Who ‘Owns’ America- China Fact

Foreigner owners of US debt are many. Interestingly enough, the two largest holders of our debt are in Asia. China owns around 20.4% of our debt and Japan comes in a close second with 20.2%.

The Death of a Luxury Car in China

China’s Geely bought out Volvo, essentially killing one of the best made cars in the world-imho. As the excerpt below shows, the new Chinese owned/destroyed Volvo will open a plant in China. Before you get on your liberal soap boxes, think of the import of my words. I am not saying that good things cannot be made in China, there are many good things that are assembled here, as most international companies will attest to. The problem is that those companies that manage to produce quality goods are companies that understand quality and standards and do not come from a country with 1.34 billion people. Of course China has been buying companies in order to enter foreign markets, but in a country where 70% of the people don’t trust milk striaght from the teat of a cow, I just wonder how they are going to have success in all things ‘high tech’. excerpt from here: “Volvo Cars Corp, the Swedish automaker acquired by Zhejiang Geely Holding Group Co last year, announced on Feb 25 that it will build its first Chinese plant in the western city of Chengdu and aims to sell 200,000 cars in 2015. “China is the key to the successful future of Volvo”, said Volvo CEO Stefan Jacoby at a news conference in Beijing, when the company released its China business strategy. Volvo’s blueprint envisions a 20 percent market share in China’s luxury car segment in 2015 as the company increases its sales six-fold from just 30,000 cars in 2010.

Overseas Chinese

From Stanley Lubman “Overseas Chinese may fit the perceived need of the foreign investor, but their backgrounds, connections with present-day China and attitudes toward the ancestral motherland are complex. Overseas Chinese, especially from Southeast Asia, often have very strong traditional attachments to family, to their ancestral home in China, and to Chinese ethnicity generally. Moreover, by virtue of their ethnicity, PRC counterparts may press overseas Chinese to do business or advise their Western partners in a manner that benefits the motherland. Some, like the aforementioned Hong Kong investor, may be inclined to stress the importance of their personal relationships with key officials at the expense of sound business considerations. Also, some may focus more heavily than foreign companies on short-term gains. Foreign-educated Chinese present complicated choices to foreigners who need counsel on doing business in China. Chinese of Hong Kong origin educated at American colleges and graduate schools with years of experience working on Wall Street may be quite impressive, but some may be regarded in China as outsiders due to the regional differences in custom as well as language. The numbers of PRC Chinese with education and work experience in the United States, and who can provide useful assistance, have been increasing steadily;”

2 2 Relaxing – Year of the Rabbit

China’a Communists and the Courts

Excerpt from here: “Legal experts say that even though Communist Party leaders down the line have ultimate control over the police, the prosecutors and the courts, they face mounting internal pressure and incentives to quash threats to stability at the grass-roots level, often making it more expedient to circumvent the legal system with highly intrusive surveillance or temporary disappearances.”

What’s Up in Beijing- Protests

from here BEIJING–Let us be clear from the start: this is not a blog post about a would-be revolution. It’s about the demonstration of state power in a police state. Today was the second Sunday in a row of an unspecified number of mass gatherings anonymously called across the country to protest against the Chinese government and some of its policies. At two p.m. local time, ordinary people were urged “to take an afternoon stroll” to show solidarity. “As long as you are present, the authoritarian government will be shaking with fear,” says the call for “Jasmine Rallies” circulating online. In Beijing, the location was a McDonalds in the busy shopping district of Wangfujing. But just hours before the scheduled hour, rumours surfaced that the designation had been changed to a KFC a few storefronts north of the McDonalds.

China Goes Barbaric- China Punishing the Family- A La The Cultural Revolution

While most countries are attempting to progress in terms of human rights, China seems to be reverting to her old ways. In the following excerpt, it is suggested that China is actually punishing not just the transgressor but the entire family… excerpt from here: “Officials are also increasing their use of collective family punishment, legal experts say, a practice rooted in imperial China that destroyed countless families during the Cultural Revolution. The relatives of dissidents are periodically kept under house arrest, as in the case of Zeng Jinyan, the wife of the imprisoned rights activist Hu Jia, or they are subjected to travel bans. url….http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/19/world/asia/19china.html?_r=1&ref=global-home

Chinese Say China’s Milk Powder Suck!

Plagued by on-going toxic milk scandals, a recent poll in China shows that 70% of the people don;t trust milk powder made in China and buy overseas brands…. [delay +4 hours}

China Living

Street Cut- Beijing’s Street Barber

This is Dawanglu and the sign you see is for some guy who cuts hair directly under the overpass. The price is about seventy cents per cut and the guy alwyas has customers. To me, however, it seems as if everyone who leaves has basically the same ‘bowl cut’ type of ‘do.