China Challenges

World Primary: Who Would China Vote For?

Tom Plate writes:

Okay, so he did lose the Pennsylvania primary -- but might Barack Obama be otherwise elected King of the World?

Let's imagine that there was one additional presidential primary added to the endless mix that helps determine who will next occupy the White House. It would be an imaginary primary for all those people in the world who cannot vote in American elections because, well -- right -- they are foreigners.

Let's call it the World Primary.

We're not just talking Canada and Mexico here. Sure, they have to live right next to us, so perhaps a few of them should be designated as honorary Super Delegates, in respect of their gallant, if sometimes pained, propinquity. But people from Pakistan to Venezuela to Iraq are immensely affected by the economic, as well as political, decisions of the President of the United States. Even -- indeed -- North Korea, which tends to pride itself on being isolated from the rest of the world, can hardly hope to escape the long reach of an American president's policies.

So what if a World Primary were held now? Who would be the world's choice?

To read more:

http://www.asiamedia.ucla.edu/columns.asp?parentid=91264

View of China Filled with Complexity

Howard French writes in the IHT:

A university student in a journalism class taught by an American in southern China wrote his professor with an urgent question the other day.

Given that Westerners have been inundated by biased news reports about China and Tibet in recent weeks, he wrote, "How can Chinese people and Chinese media make the foreign world understand the real China?"

For all the apparent simplicity and innocence of the question, behind it lies a world of complexity, along with the real potential for increasing conflict.

To read more:

http://yaleglobal.yale.edu/display.article?id=10695

Harris Poll: China the Biggest Threat to Global Stability

The FT reports:

China has overtaken the US as the biggest threat to global stability in the eyes of Europeans, according to a Harris opinion poll for the Financial Times.

The recent wave of protests and riots in Tibet and the ensuing Chinese crackdown, together with competition from cheap Chinese exports, appear to have dramatically hardened opinion, with the proportion of Europeans who saw China as the biggest threat almost doubling since last year.

The FT/Harris poll, carried out between March 27 and April 8, found an average of 35 per cent of respondents in five European countries saw China as a bigger threat to global stability than any other state. In the US, 31 per cent of respondents also named China, putting it way above Iran and North Korea, which were both perceived as greater threats last year.

The poll was carried out shortly after the unrest in Tibet and during the early stages of the controversial Olympic torch relay. But there were already rising tensions between the European Union and China over trade issues and exchange rates.

To read more:

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/89261466-0a79-11dd-b5b1-0000779fd2ac.html?nclick_check=1

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Games are Not Changing China's Tune

William Pfaff writes in the Australian:

THE International Olympic Committee's decision to grant China the right to organise the 2008 Summer Games was another unfortunate case of unwarranted faith in the power of good intentions: that treating China as a normal 21st-century political society would speed its becoming one.

The vote rested on the assumption that giving China the Games would strengthen what the democratic countries want to see as progressive forces in China, remaking that country on the Western liberal model.

This model, composed of respect for human rights, good governance and a prosperous economy, is widely (if erroneously) believed to be what all modern societies are on their way to becoming. Unfortunately - and to China's present discomfiture - this is not true.

That it is not true is being demonstrated by the Chinese reaction to large and violent demonstrations by Tibetans and by foreign sympathisers against China's occupation of Tibet since 1959, its annexation of it in 1965 and China's repression of Tibetan culture and accompanying transfer of huge numbers of Han Chinese to submerge and suppress Tibetan society and identity. China's authorities - and more importantly, its people - expected nothing like this.

The former are humiliated, their legitimacy undermined. They have hugely miscalculated China's international political reputation. The people are enraged, their assumptions about the West overturned. The world tour of the Olympic flame may be cut short. The effect on the Games is unforeseeable. The eventual effect on the Chinese Government may be considerable.

To red more:

http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,23513667-7583,00.html

Chinese "Thugs" in London

The Daily Mail says:

Lord Coe last night condemned the army of Chinese "thugs" who accompanied the Olympic torch relay through London.

The head of London's 2012 Games described as "horrible" the burly henchmen who barged their way through the capital, shoving the public and even police out of the way.

His trenchant remarks followed those of former Blue Peter presenter and torchbearer Konnie Huq, who revealed the Chinese minders barked orders at her and pushed her arm up to hold the flame higher.

Sunday's scenes, which were repeated in France yesterday, brought accusations that Britain had imported Chinese police state tactics to control the supposedly showcase relay.

To read more:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/news.html?in_article_id=557941&in_page_id=1770&ct=5

Is a Boycott of the Beijing Games Coming?

ABC News reports:

International Olympic Committee (IOC) vice-president Thomas Bach says a number of top athletes are considering boycotting the games in China over the bloody crackdown on protesters in Tibet.

"Several sports stars are feeling ill at ease when they think about the Olympic Games. Some are even considering cancelling," Mr Bach, of Germany, told Sunday's edition of the Bild am Sonntag newspaper.

Mr Bach said he understood the athletes' concerns about the situation in Tibet but said he was advising them to participate.

"They will realise when they assess the situation that it is better to make an appearance than to stay away. That is a symbol that will be noticed by the public," he said.

To read more:

http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2008/03/16/2190934.htm?section=world

China and Africa's Development

At Slate, Eliza Barclay writes:

Inside a dark shop opposite a frenetic bus station, transistor radios are stacked beneath newfangled LED flashlights and belts hang like snakes from the ceiling, their buckles emblazoned with the decidedly un-African word Guangzhou. Outside, in the equatorial sunshine, men who crowded inside the store become mobile versions of it, strapping to their backs 4-foot-wide square racks interlaced with watches, wallets, belts, and other items.

A lanky young vendor whom I'll call Charles walks miles to the city's outskirts shouldering a weighty rack of trinkets, hoping to unload it along the way. Charles, who asked that his real name not be used because it's illegal to vend in the city center, hawks plastic watches for 40 cents and leather belts for $1.80, but his sales are consistent, and on a good day he takes home $45 in earnings. What is impressive about Charles' operation is not only the low, low prices of the Chinese goods he sells but that he brings them to people in the slums who've never bought these things before.

"These new Chinese products help low-income people because they can't afford the European or American stuff," says Mr. Abasi, who owns the store that supplies Charles and other vendors. "People know these products are not good quality, but they buy them because they look expensive."

To read more:

http://www.slate.com/id/2185853/?wpisrc=newsletter

Food Poisionings Soar In China in 2007

The China Economic Review reports:

China's Health Ministry said Monday that food poisoning rose by almost 32% in 2007 over the previous year, despite the total number of food poisoning incidents dropping, Reuters reported. According to a ministry publication, of the 13,280 who fell sick, 258 deaths were reported, and there were also 11 cases in which more than 100 people fell ill. No explanations were given for 2007's trends, but most of the reported incidents occurred in the third quarter of last year. In recent months, China has encountered numerous problems regarding the safety of faced food and drink product manufactured for the domestic as well as the export market.

Source:

http://www.chinaeconomicreview.com/dailybriefing/2008_03_04/Food_poisoning_deaths_up_one_third_in_2007.html

China Urges Paris Store Boycott Over Fake Note Controversy

Channel News Asia reports:

China on Saturday warned its citizens against shopping at a leading Paris department store that wrongly accused a young Chinese couple of trying to pay with a fake banknote, state media said.

Staff at the French capital's Galeries Lafayette dragged the two newlyweds off to a police station earlier this month after making the false accusation, the Xinhua news agency said.

The head of the store on Friday apologised for the incident, but Xinhua quoted an unnamed tourism official calling for a boycott of the famed French brand.

Chinese media also said the country's consulate in France had contacted the police to protest the "brutal" treatment of the couple.

To read more:

http://www.channelnewsasia.com/stories/afp_world_business/view/330734/1/.html

Cultural Differences in the Workplace

In the WSJ, Li Yuan writes:

Why are seemingly open and warm Americans so cautious about talking about personal life in work environment? And why are seemingly reserved Chinese so open about themselves to colleagues?

The first reason is that most Americans believe that their personal life is none of other people's business.

"Americans don't say things like, 'Here's my entire life,' " says Benjamin Gong, a financial-industry executive in Maryland whose parents came from China. "They don't like talking about themselves. They talk about things that are easy to talk about."

That brings up the second reason: Many topics are touchy and considered better left alone at workplaces. The U.S. is a very diverse country, with people coming from all kinds of backgrounds. In an office environment, people are careful when talking about religion, race, gender, sexual orientation and other issues.

To be honest, I'm ambivalent about this political correctness. When I first got here, I thought it was silly and hypocritical. But after a while, I had to admit it might be one of the reasons that this diverse country hasn't fallen into chaos. I still believe that an excess of political correctness has turned American social interactions bland and boring because people are often scared of speaking their minds. Yet at the same time, I can't imagine what this country would be like without it.

By contrast, China is a more-uniform society. The majority of Chinese are atheists, part of the Han Chinese ethnic group and not terribly passionate about politics. But even in China, with the emergence of interest groups in recent years there are cautions against making fun of poor migrant workers and unsophisticated-sounding dialects from less-developed provinces.

Fortunately, Americans do talk about things other than sports in the office. Like Chinese, they enjoy talking about their children -- the joy of parenthood is the same everywhere. And while Americans may not like talking about themselves in the office, like people everywhere they definitely enjoy talking about everybody else in the office.

Source:

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB120310063090471933.html?mod=hps_asia_inside_today

China Claims to be a "Victim" in Climate Change Debate

The Washington Post reports:

Negotiations on a new treaty to fight global warming will fail if rich nations are not treated as "culprits" and developing countries as "victims," China's top climate envoy said.

The whole world must take action to confront climate change, but developed countries have a "historical responsibility" to do much more because their unrestrained emissions in the past century are responsible for global warming, said Ambassador Yu Qingtai.

"The United States and the developed states as a whole are the countries that created the problem, caused the problem of climate change in the first place. In my view, that's what a culprit means," he said in an interview this week on the sidelines of the U.N. General Assembly debate on climate change.

The United States and China are the world's biggest emitters of greenhouse gases blamed for global warming.

Washington has argued it should not have to cut its emissions to a level that would hurt the U.S. economy while countries like China and India are not required to make similar cuts.

Yu disputed that view, calling China "a victim" of climate change and stressing that its economy only started to grow in the last 25 years.

"It's not logical to ask China ... to cap its emissions or reduce its emissions in the same manner as a developed country is supposed to do," he said.

Yu said the principle of "common but differentiated responsibilities" for developed and developing countries was accepted in the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change.

To read more:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/02/16/AR2008021600407.html?wpisrc=newsletter

Mao Offered US 10 million Chinese Women

AP reports:

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Amid a discussion of trade in 1973, Chinese leader Mao Zedong made what U.S. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger called a novel proposition: sending tens of thousands, even 10 million, Chinese women to the United States.

"You know, China is a very poor country," Mao said, according to a document released by the State Department's historian office.

"We don't have much. What we have in excess is women. So if you want them we can give a few of those to you, some tens of thousands."

A few minutes later, Mao circled back to the offer. "Do you want our Chinese women?" he asked. "We can give you 10 million."

After Kissinger noted Mao was "improving his offer," the chairman said, "We have too many women. ... They give birth to children and our children are too many."

"It is such a novel proposition," Kissinger replied in his discussion with Mao in Beijing. "We will have to study it."

Source:

http://www.cnn.com/2008/US/02/14/chinese.women.ap/

Spielberg withdraws from Beijing Olympics

The IHT reports:

The movie director Steven Spielberg has said he is withdrawing as an artistic adviser to the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing after almost a year of trying unsuccessfully to prod President Hu Jintao to do more to try to end Sudan's attacks in the Darfur region.

Spielberg's decision, and the public way he announced it Tuesday, was a blow to China, which has said that its relationship with Sudan should not be linked to the Olympics, which have become a source of national pride.

In a statement sent to the Chinese ambassador and the Beijing Olympic committee on Tuesday, Spielberg said that his "conscience will not allow me to continue with business as usual."

"Sudan's government bears the bulk of the responsibility for these ongoing crimes but the international community, and particularly China, should be doing more to end the continuing human suffering there," the statement said. "China's economic, military and diplomatic ties to the government of Sudan continue to provide it with the opportunity and obligation to press for change."

Responding to Spielberg's action, a spokesman at the Chinese Embassy in Washington said, "As the Darfur issue is neither an internal issue of China nor is it caused by China, it is completely unreasonable, irresponsible and unfair to link the two as one." Officials in Beijing did not respond to requests for comment Wednesday.

To read more:

http://www.iht.com/articles/2008/02/13/asia/beijing.php

Masks for US Athletes in Beijing?

The NY Times reports:

Mr. Wilber, a 53-year-old scientist based here at the United States Olympic Training Center, has spent most of the past two years vying with his counterparts from other nations to devise smarter, safer ways for athletes to face Beijing's noxious air.

To protect the athletes, Mr. Wilber is encouraging them to train elsewhere and arrive in Beijing at the last possible moment. He is also testing possible Olympians to see if they qualify for an International Olympic Committee exemption to use an asthma inhaler. And, in what may be a controversial recommendation, Mr. Wilber is urging all the athletes to wear specially designed masks over their noses and mouths from the minute they step foot in Beijing until they begin competing.

His multipronged strategy could give the United States team an advantage over teams from less-prepared countries. But the plan has a downside: it runs the risk of offending the host country, creating political tension.

Chinese officials say the air in Beijing, one of the most polluted cities in the world, will not be an issue when China’s first Olympic Games start Aug. 8. They plan to limit vehicle use, close factories and do everything in their power to bring blue skies to Beijing. Jacques Rogge, the I.O.C. president, said he was confident the air would be clean because Chinese officials “are not going to let down the world.”

To read more:

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/24/sports/othersports/24mask.html?th&emc=th

Olympic Death Coverup in Beijing?

The CourierMail reports:

CHINESE authorities have covered up the deaths of at least 10 workers in their rush to finish the Olympic stadium for the games that get underway on August 8, it was reported overnight.

According to the Sunday Times newspaper Chinese officials have effectively bought off the families of the dead workers by paying them unusually high amounts of compensation - up to £13,000 ($29,280).

It said unskilled workers earn £3 ($6.76) a day and skilled welders earn just over £4 ($9) a day.

According to the report, the major problem has been the scale and ambition of the project. The stadium will eventually form a bowl shaped like a bird's nest.

"Sadly, fatalities during construction could be due to many different things that have nothing to do with design," Arup, the British engineering firm engaged in the project, told the paper.

To read more:

http://www.news.com.au/couriermail/story/0,20797,23082959-5003402,00.html?from=public_rss

The Rise of China and the Future of the West

G. John Ikenberry writes in Foreign Affairs:

The rise of China will undoubtedly be one of the great dramas of the twenty-first century. China's extraordinary economic growth and active diplomacy are already transforming East Asia, and future decades will see even greater increases in Chinese power and influence. But exactly how this drama will play out is an open question. Will China overthrow the existing order or become a part of it? And what, if anything, can the United States do to maintain its position as China rises?

Some observers believe that the American era is coming to an end, as the Western-oriented world order is replaced by one increasingly dominated by the East. The historian Niall Ferguson has written that the bloody twentieth century witnessed "the descent of the West" and "a reorientation of the world" toward the East. Realists go on to note that as China gets more powerful and the United States' position erodes, two things are likely to happen: China will try to use its growing influence to reshape the rules and institutions of the international system to better serve its interests, and other states in the system -- especially the declining hegemon -- will start to see China as a growing security threat. The result of these developments, they predict, will be tension, distrust, and conflict, the typical features of a power transition. In this view, the drama of China's rise will feature an increasingly powerful China and a declining United States locked in an epic battle over the rules and leadership of the international system. And as the world's largest country emerges not from within but outside the established post-World War II international order, it is a drama that will end with the grand ascendance of China and the onset of an Asian-centered world order.

To read more:

http://www.foreignaffairs.org/20080101faessay87102/g-john-ikenberry/the-rise-of-china-and-the-future-of-the-west.html

An Analysis: China's Smaller Economy

Walter Russell Mead writes:

The most important story to come out of Washington recently had nothing to do with the endless presidential campaign. And although the media largely ignored it, the story changes the world.

The story's unlikely source was the staid World Bank, which published updated statistics on the economic output of 146 countries. China's economy, said the bank, is smaller than it thought.

About 40% smaller.

China, it turns out, isn't a $10-trillion economy on the brink of catching up with the United States. It is a $6-trillion economy, less than half our size. For the foreseeable future, China will have far less money to spend on its military and will face much deeper social and economic problems at home than experts previously believed.

What happened to $4 trillion in Chinese gross domestic product?

Statistics. When economists calculate a country's gross domestic product, they add up the prices of the goods and services its economy produces and get a total -- in dollars for the United States, euros for such countries as Germany and France and yuan for China. To compare countries' GDP, they typically convert each country's product into dollars.

The simplest way to do this is to use exchange rates. In 2006, the World Bank calculated that China produced 21 trillion yuan worth of goods and services. Using the market exchange rate of 7.8 yuan to the dollar, the bank pegged China's GDP at $2.7 trillion.

That number is too low. For one thing, like many countries, China artificially manipulates the value of its currency. For another, many goods in less developed economies such as China and Mexico are much cheaper than they are in countries such as the United States.

To read more:

http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/sunday/commentary/la-op-mead30dec30,0,1035099.story?coll=la-sunday-commentary

World Bank: China's Economy Much Smaller using PPP

The China Economic Review reports:

The size of China's economy was revised downward by 40% in purchasing power parity (PPP) terms in a recent World Bank study of its 2005 GDP, the Wall Street Journal reported. As measured in GDP, China's US$8.8 trillion GDP in 2005 was about 15% of the global total, but under a PPP calculation - which standardizes the buying power across countries with different currencies - found China's economy was recalculated to US$5.3 trillion. The purpose of the study, which included prices of over 1,000 goods in 100 countries, was to get a clearer picture of countries' relative economic strength. The prices analyzed from China came from 11 cities and so did not accounted for prices in rural areas, though the report estimated the margin of error was not more than 5%.

Source:

http://www.chinaeconomicreview.com/dailybriefing/2007_12_18/World_Bank:_Chinas_buying_power_lower_than_expected.html

Chinese Views of America

In Newsweek, Minxin Pei writes:

To the world at large, U.S. behavior under President George W. Bush has been an unmitigated disaster. Not so for Beijing. Its relations with Washington have seldom been better, and China has been a big beneficiary of the United States' declining influence since 9/11.

Like many people, the majority of Chinese today don't care much for the United States. Even though most Chinese continue to admire American culture and to like Americans, 57 percent of Chinese in a recent Pew poll said they viewed the country "unfavorably," for three main reasons: its arrogance, unilateralism and war in Iraq.

China's government, however, does not share this antipathy. Many Chinese leaders are quite happy with the United States these days, though not necessarily for reasons that would please Washington. Bush may want to be another Ronald Reagan. But many Chinese policymakers see him as another Richard Nixon—terrible for his own country but great for China. Washington's preoccupation with the War on Terror and its costly adventure in Iraq have given Beijing valuable strategic space. Early on, the Bush administration dubbed China a "strategic competitor" and seemed to signal that it would try to balance China's rise. But since fighting terrorism and remaking the Middle East have become the organizing principles of U.S. foreign policy, U.S.-Chinese ties have improved. In the same period, the Chinese economy has doubled in size and Beijing's global influence has grown beyond recognition.

To read more:

http://www.newsweek.com/id/77071

Is Learning Chinese a Misguided Fad?

The Economist reports:

“CHINA will be the dominant power in the 21st century and the employment opportunities that speaking Mandarin will give are immense.” Thus Anthony Seldon, headmaster of Wellington College, at a conference in 2006 entitled “Why every school should offer Mandarin”. Nearly two years later, the spectacular growth of the language in British schools shows no sign of slowing. More than 400 secondary schools now teach it, according to the Specialist Schools and Academies Trust, which is lobbying to bring Mandarin into the national curriculum. And Britain is not alone in its enthusiasm for the language: some 30m foreigners are studying Mandarin today, and Chinese authorities expect the number to rise to 100m by 2010.

In a few decades China may indeed overtake America as the world's top economic power. Will Britons who make the effort to learn its language be rewarded with better careers? Barring some kind of sea change in global language learning, the answer will almost always be no.

With its tones and horribly complicated writing system, Mandarin is much harder to learn than most European languages. The Foreign Office, for example, gives its officers four times as long to get from beginner to operational level in Mandarin as it does in Italian, French or Spanish—and only those with the greatest aptitude for languages are selected for it. The vast majority of Westerners who travel to China to study Mandarin give up, go home and forget what they have learned. Undergraduates at British universities find it hard to adjust to a workload heavier than that for other subjects, and many drop out.

To read more:

http://www.economist.com/world/britain/displaystory.cfm?story_id=10180807

Number of Chinese Students in US at Record High

The Shanghai Daily reports:

THE number of Chinese studying in the US has reached a new high, the US Consulate General in Shanghai announced yesterday.

And people from Shanghai have a better chance of getting a US visa than residents of any other part of China.

Officials said the consulate issued student visas to 88 percent of applicants in the past year up to September 30.

Outside Shanghai China's average rate for successful student visa applications is 71 percent.

In the past year, the local consulate issued 15,767 student visas, a 31-percent increase for the year. Overall, the US issued 40 percent more student visas to Chinese students.

Consulate statistics reveal that the total number of Chinese students in the US higher education system increased by 8.2 percent during the 2006/2007 academic year to reach 67,723, a record high.

To read more:

http://www.shanghaidaily.com/sp/article/2007/200711/20071115/article_338175.htm

Product Safety Deal is Close

The China Economic Review reports:

The US and China have are close to agreeing on an import safety deal that could be signed by 2008, AFP reported. US Health and Human Services Secretary Mike Leavitt said the two countries are in the "final phases" of negotiations and hope to sign the agreements at the next twice-yearly Strategic Economic Dialog in Beijing. Leavitt said the agreements would be "groundbreaking," but did not give details. In Beijing, a Chinese food safety official said the country's own food-quality monitoring systems are inadequate, and that only 10% of Chinese food producers made products that qualified for export. Li Chaowei, deputy head of the Import and Export Food Safety Bureau, made the statement at a seminar on the EU's rapid-alert food monitoring system. He said China was trying to improve its own systems by examining those of the EU, the US and Japan.

To read more:

http://www.chinaeconomicreview.com/dailybriefing/2007_11_07/China_US_near_groundbreaking_product_safety_deal.html

No Factories Closed During Olympics

The FT reports:

China has no plans to order factories in and around Beijing to suspend operations during next year's Olympic Games, despite widespread concerns about the effect of air pollution on athletes.

In an interview with the Financial Times, Liu Qi, Beijing Communist party chief and head of the Olympic organising committee, waved aside worries that bad air could mar a sporting event in which the government has invested enormous political capital.

“We are completely confident that Olympic athletes will be able to take part in their competitions normally next August,” said Mr Liu, who is the capital's most powerful official.

With analysts reporting that concentrations of fine particulates and ozone often hit unsafe levels in Beijing in summer, it had been widely assumed that China would order some companies in the city and nearby provinces to close or reduce production during the event.

However, Mr Liu said that while regional governments were co-operating with efforts to combat air pollution, their focus was on implementing existing environmental rules rather than on temporary measures.

To read more:

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/883b0df8-655c-11dc-bf89-0000779fd2ac,dwp_uuid=9c33700c-4c86-11da-89df-0000779e2340.html

A New Red Scare

Tom Plate writes:

It might almost seem like a game of geopolitical chicken -- how far can we go in creating monstrous fears about China?

We only have to turn the clock back a few years to realize what is happening. The year was 1999, and the now forgotten Cox Report on Chinese espionage made red-letter headlines. The Chinese were (allegedly) spying on the United States, stealing technology for warheads and nuclear weapons from here, there and everywhere. Why -- that China-born (or maybe just Chinese) lab assistant is probably working for Beijing intelligence. Better get an FBI man on him!

And the U.S. news media on the whole went for the scare big time. It took longer than I expected for cooler heads to prevail. But today, thankfully, even some of the marquee members of the Cox Commission that produced the overblown report sadly realize they were being used for crass political purposes and the whole deal was the hype of all hypes.

To read more:

http://www.asiamedia.ucla.edu/columns.asp?parentid=77418

Terrorism is the biggest threat to Olympics

The China Economic Review reports:

China's public security minister, Zhou Yongkang, called terrorism "the biggest threat" to next year's Beijing Olympics, state media reported. "Although the general security situation for the Beijing Olympics remains stable, we still face the challenges of terrorism, separatism and extremism," said Zhou. "Terrorism, in particular, poses the biggest threat." Zhou's vice minister, Liu Jing, said some organizations and individuals were planning to disrupt the Olympic torch relay, and that emergencies caused by football fans were another danger. Some 80,000 people will be directly involved in Olympic security, including police officers, professional security guards and volunteers. The officials made their remarks at a security conference for the Beijing games, which included representatives from 32 countries and organizations like Interpol.

Source:

http://www.chinaeconomicreview.com/dailybriefing/2007_09_11/Minister:_Terrorism_biggest_threat_to_Olympics.html

China's Global Image takea a Hit

Frank Ching writes in the Japan Times:

Public opinion surveys taken in the United States and other countries around the world show that China's image has been badly dented in the wake of widespread reports of unsafe food, toxic toothpaste, dangerous toys and poisonous drugs.

A recent NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll showed that 65 percent of Americans have little or no confidence that food imported from China is safe to eat.

To read more:

http://search.japantimes.co.jp/mail/eo20070906fc.html

China's Rise: Few Global Worries

The World Tribune reports:

A new public opinion poll shows a majority of the American people do not see a danger in China’s economic and military buildup, demonstrating that Beijing's efforts to influence public opinion in the United States have been successful.

The poll, conducted by the Chicago Council on Global Affairs and WorldPublicOpinion.org in conjunction with research centers around the world, found that a majority of citizens in eight of 14 countries surveyed (and a plurality in four) expect China to catch up with the United States economically and that they are not worried about it.

To read more:

http://www.worldtribune.com/worldtribune/WTARC/2007/ea_china_06_15.asp

Beijing and Darfur Genocide

Foreign Policy magazine says:

After four years of tireless efforts, Darfur advocacy groups have had little success in pressuring the Bush administration or any other Western government to move decisively against the Sudanese government for its atrocities in Darfur. These groups are right to dismiss the Bush administration's latest sanctions initiative as mere posturing; like all of the president's efforts to date, it's too limited in scope and lacks a wider, more holistic diplomatic strategy.

These groups are focusing instead on the two C's of humanitarian advocacy—China and celebrities—as a remedy for a crisis that has killed over 200,000 people and displaced more than 2.5 million. But in pointing the finger at China, proponents of stronger action on Darfur are merely helping the White House evade moral responsibility for a humanitarian disaster that it labels a “genocide.”

To read more:

http://www.foreignpolicy.com/story/cms.php?story_id=3847&fpsrc=ealert070605

Newsweek: How the World Views China

Newsweek reports on a new poll:

The key finding of the poll, which was conducted by the Chicago Council on Global Affairs and WorldPublicOpinion.org in conjunction with research centers around the world, is that a majority of citizens in 8 of 14 countries surveyed (and a plurality in 4) now expect that China will eventually catch up with the United States economically—yet they're utterly unconcerned by the prospect. Less than a third of respondents in every country surveyed believe China's rise will be "mostly negative," with majorities in most countries anticipating a mixed or positive outcome. That's not to say the dragon has suddenly morphed into a cuddly panda. Surprisingly—indeed, paradoxically—the survey also reveals that a majority or near majority of respondents in most countries don't trust China to act responsibly beyond its borders, and most Asians outside China, wary of Beijing's military build-up, favor an ongoing U.S. security presence in the region.

And then there is this finding:

Perhaps most surprising, Chinese are on average less optimistic about their country's economic ascent than is much of the outside world. Just half of the mainlanders surveyed believe their economy will ever catch up with the United States', compared with 60 percent in the United States and 75 percent in Israel. Perhaps these Chinese know something outsiders don't, or, in the Confucian tradition, are simply more humble about their country's many achievements. The simplest explanation for the disparity, however, is that China's economic surge—and all the talk about the country's "peaceful rise"—is not as evident at home as it is abroad.

To read more:

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/18906545/site/newsweek/

Chinese FDI in America

Benjamin A Shobert at the Asia Times Online says:

Should the US even be pursuing FDI from China? At the intersection of America's past and China's future - the manufacturing intensive heartland of the Midwest - these questions take on a pragmatic orientation and thus far, in the heart of Middle America, China is only vaguely perceived as a potential investment partner.

Even though only dimly perceived, there already exists a considerable synergy between China and the US Midwest. Each needs the other to stay healthy if either is to survive, and yet both China and the Midwest represent sectors of the global economy that are frustratingly duplicated and consequently over-capacitized.

To read more:

http://www.atimes.com/atimes/China_Business/IE04Cb02.html

China's Reaction to the Virginia Tech Killings

The Beijing Newspeak says:

If Chicago Sun-Times columnist Michael Sneed finds herself on an extended holiday, she would be advised to strike China off her list of refuge spots.

Sneed wrote in the Chicago newspaper on Tuesday that the Virginia Tech gunman was Chinese. On Tuesday evening, Virginia State Police identified the killer as South Korean. During the twelve hours between Sneed’s column hitting the shelves and the official statement, China was quivering. A host of international websites carried the story “Chinese student suspected of Virginia massacre”. The main international news agencies wisely chose to wait for the official statement much to the relief of Xinhua. Alarm bells were ringing on the eighth floor, which is home to the international news department, and there was a flurry of activity to work out how to report the nationality of the gunman.

To read more:

http://www.beijingnewspeak.com/2007/04/18/ill-informed-chicago-columnist-scares-the-hell-out-of-china/

China's Mass Market for Western MNCs

The All Roads Lead to China blog says:

Last week, IBM published a report in cooperation with the Economist Intelligence Unit entitled Winning in China’s Mass Markets. At 25 pages, this is definatly one of the better free-bees I have seen in a while that possessed decent information that would enable the readers to gain some understanding of just how difficult it will be to structure for the mass market.

To read more:

http://www.allroadsleadtochina.com/?p=292

China is Winning the Global PR Game

Newsweek International says:

Ordinary people across the planet now view China more warmly than they do the United States. Polls taken by the Program on International Policy Attitudes and the BBC show that majorities of people in most countries today consider China to be a more positive influence and less of a threat to international peace than the United States is. Such sentiments are particularly strong in the developing world; China is rated far more favorably than the United States is in places ranging from Saudi Arabia (54 percent to 38 percent) to Turkey (27 percent to 15 percent) to Indonesia (60 percent to 40 percent) to Brazil (53 percent to 42 percent). Even in Australia, one of Washington's closest allies, polls by the Lowy Institute now show that average citizens feel as good about China as they do about the United States.

To read more:

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/17886723/site/newsweek/

Chinese Readers Seek Jewish Answers

The Washington Post notes the popularity of books about Jewish businessmen:

In the past few years, sales of "success" books have skyrocketed, publishers say, and now make up nearly a third of the works published in China, and perhaps no type of success book has been as well marketed or well received as those that purport to unveil the secrets of Jewish entrepreneurs. Many of these tomes sell upward of 30,000 copies a year and are thought of in the same inspirational way as many Americans view the "Chicken Soup for the Soul" series.

To read more:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/02/06/AR2007020601713.html?referrer=email

US Dems versus China

Newsweek reports:

The last time U.S. Democrats dominated Congress, a dozen years ago, China was still recovering from the traumatic 1989 crackdown on pro-democracy demonstrations in Tiananmen Square. Although the economy was growing at an impressive rate, China was still a net exporter of oil, and Beijing authorities were diplomatic introverts on the international stage. Nancy Pelosi, in those days merely a member of the rank-and-file in the U.S. Congress, was one of China’s most vocal critics. She blasted Beijing for its human-rights record, opposed giving China most-favored-nation trading status for a decade and argued against allowing Beijing to host the 2000 Summer Olympics.

To read more:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/15661052/site/newsweek/from/RS.4/

Harvard Says China is Slipping

The Harvard Business School e-newsletter says:

The United States and Germany remain atop the latest Business Competitiveness Index, with China continuing to slip in the rankings while India ascends, according to a report released from Harvard Business School's Institute for Strategy and Competitiveness.

China, which has retreated in the rankings since 2002, fell nine spots to 64, according to the ISC. "This year's decline was driven especially by higher levels of corruption, weaker assessment of buyer sophistication, and concerns about labor relations," the study found. Also contributing were weak property rights, poor board governance, and low quality of management education. "Overall it is clear that euphoria about China is moderating as the realities of its competitiveness become more apparent," the report concludes.

To read more:

http://hbswk.hbs.edu/item/5454.html

Pew Research - How Asia Views China

Publics of Asian powers hold negative views of one another. 

Pew Research Center, 22 September 2006

Click here for the report in PDF format.

The Peaceful Rise of China

Newsweek International reports:

In the late spring of 2004, several dozen Chinese and international scholars gathered in Boao, a resort town on Hainan Island in the South China Sea. The purpose of the meeting was to discuss a new concept advanced by Zheng Bijian, a Chinese intellectual known for his connections with Chinese President Hu Jintao.

Though Zheng's Chinese rivals carped among themselves about exactly how close the two were, his intellectual pedigree had unarguably deep roots: it stretched back to the late 1970s, when he had been part of a group of scholars who had traveled to the West at Deng Xiaoping's request. For most of the 1980s and 1990s, Zheng developed a career as a sort of intellectual ambassador for Chinese leaders. His new theory was called "The Peaceful Rise of China."

To read more:

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/14871319/site/newsweek/

American Attitudes toward China

The Committee of 100, a national, non-partisan organization composed of prominent American citizens of Chinese descent, has announced the preliminary results of the first of a two-phase study on American Attitudes toward China, conducted by Zogby International.

The key findings of the survey are that American attitudes towards China have improved significantly over the last 10 years (from 46% to 59%); and that Americans do see China as a serious, current economic threat and a potential military threat. Human rights and global environmental concerns were also noted by a significant number of those polled.

To read more:

http://www.committee100.org/publications/survey/survey_uschina05.htm

The American Push to Learn Mandarin

The Washington Post reports:

More than 1.3 billion people worldwide speak Chinese, and about 885 million of those people speak Mandarin, China's official language and dominant dialect. In the United States, only about 24,000 students in grades seven through 12 study the language, according to a report from the Asia Society, a nonprofit, nonpartisan group that seeks to build ties between the United States and Asia. But educators say those students reflect a steady growth in the number of Americans wanting to learn Chinese.

"People are finally beginning to pay attention to Mandarin as a major cultural and economic prospect for students," said Michael H. Levine, executive director of education for the Asia Society. "The push is coming from the defense [community] and government and grass-roots interest from parents."

To read more:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/08/25/AR2006082501418.html?referrer=email

A Chinese Offer for Gateway?

The Financial Times reports:

Shares of Gateway, a struggling US computer maker, jumped more than 13 per cent on Wednesday after Lap Shun Hui, a China-born entrepreneur, made an unsolicited $450m bid for the company’s retail operation. Gateway, whose stumbles have relegated the company to a distant third in the US computer market behind Dell and Hewlett-Packard, said its board would review the offer.

In a letter to Gateway on Monday, Mr Hui, who sold eMachines, a low-cost PC maker, to Gateway in 2004 for $290m, urged the company to “adopt a sense of urgency” to address increased competition and a declining stock price.

To read more:

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/5c9c603c-32ec-11db-87ac-0000779e2340,_i_rssPage=81cea682-52a8-11da-8d05-0000779e2340.html

Human Corpse Repair Work

The NY Times reports from Dalian, China:

Inside a series of unmarked buildings, hundreds of Chinese workers, some seated in assembly line formations, are cleaning, cutting, dissecting, preserving and re-engineering human corpses, preparing them for the international museum exhibition market.

To read more:

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/08/08/business/worldbusiness/08bodies.htm?_r=1&oref=slogin

Its a Small World

Businessweek says:

Radical change in the structure of the world economy is rare. But make no mistake: The emergence of world-class companies from developing nations is a shift that portends a new global game.

Indeed, emerging economies are no longer just about outsourcing or tapping into local markets. We are seeing the first wave of emerging-nation players that have clear advantages in their industries. Rather than the competition among three or four countries that long dominated global commerce, we have entered an evolving game of multiple geographies. The importance of that change -- and the challenge it poses to the dominance of the West and Japan -- cannot be overstated.

To read more:

http://businessweek.com/magazine/content/06_31/b3995011.htm

The Global Creative Economy

At Cato Unbound, Mr. Richard Florida argues:

American economic experts and policy-makers are rightly preoccupied with the emergence of behemoths like India and China, which offer huge markets, capable workforces, and cost advantages. Unfortunately, they overlook a subtler but even more profound shift in the nature of global competition.

In the past two and a half decades, this shift has taken us from the older industrial model to a new economic paradigm, where knowledge, innovation, and creativity are key. At the cutting edge of this shift is the creative sector of the economy: science and technology, art and design, culture and entertainment, and the knowledge-based professions.

The U.S. is at the forefront of this global creative economy. Over the next decade, it’s projected to add 10 million more creative sector jobs, according to the newest numbers from the Bureau of Labor Statistics. At the present rate of increase, creative jobs alone will soon eclipse the total number of jobs in all of manufacturing. Already, more than 40 million Americans work in the creative sector, which has grown by 20 million jobs since the 1980s. It accounts for more than $2 trillion USD—or nearly half—of all wages and salaries paid in the U.S.

To read more:

http://www.cato-unbound.org/2006/06/04/richard-florida/the-future-of-the-american-workforce-in-the-global-creative-economy/

Red Ken on Chairman Mao

Mr. Guy Adams writes in the Independent:

It's been a few months since Ken Livingstone dropped a decent clanger, so thank goodness London's Mayor retains a deeply-held affection for the People's Republic of China.

                                        

Back in January, Ken used a visit to Beijing to defend the Communist regime's human rights record, comparing the Tiananmen Square massacre to poll tax riots in Trafalgar Square.

Yesterday, history repeated itself. During his weekly Mayoral Question Time at City Hall, Livingstone, right, decided to stick up for one of the last century's foremost dictators, Chairman Mao.

Asked about his attitude to regimes alleged to abuse human rights (the Tory questioner cited China and Venezuela) Ken claimed Mao's cultural revolution was "justified", because it improved chiropody.

"One thing that Chairman Mao did was to end the appalling foot binding of women," he announced. "That alone justifies the Mao Tse-tung era."

The comment met with disbelief from members of the London Assembly. They note that Jung Chang's recent book on Mao blames him for the deaths of seventy million people.

"At first, we thought it was just a flippant joke," says one. "But it soon became clear that Ken was being serious."

Last night, London Assembly Tories went on the offensive over the incident: "The fact that these outbursts are becoming more frequent and more outlandish should be of grave concern to all Londoners."

To read more:
http://news.independent.co.uk/people/pandora/article485885.ece

Expats Explore China

The number of Western expats, like myself, is growing in China.  Newsweek International reports:

China seems to be awash in expats who seem content to drift from one job to another before landing something that catches their fancy. They are taking advantage of burgeoning demand for local-hire China hands with Mandarin-language skills in entertainment, media, finance, trading and other fields.

At the same time, Western firms are looking to scale back on their longstanding practice of sending highly compensated expats to China with housing allowances and hardship pay. Instead, they’re turning to a labor pool of Westerners—estimated at 300,000—who have decided to settle in China, at least while the economy continutes to grow and rents (one-bedroom apartments in Beijing start at $300 a month) stay cheap.

To read more:

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/12634786/site/newsweek/

America's Economic Strength

Mr. Gerald Baker argues that America's economic dominance remains strong:

In an era in which China embodies the hopes and fears of much of the developed world, the US, with a growth rate of half that of China's, is adding roughly twice as much in absolute terms to global output as is the Middle Kingdom, with its GDP (depending on how you measure it) of between $2 trillion and $4 trillion and its growth of about 10 per cent.

Even when you account for the fact that US growth is not going to continue at 5 per cent, but will revert to its trend of more like 3.5 per cent per year, you are still talking about an economy adding more than $400 billion in inflation-adjusted terms every year (not quite Brazil or Australia, but significantly bigger than Switzerland or Belgium) .

That means that, on current trends, for at least the next decade the US will actually keep growing in total dollar or yuan numbers by a larger amount than will China (even if the yuan is substantially revalued, by the way). And beyond that ten-year horizon, can anybody really be confident that China will maintain its current rate of growth? (We haven't even talked here about per capita GDP, where the US advantage will remain unapproachable for decades.)

To read more:

http://business.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,13129-2150167,00.html

Pingpong Diplomacy at 35

AP reports: 

In April, 1971, at the height of the Cold War, a bitterly anti-American communist China invited a lowly American table tennis team to visit Beijing. The world was stunned and mystified: Why had implacably hostile China lifted its ban, in effect since the founding of the people's Republic in 1949, on visits by Americans?

To read more:

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060407/ap_on_re_as/pingpong_diplomacy

The Productivity Race

At TCS Daily, Mr. Tim Worstall writes:

Is globalization a race to the bottom or a race to the top? Will living standards for the average American inevitably fall as all those foreigners make everything for us while being paid spit-and-a-packet-of-peanuts? Or, as most economists point out, will foreigners getting richer make us richer still?

After all, if the Chinese (for example) can do everything cheaper than we can, what on earth will we produce? If shoes, cars, clothes, steel and everything else will be made in China, what on earth is there going to be left for the American worker to make?

A fair question.

To read more:

http://www.tcsdaily.com/article.aspx?id=040706G

China, Without the Stereotypes

The CSM has an article about Western images of China.  It explains:

Three-quarters of a century ago, Americans often viewed China through one of two distorting lenses, both of which can be linked to famous works of popular culture of the 1930s. One was a patronizing lens that can be associated with the 1931 Pearl Buck novel "The Good Earth," and the popular 1937 film it inspired. The other was a demonizing lens that can be associated with a 1932 horror film, "The Mask of Fu Manchu." China today, of course, is a very different place.

To read more:

http://www.csmonitor.com/2006/0407/p09s03-coop.html?s=hns