Thu, 22 Nov 2007

Growing up during the Cultural Revolution

A book review (in the Christian Science Monitor) of a young-adult novel about a girl growing up in China during the "Cultural Revolution": "Revolution Is Not a Dinner Party", by Ying Chang Compestine.

Posted on 22 Nov 2007 at 11:37 in /china. -- Permalink

Sat, 17 Nov 2007

Arbeitslager in China

Ein deutschsprachiger Artikel über die chinesischen Lager, in denen Kriminelle, Dissidenten, FLG-Anhänger usw. usf. zwecks "Umerziehung durch Arbeit" eingesperrt sind und Zwangsarbeit verrichten müssen. Die Einweisung erfolgt ohne jegliche gerichtliche Überprüfung. Aus der Zeitschrift "Das Parlament".

Posted on 17 Nov 2007 at 22:41 in /china. -- Permalink

Thu, 15 Nov 2007

Executive education in China

China has a dramatic shortage of qualified managers - you know, the sort of business leaders who are able to understand financial reports, know something about marketing, have some organisational skills and recognise the need for motivating their employees. This is why the market for executive MBA programs has exploded. What exactly are Chinese top executives doing there - when they're actually attending class instead of delegating learning to their secretaries? - "Back to School", a funny and interesting article at China International Business.

Posted on 15 Nov 2007 at 14:35 in /china/education. -- Permalink

Wed, 14 Nov 2007

A German visitor at the office

Unexpectedly, a visitor turned up at the office today: a German, who has made a handsome donation to our organisation to mark his wedding - several thousand yuan for Chinese schoolchildren.

Well, when Germans meet far from home, what do they talk about? History! Recent German history, to be precise - the partition of their country and its reunification after the end of the Communist dictatorship in the "German Democratic Republic". Our discussion was especially interesting because our visitor grew up in the Communist eastern part of our country, whereas we are from the western part.

Together, we found a few striking similarities between the "German Democratic Republic" and today's China:

• censorship and thought control (though apparently this works in a more indirect and less systematic way in China - Germans are known to be strict and bureaucratic for a reason ...)
• the ever-present fear and mistrust among people instilled by the Communist Party
• the prevalence of unskilled, manual labour in the economy
• the comparatively low living standards (while people in other countries profit from the work done by the Eastern Germans/the Chinese)
• people's low self-esteem
• people's acceptance of authoritarian treatment by those in power

Maybe these similarities are all the more striking because in many ways, Eastern Germany was very different from today's China. Obviously, with a population of 16 million, it was tiny in comparison. Also, it was heavily industrialised; even agriculture was largely mechanised. It was the richest, most "developed" of all Communist countries. Still, when the Berlin Wall came down, the Eastern German economy was in tatters.

The end of Communism, by the way, came as a complete surprise to everybody - politicians, military and secret service people and all sorts of experts included. A year before the dictatorship fell, it looked like it would last forever.

Posted on 14 Nov 2007 at 18:49 in /china. -- Permalink

Mon, 12 Nov 2007

MDG Monitor

This looks interesting - a website which tracks the Millennium Development Goals (MDG), the 8 big goals which the 192 United Nations member states have agreed to try to achieve by the year 2015. Where does China stand? Here's a factsheet.

Posted on 12 Nov 2007 at 18:09 in /china. -- Permalink

Fri, 09 Nov 2007

Yahoo before Congress again

Yahoo's Jerry Yang and senior counsel Michael Callahan were questioned by the U.S. Congress once more over Yahoo's role in the jailing of journalist Shi Tao by the Chinese authorities. Rebecca MacKinnon has posted quite a detailed write-up, with lots of links to additional sources of information.

(Cf. my earlier blog post.)

Posted on 09 Nov 2007 at 13:51 in /china. -- Permalink

Thu, 08 Nov 2007

Microloans for private schools

Microloans given to private schools - not just, as in the past, to students - have the potential to lead to major improvements in education in developing countries, according to a Christian Science Monitor article. I wonder if Amity could get into this.

Posted on 08 Nov 2007 at 19:26 in /china/education. -- Permalink

HK government encourages e-mail encryption

The Hong Kong Inland Revenue Department points out that e-mail is "vulnerable to third-party interception", encourages people to encrypt e-mail and makes the public key of the department's e-mail address easily available. Moreover, they will reply by e-mail only if you request this and give them your own public key. I'm really impressed!

Posted on 08 Nov 2007 at 15:44 in /china/hong_kong. -- Permalink

Wed, 07 Nov 2007

"Godfather economies" in Asia

I started reading the excerpts from Joe Studwell's recent book, "Asian Godfathers: Money and Power in Hong Kong and South-East Asia". Fascinating reading - very illuminating. Helps me understand why Hong Kong (not to mention some South-East Asian countries) is in such a mess: why its economic and political system is so heavily biased in favour of the "happy few", and why this situation won't change a lot in the foreseeable future.

Thanks to Asia Sentinel for publishing the excerpts.

Posted on 07 Nov 2007 at 11:06 in /china/hong_kong. -- Permalink

Tue, 06 Nov 2007

Martin Lee's WSJ article, and what happened next

What a sad story. Hong Kong legislator Martin Lee writes an article for the Wall Street Journal ("China's Olympic Opportunity", 17 October 2007) - which the pro-Beijing press and pro-Beijing political parties in Hong Kong take as a welcome pretext for attacking him in a huge smear campaign.

It's obvious how nervous the Communists are: a citizen makes use of his right of expression (and, by the way, speaks out against boycotting the 2008 Beijing Olympics!) and is immediately branded as a "traitor", an "unpatriotic" person, somebody who invites "foreign forces" to meddle with China's "internal" affairs. This from those who are constantly meddling with Hong Kong's internal affairs, showing no respect whatsoever for the autonomy granted to Hong Kong by the Chinese government. And as was to be expected, not a single word from the Hong Kong government in defense of a Hong Konger's right to free speech.

Posted on 06 Nov 2007 at 18:26 in /china/hong_kong. -- Permalink

Mon, 05 Nov 2007

Qingdao MTI International School

Nothing to do with the MTI ... A good place nevertheless!

Posted on 05 Nov 2007 at 16:50 in /china/education. -- Permalink