look like world statesmen and foreign policy players (albeit in their own backyard), just as negotiations over the UN Security Council and talks about China's emerging superpower role are all the rage.
It's no co-incidence that as soon as China got serious about the nuclear talks, so did North Korea. The key question is whether China can make the North Koreans deliver on their promises given the deserved scepticism that abounds.
The Independent of Britain ran a story on the high suicide rate in China - 250,000 people killed themselves last year; according to the article they were victims of the country's fast changing society. Unfortunately, numbers on that scale look shocking to anyone not from China, including the article's author. You would need to look at the rate per 100,000, which is the measure adopted by most countries globally. There you discover that China is slightly lower than the global norm of 25 per 100,000 as provided by the World Health Organization (WHO) in 2000. However, that rate is certainly increasing if you compare it to the rate of China in 1999 of 13.0 for men and 14.8 for women, a worrying trend.
The article does bring up other interesting points though, even if it skims the details. There are apparently only 4,000 fully-trained psychiatrists in all of China - and because they deal with the mentally-ill, they only get paid a measly RMB 2,500 a month. Not the career opportunity of choice then, to floow in the footsteps of Freud and Jung. Also, more women than men kill themselves in China, the opposite of world trends. They are apparently overwhelmed by the suffocating lack of opportunity in China's rural countryside, and tend to use pesticides to do the job.
With such poor levels of available care and help, callers to a Beijing suicide prevention hotline are often calling from as far away as Tibet. It is a wonder that the numbers are not in fact higher. Is it in spite of, or perhaps because of the fact that modern-day China has no social safety net? This table shows suicide has always been more a disease of developed societies. But as at least some parts of China begin to qualify, it may need to strengthen its suicide prevention programmes.
The interesting thing is that China is pretty much the only country in the world (there may be one or two small ones out there I'm overlooking) where suicide rates are higher for women than for men.
Posted by GaijinBIker at September 19, 2005 10:10 PM
Yes, it really is quite unusual, particularly in a country where men are rapidly outnumbering women. I would hope that eventually, the natural social value of women to society will be recognized, and that that will cause an improvement for their opportunities in life.
You may have noticed that I have added Blogads to the left sidebar. For an extremely low cost you can have an ad seen by 12,000 Hong Kong, China and Asia focussed visitors each week. Placing an ad is easy: just follow this advertise on Simon World link.
The proceeds from advertising on this site go towards improving it. Once there's enough in the kitty I'll be getting some much needed behind the scenes work done, as well as some cosmetic surgery on the bits you can see...just as any reasonable tai-tai would. Anything leftover will go into a newly formed marketing budget which will include buying ads on other blogs (sharing the wealth) and an unlimited expense account (spending the wealth).
I have been a long time fan of your site, so I am happy to say that I have taken up your call and bought an ad on your site for the next three months. I submitted it and paid yesterday, and I look forward to seeing it soon!
Thank you for all the excellent work you do on this site.
HH:...We never talk about China, but there was a story in the Wall Street Journal today by Samina Ahmad, that pointed out that China currently has 360 million mobile phone subscriptions, and a hundred million online internet users. Four of the ten most trafficked internet sites are Chinese. Are we paying enough attention to these people, Mark Steyn?
MS: Well, I think we can always pay more attention to China. And particularly, I would say the Russian-Chinese border, which is going to become a huge flashpoint in the years ahead. Basically, China is slowly going to annex the Eastern part of Russia. That's my view. But at the same time, the idea that China's dictatorial government will not effectively impede its expansion to world power status, China has severe structural problems. I'll just give you one example. Their distorted birth rate, artifically distorted birth rate, which means they have this huge surplus of men. Unless they're figuring on becoming the first gay superpower since Sparta, that is going to be a huge issue for them. Where do these people go? They have got huge structural problems, and so this idea that China is going to supplant America around about 2050, I think is complete nonsense.
HH: But they are buying just about everything that can be bought on the open market, and they are upset everytime someone says no, we might need a little of the oil ourselves.
MS: Yes, and that is an issue. I mean, in my own country, in Canada, they're covertly buying up Canada's natural resources, because they're a resource-poor country. But what eventually becomes the issue is whether a country of its present size is going to proceed to superpower status. I just don't think that's possible. There's a widening gap between the rural inland China and these coastal cities that are booming. And that in the end is going to bust that country apart. There'll be two, three, four Chinas on the world's stage eventually.
Yowzas Simon, where did you come across this gem? You are really plungeing the depths of sinology with this one. Reading it is like watching a blind man leading the deaf and dumb. I'm still tittering about the first gay superpower since Sparta bit. ESWN once wrote that the majority of western discourse on China was a tragic farce best represented by an old British comedy where everyone was spouting talking points but no one had any clue as to what was going on. I'm inclined to agree.
I really ''identify'' with what that blogger pointed out in his account of the NYT interview. I just want to summarize and go over the interview process. Basically, journalists don't just call you up to hound you into giving answers you don't want to give. It's usually a conversation, from what I can see.
Posted by doug crets at September 16, 2005 03:45 PM
Fair point, Doug. But that blogger felt he'd been boxed into a corner and was subtly moved into becoming the reporter's mouthpiece. It's like lawyers: they don't ask questions without knowing the answers.
Thanks for the kind comments. The reason why the RSS feed doesn't work is that I am now blocked in China, and have to go through a cumbersome proxy kind of procedure to post articles.. Updating the RSS feed is even more difficult.
Posted by Running Dog at September 17, 2005 12:33 AM
Oh how I miss Melbourne... never had the chance to watch the finals at the G though.
BTW I never realised there were that many Sydneysiders who cared for the AFL...
Posted by spacehunt at September 17, 2005 02:09 AM
Yes, as an adopted Sydneysider I was chuffed to see the Swans win, but as a Perth boy, I'm also going to enjoy seeing West Coast put them to the sword in the Grand Final!
Macau often gets called the Las Vegas of Asia. Now it's going for the Chicago of Asia:
Macau's Commission Against Corruption has unearthed a massive vote-buying ring. The commission said Thursday it has recommended prosecution of 485 people...
The commission identified the leader of the ring as a businessman surnamed Wong. He is said to have spent 215,000 patacas (HK$208,550) to secure 430 voter cards through his subordinates. Macau law requires residents to show the cards when they vote...Personnel managers at Wong's company, which was not identified, and two subsidiaries, organized a voter- registration drive for staff last spring. Employees then submitted their voter cards to the managers in exchange for 500 patacas. If they gather 10 more cards from their family and friends, they get an equal reward.
Enterprising fellow. So who ratted them out?
The anti-graft agency started its investigation in May after receiving a complaint about a voter accepting 250 patacas for his card. Wong was soon identified and picked up in a restaurant that month while in possession of multiple cards.
One voter was going to ruin it for everyone and take only 250 patacas! Otherwise the whole scheme would have gone ahead without a hitch. Let that be a lesson to your vote buyers.
As for the state of booming Macau, perhaps it's time to stop looking at the glittering new casinos and rising stock prices, and start following a new index:
Votes were priced at 1,000 patacas in the 2001 cases. Vote buyers this year have promised to pay 1,000 patacas on election day in addition to 500 patacas in cash or gift certificates for voter cards.
Well, given the huge amount of casino investment into Macau maybe the best we can hope for is that with inflation, vote rigging simply gets too expensive...but then again, the casinos will ensure there's more pork than ever before.
Great news today. Indonesia has announced that it has a local small arms manufacturing company that has figured out how to make an automatic rifle for half the price (US$500) of the M-16 (US$1,000) and that the Indonesian military may soon replace the M-16 with this new SS-2 as its standard armament.
So, the armaments industry of a corruption-ridden Muslim nation has made the business of killing much cheaper for itself and for its neighbors, not to mention anyone else that might want to buy some. Although I can't possibly imagine any non-government organizations in Southeast Asia that might want them.
I shall look out for the SS-2 next time I go to Darra.
This is a little silly. There's been just such a gun on the market for decades (since the early 60s): the AR-180. Recently re-released as the AR-180b. I got mine used for $300, but they cost $500 new.
Singapore made 'em under license for a while for their military, and I think a branch of Sterling Arms made some too.
Basically, it's an M--16 lower receiver/trigger group, so you can use M-16 magazines, with an upper receiver based on the AK-47 (gas piston) for reliability. Cheap and good, but the cost of retooling US factories made the cheaper price not worth it to convert the US military arms to the AR-180.
Hong Kong's Law Reform Commission is trying the old faithful, contingency fees or no win, no fee for certain civil cases. I like to think they are following my humble suggestions from February after the lawyers again complained they weren't paid enough by legal aid.
Contingency fees help that mythical but favourite beast, "the squeezed middle class", who don't qualify for legal aid but can't afford lawyer's fees. Contingency fees are a wonderful idea. Those with a case but without enough money can still have their day in court, knowing that if they lose they do not face financial ruin. The lawyers can compete on a commercial basis, claiming cases on their ability to win them. The lawyers also act as a brake on frivilous cases, as no lawyer will take on cases they see no prospects of winning.
The relevant closed shops welcome the deal with their traditional "it's great in theory..." line:
Bar Association vice chairman Andrew Bruce said the commission is highly respected and that the Bar looked forward to being consulted on the issue.
However, he added, this was "something we should be very cautious about." Bruce feared that commercial considerations might undermine the primary consideration of independent legal advice. "To us, access to justice means access to quality justice: legal advice which is truly independent," he said.
You see a lawyer would never consider the money an important part of their advice. It's all about the law and being an officer of the court. If having an artificial distinction between barristers and solicitors leads to higher fees, that's the cost of "quality justice". If having a self-regulating body that deliberately limits competition amongst its members results in higher fees, that's the cost of "quality justice". If these same bodies deliberately restrict the number of new entrants to their ranks and thereby ensure demand always exceeds supply, that's the cost of "quality justice". (Note you can easily substitute the words doctor for lawyer and justice for medicine here.) The SCMP has more of the lawyer's cautions on this "double-edged sword":
Law Society president Peter Lo Chi-lik said that according to the traditional argument against conditional fees, giving lawyers a bigger stake in a case's outcome creates temptation to "bend the rules".
He also said while such an arrangement may enhance access to justice for those who wish to sue, it may also inadvertently encourage nuisance lawsuits.
The threats of disbarment, fines and even jail for "bending the rules" should be enough to counter those temptations. We've dealt with the idea of nuisance lawsuits already - if a lawyer isn't getting paid unless they win the case, they'll prove a very effective filter against such cases. Wait until the Law Society imply we're moving towards "American style litigation". America has long had contingency fees, but that's not the problem with their legal system. If anything, that's one of its strengths. The problems are in torts and other areas. But it's always a nice bogeyman to throw out their to scare the punters.
It boils down to this: lawyers will hide behind high minded notions of "balancing principles and value judgments". Unfortunately for them, a competitive market has proved extremely adept at doing just that. The biggest hint that contingency fees are a good idea is the obvious one: that lawyers don't like it. If they are fighting the idea, it's because they know full well they are giving something up. It will be their clients who will take the gains, but clients are a diverse, diffuse and poorly represented group. It's the age-old problem of micro-economic reform. A small special interest group will bleat loudly about their potential losses, while the gains are spread widely amongst the wider public. If only their were representatives of that public interest.
But the last word must lie with retiring District Court judge Fergal Sweeney, from the SCMP:
The Justice Department yesterday defended private lawyers hired to prosecute complex commercial crime cases after a retiring judge was quoted as saying many were lap sap, or rubbish.
District Court judge Fergal Sweeney, who will retire tomorrow, told Ming Pao that taxpayers' money was wasted as many defendants who should have been convicted were acquitted because of these lawyers.
The judge was reported to have said 20 per cent of them were lap sap but yesterday he told the South China Morning Post there had been a misunderstanding.
Underestimation or misunderstanding? These are the comments of a judge that has dealt with lawyers full time for years.
As far as I remember, after the introduction of the no-win-no-fee reform in England and Wales in the late 90s, litigants do not pay less – solicitors tend to charge high uplift. Is it the result of high information costs in the legal services market? Perfect price competition seems to be quite impossible: since litigants may not have the abilities to judge the ability and performance of the solicitors, they are willing to pay for a premium?
Information asymmetry is a massive problem. That is a danger in contingency fees - that lawyers end up charing higher fees as a sort of "insurance premium" because they have less certainty in their fee income.
In such cases there is a legitimate need for regulation...and not by the profession itself. It is a market failure. Either the Government caps the contingency fees chargeable or in some other patrols for "excessive" fees. Or even better, make lawyers open to charges of incompetence and normal professional indemnity issues. Or introduce any number of measures to force the lawyers to actually compete rather than collude. That helps reduce the market imbalance and reduces information costs.
Regulating the legal profession? You may be interested in this article on The Economoist explaining why it is so difficult to regulate lawyers and doctors:
http://www.economist.com/printedition/displayStory.cfm?Story_ID=3503707
(I guess you may have read it.)
Bloggers are used to being called non-mainstream media (indeed many revel in that description). Now Hong Kong's Government has labelled magazines as non-mainstream media as well. We're in good company.
Cultural preservation or xenophobia in Chinese real estate? A rose is a rose is a rose is a rose, and a crappy development name is the same in any language.
Richard deals with the internet as bringing of freedom myth, saying China is well in control of the net. So instead of democracy we get Baywatch. If we're comparing Pamela Anderson and the Hodd with most politicians, it's no contest anywhere in the world.
Singapore Ink has a major problem with Thomas Friedman's piece on Singapore and Katrina...and that's aside from the op-ed being crap. Sure there's "good governance" in Singapore, in that one-party autocratic we-know-what's-best kind of way. Friedman's thesis is essentially this: if you're prepared to sacrifice freedom of speech, independent courts and a plurality if views in politics, your disaster recovery efforts will be great. Funniest of all, the NYT intends to charge to read Friedman and friends...which leads to this Barbra Streisand analogy.
This site has a new mascot...and I've discovered how much I'm worth (about $11,000 and 2 giraffes).
Firstly, the blurb.
Simon, a Red Panda, plays in a tree at Jerusalem's Biblical Zoo September 5, 2005. Jerusalem's Biblical Zoo has a new addition, a rare Chinese-born Red Panda. The eight kilogram (19 pound) bear-like mammal was purchased two months ago from a zoo in Singapore for about $11,000 and in exchange for two giraffes.
Depressingly, I decided to Google my name and see if any animals have my name.
http://www.bronxzoo.com/278313/1883418
I'm not only one of the more unattractive (although at least I get to be clever) animals, I'm a senior citizen and they want to make out with a fellow senior citizen with the unfortunate name of "Timmie". I think I may just end it all now. God knows, I can do without hoovering up all that silver hair on the bed linens in the morning.
What a beautiful red panda! Honestly, few creatures are so darn cute--half kitten, half teddy bear. At my local zoo, there's always a huge crowd of both kids and adults in front of our red panda exhibit.
Posted by Mad Minerva at September 15, 2005 11:12 PM
I like to think of myself as an endangered species, or in the politically correct terminology, "existence challenged".
The uproar over the charging of 2 Singaporean bloggers with sedition for racist comments continues unabated. Singapore Angle has great coverage: part 1, part 2, part 3. It returns to a question that continues cropping up for bloggers - they are subject to their local laws, even if they are on the internet. An easy rule of thumb is if you wouldn't publish it in a newspaper, don't put it on a blog.
Today's must read is Eswar Prasad's Next Steps for China in the IMF's magazine which argues that broader financial sector reform is crucial for China's long term growth (via New Economist). I've previously looked at studies of China's progress against poverty as part of its economic development. One of the conclusions was the much of China's early rapid growth has come from the "low-hanging fruit" (i.e. easy pickings) such as de-collectivisation, the institution of partial property rights and giving individuals responsibility. China is entering the next phase of its development - the harder yards of making a working market economy where price matters more than connections. The Government has already bailed out its banks once with huge recapitalisation efforts, yet there are fears that the non-performing loan pipeline is rapidly growing again. Until loans are made and priced on credit risk, the cycle will continue and China will quickly find itself at a growth bottleneck or worse...just as Japan has faced for 15 years.
I'm pleased to note Mark Anthony Jones has taken my advice and started a blog: Flowing Waters Never Stale.
2. A senior commissar, general and princeling of the CCP, Liu Yazhou, continues to publish provocative articles. As the article states, it is a "startling indication of policy discussion and change" when a senior establishment member is publishing such articles without censorship.
Shocking, gory story in today's Guardian newspaper. A Chinese cosmetics company takes the skin and collagen from executed prisoners and sells it to beauty companies in Europe. And the collagen from the prisoners, executed by gunshot, is transported via Hong Kong. A quote from that company's representatives:
The agent told the researcher: "A lot of the research is still carried out in the traditional manner using skin from the executed prisoner and aborted foetus." This material, he said, was being bought from "bio tech" companies based in the northern province of Heilongjiang, and was being developed elsewhere in China.
He suggested that the use of skin and other tissues harvested from executed prisoners was not uncommon. "In China it is considered very normal and I was very shocked that western countries can make such a big fuss about this," he said.
The agent said his company exported to the west via Hong Kong."We are still in the early days of selling these products, and clients from abroad are quite surprised that China can manufacture the same human collagen for less than 5% of what it costs in the west." Skin from prisoners used to be even less expensive, he said. "Nowadays there is a certain fee that has to be paid to the court."
I know we live in a relativistic world, but can we, just once, have a sign of some universal standards? Sickening.
Dan Drezner scores it China 1, Yahoo 0. Following eBay's purchase of Skype and the banning of VoIP services in China you could also score China Telecom 1, eBay 0, Chinese phone consumers -1.
Pollution sparks riots in China - as China grows wealthier, its citizens will care more about the environment. But this story is as much about Government authorities ignoring people at their peril.
Simon,
Breaking news: Google has introduced blog search.
URL: http://google.com/blogsearch
Related news: http://searchenginewatch.com/searchday/article.php/3548411
So it seems that the first day of operation for Hong Kong Disneyland went quite well.
Except for the smog blanketing the territory. And the Chinese tourists lighting up in non-smoking areas. And going barefoot. And letting their kids urinate all over the park. Cleaners complained of all the cigarette butts all over the park at day's end.
The Apple Daily deemed the behavior of some of these less well-educated mainlanders 'disgraceful'. Read the article from the Associated Press.
But then again, do we want their money or not? Is there a choice?
Sean asked what the Chinese press reaction to Koizumi's win in Japan has been. As you'd expect, there hasn't been much. After all, China can't stand the man.
Xinhua has a few reports on the Koizumi's landslide victory and a piece on Japan's foreign policy which mentions his pledge to normalise ties with North Korea but says nothing about China. An op-ed piece largely focusses on the postal reform with the only passage on foreign policy saying:
the LDP noted the need to improve ties with Asian neighbors. Yet, the points was rarely mentioned in Koizumi's campaign speeches.
After the voting, the premier stopped short of dismissing the possibility of paying a visit to the Yasukuni Shrine when he was answering questions on a live program of the public broadcaster NHK. His repeated visits to the war criminal-enshrining facility was the major stumbling block in relations with China and South Korea.
And that's about it. Official China is likely in denial...and building up their foam for Koizumi's next shrine visit.
Over the past quarter century, the Chinese Communist Party has become quite adept at privatizing organizations and introducing them to the Profit (Prophet?) motive. In fact, their audacity knows no bounds - check out these photos in Xinhua showing 18 monks from the Jade Buddha Temple being put into an MBA program at Shanghai Jiaotong University "with Buddhist characteristics". The atheists at the CCP must be so mystified (and horrified) at the concept of renouncing material desire that they are forcing these monks to get with the program and start focusing their mind on a new mantra - "Greed is Good". I wonder how they translate 'Gordon Gecko' into Chinese?
The atheists at the CCP must be so mystified (and horrified) at the concept of renouncing material desire that they are forcing these monks to get with the program and start focusing their mind on a new mantra - "Greed is Good".
How very, very accurate. For example, in my dealings with the CCP, given the task of promoting open source software development, all they could think of was "hire more programmers" or "hold some competition with a big cash prize". They were stunned at the suggestion that many open source software development are done by volunteers. In fact they were stunned that there exists any kind of volunteer work at all.
Posted by spacehunt at September 13, 2005 03:21 PM
This is an unexpected development. I would never have thought. I guess it is too early make out any trend.
In such a rapidly changing society where the RMB is often the only stable social as well as monetary currency, I guess it is understandable, spacehunt, why some people feel that way. I would also argue that a purely rationalist/atheist belief system makes it much easier for the CCP to structure national policy based on 'rational choice' theory.
But not only does belief in the Infinite and in a world beyond this one undermine the predictability of policy outcomes, it also creates alternative power structures in a society long used to a monopolistic corporatism. We shall see whether the slight changes at the margins in terms of a more flexible attitude towards political liberalization will also extend towards religious freedom. I suspect not, because that would strike a blow at the heart of the CCP's claim to moral legitimacy by taking away its moral monopoly position.
I guess you can say this very materialistic view on the world is a by-product of a rapidly changing society. Certainly one can argue the same thing happened right here in Hong Kong over the past few decades, though to a lesser extent.
With regards to religious freedom, I think it's much simpler than that --- the CCP simply don't want any gathering together of people, period. They know very well how powerful even a small, yet determined, group can be; that's how they kicked out the Nationalists, right?
Posted by spacehunt at September 14, 2005 02:51 AM
Yes Hong Kong is similar, although the fact that there are more mature civic organizations, and the housing subsidies, have made for a slightly more caring society.
We are making the same point - a corporatist structure vs. a pluralistic one is like saying that a society organized within the state vs. a society with a number of different alternative power structures. Having said that, there are a growing number of civic/business organizations in China that are not part of the party. My point is that China is especially sensitive to gatherings of a religious nature because those belief systems (i.e. fa lun gong, the underground catholic church) are ones over which the CCP has no control.
Buddhism has long been commodified in other Asian societies as well. Just visit most Buddhist temples in South Korea for example, and you will see that monks resemble sale clerks. The same in Japan, where both Buddhist temples and Shinto shrines are often sponsored by large corporations like Sony and Panasonic.
Every temple complex in Asia now seems to sport a shop near the exit selling Buddhist kitsch - plastic prayer beads, plastic images of Guanyin, plastic Buddha car decorations, plastic Buddha necklaces, you name it!
Whatever happened to the idea that ALL human desire is suffering?
Well, I think to some extent these 'sales clerks' are there to fulfill a function not only of making a sale but also effectively accepting donations from Buddhist worshippers in return for some votive trinket. Fair enough though, it does commercialize the temple experience.
As far as donations from corporations, there are a number of Western enterprises that implicitly or quite explicitly support religious organizations. Quite similar to the practice of 'tithing' which is still done by a substantial minority of Americans.
I still would like to think that the monks might not need the training of an MBA, but then I am sure that Falwell and Robertson have biz-school types on their payroll.
Yes HK Dave, you are right to point out that there are many Western enterprises that give explicit financial support to religious organisations, and many Churches certainly these days also have shops flogging off all sorts of Christian kitsch - St. Mary's Cathedral in central Sydney for example.
Everything in life, all of our life's experiences, are now becoming increasingly commercialised and commodified - we now live in a one-dimensional society, as Marcuse predicted back in the late 60s, whereby we are all unable to sublimate our enjoyment, our experiences, because all of our experiences are mediated, are carefully packaged and sold to us.
Even climbing a mountain, as an experience, has now been desublimated, thanks to the invention of the leisure industry.
China's leaders now have promised to disclose the full casualty figures for disasters that strike the country. These developments seem to have bamboozled the editorial board of Xinhua, which said that "the adjective 'stunning' may be applied if the comparison is made between the present and twenty years ago."
We have every reason to be skeptical, particularly in Hong Kong, where the 2003 SARS outbreak and the policy of silence on the Mainland only served to increase the disquiet in this city. But the way this policy is applied in practice definitely bears watching, particularly given the justifications Xinhua provides for this new policy stance:
These developments have formed an irrevocable trend or growing public participation in government aided by advances in technology.
The government has been increasingly promoting transparency to enhance efficiency and stem corruption.
The people in China, an increasing number of whose daily needs are being met, now exhibit more readiness to care for public affairs.
Modern information technology has greatly facilitated mass communication and reduced the leeway of deciding whether or when certain affairs should be publicized.
After steering China's economic and social development successfully and steadily over the years, it appears the government is now willing and capable of advancing transparency constantly and steadily... Some scholars hold the view that the democratic processes of a country are closely related with its phase of social and economic development and the governance capability of the government.
In other words, they are doing it because they've realized that the people demand more honesty from their government, the Internet and the speed of the rumor mill makes hiding accidents impossible and even counter-productive, and that they recognize that an overall policy of transparency may help the effort to root out corruption and bad government. Xinhua then sanctions modernization theory (which holds that economic development will lead to political liberalization) as an acceptable point of view.
Obviously, these developments are still at an early stage. But as they say at AA, the first step is to recognize you have a problem...they seem to have diagnosed their travails quite well. Let's see what happens when the rubber meets the road.
I'm still not sure if this is a hoax, but the attempt at oursourced blogging took another leap forward with the discovery of employees using IM. Who would have thought that those you talk to on IM might not be who they say they are?
Curzon quotes Japan's thumpingly re-elected PM Koizumi: "I rule". The irony is the poor performance of the DPJ opposition will create another virtual monopoly in Japanese politics - a loss for democracy and for the competition in ideas that has driven Japan to a point of reform. Gaijin Biker notes the Japanese babe theory in action. Japundit says you can tune out those who say Japanese nails get hammered in.
Big protests in South Korea over a statue of Douglas MacArthur. The Nomad has some photos which the State Department PR people should file under "Allies who may not like us despite fighting a war and stationing 30,000 troops there".
Indian winners from the EU-China bra wars. The Economist this week also notes that since the start of this year, when textile quotas were abolished, textile exports from Asian countries have risen. A bigger pie for all....just as expected.
Not that this means anything but that post ESWN wrote a blog entry about, with its 223,000 views and 4,000 comments, is not the most popular forum post ever. Not even close.
There's a thread on post.baidu.com which started on 9 June, 2004. As of today, it has collected 2,845,438 views and 53,816 comments.
It's a novel based on a Japanese anime written by a user of baidu.
Today Hong Kong Disneyland opens. A world of fantasy and adventure, where nothing is quite as it seems. From the comfort of your PC you can take a tour of the numbers behind the scenes. Then finish off with a handy hint for anyone visiting Hong Kong's little piece of (culturally sensitive) Americana.
Magical Mickey Maths
Hong Kong Government's revenue projection over 40 years: HK$148 billion
Professor Lui Ting-ming's estimate of net benefit over 40 years: HK$32 billion
Figure Government is using to make projection: total revenues from park, jobs and tourism receipts.
Figure Professor Lui is using: net profits
Figure any business uses in assessing the return on investment: net profits
Number of jobs created by HK Disneyland: 5,000
Number of people employed in Hong Kong: approx. 3.5 million
Percentage of new jobs due to Disneyland: 0.14%
Average wage of Hong Kong non-management/professional employees: HK$10,382 a month
Average wage of Hong Kong Disneyland non-management/professional employees: take a guess
Hong Kong Disneyland size: 299 acres
Relative to Florida DisneyWorld: 1%
Difference in ticket prices: Hong Kong is 20% cheaper
Estimated time to walk Hong Kong Disneyland (without crowds): 30 minutes
Money spent by Hong Kong Government on Hong Kong Disneyland: US$3.3 billion
Money invested by Disney: approx. US$500 million
HK Government equity stake: 57%
Disney's equity stake: 43%
HK Government's share of spending: 82%
Early estimate of number of Guangdong tourists staying overnight in Hong Kong: 16.6%
Government's estimate: over 90%
Percentage of revenues that go to Disney under royalty and other agreements: "most" for the first 40 years
Professor of Economics Sunny Kwong Kai-sun's analysis of the Government's projected returns, employment benefits and flow-on economic effects: "too optimistic"
SCMP's view: Nor should we be overly worried about the financial figures; Disneyland in Florida and Paris opened with as much controversy, yet have become overwhelmingly as successful as Disney's other resorts.
Eurodisney's latest results: First half loss Euro53.4 million, estimated debt to equity ratio 716%
SCMP's definition of "overwhelmingly successful": dubious
Number of feral dogs caught: 40
Number of fish killed due to dredging work: 6.66 million
Noise during fireworks display: 56.9 decibels @ Discovery Bay
Legal limit: 55 decibels
Estimated opening date of Shanghai Disneland: 2010
Handy hint:
Everyone knows the fireworks are at 9pm. The trick to a trouble free visit is to get to the park around 8:45pm. If you're prepared to forgo the fireworks, the park is your oyster. No queues, no crowds. It only takes 30 minutes to circumnavigate the park, so with a bit of luck you can be back on the train before the crowds at 9:15pm.
While not wanting to take away from your hatred of anything disney related, your economic argument that the benefit is better valued purely on net profit is a bit scary to read. Do you value your children purely on the income they bring in to the household? Of course not. And similarly, no government, not even the most capitalist, measures its success purely on 'net profit'. You are completely ignoring social benefits and flow on effects. Tourists who come to the park will invariably have to stay somewhere, will have to eat somewhere and will use serivces. none of this is included in 'net profit' of Disney. The new employees will be spending their income at places other than Disneyland (unless they have young daughters).
I'm not suggesting for a moment that the park is not a complete waste of money, nor that the HK government has a great deal to answer for, but you cannot possibly measure the success of a project of this size by just looking at the bottom line of the core business you capitalist pig.
And another thing - a tad hypocritical of you to complain about HK Disney when the adds on your site are for HK Disney hotels.... You planning on adding your add revenue to the 'net profit' of Disney to assay its true worth?
..so i got curious and clicked into the link to Mcguire's blog. i have some comments, but i think i better put it on a more reputable site (this one) rather than one based solely on fabricated 'facts'.
among mcguire's sources:
1) "Agence France Presse: the link has since died"
2) "my book"
3) "my geocities site"
4) "my other essay on my geocities site"
....
n) "my n-3 essay on my geocities site"
McGuire also chose to ignore the fact that East Turkmanstan terrorists were among the prisoners found in Afghanistans (then Guantanamo), and that they have planted many bus bombs in Urumqi and Beijing between 1997-2001, until bin Laden's camp was rooted out by US.
The SCMP continues to report the news that matters:
Hong Kong women are becoming increasingly sexually liberated and willing to make sexual demands on their partners...The survey found 80 per cent of women had initiated sex with their partners. However, only 3 per cent said they have frequently done so, with 40 per cent saying their partners made the first move in most cases.
The survey was conducted jointly by the Association for the Advancement of Feminism and the University of Hong Kong since 2002. Seventy per cent of the respondents had completed university or higher education...30 per cent of young women in their early 20s had pre-marital sex.
The survey also found almost 70% of young women in their early 20s lied in sex surveys.
...Hong Kong still had a long way to go because sex education at most schools run by the Catholic Church needed to be more open about the topic to educate youngsters.
It could be a long wait if you want the Catholic Church to be more open about sex education. Any faith based on a virgin birth is going to have all sorts of trouble teaching hormone-ridden teenagers the facts of life.
More disturbingly...
The survey found 60 per cent of women practised safe sex with partners, mostly using condoms. Worryingly, the survey found 40 per cent of women had been indecently assaulted, while 15 per cent said they had been pressured into unwanted sex. Sixty per cent said they had been sexually harassed, but 90 per cent of them did not go to the police.
More results below the jump.
SEX IN THE CITY
Of respondents to the sex survey:
80 per cent have initiated sex
3 per cent are usually the one to initiate sex
40 per cent usually let their partner initiate sex
80 per cent have told their partner how they want to be touched
Pardon the reference to that Daltrey/Townshend classic of the 1970s.
Last week we blogged about how Premier Wen Jiabao, on a trip abroad, uttered some words about how the evolution towards democracy was a continuous process. Some of you gave me some stick, perhaps well deserved, for my rather optimistic header - "Chinese Democracy On the Way." Among other things, it was mentioned that Wen said it off the cuff to some foreign EU leaders, not to his own people.
But I would like the doubters re-evaluate that new openness of the Chinese towards democracy and reform in light of the momentous news in this article in the Washington Post. It discusses how President Hu Jintao has declared that the late liberal-minded reformer Hu Yaobang, former Party Secretary, had been posthumously rehabilitated and celebrations would take place this November to mark the 90th anniversary of his birth.
In case you need reminding, it was the occasion of the death that sparked the demonstrations, candlelit vigils and ultimately failed protest in Tiananmen Square in 1989. And this rehabilitation is not just a comment for foreigners, this is sending a very clear message to a domestic audience. This is all clearly part of a marked shift in Beijing's policy and stance towards political liberalization.
Some of you will clearly say that you want actions, not words. But make no mistake - for a cautious party that has had six decades' experience in turning every proclamation and speech, every symbol into a deliberate act conveying a deliberate message, this is screaming "Change" from the rooftops. We are entering a new era.
One wonders though, do they feel they do it from a position of strength or weakness?
As to the audience being foreign press, why would that make any difference? All speech from Chinese leaders were carefully drafted by their secretary, and each word was weighted, esp those spoken to foreigners.
Whoever suggested the 'foreign audience' comment obviously does not understand CCP.
Dave, this week's Economist has a related story discussing the "Super Girl" phenomena:
CHINA is trying to digest the implications of a popular vote involving millions of people across the country. Never mind that the ballots were cast for contestants in a televised singing competition, and that only those with the means to send text messages by mobile phone could take part. A front-page headline last week in the state-run Beijing Today put the question with astonishing frankness: “Is Super Girl a Force for Democracy?”
In a country conspicuously lacking in democratic choice, this rare opportunity to vote and make a difference—even if only to the outcome of the “Mengniu Sour Yoghurt Super Voice Girl” competition—has inspired a remarkable debate. The discussion has been fuelled by huge public enthusiasm for the show, a programme similar to “American Idol” and its predecessor “Pop Idol” in Britain. It was broadcast by a satellite television station in Hunan province and relayed nationwide on cable networks. The organisers say some 400m people watched the final on August 27th—nearly a third of the population. Around 8m text message votes were cast.
“Super Girl”, as the show is commonly known, appealed mainly because of its racy format (at least until the authorities began insisting on more downbeat folksy songs) and the pleasure that many enjoy from watching amateur singers embarrass themselves. Rebellious young women apparently identified with the self-confident and boyish-looking winner, Li Yuchun. Groups of fans campaigned in the streets.
Some of China's more daring newspapers have seized on the chance to put “Super Girl” in a political context. An article widely carried on state media websites said the contest had caused Chinese intellectuals to “fantasise about arrangements for democratic elections and notice the awakening of democratic consciousness among the younger generation.” But the China Daily loyally expressed scepticism, asking, “How come an imitation of a democratic system ends up selecting the singer who has the least ability to carry a tune?” That, of course, is democracy.
Yes Simon and Lin, that is a fabulous quote. And democracy, like God, works in mysterious ways...milkmaids singing karaoke, for instance.
Sun Bin, you're right, I think we'd need to go back a few decades to find a Chinese leader that made unscripted remarks, to either a foreign or domestic audience. I think though, the fact that this move sends a clear domestic message, means that the leadership is willing to share their vision of the future with the people at large.
Sorry to rain on your "I told you so" parade HKDave, but your temporal sequence is a bit out of whack. The Hu Yaobang story actually broke internationally over a week ago (Reuters reported on it on September 4 and it was discussed on The Peking Duck on that day by many including myself, Wen Wei Po confirmed it the next day, SCMP had it on September 7). You posted your original China: Democracy on the way topic on September 5 mentioning Wen's reported statements of that day (not sure why you think he was overseas, he was definitely in Beijing). In commenting on that thread I thought you were fully aware of the prospective rehabilitation.
Yes, the news has been around for some time, but I wanted to discuss it as a sign that there is momentum for a re-consideration of political liberalization, and demonstrate that the comment I discussed earlier was not happening in isolation. About the temporal sequence, I guess I don't see my role, as some bloggers do, as one of 'reporting' on events, because I find myself after all relying mostly on second hand sources. Perhaps I should pay more attention to what is happening on other sites though - I missed the discussion you mentioned.
When I heard that "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon" director Ang Lee won the Golden Lion at this year's Venice Film Festival, I remembered fondly a Southpark episode I saw years ago. Lee's new movie, entitled "Brokeback Mountain", is about gay cowboys in Wyoming. It stars Jake Gyllenhaal and Heath Ledger, and makes Matt Stone and Trey Parker of Southpark fame sound oddly prophetic when they penned these lines for an episode entitled "Chef's Salty Chocolate Balls" in 1998 (parodying the Sundance Festival in Park City, Utah):
Mr. Garrison:The first annual South Park film festival begins today.
Wendy: Wow, cool.
Kyle: They're not gonna show that stupid --- Godzilla movie again are they?
Mr. Garrison: No, no Kyle these are independent films.
Stan: Oh like Independence Day, that sucked --- too.
Cartman: No dude, independent films are those black and white hippie movies. They're always about gay cowboys eating pudding.
(16:41) Hong Kong again tops the Cato's Economic Freedom poll, one seemingly designed to make small Asian city-states perpetual winners, despite those cities being dominated by oligopolies and the Government. Dan Drezner notes an intriguing finding about the relationship between economic and other freedoms.
Marx said the history repeats twice: the first time as tragedy, the second as farce. More proof he was right (for once):
The opening day crowds, expected to number up to half a million visitors, failed to materialise, however, and at close of the first day barely 50,000 people had passed through the gates.
The first phase of development (the theme park, hotel complex and golf course) had gone massively over budget, and had eventually cost 22 billion French Francs to complete. Over the next few months attendance figures failed to improve much, and by May the park was only attracting something like 25,000 visitors a day, instead of the predicted 60,000. Combined with the realisation that only 3 in every 10 visitors were native French, the Euro Disney company stock price started a rapid downward spiral, losing almost four fifths of its value. Combined with incredibly optimistic over-pricing of hotel rooms, meals and merchandise, the Park was headed for a disaster...The situation was worsened by the fact that the cheap dollar was persuading more and more people to forego Europe in favour of holidays in Florida at Walt Disney World.
EuroDisney was also over-populated with hotels, especially for a park that could be reasonably well explored within a full day. Coupled with high prices for food and souvenirs, the EuroDisney company started to close hotels during the winter months and even consider the seasonal closure of the Park itself.
It doesn't bode well. But why should I care? Because HK Disneyland has been primarily paid for by Hong Kong's taxpayers to the tune of over US$3 billion! A while back I posted on all the economics and numbers of Hong Kong Disneyland and it is even more disquieting reading now. Unsurprisingly, we've got a dud. What's worse is the likely ongoing increased costs of the park for HK taxpayers for a marginal increase in tourists in a city that has record tourist arrivals.
Alan Zeman of Ocean Park is beaming...and why wouldn't he smile? While the rest of Hong Kong suffers, it's good to know that there's at least one winner.
It's a bit like the invasion of Iraq - people warned it wouldn't work, but they were ignored. Fortunately, the death toll at Disney is unlikely to climb into the tens of thousands, and disaffected tourists probably won't blow themselves up on the MTR.
By the way, have you actually read Karl Marx? You might find he was right about more than just one thing. Francis Wheen had this to say after British radio listeners chose Marx as the greatest philosopher:
http://observer.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,,1530250,00.html
The Euro Disneyland fiasco was extensively covered in the DISNEYWAR book. However one thing that the book also showed was Disney's determination to get it right and to not walk/run away from the disaster. Today EuroDisney is still in business and mildly profitable. My expectation is that we will see the same in Hong Kong and that they'll probably get things vaguely right by the time Shanghai Disneyland opens.
(17:59) You too can download your very own Chinese official secret document...the same one journalist Shi Tao just got 10 years for, courtesy of Yahoo.
I found Dave's comments about the new Hong Kong Disneyland and its relationship with globalisation to be very interesting, as this is a topic that I myself have been looking at for quite some time now - only I have concentrated on the mainland's various Disney-type theme parks, particularly those to be found here in Shenzhen, where I live and work.
Those who are interesting in the topic of "hypereality" might also be interested in reading my own thoughts about China's new plethora of theme parks. Below is a piece I wrote about Shenzhen's Diwang Building, which is billed as the "first high-rise theme sightseeing and entertainment scenic spot in Asia." Your critical comments will be much appreciated!
KITSCH CITY III
In recognition of her hard work and loyalty, Gao Ying’s employer provided her with two free tickets to visit the Meridian View Centre, located on the 69th floor of the green-coloured Diwang Commercial Building, which towers up to 384 metres off Shenzhen’s main thoroughfare of Shennan Lu; the city’s most easily recognisable building, its main architectural symbol.
Our tickets were torn, and as we passed through the turnstile we were each handed a promotional brochure, bilingual, and which I wasted no time in reading. “Standing at the Meridian View Centre,” it said, “which is the first high-rise theme sightseeing and entertainment scenic spot in Asia, you can easily see just about any sight within Shenzhen city and parts of Hong Kong.”
“With the unique location and amazing view,” it continued, “it is the best place to witness the epoch-making policy one country-two systems and the great change of Shenzhen city from a small fishing village of late twenty years.”
I was quite keen to view the city from these heights, but before Gao Ying and I were able to make it to a window we were briskly ushered into a small cinema, where we were shown to a seat, and asked to wait patiently. Decked out like a ship’s cabin, the cinema resembled the sort a set one might expect to find at a Warner Bros. Movie World theme park. Within minutes the cinema was full, the lights turned down, and the show begun: the Pirate’s Legend, it was called.
Based on an old legend about a pirate named Zhang Baozai, who thrived in this area during the 19th century, this multi-media show was an attempt at simulacra, with its combination of video footage and holographic images all shown in synchronicity with the sounds of wind and rain and lashing waves that, when combined with the hidden high-powered fans that blew hurling gusts of wind onto the audience, were meant to simulate conditions out at sea. At one stage during the show, images of cute fury rats were shown scrambling about the ship’s lower decks, whilst my calf muscles were tickled by a moving “rat’s tail” hidden somewhere beneath my seat.
According to the Window of Shenzhen website, Zheng Baozai was not only a Robin Hood type character who robbed from the rich to give to the poor, but he also “successfully drove away the foreign invaders” from the Pearl River delta area, making him an ideal patriot; a folk hero to celebrate.
Of course, the reality of Zheng Baozai’s life wasn’t half as glamorous as it was made out to be by this kitschy presentation, with all of its treasure chests and shining swords and Disney-type imagery. For starters, Zheng didn’t succeed in “driving away” any foreign invaders at all – though the pirate Confederacy did inflict significant damage on the Qing navy. Piracy in fact was so out of control at the time, that the Chinese authorities actually sought the help of foreign fleets to help tackle the problem. Six Portuguese ships were hired for six months to work on pirate control, and it was with the help of a Portuguese official from Macau, Miguel de Arriaga, that Zheng was able to negotiate his surrender in 1810 to the Qing navy. Not only this, but pirate ships, including those of Zheng Baozai’s Red Fleet, seldom even attacked European ships except when known that they were very weak or poorly manned. He wasn’t quite the brave, fearless swashbuckling repeller of foreign invaders that he has so often been made out to be.
Zheng Baozai was certainly no Robin Hood either. Mr Glasspoole, an officer with the East India Company ship, Marquis of Ely, was actually captured with seven other men by Zheng’s fleet in 1809, and was held captive for eleven weeks until eventually being exchanged for a ransom of over $7,500, as well as for two chests of opium, two casks of gunpowder, and a telescope. After his release, Glasspoole wrote a report describing the activities of Zheng and his pirates, noting that they spent most of their energies plundering small coastal villages, and that in doing so, they behaved very barbarously. They regularly collected protection money, and villagers were often kidnapped and then ransomed for either food or for money. Many entire villages were burnt to the ground, and female captives were often forced into sexual slavery, usually sold for around $40 each, and those prisoners who attempted to escape were normally tortured or killed. A favourite method of torture, said Glasspoole, was to nail the feet to the deck for several hours.
Being a pirate in Zheng’s fleet was hardly glamorous. As Glasspoole noted, the ships were infested with rats, which were sometimes added to the human diet – a diet which normally consisted of little more than coarse red rice and fish. According to Glasspoole, at one time during his captivity they lived on only rice and caterpillars for three weeks. “Feast or famine,” he said, “was the normal lot on pirate ships.”
The Meridian View Centre’s entertainment certainly did distort the city’s past and present, in the way that it presented a nationalist cause centred on economic development and the country’s One-China Policy, and by its glorification of past anti-imperialist struggles, pitted against successive waves of foreign invaders by hero-pirates. It masked reality, with its claim that “the cultures, the style and features of both Shenzhen and Hong Kong have merged here beautifully,” and that both Shenzhen and Hong Kong share histories as “one continuous line, nurtured by the long Shenzhen River” whose “people have grown up on both sides” – whose common cause and whose shared destinies had been interrupted only briefly, by the colonial exploits of a foreign power. The fact that the Qing navy’s ability to resist foreign fleets had been seriously weakened by their own struggles with homegrown pirates, whose numbers are thought to have exceeded forty thousand, had simply been left out of the picture, omitted from the entertainment. The ambivalence that most of today’s Hong Kong residents feel towards Beijing’s political leadership was likewise, ignored.
What I also found interesting about the Pirate’s Legend show was the way that it distorted China’s sexual history, by presenting the past as though everybody had, in the 19th century, cherished the same sexual practices and morals that are now espoused by China’s mainstream today. The show made a big deal of the fact that Zheng Baozai married, that he was therefore not too far removed from society’s conventions. The fact that the woman he married was his boss, that it was a female pirate who led the entire Confederation, was simply left out of the presentation. The idea that a woman could be a leader, could wield so much power, just doesn’t sit very comfortably with the patriarchal attitudes of today’s business and financial leaders.
The inherent bisexuality of all human beings, if we accept Freud’s view, was also, perhaps not surprisingly, denied by the View Centre’s pirate legend. In ancient China, homosexuality was never regarded as a sin, and bisexuality was considered almost a norm. One thing which is rarely ever discussed by the Chinese today, is the fact that even the founder of the Chinese nation, China’s first Emperor, Qin Shihuang-di, had young male lovers. The scholar Pan Guangdan has even reached the conclusion that almost every emperor during the Han Dynasty had at least one male lover - a practice which was also common throughout the Song, Ming and Qing dynasties.
Early Western observers in China, such as the Jesuit Matthew Ricci for example, noted the acceptance of homosexuality in China, but could do little to change it. One British official, writing in 1806, reported that among the Chinese “the commission of this detestable and unnatural act is attended with so little sense of shame, or feelings of delicacy that many of the first officers of the state seemed to make no hesitation in publicly avowing it. Each of these officers is constantly attended by his pipe-bearer, who is generally a handsome boy, from fourteen to eighteen years of age, and is always well dressed.”
J.L. Turner, a British captive of Zheng Baozai’s Red Fleet in 1807, said that each pirate vessel carried eight to ten kidnapped women who were “intended to please all the society indiscriminately and to do the work of their sex,” yet it seemed to him that the “greater part of the crew were satisfied without them” because they instead were in the habit of committing “almost publicly crimes against nature.” Glasspoole, during his captivity, also noted that the most prized captives of the pirates were young boys.
The fact that Zheng Baozai himself was kidnapped by pirates at the age of fourteen was also omitted from the entertainment. Cheng I, the infamous leader of the pirate Confederacy, owed much of his success to the organisational and diplomatic skills of his wife, Cheng I Sao. It was they who kidnapped Zheng Baozai, whom they adopted as their son. Cheng I and Zheng Baozai soon became lovers, though Cheng I’s wife didn’t seem to resent this relationship. Indeed, Cheng I also maintained numerous other male lovers, including the commander of the Black Fleet, Kuo Po-o-Tai. When Cheng I died during a battle in Vietnam in 1807, aged 42, his wife, Cheng I Sao took over the command of the Confederacy, and appointed Zheng Baozai (her husband’s favourite) as her chief lieutenant – putting him in charge of the Red Fleet. Zheng himself was said to be a flamboyant young rogue, who often dressed in a purple silk robe and a black turban.
Zheng Baozai and Cheng I Sao did eventually marry one another, sometime after their surrender in 1810. The Governor-General of Canton had offered them both an amnesty in exchange for giving up their piracy, allowing Cheng I Sao to set up a very profitable gambling house and brothel in Canton, while Zheng Baozai went on to become a colonel in the Qing army.
Zheng is remembered and celebrated more than his superior though, simply because his leader was a woman, and women aren’t supposed to be leaders, let alone pirates - though his relationship with the “Queen of Pirates” has certainly been retained, packaged as a romantic Hollywood-type love story that had blossomed amidst all of the swashbuckling drama of the high seas. Disney films are now even making a sequel to Pirates of the Caribbean, starring the popular Hong Kong actor Chow Yun-Fat as Zheng Baozai. It will be interesting to see whether or not Cheng I Sao will also be featured as a character in the film, and if so, how. One thing that we can all be sure of though is this: Zheng’s bisexuality will be completely omitted from the script.
As Jean Baudrillard has argued, the postmodern world is a world whose signs have made a fundamental break from referring to "reality." In The Precession of Simulacra, Baudrillard wrote that simulation “is no longer that of a territory, a referential being, or a substance,” but rather “the generation by models of a real without origin or reality.” It is, he asserted, “no longer a question of imitation, nor duplication, nor even parody” but instead the substituting of “the signs of the real for the real." Primary examples he said, include psychosomatic illness, Disneyland, and Watergate. Fredric Jameson provided a similar definition: the simulacrum's "peculiar function lies in what Sartre would have called the derealisation of the whole surrounding world of everyday reality."
Even human sexuality it would seem, our own nature as human beings, has been derealised – substituted instead by a discourse that “naturalises” monogamous heterosexual relationships bound legally by marriage as the only “normal” practice of sexual behaviour and instinct – a discourse which is purely ideological and historical, but which is instead presented as being fundamentally inherent to our collective natures, and therefore unbroken by time. The simulacrum functions not only to entertain, but also to create and to maintain societal amnesia.
The imagery used to describe the various scenes one can enjoy from the View Centre’s windows provide yet another example of how the real is replaced by the beyond real, for they were clearly designed to give the impression that all of Shenzhen’s economic development had somehow been preordained by nature, that both Shenzhen and Hong Kong had been “nurtured” by the one mother. I wandered over to the viewing area, to one of the windows facing north, where I noticed a placard telling me that all of the “modern high-storey residences” that I could see had “grown up with plenty of vigour like the Wutong Mountain.”
So here in Shenzhen, towers of concrete and glass rise up out of the landscape as naturally as mountains do, “revealing the new look of the Shenzhen Economic Special Zone” for locals and visitors alike.
I turned again to my brochure, which, rather interestingly I thought, advised me that it was here that I could enjoy “a panoramic view of the real metropolitan scenes of Shenzhen and Hong Kong.” The word “real” is what aroused my curiosity, is what provoked me into ploughing deeper into analysis, for it seemed to me to be an admission that everything else here was merely fake. On offer were “life-like simulated flights in the air, a splendid high altitude web site, a robot guide, some colourful shopping space, a quiet and romantic café and so on.”
The café itself, facing south, not only offered its patrons a view, but also the “charm of old Hong Kong”, decorated as it was with a few street lamps and sign posts, faked in a 60s style, all there to give the café a look reminiscent of the type of scenes depicted in Wong Kar-Wai’s In the Mood for Love.
In his Travels in Hyperreality, the Italian writer and literary critic Umberto Eco, described a tour he once made of America, where he travelled to in order to gain a firsthand look at the imitations and replicas that were on display in that nation's many wax museums and theme parks. He found in them a metaphor for what he regarded as the “inauthenticity of American society.” The same, I believe, can be said about Shenzhen, as well as for many other parts of China, and indeed, the world.
The Meridian View Centre, like Shenzhen’s various theme parks as well as Hong Kong’s new Disneyland, offers little more than a simulated “paradise”, a distraction from the bleakness or blandness of everyday life, and of course, all for a price. Gao Ying and I may have had our tickets given to us for free, but printed on those tickets was an entry fee of 60 RMB.
Behind the façade, as always, there lurked a sales pitch. We had merely been sold something billed as being better than real – something which, in actuality, was little more than a fake reality, a conceptual and mythologised model of reality, but with no connection to reality, and with no origin in reality - marketable precisely because it was able to claim itself as being something more exciting and pleasant than reality. The panoramic view overlooking the “real” Shenzhen that one is able to enjoy from this building’s great height is simply not inspiring enough in itself, it would seem. The reality of Shenzhen’s cityscape is that it looks no different from all other Chinese cities of similar size. It is nothing special, nothing most people would be willing to pay 60 RMB to catch a glimpse of. The view from the Meridian View Centre is only marketable if the city’s history of economic development itself is mythologised, and if it is packaged together with other “attractions” – a “high-rise theme sightseeing and entertainment scenic spot,” as my brochure proclaimed.
Before leaving this hyperreality, Gao Ying and I paused to examine the wax replicas of Deng Xiaoping and Margaret Thatcher, both of whom were seated in discussion on red armchairs, in simulation of their historic 1982 meeting in Beijing to discuss the eventual handover of Hong Kong.
“Look at his watch,” observed Gao Ying. “It’s still ticking!”
Indeed it was ticking, and it even kept an accurate time. But of course, it was never Deng’s watch in the first place, not in actuality.
“What do you mean, it’s still ticking?” I smiled. “It was never actually worn by Deng, I’m sure.”
Gao Ying, suddenly realising her naivety, smiled with embarrassment. She had been momentarily fooled, seduced into this world of hyperreality, unable to recognise the difference between the real, and the beyond real. For her, this watch looked like the real watch that Deng had actually worn during his 1982 meeting with Thatcher, and so for her, it therefore was real, and its link to the real Deng Xiaoping it seemed, had remained unbroken by the years that had passed, with its hands still ticking, still keeping an accurate time. The authenticity claimed by this watch was not historical, but visual.
For me though, all of these “attractions,” including the wax models, were just far too kitsch to be convincing, to be capable of being construed in any way as reality.
Kitsch is more than just bad taste. It is bad taste precisely because it is false, because it is cheaply faked. It is, essentially, a commodity aesthetic, which is why kitsch is the new face of China - and nowhere perhaps is it more evident on the mainland than here in Shenzhen, where plastic coconut palm trees grow ubiquitously from street corners, and where many shops and schools and even some homes are designed to look like Disney castles, its massage parlours like Roman temples.
All of this hyperreality of course, imploded the moment we stepped back out onto the busy streets below, where we were confronted by the true reality of Shenzhen’s economic development, by all the inequalities it had produced, by the sight of the city’s nouve riche strolling along with shopping bags in hand, their clothes labelled with “brands” that signified their new power as consumers, elevating them to ever greater heights in social status. Wandering about from store to store, from “attraction” to “attraction”, these middle class slaves to fashion, with gods now reified as either money or things, inadvertently rubbed shoulders with the city’s beggars, with the city’s underclass – with people living out of rubbish bins, with people whose reality denied them access to such entertainment for distraction or denial, whose pockets were too empty to consume art for consolation, and whose life’s struggles they played out against the surreal backdrop that is Shenzhen kitsch.
This, although very long, was well worth me reading. Your analysis is both insightful and thought-provoking, and I think that your structuralist argument works better here than in your other article on blogs sites, mainly because you have grounded your argument historically, and therefore empirically, this time.
I especially enjoyed learning about Chinese pirates, and the homosexual history of China.
As an American myself, I appreciate just how embarrassing the Disneyfication of the world really is. The entire world, as you say, is painting itself in kitsch.
Mr. Jones,
Your analysis is both insightful and thought-provoking, and I think that your structuralist argument works better here than in your other article on blogs sites, mainly because you have grounded your argument historically, and therefore empirically, this time.
Then, in the Sept. 7 linklet comments, "Helen" writes:
Mr Jones,
A truly thorough and fascinating structuralist critique of China blogs. I'll never be able to read sites like TPD and this one again, without baring your analysis in mind.
Simon, how does it feel to be used like this? Are you proud of yourself, providing a platform for squatters who use your space to harass and stalk others? I really hope this happens to you one day. No, I can't actually say that because I like you and respect your intelligence. But I do hope that one day you know, at least for a moment, the kind of grief and harm someone like this can cause. And it cheapens your site and calls into question your integrity. Hiding behind your "Comments Policy" won't fly, because the issue transcends such artificial creations and boils down to what is right and what is wrong. And I know you know this.
By the way, Jones posted the exact same tedious comment on Flying Chair, always fishing for attention for himself at the expense of others.
Richard - what the hell is your problem? There is nothing wrong with this comment, and if you are accusing me of being Stan and/or Helen, then where the hell is your proof? Put up, or shut up! It is ironic that you are always accusing me of being a "stalker" (which is hyperbolic nonsense) when it is you and your Thought Police (like Martyn) who continually stalk me!
And Richard - if I post my comments on other peoples' blogs so what? Please tell me what is fundamentally wrong with that? Nothing! Another blogger (a regular reader of Simon World) has even emailed me wanting my permission to "publish" both my previous and my latest China Daily articles on his own blog. So is thnere anything wrong with that - that my writings my appear on multiple blogs? Grow up will you!
Well, in keeping with Simon's open comments policy where anything goes no matter how destructive or deranged, let me put up my own post so people here can see exactly what's going on. Then decide who's believable. I would usually never do this, but Simon feels whoever wants to use his comments for whatver ends is free to do so. Thus, I need to defend myself from everyone's favorite stalker.
This is from my own blog, posted July 11, 2005: THE FANTABULIST
I will let readers draw their own conclusions about this rather intriguing bit of research started by commenter KLS about fellow commenter MAJ in the last open thread:
MAJ why are you just copying and pasting other people's work?
for example, your really long comment above, starting "Dear Simon and Conrad, The value of the dollar vs the euro is directly related to..."
this is word-for-word copied from elsewhere.
I took a random line and googled it. the line was: "the US effectively controls the world oil-market as the"
via google I discovered two websites where a long essay has been posted about euros and dollars and oil. you copied and pasted over 700 words direct from that!
the only thing you changed was to insert intros such as "Simon, Conrad - also remember that..." at the beginning of one or two of the paragraphs.
or take your next long comment, starting: "Dear Conrad,
The other argument put forward by political analysists"
you directly copied and pasted 500 words that appear on this website:
see http://tinyurl.com/6ywnq
wouldn't it have been good manners to acknowledge that these words are not your own? and, rather than filling up a thread, to have provided links to these websites instead?
Posted by KLS at July 11, 2005 11:54 AM .
Oh dear, this is an intriguing development indeed. I was so impressed, I started doing my own investigation.
More than four-fifths of all foreign exchange transactions and half of all the world exports are denominated in dollars and US currency accounts for about two-thirds of all official exchange reserves. The fact that billions of dollars worth of oil is priced in dollars ensures the world domination of the dollar. It allows the US to act as the world's central bank, printing currency acceptable everywhere. The dollar has become an oil-backed, not gold-backed, currency.
More than four-fifths of all foreign exchange transactions and half of all the world exports are denominated in dollars and U.S. currency accounts for about two-thirds of all official exchange reserves. The fact that billions of dollars worth of oil is priced in dollars ensures the world domination of the dollar. It allows the U.S. to act as the world’s central bank, printing currency acceptable everywhere. The dollar has become an oil-backed, not gold-backed, currency.
Well, well. What are the odds of that being a pure coincidence? And what would the good Dr. Anne Meyers have to say about someone so insecure and eager for attention and approval that he would resort to such nasty tricks, a la Jayson Blair?
A few days earlier, our friend was caught doing the same thing and, as usual, had a sorta-kinda excuse akin to a dog eating one's homework; that excuse, where he said he had made reference to his source and was rapidly cutting and pasting and blah blah blah - that excuse won't fly this time because there's no attribution. Zero. It is literally an act of deception, in which MAJ consciously and consistently led us all to believe he himself was the author. And that is a very serious offense.
Again, I like MAJ. But when you blog, what you write is there for everyone to see, and if you get caught BS'ing, your crediblity is gone for good. This is a matter of lying. Deception. Fraud. And he's a repeat offender. And not even the good "Dr." Anne Myers can get him out of this mess. Sorry if this causes you a tad of embarrassment, Mark, but you left yourself wide open. I invite readers to comb the archives and find other instances of MAJ's creative cut & paste capabilities. There's a lot more where these few examples came from.
And whatever you do, don't miss the comments to that post, where Jones admits to impersonating an elderly female doctor and requesting photos pf the penises of male readers of Peking Duck. And he says Martyn and I should be ashamed.
Richard - I know the issues you have with MAJ. However it is wrong to characterise my comments as a place "where anything goes no matter how destructive or deranged". As I've stated previously, MAJ has done nothing on these pages to breach the rules of decency or respect that I expect people to abide by. You are within your rights to reply as you have, pointing out MAJ's past. But keep this civil.
Richard - all I can say is that I really do hope that readers take the time to carefully read through the Fantabulist thread, so that they can see for themselves (a) how entertaining that entire episode was, (b) how malicious you are being in claiming that I was after photos of other peoples' penises because as I said in my comment above, that is a serious distortion of the truth.
At any rate, nothing in the Fantabulist thread invalidates any of the arguments I have presented above, does it?
Your behaviour on this site says more about you than it does about me Richard.
We need to keep the perspective. It is important to remember this starts with this on Peking Duck Blog, if you read all comments thenyou will know all the story of Mr Jones:
http://pekingduck.org/archives/002656.php
Let's go on a walk to take a look in these comments. Here is what Mr Jones wrote on Peking Duck:
"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 often makes up stories to test his creativty, so I apologize for the fabrications and what some may see as "lies" I wrote on Peking Duck. Rest assured these "lies" were written with the best of intentions and helped me to carry put important research on the blogging behaviour of my fellow netizens. And really, why shouldnt I lie? Isn't the Intenet full of lies? I like to role play. It is fun to do at the university where I often get paid only to sit around. Lying is easy and it fills the time.
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. My lies and false identities were the tools that made this possible.
Finally, my creator would like to assure you his experiements are over and we plan to gop into hibernation for severalmonths. You will not be seeing us anymore, and that is one promise I can assure you I will stand behind.
Respectfully yours,
Mark Anthony James
(writing on behalf of the writer formally known as Mark Anthony Jones, Dr. Myers, Bryce, Steven L., etc.)"
Everyone now know your mental illnesses and you say you are not real, but invention of a "creator." And this is the man complains about other people, if you really are a man, you said you were a woman in earlier posts. No one knows. Remember you also ask men rteaders to sen you pictures of their private parts when you pretend to be an old woman doctor. And people here listen to you as serious thinker. Ha ha ha.
I wouldn't normally mind the type of comment above (I'm thick skinned) but the problem here, as with the comment on the September 7 linklet that Richard just posted, is that I did not write it. It paraphrases me in places, yes, but I did not produce this comment. Somebody posted it in the comments section of the China Daily under my name - rather vindictive!
Senior Chinese Government officials decided it would be a good idea to collate the thoughts and intentions of the legislative intent of the Basic Law, Hong Kong's constitution, in a compendium. Naturally many suspected this was a stealthy way for Beijing to further stamp its interpretations of the Basic Law. But nothing could be further from the truth, says another official. It is merely a historical document, a matter of academic research. It will not be used as a guideline for interpretations nor will it affect judicial decisions. I wonder if they will also seek out the views, thoughts and opinions of the Brits involved in drafting the Basic Law?
By complete co-incidence the SCMP reports a renewed push for Hong Kong to conclude an agreement with the mainland on enforcing civil court judgements in each jurisdiction. Why would Hong Kong's legal fraternity be worried about such a reasonable proposal?
Lawyers and business leaders in Hong Kong last night welcomed the prospect of such a deal, but said stumbling blocks remained. Chief among their worries were the quality of mainland justice and whether mainland authorities could enforce Hong Kong court judgments.
"Mainland courts might not arrive at judgments as impartially as Hong Kong courts do," said Stanley Lau Chin-ho, deputy chairman of the Federation of Hong Kong Industries.
The rest of the article has similarly hedged quotes. Interestingly Taiwan and the mainland have had a mutal recognition agreement for seven years. Essentially Hong Kong's lawyers are saying they don't have enough faith in China's legal system.
Remember, the Basic Law compendium will not be a legal document. We have Beijing's word.
Quite. Then should they consult Mr Martin Lee SC as well?
In fact the so-called true intent of Parliament, whether in the UK or China, is always a legal fiction. Do the MPs in Westminster know why do they support a bill (besides under duress of the party whips)? Besides, a common law court does not care what the drafters thought – the duty of the court is to ascertain the intent of the legislature, in legal theory at least.
Beijing have already demonstrated they don't believe that words are the be all and end all of laws...each "interpretation" of the Basic Law is proof of that.
As I understand legal theory, there is a big debate between "originalists" who believe the words on the page are what matter most and the camp who see documents as "living things" that depend upon the intentions of the framers most in determining how to apply laws to modern problems. That's the US Supreme Court in a nutshell.
"It is always very difficult to strike the right balance, particularly in exchange rate management, between withholding key information for the purpose of retaining some constructive ambiguity on the one hand, and transparency that theoretically enhances efficiency and credibility on the other.
... the free market does not always give priority to public interest. It is indeed advisable to keep something up our sleeves, whether it is key information or the right to change the rules of the game."
That's Joseph Yam, head of the Hong Kong Monetary Authority. Jake van der Kamp in today's SCMP discusses the quote and why it is wrong, as well as the potential for another Asia crisis (see below the jump). But I need to quibble with something more fundamental: the nature of markets.
A market is nothing but a collection of buyers and sellers. Each agent makes decisions as to what to buy/sell, in what quantity and at what price. If a buyer finds the right product at the right price in the right amount, they buy it from a seller who has the right product at the right price at the right amount. It is simple and ingenious. My Yam has made a common mistake. A market is not an entity in itself. It has no morals. It never acts in the public interest. This was the key insight of Adam Smith:
It is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer, or the baker that we expect our dinner, but from their regard to their own interest.
If each agent pursues their own self-interest, we are all better off. The market is the aggregation of all these individual self-interests. The market doesn't prioritise public interest. It is, by definition, the public interest.
What Mr. Yam means is the free market does not always go how the HKMA would like it. That's a very different thing. He's not alone. Any time you hear or read someone bleating about the evils of "the market" and how it acts contrary to "public interest", be clear what both those terms really mean.
On the subject of dysfunctional markets...
Jake rightly explains that while Saint Alan Greenspan can get away with constructive ambiguity, the HKMA is in a very different position. Hong Kong's monetary policy is exceedingly simple: you get 7.8 Hong Kong dollars for every US dollar, or vice versa. It's robotic, it's well understood, it's credible and it works. It was setup in response to the debacle that was Hong Kong's monetary history. Thanks to some inventive policies it survived the 1997 Asia crisis, although it resulted in 7 years of deflation as a consequence (if your currency can't devalue, your prices have to fall).
Jake also notes in general the 1997 Asia crisis was survived, rather than dealt with:
...government policy muddles once again threaten to unsettle monetary affairs in Asia. The last time they did so the result was the Asian financial crisis of 1997. On that occasion it was exchange rate rigging in Thailand that set things off. At present it is fuel price subsidies in Indonesia that have come unstuck because of higher oil prices. This has led to rupiah interest rates soaring and the rupiah plunging.
The sad history of Asian central banks since 1997 has been one of first blaming others for their troubles and then resorting to the same old pre-1997 game of rigging their US dollar exchange rates without adopting a formal and transparent mechanism such as we have in the peg. The US dollar may have fallen dramatically against major currencies over the past three years but you would not know it to look at the exchange rate history of most Asian currencies over that period.
We have certainly had constructive ambiguity at work here but not St Alan's sort. All that Asian central bankers have done to stave off a repeat of the 1997 experience is starve their domestic economies of capital investment by building up massive foreign reserves in the hope that this will scare off the speculator.
Perhaps they will succeed on this occasion but, if they are determined still to rig their currencies, there is only one good way of ensuring that Indonesia's troubles go no further than Indonesia. It is to do what we did in 1997 by having a formal fixed currency system in place and sticking to the rules it imposed on us in a transparent manner that served the public interest.
* I should note, the title has absolutely nothing to do with this post. But it's a good one. Thanks, Tom.
I thought your title meant yam said, "batman+superman=US and China govt and evil=speculators"...:)
...and that he was referring to the withholding of RMB basket operation manual.
anyway, i guess there are two separte issues here
1. witholding info (but not neccasarily the rule of the game)
2. power to change the rule of game
withholding info can mean a fixed set of rules
what yam/tsang did in 1998 was neither of these 2, maybe a bit of 2nd point. "the referee took side in the soccer game" was what they did. IMHO these 2 issues are more debatable than 1998, especially 1. although i incline to agree with you and Jake on the 2nd issue. (malaysia is still something we cannot fully explain)
so he might have a point.
also, "the free market does not always give priority to public interest" is a correct statement, because the 2 have no neccessary correlation at all. (although we do not trust the bureaucrats either, so maybe there is no better way than relying on the market)
China's six challenges in the 21st Century. In short they are population/demographics; natural resource consumption; the environment; urbanisation; narrowing regional gaps and problems in rural areas.
Rusty looks at Jihad in China and says China is America's natural ally in the war on terror. By the same token, however, China uses the war on terror as a cover for some disgraceful human rights abuses, particularly in Xinjiang.
Tom, I'm not calling you a moonbat...this time. I'm referring to the collection of Korean farmers, Levis wearing uni students and motley crew of anarchists, commies and others who will no doubt be visiting the Big Lychee in early December.
And people defending their livelihoods against negotiations based upon which trading bloc can wield the most diplomatic/economic power are moonbats? *geesh*
If the WTO were half as much about "free trade" as the "pro-globalisation" faction waxes poetically about, it might not be so farcical.
The fate of the WTO negotiations in Cancun proved that they had nothing to do with free trade and all about the US and EU trying to pry economic concessions out of other countries while refusing to create a level playing field going the opposite direction.
So this time it's opening up banking and securities markets to huge multi-nationals while refusing to budge on agricultural subsidies rather than opium and tea, but the negotiations still aren't about "free trade".
What is the WTO about if it's not about free trade? The problem at Cancun was the developing economies, lead by Brazil and India, would not make any concessions on their trade barriers unless the EU, Japan and US dismantled all of theirs. Fair enough, except the previous WTO/GATT rounds have required little from developing countries but huge concessions from the big economies. This time the big ones said it was time for the developing countries to make some of their own concessions, which they weren't prepared to do.
Don't get me wrong: the EU, Japan and US all have some horrible trade policies. But the blame can be fairly shared over Cancun. They won't budge on agriculture unless developing countries move. I'd have though that's fair.
Let's leave this pettty idea that this all about the US and EU exploiting poor countries. It's nothing of the sort.
As some of you no doubt already know, I have an interest in deconstructing English-language China blogs, as well as those characters who contribute to them. In order to deconstruct bloggers, I have at times written under the guise of various personas, and I have also at times provoked bloggers and blog hosts in order to test their responses, to see how blog communities behave towards dissidents, to see whether the "tribal mind" also exists in cyberspace, and if so, how it manifests itself through acts of online loyalty and aggression towards the "Other".
Some time ago now, I also wrote an article on the ethnocentrism of English-language China blogs for the China Daily as part of my efforts to deconstruct, and I have now been asked to write a follow-up to this. What follows below is a draft only, and I would like to invite readers of Simon's World to comment critically on it, as I may wish to revise it before submitting it.
Regards,
Mark Anthony Jones
“Regimes of truth” – how Westerners imagine China
My earlier article on the pages of the China Daily, which focussed on the disappointing ethnocentrism of English-language China blogs, provoked quite a lengthy and heated response among readers, with many dismissing it as merely the revengeful product of a man “with an axe to grind” or as the discourse of a “CCP apologist” wilfully blind to the “obvious”.
It was the product of neither.
Rather, it was simply a critical comment made by me on the prevalent discourse pushed by many English-language China blogs. What I would like to do now is to place these blog sites into a wider context in order to further explore their validity or lack thereof, and in order to do this, I shall draw heavily from the theories of Michel Foucault and the late Edward Said.
Let us begin with Foucault, who argued that knowledge or “truth” is in effect a function of power, and that those who hold power can and do use it to further their own interests. Foucault described this “regime of truth” as being “linked in a circular relation with systems of power which produce and sustain it, and to effects of power which it induces and which extend it.” According to this theory then, images of China would tend to become a bulwark for a particular set of policies towards that country, or even for a more general policy. Information would be carefully selected and propagated to justify that policy or set of policies. The relationship between knowledge and reality would dwindle in importance beside that between knowledge and power.
The other theory I shall use is that of Edward Said, who argued that Western scholars misrepresent and produce distorted accounts of Eastern civilisations because of their ethnocentric attitudes. In particular, Said criticised Western commentators for their frequent failure and inability to examine Asian societies in their own terms.
Let me begin by examining whether or not Foucault’s theory of power and knowledge can be applied to Western images of China, and whether or not English-language China blogs like The Peking Duck reflect a wider discourse.
Colin Mackerras, in his book Western Images of China, believes that the dominant images the West has had of China, both past and present, “accord with, rather than oppose, the interests of the main Western authorities or governments of the day.” Mackerras’s study shows quite clearly that there has indeed been a “regime of truth” concerning China, which has effected and raised “the status of those who are charged with saying what counts as true” about that country. Having carried out both thorough qualitative and quantitative research, Mackerras reaches the conclusion that the period following the Beijing [incident] to the present represents the most complicated period since Roman times in terms of Western images of China:
“What is striking about this period is that the preoccupation of Western images with matters concerned with human rights and dissidents gained an added emphasis at just the same time that the general standard of livelihood of the Chinese people rose to an extent unprecedented in China’s history. This is not to deny the existence of human rights issues, but the focus they received in the Western media was both ironic and unwarranted by comparison with the improvements.”
I couldn’t agree more, and this is the issue I have not only with the corporate media of the West, but also with the English-language China blogs that I criticised in my earlier article, whose lack of fairness and balance I would suggest simply mirrors the “regime of truth” propagated by Western governments, who of course formulate foreign policies designed to service the needs of a particular social class.
The “regime of truth” I speak about is quite different from that which existed in previous times throughout history, and as Mackerras has observed, that’s because today “its source is only partly within the governments of Western countries, and rests to some extent with vocal groups within society that are preoccupied with particular issues and have the ways and means to project their views and exert an influence on society out of proportion to their size.” Where I disagree with Mackerras is in how to account for this phenomenon. While he sees this as an indication of the “growing power of [grassroots] democratic institutions” in the West, I see it more as reflecting the diverging interests of capital – a split which we see exposed by the current disputes that are taking place in both Europe and the U.S. over quotas imposed in the textiles trade. Western manufacturers often have conflicting interests with retailers and consumers, and lobbying groups from both sides continually seek to influence government policy when it comes to trade relations with China. Usually it is the retailers and distributors who praise China’s development and place in the world, while the manufacturers are the ones who, not surprisingly, draw attention to human rights issues as a means to justify trade barriers and other policies of protectionism. Even the smallest of grassroots political movements can manage to exert a huge influence on society when their message is exploited by politicians representing the more powerful sectors of the economy.
Like much of the corporate media in the West, blog sites like The Peking Duck focus largely on China’s human rights issues, but offer only a one-sided view. Sure, individual bloggers are free to express diverging views in the comments section of each thread, but those brave enough to do so are often swamped by personal insults and are dismissed as “CCP apologists” before being effectively ostracised. Even at the level of the individual blog site, there exists a “regime of truth”.
One issue which often crops up in both the Western media and therefore on China blogs, is that of Tibet, and the images produced are almost always strongly negative. Hollywood films like Seven Years in Tibet have helped to popularise images among Westerners of China as an evil, murderous monolith, not too dissimilar to Nazi Germany. One only has to visit Tibet, as I have, to see that the claims made against China are exaggerated – sometimes wildly. While genuine human rights issues do exist in Tibet, and throughout China more widely (as they do in all countries), the notion that Tibetans are being “swamped” by Han Chinese in their own “country” is simply not true, for the Han population in Tibet outside of Lhasa remains relatively very small – though of course this image does not get very much of a hearing in the West.
The argument that Tibetan culture is being “destroyed” is as equally fictitious. Anybody who visits Tibet today (including the Kham region, where Han influence is at its strongest) will encounter a thriving Tibetan culture, though in the major cities and tourist destinations such culture exists to some extent in a commodified form, with retailers who are often Han. But in this sense, the fate of Tibetan culture is no different from that of all other minority and indigenous cultures throughout the world – all of which now rely to some extent at least on commercialism to help keep them maintained or revived. Tibetan Buddhism is no exception - widely practiced still throughout Tibet, and evidently quite freely, it is nevertheless becoming increasingly commercialised – a response largely to the growth in a Tibetan tourist industry which draws from both Chinese domestic and foreign markets. It is not only Han entrepreneurs who benefit from the commercialisation of Tibetan Buddhism, but so too do many Tibetan Buddhists themselves, and foreign publishers and filmmakers are also in the habit of cashing in on it, even turning the Dalai Lama himself into a commodity, whose plethora of forewords and postscripts are frequently used to market other peoples’ books on topics ranging from the strictly spiritual to the overtly political.
Another theme which frequently pops up in the Western media, and therefore also on the pages of English-language China blogs, is this idea that China’s rapid economic development somehow poses a threat to the Western world. It is a theme more commonly explored by Americans than anyone else, which no doubt reflects a deeply ingrained American fear for its “imagined community’s” future position as global hegemon. There are many in the United States who worry that China may one day eventually surpass them in terms of world influence, and while many, if not most, may wish for good general relations with China, in particular in economic terms, they may not always be too keen to assist in China’s rise. This deeply ingrained fear I think is tamed more often than not through comfort, in that the trend among professional journalists and bloggers alike is to belittle China by dismissing it as dysfunctional, as hopelessly backward, as a society whose political system is incapable of managing effectively the country’s many social and environmental challenges – all of which are constantly entertained as being the possible root causes of a possible future breakdown. Predictions of China’s impending collapse represent little more than wishing thinking, fantasies for those who feel threatened to seek comfort in.
Examples of such “comfort-thinking” can be found regularly on the pages of The Peking Duck blog, but perhaps no better example can be found there than the report detailing John Pomfret’s address on China, to be found in The Peking Duck’s November 14 archive. Pomfret, who was former bureau chief of the Washington Post's Beijing office, reportedly argued in a speech he gave in the U.S. “that there is no need for the West to fear China becoming a global superpower along the lines of the USA” because, says Pomfret, “not all of China’s dreams [can] be achieved because hard-wired into their DNA are serious constraints that will keep China from becoming what it aspires to. Most of China is a third-, fourth- and fifth-world country" under constant threat from unimaginable poverty, so many people to employ, AIDS, a devastated environment, etc.
Richard, the owner and host of The Peking Duck, was of course enthusiastic in his endorsement of Pomfret’s views, comfortable perhaps with the thought that China is unlikely to ever become a “global superpower” capable of surpassing the “imagined community” that he is so emotionally bonded to – that of the United States.
Pomfret’s use of the “DNA” metaphor to bolster his argument that China is simply not capable of ever rising to the status of a superpower is interesting in itself, for its implicit racism, and it is onto issues of racism and ethnocentrism that I shall now turn to.
Have corporate image-makers in the West distorted their audience’s image of China with ethnocentric biases, by a failure to judge China on its own terms? Once again, the observations of Colin Mackerras are worth considering:
“The controversy over human rights…[is] based at least in part on whether it is appropriate to give priority to the rights of the individual or the community, with critical images of China based largely on an emphasis on the universality of individual rights.”
Of course, all societies need to strike a balance when it comes to protecting the rights of individuals and the rights of the wider community. Freedom of speech for example, is indeed negotiable, even in Western societies, where various forms of censorship are practiced in the interests of protecting the wider community. Apart from defamation laws, racial vilification laws exist in most Western countries. These racial vilification laws differ slightly from country to country, but let us take Australia's racial vilification laws as an example. The law there forbids the public airing (including the use of websites) of any messages that can be shown to cause "insult, humiliation or distress" to an individual or group of individuals based on their ethnicity, nationality or religious affiliation. This is how a "hate" site is defined. Hate sites do not necessarily need to incite hatred - they need only to cause "insult, humiliation or distress" to be classified as a "hate" site.
The racial vilification laws of New Zealand, Canada, and most Western Europeans countries are almost the same in this regard. And these laws are often put into practice. In 2002, an Australian man by the name of Frederick Toben for example, was ordered by the Australian Government to shut down his website which claimed that the Nazi holocaust did not occur because it caused some Jewish Australians considerable "distress".
China has every right to formulate its own laws, and it has every right, just like every other country, to ban websites and other publications that cause its own citizens "insult, humiliation or distress," or to censor information in the interests of maintaining social cohesion and stability. It’s not difficult to charge many Western critics of China with a failure to see human rights problems in Chinese terms. This is not to say, of course, that Chinese society ought not to be open to criticism by foreigners and Chinese nationals alike, but rather, that such criticisms need to be based on empirically verifiable research, and that any conclusions drawn need to be fair and balanced, and that the people of China ought to be judged in their own terms, not according to the values of Westerners. The right balance struck in protecting the rights of the individual against the rights of the wider community in one country, may not necessarily represent an appropriate balance for another. You can often borrow ideas, but you can’t borrow situations.
The hosts of most blog sites simply copy and paste other peoples’ articles, often with the corporate media as the source, in order to generate discussion. Here, I once again draw upon Foucault’s theory of power and knowledge: the U.S. government only has to feed information into a giant international mass media machine to put its own views over to the Western world, and when it comes to managing foreign relations, information is always carefully selected and propagated in order to justify the government policies of the day. My argument here is that many blog hosts, like Richard the host of The Peking Duck for example, merely help to further reinforce such dominant images, negative images that reflect a political discourse, because it is he who normally does all of the selecting – it is he who decides which China-related articles are introduced to his readers for critical discussion. And when it comes to choosing, Richard to date has proven to be rather selective, in that over 80 percent of all of his China-related articles view China through negative eyes, with most of them having been selected from U.S. corporate media sources. He has every right to choose which articles he wants to introduce to his readers of course, after all, it is his site. But thanks to his biased selection, the relationship between the “knowledge” he presents and the realities of China dwindles in importance when compared to the “knowledge” he presents and the exercising of corporate power, since it is predominantly the “knowledge” produced by corporate power that he draws most heavily from when making his selections.
Finally, I acknowledge that the relationship between images and realities is an enormously complex and problematic one. But as Colin Mackerras has so rightly pointed out, the fact is, “China has been over the centuries, and remains, a country so diverse that misery and joy, poverty and prosperity have all been and are all completely real….[but] different observers attach distinct scales of importance to the same phenomena because each may differ sharply from the others in knowledge, experience, skills, and assumptions.”
Even China “specialists” find it difficult to fit together images and realities, and so one might imagine how much more difficult it is for the great majority who make no pretence to knowledge about China and who, if interested, seek guidance in the formulation of their own images. Those who seek such guidance from the plethora of existing English-language China blogs should thus read them with some considerable caution, and should avoid being swept up by the harsh storms of China-bashing vindictiveness that are more often than not brewed in what are essentially little more than teacups, sometimes filled to the brim with thick and poisonous bile, poured from the mouths of hate-filled bloggers whose insults to both China and to people like me are cathartic, though the release of such aggression signifies, arguably, failures on their part to attain sublimated forms of enjoyment in a foreign country that does not always, depending on where exactly they reside, provide them with the same levels of immediate gratification that they may have been accustomed to in their home countries. Release then, I would argue, for some at least, often takes the form of an unarticulated ethnocentrism.
One of the other things that makes The Peking Duck site so interesting and worthy of study, is that almost as much space is dedicated to U.S. politics, and here we can see the same kind of trend - a clear bias in the types of American-related articles Richard chooses to select for reader discussion. The vast majority of his American-related articles focus on the political, with almost every single article expressing "truth" through Democtratic Party lenses. In this sense, The Peking Duck also mirrors the sharp divisions in U.S. society, especially when readers like Conrad write in to defend the Republican viewpoint. The Peking Duck can perhaps be seen as a microcosm of U.S. society, although by carefully selecting articles that reflect a clear bias, Richard the owner and host has effectively produced a political platform to promote Democratic Party views and agendas.
Through his biased selection of both China-related and American-related articles from the U.S. corporate media, Richard effectively represents the interests of certains corporate sectors in the U.S. and global economies.
What are you smokin' by making those claims about Cancun? *geesh* The developing nations weren't asking for dismantling all of anything. *geesh*
And the notion of trying to run an equivalency of trade barriers between developed and developing countries is lunacy at best. The history of the US and its financial sector to produce these mature multi-national financial institutions is fraught with political favours and quid pro quo.
And as you point out the WTO meetings are about states trying to procure trade advantages for "their" companies, ie friends and campaign contributors, while surrendering as few trade concessions as possible, especially for your friends and campaign contributors.
Sounds more like the British East India Company and the Crown's mercantilism opening trade markets wrapped in "Free Trade" vocabulary (what did you write about the marketing of the Dark Side of the Force?) rather than anything having to do with comparative advantage as defined by Adam Smith.
{Or are you going to tell me that all of those political contributions and lobbying from large US based multi-national financial services corporations are altruistic and not about trying to increase their profits by state meddling in the marketplace?}
Please get your own blog. That is the most appropriate forum for posting articles like this.
Naturally I disagree with much of what you said. Said's criticisms are essentially circular - no Westerner can comment on Asian societies because they are Western. That's complete nonsense. In a free market of ideas, anyone can comment on any society they like. The validity of those views is re-enforced by their popularity. As for ethnocentrism, people are always going to view things through the prism of their own experiences and background. To expect otherwise is to expect us to not be human.
I understand the point on human rights vs economic development in viewing China. However these days you can hardly open a paper without seeing another "China miracle" article, so I'm not sure that point holds true any more. I also agree with you that China is more nuanced than often given credit for. However your point that each country has the right to forumate its own laws founders because China's people have not chosen their leaders and laws, but had them imposed upon them.
But coming back to the main point. Of course particular blog sites reflect the biases of their author. Peking Duck makes no attempts to hide his bias, his views and his feelings. He only posts "one-sided articles" because that's his perogative. Just as individual countries have the right to make laws as they see fit, individual site owners have the right to post whatever they like.
That's why I encourage you to get your own site. You obviously have your own views, and are free to express them (a right, I note, many in China do not have). The ethnocentrism or otherwise of other sites is their perogative. Until you have your own site where you state your own views and stand to defend them, your criticisms ring hollow.
I have been away travelling for work all day today, but I will address all of your criticisms tomorrow.
Until then, thanks for your comments. The China Daily free talk forum (where I have also posted this draft) has also stimulated a number of interesting responses (around 6 or 7 so far).
(1). You say that Edward Said's theory is "circular" in that it implies that no Westerner can ever be qualified to make critical observations of Asian societies. This is a fair comment, but I think that you have perhaps misunderstood Said's theory here - because that's certainly not the conclusion that he himself drew. It is possible for Westerners, said Said, "not to be blind to human reality". Of course us Westerners are capable, if we are careful enough, if we have the right attitude, to view other cultures in their own terms. There was, for example, little of the ethnocentrist in Marco Polo, despite the threat the Mongols had appeared to present to Europe not long before his time. What is striking is how fair he was, the extent to which he was prepared to see and judge China in its own terms - especially as far as the Emperor and political system were concerned. One can hardly charge a man like Du Halde with ethnocentrism either, when his work on China was so defensive about it, and both Voltaire and Quesnay praised China in order to criticise their own country - the precise antithesis of ethnocentrism.
It wasn't really until the 19th century when Europe had begun its Industrial Revolution that such strong ethnocentric views towards Asia began to surface heavily and strongly. Confidence in its own superiority was at a peak for Europeans, and this occured just at the time when China's civilisation was in sharp decline. So it is not surprising that the overwhelming majority of images presented at that time reflected feelings of superiority in a sharply ethnocentrist way.
Simon, it is curious to me that you speak of a "free market" of ideas, and that you then go on to judge the validity of such ideas by how popular they are! Can we say then, to take your logic to its extreme, that Nazi ideas of race were valid and ethical? These ideas, after all, were held by the fair majority of Germans back in the late 1930s and early 1940s. The inherent superiority of the German people was a popular idea among Germans themselves for a while. Surely we cannot say that ideas are valid simply by how popular they are! You treat ideas as though they were merely free-floating commodities.
(2) Your argument that China is almost daily viewed by the Western corporate media as being an economic miracle is a valid one, but then look, I did, in my article above, point out the fact that the bourgeoisie of the West are split in their attitudes towards China - that Western images of China are thus now more complex and ambiguous than ever - than since Roman times. As I said, many manufacturers feel threatened by China's rise - they don't like the competition, and hence they exploit and exaggerate human rights issues as a tool to help lobby governments into imposing trade restrictions, etc. Other industries, like the education industry, as well as the retailers and distributors of consumer goods - they usually praise China's place in the world, as they stand to benefit from having easy access to China's markets, and from being able to import cheap goods from China.
My argument here, is that the overwhelming majority of images selected by Richard reflect the interests of those sectors in the U.S. economy who feel threatened by China's economic rise - hence the heavy focus on human rigthts issues.
(3) You argue that the CCP does not have a right to formulate laws on the basis that they were never elected into power, and that they therefore do not have the mandate to formulate laws. This seems to me like a rather silly argument really. Where, for starters, is your evidence to show that the majority of Chinese mainlanders don't support the CCP? You only have to talk to people here to discover that attitudes towards CCP rule vary greatly, and that such attidues are always very complex. On the one hand, we have the overwhelming majority of middle class mainlanders (which has now grown to over 11 million) who generally support the CCP, because they can see very clearly that life in China's urban coastal areas has improved greatly over the last 20 years. Deng Xiaoping is especially enormously popular here in Shenzhen - not surprisingly perhaps, since he chose Shenzhen as the country's first SEZ - and Shenzhen is now officially the mainland's third most developed city: Shanghai, Beijing, Shenzhen, and Guangzhou comes in at fourth.
Such popular sentiments among the middle classes here are mirrored by the country's celebrities - everyone from Zhang Ziyi to Yao Ming praise the CCP as having, on balance, a positive legacy.
I have also met many who are ambivalent towards the CCP, and a few who have expressed strong criticisms of it - and openly so. Anecdotal evidence on my part, I know, but this is the strong impression that I have gained after having lived and worked here for almost four years - and I spent my first two years here in a small provincial town in the middle of Jiangsu - most people I spoke to there also praised the CCP, though critically.
Life in China's more remote villages is far more compex though, but even in villages that have engaged in open conflicts with authority over land thefts, corruption issues, etc., you will find that the majority continue to view the CCP in positive terms, and that they often appeal to the law and to the law courts as a way of fighting local authorities - often successfully too I might add. In other words, they don't usually blame the CCP for their problems, but rather, corrupt individuals at the local level. Clearly, even the most oppressed and economically disadvantaged here on the mainland place a high use-value and regard for the laws of the land - laws which you claim the CCP has no mandate to introduce and to enforce.
Most Chinese here will also tell you that capitalism here, and the growing liberalism this has given expression to, was only made possible by the fact that the CCP, under Mao, had brought about the necessary stability to enable economic growth and developemnt to have occured. This is also the dominant view among most Western scholars too by the way. That is not to say that Mao didn't have his many serious faults, but rather, that his overall legacy as leader of the CCP has been a historically important and progressive one.
Your views towards democracy issues and the CCP reflect (it would seem) an unwillingness on your part to view the CCP and the attitudes of the Chinese in their own terms. For you, China can only progress into something truly admirable if it adopts the political culture of the West. Many will disagree with you on this - including many Westerners. Democracy does not always lead to stability and peace for starters - it can in some societies create more problems than it solves, and I shall be more than happy to discuss this with you in more detail if you are interested.
(4) I agree that blog hosts (like Richard for example) have every right to select whatever articles they like to introduce to their readers. I have NEVER suggested otherwise, and I made this very clear in my draft article above. My purpose in writing this article is to deconstruct - to examine the nature of such English-language China blogs. My conclusion is that they reflect the corporate interests of a particular section of the ruling classes of the U.S. and the Western "democracies" in general - and that's becasue the overwhelming majority of the articles selected for use by such blog hosts have the corporate media as their source, though even here, articles are carefully selected, so that in effect they mirror the interests not of retailers and importers, but rather, of the "old" economy - the textiles industry, car manufacturers, etc.
(5) I don't see the logic in arguing that one has to have a blog of his/her own in order to me able to make valid criticisms of other peoples' blogs. Please explain, in philosophical terms, why you think so.
Mr Jones,
A truly thorough and fascinating structuralist critique of China blogs. I'll never be able to read sites like TPD and this one again, without baring your analysis in mind.
I'm not sure about your take on Tibet though - but then I guess your analysis of what has taken place there doesn't really detract in any way from your overall argument.
1. This whole point boils down to one thing: in your view the only valid way to view a culture or society is through their own eyes. Marco Polo was inevitably influenced by his own background, regardless of the empathy he showed for the cultures he met. There is nothing wrong with "going native", but it is not the only legitimate method of discussing societies and cultures.
2. I put to you a different view - that TPD's views represent his heartfelt concerns for the rights of a people he cares deeply about. That it may co-incide with corporate interests is irrelevant. I see correlation but not causation. You seem to suggest Richard is a tool of these corporate interests, but that is not the only nor correct explaination.
3. You've miscontrued my point. The CCP are the governing party of China, of course they can make laws. They can only continue to govern via fear/control and/or benevloent dictatorship. This has been the case for some time. If the CCP are as widely popular as your anecdotal evidence suggests, they should be comfortable subjecting themselves to a popular democratic mandate. However I also would note that freedom of expression is not a widely known part of modern Chinese discource - as you well know, criticising the CCP is still a fraught business for Mainlanders. I have given the CCP credit perviously for their achievements - bringing order to a chaotic state, and since Deng's reforms bringing literally millions out of poverty. But it has come at a very high price.
You also perpetuate the fallacy that democracy is a "Western" value. It is no such thing. I advocate the people need to have impartial courts, corruption free government, freedom to express themselves via the press and assembly, and the ability to vote for those who govern them. It is the model adopted by the West and it has proved successful in creating peaceful, prosperous societies. China is trying a different model to create a peaceful, prosperous society. I do not think it can last, whereas the USA has lasted 300 years and English democracy even longer. They've got runs on the board, so to speak.
4. I'm missing your point here. The point of a blog is that the owner can post whatever takes their fancy. As I said above, if that co-incides with corporate interests, that means nothing in itself. As for relying on corporate media, most bloggers are individuals without the resources of major media corporations. We have to rely on them. What bloggers do (often) is de-construct those stories, or use them to highlight their politics, or to emphasise a point. TPD acknowledges a love for China and the Chinese people. It's the Government he has a problem with.
5. I am imploring you to get your own site for several reasons:
a. Clearly you have a lot to say, and while I'm happy to debate in my comments section, you could open this up to a wider audience again via your own site.
b. Call it the stones/greenhouse effect - until you have your own, your comments might be valid but lack conviction.
c. Your own "ethnocentrism" point should apply to yourself, no? If you cannot view a blog from a blogger's perspective, you are guilty of exactly what you are accusing TPD.
d. An analogy: a book reviewer can come from any background, but the best reviews usually come from authors (see George Orwell for one example).
Thanks again for your spirited arguments. I shall not address all of your points, as I am busy right now, but firstly let me say that I agree with you that Richard's blog correlates with the interests of a particular section of the U.S. ruling class, but that like you, I see no causation in this. But then, I was not suggesting that there was any causation, other than Richard's own political bias, which can most clearly be seen reflected in his American-related posts. What Richard is guilty of though, is in presenting to his readers a lack of balance, and I think that that is a reasonable criticism for me to make.
I am not challenging his right to push a particular discourse - I am merely alerting readers to the fact that he does push a discourse, and this discourse reflects those of particular class interests.
I have no doubt that Richard's interest in the Chinese people is heartfelt and sincere - but then, I have never argued otherwise. His criticms of the CCP, while in many cases are valid and reasonable, nevertheless, on the whole, reflect a lack of balance and fairness. This has always been my main problem with his site, and with others like it.
Finally, I have never suggested that "democracy" is a Western value only - but you need to define what you mean by "democracy". I do not agree that the Westminster system is necessarily well suited to all other countries and cultures, nor do I think that the Westminster system is particularly "democratic".
China's model is still in its infancy, and is still evolving. I think it is way too soon to make judgements - the jury is still out on that one!
And I don't see how I can be judged to be lacking in conviction, simply because my comments are placed on somebody else's blog, instead of on a blog of my own!
Also, being able to view a blog from the blogger's perspective hardly equates to "ethnocentrism", does it? My imagination is indeed good enough to be able to empathise with a blogger, and to view a blog from the blogger's point of view. But my task here is to deconstruct the blog, not to empathise with it or its owner. It is possible to deconstruct another society, another culture, and to still avoid viewing it ethnocentrically. It's a matter of looking at a society, or at the key players and shapers of a society, and then determining what they are out to achieve, and why they choose the methods they do. That is, to view that society and its people and culture in its own terms, and to measure its successes or failures in it own terms. To do this fairly, doesn't mean that one has to avoid being critical.
I might add that our narcissistic freak friend has now learned the use of proxy servers. He's recently appeared on TPD in various guises praising his own article here on simonworld and providing details of how other readers can find it. What a fool. Must have been quite a revelation to learn about proxy servers - something that all China expats have known for years.
Simon: a rabid dog is still a rabid dog, even if it allows you to pet it sometimes. I'm numbed that you are willingly engaging the freak even knowing what he is and what he has done.
I'd like to respectfully point out, perhaps you've also noticed Simon, how the freak never bothers to comment on your posts or ever engage you on anything that you have to say. Where are his comments? After all, you allow him to post freely here, unlike TPD which bans his posts immediately. No, he only comments on HIS OWN posts as above because narcissists only care about themselves and their own views.
Despite this, you engage him point-for-point. as if he is a normal person.
If anyone wants to read the the truth about Mark Anthony Jones impersonating women, asking other TPD commenters to send him photos of their penis, assuming many, many aliases in order to praise and support his own cut+pasted comments, explaining that he trolls China-related websites for "fun and selfish entertainment". Then please, please go and read that above link that I provided.
Trust me, once you've read that, you'll think twice before engaging, or even reading the words of MArk Anthony Jones.
Martyn, is there really any need for you to be this rude and aggressive towards others? I read the link you mentioned above on the Fantabulist, and I encourage others to do so as well because the entire episode really is quite amusing. I really don't understand why you have such a chip on your shoulder.
Besides, Mr. Jones' article here on this site ought to be read and judged for what it says. What Mr. Jones has written elsewhere in the past is irrelevant.
And Mr.Jones, one request. Please bring back Dr.Anne Myers - her cheeky analyses were wonderfully entertaining and amusing.
Well, I'd never! I'd never have imagined that I would one day have a comment of mine deleted from a blog site, but that's exactly what happened to me earlier today over at the Peking Duck.
Did I use any expletives? No. Did I insult anybody? No. So what was my crime? I was accused by somebody called Other Lisa of having a writing style similar or identical to that of Mr.Jones, and within minutes the host of that site deleted my comment.
My comment, incidentally, voiced criticism over this very behaviour. The night before, I and at least two others were accused of being Mr. Jones. Today, another writer named Math was also accused of being Mr.Jones (though everybody else's comments have yet to be deleted - only mine). I find it very sad that everytime somebody expresses a dissenting view over there that they are immediately written off and dismissed as being Mr.Jones.
I have come to the awful conclusion that the Peking Duck not only "mirrors" Western "regimes of truth" (as Mr. Jones argues in his article above), but that the Peking Duck is itself a regime of truth. The site is managed like the Ministry of Truth depicted in Orwell's novel. They not only delete comments they don't like, but they justify doing so by accusing their victims of being somebody they're not. Dissenters are smeared and insulted and deleted.
I shall never read the Peking Duck again. I've deleted it from my reading list!
Simon, do you really want your site to become the receptacle for this kind of trash? Don't you see what you're setting yourself up for? It's a true disgrace.
What's disgraceful Richard, is that people like you and Martyn are trying to prevent me from having a reasonable discussion with people like Simon himself and others on this site. The conversation here was progressing along quite intelligently until Martyn surfaced to do nothing other than to insult me. Well Martyn, "sticks and stones may break my bones, but names will never hurt me" - I mean, how about behaving like adults for once.
You can block me from making comments on your site Richard, and you can delete others who you suspect are really me, that's fine. That's you right to do so, but by doing so you merely detract from the integrity of your own site.
My article posted here is perfectly reasonable in what it says Richard. If you disagree with my arguments then why not challenge the arguments themselves, instead of trying to smear me or to bully other blog hosts into also censoring my views?
The way that certain blog hosts attempt to smear and to dismiss those whose views they strongly oppose is a subject that in itself is worth examining more closely, and which I think I will write about in my next article.
Just take one of today's posts on the Peking Duck for example: the one titled: "Karen Hughes: Ambassador of Truth". Richard doesn't like her political affiliations and views, which is fine. I don't either. But just take a good look at how he attempts to marginalise her views and to discredit her! He does so by calling into question her very humanity, and by attacking her sexual morality. He writes, "Hughes is the kind of whore who gives PR people a very bad name. She is not human, she is a talking-points robot, a string of sound bites laid end to end."
Very nice of you Richard, to label this woman a "whore" simply because you strongly oppose her views politically. You may not have meant "whore" literally, but your choice of word carries with it certain derogatory implications, and it is in fact a common tactic by men to discredit women by calling them "whores" or "sluts" etc.
George Orwell wrote an entire essay on how such language is used to smear and to distort and to empower.
"Helen" = Mark. It's pretty obvious from the use of language and the way it's structured.
Posted by Other Lisa at September 10, 2005 03:02 PM
Everyone:
I've always been clear in my comments policy. To date MAJ has not breached any of those rules. He has something to say and while I may completely disagree with much of it, he is within his rights to say it. It's my definition of freedom of speech. I would hope those that read this site can respect my decisions in how I moderate comments.
That said, MAJ you are sailing close to the wind. Your past history on this and other sites has been to use multiple identities, as Other Lisa has mentioned. I have already told you to get your own blog if you want a soapbox for your thoughts. However to date at this site you have stayed within the bounds I've set, so I have no particular reason to ban you. Nor do I envisage I will have such reason unless you break the rules, and that includes plagarising without citing sources, continually use of multiple personalities, libeluous attacks and so on.
To those who disagree with how I am treating MAJ, I'm sorry but this is my site. Richard runs his how he chooses, and I run this how I choose. I believe in freedom of speach and I believe in practicising what I preach. I fully understand Richard's reasons for banning MAJ from his site and believe they are justified. But MAJ has not justified banning from here...yet.
MAJ - I'll reply to your rebuttal, but only on Monday. If you are using mutliple names for comments, please stop. If you've got something to say, use your own name only.
I hope you can all respect that. If you've got an issue with it or good reasons why I'm wrong, I'm all ears. But the burden of proof is on those making the accusations until MAJ crosses the line. I know Richard and others will disagree with this, but I trust you can respect me and my integrity enough to believe that I will deal with this properly.
It wasn't only Richard's decision to ban MAJ from TPD - EVERY SINGLE COMMENTER - turned against MAJ for his stupidity, lies, multiple aliases (like "Helen" above), cut+pasted comments and general narcissistic obsession with himself.
As I said, if you want to allow this narcisstic freak to use and abuse your site to pedal his mentally-disturbed and ignorant views as a ruse for attacking TPD and its owner, fine - it's your site - as you keep reminding us. That, however, is the only excuse you have mate.
You believe in freedom of speech? What the hell has that got to do with anything? The man MAJ is a proven and self-admitted pathological liar, a self-admitted schizophrenic, someone who spams the comments of blogs for his own selfish pleasure and mindless entertainment.
The above article mentions TPD multiple times. Do you think it is any coincidence that this was the same site where, by his own stupid actions, he was exposed and totally humiliated as both a liar and a cheat?
The China blogasphere is a thriving community where news+views are put forward and exchanged. I'm proud to be a member of this community and you are also a huge part of it. However, MAJ has been a shit-stain on this very same communitiy that I love.
We don't need puerile self-obsessed fools like MAJ spewing out his revenge-filled, psuedo-intellectual crap - anywhere.
If I was guest-blogging on TPD and some commenter came on with lengthy diatribes that included slagging off "Simon" and "Simonworld" multiple times, then I would delete it without a second's hesitation.
Unfortunately you blab on about 'your rules' and bloody 'freedom of speech'. It just doesn't wash with me mate. Doesn't wash at all.
Perhaps when/if MAJ gets to know your surname and writes to YOUR boss accusing you of running a hate-site and telling him/her that he is involved in some stupid "experiment" and hopes that he can correspond nand find out more about you, THEN you might not be so inclined to crap on about 'your site rules' and 'freedom of speech'.
I sincerely hope that doesn't happen Simon mate, trust me, I sincerely hope it doesn't as I wouldn't wish that kind of crap on anyone...but MAJ has a history, he has done exactly that before -- that same history that you are so keen to dismiss and regard as irrelevant as long as he doesn't break your precious site rules.
As long as dupes like yourself allow this idiot to use and abuse your site as a vehicle for his self-obsessed crap and personal vendetta against TPD then he will continue to spew it out.
I thought you were one of us. Unfortunately you're not.
Take a good look at yourself mate and tell me with a clear conscience that you consider that what you're doing is right. Tell me that your soul-searching has told you that it's okay to allow MAJ to post his crap on Simonworld.
You are, as usual, behaving in an outrageous manner - you are guilty here of all the things you accuse me of, and more. For starters, I am not a "self-admitted schizophrenic" and I have never written to Richard's former employers! Never! Where is all the proof for these allegations that you make? You are just being ridiculous and outright malicious. I have made NO personal attacks against Richard in either of my articles. None. But all you do is to make personal attacks, and you are, quite frankly, the biggest liar I have ever encountered in cyberspace. I have no intentions of engaging with you anymore. Keep attacking me if you like, but rteally you ought to be ashamed of yourself.
And Richard and Martyn- if I post my comments on other peoples' blogs so what? Please tell me what is fundamentally wrong with that? Nothing! Another blogger (a regular reader of Simon World) has even emailed me wanting my permission to "publish" both my previous and my latest China Daily articles on his own blog. So is there anything wrong with that - that my writings may appear on multiple blogs? Grow up will you, and be reasonable.
And why insult Simon, calling him a "dupe" etc.? My article above is perfectly reasonable. I have not insulted anybody in it. I have not made personal attacks against anybody. Why are you being so spiteful and vindictive? And why are you twisting the truth so much? For example, you claim that I requested other readers to email me photos of their penis. You know damn well that this is not true! Another writer suggested, and jokingly, that Dr Myers will be asking Conrad to send her a photo of his penis next. Dr Myers later responded (obviously not seriously) to this by doing just that. So stop painting me out to be the sexual pervert that I am not. You are just being plain malicious. Period.
Well, in keeping with Simon's open comments policy where anything goes no matter how destructive or deranged, let me put up my own post so people here can see exactly what's going on. Then decide who's believable. I would usually never do this, but Simon feels whoever wants to use his comments for whatver ends is free to do so. Thus, I need to defend myself from everyone's favorite stalker.
This is from my own blog, posted July 11, 2005: THE FANTABULIST
I will let readers draw their own conclusions about this rather intriguing bit of research started by commenter KLS about fellow commenter MAJ in the last open thread:
MAJ why are you just copying and pasting other people's work?
for example, your really long comment above, starting "Dear Simon and Conrad, The value of the dollar vs the euro is directly related to..."
this is word-for-word copied from elsewhere.
I took a random line and googled it. the line was: "the US effectively controls the world oil-market as the"
via google I discovered two websites where a long essay has been posted about euros and dollars and oil. you copied and pasted over 700 words direct from that!
the only thing you changed was to insert intros such as "Simon, Conrad - also remember that..." at the beginning of one or two of the paragraphs.
or take your next long comment, starting: "Dear Conrad,
The other argument put forward by political analysists"
you directly copied and pasted 500 words that appear on this website:
see http://tinyurl.com/6ywnq
wouldn't it have been good manners to acknowledge that these words are not your own? and, rather than filling up a thread, to have provided links to these websites instead?
Posted by KLS at July 11, 2005 11:54 AM .
Oh dear, this is an intriguing development indeed. I was so impressed, I started doing my own investigation.
More than four-fifths of all foreign exchange transactions and half of all the world exports are denominated in dollars and US currency accounts for about two-thirds of all official exchange reserves. The fact that billions of dollars worth of oil is priced in dollars ensures the world domination of the dollar. It allows the US to act as the world's central bank, printing currency acceptable everywhere. The dollar has become an oil-backed, not gold-backed, currency.
More than four-fifths of all foreign exchange transactions and half of all the world exports are denominated in dollars and U.S. currency accounts for about two-thirds of all official exchange reserves. The fact that billions of dollars worth of oil is priced in dollars ensures the world domination of the dollar. It allows the U.S. to act as the world’s central bank, printing currency acceptable everywhere. The dollar has become an oil-backed, not gold-backed, currency.
Well, well. What are the odds of that being a pure coincidence? And what would the good Dr. Anne Meyers have to say about someone so insecure and eager for attention and approval that he would resort to such nasty tricks, a la Jayson Blair?
A few days earlier, our friend was caught doing the same thing and, as usual, had a sorta-kinda excuse akin to a dog eating one's homework; that excuse, where he said he had made reference to his source and was rapidly cutting and pasting and blah blah blah - that excuse won't fly this time because there's no attribution. Zero. It is literally an act of deception, in which MAJ consciously and consistently led us all to believe he himself was the author. And that is a very serious offense.
Again, I like MAJ. But when you blog, what you write is there for everyone to see, and if you get caught BS'ing, your crediblity is gone for good. This is a matter of lying. Deception. Fraud. And he's a repeat offender. And not even the good "Dr." Anne Myers can get him out of this mess. Sorry if this causes you a tad of embarrassment, Mark, but you left yourself wide open. I invite readers to comb the archives and find other instances of MAJ's creative cut & paste capabilities. There's a lot more where these few examples came from.
And whatever you do, don't miss the comments to that post, where Jones admits to impersonating an elderly female doctor and requesting photos of the penises of male readers of Peking Duck. And he says Martyn and I should be ashamed.
Richard - all I can say is that I really do hope that readers take the time to carefully read through the Fantabulist thread, so that they can see for themselves (a) how entertaining that entire episode was, (b) how malicious you are being in claiming that I was after photos of other peoples' penises because as I said in my comment above, that is a serious distortion of the truth.
At any rate, nothing in the Fantabulist thread invalidates any of the arguments I have presented above, does it?
Your behaviour on this site says more about you than it does about me Richard.
[NOTE - Mark maintains he did not post this comment on the CD forum]
Then there was Jones' confession on China Daily, which should be required reading.
Let us move on from the present tit-fot-tat nonsense.
I admit that it is bad practice to copy and paste significant passages from other peoples' articles without acknowledging the source. 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 acknowledge my sources. And why should I? I have far better things to do. It really makes no difference.
I'm not the big fraud that Richard makes me out to be. I believe most bloggers and even most commenters here cut and paste most of their material, which is written by someone else. Everyone does it.
O.K. I accept the criticism though. It is bad practice. And I cannot hide the fact that I adopted various and disparate personas for my posting on Peking Duck, as I explained in Richard's post "The Fantabulist." My strategy was to present myself merely as a creation, as a persona, no different from Dr Myers. Well, 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 altogether different again from the Mark Anthony Jones that I present to say, my grandparents for example. We all alter our behavioural patterns quite automatically, depending on the social scene we're in. So what's wrong with pretending to be different people and having a little fun along the way? Don't we all have multiple personalities?
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 GAC, a Chinese company licensed to manage training centres that deliver a university foundations program. I'm paid adequately, 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.
So, in my boredom, I decided to experiment on Richard and his readers, who would be unknowing guineau pigs as I tried to manipulate and predict their reactions. Sometimes it worked, sometimes it did not. I was surprised, frankly, that Richard never posted photographs of me that I sent him unsolicited. I predicted he would try to embarrass me with them, and it was an interesting test. I also admit I may have gone a bit far, dwelling on the private parts of several male commenters while I was being Dr Myers and even requesting photos of their genitalia. But what of it? I was bored and it offered me amusement.
There is no need to smear me as a cutter and paster or as an adopter of various personas. I freely admit these things. But these were very small matters and they have been blown out of all proportion by the Peking Duck henchmen. So let us move on and discuss my article itself and its documented complaints against Peking Duck, Horse's Mouth and their commenters. Let us stay on subject and focus on the matter at hand, and not unimportant and irrelevant aspects of my personal life. Thank you all, and I look forward to your comments on the China-bashing blogs in English.
Richard - I know the issues you have with MAJ. However it is wrong to characterise my comments as a place "where anything goes no matter how destructive or deranged". As I've stated previously, MAJ has done nothing on these pages to breach the rules of decency or respect that I expect people to abide by. You are within your rights to reply as you have, pointing out MAJ's past. But keep this civil.
MAJ - this applies to you as well. You're right in saying let's move on.
Debate the matters at hand (where I disagree on many levels with MAJ). I find it amazing that the Kissel case, where there are many heated emotions and in a real case of life and death, has managed to remain civil over the course of 250+ comments. We're all adults here. Let's behave like it.
I respectfully request that you delete the above comment, as I did not write it. Somebody else wrote that comment, and pasted it under my name on the China Daily forum. It paraphrases me in parts, but I did not produce this comment. Richard is what, close to [edit] years of age, and this is how he behaves? And he and Martyn both accuse me of being a "freak"!
I am not going to comment any further to anybody who launches into vicious personal attacks - only to those comments which focus critically on the arguments I express in my article above.
Simon I'll engage with you, not Dr. Meyers or whoever the other fellow is. You saw how he invented new "personas" (to use his own words) to congratulate himself for comments here. Yet you permit it. You allow him to post diatribes thinly veiled to take potshots at me. So please, get used to it: I will also avail myself of your infinite generosity and tolerance and defend myself. Jones is trying to destroy me. I've tried to tell you that. His comments have nothing to do with your linklets, he's just getting free space to spread his poison. And you allow it, ducking behind your comments policy which, I'm afraid, gives anyone the right to do whatever he or she damn chooses here, even if it hurts the lives of others. So enjoy the increased number of comments, but realize it will destroy your blog and drive away readers, as it did to me. You know what Jones is and what he is doing. But you allow it because it's in line with your "policy." Fine. Now you can have the honor of being the Madge blog, a receptacle for trash and slander and phony comments cooing about the genius of his "structuralist" brilliance. Remember how you had to delete his comments and close down the thread because he kept using your comments to hurt me? Remember? Now he's being a bit more subtle, but his intentions are plain to the naked eye. It's your choice to harbor his brand of cyber-terrorism. Just realize that it is poison, and it will infect your entire blog. Your choice.
I just received an email from a regular reader of both TPD and Simon World - the one I referred to earlier, from the peroson wo wanting my permission to publish both my origianl China Daily article, and my recent one, printed above. My initial response was to say yes, though I warned the person in question that by publishing my articles on his blog, he will likely be inviting for himself considerable trouble. Below is his response:
"Dear Mr Jones,
Thank you very much for your permission. I undertake to handle your article as requested. I will publish it by the end of this month.
I have noted the angry remarks made by "Richard and friends". But my policy is simple: either one's article is worth publishing or it is not. The fact that one's internet behaviour might be not agreeable is neither here nor there."
Finally! Somebody decent-minded, and with intelligence!
Richard - how am I trying to "destroy" you? You're being absolutely bloody ridiculous. There is nothing in my article above which says anything malicious about you. You're being way over the top - way over-sensitive.
You're the one who is clearly behaving maliciously here. How is my article "hurting" your "life"? Where is the "poison" that you speak of?
Re-read the Fantabulist, Simon, and tell me how anyone can believe a single word our friend says? Dr. Meyers, Stephen Bryce and at least four other "personas," all telling us how smart he is.
Richard, I'm not a fool. I'm well aware of the history behind this. But so far MAJ has played within the rules on this site. He hasn't attacked you personally, although he has attacked your blog and views. I've told MAJ to desist from using multiple personalities and find it a great irony that he has been a victim of the same problem in the China Daily thread. People can judge him on the comments he makes, and they are now well versed on his history thanks to your postings. Readers will attach whatever credence they choose based on the information.
I am not doing this to encourage comments. I have already likely lost readers for allowing MAJ to post here. That's a shame but it is a choice readers can make for themselves. I hope they can see past a comment thread and enjoy the huge variety of comment on these pages.
Should he repeat the previous episode where his attacks became personal, I will ban him. But he has followed the code so far and I see no legitimate reason to ban him. You call that him being "more subtle". I like to think he has learnt from his mistakes.
MAJ has not yet abused my tolerance or the rules of this site. Until such time as he does, he's free to post comments here. The second he steps over the line, he'll be banned, as will anyone else. I hope everyone can respect my judgement and integrity enough in moderating these comments.
Okay Simon. You know I wouldn't get upset like this if I didn't honestly fear for my future. I know what this person is capable of, and I'm sure you saw his China Daily post where he casually reveals my last name, knowing I wish to keep it private. That says so much. No person with a conscience does something like that. And he's done so much worse than that, and when you give him a platform, it aids and abets his very devious intentions. I would stop this in an instant if he would show the maturity and decency to simply agree not to keep referencing my blog, and to stop referring to my age and last name (although he is wrong on my age - still, you know he's using this because he believes it can hurt me). I'm stuck, and I was silent for days, and finally I just had to say something. He sends me emails, he posts on my site, he contacts my employer - and I have begged him to give me just this simple courtesy: Please Mark, just leave me alone. But he can't, whether it's due to some personality disorder or loneliness or...I just don't know. I have always thought of you and I as friends and still look back on our meeting in Singapore as one of the high points of my sojourn there. To see you letting him snipe at me simply breaks my heart, because it's not you and it's not what your blog is about. Follow your conscience, do what you feel is appropriate. I am willing to stop this right now. All I ask is that MAJ respect my right to privacy and to a life, and stop going onto other blogs to take shots at me. Is that really so much? I am willing to be extend the olive branch and end this all. But whenever I do, I am shocked to see Mark only ramp up the campaign. I don't understand it, and I just want it to sop. Please?
Richard - I have NEVER contacted your employer! Stop lying!
And what are these "devious" intentions of mine that you claim I have? You're being ridiculous. I didn't say that you were [edit]. I said almost. So what? How is that supposed to "hurt" you?
I saw what MAJ wrote to my employer. It is a matter of fact, not conjecture. He also denied being "Dr. Anne Meyers" until the proof was presented. Then he cavalierly dismissed id it -- he was bored at GAC, so it was okay. This is called sociopathic behavior, having no qualms at all about lying and hurting anyone in your path. And all readers of the Fantabulist know this; Madge has admitted doing these things. He cannot deny this. It's all there, in how own words, try as he might to back-pedal now.
If I wish to keep my name and age private,that is my right. Anyone who intentionally sets out to reveal such private information is behaving in an inappropriate manner. Everyone with a conscience realizes this.
Simon, how would you feel to have someone go to various blogs and to China Daily revealing details of your life that, for whatever reason, you choose to keep private? Information about your wife, your children? Is this acceptable? Is it a sign of maturity and politeness? Or of a harrassment mentality, a person bent on needling and upsetting another human being for nothing but sadistic pleasure? I think we all know the answer. That we even have to argue about it is so strange, so sad.
Richard - you may very well have seen whatever it was that somebody else sent to your employer, but it was most certainly NOT sent by me - and I think you know that. Where is your proof that it was me who sent your employer this letter?
Richard, I understand your position and I've stood up for you both here and behind the scenes, as you well know. I appreciate the hurt and anger you feel. However I cannot ban MAJ from here because of what he may or may not have done somewhere else. You're right, I wouldn't like someone revealing private details of my life, but I also know that publishing a blog potentially exposes me to that risk.
If what MAJ is says is true (and I understand his credibility is not necessarily high) then it seems there are far more sinister undertones than anyone has been aware. Let's all work together and get to the bottom of it. Who knows, we may all end up getting along well at the end of this and being able to debate the issues again.
Thank you Simon, for being so reasonable. Neither my original China Daily article nor the one above makes any personal attacks whatsoever against Richard (unless you consider me mentioning his surname as an attack, which I maintain is silly - I did, after all, discover his surname from this very site!) I wish that Richard would stop harrassing me. Every time I post a critical analysis of his site on blogs other than his own, he launches himself into a vicious smear campaign. My article on the September 8 linklet didn't even mention him or his blog, and yet he still saw fit to post nasty and malicious comments about me on that thread.
We may all indeed end up getting along if we can focus on debating issues, and I sincerely hope that this is what eventuates. But I have every right to deconstruct Richard's blog. If he can't accept criticisms of it, then perhaps he shouldn't host a blog at all. There really is no need for him to attack me personally each time I deconstruct his blog. He can attack my views, sure, but to conclude that I must be a deranged psychopath stalking him is just plain ridiculous., and to accuse me of writing letters to his employers is just incredibly vicious.
Other blog hosts want to publish my articles from the China Daily on their sites, and yes, they have read the Fantabulist, etc., and they can judge the episode for what it was, not for what Richard has been trying to make it out to be.
I look forward to discussing the arguments raised, rather than having to waste so much of my time defending myself against every charge under the sun.
It is interesting that each of those who have injected their thoughts into this subject have their own confined level or stream of observation. That summarizes the big picture of the problem. Most people find their area of comfort and tend to remain in that area.
Western governments find their truths in frail agendas that promote their own needs. Those who find their governments to be of complete and total authority follow along with the promoted information. Others who regard government to be less than honest determine their own truths by other sources of information that may or may not be accurate.
Then there are the adventurers. They seek out their truth by discovery and yet, they only learn that which they have discovered by restricting their adventure to safe boundries.
I find this to be "human nature" in view of the diverse opinions found in the west as well as those diverse Chinese mis-conceptions of the west!
In the end, things seem equal in the mystery of east and west. Each provence is a world within a country of diverse worlds just as you would find in the U.S. To apply a blanket statement to one culture by another is to ignore the many other truths that exist. Life in Yunnan is totally different from life in Shanghai as you would find Montana being totally different from New York.
These opinions, wide and diverse as they are, only apply to a narrow stream of individuals who see the world through similar eyes. We all must remember the uneducated laborer, the dreamers, the adventurers and all those who are part of our complicated cultures within cultures.
Each set of individuals represent an individual stream of ideas which flow next to a totally different stream which in turn is part of an infinite number of streams of ideas.
Posted by spiritrace at September 12, 2005 02:53 PM
It is interesting that each of those who have injected their thoughts into this subject have their own confined level or stream of observation. That summarizes the big picture of the problem. Most people find their area of comfort and tend to remain in that area.
Western governments find their truths in frail agendas that promote their own needs. Those who find their governments to be of complete and total authority follow along with the promoted information. Others who regard government to be less than honest determine their own truths by other sources of information that may or may not be accurate.
Then there are the adventurers. They seek out their truth by discovery and yet, they only learn that which they have discovered by restricting their adventure to safe boundries.
I find this to be "human nature" in view of the diverse opinions found in the west as well as those diverse Chinese mis-conceptions of the west!
In the end, things seem equal in the mystery of east and west. Each provence is a world within a country of diverse worlds just as you would find in the U.S. To apply a blanket statement to one culture by another is to ignore the many other truths that exist. Life in Yunnan is totally different from life in Shanghai as you would find Montana being totally different from New York.
These opinions, wide and diverse as they are, only apply to a narrow stream of individuals who see the world through similar eyes. We all must remember the uneducated laborer, the dreamers, the adventurers and all those who are part of our complicated cultures within cultures.
Each set of individuals represent an individual stream of ideas which flow next to a totally different stream which in turn is part of an infinite number of streams of ideas.
Posted by spiritrace at September 12, 2005 02:57 PM
If what MAJ is says is true (and I understand his credibility is not necessarily high) then it seems there are far more sinister undertones than anyone has been aware. Let's all work together and get to the bottom of it. Who knows, we may all end up getting along well at the end of this and being able to debate the issues again.
Yes, Simon, thanks for being so reasonable. Look at Mark's admitted lies in the Fantabulist, especially his own commentsa, where he first denies and then admits being a 65-year-old woman, and tell me he is in any way a valid source and a sincere dispense of insight. Tell me you honestly believe that, and we'll let it go. Also, you assured me earier you would remove any of Madge's references to my age (whatever he mnay imagine it to be). I would appreciate your sticking to your word.
I've edited as per your request. You've also hit the nail on the head: MAJ's past has been clearly laid out, and everyone can judge the validity of his comments and views based on that.
Of all the China Daily comments, this one certainly gave me the most chuckles:
Yes, congratulations to my dear friend with the intriguingly shaped member, M.A. Jones! And congratulations to Mopy, who is also M.A. Jones, for doing such a fine job congratulating himself for his own genius. Oh what a fine thread! In my 44 years of service as a psychotherapist and analologist, I've rarely seen anything like it. M.A. Jones and his throbbing member has squirted a new load of sper...um, I mean life into the CD threads! What does it matter that he calls himself Mopy or Stephen or Mark or Dr. Myles - what matters is, he is having fun! And when M.A. Jones has fun we all have fun! Here's to this thread going on and on forever in a glorious atomic chain reaction that makes Hiroshima look like a Chinese sparkler. Here's to M.A. Jones' member, and all the smegma dripping and stinking on it! Here's to Mopy's used tampon! Oh, praise God, praise Mao for this glorious thread! As M.A. Jones' personal proctologist, I can assure you he's been exiting rich, technicolor bricks ever since he posted his piece de resistance. Come on, M.A. Jones, we all breathlessly await your next impersonation telling us all how brilliant you are! Don't leave us in suspence -- more, more, more! And since you said your school is well aware of this thread, I hope they too can join in the fun and praise you and your droppings. I hope they appreciate our love of you and the creative characters you've created, and the stories that have flowed out of your ars, um, your febrile imagination! Keep it up, M.A. Jones. Way, way up, firm, erect and proud, with a bit of liquid oozing out of the tip, and veins pulsing and protruding in proud Marxist form!
Oh, what fun it's been! The thread that will last forever! A tribute to M.A. Jones, my adored patient, and all he stands for, integrity, wisdom and honesty. Let us all kowtow to my patient. Let me snap on my latex glove and show him how deep my appreciation goes! Oh, wait a minute, I think he might have just a spot of diarreah....
No, I didn't write it. But whoever did is damnned smart.
You might also like to delete the comment Richard posted above, beginning, "Then there was Jones'..." as I did not write this at all. Somebody posted it under my name on the China Daily site.
The Fantabulist episode surely doesn't invalidate my arguments above? Are you saying Richard, that that one episode invalidates all that I say for the rest of my life, and that other blog hosts therefore shouldn't allow me to post on their blogs? Surely you're not that unreasonable, are you?
If you disagree with my analysis, fine, say why? But please don't continue to smear me, or to bully other blog hosts into deleting my comments on the basis of the Fantabulist episode.
I would actually like Simon to delete the entire thread. That's fine with me. I mean Madge no harm, and said I wanted a peace, where he would simply respect my privacy and leave me alone. Notice it took about 40 seconds for him to respond to my last comment to Simon, so he is obviously waiting here, living from one comment to the next. Simon, what I'm trying to get you to realize is that this is his life. All these invented people who never commented on your site or my site before who suddennly show up and make comments about Madge's brilliance -- you don't see this as a red flag? He stated, in so many words (in earlier comments), that this is his life, because he doesn't have enough work to do. Again, see his own comments explaining why he "created" Dr Meyers. See his own comments where se said he does this to get a rise out of people because he is bored. It's okay, you can have your comments policy and keep him on as a mascot here. I have to bear the brunt of it, not you, so I guess you're happy. But I suggest you limit him to this now old and unread thread. Once this spreads to the top, that's the end of this blog, as no one wants to read this crap. And no one will have any respect for you.
Okay, thanks for editing Simon. As I've said before, I am willing to stop this nonsense and declare a complkete truce any time. I even wrote a post about it, and then deleted it from my site because Madge needs to be contained and there was no reason to prod him on to do yet more damage. But you will discover something - Madge always has to have the last word. And it will go on and on until you close the thread, and the next one he infects.
Enjoying the view from my Central eyrie, I cast an eye upon the rapidly dimishing Hong Kong harbour and enjoy watching Asia's World City in action. My attention rapidly shifts to the most ridiculous site in a city full of them: a massive electronic display at the top of the new mobile phone shaped AIG Tower in Central. While certainly edifiying for the occupants of Cheung Kong Centre, Citibank Plaza and the Bank of China buiding, it otherwise broadcasts above a population oblivious to its presence. And what quality broadcasts! So far I've enjoyed watching the worker bee in charge log in to his computer, read some emails and finally boot up a screen saver that revolves around displaying an advertisement for AIG and random colours.
A brilliant sales job by whomever sold the display (a poor quality photo is below the jump). I'd check the warranty, though. There appear several large blocks that are broken...I think. It's hard to tell.
The AIG building is now truly a Hong Kong landmark. Perhaps we can organise a switch. Put Hong Kong's regular TV up on the AIG building and broadcast the AIG screensaver to the Big Lychee's 7 million TV sets.
Tom Plate is a well known and respected commentator on China and Asian matters. I wish he would stick to what he knows. His piece "From Kyoto to New Orleans" repeats the growing meme that Hurricane Katrina is a warning about global warming:
It is also a fact that many eminent scientific seers directly connect the worldwide warming phenomenon with certain kinds of bad weather news -- to wit, the apparently growing severity of "natural" catastrophes.
It is also a fact many seers disagree with this contention, and even with the idea of global warming itself. Set that aside. It is easy to refute Tom's thesis. The trend of hurricanes striking the US is declining, as the data from the US National Weather Service shows. In Hong Kong we've not had any typhoons this year at all. Maybe the one impact of global warming is the frying of Californian brains?
On a related topic, if you are at all interested in the ideas of sustainable development, you must read A Poverty of Reason by Wilfred Beckerman. In less than 100 pages Beckerman clearly and logically explains why the Earth will not run out of natural resources for the foreseeable future, why the idea of sustainable development makes poverty worse, and is destructive in terms of intergenerational equity. Perhaps his most important points are his plea for most cost-benefit analysis (especially when dealing with the "precautionary principle") in dealing with the environment and that so-called sustainable development remedies are often worse than the problems they purport to fix.
His conclusion bears repeating:
The greatest contribution that we can make to the welfare of future generations is to bequeath a free and democratic society.
Despite protestations to the contrary many "green" policies make poverty worse, preventing the poor from getting a chance at better living while greenies lecture them from the comfort of their Western lifestyles. It is the new imperialism. That's irony for you.
Update
Excellent additional reading on the Kyoto/Katrina meme at Daily Demarche...plus ca change.
CIP - the text under that graph acknowledges that this is not a complete decade. Feel free to remove the 2001-2004 data point. The point remains the same.
Dear No 1.5 son.
Global warming is about change. When considering the hurricanes you need to look at both quantity and quality. What the doomsayers are doomsaying is that overall the hurricanes will have a greater impact. Secondly, a drop in the number of hurricanes in the US is good but a drop in India is bad.
So, concentrate on the effects of change rather than the raw data.
The data linked above traces both frequency and severity. Hurricanes will have more impact ceteris paribas as we go forward, because more people choose to live on the coast, people are getting richer with nicer houses and possessions to get blown away. That's the fault of economic growth. Should we ban that?
If the effects of global warming mean the feared mini ice age that was all the rage in the 1970s can be avoided, then I'm for it. If it means there will be more arable land in the world, I'm for it. The climate is always changing, getting hotter or colder, more disasters and less. The correlations are almost impossible to predict given the massive number of variables involved.
Beckerman says that if we get on with the business of economic growth and democracy, the environment will get taken care of in due course. As people get richer they can afford to choose "green" options, and they can afford to make sacrifices in their living standards for the sake of the environment. The poor don't have that choice. Beckerman is saying that green groups seem to choose the environment over saving fellow humans. A matter of priorities, I suppose.
And if climate change means the Swans can win the Grand Final, then I'm strongly in favour!
Thank you to everyone else who also linked and visited.
As usual, some stats for August:
* 24,049 unique visitors made 58,697 unique visits, reading a total of 183,913 pages,and drawing 9.58 GB of bandwidth.
* This equals 1,893 visitors per day reading 5,933 pages each day. In other words each visitor reads 3.13 pages on average. Each visitor returned on average 2.44 times during the month.
* 1417 visited this site via their favourites/bookmarks. 217 subscribe via Bloglines and 133 via Feedburner.
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* 10.6% of visits were via search engines, of which Google was 73.8% and Yahoo 19%. The top search phrases were "Nancy Kissel", "Robert Kissel" and "Icered".
* Unsurprisingly, the most visited individual page was the "Nancy Kissel trial archive".
My pleasure Simon! I may not stay this prolific, but I'll certainly give it my best shot... your readership has been very obliging with interesting commentary.
There are triads involved in every walk of Hong Kong life it seems. But perhaps one of the most brutally mercenary in which they are involved is the incredibly lucrative death business in Hong Kong. There are only a few funeral homes in Hong Kong, all of which mint money. Then there are all the people that round up some sullen monks of either Daoist or Buddhist persuasion to perform some funeral rituals and buy flowers and coffins at vastly inflated mark-ups.
If you have ever lost someone close to you in Hong Kong, you will know the rage I felt when my father passed away and I had to go to the government death registration office in Wu Chung House, Wanchai. There, even as I sat waiting to tell some functionary that my father was no more, there were funeral touts trying to drum up business from me, aggressively. At that moment, I was seething with anger.
These scenes shockingly were about to erupt into violence yesterday, as rival triad groups were about to fight each other over who was going to be allowed to prey on grieving relatives at a newly-opened government mortuary. According to the SCMP:
Police arrested 50 men yesterday as two suspected triad gangs massed at a new mortuary, ready to fight for the right to prey on grieving relatives.
The men, suspected to belong to rival factions of the Wo Shing Wo triad society, were caught at the main entrance and in the car park of the public mortuary in Kwai Chung at about 9.30 am.
Police said the gangs were believed to have arrived for a showdown over which would control the lucrative trade of touting for funeral business. They were arrested before trouble broke out, a detective said.
Notice the police arrested the men not for their vulture-like joy over carcasses, and taking advantage of weeping widows, but for wanting to disturb the peace. Shocking.
In the 1980s, Communist reformers were forced by hardline leftists to explain that China's economic reforms were not merely paving the way for 'peaceful evolution', as they called political liberalization from economic forces. They were forced to spit on those words, and two decades ago they were as awful to the ear in China as the word 'liberal' is in the United States today. In the 1980s, after all, outside Western commentators were constantly commenting on how China put economic reform before political reform, while the former USSR did it the other way round. Reformers were therefore put on the defensive.
But economic reform creates both a momentum and a logic all its own. The CCP has unleashed market forces that have made the Chinese economy go very fast; but now, the very speed of the economy means they cannot suddenly pull on the brakes or jump off without very grave consequences. Wealth gives people belief in the dignity of their own existence; and with a middle class, as I've said many times, comes demand for a greater say in government.
Today, according to Reuters, Wen Jiabao, the Premier of China, has made official what we've all suspected; that democracy in China is just a matter of time. His words:
"China will press ahead with its development of democratic politics, that is reconstruction, in an unswerving way, including direct elections," Wen told a news conference ahead of an EU-China summit.
"If the Chinese people can manage a village, I believe in several years they can manage a township. That would be an evolving system."
China has introduced direct elections for village chiefs in more than 660,000 villages, and many of those elected are not party members. But it has dragged its feet on expanding suffrage for the election of officials at higher levels.
The ramifications of this statement, though, are immense. It means China has finally admitted that 1) democratic government is ultimately the best form of government for social stability, given a mature polity; and 2) that forces within China are acting as inexorable agents of change that are forcing both this admission and the evolution itself to a more democratic, representative form of government. Why do I make conclusion 2)? Because it seems that when a party such as the CCP has a monopoly on power, that it would not necessarily want to cede control of that power to competitive elections.
Of course, this is going to start off very slowly and small, and I'm sure opposing candidates at the district level are not going to be allowed to run on anti-CCP platforms. They likely need to do this though, given how poor governance has become at the local level, and the need to clean up the corruption of officials that currently have no process by which locals could evict them.
Unfortunately, as incomplete democacies in developing polities with corruption problems have shown, democracy is no panacea for rooting out graft and greed in public office. But it may mean local people at least feel they have a mechanism for 'throwing out the bums' and punishing officials with poor track records, making them less likely in the short term to demand more dramatic reforms.
Also, the article cites Hong Kong as evidence to Beijing that democracy doesn't really work that well. But the problem is, since Hong Kong is not a full democracy, many people of ability shy away from politics as it seems laden with unspoken taboos and glass ceilings, making it a flawed model for China.
All of this is speculation at present though, and full democracy many years in the uncertain future. For now, we'll just have to see what happens with this brave new policy commitment by Beijing.
Dave, I really share your hope.
But what I'll never understand is how is possible that so many people are still so inclined to trust the official statements of a communist despot whose words are systematically disproved by everyday reality.
If democracy arrives (and will arrive), it will be in spite of CCP, not because of.
Quite right HKDave that 5 years ago under JZM they wouldn't have said that, but of course fifteen to twenty years ago under first HYB and then ZZY, they were saying exactly the same things as Wen said this past week. Its back to the future time in the PRC. Or perhaps more accurately, picking up where those leaders were at before they were ousted.
Dylan, points well made. It is really frustrating to see how political leaders in China never really learn from history. The Empress Dowager Cixi crushed the "Hundred Day Reform" and forced Kang Youwei and Liang Qichao into exile. A decade later, she adopted most of the measures that Kang and Liang intended to introduce in a desparate attempt to resurrect the Qing Empire from her inevitable fate of destruction. As yet, it was too little too late. I hope that the PRC government today under the leadership of Wen and hu are not reenacting the same old sad drama again.
I realize there are plenty of grounds for pessimism, but it does seem as though these statements have gone further even than those made by the CCP officials in the 1980s, at least during non-crisis periods. I would also argue that the situation today in China is far better than that faced by the Chinese leadership, such as it was, under the rudderless helmswomanship of the Empress Dowager Ci Xi. In fact, you may want to refer to my own blog today for commentary on that particular lady and the anniversary of the American-led 'Open Door' policy in China.
Amazing stuff, good find, Dave. I agree that even mentioning this is a big step forward. However I can also understand the worry that this is merely paying lip service to the idea of democracy. Is it merely jockeying in some hidden power play between "reformers" and "conservatives". The irony is China's leadership debates these things, if at all, behind close doors.
The implications of Wen's statement would make interesting work for the CCP theorists. If democracy is inevitable, what of the CCP's place within it? Are we talking Egypt style democracy or Western?
In other words, not all democracies are equal. It's what democracy translates to on the ground that matters. It's not just voting. It's rule of law, corruption free Government, free press and speech, working and honest courts. That's likely not what Wen has in mind.
Simon, I quite agree with you, I am sure that democracy as we know it in the West is not what Wen has in mind, any more than the 2% revaluation was what the US wanted.:) I'm sure the democracy he is considering is going to be more limited than Singapore's, for example, and is not going to extend to positions at the highest level in the Central government anytime soon.
But clearly the leadership is reacting to real or perceived pressure to reform governance, and a willingness to consider what is a radical solution internally for appointing government at a local level. How far or how fast it goes, it is hard to say, but the fact that they are re-considering a solution that was anathema to them until very recently is remarkable.
It is about placing the ability to replace useless, venal and corrupt local officials in the hands of the local population. In a best case scenario, I am sure, for the CCP, it will serve as a model for how to reform government at a higher level, and also serve as a recruiting engine for the party. In a worst case scenario, they at least will manage to deflect blame for bad local government from Beijing.
I think it is important to remember that democracy with a universal franchise took over a century to establish itself in the United States and in most Western countries - Switzerland only gave women the vote a generation ago. These things take time, and democracy and the values that make it successful - civic participation, belief in equality, civil rights and in using political participation to advance one's own interests - does not come overnight. This is why I believe this ever-so-slight crack of light in the doorway should be applauded and supported rather than dismissed cynically.
I don't cynically dismiss it at all. I merely point out that Wen and Hu's recent statements have a lineage that goes back decades, and are not some sudden "discovery" that changes everything. Maybe they will succeed where HYB and ZZY failed, lets hope they do.
Sorry Dylan, I was in a hurry and used the word 'cynically' instead of 'skeptically'. Statements of liberalism should rightly be taken with a grain of salt when made in a foreign language at a meeting outside of the country. But given how carefully Chinese senior party officials word their statements, I think that these words nevertheless provide some grounds for optimism after a lapse of almost two decades and after 1989 was thought to have definitively ended any progress on this front.
But yes, we should not be putting on the party hats yet, on that I think we both agree.:)
In an article I regard as more in the tradition of Xinhua, the party organ I discussed in my last blog entry offers an article about how "Ancient philosophy guides China's modern diplomacy". It discusses how the Chinese foreign minister said recently that "the Chinese nation has always pursued a life in harmony with other nations despite differences." The article then goes on to quote Confucius and even Bertrand Russell in discussing the pacific leanings of China over the centuries.
That's all well and good, of course, except for the brief aberration known as Maoism that advocated violent revolution all over the world that must be inserted as a significant caveat. We'll ignore the peaceful revolution of Tibet and the saber-rattling at Taiwan as domestic issues for the moment, and even forgive millions of PLA soldiers pouring over the North Korean border once MacArthur crossed the Yalu River, 3 wars with India, or the support of money, arms, and equipment for Ho Chi Minh in the 1950s and part of the 1960s (heck, we'll even forget about China's unsuccessful invasion of Vietnam in 1979). But, please do explain to me the Maoist revolutionaries in places like Cambodia, Nepal, Sri Lanka, Peru and Colombia, which all received explicit support by China during the Great Helmsman's tenure.
Of course, even before that, the understanding China had with all nations was that it would be gentle and pacific towards them, as long as they acknowledged that China was the greatest nation in the world, and accepted a position of inferiority. But I'd be willing to accept that otherwise, China's been rather good to its neighbors over the millennia.
Modern Chinese history? How about "whitewashing Chinese history" period. Precisely because the Confucian ideal is indeed harmony, so much of Chinese history stands condemned by the very standards appealed to by the FM!
Posted by HUICHIEH LOY at September 5, 2005 11:21 AM
Ah, revisionist histories. Where would we be without them? I seem to recall Chinese armies attacking Korea at several times in the distant past (pre-20th century), not to mention Vietnam, not to mention invasions of Central Asia... Of course, my undergraduate courses in Chinese history are some years ago so my memory is somewhat rusty, but still.
Peaceful and harmonious relations? Someone give me a cut of whatever drugs the FM is taking. I need some escape from the dreary reality of law school assignments, papers, et cetera...
Yes quite so, it seems that the selective memory of China in forcing Japan to remember its wartime atrocities but forgetting many events of a more recent nature prove the statement that China has always been a peaceful neighbor as disingenuous. China in fact has attacked, tried to foment revolution or had border shooting incidents with every country bordering it in the last 60 years. Between 1950 and 1980, someone correct me if I'm wrong, but China must have been in more wars with neighbors than any other country on the planet.
But maybe since China at that point was a new country trying to struggle free from its past imperialist influences, it would argue that period of its history was a bit of teenage rebellion. Shame though, that it cost so many lives, particularly Chinese ones.
Yes China has shown aggression in its past also to neighbors, from the Xiongnu in the West to the Koreans in the East. But it is fair to say that Chinese dynasties have been more peaceable than most. It's hard to judge though, when over the last 1000 years, for about 35%-40% of it China was ruled by aggressive invaders (Mongols, Manchus). In the end though, it seems difficult to make a case for China being any more peaceable than any other country.
And that's true, American troops never crossed the Yalu, the issue was that MacArthur wanted to bomb the bridges there. He also wanted to drop up to 50 nuclear bombs on China, making the Chinese and its Foreign Minister indeed look like peace-lovin' hippies.
You must admit that China never did anything to its neighbours that it wasn't willing to do to itself twice over. Of course, in this context, The USSR was very peaceful, too, as it was rarely overtly aggressive outside its borders. If you want to be aggressive towards a neighbour, annex it first: now it's an internal problem.
The situation in Imperial times is complicated. To begin with, the very concept of a neighbor--as in neighboring people or state that is in some sense equal and deserving of respect is not exactly one that they had. There is only supposed to be one world--tianxia. There is no such thing as independent "sovereign states". The emperor is literally supposed to be the ruler over the world (though his actual power diminishes as the distance to the capital increases). And any tribe or people or locality that is not actually under the imperial order is only one more 'barbarian' tribe that awaits incorporation. Now the Confucians have always advocated that incorporation is to be a peaceful process of civilisation. The emperor and the imperial order in general, if it rules with virtue, cannot but attract those on the periphery towards peaceful and voluntary submission. This is the (quasi-) Confucian ideology anyway. In reality, emperors and their courts readily recognize the soverign power of states powerful enough to resist (as in the case of Russia). They were also not shy of 'helping' the incorporation process with a bit of military force (the 1000-year back and forth with Vietnam is the classic example). In any case, the ideology complicates any evaluation of the FM's claim because there is a sense in which the very notion of a "foreign war" is conceptually out of place within the traditional ideology--there is a sense in which it's all internal (because it's all internal, given that there is only one world political order). The ideology only began to really breakdown--even as ideology--in the 18th and 19th century when powerful Westerners began to burst on the scene. It's much harder to pretend that the British with their gunboats are just another barbarian tribe somewhere out there awaiting the civilizing influence of the Celestial Empire.
Posted by HUICHIEH LOY at September 6, 2005 01:16 AM
Yes, bromgrev, it is a bit of a problem when you are re-classified from 'tributary neighbor' to 'internal problem', isn't it?
Huichieh, I quite agree with everything you say. In my humble opinion, what insulted China even more than previous invaders like the Mongols or the Manchus was that the British (nor any other Europeans) were unwilling to even adopt the trappings of Chinese dynastic power, which at least acknowledged the centrality of China in the universe...
Not sure if you've been to the Xinhua English website, China View (www.chinaview.cn), lately. But on it I've made a (mock horror) terrible discovery. It's that Xinhua uses teaser pictures of scantily clad models on virtually every page for people to read more; examples here and here.
Not only that, but they've clearly also hired some sort of streetwise gossip columnist - they've got a lurid story inside of "newly-single" Eddie Murphy's "booty call" to Mariah Carey. Amazing.
What has happened to the party organ that once waxed enthusiastically about proletarian revolution and socialist internationalism? I guess that organ found something else to get excited about.
Yesterday I alluded to China's growing likelihood of an aging crisis in about 20-30 years in jest as a rationale for why China's food quality standards are so abysmal. But China does indeed have an aging population, one that will require an undeniable social cost in just one generation.
So why does the country continue to have a one-child family policy? I'd almost forgotten China has one, given the number of people I know that have more than one child in China - legally. How do they do it? I was reminded of the simple strategy by this article about filmmaker Chen Kaige - just pay the Y60,000 fine.
But is it good policy? Perhaps the security of economic growth is still too new for the policymakers to shift gears radically and remove a key piece of legislation that, regardless of how you feel about its arbitrary, pro-abortion stance, has helped get China where it is today. It's another reason why, of course, China is very different from India, where birthrates per family still mange 4-5. (I saw this article about Chinese firms helping Pakistan manufacture contraceptives and found that an, uh, uphill battle).
But if in 30 years time the population actually finds itself shrinking and aging, the consequences for a country that still will be struggling to hit first world status will be severe. They should stop this anachronistic policy before it's too late - and then end up like Hong Kong (0.65 natural birth rate amongst permanent Hong Kong residents, the lowest in the world). They certainly won't be able to keep deflating the world anymore...
More on the food scandals gripping China - news just in that the majority of food production, handled by mom-and-pop producers, do not meet even rudimentary safety standards. An article on Asia News Network carries the story on why you can't trust anything you eat in the country:
Indeed, a study last year on China's food safety strategy, led by the State Council's Development Research Centre revealed a number of problems contributing to food-safety breaches. They include excessive and improper use of pesticides, the existence of many unqualified small-scale food companies and inadequate food-safety technology.
But the overriding reason food contamination occurs so often, food safety experts here and abroad say, is that the regulatory system cannot keep up with the fast growing food industry.
The article goes on to describe the conditions under which food is being made:
In 2003, the output value of China's food industry reached 1.29 trillion yuan (US$161.62 billion), nearly 20 per cent up on 2002. In the first six months of last year, the industry achieved an output value of nearly 710 billion yuan ($421.95 billion), a 20 per cent increase over the same period in 2003.
But reports in the local press say more than 70 per cent of China's 106,000 registered food makers are family-run outfits of fewer than 10 people. And at least 60 per cent of these cannot meet basic sanitary standards.
Professor Luo Yunbo, dean of China Agricultural University's college of food science and nutritional engineering said: "China does not lack regulations, but there's a lack of unified supervision and control."
And eating food produced by big Western brand names might not be much of a solution:
In the first half of the year, several food scandals involving big names such as KFC and Nestle, hogged headlines and shook consumer confidence.
Some KFC products were reported to be tainted with Sudan-I, a cancer-causing dye, and some of Nestle's infant milk powder formulas were found to contain iodine levels higher than the national standard.
Both companies took the products off the shelves, apologised to consumers and conducted investigations to root out the source of the contamination.
I'm normally the 'goes-tropo' guy, the one that will eat or try almost anything, keeping an open mind. But I really will have to boycott Chinese agricultural products until their standards improve. Or is [warning: dubious conspiracy theory ahead] this an evil plan so that China simply won't have to worry about an aging population in 30 years' time?
You got is so good living the good life in Hong Kong. Try playing roulette every day living in Guangzhou. Never know what you will get from one day to the next.
Thank god I have a good tai-tai that has found all the import beef and fish places in town that she can crawl around in their freezers for the latest in meat, cheese and fish.
We still go with the local vegetables...but wash the hell out of everything when we do buy them. Tai-tai is so anal about this...she even washes and sterilizes the eggs in the shell!!
There are some things you give up when you decide to live here...sunny side up eggs...and crispy salads.
Only wish my company could see these problems as well...while the continue to cut benefits.
Wow, I really don't envy you! I am all for cities with interesting histories, and I generally love travelling around China. But Guangzhou for me is a huge turn-off. IMHO it's one of the ugliest cities in the world. I've been several times, and the only two areas that I remotely enjoyed are the art museum and Shamian Island. Generally, I thought the food was among the most mediocre in China, the streets were filthy, and generally totally unpleasant and lacking in redeeming features.
I think your sterilizing your vegetables are a good idea. It's such a shame such an historic city has gone to hell in a handbasket.
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by Wilfred Beckerman. In less than 100 pages Beckerman clearly and logically explains why the Earth will not run out of natural resources for the foreseeable future, why the idea of sustainable development makes poverty worse, and is destructive in terms of intergenerational equity. Perhaps his most important points are his plea for most cost-benefit analysis (especially when dealing with the "precautionary principle") in dealing with the environment and that so-called sustainable development remedies are often worse than the problems they purport to fix.