Obama revives the fight between good and evil


David Brooks
Dec 16, 2009           
     
      

  



If you were graduating from Princeton in the first part of the 20th century, you probably heard the university president, John Hibben, deliver one of his commencement addresses. Hibben's running theme, which was common at that time, was that each person is part angel, part devil. Life is a struggle to push back against the evils of the world without succumbing to the passions of the beast lurking inside.

You, and your generation, would have been aware that there is evil in the world, and the presence of Hitler and Stalin would have confirmed it. You would have known it is necessary to fight that evil.

At the same time, you would have had a lingering awareness of the sinfulness within yourself. As the cold-war strategist George F. Kennan would put it: "There is a little bit of the totalitarian buried somewhere, way down deep, in each and every one of us."

So, as you act to combat evil, you wouldn't want to get carried away by your own righteousness or be seduced by the belief that you are innocent. Even fighting evil can be corrupting. You would have also championed the spread of democracy, knowing that it is the only system that fits humanity's noble yet sinful nature. In short, you would have been a cold-war liberal.

Cold-war liberalism had a fine run in the middle third of the 20th century, and it has lingered here and there since. But, after Vietnam, most liberals moved on. It became unfashionable to talk about evil. Some liberals came to believe in the inherent goodness of man and the limitless possibilities of negotiation. Some blamed conflicts on weapons systems and pursued arms control. Some based their foreign-policy thinking on being against whatever president George W. Bush was for.

President Barack Obama never bought into these shifts. In the past few weeks, he has revived the Christian realism that underpinned cold-war liberal thinking and tried to apply it to a different world.

In 2002, Obama spoke against the Iraq war, but from the vantage point of a cold-war liberal. He said he was not against war per se, just this one, and he was booed by the crowd. In 2007, he spoke about the way US theologian Reinhold Niebuhr formed his thinking: "I take away the compelling idea that there's serious evil in the world and hardship and pain. And we should be humble and modest in our belief we can eliminate those things. But we shouldn't use that as an excuse for cynicism and inaction."

His speeches at West Point and Oslo are perfect explications of the liberal internationalist approach. He spoke of the high ideals of human rights activists and America's history as a vehicle for democracy, prosperity (SEHK: 0803, announcements, news) and human rights. Most of all, he talked about the paradox at the core of cold-war liberalism, of balancing "two seemingly irreconcilable truths" - that war is both folly and necessary.

He talked about the need to balance the moral obligation to champion freedom while not getting swept up in self-destructive fervour.

Obama has not always got this balance right. But his doctrine is becoming clear. The Oslo speech was the most profound of his presidency, and maybe his life.

David Brooks is a New York Times columnist


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Gold may prove to be an illusory safe haven


Nouriel Roubini
Dec 17, 2009           
     
      

  



Gold prices have been rising sharply, breaching the US$1,000 barrier and, in recent weeks, rising towards US$1,200 an ounce and above. Today's "gold bugs" argue that the price could top US$2,000. But the recent price surge looks suspiciously like a bubble, with the increase only partly justified by economic fundamentals.

Gold prices rise sharply only in two situations: as a hedge when inflation is high and rising; and, when there is a risk of a near depression and investors fear for the security of their bank deposits, gold becomes a safe haven.

The last two years fit this pattern. Gold prices started to rise sharply in the first half of 2008, when emerging markets were overheating and commodity prices were rising. Even that rise was partly a bubble, which collapsed in the second half of 2008, when the world economy fell into recession. As concerns about deflation replaced fear of inflation, gold prices started to fall.

The second price spike occurred when Lehman Brothers collapsed, leaving investors scared about the safety of their financial assets. When that panic subsided, towards the end of 2008, gold prices resumed their downward movement.

Gold rose above US$1,000 again in February-March, when it looked like most of the financial system in the US and Europe might be near insolvency. That panic subsided - and gold prices started to drift down again - after US banks were subjected to "stress tests", and the global economy bottomed out.

So, with no near-term risk of inflation or depression, why have gold prices started to rise sharply again in the last few months? There are several reasons.

First, large, monetised fiscal deficits are fuelling concerns over medium-term inflation. Second, a massive wave of liquidity is chasing assets, including commodities, which may eventually stoke inflation further. Third, dollar-funded carry trades are pushing the US dollar sharply down, and the lower the dollar, the higher the dollar price of oil, gold and other commodities.

Fourth, the global supply of gold is limited, and demand is rising faster than can be met.

Finally, sovereign risk is rising - consider the troubles faced by investors in Dubai, Greece and other emerging markets and advanced economies.

But, since gold has no intrinsic value, there are significant risks of a downward correction. Eventually, central banks will need to exit quantitative easing and zero-interest rates, putting downward pressure on risky assets such as commodities. Or the global recovery may turn out to be fragile and anaemic, leading to a rise in bearish sentiment on commodities - and in bullishness about the US dollar.

Recent gold price rises are only partially justified by fundamentals. Nor is it clear why investors should stock up on gold if the global economy dips into recession again. If you truly fear a global meltdown, you should stock up on guns, canned food and other commodities you can actually use in your log cabin.

Nouriel Roubini is professor of economics at the Stern School of Business, NYU, and chairman of Roubini Global Economics. Copyright: Project Syndicate


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Cities to the rescue
Many great metropolises are not waiting for their national governments to act on climate change

Christine Loh
Dec 18, 2009           
     
      

  



Whatever happens in Copenhagen today, we should take heart from the message city mayors around the world sent to climate-change negotiators earlier this week. More than a hundred mayors held their own summit in the Danish capital and told their respective country's ministers to be brave and commit to tough carbon-reduction targets because cities could deliver.

Copenhagen aims to become the first carbon-neutral city by 2025; it plans to reduce carbon emissions by 20 per cent by 2015, with a total of 50 initiatives to push it down to zero a decade later. For example, the city will build a new geothermal power plant, use more wind and biomass power, increase district heating and experiment with district cooling, as well as roll out hydrogen and electric vehicles.

Pedestrians and cyclists already have the right of way on roads designed to make life as smooth and speedy as possible for them. Whether in pleasant summer or freezing winter, Danes cycle - because it is the fastest way to get around. The mayor of the city, Ritt Bjerregaard, waxed lyrical about how children are encouraged to cycle from an early age, and how the city is constantly thinking of ways to make biking an even better experience. For example, very soon, cyclists will be able to use PDAs to tell friends where they are on their bike - a sort of Facebook for cyclists.

New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg said it wasn't practical to wait for national governments to act because cities have to get on with the job of solving problems. Last year, New York pledged to reduce carbon emissions by 30 per cent in 10 years.

He said his city had copied Copenhagen, and now had 260 kilometres of cycle paths. Still more will be created, because New Yorkers want them. Moreover, America's largest city is working hard to retrofit old buildings to improve their energy efficiency; this is where the city has the best potential to reduce carbon emissions. Bloomberg stressed that thousands of jobs were being created through the mandating of building upgrades. All public buildings will be retrofitted, and it is estimated that the work will have paid for itself, with improved efficiency, in seven years. All buildings are now required to carry out energy audits and publish the energy-efficiency data online. This will give owners and tenants information and transparency, which in turn should result in more-energy-efficient buildings.

Hong Kong, like New York, also needs to focus on its buildings since they consume 89 per cent of electricity generated locally. The government has just introduced legislation on building energy codes, but lacks a retrofitting plan as aggressive as the Big Apple's. Hong Kong, without a mayor, was represented at the summit by environment minister Edward Yau Tang-wah. He talked about the government's HK$450 million "matching fund" for carrying out carbon audits; in eight months, 7,000 buildings had been registered to participate - representing one-sixth of the buildings in Hong Kong.

This is not bad, but Hong Kong can obviously push much harder to catch up with what other cities are doing.

In 2007, Hong Kong pledged to reduce its energy intensity from the 2005 level by at least 25 per cent by 2030. This is only a relative reduction, as it is tied to growth and represented the best efforts of the Asia-Pacific Economic Co-operation forum at the time.

Now that Beijing has unveiled an intensity target of 40 per cent to 45 per cent by 2020, compared with 2005 levels, Hong Kong obviously cannot remain where it is. Indeed, as the richest part of China, there is no shortage of things Hong Kong can do to spur green and low-carbon development, jobs and quality of life.

Perhaps one thing Hong Kong needs to do is stop emphasising the city's relatively "low" carbon emissions, at 6.7 tonnes per capita, and focus on the performance of our buildings relative to those in New York, Copenhagen, Tokyo and Singapore, an area where we do poorly.

It was good to hear Bjerregaard say: "Tell national leaders they don't have to worry - we [cities] can do it." Clearly, if we want to reduce emissions as quickly as possible, cities should be our main focus.

Christine Loh Kung-wai is chief executive of the think tank Civic Exchange and senior policy adviser to C40 Cities Climate Leadership Group

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Civic Party will be big loser if plan goes awry


Frank Ching
Dec 21, 2009           
     
      

  



It is ironic that the Democratic Party has rejected the plan formulated by the League of Social Democrats for a legislator from each electoral district to resign, triggering by-elections, while the Civic Party has embraced this radical move, which is fraught with danger.

After all, when the Civic Party was first formed, its leaders were seen as highly sophisticated professionals who were politically moderate and who would provide an alternative to the Democratic Party, which had a history of social activism that appealed to the grass roots.

But Hong Kong has seen growing political radicalism in recent years, reflected in the emergence of  the league and its loud-mouthed  banana-throwing representatives in the Legislative Council.

The Civic Party, by throwing its lot in with the party of "Long Hair" Leung Kwok-hung, is playing a high-risk game, changing its image and shifting its political base.

Actually, the whole idea of a "de facto referendum" is questionable. For one thing, will voters see it as a referendum or will they simply vote for the candidate of their choice?

If the election were a referendum, then it would not matter which candidate the league-Civic Party coalition put forward. However, this is clearly not the case.

Thus, the league's Albert Chan Wai-yip has offered not to seek re-election but to let former Democratic Party chairman Martin Lee Chu-ming run, to enhance the chances of electoral victory.

More to the point, what is the referendum supposed to be on? It has to be a very specific proposal but, so far, no such suggestion has been forthcoming. And even if a proposal is formulated and the league and Civic Party candidates run on that platform, there is no way they can insist that their opponents go along with them and allow this to be a single-issue election.

Of course, if the proposal is for universal suffrage in 2012, then probably all pro-establishment candidates will take the position that Beijing is already committed to universal suffrage in 2017, so it is pointless to campaign for any other year.

The entire pan-democratic camp stands to lose. The pro-government camp will certainly pool their resources and support a single candidate in each electoral district in an attempt to wrest one or two seats away from the incumbents.

If the league-Civic Party coalition fails to retain all five seats, the so-called "referendum" would be deemed a failure. And the pan-democratic coalition in the legislature would have been weakened, quite possibly to the extent that it may no longer be in a position to veto government proposals that require a two-thirds majority in Legco.

The pro-establishment parties will enter the by-elections with little to lose. After all, they are running for seats held by democrats.

Members of the league are street fighters. They have brought their tactics into the Legco chamber and opinion surveys show that a majority of voters oppose such behaviour. If the league loses a seat or two, its members can simply go back to the streets to continue their tactics.

The Civic Party, however, is different. Its leaders are barristers, not street fighters. If its members lose, they lose, period. They cannot turn to the streets. The Civic Party lacks the Democratic Party's grass-roots network, so the by-elections will not be easy for its candidates.

The Democratic Party, understandably, does not want to give the Civic Party anything beyond moral support. After all, active campaigning to urge Democratic Party supporters to vote for Civic Party candidates may result in the Democratic Party losing these supporters for good. Understandably, that is a risk no political party wants to take.

A lot more thought needs to go into this referendum idea. As it stands, the pan-democrats have everything to lose and little to gain.

Frank Ching is a Hong Kong-based writer and commentator. frank.ching@scmp.com


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Global washout
Barack Obama must share much of the blame for the Copenhagen climate conference disaster

Jeffrey Sachs
Dec 22, 2009           
     
      

  



Two years of climate-change negotiations have ended in a farce in Copenhagen. Rather than grappling with complex issues, US President Barack Obama decided instead to declare victory with a vague statement of principles agreed with four other countries. The remaining 187 were handed a fait accompli, which some accepted and others denounced. After the fact, the UN has argued that the document was generally accepted, though for most on a take-it-or-leave-it basis.

Responsibility for this disaster reaches far and wide. Let us start with George W. Bush, who ignored climate change for the eight years of his presidency, wasting the world's precious time. Then comes the UN, for managing the negotiating process so miserably during a two-year period. Then comes the European Union, for pushing relentlessly for a single-minded vision of a global emissions-trading system, even when such a system would not fit the rest of the world.

Then comes the US Senate, which has ignored climate change for 15 consecutive years since ratifying the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change. Finally, there is Obama, who effectively abandoned a systematic course of action under the UN framework, because it was proving nettlesome to US power and domestic politics.

Obama's decision to declare a phoney negotiating victory undermines the UN process by signalling that rich countries will do what they want and must no longer listen to the "pesky" concerns of many smaller and poorer countries. Some will view this as pragmatic, reflecting the difficulty of getting agreement with 192 UN member states. But it is worse than that. International law has been replaced by the insincere, inconsistent and unconvincing word of a few powers, notably the US. America has insisted that others sign on to its terms - leaving the UN process hanging by a thread - but it has never shown goodwill to the rest of the world on this issue, nor the ability or interest needed to take the lead on it.

From the standpoint of actual reduction of greenhouse-gas emissions, this agreement is unlikely to accomplish anything real. It is non-binding and will probably strengthen the forces of opposition to emissions reductions. Who will take seriously the extra costs of emissions reduction if they see how lax others' promises are?

The reality is that the world will now wait to see if the US accomplishes any serious emissions reduction. Grave doubts are in order on that score. Obama does not have the votes in the Senate, has not displayed any willingness to expend political capital to reach a Senate agreement, and may not even see a Senate vote on the issue next year unless he pushes much harder.

The Copenhagen summit also fell short on financial help from rich countries to poor nations. Plenty of figures were thrown around, but most of these were, as usual, empty promises. Aside from announcements of modest outlays for the next few years, which might - just might - add up to a real few billion dollars, the big news was a commitment of US$100 billion per year for the developing countries by 2020. Yet this figure was unaccompanied by any details about how it would be achieved.

Experience with financial aid for development teaches us that announcements about money a decade from now are mostly empty words. They do not bind the rich countries at all. There is no political will behind them. Indeed, Obama has never once discussed with the American people their responsibility under the UN Framework Convention to help poor countries adapt to the impact of climate change.

One of the most notable features of the US-led document is that it doesn't mention any intention to continue negotiations next year. This is almost surely deliberate. Obama has cut the legs out from under the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, in effect declaring that America will do what it will do, but that it will not become further entangled in messy UN climate processes in 2010.

That stance might well reflect the upcoming 2010 mid-term Congressional elections in the US. Obama does not want to be trapped in the middle of unpopular international negotiations when election season arrives. He may also feel that such negotiations would not achieve much. Right or wrong on that point, the intention seems to be to kill the negotiations. If the US does not participate in further negotiations, Obama will prove to have been even more damaging to the international system of environmental law than Bush was.

For me, the image that remains of Copenhagen is that of Obama appearing at a press conference to announce an agreement that only five countries had yet seen, and then rushing off to the airport to fly back to Washington, to avoid a snowstorm back at home. He has taken on a grave responsibility in history. If his action proves unworthy, if the voluntary commitments of the US and others prove insufficient, and if future negotiations are derailed, it will have been Obama who single-handedly traded in international law for big-power politics on climate change.

Perhaps the UN will rally itself to get better organised. Perhaps Obama's gambit will work, the US Senate will pass legislation, and other countries will do their part as well. Or perhaps we have just witnessed a serious step towards global ruin through our failure to co-operate on a complex and difficult challenge that requires patience, expertise, goodwill and respect for international law - all of which were in short supply in Copenhagen.

Jeffrey D. Sachs is professor of economics and director of the Earth Institute at Columbia University. He is also a special adviser to the UN secretary general on the Millennium Development Goals. Copyright: Project Syndicate

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Great energy game


FRANK CHING

Dec 23, 2009           
     
      

  



Years of building friendship with the countries of Central Asia have paid off for China with the opening of a 1,833-kilometre pipeline last week that will bring natural gas from Turkmenistan through Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan to Xinjiang, where it will be piped to major cities in the east and south, possibly including Hong Kong.

Currently, China produces almost all the gas that it consumes. However, when it reaches full capacity, the pipeline will be capable of delivering 40 billion cubic metres of gas a year, more than half the amount that the country consumed last year.

At present, gas accounts for only about 3 per cent of mainland China's energy mix, with coal being predominant. But it wants gas to make up a larger component of that, because it is cleaner.

Beijing is scouring the world for oil and gas to fuel its economy and has successfully developed energy sources in far-flung corners of the world, including Africa and Latin America, in addition to the Middle East. The Central Asia pipeline is a major feather in its cap.

The Chinese have gone about their mission quietly, building up relations with countries through sure-footed personal diplomacy. President Hu Jintao or Premier Wen Jiabao travel to Central Asia virtually every year. Central Asian leaders, too, are frequent visitors to Beijing. The president of Kazakhstan, Nursultan Nazarbayev, has paid 16 visits to China since the two countries established diplomatic ties in 1992.

China has nurtured its relationship with Central Asia since well before the setting up of the Shanghai Co-operation Organisation - a grouping that includes Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan, in addition to China and Russia - in 2001.

Beijing makes a point of focusing on economic co-operation. But, by cementing economic relations, it also achieves political goals. Thus, when violence erupted between Han Chinese and Uygurs in July, all the members of the Shanghai Co-operation Organisation supported Beijing's position that events in Xinjiang were domestic affairs and endorsed efforts by Beijing to "restore order". The pipeline deal positions China as a major player in Central Asia, which hitherto was dominated by Moscow. Now that the pipeline is in place, Turkmenistan does not need to be dependent on Russia, which used to be the only customer for its natural gas.

In fact, the Turkmenistan deal is but one of many Central Asian projects in which China is involved. It has also offered a US$15 billion loan to Kazakhstan, part of which would be used to acquire a 50 per cent interest in the country's largest oil-producing company. Economic deals with China provide Central Asian countries with an alternative to reliance on Russia or, at the least, strengthen their hand when dealing with Moscow. "This pipeline will have a positive impact across the entire region and beyond," said Turkmen President Gurbanguly Berdymukhammedov. "It will become a major contributing factor to security in Asia."

This is the first major gas export route from Central Asia that does not go through Russia. It was built in just over two years, whereas the Russians have been talking about building a gas pipeline to China for five years. While China is interested in diversifying its sources of energy, Central Asian countries are interested in new markets. Projects like the Turkmenistan pipeline, therefore, serve their mutual interests. If Russia is unhappy with the latest turn of events, it is playing the role of graceful loser, with Prime Minister Vladimir Putin saying that Russian plans for pipelines to China would not be affected.

The United States, meanwhile, is showing unwonted interest in Central Asia. George Krol, deputy assistant secretary of state for South and Central Asia, announced a programme of annual consultations with each Central Asian country, beginning with a visit by Uzbekistan's foreign minister to Washington this month. Central Asia, Krol said, "is at the fulcrum of key US security, economic and political interests". The "Great Game" may not be afoot in the 19th century sense, but there is certainly a battle for influence in Central Asia and for access to its energy resources.

Frank Ching is a Hong Kong-based writer and commentator. frank.ching@scmp.com

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Bickering neighbours
China and India have much to offer each other - if they can resolve simmering differences

Sadanand Dhume
Dec 24, 2009           
     
      

  



While the Western media speculates about "Chindia's" challenge to developed nations, the two Asian giants are increasingly bickering in public. Both their media have taken their gloves off and there is tension along their frozen border. A spat between the two leading countries that have pushed globalisation forward could have a serious impact on a rapidly integrating world. But, against this backdrop, the odds of calm heads prevailing appear high.

For the first time in more than a decade - since India used a perceived threat from China to justify its 1998 nuclear tests - the world's two most populous nations find themselves bickering in public. In recent months, China has turned up the heat on a long-standing border disagreement over the northeastern Indian state of Arunachal Pradesh, subtly challenged India's claim over the disputed territory of Kashmir, and stepped up criticism of India in its official media. For its part, India has beefed up its border defences, pointedly underlined its own territorial claims, reiterated its support for the exiled Dalai Lama, and expelled thousands of unskilled Chinese workers. The message: India will not be pushed around by its larger neighbour.

The two countries have not fought a war since the Chinese briefly marched into eastern India in 1962. At the same time, the public sparring is evidence of a heightened, and innately volatile, competition between nuclear-armed countries that see themselves as ancient civilisations marching towards a renewed global pre-eminence. How the two nations manage their relations has vast implications for the region and the world. Until now, no country has had to choose between an already imposing China and a fast-rising India. Indeed many, especially in Southeast Asia, welcome India's role as a natural counterweight to Chinese hegemony. An escalating conflict, however, could force countries to step off the fence and either acquiesce to, or openly oppose, China's ambition to be Asia's unquestioned heavyweight.

The room for miscalculation appears greater on Beijing's side than New Delhi's. Still basking in the afterglow of the successful 2008 Olympics, with a rapidly modernising military and an economy three times the size of India's - and growing faster - the Chinese may be tempted to settle talk of parity between the two nations once and for all. As in 1962, a decisive Chinese victory in a short war would severely dent India's ambition to be seen as a peer. It would also cap the long-standing Chinese strategy of penning India in a regional box by cultivating strong ties with nations on its border - Myanmar, Bangladesh and, especially, Pakistan. With Japan in sharp demographic decline, a humbled India would also tilt the debate in Asia over which model of governance - China's one-party authoritarianism or India's freewheeling democracy - is better suited to the region's needs. Domestic compulsions may also explain Chinese behaviour. Uneven development and a paucity of human rights have stoked ethnic tensions among Buddhists in Tibet and Uygur Muslims in Xinjiang. Indeed, China's vocal disputation of India's claim to Arunachal Pradesh - referred to as southern Tibet by Beijing - is motivated, in part, by fears Tibetans will nominate a successor to the current Dalai Lama from an area outside Chinese control.

The border dispute dates back to 1914, when the British drew the so-called McMahon Line between the two countries. India recognises the line, China does not. Over the past six years, 13 rounds of talks have failed to produce an agreement. In June, China upped the ante by voting down a US$2.9 billion Asian Development Bank loan to India, a small portion of which was to be used for irrigation projects in Arunachal Pradesh, on India's side of the McMahon Line. Last month, Beijing objected to a visit to Tawang - home to a historic Buddhist monastery and the birthplace of the sixth Dalai Lama (1683-1706) - by the Dalai Lama.

Despite the effort by New Delhi to downplay the extent of its deteriorating ties with Beijing, a host of smaller incidents also underscore India's concerns about its giant neighbour. India has filed more anti-dumping cases against China in the World Trade Organisation than any other nation and has banned imports of Chinese toys, milk and chocolate, ostensibly for safety reasons. This summer, India changed visa regulations to effectively force thousands of unskilled Chinese workers to leave.

Nevertheless, in the short and medium term, neither China nor India have any interest in allowing their disagreements to spin out of control. In the longer term, however, for Beijing to successfully manage its relationship with New Delhi, it must learn to see India as Indians see it. Despite poor infrastructure, greater poverty and a smaller economy, Indians broadly view their country as China's peer.

India's foreign-policy establishment and strategic elite are willing to respect core Chinese concerns on sensitive issues such as Tibet, Taiwan and Xinjiang. They also see a natural confluence of interests in bilateral trade - despite concerns about dumping, China is India's top trading partner - and in a unified approach to climate change. Both resist binding caps on, and international scrutiny of, their carbon emissions.

At the same time, India's raucous democracy, vibrant free press and sense of impending arrival on the world stage make it nearly impossible for New Delhi to make concessions to Beijing that signal a loss of face. A belligerent China only fans Indian fears and pushes it towards deeper strategic co-operation with the US. It also destabilises the region by raising the stakes for Southeast Asian nations that would like to see both nations prosper rather than be forced to take sides.

How Beijing manages its fraught relationship with New Delhi will go a long way towards reassuring Asia's smaller nations of the credibility behind China's often-stated "peaceful rise" theory.

Sadanand Dhume is a Washington-based writer and journalist. He is also a non-resident fellow at the Asia Society. Reprinted with permission from YaleGlobal Online.

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How we sold the pink dolphins down the river


Frank Ching
Dec 28, 2009           
     
      

  



The hoarding next to the old Star Ferry terminal in Central, erected to keep reclamation from prying eyes, has been decorated with appealing drawings by primary schoolchildren expressing their dream of what they wish Hong Kong harbour to look like.

Interestingly, many of these works show dolphins frolicking in the water, reflecting the widespread affection for the marine mammals that inhabit our neighbourhood.

The dolphin was Hong Kong's official mascot of the 1997 handover ceremony. But now that work has officially started on the Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macau bridge - the world's longest sea bridge - the survival of these creatures is in doubt.

Dolphin-watching is a favourite pastime of tourists and locals alike. All too often, the dolphins encountered bear scars - testament to encounters with ships, very likely the high-speed hydrofoils that ply between Hong Kong and Macau.

The ceremony to launch construction of the 50-kilometre-long bridge, held in Zhuhai on December 15, was attended by Vice-Premier Li Keqiang and the chief executives of both Hong Kong and Macau. Li said of the bridge: "It is of great significance to maintain the long-term prosperity (SEHK: 0803, announcements, news) and stability in Hong Kong and Macau, and enhance the overall competitiveness in the region."

That is undoubtedly true. The bridge's economic value is not in doubt. It will further integrate Hong Kong into the economy of the Pearl River Delta and facilitate development of the western side of the delta.

What is in doubt, however, is the ecological price to be paid by innocent marine life. An Environmental Impact Assessment Report optimistically declared that the impact of this massive construction project on the Chinese pink dolphin in Hong Kong waters was "insignificant".

Zhu Yongling, a mainland official, was quoted as saying at the inauguration ceremony that the construction project would endeavour to protect the maritime environment and marine life, such as pink dolphins. "We will control the construction noise and turbidity of the seawater, and prevent oil pollution," he said.

The construction, which will take six years, involves reclamation to create two artificial islands - one near Chek Lap Kok - as well as the building of a six-kilometre undersea tunnel. Such large-scale work will involve much dredging, noise and water pollution, the loss of fish on which dolphins feed, not to mention physical danger to the dolphins themselves.

A report in the Macau Post Daily, citing "informed sources", said the project "is planned to include the setting-up of a protection area for pink dolphins". However, no details were provided. Certainly, where Hong Kong is concerned, the creation of a marine park for dolphins has been vetoed - until after the damage has been done: officials here have decided that such a park will only be established once the bridge has been built.

According to Cheng Ting-ning, Hong Kong head of the project, the park could only be designated in 2015, after most of the marine construction activities had been completed: "The park is designated for dolphins to live peacefully in the future... we have to gather more realistic data to convince the public there is need [for] a marine park."

By that time, so few dolphins might be left that the government could conclude there was no need for a dolphin marine park. Incredibly, Cheng said dolphins disturbed by the construction would go away and return when the work had ended. It is as though he was going to put up a sign saying: "Temporarily out of service" and the dolphins would find some other habitat for the next six years.

This is the same attitude as that of the anonymous Marine Department official who said, in June 2007, that there was no need to put measures in place to protect dolphins from high-speed ferries because they are smart and know how to get out of the way.

Tell that to the Yangtze River dolphins, which are now extinct.

Frank Ching is a Hong Kong-based writer and commentator

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Nixon and Kissinger set precedent for Obama


Ian Holliday
Dec 29, 2009           
     
      

  



A prominent foreign policy initiative in the first year of the Obama administration was a first step to reshape bilateral relations with Myanmar. Long built on rejection of an authoritarian regime, US policy is now moving towards engagement.

As the process unfolds, it is worth exploring striking parallels with a major shift launched 40 years ago when the Nixon administration sought to bring in China from the cold. Then, as now, a new president was confronted with bipartisan support for an isolationist stance.

In 1969, Richard Nixon inherited a Red China policy that demonised Mao Zedong's Communist regime and allied the US with Chiang Kai-shek's Taiwan. In 2009, Barack Obama was heir to a Burma policy that denounced Senior General Than Shwe's junta and linked the US with Aung San Suu Kyi's democrats. Both presidents knew instinctively that US policy had strong emotional and ideological underpinnings. But both saw that it was not working.

In the late 1960s, the result was major policy change. Nixon began to abandon prevalent Red China discourse and talked instead of the People's Republic. National security adviser Henry Kissinger established secret contacts with premier Zhou Enlai . Ping-pong diplomacy took American athletes inside China. A secret trip by Kissinger in July 1971 set up the diplomatic coup of February 1972: Nixon in China.

Four decades later, Obama has travelled no more than a fraction of this distance with his Myanmar initiative. In February, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton acknowledged US policy failure and instituted a formal review. In September, state-to-state contacts were re-established in New York. In November, US officials completed an exploratory mission to Myanmar. In response, the ruling generals minimally expanded dialogue channels with Suu Kyi.

At this early stage, what lessons Obama might take from Nixon? Clearly there are differences, marked by China's sheer size and influence. But with a population of 55 million and strategic location, Myanmar is not unimportant. Perhaps the one significant distinction in the Myanmar case is a general election promised for 2010, which has no Chinese equivalent. If this results not in confirmation of the junta, but in a bolstering of democratic forces and institutions, Nixonian stratagems will not be required.

However if, as seems likely, a darker scenario unfolds and the core elements of an oppressive state remain defiantly in place, then the time will surely come for the US to bite the bullet of direct, high-level engagement aimed at hauling Myanmar into the modern world.

The process is unlikely to be pretty. When Nixon and Kissinger dealt with China, they deceived Congress and the American people, discarded a central plank of US foreign policy, and reneged on statehood guarantees made to Taiwan. But the result was stunning.

In his Nobel lecture, Obama signalled an openness to new foreign policy ideas. If change does not come from within Myanmar in 2010, Obama should look to the case of Nixon in China for inspiration.

Professor Ian Holliday is dean of social sciences at the University of Hong Kong



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The life and death of Akmal Shaikh
The Briton executed in China had a history of bizarre behaviour

CAPITAL PUNISHMENT
Helen Pidd
Dec 30, 2009           
     
      

  



Akmal Shaikh's journey from north London to his execution yesterday in a remote part of northwest China is a labyrinthine tale involving eastern European gangsters, hare-brained business schemes and a dream of international pop stardom.

It began in Kentish Town, where Shaikh lived with his wife and children. The couple ran a minicab business called Teksi on Fortess Road, close to Kentish Town's underground station, and life appeared to be good.

Shaikh's former solicitor, Bruce Hayim, told The Observer newspaper earlier this year that Shaikh was a "charming and charismatic man" - though the legal campaign group Reprieve said he had "a lifelong history of very strange behaviour".

His older brother, Akbar, said his sibling had shown signs of mental illness in 2001 after his first marriage had ended and "as he grew older he seemed to go off the rails".

In 2004, he was accused of sexually harassing a female member of staff and ordered to pay £10,000 (HK$124,400) in unpaid wages and damages by an employment tribunal, according to his local paper. In 2005, Shaikh's life started to unravel further. He left for Poland, said his brother, where he announced plans to set up an airline despite having no means to do so. With his lack of money and experience in the aviation industry, the venture soon foundered. Having turned his back on his family, he remained in Poland, sometimes sleeping rough, moving from Lublin in the east to the capital, Warsaw. At some point he acquired a girlfriend, who told the Observer she soon became concerned by his "really silly and crazy" behaviour, such as the time he sent her a fake letter purporting to show he had won £1 million.

He started a prolonged e-mail campaign, sharing his delusions with celebrities and government officials he had never met, firing off messages typed in an enormous 72-point font.

Hundreds of e-mails he sent to the British embassy in Warsaw from 2005 reveal the state of his mind. He claimed to have spoken to the angel Gabriel and said that he could have foiled the London bombings of July 7, 2005, had he only been allowed to hold a press conference. One e-mail appeared to be a letter to Father Christmas.

Some messages were copied to a group of 74 organisations and individuals, including Tony Blair, Sir Paul McCartney, George W. Bush and the BBC programme Top Gear.

But among the nonsense in the  e-mails was information Shaikh's lawyers claimed proved he had become involved with criminals who took advantage of his vulnerability. One mentioned a character called Carlos, who was going to help Shaikh achieve his dream of making it big in the music industry. Carlos, wrote Shaikh, had excellent contacts, and he knew a producer in Kyrgyzstan who could help him fulfil his dream of becoming a pop star. Though Shaikh had no singing experience, and even less musical talent, he recorded a song, an off-key track in English, Arabic and Polish called Come Little Rabbit, which, according to Reprieve, he believed had the potential to bring about world peace.

Two men who helped Shaikh record the song said it was clear he was psychiatrically ill.

It was Shaikh's case that in 2007, Carlos told him that he knew people in the music industry that could assist, and in September that year he paid for a flight for Shaikh to Kyrgyzstan. He was introduced to a man called Okole. Okole, Shaikh claimed he was told, ran a huge nightclub in China that would be the perfect venue for the debut performance of Come Little Rabbit.

En route to China, the two men stopped in Dushanbe, the capital of Tajikistan, where they stayed in a five-star hotel - which Reprieve said Shaikh believed was a sign of his celebrity status. There, Okole told him he would have to fly to China alone, as the flight was full.

Shaikh claimed Okole gave him a suitcase and promised to follow on the next flight. On September 12, 2007, Shaikh flew into Urumqi in Xinjiang and was stopped by customs officials on arrival. Two packets with about £250,000 worth of heroin were found in his luggage. Shaikh told the officials that he did not know anything about the drugs, and that the suitcase did not belong to him.

Reprieve said he helped the Chinese authorities with their inquiries and even set up a "sting" operation, telling Chinese officials to wait for Okole as he was due to arrive on the next plane. But Okole never turned up, and Shaikh was arrested.

Although he was sentenced to death shortly after, Britain's Foreign Office was not notified for many months, and in August last year, Reprieve took on the case.

Chinese law says a defendant's mental state should be taken into consideration if they are accused of serious crimes, but the Chinese authorities refused repeated requests for Shaikh to be evaluated by a doctor.

Although he was never assessed by a psychiatrist, Foreign Office officials were allowed to spend 15 minutes with him. From their description of Shaikh's behaviour, Dr Peter Schaapveld, a London-based psychologist, compiled a medical report in which he was able to deduce with "99 per cent certainty" that he was suffering from a mental disorder that could either be bipolarity or schizophrenia. Despite that diagnosis, Shaikh was put to death yesterday, becoming the first European citizen to be executed in China in nearly 60 years.

Relatives said that Shaikh was not even aware that he was going to be executed until they told him during a visit to death row in Urumqi on Monday.

"Drug trafficking is considered a heinous crime according to world consensus," Xinhua reported the Supreme Court verdict as saying. "The use of the capital punishment creates an effective deterrent against drug trafficking."

Xinhua also said that Britain had failed to provide sufficient evidence that Shaikh was mentally ill.

The Guardian


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Risky business makes the world go round


J. Bradford DeLong
Jan 04, 2010           
     
      

  



Perhaps the best way to view a financial crisis is to look at it as a collapse in the risk tolerance of investors in private financial markets. Whatever the cause, when the risk tolerance of the market crashes, so do prices of risky financial assets. Everybody knows that there are immense unrealised losses in financial assets, but no one is sure that they know where those losses are. To buy - or even to hold - risky assets in such a situation is a recipe for financial disaster. So is buying or holding equity in firms that may be holding risky assets, regardless of how "safe" a firm's stock was previously thought to be.

This crash in prices of risky financial assets would not overly concern the rest of us were it not for the havoc that it has wrought on the price system, which is sending a peculiar message to the real economy. The price system is saying: shut down risky production activities and don't undertake any new activities that might be risky.

But there aren't enough safe, secure and sound enterprises to absorb all the workers laid off from risky enterprises. And if the decline in nominal wages signals that there is an excess supply of labour, matters only get worse.

Ever since 1825, central banks' standard response in such situations - except in the Great Depression of the 1930s - has been the same: raise and support the prices of risky financial assets, and prevent financial markets from sending a signal to the real economy to shut down risky enterprises and eschew risky investments.

This response is understandably controversial, because it rewards those who bet on risky assets. But an effective rescue cannot be done any other way. A policy that leaves owners of risky assets impoverished is a policy that shuts down dynamism in the real economy.

The political problem can be finessed: as Don Kohn, a vice-chairman of the Federal Reserve, recently observed, teaching a few thousand feckless financiers not to over-speculate is much less important than securing the jobs of millions of Americans and tens of millions around the globe. Financial rescue operations that benefit even the unworthy can be accepted if they are seen as benefiting all - even if the unworthy gain more than their share of the benefits.

What cannot be accepted are financial rescues that benefit the unworthy and cause losses to other important groups - like taxpayers and wage earners. And that, unfortunately, is the perception held by many nowadays, particularly in the US. It is easy to see why.

When vice-presidential candidate Jack Kemp attacked vice-president Al Gore in 1996 for the Clinton administration's decision to bail out Mexico's feckless government during the 1994-95 financial crisis, Gore responded the US made US$1.5 billion on the deal.

But now, officials cannot say that a global recession has been avoided; that they "bailed in" the banks; that, other than Lehman Brothers and Bear Stearns, they forced the bad speculative actors into bankruptcy; or that the government made money on the deal.

J. Bradford DeLong is professor of economics at the University of California at Berkeley. Copyright: Project Syndicate


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Hard to be humble


PETER KAMMERER

Jan 05, 2010           
     
      

  



Upbringing has taught me that each new year has to start with a decision that changes an aspect of my life for the better. Many people abide by such resolutions but most, like me, make pledges but rarely keep them. They are nonetheless a worthy exercise, as they force reflection. Governments would do well to adopt the practice.

This realisation came to me as I was narrowing down my resolution list. One by one, the essentials were eliminated - weight loss, be thriftier, exercise at least an hour a day three or four times a week, drink less alcohol, give more time over to my family. As worthy as these ideas may be, they have been made in the past and, as the year progressed, gradually neglected and eventually ignored. So, for 2010, I have decided on something at least attainable: humility.

This is surely the craziest suggestion a columnist could make. Only a person with a giant ego would consider putting their thoughts into words for public consumption. To suggest that it is time to be humble should therefore be accompanied not by opinions and solutions for the world, but by a note of resignation. But I concede that this time has not yet come and that, instead, there are degrees of humility.

I like to think I am not an egotistical person. Arguments are, to me, debates: my sparring partner offers a view, I suggest one, more are made and I walk away having learned facts and details I did not know before. In my mind, I am man enough to admit when I am wrong. This is, of course, not always the case.

We learn and improve by being willing to take on board ideas and suggestions. That involves setting aside what we think is right and taking the time to listen and evaluate. For every issue, there is any number of viewpoints. They are determined by factors like culture, history, religion and social standing.

Conflicts occur if we ignore the opinions of others. Doggedly, we forge ahead without regard for what we are being told. This is as true for governments as individuals. The wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, religious unrest in Pakistan, the Philippines and Thailand, and unease about China's rise, are all about a refusal to understand, learn and listen.

The first rule of diplomacy is respect. This involves treating a negotiating partner on an equal footing - which requires leaving superiority at the door of the meeting room. From such a position, an issue can be better seen through the other country's eyes. A willingness to learn about cultural, demographic and economic differences helps with understanding a viewpoint.

If the US and its allies had bothered to ask Afghanistan's people what they wanted, rather than foist on them what was thought to be best, circumstances would be considerably different. Democracy comes in many flavours and the one favoured by Washington is not necessarily to the liking of non-Americans. Nor does it readily suit a population with diverse cultural and religious backgrounds. To ignore such basics is to invite trouble; that the Afghan war is already more than eight years old with no end in sight is not surprising.

Solutions to problems should come from consensus. This requires honesty: the willingness to admit that not all answers to questions are known. Trusting relationships are built from admitting a lack of knowledge and mistakes. Working together to find the answer helps individuals - and nations - grow.

Herewith, my preaching ends. I will do my best in the coming months and years to listen, learn and understand. Every effort will be made to find amicable agreement to difficulties. I will be humble.

Nations are not individuals. They are complex and diverse. The governments that rule them do not always represent a majority view. Nonetheless, it would be good if leaders could start each year by promising to make a concerted effort to tackle a particular problem. This would stand as a record of honesty, integrity, transparency and, if kept, achievement.

With the utmost humility, I suggest that, this year, leaders collectively make a pledge to be sincerely humble.

Peter Kammerer is a senior writer at the Post

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Power players
The changing dynamics between China, India and Japan are complicating America's role in Asia

Brahma Chellaney
Jan 06, 2010           
     
      

  



At a time when Asia is in transition, with the spectre of a power imbalance looming large, it has become imperative to invest in institutionalised co-operation to reinforce the region's strategic stability. After all, not only is Asia becoming the pivot of global geopolitical change, but Asian challenges are also playing into international strategic challenges.

Asia's changing power dynamics are reflected in China's increasingly assertive foreign policy, the new Japanese government's demand for an "equal" relationship with the United States and the sharpening Sino-Indian rivalry, which has led to renewed Himalayan border tensions.

All of this is highlighting America's own challenges, which are being exacerbated by its eroding global economic pre-eminence and involvement in two overseas wars.

Such challenges dictate greater US-China co-operation to ensure continued large capital inflows from China, as well as Chinese political support on difficult issues ranging from North Korea and Burma to Pakistan and Iran.

But, just when America's Sino-centric Asia policy became noticeable, Japan put Washington on notice that it cannot indefinitely remain a faithful servant of US policies. Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama's government is seeking to realign foreign policy and rework a 2006 deal on relocating a US marine base on Okinawa. It also announced an end to its eight-year-old Indian Ocean refuelling mission in support of the US-led war in Afghanistan.

Meanwhile, China's resurrection of its claim to the northeastern Indian state of Arunachal Pradesh, and its needling of India over Kashmir (one-fifth of which is under Chinese control), is testing the new US-India global strategic partnership.

The US has charted a course of tacit neutrality on the Arunachal Pradesh issue - to the delight of China, which aims to leave an international question mark hanging over the legitimacy of India's control of the Himalayan territory, which is more than twice as large as Taiwan. Indeed, the Obama administration has signalled its intent to abandon elements in its ties with India that could rile China, including a joint military exercise in Arunachal Pradesh and any further joint naval manoeuvres involving Japan or other parties, like Australia.

Yet, the recent Australia-India security agreement, signed during Prime Minister Kevin Rudd's visit to New Delhi, symbolises the role of common political values in helping to forge an expanding strategic constellation of Asian-Pacific countries.

The Indo-Australian agreement received little attention, but such is its significance that it mirrors key elements of Australia's security accord with Japan - and that between India and Japan. All three of these accords, plus the 2005 US-India defence framework agreement, recognise a common commitment to democracy, freedom, human rights and the rule of law, and obligate their signatories to work together to build security in Asia.

An Asian geopolitical divide centred on political values would, of course, carry significant implications. And, while Asia - with the world's fastest-growing markets, fastest-rising military expenditures and most-volatile hot spots - holds the key to the future global order, its major powers remain at loggerheads.

Central to Asia's future is the strategic triangle made up of China, India and Japan. Not since Japan rose to world-power status during the Meiji emperor's reign, in the second half of the 19th century, has another non-Western power emerged with such potential to alter the world order as China today.

Indeed, as the US intelligence community's 2009 assessment predicted, China stands to affect global geopolitics more profoundly than any other country.

China's ascent, however, is dividing Asia, and its future trajectory will depend on how its neighbours and other players, like the US, manage its rapidly accumulating power.

But, as the US-China relationship deepens in the coming years, the strains in some of America's existing partnerships could become pronounced. For example, building a stronger co-operative relationship with China is now taking precedence in US policy over the sale of advanced weaponry to Asian allies, lest the transfer of offensive arms should provoke Chinese retaliation in another area.

While the European Community was built among democracies, the political systems in Asia are so varied - and some so opaque - that building interstate trust is not easy. In Europe, the bloody wars of the past century have made armed conflict unthinkable today. But, in Asia, the wars since 1950 have failed to resolve disputes. And, while Europe has built institutions to underpin peace, Asia has yet to begin such a process in earnest.

Never before have China, Japan and India all been strong at the same time. They need to find ways to reconcile their interests in Asia so that they can coexist peacefully and prosper.

But there can be no denying that these three leading Asian powers and the US have different playbooks: America wants a unipolar world but a multipolar Asia; China seeks a multipolar world but a unipolar Asia; and Japan and India desire a multipolar Asia and a multipolar world.

Brahma Chellaney is professor of strategic studies at the Centre for Policy Research in New Delhi. Copyright: Project Syndicate


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The great fall
World markets need international, not national, rules if another global financial collapse is to be avoided

George Soros
Jan 07, 2010           
     
      

  



We are at a moment when the range of uncertainties facing the global economy is unusually wide. We have just passed through the worst financial crisis since the second world war. The only relevant comparisons are with the Japanese property bubble, which burst in 1991 (and from which Japan has not recovered), and the Great Depression of the 1930s - except that this crisis has been quantitatively much larger and qualitatively different.

Unlike the Japanese experience, this crisis involved the entire world. And, unlike the Great Depression, this time the financial system was put on artificial life support, rather than being allowed to collapse.

In fact, the magnitude of the problem today is even greater than during the Great Depression. In 1929, total credit outstanding in the United States was 160 per cent of gross domestic product and it rose to 250 per cent by 1932. In 2008, we started at 365 per cent - and this calculation leaves out the pervasive use of derivatives, which was absent in the 1930s.

Yet, artificial life support has worked. Barely a year after the bankruptcy of Lehman Brothers, financial markets have stabilised, stock markets have rebounded and the economy shows signs of recovery. People want to return to business as usual - and to think of the Crash of 2008 as a bad dream. But, the recovery is liable to run out of steam, and may even be followed by a second downturn, though I am not sure whether it will occur this year or next.

My views are far from unique, but they are at variance with the prevailing mood. The longer the turnaround lasts, the more people will believe that it will continue. But, in my judgment, this is characteristic of far-from-equilibrium situations when perceptions tend to lag behind reality.

To complicate matters, the lag works in both directions. Most people have not yet realised that this crisis is different from previous ones - that we are at the end of an era. Others - including me - failed to anticipate the extent of the rebound.

International financial authorities have handled this crisis the same way as previous ones: by bailing out failing institutions and applying monetary and fiscal stimulus. But this crisis was much bigger, and the same techniques did not work. The failed rescue of Lehman Brothers was a game-changing event: financial markets ceased to function.

Governments, then, had to effectively guarantee that no other institution whose collapse could endanger the system would be allowed to fail. So the crisis spread to the periphery of the world economy, because countries on the periphery could not provide equally credible guarantees.

Eastern Europe was the worst hit. Countries at the centre used their central banks' strong balance sheets to pump money into the system and to guarantee the liabilities of commercial banks, while governments engaged in unprecedented deficit financing to stimulate the economy.

But the growing belief that the global financial system has escaped collapse, and that we are slowly returning to business as usual, is a grave misinterpretation of the current situation. Humpty Dumpty cannot be put together again.

The globalisation of financial markets that took place since the 1980s allowed financial capital to move freely around the world, making it difficult to tax or regulate. This put financial capital in a privileged position: governments had to pay more attention to the requirements of international capital than to the aspirations of their own people. Individual countries found it difficult to offer resistance.

But the global financial system that emerged was fundamentally unstable, because it was built on the false premise that financial markets can be safely left to their own devices. That is why it broke down and that is why it cannot be put together again.

Global markets need global regulations, but the regulations that are currently in force are rooted in the principle of national sovereignty. There are some international agreements, notably the Basel Accords on minimum capital requirements, and there is also good co-operation among market regulators. But the source of the authority is always the sovereign state.

This means that it is not enough to restart a mechanism that has stalled; we need to create a regulatory mechanism that has never existed. As things stand now, each country's financial system is being sustained and supported by its own government. But governments are primarily concerned with their own economies. This gives rise to what may be called financial protectionism, which threatens to disrupt and perhaps destroy global financial markets. British regulators will never again rely on the Icelandic authorities, and Eastern European countries will be reluctant to remain dependent on foreign-owned banks.

So regulations must become international in scope. Otherwise, global financial markets will be destroyed by regulatory arbitrage.

Globalisation was successful because it forced countries to remove regulations; but the process does not work in reverse. It will be difficult to get countries to agree on uniform regulations. Different countries have different interests, which drive them towards different solutions.

This can be seen in the European Union, where the member states cannot agree on a uniform set of financial rules. How, then, can the rest of the world? In the 1930s, trade protectionism made a bad situation worse. In today's global economy, the rise of financial protectionism is a greater danger.

George Soros is chairman of Soros Fund Management and of the Open Society Institute. His most recent book is The Crash of 2008. Copyright: Project Syndicate


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A poor track record when it comes to selling mega projects


Alice Wu
Jan 08, 2010           
     
      

  



The grounds for supporting the highly controversial and politicised express rail link are obvious and the theories of economic benefits all seem reasonable. What will become of Hong Kong if it is not part of the nation's major transport artery? Investing in our part of the cross-border high-speed railway is an essential component of our search for sustainable economic growth and a way to escape being marginalised.

The legislature will decide today the fate of the high-speed railway, but all the noise - for and against - makes it necessary for the government to look closely at why it failed to make such an "easy sale". The HK$66.9 billion cost is not small and the rising price of building materials is unfortunate. The public rightfully expects lawmakers to scrutinise the proposal, especially when we consider the government's track record on forecasting economic benefits.

A decade ago, the government's sales pitch for Hong Kong Disneyland rested on estimated economic benefits amounting to HK$148 billion over 40 years. But, not only did the theme park miss its first-year visitor projection, its attendance performance fell a further 23 per cent in its second year. Add that to the additional money from the public purse for the approved expansion, and the "HK$148 billion sales pitch" looks more like a fairy tale today.

And what about our all-time favourite, Cyberport? Once considered "essential for Hong Kong's future and any role Hong Kong will play in IT and information services", this project was supposed to bring in at least HK$12 billion from online trading and another HK$9 billion in tourism. Apart from a cinema, restaurants, bridal boutiques and outlet shops, Cyberport's projected "significant positive impact on Hong Kong's long-term competitiveness" and equally "significant" economic benefits seem laughable today.

Cyberport has become a sad landmark that symbolises all of the government's bad judgment calls, and is the very reason why, when the government talks about reaping economic benefits, its figures fail to have any impact or resonate with the rest of the community. The fact that the narrative of opponents has gained more traction within the community reveals the government's growing disconnect with the public. Its failure to recognise the legitimate grievances of stakeholders has fuelled what the "Post 50s" group's advertisement called the "political show" that has been dominating headlines.

For the 150 families being forced to make way for the railway, they are having to give up not only their homes, but also their way of life. The railway will also run under Tai Kok Tsui residents' homes, leaving them worried about possible adverse effects. The government has failed to resolve these real-life issues; it has failed at politics.

Politics, by definition, refers to the methods and tactics used in formulating and applying policy. The government's job is to protect its citizens' property. Running high-speed trains underneath and across people's homes does not exactly fit that job description.

Officials' inability to placate residents of Tsoi Yuen village with compensation packages is a demonstration of failed politics - of a failure to communicate and persuade people that the government is working for, not against, them. Money is not a show of sincerity; neither is making the Heung Yee Kuk do the dirty work. Rolling up your sleeves to engage affected residents, hearing their concerns, and working together in finding a mutually acceptable alternative, is.

Not only was the government unable to communicate the benefits of the railway, it seemed incapable of understanding how the country's high-speed transport link works. It was stumped when legislators questioned why the Guangzhou station is located on the outskirts of the city, in Shibi. It is no wonder that a University of Hong Kong survey found that the number opposed to the project has tripled and, more disturbingly, nearly 60 per cent said they had little knowledge of the project. The government seems to know little about it, either.

Had the administration done its job of informing the public about the project's details, and worked closely with stakeholders to find solutions, the legislative process would not have been politicised and funding would have been approved long ago.

The government has failed to bulldoze the project onto the residents of Tsoi Yuen village and Tai Kok Tsui, and it is now bulldozing it onto the legislature.

When transport secretary Eva Cheng, in her attempt to urge lawmakers to support the railway this week, warned of a daily cost of HK$5 million for any further delays, she sounded like the boy who cried wolf. The fact is that the community has become desensitised to the government's optimistic figures - past and present - and many have grown sceptical of anything officials claim is for the city's "best interest".

This is the crux of the rail link's controversy, the cause of its delay and the price the government must pay for sales pitches gone haywire.

And this is exactly one of the "deep-rooted conflicts" that Premier Wen Jiabao asked our chief executive to get a handle on.

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The new guard
China's next generation of leaders will be hungry for change, not all of it reassuring

John Lee
Jan 11, 2010           
     
      

  



The appointment of five provincial-level Communist Party chiefs last month is a reminder that the ascension of China's next generation of leaders, who will take power in 2012, may be the most significant development in Chinese politics since Deng Xiaoping's reign begin in 1978. The upcoming generation of leaders will be the first with little or no personal memory of the turmoil and hardship endured during the Mao Zedong years. Forgetting such history might doom China to repeat the mistakes of the past; but, for better or worse, it might also ease constraints and set its leaders free.

All five appointees were born after the founding of the People's Republic in 1949. Two of them, Hu Chunhua and Sun Zhengcai , are only 46 years old. This is in line with the party's recently announced policy that the next generation of leaders should have an average age of around 55 years, with up to four top positions filled by leaders not yet in their fifties. The party's aim is to remain energetic and dynamic as China rises.

This seems a wise decision. Chinese leadership over the past decade and a half has been about fine-tuning and maintaining the momentum of Deng's state-led development model, launched after the Tiananmen protests of 1989. In this respect, China's third and fourth generation of leaders, under the technocrats Jiang Zemin and Hu Jintao , have been competent but unimaginative.

But the viability of Deng's model is nearing its end, and China is now addicted to inefficient state-led fixed investment and unsustainable export-led growth, rather than domestic consumption, to generate jobs and growth. Progress on further structural reforms - such as currency and capital-account liberalisation, and weaning state-controlled industries off state capital - has been slow, and initiatives have been piecemeal rather than comprehensive.

Likewise, since the mid-1990s, China's foreign policy has been cautious rather than bold. Both Jiang and Hu have faithfully followed Deng's dictum to "hide capacity and nourish obscurity". Although increasingly assertive in Africa and Latin America, China largely remains a free rider under the American security umbrella.

The older generations see such caution as prudence, and that conservatism is reflected in the current leaders. The lack of big-picture reform attests to the older generations' collective fear that fundamental structural changes will bring disruption and chaos, threatening the party's hold on power. They still remember the suffering of the Mao years, when China headed in the wrong direction - and tried to do too much, too quickly - and they vividly recall how the Tiananmen protests brought the regime to its knees, and how urban labour unrest erupted when centrally managed state businesses were merged or closed in the 1990s.

Similarly, though China remains fundamentally dissatisfied with its southern land borders and its sea borders to the east and southeast, its current leaders fear that isolation would result from an assertive and aggressive foreign policy. All elites - young and old - see China as Asia's natural leader and America as a recent interloper. But, for the third and fourth generation leaders, giving the US and its allies and partners an excuse to "contain" China - and restrict its economic development - remains the great nightmare.

Without personal experience of China's recent traumatic history, the next generation will be more confident and assertive. Schooled in economics, politics and law, rather than engineering, they will seek to accelerate China's rise and transformation, viewing caution as paralysis. Even now, emerging leaders argue that China is moving too slowly on economic reform and foreign-policy goals. They will not be restrained by the same fear of unintended consequences when it comes to change and experimentation.

Optimists hope that this might hasten economic liberalisation, and perhaps even lead to moderate political reform, especially greater accountability for far-flung local officials. After all, it has been China's young guns who consistently raise the issue of local corruption at party summits.

But the foreign-policy consequences could be even greater. Having grown up in a China that is now accepted as a legitimate great power, the new generation of leaders will be more impatient about China resuming its place as the paramount power in Asia. While older statesmen take pride in how far China has come, younger party figures and elites - especially those who have returned from American and other Western graduate schools - are frustrated that China's strategic position in Asia and status within global and regional institutions remain relatively weak, despite the country's rising economic power.

For example, much of the talk that China should take the lead in regional institutions, and that Chinese ships should have a greater presence in vital sea lanes such as the Malacca Strait and even the Indian Ocean, comes from the younger generation. The younger party leaders are also more impatient when it comes to a timeframe for winning back Taiwan.

China is currently in a holding pattern. But that will end when the next generation of leaders assumes power in 2012. When their time comes, the world will be dealing with a much more unpredictable power than the one we know now.

John Lee is a foreign policy fellow at the Centre for Independent Studies in Sydney and a visiting fellow at the Hudson Institute in Washington, DC. He is the author of Will China Fail? Copyright: Project Syndicate



http://www.scmp.com/portal/site/ ... ss=China&s=News

Let's get engaged
A radical politics of values is on the rise - but will it be any better at breaking Hong Kong's impasse

Anthony Cheung
Jan 12, 2010           
     
      

  



The picture painted by the media is that the growing radicalisation of the pro-democracy movement, the scenes of confrontation during the protests on New Year's Day, and the escalating campaign against the high-speed rail project by young activists can all be linked as the rise of the so-called post-1980s generation.

Each generation produces its own idealists and people who want to do something - and the post-1980s generation is no exception. However, the media has played up and simplified the phenomenon; it is the politics of the media as much as the new style of the network-based social movement that is at work.

The lack of substantive democratic progress since 1997 has no doubt demoralised many people and caused some to take more drastic action. Thirty years of the pro-democracy movement in the form of rallies, protest marches, walkouts and even hunger strikes has led to political fatigue. Now that pan-democrats form a critical minority in the legislature, thanks to democratisation so far, they must "countersign" any reform deal in order to move forward. This requires a new brand of negotiation and compromise that they are not ready for.

Some, especially the younger activists, could well take part in new forms of agitation, "mass resignations" or direct action. But it still raises the question of how these new actions could effectively provide hope of a breakthrough, or whether they would ultimately lead to just another round of fatigue, feeding into total despair and escapism.

The conventional politics of the ballot box and of welfare are giving way, in the new millennium, to a new politics of values; green issues, public space and cultural actions have become new focal points in the social movement. It is not only government officials who have been caught by surprise, but also our politicians and political parties, who still operate in the mindset of the 1980s and 1990s.

The New Year's Day rally is the first time pro-democracy activists and supporters have thrown their frustrations and anger at the central government's liaison office, on the grounds that Beijing holds the veto on democratisation.

While this is correct, constitutionally, in the interests of "one country, two systems" it has long been held that matters of governance should be resolved locally, through lobbying and agitating against the Hong Kong government.

The "one country, two systems" framework is, of course, not static but embedded in a political-economic context that has changed tremendously since the 1980s, when China was an economic backwater looking up to the Hong Kong model.

The equation now is gradually being turned around as China rises to become an economic power and the mainland is seen as the key factor to drive and sustain Hong Kong's prosperity (SEHK: 0803, announcements, news) .

Still, maintaining a fine line between the Hong Kong government and the liaison office is crucial both strategically and symbolically. If Hong Kong people and mainland officials unduly play up the central government dimension, or the primacy of "one country", this will not only belittle the Hong Kong government's authority, it will also feed into a restraining interpretation of the "two systems" concept.

Hong Kong people are concerned about the crackdown on political dissidents and aspire for liberalisation on the mainland. However, they also realise that the tail does not wag the dog and that democratic progress here can only be achieved if there is a harmonious relationship and mutual accommodation between the mainland and Hong Kong, where neither side pushes its own logic to the extreme.

All along, mainstream democrats have preferred a talk-and-fight approach that emphasises dialogue.

Such an approach is now questioned as being too conservative and outdated by so-called new democrats, who ironically also lack an agenda that squares with the constitutional reality and can point to a concrete way forward.

The paradox of democratisation in Hong Kong has always been that Beijing is inherently sceptical of local democracy and its spillover effect. The adversarial stance taken by some pan-democrat politicians vis-a-vis the central government does not help to remove such fears, or to improve mutual trust.

Inasmuch as the pro-democracy camp needs to think innovatively, the national and Hong Kong governments also need to develop new thinking on Hong Kong's political future and forge a new form of political engagement.

Anthony Cheung Bing-leung is an executive councillor and founder of SynergyNet, a policy think tank


http://www.scmp.com/portal/site/ ... ong+Kong&s=News

Feared, not revered


FRANK CHING

Jan 13, 2010           
     
      

  



In the 1930s, the book Red Star over China, by the American writer Edgar Snow, did much to win Western sympathy and support for the Chinese communist movement and its leader, Mao Zedong, at a time when the US backed the government of president Chiang Kai-shek.

Snow became a legendary figure in China. Last month, to mark the 60th anniversary of the People's Republic, he was proclaimed one of China's top 10 international friends.

During his last visit to China, Snow was given the honour of standing next to Mao on October 1, 1970, atop the Tiananmen rostrum to view National Day festivities. On Mao's other side was Snow's wife, Lois Wheeler. When Snow became critically ill in 1972, the Chinese government sent doctors to care for him in Geneva.

Last Friday, The New York Times published a letter to the editor from Switzerland under the headline "Stifling dissent in China".

It said: "Sentencing Liu Xiaobo, a signer of Charter 08, to 11 more years in prison under the trumped-up charges of 'inciting subversion of state power' ... is another black mark for China ... Chinese leaders remain oblivious to the internationally recognised principle of responsible leadership chosen freely by a country's people and continue to ignore the basic right to freedom of expression through open discussion."

The letter was signed Lois Wheeler Snow, who is now 88.

China's decision to silence Liu, who took part in the drafting of Charter 08, a document that advocates human rights and democratic government, is proving costly in terms of the country's moral standing at a time when it is basking in international admiration of its economic success.

The condemnation by the widow of a man so widely admired in China would no doubt cause some Chinese to question the policies of their government. But its unlikely that the Communist Party would allow her views to become known.

On Saturday, The Washington Post published in its commentary section a letter to President Hu Jintao written by Vaclav Havel, who was the last president of Czechoslovakia, from 1989 to 1992 after the fall of communism in eastern Europe, and then the first president of the Czech Republic, until 2003. In the 1970s, Havel, then a dissident, co-authored Charter 77, which chastised Prague for failing to implement human rights provisions of international documents it had signed. Havel went to the Chinese embassy in Prague to deliver the letter, also signed by two associates. However, Chinese officials refused to open the door.

The letter to Hu said the trial in December was "the result of a political order for which you carry ultimate political responsibility" and said the "harsh sentence meted out to a respected, well-known and prominent citizen of your country merely for thinking and speaking critically about various political and social issues was chiefly meant as a stern warning to others not to follow his path".

Havel and the two other signatories, writer Pavel Landovsky and Vaclav Maly, Bishop of Prague, recalled that, in 1977, they had been "arrested by the police in our own country, then a one-party communist state, for 'committing' exactly the same 'crime'."

"There is nothing subversive to state security," the letter declared, "when intellectuals, artists, writers and academics exercise their core vocation: to think, rethink, ask questions, criticise, act creatively, and try to initiate open dialogue. On the contrary, the present and future well-being of a society is undermined when governments suppress intellectual debate." It called on the Chinese government "to secure a fair and genuinely open trial for Liu Xiaobo when the court hears his appeal".

The Chinese government, which refused to accept the letter in the first place, will no doubt turn a deaf ear to the plea. China seems to feel that it can safely disregard international opinion now that it has become one of the world's leading economic powers. But, it needs to learn that might does not make right.

And while its rise may cause it to be feared, it will not cause it to be liked.

Frank Ching is a Hong Kong-based writer and commentator. frank.ching@scmp.com


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

A balance of payments
Britain's experience in setting a minimum wage offers valuable lessons for Hong Kong

George Cautherley
Jan 14, 2010           
     
      

  



The Provisional Minimum Wage Commission recently indicated that the British model is relevant to Hong Kong's deliberations on a minimum wage. Britain's Low Pay Commission, set up in 1998, adopted a prudent approach and Britain's initial minimum wage was set at 46 per cent of the median wage.

Citing experience from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, the Hong Kong business sector has pointed to 40 per cent of the local median wage, or about HK$5,000, as an appropriate benchmark for our minimum wage level.

Such views warrant an examination of the thoughts behind the Low Pay Commission's prudent approach, as well as a better understanding of Britain's initial minimum wage rate and the minimum-wage to median-wage ratio.

In its first report, the Low Pay Commission listed rising inequality, a substantial degree of in-work poverty and gross exploitation as its top concerns. It undertook to make a difference for low-pay workers and remove gross exploitation through the minimum wage.

At the time, Britain was also concerned about the impact of the minimum wage on the country's competitiveness. But the commission took the minimum wage and competitiveness to be complementary rather than in conflict. It considered competitiveness to be dependent on a range of factors, such as innovation and good management, rather than on labour costs alone. If firms competed simply on the basis of low pay, this could "lead to a damaging downward spiral of low wages and poor standards, which is detrimental to both businesses and workers", it said. Firms pursuing high productivity would also be unfairly undermined by competitors relying on low-wage employment.

Further, the commission was aware that, because of the social welfare system, some firms might be able to depress wages, knowing that the government would eventually provide supplements to keep workers above the breadline. The consequences would be taxpayers being called on to subsidise wage exploitation.

To the commission, therefore, the minimum wage - as well as being a labour policy - also had to be an economic policy, protecting reputable firms from being undercut by competitors relying on low pay, preventing taxpayer subsidisation of wage exploitation, and encouraging competitiveness based on product and workforce quality. Thus, the commission chose a prudent approach to allow time for industrial adjustments and to avoid putting too much risk on firms trying to upgrade their productivity and jobs. To make a difference for low-pay workers, the approach was "to find the balance between improving low pay and avoiding damage to efficient businesses and to employment opportunities".

The commission was also aware of the complexity involved in comparisons of minimum wage rates across countries. It considered the minimum-wage to median-wage ratio "an imperfect comparative measure as differences in earnings distributions mean that the same ratio may have a different effect on the labour market in different countries". This should serve as a caution against looking at a minimum wage level outside the context of a country's structure of income distribution.

For example, Hong Kong's UN Gini index - where a value of 0 represents absolute equality, and a value of 100 absolute inequality - was 43.4 in 2007-2008 while Britain's was 36. This means that Hong Kong's income distribution is significantly more unequal than Britain's. Thus, Britain's median wage is located at a higher level in its structure of income distribution. This in turn means that the median wage is closer, relatively, to the top wage, compared to the median wage in a place with unequal income distribution.

In fact, Britain's initial minimum wage level, in 1999, was in the top half when compared with that of 11 other European Union and OECD countries, in terms of purchasing power parity.

From another angle, Britain's minimum wage, in 2008, was about 23 per cent of the median earning of the top 10 per cent in the earnings distribution. If the suggested HK$5,000 minimum wage rate is similarly expressed as a proportion of the median earning of the top 10 per cent (about HK$45,000 in 2006), it is only about 11 per cent. In this light, isn't HK$5,000 too low?

Whether Britain's minimum wage level is relevant to Hong Kong, the Low Pay Commission's thoughts on minimum-wage issues should broaden local discourse. Exclusive emphasis on the negative impact of minimum wages, and mechanical interpretations of other countries' wage levels, are not conducive to helping Hong Kong find a balanced - albeit prudent - approach to this important issue.

George Cautherley is vice-chairman of the Hong Kong Democratic Foundation


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Age of change for the fading generation still clinging to power


CHRISTINE LOH

Jan 15, 2010           
     
      

  



What is it about the self-titled post-1980s generation protesting against the express rail link? Their grandparents had a certain outlook that was a product of their own time and upbringing. The next generation, the protesters' parents, saw the world somewhat differently and, in turn, influenced the young people today about how they see the world and themselves. Each generation passes on a new set of "social genes" to the next. And, as each generation passes the zenith of its influence on society, there is a transition point where their children take up the mantle.

That midway point has been reached and influence is now passing to those born in the 1980s. This may present difficulties to their parents, as they see their influence usurped by a younger crowd with sharply different ideas and attitudes.

Let's look again at the grandparents' generation, now in their 70s and 80s, who lived through the second world war. Many were refugees from the mainland who had a hard struggle to give their families a better life. Stability was paramount; this provided the conditions to settle down.

The parents' generation, born in the 1950s, benefited from the grandparents' efforts. The parents rode the crest of Hong Kong's socio-economic rise in the 1970s. Many had the benefit of an education, and their entrepreneurialism helped them accumulate wealth. While stability was still important, opportunity made the real difference to one's ultimate achievements.

The 1980s was an unsettling period. The Sino-British negotiations over Hong Kong's future led to a decade and a half of angst. Making money was important because it provided choice and a sense of security. The post-1997 period influenced how the parents and their children born in the 1980s saw life in Hong Kong.

Both the parents and their children began to see what they considered to be institutional decay in government. Rightly or wrongly, family chitchat has been about the decline of competence in public affairs, creating a widespread sense that Hong Kong is on the decline, which is deeply frustrating.

The emergence of the 1980s generation in protests on numerous issues may be a turning point in the upheaval, when the values of the existing social and political order are questioned, and a new set of values is being shaped. Is a spark about to ignite a sense of malaise? Political trust has worn extremely thin. What will it take to make things implode? Compounding this is a widespread distrust of the rich, as seen from constant public complaints about "business-government collusion". The electoral system of functional constituencies does not help, as ordinary people see it as unfair, guaranteeing legislative seats to commercial interests.

If we lifted our heads to look beyond Hong Kong, we could see a confluence of financial, economic, geopolitical, demographic, cultural, social, religious and environmental stresses of unprecedented magnitude. There are also new developments on the horizon that offer a new paradigm - concerning knowledge, energy, biotechnology and artificial intelligence. Is the world on the verge of a shift that will define the next phase of the future?

The voices and actions of the 1980s generation may be the prelude to major change in Hong Kong. Commentators and radio talk-show hosts ask who they are and what they stand for. Those who are interviewed talk about the unfairness they see in society and how they feel a sense of civic duty to speak out.

Their emergence should be a message to the fading generation who occupy the seats of political and economic power that they need to communicate differently to a soon-to-be dominant generation. Patronising comments will only inflame tempers. Telling them to integrate with the mainstream is also useless.

The 1980s generation will deal with the coming uncertainties in the world possibly better than the current dominant generation. As much as those in power are loath to think about broad trends, it might actually help them to see to the horizon.

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

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

Damage control
Beijing's stimulus package could have a troubled legacy if other economic issues are not resolved

Yu Yongding
Jan 18, 2010           
     
      

  



The mainland's Central Economic Work Meeting, comprising top government decision makers, recently chose to continue the expansionary fiscal and monetary policy launched in the last quarter of 2008. But it also called for greater emphasis on transforming China's development pattern and rebalancing its economic structure.

The move thus signalled the start - well ahead of other countries - of China's "exit" from crisis-driven economic policies. Indeed, Beijing should accelerate its change of course. While expansionary policies have succeeded in ensuring a  V-shaped recession, their medium- and long-term effects are worrisome.

First, the mainland's crisis management has made its growth pattern, marked by massive investment demand, even more problematic. Its investment rate is extremely high compared with other major economies and has been increasing steadily since 2001, creating first overheating and then overcapacity.

Until the global financial/economic crisis that began in 2008, however, strong export performance concealed the mainland's overcapacity problem, which, thanks to the stimulus package, is now set to become more serious. Indeed, its investment rate may have surpassed 50 per cent last year.

Second, the external imbalance may also worsen. Trade and exports accounted for 67 per cent and 37 per cent of gross domestic product, respectively, before the global crisis, but have since fallen significantly. And yet reliance on external demand remains fundamentally unchanged, even as the contribution of net exports to GDP growth has turned negative.

In fact, worsening overcapacity, together with all the many types of price distortions still in place, may push Chinese enterprises to boost production for export markets, like the United States, where protectionist tendencies are likely to intensify this year and beyond.

Third, the mainland's financial stability and fiscal position may deteriorate in the medium term. The government, well aware of the overcapacity problem, focused the stimulus package on investment in infrastructure, rather than new factories. But infrastructure is a long-term investment, revenues from which will be lower without accompanying investment in manufacturing capacity. An eight-lane highway must carry traffic to generate tolls.

Moreover, due to hasty and poorly supervised implementation, waste in infrastructure construction can be serious. With an investment rate of 50 per cent and a GDP growth rate of 8 per cent, the incremental capital to output ratio could be higher than six, compared to 4.1 in 1991-2003, implying not only low efficiency, but also the possibility of a significant increase in nonperforming loans.

Finally, monetary policy has been far too loose. Unlike the US, China did not suffer from a liquidity shortage and a credit crunch during the global financial crisis. Thus, low interest rates and non-market interference, rather than demand from enterprises, fuelled explosive credit growth in the first half of last year, surpassing the full-year target.

If commercial banks had been allowed to base lending decisions solely on economic considerations, credit and money supply would have grown more slowly, limiting the risk of rising bad-loan ratios, stalled enterprise reform, inflationary pressure and a resurgence of asset bubbles as excess liquidity enters equity and property markets.

Indeed, mainland housing prices have been skyrocketing in recent months. The government was too generous in helping revive property demand and, overwhelmed by fear of the negative impact of falling asset prices on economic growth, has been too cautious in dealing with bubbles when they have reappeared. With the housing sector accounting for 10 per cent of GDP and investment in property development accounting for 25 per cent of total fixed investment, any decision to rein in runaway housing prices will be difficult.

All in all, the negative impact of Beijing's crisis-management measures on China's long-term growth may be serious if the authorities fail to tackle the economy's structural problems head on.

But it is also worth noting that the government is well aware of the problems, and has begun to put structural adjustment back at the top of the policy agenda.

This year, for example, the government may try to boost domestic consumption by making income distribution more favourable to the household sector relative to the enterprise sector, and by providing more public goods to reduce households' precautionary savings.

Certainly, without a more equitable income distribution, official talk of creating a "harmonious society" sounds empty. Furthermore, the government should continue to eliminate price distortions by creating more flexible mechanisms, including for the exchange rate.

The government's goal should be to succeed not only in reviving the economy, but also in reversing the deterioration of China's structural problems, thereby laying a solid foundation for economic growth in the future. In this respect, the Chinese have good reason to be optimistic, for their country has defied predictions of economic demise repeatedly over the past three decades.

Yu Yongding is a former member of the monetary policy committee of the Peoples' Bank of China, a former director of the Chinese Academy of Sciences Institute of World Economics and Politics, and president of the China Society of World Economics


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It's enough to drive you onto the streets


PETER KAMMERER

Jan 19, 2010           
     
      

  



Radicalism is not in my blood. I come from a conservative family in a conservative town in a conservative country. The city and society I now live in is even more traditional. Matters that disturb me will elicit some heated whingeing and whining, sometimes in print, but that is where my protests end.

Hong Kong, for all its soberness, is changing me. The government is to blame. Inaction on fundamental problems, deceiving and blatant lying by its unelected officials are driving me to distraction. For the first time since my university days, I am giving serious consideration to grabbing a placard and taking to the streets.

This city has been my home for more than 21 years. My inability to read Chinese, and speak and understand more than essential words of Cantonese, make me an outsider.

But what I do know and comprehend about my environs mean that I am somewhere between one-third and one-half a Hongkonger. This may not seem a lot for so much experience, but it is enough to have given me a passion for Hong Kong and its people.

We should all be given a fair deal, no matter what our backgrounds or circumstances. Every citizen deserves a decent standard of living and a reasonable wage. The air that we breathe should be clean and the food we eat safe. These are basics and minimums; a government that does not provide these is ignoring its duties.

Our government and its bloated civil service are clearly not meeting expectations. If they were, rents would not be so unreasonably high. Supermarket chains would not be blatantly ripping off customers. The environment would be given a priority.

A high-speed rail line linking Hong Kong to the mainland's network would not be bringing hundreds of young people out to demonstrate.

Those very protests on Saturday afternoon and evening are what has me on the edge of decision-making. The fact that so many people in their 20s and 30s were willing to give up their Saturday night in the name of politics was a clear indication - if ever one was needed - that all in this city is far from rosy.

Democracies have long struggled to get young people interested in government. Of all the age groups, those below 30 are the least likely to vote.

The global student activism of the 1960s is long gone; the anti-establishment mass rallies I participated in, in Australia in the early 1980s, were the dying gasps of that era. Under-30s the world over are now interested in little more than attaining qualifications, enjoying life and winning points playing the online game World of Warcraft.

The under-30s of Hong Kong are outwardly no different. What sets them apart, though, is the spirit of the student-led protests at Tiananmen Square in 1989. If there is to be change in China, it will be driven by the young: the people who have most to gain. The same holds true for this city - which is why university students and others of the so-called post-1980s generation have taken up the baton of discontent.

Hong Kong has most of the trappings of a democracy. The parts it lacks has led to a government that sees itself as above the people it serves.

The 500,000-strong march against the Article 23 anti-subversion law on July 1, 2003, taught authorities they had to show more respect. They are confused as to what to do, though; fortunately, the post-1980s crowd is showing the way ahead.

My journalism teachers drummed into me the need to be impartial and unbiased. They told me that I should not take part in demonstrations - that, when it came to my work, keeping my views to myself made it easier to talk to people on all sides of a dispute.

Beyond columns such as this one, and discussion with family and friends, I have honoured the advice. I now feel, though, that I need to change my ways.

My throat is regularly sore from roadside pollution. Cartels ensure that my shopping bills are increasing. My rent is about to rise 15 per cent based on a property bubble I believe has been concocted by the real estate sector. Decisions like the one last week to appoint a government crony to head the Equal Opportunities Commission make me angry.

It won't take much to get me airing my discontent on the streets.

Peter Kammerer is a senior writer at the Post

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

Reverse psychology


FRANK CHING

Jan 20, 2010           
     
      

  



With some pan-democratic legislators due to announce their resignation next week to trigger a "de facto referendum" on democracy, the central government has plunged into the controversy in a ham-fisted fashion. It has accused those behind the plan of mounting a "blatant challenge" to the Basic Law and Beijing's authority.

A statement by the State Council's Hong Kong and Macau Affairs Office contained what appeared to be a veiled threat that the plan by the League of Social Democrats and the Civic Party might derail universal suffrage elections scheduled for 2017. The "so-called referendum" would "damage hard-earned achievements", Beijing said.

But its expression of "grave concern" is likely to be counterproductive. If Beijing had not intervened, the by-elections may not have stirred much interest and the voter turnout would probably have been low. However, by drawing attention to the elections, the central government is unwittingly increasing interest, as well as voter turnout, thus helping the planners to claim that it was a legitimate referendum.

Chief Executive Donald Tsang Yam-kuen told the Legislative Council last Thursday that there were no legal grounds for the "so-called referendum" since the Basic Law does not provide for one, and the government would not recognise the result.

That is as definitive as it gets; there was no need for Beijing to intervene. Its statements simply make the Hong Kong administration look like a puppet government.

It is unclear what Beijing intends to achieve by issuing the statement. Certainly, the pan-democratic lawmakers who have decided to quit are not going to change their minds.

But, by calling the move "fundamentally against" the Basic Law and the 2007 decision by the National People's Congress Standing Committee to allow universal suffrage in 2017, Beijing seems to want to somehow prevent the "referendum" from going ahead.

By law, legislators have the right to resign and, by law, the government has to hold by-elections to fill the vacancies created. Beijing cannot order the legislators not to resign. And, if it orders the Tsang administration not to hold by-elections to fill those seats, it will stupidly precipitate a constitutional crisis in Hong Kong.

As it is, left to their own devices, the pan-democrats are likely to lose one or more of the five seats that they plan to vacate. This is a highly risky procedure and it is no wonder the Democratic Party decided not to take part. If - as is likely - the pan-democrats do lose seats, it will be very hard for them to claim a victory.

Since this is not really a referendum, the entire exercise hangs on the turnout and on whether the pan-democrats can hang onto their seats. Many countries require the turnout for a referendum to be higher than an ordinary election so, if it is low, there can be no claim of victory. Even if the turnout is high in Hong Kong, the pan-democrats cannot claim victory if they emerge from the elections with fewer seats. The cards are therefore stacked against the pan-democrats in a game that they themselves devised.

Beijing's attitude is similar to Taipei's when it held a referendum in 2008. It said Taiwan, as part of China, had no right to conduct a referendum. Then, when the vote on whether Taiwan should apply to join the UN failed, Xinhua trumpeted that Taiwan voters had "vetoed [the] 'UN membership referendum' pursued by Chen Shui-bian authorities".

So the failure of the Taiwan referendum caused Beijing to bestow on it a degree of legitimacy. By issuing a statement on the Hong Kong "referendum", Beijing has painted itself into a corner.

However, if central government officials were to come out and say publicly that the 2017 universal suffrage election will be genuine, and that functional constituencies will be abolished by 2020, no doubt some of the legislators involved will have second thoughts about resigning, aborting the de facto referendum. That, however, is unlikely to happen.

Frank Ching is a Hong Kong-based writer and commentator. frank.ching@scmp.com


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

Western delusions


ALEX LO

Jan 21, 2010           
     
      

  



There is no such thing as a pure motive. So those who applaud Google for taking a stance on freedom of information by turning off censorship software on its mainland search engine are being a tad naive. However, cynics who think the decision was solely driven by commercial disappointment with slowed-down profits and an eroding market share are also being overly simplistic.

The clash between Google and Beijing is not just about a single company, despite the internet giant's global significance. It has much more to do with Western delusions about making money in China while democratising it with technology and globalisation, and the ability of Beijing to thwart such attempts.

Commercially, many of the great American internet brands have done poorly on the mainland by losing out to domestic rivals. eBay has been outfoxed by Taobao. Yahoo is now virtually irrelevant, and more and more people on the mainland are switching to Baidu for internet searches rather than using Google. Tencent (SEHK: 0700), Sina and Alibaba (SEHK: 1688, announcements, news) have all become authentic great China brands on the internet.

Westerners can rhapsodise about "one billion consumers" but, at least when it comes to the internet, more are turning to local service providers. Not only do mainland internet companies follow directives from Beijing without a fuss, they have learned to anticipate them. Beijing looks favourably on such developments and loves to see more of them, not only in e-commerce but also in other commercial sectors.

In fact, China may be reversing the patterns about infant industry protection usually observed in many developing economies. No successful Chinese internet brands have been national champions. But, their successes may have encouraged the recent introduction of national policies to promote technology and innovation and to create national champions. Let foreigners cry foul about no level playing fields!

This is not to say that foreign or American companies can't make a lot of money. For example, Procter & Gamble has been in China since the 1980s, long before the coining of the acronym Bric, for Brazil, Russia, India and China, or the phrase "emerging market". But selling soap is a lot less political than offering information searches. The internet is a highly politicised business - it is at the heart of the Anglo-American ideology of globalisation and democratisation.

The West's engagement with China has always been premised on the assumption that free trade and globalisation will open up China. But is this really a genuine belief, or merely an ideological cover? It helps to ease Western conscience and provides a cover for companies doing business on the mainland. How many Western companies really worry about whether what they do will bring democracy to China as long as their bottom line satisfies investors? Can these companies and Washington really care more about the welfare of Chinese people than Beijing?

That depends on whether you believe the central government is, without qualification, completely repressive and that Chinese people are, on the whole, repressed. But survey after survey have shown that many Chinese feel happy and are optimistic about their future, and that they confer a degree of legitimacy on Beijing. So, to sustain the Western narrative, they must be brainwashed or misinformed. Surely it can't be that most Chinese know where their self-interest lies? When more Chinese learn about the US and the West, thanks to services like Google's, many turn out to be not so enamoured by them. So they are now being portrayed as rabid nationalists in Western media.

Beijing's brilliant success has been to turn the Western premise of economic engagement, free trade and globalisation on its head. In doing so, it has made the nation richer, and enhanced its domestic legitimacy and overseas influence. In fact, it has been too successful. It has done so at the expense of the profitability - and often intellectual property - of many foreign companies and the influence of their governments, especially the US. Now, it's time for the backlash from the West, and Google is leading the way.

Alex Lo is a senior writer at the Post. alex.lo@scmp.com


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

When the only choice left is to walk away


Esther Dyson
Jan 22, 2010           
     
      

  



Usually, disclosure statements go at the end of an article, but let me start with mine. I sit on the board of Yandex, a Russian search company with a roughly 60 per cent market share in Russia, compared with Google's 20 per cent. I am also an investor in, and adviser to, AnchorFree, the company that offers Hotspot Shield, a publicly accessible virtual private network that allows users to keep their browsing private, whether they are concerned about thieves stealing their banking details or about governments monitoring where they surf. We have about 1 million users monthly in China (out of 7 million worldwide).
And I sit on the board of 23andMe, a company co-founded by the wife of Sergey Brin, the co-founder of Google. So I have a variety of interests in the topic of Google's recent moves in China.

In the beginning, I supported Google's presence in China. My fundamental belief is that every time a user gets information, it reinforces a little part of the brain that says: "It's good to know things. It's my right to have information, whether it's about train schedules, movie stars or the activities of the politicians who make decisions that affect my life."

If you can ask questions about some things but not about others, eventually you start to wonder about that fact itself. Google's (and my) hopes that it could help liberate China look a little naive now.

Of course, censorship is not a big secret in China. So why has Google made a fuss? The answer probably stems from a combination of - or rather a changing calculus around - business interests and values. The censorship issue has long grated at Google, but the company could argue that transparency about censorship was better than not serving China at all.

The censorship, however, has been getting worse. And while China represents a huge market in the future, it has not been an especially lucrative market for Google. China probably appeals less to investors than it did a few years ago because of constraints on the ability of any foreign entity to make serious long-term profits.

This growing disillusion was already present when a wave of cyber-attacks on Google (and other companies) forced the company to reassess its entire China strategy. There are certainly other ways Google could have handled the issue - for example, by capitulating to Beijing's various requests. That would certainly not have comported with Google's public values - and it would probably have been a bad business decision, as well.

When you go into a situation like this, you always have one option left - to walk away. If you cannot do that, you have no negotiating power. But if you do have that option, you must be ready to exercise it.

That is what Google has done in China - where its move is irrevocable.

So while Google is unlikely to re-enter China for the foreseeable future, the company has improved its negotiating position in whatever other disputes it might have in the future.

What can Google do now? AnchorFree wants Google to support Hotspot Shield in some form or other, although Google's exit from China might be support enough. Hotspot Shield is one of the best ways of "scaling the wall" to peer outside the locked-down Chinese internet and use sites such as Twitter, Facebook and Google.com (as opposed to Google.cn).

Like Google in the past, AnchorFree may operate more effectively by being discreet, without loud support from Google or other "foreign interests". Its website is often blocked in countries such as China, but there are other ways to get the software. Google, too, may be blocked, but there are ways to get to it for determined users.

In the end, China knows it can't make the internet airtight. Someone in the central government probably has regrets.

It's tempting to predict how this will end. But I think it won't end. As within Google, so within China: decisions are made, but not everyone agrees with them. There's a conflict between business interests and moral values. The tug of war will continue for the foreseeable future. But in this little battle of a long war, transparency has won a victory.

Esther Dyson, chairman of EDventure Holdings, is an active investor in a variety of start-ups around the world. Copyright: Project Syndicate


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