I’ve been busy with a number of projects over the last two weeks, but perhaps none hits closer to home – quite literally – than my coverage of Minnesota Governor Tim Pawlenty’s current (for 36 more hours) trade mission to China (continuing onto Japan). I usually don’t post links to my Minnesota-oriented China coverage, but…
All posts in Business and Trade
How to commit fraud, save money, and benefit the environment – all at once (in Shanghai).
[With a special end note for my friends and colleagues in the foreign media and environmental activist community.] China is the world’s second largest market for PCs and other electronic devices. This is a good thing if you’re a manufacturer, but – potentially – a very, very bad thing if you’re an environmentalist concerned about…
The Fruits of Recycling: Cancerous Take-out Containers.
Late last week the China Daily and other news outlets reported on a recently released study by the Hong Kong-based International Food Packaging Association (IFPA) showing that roughly half of the disposable dishware (think: plastic and paper take-out boxes) is substandard, and often can be found “with excessive amounts of chemicals that can cause cancer.”…
More on Apple and manufacturing in China.
Last week I posted on the bizarre spectacle of Apple’s fanboys rallying to the defense of their favorite computer company on the occasion of a negative Daily Telegraph story on Apple’s safety, environmental, and labor record in China. To my surprise, the post generated a significant amount of traffic and – best of all –…
Why are the fanboys rushing to defend Apple’s child labor record?
[UPDATE: Outside of the Chinese media and the Daily Telegraph, it seems like nobody is particularly interested in covering Apple’s child labor record. TechNewsWorld takes a hard look at why, and comes down hard on a compliant, Apple-infatuated media.] Spend any time reading online technology reviews and you’ve inevitably come across the Apple Fanboys –…
Google’s Cowardice [UPDATED, with response to reader comments]
[UPDATED – I’ve added a response to reader comments to the end of the this post. Scroll down to find it.] Eighteen months ago I received an email from an acquaintance who happens to work with a large NGO in China. It included an attachment, and since I was familiar with the person who sent…
One from the vault: China’s Patriotic Hackers
I’m seriously under the weather these last few days and so blogging has come to a bit of a standstill. However, I can’t help but notice that Chinese computer hackers are suddenly back in the news. Yesterday they hacked Iranian sites in retaliation for an Iranian hack on the baidu search engine; and then, today,…
It had to go somewhere: (some) Chinese E-waste flowing into North Korea.
As I’ve argued elsewhere on this blog, climate change – despite its popularity as an environmental cause in the developed world – really doesn’t have much of a constituency in China. And among the most important reasons for that lack of popular interest is the persistence of far more immediate, and toxic, environmental issues. Of…
China’s Migrant Laborers Enjoy the Downturn, take a Year in the Countryside
I spent the first half of November on assignment in Guangdong Province, and though I can’t say too much about what I was up to down there, I did come across some interesting labor-related items unrelated to my assignment. So. In the space of two weeks I managed to visit 11 factories tightly connected to…
Dept of Having-Seen-It-All-Now: Chinese Safety Reduction Devices
The other afternoon I was riding in the back seat of a late model SUV owned by a successful businessman based in Guangdong. He’s a busy guy, with a high risk tolerance, so it really shouldn’t have come as much of a surprise that he doesn’t have much patience for seat belts, much less, the…