Three years ago China became world’s biggest exporter, now the biggest trading nation. Next the RMB on a par with the USD, then …
10/02/2013
* Zhejiang ‘Snake Village’ seeks New Year (of the Snake) boom
SCMP: “For Zisiqiao in eastern China, the arrival of the Year of the Snake on Sunday carries a special meaning, as the scaly reptile has given the tiny village its main industry and prosperity.
In the 1980s, villagers began raising snakes for food and traditional Chinese medicine, transforming the Zhejiang village economically.
Scores of households now raise serpents, earning the settlement of more than 800 people the nickname “Snake Village” in Chinese media.
A visitor holds a snake at the Snake Culture Museum in Zisiqiao village, Zhejiang Province. Photo: AP
They include Gao Shuihua, 50, who began breeding snakes three decades ago instead of the traditional farming and raising fish.
“We were poor before. We didn’t have anything else to do so we started raising snakes,” he said.
The snake is not considered to be among the most adorable of Chinese zodiac animals – which are based on the lunar year and not the calendar month – but Gao said they provide food and medicine as well as his livelihood.
“Some people don’t like to eat snake because they think it’s weird. But every kind of snake has its own method of preparation,” he said, adding he preferred his in soup, which makes the meat more tender.
“Business ought to be better this year because of the Year of the Snake,” he added, as he pulled out glasses for visitors to sample his homemade snake penis wine – the males have two such appendages – made from the venomous Chinese krait.
His nephew praised the drink’s benefits. “This is a tonic for building up health. It’s especially good for men.”
But Gao warned: “If this snake bites you, you will be dead in four hours.”
Upstairs in one of the bedrooms, the family keeps nine buckets of sharp-nosed vipers preserved in alcohol awaiting sale to traditional medicine factories, which pay 3 yuan (HK$3.70) apiece.
Snakes were worshipped by the earliest Chinese as a totem, with millennia-old stone carvings depicting Fuxi and Nuwa, the mythological ancestors of all Chinese, as half-human, half-snake.
And some historians also believe the dragon, regarded as China’s national symbol and typically depicted with a long serpentine body, was based on images of snakes.”
via Zhejiang ‘Snake Village’ seeks New Year boom | South China Morning Post.
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10/02/2013
* China targets $287b resource recycling industry
China Daily: “China will boost the annual output value of its resource recycling industry to 1.8 trillion yuan (287 billion US dollars) by 2015 as part of the country’s bid to develop a circular economy.
The government will also increase the resource productivity, or economic output per unit of resource use, by 15 percent as of the end of 2015, according to the National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC), China’s top economic planner.
The goals were written in a national plan on spurring the development of a circular economy recently released by the State Council, or China’s cabinet, the NDRC said in a statement on its website.
Major tasks listed in the plan include building nationwide industrial and agricultural systems that are cleaner and allow more recycling of renewable resources and promoting green consumption.
It’s imperative for China to speed up developing the circular economy as the country sees continuously growing energy and resource demand, piling waste and rising pressure in tackling climate changes, the statement quoted an unnamed NDRC official as saying.
China pins hopes on circular economy, an economy highly efficient and recyclable in resource use, to shift its growth pattern to a more sustainable and greener one.”
via China targets $287b resource recycling industry |Economy |chinadaily.com.cn.
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10/02/2013
* As Graduates Rise in China, Office Jobs Fail to Keep Up
NY Times: “This city of 15 million on the Pearl River is the hub of a manufacturing region where factories make everything from T-shirts and shoes to auto parts, tablet computers and solar panels. Many factories are desperate for workers, despite offering double-digit annual pay increases and improved benefits.
Mr. Wang near his rented apartment in the Tianhe district of Guangzhou. He is thinking of quitting his job as a security guard to look for work that would allow him to use his degree.
Wang Zengsong is desperate for a steady job. He has been unemployed for most of the three years since he graduated from a community college here after growing up on a rice farm. Mr. Wang, 25, has worked only several months at a time in low-paying jobs, once as a shopping mall guard, another time as a restaurant waiter and most recently as an office building security guard.
But he will not consider applying for a full-time factory job because Mr. Wang, as a college graduate, thinks that is beneath him. Instead, he searches every day for an office job, which would initially pay as little as a third of factory wages.
“I have never and will never consider a factory job — what’s the point of sitting there hour after hour, doing repetitive work?” he asked.
Millions of recent college graduates in China like Mr. Wang are asking the same question. A result is an anomaly: Jobs go begging in factories while many educated young workers are unemployed or underemployed. A national survey of urban residents, released this winter by a Chinese university, showed that among people in their early 20s, those with a college degree were four times as likely to be unemployed as those with only an elementary school education.
It is a problem that Chinese officials are acutely aware of.
“There is a structural mismatch — on the one hand, the factories cannot find skilled labor, and, on the other hand, the universities produce students who do not want the jobs available,” said Ye Zhihong, a deputy secretary general of China’s Education Ministry.
China’s swift expansion in education over the last decade, including a quadrupling of the number of college graduates each year, has created millions of engineers and scientists. The best can have their pick of jobs at Chinese companies that are aiming to become even more competitive globally.
But China is also churning out millions of graduates with few marketable skills, coupled with a conviction that they are entitled to office jobs with respectable salaries.
Part of the problem seems to be a proliferation of fairly narrow majors — Mr. Wang has a three-year associate degree in the design of offices and trade show booths. At the same time, business and economics majors are rapidly gaining favor on Chinese campuses at the expense of majors like engineering, contributing to the glut of graduates with little interest in soiling their hands on factory floors.
“This also has to do with the banking sector — they offer high-paying jobs, so their parents want their children to go in this direction,” Ms. Ye said.
via As Graduates Rise in China, Office Jobs Fail to Keep Up – NYTimes.com.
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10/02/2013
* China’s Focus on Aerospace Raises Security Questions
NY Times: “When Airbus executives arrived here seven years ago scouting for a location to assemble passenger jets, the broad, flat expanse next to Tianjin Binhai International Airport was a grassy field.
Now, Airbus, the European aerospace giant, has 20 large buildings and is churning out four A320 jetliners a month for mostly Chinese state-controlled carriers. The company also has two new neighbors — a sprawling rocket factory and a helicopter manufacturing complex — both producing for the Chinese military.
The rapid expansion of civilian and military aerospace manufacturing in Tianjin reflects China’s broader ambitions.
As Beijing’s leaders try to find new ways to invest $3 trillion of foreign reserves, the country has been aggressively expanding in industries with strong economic potential. The Chinese government and state-owned companies have already made a major push into financial services and natural resources, acquiring stakes in Morgan Stanley and Blackstone and buying oil and gas fields around the world.
Aerospace represents the latest frontier for China, which is eyeing parts manufacturers, materials producers, leasing businesses, cargo airlines and airport operators. The country now rivals the United States as a market for civilian airliners, which China hopes to start supplying from domestic production. And the new leadership named at the Party Congress in November has publicly emphasized long-range missiles and other aerospace programs in its push for military modernization.
If Boeing’s difficulties with its recently grounded aircraft, the Dreamliner, weigh on the industry, it could create opportunity. Chinese companies, which have plenty of capital, have been welcomed by some American companies as a way to create jobs. Wall Street has been eager, too, at a time when other merger activity has been weak.”
via China’s Focus on Aerospace Raises Security Questions – NYTimes.com.
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09/02/2013
* Mysterious China blogger comes out
SCMP: “For weeks, a mysterious microblog has been lifting a veil from around China’s new leader, Xi Jinping, with candid snapshots from his travels that defy the typically stiff and staged images of the leadership presented in state media.
Xi Jinping 习近平 (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
Ordinary Chinese, foreign reporters and even China’s own state media have speculated over who or what might be behind the blog – ostensibly registered to a female tech school graduate. Is Xi’s own team surreptitiously trying to humanise the leader in the guise of citizen journalism? Is this a crusader’s attempt to bring China’s leaders down a notch and send them a message?
It turns out it’s the brainchild of a male college dropout and migrant worker, Zhang Hongming, who said in an exclusive interview that he is both a genuine fan of China’s new leader and intent on making him more accessible to the country’s people.
“It is just me. It’s completely an individual act,” said Zhang, who started the “Fan Club of Learning From Xi” on China’s Twitter-like Sina Weibo on November 21 with a simple thought: Like other foreign leaders in these times, Chinese leaders should have an online following.
Zhang said he initially wanted to keep a low profile, but now wants to come forward to end the rampant speculation about his identity and intentions.
The account shares photos gathered from citizen volunteers and local reports throughout the country of Xi on his visits out in the field – and the candid images aren’t always flattering. There are shots of him visiting a vegetable market, serving food to the elderly, looking sideways. One shows him napping in a van.
The microblog even tracked Xi’s recent trip to Gansu province step by step, beating state media in reporting Xi’s activities. National broadcaster CCTV complained on its own microblog: “What happened? The Study Xi Fan Club is quicker and closer to him than us.”
The unexpected popularity of the microblog speaks to the Chinese public’s demand to humanize their typically aloof leaders.
“Our leaders used to appear to be out of reach for the masses. They always appeared to be mysterious. Now the public can feel closer to their leader with timely and transparent information,” Zhang said. “Xi is a national leader, but take his official title away, he’s an ordinary person.””
via Mysterious China blogger comes out | South China Morning Post.
09/02/2013
* China to compensate woman for detention in old morgue
China seems determined to allow its citizens to petition central government and to stop local authorities from preventing this from happening.
Reuters: “China will compensate a woman who was held in a disused morgue as punishment for going to Beijing to petition against her husband’s jailing, state media said on Friday, in an unusual case of the government overturning an extra-judicial detention.
Chen Qingxia was held for three years in an abandoned bungalow once used to store bodies in northeast China’s Heilongjiang province after being abducted from Beijing by security officials, the official Xinhua news agency reported.
She had gone to the capital to seek redress for her husband, Song Lisheng, whom she said had been mistreated while serving an 18-month sentence at a re-education through labor camp, Xinhua added.
While China routinely dismisses Western criticism of its human rights record, the government does respond to some abuses, especially the more egregious ones reported by domestic media, in an effort to show that authorities are not above criticism
Chen’s plight came to public attention in December after media reported that people found posters she had put on a window of the building pleading for help, it said.
Four officials, including three police officers, had been fired in connection with the case, Xinhua added.
The government will pay medical bills and living expenses for her and her husband and step up efforts to find their young son, who became separated from Chen when she was abducted in Beijing, it said.
The amount of compensation has yet to be decided.
Chen’s case is the second reported in a week of the authorities taking action over illegally detained petitioners. A court in Beijing sentenced 10 people to up to two years in jail for illegally detaining petitioners from another city, state media said on Tuesday.
Petitioners often try to take local disputes ranging from land grabs to corruption to higher levels in Beijing, though only small numbers are ever able to get a resolution.
In many instances, they are rounded up by men hired by provincial authorities to prevent the central government from learning of problems in outlying regions, forced home or held in “black jails“, unlawful secret detention facilities.”
via China to compensate woman for detention in old morgue | Reuters.
See also: https://chindia-alert.org/2012/07/14/china-top-leaders-vow-to-better-handle-peoples-petitions/
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09/02/2013
* China Steps Up Buying in U.S.
WSJ: “The made-in-China label isn’t such a deal breaker anymore.
After being burned by a series of high-profile failures, Chinese companies are learning to navigate the delicate political and regulatory landscape for takeovers in the U.S.
![[image]](https://i0.wp.com/si.wsj.net/public/resources/images/P1-BK231_CHINAD_NS_20130208171804.jpg)
Major U.S. companies remain essentially unattainable to Chinese buyers. So are many firms that can be tied to national security or critical technologies. Still, Chinese firms are stepping up their investments in the U.S. by targeting smaller companies, going after minority stakes and avoiding the most sensitive acquisition targets.
Wanxiang America, a unit of China’s Wanxiang Group, is paying $257 million to buy A123 Systems, a U.S. government-backed maker of lithium-ion batteries, after an early attempt at a purchase collapsed.
China hasn’t given up on big deals. The Committee on Foreign Investment in the U.S., a government group that reviews foreign acquisitions, is expected to decide in coming weeks whether to approve two multibillion-dollar deals by Chinese firms. A Cfius spokeswoman declined to comment.
The deals getting the green light so far are smaller. Last week, U.S. regulators approved the Chinese acquisition of a U.S. battery maker despite political resistance and an initially icy reception. Wanxiang America Corp., a unit of China’s Wanxiang Group, is paying $257 million to buy A123 Systems, AONEQ -3.57% a U.S. government-backed maker of lithium-ion batteries, after an early attempt at a purchase collapsed.
“You just need to understand the rules, follow the rules, be very transparent and let them make the decision,” says Pin Ni, president of Wanxiang America, who started the U.S. offshoot out of a home office in Chicago.
![[image]](https://i0.wp.com/si.wsj.net/public/resources/images/P1-BK232A_CHINA_NS_20130208172103.jpg)
Last year, Chinese buyers agreed to spend more than $10 billion in 46 deals to acquire U.S. companies or stakes in U.S. firms, according to Dealogic. The volume was higher than the Chinese total from 2009 through 2011 combined. The tally included the sale of Kansas City, Mo.-based movie-theater chain AMC Entertainment Holdings to Wanda Group for $700 million.
The U.S. still trails Canada, where Chinese firms announced $23 billion worth of deals for Canadian companies or stakes last year. The total includes the pending $15.1 billion acquisition of Canadian oil-sands operator Nexen Inc. NXY.T +1.39% by Cnooc Ltd., 0883.HK -0.13% the Chinese state energy giant.
via China Steps Up Buying in U.S. – WSJ.com.
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07/02/2013
* China, Malaysia Plan $3.4 Billion Industrial Park in Kuantan
Bloomberg: “Chinese and Malaysian companies agreed to invest 10.5 billion ringgit ($3.4 billion) on an industrial park in the Southeast Asian nation which will include steel and aluminum plants as well as a palm oil refinery.
China’s Guangxi Beibu Gulf International Port Group will jointly build the park in Kuantan with Malaysia’s Pahang state government and property developer SP Setia Bhd. (SPSB), according to a statement from the East Coast Economic Region Development Council. Jia Qinglin, chairman of China’s top advisory body, attended a ground-breaking ceremony with Malaysia’s Prime Minister Najib Razak today.
Jia, chairman of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference, is on a four-day visit aimed at boosting business ties with the commodities-rich Southeast Asian nation. Najib proposed building the Malaysia-China Kuantan Industrial Park after the countries agreed last year to develop a similar estate in Qinzhou in southern China’s Guangxi region. Both cities have ports.
“A distinct and competitive supply chain will emerge between them,” Najib said in a speech. “There will be cross- border movement of manufactured goods with Kuantan Port and Qinzhou Port serving as trans-shipment hubs redistributing goods to markets around the world.”
Guangxi Beibu, SP Setia and the Pahang state government will invest 2.5 billion ringgit to develop the Malaysian park, according to the statement. The Chinese company will spend another 5 billion ringgit to build a steel plant, aluminum processing facilities and a palm oil refinery within the estate, plus 3 billion ringgit to expand Kuantan’s port with IJM Corp. (IJM)
The palm oil refinery will be a joint venture with Malaysia’s Rimbunan Hijau Group, it said.
“This year, we expect more than 1 billion ringgit of Chinese foreign direct investment in Malaysia,” Najib said, adding that the Kuantan projects should create 8,500 jobs. “Over the next five years, we expect two-way trade to reach $100 billion.””
via China, Malaysia Plan $3.4 Billion Industrial Park in Kuantan – Bloomberg.
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