China Reaching out to South Africa

February 9, 2011

Aaron Back of India Real Time reports that Brazil, Russia, India and China have invited South Africa to join their group of emerging economies referred to as the BRIC possibly changing that acronym to BRICSA.

Aaron asks how South Africa could join the BRIC when the “rainbow nation” lacks the main unifying characteristic of the group: a fast-growing economy.

However, my answer to Aaron is that India Real Time may have missed the fact that Brazil’s economy was also sluggish until China became a major trading partner. Now Brazil is growing at about 8% a year.

Another factor is that China is now South Africa’s largest trading partner, and Radio Netherlands Worldwide says South Africa (unlike the US) enjoys a trade surplus with China that may only grow. The Chinese ambassador Zhong Jianhua, says that it is the warm diplomatic ties between China and SA since 1998 matched by growing economic engagement, which has put SA among China’s top three African trading partners.

South Africa also has another alternative to a fast-growing economy. The CIA says, South Africa is rich in these natural resources — gold, chromium, antimony, coal, iron ore, manganese, nickel, phosphates, tin, rare earth elements, uranium, gem diamonds, platinum, copper, vanadium, salt, natural gas.

The South African Guide says, the mining industry is one of the most productive in the world and raw materials make up about 60% of the country’s exports… South Africa is also the single country in the world to produce fuel from coal.

Then the BBC reports that South Africa faces major problems. Many South Africans remain poor and unemployment is high—about 25%.

After all, what South Africa has, China needs to continue the growth of its middle class, and it was these same factors that caused China to become Brazil’s major trading partner. As the trade surplus grows in South Africa’s favor, unemployment will shrink.

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Lloyd Lofthouse is the award-winning author of the concubine saga, My Splendid Concubine & Our Hart. When you love a Chinese woman, you marry her family and culture too.

If you want to subscribe to iLook China, there is a “Subscribe” button at the top of the screen in the menu bar.

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Posted by Lloyd Lofthouse

Changing China through its Youth – Part 2/5

January 31, 2011

In Part 1 of this series covering a PBS Frontline documentary of how China’s youth is changing the country, we ended with  Ben Wu who had been away for more than a decade gaining a business education in the US and New York.

Recently, a Chinese-American friend returning from China after a long visit complained of the younger people (under 30) not saving money and using credit cards running up debt to buy consumer items (what I call mostly junk).

What Neil Genzlinger of the New York Times wrote of this Frontline series was true. “Soon it becomes clear that everything about them (the younger Chinese) is just like us. …” Learn more of The University Influence from the US and Europe.

This is scary since Money-Zine.com says, “The total amount of consumer debt in the United States stands at nearly $2.5 trillion dollars – and based on the latest Census statistics, that works out to be nearly $8,100 in debt for every man, woman and child that lives here in the US.”

Imagine what would happen to the world if China and America both had economic meltdowns equal to what started in the US in 2008? Instead of $64US trillion lost globally, the numbers would have been much higher.

Anyway, back to Ben Wu and his venture to start up an Internet cafe franchise. After months of living on caffeine and cigarettes (working two jobs–one to earn money and the other starting up the cafe), he opened for business.

By then it was probably 2005 or later. Soon after opening, Ben Wu reported, “The cafe is doing very well. It’s pretty much what I estimated.”

The next Chinese youth Frontline focuses on is Wang Xiaolei, a Chinese rapper using his music to express “his” dark view (opinion) of China’s new boom times.

In my opinion, Wang Xiaolei’s ignorance is on display. Since he doesn’t know how dark it was in China before the economic miracle, he has no idea what he is talking about. His own music says he’s never been to the US but it is apparent that he must have a gold plated perception of the US.

Facts say otherwise. Even the CIA reports that only 2.8% of China’s population lives in “absolute poverty”.

Meanwhile, in the US, the latest Census numbers reported by the Associated Press say “The number of poor people in the US is millions higher than previously known, with 1 in 6 Americans (almost 17%) – many of them 65 and older – struggling in poverty…”

Wang Xiaolei says, “There is a lot of discrimination in China. Like, if you don’t have money, people look down on you.”

How is that different from the US?

Try walking the streets of downtown Berkeley, California and see how many homeless beggars ask for money. Then drive around San Francisco and see if you can keep count of the homeless that live on the city’s streets.

In fact, “There is anecdotal evidence that many Americans complain about the presence of homeless people, blame them for their situation, and feel that their requests (begging) for money or support are unjustified.” Source: Wikipedia

Several years ago in this report, Frontline said that 70% of Chinese had no medical insurance. That was before current plans to improve medical services in urban and rural communities from 2011 to 2015. Source: Xinhuanet.com

What Frontline doesn’t say about health care in China is also important and puts the situation into perspective. The CIA reports that life expectancy in China for total population is 74.51 years. In 1949, life expectancy was a meager 35 years.

Return to China Changing through its Youth – Part 1

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Lloyd Lofthouse is the award-winning author of the concubine saga, My Splendid Concubine & Our Hart. When you love a Chinese woman, you marry her family and culture too.

If you want to subscribe to iLook China, there is a “Subscribe” button at the top of the screen in the menu bar.

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Posted by Lloyd Lofthouse

China Changing through its Youth – Part 1/5

January 30, 2011

There is a difference between the Chinese that lived through Mao’s time and those born around or after 1980.

Frontline says, “They are a new generation breaking from tradition and transforming China.”

The Mao generation suffered through the Chinese Civil War (1925 – 1949) between the Communists and the Nationalists in addition to World War II (1937 – 1945).

Then there was the Great Leap Forward and Mao’s Cultural Revolution.

From 1925 to 1976, more than sixty million died due to these events. The Chinese that survived were willing to sacrifice by working harder for less so their children would have a brighter future. Now those children are coming of age.

PBS’s Frontline went to China in 2004 and spent several years following nine young Chinese to see how they were changing China.

Neil Genzlinger of the New York Times wrote, “For an American viewer it’s interesting at first because of the ‘just like us’ factor … But soon it becomes clear that everything about them is just like us. …”

There is a businesswoman pressured to choose between motherhood and her career; an Internet entrepreneur thirsting for a more spiritual life, and a young woman searching for the mother she barely remembers.

Their stories are of love, of family, ambition and sacrifice and the conflict between the past and the future. These stories come from a society changing faster than any in history.

Watching this Frontline documentary caused me to question why anyone is pressuring China to change any faster than it already is.

The first person featured was Lu Dong, 32, who returned to China after a decade in another country. He returned because of the opportunities that China now offers.

The narrator says so many Chinese are returning from other countries that the Chinese call them Returning Turtles.

In fact, few in the west realize how many educated Chinese are returning home.

My wife and I know of one man born in China and educated in the US that became the department chair of a university mathematics department in America.  Today, he is a department chair in one of China’s most prestigious universities.

Another man, Ben Wu, also returned to Beijing where he spent his childhood. He was gone from China for more than a decade and has never worked there before.  Now, he’s back to learn. He works two jobs—one for himself starting a new franchise Internet cafe using the knowledge he learned from a business school in New York.

Learn of Foreign Entrepreneurs in China

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Lloyd Lofthouse is the award-winning author of the concubine saga, My Splendid Concubine & Our Hart. When you love a Chinese woman, you marry her family and culture too.

If you want to subscribe to iLook China, there is a “Subscribe” button at the top of the screen in the menu bar.

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Posted by Lloyd Lofthouse

Shanghai Scams – Assisted Shopping – Part 1/3

January 26, 2011

While researching another topic, I discovered the Shanghai Scam Series produced by a 30-year-old expatriate that goes by the on-line name of Serpentza.

Although I’ve been to China many times, I’ve never experienced the scams the narrator of this series talks of.

However, to be fair, the reason I haven’t experienced these scams is that I don’t drink (gave it up years ago) and do not frequent the popular nightclubs and bars.

In fact, my wife is Chinese and usually warns me of suspicious behavior. It also helps that I’m the distrusting sort.

In Serpentza’s video, he takes us for a walk in the rain in Shanghai to show us how the”assisted shopping scam” works.

He says, while shopping, you will be approached by a number of people who speak English that will tell you where the best bargains are.

Hmm, this has never happened to me. Do I look that forbidding? While in China, my wife isn’t always with me. I have gone shopping alone and no one has asked if I needed help and I do not buy anything from street vendors.

However, I have been approached by street vendors selling watches, which Serpentza warns of, but I don’t wear a watch and don’t want one.

On one trip, a Shanghai street vendor followed me for several blocks trying to sell me watches, wallets, dark glasses, etc.  He didn’t know what the word “NO” meant even when I used the word in Mandarin my wife taught me. Maybe he didn’t speak Mandarin. After all, there are about 60 different, spoken languages in China.

Had to go into a bank to get him to leave me alone.

I even found a trip advisor Website warning of Shanghai Scams, which says, “The majority of these scams happen at tourist spots around People’s Square, on Nanjing Pedestrian Street and at the Bund.”

General rule: Shanghainese are very friendly and always willing to help if you ask them, but they would seldom approach a foreigner without being asked (as probably anywhere in the world).

On his Blog, Serpentza calls himself “forever an expatriate”.

Discover Shanghai

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Lloyd Lofthouse is the award-winning author of the concubine saga, My Splendid Concubine & Our Hart. When you love a Chinese woman, you marry her family and culture too.

If you want to subscribe to iLook China, there is a “Subscribe” button at the top of the screen in the menu bar.

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Posted by Lloyd Lofthouse

Foreign Entrepreneurs in China – Part 2/2

January 24, 2011

In the PBS documentary of foreign entrepreneurs in China we discover (when the US financial crises hit the world causing more than $64US trillion in global loses while those who caused the crises walked away with fortunes) China experienced a slowdown in economic growth in 2008.

One foreign entrepreneur, Ed Hung, talks of the clothing store he co-founded, NLGX Design, which opened in Beijing in 2008.  He said rent was still increasing.

Ed Hung was born and raised in San Francisco. His business partner, Michel Sutyadi, was born and raised in Germany.  They met in Beijing while studying Mandarin in 2005.

Ed Hung says modern Beijing is becoming a consumer culture.

Then Doug Ma, a co-founder of Go Tour-ING, talks of how the global financial crisis (which was started in America) has affected business.

In the spring of 2008, Dough Ma left his job at an investment bank to travel. He wrote a post for Jet Set Zero in July 2009, and said, “It has been quite a challenge starting up Tour-ING. For one thing, it has been a tough year for the tourism industry. Less people are traveling due to the global economy and the outbreak of swine flu has hindered a lot of travel plans.”

Brian Sloan, CEO of Robotic Blow Job, says the toys he manufactures and sells seem more popular in hard economic times since people spend less money going out and stay home more so they need a method of self-entertainment.

Return to Foreign Entrepreneurs in China – Part 1 or discover China’s Sexual Revolution

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Lloyd Lofthouse is the award-winning author of the concubine saga, My Splendid Concubine & Our Hart. When you love a Chinese woman, you marry her family and culture too.

If you want to subscribe to iLook China, there is a “Subscribe” button at the top of the screen in the menu bar.

Leave a Comment » | business, capitalism, China, economy, expatriates | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Lloyd Lofthouse

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