China alert | CHINDIA ALERT: You'll be living in their world, very soon

20/09/2013

The politics of Chinese dam-building: Opening the floodgates

The Economist: “CHINA has many good reasons not to build the $5.2 billion Xiaonanhai dam on the Yangzi river in Chongqing. The site, on a gentle slope that moves water along only slowly, is not ideal for generating hydropower. The fertile soil makes it one of China’s most productive regions, so it is densely populated with farmers reaping good harvests. And the dam (see map), which would produce only 10% of the electricity of the Three Gorges project downstream, could destroy a rare fish preserve, threatening several endangered species including the Yangzi sturgeon.

Yet it does not matter how strong the case may be against Xiaonanhai, because the battle against a hydropower scheme in China is usually lost before it is fought. The political economy of dam-building is rigged. Though the Chinese authorities have made much progress in evaluating the social and environmental impact of dams, the emphasis is still on building them, even when mitigating the damage would be hard. Critics have called it the “hydro-industrial complex”: China has armies of water engineers (including Hu Jintao, the former president) and at least 300 gigawatts of untapped hydroelectric potential. China’s total generating capacity in 2012 was 1,145GW, of which 758GW came from coal-burning plants.

An important motive for China to pursue hydropower is, ironically, the environment. China desperately needs to expand its energy supply while reducing its dependence on carbon-based fuels, especially coal. The government wants 15% of power consumption to come from clean or renewable sources by 2020, up from 9% now. Hydropower is essential for achieving that goal, as is nuclear power. “Hydro, including large hydro in China, is seen as green,” says Darrin Magee, an expert on Chinese dams at Hobart and William Smith Colleges in New York state.

There is also a political reason why large hydro schemes continue to go ahead. Dambuilders and local governments have almost unlimited power to plan and approve projects, whereas environmental officials have almost no power to stop them.”

via The politics of dam-building: Opening the floodgates | The Economist.

Peking and Tsinghua universities to offer free courses online

SCMP: “Two of the mainland’s most prestigious institutions of higher learning, Peking and Tsinghua universities, will start offering free online courses in partnership with EdX, a major open-course provider.

Peking University announced earlier this week it would make four courses, including electronic circuits and the study of folklore, available to students around the world through the EdX web platform starting on Monday. Tsinghua University will make available two courses – the history of Chinese architecture and principles of electric circuits, starting on October 18, according to an EdX schedule.

The introduction of Chinese-language courses from Peking and Tsinghua comes after the two universities signed a deal with EdX in May and spent subsequent months preparing the courses.

Li Xiaoming , an online and information systems professor overseeing the web offerings at Peking University, was previously quoted by mainland media as saying the university planned to offer about 100 courses through EdX within five years. EdX, a major provider of massive online open courses, or Mooc, was founded by Harvard University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in the United States. It has signed up 29 global universities – including Harvard, MIT and the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology – as partners.

Its competitor Coursera, which was founded in April last year by two computer science professors at Stanford University and which has more than 60 partner schools, signed up two additional mainland institutions, Fudan University and Shanghai Jiao Tong University, in July.

But neither institution has announced plans about which courses it would offer or when their programme would begin.

While it is free to access non-profit Mooc platforms, Coursera said it would charge students between US$60 and US$90 for exams proctored by a third party.

EdX said it also offered students the option of having their final exams proctored for a fee at official testing centres.

Cheng Fangping , a professor at Renmin University who specialises in tertiary education, said Chinese universities could not afford to be left out of the online education trend in an increasingly globalised world of higher learning.

Traditional universities should not regard such online courses as a challenge but an opportunity to boost their global competitiveness by devising courses that met international standards and by further diversifying and broadening their curriculum.

Cheng said that as the nation rose to prominence on the economic and political global stage, studying topics that focused on Chinese issues such as the environment, could become highly prized by people in many other countries.”

via Peking and Tsinghua universities to offer free courses online | South China Morning Post.

UK universities to offer free online courses (independent.co.uk)

Posted in China alert, Economics, education, Social & cultural | Leave a Comment »

Tags: Beijing, chinese language courses, computer science professors, jiao tong university, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, massachusetts institute of technology mit, Peking, Peking University, shanghai jiao tong, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Tsinghua, Tsinghua University, United States

19/09/2013

For China, a New Kind of Feminism

Given that it was Chairman Mao who said that “women hold up half the sky”, it is surprising that women still do not feel equal in China. But history and culture is obviously very deep rooted.

NY Times: “If you want to Lean In in Chinese, you “Take One Step Forward.” That’s how the title of Sheryl Sandberg’s contemporary feminist manifesto, “Lean In: Women, Work and the Will to Lead,” has been translated here.

And you do it with gusto, judging from the reactions of about a thousand students and businesspeople at two events in Beijing last week where Ms. Sandberg, the chief operating officer of Facebook, promoted the new Chinese version of her book.

“People were hungry for it,” Allison Ye, co-founder of a “Lean In circle” in Beijing — a small group of peers who meet to talk about the book’s message — said of the response to Ms. Sandberg’s main point: overcome your internal barriers to success and get to the deal table.

The enthusiasm suggests an intriguing possibility: As the Chinese government strikes anew against freedom of speech, detaining even mild-mannered democracy activists, civil society advocates and popular public opinion leaders, might there be a feminist revolution in China before there is a democratic one?

In recent weeks, Lean In circles have set up in half a dozen universities in the capital, including Tsinghua University, Peking University and the Communication University of China, members said in interviews.

“I feel like this is a new stage for us,” said Ms. Ye, 27, who works for a Chinese company. “I can’t speak for everyone, but I feel that despite the cultural differences between America and China, the method is universal. I feel it’s true that you can take responsibility for yourself, it’s a good thing, and then you can change your situation.”

Of course, feminism in China predates Ms. Sandberg’s book. But it has gained new focus with the arrival of the movement here. Ms. Ye’s conversion began in March, when she chanced online upon a TED talk given by Ms. Sandberg in 2010 called “Why we have too few women leaders.” She was hooked.

“I was shaken,” she said. “I said to myself, ‘Who is she?’ Everything she said was, wow! So true. I watched it three times in one day. Then I bought an English copy of her book.

“With a friend, we said, ‘Why don’t we open a Lean In circle? We want to support Chinese women and help them set up their own circles.”’

Word spread, including to 21-year-old Carrie Huang. Two weeks ago, Ms. Huang set up a circle at the prestigious Renmin University of China, where she studies finance. “My friends and I, we all felt that we do that — we underestimate ourselves,” she said in an interview. “It has to do with our education and background. Our parents tell us, ‘You are girls, get yourself a stable life and don’t have too much ambition.”’

Many young Chinese women, especially in cities, are highly educated and beginning to overtake men in some college subjects — Ms. Huang said there were 16 women and 7 men in her finance class — but deep cultural messages hold them back.

“We fear we aren’t good enough. We lack confidence,” Ms. Huang said, adding that many women in China prioritize their boyfriends’ or husbands’ goals. “What we need is the courage to try different things,” she said. “It’s about discovering what you want to do. Parents have wishes for us, and it’s hard to change.”

At their weekly meetings, Ms. Huang said, she and her half-dozen “circlers,” some of whom are male, plan to raise specific questions. “We want to talk about ‘strong women’ and how men see them — as aggressive or bossy?”

Not everyone likes the Chinese translation of the book’s impactful English title. Some snickered that it was similar to the message found in men’s public urinals to “please take a step forward.”

Ms. Huang says it doesn’t quite catch the psychological nature of Ms. Sandberg’s message. “It makes it sound like it’s about overcoming external obstacles, taking a step forward,” she said. “But actually, this book is about overcoming your inner obstacles.”

Either way, experienced Chinese feminists have welcomed it.

“I think her message is definitely an empowering one, calling for more women to get to the deal table,” said Feng Yuan, an activist for gender rights and equality.

Still, it is only one response to the daunting cultural and institutional hurdles facing women in China, Ms. Feng said.

“I don’t think the personal approach can change the fundamentally unequal gender structures,” she said. “But in terms of a woman’s individual situation, it’s useful because a lot of women fear feminism, that kind of collective call. A personal message is workable.”

It may not work for uneducated, poor or rural women, Ms. Feng said, an echo of criticism that the book has received in the West. “Her target audience is educated and ambitious women, and these women are able to mobilize resources to achieve their goals,” she said.

“But we shouldn’t be too critical,” she said. “You can’t expect her to have a formula for all women’s rights. Even the very well educated need this, and they should have it.””

via For China, a New Kind of Feminism – NYTimes.com.

Posted in China alert, Economics, Gender imbalance, Gender issues, Politics, Social & cultural | 1 Comment »

Tags: Beijing, China, Communication University of China, Feminism, feminist manifesto, politics, Renmin University of China, Tsinghua University

17/09/2013

House-for-pension stirs Chinese debate on elder care

This post and another on China‘s labour force posted today illustrate how fast China is catching up with developed nations, not always for the better.

China Daily: “For 71-year-old Li Yuzhen, a life taking care of a sick husband and a mentally-disabled son in their two-bedroom apartment in the East China city of Hefei has not been easy.

The family of three nets a monthly income of 3,000 yuan ($487), but spends one third of it on medicine. They barely make ends meet with the rest of the money.

Li said they could not afford a nursing home, and she has to stay at home to look after her son, a man in his 40s but still unmarried due to his condition.

In an effort to explore elder care solutions for China’s rapidly aging society, the State Council, China’s Cabinet, vowed last week to complete a social care network for people over age 60 by 2020, when the age group is expected to reach 243 million. This group’s population had already reached 194 million by the end of 2012, giving China the largest senior population on earth.

One solution proposed is the house-for-pension program.

“The plan allows you to deed your house to an insurance company or bank, which will determine the value of your house and your life expectancy, and then grant you a certain amount every month,” said Meng Xiaosu, former CEO of Happy Life Insurance Co, Ltd.

“You can still live in your house, but the company or the bank has ownership,” Meng said.

The program, while only a suggestion, has drawn widespread concern and met with mixed views.

Zhan Chengfu, director of the division on social welfare and charity of the Ministry of Civil Affairs, said the program benefits both the elderly and insurance companies and banks as it can ease elderly care fund shortages, revitalize housing resources and expand the insurance business.

According to a joint study by the Bank of China (BOC) and Deutsche Bank last year, the aging population will leave China with a shortfall of 18.3 trillion yuan in pension funds by 2013 and create a heavy fiscal burden for the country.

Zheng Bingwen, a social security researcher at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, likened China’s pension system to a pyramid with the ground level being the basic pension pool, the middle level being companies’ supplementary pensions, and the top level being individuals’ commercial insurance. But the proportion of the total pension funds to gross domestic output is small compared to other BRICS nations.

“We need different channels to supplement funds shortage, and house-for-pension is likely to be a plausible way for elder care,” Zhang said.

However, the proposal stirred a heated public debate, especially among people whose parents have property and fear losing the inheritance.

via House-for-pension stirs debate on elder care[1]|chinadaily.com.cn.

Posted in Ageing population, Change, China alert, demographics, Economics, Health, housing, income-wealth gap, Population, real estate, retirement pensions, saving | Leave a Comment »

Tags: Bank of China, BRICS, China, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, Deutsche Bank, Elderly care, health, Hefei

17/09/2013

China’s Bosses Size Up a Changing Labor Force

This post about the workforce and another posted today about houses-for-pensions show how fast China is catching up with the developed nations; not always for the good of its citizens.

BusinessWeek: “John Liu is the 31-year-old founder and owner of Harderson International, a small factory in southern China that applies paint and decals to ceramics and glass. His showroom includes samples of tinted perfume bottles made for Ralph Lauren and Kate Spade.

A 2006 graduate of Wuhan University in central China, Liu is not much older than the 20-somethings and late teenagers who come to work on the assembly line. But generational cohorts in China are extremely compressed, and Liu sees a vast gap in expectations between himself and those a decade younger. “When I finished school, I felt I needed to find a good stable job quickly and earn money,” he says. “But living conditions in China have improved quickly. Young people now don’t have to work so hard to earn a living, and many have parents who will support them. … A lot of those born in the 1990s can’t stand this kind of repetitive work, so they choose to stay home or do very simple cashier work, even though it pays less.” The upshot is that, for a small factory, it’s “getting harder to find workers.”

Last year the total size of China’s working-age population began to decline, according to figures from China’s National Bureau of Statistics. As the Economist ominously noted, China’s moment of “peak toil” has passed. Yet it’s not only demographics that are changing. Today’s Internet-savvy young workers have different ideas and higher expectations than their predecessors, and not only regarding pay. In response to an evolving workforce, factory managers at a handful of small and midsize plants in China’s Pearl River Delta say they must now offer better conditions to attract and retain workers—or else look for opportunities to automate.”

via China’s Bosses Size Up a Changing Labor Force – Businessweek.

Posted in China alert, Economics, education, employment, income-wealth gap, labour shortage, middle class, One-child policy, Politics, Population, Social & cultural, The Chinese Dream | Leave a Comment »

Tags: China, generational cohorts, Labor force, national bureau of statistics, Pearl River Delta, Ralph Lauren, stable job, Wuhan University

17/09/2013

China says aims to train astronauts from other countries

Reuters: “China aims to train astronauts from other countries who will conduct missions with their Chinese counterparts, state news agency Xinhua cited a senior official as saying on Monday.

China will also share the technological achievements of its manned space program with other countries, especially with developing ones, Xinhua quoted Wang Zhaoyao, head of the country’s manned space program office, as saying.

“Cooperation should be either bilateral or multilateral, with diversified and flexible models based on peace and a win-win cooperation,” he said.

The move will happen “at a proper time”, Wang told an international seminar in Beijing. Xinhua gave no other details.

China successfully completed its latest manned space mission in June, when three astronauts spent 15 days in orbit and docked with an experimental space laboratory critical in Beijing’s quest to build a working space station by 2020.

China is still far behind established space superpowers, the United States and Russia, which decades ago learned the docking techniques China is only now mastering.

It is already working with Russia in the field of astronaut training, has a cooperative relationship with the European Space Agency and has begun talking to its opposite numbers in the United States, Wang added.

Beijing insists its space program is for peaceful purposes, but the U.S. Defense Department has highlighted China’s increasing space capabilities and said Beijing is pursuing a variety of activities aimed at preventing its adversaries from using space-based assets during a crisis.

Wang said that China “will consistently adhere to the principle of peaceful use, equality, mutual benefit and common development in the construction of its manned space station”.

China aims to land its first probe on the moon at the end of this year.

via China says aims to train astronauts from other countries | Reuters.

Posted in Aerospace, China alert, Economics, GeoPolitics, Good news, Politics, Technology | Leave a Comment »

Tags: Beijing, China, European Space Agency, Human spaceflight, Russia, United States, United States Department of Defense

17/09/2013

China Communist Party investigators tried over drowning

The Communist Party of China seems to be trying hard to apply the ‘rule of law’ to its own cadres. Must be a good thing.

BBC: “The trial has begun in China of six Communist Party officials accused of causing the death of a man who drowned after his head was repeatedly plunged in icy water during an investigation.

File photo: Yu Qiyi poses for a photo at an exhibition held at a hotel in Beijing, 2 September 2012

Yu Qiyi, the chief engineer of a state-owned company in Wenzhou, was being interrogated by party officials – and not police – when he died on 9 April.

As the trial got under way, the family lawyer said he was ejected from court.

Analysts say the case casts light on the darker side of party discipline.

Indeed the case, which is being heard in the city of Quzhou, appears to be a rare acknowledgement of some of the methods that lie behind the country’s well publicised crackdown on corruption, according to correspondents.

The case is extremely sensitive and the lawyer for Mr Yu’s family has already expressed his anger at being removed from court, saying the legal process was flawed.

Reuters also reports that the lawyer for one of the accused expressed concern about the court’s actions because her client wanted to apologise.

There has been no comment from the lawyers of the other accused men and neither the government nor the Communist Party has commented publicly on the case.”

via BBC News – China Communist Party investigators tried over drowning.

Posted in China alert, Good news, Human rights, Illegal practices, Interrogation, Openness, Politics, Reform, Rule of law | Leave a Comment »

Tags: china communist party, communist party of china, party discipline, politics

17/09/2013

China to cut coal use, shut polluters, in bid to clear the air

China‘s fight against pollution continues unabated. Hope it is enough to save China (and the world).

Reuters: “China unveiled comprehensive new measures to tackle air pollution on Thursday, with plans to slash coal consumption and close polluting mills, factories and smelters, but experts said implementing the bold targets would be a major challenge. Vehicles past apartment blocks during rush hour in Beijing July 11, 2013. REUTERS/Jason Lee

China has been under heavy pressure to address the causes of air pollution after thick, hazardous smog engulfed much of the industrial north, including the capital, Beijing, in January.

It has also been anxious to head off potential sources of unrest as an increasingly affluent urban population turns against a growth-at-all-costs economic model that has spoiled much of China’s air, water and soil.

China published the plan on its official website (www.gov.cn), also promising to boost nuclear power and natural gas use. Environmentalists welcomed the plan but were skeptical about its effective implementation.

“The coal consumption reduction targets for key industrial areas are a good sign they are taking air pollution and public health more seriously, but to make those targets happen, the action plan is a bit disappointing and there are loopholes,” said Huang Wei, a campaigner with Greenpeace in Beijing.

Beijing has struggled to get wayward provinces and industries to adhere to its anti-pollution measures and there were few concrete measures in the new plan to help strengthen its ability to monitor and punish those who violate the rules.

“We don’t see any fundamental structural changes, and this could be a potential risk in China’s efforts to meet targets to reduce PM 2.5,” said Huang, referring to China’s plan to cut a key indicator of air pollution by 25 percent in Beijing and surrounding provinces by 2017.

Coal, which supplies more than three-quarters of China’s total electricity needs, has been identified as one of the main areas it needs to tackle. China would cut total consumption of the fossil fuel to below 65 percent of primary energy use by 2017 under the new plan, down from 66.8 percent last year.

Green groups were expecting the action plan to include detailed regional coal consumption cuts, but those cuts appear to have been left to the provinces to settle themselves.

Northern Hebei province, China‘s biggest steel-producing region, has announced it would slash coal use by 40 million metric tons over the 2012-2015 period.

Other targets in the plan were also generally in line with a previous plans. It said it would aim to raise the share of non-fossil fuel energy to 13 percent by 2017, up from 11.4 percent in 2012. Its previous target stood at 15 percent by 2020.

To help meet that target, it would raise installed nuclear capacity to 50 gigawatts (GW) by 2017, up from 12.5 GW now and slightly accelerating a previous 2020 target of 58 GW.

It would add 150 billion cubic meters of natural gas trunk pipeline transmission capacity by the end of 2015 to cover industrial areas like the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region and the Yangtze and Pearl river deltas in the east and southeast.”

via China to cut coal use, shut polluters, in bid to clear the air | Reuters.

Posted in carbon emission, China alert, Climate change, Ecology, Economics, energy, Environment, Good news, Green, greenhouse gas, Pollution | Leave a Comment »

Tags: air pollution, Beijing, causes of air pollution, China, climate, Coal, coal consumption, environment, Particulates, pollution, Yangtze River

16/09/2013

China’s wealthy increasingly attracted to Britain’s elite secondary schools

SCMP: “A decade after Bo Guagua, grandson to a revolutionary hero and son of fallen Communist Party leader Bo Xilai, became the first Chinese to attend Britain’s elite Harrow School, agencies promising access to Britain’s top independent schools are expanding rapidly to cope with rising demand from the growing pool of high-net-worth individuals from China.

The London-based education consultancy Gabbitas opened its first office in Shanghai in 2009. Four years later, it also advises well-off parents in Guangzhou, Wenzhou and Dalian on how to get their children into secondary schools once reserved for British and continental European aristocracy.

Within five years the agency plans to open another 12 branch offices, said Sofie Liao, director of Gabbitas in China. Schools like Eton and Harrow “are getting more and more enquiries from Chinese families,” she said, anticipating annual growth rates of 10 to 15 per cent.

Liao’s biggest challenge is to lower parents’ expectations, she said. Parents “have to be realistic,” she said. They “tend to think, you register with Eton and then you need to pack your luggage and go there next year.”

These schools “have royalty, they don’t care how much money you have in your bank account or how many listed companies you have,” Liao said.

She said parents are signing up their children to join the UK’s exclusive schools at a younger age to increase their chances of being accepted. “The youngest students we have are pre-prep school age, two to three years old. They have to wait another 11 years before they can get in.”

“It’s a very long selling cycle,” said Jazreel Goh, director for education marketing at the British embassy in Beijing, adding that such agencies are unlikely to be challenged by the average Chinese rivals.

“The market is a very niche and specialised service. The bar for being a good boarding school agent is set quite high – you have to have the network of boarding schools and you have to know which might suit the applicant,” she said.

Goh estimated that there are about ten professional boarding school agencies in China. The trend she has seen is more upper-middle-class parents signing up with agencies to send their children to the UK.

Students from China, including Hong Kong, make up by far the largest group of foreign students studying at British independent schools, according to a census in January this year surveying more than a thousand schools by the British Independent School Council. Among the 25,912 foreign secondary school children in Britain, 9,623 or 37.1 per cent came from China.”

via China’s wealthy increasingly attracted to Britain’s elite secondary schools | South China Morning Post.

Posted in China alert, Economics, education | Leave a Comment »

Tags: Bo Guagua, Bo Xilai, China, Dalian, Education, Harrow School, London, politics, Wenzhou

16/09/2013

China’s international sister cities exceed 2,000

In my travels around the UK, I have yet to come across a British city twinned with a Chinese one. There are lots twinned with other European cities. Are British municipalities missing a great opportunity ?

Xinhua: “China has established sister-city relations with 2,022 cities or states in 131 countries worldwide, the overseas edition of the People’s Daily reported on Monday.

“Sister cities have become a major channel for communication and cooperation between Chinese governments and their foreign counterparts,” Li Xiaolin, president of the Chinese People’s Association for Friendship with Foreign Countries, told the newspaper.

Li Liguo, secretary-general of the China International Friendship Cities Association (CIFCA), said the number of China’s sister cities will increase to more than 3,000 by 2020 amid rapid urbanization in China.

“China will deepen exchanges and cooperation in terms of bilateral and multilateral politics, economy and trade, science and technology, culture and education with its sister cities,” Li was quoted as saying.

Tianjin, a municipality south of Beijing, formed sister-city relations with Japan’s Kobe in 1973, establishing China’s first pair of international sister cities.

“The development of twin cities reflects the achievements of China’s reform and opening-up policy,” the People’s Daily quoted CIFCA deputy secretary-general Zhang Heqiang as saying.

“Some coastal cities in China have started to improve their international images, promote industrial upgrading and technological innovation along with their sister cities,” Zhang said.”

via China’s international sister cities exceed 2,000 – Xinhua | English.news.cn.

Posted in China alert, Social & cultural | Leave a Comment »

Tags: Beijing, China, politics, Tianjin, Twin towns and sister cities

CHINDIA ALERT: You'll be living in their world, very soon

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