Posts filed under 'China'
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April 30th, 2008, 11:10pm
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I came across the notion of shrinking the world down to 100 people in a blog post by Jim Estill. I figured I’d look into it a bit deeper (I powered up the Google machine), to see what stats I can come across that would surprise me. I came across a film project called “100 People: A World Portrait“.
The project will find and capture in film, photography, music and text 100 individuals who represent the global population, proportionate to annual global surveys and statistics. This World Portrait will be used to make an introduction between the peoples of the earth and to facilitate a greater understanding of the diversity and the commonalities among us.
Looking through the stats of the people who would be part of the ‘ideal’ 100, it’s interesting to compare the world you would picture in 100 people to the actual 100. I’d love to see the same idea applied to one of the world’s many global firms. Take a look at some of the stats after the jump to see how different your image of the global 100 is to the actual. Read More »
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March 18th, 2008, 05:24pm
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Reported today in the New York Times, Hu Jia, a Chinese rights activitist was convicted of subversion for posting critical comments about the government’s treatment of peasants on his blog. Here is an example of his account of how he has been treated. From the article:
One of the most prominent human rights advocates in China stood trial on Tuesday morning on subversion charges in a proceeding that lasted three hours and centered on whether his public criticism of the ruling Communist Party represented a threat to the state. A verdict is possible within a week.
The case of the advocate, Hu Jia, has become an international cause célèbre for many human rights groups that contend the Communist Party is rounding up dissidents to silence criticism of the government before the Olympics in Beijing in August.
On Monday, the European Union presidency called on China to release Mr. Hu and said his arrest undermined the principle of free speech enshrined in the Chinese Constitution.
Mr. Hu, 34, has publicly condemned the Communist Party for failing to fulfill its promises to improve its rights record before the Olympic Games. His lawyer said that prosecutors presented as evidence six unspecified essays written by Mr. Hu and two interviews he conducted with foreign radio outlets.
“We believe his articles are expressing peaceful views that do not concern state security but that represent criticism of the current system,” his lawyer, Li Fangping, said after the trial.
Mr. Li acknowledged that some of Mr. Hu’s comments have been “pungent,” but argued that the government should not ban speech.
There is a discussion underway at the Wall St. Journal Law Blog.
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March 18th, 2008, 02:31pm
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In 2006 my colleague (Deepak Ramachandran) and I did a piece of research entitled Competing with the Asian Business Revolutionaries as the move up and out. The key idea then, as it is now, is that while many Asian upstarts (particularly in China and India) were growing rapidly by mimicing what U.S. competitors were doing while capitalizing on their lower cost structures, increasingly we were seeing signs of true innovation starting to emerge. Hon Hai and ICICI bank were among the earliest examples, there have been many more since, and it is these companies that the “old guard” really has to worry about.
Forbes published an interview with Rebecca Fannin today that delves into this exact topic with an acute focus on China, promoting her new book Silicon Dragon: How China is winning the tech race. In it, she argues that companies like Baidu and Alibaba foreshadow a new generation of Chinese start-ups that have moved beyond imitation and are competing based on new, home grown ideas and innovations. A few of the companies she highlights are Pingco (mobile messaging), Maxthon (browser), Oriental Wisdom (mobile financial services), and Lingtu (digital maps).
However, it is her other commentary that is the most interesting. Read More »
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February 25th, 2008, 12:43am
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Although there are many things China can learn from its North American counterpart in this new world economy, there’s at least one thing North Americans can learn from the Chinese.
China has developed a reputation for bootleg products (CD’s, DVDs, software etc.). So here’s a crazy thought, instead of refusing to change and opting to take measures such as suing their customers, or coming up with crazy DRM policies…. the Chinese music industry is – adapting. Albeit, not by choice, Chinese record companies have given up trying to fight piracy like their European and American counterparts and instead, are looking at different business models.
Read More »
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February 22nd, 2008, 02:42pm
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In a post by Don earlier this month, he wondered if China would ever bring down its firewall. In the post, he speculates that the coming Olympic Games would only make the crackdown worse. Well it looks like he may have been right and wrong according to this piece in the National Post yesterday.
The article says China will open up very limited parts of the “Great Firewall” in order to give visiting foreigners unrestricted access to the internet for the duration of the games. They’re able to do this because the Chinese Internet censorship system is precise enough that it can filter (or not) searches from specific IP addresses as well parts or all of any webpage - the Chinese are hoping to medal in this discipline in 2008.
Read More »
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February 19th, 2008, 11:52am
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I found this combination of stories on Wired very, very interesting. The first is on the Chinese Government’s plans for nanotechnology, based on interviews with 60 Chinese officials. The research was set-up in the specific context of China’s stated, over-arching goal of leap-frogging the west by learning from them (technology transfer) and increasing domestic research capacity (indigenous innovation). Nanotechnology is identified as one of four Chinese science “megaprojects”, and the central goal is to catch-up to the U.S. on research capability by 2020.
The second is also on the topic of nanotechnology - specifically, that only 1/3 of Americans believe Nanotechnology is morally acceptable. Notably, this compares to slightly over half in European countries. The researcher claims the lack of belief in America is explained almost entirely by religion. While a plausible case may be made, I’ll remind you of a quote from Brendan’s recent post - a prediction that intelligent nanobots go into our brains through capillaries and interact directly with our biological neurons. I could see quite a few people, religous and otherwise, resisting that.
Regardless of the exact explanation, there are a lot of interesting wikinomics angles to consider on the nanatechnology front… particularly as it relates to different government structures around the world, innovation, globalization, etc.
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February 7th, 2008, 12:45pm
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Have you ever heard of this company? TenCent QQ. Well… it has over 220 million active users and over 641 million registered users – to be fair, that’s including multiple accounts. The success of TenCent and other grassroots Chinese companies have established such a stronghold over the Chinese user base that even Google is having trouble establishing firm ground in China (not to mention the heat they’ve been getting for complying to strict Chinese censorship conditions).
you can purchase a virtual QQ pet (pet penguin) and bring him online to meet friends, you can even buy clothes for him and get him educated.
Read More »
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February 5th, 2008, 06:51am
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The New York Times had a great article yesterday that focused on a growing backlash against China’s pervasive online censorship system - also known as the Great Firewall. Interestingly enough, it seems that many people in China didn’t even realize there was much of a system in place, but have learned of it’s presence thanks to a growing appetite for sites like Flickr and YouTube. In terms of the importance some place on the fight to overcome such censorship, to quote one brave soul who has taken a branch of China Telecom to court over some restrictions on Web content:
“The Americans have an expression, ‘You can’t fight City Hall. However, I believe that with the help of today’s Internet, the mood of the public, I can win this case. I can even make a contribution to improving Chinese democracy.”
Many think fights such as these can’t be won, and the fact that the Olympics are coming to China shortly will make this a very, very interesting issue. While some people argue that the country won’t do anything to drastically harm their reputation when the spotlight is about to shine at it’s brightest, stories like this one by Jim Yardley indicate the crackdown might get worse. Notably, only state-sanctioned companies will be allowed to broadcast video and audio online, and China arrested no fewer than 51 online dissidents last year (far more than any other country) according to Reporters without Borders.
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August 10th, 2007, 09:40am
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Thing gets invented, and invented thing gets rapidly copied in China at a fraction of the cost - and often a fraction of the performance. For many years, this has been the pattern - but Dan Koeppel (writing for Popular Science) wonders if the latter part is going to be changing soon, based on what he’s seen and heard while seeking out a rumoured iPhone “clone”:
… the miniOne represents the vanguard of this cloning revolution. Meizu isn’t aspiring merely to copy the designs of a Western manufacturer on the cheap. The company plans to give the miniOne capabilities beyond the original. Does this signal the start of something bigger in China—the years of reverse engineering serving as a de facto education for the engineers who will soon transform China into a design and engineering powerhouse? Is China on the cusp of going legit?
It better be - as the article references, there’s growing push back against inferior copies coming out of China from consumers and companies alike. At the same time, the Chinese government has become more actively involved, with punishments for various infractions ranging from $75,000 fines to execution. Yes, execution.
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June 22nd, 2007, 05:18pm
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Text messaging, a medium comprised of encoded words and smiley faces architected out of colons and brackets (separated by a dash by those who are more thorough), rarely seems a communications method of choice for any message more serious than asking a friend where they want to eat for dinner.
That said, as one Chinese petrochemical plant learnt the hard way earlier this month, texting can also be used to coordinate affairs of a more existential nature. A protest organized almost entirely via text messages spurred the government to grudgingly shut down a billion dollar paraxylene (PX) plant in Xiamen, in response to criticisms of the plant’s effect on local population health and on the environment. Over 1 million text messages were sent out in the process, urging residents to join a street protest against the opening of the plant, comparing its inevitable impact on the local ecosystem to an atomic bomb of disaster. The message also urged recipients to pass the text along to all of their Xiamen friends, “for the sake of future generations”. The protest was also reported on by mobile bloggers, although allegedly many of the blog sites were shut down by the government in the days following the event.
China already employs restrictions on the websites and searches accessible from inside its borders. Now that the country has put its foot firmly down on the issue of web content access, can regulation of text messaging or text content be far around the corner? Use of text-messaging (at least by the Net Generation) in China is amongst the highest in the world, so monitoring sms activity for ‘appropriate use’, would be no small order.
That said, it appears China already has some of the tools to crack down, if they wanted to. According to the LA Times:
In 2004, it provoked an outcry among some Western free speech advocates by purchasing a surveillance system for cellphone messages that allowed it to filter objectionable messages and pinpoint their senders. And in 2005, Chinese authorities temporarily banned the use of text messaging after it was used to organize violent anti-Japanese protests.
So maybe the fact that the messages used to organize this protest weren’t comletely shut down means that what we are seeing instead is an era where pervasive computing technologies might actually engender a political period where Chinese officials pay closer attention to democratic movements on the ground and respond in kind, rather than trying to stamp out citizien activism. I know, sounds like wishful thinking. But then, being optimisitc is my preffered way of looking at the world. Smiley face.
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April 10th, 2007, 02:21pm
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It’s only fitting the nation that forced censorship upon Google, Microsoft and Yahoo would develop such an ‘Orwellian’ online identify solution. Most identity solutions are geared toward assisting the end user maintain their privacy and security remain intact, while at the same time simplifying the process. China has a different idea.
They claim their system is designed to monitor addictive online game play of young men (which is a serious problem in the country) by limiting their daily game play. “Players whose IDs showed they were under 18, or who submitted incorrect numbers, would be forced to play versions of online games featuring an anti-addiction system that encourages them to spend less time online”.
However, as you scroll down the article you find an interesting caveat. China has decided that those who falsely portray themselves online are also part of the problem and hope the new system will “purify the internet of socially and politically suspect activity, and have been keen to push users to use their true identities online.” This will also include a system that is able to monitor bloggers by “implementing a ‘real name’ system for bloggers to curb ‘irresponsible’ commentary and intellectual property abuse.”
Perhaps it’s better to look at China’s online identity solution like a license for the information super highway. And just as a traditional driver’s license gives you access to things that are bad for you (alcohol, cigarettes, etc…) it also provides authorities your true ID when you break the law. This doesn’t really make the user any better off, but from China’s perspective, it sure makes censorship and control a lot easier.
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January 10th, 2007, 12:34pm
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I’ve always admired Will Hutton’s writings on various topics over the years. On January 15th he’s set to release a book that looks very interesting indeed. It’s called The Writing on the Wall: China and the West in the 21st Century and it addresses one of the most significant issues of our time: how will the world adjust to a newly resurgent China?
While not denying China’s recent achievements, Hutton argues that much of the hype around China’s looming economic dominance is overblown. His thesis revolves around the fact that China has yet to develop many of the institutional underpinnings (such as democracy, inalienable property rights, human rights, welfare systems, and a neutral court of law) that have supported long-term economic growth in the West.
So while Hutton points out that China’s economy in 2007 will be nearly nine times larger than it was in 1978, he argues that the ingredients necessary to make China anything other than a low-cost producer of choice are currently missing. In essence, the Chinese Communist Party is the number one impediment to growth. Here’s an excerpt.
All societies are linked to their past by umbilical cords - some apparent, some hidden. China is no different. Imperial Confucian China and communist China alike depended - and depend - upon the notion of a vastly powerful, infallible centre: either because it was interpreting the will of heaven or, now, of the proletariat. In neither system have human rights, constitutional checks and balances or even forms of democracy figured very much. As a result, China has poor foundations on which to build the subtle network of institutions of accountability necessary to manage the complexities of a modern economy and society. Sooner or later, it is a failing that will have to be addressed.
On balance, I think that Hutton is probably right. Recent studies of economic history by Nobel prize winners such as Douglass North have emphasized the importance of social norms and political institutions as determinants of long term economic success.
Let me note one word of caution, however. As Don and I argued in Wikinomics, it would be a mistake to assume that the capabilities and advantages that Chinese firms enjoy as low-cost producers are permanent. Leading Asian juggernauts are arguably leaping over the structural and organizational hurdles they face, and skeptics often underestimate the capacity and eagerness for rapid learning. It is unrealistic—indeed reckless—for the United States or Europe to think that they will easily dominate the global economy as they have in the past, even if China experiences some growing pains along the way.
If you want to read more the Observer published an edited extract of Hutton’s book, while Prospect magazine has a fascinating dialogue between Hutton and LSE academic Meghnad Desai.
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