Posts tagged: china
Five years ago—no, three years ago—it would have been difficult to imagine picking up a Chinese newspaper and finding this: “China, the largest creditor of the world’s sole superpower, has every right now to demand the United States to address its structural debt problems and ensure the safety of China’s dollar assets.”
The balance of world power just shifted again. We’re in for dangerous times.
Mongolia has the best cashmere in the world, but domestic producers who refine the wool say they are in danger of being put out of business because the government does not collect the 30 percent export tax from the Chinese, enabling them to buy vast amounts of raw wool from the herders at higher prices while domestic producers are fully taxed. According to D. Erdene-Ochir, head of sales for Goyo Cashmere, the government is sacrificing them to the herders. “It’s terrible politics to treat herders badly. So there are no taxes and the Chinese manipulate the market. They are supposed to pay the government, but the government doesn’t collect. Mongolian companies have to pay income and VAT taxes… . If I want to be elected, I cheat the producers not the nomads.” He also accuses the Chinese of mixing the cashmere with wool, silk and cotton. “They mix it and call it anything they want. We will be extinct very soon.”
Somehow, the impression that I get is that the Chinese are a bunch of nasty people.
The death of at least 40 people on a high-speed rail line that had become a totem of China’s sleek progress towards wealth, modernity and national prestige is symbolic on many levels. If the trains are not safe, what of the banking system or the management of the economy itself?
The tragedy has become a public relations disaster for a Communist Party leadership dominated by engineers and technocrats.
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China’s high-speed rail network, built in less than a decade, is the world’s longest. Its trains were supposed to travel at speeds that would put Japanese technology to shame.
Instead, the crash has exposed hubris, incompetence and corruption in a single, tragic crunching of metal. Perhaps not since Tiananmen Square more than 20 years ago has the Communist Party looked so naked in the face of public contempt.
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China’s middle class wants a leadership that can contain corruption, ensure safety and not put pride above engineering principles. It wants, in the arresting words of a commentary in the People’s Daily - of all places - economic growth that is not “smeared in blood”.
Suppressed people will break-free one day demanding “accountability of its leaders”. I can’t wait!
In recent years, Apple’s Chinese suppliers have been involved in a string of labor and environmental infractions, from a string of suicides linked to poor or inhumane working conditions at plants managed by one of its major suppliers, Foxconn, to allegations by green groups that chemicals leaching out from its factories are polluting China’s fields. True, Apple is hardly alone among international companies with Chinese factories in having problems arise from the practices of its suppliers. But what makes Apple singular, say Chinese environmental and labor rights activists, is its sluggishness in responding to complaints and its secretiveness about just which factories are in its supply chain.
Ma Jun is one of the leaders of the Green Choice Alliance, a coalition of 36 Chinese NGOs that tracks pollution reports among international brands operating in China. In January, they released a report focusing on global IT companies that ranked Apple dead last among 29 companies in responding to inquiries about pollution and workers’ safety. Last winter, Ma met with Jia and helped him pen a letter about working conditions and medical compensation to Apple CEO Steve Jobs. It went unanswered. So did a second letter.
According to Ma, most multinational companies go through an evolution in dealing with complaints presented by Chinese civil society groups: “from nonresponsive, to somewhat resistant, to at least listening, to a proactive response.” Two examples of the latter category would be Siemens and Vodafone, which now use the NGO’s database to check potential suppliers before renewing contracts. Apple, however, has stayed resistant, fighting off attempts by others to uncover whether factories where workers have been poisoned or where pollution is extreme are their suppliers. “They said, it’s our long-term policy not to disclose our supply chain,” Ma told me. “So no one can make any public scrutiny? No one can really know what is really happening?”
Richard Brubaker, a Shanghai-based supply-chain consultant who follows sustainability issues, has a similar impression: “Name another firm that has … billions in reserves and [continues to work] with suppliers who have a clear record of failure to comply with Apple’s own codes of conduct.”
As for Jia, now resting at his parents’ home in the tiny village of Heze, he says: “I never feel the so-called ‘human rights protection’ and ‘respect’ that have always been advocated by American corporations. I only feel hypocrisy.”
Though ethics isn’t one of their core products, it is critical to have ethical behaviour embedded within their corporate culture. I think it’ll do Apple even greater good in dedicate more resources to managing ethical compliance.
Japan voiced concern Tuesday over China’s growing assertiveness and widening naval reach in the South China Sea and Pacific Ocean and what it called the “opaqueness” of Beijing’s military budget.
I’m now inclined to think that the growth of PRC’s military-might may actually bring instability to the region. After all, Beijing is not known to be a bunch of peace-loving people. They will use force just to get what they want. Just think about the “liberation of Tibet”.
The Chinese authorities appear to be restricting attempts by a handful of citizens to run in local legislative elections as self-proclaimed independent candidates, stating that such candidacies are illegal and that no one can run for office without first clearing a series of procedural hurdles.
Does this remind you of Singapore’s Elected Presidency? Apart from munitions, such as mines, Singapore is also a major exporter of its “unique” political system, bring untold harm to other citizens of the free world.
That’s the problem for dictatorships: when something terrible happens, and people are angry, there isn’t a way of dissipating that anger. It is bottled up until it finally explodes, and the regime in power receives the full brunt of it.
Democracy, though, provides a blow-off valve for this kind of anger. People can protest in the streets, write angry opinions, speak to others, and ultimately, vote out whoever is in office, whether they are responsible or not. The CCP may need to adopt democratic reform to survive. If it is in absolute control when the economy falters, the party, and the government, may not survive; but if there are other parties the people can elect in anger, the government will survive, and the CCP will be able to come back in future elections. It may turn out that the CCP’s own desire to survive will push them toward democratic reform.
A nice article on the CCP and the economic bait.
As China tightens its grip on dissidents at home, dignitaries in Norway celebrate this year’s winner of the Nobel Peace Prize, imprisoned Chinese activist Liu Xiaobo, with solemn ceremony - and an empty chair.
Nobel committee secretary Geir Lundestad said Liu will be represented ‘by an empty chair … the strongest possible argument’ for awarding it to him.
Here’s the Text of Chinese Dissident’s ‘Final Statement’, read out during the ceremony by the Norwegian actress and movie director Liv Ullmann.
Additional reporting in the NYTimes:
“Freedom of expression is the foundation of human rights, the source of humanity, and the mother of truth,” Mr. Liu’s statement said. As for “China’s endless literary inquisitions,” he said: “I hope I will be the last victim.”
This week, trying to counter-balance the Nobel Peace Prize, China hastily organized a first-ever “Confucius Peace Award,” holding a news conference with fanfare to announce the winner was retired Taiwanese politician Lien Chan.
But word arrived from Lien’s Taipei office Thursday that Lien had never heard of the award and had no intention of accepting it.
Lien’s response is awesome.
It isn’t new for the Communist Party to take a tough line on internal dissent, but it is new for China’s rulers to use their economic clout to bludgeon other countries into changing their behaviour.
The irresponsible menace known as the People’s Republic of China is bringing up Cold War 2.0 and undoing the world’s peace process once again.
With North Korea sabre rattling in its backyard, the best it could do with its global leadership is to be “concerned” and block strong condemnation of Pyongyang at the United Nations Security Council—Irresponsible, I would think!
Worse of all, “Beijing, in each case, claims to be the aggrieved party”.
The best course of action we could take would be to reduce reliance on the Chinese economy. Yes, they will dominate and own everyone’s lives eventually, but it will be beneficial for our minds to be ready to challenge such notions and be prepared to stand against the rise of evil.
Do not be blinded by economical greed but work for what is right and what is just!
