Between Worlds

(Beijing Today website’s blog section does not represent any view of Beijing Today or its reporter. Anyone interested about the story can find the original text from the link above the article. The site’s blog section aims to introducing expat blogs in China to more Chinese readers as 50 percent of Beijing Today readership remain young Chinese who have experience of living abroad, white colors or school students. Blogger who does not want his or her story linked at Beijing Today’s website, please email to info@beijingtoday.com.cn to take down the stories.)

http://www.chinaexpat.com/2011/05/05/between-worlds.html/

From Shanghai Girls, by Lisa See, a historical novel about two privileged Shanghai sisters who face straitened circumstances in America after the Japanese invade China.

 

Within fifteen minutes we’ve gone around the corner, crossed Los Angeles Street, climbed some stairs, and entered Soochow Restaurant for a combination wedding banquet and one-month party. Platters of hard-boiled eggs dyed red to represent fertility and happiness are set on a table just inside the entrance. Wedding couples hang on the walls. Thin slices of sweet pickled ginger to symbolize the continued warming of my yin after the strain of birth are set on each table.

The banquet, while not as lavish as I imagined in my romantic days in Z.G.’s studio, is still the best meal we’ve seen in months – a cold platter with jellyfish, soy-sauce chicken, and sliced kidneys, bird’s nest soup, a whole steamed fish, Peking duck, noodles, shrimp and walnuts – but May and I don’t get to eat.

Yen-yen – carrying her new grandchild – takes us from table to table to make introductions. Almost everyone here is a Louie, and they all speak Sze Yup.

“This is Uncle Wilburt. This is Uncle Charley. And here’s Uncle Edfred,” she says to Joy.

These men in nearly matching suits made from cheap fabric are Sam and Vern’s brothers. Are these names they were born with? Not possible. They’re names they took to sound more American, just as May, Tommy, Z.G., and I took Western names to sound more sophisticated in Shanghai.

Since May and I have been married for a while already, instead of the usual wedding banter about our husbands’ coming fortitude in the bed chamber or how my sister and I are about to be plucked, the teasing revolves around Joy.

“You cook baby fast, Pearl-ah!” Uncle Wilburt says in broken English. From the coaching book, I know he’s thirty one, but he looks much older. “That baby many weeks early?

“Joy big for her age!” Edfred, who’s twenty-seven but looks a lot younger, chimes in. He’s quite emboldened by the mao tai he’s been drinking. “We can’t count, Pearl-ah.”

“Sam give you son next time!” Charley adds. He’s thirty, but it’s hard to tell because his eyes are red, swollen, and watery from allergies. “You cook next baby so good he come out even earlier!”

“You Louie men. All same!” Yen-yen scolds. “You think you count so good? You count how many days my daughters-in-law run from monkey people. You think she have hardship here? Bah! Baby lucky to be born at all! She lucky to be alive!

May and I pour tea for each guest and receive wedding gifts of lai see – red envelopes with gold good-luck characters and filled with money that will be ours alone – and more gold in the form of earrings, pins, rings, and enough bracelets to climb our arms to our elbows. I can barely wait for us to be alone so we can count the first of our escape money and figure out how to sell our jewelry.

Naturally, there are the predictable comments about Joy being a girl, but most people are delighted to see a baby – any baby. That’s when I realize that the majority of the guests are men, with very few wives and almost no children.

What we experienced on Angel island begins to make sense. The American government does everything possible to keep out Chinese men. It makes it even harder for Chinese women to enter the country. And in a lot of states it’s against the law for Chinese to marry Caucasians. All this ends in the desired result for the United States: with few Chinese women on American soil, sons and daughters can’t be born, saving the country from having to accept undesirable citizens of Chinese descent.

At table after table, the men want to hold joy. Some of them cry when they take her in their arms. They examine her fingers and toes. I can’t help it, but I fairly shine with my new status as mother. I’m happy – not in-the-stars happy but relieved happy. We survived. We made it to Los Angeles. Apart from Old Man Louie’s disappointment in Joy – and not in ten thousand years will I ever call her Pan Di – he’s arranged this celebration and we’re being welcomed.

But my sister – even as she performs her new-bride duties – seems pensive and withdrawn. My heart tightens. How cruel all this is for her, but she didn’t push me in a wheelbarrow for miles and nurse me back to health by being weak. Somehow my little sister has found a way to keep going forward.

It’s late by the time we get back to the apartment. We’re all tired, but Old Man Louie isn’t done with us.

“Give me your jewelry,” he says.

His demand shocks me. Wedding gold belongs to the bride alone. It’s the secret treasure she can draw on to buy herself a special treat without her husband’s criticism or use in times of emergency, as our mother did when Baba lost everything. Before I can protest, may says, “These things are ours. Everyone knows that.”

“I think you’re mistaken,” he asserts. “I’m your father-in-law. I’m the master here.” He could say he doesn’t trust us, and he’d be right. He could accuse us of wanting to use the gold to find a way out of here, and he’d be right. Instead, he adds, “Do you think you and your sister – smart and clever as you think you are with your Shanghai city ways – will know where to go tonight with that baby girl? Will you know where to go tomorrow? The blood of your father has ruined you both. This is why I can buy you for such a low price, but that doesn’t mean I’m willing to lose my goods so easily.”

We let the old man take our jewelry, but he doesn’t ask for the money hidden in our lai see. Maybe he knows that would be too much. But I feel no sense of triumph, and I can see May doesn’t either. She stands in the middle of the room, looking defeated, sad, and very much alone.

Simple Questions of Attaining “Sustainability”

(Beijing Today website’s blog section does not represent any view of Beijing Today or its reporter. Anyone interested about the story can find the original text from the link above the article. The site’s blog section aims to introducing expat blogs in China to more Chinese readers as 50 percent of Beijing Today readership remain young Chinese who have experience of living abroad, white colors or school students. Blogger who does not want his or her story linked at Beijing Today’s website, please email to info@beijingtoday.com.cn to take down the stories.)

http://www.cleanergreenerchina.com/2011/05/05/simple-questions-of-attaining-sustainability/

When thinking of the issues we face environmentally, and the recent links to climate change, we often speak about issues on a global level without considering the local issues/ impact of those discussions.  A condition I think about often as the discussions around climate change and environmental protection continue to be hobbled by issues of ecology vs. economy.

On a recent trip through the Yangtze though I saw things that really highlighted the long term difficulties that we face in building a “balanced” society.  Two of which are perhaps best illustrated by the pictures below.

In the first pictures, taken near an area that had seen a lot of construction in the last few years, you have the mountain which is been quarried, reduced to rubble that will be refined into different sizes, for different uses, which will then be loaded into one of the boats you see in the bottom of the picture.  This “new material” will wind up on a construction site in China to support a the growth of one of their many populations / cities/ economies.

The second is a hillside between Yichang and Wuhan in a particularly stunning part of the gorges, and highlights a completely different issue.  People gotta eat!  This hilltop is populated, and in order to sustain themselves, they have removed all the natural foliage and replaced it with crops.

Which leads me to ask a very simple question about two very real threats to our ideas of “sustainability”, and the goals that we have for “sustainability”

Can we truly find a balance when we have already put ourselves in the position that we have to literally shave down and remove the most solid foundations that our planet provides?  What are the limits that we are unwilling to cross, what will be the consequences if our lines are beyond those of the environment, and who should be paying the consequences of failing to respect some fundamental laws of the environment?

On the China Road with Rob Gifford

(Beijing Today website’s blog section does not represent any view of Beijing Today or its reporter. Anyone interested about the story can find the original text from the link above the article. The Blogger column aims to introducing foreign media’s interesting stories and expat blogs in China to more Chinese readers, as 50 percent of Beijing Today readership remain young Chinese who have experience of living abroad, white colors or school students. Authors who does not want his or her story linked at Beijing Today’s website, please email to info@beijingtoday.com.cn to take down the stories.)

http://thisischinablog.com/2011/05/19/on-the-china-road-with-rob-gifford/

I had first met Rob Gifford, author of the popular book China Road: A Journey into the Future of a Rising Power, in 2009, at the Suzhou Bookworm Literary Festival. I was still fumbling through the first draft of my own book, China Inside Out, and greatly appreciated the travelogue approach and relaxed feeling the book took in framing the charms and challenges of modernizing China. Since I had rushed out of my home to get to the book talk on time, I had forgotten my copy of the book to have him autograph it. And when I introduced myself to him after the Talk, I stammered and nervously told him how much I enjoyed the work. He was warm and gracious and encouraging when I told him about my own book project.

I didn’t forget my copy of his book when we met for coffee in Shanghai recently, though – and I didn’t forget to take along a copy of my own book, too, to give him as a gift for the inspiration of his work in the book and on the radio. Rob has been a correspondent for America’s National Public Radio (NPR) for twelve years. The book China Road grew out of a series of travelogues he produced for NPR. Rob returned to Shanghai after having been re-posted to NPR’s London Bureau for only a couple years.

Now, he and his family are preparing to return to London, this time with his taking on the position of Editor of the China section of The Economist Magazine. He’s excited about the prospect of developing more in-depth analysis pieces about China, to try to escape the sound-bite culture in which media is expected to produce pieces that emphasize entertainment over critical thinking. We both agreed that after a few years in China there is so much long-timers begin to take for granted in the ever-changing society that becomes difficult to recognize as novel, troublesome to record and nearly impossible to piece together. Book writing for the both us seemed to provide a prpoer strucutre in which to fit higgledy-piggledy experiences and observations we have in China.

I passed him my well-used copy of China Road for his signature, while I signed my own book to pass to him. He was glad to see all the sticky-notes affixed to pages of his book, and ranged through some of the notes to see what I’d written. Books signed, coffees swilled. We promised a catch-up once he gets re-settled in London. Or whenever he next returns to Shanghai, which, I expect, won’t be too far long.

Why bother with college?

(Beijing Today website’s blog section does not represent any view of Beijing Today or its reporter. Anyone interested about the story can find the original text from the link above the article. The Blogger column aims to introducing foreign media’s interesting stories and expat blogs in China to more Chinese readers, as 50 percent of Beijing Today readership remain young Chinese who have experience of living abroad, white colors or school students. Authors who does not want his or her story linked at Beijing Today’s website, please email to info@beijingtoday.com.cn to take down the stories.)

http://the-diplomat.com/china-power/2011/05/16/why-bother-with-college/

This month, in response to my post ‘Education Bubbles,’ I was asked the following three questions:

1.  How can you get the most out of your college degree?

2.  What can you gain from college that’s not financial?

3.  How can we determine a person’s ability, talent, and experience?

Because my students plan to study in the United States, I frequently discuss these issues with them. As I already mentioned, in a bad economy, Americans are increasingly questioning the value of taking out a second mortgage so that junior can have fun. But just as Americans are thinking of dropping out of college, Chinese are queuing up to take their place. Study abroad is such a hot trend that Shenzhen High School’s study abroad programme, which I created, will expand to become two international high schools next year.    
I’ve always been sceptical about Chinese students studying in the United States.  Many go to study business, and I used to tell them that they should take $10,000 of the $200,000 tuition money and become a fruit vendor. After four years of dealing daily with ignorant customers, arrogant policemen and thugs, they’ll have acquired the requisite knowledge of how to really do business in China, and with the $190,000 they can start their business career. I also told a former student, Zhou Yeran, that he was so talented that he ought to use his tuition money to make low-budget films for four years. (I was popular neither with those students who wanted to study business, nor with Zhou Yeran’s mother.)

Since then I’ve grown up a bit, and nowadays I tell my Peking University High School International Division students that, as China becomes increasingly more international and increasing bilingual in Chinese and Chinglish, the ability to read and write well in English is what will guarantee their professional success and personal happiness in life. While Chinese may speak fluent English, they’ll eventually hit a glass ceiling in a multinational because they can’t write well enough in English.  But if our students develop the habit of reading, they’ll discover that new worlds would immediately open to them: the Internet would suddenly become an infinite continent, books would permit them to travel back in time and skip forward to the future, and newspapers would connect them to a global community.

Our plan is to have students avoid applying to large state universities and the Ivy League, and apply only to humanities programmes at liberal arts colleges. This is ironic because when Americans mention overpriced, useless degrees they mean the humanities programmes at liberal arts colleges. Americans would presumably agree that the ability to read and write well is a valuable commodity, but many will argue that there’s an infrastructure in place (public libraries, the Internet, writers’ workshops, salons, etc.) that permits students to learn to read and write well through constant practice and communication with peers (one of my favourite writers, James Ellroy, is self-taught). But Chinese lack this language environment and support system, and while four years of intense reading and writing is probably not enough, it’s still a priceless education for them.

And while reading and writing well in English would give our students a tremendous competitive advantage in the China marketplace, what we’re interested in is how this skill makes them better and happier people. To read and write well requires and promotes intellectual curiosity, a wide breadth of knowledge, and logical thinking ability. To truly read and write well, our students need to love learning, and to want to constantly seek new knowledge; a lifetime of constant self-improvement translates into a lifetime of happiness.

The practical implication of targeting liberal arts colleges is that college admissions becomes less of a crapshoot. When I first started working in study abroad, I naively thought that I could get Shenzhen High School’s best students into the Ivy League. I thought Zhou Yeran, who was both a great writer and a great person, was a shoe-in for Yale or Harvard, and when he didn’t, it taught me never again to play the game that is Ivy League admissions.

Ivy League admissions officers say they’re looking for the best fit for their school, and they use what seems the world’s most torturous and belaboured application process to prove how serious they are. But just as employers won’t know the ability of a new hire until he’s been in the organization for months or possibly years, the Ivy League just won’t know what an admitted student’s actual performance is until, at the earliest, the student turns 40 years-old. The only real indicator of a person’s future performance is his family background, and that’s why the US university admissions process is so idiotic: the Ivy League asks for class grades that can be inflated, scores of tests that can be prepped, and essays that can be doctored, and in the end they’ll mainly admit the children of successful parents.

Talent and ability can’t be identified through tests and interviews, and the most egregious aspect of Ivy League admissions is how it can brand people as a success or failure at age 17. Talent and ability are the natural by-products of hard work and dedication in a high-pressure and strict environment, and such an environment is often not found in the Ivy League, where students are too often spoiled and pampered.

What we constantly reinforce in our students is that it doesn’t matter where you go to school, but what you make of the experience while you’re there. The most valuable thing for work and for life they can learn in a US college and university is the priceless skill of writing well. Whether or not they succeed today—in college and in life—is ultimately their choice, and no one has the right to tell them otherwise.

Mandarin Study Goals

(Beijing Today website’s blog section does not represent any view of Beijing Today or its reporter. Anyone interested about the story can find the original text from the link above the article. The Blogger column aims to introducing foreign media’s interesting stories and expat blogs in China to more Chinese readers, as 50 percent of Beijing Today readership remain young Chinese who have experience of living abroad, white colors or school students. Authors who does not want his or her story linked at Beijing Today’s website, please email to info@beijingtoday.com.cn to take down the stories.)

http://www.rayallychina.com/?p=3918

It has been a week since I have spoken, written or studied any Mandarin. In that short time I feel as I have gone backwards as I haven’t been practising everyday. So the first class back is always a difficult one to get my head and mouth around the language and tones. I am coming up to three months since I started and I have had to adjust my original goals, which in hindsight were overly optimistic. Despite this, I am quite pleased with my progress as my daily conversational Chinese is improving. My original plan was to be conversational level by three months; fluent in daily life by six months and using it for business and presentations by a year. I think I can still be somewhat fluent in daily life by six months, but to get to a high level of business use will take more than a year. Especially if I want to be able to read and write Chinese as well. Still as my teachers keep telling me “yi bu yi bu lai” 一步一步来  which means “step by step”. So if I keep learning and practising everyday, who knows how fast I will improve over the next few months. The key to speaking Chinese or any language is just to use it and talk, talk, and talk at every opportunity.

Queuing For China Visa

(Beijing Today website’s blog section does not represent any view of Beijing Today or its reporter. Anyone interested about the story can find the original text from the link above the article. The Blogger column aims to introducing foreign media’s interesting stories and expat blogs in China to more Chinese readers, as 50 percent of Beijing Today readership remain young Chinese who have experience of living abroad, white colors or school students. Authors who does not want his or her story linked at Beijing Today’s website, please email to info@beijingtoday.com.cn to take down the stories.)

http://www.rayallychina.com/?p=3915

While in Hong Kong I been updating my Visa, which is easy to do from here. The only problem is takes between three to five days depending on how much you pay. It use to only take a day but this has changed due to the rapidly rising number of people now applying to travel or work in China. When I got there the queue already went down the street and that was just to get in the building. Once inside you then have to take a ticket and queue and wait again for your application to be processed. At around HK$1,000 for a 30 day travel visa it’s not that cheap. But judging by the number of people queuing it must be a nice little (Hong Kong dollar cash only) earner for the Chinese Government.

Court Says China Should Ease Up On Drunk Drivers. Wait, What?

(Beijing Today website’s blog section does not represent any view of Beijing Today or its reporter. Anyone interested about the story can find the original text from the link above the article. The site’s blog section aims to introducing expat blogs in China to more Chinese readers as 50 percent of Beijing Today readership remain young Chinese who have experience of living abroad, white colors or school students. Blogger who does not want his or her story linked at Beijing Today’s website, please email to info@beijingtoday.com.cn to take down the stories.)

http://www.chinahearsay.com/court-says-china-should-ease-up-on-drunk-drivers-wait-what/

Enforcement of drunk driving laws is a new thing in China, and I don’t think everyone is on the same page yet.

One school of thought says that a zero-tolerance policy is best, which is the only way to discourage folks from doing it. On the other side, you have people who say that drinking is prevalent in society and that people will drive after a drink or two; the important thing to do is seriously punish those who are reckless behind the wheel.

Here’s what the Supreme People’s Court had to say about the subject:

The Supreme People’s Court has asked courts nationwide to be cautious and use discretion when sentencing people in drunken-driving cases after the offence was declared a crime in the newly amended Criminal Law and Road Traffic Safety Law on May 1.

In a recent announcement, the top court told lower courts they should be careful when deciding whether to convict drunken drivers because the practice is so common in China.

Initial reaction: so what if it’s common? Should we also look the other way for insider trading and tax evasion? (Wait a minute, I think we do.)

Although the law stipulates “those who drive while drunk should be sentenced to jail terms of between one and six months and also fined,” the top court has called for discretion, citing Article 13 of the Criminal Law, which says “offenses that cause very little harm to society shall not be accounted for as crimes”.

Yang Wanming, a senior judge from the top court, said earlier in an interview with China Central Television that drunken driving cases “with different details and results” should not all be treated the same and said some drunken drivers might not be held criminally responsible because of Article 13 of the Criminal Law.

Okay, I agree that judges should differentiate between, say, someone who drinks a couple beers and makes it home safely, and another person who downs a whole bottle of baijiu and then plows into a crowd of old folks doing their morning taiji.

But that’s as far as I’ll go with this. One can say that driving drunk is a victimless crime, but people who do this are engaging in a dangerous activity. If they do it and get away with it, they will be encouraged to do it again, and the next time might involve fun things like vehicular homicide or manslaughter. Seems like something society should want to discourage.

I’m on board with these comments:

“Zhang, as a senior judge, is confusing the public and his comments might interfere with the lower courts’ sentencing of drunken drivers,” said Tang Hongxin, a Beijing lawyer who believes the law should be strictly adhered to.

“It is understandable that the top court wants to show some leniency toward drunken drivers, who might face a bleak future if they are declared criminals,” said Tian Wenchang, another Beijing-based lawyer. “But there should be a strict standard, or else people will have less trust of the law and the courts.”

We’ll all be talking about this again in the future, because the SPC will be soliciting data from lower courts and will probably issue sentencing guidelines at some point.

That will end debate on this, at least for a while. If the court insists on a more lenient policy, though, perhaps things can still be tough on the administrative side (i.e. yanking driver’s licenses or instituting other penalties that do not include jail time).

Interview with FT’s Richard McGregor on The Party in Contemporary Chinese Society (Part I)

(Beijing Today website’s blog section does not represent any view of Beijing
Today or its reporter. Anyone interested about the story can find the original
text from the link above the article. The site’s blog section aims to introducing
expat blogs in China to more Chinese readers as 50 percent of Beijing Today
readership remain young Chinese who have experience of living abroad, white colors
or school students. Blogger who does not want his or her story linked at Beijing
Today’s website, please email to info@beijingtoday.com.cn to take down the
stories. )

http://thechinaobserver.com/2011/04/05/interview-with-fts-richard-mcgregor-on-the-party-in-contemporary-chinese-society-part-i/

To many, the Chinese Communist Party seems to operate under a veil of secrecy with very few Westerners or even Chinese understanding the full scope of its power. Richard McGregor, the Financial Times’ current Washington Bureau Chief, seeks to provide readers with a rare glimpse into the inner workings of the CCP in his book, The Party.

After McGregor spoke at Frontier Strategy Group’s headquarters a few weeks ago, he was kind enough to agree to this interview during our dinner. He answered my questions about the CCP, its influence on contemporary Chinese society, and much more.

Joel Backaler: Your book depicts the CCP as an all-powerful, top-down organization. However, a traditional Chinese saying goes, “the mountains are tall and the emperor is far away.” Why does it seem like the central government is so often unable to get lower levels of government to follow its dictates on issues like food safety, environmental protection and corruption?

Richard McGregor: I think my book depicts the CCP as an all-powerful organization, but also one which is decentralized as well. CCP cells, be they in big state companies in the capital or small townships far away from the centre, can operate in a highly autonomous fashion. That can be both a good and bad thing. It has a bad impact when they flout the kinds of rules on issues you mention, such as the environment and corruption. But it is not necessarily negative in other ways. Some degree of local autonomy is needed in a country as large as China. Beijing doesn’t know best in all cases and thus has to devolve day-to-day management of many issues to the regions. And it makes for a highly competitive country, as each locality battles each other for business and investment, which overall is beneficial.

Backaler: Generation Y Chinese living in a more materialistic middle kingdom seem to be using the Party as a vehicle for career promotion. Rather than unwavering devotion to traditional Party ideals, they are top performing students who use their Party affiliation to attain a stable life, high status, and the associated material benefits – Have you observed this to be the case? Can you share any noteworthy examples from your research?

McGregor: It is true that many people who have never had any revolutionary zeal or commitment to traditional communist ideology now join the CCP. It is easy to see why – it is, after all, the best networking opportunity in the country. I remember assembling a bunch of students from the Chinese equivalent of Ivy League universities, such as Tsinghua University in Beijing, who said that the top two students in each class were invited to join the CCP. The same goes for top-ranked high schools. The CCP wants the best and the brightest in their ranks, a change from the past, and for a political machine, a smart strategy. If the CCP hadn’t adopted the private sector and given entrepreneurs more freedom, the Chinese economy would not be the colossus it is today.

Backaler: I have conducted extensive research into the Chinese luxury goods market over the years. It would be good to hear your thoughts on the role luxury goods gift-giving play in contemporary China – especially from the perspective of Party officials.

McGregor: Gift-giving plays an important role, and by extension, luxury gift giving has become more and more important as well. You only need to look out the window in almost any Chinese city to see western luxury goods shops. Hangzhou, the capital of Zhejiang province, the centre of the wealthy private sector in China, has become the test ground for luxury goods companies. Some people argue that this culture of guanxi-style gift-giving creates corruption in China. I think it is the other way around. In other words, the culture of guanxi (reciprocal favours) and gift-giving provides a mechanism by which corruption can be transacted. The first gifts, which create the corrupt relationship, can be dressed up as a culturally-sensitive donation, in turn laying the ground for corruption in the future.

Interview with FT’s Richard McGregor on The Party in Contemporary Chinese Society (Part II)

(Beijing Today website’s blog section does not represent any view of Beijing
Today or its reporter. Anyone interested about the story can find the original
text from the link above the article. The site’s blog section aims to introducing
expat blogs in China to more Chinese readers as 50 percent of Beijing Today
readership remain young Chinese who have experience of living abroad, white colors
or school students. Blogger who does not want his or her story linked at Beijing
Today’s website, please email to info@beijingtoday.com.cn to take down the
stories. )

http://thechinaobserver.com/2011/04/05/interview-with-fts-richard-mcgregor-on-the-party-in-contemporary-chinese-society-part-i/

Backaler: Beijing and the world understand that, moving forward, the Chinese growth engine will no longer be fueled by low-wage manufacturing for export. What is the Chinese government trying to do to fuel domestic consumption? What challenges does it face?

McGregor: This is a big, complex question, but boiled down, I would nominate a few reasons why consumption is relatively low compared to the size of the economy. Firstly, the economy has long been geared to exports, through the creation of special trade zones and subsidies offered by local governments. The cheap, stable currency has also been an incentive to export. Perhaps even more important than exports in suppressing consumption, though, are the multiple incentives to invest, such as cheap capital and, once again, highly competitive local governments. Investment is much more important to China’s economy than exports.

Many economists point to China’s lack of social safety net and high education costs as the reason for the country’s high savings rates, and thus low consumption. In fact, the biggest boost to savings in recent years has come from the huge profits of large state firms, which in turn feeds into investment. The companies don’t have anything better to do with the money. This is a much overlooked fact–workers haven’t been making money in China’s boom. A select few entrepreneurs and companies have.

So to lift consumption, the CCP needs to lift people’s income, which they have been doing. Witness the huge wage rises of late. This is the most important trend in the Chinese economy today.

Backaler: In recent months the Party has come under scrutiny for its influence on leading Chinese companies such as Huawei Technologies. Is the Party open to creating a free, fair open business environment for foreign firms to compete in the Chinese market? Is it in their interest to do so?

McGregor: A good question. Without sounding Pollyannaish, I would hope the CCP has an interest in allowing an open competitive market. The economy and its stakeholders and consumers would benefit as a result, as would the rest of the world. But certainly, some of the big state firms, which are part of the CCP establishment, do not have an interest in opening the Chinese market. They have semi-monopolies in their sectors and like all monopolists, they naturally do not want to give their privileges up. Their political position gives them great power to resist change. Huawei is a slightly different case. It is a private firm, with an opaque structure and connections, which also benefits from the cheap capital that the CCP makes available to potential national champions.

Backaler: In your book, you mention that every influential Chinese leader has a “red machine” in their office. The red phone enables them to connect with Party elite from both the public and private sectors. However, you say that a large portion of the communication on this system consists of requests for jobs for family members of top officials. Is the Party still driven by ideals and principles, as it was in the early decades of its existence, or is it now primarily a vehicle for self-promotion and nepotism for those who control it?

McGregor: All political machines suffer from the atrophy that comes with the cronyism and corruption that are inevitably part of such organizations the world over. There is little idealism left, unless you confuse it with patriotism. To be fair, the CCP has struggled mightily with trying to balance cronyism in the appointment of officials with a system of credentials. It is not easy, because the system is a self-governing and self-regulating elite, answerable to no one outside of its ranks. But there are enough smart people who realize that the CCP’s self-preservation depends not just on doling out favors for their friends, but on making the party a flexible, open, successful and modern organization. At the end of the day, I think the system has a use-by date. How long it can last is frankly speculative but the CCP has done enough to modernize its system to give it some time in power yet.

This entry was posted in Consumer Intelligence, Inside Observer Intelligence, Inside Observer Interviews and tagged China Consumer, Chinese Consumer, Gen-Y, Party, Richard McGregor. Bookmark the permalink.

Not the Same As It Ever Was, Thankfully

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http://thisischinablog.com/2011/05/16/not-the-same-as-it-ever-was-thankfully/

Modern Chinese history has fascinated me for decades. For China, I think modern history starts around the year 1800; while some may think it begins with the installation of the Manchus – northern barbarians – in 1644, to mark the start of the Qing dynasty. In the very least, the rise of the Qing coincides with the West’s and Japan’s escalating interest in taking China apart, piece by piece – wholesale, for some. In a sense, it’s no wonder Chinese are still so sensitive about any hint of “interference” in the country’s internal affairs.

The Suzhou Bookworm and Royal Asiatic Society of Suzhou host Robert Bickers on Thursday, May 19, 2011, 7pm as he talks about his book “The Scramble for China: Foreign Devils in the Qing Empire, 1832 – 1914“. His is a history book that should be required reading for any foreigner interested in China or who wants to do business in the Middle Kingdom. A professor posted at Bristol University, he  writes a riveting account of foreign adventures in China during one of the most dramatic episodes in modern history, detailing how the clash of arrogances between China and the West have shaped commercial and political relationships between the two ever since. I’ve enjoyed the book for the well-drawn, seemingly infinite variety of characters – Chinese and foreign – who helped shape the China we know today as well as the lens through which we view the country’s past.

The Suzhou Bookworm, Gunxiu Fang 77, Shi Quan Jie.  50 rmb for RAS members; 70 rmb for non-members. Includes one glass of wine or beer.