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Curved posted:Anecdotally I've found that very educated Chinese also have trouble writing characters at time, mostly due to their reliance on computers. Not that that's and endorsement one way or the other, rather just highlighting the importance of regularly using characters to remember them. Yep, that's because of pinyin. People who use a 字形 method don't really have a problem with character memorization after using computers. When it comes down to really really really basic literacy levels, to the level of those who really have no use for that much literacy in their lives. Swapping them to pinyin or something is just cruel. It doesn't match their dialect and letters don't carry any meaning on their own. Characters... even if you can't read them, you can get the meaning at a glance. It also makes skimming text for relevant parts far more simple. As an added benefit, it results in nice solid blocks of text... again, making skimming very easy. At the most basic levels you don't even need to know how to read the character as long as you know what it means and can copy it and a good chunk of the characters just give away that meaning for free just by looking at them. The fact that foreigners can't understand them doesn't make it China's problem. Chinese speakers make up over 1/5th of the world and regardless of what dialect they speak, the same characters are used and understood by all. Pinyin'ing it would also have the fun effect of effectively killing a living language. Coining clever new words more or less requires characters, or they are meaningless. It completely kills puns and wordplay. You might as well say that english has too many words and it's impossible to learn them all so it means that illiteracy is actually much more prevalent than official stats claim. Obviously, the problem is too many words and weird grammatical rules, so it's best to just hack it down to size. Makes about as much sense.
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Feb 24, 2012 14:05
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Arglebargle III posted:
Yes, Yes, No, Yes. On the "no" there, it's not new characters that are created, it's new words or ideas expressed using characters which with absolute context *might* make sense. Without complete understanding of said context, it makes none at all. You'll also be destroying the aesthetic nature of the language and it's just really really stupid to do. http://tieba.baidu.com/p/41811921?pn=1 Here, have 6.5 years of discussion on this very topic and why it is stupid.
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Feb 24, 2012 16:46
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People who can't read characters know what they mean? Solid blocks of text make skimming easier? Chinese creates new characters every time they need a new word? You and people you know pun with characters instead of sounds?
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Arglebargle III posted:And that "go educate yourself" poo poo is annoying when it's a long English article, doing it with a 6 year old foreign language discussion thread is just obnoxious and in obviously bad faith. Not really in bad faith at all. This is over 6 years worth of discussion on this very topic, by actual native Chinese speakers who all say it's a stupid idea. Starting in 2005 until present day. What I'm trying to get at here, is that every single one of your (and other's) arguments for it have been picked apart for years and years. So it's kind of pointless to even try arguing for a thing that has 0 support and 0 chance of ever happening.
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Feb 24, 2012 19:16
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Cream_Filling posted:I once tried to figure out the Wubei system for typing, and was left utterly mystified, so there's that, too. Wubi input is more or less what anyone who does a lot of typing will use. An average user can get 100 characters per minute without any real effort. Any use in official capacity and you're looking at 200+ required. But 500+ characters per minute is not really that uncommon at all. The learning curve, of course is higher and you have to know the characters you are typing quite intimately.
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Feb 24, 2012 19:27
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Skeleton Jelly posted:That's a lot of Ma's there. Anyone got an idea what the name means and/or why it's so widespread among the Hui population? Muhammad
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Feb 26, 2012 13:21
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timtastic posted:The government's idea to 'harmonize' this discussion is to force all users to post with their real names. Will this kill off this sort of badly needed conversation? Nope, but what it will do is help put an end to a lot of the random bullshit that pops up out of nowhere... far too many fake rumors get passed off as real things and it's really counter productive. You mentioned the wenzhou crash, and that was a perfect example. Random people yapping around making poo poo up to stir up trouble and build up their account followers. gently caress the impact and trouble it will cause. If evidence is given in good faith, I am against any actions taken against those who report it. People who just want to stir poo poo up and cause problems, they should be punished to the maximum extent of the law and it needs to be crystal loving clear that that is going to be the consequence. It's akin to shouting fire in crowded buildings... it's not "free speech" it's loving criminal and should be treated as such. edit: also, the government can be rather reactionary at times and having forums such as weibo to monitor social opinion go a loooong way towards satisfying people. The 官二代 is most likely not going to have much leniency given at all. Pro-PRC Laowai fucked around with this message at 18:57 on Feb 26, 2012 |
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Feb 26, 2012 18:55
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Fiendish_Ghoul posted:That is probably true, but are you seriously saying that this won't have any significant chilling effect on speech that is not "random bullshit?" That sounds a bit optimistic, to say the least. Debate in China is anything but stifled, there are certain lines* you do not cross as there are anywhere. But as far as being critical of policies and officials, as long as you can solidly back up yourself and either present rational alternatives or concrete evidence... the odds of anything happening to you are very very slim. Furthermore, as far as I am aware, that personal information is not just out there for all in the world to see *lines defined: - revealing state secrets and sensitive information - this one can be fuzzy at times - libel / slander - going together with that evidence thing or being so absolutely certain that you are willing to go through hell to hold your line - questioning the legitimacy of officials or the government - serious no no. constructive criticism is totally fine (Hanhan), screaming to tear things down is not (ai weiwei). - inciting riots by spreading false rumors. honestly, true or not, there are better ways to go about doing things without escalating the situation. - making threats - some other random poo poo in here too. The best part of this is that it should help crack down on not just the rumor poo poo, but also on all those god damned scammers. Chilling effects on legit speech. Like most things in China I assume that there will be a temporary pause to see if it's alright and then ease into the waters and go back to normal. Kind of how you see that big "no smoking sign", but then notice some ash and a butt on the ground... slowly pull out your smoke, light up and keep an eye out for security or someone who might care... get that response ready in your head, and then before you know it 5 others are around you smoking too. (and then you put out the butt in the "O" of the "NO" sign) edit: In all honesty though, this being China afterall... it's just gonna end up with people snapping up ID/Names of others and using throwaway sim cards for verification whenever they are up to no good. If there can be legit controls on under what circumstances personal information is provided to investigators and under what terms of review, there shouldn't be much of an issue. That's the kind of thing that should be pushed for more than anything else. Pro-PRC Laowai fucked around with this message at 20:05 on Feb 26, 2012 |
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Feb 26, 2012 19:52
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Arglebargle III posted:
When rumors are basically harmless who cares. But rumors here have a history of getting way out of hand and resulting in dead bodies and poo poo getting set on fire. Making poo poo up that is patently false to serve your own agendas is flat out wrong and criminal and should be treated as such. Remember that panic run on salt because of Fukushima? Yep, that was started by someone selling salt. The chaos that resulted was beneficial to no one. Or how about claiming that a massive disaster is about to hit, resulting in half a city sleeping outside out of fear in the rain... whoops, some people die from exposure. There are tons of people who are perfectly willing to stir up domestic rage just to get their names out there in the hopes of sparking a career and getting their name out there. Why is this in any way acceptable? Screaming fire in a crowded theater is not protected speech anywhere. It's an interesting dynamic here, one where if there is an actual investigation and a report, the same types who are more apt to spread a rumor are at the same time more likely to ignore any official statement of fact even if it's 100% legit reporting. It's something that cannot change overnight. Gradual change, sure... and you are seeing it. Far less is off-limits, but you see corruption of the media on the other side where reporters are paid off by corporations to not report on things. Liberalize the media completely, and you'll just be replacing one censor for another and rumor mongering will still be rampant. Want to liberalize the media some more? First step is to stop the rumor mongering and make it 100% clear that it won't be tolerated and there are consequences for spreading bullshit. A recent (really local) example, was someone claiming that our tap water was mixed in with the grey-water (for toilets) line and there was panic over how to check if it was true. People pissed away tons of cash on testing water, but any report saying it was untrue was immediately hit with newer posters claiming the opposite. Hey, look at that, it was all a scam to sell expensive (shoddy) filters. We had the same thing with false claims of break-ins to sell security grates for windows. The hilarious thing about those is that poorly designed grates on the 1st floor, only serve to make the floor above it more vulnerable. There is an entire "marketing" industry out there to help spread this crap and there just simply are not enough resources to stamp it out by investigating it all. And the potential profits from it can be huge. A flip side of this, is that when someone is verified as being who they claim to be and they make a claim... it will be taken a lot more seriously and hopefully people will think more for themselves before passing it on or trying to distort it to their own aims. Whole lotta progress to be made on multiple fronts, but in the meantime this should hopefully put a damper on the issue while it's all being sorted out. Especially as a great majority of the reforms that need to be made are going to be affecting those who really don't want those reforms.. and this should help shut them up and limit their ability to manipulate to some degree.
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Mar 4, 2012 08:57
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Do you by any chance work for the Chinese government in some capacity? Because drat. I understand the rumor mill can cause trouble but are you really serious about eliminating anonymous speech on the internet? That would be (has been) considered an extreme breach of privacy on a video game forum in the U.S. much less the entire internet.
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french lies posted:This is an argument I hear CCP apologists put forward a lot, and I don't think it holds any water. In my experience, Chinese people believe rumors like this precisely because they don't trust official media outlets. The government's handling of the SARS outbreak, the Wenzhou train crash and similar high-profile incidents makes ordinary people extremely suspicious of official reports. It makes them that much more likely to accept extreme rumors that run contrary to what the official line says. It really wouldn't get rid of it all. The only difference in the end is who is censoring what and for what purpose. It's something that needs to be eased into and regulated properly. This is one nice step towards that goal... holding people responsible for the crap they spew online and when it's something legit, hopefully they will back up their claims with things like evidence. Hearsay is so strongly ingrained here that it's not even funny. I have had neighbors go to court on rather legit claims, only to lose their cases because they have no documentation to back up a drat thing they claim apart from "this and that happened.. no, i dont have pictures, but everyone knows about it... no, i can't name anyone specific". I have also personally consulted several other residents pursuing the same exact claims... they won outright. The reason? Strong documentation and evidence. Legally, of course, poo poo ain't perfect, but it's not as bad as some people seem to think it is. Want to talk about crazy poo poo? document document document, then come forward with it publicly and it's a lot harder for anyone to deny it. Give me a cultural shift that has that mentality and then we can talk about loosening restrictions.
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Mar 4, 2012 14:52
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french lies posted:That's a good article, thanks for sharing. My best understanding of this entire situation is: Background: Bo Xilai is the son of Bo Yibo, one of those gods of the revolution and his gimmick over the years became pushing nostalgia with red songs, focusing on more equal growth and a crack down on corruption. Wang Lijun was Bo's attack dog to go after corruption. In Tieling, which WLJ spent some time, there was a large corruption bust and probably some dirt on WLJ as well. Overall, the sweeping out of the corruption in Chongqing was a great thing and BXL's policies were actually fairly good. In no particular order, a thing happened. WLJ had stopped being all that useful to BXL. BXL's son over in London got spotted living large and it attracted some unwanted attention. WLJ investigated BXL and dug up a bunch of dirt regarding finances (funneling tons of illicit cash overseas) BXL stripped WLJ of basically all his powers and I'd guess dug into the Tieling dirt. WLJ, realizing he was basically hosed ran off to the consulate to ensure that Beijing would be the ones to arrest him. WLJ spilled the dirt, BXL got hosed because enough people didn't like him. Wen Jiabao makes the announcement of the sacking of BXL giving some derisive comments referring to the red songs, which is what most Chinese know him for apart from the corruption raids. The powers that be in China really don't want a Mao revival, so it was pretty decent cover. BXL was a whisper candidate for a high power position, and this was a great opportunity to sack him for causing all this weirdness. WLJ is also pretty hosed, but I'd guess that the government will find a position for him somewhere to lay low. Don't expect him to rise to anything above it however. As far as stepping on toes in Chongqing. Something important to understand about the power politics here is that everyone is corrupt to some degree and has a few skeletons in the closet. It's like doing your first whack for the Mafia to get in. If you don't have some dirt on you, no one is going to play ball. The flip side to all this is that those who manage to ostracize themselves and step on too many toes behind the scenes get left to dangle in the wind when it blows. The incoming Xi Jinping seems to be one of the few rare politicians who have managed to rise without much corruption or pissing off everyone along the way. This should ensure a very strong government as few if any will be able to hold any leverage behind the scenes. Why don't they turn on everyone when they get sold down river? Family for the most part. Family generally gets left out of it when they shut up and take their punishment.
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Mar 21, 2012 01:32
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rscott posted:Heh, I was going to ask about the political coup thing, yesterday I think I read something about how China was blowing up with reports of tanks in the streets of Beijing and fighting and poo poo. Wish I had the exact text in front of me but its at home. It's falun gong tripe (they love to try stirring up poo poo) that originated on epoch times. The picture of the "tank" was from back in 2010 and Chang'an gets highly controlled frequently when dignitaries are traveling on it (which was the case). With weird poo poo going on, yea, anything potentially high profile is going to have clamps put on it for a while. Actually, the funny thing is that with the vast vast majority of these rumors, the original sources all seem to be linked with falun gong sites which should be telling enough.
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Mar 22, 2012 21:37
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hitension posted:It's really quite sad. Financially speaking, renting is often a wiser choice if the terms of the mortgage are such that you'd pay a higher mortgage than rent, especially if the property is not likely to rise in value. Average wages in Shanghai are about 1/5 what they are in my city (where most young people don't even consider renting an entire apartment without roommates, let alone buying one), yet Shanghainese are desperate to buy a house. Because there are no property taxes, renovations belong to you, and the ability to evict from a primary residence that you have a mortgage on is shockingly hard unless you actually have the capability to pay and choose not to. That 70-year lease issue still has a loooong ways to go as well and no one has any idea of what it will result in. One speculation is that it means paying the transfer tax again (which is minimal), while in reality the place will most likely be redeveloped long before it becomes an issue, in which case there is typically massive compensation for it in the form of multiple new apartments and cash. Not having a landlord means no jacking up rents, no begging for things to be fixed, the place can't be sold out from under you and when you are running around registering things in your name, it means you don't have to update the addresses every year or two (typically every year). That's where the value in it all is. Don't have an apartment that you own? Good luck getting married to anyone who wants some stability. Lose your job? You're out on the street. Not to mention it impedes the acquisition of "stuff", seeing as you need to stay somewhat mobile. It's also sometimes just a waiting game until the landlord discovers 隔间 and your loose contract doesn't say they can't do it. Now you have 7 other people living with you and your own option is to move. Owning property in a city that you are a migrant to is also one of those things that could possibly open up a Hukou transfer for, or at least making sure your kid has a local one. If not officially, it gives you a stronger case. Residents don't tend to rent here. They'll live at home for free until they have a downpayment plus some family money saved up. The other quick path to this is working at a major SOE out of college. There is typically company housing provided and there tends to be some sweetheart property buying opportunities that pop up. Housing prices skyrocketed not simply due to speculation, but also due to demand. There is an absolutely massive demand for housing in the cities here. In HK it is compounded by the fact that mainlanders with money can buy up property as well. Infrastructure development also is playing a key role. New subway goes in? Prices for everything around the stations are going to jump. If it's an intersection station, even more so. Clamping down on how many properties can be purchased is also pushing the upper end of the market which can have the potential to drive up surrounding land prices. As such, they have clamped down on new developments of high-end. Requiring higher down payments also limits the size of the potential market. To look at this from another perspective, sure, it's a lease-hold, not free-hold. A good number of countries have that system in place. In other countries however, you also get hit with property taxes, which if you don't fork over, you quickly discover you don't actually own anything at all. The low-income housing that's going in on the mainland *should* help to alleviate the worst of the situation. Not sure what's going on in HK though.
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Mar 25, 2012 19:19
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Throatwarbler posted:http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/28/world/asia/harassment-and-house-evictions-bedevil-even-chinas-well-off.html?pagewanted=all That's some great spin there. It's illegal construction, they are lucky they are getting any compensation at all. The prices given were dirt cheap for the area (because it was illegal construction), they are getting 160w a pop for their stuff and 2/3rds of them paid less than 50w. http://soufun.com/news/2011-12-03/6502393_2.html It's in a damned park that was never meant to have any housing in it at all.
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Mar 26, 2012 07:07
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Warcabbit posted:Anyone seeing any other messages get out past the Great Firewall? Anyone have any actual reports from Bejing? I'm betting that the 'tanks' are probably armored personnel carriers, possibly SWAT level, certainly there for that reason. In case of riot, rather than because of riot. The "tanks" were non-existent, it was a hoax. Not sure about other compounds, but I know ours was plastered with reminders not to listen to FLG bullshit or spread their lies and rumors. So, yea, government's not dumb, they know who's been stirring up the poo poo.
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Mar 31, 2012 17:12
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Ronald Spiers posted:You can't be a Chinese citizen while holding citizenship for another country, it is against the law. It's not illegal, it's just not allowed. If you are caught with a second passport they'll cancel your hukou and invalidate your Chinese passport. There *are* of course, ways around it, not unlike there are ways around it in other countries with similar policies.
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Apr 1, 2012 01:48
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Arglebargle III posted:Police states require ambiguous laws; if everyone is a criminal you can arrest anyone. China's police state likes to be quiet and unobtrusive but you shouldn't forget that it exists. It's not criminal, it's not illegal. There is no fine, there is no jail. It's just simply not allowed to have a foreign passport while retaining a Chinese passport. If you enter and they realize it, they'll mark you in the system as preparing to cancel hukou. If you try to leave without cancelling it, you will be turned back to cancelling your hukou (and presenting proof of it), or presenting proof of renouncing the other(s). Tons of other countries with essentially the same policy. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Dual_Citizenship.svg The US does not disallow dual citizenship, it just doesn't recognize it as legitimate. It also has one of those ambiguous laws on the books regarding dual nationals entering the US on anything other than a US passport.
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Apr 1, 2012 13:21
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zero alpha posted:So is this the beginnings of an Occupy China, or something? No, they just pissy about some districting changes and now that bobo is finito, it's safe to come out and bitch about it.
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Apr 13, 2012 08:23
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Xandu posted:That's almost assuredly because he walked into a consulate in the middle of China. It would have been essentially impossible to accept him. I seriously doubt he tried for asylum. It seems more of a ploy to force the issue on the central government and escape from Bo's influence in the short term. He wanted to keep his travel low-profile and driving to Chengdu is quick and easy. Hopping on a flight to Beijing? Not so much. If he actually did anything in the consulate, it was probably more of a dox dropping to force the central government to go after Bo.
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Apr 17, 2012 09:14
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Pfirti86 posted:Falun Gong is a religious cult by most definitions of the word. It draws from Buddhism and Daoism, and for the most part is a spiritual philosophy combined with some meditative practices. Its founder has some real goofy ideas about modern medicine/science, and he's pretty homophobic. There's a whole lot more behind it than that. It goes back to the idea that it's a substitute for actual medicine and that Li Hongzhi was some sort of mystic god who would use his spirit to kill you if you stopped. No, that's not you getting deathly sick and having kidney failure... that's the sickness leaving your body, be sure to force it on the kids too or else my magical voodoo will kill you all, ditto if you try and use medicine instead. They got really violent and creepy when media started to call it hokum and that was basically the end of that. It wasn't a social movement it was a damned cult full of crazy bullshit dreamed up by a fraud. Once they ran away overseas they started trying to sell it as a religion or whatever in the hopes of gaining support. It's like trying to claim that all Scientology does is try to lower your stress levels. There's a whole lotta batshit insanity beneath the surface. In more recent years, it's basically become a "get out of China free" card to play in some countries. Get visa, buy plane ticket, claim you are FLG, get asylumin Canada/Aussie. edit: this is seriously one of those things that you can't rely on wikipedia for any real information at all. Fighting with the 轮子 is futile as there is literally an entire swarm of them out there determined to force their bullshit. Basically every single thing they reference is a FLG website. You can fight, sure, but they have a few admins in their pocket and you'll just get yourself banned... then they'll dig into all your other articles and screw with them. It would be funny if it wasn't so loving creepy. Pro-PRC Laowai fucked around with this message at 05:50 on Apr 18, 2012 |
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Apr 18, 2012 05:34
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Pfirti86 posted:I didn't want to make such a provocative comparison initially, but yeah, Falun Gong is basically the Scientology or Christian Science of China. I'm no fan of any group that encourages people to avoid modern medicine and Li Hongzhi's personality cult is decidedly weird. I remember the first time I bumped into a Falun Gong art gallery at the University of Cincinnati with all sorts of paintings depicting people getting beaten, where I got cornered by two or three Chinese girls explaining to me in graphic detail all sorts of nasty things that were going on in China with regards to torture and organ harvesting. It was obvious even then that this wasn't exactly an objective organization. Many years back, several dead hard drives and trashed laptops ago I bothered to hunt down the original sources of those pictures they march around with. Then I confronted them as they were doing their little thing of harassing and bitching at everyone going to the consulate in Japan. End result: I got rocks thrown at me, they got arrested by Japanese cops. Anyways, in summary, those pictures? Yea, all bullshit. The organ harvesting thing never happened. If you bother to dig into their "evidence" it just gets more and more absurd, especially when you understand the way things work here. (Doctors at big hospitals don't use prepaid phones, and when pressed over and over again by batshit insane people in the days before number blacklisting, you'll generally say anything to make them shut up and stop calling)
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Apr 18, 2012 06:41
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Arglebargle III posted:New Sinica is out. This one's about the environmental movement and environmental journalism in China. That was old news to be honest. Just keep in mind where they tested positive and buy your rice from places that are not those on the list. The place we get our rice from doesn't even carry brands from those areas anymore.
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Apr 21, 2012 12:19
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Pfirti86 posted:Also, what's a shisha party? That sounds fun. It's pot, no one was smoking shisha with that hookah
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Apr 27, 2012 13:25
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On the whole Cheng drama. Dunno why, but it was rather odd seeing that certain things happened: 1) Magically allowed into the US Embassy - this is not exactly a legal thing to do. It is strong interference in domestic issues. 2) The frequent scare quotes about getting funding from "foreign anti-china forces". 3) The persistent lack of information about what led to those charges. 4) Lots of articles characterizing him as "poor" So... digging into it. He's gotten a LOT of funding from foreign governments. Somewhere along the lines of 4.2 million RMB from the brits, and an undisclosed amount from the NED (read as CIA). There are also rumors abound that he's used proxies to purchase a villa or two. There are some claims that this stuff is being spread by 五毛党, but it's being deleted just as fast as other unrelated posts on the situation... 五毛党 poo poo is typically left standing a while longer. Going after officials with dirt like that on him wasn't exactly the smartest thing in the world and the sheer amount of cash he got from foreign governments (and the fact that he ventured to hong kong to set it all up). Also probably didn't help that he was passing everything over to RFA and VOA (also read as CIA). Taking that poo poo into account, YEP, the treatment of the guy kinda makes perfect sense. As for the poor part, he's anything but. He's been marketed extensively by China Digital Times and ChinaAid, both of which are NED shills. Do I *like* the way he's been treated? No. He did some good poo poo back in his early days. I don't exactly appreciate him bursting open the gates for the subway beggar industry here though. He wasn't really on the radar until he tried to stir up poo poo with officials, and the first thing that happens in those cases is the other side digs up all the dirt the claimant is hiding. In the eyes of the central government, he was collaborating with the CIA, not the smartest thing in the world to do. In the eyes of the local government, he was stepping on toes and had some poo poo to hide (mistake right there). It looks like the agreement reached gets him relocated to another part of the country and him gaining admission to law school so he can become professional. He can stir all the poo poo he wants, but he should be a bit smarter about who is signing his checks. edit: yea, with that update it's just getting weird. It's not like the US embassy could do poo poo anyways apart from letting him live there and never leave. Kinda hard to claim asylum while still in your home country. Anyways, the full story on this poo poo will probably never come out so whatever.
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May 2, 2012 22:54
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TheBuilder posted:What exactly does he have to offer the CIA? Convenient leverage and causing domestic issues which they fully are in favor of. Xandu posted:Voice of America and the various Radio Free xs have literally nothing to do with the CIA. NED is not exactly a neutral organization, but it's hardly a proxy organization for the CIA, either. Radio Free xs: quote:“Radio Free Asia was originally a radio station broadcasting propaganda for the US-American government in local languages to mostly communist countries in Asia. It was originally founded and funded in 1950 by the CIA through a front organization called "Committee for Free Asia" as an anti-communist propaganda operation, broadcasting from Manila, the Philippines, and Dacca and Karachi, Pakistan (there may be other sites) until 1961. Some offices were in Tokyo. The parent organization was given as the Asia Foundation." And NED took over for CIA in an attempt to pretend it's not the CIA: quote:The NED receives an annual appropriation from the U.S. budget (it is included in the chapter of the Department of State budget destined for the U.S. Agency for International Development-USAID) Call it an NGO if you want, but walks like a duck quacks like a duck... throws around cash to groups that oppose governments the US doesn't like. It's the same thing.
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May 2, 2012 23:27
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hitension posted:I'm pretty sure PPL is a 五毛党 himself at this point Man, I wish I got paid for posting, but I don't. The only thing I attempt to do is to cut through some of the bullshit spin and try and figure out reasoning for crap that happens. I had a big long post, but this article sums up my points more accurately http://blog.hiddenharmonies.org/2012/04/chen-guangcheng-escapes-waging-pr-campaign-with-western-press/ One comment that especially stands out to me here: quote:What would Americans think if some Chinese right wing group rescued Bradly Manning and hid him in the Chinese Embassy? How about a foreign government-backed NGO taking it upon itself to free "terror" suspects and stash them away in foreign embassies? edit: If Manning's not your flavor of the day, how about José_Padilla? Pro-PRC Laowai fucked around with this message at 09:03 on May 3, 2012 |
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May 3, 2012 08:36
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BrotherAdso posted:Now, if it can be proven that a US-funded NGO had a role in springing him from house arrest or in forcing him into asking for asylum or something, then the US is in a big pile of crap again. ChinaAid - funded by NED, funded by the us government was the group that made it happen and has admitted to what is essentially organizing and running a human smuggling operation in China.
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May 3, 2012 21:17
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Adar posted:He would have to somehow get himself into the embassy again, yeah. Then there's that little issue of getting him out of the country.
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May 3, 2012 22:05
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Um, the only lever they have pulled back on is slightly reducing the reserve requirements. Actual restrictions on purchases are tight as all hell. This is entirely on purpose and 2013 will likely see the introduction of property taxes as well. Massive public housing projects are also going up and this further brings down prices for reasonable housing. This is entirely planned and it's not a "devastating crash". The developers also love hitting up the banks with bonds. The rates for those bonds is rather good, but the minimum buy-in is exceptionally high with a 5 year period being typical before principle is returned. China *wants* lower housing prices as unaffordable housing is a far greater crisis than "rich people losing money". That laborforce has been redirected to capital investment projects (such as that train station which was based on zerohedge bullshit). Rail is a HUGE deal actually, and those "ghost stations" are simply due to the fact that they were built with the consideration of future lines coming in. A few ghost malls won't be the end of the world either and vacant housing is eventually filled with overconfident speculators being the losers.
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May 17, 2012 18:28
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Fine-able Offense posted:aside from being willing to admit he's called the real estate slowdown for a while before it happened Every idiot who's not blind and deaf knew about the "slowdown" before it actually happened. The government flat out announced it would be taking measures to drop real estate prices. It was way out of hand and it was a direct reaction to the US markets screwing up the domestic markets, investors pulling out cash and dumping it in places that were due to see some large capital infrastructure projects (which increases value). Why is there building going on? In accordance with the law a developer can purchase rights to a parcel of land. These rights are revoked if they squat on it without doing actual development (no refunds). They also cannot sell anything until development is well underway. No more pre-sales. Surprise, once they started cracking down, you started getting undersold developments. With the profits in real estate, you only need to manage to sell a rather small percentage of units to break even anyways.
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May 17, 2012 21:35
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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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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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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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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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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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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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Last Buffalo posted:PPL, do you think the visa system should be streamlined better, or there are just too many foreigners coming in all together? The big issue for a lot of the quasi-legal dealings I see with visas come from the fact that getting and sponsoring work visas gets to be an enormous hassle, while throwing someone an F is substantially easier. Case in point, I know a number of younger expats who are students and support themselves through English tutoring, which is in a high a demand as ever. These people should be paying taxes on their earnings, but they don't. I get that. However, there's no way the agencies a lot of these people get their work from can sponsor enough visas. These people are providing a legit service a lot of people want to buy, and they're not replacing a Chinese local in doing it. Getting legit work visas is hard as hell for most companies. Do you know of another segment or industry that's made up of many quasi-legal visa holders in China's expat community? I haven't really experienced another. It definitely needs to be streamlined, and it would be nice if there was a system setup to allow for freelancing. I can understand entirely the lack of wanting freelancers. With a work permit, you have a company that is technically legally responsible for you. You have a set wage, you are good to go. For a business visa, you should have a sponsoring company that sets ya up. Tourist visa, you should have a plan for travel and funding. Student visas allow part time work with authorization from the school and registration with the ministry of labor. The only way I could ever see freelancing be legit here would be on a deposit basis, and in fact this already exists in the form of Sole Proprietorship. The only real barrier to entry is the registered capital and the time to get it setup, and the registered capital can be sucked dry once everything is good to go. 2 year Z visa that's pretty much infinitely renewable, fairly cheap to operate and everything stays above board and 100% legal. I can't really think of a single other country where the notion of "come to our country, work odd jobs at high risk, pay no taxes" is welcome in any way whatsoever. It sounds like they are going to create that talent visa thing. If they are smart they will go by the letter of the law on green cards instead of the game it is currently and bringing it up to international standards. Currently, to land a green card, you essentially have to prove that you are either rich, making incredible contributions, or you have family here with stable housing and reliable income... in other words, you're not gonna be living on the streets. Currently, only once meeting those criteria do you bypass the work permit requirements and are fully legally allowed to do freelancing.
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May 20, 2012 21:03
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Arglebargle III posted:They have a quota for women in the NPC so it doesn't really prove anything beyond the feminism of the writers of the constitution. And the NPC has no real power. When was the last time they failed to pass a proposed law? Oh that's right, never. The stuff that doesn't get passed, you basically never hear about. It's more or less all behind the scenes as to the debates that go on and the concessions that are made. Stuff can get railroaded through, but doing it is basically something that's never done.
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Jun 4, 2012 13:21
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ReindeerF posted:THREAD INVASION! Meh, Vietnam has a claim that's even more reaching than China's. The stink they are raising over 西沙 is because they apparently sold poo poo they didn't own to foreign companies and now China's planning on developing it instead. China's had complete and total control of the islands they are bitching about since like 1974. The US is trying to respond to the growing sphere of influence in SEA and Africa, but they are neglecting S. America where China's making even more inroads. Kinda funny to watch in all honesty.
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Jul 9, 2012 15:13
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Fall Sick and Die posted:That's not true at all, Vietnam has de facto control of many, many more of these islands than China, though China did beat them in a conflict for one in the 1970s. Also the US is doing everything it needs to in relation to Chinese-South American relations. China telling Brazil and Argentina "You don't need to produce anything, just sell us raw materials" and basically trying to institute economic colonialism on the entire continent, people in South America don't think China is their new best friend. The big stink has been over xisha (aka Paracels) and China does in fact have complete and total control of the islands. Pro-PRC Laowai fucked around with this message at 21:40 on Jul 9, 2012 |
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Jul 9, 2012 21:35
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Warcabbit posted:Edit: Found the original article I wanted to post. The WaPo appears to have replaced it with an article about how the government is telling the truth about the deaths. No level of drainage infrastructure can handle 18 inches of rain all at once... just not possible.
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Jul 25, 2012 13:28
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