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China Herald

Weblog with daily updates of the news on a harmonious, socialist society, from the perspective of internet entrepreneur, new media advisor and China-consultant Fons Tuinstra

No money for Western banks - Victor ShihToday

Lou Jiwei, the head of China's sovereign investment fund CIC has denied speculation China might invest in Western banks, writes Victor Shih on his weblog.

In remarks to the Clinton Global Initiatives, Lou Jiwei, the head of CIC, said that CIC will not invest further in Western financial institutions in the future due to "uncertainty facing Western banks, and the lack of certainty in the government policies that determine their fate." Also, "due to the lack of continuity in the governments that support Western banks, he has lost confidence."

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Victor Shih is one of the leading specialists on China's financial system and belongs to the China Speakers Bureau. When you are interested in having him as a speaker, do let us know.

Jasper Becker joins China Speakers BureauToday

Jasper Becker

The eminent author and journalist Jasper Becker from Beijing has today joined the China Speakers Bureau. Becker has been one of the leading voices on China's development and was up to recently the publisher of Asia Weekly.
As the author of "Hungry Ghosts" on China's famines at the end of the 1950s and the beginning of the 1960s he exposed a sensitive part of the country's history that had been concealed in lies and myths. Since then he has been working with the best media in the world and has become a much wanted speaker on China, Beijing, its culture and politics. For a more complete overview, check his profile.

Migrant workers heading backYesterday

Happier days in Dongguan
by Getty Images via DaylifeMany are trying to make sense out of what the global economic crisis is going to mean for China, but the signals sound increasingly troublesome. AllRoadsleadtoChina is leaning on the gloomy side now and Danwei reports about migrant workers moving massively back to Sichuan, translating information from the Chongqing Daily.

The workers told the newspaper that they all worked in a plastic factory in Dongguan, Guangdong Province. Recently, their boss suddenly disappeared, taking all the factory's money with him. The workers decided to go home without being paid. They found ten discarded motorcycles in the factory and refashioned them into these three-wheeled mobile homes.
When the riders were stopped by Chongqing traffic police on an expressway yester

Local governments push the stability card - Victor ShihYesterday

Victor Shih

Local governments and companies are trying to blackmail the central government in compensating them for paying arrear wages for their unruly citizens, writes financial expert Victor Shih on his weblog, pushing "stability" as their main card.

However, since wage arrear is a "stability" issue, local governments are likely blackmailing the central government for money. In a paper that Mingxing Liu, Luke Qi Zhang and I did on fiscal transfers in China, we found that the central government is most prone to increase transfers to county governments out of stability concerns. In the past, local governments blackmailed the center using wage arrears of government officials, which threatened the entire functioning of local governments. Now, with protests and riots barely contained in factory towns, the provincial government certainly has strong reasons to ask the center for more funds. As I write this, I

Taking the masses seriousYesterday

Xinhua news agency,
his masters' voice
via WikipediaA leading voice in China's media scene Huang Gu (also in Xinhua, so leading in a double way) targets the out-of-date way local officials denounce the more frequent uprisings in their localities. According to the Wall Street Journal:

In China, there’s a long tradition of using Cultural Revolution-style stock phrases to marginalize protest activities and those who engage in them. Unrest is predictably blamed on “a small group of people with ulterior motives,” “evil forces plotting behind the scenes,” and “masses who don’t know the truth.” These phrases are regularly reprinted in the state media—this year, they have been used to describe protests against the Olympic torch relay, the Weng’an riots in June and unrest in the northwest city of Longnan last month, among many others.

Huang Gu advises to take those masses a bit more serio