China Digital News linked to this Chinese journalist’s blog only a couple of days ago. I could log on it yesterday, but today I see this.  Apparently it’s only blocked in China, as MSN has promised.

Things are getting crazier by the day.

I wonder if language is my only layer of protection right now. Maybe I’ll be taken offline soon too.

This is how MSN’s new policy on censoring blogs is being practiced. The company will no longer erase a blog, as it did with Michael Anti’s site. It will only block it in the country where the government has requested a block. This is a step up, as users can still see the site through a proxy and as postings can be retrieved and placed elsewhere. AsiaPundit does hope that MSN will not be collecting the IP address and user details if the author chooses to do so.

Still, it would have been nice if Microsoft displayed the above notice in Chinese. That keeps the company still a few notches below Google, which does display its censorship notice in the local language.
(UPDATE: MSN does display a notice in Chinese.).
As AsiaPundit has mentioned earlier, the cooperation of internet companies in China’s censorship is only marginally upsetting. Users can still access the ‘real’ Google and more importantly the real simplified-Chinese Google, MSN Spaces still provides room for expression - even if the company did delete and now blocks blogs by the request of the state.

The thing that upsets AsiaPundit is that these moves are assisting in a greater evil, that which is the Chinese government’s attempt to muzzle an emerging critical press. With the shutdown of Michael Anti’s site, the block on the above site and the jailing of Shi Tao — something that is completely unforgivable — the targets were the domestic press.

The local press is where positive change will come from in China. A vibrant domestic press is more important than an unfiltered Google, or Microsoft, or Yahoo, although that would be welcome. The domestic press is what is read in China, and change will not come because of news articles by the BBC, NYT or my own agency, although these too are welcome. Change will certainly not come from US bloggers who seem more interested in picking on Google than they are in talking about the actual situation of the press in China. But AsiaPundit imagines that the CCP is less of a threat to Pajamas Media advertising revenue than AdSense is.

That internet portals are censoring themselves is bad, but it’s only the tip of the iceberg. This is the true Evil!

Announcement of Beijing Municipal Administration Office of Internet Propaganda

All,

The media listed below are frequently chosen as sources for internet website, but they are currently not legally allowed to be copied. Please do not copy current news and politics from those media. Please especially keep away from copying them in the front page or headline areas.

We understand that the current limits on copying news are not easy to implement, but before we find better solutions, please cooperate with us. We will also keep guard for you, and penalize each of those sites that we find fail to follow the rules.

The Huashang Daily, The Chinese Business Morning View (Hua Shang Chen Bao), The Jiefang Daily Online–Shanghai Morning Post (Xin Wen Chen Bao), The Jin Chu Online-Chu Tian Metropolitan News (Chu Tian Du Shi Bao), The Bei Guo Online—Ban Dao Chen Bao, The Star Daily (Bei Jing Yu Le Xin Bao), The International Herald Leader (Guo Ji Xian Qu Dao Bao), The China Business News (Di Yi Cai Jing Ri Bao), The Hua Xia Jing Wei Online, The China Taiwan Online, Chongqing Morning News (Chongqing Chen Bao), The Oriental Morning Post (Dong Fang Zao Bao), Chongqing Business News (Chong Qing Shang Bao ), The First (Jing Bao), YNET.com (Bei Qing Wang), The Legal Evening News (Fa Zhi Wan Bao), The Today Morning News (Jin Ri Zao Bao), The Southern Metropolitan News (Nan Fang Du Shi Bao), Chengdu Evening News, Lanzhou Morning News, Haixia Dushi Bao.

There was indication that this was imminent in yesterday’s South China Morning Post:

Mainland internet companies are expecting new controls over their content that would prevent them from posting political and current affairs articles published by metropolitan newspapers on their websites, sources said.

But articles from magazines and party newspapers would be exempt from the soon-to-be-announced directives, the sources said, adding that metropolitan newspapers were targeted probably because they ran more negative news.

"Sohu will be the most affected because it focuses on domestic news, while Sina will be affected to a lesser extent because it carries more international news. Netease will also be affected because it needs local content to fill its news packages," one source said, referring to three of the mainland’s most popular news portals.

An outspoken journalism professor, who had been warned not to speak to foreign reporters, said he was not aware of the new policy, but described it as "beyond comprehension" and against the trend of the mainland’s economic openness.

"Portals cannot help but respect the rule, but in the longer term, such controls will not work because they go against the trend of economic opening-up," he said.

"We have to work for greater openness otherwise [the whole system] will break down."

AsiaPundit is thankful that, for the moment, the newspapers have been blocked from reproduction by the portals rather than shut. And Interfax notes an upside, both from the local press and from the internet.:

Most news published on the country’s top portals consists of republished reports from Chinese newspapers, not news written by the portals own staffers. By republishing stories on the Internet a report published in a regional newspaper can receive national attention.

The circular was originally leaked by a popular Chinese journalist blogger. Chinese journalists are increasingly turning to blogs and email to publish news that would otherwise not be published. It is likely that this new rule will only strengthen this trend, and will increase blog traffic to the detriment of China’s top portals, many of which are listed abroad.

Technorati Tags: asia, blogs, censorship, china, east asia, media, microsoft, northeast asia

The Beijing Loafer experiences a new kind of telemarketing.:

Last night around 7pm the land-line phone rang in my Beijing apartment, as I was getting ready for a dinner party. The caller ID indicated a number from overseas. I picked up the phone and found a pre-recorded Chinese program coming through the line. I was about to hang up on the spam call before I heard the name “Gao Zhisheng” mentioned in the program.

Gao was the dissident human rights lawyer I had interviewed before. So I listened to the whole 5-minute program over the phone. It was a broadcast from Radio Hope. The first part was about the government’s persecution of F.a.lun Go.ng (edit) believers, and quoted extensively an interview with Gao who had represented some persecuted believers in court. The second part of the program told how a banned article in China, Examine CCP Nine Times, was causing massive numbers of communist party members to drop their party memberships. At the end of the program, I was prompted to press different buttons on my phone to withdraw my membership in the party or the Communist Youth League.

This is a fascinating new tactic by the FLG. However, as AsiaPundit assumes Beijing Loafer isn’t a party member, this only further discredits the FLG’s claims that millions have quit the CCP.

Technorati Tags: asia, china, east asia, northeast asia

Via Far Outliers, Fareed Zakaria hosts a discussion between two economists on the different paths China and India have taken in growing their economies. There’s not much new analysis in this for people who follow such things, but the ideas are presented clearly and are a good starting point.

Yasheng Huang: Yeah; essentially the Chinese economic miracle is a result of Chinese labor being cheap and very productive rather than the result of the capital accumulated by the Chinese capitalists and–and this is one of the principal reasons why even with eight or nine percentage growth rate every year we do not see the emergence of the world-class Chinese companies coming out of that economy.

Fareed Zakaria: Now what–why is that–because most people would say if you go to China you certainly see this. There’s a very strong entrepreneurial spirit in China, that certainly–

Yasheng Huang: That’s right; yeah.

Fareed Zakaria: You know to the extent that genetics or culture matter, they seem to be fine. I mean you look at Southeast Asia it’s all Chinese entrepreneurs.

Yasheng Huang: Yeah, absolutely; the Chinese entrepreneurs do very well outside of China. China–Chinese have this animal spirit, the business acumen capabilities and let me add a substantial engineering and scientific capability. The main issue is not a lack of these capabilities or entrepreneurial drives; the main reason is the lack of a financial system supportive of these entrepreneurial initiatives and growth. So you can get Chinese company up and running to a certain level; after that they stop growing because you need outside financing; you need outside capital; they can’t get bank loans; they can’t get listed on the Shanghai Stock Exchange or Shin Jin Stock Exchange and from that perspective Indian firms have done much better because they have access to financing; they have access to legal protection in a way that the Chinese entrepreneurs so far have lacked.

Technorati Tags: asia, economy, china, east asia, economy, india, south asia

AsiaPundit has an itch that he, once again, needs to scratch: Please, please, please stop calling China the world’s second largest internet market!

The above link is to a CBS report, but AsiaPundit could have picked from thousands of blog entries and news items.

Below are the domestic revenue numbers and estimates for the top search engines in each of four markets - the US, Japan, South Korea and China. These numbers are just pulled from quick searches and are not deep analysis. Though they should demonstrate something about the so-called second largest internet market.

USA: Google

, Google reported total revenues of $6.139 billion, an increase of 92.5% over revenues of $3.189 billion in 2004. Revenue growth was attributable to both Google sites and Google network sites…

International Revenues - Revenues from outside of the United States contributed 39% to total revenues for the year compared to 34% in 2004.

Revenues from US were $3.75 billion

JAPAN: Yahoo Japan Corp

For the full-year to March, the company expects to post net profit of 46.40-47.95 bln yen on revenue of 175.24-178.44 bln yen.

(fiscal year ends 31 March)

About $1.48 billion at low end of guidance.

SOUTH KOREA: Naver

Sure, NHN is still a midget compared with Google. Its revenues leapt 53% last year, to $351 million, while earnings should come in at $86 million, Daewoo Securities estimates (for 2005).

Estimated revenues $351 million

CHINA: Baidu.com

Total Q1 revenue $5.2 million.

Q2 at Rmb65.2 million (Rmb8.3/$1) $7.8 million

Q3 2005 was Rmb83.2 million (Rmb8.1/$1) $10.3 million

Baidu.com, Inc. announced that it expects to generate total revenues in an amount ranging from RMB102 million ($12.6 million) to RMB106 million ($13.1 million) for the fourth quarter of 2005.

That would be a ballpark total of $35.9 million (not adjusting Q1 for revaluation and going with low end of guidance)

There are many differences that could be noted about the above companies - Google is very big in advertising while Yahoo Japan is big at auctions - but these are not the biggest reason for the discrepancies. These are the top brands in their respective markets and the revenues they generate should be a more important indicator about the size of the market than the raw number of users.  Baidu is expecting revenues of about one-tenth of Naver, and a just fraction of those of Yahoo Japan or Google.

AsiaPundit is not downplaying the fact that there is significant growth opportunities for Chinese internet businesses, the quarter-on-quarter rise in Baidu revenues clearly indicate that there are.

However, the amount of cash that can be gained through direct investment here is still small. Picking a few local Chinese stocks - or playing the venture capital angle - is a far more reasonable way to make money through internet investment in China.

Technorati Tags: asia, china, east asia, economy, , japan, korea, northeast asia, yahoo

This is the reason Google will not offer a localized version of gmail.:

CHINA

Another cyberdissident imprisoned because of data provided by Yahoo

Reporters Without Borders today condemned the US firm Yahoo ! for handing over data on one of its users in China which enabled the authorities there to send him to prison for eight years, the second such case that has come to light in recent months.

It called on Yahoo ! to supply a list of all cyberdissidents it has provided data on, beginning with 81 people in China whose release the worldwide press freedom organization is currently campaigning for.

It said it had discovered that Yahoo ! customer and cyberdissident Li Zhi had been given his eight-year prison sentence in December 2003 based on electronic records provided by Yahoo. “How many more cases are we going to find ?” it asked.

“We were sure the case of Shi Tao, who was jailed for 10 years last April on the basis of Yahoo-supplied data, was not the only one. Now we know Yahoo works regularly and efficiently with the Chinese police.

“The firm says it simply responds to requests from the authorities for data without ever knowing what it will be used for. But this argument no longer holds water. Yahoo certainly knew it was helping to arrest political dissidents and journalists, not just ordinary criminals. The company must answer for what it is doing at the US congressional hearing set for February 15.”

The foreign-based news website Boxun.com posted on February 5 the plea of cyberdissident Li’s lawyer, Zhang Sizhi, at an appeal court hearing in February 2004. Zhang said his client, who used the e-mail address and user-name lizhi34100, had been sentenced on the basis of data handed over by Yahoo ! Hong Kong in a report dated August 1, 2003.

Li, a 35-year-old ex-civil servant from the southwestern province of Dazhou, had been sentenced on December 10, 2003 to eight years in prison for “inciting subversion.” He had been arrested the previous August after he criticized in online discussion groups and articles the corruption of local officials.

Local sources said Yahoo! Hong Kong’s cooperation with the police was also mentioned in the court’s verdict on Li.

The US house of Representatives Committee on International Relations will hold a hearing on February 15 about the ethical responsibilities of Internet firms. Yahoo! has been invited to attend.

49 cyberdissidents and 32 journalists are in prison in China for posting on the Internet articles and criticism of the authorities.

For the Shi Tao case : www.rsf.org/article.php3 ?id_article=14884

‘How many others have there been?’ is a valid question. 

"How many more will there be?" is a better one.

(UPDATE: How many more? Technically zero.

Shortly after that question was written, AsiaPundit was reminded of his comment at China Herald on how many Yahoo staffers were relieved that the company "gave the whole China shop to Jack Ma" and won’t have to deal with something like the Shi Tao incident again.
That’s true, China’s Alibaba now controls Yahoo China, so there will be no direct control of activities in China by Yahoo itself (aside from a 40 percent shareholding in Alibaba and a seat on Alibaba’s four-man board held by Yahoo chief and co-founder Jerry Yang.)
Yahoo was today directing all media querries toward Alibaba. Alibaba responded, properly , that the company could not comment on a case from 2003 as Alibaba did not take over Yahoo China until 2005. So, the Chinese company said ‘talk to Yahoo Inc about anything Yahoo China did before October.’
That would put into doubt RSF’s statement that: "Now we know Yahoo works regularly and efficiently with the Chinese police." First of all it needs to be put into past tense.
Sure, Yahoo may have worked regularly and efficiently with the Chinese police, it may have just handed over whatever information Chinese authorities asked for at any time without question, or it may have only responded to formal legal warrants and requests without having a clue about the purpose of the warrants.
Also, assuming that either Chinese police or US Internet companies in China are ‘efficient’ is a rather bold idea. Yahoo’s China business was generally seen as a failure, which was part or the reason they ditched it. And Chinese police have a reputation for bumbling and brutishness. Efficiency really should not be expected from either of those two parties.
That said, as Yahoo hasn’t really explained the process that led to the arrests, RSF’s guess is as good as any. Unless Yahoo cares to fully detail what happened in both cases - and give some indication on how many incidents of this have not yet been uncovered - speculation must be welcome.)

(Addendum: While AsiaPundit is nitpicking the RSF’s statement, where the hell is  the southwestern province of Dazhou?)

Technorati Tags: asia, censorship, china, east asia, , media, northeast asia, yahoo

A while back the Polish tourism bureau launched an advertisement featuring a sexy nurse to lure Japanese tourists.

(via 3Yen)

Technorati Tags: asia, east asia, japan, northeast asia

Keen! Scam e-mail was received by dullneon, in Singlish!

Happy New year !!!!! Long time never email you lieow, heh. Anyway i got one new lobang to introduce you, err.. this is not those scam emails that you receive which will promise you don’t know how many millions if you send them money. No need credit card no need brain juice, no need big investment (We are talking about around SGD$17 here only) SHIOCK MAN!

This company that is making my chinese new year is call www.7daysdeal.com which are options and gambling experts. The minimum to invest on them is only around USD$10 (around $17 SGD).

The full letter is here, and translation can be aided by the Coxford Singlish Dictionary.

(Via Tomorrow)

Technorati Tags: asia, singlish, blogs, east asia, singapore, southeast asia

The permalink-unfriendly Jakarta Post reports that the Singaporean woman found guilty of negligence in her maid’s death was sentenced to a mere two weeks for the crime. The judge said, “The court will not condone a disregard for the safety of domestic helpers,”:

SINGAPORE (AP): A Singapore court jailed a woman for two weeks for negligence after she ordered her Indonesian maid onto the ledge of an eighth-floor condominium from where she fell to her death, court documents showed.

A district judge said Ngu Mei Mei, 37, who admitted one count of negligence imperiling the life of her maid, Yanti, 22, was sentenced to jail to show that the court would not excuse any thoughtless conduct by employers that placed their maids’ livesin jeopardy.

“The court will not condone a disregard for the safety of domestic helpers,” District Judge Thian Yee Sze wrote in her decision, delivered Tuesday.

“Many of them are very young and come from rural areas, and have never worked in urban areas and high-rise buildings. Hence, they are less aware of the potential dangers,” Thian said.

“It must be remembered that to a foreign domestic helper who is often all alone in Singapore, the employer is not only her superior, whose orders she has to obey, but also her guardian and protector,” the judge wrote.

The woman could have received a maximum sentence of three months in jail, a S$250 (US$150) fine or both. As AsiaPundit said here before, measuring the value of a human life is a tricky business. Although most states and religions regard all men as equals, legal systems generally when considering compensation for wrongful death will look at such things as life expectancy; expected earnings, inflation and a range of other factors.

But beyond that, deterrence has to be considered. For a country as wealthy as Singapore a S$250 for for killing a maid is hardly a deterrent. That can typically just cover dinner and a night at the pub.

Two weeks in jail is not much better. If Singapore judges were not already so well paid, AsiaPundit would mail the sentencing judge a quarter so he could buy himself a clue.

Technorati Tags: asia, east asia, indonesia, singapore, southeast asia

AsiaPundit finds so  much  wrong with this short film from the Sundance Film Festival that no serious criticism will be attempted. Briefly, it’s mercantalist, protectionist, and very loose with facts. Still, enjoy fragrant monkey tail!

(via CDT)
It has taken two hours too complete the last two posts due to "errors from upstream servers" while uploading pictures. TypePad clearly enjoys fragrant monkey tail.

Not a surprise, but China has ordered media not to publish the Mohammad cartoons. More surprising, domestic media have been instructed not to mention anything further about the devolving mess.:

Got word of an new injunction: no publication of the Danish cartoons that have pitted one fourth of the world’s population bitterly, even violently, against Europe; no further coverage of the aftermath.

Too bad. I was actually thinking of doing something on that. But the censors certainly reacted too late this time. Guess they don’t pull Spring Festival shifts like us journalists do. The "damage", whatever it is, is already done. Domestic media have covered the whole sad affair, the violence included. Although somewhat timidly when it comes to the European papers’ defence of and insistence on, their freedom of speech. Maybe this very phrase is already banned in publications.

Most of my colleagues’ reaction to the news of the ban was something like "Yeah, right. As if we WERE REALLY PLANNING to run those cartoons", followed by some verbal abuse concerning certain people’s potential IQ scores. Even without instruction I think Chinese papers do have the good sense not to do that.

But what about simple, brief and unbiased coverage of the aftermath? Or subtle-worded op-ed pieces on the issue that might appear in the press? Are the censors worried that even this could be harmful to religious and ethnic relations?  I guess so but it’s almost impossible to stand in their shoes and follow their perverse thoughts.

AsiaPundit will not be publishing any the cartoons that caused such an excuse to pillage and riot offense. However, in solidarity with the right of press freedom, the right to criticize religions, and the right to give offense, AsiaPundit will  publish a 21st century image of Mr Jacques Barrot, winner of the French Pig-Squealing Championships in rie-sur-Baise’s annual festival.:

Technorati Tags: asia, censorship, china, cartoons

China has shown a sharp downward trend in press freedoms last year, while the Philippines remains dangerous and North Korea abysmal.:

While some countries in Asia have remained stable with regard to media freedom, there have been sharp downward trends in several Asian countries, particularly China, Nepal, the Philippines and Thailand.

Reporters Without Borders (RSF), the International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) and Freedom House, a non-governmental organization that monitors press freedoms around the world, assessed the levels of press freedom in countries based on the prevailing legal environment, political and economic situation and the overall attitudes of authorities towards the media.

The surveys were generally concordant in their results, with China, Nepal, North Korea and the Philippines remaining the biggest causes of concern for journalists in Asia.

"Compared to last year, there really aren’t many positives in Asia," said Karin Karlekar, Managing Editor of the Freedom House survey. "While some countries have remained steady [Japan, Taiwan and Hong Kong], we can see downward trends in many countries in the region."

North Korea was found to be the worst country in all surveys, showing no signs of improvement over the past couple of years. All media in North Korea continue to remain tools of Kim Jong-il’s state, while all foreign media are repeatedly portrayed by the regime as "liars" seeking to destabilize the government, according to the Freedom House report. However, the report also suggests that an increase in international trade has resulted in greater contact with foreigners, which might allow for greater access to international news reports in the near future.

China has also shown a sharp downward trend in 2005, said Karlekar, which can be attributed to increased censorship of newspapers and radio stations, and greater Internet surveillance.

According to RSF, the so-called "broadcasting Great Wall" in China has been growing over the past year: The Voice of Tibet, the BBC and Radio Free Asia are among the radio stations jammed by the government in 2005. 

• Reporters Withouth Borders - Wordlwide Press Freedom Index 2005 
• International Federation of Journalists - Targeting and Tragedy 
• Freedom House - Freedom of the Press 2005

Technorati Tags: asia, censorship, china, east asia, north korea, northeast asia, south asia, thailand, burma

At We Make Money Not Art, excerpts from a discussion of the internet and social networking in China.:

There’s over 100 million users of internet in China, making it the country with the most internet users in the world. The typical net surfer used to be male, urban, high-educated, in his 20-30. It’s becoming less so. Active bottom up. Now more women and less educated people are catching up.

How people use the internet: in China there’s a very lively amateur culture. What’s different in China from other parts of the world is the huge sense of humour when writing about daily life and world/national events.

Many people make and exchange flash movies, swap lots of files. Commercial portal are thriving (big portals dealing with celebrities for example) but e-commerce hasn’t taken off yet.

The Middle Landscape. The internet has become a middle landscape between the public sphere and the commercial sphere. These two separate realms merge on the internet. On blogs and bulletin boards that mostly discuss commercial matters, someone might start a discussion on a recent event (like a murder hidden by the authorities) and a long discussion will start.

The Middle Landscape in another sense: the internet as a middle landscape between the private and the public sphere. Bloggers and wikipedians against the governement. Governement is loosing control over the private domain (in the past, employees had to get an authorisation to get married, it’s no longer the case.) The internet is very hard to control although there are rules to restrict what people can write. If you want to open a blog you have to give your name and address. Companies like Google, Microsoft or Cisco, help the governement to shut up the voices and restrict the new freedom.

On the other hand, Chinese have now a service they didn’t have before. For each new rules imposed by the government, bloggers and wikipedians make a counter attack.

The Social Brain Foundation is inviting people in the West to adopt a Chinese blog on their personal web server to make it harder to control or block the blogs (only i found).

Are public sphere and civil society emerging? De Waal asked several actors whom have different perspectives.

Jack Qiu: no, we’re not seeing this promised new freedom. In China, internet is given as a toy to people to play with, not to provide them with more possibilities of expression.

Michael Anti (who had his weblog shut down by the governement): yes, there’s a gradual development. People are willing to see things change even if the governement doesn’t agree.

Technorati Tags: asia, blogs, censorship, china, east asia, northeast asia

Disturbing:

That is correct, ladies and gentlemen, Bollywood is remaking Fight Club. Apparently the 1999 original version did not have enough muscial scenes for the Indian audiance’s taste.

Trailer 1 - "Rule #1. You break it, you buy it."

Trailer 2 - "Rule #2. Thank you, come again."

Muscial scene 1 - Rain stage in a crowded club where memebers of the fight club dance around a stripper pole, what is that all about?

Muscial scene 2 - Man and woman dance (or dry humping) to the music on the beach, then camera cuts to Fight Club poster.

Musical scene 3 - Esteban clones dance behind the female lead, and she sings "you gotta go fight them".

Muscial scene 4 - With the background looks like came straight out of "The Sound of Music", a young couple shares a song on top of a mountain and log stacks?!

Technorati Tags: india, south asia, asia, fight club

Torn and Frayed offers a writing guide for new arrivals in the Philippines.:

It is essential that your first sentence should include the words “7,000 islands”. Sprinkle the text with such phrases as “vibrant” (perhaps the most useful word when describing the Philippines), “crystal clear waters”, “hellish pollution”, “idyllic stretch of white sand”, “monster traffic”, “sunset”, “mishmash of cultures” “3,000 pairs of shoes”, “ferry disaster” and “vibrant (there it is again) night life”.

When describing the politics of the Philippines, you should always describe it as an “exuberant democracy”. Mention no politicians other than film stars or Imelda Marcos.

Never use the word “prostitute”, “bargirl” is much nicer. When describing nightlife make sure you mention the “ubiquitous San Miguel” and the fact that Filipinos eat only balut.

There is no need to discuss the history of the Philippines beyond a brief mention of the Bataan death march.

Since smiling Filipinos seldom venture out from beneath their palm trees (and then only to ride their beloved jeepneys to church), there is rarely any need to discuss the economy. However, if you must, you will find “default”, “$1 a day”, “stagnant”, “airport”, “unfulfilled potential”, “overseas remittances”, “hopeful” and “next year” useful phrases.

Technorati Tags: asia, east asia, media, philippines, southeast asia

Google’s top China challenger Baidu has put out an internet viral indicating that Google can’t speak Chinese, and further that Baidu is better for wooing women:

and t

(Via Bill Bishop)

Technorati Tags: asia, china, east asia, , northeast asia

Via GI Korea, AsiaPundit learns of the new ‘lite’ soju.’:

Doosan Corp. unveiled yesterday its new brand of soju, with a slightly lower alcohol content and a slightly lower price.

Soju is a colorless, nearly tasteless liquor that has become the stuff of lore and legend among foreign residents here. T-shirts available in Itaewon describe "the nine stages of soju," and even many American GIs are leery of the stuff.

But the announcement could lead to questions about whether company officials had been taste-testing their new product a bit too much. The alcohol content in the new brand was reduced from 21 to 20 percent and the price is 70 won (about 7 cents) cheaper than the mainline version.

Han Key-sun of Doosan’s beverage division said the alcoholic content was reduced to cut costs and the savings passed along to consumers who imbibe to forget their economic hardships.

Interesting, in most countries ‘lite’ means low calorie or low in alcohol, as in Australian ‘mid-strength’ beers. In Korea ‘lite’ seems to mean "cheap enough so that the unemployed can drink away their sorrows."

Technorati Tags: asia, east asia, korea, northeast asia, south korea

The BBC has set up a ’special’ site for China users, which will not display news that is offensive to the Chinese Communist Party. While Google, MSN and Yahoo can probably claim to be acting in the interest of shareholders, is this what UK citizens expect from a public broadcaster that lives off license fees?:

The BBC World Service has launched a website targeted at the mainland Chinese market, offering English-language training and news that is unlikely to upset Beijing’s internet censors.
China has long blocked access to the British broadcaster’s main Chinese website, www.BBCChinese.com, which yesterday led with a story about US forecasts that Beijing’s suppression of dissent could undermine national stability.

By contrast, the top item on the broadcaster’s new www.BBCChina.com.cn site was a Chinese-language news story on the much less sensitive topic – to Beijing officials at least – about the row surrounding cartoon images of the Prophet Mohammed.

There are other Western media that have set up China services and this really changes little about the media environment in China. However, as AsiaPundit noted with the Google.cn launch, this demonstrates an inability to read current public opinion and really hurts brand credibility.

UPDATE: A commenter noted that the articles were inaccessible on the self-censored BBC site. Connectivity seems to be restored. Ironically, one of the Beeb’s top stories is on how the Rolling Stones self-censored two songs at their Superbowl performance (English here):

Imagine, a British institution like the Rolling Stones, which once had a reputation for daring and challenging authorities, succumbing to self-censorship on behalf of foreigners for what must be only a few quid in the grand scheme of things.
How ironic. The Beeb is right to give this story the attention it deserves.

(UPDATE 2: AsiaPundit apologizes to the Rolling Stones. Their performance was censored by the US ABC television network and they did not self-censor. As AsiaPundit noted, it would be very sad indeed if a respected British institution would self-censor just for a small bit of money in a foreign market. AsiaPundit regrets any offense he has caused Keith Richards, Mick Jagger and the rest of the band. Unlike some aging institutions, the Rolling Stones still have balls.)

(UPDATE 3: AsiaPundit was speaking with the BBC today. The spokesman said that the FT had misrepresented the nature of the website which, he said, was an educational site and not a news site. He said the news on the site was intended to be UK-related news that reflected British culture and was not intended to be an international news site. The Beeb has responded to the FT in a letter, reproduced below. (click on graphic for larger, readable, image.)

Technorati Tags: asia, censorship, china, east asia, northeast asia, BBC

East meets west. Mutantfrog reviews the top-10 blogs in Japan and the United States.:

..what do other East Asian blogs look like? What about, just for example, the highest ranked Japanese blogs on Technorati?

(Note about Technorati from their About section: “Technorati displays what’s important in the blogosphere — which bloggers are commanding attention, what ideas are rising in prominence, and the speed at which these conversations are taking place.” Hence, these rankings are a measure of what people with blogs are linking to, not the number of page views, influence, revenue, or any other factor (as far as I can tell))

For starters, let’s see what’s out there. Here’s a quick rundown of the top ten blogs in Japan and the US/English-speaking world (for comparison)….

(Japan Number 5) Kaori Manabe is a popular (not to mention beautiful) model/actress/all-around talent, perhaps best known outside Japan for her role in the 2001 film Waterboys. Her blog has gained fame for its frequent updates, endless blathering on trivial topics, and plentiful photos of Manabe-chan.

Latest post: A Friendly Fire Festival

Inanity abounds:

There’s a very strange person called Mr. A that I see all the time on location. 

Is he an airhead? Well, he’s more of a socially inept ‘go my own way’ type of guy. H

His special feature is to make statements that surprise people without meaning to at all.

His hobbies are playing the horses and movies (mostly thrillers).

His private life is shrouded in mystery (but he absolutely does not have a girlfriend).

[snip]

After that, we started talking about taking baths that only come up to one’s lower chest, something that he has been into recently, and he once again started in on his particulars regarding half-body-bathingI am also quite particular about my bathing habits, and have bath powders, candles, germanium, a bathroom television, plenty of bath goods, but Mr. A said “First I buy bath powders at a convenience store…”

“they sell them, you know? Something water, some such thing…”I see…… （￣～￣)

Mr. A: “And then, I fill the bathtub all the way with hot water…”Ooohhhhhh… (ー∇ー;)

Mr. A: “Then I put in the bath powder that I bought, and mix it in with my hands….”

Yes, yes? （＿´ω｀）

Mr. A: “And then….”

And then?!?？？？？？？(’▽‘;;） (heart pounding)

Mr. A: “Then I get in”

………？？？？？？？？？？？
….

I was stupid for listening with anticipation…

No more!

Looks like Mr. A might be an airhead after all…

And people read this! Reminds me a lot of Xia Xue

At Worth 1000, real people photoshopped into manga-style characters:

(Via Boing Boing)

After the sudden of burst of activity last week, when every second post here was about internet companies in China, AsiaPundit was not going to touch the topic today. However, Tom Zeller Jr today said something in the New York Times that struck a nerve.:

What if Chinese law required Internet companies to reveal the identities of all users who forwarded really bad e-mail jokes, lame chain letters or any messages containing the terms “free speech,” “Tiananmen Square” or “Super Freak,” because such activities carried a 10-year prison term?

“With all due respect to the memory of Rick James, the king of funk,” an executive might say, “we must abide by the laws of the countries in which we operate.”

And what if — as a mark of good faith for being permitted to do business in what any rational observer has to admit is now the most tantalizing Internet and technology market on the planet — an executive from each company were required to assist, mano a mano, in the beating of an imprisoned blogger?

While Tom makes a few interesting points, AsiaPundit is going to be “irrational” and suggest that China’s internet market is far from the most tantalizing on the planet. Off the top of the head, AsiaPundit would suggest that the most-tantalizing internet markets are — in descending order — the wealthy and tech-savvy United States, followed by the EU, e-commerce friendly Japan and possibly then the well-wired South Korea. China would certainly be in the top-10, and maybe even the top five, but it’s not the most tantalizing by a longshot.

Here’s a note from a MarketWatch item on Google’s prospects in China, issued after the China censorship issue was announced but ahead of the company’s earnings announcement. ():

One Wall Street analyst wrote in a report that Google’s China decision could cost more than it’s worth in the short term.

“We do not see meaningful revenue” in China for Google in the near term, UBS analyst Benjamin Schachter told clients Wednesday.

“We are concerned that the inevitable negative PR will damage Google’s brand,” wrote Schachter, who has a buy rating on Google shares.

Schachter downgraded Google to neutral after the earnings announcement, via Dow Jones:

UBS cut Google Inc. (GOOG) to neutral from buy, due to concerns over international revenue growth and the rising investment needed to potentially improve performance in key international markets.

The analysts said that while it agrees with Google that these markets provide important potential opportunities, it may take “longer than expected to effectively monetize them.”

UBS’ China analyst was bearish on the company’s prospects here ahead of the formal launch of the China portal:

Eric Wen, the UBS Internet analyst based in Asia, sums up what he believes are some of the prevailing issues in China for Google in a research report published this month.

Mr. Wen believes that Google is still testing the waters, and does not yet have a clear China strategy. Google has partnered with NetEase and Sina uses Google for some of its technology, but Google.com is facing a dilemma in China. The company recently began conforming to Chinese censorship standards, but Mr. Wen believes that Chinese users chose Google precisely because it was not censored. By conforming to the government standards, Google is trying to enable itself to enter the market in terms of attracting local businesses to advertise. However, by conforming, Google loses its differentiator. This is a dilemma for Google and the reason Mr. Wen believes that Google will not dominate the Chinese search market.

As Bill Bishop noted, China is not an essential market for Google to be in financially:

I am guessing that Google will be happy if they can generate $30M in revenue in China in 2006. Baidu, the market leader, is projected to generate somewhere between $65-70M in revenue in 2006. I believe Google is expected to generate over $8B in revenue worldwide in 2006. If my math is anywhere in the ballpark, China will account for LESS THAN 2 DAYS of Google’s 2006 revenue. And given the economics of the keyword value chain in China, that revenue should be significantly lower margin revenue than is US revenue. So if the China business went away, would investors care?

Perry Wu, in an exceptionally bearish item, says bluntly that Google will have about as much success as its Western rivals who are also getting lambasted on blogs, in the press and Congress. Basically, very little.:

Yahoo (YHOO) tried many times to adapt. As far back as 1998 (or Web 0.98 Beta) when its then-VP, Heather Killen, made high-profile visits to China, the Western Internet company tried to sit at the Chinese banquet table. But Yahoo finally gave up last year when it bought a billion dollar stake in China’s Alibaba.com and then gave Alibaba the rights to run Yahoo! China. There was not even a whimper from the company as its Chinese portal was torn down and replaced with a simple search engine. Sohu (SOHU), Sina (SINA), and Netease (NTES) had finally beaten the foreign interloper.

Lycos tried too. It bought firms like Myrice.com. Netscape tried, via AOL. MSN has also been bobbling along with a few victories here and a few setbacks there–nothing much to be proud of.

All of these companies have one thing in common: they entered China to win, but left only remnants of their power after a few years’ struggle. Chinese history is filled with tales of foreigners coming to the Middle Kingdom with money, but leaving the country poor, confused and embarrassed. Ask Chris Patten.

While the UBS boys, Wu, Bishop and others may be a touch , none are irrational. China’s internet penetration rate is still growing at an impressive pace, but the rate is slowing and the average user is still not deep-pocketed.

There’s a great deal of cash to be made in providing infrastructure for the build out of third-generation networks and broadband capacity, but there’s not a lot yet there for search- or advertising-based business models; certainly not when compared to Western markets.

Zeller is not the first pundit to hype the China market, most commentary seems to assume that the companies that are active here are putting principle at risk over in order to get massive returns. That’s far from true.

Technorati Tags: asia, blogs, censorship, china, cisco, east asia, economy, , japan, korea, media, microsoft, northeast asia, yahoo

South Korea’s current leadership is allegedly pressuring sponsors to pull funding from a musical about a North Korean prison camp, which is apparently "too negative" about conditions in the camp. While AsiaPundit generally would not support a musical, especially one that is as of yet unseen, AP wonders: ‘Is there any way donors outside of South Korea can contribute funds to get this made?‘:

A planned musical about human rights abuses in North Korea’s Yoduk concentration camp has run into massive obstacles, not least from officials fearful of upsetting the Stalinist country.

South Korean government agencies are demanding changes to the story, which they say dwells too heavily on the negative aspects of the camp, according to producers. Officials also allegedly invoked the National Security Law to warn producers against showing a portrait of former leader Kim Il-sung and the singing of North Korean songs in the show….

“Yoduk Story” focuses on a camp where 20,000 inmates work more than 14 hours a day living on just one bowl of cereal and a spoonful of salt. Those who try to escape are executed by hanging or stoning because the authorities do not want to waste bullets killing them.

But its scheduled debut in March is now in jeopardy. Reportedly under official pressure, more than half its budget of W700 million has disappeared, making it difficult to feed producers and cast.

"After reading our script, government officials demanded that we change part of the story, saying it’s too much,” Chung said. “I got a phone call, I don’t know if it was a government official, saying ‘It’s so easy to get you. You will be punished.’”

But Chung is determined to plough on. When Seoul KyoYuk Munhwa Hoekwan promised to show the musical in its theater last December, Chung borrowed W20 million against a contract to sell his left kidney. His father was publicly stoned to death in a Hoeryeong concentration camp in 2002. “I feel that my father is watching over our rehearsals,” Jeong says.

Private citizens are also chipping in. One elderly woman sent a gold ring, a jade ring and a pair of earrings after reading about the show, and an elderly man sent a box containing W500 coins, W1,000 bills and W10,000 bills totaling W10 million.

(Via Mingi)

Technorati Tags: asia, east asia, korea, north korea, south korea

Via the Taipei Times, Rebecca MacKinnon analyzes the role of search engines in China’s broader repression of the media.:

Writing in Shanghai in the 1930s, China’s great essayist Lu Xun(魯迅) once observed: "Today there are all kinds of weeklies. Although their distribution is not very wide, they are shining in the darkness like daggers, letting their comrades know who is attacking the old, strong castles."

Muckraking broadsheets in the first half of the last century played cat-and-mouse games with Chinese government censors, ultimately helping to expose the corruption and moral bankruptcy of the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) government and contributing to the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) victory in 1949.

If this sounds familiar, it is because the CCP never forgets its history — and is determined to prevent history from repeating itself. Thus, China’s rulers acted in character last December, when they cracked down on news organizations that were getting a bit too assertive.

The editor and deputy editors of Beijing News, a relatively new tabloid with a national reputation for exposing corruption and official abuse, were fired. In protest, more than 100 members of the newspaper’s staff walked out.

Most Chinese might not have known about the walkout if it hadn’t been for Chinese bloggers. An editorial assistant at the New York Times, Zhao Jing (趙京), writing under the pen name Michael Anti, broke the news on his widely read Chinese-language blog. He exposed details of behind-the-scenes politics and called for a public boycott of the newspaper, evoking strong public sympathy for the journalists, which was expressed online in chatrooms and blogs.

Zhao’s blog wasn’t under the direct control of the CCP’s propaganda department. It was published through a Chinese-language blog-hosting service run by Microsoft’s MSN Spaces. On Dec. 30, Zhao’s blog disappeared. Since then, Microsoft has confirmed that its staff removed the blog from an MSN Internet server, citing the need to respect Chinese law when doing business in China.

Microsoft’s contribution to Chinese political repression follows Yahoo’s role in the sentencing of a dissident reporter and Google’s decision not to display search results that are blocked by what has become known as the Great Chinese Firewall. Indeed, China has developed the world’s most sophisticated system of Internet censorship, thereby hiding information unfavorable to China’s rulers from all but the most technologically savvy. The system is bolstered by human surveillance carried out not only by government employees but also by private service providers.
(image stolen from here.)

Technorati Tags: asia, censorship, china, east asia, , media, microsoft, yahoo

Indo-Japanese joint venture Hero-Honda has launched a new ‘women-only’ scooter named The Pleasure. Like Neelakantan at Interim Thoughts, AsiaPundit also wonders, does this bike have any features that would appeal to women - the name indicates some possibilities.:

Hero Honda is not really known for innovation as much as sitting on its laurels. With the base of its bread and butter models the stage was set for the company to do something spectacular. Both Bajaj and TVS have done so on their own right, but HH to me, is a fuddy duddy. The launch of Pleasure does nothing to change this perception. Note that I write this without riding Pleasure. Whats the big idea in marketing a scooter to women? Especially when there is nothing "different" about it? The variomatic segment has a solid performer in Activa, stylish Dio, good looking Nova, youthful Scooty and now a women only Pleasure?

I think Pleasure has got its strategy wrong. By saying women (and only women), they are losing a good part of the market. Now, no young college lad will ever buy it (they do buy variomatics, it is not only women who drive variomatics). I am not saying marketing to women is wrong, but I would go the Scooty way with a Preity Zinta, subtle yet leaving the positioning as "youth". Scooty does have some smart features too. Why will a girl buy Pleasure? Whats the compelling feature in it? There are many things that can be designed to appeal to women in a bike like this, but this is just hollow marketing.

Technorati Tags: asia, east asia, japan, india, south asia

In a BBC survey, the Philippines in the only country where the majority respondents have negative views of India. Manish at Sepia Mutiny asks “why does the Philippines hate India?”

A new BBC World poll says that people in the Philippines, South Korea, France, Finland and Brazil think India is a negative influence on the world (via Style Station). Pakistan was not polled. On the other hand, Iran, Afghanistan, Sri Lanka, the UK and Russia rate India highly. Saudi Arabia, Turkey and the African countries polled are most neutral about India, while Sri Lanka and India are most neutral about the U.S.

Though India’s global profile has grown significantly over the last year, it fails to elicit strong feelings… The exceptions are two Muslim countries with positive views: Iran (71% positive) and Afghanistan (59% positive). The only country with widespread negative views is the Philippines (57% negative). Notably, India’s small neighbor Sri Lanka has a mere 4 percent reporting negative views and a robust 49 percent expressing a positive one.

Europeans are divided about India. At the positive end of the spectrum is Great Britain (49% positive, 30% negative) and Russia (47% positive, 10% negative), while at the other end are France and Finland—both being 27 percent positive and 44 percent negative. The US leans slightly positively (39% positive, 35% negative).

Technorati Tags: asia, east asia, philippines, india, south asia, southeast asia