Lifestyle | 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

April 30, 2013 • 8:46 am 0

Iron Man 3 illustrates a Chinese puzzle Hollywood is hoping to solve [Guardian] #RisingChina #Hollywood #Ironman3

Hollywood finds it tricky to produce their own cultural capital while willingly winning Chinese consensus.

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Iron Man 3 illustrates a Chinese puzzle Hollywood is hoping to solve
US-Chinese co-productions don’t appear to be hitting the spot, as Chinese film-makers are catering for domestic audiences with growing success
Source - Guardian Film Blog, published April 24, 2013

There’s all sorts of meta-cinematic devilry going on in one of the strangest blockbusters of the decade – Iron Man 3. In one scene Ben Kingsley’s nemesis, the Mandarin, halts for a lecture on the authenticity, or otherwise, of the “Chinese” fortune cookie – right before laying waste to Grauman’s Chinese theatre in Hollywood: “Another cheap American knock-off.” You can’t help but wonder whether this particular tirade is Iron Man 3 writers Shane Black and Drew Pearce comment on the process of trying to adapt the film for Chinese audiences, and the bigger, east-facing game the whole of Hollywood is playing.

With an eye, like everyone else, on a fistful of yuan, Iron Man franchise-holders Disney and Marvel partnered with Shanghai-based media agency DMG, who also helped produce Looper last year, for the third film. But the suggestion last summer that Tony Stark might be making a radical turn towards China never quite transpired. The Mandarin was tactfully steered away from the yellow-peril caricature of the comics, becoming a prototypical icon of terrorism instead. Some scenes were filmed in Beijing in December; Fifth Generation veteran Wang Xueqi appears in an early party scene, and more of this material – including a cameo for starlet Fan Bingbing – will appear in a special Chinese cut.

And that’s it. Another cheap American knockoff. It’s essentially the same piece of blockbuster chinoiserie that we’re seeing more and more these days as the studios make eyes at China: like The Karate Kid remake’s relocation to Beijing (still with an American protagonist), the Asian-scented water approach of GI Joe: Retaliation, or James Bond’s luminescent Shanghai skyscraper fight in Skyfall.

Please click here to read the rest of the article at its source.

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Filed under: Beijing Consensus, Charm Offensive, Chinese Model, Communications, Culture, Domestic Growth, Economics, Entertainment, Finance, Government & Policy, Ideology, Influence, International Relations, Lifestyle, Media, Modernisation, Peaceful Development, People, Public Diplomacy, Reform, Social, Soft Power, Strategy, The Chinese Identity, The construction of Chinese and Non-Chinese identities, Trade, U.S.

April 16, 2013 • 8:18 am 0

Chinese talent show captivates Taiwanese, raises concern about China’s cultural influence [AP] #RisingChina #CulturalCapital #我是歌手

Image Source – Chinasmack, 2013

我是歌手: Hunan Satellite TV imports the South Korean singing competition reality show I’m A Singer format to great effect. Another feather in China’s cultural capital hat, this time with a wider regional audience while boasting cutting edge production.

… she was “stunned” that the Chinese talent show was able to put as many as 38 cameras to work simultaneously to capture the best details of the performance. Taiwan’s Culture Minister Lung Ying-tai

To catch videos of the final on Youtube, see – Yu Quan beats Terry Lin to clinch the Music King title (Asian Pop News, April 14, 2013)

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Chinese talent show captivates Taiwanese, raises concern about China’s cultural influence
AP
Source – Washington Post, published April 16, 2013

TAIPEI, Taiwan — A Chinese singing competition that has captivated television viewers in Taiwan is raising concerns about China’s cultural influence on the island.

“I Am A Singer” features professional singers from China, Taiwan and Hong Kong in a tense competition. The slickly produced show earned top ratings and even attracted veteran singers to try their luck and revive their careers.

Friday night’s final episode of the Hunan Satellite TV station show featured four Taiwanese and three mainland Chinese competitors, and many Taiwanese TV stations aired part or all of the finale, won by Chinese duo Yu Quan.

Taiwan’s Terry Lin and Aska Yang were runners-up. Taiwanese veterans Julia Peng and Winnie Hsin, who ranked fifth and sixth, got a chance to show their exuberant singing and become the sensations they didn’t earlier in their long careers.

Taiwan-produced songs and music programs once dominated Mandarin song markets. But over the past decade, many of its top singers have left the island for the fast-growing Chinese market.

Taiwan’s Culture Minister Lung Ying-tai says the island’s edge in the pop-song market may be fading quickly.

Please click here to read the full article at its source.

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Filed under: AP, Art, Beijing Consensus, Charm Offensive, Chinese Model, Culture, Domestic Growth, Entertainment, Greater China, Influence, Lifestyle, Mapping Feelings, Media, Peaceful Development, Public Diplomacy, Reform, Social, Soft Power, Tao Guang Yang Hui (韬光养晦), The Chinese Identity, The construction of Chinese and Non-Chinese identities, Washington Post

March 27, 2013 • 9:50 pm 0

Elite in China Face Austerity Under Xi’s Rule [New York Times] #ChinaAusterity

Xi reenacts a grand spectacle by giving the table top a clean wipe much like his predecessors did.

The difference is clear with many visual markers of free spending gone.

I don’t agree with the headline bias saying Xi’s rule. The way the leadership is structured is not as such.

Certainly the symbolism of this act to capture the hearts of the people will help give a boost to consensus, but whether what continues under the table gets fixed requires a new paradigm on building relations in its familial, clan, and organisational hierarchal structures.

That Xi Jinping was formerly in the business of fighting corruption is a plus to his street cred, but with so increasing external matters of concern, how much time and conviction he can devote to following this through is important. Whether corruption Fire Chief Wang Qishan manages to enforce this uniformly throughout the party’s internal power bases will also be critical.

Having seen my city of ancestry half built due to the excesses of free wheeling corruption in the early days of opening up, this is encouraging. No one speaks of Shantou when SEZs are mentioned. That it was, early with Zhuhai, Xiamen and Shenzhen given licence to roam should have resulted in a giant leap forward. It did not – half built roads aplenty and children playing in a canal full of rubbish and plastic bags were the common scene in my travels on foot. Wealthy overseas Chinese Teochews tried revitalizing it but failed.

Equitable growth starts by the top leading by example, at the very least, symbolically.

Deng’s maxim still abides.

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Elite in China Face Austerity Under Xi’s Rule
By Andrew Jacobs
Source – New York Times, published March 27, 2013

Photo by Sim Chi Yin for The New York Times
A branch in Beijing of Xiang E Qing, a restaurant chain popular with government officials, was quiet at lunchtime recently.

BEIJING — Life for the almighty Chinese government official has come to this: car pools, domestically made wristwatches and self-serve lunch buffets.

In the four months since he was anointed China’s paramount leader and tastemaker-in-chief, President Xi Jinping has imposed a form of austerity on the nation’s famously free-spending civil servants, military brass and provincial party bosses. Warning that graft and gluttony threaten to bring down the ruling Communists, Mr. Xi has ordered an end to boozy, taxpayer-financed banquets and the bribery that often takes the form of a gift-wrapped Louis Vuitton bag.

While the power of the nation’s elite remains unchallenged, the symbols of that power are slipping from view. Gone, for now, are the freshly cut flowers and red-carpet ceremonies that used to greet visiting dignitaries. This month, military officers who arrived here for the annual National People’s Congress were instructed to share hotel rooms and bring their own toiletries.

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Filed under: Beijing Consensus, Chinese Model, Collectivism, Confucius, Culture, Domestic Growth, Economics, Finance, Government & Policy, Lifestyle, Mapping Feelings, Modernisation, New Leadership, People, Politics, Public Diplomacy, Reform, Social, Soft Power, Strategy, Tao Guang Yang Hui (韬光养晦), The Chinese Identity, Xi Jinping

March 25, 2013 • 7:53 pm 0

Film buffs multiply in China [The Australian] #ChinaFilm

The Australian is a trusted and valued paper down under, and this would have helped form their impressions of China today.

On to the area of film.

The Chinese have for a long time understood the importance of producing and controlling visual markers to express their place in the world. The time of networked societies offers a radically different challenge as, yet cinemas form part of the last bastion of traditional media channels. Grow all it want, but they still yield foreign content control. But underneath that veneer, what should be noted is its promotion of shaping domestic cultural capital through lavishly state sponsored endeavors.

My travels around China the past three years have brought me to many cinemas. Few have the appeal the cineplexes like back in Singapore. 10 screens a day may sound impressive, yet I feel it is just the tip of the iceberg. The industry is still in its infancy, and still tinkling around for a model to cater to their voluminous market.

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Film buffs multiply in China
By Emily Ford, from The Times
Source – The Australian, published March 26, 2013

AVID cinemagoers have helped China overtake Japan to become the world’s second biggest film market, underlining the country’s rising importance to Hollywood studios.

Ticket sales in China rose 36 per cent last year to $US2.7 billion, making it the fastest growing film market globally and helping to take worldwide box-office revenues to a record $US34.7bn, according to figures released by the Motion Picture Association of America.

Ticket sales are in decline in many countries, falling 1 per cent last year to $US10.7bn in Europe, the Middle East and Africa. China, however, is rapidly becoming a nation of film buffs as rising disposable incomes lead middle-class consumers to spend more on entertainment and leisure.

MPAA chairman and chief executive Christopher Dodd says: “China is building 10 screens a day. There’s a voracious appetite for product and our films have consistently done well.”

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Filed under: Beijing Consensus, Censorship, Charm Offensive, Chinese Model, Culture, Domestic Growth, Economics, Government & Policy, Influence, Infrastructure, Lifestyle, Mapping Feelings, Media, New Leadership, People, Population, Public Diplomacy, Reform, Social, Soft Power, Strategy, Tao Guang Yang Hui (韬光养晦), The Chinese Identity

March 23, 2013 • 8:49 pm 0

Time to put chopsticks on the chopping block? [Global Times] #China #Culture

China’s rise may have overlooked the importance of upgrading its chopstick culture, one so close to its core identity. Perhaps it is time to catch up.

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Time to put chopsticks on the chopping block?
By Wang Wenwen
Source – Global Times, published March 22, 2013

To foreigners, chopsticks may bring to mind ideas of yummy Chinese food and distinct Chinese identity. Some even see the utensils as graceful extensions of their fingers, but for Chinese, they can mean terrible toxins.

On Sunday, famous actor Huang Bo posted a message on Weibo that caught people’s attention. He said when he was dining at a restaurant and wanted to wash the disposable chopsticks provided by the restaurant, he was astonished to find that after soaking the chopsticks in the cup of hot water, the water turned yellow and gave off a pungent smell.

Following the post, a fresh round of debate emerged over the usage of disposable chopsticks in China.

Please click here to read article at its source.

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Filed under: Chinese Model, Culture, Domestic Growth, Influence, Lifestyle, Mapping Feelings, People, Population, Reform, Social, Strategy, The Chinese Identity

February 5, 2013 • 8:58 pm 0

China corruption: Policeman ‘bought 192 homes with fake ID’ #BBC #China #Corruption

This sheds light on China’s primary challenge when it comes to corruption. The rise up the power ladder is well laden with habits inhabited from long past. Problem is, there is never just one benefactor in these things. This is interwoven with good stuff flowing downstream for one’s social status to rise.

This case also comes along a series of other top down updates announcing its recent anti corruption triumphs.

For more, please check out

South China Morning Post

http://www.scmp.com/comment/blogs/article/1143565/chinas-new-most-corrupt-official-has-been-found-guangdong-and-he-owns

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China corruption: Policeman ‘bought 192 homes with fake ID’
BBC
Source – BBC, published February 5, 2013

A senior policeman in the southern Chinese city of Lufeng is alleged to have bought 192 houses with fake identity papers, state media report.

Zhao Haibin is no longer a police chief, but he is still a senior figure in the local Communist Party.

There is widespread anger over similar cases where officials used fake identities to buy multiple properties.

Please click here to read the rest of the article at its source

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Filed under: 52 Unacceptable Practices, BBC, Beijing Consensus, Charm Offensive, Chinese Model, Corruption, Culture, Domestic Growth, Economics, Finance, Government & Policy, Influence, Lifestyle, New Leadership, Politics, Public Diplomacy, Social, The Chinese Identity

January 30, 2013 • 7:28 am 0

Rolling out the red carpet as Chinese tourism takes off #TheAge #China #Tourism #Australia

Australia continues to surf along to China’s rise. Apart from providing the physical and energy resources China needed as it powered through infrastructure mode, the Aussie education and tourism sectors now benefit directly from China’s booming middle class. Australia offers a stable environment not too far a flight away; with fresh air and healthy produce in abundance.

The experience here also helps expand their world view. The first culture shock that crossing the road isn’t a matter of life and death is a powerful worldview changer. Exposure to fresh organic produce make many lament on the reliability of agricultural produce back home. That tourism here offers a level of service even the most elite would could not get access to back home, offers strong lessons too.

From this vantage point, this scenario will continue to grow with great momentum. Keeping growth at a manageable pace with the Australian environment is the next challenge.

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Rolling out the red carpet as Chinese tourism takes off
By Philip Wen and Matt O’Sullivan
Source – The Age, published January 26, 2013

Source: Australian Bureau of Statistics.

XIONG LAN grew up poor in post-cultural revolution China atop the vast Tibetan Plateau in the country’s remote north-west.

Today, she is halfway through a remarkable 50-day sojourn around Australia, hoping to take in the best Australia’s east coast has to offer.

Source: Australian Bureau of Statistics

Having crossed Sydney, regional New South Wales and Canberra off her list, she is boarding a tour bus headed for the Great Ocean Road on Victoria’s surf coast.

”The architecture of the buildings in Sydney and Melbourne are like works of art,” enthuses Xiong, who owns a business in Qinghai province’s largest city, Xining.

”And what they say about Australia is true, it really has natural beauty.”

A group of Chinese tourists travel on a bus tour of the Great Ocean Road. Photo: Michael Clayton-Jones

While Qinghai, like the rest of China, has made huge economic strides since opening up its economy, it is disadvantaged by its geographic isolation and remains one of the poorest provinces in China. Until recently, it may still have been rare for ordinary Qinghai natives to undertake a holiday of this magnitude.

Please click here to read the rest of the article at its source.

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Filed under: Australia, Beijing Consensus, Charm Offensive, Chinese Model, Chinese New Year, Culture, Domestic Growth, Economics, Environment, Influence, Lifestyle, Peaceful Development, People, Public Diplomacy, Social, Strategy, The Age, The Chinese Identity, The construction of Chinese and Non-Chinese identities

January 25, 2013 • 11:40 pm 0

China Has Hipsters, Too #TheAtlantic #China #counterculture #hipster

The Atlantic on China’s wenyi qingnian (文艺青年). Like the hipsters, this too is counter-culture subgroup made possible by urban affluence and social latitude. Both seem postmodern responses to the old positivist worldview.

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China Has Hipsters, Too
By Monica Tan, Tea Leaf Nation
Source – The Atlantic, published November 10, 2012

It’s happened all over the world, and it’s happening in China, too. As the country’s middle class swells in number — and its people discover the pleasures and disappointments of a life spent pursuing material comfort — there has come the emergence of a distinct counter-culture. In Chinese, they are the wenyi qingnian (文艺青年), or wenqing for short, literally meaning “cultured youth.” It’s China’s closest equivalent to the alternately beloved and reviled English word, “hipster.”

What does a typical “cultured youth” look like? Baidu Baike, China’s version of Wikipedia, contains an entry on the term that quotes writer and musician Guo Xiaohan: “I’m a very typical wenyi qingnian. I like poetry, novels, indie music, European cinema, taking pictures, writing blogs, cats, gardening, quilting, making dessert and designing environmentally friendly bags.”

They are twee, nostalgia-driven, and hipster-ish, with a dash of poet. Spiritual at heart, yet living in a very secular, money-driven modern China, wenqing are marked as highly individualistic, romantic, cultural connoisseurs…

Click here to read the rest of the article at its source.

Filed under: Beijing Consensus, Chinese Model, Communications, Culture, Domestic Growth, Economics, Education, Environment, Human Rights, Influence, Lifestyle, Mapping Feelings, Media, Peaceful Development, Population, Social, The Atlantic, The Chinese Identity

January 20, 2013 • 2:42 am 0

Behind China’s Roaring Solar Industry #GreenChina #Solar #HarvardBusinessReview

Harvard Business Review: ‘China’s National Energy Administration announced its intention to add 10 gigawatts of solar power capacity in 2013.’

The time to cross great divides and collaboratively develop a sustainable, profitable development model for Green China to come. The travels around China’s east coast, periphery and centre have revealed early seeds sown – solar heating and panels were a dime a dozen atop rooftops even in China’s far flung out frontiers. Perhaps, like a good tennis stroke, a good follow through; with sensible business minds, is needed to convert more of its burgeoning middle class into proponents of renewable energy.

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Behind China’s Roaring Solar Industry
by Michael J. Silverstein |
Source – Harvard Business Review, published Jan 11, 2013

Wednesday, Bloomberg reported that Chinese solar stocks had soared based on market expectations that demand in China for alternative energy will increase given the Chinese government’s increasing solar capacity targets. Earlier this week, China’s National Energy Administration announced its intention to add 10 gigawatts of solar power capacity in 2013, more than twice its current level. According to Barron’s and others, China has already begun implementing its ambitious plan to increase installations. It previously approved the Golden Sun initiative for the first half of this year and committed prodigious amounts of government cash to the sector.

China has also begun offering subsidies for rooftop solar projects. These aren’t controversial production-side subsidies (of the kind that have been challenged as contravening international trade agreements) but rather incentivizing domestic subsidies intended to help Chinese citizens and organizations to purchase solar systems at an affordable price. This week, the share price of Trina Solar Ltd. the nation’s third-biggest maker of solar panels, jumped to the highest level in five months even as that of LDK Solar Co. rallied 7.7 percent.

Although some commentators may see this uptick in China’s solar investments (and equity values) as an intriguing short term phenomenon, we at The Boston Consulting Group believe it reflects a public commitment on the part of China’s government to embrace clean energy sources and to seek economic growth that is less energy dependent, as well as these profound long-term trends:

Please click here to read the rest of the article at the source.

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Filed under: Beijing Consensus, Charm Offensive, Chinese Model, Climate Change, Collectivism, Culture, Domestic Growth, Economics, Government & Policy, Green China, Influence, Infrastructure, Lifestyle, Population, Reform, Science, Technology, The Chinese Identity, China's Rise

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

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