Despite not signing up to past Climate Change protocols, China seems to be doing more than most on reducing its carbon footprint.
18/06/2013
Getting China’s Tower of Babel on Record
WSJ: “Michael Wu, 20, a student at Peking University, grew up in Shanghai. But when he wants to talk to his cousins in Hainan, he needs to bring his mother along to interpret the conversation.
The cousins in Hainan speak two kinds of Hainan dialect. “I actually cannot understand either of them,” Wu says. “It’s actually not much good for me to [try to] communicate with them.”
In China, that’s a common problem: The differences in dialects are so vast they amount to different languages—possibly more than 3,000 variations, according to some estimates. It’s one of the reasons that standard Beijing Mandarin has become the lingua franca of schools, businesses and government in China. But that uniformity comes at a cost: the rapid loss of many of these dialects.
Now two Americans have taken on a daunting task: trying to get an audio record of all of the thousands of China’s languages and dialects before they disappear.
Linguists Steve Hansen and Kellen Parker are enlisting volunteers to canvass the country to capture both the languages and the stories of all of China’s 2,862 counties and 34 provincial areas. Phonemica, founded last year, now has about 200 Chinese and Chinese-speaking foreign volunteers lined up to record their friends, parents and grandparents, telling a story in fangyan (regional speech).
“The idea is that we want to record it all,” says Mr. Hansen. “And the only way to do this is through a crowd-sourced approach. We’re trying to get people involved who will go to their hometowns and record friends and relatives.”
“It is absolutely unique,” said Victor Mair, a professor of Chinese language and literature at the University of Pennsylvania, by email. “No one else is attempting to do this for Sinitic” (the languages of China).
Phonemica is nearly out of time. Scholars say that a few generations from now, all of China will speak as a first language standard Mandarin, the Beijing dialect that is taught in schools and used by new migrants to cities as well as businesspeople in every province.
Richard VanNess Simmons, a Rutgers professor of Chinese, says that as China’s economy has taken off over the past 20 years, “Mandarin has become the language that gets you somewhere and the language that parents want their kids to learn.” Even parents who speak regional dialects prefer that their children speak Mandarin at home.
“It’s happening so fast it’s almost too fast to document,” he says.
The Chinese government also has taken on the task of recording the country’s dialects, but its Chinese Language Resource Audio Database (中国语言资源有声数据) is still in the “fieldwork” stage, says Mr. Simmons, and “no results have yet been published as far as I know.””
via Getting China’s Tower of Babel on Record – China Real Time Report – WSJ.
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- Introduction to the most spoken language in the world (toochinese.wordpress.com)
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18/06/2013
China destroys Belgian chocolates as trade spat intensifies
The Independent: “BELGIANS are justly proud of their nation’s reputation as one of the world’s finest chocolate producers. So when Chinese authorities announced this week that they had destroyed an unspecified amount of their chocolates because they contained toxic substances, alarm bells rang.
The Belgian media was swift to point out echoes of 2008, when Beijing declared a shipment of Belgian chocolate “not suitable for human consumption”. That snub was widely seen as tit-for-tat retaliation after the Brussels-based European Union banned Chinese soy-bean imports over high levels of toxic substances. Could it be coincidence that the latest trashing of the national delicacy comes as the EU pursues import tariffs on Chinese solar panels, local newspapers asked?
While the link between the discarded chocolates and the solar panels has yet to advance beyond conspiracy theory, it is not too far-fetched given the other signature European products including French wine and German cars already dragged into a trade spat souring EU-China relations and on the agenda at EU trade ministers’ talks on Friday.
The alleged bout of recent score-settling began earlier this month, when the EU said it was going to impose tariffs of up to 47 per cent on solar panels made in China. The bloc accused China of “dumping” the panels in Europe – a trade term for selling a product for less than the production cost in an attempt to corner the market.
Within days, the Chinese announced that they were launching their own investigation into the sale of French wine in China, now the biggest export market for Bordeaux. The commerce ministry argued the agricultural subsidies handed out to French farmers put domestic producers at an unfair disadvantage.
Next to take a hit were German car makers. The Financial Times reported last week that Beijing was mulling a lodging a complaint over imports of luxury cars – another growth market in the booming Chinese economy.
“They are picking products for which China is an important market and that is good bargaining, to attack where it hurts, and it is very symbolic,” said André Sapir, a senior fellow specialising in trade at the Brussels-based Bruegel think tank.”
via China destroys Belgian chocolates as trade spat intensifies – Independent.ie.
09/06/2013
China Talent Outflow Highest in the World, People’s Daily Says
Bloomberg: “China is losing top-notch talent at the highest rate in the world as students who seek degrees abroad opt to remain overseas, the official People’s Daily newspaper reported today.
An average of 87 percent of students in science and engineering stay overseas, the newspaper said, citing an official from a government working group on talent whom it didn’t identify. China needs to compete better for human talent, the report cited the official as saying.
Young Chinese have flocked to overseas schools in search of degrees. The country’s policy of limiting many couples to one child and its growing wealth mean middle-class families can afford U.S. tuition that far exceeds the costs of Chinese universities.
Chinese citizens now account for the largest proportion of foreign students at U.S. universities, the Institute of International Education said in a November report. Chinese enrollments at U.S. universities in the 2011-2012 academic year increased by 23 percent, it said.
The country lacks high-level innovative and entrepreneurial talent, the People’s Daily cited the official as saying. Investment is not sufficient and institutional obstacles have not been eliminated, it said.”
via China Talent Outflow Highest in the World, People’s Daily Says – Bloomberg.
06/06/2013
Beijing bike-sharing program needs more riders
Beijing copies London’s Boris Johnson but with less success.
China Daily: “There are 14,000 bicycles for rent in the city, and they’ve been used 700,000 times. More than 20 million people live in Beijing. Public rental bikes have been sitting idle as not enough riders use the service, some using the rental areas to park their own bicycles or electric vehicles. Also, the bicycle lanes are often used by cars, making cycling a dangerous option.
Public bike rental service, aimed at providing an alternative, low-carbon transport service to residents, was first tried in Beijing’s Dongcheng and Chaoyang districts, which have high traffic flow, and the service was extended to Daxing and Yizhuang districts by the end of 2012
via Beijing bike-sharing program needs more riders[1]|chinadaily.com.cn.
06/06/2013
China’s reverse imperialism – West contains China’s East, China moves West
I have a hypothesis that a country’s mindset mimics its national sports and games. See – https://chindia-alert.org/2012/04/03/does-a-countrys-mindset-mimics-its-national-games/
If I am correct, how can America with its football and baseball hope to compete in geo-politics with China’s Go and chess?All Posts
30/05/2013
China designates service industry new growth engine
Xinhua: “China will step up efforts to build up its service industry to make it a new engine to power sustainable growth, Premier Li Keqiang said on Wednesday.
Speaking at a summit during the second Beijing International Fair for Trade in Services, Li stressed the important role of the service industry in job creation and economic upgrading.
“Increasing service supplies and improving service qualities will help unleash huge potential in domestic demand, and thus offer firm support for stable economic growth and structural optimization,” he said.
The latest emphasis on service trade is part of China’s efforts to drive growth in the sector to build an upgraded version of the economy.
In 2012, the service industry accounted for 44.6 percent of gross domestic product (GDP), up 2.7 percentage points from a year earlier but still significantly below the share of 60 percent or more seen in many developed countries.
Li noted the key to spur growth in the area lies in reform and opening-up to remove institutional barriers.
“China will further open up the service industry, and pilot free trade experimental zones to tap development,” he said, adding that the government will seek balanced trade and encourage cross-border investments in the sector.
The premier stressed countries should abide by the win-win principles of rising against protectionism, removing trade barriers, and coordinating efforts to facilitate personnel flows, recognition of qualifications and a setting of standards.
Developed countries should lead the effort to open up their markets, while developing economies should be actively engaged in building the global trade mechanism and standards in the service industry, according to Li.
Under China’s 12th Five-Year Plan (2011-2015), the country aims to bring the sector’s proportion of GDP to 47 percent by 2015 and to make it a strategic focus for the country’s industrial restructuring and upgrading to ease reliance on traditional manufacturing.”
via China designates service industry new growth engine – Xinhua | English.news.cn.
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- * China Still Has a Long Way to Go to Build a Service Economy (chindia-alert.org)
29/05/2013
China to issue new plan for air pollution control
China Daily: “China to issue new plan for air pollution control
A national plan for air pollution control could be outlined as early as this week, said 21cbh.com, a professional financial news website Tuesday.
The outline will target the reduction of air pollution on a national scale by establishing clear standards of air quality in different regions.
Coal plants, motor vehicles and dust that produce fine particulate matter will be the focus of strict control in the outline initiated by the Ministry of Environmental Protection, according to multiple sources who told the news website.
The overall plan has undergone multiple revisions and will be submitted to the State Council, China’s cabinet, for review by the end of this month, the Shanghai Securities News quoted Yang Tiesheng, deputy director of the energy saving department under the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, as saying on May 22.
The specific measures put forward by the plan include stipulating the declining rates of atmospheric pollutants such as PM2.5 (particles smaller than 2.5 microns in diameter), sulfur dioxide, nitrogen oxide in cities, the reduction of coal consumption throughout the country, as well as the promotion of using clean energy such as natural gas, while banning coal-fired power plants in cities and minimizing heavy-polluting vehicles.
The Yangtze River Delta region and the Pearl River Delta region will be the key areas of the new air pollution prevention campaign.
Roughly one million heavy-polluting vehicles, popularly known as “yellow label cars”, will be prohibited from driving on roads in Beijing, Tianjin municipality and Hebei province, which would reduce half of the PM2.5 by vehicle emissions alone, said one environmental expert as quoted by the news website.
The outline stipulates that air quality must “make substantial progress” in the upcoming five years rather than the next 20 years, a standard previously adhered to by big cities such as Beijing, according to a source from the National Development and Reform Commission, China’s economic planning body.
Grade II air quality stipulates the average concentration of PM2.5 over a 21 hour period should be between 35 to 75 milligrams per cubic meters, according to the latest standard made by the Ministry of Environmental Protection in 2012.”
via China to issue new plan for air pollution control |Politics |chinadaily.com.cn.
See also: https://chindia-alert.org/economic-factors/greening-of-china/
29/05/2013
When blue becomes the new white
FT: “My maid and her husband, a driver, have scrimped and saved and crammed themselves into a tiny flat in Shanghai for decades with one goal in mind: to give their only son a crack at the “Chinese dream”.
Now those decades of deprivation have reached their climax as the cherished child of these hard-working people graduates from university and takes his first job: as a construction worker. And he counts himself lucky to have a job.
Small wonder that Xi Jinping, the Chinese leader, has recently been out gladhanding graduates who are facing one of the toughest job markets since the Communist party stopped giving them careers by fiat. For, like obesity and diabetes, a glut of unemployed graduates seems to be one of the unintended side-effects of economic development in China.
Sound familiar? Many readers of the Financial Times will know what it is like to have an unemployed graduate in the family – or to have been one themselves. Maybe job shortages are just part of the human condition, one that now affects the Chinese like the rest of humanity. (When I graduated from university in 1980, media jobs were so thin on the ground that I ended up teaching at a university in Ghana that had no books, few lights and little running water – landing a job without a flushing toilet was presumably not part of my parents’ university plan for me.)
Mr Xi pointed out on his jobs-fair visit that – like all the other flaws of capitalism – the scourge of graduate unemployment these days is global. But it would be hard to find people who have suffered more to take their place among the ranks of the white-collar unemployed than the Chinese.
This week alone, millions of students across the country will be skipping sleep, baths and online war games to study, while millions of parents take up to a year off work to cook, clean and nag them round the clock. Millions will pass next week’s dreaded college entrance exam (or gaokao) – only to end up unemployed or wearing a hard hat.
Increasing numbers are wondering if it’s all worth it, and are coming up with alternatives that range from the tragic to the downright postmodern. A Chinese newspaper reported this month that a fed-up teenager in central China hired a hit man to kill his father and older sister because – he said – they put too much pressure on him to study. And after this year’s three-day May Day public holiday, a 15-year-old boy in eastern China jumped to his death because he did not finish his holiday homework. Another teen in the same town rose at 4am to finish homework but was found hanging from the staircase before he got to school.
The overwork doesn’t stop with gaokao: just this month Chinese newspapers reported that two twenty-somethings in southern China dropped dead after taking on too much overtime – and such stories are not uncommon. Xinhua, the state news agency, said this week that 40 college graduates were found sharing one 130-square-metre room in Beijing while looking for jobs – living like the construction workers that they may be lucky to become.
So more and more students are opting instead for that most un-Chinese of solutions: time off the treadmill – or what the rest of the world knows as a “gap year”. Li Shangcong, a top student at his high school and vice-president of the student union, decided to skip gaokao altogether and cycle to the Cannes Film Festival – via Siberia. He never made it to France, having been deported by Russian immigration for an expired visa.
When his parents spluttered about the need to make something of himself, he said what teenagers around the world have been known to say in such circumstances: that he is attending the university of life and they should get off his back. He is currently on another trip to Russia.
Shi Zheying at least had her father onside: she skipped the high school entrance exam to “travel 10,000 miles rather than read 10,000 books first” – with her dad. The phrase immediately became popular among China’s “netizens”. Her grandparents, themselves teachers, were force-tutoring her at night, refusing to accept examination results that placed her as low as 16th in her class. After she decided to quit school, she was placed fifth.
China is not the land of “turn on, tune in, drop out” quite yet. But it’s a far cry from a world where terminal overwork is the only option.”
27/05/2013
* As China’s middle class grows, so do its concerns
Taipei Times: “Beijing is facing increasing public pressure to deal with issues such as pollution, food safety and education driven by the 10 percent of its population who now count as middle class
W ith two cars, foreign holidays and a cook for their apartment, one Beijing family epitomizes the new middle class created by China’s decades of rapid economic growth — and its resulting worries.
Li Na, 42, is a caterer at the Beijing Zoo, and her husband, Chi Shubo, 48, works for a state-owned investment company. The couple have seen their fortunes transformed since Li arrived in Beijing 20 years ago from Shandong Province.
Then, she cycled for hours from a shared dormitory to visit her husband’s workplace. Now she commutes in a US-made car and the couple holiday with their 11-year-old daughter in Japan, South Korea and the US.
Tens of millions of other Chinese have made a similar transition. About 10 percent of China’s 1.35 billion people now count as middle class, according to the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, a figure that is set to rise to 40 percent by 2020.
However, their concerns about air pollution, food safety and China’s education system show the challenges facing the country’s newly appointed leaders, who have promised a shift away from the model of growth at all costs.
Every year, Li and her husband set a goal to improve their lives.
“We always have a plan,” Li said. “For example, this year I might want a new camera and my husband will help make that come true.”
The family’s four-bedroom apartment in a Beijing suburb was the most important purchase of their lives.
“We struggled half our lives to buy it,” Li said over a breakfast of fried eggs and bacon.
In a picture of comfortable suburban living, their daughter, who goes by the name Nancy, sprawls on a vast sofa opposite a huge flat-screen Sony television, nuzzling the family’s fluffy brown dog.
Li says her top priority is Nancy’s education. It is not a school day, but Li’s iPhone alarm rings to signal that it is time for her daughter’s first lesson.
She steers her Chevrolet Epica sedan past forests of near-identical apartment blocks to the Haidian Youth Palace, a relic of Maoist-era China which now holds classes aimed at boosting children’s creativity.
At weekends, Nancy has lessons in traditional Chinese calligraphy and a badminton class “with a private coach,” Li said.
In the past year, the young girl swapped learning the piano for a new instrument, the ocarina, a pocket-sized flute.
Nancy has only three or four hours of free time a day on weekends, Li said, as she seeks to hold her position in China’s highly competitive education system.
A glut of graduates created by the expansion of China’s university system means that the graduate unemployment rate is higher than that of the general population, making winning a place at the very best colleges ever more crucial.
Getting into a top school is also not always about ability, Li said, with cash donations sometimes involved.
“Sometimes parents need to do extra work, give out red envelopes and even then, success can depend on your contacts,” she said.
This year has bought some more worrying lessons. When thick smog blanketed northern China, sending pollution levels soaring in the capital, Nancy learned about PM2.5, the name given to invisible pollutants which can damage children’s lungs.
She reached into the pocket of her mother’s car seat and pulled out a face mask.
“My mum made me wear this every day in January and February because the PM2.5 was very bad,” she said.”
via As China’s middle class grows, so do its concerns – Taipei Times.
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CHINDIA ALERT: You'll be living in their world, very soon 