While you were out...someone blew himself up in your city

So remember the new year? That was way back at the end of January, when 1.4 billion people set off firecrackers and fireworks like it was going outta style, and the country erupted in an earsplitting but benign blizzard of explosions and mixed metaphors. For weeks on end, it sounded as though we were in the middle of a bullet-riddled war zone.

Eventually, the ignorant and explosion-shy waiguoren gets used to it, laughs it off, stops jumping every time she hears the noise and becomes accustomed to the gunpowder constantly hanging in the air. Rah.

Then, a while after returning to Shanghai from Henan via some other places, I find this.

A man triggered an explosion, possibly by blowing himself up, up on New Year's Eve--Jan. 25--outside the Public Security Bureau's Jin'an neighbourhood headquarters. No one was hurt. A man-hunt us underway in Hunan, where the bomber is believed to have been from.

What freaks me out about this is not so much the bombing itself, although to be honest I find it moderately scary.

But what genuinely, truly freaks me right the fuck out is that this wasn't. reported. anywhere.

I admit, my Chinese-reading skillz are, um, crappy at best. So it's possible it's run in a bunch of Chinese-language papers I haven't been able to find. But according to the WSJ blog post, it appeared briefly in a Changsha paper and was then taken down. Now, no one will talk about it.

What the hell?

A friend of mine, who is Chinese and one of the most well-informed people I know, had never heard about this. She says that's not uncommon, however: "Maybe it's just a stereotype, [but] it seems that I've heard a lot of unbelievable news that 'the government' tries to hide," she said.

It's true China's government kinda sorta has some public-disclosure issues. But gone are the days when something truly catastrophic could happen--say, millions of people starving to death--without anybody knowing about it.

...right?

Dude, where are my bronze animal heads?

China is thoroughly unimpressed with Christie's for auctioning off a pair of bronze animal heads--a rabbit and a rat--in Paris this week. The government's State Administration of Cultural Heritage issued a statement earlier today condemning the sale and threatening "serious effects" on "Christie's development in China" if it went ahead.

Apparently this means Chinese customs is going to be extra wary when checking antique-y stuff Christie's representatives try to take out of the country. What exactly they were doing before with potential cultural relics, I'm not sure.

The story has been all over CCTV for the past couple of days, playing on a loop on the mini televisions in buses across the city. Christie's probably never got so much Chinese airtime.

Behind the beef is the claim the items were looted from Beijing's Summer Palace in 1860, when Anglo-French invaders sacked and looted the place at the end of the second Opium War.

This brings up interesting issues of relic ownership, especially because much of the artsy historical stuff at most European and North American museums has been looted from somewhere (*cough* Greek marbles, Haida canoes). If an item originated in one place and was pilfered half a dozen times before falling into the hands of a rich museum or philanthropist, who gets to keep it? At what point does the colonial douchebaggery end?

As the Telegraph's Richard Spencer points out, it's even more complicated in this case: Although the Summer Palace's looting was a colossal mistake, those bronzes were designed by Europeans to adorn a fountain built for a Chinese emperor. It isn't clear whether they were looted by Europeans or Chinese.

Plus, let's face it: Those heads are pretty ugly.

Photo courtesy of Christie's. Or the Qianlong Emperor. Whichever.

Even Canada thinks Canada's China policies suck: Xinhua

I can almost guarantee Chinese state media care way more about this than anyone in Ottawa.

Which, I guess, is kind of the point.

Hey, big spender

It ain't for nothing the Chinese term for "financial crisis" (金融危机; jinrong weiji) contains the word ji 机--opportunity.

As corporate titans around the world scramble for cash to avoid going belly up, China is becoming an unlikely sugar daddy.

As the Christian Science Monitor reports, Chinese companies are on an "international spending spree," buying up stakes in everything from U.S. auto manufacturers to Canadian oil firms to Australian mining companies.

Massive loans to Russia and Brazil--to the tune of $25 billion and $10 billion, respectively--has China swimming in oil.

It seems odd: Local exporters, especially smaller factories, are struggling to stay afloat as foreign demand dives. But both state-owned enterprises, surprisingly flush for cash and with the government's directive to secure massive amounts of commodities and natural resources, and opportunistic private companies are getting in on the game.

It's an exciting time for a country unused to acquiring foreign assets--a bit of a coming-out party for Chinese titans and a welcome reversal of that "century of humiliation" when European and American commercial interests plundered the Middle Kingdom for all it was worth.

Needless to say, becoming everyone's favourite bailout provider (well, maybe after the U.S. Fed. But whatever) has its pitfalls: Australia has yet to approve the Rio Tinto/Chinalco deal and some fear foreign ownership of national industries, especially given the involvement of government and government-backed companies in these high-rolling deals. And China has its own troubled manufacturing sector and ballooning unemployment rate to worry about.

But for now, Chinese firms seem happy to troll the globe's bargain basements. And I doubt the companies on the receiving end of the cash are going to complain.

"We will get along very well"

She came. She saw. She schmoozed it up with some Chinese dignitaries.

Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton seems to have hit all the right notes during her whirlwind trip to the Middle Kingdom.

She emphasized China's vital role in helping the global economy back onto its feet, while aggressively downplaying any suggestions of protectionism brought on by the watered-down-to-the-point-of-irrelevance "Buy American" clause in the latest stimulus package. Her suggestion that Americans and Chinese could trade financial traits, with the former saving more and the latter spending more, would be funny if it weren't kind of sad.

She urged the Chinese government to take a leading role in combating climate change, tackling head-on the claim that China's just industrializing the same way the U.S. and Europe did way back on the late 19th century--in an extremely unsustainable manner.

“When we were industrializing and growing, we didn’t know any better; neither did Europe,” she said during a visit to a geothermal power plant. “Now we’re smart enough to figure out how to have the right kind of growth.”

Well, uh, I might debate that last point. But whatever; I'm sure the people giving Hillary her tour were just glad she wasn't touring nearby Tianjin's factories, or testing Beijing's air quality.

China has been under a lot of pressure to clean up its environmental act, and despite continuing protestations that the rest of the world is just a big bully and should pay attention to its own dirty power and overflowing landfills, the government until recently had been doing a lot to highlight its any and all attempts to "green" construction, manufacturing and transportation. Of course that all has changed thanks to the jinrong weiji, which took environmental concerns off the table to replace them with the overarching, panicked imperative to keep the economy churning at as fast a pace as possible.

Although stimulus plans in Canada and the U.S. have made environmental initiatives a priority, China's government has focused on infrastructure, lending and gettings its population to buy something--anything. Less reusing and recycling, more consumption, dammit!

But anyway.

More significant is what wasn't mentioned during Clinton's visit--namely, human rights concerns. A hypersensitive issue in China at the best of times, the minggan factor grew exponentially given the timing--months before the 20th anniversary of the infamous Tian'anmen Square massacre and a few short weeks before the 50th anniversary of a massive uprising in Tibet.

Recently, China underwent its first UN Human Rights Council review. It was awkward.

China got kudos for its success in reducing poverty, and breathless requests for advice from the Philippines, Algeria, Vietnam and Malaysia as to how they could do the same.

But Zhongguo's dignitaries were unimpressed by persnickety questions from the Canuck and Aussie camps: What about those alleged arbitrary detentions of Tibetans, Uyghurs, Mongols and Falun Gong? When is China going to publish a list of annual executions and set up an independent human rights institution?

Requests like these "did not enjoy the support of China."

Oh, snap.

The U.S. didn't say much then, and its emissary didn't say much this weekend.

Phew.




Clip courtesy of AP and China TV. Not YouTube because mYouTube here is a stinking pile of melamine.

The Americans are coming! The Americans are coming!

Well, just one American, actually. But she happens to be a pretty important one.

Hillary Rodham Clinton started her whirlwind tour today. She heads to China later this week.

The East Asian exravaganza, Clinton's first as U.S. Secretary of State, is also the Obama administation's first chance to prove its foreign policies and methods of engagement are a demonstrable improvement from those of the previous American government.

Clinton indicated as much in Tokyo today:

“America is ready to listen again. Too often in the recent past, our government has not heard the different perspectives of people around the world. In the Obama administration, we intend to change that.”

That's no doubt something a lot of people in this region are glad to hear.

Chinese people I've spoken with still seem unsure how they feel about the new U.S. administration. Sure, Obama's a pretty inspiring guy, one friend told me. But she remains unconvinced he--or any Americans, for that matter--are anything but ignorant of China, eager to criticize the country for nitpicky misdemeanours but slow to praise this newcomer to the superpower stage for things it does right.

There's also the fear Obama & Co. will pressure China on fronts on which the Bush administration was mercifully (in their view) silent--on climate change and human rights, particularly. And the "Buy American" clause is as frightening for Chinese companies and factories as it is for Canadians and Europeans who've been vocally calling foul.

Although it obviously doesn't rival the superstar U.S. president's seven hours spent in Jianada's chilly capital, this visit and its results should at the very least be interesting.

How not to behave at a Chinese wedding: A user's guide

So my friend invited me to her friend's wedding.

I don't know why she did this. I wouldn't invite myself to my own wedding, let alone the wedding of a close friend. I'm fairly certain at least part of the reason for this unwarrantedly generous invite was the semi-awkward nature of the event: Both bride and groom were former colleagues, and that meant the whole office was invited--including my friend's former boss. Potentially awkard? I guess. But in a worst-case scenario, a random waiguoren guest can act as a handy human shield.

One interesting thing about this event was a total lack of anything North Americans would consider a "wedding ceremony." There was a brief spiel by the maitre d', a friend of the couple, who brought them both on stage and gave a brief speech on how much they loved each other. There was cake-cutting. But no formal ring exchange, no public contract-signing; certainly no religious overtones whatsoever (although rumours flew that this was a shotgun wedding because the bride is pregnant. Don't ask me).

Instead there was a catered dinner at a fancy dining hall in Shanghai's "Circus World." No circus, no acrobats and no prancing horses in this particular event, unfortunately.

But there was an open bar. And half a dozen Chinese men who thought it would be great fun to engage the waiguoren in a drinking contest. So who's complaining?

Memo to global economy: Don't expect a bailout from Chinese consumers

It's been one of those weeks: The U.S. Congress passed another multi-billion-dollar stimulus plan whose exact execution no one seems to understand; xenophobia's getting uglier in the U.K., where unions are up in arms over another deal with an overseas manufacturer; the G7(8?) is meeting soon but no one really seems to know what good they could possibly do, anyway.

To what remedy could the world possibly turn to save us from this spiralling, panic-ridden economic mess?

I know! Get China to fix it!

Yes, the clarion call for Asian (read: Chinese) consumers to pick up the purchasing slack and buy stuff--lots of it--is still out there.

Even former Canadian prime miniser Paul Martin is insisting economic salvation will come in the form of ramped up consumer spending in the Middle Kingdom.

"The consumer today who is really generating the large savings, but whose consumer needs have not been met, is the Asian consumer....And that consumer is going to have to step in and fill the breach."

Well. Maybe that'll happen...and maybe not.

Things aren't looking all that economically rosy in Zhongguo: Exports plummeted a mind-boggling 17.5 per cent in January compared to January, 2008--a scary number when you consider China's become accustomed to double-digit growth. Until a few months ago, the biggest economic problem worrying policymakers was how to slow down an overheated economy.

Along with that precipitous drop in exports is a plunge in imports-- a dizzying 41.3 per cent. That means fewer commodities (yeah, sucks to be Jianada) to feed and fuel a country of 1.4 billion people who are spending less in the face of a truly global economic slowdown.

It's easy to look at China's huge population and think, "Totally: These people live in the world's third-largest and fastest-growing economy. Why can't they just start buying stuff, and help the rest of us out?"

Chinese people save, on average, about 30 per cent of their income. This is enormous--especially when you consider that up until very, very recently, Americans spent more than 100 per cent of what they made (hello, credit-based society).

True--in some ways Chinese people in a less crappy economic situation than your average American, saddled with a mortgage and credit-card debt and other fun stuff.

But Chinese people save because for most of the past 60 years, the Chinese government's explicit policy was to train its domestic population to consume as little as possible, focusing on an export market driven by an army of low-paid workers. Sure, in the past few years consumption here has risen immensely. Purchases of such luxury items as cars has risen by more than 20 per cent year on year. But those rising numbers are deceptive: China's middle- and upper-class consumers are buying far, far more than they were before because a couple of decades ago such purchases were simply out of the question. Per capita consumption, like per capita income, is still pretty miniscule--especially when compared to the U.S. buyers everyone wants Chinese people to emulate.

And spend more is the last thing anyone in this country wants to do.

There are more than 20 million unemployed migrant workers in limbo between rural and urban areas, trying to figure out how they're going to feed their families in the midst of the biggest drought in more than 50 years. Employees everywhere fear layoffs as companies--many of them the private, foreign enterprises that have become so prized in commercial hubs like Shanghai--close, often without paying staff members what they're owed.

To put it mildly, these people aren't exactly dashing to the nearest mall to buy the latest flatscreen HD television.

And trust me, Beijing's trying.

In January the central government halved taxes on small vehicle purchases. Last week Beijing rolled out a national program offering farmers a 13 per cent rebate on such expensive items as cell phones, televisions and refrigerators.

The government has also announced billions of yuan in funding for health care. The hope is that if people don't have to save up for fear of getting sick and having to pay sky-high medical bills they'll spend that money on a trip to Ha'erbin or a new Lenovo laptop.

No go.

Instead, thousands of people are posting to online forums urging them to live on no more than 100 yuan a week. They swap posts on how they're biking to work, making their lunches at home and cutting back on entertainment costs.

Electricity consumption has fallen to an eight-year low across the country—a sharp contrast to last year's power outages thanks to undersupply.

A January survey found almost two-thirds of respondents—all of them urban, middle-class Chinese—plan to cut back on spending, if they haven't already.

No one I've spoken to plans to spend more than before. Like their North American counterparts, they're terrified of being fired and, if anything, are cutting back in a big way. They laugh when I ask if they think the 4-trillion-yuan stimulus promised last fall will push them to shopping malls (well, okay, they could just be laughing because I'm awkward and foreign. But they laugh harder when I ask about the stimulus).

In the meantime, Beijing has its hands full trying to prevent mass unrest over the worsening economic situation. Plummeting purchases may be bad. But desperate, jobless migrants and freaked-out, jobless college grads will be a lot worse if they riot.

If ramped up Chinese consumption is the bailout the rest of the world is looking for, we should perhaps start casting around for a more stimulating Plan B.

Trouble brewing: Part three

China is facing its worst drought in half a century. Thousands of hectares of land in the country's north are facing severe dry conditions: Crops and livestock are dying and millions of people are facing water shortages.

Beijing announced yesterday it's pouring 86.7 billion yuan into drought-hit areas, much of it going towards "relief materials" and to supplement farmers' incomes. Local governments get 300 million.


This would be a disaster at any time. But thanks to the jinrong weiji, 20 million migrants are out of work and heading back to the farms they'd left behind because they couldn't support themselves and their families on the paltry sums their tiny acreages brought in. Although some people will be able to find alternative sources of income, it's fair to hypothesize that many (if not most) of these nong min gong will have to go back to farming, full-time--just as a massive drought is wreaking havoc with harvests that are puny to begin with.


Added to that, of course, are the millions of people in both rural and urban areas who rely on those crops for food. As they, too, face layoffs and cancelled annual bonuses, it's unlikely they'll be able to pay more for food that's now become scarcer.

At the same time, this further frustrates Beijing's hopes it can turn its billion-strong population into ardent consumers and ride out the recession on domestic purchases: On Thursday the government announced a nationwide 13 per cent rebate for farmers purchasing big-ticket items ranging from cell phones to colour TVs to refrigerators.

Those expected purchases are looking a lot less likely now, when farmers have nothing to refrigerate.


For now, Beijing has the luxury of pouring cash into farmers' pockets in an attempt to assuage the damage (and subsequent instability and disharmony) this drought will cause, although it's questionable just how much good that will do. But the government can only shovel so much money around at one time: Last fall it promised a four-trillion-yuan stimulus package to boost the country's flailing economy. After millions of yuan was spent in the last quarter of 2008, the government posted a 111-billion yuan deficit. Beijing still has a pretty hefty spending power, but eventually it's going to run out of cash.

Or it could just start calling in U.S. debt.

A geographic recap

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Aitch-Kay

So I needed to go to Hong Kong to get a new visa.

Why did I need to do this? Because you can't get a new visa in China; you have to "leave the country" to do that, and then apply from a Chinese embassy wherever you happen to be.

Okay, makes sense. A little anal, but whatever.

But, hold the jiaozi a second: Hong Kong is in China--has been since 1997, when the Brits handed it over after more than 150 years of jolly good colonial-ish rule.

Ha! Joke's on you, Chinese visa office!

Well, no: Joke's on whatever hapless idiot thinks Hong Kong and the People's Republic of China area really, truly the same country.

I made that mistake on my way in, when I fell asleep on the bus from the Shenzhen airport and was shocked to find myself lost and disoriented at not one but two alienating customs checks--one for China and one for Hong Kong. Each of these took a ridiculous amount of time, so I amused myself looking at the frightening posters of what happens to you if you bring raw or live birds into Hong Kong from the Mainland (hint: it isn't fun).

The "We're not in Kansas, anymore" feeling just intensified once I got into HK.

Everyone drove on the wrong side of the street. Even stranger, everone obeyed traffic laws. No, seriously.

Everyone spoke Cantonhua. What's more, they were horrifically offended when I tried to get by on the Putonghua that was getting me places on the Mainland.

The common currency is the Hong Kong dollar, which is worth just a little less than the Renminbi. The new coins and bills looked snazzy and shiny. But the old ones had a familiar profile: Queen Liz II, staring back at me for the first time in six months. It was weird.

To my delight, the Internet was uncensored. I got my fill of all the Wordpress blogs I never get to read, and then just to make a point I checked out Amnesty International, Students for a Free Tibet and the World Uyghur Association websites (really mature, I know).

If Shanghai tries to be New York, Hong Kong aspires to embody London. And to a surprising extent, it succeeds. Leaving aside the British architecture, the double-decker buses and trams (or "ding-dings," as a friend assured me they're colloqiually called) and the British-accented voice on the subway telling passengers to "mind the gap," there's a distinctly London-y feel to the place. And Hong Kongers know it--they carry themselves with a much more cosmopolitan air, and are quick to assure you that although they're as Chinese as anyone from Guangdong, Shanghai or Beijing, they certainly aren't the same as Mainland residents.

Okay. Point taken.

The fascinating and puzzling thing, though, is that technically Hong Kong is still ruled by Beijing--the same government that controls Anhui, Qinghai and Liaoning. Through a bizarre series of legislation I'm still trying to get my head around, Hong Kong and Macau (which was handed over by the Portuguese in 1999, two years after HK) get to carry on more or less the same as they were before. In fact, many people who fled to countries like Canada in the mid-1990s, fearing crazy, apocalyptic crackdowns, have returned to Hong Kong because there are fewer market constraints.

What threw me for a loop the most while in Hong Kong was the overt political protest. Within 24 hours of my arrival I passed Falun Gong posters and protesters in two separate locations on glitzy Hong Kong Island, as well as a public protest whose exact purpose I couldn't ascertain but which I could tell wasn't very favourable towards the Chinese government.

Shit like this would get you disappeared in seconds on the Mainland.

But all this political free-wheeling is catching up with Hong Kong: Last month Macau signed into law legislation on Article 23, part of its constitution that deals with acts of sedition, state secrets and other fun stuff.

Article 23 has been part of HK and Macau's "mini constitutions" for years, but there has never been any laws articulated to back it up. In 2003, huge protests erupted in Hong Kong because the government tried to enact Article 23-related legislation and people were afraid the vague definitions used would effectively clamp down on protest and free speech, PRC style.

The government backed down then, but some people fear Macau's legislation could set a precedent for its more politically vocal and economically central cousin to follow suit.

Interesting times.

Rhymes with maul

I know my flatmate was desperate when she made me her designated shopper.

I think she knew it, too: She gave me a detailed list of all the cosmetics she wanted in Hong Kong, helpfully including photos, estimated prices and descriptions in English and Hanzi.

What choice did she have? HK is where the Mainland shops for toiletries, makeup and all the luxury items that aren't available in the old-school PRC. I was going to Hong Kong. Therefore, it was my duty to bring her back the coveted items she so desperately desired she would trust them in the hands of someone whose only makeup purchases in the past 20 years have consisted of lip balm, moisturizing lotion and, on a couple of occasions, lipstick.

In an effort to prove myself less than totally incompetent, I accepted this charge with as much grace as I could muster (hint: not much).

But, fuck. It wasn't easy.

I should make one thing very clear: I hate malls. Can't stand the things. Their eerie, too-bright lighting and zombie-like crowds fill me simultaneously with claustrophobia and agoraphobia; the maze of hallways disorients me and I grow increasingly panicky as I search fruitlessly for stores and products I'm sure are right in front of me but I can't see for the glare and everyone else seems to know exactly where they're going and is it just me or is the stale air growing more sickly sweet the longer I stay here and HOLY CRAP WHERE IS THE EXIT?

So, yeah. It was rough.

Finally, after putting myself at the mercy of several jaded salespersons, I found the desired brands and paid more than any sane person ever would for a bunch of products whose purpose I'm still struggling to identify. I think you smear it on your face. But that's mostly guesswork on my part.

Chungking Mansion (or, where to stay in Hong Kong if you're into being fascinated and mildly terrified)

I wanted to find somewhere cheap to stay in Hong Kong. This was easier said than done: The place is about a zillion times more expensive than the Mainland; prices rival even those of North America. I spent my first 24 hours in the city in sticker shock.

But before I came, the cheapest hostels I could find online were all at the same address. When I arrived, exhausted and disoriented from a surreal customs experience, I took a cab to the one address I had, and arrived at Chungking Mansion.

Imagine an enormous concrete honeycomb.

Now double it in size.

Now cover it in grime and fill it with people.

That's kind of what Chungking Mansion is like.

The building has four "blocks," each of which has 15 floors. Each floor has at least three hostels, with a couple of dozen rooms in each one. I'm shit at math, but that works out to thousands of transient people living in this hulking building.

I was one of the more pathetic ones.

Chungking Mansion, I later learned, has become famous as a stopover for migrants of all kinds. One friend called it the most diverse block in Asia, and he could be right. Bangladeshis, Indians, Gambians and Nepalis come here, either looking for a job in Hong Kong or--more likely--getting a Chinese visa.

All in all, it's a very cool place and I met some fascinating people. And it has the best Indian food on this side of Delhi.