Posts tagged ‘China’

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21/02/2014

Behind China’s Labor Unrest: Factory Workers and Taxi Drivers – Businessweek

On top of the other article about pessimistic Chinese economists, this is worrying. See https://chindia-alert.org/2014/02/21/even-chinas-economists-are-singing-the-blues-china-real-time-report-wsj/

“What’s the state of dissent among China’s hundreds of millions of workers? They are increasingly aware of and demanding their rights, according to a new report by the China Labor Bulletin.

Workers sew blue jeans in a Chinese textile factory in 2012

There were 1,171 strikes and protests in China recorded by the Hong Kong-based labor advocacy group from June 2011 until the end of last year. Of those, 40 percent occurred among factory workers, as China’s exports suffered a slowdown and its overall economy cooled. “Many manufacturers in China sought to offset their reduced profits by cheating workers out of overtime and cutting back on bonuses and benefits, etc. These cost-cutting tactics proved to be a regular source of conflict with the workforce,” notes the report, “Searching for the Union: The workers’ movement in China 2011-13″ (pdf), which was published on Thursday.

Meanwhile, the report cites a large number of worker protests “caused by the downsizing, closure, relocation, sale or merger of businesses” spurred by the government’s declared policy of tenglong huanniao, or “changing the birds in the cage.” That’s when Beijing has encouraged the closure of factories engaged in lower-tech businesses, including shoes, textiles, and toys. All together, 57 percent of factory worker protests took place in Guangdong, home to the Pearl River Delta manufacturing region, followed by 9 percent in Jiangsu, home to many export factories in the Yangtze River Delta.”

via Behind China’s Labor Unrest: Factory Workers and Taxi Drivers – Businessweek.

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21/02/2014

* Even China’s Economists Are Singing the Blues – China Real Time Report – WSJ

It’s all relative.  To any developed nation, a GDP growth of just over 7% would look absolutely marvellous!

“China’s state media have long accused foreign analysts of being too bearish on the Chinese economy. Those analysts looking in from the outside are often said to be too eager to be “chanting decline”—chang shuai—when it comes to the economy’s prospects.

This time around, China’s own economists seem to be chanting a pessimistic tune about growth prospects. Perhaps they are not quite as negative as those pesky foreign counterparts—who according to at least one report China’s state media are being told to avoid—but they are increasingly outspoken about slowing growth and rising financial risk.

“We are now in a painful stage,” economist Wang Luolin told a seminar this week.  “Let’s not try to dress things up,” said the consultant to the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, a government think tank.

Yu Bin, a senior researcher at the influential Development Research Center under the State Council, took a similarly pessimistic view.

“The fact is, China’s economic growth is facing substantial downward pressure,” he said. “I don’t think we should get our hopes up for this year’s growth.”

China’s growth has been slowing amid a recovering global economy coupled with weak domestic demand. The days of double-digit expansion are long gone. Economic growth slipped to 7.7% in the fourth quarter of last year from 7.8% in the third – and many economists see a further slackening ahead.

“We expect the economic growth rate to be just above 7% this year, and that’s about it,” Mr. Yu said. That would be well below the 7.7% expansion in all of 2013.

Mr. Yu added that all three big drivers of China’s growth — investment, consumption and exports— are looking weak.”

via Even China’s Economists Are Singing the Blues – China Real Time Report – WSJ.

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20/02/2014

China training for ‘short, sharp war’, says senior US naval officer – FT.com

China has been training for a “short, sharp war” against Japan in the East China Sea, a senior US military officer has claimed, in comments that underline the growing military tensions in the western Pacific.

Disputed territory

Captain James Fanell, director of intelligence for the US Pacific Fleet, said that a large-scale Chinese military exercise conducted in 2013 was designed to prepare forces for an operation to seize disputed islands in the East China Sea, which Japan calls the Senkaku and China the Diaoyu.

“We witnessed the massive amphibious and cross military region enterprise – Mission Action 2013,” Capt Fanell said at a navy conference last week in San Diego.

“We concluded that the PLA [People’s Liberation Army] has been given the new task of being able to conduct a short, sharp war to destroy Japanese forces in the East China Sea following with what can only be an expected seizure of the Senkakus,” he added.

Conducting a training exercise is very different from having an actual plan to seize the islands. For years, the Chinese military has staged exercises designed to mimic a possible invasion of Taiwan.

However, the comments about China’s military training plans come at a time of considerable tension surrounding the contested islands. The regular presence of both Chinese and Japanese vessels and aircraft in the region has raised the risk of an accident that could spark a wider confrontation.

In December, China declared an air defence identification zone for the East China Sea, which the US and many other countries in the region interpreted as an attempt to cement its sovereignty claim over the disputed islands.

Although Capt Fanell’s remarks were unusually blunt in their assessment of China’s intentions, they represent a growing tide of anxiety from senior US officials about Beijing’s ambitions in both the East China Sea and South China Sea.

Earlier in February, Danny Russel, the US assistant secretary of state for East Asia, warned “there are growing concerns that this pattern of behaviour in the South China Sea reflects incremental effort by China to assert control over the area”. He said that China’s recent actions had “created uncertainty, insecurity and instability in the region”.

Capt Fanell said that Chinese maritime training had shifted in character in the second half of 2013 to prepare for “realistic maritime combat” that its navy might encounter. Last year, it conducted nine operations in the western Pacific that were designed to “practise striking naval targets”.

“I do not know how Chinese intentions could be more transparent,” he said. When Beijing described its activities as the “protection of maritime rights”, this was really “a Chinese euphemism for the coerced seizure of coastal rights of China’s neighbours”, Capt Fanell said.

via China training for ‘short, sharp war’, says senior US naval officer – FT.com.

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Posted in China alert, Foreign invasion, GeoPolitics, History, Military, Neighbour conflict, PLA, Politics, Territorial dispute | 1 Comment »

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20/02/2014

China, UK discuss setting up yuan clearing bank in London – Osborne | Reuters

The British and Chinese governments are in active discussions about setting up a clearing bank in London for China’s currency, a milestone that will put the city in a leading position to offer yuan trade business in Europe.

British Chancellor of the Exchequer George Osborne listens to a question after his speech during a breakfast meeting held by the British Chamber of Commerce in Hong Kong February 20, 2014. REUTERS/Bobby Yip

Taking a leaf out of Hong Kong’s blueprint in being the leading offshore yuan hub after the establishment of Bank of China (Hong Kong) as a clearing bank, the authorities are pressing ahead with having one for the city of London.

The move will help expand the Chinese currency‘s footprint beyond Hong Kong, where more than 80 percent of yuan trade settlement transactions are handled and foster greater confidence among European companies to adopt the yuan, also known as the renminbi, as a currency for trade.

“The UK and Chinese governments are in active discussions now about the appointment of a RMB clearing bank in London, recognising London’s role as the Western centre of offshore RMB

via China, UK discuss setting up yuan clearing bank in London – Osborne | Reuters.

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20/02/2014

China charges former mining magnate with murder, gun-running | Reuters

Prosecutors in central China on Thursday charged the former chairman of Hanlong Mining, which had tried to take over Australia’s Sundance Resources Ltd, with murder, gun-running and other crimes as part of a “mafia-style” gang.

Police last year announced the detention of Liu Han and an investigation into his younger brother Liu Yong – also known as Liu Wei – on suspicion of various criminal activities.

In a report carried by the official Xinhua news agency, prosecutors in the central province of Hubei said the two Lius set up the gang in 1993, along with 34 others, which “carried out a vast number of criminal activities”.

The gang was responsible for nine murders, the report said.

via China charges former mining magnate with murder, gun-running | Reuters.

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19/02/2014

Is China at Risk of a Debt Crisis? Not Really,Bank Says – China Real Time Report – WSJ

Compare this somewhat optimistic view with Robert Peston’s BBC2 programme – “How China fooled the world.” – http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-26225205

Is China headed for a debt crisis? That has emerged as a pressing question over the past year as the country’s overall debt level rises quickly and the recent specter of defaults in the shadow banking system rattles financial markets in China and abroad.

For economists at the Royal Bank of Scotland, the answer is “no” – at least not imminently. Comparing China to countries that have suffered recent debt crises – including the United States, United Kingdom and Spain in 2007, and South Korea and Thailand in 1997 – RBS finds that on two key metrics, the world’s second-largest economy is on safer footing.

For one thing, China’s loan-to-deposit ratio, which reflects the banking system’s resilience to a sudden drop in asset prices, is the lowest for all the countries tracked — half of Korea’s level and 43% of Thailand’s level when those economies melted down in the late 1990s.

Then there’s the current account, which reflects a country’s sensitivity to foreign investment. A current-account deficit can leave developing economies acutely vulnerable to a sudden exit of capital, as India, Indonesia and some other emerging-market stars found out last year.

Unlike nearly all the countries RBS examined, China runs a current-account surplus — a reflection both of its export dominance and, critics would say, its related determination to keep its currency undervalued. There’s also the fact that China’s capital controls make it difficult for investors to pull their money out of the country, even if they wanted to.

“It’s legitimate for people to worry about different kinds of financial risk in China,” Louis Kuijs, RBS’ chief economist for greater China, told reporters in Hong Kong this week. “But I still don’t really see a lot of room for the kind of macro meltdown or the type of serious financial crisis that we typically associate with emerging markets.”

That being said, Mr. Kuijs said investors can expect to see more defaults or near-defaults — like the one that rocked markets in January until the trust product in question was bailed out in fairly opaque circumstances.

“Policy makers are interested in changing people’s expectations and changing the moral hazard question, but they’re so careful and so risk averse still that it will take a while before they will just let these defaults happen without doing anything,” he said.

So if China isn’t prone to the type of debt-driven meltdown that has befallen other emerging-market economies, could it share the fate of Japan – the other current account-surplus country in the RBS study — which ran up so much debt during its boom years that it has bogged down the economy for the better part of two decades?

That’s also unlikely, Mr. Kuijs said.

“Japan had finished catch-up growth in the late 1980s, so it was much harder to grow out of the crisis,” he said. “China is more like Japan in the 1960s,” with years of strong growth still ahead of it.

via Is China at Risk of a Debt Crisis? Not Really,Bank Says – China Real Time Report – WSJ.

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19/02/2014

The Secret of China’s Taobao’s Success – Businessweek

Amazon has earned the moniker “the everything store” in the U.S., but in China Alibaba’s e-commerce sites, especially Taobao.com, dominate, with Amazon (AMZN) almost nowhere to be seen.

Image representing Taobao as depicted in Crunc...

Image via CrunchBase

Taobao really is the everything store: The Alibaba-owned retail platform sells everything from sunglasses to cadavers (for $21,000, to people claiming to be medical students). A friend in Beijing recently purchased the dress she would wear to her sister’s wedding from Taobao because “there are many more choices” than she could imagine finding in any shopping mall or bridal shop.

While Jack Ma’s e-commerce empire has triumphed in China for many reasons, including guanxi, business foresight, and good technology, its dominance was hardly assured.

In 2004, Amazon purchased the Chinese online bookseller and retailer Joyo.com for $74 million. The site failed to live up to its high hopes, and today Amazon commands less than 3 percent of China’s e-tail market. Similarly, EBay (EBAY)acquired once-popular Chinese e-commerce site EachNet, but market share quickly dwindled as Alibaba’s sites boomed. Even as U.S. technology companies flounder in China, McKinsey Global Institute predicts that China’s total e-commerce market could be worth $650 billion by 2020.

One of the secrets of Taobao’s success is its adeptness at understanding the quirks of “how Chinese shoppers want to transact,” says Barney Tan, a senior lecturer in business at the University of Sydney, who focuses on China’s e-commerce. “Taobao has catered to Chinese preferences for doing business—for example, it’s enabled buyers and sellers to negotiate and bargain on prices.”

Given common (often warranted) fears about being cheated online, Taobao has also “incorporated an optional escrow service to allow shoppers to pay for goods only after they’ve received and inspected them.” Its Alipay system, which somewhat resembles PayPal, can debit a Chinese bank account, so no financial card is required for online shopping sprees.

As Tan sums up a common sentiment in China, “If you want to sell something in China, you sell it on Taobao.” Not only wealthy urbanites seem to agree: Already more than 2 million Taobao stores are registered to rural IP addresses in China—a gain of 25 percent in just one year. China’s shoppers and entrepreneurs alike are turning to the ubiquitous platform.

via The Secret of Taobao’s Success – Businessweek.

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18/02/2014

* China tells police to go nationwide with vice crackdown | Reuters

China’s government told police across the country to get tough on prostitution, gambling and drugs following an expose in the “sin city” of Dongguan, where a crackdown on prostitution led to the detention of nearly 1,000 people this month.

The announcement, on the Ministry of Public Security‘s official website late on Monday, said investigations had begun in several provinces, and police had broken up 73 vice rings and closed down 2410 prostitution and gambling dens over the past week.

China outlawed prostitution after the Communist revolution in 1949, but it returned with a vengeance following landmark economic reforms three decades ago, and has helped fuel a rise in HIV/AIDS and other sexually transmitted diseases.

Gambling is also banned in China with the exception of heavily regulated state-sanctioned lotteries.

While periodic sweeps against vice have been carried out, it has thrived. Law enforcement is often lax.

In a warning to what the authorities call the “protective umbrella” of official collusion, the ministry said officials would be “seriously investigated, and crimes will be resolutely investigated in accordance with the law”.

via China tells police to go nationwide with vice crackdown | Reuters.

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18/02/2014

* China to spend $330 billion to fight water pollution -paper | Reuters

China has a fifth of the world’s population but just 7 percent of its water resources, and the situation is especially precarious in its parched north, where some regions have less water per capita than the Middle East.

A man walks by a pipe discharging waste water into the Yangtze River from a paper mill in Anqing, Anhui province, December 4, 2013. REUTERS/William Hong

The plan is still being finalized but the budget has been set, exceeding the 1.7 trillion yuan ($277 billion) China plans to spend battling its more-publicized air pollution crisis, the China Securities Journal reported, citing the Ministry of Environmental Protection.

It will aim to improve the quality of China’s water by 30 to 50 percent, the paper said, through investments in technologies such as waste water treatment, recycling and membrane technology.

The paper did not say how the funds would be raised, when the plan would take effect, or what timeframe was visualized, however.

Groundwater resources are heavily polluted, threatening access to drinking water, Environment Minister Zhai Qing told a news conference in the capital, Beijing, last week.

According to government data, a 2012 survey of 5,000 groundwater check points found 57.3 percent of samples to be heavily polluted.

China emits around 24 million tons of COD, or chemical oxygen demand, a measure of organic matter in waste water, and 2.45 million tons of ammonia nitrogen, into its water each year, Zhai said.

Over the next five years, China has previously estimated it will need to spend a total of 60 billion yuan to set up sludge treatment facilities, and a further 10 billion yuan for annual operation, the environment ministry says.

China is short on water to begin with but its water problems are made worse by its reliance on coal – which uses massive amounts of water to suppress dust and clean the fuel before it is burnt – to generate nearly 70 percent of its electricity while self-sufficiency in food remains a key political priority.

via China to spend $330 billion to fight water pollution -paper | Reuters.

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17/02/2014

Baby hatches reveal deficient children’s welfare in China – Xinhua | English.news.cn

Just two weeks after the first baby hatch was established in the south China city of Guangzhou in late January, nearly 80 abandoned infants had been collected from the safe place.

A baby hatch allows a parent to safely and anonymously abandon an infant and consists of an incubator, a delayed alarm device, an air conditioner and a baby bed. A person can place the baby in the hatch, press the alarm button, and leave. Welfare staff retrieve the baby five to 10 minutes later.

The Guangzhou case sparked public discussion, and more baby hatches are set to be established in China. However, experts say simply saving abandoned infants is not enough, and a better system is needed to protect the rights of children with illnesses and disabilities.

A total of 25 baby hatches have been established in 10 provincial regions in China, and more will be set up in another 18 regions, the China Center for Children’s Welfare and Adoption (CCCWA) told Xinhua.

The first baby hatch in China was set up in June 2011 in Shijiazhuang, capital city of north China’s Hebei Province.

Many have endorsed baby hatches, hailing them as a sign of social progress and a way to help save the lives of abandoned babies. However, others believe baby hatches encourage people to abandon their unwanted children, which is prohibited by Chinese law.

via Xinhua Insight: Baby hatches reveal deficient children’s welfare in China – Xinhua | English.news.cn.

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