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Pro-PRC Laowai posted:
Which makes me curious as to how do they determine development as being underway in China. Is it based on just showing adequate investment capital, construction equipment on site, or structural proof? Sorry to bombard you with questions but does the home mortgage loan exist in the same way as it does in the U.S. Can people who own multiple condo units use those units to draw massive amounts of equity from it to buy more units?
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May 18, 2012 05:55
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Modus Operandi posted:What department in China is given the authority to license out developer rights for land? I imagine that must be a corruption hotpot of unimaginable scale. In Thailand the Crown Bureau property technically owns all the land and they give "long term" leases to various developers who throw up condos, strip malls, or office buildings. Except in Thailand they start selling units when there's just a small marketing office and occasionally (though rare now) the condo buildings are delayed for years, stuck in legal limbo, or never built at all. Generally the developer has to buy out the land usage rights from whoever's on the land first and pay a rather large tax to the government for rights to develop. Yep, it's technically a lease. For how long depends on the zoning. (1)居住用地70年； - Residential 70 years (2)工业用地50年； - Industry - 50 years (3)教育、科技、文化、卫生、体育用地50年； - Educational, cultural, etc - 50 years (4)商业、旅游、娱乐用地40年； - Business, tourism, entertainment - 40 years (5)综合或者其他用地50年 - Combined and other purposes - 50 years What happens after that period of time is still anyone's guess. Most likely it will mean paying a transfer tax to renew the lease. Odds are more likely that within that time span it will be targeted for a buyout and compensation for redevelopment prior to theexpiry date. The definition of "development" was kinda vague before and it wasn't uncommon for a developer to just dig a small pit, or hire a handful of workers to pretend development was happening. Yummy land speculation. Buy it cheap, squat on it for a few years and then start to actually do something. The pre-sales thing also used to be possible, as was using an existing property as collateral for downpayment on new properties. That all changed. Sales cannot happen until development reaches a certain point now, generally speaking it typically starts up once at least the shell of the building is all done and in place. Developers also tend to prefer mortgages to be coming in from a specific bank which they are working with. Funds from those banks are released piecemeal at various stages of development. The downpayments typically do straight into their pockets, which is why they'll give discounts for paying cash in full. That's more or less the only way pre-sales can happen anymore. Highly reputable developers with a long established history might give pre-sales of cash-in-full with around a 7~9% discount. Not so reputable developers where there is an obvious risk... it's not uncommon to see very early pre-sales of units with a 20~30% discount, but now, even that is still restricted. Development must be authorized by the government for pre-sales prior to actually being sold and this has become rather well regulated... at least in the hottest property markets. Developer goes bankrupt halfway through and runs away? Assets get auctioned off to a new developer for cheap. They can either finish up the building and claim the funds remaining from bank mortgages as well as all the other perks, or they can tear it all down and compensate buyers. Most people who are not huge risk takers will only buy from very reputable developers who have a long history. The new restrictions specifically make it difficult for developers who don't have all that much actual capital. And yes, this industry is stupidly corrupt as there is huge money to be made. Getting cleaned up a bit recently, but still corrupt. Taxes to the government are paid when property changes hands from the developer to the buyer. This must be in cash, and no, loans or other collateral is not allowed to pay for it. Back during the bubble there was also rampant speculation where buyers would line up and gobble up the pre-sales at huge discounts, paying cash in full before anything was actually built. Then as development got underway it wouldn't be uncommon to see those rights to future units being flipped at various stages of development for quick profits. That all kinda came to an end with the 5-year taxation policy. If you hold it for under 5 years, you get whacked with massive tax penalties now. That was one of the first regulations that was put in place, but the market was still so hot that it had virtually zero effect. I'm not even going to bother to get into the disturbingly cheap places that have questionable land rights. That's a whole nother topic. But one of the funny things that's happened is the golf course implosion. Percentage of "green space" became the new hype. Taking a section of the development and turning it into a small park or whatever, or filling the parking lot with trees became a fairly standard way to boost that number on paper. Having green space was also one of those stats that local governments were graded on. So, when that whole "develop it or lose it" thing came to pass, a really common trick was to take a large plot that they wanted to speculate on, transfer it to a shell company, put in the underlying infrastructure (water mains, electric, sewage, etc) and then fill it with a bunch of trees (which can be dug up and sold for a profit later) or turn it into a golf course (which is actually a huge money maker and a great graft tool). When the day comes that they actually want to develop it, the shell goes bankrupt, the parent takes it back over, pays some tax to restart the lease and up go the buildings. In the meantime, adjacent developments can have inflated "green space" and the local government can boast about their parks and overall green space. Parks don't get bitched about, golf courses sometimes do, but the profits from the golf courses make the fines laughable. This land can also be used to secure future development loans for other properties. The notion of ever-increasing prices is highly linked to improved development. remote locations get a subway station, or have a station planned. Prices shoot up. If perchance it's on top of a subway interchange station, prices shoot up even higher. Just the way it goes, and this is probably connected to the design of the subway system itself with it's lack of massive hub stations. The surrounding real estate would just be obscene. Current restrictions in place (in Beijing): Downpayments & Financing (These put a major damper on, but did not stop all growth) 1st unit - can used housing fund loans up to 80w and bank loans for the rest. Absolute minimum downpayment is 20% on the housing fund and 30% or higher for the rest of it. 2nd unit - 60% minimum, 100% preferred (might actually be a required 100% now, I would have to double check) 3rd unit - 100%, no other option, must be cash in full, also unlikely to be allowed. It's also fairly difficult to get fixed rate mortgages, most are variable and those rates are entirely controlled by the government. Purchasing (these are the biggies that finally started the deflation) Typically restricted to a single unit in the city, potentially a second or third, but it typically requires some scheming to pull off. Non-local hukou must have a 5-year history of a stable job, paying taxes, contribution to social insurances before being eligible for a single unit. Foreigners limited to a single unit within China. It must be a primary residence and cannot be rented out. Must reside for at least 1 year prior to being allowed to purchase. Foreign interests and speculators are effectively banned. Construction Stand alone villa construction is banned on all new developments Pushing from the government for economic housing of reasonable sizes Future things that will be or are in the process of happening: Property Taxes! It's a quota-based system. Each member of a family unit is allocated a certain amount of square floorage that is tax-free. Beyond that, taxes will be owed on the remaining sum of space taking into account all properties with a bias towards counting the floor space in the properties of highest value towards the quota first. For the vast majority of people, this will never be a concern as the base line is rather high. It's pretty much just a tax on the rich and landlords (who are skirting rental income taxes anyways). "Low-income" housing explosion It was attempted before, there was corruption, end result was a bunch of rich people snapping it all up via various means. The new stuff is much more thorough in terms of qualifications and they simply cannot flip it for 10 or more years. This housing is aimed at new graduates and will be highly affordable either as purchases or as income-sensitive rentals with purchase options. Migrant workers more likely than not will not have any access to this prior to meeting a series of rather rigorous qualifications. Do keep in mind that these are Beijing regulations and the ones I am most familiar with. Pretty much all other cities have their own regulations which vary according to how they see fit. But Beijing was one of the craziest places during the bubble. Most cities seem to ban outsiders from purchasing anything as well as slapping restrictions on how many units they are allowed to purchase. How strict this is, really does depend on their own regulations. For a place like Xi'an, I know there must be proof of 1 year of payments to the local social insurance scheme and/or a 1 year record of local taxation. Goals for the Government: Smack the gently caress out of housing prices. This was becoming a huge problem for everyone who wasn't rich and was causing some serious problems. Stabilize housing prices. Way too loving volatile before. Gots to keep a lid on that. Kill off the crappier developers. Prior to about 1980, it was all state owned, workers were generally well trained, standards were higher. With the privatization and opening to private developers standards have gone down and there are higher risks from developers who really have no business being in the game to begin with. Government wants this to be more consolidated into large reputable companies that are more easily regulated. With all the regulations in place, if the decline is too fast, they can ease up, if it overshoots the targets they can introduce incentives. It's all very controlled and not in any way some kind of crisis like the overseas media is pretending. Economists are also fairly useless to listen to about this, as their theories only really work in unregulated markets... all kinda gets shot to hell when it's central government pulling the strings. Mortgages here are not being bundled up and passed off to investors with fake ratings. No such thing as 0% down, liar loans or non-recourse (however policy is very lenient to primary residences in hard times who are temporarily incapable of repayment). No teaser interests and balloon payments, ARMs or resets. The major banks are all effectively state-owned and controlled and have government backing. HELOC exists, is limited to 70% LTV and generally is only really possible once the original mortgage has been paid off in full. Using a primary residence to do this is basically a risk no one in their right minds would ever take. The culture here is highly geared to settle all debts asap and the first thing on everyone's mind isn't "how much per month" but rather "how much total in the end". If it means working a side-job, or starting up a small business... if there is a mortgage to pay, I can pretty much guarantee that every last fen of extra income will be going towards paying off the loan faster. edit: Furthermore, due to the restrictions in China, you are seeing the outflow of hot money to markets pretty much everywhere else to snap up properties as investment. Any laxing of the regulations pretty much ensures cash flies right back into the markets here. There's tons of demand and those buyers generally represent zero credit risk as they pay in cash. Pro-PRC Laowai fucked around with this message at 10:10 on May 18, 2012 |
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May 18, 2012 09:40
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Modus Operandi posted:Sorry to bombard you with questions but does the home mortgage loan exist in the same way as it does in the U.S. Can people who own multiple condo units use those units to draw massive amounts of equity from it to buy more units? You can't really 'own' land in China (it's generally either leased from the government or owned by a village co-operative), but you can own buildings on the land. This arrangement doesn't have an analogy in western law, but there's no reason that, if you owned a building but not the land, that you couldn't put the building up as collateral.
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May 19, 2012 03:03
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Readman posted:You can't really 'own' land in China (it's generally either leased from the government or owned by a village co-operative), but you can own buildings on the land. This arrangement doesn't have an analogy in western law, but there's no reason that, if you owned a building but not the land, that you couldn't put the building up as collateral. What? You can lease land in the west, you can build buildings on them and use the leasehold as collateral too. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leasehold_estate
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May 19, 2012 05:42
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Readman posted:You can't really 'own' land in China (it's generally either leased from the government or owned by a village co-operative), but you can own buildings on the land. This arrangement doesn't have an analogy in western law, but there's no reason that, if you owned a building but not the land, that you couldn't put the building up as collateral. You get usage and other rights to the land. Unproductive land loses those rights generally as does unlawful usage. Quite a few other countries operate the same way. A big difference here being that there are no property taxes and even once implemented they will not have any bearing on the vast majority of the population. Generally, if you have to pay money on a regular basis for the land or risk having it taken away, then no, you do not own it.
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May 19, 2012 08:25
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Throatwarbler posted:What? You can lease land in the west, you can build buildings on them and use the leasehold as collateral too. Say I'm in the US (assuming it works the same as in Australia), if I lease land to build a building and then the land lease expires, what happens to the building? Now think about what I described in China and what would happen in that situation. Edit: looking at my previous post, I just notice that I used the word 'lease' (as in lease from the government) - which is probably where a lot of the confusion is coming from, my bad! Readman fucked around with this message at 12:47 on May 19, 2012 |
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May 19, 2012 09:49
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Pro-PRC Laowai posted:You get usage and other rights to the land. Unproductive land loses those rights generally as does unlawful usage. Quite a few other countries operate the same way. A big difference here being that there are no property taxes and even once implemented they will not have any bearing on the vast majority of the population. Generally, if you have to pay money on a regular basis for the land or risk having it taken away, then no, you do not own it. I agree with everything you said, but to clarify why I said 'you can't really 'own' land in China' is that it's one of the many areas of law in China that has been left vague and contradictory (as you alluded to above). The Chinese property law appears to contradict itself on the question of what happens when a land use right expires. Article 22 in the real estate law provides for automatic approval of requests to extend the time limit, with the only qualifier being that the LUR holder applied within the time period. If that provision is applied as written (obviously a big 'if' and it assumes that the law won't change), then the maximum term doesn't really mean anything at all - the state has quite effectively constrained its ability to reclaim LURs. Of course, we're not going to know what'll happen until LURs start expiring.
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May 19, 2012 10:09
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All of this has been really interesting and I have a firmer understanding of what's going on, but I still have no idea how anyone could think that buying a new flat in a development on the outskirts of a T2 city would make money. The sheer volume of oversupply is staggering - especially when there are so few people renting and so many people living in extended family units. It's not like there is an influx of middle class people from the countryside either. Take the train into any T2 city anywhere in China at night and you will pass through acres of finished highrise flats, each with a dozen lights on. Trying to figure out why this is making money for someone is like a loving Zen puzzle. The "otherness" of this property market clearly has my middle class sensibilities all a flutter! What aspect of this situation am I not seeing [correctly]?
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May 19, 2012 12:22
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So CGC is out of China now. Like I said, backdoor negotiations work, while public showboating really doesn't.
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May 19, 2012 14:16
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I've been busy the last few days but thanks a lot Laowai for that excellent and much more in depth appraisal of China's real estate market than I expected.Readman posted:You can't really 'own' land in China (it's generally either leased from the government or owned by a village co-operative), but you can own buildings on the land. This arrangement doesn't have an analogy in western law, but there's no reason that, if you owned a building but not the land, that you couldn't put the building up as collateral. I understand this differentiation. It's really legal semantics. You can own the "property" on the land but not the land itself. So some corrupt bureaucrat can bend you over when it's time but they have some limits as to what they can do unless you are a foreigner. This isn't much different from SE Asia. However, i'm talking more about how and what P.R.C. citizens can do with the property units that they own.
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May 19, 2012 16:50
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The point about the 70 years thing is that non of the residential buildings has hit 70 year limit yet. Owning property goes against the communist doctrine thats why it was deliberately phased it that way. The party clearly doesn't want to make a decision on tge matter until the oldest buildings hit the 70 year limit. I remember when Guangzhou started allowing sales of apartments it was in mid 80s. My uncle used the money he earned as a chef in the US and brought a 3 bedroom apartment in Tianhe, which was in far east side of the city. You could still see tons of farm land at the time. Now Tianhe has become the new city center and the value of the apartment has multiple 20-30? times. OTHO, when my parents brought an apartment in early 90s it was in the far west side of the city and the property value hadn't gone up much before they gotten rip of it.
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May 19, 2012 19:03
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whatever7 posted:The point about the 70 years thing is that non of the residential buildings has hit 70 year limit yet. Owning property goes against the communist doctrine thats why it was deliberately phased it that way. The party clearly doesn't want to make a decision on tge matter until the oldest buildings hit the 70 year limit. I have seen old papers on this stuff. Part of the iron rice bowl... rents used to be token. Even with low wages it was only around 1% of monthly income. Buying was just a silly proposition, until they screwed around with allocation efficiency and increased the percentage of salable units in building projects.. Then of course they started finding ways to jack up rent, jack up food prices to break the market-set rates, break up the single state bank into the big 4 with central banking separate (actually has a role in why those who lived through it loving hate banks... it was easier before) and it all played into the protests back in 89.
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May 19, 2012 21:49
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GuestBob posted:All of this has been really interesting and I have a firmer understanding of what's going on, but I still have no idea how anyone could think that buying a new flat in a development on the outskirts of a T2 city would make money. The sheer volume of oversupply is staggering - especially when there are so few people renting and so many people living in extended family units. It's not like there is an influx of middle class people from the countryside either. Buying property has been the only sure fire way to make money in the last decade in China. If you brought an apartment in the early 00s, its value has at least doubled by now. If your had the good sense to buy a second apartment, you pretty much can retire at least 10 years earlier. OTOH if you invest your money in the Chinese stock market, you probably has lost most of the money when the market crashed before the 08 Olympic. Again, most of the other forms of the investment has yielded worse return, specially if you don't have "guanxi" and insider info. And in China its all about insider info. There are two more factors. One being Chinese traditionally are very fixated on owning a house, this applies to all oversea Chinese too. The second thing is after 2008 financial crysis. Wen Jiabao pull 5000 billion RMB out of his rear end to rejuvenile market,(and I assume to keep the RMB low to keep the export business competitive.) Alot of this money has flew to the real estate market. I am pretty sure about this 5000 billion figure however I am unable to find an English source. You can still find Chinese articles for it. Think about it, thats a lot of money. The real estate price is not going down.
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May 20, 2012 01:56
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whatever7 posted:The second thing is after 2008 financial crysis. Wen Jiabao pull 5000 billion RMB out of his rear end to rejuvenile market,(and I assume to keep the RMB low to keep the export business competitive.) Alot of this money has flew to the real estate market. I am pretty sure about this 5000 billion figure however I am unable to find an English source. You can still find Chinese articles for it. Pro-PRC Laowai posted:*longpost*
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May 20, 2012 09:59
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Not to disturb the interesting discussion about property ownership and whatnot, but I just wanted to know what everyone's take was on the Yang Rui debacle and recent assorted xenophobia. If you don't know what I'm referring to, it's a recent incident where a high-profile anchor from the English CCTV channel had a xenophobic outburst on his Weibo. A translation by Josh Chin has been making the rounds in the Sinosphere, I personally don't think the translation is all that good or accurate but here it is for good measure. It gets the point across. Yang Rui posted:
Reading Fallows' post about it, I largely agree with him that incidents like these carry significant implications for China's soft-power initiatives. The CCP spends and has spent a lot of money on these (I'm ashamed to say I've taken my fair share of it), but our natural distrust of authoritarian systems and China in particular means that whatever support this money builds overseas is incredibly fragile. All it takes is a CGC or a SCS standoff and the West suddenly comes to its collective senses and remembers why it disliked China in the first place. I thought Bill Bishop made a good comparison when he said that CGC plastered over the Drudge Report by itself amounted to hundreds of millions of dollars wasted on soft power initiatives by the CCP. I guess the worst-case scenario is that this represents a wider acceptance for anti-foreign sentiments and fenqingish nationalism. This is a strong undercurrent in Chinese society and a very unpleasant one that the CCP has tried its best to sweep under the rug when the foreign guests come to dinner. When someone whose job it is to be a smiling face to the outside world posts something like that, it either means A) He fell and somehow broke his brain or B) That opinions like these are not considered a faux pas at all in his social circle. If it's B, then God help us.
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May 20, 2012 11:09
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french lies posted:Not to disturb the interesting discussion about property ownership and whatnot, but I just wanted to know what everyone's take was on the Yang Rui debacle and recent assorted xenophobia. If anything it's a sign of a push towards stricter visa regulations which are long overdue.
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May 20, 2012 11:51
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The British rape video and now this incident is spreading like wildfire around the Chinese internet too: http://www.chinasmack.com/2012/videos/chinese-girls-beat-up-by-suspected-korean-men-in-chengdu-kfc.html I think the problem here is that there's a constant victim complex in a country like China. It also doesn't help that there really is a lot of China bashing and racism that gets directed towards ethnic Chinese everywhere but especially in places like Korea, HK, and Singapore. So it just compounds feelings of distrust and anger when the popular perception is that "foreigners" get a free pass to do whatever they want in China.
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May 20, 2012 12:07
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Modus Operandi posted:The British rape video and now this incident is spreading like wildfire around the Chinese internet too: You touch upon it but the tension between HK/Singapore ethnic Chinese and mainlander immigrants is pretty fascinating to see. Is it called racism if the groups are technically of the same race?
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May 20, 2012 12:10
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Pro-PRC Laowai posted:If anything it's a sign of a push towards stricter visa regulations which are long overdue. But maybe you're right and poor old Yang Rui just wanted China to 'say no' and keep the foreign trash from compiling GPS data and stealing Chinese women. 
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May 20, 2012 12:14
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Pro-PRC Laowai posted:If anything it's a sign of a push towards stricter visa regulations which are long overdue. How are racist rants a sign of a push? And how does the virtue of the fact that it's a "sign" of something render it somehow not a ridiculous nativist screed?
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May 20, 2012 12:18
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shrike82 posted:You touch upon it but the tension between HK/Singapore ethnic Chinese and mainlander immigrants is pretty fascinating to see. Is it called racism if the groups are technically of the same race? Modus Operandi fucked around with this message at 12:23 on May 20, 2012 |
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May 20, 2012 12:21
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Jesus, why does one rapist rear end in a top hat represent foreigners all of a sudden? Then again the government press has always had these sort of screeds right?
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May 20, 2012 12:29
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Modus Operandi posted:You're right i'm not sure I can call it racism but HK and Singaporean Chinese view themselves as ethnically different and more cultured. I'd compare it to the same way the leading western nationalities used to view the Irish. The Brits used to invent all sorts of race mythology to separate the Irish into a different sub group of "white" comparable with the "negro." HK and Singaporeans view mainland Chinese as ugly, inferior, dumb, etc.. and a whole host of near racist type stereotypes. I wouldn't call the term racism because that would connotate the belief in the superiority of oneself based on race, I would call it prejudices. There are prejudices within mainland China as well. Urban v. rural; Beijing v. everyone else; Cantonese v. "northerners;" native v. migrant; Shanghai v. everyone else; everyone else vs. Henan people, etc. Also Chinese Singaporeans and Chinese Hong Kongers do NOT view the mainland Chinese as "ethnically" different. They all belong to the Han ethnic group or the more generic term "Chinese". Singaporean and HK Chinese may see themselves as more cultured, but not ethnically different from the mainland Chinese.
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May 20, 2012 12:36
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Ronald Spiers posted:Also Chinese Singaporeans and Chinese Hong Kongers do NOT view the mainland Chinese as "ethnically" different. They all belong to the Han ethnic group or the more generic term "Chinese". Singaporean and HK Chinese may see themselves as more cultured, but not ethnically different from the mainland Chinese. There's a significant age old cultural gap between Cantonese Chinese people and regular mainland mandarin speaking "Han" Chinese that goes way back. This is true of the Hokkien/Teochew immigrated Chinese that became Singaporean and Taiwanese too. Many view themselves as ethnically unique and separate from the Mainland after centuries of living apart. I know a lot of TW nationalists and green party people play this card often. Back in the old days southern Chinese used to bear the brunt of purges, famines, etc.. because they were always considered separatists. That's why so many Hokkien, Teochew, Cantonese etc.. speakers fled overseas or immigrated in droves to neighboring SE Asian countries. Modus Operandi fucked around with this message at 12:43 on May 20, 2012 |
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May 20, 2012 12:41
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Modus Operandi posted:You're right i'm not sure I can call it racism but HK and Singaporean Chinese view themselves as ethnically different and more cultured. I'd compare it to the same way the leading western nationalities used to view the Irish. The Brits used to invent all sorts of race mythology to separate the Irish into a different sub group of "white" comparable with the "negro." HK and Singaporeans view mainland Chinese as ugly, inferior, dumb, etc.. and a whole host of near racist type stereotypes. The magnitude of PRC immigration is only going to continue fanning the flame of anti-immigration sentiment in Asia (or anywhere these days). As an interesting side-note, the Singapore government has traditionally "encouraged" Chinese immigration to the country as a counterweight to the population growth of local Malays. It got them a bruisin' in the most recently elections (by PAP standards at least) which has pushed them to the other extreme of anti-immigration measures.
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May 20, 2012 12:45
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shrike82 posted:The magnitude of PRC immigration is only going to continue fanning the flame of anti-immigration sentiment in Asia (or anywhere these days). quote:As an interesting side-note, the Singapore government has traditionally "encouraged" Chinese immigration to the country as a counterweight to the population growth of local Malays. It got them a bruisin' in the most recently elections (by PAP standards at least) which has pushed them to the other extreme of anti-immigration measures. I can't think of any other country where this sort of thing doesn't eventually break down. Yet Singapore has kept a real multiracial/multicultural society together and even prospered from it.
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May 20, 2012 12:53
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I don't think there's any secret to it. Race isn't an issue as long as everyone's doing well economically. And the government's done a great job over the past 4-5 decades. I imagine things would change drastically (racial conflict etc.) if there was ever a prolonged period of recession.
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May 20, 2012 12:55
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shrike82 posted:I don't think there's any secret to it. Race isn't an issue as long as everyone's doing well economically. And the government's done a great job over the past 4-5 decades. Wasn't it because of racial problems that Singapore left Malaysia?
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May 20, 2012 13:12
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french lies posted:I think it's four trillion actually, if you search for "Wen Jiabao's four trillion RMB stimulus plan" (温家宝四万亿元刺激经济计划) or any permutations of those you get plenty of results in both English and Chinese. LOL I guess I didn't know what goes after "billion" (I usually just automatically use the word godzillion.)
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May 20, 2012 14:32
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I find it so hard to count in 万 and 亿. 4wanyi is 40,000x100,000,000 right? So 4 with 10 zeroes after it which makes it 4 trillion? edit: derp
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May 20, 2012 15:36
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Arglebargle III posted:I find it so hard to count in 万 and 亿. 4wanyi is 40,000x100,000,000 right? So 4 with 10 zeroes after it which makes it 4 trillion? Um 40,000 x 100,000,000 = 4,000,000,000,000 which does = 4 trillion, but it has 12 0s :P
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May 20, 2012 15:40
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PPL, what exactly do you think is problematic about the Visa situation? Yes, Shanghai, Beijing, Guangzhou and a few other cities have their share of people on student or tourist visas that are working, but this number is pretty small, and harmless. The only people I've seen effected by the crackdown so far are people who are unlucky enought to be legitimately coming over for a job and going through the Z-visa process right now. My friend works at an office where two of his foreign coworkers are facing possible deportation simply for showing up at the office while their visa is being processed. These are people who have already been employed and working at this company (a multi-national) for years and coming to China on business for a number of times a years. It seems like a lot of wasted human capital for people who are doing legitimate business. Now, PPL, you may believe that the CCP really does need this crackdown to restore "harmony" or whatever, but what problem does the current visa situation contribute? Did the foreigners in these videos even have shady visas?
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May 20, 2012 15:42
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Hong XiuQuan posted:Um 40,000 x 100,000,000 = 4,000,000,000,000 which does = 4 trillion, but it has 12 0s :P Serves me right for trying to visually count the zeros. My math is okay but for some reason I have trouble counting physical objects by sight. Playing dice games is difficult. 
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May 20, 2012 15:46
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Arglebargle III posted:Serves me right for trying to visually count the zeros. My math is okay but for some reason I have trouble counting physical objects by sight. Playing dice games is difficult. You just need to remember 1 million = 100 wan, 1 billion = 10 yi. I just realized there is no Chinese word for 10000 yi, you just call it 1 wanyi. VVVV My brain thought "10000 yi" and my hand typed 1000. whatever7 fucked around with this message at 18:20 on May 20, 2012 |
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May 20, 2012 16:18
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Wouldn't that be 1 qian wan? 1 wan yi would be 10,000 yi right?
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May 20, 2012 17:07
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Last Buffalo posted:PPL, what exactly do you think is problematic about the Visa situation? Yes, Shanghai, Beijing, Guangzhou and a few other cities have their share of people on student or tourist visas that are working, but this number is pretty small, and harmless. There's basically been a whole lotta visa fraud that's gone on forever. Legally, you're not allowed to work period until everything's been processed and is in your hand. There was a moderate crackdown on F visas a few weeks before everything got ratcheted up. Crackdown happened because some official that was taking bribes from visa agents got caught. Obviously, the government has known about the issue since forever, my best guess is that catching a major player in it kinda opened their eyes to the severity of the situation... so, instant full-on "crackdown" wherein they actually start enforcing the laws rather than ignoring it. As for the foreigners in the videos... anyone's guess to be honest. The chav, I'd be willing to guess it was a shady visa involved. There has honestly been a rather large influx of foreigners coming in recently. There are also revisions coming into the mix soon for visa classes and other goodies. Best guess is that they want to clean the streets up and with the video timing it shows the public that they are doing something. Probably also some political leverage reasons in the mix there as well. Also, growing number of foreigners generally means growing tax revenue potentials. Someone working on an F, L or unregistered X is skipping out on taxes. Someone working while a Z is still being process is also skipping out on taxes (a company paying in for a period while processing is still in progress will get hosed). Freelancing is also illegal. Work permits must be specific to a company and you are not allowed multiple work permits. The only exception to this is Chinese nationals and green card holders (who can basically do whatever). In the government's opinion, if you are gonna be freelancing, you should establish an actual company to do so. Other reasons are probably connected to what's going on in the global economy. Edit: not just them, but there are other elements at play as well. It's a crackdown, fair and simple. As long as you are legal or in the process of getting legal and following all the rules, nothing will happen. If your Z is being processed, you need to sit back and take some time off till it's done and ready. Pro-PRC Laowai fucked around with this message at 17:58 on May 20, 2012 |
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May 20, 2012 17:49
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Pro-PRC Laowai posted:
As someone who isn't even in the country at the moment I'm kinda worried about whether or not that's true, though- soooooo much potential for abuse if you're essentially telling different police and management authorities that they can run wild on foreigners, especially in the midst of so much anti-foreigner baiting. Fenqing barely need a reason to blow a gasket as is, if they have public figures openly calling for a cleanup of 'foreign scum' and consequences for people who criticize China then it may not even just be police that you need to worry about. Maybe it'll all blow over, but it'd suck to have that edgy violence that a bunch of us saw during Chinese New Year become a thing more than once a year.
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May 20, 2012 18:09
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Arglebargle III posted:Wouldn't that be 1 qian wan? 1 wan yi would be 10,000 yi right? http://zhidao.baidu.com/question/14075207.html?si=2 quote:中国古代的数学书上记录了三种不同的计数法，下乘、中乘、上乘。
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May 20, 2012 18:19
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Electro-Boogie Jack posted:As someone who isn't even in the country at the moment I'm kinda worried about whether or not that's true, though- soooooo much potential for abuse if you're essentially telling different police and management authorities that they can run wild on foreigners, especially in the midst of so much anti-foreigner baiting. Fenqing barely need a reason to blow a gasket as is, if they have public figures openly calling for a cleanup of 'foreign scum' and consequences for people who criticize China then it may not even just be police that you need to worry about. Maybe it'll all blow over, but it'd suck to have that edgy violence that a bunch of us saw during Chinese New Year become a thing more than once a year. NE Asians tend to get pissier over foreigner behavior since it dredges up really ugly colonial comparisons. I wouldn't be surprised if you will have a lot of videos being posted up now of foreigners misbehaving especially in the nightlife scene. It seems like the sort of thing that instantly inflames nationalist/nativist feelings. Modus Operandi fucked around with this message at 18:37 on May 20, 2012 |
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May 20, 2012 18:34
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Modus Operandi posted:This sort of situation seems inevitable when you have a stream of 20 something white westerners partying it up like China is Ibiza which is followed up by an even worse crowd of 30-50ish y.o. expat men creating a pub culture. The locals eventually get fed up. Yeah, I could see that in some cases, although I feel like the foreigner party crowd isn't something that the vast majority of Chinese have any contact with. The people I've met who were angriest about foreigners tended not to be hanging out in foreign bars, but rather just ultra-nationalists who had spent a little bit too much time reading Century of Humiliation nationalism porn or browsing Anti-CNN with their pants around their ankles. If foreigners are vandalizing stuff or causing fights that's fair game, but laowai-related problems seem like they're pretty rare in the vast scheme of things in China. Then again, I've never spent much time in Beijing. I assume drug trade is still mostly handled by Chinese there, not actually by Africans or whatever I heard a few people saying?
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May 20, 2012 19:16
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