My very own sentiments.
See also: Chinese challenges
26/06/2012
* Chinese in Talks to Fund U.S. Homes
WSJ: “Lennar Corp., one of the U.S.’s largest home builders, is in talks with the China Development Bank for approximately $1.7 billion in capital to jump-start two long-delayed San Francisco projects that would transform two former naval bases into large-scale housing developments, according to people familiar with the discussions.
The negotiations aren’t final and the financing arrangement could still fall through. But if completed, the deal would reflect a changing dynamic between the U.S. and Chinese economies, as an American company turns to China for help funding a long-delayed and partially publicly funded project that otherwise wouldn’t get done.
The developments, Treasure Island and Hunters Point Shipyard, also have the potential to alter San Francisco’s housing market by providing nearly 20,000 new homes, a sports arena and millions of square feet of office and retail space in a market that is land-constrained and has had limited new construction. The city has committed hundreds of millions of dollars, in the form of tax-increment bonds, to the projects, which in total are expected to cost $10.5 billion over the next few decades.
In recent years, Chinese state money—in large part provided by CDB and its counterpart the Export-Import Bank of China—has been pivotal in funding major infrastructure and resource projects around the world, but the bulk of that activity has been in developing countries in Africa, South America and Asia.
That has resulted in the construction of dams, airports, railways, highways and sports arenas that otherwise wouldn’t get built, primarily in developing countries. Funding is typically conditional upon Chinese developers and contractors being used to build the projects. And in order to keep costs down, and in many cases to ensure the necessary expertise, at least a portion of the workforce is flown in from China.
This would be difficult or impossible in San Francisco, where local regulations and deals cut with local governments generally require developers to use local labor and pay prevailing wages.
The CDB and the Lennar partnership have been in discussions to include China Railway Construction Corp., a state-run contractor, in the development of Treasure Island and Hunters Point, according to people familiar with the matter. While it is unclear what CRCC’s role would be, the company could serve as an adviser or in an consulting role, or could possibly even invest in a local construction company that employs U.S. workers, these people said.
With Chinese firms increasingly eyeing opportunities in the U.S. and other developed markets, CDB will likely find itself being approached to fund more deals in the U.S. People familiar with the negotiations said CDB was using the Treasure Island and Hunters Point projects—which both include “green” building and affordable housing components that are of interest to Chinese builders—as a test case to become familiar with what’s required for doing such deals in the U.S.”
via Chinese in Talks to Fund U.S. Homes – WSJ.com.
See also:
24/06/2012
* Ikea Applies for Big Indian Investment
WSJ: “Swedish housewares giant IKEA Group asked India for permission to invest €1.5 billion ($1.9 billion) in the country to set up 25 retail stores in coming years, a commitment that provides some relief for New Delhi policy makers who have been trying to boost sagging foreign-investor sentiment.
IKEA’s foray into India, made possible by a policy change last year that allowed some retailers to own 100% of their Indian units, could help transform India’s largely unorganized, $500 billion retail sector. But the company will face significant challenges, including meeting the government’s mandate that it source 30% of inventory from local small-scale industries.
IKEA, which has 290 stores in 26 countries and is known for selling affordable, modern-looking furniture and housewares, said that if the Indian government approves its application it could have a significant effect on the country’s retail sector, “vastly improving availability of high-quality, low-price products not available in India.”
The company announced its decision after its chief executive, Mikael Ohlsson, met with Indian Commerce Minister Anand Sharma on Friday at a conference in St. Petersburg, Russia.”
via Ikea Applies for Big Indian Investment – WSJ.com.
See also: Consumerism grows in India
22/06/2012
* China adds more trains for holiday travel rush
Xinhua: “China’s Ministry of Railways said Friday it has put more trains on to ease transportation pressure during the three-day Dragon Boat Festival holiday from June 22-24.
The ministry added 196 provisional passenger trains for the travel rush Thursday, one day ahead of the holiday, 70 more than the eve of last year’s holiday, it said in a statement.
China’s railways are expected to carry 6.75 million passengers on Friday, the travel peak of this holiday, up 4.7 percent from the holiday travel peak last year, the ministry has said.
It estimated a daily average passenger flow of 6.1 million from June 21 to 24, up 5 percent from that during last year’s holiday travel rush.
The Dragon Boat Festival, also called Duanwu Festival, is traditionally celebrated on the fifth day of the fifth month on the Chinese lunar calendar.
The festival commemorates the famous ancient Chinese poet Qu Yuan. Chinese people prepare and eat zongzi, or leaf-packed glutinous rice dumplings, drink wine and race dragon boats on the day.
The festival falls on June 23 this year.”
via China adds more trains for holiday travel rush – Xinhua | English.news.cn.
Although the festival commemorates a historic Chinese event – see http://mandarin.about.com/od/chineseculture/a/dragon_boat.htm – over recent years it has become an international sporting event http://www.dragonboatcalendar.com/ . Not dissimilar to the Greek Marathon now an international sport.
21/06/2012
* All eyes on China’s green leap forward
New Scientist: “TWENTY years ago this week, the United Nations’ Earth Summit closed in Rio de Janeiro having forged landmark agreements on climate change and biodiversity. Next week, delegates from around the world will meet again in Rio for a new Conference on Sustainable Development, dubbed Rio+20. How far have things advanced in the interim?
On the face of it, the picture is dispiriting. Annual global carbon dioxide emissions have risen by over 50 per cent, and the demise of the Kyoto protocol has halted co-ordinated action on climate change. And while the Convention on Biological Diversity is still in force, it has not prevented rampant habitat destruction.
With global co-operation proving hard to secure, progress now depends heavily on the unilateral actions of individual countries. The US tops the priority list, just as it did at the original Earth Summit – but it has been joined there by China. The Asian giant’s extraordinary economic growth has come at enormous environmental cost: it is now among the world’s largest polluters, and its natural resources have been massively exploited in recent years.
Despite this, China’s appetite for resources still falls well short of the west’s on a per capita basis, and its people do not generally enjoy the prosperity, health and life satisfaction common to the world’s richest billion inhabitants. It has become the received wisdom that nothing approaching global parity can possibly be achieved without utterly gutting the planet. The implication? That the lives of 6 billion of the world’s residents are, and must remain, “nasty, brutish and short”.
We now have a first sense that this picture is not true to life. Much discussion revolves around GDP, but this is a poor measure of sustainable development. Pick a metric that emphasises citizen well-being in combination with the environment, such as the Happy Planet Index, and the pecking order is turned on its head, with countries such as Costa Rica topping the league (see “What is wealth on a happy planet?”).
Such measures are for the moment informal. But the World Bank has for some time been plugging away at its own tweaked index, which would offset the environmental damage caused by a nation’s industry against its productivity. It has been slow going, due to political resistance and the difficulties of pricing up “natural capital”.
This is where China’s role becomes most surprising – and promising. It is setting out on a huge green experiment that could provide lessons far afield (see “China leads the march for the green economy”). Even as its economy booms, it is sharply reducing its “carbon intensity” – CO2 emissions per unit of GDP – and deploying new economic models to price natural resources.
Such models are routinely scorned in the west as the products of ivory-towered wishful thinking, and their adoption deemed unthinkably risky. Yet China, acting largely out of economic self-interest, and perhaps with a longer-term vision than beleaguered western democracies can muster, is forging ahead.
All this does not expiate China from its environmental sins. But its experiment offers the west scope to learn from its experience. Our representatives at Rio+20 should pay close attention.”
via All eyes on China’s green leap forward – opinion – 14 June 2012 – New Scientist.
Related posts and articles
- https://chindia-alert.org/economic-factors/greening-of-china/
- Rio+20 Preview: Not The Best Time For Sustainability Talks, Experts Say To Expect Less (ibtimes.com)
- Rio+20 Earth summit’s leaked draft reveals chaos among countries | John Vidal (guardian.co.uk)
- US fails on Happy Planet Index (newscientist.com)
21/06/2012
* Imagine if every resident of Mumbai had a car?
IT Decisions: “Professor Stéphane Garelli of IMD Business School and the University of Lausanne delivered one of the opening keynotes, describing the future of the world economy. One of the key points he made related to consumers in emerging economies creating ‘needs’ from what were previously ‘wants’.
“In China, everybody is buying a fridge. How many times have you bought a fridge? Once you have one then it lasts a long time before you replace it. You are living in a replacement economy where you are just upgrading what you already have. In China, you have no fridge, you want one. You have no TV set, you want one. You have no telephone, you want one…” he said.
The idea that enormous tranches of humanity are about to start consuming items they have never used before, such as cars, washing machines, fridges, and air conditioning, is a scary thought for environmental campaigners. Economic growth benefits those who are lifted from poverty, but how can the world really cope with billions of new drivers all expecting their own car?
Professor Garelli said: “The problem for the environment is that the infrastructure is not following [consumption]. For example in China, in 2020 they will buy 30m cars and only 15m will be sold in the USA. So everybody wants a car, but there are not enough roads for all of them. You need growth, you need traffic control, etc – the infrastructure has to grow in parallel.”
Professor Garelli went on to explain: “This means there is an enormous environmental impact and I think that this growth has to be checked. At a certain stage they will have to slow down some access. There are some countries where people can perhaps wait for a car – can you imagine if every single person in Mumbai has a car?” … “
via Imagine if every resident of Mumbai had a car? | IT Decisions.
Related articles
- Making the most of Mumbai (ebookers.com)
- Mumbai’s fashion and film (ebookers.com)
18/06/2012
* China publishes books on officials’ morality
Xinhua: “A book series expounding the moral issues of officials, the first-ever publication on the topic in China, was released for sale Monday in Beijing as part of government-backed efforts to promote integrity among civil servants.
The four-book series embodies the results of research conducted by experts with the Beijing Academy of Social Sciences at the request of Beijing authorities two years ago, according to a report published by the Beijing Daily.
The books record the development of theories about officials’ morality through Chinese history and provide case studies, as well as highlight the importance of raising officials’ moral standards in modern society, an official with the Beijing Commission for Discipline Inspection of the Communist Party of China (CPC) was quoted as saying in the report.
The major difference between good and bad officials simply lies in whether they perform duties with a conscience, says the prologue of the series.
Nowadays, the CPC, as the ruling party, must value virtues of officials and it is a general trend for officials to abide by professional ethics, according to a passage in one of the books.
The book also points out a moral official in modern China should always serve the people as well as be loyal, pragmatic, fair-minded and incorruptible, while always improving oneself.
The series will serve as anti-graft reading material for all Communist Party cadres in Beijing, according to the report.”
via China publishes books on officials’ morality – Xinhua | English.news.cn.
Let’s hope the cadres take this book as seriously as their forebears took Mao’s Red Book.
See also: Listening and responding to its people.
16/06/2012
* China to Investigate Death of Labor Activist
NY Times: “Chinese officials, bending to public pressure, have announced an investigation into the death of a veteran labor activist whose body was found hanging from a hospital window this month, days after he gave a series of interviews in which he vowed to continue fighting to end the Communist Party’s monopoly on power.
The dissident, Li Wangyang, who was convicted of organizing protests during the pro-democracy movement of 1989, had only recently emerged from prison. Friends and relatives have questioned how Mr. Li could have taken his own life because he was disabled from the beatings and other mistreatment he suffered during his 21 years behind bars.
Mr. Li, 62, was blind, nearly deaf and had difficulty walking unassisted.
According to the state-run Hong Kong China News Agency, public security officials in Hunan Province, where Mr. Li died, promised an investigation by a “team of experienced criminal investigation experts.” According to the agency, a police spokesman acknowledged that public pressure had prompted the announcement on Thursday.
Earlier this week, local officials in Shaoyang, the city where Mr. Li died, changed the cause of death to “accidental” from “suicide.”
Human rights advocates raised doubts after his death became public, but the suspicions began to spread more widely in the past week after family members and friends of Mr. Li disappeared or were warned by the police not to speak to the news media.”
via China to Investigate Death of Labor Activist – NYTimes.com.
Yet another case of the Chinese authorities bending to public opinion. See also:
- https://chindia-alert.org/2012/06/15/chinese-officials-apologise-to-woman-in-forced-abortion/
- https://chindia-alert.org/2012/05/20/china-dissident-chen-guangcheng-arrives-in-the-us/
- https://chindia-alert.org/2012/03/05/wukan-village-elects-own-committee-hint-of-jasmin-spring/
- https://chindia-alert.org/2012/05/31/new-punishments-for-police-abusing-prisoners/
16/06/2012
* China launches spaceship with first female astronaut
Xinhua news: “China launched Saturday Shenzhou-9 spacecraft with the country’s first female astronaut aboard.
Shenzhou-9, atop an upgraded Long March-2F carrier rocket, blast off from the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center in northwestern China at 6:37 p.m. Saturday.
A see-off ceremony was held at the center hours before the launch. Wu Bangguo, the country’s top legislator, attended the ceremony and extended wishes to the three astronauts.
“The country and the people are looking forward to your successful return,” he said.
The first Chinese woman in space Liu Yang, 33, is joined by commanding officer Jing Haipeng and Liu Wang, who has been selected as an astronaut trainee since January 1998.
Main tasks of the Shenzhou-9 mission include the manual docking procedure conducted between the Shenzhou-9 and the orbiting space lab module Tiangong-1.
China succeeded in the automated rendezvous and docking between unmanned Shenzhou-8 spacecraft and Tiangong-1 last year.
A successful manual docking will demonstrate a grasp of essential space rendezvous and docking know-how, a big step in the country’s manned space program to build a space station around 2020.
Liu, a People’s Liberation Army (PLA) major, was a PLA Air Force pilot with 1,680 hours of flying experience and deputy head of a military flight unit before being recruited as an astronaut candidate in May 2010.
After two years of training, which shored up her astronautic skills and adaptability to space environment, Liu excelled in testing and was selected in March this year as a candidate for the Shenzhou-9 manned space mission.
“Female astronauts generally have better durability, psychological stability and ability to deal with loneliness,” Wu Ping, spokeswoman for China’s manned space program, said.
More than 50 female astronauts from seven countries have gone into space to date. The longest space flight by female astronauts lasted 188 days.”
via China launches spaceship with first female astronaut – Xinhua | English.news.cn.
15/06/2012
* Recent Cases Shed Light on China’s Feared Interrogation System
NY Times: “Membership in the Chinese Communist Party has many advantages. Officials often enjoy government-issued cars, bottomless expense accounts and the earning potential from belonging to a club whose members control every lever of government and many of the nation’s most lucrative enterprises.
Interrogation (Photo credit: Steve Rhode)
There is, however, one serious downside. When party members are caught breaking the rules — or even when they merely displease a superior — they can be dragged into the maw of an opaque Soviet-style disciplinary machine, known as “shuanggui,” that features physical torture and brutal, sleep-deprived interrogations.
And that is exactly what appears to have happened to Bo Xilai, once one of China’s most charismatic and ambitious politicians. Mr. Bo has not been seen in public since mid-March, when he was stripped of his position as party chief of the sprawling municipality of Chongqing in southwest China. He was later accused of “disciplinary violations” and removed from the Politburo.
Few who have been pulled into the system emerge unscathed, if they emerge at all. Over the last decade, hundreds of officials have committed suicide, according to accounts in the state news media, or died under mysterious circumstances during months of harsh confinement in secret locations. Once interrogators obtain a satisfactory confession, experts say, detainees are often stripped of their party membership and wealth. Select cases are handed over to government prosecutors for summary trials that are closed to the public.
“The word shuanggui alone is enough to make officials shake with fear,” said Ding Xikui, a prominent defense lawyer here.
Although the leadership has not disclosed details of its investigation into Mr. Bo, insiders say it involves a number of allegations, including corruption, spying and obstructing justice on behalf of his wife, who has been implicated in the death of a British businessman, Neil Heywood.
Two people who have been briefed said Mr. Bo’s troubles had been compounded by his effort to rise to the top levels of power and protect himself by currying favor with the military. In addition to inquisitors from the party’s commission for discipline, the army’s political division is playing a role in the interrogations, the sources said.
via Recent Cases Shed Light on China’s Feared Interrogation System – NYTimes.com.
Related articles
- Former Wukan Village Party Members Detained and Interrogated (theepochtimes.com)
- Chinese official Li Xingong detained on suspicion of raping underage girls during police interrogations – @Reuters (vancouversun.com)
- China police interrogate party members over letter (sinodaily.com)
- Petition From 300 Chinese Villagers Circulated in Politburo (theepochtimes.com)
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