China Esquire

Got an email some time ago that’s been sitting in my email box, and another email recently came that made me go back to it and think about it some more. Someone wrote to me with a link that includes 50 online courses about China, language, history, business, and more. And of course, the blog post is entitled “50 Open Courses to Make You an Expert on China”.

Now I am all for good education and online courses, even better. But is it really that simple to become a “China expert”? My answer is simply: no.

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Need to take a break from watching the Yushu earthquake death toll and the relief effort, and I thought I should post a quick recap and thoughts about Dr. Wang Zhenyao’s visit to the San Francisco Bay Area to discuss the development of NGOs with American non-profit leaders. Dr. Wang is Director-General of the Department of Disaster and Social Relief of the Ministry of Civil Affairs, and also a professor at Beijing Normal University.

He had plenty to share about the China NGO sector with us, with some of my thoughts interwoven. (often in parenthetical statements) My apologies for taking a week to get this posted.

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Looks like Xinhua published its defense of the execution of a British mentally ill man in an article entitled “Experts defend China’s execution of British drug smuggler”. I’m actually glad they did–it makes it a lot easier to dissect. And for the poor professors (Mingliang Wang and Jinzhan Xue), I’m sorry, you lose and that’s just how the game is played.

Again, caveat: I normally don’t just go into attack mode like this anymore. (I don’t litigate on a regular basis anymore and I try to turn off this gear that’s internal to my brain) But if you want to read on, feel free.

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CNN just published an article, “China executes British citizen for drug smuggling”. I normally don’t try to weigh in and blatantly criticize the Chinese justice system despite certain corrupt documented incidents and obvious issues because it’s been improving over the years, and I have been hopeful that the rule of law has a chance to survive there. I am, however, severely disturbed about the recent execution of the mentally ill British man when there were obvious due process issues, despite The Global Times insisting that “the trial process was extremely careful”.

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Apparently, there is a crackdown on corrupt officials and organized crime in Chongqing. Others caught up in the sting? Defense lawyers. It’s like the tuna nets that end up picking up a few dolphins along the way. The only problem is this: the defense lawyer here is just doing his job. At least, he’s doing his job, in my opinion, as any normal defense advocate would do here.

The details after the jump.

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Was reading China Law Blog’s treatment of Chinese branding and trademarks here where Dan Harris takes issue with a Newsweek article, which states in part:

The simplest explanation for China’s failure to build global brands is cutthroat domestic competition. In most product categories, hundreds or thousands of firms compete for domestic market share, leaving profit margins razor thin. . . . And because foreign brands have taken much of the market’s high end, most companies are forced to compete on cost, leaving little room for investment in R&D or marketing. . . . Finally, the recent string of product recalls—including poisonous pet food and faulty tires—has left consumers wary of made-in-China goods.

Of course, I would take issue with this article as Dan does. His thoughts, and mine, after the jump.

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I haven’t done too many posts responsive to other bloggers recently, but I really felt the need to emphasize something I read at Silicon Hutong today.  David published a post today entitled, “ Whose Moral Relativism?“  I found it definitely worth the read because there’s a lot of food for thought…  both for China, and just in general as well.  Yes, this post might sound sort of preachy and hit on moral values, but I think its useful to think about such issues because so much of business is predicated on this.

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Last month, I was invited to a lunch seminar (invitation only) hosted by Give2Asia where they discussed the challenges facing Chinese education, and more specifically, the problem of funding Chinese higher education.  Scott Sugiara with Give2Asia gave us some of the statistics: since 2001, their organization has given over $100 million to Asia, and about 35% of that has been in the forms of grants/scholarships to individuals.  (focused mostly on Jiaotong Daxue and other Shanghai university students)  One thing he also noted was that education is not cheaper at the top universities because there are often scholarships for those students.  Ironically, its the students who go to regional and vocational schools who have a harder time affording their higher education.

One solution, after the jump.

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I was speaking to a friend a few months back, and he wants to shift into human rights law in China. I looked at him with a certain tinge of sadness in my eyes, and could only ask him one question, “You do know what you’re getting into right? It’s a hard life. It’s hard… and you may be asking for persecution, trouble, and a lot of pain and suffering from your own government.” There was nothing else I could say. And when he responded in the affirmative resolutely, I could only stare a little and say, “Okay.” And it’s ironic that since then, I feel like I’ve only seen a slew of articles talking about the troubles of human rights attorneys.

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And so this brings me to part 2 of my NERA notes—the part presented by Fei Deng, who talked about the role of nationalism in this deal.  Unfortunately, she decided to start with imperialistic times and talked about things like the Summer Palace, and Chinese humiliation.  Not any of my favorite of topics.

But then she went back to Coke-Huiyuan.  More after the jump.
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A long overdue weekend review.  So it seems like the great firewall is working again, and this time, its the New York Times that has some sort of technical glitches that won’t allow it to show up in China again.  From CNET yesterday:

Chinese authorities have begun blocking access from mainland China to the Web site of The New York Times even while lifting some of the restrictions they had recently imposed on the Web sites of other media outlets.

When computer users in cities like Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou tried to connect on Friday morning local time to NYTimes.com, they received a message that the site was not available; some users were cut off on Thursday as early as 8 p.m. The blocking was still in effect on Saturday morning.

Chinese officials had few explanations for the restriction on the Times site. “Concerning your particular question, we’re not really familiar with the details,” said a spokesman for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Beijing, who declined to give his name. “Web site maintenance is not within the job purview of the Foreign Ministry.”

Tang Rui, an official with the government’s International Press Center in Beijing, said he also had no specific information. “It might be a technical problem,” he said, declining to elaborate.

In the months leading up to the Olympics in Beijing, during the Games and immediately after, the Chinese government temporarily unblocked access to some Web sites and eased curbs on the ability of foreign correspondents to travel within China. It has not tightened the travel restrictions since then.

So China is cracking down on “free” internet usage again.  To be honest, I am actually surprised it lasted this long…  I thought it would be may be 2 months or so, and then that’s it, the clamp comes down.  Well, it went a little longer than I expected, so I am willing to count this as a good thing overall.

I’m pretty darn certain its not a technical glitch.  The NY Times site seems to work for me just fine.  (and probably all over the world too except for one rather significant “outage”)  But honestly, what did you expect?  I don’t think anyone figured that the Olympics would mean that China would allow free and unfettered piping in of western propaganda and media…  and it was only a matter of time before it happened again.  So pardon me if I don’t run around and act like its a big deal…  and yawn instead.  My thought: just get used to it because it was bound to happen.

Just got this email on the late side, so I apologize for the lack of notice.  My alma mater, UC Hastings, is sponsoring a conference entitled “ Cities and Counties in the Global Economy: Local Immigration and Economic Policies under a Microscope“.  Time and location:

October 24, 2008
8:30 am to 4:00 pm, Reception to Follow

UC Hastings College of the Law
198 McAllister Street, San Francisco, CA 94102

And here is some more information on the topics to be covered:

Cities and counties respond to the global economy in creative and sometimes controversial ways.  On the economic side, cities flex their economic muscle through community development agreements, project labor agreements, living wage ordinances and the like. On the immigration side, day laborer ordinances, sanctuary and non-cooperation policies, and state and federal preemption dominate council rooms and courtrooms.

Do these policies work?  What legal issues do they raise?  What challenges do they pose for the basic legal, political and economic framework of local government?

Should be intriguing, though I don’t think I can make it on such sort notice personally.  The more detailed brochure can be found here, and registration link is here.