Shenzhen in 1980
Interesting gallery of 1980 photos of Shenzhen, two years after the beginning of the reform era. Amazing how the sleepy border town of a few thousand has transformed into a 12 million strong metropolis. Recall Lo Wu Bridge wasn’t even that fancy when I crossed it in 1974 en route to Beijing for school.
Geely Takes Over Iconic London Black Cab Maker
China’s privately owned automaker Zhejiang Geely Holding Group Co said on Friday that it has finalized the acquisition for 11.04 million pounds (US$17.46 million) of Manganese Bronze Holdings, the maker of the iconic London black cabs.
The acquisition includes a plant, equipment and property, intellectual property rights and trademarks, said Geely.
The deal also includes Manganese Bronze’s 48 percent stake in a Shanghai joint venture set up with Geely in 2009 and Manganese Bronze’s stock of unsold vehicles.
Geely, which attracted worldwide attention after its acquisition of Swedish car brand Volvo in 2010, was already a shareholder in Manganese Bronze after buying a 19.97 percent stake in separate deals in 2006 and 2010.
Geely’s priority will be to re-establish the production, sales and servicing of vehicles on broadly the same basis as before Manganese Bronze went into administration last October. This will include the continued assembly of the TX4 model at Coventry plant in the UK, the Chinese company said in a statement.
– China Daily/ANN
Geely said that it is looking at the future needs of the London taxi market, with a view to developing new models to follow the TX4, improving energy efficiency and the environmental footprint of the traditional London cabs, as well as examining the potential for entering the private hire market.
“We are delighted to restore the fortunes of this totemic marque which is known, recognized and admired all around the world. Despite its recent difficulties, we have long believed that the company and the black cab have huge potential,” said Li Shufu, Geely’s chairman.
“We also believe that the brand, technology and design know-how of Manganese Bronze will benefit Geely and our own model range,” Li said.
Zhong Shi, an auto analyst based in Beijing, said that the unprofitable Manganese Bronze was “worth buying”, and that the relatively small deal “won’t bring a huge risk to Geely in the future”.
Gwadar Port is China’s Economic Gateway to Middle East
China threat mongers, especially in US and India, will be all over this. But, its main purpose is economic not military.
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China is poised to take over operational control of a strategic deep-water Pakistani seaport that could serve as a vital economic hub for Beijing and perhaps a key military outpost.
UNFINISHED JOB: The construction of the port, in the former fishing village of Gwadar in troubled Baluchistan province, was largely funded by China at a cost of around $200 million. It has been a commercial failure since it opened in 2007, because Pakistan never completed the road network to link the port to the rest of the country.
OVER THE BOW: Chinese control of the port would give it a foothold in one of the world’s most strategic areas and could unsettle officials in Washington, who have been concerned about Beijing’s expanding regional influence. The port on the Arabian Sea occupies a key location between South Asia, Central Asia and the Middle East. It lies near the Strait of Hormuz, gateway for about 20 percent of the world’s oil.
– AP
Chinese MBA Programs Rise in FT’s Top 100, Canadians Mixed
Rankings, in this case, MBA rankings, should always be taken with a grain of salt but they do to some extent serve as barometers of the rapidly changing world of business education. The just released Financial Times 2013 survey of the global top 100 MBA programs featured some ups and downs for Canadian schools and the steady rise of Greater China offerings.
Of the 6 Canadian programs that made the cut, University of Toronto’s Rotman School of Management led the pack placing 46th, down a couple notches from the last FT ranking. The University of British Columbia’s Sauder School of Business showed striking improvement with a huge jump of 25 spots to 57th while York University’s Schulich School of Business moved up 7 notches to 52nd.
But, there were losers too as McGill University’s Desautels Faculty of Management plummeted 15 spots to 76th. Similarly, University of Western Ontario’s Ivey School of Management, which in the past had led the Canadian contingent (along with U. of T.), also dropped 10 spots to 78th. The University of Alberta’s School of Management brought up the rear making the last spot (100th) after a 3 year absence from the list.
The Globe and Mail suggests that UBC Sauder’s dramatic rise owes much to: 1) graduate success in landing well-paying jobs in an uncertain economic environment; 2) more international faculty with 76% hired from abroad; 3) a revamped program that puts more emphasis on international study opportunities.
Murali Chandrashekaran, associate dean for professional graduate programs at UBC said: “Schools that are paying a lot more attention to their global footprint seem to be rewarded in this marketplace. (Students) immerse themselves globally, come back, and become more globally-minded”. This semester, Sauder students have the choice of going to Singapore, Copenhagen, or India to work on projects for two weeks.
FT notes the continued rise of Asian schools, particularly Greater Chinese, in the ranking, totaling 14, up 3 from 2012. 6 are from Greater China with the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology Business School rising to 8th place over prestigious US schools such as MIT Sloan, University of Chicago Booth, Berkeley Haas, Northwestern Kellogg and Yale School of Management. The Chinese University of Hong Kong Business School came in 27th and the University of Hong Kong 31st.
But, more interesting is the rise of mainland schools: Shanghai’s CEIBS climbed 4 places to 15th, Peking University’s Guanghua School of Management made 66th and Fudan University School of Management 89th. US based Hult International Business School with a campus in Shanghai tied for 57th with UBC Sauder. Very surprising, however, is the conspicuous absence of Tsinghua University which has a strong reputation in Greater China.
Joseph Doucet, interim dean of University of Alberta’s business school told the G & M, “Like many other fields, we are seeing an ascendancy [of China], not in terms of numbers of students and schools, but in quality. That points to a more competitive environment for attracting students…and a more competitive environment in which to hire, which points to the value to us in reaching out to international partners”. This year, U. of A. is collaborating with Xi’an Jiaotong University to run Master of Financial Management programs in Shanghai and Shenzhen.
Three Singapore schools appeared on the list (Insead Singapore Campus (6th), Nayang Business School (32nd), and National University of Singapore Business School (36th)) along with two Indian schools (Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad (26th) and Indian School of Business (34th)), and two Korean universities (Sungkyunkwan University SKK GSB (51st) and Korea University Business School (86th)) but no Japanese programs.
The rise of Asian schools has come at the expense of European schools, particularly UK-based which have experienced a continuous slide from 18 on the list in 2009, 14 last year and 11 this year. FT reports that UK restrictions on the number of work visas issued to graduates have hit enrolment hard and even the best schools on the list have seen enrolment down by 20% since 2010. Meanwhile, US schools continued to dominate with 51 on the list and occupying 6 of the 10 top spots – Harvard, Stanford, U. of Penn, Columbia, MIT and U. of Chicago.
‘Freedom’ Versus ‘Tyranny’
Ash isn’t usually this pitiful but the juxaposition in his G & M piece between India the land of the ‘free’ and China the land of ‘tyranny’ is typical of the sort of trash spouted by many Western commentators and editors who adhere resolutely to the political correctness of cheer-leading India at the expense of China.
Both countries face immense developmental problems but China has a much better handle on it. So, instead of distorting things into stark black and white, present a more accurate picture, that both countries are painted in many shades of gray and it take political will, good planning and organization, and a strong work ethnic among the people to better the country.
Refer to a previous post featuring the Q & A of Tom Carter, the author of China: Portrait of a People and note his remarks on India.
Chinese Canadian Feels Out of Place in Beijing
Interesting confession of a Chinese Canadians who is a quintessential ‘banana’. But she ( I am assuming female) represents many second, third or older-generation ethnic Chinese Canadians who find little affinity with mainland Chinese culture, precisely because of their Canadian cultural background. On the one hand, Chinese people are often very ignorant of multi-ethnic, multi-cultural countries like Canada where your looks may be Chinese but culturally completely Canadian/Western. It also has to do with the degree to which the person tries to acculturate and fit in. Albeit, she’s only been in Beijing for a year. Perhaps with time, her sense of alienation will subside somewhat.
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Korean?
No.
Japanese?
No.
… Hong Kong?
No. Canada.
And that’s usually where I lose people.
For the past year I have lived and studied in Beijing, China, and for the past year I have had this conversation, nearly verbatim, countless times. With taxi drivers. With bubble tea vendors. With my professors and tutors. With local friends. None of them seem able to fully wrap their heads around it.
My parents are both from Taiwan, I try to explain, but I was born and raised in Canada.
“Oh,” they pause, hinting momentarily at comprehension. “But you look so Chinese.”
I know I look Chinese. Before I came to China, I thought it was because I was Chinese. It had never occurred to me that holding a foreign passport disqualified me from that birthright. But for Chinese people—those whose government papers match their face—race, language, culture, and nationality are inextricably intertwined. The summertime row over the Diaoyu (NOT Senkaku) Islands and the ensuing outburst of ultra-nationalistic fervour was evidence of just how rigidly China still defines and defends its identity. Lacking the necessary “Chinese” mix made me as foreign, and possibly even more alien, than the blond-haired, blue-eyed creatures instantly recognized as “other.”
Talking with locals only goes so far when it comes to assimilating into Chinese culture. (author right) Ho-Yin Ng
Admittedly, I had a fairly non-traditional Chinese upbringing. Unlike many of my second-generation peers, my childhood was not dominated by an overbearing Tiger Mother who browbeat me into excellence—she used the much tamer though still efficiently Chinese method of bribing good grades out of my sister and me. I was allowed to quit piano without becoming a prodigy; I became bilingual in English and French, not Chinese; and I grew up celebrating Chinese New Year with as much indifference as Christmas. I am also bad at math.
Far from becoming culturally confused or isolated though, I felt perfectly at ease with my hyphenated heritage. No one ever teased me about my accent or questioned my ethnic authenticity.
That is, not until I moved to China.
On paper, it seems like I should have the best of both worlds: the physical credentials to gain entry into the inner circle of Chinese locals as well as the visa status to enjoy the comforts of expatriate life, without the frustrating label of ‘laowai‘ (foreigner) hanging over me. However, the opposite has come true. Rather than finding community everywhere, I seem to fit nowhere.
In my time in Beijing, I have studied Mandarin intensively and tried to immerse myself in the culture; I even find myself growing alarmingly comfortable with the constant pushing, yelling, spitting, squatting, hustling, and bustling of daily Chinese life. But as much as I try to become like my Chinese kin, living here has made me realize just how stark the differences are between the ancestral family I want to bond with and the actual homeland I belong to.
It’s not just that I don’t share any common cultural reference points with local Chinese, but also that our life experiences and how we experienced them are literally worlds apart.
Although I have had many interesting conversations with Chinese people, it has never felt like more than just words being spoken toward each other. Even on the most global topics like love and money, there is very little in their stories or mine that the other side can grasp hold of. It is only with fellow foreigners that I can relate and empathize about childhood memories, family relationships, and future aspirations.
Despite superficial similarities, there remains a divide between native- and foreign-born Chinese. May Jeong
While language and culture put me in the minority, it is not a visible minority. Ironically, just as my Chinese looks cause much consternation among locals, it causes indifference among the countrymen I psychically reach for. I disappear in the crowd: just another Chinese face in the sea of presumed strangers. The camaraderie shared among foreigners—the exchanges of knowing glances or sympathetic smiles that say, “I feel the same way; I’m there with you”—eludes me. Instead, with over-enunciated enthusiasm, I have repeatedly been told, “Your English is so good.”
Of course, my experience is not unique. Rough estimates put the number of overseas Chinese at close to 47 million worldwide, and I am clearly not the only one who has decided to venture back. My experience is also not universal. Among us descendants of Chinese immigrants, there is a wide spectrum of acculturation. Some are raised as if they never left China, only in a different country. Others come to China and discover they are more at home here than where they were born.
I likely sit on the far edge of assimilation. In China, I have found adventure and opportunity, but so far no sense of place. I wonder if that could change. If I live here long enough, study the language hard enough, want it bad enough, will I finally feel Chinese enough? Will the questions about my looks and language go away? Will I ever just be Chinese?
– Quartz
Backpacker-Photographer’s New Photo Book of China
In the following interview with Reuters, Tom Carter, the author, offers some candid views about his travels in China. In addition, his comments on the so-called ‘China vs. India’ debate is telling, especially for those who constantly hold up India as Western democracy’s counter to China. Ideology cannot and does not solve the immense problems of development.
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Tom Carter found himself homeless, jobless, with little money and 6,000 miles from home after answering a job posting on Craigslist that turned out to be a scam.
But rather than return to San Francisco, Carter found a teaching job along China’s Yellow River Delta, which is a world away from Beijing and Shanghai.
Two years later, in 2006, he saved enough to embark on a 35,000-mile (56,325-km) two-year journey to every corner of China that inspired his 600-plus page photography book, “China: Portrait of a People.”
“I was literally just a dusty backpacker who just wanted to travel and see the country. My eyes were open to everything,” the 39-year-old said.
Carter, who is married to a Chinese woman and a new father, spoke with Reuters in a telephone interview about his journey and reconciling the old with the new.
Q: How many years have you been in China?
A: “I arrived in 2004. I stayed for four straight years, so I didn’t even go home for holidays or anything. In 2008 I decided to move to Japan for a year, just to give that a try. I was living up in Beijing at the time and it was just getting weird with the Olympics … I saved up to go to India the following year, so all of India in 2009 … We came back to China and realized this was going to be home.”
Q: A lot of your photos show striking contrasts between old and new, rich and poor. How do you reconcile the disparities?
A: “It’s like watching a child mature and grow, but on fast forward … I think progress and change is inevitable. You can’t lament it. But I think the way the Chinese government has gone about it has been a little bit shameful. (It is) like they’re purposefully trying to erase swaths of history and culture because they want to catch up with America and Japan.
“What they do now is say, ‘We understand some people want to see that traditional villages still exist, so we’ll build a new old village.’ They turn it into a tourist zone and it’s all fake, it just looks old and they think that’s good enough. It’s not.”
Q: How do you think the Chinese are adapting to the changes?
A: “Everything is off-balance and that doesn’t really make a lot of sense to anyone, especially to the villagers who are still living in poverty out on the other side of the country. Meanwhile, people are driving Ferraris down the street in Shanghai. These aren’t rich people. These are middle class people who can afford a Ferrari … You can’t have that much economic disparity and regional disparity without consequences.”
Q: From your travels, how do India and China compare?
A: “I think that India is about a century behind China still as far as infrastructure and modernization. I think I can say that with relative authority having traveled on the ground all over – north, south, east and west. It’s a really, really magnificent country. The culture and the religions are just amazing to witness and to see. I love it … But politically and economically, I can honestly say that I do not believe that India is any kind of competition for China.”
Q: Why the disparity?
A: “I believe it’s a combination of rampant corruption, and just a kind of defeatist attitude. I’m not talking about the average Indian person. I’m talking about the government itself … People say Chinese leaders are shameless about their corruption, but I think India’s on a whole new scale.”
Q: How did you get so immersed in photography?
A: “The camera was really a gateway into introducing me to people, ways of life I otherwise might not have had an access to … There’s a realism that you feel in the book that you don’t get with other books about China, that are really glossy, and have been Photoshopped and are really pretty to look at.”
Q: What else are you working on now? What are your goals?
A: “My head is just exploding with ideas … I’ve got about five different book projects on the burner as we speak – in addition to teaching full time, which I do in Shanghai, and in addition to starting a family.”
Q: Why have you only returned to the United States once?
A: “I don’t feel there’s anything in America for me right now. I see myself as a citizen of the world and I’d rather just keep traveling and seeing as much of the world as possible. And I think actually more people need to do that. I think travel and immersing yourself in new cultures – that’s the key – that’s the secret to world peace. War’s not actually working.”
Yingli Ties Up With WWF on Green Plan
The World Wildlife Fund says a Chinese solar cell manufacturer is the first company in that country to join the fund’s Climate Saver program.
Yingli Green Energy Holding Co., Ltd., a solar energy company based in Baoding in north China’s Hebei province, is the first Chinese company to set a specific renewable electricity consumption target, the WWF said.
Yingli has agreed to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions per megawatt of solar power module production by 13 percent by the end of 2015 in comparison to 2010 levels, China’s state-run Xinhua news agency reported Wednesday.
The Climate Savers program has the participation of 30 member companies that have set targets for emission reduction and are working to implement solutions for a clean, low carbon economy, the WWF said.
– UPI
Yukon Huang: Break Up China’s ‘Big Four’
The former WB China Chief is spot on in this commentary.
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What is the problem with China’s banks?
Governance is the issue in a state-dominated activity that provides the glue for much of China’s economy. The incentives for prudent risk taking and adherence to commercial objectives are weak for these banks given their near monopoly position and government interventions. In this environment, admonitions for improved management can only go so far.
The challenge is to introduce more competition in a system that politically will continue to be dominated by the state and where vested interests are exceptionally strong. Given this reality, there are nevertheless actions that could help improve performance. One would be liberalising entry of foreign banks whose presence in China is miniscule at present. This would spur competition and innovation and, contrary to what is believed in China, strengthen rather than weaken the performance of state-owned banks.
A more radical action would be to confront China’s own version of the west’s problem of their banks being “too big to fail”. The counterpart for China is that the big four state-owned banks are “too big to manage”. Breaking them up into three regional banks each would be a powerful means to foster competition and improve governance. This has been a process that has worked well before when China split its national airline into numerous regional entities which then subjected to market pressures resulted in a manageable number of more efficient but still state-owned companies.
These split-up banks would be headquartered in various provinces rather than in Beijing and thus less influenced by politically driven mandates but more by the real needs in their localities. They would not be restricted to operating only in their originating regions but could expand elsewhere and eventually develop a national presence. But they would need to become more commercially oriented and efficient to survive. In this process, some of them would be motivated to seek external partners, as has happened with the airlines, and this would help open the door for increased foreign participation and provide support for further liberalisation.
The author is senior associate at the Carnegie Endowment and a former World Bank country director for China
For entire commentary, see: http://blogs.ft.com/the-a-list/2013/01/29/chinas-banks-have-become-too-big-to-manage/?ftcamp=crm/email/2013129/nbe/ExclusiveComment/product#axzz2JPmiEGoH
Japanese Ex-Ambassador to China: Japan Erred in Diaoyu Row
The devil behind Japan’s provocative actions is of course Ishihara Shintaro, the combative anti-China icon of the Japanese extreme Right. He’s the tail that wagged the dog. Former Ambassador Niwa displays refreshing frankness on the issue.
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Japan’s former envoy to China says his country erred in choosing to buy islands claimed by both Japan and China last fall, infuriating Beijing, and now both sides have no choice but to allow the issue to cool.
Uichiro Niwa, a former trading house executive who served as ambassador to Beijing from mid-2010 until late last year, told reporters on Monday that the purchase of the uninhabited islands in the East China Sea by Japan’s central government was poorly timed and seemed driven by factors he could not explain.
“They may have had access to information that I didn’t know,” Niwa said at the Foreign Correspondents’ Club of Japan. “But from my personal point of view the timing was bad.”
Niwa, the first private sector figure to be chosen as ambassador to China, found himself at odds with the Japanese government, especially after then-Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda pushed ahead with a plan to buy several of the islands from their private owner.
The purchase was apparently aimed at pre-empting a plan by outspoken Tokyo Gov. Shintaro Ishihara to not only buy the islands but develop them, but Beijing was outraged. The islands, known as the Diaoyu in China and the Senkakus in Japan, have been under Japanese control for decades, but Beijing says they have been Chinese territory for centuries. Taiwan also claims them.
The purchase prompted sometimes violent anti-Japanese protests in China and hammered exports to Japan’s biggest overseas market.
“The Japanese government should have taken into account the possibility that this may have been a point of contention,” Niwa said. At the very least, he said, Japan needed to provide “a better explanation to China and to the international community.”
Niwa, whose former company Itochu Corp. has extensive interests in China, faced criticism from some in Japan for not being tough enough toward China regarding the disputed islands, which are surrounded by rich fishing grounds and a potential wealth of gas, oil and other undersea resources.
The first envoy named to replace Niwa, Shinichi Nishimiya, died before he could take up his position in Beijing, which was later filled by veteran diplomat Masato Kitera.
Apart from confrontations between Chinese and Japanese vessels near the islands, both sides have scrambled fighter jets to trail each other’s planes, raising the risk of missteps that could lead to a clash.
Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, who took office a month ago following a landslide parliamentary election victory by the Liberal Democratic Party, appears to be seeking to cool tensions. Last week, a senior envoy conveyed a letter from Abe to Chinese leader Xi Jinping that struck a cordial tone and noted the two sides’ “shared responsibility for peace and prosperity” in the region. Former Japanese Prime Minister Tomiichi Murayama arrived in China on Monday in the latest effort to use diplomatic backchannels to improve ties. Former prime minister Yukio Hatoyama also recently visited. Both senior leaders are considered friendly to China.
Niwa said that based on his many meetings with top communist party officials, he believed Beijing would not want the territorial tensions to veer into armed conflict. But he said he believed the Chinese side viewed Tokyo’s actions as a violation of an unstated agreement to avoid raising the dispute.
“There was a feeling on the Chinese side that Japan violated a relationship of trust,” he said. Coming shortly after a meeting between Noda and Chinese President Hu Jintao, it was viewed in Beijing as an “insult.” “It is unfortunate the Japanese side misread the situation,” he said.
– AP