A letter from Grace Wang
The Chinese girl who has been vilified for getting on the wrong side of Tibet independence demonstrators and Chinese students at Duke university has published a letter in the Washington Post.
« April 6, 2008 - April 12, 2008 | Main | April 20, 2008 - April 26, 2008 »
April 19, 2008
April 18, 2008
Help! We can’t go to China
FEER's Traveller's Tales blog reports that the American Chamber of Commerce is seeking visa anecdotes from members:
You can see the problem: Amcham exists to represent its members, but it is hesitant to call the Foreign Ministry a bunch of liars. It’s patently obvious what is going on from our Wanchai window — the line of angry laowais outside the visa office is curling around the China Resources Building. Americans can count themselves lucky that they can still get single-entry visas after filling in a form documenting their entire life story, genealogy and exactly where they will be during their stay in the people’s paradise — other nationalities have apparently been completely banished.
China's story: putting the PR into the PRC
At Open Democracy, James A Millward presents six things China can do to spruce up its international image:
It does no one any good if China and the rest of the world are separated by this chasm of mutual misunderstanding, the effects of which could linger well after the Olympics are over. It avails little simply to enjoin the Chinese government to tear down its information firewall or teach Chinese schoolchildren a fuller version of Chinese history. Like most criticism at this juncture, this will only seem like piling on the anti-China attacks.
Oddly enough, however, much could be gained if China only learned how to do a better job talking to outsiders about China. China has a plausible rationale for its actions, and need neither look like a bully nor feel beleaguered. But when it comes to public relations, the Chinese authorities - and some increasingly angry Chinese students studying abroad - are their own worst enemy.
via ImagethiefDriving without lights in Peking
Shrink what?
Marc van der Chijs has posted a picture of a rather amazing Chinese feminine health product that is used to 'kill spermatozoom' and several other remarkable things.
Media control is key condition for political reform
David Bandurski at the China Media Project looks at a book called Gongjian: A Report on Political Reform in China After the 17th Party Congress.
Apparently reflecting the views of Hu Jintao, the book says that keeping tight control of the media is a key condition for political reform to avoid chaos and color revolution.
Beijing - Shanghai high speed rail breaks ground
From Xinhua:
Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao attends the ground-breaking ceremony of the Beijing-Shanghai high-speed railway in Beijing, April 18, 2008. The railway, which will be completed in five years and run at 300km/hr to 350 km/hr, would cut travel time between the Chinese capital and the country's leading financial hub from around 10 hours at present to about five hours.
China bashing: it's back
John Pomfret describes the western media's abrupt turnaround on the China issue:
A few years ago, the Western media enthused about how Chinese were freer than at any time in their history. Remember the stories about how the Internet was going to set China free? Or village elections? Not anymore. These days the glass is definitely half-empty. Beijing obviously hasn't helped. Its human rights policies have taken a decided turn for the worse since President Hu Jintao took power in 2001.
And on foreign policy, a few years ago, even a few months ago, Western media outlets had a load of nice things to say about China; Beijing was downright pro-American. China was aiding the U.S. in North Korea and Afghanistan; it had helped convince Sudan to accept U.N. forces. A New York Times piece in October (with the great headline: Look Who's Mr. Fixit for a Fraught Age) concluded that China had suddenly become a key to the resolution of trouble around the world.
April 17, 2008
Taiwan's lawyers given green light for mainland
The AFP and Taipei Times report that China will allow lawyers from Taiwan to practice on the mainland following qualifying exams:
Ding Lu (丁露), director of China's National Judicial Examination Center, told Xinhua news agency that many Taiwanese want to take the exam to obtain qualifications to practice law in China.
In recent years, a number of people, including legal professionals, had enquired about China’s judicial exam and expressed a wish to take part, Ding said.
The move would help promote cross-strait exchanges and provide better legal services for "compatriots" living in both areas, Ding said.
The news will be of particular interest to Taiwanese lawyers, who have complained about a lack of access to the Chinese legal system.
The controversial baby books of China’s Dr. Spock
At the Wall Street Journal's Buzzwatch blog, Maya Alexandri writes about Xiao Wu's best-selling child care manuals:
Xiao Wu is against split pants, the Chinese toddler’s traditional togs, saying they contribute to children being toilet trained at too early an age, before the youngsters can control their bodily functions properly. And she counsels Chinese parents not to expect unconditional obedience from their child because doing so interferes with the child’s development as an individual.
What is in the minds of overseas Chinese youths?
At Asia Sentinel, Alice Poon translates Xu Zhiyuan's story of the experiences of a father and his son during their seven-year stay in Italy:
While the father fully appreciates the comfort and opportunities his new place of domicile has to offer and thoroughly enjoys his new experiences, the son struggles to find his true identity and station in life in the strange land, often depressed by unhappy personal experiences which he believes have something to do with his ethnicity.
Lao Wang is described as a typical middle-aged, pragmatic and hard-working Chinese emigrant from Wenzhou, Zhejiang, who is in the food trading business and who now lives with his son in Rome. He set up his own trading company in Rome in 2001 with a staff of about 10 persons, using his hometown as a food exporting base which employs a few hundred workers.
April 16, 2008
All his own work
Peter Neville-Hadley reflects on travel guide writing in the wake of Thomas Kohnstamm's admission that his work for the Lonely Planet guidebook wasn't as professional as it could have been:
Time after time LP books make only the vaguest gestures at useful directions or transport information. Time after time they say there's no public transport when there is. Time after time it's plain from the text that hearsay is being used. I once used to know one of the LP China authors who told me quite frankly that if he found he'd forgotten a phone number he'd just make it up. There wasn't time to go back and they weren't paying him enough to bother. And in effect, since he had not a word of Mandarin, he couldn't have used the telephone or printed references to find out even if he could have been bothered.
Mutual respect? It must be some kind of trap…
The Mutant Palm digs behind the Tibet protests, the mistaken manhunt launched by an online forum, cultural blinders, and anti-Chinese paranoia:
I prefer the term "Red Guard 2.0" for the sort of netizens who have been hounding the guy who isn’t Lobsang Gendun, since they have Google Maps and websites and newfangled technnology. And I especially reserve that title those who have been targeting Wang Qianyuan of Duke University and even more terrifyingly her poor parents in Qingdao, all because she, a Han Chinese girl, crossed the picket line and ended up in a photograph standing on the Pro-Tibet side of one protest. Some people are publishing photos of the building and front door of her parents apartment as part of the campaign to catch the "race traitor". It doesn’t seem much of an exaggeration to compare them to the Red Guard - issue them an armband tomorrow and they’re off to the races.
China to CNN: say sorry
Xinhua English and Chinese websites, The China Daily and most daily newspapers in Beijing are running a version of this as a top story today:
China is shocked by and strongly condemns CNN host Jack Cafferty's remarks, which maliciously attacked the Chinese people, Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Jiang Yu said at a regular press briefing on Tuesday.
Cafferty said in a TV show on April 9 that the Chinese products are 'junk' and the Chinese people 'basically the same bunch of goons and thugs they've been for the last 50 years'.
April 15, 2008
Mmm. . .doughnuts
China Economic Review brings good news for doughnut lovers on the mainland:
While Dunkin' and Mr Donut duke it out in Shanghai, the last member of the global doughnut trifecta, Krispy Kreme, is looking to take its heavily-glazed, deep-fried rings to Shenzhen.
"We are negotiating with the franchisor but nothing has materialized yet," said Jim (Krispy Kreme’s Hong Kong CEO). "Shenzhen is a migrant city, many are from the north, and the people are more receptive to fried products."
See also: Donut Factory doesn't fill Shanghai's big donut hole at ShanghaiistThe real team Darfur
From Khartoum-based journalist and blogger Andrew Heavens:
A world away from the political rows over China and the Olympic Games, a young Darfuri man crouches down at the start of a cracked and pitted running track in the capital of Sudan...
...In a few years, Sudan is going to be on a par with Kenya and Ethiopia as a running nation.
Architect Ma Yansong Sells Out
Luke Mines of Sexy Beijing finds architect Ma Yansong pimping for a kitchen appliance manufacturer.
A Death Note for distribution
Kaiju Shakedown suggests that distributors would be wise to seek other channels for screening Asian films (Bollywood pictures excepted):
It's becoming increasingly rare for an Asian movie to gross over $100,000 at the box office in America, so what do you do? Stop importing them entirely?
...It's time to accept reality: Asian movies can no longer compete against Hollywood at the American multiplex, so maybe it's time distributors stopped acting like they were movies and they became special gatherings where local fans could interact and hang out? Distributors will be nervous about losing imaginary profits, and about slicing the pie up so thin (NCM takes a large cut of the box office I would imagine, as does the local multiplex) but when they look at all the P&A costs they can save I think it becomes a lot more attractive.
Olympic ad sales 'strong'
From SportsBusiness.com:
US Olympic broadcaster, NBC, has sold three-quarters of its 2008 Games advertising space at strong prices, despite recent protests surrounding the torch relay.
Cross straits diplomatic breakthrough
Dexter Roberts writing for BusinessWeek from the Boao forum:
But all of [the important guests were] overshadowed by the presence of 67-year-old Vincent Siew, a Taiwanese politician who hasn't even assumed office yet. Siew, who becomes vice-president under Taiwanese President Ma Ying-Jeou on May 20, got less than half an hour of rushed talks on Apr. 12 with China's President Hu Jintao on the sidelines of the Boao Forum. Still, with those 20 minutes Siew stole the show from the many other dignitaries, with crowds of journalists and diplomatic and corporate delegates mobbing him everywhere the career politician went.
That's because the meeting between Siew and Hu (and a follow-up session a day later with China's newly appointed Commerce Minister) was truly a diplomatic breakthrough.
China to build hospital in Sudan
Xinbhua reports:
China is to build a large-scale hospital in the Blue Nile State in southeastern Sudan, a local official announced on Monday.
BBC poll: perceptions of China
Black and White Cat has posted the results of a BBC World Service poll about the way people of different nations perceive the influence on the world of China, the U.S., and their own countries.
An.. interesting thing is the big divide between the developed and the developing world in assessing China’s influence. Europeans and North Americans have a much more negative view of China than Africans, Latin Americans and Asians. Europeans and North Americans might want to bear this in mind when they talk about the 'international community.'
Beijing Olympic air quality measures announced
The China Daily reports:
Work at Beijing construction sites will be suspended in the run-up to, and during, the Olympic and Paralympic Games, the municipal government announced Monday.
The suspension - along with a slew of other initiatives - to be effective from July 20 to September 20, aims to ensure better air quality during the Games...
April 14, 2008
Nanjing experiments yet again with new method of promoting officials
Ning Song at China Elections & Governance discusses Nanjing's recent televised debates involving candidates for positions in the Labor Bureau:
This live broadcast of an official election debate has generated significant media coverage across the nation. "Although Nanjing residents didn't vote directly for the candidates, they had an opportunity to express their opinions and report any illegal behavior on the part of the candidates. It is one way for residents to participate in the election," a Nanjing local newspaper commented.
Jia Baoyu! You are the real murderer!
Beijing smoking ban not for restaurants and bars
From The China Daily:
Beijing restaurants, bars and Internet cafes have been exempted from a proposed smoking ban at public venues in response to concerns expressed by business owners.
China's loyal youth
From an op-ed piece by Matthew Forney in The New York Times:
Educated young Chinese, far from being embarrassed or upset by their government’s human-rights record, rank among the most patriotic, establishment-supporting people you’ll meet.
Fallout from the Free Tıbet protests
John Kennedy and Global Voices Online translates some of the invective hurled at a Chinese student in the US who was on the wrong side of the Tıbet demonstrations
April 13, 2008
Beijing's first private restaurant: An oral history
Eddie Cheng translates an interesting China Youth Daily profile of Liu Guixian and her restaurant at No. 43 Cuihua Hutong, north of Wangfujing:
I remember back then, the Business Bureau was very far from my home. I didn't have a bicycle, so I had to walk. I got there, and told them I would like to open a restaurant. They asked me if I had room for it. I said yes, I could use the room we were sleeping in. "Where would your family sleep then?" they asked. I said, "On the roof. We could sleep on the roof." Everyone in the room laughed so hard. Finally, they told me to go back. They said I could go ask for assistance from my old man's work unit (工作单位) because I had many kids and hardship. They could not help me here. There was no such policy.