Talking Points, June 16-30, 2010

Talking Points
June 16 - 30, 2010

After a hiatus, Talking Points is back. Much has happened in the interval.

Fifteen million people have visited Expo 2010 in Shanghai. Several American cabinet officials were among them, visiting Shanghai before or after the Strategic and Economic Dialogue in Beijing. Those meetings included discussion of many issues including the rising tensions on the Korean peninsula, trade and investment barriers, and technological innovation. Agreements were signed pledging cooperation in developing energy extraction technologies, fostering use of cleaner fuels, and in epidemic prevention. The two sides also agreed to continue the formal human rights dialogue that was restarted in Washington in mid-May. Just after US and Chinese officials shook hands and cheered cooperation, though, Chinese military officials declined a request by US Defense Secretary Gates to meet. Rather than talking with each other in Beijing, Gates and Chinese General Ma Xiaotian talked at each other at the annual Asian security summit in Singapore.

North Korea’s nuclear program already made for a touchy security situation in Northeast Asia. The March sinking of a South Korean naval vessel in contested waters heightened worries. In late May, an international task force determined that the Cheonan went down after being hit by a torpedo launched by a North Korean submarine. Forty-six sailors were killed. The North Korean government denied being involved. South Korea, the US, and others have described the action as an attack and South Korea has called upon the United Nations Security Council to consider the case.

The May finding came two weeks after North Korean leader Kim Jong-il went to China. The

On June 1, North Korea announced that stamps would be issued to commemorate the May 2010 visit. Here is a stamp marking Kim's 2004 meeting with Hu Jintao.

Chinese government describes the visit as “unofficial,” the North Korean government issued stamps to celebrate it.

This illustrates the Chinese predicament. Beijing has forged stronger ties with South Korea and has endorsed United Nations efforts to curtail North Korea’s nuclear program. China has condemned the sinking, but has not publicly condemned North Korea. Unlike Russia, China’s not sent investigators to look at the evidence assembled by the multi-party task force. China appears isolated on this matter, a position its leaders work hard to avoid.

That policy of avoiding standing alone can be seen in China’s decision to join the US and ten other United Nations Security Council members last week in voting to impose a fourth round of sanctions to punish Iran and to constrain its ability to develop nuclear weapons. For example, the sanctions bar Iranian investment in foreign firms involved in uranium extraction or nuclear technology and require countries to inspect ships or planes thought to be transporting restricted items to Iran. China and Russia blocked broader sanctions. Nonetheless, those two countries’ agreement to support even softer sanctions caused Iran’s President Mahmoud Ahmaninejad to boycott the just completed Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) summit in Uzbekistan.

China’s President Hu Jintao, meanwhile, was busy signing agreements in conjunction with the SCO summit. This included deals with the Russians to open Siberian mineral resources to Chinese firms and with the Uzbeks to build a pipeline to bring natural gas to China.

Such resources are essential to China’s continued economic growth. In recent weeks, though, both Chinese and foreign media has highlighted challenges including such as a growing gap between rich and poor.

China has made great progress in alleviating poverty. The principal means by which this was done was by lifting prices for agricultural products rise, fostering rural economic diversification, and letting tens of millions of rural residents migrate to the cities where they work in construction, manufacturing, and many other industries. The biggest disparity in China was and is between city and countryside. Rural incomes have risen, but not nearly as fast as urban ones. The chart below shows that after an initial drop, the gap between urban and rural incomes has increased to the point that the income of the average urban dweller is 3.3 times that of the average rural resident.

Disparities within urban and rural areas are also great. In fact, the disparity between rich and poor is increasing most rapidly within urban areas. The World Bank noted this last year and it appears that China’s stimulus spending has further concentrated wealth. Chinese papers have noted that the country’s richest 1% of households control some 41% of the country’s privately held wealth. Some news organizations have even taken to using the Gini coefficient, a far from widely understood measure, to illustrate how China’s income gap is growing. China’s Gini coefficient has risen from 0.30 in 1978 to 0.47-0.5 today. This means is that China has moved from a fairly egalitarian income distribution (at least on paper, access to resources has long been unequal) to a rather unequal distribution in a single generation. By this measure, in the early reform period the disparity in Chinese incomes was comparable to Western Europe and Canada and today it is comparable to the United States and Mexico. Inequality in China and especially inequality in China’s cities, however, is increasing more rapidly than elsewhere.
 

Consumption statistics are another way of demonstrating the urban – rural income disparity. Surveys conducted in 2008 by China’s National Bureau of Statistics showed that while most rural households had televisions and cell phones, they lagged far behind urban households in acquiring refrigerators and washing machines, not to mention air conditioners and computers. Details are in the chart at left.

As media coverage suggests, Chinese are quite aware of this trend and aren’t looking to statisticians to confirm it. Nor are these worries new.

In July 2008, nine out of ten Chinese polled for the Pew Research Center identified the gap between rich and poor as a very big or big problem. The poll was conducted when prices, especially pork prices, were rising rapidly and only rising prices worried a larger share of the Chinese public (96%) than the income gap. That was a scientifically conducted survey. An unscientific poll on the People’s Daily website last December produced similar results. There, some 81% of respondents identified the increasing income gap as an intolerable problem. It was second only to official corruption (82%) on respondents’ list of complaints.

Chinese leaders are sensitive to these trends and attitudes toward them. For several years, the

Party-State has included fostering social harmony as a central aim. Lifting the incomes of the poor is also crucial if China is to rebalance its economy so that more of its growth comes from domestic consumption. Strikes at Honda and other plants have the attention of officials and wages are rising, both to placate protesting workers and through official fiat. Beijing’s official minimum wage will rise 20% on July 1. Many strikers have accepted these increases and returned to work. It’s unlikely, though, that inequality will go away as a hot button issue. The Chinese blogosphere, for example, is rich in examples of conspicuous consumption. To the right is a photo of the expensive cars rolled out for the wedding of a son of a mine boss.

North Korean and Iranian Pavilions. Photo by Remko Tanis (Creative Commons).

North Korea’s Kim Jong-il didn’t include the Shanghai Expo in his May visit to China, but many others have been going. Iran’s president skipped the Tashkent summit but made time for the Expo. (If he was so inclined, he could have also stopped in at the North Korean pavilion, it is right next to the Iranian pavilion.) As Talking Points readers know, the USC US-China Institute recruited and selected the 160 Americans serving as student ambassadors at the USA Pavilion this summer. These students come from 38 states and many colleges. They have been a hit with the Chinese public. Several of the students are sharing their experiences via our Expo blog. Click here to read student ambassador comments, see photos, as well as check out media coverage about them.

Chinese President Hu Jintao accepts a Texas belt buckle from USA Pavilion Commissioner General Jose Villarreal as other dignitaries and student ambassadors look on.

The Expo is a major effort on the part of China to demonstrate to others and to its own people its global leadership. More than 190 other nations and institutions are there hoping to influence how Chinese think about them. The USC Center on Public Diplomacy is focused on this "nation-branding" effort. Click here to see what Prof. Jay Wang and his students are learning.

Entertainment is certainly part of the branding effort. Expo visitors can see Czech acrobats and Albanian dancers. The USA Pavilion has featured orchestras, jazz stars, swing bands, choirs, dancers, Texan trick ropers, and Hawaiian singers. The USC Trojan Marching Band will perform at the Expo and elsewhere in Shanghai at the end of June. This band previously performed in Shanghai in 2004.

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Events
USC | California | North America | Exhibitions

USC 

08/02/2010: 2010 Summer Residential Seminar at USC
USC, Davidson Conference Center, Los Angeles, CA 90089
The seminar will be held at USC and participants housed at the USC Radisson Hotel.
Enrollment is limited to 24 participants and priority will be given to high school world history and language arts teachers, though all K-12 educators are invited to apply.
Nine-day residential professional development seminar for K-12 educators employed outside of the greater Los Angeles area.

California
 

06/19/2010: Judge
Regal Cinema, Theater 8
Address: 1000 West Olympic Boulevard, Los Angeles, CA 90015
Cost: $12.00
Time: 4:30PM
Also screening on June 22, 2010.
Director Liu Jie produced this dramatic film that captured the struggles faced by many characters in a legal system that is in need of reform. 

06/20/2010: 1428
Regal Cinema, Theater 13
1000 West Olympic Boulevard , Los Angeles , CA 90015
Cost: $12.00
Time: 1:45PM
Also screening on June 21, 2010.
Filmmaker Du Haibin artfully hones in on the aftermath of the great Sichuan earthquake of 2008, capturing the intimate reactions of the survivors and the government`s response, both ten days after the tragedy and seven months later. Winner of the documentary award at the Venice Film Festival. 

06/25/2010: Climate Refugees
California Plaza
350 S Grand Ave , Los Angeles, CA 90071
Free Screening
Time: 8:30PM
Film Director Michael Nash created his film “Climate Refugees” as a call for action to people around the world. The film focuses on natural and manmade climate change, and how these changes will effect human livelihood.  
 
06/27/2010: Contemporary Asian Art Lecture Series: China
Pacific Asia Museum
46 North Los Robles Avenue , Pasadena, Ca 91101
Time: 2:00PM
Eliot Kiang is a Chinese artist who lived in China from 2001-2007. His talk will focus on projects that emphasize Chinese contemporary art.

North America 
 

 
06/17/2010: Dueling Tigers: The Mega Markets of India & China
Kiwanis International Center
3636 Woodview Trace, Indianapolis, IN 46468
Cost: $95
Time: 8:00AM - 4:00PM
Day long seminar delving into these two important markets. Private sector and public officials share insight and strategies on how to sell more and more effectively. Determine best practices to navigate distribution, customs clearance, intellectual property, financing, and other challenges of doing business in China and India. 

06/18/2010: China`s Policies Toward Spiritual Movements
Dirksen Senate Office Building, Room 628
Constitution Avenue and 1st Street, NE, Washington, D.C. 20002
Time; 2:00PM - 3:30PM
The Congressional-Executive Commission on China will hold a roundtable discussion on “China`s Policies Toward Spiritual Movements.” 

06/23/2010: China Boys: Ambassador Nicholas Platt
Jones Day, New York
71 West 23rd Street Suite 1901, New York, NY 10010
Cost: RSVP to events@ncuscr.org by Friday, June 18 at 5:00 p.m.
Time: 5:30PM - 7:00PM
Nicholas Platt plans to give a talk for the Jones Day Lecture Series that will reflect upon his life, his recently published memoirs, and his time spent serving as the U.S. ambassador to China. 

06/24/2010: Electricity With Chinese Characteristics: The Complexities of Decarbonizing China`s Power Sector
Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars
1300 Pennsylvania Ave., NW 5th Floor Conference Room, Washington, DC 20004-3027
Cost: Free
Time: 9:00AM - 11:00AM
Join Jon Wellinghoff, Jim Williams and Fritz Kahrl for a discussion of US-China energy cooperation, and learn about China`s electricity sector. 

06/30/2010: Big Thinkers/small dinners Event
The Asia Society
Address: 725 Park Avenue, New York, NY
Cost: $5000 per person
Time: 6:00PM - 10:00PM
A rare opportunity to speak with the newly appointed ambassador of the People`s Republic of China to the United States, as well as a special introduction by Ambassador Richard C. Holbrooke (schedule permiting).

Exhibitions  

05/15/2010 - 06/26/2010: Art Exhibition: “There are new species! What do you suppose they are called?”
Fabien Fryns Fine Art Gallery
314 N. Crescent Heights Blvd., Los Angeles, CA 90048
Phone: 323.998.6236
Fabien Fryns Fine Art presents its inaugural exhibition by MadeIn, an art collaboration founded by Chinese artist Xu Zhen. 

09/22/2009 - 06/30/2010: China`s Great Wall: The Forgotten Story
NYC offices of the Rockefeller Brothers Fund, New York, NY
The Forgotten Story is a series of historically-based photographs of the Great Wall of China. It is a collaboration between Jonathan Ball, a California based photographer, and David Spindler, one of the world`s foremost experts on Great Wall history.
10/22/2009 - 07/03/2010: Fifty-Six Chinese Hat Boxes — And One Hat!
1439 El Prado, San Diego, CA 92101
Cost: Free
Time: 10:00AM - 4:00PM
Museum International Museum displays an array of headwear from the late Qing Dynasty.

03/28/2010 - 07/25/2010: Secrets of the Silk Road
Bowers Museum
Address: 2002 North Main Street, Santa Ana, California 92706
Cost: Adults/$18 Weekdays; $20 Weekends/ Students & Seniors/$16 Weekdays, $18 Weekends; Children (under six) Free
The Bowers Museum presents an historic exhibition of over 150 objects drawn from the rich collections of the Urumqi Museum and the Institute of Archaeology of Xinjiang reveals surprising details about the people who lived along the ancient Silk Road.

01/01/2010 - 12/31/2010: Ancient Arts of China: A 5000 Year Legacy
Bowers Museum
2002 North Main Street, Santa Ana, California 92706
Bowers Museum presents a collection that portrays the evolution of Chinese technology, art and culture.

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