The Journey of a Thousand Miles (or The Long March)

September 18, 2009 5:55 AM

Doing Business in China - "the first step toward sanity in dealing with 'China' is to recognize that there are dozens, hundreds, perhaps tens of thousands of separate realities all lumped together under that one label."

BONUS
-Outplaying your partner: Poorly Made in China by Paul Midler
-Excerpts from Zhao Ziyang's 'Prisoner of the State'
-Peking Over Our Shoulder: Our Chinese shareholders get nosy.
-The Ongoing Chinese Annexation Of The US Consumer: The irony is that the US consumer is now essentially a vassal state of China's production complex, and all the unbalanced trade and credit flows do, is provide the funding to stimulate the US consumer to purchase even more Chinese products.
-The China Consumption Gap: China must essentially retool its growth strategy from an investment-led one, with commensurate changes in policies and incentives -- from education, to health care, to pensions, etc. -- across the board.
-Politics Permeates Anti-Corruption Drive in China: Some critics wondered if Beijing's crackdown on executives was really an excuse by the Communist Party to eliminate rivals and their corporate supporters.
-"If you thought the Olympic opening ceremony was impressive, just wait for the parades and public ceremonies in Beijing on October 1, celebrating the 60th anniversary of the founding of the People's Republic of China."

posted by kliuless (7 comments total)

That guy didn't go very far into Lijiang's old city, I can tell you that much. If you get off the main drag there, you are immediately back into the quaint, quiet streets. As the droves of Chinese tourists tend to stick together, they do not tend to venture beyond the main drags.

Also Lijiang is far from a "tiny working village" unless by that he means "industrial city of over a million people." The center of Lijiang was partially preserved despite the industrial growth of the city. Recognising the value of preservation (a rarity in China I can assure you) the "old" part of town was enlarged and pedestrianized to become a sort of historical tourist center (think ancient Chinese minority Willamsburg). The new city continues to grow and chug along in concrete bliss as all Chinese cities, while the old town is (largely) a quiet oasis of canals and bohemian tea houses once you leave the area immediately adjacent to the bus parking lot, which the author apparently did not bother to do.
posted by Pollomacho at 6:16 AM on September 18, 2009

It's said that after spending a week in China, you can write a whole book about the country. . . And after a year, you can't write anything, because you discover how little you actually know.

Timely post for me, kliuless. I'm on week 3 of an 8 week gig in Huairou, Beijing- my first time in China. The more I learn the more I realize how ignorant I am. This is an excellent set of reading material for my mindset right now.
posted by alight at 8:34 AM on September 18, 2009

From one of the articles discussing "Poorly Made in China":

Paul Midler, a self-styled version of Raymond Chandler's detective Philip Marlowe investigating on behalf of importers, shows readers the dark side of Chinese manufacturing.

Wait. There's a /light/ side of Chinese manufacturing? Is there anything truly /good/ about flooding global markets with cheap cruft that has a half-life of about 2 weeks before it ends up in a landfill?

I mean, cheap cruft is cheap cruft, whatever "special economic zone" it happens to hail from, but has anyone ever seriously considered that this stuff has any value to global markets, other than stupid profits for the manufacturers and logistics companies (at untold, and conveniently uncounted, costs to the rest of us)?

I'm just asking here. Well, more like typing it on my crufty Chinese-made keyboard.
posted by clvrmnky at 10:12 AM on September 18, 2009

The center of Lijiang was partially preserved despite the industrial growth of the city.
Also misses the fact there was a fuck-off great earthquake in 1996, which perhaps explains some of the reconstruction (I visited shortly before). Top journalism!
posted by Abiezer at 10:18 AM on September 18, 2009

separate realities people! :P

is an iPhone cheap cruft? i'm just asking here. as for SEZs...

but yea, um, whereas naked imperial conquest and colonial oppression may have been replaced by the gears of capitalism and the machinery of markets, the whole apparatus must still be well oiled by (various gradations of) exploitation lest its engines seize up and rust apart...

and when the oil runs out (literally) and there are no resources/commons/people left to exploit (surplus labor drawn from the countryside), supposedly, that's when we'll transition to socialism. that or anarchy, or state repression/facism, depending on your view of the human condition i guess.

i dunno, i just feel there's a frustrating lack of foresight to think thru what amounts to collective action problems -- maybe there aren't enough incentives to take the long view or broaden perspectives and it does take crises (or charismatic leaders) to convince people to change -- and wish it were otherwise.

btw, the national day parade should be pretty awesome (full-scale nationalist propaganda), alight. fwiw, here's some pix of people milling about from 2005.
posted by kliuless at 6:33 AM on September 19, 2009

Harmonic convergence dept: frogs, China Daily, etc
posted by homunculus at 8:47 AM on September 20, 2009

"If you thought the Olympic opening ceremony was impressive, just wait for the parades and public ceremonies in Beijing on October 1, celebrating the 60th anniversary of the founding of the People's Republic of China."

China has banned foreign tourists from traveling to Tibet ahead of a parade in the capital to mark 60 years of Communist rule, an official said Tuesday, amid stepped-up security across the country to ensure nothing mars the celebrations.
posted by homunculus at 12:15 PM on September 22, 2009