Taiwan urges China to face up to history of Tiananmen

Taiwan urges China to face up to history of Tiananmen

Tuesday, June 3, 2014 – 21:43

AFP

TAIPEI – Taiwan on Tuesday urged China to face up to history and protect the rights of dissidents on the eve of the 25th anniversary of the Tiananmen Square crackdown.

“The unfortunate history of the ‘June 4 incident’ cannot be forgotten and only by facing history can (China) heal the wounds, transform and move forward,” said the Mainland Affairs Council, Taiwan’s top policy-making body on China. Read more of this post

China defends Tiananmen crackdown on eve of 25th anniversary

China defends Tiananmen crackdown on eve of 25th anniversary

6:19am EDT

By Ben Blanchard

BEIJING (Reuters) – China defended the bloody 1989 crackdown on pro-democracy demonstrators around Beijing’s Tiananmen Square on Tuesday, the eve of the 25th anniversary, saying it had chosen the correct path for the sake of the people.

For the ruling Communist Party, the 1989 demonstrations that clogged Tiananmen Square in Beijing and spread to other cities remain taboo after the government termed the protests “counter-revolutionary”. Read more of this post

Nervous about borrowing, U.S. states and cities alter municipal bond landscape

Nervous about borrowing, U.S. states and cities alter municipal bond landscape

Mon, Jun 2 2014

By Lisa Lambert

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. cities and states are leery of borrowing more money despite near-record low interest rates, forcing bond funds to scour for investments and boosting returns on existing debt. Read more of this post

Samsung Everland IPO Signals Revamp of Largest Korea Chaebol

Samsung Everland IPO Signals Revamp of Largest Korea Chaebol

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Nestle wraps up unsuccessful tea venture in China

Nestle wraps up unsuccessful tea venture in China

Staff Reporter

2014-06-03

Nestle’s recent pullout from the tea market in China showed that even the world’s largest food company has difficulty operating in the country, reports the Chinese-language Innovative Finance Observation. Read more of this post

Why Do China’s Reforms All Fail? Throughout history, Chinese reformers have fallen short and met grisly ends. Why did they always fail?

Why Do China’s Reforms All Fail?

Throughout history, Chinese reformers have fallen short and met grisly ends. Why did they always fail?

By Yang Hengjun

May 30, 2014

Compared with the “revolutions” (peasant uprisings, armed rebellions, palace coups, etc.) that toppled dynasties in Chinese history, the goal of “reform” has been the exact opposite: to perpetuate the dynasty. Ordinary people have roughly the same impression of “revolution” and “reform” as instruments of “change.” But actually, in the 2000-year history of China, there has been one purpose for reform: avoiding change. Reform is used to keep the existing system in place. In Chinese history, “reform” and “revolution” alternated over time. Revolutions often succeeded, and so China became the country with the most peasant uprisings and dynastic changes in the world. But few reforms were successful. Read more of this post

Arresting China’s slowdown: the search for sustainable growth

Yukon Huang

June 3, 2014

Arresting China’s slowdown: the search for sustainable growth

There are no signs that China’s slowdown has bottomed out. A turnround would require some combination of a pickup in investment, exports or consumption in the midst of current efforts to deleverage and this is unlikely to happen soon. More than a decade ago during the Asian financial crisis, China was able to revive growth despite a similarly severe debt problem by tapping buoyant global markets facilitated by its accession to the World Trade Organisation. Read more of this post

Why Chinese Booze Costs More Than Fine Wine at Auction

Jun 3, 2014

Why Chinese Booze Costs More Than Fine Wine at Auction

With its strong flavor and fiery aftertaste, Kweichow Moutai isn’t for everyone. With prices for vintage bottles of the liquor spiraling upwards, it’s now for even fewer people.

On Sunday, at an auction hosted by Chinese auction house Beijing Googut Auction Co., 540 milliliter bottles of Moutai produced in the 1980s sold for between 60,000 yuan ($9,700) and 70,000 yuan ($11,300). That was up from between 50,000 and 60,000 yuan last year, and around 30,000 yuan at the end of 2012. Read more of this post

China’s economic boom leaves a trail of ghost cities

China’s economic boom leaves a trail of ghost cities

by Rob Schmitz

Monday, June 2, 2014 – 16:09

Nearly a year ago, I visited a replica of New York City under construction outside the Northern Chinese city of Tianjin. Workers were constructing dozens of skyscrapers on a piece of swampland inside a bend in the river, giving it an uncanny resemblance to the island of Manhattan. There were plans for a Lincoln Center, a Rockefeller center, and much more. Read more of this post

Chinese port stops metal shipments due to probe – trade sources

Chinese port stops metal shipments due to probe – trade sources

Mon, Jun 2 2014

By Melanie Burton

SYDNEY, June 2 (Reuters) – China’s northeastern port of Qingdao has halted shipments of aluminium and copper due to an investigation by authorities, causing concern among bankers and trade houses financing the metals, trading and warehousing sources said on Monday. Read more of this post

Election fever hits Indonesia as candidates polarize netizens

Election fever hits Indonesia as candidates polarize netizens

Tuesday, June 3, 2014 – 10:08

The Jakarta Post/Asia News Network

INDONESIA – For those Indonesians uninterested in politics, logging in to Facebook or Twitter is a frustrating experience these days.

“I’ve limited my newsfeed to close friends,” Ira Hairida, a blogger from Palembang, South Sumatra, wrote on her Facebook wall. She said she was tired of people posting political statuses and verbally attacking the presidential contenders. Read more of this post

The fear factor: Why Asian firms need to take on the world

The fear factor: Why Asian firms need to take on the world

May 31st 2014 | From the print edition

FUJIO MITARAI KNOWS more than most people about building a multinational. He is the 78-year-old boss of Canon, one of Japan’s biggest firms. Worth $43 billion, it makes everything from scanners to lenses for Hollywood. It first opened a New York office back in 1955, but breaking into America took 20 years of hard slog and an Apple-style innovation. In 1976 the company launched a cheap, automatic single-lens-reflex camera on the back of a massive advertising campaign. Mr Mitarai was in charge and the memory still makes him smile. “Our competitors thought I’d gone crazy.” Canon became America’s biggest camera firm. Today it faces competition from smartphones and low-cost rivals. Mr Mitarai insists innovation will keep the firm ahead of the pack. It is developing a raft of new products, from surveillance cameras to virtual-reality design studios and 3D printing materials. Read more of this post

Hutchison Whampoa: Now for the fat-cow years; Lessons in survival from an Asian corporate legend

Hutchison Whampoa: Now for the fat-cow years; Lessons in survival from an Asian corporate legend

May 31st 2014 | From the print edition

IF YOU WANT to hear some plain talk on the relative merits of family-controlled conglomerates, listen to Canning Fok, managing director of Hutchison Whampoa, one of the region’s biggest specimens with a value of $60 billion and a worldwide empire of ports, energy, property, telecoms and retail. “There’s a school of thought in America that widely held companies have better governance,” he says. “But if you look over the last ten years that has not happened. Just look at the big banks and all the chief executives going crazy.” Read more of this post

Governance: Avoiding the dinosaur trap; State firms and family conglomerates are Asia’s favourite kinds of companies. Both must change

Governance: Avoiding the dinosaur trap; State firms and family conglomerates are Asia’s favourite kinds of companies. Both must change

May 31st 2014 | From the print edition

ASIA IS A land never conquered by institutional shareholders. Only 28% of the region’s stockmarket consists of firms with diverse owners (see chart 4). Most of these are in Japan, where businesses are controlled by managers and employees who by long-established protocol politely listen to and then ignore what fund managers say. State-run firms make up 40% of Asia’s total and family-run firms, often conglomerates or “business houses”, account for 27%. The proportions vary from country to country (see chart 5). In China state-run firms dominate, whereas in South Korea and India business houses are prominent. All this has been true for a long time and it is tempting to think it will never change. That would be a mistake.

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How to keep roaring: Over the past two decades Asia’s companies have enjoyed huge success. But now they need to reform to become brainier, nimbler and more global

How to keep roaring: Over the past two decades Asia’s companies have enjoyed huge success. But now they need to reform to become brainier, nimbler and more global, says Patrick Foulis

May 31st 2014 | From the print edition

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Convergence: Asian and Western business will become more alike

Convergence: Asian and Western business will become more alike

May 31st 2014 | From the print edition

ASIA PROSPERED OVER the past two decades by following a different economic model from the West’s. But if it wants to continue to do well over the next 20 years, it will have to reform. What that involves will vary from place to place. Myanmar, a big country with a difficult past, is beginning to pull itself out of the mire. India and Indonesia, two chaotic democracies, have to create enough order to attract factories and industrial jobs. In China the government needs to ease its grip on the economy. Japan is embarking on the world’s biggest experiment to see whether a society can shrink and still remain prosperous. Read more of this post

Megatrends Q & Asia: A handful of Asian conundrums the world’s boardrooms should chew over

Megatrends Q & Asia: A handful of Asian conundrums the world’s boardrooms should chew over

May 31st 2014 | From the print edition

OVER THE PAST decade innumerable PowerPoint presentations have condensed Asia into two bullet points. One is its rise as a vast consumer market. About 30% of the world’s middle-class spending is done by Asians, up from 20% in 2000, according to the Brookings Institution, a think-tank, which defines the middle class as those earning $10-100 a day at purchasing-power parity. The other is Asia as a production hub: 47% of world manufacturing is now in the region. But the world’s boardrooms have started to grapple with a much broader set of questions about Asia. The most immediate ones are higher labour costs and ageing populations, growing consumer expectations and the way the internet will affect business there. A rising risk of hostilities in the region is adding further complexity. And in the background looms the broader issue of whether, and if so how much, Asian companies need to globalise (which will be dealt with later in this special report). Read more of this post