Wandering China

An East/West pulse of China's fourth rise from down under.

Here flies the dragon: Chinese airlines flex their muscles [the Age] #RisingChina #Aviation

Fruits on reform to enhance connectivity checklist. Planes, working on it. Trains, ticked. Automobiles, working on it.

There is still a long road ahead for rising China to sort it its mass transit issues because quite simplify, its volume for ‘mass’ is one for larger than most countries can only dream off.

The bonus with air travel is the extended amount of positive influence that can be massaged into a short or long haul flight…

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Here flies the dragon: Chinese airlines flex their muscles
Matt O’Sullivan and Peter Cai
Source – The Age, published June 17, 2013

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Ready for takeoff: Passengers watch a China Southern Airlines plane take off at Shanghai’s Hongqiao International Airport last year. Photo: Reuters

Singapore Airline’s second-in-charge, Mak Swee Wah, summed up what looms on the horizon from China.

“Chinese airlines’ ambition is a reflection of the country’s ambition,” he said during a visit to Australia two weeks ago. “It is taken as a given that they will be growing aggressively.”

There is no doubt China’s airlines are beginning to flex their muscles.

In the case of China Southern, its tentative interest in a strategic stake in Qantas is reflective of a wider foray overseas by Chinese enterprises.

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

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Filed under: Australia, Automotive, Aviation, BBC, Charm Offensive, Chinese Model, Communications, Culture, Domestic Growth, Government & Policy, Ideology, Influence, Infrastructure, International Relations, Mapping Feelings, Modernisation, Peaceful Development, Public Diplomacy, Reform, Social, Soft Power, Strategy, Tao Guang Yang Hui (韬光养晦), The Age, The Chinese Identity, The construction of Chinese and Non-Chinese identities, Trade

A letter to China’s first space teacher from U.S. predecessor [Xinhua]

From space, we’re all just part of the same pale blue dot…

To better days ahead!

To Morgan, distance cannot separate Americans and Chinese, and teaching seems to have no boundary.

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A letter to China’s first space teacher from U.S. predecessor
by Xinhua writer Guo Shuang
Source – Xinhua, published June 16, 2013

A letter to China's first space teacher from U.S. predecessor

A letter to China’s first space teacher from U.S. predecessor

Graphics shows a letter to Wang Yaping, astronaut on China’s Shenzhou-10 spacecraft, from the first astronaut teacher Barbara Morgan written in Los Angeles, the United States, on June 13, 2013. (Xinhua/Gao Wei,Guo Shuang)

LOS ANGELES, June 15 (Xinhua) — While China’s first space teacher Wang Yaping is orbiting the earth, Barbara Morgan, the world’s first astronaut who ever taught in space, was signing her name on a letter to greet the Chinese newcomer.

“I wish you could see smiles on my face, I am just really, really happy,” Morgan told Xinhua via telephone when she was asked to comment on the launch of China’s Shenzhou-10 spacecraft.

To Morgan, distance cannot separate Americans and Chinese, and teaching seems to have no boundary. “All over the world, we are really very exited,” Morgan said.

Read the rest of this entry »

Filed under: The Chinese Identity, The construction of Chinese and Non-Chinese identities, Culture, International Relations, Tao Guang Yang Hui (韬光养晦), Mapping Feelings, Education, Science, U.S., Communications, Charm Offensive, Domestic Growth, Soft Power, Influence, Chinese Model, Beijing Consensus, Research, Reform, Modernisation, Peaceful Development, Ideology, China Dream

Whistleblower welcome in China [People's Daily] #RisingChina #

Interesting response from the People’s Daily suggesting the floodgates of intertextuality are wide open…

To further understand the likes of Snowden, let us end with a narrative by the character Red from the Shawshank Redemption as he rationalizes the escape of his friend Andy: “Some birds are not meant to be caged. Their feathers are just too bright. And when they fly away, the part of you that knows it was a sin to lock them up does rejoice.”

For more, see US suggests whistleblower ‘in league with the Chinese’ (The Age, June 15, 2013)

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Whistleblower welcome in China
By Xu Peixi (China.org.cn)
Source – People’s Daily, published June 14, 2013

By Gou Ben - China.org.cn

By Gou Ben – China.org.cn

Last week, a bright idealistic young man named Edward Snowden almost single-handedly opened the lid on the U.S. National Security Agency’s PRISM program, a program which marks the bleakest moment yet in the history of the Internet due to its scope, exact country of origin and implications.

In terms of scope, major transnational service providers ranging from Google to Apple are involved in allowing the NSA to access their customers’ data for the purposes of “surveillance.” Nearly all types of services ranging from email to VoIP have come within the program’s scope and it originates in a country which dominates the world’s Internet resources – a fact which is acknowledged in the information leaked by Snowden clearly states: “Much of the world’s communications flow through the U.S.” and the information is accessible. The case indicates that through outsourcing and contracting, Big Brother is breaching the fundamental rights of citizens by getting unfettered access to their most personal communications.

As the case unfolds, there are many things to worry about. How do we make sense of the fact that the market and the state colluded in the abuse of private information via what represents the backbone of many modern day infrastructures? How do we rationalize the character of Snowden and his fellow whistleblowers? How do we understand the one-sided cyber attack accusations the U.S. has poured upon China in the past few months? To what degree have foreign users of these Internet services fallen victim to this project? Among all these suspicions, let us clarify two types of American personality.

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

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Filed under: Beijing Consensus, Charm Offensive, Chinese Model, Communications, Culture, Cyberattack, Domestic Growth, Economics, Government & Policy, History, Ideology, Influence, Internet, Mapping Feelings, Media, military, Modernisation, Peaceful Development, People's Daily, Politics, Public Diplomacy, Reform, Soft Power, Strategy, Tao Guang Yang Hui (韬光养晦), Technology, The Chinese Identity, The construction of Chinese and Non-Chinese identities, U.S.

Percussion shows me the world [People's Daily] #RisingChina #GlobalPulse #Percussion

Good stuff! No pulse = no life.

Better days ahead for the global pulse…

without the excess baggage of visual culture nor colour symbolism.

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Percussion shows me the world
Edited and translated by Huang Jin
Source – People’s Daily Online, published June 14, 2013

The performance “Mountain Drums” played by 39 visually impaired students from Guiyang Special School won gold prize at Disabled Arts Festival of Guizhou Province on June 7, 2013. The 39 students, from 9 to 21, are from a world without color.

Because of the visual impairment, the practice is very hard for them. However, the percussion brings them happiness and tears, and shows them the world…

Long Wei, a sophomore, practices drum. He never stops practicing, even in April when his mother died. Pnoto - Chinanews, by Zhang Yuan

Long Wei, a sophomore, practices drum. He never stops practicing, even in April when his mother died. Pnoto – Chinanews, by Zhang Yuan

An Xingxing, 9, the youngest player in the team, practices percussion. It was the third bamboo tube that she has broken. Photo - Chinanews by Zhang Yuan

An Xingxing, 9, the youngest player in the team, practices percussion. It was the third bamboo tube that she has broken. Photo – Chinanews by Zhang Yuan

A teacher holds the students' hands and teaches them how to feel the rhythm. Source - Chinanews by Zhang Yuan)

A teacher holds the students’ hands and teaches them how to feel the rhythm. Source – Chinanews by Zhang Yuan)

Filed under: Beijing Consensus, Charm Offensive, China Dream, Chinese Model, Communications, Culture, Disabilities, Domestic Growth, Education, Entertainment, Ideology, Influence, Mapping Feelings, Music, Peaceful Development, People, People's Daily, Population, Social, Soft Power, Tao Guang Yang Hui (韬光养晦), The Chinese Identity

No pulling punches over China’s ‘gaokao’ [Straits Times] #RisingChina #Gaokao

One chance against ten million in the cohort. That narrative, down to the wire, is the full-frontal reality of Chinese human capital to come.

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No pulling punches over China’s ‘gaokao’
Exam fever strikes as parents attack teachers for foiling kids’ cheating bids
By Ho Ai Li China Correspondent In Beijing
Source – Straits Times, published June 14, 2013

20130614-084706.jpg

The ugly scenes involving mobs of parents and students at a school in Hubei province last weekend sparked concerns about the distortion of values over the gaokao or university entrance exams. — PHOTO: WEIBO

MOST parents would get upset if their children cheat during examinations. That was what a group of Chinese parents did – except that they directed their anger at the teachers, with some even resorting to violence.

A father punched a teacher in the face for foiling his son’s attempt to cheat during China’s national university entrance exam; separately, nearly a hundred parents and students laid siege to an exam centre, angry with invigilators for being too strict.

These ugly scenes, which took place outside a school in central Hubei province last weekend, have sparked concerns about the kind of values parents are teaching their children and the excessive pressure from the high-stakes exam, known as gaokao in Chinese.

Please click here to read the full article in the Straits Times.

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Filed under: The Chinese Identity, Culture, Tao Guang Yang Hui (韬光养晦), Mapping Feelings, Education, Resources, Social, Finance, Communications, Charm Offensive, Domestic Growth, Soft Power, Influence, Population, Chinese Model, Beijing Consensus, Government & Policy, Reform, New Leadership, Democracy, Modernisation, Peaceful Development, Ideology

China Reveals First Space-Based Quantum Communications Experiment [Technology Review] #RisingChina #Quantum

Another reason why China’s own rise of science, one revered in recent Chinese headspace with propulsion, as vanguard. This shows China is no longer just the world’s factory as it seeks to further tear down the tyranny of distance.

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China Reveals First Space-Based Quantum Communications Experiment

Source – Technolgy Review, published June 11, 2013

The ability to send perfectly secure messages from one location on the planet to another has obvious and immediate appeal to governments, the military and various commercial organisations such as banks. This capability is already possible over short distances thanks to the magic of quantum cryptography, which guarantees the security of messages, at least in theory.

For the moment, however, quantum cryptography works only over distances of 100 km or so. That’s how far it is possible to send the single photons that carry quantum messages through an optical fibre or through the atmosphere.

Last year, we watched as European and Chinese physicists battled to claim the distance record for this technology with the Europeans finally triumphing by setting up a quantum channel over 143 kilometres through the atmosphere.

Read the rest of this entry »

Filed under: Beijing Consensus, Charm Offensive, Chinese Model, Communications, Culture, Democracy, Domestic Growth, Education, Government & Policy, Ideology, Influence, Infrastructure, Mapping Feelings, Modernisation, Nationalism, Peaceful Development, Public Diplomacy, Research, Soft Power, Strategy, Tao Guang Yang Hui (韬光养晦), The Chinese Identity

Greater US-China ties can cut both ways [Straits Times]

A greater engagement between the two countries is helpful, but it is a double-edged sword. Certainly, better understanding between leaders reduces the risk of greater distrust. But it could also expect China to deliver more than it is ready to do. And, not least, as the engagement is strengthened, expectations of each other will increase. Historian Wang Gungwu for the Straits Times.

Interesting times indeed. The Xi-Obama summit sees engagement thrown into the US-China mix while both sides build up respective pivots to contain each other – strategic proxy pieces unveiling in this year alone.

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Greater US-China ties can cut both ways
By Wang Gungwu For The Straits Times
Source – Straits Times, published June 10, 2013

20130612-220159.jpg

There is rising alarm at the new capacity of the Chinese to buy their way to influence and potential dominance. That was the way many saw the US not long ago. China is now likely to be seen in the same light. — PHOTO: AP

LAST week’s meeting in California between the presidents of China and the United States won the world’s attention. It was convenient for Mr Xi Jinping to stop by after Mexico and it was significant that the meeting was held on American soil. The chance for the two men to get to know each other better is clearly significant for the two countries’ future relationship. The fact that the two have different interests, however, cannot be wished away.

It has been easy for the popular media in each country to portray the other by highlighting what its peoples expect to hear. For example, many Chinese see America as weakening: its liberal capitalist economy is failing, President Barack Obama and his political opponents are fatally divided, and the military planners are determined to contain China in order for America to remain forever dominant in Asia.

At its core, US national interest leads its leaders to think in Cold War terms. Hence the system of alliances from that period is being kept to ensure that ultimately the communist system in China will collapse as it did in the Soviet Union two decades earlier. Most Chinese believe that this factor explains much of what the US is doing in Asia today.

Please click here to read the full article at the Straits Times.

Read the rest of this entry »

Filed under: Beijing Consensus, Charm Offensive, China Dream, Chinese Model, Communications, Culture, Domestic Growth, Economics, Education, Finance, Foreign aid, Government & Policy, History, Ideology, Influence, International Relations, Mapping Feelings, Modernisation, New Leadership, Peaceful Development, Politics, Public Diplomacy, Reform, Social, Soft Power, Straits Times, Strategy, Tao Guang Yang Hui (韬光养晦), Technology, The Chinese Identity, The construction of Chinese and Non-Chinese identities, Tourism, Trade, U.S.

China’s Expanding Life Spans—and Waistlines [Bloomberg] #RisingChina #Health #Urbanisation

Checking the rear view mirror of China’s rise: Urbanisation and public health concerns over the creeping obsolescence of physical activity in China’s time-compressed concrete jungles.

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China’s Expanding Life Spans—and Waistlines
By Christina Larson
Source – Bloomberg, published June 11, 2013

Photograph by Wang Zhide. ChinaFotoPress / Getty Images

Overweight students exercise in a gym during a weight-loss summer camp in Weifang of Shandong Province. Photograph by Wang Zhide. ChinaFotoPress / Getty Images

Over the past two decades, China’s population has grown richer, older, more urban—and fatter. From 1990 to 2010, public health authorities in China made significant progress in stemming several of the medical challenges common in poor countries, including reducing childhood mortality and rates of infectious diseases. However, China’s population now faces additional health pitfalls exacerbated by urban smog, more sedentary lifestyles, and the rise of KFC (YUM) and cheap fast food.

In short, China’s public-health challenges now look more like America’s, for better and worse. That was a main finding of researchers at the Chinese Center for Disease Prevention and Control, Peking Union Medical College, and the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation at the University of Washington, which published a collaborative paper on public health in China in the June 8 issue of the British medical journal the Lancet. Their findings draw upon data in the World Health Organization’s 2010 Global Burden of Diseases, Injuries, and Risk Factors Study.

From 1970 to 2010, the average life span for men in China climbed 12.5 years (to age 72.9). The average lifespan for women climbed 15.5 years (to age 79). A major factor behind these gains has been a steep drop in childhood mortality, due in part to improved neonatal and maternal care. In 1970, 100.6 children out of a thousand died in China before they reached age 5; by 2010, that number had dropped to 12.9 deaths per thousand. (Meanwhile, even as people are living longer, fewer are being born: The average number of children born to each woman in China dropped from 4.77 to 1.64 over those 40 years.) The result is a quickly graying country.

Please click here to read the full article at Bloomberg.

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Filed under: Beijing Consensus, Bloomberg, Charm Offensive, China Dream, Chinese Model, Culture, Domestic Growth, Economics, Education, Finance, Food, Government & Policy, Health, Ideology, Infrastructure, Lifestyle, Mapping Feelings, Peaceful Development, Population, Poverty, Reform, Resources, Social, The Chinese Identity, Trade

Opening gaokao to non-locals a good first step [Global Times] #RisingChina #GlobalVillage #Education #Gaokao

Early days, as China’s floating sea of migrant workers accounts for 17% its total.

I recall fondly a conversation with a mother of two kids who has run the gauntlet from north to south of China, gaining employment in agriculture everywhere she went. It opened my mind. China internally, had so very much to offer each other. She even ventured as far as Myanmar, but that is for another story.

There are 56 official anchors to the central collective.

But with the digital age opening the floodgates to global village of perspectives, the game changer was China’s own calculated risk to use the Internet to its socio-economic advantage. Yet, very often they are wrongly misinterpreted as a homogenous bunch sucked into one overarching and dominant ‘dream’ narrative by foreign media. There are at maximum potential a working class the world can never match in numbers. Volume. It has been China’s strategy all along.

By settling this roving skilled population, and making them happy -The leaders have on their side a unique form of leverage no one else in the world has. Skilled artisans roving the nation via its expanding transport network, means they can fix things fast. So now they are training for this.

An education at large, liberates the mind. It can only be good they can stay with their parents as a result. At that young age, from 0-7 most parents should attest to how important those years are to socialized and be naturally identified as a parent at a young age.

Nevertheless, the 4,500 involved accounts for just 0.0005% of examinees. Still, a glimmer of an indicator of equitable growth to come.

Of course, the other startling figure in this article is the sheer number of examinees in each year’s gaokao – 9.12 million. It strongly challenges the mind to be graded on the same rubric as almost ten million others. In Singapore, I competed against -a cohort of 30,000 odd. The game plan to compete against a stack so high must be a daunting hurdle…

As many as 9.12 million students from across the country attended this year’s gaokao. It was particularly noteworthy for 4,500 students who were able to sit the exam in the city where they live but don’t hold a local household registration, or hukou. Previously, they would have had to return to their hometowns to take the exam. The policy of opening the gaokao to non-local residents has been implemented in more than 20 provinces and municipalities this year. Shu Meng, Global Times

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Opening gaokao to non-locals a good first step
By Shu Meng
Source – Global Times, published June 8, 2013

Roadblocks were set up and traffic control measures were adopted around many schools in China yesterday, for the first day of the National College Entrance Examination, or gaokao, this year.

The gaokao is, perhaps, the most important moment for most students due to the importance of the results, which will determine the university they attend and even their future fate.

As many as 9.12 million students from across the country attended this year’s gaokao. It was particularly noteworthy for 4,500 students who were able to sit the exam in the city where they live but don’t hold a local household registration, or hukou. Previously, they would have had to return to their hometowns to take the exam. The policy of opening the gaokao to non-local residents has been implemented in more than 20 provinces and municipalities this year.

Please click here to read the full article at the Global Times.

Read the rest of this entry »

Filed under: Beijing Consensus, Censorship, Charm Offensive, Chinese Model, Collectivism, Culture, Democracy, Domestic Growth, Human Rights, Ideology, Uncategorized

China’s former railways minister stands trial for corruption [Xinhua] #RisingChina #Corruption #Transport

Doing what has to be done to demonstrate that no ivory tower exists in the management of Rising China’s  arteries, at least for now at the ministerial level. Liu Zhijun 劉志軍, despite being head of China’s second most powerful ministry capable of some level of unilateral decision making (arguably, after the military )

Interesting his fact-file is still available on the Chinese government official portal.

For more, please see:

Former railways minister seeks leniency on corruption charges (South China Morning Post, June 10, 2013)

Chinese former minister Liu Zhijun’s trial on corruption charges begins (Guardian, June 10, 2013)

And a blast from the past – two years ago

China’s railway minister under investigation over “disciplinary violation” (Xinhua, Feb 12, 2011)

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China’s former railways minister stands trial for corruption
Source – Xinhua, published June 9, 2013

Video grab shows China’s former railways minister Liu Zhijun being brought into the Beijing Second Intermediate People’s Court in Beijing, capital of China, June 9, 2013. Liu stood trial in the court on Sunday on charges of bribery and abuse o

Video grab shows China's former railways minister Liu Zhijun being brought into the Beijing Second Intermediate People's Court in Beijing, capital of China, June 9, 2013. Liu stood trial in the court on Sunday on charges of bribery and abuse of power. Source - Xinhua, by Gong Lei)

Video grab shows China’s former railways minister Liu Zhijun being brought into the Beijing Second Intermediate People’s Court in Beijing, capital of China, June 9, 2013. Liu stood trial in the court on Sunday on charges of bribery and abuse of power. Source – Xinhua, by Gong Lei)

BEIJING, June 9 (Xinhua) — China’s former railways minister Liu Zhijun stood trial in a court in Beijing on Sunday on charges of bribery and abuse of power.

According to the indictment by the Second Branch of the Beijing People’s Procuratorate, Liu took advantage of his position and helped 11 people win promotions and project contracts, and accepted 64.6 million yuan (10.53 million U.S. dollars) in bribes from them between 1986 to 2011.

During his tenure as the railways minister, Liu is suspected of helping Ding Yuxin and her relatives to win cargo transportation and railway construction contracts. He also helped them in the acquisition of shares in a bullet train wheel set company and with enterprise financing, by breaking regulations and applying favoritism, which allowed Ding and her family to reap huge profits, according to the indictment.

Please click here to read the full article at Xinhua. Read the rest of this entry »

Filed under: 52 Unacceptable Practices, Beijing Consensus, Charm Offensive, Chinese Model, Communications, Corruption, Crime, Culture, Domestic Growth, Economics, Finance, Government & Policy, Greater China, Ideology, Influence, Infrastructure, Mapping Feelings, Modernisation, New Leadership, Politics, Population, Public Diplomacy, Reform, Resources, Social, Soft Power, Strategy, Tao Guang Yang Hui (韬光养晦), Technology, The Chinese Identity, Transport, xinhua

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