I am not the Manchurian Candidate

February 14, 2010

Originally published at “Speak Without Interruption” on February 7, 2010
By Bob Grant — publisher/editor for Speak Without Interruption

How can you embrace an enemy of the USA?  More important–why would you?  If these questions have not been outright asked of me–they have been implied.  Why I chose to speak highly of China, and its people, is something that I do willingly and with pride. 

I am not the Manchurian Candidate. I was never brainwashed during my visits there. I was not tortured or forced into my feelings in any way. Subliminal messages were not piped into my hotel room at night. I did not have bamboo shoots shoved under my fingernails. I was not drugged or impaired in any way unless it was done willingly by drinking too much of that fine Chinese beer.

Within my small circle of business contacts, experiences, and associations I would say it is Western business people who are trying to brain wash the Chinese. As I developed my business relationships, I both read and experienced failures mainly because Western companies tried to “Westernize” their Chinese business partners rather than adapting to their Chinese partners way of doing business. 

Maybe it has been different for others who have done business within China but for me, personally, my successes came from letting the Chinese conduct business in “their way”, and I tried to educate my customers in their methods and ways. I won’t say it was not frustrating at times—in fact, it was frustrating most of the time. 

However, in the end, it was what worked best for me while others failed. Honor and “saving face” are very important to the Chinese—I tried not to put any of my associates in a position that threatened either.

Again, just from my experience, I have to say that people from any part of the world can work together to achieve a common goal if all parties can be flexible and understanding. From my perspective, this is the true receipt for success among the world’s population.

If you would like to read other guest posts by Bob Grant, see They All Look Alike.

1 Comment | American culture, business, Chinese Culture, economy | Tagged: | Permalink
Posted by Lloyd Lofthouse

The Urban-Rural Divide

February 13, 2010

Photo courtesy of Bob Grant

This morning Bob Grant posted Contradiction of Times at Speak Without Interruption, an international online magazine. He shows visually and through words the discrepancy in lifestyles that he has witnessed between China’s cities and countryside. There is a reason for this discrepancy. After Mao died and China started down the road toward Social Capitalism, the central government decided to focus growth and modernization in the cities.

However, when Hu Jintao became president in 2002, he responded to the rising social tensions and China’s wealth gap by advocating a drive to build a “harmonious society”. He promised greater spending on health and education in rural areas where eight-hundred million Chinese live. Prior to that, most of China’s efforts at growth and modernization took place in the cities.  What we see in China’s cities today took place over a period of more than thirty years. It may take longer to improve the living standards of rural Chinese, but if the current government is going to survive, they have no choice.

Photo courtesy of Bob Grant

To learn more, I suggest you read this BBC piece about China’s Country Profile. Hu Jintao was reelected in 2008 for another five-year term. China has a two five-year term limit for public office.

Discover China’s Stick People

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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.

1 Comment | business, China, Chinese Culture, economy, education, government, politics | Tagged: , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Lloyd Lofthouse

China Going Green

February 8, 2010

The evidence shows that China is waking up sooner than Western countries did after their industrial revolutions. China now leads the world in hydroelectric power providing 20% of the country’s power. China has made it a priority to use hydroelectric power to reduce pollution in the future. Chine also plans to lead the world in solar cell and wind turbine production.

The Dabancheng Wind Farm – At 100 megawatts, China’s largest

China plans to relocate 15,000 citizens from an area poisoned by lead (due to manufacturing) that would cost the government 146 million dollars or one billion yuan.

In August 2009, two chemical factory officials were convicted of releasing carbolic acid into a river and they were sentenced to prison terms of 6 and 11 years. In the past, such acts usually resulted in little more than a fine. Recently, Chinese authorities made it clear that China is entering a new era in environmental enforcement.

In April 2009, China’s leaders announced a plan to turn the country into the leading producer of hybrid and all-electric cars in three years. In addition, subsidies of up to $8,800 are being offered to taxi fleets and local government agencies in 13 Chinese cities for each hybrid or all-electric vehicle purchased. The state electricity grid has been ordered to set up electric car charging stations in Beijing, Shanghai and Tianjin.

One goal is to reduce energy consumption by 20 percent. Another is to close down polluting factories including the heaviest polluting coal power plants. The plan is to switch those plants from coal to natural gas something that is also being considered in the United States. China is also building nuclear power plants with plans for thirty in the next fifteen years.

Another goal is to increase the amount of land covered by forests from 28 percent to 30 percent over a five-year period. If you have traveled extensively in China recently, you may have witnessed this taking place. We have.

I am optimistic. Considering that the Chinese built the Great Wall and the Grand Canal more than two thousand years ago, I predict that the Chinese will do this too, but it will take time–maybe decades to reverse a trend started by the rest of the world hundreds of years before China became the world’s factory floor.

At the Copenhagen environmental conference, China sounded like the bad guy in the Western media—as usual. You may want to read this piece to find out more at Guardian.com.uk

Also, consider that the call to have China policed by the world to make sure they cut back on carbon emissions as they said they would was a slap saying, “We don’t trust you?”  That’s a loss of face and embarrassing to the Chinese. If China made it public that they are going to cut back a certain amount of carbon emissions by a certain date and they do not, that will also be a loss of face. There’s a good chance that they will cut more than they pledged. Let’s wait and see.

Return to Where Did All That Pollution Come From

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Lloyd Lofthouse is the award-winning author of My Splendid Concubine [3rd edition]. 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.

His latest novel is the multiple-award winning Running with the Enemy.

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China’s Holistic Historical Timeline

5 Comments | China, Chinese Culture, economy, environment | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Lloyd Lofthouse

Where did all that Pollution Come from that Plagues China?

February 7, 2010

Before criticizing China for polluting the environment, learn about the history that caused today’s problems first. The First Industrial Revolution took place in England after James Watt developed the steam engine in the late 18th century. Coal and burning wood played an important part in this process. The result, the beginning of serious air and water pollution.

The second Industrial Revolution (1820-1870) was significant to the economic development of the United States, and this process increased between 1870 and 1914 leading up to World War I.

Pollution from industry increased to epidemic proportions after World War II in 1945, because the type of pollution changed significantly. Industries in America and Europe began manufacturing and using synthetic materials such as plastics, polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), and inorganic pesticides like dichlorodiphenyl trichloroethane (DDT). These materials are not only toxic, they also accumulate in the environment—they are not biodegradable. This brought on increased rates of cancers, physical birth defects, and mental retardation, among other health challenges.

Due to an increase in world trade after World War II and moving a significant percentage of the world’s manufacturing to Japan, then to China after Mao died, the pollution created by using these synthetic materials increased and with it pollution moved to a global scale. Most of the products that are manufactured in China are sold by multinational corporations like Wal-Mart where 90% of what they sell in America is made in China.  If you shop at places like Wal-Mart, you are partly responsible for the pollution in China. When you hear criticisms blaming China for polluting the environment, point a finger at yourself as one of the causes. For that reason, I do not shop at Wal-Mart.

Another factor is that there is a lot of pressure from the people of China on their government to improve the standard of living for 1.3 billion people. Only one other country on the planet at this time has the same challenge and that is India.

A city street near Shanghai, China

The changes taking place in China and India today parallel the changes that already took place in America, Britain and Europe more than a century earlier. In the 1960s, about sixty percent of Chinese workers were employed in agriculture. That figure remained more or less the same throughout the 1960s into the early 1990s. In the 1990s, the labor force employed in agriculture in China had fallen to about thirty percent, and by 2000 still further.

By comparison, in 1870, a hundred-and-twenty years before 1990, fifty-three percent of workers in America were in agriculture. Today, that number makes up 3% of the workforce. The rest live in towns and cities with a middle-class consumer lifestyle that many in the world want and that is the cause of much of the pollution in the world today.

What is China doing about its pollution problems? Next, iLook China will focus on answers to this question at  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. 

To subscribe to iLook China, look for the “Subscribe” button at the top of the screen in the menu bar, click on it then follow directions.

2 Comments | China, economy | Tagged: , , , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Lloyd Lofthouse

Doing Business in China

February 7, 2010

I’ve talked to an American doing business in China who was frustrated with the process while another American like Bob Grant wrote I Like the Chinese People.

 After all, Bill Gates Went to China. It seems many American businessmen are getting along better with the Chinese than the Western media and politicians. When’s the last time you heard something nice about China from the Western media or an American politician?  For some reason, China has become a scapegoat turning the attention of the American people away from the problems we have in the United States.

 In the meantime, General Motors and Ford are doing great in China while they are struggling in the debt ridden United States. The Chinese love American cars. The Chinese also seem to have a passion for McDonald’s, Pizza Hut, KFC and Starbucks.

Starbucks in China

 Wal-Mart is in China too.

 If America wants to get along better with the Chinese government, we should turn businessmen like Bill Gates or Bob Grant into diplomats.

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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.

2 Comments | America, American culture, China, Chinese Culture, economy, politics, tourism | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Lloyd Lofthouse

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