Thanks to Gordon for the pointer to a Newsweek article looking at China's massive foreign exchange reserves, saying it is possible to have too much of a good thing. Amongst the interesting observations, including a comparison with Singapore, comes this:
The roots of this contradiction go back to the early 1980s and the start of reform in China, when the late patriarch Deng Xiaoping opened the manufacturing sector, but not the banks, to foreign investors. The good news was that the closed system inoculated China against the rush of global capital that toppled banks across Asia in the crisis of 1997-98. The bad news: banks had no competitive incentive to learn proper risk management, or to introduce modern retail banking or consumer lending. Now the system is such a mess that China fears to open it. And it sits on a huge pile of idle dollars that its own banks are unable to employ fully at home.
Just a friendly reminder to those who are holding shares in China's banks.
i concur. knowing what we know about the massive fraud and corruption along with the incompetence of the government and senior management at chinese banks, i'm bewildered at the public rush towards buying chinese bank stocks!
It's not easy being a monopolist for 40 years, reaping massive profits, before the harsh winds of competition ruin your monopoly rents. Just ask casino mogul Stanley Ho, who's been mouthing off for weeks. From the unlinkable SCMP:
Gaming mogul Stanley Ho Hung-sun yesterday accused the Macau government of favouring his American competitors. The tycoon also suggested that "vicious competition" in Macau's casino industry may incur the ire of Beijing, while attending the launch of budget airline Viva Macau's first Boeing 767 jetliner at Macau International Airport.
But William Weider, chief operating officer of Las Vegas Sands, said on a different occasion that competition was inevitable and beneficial to Macau's economy.
A grim Mr Ho said: "I can't take it lying down. Why do you so favour the Americans? It's unfair." He said some US stakeholders in the gaming industry had broken their promise of "peaceful competition" while disregarding Macau's future. "At that time they said there would be peaceful competition. We invest in Macau all the money we earn, but you guys [Americans] just take it away."
The tycoon said some US stakeholders had tried to break his helicopter monopoly - important for bringing in high rollers - but he would not give it up.
He also complained about losing casino staff: "They never trained any staff but took away ours." He said the cutthroat competition would hurt the long-term interests of Macau, and even Beijing. "In the long run, they may take away my business and affect Macau. They may send people to the Legislative Assembly and take control of Macau. It may not be good for Beijing either."
Earlier this month, Mr Ho called for an industry chamber to regulate the stakeholders. The tycoon then said one third of his Sociedade de Jogos de Macau's VIP gaming halls faced bankruptcy, putting thousands of jobs at risk.
You hear that, you nasty Americans? Stanley's going to call on Beijing to take control if they don't stop being so, umm, capitalist. Or something. It's not fair. Except for Macau itself, which is experiencing booming economic growth and a massive influx of investment.
Perhaps Mr. Ho should take a look at Hong Kong's gambling "monopoly", the Hong Kong Jockey Club. In this case, the monopolist faces massive competition from illegal bookmakers. So naturally they respond as any player does in a competitive market: they look to match terms. Indeed the HKJC has been lobbying the government for years to change the legislation and tax regime to allow the HKJC to better compete with the illegal bookies.
As I said, it's not easy being a monpolist.
Update 12:51
Hemlock joins in kicking a monopolist while he's down:
The putrid stench of hypocrisy permeates the Big and Little Lychees this morning. In Hong Kong, Gillian Chung of the inane Twins duo sobs to the press in the company of fellow Canto-stars about the terrible ‘ordeal’ she has suffered after gossip rag Easy Finder ran blurred photos of her apparently adjusting her bra strap. All sorts of publicity-seeking invertebrates and moralizing bores, from politicians to feminists to the Society for Truth and Light, are jumping on the bandwagon. Were my hands not occupied gripping an extra-large air motion discomfort receptacle, I would be tempted to give Chung a slap on her tear-streaked face and a reminder to tone down the hysterics. Much more weeping, and she’ll start giving people the impression it’s just an act. They might even think that rather than being the distraught, innocent victim, she is no more than a talentless bimbo who signed up to become a manufactured product created by a company whose boss sleeps with every starlet and her mother and gets his way by ordering kidnapping, rape and choppings. Which, being totally untrue of course, would be tragic. “What I am most worried about,” she tells us, “are my young fans who look up to me as a role model.” They scare me, too.
Meanwhile, in Macau, Stanley Ho is equally distressed about how much harder life is when you no longer have a casino monopoly. In recent remarks on the subject he has accused his new American rivals of poaching staff that he has trained (but also somehow threatening people’s jobs) and taking money out of the city. He has even dropped hints that Beijing will not be happy. Sheldon Adelson, owner of the space-age Sands casino and the vast, forthcoming Venetian, says that the real competition has barely started – wait until Steve Wynn sets up shop.
Ho’s plight is a vivid reminder of how our local tycoons are to real businessmen as Twins are to the Berlin Philharmonic. They don’t do creativity, acumen or skill. All they know how to do is corner a market with Government help and skim the wealth off. Hong Kong’s property development industry has made Li Ka-shing, Lee Shau-kee and the Kwok brothers multi-billionaires, and officials and the public fawn over them as if they were Cantopop’s finest. But the industry is little more than a state-organized pyramid scheme. A chimpanzee could make money out of it. And all the members of the cartel have ever done with their gains is buy up other rigged industries at home, like utilities, bus lines and supermarkets. Only Li has ventured much overseas, and then only to indulge in (sometimes clever) asset trading. Henderson or Sun Hung Kai wouldn’t last five minutes in an environment where you fight to add the most value. They survive only because consumers have no choice. The same, of course, applies to our political leadership. Some places get Bill Gates or Richard Branson, Ronald Reagan or Margaret Thatcher. Here, we’re impressed if you can adjust a bra strap.
Yes perhaps an upgrade of the old casinos in Macau might actually make for a better product.
It's inevitable that there would be poaching of staff when there is still a requirement that I think about 50% of staff be hired locally, in a city that has a tiny population.
It's official - there are now more fat or obese people in China than there are in the US. The percentages of course are still heavily pointing to America as having the most fat people (and Illinois the fattest state), but the trendline is alarming.
So nix the carbs in the white rice. All you Cantonese, mebbe go easy on the dim sum too. You northerners, well, maybe more olive oil, less zha jiang mian and peking duck! Or if you're on the Atkins diet, eat only Peking Duck, just leave off the flour wrappers...:)
It's not the white rice. They used to eat lots of white rice during the "good old days", together with pickles and vegetables. The problem today is that they're eating the same volume of food (in cubic inches) that they used to, but the portions of rice, vegetables and pickles have been reduced, and the portions of meat are way up. Chinese food is inherently greasy, because of stir-frying and deep-frying. This was OK when most of the food consisted of vegetables and pickles. Today, most of it is pork and chicken. But look for the local media to blame McDonald's. And Frito Lay's (even though Chinese sweetmeats are way greasier, not to mention less tasty, than their Western equivalents).
Who could forget that classic line from Animal Farm, George Orwell's parody of the cult of personality in the communist and authoritarian states.
Well, under the new rules of the People's Republic of China, if your Daddy contributes more than RMB3 million to tax revenues, you get extra bonus points put on your school exams, which will allow you to go to a better university.
Somehow I think even Mao would be squirming in his grave. Agreed, in the absence of a lot of 'old money', it is just similar to alumni 'donating' money to their school to get their inbred kids into their alma mater. But there is something powerfully repulsive to me, isn't there, in this system? I guess the social engineers of the system are trying to discourage wealthy parents from just getting their kids in direct to school by purchasing a place. Still, pardon me while I reach for the motion sickness bag.
All else being equal, the more Chinese a [SE Asian] country has, the richer it becomes, he claimed, because of the entrepreneurial drive of these immigrants...Even if one puts aside the idea that there is something in the genes or the culture that makes Chinese naturally get rich–after all, the bulk of the world’s Chinese turned their backs on money-making for 50 years–there is the idea that the people of a diaspora will gravitate toward trading and finance...
Burma: 3% Chinese, $157 per capita GDP
Cambodia: 1.2% Chinese, $341 per capita GDP
Laos: 1% Chinese, $396 per capita GDP
Vietnam: 3% Chinese, $518 per capita GDP
Philippines: 2% Chinese, $1,021 per capita GDP
Indonesia: 3.1% Chinese, $1,100 per capita GDP
Thailand: 12% Chinese, $2,845 per capita GDP
Malaysia: 25% Chinese, $5,003 per capita GDP
Singapore: 76.8% Chinese, $24,620 per capita GDP
Correlation is not causation, but without doing statistical analysis it seems a reasonable proposition. More interesting is this correlation works even in places where the government actively works against the Chinese population, e.g. Malaysia. The only question is whether even a small number of Chinese people in a population can make that sigificant a difference to per capita GDP?
This was the unofficial premise by which many people in my old research department operated...and quite often were proven correct.
The only trouble is when you actually put China next to these countries! But then again, I guess it is the Chinese 'immigrant' mentality at work, and not that of the Chinese that stayed at home (and lived through the hopeless incompetence of the Manchus, the warlords, the Nationalists, and the Communists) supinely accepting their fate.
The quote points out that it may be more about what happens to a diaspora than an ethnic thing. One point in mitigation is that once Deng unleashed (to some extent) China's market reforms, the country has grown at a staggering rate. It's almost a controlled experiment in contrasting the economic chaos of Mao's time with China today. Note I said almost.
Even if Micah's right, and I suspect it's probably a combination of factors that are really the cause, it's food for thought or maybe research...
I don't know about this theory. One, how many Chinese are emigrating to poor countries like Burma and Cambodia and Laos? In other words, they have it backwards: richer countries with higher GDPs attract immigrants. The immigrants aren't the cause of the GDP, the GDP is the cause of the immigrants. Obviously, it is way more complex than that, but you get the point. Immigrants are generally attracted to countries that have favorable economic conditions, where they have a potential to thrive.
Also, you could make a list of countries by percentage of white population. Countries like Norway, Ireland, Iceland, Denmark, and the US would be near the top of the GDP rankings. African countries with very small white populations would be at the bottom. Would this theory really be so different from the one above?
that is why we only chracterize it as correlation, not causality.
a number of factors are involved. eg.
1) as micah said, openness to immigrant
2) immigrants are more hardworking (lack of security)
3) chinese tradition which values knowledge and learning, which, although only serve for their own benefits, also uplift the overall knowledge/economy of the host country
yes, one can also do the same for european white. a more pronouncced analogy is perhaps to plot the same graph for Jewish people and their host countries.
p.s. most chinese immgration to SE Asia happened in 17-19th century, the economic development level in China was much higher than these countries, but China was overpopulated. as a result, the first generation immigrants are mostly the underprevileged in China, who had seen as their home (china) the importance of education.
The three points you listed are all valid; what I find questionable is the linkage of percentage of Chinese to GDP specifically. As you said, most Chinese immigration in SE Asia took place hundreds of years ago. If that is the case, then we are really talking about ethnic enclaves and not immigrants per se. Therefore, points like "immigrants work harder, don't have a safety net, and are more entrepreneurial" just evaporated. These points really apply to first- or second-generation immigrants. (Are tenth-generation Irish-Americans "immigrants?")
Another point: Let's look at Japanese immigration in the same countries and compare that to GDP. If the rates of Japanese immigration have a similar relation to GDP, what should we conclude? There is something about Japanese culture/education/values that affects GDP? We would be more likely to conclude that the correlation between the percentage of Chinese or Japanese in the population and GDP doesn't really tell you much specific to the "type" (Chinese or Japanese) of immigration.
So then we are back at Micah's point about "openness" to immigration in general. Sounds good, but what if there is no correlation between the percentage of Japanese immigrants and GDP? (Which I think is the case, actually, since the Philippines probably has the greatest number of Japanese immigrants in SE Asia). Do we then conclude that there really is something specific to Chinese immigration that correlates to GDP? If so, what is it? Are Japanese immigrants lazier? Are Japanese cultural and educational values less pecuniary than Chinese values?
The answer (to me) is that if you take an ahistorical, statistical approach to this type of complex issue, you'll end up with a bunch of reductionist correlations that don't really tell you much. You can draw correlations between all sorts of things that don't really tell you much. For example, blond hair and GDP.
The Chinese presence in many of the countries occured in the latter part of the 19th century which was a time when colonial occupation of much of southeast Asia combined with horrendous conditions in China (i.e. civil war, disease, famine) and a very active market in the export of Chinese labor brought most of the Chinese to the region. As mentioned before, the Chinese brought their immigrant mentality and their enterprise with them and it served them well wherever they went.
While some immigration from China have been happening for the last 20-30 years, largely the Chinese populations there are well-established for over a century or two, and the majority of them are 3rd, 4th or more generations in the country.
It is laughable for anyone to claim that the Chinese immigrants did not have a huge impact on the GDP of all of the economies in which they settled. Why else, for instance, does Malaysia have a bumiputra policy that tries to transfer some semblance of economic power from the Chinese to the Malays? Why did the Indonesians, during the riots after 1997, kill, loot and burn properties of wealthy Chinese? Why did the Viet Cong in the 1970s target wealthy Chinese landowners for re-education and sometimes liquidation?
Believe me, it is more causal than you think. But as I also imply from my examples above, the wholesale importation of Chinese labor and mercantile interests in the 19th century to these countries also has caused, in the post-colonial period, massive underlying ethnic tensions between the Chinese and the 'locals' of that area (I only put that in parentheses because for a country like Malaysia, a substantial portion of the 'Malays' actually emigrated from places like Indonesia at almost the same time).
The fact is, 88, that the Chinese are still immigrants, because they have not been accepted as truly local by most of their 'host' societies. There is a huge difference between someone of Irish origin that has been absorbed into the American white melting pot, and a country largely envious of the Chinese success and hostile to their existence (not as true in Thailand as in other places in Southeast Asia), because the Chinese remain a race apart, and one with everything to prove. The 'immigrant mentality' remains, even if their families have been there for over a century, because they are still considered outsiders, both socially and legally.
1) I'm not arguing that Chinese did not have an impact on GDP. Every group (or individual, for that matter) has an impact on per capita GDP. Blondes, as a group, have a significant impact on per capita GDP in many countries.
2) I'm not arguing that ethnic Chinese aren't a successful minority group in several SEA countries (really, though, Singapore doesn't belong on the list above at all, since ethnic Chinese are the overwhelming majority of the population.) However, you need to be careful when you directly link a certain characteristic to "affecting GDP." For example, in the PRC the elite mostly consists of CCP members. Should we therefore conclude that CCP members "increase" GDP? The implication being the more CCP members you have, the higher your GDP will be. (Party members must have some cultural trait or mindset that allows them to affect GDP in such a positive way, etc.) This is ass-backwards. It is way more complex. You need to look at a variety of historical, cultural, and economic factors and structures that have allowed party members to become the elite.
3) I'm suspicious of these grand, sweeping theories that cover ten different countries with very distinct histories and political and economic conditions. For example, why should we only look at the current per capita GDP of these countries? This is just a serendipitous snapshot. Let's look at their relative GDPs in 1950 or 1896 or 1973. Would this magic pattern still obtain? Maybe it would. I don't know the answer to that, but I'd have to see the evidence before I took this theory too seriously.
I believe in this case a correlation between the time of mass immigration of Chinese to the rise in GDP is necessary. In this case, I believe this observation will stunningly be supported.
anyway, re:88s
yes, I believe culture/tradition on education and business is a main driver, and I believe you would obeserve similar impact from Japanese dispora.
however, since Japanese dispora do not comprise as large a % of the local immigration, the effect would be harder to be observed.
Hong Kong politician Albert Ho is on the mend and vowing not to be intimidated by the thugs that bashed in a McDonalds in Central on Sunday. The police are working extra extra extra hard on the case, says the government, protesting just a touch too much. It seems the likely cause of the bashing was related to Ho's legal work rather than his politics, which is both a relief and a worry.
But there's a factor in this case that no one is talking about, simply because it's accepted wisdom. How is it that 3 thugs can walk into a McD's in the middle of Central on a busy Sunday afternoon, where at least 150 people were dining or working, and bash a man with baseball bats without anyone doing anything about it? The original reports said most patrons ran from the restaurant. The common perception is that it is better not to get involved, especially when its the Triads. But this permissiveness is part of a culture that allows organised crime to survive and thrive.
It's impossible to say for certain, but I wonder if the same 3 thugs would have got away if they'd walked into a McDonald's in the middle of Manhattan, or London, or Sydney?
I was pondering the same thing, but barring the intervention of security guards, I'm not sure it would have been that different in london or sydney. First, there is the element of shock and surprise. Second, if I was ever McD's it would be with my kid and selfish as it might sound, I'd be more worried about protecting her.
Maybe in the US, someone would have pulled a gun out, but do we really want that?
200 maids aside, there were three guys with bats or wooden rods. What would you use in a McDonald's to take it up to them? All the chairs and tables are fixed to the floor - the only thing you'd have to hand is the tray your meal was served on. From now on Mr Ho should make sure he only eats in restaurants that cater for guests who may need improvised weapons.
Contrasts with a story a few months back about 3 men who wrestled down and disarmed a man with a gun attempting to rob a Korean woman. When I read that I thought well, that wouldn't happen in NYC or London.
From reading this, nobody here visits mcdonalds in central, or the states.
It is highly unlikely any one would have a gun in the States just walking around McDonalds. Unless they were in Texas, where you can conceal and carry, but I'm serious, the whole context would be different.
And te chairs in that McDonald's are not rooted to the floor.
I have a serious question. Why didn't Ho's colleagues fight back? Are they that cowed? Or that thankful it was Ho and not them?
Apparently one of the Dems did step in and took some minor injuries.
A lot of research has been done on the diffusion of responsiblity. In otherwords, if there are too many people, everyone assumes someone else will do something and noone does anything. So if shit happens, be the first to step up, since almost no one else will.
In NYC, someone would have called the cops, and the thugs would have been rounded up in minutes. In Texas, a patron would have gone back to his car and pulled a gun, and all three thugs would have meekly surrendered, or risked gunshot wounds. Note that a Beretta 92F holds fifteen rounds. That's five rounds for each individual without reloading.
ZF: Note that a Beretta 92F holds fifteen rounds. That's five rounds for each individual without reloading.
Note also that a pump shotgun holds five rounds. A single round can hit all three guys if they're bunched up. Shotgun blasts can also turn entire limbs into shards of bone no amount of reconstructive surgery can restore.
A very warm welcome to a special reader of these humble pages...Nicholas Kristof. It seems the New York Times is testing some kind of RSS reader and this site is on Mr Kristof's page (below the jump has a screenshot).
Absolutely flattered. This site's come a long way in almost 3 years. Which reminds me, the anniversary is 2 weeks away.
There was a rather odd, equivocal opinion piece about the Yasukuni Shrine visit controversy today in the Standard. At its heart is the well-worn sentiment that China is diverting domestic and regional attention from more recent national atrocities but continuing to make an issue out of shrine visits by the Japanese leadership.
While there is some truth to that, there is also truth to the fact that many segment of Japanese society live in a complete bubble, insouciantly ignorant of any past atrocities, and an influential minority that prefer to distort history by outright denying it. The power of history is strong, and nationalist leaders in Japan feel they must pander to these revisionists to carry their votes.
It is therefore regrettable, in an article about revisionism of history, that the author himself commits one of the greatest journalistic mis-statements of all time: "Will also pointed out a few things Beijing would never admit. Most Chinese resistance during the war was by Chiang Kai-shek's forces. "
This is actually a farcical claim when Chiang Kai-Shek's generals spent most of their time fighting pointless little battles with each other and running from any armed confrontation with the Japanese, and bilking America out of such amounts in the name of fighting Japan as to make the Iraq Oil-for-food scam look like a child's hand in the cookie jar. While the average nationalist soldier fought hard, this was in spite of the total incompetence and craven-ness of their generals with regard to the Japanese. Chiang had no desire to fight Japan at all and only used the possibility of fighting them throughout the war as a lever from which to extract more pork for him to distribute amongst his corrupt coterie of handers-on and yes men. The Communists, on the other hand, cut a much more noble figure, and were also far more effective as guerilla fighters against the Japanese.
Careful what you say there, Mr. Liu Kin-Ming. History is power, and if we are going to criticize distortions turn about is fair play.
I'm not sure if you're right, but I've always heard the nationalist Chinese forces did most of the fighting against the Japanese. They certainly received most of the massive military and economic aid that the United States sent to China. Anyway, here's what wikipedia(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_Sino-Japanese_War) says:
# The Kuomintang fought in 22 major engagements, most of which involved more than 100,000 troops on both sides, 1,171 minor engagements most of which involved more than 50,000 troops on both sides, and 38,931 skirmishes.
# The CPC mostly fought guerilla attacks in rural area in North China.
A little guerilla war might seem more noble, but I'm guessing that the hundreds of thousands of nationalist troops who fought and died in major battles would be considered more resistance than anything the communists did in their guerilla campaign. Chiang Kai-Shek's intentions may not have been noble, but it seems like his forces did provide "most Chinese resistance" in the Second Sino-Japanese war.
Your post doesn't address anything at all about the statement that the nationalists did most of the fighting.
All you say is that the nationalists' intentions were not as "noble" and less effective than the communists' guerilla tactics. These two arguments in no way refute the fact that the nationalists provided most of the resistance against the Japanese.
Hi James, you are right, the KMT did do most of the fighting that was done, but to say that the KMT were the heroes against Japan while the Communists did nothing, which was the implication of the author, would be a terrible injustice.
Furthermore, almost all the fighting that was done by the KMT happened early in the war (37 and 38) when they still held onto the nominal concept that they were the government representing all authority throughout China, and then right at the end when Japan was already practically defeated.
I highly recommend the book by Barbara Tuchman, Stilwell and the American Experience in China, for a very realistic assessment of the efforts made by the KMT throughout most of World War II against Japan. While as I mentioned the average Nationalist soldier fought and died bravely, he did so at the behest of uncaring generals that really had no regard for his own fighting men or their welfare. The KMT retreated so incredibly quickly in 1942-3 that the Japanese did not have time to catch up. It was in great contrast then, that the Communists, after having survived their near-annihilation during the long march, began truly fighting against the Japanese effectively.
The author of that article does not say that the KMT were the heroes of the war. Your perception of the implication of the article is relative and completely irrelevant.
The exact quote was, "Will also pointed out a few things Beijing would never admit. Most Chinese resistance during the war was by Chiang Kai-shek's forces." You then attempted to claim that a revision of history is necessary, when no such thing is needed when you yourself admit that the KMT did do most of the fighting. You claimed that that quote was a farcical claim and a mis-statement, and then backtrack and admit that the KMT did indeed do most of the fighting.
There is nothing factually wrong with the coherent statement, "Most Chinese resistance during the war was by Chiang Kai-shek's forces." No revision is necessary for this statement when it is easily understood and easily verifiable. You yourself admit that it is true.
Regardless of whether the nationalist resistance petered-out after a few years of the war, they still provided the majority of resistance against the Japanese. The Japanese suffered much higher than expected losses in the opening years of the war, and while the nationalists, having suffered massive losses against the Japanese, retreated to the interior of China, that didn't change the fact that they were still providing the majority of resistance against the Japanese. The author merely stated that Beijing would not admit that "Most Chinese resistance during the war was by Chiang Kai-shek's forces." How exactly does this statement, which many people would consider true, qualify as "one of the greatest journalistic mis-statements of all time"? You said it yourself: the KMT did do most of the fighting that was done. The author didn't call them heroes, nor did he claim the Communists did nothing.
"While there is some truth to that, there is also truth to the fact that many segment of Japanese society live in a complete bubble, insouciantly ignorant of any past atrocities, and an influential minority that prefer to distort history by outright denying it. The power of history is strong, and nationalist leaders in Japan feel they must pander to these revisionists to carry their votes."
The issue of what citizens in both Japan and the PRC know about their own countries and about the relations between the two is different from the issue Liu raises. Liu is discussing international relations. Since both Japan and the PRC are one-party states (does anyone care who could be the next DPJ-nominated premier?) where popular will is minimized, how this knowledge affects relations is rahter unimportant. Opposition in both governments is expressed by factional fighting. Factional identification is more important even than votes, because elections are decided in the nomination process and by the support given by a politican's faction. Koizumi belongs to the nationalist, conservative faction with a history extending back to Nobusuke Kishi. He does not to pander, especially to voters, because he believes in the factional line. Without it, he would not be premier. He can rebel against certain parts of the program, such as privatization, but he cannot sacrifice his identity within the faction.
However, judging from protests against textbooks and yasukuni, many Japanese citizens do know their history. For them, this is a Japanese matter, and Beijing's protests only incite resentment.
Koizumi has also clearly stated that he cannot believe beijing would hold up negotiations on important issues, just because of the history issue. It's at least possible Beijing's rhetoric is self-serving, because those issues are not easy to discuss or resolve for a Coomunist party held together with nationalist sentiment. Beijing probably wants cash for concessions on irrdentist claims, energy, and taiwan, like Tokyo has given before. But Japanese conservatives want the concessions before they consider handing cash over. So, Beijing is trying to shame Tokyo. The only difference between Aso and Abe is, that Aso would bring the cash to the meeting waiting for the deal, whereas Abe would make Beijing beg and wait for it. That is Koizumi's game, too.
I would also be willing to bet Rep. Hyde is in hock to pro-PRC lobbies. The Gray Lady's support for Beijing doesn't even need explaining. In lieu of a policy, American blue and red teams just spar, with hisotry as a tool. When dealing with some of the best spin artists in the world, history is just a whore.
Look, Chiang did his best not to win the war against Japan, and nearly succeeded. He avoided fighting with the Japanese at every opportunity, and refused to fight them even when America gave the KMT the ability to do so. He was a totally hopeless battlefield commander that basically relied on the Aamericans to come in and save his skin.
The implication in Liu's piece clearly is that the Communists have something to be ashamed about, whereas the Nationalists have something to be proud about.
Nothing could be further from the truth.
And as to history being a whore, yes some versions may be. But except for the inconvenient fact that there is truth, and there is fiction. The versions of history sold by both China and Beijing are prostitutes but the truth remains about both Chinese and Japanese atrocities against Chinese citizens (and other Asian citizens in the case of Japan) over the past century and nothing they say now is going to change this. Both countries will have these histories come back to haunt them. It appears in the next decade that Japan's turn is first.
Don't try to shift the argument. This isn't about whether Chiang Kai-shek's willingness to engage the Japanese in battle, it is about whether his forces can be considered as providing more resistance against the Japanese than the communist guerillas.
Your original post clearly states that you regard the statement: "Will also pointed out a few things Beijing would never admit. Most Chinese resistance during the war was by Chiang Kai-shek's forces. " as one of the greatest journalistic mistatements of all time, and you directly call this a "farcical claim", which implies that the author's statement that Chiang Kai-shek's forces didn't did not account for most Chinese resistance to the Japanese.
While it's true that Chiang Kai-shek avoided fights with the Japanese, how exactly does it change the fact that his troops engaged in many large conventional battles with the Japanese in which hundreds of thousands of nationalist troops were killed as well as tens of thousands of Japanese? The communists, whose forces were small in comparison, could never be considered most of China's resistance against Japan. Regardless of whether most of the large battles Chiang Kai-shek fought against the Japanese were early in the conflict or whether or not he was aggressive later in the war, most people can look at the cold hard facts and see that the nationalists provided a bigger overall contribution in the struggle against the Japanese.
It's great to know that Chiang Kai-shek was a poor commander who wanted to avoid conflict with the Japanese, but that doesn't change the fact that his forces were far larger, and engaged the Japanese in far more battles than the communist guerillas in their little hit and run attacks.
Most Chinese resistance during the war was by Chiang Kai-shek's forces, and Beijing does not admit this fact in its version of Chinese history. The statement in the article is valid.
"And as to history being a whore, yes some versions may be. But except for the inconvenient fact that there is truth, and there is fiction. The versions of history sold by both China and Beijing are prostitutes but the truth remains about both Chinese and Japanese atrocities against Chinese citizens (and other Asian citizens in the case of Japan) over the past century and nothing they say now is going to change this. Both countries will have these histories come back to haunt them. It appears in the next decade that Japan's turn is first."
Oh come, that's rather philistine and unsporting of you! Next, you'll tell me you believe in Santa Claus! The correspondence theory of truth is the ugliest whore in the lot! With millions of separate accounts divided into at least tow groups, are you, a college graduate, honestly going to tell me you can see truth in that thicket! I want that drug, pal, but it might kill me! I haven't believed in that crap since Confirmation!
And, even if it did wash, no human has time for such exalted views.
I've mentioned elsewhere on this site that I'm currently in the middle of Chang and Halliday's biography of Mao. With the caveat that much of the book is hotly disputed, they postulate that Mao was busy avoiding the Japanese at every opportunity and the only significant Communist battle against the Japanese - the "Operation 100 Regiments" (pp. 273 of the paperback edition) - was against Mao's wishes. Chang says Mao's intention was to let the Japanese thrash the KMT to the point the Russians would be forced to intervene, and then the Russians would appoint Mao China's ruler. While Chang doesn't heap praise on the KMT, she contends that the KMT were the only resistance to the Japanese with the one exception being Operation 100 Regiments...which later become the basis of the myth of Communist resistance to Japan.
As for the article Dave mentioned, much of it dwells on American disbelief at how much both Japan and China have vested in the issue of Yasakuni. But it's pretty simple: both sides see the issue as a microcosm of their very different views of history and both are playing to domestic audiences. Both countries, to a greater or lesser extent, are now ruled by parties with little by the way of ideology, as someone said above. Nationalism is about it, patriotism being the last refuge of a scoundrel. So long as the status quo is maintained, everyone is OK on this and all the other issues on the table. The ones that really matter are still being dealt with, such as North Korea or the continuing massive investment by Japanese corporations in China. The op-ed says American politicians believe both Japan and China are big enough to resolve the Yasakuni saga on their own, whereas both countries want some kind of arbiter...like the USA. There's no upside to the USA getting involved (yet), and for both leaderships in China and Japan there's more mileage in Yasakuni than in working it out. When that equation changes, the Yasakuni question will too.
1) i am actually very puzzled at why so many people bought that "divert attention" theory. china has no need to divert attention on its own history. this has become the biggest myth in western media. because,
a) pointing finger at japanese does not change how people think about C.R., GLF, or CCP's role in WWII. If you ask any Chinese person, you would find out there is hardly any correlation in their minds. If that is CCP's reason, they would have secretly asked/wished Koizumi to do more of these stuff.
b) there is only one reason for the temporary lift on popular protest last year, to build a case when China is forced to excercise its veto power regarding Japan's applicaiton to UNSC. Nothing else. As you can see, once Japan dropped its application, this year the civilian protest was suppressed.
2) I agree with Simon's assessment on CKS. The fact is, CKS' army is incompetent and ill-equipped/ill-trained. KMT fought more war simply because it occupied a larger area, with a larger army, and hence more exposure to fighting.
3) Liu kingmin:) this clown is everywher once in a while, but his writing are very predictable. i have some discussion with davesgonechina about his story a couple weeks ago. http://silkworms.chinesetriad.org/?p=331#comments
4) Will's WP essay is just as bad, typical of someone who has no clue about Asia, perhaps he has not even have spent any time in Asia. Howard French was pretty good this time
http://www.i_h_t.com/articles/2006/08/18/news/letter.php
(the website link was forbidden, so i had to insert 2 "_" there)
Chang/Halliday:)
the truth is
1) CCP fought a few war (100 regiments, pingxinguan) against the Japanese. But the real contribution is dragging the Japanese army from further expansion, not the 2 battles that it bragged about.
2) the 2 battles may be against Mao's view, maybe only in hind-sight (after CCP also suffered great lost). But we can agree that Mao wanted to preserve power because these battles were not effective. But preserving power does not mean not fighting, if you were Mao, why would you stop from bombing the railway and launching small surprise attack on strayed Japanese troop? Why would you fight them in the front, when you do not even have enough guns and bullets?
3) For every thing Chang said, I would seek a second source before believing. :)
That is right. Liu Kinming and apologist should really listen to you. What CCP has done in WWII, or in 1959-70, or in its history book, has really nothing to do with the Yasukuni issue.
Even if Japan did horrible things in WWII, does it mean Japan has no right to ciriticze the Holocaust? Well, this is basically the logic of Liu and his apologists.
One careful evaluation of Chang/Halliday's claims (which I'm quite sure are the source of Will's claims) is here. In short, the evaluation of Mao's motives is highly suspect, and their evaluation of the military situation is deeply flawed.
When one considers that at the beginning of the Sino-Japanese War the Comunist Party decreed a Policy of Non-Aggression Against Japan (it's in the archives, you can look up the minutes of the meeting), hoping that Japan and the KMT would wear each other out allowing the CCP to swoop in on whichever was left standing, the word "noble" seems rather inappropriate.
Barclay Crawford is an investigative reporter at the SCMP, with recent efforts including his exploration of alleged-coke selling hookers at Fenwicks. Back on August 12th he reported on a domestic helper who claimed she had been abondoned by her employers. This was followed up by an August 14th article with comments from the employer denying the accusation and a rehash of the original article. Both articles are reproduced below the jump.
Without passing judgement or comment as to the truth of these allegations, I have received an email from a source with knowledge of the case:
His [Crawford's] story of an abandoned helper left without food or "essentials" or housekey is fabricated. The unit the helper works/lives in has a property caretaker named Mr. K his telehone number is XXXX-XXXX. Barclay never interviewed him now even knew of his existence. Mr. K lives on the premises at issue.
Mr. K works directly for the landlord who owns all units including [a PR executive's] home. Mr. K can verify the utilities not being turned off. Even the Helper's personal A/C was not affected. Mr. K can vouch that no utilities were off for the Helper's unit except 4 hours on 7/31 electricity and water another day for 4 hours both were area wide by Hong Kong government. Watson's bottled water service for the Helper's unit was delivered weekly without interuption. All this can be verified not just by Mr. K but the utilities and Watson's bottle water. Barclay Crawford did not verify - why?
Food. A police report filed on August 13 the day the employer's returned # 3501 will show the police arrived called by the employer, the house fully furnished with food and in fact the Helper to have been consuming. Barclay Crawford never set foot into the Helper's unit. Barclay alleges this Helper was left without food showing an empty fridge. That fridge is not the same fridge as in the Helper's unit. Look at photo on August 14. The same police report shows the Helper refusing to sign her own resignation that she had typed up that gave the employer's 30 day notice to September 14. Police report #06003542 on August 14 shows the Helper refusing to leave forcing the police to threaten forcible removal. The Helper was terminated by the employer paying wages in lieu of notice, wage, plane ticket. The Helper insisted on staying to Sept. 14.
In reality the Helper had been terminated once before during visa processing. Helpers in Hong Kong must leave Hong Kong under preterm contracts unless death of employer, financial hardship or abuse. This helper could not do the first 2 so abuse was her only option. See Hong Kong Immigration Department Foreign Domestic Helpers Section reference file 27274/04 dated July 3rd notifying her that she has to leave if these employer's dropped processing.
2 charities donated food to this helper. NONE set a foot into the helper's unit to validate the helper's false claim. One charity organization Helpers for Domestic Helpers made an impromptu stop on August 14 and at the employer's invitation was shown the Helper's accommodations and food situation.
Property camera's can show employer's bought no food when they return as their flight on Gulf Air landed at 3:30pm August 14. The police report was taken 4:30pm August 14 within 15 minutes of their arrival home.
No housekey. There is a helper agency the helper visited twice in Central. A Mr. T of ZZZ agency can verify this. Easier, Mr. K on the property can verify this Helper's exits as well as the camera film on the property.
Barclay wrote this Helper was left without a key to leave to even buy food. Helper left without money to buy food. Helper was left on top of a full fridge, bottled water and 3 paid Holidays $150.00 [sic]. Helper used this to buy chicken and fruits receipt from Wellcome.
What is interesting is that Barclay can write any fiction about anything. Completely unaccountable. Without basic inquiry.
What is more interesting is his relationship with [a PR executive], the PR firm head of YYYYYYY in Hong Kong. This is not a big story but [PR executive] must have influence over Barclay, hence SCMP.
August 12th - Helper claims she's been abandoned
A domestic helper from Sri Lanka says she has been abandoned for nearly two weeks in her employer's multi-million-dollar mansion without any food, money, gas for cooking or a key with which to leave the residence.
Saroja Priyangani Jayasekara Vithanage, 36, has been relying on food handouts
from neighbours and the charity Helpers for Domestic Helpers while her employer and his family take a holiday in Egypt.
Ms Vithanage's employer, her second since arriving in Hong Kong in 2004, is a
top banker in the city. He cannot be named for legal reasons.
Two charities, Christian Action and Helpers for Domestic Helpers, confirmed
they had contacted Ms Vithanage and organised for food to be brought to her.
A spokeswoman for Helpers said the charity would write to the Immigration
Department about the case and had notified the police. 'She doesn't have anything and she is scared to leave the house because she
doesn't have a key,' the spokeswoman said.
Speaking next to two late-model German-made cars in the garage of her
employer's luxury, multilevel home in Chung Hom Kok, Ms Vithanage held a copy of her contract, which showed that she was paid HK$3,400 a month - the minimum wage for a domestic helper in Hong Kong.
The contract also has a clause stating that she should be given HK$300 a month
if she is not provided with food, but Ms Vithanage said she had yet to receive
this sum.
The instructions left by her employer warn her that she is 'on probation'
because they are unhappy with her performance since she began working on July 18. The instructions also state that she can leave the house only on August 8.
'It's so hard for me because I have a family and three children at home whom I
support by working in Hong Kong,' she said. 'But I have to resign from here, I
cannot take it any more.'
A tearful Ms Vithanage said she had to keep her clothes and food in the garage
since arriving. 'I can't take it any more; I'm going to hand in my notice when they get back to Hong Kong,' she said.
A source close to Ms Vithanage's employer and his wife said that the family
had hired and fired several maids in the past year. 'They all cry and are very unhappy with the madam, who just shouts and blames the girls for everything,' the source said.
Ms Vithanage's employer's secretary at the European investment bank at which
he works said her boss was on holiday but could be contacted by e-mail, which he checked regularly.
Ms Vithanage's employer did not return any e-mails requesting a response to
her allegations.
The case follows a report last month by the New York-based Human Rights Watch, which praised Hong Kong for protecting domestic workers' rights.
August 14th - Employers deny leaving helper with no food or door key
The employers of a domestic helper who claimed she was abandoned without food, money, gas or a key to their exclusive residence for almost two weeks said yesterday they were the real victims.
Saroja Priyangani Jayasekara Vithanage, 36, said last week she had to appeal
to charities and neighbours for food because her employers had left her nothing. Police were called to the residence yesterday by the employer, a top Hong Kong banker, who had returned from holiday. His wife, who agreed to talk to the Post as long as she was not named, said Ms Vithanage may be trying to make a claim against them through the courts.
She said there had been no need for the helper to appeal to charities or
neighbours for food because there was plenty of food in the house and they had
given her $150 to live on while they were away on holiday. A key was available at all times for the maid, she said.
Two charities, Christian Action and Helpers for Domestic Helpers, confirmed
last week they had contacted Ms Vithanage and organised for food to be taken to her.
'Why would we not want her to eat the food here?' the wife said, pointing to
fruit in bowls and in the refrigerator. 'It is only going to go off if it is not
eaten. I have never told her that she cannot eat anything in this house. We even
have emergency supplies in case of a typhoon and water delivered every week.'
The family said they had had a legal problem with a previous helper who had
stolen from them. The Labour Tribunal ruled in their favour, forcing the helper
to pay them back HK$200, she said.
Ms Vithanage offered a resignation letter yesterday, giving them 30 days'
notice. But the wife said they would not sign off on it without advice from the
Labour Department.
'We don't want to sign something until we know what it means. She could be
planning to make a bigger claim because she thinks we are wealthy,' she said.
'But all we have is our reputation. We have four children to support and our
reputation is our way of earning our living. If she really doesn't like us that
much, she can just go now, but she is now saying she will stay and work.'
Ms Vithanage last week showed the Post a copy of her contract, which specified
her pay as HK$3,400 a month, the minimum wage for a domestic helper. It also has a clause saying she should be given HK$300 a month if she is not provided with food, but Ms Vithanage said she had not received the sum.
Democrat politician walks into the Queens Rd McDonalds yesterday after a GST protest and promptly gets bashed with baseball bats. Shocking as it is, it is extremely unlikely that his is a politically motivated incident. At the time of writing, it's impossible to confirm if Hello Kitty was involved but the lesson is clear - McDonalds is a dangerous place.
The early speculation is that it isn't politically motivated, but why do you say "it is extremely unlikely that his is a politically motivated incident"?
Given the amount of unsolved criminal cases involving property damage at the offices of pan-democratic politicians and past history of attacks on folks like Albert Cheng, it would be silly to suggest that a politically motivated incident of violence in Hong Kong is "extremely unlikely".
A third of deaths were not reported to the country's national surveillance system, it says. About one in five hospitals did not report any deaths at all.
Even where deaths were reported, there were often delays and mistakes. In about a quarter of cases, the cause of death given just related to symptoms, such as heart or lung failure.
If bird flu hits, you know you'll be safe in one of these hospitals.
This edition of Jamestown Foundation's China Brief has an article discussing how China was involved in the Lebanon crisis on several levels. Amongst the other interesting observations is this:
As the crisis persisted, a basic contradiction in Beijing’s attitude toward the United States became exposed, reflecting the complicated relations between the two countries. On the one hand, China has blamed the United States for using the conflict to pressure Iran and Syria, to “export democracy” and to promote its “Greater Middle East” Project (People’s Daily Online, July 28). At the same time, Beijing points out, the conflict further demonstrates and underscores the limits of U.S. power....Yet on the other hand, during the conflict, China called on the United States to abandon its “apathy” and “indifference,” occasionally almost begging Washington to step in and “make any move or take any mediatory actions” to stop the war (Xinhua, July 21). Beijing’s recognition of U.S. global influence also reveals the limited sway that China has over the Middle East region. Expectations that the PRC will become a “responsible stakeholder” are premature. For the time being, China is a “silent partner,” talking much but doing little.
There's other gems in the article. Well worth a read.
"China’s behavior toward regional conflicts far from its frontiers has typically followed the same pattern. In an attempt to dissociate itself from the crisis, especially when the protagonists are its associates, Beijing advocates an early and peaceful settlement of the conflict by the parties concerned, preferably without external intervention. When possible, Beijing would exclude even the United Nations from intervening, not only because it offers what it believes is a stage for ulterior motives and interests but also, perhaps mainly, because it compels the Chinese to take a stand and thereby take sides. Above all, Beijing has always promoted the quickest restoration of stability so that its economic interests would not be seriously harmed. This conflict is no exception. From almost the beginning of the Israeli-Lebanon war, Beijing has interpreted the conflict on two levels: the local-particularistic micro-level, and the global-universalistic macro-level."
IMHO the quotes from newspaper (Wen Hui or Ta Kung, or even People's Daily) do not accurately reflect China's diplomatic position. the papers are for PR purpose (with domestic and international) audiences.
the diplomatic position did not sway from the general principle in that introductory paragraph.
while i think the report provides a fairly accurate and insightful account on China's reaction in the conflict. i disagree with the 'stakeholder' statement
1) being a stakeholder does not means agree with US in every issue. especially on this very controversial one, where even France and (over) half of UK are against the US position.
2) choosing to stay out, but support a compromise could also be constructive stakeholder action.
china will be a silent (but cooperative) stakeholder in many issues outside east asia. china may actually not be a stakeholder in some situations, but in this particular case what china did was no different from that of Germany's.
But Chinas was more involved than Germany both through the use of its missiles and through the deaths of its peacekeepers. Indeed China probably has a chance to weigh in as an 'honest broker' and help steer some kind of solution here, but as you and the article point out, China's natural inclination is to avoid getting involved.
wan't the chinese officer in the same bunker as 3 other UNIFIL officers (Aussie, Finnish, Canadian)? if there is surveilance, the other UNIFIL staff who share the bunker must have observed something.
btw, do you have anything more concrete about the 'surveillance' in belgrade? i know there is such theory, but would be interesting to read your source, since you seem to be quite adamant about it.
yes, there is an opportunity for china to act as an honest broker. but it chose not to, because
1) wary of feeding the "china threat" camp
2) adhere to it "hide low, bide time" strategy for economic growth.
3) didn't want to offend Israel or 'lebanon/rest of the world', didn't want to atagonize US in diplomacy -- perhaps this is how the interpret as what 'stakeholder' means
4) happy to let france take the lead, and be a follower
I will see the missile sales more like an action of "mercantilism" -- i.e. seizing every opportunity for economic profit -- and most likely, an act of the decentralized military enterprises. you know china sold weapon to both iran and iraq in the 1980s.
sun bin: adamant? I was simply saying it was evidenced--and my sources are none, other than what was reported on television news at the time, and some articles I read for China Foriegn Policy class in Hong Kong some time ago.
Not sure where you get the idea I am adamant about it.
But I would like to know if there was any felt connection in regards to the Belgrade embassy.
what "evidence" did you read? all i saw is far fetched conspiracy theory.
---
having said that, i think it is not impossible. as we know, many countries (including US, Russia, Japan, France) routinely use emabassies for surveillance function. i am not surprised if china did that as well.
but again, embassy is the soveriegn territory of the country. you do not bomb US surveillance facilities in Hawaii, or Chinese surveillance in Heilongjiang. US spy plane even flies to 12 miles from China coast and all China could do was an airplane crash 'accident'.
therefore, i do not think a sane US government would have bombed the Belgrade embassy even if they are doing some sort of surveillance.
so far i haven't heard of any serious report pointing in that direction. perhaps the reason is as i said earlier, it is incredulous if people from 4 different countries were sheltered in the same tiny bunker.
however, i suppose there might be such theories out there. e.g. from Far Long Gone related media/blogs or things like that.
I can't post it here (because of Simon's weird spam screener), but google bombing of chinese embassy kosovo. you will find several articles about it.
some point to it being an accident.
some point to it being deliberate, as an attempt to bomb the embassy being used as a safehouse by milosevic.
there are still others, including a ''nato confirmed'' report that it was bombed because it was a listening post.
sun bin, i have in no way tried to garnish my comments with an angle or a ideology. i think if you want to you can look yourself. this is not me against you. it's not meant to prove a point.
...but again, embassy is the soveriegn territory of the country. you do not bomb US surveillance facilities in Hawaii, or Chinese surveillance in Heilongjiang.
Precisely. As we have learned from China, it's best to fan the flames of nationalism so as to instigate the masses to attack a foreign embassy.
what salad? i was just answering your question "i wonder if there is any commentary on whether some people thought the same thing happened in lebanon.".
are we talking about lebanon or yugoslavia. you got me all confused
@thm,
china did not fan the protest. it sent police to separae the crowd from the embassy and paid for the repair.
the last thing the CCP govt wanted to see is a crowd out of control.
some western observers just have no clue on what happens in china. when angry crowd protest against CCP corruption, it is democracy. when they protest against foreign, then it is CCP planned.
Just put the situation on your own country, would you also see similar outrage?
Wal-Mart has a special relationship with China - it sources huge amounts of its product from China and single-handedly accounts for 10% of US imports from the place. Wal-Mart is also famously anti-union, fiercely resisting them in any of its stores. But with the juicy carrot of Chinese retailing dangled in front of them, they've given way and allowed unionisation of their workforce in China.
Yet such a breach of Wal-Mart's fortitude is not what it may seem. Official Chinese trade unions are not the same as those in the West:
On the face of it, the conflict between the global retailer and the world's biggest labor group, the All-China Federation of Trade Unions, might seem of epic potential.
But less is here than meets the eye. The federation's not a union alliance in the Western sense. It's controlled by the ruling Communist Party, allows no competing labor unions, rejects free elections of its leaders and often goes to bat on the side of management over workers under the guise of harmonious economic development.
It's also a federation in a fix. It struggles to gain dues-paying members in the thriving private sector and craves international legitimacy. Almost no union confederation abroad recognizes it officially.
And union recruiting certainly differs to the West:
As Nanjing's top labor chief, Chen said it wasn't hard to recruit some 30 of the local Wal-Mart store's 300 employees and persuade them to form a union.
"I presented them with a TV set, a DVD player, books and 20,000 yuan (about $2,500) in cash," Chen said. "I also treated all Wal-Mart employees to an American blockbuster movie, `Mission Impossible III.' You know, with Tom Cruise."
And it's hard to know what the union is going to actually do...
Even so, Wal-Mart sounded unsure of what unionized workers might desire. All of Wal-Mart's Chinese workers get retirement benefits, medical insurance, workers' compensation, maternity and paternity leave, paid holidays and annual health checks, said Amy Wyatt, a spokeswoman for Wal-Mart's international affairs.
And there's one more difference from Western unions:
It's not too early to predict, though, that the new unions will be denied a basic entitlement of unions in the West: the right to pick union leaders in democratic elections.
This is a very useful piece of information that supports Sojourner's argument, as articulated over at the very thought-provoking MAJ-Sojourner Debate, at www.journeysthroughchina.blog.com
Sojourner, incidently, argues that China is the world's most let-it-rip exploitative form of capitalism, and the most consumer-fetishist society on earth. MAJ only partially agrees, and offers a more positive outlook, while some guy named Disco Mao pushes the idea that China would be better off under Maoism - he represents the Maoist Internationalist Movement!
They discuss trade unions in China at one point, and so someone here really ought to come to Sojourner's aid by referring to this post about Wal-mart and unions.
Unionization is likely to become the norm for large international firms in China. Better start picking your leaders now. It looks to be part of policy shift, so don't get in the way of this.
Posted by Shanghai Joe at August 20, 2006 12:12 PM
I'm in the middle of reading Chang/Halliday's Mao: One hell of a prick. So far the book has shown Mao to be a ruthless, heartless and opportunistic son-of-a-bitch who was politically savvy and was fortunate enough to be protected and coddled by another son-of-a-bitch, Joe Stalin.
It is the 40th anniversary of the launching of one the biggest pieces of state-run lunacy in history: the Cultural Revolution. While Communists generally love their anniversaries, even Beijing can't bring itself to commemerate the beginning of "great disorder under heaven". Which leads to an interesting remenicence from AP hack John Roderick on how American reporters covered China in those days and the somewhat surprising revelation that one of their key sources of information was the U.S. Government.
Thanks I'll follow those leads. I know the book has been critically reviewed elsewhere. I wonder if it's proved popular because of the position it takes, because it is well written, because it is well marketed or some combination of all?
It's a combination, to be sure. The writing is.... well, you can judge for yourself, but it's certainly got more energy and moral outrage than your averge history book. It's been marketed like crazy: Regnery is a significant American conservative echo chamber, which means that they've gotten lots of free good press from conservative commentators (and a few "open-minded" liberals who don't know anything about China), and the marketing has highlighted the "original" aspects of the book, making it seem like more than it is. (I put "original" in quotation marks because, while there is substantial new material in the book, a lot of what's being touted are really findings which have been in the English-language scholarship on Mao for years, and the new material is contentious territory due to the difficulty of confirming their research)
For all the hype, it's an important book: confirming or rebuting their points will probably be a recurring theme of modern Chinese historical scholarship in English for a decade. But it's not definitive, by any means.
Indeed, it would be a more important book in the Western academies if its sources were more transparent than they appear to be. But those who do not write history do not require footnotes. The impact of its mere existence has already been felt.
Surely this book has been reviewed in China at the highest levels in an effort to discover and discredit its alleged sources. Where is the news leakage from within China on this?
Rich Kuslan, Editor
Asia Business Intelligence
www.asiabizblog.com
Chang may not be able to add marks to her career this time as a novelist although her previous story has won overwhelming success.
Dragging her historian-husband in as co-author has also not made this book look more scholarly. Their so-called research on china-russian archieve was nothing more than a biased integration of scattered and unproven "facts" and emotional enmities gathered from victims of the Cultural Revolution.
Demonization of Mao will not allow us to view objectively that "dark age period" of contemporary chinese history.
[This is not CPC propaganda]
From the Sydney Morning Herald (free reg. req'd), a report of strange goings-on in Ningxia. It's also a great demonstration of Google Earth and other public satellite picture systems. An excerpt:
On the internet, a little mystery can go a long way. Six weeks ago, a man living in Germany and calling himself KenGrok, announced a fascinating discovery on a Google Earth Community forum.
Poring over satellite images of China on the free Google Earth service, he came across a strange plot of land - approximately 900 metres by 700 metres, about the size of six Sydney Cricket Grounds.
The land, which KenGrok said was landscape that had been modelled for military purposes, is situated near the town of Huangyangtan about 35 kilometres from Yinchuan, the capital of the autonomous region of Ningxia, in northern China. Nearby, there is a substantial facility complete with rows of red-roofed buildings, scores of what look to be military trucks and a large compound with elevated lookout posts and a large communications tower. The land was contoured in a way that was out of sync with the surrounding countryside. It appeared to be a mountainous region, complete with snow-capped peaks and glacial valleys dotted with numerous lakes.
Yet this piece of land was slap bang in the middle of a largely arid area due west of the rich alluvial plains bordering the upper reaches of the Yellow River.
A fellow Google Earth enthusiast suggested that the topography indicated that this was probably a model of land on one of China's frontiers. KenGrok went looking and two weeks later came back with the answer. The swatch was a scale model of 157,500 square kilometres of territory in and around China's Aksai Chin border region that abuts India and Pakistan.
To the Hong Kong government's surprise, there is not a single group that has come out in support of its proposed GST. Even erstwhile reliable toadies such as the Liberal Party have turned their back on the idea. All this less than a month into the nine month "consultation period". The situation is dire, reports the SCMP:
The government will try to rally public support for a broadened tax base following a rethink of its strategy for the consultation on a goods and services tax (GST), which has so far met overwhelming opposition.
The new strategy will be implemented after Financial Secretary Henry Tang Ying-yen returns today from his two-week holiday...
"It is time for us to refocus the discussion on the GST, to make sure people have rational and in-depth debates [on the need for a new tax] in the next stage of consultation. Otherwise, the discussion cannot go on," the source said.
We all know what that means: endless TV ads extolling the virtues of the GST, dressed up as a public service announcement. The current ad cycle includes such edge of the seat issues as appointing even more politicians to do not very much. It makes me nostalgic for those ads on stormwater drains and old people. Meanwhile the government faces a problem: if it can't change people's minds in the next eight months (and it looks unlikely), what do they do with their GST idea? Or perhaps it is an idea the government is happy to see fail as it allows the business as usual system of selling off land to the property cartel? Henry Tang going on holidays only two weeks after launching the GST idea clearly shows what he thinks of the thing. This way he can say he tried, he headed public opinion and he moved on.
The only question is how much taxpayer money has been and will be spent on this fruitless exercise?
PS: I can heartily recommend a holiday at Sanya on Hainan Island, especially if you speak Russian.
by Jason Gorringe, Tax-News.com, London 15 August 2006
Official trade figures have revealed a massive increase in value-added tax fraud in the UK in the three months to the end of June 2006.
According to the UK's Office for National Statistics, almost GBP10 billion (EUR14.8 billion) of the country's exports were associated with Missing Trader Intra-Community fraud (MTIC), or carousel fraud, in the second quarter of the year, up 50% compared to the first quarter.
Carousel fraud has now reached such proportions that it is distorting the UK's trade data. Raw trade data suggested the the UK's exports rose by 39% year-on-year in the second quarter, but when the ONS factored out possible MTIC fraud, this falls to a 12% increase.
In its quarterly inflation report last week, the Bank of England also complained that carousel fraud makes it "extremely difficult" to accurately assess trade flows.
The fraud is largely perpetrated using goods such as mobile phones and computer chips, but also includes other electronic goods. It involves goods imported VAT-free from other EU Member States being sold through contrived business-to-business transaction chains in the UK, and subsequently exported. The tax loss occurs when the VAT charged on the initial sale of the goods in the UK is not paid to HM Revenue & Customs because the seller disappears. The purchaser can still reclaim the VAT, so the loss crystallises when the trader who exports the goods from the UK makes a repayment claim.
However, MTIC is a European concern, and some estimates have put the total loss of VAT within the EU at EUR50 billion annually. This has prompted some European governments, including the UK, Germany and Austria, to seek permission from Brussels to change VAT regulations to apply 'reverse charging' under which the purchaser of the goods, rather than the seller, will be liable to account for the VAT on the sale. So far only the UK has been given permission to change its rules to combat the fraud.
Momentum for action to combat the problem is also growing within the European Commission. In a paper published earlier this year, Taxation Commissioner Laszlo Kovacs presented some radical proposals to counter carousel fraud, but it is thought the EC will take a more conservative approach to the problem by enhancing administrative cooperation and improving safeguards in the current system.
The article doesn't quite spell it out, but it's pretty clear: "you need Viagra, whether you know it or not". Who'd have thought a drug company would sponsor such a survey with such, um, commercially viable results?
Isn't this kind of article Barclay Crawford's thing?
Pfizer roll out the same cooked up figures every year in an effort to sell more Via@gra. Please don't encourage them. They even invented the term erectile dysfunction. Sounds more clinical than impotence.
As an employee of the HK newspaper that published that sad item, I'd say that Sun Bin is correct. The reporter and assigning editor on that story honestly had no clue as to Pfizer's motive or connection regarding that poll.
The real fault lies on the back bench, where they are too jaded, overworked and tired to even care.
It would only be a viable Barclay Crawford item if it involved working girls selling it to patrons of Fenwicks, his primary source of news.
Which I think is probably a good idea from a market perspective because all that coke can be erectilically disfunctioning so you probably need v**** to get it working properly again.
(Can I just point out that I put the stars in the v word because I got this:
Your comment submission failed for the following reasons:
Your comment could not be submitted due to questionable content: v****
Please correct the error in the form below, then press Post to post your comment.)
"The real fault lies on the back bench, where they are too jaded, overworked and tired to even care."
yes, that is the root of the problem in HK newspapers. there is simply no business scale for HK newspaper to afford good staff.
1) the readership in english newspaper is perhaps comparable to that of a medium size county in US. so the scale is 100th of that of LA Times, or NY Times.
2) the chinese newspaper, OTOH, with a market size probably closer to critical mass, is way too fragmented.
It's not just a matter of a model business scale and economics. It's also, at least at The Standard currently, the fact that the paper is entirely under the direction of generally unsophisticated people whose native language is not English and whose news judgement and values seem entirely based on Chinese language newspapers in Hong Kong.
I can't even count the number "important stories" (direct quote) assigned in recent weeks based on press releases hyping non-events, or at the very least events that would be confined to a Metro briefs column if The Standard still had such a feature and was being run by folks with a minimum of western journalism news judgement and who understand the difference between hype, spurious claims and real news.
Then there's the Sing Tao Daily factor. More and more The Standard's business and metro desks are taking their leads from the "sister paper" rather than independent news judgement.
A grotesque case in point: Recently it printed the same tasteless pic of the dying/dead teenage girl who'd overdosed on ketamine. One on the front page and a larger one on the metro lead. The pic came from Sing Tao and also used liberally there. It never would have run under the old regime and for good reason.
I predict The Standard will be running those phony crime and tragedy re-enactment illustrations so popular in the Chinese press before the year is out.
It has become a Chinese newspaper with English characteristics.
Oil and water don't mix. It's handy to remember that before throwing your fortune at trying to prove the saying wrong. From the SCMP, China's Don Quixote:
Chen Jinyi, once China's 35th richest man, is facing court action over unpaid debts after spending his entire fortune on a project to turn water into fuel oil. Hoping the modern version of medieval alchemy would work, Mr Chen and his company, Jinyi Group, spent more than 100 million yuan on research and development into an unproven technology that would dilute oil with water to produce cheaper and more efficient fuel.
That investment may have put Mr Chen into financial trouble. A district court in Hangzhou has publicly identified him for not paying debts totalling 678,000 yuan and the Hangzhou Intermediate People's court initiated proceedings against Jinyi Group for unpaid bank loans of 36 million yuan. Mr Chen insists his "milky oil" project, as it is known in Chinese, has been a success and that all he needs is time to get the product to market.
"The milky oil project is ready and is scientific, legal, authoritative and practical, all it needs now is to be popularised and commercialised," he said in an interview yesterday. "This [legal] problem has arisen because we have invested in this project continuously for three years but now it is ready, there are lots of people who want to co-operate with us and this difficulty will soon be resolved."
[Chen's] personal worth was estimated at 800 million yuan in 2001...The supposed inventor of the new technology, Wang Xianlun, is no longer working or co-operating with Jinyi Group but Mr Chen insists the project will be a success.
"The masses don't understand this technology so I will have to do a lot of scientific education work," he said.
Certainly somone needs scientific education work. At least it's only Chen's money, not shareholders.
Given that bottled water costs more than petrol, I'm not sure this would be an improvement even if it worked.
Sometiems it's hard to tell if the SCMP is being funny or not...although chances are not. The Don is over in Guangzhou and has claimed a breakthrough on the Zhuhai/Macau/Hong Kong bridge project because there will be three customs posts instead of one (this is what constitutes a breakthrough these days). Half-way through this otherwise puzzling reporting piece comes a gem:
Asked why he described the absence of a joint customs and immigration checkpoint as a breakthrough, Mr Tsang said: "It is the agreement which represents a breakthrough ... I think we are now seeing the end of the tunnel."
Mr Tsang was not thought to have been referring to a rival plan for a cross-delta tunnel.
Another reason to avoid cliches: people may take you literally. There was no hint whether the reporter bought drugs for the article.
![[boomerang]](http://simonworld.mu.nu/boomerang2.gif){kind=small}
Posted by 