Location, Location, Location

Location 1: “Location-based Networking”

status: lekker op de trekker »

Location-based networking is the next big thing, if …, yes, if enough people are interested in telling the world where they are. “Enough people” would probably spell more than the four per cent of American adults who have ever used such a network at all (according to a research firm quoted by the Economist in August), and privacy issues would need to be solved to the satisfaction of the potential users, too, they say.

I can’t believe that the latter issue will be a real one. Who of the great communicators wouldn’t be prepared to risk their home being looted, so long as a sufficiently big number of people (what spells enough depends on their egos) takes note of their current adventures in a shopping mall? Burglars at their homes while they shop will help to make room for the latest purchases.

If the critical mass of users to make location-based networking a big business can be reached may be a different question. The fashions seem to come and go so easily and quickly now that this way of communication may become history before it becomes big.

Location-based networking may, however, offer a number of people some help in killing, rather than using their time.

Location 2: Where is “Greater China”?

Ben Guoren had a session with a crystal ball and found some twenty-two answers to this question. I seem to disagree with what I see as a somewhat self-defeating (even if ironical) finding of his or her that Taiwan would become part of Greater China but not [be] subsumed into the PRC because we’ll have a different name … something like Taiwan Special Administrative Region or Chinese Taiwan Special Economic Zone.

In my view, the name of the game is to state the future you aspire to in the indicative or future mode, and to reserve the conditional forms for the ideas of an aggressor.

Location 3: Justrecently’s Location

My location won’t be in front of an internet browser as frequently as during the past year or so. Not for the coming two weeks, anyway. However, there is no reason for you, the loyal enough readers of this blog, to panic. I’ll be back – after all, I’m not out of ideas or enthusiasm for blogging, but only under some time constraints.

Meantime, for the somewhat more meagre season to come, I cordially invite everyone to take stock of these – now 1043 – posts so far.

Or maybe you will wish to join Crystal Tao and Mylaowai in exploring the location of the Qija people.

Yours considerately
JR

Foreign Investment in China: Hollow Complaints

Seriously, you can't deny that Uncle Wen is very nice.

Main Link: Taiwan News, September 6, 2010

Taiwan News quotes China News Service (中新社) and Chinese deputy director at the ministry of commerce Shen Danyang (沈丹陽) as saying that some foreign media and organizations’ statements about a worsening environment for foreign investment in China reflected the importance foreign multi-national companies attached to the Chinese markets (反映了跨國公司對中國市場的重視), and that they didn’t reflect a general view among the multinationals; nor did such statements mean that the Chinese government’s policies on foreign investment had changed.

The Taiwan News report mostly reproduces arguments by the Chinese ministry of commerce available on People’s Daily Online‘s English edition, that with the global cross-border investment down 40 percent in the last year, foreign investment China absorbed only fell by 2.6 percent, and that

Ministry of Commerce data showed in the first seven months of this year, China actually used foreign capital of 58.4 billion U.S. dollars, up nearly 21 percent. China approved establishment of nearly 14,500 foreign investment enterprises, up almost 18 percent.
[Shen] said that currently foreign-funded enterprises in China are doing well and remain optimistic about China’s development prospects, which to some degree reflects that the Chinese government’s efforts to improve the investment environment has won recognition of investors and boosts the confidence of foreign investment.

The Chinese government was creating an increasingly better investment environment for foreign-invested companies (中國政府為外商投資創造了日益完善的投資環境), and the country’s attractiveness for foreign investment was incessantly increasing (日益完善).

In addition to the China News Service article, Taiwan News quotes a referral by Shen to the American Chamber of Commerce’s 2010 Business Environment Survey (2010年商務環境調查報告) as stating that last year, 71 per cent of American companies in China ran profits, that 82 per cent were optimistic about business prospects in China, and that 91 per cent of them were optimistics about the prospects within the coming five years. The survey, apparently of April this year by the AmCham Shanghai, quotes its Shanghai office’s president Brenda Foster as saying that

“We don’t see a dramatic change in sentiment from our membership [...] Is China a challenging place to do business? Yes. It always has been and we will continue to work with the national government to develop a more competitive, open market in China.
But our member companies remain committed to the China market and we’re seeing many of them expand their operations here.”

The survey adds that

Though the overall perception of the business environment in China remains positive, American companies surveyed believe that the United States must continue to engage China on a number of important issues. In order to enhance the competitiveness of American companies in China, survey respondents note that the U.S. government should press China for improved market access and strengthened intellectual property rights (IPR) enforcement. Companies also ranked the need to maintain a consistent U.S. trade policy as a key priority.

It also points out that the Indigenous Innvoation Policy, a directive issued in November 2009, would, after implementation, hurt business in the view of thirty per cent of AmCham member companies in China. AmCham believed that the policy will restrict market access for foreign companies in information technology and other high-tech sectors.

Referring to the directive as the “National Indigenous Innovation Product Accreditation”, or “Order 618″, the European Chamber of Commerce in China (EUCCC), in its Position Paper 2010/2011 published – not cited in the above-mentioned Taiwanese and Chinese sources -, also voices misgivings. As it explicitly connected indigineous innovation to government procurement, it would discriminate against foreign-invested innovative business, on the basis of the geographic location of the registration of the patents and trademarks upon which their products were developed and marketed. The EUCCC also criticizes non-tarriffal barriers and intellectual-property policies restricting market access.

The EUCCC expresses the hope that its position paper would help to turn recent statements by senior Chinese government leaders (i. e. Chief State Councillor Wen Jiabao while talking with EU Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso and European business leaders in April, and German chancellor Angela Merkel in July) that foreign-invested companies in China would be treated as Chinese companies into concrete actions.

Wen Jiabao (温家宝) has traditionally been the Chinese government’s empty shirt for proclaiming a better future, among Chinese people, and now for foreign investors, too. But foreigners shouldn’t hold their breath. In recent days, a speech by Wen in Shenzhen, concerning the need for political reform, sparked another discussion about more transparent government operations. Deng Yuwen (邓聿文), associate senior editor of Study Times, a publication of the Central Party School, argues that a safer legal foundation for Chinese journalists and smaller numbers of restricted “red-head documents” could help to hold officials accountable. That said, such a legal base for journalism supervising power without changes on the political system, was “easier said than done” (谈何容易).

That said, the Chinese government appears to have an irrefutable point in arguments with foreign investors: action speaks louder than words – and companies that complain about but still accept the rules as they come in China are no credible plaintiffs after all. Rants alone make no difference, and companies won’t act in a political way.

The CCP’s lack of transparency was criticized by Chinese media – apparently including party mouthpiece People’s Daily -,   as early as in 1984. It’s hard to see why Wen Jiabao’s speech on political reform in Shenzhen should lead to a level playing field. In 2012, his two terms at the helm of government will be history. He has sparked the debate about reform issues just in time to pass the issues on to his successors, for neglection as usual.

If China indeed doesn’t play by the WTO roles, its access to European markets should be restricted correspondingly. That isn’t a matter of “justice”, which doesn’t count for much in business anyway, but a matter of Europe’s economic and technological survival.

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Related
Reform without Zijiren, October 5, 2009

People’s Daily: Oppose the Scarlet Letters

Main Link: 人民日报：政府要视媒体为朋友而不是对手

Deng Yuwen (邓聿文), associate senior editor of Study Times, a publication of the Central Party School, writes in the official People’s Daily today that there need to be stronger institutional protections for media to guarantee “supervision by public opinion” (舆论监督), or media supervision,

the China Media Project (CMP, Hong Kong) quotes People’s Daily.

The speech followed a recent speech by Chinese chief state councillor Wen Jiabao (温家宝) on improving governance, writes CMP on its Newswire page (no permalinks there).

The media were special in that they worked in a more open, realtime, and authoritative way than other tools of supervision, Deng wrote in his article of September 3. A number of protracted and unresolved corruption cases and cases which had violated the legal rights of industries and citizens, attempts to settle matters outside the legal system, and an unnecessarily restricted numbers and illegal cases of “red head documents” (红头文件)^*) had been exposed by the media. After all, media exercised no actual power and could themselves be interfered with by the authorities, which put up obstacles for the media, for reasons of publications “affecting unity” (影响团结) etc.. Deng cites the Xifeng incident (西丰事件) as an example.

The work of journalists was best guaranteed if governments and its leaders changed their views and looked at the press as friends, rather than adversaries, which could help the authorities to act in accordance with the law. Secondly, the authorities should reduce their camera obscura proceedings (暗箱操作的方式) and become more transparent, and thirdly, journalists who got into trouble with authorities should get immediate legal assistance and protection (得到司法的及时救助和保护). Among certain cadres, there was still the notion that power was above the law, which was exactly why Wen Jiabao had emphasized the need for leading cadres on all levels to respect the law and to fullfill the People’s Courts’ judgments and decisions. It could be said that if the system found no solutions to such problems, the difficult situation of the media could hardly be alleviated.

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Footnote

^*) Baidu‘s dictionary describes red head documents as a document to instruct leading bodies of the party and the government and adds a description by People’s Daily of July 5, 1984 to the definition:

It binds by forces influenced by traditional habits, sorts out those who don’t take its ways, and has for long adopted wait-and-see attitudes, has added certain functional departments’ conditions and restrictions, and has become an “obstruction” to Enterprise reform.

指党、政领导机关下发的文件。因版头名称常印成红字，故称。

《人民日报》1984.7.5：“受旧的传统习惯势力束缚，离开‘红头文件’不走路的人，长期以来采取等待、观望的态度，加上某些职能部门的条条框框，成为企业改革中的‘梗阻’。”

Global Voices quotes from a blog by Jason Ng, Keneng Ba (“Maybe”), which describes an alleged role of the red head documents in internet censorship:

Sometimes, the Internet censor would not only demand the website to delete content, but also demand them to re-post or direct search result to certain official websites. Such kind of notification is usually called Red Head paper. They are issued either by the Internet control administration or by the government information office.

Related

Wen Jiabao puts Political Reform on Agenda, Aug 29, 2010

Thilo Sarrazin: “so Violent in Language”

burqas needn't be boring (courtesy Tai De)

The following is a translation of a post by Tai De, written last Monday.

Thilo Sarrazin is a member of the German Social Democratic Party (SPD), a former Berlin senator of finance, and currently a federal Banker. Germany’s federal Bank apparently expected him to lead a calm life when signing the contract with him, or so the bank’s reaction to his interview with “Lettre International” of last year would suggest – an interview in which he said that he didn’t need to respect someone “who lives of this state, rejects this state, doesn’t take care of his childrens’ education and who keeps producing little headscarf girls.”

Sarrazin’s statements may not be adequate, given his current post. His choice of words discredit him personally, I suppose. Provocations can be useful, but in this case, one gets the impression that as early as a year ago, he was trying to create interest in a book of his which is now being published. In either case, Turks whose daughters wear no headscarfs may feel free to be mortified, too, especially if they are greengrocers (Gemüsehändler). What’s so bad about that job?

I can’t get rid of the feeling that Sarrazin doesn’t want to convince his audience, but rather wants to rip them off in the book shops – and that he despises them. Some of those who now love him for “not mincing his words” hated him not long ago, when he instructed Hartz-IV recipient how to perform miracles in the kitchen, at less than four euros a day.

So here we are now, “dumbing down the natural way”, i. e. thanks to immigration from Turkey and the Arab world, somehow. Maybe that statement is racist, if it intends to say that the migrants were naturally dumb. That’s how Sigmar Gabriel, the SPD’s supreme chairman and sulker, appears to read it. Basically, he had no problem in sparring with Sarrazin’s case about migration, he said – but it was in part so violent in language that a discussion was hardly a possibility.

Which is bullshit. If it’s legally possible and gets sufficient majorities in the SPD’s relevant commissions or local branches, they can of course kick Comrade Thilo out. But they shouldn’t believe that they can thus avoid the issues. Many voters, after all, expect them to deal with Sarrazin’s criticism. After deduction of lots of Sarrazin razzmatazz, blanket insults, and personal vanity, there is still substance enough to be discussed, in order to review Germany’s migration and integration policies – and seen from this angle, Sarrazin’s provocations, the pleasantry of which are debatable, are a real offer. There’s no need to buy his book to that end.

And after the review, the real work would only begin. From the review, one has to draw conclusions for practical policies. Which employee of which welfare office will be obliged to face certain coevals – with or without migratory background – with the cuts in benefits Sarrazin would like to see imposed on those who refuse to work, or to seek education? Sarrazin is – hopefully – accompanied by bodyguards. A welfare office’s employee or director isn’t, unfortunately. And different from Sarrazin, he may live in the same neighborhood as does his reprimanded clients.

It may be part of a welfare worker’s job to bear that. But in some urban districts, such jobs will only find employees who don’t know what they are doing.

Such problems, too, are most probably solvable. The problem is that most controversies, Sarrazin’s included, stop exactly where the issues become tangible.

With an expulsion from a political party, if need be.

The Mental Overstayer (II)

« The Mental Overstayer (I)

Domination or Freedom?

It’s probably fair to say that there was much more admiration in China for the West in the 1980s than now, and a lot less anger vented at the West. It’s probably also safe to say that more exposure to the West, by travels, by the internet, plus a more refined Chinese propaganda response to such feelings in China, have all helped the CCP to reverse that tide. Many Chinese people who were with the June-4 movements in 1989 are now their own sharpest critics. Last but not least, worshipping is an exhausting exercise. When Song Qiang et al wrote “China can say No”, it came right at the time when the Chinese love for us ran out of steam. The image of the West seems to have turned radically, grinto one of shameless charlatans who had almost tricked them into submission, hadn’t the PLA heroically quashed them at the 25th hour.

But there is no smoking gun that would suggest that the CIA, the Friedrich-Naumann Foundation or any other foreign agency had a big stake in June 4.

Besides all that, both Westerners and Chinese people see trend lines of economic and political power which weren’t as palpable twenty or fifteen years ago as they are now. These trends are of course also frequently exaggerated. Many Chinese people believe that China will be tomorrow’s superpower, while the West is bound to decline. Many Westerners agree – some bloggers, too. Some currents within Chinese tradition – even within Confucianism – demand that power must legitimize itself, but for many Han Chinese, this is only true when it comes to their relationship with their political and economical bosses and rulers. When it comes to Tibetans, they expect submission. JR can’t prove this point, but believes that many Han Chinese people feel good about the way China treats Tibet, because they believe that Beijing is doing so on their behalf. They may be under the CCP’s control themselves, but after all, there are some people who rank lower than the Han Chinese. At least to some extent, China’s rise (at hindsight) appears to, in the eyes of common Chinese people and intellectuals, legitimize the June-4 massacres, and the wave of repression that followed suit.

There is probably no consistent definition of political freedom among Chinese people, and almost certainly not to the extent that there is an idea about what economic freedom. The individual strife for the latter, as far as I can see, is frequently believed to be a zero-sum game. Economic freedom would only attainable at the expense of other individuals. That’s where compatriots would become adversaries, even if under national rules.

The hypocrisies that go hand in hand with such ideas (stuff such as “we are all one family named China”) frequently make Western observers – and maybe not only mental overstayers – go ballistic.

Why is that? And would some kind of emotional exhaustion be the only reason why the Chinese public has stopped “worshipping the West”?

To be continued.

Suicides: no Hung Party, but in Want of “Spiritual Home”

People’s Net (人民网), in an article republished by Enorth today, advises its readers to put coverage on party officials’ suicides into perspective:

Recently, two unnatural deaths of party officials came to the attention of the public. On August 25, the chief prefect of Heibei Province’s Wanquan County (万全县), Wang Cong (王聪), hung himself in a hotel, and on August 27, a Sheyang County disciplinary commission official (Jiangsu Province) jumped to his death from a high building at the county’s People’s Hospital. Police have since released information that he [or she] was suffering from depression, and hadn’t faced economic problems.

In 2009, thirteen officials of all administrative levels had died unnatural deaths, mostly from suicide, People’s Net quotes incomplete statistics. In 2010, the media had made eight such cases public so far. There were experts who said that the rate of suicides among cadres was much lower than among the population in general. The most important thing was that cadres took care of their psychological health (摆正心态, bǎi zhèng xīn tài) found a clear orientation, and  secured themselves a happy spirit and a happy home (让自己拥有一个快乐的精神家园).

Among others, People’s Net refers to the case of Song Pingshun (宋平顺), once chairman of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC) Tianjin branch. Song’s probable motivation to kill himself, a reported graft probe, isn’t mentioned in the article; but in connection with a reported suicide of this year by Liu Yunfeng (刘云峰), of Zhengzhou City’s (Henan Province) building and construction authority, People’s Net cites an investigation that was in progress against Liu. People’s Net sees no reason to doubt that a lack of family happiness, corruption cases, career problems, and too much working pressure were the main reasons for cadres committing suicide, and quotes Li Chengyan (李成言), party secretary and/or professor at Beijing University’s school of government, as saying that “a clean political environment where  officials don’t want corruption, are unable to be corrupt, and don’t dare to be corrupt (前提是要有一个人人清廉的政治环境，让官员不想贪、不能贪、不敢贪，用制度保护官员的心理健康)” was “a precondition for the mental health of officials”. Li also refers to yet another paper released by the CCP this year which defines the standards of an honest cadre’s work.

Reference to the goal of a harmonious society is also made, and Zhou Xiaozheng (周孝正) *), a Renmin University sociologist, is quoted as saying that both cadres and common people were lacking a “spiritual home” (无论是平民百姓，还是官员，自杀最普遍的原因是缺少一个心灵的家园).

The main remedy, People’s Net finally quotes another expert, is for officials to keep the needs of the common people on their mind, to do their work in a fair and just way, and thus find peace of mind.

Adam Cathcart, in a post of Tuesday, writes that Uighur students and government officials are not allowed to worship in mosques. According to a report published by the US state department in 2006, Communist Party members are directed by party doctrine to be atheists and their family members are discouraged from public participation in religious ceremonies. Also in 2006, AsiaNews reported ideological differences on religion within the CCP’s Liaoning Province branch, concerning a reported diktat of the Central Committee of the Communist Party (CP) of Liaoning against the adherence of party members to a religious faith.

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Footnote
*) Zhou Xiaozheng has emphasized superficiality and impatience as drivers for psychological imbalances before. I’m not sure if spirituality is the adequate translation for 心灵 (xīn líng), but China Today quoted Zhou in connection with Buddhism in China, and people turning to spiritual conciliation.

Related
Ni Lingmei: Police Conclude Investigation, May 6, 2009