Archive for May, 2014

08/05/2014

From Hong Kong With Love: A Toilet Map for Mainland Tourists – China Real Time Report – WSJ

A nasty row over whether children should be allowed to urinate in public has dampened Chinese enthusiasm for travel to Hong Kong, according to a WSJ poll.

Last month, tempers in Hong Kong flared after locals reacted furiously to the sight of a young mainland Chinese child urinating on the street while traveling with his parents in the former British colony, which prides itself on its immaculate subway and high levels of public cleanliness. The incident sparked protests, as well as angry debate.

This week, a WSJ poll of 1,065 Chinese-language readers found 79% of respondents say such events have made them less likely to visit the former British colony. Another 17% said it hadn’t made a difference to them, while 4% said they weren’t sure.

Still, one microblogger is hoping that an illustrated guide to Hong Kong’s toilets can help give relations between Hong Kong and mainland Chinese tourists a boost.

The online guide, titled From Hong Kong with Love: A Complete Manual on Finding a Toilet in Hong Kong, specifically covers the Mongkok area, where the most recent incident involving public urination and a mainland Chinese tourist took place. The dense commercial neighborhood is especially popular with mainland Chinese tourists.

The author of the guide, who identifies himself as being from Hong Kong, said he spent half a day taking pictures and taking notes in Mong Kok. “Every mainland friend who come to Hong Kong for travel or business should find it useful,” he said. “It may be naïve, but a thousand miles’ travel begins with one step,” he wrote.

via From Hong Kong With Love: A Toilet Map for Mainland Tourists – China Real Time Report – WSJ.

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07/05/2014

China’s Premier Li Goes to Africa – Businessweek

Chinese Premier Li Keqiang is visiting Ethiopia, Nigeria, Angola, and Kenya this week in his first trip to Africa since assuming office. Accompanying him is his wife, Cheng Hong, who is making her first public appearance on a diplomatic mission—and a splash in China’s domestic media, given the relative novelty of top leaders’ wives appearing in public in official roles.

Li speaking on May 5 in Ethiopia

Over the past decade, China’s economic ties to Africa have grown quickly. Trade has risen (PDF) from $10 billion in 2000 to $166.3 billion in 2011. Meanwhile China’s foreign direct investment in Africa has jumped from $392 million in 2005 to $2.5 billion in 2012, according to figures from China’s commerce ministry. Much of that money has gone to infrastructure projects, including roads, dams, mines, and oil rigs.

On Monday in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia’s capital, Li laid out his vision for the future of China-Africa relations. Speaking at the headquarters of the African Union, he said he imagined a day when all African capitals would be connected by high-speed rail—quickly adding that China’s experience and technology could “help make this dream come true,” according to state-run newswire Xinhua.

via China’s Premier Li Goes to Africa – Businessweek.

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07/05/2014

In China’s Xinjiang, economic divide seen fuelling ethnic unrest | Reuters

Hundreds of migrant workers from distant corners of China pour daily into the Urumqi South railway station, their first waypoint on a journey carrying them to lucrative work in other parts of the far western Xinjiang region.

Uighur women stand next to a street to wait for a bus in downtown Urumqi, Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region May 1, 2014. REUTERS-Petar Kujundzic

Like the columns of police toting rifles and metal riot spears that weave between migrants resting on their luggage, the workers are a fixture at the station, which last week was targeted by a bomb and knife attack the government has blamed on religious extremists.

“We come this far because the wages are good,” Shi Hongjiang, 26, from the southwestern metropolis of Chongqing, told Reuters outside the station. “Also, the Uighur population is small. There aren’t enough of them to do the work.”

Shi’s is a common refrain from migrant workers, whose experience finding low-skilled work is very different to that of the Muslim Uighur minority.

Employment discrimination, experts say, along with a demographic shift that many Uighurs feel is diluting their culture, is fuelling resentment that spills over into violent attacks directed at Han Chinese, China’s majority ethnic group.

The apparent suicide attack on the station, which killed one bystander, was the latest violence to hit Xinjiang, despite a pledge from China’s President Xi Jinping to rain “crushing blows against violent terrorist forces”.

via In China’s Xinjiang, economic divide seen fuelling ethnic unrest | Reuters.

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07/05/2014

China detains five activists before 25th anniversary of Tiananmen crackdown | Reuters

China on Tuesday detained five rights activists, three lawyers and a rights group said, after they attended a weekend meeting that called for a probe into the suppression of pro-democracy protests in Tiananmen Square in 1989.

Chinese lawyer Pu Zhiqiang (R) speaks to journalists outside a courthouse in Chongqing municipality, December 28, 2012. REUTERS/Stringer

Among those held was Pu Zhiqiang, a prominent free-speech lawyer, who has represented many dissidents, including artist Ai Weiwei and an activist of the “New Citizens’ Movement”, a group that urges Chinese leaders to disclose their assets. He was detained on a charge of “causing a disturbance”, two lawyers said.

He has also opposed the system of forced labor camps, which the government has abolished, and featured prominently in state media for that campaign – unusual for a government critic.

Also detained were dissident Liu Di and Xu Youyu, a professor with the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, a government think-tank, rights lawyer Shang Baojun said, citing conversations he had with family members of Liu and Xu.

Shang said he did not know what charge Liu and Xu would face as the families have not received their detention notices.

Dissident Hu Shigen and Hao Jian, who teaches at the Beijing Film Academy, were also detained, according to Chinese Human Rights Defenders, a China-based rights advocacy group.

The detentions raised the stakes in a crackdown on dissent and underscored the sensitivity of Chinese leaders to criticism ahead of the 25th anniversary of the crushing of demonstrations around Tiananmen Square in Beijing on June 4, 1989.

via China detains five activists before 25th anniversary of Tiananmen crackdown | Reuters.

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07/05/2014

Philippines police capture Chinese fishing boat in South China Sea | South China Morning Post

Philippines police seized a Chinese boat near ‘Half Moon Shoal‘ in the South China Sea on Wednesday after it was found to have hauled in 500 turtles. Philippine police confirmed the capture and said the vessel was being towed to southwestern Palawan province.

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China’s official Xinhua news agency earlier reported contact had been lost with 11 fishermen in the South China Sea after they were intercepted by “armed men”.

The fishermen were on board the boat Qiongqionghai 09063, which was “intercepted by an unidentified armed vessel at about 10am in waters off” the Spratly Islands, Xinhua said, citing a fishing association in Qionghai on China’s southern island province of Hainan.

Reporters were not immediately able to reach officials in Hainan for comment. It was also not clear from the report if the fishermen were Chinese nationals.

China claims almost the entire oil- and gas-rich South China Sea, rejecting rival claims to parts or all of it from Vietnam, the Philippines, Taiwan, Malaysia and Brunei.

There are frequent tensions in the South China Sea between China and the other claimant nations, particularly Vietnam and the Philippines, both of which say Beijing has harassed their ships in the waters there.

On Tuesday, China warned Vietnam not to disturb activities of Chinese companies operating near disputed islands in the South China Sea, after Hanoi condemned as illegal the movement of a giant Chinese oil rig into what it says is its territorial water.

via Philippines police capture Chinese fishing boat in South China Sea | South China Morning Post.

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07/05/2014

Six wounded in knife rampage at Guangzhou Railway Station | South China Morning Post

At least six people were wounded in a knife attack at Guangzhou Railway Station yesterday, the third assault on civilians at train stations in two months.

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Witnesses said four assailants began attacking passengers at random at about 11.30am.

Watch unconfirmed video: Suspected attacker caught by police after Guangzhou train station violence

One was subdued by police and a luggage handler after being shot by an officer. But police said later on social media that only one suspect was involved.

Witnesses also said one of the injured was a middle-aged Westerner, but Guangzhou police denied any foreigner was among the victims.

The police didn’t approach [the attacker] until they shot him twice in his chest HU ZHONG, LUGGAGE HANDLER

At least four people were taken to the General Hospital of Guangzhou Military Command, local police said. Three were in stable condition after surgery.

The attack comes less than a week after an explosion at a railway station in Urumqi – capital of Xinjiang , the vast western region home to ethnic minority Uygurs – left two attackers and a civilian dead and 79 wounded.

It also follows a March attack at a railway station in the southwestern city of Kunming , in which machete-wielding attackers killed 29 people and wounded 143 in what many in China dubbed the country’s “9/11”.

via Six wounded in knife rampage at Guangzhou Railway Station | South China Morning Post.

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07/05/2014

Vietnam dispatches 29 ships to intercept Chinese oil rig in South China Sea; standoff with Chinese ships

Case of Lilliput versus Gulliver?

06/05/2014

China’s Millennials Can’t Afford Homes in Beijing (Without Daddy’s Help) – Businessweek

For many young professionals in Beijing, the dream of owning a home feels increasingly remote. Soaring home prices—driven in large part by the popularity of real estate as an investment vehicle in China—mean that even relatively successful young workers find it hard to climb onto the housing ladder in leading cities.

Potential buyers visit a real estate trade fair on April 5, 2012 in Beijing

According to a recent study by the University of International Business & Economics in Beijing, fewer than a quarter of college-educated, employed professionals in Beijing age 34 and younger are homeowners. Those with relatives in the capital city often reside with family members. Others rent apartments—paying, on average, 37 percent of their monthly income in rent.

Of those young respondents who were homeowners in Beijing, fully three-quarters said they received substantial help from their parents or other family members. And of those, 25 percent said their parents had paid the full price of their home outright in cash.

via China’s Millennials Can’t Afford Homes in Beijing (Without Daddy’s Help) – Businessweek.

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06/05/2014

Why China Isn’t Worried About Slowing GDP: Jobs Strength – Businessweek

Even as China’s economy continues to show signs of a slowdown, Beijing has avoided rolling out any big new stimulus programs; that’s in direct contrast to its pump-priming response during the 2008 global financial crisis.

A tea plantation in Hangzhou, China

Why the apparent lack of worry? It’s got everything to do with jobs. In the first quarter, China created 3.44 million new urban jobs, 40,000 more than a year earlier. China has said for the full year it wants to create at least 10 million new positions—that target now looks easily reachable.

GDP growth has halved since peaking above 14 percent in 2007. But, with a greater share of output coming from more labor-intensive sectors, and the economy itself much larger, more new jobs are being created today,” wrote economists Mark Williams, Qinwei Wang, and Julian Evans-Pritchard, at London-based Capital Economics, in a May 2 note.

via Why China Isn’t Worried About Slowing GDP: Jobs Strength – Businessweek.

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06/05/2014

Weak Economy Means There’s More Room at India’s Hotels – India Real Time – WSJ

The subcontinent’s fanciest hoteliers are plumping their pillows for fewer guests as the economy takes a toll on travel.

Corporations are chopping their travel budgets. Foreign tourism isn’t what it used to be. And there was an oversupply of hotel rooms in India to begin with.

For reasons like these, hotels particularly at the higher end of the business will be facing “muted revenue growth, stagnated profitability and elevated credit risk” in the fiscal year that started April 1, a rating agency said.

Premium hotels, a category that includes five-star and four-star properties, are feeling most of the pain, according to a report from India Ratings & Research, a Fitch Ratings Inc. firm. They get about two-thirds of their business from corporate and foreign travelers.

“The demand slowdown has put pressure on occupancy and average room rate across major cities,” the report said, limiting hotels’ ability to pass along rising costs due to inflation.

India currently has around 100,000 hotel rooms in what is called the “organized” sector (which excludes myriad smaller and often cheaper properties), as well as an additional 85,000 to 90,000 rooms being built. Weak demand has led many hotel companies to delay new projects and even shelve 40% to 50% of new-hotel construction proposals due to the slumping business, rising financing costs and increase in construction costs, Chandan Sharma and Salil Garg, analysts at Indian Ratings, said in the report.

via Weak Economy Means There’s More Room at India’s Hotels – India Real Time – WSJ.

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