Time to Stop Wasting Time
By Rhodo Zeb. Filed in China |Tags: china.commerce
I haven’t got much these days. Real life has taken center stage, obviously. Thanks to FOARP for stopping by.
It was funny to see Jianshuo notice a general slump in blogging, which is quite interesting. I also noticed that the flow of content seemed to slow down somewhat, but thought nothing of it. Could it be residual seasonal conditioning? I find that Autumn (well, its Winter already) is always a time of great activity. More real life activity = less blogging?
I saw that The Poor Man was unblocked a couple weeks ago, and did a little dance of joy before perusing the archives and comments. And now, Roland (who always impresses me with his wide linkage across the spectrum of intelligence and sense) has linked to an instant-classic by the mysterious and avuncular Curv3ball, hisownself. That blockage, by the way, I am convinced was due to a hoster or IP issue, as there was never any content on the site that possibly could have triggered the censors, and it was blocked for a very long time.
Noting the legal situation James Fallows (who has good news!) talked about recently, I saw this issue several years ago. Its a national policy and was probably implemented 3-5 years ago. In the early days I do not believe such a policy was ever in place, as back then any restrictions on foreign workers would have been counter-productive. That was, of course, back when China had very few ‘foreign experts’. Ha ha, good times, good times. I specifically remember some teachers over 70 in those days, up through 2005.
I hesitate to suggest reasons why the policy might have been created. I will say there certainly are ways for the committed to circumvent the restrictions.
I do not agree with the analysis of a lot of people online talking about how this is some optional requirement that can be used to force people out, or at least I do not agree that the authorities are permitted such levels of discretion as implied by some. Discretion is the anathema of an efficient legal regime, and, whatever it’s faults, China wants an efficient legal regime.
What has happened for years now (outside of this newer policy regarding the over-60 set) is that many people used the lax visa rules to work on business visas. They may well be unable to meet the requirement to become a ‘foreign expert’ (which is just a degree iirc) and work legally. So the system is (has been, actually, for over two years now) tightening up, and now getting around the basic rules has gotten much harder.
That foreign business owners without legal standing would be ejected from their positions by their workers is just a dog-bites-man story, as this comment by jg notes. Yes it is wrong in a moral sense but anybody who put themselves in that position really has no leg to stand on.
Thursday, December 17th 2009 at 18:48 |
I was beginning to think that I was the only one who had met ‘foreign experts’ over 70. One of the guys i used to work with back in 2005 claimed to be a WW2 veteran, and was certainly in his eighties.