Posts Tagged China
The Shawshank Redemption
By Fernando Mexia - Columnists , Economy , Juan Palop - 25/01/2010
Juan Palop, continues its Asian blog here
The world rejoiced in the new year applauded the entry into force of the Free Trade Agreement (FTA) between China and the ten countries of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN). The media repeated elated that it was the biggest deal for liberalizing the third in population and trade volume.
But I feel that some of the signatory countries have little to cheer about. Especially the emerging economies of Southeast Asia with a large manufacturing sector but occupationally productively weak, like Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos, Philippines and Indonesia. They are painfully aware that they can not compete with Chinese exports. Complaints have already started to occur. Jakarta, which has gone furthest, announced that he was seeking an extension of one year, but then backed down. During the truce, almost impossible to get it, wished to renegotiate the tariffs of more than 450 products and help local industry to adapt. Read the rest of this entry »
Chronicle of a day "freak"
By Fernando Mexia - Videos , society - 16/10/2009
Fernando Mexia, the pen.
Today I saw vomit on live television shortly before discovering that someone had invented a ridiculous dance to motivate people to wash their hands. Just the same day I learned that in China selling fake iPhones are laughable and I reported on a gruesome confusion, or do you call if not to take for Halloween decorating the body of a neighbor.
Of course, how I would dismiss the normal work week after covering Latin MTV Awards the night before and having to listen open-mouthed expletives that released the unpresentable presenter. Far from scolding, the guy went home with a prize and all. A story of today is well worth a chronic, albeit freak. Read the rest of this entry »
East Timor, between hell and heaven
By Fernando Mexia - Columnists , Juan Palop , featured - 31/08/2009
Juan Palop, continues its Asian blog here
East Timor, bittersweet birthday
The streets of Dili, East Timor's capital, usually sleepy, enjoy these days of a peculiar ferment. The country's youngest and poorest in Asia commemorated at this time, swelling with pride, despite the difficulties, the tenth anniversary of its national conception. On August 30, 1999 four of every five residents of this former Portuguese colony voted in favor of independence in a UN-sponsored referendum. Anything they wanted with Indonesia, despite the geographical proximity and broadly-cultural, had invaded and systematically and savagely beaten during a quarter century ending, since the withdrawal in 1974 Lusa.
Now underway in Dili seminars and official events, activists come halfway around the world to support the cause, flower exhibitions here and there ... even a cycling tour is traveling the short Timorese territory to remember their first steps towards the desired freedom. Read the rest of this entry »
Historical silence
By Fernando Mexia - Columnists , Juan Palop , featured , society - 06/06/2009
Juan Palop, continues its Asian blog here
Spring in Beijing
In China these days in silent protest. This June 4, as in the last twenty years, the anniversary of the slaughter of Tiananmen has been shrouded in complete information vacuum. Social networks like Twitter and email servers like Hotmail have been blocked. The signal of the international chains is broken and fear has been responsible for silencing the local media. In the square where shot and killed by tanks crushed some 2,000 students are more police than tourists. No one has dared to place flowers at the foot of the Monument of the People's Heroes, where protesters had gathered strength in the Beijing Spring of 1989, as in Prague in 1968, rose in words demanding freedom, rights and democracy. In this great cemetery without tombstones saw the greatest political humiliation of the Chinese communist regime.
Thus, ignorance of the tragedy in the Asian giant is abysmal. Scary. The vast majority of academics in the country has never seen the well-known photograph of the man who stood up to tanks, icon of the peaceful resistance of people against state violence.
Only in the city of Hong Kong, which by its British colonial past has a large autonomy, allowed the protests . I remember like it was yesterday the vigil in memory of the Tiananmen victims that I lived in the city of skyscrapers. It was a very emotional event. That night of sultry wet, tens of thousands of Chinese candles were concentrated in the largest metropolitan park to prevent the time and the changes worked into oblivion so many deaths.
Because that is what it purports to Beijing. That improving the quality of life of hundreds of millions of citizens, seasoned with a healthy dose of misinformation, anesthetize the political and social demands of new generations. Silence and progress. Because, in fact, one of the few changes that followed the slaughter was the acceleration of economic reforms that have led China to become the giant it is.
Eastern crisis without remedy
By Fernando Mexia - Columnists , Economy , featured , Oscar García Muñoz - 13/04/2009
Oscar García Muñoz, follow it on other blogs here .
Salvation does not come from Asia
It may not salvation arrives in Asia, but it can get patterns than we anticipated remains to be seen. The Spanish economist Pablo Bustelo, a specialist in Asia, has recently published two articles on the parallels of the Japanese crisis with the current crisis and the role it can have China in the world economic recovery. The latter is especially interesting as it dismantles two myths that have been generated on China: China's economy will collapse this year and will drive the global recovery thanks to his speedy recovery.
Since then, no doubt, when Asia's only a matter of time, but has not yet fully come. For now, a Chinese professor says his country will be the big winner in this crisis. The fact that more than half of the world's population is concentrated in the Far East is reason enough to think that fits the population is an important factor in the economies. The problem, says Bustelo, is that the weight of China in world GDP is still small if we compare with the EU, U.S. and Japan and its consumer market is still narrow. If capitalism is one of the foundations on consumption, not China who hold it.
One thing that concerns me in the article Bustelo: no talk of how far China could reach the huge dollar reserves and the management of U.S. debt. It may not have wanted to create more fear. Regarding the article on Japan, the emphasis becomes on the banking system. The action of the G-20 posed reforms in financial systems, but like all political statements are too vague. In any case, you start to bet more and more over a long period of stagnation due to the excess (that "irrational exuberance" was talking about former Federal Reserve chairman, Alan Greenspan, before today revered and ousted) of a golden period of the economy. Will the decade 1995-2005 the historical equivalent to the twenties? What does seem clear is that Asia will not be the engine of recovery, but will eventually be the ultimate beneficiary.
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Tension in Tibet 50 years ago
By Fernando Mexia - Columnists , Juan Palop , society - 05/03/2009
Juan Palop, continues its Asian blog here
March, when fucking in Beijing
March promises to be a complicated month for Beijing. Within days, coinciding with the grand celebration of the National People's Congress, on the Tibetan plateau will begin the celebration of fifty years of Chinese repression. In March 1959, the People's Liberation Army entered Lhasa blood and fire and smothered a powerful popular revolt. In the slaughter killed 90,000 people and hope that the ancient kingdom of the Himalayas could be regulated with some autonomy within the Republic, as agreed eight years ago. Tenzin Gyatso, the current Dalai Lama went into exile never to return.
The echoes of that brutal repression still present. Last year, seeing the world had its eyes on the China Olympics, the embers of the rebellion rekindled again. The result: over a hundred dead (twenty, according to Beijing), thousands of detainees and the confirmation that, despite economic liberalization, the Chinese Communist Party is still installed in the most stale and outdated authoritarianism. The flagrant violations of human rights of those days, from arbitrary detention to the information gap, left evidence in the sewers of power that underpins Beijing just a few months of his coming-out to the international community.
The situation today is even more tense than last year, tells me Aritz Parra, a Spanish journalist who has spent more than three years working in China and has recently traveled through the area. Protests have already begun to spread, albeit subtle, on the periphery of the Tibetan Plateau and the controls have been increased considerably in anticipation of unrest. The situation could degenerate into violence at any time.
It seems that Beijing is scared. Is aware that his power is based solely on force and that its dual strategy of economic improvement, the injection of billions of yuan and the construction of modern infrastructure, and the dissolution of the cultural-immigration Chinese encouraged to race to the region have failed. The Tibetans, one of the most spiritual people I've seen, not at all tempted by the Chinese pragmatism. The desire for self-government, even under the designs of a religious leader of feudal dyes, are still there, intact, as half a century ago. And with them those of many other ethnic minorities in China.
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Fait accompli
By Fernando Mexia - Politics , Society - 13/01/2009
We are consumers of facts. Victims of the doctrine of the nerve, which follows the mob spirit of "shoot first ask questions later." DNA is part of our citizens. The shameless abuse has become a small price to pay for peaceful coexistence. A silent pact in which the meek and civil claims get nowhere as long as the perpetrators of evil are rubbing their hands out satisfied with it, or put an innocent face and fuss when they are hunted.
One gets the feeling that being a good citizen does not pay much of the time.
At the end of life are three options: take the knife between his teeth one day every other well, live resigned to turning the other cheek, or play the game and spend suicio from victim to executioner. The first, the figure of righteous social guarantees absolute misery under a permanent regime of anger, the second offers the tranquility of the sheep in his flock refuge and consolation of knowing that most of us are victims at some point, the third is a double-edged sword that can generate short-term satisfaction, but usually accompanied by a good portion of remorse that sooner or later tend to take effect. To be a scoundrel must have stomach, and not everyone has it.
These roles are easily imaginable in any supermarket queue. Some people go ahead of the pack, armed with decision, with head high, conveying an aura of reason and willing to avoid the tedious wait. If nobody says anything, mission accomplished. A classic in it a fait accompli. Usually, many who are keeping the order look away to avoid the violent situation in silence and wonder if that person was before, if the dependent family or if it was his right because "as no one says anything." If any of these are usually incites do solo, shy with some support from the rest who think that this is not their war, and usually conclude with the recoiling cheek, if not to the point that would correspond. In short: which is usually take advantage of others to cash in and improve their situation.
If we translate the small altercations daily on a global scale, although the players change, the roles are maintained and the results too.
A variable increases, the strategy of fait accompli is often linked to those with more power, those who put the laws so that they comply with others.
A textbook example is the Russian plan to invade Georgia or close the gas tap to Ukraine, leaving half frozen Europe. With apologies somewhat cryptic, the government rocked by Putin made good the "shoot first and ask questions later." He did not like what happened in the former Soviet republic and came with tanks while the international community looked the other way or had a complaint with the book claims the United Nations. That is, as they say in my land, how to claim the "gunsmith". Nothing at all. Now Europeans decided to cool tempers as a starting point to negotiate an agreement on gas prices. A smart move to get away with its objective, but outside any rules of good neighborly. Again, won the accomplished facts.
Along the same lines serving Israel, ready to reclaim Palestinian blood to recover from terrorist attacks by Hamas. Not solve the problem in the Middle East, but at least calm your craving for revenge. It is absurd to expect international retaliation. The Israeli attack will end when they see fit. Then will come the peace agreements, which will break again when purchased. By the same token, I can think of that would force Palestinians to organize and cross all the same day at the same time ISRALIES borders. A Green March Moroccan style in Western Sahara transported to the Gaza Strip. Not enough to stop bullets like display progress. Nor would end the conflict, but annoy.
Another expert is fait accompli that U.S. attacked Iraq for its own risk and that opened the Guantanamo prison to avoid its own legal system, to name a few. The nuclear policies of Iran and North Korea follow the same principle: "I do and then we'll see." The list of these players is endless.
In all cases, these countries would act with the profile of the abuser, the doctrine applies to fait accompli. An alternative role to that of looking the other way when interested. The role of protest that is often placed on small and weak nations, who still believe that the UN is an organization that deserves trust, and also the European Union.
The Community institution papelos buried lives, ministerial meetings, bilateral meetings, summits and recumbres, often stormy, which serve to increase the bureaucracy, make a couple of photos, talk about human rights, pat on the back and projecting forward to the goodness of international actors. It is not naive, but a lack of internal arrangements to have a common vision that enables them to become abusers, as the rest.
The EU has rarely been effective in apaclar the souls of the miscreants, who, like in line at the supermarket, often stand to gain something even when it seems lost. Remorse absent.
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By N2H