Tongue-tied

Otmane El Rhazi from China.

“I CAN speak Chinese, I’m so awesome!” reads a sign on the wall of the Mingde primary school in Shufu, a town near the oasis city of Kashgar in the far western province of Xinjiang. Nearby, children’s artworks hang beneath another banner which proclaims: “The motherland is in my heart.” Though every pupil at the school is Uighur, one of China’s ethnic minority peoples, most lessons here are taught in Mandarin—a very different language from their Turkic one. It is the same at ever more schools across the region. Educating young Uighurs in Mandarin may one day help them find work—but it is also a means by which the government hopes to subdue Xinjiang and its many inhabitants who chafe at rule from Beijing.

Xinjiang began to fall under China’s control in the mid-18th century. It was then mainly populated by ethnic Uighurs, whose culture and Muslim faith set them apart from much of the rest of China; Kashgar is far closer to Kabul and Islamabad than it is to Beijing. Despite the migration into Xinjiang of Hans, China’s ethnic majority, minorities (mainly Uighurs) still make up 60% of its residents, compared with less than 10% in China...Continue reading

The tracks of their tears

Otmane El Rhazi from China.

FOR more than three decades, since well before Hong Kong’s transition from British to Chinese sovereignty in 1997, politics there has split into two camps. On one side have been those now loosely known as “pan-democrats”, who have argued that only a democratic system can safeguard the freedoms Hong Kong enjoyed (without the democracy) under the British, and that China should be coaxed and hectored into granting it. On the other, “pro-Beijing” politicians have argued that fair elections were less important than smooth relations with the new sovereign power, which would then allow a slow but steady expansion of democratic rights. This month has suggested that both sides have been wrong. The long struggle for democracy, which culminated in last autumn’s 79-day camp-out in central Hong Kong by umbrella-wielding campaigners, has suffered a definitive defeat.

A vote in Hong Kong’s legislature (“Legco”) confirmed that voters among the territory’s 7.3m people will not after all elect their next chief executive directly in 2017. This had become the democrats’ central demand, and the issue over which people took to the streets last year. But on...Continue reading

Zen and the art of moneymaking

Otmane El Rhazi from China.

Enlighten your wallets here

THE white steel lady overlooking the South China Sea has three heads, three bodies and toenails bigger than human heads. Guanyin, the Buddhist goddess of mercy, stands atop a temple on a man-made islet, each of her heads facing a different way. Her public-relations staff call the six-year task of putting her there, in the resort town of Sanya on tropical Hainan island, “the number one statue-project in China”. The structure’s height, at 108 metres, was intended to be auspicious: Buddhists consider the number sacred.

Good fortune was certainly on the minds of local officials when they approved the project, in which the local government has a share. It was intended to be a money-spinner. It costs 60 yuan ($9.66) just to get in the lift that whisks visitors up to pray at those giant feet. That is on top of 126 yuan to enter the Nanshan Cultural Tourism Zone with its Auspicious Garden, Temple of 33 Guanyins and colourful Dharma Door of Non-Duality with its 94,000 portals. Guanyin is clearly not intended as a magnet for the faithful who have given up worldly possessions. Visitors are gouged...Continue reading

After Zhou, who?

Otmane El Rhazi from China.

A tiger caged

THE sight of China’s former security chief, Zhou Yongkang, white-haired and grim-faced as he was sentenced to life imprisonment on June 11th, will surely become an iconic image of the anti-corruption campaign that was launched by Xi Jinping after he became China’s leader in 2012. Mr Zhou is the highest-ranking party member ever indicted for graft. A guilty verdict had been expected since he was put under investigation last July for taking bribes, abusing power and leaking state secrets. What comes next?

Mr Zhou was once a man of awesome power who, until his retirement in 2012, controlled the secret police, the police and the courts. He also held a seat in the Communist Party’s innermost sanctum, the Politburo Standing Committee. By jailing him, Mr Xi has displayed extraordinary political muscle. But he has also rewritten the rules of Chinese politics, making it harder to predict what his next move might be. Views diverge to an unusual degree. Some believe that the anti-corruption campaign may now lose momentum; others that Mr Xi is getting into his stride.

There are reasons to suppose that Mr...Continue reading

Pet food

Otmane El Rhazi from China.

A dog is not just for dinner

“IF FOWLS, pigs, dogs and swine are properly bred without missing their proper seasons, there will be meat for septuagenarians.” So said Mencius, a revered Confucian philosopher who lived more than 2,300 years ago. Since then dog meat—prized both for its earthy flavour and for its purported medicinal benefits—has been a minor but regular part of the diet in many regions of China. But for the second straight year, a dog-meat festival in southern China, timed to coincide with the summer solstice, is coming under attack.

A big concern is that the dogs are not properly bred. Campaigners say many of the animals to be consumed in the city of Yulin in Guangxi region are either strays or stolen pets, and are treated abominably. Those objecting to the festival include Chinese who have learned to love dogs at the end of a leash rather than on a skewer. They belong to a new middle class that has fallen in love with pets. Urban households now own more than 30m dogs and cats.

Animal activists say at least 10,000 dogs will be slaughtered at the Yulin festival (and served with the...Continue reading

A snub to the party

Otmane El Rhazi from China.

POLITICAL bodies in China rarely defy the will of the Communist Party. On July 18th, however, the legislature in Hong Kong (known as Legco) vetoed the party’s plans for what had been touted as momentous political reform in the former colony. Twenty-eight of the body’s 70 members voted against the proposal, calling it a sham. But that leaves Hong Kong no closer to achieving democracy. And as noisy demonstrations by rival groups outside the debating chamber suggested, public opinion is deeply divided.

The outcome of the vote was no surprise: pro-democracy legislators had long denounced the proposal, which called for the introduction of “universal suffrage” in the next elections for the territory’s chief executive, in 2017. Their objection was that the only candidates allowed to stand would be a maximum of three people, all of them nominated and chosen by a 1,200-member committee stacked with supporters of the party drawn from Hong Kong’s business and political elite.

The only surprise was a bizarre walkout staged by pro-establishment lawmakers just before the vote. This meant that the plan was defeated far more soundly than...Continue reading

A territory divided

Otmane El Rhazi from China.

NEARLY a quarter of a century ago, China published a mini-constitution by which Hong Kong would be ruled after the British withdrawal in 1997. The document, known as the Basic Law, set an eventual goal of introducing “universal suffrage” in elections for the territory’s leader. On June 17th Hong Kong’s legislature will begin debating a reform package aimed at fulfilling this aim. The result will probably leave the territory no closer to achieving it, and its 7m citizens bitterly divided.

The proposal to be presented by the government to the Legislative Council, or Legco as it is usually called, would grant ordinary citizens a vote when the territory’s next chief executive is selected in 2017. But it would limit their choice to three candidates. These must first be approved by a 1,200-member committee stacked with members of Hong Kong’s business and political elite who are supporters of the Communist Party. The package needs the support of two-thirds of Legco in order to pass. Pro-democracy politicians, who control just over one-third of the seats, have vowed to veto it. Its adoption, they say, would be tantamount to accepting sham...Continue reading

Watering the gardens of others

Otmane El Rhazi from China.

MEI WU, a young lawyer in Shanghai, earns 1m yuan ($160,000) a year. She recently left her abusive husband. Ms. Mei and her parents invested all their savings in her 5m yuan home, which has tripled in value over five years. It was bought solely in her husband's name. She will now leave her marriage without her savings and without her home.

Hers is not an isolated case. Although the condition of women in China is better than in many developing countries, and has advanced dramatically in recent years in some respects, old customs and new laws have combined to short-change China’s women in the property market. Since the privatisation of the housing market in 1998, they have “missed out on the greatest accumulation of property wealth in history”, says Leta Hong Fincher, a sociologist.

One problem is a Chinese divorce law that went into force in 2011. The supreme court ruled that in the case of divorce, residential property should not be divided, but should be entirely given to the person in whose name it is registered. That is almost always men, due to the social norm that they are...Continue reading

A motherland’s embrace

Otmane El Rhazi from China.

HALF a year on from pro-democracy protests that gripped Hong Kong for weeks, the city’s economy is—depending on your perspective—beginning to suffer the fallout or sailing along as if nothing much happened. A tale of two property markets sheds light on this. At one end of the spectrum are retail spaces. Hammered since the unrest by a slowdown in the growth of visits from the mainland, shop rents are expected to fall by as much as 20% this year. At the other end are offices. Buoyed by a series of new financial links with the mainland, vacancies in Hong Kong’s forest of glass-and-steel towers are at their lowest since the onset of the global financial crisis. The common thread is evident: more than at any point since the end of British rule in 1997, Hong Kong’s economic fate depends on mainland China.  

That Hong Kong should be so interwoven with the rest of China might not seem surprising. It is, after all, a city of 7m people controlled by a country of 1.3 billion. But, as well as being administered under a separate political system, Hong Kong has long maintained a measure of economic distance from the mainland. Its currency is still...Continue reading

Candy-flavoured smokes for kids

Otmane El Rhazi from China.

WHEN the world’s first electronic cigarette was invented in Beijing in 2003, the device was hailed as a godsend for tobacco fiends. It used power from a small battery to vaporise a nicotine solution that delivered the hit smokers crave with fewer toxins than tobacco smoke. Today over 95% of e-cigarettes are made in China, but until recently the Chinese themselves have shown little interest in the product.

“Vaping”, as it is known, is far more popular in Europe and North America. In these regions, many health campaigners argue that e-cigarettes may help smokers quit. In China, however, awareness of tobacco’s health risks is low and regular smokes are cheap. A pack can sell for as little as 2.5 yuan ($0.40), compared with an electronic one that costs around 200 yuan for a starter kit.

The government is stepping up efforts to persuade the country’s 280m daily smokers—nearly one-third of the world’s total—to give up. On June 1st a ban on smoking in public places was introduced in Beijing. If successful, it will be rolled out nationwide. For the first time, the annual meeting in March of China’s legislature was made...Continue reading

Tiger caged

Otmane El Rhazi from China.

HAD it been held in public, the trial of Zhou Yongkang, who was once in charge of China’s vast security apparatus, might have been the most sensational since Madame Mao and her fellow members of the “Gang of Four” were sentenced for “anti-party” activities in 1981. But the authorities were clearly worried about what might be revealed: the trial was held in utter secrecy in the port city of Tianjin, about 120km (75 miles) south-east of Beijing, rather than in the capital itself. No news of it was released until after Mr Zhou received a life sentence for bribery, abuse of power and the leaking of state secrets.

Nor was any hint given in the official account of the trial of what many observers believe was the main reason for the case being lodged against Mr Zhou—that he had been a key ally of Bo Xilai, a former member of the Politburo who was himself jailed for life in 2013 for abusing his power. Mr Bo, it is widely thought, was a rival of President Xi Jinping. The sentencing of both men was likely an attempt by Mr Xi to crush political resistance.

By going after Mr Zhou, Mr Xi certainly broke with precedent. Never before had a...Continue reading

Once more, a breach

Otmane El Rhazi from China.

ONE of the largest breaches of data in the history of the United States government may have put the records of as many as 4m current and former federal employees in the hands of hackers. The attack, which was launched in April against the Office of Personnel Management, risks exposing employee data and security clearances. Investigators have reportedly said they are looking at the possible involvement of a "foreign entity or government", and hint that China may be involved. A previous attack against the same agency last year was also pinned on Chinese hackers. The Chinese embassy in Washington has issued a quick warning against "jumping to conclusions". But in advance of a state visit by President Xi Jinping to the White House, schedule for September, Sino-American relations, already in a tetchy state, seem to be heading in the wrong direction.

If China wants respect abroad, it must rein in its...Continue reading

Who wants to be a mandarin?

Otmane El Rhazi from China.

GOVERNMENT jobs have long been prized in China. Most years new records are set for the number of people sitting civil-service exams. University students, for all their disenchantment with politics, have been flocking to join the Communist Party in the hope of getting a leg-up into the bureaucracy. Such a career has offered security and perks aplenty. The only drawback has been pitifully low wages. This month officials are to get their first pay rises in nearly a decade; even so, many are heading for the door. Students are showing signs of losing interest in the career. Civil servants are anxious.

The reason is President Xi Jinping’s campaign against corruption, the most intense and sustained in the party’s history. It has made it harder to trouser the bribes that have traditionally supplemented those meagre official salaries. Many civil servants now fear a knock on the door by agents of the party’s anti-corruption department. In 2014 it punished 232,000 officials, 30% more than in the previous year. That was still only about 3% of officialdom, but the publicity surrounding these cases has compounded anxieties. Many officials are being taken, with...Continue reading

The everything creditor

Otmane El Rhazi from China.

FROM shoes to furniture and cosmetics to cars, shoppers in China can find just about anything on Taobao, the country’s biggest online marketplace. They now have one more category to choose from: distressed assets. Cinda, a state-owned bank set up to manage non-performing loans, will launch an auction on Taobao later this month of bad debts with a face value of 4 billion yuan ($646m)—backed by collateral such as bankrupt factories and even unused mines. As the economy slows, such debts are piling up. This innovative technique may help the state to offload some of them.

Bad loans in the Chinese banking system reached more than 982 billion yuan at the end of March, more than double their level three years earlier. Non-performing loans are only about 1.4% of the total on banks’ books, reportedly. But this ratio would have been higher were it not for banks shuffling off their dud loans to Cinda and China’s three other asset-management companies (AMCs).

Established 15 years ago, the AMCs were initially treated as an expedient way of cleaning up banks’ balance sheets. Bad loans accounted for about a quarter of banks’...Continue reading

Tragedy on the Yangzi

Otmane El Rhazi from China.

IT APPEARS to have been the deadliest disaster on water in the 66-year history of Communist-ruled China, and the worst accidental loss of life during the tenure of President Xi Jinping. On the evening of June 1st the Oriental Star, a tourist ferry with 458 people on board—most of them old—capsized on the Yangzi river in what officials described as a tornado (the upturned hull is pictured above). By the time The Economist went to press, official media had reported the rescue of 14 passengers and crew (the captain and an engineer were detained). It was feared that the others on board were unlikely to have survived.

The stakes for any government are high when an accident this horrible occurs. In South Korea last year the poor response to the sinking of a ferry, which left 304 dead, severely tarnished the image of that country’s president, Park Geun-hye. Following the Yangzi disaster, China’s state media were quick to note Mr Xi’s urgent instructions on the rescue. The prime minister, Li Keqiang, flew to oversee the effort.

The media have carefully controlled the flow of...Continue reading

Under water, in the dark

Otmane El Rhazi from China.

MORE than 400 people are missing and feared dead. Journalists have been kept from the scene. If the death toll is as bad as it might be, this would be the worst boat disaster in the history of the People’s Republic of China. The prime minister, Li Keqiang, has arrived to oversee the rescue effort; the whole country is watching.

The tourist ferry with 458 people aboard overturned on the Yangzi river in stormy weather on the evening of June 1st. Only 14 of its passengers and crew have been rescued so far. Five people have been confirmed dead. Citizens are watching their government’s rescue effort with bated breath—and with a paucity of information, which is all too familiar.

Most of the passengers aboard the boat, the Oriental Star, were between the ages of 50 and 80 years old, according to state media. Official news reports said the boat sent no distress signal before it overturned. The captain and an engineer have been detained, although no reason for this has been announced. 

Dozens of boats and 140 navy divers have been deployed at the scene. A 65-year-old woman became the 13th person rescued just before...Continue reading