Current Events

[Randy W]

Alibaba supermarket chain Freshippo announced plans Tuesday to invest in 1,000 “Freshippo Villages,” committing to spend 100 billion yuan ($15.7 billion) ordering produce from farmers in those villages.

from the Sixth Tone on Facebook
https://www.facebook.com/sixthtone/posts/3076413776010795

Alibaba Supermarket Chain Promises to Upgrade Village Farms
Freshippo supermarkets plan to spend 100 billion yuan developing 1,000 “Freshippo villages.”

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The company said the plan is a response to the country’s 14th five-year plan (2021-2025), which targets modernizing agricultural sectors. Experts say it is also a move to build competitive and sustainable sourcing channels.

“E-commerce companies worldwide are trying to crack the code for successful fresh groceries, and building direct supply relationships with farms has been a big part of that just about everywhere,” Even Pay, an analyst covering agriculture at strategic advisory firm Trivium China, told Sixth Tone.

Freshippo is the e-commerce giant’s most successful play into offline retail. It combines premium grocery shopping, headlined by cornucopian fresh seafood displays, with fast delivery. It currently claims just under 300 locations in China.

 

 

Edited January 20, 2023 by Randy W (see edit history)

[Randy W]

Public censure of China’s piano prince Li Yundi over sex scandal questioned
Some leading musicians and members of the public in China are questioning the recent censure of renowned pianist Li Yundi.

from the SCMP on Facebook
https://www.facebook.com/scmp/videos/4624177394316468/

 

[Randy W]

Personally, I think his comments had to do with the recent push to tax billionaires. Sorry, Elon, but it's not really our responsibility to tell you what you can do with your money.

Elon Musk tweeted a Chinese poem on Monday night. The poem translates as follow：

Beanstalks are being burned to cook its beans,
The beans are weeping in the boiling pot:
We were born from the same root,
Why are you so eager to hurt me now?

It is not yet clear what reference the Tesla and SpaceX CEO intended, but the ancient Chinese poem was titled “Humankind” by Musk in his tweet.

The poem was made 2,000 years ago by Cao Zhi, the third son of a Chinese king who passed on his kingdom to his most elderly son Cao Pi. The new king was so suspicious of Zhi’s popularity that he wanted to kill his younger brother in a bid to consolidate his rule.

To find an excuse to kill, Pi asked Zhi to make a poem within the amount of time it took to walk only 7 steps. This “mission impossible” resulted in a well-known Chinese poem: “The 7-step Poem”.

Zhi used this poem to petition to his elder brother not to hurt him, and avoid a tragedy of beanstalks hurting beans. Pi was moved and set Zhi free.

Neither Tesla nor SpaceX responded to a request for comment, but Musk’s post caused strong attention on both Western and Chinese social media. 

Many took this as an extension of Musk’s clash with the UN’s World Food Program. 

Last week, David Beasley, the director of UN food scarcity organization, said in an interview with CNN that 2% of Elon Musk’s fortune would help solve global hunger. Many people on Twitter asked Musk to donate with this piece of news. 

On Sunday, Musk replied to a Twitter user that he would “sell Tesla stock right now and do it” if WFP could describe how exactly $6 billion would solve global hunger. However, Beasley from WFP later responded that $6 billion wouldn’t solve the problem but will save 42 million people from starvation. 

Many Chinese netizens criticized the ignorance in the discussion of global issues. Money alone can never solve hunger nor poverty because education, infrastructures, and rural development would be all critical concerns. For example, China have spent years to practice accurate spotting of people in need in different area with different sustainable mechanism to prevent the donees from returning to poverty after the money is used up.

Do you think Elon Musk made a point on this issue? Will 2% of Musk’s money solve the problem? #ElonMusk

from CGTN on Facebook
https://www.facebook.com/ChinaGlobalTVNetwork/posts/436016151225196

 

Edited January 20, 2023 by Randy W (see edit history)

[Randy W]

It's not clear how widespread this is - we're not seeing it here.

Supermarkets Inundated After Gov’t Tells People to Stock Up Food
Officials said the notice only intended to ensure citizens have enough food supplies and prevent price surges during the winter months.

from the Sixth Tone

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A notice from China’s Ministry of Commerce on Monday, calling citizens to stock up on daily necessities and food supplies, has emptied some of the country’s supermarkets.

People were seen rushing to supermarkets and grocery stores to stock up on rice, noodles, oils, and other essential supplies, according to posts on social media platforms. Some users reported they saw buyers hoarding food items, while others joked their annual “Double Eleven” shopping carts this year included bags of rice.

“(We) encourage families to stock up a certain amount of daily necessities to meet the needs of daily life and emergencies,” the ministry said in its notice, urging local authorities to guarantee sufficient food stocks and stabilized prices.

 . . .

Responding to people’s panic, the ministry’s head of promotion consumption department, Zhu Xiaoliang, told domestic media that the notice only intended to ensure sufficient food supply during the winter months and through to spring.

“So far, all kinds of daily necessities are sufficient,” he said.

 

 

Edited November 4, 2021 by Randy W (see edit history)

[Randy W]

China went from a total of roughly 300 museums nationwide in 1978 to more than 5,000 in 2018, but construction is all too often motivated by dreams of real estate riches rather than accessibility.

from the Sixth Tone on Facebook 
https://www.facebook.com/sixthtone/posts/3082945675357605

China Asks: How Many Cultural Landmarks Is Too Many?
Chinese cities have established thousands of new museums over past two decades, but construction is all too often motivated by dreams of real estate riches rather than accessibility.

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To bring his plans to life, Geng spent lavishly, inviting world-renowned architects to design urban landmarks for his new district. The Datong Library was designed by Preston Scott Cohen of Harvard University; architects from the British practice Foster + Partners contributed to the design of the Datong Art Museum; Japanese architect and recipient of the 2019 Pritzker Architecture Prize Arata Isozaki designed the Datong Grand Theatre; Australian-based firm Populous designed the Datong Sports Center; and one of China’s most well-known architects, Cui Kai, designed the Datong Museum. These towering new landmarks were meant to put Yudong on the map, literally. Their fame would attract residents and drive land sales — the proceeds from which would both pay for developing the rest of Yudong and restoring old Datong.

That never happened. Geng’s wild spending didn’t produce the returns he promised, and by the time he was transferred out of the city in 2013, Datong was in an estimated 20 billion yuan ($3.1 billion) of debt. Today, his vast complex of post-modern landmarks looms over the Yudong New District’s vast central square and the area’s far more drab and austere government buildings, while progress bringing the old city back to life has stalled.

Datong was an extreme case, but far from an exception. The eastern city of Jining — another important coal and agricultural center — officially established its own new urban district in 2008. Officials touted Taibaihu District as Jining’s future, laying out grand visions of exurban aquaculture farms redeveloped into a new urban center. Internationally renowned architects were hired to design a vast cultural complex at the heart of the new district. Plans called for a Jining Library, Jining Museum, and Jining Art Museum as part of a complex of commercial buildings.

 

 

Edited January 20, 2023 by Randy W (see edit history)

[Randy W]

China's top Communist Para leaders are meeting in Beijing for the sixth plenary session of the 19th Central Committee, a key meeting ahead of an expected leadership shuffle at the 20th national congress in 2022.

from the SCMP on Facebook 
https://www.facebook.com/scmp/videos/467645721357424/

[Randy W]

Heavy snow hits northern China
Heavy snow has hit several parts of northern China early this year,
 damaging houses and blocking roads.

from the SCMP on Facebook 
https://www.facebook.com/scmp/videos/580515973056665/

[Randy W]

Yesterday marks China’s #Journalists’ Day, which was established by the State Council in 2000 for people to appreciate the commitments of media workers.  Let’s take a look at journalists reporting on the ground.

from China Pictorial on Facebook 
https://www.facebook.com/ChinaPic/posts/4302443439881012

 

Edited January 20, 2023 by Randy W (see edit history)

[Randy W]

It is not too late to update your knowledge about #EDG. On Saturday night, a five-person team of the Chinese e-sports club, with the full name EDward Gaming, won the 2021 League of Legends (LoL) World Championship in Reykjavik, Iceland. The hashtag #EDG is champion# had attracted 209 million viewers by Sunday morning, with the number still rising. The livestreaming of the championship had more than 200 million viewers on two major domestic smartphone apps, and the number was boosted by viewers on other channels. With the popularity of digital technology, new forms of cultural exchanges have been emerging, of which e-sports are of the hottest. Unlike texts and videos, e-sports transcend the barriers of language and are understandable around the world. More importantly, the e-sports industry is sustainable in spreading Chinese culture, as the large audiences mean huge commercial potential. In 2020 alone, the sales revenue of the domestic e-sports industry exceeded 278.69 billion ($43.56 billion), and involved 280,000 enterprises, which in turn created over 10 million jobs.

from China Pictorial on Facebook
https://www.facebook.com/ChinaPic/posts/4302444759880880

 . . . and from the Sixth Tone
https://www.facebook.com/sixthtone/posts/3084778271841012

 

Edited January 20, 2023 by Randy W (see edit history)

[Randy W]

‘Little Princess of Huawei’ Annabel Yao gets names trademarked despite previous backlash and apology from Ren Zhengfei

• Annabel Yao is embarking on an entertainment career after she recently graduated from Harvard
• Ren said the trademarks were made to prevent ‘malicious use’ by other companies

from the SCMP 

Huawei trademarked the name of Annabel Yao, the daughter of Huawei founder Ren Zhengfei. Yao is pursuing a career in entertainment. Photo: Weibo
 

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Yao was born to Ren’s ex-wife Yao Ling and is nicknamed Huawei’s “little princess”. In January, she announced the start of an entertainment business in a splashy 17-minute documentary.

Calling herself a “princess who breaks the rules”, Yao signed with Beijing-based TH Entertainment as an entertainment artist in January and released her first pop single soon after that.

A ballet dancer who passed Britain’s prestigious Royal Academy of Dance’s top-level ballet exam at the age of 15, the Harvard graduate has received mixed views for her endeavour into show business.

Ren reportedly told Huawei staff in the February letters that the trademarks were meant to protect her name as early as possible because some companies in China had already trademarked her name for their “malicious” use.

 . . .

Furthermore, Yao finds herself compared to her older half-sister, Meng Wanzhou, who spent nearly three years under house arrest in Canada fighting extradition to the US.

 

 

 

[Randy W]

China and US unveil deal to cooperate on cutting emissions, phasing out coal and protecting forests

China and the United States, the two largest emitters of carbon dioxide, have surprised the world by unveiling a deal to ramp up cooperation on tackling climate change.

from the SCMP on Facebook
https://www.facebook.com/scmp/videos/1208047186348007/

 

[Randy W]

On 11/4/2021 at 8:32 PM, Randy W said:

It's not clear how widespread this is - we're not seeing it here.

Supermarkets Inundated After Gov’t Tells People to Stock Up Food
Officials said the notice only intended to ensure citizens have enough food supplies and prevent price surges during the winter months.

from the Sixth Tone

 

China urges citizens to stockpile ‘daily necessities’, sparking fears of food shortages

The "panic buying" can be seen in this video - 

http://candleforlove.com/forums/topic/49227-those-chinese-videos/?do=findComment&comment=648341

 

Edited November 12, 2021 by Randy W (see edit history)

[Randy W]

In a draft guideline published to solicit public opinions, Shanghai seeks to regulate the scripts of the offline role-playing genre of jubensha, or “script murder,” barring content that has “obscenity, pornography, gambling, violence, and drug-related or criminal scenes.”  

from the Sixth Tone on Facebook 
https://www.facebook.com/sixthtone/posts/3089822258003280

China Is Getting Strict on Role-Playing Murder Mystery Games
Shanghai is taking the first step by planning to ban content that is likely obscene, violent, or have crime-related plots.

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In a draft guideline published last week to solicit public opinions, the city government seeks to regulate the scripts of the offline role-playing genre of jubensha, or “script murder,” barring content that has “obscenity, pornography, gambling, violence, and drug-related or criminal scenes.” The draft also called to ban scripts that promote cults or superstitions, which violates the state’s religious policies.

China’s script murder industry has risen rapidly over recent decades, with consumers increasingly relying on the immersive game to break away from their monotonous work routines. The market is predicted to grow to 17 billion yuan ($2.6 billion) by the end of the year, according to consultancy iiMedia.

However, the increasing horror and supernatural themes used in many games to attract customers have worried authorities. In September, the state-run Xinhua News Agency blamed the mysterious — and sometimes violent — content for potentially distorting reality for young players, calling for more regulations on this emerging entertainment sector.

 

 

Edited January 20, 2023 by Randy W (see edit history)

[Randy W]

Young people are no longer willing to join the manufacturing sector, which many hold synonymous with long, physically demanding workdays, perennial training, and scant personal growth opportunities.

from the SixthTone on Facebook
https://www.facebook.com/sixthtone/posts/3090372927948213

Pocket Science: Few Takers for China’s Many Factory Jobs
With the lure of gig work, China’s young are wary of manufacturing jobs, which many believe only entails hard labor and scant growth.

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At the time, the weather was no different from before. But 20 years on, the factory’s working conditions have markedly improved. In 2003, when Li signed up, the entrance teemed with hopeful applicants. But the job alert in 2021 barely had any takers.

For some years now, the disinterest in such factory jobs is not limited to the Laosan Group alone. It cuts across the entire Yangtze River Delta, encompassing Shanghai and Jiangsu and Zhejiang provinces.

The reason: young people are no longer willing to join the manufacturing sector, which many hold synonymous with long, physically demanding workdays, perennial training, and scant personal growth opportunities.

This, experts and executives say, coupled with the lure of lucrative salaries in China’s booming gig economy, has discouraged graduates from working, or staying long, in factories.

The numbers are telling. According to official statistics, 41.1% of full-time drivers working for China’s ride-sharing tycoon Didi were originally in the manufacturing sector. And among the drivers who joined delivery giant Meituan during the pandemic, 35.2% were previously factory workers.

Amid the continuing labor glut, companies have slowly begun to adapt. While some focus on changing recruitment practices, and improving work culture and employee benefits, others have turned to migrant workers from distant provinces or more automation.

 

 

Edited January 20, 2023 by Randy W (see edit history)

[Randy W]

Written from a Western perspective, but from someone living in China. The author, Ker Gibbs, is president of the American Chamber of Commerce in Shanghai.

Expat exodus is bad for China, bad for the US and bad for the world

• Stringent pandemic policies and tax law changes are driving expatriates away, eroding business and diplomatic pillars
• With so many foreigners leaving, examples of good US-China people-to-people relations will become increasingly hard to find

 

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At a time when China’s role on the world stage is growing, it is also becoming more isolated and less international. The number of foreigners working in China’s two most important cities has declined sharply in the past decade.

 . . .

The exodus is accelerating as stringent pandemic policies prompt foreigners to rethink their commitment to working in China. These departures are eroding important business and diplomatic pillars. That is bad for China, the United States and the rest of the world.

 . . .

For China, which has perhaps benefited more than almost any other country from the synergy of East and West, a more closed country would not be the best possible version of itself. China would lose the benefits it has enjoyed in the past four decades as the country has opened up.

While China’s rapid economic development can be attributed to the hard work and entrepreneurial spirit of the Chinese people, it is also true that opening to the outside world played an important role. By allowing in foreign capital, ideas and management expertise, China accelerated its transition into one of the world’s most important and advanced economies.

 . . .

While the US has issued more than 85,000 visas to Chinese students and scholars in the past few months, Beijing has granted visas to only a handful of foreign students to attend schools in China. Extreme restrictions on students will be costly in the long run.