The Adventures of CSE Students!

Wednesday, April 2, 2008

Article 5: Young Chinese abroad launch Internet attacks against Western press over Tibet unrest
The Associated Press. March 30, 2008

BEIJING: Armed with nationalism and the Internet, young Chinese abroad have launched a wave of attacks accusing Western media of bias in reporting on unrest in Tibet and defending Beijing's crackdown. The outpouring of emotion is unprecedented in scale and force. China's rising international status and Beijing's success in portraying the violence as being motivated by Tibetan separatists has emboldened students and others to express views that are unpopular in their host countries, experts said. From YouTube videos to Facebook to Web sites created to criticize news reporting, the message is emphatic: Western media are irresponsible and Tibet will never be independent. "To all you bandwagon jumpers who know nothing about chinese history and to all you bashers, let me give you some solid FACTS why Tibet was, is and always will be a part of China," says the opening statement of a video on YouTube that the site says was viewed nearly 2 million times by Saturday. The protests, led by monks, began peacefully on March 10, the anniversary of a failed 1959 uprising against Chinese rule. They erupted in violence on March 14. The Chinese government says 22 people have died, while Tibetans abroad put the death toll at 140. The unrest has cast a harsh light on China just as it prepares for the Beijing Olympics. Foreign governments have called for restraint and for independent monitors to ensure human rights are respected. "Imagine everyday you open the news and it's all saying bad and biased words towards your motherland: crackdown, killing, burning," Liu Yang, a graduate student in biology at the University of Chicago, said in an e-mail. "I don't understand, they struggle for press freedom and fairness, but why would they lose their conscience now?" she wrote. "Isn't the media independent, instead of being a mouthpiece?" College professors and several students agreed the sentiment wasn't confined to just a few fervent patriots. "Most of my friends here hold similar views," said Kevin He, a doctoral candidate who is president of the Chinese Students and Scholars Association at UCLA. "I have been talking about this issue with people from other organizations across the North America. They pretty much share the same opinions." In China, the news has raised less fuss, due in part to media controls that keep most Chinese from seeing reports aside from the entirely state-controlled press. The fact that Chinese students in the West are unsympathetic to Tibetans should be no surprise, said Barry Sautman, a social scientist at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology. "The fact that they're living and studying and maybe working in the U.S. or any other part of the West doesn't make them feel they should adopt the prevailing viewpoint, because it doesn't necessarily correspond with what they know about China and the Chinese," he said. One student involved with a pro-Beijing Facebook group said he has struggled to battle misconceptions about his native country. "I do believe I should represent China whenever I can and defend my country ... but it is disheartening sometimes because many people simply do not listen," said Chris Yao, who administers a group called "Tibet WAS, IS, and ALWAYS WILL BE a part of China," inspired by the YouTube video. "Ever got angry from CNN news reports over the Tibet issue?" says a note on the page. "Well, let me tell you, you are not the only one!" The students and Chinese media have offered a handful of examples of what they say is bias among Western journalists. One Web site, http://www.anti-cnn.com, complained that several news outlets showed photos of police in Nepal scuffling with protesters and misidentified the security forces as Chinese. It accused U.S.-based CNN of improperly cropping a photo of Chinese military vehicles on its Web site to remove Tibetan rioters who were pelting the trucks with rocks. CNN insisted it has reported impartially. "CNN refutes all allegations by bloggers that it distorts its coverage of the events in Tibet to portray either side in a more favourable light," the network said in a statement. The photo of military vehicles "was used wholly appropriately," the statement said. It said there should be no confusion because the image was captioned, "Tibetans throw stones at army vehicles on a street in the capital Lhasa."Yao, 22, is a Chinese-born computer engineering student at Canada's Simon Fraser University. He has lived in the United States and Canada since age 10 but says his loyalties lie with China. He plans to return after graduation.

Chay Teng's Commentary:

This article is more about the Western media's/the West's portrayal of China, rather than the Tibet issue. Many times, the West have slammed China on some of its policies. While I may not necessarily agree with China's policies, I have to say that the West may be overly critical and sometimes, even hypocritical. The fact is that culturally and socially, East and West have grown to be quite different. So whatever the West make of China, they should perhaps step back and think about the situations, influences and circumstances that make the government react the way they do and not criticise just because what the Chinese government does does not correspond with what they think is right. After all, just because one party is right does not mean that the other party is wrong. There is more than one way to deal with any issue.

Labels: international relations, posted by chay teng, Social, transnational issues

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Article 4: China's leaders rediscover Confucianism
By Daniel A. Bell. International Herald Tribune. Sept 14, 2006

BEIJING: Marxism no longer serves as Chinese society's guiding ideology. But that doesn't mean the end of ideology. Western experts hope liberal democracy will fill the void, but they will have "joined Karl Marx," as the Chinese used to say, before that happens. In China, the moral vacuum is being filled by Christian sects, Falun Gong and extreme forms of nationalism. But the government considers that such alternatives threaten the hard-won peace and stability that underpins China's development, so it has encouraged the revival of Confucianism. Like most ideologies, however, Confucianism can be a double-edged sword. "Confucius said, 'Harmony is something to be cherished,'" President Hu Jintao noted in February 2005. A few months later, he instructed China's party cadres to build a "harmonious society." Echoing Confucian themes, Hu said China should promote such values as honesty and unity, as well as forge a closer relationship between the people and the government. The teaching curriculum for secondary schools now includes teaching of the Confucian classics, and several experimental schools have been set up that focus largely on the classics. Abroad, the government has been promoting Confucianism via branches of the Confucius Institute, a Chinese language and culture center similar to France's Alliance Française and Germany's Goethe Institute. For the government, the promotion of Confucian values has several advantages. Domestically, the affirmation of harmony is meant to reflect the ruling party's concern for all classes. Threatened by rural discontent - according to official figures, there were 87,000 illegal disturbances last year - the government realizes that it needs to do more for those bearing the brunt of China's development. Internationally, the call for peace and harmony is meant to disarm fears about China's rapid rise. How does Confucianism resonate in society at large? At some level, especially regarding family ethics, Confucian values still inform ways of life. Filial piety, for example, is still widely endorsed and practiced: Adult children have a legal obligation to care for their elderly parents. Many intellectuals have turned to Confucianism to make sense of such social practices and to think of ways of dealing with China's current moral and political predicament. But their interpretations of Confucianism often diverge from official ones. Perhaps the most influential contemporary Confucian thinker is Jiang Qing, author of "Political Confucianism," in which he argues that for contemporary China, political Confucianism is more appropriate than Western-style liberal democracy. Jiang could not develop the institutional implications in that book. In a Taiwanese publication, however, he puts forward an interesting proposal for a legislature that includes representatives of Confucian elites, of elites entrusted with the task of cultural continuity, and of the people. In an article widely distributed on the Web, he argues for the establishment of Confucianism as a state religion (as with state religions in Britain and Sweden, other religions would not be prohibited). Intellectuals have also been applying Confucianism to foreign policy. Confucians favor rule by moral example and oppose the use of force to promote morality. Hence, Confucian intellectuals were severely critical of the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq. But here, too, interpretations of Confucianism may diverge from official ones. The idea that Taiwan should be reintegrated into the mainland by being threatened with invasion and bloodshed is far removed from Confucian ideals. Perhaps the biggest challenge to the government is the Confucian emphasis on meritocracy. The Confucian view is that political leaders should be the most talented and public-spirited members of the community, and the process of choosing such leaders should be meritocratic, meaning that there should be equal opportunity for the best to rise the top. Historically, Confucian meritocracy was implemented by means of examinations, and there have been proposals to revive and update Confucian examinations for contemporary China. Again, there is an obvious challenge to the government: Objectively measured performance on an exam, rather than party loyalty, would determine who occupies what government post.If Confucianism shapes China's future, it won't look like Western-style liberal democracy, but neither will it look like the status quo.

Chay Teng's Commentary:

Confucian teachings do promote and encourage meritocracy, in which appointments are bestowed on the best person for it and is not based on nepotism or wealth, etc. However, China's governmental system has been unofficially 'plagued' by patronage and this meant that the most qualified person may not necessarily get the appointment. And it does not help that there are many, many officials who are corrupt. The Chinese government could perhaps use this Confucian teaching to move China to a social democratic system.

Labels: confucianism, government, posted by chay teng, Social

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Article 2: Human rights questions remain for China
By Niall FraserFor CNN HONG KONG,

China (CNN) -- With a year to go before the 2008 Olympics get under way, questions linger over China's efforts to improve its human rights record. Observers and pressure groups have criticized the efforts of the Chinese government and the International Olympic Committee (IOC) since Beijing won the bid in 2001, rejecting assertions by both that the Games will lead to lasting positive change in the world's most populous nation. After praising Beijing's preparations as "excellent across the board," the IOC official charged with overseeing Beijing's preparations, Hein Verbruggen, sparked further anger from advocacy groups with his recent comments that, "...the way the Games are being used as a platform for groups with political and social agendas is often regrettable.'' The International Federation for Human Rights claimed his remarks will "embolden'' hard-line elements within the Chinese Communist Party to ignore international pressure over human rights promises. But the IOC says, there is a widespread misconception that a list of "human rights promises'' was ever sought by the IOC in the first place. "There were some declarations made by senior Chinese leaders in Beijing who raised the human-rights question proactively and talked about how the Games would be part of the process to help human rights development," says IOC's director of communications Giselle Davies,. "But that was never a [piece of] criteria on which the IOC judged and assessed Beijing's bid. "The IOC decision is not made in a political or social context. It is very much based around what is a coming together at a sporting event and everything for which that can be a catalyst for," Davies adds. And that, she believes, is a force for good. "The IOC fundamentally believes that the world will look back and see the Games as a key moment along a period of change and development for good in China," she says. Meanwhile, Human Rights Watch has sharply criticized Beijing. On Thursday, the organization said China's government has failed to live up to pre-Olympics promises of greater human rights freedoms and has instead clamped down on domestic activists and journalists, according to reports from The Associated Press. "The government seems afraid that its own citizens will embarrass it by speaking out about political and social problems, but China's leaders apparently don't realize authoritarian crackdowns are even more embarrassing," Brad Adams, Asia director of New York-based Human Rights Watch, said in a statement carried by the AP On first glance it would appear Beijing is sensitive to certain international concerns. In June, Chinese officials and the IOC moved quickly to launch an investigation into allegations by the advocacy group Playfair 2008 that four official souvenir makers were using child labor. Earlier that month, Beijing took the landmark step of allowing the mother of a victim of the 1989 Tiananmen Square crackdown to mark the anniversary of his death publicly. But others believe that since 2001 there has been a tightening of controls on political dissent and freedom of speech, as Beijing has sought to contain the social and political fall-out from the country's breakneck economic development. The IOC says, for example, that the Olympic Games has led to improvements in China's labor system in which workers endure long hours in harsh conditions for less than the legal minimum wage. Han Dongfang, the Hong Kong-based labor rights activist for the China Labour Bulletin organization, which monitors workers' rights in China, insists "It's about markets and it's about cheap labor ... Labor rights have become worse over the past few years.'' He says that any real change in China can only come from the inside as a result of pressure from workers and the development of free trade unions and the right to collective bargaining -- and not from international pressure. "The Chinese leadership does not care about international pressure. It is not China who is knocking at the door of the international community looking for favors -- it is the other way around,'' Han says. The IOC says "enormous'' progress has been made in terms of the freedom the news media will have to report on the Olympics, following the 2001 pledge by the secretary general of the Beijing Olympic Bid Committee Wang Wei. "We will give the media complete freedom to report when they come to China," he said at the time. Not so, says veteran China scholar Willy Wo Lap Lam, author of the recently published "Chinese Politics in the Hu Jintao Era." "The police and secret police departments in every city have lists of dissidents and 'dangerous' people who are not supposed to talk to the western media," Lam says. "So, instead of following these Western reporters around, the police will simply post more 'guards' outside the dwellings of 'suspect' people in each city and county. They will ensure they can't talk or work with western journalists.'' Professor Joseph Cheng of Hong Kong's City University agrees with Lam. "China's only concern as far as the Olympics is concerned is to showcase itself to the international community. To this end it will treat foreign journalists and visitors very well - but all the troublemakers will 'disappear'," he says. "Twenty years ago they put trouble-makers under harsh house arrest or worse. Today, they give them a holiday. Either way, they won't be speaking to foreign journalists.'' Lam adds that any pledges Beijing did actually make does not necessarily mean human rights will improve. "The main pledges made by Beijing are clearing up the environment and curbing traffic jams. Both of these are achievable through draconian methods," Lam says. Furthermore, while the world-at-large may be expecting an Olympics-led metamorphosis, the reality is very different, he says. "Beijing will not relax controls over dissidents, NGOs as well as 'agitators' for Tibet or Xinjiang. There will be tighter surveillance of potential troublemakers," Lam says. "The South Korean Olympics in 1988 marked the beginning of genuine political liberalization. For China, it is a very different story. The Chinese Communist Party sees the Games as an opportunity to show the world China's great achievements in the economy and infrastructure and to demonstrate their diplomatic clout. Internally, the Games will help the Party foster 'internal cohesiveness' using national pride to justify the Party's ruling status. "No Chinese Communist Party leader wants to use the Games as a juncture to push forward reforms.''

Labels: Beijing Olympics, Economy, intellectual property, posted by chay teng, Social

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Health care in China

Losing patients

Feb 21st 2008 BEIJING
From The Economist print edition

An orthodox approach to fixing the unavailability of decent health care

STARTLING economic growth in China has not been matched by similar improvements in health care. The cost of treatment is becoming ever more prohibitive for the poor. Government spending is meagre. But nearly three years after declaring the system a failure, officials are at last getting ready to unveil a plan to fix it.

Some Chinese press reports say the long-awaited and much-debated reform plan is likely to be revealed at the annual session of China's parliament, which opens on March 5th. The outline is already clear: a stronger role for government, including more money from the central budget, and a drive towards universal health insurance. Changes are already in train.

The reforms reverse the market-driven policies of much of the past two decades. The outbreak in 2003 of SARS, an often fatal respiratory disease, made the government realise what a mess the health-care system had become. Government hospitals and clinics, starved of funding, had turned to raising money (and boosting ill-paid doctors' salaries) by prescribing ever more expensive treatment and diagnostic procedures. With the collapse and privatisation of state-owned enterprises, the vast majority of citizens had been left with no insurance. Many began avoiding even desperately needed treatment.

In 2003 the government introduced a new medical-insurance scheme in the countryside. This involves contributions from rural residents as well as local governments and, for the first time, the central government. The number of people taking part rose from 80m that year to more than 730m now. This month Wu Yi, a deputy prime minister, said all rural residents (about 800m is the usual official figure) should be insured by the end of this year.

The scheme is only a slight relief, if at all, for the poor. It often does not cover routine outpatient treatment. The average reimbursement rate is only 30-40%, and bills have to be paid in full first. So hospital stays are beyond the means of many. There is also a big loophole: those insured can get benefits only in their own localities. Many younger people from the countryside are working in cities where they have to pay all of their treatment costs. A new labour-contract law introduced this year requires employers to pay medical insurance for such workers. But migrants are often hired informally, making it easy for employers to evade such requirements.

Even though urban health care receives a disproportionate share of total government spending on health, many urban residents fare just as badly. Li Ling of Peking University estimates that more than half of the urban population has no insurance. Those who do are mostly civil servants and the staff of state-owned enterprises. At least until the labour-contract law was enacted, many private enterprises provided nothing. Last year the government introduced an urban insurance scheme (similar to the rural one) aimed at non-working residents, including children and university students. The aim is to have every urban citizen covered by 2010.

Much detail, however, is still unclear. A big issue is how to wean hospitals off their dependence on revenue from user payments. Policymakers and academics have been furiously debating whether the emphasis should be on government subsidies for hospitals or on reimbursements for patients. No target has yet been set for the maximum share of health expenditure to come from patients' own pockets. Ms Li, who has been advising the government on health reform, suggests a goal of 20% compared with over 50% at present.

Unlike for education, Chinese officials have also yet to set any specific targets for government spending as a percentage of GDP. The government spends a mere 0.8% of GDP on health (it was more than 1% in the 1980s). Henk Bekedam of the World Health Organisation says it could easily afford around 2.5%. But the government is being cautious. Reform, said Ms Wu last month, would be complicated. “Patience is needed,” she said. Patients would say they have shown more than enough already

Comments:
Despite the efforts to improve the health care situation in the rural areas, there are no specific targets for government spending as a percentage of GDP. Also, given the large number of people in these rural regions who requires such services, the amount of money involved is going to amount to a very huge sum of money. With rampant corruption at the grassroots level, the situation is not very promising.Furthermore, this problem has been going on since the reform era. The injustice that the rural chinese suffered from may eventually result in serious social upheavals similar to that of the TianAnMen incident in 1989. The problem is worsening and i feel that immediate action and concrete steps should be taken to address the issue before it starts to go out of hand.

Labels: posted by Eunice, Social

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Tuesday, April 1, 2008

China Embassy: Rural social security in China "to be ensured"
http://www.china-embassy.org/

The State Council will release guidelines on a basic national social security system next month that for the first time will cover the neglected rural areas, the Ministry of Civil Affairs (MCA) said on May 28.
Sun Yang, an official with MCA's department of subsistence security, said the State Council would hold a special meeting next month to discuss the implementation of the national rural basic social security system and issue guidelines for local governments to set up the system across the country.
The guidelines will formally establish China's rural basic social security system, although it might take the central and local governments another six months to implement it at the grass-roots level in the country, Sun said.
So far, almost all the provinces, municipalities and autonomous regions have set up a rural basic social security system, benefiting 18.15 million rural residents. Only Yunnan and Guizhou provinces and the Tibet and Xinjiang Uygur autonomous regions are yet to do so.
In the rural areas without the system, 5.623 million poor people are getting regular subsidy from local governments, the ministry said.
Civil Affairs Vice-Minister Li Liguo had said in March that the national rural social security system, expected to benefit about 3.5 percent of the rural population, would be in place by June. Currently, 27 provinces, municipalities and autonomous regions have their own rural social security systems.
But the new policy will help establish a uniform system across the country, with the central government earmarking funds for rural social security for the first time. The central government now provides funds for such a system only in urban areas.
"The central government will grant subsidies according to the needs and development levels of the areas, with western regions receiving more," Li said.
Local governments, too, will have to allocate funds to operate the system and set their own eligibility criteria for aid. "The eligibility criteria will be determined on the basis of the national poverty line, that is, an annual income of 693 yuan ($90)," she said.
Different parts of the country will be allowed to set their own eligibility criteria.
Li said the system would accord priority to rural residents who are poor and ill, physically disabled or aged, or live in a harsh environment.
At present, the eligibility criteria for rural basic social security system is an income of 600 to 800 yuan (78 U.S. dollars to 104 dollars) a year in the central and western areas and 1,000 to 1,200 (130 dollars to 156 dollars) a year in the eastern areas.
For example, in Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, farmers who earn less than 625 yuan (80 dollars) and herdsmen who make less than 825 yuan (106 dollars) a year are entitled to the minimum social security. In contrast, Fujian Province draws the line at 1,200 yuan (156 dollars).
Though Li didn't say how much money the central government would spend on the system, the Ministry of Finance will draw up a plan to decide how much funds should be allocated to different areas.

Posted by: sarah quek

Labels: Sarah 07A201, Social, Social security

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China: Beijing’s Migrant Construction Workers Abused
hrw.org

Builders of the new Beijing? Cheated of Wages, Denied Essential Services?
Migrant construction workers in Beijing are routinely exploited by being denied proper wages, under dangerous conditions with neither accident insurance nor access to medical and other social services, Human Rights Watch said in a new report released today.
“The Chinese government is all talk and no action when it comes to delivering meaningful protection and social services for migrant construction workers,” said Sophie Richardson, Asia advocacy director at Human Rights Watch. Despite years of government rhetoric, employers still cheat migrant construction workers of hard-earned wages. And when it comes to basic social services, the government still discriminates against migrants. The Human Rights Watch report documents how employers routinely force migrants to work, withhold wages for up to a year, then offer a lump sum payment which is considerably below the agreed wage rate and Beijing’s minimum wage rate. Some employers refuse to pay anything at all. One worker told Human Rights Watch: “Since I first arrived at the work site, every day I have worked, I don’t have any money and I have never left [the work site] for relaxation.” Another migrant worker explained how he was paid nothing, despite an oral agreement that his seven months wages would be paid in full at the completion of the project. The worker told Human Rights Watch: “The company representative) said the money hasn’t arrived yet (or) the boss isn’t here (or) the boss is busy, and so on, with such excuses for the delay.” The Chinese hukou system of household registration, designed to prevent and control the mass influx of rural inhabitants to China’s cities, bars Beijing’s migrant construction workers from social welfare benefits such as medical care, which are only available to legally registered urban residents. One migrant worker was required to submit copies of a Beijing hukou in order to file an insurance claim for medical fees related to an industrial accident. He had never had a Beijing hukou. The worker said to Human Rights Watch: I thought to myself, once again, the doors to legal protection are being slammed in my face. Likewise, other workers interviewed by Human Rights Watch explained how they could not file complaints against their employers for wage violations because they lacked Beijing residence permits. Human Rights Watch said that employers continue to ignore labor laws with impunity, and calls by the Chinese leadership to protect migrant workers are undermined by the hukou system that discriminates against migrant workers. Instead of abolishing the household registration system, the government has begun granting migrant workers temporary urban residence permits, thus perpetuating a discriminatory system. ”If the Chinese government really wants to protect the migrant workers’ rights, it should start by scrapping the hukou system”, Richardson said. “That alone would make it easier for workers to file complaints and for authorities to prosecute employers who violate labor laws.” China is a party to the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, and as such has undertaken to guarantee its workers just and favorable conditions of work, including fair wages, a safe and healthy work environment, and reasonable limitations on working hours. Despite these obligations and similar standards in Chinese law, Human Rights Watch research has documented numerous abuses including:

Denial of regular monthly wage payments. Employers routinely flout Article 50 of the Labor Law, which stipulates wages are to be paid monthly, by offering annual lump sum payments, severely depriving migrant workers and their families of year-round security.

Non-payment or underpayment of wages. Employers frequently pay workers below the minimum wage, and some employers do not pay their workers at all. One group of workers told Human Rights Watch their employer refused to pay for work performed between April 2006 and November 2006. In March 2007, the workers still had not been paid.

Employers also routinely deny migrant construction workers legally stipulated contracts, accident and medical insurance, and expose workers to illness and injury through hazardous working conditions.
Adding insult to injury, a dysfunctional government redress system prevents workers from claiming their legally protected rights. Those who protest face threats of sometimes deadly violence. In July 2007, hoodlums hired as strike breakers murdered a migrant construction worker at a building site in Guangdong province where the striking workers had remained unpaid for months.
“It’s unacceptable for workers to risk death and injury merely for pursuing their legal right to fair wages paid punctually and in full”, Richardson said. “More empty government rhetoric will only guarantee more risks, more injuries, and more deaths”.
The 2008 Olympic Games certainly have helped to spur the city’s construction boom. The International Olympic Committee (IOC), which selected Beijing to host the games, should seek independent certification that all workers employed at Olympic construction sites are being paid lawfully and adequately, in a safe working environment and protected from other work-related abuses. The need for such certification is particularly urgent since the January 2008 admission by the Chinese government that six workers had died in workplace accidents at Olympics venues during the past three years. In January 2006, the Beijing city government announced that it had fined 12 unidentified companies contracted to build Olympics-related projects for the withholding of wages. While Human Rights Watch obtained no specific information about Olympic venues, consistent abuses reported across other construction projects in Beijing should raise concerns about exploitation on all building sites, including those for the Olympics.
If the Olympic movement really prides itself on its dedication to fundamental universal ethical principles, then the International Olympics Committee must ensure that workers who help build Beijing’s Olympic venues are at least treated fairly and in accordance with Chinese law, and the fundamental international human rights standards that China has assumed and promised its citizens to respect.

Posted by: sarah quek

Sarah's Commentary:
The plight of the migrant workers arises mainly from the restricting hukuo system which denies workers access basic healthcare and also allows fo rthem to be exploited with no form of redress. This issue of unfairness and biased treatment of the rural migrant workers could spawn social upheaval. it can be said that the treatment of the workers is a sort of "betrayal" by the Chinese government to their "roots" because their power base was originally in the rural areas and from rural people. The lack of care for these rural migrant workers is a large cause of dissent among the rural people because they feel that the government is not doing anything to help their situation. I think that even though the government has taken to granting migrant workers temporary urban residence permits, it does not really help their situation. The workers are still discrimated against and they still have very little insurance for their well-being.

Sarah 07A201

Labels: Floating Population, Sarah 07A201, Social

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The Associated Press: Officials fear tainted goods will harm China's stability

BEIJING: China's fight against the production of shoddy food and drugs must be intensified or the country faces social unrest and a further tarnishing of its image abroad, senior party and regulatory officials said.
The toll exacted in the past year has been grim for victims in Panama and China who died after ingesting tainted Chinese-made pharmaceutical ingredients, and for the State Food and Drug Administration itself, with two high-level employees sentenced to death for corruption.
Attendees at a seminar in Beijing over the weekend were told to "draw profound lessons" from former SFDA director, Zheng Xiaoyu, who was sentenced to death in May for taking bribes to approve substandard medicines, including an antibiotic blamed for at least 10 deaths within China.
"We must face the fact that there are still some problems which cannot be ignored," SFDA Commissioner Shao Mingli was quoted as saying in a seminar transcript posted on the agency's Web site Monday.
"Some areas are not fully aware of the importance, hardship and complexity of this work. They fear the difficulties and suffer battle fatigue," Shao said.
China's pharmaceutical industry is lucrative but poorly regulated. Some companies try to cash in by substituting fake or substandard ingredients.
Fears abroad over Chinese-made items were sparked last year by the deaths of dozens of people in Panama who took products contaminated with diethylene glycol, a thickening agent in antifreeze, imported from China. It was passed off as harmless glycerin.
A top Panamanian prosecutor has said tests show at least 94 people have died from taking medicine contaminated with diethylene glycol since July 2006, and 293 more deaths are under investigation.
In North America earlier this year, pet food containing Chinese wheat gluten tainted with the chemical melamine was blamed for the deaths of dogs and cats.
Since then, U.S. authorities have turned away or recalled toxic fish, juice containing unsafe color additives and popular toy trains decorated with lead paint.
"Food security problems have impeded Chinese agri-products and food many times in international trade, and damaged our national credibility and image," Sun Xianze, a food supervision officer with the SFDA, told the conference in Beijing.
He cited a laundry list of domestic food scares from the past year, including drug-tainted fish, banned Sudan dye used to color egg yolks red, and pork tainted with clenbuterol, a banned feed additive.
He said more such cases would "not only affect the healthy development of the industry, but could also impact local economies and social stability."
Qu Wanxiang, the vice minister of supervision for the Communist Party's Central Commission for Discipline and Inspection, said the former SFDA director Zheng's corruption "shook the government's regulatory foundation and damaged the government's image."
Under Zheng's 1998-2005 tenure, his agency approved six medicines that turned out to be fake, and the drug makers used falsified documents to apply for approvals, state media have reported.
Zheng's death sentence was unusually heavy even for China, believed to carry out more court-ordered executions than all other nations combined, and likely indicates the leadership's determination to confront the country's dire product safety record.
On Friday, China sentenced another official, one of Zheng's former subordinates, to death for taking bribes.

By: sarah quek

Sarah's commentary:
The issue of sub-standard food and other products made in China has created a huge uproar form the public on food and product safety. It does make most of us wonder every time we buy something that says "Made in China" , whether or not we will be 'poisoned'. Seeing reports of tainted food products every few months is quite worrying because reports like these will inadvertently affect the world's perception of China's products. this could lead to massive banning of goods from China, like Japan banning the importation of gyoza dumplings from China. Not only that, this could lead to adverse effect on retailers worlwide as seen in the Mattel toy recall case where too much poisonous substances were found in children's toys. The repercussions of selling/producing sub-standard products can affect China's economy and political standing. As countries cut down imports from China, the Chinese government may not be able to sustain the rate of economic growth and as such, there could be social upheaval if there is massive unemployment resulting from a potential slowdown in economic growth.

Sarah 07A201

Labels: Political, Sarah 07A201, Social, Tainted Goods

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Monday, March 31, 2008

TIMES Article: Out of Order/Disorder in China's Courts

Link: http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1626718,00.html

The police say her son was busy cutting a taxi driver's throat on the night of Aug. 16, 1994, but Yang Shuxia says she knows better. "He was right here lying down next to me with the tube running into his arm," she says, pointing to the kang, a traditional brick sleeping platform found in most farmers' homes in this part of northeastern China. Yang and other family members insist that then 21-year-old Zhu Yanqiang couldn't even get to the toilet without help, much less sneak out to join in the brutal robbery-murder that took place some 40 km from the family's two-room farmhouse in the windswept hills outside the town of Chengde. Zhu, who sold vegetables in a nearby market, had gotten into a fight the previous day with other vendors while jostling for a prime spot; he was beaten repeatedly with an iron bar. "He was badly injured and the doctor gave him medicines and told him to rest," Yang says. "We have the prescriptions to prove it all, but the judge refused to listen."

Zhu and three friends from his village of Zhuangtouying were convicted in 1995 of murdering a taxi driver—convictions obtained in large part on the basis of their confessions, which all four men later said they were tortured into fabricating. Citing numerous problems with the trial—one higher court found no fewer than 28 inconsistencies in the original court's conduct—the case was appealed all the way to the Supreme People's Court in Beijing, which recommended a retrial, as did several lower courts. In all, the case has been retried five times. Yet all four men remain in jail 13 years later. "Even for China, this is an unusual case," says law professor Xu Zhiyong, a legal adviser to the defendants' families, "because it is so clear that these men are innocent."
Like almost everything else in the country, China's legal system is in transition, buffeted by social changes sweeping the nation as it races toward economic modernity. There are many other areas of grave concern for Beijing: a ravaged environment, an inadequate health-care system, pervasive corruption and a widening chasm between the urban rich and rural poor, to name a few. But none is so visible a symbol of the dilemmas Beijing faces in coping with rapid change while at the same time preserving the country's tenuous social order—and the Communist Party's grasp on political power—as the judicial and legal system.

As the case of the Zhuangtouying four demonstrates, it is a system in near paralysis, where even cases that its own judges have acknowledged are profoundly flawed can go unresolved. China's legal institutions share many names and structures with those of Europe and the U.S.: four tiers of courts from the county level to the Supreme People's Court, a prosecution service (the People's Procuratorates), an appeals process, trials, judges and lawyers. But the institutions that make up China's legal system are all ultimately under the control of the Communist Party. The Party isn't solely to blame for China's woes: rogue local officials, badly paid, poorly trained judges and the courts' own institutional weakness all play a role. But the Party's near absolute power over the judiciary ensures a lack of accountability that is the root cause of many other ills.

It's not hard to find examples of questionable legal outcomes like the case of the Zhuangtouying four. The plight of blind legal activist Chen Guangcheng, who was given a four-year sentence on charges of inciting public disorder last year after he exposed the forced sterilization of women as part of a provincial family-planning campaign, is one example regularly cited by activists. New York-based Human Rights Watch and others say they have recorded numerous instances of individuals who protested court decisions being beaten, tortured, imprisoned and even killed as local officials sought to bury controversial or embarrassing cases.

Xu, the academic who is advising the prisoners' families, says that the treatment received by Zhu and his co-defendants was typical. "The same judges are not supposed to try the same case twice, but in this case they tried the case three times," he says. Xu says there were many other errors. According to documents lodged by the Chengde People's Procurate, the government alleged four men flagged down a taxi at the Chengde railway station on the night of the murder. After one asked the driver to stop so that he could relieve himself, all four attacked him with knives, stole about $50, a pager and some keys, and buried the body in a nearby field. With no witnesses to the crime, the prosecution's case relied on the confessions and two pieces of evidence: a knife found in one defendant's home that had blood of the same type as the driver and a cigarette butt found in the taxi with another's DNA. But the knife and the cigarette butt were never produced in court, says Xu. And as for the confessions, "We have witnesses who saw them being tortured. And because [the confessions] were made up, they didn't even agree with the facts of the case at the crime scene and had to be changed later." (Court and police officials involved with the case declined to comment for this story.)

Chinese have long had to accept that the courts offered little recourse from flawed decisions. But economic development is bringing pressure for change. The country's emerging urban élite now see protecting their individual rights as a No. 1 priority. "The rising middle class likes predictability and security, and that's what the law does," says Nicholas Bequelin of Human Rights Watch, adding that the Communist Party recognizes that its future hangs on being able to accommodate such demands. "The Party is highly adaptable so long as nothing threatens their basic control."

Like any bureaucracy, Chinese authorities have preferred to leave things the way they are as long as they could. But inaction is no longer an option. By Beijing's own accounting, the country is wracked by more than 70,000 "public-order incidents" each year. What defines an incident is kept vague, but activists and scholars agree that they constitute serious breaches of public order, and are often sparked by disputes over issues such as property rights or local government decisions that in other societies would be resolved through the legal system. Yet officials are also aware that any expansion of individual rights—a change for which activists and legal experts have clamored—will come at the expense of the Party's hegemony. Some progress is being made: lawyers have recently won credible victories on cases involving environmental protection, labor rights and antidiscrimination. The government has also attempted to professionalize the legal system by bringing in overseas lawyers and judges to help train their Chinese counterparts. But even those incremental gains are met with deep suspicion, resulting in what Bequelin calls the "fundamental inner contradiction" of the law's role in Chinese society. "On the one hand the Party insists China is subject to the rule of law," he says, "but at the same time they insist on the primacy of the Party in all areas, including the law."

There is an ancient ambivalence in China toward the very idea of the legal system as a protector of individual rights. As George Washington University legal scholar Donald Clarke points out, for millennia the main role of China's courts was to remind citizens of the power of the state. In an essay on China's legal system, he cites a passage written by the 17th century Qing Emperor Kangxi: "If people were not afraid of the tribunals, and if they felt confident of always finding in them ready and perfect justice, lawsuits would tend to increase to a frightful amount," the passage reads. "Those who have recourse to the tribunals should be treated without any pity, and in such a manner that they shall be disgusted with law, and tremble to appear before a magistrate."

The four families of Zhuangtouying have spent 13 years dealing with the modern-day descendants of Kangxi and his mandarins. Like millions of Chinese for whom the legal system has provided little satisfaction, they have sought redress through petitions in Beijing, exercising an ancient right to bypass the courts and appeal directly to the central government. Official statistics are unreliable, but legal scholars say that out of the nearly 12 million petitions filed in 2006, only a few thousand will succeed. Out of those, petitioners able to translate Beijing's decrees into corrective action by local officials likely number in the hundreds.

Still, several times a month, women like Yang and Wang Xiuqin, whose son Chen Guoqing is also imprisoned for the taxi murder, visit the main petition office in a run-down neighborhood near the Beijing South train station. Yang says she has no choice. "Of course we still come. Our children are innocent. How could we not come?" In December 2005, fed up with the lack of response, four relatives bypassed the petition office and marched straight to the red gates of Zhongnanhai, the Communist Party headquarters. Fu Yuru, mother of He Guoqiang, who is serving a suspended death sentence for the crime, held aloft a banner calling for her son's freedom. The gesture cost the then 56-year-old 14 days in detention before she, like the others, was shipped back to Zhuangtouying with a warning to stick to established procedures in the future. "We had been to the Supreme Court and were not treated with patience," explains Fu. "They said, 'Go home and wait patiently because this is a complicated case.' But we talked and agreed that we had to do something. We wasted 13 years. Did we want to waste another 13?"
For Yang Wanying, whose son Yang Shiliang is also serving a suspended death sentence, the injustice is a crisis of faith. A lifelong Communist Party member who still dresses in a baggy Mao suit and cap, he passionately denies his son is guilty. On the night of the murder, his son was "sitting right there," Yang says, pointing to a window in the family home. "We played mah-jongg from seven o'clock until two in the morning." He pauses for a moment, overcome by emotion, then continues. "Every time I visit him in the jail he asks me the same thing," Yang says, without looking up. "'When can I come home, father? When can I come home?' I don't believe there is justice in China anymore."

Article Picked by: Shi Rong (07A102)

Labels: Justice System, Shi Rong (07A102), Social

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TIMES Hong Kong 1997-2007 Special Article: The China Connection

Link: http://www.time.com/time/specials/2007/article/0,28804,1630244_1630240_1630204,00.html

Thirteen years before Chinese leader Deng Xiaoping made his famous Southern Tour, Jeffrey Lam made one of his own. Just five years out of college, Lam traveled to the city of Dongguan in Guangdong province to set up a small factory to produce parts for his family's Hong Kong toy company. The year was 1979, and China had just begun to open up its economy. Unlike Deng's 1992 trip, which revitalized a wavering reform program, Lam's voyage won't make it into the history books. But his efforts, and those of thousands of other Hong Kong businessmen like him, helped turn neighboring Guangdong—and hence China itself—into an economic giant. "If it hadn't been for Hong Kong," says Guan Zhisheng, an economist at Sun Yat-sen University in Guangzhou, "then there wouldn't have been any reform and opening up in Guangdong."

As Hong Kong marks the 10th anniversary of the end of British rule, there has been no shortage of debate over the question of China's influence over its reclaimed territory. What about the opposite? When Deng put the mainland on the path that led to the end of its self-imposed isolation, Hong Kong became the example China followed as it groped for a way forward in the transition from communism to capitalism. And Hong Kong quickly established itself as a conduit for foreign technology, culture, business know-how and investment. Now, as the mainland grows richer, what's striking is the degree to which the flow of ideas, influence and investment has started to reverse. "China has learned from Hong Kong," says Michael DeGolyer, a political-science professor at Hong Kong Baptist University. "China has learned how to compete. Now it's competing with Hong Kong and forcing Hong Kong to improve."

Three decades ago, it was Guangdong province that needed a jump-start. Although it was a backward region in a backward country, Guangdong did have several advantages. Its people were eager to work hard. Its politics were removed from the power centers of Beijing and Shanghai, so Deng considered it a safe place to begin reforms. In 1980 three of China's first four special economic zones (SEZs) were set up in the Guangdong cities of Shenzhen, Zhuhai and Shantou. These experiments in capitalism attracted foreign capital through liberalized regulations and tax exemptions.

As the SEZs' market-oriented policies spread across Guangdong, the possibilities became obvious to Hong Kong businessmen. After years of remarkable growth, the city's economy in the late 1970s was in danger of stalling. Land and labor prices were climbing, making light manufacturing increasingly unaffordable. Guangdong, meanwhile, had millions of able-bodied citizens who shared language, culture and often family ties. Hong Kong entrepreneurs "just thought about bringing factories here because the production costs were lower and they could be more competitive," says economist Guan. "They didn't know they would influence Guangdong. They didn't know they would influence China."

At its crudest, this influence took the form of cash, bucketloads of it. Since 1978, Hong Kong has contributed more than $273 billion in foreign direct investment to China, nearly as much as the total from all countries combined; southern China got the lion's share. The Pearl River Delta, the part of Guangdong province closest to Hong Kong, is now home to 57,500 factories established by or producing for Hong Kong enterprises. But investment did not just mean building factories. When Lam first visited Dongguan, the trip required two ferry rides and took up to four hours. Today his factory is a two-hour drive from Hong Kong. Travel time has been vastly reduced in part because of the infrastructure investments of Hong Kong companies. Hong Kong tycoon Sir Gordon Wu's Hopewell Group built the mainland's first expressway, the 120-km Guangzhou-Shenzhen Superhighway, and more than 160 km of other key roads in Guangdong. Hong Kong companies like Hutchison Port Holdings and Swire Pacific helped develop critical Guangdong ports.

Projects like these turned the region into a manufacturing force on a global scale. From 1980 to 2002 the Pearl River Delta was, according to the book Regional Powerhouse, "the fastest-growing portion of the fastest-growing province in the fastest-growing large economy in the world." Hong Kong didn't just bankroll this party. It also supplied management expertise and knowledge of foreign markets. In the mainland's planned economy, meeting customer expectations wasn't a priority. For Hong Kong's entrepreneurs it was a matter of survival. "These small businesses were exporters of course," says Joseph Cheng, a professor at City University of Hong Kong. "They all knew that Christmas delivery was a matter of life and death. They had to deliver for a particular ship, 14 weeks before Christmas. If they couldn't make it, it was bankruptcy." At Lam's first operation in Dongguan—25 sewing machines and some paint sprayers set up in a converted municipal building—lessons were sometimes as painful for the teachers as they were for the students. Once, when the shop ran short of black paint needed to complete a run of pieces for a toy mirror set, local employees bought an extra can at a market and finished the job. The only problem was the paint was toxic, and unsuitable for use in a toy. The unsafe parts had been mixed in with the safe, so Lam had to scrap thousands of pieces. "They had no clue in making anything," Lam says of his Dongguan employees.

But they learned. Just ask F.C. Lo, once known as China's "king of cans." The Hong Kong entrepreneur shipped the first aluminum cans to the mainland in the early 1980s from a plant in Hong Kong's New Territories. In 1985 he built his first factory on the mainland in Guangzhou, an $18 million investment. With the help of foreign stakeholders, his company expanded to 20 plants, and at one time controlled about 60% of China's can market. (Lo split the company's assets with its American investors in 2001 and now runs four plants on the mainland.) In the beginning, working with mainlanders was "one-way traffic," Lo says. "We would tell them what to do because we were so strong and they didn't know anything." Today Lo competes with homegrown manufacturers. "The local guys are so good," he says. Lam, the toy manufacturer, agrees: "They are teaching us. That's the way it should go. We should not be jealous of somebody who worked for us for $34 a month who is now making $34 million a year. If they are good, they deserve it."

Guangdong has become the workshop for the world, but that doesn't mean all it does is work. As commercial contacts with Hong Kong grew, the province also looked to its neighbor for hints on how to have fun. Nowhere is that more evident than in Shenzhen, the mainland city next to Hong Kong. The border crossing at Lowu is the world's busiest, with 252,000 trips daily. Hong Kongers cross to shop, sing karaoke in a nightclub or partake in other diversions that have become favorite pastimes for mainlanders, too. Shenzhen is home to Mission Hills, the world's largest golf complex, with a dozen 18-hole courses. When Hong Kong paper-and-packaging tycoon David Chu founded the club in 1994, 90% of its members were from Hong Kong. Today 60% of the members are from the mainland.

The SAR's cultural sway has extended far beyond Shenzhen and the fairways of Mission Hills. Hong Kong's music, movies and fashion dominated pop culture in Guangdong when China first opened up. "In the '80s and '90s, I definitely only listened to Hong Kong artists like Alan Tam, Jacky Cheung and Anita Mui," says Kent Li, 37, who hosts a pop-music show for state-owned Guangzhou Radio. Hong Kong also set the pace for fashion. Before a look is big in Guangzhou, Guangdong's capital, it is vetted in Hong Kong, says He Ying, a 28-year-old video editor and former owner of a clothing shop. "Hong Kong is like a filter," says He. "If people there don't embrace certain trends, then Guangzhou will never embrace them."

The trends are transmitted to the mainland through Hong Kong media, which is widely available in Guangdong despite the fact that most newspapers and TV channels are restricted. Hong Kong-style teahouses, found throughout southern China, always have copies of day-old Hong Kong newspapers; some are distributed legally while others are smuggled across the border. Likewise, hotels and residence compounds for foreigners have access to two dozen overseas satellite channels and eight from the SAR. A huge gray market in illegal satellite dishes means Hong Kong programs are widely available. Indeed, Hong Kong's media spurred the development of Guangdong's own press, which is known for testing the limits of mainland censors. Fledgling mainland journalists looked next door for instruction on everything from story development to production, says Chang Ping, deputy editor of the Guangzhou-based Southern Metropolis Weekly. "Hong Kong media helped establish the foundation for Guangdong's media," he says. but familiarity sometimes breeds discontent. Mainland Chinese nowadays no longer take all their cues from their cousins—and the spread of the Internet in China means they no longer have to, because the whole world is in reach. "Now, there's more of a global culture in Guangzhou," says Alex So of the youth-lifestyle magazine Coldtea. Relaxed travel restrictions mean mainlanders can easily visit the SAR. "Before, when it was harder to go to Hong Kong, I thought it was such a cool, mysterious place," says He. "It's not the same anymore."

Guangdong's industries, too, are more independent of Hong Kong than they once were. "In the 1980s, the shop was in front and the factory was in back," Yvonne Choi, Hong Kong's Secretary for Commerce, Industry and Technology, told a business forum in April. "This has changed and Hong Kong is no longer playing the leading role." Instead, the SAR is increasingly dependent upon China for its economic vitality. Last year, Hong Kong's stock market launched initial public offerings worth more than any other market except London—a bravura performance that was largely due to the $25 billion raised through the IPOs of Bank of China and the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China. In 2001, mainland China became Hong Kong's largest investor, and by the end of 2005, it had poured $162 billion into the territory. The capital influx is expected to expand since Beijing announced in May that it would begin to allow mainland institutions to invest in foreign stock markets, beginning with Hong Kong.

The hope is that the mainland's investors will provide the same economic boost that its tourists have. Beginning in 2003, when Hong Kong was suffering a severe economic slump due to the SARS outbreak, the central government began allowing greater numbers of mainlanders to visit the territory. They played a key role in reviving the economy, says Allan Zeman, a Hong Kong developer who operates Ocean Park, a marine-and-amusement park, and owns property, restaurants and bars in Lan Kwai Fong, a popular night spot. "China was the match that started the fire burning and got the economy going again," Zeman says. Of Hong Kong's 25 million visitors last year, 13.6 million came from the mainland, more than four times the 3.1 million who visited in 1999. Zeman says he has changed his businesses to meet the needs of mainland tourists. Fluent Mandarin speakers have been hired, menus have been altered and renminbi, the mainland currency, is now accepted. "Over the last several years there's been a tremendous impact on all business," he says. "I think everyone in Hong Kong is starting to cater ... to the mainland market."

That has created some unexpected opportunities for entrepreneurs like Apichar Sirichantakul, a Thai businessman who calls himself the "father of the ladyboys." The transvestite stage shows he runs in Bangkok are so popular among Chinese tour groups that he decided to bring them to Hong Kong. As many as 3,000 customers a day, most of them mainlanders, pay $20 each to see three dozen Thai transsexuals and transvestites give a 45-minute dance-and-lip-synch performance in an old movie theater on Hong Kong island. "Chinese travelers come here, go shopping in the day and see some sights, but at night there's nothing to do," Apichar says. "We give them something to see."

From lowbrow entertainment to high finance, it's certain Hong Kong will increasingly be catering to China in coming years. Lam, for one, reckons the partnership between the SAR and the rest of China is just as dynamic as it was when he ventured to Guangdong to set up a toy factory 28 years ago. "Hong Kong will continue to impact the mainland," he says. Just not as much as the mainland impacts Hong Kong.

Article picked by: Shi Rong (07A102)

Labels: Shi Rong (07A102), Social, Transnational Relations

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Sunday, March 30, 2008

International Herald Tribune Report: China's Latest Crackdown: The Liquid Lunch

Link: http://www.iht.com/articles/2008/03/08/asia/08china.php

Li Bin, a barrel-chested retiree on special assignment for this city's Communist Party boss, strode down an empty hallway of the Xinyang Middle Court in search of bureaucrats. He rattled locked doorknobs and barged into offices without knocking. A court officer retreated in red-faced terror.

The booze squad had arrived.

"Blow," ordered one of Li's young subordinates a few minutes later as he pressed an alcohol monitor to the lips of a nervous Communist Party functionary.

The target of Li's midafternoon sting last week was not just tipsy cadres but a ritual that many Communist Party officials have long considered a part of their job description: the hours-long, alcohol-soaked midday banquet (usually paid for with public money). For the past year, Li and other investigators have swooped into government offices in this grimy city of seven million people to catch civil servants partaking of the liquid lunch. One violator was fired on the spot.
With Beijing trying to rein in official corruption, the campaign in Xinyang, in Henan Province, might seem like comic relief. But public disgust with official privilege is so palpable that the campaign has attracted national attention, spawned imitators in other cities and offered a tantalizing hint at how much China's liquor industry profits from the thirst of Communist Party officials.

Wang Tie, the Xinyang Communist Party chief and architect of the crackdown, estimated that the policy saved his government almost $6 million in six months. Local restaurants have reported sharp drops in profits. Last month, the Henan Alcoholic Drink Industry Association, a trade group alarmed at losing its best customers, challenged the policy as a violation of the legal rights of civil servants.

"The country's Civil Servant Law doesn't require civil servants to refrain from drinking during their lunchtime," argued Kang Yinzhong, a lawyer for the trade group, according to state media. "Drink or not, it is the civil servant's right. Public power has no legal ground to interfere in a civil servant's life if he or she doesn't mess up their afternoon work."

Wang, the party chief, said the policy could withstand any challenges, and he proudly provided a positive editorial from People's Daily, the Communist Party's authoritative newspaper.

"Everyone knows there is a problem in China with cadres eating and drinking on public funds," Wang said. "It's a big problem, and to deal with corruption you've got to start with issues like this."

Wang, who is getting fan mail, added, "We wanted the cadres to have energy for work." Indeed, service is not always a priority for government workers after a few hours of slugging down shots.
"Sometimes you'll go to the civil affairs bureau after lunch and they are sleeping or playing cards," said one Xinyang taxi driver. "Sometimes you can't even find anyone."

Drinking on the job is hardly unique to China, but ritualized drinking is deeply ingrained in China's business culture. Restaurants usually offer private banquet rooms, some with lounge areas, flat-screen televisions and private bathrooms. Tables are often set with specific glasses for beer, wine or baijiu, the fiery Chinese liquor that lubricates nearly every banqueting experience.
A banquet is considered a mandatory exercise for welcoming guests on official business. Hosts will lose face if a guest is perceived to be uncomfortable or having less than a jolly time. By this same logic, one way to ensure good feelings and build rapport is for everyone to drink. And, often, drink very heavily.

"It's like a form of communication between people," offered Zhu Xiaojun, general manager of Jigongshan Baijiu, a distillery in Xinyang. "It would be disrespectful to not drink with a guest."
Many of the growing number of foreign business executives in China would probably welcome some disrespect. Baijiu is distilled from sorghum and other grains, has the clarity of vodka or gin but contains far higher alcohol levels than most spirits. It is served in shots and its taste has been compared with rubbing alcohol or diesel fuel. Toasting is customary and can sometimes take on the bonhomie of hazing.

"When there are six people and you see three bottles of baijiu waiting on the buffet table, start eating and start eating fast," said one American businessmen in describing his survival strategy. He said he once faced baijiu at consecutive banquets for lunch, dinner and breakfast.

Banquet war stories are legion. Tim Clissold, author of "Mr. China," a memoir about doing business in China, described an evening banquet with a Chinese mayor that featured course after course of exotic food: cow's lung soaked in chili sauce, goose stomachs, fish lips with celery, goat's feet tendons in wheat noodles, ox forehead, turtle casserole and, finally, deer's penis. Round after round of baijiu toasts followed until the banquet ended and Clissold staggered from the table.

"I've never met anybody, even at the heights of alcoholic derangement, prepared to admit that they actually liked the taste," Clissold wrote of baijiu. "After drinking it, most people screw up their faces in an involuntary expression of pain and some even yell out."

Baijiu does usually enliven conversation. In 1974, Henry Kissinger played host in New York to Deng Xiaoping and commented on the powers of Maotai, the most famous brand of baijiu.

"I think if we drink enough Maotai we can solve anything," Kissinger said.

"Then when I go back to China, I must increase production of it," Deng responded.

Today, baijiu remains a major player in China's alcohol market, but nationwide production has steadily declined as rising prosperity has brought more alcoholic choices, like wines, beers and other spirits. A younger generation of business executives in cities like Beijing and Shanghai is more likely to eschew baijiu. Many prefer the golf course to the banquet table as a setting for doing business.

At the Jigongshan Baijiu distillery in Xinyang, Zhu said baijiu was a tough business with more and more brands competing for a slowly declining number of customers. He estimated that the Xinyang crackdown had cost him about 20 percent of his sales. Zhu described officials as an important segment of his customer base but remained hopeful.

"Most people can adjust their drinking to drink more at night," he suggested. "Maybe two bottles instead of one. Or they can drink more on the weekends."

Wang believes that his crackdown will not just save money and improve work performance but also liberate government officials from unwanted cultural expectations. He said many bureaucrats considered lunchtime drinking an onerous obligation. "A lot of people agree with the decision," said one city official, Shi, who refused to provide his full name. "They felt obligated to drink at these lunches. If they didn't, they would be accused of not treating their guests warmly.

"But," he added, "it was tiring."

Meanwhile, the inebriation inspections have become news media sensations. Three special alcohol SWAT teams make random checks on the city's 120,000 officials and civil servants. Offenders are usually reprimanded or shamed by accounts in local newspapers and television reports. In January, a reporter from China's state television network, CCTV, followed Li's team and filmed him catching an inebriated ranking official. Li fired him.

Last week, Li, 60, took a reporter from The New York Times on a surprise visit to the Middle Court and the city's construction commission. He said violators were quick with excuses: a good friend in town; a special family occasion; even a shot or two on doctor's orders.

"I say, 'We don't care,' " Li said.

At the construction commission, a startled secretary said, "Who are you?" when Li's team burst into one office. At the Middle Court, several offices were locked and empty, leaving open the possibility that their inhabitants were off drinking and not planning to return.

At the end of the day, Li's team tested about 20 cadres and nary a one tested positive. He made only one exception when a roomful of older men shooed him away.

"We're old bosses," one of them said, explaining why they were not subjected to the test. "We're retired."

Article picked by: Shi Rong (07A102)

Labels: corruption, guanxi, Shi Rong (07A102), Social

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Straits Times Article: Rush to tap China's clean-water market: Foreign investors lead push into potentially lucrative treatment sector

Link: source: http://www.straitstimes.com/print/Asia/China/Story/STIStory_221456.html

SHANGHAI - WELL aware of its shoddy environmental image, China has opened the door to foreign firms eager for a piece of the fast-growing US$14.2 billion (S$20 billion) water treatment market.

China, which has made cleaner water a major policy goal, is one of Asia's most promising investment destinations for water treatment, drawing in the likes of the French Veolia Environment company and Suez Environment.

Local rivals such as China Water Industry Group and Guangdong Investment have also sprung up.

The government's stance on water has given China an edge over regional rival India in wooing foreign funds.

'India has decided to invest in the water sector mostly through public money, but China has decided to allow private companies, including foreign investors, to participate in water supply and sewage products,' UBS analyst Christopher Wong wrote in a research note.

But problems abound.

Fierce competition for projects means margins may be squeezed.

Opaque rules and a government price freeze on public utilities, including water, are also red flags.

'One challenge is frequent regulatory changes in the acquisition of land, in the usage of land, the end-right use of a particular piece of land,' said Mr Sam Ong, chief financial officer of Singapore-listed water treatment firm Hyflux.

More than half the water in China - the fourth-largest economy in the world - is unfit to drink. Last year, about 48 million Chinese lacked sufficient drinking water.

China, which boasts a fifth of the world's population, has only 7 per cent of global water resources, says Fusion Consulting.

Its per-capita water resources are a mere fifth of the world average. More than 70 per cent of China's rivers and lakes are polluted, says Macquarie Research.

'China is experiencing one of its most severe water shortages. We believe this is one of the key issues that will determine China's future in the next 20 years,' Macquarie analyst Leah Jiang wrote in a recent note.

Since the 1990s, Beijing has been slowly prising open the water industry from the grips of state-owned enterprises. It plans to invest US$130 billion in water and waste water treatment (from 2006 to 2010).

Foreign firms hope this will translate into healthy growth prospects and are keen to get a foothold.

Suez Environment, for example, will invest 100 million euros (S$218 million) annually in sewage treatment and water projects in China over the next five years.

Sino French Water Development, a venture between Hong Kong's NWS Holdings Ltd and Suez, aims to boost daily output from its Changshu plant near Shanghai by more than 40 per cent to 850,000 cu m by 2010. It plans a sludge treatment centre to match that capacity.

'The return of our company is long term. We have a profitable business with revenues that experience double-digit growth every year,' said Mr Steve Clark, executive director of Suez's China subsidiary and Sino French Water Development.

Singapore's Hyflux expects its China revenues to jump 30 per cent this year, said CFO Ong.

Investors are optimistic, boosting shares in China Water Affairs Group Ltd by 61 per cent and China Water Industry Group Ltd by 43 per cent last year.

Rising water prices in China - in many cities they have doubled in the past four years - are a main reason foreign companies are counting on significant future returns.

But Beijing is wary of stoking already-high inflation. In January, the State Council set an immediate price freeze on all public utilities, including water.

'We think this is a key risk to private investment in the water industry as the tariff remains a politically sensitive area for most local governments,' says Macquarie.

Article selected by Seok Xian, (30 March 2008)

Seok Xian's Commentary:

There are different opinions raised towards the implementation of opening water treatment market to the foreign firms. Indeed, this is one way of opening up opportunities of investments to other countries. Regardless of whether this water treatment is opened to foreign firms or not, one could tell that Chinese government is acknowledging the water shortage issue and that they are making moves to solve this problem.

The first advantage of this move is of course, the benefits reaped from tapping on others' countries expertise. This may save much more cost spent on Research and Development (R&D) technology. Instead, this cost can be spent to improve the technology to suit China's needs. Thus both China and foreign firms stand to benefit form this policy.

However, one of the concerns is that the price of China 's public utilities is controlled by the Chinese government who aims to keep the cost of living low for everyone. This means that the Chinese government, most probably will have to pay for the money invested in this water treatment project. In addition, i hope that similar problem as the coal will not happen again.

The other concern is that there may be intense competition between local and foreign firms. However, i feel that in this way, both parties will engage in healthy competition, which i think will still benefit China in the end.

Labels: Seok Xian (07S415), Social, water pollution

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