Another objection, albeit anecdotal: every ten years China conducts a national census. At first this struck me as an efficient process, given that local bureaus can rely on Neighborhood Committees (another holdover from the communist period, sort of the state-sanctioned equivalent of a community organization) to send people around to all of the homes within the neighborhood to gather detailed demographic information.

So alone I sit one Sunday afternoon minding my own business. A loud knock comes at the door – and behold, it is a demographer, one of the older neighbor ladies who has been tasked with surveying residents. I open the door, “Oh” – she says “You’re not from around here. So you’re renting?” We go through her list – she wants to know I.D. number (“Oh that’s right you people don’t have those”), marital status, education, employment, name, age, home address (“Are you sure Pie-uh-nee-ar (Pioneer) Road doesn’t have Chinese characters? I need to write Chinese characters.”) After collecting what she wants, she heads off, and I return to my previous engagement.

About an hour later she comes back – I open the door and she says “Oh. Oh yeah wait. I was here already. SORRY!” No worries – there are lots of buildings, and many Unit 202s here in sunny Bamboo-Park-New-Village.

Another hour passes, and she returns a third time. This time it’s “OHHH darn I’m wrong again. I’ve already talked to you. I’m sorry.”

If we assume that grandma-citizen-demographer was average, then it stands to reason that even something as basic as the census might have considerable upward bias, purely from being oversampled by a factor of three. And hereafter, Shanghai’s population suddenly triples. National planners develop ulcers. The world again is astounded by China’s rapid growth.

Other real estate: on a crappy NYT story note, this fine piece of journalism chronicles the very authentic experience of Mrs. Bradford, an American who moves to sleepy exotic Shanghai and lives in an ~Rmb13,200 flat (well above the monthly income of an average Shanghainese resident) which she furnished for USD15,000 (roughly the equivalent to two years’ worth of income for, again, your average Shanghainese family). It sounds like a nice place, though calling it ‘authentic’ is nauseating, even if it is in the real estate section. They should know that going native in Shanghai means living in a 1980s Communist cement edifice for USD200 a month and slaying cockroaches with one’s bare hands.

When the ultra-high speed was opened between Shanghai and Nanjing had its inaugural opening, the Railway Bureau shut down the high speed trains on the same route, so that people had to take the slightly faster (and significantly more expensive) option. Locals indicated that this was a face saving maneuver. Tickets on the newer, faster trains are seen as expensive in general, and its a hot button social issue (particularly since those it affects most – migrants – are in the least capable position to shoulder price increases).

The answer of course is that 8% growth will soak up all of the current costs of infrastructure development (at least until this is finished). While this particular bit of Sinocentric-doctrine is rarely called into question, it would be interesting to examine more information on costs and projected revenues. Given that national GDP is somewhere between USD5-9tr (depending on your preferred methods of measuring exchange), this is a very significant number. HT IS.

On January 1, 2008, China put into effect a new labor law that requires businesses to offer permanent employment to workers with more than 10 years of employment. This new labor law will be very damaging to the economy. Labor market rigidity will reduce the incentives of entrepreneurs to create businesses and will drive away existing businesses to countries such as Vietnam and India. Aggregate employment may drop and thus further exacerbate the weaknesses of domestic demand, even though the intention of the law is to provide relief to China’s long suffering labor…

… There is little recognition that many of the social problems in China today are a result of a malfunctioning economic process, such as the blockage of small-scale entrepreneurship, and that the right recipe to correct these distortions is further liberalization. The 2008 labor law is one of many examples.  (Huang 2008, p. 297)

Throughout the book Huang is very critical of the constraints placed upon local entrepreneurial activity, as well as the pro-government and pro-foreign bias of many of the investment policies promoted in the 1990s and early 2000s.  He acknowledges that Hu Jintao has been a positive force in reversing some of these trends, though using the same set of state-centric tools to support rural development.

The interviews I conducted in Wuhan were primarily concerned with whether the 2008 labor law succeeded in providing basic contract enforcement to workers, regardless of permanent or non-permanent status (personally I’m not sure what the legal distinction is between the two categories; presumably the former are much more difficult to fire.) One of the justifications given for the labor contract law was that, prior to 2008, a large number of migrant workers would not even be given copies of their contract. This obviously meant that they had little recourse in the event of a labor dispute. Still need to write more about that. In general, most of those I interviewed were positive about the impacts from the contract reform, and would use the normal dispute resolution process in the event of a problem. Admittedly I only talked to those who didn’t yet run into any problems, though many indicated they were familiar with someone who had (garnishment of wages being the most common.)

“China is too pro-foreign” and “policy changes risk shipping Chinese jobs overseas.” Both true; not things one hears much as of late.

Recent inflation figures probably gave pro-appreciation groups (Ministry of Finance, PBoC) the cover they needed to push this through. I’m less convinced that the move was blatant a nod to G20 as some other commentators believe, though timing was still an issue. Properly Confucian party apparatchiks absolutely do not want to be seen as heeding foreign demands, and the last several weeks have been the only time period in recent memory where there hasn’t been a high-profile meeting with some barbarian global dignitary calling for a yuan revaluation. After the G20 meeting would have been unthinkable,

There’s obviously a a large amount of concern that short-term inflows will rush into China, so much so that authorities will in all likelihood depreciate in order to send a signal. After that, volatility and an upward (downward?) trend to a stronger Rmb.

LGFVs are conduits, like the Special Investment Vehicles (SIVs) were for western banks, used by local government to borrow and spend on infrastructure and other projects (like real estate).

Local Chinese governments share relatively meagre incomes from the country’s central tax pot, yet they’re charged with some pretty huge infrastructure and stimulus projects. What’s more they’re unable to run deficits, or get bank loans, or issue bonds without special central authority permission.

Enter the LGFV. Using these conduits, local governments are able to finance their projects in a rather roundabout way, borrowing money from banks in exchange for some collateral –often local land.

The scale of local borrowing is unclear; some put it as high as 150-160% of GDP (combined with national debt) which puts China comfortably in developed world debt ranges.

Speaking of police and hyperboles, it’s becoming something of a dilemma whether or not it’s appropriate to post photographs of the security forces in Lhasa online. These consist of paramilitaries [People's Armed Police], city police, and plainclothes PSB agents. One is not supposed to take pictures of these individuals (if you are seen doing so, they will seize your camera and not return it). Since sponsorship is required for foreign nationals to go to most places in Tibet, it’s not simply a personal decision; which comes up against a contrary feeling that an (in effect) occupation of a provincial capital as the status quo is somewhat odd and should be publicized. Given the biased rhetoric that comes from both Chinese and Western sources with regards to Tibet, more information seems useful.

It is difficult to take lots of pictures (especially in the Tibetan/Muslim areas of the city) without catching the security forces peripherally – the patrols are often that dense. I’m somewhat sympathetic to the restrictions on outright voyeurism. There are definite concerns about identifiably photographing these individuals, as they could potentially become targets (unlikely but one never knows.)

The paramilitaries were, for the most part, rather genial (especially when the officers aren’t around). They do interact with the community – it’s unfortunate, for example, that I couldn’t take a picture of a little girl wearing a butterfly costume drawing in a coloring book with two PAP guards. The juxtaposition was so very China, and priceless. (That or a really good PR setup.) The soldiers barter alongside tourists, which seems a much better state of affairs than the alternative – at least they are less likely to (in theory) shoot into a crowd. They are mostly young, and don’t really want to be there. They are extremely handy if you want directions, as they can be found at most major intersections in the city.

While I feel as though I’ve self censored plenty of things I might have written (though more for personal rather than political reasons); the (superficial) exposure to this type of Orwellian reality produced more anxiety than I thought it would. The notion that a photograph could endanger someone else’s livelihood (either the soldiers or local guides) is sickening but ultimately necessary, given the current situation.

Kitschy non-political pro-China-everyone-happy photos to be uploaded soon.

He writes:

The upshot depends on where you stand: For those who hope to see Twitter connect people from across a broad spectrum of the Chinese population, that experiment is thrilling. But it is also a stark demonstration that anyone who might seek to punish people for the kinds of activism and dissent that Ai advocates can use Twitter as a phone book for the ranks of Chinese liberalism.

Before any of this happens, Twitter would need to actually connect a broad spectrum of the Chinese population. They then, as Osnos astutely notes, may then very well be at risk of exposure due to their participation in such activities. Worrying about getting there first should be a higher priority.

China/divide makes a similar argument; though I’m more concerned with a sort of inherent foreign-friendly over exposure that results simply from being culturally different (even if ethnically Chinese) and living in major cities like Shanghai and Beijing. I don’t know how to get around this, even in my personal life, which is still arguably mired in an expat bubble despite various attempts to go native.

Professional journalists are smarter though, and have likely found ways around this. They certainly travel a lot, and must interact with a variety of people so to the extent possible some of these problems should be mitigated. The disconnect – which came as I was writing – is likely more of a problem of what their readers wish to consume: inconsequential news about the latest technology trends, no matter how small in total impact. If that’s what gets hits, then it’s less surprising that the New Yorker’s front page China feature is an article is about a dinner party with the mainland’s elite literati and their extremely efficient (though limited) microblogging network.

Blogging has been on hold due to work being busy and planning a trip; and posting will likely be infrequent for the next few weeks.

Thames Town is a development in Shanghai’s western suburbs that is designed to look like a replica of an old English village. The fact that it’s completely fake (there’s an empty, giant Church in the middle) doesn’t seem to really bother anyone involved in the photography bit. It’s one of approximately nine such developments (there’s a modern-ancient Chinese town in Zhujiajiao, and a Weimar Republic era town somewhere in the north). Thames Town has been in the news as an example of China’s wild property market: barely anyone actually lives here, even though most of the residential properties have been sold.

There is, however, a thriving industry of wedding photography, since young couples are eager to be photographed and photoshopped in an ersatz paradise. A quick scan through the town found that the only open commercial enterprises were a small cafe, and half a dozen wedding photography studios. On a nice day, the place is crawling with couples in kitschy wedding/period garb, and their photograph entourages. Companies that specialize in this charge Rmb4,000-6,000 for a two day photo shoot, which includes transportation and photo editing.

And here, in one shot, we see three separate parties: