chinawords

China has started its own virtual world, as an alternative to "Second life". What an intertesting idea. I for one would love the options to be able to teach in a space like that rather than have to communte to a real office each day.

In the Guardian this morning I was reading about Chinas new global warming policy. It makes an interesting point that, "The carbon footprint of the average Chinese citizen is less than a fifth of that of an American, and just over a third of a European's." Given the rise in cancer rates, and big issues with water quality and pollution, Beijign has hinted that cleaning the landscape is a bigger priority than reducing carbon emissions. Got to say I agree. Ethically, a government has to first represent the wellbeing of its citizens, and second to be a good global citizen. There is a great deal of noise and public discussion about the environment, and quite rightly so. It's a dirty country, and people want a clean healthy place to live.

Interesting survey results on Chinese people trust levels of the central government in Beijing, in an article about the impending execution of a very high rankign official in Beijing. Food for thought. "In delivering Zheng such harsh a punishment, Beijing wants to safeguard the relatively clean image and authority of the central government so as to sustain CCP rule...A recent survey by the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences shows that the central government is the most trusted by the majority of Chinese people. A major reason is that they believe the central government still largely remains clean in a country where official corruption is running rampant."

Chinese government decides to subsidize all rural poor

China's State Council, or the cabinet, on Wednesday held an executive meeting on expanding a rural subsistence allowances system that will satisfy the rural poor's minimum requirements for living.

The meeting, chaired by Premier Wen Jiabao, decided to cover all needy people in rural areas across the country under the allowance program, including the aged, the disabled and those who are unable to work.

Premier Wen promised in the government work report at the annual parliament session in March to expand the allowance system to all rural areas this year after experimenting in some places.

Twenty-three provinces have already established the system, benefiting 15.93 million people, about 70 percent of the total number of China's rural poor.

Local governments are responsible for the operation of the allowance program, and the central budget will allocate subsidies to areas with financial difficulties, according to the meeting.

Establishing this subsistence allowance system is an important measure to narrow the gap between rural and urban areas and safeguard social equity, said a document released after the meeting. more at http://english.people.com.cn/200705/24/eng20070524_377380.html

China's Solar-Powered City by Xuemei Bai
Buildings in Rizhao, a coastal city of nearly three million on the Shandong Peninsula in northern China, have a common yet unique appearance: most rooftops and walls are covered with small panels. They are solar heat collectors.

A combination of regulations and public education spurred the broad adoption of solar heaters. The city mandates all new buildings to incorporate solar panels, and it oversees the construction process to ensure proper installation. To raise awareness, the city held open seminars and ran public advertising on television.

In Rizhao City, which means City of Sunshine in Chinese, 99 percent of households in the central districts use solar water heaters, and most traffic signals, street and park lights are powered by photovoltaic (PV) solar cells. In the suburbs and villages, more than 30 percent of households use solar water heaters, and over 6,000 households have solar cooking facilities. More than 60,000 greenhouses are heated by solar panels, reducing overhead costs for farmers in nearby areas. more at http://www.renewableenergyaccess.com/rea/news/story?id=48605

I type this last entry with one hand, because in the other rests my new born child. I have to make changes to the way I use my time, and this will mean I will stop udating this space regularly.

Thanks for reading, and all the best.

Greg, Shanghai

China closed down a total of 3,176 polluting enterprises amid a campaign in which 720,000 companies have been checked for their pollution discharges last year, according to the country's top environment watchdog.

In the campaign, the State Environmental Protection Administration (SEPA) and other departments investigated 28,000 cases violating related environmental laws and regulations and settled 13,000 of the total.

Threats to the sources of drinking water, industrial parks densely distributed with polluting enterprises and construction projects likely to damage the environment were the major targets in the campaign, according to the administration.

"Pollution by industrial parks has been curbed effectively," said an official with the administration.

A total of 1,981 industrial parks across the country, involving 29,890 enterprises, were subject to investigation, and 4,162 polluting companies got severe punishment, the official said. more at http://www.chinaelections.org/en/readnews.asp?newsid={0AC64C16-5352-4F00-9B7C-E8931D3E6CAD}&classname=News%20Highlights

By Fong Tak-ho

HONG KONG - Wang Yang, 52, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) secretary of Chongqing municipality, is known to be a favorite protege of Prime Minister Wen Jiabao.

He worked as a deputy secretary of the Chinese Communist Youth League's Anhui provincial committee in the early 1980s. Under the current leadership, key government positions at both central and provincial levels are more likely to be filled by people associated with the league.

Wang is now widely tipped to be elected into the new Politburo at the 17th Party Congress in autumn, and possibly even into the all- powerful standing committee of the Politburo.

Ahead of the congress, Wang is winning credit as an enlightened leader.

In China, urban redevelopment is a sensitive issue, often involving forced demolition of old housing and removal of residents. In many cities, such urban renovation projects lead to confrontation.

Chongqing faced such a case, in which a house owner held out against a redevelopment project for three years by refusing to move. However, the Chongqing government succeeded in resolving the so-called "coolest nail house" in history by striking an agreement that satisfied both the owner and the project developer.

The incident is said to have set a significant precedent for the enlightened enforcement of property laws. Apparently, the owner agreed to take a similar-sized home in another part of Chongqing. Although it had the option, the local government resisted the heavy-handed solution of simply bulldozing the offending house.

Chongqing's open mind in dealing with the media over the long-running saga has also won approval. Unlike many other cities that would have imposed a media blackout, Chongqing allowed unrestricted coverage of the incident. No doubt, credit must be given to Wang, the top leader in the Chongqing municipality. more at http://www.atimes.com/atimes/China/IE03Ad02.html

"What was supposed to be a major advantage for Chinese tech companies—the backing they receive from Beijing—has in many cases turned into a liability. In exchange for preferential loans, tax breaks, and sweetheart property deals, Communist Party bosses often get to influence key business decisions.

Take SMIC. The chipmaker will soon operate plants in five cities across China. By contrast, SMIC's Taiwanese rivals, United Microelectronics Corp. and Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co., have built most of their factories in two science parks just a few hours drive from one another in Taiwan, making it easier to manage the plants. So why has SMIC spread out so much? Every [local] government wants to go into high tech, says Pranab Kumar Samar, an analyst in Hong Kong with Daiwa Institute of Research. That might make for good politics, but it's not exactly smart business. Many Chinese companies are also paying the price of a government effort to spur the development of homegrown technologies. State-owned Datang Telecom Technology & Industry Group, for instance, has squandered hundreds of millions of dollars and almost a decade on a Chinese standard for so-called third-generation (3G) mobile telephony when it could have easily adopted one of the international standards already in use. This has also hobbled Huawei, ZTE, and the country's dozens of cellular handset makers. Chinese companies "don't have a [3G] market in which to cut their teeth," says Mark Natkin of Marbridge Consulting Ltd. in Beijing." more at http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/07_20/b4034057.htm

From a really interestign piece in Atimes by Kent Ewing

"...But Wen's expatiations on democratic development on the mainland at a March 16 news conference created a genuine stir. When the premier was asked about an article he had written for the People's Daily in which he stated that socialism and democracy were not mutually exclusive, he answered willingly and at length.

At one point, he declared: "You are actually asking what socialist democracy means. Let me be very clear about it: socialist democracy, in the final analysis, is to enable the people to govern themselves. This means we need to ensure people's rights to democratic elections, democratic decision-making, democratic management and democratic oversight. It means we need to create conditions for people to oversee and criticize the government."

But Wen went on to say that the development of democracy in a country as large and complex as China would be a gradual process and that, more immediately, it was important for the present (unelected) leadership to create a sense of social, economic and political justice among ordinary citizens. That, he added, can only come from listening and responding to the people - although he said nothing about letting them vote.

China's democracy dreamers also take heart in other promising signs. For example, Joseph Kahn of the New York Times, citing unnamed CCP officials, reported this month that authorities had sanctioned the publication of the musings of Lu Dingyi, a veteran of the Long March who stood up for democratic political change before his death a decade ago.

Meanwhile, in Hong Kong, two well-known figures associated with the Tiananmen protests - Ren Wanding and Chen Ziming - have been allowed to visit and speak freely to the press..." more at http://www.atimes.com/atimes/China/ID28Ad02.html

We've certainly seen a variety of crashings go down on stage, but a determined protester and undeterred advocate for open source software rudely (albeit humorously) interrupted Bill Gates' speech at Peking University in Beijing, China. Gates, who was speaking on the topic of Innovation in China's future and receiving (yet another) honorary manager title, had his after-party all shook up by an off-kilter open source proponent who reportedly darted across the stage, "loudly shouted against Microsoft's monopoly," proudly displayed a sign of "Free software, open source," and was promptly "tackled by security and removed for questioning." It was suggested that the culprit may have been a member of the Linux Professional Institute, and while we're not exactly sure if Michael Dell would've shown any forgiveness, feel free click on through for a closeup of the sign and the unfortunate aftermath. http://www.engadget.com/2007/04/20/open-source-protestor-crashes-bill-gates-speech-in-china/

China's iconic Yangtze river is in serious trouble, with some parts irreversibly damaged by pollution and more than 600km of it in a critical condition, a Chinese report has said.

Nearly 30 per cent of the river's main tributaries are also badly polluted causing a huge impact on aquatic life in China's longest waterway, the study found.

"The impact of human activities on the Yangtze water ecology is largely irreversible," Yang Guishan, one of the chief editors of the report, was quoted by the state-run Xinhua news agency as saying. The report says billions of tons of waste are dumped into the river every year with excessive levels of ammonia, nitrogen and phosphorous taking a huge toll... more at http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/89048591-9183-4A35-8654-3070DE0F57BC.htm

Child-focused international development agency, Plan, will in May start rolling out a training programme for pre-school teachers in ten counties of Shaanxi Province in a bid to support local government efforts in what is becoming a new frontier for rural education.

Children from poor families are expected to enjoy greatly improved access to schooling as a result of the central government’s recent decision to waive “miscellaneous” fees for nine years of compulsory education in rural areas. However, China’s countryside lags far behind the cities in pre-school provision, which is known to improve educational performance in later years... article at http://www.chinadevelopmentbrief.com/

One of the areas I'm curious about (see previous posts here and here) is the development of practices and laws concerning virtual property in China. China currently has a system of mixed ownership models (private, state, cooperative, joint venture, etc.) and a range of legal protections for different kinds of property (the recent nailhouse events are an example of this). No reason to think that we won't, therefore, see some unique solutions to the kinds of virtual economy problems that the folks at Terra Nova have been writing about so eloquently for years. Found this on cndig: from the China Youth Daily, "How much are QQ numbers actually worth?" Below is a summary of what I found interesting in the article.

Apparently there was a vigorous debate on the legal status of virtual property at a China Forum on Internet and IPR Criminal Protection that recently took place in Shenzhen. Because the law is unclear about the status of various kinds of virtual assets, it's hard for officials to know how to define and prosecute virtual asset theft.

Located in Shenzhen, Tencent CEO Ma Huateng in his capacity as a People's Congress Deputy for Shenzhen recently submitted a report on IP crimes and virtual assets to the Shenzhen Municipal Procuratorate. The report points out that Tencent is often a victim of Internet crimes and that legal mechanisms for addressing these problems are inadequate from http://www.virtual-china.org/

This is from a really good blog listed to the left in the links menu, that looks at politics in the PRC. This is a comment on recent appointments, and what it says about Hu.

This just in--Wang Qishan may be the next party secretary of Guangdong Province, which means a likely entrance into the Politburo. And this means that....he could be China's next Premier!! What is happening now is decidedly weird and unexpected. First of all, we have seen no movement for Hu Jintao's key lieutenants, the two Li's (Li Keqiang, Li Yuanchao). What is in store for them? One can presume two central positions, but there is a limited supply of those. The other two positions that come with more or less automatic seats in the Politburo are now filled by people who are not members of the Hu faction: Xi Jinping to Shanghai and now Wang Qishan to Guangdong.

The recent appointments of Zhang Gaoli to Tianjin and Zhao Hongzhu to Zhejiang also make little sense for Hu. While Zhang is a long-time Jiang crony, Zhao worked closely with Zeng Qinghong in the Central Organization Department between 2000-2002. In Shandong, another important province, we see Li Jianguo, a long-time Li Ruihuan follower, taking the top position. Tianjin, Zhejiang, and Shandong are all economic powerhouses. Yet, the Youth League faction is not taking the top jobs.

I am afraid that Hu is not as powerful as we had thought him to be in the aftermath of the Shanghai corruption case. The recent appointment pattern lends credence to the hypothesis that Zeng Qinghong played a crucial role in the removal of Chen Liangyu from Shanghai. The main thing to watch for during the 17th PC is whether these Zeng Qinghong appointments are a price for his retirement or whether he will stay on despite these appointments. If it is the latter case, Hu Jintao will confront coordinated resistance from powerful local leaders in the next five years. from http://chinesepolitics.blogspot.com/

For every legitimate Chinese journalist honestly plying his trade, there are scores trying to make a fast buck. Corruption is so widespread that there is little that press authorities can do about it. Beyond a few detentions here and the seizure of forged press cards there, China's brand of checkbook journalism will continue to thrive. - Kent Ewing (Apr 13, '07) For full article go to http://www.atimes.com/atimes/China/ID14Ad01.html

By Bertil Lintner

CHIANG MAI, Thailand - A disorderly line of Chinese citizens jostle through check-in at the airport in the northern Thai city of Chiang Mai on their way to boarding a flight for Bangkok. They are jabbering away, though not in the rough Teochew dialect spoken in nearby Yunnan province and long familiar in the markets of northern Thailand. Rather, they are speaking in the standard Mandarin of mainland China.

Nor are they tourists: ill-fitting suits, battered briefcases andmobile phones mark them out as business people flying to Bangkok to seek trade deals or land jobs. They're among the new wave of Chinese migrants who have over the past decade opened shops and eateries in Chiang Mai and other towns in northern Thailand - a creeping invasion that a growing number of local Thais are watching with unease.

"As a Thai, I feel overwhelmed," says a Bangkok-born woman who now lives in Chiang Mai. "Of course, Chinese have been moving south for centuries. But we have never seen as many new businessmen, and settlers, as now."

Northern Thailand is only one of their destinations. Large numbers of Chinese are also moving into northern Myanmar, northern Laos, Cambodia and further abroad - including the Pacific islands, Australia, the United States, the Russian Far East and Japan. More recently, South Korea has become a popular destination for Chinese migrants - both legal and illegal - as it's easier to enter than tightly sealed Japan.

China's new migrants are a breed apart from their peripatetic forebears, who spoke regional dialects and exhibited little nationalism, identifying more with the localities in China from which they hailed. The recent arrivals not only speak the national Mandarin language, but also tend to identify with China as a whole... more at http://www.atimes.com/atimes/China/ID17Ad03.html