tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-70288317702151493412012-02-17T00:41:28.152+08:00An On-Line Journal from Beijing on China-related economics, education, current affairs, business, photography, and contemporary life in China's capitol . . .Mike Fursthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03231019693870719087noreply@blogger.comBlogger351100tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7028831770215149341.post-84290600082678042592011-12-22T18:35:00.004+08:002011-12-22T18:41:53.260+08:00

I hope all my loyal readers and all my new readers have a wonderful Holiday Season!Upcoming stories include an outline of China's plan to require foreign workers to contribute to Chinese pension schemes while, at the same time, making sure that virtually no foreigners can either gain eligibility or actually collect Chinese pensions. More Contradictions Among the Masses (masses of rules & regs,

Mike Fursthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03231019693870719087noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7028831770215149341.post-17317557777362326542011-12-08T17:19:00.003+08:002011-12-10T13:58:05.735+08:00

In a news story published November 22, 2011, by Xinhua, China’s state-owned news service (or, for those who prefer their labels in English, the New China News Agency), China’s President, Hu Jintao called on China’s writers and artists to redouble their efforts to produce great works. Nothing wrong with that; great art and great literature are both to be welcomed. As Xinhua wrote: “Great times

Mike Fursthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03231019693870719087noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7028831770215149341.post-32020603063244817542011-11-30T15:09:00.004+08:002011-11-30T15:38:18.333+08:00

I climbed out of my figurative Hermit’s Cave today and attended an American Chamber of Commerce in China meeting on “US China Relations: The View from Washington”. The speakers were Michael E. Brown, Dean of the Elliott School of International Affairs and Professor of Political Science and International Affairs; and Doug Guthrie, Dean of the School of Business and Professor of Management and

Mike Fursthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03231019693870719087noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7028831770215149341.post-57108090856007190442011-11-19T00:54:00.006+08:002011-11-19T09:24:05.827+08:00

In 1998, when I ran the American Chamber of Commerce in China (no relation to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce in Washington), we had a dinner that had about ten or twelve speakers, a mix of Senators, Congressmen, and Cabinet Secretaries. Sen. Jay Rockefeller, one of the last to speak that night, started his remarks by quoting “Tip” O’Neill, the Speaker of the House from 1977-87. He said, “ It has

Mike Fursthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03231019693870719087noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7028831770215149341.post-51669398002330602942011-10-19T14:06:00.002+08:002011-10-20T15:09:11.996+08:00

Road rage is all the rage in China these days. Of course, this is not a phenomena that is limited to China; virtually anywhere there are cars and traffic, road rage pops up. In China, it comes with rather quirky trappings. The press, not just in China, was peppered in mid-September with stories about Li Tianyi, 15, the son of the acclaimed singer Li Shuangjiang, who accosted a couple in

Mike Fursthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03231019693870719087noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7028831770215149341.post-69756019149598880342011-09-20T17:44:00.002+08:002011-09-20T19:32:43.024+08:00

Ambassador Gary Locke, America’s first Chinese-American Governor and America’s Tenth Ambassador to China (and only Chinese-American to hold the post) was the guest of honor at a lunch today, hosted by the American Chamber of Commerce in China and the US-China Business Council. He’s had an interesting and rather unusual time of it so far, in ways that were also, probably, unexpected.

Mike Fursthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03231019693870719087noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7028831770215149341.post-80445703868734242742011-09-19T16:01:00.004+08:002011-09-19T16:16:39.858+08:00

It's Not Fun Being RightI posted this article a while ago; February 1st 2009, to be exact. While I may have missed a few of the details, overall I think I was pretty much spot-on. The social fabric of Europe is getting frayed, as is that of the U.S. (think of the Tea Party movement as a sign of things to come) and, of course, the "Arab Spring" wasn't a phrase that would have meant too much two

Mike Fursthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03231019693870719087noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7028831770215149341.post-9221641287163271602010-04-14T15:19:00.004+08:002010-04-14T15:45:24.903+08:00

As you may have heard by now, there was another big earthquake in China, this time just west of the area hit by the Sichuan Earthquake that did so much damage. This time, it was Qinghai. This story gets posted on this blog for a number of reasons. I've been going to Qinghai regularly as a board member of the Surmang & Amara Foundations. The Surmang Clinic is in Yushu Prefecture, the very area

Mike Fursthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03231019693870719087noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7028831770215149341.post-2591889522767054902010-03-26T08:56:00.006+08:002010-03-26T09:25:59.482+08:00

Ripped off from my FaceBook posting earlier today: Heh, heh! Whether to rise or not to rise, that is the question. Is it better to resist the evil Americans and persist in acting only in China's self-interest or "diaotou" (turn around) and do what is the normal state-of-affairs for global economic leaders? The proof of whether the RMB is or isn't undervalued is twofold: 1) whether

Mike Fursthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03231019693870719087noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7028831770215149341.post-69866119494267515872010-03-08T18:17:00.003+08:002010-03-08T18:26:24.743+08:00

There's an interesting series of short opinion pieces in today's New York Times on why Chinese University grads have such a high level of unemployment (and, one presumes, underemployment). The unfortunate fact is that universities here don't provide the skills to its students that most employers want. The article, Room For Debate: Educated and Fearing the Future in China is here.And here's my

Mike Fursthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03231019693870719087noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7028831770215149341.post-80799735251149282822010-02-23T17:19:00.004+08:002011-09-21T06:56:47.675+08:00

Mike Fursthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03231019693870719087noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7028831770215149341.post-4746540967121723302009-10-16T02:18:00.003+08:002009-10-16T02:33:54.220+08:00

Lafayette, IN -- As most you know by now, the always perspicacious Chinese government has, since last spring, blocked Facebook, Twitter, and a few other sites. Most important -- for this blog, anyway -- is that Blogspot is blocked and that means I can't possibly update this thing. I'm working on a solution and hope to solve the problem without starting a new blog location.So: have patience.

Mike Fursthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03231019693870719087noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7028831770215149341.post-466949044516855112009-02-26T17:31:00.005+08:002009-02-28T16:44:04.140+08:00

While the whole world has been watching the Global Economic Meltdown and the Rise of the Obama-ites with fascination, other stories have been buried in page 38 (or where ever). What you've all missed out here in Asia is the amazing saga of Chen Shuibian. In previous episodes, Chen was elected president of Taiwan (otherwise known as the Republic of China -- a clear case of the tail wagging the

Mike Fursthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03231019693870719087noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7028831770215149341.post-91347340267736901812009-02-17T17:57:00.006+08:002009-02-18T11:26:32.122+08:00

There's been a lot of speculation, in the press & elsewhere, about what the governments of every major country will do to respond to the current global economic crisis. Not only are specifics eagerly sought and eagerly speculated upon, but there is also (it seems to me) a lot of noise under the surface regarding two other aspects of the current situation. The first is about whether governments

Mike Fursthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03231019693870719087noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7028831770215149341.post-72249926971283184272009-02-09T11:31:00.006+08:002009-02-10T11:31:31.388+08:00

You know the image: Nero, the Roman Emperor, who is famously remembered as focusing on his lyre as Rome burned to a crisp. Whether History (at least as we popularly remember it) does him justice, the myth is being re-enacted today in Washington. It all makes it it very difficult for all of us American expats who have so self-righteously preached to the Chinese for years that they should look to

Mike Fursthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03231019693870719087noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7028831770215149341.post-91774992406052510052009-02-04T10:45:00.006+08:002009-02-05T16:04:38.166+08:00

The Chinese Central Government has floated the story, reported widely, that unemployment among China's roving migrant population has reached some twenty million workers. Reuters points out that, with additional workers just coming into the workforce, that will push the total up to about 25 million unemployed out of a total of approximately 130 million migrant workers. I believe that this

Mike Fursthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03231019693870719087noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7028831770215149341.post-22893278787706291322009-02-01T10:41:00.007+08:002009-02-01T20:13:11.704+08:00

As the global economic order collapses, most of the attention has been, for obvious reasons, on economics. After all, this is, first and foremost, an economic problem. We've all, those paying attention, become steeped in the vocabulary of economics and the financial world: credit-default swaps, hedge funds, yield curves, Treasury bond pricing, currency valuation, trade imbalances, savings rates

Mike Fursthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03231019693870719087noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7028831770215149341.post-613215194099566862009-01-26T13:17:00.005+08:002009-01-26T14:46:04.250+08:00

Its a real dilemma. Some of the biggest & best known names in American banking are, well . . . ready for foreclosure. They've failed. You can still call up your broker (assuming he or she is still employed) and buy stock in either Bank of America (where I started my career) or Citigroup, but the obvious question would be, "Why bother?" In the last year, B of A has lost 84.36% of its value and

Mike Fursthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03231019693870719087noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7028831770215149341.post-30589986251437288602009-01-24T11:39:00.011+08:002009-01-25T11:15:46.082+08:00

A story we've been returning to with some regularity, the U.S. Treasury bond market & U.S.-China economic relations, and especially currency valuation, returned to the headlines this week. And, for the first time, it was one of the top headlines both in the U.S. and in China. The proximate cause was Tim Geithner's statement to the Senate Finance Committee that President Obama thinks China has

Mike Fursthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03231019693870719087noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7028831770215149341.post-43556580251846476042009-01-22T09:29:00.011+08:002009-01-23T09:49:12.724+08:00

As the world watched the Obama inauguration with a great sigh of relief, one group of observers, hidden away behind the vermilion walls of Beijing's "Zhongnanhai" seemed a bit nervous. We expect a bit of anxiety from the shrunken and increasingly disdained Republican minority in Congress as well as from those Investment Bankers that are still employed. With the Republicans, the worry is

Mike Fursthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03231019693870719087noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7028831770215149341.post-27629714511898300532009-01-15T10:41:00.011+08:002009-01-16T13:04:51.520+08:00

Widely reported in the western press this week were two seemingly unrelated but actually closely linked stories. The first, which has been building for a while, is the slow financial strangulation of the western (particularly American) print media. This should be a story that is "old hat" to most observers, with the Wall Street Journal now under Rupert Murdoch's awning, Hearst seriously

Mike Fursthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03231019693870719087noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7028831770215149341.post-6807097845589320252009-01-09T14:41:00.015+08:002009-01-10T09:12:27.266+08:00

There have been a number of intriguing developments in the last week that have potentially big implications for U.S.-China commercial, financial & trade relations.Keen observers of China's banking scene may remember that a number of big western financial institutions, including Bank of America, Citigroup, UBS, Goldman Sachs, American Express and Royal Bank of Scotland have invested in various

Mike Fursthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03231019693870719087noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7028831770215149341.post-85808104264527698212009-01-06T14:33:00.012+08:002009-01-07T12:43:26.769+08:00

As I've mention before, these are interesting times we are living through & there is no end to the fascinating tidbits one can find in the press. One of the more valuable series, presumably ongoing, is the New York Times series titled The Reckoning about the economic tumble of the last year or so. And one of my favorites (and more revealing) in the series was a piece that ran the day after

Mike Fursthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03231019693870719087noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7028831770215149341.post-14498282875187905572009-01-01T13:17:00.014+08:002009-01-04T17:19:18.554+08:00

We live in interesting times, to say the least. During the economic collapse of the last four months, if you're not too squeamish to watch, there have been some fascinating things going on. First of all, as virtually everyone with a brain can see, the stock markets in the U.S. have dropped, losing close to a third of their value. I'm not going to rehash all the details on that; you can read all

Mike Fursthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03231019693870719087noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7028831770215149341.post-44007974526564900872008-12-31T10:49:00.004+08:002009-01-02T09:40:33.177+08:00

Watch for these upcoming stories in Beijing Eye:Why the Chinese savings rate is so high & why the U.S. (and China itself) probably can't do anything about it.Education in China: What's right, what's wrong & what needs to change.

Mike Fursthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03231019693870719087noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7028831770215149341.post-21168244169082702112008-12-26T13:46:00.007+08:002008-12-26T17:29:42.382+08:00

From The Archives:A Day in BeijingWe were walking in the center of Beijing, along the northern end of Tiananmen Square. My son Josh's first time to Beijing, my third or fourth visit. He was visiting from New York and I was living in Hong Kong. We were in Beijing for a January week, being tourists, visiting friends.We walked along the sidewalk between the square and the front gate of the Gu

Mike Fursthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03231019693870719087noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7028831770215149341.post-72194454075565188302008-12-24T17:38:00.007+08:002008-12-28T09:28:24.729+08:00

I happened on this column by Thomas Friedman in the New York Times, titled "Time to Reboot America". I was struck by a number of things. First of all, Friedman's point, that the U.S. is essentially in the same shape as GM and that the country needs a fresh start and, furthermore , that the next 3 months or so present an historic opportunity, albeit an expensive one, to start anew, is spot on.This

Mike Fursthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03231019693870719087noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7028831770215149341.post-70694075562541094792008-12-24T12:23:00.005+08:002008-12-24T15:06:18.610+08:00

Seasons' Greetings To Everyone!

Mike Fursthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03231019693870719087noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7028831770215149341.post-16598488611397916532008-12-22T12:05:00.005+08:002008-12-25T21:27:35.345+08:00

I had an interesting talk this morning with a friend from southern China. Altho he owns a factory, he has lots of ties to the migrant workers themselves. Of course, in his case, what you may think of as a factory may not match the reality. He runs his Guangdong province factory in about 300 sq. meters ( about 3230 sq. feet), with 5 workers, one supervisor - a brother - and a bunch of knitting

Mike Fursthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03231019693870719087noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7028831770215149341.post-11531564944350976772008-12-22T11:58:00.002+08:002008-12-22T12:01:38.176+08:00

UPDATE: In a spirit of fairness to all (especially those guys & gals sitting in little rooms staring at screens, trying to ferret out all the dangerous info on the net), the New York Times is unblocked, as of this cold Monday morning in Beijing. Good thing! We were all getting tired of proxy servers and their pop-up ads!

Mike Fursthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03231019693870719087noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7028831770215149341.post-70385371091442445202008-12-20T20:33:00.005+08:002008-12-21T12:58:46.261+08:00

Its all over the news in the outside world, even on the Times own website, but you can't read all about it here in Beijing. Altho accessible early on Friday morning, the New York Times' website soon blanked out. Concerned expats who check in on the website regularly were soon checking in with each other to find out whether they were the only ones with access problems but soon found that they

Mike Fursthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03231019693870719087noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7028831770215149341.post-6529304407398651882008-12-18T15:36:00.004+08:002008-12-22T16:29:19.036+08:00

A few years ago, you may remember, dogs around China were in jeopardy for being, well . . . dogs. If you don't remember all of this, here's a link.We're getting reports that, at least in Beijing, the police (or, in this case, what we might call "the Dog Nazis") are at it again. Beijing's "finest" (that's the guys in the dark blue uniforms with the shiny badges & the walkie-talkies) are entering

Mike Fursthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03231019693870719087noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7028831770215149341.post-23330601294008649662008-12-15T17:44:00.000+08:002008-12-16T17:34:38.746+08:00

These are four models showing acupunture spots. I saw them in the panjiayuan market in Beijing a few weeks ago. A favorite haunt for savvy tourists, local expats & Chinese alike, the market opened a few years ago at its present location. Prior to its move, it was known as the "Ghost Market" or the "Dirt Market" because it regularly disappeared. Operating only on Saturday & Sunday mornings, it

Mike Fursthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03231019693870719087noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7028831770215149341.post-75678389466893958662008-12-15T17:31:00.000+08:002008-12-16T17:36:50.804+08:00

Listening to people talk about today's economic debacle is very interesting. The Pragmatists seem to be saying, "To hell with Theory; let's do what it takes to save ourselves!" (meaning, jobs, investors, Wall Street, Main Street, bondholders, politicians . . . Whatever section they may be sitting in). At least they're not just thinking of themselves.Then there are the Moralists who want to stay

Mike Fursthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03231019693870719087noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7028831770215149341.post-92208352642456987052008-12-15T17:20:00.003+08:002008-12-28T11:38:53.454+08:00

Altho it doesn't explicitly say so, what we're actually talking about in this article is the limits of econometrics. The idea that economic behavior can be predicted with precision and accuracy using mathematic models. In fact, altho a clearly useful tool, uncertainty can and will raise its unpredictable head. The arrogance of delusion is, all too frequently, ready to assume a leadership position

Mike Fursthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03231019693870719087noreply@blogger.com1