Results tagged “industry”

China Eastern's chairman Li Fenghua (李丰华) has been replaced by Liu Shaoyong (刘绍勇), chairman of rival China Southern Airlines in what's been described as a "government-orchestrated industry shake-up". There is no news on where Li Fenghua is off to next but we're curious because this was the guy that had earlier bitterly vowed that China Eastern would "never consider Air China as a strategic investor" after Air China blocked Singapore Airline's proposed HK$7 billion bid for a 24% stake in China Eastern. The management shakeup has piqued the interest of the Chinese business press. Some have speculated that Li is moving on to some new position in the State Council but this remains quite unlikely. As an anonymous insider revealed to the Securities Daily 《证券日报》, Li presided over China Eastern's worst performance ever, and bears some responsibility for losses of up to RMB5 billion in fuel-hedging. For that, Li may be sent off to "idle" at some work unit for some time before being "audited and reviewed" for his performance.

Today is the second and final day of the Shanghai leg of the inaugural China 2.0 Tour organised by our good friends from the China Business Network, Web2Asia and CNReviews. The week-long tour aims to give participants an overview of what's happening in the Chinese internet landscape and to provide opportunities for face-to-face interaction and networking. The list of China 2.0 participants coming in from overseas reads like a who's who of the internet sector, and we're talking about people like Mike Butcher (TechCrunch UK), Robert Scoble (Fast Company), Shel Israel (author of Naked Conversations) and Ernst-Jan Pfauth (The Next Web). Shanghaiist had the opportunity to meet some of these amazing guys last night at a dinner sponsored by Alibaba, and our night ended with a big party at the new M1NT Club. (Pity the party ended a bit too early but that didn't stop us from getting ourselves shit-faced.)

Hot on the heels of the widely-discussed closure of the Hong Kong-listed Dongguan-based toy manufacturer Smart Union comes the news that yet another toy factory — this time a much smaller one — has gone bankrupt. Once again, the local government has come to the rescue, picking up the tab for lost wages that the now jobless employees are demanding to prevent their anger from boiling over. Do we see a pattern for the future?

• The city's environmental work now focuses on drinking water. In one year, if things work out according to plan, Shanghai's water is supposed to be good enough to drink directly from the tap. City officials say that this vision will realized with the completion of the biggest reservoir in Shanghai, the Qingcaosha Reservoir, close to Chongming Island and a new pipe network. Could this be the beginning of the end for bottled water?
• A campaign to get more expats to donate blood has been started by the The Shanghai Blood Centre in a move to build up reserves of uncommon blood types. Rare types such as Rh negative are more common among Westerners than Chinese, and stocks of this blood type are often scarce. So if you know you have a rare blood type, donate ! If you don't, do it anyways.
• Chinese universities are gaining in status, though none of them have yet reached the world's top 100 list. At the top of this year's Top 100 Asia Pacific list, however, we find Shanghai's well known Jiaotong University, up from a previous 14th place.

The 60-seat China-made turboprop MA600 has been unveiled in Xi'an amid great fanfare. It is some 300 kilogrammes and 40 percent more fuel-efficient than its predecessor, the MA60, 122 orders of which have been received since it was introduced. While most of the foreign orders seem to be from African countries like Zimbabwe and Zambia — not the most exciting aviation markets — the China Aviation Industry Corporation has ambitious plans to take over its rivals, Canada's Bombardier and France's ATR, to become the world's leading provider of turbo-prop regional aircraft. Bombardier has since been quick to respond by saying it is not worried about increasing turboprop competition from China, adding that it is "the only aircraft manufacturer with three distinct families of products: turboprops for short haul, regional jets for mid-range and the proposed CSeries for longer-range and mainline carriers."

New cement production stats show China far ahead of other nations, evidence of the massive building frenzy sweeping the nation. According to Prof. Goose at The Oil Drum:

Cement is mainly used to make concrete, and is sort of the "active ingredient" in concrete - it is combined with sand and gravel in roughly fixed proportions. So cement production can be considered a rough proxy for the total amount of construction going on in a country.

Bokee.com is doing an online poll to determine who were the real movers and shakers of China in 2007. The plug they're using is "谁最敢动中国" (who most dared to move China), and you can vote and then see the results, live. They also have little blurbs about each of the front-runners, explaining why they've been in the news. The frontrunner thus far, with 19% of the vote is China Mobile, who people are accusing of...

We went to opening night last Thursday and were able to get a sneak peek into the 1933 building mentioned a few posts back, where some of the exhibitions were still being touched up at the last minute. One of the purposes of the SICIW is to bring together art and design entities from all over the world into one place, perhaps fomenting future collaboration and connection. From Shanghai Daily:

We read a fair amount of China-related news, and it's hard not to get a bit apathetic about it all, since so much of it seems to revolve around the same few topics. Slate's article, however, touches on something we don't normally hear about: China's tomato products industry.:China, it turns out, now grows more tomatoes for processing—the kind that get turned into ketchup, pasta sauce, salsa—than any place in the world besides California, and maybe...

According to a blog essay we found, a recent poll by Harris Interactive showed that of 6,000 people from France, Germany, Italy, the UK, and the US, the overwhelming majority considered China the second most powerful nation in the world after the USA. We did some searching on the internet, and couldn't find mention of that report. We tried on Harris Interactive's site as well, but no dice. Perhaps we haven't looked hard enough? Or...

Metro news from the local press:

Oh boy, we are just beginning to love the things that we can show you here now that Youtube is back. And with these two freshly-uploaded videos, you have two different broadcasters — Australia's Channel 7 and Al-Jazeera English — and their take on the topic of "Made in China". China has just overtaken Japan as Australia's largest trading partner. The spate of headline-grabbing product quality issues, particularly the high profile toy recalls made by Mattel prompted Channel 7 to ask the question: Can we still trust "Made in China"? Their reporters went all the way to Foshan where the Lee Der factory (that made all those lead-laced toys) is located, and spoke to a few ex-employees who are now jobless since the factory has closed down.

For the first time in 17 months, China will raise wholesale price cap of gasoline, diesel and jet fuel, “to guarantee domestic supply of refined oil and promote energy conservation/为保证国内成品油供应，促进能源节约,” or so says the National Development and Reform Council. Per metric ton of all three refined products will go up 500 yuan, or roughly 10 percent, starting November 1.

So both Myspace and Friendster have their own China versions. Now Kaiser Kuo of Ogilvy Digital China Watch points us to a report on China Business News (第一财经日报) which cites an “industry insider” who says that Facebook plans to release additional language interfaces and intends to enter the China market as early as December this year. The paper also claims that "Facebook has given up its initial plan to set up its own China-based site like MySpace has done with MySpace.cn, but will instead acquire an existing SNS in China."

Want your 6min 40sec of fame? Have some interesting ideas that you've been dying to share with the world? Then put together 20 powerpoint slides of 20 seconds each (no boring lectures or grandmother's tales please), and get in touch with the organisers of Pecha Kucha Night volume 8 at info@far-china.net.

Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni is bringing a clear message to China: Israel will not allow Iran to get the atom bomb. Israel is concerned that China and Russia, which are permanent members of the U.N. Security Council, have opposed calls by the United States for tougher sanctions on Iran.

So in the meanwhile, Youtube remains blocked. Shanghai blogger John Pasden of Sinosplice informs us that Youtube wasn't the only unlucky fella. Revver.com and Dailymotion.com also appear to be hit. And of course Google Video was never accessible in China to begin with, so that's a no-count.

Right: GoogleTechTalks presents Professor Teng-Kee Tan, a technology entrepreneurship expert with the Singapore-based Nanyang Technological University who talks about Competing and Collaborating in China with Bi-Cultural Competence. Pretty interesting stuff if you operate on a strategic level at work. And if you have 66 minutes to spare!

China issued a sweeping denunciation of Taiwanese President Chen Shui-bian on Thursday, accusing him of stirring animosity between the sides to divert attention from his personal scandals.

About 100 Chinese teachers are expected to arrive at state schools in the United Kingdom (yes, that haven of foreign language education) by next year, but schools which have already employed some of those teachers in their classrooms (which they described as "lovely") have already found problems, such as the following:

"Their lack of familiarity with the English system of discipline, target setting etc is a problem."

"They also tend to have different, perhaps unrealistic, expectations of pupils."

"Concerns are expressed about Chinese teachers' abilities to manage pupils, particularly whole classes or where there is a tendency for students to be disruptive."

Well, at least Puxi appears to be safe. Thank god for the Huangpu!

Defying Chinese criticism and pressure, Chancellor Angela Merkel met the Dalai Lama, the spiritual leader of Tibet, on Sunday in Berlin, becoming the first German chancellor to do so, despite warnings from Beijing that it could damage economic contacts.

Photo of Liu Xiang in a Coca Cola ad from spicedfish.

On the left, you have an image submitted by the Yangzhou Evening News to the 17th Annual Chinese Journalism Awards, for which it won a Class I award in the Best News of Jiangsu province, as well as a Class III photojournalism award in the national round. Lots of inspiring pictures and smart captions that would befit any award-winning page (see details of pictures here on ESWN). Some smart chap then decided to do some sleuthing, and went to hunt for the physical printed copy of Page A5 of the October 16, 2006 issue of Yangzhou Evening News, and what he found was the page on the right. Yep, that's right, the page sent in by the editor had been FAKED. And while we're wondering what sort of rigorous checks the Chinese Journalism Awards has in place, the next one takes the cake!

This documentary programme entitled "The Secrets of the Direct Sales Industry Exposed" shown on CCTV12 recently did an exposé on the sad lives of three young women involved in direct sales, one of whom eventually committed suicide by jumping out of a speeding train to avoid going home with her parents. Typical sad, sob story you find on CCTV. The programme showed the above three photographs of the poor girl, her image blurred to protect her identity [h/t ESWN]. Well, one viewer found the pictures looking very familiar and also went on to do some sleuthing...

These were the pictures that he found, and they are the pictures of model and celebrity Yang Bingyang (杨冰阳), better known as Ayawawa. Obviously, Yang is not amused, but in her latest blog entry has said that she has no intention whatsoever of taking legal action against CCTV. At the end of the day though, the number of journalists in China who think they can get away with plagiarism and fake news in this day and age is simply astounding!

Thou shalt not collude on pricing, the regulatory god said unto the Moses of industries in most countries, including China. But the instant noodle cabal either did not hear it or turned a deaf ear. In late July, noodle makers joined forces in raising prices by about 20 percent, and as much as 40 percent for some products.After less than three weeks of regulatory pressure, media assailing and public discontent, the industry backed down, apologized and initiated an across-the-board price cut. Is this a triumph of consumer rights and regulatory protection? Yes ... hmm maybe.

Continue reading "Thou shalt not collude on pricing, says China Daily columnist but fails to hit out at state-owned airlines"

China's aviation authority, citing safety concerns, has announced plans to scale back flights at overstretched Beijing airports and ban the creation of new airlines before 2010.

China is a Democracy, But Not Copy of the West, by Zhu Jing of the Chinese Embassy in Nairobi for the East African Standard, [via A Glimpse of the World]:

China practises a unique democratic experience, which is beneficial, reasonable and fruitful because it suits the country and has stood the test of time.

Continue reading "Snippets: China and Africa"

Update: EastSouthWestNorth translates a story from Southern Metropolis Daily tracing how the story of the bogus buns was found to be fake, and says kudos to the netizens who raised the following doubts from the beginning:

Photo from ojour.

This morning, I heard the news that half of Beijing’s bottled water is counterfeit. I was horrified. It seems that illegal factories fill the used plastic bottles from the tap or with perfunctorily filtered water. The bottle tops and tape that they use to seal the bottle look identical to the genuine ones. The bottles aren’t sterilized and the number of mold fungi and e. coli bacteria that have been found in such water can easily make drinkers sick. An industry report quoted by Beijing Times calculates that more than 100 million bottles of such water were sold last year. The profit derived from these illegal sales exceeded 1 billion RMB, or about $12 million. As a Chinese, I am used to reading about dangerous fakes. But this case really enraged me. This is water that many of us drink every day, after all. And the whole reason people pay extra for bottled water is for the quality—and safety. The Beijing Times did a story a couple of days ago that revealed the illegal business has been going on for five years. One unlicensed water bottler told the newspaper: “I filter the tap water before filling the bottle because I am a moral person and I don’t want to get people sick.”