Shanghai Scrap

[Photo Update: I've been informed that not everybody recognizes the subjects of these two photos. So, just to clarify: the top one shows Chinese President Hu Jintao and Chinese hurdler Liu Xiang at today's ceremony marking the start of the Olympic torch relay through China; the lower one shows President Bush throwing out the ceremonial first pitch at last night's home opener for the Washington Nationals baseball team - which they won.]

As a lifelong American sports fan, I’m accustomed to seeing politicians appear at sporting events. And, like most American sports fans, I really wish they wouldn’t – I’m there for the @#$% game, not the propaganda and self-serving PR value fed to me by some politiican most likely running for re-election. But in China – especially in the run-up to the Olympics – the game is the propaganda. To an extent, the difference reflects the fact that international competition is a low-priority for most US sports fans who value -rightly so, in my opinion – professional competition between the best and highest-paid athletes in the world (question: where does Premier league compare in salary structure?). Does anybody really think that, say, the Olympic basketball final will feature higher quality play than the average NBA game in April? I don’t. Anyway, the nationalism that animates many of China’s sports fans has no real analog in the US.

To be sure, flag-waving, “USA” chanting American sports fans are a fixture at the Olympics and other international events. But those tend to be transitory fits between viewing the higher quality US professional leagues. As a result, no US politician has ever managed to co-opt a sporting event for political purposes as completely as the Chinese leadership have co-opted this one (and that goes for Ronald Reagan and the 1984 LA Olympics). I’m going to have much more to say on the topic of politics and sport in the coming months, but for now I’ll let this be my response to those who insist on telling me “that this should be about the athletes and not necessarily about politics.”

On Sunday afternoon I was in Hongkou, retracing some old reporting for a new story, and I decided to take a two block detour over to the old Ohel Moishe Synagogue. In 2006, I became quite familiar with the building, and its neighborhood, while researching two stories related to World War II-era Jews who were granted refugee status in Shanghai (my favorite  of these stories can be found here). It’s been more than a year since my last visit, and I’ve since heard that the synagogue has undergone some restoration work. Which, in fact, it has (see photo after the jump), and to its great benefit.

Anyway, the renovations are fairly old news (they were largely complete by Fall 2007). What is news – and what is also worth seeing – is the new refugee museum behind the synagogue. According to the charming old docent (below, in protective museum booties), the Museum isn’t scheduled to open for “another month or so.” But, it’s so great that “somebody” decided to open the doors on Sunday for a sort of makeshift sneak preview requiring the aforementioned booties.

Unfortunately, but understandably, the docent asked that I not take any photos inside of the museum. So you’ll just have to bear with me as I testify: this is one great museum. It’s a modest space, to be sure, but entirely modern and – best of all – it features great multimedia, including several extended videotaped interviews of Jewish refugees who lived in Hongkou during the 1940s. In 2005 I had the privilege and fun of spending several days walking Hongkou with a returned German-Jewish refugee, listening to his recollections, and his rusty Shanghai dialect; the museum’s priceless taped interviews are the next best thing to having that kind of experience. (more…)

[Alternative Title: "You Picked a Fine Time to Feed Me, Beijing"]

A little quiz.

On the verge of the Olympics, Beijing opens one of the largest, and most architecturally uplifting, airport terminals in the world. In an effort to improve guest services, the airport authority invites outside vendors – Starbucks, KFC, TCBY(!) – to set up shop in the concourses. So – which foreign restaurant chain has the most prominent perch in the new terminal, the pride of place, the American chain sign most visitors will see first?

That’s right – Kenny Rogers Roasters.

[What? You were expecting McDonald's?]

I’ll admit. This troubles me. It troubles me because – among other reasons – it takes only a few minutes to figure out that Kenny Rogers no longer has an ownership interest in Kenny Rogers Roasters (the company was acquired by Nathan’s in 1998). It troubles me because – even though he has no ownership interest – the Beijing airport outlet shows an endless loop of Kenny Rogers concert footage to its customers. And this is all the more strange because I’ve never, ever sensed that Kenny Rogers has a Chinese fan base (I’m open to being corrected on this point). (more…)

Earlier this week, Meng Jianzhu, China’s Public Security Minister, and a member of the State Council, visited Lhasa accompanied by military and religious officials, including Ye Xiaowen, the Director of China’s Religious Affairs Bureau. It is the highest-ranking delegation to visit Tibet since the unrest began, and its composition – military and religious affairs officials – was no accident. Though unreported in the Chinese media, Meng had a very specific message for the region’s restive Buddhist monks: the monasteries will be stepping-up “patriotic education” campaigns.

Patriotic education in Chinese religious seminaries has been a cornerstone of Chinese religious policy since the early 1980s, and the fact that Meng – and presumably, Ye Xiaowen – are planning to require more of it provides a very useful insight into the way that China’s highest policymakers are thinking about the sitation in Tibet (and, by reasonable extension, religious policy in general). So, in hope of clarifying certain issues emerging from Tibet, especially those related to religious policy, I’m going to use this post to offer a brief primer on Patriotic religious education, its origins and current status. Many reports from Tibet and West China are mentioning it, but I’ve yet to find any that explain what it is, why it exists, and where it comes from. In my opinion, those questions are key to understanding the religious component to the ongoing crisis (merely one facet, but an important one). (more…)

Chalk it up to my declining powers of perception, but yesterday I somehow managed to fly through Beijing Capitol Airport’s massive new terminal 3 building (986,000 square meters!) without knowing – or noticing – that it was the super-structure’s first fully operational day (h/t to Micah for pointing it out).

In my defense: the terminal has been open and operating since February 29. Yesterday was actually Phase 2 of a staged opening, with twenty additional airlines (including Shanghai Airlines, which I flew) moving their operations to the new building. Still, in the spirit of giving credit where it’s due: the fact that I didn’t notice anything unusual, any glitches, or even a delay (on my flight) is a credit to whomever is running things over there. It’s a comfortable, visually stunning facility, and I must concede that – in the future – I will no longer dread (as much) flying in and out of Beijing. This is progress. (more…)

In the early days of the current Tibetan crisis more than a few bloggers (have) reined in their comments on the crisis for fear that their blogs would be blocked by China’s online censors (thus losing access to a Mainland Chinese audience). Though traditional journalists did not have the same level of concern, I know for fact that several foreign correspondents were expecting their sites (major newspapers) to be blocked in China in retaliation for aggressive coverage of the issues. That this hasn’t happened on a wide scale – the blocking, that is – might be a testament to how little the Chinese authorities fear the English-language media (the number of Chinese who can and do read them is vanishingly small). Whatever the case, it’s a surprise.

But if all is well with media based overseas, the same cannot be said for media based in Hong Kong. Case in point: the South China Morning Post. For the last week, subscribers – like me – have been able to access the paper’s contents without a problem so long as those contents don’t include critical stories about Tibet. Positive stories – say, relatively benign accounts of yesterday’s foreign journalist junket to Lhasa – those get through. Of course,this is nothing new: China’s Great Firewall (or Golden Shield), has imposed content-specific blocks for years (The Atlantic’s Jim Fallows describes the means by which they do this, here). But usually, those blocks apply to an entire site. What I’ve never seen before the current crisis, are blocks that might apply to only a portion of page, or site. Take, for example, a screen shot taken just a few minutes ago, after I tried to access a negative Tibet-related story on the SCMP (please click on the image for the full-sized, detailed image):

Somehow, someway, the actual content of the story – minus the headline – has been deleted. However, if I access the same story using a proxy (in this case, TOR), the full content is readily available (again, please click the thumbnail for a detailed screen shot).

I’d be curious to hear from anyone who is experiencing something similar. It’s possible, I suppose, that this is nothing new, that content-specific blocks like this have been happening for years, and I’ve just been missing them. If that’s the case, please let me know.

A very brief but very enthusiastic plug for the new China Environmental Law blog. It’s only been up for a month, but it’s already published great commentary, great links to important source materials, and some really fine writing. Run by a Shanghai-based lawyer by the name of Charlie McElwee, it promises and delivers daily discussion of China’s environmental and energy laws and policies. This is really, really useful stuff.

Posting has been light – thin, even – and will continue to be so for the next couple of days while I finish a reporting trip up north. But briefly, I thought it worth mentioning that the city of Shanghai is running out of diesel. Or, to put it more accurately, the Shanghai Economic Commission is trying to allay fears caused by recent and ongoing diesel shortages by claiming that Shanghai has a “more than” ten day supply of the fuel.

This is big news that should not be news to anyone. For the last couple of weeks Chinese media and foreign news wires (especially, financial-oriented ones) have been reporting fuel shortages in Guangdong and in the outskirts of Shanghai (last week, I reported fuel lines in Shanghai, and explained their origins). For now, this story is the best analysis of the shortages that I’ve read this week.

Anyway, my reason for mentioning the shortages is two-fold. First, it’s a very, very significant story that neatly depicts the ongoing power and failure of China’s central economic planners. I’ve taken some heat, recently, for having the nerve to suggest that China – in many ways – is becoming less market oriented. This story is a good rebuttal to those rebukes: if not for price-controls, there would be no fuel shortages or rationing in Shanghai at the moment (because refiners would actually be allowed to refine US$100/barrel crude at a profit). Of course, there might be other problems, including price riots. But riots, too, would highlight the absurdity of Beijing’s ongoing ham-handed attempts to control vulnerable parts of the Chinese economy. (more…)

During my most recent trip back to the US, the China question that I received more than any other was something along the lines of: “Just how big are the Olympics back in China?” There are plenty of ways to answer this (“really big” is probably the best), and I tried many of them, but as of today, my new answer will be this: “When the Olympic flame was lit in Greece, a ‘mere’ one-hundred-and-thirty-seven days before the Opening Ceremonies in Beijing, it received wall-to-wall, live coverage on no less than six state-owned Chinese television stations, during prime time.”

At the moment it’s 6:00 PM, I’m in a Beijing hotel room, and – wait – now it’s seven stations, watching this spectacle [in addition to the expected coverage on the news vacuums that are CNN and BBC], and I have to admit – having never seen one of these before – it’s the closest thing to Clash of the Titans as I’ve ever found outside of a second-run movie theater or the late show. This kneeling before the high priestess stuff is the very definition of camp (for Susan Songtag’s definition, click here).

Anyway, if there was any question about how seriously China (its government, television stations, and – in my opinion – most of its people) would take a disruption to the Olympic torch relay – especially in Tibet – let today’s coverage offer a partial answer.

[UPATE 3/25: Well, well. I wake this morning to reports that three protesters evaded 1000+ police and stormed the ceremony during BOCOG chief Liu Qi's speech. No sign of that on Chinese television. Then again, in fairness, I was, um, blogging while the ceremony was happening, so it's possible that I missed the key, brief moment in a hail of keystrokes.

On the other hand, I noticed a definite lag between the broadcast as it was shown on CNN and BBC, and the Chinese state-owned stations (I'd be very interested to hear from anyone else in China who watched the broadcast - and possibly saw the protest). Also, I think the television cameras were set up to shoot Liu and other speakers from the left, and from the front - so it's possible that this didn't show up on television at all. Whatever the case, I remember thinking that Liu looked rather sullen at the end of the ceremony, and now I know why.]

[UPDATE II: Chalk this one up to my declining powers of perception. Shanghaiist has posted a video of the protesters storming the ceremony and - though it's quick - I shouldn't have missed it. My only excuse is a possible tape delay. Also, Shanghaiist mentions that CCTV played stock footage of the Olympic site during the incident. I noticed this, actually, and just figured that it was part of some intermission until the actual lighting was to take place. All in all, a nice example of what happens when one relies exclusively on state-owned media, and how you can miss the trees for the forest in the process. I should have checked around before posting.]

This blog is now – officially – obsessed and disturbed with the weird and often humiliating (shades of S&M) tasks that China’s Olympic bureaucrats have reserved for (or used to select) young girls unlucky enough to have volunteered for “hostess” duty in August. Last week, for example, I pointed readers to the bizarre practice of forcing girls in Qingdao to jam sticks between their teeth as a means of practicing their smiles. Then, this morning, while perusing the news section of the official Beijing Olympic site, I came across additional photos from Qingdao, posted under the headline – seriously – “No Pains, No Gains.” [note the photo caption]

The brief accompanying text explains that the girls may look sweet and relaxed, but … “[B]ehind their sweet smiles is rigorous training that even leaves some of them crying.”

How – exactly – this will help with the presentation of sailing medals, is beyond me. For now I’ll just say that I’m trying to find and then interview the individual (or individuals) devising this stuff (including the – ahem – “learning how to kneel” shown at the bottom of this page). Instinct and experience suggest that he’s middle-aged, a smoker, and daughter-less.

It’s hard to claim that the foreign media in China is overlooking important stories when there’s political unrest out West, so I’ll forgo the finger-pointing and merely suggest that – at some later date – it’s worth looking into the momentous importance of two pieces of somewhat related steel-related news from the last week. Both are arcane, I suppose, but they have serious consequences for China-based manufacturers – both Chinese and foreign – who crave the world’s most popular metal.

Event #1. On Wednesday, the National Development and Reform Commission [NDRC] approved Baosteel’s acquisition of Guangdong-based Shaogang Steel and Guangzhou Iron & Steel. For those who don’t follow the industry – Bao is China’s largest steelmaker, very state-owned, and extremely influential in Chinese industrial circles. The two acquired companies are also very large and very state-owned. I’ll discuss the consequences in just a moment.

Event #2. Actually, more a set of events. According to the Wall Street Journal and other outlets, “spot” purchases of iron ore from Australia’s Rio Tinto are being held up at Chinese ports [the China Iron & Steel Association is denying this - unconvincingly]. Briefly – most large steelmakers negotiate annual “bench price” contracts for iron ore, leaving smaller steelmakers to purchase their ore on the more expensive “spot” market. In China, Baosteel is the designated negotiator for China’s state-owned steelmakers. Thus, the net effect of a delay in “spot” shipments will be felt – disproportionately – among China’s smaller steel makers. (more…)

On Thursday, the US State Department’s Bureau of Consular Affairs released a “fact sheet” for US citizens planning to attend the Olympics in August. It includes this helpful (if I may say so myself) nugget sure to thrill the games organizers:

All visitors should be aware that they have no reasonable expectation of privacy in public or private locations. All hotel rooms and offices are considered to be subject to on-site or remote technical monitoring at all times. Hotel rooms, residences and offices may be accessed at any time without the occupant’s consent or knowledge.

Other than that, have a wonderful time.

[UPDATE 3/24: Foreign Ministry spokesman Qin Gang has replied to the consular warning: "Privacy in China is always under protection according to the law, and there's no need for foreign visitors to worry about that." Thank goodness.]

Yesterday, I heard from a friend that gas stations just outside of Shanghai were rationing diesel, again. I haven’t been out there to see for myself, but I have no reason to disbelieve this person (looks like Reuters has picked up on the story, tool). This is nothing new, either: price-induced fuel rationing has been a fairly regular occurrence in China for the last couple of years.

[UPDATE 3/21: I was in Shanghai's Putuo District this evening, and while riding in a taxi on a main thoroughfare I saw long lines at several Sinopec and PetroChina stations. I didn't stop to ask, but I think that it's a pretty safe assumption that those lines are the result of the fuel rationing reported elsewhere in China (and the suburbs of Shanghai) over the last few days. "Fuel rationing in Shanghai" ... is anybody reporting this? Seems like a significant story - to me, at least.]

And nobody knows this better than the good folks at PetroChina, which – today – disappointed investors by announcing that 2007 earnings growth was an anemic 2.39%. Truly, this is no small trick: the price of oil rose 9% over the same period, and though it’s unreasonable to expect oil companies to pace the price of their primary commodity, one would expect the world’s “first trillion dollar company” [chuckles from the gallery] to pace the 4% earnings growth of Exxon Mobil, the world’s most profitable oil company.

Of course, the world’s most profitable oil company isn’t allowed – or required – to sell in China, where strictly enforced price controls basically guarantee that – in a time of rising crude prices – refineries lose money on every barrel processed and sold to fuel stations. It works (or doesn’t work) like this: PetroChina claims that its break-even point on refined crude is US$67/barrel, leaving it two choices – either lose US$40/barrel (at current prices) on refined crude, or simply shut down the refineries until prices fall and/or Beijing loosens or eliminates price controls. Reasonably, many refineries have taken the latter approach, resulting in the periodic rationing reported outside of Shanghai and elsewhere in China. (more…)

Regular readers of this blog might recall the revelation – made in late February – that bureaucrats in Shanghai’s Putuo District had drawn up strict, confidential guidelines (later denied, unsuccessfully) requiring that strict ratios (Golden Ratios, actually) between, say, the length of the nose and the width of the mouth, be applied during the rigorous selection process for the city’s forty-some Olympic hostesses. Then, as now, I view the whole debacle as an interesting indicator of the perfectionist pressures that Chinese civil servants at all levels feel as the Olympic approach, and the absurd – occasionally offensive – lengths to which they will go to meet them.

Which brings us to Qingdao, and training sessions for that fair city’s contingent of female, teenage Olympic volunteers. No word yet on whether the famed Golden Ratio was applied to their selection, too. But fear not: Qingdao’s Olympic bureaucrats have weird fetishes of their own. Specifically: “Big smiles with six to eight teeth showing and 45 degree handshakes.” Just how serious is Qingdao about achieving these results? Enough to jam sticks between the teeth of the teenagers until they get the damned smile right, that’s how serious:

And just in case you forgot who’s responsible for this stunt, let Xinhua remind you:

The lovely volunteers’ difficult training is taking place in Qingdao, the eastern Chinese host city for the sailing events.