Chinese Academy of Social Sciences | CHINDIA ALERT: You'll be living in their world, very soon

17/12/2013

China Declares Lunar Defense Obliteration Zone | Ministry of Harmony

Following the successful launch of its first lunar rover, the Chinese government has declared a defensive zone extending vertically from China into space and encompassing the moon.

The Lunar Defense Obliteration Zone, according to newly appointed space minister Wu Houyi, “will protect China’s core interests and interplanetary sovereignty.” All foreign spacecraft, satellites, comets and space debris must notify China before passing through or into the zone.

Due to orbital complications, the boundaries of the LDOZ will shift daily in accordance with the position of the moon relative to its sovereign power. China’s Ministry of Space has issued diagrams of the shifting boundaries, dubbed “the lasso.”

Many countries have disputed China’s ability to establish such a zone, but Chinese officials are adamant about the country’s claim to Earth’s only natural satellite.

Orbital variations of the LDOZ.

“China’s historical ties to the moon date back at least five thousand years, perhaps more,” said Chen Guang, an official historian from the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences. “We made a whole calendar based on it for Christ’s sake.”

As for the political ramifications, the Ministry of Space has promised not to impose terrestrial laws on the celestial object, nor push immediately for reunification.

“The moon will retain full autonomy,” Wu told reporters on Thursday, “and will continue to orbit the Earth as normal under the ‘One Country, Two Circumgyrating Bodies’ system.”

So far, the LDOZ has received widespread support from the public and government-issued propaganda posters have cropped up around Beijing and Shanghai bearing the slogan “China Dream, Moon Dream.”

One Weibo user, @永远玉兔 (Jade Rabbit Forever), suggested that China should enforce the defensive zone by constructing a giant laser which will point at whichever country is currently meeting with the Dalai Lama, and at Tokyo the rest of the time.

via China Declares Lunar Defense Obliteration Zone | Ministry of Harmony.

Note: Ministry of Harmony is a website which uses satire to highlight China’s reluctance to conform to international precedents and laws

Posted in China alert | Leave a Comment »

Tags: Chang'e 3, China, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, Dalai Lama, Ministry of Space, Moon, Tokyo

24/10/2013

Forget About Retiring, China’s Economic Planners Say – Businessweek

What if Chinese were required to work an extra five years, or even a decade, before retirement? There are growing calls among officials and academics in China to consider that controversial move as the country’s rapidly aging population puts new stress on its pension program. China must consider “deferred retirement,” said Hu Xiaoyi, a vice minister of human resources and social security, on Oct. 22, speaking to journalists at a seminar in Beijing.

Right now most of China’s workers retire earlier than those in many other countries. Men, for example, stop working at 60, while many women retire at 50, a precedent set in Mao-era 1950s China. That fact, along with the still strong one-child policy, complicates the task of managing the growing costs associated with an aging population and shrinking workforce.

According to China’s National Bureau of Statistics, in 2012 the number of those of employable age—formally classified as those from 15 to 59 years of age—actually fell, dropping by 3.45 million, to 937.27 million. “Last year, the working-age population dropped for the first time, a signal that China needs to make better use of its human resources,” said Hu, reported the China Daily on Oct. 23. ”China should raise the retirement age as soon as possible, but it must take small steps and make the transitional period long enough for the public to adapt,” said Zheng Bingwen, a pensions expert at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences in Beijing, reported the China Daily.

via Forget About Retiring, China’s Economic Planners Say – Businessweek.

Posted in China alert, Economics, One-child policy, retirement pensions | Leave a Comment »

Tags: Beijing, China, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, Legal working age, one-child policy, Population ageing

17/09/2013

House-for-pension stirs Chinese debate on elder care

This post and another on China‘s labour force posted today illustrate how fast China is catching up with developed nations, not always for the better.

China Daily: “For 71-year-old Li Yuzhen, a life taking care of a sick husband and a mentally-disabled son in their two-bedroom apartment in the East China city of Hefei has not been easy.

The family of three nets a monthly income of 3,000 yuan ($487), but spends one third of it on medicine. They barely make ends meet with the rest of the money.

Li said they could not afford a nursing home, and she has to stay at home to look after her son, a man in his 40s but still unmarried due to his condition.

In an effort to explore elder care solutions for China’s rapidly aging society, the State Council, China’s Cabinet, vowed last week to complete a social care network for people over age 60 by 2020, when the age group is expected to reach 243 million. This group’s population had already reached 194 million by the end of 2012, giving China the largest senior population on earth.

One solution proposed is the house-for-pension program.

“The plan allows you to deed your house to an insurance company or bank, which will determine the value of your house and your life expectancy, and then grant you a certain amount every month,” said Meng Xiaosu, former CEO of Happy Life Insurance Co, Ltd.

“You can still live in your house, but the company or the bank has ownership,” Meng said.

The program, while only a suggestion, has drawn widespread concern and met with mixed views.

Zhan Chengfu, director of the division on social welfare and charity of the Ministry of Civil Affairs, said the program benefits both the elderly and insurance companies and banks as it can ease elderly care fund shortages, revitalize housing resources and expand the insurance business.

According to a joint study by the Bank of China (BOC) and Deutsche Bank last year, the aging population will leave China with a shortfall of 18.3 trillion yuan in pension funds by 2013 and create a heavy fiscal burden for the country.

Zheng Bingwen, a social security researcher at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, likened China’s pension system to a pyramid with the ground level being the basic pension pool, the middle level being companies’ supplementary pensions, and the top level being individuals’ commercial insurance. But the proportion of the total pension funds to gross domestic output is small compared to other BRICS nations.

“We need different channels to supplement funds shortage, and house-for-pension is likely to be a plausible way for elder care,” Zhang said.

However, the proposal stirred a heated public debate, especially among people whose parents have property and fear losing the inheritance.

via House-for-pension stirs debate on elder care[1]|chinadaily.com.cn.

Posted in Ageing population, Change, China alert, demographics, Economics, Health, housing, income-wealth gap, Population, real estate, retirement pensions, saving | Leave a Comment »

Tags: Bank of China, BRICS, China, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, Deutsche Bank, Elderly care, health, Hefei

30/07/2013

China urbanization cost could top $106 billion a year: think-tank

Reuters: “The cost of settling China’s rural workers into city life in the government’s urbanization drive could be about 650 billion yuan ($106 billion) a year, the equivalent of 5.5 percent of fiscal revenue last year, a government think-tank said on Tuesday.

The figure is based on the assumption that 25 million people a year settle in cities, with the government spending the money on making sure they enjoy the same benefits in healthcare, housing and schools that city residents have, the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences(CASS) said.

“I think the biggest obstacle for turning rural migrant workers into urban citizens is the cost issue,” Wei Houkai, a researcher at CASS, told a news conference, adding that to achieve equality of treatment could take until 2025.

Millions of migrant workers from the countryside and smaller towns work in China’s big cities, often in low-paid manual work, but lack access to education, health and other services tied to the country’s strict household registration – or hukou – system.

China sees the urbanization drive as pushing domestic consumption, which it wants to make the main engine of growth for the economy, replacing exports and manufacturing and investment.

Rural migrant laborers only earned an average 2,049 yuan a month in 2011, or 59 percent of average urban workers’ salary, CASS added.

But they need to pay about 18,000 yuan annually per capita to be able to live in cities and another 100,000 yuan on average for housing, it said.”

via China urbanization cost could top $106 billion a year: think-tank | Reuters.

Posted in China alert, Economics, Migrant workers, Politics, urban development | 3 Comments »

Tags: China, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, Chinese yuan, economy, Hukou system, migrant worker, Rural area, Urbanization

28/06/2013

Exposure via internet now China’s top weapon in war on graft

SCMP: “The internet has become the primary tool for exposing corruption on the mainland, “removing a corrupt official with the click of a mouse”, according to a leading think tank’s analysis.

In its Blue Book of New Media, researchers from the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences (CASS) said that 156 corruption cases between 2010 and last year were first brought to light online – compared with 78 cases to resulting from reports in traditional media.

Forty-four cases involving disciplinary violations were first exposed in some form online, while 29 cases followed print and broadcast stories. Sixteen cases citing abuses of power were exposed online; 10 were revealed in traditional media.

Among the latest officials to fall from grace thanks to online revelations was Liu Tienan , a former deputy chief of the National Development and Reform Commission.

Liu was sacked in mid-May, more than five months after an editor of the influential Caijing magazine used his microblog account to expose allegations against him.

The report said revelations online, and the rise in interest in public affairs the internet had engendered, were the main reasons more people were participating in anti-corruption efforts.

However, the report cautioned that such efforts still had a long way to go. Only five officials of above departmental rank were brought down via online exposures last year – just a fraction of the 950 officials of that level who were probed for crimes.

The mainland had 564 million internet users at the end of last year, including 309 million microbloggers, according to the China Internet Network Information Centre. The Blue Book said the online community would likely exceed 600 million this year.

The new-media boom has posed an unprecedented challenge to Communist Party rulers, experts warned, due to the easy spread of information, including rumours. The report blamed the online rumour mill on governments’ declining credibility and growing concern on the part of the public.”

via Exposure via internet now China’s top weapon in war on graft | South China Morning Post.

Posted in bad behaviour, Change, China alert, Citizens's rights, Consumer protection, corruption, Food safety, Morality, Social & cultural, social media, Technology, whistle blowing | Leave a Comment »

Tags: academy of social sciences, China, china internet network, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, communist party rulers, corrupt official, corruption cases, National Development and Reform Commission, network information centre, Political corruption

01/06/2013

Yuan may continue to appreciate

China Daily: “The yuan may be trading at below 6.1 against the US dollar as the Chinese currency continues to rise in the next few months, said a currency analyst at DBS Bank.

A trader with an Asian bank in Shanghai said that the yuan’s valuation has peaked for a few days, while sales of dollars are easing.

An employee from the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China is counting the renminbi and Japanese yen in Huaibei, Anhui province, on May 17. The yuan has gained some 20 percent against the yen since the beginning of the year. Woo He / For China Daily

“Most of my peers working in Shanghai share the opinion that in the short term the renminbi may further appreciate against the US dollar,” the trader said.

China’s central bank, the People’s Bank of China, set the yuan’s midpoint at a record-high level of 6.1796 against the US dollar, while the spot yuan closed at 6.1345 per dollar on Friday.

It has been 12 months since Japan’s yen and China’s yuan became directly convertible, and the yuan has gained some 20 percent against the yen since the beginning of the year.

The appreciation of the yuan and the depreciation of the yen may cast risks to China’s currency as it’s the only currency which lacks the elasticity of East Asian economies, wrote Liu Yuhui, a financial researcher at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences in an article published on Tuesday.

“It has been very difficult for us to guarantee orders from Japan these days because our price advantage disappeared,” said Yuan Hongtao, owner of a Hangzhou-based plastic production company, which exports some 40 percent of its products to Japan.

Analysts said that policymakers now have to figure out ways to help companies grow, as the renminbi is increasingly going global.

“While the benefits of direct convertibility between the renminbi and other currencies are obvious, including cutting the costs of exchange and reducing the risks brought by the fluctuation of the US dollar, it can also bring some risks to companies and regions in China whose growth is driven by foreign trade,” said Liu Yang, a foreign exchange analyst with Shanghai Gaofu Consultancy.

Currently, the yuan is directly convertible to the yen and the Australian dollar. New Zealand and China are in an early stage of negotiations for direct convertibility of each other’s currencies, according to a Reuters report on May 26.

“One important step to make the renmibi more internationalized is to use more yuan in direct investment overseas”, said Nathan Chow, vice-president and economist of group research with DBS Bank (Hong Kong) Ltd.

Chow said that only about 6 percent of China’s outbound direct investment uses renminbi, while 36 percent of foreign direct investment in China uses renminbi.

If regulations on ODI using renminbi are eased, a large amount of yuan will be released to overseas markets and help divert risks of the fluctuation of the US dollar, which is being used for foreign exchange reserves, said Chow.

He added that more big corporations may want to issue dim sum bonds — yuan-denominated bonds issued in Hong Kong — as the renminbi bond market grew significantly this year, driven by lower funding costs, improved macroeconomic conditions and the heightened expectations for yuan appreciation.

“Despite all these factors, market facilities for renminbi bonds still have a lot of catching up to do. Decision makers and financial institutions need to work closer with corporations, while continuing to improve the fundraising infrastructure in offshore renminbi centers such as Hong Kong and Singapore,” he said.

The yuan had appreciated 1.72 percent against the dollar since the beginning of the year, following a moderate gain of 1.03 percent throughout 2012.”

via Yuan may continue to appreciate |Economy |chinadaily.com.cn.

See also:

Taiwan and Hong Kong battle for renminbi deposits (wantchinatimes.com)
HSBC, StanChart Offer Dim Sum Bonds in Singapore’s First Sales (bloomberg.com)
Rising Yuan Boosts Demand for Dim-Sum Bonds (blogs.wsj.com)

Posted in China alert, Economics, GeoPolitics, Politics, Reserve currency, Trade | Leave a Comment »

Tags: Business, China, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, DBS Bank, economy, Industrial & Commercial Bank of China Ltd, Japan, Renminbi, Singapore

30/05/2013

Chinese wonder why their tourists behave so badly

SCMP: “From faking marriage certificates to getting honeymoon discounts in the Maldives to letting children defecate on the floor of a Taiwan airport, Chinese tourists have recently found themselves at the centre of controversy and anger.

Thanks to microblogging sites in China, accounts of tourists behaving badly spread like wildfire across the country, provoking disgust, ire and soul-searching.

While in the past such reports might have been dismissed as attacks on the good nature of Chinese travellers, people in the world’s second-largest economy are starting to ask why their countrymen and women are so badly behaved.

“Objectively speaking, our tourists have relatively low-civilised characters,” said Liu Simin, researcher with the Tourism Research Centre of Chinese Academy of Social Sciences.

“Overseas travel is a new luxury, Chinese who can afford it compare with each other and want to show off,” Liu said. “Many Chinese tourists are just going abroad, and are often inexperienced and unfamiliar with overseas rules and norms.”

When a story broke recently that a 15-year-old Chinese boy had scratched his name into a 3,500-year-old temple in Egypt’s Luxor, the furore was such that questions were even asked about it at a Foreign Ministry news briefing.

“There are more and more Chinese tourists travelling to other countries in recent years,” ministry spokesman Hong Lei said on Monday.

“We hope that this tourism will improve friendship with foreign countries and we also hope that Chinese tourists will abide by local laws and regulations and behave themselves.””

via Chinese wonder why their tourists behave so badly | South China Morning Post.

Tags: China, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, Tourism

09/05/2013

* China mouthpiece claims rights over Okinawa

This is most confusing. On the one hand China is proclaiming loud and clear that it will work with its neighbours and ASEAN nations to defuse conflicting territorial claims and to foster peace. Yet, on the other hand, pronouncements such as this works in the opposite direction. There must be something in Sun Tzu’s writings that will help to clarify this. Do any of my READERs know?

Bangkok Post: “The lengthy article in the People’s Daily, China’s most-circulated newspaper and the mouthpiece of the ruling Communist party, argued that China may have rights to the Ryukyu island chain, which includes Okinawa.

“Unresolved problems relating to the Ryukyu Islands have reached the time for reconsideration,” wrote Zhang Haipeng and Li Guoqiang, citing post World War II declarations which require Japan to return Chinese territory.

The authors are scholars at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, considered China’s top state-run think tank.

The article also repeated Chinese government arguments for China’s historical claims over a set of tiny uninhabited islets in the East China Sea known as Diaoyu in Chinese and Senkaku in Japanese.

The two nations have stepped up a war of words over the dispute in recent months, with Beijing’s vessels regularly entering the waters around the Tokyo-controlled islands, stoking fears of armed conflict.

Okinawa is the biggest of the Ryukyu islands, which stretch for about 1,000 kilometres (620 miles) from Japan’s mainland, and was the centre of the Ryukyuan kingdom which paid tribute to Chinese emperors until it was absorbed by Japan in 1879.

The island is home to major US air force and marine bases as well as 1.3 million people, who are considered more closely related to Japan in ethnic and linguistic terms than to China.

But some Chinese see historical ties as a basis for sovereignty and dismiss Japan’s possession of the islands as a legacy of its aggressive expansionism that ended in defeat at the end of the Second World War.

China’s government does not make such claims, but state media have from time to time carried articles and commentaries questioning Japan’s authority.”

via China mouthpiece claims rights over Okinawa | Bangkok Post: breakingnews.

Posted in China alert, GeoPolitics, Politics, Territorial dispute | 1 Comment »

Tags: China, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, East China Sea, Japan, politics, Ryukyu Islands, Senkaku Islands, Zhang Haipeng

30/12/2012

* China Pledges Rural Reforms to Boost Incomes, Consumption

Another angle on narrowing the wealth gap.

Bloomberg: “China said it will better protect farmers’ land rights and boost rural incomes and public services to help narrow the divide with urban areas.

A farmer works in a field in Pinggu, on the outskirts of Beijing. Photographer: Tomohiro Ohsumi/Bloomberg

The government will increase agricultural subsidies and ensure “reasonable returns” from planting crops, the official Xinhua news agency reported on Dec. 22, citing an annual work conference to set rural policy.

The goals, which include increasing rural incomes by at least as much as those in urban areas, reflect a new leadership’s focus on reforming the land system and addressing wealth disparities as it encourages migration into towns and cities to boost consumption. Li Keqiang, set to take over from Wen Jiabao as premier in March, is championing urbanization as a growth engine.

“A completely new policy approach is emerging under Li Keqiang,” said Yuan Gangming, a researcher in Beijing with the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences. “It’s about giving farmers a bigger share from land deals, it’s about changing local governments’ reliance on revenues from land, and it’s ultimately about a fairer system of sharing China’s economic growth.”

Yuan said he expects the government to be appointed in March to announce “a slew of policy initiatives” from changes to the household registration, or hukou, system to trading in land-use rights as part of Li’s urbanization drive.

The Shanghai Composite Index closed up 0.3 percent. Some Asian markets are closed today, while trading hours are restricted in some others.”

via China Pledges Rural Reforms to Boost Incomes, Consumption – Bloomberg.

Li Keqiang Urges Deeper Urbanization to Support China’s Growth – Bloomberg (bloomberg.com)

Posted in agriculture, China alert, Economics, Good news, income-wealth gap, Low income | 1 Comment »

Tags: Beijing, China, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, economy, Li Keqiang, Wen Jiabao

22/12/2012

* Land grabs are main cause of mainland protests, experts say

If the new Chinese leadership is serious about improving the lives of its citizens and removing reasons to distrust the Party, this is one area it should concentrate on rather than reducing banquets and other ostentatious spending by officials and senior soldiers. The former affects people directly, the latter only peripherally. Though eventually both must change.

SCMP: “Land seizures, pollution and labour disputes have been the three main causes of tens of thousands of mass protests in recent years, according to a top think-tank.

In its 2013 Social Development Blue Book, released on Tuesday, the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences said the mainland was experiencing frequent social conflict because “social contradictions were diverse and complex”.

It said there had been more than 100,000 “mass incidents” – the central government’s term for large protests involving more than 100 people – every year in recent years.

Professor Chen Guangjing, editor of this year’s book, said that disputes over land grabs accounted for about half of “mass incidents”, while pollution and labour disputes were responsible for 30 per cent. Other kinds of disputes accounted for the remaining 20 per cent.

“Of the tens of thousands of incidents of rural unrest that occur each year in China, the vast majority of them result from land confiscations and home demolitions for development,” Chen told a news conference in Beijing yesterday.

Late last year, about 1,000 villagers from Wukan, Guangdong, rioted and overthrew corrupt local leaders who had profited from illegal sales of village land.

Chen said environmental concerns were also becoming a main cause of social unrest, as evidenced by a series of grass-roots demonstrations over polluting projects.

More than 20,000 people rallied in Xiamen, Fujian province, in June 2007 to protest against plans to build a chemical plant in the city.

The project was subsequently relocated and the Xiamen backdown sparked similar protests in several mainland cities.

The major cause of labour disputes was salary arrears. There over 120 protests that involved more than 100 workers each in the first eight months of this year.

Chen said courts and labour arbitration tribunals had dealt with 479,000 back-pay cases in the first nine months of this year.

The book says 120 million mainlanders are living under the poverty line – with per capita annual disposable income of less than 2,300 yuan (HK$2,830). The government last year raised the poverty line from the previous level of 1,200 yuan, set in 2008.

Professor Li Peilin, the blue book’s editor-in-chief, said household income growth had lagged far behind gross domestic product growth over the past decade.”

via Land grabs are main cause of mainland protests, experts say | South China Morning Post.

Posted in China alert, Economics, Inequalities, land grab, Politics, Rule of law | Leave a Comment »

Tags: Beijing, China, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, Fujian, Guangdong, home demolitions, politics, Social conflict, Xiamen

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