Taiwan opposes Olympic torch

Taiwan government refuses to let the torch of the Beijing's Olympic Games to come to Taiwan. This is the first case of a "National Olympic Committee" (NOC) rejecting Olympic torch in the history.

Yesterday, the International Olympic Committee and Beijing Olympic Committee announced the route of the torch. It is scheduled to go to Taipei from Ho Chi Minh City and then to Hong Kong and Macau. But after the announcement, in a press conference, Taiwan's Sport Committte argued that this route would damage and "dwarf" Taiwan's status as a national sovereignty .

Yang Zhonghe, Chairperson of Sport Committee of Republic of China (ROC), said that this route, from Taiwan, Hong Kong and then to China, gives an impression that Taiwan is one of the stops of the "national route". According to him, the design of this route seems to see Taiwan as the same as Hong Kong, a special administrative region of China. But Yang did not respond if Taiwan will or will not join the Olympic Games next year.

But Cai Zhenwei, Chairperson of the Olympic Committee, ROC, said that the route from Ho Chi Minh City to Taiwan and Hong Kong follows the principle of equality between NOC and NOC. He repeated that this was a problem of "political reading". Cai remarked that the Olympic Committee as a civic organization is helpless that it could only follow government's policy.

Zhang Xiaoyu, vice-chairperson of the Beijing Olympic Committee, said that Taipei, Hong Kong and Macau are part of the route outside China but not "international" line. In February, the Olympic Committee, ROC, reached a consensus with Beijing that the torch could be passed from a third party to Taiwan and then to Hong Kong and Macau. But Taiwan government suddenly overturned it in April and refused to accept the route.

Source: Sergio Maistrello

Newspapers in China and India

While most newspapers circulation is declining around the world, it is booming in India and China. In India, the daily circulation increased by 33% from 2001 to 2005. China achieved an increase of 28% from 2000 to 2004.

Last year, among the top ten companies with the best stock price performance, there are three and two in India and China respectively. The price of Deccan Chronicle Holdings, the second biggest newspaper in India, skyrocketed by 81%. The stock prices of HT Media, the biggest newspaper corporate group and Jagran Prakashan, the biggest local newspaper, increase by 66% and 56% respectively.

In Chengdu, China, B-Raymedia's profit increased by 20% last year and its stock price doubled. CCID Media, a conglomerate owning six newspapers and ten magazines, tripled its stock price.

Source: Hong Kong Economic Journal (信報), 2007.4.25

Analysis of "Prison Break" from the perspective of Marxist-Leninism

Notes: The following piece of article is written by an anonymous online writer in China. He/she probably wrote it just for fun despite not without any serious intention. He/she borrowed the official rhetorics from the Chinese Communist Party's propaganda and official version of its history.

This TV drama talks about an American young petty bourgeois helping his elder brother framed to jail to escape and (possibly) acquit the charge. It sharply criticizes the evil rule of the capitalist class and attacks the darkness and hypocrisy of the capitalist legal system. It deeply reveals the inevitable historical trend of the capitalist system towards extinction.

The team of escapees is definitely a revolutionary army of fighting against the capitalist system and legal authority. But the team members vary in their purposes and their backgrounds are extremely complicated.

Lincoln is a righteous and good-hearted unemployed proletariat. In order to support his brother’s study, he borrowed from loan shark. It resulted in being exploited by the accomplice of the capitalist class. He was forced to back murder charge and was put to the row of death penalty. He had given up on all resistances against his injustice fate. But with the encouragement by his younger brother, he picked up the pieces and steadily walked on the revolutionary road.

Michael is a highly educated petty bourgeois intellectual. His job was highly paid and very decent. He enjoyed the life of abundance but emptiness until he realized the truth that his brother was set up. He knows clearly the true nature of the dictatorship of the capitalist class. He determined to abandon his petty bourgeois life of luxury and help his brother to get rid of the charge. In the process of escape, he turned into an outstanding revolutionary leader of proletarian revolution and a strong force in the process of revolutionary escape. But due to the complication and difficulty of revolutionary struggles, Michael cleverly adopted the strategy of united front to recruit people from different class backgrounds in solidarity and effectively expanded the revolutionary base.

At the same time, Michael had been threatened by the internal conflict and split within the revolutionary army all the time. He kept alert to the dangers of revisionism and capitulationism. Michael’s political line was fundamentally correct until the first episode of the second season. He united the majority and decisively cleared the traitor (the petty thief) out of the revolutionary army. He appropriately settled down the struggles between different political lines within the party (t-bag vs. Abruzzi). But thereafter, how to guarantee the correct way of revolution is a long-term mission for Michael and a great challenge to his political wisdom.

... ...

Veronica is a petty bourgeois lawyer. For sense of justice and friendship, she worked very hard in searching for evidence to help her former lover Lincoln. She relied on the capitalist legal system to clear Lincolin of charges. But the cruel reality relentlessly smashed her innocent idea into pieces. When an FBI agent pointed a gun towards her, it demonstrated the complete bankruptcy of the wishful thinking of the petty bourgeois who hoped to actualize social justice through political reform. In order to achieve justice and fairness, one has to join the violent revolution. Reformism is not going to work in America.

... ...

Source (Chinese)

Little improvement but big problems

According to Li Changping who was a former official and now an agricultural expert, the financial burden of Chinese peasant has been reduced by 120 billion RMB over the past three years. And they receive subsidy of 100 RMB per capita each year, including education, medical services, etc. This is caused by the expenditure by the central government on agriculture, village, peasant and the local government, as high as 100 billion RMB each year. However, the problems with peasant, village and agriculture are still very serious.

First, Chinese peasant's revenue from agriculture is declining. Small peasant suffer serious bankruptcy. They coluld not be able to compete with capitalist farming in the sectors of processing, sales and supply of production materials. They stay in the low-profit sector of production. The foreign owned enterprises of agriculture took over a big share of the markets of several agricultural product. The privatization of finance in rural village further pushes peasant to poverty.

Second, many rural villages are undergoing the process of mafiaization. The local governments collude with corporate groups to further exploit the peasants by monopolizing the local market and expropriating farm land. They peasants could not support a strong force of police and legal officers to crack down upon the local mafia because it would only increase their financial burden.

Third, the small peasant families increasingly rely on pesant workers wages. This has a serious implication. The bankruptcy of rural peasants might results in oversupply of workers and unemployment problem in cities.

Fourth, the peasants and local cadres have neither a channel to voice out their grievances nor an ability to solve their own problems. They have to depend on their connections with people above, the higher-ranking cadres or foreign capital. As Li argues, their dependency is caused by the central government's over-centralized authority in agricultural policy. The local cadres do not dare to experiment on collective economy because they are afraid of being labelled as against "economic reform" or "going back to the old way". Therefore they keep on household responsibility system and prefer to wait for assistance from the central government rather than exploring new ways.

Li suggests to allow the local cadres and peasants to have more autonomy and freedom. It is necessary to decentralize power of decision making and management to the grassroots. What the central government should do is to provide general principles.

Li Changping is widely known by his letter to the former Prime Minister Zhu Rongji about the crisis in agriculture and village in 2000 when he was still a county-level party secretrary. Later he resigned from his position and work in NGOs and academic institutions.

Chinese source

Photo: Dave_Davies

Xiaowu / Media is not reliable: Comment on “the strongest nail house”(Part II)

Written by Xiaowu

Part I... ...

There is another point noteworthy. The Xinhua Net (a media mouthpiece of the central government) followed the local media to massively cover this story. This not normal. ...

This demonstrates a common sense that the the local governments did not respond to this incident in the same way as the central government. The money from land auction went to the pocket of the local government. The central government didn't have much and plays the role of onlooker who is happy to see how the local government turned this incident into a scandal. When the local government became ugly under the spotlight of media, the central government would come out to say a few words in high profile and solve the problem. Then the local government and the victim would be like a defendant and the central government would become an arbiter. The arbiter's power would shift from the local government to the central government in a cleverly way. However, the local government is not stupid and has the machine of dictatorship and the excuse of “public interest”. If it has determination, it could solve it immediately.

After the Xinhua Net followed up this story for three days, the local government could not tolerate any more. The local government publicly stated that it would not satisfy the unreasonable demand. And some “legal authorities” further talked about the priority of public interest to private interest. The response of the local government was immediate. Media realized that their influence was not as effective as they imagined... ...

The media who committed in civil rights previously changed their tone and no longer published the photo of the woman owner shouting and holding the Constitution for civil rights. They covered the views of the “legal authorities” and government officials. Everything has changed. Just a few days, the problem was solved and the bulldozer came in. The human right heroine, who insisted on owning this house, obstinately clinging to the house, holding the Constitution, still cares about her own life. The couple left the house in a hurry. “Problem has been solved satisfactorily”. The farce ended.

Water pollution in Dongting Lake

The Tale of the White Serpent, a household story in China, is set in Dongting Lake. The beautiful romance of the lovers of Bai Shuzhen and Louyi is gone with this seriously polluted lake.

Hunan provincial government ordered all paper mills in the area of Dongting Lake, the second largest fresh-water lake to close until they could reduce water pollution to meet the standard.

Dongting Lake has been reduced to half its original area of 5,000 square kilometres by reclamation, mostly for growing weed as raw material for paper mill. Last year, the paper mills discharged over 100 million tons of waste water into the lake. Standing by the lakeside, you could see bubble and black or brown pollutant. The people living in the area have relied on this like as source of drinking water for a long time. But now the quality of the water is below the safety standard and fishing is almost impossible.

But the order of plant closure results in county governments' financial difficulties. For example, there are seven paper mills in Nan county. The county government would lose HK$20 million in tax if all paper mills were shut down for one year. And a large number of workers would also be sacked.

If one looks at the problems closely, one will find out the short-sighted calculations of the local governments and enterprises are the root cause. One set of environmental protection equipment only costs about 1 million yuan and it would only increase the production cost by less than 1%. Why didn't the paper mill install the equipment earlier? Why didn't the local governments enforce the regulations earlier?

Sources:
All paper mills close on Dongting Lake
洞庭湖污染十分嚴重

Photo: Steve Webel

Xiaowu / Media is not reliable: Comment on “the strongest nail house”(Part I)

Written by Xiaowu

... ... The incident of “the strongest nail house” was not a recent event. The couple have hung on for three years. The photo is circulated for a long time. Why did it suddenly attract so many people's attention and become an incident? The reason is not hard to imagine. After the introduction of the Property Law, those petty “intellectuals” and liberals working in media thought that it's time to test the government's sincerity on implementing this law. People with normal intelligence could predict the result that nobody could gain anything in these “typical” cases. But the media did not care about it. They did not care about the death of any victim or any bad result. The only thing they cared about is the increasing revenue from advertising. They did not care about the death or life of the victims. You're the victim crying and seeking our help, aren't you? We are helping you! You have to take full responsibility for any consequence. No matter whether it's good or bad, you could not blame it on media's conscious. No matter what result, in order to have the justice done, one needs this kind of courage. Otherwise he/she would not be qualified as liberals.

... ...

Without other supporting forces, how could a person have hung on for three years? The government has many ways of solving this problem. If the government really wanted to do it forcefully, there would be no reason for not doing it. Even though there was a person inside the house, why was the government afraid of driving bulldozer to break into it? So I have argued that what really happened is not the same as the audience watched or read from the media. It is not about a tough resident fighting against government's violence and power. It is not an incident of human rights or protecting civil rights. It is definitely not an evidence to show that “wind may come in, rain may come in, but the king may not... ...” is true in China. There is a logic widely known operating. The local government did not take away this house immediately because some stronger forces working behind. From the TV news report, the woman of the office of demolition was not as arrogant and aggressive as the victim. There are some reasons for it. Imagining the victim as a heroine of human rights is only a wishful thinking of ordinary people. ... ...

To be continued

Photo from Zuola

A Final Settlement?

The nail house was finally demolished after the couple of Yang Wu and Wu Ping settled down with developer by accepting the offer of resettlement to a house in inner city. As Zhou Shuguang said, it is a happy ending. Wow! What a "Harmonious Society" promoted by Hu Jingtao and Wen Jiabao. But is it a happy ending for other urban residents suffering dramatic urban renewal aand forced eviction?

The demand of Yang and Wu is so natural and reasonable. Why did it take so much time, so much effort and nationwide media attention to get their reasonable rights?

Photo from Zola

Stock market and economic overheating

Among the around 1,500 listed companies in Shenzhen and Shanghai, 20% have doubled their market value over the past three months. The P/E ratio (price/earning) of more than 30% of them reaches as high as 100 in the first season of this year. Last week, the daily turnout was 200 billioin yuan. The total turnover of this season is 7.6 trillion yuan, 85% of the total volume in 2006. Yet many blue chips did not go up and some even went down. But for some reasons, many small companies attracted investors at lot. It is believed that this is the sign of a coming dramatic adjustment.

The economic overheating seems to continue. According to the State Information Centre, GDP of the first season is 11%, higher than expected.

China Bloggers: Let's go to Chongqing!

I really want to write something about Zhou Shuguang, a blogger from Hunan.

From QianTu's WeBlog, I learnt about Zhou's blog. Zhou seems to be an ordinary blogger who works very hard in his blog. He has a strong motivation. As he said, he stopped writing blog for a few days and travelled from Loudi city to Chongqing quietly. He wanted to cover the story of Wu Ping and Yang Wu, "The Strongest Nail Household in China". He also took a lot of pictures.

His reports give us a strong feeling about that place. He wrote down most what he saw. He met a lot of evictees all over the country, from Shanghai, Zhuhai, Guangzhou, Xian, etc. The wanted media to cover their stories. In the Jiulongbo district, there are also a lot of media workers and foreigners. All people suffering demoliton and relocation came to this place, like a "Festival of Eviction".

Zhou's writing is not very professional. But he emphasizes the process. He compares different versions from different people. He is very reflexive. He argues that Wu Ping and Yang Wu should not be called "nail house". This is stigmatization by government. He suggests "Household of Fighting for Civil Rights" (Weiquan Hu)

It is so exciting and lively. Zhou's each entry could attract hundreds of comments. There are also many people around the "nail house". Yet I am afraid that this scene (or movement?) on internet or in reality would be repressed by government. But Li Datong (former editor of "Bingdian" of China Youth Daily) is right. The more the government controlled the news, the more difficulties in controlling it has. I hope this media and social spectacle could last longer.

Zhou is an honest guy. He told readers that he did it not only for social justice. He wants to be famous. I like his honesty. He is not like some Hong Kong so-called "professional journalists". They become TV stars but still hide their lust for fame and money by pretending to be professional. Our citizen reporter Zhou Shuguang honestly loves fame and justice as well.

I've just came across one more blogger who covers the story in Chongqing. His/her name is hidecloud. He clarifies some misconception of the nail household. For example, this couple is not greedy at all. What they need is their legal right.

Photo from Zhou Shuguang

Cheap Labor and Fast Food

Over the past few years, there are many controversies over the foreign owned fast food restaurants such as KFC and McDonald's in China. Recently, some part-time workers accuse them of unfair treatment including offering low wage, requiring long work hours, unequal agreement, and refusing to give workers labour contract.

New Express (Xin Kuaibao), a Guangzhou based newspaper, yesterday covered a two-month labor survey on the foreign owned fast food companies such as KFC and McDonald's in its four full pages. According to the research, the labor conditions of them violate some Chinese law. There are a lot of problems remaining to be solved.

The part-time workers' salary of KFC is 4.7 yuan (US$0.6) per hour. Pizza Hut is 5.8 yuan (US$0.72). The wage level of McDonald's is the lowest, only 4 yuan (US$0.5) per hour. With this hourly salary, the worker could not even afford to buy a medium-sized cup of coke.

However, according to Guangzhou's first standard for part-time worker, the minimum hourly wage is 7.5 yuan (US$0.93). In other words, the wage of all these foreign owned restaurants is lower than it.

Apart from low wage, overtime is another general problem. According to regulations, a part-time worker could work for an employer longer than 5 hours on average each day. If the working hour exceeds this standard, the employer has to hire him/her as full-time worker and take related responsibilities for him/her.

The survey found that there are a lot of overtime part-time workers in these foreign owned restaurants. Some even work longer than 10 hours each day. They work like full-time workers and the shop owners also allow and encourage them to do so.

It also noted that after most part-time workers, who are university students, sign agreement contract with the employers, they could not obtain it on time. Some even could not get a copy of it. The managers of some restaurants revise the contract without notifying the workers.

Source: Hong Kong Economic Journal 2007.3.29

Photo: Xie Xian he Luobote

What will Beijing look like in 2008?

Notes: The following is Wang Xiaofeng's sarcastic comments on the Olympic Games hosted by Beijing.

... ... What will Beijing look like in 2008? She will definitely be very beautiful.

1. Half of non-Beijing Chinese will leave this city and then we invite the same number of foreigners to Beijing. In a short period of time, it will become a cosmopolitan.

2. The streets of Beijing become totally spotless. The real and fake flowers make an interesting scene. Decorations are everywhere. The city is full of happiness.

3.There will be no traffic jam. All roads are cleared. The traffic station will fail to get any information about traffic congestion.

4.All people behave orderly in public space. They are considerate and polite.

5. Bus passengers give seat to each other so frequently that bus could not start on time.

6. No more loud voice is heard in restaurants and pubs. People speak gently and greet to each other.

7. The sky of Beijing is peculiarly blue.

8. All stadiums are full houses. Even the qualifying match of women ping pong between Senegal and Burundi has audience supporting them.

9. The rule-violation and crime rates go down to zero.

10. All newspapers are full of news about the Olympic Games. No social news.

Photo: richard76uk

Jilin University is crying for help from whom?

Zhao Mu

Jilin university is in financial crisis. It cried for help a few days ago.

A few days ago, the finance office of the Jilin University put up a notice on campus internet: “Notice: A consultative conference on the solution to the financial difficulties of the Jilin University ”

Although this notice is on campus website and “collecting proposals of financial solution” targeting all teachers and students, all people know that the Jilin University's revelation of its embarrassing problems will certainly become a nationwide topic when the notions about higher education institutions' bankruptcy has been circulated widely and hotly debated. And all know who could save these universities who are so indebted that they could not afford to pay interest.

How much money has the Jilin University borrowed crazily from bank? What did they spend the money on?

Let's take a look at the information provided by this notice: “Since 2005, the Jilin University has paid loan interest as high as 150 million to 170 million each year. The university increasingly suffers from expenditure over revenue. The debt is mainly used in two areas. The first one is infrastructure. Another one is salary. We have increased salary to the high level.”

From the annual interest payment as high as 150 million to 170 million yuan, one can estimate the huge amount of loan (it is estimated 3 billion yuan). The crazy loan is for infrastructure and raising salary.

This year, in the National People’s Congress and Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference, Zhou Ji, Minister of Education, responded to the notion of “Bankruptcy of Higher Education Institution” by saying “far away from reality”. He asserted that Chinese universities would not become the “next state-owned enterprise”.

I can understand why Zhou Ji felt so confident in China universities although he failed to provide any convincing reason to argue against the notion of the bankruptcy of China universities. About half year ago when this notion firstly came out, I thought so. But Zhou said that China higher education institutions are not “next state-owned enterprise”. I don't think it is so accurate. From my perspective, the status of China higher education institutions is much higher than general state-owned enterprises. They are “special state-owned enterprises” that should be carefully protected.

Recently, as more and more experts said, according to a strict financial standard, a lot of China universities are bankrupt. The Jilin University revealed its own scandal. It seems to support this viewpoint. Yet, if you think carefully, even though the Jilin University, the most famous university in Jilin province, could not afford the annual interest of 100 million yuan, what could you do to it? Are the banks, who went so crazy that they lent such a huge amount of money to the Jilin University, really brave enough to force the university to apply for bankruptcy through legal procedure? Would the court close down this university and liquidate its asset? Would the banks sell the campus by auction to get back their huge amount of money?

Ah... ah. I can prove to Minister of Education Zhou Ji and the supporters of “bankruptcy” theory that this possibility does not exist at all. And I strongly believe that our great state-owned bank will write off most debts of colleges. Despite without complete statistics, this huge debt already reaches as high as 400 billion yuan.

Now the Jilin University cries for help. Our great state-owned banks have certainly heard that. The leaders of our great state-owned banks have certainly heard that too. If there is no way to force the Jilin University to repay its debt, what should be done? Just cry for help.
In fact, allowing our state-owned banks to write off the debts is not totally unreasonable.

We have known it as early as the year of 2000. The World Health Organization ranked its members according to their ability to mobilize and distribute resources for public health. China was ranked as the 188 th. Among the 191 members, China was ranked as four to the last. China's expenditure in education is even lower than Uganda.

If the state-owned banks write off the debts of these colleges, the excessive loan to so many universities is a correction to the extremely constrained budget. At least, the government enormously increases the per capita investment in “higher education”. This is barely a contribution.

I certainly believe that even though “all Jilin University students and teachers” racked their brain, they could not come up with any solution to this “nearly bankrupt” Jilin University. But I also believe that there is no need for this university to be anxious about its financial crisis.

Be relaxed. Somebody will come to this baby. No matter whether our Chinese taxpayers care about it, they need to pay the debt for this university. The Jilin University is not the only one.

Interestingly, according to the news article about the Jilin University's disclosure of its scandals, a young teacher (Jilin?) said that the Jilin University's confession on its embarrassment is such a “brave” act.

Such a “brave” act.

Source

Mao on Demolition and Relocation (November 15, 1956)

Note: I read it from Qian Tu's WeBlog. Mao is always quoted for critique of Chinese government.

A few years ago, there was an airport to be built in a place of Henan province. No resettlement was granted to the peasants and the government did not negotiate with and explained clearly to them. But it attempted to evict the people forcefully. As the peasants of that village said, if you used a stick to topple down the bird nest to the earth, the birds would voice out. You Deng Xiaoping also has a “nest” (home). If I destroyed your “nest”, would you voice out? The people of that place set up three defense lines. The first one was children. The second one was women. The third one was male and young people. Those sent to there to survey was forced away. The peasants won the battle. Later on, the government explained to the peasants clearly and made arrangements for them. They moved their homes and the airport was built finally.

There are many incidents like this. Now there are some cadres who seem to rule the country and are no longer scared of anything. They believe that they could bully everyone and everywhere they want. The people oppose them by throwing stones to them and beating them with hoe. The cadres deserve it. I welcome it. Sometimes, only fighting could solve the problem. The Communist Party should learn its lesson.

Student and workers took to the streets. Our comrades should see anything like this as good thing. There are more than one hundred students going to Beijing for petition. The train with students on board was stopped at the station of Guangyuan, Sichuan province. Another group of students on the train was also stopped in Loyang. My opinion is that rally and protest are allowed according to constitution. I suggest we revise our constitution by adding freedom of strike. Workers' strike should be allowed. This is good for the government and managers to solve their conflicts with the people. Conflict or contradiction is not a big deal. The world is full of contradictions. Democratic revolution has solved the contradictions with imperialism, feudalism and bureaucratic red tap. Now, in terms of ownership, our contradictions with national capitalism and petty production are basically solved. But some other contradictions come out. New contradictions happen. There are a few hundred thousand cadres above the level of county and the destiny of this country is in their hands. If you do something wrong and do not work hard, workers, peasant and students have the right to disagree with them.

We should be alert to it. Do not allow bureaucratic red tape to breed. Do not become an aristocratic stratum alienated from the people. The people have reasons to get rid of whoever commits the mistake of bureaucratic red tape, whoever refuses to solve people's problems, whoever scolds and represses the people and whoever refuses to correct their own mistakes. It is good to get rid of this kind of cadres. They should be got rid of.

(Selected Works of Mao Zhedong, Vol 5. People's Publishing, 1st edition, April, 1977, pp. 313-329)

Photo: nataliebehring.com

Zhao Xiao: China imbalance

... ... The most crucial task for government to do is to explore the ultimate reasons for various phenomena and then fix the fundamental problems rather than treating symptom but not the disease. Government report spent a lot of space to talk about “Problems of Peasant, Village and Agriculture” . It also talked much about how government should help the disadvantaged groups. But the origin of these problems is the excessive power of government and insufficient civil rights. The disadvantaged people's power is the least. So the most important job is to strengthen civil rights and change the power structure rather than to improve people's livelihood. As Amartya Sen said, granting more freedom to people implies better development. It is not necessary to implement “secondary distribution” for actualizing so-called "equality of distribution".

From this perspective, I appreciate very much the report's evaluations such as “There are some weakness and insufficiency of government works” and “There are problems of government's building”. They are so rare and honest compared to the previous government reports. I particularly admire that the report mentioned that “develop democracy and strengthen legal system. This is the demands coming out of socialist system. To build a harmonious society, the most important is to strengthen democracy and legal system, and promote social justice.” This notion accurately captures the core problem of all facing contemporary China. China's problem lies on the fact that political reform lags behind economic institutional reform. This dis-equilibrium is the original problem leading to a lot of imbalances.

For example, why are there disequilibriums of consumption, investment and foreign trade in China? On the surface, it seems to be a macro-economic problem. However, there are political factors. The Government Work Report (2006) mentioned that during “The Tenth Five-year Plan”, GDP increased by 57.3%, city resident's average income increased by 58.3%, rural villager's net income increased by 29.2% and government revenue skyrocketed by 1.36 times. Obviously, government revenue growth is much higher than GDP growth and resident's growth. The increase in people's income also lags far behind GDP growth and government's financial income growth (This year's report further admitted this over-growth of financial revenue). Obviously, because of excessive growth of government's power and “coercive revenue”, distribution of national wealth is unequal. The insufficiency of residents' consumption leads to weak domestic demand. That is why Chinese enterprises resort to foreign trade to look for a better market.

The ordinary people could not afford medical fees, school fees, and high price of apartment. People put the blame on market failure. The reality is that government's supply of housing, education and medical services (market oriented and public) is not enough. What lies behind is the insufficiency of public pressure on government power. The underdevelopment of civil rights leads to insufficient supply of public good and services.

Among the disadvantaged group, peasant is the poorest because they are far away from power centre. If peasant has the same power as urban resident, would the “Problems of Peasant, Village and Agriculture” be so serious? Therefore, if you say peasant is too poor, I would say that peasant is lacking power. If you suggest reduction of tax for peasant, I suggest grant more power of self-government to peasant.

Unequal distribution of power leads to the “zero-sum game” in which the gain of some people results in some people's loss. This causes social disharmony. Recently, the Special Topic Team of Public Policy Research Centre, Chinese Association of Economic Institutional Reform, calculated the price difference between the two systems (market and non-market). The results show that there is no difference between the present and the past. In 2004, considering the effect of public power, the price difference is as high as 4.7 billion yuan, about 1.5 times the annual revenue. The land price difference is 528.5 billion yuan. The monopoly rent sought by monopoly industry is 212.5 billion yuan. The loss of national asset is 71.549 billion yuan. The rent caused by corruption is 20 billion yuan. According to this estimation, the total of rent caused by government monopoly and corruption reaches 832.549 billion yuan, about 5.2% of GDP and 55.1% of the annual revenue of the central government.

Without the disgusting new system of two prices, China’s gini coefficient is 0.3797 in 2004. Because of corruption and restriction, China’s gini coefficient is going up to 0.465, the warning line of wealth gap according to international standard. Although China’s marketization seems to be speeding up, the space for rent seeking caused by government power is becoming bigger and bigger. All these show that the fundamental of all disequilibrium is power inequality. Without political reform, reform itself is skewed. The steps of economic and political reforms are incoherent. The combination of marketization and traditional political institution fail to enable China to march forward in a health way.

... ...

Excerpt from source: 趙曉＜失衡的中國＞

Photo: sheilaz413

Guangzhou University City

Another Megaproject in China! Guangzhou University City! Last Saturday and Sunday, I visited there with my colleague and students.

Zhang Dejiang, the Secretrary of Guangdong Province Party Committee, decided to launch this project in 2001. He was not happy about the ratio of university students and university in Guangdong was below the national average despite its huge wealth. He felt compelled to turn Guangdong into a "Big Cultural Province"(文化大省). The construction of the Phase I began in 2003 and finished in 2004. A very typical way of building city in China. The provincial government invested 30 billion yuan. Now ten higher education institution have already came in and it accomodate about 150,000 students.

Yet this project, covering a total area of 17 square kilometre, is also a part of the new wave of "Enclosure" in China. The site was an isolated island in Panyu, the southern part of Guangzhou metropolitan area. The indigenous inhabitants were peasant and fishermen. The provincial government expropriated their land and demolished their homes. A big conflict over demolition and compensation was caused a few years ago. Now there are only four villages left. You still can see some traces of people struggle there, including the banners, posters and their ancestral halls.

The government boasted of its planning idea of "learning community" which integrates all universities together and enables them to share public facilities. But it turns out that it's more like an industrial district of higher education than a community. The city is separated by circular roads and universities occupied their own turf without much connections with others. The scale of this city is so big that walking between different institutions is not quite feasible and sometimes bicycle does not work very well. The transportation within the campus is also not enough.

Too Many "Super Girls"?

In recent years, idol-inspired shows have become very popular in China. After "Super Girl", a singing contest lasting for 5 months, attracted nationwide audience in 2005, more and more media capitalize on this TV genre to make huge profit from commercial and SMS services. The State Administration of Radio, Film and Television issued new rules restricting the length of this kind of program to a maximum of two and half year.

CCTV and some officials had criticized "Super Girl" as bad taste and having bad effect on people. Leung Wendao, a famous critic, asks why government officials always believe that they are smarter than ordinary people. A modern government should not act as a "baby-sitter". He suggests that media regulation focus on the people who might get hurt by media (such as sexual or racial discrimination) rather than the media message itself.

It is heard that more restriction would be imposed on TV industry. For example, some officials have been unhappy about too many TV show hosts from Taiwan and Hong Kong.

Photo: S/L

University student and regional disparity

According to an investigation of the working condition of 14,000 white collar workers in Beijing, 52% of respondents answer “always work overtime” and only 4% answer “rarely work overtime”. 73% are not paid for overtime by their employers who violate labor law stipulating it as 150% of the basic salary. Some argue that there is an oversupply of university degree holders.

In 1998, only 1.084 million people were admitted to university. There were 2.158 million university students. Since 1999, there has been a rapid expansion of university enrollment. From 2004-2006, the intake increases from 4 million to 5.3 million. In 2006, about 1.24 million university graduates failed to get a job. In 2006, of a total of 4.13 million university graduates, 66.10% earned 1000-2000 yuan monthly.

Yet the expansion of tertiary education sector is not the main cause for the gloomy labor market. In the national population, the number of university students and graduates is not that high, only about the sixtieth in the world.

According to a survey conducted by the National Statistics Bureau, half of the university graduates receive an income lower than their expected salary. Among them, 60% refuse to look for jobs in remote area and medium and small size cities. As Li Zhi Jie and Hu Feng argue, there is a three-tier structure in China: Formal sector of large cities, informal sector and rural village. The gap between them is huge and increasing.

Sun Li Ping, a sociologist at Tsinghua University, argues that since the 1990s, resource and opportunities have been highly concentrated in big cities such as Beijing and Shanghai. Regional disparity becomes so serious that a university graduate might feel hopeless in the less developed region. That is why many people squeeze into the developed areas.

Photo: scribeoflight

"Academic Killer" in China?

Even in peace period, there are occasional voices of slaughter. Bad-tempered people love killing. A member of the National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC), who works in the highest academic institute, suggested the National Committee of the Chinese People's Representatives enact "Law on Traitors' Speech". He argued that some scholars, in the name of academic research, distorted history, justified the invasion of China by the Eight Powers' Alliance Army, and particularly defended the Japanese invastion of China. So legal measures and heavy punishment are needed.

I have been working in the field of modern history for years. I have never crossed any "line". I have never heard that anyone in this field has done something like this. There are some Japanese scholars doing so. Yet, China's law could not punish them. The purpose of this CPPCC member is to target some scholars in China he hates. The crime they committed might be that their research did not follow the tone set by him.

Is there any need to set a tone for academic research? Under this tone, all people are supposed to conduct research in a very limited framework. Anybody out of it is classified as traitor subject to academic critique and legal punishment. Some people really want to take out these "traitors". I believe no scholar would agree with this measure. However, this CPPCC member, with the title of researcher and professor from the highest academic institute, rolled up his sleeves and spoke out his ideas loudly. Probably some scholars should be renamed as "academic punisher".

Historical research should be based on evidence. Traditional historians compared themselves to experienced official judge. In today's words, she/he acts like a judge who bases all of his remarks on evidence. If she/he does not agree with others' reasoning or argument, she/he needs to refute it with evidence even though she/he really wants to comment. Otherwise, this would become abuse, personal attack, and political labelling. Such kind of labelling, no matter how many people echo and how high is the volume, is doomed to be failure. In fact, this CPPCC member is no longer able to act like those in "Cultural Revolution". At that time he would have brought the scholars he hated to the people's meeting, and then put a tall hat on his/her head, stroke him/her down and stepped on his/her body. Now he needs to resort to law beside using abusive language. However, there is no law punishing academic research. That is why he came up with the suggestion of "Law on Traitor's Speech".

The history of imperialist invasion of China is an objective fact which had happened in the past. But one needs to study this fact seriously. With every piece of details, one tries to figure out the original picture of history. One has to explore the reasons and historical background objectively. We should not just criticize imperialism and condemn the crime without further investigation. Like the study of the massacre of Jews by Israelis, our study should go into every detail such as the profile of each victim. Setting a tone to criticize was not, is not and will not be qualified as a research. Academic research should at least allow people to speak out rather than labelling or even bringing people to the court. Research should not be conducted like this.

I wish this member not be an "academic killer" and his highest academic institute not be an "academic court". Otherwise, there is hope for China's academy.

The name of that member is Yu Quanyu (喻權域).

Source:
惩办"学术汉奸"？

政协委员：建议人大制定惩治汉奸言论法

Yongzhou riot

This morning I heard from TV news that there was a riot in the ancient city of Yongzhou, Hunan province. This was casued by a bus fare increase of more than 30%. An extra fee was levied on people who carry bulky items. More than 20,000 people joined the riot and burned some police cars. It happened two days ago. But the official censorship worked so well that I got no information from any mainland websites or blogs. The only only source is from anti-communist media and a handful of foreign media.

A huge number of riot police has already been stationed there and no entry to the city is allowed. The local officials confirmed that some participants were arrested and detained but no death. Yet there is a rumour that a student was killed.

A few days ago, a mainland intellectual said that she missed the era of "big poster". Now even a "small poster" is not allowed. This remark might surprise a lot of people who see the rapid development of internet in China. Yet if you go to visit blogcn, you can understand what she meant. All entries about this incident were already deleted. Now not many politically controversial issues and discussions are seen on the most popular blog-hosting websites.