New ideas in old suits


KITTY POON

Oct 22, 2007           
     
  |   

  



Reading the minds of Beijing leaders is always a daunting task. Non-Chinese speakers often find themselves lost in a tangle of communist jargon. Native Chinese may also fail to grasp the underlying message even though they know what each word means. Even before his keynote speech to the 17th congress of the Communist Party last week, the party's general secretary and national president, Hu Jintao , was getting a mixed build-up.

The Economist magazine, for example, predicted he would offer little in the way of new ideas, and challenged the party to open itself for a genuine clash of ideas. But that prediction was only partially successful, the observations incomplete.

Although Mr Hu's speech may have seemed conventional, he nonetheless gave the first comprehensive articulation of his "scientific development perspective" theory, which he called a continuation of Marxism and Leninism, of Mao Zedong thought, Deng Xiaoping theories and the "three represents" theory coined by his predecessor, Jiang Zemin . It was also an important extension of old thinking to suit a new era.

After the speech, mainland analysts suggested it implied a policy shift from his previous administration, and a subtle criticism of the relentless pursuit of growth in the Jiang era. If a "scientific" approach is called for, then that itself is a disapproval of the "unscientific" - or unsustainable and single-minded - approach adopted by former leaders.

Both the magazine's view and that of the mainland analysts have some validity. Mr Hu's speech hinted at a subtle change in how he would manage China's steaming powerhouse of economic growth, but dressed it in old ideological suits. If that sounds peculiar, his comments have to be understood in the context of a dispute raging outside and inside the Communist Party over the pace of economic development. For five years, a war of words has pitted sociologists and culturists, on the one hand, against economists on the other. The former, labelled the "new left", call attention to the huge social cost of marketisation and the state's dwindling powers. Their opponents, simply called "the right", advocate continued liberalisation.

The war among scholars spread into the party, and an intra-party fight intensified this year. This time, the intellectual divide was further complicated by ideologies. The "new left" cadres, backing a reformist agenda, armed themselves with the scientific development perspective theory. They called for democracy within the party to remedy its flaws.

As if all this weren't confusing enough, their rivals call themselves "stern reformers", and uphold the principle of social democracy. Both sides claim to be the legitimate heirs of Marxism and Mao thought.

The quarrel has intensified, splitting the intellectual community and undermining the party's unity. Beneath the battles of words are seething conflicts of interests and power struggles. Mr Hu's keynote speech thus became a test, and both sides watched to see where his loyalty lay.

It thus appeared to be a carefully orchestrated move when he called the scientific development perspective a new development of old ideologies. By paying tribute to the old ideologues, Mr Hu shored up his own legitimacy so that he could carry on his own missions.

By confirming his commitment to sustainable development, he sought to walk a fine line between left and right. In the end, he sided with neither while appealing to both.

The lack of sexy phrases and stimulating ideas may have turned many readers away. But the absence of novelty serves a purpose in the context of contemporary mainland politics. In a society so divided, new ideas work better if dressed in old suits. Mr Hu has offered a useful example for many leaders, including Hong Kong's chief executive.

Kitty Poon, an assistant professor at the Hong Kong Polytechnic University, is a part-time member of the government's Central Policy Unit

kittypoon@netvigator.com


http://www.scmp.com/portal/site/ ... lumns&s=Opinion

Consensus building the sustainable way to go


LEADER

Oct 23, 2007           
     
  |   

  



President Hu Jintao did not have it all his way at the Communist Party's 17th congress. While he was re-elected general secretary and army chief, his preferred successor was not anointed by fellow senior leaders, and only one of his two guiding principles for the nation's future direction was enshrined in the party's constitution.

Such setbacks are unusual in the party's history. They are evidence of the new era of consensus-building that is gradually being introduced so that a broader array of opinions can be represented.

Since the People's Republic of China was founded 58 years ago, the words and deeds of the paramount leader have largely been unquestionably followed and enacted by the party faithful. Putting so much authority in the hands of a single person has at times been detrimental to the nation.

China's ever-growing global importance and the resulting economic and social implications meant that this could not continue. Authorities have recognised the importance of transparency and the need for significant stakeholders to participate in the nation's evolution to a developed country.

That Mr Hu has not had all he wanted backed by the 2,200 delegates to the congress shows a significant shift that is in the national good. The mechanisms now in place to make the party more transparent in its decision-making are heading in the right direction.

There were 8 per cent more candidates for positions on the party's Central Committee, compared with 5 per cent more in the last congress five years ago. This is the idea of intra-party democracy that was unveiled last week in action: wider choice and greater openness. Party standing committees will be set up at local levels and the heads of each will have to submit regular reports. Committee views and decisions will be forwarded to the top of the party. People at village level will be able to choose their leaders.

From outside the mainland, this may seem an incremental step, but it is a substantial one for a nation where all the power has been vested in the hands of a few. The moves must be broadened within the party and extended through society. A democratic system that begins at the grass-roots level has to eventually replace the present top-down approach to government.

Consensus building

Democracy is about giving the majority a voice, and Mr Hu has learned this to his disadvantage. While his chosen successor, the head of Liaoning province, Li Keqiang , was among the four new faces elected to the Politburo Standing Committee, it is Shanghai party chief Xi Jinping , the choice acceptable to all factions, who seems likely to succeed him in 2012.

There has always been faction fighting within the ruling party, and this has not been constructive for the nation. Turning to consensus-building is an obvious solution. It also offers a mechanism that is a natural bridge to democratic government.

Since being first elected party secretary in 2002, Mr Hu has advocated sustainable development and putting people first. This has translated into the concepts of scientific development and social harmony - the first of which the party congress added to its constitution and the latter which it rejected.

This may seem a defeat for the president, but the idea of a harmonious society manifested itself in the revised objectives that the party has now set for itself. At the party's last congress, it determined that quadrupling gross domestic product by 2020 was desirable. Mr Hu's line that this should be revised to per capita GDP has won party favour - and this is in line with the theory of putting people first.

Broadly, the party has come round to the consensus that while sustained economic growth must remain its priority, the environment and livelihoods of the people must also be protected to ensure social harmony. That the issues were debated rather than rubber-stamped, as they would previously have been, shows the party's new face. The party has said that it does not want western-style democracy. While its moves last week strengthen the grip of one-party rule, that it has planted the seeds of a more open system of decision-making that more people can participate in has to be welcomed.

This has been termed socialist democracy, but whatever the name, it has to be engendered deeper in the party and society. Media freedoms have to be instituted so that the mainland can be governed with transparency and openness.

Sustainable growth

China is the world's most populous country, has its fourth-largest economy and is the second-biggest exporter. Its phenomenal growth must continue to alleviate poverty and move the nation forward.

Under Jiang Zemin's "Theory of the Three Represents", the party began to admit businessmen as members to reflect the emergence of a new capitalist class in a market economy. It must now continue to evolve by embracing Mr Hu's principle of scientific development to achieve sustainable growth.

Political reforms unveiled and made apparent at the 17th congress of the Communist Party seem small, but nonetheless represent evidence of an opening up. As China further integrates with the global economy, there will be pressure for more changes, both within and beyond the party.

The seeds for success have been planted through consensus-building and transparency. They must be nurtured and given every opportunity to flourish into full-fledged democracy.


http://www.scmp.com/portal/site/ ... sight&s=Opinion

The only choice?


FRANK CHING

Oct 24, 2007           
  



President Hu Jintao emerged from the 17th congress in a stronger position than before, with a mandate for another five years as the party's general secretary and head of the military. His main rival for influence, 68-year-old Zeng Qinghong , stepped down, contrary to earlier reports that he would remain on the nine-member Politburo Standing Committee.

Mr Hu not only emerged in a stronger position as party leader. He also laid the groundwork for his own legacy as a theoretician who made major contributions to the party, as did his predecessors Mao Zedong , Deng Xiaoping and Jiang Zemin . His contribution, the "scientific outlook on development", was included in the party constitution. This follows the party's decision in 2002 to incorporate the contribution by Mr Jiang - the "Three Represents" doctrine - in the party charter, and the 1997 inclusion of Deng Xiaoping Theory.

This means Mr Hu is now all but certain to be included in the pantheon of communist leaders, perhaps at the next congress five years from now, when he will have to step down.

Deng's contribution was the concept of building "socialism with Chinese characteristics" - allowing China to depart from orthodox Marxist doctrine by introducing the market economy into socialism. Mr Jiang's three represents theory paved the way for capitalists to join the Communist Party.

Mr Hu's "scientific outlook on development" calls for comprehensive, balanced and sustainable development with a people-centred approach. The charter was also amended to say that the party would foster the development of the private sector, confirming China's move towards a more capitalistic system.

Since Mr Hu has to retire in 2012, attention has focused on the members of the new Standing Committee. Two new members are in their fifties, which means each is young enough to take power five years from now and serve two five-year terms as the undisputed leader.

They are Xi Jinping , 54, the party secretary of Shanghai, and Li Keqiang , 52, the party secretary of Liaoning province . Indications are that Mr Xi has a slight edge over Mr Li. In the official lineup, Mr Xi's name is listed ahead of Mr Li's. In the voting for Central Committee membership, Mr Xi won 2,227 votes to Mr Li's 2,226.

Mr Hu, in a meet-the-press session yesterday immediately after the election of the new Standing Committee, singled out these two for special attention, reminding assembled reporters that the men were only in their fifties. He also pointed out that they, unlike two other additions to the Standing Committee, were not even members of the Politburo that was elected in 2002. They are leaping directly from the Central Committee into the Politburo's Standing Committee.

There were few signs at the congress of any significant move to greater democratisation, though Mr Hu used the word "democracy" more than 60 times in his speech. It was pointed out that about 8 per cent of candidates for membership in the Central Committee were defeated - a wider margin than five years ago, when it was about 5 per cent. But that would not be considered a substantive move towards democracy in any other country.

Almost 60 years after gaining power, the Communist Party still lacks a system for choosing its top leader. Mao's handpicked successor, Hua Guofeng , was pushed aside by Deng, who eventually grew disillusioned with his own chosen successors and moved them aside - only to settle eventually on Mr Jiang. He also chose Mr Hu to succeed Mr Jiang.

In the 21st century, it is not acceptable for one person to decide who the country's leader will be. Now, with two potential successors on the Standing Committee, the stage may be set for a new ball game, one in which five years from now the party has a choice of whom to pick as its leader. If that should be the case, the party will have to put in place an election system to decide how to choose. Such a development would mark progress not only for the Communist Party, but for China as a whole.

Frank Ching is a Hong Kong-based writer and commentator

frank.ching@scmp.com


http://www.scmp.com/portal/site/ ... lumns&s=Opinion

hina's space team need bringing in from the cold
LEADER

Oct 25, 2007        
        Email to friend         |         Print a copy

The launch of the moon-orbiting Chang'e I marks another milestone in China's emergence as a spacefaring nation. Named after the moon goddess, the orbiter will be the first in a series of missions to the moon and beyond. Hopefully, it will mark a new stage in the peaceful exploration of space, instead of being another step in a growing space race among nations.

Chang'e's journey to the moon in coming days will test the ingenuity of mainland scientists to the utmost as it circles the Earth several times to gain momentum before being slung on a precise trajectory towards the moon. This involves elaborate manoeuvres far more complex than anything previously attempted by China. The mastery of the techniques will be crucial to interplanetary space travel beyond the moon. The satellite will spend a year circling the moon to map it and beam back geo-chemical data to Earth.

China's latest success ought to be celebrated. But, as with other economic and technological accomplishments, its space programme has raised suspicion, especially in the United States. The shooting down of an ageing weather satellite by a Chinese missile in January has alarmed the US and some Asian countries. There are concerns that space is being weaponised.

To allay fear and develop trust, nations with space capabilities need to work more closely together. Isolating China will only exaggerate the perceived threats. The launch in Xichang , Sichuan , came hours after the US space shuttle Discovery's liftoff for the International Space Station. Despite the station's name, the US has so far denied China access to it. This is shortsighted, because there is no better way for China to prove its peaceful purpose than admitting it into international joint space projects.

In recent years, the moon has regained the attention of space engineers and scientists worldwide partly because of scientific curiosity but also because of engineering and resource interests. An understanding of the moon's evolution will give answers to important questions about the Earth. The moon is also believed to be full of helium-3, an efficient source of nuclear energy if it could be mined and returned to Earth. But the renewed interest has also sparked a lunar race. Last month, Japan beat China by launching a satellite to the moon on a similar scientific mission to Chang'e I's.

China, Japan and the United States have drawn up plans for manned missions to the moon within the next two decades. India and Brazil are also developing an active space programme. Hopefully, the competition will prove more benign than the previous cold war rivalry between the US and the former Soviet Union. An encouraging sign is that, subject to restrictions, space scientists around the world have been able to communicate and share research with each other. This augurs well, given China's express intention for its space programme to gain international exposure for its scientists. For Hong Kong people, it is gratifying to know that local scientists also contribute to the nation's space programme. Four researchers from local universities will help analyse moon data to be returned by Chang'e I. When the Chang'e II mission is launched to land an unmanned rover on the moon in 2012, local university engineers are expected to take part in developing sampling tools.

Since the 1990s, China's space programme has spun off industrial applications important to its economic development. Now, in the interests of peace and scientific co-operation, China ought to be allowed to work more closely with international space agencies.


http://www.scmp.com/portal/site/ ... sight&s=Opinion

Inflation a reality, but we can cushion impact


LEADER

Oct 26, 2007           
     
  |   

  



As the value of the US dollar continues to fall, so do Hong Kong's hopes of avoiding a period of inflation. For the local economy, which only recently recovered from prolonged deflation, the prospect of rising prices is not necessarily good.

While our domestic economy is always subject to pressures from volatile international markets, the local currency's peg to the greenback deprives us of key weapons to deal with them. The exchange rate of the Hong Kong dollar cannot go up or down in line with our economic conditions; nor can we adjust our interest rates as freely as we would like because local rates cannot diverge too much from those set by the Federal Reserve.

Although there is little the government can do about inflation itself, it needs to implement measures already in place, and introduce new ones if necessary, to mitigate inflation's impact on the poor. Low-income families spend proportionally far more on basic needs, such as food and transport, than do wealthier ones.

Already, those living in remote areas but who have to travel to town for work have complained that bus and train fares are too high, even as public transport operators press for higher fares to cover the rising price of fuel. Food prices are rising more quickly than overall inflation, which may surpass 2 per cent by the end of this year.

It does not help that the mainland, our main source of food supply, is also contributing to our inflation. Prices of foodstuffs across the border have shot up due to strong economic growth as well as supply factors. With the mainland's GDP still growing at a double-digit pace - 11.5 per cent in the three months to September - inflation there, which reached 6.2 per cent in September, is expected to keep on rising.

There is a positive side to the fall in the dollar, however. Property owners who were hit by the post-handover market crash will relish seeing the values of their assets finally rising again. Indeed, as the US Federal Reserve keeps on cutting interest rates for domestic reasons, Hong Kong will, sooner or later, have to follow suit, further pushing prices up. But the worry is that easier credit will only make the bubbles that already afflict the Hong Kong and mainland stock markets bigger. Arguably, what Hong Kong needs now is higher interest rates to reduce liquidity. But that is not a feasible policy tool because of the peg.

Over the short term, our services-based economy will become more competitive. Foreign investors, other than those from the United States, will find office space more affordable. But as the falling dollar continues to push up import costs, inflation is likely to rise further and will begin to bite.

As a small but externally oriented economy, Hong Kong always suffers during periods of international financial volatility. Our peg to the US dollar is an anchor of stability, but it means that local monetary conditions are dictated by external trends.

The exchange-rate link is fundamental to the credibility of the government and the city's financial markets. It has delivered "hard" money and imposed a more rigorous economic discipline. The discipline of a fixed-currency regime demands that domestic prices adjust freely without intervention by government agencies. Inflation, in the current circumstances, is the result - and the government must adapt its policies accordingly to cushion its debilitating impact, which will hit the poor sooner but will not spare the rich over time, since what goes up must come down.


http://www.scmp.com/portal/site/ ... sight&s=Opinion

Danger in the details of Regina Ip's vision


OBSERVER
Chris Yeung
Oct 29, 2007           
     
  |   

  



Former security chief Regina Ip Lau Suk-yee has tried to assure people that there is no devil in the details of her blueprint for universal suffrage. Yet, the extra hurdle she has proposed for chief executive hopefuls before they can run in an election is hardly an angelic idea in the eyes of those pushing for democracy.

Mrs Ip is contesting December's Legislative Council by-election. Her proposal would see each chief executive candidate having to gain the support of at least 10 per cent of members in each of the four sectors - that is, business, professional, grass roots and political - in the nominating committee. But critics believe this could easily become a tool to bar candidates deemed unacceptable to Beijing.

Their fears are not unfounded, judging by the experiences of Alan Leong Kah-kit in the chief executive election in April and Anson Chan Fang On-sang, who is also standing in the Legco by-election.

Although Mr Leong managed to meet the nomination threshold by securing 132 nominations from the 800-member nominating committee, none came from the 200-member business sector. Mrs Chan has suffered the same fate: there is a marked absence of prominent names from the business circle on her list of nominees.

Speculation is rife that the central government's liaison office has lobbied business leaders not to lend their support - in both nomination and financial terms - to Mrs Chan.

In response to Mrs Ip's constitutional reform proposals last week, Mrs Chan warned of "devils in the details", and criticised the package as a retrogressive step.

Mrs Ip made an immediate rebuttal on her election website, insisting that "there is no devil in the details". She argued that the additional nomination requirement was to accommodate the interests of different sectors of society. Mrs Ip is not alone in calling for a more stringent nominating mechanism. A similar idea has been floated by pro-Beijing figures, in the name of "democratic procedures".

Superficially, receiving say 10 per cent support from each sector in the nominating body may seem of little relevance.

In reality, the political predicaments of Mr Leong and Mrs Chan in trying to solicit support from the business sector is a graphic illustration of the potential danger of manipulation in elections.

In view of the much-acclaimed pluralism in Hong Kong society, it seems almost unthinkable that credible candidates such as Mr Leong and Mrs Chan could not secure at least some backing from the business sector.

One plausible explanation is that the political pressure for businesspeople to shun the pan-democrats has been so intense that it has forced sympathisers to keep their heads down, to avoid inviting trouble.

The shadow of Beijing looming large over elections is certainly not a healthy - or normal - situation for Hong Kong politics to find itself in.

It is not difficult to understand the thinking behind the idea of the four sectors in the chief executive Election Committee, as laid down in the Basic Law. The sectors can be seen as providing balanced representation under an indirect election system, as the city moves towards universal suffrage.

Arguably, it would also represent a deviation from the spirit of the principle of balanced representation if the mechanism was used as a tool to screen out candidates deemed unacceptable to Beijing.

Hong Kong has thrived on diversity and pluralism. It is not surprising, therefore, that both Mrs Chan and Mrs Ip have lured groups of supporters from the same sectors, such as professionals and the grass roots.

But the seemingly lopsided backing of the business quarter for Mrs Ip highlights the danger of giving each sector the power to screen out would-be candidates.

Chris Yeung is the Post's editor-at-large.

chris.yeung@scmp.com


http://www.scmp.com/portal/site/ ... lumns&s=Opinion

US must consider global impact of fiscal policy


LEADER

Oct 30, 2007           
     
  |   

  



The decline in value of the US dollar is good and bad for Hong Kong. While the fall boosts our competitiveness with economies that do not follow the greenback, the more it drops, the greater our inflation.

Weighing such positives and negatives is a delicate matter. The foreign companies and talent being attracted to our shores are welcome, as is the money pouring into our stock market and property sector. But the downside is that imports from economies without a US dollar link are increasing in price, putting the most vulnerable in our society at risk. The double-digit inflation we suffered during the 1990s greatly affected the poor and a repeat has to be avoided.

Doing so is not straightforward, given the Hong Kong-US dollar peg. The US dollar may be the global reserve currency and its weakness is causing a measure of anxiety among governments holding it, but Americans are generally unfazed. For them, a poorly performing dollar means a shrinking of America's US$57 billion foreign trade deficit. Exports increase, demand for the goods and services of US companies rises, and more overseas tourists are attracted to the country.

The impact is far wider, however. Many of the records of recent days - new highs for oil and gold, and stock market indices from Hong Kong to Australia to South Korea and beyond - are largely down to US fiscal and political policies.

US President George W. Bush's government is running a record budget deficit, spending far in excess of what it has to hand and paying hundreds of billions of dollars servicing debt. Americans themselves are equally deeply in debt. They have more owing in loans than they have in savings, with the cash tied up in housing or shares. The extent of the sub-prime mortgage fiasco, which is helping drive down confidence in the dollar, is yet to be fully revealed, but the ramifications are severe and global.

US property prices are in decline. With so much of the nation's retail sector based on imports, prices are increasing.

Stock markets rose higher yesterday on the expectation that the US Federal Reserve will cut interest rates again. This would be an effort to alleviate the US' economic problems; if Hong Kong were to follow suit, the likelihood of increased inflation here would rise.

Interest rate cuts are short-term solutions. They do nothing about growing perceptions that with the rise of China and India, the US - and in consequence, its currency - is in decline. We need to give this consideration. Delinking the Hong Kong dollar peg to the US dollar is a gradual matter, though: the uncertainty caused by a new fiscal strategy is not something Hong Kong wants or needs now.

Governments the world over put the national interest first and this is what the Bush administration has been doing with its economic policies. Nonetheless, international fears that its currency could soon be in free fall need to be addressed. Balanced current accounts increase confidence in economies and national currencies. Putting in place taxation policies that encourage citizens to save rather than spend are also long-accepted means of boosting financial systems.

Hong Kong is in no position to lecture Washington about running its economy, just as we would not take kindly to being preached to about operating our own. Global reserve currencies are not domestic matters, however, and the US therefore has a responsibility to look beyond its borders when considering fiscal issues.


http://www.scmp.com/portal/site/ ... sight&s=Opinion

Evolutionary path


FRANK CHING

Oct 31, 2007           
     
  |   

  



Quite naturally, interest in the Chinese Communist Party's 17th National Congress focused on personnel changes at the top for signs about who might be China's next leader. But the congress, which concluded last week, also approved amendments to the party constitution, which shed light on the long-term direction, and the twists and turns of the past. The first party constitution after the communists came to power was adopted in 1956, when Mao Zedong was head of the party. That document made it clear that China was part of the Soviet bloc, saying that Beijing was interested in friendly relations "with all other countries in the camp of peace, democracy and socialism headed by the Soviet Union".

In 1977 - the year after Mao's death - the party, under Hua Guofeng , adopted a new constitution which upheld the Cultural Revolution and said that such revolutions "will be carried out many times in the future". It described the Communist Party as "the political party of the proletariat", composed of "advanced elements of the proletariat", which "leads the proletariat and the revolutionary masses in their fight against the class enemy". Today, the word "proletariat" has disappeared entirely.

Mr Hua was soon supplanted by Deng Xiaoping . Under Deng, the party reversed course, denounced the Cultural Revolution and decided to focus on economic development instead of class struggle. In 1982, a new constitution marked a drastic departure. "Class struggle is no longer the principal contradiction," it declared, contradicting Mao's instruction to always "take class struggle as the key link". Instead, it said, the party would focus on "the socialist modernisation of our economy". It also declared: "The course of world history during the past half century and more, and especially the establishment and development of the socialist system in a number of countries, has borne out the correctness of the theory of scientific socialism."

Unlike other constitutions, which are meant to be permanent documents that are rarely amended, the party charter has been regularly revised since it was rewritten in 1982.

The 13th party congress in 1987 was significant, with Zhao Ziyang as party secretary. That constitution introduced the concept of China being in the "primary stage of socialism", when many capitalistic things would naturally be present. Even though Zhao was purged two years later, in the aftermath of the Tiananmen Square crackdown, that concept remains in the latest constitution. In 1997, when Jiang Zemin was party leader and the Soviet Union had collapsed, the claim about scientific socialism was dropped. "Deng Xiaoping Theory" was added, along with Marxism-Leninism and "Mao Zedong Thought" as the party's "guide to action".

In 2002, when Mr Jiang stepped down, the constitution was revised to introduce a new concept, that of the party's "chief representative". Thus, it said that Mao was the chief representative during his lifetime, followed by Deng and Mr Jiang. The party's "guide to action" became "Marxism-Leninism, Mao Zedong Thought, Deng Xiaoping Theory and the important thought of Three Represents". The latter was Mr Jiang's contribution to socialist theory, which justified admitting capitalists into the party.

This year, with Hu Jintao as party leader, the party constitution has been modified again to include his theoretical contribution, the "scientific outlook on development".

Reflecting the Hu administration's "people-centred" approach, the constitution also says that development is "for the people, by the people and with the people sharing its fruits". The concept of "building a harmonious socialist society" was also added.

Five years from now, when Mr Hu is scheduled to preside over his last party congress, it is highly likely that his theoretical contributions will be added to the party's ever-expanding "guide to action". So where is the party heading? Pragmatism will continue to be its hallmark, with each new leader depicting pragmatic policies as further development of socialist theory. After all, Deng - the ultimate pragmatist who said it didn't matter what colour a cat was as long as it caught mice - is now praised as a theoretician. Mao must be spinning in his crystal coffin.

Frank Ching is a Hong Kong-based writer and commentator

frank.ching@scmp.com

http://www.scmp.com/portal/site/ ... lumns&s=Opinion

Sins of the past
After 60 years of silence about his role in surgical killings, a former Japanese medic spoke out, writes Harumi Ozawa

BEHIND THE NEWS

Nov 01, 2007           
     
  |   

  



More than 60 years had passed, but Akira Makino still suffered nightmares about Filipino hostages and the injections that rendered them unconscious. Every time he woke up to the flashbacks of horrific killing scenes, he shut his eyes tight and tried to turn his mind away from something he no longer wanted to think about.

But Makino, 84, also felt he had to speak out about his wartime experiences to as many people as possible during the final year of his life.

"These were nothing but living-body experiments," Makino said as he sat on a bench wearing just his pyjamas at a hospital in the western Japanese city of Osaka, making some of his last comments before he died earlier this year.

"My captain combat-surgeon often showed us human intestines, and said this was the liver and that was that and so on," he said. "He did that to train us. The captain said that if he died, we would have to take up a scalpel to conduct the operations instead of him."

Makino, a low-ranked medic deployed to the southern Philippine island of Mindanao during the final years of the second world war, began making his statements on Japanese war atrocities in public last year. He was regarded as the first former Japanese soldier to have been stationed in the Philippines to speak of vivisections on hostages. The remarks caused outrage amid simmering friction between Japan and the countries it invaded over its wartime history. Nationalist internet sites launched a campaign branding Makino a liar.

But Makino said what he experienced was not systematic atrocity, but rather a glimpse of soldiers' desperation during the disorganised, last-ditch struggle of a nation on the verge of defeat.

It was one year before Japan's surrender when Makino landed on Mindanao in August 1944. He was assigned as a medic in the 33rd coast guard squad of about 20 soldiers who were in charge of detecting enemy aircraft. His squad joined a landing force of 1,500 troops on the Yamato, once the world's largest battleship, which US bombers sank later in the war.

"The Yamato was such a huge ship that it could not easily find a suitable port," he said. "So the ship anchored in the middle of Manila Bay and we dispersed to a variety of destinations in the Philippines."

Soon after arriving at the Japanese military base at Zamboanga on the western tip of Mindanao, Makino and his unit were cut off from headquarters,with the situation growing worse by the day. They received no military supplies or orders, let alone medical packages. The main enemy facing the small Japanese squad were the guerilla bands formed by Muslims from the local Moros tribe, who constantly threatened their station, he said.

He said almost all the hostages they captured were Moros. "We were supposed to keep them alive in captivity, but it was no problem if we `disposed' of them, in the beheadings the Japanese have become infamous for."

He remembered at least 50 hostages being killed, "including those who got this", he said, moving his hand to imitate a sword cutting off a head.

The frail old man recalled that many others were kept alive as human guinea pigs for his superior, the combat doctor, who wanted to show young medics like himself how to conduct surgical operations.

"We first anaesthetised them - we usually used injections or oxygen gas," he said. "Then they passed out in a few seconds."

The doctor would tell him to watch as he sliced open a hostage's stomach, a scene that Makino said made him so ill he couldn't eat or drink for days afterwards.

But Makino said he eventually became accustomed to what he had to do. "I was desperate," he said. "I didn't want to do anything like that if possible. But I had to follow the orders of my superior as a military man, otherwise I'd have been beaten up."

He could not put a definitive number on how many of the 50 people the unit killed were vivisected or how many of the operations he took part in. He did say he could never forget and felt profound guilt over the way the bodies were handled.

The Japanese made Moros dig holes in the ground, he said, and then they hurled in the bodies with their stomachs still open. "The mud got in all over the human stomach. My captain said there was no need to close the wounds because that would just be a waste of suture thread."

Makino's confession revived memories of imperial Japan's "mad scientist" Lieutenant General Shiro Ishii, who led the infamous Unit 731 in northeastern China, where the Japanese made their colonial base of Manchukuo and conducted germ warfare tests on prisoners.

Ishii is believed to have attempted the mass production of biological weapons by testing deadly germs such as anthrax, dysentery and cholera on prisoners of war, mainly Chinese, and dropping plague-carrying fleas and rats on their villages.

But Makino said his unit in the Philippines did not have any organised plan and that it did not test plague germs. "It was a one-off thing. We didn't take data or anything."

Another veteran, one of only a handful surviving from the Philippine battlefield, said the final days of the war were so desperate they did whatever they thought necessary just to survive.

Yoshihiko Terashima, 86, a former naval chief commander, said he did not commit any living-body experiments himself but said: "That could have easily happened."

In a separate interview he said: "It must have been natural for military doctors to come up with the idea of using whatever they had for try-outs in such destitute situations."

Mr Terashima contrasted the situation in the Philippines with that in northeastern China, then known as Manchuria.

"There [in Manchuria] Japan was winning the war. During the time of Makino [in the Philippines] we were losing it [the war]."

The Americans landed on the main Philippine island of Luzon in January 1945 and within six months declared victory. An estimated 218,000 Japanese were killed in the battles on Luzon alone. Like many Japanese soldiers, Makino and Mr Terashima fled into the jungles.

At his home in a Tokyo suburb, with cabinets full of war documents and a rolled-up map of the world lying on the floor, Mr Terashima recalled the destitute conditions he faced while fleeing from US attacks.

"When you [are] holed up in a cave at night, you see huge rats crawling up on the faces of dead bodies, eating the eyeballs," Mr Terashima said. "So we took an iron helmet to catch them and ate them."

In later years, both men repeatedly returned, separately, to their former battlefields to collect the remains of Japanese soldiers. Makino made the trip more than 10 times over the years, taking everyday supplies such as rice, pencils and clothes to needy residents of Mindanao. "I've done it out of a quest for redemption," he said.

Makino said the past haunted him for years, so much so that he hesitated to marry. It took him 10 years before he married a friend's sister, but said he could not talk to her, or anybody, about the surgical killings committed by his unit.

"It was cruel, too cruel to talk about it to a woman. My wife might have thought I was such a cruel person. That's what was in my mind. While she was with me, I just didn't want her to know about it," said Makino, who kept a monochrome photo of her on his bedside at the hospital before he died in May.

Makino said his wife's death more than three years earlier freed him to talk publicly about the experiences that haunted him.

"You have to talk when you know you have done something [you feel] guilty [about]. We lost the war because we deserved it," Makino said with bitterness. "We didn't have enough soldiers, enough arms nor enough bullets."

Agence France-Presse


http://www.scmp.com/portal/site/ ... sight&s=Opinion

Healthier lifestyles a matter of life and death


LEADER

Nov 02, 2007           
     
  |   

  



The finding by an authoritative study that obesity substantially increases the risk of developing cancers certainly gives us much to think about. We knew that fast food, a sedentary lifestyle and poor nutrition would lead to a bulging waistline and, consequently, health problems, but not that the dangers were so great.

These are findings that cannot be taken lightly. The recommendation that we eat more fruit and vegetables and less red meat while getting regular exercise is sound advice.

There is nothing new in this message. Health authorities, doctors and teachers have been trying to convince us for some time that we need to live healthier.

Statistics do not show that we are paying attention. One study last year found that 41 per cent of Hong Kong people were overweight or obese, up 3 per cent on 2004; another determined that four in every 10 sported a waistline that exceeded recommended standards.

Hong Kong is not alone in this problem. Long office hours, computers, television and fast food are among the reasons that people the world over are getting fatter.

The implications for public health systems are enormous. Being overweight or obese means greater susceptibility to disease - and, as the latest and most comprehensive study yet done also reveals, cancers.

Families are particularly vulnerable. Parents have to deal with their obese child's medical treatment, while a child may have to cope with the early death of a mother or father due to chronic disease.

Changing habits to slim down citizens will take time, but with strong government leadership, it can be achieved. Smoking in public places is increasingly frowned upon thanks to a concerted campaign spearheaded by a ban on the practice in restaurants, for example.

Government schemes are already under way to engender healthier eating choices at school and in restaurants. Bolder initiatives and more imaginative programmes are necessary, though.

The latest obesity study plainly shows why urgent action is needed. Put bluntly, it is a matter of life and death.


http://www.scmp.com/portal/site/ ... sight&s=Opinion

Narrow focus


KITTY POON

Nov 05, 2007           
     
  |   

  



Despite its popularity among viewers around the world and its success at the Venice Film Festival, Ang Lee's spy thriller Lust, Caution has suffered two setbacks. First, it was rejected by organisers of the Oscars as Taiwan's entry for best foreign film because it did not have enough Taiwanese working on the movie. Then it was rejected by the Hong Kong Film Awards - for having too few Hongkongers.

Lee's misfortune tells a story. It suggests that film directors, movie stars and corporations investing in filmmaking have long surpassed national boundaries, while bureaucrats around the world still hopelessly operate within narrowly defined localities. Lee's setback merely exemplifies the clash between the increasingly globalised entertainment industry and outdated government bureaus and film associations operating under old rules.

The international aspect of the film was at the crux of Lee's problem: it is a joint venture between two United States and two Taiwanese film companies.

Adding to the identity issue, the film stars Hong Kong actor Tony Leung Chiu-wai and mainland actress Tang Wei . Other supporting roles are performed by actors from Taiwan, the mainland, Hong Kong and the US. Lee himself is from Taiwan but spends the bulk of his time in the US. The scriptwriter is Taiwanese, the music composer French and the cinematographer Mexican.

The unfortunate Lee is a pawn in the hands of film associations which continue to seek protection behind regional boundaries.

The internationalisation of the film industry is a rapidly developing and increasingly irreversible trend. Brothers is a recent release featuring mostly Hong Kong actors, but it also enlists the support of Wang Zhiwen, a renowned mainland artist. Another upcoming showing, The Sun Also Rises, was financed by Hong Kong's Emperor Motion Pictures and stars Joan Chen, an American-Chinese, Zhou Yun and Kong Wei, both mainland actresses, along with award-winning Hong Kong actor Anthony Wong Chau-sang. The film was directed by Jiang Wen, an actor-turned-director, also from the mainland.

The globalisation of film production is not difficult to understand. Joint ventures allow the coalition of cash-flush investors with the most talented artists. Such projects not only help maximise profits, they also help the actors showcase their talents in different markets. Consumers welcome such developments as it gives them the chance to enjoy performances of the best artists from around the world.

But such projects create problems for bureaucrats. The Sun Also Rises was one of Hong Kong's candidates for its entry in the best foreign film category at the 2007 Oscars. But it eventually lost out to the gangster thriller Exiled, reportedly in view of its cosmopolitan identity. The mainland has entered The Knot, a wartime romance, in the best foreign film category after considering several possibilities. Yet The Knot was made with Taiwanese money, and stars Taiwanese artists such as Vivian Hsu and Han Chin alongside mainland artists.

It is obvious that the bureaucrats and managers of film associations lag far behind in the new direction being taken by the movie industry. They must find new strategies or face being sidelined by the turn of events. Yet, the mainland's film association seems to have grasped this fact and has relaxed its rules to accommodate this irreversible development in the industry.

This year, veteran Hong Kong actress Carina Lau Kar-ling took home the award for best actress at the mainland's Golden Rooster Awards. However, the inward-looking mentality has not gone yet. Lau had to share the award with mainland actress Yan Bingyan - proof, if it is needed, that provincialism continues to stand in the way of a globalising entertainment industry.

Kitty Poon, an assistant professor at the Hong Kong Polytechnic University, is a part-time member of the government's Central Policy Unit

kittypoon@netvigator.com


http://www.scmp.com/portal/site/ ... lumns&s=Opinion

Fuel's dirty face
The consequences of the coal boom are severe, both in the shadow of the plants and further afield, writes Michael Casey

BEHIND THE NEWS
Michael Casey
Nov 06, 2007           
     
  |   

  



It takes five to 10 days for the pollution from China's coal-fired plants to make its way to the US, like a slow-moving storm. It shows up as mercury in the bass and trout caught in the Willamette River in the western state of Oregon. The pollution increases cloud cover and raises ozone levels. Along the way, it contributes to acid rain in Japan and South Korea and health problems everywhere from Taiyuan , in Shanxi province , to North America.

This is the dark side of the world's growing use of coal. Cheap and abundant, coal has become the fuel of choice in much of the world, powering economic booms on the mainland and in India that have lifted millions of people out of poverty. Worldwide demand is projected to rise by about 60 per cent by 2030, to 6.9 billion tonnes a year, most of it going to electrical power plants.

But the growth of coal-burning is also contributing to global warming, and is linked to environmental and health issues ranging from acid rain to asthma. Air pollution kills more than 2 million people prematurely every year, according to the World Health Organisation.

"Hands down, coal is by far the dirtiest pollutant," said Dan Jaffe, an atmospheric scientist at the University of Washington who has detected pollutants from Asia at monitoring sites on Mount Bachelor in Oregon and Cheeka Peak in Washington state. "It's a pretty bad fuel on all scores."

The dilemma facing the mainland is evident in places such as Taiyuan and the surrounding province, the top coal-producing region. Almost overnight, coal turned poor farmers in the city of  3 million into Mercedes-driving millionaires, known derisively as baofahu or the quick rich. Flashy hotels display chunks of coal in their lobbies and sprawling malls advertise designer goods from Versace and Karl Lagerfeld.

Real estate prices have doubled, residents say, and construction cranes fill the skyline.

A museum in Taiyuan celebrates all things coal. Amid photos of smiling miners, coal is presented as the foundation of the mainland's economic development, credited with making possible everything from the railway to skincare products.

"Today, coal has penetrated every aspect of people's lives," the museum says in one of many cheery pronouncements. "We can't live comfortably without coal."

Yet the corn lining a highway outside the city is covered in soot. The same soot settles on vegetables sold at the roadside. Thick, acrid smoke blots out the morning sun. At its worst, the haze forces highway closures and flight delays.

Taiyuan, dubbed the world's most polluted city in the 1990s, is no longer thought to be the worst, thanks to various efforts including phasing out coal-burning boilers. But the level of pollutants in the air remains five to 10 times higher than levels in New York or London. Residents say they see blue skies on fewer than 120 days a year.

They shrug wearily when the talk turns to pollution, fearful that speaking out could get them in trouble. But when pressed, city dwellers' complaints tumble forth and expose a community held hostage by the soot.

Residents seal their windows to keep out the dirty air. Parents are warned not to let their toddlers  play outside for fear of coal dust. Fruit and vegetables must be washed in detergent.

"I'm worried about my children," said a woman who lives in the shadow of a power plant and fertiliser factory. She would only give her surname, Zhang. "We worry about everything. If you get sick seriously, you will die."

Many complain of chronic sore throats and bronchitis, and there are cases of lung cancer and pulmonary fibrosis. A study by researchers from Norway's Centre for International Climate and Environmental Research found that Taiyuan's pollution raised death rates by  15 per cent and chronic respiratory ailments by 40 to 50 per cent.

"I feel terrible and I'm coughing all the time," said William Li, a retired engineer from Taiyuan. His father died of lung cancer and his son has tracheitis, an upper respiratory condition. "The coal produces electric power that we send to other provinces. But we are left with the pollution."

Apart from health problems, there is growing concern about the damage being wrought on some key heritage sites. A few years ago, the Leshan giant Buddha in Sichuan province started to weep. Or so some local people imagined when black streaks appeared on the rose-coloured cheeks of the towering 7th-century carving hewn into the sandstone cliffs.

The culprit was the region's growing number of coal-fired power plants and acid rain. Over time, the Buddha's nose turned black and curls of carved stone began to fall from its head.

"If this continues, the Buddha will lose its nose and even its ears," said Li Xiaodong, a researcher who has studied the impact of air pollution in Sichuan. "It will become just a piece of rock."

More than 80 per cent of the mainland's 33 UN-designated world heritage sites, including the Leshan statue, have been damaged by air pollution and acid rain, mostly from the burning of coal, according to Xinhua.

"The level of pollution that China is creating will be devastating to these monuments," said Melinda Herrold-Menzies, a professor of environmental studies at Pitzer College in Claremont, California.

Mainland officials are starting to acknowledge the downside of unbridled development. Qiu Baoxing, the vice-minister of construction, blamed the devastation of historic sites on "senseless actions" by local officials in pursuit of modernisation, the China Daily reported in June.

"They are totally unaware of the value of cultural heritage," he said, likening the destruction to that of cultural relics during the Great Leap Forward in the late 1950s and the Cultural Revolution from 1966 to 1976.

About 1,200km to the north, clouds of black dust coming off coal trucks have damaged the Yungang grottoes, a world heritage site in the heart of China's coal belt. Professor Herrold-Menzies expressed surprise that caves with such historical and archaeological importance would lie so close to "coal mines and an industrial nightmare of a city".

The 250 caves hold more than 50,000 statues of Buddha dating to the 5th century, their heights ranging from less than 2.5cm to 17 metres.

As visitors weave in and out of the caves, the damaged statues are easy to pick out. Their red, blue and yellow paint is faded, and they look as if they are wearing a black trench coat or skirt.

Under pressure to clean up major cities such as Shanghai and Beijing, particularly in the run-up to next year's Olympics, the central government is turning increasingly to provinces such as Shanxi to meet the country's power demands.

"They look at polluted places such as Taiyuan and say it's so polluted there it doesn't matter if they have another five power plants," said Ramanan Laxminarayan, a senior fellow at Resources for the Future, an American think-tank that found links between air pollution and rising hospital admissions in Taiyuan.

"I visited these power plants and there is no concept of pollution control," he said. "They sort of had a laugh and asked, `Why would you expect us to install pollution control equipment?'"

The mainand is home to 20 of the world's 30 most polluted cities, according to a World Bank report. Health costs related to air pollution total US$68 billion a year, nearly 4 per cent of the country's economic output, the report said. Sheng Huaren, a senior Chinese parliamentary official, said last year that acid rain had contaminated a third of the country. It is said to destroy crops worith some US$4 billion every year.

"What we're facing in China is enormous economic growth, and ... China is paying a price for it," said Henk Bekedam, China's WHO office chief. "Their growth isn't sustainable from an environmental perspective. The good news is that they realise it. The bad news is they're dependent on coal as an energy source."

But the costs go far beyond China. The soot from power plants boosts global warming because coal emits almost twice as much carbon dioxide as natural gas. Researchers from Texas A&M University said research showed that air pollution from China and India had increased cloud cover and major Pacific Ocean storms by 20 per cent to 50 per cent over the past 20 years.

Mercury, a byproduct of coal mining dispersed via waterways, is another major concern. "It's a global problem and right now China is a source on the rise," said Harvard University professor of atmospheric chemistry and environmental engineering Daniel Jacob. "If we want to bring down mercury levels in fish, then we have to go after emissions in East Asia."

A fifth of the mercury in the Willamette River came from China and other foreign sources, said Bruce Hope of the Oregon Department of Environmental Quality. Pregnant or nursing women who eat the fish put their babies at risk of neurological damage.

China has closed some polluting factories and says it will retire 50 gigawatts of inefficient power plants, or 8 per cent of the power grid, by 2010, according to the Pew Centre on Global Climate Change. The government has also mandated that solar, wind, hydroelectric and other forms of renewable energy provide 10 per cent of the mainland's  power by 2010, and ordered key industries to cut energy consumption by 20 per cent.

President Hu Jintao , in a speech to a key party congress last month, promised a cleanup. But the mainland has fallen short of its national targets for using energy more efficiently, and coal remains a major energy source.

"Everyone knows coal is dirty, but there is no way that China can get rid of coal," said Zhao Jianping of the World Bank. "It must rely on it for years to come, until humans can find a new magic solution."

Robert Schock, director of studies at the World Energy Council, said that coal, which is cheap and abundant, would remain a crucial source of energy for many years.

In Shanxi, the authorities have pledged to close 900 coal mines and dozens of makeshift factories that process coal for the steel industry, according to Xinhua. The Asian Development Bank is providing more than US$200 million in loans to improve air quality in the province, through programmes to shift to cleaner-burning natural gas for household heating and a demonstration project to capture methane, a greenhouse gas released in coal mining.

Associated Press


http://www.scmp.com/portal/site/ ... sight&s=Opinion

Voucher scheme: the first step to a healthy system


Michael Somerville
Nov 07, 2007           
     
  |   

  



For several years, there has been a lot of debate about reshaping our health care system. But there has been only limited progress and not enough priority given to the task. Now, at last, the focus of recent months is bearing fruit, with clearly defined measures on both structural and financing reform, as outlined in the chief executive's policy address. This is a major step forward.

What a shame, therefore, that a really imaginative and potentially groundbreaking initiative has been poorly received in some circles, especially among legislators - on the face of it for all the wrong reasons.

I refer to the medical voucher pilot scheme for the elderly, which has been rubbished as a meagre effort, notwithstanding that there is already a 95 per cent government subsidy on public health services for the elderly.

Few would argue that the elderly, and especially the elderly poor, do not deserve priority in sharing the fruits of Hong Kong's prosperity. But that is a totally different issue.

The commitment to increase government expenditure on medical and health services, from 15 per cent to 17 per cent, is coupled with proposals for supplementary private financing. Together, this could generate additional annual spending close to HK$10 billion. That adds up to a major new commitment.

Allocating extra funds is one thing, spending them wisely is quite another. As the British experience has shown, throwing money at health care before ensuring that it will be well spent generally makes matters worse.

To date, nearly all government funds have been paid to the providers of public hospital services and public preventative care. They have not been used to promote freedom of choice for patients or greater emphasis on private-sector care. Nor has the current method of almost totally subsidy in financing done anything to encourage individual responsibility in health care.

There is now a widespread consensus that this needs to change, over time, and that a new emphasis on "money following the patient" is the right way forward.

This fundamental change is not easily achieved, and is made more complex by the big divide and lack of practical interface between the public and private sectors. As well as redirecting the way money flows within the system, it will involve substantial changes in attitude by both patients and care-giving professionals. It will necessitate far greater sharing of information than is currently possible - hence the high priority for developing a community-wide electronic health record.

Experience overseas has clearly demonstrated that a major and successful tool in achieving such a change is the use of incentive mechanisms targeting the buyers of  services, the patients, and also the providers.

This is a new approach for Hong Kong and it is right that our first pilot project should be limited to a specific sector. It should be judged not by the amount of money that has been committed but by the benefits it can bring. In this case, they are likely to be substantial.

They include more choice, wider services, better access to primary care and some relief for our overstretched public health services.

Furthermore, in the medium term, the pilot scheme should provide valuable experience for a much wider network of incentives to transform our health care system from one founded in curing a patient to one driven by prevention and multi- disciplinary primary care.

In short, the medical voucher pilot scheme merits our wholehearted support. By all means let's press for an even greater sense of urgency and perhaps a shorter time frame in which to assess progress and possible expansion. But let's not effectively destroy it by turning it into a charity handout. Don't sink the ship by blowing it up before it has left port.

Michael Somerville is chairman of the health care committee of the Business and Professionals Federation of Hong Kong



http://www.scmp.com/portal/site/ ... sight&s=Opinion

A barrel of truth about oil supplies


Gwynne Dyer
Nov 08, 2007           
     
  |   

  



If a diplomat is "an honest man sent abroad to lie for the good of his country", as author and diplomat Sir Henry Wotton once said, then oil industry executives used to be the business world's equivalent. The big international companies were chronically optimistic about the extent of their reserves, and state-controlled oil companies were even more prone to exaggeration. But now we have the spectacle of oil companies telling the truth about oil supplies - or at least more of the truth than usual.

The occasion was last week's Oil and Money conference in London, and the most spectacular truth-teller was Christophe de Margerie, chief executive of the French oil company Total. Last year his predecessor, Thierry Desmarest, caused a flutter in the industry by predicting that world oil output would peak around 2020. This year, Mr de Margerie said that "100 million barrels [per day] ... is now in my view an optimistic case". He was referring to the International Energy Agency's estimate that world oil output would reach 116 million barrels per day by 2030, and the slightly more optimistic US government prediction that it would reach 118 million barrels per day by then.

Even these acts of faith are really a forecast of crisis, as calculations based on current trends (like a 15 per cent annual growth in Chinese demand) suggest 140 million barrels per day will be needed by 2030.

The implication of Mr de Margerie's remarks is that the crisis is coming a lot sooner than that. World oil output is nearing 90 million barrels per day now, but it is never going to reach 100 million. "Peak oil" may be just a few years away, or it may be right now. (You will never know until after the fact, because it is the point at which global oil production goes into gradual but irreversible decline.)

Peak oil was first forecast by a US geologist, M. King Hubbert, who noticed that the curves for oil discoveries and oil production were a very close match, but with a lag of 30 to 40 years between the two curves. At that point, in 1956, Hubbert was director of research for Shell Oil, and his research focused on American oil production.

Oil discoveries worldwide peaked in the 1960s, so Hubbert's own forecast was that peak oil production worldwide would arrive in the 1990s. The discovery of two giant new oilfields in the 1970s (probably the last two) in the North Sea and the Alaskan North Slope pushed that date further forward, however. One of Hubbert's successors as chief of research at Shell, Colin Campbell, subsequently calculated that global production would peak this year.

The recent surge in the oil price, which may see it reach US$100 a barrel in the near future, is largely a mirage caused by the collapse in the value of the US dollar. But the longer-term trend, which saw the price rise fivefold between 1999 and 2005, was driven by the tightening supply situation as demand raced ahead while production did not.

It will get a lot worse if Mr de Margerie is right, and he almost certainly is.

Gwynne Dyer is a London-based independent journalist whose articles are published in 45 countries



http://www.scmp.com/portal/site/ ... sight&s=Opinion

Hunger pains


PETER KAMMERER

Nov 09, 2007           
     
  |   

  



Global warming has us all in such a bind that governments are doing some crazy things to placate the worried masses. I would even go so far as to say that a few are committing crimes against humanity. Now, before anyone takes umbrage at this comment, please note that it is not an original sentiment. The originator was the UN's special rapporteur on the right to food, Jean Ziegler. In New York, on October 26, he said: "It is a crime against humanity to convert agriculturally productive soil into soil which produces foodstuffs that will be burned [as] biofuel."

Are biofuels a crime against humanity? For a few years now, officials and scientists the world over have been telling us that oil supplies are shrinking, fossil fuels are polluting the atmosphere and causing temperatures to rise, and that the future lies in energy from corn, soya beans, sugar cane, rape seed and whatever other vegetation is on hand to convert into fuel.

The US and European Union have been so adamant that biofuels are the way forward that they have put in place target dates by which all petrol must contain a double-digit percentage of biofuels. Credits and subsidies are being handed out to farmers.

Hidden by the roar of approval for such schemes have been voices warning about a few fundamentals that the politicians have neglected to talk about. For instance, there is not enough land on Earth to grow the crops to make the amounts of biofuels needed, or that farmers will switch from growing food for the globalised world and instead opt for the more lucrative alternative to oil.

The 2 billion people in the world who live in poverty - 850 million in hunger - have first-hand experience of how poorly thought-out biofuel schemes have been. Less corn, rice and wheat for food means shortages and markedly higher prices.

Western nations do not have enough land to meet their biofuel needs, so companies are moving into Asia, Africa and South America, forcing people off the land. Rainforests are being cut down so that palm oil and sugar cane can be grown. The crops are sucking up water.

Hundreds of millions of people have been affected and many face hardship, hunger and even death. Far from saving us from global warming, some of the practices in its name are worsening it.

This, Mr Ziegler contended, was a crime of the worst kind. He called for a five-year moratorium on biofuel production to allow for an international rethink, so that a clearly defined strategy using the best crops and growing methods could be put in place. Mr Ziegler did not go that extra step and suggest governments at fault should be charged and put on trial. I will.

The worst offender is US President George W. Bush's administration. He knows full well that the US exports corn to the developing world for food. Yet he agreed to give US farmers - who already receive subsidies - another financial benefit if they use the cereal for biofuel production instead.

At least 30 per cent of America's corn crop is now grown for biofuels. Unsurprisingly, there has been an almost 50 per cent rise in the price of corn. Because it is also used as grain for cattle, beef prices have risen sharply as well.

Biofuel demand and increased transportation costs have, according to the UN, been some of the factors that have also led wheat to double in price and the cost of rice to increase by 20 per cent. That such staples now cost more has helped cause food prices to rise 18 per cent in China, 13 per cent in Indonesia and Pakistan, and at least 10 per cent in India, Russia and Latin America, according to the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation.

There are 11 international texts defining crimes against humanity, each differing marginally in their definition of the various crimes and the legal contexts. Broadly, though, the term has come to mean any atrocity committed on a large scale.

Knowingly endangering the food security of some of the world's most vulnerable people, as the US and EU have done, surely ranks as such an offence. The leaders responsible should face justice for the crimes they have committed.

Peter Kammerer is the Post's foreign editor

http://www.scmp.com/portal/site/ ... lumns&s=Opinion

The price of attracting new political talent


OBSERVER
Chris Yeung
Nov 12, 2007           
     
  |   

  



There is never a good time to propose a pay rise for legislators. And, given the public's generally negative image of our lawmakers, the idea of raising their salaries and introducing new benefits now has been greeted with a lot of doubt and scepticism.

It doesn't help that the proposal comes on the heels of an annual report last week by a watchdog group highlighting the dismal record of some Legislative Council members, who have repeatedly been absent from meetings or often abstained during voting. Indeed, with this evidence, even sympathisers for the lawmakers' plight would have difficulty making a case.

However, fair-minded people do agree that legislators are not paid enough. They currently receive a monthly salary of about HK$58,000, with no fringe benefits such as gratuities or a pension.

So, a Legco subcommittee has proposed that their monthly pay should rise to about HK$92,000 - the minimum salary for directorate-grade officials. Subcommittee chairman Patrick Lau Sau-shing has suggested that they should be paid HK$110,000. That figure is based on the salary originally envisaged by the government for an assistant minister.

Under the administration's plan for two extra tiers of political appointees, the monthly salary for the post of political assistant (formerly assistant minister) will be between HK$104,340 and HK$163,963. Undersecretaries will be paid between HK$193,775 and HK$223,586 a month.

Debate about where to peg legislators' pay, in relation to the political appointment system, will be inconclusive. That is because there are no easy, objective criteria to benchmark lawmakers' pay and benefits.

But it is fair to say that there is an unreasonable gap between the pay of Legco members and that of political appointees and senior government officials. It should be borne in mind, too, that the post of political assistant is largely targeted at young, third-tier members of political parties who do not stand a good chance of getting elected to Legco.

The negative implications of unreasonably low levels of pay for legislators are obvious. True, being a lawmaker is more than just a job. It is also a public service and, as such, the rewards cannot be measured solely in monetary terms.

Raising lawmakers' salaries and benefits will not necessarily draw a pool of better-qualified people into politics.

It can be argued, however, that the unattractive pay could further alienate people who may be considering a career in politics. It also sends the wrong message to society; that legislators do not deserve more money than they currently earn.

Much has been said about the dearth of political talent in Hong Kong and the importance of creating more opportunities for people to take part in politics.

If Chief Executive Donald Tsang Yam-kuen is sincere about grooming new talent, raising the salaries of district and legislative councillors to a decent level is an easy first step.

In the long-run, more needs to be done to help create an environment that is conducive to the emergence of additional full-time legislators and district councillors.

There is no denying that pay is only one of the deterrents for those considering a political career. Under the current system, the power of legislators to keep the executive authorities in check is significantly limited.

Looking to the future, talented and committed individuals will only enter the world of politics if they are convinced that their participation will help bring about a better life for Hong Kong's citizens.

Society and the government can do their part to create more favourable conditions for politicians to serve the people efficiently and effectively. And, if they prove to be unworthy of their rewards, they can always be voted out of office via the ballot box.

Chris Yeung is the Post's editor-at-large.

chris.yeung@scmp.com


http://www.scmp.com/portal/site/ ... lumns&s=Opinion

Equality denied


LAURENCE BRAHM

Nov 13, 2007           
     
  |   

  



At 9pm on September 21 in Beijing, Chaoyang district police cordoned off the popular Sanlitun bar district near the diplomatic compounds. They then proceeded to round up any black people in the area, handcuffed them and herded them into detention. Anyone who questioned why they were being treated like animals, without rights, was beaten up. Diplomats' children and international students were caught up in the race-based round-up, and people were hurt in the process.

The foreign diplomatic community was alarmed. It occurred just minutes away from the doors of their embassies, and less than a year before the start of the 2008 Olympics - when China is supposed to show the world how civilised it is. People were being rounded up like cattle, regardless of what nation they were from, and indiscriminately beaten as part of a sloppily executed investigation into Nigerian drug dealers.

China's leaders should realise that such indiscriminate sweeps are not in the nation's best interests so close to the Beijing Olympics. Such action does not show the nation's best side to the foreign media. If police in the Chaoyang district want to do something about drug dealing, they should shut down its plethora of brothels, where crack cocaine is big business.

When a number of diplomats raised concerns about unwarranted police abuse affecting the diplomatic zone and their families, the Foreign Ministry just denied that the incident had ever happened. That is despite the fact there were a number of local and international witnesses, including journalists.

Why would it do this? One problem is that when mainland authorities investigate any matter, the organisation concerned investigates itself. The probe begins at the top, and continues layer by layer - each protecting the others. So, in the case of the alleged police abuse in Sanlitun, the officers assigned to the case will believe their own people's accounts, and report as much to higher authorities like the Foreign Ministry.

Clearly, the central government needs an independent body to investigate abuses at all levels of all departments. Local abuses are protected through local protectionism. This has become the new meaning of "Chinese characteristics". There are signs that the problem has spread like a cancer through the nation. Still, no one expected it to explode in the heart of Beijing's diplomatic community.

It is very easy for a perceived race-based round-up to be interpreted as "racist", and the story to be spun as an extension of Chinese chauvinism and nationalism, clearly not the image China wishes to portray to the rest of the world. The police abuses in Sanlitun cannot be ignored by the international community, mainly because the government clearly chose to ignore the reality. Someone at the Foreign Ministry should read the Vienna Convention of 1961, which enshrines the principle of "diplomatic immunity". Clearly, though, diplomats and their children should realise, after this incident, that Beijing's police force either does not understand this principle - or doesn't care about it.

Many wonder whether the Foreign Ministry would have responded differently if it had been citizens from a member of the Group of Eight nations who were rounded up. Does China see all people as equal? China's officials, from President Hu Jintao down, like to repeat the slogan: "All countries are equal". Indeed, given its tragic history of foreign "spheres of influence" and the Japanese invasion, China has a right to demand equality. But it also has a responsibility to stand by such a principle.

That begs the question of whether China wishes to use its economic clout to serve as a voice for developing countries. Or is it only saying what these leaders want to hear in order to secure energy resources, as some have accused it of doing in Africa? Many people feel disappointed that China has not stood up for developing countries' interests more in international forums. Moreover, diplomats in Beijing of those same developing nations feel let down when the Chinese government fails to protect the rights of their citizens, especially when they are victims of officially sanctioned racial abuse.

Laurence Brahm is a political economist, author, filmmaker and founder of Shambhala Foundation



http://www.scmp.com/portal/site/ ... lumns&s=Opinion

Tougher curbs needed to cool economy


LEADER

Nov 14, 2007           
     
  |   

  



Evidence that inflation is worrying the central government is to be found in the timing of Premier Wen Jiabao's visit to Beijing's poor on Monday. It came two days after a stampede to buy cut-price cooking oil at a Chongqing supermarket resulted in three deaths and many injuries, and a day before yesterday's release of last month's inflation figure. The consumer price index was up 6.5 per cent on October last year, a decade high, following similar rises in the two previous months.

The main driver was again soaring food prices, which hit the poor hardest. Promises by Mr Wen to rein in food prices by increasing supplies are unlikely to bring early or significant relief. Higher prices can no longer be laid entirely at the door of short-term factors such as blue-ear disease in pigs, floods and high feed costs. Structural forces within a high-growth, overheating economy are also making their presence more widely felt. This has been evidenced by rising food prices generally in recent months and the 3.2 per cent rise in last month's producer price index for manufactured goods.

The government is right to be worried. Inflation is a danger sign, indicating that incremental macroeconomic measures aimed at ensuring that development is sustainable in the long term are not working. This is also shown by the failure of the measures to slow the double-digit growth rate or cool rampant stock and asset markets. Higher prices for staples such as pork - up 70 per cent since January - and cooking oil have serious implications for the poor, and therefore for Beijing's overriding goal of social harmony and stability. Soaring global oil prices are only just beginning to have an impact on the mainland economy and its insatiable demand for energy. The recent 10 per cent price rise in the cost of fuel at the pump has yet to feed through to producer and consumer prices.

Beijing's macroeconomic and monetary measures have had temporary effects at best. Growth shows no signs of abating and a record October trade surplus does nothing to ease trade tensions with the United States. Given that a one-off revaluation of the yuan is unlikely, the government needs to take more decisive domestic measures to cool the economy.


http://www.scmp.com/portal/site/ ... sight&s=Opinion

Quality counts


CHRISTINE LOH

Nov 15, 2007           
     
  |   

  



Macau, Asia's casino town, isn't everyone's cup of tea, just as Las Vegas is not all things to all people. It is not very different from Disney theme parks. Despite its fame, there are plenty of people who have not rushed there. This is why Hong Kong officials don't have to be so nervous about competition from its neighbour.

That is not to downplay Macau's rapid development and success. After all, Macau was always a gambling town. It's just that now it is on a much larger scale. With China's economic liberalisation, many more people are allowed to travel outside the country, and even gamble, which has enabled Macau to expand its casino facilities with US investments.

As a result, copies of Las Vegas-style gaming establishments have sprung up; enormous in scale, loud in style and unseen in Asia until now. Today, people who like to gamble have a lot of choice in Macau, and they will have even more choice in the future, as more casinos and hotels are built.

As with Las Vegas, part of the business is to attract shows and conventions. For those of us - the vast majority - who do not gamble, there is really nothing to get us into the casinos except curiosity, which is usually satisfied after one visit.

Nevertheless, we may still go to Macau to watch a special show, dine in one of the many restaurants, and to spend a night there. This adds, not subtracts, to the attraction of living in Hong Kong. In just the past fortnight, Macau has hosted a famous international singer, and a convention of mobile-phone service operators.

While government officials lament the competition from Macau, they might start by examining what Hong Kong is doing and should do. Hong Kong also plays host to many entertainment shows and conventions.

Much of the convention and exhibition business in Hong Kong is controlled by the Trade Development Council (TDC), a public-sector body. It operates the Convention and Exhibition Centre in Wan Chai and organises trade shows.

Private-sector entrepreneurs have been muttering for years that they have trouble getting space. Thankfully, the AsiaWorld-Expo facility near the airport has introduced more capacity and a measure of competition.

If officials want to quickly add convention and exhibition space in Hong Kong, isn't the quickest and cheapest way to enlarge AsiaWorld-Expo, which has already set space aside for expansion? The current expansion of the Convention and Exhibition Centre was never really a good solution because the Wan Chai waterfront is already very congested. When more facilities are squeezed into the area, things will only get worse. In other words, the site is "full".

Now, the TDC wants to build another large venue on the waterfront. It is easy to understand why it wants a site nearby; it would be easier to manage. Officials appear sympathetic to the idea - despite the fact that, in town planning terms, there is no capacity left along the waterfront.

As I have noted, there is an alternative that makes sense. Indeed, officials need to revisit why they didn't make AsiaWorld-Expo bigger in the first place, as this may tell them something about the short-sighted approach to their decision-making.

Nevertheless, there is a limit to the amount of convention space and number of hotel rooms Hong Kong can add. However, we can be selective about the kind of business we compete for. We need to remember that not everyone wants Las Vegas-style facilities.

Hong Kong needs to be cool headed about how to retain and attract premium businesses, because we are able to provide top services. Let's not overlook the fact that Hong Kong's economic activities are in fact diverse, unlike those of Macau and Las Vegas. We have a choice about what kind of events and what type of customers we want to attract.

We have a lot going for us. It has taken us decades to be able to provide consistent high quality, and that is the strength we should bank on.

Christine Loh Kung-wai is chief executive of the think-tank Civic Exchange

cloh@civic-exchange.org


http://www.scmp.com/portal/site/ ... lumns&s=Opinion

A Europe in denial over US economic links


Melvyn Krauss
Nov 16, 2007           
     
  |   

  



The fact that America's economy is slowing is bad news for Europeans, regardless of claims that their economy has successfully decoupled itself from the United States.

Decoupling is an idea that is based on bad economics - and on some Europeans' reluctance to accept the fact that their short, but sweet economic expansion is also coming to an end.

True, the US market has become less important for European exports as Asia's trade significance has grown for Europe. So what? Trade is just one of many linkages between the US and European economies.

In today's interconnected global economy, uncertainty about the US economic outlook increases one day and Dutch consumer confidence, for example, takes a tumble the next.

The links between Europe and America are, frankly, much more complex than the advocates of decoupling appreciate. The US Federal Reserve, for example, is aggressively cutting interest rates to forestall a possible recession.

As a consequence, the euro is rising not only against the US dollar, but also against Asian currencies, whose central banks intervene in the foreign exchange markets to fix their currencies' value against the dollar.

This damages European exports to both the US and Asia. Reduced European dependence on America's export market can hardly protect Europe from the effects of the US economic slowdown if the euro appreciates as much against the Asian currencies as it has against the US dollar.

The decoupling argument also assumes that recession in America has no effect on Asia. This is nonsense. Asian income will certainly decline if Asians export less to the US - and this, in turn, will reduce Asian imports from Europe.

So, Europeans should not be tempted to think they are somehow "decoupled" from America's foibles and woes. Until recently, many Europeans thought they were insulated from the US housing and mortgage crisis.

Decoupling arguments, whether applied to relations between Europe and America or Europe's financial sector and the rest of the economy, should be seen as having a single purpose - to deny the very real threats to the continued expansion of the European economy.

Some of this, no doubt, is wishful thinking on the part of economically unsophisticated people. Others have a special interest.

After all, a strong economy makes it easier for the European Central Bank hawks to sell rate rises. It makes it easier to sell stocks and other investment vehicles. It makes it easier for politicians to sell their policies, themselves, and their parties.

But ordinary Europeans should not be fooled. The very existence of decoupling arguments is a warning that they should be concerned about the continuing robustness of Europe's economy.

Special interests would not be peddling such dubious statements if they felt confident about the economy's future.

Melvyn Krauss is a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University. Copyright: Project Syndicate


http://www.scmp.com/portal/site/ ... sight&s=Opinion

No pain, no gain
264 days to go
OLYMPIC COUNTDOWN
Peter Simpson
Nov 18, 2007        
        Email to friend         |         Print a copy

Spare a thought today for British Olympics Minister Tessa Jowell and pray that her frayed nerves hold out for the next 1,713 days until the opening of the 2012 London Games.

As the minister - who was last week on a fact-finding mission to Beijing - sat down to dinner with foreign correspondents at the British Embassy last Monday night to hear their concerns about press freedom in China, her Olympic watch back home was going up in smoke ... literally.

Fire broke out at derelict warehouse on the proposed Olympic green in east London, sending a black plume of smoke across London's iconic skyline, inspiring headlines writers at the British tabloids, perpetually poised to pounce on the beleaguered minister.

Jowell planned to do a live interview with a British camera crew from the steps of the ambassador's residence after coffee, to outline how her meeting went with Beijing Olympic counterpart Liu Qi, the head of Bocog.

But her advisers said it was not a good idea, what with the 2012 preparations seemingly ablaze for reasons then unknown.

After a decade of trying to spin the British media this way and that - and losing badly - Jowell's ruling Labour Party can smell cunning media juxtaposition a mile off.

The flames back in London were fuelled further when more highly flammable material was poured on to Jowell's red-hot Olympic file a few days later.

The British media went into mocking, scolding, wagging-finger and tongue-lashing mode, after it was revealed the London Olympics would cost a whopping £9.3 billion (HK$148 billion) - an over-spend that exposed what one politician described as "the most catastrophic piece of financial mismanagement in the history of the world". The admission means the final cost is more than double the original bid figure.

Jowell also has a vast pride of feral cats and a collective of irate vegetable gardeners blocking development on the London Olympic site to contend with.

Both groups are protected by the rule of law and have the backing of Britain's gnashing media pack.

The questions over the cats' future dominated a recent popular BBC current affairs programme called Question Time; worried members of the studio audience demanded answers from the Government.

"We have a lady who is allowed to sleep on the Olympic site because she is part of the Cat Rescue Charity - and already 174 lactating or pregnant cats have been taken from the site and delivered to good homes," Jowell said in Beijing.

The minister is used to controversy. She unwittingly became the centre of a media scrum called "Jowellgate" in early 2006 when her then husband, David Mills, was embroiled in alleged money laundering and tax fraud in Italy and linked to then Italian prime minister Silvio Berlusconi.

She was investigated by both the government and by the media because of a potential clash of interest between her personal life and ministerial duties. She was cleared of any wrongdoing, and last year got a divorce. As culture minister, she went on to court various policy controversies before being made Olympics minister.

To date, there is little the UK public doesn't know about the Olympics chief.

The Chinese, however, - and the world - are allowed to know only that her Beijing 2008 peer, Liu Qi, has a an MA in iron smelting; is a professor of engineering; was once mayor of Beijing; is a member of the political bureau of the 17th Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee; and is secretary of the Beijing Municipal CPC Committee.

His Olympic high points are widely publicised by the state propaganda machine, yet you'll never know about his mistakes.

He is just another smiling technocrat in a suit promising to deliver the best games ever. And the Chinese are inclined to believe him, if not publicly give their support.

Yet despite the soaring bills and compensation to be paid to dispossessed vegetables growers, tabloid headlines, allegations and probes, the British public also backs the under-fire Jowell - or at least supports her Olympic vision.

Despite a year and more of controversy, the UK public support for the Olympics is still high, latest polls suggest.

"That's something [positive] at least, as you get whacked everyday about something or other in our media for failing to do this or that," said Jowell.

As she dined, Jowell listened to the concerns of the Foreign Correspondents Club of China.

Tangible media freedom remains elusive on the mainland, despite all the promises, she was told, despite a relaxation of media rules - overseas journalists and their Chinese assistants are still routinely harassed, imprisoned and generally hindered as they try to enjoy the pledges by the Chinese in the name of the Olympic Charter.

It looks increasingly likely the 2008 Olympics will fail to deliver the changes many - including the IOC - had hoped for.

But Jowell disagrees. She thinks many legacies will be left behind in China - including greater media freedom, and subsequent government accountability and transparency.

During her meeting with Liu, she said she warned him: "Media freedom is like a genie. Once you've let it out of the bottle, it's then very hard to put it back in again."

She then added: "I said it was my hope, and the hope of many people around the world, that this will be a new era of press freedom that was precipitated by the Olympics.

"He replied ... by referring to the greater transparency seen at the recent 17th Communist Party Congress.

"[Liu] said nothing that led me to think he was going to look at reversing the changes that have taken place . . . and is nothing more than sincere in ensuring Beijing honours its commitments.

"You can be as staged-managed as you like. But if the substance is not measurably there, then you fail in your obligations. China gave commitments . . . but the commitments that you make when you become a host city are not negotiable."

However, Jowell called for modest expectations from Beijing 2008, as the Olympics has only so much "leverage".

"It will not solve every human rights contravention and abuse that China practises. But what the Olympics can do . . . is produce progress,' she said.

Does Jowell secretly day dream of a London governed along Beijing government lines - one where the actions of its rulers are rarely called into questions, and obstacles like feral cats and residents on Olympic sites are bulldozed out the way without fear of a media-informed public backlash?

As smoke began billowing across east London 600 miles away and headlines writers started rubbing their hands in glee, the beleaguered British Olympics minister offered no hesitation in her retort.

"The government in the UK gnash their teeth every day at the way the press use their freedom. But it's better than the alternative, I can tell you," she said.


http://www.scmp.com/portal/site/ ... lumns&s=Opinion

Kevin Sinclair's Hong Kong
A veteran SCMP reporter, Kevin examines the good, bad and ugly sides of life in the city. E-mail him at kevin.sinclair@scmp.com
KEVIN SINCLAIR'S HONG KONG

Nov 21, 2007        
        Email to friend         |         Print a copy

From the tarmac at Chek Lap Kok, Brian Butt Yiu-ming casts his eyes onto the rearing peaks of Lantau and his saddest memories.

In August 2003, a Government Flying Service Eurocopter on a routine medical evacuation mission crashed a few minutes after taking off to pick up a sick person on Cheung Chau. The pilot and aircrewman aboard were killed.

Four years later, the controller of the Government Flying Service remembers his proudest moment. He saw 20 of his fliers receive bravery medals at Government House for risking their lives rescuing 91 people a year earlier from a wild typhoon.

"I felt like a proud father," recalls the man who has headed the service for 11 years.

In a very brief announcement recently, the government said Mr Butt would be taking earlier retirement, starting in March next year. The veteran airman with more than 30 years of service leaves the official aviation unit in a superb state. But much more needs to be said apart from "arrangements are being made to fill the vacancy".

With a mere 220 staff, two long-range fixed-wing aircraft and seven helicopters, the service is a small but vital element in the city's security and economic structure. It allows us to cast a vast shadow in the field of protection over most of the South China Sea.

Every time the aircrews take to the skies, even on the most routine of missions, they dance with death. They are our saviours in the skies and make us proud.

Nobody is more aware of this than Mr Butt, which is one reason why he is stepping down earlier than necessary.

"I've got the best of jobs," he messaged me yesterday from London, where he is collecting on behalf of the service a major international bravery award from the Guild of Air Pilots and Navigators.

"I manage a team of true professionals who are devoted and motivated and I'm also able to fly as an operational pilot."

There has been a lot of speculation about why he is leaving when he could serve up to four more years. Some rumours talk about eight senior staffers retiring or resigning in the past year.

Mr Butt muses that he has chosen the time to step down; the service has a strong and sustainable succession plan in place, he adds.

"There is a Chinese saying that I habitually tell my colleagues," Mr Butt says. "As aviators, I tell them we must not be a frog sitting in the bottom of a well. You cannot see the sky."

Pilots can scan the far horizons when they do training with airmen on visiting warships from Britain, France, America and other nations. There are particularly strong links, naturally, with mainland military and civilian aviation services.

Within government, the service is noted as an agency with extremely high levels of morale. Comradeship is extraordinary, especially at the sharp end where the pilots and aircrew risk their lives in often horrifying and almost unbelievable conditions.

Imagine being 200km off the China coast in a full typhoon dangling from a cable above a 20,000-tonne vessel pitching and rolling in a force-10 gale trying to persuade terrified seamen one by one to put themselves into unfamiliar tackle that will lift them to safety.

The unforgiving deck is rising and crashing the equivalent height of a five-storey building in the unforgiving fury of the open sea. This is raw courage. It is part of routine life for this group of quiet young Hongkongers.

It is this routine vigilance and constant taut training that makes people, including myself, writhe in fury when thoughtless members of the public misuse the service.

That is a sin. Yes, a sin! It is sadly becoming more common. A bunch of ill prepared hikers find themselves stuck on a lonely mountain hiking track after dark.

They have no torch, no maps, no equipment. They are on a recognised path but do not know where to go. They want a lift home so they call 999 and ask for a helicopter as if they are in Nathan Road wanting to go to a karaoke bar.

These and other shameful people put extra strain on an admirable government lifeline that was set up to rescue people in need and to provide an air-sea rescue set-up that is the envy of much of Asia.

After decades of service, Mr Butt is about to take his hands off the cockpit controls. They will be taken up by a new generation of aviators whom he has helped nurture, train and discipline in a unique role.

We owe them our gratitude.



http://www.scmp.com/portal/site/ ... lumns&s=Opinion

A pall hangs over China's pre-Olympic growth
Joseph Quinlan
Nov 23, 2007        
        Email to friend         |         Print a copy

While financial markets remain focused on the swooning US dollar, sky-high oil prices and the ongoing credit crunch in the United States, another market-rattling problem could be brewing in China.

Many investors expect some type of post-Olympic economic slowdown next year, as mainland infrastructure spending trails off and activities related to the run-up to the Games wane. A pullback, however, could come sooner rather than later.

A pre-Olympic slowdown may be on the cards if the government is forced to act aggressively to reduce the level of pollution in and around Beijing before the Games.

Because of the Olympics, mainland China has worked hard to go green during the past few years, spending billions of dollars on a host of environmental initiatives.

Around Beijing, a number of polluting industries have been either relocated or refitted with more energy-efficient technologies. Coal-burning plants have been converted to cleaner fuels, and more stringent vehicle-emission standards have been instituted. Sizeable funds have been pumped into Beijing's public transport facilities. As a result of these and other measures, there are tangible signs of Beijing going greener.

However, doubts persist about the nation's environment, and for good reason. The challenge before it is Herculean considering that China is home to 16 of the world's 20 most polluted cities, while as much as 10 per cent of farmland is polluted.

Meanwhile, China is close to surpassing - or has already surpassed - the US as the world's largest contributor of carbon dioxide to the atmosphere, a dubious honour that no nation wants.

Against this backdrop, the UN issued a report last month claiming that high levels of air pollution were a "legitimate concern" for anyone participating in the Games. The International Olympic Committee has also expressed concern about air quality and has gone so far as to say that some events may have to be rescheduled. More importantly, there are even signs that the Chinese government, after initially downplaying pollution fears, has come around to acknowledging the urgency of the problem.

In Beijing, speculation is mounting that the government may mandate the closing of numerous factories in and around the capital for up to two months prior to the Olympics.

It is also expected to ban more than 1 million cars from the capital's streets before and during the Games, and construction activity is expected to be scaled back sooner rather than later — again, all in the name of improving air quality.

To what extent these measures slow the pace of growth remains anyone's guess. However, there is little doubt that, should the government mandate a two-month, pre-Olympic reduction in industrial output, the general economy will feel some of the pain.

In the end, the more the mainland struggles to raise its air quality and improve its environment, the greater the potential for more draconian measures in the months leading up to the Olympics. The event is simply too big, too important and too symbolic to risk any sort of glitch or, worse still, embarrassment.

Hence, if the air does not start to improve by the spring of next year, leaders may have no other choice but to slam on the industrial brakes.

Such a scenario would stun a global financial community long accustomed to annual economic growth of 10 per cent or more on the mainland.

A pre-Olympic slowdown could result in a deflationary shock to the global commodity markets, triggering an abrupt and unanticipated downturn in commodity prices. If that happens, real growth in many high-flying commodity nations will decelerate, undermining global economic growth in the process.

Joseph Quinlan is chief market strategist for Bank of America Capital Management and a Pacific Council on International Policy adjunct fellow



http://www.scmp.com/portal/site/ ... sight&s=Opinion

Shifting winds may cloud Beijing's patriot Games
Ian Bremmer
Nov 26, 2007        
        Email to friend         |         Print a copy

When the International Olympic Committee awarded Beijing the 2008 Summer Games in July 2001, the announcement ignited wild celebrations across the country. The Communist Party hoped to use the Games to showcase the country's emergence as a dynamic, modern nation. But, as China's leaders begin final preparations for the Games next August, they may be wondering if hosting the event was such a good idea after all. They have significant reasons for doubt.

The mainland's senior leaders always closely monitor spontaneous public expressions of nationalist fervour, fearful that shifting winds might blow an unwelcome storm in their direction.

Of course, what they hope is that the Games will channel these energies towards national solidarity, which will allow the leadership to deliver its people a moment of achievement and patriotic glory.

But, the Olympics will also bring international scrutiny of the nation's weaknesses at a delicate time in its development. The world already knows of China's success and its attractiveness as a destination for foreign investment, but few outsiders have seen the steep price the country is paying for its new prosperity.

The most obvious signs of that cost flow through the mainland's waterways and contaminate its air. Runaway growth and development have left about 70 per cent of its lakes and rivers severely polluted, many unfit for human use of any kind. Indeed, nearly half a billion Chinese lack access to clean drinking water.

But air quality will prove the more embarrassing problem. Television coverage of athletes gasping for breath will hardly provide Beijing with the signature Olympic image it had in mind. Growing international anxiety over climate change and other environmental hazards will ensure such issues receive considerable media coverage.

There is also the risk that the Games will become a political circus, as the international spotlight generates irresistible opportunities for public protest. China's leadership has demonstrated many times that it can quell domestic dissent, but the unique scale of the Olympics will require round-the-clock vigilance.

The Games will generate significant foreign-policy risks, as well. In Taiwan, the outgoing president, Chen Shui-bian, is stirring the independence pot, knowing the Olympic spotlight will limit Beijing's ability to respond forcefully.

Then there is the matter of how the Games will be received in the west. Since 2001, the mainland has increasingly become the focal point of much anxiety in the developed world. Huge bilateral trade deficits, accusations that Beijing keeps its currency undervalued, and a rash of defective and dangerous exports have fuelled a protectionist backlash in the US and Europe.

China, too, has changed since it "won" the 2008 Games six years ago. The party leadership has become more self-assured in its growing international role, but its ability to manage the pace of change at home has become more uncertain.

In 2001, then president Jiang Zemin hoped the Games would herald China's arrival as an industrialised power. But his successor, Hu Jintao , has focused on the damage that has come from unrestrained growth.

Mr Hu and Premier Wen Jiabao have also championed a more "harmonious" society, because they understand they can no longer neglect the growing wealth gap, social tensions, environmental and public health problems, and the Party's tenuous relationship with the less advantaged people.

As China's leaders scramble to address these challenges, will they still relish the idea of providing an international audience with front-row seats? How they look back on the Games once the confetti is swept from the streets is far from certain.

Ian Bremmer is president of Eurasia Group and a senior fellow at the World Policy Institute. Copyright: Project Syndicate



http://www.scmp.com/portal/site/ ... sight&s=Opinion

Money and power talk - more than ever today


Philip Bowring
Nov 27, 2007           
     
  |   

  



"There has been a gentrification of triad society." It was a stark assessment of Macau by former Hong Kong policeman Steve Vickers, who now heads the security and investigation agency International Risk. Mr Vickers cited undocumented gambling visits by mainland officials to launder illegally obtained cash, the appearance of murdered bodies along the nearby Chinese coast and graft charges against senior government figures as examples of the worsening situation.

Perhaps the situation is now beginning to turn around as a result of the trial of former transport and public works minister Ao Man-long. Whatever the trial result, the depth of the problem is obvious from the sheer number of charges and the identities of those companies and individuals named in the allegations. Beijing is clearly keen to see a cleanup, but whether one can be achieved is another matter, given the involvement of so many mainland officials and firms with the Macau gambling and entertainment industry.

Of course, Macau has always had some of these problems, a natural outcome of an economy so dependent on gambling, loan sharking and sex. But Hong Kong must not become too complacent about the potential for the gentrification of sleaze, as those with money or assumed connections to power become able to ignore the law.

From small beginnings such habits can easily grow. I could hardly fail to notice the apparent unconcern both for the law and the interests of ordinary citizens last week on Wyndham Street in Central, close to both Government House and the Central Police Station.

On three successive evenings I noticed that, outside a new entertainment establishment, a desk had been set up, manned by receptionists and bouncers. This occupied at least half the narrow pavement. And, on an adjacent road, ignoring large "No Parking" signs and a bus stop, several expensive vehicles had been parked.

On one occasion, I approached the staff and complained about the obstruction on the pavement. I was told to mind my own business. There were, I was told, "very important people inside".

So there we have it. The police can hardly be unaware of the situation. Nor can the bus company, whose drivers and passengers are so inconvenienced by the obstructions. Somebody high up must have told the police not to interfere with these continuing breaches of the law, and behaviour which has potentially placed pedestrians in danger.

Pandering to the self-importance of the rich and powerful is not new. But it seems to be getting worse. Last week also saw what was supposed to be a high-profile sail through Hong Kong harbour of a replica of the three-masted sailing ship The Bounty. Made for the 1984 movie The Bounty, the vessel, previously based in Sydney, has been acquired by Hong Kong Resorts International.

Discovery Bay ferry crews and local volunteers were given training in the complexities of hoisting and managing some of the 19 sails of an 18th-century vessel so that it could make a suitably impressive debut. But, alas, the invited dignitaries didn't have time for a real sail. So, The Bounty sat broadside spewing diesel fumes at Pier Three in Central, invisible to all but those in nearby buildings. Speeches were made about boosting tourism but a large media attendance was not reflected in the coverage of a singularly unphotogenic event.

Hong Kong Resorts International has set up the Zheng He foundation with a view to eventually build a replica of the great Chinese sailor's flagship, believed to have been three times the length of The Bounty. But, given events last week, one has to wonder whether The Bounty replica will ever be seriously sailed. That would require spending money on acquiring an experienced crew and maintaining the sails and rigging, rather than allowing it to become another party boat to be motored around Hong Kong waters.

Philip Bowring is a Hong Kong-based journalist and commentator


http://www.scmp.com/portal/site/ ... sight&s=Opinion