China - The Leading Lady?

How should the US view China’s developing relations with her neighbors? Should the US modify its foreign policy toward these same nations in light of their changing relations with China? (Unit 3, Lesson 2)

China would like replace the US in being the leader of the modern world. By initiating economic, social, and diplomatic relations with her neighbors, China is developing a solid foundation similar to that of the European Union.

Currently the US has provided military assistance to some of China’s neighbors and therefore kept a foot in the Asian continent. This US action dilutes power from China and keeps the US hegemonic.

The US could partner with China in providing arbitration and security to Southeast Asia. This would reduce US military spending and provide relief to a US military that is already overstretched. The issue it raises is whether China is ready to be a mediator in light of its own human rights violations, or if the US is willing to give-up any power.

The US has not always been engaged in purely noble military causes. The “war on terror” has allowed the US to be present in Asia, and it will most likely take advantage of: “the region’s rich oil and gas reserves, as American companies eagerly wish to develop this energy wealth; second, it desires tactical ground to observe nearby political development, especially in South Asia.” (Sean L. Yom, Power Politics in Central Asia, p.6)

So should the US modify its foreign policy toward China’s neighbors? Not at the moment until the US witnesses a true commitment from China in human rights issues. One cannot be a leader and a diplomatic force if one is not good to their own people.

Robes and Arms!

(Unit 3 Lesson 1)

“Arms found in China monasteries”! Yes, you have read correctly…
This is the title of a BBC article published on Wednesday April 16, 2008.
As we have all been reading and closely following, there has been violence, rioting and fighting since March. Reports have stated that Tibetan rioters are targeting shops and vehicles owned by Han Chinese (CNN, BBC March 2008).
Not only are the monks behaving in unnatural violent behavior, they are targeting other ethnic groups.
The list of weapons include: 3 rifles, 571 bullets, 10kg of dynamite, five detonators and 38 satellite receivers. Anyone who thought globalization had not reached the peaks of this region is likely to think again!
I am truly speechless!
Here is the link to the full article: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/7351227.stm

(I found the image on google... Monks with guns!)

Real World Application...

(Unit 2, Lesson 5)

There are so many things I wanted to know about the real China. There are stories in the news about child labor, harsh work conditions, and lack of human rights, and I wanted to know the complete truth and have the facts in order to be able to do my share in helping those who can’t help themselves.

The article “China: End Child Labor in State Schools” (http://hrw.org/english/docs/2007/12/03/china17461.htm) is just another example of how poor children are abused. It adds to the pile of all the other articles I have been searching out in writing my letter to the president of the company where I work. Per Shirk, Clinton tried to address human rights and “from now on, the extension of China’s trade status would be done not by congressional action, but by executive order, with human rights conditions clearly attached” (p. 255). Unfortunately, China could not meet even the minimal conditions and the US came to the sad realization that in order to continue doing business, it must detach the human rights condition.

Since US companies will continue to seek low-cost manufacturing countries, it was very important to me that the company I work for would do everything in their power to address and avoid human right abuses. I feel this class and the readings have provided a solid foundation to argue the case and convince the president to champion the cause.

I will keep everyone posted… Either I get fired for starting trouble – which I would consider a blessing since I would not want to work for a company that does not support human rights, or I have helped make a change for a better China.

China's Younger Generation (Unit 2 Lesson 4)

What general points might you conclude about China’s younger generation from the two sources you have examined?
The hopes and ambitions of Alex, who is currently studying computer engineering at UNCG and of Li (http://www.guardian.co.uk/arts/video/2008/mar/10/li.furong), who is an exceptional violinist practicing at least 5 hours a day in Beijing, are very similar.
Alex wants to be successful, financially secure, help his family, society and China. He plans to accomplish this with hard work and the support of his family. He is very driven and although he is currently living in the US, he plans on returning to China and using his new found knowledge for the betterment of his country.
Li also wants to be successful, help her family and China. She is currently on scholarship studying music (violin), yet her family is struggling to pay for her education. Her father works 500 miles away and sends money in order for Li to fulfill her dream of becoming a renowned soloist.
Both Alex and Li’s parents experienced the Cultural Revolution. Alex believes that the CR has helped the Chinese government to learn from their past mistakes. Li is being pressured by her father to be the next great violinist, since his career in the Shanghai Orchestra was put to an end by the CR.
Both youths have aspiration of greatness, devout parents, individual needs and a commitment to hard work.
Education is most important and quite expensive. The entire family must sacrifice in order for the child to succeed. Alex points out that since the majority of Chinese live by the one child motto; it is not unusual for the parents to devote their lives to their one child. This puts a lot of pressure on the child to succeed. Li stated “I do feel under pressure, because my parents’ unfulfilled ambitions rest on me.”
It is interesting that both Alex and Li incorporate the need to help their family, and this makes me wonder if their aspirations and dreams are truly their own, or a reflection of what their parents want for them.
Li plans on becoming an international performer, and once she has reached that goal, she will return to China to contribute to her motherland. Alex, currently abroad, will finish his studies and return to China and bring back the high-tech knowledge he has acquired.
Both want to make a difference in their country. As Li stated “If I become a performer abroad, I will live there for a while, but in the end I will return to China. What I learned abroad I will contribute to my motherland. In the end I will live in China.”
I hope, for the sake of both families, that Alex and Li succeed.

On a personal note, I witnessed on two different occasions the suicide of two Chinese students at the University of Florida. It was later discovered that both students felt such pressure from their families and themselves to succeed, that anything less was unacceptable.

China a world power? (Unit 2 lesson 3)

China is a world power, no doubt about it. Consider the definition of world power in Webster’s dictionary: a political unit (as a nation or state) powerful enough to affect the entire world by its influence or actions.
In order to limit the discussion, I will focus on the economy. China has become the 4^th largest, after US, Japan and Germany. She has experienced a two digit growth rate for the past 30 years. Per the Economist “For the first time China is now contributing more to global GDP growth (measured at market exchange rates) than the United States is” (How fit is the panda, Sept. 27^th 2007).
Interesting to note, even the US recession will have little effect on China. This is good news since a global recession would be catastrophic. Since China’s net exports are about 25% of its growth, the US recession would have little effect on China.
Now let’s take China’s actions. Since most of the world is capitalist, human rights issues are placed on the backburner when it comes to importing cheap goods from China. China will continue to behave inhumanly with the knowledge that there will be no consequence from the international arena. In 1993, under the Clinton Administration, Bill Clinton himself thought he could attach a human rights condition order to trade negotiations with China. Although the conditions were minimal, China still failed to meet them and instead made more political arrests. In 1994 the human rights condition clause was taken out of Chinese commerce agreements in order for the US to continue our trade relationship with China.
Since the reforms, China has changed from a sleeping giant to an international world power. China has had the resources all along, and the open door policy helped flourish her growth. The world is paying close attention to China, and that is another true sign of a world power.

Infant Formula Milk Powder -- Made in China

Article from March 1o, 2008:

MADISON, N.J. — Wyeth has announced that it is investing $280 million to build a state-of-the-art nutritional manufacturing facility in Suzhou Industrial Park, Jiangsu Province, China. The new facility will primarily produce infant formula milk powder and other nutritional products.

When completed, the site will be one of the world's largest nutritional manufacturing facilities.

Construction at the site started this month, and the plant is scheduled to be operational by late 2010. At full operation, the plant is expected to employ about 500 employees. Products made at this facility will primarily supply the local market.

Two short comments:
1 -- Baby formula --> Yikes!
2 -- Primarily supply the local market --> Is any of the product going to be consumed in the US?

Environment Blog

Plastic Bag Ban Closes Down Chinese Factory

BEIJING (AP) — China's largest producer of plastic bags said Tuesday it has closed more than a month after the government announced a high-profile ban on stores handing out free bags in an effort to clean up the environment.
Huaqiang factory, in central Henan province, closed at the beginning of February, said a woman who answered the telephone at the factory. All 10,000 workers at the factory were sent home, said the woman, who gave only her family name, Hai, as is common in China.
Last month, China announced a ban on stores handing out free plastic shopping bags in a bid to cut waste and conserve resources. The ban takes effect June 1, two months before Beijing hosts the Summer Olympic Games, and will eliminate the flimsiest bags and force stores to charge to more durable bags.
The measure was announced by the State Council, China's Cabinet. The Huaqiang closure indicates the measure is being followed.
Many environmental regulations in China fail because of opposition from local governments, which receive tax and other revenues from local factories and are reluctant to shut them down.
The Huaqiang factory will sell its equipment and raw materials, Hai said.
Management was not immediately available for comment Tuesday. Phones at the local commerce bureau were not answered.
The factory, owned by Nanqiang Plastic Industrial Ltd., of Guangzhou in southern China, produced 250,000 tons of plastic bags a year, according to the official Xinhua News Agency.

My thoughts:
Although we were asked to find the article in the RSS feed, when I came across this one, I just could not help but post it.
Shutting down the factory and laying-off 10,000 people is insane. I understand that there are so many plastic bags flying around in China, they are called “white pollution.” But I also read that the government is pushing spit bags so that the Chinese will spit in the bags instead of, well… anywhere else. This, of course, is part of the clean-up campaign before the Olympics. So why not convert (at least for now) this plastic bag plant into a spit bag plant? I understand they are flimsy bags, but really, how much can spit weigh! What about education in recycling. I take some canvas bags to the grocery store and I also use some of the plastic bags provided, which I later recycle. This is something that can be implemented in China. I am no engineer, but maybe there was an inexpensive way to produce more durable (& reusable) bags, which are permitted. The raw materials had already been purchased, so maybe a little tweaking of the mold injection tool or the amount of resin used would have done the trick. Or, what about switching from three shifts to one (I am assuming the factory worked 3 shifts), which would save some of the jobs, reduce consumption, and start a “conversation” on what better environmental alternatives could be produced at the plant. China should be looking at possible “green jobs”, which could be both profitable and environmentally conscientious. Of course, if the owner of the plant was upset about the new regulation and wanted to prove a point by shutting down the plant, there is no amount of tweaking, restructuring or remarketing to have kept it open and saved those jobs. Hopefully the plant will re-open as a canvas bag plant and everyone can live in harmony!

Lesson 6

Commuters in Beijing asked to give up bus seats

(China Daily, February 22, 2008)

Beijing authorities yesterday launched "Seat-giving Day" to encourage people on public transport to give up their seats to those in greater need, in the latest bid to improve civic-consciousness ahead of the Olympics.
The city named the 22nd of every month as the day for commuters to give way to the aged, pregnant women, children, and the disabled on public transport.
Last February, the city designated the 11th of every month as "Queuing Day", when all city residents are encouraged to stand in line rather than jump queues.
Government departments and individuals also launched car-free days or follow-the-traffic-rule days earlier.
"Queuing Day has been welcomed by the people, and this latest move will further our efforts to improve public transportation," Liu Xiaoming, deputy chief of Beijing municipal committee of communications, said.
About 1.2 million promotional cards that say "Please offer your seat to those who need it more" will be distributed to commuters in Beijing today.
Liu's committee and the Beijing municipal transportation administration bureau (BMTAB) jointly launched the activity.
"The authorities have asked all bus companies to train conductors to persuade people to give up the seats," the BMTAB's Zhang Lei told China Daily yesterday.
The companies will also send out supervisors to check whether bus conductors are serving passengers in a polite way, he said.
More residents have been giving their seats on public transport to the elderly or disabled on buses, according to a report by the Renmin University of China commissioned by the capital ethic development committee and released on Feb 1.
"People tend to keep their seats when too many passengers crowd on to the bus or if they are traveling a long distance," Bai Meng, 25, who works in the Chinese capital, said.
She said she had noticed an improvement in people's behavior, with many of them willing to give up their seats if asked politely to do so by a conductor.
"We are Olympic hosts and should give visitors from home and abroad a good impression," Bai said.
"Pleased to be a gentleman on the bus," a passenger surnamed Zhang told China Daily yesterday that he had noticed some aged and disabled passengers did not want to get special attention on buses or subways.
"It is an interesting subject: How people can carry out good deeds in a sensitive way without offending the people they are trying to help," the Beijing resident said.

My thoughts:

After reading this article it seemed interesting that the Chinese have this notion that the international community is very civilized, and the Chinese must emulate them in order to be accepted. Last year I had the pleasure of visiting NYC, and I did not see anyone giving-up their seats for the elderly. This past Christmas I was visiting family in Hamburg, and once again, no German was jumping up to give-up their seat for a mother and child. At that time, we just dismissed it as “city folk mentality”, and I actually did not think about it until I read this article.

China is transforming economically, politically, and socially. If China can survive the failure of past economic hardships such as the Great Leap Forward (or Backwards as some might call it) and turn it around to double-digit economic growth, or go from a staunch communist regime to one allowing privatization of enterprises and capitalistic features, and now from “uncivilized” actions as spitting and pushing, to spit bags and standing in queues, it may not be far-fetched to see a crack-down in human rights and environmental policies. If these two policies are implemented, it would launch China as a true leader and genuinely win the hearts of the international community.

I can't complain about Atlantic Beach, NC anymore!

Just received these pictures from an email... not sure where in China they were taken, but they are sure fun to look at!

This Little Piggy Shortage (Newsweek article)

A new breed of criminal has emerged in China: "pigjackers." Soaring pork prices in the People's Republic have sent thieves roaring off with truckloads of hogs—and sometimes with smaller hauls, as was the case with the gang that was busted last year in Shenzhen trying to make off with 275 pounds of pork on a motorbike. A local newspaper valued the meat at upwards of $420, or roughly three times what a stolen motorbike might fetch in the city. Police easily caught the getaway bike; it couldn't handle all that weight.

The porcine crime wave is no joke to China's leaders. They see it as a sign of a much larger problem: even more than they worry about a repetition of Tiananmen Square, they dread the kind of mass unrest that could erupt out of a spike in pork prices. A full 65 percent of the country's total protein consumption is pork. The threat of a spontaneous uprising has been made worse by a freak blizzard that paralyzed central China last week—the region's worst in 50 years—stranding mobs of migrant workers on their way home for the Lunar New Year and disrupting shipments of the pig meat that is essential to holiday feasts. Food prices in general, and pork in particular, have been skyrocketing for months. Economic boom times are boosting demand even as the supply has plunged because of shrinking farmlands, rising grain prices and a "blue ear disease" epidemic that forced pig raisers to cull many thousands of hogs.

In an effort to head off serious trouble, Beijing has tapped the country's official "pork reserve." That's no joke, either; it's the actual term for the special stash of meat the Chinese government keeps frozen in case of a sudden crunch—not unlike America's Strategic Petroleum Reserve. But snowbound shipments of pork probably won't reach many Chinese families' tables in time for the holiday. And the country's underlying agricultural shortages will only get worse. The prospect is something for the whole world to worry about. Experts predict that China, long a major exporter of corn products, will soon become a net importer—possibly this year. When that happens, global grain prices could jump like this year's oil market.

You say you want a revolution...

Chinese have revolution running through their veins. This trait is similar to the French taking to the streets in protest, or Americans writing letters to the editor or going on talk-shows to express their discontent.
Revolution has been engrained in Chinese culture for centuries. The trouble-making Monkey is portrayed as a hero and depicted in cartoons. Children learn that trouble can create clarity, and it is not mischievous to be a revolutionary, if you strongly believe in something.
Because this revolutionary characteristic in Chinese citizens is encouraged, it is very likely that another uprising similar to the Cultural Revolution could happen again in present day China. Most of the ingredients are already present. There is extreme economic inequality. Combine that with the culture that encourages revolution, the only missing piece is someone in power to champion the cause and spark the conflict.
Mao played that role in the Cultural Revolution, and without his support, the Red Guards who were once squelched by the administrators, would not have been able to rise up and revolt successfully. It is this last ingredient that holds the key to a successful revolution.
If cooperation at the top is not present, an attempt at a revolution could end up as another Tiananmen Square tragedy (June Fourth Incident - 1989).

I read an article yesterday titled: "Day When Chinese Cars Jam U.S. Roads Is Nearing".
With the Nano hitting the Indian market, I wonder what the Chinese have in store for us.
A handful of Chinese auto companies showed at the North American International Auto Show this year, and one of them displayed "a collection of tiny, bubble-shaped cars that look better prepared to carry golfers on fairways rather than U.S. roads." I have to admit, although I would not want to be in one of these tiny cars when a Hummer hits me, I would love to own a bubble-shaped car! What a way to start your morning -- happy and bubbly!

But on more of a serious note, I would hope that these cars pass all the safety & crash tests the first time around. That is really one thing that worries me with Chinese products. Being in the purchasing field, I procure materials globally in order to get the best deal. By best deal, I mean suppliers must meet quality, reliability/delivery, and price goals. Chinese companies are competing and winning the bids, but from my experience they require more manpower on our side since inspections of goods are instrumental in keeping the suppliers honest.
I also worry about the labor conditions of factory workers, and hope that they are not being exploited.

I am very excited to be taking this class and take time to actually learn about the history, culture and changing foreign relations of China.