05.28.08
Posted in Environment, Industry, Law and Order, Politics, USA at 10:01 by SHTig
Everyone knows that China has been under pressure for years, led by the US Congress, to allow the value of its currency, the RMB or yuan, to appreciate. But the “weak” RMB that hurts American exporters is not likely to be the main issue of concern to American voters. They’ll be more worried about $4/gallon (or higher!) gasoline. And this (Chinese article) is a big reason why. China has price controls on diesel and other fuels, such that there is now an RMB6000 (US$870) disparity between what a ton of diesel goes for in China and what it goes for abroad. Chinese oil refiners like Sinopec are getting slammed, since their costs are rising but the sale price of fuel is controlled by the Chinese government. The government is responding with measures to import more oil to help ease pressures.
Why does China control prices? Well, it’s obviously a good way to spur growth, and it’s been working as the country has been growing at 10%+ for over a decade. It’s also a way to over pollute the country and congest the roads. And it’s contributing to the skyrocketing oil prices worldwide, since 25% of the world’s population, the Chinese, are paying a lot less for the oil they use than everyone else.
SHTig adds (5/28 6:50pm PRC time): Mul called to ask what this means, and nator commented below also asking for clarity. To answer - yes, China buys oil on world markets at prevailing prices. But then, when that oil is sold domestically it is done so at a price lower than the prevailing world price. The government forces Sinopec and others to sell it on the cheap, and makes up for this by subsidizing Sinopec with the difference. This process allows everyone in China to get oil in all forms for less than the ‘true’ price, which results in more oil being consumed in China than what should be. We expect consumption to be inversely proportional to price - and when prices are kept artificially low, consumption is artificially high. With oil consumption artificially high in China, China demands more oil from the world markets than it should from an economic prospective and this is what adds to the upward pricing pressure on oil.
If your taxi driver had to pay the prevailing market price for gasoline, your taxi flagfall would be higher than RMB 11 (as it is in Shanghai), and you’d pay more per kilometer. The ride might cost you 50% or 100% more, and at the margins, some people would opt to take a bus instead. Multiply this behavior by 1,300,000,000 and remember that China is the world’s workshop, and we’re talking about a lot less oil being used, if only they - the end users - paid the prevailing price. That would reduce global demand and thus the price of oil as well, ceteris paribus.
Wonder if John McCain and Barack Obama will talk about this when asked what they plan to do about $4/gallon gasoline? If Chinese consumers paid the same price for fuel as everyone else, it might serve to put them on the same competitive playing field as other countries, and it might also serve to increase efficiencies within China.
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05.26.08
Posted in Law and Order, Media/Internet, Rumors, The Wenchuan Earthquake at 11:17 by SHTig
The allegations of dishonesty by Chinese Red Cross societies are rampant. Last week Truth from Facts reported on a QQ rumor alleging that Red Cross officials were feasting on donation money. Subsequently there have been stories alleging that a Red Cross society in Hainan, China, was demanding a 5% “management fee”. That story apparently had legs, as the local vice director of that chapter was trying to find an official-sounding way to pilfer funds, and she has since faced administrative sanction. Perhaps stories like that are what is leading to the spate of rumors of dishonesty by the Red Cross, like this one I received this morning from a colleague (English translation and original Chinese below):
Please help pass this around! Two people from the Zhongjiang Red Cross came to my pharmacy today to buy RMB10,000 worth of medicines, but demanded that we issue an invoice for RMB50,000. We (First Pharmaecuticals Manufacturer of Chengdu) did not comply, resulting in the management of the neighboring Tonghua Yijia Pharmacy giving it (a receipt) to them. These people are terrible! According to State regulations, all donations go into a fund, and they can legally take 10% of this fund for administrative expenditures. Under the current law this is considered legal! Therefore, of the several billion in RMB already raised, several hundred million has already been taking out. If you don’t believe it, you can ask the fund official right here. Now of the 90% remaining of donation money, are the materials being purchased done so at the lowest market price? Are they being bought at bulk price? Is the purchase receipt showing 50 RMB or 500 RMB? Who knows? Our media and great people should now demand that that the purchase receipts from each day should be made public! Don’t just make public the receipts of donations collected, we want to see the purchase receipts! Where are these trillions of RMB going each day!! It’s Chinese people, please forward this! If the people won’t take pains to investigate the government, then the government will tend towards rot!
SHTig adds (5/26 5:00pm PRC time): This rumor led the Red Cross chapter in question to issue this formal statement on the Zhongjiang government website, saying this rumor is bunk and beckoning people to report names of those who are damaging the reputation of the Red Cross without warrant. Also, since I first posted this article, I learned that Tonghua (the location of the factory that was supposedly next door to the Chenghua store that refused to give out the inflated invoice) — is in Jilin province, some 3 hours away by plane! But none of this stops the non-thinking hoards to pass along dumb messages like this…
Read the rest of this entry »
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05.22.08
Posted in Media/Internet, Rumors, The Wenchuan Earthquake at 20:48 by SHTig
Why do so many people believe a bunk QQ rumor?
Here is a wow story (重庆渝北区红十字会否认用救灾款吃喝). To summarize the story:
The Yubei, Chongqing Municipality Red Cross made an appeal for donations after the May 12 earthquake in nearby Sichuan province. And for the past few days, a message has been passed around on QQ that says (translation): “On May 16, the Red Cross of Yubei District, Chongqing City got a great response to its appeal for donations of cash and goods to area hospitals for disaster relief. However, at noon today, all of the Red Cross members hand lunch at the best restaurant in Yubei, occupying 6 tables at RMB 6,000 per table, having both lunch and dinner there.”
The QQ message led many “netizens” to question whether the Red Cross used donation funds to whoop it up, and to attack the Red Cross by saying that even if it wasn’t misusing funds, this is no time to be whooping it up at a feast. Read the rest of this entry »
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Posted in Shanghai at 14:46 by SHTig
May 22, 2008, Shanghai - at 9:48am local time today a garbage truck exploded into flames. The incident took place at the intersection of Eshan Road and Yanggao Road (峨山路杨高路口). No further details are available at this time and the cause has not been determined
Earlier this month, a Shanghai Bus #842 exploded into flames, killing several passengers, and is believed to have been an intentional act. 垃圾车爆炸
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05.21.08
Posted in Chinese Nationalism, Media/Internet, The Second Tier, The Wenchuan Earthquake, USA at 20:02 by SHTig
Chinese netizens express overwhelming thanks and appreciation to the Bushes and the United States
Today George W. Bush and his wife are very popular people in China. That’s not something you’ll read very often. And all it took them was a short trip from Pennsylvania Avenue down to the Chinese Embassay in Washington, to mourn the vicitms and sign a book of condolensces in memory of the Sichuan earthquake victims.
To see the American president bow his head in mourning (吊唁) to the victims plays exceedingly well to a prestige conscious culture that has felt slighted lately. So far, nearly 1800 comments have been posted to this story (in Chinese).
The comments are very interesting - I’d say 90% of them are positive toward President Bush, his wife, and Americans! This is unlike what one usually finds in the Chinese Read the rest of this entry »
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05.20.08
Posted in The Wenchuan Earthquake at 17:01 by SHTig
Robert Vance of the China Teaching Web wrote a well considered article, suggesting that Japan’s generous support in China’s earthquake disaster and recovery may turn the tide in favor of positive Chinese-Japanese relations from hereon. I’d like to think he’s right, but doubt it. This touching picture of a Japanese schoolgirl and accompanying story have not gotten much attention on the Chinese blogosphere, and to the extent comments have been made about this and similar stories, they are virtually silent about Japan, but rather just remarks of “Chinese unite”. This could be interpreted as passive acknowledgement disguised as public ambivalence (a step forward), or as just ignoring the story and wanting to post “go China comments”. But at least I haven’t seen direct Japan bashing as a result. So maybe Mr. Vance’s theory is correct, but I still think the good will of the Japanese government and people during this disaster will be forgotten in China in very short order. Here’s hoping I’m wrong.
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Posted in Law and Order, The Second Tier, The Wenchuan Earthquake at 13:46 by SHTig
There has been regular information online and television about how to adopt an earthquake orphan. According to this explanation, the Adoption Law of the PRC (收养法) clearly stipulates 4 conditions: the adopter must not have any children, must be able to raise and educate the adoptee, must not be ill or deemed medically unfit to adopt a child and must be at least 30 years of age. An additional stipulation is that if an unmarried man wants to adopt a female orphan, the age difference between the two must be 40 years or greater. (Go ahead, imagine all the dirty-old-men scenarios that could exist around this loophole.)
Orphans are Like Puppies
As for the the comments to this explanation, I’m sure they are well intentioned, but to me they read like requests for a free puppy. Post after post there is a similar theme - ‘I think the law should be amended because I already have a child but want another child of his/her age. , or ‘I want to raise a baby, under 2 years old (the same age as my son/daughter, the same/opposite sex as my son/daughter). Here is my email, please contact me”. Many, many of these comments are confessions from mothers saying that Read the rest of this entry »
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Posted in Chinese Nationalism, Media/Internet, The Wenchuan Earthquake at 02:10 by SHTig
The American government donated $500,000 to the China Red Cross. Seems like “the helping hand of a friend”, as the US Embassy’s Beijing website called it. But the Chinese bloggers view it differently. Let’s review the comments (in translation) on one blog responding to America’s ‘pultry’ donation. As you read the comments, keep in mind that the $500,000 donation was from the US government and does not represent American corporate or individual donations. I’m not translating all comments as some were deleted, were redundant, or were just posts of “ditto” to earlier comments.
#2 (Guangdong Province) - America is trash. F*ck all American women.
#3 - They’re helping us Chinese? Americans are real crooks. Everyone let’s take action, put forth your effort to help the injured people in the Sichuan earthquake!
#7 - Everyone unite! Whether America donates or not is their business, but we must help.
#9 - America, f*ck your ancestors, a people born as dogs and raised as wolves, a dogsh!t people.
#10 - commenter posted news that McDonald’s is donating 1,000,000 RMB, and that the Read the rest of this entry »
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05.19.08
Posted in Manners, Media/Internet, The Second Tier, The Wenchuan Earthquake at 00:22 by SHTig
A few days ago I reported on China’s earthquake donation effort. Little did I know then that the donation effort would blow up into a full fledged attention grabbing event. I’ve had CCTV1 on for the past few hours. A program just ended where company after company made very conspicuous donations (putting huge packages of money into boxes). This was interrupted by songs and kind words, but the focus of the program was to broadcast the companies that were giving the most. For the record, Tianjin Rongcheng United Steel donated the most, having pledged RMB 30,000,000. This was already the largest corporate donation made but during this live program on CCTV1, as the Tianjin Steel person was putting all that cash into the box, he spoke up to say “I’m now deciding on the spot to raise this amount to RMB 100,000,000.” The company had originally donated 10,000,000 before raising it, to stay ahead of the Jones’, errr, Wangs’. The person (a director of the company) was an orphan from the Tangshan Earthquake 32 years ago.
I have to say, I have never observed anything like what is happening in China with this donation effort. It is becoming nearly as big a focus as the earthquake. From the Read the rest of this entry »
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05.18.08
Posted in Environment, Media/Internet, The Second Tier, The Wenchuan Earthquake at 20:01 by SHTig
Sina.com is now reporting that the Wenchuan, Sichuan earthquake measured 8.0 on the Richter Scale. No wonder they could feel it in Beijing and Thailand. The China State Council has ordered that from May 19-21 all flags be flown at half mast.
SHTig Update at11:45pm PRC time (5.18): CNN is reporting on the 3 days of mourning that will begin in China tomorrow. CCTV1 has reported that when the mourning period begins at 2:28pm (1 week after the earthquake), everyone should observe 3 minutes of silence. People should stop work, classes should stop, traffic should stop. This is an interesting time to be in China and observe the country’s response to the calamity. 加油中国!
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