In China, I used to use baidu—the leading Chinese search engine to search websites, news, images, and download music. After arriving in London, as most people around are using Google and say “you can ‘google’ it”, I tried to use Google.
At first, I didn’t find something different between the two search engines, as it shows in the following, the designs of them seem so similar to each other, as well as the functions:
However, last week when I typed in the words “Tiananmen”, to search for some images of Tiananmen square in google, what I saw are pictures of tanks, armed army, people shot dead… really bloody. I was shocked and puzzled—what are these photos about? Why it seems like a massacre? What happened? … …
With so many questions, I searched for Tiananmen in BBC news. Oh, I have heard that before—June Fourth Movement. It had been a student movement asking for democracy in my memory. There are not any materials in the history text book or other media I could contact with before. The affair sounded like a mysterious story without any details. Conversely, BBC news named it Tiananmen Square Massacre, and described it in detail.
Then I typed in “Tiananmen” again but in baidu image search engine. You could click both of them to see the differences between the pictures in google and baidu. Surprising, isn’t it? One is like in hell full of blood and violence but one in heaven filled with smile and sunshine. There is no doubt that Chinese government has cancelled pictures and articles it hopes people not see. Powerful censorship, isn’t it?
The more information I found, the more questions I have: What contents are censored by Chinese government? How can it achieve this goal? Thanks for powerful google search engine and wikipedia, I get clearer about these questions:
For the first question, the censored content includes
l Sources cover some taboo topics such as Tiananmen Square protests of 1989, Falun Gong--a system of "mind and body cultivation" related to buddhism and qigong, dalai lama—the head of Tibetan gobernment.
l Sites related to Taiwanese government, media, or other organizations.
l News sources such as Voices of America, BBC news, Yahoo! Hong Kong.
l Many blogging sites, such as blogger.com.
In a word, contents which may threaten the regime of China Communist Party are facing censorship.
For the second question, Chinese government implements the internet censorship by Golden Shield Project, which acts like a network firewall. It can “block content by preventing IP addresses from being routed through and consists of standard firewall and proxy servers at the internet gateways”(wikipedia). By the way, “up to 2002, the preliminary work of the Golden Shield Project cost 800 million dollars.
Initially, I feel like being cheated by the government, because what I had seen and heard from media are all government wanted us to know. These filtered materials had made so deep impact on me, and are going to impact more and more Chinese youths.
But, from the government’s point of view, the censorship sounds reasonable in a certain degree. There are so many people in China, and the area is quite large. It is really difficult to control on this condition. If there is not such strict control in media, maybe it had been divided into many parts. Who knows? In history, Chinese people experienced wars and divided situation, and they lived in miserable life. However, China is developing very fast now, though there are still lots of social problems, the situation is much better than before. Of course, I hope people could have more democracy in China in the future.
2007年11月5日星期一
China new accounting standard system
New accounting standards which comply with the International Financial Reporting Standards are supposed to be adopted by the end of 2009 in China. The first group of companies adopting the new accounting standards includes China Unicom, China Mobile, China Telecom, China Petro Corporation, etc. And these enterprises are all in technology or energy areas.
Other organizations such as small and medium-sized companies, occupying up to 99% of the total enterprises in China, will use the new accounting system in the future.
Besides accounting standards, the Ministry of Finance also considers modify the current internal control system on accounting in order enhance the transparency and credibility of information released by companies.
From the process in the following, we can see that the pace of reforming accounting system seems fast and efficient.
In Feb, 2006, to be line with International Financial Reporting Standards which are being used in around 100 countries at present, China decided to carry out new accounting standards.
One year later, on January 1, 2007, China released new accounting standards, and implemented them at domestic accounting and auditing firms.
In the past, foreign investors usually had a headache when looking for reports released by China’s domestic companies, for the accounting standards are quite different from the international accounting ones. This also brought out mistakes when comparing one domestic firm to foreign ones. This also brought out mistakes when comparing one domestic firm to foreign ones. What’s more, several methods could be chosen to measure production and profit, this made some firms perform opportunism behaviours.
http://www.chinaorbit.com/china-economy/chinese-accounting-standards.html
Therefore, the accountancy reform is really a big progress in Chinese economy. It is expected to improve confidence of foreign investors. "In the A share market, we used to choose stocks of those listed firms who also issue H shares or B shares, because under that situation, those firms' financial reports are disclosed under the requirement of international standards, which are more reliable to us," Cai Hongping, head of the investment bank, BNP Paribas Peregrine's Asia department's commented.
Moreover, this likely to “enable a broader base of investors to consider investment in more Chinese companies,” says Yvonne Kam of PricewaterhouseCoopers.
Other organizations such as small and medium-sized companies, occupying up to 99% of the total enterprises in China, will use the new accounting system in the future.
Besides accounting standards, the Ministry of Finance also considers modify the current internal control system on accounting in order enhance the transparency and credibility of information released by companies.
From the process in the following, we can see that the pace of reforming accounting system seems fast and efficient.
In Feb, 2006, to be line with International Financial Reporting Standards which are being used in around 100 countries at present, China decided to carry out new accounting standards.
One year later, on January 1, 2007, China released new accounting standards, and implemented them at domestic accounting and auditing firms.
In the past, foreign investors usually had a headache when looking for reports released by China’s domestic companies, for the accounting standards are quite different from the international accounting ones. This also brought out mistakes when comparing one domestic firm to foreign ones. This also brought out mistakes when comparing one domestic firm to foreign ones. What’s more, several methods could be chosen to measure production and profit, this made some firms perform opportunism behaviours.
http://www.chinaorbit.com/china-economy/chinese-accounting-standards.html
Therefore, the accountancy reform is really a big progress in Chinese economy. It is expected to improve confidence of foreign investors. "In the A share market, we used to choose stocks of those listed firms who also issue H shares or B shares, because under that situation, those firms' financial reports are disclosed under the requirement of international standards, which are more reliable to us," Cai Hongping, head of the investment bank, BNP Paribas Peregrine's Asia department's commented.
Moreover, this likely to “enable a broader base of investors to consider investment in more Chinese companies,” says Yvonne Kam of PricewaterhouseCoopers.
PetroChina's Value Tops $1 Trillion
SHANGHAI - Shares in PetroChina Company, largest oil and gas producer in China, opened on 5 November 2007 at the price of 48.6 yuan (6.5 dollars) in the mainland A share market, up 191 percent from IPO price which was 16.7 yuan. This made PetroChina the world's largest listed company by market value，worth about one trillion dollars. The previous biggest, Exxon Mobil, was valued at 487.7 billion dollars.
The shares of PetroChina closed at 43.96 yuan -- still up 163 percent. But in Hong Kong share market, PetroChina slided down 6.63 percent to 18.30 Hong Kong dollars (2.44 US dollars) at mid-day.
Warren Buffet, Bershire Hathaway chairman and CEO, said that the firm had gained almost 3.5 billion dollars from the sale of 488 million dollars investment in PetroChina, and that third-quarter profit rised by 64 percent.
Some comments in mainland China are as follows:
"Stock prices are rising too fast," said a Shanghai-based analyst with Industrial Securities.
"The government will take measures to prevent asset bubbles and avoid huge fluctuations in the stock market," Wen Jiabao told reporters, according to the China Daily. "It is the government's responsibility to ensure a fair, healthy and transparent stock market."
Some analysts said investors had chased the firm's price too high. "I think it's a bit risky for individual investors to buy in at the moment because we don't see much growing space," another analyst said.
PetroChina raised 66.8 billion yuan in Shanghai share market by selling 4 billion A shares.
According to the company's prospectus, 6.84 billion yuan and 5.93 billion yuan is planned to boost production capacity at Changqing and Daqing oil fields respectively . Besides, 1.5 billion yuan will be used to build production facilities at Jidong field. It also planned to upgrade facilities and expand an ethylene plant in Daqing.
The shares of PetroChina closed at 43.96 yuan -- still up 163 percent. But in Hong Kong share market, PetroChina slided down 6.63 percent to 18.30 Hong Kong dollars (2.44 US dollars) at mid-day.
Warren Buffet, Bershire Hathaway chairman and CEO, said that the firm had gained almost 3.5 billion dollars from the sale of 488 million dollars investment in PetroChina, and that third-quarter profit rised by 64 percent.
Some comments in mainland China are as follows:
"Stock prices are rising too fast," said a Shanghai-based analyst with Industrial Securities.
"The government will take measures to prevent asset bubbles and avoid huge fluctuations in the stock market," Wen Jiabao told reporters, according to the China Daily. "It is the government's responsibility to ensure a fair, healthy and transparent stock market."
Some analysts said investors had chased the firm's price too high. "I think it's a bit risky for individual investors to buy in at the moment because we don't see much growing space," another analyst said.
PetroChina raised 66.8 billion yuan in Shanghai share market by selling 4 billion A shares.
According to the company's prospectus, 6.84 billion yuan and 5.93 billion yuan is planned to boost production capacity at Changqing and Daqing oil fields respectively . Besides, 1.5 billion yuan will be used to build production facilities at Jidong field. It also planned to upgrade facilities and expand an ethylene plant in Daqing.
2007年11月1日星期四
Bloomberg data source in China
There are two branches of Bloomberg in the mainland of China--Bloomberg news agency, Beijing branch and Bloomberg news agency, Shanghai branch. There is no websites of these two branches, only the contact number and address available. From the name of these two branches, we can guess that they mainly provide news, not data analysis of China's domestic firms. As far as I know, these two Bloomberg branches currently buy data of local companies mainly from china economic information centre (CEI). http://www.cei.gov.cn/
China economic information centre, found on December 2, 1996, is the formation of the State Information Center to provide economic information for the professicial and business purpose.
It is an information platform for the government, financial institutions, schools, enterprises, research institutions and foreign investors. The service is to statistical data and research reports. The Internet is the largest Chinese economic information base, as announced by CEI.
It is supposed that data collected by Bloomberg from CEI is mainly in China macroeconomic area. Data of companies listed in stock market can be collected from the regular reports—both quarter and annual reports. I guess that Bloomberg also buys information from government and industry associations. In this way, it can not only cut cost but also save time.
However, from my point of view, sometimes the data may be not accurate, as some local governments intend to polish the economic data. In this way, they could either cut taxes which allocatied to central government or announce an excellent performance which will lead to higher reputation and position. http://www.atimes.com/atimes/China/FJ23Ad01.html
Besides CEI, China infobank is another critical China business information souce in China. http://www.chinainfobank.com/irisweb/english/homepage.htm )
The company collects, indexes and broadcasts China business information of various business sectors to satisfy customers. The areas covered by its database is the largest in China. At present, the database has over 10 billion Chinese characters, 10 million articles. Furthermore, it is accumulating at a rate of 20 million Chinese characters per day.
In my point, when foreign companies such as Bloomberg buy bussniss data from either China governments or institutions, they should make sure that the data are accurate and up to date. To achieve this goal, they must be aware of Chinese accounting system, as it was different from western accounting system, and the local laws as well. Besides, they must check the source of data to prevent polishment by governments.
China economic information centre, found on December 2, 1996, is the formation of the State Information Center to provide economic information for the professicial and business purpose.
It is an information platform for the government, financial institutions, schools, enterprises, research institutions and foreign investors. The service is to statistical data and research reports. The Internet is the largest Chinese economic information base, as announced by CEI.
It is supposed that data collected by Bloomberg from CEI is mainly in China macroeconomic area. Data of companies listed in stock market can be collected from the regular reports—both quarter and annual reports. I guess that Bloomberg also buys information from government and industry associations. In this way, it can not only cut cost but also save time.
However, from my point of view, sometimes the data may be not accurate, as some local governments intend to polish the economic data. In this way, they could either cut taxes which allocatied to central government or announce an excellent performance which will lead to higher reputation and position. http://www.atimes.com/atimes/China/FJ23Ad01.html
Besides CEI, China infobank is another critical China business information souce in China. http://www.chinainfobank.com/irisweb/english/homepage.htm )
The company collects, indexes and broadcasts China business information of various business sectors to satisfy customers. The areas covered by its database is the largest in China. At present, the database has over 10 billion Chinese characters, 10 million articles. Furthermore, it is accumulating at a rate of 20 million Chinese characters per day.
In my point, when foreign companies such as Bloomberg buy bussniss data from either China governments or institutions, they should make sure that the data are accurate and up to date. To achieve this goal, they must be aware of Chinese accounting system, as it was different from western accounting system, and the local laws as well. Besides, they must check the source of data to prevent polishment by governments.
2007年10月16日星期二
The impact of subprime mortgage financial crisis
The subprime mortgage financial crisis firstly started in the subprime mortgage market in the United States then became a global financial crisis in July 2007, and still has a strong impact globally.
Charles Prince, the Citigroup chief, quit for masses of losses during the subprime mortgage crisis. Citigroup announced that the losses was up to 11 billion dollars – much higher than the 2.2 billion reported in September. Merrill Lynch reported 8 billion of losses in October and then O’Neal resigned. British banks such as Barclays and Royal Bank of Scotland also faced the situation that their stock had shed around 3.0 percent in value. In Tokyo, the stock value of Mitsubishi UFJ Financial, Sumitomo Financial and Mizuho Financial fell similarly.
According to the United States Treasury data, till June 2006, investment on the real estate mortgage securities in America made by China’s financial institutions has summed up to 107.5 billion dollars. It is supposed that the subprime mortgage crisis will result in direct losses of 4.9 billion yuan for six listed banks in China.
In recent months, Chinese mainland media has published a lot of articles with the view that: the subprime mortgage crisis in US will not occur in China. The reasons are in the following:
Firstly, China’s mortgage business is at the initial stage, and it only accounts for relatively low in the business of commercial banks at present. As a result, in spite of several risk loans, the overall impact on the banking area will not be great.
Secondly, currently there is no securitization of individual housing loan in China. Therefore, it is thought that the scope affected by the subprime crisis in rather limited even if there are risks.
Thirdly, income level in China mainland has been high in recent years. According to China National Bureau of Statistics data, in the first half year, the income of urban residents increased by 14.2%, and the income of farmers went up by 13.3%.
Finally, the links between China and the global economy is not really strong. For example, Shanghai stock market is completely separated from the stock market in Wall Street. Furthermore, the National Bureau of Statistics has announced China’s property prices rose 8.2% in the third quarter 2007.
Charles Prince, the Citigroup chief, quit for masses of losses during the subprime mortgage crisis. Citigroup announced that the losses was up to 11 billion dollars – much higher than the 2.2 billion reported in September. Merrill Lynch reported 8 billion of losses in October and then O’Neal resigned. British banks such as Barclays and Royal Bank of Scotland also faced the situation that their stock had shed around 3.0 percent in value. In Tokyo, the stock value of Mitsubishi UFJ Financial, Sumitomo Financial and Mizuho Financial fell similarly.
According to the United States Treasury data, till June 2006, investment on the real estate mortgage securities in America made by China’s financial institutions has summed up to 107.5 billion dollars. It is supposed that the subprime mortgage crisis will result in direct losses of 4.9 billion yuan for six listed banks in China.
In recent months, Chinese mainland media has published a lot of articles with the view that: the subprime mortgage crisis in US will not occur in China. The reasons are in the following:
Firstly, China’s mortgage business is at the initial stage, and it only accounts for relatively low in the business of commercial banks at present. As a result, in spite of several risk loans, the overall impact on the banking area will not be great.
Secondly, currently there is no securitization of individual housing loan in China. Therefore, it is thought that the scope affected by the subprime crisis in rather limited even if there are risks.
Thirdly, income level in China mainland has been high in recent years. According to China National Bureau of Statistics data, in the first half year, the income of urban residents increased by 14.2%, and the income of farmers went up by 13.3%.
Finally, the links between China and the global economy is not really strong. For example, Shanghai stock market is completely separated from the stock market in Wall Street. Furthermore, the National Bureau of Statistics has announced China’s property prices rose 8.2% in the third quarter 2007.
2007年10月14日星期日
Golden-week holiday makes quite an impact on China's economic growth
China introduced three annual vacations called "Golden Weeks" in 1999, which include Spring Festival early in the year, Labour Day holiday in May and National holiday in October.The purpose was to boom the domestic economy after the great impact of the Asian financial crisis in the 90s. Because during these vacations, people could take a rest, do shopping and travel, this could help boost consumption, which is a relative weak engine compared with exports and investment.
This recommendation really plays an important role in China economy. For example, this year, the revenue of Chinese airline reached 2.94 billion yuan over the National Day holiday. During the same period, the railways made 1.48 billion yuan revenue from passenger transportation. Transport earnings up during China's National Day holiday
This reform has a good influence on the economy these years. However, there is no longer an urgent need to continue this implemention as China has been seen four consecutive years of double-digit economic growth, moreover, the traffic and environment burden during golden week are very serious.
On the National Day holiday this year, the number of passengers travelling by road and train hit 363 million, almost 110 percent as much as that in last year. Railways added extra trains to meet the increasing demand. Highways were congested and more buses were used on the roads. Airlines were filled with travellers. People feel uncomfortable when they were in the traffic jam and just saw travellers on hot scenic spots. And there are masses of complaints and appeals from domestic residents.
China is considering whether to cancel one of three gold-week holidays in order to ease the traffic and environment burden. A survey conducted this year by Chinese mainland shows more than half of the 3000 participants agreed that "some reforms should be taken" . Previous articles said the Dragon Boat Festival and the Middle Autumn Festival may be listed as holidays, and people could have two days off work. Report: China may cut one golden-week holiday -- china.org.cn
China government has to make a balance in this issue and resolve the conflict of interestes from communities, consumers, and businessmen as well.
This recommendation really plays an important role in China economy. For example, this year, the revenue of Chinese airline reached 2.94 billion yuan over the National Day holiday. During the same period, the railways made 1.48 billion yuan revenue from passenger transportation. Transport earnings up during China's National Day holiday
This reform has a good influence on the economy these years. However, there is no longer an urgent need to continue this implemention as China has been seen four consecutive years of double-digit economic growth, moreover, the traffic and environment burden during golden week are very serious.
On the National Day holiday this year, the number of passengers travelling by road and train hit 363 million, almost 110 percent as much as that in last year. Railways added extra trains to meet the increasing demand. Highways were congested and more buses were used on the roads. Airlines were filled with travellers. People feel uncomfortable when they were in the traffic jam and just saw travellers on hot scenic spots. And there are masses of complaints and appeals from domestic residents.
China is considering whether to cancel one of three gold-week holidays in order to ease the traffic and environment burden. A survey conducted this year by Chinese mainland shows more than half of the 3000 participants agreed that "some reforms should be taken" . Previous articles said the Dragon Boat Festival and the Middle Autumn Festival may be listed as holidays, and people could have two days off work. Report: China may cut one golden-week holiday -- china.org.cn
China government has to make a balance in this issue and resolve the conflict of interestes from communities, consumers, and businessmen as well.
2007年10月6日星期六
Elites are going from Japanese company
In the past years, more and more foreign companies enter China mainland. According to a survey, when wages and conditions are the same, Chinese staff are inclined to work in Europe and the United States or domestic enterprises rather than Japanese companies.
Japanese firms generally have three types of employees: The first is life-time employee. Next is contract employee with a one-year contract. The final and perhaps the most commoncategory is a person who is sent to work at the company from an outside placement company .
As a result, If you start working at a Japanese company with the idea that you are the same as everyone else and may become a manager if you keep working hard, you are absolutely wrong. In fact, most Japanese companies have discrimination against people. For example, women cannot hold some kinds of position; foreigners cannot be hired as a life-time employee; some companies don't hire Korean staff, etc. What's more, ads will often read, "Japanese only," "male only," "must be under 28" (ladies in particular must often be under a certain age), "single ladies only," etc.
A survey shows that respect for human rights is the highest in the most state-owned enterprises. If the rights of workers are harmed, the government will come forward to solve. The second is Europe and the US firms, because they have traditional respect for human rights. Situation in Japanese enterprises is the worst. Japanese companies emphasized obedience to superior, as well as obeying authority.
Working overtime without extra pay is a tradition in Japanese firms. It is usually a way to show professionalism and loyalty to the company. Furthermore, wages in Japanese enterprises are lower than those in Europe and the United States. Important positions belong to employees sent from Japan, not to froeitgn people. The development space constraints lead to difficulty to retain Chinese elites in Japanese firms.
Japanese firms generally have three types of employees: The first is life-time employee. Next is contract employee with a one-year contract. The final and perhaps the most commoncategory is a person who is sent to work at the company from an outside placement company .
As a result, If you start working at a Japanese company with the idea that you are the same as everyone else and may become a manager if you keep working hard, you are absolutely wrong. In fact, most Japanese companies have discrimination against people. For example, women cannot hold some kinds of position; foreigners cannot be hired as a life-time employee; some companies don't hire Korean staff, etc. What's more, ads will often read, "Japanese only," "male only," "must be under 28" (ladies in particular must often be under a certain age), "single ladies only," etc.
A survey shows that respect for human rights is the highest in the most state-owned enterprises. If the rights of workers are harmed, the government will come forward to solve. The second is Europe and the US firms, because they have traditional respect for human rights. Situation in Japanese enterprises is the worst. Japanese companies emphasized obedience to superior, as well as obeying authority.
Working overtime without extra pay is a tradition in Japanese firms. It is usually a way to show professionalism and loyalty to the company. Furthermore, wages in Japanese enterprises are lower than those in Europe and the United States. Important positions belong to employees sent from Japan, not to froeitgn people. The development space constraints lead to difficulty to retain Chinese elites in Japanese firms.
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