Wandering China

May 25, 2013 • 9:49 am 0

[Full text] Li Keqiang’s article published in Swiss newspaper [China.ORG] #RisingChina #LiKeqiang

The Chinese have much to glean from the Swiss model. For instance – they too share the ambition of mastering topography. The Swiss proved centuries ahead with mass transit across the most heinous terrain accomplished already in the late years of the Qing dynasty.

Top of the Jungfrau, often marketed to tourists as the top of Europe – is a plague and bit of Chinese cultural capital (see the locks?) that is revealing.

Top of the Jungfrau: Swiss with the foresight of the Chinese tourism wave – back in 2004.

Switzerland is the first European destination on the list of countries I will visit after becoming China’s premier. In Chinese culture, being “first” always carries symbolic meaning. My choice of Switzerland is in no way haphazard: we have got a few important things to do here. They are all landmark events in China’s opening-up, and they all have something to do with Switzerland. Li Keqiang

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[Full text] Li Keqiang’s article published in Swiss newspaper
published in Neue Zuricher Zeitung
Source – Xinhua, published May 24, 2013

Chinese Premier Li Keqiang published on Thursday a signed article titled “Why Switzerland?” in Neue Zuricher Zeitung, a German-language Swiss daily ahead of his visit to the European country.

The following is the full text of the English translation of the article:

Switzerland is the first European destination on the list of countries I will visit after becoming China’s premier. In Chinese culture, being “first” always carries symbolic meaning. My choice of Switzerland is in no way haphazard: we have got a few important things to do here. They are all landmark events in China’s opening-up, and they all have something to do with Switzerland.

The first job is to secure progress in the building of China-Switzerland FTA. It was during my last visit in 2010 that the two countries agreed to speed up preparations for an FTA. Over the past three years and more, the relevant departments and agencies of the two countries have worked energetically in the negotiations, and reached the final conclusion after nine rounds of talks. With the advent of FTA, Switzerland will become the first country in continental Europe and the first of the world’s top 20 economies to reach an FTA with China, the implications of which will be significant. Read the rest of this entry »

Filed under: Beijing Consensus, China Dream, Chinese Model, Culture, Economics, Europe, Finance, Government & Policy, Influence, International Relations, Lifestyle, Mapping Feelings, New Leadership, Peaceful Development, Politics, Public Diplomacy, Soft Power, Strategy, Switzerland, The Chinese Identity, The construction of Chinese and Non-Chinese identities, Tourism, Trade

May 24, 2013 • 7:28 am 0

Should Taiwan and China team up against the Phillipines? 一虎一席谈2013-05-18 两岸该不该联手严惩菲律宾？ [Tiger Talk] #RisingChina #Philippines

Greater China consensus at work?

Worth a watch to hear cross strait perspectives on dealing with the Philippines, an area of contention now turned consensus shared by both Taiwan and China.

That it runs like a public forum that airs diverse views is encouraging.

In Mandarin.

一虎一席谈2013-05-18 两岸该不该联手严惩菲律宾？(Youtube, May 18, 2013)

Filed under: Beijing Consensus, Charm Offensive, Chinese Model, Communications, Culture, Democracy, East China Sea, Government & Policy, Greater China, Ideology, Influence, International Relations, Mapping Feelings, Nationalism, New Leadership, Peaceful Development, Philippines, Public Diplomacy, Reform, Soft Power, Strategy, Tao Guang Yang Hui (韬光养晦), Territorial Disputes, The Chinese Identity, The construction of Chinese and Non-Chinese identities

May 23, 2013 • 9:55 am 0

Chinese Newspaper Confuses the Japanese Military with…DeviantArt [Kotaku] #RisingChina #FourthEstate

Intertextuality disconnect: Singapore based digital artist‘s DeviantArt design shows up on Chinese state media military sections.

Link to Xinhua report here.

Link to the Global Times here.

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Chinese Newspaper Confuses the Japanese Military with…DeviantArt
By Brian Ashcroft
Source – Kotaku, published May 22, 2013

source – http://meganerid.deviantart.com/

A website for Chinese newspaper Global Times recently published photos of a new Japanese military helicopter “design concept”. Too bad it’s not real. It’s not even made by the Japanese military.

On Global Times’ website Huanqiu.com, the text reads, “This appeared online today; it seems to be a concept for a Japanese Self Defense Force armed helicopter made by the Japanese military complex.” The paper also added, “One can see that because this type of technology is not yet available, it looks like something out of science fiction.”

The photos were published online in the Global Times’ “military” section. There was a gallery of “Fuujin Attack Helicopter” images, art site DeviantArt URL watermarks and all.

The story even appeared on Chinese news source Xinhua, which is like the Reuters or AP of China. The Xinhua story, which cites Global Times, also said that the Japanese Self Defense helicopter concept was “designed by a Japanese professional.”

On Chinese social networking site Weibo, people are baffled at how this helicopter would even fly. “This design looks cool but there isn’t anything special, does it even fly?” asked Weibo user hanyu_cger. “Without a tail rudder how does it maneuver?” Others thought it looks more like a comic book design than a military one. Some even claimed it was totally real, while others said it was a Japanese rip-off. Nobody really seemed to realize the DeviantArt URL (probably because it just looked like a string of English words).

On Chinese site NetEast, there are over 2,400 comments regarding these photos. Folks, apparently, are still talking about the images.

Online in Japan, people were baffled, too. On 2ch, some responded by saying things like, “What the hell is that?” Or, “I want a plastic model version of this!”

Needless to say, the Fuujin Attack Helicopter is not a real military concept. Rather, Ridwan Chandra Choa, a digital artist who previously worked at Lucasfilm Animation in Singapore, created it and uploaded it to art site DeviantArt.

The Global Times and Xinhua are real news sources in China. It’s odd that they would use images with DeviantArt watermarks to scare up fear among readers about Japanese military and technological power. Maybe they didn’t know.

This is somewhat reminiscent of the time, however, when people online in Japan confused a Blizzard staffer’s digital mecha creations with U.S. military hardware.

日本自卫队未来武装直升机构想 [Global Times/Huanqiu.com]

Eric Jou contributed to this article.

Filed under: Chinese Model, Communications, Culture, East China Sea, Ideology, International Relations, japan, Media, Public Diplomacy, Soft Power, Strategy, Technology, The Chinese Identity, The construction of Chinese and Non-Chinese identities

May 22, 2013 • 9:50 am 0

China Granted Access to Arctic Club as Resource Race Heats Up [Business Week] #RisingChina #ArcticResources

China granted observer status by the Arctic Council.

“The Arctic is another Africa for China,” Humpert said in an interview, referring to China’s investment in Africa for its natural resources. “With minimal investment, they can be in a position, twenty, thirty, fifty years down the road, to yield a big return and have a controlling influence.” Malte Humpert, executive director of the Arctic Institute, a Washington policy group

For more, see What Is China’s Arctic Game Plan? (the Atlantic, May 16, 2013)

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China Granted Access to Arctic Club as Resource Race Heats Up
By Nicole Gaouette and Niklas Magnusson
Source – Bloomberg Businessweek, published May 15, 2013

China was granted observer status by the Arctic Council, giving the world’s second-largest economy more influence amid an intensifying search for resources in the globe’s most northern region.

The eight-member council at a summit today in Kiruna, Sweden, also granted observer status to Japan, India, Italy, Singapore, and the Republic of Korea. The European Union application was deferred until members are satisfied that issues of concern — largely Canadian objections about EU restrictions on seal products — have been allayed.

“The symbolic importance for China shouldn’t be understated,” said Malte Humpert, executive director of the Arctic Institute, a Washington policy group. “China has identified the Arctic as a strategically and geopolitically valuable region,” and “having a seat at the table, albeit only as a permanent observer, has long been an essential part of the country’s regional strategy.”

The number of new observers reflects interest in the region’s burgeoning economic opportunities as climate change alters the physical landscape. Rapidly melting ice is opening new shipping routes that will make the trip from Europe to Asia shorter and cheaper during the summer months. The softening of Arctic ice could also bring within reach the 30 percent of the world’s undiscovered natural gas reserves and 13 percent of its undiscovered oil that lie under the Arctic Ocean floor, according to the U.S. Geological Survey estimates.

Please click here to read the full article at Bloomberg Businessweek

Read the rest of this entry »

Filed under: Africa, Arctic, Beijing Consensus, Charm Offensive, Chinese Model, Climate Change, Domestic Growth, Economics, Environment, Government & Policy, Influence, Infrastructure, International Relations, Modernisation, Peaceful Development, Politics, Public Diplomacy, Resources, Soft Power, Strategy, Territorial Disputes, The Chinese Identity, The construction of Chinese and Non-Chinese identities

May 21, 2013 • 11:40 am 0

China’s 20 year plan to pay 8 trillion to urbanize 500 million people by 2034 [Next Big Future] #RisingChina #Urbanisation

For more on the macroeconomics agency of the Chinese State Council, go to the National Development and Reform Commission of the People’s Republic of China’s (中华人民共和国国家发展和改革委员会) English online presence.

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China’s 20 year plan to urbanize 500 million people by 2034
Posted by Brian Wang
Source – Big Next Future, published May 19, 2013

After extensive consultation, co-ordinated by the National Development and Reform Commission, the long-term plan for China’s urbanisation is being finalised. Behind all the complex issues is one fundamental question: how will it be paid for?

Here the ballpark costs of $400 billion per year are suggested to use increased taxes and temporarily increasing the budget deficit from 2% of GDP to 5% and redirecting funds from rural land acquisition.

The costs of urbanization could be reduced by leveraging the factory mass produced skyscraper technology of Broad Group. China’s Broad Group is building the Sky City One using factory mass production. It is to likely completed after 90 days of assembly late in 2013 and the projected cost for the building is RMB 4 billion (US$628 million). Sky City will boast 220 floors, 1 million square meters (11 million square feet) of floor space and 104 elevators, according to the preliminary plans. It will cost $63 per square foot and house 30000 people in 4500 apartments. Five hundred Skycities would cost $314 billion (and costs could go down by having the follow on buildings being learned to be built for less). They would house the 15 million people each year that are urbanized. They would also have all of the schools, offices, hospitals and other facilities that were needed.

Please click here to read the full article at Next Big Future

Read the rest of this entry »

Filed under: Beijing Consensus, Charm Offensive, Chinese Model, Culture, Domestic Growth, Economics, Finance, Government & Policy, Ideology, Influence, Infrastructure, Mapping Feelings, Migrant Workers, Migration (Internal), Modernisation, New Leadership, Peaceful Development, Politics, Population, Public Diplomacy, Reform, Social, Soft Power, Strategy, Tao Guang Yang Hui (韬光养晦), The Chinese Identity, The construction of Chinese and Non-Chinese identities, Uncategorized

May 20, 2013 • 4:35 pm 1

How Chinese Subsidies Changed the World [Harvard Business Review] #RisingChina #Solar #GovernmentSubsidies

Unfair or unacceptable paradigm? China finances its economic reach to extend its soft power. It is perhaps, simply, a more synergistic strategy between state and its business sector.

Chinese solar products I use have proven ruggen and hardy, down to the little solar toys.

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How Chinese Subsidies Changed the World
by Usha C.V. Haley and George T. Haley |
Harvard Business Review, published April 25, 2013

Last week, LDK Solar, a struggling Chinese manufacturer of solar wafers and panels, announced that it had missed $24 million in bond payments. This news followed the bankruptcy in March of Wuxi Suntech, the main operating subsidiary of the world’s largest maker of solar panels, after it defaulted on a $541 million bond payment.

It is no coincidence that this upheaval in the Chinese solar industry is occurring at a time when the central government’s subsidies that had financed the industry’s explosive expansion have declined even as problems in the global solar-panel market have soared.

Since 2008, through government subsidies, the manufacturing capacity of China’s solar-panel industry grew tenfold, leading to a vast global oversupply. A surge in exports of Chinese panels depressed world prices by 75%. In 2012, China’s top six solar companies had debt ratios of over 80%. Our research showed that without subsidies, these companies would be bankrupt. If the Chinese government sticks to its decision to stop funding unprofitable solar-panel manufacturers and support a revamping of the industry, more bankruptcies and restructurings are sure to follow.

Please click here to read the full article at the Harvard Business Review.

Read the rest of this entry »

Filed under: Beijing Consensus, Charm Offensive, Chinese Model, Collectivism, Culture, Domestic Growth, Economics, Finance, Government & Policy, Harvard Business Review, Ideology, Influence, Infrastructure, International Relations, Mapping Feelings, Media, New Leadership, Peaceful Development, Politics, Public Diplomacy, Reform, Soft Power, Solar, Strategy, The Chinese Identity, Trade

May 19, 2013 • 10:45 am 0

Visiting Parents’ Relentless Enthusiasm Ruins Expat’s Week [Ministry of Harmony] #RisingChina #Perception

Via a satire website on Chinese propaganda – Ministry of Harmony.

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Visiting Parents’ Relentless Enthusiasm Ruins Expat’s Week
Source – Ministry of Harmony, published May 19, 2013

BEJIING — Local English teacher Brian Murphy described himself as “exhausted, deeply frustrated and utterly crushed” by the enthusiastic responses of parents Mark and Irene Murphy during a week-long visit to the Chinese capital, where Murphy has lived for the past eight years.

Murphy, 28, originally from Boulder, Colorado is described in his LinkedIn profile as “a battle-hardened old China hand with stories to tell.”

He gained notoriety in local expatriate circles for a blog post entitled “Why I’m Returning to China After Leaving Noisily on Two Separate Occasions,” in which he bemoaned the Chinese capital’s lack of etiquette, infrastructure, gourmet cuisine and craft beers, before admitting it was the only place someone like him could earn a living wage.

Read the rest of this entry »

Filed under: Beijing Consensus, Charm Offensive, Chinese Model, Communications, Culture, Ideology, International Relations, Mapping Feelings, Media, People, Social, Soft Power, The construction of Chinese and Non-Chinese identities, U.S.

May 17, 2013 • 6:58 am 1

The second US century [The Age] #RisingChina #USCentury

Not quite the Chinese Century, according to Clyde Prestowitz

China has been the great story of the past quarter-century and still is a good one. But the miracle days are past. China has followed a growth strategy based on huge investment, sometimes in excess of 50 per cent of GDP. It has now hit a point of diminishing returns. Each new dollar of investment yields a bit less growth than the previous dollar. For a long time the key question has been whether China would get rich before it gets old. The answer increasingly appears to be no.

Perhaps Australia would do well to commission another white paper: Australia in the New American Century.

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The second US century
So you think America is in decline and China on the rise? Think again.
by Clyde Prestowitz
Source – The Age, published May 14, 2013

Source – The Age Illustration: Jim Pavlidis.

Conventional wisdom says that America is in decline, that the American century is over, and that the future belongs to the rest, especially the rest in Asia. Predictions that China’s gross domestic product will soon surpass that of the US to become the world’s largest economy are legion.

Prominent authors such as CNN commentator Fareed Zakaria and former diplomat Kishore Mahbubani have rushed to publish books predicting a historic shift in the global balance of power as a result of this change in relative share of global GDP. And the Australian government recently indicated its agreement with this thinking by moving to redeploy its resources and reorient its policies in response to a white paper on ”Australia in the Asian Century”.

Yet, there is growing evidence that all of this analysis may be a bit premature and that America is not only coming back but that this century may well wind up being another American century.

Please click here to read the full article at the Age.

Read the rest of this entry »

Filed under: Australia, Beijing Consensus, Charm Offensive, Chinese Model, Culture, Domestic Growth, Economics, Ideology, Influence, International Relations, Peaceful Development, Politics, Public Diplomacy, Social, Soft Power, The Age, The Chinese Identity, The construction of Chinese and Non-Chinese identities, U.S.

May 16, 2013 • 10:00 am 0

Chinese investors become responsible in Latin America – study

Better days ahead.

Credit to a press wire for positive reporting on China where and when it is due.

Read the International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED) study here.

Thanks to ChinaSouthAmerica for the heads up.

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Chinese investors become responsible in Latin America – study
By Megan Rowling
Source: Thomson Reuters Foundation, published – Thu, 9 May 2013

Pelicans gather as fishermen unload anchovies from ship at north Peru port of Chimbote. Peru, world’s top fishmeal exporter, sells anchovies as fishmeal for pigs in China. Picture December 14, 2012. REUTERS/Enrique Castro-Mendivil

LONDON (Thomson Reuters Foundation) – Chinese investors in Latin America are showing greater awareness of the social and environmental impacts of their business activities, and have started applying standards to make trade more sustainable, a research report said on Thursday.

The study from the International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED) looked at investment by Chinese state-owned enterprises in Peru, Brazil and Chile, in the mining, agriculture and forestry sectors. China is expected to overtake the European Union to become Latin America’s second-largest trade partner next year, after the United States, it noted.

“While Chinese companies have often been accused of performing worse in terms of sustainability than their foreign and domestic counterparts, evidence for this is far from conclusive,” said Emma Blackmore, the report’s lead author.

Read the rest of this entry »

Filed under: Beijing Consensus, Charm Offensive, Chinese Model, Communications, Culture, Economics, Government & Policy, Ideology, Influence, International Relations, Latin America, Mapping Feelings, Media, Peru, Reuters, Soft Power, Tao Guang Yang Hui (韬光养晦), The Chinese Identity

May 15, 2013 • 10:15 am 0

Beijing cracking down on illegal barbecues [People's Daily] #RisingChina #BeijingBBQCulture #Pollution

Perhaps a shift to hot plate technology is in order.

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Beijing cracking down on illegal barbecues
By Zheng Xin
Source – Peoples’ Daily, published May 14, 2013

Beijing is stepping up efforts to reduce illegal barbeques, to cut down on roadside airand noise pollution.

May is the peak time for outdoor grill cooking, which takes a heavy toll on air quality,traffic and residents, said Dang Xuefeng, spokesman for the capital’s bureau of cityadministration and law enforcement.

“As the weather warms up, the streets gradually fill up with roadside barbecue spots,sizzling kebabs on the grill and cold beer, which also create serious air pollution andundesired noise for the neighborhoods,” he said.

Please click here to read the full article at Peoples’ Daily.

Read the rest of this entry »

Filed under: Beijing Consensus, Charm Offensive, Chinese Model, Climate Change, Culture, Domestic Growth, Entertainment, Environment, Influence, Modernisation, New Leadership, Peaceful Development, People, People's Daily, Pollution, Social, Strategy, The Chinese Identity, Trade

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Wandering China

[Full text] Li Keqiang’s article published in Swiss newspaper [China.ORG] #RisingChina #LiKeqiang

Should Taiwan and China team up against the Phillipines? 一虎一席谈2013-05-18 两岸该不该联手严惩菲律宾？ [Tiger Talk] #RisingChina #Philippines

Chinese Newspaper Confuses the Japanese Military with…DeviantArt [Kotaku] #RisingChina #FourthEstate

China Granted Access to Arctic Club as Resource Race Heats Up [Business Week] #RisingChina #ArcticResources

How Chinese Subsidies Changed the World [Harvard Business Review] #RisingChina #Solar #GovernmentSubsidies

Chinese investors become responsible in Latin America – study

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