Access Asia: no love lost for Haibao

Posted on by Gilbert Van Kerckhove

Access Asia reported recently on the travails of Shanghai 2010, in its usual caustic sarcarm (they beat me by far!):
And Finally…
If Haibao isn’t Up to the Job,
Perhaps it’s Time to Call to Call Bob?
It appears that, so far, Haibao has proved incapable of saving America from national embarrassment over their tent at the Toxic EXPO. There’s still no cash, except from those guys that invented Post-it Notes. Well, sitting in cinemas with the kids over the Easter holidays, we noticed while snoozing through Monsters Vs Aliens another blue monster type thing who, when called upon, was able to step up and save America – it’s time for B.O.B. to come to the rescue and save Pavilion USA!


All smiles and a nicely dated quaff, but so far useless to the Yankees in their bid to build some sort (come on guys…any sort) of EXPO tent
Fresh from saving America from the aliens meet Bob
It’s time to save EXPO US 2010 – Monsters vs Tight-Arsed Funders
If Haibao is a condom, then Bob must be the…
[note: for some, Haibao looks like a condom! Up to you… And as for Bob… not printable here!]

Letter to China Daily: probably trashed

Posted on by Gilbert Van Kerckhove

Letter to China Daily – sent on 19 April, obviously dumped.
As we all know, their openness is limited. So are our dinosaurs in the Chinese bureaucracy. The book “China is Unhappy”: Look at yourselves, you are just considered too immature and dumb to be able to access the free press. Dangerous nationalism, a product of ignorance.
The letter:
“Why is China Daily still writing about YouTube as it is unavailable since a long time?  Blocking the site is a short-sighted initiative, typical of the poor PR expertise of those bureaucrats. They only admit their fear and insecurity, showing their weakness to the whole world. Anyway most of Chinese netizens don’t even care about possible “offensive” clips. Or, they must believe Chinese people have to be treated like small kids in a kindergarten. The limitations we all suffer here on the Internet continue to interfere with normal activities.”

Chinese economy: keep seat belts on

Posted on by Gilbert Van Kerckhove

As said again very clearly by top officials such as Mr. Wen Jiabao earlier in April – “The economy still faces major challenges”. Too early for optimism?
Added Fan Gang, the central bank advisor: “Major Western economies are still in the early stage of recession, which will weigh on Chinese exports, and China is still in the process of reducing inventories and adjusting overcapacity, which may not be completed until 2011. My judgment is, the recession in the global economy will last at least three to four years. We should be able to bottom out within one or two years”.
As happened several times in the past, people fail to pay attention to warnings from top Chinese officials. They proved several times to have a much clearer vision on the world economy.
Yes, the “negative figures in China are becoming less negative”. But many people still don’t realize that the ripple effect has barely started to affect business here.
Further to that, many Chinese economists and alike are becoming gloomy with their favorite savings – the USD. They think the Fed is printing too much money and the budget deficit will bring inflation and depreciation of the USD: “The depreciation of the dollar has become an inevitable historical trend” says one. So, potential losses for China’s foreign currency reserves. Not too clever anyway those people, why did they not diversify more their reserves with other currencies? A bit late now.
Unless the USA really can get back on its feet. But some Americans are not so optimistic – like Craig R. Barrett, chairman of Intel: “We are watching the decline and fall of the United States as an economic power – not hypothetically, but as we speak”. He blames, to a large extend, the “slouching education system”. Oh well, we also complain about that here.

China: the second-most heavily taxed country

Posted on by Gilbert Van Kerckhove

scmptaxmiseryNow damn it. China beats Belgium, again.
The mainland has been rated the world’s second-most heavily taxed country last year and No 1 in Asia in an annual Forbes magazine survey released on 2 April, as reported by the South China Morning Post.
Forbes said China’s tax “misery score” rose seven points from last year to 159, just behind France at 167.9, and one place higher than its 2007 spot.
The added burden was blamed on a rise in social security taxes following the new Labor Contract Law, the survey’s compilers said.
The annual misery index assesses whether a jurisdiction’s tax policy attracts or repels capital and talent. Scores are the sums of corporate, personal, social security and sales tax rates. The higher the score, the less tax-friendly the jurisdiction.
France and Belgium were the top taxers in 2007.
For once, it’s good to lose. Be it a warning for the many naïve who think in China all is cheap. Till you pay your taxes. No wonder companies keep several books for accounting. We call it flexibility or capitalism with Chinese characteristics.

The Pope and the Chinese Invisible Wall

Posted on by Gilbert Van Kerckhove

popecondomWhat do they have in common? A lot sometimes. They can be both silly and good at shooting themselves in the foot.
The Pope, well, how is that possible in the 21st century? He said condoms are “dangerous”, bad etc. Great, let the poor people make kids like rabbits to worsen their poverty. And the others get some of those terrible diseases. We had another great thinker, ex-US president, who was about as sclerotic. Now at least the USA is restarting their family planning projects in places like Africa.
At least here in China they are a bit more clever than that. Yes, yes, prostitution is illegal but in all hotels and “entertainment” places condoms should be available.
090326youtubescmpOf course here we have other sclerotic people. The ones that shut down websites, like now YouTube, dead since many days. And why? For some isolated video clip? Just good enough for all to know about that clip and to show how scared they are.
Homepages at mac.com are dead here since months. Those government dinosaurs will never understand how to deal with PR and world opinion. They waste all their energy and manpower to police the Internet. Does it help? Of course yes – to make them look real paranoid and brainless.
So, China joins the ranks of the “silly-looking countries”, the ones that block the Internet. Nice club to belong to!
So, the Pope and the Dinosaurs should hook up together. They can invite some ultracons from the USA and the Taliban. A lot in common!