Via 3 Yen, witness Gal-Sone.:

The name “Gal-sone” is a play on the Japanese katakana word “gal” (ギャル) means young woman who dresses provocatively in the “gal style” and “sone” which is typical sumo name ending. In this case, the longish (runtime: 09:21) YouTube video in Japanese shows “Gal-sone” constantly adjusting her makeup while sucking up 22 bowls of Okinawa noodles.

Link.

As if further proof were needed that telecom monopolies are never good for the customer.:

KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia - A Malaysian man said he nearly fainted when he received a U.S. $218 trillion phone bill and was ordered to pay up within 10 days or face prosecution, a newspaper reported Monday.

Yahaya Wahab said he disconnected his late father’s phone line in January after he died and settled the 84-ringgit (U.S. $23) bill, the New Straits Times reported.

But Telekom Malaysia later sent him a 806,400,000,000,000.01-ringgit (U.S. $218 trillion) bill for recent telephone calls along with orders to settle within 10 days or face legal proceedings, the newspaper reported.

It wasn’t clear whether the bill was a mistake, or if Yahaya’s father’s phone line was used illegally after his death.

If the bill wasn’t a mistake, that would be charges of roughly $2.56 billion per minute, assuming constant usage for February and March.

Technorati Tags: asia, east asia, malaysia, southeast asia

Nepal’s authoritarian monarch, King Gyanendra, looks to be either on the verge of either being deposed or instigating a more brutal crackdown. After six days of riots, police have started firing on protesters.

Curzon sees things ending badly.:

Almost a year ago, I predicted that without serious aid from India and the West, the regime in Nepal would eventually collapse, giving way to a Maoist horror equivalent to what we’ve previously seen in Cambodia, Ethiopia, and Afghanistan. As I write this, demonstrations are taking over the streets of Kathmandu in Nepal. When you see pictures of police beating protestors and unhinged state violence, it’s easy for naive idealists to fret about the “pro-democracy protests,” get outraged over such tactics as the police shutting down cell phone service, and even take the pro-Maoist “Democratic Nepal” blog a little seriously.

Maybe these people genuinely believe that a collapse of the monarchy will lead to a democratic regime. But consiously or not, many of these people more accurately believe something closer to what Mark Safranski deconstructed and plainly translated in a comment last year:

“I want the Maoists to win but don’t really want to say that openly because that position doesn’t have much intellectual credibility – and it will hamper my disclaiming moral responsibility for Maoist atrocities in Nepal after the fact, should they win.”

Look at the flags many of these demonstrators are waving in the streets, it’s not the flag of liberty.

While Gyanendra is running, as Curzon describes, “probably the most unhelpful, reactionary regime that one could imagine,” it would be ludicrous to imagine anything better from the Nepalese Maoists. Long disowned by the capitalist rulers of ‘communist’ China, the Maoists are more similar in nature to Sendero Luminoso or the Khmer Rouge, the former being a major influence on the Nepalese Maoists in terms of both tactics and ideology.

It may be good to see Gyanendra gone but what comes next is be a big concern. AsiaPundit would consider intervention by New Delhi, Beijing or both far more welcome than a Maoist regime.

Sepia Mutiny has other views and an interesting comment thread.

Technorati Tags: asia, china, east asia, nepal, india, northeast asia, south asia

If the government is serious about cracking down on ‘false reports’ on the internet, a good place to start would be XinhuaNet.

China clear of new bird flu cases for 44 days

BEIJING, April 10 (Xinhua)– China has recorded no new cases of bird flu in the last 44 days, national chief veterinary officer Jia Youling said Monday.

Jia, also director of the Animal Husbandry and Veterinary Bureau under the Ministry of Agriculture, said the country was succeeding in efforts to prevent and contain the disease since the eradication of the most recent cases.

A large-scale immunization campaign had lowered the possibility of new outbreaks across much of the country, he said.

But he added that China still faced the threat of bird flu as the spread of the disease was accelerating around the world, especially with the advance of the northern spring and warmer weather encouraging bird migration.

Shanghai recorded its first human bird-flu fatality on 21 March, with the passing of a female migrant worker who contracted the H5N1 virus reportedly after handling live birds at a market on 8 March.

Efforts to nail down the exact population of Shanghai are close to impossible as unregistered migrant workers don’t show up in official statistics. It seems they don’t show up in bird flu statistics either.

Also if China is going to crack down on ‘unclean’ content on the internet, a good place to start would be the China Daily.

Technorati Tags: asia, bird flu, china, east asia, h5n1, northeast asia

China has no legislation to prevent animal cruelty. If it did, the Guangzhou’s infamous live animal market would not exist and the nation wouldn’t have to endure barbs from Europeans who complain about such things at the harvesting of bear bile. AsiaPundit generally regards the European complaints as valid, however China can now retaliate with an argument that Europe shouldn’t complain about animal abuse in China as it is being increasingly done for the benefit of European consumers.

From Xinhua, China is seeking to become the top global location for caging and force-feeding geese for French consumption.:

BEIJING, April 11 — Thanks to a growing interest in gourmet foods, China is aiming to become one of the world’s biggest producers of foie gras made from goose liver in the coming years.

This was the verdict from a delegation from northeastern Jilin Province, China’s biggest poultry region, during a visit to France last week.

Qi Mingce, managing director of the Jifa group, told reporters he had signed a deal with Delpeyrat based in the southwestern French town of Mont-de-Marsan.

“For the past two years we have produced about 100 tons of foie gras in our Changchun factory, that’s about two-thirds of Chinese production, force-feeding some 200,000 geese,” said Qi.

“But our aim is to reach 1,000 tons over the next five years with two million geese.”

As well, China is set to start producing more mink coats. Via Business Wire, China Southern has 30,000 minks from Denmark to certain doom!

Malleable Mating Minks Make Mainland Move: Denmark-Raised Minks Head to New Homes on China Southern Airlines for Breeding



AMSTERDAM–(BUSINESS WIRE)–April 10, 2006–China Southern Airlines, (NYSE:ZNH)(HKSE:1055)(SHA:600029) - www.cs-air.com/en - with the largest and most technically advanced aircraft fleet in The People’s Republic of China, has completed two charters of 30,000 breeding minks from their farms in Denmark … to their new homes in Harbin and Dalian, China.

Originating from farms in Denmark, China Southern’s first charter of 18,000 minks was flown from Billund Airport to Harbin in Northeastern China … and a second charter moved 12,000 minks from Billund Airport to the seaside city of Dalian.

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

Frequent readers will note that AsiaPundit has a love of maps and a fascination with internet censorship. It shouldn’t be any surprise that this grabs his attention. The Atlantic has created a map of the globe color coding countries that censor the internet.:

The Atlantic has created a censorship map based on ONI data. (I’ve archived a local mirror of the map and the accompanying article).

The accompanying article is a bit overzealous in its description of China but I liked that fact that the article specifically highlighted that Internet filtering is not exclusive to China but is spreading — essentially becoming the “norm” — worldwide. In terms of targetted content, porn is defintely targetted but the numbers are skewed by the fact that the use of commercial lists (there are open source lists too) allow countries to block a lot of porn easily. But in terms of significance porn is, in my opinion, of rather low importance. the blocking of several key sources of local language alternative information or an social movement group is much more important. The sgnificance of the content rather than the total number of sites blocked in category seems, to me, to be of more importance but is much harder to measure.

Map and text via Internet Censorship Explorer.

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

Times of London chief Asia Editor Richard Lloyd Parry has been out of commission recently, something AsiaPundit had noticed as he was enjoying Richards recent Thai coverage. Today on his blog, Richard explains the absence.:

I’m sorry for vanishing from this space so suddenly last week. The truth was that, by the time of Mr Thaksin’s resignation last Tuesday night, I was feeling very peculiar, to an extent that could not fully be explained by my elation at witnessing history in the making.

I had a drumming headache, tiredness, aches in the limbs and joints, a fiery thirst, and the shakes - in other words, I felt exactly as most male British tourists in Bangkok do for most of the time. Taking a shower on my last morning was easy enough, although towelling myself dry afterwards required a lot more effort, and packing my three shirts and two pairs of trousers aged me by several decades. At the airport, I looked enviously at the complacent elderly trundling by in their wheelchairs. I spent the flight back to Tokyo shivering under two blankets.

At home on Thursday night I told myself that I’d go to the doctor if I wasn’t feeling better by Monday. On Friday afternoon I made an appointment for that evening. On Saturday morning, the tests confirmed what would have seemed obvious days ago to one better in tune with his own health - I had malaria.

Not the nastiest kind of a malaria - merely Plasmodium vivax, rather than the much more complicated, and frequently drug-resistant, Plasmodium falciparum. The origin of the infection is obvious enough - the trip I made in mid-March to the Thai-Burma border. At some point, a pregnant female mosquito pushed her drinking straw through my skin and exchanged a drop of my blood for the smallest traces of her saliva, in which the vivax parasites were stowing away. Since then they had been biding their time in my liver, and now they were whooping it up in parasitic orgy, new generations breeding one after another in my red blood cells, causing the waves of fever.

Most of the economists AsiaPundit communicates with expect a slow appreciation of the Chinese currency, to a level of around 7.8 to the dollar by year end. This is one of the few outliers.:

Currency Strategists: CLSA’s Walker Forecasts Chinese Yuan Drop

April 10 (Bloomberg) — China’s yuan may fall 2.3 percent by the year-end because economic growth will slow, said chief economist Jim Walker at CLSA Ltd., the Asian investment banking arm of France’s biggest lender by assets, Credit Agricole SA.

Expansion in the world’s fastest-growing economy may cool to about 7 percent this year, from 9.9 percent last year, Walker said in an interview March 28. Foreign direct investment in China, which exceeded $60 billion in each of the past two years, may reverse as company earnings and investment drop.

Senators Lindsey Graham and Chuck Schumer would not be happy. Which is a shame, South Carolina’s Graham made great friends during his last visit and had even managed to get Chinese vice premier Wu Yi to go stateside for a ‘pimp my state’ visit .

South Carolina has a good business environment and has become one of the hotspots for Chinese investment in the United States, Chinese Vice Premier Wu Yi said here on Sunday.

Economic and trade contacts and cooperation between the southeastern U.S. state and China have produced good results in recent years, with South Carolina’s trade with China reaching 3.26 billion U.S. dollars in 2005, Wu said at a meeting with U.S. Senators Lindsey Graham and Jim DeMint, both from the state.

The vice premier said she was deeply impressed by the hospitality of the South Carolina people and the desire of the state’s businesses to cooperate with China.

South Carolina has become a hotspot for Chinese investment. China’s Hai’er Group established a home appliances production base in South Carolina in 1999, its first in North America, creating job opportunities and contributing to local economic development, she said.

Technorati Tags: china, east asia, economy, northeast asia, south carolina, yuan

Playboy has launched the first issue of its Indonesian edition - a nudity free version that is less racy than competing local lad mags. Still, the launch of the product has sparked outrage among many of the country’s more fundamentalist Muslims.

Indcoup is also unimpressed, but for different reasons.:

It’s not Indah Ludiana. It’s not Sarah Azhari. And it’s not even Tiara Lestari.

Cos the playmate for the first edition of the Indonesian version of Playboy is Andhara Early.

But who the fu#k is she? I can hear you all shout.

Well, to be honest I haven’t got a clue.

Probably a second rate sinetron (Indonesian soap) actress I guess. Or perhaps they found her at some university campuses in this huge sprawling city.

But what about the product itself?

Well although the cover is a total … disgrace by Playboy’s normally high standards - have you ever seen a worse cover than that? - the inner pages are said to be a lot more revealing.

On the broader controversy, this January item from from Roy Tupai offers some welcome perspective.:

Islamic groups across the country are strongly protesting against the magazine, due to hit shelves in March, claiming it will destroy the morality of the nation’s young generation.

That’s rather odd, given that the publisher of the magazine has promised that Playboy Indonesia will respect local values, will not contain any nudity and will not be on sale to minors.

Furthermore, Indonesia already has a thriving black market in hardcore pornographic films, including bestiality titles, thanks to the support of corrupt police. Pirated hardcore pornography magazines are also available from certain street vendors. It’s quite easy for members of the nation’s “young generation” to purchase such salacious films and magazines for no more than Rp5,000 a title. That makes them somewhat more accessible than Playboy Indonesia, which will sell for Rp50,000.

Keeping on the subject of the “young generation”, child prostitution and trafficking exist in Indonesia, again thanks to cooperation from police and immigration officials on the payroll of sex industry syndicates.

And while it appears Playboy Indonesia will be rather tame, no one is raising a hue and cry over existing men’s interest magazines featuring photos of scantily clad women. Meanwhile, a growing number of the country’s domestic television networks are airing late night programs that show lingerie models on fashion shoots.

Then there are the smutty tabloids, such as Jakarta’s Pos Kota and Lampu Merah, which are filled with graphic stories about rape, prostitution, domestic violence and sexual abuse. The tabloids also contain luridly illustrated phone sex advertisements, as well as columns of classified advertisements for the services of prostitutes. The latter are thinly disguised as massage or health services, but the wording makes it abundantly clear what’s on offer. Take this recent example from Pos Kota (phone number partly omitted):

PENGOBATAN CEWEK2 CANTIK SEXY SERVICE OK MODEL MHSISWI (CHINES & PRIBUMI) LIVE SHOW/ LESBI/PASUTRI 081.8080XXXXX. [Medical Treatment from Beautiful Girls, Sexy Service Ok, Female Students and Models (Chinese & Indigenous) Live Show/Lesbian/Couples 081.8080XXXXX.]

Technorati Tags: censorship, indonesia, southeast asia, playboy

Via the Canadian journalist blog, a report that activists are seeking to prevent CCTV from broadcasting in Canada.:

Rogers’ attempt to bring nine Chinese TV channels to Canada has raised the ire of people protesting China’s reports Mike Oliveri of Canadian Press.

Critics say the Chinese television incites hatred; Rogers’ response is that people can “choose not to watch,” says the CP story.

Rogers says its job is to provide consumers with choice, and it will make the channels available unless the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission determines they’re not fit to air.

A group calling itself “Canadians Against Propaganda” says the channels are controlled by the Chinese Communist Party. It says their programming would propagate Chinese communist ideology and incite hatred, that previous programs celebrated the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks in the U.S. and concealed China’s SARS outbreak, and that its programs have attacked Taiwan and various religious groups.

AsiaPundit is shocked that Rogers Cable would consider carrying CCTV. It’s not so much that the stations promote hatred or communist propaganda, but AP can’t see Rogers attracting any new subscribers by offering some of the blandest and most idiotic television on the planet.

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

Amit Varma helpfully points to the Bribe Rates for Delhi blog, which records the fees that are not generally recorded in official statistics. The following extract is on getting a drivers license:

Go to the main entry of authority ( A small passage between building and parking.) You can see many agents (or say dalal), you can contact to any cameraman, shopkeeper or roadvendor. I got one (cameraman introduced him with me). I started talking with him, he said sit down don’t talk like this now a days position are strict. We fix up the deal in Rs.490. Then he introduced me to his boss. He asked Rs.600, I said no I was told Rs.490 only. He agreed on that. He took my papers and hand over those to his guy to get the entry in official books, and told me to bring my car for test.

…

Without taking test I got certificate of test passed. And after some more formalities My permanent license was in my hand.So anybody even who don’t know the driving can get the license get the license at a small official fees and commission of Rs.500…Great irony of government.

(Photo stolen from Tourism Delhi, who probably don’t appreciate the link on a post dealing with bribery)

Technorati Tags: asia, corruption, south asia, india, south asia

AsiaPundit has spoken with Yahoo staff who believed that the transfer of the company’s China operations to Alibaba would prevent the company being implicated in any further unsavory behavior and would limit further bad publicity.

That may have been naive.

Via Glutter, Marketwatch reports on a .:

HONG KONG (MarketWatch) — The family of a Chinese journalist jailed for leaking state secrets is considering legal action against U.S. Internet portal Yahoo Inc. (YHOO) for its alleged role in providing information to authorities that led to his conviction, a Hong Kong lawyer said Monday.

"We are looking at taking legal action against Yahoo for providing information on Shi Tao to the Chinese government," said Albert Ho, who is representing the jailed journalist as his Hong Kong-based attorney. Ho also is a pro-democracy legislator and frequent critic of China’s communist government.

Ho said he is working with Shi’s mainland China lawyer to collect evidence in determining whether civil charges can be pressed against Yahoo at its headquarters in California or in Hong Kong.

As well, a Hong Kong legislator is going after the company for allegedly violating basic law.:

According to the AP, a Hong Kong lesislator has evidence that it was Yahoo’s Hong Kong branch that provided the information to convict a reporter, not the China branch. The Hong Kong branch does not have the same legal relationship with the government that Yahoo has insisted its Chinese operation does.

AsiaPundit has heard from people at or close to the company that no warrants were served on the Hong Kong office - which had remained ignorant of the situation on the mainland in regards to warrants or requests from Chinese authorities. The company said something similar before Congress.  So it seems unlikely that the company violated any Hong Kong law.

As well, AsiaPundit questions whether the company can be sued by Shi Tao’s family in Hong Kong for abiding by Mainland law. It seems very unlikely.

Still, given the bad press that this could cause the company, AsiaPundit would advise Yahoo! that the matter be settled quietly.

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

Via Howard French, possibly the best reason to visit Shanghai now.:

Come to Shanghai. Come to Shanghai, now! No, this is not a travel industry advertisement, nor a paid promotion of any kind. It is a warning, and those who don’t heed it soon will forever miss what has made this arguably Asia’s greatest city, as its leaders gird to complete a breakneck and all-but- declared bid for the title of the world’s greatest.

The remaking of this city, which is well under way, ranks as one of history’s greatest urban transformations. With 4,000 already, it has nearly double the number of skyscrapers as New York, and another 1,000 are due to rise within the next 10 years - all within a single generation.

The overall result is sure to be stunning. "The future Shanghai will have smooth transportation, a beautiful central city, with charming historical and cultural depth, but it also needs to be energetic," said Tang Zhiping, a senior city planner.

In another era, Shanghai was China’s one international city, its window on the world, and its principal port. In many ways, it remains the country’s showcase, outshining even Beijing - although officials here find it impolitic to come right out and say it - which is undergoing a massive transformation of its own.

The reason you must come to Shanghai now, if cities remotely interest you, is that the work here not only constitutes one of the world’s great urban transformations, it also involves one of history’s great disappearing acts. An old city of organic communities, with intimate, walk-up buildings and extraordinarily rich street life, is being replaced, almost in the blink of an eye, by a new city of expensive high-rises, underground parking garages, and lifestyles based on sheltered, closed-door individualism.

Photo of dancers via Howard. His other photos are in slide-show format at the IHT or all on one page at his site.

Technorati Tags: asia, china, shanghai

America’s Finest News Source has reported that China will be consuming about 80 percent of the scrap metal harvested from the freshly auctioned Detroit.:

DETROIT—Detroit, a former industrial metropolis in southeastern Michigan with a population of just under 1 million, was sold at auction Tuesday to bulk scrap dealers and smelting foundries across the United States.

Site of the former Detroit Museum of African-American History, which took in over $135.

“This is what’s best for Detroit,” Mayor Kwame M. Kilpatrick said. “We must act now, while we can still get a little something for it.”

Once dismantled and processed, Detroit is expected to yield nearly 14 million tons of steel, 2.85 million tons of aluminum, and approximately 837,000 tons of copper.

….

Another company, Bayonne, NJ’s A-1 Salvage, purchased the recently vacated Tiger Stadium for approximately $.17 a ton. A spokesman for the firm said that the People’s Republic of China had expressed interest in purchasing the dismantled sports venue. China is the world’s largest buyer of scrap metal, and could receive up to 80 percent of the city.

The city’s pending shutdown will make thousands of items with no scrap value, and several train-cars full of law enforcement equipment such as handguns, battering rams, and police clubs and riot suits, available to other buyers.

This is a joke of course. Detroit has nothing to worry about for a while.

SAIC won’t start competing with General Motors with its own-branded autos for several months.

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

Last weekend in Shanghai, China hosted a conference on protecting intellectual property officials and signed the Shanghai Initiative on intellectual property protection.

Hundreds of law enforcement officers, as well as representatives from WIPO and Interpol were in town for two dull days of lectures and possibly a couple of nights of video karaoke (using non-pirated discs, we hope).

By pure coincidence, Shanghai authorities cracked down on two pirated DVD outlets that cater largely to foreigners.:

We’re not sure if the cops just really wanted a cup of coffee or if there is some new law that prohibits fake DVDs being sold at ridiculously expensive prices. We are a little late in getting to this — we were enjoying the nice weekend weather — but it was reported over the weekend that authorities in Changning District fined two “coffee clubs” on Wednesday for selling pirated DVDs:

AsiaPundit has visited the Ka De Club for research purposes (hoping to do some research on the complete second season of Battlestar Galactica, if you must know). AP will note that the coffee shop did carry a better selection of DVDs than the average street-stall vendors.

Also by pure coincidence, the authorities shut down the on-line version of the Xiangyang Market, which like its brick-and-mortar counterpart was selling fake products. Fons points to this item:

SHANGHAI, CHINA — Shanghai authorities have shut down an online store named for a downtown market notorious for selling counterfeit products.

The Chinese-language Web site, http://www.xymarket.cn, had advertised counterfeit products similar to those found in Xiangyang Road market, an open-air bazaar popular among tourists for its wide selection of bargain-priced, “name brand” t-shirts, shoes, coats and other items.

Visitors to the Web site on Friday received an error message saying it was “either nonexistent or closed down.”

By pure coincidence, Friday was also the start of the intellectual property conference.

Strangely, AsiaPundit hasn’t seen this large a crackdown on counterfeit products since hundreds of overseas guests from the entertainment industry were in town for the Shanghai Film Festival.

(photo stolen from China Daily)

Technorati Tags: asia, northeast asia, china, piracy, shanghai

AsiaPundit noticed this item mentioned by Shanghaiist a few days back, Michael at the Opposite End of China has more details and the below grim photo.:

There’s a really gruesome story that’s been developing in Gansu Province these past few days. A local herdsman was apparently minding his own business in a forest near the Gansu/Qinghai provincial border when he discovered a plastic bag containing more than a hundred human skulls… 121 skulls, to be exact. Many of the skulls had been sawed off at the top (see photo), and tests show that they came from the bodies of both children and adults.

Technorati Tags: china, asia, puppy

According to official statistics by the respective governments of the two countries, Japan’s human rights record is much worse than China’s.

Actually, the official website of the government-sanctioned Chinese Society for Human Rights Studies doesn’t really keep official statistics on human rights abuses in China. It does have some glowing reports on how quality of life is improving in China, and several reports noting human rights abuses in the United States. AsiaPundit will assume that the lack of a need to measure means there isn’t any real problem.

In Japan, however, the Justice Ministry has noted a four percent increase in human rights violations in 2005.:

TOKYO — The number of human rights violations reported to the Justice Ministry’s regional legal affairs bureaus across Japan reached a record high 23,800 in 2005, up 4% from the previous year, a ministry tally showed Thursday. Such violations using the Internet climbed nearly 40% to 272 cases, according to the ministry’s Civil Liberties Bureau.

Of the total violations, about 10% were by public servants and teachers. By type, cases of sexual harassment and other forcible action reached 7,144, assault and abuse 5,040, and noise and other action affecting community safety 4,790, the ministry said. Human rights violations using the Internet involved posting the faces of suspects in juvenile crime cases and discriminatory messages on websites.

To be fair to the Japanese, the ministry does consider noise pollution a human rights violation. Were that to apply in China, the ubiquitous car horns and late-night construction noise would mean that the human rights of AsiaPundit and all other Shanghai residents are violated on a daily basis.

Technorati Tags: asia, china, east asia, human rights, japan, northeast asia

Oh dear, and in a country that ordered the domestic press not to cover riots related to cartoons depicting Mohammad.:

Chinese models wear bikinis with the World Cup soccer designs on during a swimsuit design contest as part of the China Fashion Week in Beijing, China, Saturday, April 1, 2006. A week long fashion extravaganza to showcase local and foreign talents ends Sunday. (AP Photo/Ng Han Guan)

AsiaPundit does not find the above image offensive in the slightest. However, as Glenzo points out, the model to the immediate left of the German-flag wearing model in the center is wearing an Iranian flag. That could cause offense to some of Islam’s more puritanical followers.

The CIA World Factbook describes the flag as follows..:

…three equal horizontal bands of green (top), white, and red; the national emblem (a stylized representation of the word Allah in the shape of a tulip, a symbol of martyrdom) in red is centered in the white band; ALLAH AKBAR (God is Great) in white Arabic script is repeated 11 times along the bottom edge of the green band and 11 times along the top edge of the red band.

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

How much has China been responsible for the loss of US jobs and industries? Via Howard French, Oxford Economics shows how relatively small China’s impact on US manufacturing has been.:

Amid all the squeals in Washington at the yawning US trade deficit with China, one strikes a specially resonant political chord: that unfair Chinese competition is annihilating US manufacturing industry and “stealing American jobs”. The assertion is so common it has assumed the status of fact. Yet it is almost entirely false.

For a start, the bilateral imbalance may be overstated. After ironing out the wide discrepancies between both sides’ data, Oxford Economics, a consultancy, finds China’s share has hovered at about a fifth of the total US merchandise deficit since 1995. That suggests the former is as much a result as a cause of the latter’s growth. Heaping all the blame on China would be off the mark, even if US manufacturing were dying.

But by most measures, it is in rude health. The US is still the top manufacturing nation, producing almost a quarter of global output, the same as in 1994, while Japan’s share has shrunk. Adjusted to reflect steady falls in the prices of manufactures relative to other goods and services, US output has doubled since 1985 and its share of gross domestic product has changed little in half a century.

True, more output is from plants owned by non-US companies, some of which have displaced indigenous production. That may fuel popular perceptions of national decline, particularly because greenfield factories usually shun the old rust belt. But corporate nationality is irrelevant to overall economic welfare, except insofar as foreign-owned plants often out-perform locally owned ones.

What of China as “job thief”? US manufacturing employment is in long-term decline, just as it is in other rich countries. But that is chiefly because of impressive productivity gains. Had none occurred since 1970, almost 40 per cent of all US jobs would – in theory – be in manufacturing, three times today’s level. But the comparison is meaningless because standing still would have consigned US manufacturers to competitive oblivion.

Of course, Chinese competition has claimed some US manufacturing jobs. But Oxford Economics puts the losses from 2000 to 2010 as low as 500,000 – no more than the US labour force sheds each week. Their disappearance is also partly a statistical illusion. Many manufacturing jobs are actually in services, such as finance and marketing, which yield far higher returns. As companies have disaggregated or outsourced operations, official employment data have re-allocated swaths of workers to the services sector.

If US manufacturing is stronger than many Americans believe, China poses a weaker challenge than is often supposed. Its output is still less than half that of the US – and many of its industries are suffering a severe profits squeeze. Indeed, to call China a manufacturing economy is something of a misnomer. In reality, it is the world’s biggest final assembly shop, with minimal local value-added.

(Image stolen from here.)

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

Just as much as AP would like to stay at the Son of Heaven Hotel in Beijing, AP would like to stay in the South Korean ‘love hotel’ that is shaped like Lady Liberty.:

(Via Marmot)

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

This is bitchin, and a fine example of the empirical study of history. However, in order for a truly empirical study it must be peer reviewed. AsiaPundit requests that Dr Chae send him the blueprints for this device so he can shoot at the guys doing dredging work across the street at unacceptable hours verify the results.:

Dr. Chae Yeon-seok of the Korea Aerospace Research Institute said Friday he has built a replica of the 14th-century weapon which can fire arrows 150 meters, and that he sucessfully tested it.

The artillery piece, 30.2 cm long and 4.6 cm in diameter, was a state-of-the-art weapon in Northeast Asia at that time in terms of its power and range. It is believed to have been invented by a scientist during the Goryeo Kingdom (918-1392).

The replica was constructed according to an original that had been passed from one owner to another, including antique dealers, over the years. Chae built the replica after being asked recently to determine its authenticity.

The original has an inscription reading “18th year of Hongmu,” which was the 11th year of the reign of King U of the Goryeo Kingdom or 1385 A.D.

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

Curzon at Coming Anarchy notes that North Korea is seeking the arrest of people who helped others escape the gulag state.:

North Korea issued a warrant yesterday for the arrest of four members of Japan-based NGOs helping North Koreans flee or defect to South Korea and Japan. The warrants were issued on the following charges, carrying the following penalties:

Joining or leading groups that engage in anti-State activities: 5-10 years of “labor reeducation”

Fleeing to a foreign state for the purpose of engaging in anti-State activities: 5-10 years of “labor reeducation”

Masterminding insurrection against the State: death penalty, confiscation of all property

No charges are leveled against the individuals for protecting dissidents who have fled North Korea—which is what all four activists do for a living.

Japan’s national Police Agency has opined that because North Korea is not party to the International Crime and Police Organization (ICPO), the warrant is meaningless unless if the suspects go to North Korea, calling it a “nonsense warrant with no enforceability.” (Information taken from Japanese language Sankei Shinbun article.)

AsiaPundit thinks this is a great opportunity and that talks should be opened with the North with an eye to bringing it in line with international legal processes. If the North wants to put some Japanese residents on trial, that seems fair - but only if the trials meet international standards and it reciprocates by handing over some of its citizens who are wanted in the West.

(Image stolen from here.)

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

Political podcasting and streaming videos are prohibited in Singapore’s coming election.:

Podcasting will not be allowed during elections as it does not fall under the “positive list” which states what is allowed under election advertising.

Senior Minister of State for Information, Communications and the Arts Balaji Sadasivan added that streaming of videos during campaigning would also be prohibited.

He was addressing a question in Parliament on Monday about the use of new technologies on the internet during hustings.

Pictures of candidates, party histories and manifestos are on the “positive list” and are allowed to be used as election advertising on the internet.

Newer internet tools like podcasting do not fall within this “positive list”.

Dr Balaji said: “There are also some well-known local blogs run by private individuals who have ventured into podcasting. The content of some of these podcasts can be quite entertaining. However, the streaming of explicit political content by individuals during the election period is prohibited under the Election Advertising Regulations. A similar prohibition would apply to the videocasting or video streaming of explicitly political content.”

Bloggers can continue - but if they get too political they will have to register … and then shut up.:

Dr Balaji added that individual bloggers can discuss politics, but have to register with the Media Development Agency if they persistently promote political views.

When registered, they’re then not allowed to advertise during elections - something only political parties, candidates and election agents are allowed to do only.

Before any ‘free speech’ advocates gets in a huff about this - AsiaPundit will note that private citizens will likely be allowed to make political speeches at Speakers’ Corner after registering with police.:

As such, this ban on political blogging is not a ban on free speech. It is merely a means to bridge the digital divide. Singapore’s technology savvy bloggers will now have to queue with their digitally disabled fellow citizens for a chance to talk at the Lion City’s only authorized free speech zone.

The PAP are not oppressive, this is merely a means to bring all Singaporeans together.

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Technorati Tags: asia, censorship, singapore, southeast asia