Ordinary Gweilo

It's not big and it's not clever, it's just a Brit in Hong Kong writing (mainly) about Hong Kong

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  • Two views on Taiwan

    The SCMP had two opinion pieces on Taiwan today. One is quite a sensible piece entitled ‘Patience is a virtue’, which argues that the “Taiwan problem” will resolve itself over time as the economies of Taiwan and China become even more closely linked and the government of China becomes more liberal. The problem is keeping things under control in the interim, but since the status quo is acceptable to both sides it shouldn’t really be a problem.

    The second piece is much sillier. The author is an American living in Taiwan, married to a Taiwanese, and he argues that Taiwan people have little in common with China and that America is in an unholy alliance with the PRC to the detriment of China.

    The mainland would gobble up Taiwan like it did Tibet, and then try to obliterate what is indigenous here, like it has done there. Taiwanese do not want this.

    Taiwan is little. It lies close to the mainland. But it is no more China than America is England. The US just happened to be big enough to defend itself, and far enough away.

    It’s an interesting parallel, but not a very useful one. As for the idea that China wants to “gobble up” Taiwan, I suppose I can understand the paranoia that people in Taiwan may feel towards the PRC, does anyone really believe that an invasion is even remotely likely? For one thing, the US would never allow it, and for another it would leave China totally isolated internationally and have severe economic consequences.

    Then the writer tries a literary allusion:

    I once read a science-fiction story about a glittering crystal city, in which life had reached absolute perfection. There were no flaws. There was no crime. There was no disease. Every inhabitant led a charmed life — except one. The price for all this was that one innocent little girl had to be locked in a dungeon deep beneath the centre of the city. No school for this little girl, no playmates, no books – and no hope. Dressed in rags, she huddled in the corner of her dank cell. I forget the premise of the story and its plot, but the image springs to mind now as an apt one for Taiwan in the new Pax Americana.

    ‘I once read a story..but I forget the premise’ (and the title apparently). Weak argument.

    We then get the usual complaints about Taiwan being excluded from the United Nations and the World Health Organization. Well, yes, it’s not very fair, but I seem to recall that for a long time Taiwan was a permanent member of the Security Council, which wasn’t very fair either. How could “tiny Taiwan” occupy the seat that rightfully belonged to the Peoples Republic of China? Did the so-called Republic of China complain about the illogicality of that arrangement? I don’t think so.

  • Round-up

    I think I will have to treat Ron with more respect. He reveals that he has a car with both Hong Kong and PRC plates. As far as I am aware, dual plates are only made available to the owners of businesses that have significant operations in China, so Ron must be a big cheese. Anyway, Ron recounts some of the problems he has dealing with his business partners, and it’s an interesting read.

    Shaky was moaning about the impact of the falling US Dollar on his finances. He is paid in Hong Kong Dollars, but has to send some of that money back to the UK (presumably to pay his mortgage), and currently his salary converts into fewer Pounds Sterling than previously. My sympathy was rather limited, especially as any property he owns in the UK will have appreciated significantly in value over the last few years, and interest rates are still low. Then he hinted that he will be receiving a good bonus this year, and so my sympathy disappeared completely! He is considering buying a plasma TV. I remember when they first appeared in Hong Kong and cost about HK$100k, and although prices have been dropping ever since, they are still expensive (the cheapest ones are about HK$23k or thereabouts). There is also an issue with how long they last, and there was recently a report (from the Consumer Council?) about the consequential high cost of maintenance contracts.

    Teachers from the English Schools Foundation were protesting on Thursday about the proposed pay cuts that were recently announced.

    Tony Flynn, a Sha Tin College teacher said there was no valid reason for a pay cut, given the economic recovery. He added that overseas staff were already earning less because of foreign exchange fluctuations and ESF staff were now not paid much more than counterparts in Britain. “If you disenfranchise them, upset them and eradicate good will, the consequences will be enormous,” he added.

    That’s a clever argument – because the ESF didn’t cut pay earlier, they don’t need to do it now. ESF teachers enjoyed increases in line with the civil service up until last year, but haven’t had the pay cuts that were imposed on civil servants. Given that the cost of living has fallen they are much better off. Then we get the same complaint we heard from Shaky, about the weak Dollar and strong Pound. I bet they weren’t complaining when the Dollar was strong and Sterling was weaker!

    The ESF gets its money from the government (i.e. taxpayers) and the parents who send their children to its schools. This is not a business that makes profits, it’s an organization set up to run schools, funded by ordinary people who have (in most cases) seen their own salaries cut or lost their jobs. Why should teachers get special treatment?

  • Electing the Chief Excecutive

    Just a quick follow-up to what I wrote on Monday on Tsang Yok-sing’s suggestion that a nomination committee should choose the candidates for the next Chief Executive election (with the electorate then able to vote on which of the candidates should get the job). Thursday’s SCMP has a piece from Frank Ching saying that this idea has merit and should be considered by the Democratic Party, even though it is less than ideal. Which is more-or-less what I said (in considerably fewer words). Not sure whether that is a good or bad thing, but it made me happy!

  • China’s diplomacy

    An interesting piece in the comment section of yesterday’s SCMP (that’s not something I say very often) from Robert Keatley, one of many ex-editors of the paper who are knocking around. He contrasts the rather poor image that George Bush has around the world with the good impression that Wen Jiabao and other Chinese leaders are creating.

    The United States doesn’t seem to do much listening, but wants the world to do what it wants, whereas China seems to do a lot of listening, particularly to its Asian neighbours. The US is introducing quotas and tarrifs whilst China is opening its markets to imports (and is now a major market for Japanese exports, for example).

    I can’t link to the article, but if you have a copy of the SCMP sitting at home it would be worth reading this piece.

  • CD Piracy

    Phil has commented on Hans Ebert’s letter in yesterday’s South China Morning Post. I thought this was a typically self-serving music biz response. After raising valid (but familiar) questions about the Harbour Fest fiasco, Mr Ebert goes on to suggest that the government would be better off spending HK$100m fighting piracy of CDs, DVDs and VCDs. Well, I’m afraid I have to disagree with that. What possible benefit is there for Hong Kong in assisting large international companies in this way?

    Of all the things that are wrong in Hong Kong today, hawkers selling pirated CDs must be one of the least serious. No one gets hurt as a result of people buying these discs, and the obvious thing for the industry to do is reduce the prices they charge, which would benefit everyone. The large entertainment companies could also tell the government that they made a mistake when they lobbied so hard for protection against parallel imports, and ask for this law to be relaxed. As far as I am aware, it is much against the law to sell a pirated DVD in Hong Kong as it is to sell a DVD that was legally produced for distribution in another country. That’s ridiculous, and demonstrates how little the large companies care about their customers.

    If customers had a wider choice of legitimate products at reasonable prices they would have no reason to buy from hawkers, and until that is the case the government is very unlikely to win the war against piracy.

  • Quotas (again)

    There’s an excellent article in this week’s Business Week called “The Folly Of Slapping Quotas On China” which sets out the argument against quotas. It is by Laura D’Andrea Tyson from the London Business School, and she argues that the United States benefits from cheap imports and the main losers are other countries that export to the States (mainly Central and South America and the rest of Asia). Worth reading (and the magazine is worth buying).

  • The real economy

    Jake van der Kamp is back, and today he cautions against reading too much into the retail sales figures. It is a standard fallback for newspapers to print stories about economic statistics without caring whether they are significant or not. House prices are one favourite in Hong Kong, and retail sales are another. Recently we had encouraging GDP numbers and they were splashed all over the front page with the interpretation that tourists from the mainland were spending more money in Hong Kong, as if that was a major factor.

    The problem for most journalists is that they don’t spend much time (if any) understanding the real economy, and since almost everyone goes shopping it is tempting to assume that the retail sector is important to the economy.

    Jake points out that over the last 10 years the nominal size of our economy has risen by more than 40 per cent but retail spending has stayed the same (well, it rose up to 1997 and then fell back). So it is much less significant than it once was. We all know that prices of many items have fallen significantly in the last few years, and that will be one reason for the change. The other is that retail sales figures exclude services, which are taking a larger slice of what people spend.

    Also, as Ron has quite rightly pointed out that tourism contributes very little to the economy.

    How many people were aware that last year (and again this year) many Hong Kong companies were very successful in exporting goods to the United States and Europe? Yes, the goods were mainly manufactured in China (or somewhere else in Asia), but that’s a lot of companies employing people in Hong Kong.

    Yet it’s still retail and tourism that seem to get most of the attention.

  • Hold the Front Page

    A pleasant surprise this morning when I read the SCMP on my way to work: Phil’s Asia weblog awards get a good write-up on the front page of the technology section. The amazing thing is that the piece seems to contain no obvious distortion or misunderstanding – Neil Taylor obviously spoke to Phil, listened, understood, and wrote it down. He even took the trouble to post comment on Phil’s site in response to the piece about it. Which is the best place to read the article since the SCMP requires you to pay to use their site.

    Best part of the article was Phil’s comment about the “boobies blog”.

  • 3G news

    An unsurprising development in the world of 3G mobile phones. Now, let me think – what persuaded people to pay a lot of money for laser disc players, video recorders, DVD players, satellite TV, Internet access (etc., etc.) when they were first available (and therefore expensive)? Some things never change!

  • On a scale of 1 to 5

    Whilst I was sitting here this morning trying to work, someone called me from the Far Eastern Economic Review asking if I could spare a few minutes to answer some questions. What they wanted to know was why I am no longer subscribing to their magazine.

    Simple answer – it’s boring, and even the articles on interesting subjects seem to be written by people who don’t know what they’re talking about. I finally gave up after they printed a long article arguing that the Hong Kong government should take action to build more apartments. I’ve forgotten all the gory details, but it involved using up more of the available land and paying compensation to some homeowners who would lose out as a result.

    In fact, many of the other articles about Hong Kong seemed to combine contempt with a lack of understanding. The editorial line seemed to be that Hong Kong was in big trouble and that it deserved what was coming to it, and frankly this got rather tiresome week after week.

    I found that I was often getting to the end of the week without having even picked up the magazine, so I didn’t renew my subscription. The previous time I did this they carried on sending the magazine regardless, and in a moment of weakness I renewed my subscription when they offered me a very good deal. Only a few weeks later I started getting renewal reminders, and it turned out that they had started the subscription from the date the previous one had ended, so I was paying for the issues they had been sending unsolicited (and which, incidentally, were going to an old address). That did get sorted out, but the magazine didn’t improve, and the next time they called me about re-subscribing I told them not to waste their time. Does Nury still have that column at the back where he prints pictures of amusing street signs?

    I would happily subscribe again if there were some interesting and intelligent articles in the FEER – but I don’t think I’ll hold my breath waiting. On a scale of 1-5, where 5 is the world’s dullest publication about Asia, I’ll give it 5. Please don’t call me again.