China’s Going Green Challenge

July 15, 2010

For decades, the world watched the American lifestyle through TV and the Internet.  Now, the citizens of nations like China and India want the same lifestyle.  The downside is that having 1.3 billion people living like Americans means five times the pollution America produces.

It isn’t as if China is not doing what it can to go green and reduce pollution.  The problem is the number of people who expect a better standard of living.  China has also promised 700 million rural Chinese that the electric grid is coming their way and along with it electricity-dependent home appliances. Source: Huffington Post

Even with inefficient factories, like Guangzhou Steel, being closed and replacing more than a thousand older coal-burning power plants (like those still used in the US), China worries that the demand by Chinese consumers will foil China’s goals to reduce carbon emissions. Source: New York Times

If Americans are unwilling to give up their energy dependent lifestyles, why should the Chinese do without?

See China Going Green

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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. 

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China’s Latest Labor Movement

July 14, 2010

“The China Beat”, Where to Begin: New Perspectives on Chinese Labor by Mark W. Frazier, offers a long post about what’s taking place in China’s labor movement.

Frazier says, “It is clear that migrant workers have gained a level of organizational sophistication and political awareness to make demands for higher wages, better working conditions, and in some cases, elections for union representatives.”

There are several books mentioned in the post.

Against the Law: Labor Protests in China’s Rustbelt and Sunbelt by Ching Kwan Lee.

The Chinese Worker after Socialism by William Hurst

The China Price by Alexander Harney

Some Assembly Required by Calvin Chen

State’s Gains, Labor’s Losses by Dorothy Solinger

Factory Girls by Leslie T. Chang.

The changes started with the land reforms under Mao, continued with Deng Xiaoping when he said, “Getting Rich is Glorious” introducing capitalism to China, then the growth of an urban middle class, and now capitalist exploitation of the worker while China’s Sexual Revolution is going strong.

However, what if the labor protests in China are from job losses caused by the global economic crises. People are angry.  After all, millions have lost jobs already.

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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. 

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China’s Gold Rush

July 12, 2010

The Imperial Color was yellow gold and the roofs of the Forbidden City were the same color. During imperial times, anyone wearing the imperial color, who did not belong to China’s ruling family, usually lost their heads.

Now, China is having a gold rush and holds more than a thousand tonnes of Gold as of June 2010, while gold demand from China’s middle class has grown 13 percent annually for the last five years.

As you can see from this Sky News video, Chinese are gobbling up gold as fast as they can regardless of the price.  To them, it is an investment and the Central Bank of China is quietly buying gold to build reserves. China is now the world’s largest producer of gold.

Frank Homes writing for Wall Street Pit, Global Market Insight, says China can’t get enough gold and state-controlled China National Gold Group signed an agreement with Kensington Mine in Alaska to buy more.

See China’s Heart and Soul

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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. 

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Learning from Canada

July 10, 2010

The China Daily reported that China and Canada plan to double trade. “I have agreed with Prime Minister Harper that we should take active measures to make our countries’ two-way trade volume reach a target of $60 billion by 2015,” Hu Jintao said in Ottawa.

President Hu Jintao shaking hands with Prime Minister Harper

While the US pressures China to do something about North Korea, sells modern weapons to Taiwan and hosts the Dalai Lama at the White House, which all upset China, Canada works to build a relationship and earned approved destination status (ADS), so Chinese tourists may travel to Canada in organized, pre-sold tour groups.  Canada’s tourist industry hopes to see $100 million a year increasing tourist revenues and creating jobs.

Canada also signed several energy cooperative agreements involving oil sand, nuclear energy and gas. In addition, one agreement might mean more Canadian food products being sold to China, which creates more jobs for Canadians since so many were lost when the US Sub Prime Mortgage crises caused a global economic meltdown. 

Why can’t the US find constructive ways like these to do the same—shrink the trade imbalance with China and create jobs at home without irritating Beijing?

See Doing Business 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. 

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China’s Capitalist Revolution (Part 9 of 9)

July 6, 2010

Because of what happened in Tiananmen Square, foreign investors pulled out of China. Western businessmen fled. Foreign leaders and Deng’s Western friends criticized him.

The Maoists were back in power. Jiang Zemin said private companies had benefited from the reforms but in the turmoil, they supported the students against the government. We need to destroy them.

Deng Xiaoping was forced into retirement and his policies were reversed. Peasants were encouraged to reform collectives and private business was banned from competing with state enterprises.   The Maoists decided to clean house and close China’s doors to the West.

Desperate to save his reforms, at 87, Deng set out to save his reforms.  He went to Shanghai to encouraged supporters there to speak out.  When they did, the Maoists wanted to know who was criticizing them in the newspapers. Deng said he was responsible—don’t attack anyone but me.  Then Deng met with his old comrades in the People’s Liberation Army and the army announced they would protect Deng’s reforms and anyone who resisted would be dealt with.

Deng said, “Without reform and the Open Door policy, economic growth and improved living standards —any path for our country will be a dead end.” Deng’s call to arms worked.  In 1994, Jiang Zemin switched sides to support Deng. It was okay to get rich again.

Deng Xiaoping died in 1997. The country he inherited from Mao was the one of the world’s poorest. Today, it is one of the wealthiest.

Return to China’s Capitalist Revolution Part 8 or start with Part 1

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Lloyd Lofthouse is the award-winning author of The Concubine Saga. When you love a Chinese woman, you marry her family and culture too. This is the love story Sir Robert Hart did not want the world to discover.

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3 Comments | business, capitalism, China, Chinese history, Communism, economy, politics | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , | Permalink
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