Howard W. French (http://www.howardwfrench.com)

• home
• diary
• writings
• sounds
• snippets
• reading table
• on photography
• public speaking
• photos

A Continent for the Taking

Africa first captivated New York Times journalist Howard W. French more than twenty-five years ago, but his knowledge of and passion for the continent has the depth of a lifetime association. His experiences there awakened him as nothing before to… read more

Buy from Amazon

Commentary & Reviews · Interviews

This amazing lady died the other day, deepening our collective loss of a generation or two of sheer and irreplaceable female vocal talent: Sarah, Ella, Dinah, Betty (Carter), Shirley (Horn). I’ll stop there. It’s too awful to contemplate.
Anita was a soul sister. Doubt it? Listen to this record, a bargain bin special that is one of the densest collections of great recordings you’ll encounter from any Jazz vocalist. The voice ranges from gritty sass to pure milk and honey, and it does so effortlessly, through drink and smoke and heroin.

“Say Joe, Have you been uptown,” she asks Roy Eldridge, who informs her his name ain’t Joe.

Great, great music from an amazing woman.

Posted at 9:56 PM · Comments (0)

Howard W. French / Copyright The New York Times
November 29, 2006

SHANGHAI: Just who was Mao Zedong?

According to the English-language version of Wikipedia, the popular online encyclopedia, he was a victorious military and political leader who founded China’s modern Communist state. He was also a man many saw as “a mass murderer, holding his leadership accountable for the deaths of tens of millions of innocent Chinese.”

Switch to Wikipedia in Chinese, and one discovers a very different man. There, Mao Zedong’s reputation is unsullied by any mention of a death toll in the great purges of the 1950s and 1960s, or for what many historians call the greatest famine in human history.

In recent weeks, the Chinese government has demonstrated its hostility toward the emergence of a credible source of reference material that escapes its control by frequently blocking access to Wikipedia, whose Chinese version, though still far smaller than its English-language counterpart, is growing by leaps and bounds.
Today in Asia - Pacific
Muslims missing out on India’s economic growth
NATO fails to lift restrictions on troop use in Afghanistan
China executes leader of Christian sect and 11 followers
Click here to find out more!

But on sensitive questions of China’s modern history or on hot-button issues, the Chinese version diverges so dramatically from its English counterpart that it sometimes reads as if it were approved by the censors themselves.

This gulf in information and perspective comes across powerfully in the entry on Mao, which is consistently one of the most frequently searched and edited topics in the Chinese version, and in the entry on historical watersheds, like the Tiananmen Square massacre, the Great Leap Forward and the Cultural Revolution.

Chinese Wikipedia users and critics say that the differences highlight the resilience here of a system of information control whose reach goes well beyond simple censorship.

In each of its language versions, Wikipedia is collaboratively written and edited by online enthusiasts, and contributors to the Chinese-language site explain the differences in content by citing the powerful influence of Chinese education, which often provides a neatly sanitized national perspective on sensitive aspects of the country’s past.

This parochialism is reinforced by the blocking of foreign Web sites, and by the conformism of the carefully censored mass media. Alternative viewpoints are sometimes available, but usually only to a restricted circle of people who have the means and determination to seek them out.

For some, the Chinese version of Wikipedia was intended as just such a resource, but its tame approach to sensitive topics has sparked a fierce debate in the world of online mavens over its objectivity and thoroughness.

In a recent discussion on the encyclopedia’s Web site about the Mao legacy, a user with the online name Manchurian Tiger wrote, “If anyone can prove that Mao’s political movements didn’t kill so many people, I’m willing to delete the wording that ‘millions of people were killed.’” Rather than contribute to encyclopedias, those who wish to pay tribute to Mao, he added, should “go to his mausoleum.”

Another user replied angrily: “If you want to release your emotions, use a bulletin board. Wikipedia is not your toilet.” In the end, the entry on Mao included no death toll from either famine or political purges.

Indeed, in its present form, the Chinese Wikipedia introduction to Mao Zedong could hardly be more anodyne: “One of the main founders and leaders of the Communist Party of China, the People’s Liberation Army and the People’s Republic of China,” it reads. “He introduced a series of political movements such as the Great Leap Forward and the Cultural Revolution. He had a great influence over 20th-century China and the world.”

On the evidence of entries like this, for the moment, the fight over editorial direction of Wikipedia in Chinese is being won by enthusiasts who practice self-censorship.

“Most of the people who contribute to Wikipedia rarely touch upon political topics,” said Yuan Mingli, a frequent contributor from Shanghai. “They prefer to write about things like technology. There are other things in life.”

For the complete article please follow this link: http://www.iht.com/articles/2006/11/29/news/wiki.php

Posted at 12:32 PM · Comments (0)

Copyright Dissent

Fall 2006

China did not qualify for the 2006 World Cup, yet there was almost fanatical enthusiasm for the games in Beijing. Because the matches were played in the middle of the night, many Beijingers slept during the day. This gave a brief respite from Beijing�s notorious traffic jams, and the number of emergency calls to the city hotline decreased by 11 percent during the hours of the games. My son�s end-of-year examinations were scheduled during the three-day interval between two rounds. I was told that the dates were purposefully chosen.

A Soft Spot for Great Historical Powers
What explains the passion that people showed for the game? It is hard to imagine Americans, say, getting so excited about victories by other nations in an international tournament for which their national team had failed to qualify. In the United States, although there is some ethnic-based enthusiasm for particular teams�Italian Americans support the Italian team, Mexican Americans support the Mexican team, and so on�the World Cup does not occupy center stage of social life. But the United States may be an outlying case. In many parts of the world�from South Africa to India to China�the bulk of ordinary citizens became crazed about soccer during the World Cup, even without any national team in the competition. This worldwide obsession can be explained partly by the usual commercial considerations: clever branding and marketing that tap the widespread desire to be part of a global event in countries of rising affluence.

In China, though, there may also be more particular political factors. As Yu Maochun of the U.S. Naval Academy notes, China�s decision, for the first time in its history, to allow live broadcasting of the 1978 World Cup in Argentina was a turning point in China�s political history because of the excitement it generated. For the first time since the revolution, the Chinese nation, exhausted by the Communist Party�s incessant political campaigns, realized that the world could be excited by something other than Marxism and class struggle. Francesco Sisci, the distinguished correspondent for La Stampa, offers an explanation for current interest. The two best-read newspapers in China, selling well over a million copies each every day, are Cankao Xiaoxi and Huanqiu Shibao. They cover mainly international news. Many popular local papers cover local news. In both cases, the reporting does not stray too far from the facts and deals with issues that people care about. All national news, however, is official propaganda and thus uninteresting. So the Chinese develop strong local and international interests but pay less attention to national affairs than do most citizens of liberal democratic countries.[1]
One might predict that there will be a rise in interest in national affairs if the media open up and the political system democratizes, with controversial national issues being publicly aired and discussed. There may also be a corresponding decrease in interest in international affairs. In Taiwan, arguably, democratization has focused debates on national affairs and there is, consequently, less interest in international affairs, including international sports. The recent political opening may help to explain why the World Cup did not generate the same level of enthusiasm in Taiwan as in mainland China (there are other factors, such as Taiwanese enthusiasm for baseball).
Educated Chinese in particular have a special interest in international affairs, including international sports.

Still, the sheer beauty of global soccer cannot be discounted as the key reason for interest in the sport. The more interesting question, perhaps, is why the Chinese support particular teams with such passion. In the 2002 World Cup, I expected that Asian solidarity would play an important role. The Chinese team had been eliminated in the first round, but the South Korean team performed unexpectedly well. I watched the quarter-final match between Germany and South Korea in a Beijing bar, and to my surprise the crowd burst into applause when Germany scored and eventually won the match. I was told that support for Germany can be explained by the fact that German soccer is shown on Chinese television, and most Chinese are more familiar with German players. One friend said that Koreans (along with the Taiwanese) are known to be the most exploitative employers of Chinese workers. But I also detected a certain amount of resentment at the fact that the �younger brother� was upstaging his elders.

This year, I did not have such illusions.[2]
Paik Wooyeal has noted that the tendency to cheer against neighboring country teams may be more universal. For example, the Swiss Germans cheer against the German team, the English against the French, and so on. Could it be that the history of warfare between neighbors still forms preferences in sports? Or perhaps there is a natural tendency to be jealous of a neighbor�s success?
There was enthusiasm for the Korean team in the Wudaokou area of Beijing, home to many Korean students. But the �lao Beijing� (old-time Beijingers) I spoke to rejoiced at Korea�s early exit. In the case of Japan, the antagonism is more obvious. There were few public spaces to observe the performance of the Japanese team during the World Cup. Most bars in the Wudaokou area did not show the games with Japan, and there was an unusually heavy police presence during the games, purportedly because the government feared anti-Japanese riots that could spin out of control. Fortunately for the authorities, the Japanese team did not win any games and failed to advance to the next round.

MY OWN LOYALTIES lie with underdog teams. In 2002, I was a big fan of Korea. My Korean friends took great pride in what they called the �spiritual power� of their team, which compensated for lack of talent and experience, and their enthusiasm rubbed off on me. In 2006, I supported Ghana, the best-performing African country, which played with such heart and excitement. Perhaps left-wing political sensibilities naturally lend themselves to support for teams from relatively poor and not-so-famous countries. A win would give a great boost to their national confidence, and it might have positive economic spillovers. Surely Ghana needs more of a boost than the United States.[3]
Ghana eliminated the United States from the 2006 World Cup with a thrilling two-to-one victory, but I could not make my joy too explicit during the game itself. I watched the game with my son, who holds an American passport, and since he was cheering for the U.S. team I did not want to upset him. It is difficult to persuade children that their team loyalties should be determined at least partly by principles of international economic justice.
There may also be psychological reasons to support underdogs. They appeal to the romantic element in the soul. Think how many Hollywood movies end with the triumph of underdog athletes and teams.

There is no such preference for the underdog in China. Quite the opposite, in fact. Chinese fans support traditional soccer powers such as Germany, England, Brazil, Argentina, and Italy. It is difficult to overestimate the passion for such teams. In the 2002 World Cup, the CCTV hostess Sheng Bin wept openly at Argentina�s early exit. When England went down in defeat against Portugal in 2006, my son�s piano teacher�s husband was so depressed he could barely get out of bed. Partly, the preference for traditional soccer powers can be explained by the love of the game: Chinese fans support teams that have performed well in the past and are likely to generate exciting games in the future. But there may also be a special form of internationalist nationalism at work. The support for established teams may be an expression of a more general appreciation for nations with long and rich histories and cultures. As director of the Institute of Italian culture in Beijing, Francesco Sisci could find common ground with his Chinese counterparts by appealing to their love of history, by showing how Italy served as a cradle of Western civilization just as China served as the cradle of East Asian civilization.

Conversely, the Chinese won�t cheer for underdogs or relatively small teams and countries without substantial talent, global impact, or long histories. In soccer, this means they won�t cheer for teams like Australia (�Would you cheer for a bunch of beer-guzzling upstarts?� as one friend put it) if they�re up against the more established soccer powers. In politics, it means that they won�t sympathize much with the aspirations of small nations or minorities, such as the Francophones of Quebec (not to mention Taiwan and Tibet). The only way to address this concern is for such small powers to show that they are worthy of global admiration. If Australia develops into a global soccer power over, say, thirty years, as opposed to scoring occasional fluke victories, it will gain the sympathy of the Chinese. If Quebec produces great achievements that the rest of the world can appreciate, it may gain the admiration of the Chinese. (Even though I�m from Quebec, I�m hard-pressed to explain what�s great about my home province; nobody in China has ever heard of Guy Lafleur.)

What�s Wrong with Being Biased?
In 2006, the most striking public display of passion for a traditional soccer power occurred at the end of the quarter-final match between Italy and Australia. China�s best-known soccer announcer, Huang Jianxiang, was unable to control his enthusiasm when Fabio Grosso went down in the penalty area and a last-minute penalty kick was awarded to the Italians.

It is worth quoting in full the official Chinese translation by the Xinhua news agency. Huang screamed,

Penalty! Penalty! Penalty! Grosso�s done it, Grosso�s done it! The great Italian left back! He succeeded in the glorious traditions of Italy! Facchetti, Cabrini and Maldini, their souls are infused in him at this moment! Grosso represents the long history and traditions of soccer, he�s not fighting alone at this moment! He�s not alone! Grosso represents the long history and traditions of Italian soccer! He is not fighting alone!
As Francesco Totti prepared to take the penalty kick that would win the match, Huang shouted himself hoarse.

Totti! He is about to take the shot. He shoulders the expectations of the whole world. Goooooal! Game over! Italy wins! Beat the Australians! They do not fall in front of Hiddink again! [Hiddink, the Australian coach, had led the South Korean team that ousted Italy in the 2002 World Cup.] Italy the great! Left back the great! Happy birthday to Paolo Maldini! Long live Italy! The victory belongs to Italy, to Grosso, to Cannavaro, to Zambrotta, to Buffon, to Maldini, to everyone who loves Italian soccer! Hiddink lost his courage faced with Italian history and traditions! He finally reaped what he had sown! They should go home. They don�t need to fly as far as Australia as most of them are living in Europe. Farewell!
As I listened to Huang�s outburst, I could hear similar cries of joy from my neighboring flats (it was about 1 a.m.). I was deeply moved by this manifestation of enthusiasm for another country�s triumph, by the love shown for another country�s history and traditions. I was also amused, because the Chinese formulation of the �Long Live� idiom�literally, �Italy, Ten Thousand Years!��used to be invoked by enthusiastic crowds for Mao and the Communist Party (�Chairman Mao, Ten Thousand Years!�).

To my surprise, Huang�s comments generated a storm of controversy. Popular Chinese portals such as sina.com and sohu.com�s online discussion forums were flooded with opinions for and against them. Beijing blogger Fly Show had a post titled �Huang �Long Live Italy� Jianxiang, you can go home now… . Sorry, Australia, please forgive our crazy man!� According to an unconfirmed text circulating on the Internet, more than thirty Australian soccer supporters surrounded the Australian embassy in Beijing the next day, demanding that the ambassador make a formal complaint to the Chinese government about Huang�s commentary. A couple of days later, Huang issued a letter of public apology:

Dear soccer fans and TV viewers around the country, I have attached too much personal feeling to the match. After I woke up this morning, I reviewed the video of the match and I feel there is some injustice and prejudice in my comment. I will make formal apologies to viewers. I am familiar with Italian football and I hope that the Italians can gain a berth in the last eight, which will make the matches in the future more exciting, but I have mingled my feeling with … my job. It is not a standpoint that a TV commentator should have … I will draw the lesson from this case and … keep my personal feeling and job balanced. When we broadcast the matches, we hope referees can be just, and as a commentator, I will try my best to be fair and to do a good job.
Are announcers supposed to be neutral and unbiased? I suggest that Huang may not be drawing the right lesson from this episode (assuming that his apology was sincere; more likely, it was forced upon him). For one thing, there may be political reasons to favor passionate and controversial announcers. The key political catchword in China is �stability,� and the government closely monitors the media (not to mention political organs) to ensure that controversial views are not aired. If the system fails to live up to the �ideal,� then �stability� is threatened, and the government uses various carrots and sticks to restore the status quo. In this case, the government-run television station repeatedly ran footage of Australia�s achievements in soccer along with the subtitles proclaiming �Australia bows out like true heroes,� presumably to appease the pro-Australia contingent that may have been angered by Huang�s outburst. And Huang himself was dismissed from further World Cup commentary on Italian games. In my view, Huang was sorely missed. The announcer for the next two Italy games�including its win over France in the final�was dreadfully dull, and he did not seem nearly as well informed as Huang. But the more worrisome point is that the government also invoked the sort of harsh tactics meted out to political opponents of the regime, such as depriving them of job opportunities. Is that what the Australian supporters really wanted? Is this the way to deal with controversy in society, particularly in the context of a political system that frowns upon public expressions of passion and emotion?

There may also be cultural reasons to question the assumption that announcers are supposed to be neutral. Another model, perhaps more deeply rooted in Chinese culture, is that announcers should be like well-informed teachers, explaining to the viewer which players and teams express certain qualities and virtues. Announcers are not merely transmitting factual information; they are supposed to draw moral lessons for the viewers/students. It is up to the viewers/students to decide whether they agree with the announcers/teachers. And those who disagree should gently remonstrate with the teachers, not use force to show disagreement. The fact that many Chinese bloggers supported Huang suggests that the normative model of the teacher/announcer still resonates in contemporary China (according to an online survey by sina.com, nearly half the respondents said Huang�s comments were not unfair; one of the most popular new cell phone rings mimics Huang�s now famous enthusiasm for the Italian victory over Australia). I do not deny that there may be other explanations, such as widespread support for the Italian team in Chinese society; but it is difficult to imagine such a level of approval for outwardly biased announcers in, say, Sweden or Canada. The ideal of neutrality as applied to various spheres of social life�not simply for judges and referees, but also for announcers, officials, teachers, even parents and friends�seems too deeply ingrained in Western societies.

The Dangers of Self-Regarding Nationalism
The most moving aspect of Huang�s outburst is the love he showed for another country. He was celebrating �the glorious traditions of Italy�! If the same outburst had been made by an Italian announcer, it would have seemed distasteful, at least to an outsider. The talk of �Italy the Great!,� with the announcer almost foaming at the mouth, would have conjured up images of Italy�s fascist past. Shortly after the controversial game, Huang�s off-the-cuff response pointed to more dangerous manifestations of nationalism: �Australia reminded me of the lousy team that eliminated China in the World Cup qualifiers in 1981 … Australia will now fight for an Asian World Cup berth and it may not be good enough to handle South Korea and Japan. But it will very likely take advantage of the Chinese team. So I don�t like it.� Such sentiments may be magnified when Chinese athletes achieve world-class status, say, in the Olympics, or perhaps in soccer a couple of decades from now. At that point, the Huangs will be cheering for their own team, and they may show an aggressive hostility to opponents, with potentially dangerous political consequences. There was a significant wave of anti-Americanism in China when the Americans beat the Chinese in the 1999 Women�s World Cup, to the point that the U.S. State Department issued a warning to Americans in China to keep a low profile (but this was also shortly after the bombing of the Chinese embassy in Belgrade during the Kosovo War[4]
The Clinton administration claimed that the bombing was unintentional and apologized for the bombing and the loss of life, but there is widespread skepticism in China regarding the official U.S. explanation.
).

Perhaps I overstate the concern. Just as orthodox religious groups sometimes have respect for each other�s commitments (and contempt for agnostic liberals and atheists), so soccer fans can find mutual joy in national commitments. In the leadoff to the game between Portugal and Germany, enthusiastic fans wrapped in the flags of their respective countries engaged in joint celebrations. Such fans appreciate each other�s passionate commitment to their own teams; they have far more in common with each other than with people indifferent to soccer. Moreover, self-regarding nationalism can be trumped by love of the game. In the case of China, its own fans turn on the team when it performs poorly, as in the 2002 World Cup match when China was crushed by Brazil four to nothing. Even if China becomes a world power in soccer, there is no guarantee that its fans will give it unconditional support, judging by the experience of other soccer powers. French fans could not muster much enthusiasm for their own team following Zinedine Zidane�s vicious headbutt in the final game against Italy. Fans will often be critical if their own national team fails to display virtues that are universally honored.

STILL, THERE are real dangers associated with self-regarding nationalism. The Chinese state�s pursuit of Olympic gold medals illustrates these dangers. China�s best athletes are selected at a very young age and made to undergo rigorous state-sponsored physical education, with little attention paid to other forms of learning. The athletes are used by the state to score political points, and the announcers at Olympic Games make less-than-subtle claims about the greatness of the Chinese nation. As the influential journalist Sang Ye puts it, �For China, athletics has little to do with sport per se. It is not concerned with either physical health or personal well-being. For the Chinese, athletic competitions are a struggle between political systems. They are a heady opiate administered to salve dreams of national glory� (see Sang Ye�s revealing interview with an elite athlete in China Candid [University of California Press, 2006]). The near-term goal is to surpass the U.S. gold medal tally at the 2008 Olympic games in Beijing.

Ironically, such an approach to sports owes its origins to ancient Greece, where city-states engaged in intense military competition, fighting for either survival or expansion. There was naturally much emphasis on the training of soldiers, and state-sponsored physical education�designed to toughen bodies and (as Aristotle says) to �foster the virtue of courage��developed as a by-product. Greek states actively promoted interstate sporting competitions�most famously, the Olympics�and the main point of competing was to bring glory to the state. The whole system was geared to a �winner-take-all� mentality: there wasn�t even a prize for second place. The winners were treated as conquering heroes by their home states, and they were showered with material benefits, such as free meals for life.

China�s own political tradition (and, to a certain extent, earlier political practice) points to an alternative approach that may be more desirable for modern societies. The Confucian view is that physical activity should be tied to the pursuit of nonmilitaristic virtues and that the test of success should be its contribution to moral and intellectual development rather than to victory in sporting competitions. Such an ideal is realized by means of rituals that civilize and elevate, particularly in the context of competitive relationships that might otherwise degenerate into hostility and antagonism, if not warfare. This ideal is not entirely unrealistic in contemporary societies. Mencius�s account of the archer�s psychological reaction to �failure���an archer makes sure his stance is correct before letting fly the arrow, and if he fails to hit the mark, he does not hold it against the victor. He simply seeks the cause within himself��is not dissimilar to the tennis player who graciously shakes the winner�s hand after the game and pursues a rigorous self-improvement program afterward. Confucius�s account of the gentleman-archer echoes the rituals of sumo wrestlers: �Exemplary persons are not competitive, but they must still compete in archery. Greeting and making way for each other, the archers ascend the hall, and returning they drink a salute. Even during competition, they are exemplary persons.� In soccer, the relevant rituals include helping opponents up after a fall and exchanging sweat-soaked shirts at the end of the game. These rituals need not be incompatible with passionate support for one team. In the 2002 World Cup, the Koreans were fanatical supporters of their own team. But after the team�s loss to Turkey for the third-place spot in front of its home crowd, the Korean team formed a circle and collectively bowed to the audience as a show of gratitude. The crowd responded with a tremendous ovation, for the Korean team and, more surprisingly, for the victorious Turkish team. There may be particular reasons for this response�many South Koreans are grateful to Turkey because of its support in the Korean War half a century ago�but such moving scenes show how Confucian-style rituals can tame the excesses of national bias. It is no coincidence that Korea is widely held to be the most Confucian country in East Asia. For the 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing, perhaps the Chinese can seek inspiration from Confucian rather than Greek athletic ideals.[5]
I do not mean to imply that the quest for gold medals should be entirely subordinated to the concern for Confucian civility. I�ve yet to recover from the disappointment that Canada did not win any gold medals during the 1976 Olympics in Montreal (nor am I proud of the fact that Canada remains the only country ever to host the summer Olympics without winning a gold medal). My point is that Confucian civility should be an important concern and that national glory should not simply be focused on the quest for victory. Nations engaged in international sporting competitions can also take pride in their civility, decency, and sense of justice.

The idea for this essay emerged from exchanges that took place during the 2006 World Cup on ChinaPOL, an e-mail list of academics and journalists working on Chinese politics. I would like to thank the participants in these exchanges. Special thanks to Richard Baum, Avner de-Shalit, Bruce Jacobs, David Kelly, Donald Keyser, Parag Khanna, Paik Wooyeal, Francesco Sisci, Michael Walzer, and Yu Maochun for helpful comments on an earlier draft of this essay.

Daniel A. Bell is Professor, Department of Philosophy, Tsinghua University, Beijing. His latest books are Beyond Liberal Democracy: Political Thinking for an East Asian Context (Princeton University Press, 2006) and the co-edited volume (with Jean-Marc Coicaud) Ethics in Action: The Ethical Challenges of International Human Rights NGOs (Cambridge University Press, 2006). He can be reached at daniel.a.bell@gmail.com.

Footnotes:
1.) One might predict that there will be a rise in interest in national affairs if the media open up and the political system democratizes, with controversial national issues being publicly aired and discussed. There may also be a corresponding decrease in interest in international affairs. In Taiwan, arguably, democratization has focused debates on national affairs and there is, consequently, less interest in international affairs, including international sports. The recent political opening may help to explain why the World Cup did not generate the same level of enthusiasm in Taiwan as in mainland China (there are other factors, such as Taiwanese enthusiasm for baseball).
2.) Paik Wooyeal has noted that the tendency to cheer against neighboring country teams may be more universal. For example, the Swiss Germans cheer against the German team, the English against the French, and so on. Could it be that the history of warfare between neighbors still forms preferences in sports? Or perhaps there is a natural tendency to be jealous of a neighbor�s success?
3.) Ghana eliminated the United States from the 2006 World Cup with a thrilling two-to-one victory, but I could not make my joy too explicit during the game itself. I watched the game with my son, who holds an American passport, and since he was cheering for the U.S. team I did not want to upset him. It is difficult to persuade children that their team loyalties should be determined at least partly by principles of international economic justice.
4.) The Clinton administration claimed that the bombing was unintentional and apologized for the bombing and the loss of life, but there is widespread skepticism in China regarding the official U.S. explanation.
5.) I do not mean to imply that the quest for gold medals should be entirely subordinated to the concern for Confucian civility. I�ve yet to recover from the disappointment that Canada did not win any gold medals during the 1976 Olympics in Montreal (nor am I proud of the fact that Canada remains the only country ever to host the summer Olympics without winning a gold medal). My point is that Confucian civility should be an important concern and that national glory should not simply be focused on the quest for victory. Nations engaged in international sporting competitions can also take pride in their civility, decency, and sense of justice.

Posted at 10:51 PM · Comments (0)

14 October 2006

All Africa
English
(c) 2006 AllAfrica, All Rights Reserved

Lagos, Oct 13, 2006 (This Day/All Africa Global Media via COMTEX) —

I once believed that capital was another word for money, the
accumulated wealth of a country or its people. Surely, I thought,
wealth is determined by the money or property in one’s possession.
Then I saw a Deutsche Bank advertisement in the Wall Street Journal
that proclaimed: “Ideas are capital. The rest is just money.”

I was struck by the simplicity of such an eloquent and forceful idea.
I started imagining what such power meant for Africa. The potential
for progress and poverty alleviation in Africa relies on capital
generated from the power within our minds, not from our ability to
pick minerals from the ground or seek debt relief and foreign
assistance. If ideas are capital, why is Africa investing more on
things than on information, and more on the military than on
education? Suddenly, I realized what this idea could mean for Africa.

If the pen is mightier than the sword, why does a general earn more
than the work of a hundred writers combined? If ideas are indeed
capital, then Africa should stem its brain drain and promote the
African Renaissance, which will lead to the rebirth of the continent.
After all, a renaissance is a rebirth of ideas. And knowledge and
ideas are the engines that drive economic growth.

When African men and women of ideas, who will give birth to new ideas,
have fled to Europe and the United States, then the so-called African
Renaissance cannot occur in Africa. It can only occur in Paris, London
and New York. There are more Soukous musicians in Paris, than in
Kinshasha; more African professional soccer players in Europe, than in
Africa. African literature is more at home abroad than it is in
Africa. In other words, Africans in Europe are alleviating poverty in
Europe, not in Africa. Until the men and women of ideas - the true
healers of Africa - start returning home, the African Renaissance and
poverty alleviation will remain empty slogans. After all, the
brightest ideas are generated and harnessed by men of ideas.

The first annual report by J.P. Morgan Chase, a firm with assets of
1.3 trillion dollars, reads: “The power of intellectual capital is the
ability to breed ideas that ignite value.” This quote is a clarion
call to African leaders to shift purposefully and deliberately from a
focus on things to a focus on information; from exporting natural
resources to exporting knowledge and ideas; and from being a consumer
of technology to becoming a producer of technology.

For Africa, poverty will be reduced when intellectual capital is
increased and leveraged to export knowledge and ideas. Africa’s
primary strategy for poverty alleviation is to gain debt relief,
foreign assistance, and investments from western nations. Poverty
alleviation means looking beyond 100 percent literacy and aiming for
100 percent numeracy, the prerequisite for increasing our
technological intellectual capital. Yet, in this age of information
and globalization when poverty alleviation should result in producing
valuable products for the global market and competing with Asia, the
United States, and Europe - shamefully, diamonds found in Africa are
polished in Europe and re-sold to Africans.

The intellectual capital needed to produce products and services will
lead to the path of poverty alleviation. Intellectual capital, defined
as the collective knowledge of the people, increases productivity. The
latter - by driving economic growth - alleviates poverty, always and
everywhere, even in Africa. Productivity is the engine that drives
global economic growth.

Those who create new knowledge are producing wealth, while those who
consume it are producing poverty. If you attend a Wole Soyinka’s
production of Chinua Achebe’s “Things Fall Apart,” you consume the
knowledge produced by Soyinka and Achebe as well as the actor’s
production, much like I consume the knowledge and production of Bob
Marley’s through his songs.

We will need wisdom, that which turns too much information - or
information overload - into focused power, not only to process, but
also to evaluate the overwhelming amount of information available on
the Internet. This wisdom will give us the competitive edge and enable
us to find creative solutions.

The following story illustrates the difference between information and
wisdom. Twelve hundred years ago, in the city of Baghdad, lived a
genius named Al-Khwarizmi, who was one of the fathers of algebra. In
fact, the word algebra comes from the title of his book Al-jabr, which
for centuries was the standard mathematics textbook. Al-Khwarizmi
taught in an institution of learning called the House of Wisdom, which
was the center of new ideas during Islam’s golden age of science. To
this day we computer scientists honor Al-Khwarizmi when we use the
word algorithm, which is our attempt to pronounce his name.

One day, Al-Khwarizmi was riding a camel laden down with algebraic
manuscripts to the holy city of Mecca. He saw three young men crying
at an oasis. “My children, why are you crying?” he enquired. “Our
father, upon his death, instructed us to divide his 17 camels as
follows:

‘To my oldest son I leave half of my camels, my second son shall have
one-third of my camels, and my youngest son is to have one-ninth of my
camels.’” “What, then, is your problem?” Al-Khwarizmi asked.

“We have been to school and learned that 17 is a prime number that is,
divisible only by one and itself and cannot be divided by two or three
or nine. Since we love our camels, we cannot divide them exactly,”
they answered. Al-Khwarizmi thought for a while and asked, “Will it
help if I offer my camel and make the total 18?” “No, no, no,” they
cried.

“You are on your way to Mecca, and you need your camel.” “Go ahead,
have my camel, and divide the 18 camels amongst yourselves,” he said,
smiling.

So the eldest took one-half of 18 - or nine camels. The second took
one-third of 18 - or six camels. The youngest took one-ninth of 18 -
or two camels. After the division, one camel was left: Al-Khwarizmi’s
camel, as the total number of camels divided among the sons (nine plus
six plus two) equaled 17. Then Al-Khwarizmi asked, “Now, can I have my
camel back?”

These young men had information about prime numbers, but they lacked
the wisdom to use the information effectively. It is the manipulation
of information to accomplish seemingly impossible purposes that
defines true wisdom.

Today, we have ten billion pages of information posted on the Internet
- more than enough to keep us busy the rest of our lives, and new
information is being added daily. More information has been created in
the last 100 years than in all of the previous 100,000 years combined.
We need the wisdom to sift through and convert these billions of pages
into information riches.

The genius of Al-Khwarizmi was not in his mathematical wizardry or
even his book knowledge: It was in his experiential knowledge - his
big-picture, right-brain thinking; creativity; innovation; and wisdom.
It was his wisdom to add a camel to make the total 18 and still get
his camel back.

Prime numbers are to whole numbers what the laws of physics are to
physics. Twenty years ago, I used an Al-Khwarizmi approach to solve a
notoriously difficult problem in physics. I added inertial force,
which enabled me to reformulate Newton’s Second Law of Motion first as
18 equations and algorithms, and then as 24 million algebraic
equations.

Finally, I programmed 65,000 “electronic brains” called processors to
work as one to solve those 24 million equations at a speed of 3.1
billion calculations per second.

Like Al-Khwarizmi, I derived my 18 equations through out-of-the-box
thinking in an in-the-box world, adding my metaphorical camel:
inertial force. In other words, I applied wisdom to known knowledge to
generate intellectual capital.

Unless Africa significantly increases its intellectual capital, the
continent will remain irrelevant in the 21st century and even beyond.
Africa needs innovators, producers of knowledge, and wise men and
women who can discover, propose, and then implement progressive ideas.
Africa’s fate lies in the hands of Africans and the solution to
poverty must come from its people.

The future that lies ahead of Africa is for Africa to create, after
the people have outlined their vision. We owe it to our children to
build a firm foundation to enable them go places we only dreamt. For
Africa to take center stage in today’s economic world, we have to go
out and compete on a global basis. There is simply no other way to
succeed.

- Philip Emeagwali was voted history’s greatest scientist of African
descent - and the 35th greatest African of all time - in a survey for
the September 2004 issue of the London-based New African magazine. He
won the 1989 Gordon Bell Prize, the Nobel Prize of supercomputing.

Document AFNWS00020061013e2ad000m1

Posted at 10:39 PM · Comments (0)

Corruption comes in many forms, from the intellectual to the monetary.
I was reminded of this and disabused of my illusions about the existence of an impartial, high-end photographic press as I’ve researched the newly released Leica M8, which I still — as of this moment — plan to buy.
One is used to the notion that the specialty computer and camera and stereo and car and other industry magazines whore for the biggest brands, but I’d expected, or hoped, however naively, that some of the better photographic websites would be different.
Suffice to say the list of who I feel I can read with trust has substantially dwindled in recent days. One site that I liked, and indeed still like for qualities other than product reviews, fell off the short trustworthy list when they belatedly acknolwedged that they knew about some of the major problems that Leica’s new product has suffered, but they submitted their review to Leica and were asked not to mention the problems because they were about to be fixed.
I wrote to the operator of that site directly to express my shock at the practice of submitting a product review for review by the manufacturer prior to publication and was told politely that this is standard practice and that it’s done to protect against… errors.
Nevermind about protecting the potential buyer from surprise or disappointment or equipment failure with an expensive piece of new gear.
Readers of the site in question were given a rather less polite response, “vocal observers” (read critics of the design flaws and quality control problems in the $5000 Leica) were chastised and readers told that the Leica issues were a “tempest in a teapot.”

A quick writeup of the Leica issue and the controversy surrounding can be found at the link below:

http://www.auspiciousdragon.net/photowords/?p=162

Posted at 7:03 PM · Comments (0)

Copyright provisions don’t allow me to post this entire article, the first dispatch of my friend, James Fallows, from his new Shanghai perch.

The entire piece makes for good reading, though, and for me is deeply reminiscent of the experience of reading Fallows’ work 20 years ago when he packed up with family and moved to East Asia for what turned out to be a four year stint.

We can expect a lot more interesting stuff from James after this opening flourish.
HF

Copyright The Atlantic

Twenty years ago, my wife and I moved with our two young sons to Tokyo. We expected to be there for three or four months. We ended up staying in Japan and Malaysia for nearly four years. We traveled frequently in China, Indonesia, Thailand, South Korea, and the Philippines, and we dodged visa rules to get into Burma and Vietnam. One year our children attended Japanese public school, which helped and hurt them in ways we�re still hearing about. After our family moved back to Washington, I spent most of another year on reporting trips in Asia.

Not long ago, my wife and I moved to Shanghai for an indefinite stay. You can�t do the same thing twice, and we know that this experience will be different. Our children are twenty years older and on their own. We are, well, twenty years older. The last time, everything we saw in Japan and China was new to us. This time, we�re looking at Shanghai to compare its skyscrapers and luxury-goods shopping malls with the tile-roofed shop houses and rundown bungalows we first saw here in 1986. The whole experience of expatriation has changed because of the Internet, which allows you to listen to radio programs via Webcast and talk daily with friends and family via Skype.

But it still means something to be away from the people you know and the scenes and texture of daily home-front life: the newspapers, the movies, the range of products in the stores. (Most of America�s ubiquitous �Made in China� merchandise is hard to find in China itself, since it�s generally destined straight for export.) And the overall exercise is similar in this way: the Japan of the 1980s was getting a lot of the world�s attention; today�s China is getting even more. My family and I saw Japan on the way up. During the first few months we were there, the dollar lost one-third of its value against the yen. On each trip to the money-changing office the teller�s look seemed to become more pitying, and on each trip to the grocery store (forget about restaurants!) we ratcheted our buying targets another notch downward. The headlines trumpeted the yen�s strength and the resulting astronomical valuation of Japan�s land, companies, and holdings as signs of the nation�s preeminence. The dollar�s collapse made us acutely aware of the social bargain that affected everyone in Japan: high domestic prices that penalized consumers, rewarded producers, and subsidized the export success of big Japanese firms.

China has kept the value of its currency artificially low (as Japan did until 1985, just before we got there), and because it�s generally so much poorer than Japan, the daily surprise is how inexpensive, rather than expensive, the basics of life can be. Starbucks coffee shops are widespread and wildly popular in big cities, even though the prices are equivalent to their U.S. levels. But for the same 24 yuan, or just over $3, that a young Shanghai office worker pays for a latte, a construction worker could feed himself for a day or two from the noodle shop likely to be found around the corner from Starbucks. Pizza Hut is also very popular, and is in the �fine dining� category. My wife and I walked into one on a Wednesday evening and were turned away because we hadn�t made reservations. Taco Bell Grande is similarly popular and prestigious; the waiters wear enormous joke-like sombreros that would probably lead to lawsuits from the National Council of La Raza if worn in stateside Taco Bells. Kentucky Fried Chicken is less fancy but is a runaway success in China, as it is in most of Asia.

Through my own experiment in the economics of staple foods, I have been surprised to learn that there is such a thing as beer that is too cheap, at least for my tastes. On each of my first few days on scene, I kept discovering an acceptable brand of beer that cost half as much as the beer I�d had the previous day. It was the Shanghai version of Zeno�s paradox: the beer became steadily cheaper yet never quite became free. I had an early surprise discovery of imported Sam Adams, for 12 yuan, or $1.50, per 355-ml bottle, which is the regular U.S. size. The next day, I found a bottle of locally brewed Tiger, which is the national beer of Singapore, for 7 yuan, or 84 cents per 350 ml. Soon I had moved to 600-ml �extra value� bottles of Tiger at 6 yuan (72 cents per 600 ml), then Tsingtao at 3.90 yuan (45 cents per 600 ml), then Suntory at 2.90 yuan (35 cents per 600 ml). It was when I hit the watery, sickly-sweet Suntory that I knew I�d gone too far. There was one step further I hesitated to take: a local product called REEB (ha ha!), which is what I often see the illegal-migrant construction workers swilling, and which was on sale for 2.75 yuan. One night, in a reckless mood, I decided to give REEB a try. It was weaker than the Suntory�but actually better, because not as sweet.

The signs of China�s rise are of course apparent everywhere. We can still see many parts of Shanghai that have escaped the building boom of the last two decades�the streets lined with plane trees in the old French Concession district, the men who lounge outside in pajamas or just boxer shorts when the weather is hot. But to see them we have to look past everything that�s new, and the latest set of construction cranes or arc-welding teams working through the night to finish yet more projects. From a room in the futuristic Tomorrow Square (!) building where we have been staying, I can look across People�s Square to see three huge public video screens, which run commercials and music videos seemingly nonstop. The largest screen, nearly two miles away, is the entire side of the thirty-seven-story Aurora building in Pudong, Shanghai�s new financial district. In the daytime, the sides of the building are a shiny gold reflective color. At night, they show commercials to much of the town. �People under thirty can�t remember anything but a boom,� a European banker who has come to Shanghai to expand a credit-card business told me. �It�s been fifteen years of double-digit annual expansion. No one anywhere has seen anything like that before.�

My family arrived in Japan just at the beginning of what is widely considered to be its collapse. About the strange nature of that �decline�one that left Japan richer, and its manufacturing and trading position stronger, than it was during its �boom�there will be more to say in later reports. But obviously it raises the question: Is this ahead for China? Have we arrived in time to watch another bubble burst? I don�t know�no one can�but as a benchmark for later reports, I will mention some of the things that have surprised me in my first few weeks, and I�ll do so via lists.

Numbered lists are popular everywhere�the Ten Commandments, the Four Freedoms�but they seem particularly attractive in this part of the world. When I first arrived in Japan, everyone was talking about the �Three Ks�the three kinds of work for which the country was quietly tolerating immigrant labor. These were what translated as the �Three Ds�: the jobs considered too kitanai (dirty), kiken (dangerous), or kitsui (difficult) to attract native-born workers in modern, rich Japan. During World War II, Japanese forces were notorious for applying a policy of �Three Alls� to occupied China: kill all, burn all, loot all. Memories of that slogan made for hard feelings when a Japanese-owned firm recently tried to register the trademark �Three Alls� (sanguang) in China; because of protests, the application was turned down. Early this year the Chinese government put out a widely publicized list of �Eight Honors and Eight Dishonors,� or more prosaically �Eight Do�s and Don�ts,� to express what President Hu Jintao called the �socialist concept of honor and disgrace.� For instance: Do strive arduously; Don�t wallow in luxury. I bought a poster with the full list at the local Xinhua bookstore.

In a similar constructive spirit, I now offer �Four Cautions and Two Mysteries.� These are meant to illustrate what has surprised me so far and what I am most curious about. It is also a partial and preliminary agenda for future inquiry.

Caution One:
Watch out, Japanese people!

From Atlantic Unbound:

Slideshow: “Our Man in China”
A virtual tour of China’s skyscrapers, fashion trends, and beer festivals, with photos and narration by James Fallows.

T o get into a talk with a Japanese intellectual or statesman is sooner or later to ponder the effects of World War II. When will Japan emerge from the war�s shadow as a �normal� nation, with a constitution written by its own people (versus the one created by Douglas MacArthur) and with a bona fide army, as opposed to something that has to call itself the �Self-Defense Force�? When will the Chinese and Koreans�and for that matter the Singaporeans and Filipinos and Australians�stop mau-mauing Japan with their wartime complaints? What special mission and message does Japan have for the world, as the first and only country to have suffered a nuclear attack? Will Japan�s view of America always be skewed into an inferiority/superiority complex, because of the U.S. role as conqueror in the war? The process is similar to discussions in Germany�except that Germans tend to be preemptively apologetic about the problems their forebears caused the world, and Germans make no special claim to suffering like Japan�s.

The process is not at all similar to discussions about the war on this side of the Sea of Japan. I put this item first because for me it has been the most startling. �Frankly, we hate the Japanese,� an undergraduate at a prestigious Chinese university told me, in English. The main difference between his comment and what I heard from countless other young people was the word frankly.

Why should this be surprising, given the centuries of tension between China and Japan? Mainly because of the people who expressed their hostility in the most vehement form: students in their teens and early twenties. They had not been born, nor had their parents (nor even, in many cases, their grandparents), when Japanese troops seized Manchuria in the 1930s, bombed and occupied Shanghai, and slaughtered hundreds of thousands of Chinese civilians during the Rape of Nanking. Wartime memories die hard, but you expect them to be most intense among actual participants or victims, and therefore to fade over time. Israeli teenagers aren�t obsessed with today�s Germans. I was not able to spend much time at universities talking with students when I was in China in the 1980s, but I don�t remember anything comparable to today�s level of bile.

The breadth of hostility surprised me for another reason. For years I have been skeptical of the idea of an anti- Japanese resurgence in China, viewing it as government-manufactured sentiment designed to deflect potential protest toward external enemies and away from the Chinese regime. In a new book called China: Fragile Superpower, Susan Shirk of the University of California at San Diego gives a detailed account of occasions when the Chinese government has deliberately drummed up anti-Japanese sentiment�or damped it down, when it seemed to be getting inconveniently robust.

In a country where media and education are as carefully controlled as they are in China, all public opinion is to an extent manufactured. �The students are excited,� a professor at a leading Chinese university told me. �They can be calmed down.� Still, I don�t view anti-Japanese sentiments as a ploy anymore. �You say anything at all about Japan [on a blog or computer bulletin board], and there will be 10,000 posts immediately,� an official of a Chinese high-tech firm told me. �The mob effect can get out of control.�

Partisans of Baidu, the main local search-engine company (which is listed on NASDAQ and has Americans as its main investors) recently ran a blog campaign touting it over Google. One illustration was Google�s supposed inability to return any results for searches on �Nanjing Massacre� (or �Nanking,� the older Western spelling) whereas Baidu returned plenty. There was a technical reason�Google�s servers are outside China and thus must cross the government�s �Great Firewall� to send results to users in China. The firewall routinely screens out references to �massacre,� as in �Tiananmen Square massacre,� and so it blocked Google�s results. Baidu�s servers and resources are all inside the firewall, and have been pre-scrubbed to remove references to Tiananmen and other prohibited topics. Google has since made adjustments so that it too can report on Nanking, but the episode showed the sensitivity of the issue.

The main trigger for renewed Chinese protest against Japan has been the (idiotic) persistence of Junichiro Koizumi, Japan�s former prime minister, in paying ceremonial visits to Yasukuni Shrine, in Tokyo, where fourteen Class-A war criminals from World War II are among the 2.5 million Japanese war dead the shrine honors. Koizumi recently stepped down after five years in office, but his successor, Shinzo Abe, has refused to rule out continuing the visits. When I�ve asked Chinese students what they want from Japan, they often say an end to the Yasukuni visits and �an apology.� Formal apologies have in fact been offered many times by Japanese officials, and even by the current emperor. If the Chinese are looking for something like German-style ongoing contrition, this is not in the cards. Twentieth-century history, as taught in Japan, holds that Japan itself was the ultimate victim of the �Great Pacific War,� because of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

There is one tantalizing further twist to the syndrome. When I have asked young people why they should be so wrapped up with events seventy years in the past, the reply is some variant of: �We Chinese are students of history.� There are certain phrases you hear so often that you know they can�t be true, at least not at face value. Yes, China�s years of subjugation by Western countries and Japan obviously still matter. But the history that is more recent but less often discussed is that of the Cultural Revolution, from 1966 to 1976, when the parents of today�s college students were sent into the countryside and often forced to denounce their own parents. In an eloquent new book called Chinese Lessons, John Pomfret of The Washington Post recounts the ways that his classmates from Nanjing University, where he was an exchange student in the early 1980s, bore the emotional and even moral imprint of those years. They�d been made to do things they knew were wrong, and they found ways to rationalize away that knowledge. So far every student gathering I�ve been to has included a volunteered reference to the evil Japanese, and none has included a reference to the evils of Chairman Mao (whose picture is still on every denomination of paper money) and his Cultural Revolution.

Posted at 5:26 PM · Comments (0)

Copyright The Los Angeles Times

As ocean seafood populations plummet, catching is mostly unhindered — only Alaska is willing to self-police. Big business is starting to lend a hand.

Nov 26 2006
Los Angeles Times

Taku River, Alaska
Fish counters in green rain slickers patrol a narrow channel of glacier-fed river, keeping close tabs on the thousands of salmon that migrate upstream to spawn.
Elsewhere along the coast, observation teams slosh through waterways in waders, carrying rifles to ward off aggressive bears. Still others monitor the migration from low-flying planes, or take inventory at fish weirs and atop counting towers placed strategically throughout the wilds of Alaska as part of an elaborate surveillance of returning fish.
At the first hint of a decline in salmon numbers, the Alaska Department of Fish and Game is quick to shut down coastal fishing grounds and order fishermen to pull in their nets and lines.
State officials do this without protest from fishermen. Rather, they work together, to protect not just a prized fish, but an economic bonanza and a leading source of private-sector jobs in the state.
“We don’t want to catch fish this year, but in future years too,” said Juneau fisherman Jev Shelton, who remembers when the collapse of Alaska’s salmon fisheries from overfishing was declared a national disaster about 50 years ago.
Threatened with the loss of one of its top industries, Alaska began limiting the number of boats and fishermen, restricting the size of their catches, and giving fishermen a stake in the long-term viability of salmon and other fish.
If only the rest of the world had learned from Alaska’s response to the crisis. Today, records show that 90% of the big fish — tuna, cod and swordfish — are gone from the oceans. If the serial depletions continue unabated, a group of scientists recently predicted, major seafood stocks will collapse by 2048.
Alaska’s policy shifts are still an exception. By and large, ocean fishing, especially in international waters, remains a free-for-all with too many boats chasing too few fish.
Only about 6% of the global fish catch is certified as “sustainable,” meaning that fish are not pulled from the ocean faster than they can reproduce and are not caught in ways that destroy other sea life or undersea habitat. Much of it comes from Alaska.
Though other U.S. regions and nations have been reluctant to rein in their fishing fleets, help has emerged from an unexpected quarter.
Wal-Mart Stores Inc. has pledged within three to five years to sell nothing but wild-caught seafood that meets standards for sustainability set out by the nonprofit Marine Stewardship Council. Founded in 1997, the council grants a blue and white label to fish that stand up to independent certification.
Wal-Mart’s shift in policy has rippled through the global seafood trade. The National Fisheries Institute, the seafood industry’s principal lobby, has become a booster of the sustainable seafood movement after years of resistance.
McDonald’s is now nudging its suppliers to come up with sustainably caught fish for its Filet-O-Fish sandwiches, which consume 110 million pounds of Alaskan pollack, New Zealand hoki and other whitefish from around the globe.
Meanwhile, Darden Restaurants, the parent of Red Lobster, is taking similar steps, as is the Compass Group, America’s largest food-service provider to corporate and university cafeterias.
In turn, commercial fisheries are seeking certification, for flounder caught off Japan, herring in the North Sea, Chilean hake and albacore off California.
“This is supply-chain pressure of the best kind,” said Rupert Howes, chief executive of the London-based Marine Stewardship Council. “The Wal-Mart commitment is actually catalyzing commitments from other retailers around the world. We have a major Japanese retailer that wants to launch MSC-labeled products.”
Yet there could be even more risks for precarious fish stocks as megagrocers such as Wal-Mart enter the seafood market, creating increased demand for the types of fish that the sustainable seafood movement is trying to save.
“That’s what fundamentally undermines the market-based approach,” said Daniel Pauly, a fisheries scientist at the University of British Columbia. “You create more customers for fish and invariably increase the pressure on the stocks.”
Pauly and other critics believe it’s too late for the market alone to protect fish when the world’s population is growing and two-thirds of the world’s commercial stocks are already being fished at or beyond their capacity.
The only solution to overfishing, they say, is for governments to muster the political will to restrict catches and take other measures to slow the plunder of the sea’s diminishing bounty…

For the complete article please see latimes.com

Posted at 3:17 PM · Comments (0)

Copyright The Japan Times

Usually reviews of Nobuyoshi Araki’s work start by pointing out the contradictions “monster,” “genius,” “pornographer,” “artist,” etc. The greatest negative routinely cited is his attitude toward women, photographed smeared with paint or bound in bondage ropes, images that reflect attitudes rooted in Edo’s ancient past or Tokyo’s modern sexual underworld.

News photo
View from a cemetery of the construction on Roppongi Hills (2000; above); High school students returning home in the afternoon (1997; below) PHOTOS COURTESY OF TOKYO-EDO MUSEUM
News photo

But this kind of moralistic approach doesn’t quite fit a subject like Araki, wo is more a force of nature, existing, in some Nietzschean space beyond good and evil, or at least “good and evil” as defined by middle-class Western journalists like Adrian Searle in The Guardian. In a review of the show “Nobuyoshi Araki: Self, Life, Death,” at London’s Barbican last year, Searle slyly hinted that Araki’s depictions of women placed him beyond the pale of some liberal leftwing acceptability, before trying to find some level on which he could be “redeemed.”

Araki’s present book and show, “Tokyo Jinsei,” covers much of the same ground as the Barbican show with a similar 40-year-plus range, although, typically, the “pornographic” element has been watered down for a Japanese audience.

While moral concerns are always going to surface among those keen to damn his work, they are less helpful for those wishing to develop a true understanding of his frantic photographic framing and capturing of Tokyo’s unique energy. With such a variety of subject matter, formal concepts are also useless. This leaves just one device that is the key to all Araki’s art — Araki himself. Looking at the people in the photographs — and even the scenery — we see the chemistry of their reaction to the cheerful, relentless, comical ball of energy that is Araki.

Why are you calling this book and exhibition “Tokyo Jinsei”?

I was born and bred in Tokyo. Almost my whole life has been lived here. Tokyo is my mother. It is my womb. I still have a kind of lingering attachment.

This implies a kind of childishness, like you haven’t grown up yet.

Yes, just by looking at me you can understand that!

My first impression was that you looked like someone who worked in a circus. I think your appearance is very important for taking photographs — you can be very intrusive and maybe even rude with the camera, but people will forgive you because your appearance makes them smile.

But it’s not calculated. This is just my natural style. Although when I take photographs, I try to dress to fit the occasion. It is very important to suit the object or the person. For example, when I photograph in Shinjuku, I wear jeans, a T-shirt and sports shoes; but when I go to Ginza, I usually wear a suit. I change my costume depending on where I’m taking pictures. If the person I’m photographing is naked, then I, too, will be naked — a naked photographer!

How does it help to make such a picture better if you too are naked?

News photo
Araki’s 2004 photograph series of Minori Miyata is emblematic of his celebration of beauty and transience. Miyata, a tanka poet who died from breast cancer a year later, contributed poems to Araki’s photobook of her.

Why are you even asking!? When two people make love, both people have to be naked. This is exactly the same thing.

In other words, taking a picture of a naked woman is the same as making love?

Yes, “naked love,” that sounds good, doesn’t it? “Naked love” — yes, I like that.

Tokyo is not the most beautiful city in the world. Why do you focus on it?

Photographing a city that is not my own is bothersome. To be honest, I don’t have any interest in any city besides Tokyo. The most important thing for me is to take pictures of the people I love the most and the city I love the most, and that’s Tokyo. Before, I tried taking pictures in Paris and New York, but actually I’m not interested in other cities because I love Tokyo. I wen to the Barbican in London last year for an exhibition, but even if I go to London or Paris, I don’t take pictures of Paris or London. I can only take a picture of something in Paris or London, I can’t take a picture of Paris or London.

By focusing on Tokyo over 44 years, your book and exhibition reflect Tokyo’s constantly changing fashions, styles, architecture, and even the body language of the people. Isn’t the effect of all this simply to create a great nostalgia trip?

In a way, I guess so. People say photography should try to avoid being nostalgic, but I simply say photographs are nostalgic. The meaning of nostalgia for me is not sad memories or something that has disappeared; not just memories. For me nostalgia is like the warmth in a mother’s belly.

That’s like staying close to the womb, both in space or time. You stay in the same place, Tokyo, and by embracing the nostalgia of photographs you attempt to stay in the same temporal space.

If you say that, it sounds too concrete. It includes that, but not so concretely. I would use the term “transmigration” or the “wheel of life” to describe it.

It’s very interesting that you have such nostalgia and attachment to place in Tokyo,because Tokyo has as much permanence as a Bedouin encampment. Every few years everything is knocked down and rebuilt, like Roppongi Hills. Your attitude is like someone clinging onto a rock during a storm at sea.

But that’s what Tokyo is. The movement and change are what makes it. If it didn’t change it wouldn’t be any good at all. It means the city is alive. Anyway, I feel it’s not changing at all. It’s simply moving! This is what makes Tokyo very attractive. This is why I can’t leave it.

Does that create problems for you as a photographer? The old Tokyo with its ramshackle appearance seems easier to take interesting photographs of than the new glass and concrete. If it becomes too modern, does it become more difficult to photograph?

There’s nothing that is difficult for me to photograph! Everything is attractive. For example women, if they are beautiful, of course that’s attractive, but, even if they are ugly, they are attractive for me.

A good example is the picture of Minori Miyata in the exhibition, the beautiful tanka poet who later died from breast cancer. She had an ugly scar where her left breast had been. That somehow made the image all the more beautiful.

When I took this picture, I wasn’t trying to make her look beautiful. It wasn’t to solve any problem. There is no conclusion. It’s completely open. It doesn’t go anywhere.

It’s very intimate in a way that a lot of sexual pictures aren’t. Why did she ask you or allow you to take the picture?

Because she loved me, because I am the greatest photographer in Japan! What’s important in my work is always the relationship between me and the object — it’s a kind of love story. I don’t concern myself with why a relationship starts or where it goes. The most important thing is just the relationship between the two of us at that moment. This world becomes our world.

In the case of this picture of Minori Miyata, if you had pushed the button one or two seconds later, would it have been a very different photograph?

Yes, because the time when a picture is taken is like an emotion, it’s like a sexual encounter. It’s like a f**k! So, timing is very important.

When you take a picture, what is it that makes you push the button?

It must be kami (god). What makes a photographer take a picture? What makes an artist paint a picture? It can’t really be explained. It’s a kind of instinct or impulse.

But you must take thousands of pictures that you simply discard.

If you consider that I have published 357 books of photos, I almost don’t throw any pictures away. Soon I will be producing a book of my best photos, but every photo is great and wonderful, so I can’t throw any away. Taking pictures is a lot like sexual foreplay. Even though sex ends in an orgasm, it is not just a f**k. A lot of my pictures are foreplay but the best ones are orgasms.
Nobuyoshi Araki’s “Tokyo Jinsei” runs till Dec. 24 at the Edo-Tokyo Museum; open 9:30 a.m.-5:30 p.m. (closed Mon.). For more information call (03) 3626-9974 or visit www.edo-tokyo-museum.or.jp
The Japan Times: Thursday, Nov. 23, 2006
(C) All rights reserved

Posted at 3:03 PM · Comments (0)

From correspondents in Tokyo

November 26, 2006 04:58pm

A FORMER medical officer in Japan’s WWII navy has admitted to conducting vivisection in the Philippines on some 30 prisoners of war, including women and children.
It was the first time such testimony had been given on experiments on human beings by a Japanese officer in the Philippines during WWII, Kyodo News reported late today.

Similar experiments were conducted in northern China by the notorious germ warfare Unit 731, which is blamed for the deaths of up to 10,000 Chinese and Allied prisoners of war, the report added.

Akira Makino, 84, a former officer of the medical corps of the Imperial Japanese Navy’s No.33 patrol unit, said the experiments on live prisoners began in December 1944, shortly after he was assigned to Zamboanga air base on the Philippines’ Mindanao Island.

Makino was ordered to take two local men captured as US spies to a school which had been turned into a hospital, where they were undressed and tied to an operating table, Kyodo said.

Makino was told by his superior to insert a surgical knife into their bodies after the prisoners’ faces were covered with an ether-soaked cloth so that they became unconscious.

“I thought ‘What a horrible thing I’m doing to innocent people even though I’m ordered to do it’,” Makino told the news agency, after keeping the information secret for six decades.

The experiments, which included amputating arms and legs, suturing blood vessels and abdominal dissections, continued until February 1945, and resulted in the deaths of some 30 people, including women and children, he said.

After the experiments, the captives were strangled with a rope to make sure they were dead, he said, adding that their bodies were buried and the deeds kept strictly secret.

“I would have been killed if I had disobeyed the order,” Makino said. “That was the case in those days.”

US forces landed on the Philippine island in March 1945, sending Japanese soldiers into hiding in the jungle.

Little Japanese testimony about what happened in Southeast Asia during the war has emerged. But the new information should throw light on Japan’s malicious wartime acts, Kyodo said, quoting experts.

Makino has talked about his war experiences to primary and junior high school students for the past several years without telling them about the human dissections.

He told Kyodo: “I want to tell the truth about war to as many people as possible. If I’m given the opportunity, I’ll continue to testify in atonement.”

Posted at 6:07 PM · Comments (0)

Copyright Business Week

NOVEMBER 27, 2006

American importers have long answered criticism of conditions at their
Chinese suppliers with labor rules and inspections. But many factories
have just gotten better at concealing abuses

Tang Yinghong was caught in an impossible squeeze. For years, his
employer, Ningbo Beifa Group, had prospered as a top supplier of pens,
mechanical pencils, and highlighters to Wal-Mart Stores (WMT ) and
other major retailers. But late last year, Tang learned that auditors
from Wal-Mart, Beifa’s biggest customer, were about to inspect labor
conditions at the factory in the Chinese coastal city of Ningbo where
he worked as an administrator. Wal-Mart had already on three occasions
caught Beifa paying its 3,000 workers less than China’s minimum wage
and violating overtime rules, Tang says. Under the U.S. chain’s labor
rules, a fourth offense would end the relationship.

Help arrived suddenly in the form of an unexpected phone call from a
man calling himself Lai Mingwei. The caller said he was with Shanghai
Corporate Responsibility Management & Consulting Co., and for a $5,000
fee, he’d take care of Tang’s Wal-Mart problem. “He promised us he
could definitely get us a pass for the audit,” Tang says.

Lai provided advice on how to create fake but authentic-looking
records and suggested that Beifa hustle any workers with grievances out
of the factory on the day of the audit, Tang recounts. The consultant
also coached Beifa managers on what questions they could expect from
Wal-Mart’s inspectors, says Tang. After following much of Lai’s advice,
the Beifa factory in Ningbo passed the audit earlier this year, Tang
says, even though the company didn’t change any of its practices.

For more than a decade, major American retailers and name brands have
answered accusations that they exploit “sweatshop” labor with elaborate
codes of conduct and on-site monitoring. But in China many factories
have just gotten better at concealing abuses. Internal industry
documents reviewed by BusinessWeek reveal that numerous Chinese
factories keep double sets of books to fool auditors and distribute
scripts for employees to recite if they are questioned. And a new breed
of Chinese consultant has sprung up to assist companies like Beifa in
evading audits. “Tutoring and helping factories deal with audits has
become an industry in China,” says Tang, 34, who recently left Beifa of
his own volition to start a Web site for workers.

A lawyer for Beifa, Zhou Jie, confirms that the company employed the
Shanghai consulting firm but denies any dishonesty related to wages,
hours, or outside monitoring. Past audits had “disclosed some problems,
and we took necessary measures correspondingly,” he explains in a
letter responding to questions. The lawyer adds that Beifa has “become
the target of accusations” by former employees “whose unreasonable
demands have not been satisfied.” Reached by cell phone, a man
identifying himself as Lai says that the Shanghai consulting firm helps
suppliers pass audits, but he declines to comment on his work for
Beifa.

Wal-Mart spokeswoman Amy Wyatt says the giant retailer will
investigate the allegations about Beifa brought to its attention by
BusinessWeek. Wal-Mart has stepped up factory inspections, she adds,
but it acknowledges that some suppliers are trying to undermine
monitoring: “We recognize there is a problem. There are always
improvements that need to be made, but we are confident that new
procedures are improving conditions.”

CHINESE EXPORT manufacturing is rife with tales of deception. The
largest single source of American imports, China’s factories this year
are expected to ship goods to the U.S. worth $280 billion. American
companies continually demand lower prices from their Chinese suppliers,
allowing American consumers to enjoy inexpensive clothes, sneakers, and
electronics. But factory managers in China complain in interviews that
U.S. price pressure creates a powerful incentive to cheat on labor
standards that American companies promote as a badge of responsible
capitalism. These standards generally incorporate the official minimum
wage, which is set by local or provincial governments and ranges from
$45 to $101 a month. American companies also typically say they hew to
the government-mandated workweek of 40 to 44 hours, beyond which higher
overtime pay is required. These figures can be misleading, however, as
the Beijing government has had only limited success in pushing local
authorities to enforce Chinese labor laws. That’s another reason abuses
persist and factory oversight frequently fails.

Some American companies now concede that the cheating is far more
pervasive than they had imagined. “We’ve come to realize that, while
monitoring is crucial to measuring the performance of our suppliers, it
doesn’t per se lead to sustainable improvements,” says Hannah Jones,
Nike Inc.’s (NKE ) vice-president for corporate responsibility. “We
still have the same core problems.”

This raises disturbing questions. Guarantees by multi-nationals that
offshore suppliers are meeting widely accepted codes of conduct have
been important to maintaining political support in the U.S. for growing
trade ties with China, especially in the wake of protests by unions and
antiglobalization activists. “For many retailers, audits are a way of
covering themselves,” says Auret van Heerden, chief executive of the
Fair Labor Assn., a coalition of 20 apparel and sporting goods makers
and retailers, including Nike, Adidas Group, Eddie Bauer, and Nordstrom
(JWN ). But can corporations successfully impose Western labor
standards on a nation that lacks real unions and a meaningful rule of
law?

Historically associated with sweatshop abuses but now trying to reform
its suppliers, Nike says that one factory it caught falsifying records
several years ago is the Zhi Qiao Garments Co. The dingy concrete-
walled facility set near mango groves and rice paddies in the steamy
southern city of Panyu employs 600 workers, most in their early 20s.
They wear blue smocks and lean over stitching machines and large steam-
blasting irons. Today the factory complies with labor-law requirements,
Nike says, but Zhi Qiao’s general manager, Peter Wang, says it’s not
easy. “Before, we all played the cat-and-mouse game,” but that has
ended, he claims. “Any improvement you make costs more money.”
Providing for overtime wages is his biggest challenge, he says. By law,
he is supposed to provide time-and-a-half pay after eight hours on
weekdays and between double and triple pay for Saturdays, Sundays, and
holidays. “The price [Nike pays] never increases one penny,” Wang
complains, “but compliance with labor codes definitely raises costs.”

A Nike spokesman says in a written statement that the company, based
in Beaverton, Ore., “believes wages are best set by the local
marketplace in which a contract factory competes for its workforce.”
One way Nike and several other companies are seeking to improve labor
conditions is teaching their suppliers more efficient production
methods that reduce the need for overtime.

The problems in China aren’t limited to garment factories, where labor
activists have documented sweatshop conditions since the early 1990s.
Widespread violations of Chinese labor laws are also surfacing in
factories supplying everything from furniture and household appliances
to electronics and computers. Hewlett-Packard, (HPQ ) Dell (DELL ), and
other companies that rely heavily on contractors in China to supply
notebook PCs, digital cameras, and handheld devices have formed an
industry alliance to combat the abuses.

A compliance manager for a major multinational company who has
overseen many factory audits says that the percentage of Chinese
suppliers caught submitting false payroll records has risen from 46% to
75% in the past four years. This manager, who requested anonymity,
estimates that only 20% of Chinese suppliers comply with wage rules,
while just 5% obey hour limitations.

A RECENT VISIT by the compliance manager to a toy manufacturer in
Shenzhen illustrated the crude ways that some suppliers conceal
mistreatment. The manager recalls smelling strong paint fumes in the
poorly ventilated and aging factory building. Young women employees
were hunched over die-injection molds, using spray guns to paint
storybook figurines. The compliance manager discovered a second
workshop behind a locked door that a factory official initially refused
to open but eventually did. In the back room, a young woman, who
appeared to be under the legal working age of 16, tried to hide behind
her co-workers on the production line, the visiting compliance manager
says. The Chinese factory official admitted he was violating various
work rules.

The situation in China is hard to keep in perspective. For all the
shortcomings in factory conditions and oversight, even some critics say
that workers’ circumstances are improving overall. However compromised,
pressure from multinationals has curbed some of the most egregious
abuses by outside suppliers. Factories owned directly by such
corporations as Motorola Inc (MOT ). and General Electric Co. (GE )
generally haven’t been accused of mistreating their employees. And a
booming economy and tightening labor supply in China have emboldened
workers in some areas to demand better wages, frequently with success.
Even so, many Chinese laborers, especially migrants from poor rural
regions, still seek to work as many hours as possible, regardless of
whether they are properly paid.

In this shifting, often murky environment, labor auditing has
mushroomed into a multimillion-dollar industry. Internal corporate
investigators and such global auditing agencies as Cal Safety
Compliance, sgs of Switzerland, and Bureau Veritas of France operate a
convoluted and uncoordinated oversight system. They follow varying
corporate codes of conduct, resulting in some big Chinese factories
having to post seven or eight different sets of rules. Some factories
receive almost daily visits from inspection teams demanding payroll and
production records, facility tours, and interviews with managers and
workers. “McDonald’s (MCD ), Walt Disney, (DIS ) and Wal-Mart are doing
thousands of audits a year that are not harmonized,” says van Heerden
of Fair Labor. Among factory managers, “audit fatigue sets in,” he
says.

Some companies that thought they were making dramatic progress are
discovering otherwise. A study commissioned by Nike last year covered
569 factories it uses in China and around the world that employ more
than 300,000 workers. It found labor-code violations in every single
one. Some factories “hide their work practices by maintaining two or
even three sets of books,” by coaching workers to “mislead auditors
about their work hours, and by sending portions of production to
unauthorized contractors where we have no oversight,” the Nike study
found.

THE FAIR LABOR ASSN. released its own study last November based on
unannounced audits of 88 of its members’ supplier factories in 18
countries. It found an average of 18 violations per factory, including
excessive hours, underpayment of wages, health and safety problems, and
worker harassment. The actual violation rate is probably higher, the
fla said, because “factory personnel have become sophisticated in
concealing noncompliance related to wages. They often hide original
documents and show monitors falsified books.”

While recently auditing an apparel manufacturer in Dongguan that
supplies American importers, the corporate compliance manager says he
discussed wage levels with the factory’s Hong Kong-based owner. The
2,000 employees who operate sewing and stitching machines in the multi-
story complex often put in overtime but earn an average of only $125 a
month, an amount the owner grudgingly acknowledged to the compliance
manager doesn’t meet Chinese overtime-pay requirements or corporate
labor codes. “These goals are a fantasy,” the owner said. “Maybe in two
or three decades we can meet them.”

Pinning down what Chinese production workers are paid can be tricky.
Based on Chinese government figures, the average manufacturing wage in
China is 64 cents an hour, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor
Statistics and demographer Judith Banister of Javelin Investments, a
consulting firm in Beijing. That rate assumes a 40-hour week. In fact,
60- to 100-hour weeks are common in China, meaning that the real
manufacturing wage is far less. Based on his own calculations from
plant inspections, the veteran compliance manager estimates that
employees at garment, electronics, and other export factories typically
work more than 80 hours a week and make only 42 cents an hour.

BusinessWeek reviewed summaries of 28 recent industry audits of
Chinese factories serving U.S. customers. A few factories supplying
Black & Decker, (BDK ) Williams-Sonoma, and other well-known brands
turned up clean, the summaries show. But these facilities were the
exceptions.

At most of the factories, auditors discovered records apparently meant
to falsify payrolls and time sheets. One typical report concerns
Zhongshan Tat Shing Toys Factory, which employs 650 people in the
southern city of Zhongshan. The factory’s main customers are Wal-Mart
and Target. (TGT ) When an American-sponsored inspection team showed up
this spring, factory managers produced time sheets showing each worker
put in eight hours a day, Monday through Friday, and was paid double
the local minimum wage of 43 cents per hour for eight hours on
Saturday, according to an audit report.

But when auditors interviewed workers in one section, some said that
they were paid less than the minimum wage and that most of them were
obliged to work an extra three to five hours a day, without overtime
pay, the report shows. Most toiled an entire month without a day off.
Workers told auditors that the factory had a different set of records
showing actual overtime hours, the report says. Factory officials
claimed that some of the papers had been destroyed by fire.

Wal-Mart’s Wyatt doesn’t dispute the discrepancies but stresses that
the company is getting more aggressive overall in its monitoring. Wal-
Mart says it does more audits than any other company—13,600 reviews of
7,200 factories last year alone—and permanently banned 141 factories
in 2005 as a result of serious infractions, such as using child labor.
In a written statement, Target doesn’t respond to the allegations but
says that it “takes very seriously” the fair treatment of factory
workers. It adds that it “is committed to taking corrective action—up
to and including termination of the relationship for vendors” that
violate local labor law or Target’s code of conduct. The Zhongshan
factory didn’t respond to repeated requests for comment.

An audit late last year of Young Sun Lighting Co., a maker of lamps
for Home Depot, (HD ) Sears (SHLD ), and other retailers, highlighted
similar inconsistencies. Every employee was on the job five days a week
from 8 a.m. to 5:30 p.m., with a lunch break and no overtime hours,
according to interviews with managers, as well as time sheets and
payroll records provided by the 300-worker factory in Dongguan, an
industrial city in Guangdong Province. But other records auditors found
at the site and elsewhere—backed up by auditor interviews with
workers—revealed that laborers worked an extra three to five hours a
day with only one or two days a month off during peak production
periods. Workers said they received overtime pay, but the “auditor
strongly felt that these workers were coached,” the audit report
states.

Young Sun denies ever violating the rules set by its Western
customers. In written answers to questions, the lighting manufacturer
says that it doesn’t coach employees on how to respond to auditors and
that “at present, there are no” workers who are putting in three to
five extra hours a day and getting only one or two days off each month.
Young Sun says that it follows all local Chinese overtime rules.

Home Depot doesn’t contest the inconsistencies in the audit reports
about Young Sun and three other factories in China. “There is no
perfect factory, I can guarantee you,” a company spokeswoman says.
Instead of cutting off wayward suppliers, Home Depot says that it works
with factories on corrective actions. If the retailer becomes aware of
severe offenses, such as the use of child labor, it terminates the
supplier. A Sears spokesman declined to comment.

Coaching of workers and midlevel managers to mislead auditors is
widespread, the auditing reports and BusinessWeek interviews show. A
document obtained last year during an inspection at one Chinese fabric
export factory in the southern city of Guangzhou instructed
administrators to take these actions when faced with a surprise audit:
“First notify underage trainees, underage full-time workers, and
workers without identification to leave the manufacturing workshop
through the back door. Order them not to loiter near the dormitory
area. Secondly, immediately order the receptionist to gather all
relevant documents and papers.” Other pointers include instructing all
workers to put on necessary protective equipment such as earplugs and
face masks.

SOME U.S. RETAILERS SAY this evidence isn’t representative and that
their auditing efforts are working. BusinessWeek asked J.C. Penney Co.
(JCP ) about audit reports included among those the magazine reviewed
that appear to show falsification of records to hide overtime and pay
violations at two factories serving the large retailer. Penney
spokeswoman Darcie M. Brossart says the company immediately
investigated the factories, and its “auditors observed no evidence of
any legal compliance issues.”

In any case, the two factories are too small to be seen as typical,
Penney executives argue. The chain has been consolidating its China
supply base and says that 80% of its imports now come from factories
with several thousand workers apiece, which are managed by large Hong
Kong trading companies that employ their own auditors. Quality
inspectors for Penney and other buyers are at their supplier sites
constantly, so overtime violations are hard to hide, Brossart says.

Chinese factory officials say, however, that just because infractions
are difficult to discern doesn’t mean they’re not occurring. “It’s a
challenge for us to meet these codes of conduct,” says Ron Chang, the
Taiwanese general manager of Nike supplier Shoetown Footwear Co., which
employs 15,000 workers in Qingyuan, Guangdong. Given the fierce
competition in China for foreign production work, “we can’t ask Nike to
increase our price,” he says, so “how can we afford to pay the higher
salary?” By reducing profit margins from 30% to 5% over the past 18
years, Shoetown has managed to stay in business and obey Nike’s rules,
he says.

But squeezing margins doesn’t solve the larger social issue. Chang
says he regularly loses skilled employees to rival factories that break
the rules because many workers are eager to put in longer hours than he
offers, regardless of whether they get paid overtime rates. Ultimately,
the economics of global outsourcing may trump any system of oversight
that Western companies attempt. And these harsh economic realities
could make it exceedingly difficult to achieve both the low prices and
the humane working conditions that U.S. consumers have been promised.

Posted at 5:53 PM · Comments (0)

Copyright The Financial Times

November 21 2006

China’s poor grew poorer at a time when the country was growing
substantially wealthier, an analysis by World Bank economists has found.

The real income of the poorest 10 per cent of China’s 1.3bn people fell by 2.4 per cent in the two years to 2003, the analysis showed, a period when the economy was growing by nearly 10 per cent a year. Over the same period, the income of China’s richest 10 per cent rose by more than 16 per cent.

“Preliminary analysis on Chinese data indicates that average income of the bottom decile went down slightly between 2001 and 2003, whereas all other income categories saw significant increases,” said Bert Hofman, the bank’s lead economist in China.

“Our analysis suggests that a considerable number of people below the poverty line were hit by an income shock � they only kept up consumption by spending their savings.”

The findings challenge the basis of government policies aimed at narrowing the country’s politically sensitive wealth gap.

Hu Jintao, China’s president, who came to power in 2002 and is likely to win a second five-year term next year, has made narrowing the gap between rich and poor a centrepiece of his administration’s economic policies.

China, which had relatively even income distribution in 1980 when it
embarked on market reforms, is now “less equal” than the US and Russia, using the Gini co-efficient, a standard measure of income disparities.

But the way to close this gap has been the subject of an intense and highly politicised debate in China, with many arguing that economic growth alone was the best way of addressing poverty, even if the results were uneven.

> The bank’s finding was “very significant” in this respect, said Arthur
> Kroeber, of Dragonomics, a consultancy, in Beijing, as it shows that the
> argument that a “rising tide lifts all boats” was wrong. “If there is
> evidence that some people are worse off in absolute terms, then that will be
> an issue of concern for the government,” he said.
>
> The fall in income for the poor cannot be explained by declining farm
> incomes, as food prices were rising at a faster rate than urban prices in
> December 2003.
>
> Over the period that the study covers, inflation was low and in one year,
> 2002, negative.
>
> Yasheng Huang, of the MIT Sloan School of Management, said that although the
> bank’s finding did not surprise him, he believed that poverty in China could
> be even worse.
>
> He said the Chinese defined poverty at a level that understated the size of
> the problem, at about Rmb650 ($83) a year in income, equal to about five per
> cent of average per capita income, compared with the US benchmark of 12 per
> cent.
>
> “The Chinese definition of the income threshold for poverty is set extremely
> low,” he said.
>
> Rural residents were also forced to buy services, such as health and
> education, in the cities where they were much more expensive, he said.

Posted at 6:15 PM · Comments (0)

Copyright The South China Morning Post

Tuesday, November 21, 2006

The mainland’s environmental problems are grave and local governments are bent on economic growth at the expense of the country’s ecology, according to the majority of respondents to a nationwide online survey.

The survey, organised by the China Youth Daily and Tencent, China’s largest instant messaging service provider, found that about 95 per cent of the 6,600 respondents rated the nation’s environmental degradation as severe and 70 per cent felt local government paid little regard to green priorities.

Water pollution topped the list of respondents’ concerns, with 87.1 per cent of people worried about its effect