PLANET china

One of my Chinese staff recently told me she has heard that some of the South Korean and Japanese plants in Suzhou with thousands of assemblers each have been laying off people since the beginning of October. The news put me in mind of a Financial Times op ed piece that irritated me a bit, since it seemed to echo the same sort of nonsense current President Bush encouraged Americans to do when the dot-com bubble burst in 2001: consume.

Editors of the Financial Times implored China to spur slowing economic activity in the country by encouraging consumption. The Chinese government’s announcement of a half-trillion dollar stimulus package for the economy was the cause for the piece. I disagree, though, with the Paper’s assertion that - to paraphrase President George W Bush just after 9/11 - people should go to the Mall and spend. Instead, the Chinese government needs to begin building the sort of Social Security institutions and creating WPA (Works Progress Administration) -style programs for the people that are losing their jobs through the latest economic re-strucuturing: a movement away from low-margin export manufacturing to more capital-intensive production and services. It was just such government investments that put America back on track eighty years ago as an economic superpower during the Great Depression.

Well, for one, we guess it gets you the Olympics in Beijing. And loads of infrastructural upgrades. But China was banking on the Olympics for an image makeover, and judging from Futurebrand's 2008 Country Brand Index, the results are somewhat encouraging. China placed 56th out of the 78 countries ranked, with 29% of respondents giving the country a "very good" or "excellent" overall rating. It did, however, make the biggest gains in overall brand rating, improving by a full 13%.

The Index reported that China's brand showed a "comparative lack of maturity", but looking forward, they also "expect the complete Olympic experience to propel Brand China to a higher ranking overall and also in specific areas such as environmentalism, infrastructure and economic standard of living."

From Adam Schokora's new blog 56minus1:

this video short was filmed on the campus of the Guangzhou Academy of Fine Arts. Also available on Youku* and Tudou for perhaps faster loading in China. Music by B6, a song called “Take You with a Sigh” from his new album Post Haze.

The Kee Club (796 HuaiHai Lu) is a beautiful private restaurant, bar and retail complex in a mansion just off the well-worn track of Huai Hai Lu. Now if you haven’t heard of it yet, it’s because you are poor and they don’t want your type in there. Now move along please.

Shanghaiist was invited to a rum tasting at this Dunhill / Vacheron Constantine show-palace to drink expensive alcohol and nibble on rich chocolate bonbons (and we did it all for you, dear reader).

JM Rhum and Damoiseau are producers of Rum’s answer to single malt Whiskey: single estate, single vintage, aged in oak barrels for years, it is to a Bacardi and Coke what Nina Simone is to Scary Spice.

Without the Dalai Lama's presence among them, can an experiment in democracy divine the future of his people

Viewpoint: Why give front-page coverage to the rants of a movement whose relevance, beyond the publicity it generates, is questionable?

China's recycling industry once brought improbable prosperity to hundreds of junkmen. That was before the global slowdown

Frustrated with the Federal Government, beleaguered Florida homeowners try to take matters into their own hands

In challenging and unseating a committee chairman known as "The Truck," California Congressman Henry Waxman has succeeded in the kind of power sortie that happens only once every few decades in Congress

Raw footage from NoCommentTV of President Hu's recent trip to Cuba as part of his ongoing whirlwind tour across Latin America. Many Chinese students and future diplomats receive their Spanish language training in Cuba. In return for a performance item put up by Chinese students singing Guantanamera, Raul Castro (brother of Fidel Castro) took centrestage and sang The East is Red《东方红》which he says he learnt in 1953. The song lauds Mao Zedong as saviour of the Chinese people and was once China's de facto national anthem during the Cultural Revolution. Castro sure has lots to sing for. Yesterday's China Daily reported that China has deferred for 10 years an unspecified trade debt Cuba accumulated in 1995, and made an additional $80 million donation toward its hospital modernisation programme.

For those of you that are interested, the lyrics and English translation of The East is Red follow after the jump:

For many now.. if you mention economic meltdown or implosion, pictures of Wall Street and Guangzhou come to mind.

However, for those in the earthquake affected regions of China’s southwest provinces, the economic aftershocks are still be felt by many.

In this clip, Nick Macke presents the economic hurdles that are faced in the region.  For me, the most powerful part of the clip was at the camps.  As part of the Hands On Chengdu Community Container program, I just had 2 of my directors return from the camps , and there are a lot of people who simply are looking to get back to work and make a living.

The Party: changing strategy
via WikipediaThe internet cannot be stopped by filtering and other censorship tools. That messages has been told over the past few months repeatedly, like here and here. But Reuters got now also a confirmation from the propaganda authorities that they have changed their policies from trying to block unfavorable news into managing the process.

"The central government has permitted the local authorities to publicize negative news themselves, with no need to report to upper governments any more," the academic said. "They have a principle of 'report the facts quickly, but be cautious on the causes behind the facts."'
Official news organizations often lag behind reports posted on the Internet by bloggers and investigative reporters, and usually play down any elements that might raise distrust of the Communist Party, which prizes stability.

The Economy
Xinhua: China lobbies against protectionism at APEC summit
FT: China on the verge of FTA with Peru
Reuters: China, Cuba rework debt
AFP: China Eastern and China Southern Airlines get bailed out
IHT: Chinese automakers look for their own bailout
AP: Job outlook in China 'grim'
The Guardian: China to reform fuel taxes

We have been hearing about Xiami’s new beta from multiple sources. Xiami is a P2P music sharing community. The key services include a P2P client, web based metadata directory and economy system.

To have a preview of the music, you don’t need the client. There’s a web based music player. But to download the music, you will need the client. It’s like verycd, but focused on music.

How Iraq has been transformed into a nation of SOFA potatoes by the debate over the fate of U.S. forces in the country

I was just starting to translate an article about some kind of “energy resource grass” being harvested along the Jingcheng Expressway as it runs through Miyun County, but I wasn’t feeling that on to it even as I opened the article, and something about this evening has been really distracting. Part of the distraction has been Beijing hip-hop, which is odd because I’ve never really been in to hip-hop. But through processes I’m really too tired to elaborate I found some cool and some really hillarious (if you can handle large volumes of foul language) sounds. One of those nights, in other words. I’ll get back to the serious stuff tomorrow, or maybe the weekend.

Somehow a bunch of random stuff all came together just before dinner inspiring me to post a few links, at least. Two are hillarious, one is infuriating, one is awe-inspiring, one is moving.

The two funny ones are from Hecaitou’s blog. The first is a video, which is good for those who can’t read Chinese, because I’m not even going to attempt to translate the second.

JZ Club has started hosting concerts at the Shanghai Center Theater (the one in the Portman Ritz-Carlton building) and the next one is tomorrow (Friday, that is). This show is featuring Bob James, the smooth jazz pianist who recently recorded his album "Angels of Shanghai" here in town with a number of local traditional intrumentalists. There's more information about the project on Bob James' website.

Performers:
LI li - pipa (琵琶)
LIU zhen - erhu (二胡)
LU cong - dizi (笛子)
MA jiajun - erhu (二胡)
Gene JACKSON - drums
Bob JAMES - piano
Tetsuo SAKURAI - bass
Jack LEE - guitar
XIA tao - gu qin (古琴)

,Victor Shih, the highest newcomer

Shanghaiist warned about it, but my day is lost already. Life has published beautiful pictures of China and Shanghai (here is one from Jack Birns, de old Bund, still in use for shipping).