工商法 » China

Visit This Place!!

Rhodo Zeb — Fri, 30 Apr 2010 16:57:19 +0000

Triangular Building in Shanghai

You know, I never really thought too much about what it would really be like, the Expo I mean.

Of course, for years now there has always been this discussion and that plan, this project and that meeting. But I just never really comprehended what would happen, what the experience would really feel like.

Until now. For a week or so now, the effect can be clearly felt. At first is was less distinct, a few more people on the subway, a few more cars on the road, nothing too clear-cut. But for a week already now, its become clear that the visitors have arrived in force, both from other areas of China and of course outside China. The distinguishing features are becoming evident, by which I mostly mean little things, clothing and so on. And of course, the plethora of accents and dialects. Although I must say so far I have been mostly hearing clean, unaccented Mandarin. Funny how standards are really useful sometimes.

Previously, the only noticeable difference was the staring. Is he a tourist? Maybe here for the Expo? Every searching eye seemed to enquire. It was almost like old times!

But now the real gawkers are here, and I realize this is a huge step forward for Shanghai and China. Its just a wonderful event, and I see the pride and happiness in the eyes of a lot of people these days. They want the world to see Shanghai and what has been accomplished so far.

Man, this is going to be so great. Get here if you can, this is an exciting place to be!

Weep, Sad Freaks of the Nation

Rhodo Zeb — Fri, 09 Apr 2010 05:24:39 +0000

I just exist as a material thing.

Furniture.

I will stand with you. I must. Because…

Just because of the repression I experienced, don’t think that other people won’t do what I did. That’s not human nature,” Gao said. “If there’s one more of me or one less of me in the field, it doesn’t matter. These years we’ve heard that a lot of others are eager to try. I still want to talk with them and hope they can learn a lesson from me.

Yes, precisely correct. Not a coward, and not a failure, but instead, a hero. And yet the cowards dominate, the f*cking bastards.

I would say jail them or execute them. But I have some unfinished business of my own to contend with.

China needs more law, not less, I must always remember this. Thank god for the fighters, though they may fall in battle, may suffer, may fail.

China has just as strong a tradition of martyrdom as any culture on the face of this beautiful earth.

They fight for all of us. And we will support them.

Ergo Space Pig

Rhodo Zeb — Sat, 26 Dec 2009 10:51:56 +0000

Shanghai can be fun sometimes.

Recently I was on the subway at a very light time of the day. Nearby were two tourists or business-folk, Shandong perhaps, with a nice, clean Northern accent. Not far away, in different directions, were two young men, each on their mobiles.

Of course, being Shanghai, both of these young guys were talking loudly into their phones. That’s almost a given.

I like to listen to the accents I hear outside, so I listened to each of them for a bit.

One was speaking his local language, but it was a somewhat recognizable dialect. It was probably not related to Shanghai language at all, but it was within the gambit of the language amalgamation that exists within the center city, that you might come across in some transaction or other. He could have been understandable, if it were necessary, without a doubt, although to say he could speak Mandarin or Shanghaihua proper was unclear. I probably could have a one in four chance of guessing the general area he was from (Subei and Anhui, of course, then Henan and Jiangxi I suppose).

The other guy was speaking something that sounded like it came from the top of a mountain. Nothing he said was the least bit recognizable. It was not Mandarin nor anything else 99% of people in China could understand.

And the one Northerner turned to the other and said, ‘Wow, these Shanghai people sure talk funny, don’t they?’

Buddy, you have no idea.

I'm a Flash, I'm a Fake

Rhodo Zeb — Sat, 26 Dec 2009 05:36:53 +0000

I was asked by Dan Harris through email to remove a comment on the most recent CDE post, informing me that it was spoofed.

This makes me wonder whether the original email supposedly from CDE to me was spoofed as well. For this reason, I think the CDE bashing is about over. Anyone who does any due diligence will find enough to concern them. I am assuming organizations like the US Chamber of Commerce have cut ties with this guy already.

Any more emails sent to me purporting to be from CDE or his minions will certainly not be posted here. Its become tedious.

Time to Stop Wasting Time

Rhodo Zeb — Sun, 13 Dec 2009 09:35:44 +0000

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.

A Proud and Booming Industry

Rhodo Zeb — Sun, 22 Nov 2009 16:35:28 +0000

It just burns me, the petty little games played by the political censors.

You know, whereas the rest of us are worried about the real economy, in this ersatz industry, every effort is paid to make sure that numbers are achieved! Pages blocked! Foul content walled off from innocent eyes! Success is surely guaranteed with this type of efficiency!

Not unlike the failure of proper administration which led to starvation 50 plus years ago, this industry must certainly be driven by increasingly bizarre numbers, calculations and ratios, or should I say rationalizations, which firmly encompasses all of the above.

Not to mention the bald competitive advantage gained therein, most notably in the video space. That is not collateral by any means.

The proxies were off, very briefly, earlier this week. But then clamped back down again.

And the suckers pay 50 bucks a month to work around it. Heh. That’s funny.

Sentencing in Shishou

FOARP — Sun, 18 Oct 2009 13:34:45 +0000

[Cross-posted at FOARP]

Remember Shishou? It was before Urumqi, but after Lhasa. Well, the five people who the local authorities have accused of “organising and inciting” the riots in which more than 60 police officers were injured have been sentenced, and the sentences seem to have been quite light – 5 years imprisonment being the longest. German Sino-blogger JustRecently has a good round-up of the coverage here. Noteworthy points?

1) Not insubstantial compensation was paid to the family of the man who allegedly committed suicide even after family members were arrested for inciting disturbances.

2) The local party chief was forced to resign.

3) Upwards of ten thousand people took to the streets, dozens of policemen were injured, yet only five people were punished.

What does this tell us? Where ethnic minorities upon which the government is not reliant for support protest they are punished severely as the ultimate cause which they seek is greater autonomy, which severely risks the unity of the Chinese state as it stands. However, where Han protest both the methods of policing deployed against them and the punishments used against those who lead the protest will be much less harsh – why? It is because no Chinese government can afford the kind of loss of prestige that would result from the use of harsh methods against the very people that the Chinese government truly relies on for support and which it truly represents. For the events of 20 years ago to be repeated would mean the death-knell of the Chinese state as it stands.

It's Crippling, Never Really Knowing

Rhodo Zeb — Sat, 10 Oct 2009 16:21:00 +0000

Jeremey Goldkorn at Guardian confirms many of my suspicions about the internet blocking:

I do not even know if the block was a decision made by a person, or the effects of a filtering software that decided we had too many “sensitive” keywords. There is no hotline you can call and say: “Comrade, why did you censor my website?”

Danwei.org is in good company: YouTube, Facebook, Twitter and hundreds of other foreign sites are inaccessible in China at the moment. But the difference between those sites and mine is that I live in China, and the website is part of a company that operates in China and pays my bills. We’re also small: we are not a platform for citizens broadcasting their opinions like Twitter. It was something specific that we published that got us blocked, and it feels personal.

Wonderful to get this information, this experience, out there into the public domain.

I believe I can provide another data point on this round of blocking, which of course took most of us by surprise. Later on, I happened to go to a site known as Fool’s Mountain, which is generally a pro-China English language site. I have never been a regular reader, but in any case I stopped by one day, (this is after the crackdown had already gotten pretty severe), and the site was still up.

One ‘mini-post’ on the front page did have the dreaded ‘D’ word, I noticed, and although I didn’t care about that particular author’s opinion, I did find that the post itself was blocked, but the rest of the site was still up…for another few hours. And then, it was gone.

Perfect for the Experts

Rhodo Zeb — Sun, 04 Oct 2009 15:53:19 +0000

In casting about for a decent topic of the day, I found that Bill D has a new domain, http://thisischinablog.com/

One of my failings is that I do not search the English China-Web, and do not run through a list of good sites regularly, which I should. I believe I mentioned before somewhere or another, I just came late to the China blogosphere as a reader, and am much more stuck in the US liberal blog-world, or whatever its called. The echo chamber perhaps.

Anyway, I thought I spied a likely target: A post about the WSJ talking China finance. But I found the WSJ piece fairly lacking in teeth, having been written by a (presumably left-wing and socialist) professor instead of one of the many ideologues (wingnut welfare personified) skipping about over there.

The takeaway that I like in the piece is:

Capital account convertibility for the yuan would subject Beijing’s policies to the judgments of individual investors at home and abroad capable of contributing to large capital flows, including highly temporary and speculative gushes. It would put China’s economy much more at the mercy of global financial forces.

Which really means subjecting China’s assets to the whims of unregulated hedge funds, sovereign wealth funds, and the like. I love the ‘individual’ stuck in there, so disarming. These predatory institutions, rationalized by a failed ideology, look for profit wherever they can and care nothing for the social, economic and political fallout that results.

Bill, with his long memory, comments:

Mind you, it’s understandable after the Asian Financial Crisis of 1997 that the powers that be do not want to expose the yuan to Homerian struggles. Hong Kong, though…

Remember all the lectures from quarters such as the WSJ to China about its currency? And yet, while steadily ignoring all the advice, China has managed to maintain a stable currency for over a decade now. Indeed, over the past eight years, China has done a much better job than the US about managing its currency. Funny how that worked out, isn’t it?

I left that little snippet about Hong Kong in Bill’s quote to remind me of something: Does anyone remember the role that hedge funds played in fomenting the 97 crisis? Well, they attacked Hong Kong’s currency and stock market at one point, and were beat off by the Mainland.

Beijing knows all about the games. However, I am surprised to note that the WSJ piece is pretty good, and makes some solid points on the continuing integration of China’s economy into the global economy, which I believe to be inevitable, for a variety of reasons that will not be presented today.

Mistakes are repeated over…

Rhodo Zeb — Sat, 03 Oct 2009 14:03:33 +0000

This review of a Joseph Stiglitz piece in Le Monde diplomatique, from Eurozine is interesting:

In Le Monde diplomatique (Berlin), Joseph E. Stiglitz urges the G20 to find global answers to the financial crisis, instead of sticking to strategies that fail completely to take account of developing nations.

“The US might well be in a position financially to save its banks and to stimulate its economy, but the developing nations are not. Lately however they have been an important motor for worldwide economic growth. For that reason, a global recovery without their participation is barely conceivable.”

Yet at this week’s Pittsburgh summit, the G20 will reconsider neither the IMF’s counterproductive conditions for financial aid for developing countries, which slow down rather than accelerate their economies, nor WTO tolls that de facto discriminate against poorer countries.

Remember when China was making these very complaints, and being vilified for them? Funny how this is now seen as commonly understood, even as it perpetuates. I would add that the unfair rules were put in place to serve the financial industry and corporate interests, but that sort of goes without saying, usually, at least in polite society.