Sinocircle

Digging around the Drum and Bell for underground malls.

April 1, 2010 at 5:43 pm | Posted in Uncategorized | Leave a comment

An aquaintance was proud to be a foreigner attending one of the first community meetings in Beijing held regarding the proposed destruction of a large historical area north and east of the Beijing lakes.  Luckily he owned the building in which the store he ran was located, so he will not only receive payment but an invitation to attend this community meeting.

In yesterday’s telegraph:

“Basically the local government has been given £500m and told to spend it in order to boost tourism and tax revenues in the area. With so much money behind the project, it’s hard to see them not pushing it through,” the source added.
Several hundred people had been expected to attend a public meeting to raise awareness of the threat to the Drum and Bell last weekend, but on Friday it was abruptly cancelled by the Beijing Cultural Heritage Protection Center, apparently under official pressure.

So he did not get to the meeting, and few meetings are actually held after the newspapers report them, but you might not know that.   Anyway, the article explained that this project had been tried before in even 5th tiere cities.  Entire boulevards had been dug up and new property created where before there was none.  It worked, and when government unofficial surveyors found the public opinion would be scuttled the community meeting was called off.

Under question is an older area of mostly refurbished hutong alleys hosting stores, galleries, restaurants and bars.  The money here is palpable.  The tourist content is saturated by backpackers, walkers, and the rich.  Unlike many Chinese cities, Beijing does not have a single center.  Where this project has been attempted it has increased not only tax revenue but also a one-off sale of land that does not have to be bought, only created.  Most western cities do not have one single center.

There is a physical center in nearly all provincial cities.  Emulating these designs, the remaking of this area will be an unprecedented project in creating real-estate for Beijing, but something that has been tested and proven profitable only outside major urban areas.  While this is not a city center it is a bet on property.  Is there more going on here than meets the eye.

In yesterday’s telegraph:

The plan is allied to an ambitious 20-year project to create an “underground city” by digging out three square miles of northeastern Beijing to create a network of shopping malls, car parks and even a three mile underground mall.

The only sector still guaranteed to return a short term profit is real estate.  And the time is ripe, if not for the building, then for deals.

Google Notes

March 24, 2010 at 2:19 pm | Posted in Uncategorized | Leave a comment

So google has pulled back to hongkong and seems to have safe haven there, underlining just how independent hongkong may be with its deal to maintain british freedoms until 2047.  And there has been much bluster, from China claiming that the cyber attacks from the school in Jinan were impossible, because though the school teaches programming it doesn’t have an internet connection, to arguments that google got political first, falsely bringing issues on tibet or tianamen up in search rankings.  Baidu.com, google’s rival here, does this but only when paid.  So people cannot believe that google does not do it, and thus the argument goes that google must do it for the U.S. government.

Another thought I’ve been having is how did google ever capture 30% of the Chinese search market.  I want to understand more what this means because I have never seen a Chinese use google.  Professors may use google.  Foreigners use google.  But to go even further, why would a Chinese want to use google?

So I tend to go with the crowd that thinks China will quickly forget google, because they never did have any interest in it.

To quote today’s new york times:

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/24/world/asia/24china.html

But China also does not acknowledge to its own people that it censors the Internet to exclude a wide range of political and social topics that its leaders believe could lead to instability. It does not release information on the number of censors it employs or the technology it uses for the world’s most sophisticated Internet firewall. Its 350 million Internet users, many with fast broadband connections, are assured they have the same effectively limitless access to information and communications that the rest of the world enjoys.

Google publicly challenged that stance in January, and reinforced its ideological opposition to China’s policies by finally pulling the plug on its mainland search engine after a failed round of talks with Chinese officials. That forced Chinese leaders to defend their control of the Web, which they did partly with an outburst of nationalism and vitriol.

The cost, at least with some influential sectors of its own society, could be steep. In the technology sector, Google is viewed as an innovator that has spurred rapid development of the Chinese Web. Its departure will leave some Chinese companies with greater influence, but could also stifle competition, some fear.

“Google is good at innovation, and when it leaves, the rest of the companies in China will lack motivation. Without its countervailing power, the industry won’t be as healthy,” said Zhang Yunquan, a professor at the Institute of Software at the Chinese Academy of Sciences.

Fang Xingdong, chief executive of Chinalabs.com, said the vast majority of Chinese Internet companies invested little in research and “simply copy each other’s technology.” With Google’s departure, their profits may rise, but China’s Web space will begin to stagnate, he predicted.

Despite China’s mantra that the Google issue should not be “politicized,” it is, at the end of the day, highly politicized, especially inside China.

Xiao Qiang, founder and editor in chief of China Digital Times, said that China’s leaders once saw the Internet as having both political and commercial uses that balanced each other to a degree. “But increasingly they see it as a political space,” he said.

After China Halts New Loans

January 27, 2010 at 8:22 pm | Posted in Uncategorized | Leave a comment

After the surprise revelation that record loans were given during the first two weeks of 2010, effective immediately Chinese banks are not giving anymore loans.  Likely this order will be rescinded shortly after the new year festivals end, and hence this policy change is just a jerk on the horse’s bit, a bite at corruption and the bonanza leading up to office holidays for the biggest yearly celebration in China, a few weeks when everyone scrambles for as much money to have as big a party and give as many gifts as possible mid February.  Halting new loans is also likely the government’s knee jerk reaction to expanding money supply, loan default, and inflation issues.   They want to limit the bad suprises comng back from the holidays.  To the effect that when the water goes out, it is easier to see who is swimming naked, this could also be a strategy employed to good effect by the government: a type of stress test with Chinese characteristics, stressing the customer instead of the bank, but showing everyone who is in control.  Financial blogs will reveal if this could become an ominous sign going into the new year, but it certainly won’t lighten the holiday mood for many businesses and consumers.

Whatever the canny reason for halting bank loan issuance, it demonstrates two interesting Chinese characteristics.  One is an example of the direct managerial control the government exhibits over its banks.  No other country stops all banks from giving loans today, effective immediately.  The other interesting aspect is the all or nothing way China often functions – where day-to-day changes in actual on-the-ground policy can be extreme.  Unorthodox finance is to be expected in China, and more importantly, many countries are studying China’s economics, and if the Chinese break the rules of finance, it may well be that they are rewriting them, following other rules, far more intuitive, primitive, and likely to persist as real-politic economic powers continue to lever themselves toward their goals.  For China, having built itself up off a stable base so low in 1970, anything now seems possible to its leaders, so get ready more unprecedented actions.

While discussing banks, isn’t 2010 the year foreign private banks are to be issued licences to do retail business in China?  What would happen were Chinese banks not allowed to give loans while foreign banks could?  What will happen when foreign banks are not issued licences this year?

From today’s WSJ

Last week, China Banking Regulatory Commission Chairman Liu Mingkang said the regulator expects new yuan lending to be around 7.5 trillion yuan this year. That’s down from a record 9.6 trillion yuan in new loans in 2009 but still more than double the 2008 level.

Chinese banks, which traditionally rush out loans at the start of the year, have already issued more than 1 trillion yuan ($146 billion) in new loans in the first two weeks of the year, more than double the monthly average of 400 billion yuan in the second half of last year, according to Chinese media reports, which could not be independently verified.

“In responding to such a credit surge, the People’s Bank of China has launched more aggressive quantitative tightening than we previously have thought,” said Credit Suisse economist Dong Tao.

Mr. Tao said six Chinese banks he contacted had confirmed they had suspended “new lending” across the country starting Jan. 19. He didn’t name the banks.

Article Posted From Dinny McMahon at dinny.mcmahon@wsj.com

Google Resolution Near: Youtubecn.com Launched!

January 26, 2010 at 10:23 pm | Posted in Uncategorized | 1 Comment

Today Google documents service was not blocked in China, but more interesting, on the 21st Youtubecn.com was being discussed on douban discussion boards.  This is a youtube.com look-a-like that does not allow comments or uploading of videos, and it does not have the same videos as youtube, having removed videos the CCP would dislike or else making their icons link back to the youtubecn.com homepage.  It does however have videos making fun of Tibetan protesters.  A rather weak, tentative foray into the Chinese online video market that opens itself to the same criticism for censorship that google is so roundly denouncing and propagandizing in the US.  It also comes at an interesting time as many websites are losing their video streaming licenses.

Google.com unblocked in China

January 13, 2010 at 2:00 pm | Posted in Uncategorized | Leave a comment

Since this morning google.com has been returning queries on sensitive subjects for some users as the (above) references to the students killing in nineteen eighty nine.

personal history blogs are being removed

January 13, 2010 at 2:47 am | Posted in Uncategorized | Leave a comment

A number of Chinese consumers have reported their diaries, which they have kept meticulously as public blogs for years, have vanished.

Baidu.com Down Today

January 12, 2010 at 10:40 am | Posted in Uncategorized | 9 Comments

Below is the pasted translation of a chronology of Baidu.com’s morning travails.  Some of it is a little technical, but interesting, none-the-less to see the weird message being sent or not being sent.  The Iranian Cyber Army’s calling card has been left, and the style is reminiscent of the recent attack on Twitter.com, but more likely this is the work of anyone not Iran, as Iran has no gripe with China: the US, Israel, anyone but Iran?  Also interesting are reports of China’s counterattack against Iranian websites, showing they too can hack the .com “register”.  Could both sides be being played?  Let’s see what we can find…

http://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&ie=UTF-8&sl=zh-CN&tl=en&u=http://www.cnbeta.com/articles/101927.htm&twu=1

This morning, seven o’clock, Baidu an access interruptions in the WHOIS query domain baidu.com Baidu domain information found there can not be resolved issues. The current problem is not resolved, Baidu has not issued a response to this.
Baidu.com is currently the DNS server is replaced, while the main domain name has been resolved to a Dutch IP, and access to Baidu’s sub-domain will be jump to Yahoo’s error page, WHOIS data is constantly being refreshed in the.

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If User reflect their own access to baidu.com, please timely adoption of delivery news, @ cblive other channels let us know. Please attach a more detailed proof of material and your location.
09:55 seesaw battle continued, Google Hot List is the fastest rising keyword first “baidu”. Most media have made the domestic domain name was hijacked Baidu reported.
09:40 baidu.com of the NS records once again been revised to hostgator.com, then change back. Cup with continue to occur, the ongoing tug of war between, NS data is Baidu and changing the hackers have to go.
09:28 suspected yahoo will have to give the current baidu.com parsing.
09:20 Baidu has quickly boarded the Alexa top of the charts hot.
09:15 parsing out of the picture that IP is pink2.warez-host.com, home page has now been worn down, the page displays a snapshot of its data centers in Iran, the Netherlands and Germany, to provide “off-shore hosting services.”
09:10 Iran has been turning the page displays “This account is suspended”. Update a series of pictures.
08:36 Some net friends provided information to be black image, above the caption “Iranian Cyber Army”, the information provided in this website writes: ارتش سایبری ایران در اعتراض به دخالت های سايتهاي بيگانه و صهیونیستی در امور داخلی کشورمان و پخش اخبار دروغ و تفرقه
برانگیز راه اندازي شده اس
08:30 Baidu DNS data has been changed back, but it still did not refresh the WHOIS data.
08:20 A net friend had been directed to a black page “Iranian Cyber Army”, the domain name has been stolen or hijacked the possibility of quite large, but such a large number of requests Baidu is any one black page server could not resist, so can only access failed. Recall the last domain name has been turned to twitter, and the attack are surprisingly similar.

Chinese Citizens Cannot Have Websites

December 14, 2009 at 5:38 pm | Posted in Uncategorized | Leave a comment

Individuals can no longer apply for website domain names in China, China Internet Network Information Center (CNNIC) announced today, but rather private users must create their online presence through qualified third party services.  Incorporated companies only can apply for new internet domain names in China from today onward.

End Game Rumors for File Sharing Crackdown in China

December 14, 2009 at 5:09 pm | Posted in Uncategorized | Leave a comment

China Guang Dian Bu, the Central Broadcasting Department, is now applying for their own internet video publishing license in the wake of mass file sharing website closures last week.  Guang Dian Bu controls China’s television, so it is a logical move for them into the internet video space.  It is also a logical move for the government, to install its own propaganda provider as the only content provider and maybe even distributor for internet video in China.  So Guang Dian Bu is in line to become the government counterpart to YOUKU.com by bulding its own shan zhai (copy of YOUKU.com).  This is the word.

Also in rumors is that MYVERYCD.com/EMULE.com are being told that if they cough up enough cash they can get back into the game.  You never know though, if they cough up the cash, they may well get nothing for it.