China Tech Blogs

Mongolia: “Khoomii doesn't belong to China”

Portnoy — Tue, 09 Feb 2010 17:37:19 GMT

On PetitionSpot, a new petition goes on to ask China officials to stop registering “Khoomii” or Mongolian throat singing in their Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity in UNESCO.

China: Let Feng Zhenghu come home, to jail time

John Kennedy — Tue, 09 Feb 2010 10:56:12 GMT

Feng Zhenghu's 92-day protest in Narita airport has ended and he now has a flight back to Shanghai booked for this Friday, just in time for Chinese New Year, but updates [zh] to his Twitter account over the past weekend suggest that Feng remains unsure over whether he'll be let back into China. This Friday at noon will be his ninth consecutive attempt to return home.

Why hasn't Feng, with his valid passport, been allowed to return to China, a right supposedly afforded to all Chinese citizens? In the absence of an explanation from Beijing, many have looked to Shanghai and see Feng's story as part of a larger trend of local authorities' growing willingness to violate rule of law with disregard to response from the Central government.

Mainland Chinese media aren't reporting on Feng's current forced exile, and many blog posts and BBS threads on the topic have been harmonized; sentiment within China's virtual (self-imposed) exile community on Twitter stands quite strongly in Feng's favor, but in a case this like what more is there really to say?

A lot it turns out, judging from this archived Anti-CNN thread which dates back to December and runs on for five pages; comments from the first page illustrate a seldom-heard perspective on the larger story behind Feng's situation, that of the plight of figures in China's exiled democracy movement, several of whom have recently begun using sites like Facebook and Twitter to connect with a growing number of mainland netizens:

为你而注册:
冯正虎的事情，我好像叛变了
他还是有点钱的，要说他是美分党很难让人相信。
他没有任何组织，说他是民运，也没人相信。
５５５回不了国。连一个理由都没有。
上海怎么了？

I Signed up 4u:

WRT Feng Zhenghu's case, I think I've switched sides
You know he does have a fair amount of his own money, nobody's really going to believe that he's bankrolled by the US gov.

He's not affiliated with any groups, so it's hard to paint him as part of the democracy movement.
They won't let him come home, and he hasn't even been given a reason.

Just what is going on there in Shanghai?

liuyw2009:
你凭什么认为自己了解他？你认识他？

liuyw2009:

Who are you to speak up for him? Do you know him?

为你而注册:
我不了解他。
就是因为不了解才好奇。究竟什么原因？
难道不需要任何理由，就可以采取这种方式？
这才是让人恐惧的地方。

I Signed up 4u:

No, I don't.

But it's because I don't know him that I'm curious. I want to know what this is all about.
I mean they have to have some sort of reason to take steps like this, no?

That's the scary part.

shangqunsheng:
据了解，冯正虎拥有日本居留签证，日本入国管理局多次劝他入境。（摘自南海网）
日本人吗？仍是中国籍吗？如不是中国人当然可以拒绝入境。

shangqunsheng:

From what I know, Feng Zhenghu has a Japanese residency visa, the Immigration Bureau of Japan has let him enter the country numberous times. (according to HainanNet)

wilkins:
据称，他是三股势力的其中之一。
众人恍然大悟，明白了。

wilkins:

They say he's mixed in with one of the Three Evils.
The people's eyes have been opened, they understand now.

shangqunsheng:
问：因为被中国相关部门拒绝入境，中国公民冯正虎至今仍在日本机场滞留。为什么他作为中国公民却不被允许入境？如果他被允许回到中国，中方将如何处置他？
答：中国有关部门根据相关法律，如《中华人民共和国公民出境入境管理法》来处理。具体情况请你向有关部门去了解。（中国外交部答记者问）
以往是中国人，目前可能不是中国人。只是华裔而已。

shangqunsheng:

Q: Chinese citizen Feng Zhenghu, having been refused entry to China by the relevant authorities, to his day has been taking abode in Japan's Narita Airport. As a Chinese citizen, why is he not being allowed to enter China? Also, if he is allowed to return to China, how will he be treated?

A: The relevant Chinese authorities will deal with this according to the relevant Chinese laws, such as . For the exact details you can contact the relevant departments. (response to a journalist's question at a Ministry of Foreign Affairs press conference)

He used to be a Chinese citizen, now all he might be is just an ethnic Chinese.

woshizx:
[b]中华人民共和国公民出境入境管理法实施细则[/b]
http://www.gov.cn/banshi/2005-08/31/content_27719.htm
第十五条　有下列情形之一的，边防检查站有权阻止出境、入境：
[…]
（二）持用无效护照或者其他无效出境入境证件的；
[…]
第二十二条　中华人民共和国护照和其他出境入境证件的持有人有下列情形之一的，其护照、出境入境证件应予以吊销或者宣布作废：
[…]
（三）从事危害国家安全、荣誉和利益的活动的。
[…]

I am ZX:

Details on implementation of the Law of the PRC on the Control of the Exit and Entry of Citizens

Article 15 Under any of the following circumstances, border inspection points have the authority to refuse entry or exit:
[…]
2. Possession of an invalid passport or other invalid entry/exit document;
[…]
Article 22 PRC passports and other entry/exit documents will under any of the following circumstances be revoked or declared invalid:
[…]
3. A Chinese citizens commits an act harmful to the security, honor or interests of the country.
[…]

为你而注册:
（三）从事危害国家安全、荣誉和利益的活动的。
——————————————————-
依据这条？
那就宣布护照吊销就完了。搞得满城风雨。

I Signed up 4u:

3. A Chinese citizens commits an act harmful to the security, honor or interests of the country.

So it was based on this?
So then declare his passport invalid and be done with it, no need for all this fuss.

kachemi:
喜欢美国去美国啊不要回来装民主的精蝇

kachemi:

If he likes America so much he should just go there, don't coming back pretending to be a democracy leader or whatever

woshizx:
依据这条？
那就宣布护照吊销就完了。搞得满城风雨。
…
冯的护照早就过期了，他自己说过中国驻日本大使馆不给他续签。
政府基本上一句话不说应该是想冷处理这种事，这种的事情你一旦回应就被黏上了，到时候什么西媒、什么NGO、什么“不同政见者”甚至这个那个国家的外交部、议会都会卷进来，所以干脆不回应。
他有本事就连续几年在东京成田机场耗着，到时候看到底是中国政府着急还是日本政府着急。
这个人早年反对1989年那起风波里政府的决策，这次美国总统来访又公开呼吁奥巴马在人权问题上要向中国施压。
还有其他，不一而足。

I am ZX:

So it was based on this?
So then declare his passport invalid and be done with it, no need for all this fuss.

Feng's passport expired a long time ago, he said himself that the Chinese embassy in Japan wouldn't renew his visa.
By staying silent, the Chinese government probably just wants this to blow over; the minute you start responding to things like this, then you're in it, and Western media, NGOs, ‘dissidents' or whatever, even foreign ministries from this or that country, they all get involved. Which is why no response whatsoever should be given.

If he's so smart, let him spend a few more years in Narita Airport, then we'll see who's really worked up over this, the Chinese government, or Japan's.

First he opposed the government's policies during that storm in 1989, now when the American President came to visit he openly called on Obama to put pressure on China for its human rights issues.

There's more, that's not all he's done.

为你而注册:
这件事情我感觉不好处理。这个人和海外民运还是有本质区别，他的所谓反对政府的事情更多的是观点而不是行动。
感觉上海方面把对付海外民运那套滥用了。网络舆情不利于政府的。

I Signed up 4u:

I just feel like there's no simple way to handle this. He's obviously different from those in the overseas democracy movement, even his so-called opposition to the government at most is just a point of view and not yet an action.

It feels like Shanghai is just bringing the overseas democracy movement into this as an excuse to deal with him. Online opinion on this is not in the government's favor.

木兰歌:
又一标准的送礼出境。

Song of Mulan:

Another classic example of sending gifts to other countries.

相逢于海上:
即使是民运、轮轮
也应该让他回国，他要回来坐牢，你凭什么不让他坐牢。

Met on the Sea:

Even if he is part of the democracy movement or an FLGer
They should still let him come back. If he wants to come back and go to prison, who are you to stop him?

为你而注册:
[quote]即使是民运、轮轮
也应该让他回国，他要回来坐牢，你凭什么不让他坐牢。[/quote]
还是有区别的，民运、轮轮这些说实话是真的对中国没有一点积极意义。
这个冯的事情，他是明显的思想上是比较偏右的，但是行动上是比较温和的。也就是说说，然后帮别人维权提供法律帮组。
其实像冯这样的很多。
把他等同于海外民运、轮轮处理。
会导致人人自危。
温和右派有多少人？
算１％吧，也是上千万。
人人自危的结果。不妙！
这件事情的处理感觉很不妥当。

I Signed up 4u:

Even if he is a democracy activist or FLGer
They should still let him come back. If he wants to come back and go to prison, who are you to stop him?
There's a difference. Those in the democracy movement, FLGers, to be honest they don't do China an inch of good.
But with Feng, while his views are obviously pretty right wing, his actions are moderate enough. He'll talk a lot, but then he goes and helps people uphold their rights or provides legal support.

Actually there's a lot of people like Feng.

If we treated them all like democracy activists or FLGers, a lot of people would feel threatened.
How many people would you say belong to the moderate right?
Let's say about 1%, that's still in the tens of millions.
Putting the fear into that many people? Bad idea!
The way this is being handled just doesn't feel right.

woshizx:
[quote]即使是民运、轮轮
也应该让他回国，他要回来坐牢，你凭什么不让他坐牢。[/quote]
那不正好成就一帮所谓“义士”？
撑死了最多关几年然后放出来，不正好给他们活动资本吗？然后造就一群达赖喇嘛第二？

I am ZX:

Even if he is part of the democracy movement or an FLGer
They should still let him come back. If he wants to come back and go to prison, who are you to stop him?
Wouldn't that then make them all a bunch of so-called ‘righteous knights'?

If at most all you do is lock them up for a few years then let them out, isn't that just giving them political capital? Then wouldn't you just be making a bunch more Dalai Lama types?

woshizx:
[quote]还是有区别的，民运、轮轮这些说实话是真的对中国没有一点积极意义。
这个冯的事情，他是明显的思想上是比较偏右的，但是行动上是比较温和的。也就是说说，然后帮别人维权提供法律帮组。
其实像冯这样的很多。[/quote]
也许，这个人做的事情不仅仅是现在媒体上公开的那些那么简单？
类似的例子不是没有，比如沃维汉事件。

I am ZX:

There's a difference. Those in the democracy movement, FLGers, to be honest they don't do China an inch of good.

But with Feng, while his views are obviously pretty right wing, his actions are moderate enough. He'll talk a lot, but then he goes and helps people uphold their rights or provides legal support.
Actually there's a lot of people like Feng.

Have you considered that maybe the things this guy has done aren't as simple as what's been openly put in media?
It's not like there aren't any similar cases, like the Wo Weihan incident.

wilkins:
社会的改变，哪次不需要血来改变。
就那么轻轻松松想翻了案，哪有那么容易

wilkins:

Since when has there been social change that hasn't had a cost in blood?
You want his case to just be overturned like that? It's not that easy.

相逢于海上:
法律本来就是针对行为而不是针对某个主体的
不管你是谁，犯了这个事情，就让你接受法律的处罚，你接受完处罚了，你就是正常的人了，该干嘛干嘛去。
如果没犯这个事，不管你是什么身份，都不得处罚。
坐牢的过程就是把你对社会做的恶都抵消了，抵消完了，就两不亏欠了，坐完牢，又是一条好汉。
就像台湾的施明德，第一次犯事被关了12年，一出来马上又犯事，又关12年
人家有种，愿意坐牢，你总不能为了防止他犯事，在坐完牢，和社会两不亏欠的情况下，把他关起来或者把他移送出境吧。人家和社会两不亏欠，是个正常人，你凭什么这么对待人家？
凡是不以行为定罪，而以主体定罪的，皆是恶法，不值得遵守。
所以，如果中国真的讲法治的话，应该是千方百计让所有的轮轮、民运引渡回国让他们接受法律的审判，审判完了，他们坐完牢了，又可以在中国自由活动了，如果再犯事再抓。顶多是第二次抓按照累犯从重处罚。
如果中国政府不让他们回国，只能说明中国不是法治，而是人治。

Met on the Sea:

Law to begin with is used again specific actions, and not certain groups of people.

It doesn't matter who you are, if you break the law, then you have to accept the legal punishment, and once you've done so, then you get to be a civilian again, that's how it goes.

If you haven't broken the law, then regardless who you are, you shouldn't be punished.
The process of sending people to prison is to cancel out the evil they've done to society. Once that's done, then nobody's owed anything. Once you've done your time, you get to be a man again.

Just like Shih Ming-teh in Taiwan, he did 12 years for his first offense, then as soon as he got out, 12 more years for another.

If people have the guts, and are willing to—and do—serve time, once they've repaid their debt to society, you can't just lock them up again or kick them out of the country just to stop them from doing the same thing again. When people have repaid their debt to society, they're free. Just where do you get off wanting to treat people like that?
Any law which criminalizes people for things other than their actions, and seeks to criminalize entire communities, is inevitably a bad law, and one that doesn't deserve to be respected.

Thus, if China is truly serious about implementing rule of law, it should do everything it can to extradite all FLGers and pro-democracy activists, give them all trials; when those are over, let them carry out their sentences, and be free to move around inside China again. If they continue to break the law, they'll be arrested again. If they get arrested a second time, at most they'll be sentenced as any repeat offenders would.

If the Chinese government doesn't let them return, then all I can say is that China is not ruled by law, but by man.

再大的罪恶也没有前线军官投敌叛变的罪恶大了，就是说林毅夫。
可是台湾的“国防部”有说不许林毅夫回台湾吗？他们只是说林毅夫如果回台湾，就得接受法律的处罚，并不是一概拒绝他回台湾。
林毅夫如果愿意坐牢，当然可以回去，坐完牢，他又可以在台湾自由活动了。
可是我们呢？民运、轮轮，犯的事比的上林毅夫么？居然说一概不允许回来，人家愿意回来坐牢都不行，这是什么法治？分明是人治。

In any case, there isn't any crime worse than high-ranking military officials turning traitor and going over to the other side, by which I'm referring to Justin Lin.

But then hasn't Taiwan's “Ministry of Defense” said it won't let him return to Taiwan? By that they mean, if Justin Lin does return to Taiwan, he'll be subject to legal punishment, and not that they refuse to allow him to return.

If Lin is willing to serve time, of course he can go back, go to prison, and then he'll be free to live in Taiwan again.

But us? Do the crimes of the democracy movement or FLG compare to Justin Lin's? To go so far as to unconditionally not allow them to return, even if they're willing to go to prison for it, what kind of rule of law is that? Clearly, it's just rule of man.

net2003:
美国可以有叛国罪，为何中国不可有。
为何中国的叛国者，总是可以厚着脸和中国谈人权讲法律，还那么的理直气壮。

net2003:

Treason is a crime in America, why can't it be in China?

Why are China's traitors also so brazen about talking to China about human rights, about law, as if they're so convinced that they're in the right?

woshizx:
[quote]法律本来就是针对行为而不是针对某个主体的
不管你是谁，犯了这个事情，就让你接受法律的处罚，你接受完处罚了，你就是正常的人了，该干嘛干嘛去。
如果没犯这个事，不管你是什么身份，都不得处罚。
坐牢的过程就是 …[/quote]
不准回国也是有法律依据可循的。
想回国？可以，登报声明反省，并且以实际行动证明不再从事危害国家安全活动。
对违法行为的惩治手段并不是只有判刑一种，不准回国也是一种惩治措施。这种措施对于维护法律实施具有更好的效果，那就完全可以采用。

I am ZX:

Law to begin with is used again specific actions, and not certain groups of people.

It doesn't matter who you are, if you break the law, then you have to accept the legal punishment, and once you've done so, then you get to be a civilian again, that's how it goes.

If you haven't broken the law, then regardless who you are, you shouldn't be punished.

The process of sending people to prison is to cancel out the evil they've done to society. Once that's done, then nobody's owed anything. Once you've done your time, you get to be a man again.

Actually there is legal basis in not letting them return to China.

You want to come back? Fine, declare it in the newspaper that you've changed your ways, and put action to your words to prove that you won't commit any more acts harmful to the security of the country.

Jail time isn't the only means by which to punish illegal behavior, not letting them return to China is one too. If there are other methods which will have a better effect in upholding the law, then there's no reason why they can't be used.

相逢于海上:
[quote]美国可以有叛国罪，为何中国不可有。
为何中国的叛国者，总是可以厚着脸和中国谈人权讲法律，还那么的理直气壮。[/quote]
一个美国人犯了叛国罪逃亡在外
美国政府一定是千方百计把他引渡回来，判处刑罚
假如判处的有期徒刑不是太长，这个人坐完牢了还没死，一定是又放出来，成为一个正常的美国公民。
绝对不是说，犯了事，拒绝你回国，也不给你判刑。

Met on the Sea:

Treason is a crime in America, why can't it be in China?

Why are China's traitors also so brazen about talking to China about human rights, about law, as if they're so convinced that they're in the right?

If an American commits treason and then flees the country

The American government would certainly do everything in its power to extradite and them convict him.

Say though that the sentence wasn't that long, that this person finishes his sentence and is still alive. He'd certainly be let out, and then revert to being a normal American citizen.

They would never say, we'll you've committed a crime so we won't let you come back, and we won't sentence you either.

woshizx:
他们和中国谈人权讲法律，就真的是人权卫士护法先锋了？
哪个家伙跟自己的国家为敌的时候，不是搞一堆冠冕堂皇的理由作为挡箭牌的？

I am ZX:

These people talking to the Chinese government about human rights and rule of law, are they really human rights defenders or the avant-garde in defending Falun Gong?

Who hasn't, when going against his own country, come up with a hundred fancy reasons to serve as a pretext?

net2003:
美国的叛国罪应该是他们最严重的罪了。是可以定死刑的。

net2003:

I think treason is the most serious crime there is in America, punishable by death.

相逢于海上:
[quote]不准回国也是有法律依据可循的。
想回国？可以，登报声明反省，并且以实际行动证明不再从事危害国家安全活动。
对违法行为的惩治手段并不是只有判刑一种，不准回国也是一种惩治措施。这种措施对于维护法律实施具 …[/quote]
我暂时无法知道是否有这样的处罚措施
但是假如真的有的话，这样也是十分不人道的
这样会导致他一辈子无法跟家人团聚
除非他家人有本事全都移民出国

Met on the Sea:

Actually there is legal basis in not letting them return to China.

You want to come back? Fine, declare it in the newspaper that you've changed your ways, and put action to your words to prove that you won't commit any more acts harmful to the security of the country.

I can't say that I've ever heard of any steps like this ever having been taken.

But to allow for a moment that they could, to do so would be completely inhumane.

He'd be kept apart from his family for the rest of his life

Unless his family has the wherewithal too immigrate elsewhere

woshizx:
[quote]一个美国人犯了叛国罪逃亡在外
美国政府一定是千方百计把他引渡回来，判处刑罚
假如判处的有期徒刑不是太长，这个人坐完牢了还没死，一定是又放出来，成为一个正常的美国公民。
绝对不是说，犯了事，拒绝你回国，也 …[/quote]
美国有美国的现实，中国有中国的国情。
社会基础不一样，当然有不同的政策，包括法律适用的政策。

I am ZX:

If an American commits treason and then flees the country

The American government would certainly do everything in its power to extradite and them convict him.
Say though that the sentence wasn't that long, that this person finishes his sentence and is still alive. He'd certainly be let out, and then revert to being a normal American citizen…

American has America's reality, China has China's national condition.

The social foundations are different, of course they have different policies, including policies for application of the law.

相逢于海上:
[quote]美国的叛国罪应该是他们最严重的罪了。是可以定死刑的。[/quote]
总之，一定是千方百计把犯了叛国罪的人引渡回来判处刑罚
我们一样可以把冯正虎搞回来判刑
他自己愿意回来坐牢
我们的政府为何要让他逍遥法外，我怀疑政府包庇他，或者政府心虚

Met on the Sea:

I think treason is the most serious crime there is in America, punishable by death.

Anyway, they'd still do everything they could to extradite a person who commits treason back for sentencing.
We should bring Feng Zhenghu back for punishment the same way.

He said he's willing to do jail time.

So why does our government let him stay at large? I suspect the government's protecting him from something, either that or it itself is guilty.

woshizx:
[quote]我暂时无法知道是否有这样的处罚措施
但是假如真的有的话，这样也是十分不人道的
这样会导致他一辈子无法跟家人团聚
除非他家人有本事全都移民出国 …[/quote]
最有名的有家不能回的中国人，估计就是达赖喇嘛了。
这个人当年从中印边境出逃的时候，我空军完全有实力把他炸死，实际上当时空军的飞机已经发现他了——但结果是毛泽东亲自决策把他放出去了。
历史证明当时把达赖放出去是完全正确的。

I am ZX:

I can't say that I've ever heard of any steps like this ever having been taken.
But to allow for a moment that they could, to do so would be completely inhumane.

He'd be kept apart from his family for the rest of his life

Unless his family has the wherewithal too immigrate elsewhere

The most well-known Chinese person who can't go back to his own home, has probably got to be the Dalai Lama.
At the time when he fled across the border into India, it was completely within the power of our air force to blow him up, in fact our air force planes at the time even saw him, only Mao Zedong himself decided to let him let him go.

History has proven that letting him go at the time was completely the right decision.

net2003:
既然冯先生选择了那条路，一定是经过深思熟虑的。
至于家庭什么的其它问题，一定是经过考虑了的。用不着我们操心。
我精神上支持他，要鼓起勇气继续走下去。

net2003:

Seeing as how Mr. Feng has chosen the path he has taken, that can only have been after serious contemplation.

As for his family and other such problems, he must have taken those into consideration as well, so it's not worth us sweating over.

I support him, and I encourage him to be brave and continue to carry on.

朝浪无语:
某些人既然喜欢拿美国与中国来对比，但不愿意承认两者之间国情不同。那么我倒想问问：
某人凭什么臆想美国会如何如何？
驱逐出境是不是惩治？禁止入境是不是惩治？美国没有用这几招？何必一厢情愿的给自己圆谎？

Silent Rising Wave:

Since some people like to compare China to America, but aren't willing to admit any difference in national condition between these two countries, I just want to ask:

On what are you basing your conjecture in saying America is such-and-such?

Do you feel that expelling people from the country is a punishment or not? And barring them from entering the country? Hasn't America done precisely both of these things? Why should only one of these countries have to cover up its own hypocrisy?

相逢于海上:
[quote]某些人既然喜欢拿美国与中国来对比，但不愿意承认两者之间国情不同。那么我倒想问问：
某人凭什么臆想美国会如何如何？
驱逐出境是不是惩治？禁止入境是不是惩治？美国没有用这几招？何必一厢情愿的给自己圆谎？ …[/quote]
我只知道驱逐出境、禁止入境是针对外国人的
还真没听说这个可以用来对付本国公民

Met on the Sea:

Since some people like to compare China to America, but aren't willing to admit any difference in national condition between these two countries, I just want to ask:

On what are you basing your conjecture in saying America is such-and-such?

Do you feel that expelling people from the country is a punishment or not? And barring them from entering the country? Hasn't America done precisely both of these things? Why should only one of these countries have to cover up its own hypocrisy?

All I know is that deporting or barring people from the country is only used on foreigners.
I've really never heard of this being used on a country's own citizens.

朝浪无语:
[quote]
我只知道驱逐出境、禁止入境是针对外国人的
还真没听说这个可以用来对付本国公民[/quote]
我就知道某些人就是凭主观臆想大放厥词，已经习惯了

Silent Rising Wave:

All I know is that deporting or barring people from the country is only used on foreigners.
I've really never heard of this being used on a country's own citizens.

You see, some people can only resort to subjective assumptions and babble, not like I've never seen that before.

相逢于海上:
只要他没有加入外国国籍
他就是拥有中国国籍的中国公民

Met on the Sea:

As long as he hasn't acquired foreign citizenship
He's still a Chinese citizen with Chinese citizenship

China: #Tanzuoren - to be human

Oiwan Lam — Tue, 09 Feb 2010 10:01:45 GMT

Chinese activist Tan Zuoren was sentenced to 5 year imprisonment and 3 year deprivation of political rights this morning (Feb 9) under the charge of inciting subversion of state power. Tan was involved in the investigation of the relation between bean dregs school buildings and the death of school children in the 2008 Sichuan earthquake by interviewing the parents and compiling a victim list. He was arrested last year and the investigation was stopped accordingly. In his first trial, the evident that the prosecutor presented was mainly about his interviews with overseas media about the earthquake. However, all the proceedings today were linked to June 4th incident. A diary about the June 4th Incident published back in 2007 and email communications with an overseas Chinese dissident Wang Dan through his yahoo.cn email were presented as evidences for the charge. His verdict was read out in less than 10 minutes. (more from AFP)

Although the news about Tan Zuoren has been harmonized / censored in mainland China, many concerned citizens expressed their anger through twitter. Below is a selected translation of the twitter hashtag #tanzouren, and the tweets are arranged according to the time line between 9am - 4pm, Feb 9 2010.

Yahoo.cn sells out Tan Zouren, again?

E-mail providers in China have to follow local regulation and provide Chinese police with its clients' information even though some investigations are serving political prosecution and it is not the first time Yahoo.cn betrayed its clients in exchange for the China market.

daaitoulaam: No wonder Alibaba said Yahoo US was over the line for supporting Google against Chinese govt. Alibaba's Yahoo.cn sells out #tanzuoren, huh?

ruanji 美国雅虎虽然不直接经营中国雅虎，暂时作为一个投入10亿资金的大股东，也应该受到谴责。 #tanzuoren

ruanji Although yahoo.com does not directly manage yahoo.cn but it is a major stock holder and has invested more than a billion in the business. It should be condemned as well.

secretaryzhang “境外敌对分子王丹利用电子邮件与谭作人主动联系”，谭作人使用的邮箱是雅虎中国 zuoren54@yahoo.com.cn #tanzuoren

secretaryzhang “overseas enemy Wang Dan has contacted Tan Zuoren via email”, and Tan's email is yahoo.cn: zuoren54@yahoo.com.cn

Anger

Satantara 眼泪无助，愤怒廉价。愤怒会养出心中的暴力政治。民主政治是没有敌人和仇恨的政治( #tanzuoren 语)。他们自己在颠覆自己，不稀你我动手。不说谎，让更多的人知道事实，真相自有万钧之力，改变终会到来。

Satantara No use shedding tear and it is too easy to be angry. Anger will nourish violence. Democracy should not have enemy nor resentment (#tanzouren's expression). They are subverting themselves, we don't need to do that. We do not lie in order let more people knowing the truth. Truth is the most powerful weapon and change will eventually come.

hkxforce 為何揭露豆腐渣工程會是煽動顛覆國家政權罪？因為這個政權本身就是豆腐渣政權。 #tanzuoren

hkxforce Why the exposure of bean dregs construction becomes inciting subversion of state power? because this very state power is a bean dregs power bloc.

szeyan1220 @28481k @LEMONed 高智晟「失踪」，胡佳3年，刘晓波11年，谭作人5年。起到了多大的威吓作用？唤醒了多少人？我只知道，这是一场持久战，而我无论如何不会认输。历史会审判你们。 #tanzuoren

szeyan1220 @28481k @LEMONed Gao Zhisheng vanished, Hu Jia sentenced to 3 years, Liu Xiaobo 11 years, Tan Zuoren 5 years. How many people it has intimated? How many people it has awakened? This is a long term battle and I will not be defeated. History will be the judge.

Feng2084 呼唤非暴力不合作抗争,從今天起，我厭惡任何與暴政苟合的活動！ #tanzuoren

Feng2084 let's call for non-violent civil disobedient act. I despise any act that gives legitimation to the absolute state.

No justice no peace

noooo0000 颠覆颠覆颠覆颠覆颠覆颠覆颠覆颠覆颠覆颠覆颠覆颠覆颠覆颠覆颠覆颠覆颠覆颠覆……….我就是想颠覆!!!我极想颠覆!!!我必颠覆!!! 一生的梦想–颠覆你!!! #tanzuoren

noooo0000 subversion subversion subversion subversion subversion subversion subversion… I want to subvert!!! I really want to subvert!!! I have to subvert!!! All I am dreaming of is to subvert you!!!

dgatterdam Chinese Government, you imprison your Heros, NO JUSTICE NO PEACE! NO JUSTICE NO PEACE NO JUSTICE NO PEACE #tanzuoren

AlChowh I support any measure to change the status quo,peaceful or violent!!!!#Tanzuoren

sanrencn 我们不能被压制而不反抗，我们不能被淹没，而不呐喊。我们微弱的抗议迟早会壮大起来踏平中共的无道 #Tanzuoren

sanrencn We have to fight back when repressed; we have to scream when drowned. Our small resistance will eventual grow into a strong force that defeat the tyranny of the CCP.

gjlawyer 宣判谭作人之后，这个大地上没有了良知，良知被谭作人带进了牢房；宣判谭作人之后，这个大地上没有了正义，正义是谭作人脚下沉重的铁镣。——恸哭中 via (@cuiweiping) #Tanzuoren

gjlawyer conscience has vanished along with the sentence of Tan Zuoren, Tan brings conscience along with him into the prison; justice has vanished along with the sentence of Tan Zuoren, justice has turned into Tan's heavy foot chain. — crying out loud via (@cuiweiping)

dante1184 中共正在挑战全中国人的心理极限，追求全人类的无耻之最。畜生不如。去死死死死死死死死死死死死死死死死死死死死死死死死死死死死死死死死死死死死死死死死死死死死死死死死死死死死死死死死死死死死死死！！！！！！！！！！！！！！！！！！！！！！ #tanzuoren

dante1184 The CCP is testing the limit of Chinese's people's tolerance and it is competing for the most shameless being in this world. It is worse than animal. Go to hell hell hell hell hell hell hell hell hell hell hell hell hell !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Subverting the state with diaries

wglxh They say Tan's diaries may subvert the government. I think they mean the government of, for, and by perverts. #Tanzuoren

mranti A tweet is a mini-diary - if a diary can “subvert” a govt. #Tanzuoren

wdrdog 颠覆国家政权，最高可以判处死刑，你我这些 #Twitter 上的发言，都够这个罪，只要他们这样认为。我们的小命，就这样和谭作人刘晓波们连在了一起。 #Tanzuoren

wdrdog subverting the state power, the maximum sentence can be life imprisonment. What you and me have said in #Twitter can be charged with subversion if they want. Our lives are connected with Tan Zuoren and Liu Xiaobo.

To be human

Feng2084 #tanzuoren 當一個個公民面對強權貪腐的垭口失言噤聲，对生命的哀鸿接近麻木的時候，是你站了出來，然而他們今天對你的審判，是卑鄙与无耻对良知与正义的审判，也是对我们的审判，在这一个罪恶的国家里，我们都有罪。

Feng2084 when citizens were speechless towards the corrupted power, when they were indifferent towards life, you stood out. They have judged you today, it is a judgment of banality and shamelessness towards conscience and justice, it is also a judgment on everyone of us. In an evil country, we all have sin.

wglxh 所有的老师，都是在以各种方式给孩子们给学生们个说法。今天审判谭作人，是审判所有想给下一代一个说法的人。 #Tanzuoren

wglxh every teacher tries to explain the truth to our children and pupils. Today's judgment on Tan Zuoren is also a judgment towards those who try to deliver the truth to our next generation.

horse 今天检查的是我们“作人”的底限在哪里。一起来“作人”吧。 #Tanzuoren

horse today is a test on the baseline of our “being human”, let's “be human”. (Translator notes: the pronunciation of Tan Zuoren is similar to “Talk about being human” in English.)

Global Times declares victory over color revolutions

Tue, 09 Feb 2010 09:35:07 GMT

Global Times
February 9, 2010

Today's Chinese language Global Times (环球时报) has the results of the election in Ukraine as front page headline and story.

The victory of pro-Russian Viktor Yanukovich over pro-western Yulia Tymoshenko, the hero of the 2004 "orange revolution" is greeted with delight in the headline:

Model democrats don't last even six years, pro-Russian party wins election again
UKRAINE'S "ORANGE REVOLUTION" COLLAPSES

Links and Sources

The Global Times (Chinese): Ukraine's "Orange Revolution" Collapses

Tags: Global Times

This article is from Danwei.org.

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Send a postcard to the future

Tue, 09 Feb 2010 05:29:51 GMT

Beijing Morning Post
February 9, 2010

Today's Beijing Morning Post reports on a new service from Beijing Post where slow delivery is not a cause for complaint:

At the Post Office, Send a Letter to the Future

15 yuan storage fee per year
by He Yan / BMP

Imagine, twenty years in the future, what it would feel like to receive a letter you mailed today. Beijing Post announced yesterday that it has launched a "future letter" service at nineteen post office locations in the city that will let citizens select a date several years or decades in the future for delivery to the addressee. This special service is only being rolled out in Beijing at the moment.

Beijing Post has launched the "future letter" service at nineteen locations, including Dongdan, Wangfujing, and Zhongguancun. After the post office receives a "future letter," it will keep it from one year to several decades at the sender's request, and then deliver it to the recipient at any particular time in the future. "The service is only being tested in Beijing right now. Citizens are limited to sending letters and postcards. The fee is ten yuan for the first year and fifteen yuan for every year thereafter, plus postage." A postal worker said that there are no restrictions on delivery time, and that a postal clerk would wrap the letter or postcard in a plastic bag for safekeeping before putting it in storage. While the letter is in storage, the sender can ask to change the address and delivery time.

Links and Sources

Beijing Morning Post (Chinese): At the post office, send a letter to the future

This article is from Danwei.org.

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Firecracker season arrives

Mon, 08 Feb 2010 10:42:53 GMT

The Beijing News
February 8, 2010

The top headline of today's Beijing News is about new standards for property management companies to levy management fees on residents. The measures hope to alleviate the tensions between greedy management companies that try to gouge their captive customers.

The photo however sets the tone for the news in China for the next week or two: Spring Festival news. The photo shows a fireworks sales point in Beijing.

The fireworks craziness - to celebrate the Chinese new year - starts today and won't end until Lantern Festival (元宵节) which this year falls on February 28.

This article is from Danwei.org.

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Al Jazeera on potential dog meat ban

Mon, 08 Feb 2010 06:51:27 GMT

Is a ban on eating dog meat cultural imperialism? Al Jazeera's Melissa Chan reports. See also on Danwei: Cats and dogs in the animal cruelty law.

Tags: dog meat

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China: Education, critical thinking and creativity

Oiwan Lam — Mon, 08 Feb 2010 06:01:56 GMT

C. Custer from ChinaGeek looks into the China education system and discusses its impact on young people.

China: Guilty or not guilty, that's the question

Oiwan Lam — Mon, 08 Feb 2010 05:57:09 GMT

Xujun Eberlein from Inside-out China explains the reason behind Beijing lawyer Li Zhuang's decision to admit the crime of fabricating evidence in the China court.

China: Liu Xiaobo's final statement

Oiwan Lam — Mon, 08 Feb 2010 05:42:21 GMT

China Law Prof blog posts Prof. David Kelly's translation of Chinese human rights dissident, Liu Xiabo's final statement: I have no enemies in his blog.

China: Upgrading a four star hotel

Oiwan Lam — Mon, 08 Feb 2010 05:36:21 GMT

How to up-grade a four star hotel into a five star one? The answer is blowing it up and it can push up the China GDP as well. Here is the Chinese report. Photos and brief English explanation is in ESWN.

Two posts you won't read

will — Sun, 07 Feb 2010 09:02:00 GMT

Imagethief spent the weekend writing two posts about current PR issues (well, one of them was only relatively current). However, after some reflection I've decided to kill them both. While they don't touch directly on work I or my firm is doing in China, they're both close enough to some areas we are involved in that I felt they risked violating my prohibition on writing about my firm's clients in this blog.

So why mention this here, other than burnishing my halo and reassuring my boss that I still think about these things?

Because I know I've been pretty scarce following the big Google post of a month or so ago, and I wanted to reassure readers that I am, in fact, writing again. In future I'll try to direct this energy toward writing things I can actually publish. Meanwhile, your continued patience is, as always, appreciated.

-Will

A bad case of giant sign gremlins

will — Sun, 07 Feb 2010 08:57:00 GMT

Honestly, sometimes I think this country is a giant juggernaut that simply can't be stopped, and other times, well, to keep things polite, I don't. Yesterday I moaned about the giant sign going up outside my apartment windows. Today, the fates have delivered me some manner of rough justice. After a displaying an obviously tortured attempt at "111" for most of the day, and then a series of random patterns, this is all that is left of the giant countdown display:

Yes, there is still one tiny, little patch of red at the very lower left of the sign. Pardon the poor quality of the photo, it's very hazy today.

They may yet get this fixed, and no amount of sign gremlins will prevent the characters from lighting up shortly. But the part of me that revels in schadenfreude (a distrubingly large part) is meanwhile enjoying these technical difficulties.

Update:

Fixed, to my great despair.

Imagine my joy at this...

will — Sat, 06 Feb 2010 09:48:00 GMT

A few days ago, on the construction site across the main boulevard from where I live, a set of huge characters went up, exhorting the workers to "close the gap, finish the building". OK, twenty-foot characters seemed a bit excessive, but exhortations hung on the side of construction sites are pretty common in this town.

Then it turned out that the characters lit up at night. Great. Two rows of twenty foot, illuminated characters pointed more or less straight at our bedroom and living room windows.

And then they hung an enormous screen in a conspicuous gap in the characters, and this is the result:

Yes, that's right, I have watch this sign count down for the next three and a half months. At least. Because four years of Olympic countdown times and a smattering of Shanghai expo counters just weren't enough. (Only one row of characters is visible in this photo, taken from a balcony at the eastern extremity of our apartment, but trust me, there are two.)

The photo really doesn't do justice to the scale of this thing. These characters are colossal, each well over a tall building storey in height. Maybe it's just me, but couldn't they have simply used the money to offer the workers a bonus for finishing quickly, and spared every resident of Soho New Town, Blue Castle, China Central Place, and the old local neighborhood on the northwest corner of Dawang Qiao the tyranny of watching this thing ratchet down by days for a third of the year?

Perhaps this isn't quite intrusive enough. I actually think they should have installed personal countdown clocks in the living rooms of all our apartments, and perhaps forced our TVs to display it as well any time the sets weren't tuned to CCTV's "Network News". Perhaps a refrigerator magnet, too.

This building has actually had a troubled construction. It was going strong until the beginning of 2009. Then construction wrapped up shortly before Chinese New Year, for the holiday we originally thought. But it never started again. I can only presume the backers became victims of the financial crisis. But like that building that lay fallow on Gongti, near ~~Dongdaqiao Rd.~~ Sanlitun Rd., for something like three years before finally being completed, it appears to have found fresh backing in the midst of Beijing's insane property bubble, and is now racing toward completion. One presumes the developers want to get the units offloaded before people come to their senses and realize that there is an upper limit on the investment value of a bunch of apartments nobody is living in.

At any rate, I'd like to thank them all for blotting out a big chunk of what little sky is visible from our apartment and replacing that sky with an enormous, crimson death-clock.

Also, what is up with the new CCTV tower? That thing still isn't open. Are they waiting for something to happen with the burned-out hulk of the Mandarin Oriental? That's a big pile of real estate to be sitting idle. But, then, when you're an opaque, quasi-governmental entity, maybe that just doesn't matter.

Westerners need self-reflection before criticizing China

Andy Yee — Sat, 06 Feb 2010 01:28:09 GMT

In an afterword to the 2006 edition of The End of History and the Last Man, Francis Fukuyama depicted a possible scenario of world politics: the victory of an authoritarian type of capitalism over liberal democratic capitalist states. While this is not his preferred destination, it is moving in that direction.

The West seems to be annoyed by a series of events: China’s cyber attacks on Western computer networks, disputes with Google, crackdowns on human rights activists, execution of a British citizen, and its unhelpful role ranging from the climate change talks to Iran’s nuclear program. The list goes on. Pundits point to the increasing threats posted by an increasingly self-confident China.

But before going on criticizing China, let’s view the matter from another angle: The West’s response to China’s economic reform and opening. It plays an important part in fuelling China’s self-confidence, one of the key themes discussed in posts by Chinese scholar Zhu Xueqin (朱学勤) on BBC Chinese Web and Lu Di (芦笛) on Bullogger.com.

China’s great gamble

Deng Xiaoping, China’s legendary reformist leader, once said, ‘no matter black or white, it is a good cat as long as it can catch a mouse.’ It is this pragmatism that underlies China’s economic reform in 1978 after the disastrous decade of Cultural Revolution. China’s embrace of capitalism, as Zhu Xueqin likens it, successfully turns itself into a cat that catches many mice, or Western capitalist democratic nations:

小平投注的是猫，猫鼠联姻，被吃的是鼠，不是猫。

Xiaoping placed a bet on the cat. In the marriage between cat and mouse, the one being eaten is the mouse, not the cat.

Even at the most dangerous moment of the gamble, the Tiananmen Incident of 1989, China’s authoritarianism steered itself out of dangers, thanks to Western capitalists:

世纪豪赌最危险的时候，是1989至1991那三年。坦克一上街，所有的老鼠都吓得屁滚尿流，外资大撤退，内资亦不继，GDP直线下降，中国面临崩盘，真可能玩完。小平同志跑到南方画一个圈，说一句“不问姓社姓资”，招商引资，春雷滚滚。

The dangerous moment of the gamble is between 1989 and 1991. With tanks on the streets, all mice were scared. Foreign investments retreated, GDP nosedived, and China faced imminent collapse. Comrade Xiaoping, during his Southern Tour, said ‘I don’t care if it is socialism or capitalism.’ With one strike, he reopened the floodgate for foreign investments again.

亏得小平高瞻远瞩，还能“不争论”，带头招商引资，引无数老鼠竞折腰。让一点市场，撒几把米粒算得了什么？资本家，资本家，我就不信资本家来了，资本家的政府不来！果然，西洋各国寻米而来，争抢中国订单，哪一国总理订单要少了，回去还有受民主舆论的喝斥。经济制裁是这样打破的，政治制裁则不消说，强虏烟飞灰灭，1989政治危机就是这样度过的。

With Deng’s far-sightedness and welcoming of foreign capitals, the mice just could not resist. What tiny cost it is just to open up the market a bit! Capitalists, capitalists, I don’t believe that once capitalists come to China, their governments would not follow! Indeed, Western countries come in one by one for Chinese contracts. What’s more, those governments which secured too few contracts would be criticized by its own constituencies and media. The economic sanction was broken in this way, not to mention political isolation. The crisis of 1989 was resolved.

Capitalism and universal values

Reflecting on Zhu’s article, Lu Di is not so sure whether Western civilization could insist on the universal values of justice and freedom in face of China’s capitalism:

其实列宁早就发现这点了。还在西方文明世界封锁苏俄时，他便断言，甭看帝国主义跟咱们貌似势不两立，贪婪是资本家的本性，因此他们迟早要来和我们做生意，帮助我们把国家弄得强大起来。老邓之所以在中国翅膀未硬前，便敢冒全世界之大不韪血洗北京城，也无非是吃透了西方的道义高调是假的，再“义薄云天”，最后还是得为铜臭弯腰钻狗洞，虽则可能是掩着鼻。

Actually, Lenin discovered this long ago. When Western civilization was boycotting Soviet Union, he judged that greed was the nature of capitalists. Sooner or later, they would come and do business with Soviet Union. The reason that Deng decided to bloodily suppress the Tiananmen protest of 1989, at a time when China was weak, was that he saw the hypocrisy of the West. No matter how noble or just your cause is, you just could not resist but bend down for coins.

He discussed his views on a number of recent cases:

谷歌与雅虎的区别，说起来也很可怜：雅虎完全接受后面这一条，甚至向中国政府提供异议人士的通信内容，导致师涛被重判，而谷歌本已同意中国政府有权管制资讯，只是实在难以同意中国政府有权窥探公民隐私。区别也就只在这点上而已。就连这最后的底线，谷歌能否最后守住，也还在未定之天。

Talking about Google and Yahoo, it’s sad to note about their difference, which is tiny: Yahoo completely accepted [Chinese government’s intrusion on privacy], and supplied communications information of dissidents, resulting in the heavy imprisonment of Shi Tao. Google had in principle accepted Chinese government’s right to control information, and only did not accept intrusion on privacy. This is the only difference, and it is uncertain whether Google could keep to this bottomline.

不难看出当局为何敢重判刘晓波：第一，他们吃准了鬼子为了钱不敢作声，顶多只是不疼不痒地咋呼两声，但经济制裁之类的凶器是再也没本事亮出来了。第二，他们吃准了“民心所向”，知道大部份或起码是相当大的比例的精英出于自家利益反对“普世价值观”，因此无论他们怎么胡作非为，都不会引起国内舆论民情强烈反弹。

It is not difficult to see why the Chinese government dared to heavily imprison Liu Xiaobo: First, they knew that Westerners, for the sake of commercial interests, would control their reaction, at most mumbling a word or two. Economic sanction is a weapon the West no longer posses. Second, they knew that domestic elites would oppose to so-called ‘universal values’ out of their own interests. Therefore, no matter what the government does, there would not be strong backlashes.

这说明了什么？道义在金钱面前的脆弱。普世价值观再崇高，也抵挡不住银弹攻势。自由世界不怕苏联的核弹，但在我党的糖衣炮弹面前只能乖乖投降。

What do these show? The weakness of justice in front of money. Universal values could not survive the ‘money offensive’, no matter how noble they are. The free world is not afraid of Soviet nuclear bombs, but has no choice but to surrender under China’s sugar-coated bullets.

Goodbye Google

Is the West’s hope that engagement with China economically will lead to political reforms merely wishful thinking? Zhu quoted some philosophical reflections on the relationship between capitalism and authoritarianism:

市场经济与现代宪政并不具有必然因果关系，前者是后者的必要条件，而不是必要充分条件。也就是说，无市场经济必无宪政民主，有市场经济则不一定必有宪政民主，两者之间还要有其它条件。

Market economy and modern constitutionalism do not necessarily have causal relations. The former is a necessary condition for the latter, but by no means a necessary and sufficient condition. In other words, without market economy, there is no modern constitutionalism. But market economy does not imply modern constitutionalism. Other conditions must exist.

Zhu ended his article with a pessimistic note:

中国猫完成了转基因，输血者恰是被食者，自然界多了一种新物种。内鼠也好，外鼠也罢，总有一天都会噬脐莫及。硕鼠硕鼠，适彼乐土，回你的美国老家吧，别了，司徒雷登，别了，谷歌搜索！

The China Cat has transformed its DNA. Those which feed it are also those being eaten. The world now has a new species. Whether the mouse is within or outside it, they will all be eaten. Big mouse, Big mouse, this land does not suit you. Go back to America. Goodbye John Leighton Stuart, goodbye Google!

Diamond Hill by Feng Chi-shun

Fri, 05 Feb 2010 08:20:36 GMT

Peter Spurrier from Blacksmith Books contributed this introduction

"Diamond Hill was one of the poorest and most backward of villages in Hong Kong at a time when Hong Kong itself was poor and backward,” says Feng Chi-shun. “We moved there in 1956 when I was almost 10. I left when I was 19. Those were the formative years of my life. It’s a time that I remember well and cherish."

Feng’s memoir Diamond Hill describes an era of gambling and gangsters, Suzie Wong and squatter villages, fires and food stalls, and the Kowloon Walled City and its white powder. “A time when people were poor, but life was rich,” he says. The world that he grew up in no longer exists, but his book – the first ever on the Diamond Hill refugee settlement, in either Chinese or English – offers a candid picture of what life was like for most Hong Kong residents in the 1950s.

It was a time of great poverty for many, especially those who had newly arrived from China with little but the clothes on their backs. But it was also a time of great self-belief – powered by the hard work ethic of thousands of new migrants, and helped by a hands-off colonial government, Hong Kong built itself into a thriving hub of manufacturing, trading and finance. Few miss the deprivations of those years, but many would like to see the return of the tough, can-do spirit that made Hong Kong famous.

Diamond Hill is published by Blacksmith Books. Asia Times Online has a review, as does Time Out Hong Kong.

Excerpt from chapter Thugs and gangsters; Diamond Hill

by Feng Chi-shun

There were three major “tribes” in Diamond Hill. The biggest was the Cantonese, mainly indigenous Hong Kong people or refugees from Guangdong province. The Chiu Chow refugees were a force to be reckoned with. And the rest were all called Shanghainese. The Cantonese had this habit of calling anyone who spoke any non-Cantonese dialect a Shanghainese.

My father’s ancestors originated from Zhejiang, and he was born and raised in Xian and Wuhan. He spoke Cantonese with a heavy accent, and he was immediately labeled a Shanghainese.

There is safety in numbers. The Cantonese produced the largest number of thugs and triad members. They also looked down on anyone who spoke with an accent.

The Chiu Chow people could hold their own because they had a reputation for being fierce fighters and being loyal to their own people. One of their favorite sayings was gaa gie noun, which means paisan in mafia-speak. When a fight broke out between a Chiu Chow group and another group, you could count on other Chiu Chow people in the area to join in. Chiu Chow people fought among themselves, too; but all would be forgotten when outside people were involved.

The “Shanghainese” were generally meek people. Most of them were not literally Shanghainese anyway, and could have been from any province other than Guangdong. There was no bond among them. Genuine Shanghainese, rightly or wrongly, had a reputation for being wily and having a penchant for pretending to be richer than they really were. They were also formidable businessmen.

My mother was from Chiu Chow, my father was Shanghainese, and I spoke perfect Cantonese. So I’d be whatever worked to my advantage. Among Chiu Chow people, I’d be gaa gie noun, I spoke Mandarin with the Shanghainese, and among Cantonese, no one had to know I wasn’t one of them.

In spite of my father’s worries, I could never become a thug or a triad member, because I was a coward and I was not cruel enough. I did not grow up in a family full of thugs. Also, even at a young age, I believed I would have a future. There was nothing in my formative years that was conducive to a life of crime.

Ah Noun, on the other hand, was spoiled rotten by his mother. The “uncles” who visited him once in a while were macho guys who promised him protection and taught him life lessons not in what not to do, but how not to get caught doing what should not be done. He was hopeless in school, and was a natural-born fighter. When he was seventeen, he fought with another thug in a nearby village over a girl, and got stabbed in the abdomen. After leaving hospital, he had to marry the girl because she was pregnant. He took up a job as a marine policeman later, and told us not to call him Ah Noun but call him Double Eight, his badge number. His mother made his wife wash his feet every day when he came home from work or else she would be beaten. I witnessed the beatings with my own eyes, and they were brutal. What was memorable to me was not only the face of a young woman smeared with blood and tears but also the expression of nonchalance on the face of Ah Noun, as if it was none of his business.

Ah Noun got into trouble when he abandoned mother, wife, and son and everyone else and started going to “dance halls,” where men paid to dance and chat with young women. He borrowed heavily and ran afoul of the law to earn desperate cash. All this happened before he turned twenty. He spent the rest of his life in jail or running.

Ah Noun’s cousin was a thug of a different kind. His nickname was “Bull.” He looked like one and behaved even worse. He was an epileptic, and did not receive the best of medical care. His fits must have deprived him of oxygen to his brain, because he was borderline retarded. His father, who was a well-respected member of the Chiu Chow fraternity, always insisted it was karma and not illness that had caused his son’s problems. You should have seen the father’s face whenever Bull was lying on the ground convulsing. It seemed the father was suffering more pain and despair than the son.
It didn’t help to have a cousin like Ah Noun, who frequently led him astray by getting him in all sorts of trouble. Ah Noun would taunt him into getting into fights with people just for kicks. To get his own kicks, Bull went around sexually assaulting young girls. He approached the victim from the opposite direction and swung his hand towards her crotch and squeezed it so hard the girl screamed and sometimes passed out in pain.
One of the victims was my friend’s sister. The family was so traumatized they didn’t talk to anyone in the neighborhood for years.

Another thug I knew had a worse childhood. Ah Noun and Bull were violent and dumb. This one was violent and psychotic. His nickname was Kwai Tsai (ghost boy) because he had light blond hair, blue eyes, and freckles on his face. He had always been an angry young man, for good reasons. His Chinese mother worked in a Wan Chai bar, and it was common knowledge what she did for a living, and the other kids wouldn’t let him forget it. He was much feared because he used weapons when he fought. He would produce a knife or an axe at the slightest provocation. Policemen were usually called. One time I saw a tall plain-clothed policeman take his axe from him by a kung fu move that would do Bruce Lee proud. I was so impressed that I tried to talk my father into giving me money for kung fu lessons. I did not get it. Whenever I asked for anything, my father would lecture me on the power of the pen. That’s why I am torturing people now not with my kung fu but with my writing.

When I was a teenager, many young men knew some kung fu, or claimed to know it. The most popular style was Wing Chun, which was easy to get into but hard to excel at. Young men learned kung fu for self-defense and to show off, and also as a result of the domino effect. When Umbrella got beaten up by a bigger kid for being cheeky, he immediately enrolled in a Wing Chun class. Within weeks, he wanted us to accompany him to attend an arranged fight between him and some kid he had a grudge with, so that he could show off his kung fu moves. His opponent was a smaller kid, and Umbrella might have won that one marginally. Very soon, we heard that small kid was taking up kung fu as well. His kung fu master was the same one who taught Umbrella, so during the initiation ceremony in which that kid was to kowtow to the master and vow subservience for life, the master told Umbrella and that small kid to make up. They had their arms around each other’s shoulders and swore brotherhood and allegiance to each other’s life and the betterment of the art of kung fu. It was so disgusting to watch I almost threw up.

A younger brother of my sister’s friend, also a La Salle boy, got bullied by some boys from St. George’s College, which was a school for the British Army brats. He picked up Wing Chun, and apparently got to be quite good at it after a couple of years. His mission in life became going over to Kowloon Tong and picking fights with St. George’s boys.
My favorite thug was a guy named Chee Kit who lived not too far from the wet market down Diamond Hill Road. He was a couple of years older than I was, but we were in the same class in school. He was also a Wing Chun wizard. After my dramatic improvement in academic standing in school, I let him copy my homework in exchange for protecting me from other bullies. He was everyone’s friend when some extra muscles were needed. But you had to be very clear about who the target was because he had been known to mess up and beat up the wrong guy. He wasn’t very bright.

Young thugs usually formed a gang and then they became formidable. There were many such loosely formed gangs. Most didn’t do any harm except to protect their turf and honor, or to teach a cheeky outsider a lesson. Unlike young triad gangs nowadays, they were not into any money-making ruses, because there just wasn’t any money around. They were, however, very much about girls. All the loose girls (called teddy girls) in the village were seen hanging out with them. Boys like me could only gawk and salivate.

There were basically two categories of teddy girls. One category was regular girlfriend of a thug, the other was communal property. We had a friend who was too young and too short to be a regular thug but hung around to be their errand boy. He told us he was once rewarded with one of the communal girls, but he refused in a hurry because she happened to be his older sister.

This girl had quite a past. She got knocked up at a very young age. The mother, a hawker in the wet market, when told of the pregnancy, was in for a shock because no one, not even her own daughter, could pinpoint who the father was. The young girl would offer herself for rewards as little as a ticket to a movie or a meal in a tea-house, according to Ah Ho, our maid, who knew the mother well.

The lack of privacy at home was a big problem for dating. If a boy wanted to get to know his girlfriend better, but had no car or money for a love motel, he could only use a dark corner or a deserted spot in public areas.

When I got my driver’s license, the first thing my friends and I did was to borrow a car and drive it after dark to all the popular make-out spots in town, for instance, Kadoorie Avenue or dead-end streets in Ho Man Tin. We drove in without headlights and suddenly turned them on to put the spotlight on men and women in compromising positions. That was good for a cheap thrill.

The Diamond Hill thugs dealt with the privacy problem in their own way. When we were twelve or thirteen, we went gallivanting in a nearby hill and in a clearing among the bushes, the three of us stumbled upon a man and a young lady in a state of undress. Then all of a sudden, three big guys showed up and threatened to do us some harm if we didn’t scram, saying we were disrupting important business their brother was conducting. We scooted away with our tails between our legs. We talked excitedly about the incident for weeks afterwards, and each time the girl was more naked than the last.

When we were a bit older, maybe fourteen or fifteen, we stumbled upon another sex scene, this time in a vacant lot where we played soccer during the day but which became deserted at night because there were no street lights. We were curious to see numerous flashlights flickering on the ground. When we went closer, we found twenty or so “couples,” lying down on newspaper or towels, several feet apart, and engaging in necking and heavy petting. We didn’t have a chance to have a better look, because a sentry was there pronto, and threatened to punch our eyeballs out if we looked that way again.

There were two types of thugs: the teenage bullies who ganged up to terrorize other teenagers, and the grown-up ones who were most likely triad members with prison records. I had only seen teenage thugs fighting in the streets. Adults were seen late at night in the back of a coffee shop whispering to one another. Fights usually involved several young gangsters attacking one victim. Battles between two gangs were rare, indicating that if you belonged to a gang, you didn’t get bullied. The street gangs were very organized when it came to ambushing someone. A few fighters would be dispatched to guard possible escape routes. One would try to immobilize the target by bear-hugging him from behind, followed by the victim being assaulted by a barrage of fists from others. I still remember a thug by the name of Willy, who liked to strike with two fists clenched together. It must have been a pretty clumsy way to fight, but it worked well when your opponent was held down by your collaborators. The thump of fists landing on someone’s body could make your heart race and give you a cold sweat.

A beating was meant to teach a lesson and not to maim. It was meant to send the victim to a bone-setter and not to a surgeon. The Chinese medicine man down the street did a swift business taking care of victims of gang attacks by applying a herbal lotion called “wine for beatings by iron” to the bruises of the battered body.

When young thugs graduated to become full-fledged adult ones, you didn’t see them in the streets in broad daylight anymore. I asked one of my old acquaintances what happened to them. He said: “There is no money in Diamond Hill.” They often migrated to Mong Kok, Yau Ma Tei, and Tsim Sha Tsui where all the money-making actions were.
Umbrella’s neighbor was a Chiu Chow triad member of good standing. He was typical in that he married a plain-looking school teacher, a homebody who bore him children and looked after him without questioning him about his whereabouts or his businesses. He ran an illegal gambling den, and sometimes took Umbrella and me on a tour of all the joints where he had “influence,” including a dance hall in Yau Ma Tei where he talked to the manager in a dialect I couldn’t understand even though it was Cantonese. He collected $10 each from us, and he only used half of the money when it was time to pay and pocketed the rest. Umbrella told me the big man was accustomed to getting discounts wherever he went.

The relationship between policemen and thugs was complicated, especially with Chiu Chow men. It was said the career path of a Chiu Chow boy would be either a gangster or a cop—the former a regular thug, the latter a thug with a gun and a warrant card. A Chiu Chow boy of age could apply to the police academy if he hadn’t had a criminal record and was semi-literate. Failing that, he would join some relatives or childhood friends in what would be called lo pin moon, which could be loosely translated into “working in a semi-legal business.”

I had seen gangsters arrested by policemen and the verbal exchange would be in the Chiu Chow dialect, with the gangsters declaring their affiliations, looking for some kind of connection. Violence broke out often, usually with the gangster punching the cop. I seldom witnessed police brutality in the streets, but I was told if you were in the much feared tsap tsai fong—the room of the plain-clothed Criminal Investigation Division officers, you would be in for an experience you wouldn’t forget.
The beat policemen in our eyes were pretty low human beings. They were, as I alluded to before, thugs with a license. I had seen them walk into Tai Lin’s place, an open house, pick up an apple off the dinner table and walk away. They did their route, stopped by a few illegal spots to collect their daily bribes and did nothing except bully female hawkers. Umbrella’s father knew a few cops, and that was how we learnt of the illegal gambling and opium dens in the neighborhood.

The plain-clothed CID were even worse; their demeanor was indistinguishable from that of triad thugs, with their true identity apparent only when they showed off the gun they carried at the waist.

Many thugs wore hats, the kind you see in Humphrey Bogart movies. We watched a policeman trying to chase down a thug, and dramatically the hat fell off his head, and that stopped the policeman in his tracks, because he had to pick up the hat and look for clues inside. Some older guy told us, in a conspiratorial tone, that there would be a hundred-dollar bill tucked inside.

Not all young thugs grew up to be professional gangsters. A guy by the name of Johnson used to go out with my sister. (As was usually the case, a La Salle boy and a Maryknoll girl). He lived in Kowloon City but came to Diamond Hill often because of my sister. He was a muscular guy and was much feared among the young thugs in Diamond Hill, because he teamed up with another La Salle boy by the name of Michael who lived in Tai Hom Village, and together they had broken a few bones and taught a few lessons to the local teddy boys. Johnson later in life migrated to Canada and became an accountant. And Michael became Mr. Michael Hui Koon Man, the showbiz tycoon, and one of the most successful comic actors and movie producers Hong Kong has seen.

Michael had three younger brothers. The oldest one was Hui Koon Mo, nicknamed “Hero,” who in those days formed his own youth gang terrorizing the neighborhood. He grew up more law-abiding but did no better than being the owner of unsuccessful bars and restaurants. The other two younger brothers were not like Hero; they were more like Michael and went into showbiz. Hui Koon Ying became a comic actor, and the youngest brother is Samuel Hui Koon Kit, the most famous of the lot, who had an illustrious music career and is still lauded by Hong Kong people as the god of Canto-pop.

Tags: Blacksmith Books, books, Diamond Hill, Feng Chi-shun

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In Chongqing, Shangri-La drives out a local brand

Fri, 05 Feb 2010 06:00:23 GMT

Chongqing Evening News
February 5, 2010

The Chongqing Guest House, a city landmark, will change its name under a new management agreement, reports the Chongqing Evening News.

The hotel, which adopted its current name in 1956 after serving as a guest house for American soldiers during the anti-Japanese war, signed a deal with deluxe hotel chain Shangri-La Hotels and Resorts yesterday that will make it the first Shangri-La hotel in the city.

However, the loss of the Chongqing Guest House name has upset many city residents, who see the change as yet another example of an international heavyweight obliterating a beloved local brand. Locals are still smarting from Tianfu Cola's defeat at the hands of Pepsi back in the mid-nineties.

The old Chongqing Guest House

The newspaper presented three objections to the name change, along with rebuttals from the head of the company that owns the hotel:

1. Trashing a good brand

Chongqing Guest House is one of Chongqing's time-honored brands. Name changes mean that the city's brands are continuing to decline. The replacement may be a famous global brand, but the inability of local brands to flourish is still a tragedy.

Response: The brand will endure in four areas

Tourism Holdings Group chairman Li Yunguang said that the brand would not die but would continue to be developed in several areas. First, the location of the Shangri-La hotel would still be called CGH-Poly International Plaza, retaining the old name. The Chongqing Guest House Co, Ltd would continue as owner of the Shangri-La, and would continue to manage the CGH Commercial Building to correspond to the new hotel. Star of Chongqing Guest House would continue to operate under its current name as a budget hotel. And the Chongqing Guest House brand of moon cakes, zongzi and New Year's gift items would not change their name. So the Chongqing Guest House brand would endure in those four areas.

The new Shangri-La

2. Foreign help is not needed

The Chongqing Guest House has been Chongqing's "Whampoa Academy" for hotel management, and many of the city's hotel managers got their start there. At the signing ceremony, many veteran CGH staff said that the hotel's management has always been first-rate. An expert said that because CGH management was practically at the level of an international management company, there was no need to bring in a foreign brand with its foreign name.

Response: The new hotel has an international focus

Li Yunguang said that the choice to partner with Shangri-La was made primarily because of its brand recognition and management experience. Although Chongqing Guest House is an established brand, its influence is limited to Chongqing, or at most the rest of the country. Shangri-La is an internationally-famous deluxe hotel brand whose influence is global. Chongqing has been receiving an increasing number of guests from outside regions and foreign countries since it became a directly-controlled municipality, and it needs internationalized brands. It will be able to attract guests from throughout the world through Shangri-La's global marketing network. In addition, Li believes that even in hotel management, Shangri-La is superior. In hotel design, for example, a meeting room's layout should allow guests easy entry without crowding. Rooms have their own requirements: if a guest orders room service, it ought to arrive within a few minutes. CGH's partnership is, to some extent, a self-improvement effort.

There's one additional objection: that a foreign interloper will find it difficult to do business with a local company, but both the question and answer seem a little perfunctory.

As for the name issue, the article proposes a solution: rather than simply replacing the old name, why not combine the two, and call the new hotel Chongqing Guest House: Shangri-La?

Links and Sources

Chongqing Evening News (Chinese): With change to Shangri-La, Chongqing Guest House to become only a memory

Tags: Chongqing Evening News, hotels, Shangri-la

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Infant formula pushers: round two

Thu, 04 Feb 2010 10:11:47 GMT

Metro Express
February 4, 2010

This is not a good week for domestic milk powder. In the latest round of a melamine contamination scandal that everyone thought was put to rest more than a year ago, Chinese media reported today that three people have been arrested in Shanxi for selling melamine-tainted milk. This follows reports last December of a company that repackaged and sold milk powder that was supposed to have been destroyed in 2008.

And the English-language edition of the Global Times reported today that demand for foreign milk powder is picking up.

A Xinhua investigation printed in today's Metro Express and other newspapers across the country is hard not to connect to the current scandal. Two Xinhua reporters spoke with the former employee of an infant formula manufacturer who said that the company enticed doctors and other medical staff to promote its products in their hospitals.

The source used in the article provided inside information that echoes the account told to a Mirror journalist in August 2008, just before the first melamine scandal broke. That article's focus was on how the privacy of new mothers was violated by hospitals that sold their personal information to formula producers; the Xinhua journalists chose to emphasize the role unscrupulous doctors have in pressuring new mothers to use formula instead of breast feeding their babies.

Although melamine is not mentioned by name, the final paragraphs of the article allude to vague "quality problems" that could come back to haunt doctors who promoting a particular brand of formula for no special medical reason.

Angels in White Act as Spokespersons for Infant Formula

by Zhang Yu, Liu Xiang / Xinhua

"Whenever they provide a new mother's personal information, they will receive a 10- to 30-yuan 'handling fee'. If they successfully promote the company's products, they will receive a 60-yuan 'continuation fee'."

For medical personnel, instructing new mothers in breast feeding is a duty, yet in the interest of profit, some of them have abandoned that duty and have become "spokespersons" for infant formula. What is behind this relationship between formula producers and "angels in white"? Our reporters recently conducted an investigation to find out.

A hidden "profit chain"

"Companies give doctors money, take them to dinner, and give them gifts. Some doctors are tempted, and providing a list of expecting mothers is not difficult." The former "medical administrator" of a domestic milk powder producer recently made a report claiming that beginning two years ago, the company had selected the city of Taiyuan to launch a trial program to obtain the personal information of maternity patients by offering rebates. After distributing literature and promotional material for the company's products, the company could realize substantial returns. The "medical administrator" claimed that she had been in charge of more than twenty "medical agents" who were responsible for cultivating relationships with doctors. The company would even devote a budget to "key" doctors in order to maintain its old client list and add new ones.

The company reportedly had a full set of regulations that prescribed detailed rules for "medical communications": the company's goal was to "fill all available space." It fought to established a "friendly" relationship with the medical staff in the departments of prenatal, ultrasound, maternity, pediatric, and preventative medicine at hospitals at all levels, using them to market milk powder to maternity patients. Products were held on consignment in those wards and sold "at a discount," or samples were distributed by hospital staff for free to new mothers. Doctors who handed out the formula samples or discount cards were required to say things like, "Mothers and children are all drinking XXX milk these days. Children who drink this brand grow up cute and clever." Companies held their own "parenting salons" and asked their "medical agents" to "choose the most well-known pediatricians in the area, or well-known specialists from partner hospitals" and, one week before the event, "talk over content with the lecturers to make sure that it was in line with the products." This served to "increase the follow-up consumption rate."

Hurry up with the milk powder, we've got another good client!

Company training session materials provided by the "medical administrator" showed that discount cards, nutrition books, and parenting handbooks were classified as company promotional materials and were to be distributed to new mothers by hospital staff; a note read, "beneficial for improving doctor recommendation of milk powder." "Before I resigned, the company I worked for had established partnerships with nearly 400 medical and health care organizations in Shanxi, and its particular brand of milk powder had achieved a continued purchase rate of more than 30%. Some hospitals even made it the only brand they admitted. The immediate profitability of this method led the company to expand the practice to eighteen provinces."

"An infant's first mouthful of milk is taken at the hospital, so a massive market share can be won by occupying medical channels," the informant said. Even if a mother nurses her baby, she should add supplements at four months and wean the child after roughly one year. The company can influence the parents through medical channels, guiding more of them to choose its products for supplements and post-weaning food. "The commission paid out to doctors is passed on invisibly to the consumer." The informant said that because medical channel expenditures were so high, the price of formula would continue to rise the company sought to stabilize profits. Price adjustments in recent years were due in part to this reason.

The true meaning of "300 grams"

An industry insider revealed that for the majority of newborns, once they become accustomed to a particular brand of formula it is difficult for them to adjust to any changes. In addition, once they feel that it is easier to drink formula, they will refuse to nurse. Some formula companies will therefore distribute free samples of their product, amounting to 300 grams — typically what a newborn will consume in a week — to cement the infant's preference and rule out as options both mother's milk and other formula brands.

This reporter recently visited a number of hospitals and pediatric preventive medicine facilities to explore the situation described by the source. The result was a shock: the informant's company was not the only formula producer traveling this road. And it was not only formula: some medical staff also actively promoting a wide range of children's health products.

At a childbirth class run by a "baby friendly hospital" (a UNICEF designation), an eloquent doctor was giving a free session for a dozen or so expecting mothers, explaining all kinds of childbirth and parenting-related questions. As he was speaking about infant food and nutrition, the doctor emphasized the unique properties of a particular brand of formula. After the session, every mother was given a free bag of that brand of formula. On another occasion, the reporter accompanied a parent to a Class III-A hospital on East Shuangta Street in Taiyuan for a pediatric checkup. An older doctor on duty asked whether the parent was nursing or using formula. Learning that the child was given formula, the doctor became interested immediately: "What brand are you using?" But when the parent responded, "I don't want to switch brands," the doctor stopped speaking and bent down to write out a prescription, and then pointed to the pharmacy opposite: "Give your child a calcium gluconate supplement. Go to that pharmacy and pick up this brand, and then come back and I'll tell you how it should be taken."

"Even though there are posters in every room in the hospital promoting breast feeding, not a single member of the medical staff gave me any instruction in nursing during the seven days after I gave birth," said Ms. Qin, who had become a mother just three months before. She had continued nursing for just a few days before switching to formula. Afterward, she received follow-up calls from a formula brand, always asking how she came to learn of "our" formula, and offering her two choices: was it on the recommendation of a friend, or of a doctor? This reporter learned that most women do not immediately start producing milk after giving birth, and they need an infant's suckling to stimulate their milk secretions. Some formula producers take advantage of the time when new mothers are in the hospital after giving birth but before they learned how to properly nurse to have medical personnel provide them with free samples, which are then fed to the newborn under the "supervision" of those same medical personnel.

Fines cannot be the only punishment

Laws already exist barring the barring sellers and producers of breast milk substitutes from using hospitals and other health care facilities to distribute free samples of their products, so why have they continued to do so? Interviewees said that medical personnel acting as "spokespersons" is not merely a question of profit; it is an issue of responsibility that must be investigated and exposed to the rest of society. The [Implementation Measures] for the Law on Maternal and Infant Health Care says that medical and health care institutions shall not promote or recommend breast milk substitutes to expecting mothers or the families of infants; producers and marketers of breast milk substitutes may not provide samples to medical and health care institutions or offer them equipment, funding, or informational materials conditional on such promotion.

"Hospitals do not have the responsibility to hand out formula, and besides, the country does not permit medical personnel to give out formula. Doctors can only make a medical diagnosis as to whether a newborn requires artificial feeding, but giving parents formula is definitely not a medical necessity," said Guo Zhanying, director of the Department of Maternal, Child, and Community Health Office at the Shanxi Provincial Department of Health. "We found in our investigations that some medical personnel have indeed violated the law and ethical principles and have to some degree been engaging in marketing for the manufacturers."

Experts say that medical personnel are not quality inspectors, so if quality problems crop up in a particular batch of milk, they cannot evade responsibility. As for the existence of medical personnel acting as "spokespersons" for formula, the public health administrators should toughen up examinations and management. Fines should not be the only means of punishment; there ought to be stronger ethical and legal constraints as well.

Links and Sources

Xinhua via Metro Express (Chinese): Angels in white are reps for infant formula
China Daily: Three detained for tainted dairy products
Global Times: Demand for foreign milk powder brands soars
Earlier on Danwei: Selling out patient privacy to the milk industry, Southern Daily: 9 out of 10 new mothers don't have enough breast milk

Tags: infant formula, Metro Express, milk, milk powder, Xinhua

This article is from Danwei.org.

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Rumors and follow-up for Tianjin bus incident

Thu, 04 Feb 2010 09:30:38 GMT

Zhang Yimin's house. From The Beijing News

On Monday an incident occurred in Tianjin where 10 people were killed by an employee of a government affiliated utilities company. Zhang Yimin (张义民) drove a bus to hit bystanders and police in Tianjin's CBD district. See Danwei's front page for the whole story.

Since then rumors have been flying about the cause of the incident, including the suspect's brother alleging that Zhang Yimin, the suspect, reported that his wife and daughter had been kidnapped to the bathing center opposite his residential complex. Today, The Beijing News follows up with interviews with neighbors and a call-in reader who wanted to verify some details in their earlier report.

Tianjin driver malicious killing incident follow-up

by Sun Xuyang (孙旭阳) / TBN

Yesterday, no-one answered at the home of the Tianjin malicious car incident’s Zhang Yimin. His neighbor said that after the incident Zhang Yimin’s home has been empty. The local government certified yesterday evening that the numbers of the dead is now 10 people.

The night before the incident a noisy man visited
Zhang Yimin’s home is in the Binhai new area (滨海新区)， Hangzhou road, Huiyangli and inside a certain residential complex. The apartment is on the 3rd floor and the space is less than 50sqm, with two bedrooms, the living room is a narrow corridor. Left and right of the apartment’s door, there are numerous advertisement stickers on the walls.

Four people stay here permanently: himself, his wife, his mother and his daughter. His neighbors' impressions of him: 1.80 meters tall, handsome-looking, introverted, not prone to speaking, seems kindly and when he sees someone he knows, he’s first in saying hello.

A neighbor who lived in the same unit said that the night before the incident a man who was around 1.65 meters tall swearing and talking loudly on his phone came upon Zhang’s door and used him hand to loudly pound on the anti-theft door. When Zhang opened his door he asked his guest to “come in and speak,” afterward both doors smashed shut.　

The day before yesterday, Zhang Yimin’s fourth brother Zhang Yiyuan (张义元) told this reporter that his little brother called him the night before the incident saying that his wife and daughter had been kidnapped to the bathing center opposite the residential complex, and wanted him to accompany him to report it to the police.

At present, it is not known whether the man who visited was Zhang Yiyuan. The bathing center close-by also denied the kidnapping incident.

The relevant authorities has certified that there are 10 dead
Last night, Tianjin’s relevant authorities released information on enorth.com.cn to say that one heavily injured person died after failed resuscitation. But the local Public Security bureau and local Publicity Department did not reply concerning whether police’s action during the incident could have been the cause.

The reporter asked the Hangzhou Road police station where Zhang Yimin’s home is, whether Zhang Yimin reported to the police that his wife and daughter had been kidnapped just before the incident happened, the police representative said, “Without the permission from above, we can’t accept any interviews.”
　
A migrant worker from Hebei, He Xiangling (何香玲) died in the incident, her son Liu Changsheng (刘长生) did not answer his phone. After the inciden someone had been accompanying Liu, and at one point had taken his phone from him to speak to this reporter directly.

Liu Jianxin’s (刘建新) brother revealed that his brother was recovering well, and at present was able to converse clearly, “Leaders have not spoken to us about medical bills and compensation yet.”
　
Leaving a question open　
“The report about the local situation had some incorrections”
Some in-the-know person thinks that the brand of the car that was reported was wrong, as well as where the suspect stabbed his colleague.

Yesterday morning, someone who said they had knowledge about the affair called this newspaper to say that the bulletin that was published locally had many wrong facts.

1. The brand of the bus that caused trouble in the reported was wrong
According to this person, Zhang Yimin drove an Irizar (伊利萨尔) rather than what the report said: a Huanghe bus. According to his information, T&B utilities company had many Irizars, and its external appearance and bus label is the same as the photo from the scene of the incident.
　
2. The place of incident in the report is wrong
According to this person, the local government’s bulletin also got the place wrong, “It wasn’t in the company that he stabbed someone,” they said, it actually happened “near the front door of the Toyota company,” at the time the transfers of two Irizars at the T&B company had just been completed.

According to him, Zhang Yimin and Li Tao (李涛) was on one of the buses with a Toyota employee, Zhang Yimin and Li Tao were having a conversation as always, “They weren’t in an argument, then suddenly without realizing why, Zhang took out a knife and pointed it towards Li. After Li was stabbed he got off the bus and sprinted away, Zhang ran after him with the knife but was stopped by the Toyota employee, who held onto his waist from behind. At this time the driver of the Irizar behind saw what was happening, stopped the bus and got off. Then Zhang stabbed at his own neck with the blade, but it wasn’t life-threatening, so he ran towards the other vehicle, then the 2.1 incident happened.
　
“Hitting people was not forced by the police.” He said, the local relevant authorities reported what happened that Zhang drove the bus out of the T&B area to the CBD aroused suspicions about how police were treating it, but this is not in line with what actually happened.

This person, who doesn’t want to give his real identity, said Zhang Yimin and Li Tao had a good relationship: Li Tao had helped Zhang Yimin into T&B utilities company.

The Toyota company has many companies and factories in Tianjin’s CBD district. Yesterday afternoon this reporter was at the second, fifth, seventh and other locations asking questions but all the security guards didn’t know anything about it.

Paying a visit
Neighbors say that Zhang Yimin is normally very kind

According to the neighbors, Zhang Yimin’s family normally seemed very good-natured. Recently during heavy snowfall in Tianjin, Zhang’s mother voluntarily gathered and swept up the snow.

Although Zhang’s house is spare, the environment around his house is good. Zhang’s wife frequently goes down to the shop to buy beer, each time it’s 3 bottles; Zhang Yimin rarely goes.

The residential complex has walls that are not very soundproof, and the neighbors has never heard Zhang Yimin get into a fight with his wife. Therefore of the couple's relationship, it’s “hard to say.”
　
Downstairs the local barbers say that every month Zhang Yimin gets his hair cut, each time it’s 6 yuan, his only wish is, “Not too short, but do what you think.” When they have a conversation it’s about the stock market.

Zhang’s wife is apparently from Zhangjiakou (张家口) in Hebei province. Every 6 months she would go to the barber's and get her hair straightened, each time for 50 yuan. Zhang’s daughter is just over 10 years-old.

A local said that after the incident the police went to investigate in Zhangjiakou. As for Zhang Yimin’s brother’s words about the kidnapping of his wife and daughter, the neighbors professed ignorance. 　

Links and Sources

The Beijing News (Chinese): Tianjin driver malicious killing incident follow-up
Earlier on Danwei: Tianjin bus attack kills 9, injures 11

Tags: bus incident, The Beijing News, Tianjin

This article is from Danwei.org.

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MOBINODE Is In Paris For Forum NetExplorateur 2010

Gang Lu — Wed, 03 Feb 2010 16:38:01 GMT

Landed at 5am this morning, still feel a little bit jet-lag, I am happy to say, MOBINODE is now in Paris and if you want to meet China web, please just give me a shout (gang.lu at mobinode.com or tweet @ganglu).

Last year, I was also in NetExplorateur 09 and moderated the panel “The Ubiquitous Society – Towards a Hyperconnected World” which featured Korean web. This year, it is great to see some Chinese face showing up, such as the entrepreneur, Henry Han (Co-founder, China Netcom , CEO, VivaMe) who will talk about “The future of Mobile Service in China“, and Tao Chen whose Sketch2Photo is the winner of TOP10 Netexplorateur award this year. And I will be joining the panel titled “China, the Internet superpower?“, sitting together with Hervé Fischer (WSIM Shenyang, China), Cindy Guo (Ventech China) and Patrice Nordey (Atelier BNP Paribas, China), and it is moderated by Pierre Haski (RUE89).

Be honest, I am not sure what conclusion will be drawn at the end of the panel discussion, as Chinese Internet is indeed a massive market, very interesting, but also very complicated. If you are around in Paris and interested in knowing more about China web from different angles, please do drop by NetExplorateur. I will stay in Paris until 8th, so just do drop me a line (gang.lu at mobinode.com), it will be great pleasure to meet you in a lovely French cafe!

China: Race and racial conflicts

Oiwan Lam — Wed, 03 Feb 2010 08:51:09 GMT

C. Custer from ChinaGeeks interviewed famous Chinese blogger Hecaitou on race issue in China.

Two choices for news in the Guangzhou Daily

Wed, 03 Feb 2010 08:10:26 GMT

Guangzhou Daily
wrapper

Guangzhou Daily
February 3, 2010

How does a stodgy party organ compete against commercial newspapers that cater to readers' desire for scandal and gossip?

The Guangzhou Daily has adopted the strategy of hiding its boring front page, which follows the boring propaganda-first model hewed to by party dailies across the country, inside a flashy wrapper, making it look like an ordinary commercial tabloid.

Here are the stories featured on the wrapper:

"Third session of the Eleventh Provincial People's Congress closes";
"Zhu Xiaodan: Housing prices should not make sharp or sudden movements";
"Wen Qiang in court; husband and wife accuse each other": further developments in the Chongqing anti-corruption campaign as former police chief appears in court;
"Li Zhuang confesses": Lawyer for Chongqing mob boss admits he fabricated evidence;
"Nina Wang's 'feng-shui master' loses lawsuit over estate": latest developments in the wrangling over the Hong Kong tycoon's fortune;
"Guangdong to eliminate or consolidate 25 expressway tollbooth plazas within the year";
"Guangzhou man takes out advert in this paper to distribute money to poor areas";
"Tianhe flower market restricts traffic for the first time this year";
"Passenger falls to death when bus fails to close door";
"Low-cost housing property rights: held jointly by government and occupant to prevent fraud and speculation";
"An extra month's wait for housing loans from banks";
"Berlusconi wants a divorce";
"Iraqi bomber kills herself and forty-one others";
"Spring festival gala program listing";
"Coca-Cola responds to 'mercury-poisoned Sprite'";
"Strong words from Wei Di": the new Chinese Football Association chief vows to clean up corruption;
"Official 'dies in the line of duty' while attending hospitality function": Huang He, director of the Wenzhou Development and Reform Commission, died after a banquet on January 30;

Here are the headlines from the actual front page:

"Third session of the Eleventh Provincial People's Congress closes";
"Construction of affordable housing should accelerate this year";
"SMS service suspended for 900,000 mobile phone numbers in Guangdong";
"'Four soldiers' installed at Military Museum": a sculpture based on a photograph taken by a Guangzhou Daily journalist of soldiers assisting in the 2008 snowstorm relief effort;
"First estimates of the year: Yuexiu District at the top again";
"Zhu Xiaodan: Housing prices should not make sharp or sudden movements";
"Improve outward promotion for the Asian Games to boost the international image of Guangzhou";
"Migrant workers with work injuries can get a pension of 2,357 yuan per month".
"I hope the Dalai Lama will make the correct choice within his lifetime" (in the top right corner)

Links and Sources

Earlier on Danwei: Beijing Morning Post tarts it up

Tags: Guangzhou Daily, party newspapers

This article is from Danwei.org.

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Drive for development fuels illegal land seizures in Pizhou

Wed, 03 Feb 2010 05:14:42 GMT

Pizhou's "Zhongnanhai"

A clash over the forced seizure of farmland on January 7 that resulted in the death of one farmer brought renewed attention to the problem of illegal land requisition in rural China.

The incident took place in Hewan, a village in the county-level city of Pizhou, under the administrative jurisdiction of Xuzhou, Jiangsu Province. During the second half of January, The Beijing News reporter Tu Chonghang conducted an extensive investigation into land requisitions in Pizhou.

The report illustrates how the city's impressive economic performance is based on the practice of seizing land from local farmers for minimal compensation and then selling it off to speculators who expect land prices to continue to rise. As the city's land area increased, its government moved into fancy offices ten times larger than what had been approved.

Authorities in Pizhou knew that their actions violated the law: officials submitted bogus applications to avoid mandatory approval procedures, flooded farmland to rezone it as waste land, and even had villagers camouflage construction sites so they would not show up on satellite images. Officials from the Ministry of Land and Resources who arrived to conduct spot-checks would find villagers masquerading as factory workers to hid the fact that industrial parks were lying unused even as more were being built.

The newspaper's report assigns some of the blame to the "iron-fisted policies" of Pizhou party secretary Li Lianyu. Li, who gained national recognition in 2007 for a lavish celebration staged to welcome him home from the 17th Party Congress, carried out an ambitious five-year-plan to develop Pizhou through rapid land requisitions and immense construction projects. His style of tough micro-management drove lower-level officials to meet targets by any means possible. In some cases that included the seizure of land by force.

Behind the Pizhou Land Seizure Case, Chaotic Development

by Tu Chonghang / TBN

In the village of Penghu, in the western suburbs of Pizhou, a city in Northern Jiangsu Province, a construction site lies dormant, its buildings half complete and covered with black camouflage netting.

On January 15, several villagers explained the reason for the camouflage: the Ministry of Land and Resources had recently been investigating land use in Pizhou, so the village committee had found the netting to obscure the buildings and had laid straw and corn stalks over the cement roads to fool remote sensing satellites.

Last October, a 150-point spot check the Ministry of Land and Resources had performed in Pizhou resulted in a passing rate of 98%: painless approval.

Two months later, on January 7, a forced eviction in the village of Hewan in the town of Heyun ended up with a 22-year-old villager stabbed to death while protecting his land.

An investigation revealed that this illegal land seizure was no isolated occurrence in Pizhou. As illegal seizures were going on, the city of Pizhou had expanded 50 square kilometers in the space of five years. Last year, Pizhou leapt into the top hundred counties in China, and its "wealth through land sales"-model of city management became known as the "Pizhou phenomenon."

Drowning threats and violent land requisitions
Villager Wang Sumei said that her husband had been dragged to the lakeside and ordered to sign under threat of drowning

On January 7, Sun Xiaojun, Hewan village secretary, allegedly organized more than 200 people to seize land by force, and Li Dongdong, a 22-year-old villager, was killed while protecting his land.

The episode attracted the attention of the central authorities and the provincial leadership, and more than seventy people have been implicated in the case.

An investigation conducted by this reporter in January showed that forced demolition and land seizure was normal practice in the area.

On January 15, the former village head of Batou in the town of Yunhe, said that after their village was brought within the limits of Pizhou's New District last October, they received a deadline for demolition and removal.

Many villagers said that the town government had divided up households among its officials, who then proceeded to "flatten" the town by cutting off electricity, administering physical and verbal abuse, and dragging people away by force.

Wang Sumei's husband Tan Yunju was beaten last October 12 after he refused to sign. On January 18, Wang provided a video that showed more than ten men kicking Tan and his daughter in a room, and then dragging Tan outside where they beat him into unconsciousness.

Wang said that while her husband was in the hospital, some people came and dragged him to the lakeside where they ordered him to sign on the spot or be drowned in the lake. Tan signed his name.

More than ten villagers in Batou alone said in interviews with this reporter that they had also ended up in the hospital.

Many people in the village of Penghu, in the town of Zhaodun in western Pizhou, mentioned that in July 2007, the wife of villager Wang was beaten to death while obstructing the seizure of their land. The town gave more than 600,000 in compensation. Wang has since moved elsewhere.

On January 15, the eastern side of the village of Wuchang, Yunhe, was a broad expanse of water, with wheat shoots clearly visible through the ice. To the south of the farmland, the Thousand Island Lake Park was under construction. Villagers said that at the end of November, the town government gave instructions for more than 10,000 mu (670 hectares) to be flooded. The subdistrict office in Xutang verified that the farmland had previously been unpolluted rice fields.

The villagers suggested that the flooding was done for a construction project: the land could be claimed to be wasteland flooded by low-lying water. They also said it was done to dispel any hope the villagers might have for the land requisition process.

Last year, villagers in Bachang, which lies near Shagou Lake, complained to the Xuzhou Land and Resources Bureau that the government had begun to dig a lake that occupied more than 1,300 mu (87 hectares) of good farmland. The Xuzhou bureau instructed Pizhou to investigate. The feedback from the Pizhou Bureau of Land and Resources claimed that the use of more than 80 mu (5.3 hectares) was in violation of the law and that it had filed a case for investigation. However, it gave no explanation for the more than 1,000 mu that remained.

On January 15, cranes and earth-moving equipment were still at work digging a lake on the land the villagers reported.

A village removed, as villagers "go upstairs"
Villagers who moved into the apartments believed that they had become "unclassifiable": compensation was impractical, and farmers said that they felt uneasy without land

As Pizhou's New District was developed, many villages lost their land, and a few were moved in their entirety.

In Hewan, before the killing, more than 2,500 mu of farmland had been taken over, out of a total of over 3,000 mu. The village of Likou, also in Yunhe, saw all of its arable land confiscated by 2007.

According to people in towns like Yunhe and Chenlou, the towns had rented the farmland to the industrial districts that now occupied it, rather than legally requisitioning the land. The price generally ranged from 600 to 1,000 yuan per mu.

The government built "farmers' apartments" for the farmers who had lost their land and their villages.

The entire village of Batou was moved, with compensation ranging between 500 and 800 yuan per mu. The villagers could purchase space in farmers' apartments - roughly 30 square meters per person for a price of 1,300 yuan per square meter. They said that even added together, the compensation they had received was insufficient.

Xu Chuanling, a thirty-five-year-old woman from Batou, committed suicide last October. On January 20, Xu's mother-in-law said that they received a total of 307,000 yuan in compensation for the 262 square meters in two separate residences the eleven people in their family used to live in, but when they could not afford new apartments after the old homes were torn down, Xu killed herself.

On January 29, Xu's father-in-law Wang Ziyuan said that after she died, the village gave them two 100-square-meter residences free of charge, saying it was for the children's education. However, the village made them stay in a hotel for ten days, during which time it would not let them contact the outside.

On January 13, the "Zhangcun Hewan Farmers' Apartments" were completed in north Hewan. More than thirty seven-storey buildings were clustered together, separated from each other by less than ten meters.

The villagers said that around half a year ago, the town government had divvied up the village households among local officials so as to move everyone in Zhangcun and Hewan into the apartments. In east Batou, a few dozen apartment buildings had been finished and were now home to many villagers.

Villagers from Batou said that they had not adapted. Used to raising pigs and chickens, they did not feel right living in an apartment building.

Some of the younger, stronger villagers left to find work elsewhere, and those who did not leave simply sat at home, worrying. On January 13, Xue Yinli of Hewan said that a farmer's life is tilling the land, so without land, they feel uneasy.

Strategies for policy evasion
The Land Management official said that the government is constantly changing land classification, from basic farmland to arable land, and then to wasteland

After the killing in Hewan, the Nanjing supervisory office of the Ministry of Land and Resources visited Pizhou a second time to investigate illegal land seizures.

On January 15, an employee of the Pizhou office confessed that as member of the Bureau of Land and Resources, he was afraid the entire time that any mistakes would result in an arrest.

Last October, Pizhou was criticized by the Nanjing supervisory office for failing in its duty to control illegal land seizure. Pizhou had been named second on a list of eight illegal land seizure cases that the Ministry of Land and Resources submitted in 2007.

It was then that the Jiangsu Provincial Bureau of Land and Resources designated illegal land seizures in Pizhou as "serious."

However, Pizhou's illegal seizure of land did not stop.

"We were under pressure from the leadership to meet land requisition targets, and if we didn't, we couldn't hold on to our positions," said one employee of the Pizhou Bureau of Land and Resources, who also said that in recent years, the Bureau had tried to meet targets any way that it could.

According to the Land Administration Law [Article 45], requisition of basic farmland, other cultivated land exceeding 35 hectares, and other land exceeding 70 hectares is subject to approval by the State Council, and requisition of other land is subject to approval by the governments of provinces, autonomous regions, and municipalities, with reports made to the State Council.

On January 20, the employee claimed that over the past few years, no construction land in Pizhou had been reported to the State Council.

Bureau documents from years past show only a few applications for more than 30 hectares; the remaining land use applications were for a just a few hectares to less than twenty. In 2007 and 2008, no approved construction land exceeded 50 hectares.

However, according to Xuzhou's Master Plan for Land Use, the amount of arable land to be given for construction use in Pizhou between 1997 and 2010 was 27,600 mu (1,840 hectares). Subtracting 15,600 mu for major national water conservancy projects leaves just 12,000 mu for city development.

Yet nearly 30 square kilometers (3,000 hectares), most of which was farmland, had been added to the framework of Pizhou's New District.

On January 15, a source within the Pizhou Bureau of Land and Resources revealed that because the state kept a tight rein on arable land, the municipal government would alter its master plan every few years, constantly adjusting the location of protected basic farmland areas and general arable land. For example, basic farmland would be reclassified as arable land, and arable land would be reclassified as wasteland.

According to national principles for equitable compensation, land requisitions required an equal amount of the same quality of land to be offered in return. In Pizhou, this meant "developing" new farmland on hilltops, slopes, gullies, and waterlines in its northern mountain region and designating it for agricultural use.

The Bureau source disclosed that when the Ministry of Land and Resources conducted its inspection last November, Pizhou put up walls around basic farmland in the towns of Paoche and Yunhe and dumped construction waste inside to make the land appear as it it were already in use and to set the stage for actual use of the land in the future.

Camouflaged construction sites in Zhaodun

Locals said that in November, the city paid villagers 50 yuan per day to construction sites near the Thousand Island Lake with straw and corn stalks to fool the Ministry's remote sensing satellites. Work on the sites resumed once the inspection had concluded.

On January 24, a villager in Batou said that after the death in Hewan on January 7, the Yunhe government hired villagers to put the straw back out again.

The investigation revealed that straw, corn stalks, and even camouflage netting were also used to evade detection in other villages and towns.

On January 13, a villager in Penghu said that last November, villages in the area extending southward from Zhaodun to Yitang hired villagers to spread straw and cornstalks onto cement roadways and to cover construction sites with black netting.

A faux-Zhongnanhai administrative center
Chang'an Road out in front. Thousand Island Lake off to one side. A small group of classical buildings lies inside the campus. The center exceeded its approved area by a factor of ten

At the same time Pizhou was requisitioning land, many landmark buildings took shape in the city. The Pizhou Administrative Center, which occupies more than 600 mu, is known as "Pizhou's Zhongnanhai."

The Administrative Center went into use in February 2008, but only one sign currently graces its main gate: "Pizhou Visitor Reception Center." Large characters in the center that read "Serve The People" form a reminder that this is the seat of government.

Twenty-two buildings and halls of various sizes are inside the compound. These include a cafeteria, a reception center, and leaders' apartments, all of which are done in traditional Chinese architectural styles.

The city party committee and municipal government are joined by individual buildings devoted to government agencies like the Construction Bureau and the Finance Bureau.

An inside source said that signs for the city government and its departments were hung inside the compound so as not to appear too eye-catching.

The Administrative Center's matching residential area occupies 700 mu and contains schools and service facilities.

The Thousand Island Lake project in back of the Pizhou Administrative Center is the largest wetland park in Pizhou. To the west of the center is the Shagou Lake Model Agricultural Park. The source said that the entire Shagou Lake district would be constructed in imitation of Beijing's Beihai and Nanhai.

In front of the Administrative Center is a six-lane road (plus two emergency lanes) that has the name "Chang'an Road."

Because of the scene described above, the Pizhou Administrative Center is known among locals as "Pizhou's Zhongnanhai."

The Administrative Center was reportedly built at a cost of 150 million yuan by the Jiangsu Golden Bridge Group, which then gave it to the Pizhou government for its own use. In return, the Pizhou government gave the company more than 300 mu in the old city for free.

The application reveals that the center exceeded its approved area by a factor of ten. According to land use estimates in Xuzhou's 2006 construction plan, Pizhou's administrative service center project was to occupy 4 hectares (60 mu), contain 28,000 square meters of floor space, and cost 68 million yuan.

On January 21, a Pizhou Bureau of Land and Resources official who requested anonymity said that the Administrative Center was first approved as a party committee and municipal government project, but subsequent approvals were illicitly obtained under the names of other entities. In addition, occupied land frequently exceeded what had been approved.

On November 22, 2007, three months before the Administrative Center was completed, the city of Xuzhou issued a document barring party and government agencies from occupying farmland or moving into landmark buildings.

The land occupied by the center had previously been part of Shagou's contract responsibility farmland. The "Shagou Lake Model Agriculture Park" now occupies more than 4,000 mu. An inside source revealed that prior to 2007, the park had been named "Shagou Lake Water Park," but after being criticized by name in the 2007 report issued by the Ministry of Land and Resources, it had changed to its present name (and is classified as "basic farmland").

However, while the gardens contain artificial landscapes and entertainment facilities, there is no farming equipment to be found.

The three gates to the "model agriculture park" reportedly cost of 15 million yuan, and the 69-meter-tall Longxin Pavilion inside the park is yet another emblem of Pizhou.

According to the website of the Pizhou government, Li Lianyu visited the gardens last April 23 to decide upon locations for the entertainment facilities. Commercial investment paid for the construction of the facilities, which included airplane and swing rides.

Land brings wealth in the construction of a city
Build basic installations to create prime locations and increase land values, and then sell them off. Land prices in Pizhou reportedly doubled in three years

Pizhou's New District, currently under construction, is about fifteen kilometers from the old city center.

Pizhou party secretary Li Lianyu reportedly asked that the New District have a single, unified image and that its buildings make their mark in the city.

A 10,000-seat stadium, a city plan exhibition hall, and the new Pizhou Middle School took shape in the area surrounding the Administrative Center. Opposite the center in the Aishan Scenic Area is the "Avenue of Good Fortune."

Stone carvings reading "top-ranked in the nation" and "champion at all levels" line the road, which extends for 958 meters, bordered by 9,999 floral wreaths and decorated with lotus and ruyi insignias. Pizhou calls this the longest white marble avenue in the world. Locals call it the "lotus jade avenue."*

The avenue is called one of Pizhou's top ten pieces of architecture. It was built at a cost of 70 million yuan.

Other projects in the top ten include the 30-million-yuan Mt. Jiulong Hotel (known among locals as the "Aishan Summer Palace"), and the 40-million-yuan Jiulong Fountain, which they say is the tallest fountain in the world.*

When Li Lianyu told the media in 2006 about his goals for city construction, he said that a major component was managing the city by generating wealth through land.

The city government monopolized the first-class land market and took a market-oriented approach to the use of land for construction by putting basic installations into the surrounding area to create a prime location that elevated the price of land. Then it was put up for sale.

Eight schools and other buildings are currently under construction in the New District. Pizhou's government website claims that this is an important step for spurring popular acceptance and development in the New District.

In response to the massive amount of construction, both housing and land prices in Pizhou have doubled in the last three years. A Zhejiang businessman said that one mu of land that used to cost 400,000 yuan now goes for more than a million.

At an auction run by the Pizhou Bureau of Land and Resources in the first half of 2006, 500 mu of land in Batou was snatched up by the Fuguiniao Group, and 300 mu in east Liubaohe and 600 mu of farmland in Likou were sold for 370,000 yuan per mu.

Today, these plots all have residential neighborhoods built on them that sell for an average of 2,800 yuan per square meter. For housing in good locations, this can rise to more than 4,000 yuan.

By 2006, Pizhou had sold off 36 tracts that brought in a total of 462 million yuan in revenue. According to publicly-available data, Pizhou took in more than 600 million yuan in land sales in 2006, and in 2007 it broke 800 million.

Data from 2005 shows that city construction contributed as much as 14.4% to Pizhou's GDP growth.

Iron-fisted policies drive expansion
Those who didn't perform were replaced, so officials rotated in every six months. The party secretary's iron fist was infamous in the region

The news media reported that Pizhou's economic growth had led northern Jiangsu for several years in a row. Last July, the term "Pizhou speed" was created after Pizhou was listed for the first time as one of the country's top 100 counties (and county-level cities).

The man behind "Pizhou speed" was the "iron-fisted party secretary," Li Lianyu. Named mayor of Pizhou in 2001, he became party secretary the following year and has remained in that position to this day.

In 2001, Pizhou's urban district covered an area of 19 square kilometers. That year, Li proposed a goal of "building another Pizhou in five years."

Pizhou recruited experts from Tsinghua University, Southeast University, and abroad to design plans for the New District.

For its city management, Pizhou then turned to generating wealth through land. Propaganda slogans like "Productivity through city construction" and "City construction is economic construction" can still be found across the city.

Within five years, more than 500 major projects had been launched in Pizhou, and a number of new development districts were in the works. Beginning in 2001, when Pizhou broke ground on an economic development area, the following five years saw a main industrial park take shape in the northern subdistrict of Xutang, and subsidiary zones created in seven towns.

"An industrial park in every town." On January 18, a source within the Pizhou municipal government said that towns and villages adopted the urban center's model of building new districts, economic development districts, and industrial parks.

By 2007, Li Lianyu declared that the goal to "build another Pizhou in five years" had been attained. The city had been enlarged to cover an area of 50 square kilometers.

Local officials believe that the pace of construction was closely tied to Li's iron-fisted policies.

In the world of Pizhou politics, Li was known for requiring sixteen-hour days from government staffers, or they would be free to find work elsewhere. If the work he assigned was not completed, he would immediately find replacements.

On one occasion, a hospital director was asked why the start of a particular project had been delayed. He answered that he did not have the money. Li Lianyu said, "If you don't have the money, then leave, and I'll find someone who can get the money."

It is said that officials in Pizhou were replaced practically every six months.

On January 13, an employee of the city party committee said that the standing committee would hold meetings every week, during which Li Lianyu would issue detailed work instructions to the party, government, people's congress, and political consultative conference leaders, as well as the heads of government agencies. This was known as "following through with one voice."

Local officials said that Li's administrative style had an effect on village and town leaders as well. Lou Congrui, former party secretary of the town of Yunhe, was called "a second Li Lianyu."

In 2007, Li Peizeng, branch secretary of the village of Hewan, was relieved of his position by Lou for "lax land requisition" and replaced with Sun Xiaojun. This year on January 7, Sun allegedly organized a mob to seize land by force, resulting in one death. After the incident, Lou was dismissed.

Pizhou's expansion campaign is still going on.

"Commercial" lust for growth continues to expand the city
One industrial park had only been open for three months when the government hired farmers to act as workmen to meet an inspection team, to the amusement of locals

Pizhou continued to expand.

After growing to 50 square kilometers in 2007, Li Lianyu said that the next step would be to extend the city framework another 98 square kilometers. A government document showed that the city's master plan called for a total area of 331 square kilometers.

A senior Pizhou official said that at the start of every year, the city government would establish ten or more "investment bureaus" that would travel the country seeking investors. But their catch was slim and limited mostly to chemical and refining industries.

On January 15, fewer than ten percent of the rows upon rows of factories in Gonghu, Paoche, and Yunhe industrial parks that stretched for nearly forty kilometers along the Xuzhou-Lianyungang highway were actually in operation.

At most of the sites, gateless walls surrounded factory compounds overgrown with weeds. Some did contain actual buildings, but these were empty of equipment. Villagers tended animals and grew vegetables in some of the empty buildings.

According to a report in the August 13, 2006 edition of the Xuzhou Daily, the Golden Phoenix Furniture Industrial Park covers 1,100 mu (73 hectares) and was built at a cost of 260 million yuan. It is now completely covered in long weeds.

On January 16, a resident of the town of Guanhu said that the industrial park had been open for less than three months. When upper-level inspectors had come in the past, the city had hired them to put on work clothes and act as laborers, to the amusement of locals.

A source within the Pizhou Bureau of Land and Resources said that most of the businesses that had purchased factories were actually in search of low-cost grounds that they could turn around and sell in a few years when prices rose.

Regarding the illegal seizure of land, an office worker at the Pizhou Bureau of Land and Resources said icily on January 13 that he knew nothing beyond the fact that the farmland involved in the January 7 killing had not been pre-approved. Asked a second time, he claimed that business section staffers and the officials in charge had all gone to a meeting in Nanjing. This reporter subsequently made several unsuccessful attempts to contact the Pizhou party and government leadership.

According to publicly available reports, leading economic indicators have shown Pizhou climbing the ranks in Jiangsu Province since 2003, and its "overall strength" has leapt far to the front of northern Jiangsu.

Last year, after Pizhou was named one of the top 100 counties in the country, interest in copying and analyzing the "Pizhou phenomenon" took off nationwide. More than twenty provinces and 300 cities and counties reportedly visited Pizhou in search of answers.

A source within the Pizhou Land Bureau was not particularly optimistic about the visits. To him, taking over large tracts of farmland for other projects is "a project that kills off descendants." He thinks that in the future, farmland that has been occupied may yet be tilled again.

Notes

"Lotus Jade" 莲玉 is a homophone for 连玉, the given name of party secretary Li Lianyu. It's also a near homophone for 炼狱, "purgatory," but that pun seems less likely in this case. (added 2010.02.05)
The claim for the fountain is doubtful.

Edit (2010.02.04): Corrected several "township" designations to "town".

Update (2010.02.05): View a photo gallery with images of Pizhou's overbuilt government compounds and the Shagou agriculture park on this forum post.

Links and Sources

The Beijing News (Chinese): Behind the Pizhou land seizure case, chaos for developers
Sohu: Land Administration Law of China
China Daily: Family of deadly fight victim compensated
China Digital Times: Preparations for the Welcoming of Secretary Li - A Killed Report
China Media Project: Li Lianyu's glorious homecoming becomes a national portrait of the self-serving cadre
Front page image from forum post by Wen Cun

Tags: land, land requisition, Ministry of Land and Resources, Pizhou, The Beijing News

This article is from Danwei.org.

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Mainland accessible mirror on Danwei.TV

Jobs in China: danweijobs.com

Announcing ChinaMode Winners

Tangos — Tue, 02 Feb 2010 14:41:18 GMT

After two weeks of public vote, ChinaMode Awards 2009 have received 121446 votes. We are now happy to announce the winners of the first ChinaMode Awards in each 7 categories.

Best Internet Applications: Taobao, Google, Baidu;
Best User-Experience Applications: Google Chinese search service, Sogou Pinyin Chinese Input Method, Alipay;
Most Promising Applications: Google Music, Sina Microblogging, Douban FM;
Best Mobile Applications: Mobile QQ, UCWeb, Fetion;
Best Overseas Internet Applications: Twitter, GMail, Youtube; (a detailed analysis on this results on Mobinode）
Tech Person of the Year: Kaifu Lee, Han Han
Best BBS/Online Forum: Tianya.cn, Baidu Tieba, Mop

Since ChinaMode Awards are organized by 14 popular tech bloggers in China, it is possible that a high percentage of the voters are regular readers of these blogs, which can not represent the general profile of China’s netizens.

China: Why cover up Weixian mining disaster

Oiwan Lam — Tue, 02 Feb 2010 05:53:34 GMT

ESWN translated a China Youth Daily story about the rationality of local government officials who attempted to cover up a mining disaster.

2009 ChinaMode Report (Part I) – Twitter Voted Most Recognized International Service in China

Gang Lu — Sun, 31 Jan 2010 18:16:28 GMT

[Background: ChinaMode Awards 2009, initiated and operated by the 14 most influential Chinese tech bloggers, including: Appin, Williamlong, Web20share, Kenengba, Jandan, MobiNode, Webleon, Showeb20, Vista2.o, Yunkeji, Riku, Herock, China Web2.0 Review and MobiNode.TV, is the first open and independent award focus on Chinese web industry. The open nomination started at 15th Dec 2009 and closed at 2nd Jan 2010; with the supervision of local and international experts, 10 candidates in 7 categories each are open for public vote started at 11st Jan 2010 and closed at 25th Jan 2010. Please read the official announcement for more details.

Within 2 weeks of public vote stage, 121446 votes in total are counted. And today, we are happy to reveal these best internet service/sites of 2009 voted by Chinese grassroot. The results can not represent every Chinese netizen's opinion, but we believe, it's a honest result which do worth your attention.

Here is the 2009 ChinaMode Report (Part I): Most Recognized International Service of 2009 voted by Chinese netizen]

Chinese web, an market which has never been easy for international Internet service/companies/sites is even getting tougher to enter and conquer: unfortunately, several very popular service are not available in China in 2009. But still, we are wondering which service/sites have drew Chinese users’ attention, and here is the result of Most Recoginzed International Service of 2009 in China.

The Top 10

Ordered by the number of votes, the top 10 international service are: Twitter (20.68%), YouTube (17.75%), Gmail (17.16%), Google Reader (11.09%), Facebook (9.49%), Google Wave (8.58%), Wikipedia (8.08%), Flickr (3.08%), Amazon (2.16%), Dropbox (1.95%).

Surprise and Non-surprise?

1. Although Twitter and YouTube are not available anymore in China, but still they took the No.1 and runner-up. It reflects the top 2 hottest markets right now in China: microblogging and video-sharing.

2. Gmail, one of the best Google products is widely used by Chinese users; Google Reader is also used as the major tool for reading RSS; Google Wave is a bit hit in global market, China is not an exception; Flickr still gets Chinese attention, as Chinese local photo-sharing market is still quiet; Amazon and Wikipedia are relatively ‘old’ and famous name.

3. Dropbox, this very convenient cross-platform file-sharing and sync startup service, surprisingly, takes the 10th. No similar service in China.

4. No one knows what will happen to Google China in 2010, but what so ever, YouTube, Gmail, Google Reader and Google Wave, result shows Google has big impact on Chinese web, although it’s beaten by Baidu in Chinese web search market.

5. We wrote about Facebook in China months ago, and 50 comments left by our readers. If you are wondering the current status of Facebook in China, it is also not available but unlike Twitter and YouTube, the result says Facebook is only voted the 5th although it continues growing and making profit in global space.

Douban Raised $10M in Series B

Tangos — Mon, 25 Jan 2010 14:54:21 GMT

Douban, a symbol of web 2.0 services in China, announced its $10 million series B financing today. The new round is led by Trustbridge Partners, and co-invested by its existing investor Ceyuan Ventures, who invested in $2 million in 2006.

Douban started from a social networking sites for book lovers, movie lovers and music lovers in 2005, when hype of web 2.0 just began. When people talked about web 2.0 in China, they will talk Douban. Since its inception, Douban is always one of my most favoriate Chinese websites, and I’m also an active user of Douban. Douban’s newest major product development is the release of Douban Radio, which is an personalized online music streaming service powered by a recommend engine to tailor the music just for you. (You can check our previous reports on Douban here)

Currently, Douban’s main revenue source is online advertising, some big brands are Douban’s advertisers already. For Douban Book, it also gain revenues from affiliation with Dangdang, Amazon Joyo and other book ecommerce sites.

Congratulations to Douban and Bo Yang. I strongly believe that Douban can lead to something bigger.

[Event] Third Digital Future Symposium Beijing

Tangos — Thu, 21 Jan 2010 14:36:23 GMT

The post is to introduce an event which our readers might be interested in. The post is drafted by the event organizer.

The Digital Future Symposium (DFS) is a highly successful event first launched in 2007 by the CENTRE FOR CONTENT PROTECTION (CCP). It has conducted successful events in Japan, Singapore, India and Malaysia. Every year, it attracts hundreds of key industry players in the field of content distribution and content protection.

Established in 2007, CCP is a consortium committed to shaping Asia Pacific’s digital future through innovative technologies that provide secure ways for consumers to enjoy anywhere, anytime access to their favourite movies and television programs.

This year, the DFS comes to China, Beijing, in a breakthrough event that aims to bring Chimedia content owners and distributors together to explore new business solutions and opportunities for digital distribution in China and the region.

It targets content owners, producers, technologists, content security companies, Internet businesses, academics, and anyone else in the media and technology industry.

The theme for this year’s DFS, to be held on 24th March at Novotel Peace Beijing, is “Technology, Internet and Content Business”. Major topics to be covered include Internet Distribution and New Media Business in China, Technology, Standards, and Content Protection.

All agendas, updates, and registration information are available at CCP’s website.

Yahoo China, Might Be The Next To Say Goodbye

Gang Lu — Mon, 18 Jan 2010 04:01:49 GMT

Google is thinking of leaving China, but it might not be the first or only one planning on this. Different resources told us lately, they suspected another famous international brand, Yahoo! is going to stop Yahoo China’s locally operating too.

Five-Year Contract?

In August 2005, Yahoo! announced that it purchased a 40% stake in Alibaba Group for US$1bn plus Yahoo!’s Chinese assets. Alibaba Group then took charge of China Yahoo!, and Alibaba Group’s founder Jack Ma remained in charge of Alibaba Group. This is the official annoucement everyone knows, but there might be one detail missing in that statement, i.e. how long Alibaba Group can own Yahoo!’s Chinese assets? One resource told me (but he is not able to prove it) that it’s 5 years. That means both parties have to make the decision soon if it worths continuing the contract and operate the Yahoo China which is struggling in Chinese portal market for a long while.

Yahoo! Is Unhappy!

The relationship between Yahoo! and Alibaba Group started to change after Jerry Yang’s stepping down.

Yahoo China is based in Beijing. But in June 2009, Yahoo! announced its new Research Center in Beijing. According to the official statement, “The base will develop products for Yahoo globally and be independent from Alibaba Group”. Then Alibaba Group said: They had the agreement with Yahoo! that the new research center would not do anything conflicts with Yahoo China’s web business.

Another story is even interesting. In September, Yahoo sold $150 million worth of Alibaba.com share when Alibaba Group was celebrating its 10 year anniversary. Jack Ma was not happy.

Carol Bartz, the new CEO of Yahoo!, was “very unhappy” about Alibaba’s failure to run Yahoo China more successfully than Yahoo had.

No Place For Yahoo China in Alibaba’s Kingdom

If you read our earlier post about Jack Ma’s Alibaba kingdom, you might have found that Yahoo China is actually missing in the big map. Alibaba, Taobao, Alipay and so on, we heard news about Alibaba Group’s every day, but it seems no one knows what Yahoo China is doing and wants to do. Nevertheless, Yahoo China had its 8th CEO and had a major revamp of the site for the 7th time last week (report in Chinese).

The Latest

Google said it would stop censoring in search result and threaten to stop its operation in China. Most of the international giants keep quiet on commenting on Google’s decision, but Yahoo! is one exception: Yahoo! has said it was “aligned” with Google’s position. Obviously, Yahoo! ‘forgot’ its Yahoo China is operated by the Chinese Alibaba Group which respond: Yahoo! is ‘reckless’ on Google stance.

So far, nobody can confirm that Yahoo! and Alibaba Group’s partnership on Yahoo China will discontinue soon this year. So what’s your view on this? Our readers, please leave your comments.

Clearing the fog around Google China reports

will — Fri, 15 Jan 2010 10:49:00 GMT

A quick pointer to an excellent post at the Wall Street Journal's China Real Time blog, which busts several myths concerning Google in China that have been widely repeated in the past few days, including those concerning the health of Google's business in China, whether or not they already uncensored search results here, and more. From Beijing-based correspondent Sky Canaves (@skycita), showing once again that, if you want to know what's going on in China, talk to someone who's here.

5 Predictions for China Social Games in 2010

Tangos — Thu, 14 Jan 2010 11:22:50 GMT

（This is a guest post by Kai Lukoff. Kai Lukoff is an analyst at BloggerInsight and an editor on China Social Games. Follow Kai on Twitter @klukoff. You can find more information on China Social Game at the end of this post. )

The social game market is still in its infancy, but growing up fast. The first smash hits, Friends for Sale! Parking Wars, and Happy Farm are just over a year old in China. Here are 5 predictions for 2010:

1. Social Games Displace Web Games

Social games are reaching unprecedented demographics, including females and middle-aged users. These users are open to casual gaming, but unlikely to seek it out on 3rd party website. Social games go viral by using existing services (social networks) and trusted references (friends). As a result, social games enjoy unprecedented numbers of users. In China, Happy Farm has an estimated 23m daily active users across all platforms. On Facebook, FarmVille has blasted past 27m daily active users in only 6 months. Social games boast a superior distribution model and as in-game content also becomes more social, web games will be left in the dust.

2. Consolidation of Game Developers

The days of a few friends developing a hit from the dorm room are over. The Facebook market has already seen consolidation on a colossal scale, with huge paydays: Playfish (300m USD merger with EA), Zynga (180m USD funding), RockYou! (70m USD funding), and Playdom (43m USD funding). Production values are rising in China too, with RenRen Restaurants (copy of Playfish’s Restaurant City) and Happy Pet (copy of Playfish’s Pet Society). Developers will need more resources, serious teams and finances, to develop the next hit game.

China’s consolidation will be on a miniature scale compared to Facebook though. In fact, it has already begun: Five Minutes, developers of Happy Farm, scored 3.5m USD from Draper Fisher Jurvetson on December 1. And Rekoo, developers of Sunshine Farm, received 1.5m USD from Infinity Venture Partners. Expect more consolidation in 2010.

3. Entry of Western Game Developers

Western social game developers are knocking on the door. RockYou! launched a game on RenRen in June, 2009. PopCap Games followed up with with Bejeweled Blitz 2 on RenRen on November, 2009. China Social Games has spoken to several other players scouting the market.

The themes and mechanics of Facebook games tend to play well in China. The real challenge for foreign developers is managing relations with powerful social networks and the government.

4. Chinese Networks Open Up Their API

The games on RenRen (mostly-open API) blow away those on Kaixin001 and Qzone (closed APIs). RenRen has seen a proliferation of 3rd party developers whose are games are innovative, sticky, and popular. The other networks, especially Kaixin001, did a decent job of copying games in-house at the start. But as social games become more sophisticated and difficult to copy, their offerings look increasingly anemic.

Superior games will slowly drive users to spend more time on RenRen, at the expense of Kaixin001 and Qzone. As these networks realize that they can’t keep up with only in-house developers, they’ll open up their API. Qzone is already experimenting with licensing, starting with Five Minute’s Happy Farm). Expect this, in turn, to increase the leverage of game developers, who will demand greater than the maximum 56% revenue share RenRen currently offers. Chinese game developers are struggling to monetize, but if Kaixin001 and Qzone open up their API it’ll create more opportunities.

5. Family Friendly!

The rules are still being written, but expect social games to be harmonized in 2010. Mafia games are already gone. Happy Farmers are now picking—not stealing—crops. Expect developers, especially foreign ones, to err on the side of caution. All social games will be family friendly!

Bonus: What Will NOT Happen In 2010

1. Social Glue for the Chinese Internet!

While Facebook and Google compete to become of the social glue of the internet (via Connect features), Chinese networks are determined to defend their islands. RenRen, the closest copy of Facebook, is the best contender here, but its efforts (links with Dianping, etc.) all appear to be directed at keeping traffic on its site rather than connecting the internet.

2. Facebook Unblocked!

Dream on. But more and more Facebook games will be ported over to Chinese networks, though its unclear whether it’ll be Western developers or copycats who do it.

About The China Social Games Blog
China Social Games (@CNsocialgames) is a blog dedicated to tracking the hottest games, networks, and trends. It recently released a report for sale (590 USD) on the Top 10 Social Games in China. Though already wildly popular in China (and on Facebook), social gaming is still in its infancy, so the market is evolving, innovative, and competitive. China Social Games offers up-to-the-minute coverage. China Social Games is run by the BloggerInsight team (@BloggerInsight).

Four Years of Google In China

Tangos — Thu, 14 Jan 2010 03:49:16 GMT

No matter Google will finally withdraw all business from China or not, I think it is time to review Google’s four-year operations in China. So I made the following list, if I omitted anything important or made any mistake, feel free to leave your comments.

July 19, 2005, Kaifu Lee joined Google, which was also a big thing in tech sector at that time
January 26, 2006, Google launched Google.cn in China, which filtered search results to obey China’s law and regulations
March 2, 2006, Tencent launched its search engine service Soso.com, which was powered by Google’s technology. Actually Tencent partnered with Google on search service and search ads on Feb 4, 2005
April 12, 2006, Eric Schmidt announced Google’s Chinese name 谷歌
June 26, 2006, Google sold its 2.6% stakes in Baidu
January 4, 2007, partnership with China Mobile
January 5, 2007, announced investment in Xunlei, a mega-file downloader
March 2007, acquired 265.com, the acquisition was announced on May 23, 2008
March 12, 2007, launched Daohang service, which is a hot sites directory in one page. Daohang is a simple but very China-oriented service
April 2, 2007, announced its investment in Tianya.cn, one of the biggest BBS in China
April 4, 2007, launched its Chinese Input software, however which was found to copy the code from Sohu’s Chinese Input software. Later Google acknowledged it and apologized to Sohu
May 24, 2007, launched China’s life search service, you can search information on housing, jobs, train tickets, restaurants and so on
June 11, 2007, announced its strategic partnership with Sina, largest online portal in China, on search and adsense service.
July 1, 2007, Netease announced Yodao, its own search engine, and it will not renew its partnership with Google.
August 20, 2007, Google announced its new products on Tianya.cn, these two services, Tianya Laiba and Tianya Answer, intended to compete with Baidu’s popular service, Baidu Tieba and Baidu Zhidao.
September 27, 2007, Google finally got the ICP licence which is required by China’s regulators to operate website in China
January 30, 2008, Google released a Google map mashup, Spring Festival Mass Transportation Map, which was regarded as a product to show the innovative culture of Google.
March 26, 2008, announced its $1m investment in Comsenz, a social software developer.
May 8, 2008, launched its dictionary software which is a partner with Kingsoft
August 5, 2008, announced its partnership with Top100.cn to operate music search service in China
March 30, 2009, launched its music mp3 download service in China
June 18, 2009, China Internet Illegal Information Reporting Centre (CIIRC) published a report in its frontage condemning Google.cn for spreading obscene contents. The report, titled as “Strongly condem google for spreading indecent and obscene information”. CCTV also made series reports on the issues, which made Google to suspend its Google Suggest and overseas web page search temporarily.
September 3, 2009, Tencent announced it will start to use its own search technology on Soso.com to replace Google’s search technology.
September 4, 2009, Kaifu Lee resigned from Google to run his incubator
October, 13, 2009, Two Chinese writers’ groups claim that Google has scanned Chinese works into an electronic database in violation of international copyright standards.
January 13, 2010, Google announced its new China approach, and stop filtering search results, and it may pull out of China.

(Image copyright REUTERS/Jason Lee)

Google’s New Approach: Say No to China

Tangos — Wed, 13 Jan 2010 17:27:03 GMT

Google’s announcement of its new China approach is the biggest tech news today, there are tons of comments and analysis on news, blogs and tweets already. I currently don’t have much more to add to the discussion. I just pick up some posts I read and share with you.

Google’s statement is very controversial, some people believe that it is because of the lose of business in China. Sarah Lacy of Techcunch think “I’m not saying human rights didn’t play into the decision, but this was as much about business”, and ” Google has clearly decided doing business in China isn’t worth it, and are turning what would be a negative into a marketing positive for its business in the rest of the world.” Sun Yunfeng, the Chief Product Designer of Baidu, also questionned Google’s sincerity in his personal blog, “If Google gain 80% search engine market share in China, will Google’s executives announce do no evil and quit China”? (The original post has been deleted from his blog.)

Obviously, Google doesn’t do well in China market, and revenue from China is immaterial, PaidContent pointed out that the estimated Google China’s $600 million revenue in this year “only represents just over two percent of the $26 billion in revenue that most analysts expect Google to post this year.” But it still keeps about 30% market share in this high potential Internet market. Leaving China in this way, without saving face to China’s government is not an easy decision to make.

Robert Scoble quoted, a Google Spokesperson “This is not about market share. While our revenues from China are really immaterial, we did just have our best ever quarter [in China].” Scoble also thought “China is a HUGE market”, “Google has EVERY INCENTIVE to kiss Chinese ass. That’s why this move today impressed me so much….It doesn’t matter to me that Google played footsie up until today, either. They were the first to stop playing footsie and THAT deserves a HUGE round of applause”.

It is not the first time for Google to think leaving China. Keso, the most famous IT blogger in China, said, according to his sources, Google had planned to withdraw from China in the year before last year, but Kaifu Lee sought help from Gary Locke to solve this problem. You should read Scoble’s second post to feel the push and pull of China market.

“As an American I saw two opposite poles [of China]: one of unending opportunity and one of unending frustration of dealing with the government…..I both disagree with [Sarah's article] and agree with it. Why? Because I’m feeling the push and pull of China. Is Google doing this because of business or because of ethics? Probably a little bit of both. Or, maybe, just sheer frustration from the push and the pull of China.”

You should also readJames Fallows’ post, “It is a significant development. Significant for Google; and while only marginally significant for developments inside China potentially very significant for China’s relations with the rest of the world.”

Jack Ma, CEO of Alibaba commented that a company will encounter many difficulties when operating in any country. It is easy to leave China, but giving up is the biggest failure for Google. But Xie Wen, a prominent internet commentator, saidhe admires Google, and “China’s Internet companies should not take pleasure in other’s misfortunes, today’s Google China may be your tomorrow”, and “China’s Internet will enter into the Age of Stone”.

You can also find the translations of Chinese Tweets on it, “It’s not Google that’s withdrawing from China, it’s China that’s withdrawing from the world”.

Kaifu Lee responded on his Twitter, “A captain would never run away from his duty, if he knew the ship was sinking”.

It seems the best predictor is Robin Li, in about five years ago he said “we will not see Google in five years”, though he will not know Google will leave in this way.

Google detonates the China corporate communications script

will — Wed, 13 Jan 2010 02:31:00 GMT

Imagethief stumbled blearily to his computer this morning expecting a relaxed scan of the news but found the Chinese Twittersphere ablaze with the news of Google's bombshell blog post, which went up ~~in the middle of the night~~ early this morning our time. Titled "A new approach to China", the post, by Google's Senior Vice President for Corporate Development and Chief Legal Officer, David Drummond, was essentially a public threat to withdraw from China. As such, it was as direct a challenge to the Chinese authorities as I have ever seen in a piece of public corporate communication.

The first half of the post discusses alleged hacking attempts on Google, apparently with the aims of both recovering Google source code and accessing the Gmail accounts of dissidents. But the second half of the post is more interesting. The money grafs below (emphasis mine):

We launched Google.cn in January 2006 in the belief that the benefits of increased access to information for people in China and a more open Internet outweighed our discomfort in agreeing to censor some results. At the time we made clear that "we will carefully monitor conditions in China, including new laws and other restrictions on our services. If we determine that we are unable to achieve the objectives outlined we will not hesitate to reconsider our approach to China."

These attacks and the surveillance they have uncovered--combined with the attempts over the past year to further limit free speech on the web--have led us to conclude that we should review the feasibility of our business operations in China. We have decided we are no longer willing to continue censoring our results on Google.cn, and so over the next few weeks we will be discussing with the Chinese government the basis on which we could operate an unfiltered search engine within the law, if at all. We recognize that this may well mean having to shut down Google.cn, and potentially our offices in China.

No doubt a great deal has transpired behind the scenes in the lead up to this announcement. To save time, here's what I don't know:

Whether this is linked to rumors of Google's possible withdrawal from China and staff exodus that circulated several weeks ago.
The relative weights of the hacking issue, censorship issue and Google's business struggles in China in leading the company to make this statement.
What, if any, discussions Google had with Chinese authorities prior to making this statement (they speak of discussions "over the next few weeks"), or whether there are actually continuing negotiations.
Whether recent blocks of Google Docs and Google Groups in China contributed to this decision.
Whether Google would have done this if their business in China was stronger. China contributes a minuscule portion of Google's revenue.
What will actually happen to Google's business in China in the long run.

Here is what I do know:

Google has taken the China corporate communications playbook, wrapped it in oily rags, doused it in gasoline and dropped a lit match on it. In China, foreign companies tend to be deferential to the authorities to the point of obsequiousness, in a way that you would almost certainly never encounter in the United States or Europe. Scan any foreign company's China press releases and count the number of times you see the phrase, "commitment to China". Demonstrating "alignment with the Chinese government's agenda" is an accepted tenet of corporate positioning and corporate social responsibility work in China. This is testament to the degree of direct power that the Chinese authorities wield over the fortunes of foreign businesses in China. Even when foreign companies are in dispute with the Chinese government they tend to offer criticism obliquely as long as they have a business stake or operations in the country. Note, for example, the scrupulous diplomacy of Rio Tinto's communications concerning the detention of its employees last summer, a far more serious situation than anything Google has encountered (although also with far more money at stake).

In this situation Google has undertaken a bet-the-farm confrontational communications approach in China. They will not have made this decision lightly. Dressed up in the polite language above is what is essentially an ultimatum: Allow us to present uncensored search results to our Chinese users or we'll walk. The Chinese government is not likely to cave to an ultimatum from a foreign company, no matter how decorously delivered. As Richard Waters of the FT has pointed out, the language does leave some wiggle room for further negotiation. However, Imagethief cannot imagine a circumstance in which the Chinese government will give Google free reign, especially in the current, highly restrictive climate for Internet services. Barring some surprising developments, the clock would therefore appear to be ticking for Google.cn, if not Google's overall operations in China. It will be very interesting to see how this plays out.

Would Google continue with an office in China if there was no Google.cn site? They could still conduct R&D here, for instance. But Google's R&D operations in China have been troubled (remember the Sogou IME scandal?) and if the security issues are taken at face value continuing operations here in the absence of a local business to support might simply be extra risk. Consider how many China R&D operations are "PR&D", designed to demonstrate that essential "commitment to China" in support of a revenue-generating business in China. It's not that real R&D doesn't happen here, but how many companies do high-level, primary R&D in China in the absence of an on-shore business and supporting government relations program? And could Google attract talent to a pariah operation? Distraught Chinese netizens are already laying flowers at Google's China headquarters.

The Wall Street Journal's story (sub) on the unfolding situation makes some interesting points (emphasis again mine):

The common assumption, however, is that no matter how onerous the limitations and challenges faced by foreign companies in China, the market is too big and important to walk away from.

That calculation has forced a number of foreign firms to accept conditions in China that they might not tolerate elsewhere. The country has 338 million Internet users as of June, more than any other country.

Google would be the most high-profile Western company in recent years to draw a line under the kind of compromises it is prepared to make and walk away from China.

It would be an extremely rare case of a foreign company taking a stand on human rights, and placing that issue over commercial considerations. A number of foreign companies exited China after the Chinese army crushed student protesters around Tiananmen Square in 1989. But they mostly came back in the following years.

A Google withdrawal would also be an implicit rejection of the argument made by many technology companies that their presence in China overall helps expand access to information for Chinese citizens, despite censorship.

That's the very last line in the story, but I found it one of the most interesting. If you followed the original justifications offered by many American Internet companies for launching businesses in China, or the congressional hearings on the matter in 2006, you will recall that the argument that even a censored presence in China improved access to information for Chinese Internet users was central. If Google repudiates that argument it will put pressure on other American Internet firms currently toeing the regulatory line in China, especially Microsoft, and weaken one of their core public arguments for a continued presence in China. Then again, it may also represent an opportunity for them. After all, "Google" doesn't phoneticize well in Chinese, as the flap over the "谷歌" brand demonstrated. But "Bing" works quite nicely indeed.

This only the latest chapter --albeit potentially a critical one-- in the very interesting story of Google in China. Someone needs to write the book. Anyone want to step forward for that?

See also:

Rebecca MacKinnon's roundup of responses.
James Fallows' analysis on how this development fits into a broader picture of increasingly tense economic relationships for China.
Sarah Lacy in TechCrunch, citing tweets from both Bill Bishop (@niubi -- now also blogging again at Digicha) and Marc van der Chijs (@chijs).
Brief US State Department statement.
CNBC interview with David Drummond (Video - also embedded below): "We're not saying one way or the other whether the attacks were state sponsored..." Note also the silly use of the word, "cyberterrorists" by the interviewer.
Brief, relatively straightforward report from the People's Daily online (Chinese).
Chinese telecoms analyst Xiang Ligang calls it "psychological warfare", doesn't think Google will pull the trigger, and doesn't think it will be a cataclysm if they do (if I read it correctly - Chinese).

Updates:

On the corporate communications aspect, this quote from Jonathan Zittrain of Harvard's Berkman Center, in a Mercury News story (via Jeff Jarvis' BuzzMachine):

"In a world in which we are so used to public relations massaging of messages, this stands out as a direct declaration. It's amazing," said Jonathan Zittrain, professor of Internet law at Harvard Law School and co-director of Harvard's Berkman Center for Internet & Society.

Jeremy Goldkorn (of Danwei) at the Guardian:

The fallout will be interesting. I can't recall a single case of a major international company with operations in China taking a stand like this. As someone who agreed with Google's reasoning when it entered China, I also support this move. If it cannot operate here in accordance with its global standards, it should leave. I have given up on getting my own website unblocked by the government and am resigned to the fact that it's only accessible to people who are outside China or know the technical tricks to get over the Great Firewall.

I'd rather be outside the wall and free than inside it with the icy hand of the censor around my throat.

Wired's "Threat Level" blog on some of the considerations within Google (via @kaiserkuo).
Full disclosure: Imagethief is a supporter of foreign Internet services operating in China. Elaboration in this comment, below, in response to a point from a reader.
Isaac Mao's open letter to Google (English), via Harvard's "Difficult Problems in Cyberlaw" blog.
Xinhua English report on the statement: "'It is still hard to say whether Google will quit China or not. Nobody knows,' the official said."
Gady Epstein's column on Forbes.com: "Dreams of Internet openness in China appear to be a fantasy." Indeed.
Evgeny Morozov punctures the feelgood balloon at Foreign Policy: "If...you believe that [Google] did the right thing in China by offering their limited service (rather than no service at all), I don't see how this move could make you feel good..."

P1 Wants To Be The Highest Quality Social Network in China

Gang Lu — Tue, 12 Jan 2010 09:32:06 GMT

Probably only a very few people expected the amazing growth of Kaixin001 at the beginning of 2009. Now 2010 is here, can you predict any startup will rock the China web?

An angle investor I know was in touch with a new SNS which I thought has some innovative ideas implemented. But he finally said No to the founder a day before the contract day because a famous veteran told him investing social networks is wasting the money. Well, yes and no. Most likely, we would see more expansion of existing social networks or rising of mobile SNSs, and would not see another lucky one like Kaixin001 simply because too many Big public social networks are out there.

Although, all of them will tell you the same story of user heterogeneity and different company strategies. Since they are all open to everyone, in some sense they are competing with each others. P1.cn which is also a social network you may never read on popular media, seems an exception. It neither rushed into the Open Platform ‘hype’, nor tried anything on the hottest Social Games yet. It is unique in this market, a private (i.e. invitation-only) social network mainly focus on young affluent people living in China.

The Interesting Story About P1

P1 was founded in Jan 2007 and first launched at end of the same year. Where did the first bunch of users come from? Wang Yu, the co-founder of P1 told me a very interesting story. Unlike many SNSs which acquired the first wave of users via spamming emails, virus marketing or social gaming, P1’s early users actually came from the real life. Wang said, we had some photographers who were asked to spent time on night club, shopping mall etc. They took photos for those fashionable young guys, then invited them to P1 in person and asked for the permission if they could use the photos on P1 to attract more users. It’s the strategy P1 has been using till now, simple but really works. “It helps us on the Identity verification and it can also guarantee the high quality of our user base.” Wang told me.

What Is The Highest Quality User

In China, there are probably 20 million affluent people, i.e. P1’s target users according to some research. “It’s still a niche market if we consider the user base the leading social networks already have. QQ is huge with over 200million active users; 51 says it has over 100million users; Renren and Kaixin001 surely have over 20millions users already.” Wang said. “but we are looking at the quality not the quantity, and we are not competing with any of them.”

So what’s the user quality in Wang’s opinion. Wang shared some interesting stats with me. By research, Kaixin001’s users are mainly white collar, the average monthly income is over 3000RMB; Renren and 51 users are in the middle with the income around 2000RMB; QQ’s users are youngest with the average income less than 2000RMB and a not-small portion of them has around 500RMB monthly. “But the average income for P1’s users, is monthly 8000RMB.” Wang smiled. “We have less users but much more attractive to luxury and fashion brands.” I could not approve if those figures are exactly right, but Wang’s analysis does makes sense.

Then I asked Wang, what if Kaixin001 one day decided to target at the same users as P1 does? Wang said although it’s possible but it would be very hard. P1’s users are using Kaixin001, QQ too, but they would not addict to them simply because they would rather spend more time on shopping, partying and communicating with the guys who have the same lifestyle in real life. A social network like P1 has to be operated in different way.

The Opportunity for P1

When almost everyone is still looking at the general social networks, P1 has quietly become the leading private network with around 600,000 users mainly from Beijing, Shanghai, Shenzhen and Guangzhou. And Wang is expecting P1 can expand to some key tier-2 cities such as Chengdu, Wuhan etc soon.

Since P1 focus on the niche market where the users are interested in fashion, luxury and partying and more importantly they are affluent at the age between 20 to 40. P1, without question, is now getting more attraction from some famous brands including Bentley, TAG Heuer. These brands believe P1 can bring some unique value which other SNSs can not. Those products fit for P1 users’ lifestyle and the users are more likely able and happy to pay the bill too.

You would not think it’s a good idea for LV to launch an online marketing campaign on QQ, right? But it sounds a quite good idea if it does it on P1.

Re-think Six Degree of Separation

On ASmallWorld, the leading private social network’s about page, it reads:

ASMALLWORLD is the world’s leading private online community that captures an existing international network of people who are connected by three degrees of separation. Members share similar backgrounds, interests and perspectives. ASMALLWORLD’s unique platform offers powerful tools and user generated content to help members manage their private, social and business lives.

Why it has to be six degree? Is three degree of separation good enough for a durable business model? I guess P1 along with other private networks are trying to give a positive answer.

Since P1 says it is not the competitor of those popular SNSs, I asked Wang for his opinion what is his favorite among Kaixin001, Renren and 51. Wang said he would go for Kaixin001.

Kaixin001’s white collar users take 10%-15% of urban population in fact account for ~60% of total spending of the country.

HK Startup Summary 2009

Tangos — Tue, 12 Jan 2010 13:50:29 GMT

It is an excellent post on HK online startups by Rex Chung, thanks Rex for republishing it on China Web Radar. Rex Chung is the founder of Ankoder, a cloud based video transcoding web service that was launched in 2009. He also previously founded a web and ruby on rails consultancy firm RoRCraft Ltd. in 2006 with head office in Hong Kong Science and Technologies Park.

There’s alot of startup activities in Hong Kong and not many people know about it. Since I didnt have much time myself during the year I’ll try to summarize what I know in one post and also making some predictions for 2010. In 2009 there’s some successes, some fell into the deadpool and I’m sure some companies you have never heard of. Please excuse me if I have missed anyone and I have no intention to exclude anyone for any purpose. However, I do believe HK startups need more press!

2009 is the year of iPhone and Facebook apps.

With the popularity and coolness of the iPhone, HK has spurred a new industry and group of indie developers. Here’s some indie and startups of note. (My apologies for not having much detailed research on HK iPhone apps market. This is purely as a user point of view)

Bill So: Finger: Turns iPhone/iPod touch into Chinese writing tablet.

Nuthon (Leo To – 杜Ｂ): Developed various Location based application like Toilet Rush and 行Guide.

Conceptable.net: HK Weather, Reading.
ThinkBulb: Puri (Photo Sticker app with 580k+ downloads)
Stepcase (Leon Ho): Darkroom, Meeting Time, Lifehack, Enroute.
Crispy Comics: Casey Lau, first publisher for original comics distributed on the iPhone, it kicked off this Summer with “Super Kaiju Hero Force”.

iPhone App generators:
motherapp – A Science Park incubated company released their multiple mobile platform application generator. Some successful application using the technology are OpenRice, TDC. They also won the Bronze prize of HK ICT Innovation and Research award.

Kanchoo – A web application that generates iPhone apps specifically for news publishers. Founded by cubicle muses – Aaron, William and Michael.

aNobii – A book lover social network very popular in Italy released iPhone app that can scan barcode and add to your own virtual book shelf. A Facebook app. The same team also launched a mooshnow.com + iPhone app, which is a movie reviews web site.

Facebook apps

6wave: Ex-Yahoo workers Ng, Cheng, and Lee, a startup that has developed social applications and casual games on the Facebook platform with 32 milion monthly users.

Pencake – A successful DIY e-card web portal. I know the two brother team has recently built some popular facebook applications. Some of you might have used their app without knowing – polling, quizes and 成份分析. They are targeted at the Chinese speaking communities like HK, Taiwan, Singapore and Malaysia. Now they are helping companies promote their facebook fan page. They also moved into HK Science Park in 2009.

Online Video – my area of interest
Ankoder – Obviously I’m biased here. I believe Ankoder was the first platform as a service based on Amazon’s cloud computing services launched out of HK. Also based in the Science Park, I will definitely have more product news in 2010. So far the clients are coming from US, Europe and Australia.

goyeah – A free online movie portal, basically saves you from buying the old favorite on VCD. I’m not sure what their plans are in 2010. There’s some cool flash interactive video campaigns with HK comedian.

anyplex – Subscription based movie portal that works directly with setup boxes. They actually moved out of Science Park in 2009. They have agreements and partnerships with movie producers in place so they are set for a bright 2010.

vcast.tv – A video portal with some 2nd tier video content going on with advertising model. Still too early days to tell if it’ll work or not. Their core competency is doing event video streaming. Their mobile video portal also won the Gold prize in ICT mobile award 2008.

vcasmo – Synchronize your video with power point presentations. Launched in 2008 have a strong client base in Japan. Similar to Omnisio.com which was acquired by Youtube early 2009.

choochootv – an artists video blog.

Groups and Meetups
Startup networking events were more than ever, too much that I couldn’t attend all of them.

HKSUA – They have held numerous useful workshops that are very informative to startups.

Wordcamp – Matt Mullenweg came over to HK and held a wordpress fan + blogger meetup.

0 to 0.1 – Organised by Greg and Leon, which provided mentorship to a few groups of University students during the summer holidays. The goal was to launch their lean startup in a few months.

Amazon Web Services Evangelist – Jeff Barr visited HK.

Web Wednesday – Napoleon managed to invite Guy Kawasaki (Jackie Chan of VC) along while he was in HK.

Barcamp:
Most notable was probably the presentation by Ko Kin, who is a 100% Hongkonger that started and established a mobile game company in Mainland China. He wrote a book about his 10 years experience and released the PDF version under creative commons license.
Here’s Aaron’s review of the day.

Cyberport Venture Capital Forum (CVCF)
This year’s theme was angel investment. Some well respected celebrity in the VC world made it to HK. – Dave McClure and Aydin Senkut.

Startup Mondays -
A group of entrepreneurs formed a regular meetup after seeing the gap from CVCF.
Also a group blog at startupshk.com

Other groups and events of note:

香港青年創業家聯盟
 Punchparty Cantonese speaking events with local bloggers and tech enthusiasts.
BloggerCon- Annual Blogger Conference.
Agile HK was pretty much dead in 2009 since the financial crisis and Thoughtworks moved out of HK.
Ruby on Rails HK – Sorry I was supposed to organise this one, my bad.

Cocoahead – Bill has been keeping up with organising this iPhone+Mac developer group while he also helped out with TEDx Taipei.
tweetups, twestival.
iPhanatics – organised by Casey Lau, who also created Popcorn Network – Hong Kong’s first e-commerce blog network featuring the best of fashion, gadgets and wine.

Funding:
Although I didn’t see significant funding activities for HK startups, there’s some good news and groups formed that are showing good signs.

Tolo Harbour Angel Group. I have never joined or invited , but there’s definitely some activities there. I could see Dominic from Darkhorse in the pictures and Chinese University and Science Park staff are involved.

Cyberport Creative Micro Fund (CCMF)
YCombinator style – 100K HKD to be awarded to 5 companies. Deadline was late October and granted companies announcement will be on Jan 11 2010.

Zendesk, although a Danish company, one of the partner Michael, was based in HK during the early days and had sponsored some local startup events. They received series A and series B in 2009, now with their headquarters in San Francisco.

Editgrid – the iconic HK Web 2.0 startup had rumored to be acquired by Apple.

Outblaze – Although not really a startup, their messaging service was acquired by IBM.

Deadpool – Social Networks
Unfortunately there’s some companies to be classified into the deadpool, interesting most of them are social network companies.

CityIn – launched in 2008, wanted to be “the” social network for south China.

Thumbdive – iPhone social network, got swamped by more focused applications like twitter, foursquare.
Harbork – Subscription model probably didn’t work.
Another social network you probably haven’t heard of – Missu.
Although Zorpia seems to be doing well, I haven’t talked to the founder myself, at least they didn’t need to fire sell like friendster. Duedee (used to be bullpoo) – A virtual stock trading social network is still hanging in there, although I heard there’s not much new development done to the site.

Another social network focused on entertainment celebrities with a name “AliveNotDead” is still alive not dead and exploring different business models like merchandizing.

More startup companies that are just doing their things.
muecs – Another science park incubatee, launched two products. One is enterprise twitter – Molaboration, similar to Yammer. Another product seems to be their first iteration was a social media market place if I understood it right.

We also have threadless like crowdsourcing designer Tshirt / products websites.
Foncept, dookaz and not so well known comedaily are peacefully propelling the crowdsourcing market in Hong Kong.

Frenzoo – A 3D avatar design your own fashion social network. They are funded by ex-Skype employees and an incuTrain graduate. They launched their virtual items market place in 2009 and have some big plans for 2010.

Sampiplan – Project management tool designed specifically for product design and production.

I know I mentioned alot of Science Park incubatees already, but there’s more.
getogeto – A social events invitation website.
gearapp – Highly customisable CRM that is adaptable to all business needs.
cartforge – Targeted ecommerce and analytics platforms.
Innoverz – Fast RIA store front.

StorBackup – Cloud based backup solution that works over unstable internet connections.
Intuitive Automata – Dr. Cory Kidd from MIT – A Robot coach designed to help people who are trying to lose and keep off weight.

2010 will be Social Media, Cloud Computing and Android
Social media marketing will get serious, especially measuring ROI. There’s a few social media conference in 2009 and more planned in 2010 already, and even Hong Kong Government CIO is on twitter. HKAIM has already organised a few social media related events

in 2009 and more to come in 2010.

There’s 2 companies I know that are in this space.
Admomo – Online Advertising Competitor’s analysis.
kmatrix CI - Social Media Buzz Monitoring system.

Any stealth startups hiding in HK?
Anyone in stealth mode should make yourself known now, because nobody cares about your secrets! But I know there’s some startups to look out for in 2010.

Jeff Lyndon – Experienced online game expert is working on something.

Thomas Pun is working on a project joining the YCombinator.

Kenneth Kwok is writing up some informative posts on web analytics tips and techniques.

Eugene Lam, ex-Googler developing a social software review website.

Vincent Chan, working on backbonehr and writing a nice startup blog at scale.cc

Thats it for 2009, this post has turned out to be much longer than I thought. Hope when I write the 2010 post it will be even longer

No related posts.

Welcome Back, Yeeyan

Tangos — Sat, 09 Jan 2010 16:30:54 GMT

Yeeyan, a popular online translation collaboration community in China, was back online in yesterday morning, after it was shut down in Nov 30, 2009 by China’s online content regulators. But its domain name changes from Yeeyan.com to Yeeyan.org.

On almost all my list about my favoriate China’s websites, you can find Yeeyan. Since it started in 2006, still a group blog at that time (see our first post on Yeeyan), I kept an eye on its developments. In 2007, Yeeyan becomes an online content collaborative translation community, users can collaboratively translation and publish foreign language articles into Chinese. The translators can also have opportunity to gain financial benefit from the articles translated by them. I think it is the best crowdsourcing website in China.

Yeeyan partnered with both foreign and Chinese media, by translating articles from foreign media into Chinese and publishing on China’s newspaper, magazine and website, it can reward its translators with real money. Yeeyan also translated and published several books by this crowdsourcing model. According to Chen Haozhi, CEO of Yeeyan, some of the translators can get RMB4000 to 6000 a month, and Yeeyan also makes break even.

But partnerships with foreign news media, such as The Guardian, Time Magazine, New York Times, also made troubles to Yeeyan. In Nov 30, Yeeyan was shut down by regulators, because it published news in its website without getting necessary licenses.

Now Yeeyan is back, but the new Yeeyan will focus more on tech, science and business, not on current affairs which might enrage regulators. You cannot find articles from those foreign news media now.
Yeeyan also introduces a pre-publish auditing system, a new translation will only be open to public after it is reviewed manually. The group feature is replaced by a new feature called Project, it also reflect the new Yeeyan tries to strengthen itself on translation collaboration functions, rather than generic social networking.

Anyway, welcome back, Yeeyan. We missed you.

Hello, This is China Web Radar

Tangos — Sat, 09 Jan 2010 16:22:12 GMT

Since today, this blog China Web 2.0 Review will be renamed as China Web Radar, the acronym is still CWR, and our domain also change to ChinaWebRadar.com.

China Web 2.0 Review was launched in Nov 2005, when the concept of web 2.0 was becoming hot either in the world or in China. I started this blog in order to make a bridge between China’s startups and overseas English-speaking people. Actually, we not only covers small startups, but also wrote lots of posts on big Internet companies, such as Baidu, Tencent and Sina. The most used tag on the blog is Baidu.

I rename the blog, not because I though web 2.0 is dead, but I thought “web 2.0 review” cannot reflect all the content and the position of the blog. Besides it, the name “China Web 2.0 Review” is not easy to pronounce, is too long. Our old domain name (cwrblog.net) is hard to remember. So I decide to change the name and the domain together.

Thanks for all your supports in last four years. In 2010, I will make more updates on this China Web Radar blog than in last year, hope you will still support us.

Seriously? They blocked IMDB?

will — Thu, 07 Jan 2010 13:51:00 GMT

Imagethief is as annoyed by the Great Firewall (or Net Nanny or what-have-you) as anyone who lives in China and uses overseas social networks. One of the great joys of my pox-afflicted Christmas vacation was having one of my annual bursts of unfettered Internet use. After months of sipping my Internet through the narrow and frequently blocked swizzle-stick of Chinese "broadband" it's always refreshing to turn the VPN off and draw my Internet through the big-bore bubble tea straw of an American or Singaporean ISP.

Still, say what you will about the GFW, it does provide those of us who live in China with one of our most enduring parlor games: Who's blocked? Why? Who goes down next? What's accessible again? What does it all mean? Buy? Sell? Hold? Stockpile turnips? Trying to read the tea leaves of the GFW is the Kreminology of 21st Century Beijing, especially for us nerdy blogging types.

Most of the time, as misguided as it might appear to us bourgeois foreigners, we can at least discern the rationale for GFW decisions. Apple highlights an album dedicated to Tibet on iTunes, so they get slapped for a while. Yeeyan starts translating foreign news a little too freely so the great, sweaty thumb comes down on them like the Monty Python foot of censorship. Microblogs outside the control of the big media groups looking a little too much like group organizing tools? Adios, muchachos. Sorry about all those venture capital deals. In its own way, the GFW is a window into the fever dreams of the Chinese government, albeit a small window in serious need of a spritz of Windex and a roll of "Brawny" paper towls.

But I have to confess I am totally mystified as to why this week the Chinese authorities decided to block the Internet Movie Database (IMDb). Yes, there are most certainly entries in IMDb that are counter to Chinese doctrine ("Seven Years in Tibet", etc.), but you'd struggle to find them through the updates on development of the sequel to "The Hangover" and such. All of that "hurt-the-feelings-of-the-Chinese-people" stuff is also available in more practical and influential form on any number of other sites such as iTunes, Google and Amazon.

If anyone has a good explanation for why this happened, I'd love to hear it. Is it personal? Perhaps it's because a search for "Tiananmen" yields plenty of misguided Western propaganda while shamefully omitting China Film Corporation's feel-good National Day picture of the same name*? Who knows. Simply by virtue of its impenetrability and apparent capriciousness, this move puts the GFW dangerously close to self-parody territory. What's next to be blocked in the interest of the correct guidance of public opinion? Hello Kitty? ESPN? Funny-or-die? The mind reels.

*This was last year's lightweight counterpart to the more serious but less watchable "Founding of a Republic." Imagethief really wants to know what the deal with the girl with the accordion was. She's on the poster foreground, but in the film for all of about ninety seconds, thus constituting the sum-total of the sex appeal as far as Imagethief is concerned. This, although scant, was admittedly ninety seconds more sex-appeal than "Founding of a Republic" had.

Update:

Also blocked, for the first time as far as I know, is Imagethief. Puts me in good company, along with Danwei.

Update 2:

Apparently blocked only in Beijing. Imagethief, it seems, is suitable for the decadent financiers of Pudong, but not for the refined sensibilities of Zhongnanhai. I don't know what to think.

Think, "Die Hard", only communist, funnier and
with an accordion girl.

Paul Midler's "Poorly Made in China": Mischief, mayhem, soap

will — Thu, 07 Jan 2010 09:45:00 GMT

As a general rule, Imagethief dislikes business books, especially instructional ones. I find them tedious and most of them age faster than caviar on a car dashboard. There are, however, exceptions. Most of these are either books based on journalistic reporting of business events, such as, say, Kurt Eichenwald's "Conspiracy of Fools", or on personal narratives of business conducted in extremis. Tim Clissold's "Mr. China", to this day the definitive "doing business in China" narrative and probably on the shelves of many Imagethief readers, is the defining example of the latter.

One of the magnificent things about China is that it seems to provide a bottomless well of business-in-extremis stories. Like many PR pros, I followed with some interest the great product quality scandals of 2007 and 2008, not least because it has a direct bearing on my work when companies discover that something they manufacture in China is [choose one] toxic/sharp/disintegrating/radioactive/manufactured by child slaves. (That list could be extended, but you get the point.) I was thus pleased when a copy of Paul Midler's "Poorly Made in China" landed on my desk some months ago. However, it went into the long queue on my nightstand and didn't actually get read for some months until after I received it. Considering my recently ended blog hiatus, this was perhaps for the best.

In fact, despite my interest in the topic, I was a little reluctant at first to get stuck into Mr. Midler's book. From the subtitle, "An insider's account of the tactics behind China's production game," and somewhat staid cover art I was expecting something didactic, in the style of the business books I tend not to like. Do not, as the old adage goes, judge a book by its cover. I was pleasantly surprised to find that "Poorly Made in China" is in fact a well told personal narrative of Mr. Midler's own experiences helping foreign companies to arrange manufacturing relationships in South China. Once opened, I found it entertaining and enlightening (a rare combination also recently attained by Jonathan Fenby's "Penguin History of Modern China", one of the books ahead of Mr. Midler's in my queue, which I recommend to all China expats not already versed in modern Chinese history).

Most of the story concerns Mr. Midler's work with an American client manufacturing personal care products (e.g. soaps and shampoos) in China. What could go wrong with soap, you ask? Plenty, it turns out, and the story revolves around the struggle of Mr. Midler and his client to maintain quality standards (of the product, the packaging, the factory sanitation -- you name it) in the teeth of entrenched Chinese business habits that seem to give rise to corner-cutting at every imaginable opportunity and a few unimaginable ones. From this main thread Mr. Midler branches off into other interesting stories and illustrations.

"So what?" you may be saying to yourself. Chinese manufacturers cut corners at every opportunity. What else is new? Even my Singaporean mother-in-law knows this. "Keep a hand on your wallet," she warned me when I announced my intention to move myself and her daughter to China six years ago. Needless to say, my personal experience here has been much more positive than she expected, but much of the mainstream reporting on the product quality crises of the last couple of years took a similarly one-dimensional China-as-villain tone.

With that in mind, the value of Mr. Midler's book is two-fold. First, Mr. Midler tells his story as someone who, despite all the frustrations and adventures, seems to never have lost his basic affection for China. He never falls back on the trope of villainy. "Sister", the owner of the Chinese soap factory that figures in much of the book, is presented not as a criminal or predator, but as someone trying very hard to succeed in a particular business context. This leads to the second, and main value of "Poorly Made in China": Mr. Midler does an excellent job of explaining in a readable way that context of Chinese business, and the social, cultural, and economic forces that have shaped the practices of people like Sister. He explains how western buyers and Chinese businesses have created a delicate and sometimes dangerous symbiosis in an environment of ruthless competition, price pressure and complex webs of relationships. The book is critical, but not judgmental, which I found refreshing.

Even if you're not in manufacturing or dealing with the consequences of manufacturing problems (as we PR people sometimes do), you may find the book interesting as a study in the forces that have shaped Chines business over thirty years of turbocharged economic growth. Many of these forces that have shaped Chinese manufacturers may be at work in your industry as well. They're certainly at work in mine. Against this reality, efforts such as the following, while admirable for the move toward international public communication, seem modest indeed.

Disclaimer: The publisher and author provided Imagethief with a complementary review copy of "Poorly Made in China". Make of that what you will. Imagethief gladly accepts review copies, but cannot guarantee that he will read or like books furnished.

Note: Title of this post with apologies to the marketing team for the film "Fight Club".

1 Billion to Invest in Freewares in China

Tangos — Wed, 06 Jan 2010 14:46:15 GMT

Sequoia Capital China, Highland Capital and Qihoo 360 yesterday announced that they plan to jointly invest 1 billion, I think it should be 1 billion RMB, into China’s free software industry in coming years. The plan targets at startups and individuals in freeware sectors, by means of investment, incubation and M&A.

Neil Shen, Founding Managing Partner of Sequoia Capital China, Chuan Thor, Managing Director of Highland Capital and Zhou Hongyi, Chairman of Qihoo 360 will participate in the plan and provide supports to software developers. Qihoo 360 will use its 360 software to promote these freewares to Chinese users. They will not only help freeware developers in financing, but also offer help them to build strategy and improve operations.

In China there are some quite popular free softwares, such as Maxthon, an IE-based browsers, Xunlei, a mega file downloader, Baofeng, a video player and Qihoo 360, a anti-malware software. However, it is still interesting to see venture capitals to announce future investment plan in this sector, when the trend shows that more and more applications are switching from desktop softwares to cloud computing.

In China, maybe there are too many uncertainties in Internet industry, since you can lose the control of your domain and the site can be inaccessible just because of command from governments without any notice. Cloud computing is too far away to Chinese users, we still live in the age of desktop softwares.

Will the Apple Tablet Do for Print What App Store Did for Apps, iTunes for Music?

admin — Tue, 05 Jan 2010 00:49:42 GMT

While there has been much heated discussion in recent days about what Apple plans to announce on January 27, almost all of the comments, some of which are very good and offer intelligent insightful analysis, focus on what Apple is famous for, the front-end user experience.

In this article, I would like to focus on what I think is just as important but talked about much less, the business angle for the Apple Tablet. Beginning with the iPod, while Apple focused on changing the consumer digital experience, it has worked just as hard on changing broken business models, starting with the music industry. In 2001, when the iPod was first launched, many people listened to their music on recordable CDs and CD players. The music industry’s major labels had fought and won against Napster, but the digitally savvy were distributing songs and music for free on the Internet.

Then Apple updated iTunes, and continuously added more power and features, first on the Macintosh platform for its loyal user base, then when it had reached a degree of stability, pushing out to the dominant Windows platform. At the same time, Steve Jobs negotiated with the music labels to get them to accept music sales for .99 per single song. There was strong initial resistance to this because the labels were used to selling CDs, and even though CD sales were falling, they stubbornly stuck to this model. That is, until reality stepped in, and someone had to point out the obvious, after which one broke rank and reached a deal with Apple. Then the others fell in line.

Before the iPhone, there was the same problem with applications on mobile phones. Except in this industry, the role of the music labels was replaced by the carriers. As Steve Jobs himself said (paraphrasing him here); they found an industry which was broken and didn’t make sense, and Apple’s engineers came up with a new solution combining a phone, a computer, and gaming device all into one elegant solution based on OS X technology with the Apple interface. The result has been the iPhone which has become popular, breaking sales records worldwide.

It would be all too easy to say that the success of the iPhone is based on device and user experience alone. That would take an oversimplified view of what Apple has been doing since the iPod: it creates new devices which at the same time, create new business ecosystems which increase and diversify the revenue streams for Apple, while making things easier for publishers. The design sexiness means that the new device can sell for a premium price which Steve Jobs (and his shareholders) love, while the backend store and ecosystem builds out, becoming an important distribution point for Apple services and locking in publishers.

I accurately predicted this with the launch of the AppStore for the apps which users can download/buy for their iPhones, giving them the power to customize their phones with their own selection of application software. For developers, the model, while not perfect, is simple to understand: developers set the sales price, and Apple takes 30% for hosting and billing while the developers keep the remaining 70%. The result has been outstanding sales success, even beyond what Apple predicted.

Looking at the book publishing industry today, it is a broken business model. From the author’s point of view, while writing a book is hard enough, the business side is even worse. First of all, in the US, one must find an agent and complete a draft and book proposal. The agent then shops the book to publishers, and then negotiates a deal with the book publisher, which usually involves the agent taking 10-20%. The publisher then may pay an advance (becoming increasingly rare), and then the author is paid a portion based on royalties for the books sold, which is usually 5-10%. The book publisher makes sure that the book is edited and makes its way into the book distribution system (dominated by 2-3 players) which gets it into book stores. However, the author is largely responsible for promotion. To make things even worse, bookstores in the US don’t really buy books; they sell on consignment. This means that they can return unsold books to the publisher, and get a refund, which cuts back even more on how much the author gets.

When you figure all this in, it’s amazing that there are any authors who make money at all! Now, let’s say that you are writing a book on a fast-changing field. In my case, my main subject is China and technology, both of which are fast-changing fields. By the time you go through the whole book publishing process and your book hits the shelves, everything has changed! Information which was current 18 months ago has been completely superseded by changes in Chinese government policy, changes in business conditions and changes in technology.

Please tell me: “How can an industry get more broken that that?” No wonder smart people are choosing to get their information from the Internet in preference to books!

If I were Steve Jobs, I would look at this and say: “If I have a good device which offers superb user experience, leverages off the current Mac user base (which now includes iPhone users), and ties in on the back end with a new business ecosystem which gradually sweeps aside the current broken publishing ecosystem, we might have something.”

Now, in order to make the Apple Tablet a real success, it has to have certain functionality which will not cannibalize iPhone and Mac notebook sales. This is why it’s point of attack will have to be on books, magazines and the publishing industry. It will offer developer tools for Apple’s digital publishing solution. Already there is talk about Apple’s new SDK for this new platform.

My prediction is that this new SDK will make it apparent why Apple has not been friendly about offering Adobe’s Flash access to the iPhone, since Apple’s solution will offer much of the same feature set as Adobe Flash, but will be more tightly bundled in on the front and back ends to the device and to the store. (Steve Jobs likes closed ecosystems where he controls the whole experience.) Tough times for Adobe’s Flash and Microsoft’s Silverlight: all dressed up and nowhere to go.

So what about Amazon’s Kindle, which have already outsold print books in distribution this past Christmas? Ironically, the Kindle will help Tablet sales since many Mac users have held back on buying a non-Apple device, waiting for Apple to come up with their solution. When they see the Apple Tablet, this pent-up demand will be released, because the Apple UI design and interface will offer something to them which the Kindle, in its current iteration lacks. Amazon will get a new competitor for online electronic distribution, which will cut into their Kindle sales and profits.

Speaking to a few book publishers (yes, they still exist), I have heard complaints that they are not able to make money on their Kindle editions; print distribution is still more profitable with them, even though sales are tracking down. Apple and Steve Jobs don’t have to do much to bring them aboard. My prediction is that the business model will be like the App Store offering for developers: “You set the final sales prices, we take a percentage on each sale.”

As for Google, they seem to be focusing most of their efforts on the Google Android platform, which will make inroads this year. This year, Google won’t be able to do much in the publishing field, and if and when Google does enter this field to compete with Apple, they need to undo much of the bad feeling with authors and publishers over copyright which started with Google Books to the point where a Chinese author has sued Google! (Hmmm… What’s wrong with this picture?) This will give Apple at least a two-year lead over Google in this field and Google will have to fight a tough uphill battle when it comes in.

About this time, Apple will be getting into the advertising field. I mean, who is still impressed with small text box ads on their web page, and doesn’t find them at least a little annoying, even though they may be relevant? My guess is that Steve Jobs is thinking about applying some magic sauce to make them better, sexier both for advertisers and content syndicators, and in the process, getting more revenue, and a new revenue stream, for Apple. I find it hard to believe that Apple is investing so much in a new data center without new revenue streams. My guess is that it will include advertising, and if correct, then Google will be on the defensive. It may take the form of a free service Apple TV with ads, and subscription form without ads.

No wonder Steve Jobs is feeling extremely happy, life just keeps getting better and better.

We're back, plus the great Christmas pox of '09

will — Mon, 04 Jan 2010 04:57:00 GMT

On Sunday Imagethief arrived in Beijing from two well-earned holiday weeks in the San Francisco Bay Area. Flying with Zachary), now 22 months, is always an adventure. He's a well traveled kid, but a well-traveled two year old is like a well-traveled troglodyte. Even at their best, social habits are wanting. I'm not especially superstitious, but I knew we were headed for trouble on the return flight when, at about the International Date Line, the woman seated across the aisle from me said, "He seems very well behaved." Thus jinxed, the last three hours consisted of full-on, bawling meltdown as we became one of those families that other people on airplanes dream of pushing out an open door 35,000 feet above the trackless, ice-clad wastes of Siberia. During one particularly tantrumy spell I even dreamed of pushing myself out.

The definition of "hell on earth" is touching down in Beijing during the blizzard of the century after a twelve-hour flight in steerage with a sleepless toddler who is entering the hallucinatory/psychotic stage of fatigue. Beijing's taxi drivers had collectively decided to wait the whole deep-freeze out, so the taxi queues looked like round-the-block Depression-era breadlines with luggage carts. This is when something unprecedented happened: We were invited to the front of a queue by Chinese people. Say what you will about Beijing, but it's a great town to have a kid in, even if that kid is in twelve-gauge, double-barrel meltdown.

The drive home took another hour as we slo-mo fishtailed our way along the No. 2 airport express way, which resembled a snowed-in version of Iraq's famous "highway of death" from the first Gulf War. Nevertheless, we made it home just as the last of the twilight slid away. Three boiled dumplings later, the kid went to bed. As I lowered him into his crib, he flashed me a huge and utterly sincere grin (as opposed to his normal, cheesy and exaggerated one), as if to say, "Father, from the bottom of my heart bless you for putting my tired ass to bed." The last time I was that happy to go to bed myself I had just watched the sun rise after a poor-man's bender of Red Horse '40s and Taco Bell while still in college. This I do not recommend for anyone over the age of 22.

I'd been counting down to this Christmas holiday since roughly August, when I went on blog hiatus and commenced five months of particularly grueling work. In my head, I constructed all these fantasies of two weeks of complete indolence and gluttony. These plans were duly torpedoed by my son, who had diarrhea on the plane. This turned out to be caused by a stomach flu that infected me, both my parents and my sister-in-law. After spending our third day in Palo Alto sponging up toddler-vomit (from the rug, the hallway, the dog) and with me paralyzed with fever on the couch, we took Patient Zero (formerly Zachary) to a local clinic in Palo Alto. There the doctor said there was nothing much to do but wait it out, and asked us if we'd had direct contact with his vomit or feces. I had a flashback to changing runny, poop-sodden diapers in the matchbox-bathroom of United steerage three days before. In such a confined space perhaps Iron Man or a trained doctor in one of those plague movie bunny suits could have avoided direct contact with fecal matter. I, however, could not. (Also, thanks to the American health system, I still have no idea how much I'm being charged for this consult.)

The upshot was that I spent the whole first week of the holiday with no appetite whatsoever, which means I probably gained a little less holiday weight than usual. But I also had to apologize to everyone else who was laid up, including my mother, who spent an un-festive Christmas day in bed with a fever (on top of wrestling with an automotive soap opera too complicated and depressing to recount here). My sister-in-law paid us back, however, as she and my brother traded their infant daughter's cold for our stomach flu. Zachary had the pleasure of being sick in both directions, but with completely different secretions. You gotta love parenthood.

Nevertheless, Imagethief made the best of his vacation under the circumstances. With an heroic effort in week two, I'm pretty sure that I compensated for most of the first week's caloric deficit. You can accomplish splendid things with egg nog if you put your mind to it. Plus, Elliott Ng of CNReviews, whom I also saw recently in Beijing, was kind enough to treat me to a burrito the size of a Pres-To-Log over an extensive conversation about China blogging. That alone probably put a pound back on.

This brings me to two announcements. First: The great Imagethief blog hiatus is officially over. I'm not sure what kind of pace I'll maintain, but I intend to get back to regular blogging and it won't be hard to top the average of two posts a month since last August. Thanks to any remaining readers who have stuck around for five months of relative inactivity. Your Imagethief decoder rings are in the mail.

Second: One reason why I have the time to blog again is that I have started a six-month sabbatical from work in order to return to my languishing Chinese studies. In fact, it's only a partial sabbatical as I will still be working a couple of days a week so I don't have to dip into my savings and can keep my family's visas and health insurance in good order (the insurance thing is looking pretty key after Christmas). But three days a week will be spent with my tutor and my nose in the textbooks and Chinese newspapers. A hat tip to my employers, who have been spectacularly cooperative about the whole thing. This is pretty experimental, and we'll see how it all goes, but I'm excited.

Finally, I'd like to wish all readers a belated by sincere happy new year. Here's hoping 2010 is better than 2009, and that the teens are an improvement on the naughties.

Happy new year from patient zero!

Chinese Online Video Sharing, Where Is The Way Out?

Gang Lu — Tue, 29 Dec 2009 03:33:45 GMT

In the VC panel of Paypal X China event a few days ago, we were discussing the monetization of web service with four famous VC panelists from Qiming, Gobi, RedPoint and Lightspeed. As the moderator I threw the question to four VCs: How do you think of Chinese online video-sharing market? Some are optimistic, some are a bit not. Looking back this market in 2009, a completely different story compared with several years ago when +200 similar sites co-existed.

Acquisition – the happy ending

You have to say sometime it’s better not to be the No.1. Ku6, the leading video-sharing site (but seems not as popular as Youku and Tudou) was reported its acquisition by Hurray, the subsidiary company of Shanda (Nasdaq: SNDA), the Shanghai-based leading online game development and operation company. The new company formed by the merge between Hurray and Ku6 will hold USD 160 million in cash assets and the founder and CEO of Ku6, Li Shanyou will serve as the CEO of the new company. RMB300 millions are ready for 2010, 1/3 for copyright content, 1/3 for service integration and the rest for the cost of bandwidth. I guess it is a happy ending because it is also reported that Ku6 might run out of cash before the acquisition.

The 5th round of investment – fight for IPO

Although Youku says its revenue in 2009 has reached RMB200 million, it still needs more cash. Youku has recently announced its 5th round of investment from Brookside Capital, Maverick Capital and Sutterhill Venture, this time the figure is set to USD40 million. Victor Gu, the founder and CEO of Youku believes his company could break even in 2010 and he is also expecting that in next 18 months we would see one leading company goes IPO.

Content is the key – believe what should be believed

A friend told me the first company Shanda contacted was actually Tudou, not Ku6; another rumor also said Tudou will soon secure its 5th round investment worths USD40 million too; and Gary Wang, also denied the rumor that Tudou planned to go IPO by end of 2010. Tudou will continue to focus on its video content and promises RMB100 million to be spent on copyright content in 2010.

Portal’s power – everyone wants more share

Gary of Tudou was asked by an audience for his opinion on the debate of who’s the No.1 video-sharing in China (Youku or Tudou) in Shanghai Lunch2.0 event a few months ago. He said, he does not really care about it. But if he has to point out who are the real competitors, he thought they would be the portals, such as Sohu, Tencent etc. “They will keep low key until we found a good revenue model for video-sharing”, Gary said.

It seems that Sohu is the first which believes the time (for more share on video-sharing market) is coming. No surprise, the battle field of this war between portals and independent sites are on the copyright of video content. The ‘description’ meta tag of Sohu’s video site clearly shows its ambition and also the strategy: Sohu Video, the largest online video site with copyright content. Obviously, Sohu as the leading Chinese portal, has much better cash flow for buying copyright content. Early this month, Sohu won a copyright infringement lawsuit against Youku.

It’s a show just started. How and when other portals such as Sina, Tencent will join the war, we will find out the answer probably very soon.

State-run online video service – the good or bad news

Although the online video market is highly regulated in China. But if it is a huge and super-hot market, everyone wants a share. Portals are there for a while and now some state-run traditional tv/video services want to follow as well. The very latest news is from CCTV which has just announced its own online video site: CNTV (China Net TV). Now CNTV has News, Sports and Entertainment Channel, and all content are copyrighted. It also offers video-sharing and video-on-demand service. The spokesman said, more channels will be launched early next year including Finance, Movie, Music, TV Series, Health etc. With the support of CCTV networks, CNTV’s service will be integrated with IPTV, Mobile TV and so on, and will be multi-language serving global audience.

And CCTV is not the only one. Early this month, another very popular local TV operator, Hunan TV has announced its new online video site where all Hunan TV’s content will be available.

Where is the way out?

Chinese video-sharing market, started with +200 copycats of Youtube, now becomes a completely different story. Independent sites, portals, industry leaders, venture capitals, state-run TV stations, government are all involved. 2010, for Chinese online video-sharing, will not be quiet; more breaking news might come out; another battle field, the mobile market has emerged too. There is no way I can draw the conclusion here, but let’s end with a comment from a friend, a normal netizen:

As long as I can find good content online for Free, who cares about who are the leaders.

Five Minutes, Inventor of Happy Farm Raised $3.5 Millions

Gang Lu — Sat, 19 Dec 2009 16:53:03 GMT

Confirmed by Season Xu, his Five Minutes, the development company of the very popular social game Happy Farm has raised $3.5 millions from DFJ Dragon Fund. And the valuation of this company is also reported to reach RMB 100million. DFJ also invested the leading Chinese Wiki, Hudong.

In some sense, 2009 of China web is the year of Happy Farm which is so popular that this social game or its clones can be found on almost all the leading social networks in China, including Tencent’s QZone, Renren and Kaixin001. It’s reported that the active players of Happy Farm in total have reached 23 million.

Money is of course a good thing. Chinese Open Platform starts from Jan 2008. After 2-years testing the water, with more and more independent application development companies recognized by the industry, the value chain (platform operator, advertiser, application development companies and users) is getting more clear and mature.

But money is not going to guarantee the forever success of Happy Farm. How Five Minutes is going to spend the money and the company strategy in future are the most interesting questions. Will Five Minutes focus on global social gaming industry, e.g. spending more effort on Facebook and become the next Playfish or a leader company in worldwide market? What’s the next after Happy Farm, and will it repeat the same success? I hope we see more in next 6 months.

Imagethief digs into PR in China with Blue Ocean Network

will — Fri, 11 Dec 2009 05:23:00 GMT

Update: Due to the obnoxious autoplay of the two videos, I have removed the embedded versions so as not to drive people who visit the site rather than using RSS totally insane. You can follow the links in the paragraph below to view parts one and two. -Will

A couple of weeks ago I and Saina Silverman, late of Edelman and now independent, sat down with the online video channel Blue Ocean Network for a discussion about public relations in China. Over the course of an hour we talked with host Caitlin Rhodes about the nature of the industry in China, the kinds of skills people need to do PR in China, whether or not you actually need to speak Chinese, what we look for when we hire or interview people, ethical issues and more. The discussion is now online, in two half-hour segments (part one is more about the state of the industry, perceptions of the industry in China and different kinds of PR companies; part two is more about hiring, skills and what it's like to work in PR in China). Both segments are also embedded below. They start playing automatically, so if you're hearing some kind of cacophony, pause part two.

For those disappointed by the sober tone of my recent brief standup for YouKu at Ad:Tech (Kai, I'm talking to you), there is a somewhat higher ratio of Imagethief-style wiseassery in this discussion. But only to a point, as I was in polite company. In retrospect, I should have lost the tie. But I did go out of my way to not wear the same outfit that I wore for YouKu.

Remember that whole Xinjiang thing?

will — Mon, 07 Dec 2009 02:49:00 GMT

A quick pointer to Josh's "Xinjiang: Far West China" Blog, which has an interesting update on the state of Internet access in Xinjiang. Events of the past few months have pushed Xinjiang out of mind, but it seems the situation there is a ways from what might be considered normal, even in China.

Announcing ChinaMode Awards, It Is For China Internet in 2009

Gang Lu — Sun, 06 Dec 2009 16:22:28 GMT

The Internet not only changes but also moulds our current society. It has brought us not only massive economic benefits and commercial conveniences but also an amazing boost in convenience and access to information. It has released a tidal wave of creativity, activity and grassroots collaboration, with individuals coming together like never before to cooperate, innovate and produce.

China’s Internet has experienced and continues to experience vibrant and vivid growth on a massively fertile landscape, with some of the world’s best and brightest at the forefront of development. In this new era we have literally millions upon millions of bloggers, podcasters, and music, photo and video enthusiasts coming together to share knowledge, experience, and content. These people are the life force of the Internet, and the driving force behind our new society and economy. And if you believe the current Internet is belong to the users, the voice from grass-root then can not be ignored!

Not just limited to China, the Internet is a global community, with cross-border sharing of resources, professional and technological cooperation, and international and intercultural interaction. Our situation in China calls for both international perspective and local originality, as well as independent and flexible technical direction and modes of operation.

So, today, we are very exciting to reveal the ChinaMode Awards (official site: www.chinamode.org), initiated by OpenWeb.Asia Workgroup and operated by the 14 most influential Chinese tech bloggers, including: Appin, Williamlong, Web20share, Kenengba, Jandan, MobiNode, Webleon, Showeb20, Vista2.o, Yunkeji, Riku, Herock, China Web2.0 Review and MobiNode.TV.

Here is the video via which we hope you can feel the passion driving us to work together.

ChinaMode Awards is unique:

ChinaMode brings the internet together which has never been done before in China.
ChinaMode allows the general internet populace to choose who they want to see.
ChinaMode brings those individuals and organizations together and makes it happen.
ChinaMode is the first event of its kind (Open, Independent and Professional) ever in China.

Through the votes, we want to tell you a real story about China web in 2009. Therefore we also give ChinaMode a Chinese name, 001 Awards, to reflect the culture of Chinese Internet. Who are the real winners, which companies/services are the most valuable ones and which are the most innovative startups in 2009, now their names are in Chinese Internet users’ hards.

Please mark the date, the details of this awards will be available on the official site on 15th Dec, 2009. We are also open to any community, company or individual who wants to help us or participate (on media coverage, partnership and sponsorship etc). Please contact us on the online form or just leave your comment here.

Salute! Jack Ma and Alibaba’s Cloud Service

Gang Lu — Fri, 04 Dec 2009 15:27:22 GMT

There are some superstars in Chinese web. Pony Ma who created Tencent and Robin Li who built Baidu, are great Chinese entrepreneurs, but some people still question about them and remind us of the ICQ and Google. Kaifu Lee probably is another one as he has millions of Chinese students fans. Lee is indeed a great educator and has become an international icon. But we have to think of a simple fact that he never led a Chinese local company. In my humble opinion, there is probably only one figure here in China web, and this man is, Jack Ma, the founder of Alibaba (check out our coverage on the history of Alibaba).

I am reading a great article written by my friend James Cheng published on a popular magazine The Founder. I don’t want to translate the whole article here, instead, I attached the following diagram from the article (I revised it since it is originally with Chinese caption) that should be enough to explain the reason that I believe Jack Ma is the ONE.

The diagram demonstrate the Alibaba’s Cloud Service, which is for me, Jack Ma’s Kingdom.

Through this diagram, you probably can feel Jack Ma is looking at every corner of the Internet industry. Taobao is the e-commerce (and around Taobao, recently more effort is spent on its own SNS, open platform etc); Alipay solves the online payment; Koubei (Yelp-like service) is building an active online community; Aliwangwang, the Instant Messenger helps you to communicate with the seller, the customers and friends; Alisoft is the SaaS platform, and strong partnership with third parties and the government help on the logistics, setting up offline stores, branding etc. Also note that, this diagram does not include the Yahoo China (a portal, although it’s not that hot right now) and it’s strategy on mobile (Ed: Taobao branded mobile phone is coming).

From online to offline, from e-commerce making lots of money to web2.0 gathering millions of users, from wired to wireless, Jack Ma, an English teacher, definitely has seen the trend that the majority of Chinese entrepreneurs have not seen.

Innovative Digital Marketing Campaign- Win a Trip to Sydney

Mathew McDougall — Thu, 03 Dec 2009 07:00:47 GMT

It is not often when I get quite excited about a particular campaign. But here is one that captured my imagination. A fully digital, multi-channeled performance marketing campaign being run by Accor Hotels. Not only is there a great prize on offer; a trip to Sydney for two people from China the approach is fresh and I look forward to seeing the results- not just the impressions but the actual ROI that was achieved on this.

In the spirit of full disclosure, SinoTech Group designed and is running this campaign so it is without question that I am personally involved and motivated to have a successful outcome. That said, there is some unique components to this campaign and the lessons learned in designing/running a complex campaign will no doubt help others in China with such aspirations.

The campaign goals were quite simple, develop online ‘buzz’, generate interest in the Accor brand and develop a campaign platform that can be leverage in the coming months for CNY and Valentines promotions.

Like most performance marketing campaigns the success comes down to the ‘offer’. What is the incentive and will this incentive motivate the reader to do something. In this case, a trip for two people to Sydney was a fantastic offer. Hat’s off to the Accor team for putting that up for grabs.

The next critical element is the digital channels being used to distribute the offer. Most in China use a simple one channel campaign either email or search or affiliate marketing. Here we wanted to take a more sophisticated approach. Lets use all performance channels available and monitor (using real-time analytics and performance optimization) to continuing leveraging the best performing channels at the right time. For example, if we are getting better ROI from Search rather than Affiliate Marketing then lets switch budget/efforts towards this channel. Just as we see in the day/time/week usage fluctuations so we should expect to see this also in the actual campaign effort.

Another consideration is the landing page and ad creatives/copy. Each one of these elements will have a bearing in the click through rates (CTR) and on the number of people wanting to participate in the competition. Therefore we must use A/B testing to determine what is working and what is not working from this perspective. It is surprising to me that the landing page I thought would get the most interest was the least popular within the sample group. Goes to show why I am not working in creative. :)

Anyway, I will provide a summary in a few weeks time on the actual campaign results and do a much deeper analysis on the outcomes. At this early stage, I am encouraged by the level of interest in the campaign and hope I can get my name selected to go to Sydney.

If you want a chance, then click on the banner above or on this link: CLICK TO WIN

With GPS Equipped, TouchMedia Finally Getting Useful

Gang Lu — Tue, 01 Dec 2009 16:05:51 GMT

If you come to China, especially to tier-1 cities like Shanghai, Beijing etc, you need make sure you are ready for one thing: Outdoor Advertisement (or Outdoor Media if it sounds more friendly) which is everywhere, elevator, taxi, bus, parking lots, subway etc as well as those huge outdoor LCD displays. Thanks to FocusMedia which actually invented this market by delivering advertisements using LCD televisions located at the elevator waiting area of business and commercial buildings, the market is still hot nowadays; However, we have to say, being overwhelmed by the ads is sometime truly annoying.

TouchMedia, founded in 2003, the leading media network offering a mix of interactive and advertising-based content to passengers in Chinese cities’ taxis, held a party together with MobileMonday Shanghai. The invitation letter clearly revealed company’s new mission:

With an average taxi ride at 18 to 21 minutes, and a captive audience of high income consumers, TouchMedia is now starting to capitalize on higher mobile awareness and usage, and to leverage mobile networks and location-based services, like maps and coupons, to engage, interact and entertain passengers even further.

According this report which explains how the new TouchMedia will work by the opening of Shanghai World Expo 2010:

After touching the Map Icon button, a map of Shanghai appears on the screen. Passengers can easily navigate left, right, up and down, or zoom in and out. A display on the right side of the screen also lets them select from seven categories of destination: tourist attractions, shopping areas, hotels, entertainment, restaurants, government offices, and major transportation. The map has nearly 100 important landmarks in total, many with photographs for even greater convenience.

Brilliant idea indeed and I am sure it could be useful for people who are not familiar with Shanghai. And it could be even more interesting if it can push the (real-time) information of local area where the taxi is located when it is on-the-go. It sounds like, suddenly, TouchMedia has evolved from an outdoor media company to a potential platform of Ubiquitous Computing in China. We will see.

TouchMedia was reported to be suspended by government, but now it is quite clear, as a senior guy from TouchMedia said: I don’t think that will happen, as now we are working closely with government to bring convenience to citizen.

Does Chinese Govt’s Cheap Money Policy Defer Risk, Volatility to Future?

admin — Mon, 24 Aug 2009 05:01:38 GMT

If you look at the prevailing wisdom in business magazines, the view is that through the Chinese govt’s massive pumping of solvency into the economy beginning in November 2008, China has acted as a responsible global citizen, saving the world from a massive global meltdown which, left uncontrolled, would have forced the global economy back into the Stone Age. Without this massive stimulus package, Chinese factories would have had to lay off many more workers leading to more social problems, and maybe even social instability. And social instability is a no-no in China, especially when the stated policy goal is a harmonious society.

In order to maintain this top-down version of the harmonious society, the Chinese government, especially the media, has taken an active role in heading off issues which would be taken up by consumer rights organizations in other countries. Instead of trying to put a lid on dissent, reporters have acted more as investigators, giving lead coverage to stories such as lead poisoning by a government-owned smelter.

The thinking behind this new government pro-activism is that if government ministries can act pro-actively to head off issues before they become explosive social issues, then Chinese society can head off the kind of activism which is led by grassroots consumer organizations in other societies. At the same time, the Chinese government can clean itself up, shutting down companies which do heavy damage to environment and society, and replacing old-school bureaucrats with more modern technocrats who really know what they are doing.

The government’s job is helped and hindered by the Internet, which it has a love/hate relationship with. With more than 338M Chinese users on the Internet now, it has become the place where many bored and under-employed Chinese find entertainment and gossip. It helps the government keep an eye on local officials, since people will complain anonymously on the Internet. At the same time, rumors can spread very actively on the Internet, as was the case of Uighur women in Shaoguan being attacked in a Guangdong factory, which led directly to the deadly riots in Urumqi in early July.

The fundamental underpinning for China’s growth into a major locomotive of economic growth has been globalization, which until last year, was led by the US consumer sector. The problem now is that, for all practical purposes, the US consumer does not exist anymore. Basically, the US consumer had hocked its own future to the banks. Then the future arrived, and the banks put the screws to the consumer. Now, Americans are (re)learning the virtue of frugality.

Frugality and savings were a virtue which the Chinese have been well-acquainted with for a long time. Since China was dirt-poor only 30 years ago, most Chinese still know what it feels like to be poor and have squirelled away savings for a rainy day. However, more savings was not what the economy needed when the global economy tanked last year.

So, in order to keep the economy sailing smoothly, the Chinese government pumped liquidity into the economy. I have had my own doubts about the effectiveness of such a policy since much of the money has found its way into the Chinese stock markets and real estate, both of which continue to rise in defiance of their underlying business economic fundamentals, which are not that attractive. In a recent conversation with the partner of a private equity firm, I voiced my doubts. He said that in China, most of the money was going to companies, mostly state-owned, which were cash-rich. These companies really did not need more cash, but almost had it forced on them from the state-owned banks. Lacking a place to put this money which from their perspective, fell from the sky, they re-invested it in the stock market and real estate. Anyone with any investment experience in these markets is aware that the general rule for these two markets are “early in, early out”. Sure you can play, just don’t be the guy without a chair when the music stops.

The trouble with this policy is that it turns companies whose growth is based on cash flow into speculators. These companies got a windfall, and in order to protect their windfall, are encouraged to make short-term moves which basically speculative.

At the same time, this money is not going to companies and individuals who have poor credit or no credit, even though in all fairness to the government, there are smaller government policies in place to help people exchange their cars or buy electronics if they live in the countryside. The net result is that the rich/poor gap in China, which is already wide, will widen even more in the future. A society which has too wide an income differential between the rich and poor is not good for social stability in the long-term.

So, if you want to figure out who are going to be the winners and losers, all you have to do is figure out who is going to be left standing without a chair when the music stops?

Irrelevant David Feng Tech Banter: Of Twitter, Scoble and Subways

DavidFeng — Thu, 20 Aug 2009 04:31:52 GMT

I’m probably more known for my Subway fetish than any real tech expertise, so I’ll probably blog about this in Subway mode. But this morning, a Best of FriendFeed post came across to my inbox — and it had Scoble wishing — less-than-well, shall we say, about Twitter.

This is the kind of stuff that keeps me up late at night. In Subway-ese, it’s like you just got off an old train and not only do you not thank it for taking you from A to B, but you kick the thing. It’s tragic behavior.

I’ve heard about Twitter way before FriendFeed or even Scoble (as in I heard about Twitter first before hearing of the Scobleizer). I don’t really have an idea what this enmity towards Twitter is all about. Sure, there are spammers, but just block ‘em en masse — no harm done.

Meanwhile, Scoble kicking the old Twitter train is something I’m not really up for. Sure, no service is perfect. But didn’t you like start off with Twitter or somesuch? Why kick an old train when it at least served you? It may have no aircon but at least it’s not totally useless or something…

The Tweet of the Day: 1984, Brave New World, and China

DavidFeng — Wed, 19 Aug 2009 14:58:35 GMT

What do Huxley, Orwell and the Twitter user @baixiaoci have in common?

@baixiaoci started out with a tweet (in Chinese) at 22:00 last night (August 18, 2009), which read (translated):

There’s something unfortunate about the Chinese over the Americans: the predictions of both Orwell and Huxley have become reality in China Switch on television, and you get Brave New World. Surf the Web, and it’s 1984.

Your tech blogger retweeted this in the morning hours today (August 19, 2009). This tweet got retweeted upwards of 20 or even more than 20 times in a single day, probably setting a brand-new record…

@baixiaoci, by the way, is from Shenzhen, but is presently in Shanghai as his tweets have him. He’s a photographer and has a site — 50mm.cn as well as another one at baixiaoci.com.

See, we had to promote this guy. He’s now famous. With just one tweet.

The Internet As-Is in China: Still Partially Borked

DavidFeng — Wed, 19 Aug 2009 14:57:57 GMT

Not enough encouraging news, I know… here’s another list update on the Chinese Internet situation as-is…

It seems that mainly China Unicom’s affected. That’s China Netcom as it used to be — if we’ve got the stats right. China Telecom seems to be unaffected. Ditto with China Mobile.
VPNs are also hit — some work, but others are dead, including HotspotShield if you haven’t installed it.
We’re getting reports that about 66% of MSN accounts are coming back — it’ll hit 75% soon, but no word when we’ll get that figure back up to 100%.
Also hit is Dropbox, as we may have reported, but MobileMe remains up.
Chinese IM folks have had to switch to QQ — which is viewed less “pro” than MSN / Windows Live Messenger.

Your tech blogger is coming through using a reroute which works, and now has the whole Internet back — but he does pity those who have to stick with what they have. It’s tragic.

Access to Sites Outside China (Mainland) Slow

DavidFeng — Mon, 17 Aug 2009 08:06:18 GMT

Widespread reports are coming in about slow Internet access — especially when sites outside the Chinese Mainland are requested. This is also causing email, MSN Messenger and VPN several headaches.

Tweets are flowing in about this as well, with some comparing this issue to the undersea cable underneath the Pacific that borked in late 2006. We at techblog86, however, also do not exclude the possibility of heightened censorship efforts.

Onto stuff unrelated to the Internet, we even have reports that security at the Beijing Subway, of all things, have been stepped up. It’s China Big Sixty on October 1, 2009, but clearly, folks are only going to be in the mood to celebrate if the birthday party, which features a military parade, goes ahead without a hitch.

Green Dam: No Longer Required… For Most Of Us, Anyway

DavidFeng — Thu, 13 Aug 2009 09:38:57 GMT

Remember Green Dam, that software that had the world grilling China for its stepped-up censorship efforts? Well, that thing isn’t dead yet — but it’s not coming back alive either. Green Dam was quickly shelved like a few hours before the July 1, 2009 deadline, and word has it that it’s coming back — but in a very “mum” way.

For one thing, it won’t be required on all computers — and we haven’t heard much about a Mac version. What’s most likely to happen is that it’ll be required in schools and Internet cafés — places that have never been (at least not recently) associated with libre speech, but for the masses who buy their PCs it won’t be required. Ministers have been quoted as saying that the software will not be made compulsory and be installed by force on every new computer (and at the same time, they’ve also criticized the critics for politicizing the whole issue).

Green Dam has made a lot of concessions (so to speak). First, it became required — then un-installable — then optional — then shelved — and now, again optional (this time, it’s likely to be “very” optional). It looks like the censors have to put up with the force that is the vox populi.

Twremarks: What Chinese Tweeps Are Talking About

DavidFeng — Wed, 12 Aug 2009 15:04:01 GMT

Ever wonder why Fanfou was shut down? The site was full of political tweets flying to and fro. Never mind it had a Chinese ICP site — it was nixed, no questions asked. With the PRC’s Big Sixty coming in this close, those at the top are hoping that there’ll be “nothing big” that could get out of control — not even with 300 million virtual beings.

Today was just another day in the Chinese Twittersphere — except for one thing: the Tan Zuoren case started and, as usual, some of the Chinese tweeps started tweeting about the case. We had reports of hushed courts, police brutality and other disturbing tweets coming in this side of the Pacific, whereas the tweets coming in from the US were much closer to home — and were less political.

I tweeted about this some time back. The Chinese Twittersphere seems to have a particular political interest vested amongst the community. Yet in the US, Twitter’s used to describe things that may not be all that political. It’s not that the US and politics don’t mix on Twitter — that’s what put @BarackObama on the map. Yet, the intensity of politics is lesser felt outside the PRC — especially in the USA.

Chinese Netspeak as a Second Language: NC

DavidFeng — Tue, 11 Aug 2009 01:00:53 GMT

Ever seen NC on its own on a Chinese post? That’s short for naocan (脑残), or braindead.

You get to hear this the most often when it comes to discussing interchange stations that require a Long March to change from one line to the other (sorry): We have some seriously NC designers… (设计通道的那帮人 NC 了吧!)

It may not, by the way, stand for niucha (牛叉), which is short-ese for niubi (牛逼), as in really, really cool.

Remember the #080808 Hashtag?

DavidFeng — Sat, 08 Aug 2009 04:55:48 GMT

Just a year ago this day, the Beijing Olympics got off to a start. Whether it was a bang or a whimper (as in the massively stepped security procedures and almost-impossible-to-get PRC visas) — that we’ll let you decide. But there’s a hashtag that was part of the day: #080808.

Not just that. Everyone China or even remotely Chinese-related had #080808 on their avatars. @thecarol from Taiwan did that. @isaac did it. Everyone in the region went #080808, thanks to @flypig’s idea.

The irony of this is that, in the name of the Big Sixty coming later this year, the #080808 hashtag — along with everything else Twitter-related — appears to have been harmonized. Oh yeah — and also the Internet censorship. You could access sites you couldn’t access otherwise in China a year ago. YouTube or even BBC Chinese? Yours last year.

#Harminator’s this year.

The skies outside today in Beijing appear just as gloomy as it was a year ago. (Obviously, and we’re going off at a slant here — for the best blue skies, come in winter around January or February. Satisfaction guaranteed.)

Twitter In A Double Whammy in China

DavidFeng — Sat, 08 Aug 2009 04:45:28 GMT

Talk about Twitter in China these days! First it went down in early June (password here had something to do with Tian’anmen), then it went down right after Urumqi shook with riots. Now Twitter itself has been compromised with denial-of-service attacks, and just lately all passwords have been reset.

Here’s how sorry the situation has gotten as of late:

In all of this: Twitter (as in the twitter.com site) has been blocked in China.
Late Thursday: Access to iTweet, Hahlo and some other third-party Twitter sites became cumbersome.
Early Friday: iTweet, Hahlo pretty much dead by mid-morning.
Late Friday: PeopleBrowsr looking OK, but still very iffy. Ping.fm does not post all tweets going through.
Very late Friday: Twitter working again via iTweet and Hahlo.
Early Saturday: iTweet, Hahlo working again.
09:49 Saturday morning: Twitter sends password resets, access to iTweet and Hahlo die again.

We’re pointing a finger at Twitter directly. Politically speaking, if you could save Iran, why not save China?

Thanks to @POPOEVER, @daygan and others for helping your tweeter out through all this.

Remembering the 5/12 Earthquake Victims

admin — Tue, 12 May 2009 04:03:00 GMT

It has been a long time since I last posted, for which I apologize. I won’t insult your intelligence by offering some excuses, but I will try to get back on a more regular schedule. I thank you for your understanding. If you would like to follow an unadulterated distilled real-time version of my thoughts, then I’d encourage you to follow me at twitter.com/pdenlinger

Today is the first year anniversary of the May 12 earthquake which killed an estimated 100,000, mostly in Sichuan, and causing untold damage and suffering. It also awakened the Chinese government and people to the suffering of ordinary Chinese in a way which did not happen before. I don’t have anything to add which I have not already said in the previous year, so I will offer a few links which I wrote last year.

Google China’s Search Log Displays Moment of Mourning

Let’s See How Many Ways We Can Get This Wrong

Tianya BBS Provides Platform Connecting Sichuan Earthquake Victims, Volunteer Suppliers

It’s Worse Than You Imagined

admin — Sun, 08 Mar 2009 09:27:42 GMT

Warning: If you are easily frightened, upset and can get depressed, please do not read this article. The content is strong not in its language, but in its implications.

On Twitter I have acquired a reputation for my “Tweets of Doom”. For the most part, I do not consider myself to be a pessimist but a realist. My main area of interest in the unfolding financial crisis is how economics, history, demographics and politics come together and give us hints about future trends and show us where we are heading to.

Recently, I have read a fine article by Michael Lewis in the April Vanity Fair, Wall Street on the Tundra (also called “How Iceland Went Splat”), about how the crisis unfolded in Iceland, first transforming it from an economy based on fishing, to a country based on investment banking at the peak of the boom, then when the economy collapsed, back to fishing again.

Three paragraphs in particular stuck in my mind:

Back in 2001, as the Internet boom turned into a bust, M.I.T.’s Quarterly Journal of Economics published an intriguing paper called “Boys Will Be Boys: Gender, Overconfidence, and Common Stock Investment.” The authors, Brad Barber and Terrance Odean, gained access to the trading activity in over 35,000 households, and used it to compare the habits of men and women. What they found, in a nutshell, is that men not only trade more often than women but do so from a false faith in their own financial judgment. Single men traded less sensibly than married men, and married men traded less sensibly than single women: the less the female presence, the less rational the approach to trading in the markets.

One of the distinctive traits about Iceland’s disaster, and Wall Street’s, is how little women had to do with it. Women worked in the banks, but not in the risktaking jobs. As far as I can tell, during Iceland’s boom, there was just one woman in a senior position inside an Icelandic bank. Her name is Kristin Petursdottir, and by 2005 she had risen to become deputy C.E.O. for Kaupthing in London. “The financial culture is very male-dominated,” she says. “The culture is quite extreme. It is a pool of sharks. Women just despise the culture.” Petursdottir still enjoyed finance. She just didn’t like the way Icelandic men did it, and so, in 2006, she quit her job. “People said I was crazy,” she says, but she wanted to create a financial-services business run entirely by women. To bring, as she puts it, “more feminine values to the world of finance.”

Today her firm is, among other things, one of the very few profitable financial businesses left in Iceland. After the stock exchange collapsed, the money flooded in. A few days before we met, for instance, she heard banging on the front door early one morning and opened it to discover a little old man. “I’m so fed up with this whole system,” he said. “I just want some women to take care of my money.”

This made me ask myself a question: Maybe it was not enough to look at how economics, history, demographics and politics come together in this unfolding crisis? Maybe I should also take a look at human psychology and the role it played in the financial services industry? Were there certain personality traits which made it to the top of the financial services industry, making individuals with these personality traits captains of industry?

Armed with this question, I went to Wikipedia and looked up the term psychopathy and found this definition:

The psychopath is defined by a psychological gratification in criminal, sexual, or aggressive impulses and the inability to learn from past mistakes. Individuals with this disorder gain satisfaction through their antisocial behavior and lack remorse for their actions.

Now some of the characteristic symptons are:

Factor1: Aggressive narcissism
Glibness/superficial charm
Grandiose sense of self-worth
Pathological lying
Cunning/manipulative
Lack of remorse or guilt
Shallow
Callous/lack of empathy
Failure to accept responsibility for own actions
Factor2: Socially deviant lifestyle
Need for stimulation/proneness to boredom
Parasitic lifestyle
Poor behavioral control
Promiscuous Sexual Behavior
Lack of realistic, long-term goals
Impulsivity
Irresponsibility
Juvenile delinquency
Early behavior problems
Revocation of conditional release
Traits not correlated with either factor
Many short-term marital relationships
Criminal versatility

This was getting interesting, so I went to a Time magazine article which listed the 25 people to blame for the financial crisis. The behavior of some of these individuals is, to say the least, very interesting.

Then I went back to the article and read more about the traits of psychopathic behavior. Where appropriate, I have added emphasis. They are:

In practice, mental health professionals rarely treat psychopathic personality disorders as they are considered untreatable and no interventions have proved to be effective.[18] In England and Wales the diagnosis of dissocial personality disorder is grounds for detention in secure psychiatric hospitals under the Mental Health Act if they have committed serious crimes, but since such individuals are disruptive for other patients and not responsive to treatment this alternative to prison is not often used.[19]
Because an individual’s scores may have important consequences for his or her future, the potential for harm if the test is used or administered incorrectly is considerable. The test should only be considered valid if administered by a suitably qualified and experienced clinician under controlled conditions. [20][21]
Hare wants the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders to list psychopathy as a unique disorder, saying psychopathy has no precise equivalent[20] in either the DSM-IV-TR, where it is most strongly correlated with the diagnosis of antisocial personality disorder, or the ICD-10, which has a partly similar condition called dissocial personality disorder. Both organisations view the terms as synonymous. But only a minority of what Hare and his followers would diagnose as psychopaths who are in institutions are violent offenders.[22][23] The manipulative skills of some of the others are valued for providing audacious leadership.[24] It is argued psychopathy is adaptive in a highly competitive environment, because it gets results for both the individual and the corporations[25][26][27] or, often small political sects they represent.[28] However, these individuals will often cause long-term harm, both to their co-workers and the organization as a whole, due to their manipulative, deceitful, abusive, and often fraudulent behaviour.[29]
Hare describes people he calls psychopaths as “intraspecies predators[30][31] who use charm, manipulation, intimidation, sex and violence[32][33][34] to control others and to satisfy their own selfish needs. Lacking in conscience and empathy, they take what they want and do as they please, violating social norms and expectations without guilt or remorse”.[21] “What is missing, in other words, are the very qualities that allow a human being to live in social harmony.”[35]

This was getting very interesting. I would encourage you to search through Google or your search engine of choice and make your own observation whether these individual/s showed any psychopathic personality characteristics.

Basically, what the American financial services industry created an industry where individuals with psychopathic traits could rise to the top to positions of power, making decisions about billions of dollars in investments and assets.

Intelligent psychopaths exist in every society, and many become actors, politicians and lawyers. The genius of the American system was that it put them in charge of large sums of money.

But this is only the beginning. In the name of industry deregulation, they were given, by the US government the power to create financial instruments. In plain English, they were given the power, through leveraging, to make money out of thin air, out of nothing.

Over the past twenty years, using their talents and creativity, they have leveraged approximately every single US dollar 35-40 times, inventing CDOs, CDSs and other financial instruments in the process, all of which were interlocked. As if that were not enough, some of these personalities co-opted the whole financial media, earning their trust and selling their investment ideas directly to the American people over leading TV stations and print media. At no time did any of the financial media say “Wait a moment. These guys are shysters and are cheating and lying to the American people.” Instead, the media went along and played the game with them, becoming actors in the play when they should have questioned what was going on.

The lines between advertisers, corporations and media became completely blurred, and dissenting voices were simply not heard. It became a vortex which benefited all the players, who hyped the same worldview about finance.

What was missing in the whole equation? In one word, trust. The quants had created formulas such as the Gaussian copula formula to provide a rough measure of risk, but banks had become completely separated from their clients through a complex ecosystem which also included mortgage brokers, who originated loans, even for individuals who did not have work and had no chance of being able to make the monthly payments for the homes they bought.

The house of cards began to collapse in 2007 with the subprime credit crisis, and is continuing to unwind. At this stage, we do not know where it will all end.

What is even more interesting is that the personalities and personality traits which got us into the mess are still there, negotiating with US Secretary of Treasury Geithner in the belief that they should receive money from the government for their bad assets, which they believe will recover some value after the economy bottoms out. Others believe that these assets have no value, and the sooner the government recognizes this fact, the sooner recovery can begin.

American society had become one where competition and competitiveness were rewarded without regard to the implications for the society as a whole. The society was always looking for the next big thing, the instant hit without caring about the cost. Now it is paying the price for a screwed up values system. Now we know that there are no quick fixes, and none of the choices are good.

In the meantime, we are helpless in this world they have created for us.

If you haven’t poured yourself one already, maybe it’s time for a whiskey. A strong whiskey. Neat.

China: Which Century Are You Building For?

admin — Sat, 21 Feb 2009 05:39:44 GMT

@GregoryLent on Twitter just pointed me to this article, A User’s Guide to 21st Century Economics, by Umair Haque which I recommend highly.

After reading this article, some questions which came to mind:

Chinese companies traditionally have not been good at adding value. How well can they adjust to the new 21st century economic situation?
Chinese companies have been spending much on acquiring steady supplies of raw commodities. How much are they thinking of what is needed for the 21st century? Will they continue to build a twentieth century economy modeled on the American model, which is going defunct rapidly, or will they build a new development model for the 21st century?
The 21st century development model is reliant on individual human talent and creativity, and making it possible for them to succeed. How is China going to attract the best minds in the world to China in the 21st century?

China: Last Man Standing?

admin — Tue, 17 Feb 2009 05:41:12 GMT

On this blog, I have been a frequent critic of the view that China is a threat to the rest of the world as a rising superpower. Most of the time, these critics have a clear agenda to sell with regard to fear of China, or are journalists who have very little understanding of China. If the latter group, their articles are really rehashes of “If China were a rising superpower like US/Britain etc. this is what China would be plotting to do.” For someone who has never been to China and does not understand the country and people, the argument makes sense. But for someone who has been in China for some time, it’s ridiculous.

The reason for this is very simple. Running a country of 1.3 billion people is a very tough job, and this is something these China newby articles invariably overlook. In simple terms, the daily challenges are huge and are much bigger than the rulers of the US and UK have to deal with. For the most part, Chinese are not nearly as docile as Americans and Britons, and are much more “creative” about the ways they express their unhappiness. The knife hiding behind the smile or 笑裏藏刀 is a useful phrase to be aware of in business and politics in China.

In recent days a new theme has popped up, and that is the government incentives from the Chinese government are beginning to show positive results in the Chinese economy. Some of the articles are:

The Chinese government has acted forcefully, much more so than western governments, in fighting the effects of this recession which has turned into a depression. Compared to the west, the Chinese government has been the model of efficiency.

Sources in Beijing have told me that the Chinese government has offered companies full salary subsidies for company positions. That is, they have offered to reimburse companies full salary for positions in companies, especially positions for new university graduates. I am not sure if this applies to SOEs or if it also extends to the private sector. I am not aware of the full details of how it is implemented, but it does have the ring of truth. This has created a favorable market for employers, as many companies routinely lay off 80-90% of students following the three-month probation period.

Coming back to the rising superpower theme, this serves as an excellent illustration of a major point of mine: to become a superpower, you really don’t need to have a plan for world domination. You only need to be the last man standing when everyone else has already collapsed.

It will be very interesting to find out how long China will stand? The Chinese government is running the distinct risk of using all its bullets too early, and not having any left if the depression continues over a prolonged period. If that happens, the only thing China can do is inflate its way out. Another article point out the risk of this approach:

Is China Pulling An Alan Greenspan?

If the depression is long and this scenario plays out, then China will become a very short-lived superpower, and will only be standing a very short time before it collapses on top of the heap with the other former superpowers.

You only win when you can walk away after the battle. Otherwise it is just a pyhrric victory.

(Trouble is, pyhrric victory is a western term which does not an equivalent in Chinese.)

UPDATE Feb. 20, 2009: Knowledge@Wharton has an article about the possible ramifications of the surge in lending by Chinese banks.

Can We Just Take Globalization Out Back And Shoot It In The Back of the Head?

admin — Fri, 30 Jan 2009 09:36:17 GMT

My apologies for not having written for so long. I have been “otherwise pre-occupied” and have also been watching the first weeks of the Obama presidency and the accelerating unwinding of the financial markets.

The situation looks increasingly bleak. I hope you are prepared.

Readers know that I have been a critic of globalization in its present form. In this article, I will lay out for you how badly Americans have been fleeced by their own politicians, losing their own jobs, factories and any hope of a better future for themselves and their children. And all this has happened in a country with a supposedly free media, and where people can exercise greater free will than in China, where I am writing from now.

I’m going to keep this simple, but there are some numbers involved. Keep in mind that I’m not an accountant, but I do understand business. To make my illustration, I’m going to create a simplified fictional scenario.

OK, let’s suppose that there is a factory in Pennsylvania which employs 500 people to make widgets. This factory has been making widgets since 1955 and employs 500 people, who make an average income of $2,000 a month. This means that the monthly payroll is US$1 million a month, or US$12 million annually. Of course the factory owners and employees all pay taxes which go to the city, state and federal government.

Now, the owner goes to China and finds that he can go to China, and instead of paying his workers an average of US$2,000 every month, he can get Chinese workers at an average salary of US$200 a month. Their productivity is just as good as the American workers, but they cost only 1/10 the wages. His monthly payroll expenses fall from US$1 million a month to US$100,000 a month, and his annual China payroll becomes only $1.2 million. This means that he can afford to lower the price of his widgets, thus selling more widgets.

Moreover, in order to attract the investment, the local Chinese government is willing to give him cheap land and a tax holiday for several years. This means that his upfront investment costs are lowered drastically to only US$500,000 for land and factory. The business owner would be a fool to turn down such an opportunity, right?

So he goes back to Pennsylvania and begins transferring production to China, gradually laying off his Pennsylvania workers along the way. Now this is where things start getting wacky. As he lays off his workers, they go to the state government to collect unemployment, which for the sake of simplicity, we will say, runs about $400 per worker per week for six months. This cost is carried by the state government. Eventually all are laid off, and the state pays out a total of $5.2 million (400 * 26 * 500) for all the laid-off workers.

Now, our factory widget owner is happy, because thanks to globalization and WTO, not only has he lowered his costs drastically, but he can export all over the world duty-free, since WTO has regulations against import tariffs and barriers. He has more markets, and more market access. His investors are happy because they are making more because of lower costs and higher profit margins.

But what has happened in the US? More and more unskilled, then skilled, workers are losing their jobs. The state governments need to pay unemployment, and they need to tax the employers who remain in the state for corporate taxes to sustain the system. Meanwhile the tax base of factories which remain in the state shrinks while the number of unemployed grows. At the same time, there is a very large group of politicians who rail against taxes, so the states cannot raise taxes even though their tax base is shrinking and the number of unemployed is growing. Meanwhile, the number of people accessing free state services continues to grow.

Basically, this is what has been happening in the US over the past 15 years with globalization. If you think about it, it is amazing the US economy, with all the deficit spending over the past eight years, has not collapsed sooner! And mind you, we have not even talked about subprime mortgages and derivatives yet!

Now before WTO and globalization, there would have been import tariffs. If Chinese costs were so low (which they are), the US would at least have been able to impose some tariffs to bring costs closer to what they would cost in the US and thereby mitigating some of the difference, and bringing money into the US Treasury. China’s growth would have been slower, and probably healthier for China and the rest of the world.

Now there is talk in the US of a “Buy America” campaign. Too late folks! If the US raised tariffs now, it would trigger a protectionist trade war, one which the US is very poorly prepared to win, since it now has to look to China to bail it out of its current mess. In times like these, cash is king, and China has the cash.

Now, is this the fault of the Chinese? I would say no. The Chinese just took maximum advantage of a system which was given to them, and the Chinese government wanted to maximize exports to the US so that it could earn foreign exchange to fund China’s economic development.

Different American politicians and pundits have pedaled globalization to Americans as the panacea to all their ills. But what has happened in reality? Americans have lost their jobs, lost their homes because of the growing subprime and now prime mortgage crisis, and they do not have the skills which are needed for this new period we are entering. The companies are optimized for a world which no longer exists. Americans have lost their own future, and the futures of their children and maybe grandchildren. And most are completely unprepared for this new kind of globalization, which looks like it may very well bring the US standard of living to something more closely resembling the Chinese standard of living.

For your information, until very recently, the Chinese were dirt poor. They remember what it’s like, and even though they do not want to live that way again, they can roll back expenses to the minimum if it needed. Give you an example: there is now a movement among Chinese university students to spend 100 yuan (about US$15) a week. How many Americans can do that?

These are the times we are in for.

Saying that Americans were fleeced by charlatans and politicians on both sides of the aisle does not even begin to describe the situation. Just about the only thing they have left is their own internal organs. Already there are young women who are selling their eggs to make a living. And it will just get worse and worse.

Now does China export jobs? No, China exports Chinese. The country has too many people, and the government is encouraging them to go to Africa where many Chinese companies are investing in hard assets, otherwise known as commodities. Anyone who has lived in China can tell you that Chinese are great believers in hard assets.

So what can President Obama do? It doesn’t look like he can do very much. Collapsing sales and profits reports keep on coming down the pike, and have acquired a momentum all their own. It would be nice if we could take globalization out back and shoot it in the back of the head, but it’s too late. The cat’s out of the bag, and it’s not going back in.

That’s why I’m in China.

Now, why is it the US with its free press, tell the people what was really happening? Or were they just distracted by left-wing/right-wing pseudopolitics and red/blue arguments so much that they did not notice what was happening to them?

If you want another angle on this bleak picture, I’d recommend that you read Clusterfuck Nation.

The Brave New World of Deglobalization

admin — Sat, 03 Jan 2009 22:12:25 GMT

In previous articles, I have voiced some of my criticisms and predictions re globalization here, here, here, and here. Unfortunately, it is becoming clearer by the day that globalization was largely a fraud where Americans could endlessly consume and Chinese factories could endlessly manufacture without any adherence to economic fundamentals and creating a false and bloated version of prosperity and rising living standards. The brilliant minds of Wall Street came up with “risk management strategies” (irony alert) so that derivatives could endlessly build a never-ending Ponzi scheme which would go on forever and ever.

We are now entering a very painful period of unwinding of what economist Niall Ferguson called “Chimerica”. Now, China and America are entering a dangerous period of deglobalization, where they have come to the realization that after the bubble pops and the deleveraging begins, their interests are really quite different. Instead of China and America being two sides of the same economic coin, they need to play or pander to their own constituencies. The blame game will begin.

And their native constituencies are confused, hurt and angry. But they are not nearly as angry now as they will be in the near future when they have figured out what has happened to their wealth. When that happens, there will be hell to pay, and there will be blood in the streets.

The reason for this is because the leveraging which occurred is simply too big and too complicated. Taking all the bad leveraging out of the system and replacing it with cash and credit liquidity is like trying to rebuild the engines of an aircraft in flight. It cannot be done. This means that there can only be a crash.

The bright side is that crashes can be managed. You can go into a death spiral which is impossible to pull out of, but a smart pilot will look for a stretch of land and try to glide in for a crash landing. So far, the political leadership worldwide is pursuing policies which more closely follow the former path of the death spiral. This is because everyone is acting in what they perceive in their own interests, instead of keeping their heads and thinking through what needs to be done. It is a deadly panic move.

The problem is that we are now entering a phase where the crisis has spread from subprime mortgages, to derivatives, and then on to currencies. In the beginning the patient suffered from a lack of credit liquidity (constipation), so the central banks are going to provide liquidity (the enema). This did not work, and the patient has become bloated. There is the very real chance that this will eventually cause runaway inflation (dysentery) and the patient will then die of dehydration. When this happens, the currency becomes worthless and society falls apart until a new dictator imposes his will on the society, as Hitler did at the end of the Weimar Republic in Germany. In China’s case, runaway inflation led to the Kuomintang and Chiang Kai-shek’s loss of support in the cities, and directly contributed to the establishment of the People’s Republic.

Sounds really really really bad, doesn’t it? That’s because it is.

But there are survival and prosperity strategies. I will talk about them in 2009. But you will have to be really really tough.

Leaving Sinobyte

Graham Webster — Fri, 19 Dec 2008 17:54:00 GMT

After almost a year covering China's internet and technological scene for the CNET Blog Network here at Sinobyte, it's time for me to say goodbye.

Bread and Circuses

admin — Wed, 17 Dec 2008 08:55:48 GMT

Gladiator movie poster

At the end of my previous post, where I painted a generally pessimistic picture of the near future, I mentioned that I would write about the businesses which would do well in this downturn.

In my opinion, they are bread and circuses.

During the decline of the Roman empire, the Roman emperors realized that in order to prevent uprisings, they needed to feed the people (bread), and to entertain them (circuses). Life was grim, ugly and short. People lived for the day. People were reduced to their most basic needs, food, sex and entertainment. Everything else was unnecessary, and most likely, did not do well as a business.

The most popular entertainment of the time in Rome were massively staged gladitorial spectacles which were fights to the death for the gladiators. When people were this miserable, they wanted to have power, if only for a moment, to see others fight to live. People were not happy, and they got pleasure and enjoyment out of what some would call sadistic entertainment (in happier times).

The Roman emperors provided a huge spectacle as an outlet for this frustration in the form of gladiator fights at the coliseum. Instead of trying to resist this angry urge, they saw that the only way out for them was to channel the urge away from them. The state rode this wave, and brought Hollywood production values and state funding to this entertainment to keep the sheeple happy. That is how they were able to extend the period of decline in the Roman Empire to 400 years instead of being overthrown much earlier.

Bread and circuses.

The times we live in will be very similar.

In China, where entertainment is already a large part of what makes up the Internet, there is already a very large entertainment component.

Historically, Chinese rulers have been experienced at putting down rebellions and uprisings, but when it came to entertainment for the masses, they could not hold a candle to the Roman emperors. On the other hand, they did not produce characters quite as twisted as Caligula and Nero either. The Roman emperors were in a league of their own.

Now, how to get state funding and production values for huge epic productions which recreate the smell, blood, excitement and drama of a real gladitorial spectacle as was captured in the movie Gladiator? Whoever can answer that question and can figure out how to bridge online games and the real world drama of life and death gladiator fights, creating a whole new experience, is in the money, not only in China, but globally.

Plus ca change, plus c’est la meme chose.

The Elephant In The Room

admin — Tue, 16 Dec 2008 18:25:06 GMT

One of the big problems with the present economic crisis is that we really do not know how big the problem is. We know that our problems have been caused by the creation, then over-leveraging of debt. But we don’t know how much debt was created, then sliced into derivatives multiple times which were then sold on to financial institutions all over the world.

But no one knows how much debt, then derivatives, were created by this whole process. That is the big elephant in the room which no one wants to talk about.

That makes it a good reason for me to talk about it.

We now know that a great deal of what passed for growth in the US over the past 20 years, starting with the Reagan administration, was financed by the creation of debt. Debt, by itself, is not a bad thing. In fact, it is needed for healthy growth. Companies, and countries, frequently reach stages in their growth when they need to borrow in order to reach another level of growth. When they get return from this new level of growth, they pay back and retire the debt. That is the way debt is supposed to be used.

Now, the problem which started in the US is that there was no intention to retire the debt. This was why the US Republican party pushed “deregulation” to get votes. Without deregulation, and a necessary amount of fraud, this debt mountain would not have grown as fast as they needed it to grow. Instead, the debt was sliced to ever finer parts, and sold into the global economy. Wall Street, especially its investment banks, became a mechanism for the creation, processing and sale of ever newer varieties of debt into the global economy. As long as there was growth, the system worked fine. And this is where the problem comes in: any system which can only survive when there is “growth” and cannot withstand changes and reverses in market conditions is effectively a Ponzi scheme. “Growth” becomes a means to its own ends, and becomes a necessity. When the “growth” conditions end, the system collapses.

Which is what we are going through now.

What we are going through right now is the great unwinding or deleveraging of what has happened over the past 25 years. In simple terms, the investment bank firms, and now hedge funds, and so much of the US financial industry became addicted to leveraging. Now they cannot leverage anymore, and their business model no longer works.

This raises a very interesting question which I have not seen others ask yet. That is “If debt financing and leveraging did not happen in the US, then how big would the US and global economy be?” In dollar numbers, it would be much smaller, and financial services and outsourcing would be much less important features of the US economy. There would be more manufacturing, and China would not have grown as quickly because it would not have had such a huge US export market to sell its products to. Without such fast economic growth, it is likely that the Chinese government would have had to look at social and political reforms sooner rather than later. Faster growth would have been replaced by slower more solid and more balanced growth.

China has made this problem bigger because it insisted on keeping the yuan at a lower exchange rate in order to protect its main export market, the US, addicted to Chinese exports. As I have said earlier on this blog, China and the US are two sides of the same coin. But right now, the two sides do not enjoy the same interests. The Ponzi scheme which served both sides so well no longer exists. This means that there will be recrimination and anger as each side seeks to pin the blame on the other side.

If we are ruthlessly honest about unwinding the overleveraging, I suspect that much of the world’s growth (60-75% + compounding) since the late 70s would not exist. Obviously, that is an outcome none of the world’s governments would have an interest in.

The main problem in economics is: “What is productivity, and how do we measure it?” I do not pretend to have an answer to that very challenging question, but I suspect that most of the improvements in production over the past 30 years come from improvements in information technology. These improvements in productivity mean that it is possible to create more with less people.

The real problem now is there are too many people, and most of them are not very productive in terms of adding value to an economy.

My guess is that as the unwinding continues, people will get angrier as their standards of living fall. When this happens, governments will have to choose which is worst, deflation (caused by unwinding) or inflation. Inflation has the advantage in that it can hide the real fall in living standards by gradually debasing and eroding the value the currency, but making the general populace think that they are making more money. The downside is that inflation is notoriously difficult to control. In a worst case scenario, it turns a country into an Argentinian or Brazilian basket case, where inflation becomes a routine tool for controlling the masses. More darkly, it drives the entrepreneurial class to other countries where they can make a better living for themselves and for their children.

When it does go out of control, it becomes the most powerful and deadly destroyer of wealth there is.

And that is the current situation where we are…

In my next article, I will talk about the businesses which will do well during The Great Unwinding.

Advanced Mining Technology In Ancient China

Rumin — Sun, 14 Dec 2008 07:24:54 GMT

Sun, 14 Dec 2008 07:24:54 GMT http://xfruits.com/pandapassport/?id=37453&clic=394183885&url= Original Author：Shanghai Science Committee
Source：Advanced Mining Technology In Ancient China
Translator：Rumin

Advanced Mining Technology In Ancient China

During the production in agriculture, livestock and handicraft, ancient Chinese workers found and started to use stone, ceramic, wood and bone tools. In the long practical production, they found the metal – copper which existed in the nature then managed to collect and use it.

Early in the New Stone Age, Chinese had been able to use "Fire work" method to obtain the ore. The site of stone pit in New Stone Age located in Xi Nan Qiao Shan of Guangzhou suburb was the earliest one for Chinese ancient mining discovered up to now. In the inner wall of the pit, there were burning traces. A thick layer ofPhosphate rock and carbon chip covered the ground. It indicated that more than 5000 years ago, Chinese workers had learnt to use the principle of “heat expand and cold contract” for mining. That was a miracle in mining history.

Ancient Chinese mining technology had reached a high level in Shang and Zhou Dynasties. In 1988, another copper ore mining site was found in the northeast corner of Mu Fu Mountain, Ruichang Xiaban County, Jianxi. In the site, open mining and underground one were both found. Most were of the latter. At that time, workers had been able to extend the mining system to rich ore areas which were tens of meters deep, built a big underground mining field deep under the ground by using wood column supports. When underground mining, natural airflow ventilation was formed by the air pressure difference caused by the pit port height difference. The excavation of the mining tools such as bronze axe, tomahawk and chisel, the digging tools such as wooden shovel, wooden spade, the loading tools such as bamboo basket, bamboo dustpan, as well as the lifting tools such as wooden windlass, wooden hooks and other tools, indicated that there had been a series of effective solutions for safety, ventilation, drainage, lifting in ancient copper mine which demonstrated the brilliant achievements in ancient China. A large size of ore selection field had been found which had a wooden chute for ore selection. It could make the ore selection according to the ore grain motion differences in tilt water flow. Under the resultant force of gravity, friction, water pressure, shear stress and shield resistance, ore grains were scattered and separated in layers. It was one of ore selection methods by gravity separation. The discovery of Tong Ling ore selection chute was an important one in the world ore selection history.

Tong Lv Shan Ancient Mine in Hubei Daye was the site in Chinese Chunqiu and Zhanguo Dynasties. The outstanding feature of its mining technology was the use of combination of vertical shaft, tilt one, blind one and air heading for deep mining. The maximum mine depth was more than 60 meters and more than 20 meters beneath the underground water level.

It was 28.3cm long, 10cm wide and 3.8cm high for analyzing copper ore classes and making mining solutions in Chinese Chunqiu and Zhanguo Dynasties

Mining tools in Chinese Xi Zhou to Chunqiu Dynasty which were 37cm long, 32cm wide, 9.5cm thick and 11Kg in weight.

The ancient mining sites in Ruichang Tong Ling and Daye Tong Lv Shan had proved that ancient Chinese could not only find rich, broad mine, but work in deep mine. That was extremely advanced in the world at that time.

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Good coverage of LeWeb '08

Kaiser Kuo — Wed, 10 Dec 2008 09:05:31 GMT

Really amusing blog coverage of LeWeb ‘08 at The Next Web. Check it out if you’re tired of following my very frequent Twitter posts on the conference. Dying battery and lack of a French plug — it’s a really annoying form of protectionism, if you ask me! — may prevent me from posting much before I board a plane this afternoon. See you back in Beijing soon!

Follow my LeWeb ‘08 Twitter feed

Kaiser Kuo — Tue, 09 Dec 2008 08:38:10 GMT

I’m micro-blogging many of the talks at LeWeb ‘08, a very cool conference going on today and tomorrow, December 9 and 10, in Paris. If you’re interested in reading about what the speakers are saying, please follow me on Twitter. I’ll also be doing some round-up posts here at Digital Watch. Some very interesting comments from speakers from Microsoft (Dan’l Lewin) and Google (Nikesh Arora) so far this morning.

Regular Posting Will Now Continue!

Kaiser Kuo — Thu, 04 Dec 2008 03:23:50 GMT

Sorry for the long absence, folks, but I saved up all my vacation days and in lieu of a proper holiday I went on the road with my band Chunqiu (春秋) to play shows in nine cities all over China — Wuhan, Changsha, Shenzhen, Guangzhou, Nanning, Kunming, Chengdu, and Xining, where I’m now writing from. After the weekend I’ll be in Paris for LeWeb ‘08, which promises to be an excellent conference as Loic LeMeur’s conferences always are — or so they say. This one has an all-star cast, with the likes of Fred Wilson, Chris Anderson, Maurice Levy, Joi Ito, Robert Scoble, Michael Arrington, Doc Searls, and Hugh MacLeod. I’ll be sure to do lots of blogging from there.

Again, apologies for vanishing for so long, but believe me it was well worth it! I don’t believe I’ll ever shake the rock habit, alas…

Ancient Chinese Bronze Working

Rumin — Tue, 02 Dec 2008 08:10:45 GMT

Tue, 02 Dec 2008 08:10:45 GMT http://xfruits.com/pandapassport/?id=37453&clic=394183886&url= Original Author：上海科委
Source：中国古代青铜冶炼篇
Translator：Rumin

Ancient Chinese Bronze Working

More than 3,000 years ago, China, which was in its Shang Dynasty, had been started its brilliant bronze era. Spectacular Si Mu Wu Ding, exceptionally beautiful Four Sheep Square Pot, magnificent Zhanguo Bianzhong and artfully designed Gilt Bronze Human-Shaped Lamp……Those miracles of state-of-art design and manufacture made Chinese bronze civilization surpass those in other countries whose bronze civilization was earlier, become an advanced country in bronze working field, and rose the bronze technology to a new level. Just as Crile – a western metallurgy specialist said, they would not be better than those made in Chinese Shang Dynasty even if the most skillful machinists from America and Europe co-operate using modern technologies to make them.

Such miracles of ancient Chinese bronze came from its advanced mining, smelting and casting technologies.

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Council on Foreign Relations: How Severe the Slump in China

Kaiser Kuo — Thu, 06 Nov 2008 07:40:59 GMT

Brad Setser (his bio here) has written a sensible and easy-to-understand analysis on how the current financial crisis might impact China. (H/T to Bill Bishop, who if you use Twitter you should definitely follow, as his frequent links to stories, both in English and Chinese, are almost always worth reading). I know this isn’t a post directly about interactive marketing, but a good macroeconomic read’s good for us now and again, right?

We’re all aware that China’s vaunted exports have fallen off rather precipitously in the last quarter, but that, accoring to Mr. Setser, isn’t what’s particularly worrisome:

The world economy could really use a Chinese locomotive. But it increasingly doesn’t look like it will get one. A recent Credit Suisse report noted that the latest purchasing managers survey suggests that China is about to enter a manufacturing recession. Export orders fell sharply – as one would expect. But import orders fell more. If that proves an accurate guide to China’s demand for the world’s goods and services, China won’t be doing much to support global growth.

He goes on to make a persuasive and, frankly, chilling case that those of us who’ve believed ourselves to be well insulated from the downturn here in robust China should read. It’s a good antidote to the “hey, we can just stimulate consumption and all will be well” mentality, and to the blithely optimistic here who believe that China can somehow ride in on a white charger agleam in chrome plate armor and rescue the world. (Neither are views held by Beijing’s economic planners, to be sure).

China’s microblogging platforms

Kaiser Kuo — Thu, 30 Oct 2008 03:13:26 GMT

I just saw this handy post on Adam Schokora’s 56minus1.com blog. Adam gives quick intros to five Chinese microblogging services, including Taotao, Jiwaide, Fanfou, Zuosa, and (I didn’t know about this one!) Douban Broadcast. Check out China’s answers to Twitter. I admit I’m not a user; there are so many tech-savvy Chinese people I already follow in Twitter that it doesn’t seem worth it to keep another microblog going.

Around the Web in China New Media News

Kaiser Kuo — Thu, 30 Oct 2008 02:54:56 GMT

MySpace China Woes: BusinessWeek’s Bruce Einhorn has a piece about MySpace.cn and its efforts to come up with a new business model in the wake of some big setbacks — most recently, the departure of CEO Luo Chuan.

There’s certainly a big gap between MySpace China and its Chinese rivals, though. According to BDA, MySpace China hopes to have 10 million registered users by the end of the year. In contrast, market leader Qzone, owned by Shenzhen-based instant-messaging giant Tencent Holdings, already has 105 million registered users. Another Chinese SNS operator, 51.com, has 95 million.

Einhorn’s piece gives MySpace China rivals and critics a chance to sound off. These include Brad Greenspan, one of MySpace’s original U.S. founders who was famously unappy with the sale to News Corp; and Joe Chen, who runs the parent company of leading SNS Xiaonei:

As the local players become stronger, some in the industry are dismissive of MySpace China and its high-powered backers as paper tigers. “Everybody knows it’s a U.S. brand,” says Brad Greenspan, former CEO of eUniverse, where MySpace got launched, and now chairman of BroadWebAsia, a West Hollywood (Calif.) investor in Chinese Internet sites. “If you want to spend time on a site that’s about you, it’s harder to pull that off with a U.S. brand. It just doesn’t feel authentic.” In China, SNS “is entirely a local game,” boasts Joseph Chen, chief executive of Xiaonei owner OPI [Oak Pacific International]. Not only are Chinese users reluctant to switch to a newcomer but many young Chinese students without strong English skills don’t even know how to spell the name MySpace. “You tell a typical kid in China who has never heard about MySpace and ask the person to spell it, 90% of the time the kid has no clue,” says Chen.

Shanda Joins the SNS game? We’re written on this blog about the strength of tie-ups between online gaming companies and SNS: Giant Interactive’s $50 million investment in 51.com comes to mind. Now, Gang Lu writes about Shanda’s rumored efforts to enter the SNS space through

Shanda (NASDAQ: SNDA), the leading interactive entertainment media company in China and offers a variety of internet based entertainment services such as online role playing games (Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Games, or “MMORPGs”), casual games, chess and board games, network PC games, cartoons, literature, and music, is now seriously looking into SNS market, told by an insider. The big question is how they are going to do it?

Internet Bar is a very popular place for Chinese to surf Internet, especially in tier 2 and tier 3 cities. It was reported that there are over 100,000 Internet bards across China and 70 million Chinese netizen are accessing Internet from Internet bars. The figure needs to be verified, but it does tells the fact that Internet bar is a very important battle field in China web. Over 70% of Chinese Internet bars are using a management software which is offered by a Chengdu based company, Sicent Technology Co. Ltd, and Sicent was acquired by Shanda in Sept, 2003.

Indeed, Shanda’s acquisition of Sicent really could position it well to push an SNS service through Internet cafes. Companies like Sicent, which do install management, security, patching and the like, are also being examined for their advertising possibilities by many interested parties.

New Code of Conduct for U.S. Internet Companies in Censoring Countries: Google, Microsoft, and Yahoo — the three Internet companies who were browbeaten by an indignant U.S. Congress for their alleged complicity in keeping China’s Internet censored, have taken the wraps off a “Global Network Initiative,” or GNI, that aims to “protect the freedom of expression and the privacy rights of their users.” Apparently, signatories to the GNI “promise to reveal attempts by governments to pressure them into violating worldwide standards regarding online privacy or access to information,” says an AFP report on this.

Obviously this isn’t going to settle the issue, and it’s certainly not going to placate groups like RSF and EFF, which will continue to demand the impossible from these companies. (RSF, or Reporters Without Borders, pulled out of talks with the GNI companies last month, saying “loopholes and weak language” in it leave room for abuses. We’ll see whether it heads off legislation pending in Congress like the “Global Online Freedom Act,” which (at least in earlier incarnations) contained language that any country would clearly see as violating its national sovereignty — most notably, calling on U.S. companies, even with servers physically located within the P.R.C., to turn any requests for personal information from Chinese law enforcement agencies to the U.S. Department of Justice for approval first. Yeah, right.

Silicon Hutong: Digital Video and the Coming Showdown with Broadcast

Kaiser Kuo — Wed, 29 Oct 2008 06:08:49 GMT

Naturally it doth please me that David Wolf has declaimed his faith in Internet video sites in China, and that he chose for a section subtitle, “We have seen the future, and it is Youku.” David is blogging from CASBAA in Kowloon this week, and he’s making the kind of predictions that online ad folks, particularly those with ties to Internet video players like myself, hope will come to transpire:

Here is my scenario: either this year, next year, or in 2010 the results of the CCTV advertising auction are bad - so bad that they cannot be hidden. We’re talking like a 10-15% decline, or maybe worse. Meantime, Youku, Tudou, et al are starting to rake it in. They’ve concluded content licensing deals, they’ve fixed (or kind of fixed) the measurement issues, and there are upwards of 300 million users online.

At that point, it is not going to take long for CCTV and its fellow broadcasters throughout China to add things up. They will turn to the State Administration for Radio, Film and Television and to the Publicity (propaganda) Committee of the Party, making the case that these private online companies are not only hurting their business, but, worse, doing damage to the ability of broadcasters to serve their propaganda/social administration function for the state.

At that point, the government’s options become fairly clear: restrict the online video sites, let the broadcasters run whatever content they want, or force some kind of accommodation between the two sides (i.e., compel each of the sites to take on a state broadcaster as a part or majority shareholder.)

Let’s hope he’s right. By the way, SARFT has been shuttering more minor video players. Read Steve Schwankert’s piece on that here.

NYT: To Survive, Net Start-Ups Slow Their Metabolism

Kaiser Kuo — Tue, 28 Oct 2008 00:21:12 GMT

Yesterday’s New York Times ran a good piece on how Internet start-ups are dealing with the onset of winter by “getting small, humble and thrifty,” and how lots of layoffs are happening among fledgling tech companies. The piece makes a very good point — that in the Web 2.0 age, there’s relatively fixed cost involved and it’s easy to pare down to a skeleton crew and survive a slump. They’re so good at keeping their burn low that, as one VC quoted in the piece says, it’s made the whole decision over pulling the plug problematic, as the VCs “may not have the plug in our hand.”

The list of companies who’ve cut staff just in the last two weeks, though, is depressing. Many are quite well-known start-ups, at least among those watching: Jason Calacanis’s social search site Mahalo, my favorite Internet music recommendation engine Pandora, SNS Hi5, music site Imeem, real estate site Zillow, visual search engine Searchme… and there are a couple of other very well-known companies like Loic Le Meur’s Seesmic which, as the story says, also went through a round of layoffs. (Presumably, Mahalo fired only people “~~who are not workaholics~~ who don’t love their work,” as the company’s founder suggests all start-ups do).

With the notable exception of non-P2P Internet video, where burn rates are necessarily very high because of bandwidth costs, Chinese start-ups are even scrappier and able to “eat bitterness” than their Silicon Valley counterparts. I’m not hearing about any austerity measures implemented by Chinese start-ups so far as a result of the downturn, but if anyone hears anything, drop me a note.

China Tech Blogs

Mongolia: “Khoomii doesn't belong to China”

China: Let Feng Zhenghu come home, to jail time

China: #Tanzuoren - to be human

Global Times declares victory over color revolutions

Send a postcard to the future

At the Post Office, Send a Letter to the Future

Firecracker season arrives

Al Jazeera on potential dog meat ban

China: Education, critical thinking and creativity

China: Guilty or not guilty, that's the question

China: Liu Xiaobo's final statement

China: Upgrading a four star hotel

Two posts you won't read

A bad case of giant sign gremlins

Imagine my joy at this...

Westerners need self-reflection before criticizing China

Diamond Hill by Feng Chi-shun

Excerpt from chapter Thugs and gangsters; Diamond Hill

In Chongqing, Shangri-La drives out a local brand

Infant formula pushers: round two

Angels in White Act as Spokespersons for Infant Formula

Rumors and follow-up for Tianjin bus incident

Tianjin driver malicious killing incident follow-up

MOBINODE Is In Paris For Forum NetExplorateur 2010

China: Race and racial conflicts

Two choices for news in the Guangzhou Daily

Drive for development fuels illegal land seizures in Pizhou

Behind the Pizhou Land Seizure Case, Chaotic Development

Announcing ChinaMode Winners

China: Why cover up Weixian mining disaster

2009 ChinaMode Report (Part I) – Twitter Voted Most Recognized International Service in China

Douban Raised $10M in Series B

[Event] Third Digital Future Symposium Beijing

Yahoo China, Might Be The Next To Say Goodbye

Clearing the fog around Google China reports

5 Predictions for China Social Games in 2010

Four Years of Google In China

Google’s New Approach: Say No to China

Google detonates the China corporate communications script

P1 Wants To Be The Highest Quality Social Network in China

HK Startup Summary 2009

Welcome Back, Yeeyan

Hello, This is China Web Radar

Seriously? They blocked IMDB?

Paul Midler's "Poorly Made in China": Mischief, mayhem, soap

1 Billion to Invest in Freewares in China

Will the Apple Tablet Do for Print What App Store Did for Apps, iTunes for Music?

We're back, plus the great Christmas pox of '09

Chinese Online Video Sharing, Where Is The Way Out?

Five Minutes, Inventor of Happy Farm Raised $3.5 Millions

Imagethief digs into PR in China with Blue Ocean Network

Remember that whole Xinjiang thing?

Announcing ChinaMode Awards, It Is For China Internet in 2009

Salute! Jack Ma and Alibaba’s Cloud Service

Innovative Digital Marketing Campaign- Win a Trip to Sydney

With GPS Equipped, TouchMedia Finally Getting Useful

Does Chinese Govt’s Cheap Money Policy Defer Risk, Volatility to Future?

Irrelevant David Feng Tech Banter: Of Twitter, Scoble and Subways

The Tweet of the Day: 1984, Brave New World, and China

The Internet As-Is in China: Still Partially Borked

More on the Internet, post-2009 Taiwan Earthquake

Access to Sites Outside China (Mainland) Slow

Green Dam: No Longer Required… For Most Of Us, Anyway

Twremarks: What Chinese Tweeps Are Talking About

Chinese Netspeak as a Second Language: NC

Remember the #080808 Hashtag?

Twitter In A Double Whammy in China

Remembering the 5/12 Earthquake Victims

It’s Worse Than You Imagined

China: Which Century Are You Building For?

China: Last Man Standing?

Can We Just Take Globalization Out Back And Shoot It In The Back of the Head?

The Brave New World of Deglobalization

Leaving Sinobyte

Bread and Circuses

The Elephant In The Room

Advanced Mining Technology In Ancient China

Good coverage of LeWeb '08

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