06.02.08
Posted in Environment, Food, Law and Order at 17:45 by SHTig
Ever think you blogged about something, then went back to find your old post, only to see that you never wrote it? Well, a few months back, a regulation was issued in China that stores could no longer give out plastic bags for free. I was looking for my write up about it then, but it appears that was done in my imagination, or in one of my private love notes to nator. Anyway, the reason is because the cheap flimsy bags clog landfills and drains, etc. So now stores must charge for plastic bags, and they may not bundle the price into other merchandise, i.e. there must be a line item on the receipt. It went into effect on June 1, and sure enough, I had to drop 0.2 yuan (US 2.9 cents) for a bag. I think this is a good measure and support it.
NATOR ADDS: If they’re going to force a policy onto merchants, I’d rather they require that the bags be biodegradable.
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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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05.20.08
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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05.13.08
Posted in Beijing, Law and Order at 12:48 by ODB
I saw Nator’s post on the Wisdom of Crowds in China, and have a few things to add.
Nator understates how dangerous it actually was. There was a constant push of people who were trying to enter the under-passage from four different entrances. Nobody outside could actually see what was going on underground (there were no cameras then, there are now, however). It was very dangerous and very crowded as more and more people were trying to get in, making it very difficult to get out. Although we got out safely, it could have ended just like it did on that bridge in Miyun.
Chinese police, true to their form, were less interested in the potential danger and seemed to be more worried about me taking pictures of the situation, that’s why the officer there is charging me…
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05.11.08
Posted in Law and Order, Olympics at 19:20 by Nator
A troubling incident yesterday on a plane at Beijing’s airport:
Three passengers were injured in an emergency evacuation from a China Eastern jet at Beijing’s main airport on Saturday, after controls warned of a fire while the plane was taxiing to the runway, Chinese media reported. . . .
After the controls indicated a possible fire, the crew ordered all passengers to exit the plane, during which three passengers were injured, including one who suffered a bone fracture, CCTV reported.
Fortunately, it wasn’t as bad as what happened in Miyun, a town just outside Beijing, in 2004. But it does help show why security is getting so tight in the run-up to the Olympics–in crowded Chinese cities, panic alone is enough to cause a disaster.
The pictures are from National Day (October 1) 2003. We were in Tiananmen Square and trying to leave, but the wave of other sightseers coming into the square kept pushing us back. Things got a bit hairy for a while, and it was scary to feel how little control one had against the ebb and flow of the crowd. It took us nearly twenty minutes, but we got out unharmed.
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05.09.08
Posted in Beijing, Law and Order, Media/Internet at 12:16 by Nator
This morning I was interviewed by two students at the Jiaodaokou intersection in Beijing. I had just crossed the street when a guy came up from behind me and asked in broken English if he could talk about “traffic” in Beijing. There was also a young woman operating a small camera, which was already on and filming me. Here’s a rough summary of our conversation:
me: [annoyed] What do you want?
him: Do you…ahhh…uhh..what do you…
me: [interrupting, switching to Chinese] do you speak Chinese?
This can be an insulting thing for a foreigner to say to a Chinese person in China. He didn’t seem to take offense.
Read the rest of this entry »
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04.14.08
Posted in Beijing, Environment, Law and Order at 23:06 by Mul
When I first heard about the smoking ban in Beijing, I thought “Wow, fantastic. Beijing finally joins New York, London, Dublin, L.A. and Chicago.” They’re leaving the French behind as the last bunch of a-holes insisting on the right to smoke in people’s faces. Finally, I can go into a restaurant and not have to slurp down a pack of charcoal-filtered Honghe’s while eating my Xinjiang-style duan mian. And then I read this nugget.
Basically, restuarants (and, I’m sure, coffee shops and any other place that serves food) are exempt from the rule. “It’s just part of the culture” informs certified genius Zhang Peili, one of the Beijing municipal government officials involved in rolling out the rule. So is spitting. So is littering. So is getting loaded on erguotou at lunch. That is why the government bans these things. So that they are not part of the culture.
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04.09.08
Posted in Awesome, Industry, Law and Order at 14:02 by ODB
Just wanted to share a not-so-recent discovery of mine, fake Chinese products are not limited to the offline world only.
See if you can spot the differences between Pacific Epoch and Market Avenue.
Pacific Epoch is one of the best English financial news sites in China. I strongly recommend subscribing to their daily news summary (you can do so from their home page).
Market Avenue provides a very similar service–in fact, almost identical. If imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, these guys are extremely sincere. Even better, they have provided a graphical representation of their “sincerity” in the above chart, which comes from this page. As best as I can tell, the “H” in the chart is Market Avenue, and the “Exemplar” is Pacific Epoch. At least they’re honest that they’re weaker in every single area.
If you have come across similar “sincerity” on the web please share it with us.
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01.20.08
Posted in Law and Order at 09:59 by ODB
According to a report by China Daily:
Three young people in China’s southern Yunnan Province have been arrested over the gruesome murder of a middle-aged man whose death by dismemberment was captured on digital video camera in the tourist town of Lijiang.
The Guangzhou-based South Metropolitan Daily reported on Friday the case of Zhang Chao, a 19-year-old college student who was the mistress of the victim, Mu Hongzhang, a 39-year-old married road construction engineer, in Lijiang. The two were having a sexual affair and Mu gave her money.
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