Category: China

Textile Production Moving from China Back to United States

(p. A1) INDIAN LAND, S.C. — Twenty-five years ago, Ni Meijuan earned $19 a month working the spinning machines at a vast textile factory in the Chinese city of Hangzhou.
Now at the Keer Group’s cotton mill in South Carolina, which opened in March, Ms. Ni is training American workers to do the job she used to do.
“They’re quick learners,” Ms. Ni said after showing two fresh recruits how to tease errant wisps of cotton from the machines’ grinding gears. “But they have to learn to be quicker.”
Once the epitome of cheap mass manufacturing, textile producers from formerly low-cost nations are starting to set up shop in America. It is part of a blurring of once seemingly clear-cut boundaries between high- and low-cost manufacturing nations that few would have predicted a decade ago.
Textile production in China is becoming increasingly unprofitable after years of rising wages, higher energy bills and mounting logistical costs, as well as new government quotas on the import of cotton.
At the same time, manufacturing costs in the United States are becoming more competitive.
. . .
(p. A3) Ms. Ni, one of 15 Chinese trainers at Keer’s Indian Land plant, complained softly of American workers’ occasional tardiness. In China, she said, managers can dock the pay of workers who show up late. But here, she said, she felt frustrated that she could not discipline tardy staff.

For the full story, see:
HIROKO TABUCHI. “Chinese Textile Mills Are Now Hiring in Places Where Cotton Was King.” The New York Times (Mon., AUG. 3, 2015): A1 & A3.
(Note: ellipsis added.)
(Note: the online version of the story has the date AUG. 2, 2015, and has the title “Chinese Textile Mills Are Now Hiring in Places Where Cotton Was King.”)

Communist Chinese One Child Laws Violated Basic Human Rights

On Sat., Jan. 17, 2016 I caught the re-broadcast of an interview with Mei Fong that C-SPAN’s web site suggests was first broadcast on Jan. 11, 2016. The interview focused on Fong’s book on the history, causes and effects of China’s one child laws. Fong is understated in her style, but it is clear that the Chinese communist government violated the rights of many Chinese citizens by forcing them to have unwanted abortions, and to undergo unwanted sterilizations. In many cases, when their “one child” died in a disaster, or of natural causes, parents desperately rushed to try to have the forced sterilization reversed.

Fong’s book, that she discussed on C-SPAN, is:
Fong, Mei. One Child: The Story of China’s Most Radical Experiment. Boston, MA: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2016.

“America Represents Wilderness and Freedom, and Also a Big House”

(p. A1) JACKSON HOLE, China — Yearning to breathe untainted air, the band of harried urbanites flocked to this parched, wild land, bringing along their dreams of a free and uncomplicated life.
But unlike the bedraggled pioneers who settled the American West, the first inhabitants of Jackson Hole, a resort community on the outskirts of the Chinese capital, arrived by Audi and Land Rover, their trunks filled with French wine and their bank accounts flush with cash.
Over the past decade, more than a thousand families have settled into timber-frame houses with generous backyards, on streets with names like Aspen, Moose and Route 66. On Sundays, some worship at a clapboard church that anchors the genteel town square, outfitted with bronze cowboys and a giant Victrola that sprays water.
“America represents wilderness and freedom, and also a big house,” said Qin You, 42, who works in private equity and owns a six-bedroom home that features a koi pond, a year-round (p. A8) Christmas tree and what he proudly described as “American-style” electric baseboard heating. His parents live in the house and he goes there on weekends. “The United States is cool,” he says.
. . .
. . . , Communist Party edicts and conservative commentators have sought to demonize so-called Western values like human rights and democracy as existential threats. Even if the menace is seldom identified by name, the purveyor of such threats is widely understood to be the United States.
. . .
Gao Zi, 60, a retired military employee who organizes an oil painting club for Jackson Hole residents, said that “we accepted the propaganda” back in the 1950s, when China was a closed society. “But now people have the opportunity to travel abroad and see the truth for ourselves.”
Like Ms. Gao, Mr. Qin, the investment executive, has never been to the United States but he has long admired American ideals like personal liberty and blind justice. Five years ago, after his wife gave birth to their second child, Mr. Qin says the government fined him nearly $30,000 for violating the country’s population-control policies. “This is not freedom,” he said, before continuing a tour of his expansive back patio.

For the full story, see:
ANDREW JACOBS. “JACKSON HOLE JOURNAL; Living a Frontier Dream on Beijing’s Outskirts.” The New York Times (Fri., DEC. 11, 2015): A1 & A8.
(Note: the online version of the story has the date DEC. 8, 2015, and has the title “JACKSON HOLE JOURNAL; Living a Frontier Dream on the Outskirts of China’s Capital.”)

In Poor Province, Chinese Communists Spend Over $400,000 Building Giant Golden Statue of Mao, Starver of Millions of the Proletariat

(p. B1) ZHUSHIGANG, China — Just two days after images of a giant gold-colored statue of Mao in the bare fields of Henan Province spread across the Internet, the statue was gone — torn down apparently on the orders of embarrassed local officials.
Villagers said demolition teams arrived on Thursday morning [January 7, 2016], and by Friday morning [January 8, 2016], only a pile of rubble remained.
The 120-foot-tall statue, which local media reports said cost $465,000, had been under construction for months and was nearing completion when it began to attract attention.
Some commenters on social media denounced the extravagance of the colossus in a poor, rural part of China, where the money might have been better spent on education or health care.
. . .
Others pointed out the historical irony of erecting the statue in one of the provinces worst hit by the famine caused by Mao Zedong’s Great Leap Forward.
. . .
Statues of Mao, the founder of the People’s Republic of China, were once ubiquitous in China, and many survive. President Xi Jinping has often praised Mao as a model for China today, saying Mao’s era was one when officials were selfless and honest.
But some of his policies were disastrous, including the forced agricultural collectivization and industrialization of the Great Leap Forward, which historians blame for a famine in which tens of millions of people died.

For the full story, see:
DIDI KIRSTEN TATLOW. “An Outcry Helps Topple a Mao Statue 120 Feet Tall.” The New York Times (Sat., JAN. 9, 2016): A4.
(Note: ellipses, and bracketed dates, added.)
(Note: the online version of the story has the date JAN. 8, 2016, and has the title “Golden Mao Statue in China, Nearly Finished, Is Brought Down by Criticism.”)

The Morality of Denying Hope to 30 Million Guanggun

(p. A4) One wife, many husbands.
That’s the solution to China’s huge surplus of single men, says Xie Zuoshi, an economics professor at the Zhejiang University of Finance and Economics, whose recent proposal to allow polyandry has gone viral.
. . .
By 2020, China will have an estimated 30 million bachelors — called guanggun, or “bare branches.” Birth control policies that since 1979 have limited many families to one child, a cultural preference for boys and the widespread, if illegal, practice of sex-selective abortion have contributed to a gender imbalance that hovers around 117 boys born for every 100 girls.
Though some could perhaps detect a touch of Jonathan Swift in the proposal, Mr. Xie wrote that he was approaching the problem from a purely economic point of view.
Many men, especially poor ones, he noted, are unable to find a wife and have children, and are condemned to living and dying without offspring to support them in old age, as children are required to do by law in China. But he believes there is a solution.
. . .
“With so many guanggun, women are in short supply and their value increases,” he wrote. “But that doesn’t mean the market can’t be adjusted. The guanggun problem is actually a problem of income. High-income men can find a woman because they can pay a higher price. What about low-income men? One solution is to have several take a wife together.”
He added: “That’s not just my weird idea. In some remote, poor places, brothers already marry the same woman, and they have a full and happy life.”
. . .
On Sunday [October 25, 2015], he published an indignant rebuttal on one of his blogs, accusing his critics of being driven by empty notions of traditional morality that are impractical and selfish — even hypocritical.
“Because I promoted the idea that we should allow poor men to marry the same woman to solve the problem of 30 million guanggun, I’ve been endlessly abused,” he wrote. “People have even telephoned my university to harass me. These people have groundlessly accused me of promoting immoral and unethical ideas.
“If you can’t find a solution that doesn’t violate traditional morality,” he continued, “then why do you criticize me for violating traditional morality? You are in favor of a couple made up of one man, one woman. But your morality will lead to 30 million guanggun with no hope of finding a wife. Is that your so-called morality?”

For the full story, see:
DIDI KIRSTEN TATLOW. “Bachelor Glut in China Leads to a Proposal: Share Wives.” The New York Times (Tues., OCTOBER 27, 2015): A4.
(Note: ellipses, and bracketed date, added.)
(Note: the online version of the story has the date OCTOBER 26, 2015, and has the title “Not Enough Women in China? Let Men Share a Wife, an Economist Suggests.”)

Chinese Communists Fear the Magna Carta

(p. A5) HONG KONG — China’s leaders have long behaved as if nothing could daunt them. But an 800-year-old document written in Latin on sheepskin may have them running scared.
. . .
It is not clear why the public showing was moved off the Renmin University campus. But Magna Carta is widely considered a cornerstone for constitutional government in Britain and the United States, and such a system is inimical to China’s leaders, who view “constitutionalism” as a threat to Communist Party rule.
In 2013, the party issued its “seven unmentionables” — taboo topics for its members. The first unmentionable is promoting Western-style constitutional democracy. The Chinese characters for “Magna Carta” are censored in web searches on Sina Weibo, the country’s Twitter-like social media site.
Hu Jia, a prominent Chinese dissident, said he was not surprised that the exhibit had been moved off the campus. He said that Renmin University had close ties to the Communist Party’s training academy and that the principles the document stood for were contrary to the party’s. More important, he said, Chinese leaders may have been concerned that the exhibit would be popular and that “many students would flock there.”
“They fear that such ideology and historical material will penetrate deep into the students’ hearts,” Mr. Hu said.
. . .
Magna Carta has been the subject of several academic conferences and lectures in China this year, including two at Renmin University. One doctoral student in history who knows people at the museum said that the school had canceled the exhibit on orders of the Ministry of Education.
“To get kind of wound up about an old document like the Magna Carta? They’re a little bit brittle and fragile, aren’t they, Chinese leaders?” said Kerry Brown, a former British diplomat who was stationed in Beijing and now serves as director of the China Studies Center at the University of Sydney in Australia. “Poor dears.”

For the full story, see:
MICHAEL FORSYTHE. “Magna Carta Visits China, but Venue Abruptly Shifts.” The New York Times (Thurs., OCT. 15, 2015): A5.
(Note: ellipses added.)
(Note: the online version of the article was dated OCT. 14, 2015, and had the title “Magna Carta Exhibition in China Is Abruptly Moved From University.”)

Political Freedom Depends on Economic Freedom–Hayek Was Right

(p. A12) The Commercial Press bookstore does not carry the banned political books. Instead, the collected speeches of China’s president, Xi Jinping, are prominently displayed, as are at least four biographies of Lee Kuan Yew, the late Singaporean leader who was widely admired by Chinese officials.
It is the same pattern in 13 other Hong Kong stores owned by the parent company of Commercial Press, Sino United Publishing, the biggest bookseller and publisher in the city. Despite the interest from mainland tourists, books that paint Chinese politicians in a bad light are either not available or tucked out of sight on shelves far from heavily trafficked areas.
. . .
According to Hong Kong corporate records and one of the company’s top executives, Sino United is owned, through a series of holding companies, by the Chinese government.
The company’s dominant position in the city’s publishing and bookselling industry is a major breach in the wall between the communist mainland and Hong Kong, a former British colony whose civil liberties — including freedom of the press — were guaranteed by treaty for half a century after it returned to Chinese sovereignty in 1997. It also illustrates how the central government in Beijing wields influence here not through force, but through its financial clout.
That influence has become even more apparent in the nearly three years since Mr. Xi became the top leader in China.

For the full story, see:
MICHAEL FORSYTHE and CRYSTAL TSE. “Hong Kong Bookstores Display Beijing’s Clout.” The New York Times (Tues., OCT. 20, 2015): A12.
(Note: ellipsis added.)
(Note: the online version of the story has the date OCT. 19, 2015,)

World Inequality Declines

(p. 6) Income inequality has surged as a political and economic issue, but the numbers don’t show that inequality is rising from a global perspective. Yes, the problem has become more acute within most individual nations, yet income inequality for the world as a whole has been falling for most of the last 20 years. It’s a fact that hasn’t been noted often enough.
The finding comes from a recent investigation by Christoph Lakner, a consultant at the World Bank, and Branko Milanovic, senior scholar at the Luxembourg Income Study Center. And while such a framing may sound startling at first, it should be intuitive upon reflection. The economic surges of China, India and some other nations have been among the most egalitarian developments in history.

For the full commentary, see:
TYLER COWEN. “The Upshot; Economic View; All in All, a More Egalitarian World.” The New York Times, SundayBusiness Section (Sun., JULY 20, 2014): 6.
(Note: the online version of the commentary has the date JULY 19, 2014, has the title “The Upshot; Economic View; Income Inequality Is Not Rising Globally. It’s Falling.”)

China Looks to Innovation to Increase Growth

(p. 6) Wrapping up the 11-day session at a news conference on Sunday [March 15, 2015], Premier Li Keqiang said that while the economy faced downward pressure, the government has room to step in and has “more tools in our toolbox” should growth flag and affect employment.
. . .
As exports, investment and infrastructure become more ineffective in generating economic growth, China’s leadership is looking to innovation and entrepreneurship to pick up the slack.
Toward that end, Mr. Li said Beijing will continue to reduce regulatory interference. The number of government approvals required to begin a new venture has roughly halved to 50 to 60 steps in recent years, he said, although this level still raises costs and damps enthusiasm for startups.
But the Chinese state retains an oversized role in the economy and many of the outlined moves to limit its role are difficult to verify.

For the full story, see:
MARK MAGNIER. “Beijing Plans More Action to Spur Growth.” The Wall Street Journal (Mon., March 16, 2015): A9.
(Note: ellipsis, and bracketed date, added. Where there was a small difference in paragraph structure, the quoted passages follow the print version.)
(Note: the online version of the story has the date March 15, 2015, has the title “China Plans More Action to Spur Growth.”)

“The Countryside Was Romantic Only to People Who Didn’t Have to Live There”

(p. C4) Mr. Meyer’s motivation for writing his book is simple and straightforward. “Since 2000, a quarter of China’s villages had died out, victims of migration or the redrawing of municipal borders,” as the country urbanizes, he notes early on, adding: “Before it vanished I wanted to experience a life that tourists, foreign students, and journalists (I had been, in order, all three) only viewed in passing.”
“In Manchuria” shifts back and forth among various genres. It is part travelogue, part sociological study, part reportage and part memoir, but it is also a love offering to Mr. Meyer’s wife, Frances, who grew up in the unfortunately named Wasteland, the village that Mr. Meyer chooses as his base near the start of this decade, and to the unborn son she is carrying by the time “In Manchuria” ends.
. . .
After a year in Wasteland, Mr. Meyer was ready to move on, and he now divides his time between Singapore and Pittsburgh, where he teaches nonfiction writing. But his interlude in Manchuria clearly taught him many lessons, perhaps the most fundamental being this: “The countryside was romantic only to people who didn’t have to live there.”

For the full review, see:
LARRY ROHTER. “A Vanishing Way of Life for Peasants in China.” The New York Times Book Review (Mon., MARCH 8, 2015): C4.
(Note: ellipsis added.)
(Note: the online version of the review has the date MARCH 8, 2015, and has the title “Review: Michael Meyer’s ‘In Manchuria’ Documents a Changing Rural China.”)

The book under review, is:
Meyer, Michael. In Manchuria: A Village Called Wasteland and the Transformation of Rural China. New York: Bloomsbury Press, 2015.