On Monday, May 19th 14:28pm, exactly one week after Sichuan Earthquake, a quarter of world's population stopped to mourn for the wictims.
What can record this better than the number of searches processed by Google.cn search engine?
Three days of national mourning for more than 30,000 victims of 5.12 Sichuan Earthquake.
Okay, have to give it up to this guy... This is, well, simply funny:
It doesn't matter where Tibet is to me...What matters is that the people understand that California is the most powerful state of the world.
The Olympic torch is in California and is to be carried through San Francisco today. In a resolution criticizing China, Chris Daly, a member of the San Francisco Board of Supervisors, said that demonstrating against the torch relay would "provide the people of San Francisco with a lifetime opportunity to help 1.3 billion Chinese people gain more freedom and rights." To his credit, Mayor Gavin Newsom did not sign Daly's resolution.
This statement could not be further from reality. For one thing, the Chinese are a proud people. They want freedom and greater rights, but they know they must fight for them from within. They know that no one can grant them freedom and rights from afar. The stigma of Western imperialism and the Opium Wars also remains a strong reminder of the past, and Chinese people do not want their domestic policies to be dictated by outside powers. They also do not want the United States to boycott the opening ceremonies of the Games. The U.S. boycott of the 1980 Games in Moscow and the Soviet boycott of the 1984 Olympics in Los Angeles accomplished nothing. A U.S. boycott of the opening ceremonies in Beijing would be counterproductive for relations between the two countries.
For decades, anti-China human rights groups in Washington have spent millions of dollars denouncing China. To many Chinese, it seems that this lobby is the only voice that's acceptable or newsworthy in the U.S. media and to the U.S. government. But times are changing. We need to be open-minded and farsighted. We need to make more friends than enemies. Remember what a little ping-pong game did for Sino-U.S. relations in the 1970s? Let's celebrate the Olympics for what the Games are meant to be -- a bridge for friendship, not a playground for politics.
The writer is an actress and director. She became a U.S. citizen in 1989.
Read the full article here.Many will scoff at this Olympic ideal and I understand why. As a longtime advocate of social justice, I'm familiar with the long list of failings attributed to the People's Republic of China from the days of its founding in 1949, including the simmering tensions in Tibet - especially because I just spent five months in Shanghai as a Fulbright scholar conducting research on the mass exodus that took place at the time of the Communist revolution.
As an American of Chinese descent, I grew up hearing constant critiques of the terrible Communist dictatorship. And because I am an open lesbian, my stay in China felt tenuous because, unlike America, which has anti-gay laws, China doesn't even recognize that we exist. Any of these might be reason enough to run as far from the Olympics as my middle-aged body can carry me.
But my time in China gave me another perspective. I observed firsthand the wide-ranging diversity and openness of viewpoints and cultural expression that now exists among China's 1.4 billion people. I met with hundreds of Chinese for my research and was struck by how outspoken and opinionated they are and, yes, even critical of their government.
Many of my conversations were with elderly survivors of civil war and revolution who have endured immense human suffering, from deprivation and humiliation to torture and death. Almost every one of them had family members or friends who had committed suicide before or during the Cultural Revolution that ended three decades ago. Yet, nearly all told me that they believe China is changing for the better and they are hopeful that Chinese society will continue to become more open.
BS is having a huge liquidity problem and its stock has gone down some 70% this year.
This is the second investment by Chinese Sovereign fund not turning out too well...
And the fear is driving clients flee from BS's prime brokerage business...
From Bloomberg:
PetroChina Co. almost tripled on its first day of trading in Shanghai, becoming the world's first company to be valued at $1 trillion, more than Exxon Mobil Corp. and General Electric Co. combined.
The calculation accounts for the majority non-tradable shares held by the Chinese government. Nonetheless, this is probably going to be the hallmark of the Chinese stock market bubble, after ICBC dwarfed Citigroup to become the largest financial company in the world.
I came across two (rather old) stories about rogue traders in China:
The interesting thing about these financial disasters is how they resemble the rogue trader at Barrings Bank decades ago:
It seems Chinese Government Agencies and SOEs still have a long way to go in properly managing their operational as well as market risks.
It's clear that Chinese government has not got the return it had expected in Blackstone's IPO. To be fair, 80% of the investment universe would have guessed the other way.
The long term return on that investment would largely depends on how the tax bill unfolds and how long the favourable borrowing environment persist.
Investments made in the other way are generally more successful. For example, Goldman's 5% stake in ICBC and BOA's 10% investment in China Construction Bank
Shanghai Composit Index has smashed a second phychological barriar within 3 months since late Feb. It stands just above 4000 level as of today.
Irrational Exuberance v.s Gravity, which one will win out eventually?
A WSJ piece on Chinese Property Rights (the second part, after Citigroup's ABN Opening).
China's new law guaranteeing private owners the same rights as public and collective entities might sound like a capitulation to capitalist ideology. Not so, says National People's Congress Vice Chairman Wang Zhaoguo. Equal property rights are required to "uphold and improve the basic economic system of socialism." Whatever the words, Adam Smith would approve. ... And if 1.3 billion Chinese want to call it "socialism," why argue?Welcome to the world of "Socialism with Chinese characteristics".
6 month price chart for Shanghai Stock Exchange Composite Index.
Before the Feb. 27 plunge, the index actually had a sizable correction towards the end of January. It declined 12% in three trading sessions, then recovered quickly and made new high above 3000, only to see the 9% drop in Feb. 27th. The index is now on its way to make another attempt at 3000 level.
We only remembered what we choose to remember. We remembered what happened to the index on Feb. 27th because it's blamed for the near 400 points drop in DJIA, along with Yen carry trades and problems in subprime mortgages.
There has been a lot of talk on how last week's rout indicates China's stock market has become an integrated part of global capital market. To put things in perspective, I've put togather the following data comparison from various sources(news releases from NYSE and SSE, CIA World Factbook):
China US
-------------------------------------------------
GDP ($ Trillion) 2.50 13.22
SSE NYSE
-------------------------------------------------
Total Market Cap. 895.15 24,500
Floating Shares 205.35 N/A
Percent of GDP 8% 182%
2006 Volume (in $) 715.56 21,730
2006 Daily Volume (in $) 2.97 86.92
2006 Daily Volume (in Share) 3.41 2.35
* Dollar and share amounts in billions.
* Assume an average exchange rate of 8.
| China Construction Bank | |
 | |
| IPO Date: | October, 2005 |
|---|---|
| Shares Outstanding: | 195 billion (H Share) |
| Share Price: | HK$4.83 |
| Market Capitalization: | $120 billion |
| Largest Share Holders: | Central Huijin (70%) Jianyin Investment (10%) Bank of America (10%) Asia Financial Holdings (6%) |
| Bank Of China | |
 | |
| IPO Date: | June, 2006 |
|---|---|
| Shares Outstanding: | 76 billion (H Share) 178 billion (A Share) |
| Share Price: | HK$3.85 (H Share) $4.95 (A Share) |
| Market Capitalization: | $125 billion |
| Largest Share Holders: | Central Huijin (69%) Royal Bank of Scotland (8.3%) Asia Financial Holdings (4.2%) China Social Security Fund (3.4%) UBS AG (1.34%) Asia Development Bank (0.2%) |
| Industrial and Commercial Bank of China | |
 | |
| IPO Date: | October, 2006 |
|---|---|
| Shares Outstanding: | 41 billion (H Share) 300 billion (A Share) |
| Share Price: | HK$4.56 (H Share) $5.14 (A Share) |
| Market Capitalization: | $200 billion |
| Largest Share Holders: | Ministry of Finance (36%) Central Huijin (36%) Goldman Sachs (5%) China Social Security Fund (4%) Allianz (2%) American Express (0.4%) |
| Agricultural Bank of China | |
 | |
| Planed IPO : | 2008 |
|---|---|
The movie is actually a bit old but it says what I want to say to all my friends (in Cantonese).
Many friends of mine have got plans to have a baby in the Chinese New Year starting 2/18.
According to Chinese Zodiac, this will be the Year of Pig, which is considered a "lucky" year --- although I still struggle to understand the profound link between "pig" and "lucky". What makes THIS pig year especially special is that most people believe this is the once-every-60-year "golden pig", so child born this year is going to be both "lucky" and "rich", or so it seems.
