Quick, name me the world's fastest growing economy. China? Saudi Arabia? Nope - try little 'ol Macau:
Macau’s gross domestic product (GDP) grew by 18.8 percent in real terms in the first quarter of this year, as compared with the same period of 2005, official figures showed.
According to data published Tuesday by the Statistics and Census Bureau, GDP growth was mainly due to a 14.9 percent increase in gaming revenues, a 19.9 percent increase in visitor spending – excluding gaming -, growth in investment in private construction with large projects being carried out and a 26.9 percent increase in exports.
If this gambling bubble ever bursts, it's not going to be pretty in Macau. In the meantime, why isn't the Macau government getting ready for an IPO?
Good job! The cause would help you know out the prosperity of the country too.
More population= lesser prosperity and vice a versa.
So now better option would be to find out the measures to reduce the increasing level rather than simply knowing its cause.
Proof the Beijing Olympics will bring great benefits to the people of China:
Zhang Bin, an official with the Ministry of Health (MOH), said on Monday that smoking will be banned at all hospitals that will be used specifically for the Games by the end of 2007.
That from the People's Daily telling us about the "non-smoking" Olympics. Unfortunately all non-Olympic hospitals in China will not be covered. And then there's the pollution....
That's a darn side better than this year's World Cup, where the chain-smoking Germans refuse to ban smoking outright at stadia, having signs that say 'please don't smoke' instead.
I certainly remember when I was a smoker that if I saw the word 'please' in any no-smoking sign I would assume it was voluntary.
Jake van der Kamp observes in today's SCMP that what foreigners promise to invest in China isn't necessarily what they actually put in...and what they do put in loses money hand over fist. Chart below the jump.
the impression some people may get that foreign direct investment (FDI) inflows to the mainland are rising. The story dealt exclusively with private equity inflows and these do indeed appear to be up. They also constitute only a very small proportion of total FDI inflows and the larger picture suggests that foreign investors are increasingly less ready to follow up their money talk with money itself.
The first chart tells you the story. The red line shows the amount of FDI contracted over the last 10 years and the blue line the amount of FDI actually utilised. The two were about the same in 1999 but in 2005 the utilised was less than a third of the contracted FDI and, in fact, slightly down from 2004. Relative to the size of the mainland economy, utilised FDI is barely half of what it was 10 years ago.
Look also at the green line. Private equity inflows more than doubled in 2005 but still amounted to barely 5 per cent of utilised FDI, leave alone what they were relative to contracted FDI.
And why may foreign investors now be showing greater reservations about backing up their investment promises with investment capital?
I find one clue tantalising. A data series in mainland statistics aggregates the losses of loss-making enterprises. The second chart shows you this data on an annual basis for foreign-invested enterprises including Taiwan, Hong Kong and Macau ones.
Ouch indeed. These losses have doubled in the last two years.
there are also some (partial) expalanations to these charts -- the artificialness of these numbers
1) more pledged FDI than realized, because of incentives given to local officials and in turn to foreign investors
2) now that the tax breaks have expired (profitable for 5 years), companies may fall back into loss to save tax -- using tricks such as transfer pricing/etc.
The charts don't seem to discuss the ratio of profit-making foreign investment to losing. That would seem to be the key stat, no? Naturally if more companies invest, there will be more losses, especially in the initial phases of the investment, when investors are sinking cash into long-term projects.
In the old days, Hong Kong was a den of vice and corruption, where the cops were in cahoots with the triads and everyone made out like bandits. The family of one of the infamous "four sargeants" has finally struck a deal with the ICAC (which was originally set up to deal with this corruption). How did ICAC realise something was amiss?
The ICAC first began investigating Hon in 1976 for "assets disproportionate" to his humble salary, which totaled HK$193,852 over a 31-year career with the Royal Hong Kong Police Force.
By the time Hon retired in August 1971, he held 49 properties then worth HK$2.12 million, plus HK$1.24 million in investments, HK$703,000 in bank accounts and two Mercedes-Benz cars worth HK$78,911.
That's some savvy investing. The SCMP has a short piece summarising how these comparitively lowly ranked policemen managed to control so much power and wealth. It's below the jump. Meanwhile, compare and contrast with another story in today's SCMP:
Almost 80 per cent of raids on suspected illegal gambling dens last year ended in failure, figures released by police have revealed.
Finally, and again completely unrelated, LegCo rolled over and approved the Tamar white elephant, although law makers are annoyed the government isn't promoting Tamar as the "people's project". That's fair enough - it is taxpayer money that's being wasted. Plus ca change and all that.
The notorious "four great Chinese sergeants" - among them Hon Sum - began their corrupt reign in the 1960s.
They were all police staff sergeants, a post that has since been abolished, and were in their posts for years, unlike today where officers are rotated.
As officers on beat patrol had close contact with gambling, prostitution and other organised crime, the very nature of their job offered ample opportunities for graft. Those who refused were ostracised or pressured to leave.
But, as a retired customs officer explained, this was made worse by the organisational structure of the police force, in the form of the staff sergeant and sergeant major. "A staff sergeant, while being lowly on the organisational chart, actually exercised enormous power," he said in an interview with the Post yesterday on condition that he not be named.
"You didn't have a choice. If you refused to take bribes, you were thumbing your nose at your superiors, you would be upsetting careful arrangements maintained between crime and law enforcement - upsetting the balance, so to speak."
There were three or four staff sergeants at any one time, and they were in charge of all the rank-and-file officers in their areas. Unlike today's division by districts, they were responsible for huge geographic areas - Hong Kong Island, Kowloon - Yau Ma Tei had its own sergeant - and New Territories. A sergeant major lorded over them.
Notionally, the staff sergeant ranked below an inspector, but even senior inspectors had to show them respect. This is because these powerful sergeants knew the pulse of the street, and effectively controlled gang activities and the territories each was allowed to operate - all the while taking a large chunk of commissions. Peter Godber, one of the ICAC's most high-profile cases, was a chief superintendent.
The sergeants' immediate boss, the sergeant major, communicated directly with the assistant commissioners.
"Police staff sergeants could directly communicate with a superintendent or senior superintendent who would probably be on the take," the former customs officer said. "They were powerful because they were the links between the top brass and the low ranks."
The four sergeants - Hon, Lui Lok, Nan Kong and Ngan Hung - effectively divided Hong Kong among themselves.
Hon entered the police in September 1940 and retired in August 1971. When he retired, he had a fortune estimated to be worth more than $4 million on total salaries of $193,852 over 31 years in the force.
In 1976, the ICAC bought charges against Hon for alleged bribery and applied for an arrest warrant but he had moved to Canada. The government sought to have him extradited in May 1977 but the bid failed when he fled to Taiwan, where he died in August 1999.
"Tsang wins the battle of Tamar" screams the SCMP on its front page today. No, The Don didn't manage to repel the invading hordes. Rather the Democrats rather meekly rolled over because the Government promised to keep a couple of trees and a heritage trail around the old Central Government Offices. With concessions like that, we can all be thankful that these politicians are keeping The Don honest. The rather pathetic DAB are still flogging their Kai Tak idea, even though they've downgraded their ambition from all government offices down to a shop front. Will The Don throw the pro-Bejingers' a bone and let them establish a tiny outpost at the old airport? It's the least he can do.
Hong Kong's political parties have been busy, however. While The Don gets Tamar going, they've been busy collating membership lists because the lawyers that formed the new Civic Party read the law. Due to a legal quirk, political parties are setup under the Companies Ordinance rather than the Societies one...the quirk being under the Societies law the government has the right to shut them down. But under the Companies Ordinance, the parties need to publicly display their membership lists. Somewhat amazingly, no-one realised this was the case until this year. The last few days have made interesting reading, despite the parties having tiny memberships.
But most interesting is this piece from today's SCMP article on The Don's military victory:
Speaking to the media yesterday, Democratic Party chairman Lee Wing-tat said the party had decided to support the funding bid after the government responded positively to its demands.
The party has previously said it wanted Government Hill to be preserved.
The government has made a commitment to that effect in articles published today in the South China Morning Post and some Chinese-language newspapers.
Sure enough, turn to the SCMP's op-ed page and there's the government written piece. Does the SCMP charge the government to do its announcements? Do they worry about being a mouthpiece rather than a centre of critical journalism? Does it feel good to know The Don can want something published and it will be done? Who needs Pravda or Xinhua?
China's history in 4 web pages - one can quibble in parts, but one always can with history (feel free to let fly with your quibbles in the comments). If you want to cover 4,000 years of history in 4 pages, take a look. And if you're looking for a good list of China books, here is a recommended China books list.
Now I've seen it all. Yes folks, go down to your local Hong Kong 7-Eleven and thanks to Durex you will now find 'England Supporter', 'Germany Supporter' and 'Brazil Supporter' rubbers for sale, and I mean it in an American sense (i.e. not pencil mark erasers).
An interesting way of demonstrating your passion for your chosen team at the quadrennial Football event of the world, to say the least. I understand buying kits, or uniforms in American parlance, but it seems the average condom doesn't really see the light of day much if at all, providing precious little opportunity to bandy about your national loyalty.
Given that Poland is to be involved as a contender in this year's Finals, it reminded me of an idiotic joke from my youth -
"Q: What's the ultimate luxury good in Poland?
A: A fur-lined condom."
Ugh. A final thought to end this little latex thought balloon: Would sales of 'Japan Supporter' condoms in China (specifically Zhuhai) cause an international incident?
I expect this will be ESWN's cup of tea...The Standard reprints a WaPo article that digs into the supposed plethora of engineering graduates in China and India as opposed to the United States. It appears the numbers on graduate engineers from both China and India, unsurprisingly, are on the rubbery side of accurate:
Among such recent attention-getting statistics are 600,000, 350,000 and 70,000. These are, allegedly, the number of engineers produced in 2004 in China, India and the United States, respectively....Bialik couldn't find any obvious birthplace for the Indian figures, but National Science Foundation analysts told him the number was unlikely to be anywhere near 350,000. As for the academies' report, Deborah Stine, who led the study, told Bialik that the committee had "assumed Fortune did fact- checking on their numbers" and so used them.
Meanwhile, a McKinsey Global Institute report had cast doubt on the quality of the Chinese engineering graduates, so Bialik reasoned that removing unqualified candidates would obviously reduce the total.
Read the full article to see "conventional wisdom" at work and at its worst. We saw something similar with the numbers for Hong Kong's July 1st marches (something ESWN looked at both in 2004 and in 2005). It also emphasises two truths: it pays to be sceptical of statistics in the press and it pays to be sceptical of statistics from China.
the indian # and chinese # seems quite comparable.
i do not think it is the problem of stats. take HK as an example. people often complained that U-grads pay scales starts from around 8000-1200 15 years ago and about the same today. but they forgot to mention the obvious, that there are 8 Univ today, vs 2 back then. and the starting salaries of the top 2 Univ have increased significantly. (as much as 35-50k for top students)
the first question is: what is an engineer? this is a non-trivial question.
The US number of 70,000 per year comes from a NSF table like this one:
http://www.nsf.gov/statistics/nsf04311/tables/tab26.xls
But Engineering degrees in USA will not cover computer sciences, mathematics, physics, chemistry, biology, architecture, operations research, logistics, etc. So you think a computer scientist (either software or hardware) is not an engineer?
I don't know how China or India keep their classification systems. I am not sure that the bookkeeping is the same.
Yes, what is an engineer indeed. When I first came over to work on the mainalnd as an urban planner I was surprised when my colleagues referred to me as an engineer. Math and the like are definitely not my strong suit, but so be it.
These numbers may or not be accurate but I think the prospects are good that they are close enough not to be easily dismissed. It may be because of some statistics I read over 40 years ago, and those WERE accurate. They stated the graduation rate ratio of engineers to lawyers in a little island nation was 21 times the graduation rate ratio of engineers to lawyers in the U.S. Remember Japan?
Appropos Dave's recent post on the Three Gorges Dam, and courtesy the generosity of the British taxpayer, the BBC has an excellent photo-essay of the Three Gorges Dam. I can only echo Dave's sentiments - they might have moved 1.3 million people, flooded arceological wonders and more but it's quite an achievement.
The Standard reports on the exodus of expats from Hong Kong due to air pollution, with many heading to Singapore instead. But how could you leave a city where you can't vote for the Chief Executive but you can vote in something far more important. The SCMP reports:
When Hong Kong's 18 district councils were asked to enter their toilets for a city-wide cleanliness contest, Wan Chai, Yau Tsim Mong, Kwun Tong and Yuen Long did not even bother. The other 14 district councils, however, submitted 28 toilets for the contest organised by the Hong Kong Toilet Association (HKTA), Radio Television Hong Kong (RTHK) and People's Health Actions, part of a campaign that aims to praise well-managed toilets and the hard work of their frontline cleaning staff, not to mention reminding the public about hygiene.
Those submitted include toilets renowned for their cleanliness, such as the ones in the Star Ferry car park in Central, Yee Kuk Street in Shamshuipo, Repulse Bay and Ngong Ping Road on Lantau Island.
From today until June 11, members of the public can vote for their favourite public toilet through the RTHK's website, while a panel of toilet experts headed by HKTA chairman Michael Siu Kin-wai and vice-chairman Lo Wing-lok will pick their favourites.
Mr Siu said the winning toilets should meet four criteria which are known as "Cash" - an acronym for comfort, accessibility, safety and hygiene. He said the design and hygiene of the city's public toilets had improved a lot in recent years. "Some toilets here even have devices to remind you to do something such as flushing water," Mr Siu said.
Voters are also encouraged to submit the address and a picture of any public toilet they believed needed urgent improvement. "We will pass the information to the Food and Environmental Hygiene Department for follow up," said the HKTA's Lo Wing-lok.
Who knew the city had a panel of toilet experts? Or that reminding people to flush was progress? I urge you to take part in this vital piece of democracy. If you don't speak up on the toilet issue, who will?
Ironically, in Singapore they can vote for their leaders (well, sort of) but not their toilets. Who's more civilised?
I have been concerned from the beginning about the Three Gorges Dam project. But the more I consider what has been accomplished as the project nears completion, the more I must reluctantly express my admiration for what has taken place.
The national Chinese grid will have its electricity supply augmented by up to 10%, with the power coming from hydroelectricity, which is far less environmentally damaging than the dirty coal-fired plants that have popped up across China over the last couple of decades as short-term solutions.
Yes, there have been costs. Aside from the US$25 billion paid to make this dream a reality, a million people have had to have been moved, from prime arable land to marginal land. Some of the areas they have been moved to have been contested areas with ethnic minorities.
There has also been a lot of corruption. Huge embezzlement, especially in the funds earmarked for helping the displaced start over, has been de rigeur.
But I do not buy the arguments put forward that the environmental damage does not justify the cost of building the Three Gorges Project. What possible environmental impact could be worse than 10% of China's electricity requirements generated by coal? Sitting in Hong Kong, I marvel at the scale of the audacious project, I feel sorry for the million people that have had to be moved from their ancestral homes, and I thank them for their sacrifice. It may have just added a few years to our collective lives.
It also highlights the stark difference between China and India. The compulsion requisite of the Herculean labor is beyond the beyond any government of India. But in China, if it is deemed necessary, it shall be done. Tragedies are part and parcel of such decisions, no doubt. But as much as I am against taking away everything a million people have ever had or known, China's unflinching pragmatism, its ability and will to compel sacrifice, and a canny, calculating Central government are surely a combination of great power.
I suppose a government that is, in its own way, compelled to deliver perpetual growth in order to ensure order and legitimacy, must see this end justifying every means.
It's fine that you come up with such a balanced perspective - but I don't think it stands up to the facts (if we are to believe what e.g. The Guardian and Interfax China report; links below):
- Why is it that China uses 6 times as much energy per unit of economic output as Japan, 4 times as much as the U.S.? Sure there's a lot of room for saving energy, which would make the Three Gorges Dam entirely unnecessary, together with a great number of coal power plants.
- Also, only some 3% of China's electricity will be produced by the new dam; and the price of this electricity will be so high that the government will have to subsidise it. Electricity from the dam is not competitive, it can only be sold in a completely distorted market.
- Opposition to the Three Gorges Dam for environmental reasons is widespread in China and reaches up to high levels, such as the "Consultative Conference" (CPPCC) and the "National People's Congress".
http://www.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0,,1779337,00.html
http://www.interfax.cn/showfeature.asp?aid=12795&slug=THREE%20GORGES
I think that these costs you mention include the resettlement of the 1 million villagers. That is what makes the cost high, and this was regrettable. Purely from a hydroelectric power perspective though, the costs are not actually as high as you say relative to other energy sources. Given that the people have already been moved and are at this point a sunk cost, what is the right way to look at current options?
I suspect you do not live in or around China at the moment, because if you did you would consider any solution to the terrible killing smog that blankets China very, very seriously. Whether it is 3% or 5% or 10%, the absolute amount of coal that would be required to make up that shortfall if the dam did not exist would be a significant marginal increase on what is already a clear and present danger to 1 billion people. This consideration outweighs any environmental impact to wildlife.
Ouli, regarding the relative economic efficiencies of China, Japan and the US, did you factor in the fact that most of the products from Japanese and American companies are in fact manufactured in factories in China, using energy in China? I would suspect there's a huge difference in amount of energy used between manufacturing and service industries.
So in a way, the cleaner air in Japan and the US is built on top of the lives of billions of people in China...
spacehunt,
I quite agree that, as you say, "the cleaner air in Japan and the US is built on top of the lives of billions of people in China". Obviously manufacturing will always use more energy than services; thus it's impossible for China to reach the same level of energy efficiency as "western" countries.
But that's only half the story. So much energy is simply wasted. It's really easy to see how China could become much more energy efficient. How about insulating houses and installing decent doors and windows for a start? How about enforcing traffic regulations in order to reduce congestion? How about maintaining car engines?
Apart from that, it's fairly well possible to produce energy from coal or oil in a much cleaner way. The technology has been available for decades, it's really commonplace all over the "western" world. We aren't talking about high tech here, simple filters would be a good start.
There are lots of things which can be done to reduce "the terrible killing smog that blankets China", as HK Dave puts it. The Chinese government doesn't even consider them seriously. Instead they're desperately trying to make people believe the Three Gorges Dam is a success. Even in China a lot of people don't fall for this.
No, I definitely agree that much more can be done. Regarding whether the Chinese government is taking the issue seriously or not, it depends on which part of the Chinese government you're talking about; for example, the Central Government to me appears that it does. At the end of the day it again comes down to how much command (or lack of) the Central government has over the local ones. And then you have swaths of selfish cold-blooded businessmen to deal with...
the problem with the dam is mainly ecological. the river ecosystem is cut off into two sections. HEP itself is a clean energy.
i disagree with ouli's comment about cost. the gorge project may be expensive judging by today's cost. but if oil/coal price rises in future (the power plant can last many many decades) the plant would prove to be more economical.
however, to agree with ouli, i myself am not very thrilled at this plant. (I prefer nuclear power plant) because on top of ecological cost, there is also potential lost in natural scenery/etc (tourism dollar), and other things that we could not predict yet. this is a significant change to nature.
re: ouli's question about $ / GDP output. i do not think this is a fair comparison.
e.g. exchange rate distorted GDP a lot, if one were to use PPP, china's efficiency increases by 4 folds.
it is just a meaningless comparison using this measure.
however, i do agree with the fact that there is significant waste and hence room for improvement in terms of energy efficiency in China. a lot more could be done even today (which were not done). one way to improve is to rationalize energy price.
when the project started china's energy consumption is perhaps 1/3 of what it is today, so the power of the gorge project accounts for almost 10% of the consumption back then.
i have some problem with the guardian report by the famous jonathan watts (remember taishi?). he is quite uncritical when compared to the usual "guardian standard".
"But the output is not as significant as had been originally imagined. At first, it was envisaged the dam would supply at least a 10th of the country's energy, but electricity supply has grown rapidly along with the economy, and by the end of this year, it will provide less than a 30th."
the output is the same as planned. it is just a smaller percent of the total consumption today.
the interfax article reported that the cost/kWh is 10 cents, and it will be sold at 3 cents, subsidized by govt.
(note even today's coal/oil generated power is subsidized as commodity price hiked recently).
so i did a simple calculation on the 10 cent number. (used some numbers from this site, http://www.threegorgesprobe.org/TgP/index.cfm?DSP=content&ContentID=15281)
cost to built = $22.5bn
most dam last over 100 years (eg Hoover). so let's use 100 year depreciation schedule.
power output = 100 bn kWh in full capacity.
so the (depr) cost per kWh is
22.5/100/100=$0.00225=0.225cents
let adds operating costs, maintenance, and generator cost/etc, which are not too much different from that of coal fired plants. there is no way the cost could become 10cents/kWh.
if the upfront investment is under 0.225 cents/kWh, less than 10% of the price. I do not see why it costs much more than fossil fuel, esp if there is no fuel cost.
If those beneficent central planners in Beijing simply had more powers of command and control over those provincial, shortsighted locals and those selfish, greedy businessmen, everything would be much, much better. In fact, it could be a "Worker's Paradise"!
Too funny!
The sacrifice of those millions who gave all so that the rest may have 10% cleaner air, aye that's noble!
After all, one must break a few eggs to make an omelette, comrade.
I think one can marvel at how one can achieve the greatest good for the greatest number through authoritarian government without buying into the philosophy. I am very much for democracy and for freedom, but I also have to recognize when authoritarian governments occasionally have a capacity to change things for the better in ways that would not be possible in a democratic polity.
Look, pollution is far from the only reason for building the three gorges dam project. But it doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out that harnessing hydroelectic power in a country almost wholly dependent on coal is a good thing.
I feel always a little astonished (not so much, really) when I see people who declare themselves "very much for democracy and for freedom" praising a dictatorship fo its "effectiveness".
As if democracy were only some sort of impediment and not the indispensable frame for a real development.
When western intellectuals visited Stalin's USSR they were so impressed by industrialisation and farming that they forgot, consciously or not, the nature of the regime. It was a big lie, of course.
History repeats itself and, once again, so many "freedom lovers" fall in love with authoritarian efficiency.
One million people displaced. Naaah,the cost of the progress!
I suspect you would't be so indulgent if TGD were an American or a British project.
Projects of overwhelming size and sometimes doubtful value pockmark Chinese imperial history -- Grand Canal, Great Wall, etc. The lure of one's name "eternally" cast in the annals of history is a powerful lure and most assuredly not a modern phenomenon.
Rich Kuslan, Editor
Asia Business Intelligence
www.asiabizblog.com
I believe in democracy. But I also grew up in Singapore. While as a non-citizen and a teenager I stood outside of the political landscape, it was obvious to me in my decade there in the 1980s that the city was transformed, through authoritarian government, from a sleazy, backward Asian port city into a dramatic success story that has inspired developing nations from around the world.
Tough problems often require tough solutions. In democratic and poorer developing states such as India, democracy is inevitably wedded with populism and political machines that subvert the ability of government to make difficult decisions that would improve the overall quality of life of the people (witness Bombay, for instance). Authoritarian governments can be awful too. But when they also have a basic desire to improve the lot of their people, rather than just being content with the usual oligarchic kleptocracy, they can accomplish a great deal that democratic governments cannot.
I only have in principle two reservations with benign authoritarianism. The first is the mindset that it engenders - it can be stultifying beyond a certain point for the education and mindset of people in a country in terms of their creativity and ability to express themselves. The second, and I think bigger problem is simply the issue of regime change and legitimacy. The biggest benefit of democracy in my view is that it provides an orderly, usually bloodless method for regime change within a certain time period. Benign authoritarian regimes do not have this mechanism, especially necessary when they become, in the view of the majority of the people, not so benign. The problem of legitimacy when 'good' authoritarian regimes turn 'bad' is one that ultimately undermines the benefits they offer, particularly in more advanced countries where my first problem (that of lack of a creative spark) is a major issue as they transition from manufacturing towards being service, creativity and information-based economies.
So back to this Dam issue - I think there is a knee-jerk reaction to condemn most big projects coming out of China, particularly one that tramples on the rights of some of its own people. The Three Gorges Dam has received so much universally bad press in the West, that I would like for us to take a step back, and just ask, could it be that this project has some benefits as well? I can certainly see some modicum of good, from a self-interested point of view, from there being less air pollution.
"declare themselves "very much for democracy and for freedom" praising a dictatorship fo its "effectiveness"."
Only the simple minded child will believe in one-dimensional characters in moveis, and in real world:
i.e. everything a dictator does is bad, and everything a democracy does is good. balck and white, no need to apply one's own critical mind.
look at US/Iraq and Singapore for counter-examples, loads of.
no, i do not have faith. i am agnostic.
I just believe there is no black and white. many things are greyer than you would like to think. i believe so because there are facts to support them, not on faith. i will change my believe any minute if new facts are found.
Repressive regime can do good things.
US, for example, can be repressive in Middle East and Guantanamo. But US has done a lot of great things, including saving the world from the evil axis in WWII.
i used to believe US stands for fairness and freedom. but Dubya continuously disappointed me. I used to believe overthrowing CCP is the only way to change China, but the turned out to be not totally repressive.
no, i do not have faith. i am agnostic.
I just believe there is no black and white. many things are greyer than you would like to think. i believe so because there are facts to support them, not on faith. i will change my believe any minute if new facts are found.
Repressive regime can do good things.
US, for example, can be repressive in Middle East and Guantanamo. But US has done a lot of great things, including saving the world from the evil axis in WWII.
i used to believe US stands for fairness and freedom. but Dubya continuously disappointed me. I used to believe overthrowing CCP is the only way to change China, but they turned out to be not totally repressive.
I don't have more faith in authoritarian regimes than in democratic ones. I don't take anything on faith, in fact, and much more from results and consequences.
I understand you probably come from a European background, where terrible events in living memory make any acknowledgement of the legitimacy of any authoritarian regime difficult (although Merkel, Chirac, Blair or previously, Berlusconi didn't seem to have a big problem in negotiating with China).
However, I simply think that to say they are a priori evil without rationally considering how they may actually be good for the lives of the people they represent seems to me, unexamined thinking.
And yes, I have to agree with Sun Bin that the democracies of the world have hardly been setting the world alight by example, and if nothing else has demonstrated that ignorant, smug stupidity caused by nepotism can happen in democracies too. I feel that democratic idealism will come back to American political life after Dubya finally leaves office, but for now the 'shining beacon from the house on the hill' has gone dim.
Yes, it's obvious that we come from very different backgrounds.
I can't suppress an impulse of repulsion every time I hear, see or read educated people defending despotism.
I believe in democracy, freedom, individual rights, open society. There's no room for relativism in these matters. I'm sorry.
As Rich says, "Projects of overwhelming size and sometimes doubtful value pockmark Chinese imperial history". The three gorges was originally a Sun Yat-sen project !
The wikipedia page is quite complete, but looks really like it has been built by westerners...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three_Gorges_Dam
Good to hear, the measures are being undertaken for the health of public. Better option for the people would be to follow what ll be told in the announcement. Everyone knows that precaution is better than cure, and offcourse honey, it ll help you live longer.
"60% plagiarism rate" is quite not surprising. I can tell you recruiting skilled inspectors to visit factories is not that easy. And the chinese job market is so flexible that it is hard to have the right pressure on employees to garantee trust and honesty from candidates.
Every typhoon has a silver lining. Chanchu, one mother of a storm, has steered clear of Hong Kong. Not by co-incidence, today is one of the clearest, pollution free days the city has had in a long time.
I am sure we are all aware of the massive friction that has arisen between the Vatican and China on the issue of the appointment of Bishops in China. Obviously, a 2,000 year old organization has always appointed its own bishops and metropolitans, and sees no reason to change. The Communist Party of China, although far younger but more confident and feeling the weight of 6,000 years of history on its side, sees no reason to budge and allow a foreign power outside of their control to choose leading members of an important non-governmental organization (the Catholic Church either).
Typical of comments from Beijing are those of Liu Bainian, whose quote below gives you some idea of my choice of title:
"The current prosperous development of the Chinese Catholic church owes totally to China's long-term practice of selecting and ordaining its own bishops and independently managing the churches, " said Liu Bainian, vice-president of the China Patriotic Catholic Association, during an exclusive interview with Xinhua on Tuesday.
"This is the arrangement of the Christ."
China now has a total of 5 million followers nationwide, in sharp comparison with 2.7 million in 1958, according to statistics released by the association.
"The development of the Chinese Catholic church in the past 20 years has greatly exceeded that of the 300 years before," said Liu.
In the history of the Catholic church, he said, a bishop can be selected by believers, appointed by an emperor and consecrated by the neighboring diocese.
"The practice for the pope to install a bishop started just about two centuries ago," he said.
But Mr. Liu is only partly correct. The Pope and the Vatican in Rome has always had control and some say in the appointment and approval of every bishop and archbishop. As flawed as the Catholic system has proven itself over the past two millennia, the idea is that the Popes represent an unbroken line of authority stretching back to St. Peter and to 'the Christ' Himself. Their approval is therefore a necessary part of a church that considers itself Catholic, rather than Anglican where Henry VIII of England, for instance, considered himself the head of the Church of England, and had to fully break with the Vatican as a result.
Naturally, this debate boils right down to control over Chinese civil society, and whether the Chinese government will tolerate any form of civil pluralism or alternate authority hierarchies in the country, or whether the corporatist model it has adopted will dominate social and even religious life in China, in all its aspects, for the forseeable future.
Maybe China should just break with the Vatican officially and form its own 'Sinican' (as opposed to Anglican Church) since it appoints its own bishops anyway. Or should we call it the Cynical Church?
"the idea is that the Popes represent an unbroken line of authority stretching back to St. Peter and to 'the Christ' Himself."
Thats the idea, but the Vatican is essentially trying to maintain a myth. There have been numerous instances where mundane authorities have inject themselves into the perogatives of the Church. In one case, raising their own pontiff and having multiple popes excommunicate one another. Maybe China should try that. Create their own college of cardinals, elect their own pope, and excommunicate the one in Rome. It would be carrying on a fine French tradition. :P
Anyways, I'm not too partial to "Sinican" church. I think they would should simply be Episcopalians, the quasi-papists. :D
Yes Jing, I quite agree that the Papal system is far from infallible, but I would actually argue that it is less fallible today in an era where there are 1 billion devotees (in large part thanks to the ban on rubbers etc) and more public scrutiny exists of the church from media, society, and both believers and outsiders. Even with the evidence of widespread pedophilia in the American Catholic church, as you mention the amount of abuse in the past was far greater.
But as you also seem to have rightly noted, my support for the institutions of the church itself, as a deist, are never much more than tepid. Episcopalians are basically Anglicans that got a divorce from the Church of England in the American Revolution. I would like it if Chinese Catholics became Episcopalian too - the trouble seems to be that the CCP would simply not tolerate any outgrowth of civil society free from their control. That is, really, my main point with the comment...
For modern-day mainland Chinese, does the goal and one's pursuit of it validate any means of obtaining it, including the purposeful obscuration of the truth?
In short, does the ends justify the means? Given the boom in China's efforts to lure research dollars and a greater share of the outsourcing trend, these findings could be disturbing. But it could also be the start of something. Japan grew wealthy partly by becoming extremely good at copying Western technology and then improving on it, for example by miniaturisation. By imitating this technology, they mastered it and evenetually developed their own innovations. Other countries have done the same.
It now appears China is well qualified in the copying area. The innovation and improvement parts might have a way to go. What's most impressive is this guy was caught and it was published, rather than swept under the carpet and kept quiet.
Hey! so what even if Chinese are copy cats. Everyone thinks for their best. Fair or foul means hardly matters if you are benefitting out of it. And you what imitating is also an art.
I guess I come from a part of the world were originality matters. But I would like the world to start treating China with some hefty skepticism. Otherwise, weér all in for some bad weather. I would just point out that if other companies treat their resigning employees the way mine has treated me, then I am sure there are a whole tribe of grousing, fed up people in Hong Kong. Why don't bpeople do something about their situations in a positive way? Instead of spnosoring lying, as Loy seems to be doing.
Someone told me that there are many reports of merchants several centuries ago having their wares copied by the Chinese. Though branding wasn't quite what it is today... it shows the concept of 'Original Work' just isn't an Asian one...
Not to say there aren't Asian people making highly original and innovative contributions to the world at large... they, I feel, are the exception though.
China has a long long way to go before it gets it on innovation. Until its schools start encouraging free thought, as opposed to rote memorization, it isn't going to happen. And how do you get teachers who can teach that way when they themselves have been taught another way? I am not an educator but this must take time.
I like your comment about how we do need to be impressed with China outing this guy and not sweeping it under the rug.
I disagree with the Humanaught who seems to be argue that copying is in the genetic code of all Asians.
Thank you for your blogger about football,I’d like to exchange message with you:
Motto of different country FIFA2006 world cup team
1.We are football >Germany
2.orange on the road to gold Netherlands
3.Liberte,Egalite,Jules Rimet >France
4.Never-ending legend,united Korea
5.2006,It's Swiss o'clock
6.A passion to win and a thirst to succeed
7.angola lead the way,our team is our people
8.get up,argentina are on the move
9.australia's socceroos-bound for glory
10.vehicle monitored by 180 million brazilian heart
11.our army is the team,our weapon is the ball,let's get to germany and give it our all Costarica
12.ecuador my life,football my passion,the cup my goal
13.come on the elephants!win the cup in style
14.one nation,one trophy,eleven lions ENGLAND
15.go black stars,the stars of our world > Ghana
16.stars of Persia
17.blue pride,italy in our hearts
18.light up your samurai spirit Japan
19.to the finals with fire in our hearts "> Croatia
20.aztec passion across the world
21.from the heart of america...this is the guarani spirit
22.white and red,dangerous and brave >Poland
23.with a flag in the window and a nation on the pitch,forca Portugal
24.the green hawks cannot be stopped > Saudi Arabia
25.fight!show spirit!come on!you have the support of everyone >Sweden
26.for the love of the game
27.spain,one country,one goal
28 with our support,ukraine cannot fail to win
29.here come the soca warriors-the fighting spirit of the Caribbean
30.belief and a lion's strength,for victory and our fans > Czech
31.the carthage eagles...higher and stronger than ever
32.united we play,united we win>UNITED STATE
Dr Han (Super football fans) content fromwww.fifaworldcup-yahoo.co.uk
PAIN IN BRISTOL-- www.backachetherapy.co.uk
...But Naomi Simmons, whose books do not appear on any sales charts, has outsold him [Dan Brown, author of Da Vinci Code] by more than two to one.
Simmons, from Shenley in Hertfordshire, north of London, is the author of "New Standard English," a series of text books for primary school children that has sold 105 million copies in China. But unlike Brown, who has earned US$425 million from royalties for his novels, Simmons took a fixed payment of US$272,000.
Simmons and her co-authors became a phenomenon in China after the Ministry of Education decreed in 2001 that English should be taught in schools. Her book published by Macmillan English and FLTRP, the publishing house of Beijing University has inspired a generation of Chinese schoolchildren to sing songs about how the British use knives and forks rather than chopsticks.
I'm hoping Simmons' book has a better ending than Da Vinci Code. And who's bought the movie rights? I'll bet Ms Simmons never again opts for the fixed payment rather than a royalty.
Wow, poor Ms. Simmons! What a mistake that fixed rate turned out to be, huh? Oh, well -- hindsight and all that. I'm sure $272,000 for a children's English text seemed like a small fortune at the time.
Chaos hit the Shenzhen border late last week, all thanks to a sub-market subsidy and canny traders. Picture below the jump, report from the SCMP:
Fuel shortages in Shenzhen brought chaos to the Huanggang border checkpoint yesterday, with a queue of container trucks several kilometres long all but bringing traffic in the area to a standstill. A Shenzhen government spokesman denied there was a fuel shortage, but truck drivers complained they could not fill up in Shenzhen or Dongguan.
"It has been like this for two weeks. But today it is particularly serious because it is a Friday and many container drivers returned to work after the May 1 holiday," Cheung Man-shing, a container driver from Hong Kong, said. Another container driver said the service station at Huanggang was rationing drivers to 50 yuan worth of diesel. "Some drivers have to queue up twice to fill up," he said.
Tse Long, vice-president of the Container Transportation Employees General Union, said long-distance drivers had encountered the same problem a month ago.
Service station operators had been limiting drivers' purchases because the government would not let them raise prices in line with increases in wholesale fuel prices. "The service stations have enough fuel for drivers. But they figured that they would rather keep the fuel than sell it at a loss," said Mr Tse.
The government is claiming there is no shortage, and they're right. There's enough fuel, but thanks to the cap on pricing the station owners are refusing to sell. Just chalk it up to another lesson in markets for our Communist friends.
This was happening in Guangzhou about 8 months ago. LONG lines all over the city, as everyone was vying for a tank of gasoline. Same issue...stations were selling at a loss, so they were rationing the amount anyone could purchase at any given time.
I had read somewhere that fuel subsidies in China are a significant part of the national budget...and the government has been trying to figure out how to get out of paying for the cost of fuel...especially with oil at $70 a barrel.
"Yahoo Chairman and Chief Executive Terry Semel, speaking at an event, said it had no choice but to comply with local laws and did not have the power to change Chinese policy."
This of course is complete bollux because it was Yahoo! Hong Kong that handed information across the border to a jurisdiction that had no legal claim on it.
When you're at the losing end of an ideological battle, what's the best thing you can do? Why not turn your loss into a victory, simply by wishing it to be so? In today's edition of tortured logic, the SCMP reports:
Economic globalisation will help revive the international socialist movement on its path towards inevitable success over capitalism, according to a leading central government think-tank. But mainland analysts have questioned the conclusions in the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences' Yellow Book on World Socialism, saying they represent only the self-contradictory views of a few leftist scholars.
Academy vice-president Li Shenming unveiled the book yesterday at a seminar on leftist thinking in Beijing, according to the academy's website. It marks the latest stand in a leftist backlash against China's economic reforms..."The international socialist movement is at its low point, but the advance of economic globalisation will provide the material foundation and social conditions for its revival," China News Service quoted the book as saying. "The world socialist movement has not only withstood the powerful impact of the sudden political change in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe, but also revived and progressed. It is an invincible principle that socialist societies will grow from weak to prosperous and strong and eventually surpass and win over capitalism."
The book also takes aim at the United States, lashing out at its expansion of political, economic, military and diplomatic power."The new national security strategy in the US is likely to pose the biggest threat to China's economic security. China must be put on full alert to the realistic threats posed by the US' `soft war' offensive," it warned. Hu Xingdou , a Beijing-based political scientist, said the book's findings could be interpreted as China developing a new definition of socialism, different from the authoritarian Soviet system.
"It is true that the international socialist movement has been at a low ebb and there have been various understandings of the definition of socialism," he said.
Professor Hu said it would be right to say that socialism had revived itself in a different form, which allowed people more freedom and offered protection of their personal property.
Liu Junning , a former political researcher at the academy, was more critical of the book. "The findings showed the leftist academics who contributed to the book were confused themselves," Professor Liu said. "It is ridiculous and wishful to say that globalisation, a product of the capitalist market economy, can help China revive the international socialist movement. It is simply a way to boost their own morale."
There's a prize if anyone can work out how socialism is poised for a global revival and eventual triumph over capitalism thanks to globalisation. Most impressive is the section in bold - socialism being redefined to allow for people more freedom and private property. Extra prizes to entrants from North Korea and Cuba, who's examples of socialism give us all something to admire.
If globalisation (ie the free movement of people, goods, services and ideas between countries) leads to the "inevitable" success over capitalism, I'll move to North Korea.
There's always been, in communist revolutionary forecasting, the possibility/hope/expectation/myth/potential for the "success" of capitalism to finally unveil the seeds of its downfall by "going too far to be tolerable to the masses"..... we're still waiting, mind you, but the theory is unfalsifiable.
People's dissatisfaction with news magazines climbed to 42 per cent last month, according to the latest poll by the University of Hong Kong. Robert Chung Ting-yiu, programme director, said people's appraisal of the news media in general dropped to 49 per cent over the past six months, mainly due to growing dissatisfaction with the print media. "Over the last six months, people's satisfaction with newspapers dropped by 7 percentage points, while their dissatisfaction with news magazines climbed to 42 per cent, which is a record high since this survey series started in 1993," Dr Chung said.
Satisfaction with newspapers was down to 31 per cent, while satisfaction with television increased by two points to 73 per cent...Fifty-five per cent said television was the most trustworthy source of news, the same level as the October survey. Sixteen per cent trusted newspapers the most, up by 1 per cent from the last survey. The figure was 14 per cent for radio and 3 per cent for the internet. Less than 1 per cent found news magazines the most trustworthy.
That makes this site 3 times more trustworthy the The Economist. It would be churlish to point out the irony of this report appearing in the pages of the SCMP.
Looking to impress your friends at the next dinner party? In our high brow China reading department, try the American Foreign Policy Council paper on China's Africa Strategy. Don't thank me for raising your IQ.
But i want to thanx for the idea. And i really felt good to know about the friendly relations between the two.Anyways waiting to know more about the strategy.
I know its bit silly to ask but wud Africa China strategy really be helpful in impressing a friend at the dinner party?
Waiting to know more about the strategy!!!!!!!!
The SCMP is Cathay Pacific's in-house newsletter. The top of the front page leads with the heroic story of passengers that stuggled through a Cathay flight where the air-conditioning had broken down: A London-bound Cathay Pacific flight was forced to return to Hong Kong after a faulty air conditioning valve left more than 200 passengers gasping for air for four hours. Cabin crew fanned distressed passengers and gave them iced towels. Some lay down in the aisles. Yes, that's front page news.
The article heavily relies on an interview with Amisha Hira, age 26, who provides us our first quote of the day:
"My driver in economy class told me the situation was even worse there, with at least two people lying down in the walkway."
Those poor plebs in economy.
Staying on the Cathay theme, the second quote of the day comes from Bobo Chan, a Cathay flight attendant (not stewardess). She tells the SCMP:
Her two children, aged four and 12, also receive the benefits until they reach the age of 23. She said she takes her children to a hospital at least eight to 10 times a month.
Do you now understand why Hong Kong's hospital system has a serious problem?
Why all this coverage of Cathay? Could it be a co-incidence that Cathay is one of the SCMP's top advertisers?
Not all is bad - Apparently the Chinese government has compensated a family for the loss of their son after he was arrested and beaten to death by police during the 1989 demonstrations.
Are you a geeky tech kind of person who loves writing and picking up some easy cash? Then please read this from CNet Asia:
We're actually looking for someone who can write in English on the personal tech/IT lifestyle scene in Hong Kong, about twice a week.
It's more a passion and an opportunity to showcase the SAR's tech scene
usingthe CNET Asia platform rather than a livelihood as we're paying a
token amount.
If that sounds like you and you could use a token payment in return for your IT blogging expertise, please leave a comment or send me an email and I'll put you in touch. As a special offer to readers, I'll waive my typical spotter's fee.
The folks at Marginal Revolution have turned in not just one but two different but interesting posts.
Firstly they point to an LA Times article on the village of Renhe, where villagers took advantage of a loophole in a government regulation by getting divorced to qualify for better housing as compensation for their land, only for the government to change the rules. It'd be funny if it weren't so sad that many elderly villages have been screwed thanks to a government cock-up.
Behavioral economic research has tended to ignore the role of cultural differences in economic decision-making. The authors suggest that a systematic bias affects existing behavioral economic theory - cognitive biases are often assumed to be universal. To examine how cultural background informs economic decision-making, and to test framing effects, morality effects, and out-group effects in a cross-cultural study, the authors conducted an experiment in the United States and China. The experiment was designed to test cultural and cognitive effects on a fundamental economic phenomenon - how people estimate the financial values of objects over time.
Results of the experiment demonstrated dramatic cultural differences in financial value estimations, as well as on the influence of variables such as framing effects. Chinese participants made higher object value estimates than Americans did, even when adjusting for differing national inflation rates. In addition, the results showed that contextual information, such as framing, morality information, and group membership affected judgments of financial values in complex ways, particularly for Chinese participants. The results underscore the importance of understanding the influence of cultural background on economic decision-making. The authors discuss the results in the context of behavioral law and economics, and propose that importing cultural competence into behavioral models can lead to cognitive debiasing, both temporary and permanent.
Thirdly, Sam Crane points to a comparison between Singapore and China, which includes the stunning and thought provoking line In comparison [to Singapore], China is a paradise of academic freedom. Add another to Hemlock's pathetic Singapore list. The rest of the article is a look inside Tsinghua University, one of the country's elite places of learning, and how one academic finds teaching a potentailly fraught topic: politics.
There, you just learnt three new things today. No need to thank me.
I looked at that paper on culture and behavioural economics/finance and found it to be one of those papers where the isolation of variables was poor and the conclusions didn't match the data.
Interesting topic, but I was concerned when the authors suggested that Kahnemann & Tversky were advocating their positions as universal regardless of culture. I've never heard Kahnemann or Thaler or Shleifer or Prelec suggest anything of the sort.
As for the data provided in the paper, the isolation of the valuation changes for various "commodities" only in relation to inflation? Give me a break. Beyond the questionable data on inflation from China over the last 10 years, there are also serious questions as to whether the valuation change of a gold coin or antique chair or government-issued bond would differ in a 1:1 relation to inflation in either the US or China.
And even with some of the data presented showing gradations of difference, which aren't properly isolated, the generalised conclusions provided by Kahnemann & Tversky still held 100%.
A few bits of Hong Kong news that, cobbled together, make up today's post.
1. There's been a fuss in recent days over the discovery that...prepare yourself...Hong Kong school kids cheat in their exams. In the English exam, the examinations authority gave the website that quotes were sourced from. Crafty students nicked off for toilet breaks, used their web enabled phones to look up the website and thus had all the answers for the fill-in-the-blanks questions on the paper. Naturally there's been an uproar, but I can't see why. If a pimply 18 year old student is able to out smart the worthies from the government education bureaucracy that set the exams, they should get full credit for their efforts. The exam rules did not, as far as I can tell, ban students from using their phones in this way while outside the examination room. If the exam setters are so stupid as to put URLs on the paper and the supervisors can't control the kids with their phones, they are the ones that should be punished, not the kids.
2. Better air quality top priority for Hong Kong's Environmental Protection Department. That's a relief. But maybe charity begins at home. A disturbing report says that a staggering 86% of kids admitted to hospital with respiratory problems have dads that smoke at home. The mums find it too difficult to stand up for their kids' lungs at a risk of dmoestic tension with their chimney husbands.
4. While on government subsidised boondoggles, Cyberport bursts to a massive 54% occupancy rate...at least in the corporate area, which is what was used to justify the project in the first place. Meanwhile PCCW's massive residential property developments are going great guns and with a far higher occupancy rate.
The SCMP's Sunday magazine leads with an article titled "Million-dollar babies", where Simon Parry and Hazel Knowles "investigate" and find it costs a lot of money to raise kids, ergo to urge to procreate is being superceded by the urge to recreate. The article leads with the staggering estimate reached by Janice and Louis from Tai Tam, that their new baby Luke will cost them HK$11.67 million. This implausibly precise number comes thanks to Louis, a private equities dealer. A man with almost as much time on his hands as bloggers, I would welcome a look at his no doubt comprehensive spreadsheet analysis. Some of the numbers of Luke's cost to age 26:
1. Kindergarten........$252,000
2. Schooling.............$1.8 million
3. Higher education...$3.2 million (overseas, naturally)
4. Food....................$949,650
5. Clothes................$1.87 million
6. Transport.............$438,000
7. Pocket money......$720,000
8. Glasses...............$176,000
9. Dentistry.............$100,000
10. Language/music lessons................$832,000
Why age 26? Apparently that's the cut-off for kids to get on their feet these days. Forget about working part time as Luke studies in high school and uni. His folks have already decided the kid will need specs (I seem to manage with one pair of glasses for 3 years at a time, which makes one wonder what kind of specs they're planning to put on this kid). Lucky Luke will get more in pocket money than most Hong Kongers earn. Assuming Louis and Janice (an MD in an ad agency) have a combined income of $2 million (no doubt a very conservative estimate), they're earning $52 million over the next 26 years to cover this outrageous parasite of a baby.
Later Louis admits they could raise Luke on the cheap, for a total of $2.61 million. That's no doubt the no-private-school, no-pocket-money, one-pair-of-specs, hole-in-shoes, stinky-breath estimate. I wonder if Louis's estimates on his private equity deals vary so much?
The article continues the myth that money is what matters when it comes to having babies. Yet the notion is clearly wrong - poorer countries and poorer people generally have more babies, not less. These "costs" of having kids are often blown out of proportion. In Hong Kong schooling can be almost free or subsidised for the vast majority of residents. The city boasts some excellent tertiary institutions. That's saving you $5 million already. If you want kids, the financial burden is rarely a deciding factor.
What are the more likely factors? Growing wealth means people feel less need to have kids as an insurance policy, to support them in old age. Better health systems means lower infant mortality, so you don't need "strength in numbers". Social mores are changing and the decision to not have kids has become far more accepted than any time in the past. A plethora of distractions and alternatives have made the decision tougher too. Hong Kongers live, on average, in 500 square foot apartments. That's not especially condusive to kids. The city's growing pollution problems are another factor. The list goes on.
The decline in birth rates is happening everywhere. It's not a crisis. Greater immigration is one obvious solution. Better child-care, improving government schools, curbing pollution can all help. Does it really matter to people's well being? If people are feeling better off, then not having a following generation to support them becomes a non-issue. Look at Japan - its population has already started to fall, just as everyone's getting excited about that country's economic recovery. What we need to get used to is nominal growth rates may become static or even decline, but per capita rates continuing to increase. In short, those of us who are left on this good planet will continue to enjoy better living standards. And we won't have to share it with as many people.
Having a child is one of the biggest decisions any couple can make. Governments and do-gooders have no place in the privacy of a couple's bedroom. That includes in the decision to mate. Campaigns to encourage people to have kids are a waste of money. Who's ever heard of someone deciding to have a kid because they saw a Planned Parenthood poster?
My kids enjoy Chicken Little. The birth rate "debate" is a classic example of "the sky is falling" - people assume the decline in birth rates are a bad thing without knowing why. It's a piece of conventional wisdom in the worst sense. It's different to what humanity's been used to, but that doesn't make it bad.
We're just not making kids how we used to. And we're not making parents how we used to, either. Memo for Louis, Janice and Luke - if the high estimate proves to be out, I've got 3.9 kids of my own that are happy to take any leftovers.
What fumier said, Simon. And as a papa with only one child, I'd say that any potential parential units that try to put a financial price on parenthood aren't fit to breed.
Today, buried deep in the SCMP, comes the investigations results:
Test results on vegetable samples from supermarket chains following pesticide claims were satisfactory, the government said yesterday. The tests were conducted after Greenpeace said last month that some vegetables sold at two major supermarket chains contained banned pesticides and excessive levels of other chemicals.
Mak Sin-ping, of the Centre for Food Safety, was satisfied by the test results, saying: "Let's say if some indicators were passed, it does not automatically mean the sample is poisonous. It depends on the quantity that was eaten."
A government spokesman said: "The testing method was also in accordance with Codex Alimentarius Commission's guidelines as well as international practice. That means tests were conducted on the whole edible portion of the vegetable...The 39 samples were tested for 70 pesticides.
Much ado about nothing and all that. Funny how it doesn't seem to get the same headlines. Anyone seen Greenpeace's press release?
One thing though - did the govt test the same vegetable samples that Greenpeace tested? I couldn't figure that out from the SCMP article. It's one thing to test completely different samples and say there's nothing to worry about, it's another to test the same samples and say it's all ok.
Time to bump up the ratings using that old adage that "sex sells". From the SCMP, a comparison of Chinese and Western preferences in sex toys. The main article discusses how one family got their start in the business, realising that yet again Chinese made sex toys could be cheaper but just as good as foreign models (pardon the pun). Far better is the breakout article:
The Chinese are much more adventurous than Europeans and Americans when it comes to sex toys, said Wu Hui , chairman of Wenzhou Adam and Eve Health Products. "It's strange. Among the countries we export to - developed countries in Europe and the Americas - they like simplicity. In China, they want more functions."...
At one of the company's shops in Wenzhou , a middle-aged woman clerk proudly shows products to a customer. "Before I worked here, I had never seen these things before," she said. Despite a lack of customers on a recent morning, she claimed that all the types of products on display had found buyers. "Someone has bought everything, even these," she said, gesturing to a pile of leather garments adorned with metal.
Holding up an item labelled the Erotic Butterfly, she said: "This is suitable for young ladies." She then moved on to demonstrate several other products. Customers who make it through the door are not usually embarrassed. One day last winter, a man bought an inflatable doll and declared he needed it to keep warm.
But even the clerk admitted she felt embarrassed sometimes. Dropping her voice to a whisper even though there was no one else in the store, she pointed to a device displayed in a sealed glass cabinet and said: "Someone from Shandong bought this once."
Those crazy people from Shandong. Could exotic sex tours of Chinese provinces be far behind? It would give new meaning to "Golden Week".
Another great successes story from China. I am always glad to read how someone starts with an idea and turns it into something profitable. Some pics would be great next time!
I just offered JC and BL their choice of breakfast cereals: Frosties, Nutri Grain or museli. Both took museli. What's happened to kids these days? They're actually rejecting the sugar coated stuff for the health food.
Mrs M and I are engaged in a serious debate. Our hardy PC is now a stately 3 years old and is showing its age. As our thoughts turn to updating, the natural question becomes "now Macs are actually on the radar screen, do we make the jump"? Now I know there are two types of people in the world: Macaddicts and PCaphiles. But I need help....your help. We've spoken to the people from the Apple shop in Central (moderately helpful but no real answers...and why does Apple make it so hard to find people that sell and can explain their stuff?). But I need input from people who've used a PC and then a Mac and what their experiences were in converting.
We use our PC primarily for: email, internet, web-cam/video conferencing with the folks in Oz, music (iPod and a Sony), limited word processing and spreadsheets, photos, some scanning, some kids games. There's other stuff but these are the main tasks. The PC is adequate for these tasks and we back up the photos and music regularly to an external hard drive. One option is for us to just upgrade our current PC, and that's not a bad option. But we feel it's right to at least look at Macs, given those that use are so adamant they are better.
My questions are simple:
1. How easy is it to convert from PC to Mac, especially in importing photos, music and email?
2. What can we keep from the current setup, especailly peripherals?
3. What are the real benefits of Macs? Why the fuss? And what are the pitfalls of Macs (there must be some)?
4. Is there a big learning curve in going from PC to Macs?
5. Are our PC files and programs generally runnable on Macs (e.g. Word and Excel files)?
6. What kind of Mac is right for us?
7. What the hell is .Mac and is it worth it? We currently use Now broadband.
8. What additional software will we need to buy for the Mac?
Thanks in advance for any help you can give. In the meantime I'm going to keep on loading all these CDs onto iTunes.
2. Everything, basically, all you peripherals should be mac compatible, though you should check that first.
3. It looks good, and is easier to use. Apart from that, there really isn't any real differences between a PC and a Mac. Oh yeah, there are less viruses floating around for Mac, Viruscan problems for Mac are almost redundant.
4. 1 day.
5. You can get Mac versions of Office 2004.
6. Mac is coming out with new intel based processors, might want to wait for them. On the other hand, there are PC's now with dual-intel processors! :)
7. What the hell is .Mac?!
8. Nothing, Mac comes with basically everything you need on iLife. The rest you can get open-sourced. ie. Most people use firefox for browsing etc.
I was a Mac guy till I moved to China in 1995, and had to go PC for corporate reasons. I stayed away until 2003, bought the 17" PowerBook, and now we have 3 Macs in the house.
I'd agree on everything that from the first comment, with a few add-ons:
A. The real benefits of Mac are hard to explain, but the way I put it is that a Mac on OS X gets the computer out of the way and just lets you get on with whatever you want to do. That is SO much the case, in fact, that you'll find yourself doing things on a Mac you never would have tried on a PC because the Mac just makes doing so easier.
B. Additional software - take the plunge and buy Office for Mac 2004 - it's a lot more fun to work with than Office2003.
C. There are also other extremely cool applications that you'll find along the way. For example, I use NoteBook by Circus Ponies as an idea catch-all, CopyWrite as a non-nonsense writing tool, VisualThesaurus as my vocabulary and diction assistant, etc etc. None of it set me back more than US$50, and they're superb.
D. I use .Mac and so does my wife. It doesn't give you internet access, but it does provide some interesting services. I won't tout you - some poeple find it worthwhile and others don't. Do check it out, and maybe try a trial membership.
E. Pick up a copy of "Mac OSX - The Missing Manual (Third Edition)" by David Pogue from Pogue Press/O'Rielly. You won't need it to figure out how to use the Mac, but you'll WANT it to find the hundreds of extremely cool little features hidden in the system. I actually picked up a copy of the book before I switched back, and by the end of the first chapter I was convinced.
I'd suggest looking at the apple site first (www.apple.com/macosx/switch/ ), then going to somewhere like www.macosxhints.com which is one of the best community forums for macs around.
1. How easy is it to convert from PC to Mac, especially in importing photos, music and email?
very easy.
2. What can we keep from the current setup, especailly peripherals?
it depends on what they are and what mac you buy. if you have a good monitor and mouse/keyboard, and want to keep using them, and don't need monster amounts of power, a macmini would be fine, and the peripherals would plug straight in. macs are all usb2, firewire, airport (wireless)/bluetooth.
?3. What are the real benefits of Macs? Why the fuss? And what are the pitfalls of Macs (there must be some)?
amazingly easy to use, consistent interface and use of interface throughout (especially if you're into using the keyboard for everything), no viruses, trojans, worms etc (no, really, even the two this year after the intels were released required either high levels of idiocy on the part of the user, or were proof-of-concept that required a string of very specific workflows, applications used in particular order...). rock-solid unix core, which means very rare application crashes, and even rarer complete system crashes, and no need to shut down). excellent integration of applications, like mail, address book, ical (calendar), safari, and with plugins available (like mail-tags, saft, pithhelmet), and automator (like a point-and-click scriptwriter for things you do regularly) makes it even better. great, really spectacular software, like the iLife set of itunes, idvd, imovie, garageband, iphoto, the iwork set of pages (fairly good word replacement if you don't make use of stuff like master layout in word) and keynote (powerpoint), isync use with your phone, ipod, network account (.mac or other).
?4. Is there a big learning curve in going from PC to Macs?
no, but after five years of everything from the desktop to the murky depths of terminal i still find so many new things almost every day.
?5. Are our PC files and programs generally runnable on Macs (e.g. Word and Excel files)?
the files yes. mac handles pc documents generally well (the reverse is not so true). all the usual file types are cross-platform. the pc apps won't work on mac unless a) they were released as an iso disk (having both pc and mac software on one, ) or b) you run emulator software like virtualpc. office (word, powerpoint, excel, etc) is available for mac, and is pretty good, but for a wordprocessing app, it handles fonts not so good (mac on the other hand is good with fonts).
?6. What kind of Mac is right for us?
either the macmini (max out the drive, get a 5400rpm drive you will notice the difference, make sure it has bluetooth, airport, around 768mb of ram, dvd burner if yours isn't compatible). or the imac.
?7. What the hell is .Mac and is it worth it? We currently use Now broadband.
a network storage facility/web host space/remote backup/email thing. is it worth it? some people love it, for me it's like exposé, dashboard and a few other mac things i never use, nothing you can't do a dozen other ways.
?8. What additional software will we need to buy for the Mac?
your mac should come with ilife, which will cover everything you do. maybe microsoft office, and a few useful utilities like ecto for blogging, saft, pithhelmet (for making safari browser a complete joy) netnewswire for rss, there's so many really good free utilities, check macupdate or versiontracker
Thanks for all the info. The biggest stumbling block remains the web-cam....all the family use MSN Messenger and that's not Mac compatible from what I can gather. Anyone know if that's likely to change?
It is likely than many of your peripherals will work. If you go with one of the new dualcore iMacs it comes with an iCam built in so you won't need the old web cam.
Your Office documents should work fine - once you buy the Mac version. If you are fond of using a lot of decorative fonts on the PC in your spreadsheets they might pose a formatting problem!!
Your kids pc games wont run unless you set it up to boot in Windows. (I can't imagine why one would want that)
As for the transfer, Apple has worked hard to make that as easy as possible - for obvious reason.
If you're going to look at one of the Intel chip Macs because it can run Windows, give some thought into how much time you're likely to be running XP vs OSX. If you're going to be in Windows most of the time paying the premium for a Mac might not be a good investment.
As for the benefit of going MAC, well the Mac was made for users like you. Photos, music, video, the internet and little MS Office. The beauty of the Mac is that you can use it very effectively and have absolutely no idea how it works. (I work with people that. Designers who do great things but couldn't tell you what a preferences file is.)
Bottom line is, if you're not willing to replace MS Office - not a bargain proposition - and are going to spend most of your time running Windows - Dude, you're getting a Dell. If you're going to go Mac go all the way and set it up to boot windows for those gaming emergencies.
Nearly 100% of my private clients are switchers i.e moved from PC to Mac and without exception they're all very happy. Kids games might be the only problem but with the Intel Macs you can boot into Windows too. .Mac is useful for iSync. Keep your phone in sync with your address book - never worry about losing your phone. If you need any help - let me know. BTW the service in DG in IFC is terrible. Way too pushy and its a shame as I know Francis Yip the owner very well and he's very knowledgeable but hardly ever there but try to talk to him if you can find him. Another good guy is Jerry Lee at NewVision in Wellington Street.
All the advice given here has been fabulous. Macs simply are better machines.
Three words of advice.
1) Use the free trial for the .Mac account you get when you buy your new machine. If you like it and use it, pay the subscription fee. If you don't, don't.
2) DO buy MS Office. Don't you dare pay full price. There are substantial discounts for teachers and/or students. Say you are buying the machine for your kids and ask for the 'education' discount. In London, it saves us about £200.
3) If MSN messenger isn't working (don't know, I use the iChat client), you can always download FIRE, a multi-platform IM client.
If you do go Mac, make sure to visit TUAW everyday. It is the absolute best blog for non-techies. Lots of reviews and short snippets about Mac hardware and software.
there are two pitfalls to mac ownership. one is gaming. they just don't make as many for macs yet. this is why so many people are excited about the dual boots, they can have a mac for its stability and user friendliness, then switch over to windoze for games.
two has historically been cross platform videoconferencing. msn is mac compatible, but only fully functional mac to mac. skype says it has video support, but I've never tried it.
fyi, there are two ways to run windoze on an intel mac. one is apple's boot camp, allows you to choose which os to start up in. you can only run one or the other. with Parallels Workstation you can run both osx and windows at the same time. which might be a nice last resort if none of the videoconferencing solutions pull through.
actually, there's a third bad thing about using a mac in china. you're pretty much not gonna find any ten kuai street software. ; )
Macs are not good. They are not user friendly. Go to your friend's place to try out their mac. I did, last week. It was their top of the range and latest mac. I got bored stiff using it, it was hard to use, and well...I am a computer expert, so I find macs are really all just about eye candy and nothing more. PC's are not unstable. it all depends on how you fix it up. Besides, Windows Vista will be out soon, so you may as well stay with the PC.
John C Dvorak (dvorak.org/blog) has predicted that Macs will be eventually switching over to use Windows as the operating system - he has said within 5 years, but maybe sooner. If this is true (admitedly a big IF), then it may make the whole decision moot.
I use a PC. My friends use Macs. Who cares really, computers all do the same things.
Some snippets from the SCMP, demonstrating the blossoming democracy that is Hong Kong:
A motion calling for the commemoration and vindication of the 1989 Tiananmen Square protest was defeated yesterday in the Legislative Council for the ninth time since the handover...Directly elected legislators voted by 16 to seven in favour of the motion, moved by Democratic Party vice-chairman Albert Ho Chun-yan, but functional constituency legislators ensured its defeat.
That's voice of the people for you. Now to part 2.
Legislators late last night rejected a motion calling for a comprehensive fair-competition law.
After a five-hour debate, functional constituency legislators rejected the motion by 13 votes to 10, with one abstention. The directly elected legislators supported the motion 15-2, with five abstentions, but a majority of both needed to support the motion for it to be passed.
You read right - a total of 28 voted for it, only 12 against with 5 abstaining. Yet it still gets knocked down thanks to the distorted system. Yet, to the surprise of some, it turns out the democrats who voted against the proposed political reforms last year are being blamed by the public for it. That's as it should be - the ones that voted against should carry the blame.
But the final and most curious result in this distorted "democracy":
Four in five people want to see competition for the post of chief executive next year, according to a survey commissioned by a US-funded think-tank.
Still, 73 per cent support Donald Tsang Yam-kuen's re-election.
Is that what they mean by a competition law? If the survey is to be believed, Hong Kongers want more than one candidate for Chief Executive, just so they can vote for Donald Tsang in overwhelming numbers. It's a backhanded compliment to The Don...the people want to make a race of it so he can win by a mile. Beijing must be happy.
it just goes to show , that in ademocracy people's voice has to be given agreater priority over that of vested political motives and interests. if people's voice is ignored , as happens in china , it really shows that democratic values fall in grave danger.
The Chinese government proudly announced that trial services of its Qinghai-Tibet railway, the highest rail line ever built, will begin July 1st, and that the tickets have already been sold out. That the government wanted to quash any lingering notions of independence in Tibet by bringing it more firmly into the Chinese economic orbit with this audacious infrastructure project, there is no doubt. I myself have almost no reservations in saying that this is an entirely good thing, because of the poverty experienced by most of the inhabitants of Tibet. If nothing else, it will hopefully also bring better food (I rank Tibetan food as the worst on earth - if anyone can think of anything nastier than yak milk with tsampa every day, please tell me).
My issue concerns more the safety arrangements of the trains, which the People's Daily somehow makes sound equivalent to a cruise on Cunard:
For travelers to have sufficient time to enjoy the natural beauty on the plateau, the passenger trains will depart in the morning and arrive in the evening.
Meanwhile, this world's highest and longest plateau railroad will have two oxygen supply systems on trains to combat the effects of altitude sickness on passengers.
Oxygen will come from a system like central air-conditioning on trains, which can ensure the oxygen content in carriages at about 85 percent of that in plain areas, said Ma, adding that oxygen masks will also be installed near seats for passengers to use in case they still feel sick.
Now the last time I rode the trains in the Western areas of China, I had trouble getting a seat, and remember the tremendous scrum at the on-board ticket counter that made the Rugby Sevens look like church bingo when I boarded at an intermediate station (Kuqa) at 3 in the morning. Imagine the fights between enraged, disoriented, oxygen deprived Chinese men when that most precious resource, air, is in dispute on an overcrowded train!
I for one could not be paid enough to get on that first train, and happily leave the task to hardier souls.
i disagree with your comment there china has done it's best to colonize tibet , but , don't you think the entire plan is abit too glorified and unrealistic . china should concentrate more of it's energy on it's own internal matter.
If you only see one movie this year, you need to get out more. So to help you, here's Harry Hutton's take on Chicago...but not the musical. Look out for the sock.
Jake van der Kamp in the SCMP on the latest spat between the Vatican and China (and just as they were getting all chummy):
Consider the facts. A distinct community within a larger one elects its own immediate leader rather than have this leader imposed from above by a central governing authority that insists on absolute sovereignty in such matters. It is just the sort of thing that Cardinal Joseph Zen Ze-kiun has long advocated for Hong Kong. Bring on democracy, he thunders at Beijing from every pulpit and podium that he can find. Let Hong Kong choose its own chief executive.
But when the priests, nuns and parish representatives of the Roman Catholic Church in Kunming then elect their own bishop rather than have the choice foisted on them by the Vatican, he suddenly discovers a different message. It's sabotage, he protests. The choice ought to be made by the Pope alone. The central governing authority must have absolute sovereignty in such matters.
Have I already said in this column that our cardinal has difficulties understanding the meaning of the word hypocrisy?
Jake is out drawing false equivalencies between a private religious order and a public government again.
Idiot.
Never did think Jake was one of the brighter bulbs in the box, but he really should keep his mouth shut instead of proving it time and again.
{Now if the Chinese are really wanting to name their own bishops, they should go the way of King Henry VIII and split with the Vatican completely and found their own Church.}
I agree with Tom. Rarely have I read such fatuous nonsense. People choose their religion by choice. In China no one chooses the government.
And who is naive enough to believe that "the priests, nuns and parish representatives of the Roman Catholic Church in Kunming ... elect their own bishop ..."?
Give me a break! Such matters are decided on, like evereything else of this nature, by the Beijing government.
My disagreement with Jake: I wouldn't call the mainland bishops 'elected from bottom-up' (which is obviously not).
But his conclusion is spot on.
This is about negotiations based on interests. All this shows is that Vatican/Zen are not allies of democrats, but quite the opposite.
Zen and Apple Daily made themselves look stupid and hypocritical. They betrayed all those who support democracy in HK and mainland China.
I believe Lai did not try to influence editors in AD. But who will say something like Jake in AD? So this democracy fortress is blindly following Zen, because the big boss is a devoted catholic. "Self-censorship" or "conflict of interests"?
Sunbin, I'm surprised that you have issues distinguishing between private and public. Though I'm not surprised that you'd take a cheap and fatuous dig at Apple Daily along the way.
Apple Daily... private business.
Roman Catholic Church... private religion
Communist Party of China... private political party
Government of China {if and when the CCP is willing to draw the bright line between the public government and the private party}... public institutions
The CCP wants to pretend that they allow religious freedom on the mainland by pretending to allow a foreign-dominated hierarchy to operate within China, while the reality is they don't allow a foreign-dominate hierarchy to operate in China.
They've appropriated the brand name of the Roman Catholic Church, just like brandnames get stolen on the mainland every day in order to sell cheap and shoddy imitations, in order to bolster the CCP credibility with the world.
well....if CCP is private, why is PRC public?
you made a good point that there is no difference between these four, all 'private institutions'.
i am not taking a dig at AD. i have great respect and expectation on AD. i wish it can behave like a 'public' institution, as it declared to be so.
i would not even bother to take a dig at "the sun", or epoch times.
back to the prc-vatican spat. this is simply a way of negotiation. because the main obstacle is who gets to say what in the bishop nomination. what PRC is saying is,
"while we are negotiating, we will name our bishop. so yield to our terms or we will name these 40+ bishop one by one while we get bogged down on these terms......"
i think it is very smart moves.
i am impartial between these 2 dictators. and i am happy to see them fight. :)
it goes without saying , that although china and vaticann city are miles apart culturally , geographically and racially , yet , the string of religion holds them together. too bad , that the religion link is currently anegative one. let's hope , that things get better with the passage of time.
Does the Pope allow the CCP reciprocal rights to set up and run *their* organisation within the Vatican without interference? I think he needs to do that before bleating about unfair treatment.
On branding - good point, Tom, though our left-footed friends would surely have to come to the table with clean hands, and to do that they would have to first pay the Jews 2,000 years of royalties.
I usually like to see dictator's fight. However, when one dictator's biggest weapon is nukes and the other's biggest weapon is excommunication, I tend to root for the latter.
not really good examples. pick another.
no one is going to nuke vatican any time in the next millenium, but excommunications has already been delivered.
I have to agree with Tom on this one. Jake's material on this is somewhat annoying. But I think that it is somewhat more than just a public/private debate. There is a element of freedom to choose here. People can choose another religion if they disagree with the governance of the Catholic church enough. Presbyterians, for one, elect their representitives. Largely, the US system of goverance adopted many of the Presbyterian churches methods. One recalls the reformation.
But, if one is born in China, short of leaving China, one does not have the freedom to choose.
the main reasons behind problems in china's agricultural sector is that the growth of the chinese economy is haphazard and unorganized . while , some sectors get too much attention , others are neglected. this lack of balance is dure to poor political planning , and , lack of peoples' initiative.
The Economist looks at how much better off China would be if it's banks worked "properly". By properly, they mean banks that allocated capital and credit by risk rather than political factors, and banks that didn't prop up ailing state firms. Below is a chart that shows the difference between China's GDP by sector and China's bank lending by sector. This mismatch is estimated to have cost China a massive 16% of its GDP...or $320 billion. That's one hell of a mismatch.
Full article below the jump.
THE Chinese economy continues to astound. Behind its latest surge lies a renewed acceleration of bank lending. Credit growth at the mainland's financial institutions reached 15% in the year to March, just above the official target of 12-14%. Loan volumes are again nearing the levels of the 2003 credit boom, notes Jonathan Anderson, chief Asia economist at UBS. This week the authorities acted to stem the flood.
But China could sustain an even faster pace if its banks did their job properly. A mountain of bad debts is only the most visible sign of the persistent misallocation of capital. Many more loans do not go bad but yield only negligible returns. In a study* to be published on May 4th the McKinsey Global Institute, the consultancy's economics think-tank, calculates that China's GDP would be a staggering $320 billion, or 16%, higher if its lenders knew how to lend.
Around $60 billion, the think-tank reckons, could be gained from raising the banks' operating efficiency by cutting costs, putting in proper electronic payment systems, and developing bond and equity trading. The rest—some $260 billion—would come from redirecting loans to more productive parts of the economy. The banks should switch funds from poorly run state firms to private enterprises, which contribute 52% of GDP but account for only 27% of outstanding loans (see chart). This would both increase the efficiency of investment and raise returns for China's army of small savers.
Easier said than done. Aided by generous government bail-outs, the banks have worked to restructure themselves over the past several years. But changing old habits takes time: a recent paper by economists at the International Monetary Fund found little evidence that Chinese banks' lending decisions had become more commercial.
Even the industry regulator, which has been leading the reform effort, seems unwilling to break some taboos. Allowing foreign banks to take control of domestic rivals would undoubtedly help to introduce healthy competition and speed modernisation. Yet the long-running attempt of a consortium led by America's Citigroup to purchase 85% of Guangdong Development Bank (GDB), a relatively small institution, seems to have hit a brick wall. On April 25th Lai Xiaomin, director-general of the China Banking Regulatory Commission, said that he believed the “GDB case should not break the current rules”. These rules limit foreign investors to buying a total of 25% of a Chinese bank. No single investor is allowed more than 20%.
The poor state of the banks increases China's reliance on macroeconomic tools. The central bank raised interest rates surprisingly on April 27th, and announced guidelines to control banks' lending. It is expected to raise their reserve requirements next month, after China's spring holidays. Such top-down direction has served the economy fairly well in this cycle, averting the violent swings of earlier decades. Still, there is little doubt that this latest lending boom will produce another batch of bad debts and low-yielding loans. If the leaders in Beijing carried out the reforms needed to create a banking system that allocates capital properly, they would find the economy easier to steer—and their countrymen would be better off.
*“Putting China's Capital to Work: The Value of Financial System Reform.”
Simon, I saw an article today saying that Chinese NPLs could be around US$900 billion. Give me US$900 billion and I will show you an amazing economic miracle.
While I'm pilfering things from the Economist, an article discusses the woeful state of China's cinemas even while it's cinema productions are becoming world beaters. Full article needs subscription so I've put it below the jump.
Everyone is in love with Chinese cinema. Except the Chinese
THE Chinese are hot in Hollywood right now. At last month's Oscars Ang Lee, who hails from Taiwan and is a hero in mainland China, won the best director award for “Brokeback Mountain”. “Memoirs of a Geisha”, which carried off a further three Oscars, starred Gong Li and Zhang Ziyi, two Chinese actresses playing Japanese courtesans. Tom Cruise, Ewan McGregor and Nicole Kidman are all making films in China. And Britain's Merchant-Ivory studio has just released “The White Countess”, the first western picture to be shot entirely in China.
Unseen in China
It looks like a remarkable comeback for a film industry that was destroyed by the Cultural Revolution after a glorious early debut. Chinese cinema was born in 1896, just a year after it was invented in France. Yet between 1966 and 1972 not a single film was made on the mainland. Last year there were 260, almost twice as many as two years ago. Only America (425) and India (over 800) produced more. Box-office receipts have also been growing fast, reaching 2 billion yuan ($250m) in 2005, up a third on a year earlier, according to the State Administration of Radio, Film and Television (SARFT), the government ministry-cum-regulator. Those figures pale beside the $23 billion that Hollywood raked in last year. But they compare decently with estimated receipts of $266m for India's Bollywood in 2004.
Like many a Californian starlet, however, the Chinese film industry is not as healthy as it looks. Zhang Hongsen, deputy director of the film bureau at SARFT, admitted this month that only 90 of those 260 films were ever screened in China. Many had to be withdrawn days after their release because of a lack of interest among cinema-goers.
A dearth of screens is partly to blame. China has only around 3,000 cinemas, with less than a tenth of the screens in America for a population five times as big. Much of the countryside is not covered. All in, China's 1.3 billion people managed a mere 200m cinema visits last year.
But the fault also lies with the quality and price of Chinese cinemas. Fewer than half of them are modern, reckons SARFT. The new ones charge a whopping 40-120 yuan ($5-15) a ticket, so are affordable only to the middle-classes. Xiang Yucheng, general manager of Kodak Cinema World, a 930-seat luxury cinema in Shanghai, says his average occupancy at just 20-24% is one of the highest in the country. No wonder China has never developed “a popcorn culture”, says David Wolf, a Beijing-based media consultant.
A more fundamental problem is that the industry is not making the films that people want to watch. Like nearly everyone else, the Chinese adore Hollywood blockbusters. “Titanic” is the biggest-grossing film in Chinese history and the fourth “Harry Potter” adventure is the favourite today. Yet only some 20 foreign films a year are allowed into China—although that number should rise to 40 in 2006 under the country's commitments to the World Trade Organisation.
Even then, though, choice will remain limited. China's censors are as prudish and culturally conservative as they are politically repressive, preferring bland family fare from overseas. Horror, violence (unless of the kung-fu variety) and anything challenging are ruled out. Since China has no proper ratings system, every film must be suitable for all. In a speech last December marking the centenary of Chinese cinema, President Hu Jintao left no doubt that censorship would stay: “All those working with China's film industry should stick to the correct political direction all the time,” he said. Neither “Brokeback Mountain”, with its homosexual theme, nor the Japanese-centred “Geisha” were screened in China. Mr Xiang, whose own cinema is barely profitable, says he could charge a third more to exhibit those films: “I just don't have enough good movies to show.”
Many domestic films are also banned. Directors are eager to comment on the rapid changes in Chinese society. But films such as Li Yang's “Blind Shaft” (a bleak, compelling picture about life in China's illegal coal mines) and “Cry Woman” (whose heroine uses her distinctive wail to become a professional mourner and buy her husband out of jail), were not shown to local audiences even though they had been acclaimed abroad. Liu Bingjian, the director of “Cry Woman” gave up, and now sells men's beauty products for Amway, laments Zhang Xianmin, a professor at the Beijing Film Academy.
A little help from the state
Even those Chinese films that survive the censor's blue pencil and are more than mere propaganda, often fall at the next hurdle: promotion. Budgets are low, advertising costs are high and marketing in China is haphazard. As Mr Wolf points out, “There is no studio system as in America where films must pass a series of executives judging their commercial viability. China needs its own Steven Spielberg—someone who really knows what people want to see.” Most Chinese remain glued to the television and opt to watch the latest pictures on pirated DVDs, which, at 10 yuan each, cost a fraction of a cinema visit and deprived American studios of $2.7 billion of revenues last year.
In response, the Chinese government is doing what it typically does to generate growth—build infrastructure. Cash has been found to set up mobile cinemas in rural areas, while businesses in Hong Kong and Macau were told in February that they could set up 100%-owned cinema chains. The same privilege should eventually be extended to western companies such as Warner Bros, the first foreign firm to get into film distribution on the mainland—it operates several cinemas there including a huge new complex in Chongqing, a city of 30m people. With cinemas being built from scratch, there are opportunities for foreign providers of the latest technologies, such as Imax, which is already selling 3D systems in China, and Texas Instruments, with its digital projectors.
New hardware, however, does not foster creativity. What the Chinese film industry needs is less regulation and greater competition. That would mean allowing in more western films, curbing censorship and removing the onerous cap that limits foreign-studio profits to 17% of Chinese box-office receipts. If a reliable ratings system replaced the censor, domestic filmmakers could take more risks, attract bigger audiences and plough back their growing revenues into marketing and more projects. If all that happened, even the Chinese might start to watch Chinese films.
away from distribution and exhibition issues, the simple (but painful) reason is that 90 percent of movies made are just no good. Try to make a list of top 10 mainland movies of last five years and it isn't easy. Even the foreign film festival favorites tend to be painfully slow and self-obsessed and wouldn't get a look in were it not for their 'oriental' (sorry) appeal. watched 'bao ber in love' t'other night - looked like it was made by a chimpanzee with a camera in one hand and a bottle of beer in the other. shockingly bad.
I would disagree and say that many of the Chinese film festival films are quite good; although they tend towards sentimentality, many talented directors such as Jia Zhangke, Li Yang and Yang Zhang are making good films.
I think piracy is definitely a problem, as are the cinemas themselves. There need to be some brand spanking new cinemas made, and ones that enforce laws on spitting and gross/obnoxious (not to mention unhealthy) behavior. I will never forget going to see "The Rock" in a cinema in Changsha. The movie did not have advertised start times - you just walked in and sat down; they would start playing the film as soon as they had finished and rewound the reel, which usually means you're about halfway through the film when you arrive.
"I would disagree and say that many of the Chinese film festival films are quite good; although they tend towards sentimentality, many talented directors such as Jia Zhangke, Li Yang and Yang Zhang are making good films."
could you give some examples because I have racked my brain and failed to come up with any? Even the likes of pickpocket or blind shaft are interesting rather than actually good in a cinematic sense. others like peacock are just dull. who wants to to the cinema (rather than dvd at home) and watch what are basically puffed up tv movies (or stage plays)?
compare china's output with korea, japan or hk and the you see what a tedious, ego-filled, over-directed movie world we are forced to live in.
Let's be as realistic as possible, and talk about "simple economics", or rather, plain old, common sense. They say, 10Yuan for a pirated DVD, and 40-120Yuan for an admission ticket to a run-down theater - I say, DVD looks pretty good, and the thing is, I make over a 100 times more money than the average, potential movie goer in China - so what's this about "less regulation and more competition". Why should I pay more for something I can have for less - it's stupid. The "Economist" should re-evaluate its own name, and change it to the "Idiots", for failing to see "simple economics" in action - the "Economist" -ha, what a joke.
"Why should I pay more for something I can have for less - it's stupid."
Well, exactly. At its core, this is the same issue that faces cinema owners in the United States. If you're going to create or maintain a popcorn culture of regular movie-goers, you have to offer more than just the viewing of a movie. You need to give people a reason to get out of the house, go through the time and expense, and get that premium value out of it.
Cinema will not progress much further unless it the business is completely rethought and patrons are either getting a unique experience, OR they're going to get an opportunity to see something they cannot see elsewhere.
How to Get All the Website Traffic You Want with No Effort at all
In order to have a successful site you need of course a lot of website
traffic. But in many cases, even if you work really hard and you create
a
professional web page you still do not get too many visitors and in
conclusion the profit that you deserve.
First, let us review the most poplar methods of directing traffic to a
certain website.
-link exchanging - cheap method but many say that overall it drives
people
away from your site instead of to it, because adding a large number of
links
to you pages makes them look unprofessional and may drive visitors
away.
Adding only a small number of links does not have any noticeable
effect.
Also making link exchanges it's mot always so easy because you have to
convince webmasters to trade links with you. I can tell you from my
experience that if you have a new site this thing could get really
difficult
because almost no one will want to exchange links with you. Over time a
good link
can build your website traffic but it is hard work.
-free ezine ads - another cheap method but it rarely does anything
because
that are thousands of ads out there that try to attract attention and
yours
will just blend in with the others.
-search engine submissions - this may be the most effective method but
it
requires a lot of work and time, plus some money, and it only works if
you
get a high position in the search engines, which is very difficult to
do,
and you can loose that position in a few weeks.
-Buying one way links to increase you link popularity and your search
engine
rankings could be a method but having top positions in the major search
engines it's not so easy. Every one knows that search engine website
traffic
is the best but to get it you must have thousands of good quality links
which can get really expensive.
The solution is easier than you may think it is.. you can buy traffic!
For a
small amount of money you can purchase all the website traffic that you
need
and boost you business profits. Without people visiting your pages you
can
not promote and sell your products, so if you want to increase your
profits
you have to get as much website traffic as you can. Therefore, the
simplest,
easiest solution is to buy traffic. It is not expensive at all and you
will
definitely gain much more money than what you spend on buying traffic!
Now, a new innovative method was developed - the redirected visitors
technology. This tehnique brings, just as its name suggests, redirected
visitors to your site. It works perfectly and it is guaranteed to bring
a
lot of website traffic to you!
People who are working with this technology purchase all the abandoned
domain names that had a website with good traffic on them. Those
abandoned
websites are listed in the search engines and they are marketed,
therefore
they used to be visited by quite a lot of people. When you enter this
kind
of program, your website will be scanned, and those abandoned websites
will
be redirected to yours. When someone searches for something in a search
engine and clicks on the link that used to point to the abandoned
pages, it
will lead them to you instead! Unlike popups this method is not
annoying for
users, because what they find has the same subject as what they
searched
for, so they will most likely not even notice the redirection.
This way you will get all the targeted website traffic you need.
Instead of
working really hard you can simply buy that traffic! And as i saw on
the net
the prices for this kind of services are really cheap. Furthermore,
this
tehnique is not a spamming tehnique and it brings real traffic to you,
thousands of visitors!
If you are interested in learning more about the Increase Traffic
redirecting
technology or if you would like to know how to buy traffic just follow
these
links.
http://www.redirectedvisitors.com
I've managed to save up roughly $56452 in my bank account, but I'm not sure if I should buy a house or not. Do you think the market is stable or do you think that home prices will decrease by a lot?