analysis

As Facebook is set the launch the most-anticipated IPO in years, observers are wondering if and when the company will attempt to enter the China market. From BBC:

Analysts say the longer Facebook takes to enter China, the harder it will become for the firm to crack the market.

“The point is that they have already missed out on it,” Michael Clendenin of Red Tech Advisors in Beijing tells the BBC.

“They will be naive to think that just because they are Facebook they will be able to come in and capture the market.”

China already has a thriving and fast-growing social networking market and the sector is controlled by domestic players.

Even the official China Daily is asking the question:

While Facebook faces concerns about the durability of its business model, which relies heavily on advertising, some analysts believe the social networking behemoth will seek to enter China, where its services are not yet available, to grow revenue.

In its original prospectus filed with the US Securities and Exchange Commission in February, China was mentioned nine times, clearing indicating “the country is under serious consideration as a new market for the social network”, said Jon Russell, Asia editor of NextWeb, a technology site.

“It’s very likely that Facebook’s goal is to expand very rapidly. It is looking at China because it’s the only field left open for them,” said Jeffrey Barlow, director of the Berglund Center for Internet Studies at Pacific University in Oregon.

While China Daily acknowledges that Facebook services “are not available” in China, it does not explain the reasons: The site has been blocked by the Great Firewall of China since 2009. As a result, in an infographic on Facebook use in Asia, China is missing.

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© Sophie Beach for China Digital Times (CDT), 2012. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us Post tags: Facebook, foreign IT companies, Great Firewall Download Tools to Circumvent the Great Firewall

Tensions between China and its long-time ally North Korea are spilling into public with the recent apparent kidnapping of 29 Chinese fishermen who were in waters between the two countries and have since been brought to North Korean waters. From BBC:

The captors have asked for payment by Thursday for the release of the men and boats, the newspaper reported.

China’s foreign ministry said it was in touch with North Korean authorities and hoped to resolve the situation soon.

“We urged the North Korean side to guarantee the legal rights of the Chinese fishermen,” the ministry’s spokesman Hong Lei said.

[...] It is not clear if the boats were seized by North Korean authorities or kidnappers as some reports have suggested.

In recent meetings with Japan and South Korea, Chinese officials to pledge to work together with those countries to prevent provocation by North Korea on the nuclear issue. Recently, China has become more outspoken in opposing North Korea’s plans for a third nuclear test. From Reuters:

If North Korea goes ahead with the test, China would consider taking some retaliatory steps, but they would not be substantive, a source with ties to Pyongyang and Beijing told Reuters.

North Korea has almost completed preparations for the test, Reuters reported in late April, a step that would further isolate the impoverished state after last month’s failed rocket launch that the United States says was a ballistic missile test.

“China is unhappy … and urged North Korea not to conduct a nuclear test near Changbai Mountain,” said the source, who declined to be identified because of the sensitivity of the matter.

China feared a radiation leak and damage to the environment from a blast, the source added.

Read more about China’s relations with North Korea via CDT.

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© Sophie Beach for China Digital Times (CDT), 2012. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us Post tags: kidnapping, North Korea nuclear, North Korea relations Download Tools to Circumvent the Great Firewall

U.S. citizen and Al Jazeera reporter Melissa Chan was recently expelled from China.  This event may have already been lost in the cavalcade of news coming out of that country. It is, arguably, a minor story compared with the remarkable fall of Politburo member Bo Xilai and the ongoing controversy swirling around the fate of activist Chen Guangcheng.  Yet it shouldn’t be overlooked by those with an interest in making sense of the political situation within China, and the state’s relationship with the rest of the international system. Beijing denied Chan a renewal of her journalist’s visa.  As a result, she was forced to leave the country.  Since she is the network’s sole correspondent within China, and Beijing has stated it can’t send a replacement, this development has shuttered Al Jazeera’s operations in the country.  While most Americans may not be especially concerned about either Chan or her employer’s fate in ... Read More...

China’s national soccer (football) team has long been a source of mockery and heartbreak among the country’s many die-hard fans. Most recently, the team failed to qualify for the 2014 World Cup, as it has done every match since 2002. Much money and ink has been spent trying to figure out why China cannot put together a winning team, considering the country’s considerable strength in many other sports and the love of the sport among Chinese citizens. In recent months, the Chinese Super League has recruited well-paid global players, and now one team, Guangzhou Evergrande, has recruited a new high-profile coach, Marcello Lippi, who coached Italy to a World Cup win in 1996, in hopes of raising the bar. From the Wall Street Journal blog:

On Thursday, Guangzhou Evergrande announced that Marcello Lippi, considered one of Italian soccer’s greatest managers for winning trophies both with Serie A club team Juventus and the World Cup with Italy in 2006, will be its new coach. The 2011 China Super League champions said Mr. Lippi will join the team for a two and half years, replacing South Korean manager Lee Jang-soo, who helped the team advance to the Super League in 2010 and then win it a year later.

“My arrival should be a big deal and the most important thing in China today,” 64 year-old Mr. Lippi said in a television appearance. “I will start my work today, the same way I did in Juventus and Inter Milan. The most important thing is to bring the Italian football concepts to China.”

Guangzhou Evergrande, owned by real-estate mogul Xu Jiayin, chairman of Evergrande Real Estate Group Ltd., has splashed out funds on a number of big signings over the past two years, attracting the Chinese national side captain Zheng Zhi. In 2011 the team set the Chinese transfer market record and then broke it again to acquire first Brasilian Cleo, then Argentinian Dario Conca.

Whiles hopes are high for the new Chinese Super League, it may take a while for the new recruits to pay off for the long-term success of China’s soccer program. From CNN:

“There are things happening in Chinese football but there is still a long way to go,” Asian football expert John Duerden told CNN.

“I can’t imagine that Lippi has been always been desperate to work in the Chinese Super League, though China is a fascinating place and some of the cities are fantastic.”

[...] “It’s all about the name,” he said. “While Lee is well-liked in China and east Asia, outside the region he has little standing. Hiring Lippi sends the message that Guangzhou want to be Asia’s first superclub.”

Read more about soccer in China, via CDT.

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© Sophie Beach for China Digital Times (CDT), 2012. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us Post tags: soccer, sports Download Tools to Circumvent the Great Firewall

Singapore’s next billionaire has upset the strategic heart of capitalism. Eduardo Saverin, who owns a four percent stake in Facebook, is renouncing his U.S. citizenship, lodged the required paperwork to make Singapore his new home and is no doubt scouting the island-state for the right bankers.

All this comes as Facebook readies itself for a an IPO that will potentially value it at about $100 billion, which will add several more billion dollars to Saverin’s personal coffers and expose him to an unwanted U.S. tax bill from the income earned on future stock sales. Singapore, his new home, likes rich people, and there’s no capital gains tax there.

Tax, and those who avoid it, is a sensitive subject on Main Street, USA. And the likes of Saverin have the good ’ol boys a tad upset. At 13, Saverin’s name was discovered on a gangster’s list of potential kidnap targets in his native Brazil. His family fled north.

He went to what the Americans believe are all the right schools, including Harvard University where he befriended Mark Zuckerberg, the future Facebook crew and, according to the New York Post:  “Now he’s shunning the United States – the place that gave him personal safety, along with immense opportunity and wealth – by stiffing us for a possible $600 million in taxes.”

Saverin’s “people” have argued that the decision to move permanently to Singapore was more of a business opportunity than a tax dodge. Such gratuitous thinking in regards to one’s citizenship will only further fuel anger among ordinary taxpayers who helped bail out Wall Street following its collapse.

Upon hearing the decision, the Rupert Murdoch-owned tabloid also quoted tech-industry billionaire Mark Cuban as saying: “This pisses me off.”

The now 30-year-old, who was played by Andrew Garfield in the award winning movie Social Network, has lived in Singapore since 2009 and with citizenship he will become one of Southeast Asia’s richest people with the sanctity of an all important Singapore bank account.

Singapore citizenship will also allow Saverin to circumvent recently passed U.S. laws – the Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act – that make it exceedingly difficult for Americans to open banks accounts abroad.

As a result, bankers, stock brokers, government bureaucrats and their ilk will no doubt be chaffing at the bit. After all this is what the Singapore government wants, namely gazillionaires to live in their shimmering glass and steel skyscrapers.

However, how popular the decision proves among ordinary Singaporeans – who have to contend with late trains and an exorbitant supermarket bill – is another matter.

In Singapore, the person on the street is voting with his feet, and the two biggest social issues confronting the government are the wealth gap dividing the rich and poor and an influx of foreign workers. Saverin’s citizenship is unlikely to help in either department.

Related posts:

1. Occupy Singapore Flop
2. Singapore as a Global City
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There have been some big name soccer stars heading to Asia recently. And none of them are bigger than Raul. The striker may be 34, but he’s still capable of playing at the highest level. He has just come off two seasons in Germany with FC Schalke and helped the club to the semi-final of last season’s UEFA Champions League. He’s scored a very creditable 36 goals in 86 appearances for the club since arriving in the summer of 2010. He made his name though, of course, with Real Madrid. The word legend is thrown around too lightly in sport, but there’s no other way to describe him in connection to the Spanish giants. Nobody has played more than him and scored more than him for the nine-time European champion. In 15 years, he appeared 741 times and scored 323 goals. It’s an astonishing record. Now, though, he’s in Qatar after signing for ... Read More...

One of the more enduring aspects of Indian strategic culture is a strong sense of maritime embattlement. Shortly after independence, Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru famously attributed India’s past woes at the hands of predatory colonial powers to its maritime weaknesses. During the Cold War, Indian strategists would fret over the potential mushrooming of American submarine pens in Diego Garcia, or over the possible reiteration of the 1971 USS Enterprise incident, when the United States dispatched a carrier task group to the Bay of Bengal in a singularly blunt exercise of naval suasion. More than forty years later, the U.S. presence in the Indian Ocean is no longer viewed by most Indians as a threat. Another, more menacing extra-regional power has stepped in to fill the void, and, in so doing, has ensured the continued survival of the maritime embattlement narrative.

Indeed, a first time traveler to India could be forgiven for believing that India is on the verge of being subjected to a sudden wave of Chinese amphibious landings. Sensationalistic press reports on China's so-called “string of pearls” abound, and wild stories on secret PLAN submarine bases in the Maldives, or large bases on Burmese islands, are commonplace. In reality, most of China’s ventures in places such as Chittagong, in Bangladesh, or Hambantota, in Sri Lanka, appear to be, for the time being at least, primarily economic in nature. Moreover, Indian observers tend to neglect the profoundly nationalistic pride these projects tend to foster within the host countries themselves.

Last year, after having meandered through the organized chaos of Hambantota, I interviewed the Sri Lankan Ports Authority Manager on site. After enquiring whether Chinese military vessels might, in the future, obtain preferential berthing rights, I was subjected to a withering tirade on the inappropriate nature of my query. While the funding may be in large part Chinese, the port itself is strictly Sri Lankan, I was sternly informed, and acted as a powerful symbol of a reunified country’s future economic potential. (The port is, in fact, named the Mahinda Rajapaksa Port, in honor of Sri Lanka’s president, whose grinning, mustachioed face is a ubiquitous presence throughout the country, from billboard to bank note.)

While one can’t discount the possibility in the future that these nodes may acquire a more overtly military dimension, the relentless onslaught of Indian media attention on the “String of Pearls” has created an unfortunate, and rather paradoxical, effect. First of all, it renders the debate over the nature of China’s future naval presence in the Indian Ocean somewhat less intelligible and more inchoate. Second, it makes it seem as though the Indian government’s attitude towards China’s alleged creeping expansionism is purely reactive and bereft of any clear strategic direction.

Let us imagine, thereby succumbing to the worst kind of strategic pessimism, that in the course of the next two decades China does move towards establishing some kind of a genuinely threatening naval presence in the Indian Ocean Region.

This could take several distinct forms:

– A gradual upsurge in Chinese submarine incursions into the Indian Ocean, with the option of secretly forward deploying wolf packs of Chinese submarines in friendly deep-water ports such as Gwadar.

– An extension of China's Anti-Access/Area Denial (A2/AD) complex from East to West in order to provide some form of a shore-based protective shield to its surface vessels or to target India’s ships and coastal infrastructure.

– Simply by increasing the rotation and stationing of its naval assets-surface or subsurface – in the friendly pearls aforementioned.

If one, or all of these evolutions were to occur, would India be prepared for such a contingency? And more importantly, does the Indian Navy have some kind of a concrete, actionable China Strategy in place for the Indian Ocean?

It may.

But if it does, you will be hard pressed to find it outlined in detail in any of the official documents released by the Indian Navy over the past decade or so, whether it be the two iterations of its Maritime Doctrines (released in 2004 and 2009) or in its Maritime Strategy (published in 2007). All three documents are highly didactic in tone and somewhat aspirational in nature. Their goal, first and foremost, is to convince a traditionally continentalist and inward-looking Indian leadership of the virtues of Indian Seapower, not to lay out the battle plans for a potential future naval clash with the next great “Dragon Fleet.” Therefore, when China is mentioned, it is only in passing, with fleeting-albeit foreboding- references to “some nations’ attempts to gain a strategic toehold in the Indian Ocean Rim” or to “attempts by China to strategically encircle India.”

If one really wishes to get a better appreciation of how the Indian Navy plans for an upsurge in naval rivalry with Beijing, the best thing to do is to carefully parse the refreshingly sanguine words of India’s naval chiefs on the matter. By so doing, one can begin to discern the hazy silhouette of a nascent three-pronged strategy, or “strategic trident,” which could roughly be summarized as the following:

– Leveraging India’s Natural Geographical Advantage

– Developing an Asymmetrical Technological Edge

– Moving towards greater Navy/Air Force Jointness in the Indian Ocean Region

A few years ago, the former Chief of Naval Staff Sureesh Mehta created quite a stir, when he gave a seminal speech at an Indian maritime think tank, the National Maritime Foundation, shortly before his departure from office. Admiral Mehta, in a very eloquently framed presentation, articulated some compelling arguments:

First, India shouldn’t seek to compete ship for ship with China – such an approach is futile and doomed to fail, due to the growing disparity in funding in-between both navies. Second, India should leverage its geographical advantage. In short, India will always retain a sizeable advantage over any incoming Chinese fleet in the Indian Ocean by virtue of its central position as an interior line power in the heart of the Indian Ocean, as well as its peninsular formation, which enables it to radiate airpower in an arc ranging from the Arabian Sea to the Malacca Straits. Any Chinese naval task force venturing into the Indian Ocean would therefore have to run a formidable gauntlet of combined Indian naval and shore-based airpower. Finally, India needed to focus on developing an asymmetric technological edge over its Chinese rival. New Delhi possesses an immense advantage over Beijing – in that it can import (nearly) all the weaponry it desires, and, unlike China, doesn’t have to contend with an EU arms embargo, U.S. rivalry or growing Russian unease.

India’s current Chief of Naval Staff, Nirmal Verma, has added grist to the strategy laid out by his predecessor by stressing the need to establish more “turnaround bases and naval air enclaves” within the region, and by accelerating the revamping of India's air bases in the Andaman and Nicobar islands, which Chinese strategists have portrayed as a potential “metal chain” that could lock them out of the Bay of Bengal in the event of a conflict with India.

As Sino-Indian rivalry spills out into the Indian Ocean, the maps of former, similarly conflict-ridden eras, are being pulled out of the attic of history, undusted, and made to overlap. Japan’s clever use of the Andaman and Nicobar archipelago as an unsinkable aircraft carrier during World War II is now being replicated by New Delhi, and World War II era airbases in places such as Kalaikunda, in West Midnapore, have been refurbished in order to host Indian Sukhoi-30 MKI squadrons, which can provide long-range air cover to naval forces operating in the Andaman Sea west of the Malacca Straits.

The same minute patches of paradise at the epicenter of Soviet-U.S. rivalry in the Indian Ocean Region during the Cold War, such as the Seychelles, now find themselves at the heart of a struggle for supremacy once more. Only this time it’s Beijing and New Delhi, Asia’s two rising naval powers, which are jostling for influence. Competition in the Indian Ocean is hardly a new phenomenon – the players may change, but the game remains uncannily similar. And indeed, while much attention has been lavished on China’s diplomatic forays into the Indian subcontinent’s maritime backyard, scant focus has been given to India’s own parallel efforts to establish strategically placed nodes of influence – such as the listening post it erected in 2007 in Madagascar, or the ties it is discreetly shoring up with other small island nations such as Mauritius.

As the Indian Navy’s attention gradually pivots away from Pakistan in order to focus increasingly on China, it will be instructive to note whether this is accompanied by a corresponding repositioning of its force structure. It may be premature to reliably ascertain whether this is the case, but certain signs definitely seem to point to a rebalancing. The Indian Navy's Eastern Command, for example, which has traditionally been neglected in favor of its Western, Pakistan-facing alter ego, is being considerably strengthened. The country’s small flotilla of nuclear submarines will also operate from an undisclosed location along the eastern seaboard.

Jointness, at this juncture, appears to form the missing link within the Indian Navy’s nascent China Strategy in the Indian Ocean. Indeed, if New Delhi wishes to truly leverage its inherent geographical advantage, it needs to be able to draw on both its naval aviation and shore-based airpower simultaneously rather than sequentially.

So far, unfortunately, the Indian Navy and Air Force have yet to demonstrate any genuine capacity – or desire – for operational synergy. In India’s defense, Navy/Air Force synchronization in maritime strike warfare is notoriously hard to achieve. Indeed, one could argue that the United States only really mastered such a level of operational jointness through the catalyzing experience of the first Gulf War. The Indian Navy and Air Force, however, appear to have demonstrated a singular degree of reluctance to pursue any kind of meaningful operational synergy. While both services have initiated joint training under the aegis of the TROPEX exercises annually held in the Bay of Bengal, they still prefer to coordinate – rather than to genuinely fuse – their combat exercises. The Indian Air Force and Naval aviation assets are thus provided with distinct, pre-designated “air corridors” in which to operate and respond to the instructions of their own service-specific commanders. This is indicative of a very rudimentary level of inter-service cooperation, which still prefers to opt for the traditional Indian “coordination” model over the exigencies born out of genuine bi-service synchrony.

What India needs is a truly transformational war fighting concept for the Indian Ocean, an “AirSea Battle concept with Indian characteristics,” which welds the three “prongs” of its thinking into a clear, actionable, China strategy for the Indian Ocean. Until then, expect more alarmist reports of hidden bases and nefarious plots.

Iskander Rehman is a Stanton Nuclear Security Fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in Washington D.C.

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Fixing the euro (the logo, at least) in Frankfurt. (Ralph Orlowski/Reuters)

With his frequent opinion pieces and public lectures, venture capitalist Eric X. Li has established himself a rising Chinese public intellectual for the English-speaking world. Since 2011, a number of his writings have appeared in the mainstream English press, where he is known to extol the virtues of Chinese politics and economics. He has “debunked” criticism from leading China scholars, lauded the superiority of China’s political model, claimed that ideological diversity, and not simple corruption, was the real threat revealed by the Bo Xilai scandal, and defended China’s controversial regime of Internet control. Israeli journalist Rachel Beitarie recently conducted a lengthy interview with Li, grilling him on the points of his advocacy that many readers may find hard to accept. Published on his Huffington Post blog, Li explains why “democracy is not the answer” to successfully balancing and representing the demands of the people and the goals of the nation:

Beitarie: [...I]n the absence of judicial oversight, popular vote or free press, what is the mechanism the Chinese model suggests to alert the rulers of being wrong about what they regard as national interests?

Li: [...]Many would agree that the Chinese government seems to have developed the ability to “feel the pulse” of the nation and adjust its politics in response to it while keeping it largely in alignment with the country’s long-term interests.

[...]On the other hand, the records of electoral regimes around the world indicate that party rotation through elections may not provide the needed flexibility or self-correction. In the United States, elections may have produced new presidents and Congressional majorities, but do not seem to have done much to tackle America’s long-term challenges. In Europe, governments regularly get voted in and out, but no elections have produced even the minimal corrections required to address their monumental distress. In the one-prime-minster-per-year Japan, elections and party rotations have failed to lift the country out of its 20-year stagnation. [...]

Beitarie: [...O]ne feature you have described of the Chinese model was that of allowing fairly wide personal freedoms, but not participation in governing. To what extent can the two really be distinguished? When people have demands from their government regarding their basic living conditions[...], does this fall under personal freedoms or political organization? In many cases in China (events in Wukan village of Guangdong being a recent and much cited example) people find that coming together and making their demands heard as a group is an effective way to get what they want. Does the Chinese model as you see it object to that?[...]

Li: Far from objecting to people’s demands related to their living conditions the Chinese government has proved deftly competent in responding to and co-opting such demands, considering the scale of the challenge brought about by Chinese society’s rapid change. This actually further enhances the moral authority of the central government. One interesting thing to observe was the highest banner held by the Wukan protestors read: Long Live the Chinese Communist Party. Indeed the leader of the protest movement whom later was elected village chief is a long serving member of the Party.

Li, who describes himself as a Shanghai venture capitalist (which carries a bit of irony, as I will attempt to demonstrate), is a well known apologist of authoritarianism[...]. In the most recent interview he engages in a bit of facile Confucius-citing, so I figured that brought his arguments into the general ambit of this blog.  As you might guess, I disagree with him fundamentally.

Li’s general project is to construct a kind of Chinese exceptionalism, to show that, whether in the political or economic or cultural realms, China is sui generis and, as the second title above suggests, superior to others.  As an American I am quite familiar with exceptionalist type arguments and, anticipating the Chinese nationalist critique that this post is likely to inspire, I state here that I also reject claims of American exceptionalism.  Whether American or Chinese or French or whatever, exceptionalist arguments are generally historically flawed, deeply flawed, and, bascially, intellectually uninteresting.

[...]

To be clear: Confucianism is a valuable philosophy.  We all can learn from it; we all should learn from it.  I teach it to my students. I think about ways it applies to my own life.  But it is precisely because I take it seriously that I reject its association with the Chinese Communist Party.  Were Confucius alive today he would reject much of what occurs in Chinese politics and economics.

 

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© josh rudolph for China Digital Times (CDT), 2012. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us Post tags: eric x. li, ideology, public intellectuals Download Tools to Circumvent the Great Firewall

Author: Vikram Nehru, Carnegie Endowment

There is growing speculation that the 13th Malaysian general elections will be held in June this year, the prospect of which is raising political temperatures.

But massive demonstrations in Kuala Lumpur on 28 April organised by Bersih, a civil society coalition for clean and fair elections, may have thrown a spoke in the government’s wheels. The demonstrations ended in tear gas and pitched street battles, and some 380 people were arrested. The inevitable finger-pointing that followed between Bersih and the police masks a more important point relating to the popular belief that Malaysia’s election system is rigged in favour of the ruling Barisan Nasional coalition.

Malaysia’s Election Commission has been at pains to announce that it has implemented many of the recommendations of the Parliamentary Select Committee on Electoral Reforms, which conducted a genuine and nationwide consultative process. One recommendation being implemented is the use of indelible ink to prevent voter fraud — a recommendation put forward by Bersih itself. The Election Commission also scrutinised the electoral rolls and found few irregularities, but public distrust in the electoral process is so deep that this result appears to carry little credibility. The accuracy of the electoral poll in Malaysia is indeed a critical matter that must be beyond reproach. There are several swing states where small margins can change the national result significantly.

In the meantime, Prime Minister Najib Razak has embarked on a charm offensive. He fulfilled an earlier promise by repealing the Internal Security Act, which allowed for preventive detention without trial. The government also passed a law that allows students to join political parties (although political events on campuses are still banned).

These actions no doubt will positively impact the prime minister’s popularity, which was already high following a populist budget and a recent report complimenting the government on the implementation of its economic reform package. But while the prime minister enjoys very favourable ratings in the polls, his party, Barisan Nasional, does not. This has given the opposition parties some hope, although they have yet to coalesce and offer a clear vision or alternative policy. The scenes of street protests and tear gas on 28 April, together with allegations of police brutality, will likely help the opposition and hurt the government. This could further narrow the difference between the incumbent Barisan Nasional and the main opposition coalition, Pakatan Rakyat.

All the tea leaves suggest a close race, perhaps closer than the one in 2008, when the opposition won 5 of 13 state legislatures and over one-third of the seats in parliament, denying the Barisan Nasional a two-thirds majority.

Vikram Nehru is Senior Associate in the Asia Program and Bakrie Chair in Southeast Asian Studies at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

An earlier version of this article was first published here by the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

1. Political tensions escalate in Malaysia
2. Bersih 2.0 rally in Malaysia stirs discontent with ruling party
3. Sex, race and religion still political weapons in Malaysian politics

Last week’s Economist noted an almost thirty-fold increase in the poaching of South African rhinos between 2008 and 2011. As with the ongoing surge in elephant poaching, much of the blame has fallen on Chinese demand.

Last year 438 rhinos, nearly all of them of the white (meaning wide-lipped) species, were known to have been illegally killed in South Africa, their horns often hacked off while they were still alive. That compares with an annual average of just 15 before 2008. This year more than 200 have already been poached, an average of 50 a month, with the year’s final tally expected to top 600. If that trend continues, more rhinos will be being poached than born by 2016, sending the world’s population into a decline that could be irreversible. Around 20,000 of the surviving white rhinos on earth live in South Africa ….

Long prized in South-East Asia for its supposed medicinal and aphrodisiac vim, rhino horn is now being peddled as a cure for cancer too. With growing wealth in China and Vietnam unaccompanied by growing wisdom, demand seems insatiable. The horn, which is merely agglutinated hair, the same stuff as finger nails, has no pharmacological value. Yet its street price has soared to over $60,000 a kilo, more than for the same weight of cocaine or gold—a proven aphrodisiac.

Other animals are also vulnerable: the Associated Press reported on Wednesday that Thai police had seized two tiger carcasses thought to be bound for China. But with interception rates low—around 10% for internationally trafficked ivory, according to Interpol—measures to cut off supply must be accompanied by efforts to reduce demand. In the case of elephants, this can involve challenging the widespread myth that tusks drop out naturally and harmlessly. At Rectified.name, Karlis Rokpelnis, an ethnoecology PhD candidate at Beijing’s Minzu University, suggests hard research, however unprofitable, into the supposed medicinal properties of rhino horn and other exotic ingredients. Rokpelnis also draws on recent stories of human baby flesh pills reportedly seized by South Korean customs, and the theme of cannibalism in historical ethnic smears and Lu Xun’s ‘Diary of a Madman’.

While the current media and online furor could — and probably should — be dismissed as one of the many rumors and otherworldly accusations floating around the Internet, it does point to a striking failure of science as it relates to traditional Chinese medicine. How to separate the quackery from the possible, particularly in regards to practices which so abominable as to be nearly unbelievable, but also debunking medical myths involving the use of ingredients — such as bear bile, rhino horn, and tiger portions — which do great harm to biodiversity and the protection of endangered species ….

While the moral impact of a middle-aged man spending prolifically on concoctions to enhance his amorous life seems benign (as long as he stays away from the damn rhinos!), what to make of the 2007 half a year prison term to Guangdong parents who stole another couple’s deceased child to make a healing soup for their sickly child …?

If sound qualitative data of the clinical results of using rare animal species as medicine would be available, this could be used as a way of addressing demand for them directly. After all, who would buy tiger bone liquor if its benefits for sexual potency were shown to be non-existent?

At least one reason might remain. From the BBC’s legendary 2006 report on a Beijing penis restaurant, on a $5,700 tiger penis dish:

“So what does it taste like?” I ask.

“Oh, the same as all the others,” she says blithely.

And does it have any particular potency? “No. People just like to order tiger to show off how much money they have.”

(As Lijia Zhang noted last year in a Guardian opinion piece on the “racist” Western fascination with strange Chinese eating habits, the restaurant’s menu “is not something that runs deep in Chinese culture – there are only two penis restaurants in China, and both belong to the same owner.”)

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© Samuel Wade for China Digital Times (CDT), 2012. | Permalink | One comment | Add to del.icio.us Post tags: animal protection, elephant poaching, elephants, ivory trade, tigers, traditional medicine Download Tools to Circumvent the Great Firewall

BBC News correspondent Juliana Liu reports from Hong Kong about Li Xueming, also known as Bo Xiyong, who utilized a dual identity to hedge against political risk as the brother of now-deposed Chongqing party chief Bo Xilai:

Some, like Levin Zhu, head of investment bank China International Capital Corp and son of former Premier Zhu Rongji, do not hide their family backgrounds.

But for others, while kinship to China’s political elite can guarantee lucrative business offers, it can also create problems in a country where politics has been historically volatile.

From a princeling’s point of view, changing a name, or using several names simultaneously, is often seen as a way to hedge against political risk.

As a result, it is very common for princelings to change their names or use aliases when they go overseas to study or do business, according to Johnny Lau, a veteran China watcher based in Hong Kong.

“There is a long history of this,” he says. “First, they do this to feel safe. They sometimes worry about being kidnapped.

“But they also want to guard their image, to avoid the kind of attention that could invite trouble.”

Li Xueming resigned from the board of a Hong Kong-listed state-owned alternative energy company in late April as the net of scrutiny extended to Bo Xilai’s relatives.

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© Scott Greene for China Digital Times (CDT), 2012. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us Post tags: Bo Xilai, corruption, Li Xueming, princelings, scandal Download Tools to Circumvent the Great Firewall

China Central Television’s headquarters building is finally complete. 10 years after design approval and 8 years after construction began, China’s state-run television broadcaster is finally ready to set-up shop in the new skyscraper. Shanghai daily reports on the life of the project from conception to completion, briefly mentioning the illegal fireworks display that led to major damage in the construction complex in 2009:

Like the Bird’s Nest and the Water Cube – signature venues for the 2008 Beijing Olympics – the CCTV building is part of a new architectural wave that is redefining Beijing.

[...]CCTV looked worldwide for the design of its new headquarters in 2002, shortly after China joined the World Trade Organization and won its bid to host the Olympics.

Construction began in 2004 and by summer 2008, its exterior was completed.

But then disaster. A fire in February 2009 engulfed an adjacent building in the complex that was to house a luxury hotel.

An illegal fireworks display to mark the end of the Lunar New Year was to blame. One firefighter died and eight others were injured.

The disaster became an embarrassing episode for CCTV. Its head, Zhao Huayong, was replaced and 20 people sent to prison.

The postmodern project is part of the architectural new-wave that is defining Beijing’s modern cityscape. An article in the Washington Post quotes chief architect Ole Scheeren on the project’s societal significance:

“One thing this building has done is it has asked a lot of questions. It has questioned what is architecture, what can architecture be, what can it do,” Scheeren told The Associated Press. “This question can be answered far more deeply and interestingly now that the building will start to live and will start to be utilized.”

[...]China “was set to appear on the world’s stage in a new era,” Scheeren said. “That psychology of a very future-oriented moment was very important to make this project possible.”

[...]Scheeren declined to reveal the project’s cost, though outside estimates have put it at hundreds of millions of dollars.

He said the architects hope the building can be a force of progress in China’s development.

“It’s mainly the end of our work, but it’s actually the beginning of its life,” Scheeren said. “From here on, the building finally will be what it’s made for.”

While the 44-story marvel’s unorthodox design has won it the nickname “big underpants” (one of many not-so-flattering epithets for the structure), World Architecture News explains the conceptual significance of the abstract structure:

The CCTV Tower provides the infrastructure for the entire television production process, using the idea of a single continuous loop of interconnected activities throughout the building, creating a ‘three-dimensional experience of geometric and social continuity.’ Through the implementation of this looped network it will allow for the whole building to run simultaneously in a unified cycle, from start to finish, both architecturally and in terms to production.

There are future plans to open a ‘visitor’s loop’ in the tower, a path that allows the public to flow through the building as a tourist attraction, providing views across the entirety of Beijing and allowing the visitors to experience the production process in television in the building.

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A group of retired Communist Party officials have signed a petition calling on two of China’s top leaders, including security chief Zhou Yongkang, to resign as the political aftershock of the Bo Xilai scandal continues to reverberate through the party. From The New York Times:

In a petition that began to circulate Wednesday on social media and overseas Web sites, the 16 signers — all of them retired midlevel officials in the southern province of Yunnan — accused Mr. Zhou of supporting the fallen party leader Bo Xilai, who was suspended from his posts amid reports that he helped cover up a murder and abused power.

…

“We still care about the future of the country,” said one of the signers, Wu Zhibo, 84, a former vice head of a vocational school in the city of Zhaotong.

Mr. Zhou is widely thought to have backed Mr. Bo’s methods and opposed his ouster. A member of the all-powerful nine-member Standing Committee of the Communist Party Politburo, Mr. Zhou is also the head of the Central Political and Legislative Committee. He is widely associated with the “stability maintenance” program that has led to heavy online censorship and tight control of the news media.

Zhou is expected to retire later this year as part of the highly anticipated leadership transition that will likely see Xi Jinping and Li Keqiang take over as President and Prime Minister, respectively, but signs have emerged that the party may have already taken steps to marginalize his influence. On Sunday, The Financial Times’ Jamil Anderlini reported that Zhou has already given up day-to-day control of China’s security machine:

On paper and in public, Zhou Yongkang, who is due to step down later this year as part of a broader leadership transition, retains his title as secretary of the ruling Communist party’s political and legislative affairs committee. He is also part of the nine-member politburo standing committee, which effectively runs China.

But according to three senior party members and diplomats briefed on the subject he has handed operational control of the pervasive Chinese security apparatus to Meng Jianzhu, the current minister of public security.

…

In addition to handing over daily control of the security apparatus, Mr Zhou has also been forced to make a “confession” to his colleagues on the standing committee for his errors of judgment in trying to protect Mr Bo, according to people familiar with the matter.

He will also not have the right to choose his successor in the political reshuffle that will happen at the 18th Communist Party Congress in autumn, according to these people.

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Author: Evan A. Feigenbaum, CFR

In recent months, there has been little but gloom about India’s economic prospects in the financial markets, for the following six very good reasons:

First, India’s tumultuous politics have, from a corporate perspective, stalled essential reforms. Tax, pension and FDI reforms have made little headway under the United Progressive Alliance government, and parliamentary business has been tied up in knots as the leading national and regional parties squabble.

Second, there has been mixed news from the capital markets. Inbound FDI was higher in 2011 than over the same period in 2010, but Mumbai’s SENSEX stock index was the world’s worst major performer in 2011. And the rupee has been among Asia’s worst-performing currencies, floundering amid fiscal problems, not least India’s current account deficit and persistent concerns about capital flows. These factors recently led Standard & Poor’s to downgrad India’s credit rating.

Third, India’s proposed retroactive law to tax cross-border deals has met with derision internationally, and has caused US, British and Japanese trade groups to threaten to reconsider investing in India. The new chairman of the US–India Business Council, MasterCard CEO Ajay Banga, has stressed how the tax undermines the predictability on which investors rely: imposing such a tax retroactively, he recently told The New York Times, ‘make[s] companies and business[es] very confused. The ability to make sensible predictions about what happens is very important to any business model’.

Fourth, big uncertainties about growth persist. A once high-flying India slowed to 6.1 per cent growth year on year in the fourth quarter of 2011, the slowest pace since 2008.

Fifth, several sectoral stories are ugly (and growing uglier), including power, mining, telecommunications, oil and gas, insurance and aviation. Regulatory and legal hurdles, failure to move on reforms, licensing delays, and an array of other problems continue to beset these industries.

Finally, Indian companies continue to dazzle abroad, but even these firms appear sceptical about their own country’s investment climate. The following story summarises this trend: at the end of 2011, Indians had invested in businesses overseas more than foreigners were investing in India — a stark reversal of 2008 figures, when foreigners poured roughly twice as much direct investment into India — US$33 billion — as Indians plowed into businesses overseas.

In fact, this particular source of gloom matters greatly. With their global ambitions, India’s leading companies now bestride the international stage. They have been responsible for both high- and low-profile mergers and acquisitions in recent years, to the tune of nearly $116 billion in overseas acquisitions from 2000 to April 2012. But corporate India will need to lead the way domestically, too. Put bluntly, investment is essential to India’s growth story. So it is disturbing to hear Jamshyd Godrej, one of India’s most distinguished business leaders, comment that: ‘If you are an honest businessman in India, it’s very difficult to start up anything … Companies are going to operate where they see the best opportunities and efficiency for their capital’.

The bottom line? There is plenty of gloom and doom. And much of it seems to emanate from India itself.

Still, it is useful to temper this outlook with a view to recent history and an eye to India’s states.

For one, India has consistently surprised the world for two decades with sustained high growth. And with India’s reform prospects stalled by political bickering and interest group politics, it is useful to remember that, in one country at least, you can still squeeze out plenty of growth without very much reform.

Second, even without aggressive reform, greater predictability might still go a long way. Ajay Banga, has made this point well:  ‘Reform is needed’, he says, ‘and everyone gets it … The problem is politics and its compulsions … Politics doesn’t always allow reform in the way that corporations would like to see. What we can do is talk about Indian leadership. Recent policies coming out of India have confused investors and not just in the US’.

To be sure, bold reform would be best, but there is still room for greater predictability, stability and transparency, even though it is clear that India’s fractious politics are unlikely to settle down before the 2014 general election.

Third, India’s most exciting stories are now in the states, not at the federal level. And the reality is that companies and investors will increasingly find opportunities in business-friendly states that are less regulated by New Delhi, and thus less subject to government control.

India’s constitution divides jurisdiction between New Delhi and the states in far-reaching and significant ways. The centre has power over finance, defence, trade, telecommunications, foreign investment policy and some infrastructure. But the states have wide authorities, too, on subjects that matter greatly to India’s investment climate, not least over power, agriculture, land, domestic investment and policing.

India’s states, then, are increasingly masters of their own fate. And those most likely to succeed will be those that also recognise the need for good governance. After all, good governance turns out to be smart politics: while India has seen the highest rates of anti-incumbency of any democratic country in the world, there are now strong signs that this trend is slowing. This is especially true at the state level, where governments that have successfully improved governance, for example in Bihar and Orissa, have held on to power. Strong managers and competent chief ministers have, in some places, delivered striking results. And the good news is that such improvements should be good for growth and, ultimately, for investment too.

Even A. Feigenbaum is Adjunct Senior Fellow for East, Central and South Asia at the Council on Foreign Relations.

A version of this article was first published here on the Council on Foreign Relations Asia Unbound blog.

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As part of the run-up to the 18th Party Congress this fall and subsequent leadership transition, China Media Project analyzes a full-poge spread in People’s Daily on political reform, which utilizes the catch-phrases, “protecting rights” and “checking power”:

In terms of breadth and boldness, the People’s Daily series is nothing to write home about. Most of the language is a song of self congratulation from China’s leaders about the progress they say they have already made on political reform.

On issues many would regard as fundamental to substantive and meaningful political reform, the People’s Daily series seems to shut the door. It says quite explicitly, for example, that “the leadership of the Party must be upheld”:

In actively and steadily promoting political reform we must uphold the fundamental political system and basic economic system of our country. We must uphold as one the three [principles of] the leadership of the Party, the people as masters of their own country (人民当家作主), and governing of the country by rule of law.

The obvious problem — arguably the crux of reform itself — is the clear conflict between the first priority, the firm commitment to the leadership of the Chinese Communist Party, and the second and third priorities. Can there really be rule of law if Party leaders can manipulate the courts? And how is the mastery of the public to be exercised?

CMP also translates responses from readers concerned about how the Chinese government can check its own power without a separation of powers

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Editor’s Note: The Word of the Week comes from China Digital Space’s Grass-Mud Horse Lexicon, a glossary of terms created by Chinese netizens and frequently encountered in online political discussions. These are the words of China’s online “resistance discourse,” used to mock and subvert the official language around censorship and political correctness.

If you are interested in participating in this project by submitting and/or translating terms, please contact the CDT editors at CDT [at] chinadigitaltimes [dot] net.

法律不是挡箭牌 (fǎ lǜ bú shì dǎng jiàn pái): the law is not a shield

This statement was made by Jiang Yu, the Foreign Ministry Spokesman.

During China’s short lived attempt at following the “Jasmine Revolutions,” of the Middle East, foreign journalists attempting to cover the “revolution” were roughed up by police. At a press conference, journalists asked what law they had violated. The following are Jiang Yu’s comments (translated by Human Rights in China).

Question: Can you clearly tell us the specific clause of Chinese law that we have violated?

Answer: The violation is of relevant regulations regarding the need for an application when going places to interview people. Don’t use the law as a shield. The real problem is that there are people who want to see the world in chaos. They want to make trouble in China. For people with these kinds of motives, I think no law can protect them. I hope everyone will sensibly recognize this problem. If you truly are reporters, then you should behave in accordance with the journalists’ professional standards. While in China you should respect China’s laws and regulations. Looking at the past two situations, those journalists who were waiting for something to happen did not get the news they expected. If during those two days there were people who incited and instigated you to go somewhere for an illegal assembly, I suggest that you promptly report that to the police, in order to, one, protect Beijing’s law and order, and two, protect your own safety, rights, and benefits.

Jiang’s comments were extremely controversial, with many netizens wondering ““what good is the law if it doesn’t protect us?.” Perhaps the most notable response to Jiang Yu’s comments was an editorial in the Southern Weekend by Chen Youxi (陈有西). A partial translation of Chen’s comments are below, as translated by the China Media Project.

During the “Cultural Revolution” there was nothing left of the law, and this caused the entire nation to slide into civil strife. Injustice prevailed everywhere, and even the chairman of the republic [Liu Shaoqi] could not be protected. To a large extent it was in drawing lessons from this tragedy that our past 30 years of opening and reform have been not just 30 years of economic reform, but also 30 years of rapid development in building a legal system.

“The law should not be used as a shield” is perhaps just a momentary slip of the tongue, but it reveals the hidden thoughts of a number of officials, and it is worrisome. It gives people the impression that China’s legal system is little more than a slogan or an accessory, something that can be used when it suits the purpose. When the government requires the law, the law can serve as a set of mandatory rules the population must respect; when it seems the law restrains one’s hand, it can be set aside. It’s as though the law is one-directional, serving to check the population but not to check power. If the law comes to be used as a tool, then clearly it is seen as something without sacred importance and not deserving of reverence — just as something utilitarian.

More recently, cartoonist Crazy Crab of Hexie Farm used this phrase when depicting a Foreign Ministry press conference following the expulsion of Al Jazeera correspondent Melissa Chan from China.

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The conventional wisdom is that there could be nothing more dangerous to North Korea’s current leadership than the penetration of information into the country from the outside world.  A new empirical study released last week by Nat Ketchum and Jane Kim entitled “A Quiet Opening: North Koreans in a Changing Media Environment” draws on surveys and interviews from North Korean refugees to show that information penetration is changing North Korea, but the result has been an evolutionary change of circumstances in North Korea rather than uprising or revolution.

Almost four-fifths of survey respondents indicated that word of mouth is the most common means by which information is disseminated in North Korea. Two-fifths of respondents identified DVDs and official state media as primary sources of information, and about one-fifth of respondents acknowledged South Korean and foreign media as important sources of information in North Korea.  This data confirms that North Korea is a society where rumors travel fast. Prohibitions on “horizontal” transmission of information are increasingly ineffective.  The state media is increasingly challenged as an official source of information and entertainment, not only by rumors, but also by better produced propaganda-free entertainment offerings from South Korea.

An irony of the report is that a primary catalyst driving consumption of South Korean cultural products in the North appears to be the sons and daughters of the elite, who have the means to secure and disseminate South Korean materials inside North Korea with relative impunity. Additionally, lowered prices of TVs and DVD players have enabled the spread of South Korean music and dramas to a broad North Korean audience. The growing popularity of these products is a telling indicator of the failure of North Korean propaganda and the potentially powerful influence of South Korean culture, which is changing the behavior patterns and vocabulary of North Korea’s presumed future leaders and people.

But the report also reveals that North Korea’s political system has shown sufficient durability and cohesion to resist upward social mobility for non-elites, even if they have experienced economic success in North Korea’s burgeoning markets, participation in which itself is a major means to access outside information.  North Korea has used outside media for its own purposes, even by inviting external media representatives to cover – and by extension, to validate – critical events such as the September 2010 Party Conference, the funeral of Kim Jong-il, and the 100th anniversary of the birth of the founder, Kim Il-sung.  This strategy backfired when North Korea allowed extensive foreign media coverage in advance of the failed April 11 satellite launch, which provoked an unprecedented admission of failure.

Make no mistake: information penetration is a force for transformation of the North Korean system.  But the timeline for such changes will be frustratingly slow unless additional measures are undertaken to expose North Korea to the outside world.  Ultimately, greater change will require the sons and daughters of North Korea’s elites to do more than just copy South Korean dance moves or popular expressions; they will need to think like South Koreans and the rest of the world.  This is why we need to provide more opportunities for North Koreans to be educated abroad, so that they can truly absorb the information necessary to move North Korea toward reform.

Scott A. Snyder is senior fellow for Korea studies and director of the program on U.S.-Korea policy at the Council on Foreign Relations. He was previously a senior associate in the international relations program of The Asia Foundation and Pacific Forum CSIS. He blogs at Asia Unbound, where this piece originally appeared.

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Peace efforts in Afghanistan suffered another setback Sunday when Mullah Arsala Rahmani, a former deputy minister of education under the Taliban government and an important mediator in the ongoing peace talks, was assassinated. News reports said Rahmani was killed by a gunman while sitting at a traffic light just outside his house in western Kabul. Rahmani had been driving to a meeting of the High Peace Council, the Afghan body tasked with spearheading negotiations with the Taliban. This is the second major casualty the High Peace Council has suffered, following the assassination of the council’s former head, Burhanuddin Rabbani, who was killed last year. Rabbani was killed by a suicide bomber who posed as a peace negotiator to get close to his target. The Guardian reported that Rahmani was “one of several former members of the Taliban who were removed from a U.N. blacklist in July 2011, eliminating a travel ban and an ... Read More...