China is speeding ahead with urbanization. The process requires new land and there have been many serious incidents as people are being evicted from their land, often without a fair compensation. Corruption is part of the process and many Maseratis driving around might well be financed by those shady deals.
On the other hand, productivity in agriculture is much needed but that can only be achieved by merging plots of land to allow more advanced mechanization. Until now this has been nearly impossible as landownership has been badly defined and no official data are available, so farmers cling to their small plots, afraid to lose their rights.
There is now hope on the way.
China has started a satellite program to map tiny plots of land and set up a vast database, leading to official ownership certificates.
The pilot project has started in Anhui Province and seems to advance well, despite some initial reluctance and the difficulty to match the satellite data with existing rights.
China has legalized land transfers in 2008 to allow villagers to aggregate land.
China’s annual rural policy document, released early 2013, calls for farmland titles to be defined nationwide during the next five years. It is a technical challenge that could cost US$16 billion.
Estimates for the cost of the satellite mapping range from a national total of about 18 billion renminbi, to 100 billion renminbi, and even 150 billion renminbi.
But it would solve a host of problems.
Read more:
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/07/technology/satellites-put-small-farms-on-chinas-map.html
“Satellites Put Small Farms on China’s Map”, by LUCY HORNBY and HUI LI, REUTERS, IHT/NYT, published: February 6, 2013
How much pollutants in the air of Beijing?
Yes, someone made the calculation: 4,000 tons, according to a recent article in China Daily.
A total of 4,000 tons of pollutants are estimated to be in the air in urban areas of Beijing on serious pollution days, according to a researcher with the Chinese Academy of Sciences.
The calculation was based on the size of Beijing’s urban area and concentration of pollutants, including PM2.5, or particulate matters less than 2.5 microns in diameter.
Many parts of central and eastern China witnessed more than 20 days’ of hazy weather in January, according to National Meteorological Center, the worst since 1961.
Beijing and its neighboring areas were the hardest hit, with only five days free of smog weather in Beijing in January, according to the Beijing Meteorological Bureau. Concentration of PM 2.5 was as high as 1,000 micrograms in parts of Beijing on serious pollution days in January.
The World Health Organization recommends average 24-hour exposures of less than 25 micrograms per cubic meter. So, 25 versus 1000…
Welcome to Beijing!
Why the unemployment in Western Europe?
A recent survey in France among the 18 to 29 years old shows one in four wants to leave the country to start their business. Estimates say that in 2012 a record 5,000 entrepreneurs left. Not to be surprised when we see the sclerotic labor and tax laws, the inefficiency of governments, the corruption, the vested interests, the monopolies with their strong lobbies in countries such as France, Belgium, Italy, Spain, Greece, … Then people wonder why the high unemployment, why the Chinese want to come over and buy companies. As explained in Toxic Capitalism, we cannot improve the environment and society if those countries do not completely overhaul their system. It does not look promising at all as the old guard refuses to abandon their privileges (among them, the labor unions, the farmers, …). You must be ”weird” to start in business in those countries, or completely crooked. A good friend in Belgium is trying to expand his factory over there but bumps into the most cumbersome and irrational obstacles. And oh yes, the guy in the administration who needs to give him an approval is away on a ski vacation.
Sometimes I wish the Chinese would take over those countries, and get things going. Chinese being oh so socialist the first thing they’d do would be to shut up the labor unions and make people work. As they did in a port in Greece – that part of the port is now doing very well, thank you.
Domestic violence in China: still a problem
A Beijing district court granted Kim Lee, the American wife of Crazy English founder Li Yang 12 million yuan of her husband’s assets in a divorce triggered by domestic violence. The decision comes after a lot of media attention and also amidst a growing awareness that women are mostly left defenseless in the case of domestic violence.
I just hope this will trigger better treatment of domestic violence in China, not only for a “foreign” spouse. Right now, neither law nor police are of much help for abused women. Domestic violence is regarded an “internal family matter”. It leads to horrible situations and if the wife, in total desperation, fights back or kills the abusive husband, she ends up being blamed; right now a women is on death row in such a case, generating wide condemnation. Big shame on Chinese men, on the law, on the police. It is not as bad as in India but a lot needs to be done.
In Beijing the Rotary Club of Beijing supports an NGO that has a call center to help women in distress. – the demand on the call center is so great it cannot attend to all the calls. For the Maple Counseling Hotline Project (part of the Maple Women’s Psychology Counseling Center), our Rotary Club contributed in its fiscal year 2012/2013 RMB 150,000 for the project.
See more on the court case:
‘Crazy English’ guru’s wife Kim Lee granted 12m yuan in divorce, by Mimi Lau, SCMP, on 4 February 2013
http://www.scmp.com/news/china/article/1142768/crazy-english-gurus-wife-granted-12m-yuan-divorce
Air pollution in Beijing and fuel quality
Fuel quality is a much overlooked issue. Beijing tries to enforce higher fuel standards but gasoline and diesel fuel sold in other locations is often of a very poor quality, not only affecting pollution but also messing up the engines and exhaust systems of the newer cars. Some famous brand cars can simply break down because of the bad fuel and then the brands are attacked for being “of poor quality”. Things that need to be done: reduce the power of the big oil companies, enforce quality and adjust fuel prices.
Beijing has been having some really bad, bad days with its air pollution. Today we were again at AQI levels of over 400 for some time. It does not help we have now in the city 5.2 million vehicles, increasing at 200,000 per year. In 2008 we had 3.13 million.
As far as I understand, transport in the city is responsible for about half of the pollution (car exhaust, dust, etc.). According to estimates, 20% of the pollution comes from coal burning, 20% comes neighboring provinces and 25% from vehicle emissions.
The big oil companies are dragging their feet as it requires big investments. In Beijing sulphur content is supposed to be under 50 ppm; neigboring provinces are at 150 pp. Then we have diesel with 2,000 ppm. So, the bad air comes to Beijing and cars outside of the city face breakdowns.
See more about it:
“State-owned oil companies in firing line over Beijing’s pollution”
Ministries are almost powerless to enforce air quality standards amid state-owned entities’ influence and their quest to keep costs down
4 February, 2013 – Reuters in Beijing – SCMP
http://www.scmp.com/news/china/article/1142784/state-owned-oil-companies-firing-line-over-beijings-pollution
“The search for culprits behind the rancid haze enveloping Beijing has turned the spotlight on the mainland’s two largest oil companies and their resistance to tougher fuel standards.
Bureaucratic fighting between the environment ministry on the one hand and China National Petroleum Corp (CNPC) and Sinopec Group on the other has thwarted stricter emission standards for diesel trucks and buses – a main cause of air pollution blanketing dozens of cities.
…
Delays in implementing stricter emission standards are rooted in money – chiefly, who should pay for refining cleaner fuels. By some estimates, vehicle emissions contribute as much as a quarter of the most dangerous particles in Beijing’s air.”