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December 26, 2007
The Seductive Strains of the China Bandwagon
Jim Rogers, megamillionaire, has given up on the United States: China is the promised land. (He's flogging a book.) Who can fault the investing expertise of one who has made more money than we ever will? Martin Howell of Reuters, for one, in an article succinctly entitled, Jumping on the China Bandwagon with Jim Rogers." Mr. Howell writes of Mr. Rogers:
He counsels us to "get out of the dollar, teach your children Chinese and buy commodities" and declares that it is scarier to have savings in the U.S. stock market than to have some of them in China.
These suggestions, in and of themselves, are frightening enough, but Mr. Rogers further recommends that we attempt to understand the Chinese by eating Chinese take-out.
"Now is the time to engage China and all things Chinese," he says. If you can't go for a visit, take a class in tai chi and then learn about Chinese medicine, watch Chinese movies, Rogers suggests. "The point is to develop a clear sense of how Chinese people view the world and lead their lives. Try to figure out how China's consumers will spend their hard-earned cash and where they might put it to grow."
Understanding how Chinese "view the world and lead their lives" is essential to productive interaction with them, but one can not rise above shallow faux-knowledge gleaned from Western-adored emblems of Chinese culture, like tai chi, without learning the language or living and working with Chinese on a daily basis. (I have come across self-professed experts on China who can not even speak the language fluently -- a defect I find scandalous.)
A little knowledge is a dangerous thing. It is better to remain entirely within one's upbringing than to believe it possible to skim the surface of a vastly different set of assumptions about the world and think one has the keys to the kingdom. Ask yourself: is it possible for a foreigner to understand your conception of the world from a single visit to your nation's capital, or a viewing of your latest hit film, or the reading of a holy book?
Posted by Richard at 8:43 PM | Comments (0)December 21, 2007
Recommended Blog: China's Scientific and Academic Integrity Watch
Those of you in China having several years of experience hiring top research talent from the top universities are, I suspect, aware that Chinese students, even from these schools, must be vetted with care. It is not that Chinese are more likely to cheat than another nationality -- academic dishonesty is rife everywhere there is an intent to cut corners (and cheap and easy internet access to sources ripe for plagiarism).
Instead, I think, many westerners have the wrongheaded notion that somehow Chinese students hold themselves to a higher standard of conduct. Steven Stearns of Yale, a guest lecturer at Beijing University （北大）, penned this severe remonstration to his students, noting with substantial emotion his great disappointment at the scale of plagiarism, even at the very apex of the Chinese academy.
Professor Stearns even adduces the Confucian ideal of the gentleman （君子）, a concept long dead to PRC Chinese, which still arguably lingers on in some overseas Chinese communities, especially the Taiwanese. The appeal to traditional virtue may, in fact, appeal to those few within China who have only recently seemed to rediscover the Classics, but it is likely to fall on the deaf ears of Chinese youth.
For how can a gentleman, in the classical sense, whose position as scholar was formerly elevated above all others, especially the merchant, prosper in a ruthlessly competitive commercial society? Is integrity integral to success? Or do they, at least in the mind of the ambitious, mix like oil and vinegar? And to what or to whom does one look as a model of virtue in China? Does one exist any longer?
The blog, China's Scientific and Academic Integrity Watch, on which Professor Stearns's letter may be found is of very great interest to the general reader on China.
Posted by Richard at 4:49 PM | Comments (1)December 19, 2007
Treasury Secretary Paulson: China is Not a Currency Manipulator
Riddle me this, Caped Crusader:
What American official puts pressure on the yuan by not putting pressure on the yuan? This just in:
"What we've said before in the report ... is if we were to designate China as a manipulator, the remedy would be to negotiate with China directly and through multilateral bodies including the IMF, which is exactly what we've been doing for some time," Paulson said. "We've been making the case as strongly as we know how."
In other words, the U.S. Treasury Secretary will not officially label China as a currency manipulator, but will continue to act as if it had. One supposes that this is how the old China hands in the US administration believe it has to be done -- avoid public shaming, put forth rosy statements, fight the good fight in private. And yet, where are the results? Can any be expected, except marginally, when change would directly harm China's interest?
Posted by Richard at 9:09 PM | Comments (0)December 15, 2007
Avoid Chinese Farmed Seafood Products
Having observed several fish farms in China -- shockingly unclean conditions -- I have always avoided the purchase of farmed fish and fish products originating anywhere in Asia, except for Japan. David Barboza's article strongly suggests that you do, too:
“Our waters here are filthy,” said Ye Chao, an eel and shrimp farmer who has 20 giant ponds in western Fuqing. “There are simply too many aquaculture farms in this area. They’re all discharging water here, fouling up other farms.”
One nervously laughs, hearing of outlandish harvesting methods illiterate peasants use on fish they themselves consume. Thai farmers using cheap pesticides to kill whole schools of fish for easy netting; Cambodians using grenades.
We absolutely can not trust the safety of seafood raised on farms in China. Regulatory schema adopted by the U.S. can not possibly be adequate protection. The FDA has been as ineffective over the past 10 years as any branch of the federal government, having been completely aware of the breadth of this problem, with evidently little movement. Only 210 import refusals for illegal drugs for the entire U.S.? (However, the FDA appears to be pleased to announce its advice on the safe sources of puffer fish.)
The Wall Street Journal reports:
A Chinese seafood company exempted from U.S. safety inspections under a pilot project has been cited by Canada after a cancer-causing antibiotic was detected in a shipment of frozen shrimp.
Wonder how that one got by us?
Only about 1% of most imports are subject to FDA inspections. But the FDA blocks all imports of five types of farm-raised seafood from China -- shrimp, catfish, eel, basa and dace -- until they are proved to be free or contaminants. Importers pay for the tests, which run up to $3,000 a shipment.
But tilapia, monkfish and pollock from China appear on our grocery shelves more often than any of these, except for shrimp. And shippers can become expertly creative at misnaming their exports. As Mr. Barboza writes, farmers are not about to give up on their livelihoods simply for the sake of the health of those who buy from them:
Farmers have coped with the toxic waters by mixing illegal veterinary drugs and pesticides into fish feed, which helps keep their stocks alive yet leaves poisonous and carcinogenic residues in seafood, posing health threats to consumers.
Close your wallet to these products. You can have no idea what you might ingest. On the other hand, I know what I am eating when I fry up the bluefish I caught as they ran the waters off Montauk in late summer.
Posted by Richard at 2:44 PM | Comments (1)December 12, 2007
FDA Inspectors Embedded in Chinese Food Production System?
From the New York Times: China Agrees to Post U.S. Safety Officials in Its Food Factories.
Embedded, like Judith Miller in Iraq?
Michael O. Leavitt, secretary of health and human services, said he expected that Food and Drug Administration officials would eventually be embedded in China’s food safety bureaucracy to help train Chinese officials and keep records on their inspections.
Did Mr. Leavitt make use of the word "embedded" in conversation with the interviewing journalist, Steven Weisman? Or did Mr. Weisman himself choose that word, pregnant with negative connotation, while lacking a direct quotation from Mr. Leavitt?
China and the United States, seeking to ease the furor over the safety of food exports, signed an agreement Tuesday calling for a greater American role in certifying and inspecting Chinese food products, including an increased presence of American officials at Chinese production plants.
This should help, shouldn't it? English speaking inspectors in an entirely Chinese environment. Many thousands of factories to be monitored -- extraordinary cost of bringing American inspectors to China, housing and feeding them, etc...
This agreement will provide an opportunity to have our people here on a continuous basis with expertise so that we can work with our Chinese colleagues in helping to develop good practices,” Dr. von Eschenbach said.
People is plural, meaning at least two. But the precise number of inspectors was not actually specified.
American officials said that the agreement did not cover all the food products sought for tighter inspections, but that it could be expanded. It is to cover some preserved foods, pet food ingredients and farm-raised fish, all products that the United States has said were tainted.
But, wait! Only a few food groups would undergo any inspection at all.
One may conclude that this initiative has been a major failure, from conception to implementation, on the part of American food and safety officials. Can one, however, consider this a public relations success?
Posted by Richard at 7:03 PM | Comments (0)December 10, 2007
And Wahaha Laughs...
We briefly posted on the Danone-Wahaha scandal in June. Now comes the sound of the other shoe dropping. From the Wall Street Journal:
A Chinese beverage maker won a trademark arbitration ruling against joint-venture partner Groupe Danone SA, the latest legal twist in a closely watched case and one that is unlikely to end the dispute.
The Hangzhou Arbitration Commission said the period had lapsed during which Danone was eligible to file its case against Hangzhou Wahaha Group Co. The case was aimed at forcing Hangzhou-based Wahaha to honor alleged obligations to transfer ownership of the Wahaha brand to the companies' joint ventures, a key aspect of Danone's effort to re-establish control over the Wahaha business in China.
Paris-based Danone said it is "shocked" by the result and is studying its options.
Shocked!
On a related note, a Harvard Business Review study of the supposed influences of Mao on modern Chinese managers, refers to the CEO of Wahaha:
High-profile Chinese business leaders who have used...Mao-style tactics to dominate their managers include Zong Qinghou, the founder and former CEO of Wahaha, the French-Chinese beverage joint venture. Zong recently circumvented the formal organizational procedures during a dispute and mobilized Wahaha employees to publicly denounce the French management. As of this writing, no settlement of the dispute was in sight.
Is it accurate to state that managers emulate Mao? Any case, apparently analogous, requires one to trace an influence from cause to effect, which the authors do not seem to attempt. And what is the benefit of an analogy so tenuously tied?
Instead, it is more accurate to say that mainland Chinese in positions of authority, and to a lesser degree Chinese outside of the PRC, share a purposefulness in their methods, often ruthless, usually creative, straightforwardly ambitious, enormously resourceful and extraordinarily authoritarian.
Posted by Richard at 9:21 PM | Comments (0)December 4, 2007
Fairclough Visits Chery Factory
Gordon Fairclough of the Wall Street Journal visited Chery's main auto plant in Wuhu City in Anhui Province. As you may recall, Chery was -- remains? -- a focus of intellectual property disputes and safety concerns (crash test pix here; video, here). Rather surprisingly, Fairclough was allowed to video the main production line. Then again, perhaps not. Chery's deal with Chrysler to sell cars under the Dodge name in the U.S. is ample reason to garner positive publicity. Here's the WSJ video, courtesy of the WSJ site:
Posted by Richard at 1:24 PM | Comments (0)
