Category Archives: SLIDER

by | October 16, 2014 · 11:39 pm

Yunnan government weathers unexpected power shake-up

Li Jiheng (left) has taken over for Qin Guangrong (right) as Yunnan Provincial Party Secretary

The government of Yunnan completed a reshuffle of its top members a bit more than two and half years ago amid some confusion. At the time, Kunming’s golden boy partysecretary, Qiu He (仇和), received what appeared to many to be an improbable demotion. It’s déjà vu all over again as the Communist Party’s top man in the province has been relieved of his office without an accompanying explanation.

During a high-level meeting of provincial party cadres held October 14 in Kunming, it was made public that Qin Guangrong (秦光荣), party secretary of Yunnan, would be replaced by sitting governor Li Jiheng (李纪恒). Generally, such power handovers are quickly followed by news of a departing bureaucrat’s next job posting. In Qin’s case, no such announcement has been forthcoming.

The news seems all the more odd because until very recently, Qin was tabbed by many to be in line for a promotion to Beijing. The South China Morning Post is reporting that before Tuesday’s meeting, “speculation was rife […] that he could become deputy head of the party’s Working Committee of Organs Directly Under the State Council.”

Qin’s departure was conducted without any apparent rancor and the outgoing party boss gave a lengthy speech in which he said he was thankful for his 16 years of public service in Yunnan. He first arrived in the province in 1999 after a governmental stint in Hunan. Qin was then named governor in 2007 and provincial party head six years later.

The newly anointed Li also addressed the meeting and thanked his predecessor for what he deemed Qin’s “practical” approach and “heartfelt and sincere” service. Li also took the time to welcome his heir-apparent and relative newcomer, Chen Hao (陈豪). Chen had previously been deputy-head and party secretary of the All-China Federation of Trade Unions (中华全国总工会), the largest organization of its kind in the country.

Qin’s time in office will most likely be remembered for environmental issues. During the entirety of his time as provincial party head, Yunnan suffered from a recurring and often crippling drought. Qin was a vocal proponent of rerouting water from the Jinsha River (金沙江) towards Kunming in the dual hope of alleviating city water shortages and flushing away the algae blooms that have become a permanent feature of Dianchi Lake.

The secretary also had a hand in aggressively implementing Beijing’s Bridgehead Strategy — a multifaceted program aimed at strengthening the province’s economy through international business and trade. However, when all is said and done, history may judge Qin guilty by association with several governmental colleagues — including his predecessor — who have recently been embroiled in corruption scandals.

This article was written by Patrick Scally and originally published in GoKunming on October 15, 2014.

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by | October 8, 2014 · 5:45 pm

Jinggu Earthquake – 1 dead, 324 injured in Yunnan; are hydropower dams in danger?

Earthquake damage in Jinggu County, Yunnan

A major earthquake has struck China’s Yunnan province for the second time in just over two months. Last night at 9:49pm (Beijing time), a 6.0-magnitude quake occurred in Jinggu County, Pu’er Prefecture. According to Xinhua News Agency, the current death toll stands at 1, with a further 324 people injured.

The epicenter of the quake was 22 km west-southwest from Weiyuan Township and it struck at a focal depth of 10.9 km beneath the surface. Luckily, the earthquake occurred in a sparsely populated area of the province, and there have a relatively few casualties as a result. However, according to local authorities, a total of 92,700 people were affected by the quake, with 56, 880 of them being relocated. Within hours of the earthquake,  thousands of search and rescue personnel had been transported to the county and were undertaking operations.

Aftershocks were felt in the area for hours after the initial quake, and the largest registered at 4.2 on the Richter scale. Tremors were also felt throughout the province, with friends of East by Southeast feeling the earthquake in Kunming, almost 400 km away from the epicenter.

Closer to the center of the earthquake are a number of major hydropower dams. According to ExSE’s research, a total of 10 hydropower stations are in a 200 km radius of Weiyuan Township, some of them high-wall dams with installed capacities of over 1000 MW. The closest is the 1,350 MW Dachaoshan Dam (大朝山大坝）, located just 60 km from the earthquake’s epicenter and . Yayangshan Dam （崖羊山大坝）, the first in a 1,300 MW, seven-dam cascade on Yunnan’s Black River (墨江) is 85 km away and  The third closest, the Nuozhadu Dam (糯扎渡大坝), is located 118 km from the earthquake’s epicenter.

Southwest China is a seismic hotbed where earthquakes are quite common and in the past 6 years alone, there have been a number of major earthquakes in the region. The Wenchuan Earthquake (2008) killed more than 70,00 people while more recently, earthquakes in Ya’an, Sichuan (2013) and Ludian, Yunnan (August 2014), killed 220 people and 617 people, respectively. At the same time, Southwest China’s mountainous geography and wealth of major rivers makes it ideal for hydropower development.

In the past 30 years, hundreds of dams have been built in the region, however their placement in a such a seismically active area is problematic. First, there is evidence to suggest that major hydropower dams can be a factor in seismic activity. In the aftermath of the 2008 Wechuan Earthquake, a number of scientists found that the placement of a dam and its large reservoir over an active fault line could have caused the quake. Secondly, dams and reservoirs can sustain major damage in the event of a large earthquake in its vicinity. Following the 8.0-magnitude  Wenchuan Earthquake, the Chinese Ministry of Water Resources found that 2,380 dams were damaged.

Yesterday’s quake was of a smaller magnitude than the Wenchuan Earthquake so the potential for damage is smaller and at the time of publication, there have not been any reports of any of the 10 dams in Jinggu County’s vicinity sustaining damage. However, ExSE will continue to cover the aftermath of the Jinggu Earthquake and the recovery and rescue efforts undertaken.

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by | October 7, 2014 · 9:54 am

Rosh Hashana in Kunming

During my first year of college, I was asked to draw and divide a pie chart into five sections. From there, I was to label each section with an adjective or characteristic that I felt strongly defined me (and with which I voluntarily identified).

Immediately, I filled in four sections: Jewish, Asian American (born in China), adoptee, and traveler. Then I paused, contemplating what the last slice of my identity pie would be. Finally, I settled on cultural bridge builder.

I chose this last identifier for multiple reasons. First, it is everything I aspire to be. I aim to work in a field where I can help diverse communities connect. Second, all the activities and clubs I belonged to in high school and in which I participate at Davidson College revolve around initiatives for diversity, inclusiveness, and religious dialogue. Finally, in my view, my four other identifiers mark me as an individual who has been socialized and challenged to show the world that unique or unconventional backgrounds can lead to new perspectives.

I am not just an “other” in society that belongs nowhere. I refuse to accept such a label passively, yet it is a label so many try to pin on me when they do not understand my background. My Jewish and Asian American identities are not mutually exclusive. Rather, my understanding and connection to each group enriches my outlook on the world.

This semester, I challenged myself to study abroad in Kunming, China. Yunnan Province is known for its ethnic diversity. China has worked to incorporate these diverse minority groups into greater Chinese society, but there are still stark disparities. If anyone were to understand my struggles with fitting into Chinese society, would it not be these people?

Though Chinese by birth, I have identified myself as Jewish first for as long as I can remember. Judaism is the culture in which I was raised. Most of my role models, including close family friends and relatives, are Jewish. I never had Chinese American or Asian role models who taught me how to navigate society, deal with prejudice and discrimination, and assert myself as an Asian American woman. Rather, I consider myself a cultural and religious Jew because of the community of which I am a part and the relationships I’ve fostered since childhood. I practice certain holidays and ceremonies but also closely identify with the historic struggles of the Jewish people.

Yet the average person meets me and first identifies me as Asian, often distinguishing me as Chinese right away. He or she never assumes I am Jewish. This is a consequence of the way our society views identity—one’s race or ethnicity is defined by the viewer without ever conversing with the individual in question. Ethnicity and race become primary markers in categorizing people and subsequently applying stereotypes to that individual.

I had hoped that coming to China would help enhance my lifelong journey to define myself within a greater, international society. When I was eight years old, I remember a Hebrew school classmate asking me if it was even legal to be both Asian and Jewish. Though I’ve grown to understand that he meant no harm, these comments were painful and I reflect on them often, especially when I feel vulnerable or insecure about my identity in the context of a new place.

I have been fortunate to have spent the past three summers in Southeast Asia, engaged in both voluntary and paid experiences. As a result, I am fairly confident in my place there. To Southeast Asians I have met, I am American by culture and Asian by heritage and birth. They are curious yet respectful; no one in Southeast Asia has ever challenged my self identity or tried to suggest that how I view myself is incorrect.

I’ve had many long discussions with locals in Burma, Thailand, Laos, and Cambodia about adoption—a foreign concept to many—and Abrahamic religions. I take pride in teaching these people about my identity and culture while learning about theirs. It is truly an educational dialogue. But in no way do I, or my views, represent an entire population.

In China, on the other hand, I feel out of my element completely. I have felt more insecure here in the past six weeks than I have in any other country I have ever visited. Being surrounded by native, authentic Chinese has made me struggle internally about my place in this society. While my face to them is authentically Chinese, the way in which my parents raised me is not. Since I do not consider my biological parents my family, my family is not Chinese. Yet explaining this is complex and often causes more pain than just nodding along with Chinese who inquire about my heritage and assume I am mixed race or just the child of Chinese immigrants.

Sure, on the outside I am Chinese. But, often, my clothes mark me as a Westerner. My lack of language and cultural skills also betray my physical characteristics and mark me as alien. When I explain that I was adopted, I get a multitude of reactions. Some turn to my Caucasian friends (who have better Mandarin skills than mine) and question, ”Really?” Others look at me like I am a spectacle but nod and resume the conversation. Others still just grunt and end the discussion.

Transnational, transracial adoption and the one child policy can be touchy subjects in China. Sometimes I feel that people resent the opportunities my family has given me outside of China. Many Chinese students my age aspire to learn English and subsequently work abroad, and see my situation as ideal. I believe others fear me and are worried about resentments I may hold against China. A few cannot hold a straight face when talking to me: they cannot believe that I am not Chinese. To them, I am simply one of them with a funny accent. It isn’t possible, in their minds, that I reject my Chinese facet of identity. Herein lies the gap in my and their understanding.

In other parts of the world when I struggle with identity, I resort to the local Jewish community for support and a sense of extended family and belonging. While fitting into Judaism has also been a lifelong challenge, my adoptive family raised me in that culture and I understand those nuances more than Chinese cultural traditions. My grandfather in particular took great pride in belonging to a temple and volunteering through that network, and I hope to carry on his legacy. He and the rest of my family never made me doubt being Jewish. I find more commonalities with Jews around the world than with the pan-Asian American community.

Coming to China, I hoped to find at least a small Jewish community. Usually Jewish communities become more outwardly present during the High Holy Days of Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur. I sought assistance from my program directors and RA, hoping they could steer me in the direction of a service or gathering for Rosh Hashanah. One told me of services on Rosh Hashanah that were open to Jews all over Kunming. Many, she said, belonged to the Israeli or American ex-pat communities.

Excited, I set out on the morning of the New Year. When the cab driver didn’t know the address I showed him, I walked. I was proud that I navigated the city by myself. Despite being anxious about meeting a new group of people (I am extremely shy around strangers, especially when there is a potential language barrier), I hoped that this service would lead to the opening of a new community and relationships. Obviously I wouldn’t be engaged in the same way as in New York where I grew up, or North Carolina where I go to school, or Europe where I’ve visited various synagogues. But a new service would be part of the adventure. Going beyond my comfort zone would not kill me.

To my surprise, the address was a Chinese language school in which ex-pats in Kunming came to study Mandarin intensively. Furthermore, none of the staff knew of the Rosh Hashanah programming. Hmmm. I looked at the company’s logo: it had two Stars of David. Why? One staff member explained that Chinese people like to do business with Jews and see many similarities between the groups. I chuckled, recalling New York Times articles that discussed Chinese peoples’ fascination with Jews.

I was about to leave, admitting defeat in my quest for a service, when another woman from the language school asked me to wait. Apparently, there was a man praying upstairs and I could speak to him when he finished. Hope inside me sparked anew. I’d come all this way—why not try talking with him? I returned to my seat.

An hour later, he emerged from upstairs and I introduced myself. He did the same. He had come from Singapore and had converted to Orthodox Judaism. He prided himself on being a practicing Jew and spoke of his leadership roles in Kunming. He said the Rabbi sometimes asked him to organize gatherings or lead prayers. This all sounded along the lines of what I wanted.

Then the man asked me about my affiliation to Judaism. This is never an easy question for me to answer. Not because I am uncomfortable, but the intricacies of my background sometimes lose people. I told him that I was born in Yangzhou and adopted at five months of age. I explained that my parents subsequently had a mikvah (conversion ceremony) for me. I said that I was a Reform Jew, and told him that while it is unique to the United States, our customs follow cultural and religious Judaism.

He then asked me how I was raised. I replied that I had a bat mitzvah, had attended religious school, and was even the president of Hillel (the Jewish student organization) at Davidson College. He frowned, and I felt myself recoiling. Why were we still talking about my background? Why was he not nodding or even smiling?

Then came the question: did I have proof of my conversion? Had I stood before rabbis and sworn my allegiance to Judaism? Sure, this man was strictly Orthodox, but did he not realize that there are different types of Judaism and that I was no less Jewish than he? While he did not distinguish between religious and cultural Judaism, I got the distinct impression that he was trying to prove he was more Jewish and more devoted.

Again and again, he told me I could not truly be Jewish because my birth mother was not. He said I would have to stand in front of Rabbis before I could be a real Jew. Wasn’t this hypocritical? Didn’t he understand that an infant who was immersed in a mikvah and experienced the ritual cleansing it provides was as Jewish as someone born to a Jewish woman? His conversion, as an adult, required study and supervision. Mine did not.

As I kept trying to explain my background and why I was Jewish, I felt tears pricking at the back of my eyes. Rosh Hashanah is supposed to be about a sweet new year and the idea of a Jewish community or family. From my past experience, Orthodox Jews have always wanted to draw me into their stricter traditions and show me the way. Why was he excluding me?

Judaism had been the backbone of my upbringing and identity. Being told, bluntly, that I was not Jewish hurt me deeply. I was once again being excluded from a community. This time, though, it was a community in which I usually sought comfort after being detached from my Asian identity. If I am shut out of both my Asian and Jewish communities, to whom could I turn?

As a member of the Better Together interfaith movement, I had to remind myself that not everyone sees difference within and between religions as an asset. I call myself a cultural bridge builder, but not everyone supports my efforts. Some prefer to remain on islands, disconnected from those around them.

Living in China this semester has been difficult thus far. I look like an insider and feel like an outsider. I’ve been told again and again that I have an advantage because I look like the majority here, but if I don’t feel like the majority on the inside, does the color of my skin or my complexion matter? I know in a few years, I’ll value these experiences as important learning experiences. But now, the pain overrides the growth that I know will come from this.

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by | September 22, 2014 · 10:28 am

Water release at Yunnan dam sparks SE Asian alarm

Manwan Dam, Yunnan

A huge hydroelectric facility in southern Yunnan is causing tension between China and several of its downstream Southeast Asian neighbors. The Jinghong dam (景洪大坝), which stretches across the Mekong River, is currently discharging water in an effort to lower reservoir levels, raising the specter of flash flooding further south along the riverway.

On September 1, the Chinese government informed flood control authorities in Cambodia, Laos and Thailand that the dam would begin to release large amounts of excess water. The facility partially opened its floodgates September 5, releasing 535 cubic meters of water per second. Such activity is expected to continue through the end of the month.

Although this amount of water has yet to cause flooding in Laos or Thailand, both countries have issued public warnings as a precaution. Officials in both countries fear any further increase in outflow from the dam — which has the capacity to release up to 9,000 cubic meters of water per second — could have disastrous consequences. An unnamed official in Laos told website RFA river levels in the city of Houayxay — 200 kilometers south of the Jinghong dam — had risen noticeably but had so far not approached flood levels.

Thailand, which makes up more than 800 kilometers of the country’s northern border, is currently in the grips of its annual flood season. At least 28 provinces in the country’s north are already experiencing widespread inundations. Because of this, Thai flood control authorities are particularly wary of any increased flow along the river. Channel News Asia is reporting “the situation at the Chao Phraya dam, the main water gateway between the mountainous north and the central plains [of Thailand], are at a critical level”.

Further downstream in Cambodia and Vietnam, officials appear less concerned. No flood warnings related to the Jinghong dam water release have yet been issued in either country. However, a spokesman for Cambodian water conservancy group 3S Rivers Protection Network told reporters, “We know when an upstream dam opening its gates to release reservoir water combines with the heavy rains of wet season, it’s a high threat.”

The 1,750-megawatt hydropower plant, located roughly five kilometers north of the city ofJinghong, first went into operation 2008 following more than five years of construction. Power generated at the facility is used in Yunnan but is also often sent to energy-hungry Guangzhou or exported to Thailand.

Exemplified by the current situation in Jinghong, cross-border management of the Mekong — called the Lancang River (澜沧江) while flowing through China — is often a contentious issue. Mekong countries have, in the past, expressed frustration over how the river is handled inside China. Such concerns largely revolve around the wellbeing of the 48 million people who rely directly on the waterway for their food and livelihoods in Southeast Asia.

This article was written by Patrick Scally and originally posted on GoKunming.

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by | · 9:54 am

Three sentenced to death for Kunming Train Station attack

The Intermediate Court of Kunming has found four defendants guilty of carrying out a deadly knife attack that claimed the lives of 31 civilians and injured 141 in March of this year. Three of the defendants, all men, received the death penalty, while the lone female suspect was sentenced to life in prison.

The one-day trail, held on September 12, lasted only a few hours. Video shows the three men, Iskandar Ehet, Turgun Tohtunyaz and Hasayn Muhammad seated in court with shaved heads, wearing matching blue prison uniforms. They were all found guilty of “premeditated murder and leading and organizing a terrorist group”. The fourth defendant, Patigul Tohti, will spend the rest of her life behind bars after being found guilty of “intentional homicide and joining a terrorist group”.

None of the men on trial participated directly in the train station attack, according to a BBCreport. Instead, they coordinated the assault from afar — making plans beforehand and then directing five of their associates. Court documents made public following the trial say the three men were all captured by police two days before the attacks occurred.

This narrative directly contradicts previous official accounts claiming the suspects were apprehended March 4 following a 36-hour manhunt in Kunming and beyond. It remains unclear when or where the men were actually captured, as no details of their arrests have ever been made public. Conversely, the story surrounding female assailant Tohti has remained consistent since March.

She was arrested following a bloody rampage wherein she and four others indiscriminately stabbed dozens of people who were queueing to buy tickets at the Kunming Train Station. Tohti was eventually subdued by police and arrested, while her four co-conspirators were all reportedly shot dead in a span of 15 seconds by a SWAT team sniper.

The trial in Kunming was uncharacteristically open to the public, and 300 people, including victims and their families, attended the proceedings. Security at the courthouse was increased noticeably, with armed guards posted both inside and outside the courtroom.

China has significantly ramped up law enforcement and ‘anti-terror’ efforts following the bloodshed in Kunming. In many cities around the country, police officers are now permitted to carry sidearms for the first time in decades. Trials involving suspected militants have also increased, and hundreds of people have been jailed for terrorism-related crimes by Xinjiang police as violence escalated over the summer.

This article was written by Patrick Scally and originally published on GoKunming. 

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by | August 19, 2014 · 10:55 am

The Red Line, Bottom Line, and Direction of State-Owned Enterprise Reform (translation)

China's president Xi Jinping discussing State-sector reform in December 2013.

China’s president Xi Jinping discussing State-sector reform in December 2013.

Translators note: This essay was first published in Qiushi’s online journal Red Flag in early June and then recirculated on various CCP and government websites/publications including the official CCP News website, SASAC website, and most recently SinoPec’s  official site.  Its analysis provides key insight into the both the nature of China’s coming state-owned enterprise reforms and challenges to launching reforms.  

The author, Zhu Jidong, first outlines that the reforms will not be a massive sell-off or a granting of private and foreign firms access to state assets as many pundits have suggested, but rather a reform that re-introduces corporatization and mixed-ownership structures to China’s state-owned firms.  The essay continues with a discussion of the connection between the importance of state-owned industries and the survival of the Chinese state and Communist Party.  It touches on the dangers and risks of reform going off in a wrong and misguided direction and hints that power currently is unevenly distributed in the state-owned sector and that managers of state-owned industries could continue to use their power to make arbitrary decisions, engage in corrupt practices, and take advantage of reform.  The author calls on the Party and governments from the central to local level to promote the supervisory powers of various societal sectors to ensure the coming reform process is fair and transparent.  He encourages Party commissions and local governments to set up hotlines using various forms of social media for observers and whistle-blowers within the state-sector to utilize in reporting malfeasance and corrupt practices that occur during the coming round of state-owned enterprise reform.

 The timing of this essay’s release is critical as state-owned enterprise reform should be a key issue discussed at the coming 4th Plenary Session of the 18th Party Congress this fall. To date this is the essay’s only known English language translation.

 

 The Red Line, Bottom Line, and Direction of State-Owned Enterprise Reform

Deepening state-owned enterprise reform is a major undertaking and is a major issue gaining attention and controversy around the future fate of the party and the state.  During the “two sessions” of 2014, General Secretary Xi Jinping stressed that state-owned enterprises cannot be undercut but rather must strengthen.  State-owned enterprises must absorb the experience and lessons of past reforms and state assets cannot turn into an opportunity for speculative profiteers amidst the wave of reform.  The underlying spirit of this essay is to further advance the definition of state-owned enterprise reform’s red line, identify the bottom line, and clarify its direction.

Drawing the red line: Speculative profiteering opportunities cannot be made in the name of State-owned enterprise reform

“Decision of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China on Some Major Issues Concerning Comprehensively Deepening the Reform,“ the document produced during the CCP’s Third Plenary Session of the 18th Party Congress clearly states for the positive development of a mixed ownership economy.  There are those who advocate the position that the development of mixed ownership economies will serve as a big push to advance privatization, to permit more private and foreign enterprises to control the shares of state-owned enterprises while at the same time allowing state-owned enterprises to retreat away from competitive sectors.  This has created a certain mindset of confusion throughout society.  Looking back at more than 30 years of Reform and Opening, the loss of state assets during the process of state-owned enterprise reform has been a controversial topic which triggered many problems.

Some people say that the purpose of reform is to sell state-owned enterprises, as if success is only delivered through wholesale sell-offs and the price of the efforts of privatization is the laying off of large quantities of employees. A sentiment exists that not only can state employees not share fruits of this kind of reform, but they also serve as the sacrifices of reform; further the state must shoulder the welfare burden of this heavy issue.  Correspondingly a minority state-owned enterprise upper management who once carried the torch of reform have become billionaires.  Now there are even those who advocate “To mix is to sell, if you don’t sell you can’t mix.” If the name of reform is to forcibly make state-owned enterprises sell off rights and assets to private and foreign enterprises, then state-owned enterprises are not strengthened, rather they are weakened..

Developing a mixed ownership economy calls for open and transparent principles. Some people stress that the process of developing mixed ownership is to allow private enterprises to participate in the affairs of state-owned enterprises.  But if upper management of some state-owned enterprises take up this slogan and combine it with the efforts of private managers, then the possibility of “state assets becoming opportunities for private exploitation in the wave of reform” will arise. The crux of reform is openness and transparency and it is a reform to be carried out under the supervision of the masses.

The basic policy of developing a mixed ownership economy is already clear and its essence, as well as its success and failure, is in the details of regulation.  It is imperative for the transfer of state ownership and assets to be an open and transparent process.  Financial assets should be made known to exchange markets.  Transfers should be public knowledge.  State-owned enterprises should engage in open, fair, and just exchange.  The state should establish an institution with the sole purpose of managing, supervising, and quickly establishing a platform for the transfer of state ownership and assets and mandate all state-owned enterprises regardless of reputation to openly, fairly, and justly execute the transfer of state assets.  The private transfer or third party management of the transfer of state assets is impermissible. At the same time, this platform must be built to be as transparent as a glass window in order to put a stop to end all under the table dealings.

In order to develop mixed ownership economies it is necessary to guard against foreign capital controlling the pulse of the Chinese economy.  In accounting for the livelihood of the Chinese people, China’s state-owned industries not are not only the key sector for economic stabilization and boosting the economy, but these firms also bear the load of fending off the control of International monopolistic capital controlled by multinational corporations.  They take on the heavy task of protecting the security of the national economy, and because of this, frequently are a target in the eyes of Western countries and multinational corporations.  If foreign capital and foreign firms are to enter the reform of the state sector, we must first consider the question of the security of the economy and the security of the entire country.  Otherwise after foreign capital and foreign firms enter this sector, it is possible they will spy on the state sector’s confidential policies and strategic decisions.  One can easily imagine that this will influence the security of China’s economy.

A 2006 report issued by the State Council’s Development Research Center expressed that among industries already open to foreign capital investment, each of the top five firms in those industries were nearly completely under the control of foreign capital.  Particularly among twenty-eight major industries, foreign capital exploits the controlling rights to multiple forms of assets of twenty-one industries.  It can be said that foreign capital controls these twenty-one industries.  Today this data should be even more shocking.  Because of this, we must guard against foreign capital from taking advantage of mixed ownership economies to control the lifeline of the Chinese economy and threaten China’s economic stability.   We must take strict precautions against foreign capital from seizing the opportunities of national defense, railways, energy resources, telecommunication, public industries, and those that are associated with national security and major industries associated with the economic pulse of the state and people.

The development of mixed economies needs to allow for the participation and supervision by the masses.  We must appeal for the positive activation of the masses to supervise the whole process of the development of mixed ownership economies and absolutely cannot allow for the invaders to embezzle from and take advantage of state industries.  The party committees and governments at the central and local levels have all installed hotlines, mailboxes, and websites and are positively ready to receive reports on neglect, malfeasance, and corrupt activities associated with state enterprise reform. We will positively investigate and make public the clues reported by the masses pertaining to the loss of state assets.  Toward the actions and behavior of those who embezzle state assets, we will investigate resolutely and severely punish. Through dissecting case studies involving the loss of state assets, we will establish and strengthen the institutions to protect state assets and the benefits of workers during the process of state sector reform.

In the development of mixed ownership economies, we must prevent the torchbearers of this reform from carving up state assets for their own purpose.  The selling of shares to managerial levels and to employees is a topic that will attract much attention during this round of state-owned enterprise reform.  Some locals are already implementing models for share distribution, so this direction has already been established. State assets are legal assets owned by the people of the socialist state of China, and the spirit of state assets cannot be violated. No one has the right to turn these assets into the private assets regardless if they are at the managerial level or a common employee.  Importantly the leaders and employees of state-owned enterprises cannot grant distribution of shares to themselves or transfer all of the people’s assets into private assets.  To permit or even encourage employees and managerial levels to hold shares or to institute models for the holding of shares is a means to permit these people to buy enterprise shares using their own money –  not to carve up state assets for their own usage.

Identifying the bottom line: State enterprise not only cannot weaken, but it must strengthen

In the Communist Manifesto, Marx and Engels pointed out that: “The question of ownership is the fundamental issue of the movement.” The common means of production is the economic base of the socialist system and state-owned enterprises are the principal part and pillar of the common means of production.  The Constitution of the People’s Republic of China clearly stipulates common ownership economy is the guiding power of the economy of the Chinese people and the state.  The state must guarantee the strengthening and development of the state economy.  The development of a strong state economy is assured by the state economy’s controlling the economic lifeline of the people and the state.  In order to express the superior characteristics of the socialist system as well as provide national defense and social cohesion, it is critically important to strengthen the power of China’s economy.

Through controlling the economic lifeline of the people and the state, the state-owned economy can keep the entire national economy running and serve as the engine of development.  The state-owned economy is the effective means for macro-economic adjustment, adjusting market inefficiencies and for realizing the prerequisite conditions of national strategic planning.  Because of this CCP General Party Secretary Xi Jinping has emphasized, “State owned enterprises not only must not weaken, but they must strengthen.” Regardless of the manner of reform, we cannot go beneath this bottom line, otherwise we will end up on the wrong road.
Even after if the many years of privatization and liberalization in Europe, the state owned economies of many countries in many still occupy dominant positions in key sectors and state-owned enterprise investment takes up approximately 20% of total national investment.  For example, state-owned enterprise investment is more than 27% in France.  Moreover the French national government owns more than fifty-one enterprises and employs 838,000 people.  The income of these enterprises contributes approximately 15% of France’s GDP ranking sixth in Europe.  Norway’s government owns forty-six firms which employ 230,000 and contribute about 9.4% of national employment, levels these firms’ incomes comprised nearly 70% of Norway’s 2008 GDP, an increase of 10% from 2004.  Although post-Soviet economies went through a spurt of privatization, by and large, the state-owned sector of many powerful former Soviet states is extremely large.  Russia’s state-owned fixed assets account for 40% of total state assets and state-owned enterprises control nearly 50% of the economy, and state-owned enterprises account for 31% of total employment.  Moreover, the state owned economy comprises more than 70% in Belarus.  Perhaps this is the reason why Russia and Belarus have the confidence to not fear the West and even dare to stand up to Western hegemony.

A few foreign friends have also provided advice for the reform of China’s state-owned economy. On February 15, 2012, German Prime Minister Schmidt reminded China in an interview that the question of ownership reform is one of hundreds of trillions of RMB. Currently most state enterprises are monopolistic and relate to state security.  These firms should develop in the interest of long-term stability and are not for the purpose of profit-seeking as top priority.  The profits of state-owned enterprises are the profits of the people; if these state-owned enterprises privatize, they will not necessarily become more competitive, and they will not necessarily provide more benefit.  Schmidt used the railway system as a case in point: some of China’s western railways are seriously bearing too much weight and collecting too little in fees.  If the railway firms privatize, these railways might halt transportation or raise their price.  This will bring major (negative) impacts to the development of the country’s interior.  If foreign friends can clearly see the danger, should their words fall on deaf ears?

China’s 2012 GDP was 51.9322 trillion RMB and per capita income 38,354 RMB.   This is already higher than 6000 USD.  This makes China the world’s second largest economy.  Moreover the rapid development of China’s state-owned economy was the major guarantor of China’s reaching the rank of the world’s second largest economy.  It is also the major motivational fountainhead of China’s economic development.  The CCP’s “Decision of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China on Some Major Issues Concerning Comprehensively Deepening the Reform” calls for the transitioning of a portion of state-owned capital to enrich social welfare funds, improve the budgetary system of state capital operations, improve the rate of contribution of state-owned enterprises to public finance.  The decision sets the goal of 30% contribution to public finance by 2020 in order to guarantee welfare benefits for the people.  Further, this reveals how state capital relates to all people, and it is only through the strengthening of enterprise that the broad masses can enjoy the benefits of state capital.

Let me ask, can the state enrich social welfare funding through foreign capital and private capital?  Can foreign capital and private capital act without conditions, not seek return on investment, invest in the infrastructure of impoverished areas or fend off earthquake, floods, and other natural disasters? The answer is obviously no.  Because of this, if China is to strengthen and is to allow the people to better enjoy the fruits of reform and development, it must demonstrate the guiding function of the state-owned economy, continuously increase the state economy’s vitality, controlling capabilities, and influence, and make this bottom line clear to the world.

Many people think of the selling off of state production rights and assets when they hear of mixed ownership economies and envision the single possibility of private enterprises and foreign enterprises entering into state-owned enterprises.  Actually the development of mixed ownership in no way should be or is a one-way concept.  Moreover, the development of mixed ownership is two-directional and even multi-directional.  Private and foreign enterprises can enter the state owned sector by purchasing production rights and assets, and state-owned enterprises can also purchase the production rights and assets of private and foreign enterprises and even control the shares of some private and foreign enterprises.  This is the true meaning of mixed ownership economy.

If the development of a mixed ownership economy means only the selling-off of state production rights and assets then the obvious result is the weakening of state-owned enterprises and not their strengthening. Because of this we certainly need to clarify that the development of a mixed ownership economy is not for the purpose of weakening state-owned enterprises and surely is not to privatize.  We need to promote dual directional and multi-directional mixed ownership structures of state-owned enterprises, private enterprise, and foreign enterprise and not simply sell off the production rights and assets of state-owned enterprises to private and foreign enterprises.

Setting the Course: Continuously strengthen the vitality, controlling abilities, and influence of the state economy

In order to promote national modernization, guarantee power the mutual benefit of the people, the continuous development and strengthening of state-owned enterprises is the major force that supports the rise of the Chinese economy. It is also the guarantor of the endurance, strength, and perfection of the party leadership.  “To continuously strengthen the vitality, controlling abilities, and influence of state-owned economy” is the direction set forward for reform in the state sector by the CCP’s 18th Party Congress.

State-owned enterprises should take steps of self-improvement and like a phoenix rising from the ashes take on social responsibilities, establish a proper image, and increase the degree of promoting the processes of reform.  This requires us take a serious look at  the existing challenges to the current development of state-owned enterprises and persevere to strengthen and perfect the party leadership and realistically strengthen the positive characteristics which promote the working class as masters of society.  We should take action in accepting the supervision of multiple levels of society, severely punish graft and corruption, and in the deepening of state-owned enterprise reform promote the continuous improvement of modern enterprise system.

At the high strategic level we must prioritize and continuously strengthen the vitality, controlling abilities, and influence of state-owned industries. As the corporatization of state owned industries attracts strategic investors and key groups, state owned property rights are diversified, and the vitality, controlling abilities, and influence of the state economy continuously strengthens.  But at the same time we can see that the existing problems within state-owned industries are many.  The salary differences in some state-owned enterprises are comparatively large even to the point of great disparity. Disparities exist in the execution of corporate social responsibility programs within some state owned enterprises.  The management method of some state-owned enterprises is careless and accidents have occurred, some state-owned enterprises’ modern enterprise systems are just for show or have large degrees of patrimony.  Some leaders of state-owned enterprises make arbitrary decisions, their lives are extravagant and degenerate, they practice nepotism, and even will sell off state interests for their own personal benefit.

These issues not only influence the initiative of employees, but also damage the vitality, controlling capabilities, and influence of the state-owned economy.  The report of the 18th Party Congress calls to stimulate new energies in various market sectors and calls for all state-owned enterprises to adopt a specific and realistic focus. Thus the increase, stimulation, and demonstration of these new energies is a major challenge that all state-owned enterprises and their leaders must face directly, and this challenge must be highly respected at the strategic levels.  The issue of how to continuously reform and increase the state-owned economy’s vitality, controlling capabilities, and influence is for the relevant departments, work units, and experts located within the Central level’s  Leading Groups on Comprehensive Deepening of Reform to deepen research and determine the right path, polices, and regulations.

We must clearly see that from the distribution of industries, to date 90% of state-owned enterprise are outside the realm of competitiveness.  A slogan such as “Allow state-owned enterprises to leave the realm of competitiveness” is a covert argument of those who support privatization, and the basic motive of those who support privatization of state enterprises is to destroy our party’s economic base.  We must prioritize at a high degree how to scientifically develop a mixed ownership system while preventing new losses of state assets and guard against people from taking advantage of state assets in a new round of privatization.  To develop mixed ownership economies, we should select a portion of firms within a portion of industries as demonstration sites and expand the scale of development after summarizing experience and learning.  We must act accordingly to the path, policies, and regulations set by the central government in order to orderly develop mixed economies and prevent a mad rush.

We must persevere to strengthen and perfect the party leadership of state-owned enterprise reform.  General Party Secretary Xi Jinping has stressed many times “China is a major power, and we absolutely cannot allow any subversive errors.” What are subversive errors?  It is those errors of directionality which depart from the fundamental characteristics of socialism. And it is on this point that the 3rd Plenary of the 18th Party Congress stresses that comprehensive deepening of reform must strengthen and perfect party leadership.  Serving as the resolute leadership core of China’s socialist cause, the CCP naturally also forms the leadership core of China’s economic construction and serves as the leadership core of state-owned enterprise reform.

During the coming reform of the state-owned sector, we must demonstrate the offensive and defensive functions of party organs and the vanguard and model nature of party members.  Further we must dare to shoulder responsibility and resolutely confront all erroneous words and deeds.  It is only through perseverance in strengthening and perfecting the party leadership that the existing degeneration, extravagant waste, and nepotism within state-owned enterprises can be solved. We must unite and lead the masses the struggle against the activities of those who would embezzle state assets in order to maintain the right direction of state-owned enterprise reform. The nature of mixed ownership economies is decided by who controls shares. This is the central issue. The Central government should not give up shareholding rights in the name of state-owned enterprise reform.  Moreover, the Central government cannot change the characteristics of strategic enterprises.  This is what is meant by persevering to strengthen and perfect the party leadership as a strong base and powerful safeguard.

We must strengthen the master status of the working class.  Strengthening the master status of the working class is to continuously strengthen the vitality, controlling abilities, and influence of the state-owned economy’s solid base.  The working class is China’s leading class.  It is the representative of China’s advanced production force and production relationship.  It is our party’s most solid and most reliable class base and the comprehensive construct of a moderately prosperous society.  Lastly, the working class is the main force of upholding and developing socialism with Chinese characteristics.  To uphold and develop socialism with Chinese characteristics, we must rely on the working class with our whole hearts and whole minds and strengthen the master status of the working class to realize the full function of the working class as a main force.

In recent years the issue of corruption has arisen within state-owned enterprises and within some industries to the point of extreme severity. A contributing factor to this corruption is that the master status of the working class is wrongly viewed.  Some leaders and cadres within state-owned enterprises do not take supervision by the working class and the interest of workers to heart, and for their own personal benefit, these leaders will sacrifice the interests of workers and the state.  Relevant documents have expressed that the gap between actual average salaries of leaders of centrally owned enterprises to their employees is exponentially widening.  This has raised questions and criticisms in some enterprises.  When developing the mixed-ownership structure, state-owned enterprises should consider the raising of employee’s salaries.  Actually many centrally owned enterprises achieved rapid improvement and synergy in increasing industrial efficiency and employee’s salaries when shifting to mixed ownership.

Chen Jieyuan, Party Secretary and Board Chairman of the Shanghai Port Group LLC said, “In recent years, The Shanghai Port Group, through has experience the sweet taste of mixed ownership.  From 2006 when we fully listed on the market, our net assets have doubled, profits have basically doubled, and employees’ incomes have doubled.  These three “doubles” mark the direction in which state-owned enterprise reform should persevere especially in the process of developing mixed ownership, priority should be placed on promoting the distribution of shares to employees, establish a modern enterprise system, and fully raise income of employees.

The data shows that in 2010 the average income of an employee in a state-owned enterprise was 38359 RMB, 5% higher than the national average.  The average income of an employee in a private enterprise was 20759 RMB, 43% lower than the national average.  It is obvious which kind of enterprise serves as a better model for increasing the incomes of workers.  Because of this, the only way to strengthen the master status of the working class is to continuously increase the income levels of employees in the private sector, not the other way around.  Relevant organs at the central level should come up with a proposal for the distribution of shares to employees based on rigorous surveying and research and make this a major breakthrough point for feasibly strengthening the master status of the working class.

We must require state-owned enterprises to accept supervision from many levels of society.  This is the major guarantor for the continuous strengthening of the vitality, controlling ability, and influence of state-owned enterprises. We must open various channels of supervision, promote and accept the supervision of the masses, and accept and participate in supervision of the process of mixed ownership reform.  We must also draw from the concepts and management experience of private enterprises and foreign enterprises. Party committees at the central and local levels and governments should set up whistle-blower hotlines, mailboxes, and websites and accept reporting from all levels of society on malfeasance, dereliction of duty, and corruption during the process of state-enterprise reform. Concerning state-owned enterprise reform these committees should take advice and suggestions from various societal levels, and make use of the body of people’s wisdom and power to make good on state-enterprise reform.

Especially with the rapid development of the internet, online news, Weibo, Wechat, forums, blogs, podcasts, these broadcast formats provide the best arena and platform for the people to supervise government and fight corruption in an ever-strengthening manner.  Relevant organs should organically integrate educational experiences from the mass party line and pure and clean frameworks into the reform of state-owned enterprises.  These organs should positively involve the participation of the masses, make progress in using the internet, and widen and open to the masses channels for reporting corrupt practices.  Anti-corruption departments must especially focus on clues related to the loss of state assets which are revealed through reporting from the internet, and encourage and direct the masses to report on the egregious ways and issues of corruption through legal methods.  Those who would attempt to transfer state assets into personal exploits should be called out and swatted like mice crossing the street. This is the way to uphold the core status of common ownership.

About the author:  Zhu Jidong is a researcher at the Qinghua University Research Center for College Moral Education.  Holds a post-doctorate in Marxism Theory, is Head of China Academy of Science World Socialism Research Center and General Secretary of National Cultural-Security and Ideology Research Center.

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by | August 16, 2014 · 12:52 pm

China forbids some rice imports from Vietnam

Roger Hamilton via The Baltimore Sun

Roger Hamilton via The Baltimore Sun

Beijing has banned what trade authorities are calling “unofficial rice imports” from neighboring Vietnam. The move, ostensibly announced as closing a previously existing tax loophole, appears to be specifically targeted at Hanoi and does not affect other Southeast Asian countries sharing a border with China.

The prohibition specifically addresses the overland, cross-border traffic of rice into Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region and Yunnan province, both of which share lengthy southern borders with Vietnam. These shipments are often brokered and carried out by individual Chinese brokers who often skirt paying national import levies, according to Vietnamese press reports.

By centralizing bulk purchases of rice, Beijing could stand to generate substantial tax revenues.Two million tons of Vietnamese rice worth an estimated US$800 million were expected to imported through unofficial channels this year before the proscription went into affect. This number represents more than 30 percent of Vietnam’s total worldwide rice exports from 2013.

Although billed as a tax collecting endeavor, the Chinese ban has obvious political undertones. Once-strong ties between the two countries have been markedly strained since the deployment of a Chinese oil platform in international waters sparked deadly anti-China riots in Vietnam this summer. Although the oil rig has since been removed, relations have not thawed and the rice import ban may be a way for Beijing to subtly punish Hanoi.

China, which has announced it is attempting to expand its rice import portfolio, announced on Tuesday an agreement to buy 100,000 metric tons of rice from Cambodia. The contract, which went into affect immediately, states the rice must be purchased over the next year. A Cambodian businessman involved in the deal, surnamed Van, told the Phnom Penh Post that Vietnam’s loss was Cambodia’s gain:

The South China Sea dispute lately may have also played [an indirect] part in China wanting to diversify its rice import base as imports from Vietnam hit a substantial figure. China [received] over 66 percent of its total rice imports from Vietnam in 2013, while only one percent came from Cambodia.

For its part, Vietnam appears nonplussed by the import ban. Sales of rice to other countries such as Indonesia, Malaysia and the Philippines are expected to rise and make up for any money lost because of the new Chinese law. The situation, in some people’s eyes, might actually benefit the county’s agricultural market. According to Huynh The Nang, general director Vietnamese company Vinafood 2, “The demand from countries other than China for Vietnam’s rice is very high now, while the domestic supply is declining.”

This article written was by Patrick Scally and first published 8/13 here on the GoKunming website.

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by | July 31, 2014 · 1:05 pm

Understanding China’s housing reforms

hukou

 

Xinhua News Agency reported in late July on the government’s planned hukou reforms, which will begin by facilitating the urban settlement of roughly 100 million people who do not hold urban IDs and which will ultimately lead to the elimination of discrete registration systems for urban and rural residents.

The hukou (huji or ‘household register’) system is about 4000 years old. Early in its inception it became an instrument for tax collection and by the 7th century BCE administrators in present-day Shandong were levying different regions according to different standards. The present system serves to maintain census data and severely limit migration into urban areas, making it analogous to the North Korean hoju or former Soviet propiska systems and earning it criticism as China’s apartheid by BBC News, The Independent and South Africa’s The Star.

Citizens currently registered in rural areas must follow a tortuous bureaucratic path in order to qualify for non-agricultural work and unless they successfully do, they will not receive the same educational or medical benefits as their city-dwelling compatriots. Government officials have defended the system by citing the need for stability but some, like Tim Luard of BBC News (here), have suggested the restriction of urbanization preserves a rural population in order to furnish state enterprises with low-wage workers.

Jasper Becker, former Beijing bureau chief of Hong Kong’s South China Morning Post, has written an engrossing account of the Great Chinese Famine entitled Hungry Ghosts: Mao’s Secret Famine in which he describes how local administrators, eager to impress, oversold the output of their districts. Corresponding taxes claimed the bulk of food production in many rural communes and, as a result, holding a rural hukou became a death sentence for millions even while urban residents dined well.

But officials remain wary of reforms that may trigger massive nationwide urbanization, leading to spikes in urban crime and stressing the limits of municipal resources and social services. So while the government works to improve the system, it does so with deliberate speed. Rural residents were given the right to work in urban centers years ago by purchasing temporary urban visas and Beijing has now announced plans to allow the movement of 100 million workers, roughly half the total number of illegal residents.

Major cities like Shanghai will retain tighter controls whereas urban districts with less than three million people will become easier for rural resident to move into, thus encouraging growth in mid-sized cities while protecting larger ones from overpopulation. The government’s stated long-term hope is the standardization of the nation’s system by 2020, allowing rural and urban residents to enjoy the same benefits and opportunities.

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by | July 20, 2014 · 10:55 am

Bottlenecks to Development: Challenges in the Mekong Delta

Last week, ExSE took a hard look at the environmental challenges facing the Mekong Delta region and found that the prospects are not good. Due to unenviable geography and global warming, rising sea levels, higher average temperatures and irregular precipitation patterns will all converge in the next 50 years to change the face of the Mekong Delta (MKD). That’s to say nothing of salinity intrusion, flooding and tropical storms. However, the MKD’s problems are not only environmental in nature; the region’s economy also faces a host of challenges, many of them tied to the Delta’s environmental changes.

Issues in the Mekong Delta are of course significant for its residents, but they also carry great importance for those outside the region because of the MKD’s role in national and regional food security. The statistics on the Delta are incredible. In an area taking up just 36,000 square kilometers (12 % of Vietnam’s total area), the Delta’s 22 million inhabitants plant 2.6 rice crops per year totaling 25 million tons of rice. The MKD’s rice production accounts for over half of Vietnam’s total and the seven million tons rice that the Delta exports has helped Vietnam become the world’s second largest rice exporter after Thailand. In addition, the Delta accounts for 70% of Vietnam’s fruit production and three-quarters of its fish catch.

The Delta’s massive agricultural output is no accident. The region is perfectly situated to receive large amounts of water and sediment from the three main stems of the Mekong Delta and the many thousands of canals that intersect them and a tropical temperature allows for farming year-round. What’s more, concerted efforts in the past 30 years to improve the region’s water infrastructure have doubled arable land in the MKD. Combined with advances in genetically modified rice strains, yields in the Delta have increased by 30% and total production has doubled, all within the past 20 years.

Incomes have also increased. According to the General Statistics Office of Vietnam (GSO), the average income of Delta residents has gone from 50 cents USD/day in 1999 to $2/day in 2010 and the region reached it Millennium Development Goals in 2006. However, despite impressive improvements in agricultural output and per capita income, the Delta has lost ground to other regions of Vietnam and now lags behind in important measurements of human and economic development.

Source: Dr. Ho Long Phi, processed from data of General Statistics Office of Vietnam.

Source: Dr. Ho Long Phi, processed from data of General Statistics Office of Vietnam.

In the late 1990’s, the Delta was actually 20% above the national average in per capita income. However more than 10 years later, the number stands at a little more than 80%. In the first decade of the new millennium, Vietnam underwent a period of intense economic growth through industrialization and people all over the country got richer as a result. The benefits of economic growth were not felt equally by everyone, however. Due to development bottlenecks, some regions, including the Mekong Delta, did not industrialize like others

One of these bottlenecks is a lack of infrastructure. The proportion of waterways, intra-provincial roads and inter-provincial roads per thousand people are all behind the national average. Of these three measures, the proportion of inter-provincial roads stands out. For one, there are only 0.34km of them per 1000 people in the Delta, standing at only half of the national average. This is especially important because of the nature of the Delta’s economy. The MKD, because its economy is so heavily concentrated in agriculture, lacks many necessary products and thus has a long history of importing and exporting nearly everything. While this may be good for enterprising middlemen, it is not good for the region’s economic development. With so few avenues for importing and exporting goods, the logisitical cost rises and because the MKD lacks so many raw materials, industrial development becomes disadvantageous. In fact, unless an investor is interested in agricultural processing, building a factory closer to Ho Chi Minh City is probably a better business plan in many cases.

Source: Dr. Ho Long Phi, processed from data of General Statistics Office of Vietnam

Measure of waterway, inter-provincial roads and intra-provincial roads in the Delta. Source: Dr. Ho Long Phi, processed from data of General Statistics Office of Vietnam

A second bottleneck, and another reason a potential investor might not consider the Delta, is a lack of skilled labor. Like the region’s road density, the MKD’s percentage of trained labor lags behind the national average; according to data collected by GSO (General Statistics Office of Vietnam) the Delta’s percentage of trained labor stood at just over half of the national average. In addition, the proportion of Delta residents with some sort of higher education stood at less than 1%, or in other words, just a fifth of the national average. With a workforce that is so poorly trained and educated, the Delta becomes an even less attractive region for investment, especially when compared to the populations near the Red River Delta (Hanoi and its environs) or Ho Chi Minh City.

What’s more, those Delta residents that have some technical training and/or higher education do not stay in the Delta for long. As the region’s economy falls farther behind the rest of Vietnam, more and more Delta residents are moving to urban centers to look for work. One of the main destinations for these people is Ho Chi Minh City, where over half of the city’s migrant workers come from the Mekong Delta. What trained labor the MKD might have ends up leaving the region for greener pastures, thus widening the gap between the Delta and places like Ho Chi Minh City.

Source: Dr. Ho Long Phi, processed from data of General Statistics Office of Vietnam

Source: Dr. Ho Long Phi, processed from data of General Statistics Office of Vietnam

One reason that the MKD has such a low percentages of trained labor and educated inhabitants is that in the past there was no need for supplementary education of any form. In an environment where the annual rice yields are stable and prices are good enough, investing time and money for a new career is an unnecessary risk and one that Delta residents have not taken. Paddy rice cultivation requires little technical skill yet provides a modest, usually stable income. However, the income provided from rice is rarely enough to invest in the expansion of other industries and in the Delta’s case, the lack of infrastructure makes such an investment an even more expensive proposition.Unfortunately for the farmers of the Mekong Delta, rice cultivation is becoming a less and less stable enterprise. For one, the price of rice has dropped in the past decade. As more and more rice is produced worldwide, the seven tons of rice the Delta exports annually decreases in value and farmers lose out.

However, shifts in the world rice market are nothing compared to problems farmers face due to global warming. As detailed here, rising temperatures, sea level rise, an erratic precipitation and flood schedule and more frequent tropical storms all threaten to radically alter the Mekong Delta in the next century. The region already has enough impediments to development with its lack of infrastructure and trained labor; its environmental issues only add to the severity of the situation. The Delta, now more than ever, is in acute need of solutions. However, who’s coming up with these solutions, if there are any to begin with, is another question unto itself and one that needs to be answered before any future for the Mekong Delta can be imagined.

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by | July 18, 2014 · 8:29 pm

China and South Asia: Contention and Cooperation Between Giant Neighbors

Are China and India allies or enemies in the South Asian economy? Well, it seems they are both; working together in healthy and profitable partnerships while maintaining armies in the contested China-India borders. This article explains the paradoxical nature of the China-India relationship and its impact and implications for the smaller countries in South Asia and neighboring Southeast Asia.

The rise of China and India over the last two or three decades continues to make global news headlines. Competition between these two global powers in economic, political and diplomatic domains has garnered scholarly and media attention. Yet we know much less about China’s growing ties and contention with India that are also spreading across the South Asia subcontinent and beyond. As China-India trade has grown, India in 2006 opened the historical trade route, Nathula Pass, which had remained closed for almost 50 years as a result of a border war with China in 1962. Today in the presence of several persistently disputed border zones in South Asia (see Map 1), China is beginning to build dams on the rivers in the Tibetan Plateau, including the upper Brahmaputra (yarlung tsangpo or Yarlung River), which could impact populations living downstream in India and Bangladesh (see Map 1). China has taken over the construction of Gwadar Port in the Pakistani province of Baluchistan, on the Arabian Sea. China has also begun building the Gwadar road corridor all the way north to Xinjiang. Continue reading →

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