The Beijing Olympics often seems to be seen as solely a propaganda victory for the Chinese Communist Party. It certainly is that, but it can also be seen as a realization of the goals of liberal nationalist movements that preceded it, such as the May the Fourth Movement. In Wang Zheng's Women in the Chinese Enlightenment she interviews women who seized the new opportunities suddenly available in the early twentieth century to build independent lives. One such as Lu Lihua, a physical education teacher and school principal. (more)
Chinese bloggers are writing backwards or vertically to avoid censor software. (more)
Long article by John Mauldin on the geopolitical position of China makes a key point about China's geography using some cool alternative maps. By envisioning the high rainfall inner provinces as an island he emphasises the extraordinary density and isolation of the Han heartland. The normal map of China looks like a big chook - this version looks rather unhealthy. (more)
Via calculated risk, Asian countries are reducing their subsidies for oil in an effort to lower demand. (more)
Naomi Klein makes a spray in rolling stone:
Remember how we've always been told that free markets and free people go hand in hand? That was a lie. It turns out that the most efficient delivery system for capitalism is actually a communist-style police state, fortressed with American "homeland security" technologies, pumped up with "war on terror" rhetoric.It is rubbish. China is the current world's factories. For a while it was Mexico, but technologies like SPC (statistical process control) and TQM/TQC/6Sigma remove any connection between location and quality. China is what Detroit was at the beginning of the 20thC. (more)
The Yellow River (Huang He) has a long history, as far back as BC, of causing political instability when it broke its banks in flood. Consequently the harmony of river defences have been a strong source of political strength in Chinese history. Whether that extends to weather control or not is a different issue, however, the Chinese believe they will do for rain and spectator sports where their other state-based attempts at controlling nature have failed. (more)
Several reforms were introduced during Wudi's reign of the Han Dynasty between 141 and 87 BC which are completely familiar to modern political watchers. Wudi introduced a merit system for the Chinese civil service which was similar to how Doc Evatt established a professional foreign affairs department in the 1940s. Wudi recruited small numbers of the best people from around the country and then sent them to a special academy. In Australian foreign affairs this led to competing policies of international liberalism and power politics (realpolitick).
The professional Chinese Civil Service also had competing policies, which again, would be no stranger to a modern political system. It was between the modernists and reformists. (more)
Big Picture has an interesting post on inflation in China. Food is running at 18% inflation with meat and poultry at 49%. (more)
It appears the Reserve Bank will up interest rates in a couple of weeks out of concern that inflation is becoming too high. One of the statements from the Prime Minister is that the core inflation is still between two and three percent. The problem with core inflation is that it is an inflation reading with all the stuff that is inflating taken out. Also known as inflation ex-inflation. (more)
Setting price controls is self-defeating and won't solve anything. Inflation is an issue. The deflationary China Effect has meant that white goods and manufacturing has dampened average inflation; yet industries like food, energy, health and education have been rapidly escalating in price. (more)
