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

12/11/2012

* Hu’s calls on household registration reform face opposition

As usual, local authorities go against national strategy and interests.

SCMP: “President Hu Jintao’s calls for faster reforms to the out-of-date household registration system face strong resistance from local government officials, the Jinghua Times reported on Monday.

Household registration, or hukou, which covers every family in mainland China, records people as either town dwellers or rural peasants. Many blame it for causing discrimination against peasants who move to cities, where their identity prevents them from gaining access to services like health care and education for their children.

At the 18th party congress, which continues this week in Beijing, Hu has called for faster reform of the registration system and expanded public welfare coverage for all citizens, whatever their household origin.

But scholars say the reform effort is encountering strong opposition from local government officials, because it would unleash financially ruinous demands for social welfare spending, the Jinghua Times newspaper said.

Hu Xingdou, a professor of economics at the Beijing Institute of Technology, said the state council has issued several orders for reforms since 2001, but they were blocked by fierce resistance at the local government level.

Reforms bring heavy financial pressure on local governments, says agricultural economics scholar Zheng Fengtian. The social welfare costs needed to cover tens of millions of rural migrants, when they arrive in big cities, are too heavy for local governments to handle, he said.

A blue paper from the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences forecasts that 500 million peasants will move from the countryside to the mainland’s cities within the next 20 years. Including them in social welfare programmes will cost between 40 trillion and 50 trillion yuan (HK$49 trillion and HK$62 trillion), it estimates.

This situation will be especially intense in coastal regions, where the mobile population will surpass the number of city residents, Zheng added.

Professor Hu said market mechanisms would solve the problems that concern local officials. “When [rural migrants] find cities overcrowded, and the unemployment rate and housing prices too high, they will eventually leave the cities,” he said.

He warned that delaying reforms will only increase the risks, saying “what matters most is the central government’s determination on reform”.

There are currently 271 million people in the mainland who are not living in the location of their household registration, according to the National Bureau of Statistics.

Dang Guoying, a researcher with the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, said “without proper reform of household registration, peasants cannot benefit from urbanisation, which will intensify social disparities and eventually bring stagnation to China’s development”.”

via Hu’s calls on household registration reform face opposition | South China Morning Post.

See also:

* Top China official urges residency permit reform (chindia-alert.org)

Posted in China alert, Economics, Household registration, Migrant workers | 1 Comment »

Tags: Beijing, Beijing Institute of Technology, China, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, Family register, Hu Jintao, Hu Xingdou, politics, president hu jintao

12/11/2012

* An Indian in Afghanistan

Reuters: “Racing through the deserted streets of Kabul at nighttime, you are likely to be stopped at street corners by policemen once, twice or even more. If you are a South Asian, as I am, their guard is up even more. “Pakistani or Indian?” the cop barks out as you lower your window. When I answer “Indian”, he wants me to produce a passport to prove that, and as it happens, I am not carrying one. So I am pulled out of the car in the freezing cold and given a full body search, with the policemen muttering under his breath in Dari that everyone goes around claiming to be an Indian, especially Pakistanis.

To be an Indian in Kabul is to be greeted warmly wherever you go, whether it is negotiating a security barrier or seeking a meeting with a government official. There is an easing of tensions (in Afghanistan, the fear uppermost in the mind is that the stranger at the door could be an attacker and you don’t have too long to judge), Bollywood is almost immediately mentioned, and your hosts will go out of their way to help.

To be a Pakistani is a bit more fraught. The body search is rigorous, the questioning hostile, and, more often than not, you have to be rescued by a Western colleague especially if you are entering one of those heavily guarded, unmarked restaurants frequented by foreigners.

To the ordinary Afghan, India and Pakistan have followed two different paths in the country beginning from the ouster of the Taliban in 2001 when there was hope in the air and you could walk in the streets of Kabul (instead of trying to escape it) to the current time when the Taliban have fought back and hold the momentum as the West withdraws after a long and ultimately, unsuccessful engagement.

While the Indians have been applauded for helping build roads, getting power lines into the capital, running hospitals and arranging for hundreds of students to pursue higher education in India, the Pakistanis are accused of the violence that Afghans see all around them, from the attacks in the capital to the fighting on the border and the export of militant Islam. It’s become reflexive: minutes into an attack, the blame shifts to Pakistan. “They must have done it.””

via India Insight.

Pakistan urges all Afghan insurgents to pursue peace: ambassador (dawn.com)
You: Karzai in Delhi to push Indian PM on investment (nation.com.pk)
Afghan troops to be trained at Indian Army’s jungle warfare school (ndtv.com)
India and Afghanistan (opinion-maker.org)

Posted in GeoPolitics, India alert, Politics | Leave a Comment »

Tags: Afghanistan, India, Kabul, Pakistan, Pakistani, politics, Taliban

12/11/2012

* Buried in a bleak text, hope for a Chinese political experiment

Thanks to Reuters for discovering this ‘gem’.

Reuters: “Chinese Communist Party leader Hu Jintao‘s opening speech at the ongoing 18th Party Congress was a disappointment to many listeners, offering no major signals that the leadership is willing to advance political reform.

People walk in front of a large screen displaying propaganda slogans on Beijing's Tiananmen Square November 12, 2012. REUTERS/David Gray

The 64-page keynote speech he delivered was couched in the usual conservative and Marxist terminology, but one paragraph buried deep in the text was just what proponents of a long-running experiment in public policy consultations have been waiting for.

The section in question urged the ruling party to “improve the system of socialist consultative democracy”.

Academics and officials say the mention of “consultative democracy” is the first ever in such an important document, and it is seen by some as a strong endorsement of the long-standing experiment with this form of democracy, in Wenling, a city of 1.2 million in Zhejiang province, south of Shanghai.

The city has formalized public consultation on public projects and government spending at the township level, although there is no voting and decisions remain the preserve of the state machinery.

Xi Jinping, almost certain to be named the next party general secretary on Thursday, was party boss in Zhejiang in 2002-2007, as the Wenling project deepened.

The congress report is the most important political speech in China. Delivered once every five years by the party’s general secretary, it sets down political markers and charts a development course for the coming five to 10 years.

“Of course this is a good thing,” said Chen Yimin, a Wenling propaganda official who has been a driving force behind the system of open hearings, where citizens can weigh in on things like proposed industrial projects and administrative budgets – providing at least a bit of check on their local officials.

“This shows that the democratic consultations… that we have been doing for 13 years since 1999, have finally gained recognition and approval from the centre. It opens up space for further development. It says our democratic consultations are correct,” he said by phone from Zhejiang.

Chen Tiexiong, a delegate to the congress and party boss of Taizhou, the city that oversees Wenling, which itself has rolled out Wenling-style consultations in recent years, agreed.

“I looked at that part of the speech closely because in terms of promoting democratic politics Taizhou has done a lot, and it has been in the form of consultative democracy,” he told Reuters on the sidelines of the congress.”

via Buried in a bleak text, hope for a Chinese political experiment | Reuters.

The Mogan Mountain spirit and Wenling model (wantchinatimes.com)

Posted in China alert, Consultation, Democracy, Good news, Politics | Leave a Comment »

Tags: China, chinese communist party, communist party of china, Hu Jintao, Marxism, politics, Wenling, Xi JinPing, Zhejiang, zhejiang province

10/11/2012

* China’s ‘most polluted city’ breathes cleaner air

As Western organisations know, “what you don’t measure you cannot manage” and “incentives matter”. So China’s local authorities are beginning to realise, as evidenced at Linfen. Assuming this notion is being espoused across China, then it is very good news indeed for the environment.

China Daily: “Fan Lifen clearly recalls the days when her hometown was shrouded in darkness, with the sun barely visible through a thick curtain of smog.

“The situation would worsen in the winter, when households would burn coal for heating,” recalls Fan, a native of the city of Linfen in North China’s Shanxi province.

Rapid industrialization and urbanization in the past two decades have saddled cities like Linfen with heavy environmental burdens, damaging the health of local residents and fueling complaints.

However, Linfen is making efforts to turn its situation around.

“The air in Linfen has improved tremendously,” said Liu Dashan, spokesman for the Shanxi Provincial Environmental Protection Bureau.

The dramatic turnaround started when Linfen was listed as the “most polluted” among 113 major Chinese cities for three consecutive years from 2003 to 2005.

The local government has since launched a cleanup campaign, closing 1,056 factories and imposing stricter environmental standards on those that are still operating, according to Mayor Yue Puyu.

Substandard mines have been shut down and smaller ones have been merged into competitive mining conglomerates, Yue said.

Residents have been weaned off of coal burning, with natural gas heating introduced to more than 85 percent of the city’s households, said Yang Zhaofen, director of the city’s environmental protection bureau.

The changes were made possible by changing the way the performance of local officials is evaluated, with promotions and other rewards linked to their efforts to improve the city’s environment.

Officials have not only closed down heavily polluting factories, but also taken action to add “green” features to the city. A large park was opened on the banks of the Fenhe River last year, helping to absorb pollutants and purify the air.

Over the years, China’s economic growth has been fueled by over exploitation of natural resources, resulting in environment degradation. A worsening environment has prompted the government to exert greater efforts on environmental protection, replacing the practice of achieving growth at all costs.

President Hu Jintao said in a speech delivered to the 18th Communist Party of China (CPC) National Congress on Thursday that China should “give high priority to making ecological progress” and “work hard to build a beautiful country and achieve lasting and sustainable development.”

Linfen is a part of Shanxi’s efforts to repair its environment. The province, which provides over 70 percent of China’s coal, is slowly turning toward sustainable development.

More than 3,000 mines have been shut down since reforms were initiated in 2008, according to Wang Hongying, chief of the institute of macroeconomics under the provincial development and reform commission.

In addition to consolidating coal mines, the province has also made changes to the coal tax and fostered substitute industries, Wang said.

“We have set an example for other provinces. Although difficulties may emerge in the future, reforms will continue and we have high hopes for them,” Wang said.”

via China’s ‘most polluted city’ breathes cleaner air |Society |chinadaily.com.cn.

See also: http://chindia-alert.org/economic-factors/greening-of-china/

Jiangsu most sewage, Henan worst living environment: reports (wantchinatimes.com)
Shanxi to spearhead reform for China’s resource-constrained regions (wantchinatimes.com)
What Is The Future Of King Coal In China? – Bloomberg (bloomberg.com)

Posted in carbon emission, China alert, Ecology, Economics, employment, Good news, Green, greenhouse gas, Pollution, Sustainable development | 1 Comment »

Tags: China, climate, Coal, communist party of china, environment, environmental burdens, environmental protection bureau, Fen River, Hu Jintao, Linfen, Shanxi, shanxi province

09/11/2012

* Just one joke in 10 years, but Hu has the last laugh

Which world leader can look back at his/her past decade in power and point to the achievements that president Hu can?

Extract from The Times, London, 9 November, 2012 – http://www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/news/world/asia/article3594528.ece

Hu Jintao, general secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China (CPC) and Chinese president, delivers a keynote report during the opening ceremony of the 18th CPC National Congress at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing, capital of China, Nov. 8, 2012. The 18th CPC National Congress opened in Beijing on Thursday. (Xinhua/Rao Aimin)

“China’s economy was the world’s sixth biggest when Hu Jintao took power. A decade later, it is second to the US and gaining.
…
Most Chinese could only dream of owning a house or a car when Mr Hu took over. In 2002, just 3.2 million vehicles were sold; the number reached 18.5 million last year. Traffic jams seem endless and 65,000 miles of road have been laid — up from just 20,000. China overtook the US as the world’s biggest auto market in 2009. Only 16 people out 100 owned a mobile phone in 2002; today 74 in 100 have one.

About 59 million Chinese used the internet in 2002. Last year, nearly 520 million surfed cyberspace. The censors are meticulous in weeding out conversations deemed to be subversive. Perhaps more surprising is that such open discussion is allowed at all. Incomes have nearly tripled.
…
He ensured his popularity among 800 million peasants — and possibly his place in history — by abolishing a 2,600-year-old agricultural tax levied by emperors on every farming family.He put a man in space, launched an aircraft carrier (Soviet-made, admittedly) and developed technology to shoot down a satellite.
…
Some 200 protests erupt daily and the gap between rich and poor has widened to threaten Mr Hu’s cherished stability. In one of his jails Liu Xiaobo, the 2010 Nobel Peace Prize winner, serves 11 years. Mr Hu pledged to tackle corruption and arrested two Politburo members. An average of 94 officials are picked up every day for such offences. It’s a drop in the ocean of venality.

He once quipped: “A fall into the pit, a gain to your wit.” His rule was an odd mix of bold decisions and stasis.”

Checkered end-of-term report card for Hu Jintao (cnn.com)
Hu Jintao’s Legacy: A Strong but Strained China (lookingbeyondborders.com)

Posted in 10 year leadership change, China alert, Economics, Politics | Leave a Comment »

Tags: 2010 Nobel Peace Prize, China, Hu Jintao, Liu Xiaobo, Politburo

09/11/2012

# Positive effects of Chinese tea?

This photo is from the current 18th National Congress of the Chinese Communist Party. Obviously it was taken during one of the breaks. No one would dare talk or yawn if a VIP speaker was on the podium. But note, everyone is drinking Chinese tea; not water, not beer, or Coca Cola. Does that explain why the Chinese leadership are relatively relaxed and calm and so effective?

Posted in 10 year leadership change, China alert, Culture | Leave a Comment »

Tags: 18th National Congress of the Communist Party of China, Beijing, chinese communist party, Chinese tea, Communist China, Great Hall of the People, Hu Jintao, politics, Xi JinPing

07/11/2012

* India and Canada finalise conditions of nuclear deal

BBC: “India and Canada have finalised the terms for their nuclear deal, paving the way for Canadian firms to export uranium to India.

Electricity cable in India

Once implemented, the deal is likely to provide a boost to India’s plans to increase its nuclear capacity to meet growing energy demands.

The deal was agreed in 2010, but there had been differences over supervision of the use of uranium in India.

Canada has banned the trade of nuclear materials with India since 1976.

“Canada with its large and high quality reserves of uranium could become an important supplier to the Indian nuclear power programme,” India’s Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and his Canadian counterpart Stephen Harper said in a joint statement.

‘Important economic opportunity’

India’s economy has seen rapid expansion in recent years resulting in a surge in demand for energy in the country.

In a bid to meet its growing energy needs, India has been looking to increase its dependence on nuclear energy.

It is planning to set up some 30 reactors over as many years and get a quarter of its electricity from nuclear energy by 2050.

As a result it has been looking to secure supplies of uranium to achieve that target.

Canada’s Prime Minister Stephen Harper said that being able to be a part of India’s nuclear power plans was “a really important economic opportunity for an important Canadian industry… that should pay dividends in terms of jobs and growth for Canadians down the road”.

Earlier this month, India agreed to begin negotiations on a civil nuclear co-operation agreement with Australia, which holds an estimated 40% of the world’s uranium.

Last year, it agreed a deal that will allow South Korea to export its nuclear energy technology to India.”

via BBC News – India and Canada finalise conditions of nuclear deal.

Tags: canada, India, manmohan singh, nuclear energy technology, Nuclear power, prime minister manmohan singh, South Korea, Stephen Harper, Uranium

06/11/2012

* India Is Clamping Down on Spending

WSJ: “India’s government has started to tighten its belt as it strives to meet the revised budget deficit target of 5.3% of gross domestic product for the year through March 2013.

It’s not that spending is decreasing: it’s still increasing – only a lot less. So in September, government spending rose by a “paltry” 1.4% from a year earlier, according to a new report by brokerage Nomura. By comparison, in August, spending had increased by a whopping 32% from a year earlier, Nomura economist Sonal Varma told India Real Time.

To look at it another way, public spending rose by 0.47% between August and September compared to a 30.7% increase in the same period last year.

Nomura’s Ms. Varma told India Real Time said that the government has cut spending on sectors such as defense. A recent increase in fuel prices means the government is also saving money on subsidies. In September, the government raised the price of diesel by 14% to about 47 rupees to reduce its expenses on fuel subsidy. The government estimates this will save it around 150 billion rupees in the year ending March 31, 2013.

One of the reasons why public spending has slowed down, says Ms. Verma, is because the government has delayed paying subsidies to oil marketing companies. These are costs that may be partly rolled over to next year.

A senior finance ministry official told India Real Time that the government expects to cut at least 500 billion rupees, or about 4% of the 14.9 trillion rupees that it had planned to spend this year. The official said spending cut will be across the board, but did not want to single out any particular area.

Despite spending cuts, public expenditure remains high, mainly due to subsidies on fuel, food and fertilizers, and on social sector schemes.

To meet its budget deficit target, India needs to slash government expenditure as well as raise funds through stake sales in state-run companies and the sale of radio bandwidth.

These are the governments priorities as laid out by Finance Minister P. Chidambaram last week, when he announced a fiscal roadmap aimed at lowering the budget gap from 5.3% in the year through March 2013 to 3% by 2017.”

via India Is Clamping Down on Spending – India Real Time – WSJ.

* India minister Chidambaram promises more reforms (chindia-alert.org)

Posted in deficit, Economics, India alert | 1 Comment »

Tags: Business, economy, Government, Government budget deficit, Gross domestic product, India, p chidambaram, politics, Rupee, Subsidy

06/11/2012

* Chinese State Media Survey: It’s the Wealth Gap, Stupid

Close on the heels of a survey regarding happiness, comes this more serious survey. The new leadership should heed the results:

Reducing the wealth gap
Reducing corruption
Reforming economics

WSJ: “With China’s once-a-decade leadership transition set to get underway on Thursday, pundits and scholars around the globe are speculating about what Beijing’s new top brass will — or won’t — do to tackle the country’s many problems. But what change are Chinese people themselves expecting to see?

If an online survey conducted by the state-run China Youth Daily newspaper is anything to go by, the answer is one that recalls the ideological roots, if not the recent reality, of China’s ruling party: income redistribution.

Of 11,405 Chinese Internet users polled by the Social Survey Center of China Youth Daily last week, 66.6% said they thought the country was likely to pursue reforms related to income distribution in the future, the newspaper reported on Tuesday (in Chinese). Second on the list were reforms aimed at curbing corruption (57.8%), followed by reforms of the economic system (53.5%) in third.

The results exceeded 100% because respondents were allowed to choose multiple options. Nearly half of respondents were born in the 1980s, with 17.7% born in the 1990s and the rest born in the 1970s, the newspaper said, adding that most of those who took part in the poll earned less than 5000 yuan ($800) per month.”

via State Media Survey: It’s the Wealth Gap, Stupid. – China Real Time Report – WSJ.

Posted in China alert, corruption, Economics, income-wealth gap, Inequalities | 2 Comments »

Tags: Beijing, China, economy, politics

06/11/2012

* Understanding China’s 18th Communist Party Congress

Reuters: “China’s ruling Communist Party opens its 18th Congress on Thursday, a complicated political coronation that will install the country’s fifth generation of leaders.

Here is how the process works and some pointers to what is at stake in this congress.

AGENDA

– The five-yearly congress elects about 370 full and alternate members of the party’s elite Central Committee in a session lasting about one week, drawing from a pre-selected pool of candidates expected to be only slightly larger than 370.

– The new Central Committee’s first session, held the day after the congress ends, then selects some two dozen members of the decision-making Politburo, again drawing from a list of candidates already selected by the party’s leadership over months of political jockeying.

– The new Politburo Standing Committee, the party’s top echelon of power which currently has nine members, will then be unveiled after the one-day Central Committee plenum ends. It is widely expected to be shrunk to seven, facilitating decision-making needed to push through key reforms.

– A series of other appointments will also be made over the congress period, and in some cases before it. These include provincial party chiefs and governors and heads of some state-owned enterprises.

– Vice President Xi Jinping is set to take over as party general secretary from President Hu Jintao at the end of the congress. Xi then takes over as head of state in March at the annual full meeting of parliament.

One uncertainty is whether Hu will also give up his job as military chief. His predecessor, Jiang Zemin, stayed on in that role for two years after stepping down as party chief.

POLICIES

– Hu will give a keynote report to the opening session of the congress, appraising the meeting of the party’s work over the past five years and mapping out challenges ahead for the next five years. Details of the speech remain a closely guarded secret ahead of time.

– The catchphrase in state media and among academics ahead of the congress has been “reform”. China experts say that unless the new leadership pushes through stalled reforms, the nation risks economic malaise, deepening unrest and ultimately even a crisis that could shake the party’s grip on power.

– Advocates of reform are pressing Xi to cut back the privileges of state-owned firms, make it easier for rural migrants to settle permanently in cities, fix a fiscal system that encourages local governments to live off land expropriations and, above all, tether the powers of a state that they say risks suffocating growth and fanning discontent.

– There may also perhaps be cautious efforts to answer calls for more political reforms, though nobody seriously expects a move towards full democracy.

The party may introduce experimental measures to broaden inner-party democracy – in other words, encouraging greater debate within the party – but stability remains a top concern and one-party rule will be safeguarded.”

via Factbox: Understanding China’s 18th Communist Party Congress | Reuters.

Posted in 10 year leadership change, China alert, Politics | Leave a Comment »

Tags: 18th National Congress of the Communist Party of China, Central Committee, central committee plenum, China, Hu Jintao, Jiang Zemin, Politburo, Politburo Standing Committee of the Communist Party of China, politics, president hu jintao, Xi JinPing

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

Chindia Alert: You’ll be Living in their World Very Soon

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* An Indian in Afghanistan

* Buried in a bleak text, hope for a Chinese political experiment

* China’s ‘most polluted city’ breathes cleaner air

* Just one joke in 10 years, but Hu has the last laugh

* India and Canada finalise conditions of nuclear deal

* India Is Clamping Down on Spending

* Chinese State Media Survey: It’s the Wealth Gap, Stupid

* Understanding China’s 18th Communist Party Congress

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