Tim Johnson, at the always interesting China Rises, recently wrote on the upsurge in rabies cases in China in a post entitled, "Rabies explodes in China." (h/t Time China Blog) Much of this increased incidence of rabies has been in Southern China.
Are your rabies shots up to date?
One of the things I truly love about blogging on China is the interesting people I meet. One of those is Eutak (Tak for short), a software guy from Singapore who spent many years working for Microsoft here in the Pacific Northwest and then in Beijing. Tak and I share a love for running/walking/biking around Green Lake here in Seattle and, more importantly, a reverence for the baked goods from Hiroki's bakery and for great sushi everywhere.
Tak has an excellent China tech blog, called, appropriately enough, China Tech Blog, of which I am a regular reader. This blog focuses on "Chinese Internet, software, and information technology." Tak also has a super cool Web 2.0 site called funtouristattractions that really nicely sets out tourist attractions, historical attractions, cultural attractions, restaurants, hotels, nightlife, architecture, and shopping on interactive maps of Shanghai, Beijing, Qingdao, and Shenzhen. I checked out Qingdao on the site and was hugely impressed (in other words, I mostly agreed with the picks). There is a surprising paucity of helpful sites for tourists going to China and this one certainly helps fill the gap.
Mapmatrix.com has what appear to be excellent maps of Shanghai and Beijing in pdf format. (h/t to James Fallows)
Leave it to CNReviews to come out with a clearly written post on how to get around Beijing using Beijing's subway. The post is entitled, "Beijing Subway Guide: of Tickets and Faregates," and it does an excellent job setting out the dos and don'ts. If I might add one "do" of my own: do use the subway system as it is oftentimes the fastest way to get around: I truly cannot think of another city where I have consistently had to wait so long for a taxi as Beijing.
Excellent Washington Post article on how China's increased security (including executions) may end up taking the "fun" out of the Olympics. The article is entitled, "Across China, Security Instead Of Celebration: Police Crack Down on 'Hostile Forces,' Apply New Safety Measures." and though I have read a whole slew of these articles, this one really got me thinking.
Is China using the Olympics as an excuse to crack down on dissent or is it justified in its security concerns? I not only do not know, I do not think there is any way to know until the Olympics are over and done with. What do you think?
UPDATE: Just heard about the explosions in Yunnan Province. Does this change things?
FURTHER UPDATE: Must read "retorts" over at TwoFish's always thoughtful and thought inducing blog, entitled, "Notes on Washington Post Article" and "Washington Post Appears to Get Executions in Xinjiang Wrong."
There are two kinds of people. Those who enjoy figuring out exactly how to get from one place to another and those who just want to know how best to get from one place to the other. David Feng of CNReviews is of the far rarer first category and he just did a post, entitled, "Beijing Capital International Airport Express(way) Guide (PEK)," setting forth how to "get from A to B — in this case, from Beijing Airport into “the Jing”, as they say."
It is a very helpful post and since there will soon be a new express train (16-25 minutes from airport to CBD), I urge everyone who will be flying into Beijing Capital Airport to check it out.
MSNBC.com is just out with a story on United Airlines raising its fares and within that story, I have learned that both United and US Airways will not be going forward with their US to China flights as originally planned:
United Airlines has sought and US Airways plans to ask for one-year delays in launching the new routes, representatives from the carriers said Thursday. United won final approval and US Airways received the tentative go-ahead to launch the routes from the U.S. Department of Transportation in September.The routes in question affect planned United service between San Francisco to Guangzhou, and US Airways flights between Philadelphia and Beijing.
United’s request for a delay was approved April 25, while the request from US Airways has not yet been received, Transportation Department spokesman Bill Mosley said.
United, a division of UAL Corp., was scheduled to start its new flights in early June, but now plans to postpone the launch until June 2009. Spokeswoman Robin Urbanski said the Chicago-based carrier is scaling back plans for some new international routes where there aren’t “strong enough economics” to offset higher fuel costs.
United received final approval for its route in September, the same time Delta Air Lines Inc. won the opportunity to launch its first flights to China with a daily route between Shanghai and Atlanta. Delta’s flights began March 31.
US Airways has begun sending letters to members of Congress and its employees saying it would seek to delay the launch of the new Philadelphia-Beijing route, noting that the cost for fuel would be more than $90 million a year — $40 million more than the original estimate of about $50 million.
“We’re optimistic that economic conditions will be on the upswing in 2010, giving us a better chance of success with our first route to China,” Scott Kirby, the president of Phoenix-based US Airways Group Inc., said in a letter to workers.
Hainan Airlines, on the other hand, will be starting its Seattle to Beijing direct flight service on June 9 and Northwest Airlines is scheduled to start flights on that same route in March of 2009.
Well, not quite, but the Shanghai to Ningbo bridge is the world's longest cross-sea span and it cuts the drive from Shanghai to Ningbo from 400 km to 80km.
CLB's own Steve Dickinson just returned from Ningbo, having travelled there from Shanghai to meet with a client who is setting up a manufacturing plant there. I asked Steve what he thought of it and here is his response:
The bridge was truly amazing. It is not like a bridge. It is like a very long, straight road. Just like the Beijing airport: the impossible, done quickly and well. Query: why can they do these things and then not be able to put the right paint on a toy? There is reason at the bottom of all this, and I think pricing and profit margins play a role.
Anyone else been down that bridge yet?
The Yuan Also Rises blog has a nice post up on China's current visa situation (at least as of this week). The post is entitled "Clear as Mud," and, among other things, it notes of reports that China visas may be easier to obtain in Japan, Korea, Vietnam and Thailand than in England and Hong Kong.
I used to almost always get my visa in Seoul by going to the Chinese Embassy there in the morning, producing an airplane ticket showing my flight leaving that afternoon, and pleading rather nicely for a visa before my plane would take off. I think the longest I have ever had to wait was one hour. Maybe I will have to go back to that when my multiple entry visa expires in September or maybe the tightened requirements for visas will have ended by then.
The US embassy in Beijing issued the following email travel alert for all US residents and visitors in China (h/t to AmCham Daily):
There is a heightened risk that extremist groups will conduct terrorist acts within China in the near future. In light of these security concerns, citizens traveling in China are advised to use caution and to be alert to their surroundings at all times, including at hotels, in restaurants, on public transportation and where there are demonstrations and other large-scale public gatherings. Consistent with our standard advice, American citizens are urged to avoid the areas of demonstrations.
I spent most of yesterday in Jinan meeting with people from the Shandong Province Ministry of Justice and then more than five hours on a bus going from Jinan to Qingdao. I had been scheduled to take a fast train to Qingdao, but the recent crash on the Qingdao-Beijing line (in Zibo, where co-blogger Steve Dickinson lived for a couple of years) caused the trains to shut down. All of the Chinese people with whom I talked in Jinan and in Qingdao intially blamed the crash on terrorists.
The train crash ended up having nothing to do with terrorism, but obviously there is a heightened awareness of that threat in China these days. For all of us.
I make it a point to leave it to others to write about air pollution in China from a non-legal perspective, but this one from the Beijing Olympic Games 2008 Blog is just too good to pass up. Seems those who say breathing Beijing air is like smoking a pack of cigarettes a day are exaggerating, it is actually like living with someone who smokes a pack a day:
The magazine ‘that’s Beijing’ interviewed Dr. Will Chickering from the Beijing United Family Hospital on Beijing’s air pollution.Reports had suggested that living in Beijing was the equivalent of smoking a packet of cigarettes everyday. Dr Chickering in the interview said that it is not that bad. “It’s more like living with someone who smokes a pack a day”.
What a relief.
Just the facts....
CN Reviews has a great summary on getting to and from Pudong's Airport's new terminal and on going between the terminals.
Very useful.
The Modern Lei Fang blog just did a post, entitled, Crime in China (Alternative Title: I call Bullshit!)" excoriating the Associated Press for "piling it on against China." Lei Fang is angry at an AP article, "Foreigners Grapple With Crime in China," which he rightfully considers fear mongering. Lei Fang complains about how the article takes a few anecdotes and then ascribes them with a Chinese crime wave.
Lei Fang is right on all counts, but he misses the really big issue here: what is the media supposed to do when there are no accurate statistics? I wrote a post on this about a year ago, entitled, "China Crime By The Numbers And By The Anecdotes," where I registered this same complaint.
As an employer, I am in favor of nearly full disclosure regarding firm finances, hirings, etc. My view is that the rumors are nearly always worse than the facts. I agree that this AP article is (as my kids would say) a bit off, but I also believe at least half the blame for this falls on the Chinese government. And though I sort of promised not to talk again about the big issue going on in China's West, I have been wondering a lot if much of the PR problem China is facing on that issue would not go away if the media were simply allowed in to report on the facts, rather than forcing us to work off rumor.
Stan Abrams, over at the excoriation proof China Hearsay, did a nice post on this as well.
Every so often I get a slew of emails asking me why asking me why I have not written on a particular topic or telling me that I should. But I have gotten so many relating to Britain's edict (since revoked?) to its Olympic athletes telling them to keep their mouths shut while in China I am beginning to wonder if they are part of some concerted email campaign. A number of these emails even accuse me of "remaining silent."
I was going to remain silent on this because I do not see this as a China issue, and if it is a China issue, it is certainly nothing new. Readers of this blog do not need me to tell them about speaking out in China?
This is mostly a British issue (I say mostly because I rather doubt this will be an issue at the upcoming Winter Olympics in beautiful Vancouver, BC). Is Britain making a mistake here? I certainly think so, but since this is a blog on Chinese law and business (with a bit of China miscellany thrown in from time to time), who am I to write about that?
So enough with the emails already. PLEASE STOP!
One of the emails was from Commentary Magazine, linking over to this fine post by Gordon Chang, entitled, "Britain's Olympic Kowtow."
For those wanting to read more on this, check out the following:
-- "China 1, UK 0," at Random Nuclear Strikes
-- "Removing The Gag" at Right-Thinking from the Left Coast
-- "Olympics, Politics, and Food," at Booker Rising
-- "Athlete Defies the 'Gagging' Clause" at Iain Dale's Diary
-- "It's not only Britain rolling over on Olympic restraint," at Precious Metal
-- "No Politics in Beijing?" at Concurring Opinions
-- "Back to the Future for UK Athletes," at Rhymes with Right
A few years ago, I went to Goroka, Papua New Guinea, to recover two Kamov Helicopters on behalf of a client/friend from Sakhalin Island, Russia (man, I loved writing that sentence!). I flew from Seattle to Honolulu, from Honolulu to Sydney, Australia, from Sydney to Cairns, from Cairns to Port Moresby, and from Port Moresby to Goroka. And then, after negotiating the helicopters back, the same return trip. Papua New Guinea is said to have a "cargo culture" in which the natives treat outsiders better than natives. That certainly seemed true for me.
I went to the grocery store (and when I say "the" I mean the only) one day and saw all of the locals get searched by rifle toting security guards both when entering and leaving the store. I came at went untouched. The same thing happened at the airports. The locals would have their bags opened and rummaged through, while my bags were never opened. I was scheduled to leave Goroka to return to Australia on a Wednesday but the plane (again, "the" means "the only") plane did not arrive. Without my having to do a thing, I was given a front row seat for the next day's flight. The weight limit for carry-ons was 8kg and a local right in front of me was stopped by a stewardess for trying to bring on a small bag and told, "You no go on de plane wit dat." Me, I wanted to be sure I made my connecting flight from Goroka and I was let through without question, toting a bag that must have weighed at least 15 kg. Ah, the joys of being a foreigner.
There can be a bit of that in China as well, though I have always viewed it as somewhat of a more double edged sword there. Lucy Hornby, on her Reuters sponsored Countdown to Beijing blog just did a great post, entitled, "Being a foreigner, the ticket to privilege?" (h/t to All Roads Lead to China).
Ms. Hornby starts out by revealing how easy it was for her, as a foreigner, to get tickets to the Beijing Olympics:
I did this entirely legally. I want lots of guests to crash at my apartment in August, and see this huge moment for China. So when the first round of the ticket lottery opened, I filled out the online forms, met all the deadlines, and picked the maximum number of tickets — mostly for semi-final events where I thought I would have a better shot.The tickets aren’t just for guests of course. I myself can’t wait to sit in the stands for at least one competition, and soak up the excitement. But I didn’t even bother to apply for the Opening Ceremony — I knew I had no chance, and anyway, applicants were limited to one ticket only. Who wants to be all alone in a crowd?
I got about three-fifths of the events I wanted, or 17 tickets for six events. That puts me among only 5 percent of Olympics tickets applicants, according to a membership survey by the American Chamber of Commerce.
Most Chinese I’ve told say the decks were stacked in my favour. “Of course you got tickets, you’re a foreigner” was the first reaction from my colleagues, taxi drivers, and anyone else I told.
An informal survey revealed many of them had given up halfway through the lottery process, which I also thought was a little daunting. Or they only applied for the opening and closing ceremonies. Or only popular weekend events. But still. Their reaction also shows how much Chinese citizens assume that the system will never work in their favour.
Hornby then notes how many former foreigner privileges are now being given to all who are wealthy, foreign or not:
Fast forward 13 years, and most of the privileges of being foreign, versus being Chinese, have morphed into being wealthy versus not. It’s pretty easy to get train tickets nowadays, if you book through an agency for a small fee, but the migrant workers still wait for days in line at the station.
What do you think?
Highly informative post up on the always excllent Shangaiist blog, entitled, "Air Asia: Another way to get your ass out of China." The post gives a great rundown on the various budget carriers operating in (or near Mainland China): Air Asia, Tiger Airways, Jetstar, Cebu Pacific, Oasis Hong Kong, and Spring Airlines, including a quick take on the cities to which they fly.
The US Department of Transportation (DOT) just announced its award of additional U.S.-China passenger flights for 2009, granting flights to US Airways, American Airlines, Continental Airlines and Northwest Airlines.
US Airways will fly between Philadelphia and Beijing, American between Chicago and Beijing, Continental between Newark /New York and Shanghai, and Northwest between Detroit and Shanghai. All 2009 services must begin on or about March 25, 2009. Delta Air Lines was previously granted the right to commence a new daily flight between Atlanta and Shanghai and United a new daily San Francisco-Guangzhou service. Both of these flights are planned to begin in spring 2008.
The Guardian's Breaking News section has just announced that beginning next month visitors to China will no longer need to fill out health declaration forms to enter China. In addition to this, beginning on February 1, 2008, "people with no goods to declare will not have to fill in customs forms when either leaving or arriving."
This is a good thing.
Matt Schiavenza's China Journal Blog did an interesting post on where to live in China. The post is entitled, appropriately enough, "Where to Live in China," and it is meant to serve as a guide for expats, depending on their category. Schiavenza describes his goal as matching "the aspiring laowai to the most suitable Chinese city."
1. You're looking to cash in on China’s rapidly growing economy. You’ve got quite a lot of cash to spare, so setting up won’t be difficult. Otherwise, you’re not particularly interested in Chinese culture or Chinese language, and you’d like to live somewhere with a large foreign community. Best bet: Shenzhen, Shanghai, Guangzhou, Hong Kong2. You’re an adventurous sort who wants to experience China: the real China. You’re keen to learn Mandarin, to make Chinese friends, and to dive into Chinese culture headlong. You’d be more than happy never to see a McDonalds once during your stay in the Middle Kingdom. Best bet: Any small or medium-sized city outside of Tibet or Xinjiang.
3. You’re a fledgling businessman who wants to experience the cutting-edge of Chinese society. While you do want to make a bit of money, you’re also interested in Chinese culture and to see how the world’s largest country is rapidly changing. Best bet: Shanghai, Beijing
4. You’re an aspiring journalist fascinated with the murky underworld of Chinese politics. You want to experience Chinese media head-on, as well as delve into the country’s past. Modernity suits you fine but you’d rather be somewhere that reminds you that you are in China. Best bet: Beijing.
5. You find China interesting and exciting but can do without the hustle and bustle of the big coastal cities. Pollution, hot and humid summers, and cold winters also put you off. You’d like to go somewhere that combines a relaxing environment with enough things to do to not get bored. Best bet: Kunming
6. You’ve come to China to learn Mandarin- properly. You don’t want to study for a year only to realize you’ve picked up some incomprehensible local dialect. Money is no object. Best bet: Beijing or the Northeast.
7. You don’t have much interest in China per se but would like to settle somewhere with beautiful scenery and a small but vibrant expat community. Your ideal China experience would be to sip coffee at an internet cafe before embarking on a bike ride through gorgeous countryside. Best bet: Dali, Yangshuo, Gulangyu (Xiamen)
8. You have an academic or personal interest in exploring China’s minority ethnic groups. Best bet: Yunnan, Guizhou, Tibet, Guangxi, Inner Mongolia and Xinjiang Provinces/Autonomous Regions
9. You love spicy food and hot summers and want to be centrally located. Best bet: Sichuan and Hunan Provinces
10. You love China’s culture, but not the mainland’s quality of life. You’d like to live in a more sophisticated, international environment with plenty of business opportunities. You have no intention to learn another language, just to work, live, and have fun. Best bet: Hong Kong
Schiavenza admits these are "bald stereotypes" and solicits comments, of which he got some good ones.
Jason, from the Over and Out blog added the category of "You came to China to learn Chinese, make Chinese friends and enjoy Chinese culture. You don’t want too much westernization, but you definitely want to occasionally eat Western food, go to bars and also have foreign friends. Best bet: basically all second-tier cities. (Suzhou, Nanjing, Dalian, Hangzhou, Kunming, Chengdu, Qingdao etc)"
Brendan, from the legendary bokane.org blog, added the somewhat dubious but probably disturbingly accurate category of "You’re a 50-something alcoholic who’s abandoned his family on the other side of the world to come and teach English in Asia. You’ve been kicked out of Cambodia for reasons you’ve never satisfactorily explained, and now you’re looking for a cold, desolate place where you can drink yourself to death while teaching at the local agricultural university to make enough money to cover your daily half-gallon of baijiu. City: Harbin.
I like the list and the comments, but would add Dalian and Qingdao to #5.
What do you think?
My friend, software guru Buzz Bruggeman, founder of and driving force behind Activewords (endorsed by James Fallows, I kid you not. Click on the Activewords website for proof of this), sent me an article from today's New York Times mapping out what to do in Beijing if you are there for 36 hours.
The New York Times article is entitled "36 Hours in Beijing" and it makes for a fun and interesting read.
Update: Beijing Boyce and did a good post revising the NYT piece and Truth From Facts also puts forth some modifications.
The Zhongnanhai blog is out with a post, entitled "Guangzhou's immaculate Baiyun Airport to receive direct flights from Vancouver," on how there will soon be direct flights between Vancouver and Guangzhou. The memorandum of understanding (MOU) was signed on this last week to commence such flights in 2009.
Zhongnanhai then goes on to describe "Guangzhou's luxurious Baiyun Airport" as "nicest big-city airport in China (not including Hong Kong International)." China Southern Airlines will be taking on this route from the China side, while Air Canada will, presumably, be making this trip as well. Vancouver is a great gateway to Asia because so many top Asian airlines go through there and the airport itself is pretty good, with (at least the last time I was there) a pretty good sushi restaurant. Back when the US dollar was stronger, I would often transit through Vancouver to and from Asia via Air Canada (good seats, clean planes, mediocre food) and Singapore Airlines (nothing need be said).
Very helpful post over at the Lost Laowai Blog on how Chinese restaurants mark up their prices for foreigners. The post is entitled, "One Restaurant, Two Menus," and it is on how the prices on the menus with an English (usually Chinglish) translation are oftentimes higher than on the strictly Chinese language menu:
However, after recently A-Bing the English and Chinese versions at a few random restaurants, I’ve come to learn that the prices are completely different - sometimes with nearly a 100% markup for what could I can only assume is the added expense of having their menus masterfully translated.Now, I’m fortunate in that more often then not I’m with my Chinese wife and ordering exclusively off the Chinese menu. I’m certainly in the minority though, and most of Suzhou’s (and by extension China’s) laowai “guests” are tourists, or corporate expats who unwittingly bend over and take it - all the while exchanging smiles for this “cultural experience”.
The Lost Laowai then goes on to remark upon how strange this sort of markup would be in the United States or in the United Kingdom:
The simple fact is that I’m sure most of us in our home countries couldn’t imagine being given a different (and much inflated) menu based on our race or nationality. Can you imagine walking into a diner in San Francisco and being given the “Saudi” menu? Or in the UK being offered the “Blacks” menu?
Another reason to learn Chinese characters.
Hong Kong International Airport
In the Dragonair lounge waiting for Asiana Flight 724
Eating peanuts (h/t to the Silicon Hutong)
2319 hrs
I am just wrapping up my one week visit to Hong Kong. I am (was?) here to cover eight depositions in a case pending in Kentucky Federal Court in a case I was brought in on as international counsel. Co-blogger Steve Dickinson came here as well to assist with the depositions and to make sure the Mandarin to English interpretation remained on the up and up. The opposing side had one China and two U.S. lawyers.
I do not purport to know Hong Kong terribly well as my firm now does very little work there. There was a time where we fairly frequently helped our clients (mostly non-American clients) form companies in Hong Kong, but that work started dropping off around three years ago. Now when clients talk about wanting to form a Hong Kong company to go into mainland China we tell them doing so will in most cases do little more than increase their costs. Rarely does it make sense to do anything other than to just go into China directly by forming a company there.
This was only my third time in Hong Kong and it was my first time here in more than five years.
Here are my highly subjective thoughts:
1. This is truly an international city. That term is probably applied too often, but it definitely fits Hong Kong. By international I mean there are people from all over the world who appear to be living here comfortably and who influence its culture. If I had to name the top three most international cities, I would say New York (America), London (Europe) and Hong Kong (Asia). Hong Kong just feels way more international than Shanghai or Beijing.
2. This city is more orderly than any mainland city. It is clean and efficient. Things just work. Service is with a smile. The taxi drivers are polite and they know where they are going. Its public transportation is as clean and efficient as any in the world. Hong Kong feels accomplished while Shanghai and Beijing feel like they are still striving. At one point, Steve told me some of his friends from Shanghai like coming to Hong Kong for three to four days just to get away from the chaos/stress of Shanghai. Steve said he understands why.
I admit I never went too "deep" into the city so I never saw the parts of Hong Kong that are very much like the mainland. Just never had time.
3. Hong Kong is more open than the mainland. I know there are those who assert Hong Kong's press has been muzzled by the mainland powers and I know that politics here are not wide open, but I can tell you that reading the English language newspapers here feels like reading a real newspaper and not like government propaganda.
4. Hong Kong is a food city. I have eaten Japanese three times, Thai twice, French, Italian, Hong Kong, Phillipino, and Sichuan, and all were really good. I see Chinese as a food culture and Hong Kong's wealth puts that on steroids. The Lan Kwai Fang [restaurant] District is just flat out cool.
5. Man, but Hong Kong hotels are expensive, or at least they are when the huge conventions are in town. We started out in the $300 a night Renaissance Hotel and it was not at all luxurious. My room had a great view, but it was tiny and the service was mediocre. I stayed there two nights but fled when I could no longer handle its less than stellar internet connection. I also did not appreciate how the workout facility was in another building. I moved to the JW Marriott on Queensway, which was even more expensive, but only minutes away by foot from the building in which our depositions were taking place. The rates we got were actually quite good as most hotels were booked or charging hundreds of dollars more. It certainly did not help that Hong Kong's massive yearly home show is taking place right now.
6. Hong Kong International Airport (a/k/a Chek Lap Kok) is about as nice as they come and the Wi-Fi is free.
7. There are securities firms and banks everywhere here and Hong Kong is still the financial center (or should I say centre?) of Asia. Its combination of no capital controls, an independent judiciary, low taxes, a free press, and good communications has put it safely out in front in this arena and I do not see Shanghai catching up for some time, if ever. I have a lawyer friend from Seattle, Steve DeGracia, who is a finance lawyer at Paul Hastings' Hong Kong office, which is the base of one of the strongest corporate finance departments in Asia. Steve and I were supposed to meet up at some point in Hong Kong but I ended up without a spare moment. Amazingly enough, by sheer coincidence, I ran into Steve and his lovely wife (whom he met while working in Seoul a few years ago) and 20 month old daughter during a lunch break between depositions. What are the odds of that?
As always, the comment lines are open. Is Beijing's handling of Hong Kong a portent of what Beijing would like to see happen on the mainland? Is Hong Kong a portent for China's future? Is it even relevant?
Excellent article in the Wall Street Journal on a topic near and dear to my heart: air safety. The article is entitled "How China Turned Around A Dismal Air-Safety Record Foreign Help Combined With Willful Regulator" and it discusses how China's air safety (which I knew to be good) has risen to the level of great. Interestingly, the article also talks about how China's action on air safety might be applied similarly to the product safety.
For much of the 1990s, Chinese air safety was "arguably the world's most dangerous, beset by persistent pilot errors, unreliable maintenance and erratic government oversight." Today, however, China is "an acclaimed global leader in air safety" with fatal-accident rates lower than America's and Europe's. China achieved this turnaround under Yang Yuanyuan (a/k/a Triple Y), "a hard-charging aviation official" who made it a point to "adopt a more open attitude" and to learn from foreign accidents and incidents.
China took the following steps to reduce crashes:
• Established programs for Chinese regulators and airline officials to learn from their U.S. counterparts • Enlisted help from governments and manufacturers to draft new safety regulations and procedures • Relied on international aviation safety organizations to conduct audits, recommend improvements • Increased training for mechanics, pilots, government inspectors, airline officials • Pledged close cooperation with foreign crash investigators
Chet Ekstrand, a senior Boeing safety expert who worked with China on improving its airplane safety, marveled "at how the Chinese 'could be so candid in revealing shortcomings' to outsiders." China's aviation authority took its task very seriously:
At crucial junctures, officials at the Chinese aviation authority did something akin to heresy for a burgeoning economic superpower: They threatened to halt deliveries of new aircraft to China's airlines until a comprehensive, multiyear safety roadmap was in place and they were confident that airline officials were taking it seriously.
China also did not hesitate to secure assistance from outside China:
More than two dozen U.S. companies, from engine makers to cockpit-instrument suppliers, banded together to provide technical help. FAA officials helped the Chinese beef up air-traffic control designs and inspection procedures.Chinese airline officials, regulators and air-traffic-control managers were targeted for an exchange program focused on skills such as strategic planning and project oversight. In the continuing program, candidates spend three months in the U.S. including stints with major airlines and aircraft manufacturers. Airbus and French aviation colleges have separate agreements to train Chinese safety managers.
China's commercial aviation sector is also surprisingly transparent:
When Chinese carriers began flying a new generation of smaller regional jets, they faced a fresh set of safety issues. In November 2004, a Bombardier CRJ-200 plunged into an ice-covered Mongolian lake seconds after taking off in good weather, killing 54. Mr. Yang let U.S. and other foreign investigators visit the site within hours. Investigators later pegged the likely cause as wing ice stemming from failure by the crew to take necessary precautions.Prompted partly by that crash, China and the International Air Transport Association, which represents the interests of airlines, worked out a separate cooperation pact. China became a pioneer in allowing IATA specialists to audit all airlines and in due course release their findings.
All this has led the accident rate for Chinese carriers to improve "roughly tenfold since the mid-1990s" during which time fatality rates moved in the opposite direction in Africa and parts of the former Soviet Union. No Chinese jetliner has crashed since 2004 giving China the "best safety performance in the world in the past three years."
The article sees China product safety as a similar challenge as it too will require China "balance safety and growth." Both also require a "very strong, central agency to establish rules" plus "well-trained people able to adapt and impose them in the Chinese environment."
China Daily has an article on how the China Institute of City Competitiveness has determined Beijing is China's most beautiful city. I learned of this article by reading a post over at bezdomny ex patria, entitled, "Make Sure You're Sitting Down."
Bezdomny is not impressed:
Beijing is the most beautiful city in China and Hong Kong the safest and second most beautiful, according to a study by the China Institute of City Competitiveness.Alright, now that you’ve finished laughing.
I’ve even heard people call Tianjin “beautiful” (all Tianjinren of course), but I have never heard anybody describe Beijing as beautiful… well, maybe some of my students from Beijing have said something along those lines, as well as those from outside Beijing who say things like “I like Beijing because it’s the capital of China” and other non-sensical rubbish. Anyway: Beijing the most beautiful city in China? You’d have to be on a serious mixture of various hugely powerful hallucinogens to think such a thing. I mean: Dalian, Qingdao, Xiamen, Guilin……. Shit, even Changsha is more beautiful than Beijing. And Taiyuan would be if it weren’t for the pollution.
According to the China Daily, the study used "factors including the preservation of historical monuments, forest coverage, air quality, the transportation network, city life, public space and GDP" in making its beauty determination. Hong Kong came in second, Shenzhen (!?) took third, "scoring highly for its role as the pioneer of China's opening up and reform policies," and Shanghai finished fourth "for being the country's financial center."
Nothing against Beijing, but whatever happened to beauty being in the eye of the beholder?
Article in today's People's Daily says Beijing's Capital International Airport will, from today on, "spend no more than 3 minutes [on each passenger] going through customs and less than 10 minutes waiting for a security check:"
Those are just two of the promises made jointly by airport companies, airlines and government departments at a meeting in Beijing yesterday. Dong Zhiyi, general manager of the airport, told a press conference he wanted to provide passengers with a level of service as good as any in Europe, as part of its preparations for next year's Olympics.
The airport has introduced the following measures to reduce waiting times and to improve overall service:
-- Sending delayed luggage on to passengers in Beijing free of charge within 24 hours.
-- Setting time limits on procedures to ensure passengers never have to wait too long, he said.
-- Passengers on international flights will spend no more than 45 seconds in frontier inspection, and a maximum of 3 minutes at quarantine and customs, unless "an individual merits closer inspection."
-- Airlines will provide free food to passengers whose flights are delayed for more than 2 hours "due to airlines' reasons", and free accommodation if flights are delayed for 4 hours "due to airlines' reasons."
-- Products on sale at the airport will be priced the same as in Beijing's downtown area, he said. For example, roast duck that used to sell at the airport for 98 yuan ($13) will now sell at 72 yuan, "the same as downtown."
I will be flying in and out of Beijing in a few weeks and I will report back. I will believe it when I see it.
Just about every time I go to China I go to both Shanghai and Beijing and I hate the commute between those two cities because each leg usually takes a couple hours longer than it should. I will be doing this trip next month and I am dreading it a bit less than usual because "express air service" between these two cities launched this week.
According to the China Daily, this express service will "make getting between Shanghai and Beijing a little bit easier," though discounts are being eliminated.
"Passengers flying between the two cities will enjoy quicker check-in times, and security checks." They will also be able to use one ticket for any of the five airlines participating: Air China, China Eastern Airlines, China Southern Airlines, Hainan Airlines and Shanghai Airlines. The five participating airlines will provide quicker check-ins, security checks, boarding and luggage collection through designated passages. Flights will run from 7:30 a.m. until around 10:00 p.m. and will be as frequent as every half hour, starting around October of this year. These express flights will be between Shanghai Hongqiao International Airport and Beijing Capital Airport will eventually depart every 30 minutes. The plan is for travel from downtown to downtown to take less than three hours.
Buying e-tickets for these flights will be encouraged and the two airports "will gradually increase the number of automatic ticket vending machines." The two airports have set aside exclusive counters for the service.
Whenever I return to Seattle from China, I cannot eat Chinese food for months. I simply do not want to spoil the memories. I know I am not alone on this. And since Seattle has a large Asian population and a relatively sophisticated food scene, I very much doubt things are any better in other U.S. cities.
Just a couple of days ago, the Seattle Times did a story on Chinese restaurants in Vancouver, British Columbia (that's Canada, people), entitled, "Have chopsticks, will travel? Go north for Chinese delights." The gist of the article is that Vancouver is THE North American city for Chinese food:
This is where hotshot Hong Kong chefs create innovative dim sum that trickle down to restaurants in Los Angeles and San Francisco.
This is Vancouver, where the Chinese culinary bar is raised higher and the Cantonese restaurants are more trendsetting than anywhere in the United States.
"Hands down, I think [Vancouver's Chinese food] is superior to other cities' in North America," said Nathan Fong, a Vancouver-based food-stylist and noted expert on Chinese cuisine.
The Chinese food scene here exploded due to mainland China's takeover of Hong Kong 10 years ago, which brought a flood of wealthy Chinese immigrant's and injected much competition in the Vancouver restaurant industry. That's why the Vancouver area has been serving Chinese food that is arguably as good as in the homeland, much like Vietnamese cuisine is in Westminster, Calif., or Indian cuisine is in London.
The article goes on to describe my favorite Chinese restaurant in North America, Sun Sui Wah, as follows:
But the overall star attraction remains Sun Sui Wah Seafood Restaurant in Vancouver, considered by many critics and local chefs to be one of the best Chinese restaurants in North America, especially for seafood and dim sum.
I once suggested (begged?) a friend of mine, whose wife's family owns a number of very large and very successful Chinese restaurants in Asia, talk to his in-laws about opening one in Seattle. He reported back that Seattle could not support such a restaurant because such restaurants need to serve meals late into the night and there are just not enough Seattleites who go for that. He then noted this was why Seattle did not have any great Chinese restaurants and why it never would.
Nina and Tim Zagat (of the Zagat Guide) wrote an op-ed piece in yesterday's New York Times, entitled, "Eating Beyond Sichuan," first bemoaning and then explaining the extreme dearth of great Chinese food on these shores:
Chinese food in its native land is vastly superior to what's available here. Where are the great versions of bird's nest soup from Shandong, or Zhejiang's beggar's chicken, or braised Anhui-style pigeon or the crisp eel specialties of Jiangsu? Or what about the tea-flavored dishes from Hangzhou, the cult-inspiring hairy crabs of Shanghai or the fabled honeyed ham from Yunnan? Or the Fujianese soup that is so rich and sought after that it is poetically called "Buddha Jumps Over the Wall," meaning it is so good that a Buddhist monk would be compelled to break his vegetarian vows to sample it?
The historical explanation for why "the lackluster Cantonese, Hunan and Sichuan restaurants in this country do not resemble those you can find in China" is the lack of "key ingredients" from China, but that is no longer the case. The reason the United States is today mired in Chinese restaurant mediocrity is that it is nearly impossible for Chinese chefs to get visas to come over here.
Not sure if the Zagats are right about this, but they do provide some anecdotal proof. And, hey, if opening the floodgates to immigration would raise the level of Chinese cuisine over here, than I say "open." Food trumps politics, hence the call for dumpling diplomacy. Might even improve China-US relations. Of course, our visa policy holds back more than just great Chinese cooks, but people, let's stay focused here.
In its post, entitled, "Hear, hear for dumpling diplomacy!" Foreign Policy Magazine weighs in on this crucial issue with its own whine:
And they're [the Zagats] absolutely right. Let's face it most of what America considers "Chinese" food SUCKS. It's too sweet, too sticky, too oily, too heavy, and too bland. There are exceptions, of course. (Notably, my mom's kitchen and the Chinatowns in New York, San Francisco, and LA.)
But take Washington, D.C., [please do!] for instance. I've been living in this city for nearly two years, and have yet to understand why it's so hard to find a single decent Chinese restaurant in the nation's capital.
Again, so true. I have always suspected PF Changs to be the leading cause of increasing sugar prices.
The Rose Cantine Blog is skeptical of the reasons given by the Zagats for the "abysmal state of Chinese food in the United States." According to its post, "Is 9/11 to blame for bad Chinese food," Thai, Vietnamese and Korean chefs are subject to the same restrictions and yet their food is good. The Rose Cantine, posits the following reasons for the difference:
1. Thai, Vietnamese and Korean restaurant owners are relatively new immigrants to the US and have not lost touch with the authentic recipes. Because US-born Chinese are no longer in touch with their homegrown cuisine, restaurant owners have to import Chinese chefs and the visa restrictions are making this impossible (Zagat theory).
2. The type of Chinese cuisine that got locked in was Cantonese which is relatively bland.
3. The Chinese who settled in the US and Europe cook differently when they make dishes for Western people than they do for themselves.
This posts makes me wonder though if what the Zagats are saying about Chinese food holds true for most Asian cuisines. I know very little about authentic Thai food, so though I love what get of it here in the United States, I am not qualified to compare it to the motherland. I have eaten great Vietnamese food in both the United States (particularly in California) and in Vietnam. I am generally not a big fan of Korean food (seeing as how I do not eat meat and I do not think food should be judged on how long it has been buried in some old auntie's backyard), but every Korean in Seattle with whom I have discussed restaurants has told me there are no good Korean restaurants here.
Daniel W. Drezner, in his post, "I want to believe the Zagats -- I really do," is also skeptical of the Zagat explanation and he also posits three of his own:
1) Because China has a larger internal market, there is more innovation and competition at home, leading to more frequent innovations. Without a reliable transmission mechanism (i.e., migrating chefs), Chinese cuisine in China will improve at a faster rate than in the U.S.A.
2) Law of averages. There are 41,000 Chinese restaurants in the U.S., but only 9,000 Japanese restaurants. If quality is a function of quantity, then the average Chinese restaurant will simply be of poorer quality than other cuisines.
3) Innovation in a different direction. As this Washington Post story from last year suggests, American restaurants tend to innovate by using new cooking styles to present more traditional foods. Indeed, as the Zagats observe, this tendency is strongest in cuisines that have been here for a while -- like Chinese. This roils devotees of "pure" national cuisine, but delights everyone else.
The Zagats end their article with this clarion call:
So, we welcome Chinese chefs to share their authentic cuisines with us. American palates, unlike those of previous generations, are ready for the real stuff.
To which, I would think we can all say, amen.
China Daily reports that "Bullet train service" started on April 18 linking Beijing and Shanghai, Wuhan, Shenyang, Changchun, Harbin and Qingdao. These trains will travel at speeds of between 200 and 250 kilometers per hour. The journey between Beijing and Shanghai will take ten hours. "Ticket prices for the bullet trains will cost 50 percent more than the current express trains, which usually travel at 115 kilometers per hour." Passengers will be able to book trips up to 20 days in advance.
Non-stop express trains will also also start to operate between Beijing and Nanchang, Nantong and Fuzhou.
The Wall Street Journal said it yesterday and I had completely bought into it. Actually, I had more than just bought into it, I was near giddy about it. In its article, "China Aloft," the WSJ said there would soon be an open skies agreement between the United States and China:
At long last, change may be in the air for travelers crossing the Pacific. During a trip to China last week, U.S. Transportation Secretary Mary Peters touted a new round of talks between Washington and Beijing over an "open skies" agreement. A tentative deal could be hammered out as early as next month, not a moment too soon for fliers in this under-supplied market.
But after reading David Wolf's (regularly at the always excellent Silicon Hutong) post on this over at the Seeking Alpha blog, I am convinced it ain't gonna happen. There will be no open skies agreement between the US and China for some time.
Wolf's post is entitled, "Open Skies Agreement Between U.S. and China? Not Anytime Soon" and I am going with Wolf's version both because he knows whereof he speaks and because his reasoning is pretty much irrefutable. Wolf says there are a lot of reasons why there will be no agreement in the short term, but each of the following three clinch it for me:
1. What is Hong Kong?
One of the biggest questions in the discussions is the status of Hong Kong and Macao in the agreements. If you exclude Cathay Pacific (CPCAY.PK) and Dragonair from the discussions, open skies looks like a great deal for U.S. carriers, but not necessarily such a hot deal for domestic Chinese airlines. Short of a significant upgrade of the reputation and service offered by Chinese airlines on their North American routes, chances are the U.S. carriers would dominate the routes, at least taking the more profitable business and leaving the Chinese airlines to scoop up the leftovers.On the other hand, if China managed to convince the U.S. to include Hong Kong and Macao, the tables would turn. All of a sudden, you could fly Beijing to Los Angeles, San Francisco, New York, Chicago, and DC on Cathay Pacific. That would allow CPCAY to take the cream, with the American carriers fighting the mainland Chinese carriers for everything else.
While the Chinese may not want it (ownership structures notwithstanding, there's no love lost twixt the mainland carrier and it's Hong Kong cousins), it would be a great tool to use to slow down negotiations and exact concessions from the US. Regardless of how the Chinese feel about it, the U.S. airlines certainly don't want to face CPCAY on what are rapidly becoming the most profitable routes in the business.
2. Are the Chinese ready for open skies?
Here is the real kicker. You have to assume that at some point there will be an open skies agreement between the US and China. You also have to assume that the US wants this, because they are driving the process at the moment. This means that the Chinese control the timing of the process.So the real question is "When will it make sense for the Chinese to go for open skies?"
The short answer to that is "Not right now."
Apart from the obvious question of service quality, China's airlines aren't ready. Marketing is weak, the brands need pumping - even the liveries on the sides of the aircraft look like throwbacks to the 1970s. Domestic demand is rising quickly, and the companies are having to deploy most of the aircraft, pilots, and financial resources they can muster simply to handle local growth.
Keeping up with a sudden inrush of airlines who are much larger and more experienced airlines would swamp the locals, who would be unable even to match the growth in routes. If it happened today, would Air China, China Eastern, and China Southern be able to start direct service to another half-dozen US cities without stripping their networks of assets? Already China needs to find 11,000 new pilots and 2,500 new aircraft in the next 20 years just to keep up with organic growth. Competing under open skies would only add to this burden.
3. Give them an inch...
There are other reasons for the Chinese to want to go slow on open skies with the US.For one, the Europeans would show up the next day demanding open skies for their airlines, too. They'd be followed by the Japanese, the Singaporeans, and nearly every country in the world. In other words, even if you don't think United (UAUA), American (AMR), Delta (DALRQ.PK), Continental (CAL), Northwest (NWACQ.PK), USAir (LCC), and Hawaiian could collectively deliver a mortal wound to the international services of China's airlines, you have to assume that adding the rest of the world to that burden isn't going to help. At the very least, international growth opportunities for China's airlines would be stunted, and this at a time when those services are desperately needed to help make ends meet.
Just came across the City Guides section of The Economist (h/t to The Weifang Radish). The city guides are geared towards business travelers, and for each city there is the following:
Each section also contains news on the particular city, an events calender and some interesting cost figures. In Asia, the Cities Guides covers Beijing, Shanghai, Hong Kong, Mumbai, Singapore, and Tokyo. Seoul, Korea, apparently does not rate. The Guides also cover Europe, Australia, and the Americas.
The guides really are quite good. For instance, in the insider tips section, I learned that "during a meal," one should "not turn a fish over to get to the flesh on the underside. Superstition holds that turning a fish over will cause a fishing boat to capsize." How many of you knew this? Be honest.
I found the city cost listings interesting, but of questionable accuracy. The site sets forth the following prices for Beijing and Shanghai:
I am quite familiar with Shanghai prices, less so of Beijing, but I can tell you that before my firm secured its apartment in Shanghai, I would always do just fine staying in Shanghai at the Radisson Hotel right smack across from People's Park, traveling around by taxi, and eating plenty well, for way less than 6,541 yuan per two days. Our extremely nice, two bedroom furnished Shanghai apartment also costs quite a bit less than the 12,132 yuan per month the Economist ascribes to "mid-priced" furnished one bedroom apartments in Shanghai. I also find it difficult to believe Beijing apartment rents are 2.5 times those in Shanghai.
Despite its lofty price calculations, this really is an excellent site for business travelers who find themselves going to any of the listed cities.
Yesterday's Wall Street Journal did a piece on air travel in China, entitled, "China's Congested Skies: Between Military Maneuvers and Outdated Equipment, Travelers Face Agonizing Delays." [subscription may be required].
Amen, brother. For parts I and II of this series, click here and here.
According to the article, only 30% of China's airspace is open to passenger planes -- "making China one of global aviation's most restricted countries." The reason: China's military controls the skies:
Shanghai's Pudong International Airport shut down for four hours one afternoon in December when China's air force ran a drill. Airports in at least three other big coastal cities that fall under the Nanjing Military Area Command also had to close, forcing the diversion or delay of hundreds of flights, both foreign and domestic.
Adding further frustration for travelers, military affairs are a state secret in China, so there is no way to predict the snap shutdowns. In the Pudong shutdown, for instance, pilots said they assumed the closure had to do with military maneuvers, but passengers weren't told why their plane had landed in an unexpected airport, raising concerns there had been a crash or other calamity. A military-run newspaper noted that the drill had been a success.
By way of example, planes flying from New York to Chicago can fly at any of "about 13 altitudes." China limits civilian aircraft to flying at seven altitudes. As traveling by air continues to increase in China, such constraints are taking a bigger and bigger toll on Chinese commercial aviation:
"I can pretty much always bank on an hour's delay, and I think I'm doing well if it's less than that," says Irishman Joe Healy, a director of engineering at Emerson Climate Technologies in Hong Kong.
For obvious reasons, things are particularly tough in Southern China near Taiwan:
Congested corridors over the Chinese coast facing Taiwan, which Beijing considers a renegade province, are particularly prone to military disruptions, they say -- the reason for last month's airport shutdowns.
When the limited routes into southern China get too crowded, air traffic controllers on the mainland try to slow the inflow of planes by reducing the number of altitudes available to them. Jetliners bound for China or Europe from Southeast Asia and Australia can get backed up and forced into fuel-guzzling holding patterns as a result.
One of the best ways to minimize delays is to fly as early as possible. Cathay Pacific Airways has a 3:25 a.m. cargo flight from Hong Kong to Beijing that also carries as many as 100 passengers. Despite its "ungodly hour," that flight almost always leaves with most of its seats full. It also has a good on time record.
There are some signs the 2008 Olympic Games will lead to a bit of a loosening of air space by the military. Last year, they agreed to open a new corridor that reduces flight times between China and Europe by up to 20 minutes and authorized "another new route and is considering opening a third, possibly in time for the Olympics."
Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou have all installed new air traffic control equipment that is "light years ahead" of what most Western countries use. China is also expected to soon reduce its approximately 2,000 foot required "cushion" between planes to a more usual 1,000 feet, allowing up to twice as many planes to fly on any given air route. "China recently hit a record 5.8 million flying hours without accidents."
The article makes the obvious suggestions of avoiding busy air travel times on your flights and traveling with only carry on baggage, so you can quickly switch planes, if necessary. Here are my additional tips:
Yesterday's New York Times Frugal Traveler column is entitled, "In Shanghai, Balancing the Past, the Future and a Budget" (h/t to Shanghaiist) It is a three page story and it gives a pretty good account of Shanghai. I just love the Times' definition of "frugal" and "budget": $500 for the weekend in Shanghai, and all this without even a hint of irony.
The writer stayed at the Hotel No. 9, a five room B&B in a 1920's mansion that does sound really cool and costs about $100 per night and he ate at Jean-Georges restaurant. There truly is something a bit absurd about putting "frugal" and "Jean-Georges" in the same story. Surely the writer, Matt Gross, could have come up with something good at half the price.
But, if one suspends disbelief regarding the frugality of it all, this is actually a really good article on what to do during a Shanghai weekend.
With there being no shortage of China blogs, I am surprised at how few China blogs focus on China food or drink. In fact, I am aware of only one blog that consistently provides top-notch, personalized, reviews of Chinese eating or drinking establishments. That blog is called "Beijing Boyce" and it is an amazing source for information on Beijing bars. Its tagline is "A Somewhat Young China Hand on the Local Drinking Scene."
According to its "about" section, the blog evolved from a newsletter started in 2005. The blog itself began in October, 2006, but having incorporated articles from its predecessor/sister newsletter, the posts go back to October, 2005. It is written by an employee of "an NGO in China" who has been in Asia for more than a decade and in Beijing since 2004 and he (I say "he" because I know who writes it) describes himself as follows:
I work for an NGO in China. Ive been in Asia more than a decade and in Beijing since 2004, with past stints in South Korea and Taiwan. I am tall, cute, intelligent and smart, and like collecting Five Friendlies souvenirs, traveling and searching for the one Wait, I think I read that in the personals at thatsbj.com. In fact, I enjoy reading humor (dry), tennis (doubles), martinis (dry doubles) and those rare days when the mountains east of the city are visible from my apartment. I have no Five Friendlies paraphernalia, not even a Jingjing key chain. I also have no fascination with Mandarin, Confucian philosophy or the Shaolin Temple, and am not here to live and breathe China as are many foreigners. I came to work. Even so, Beijings pace of change and growing importance make it, especially pre-Olympics, a notable place to live.
The writer writes about bars because he finds them interesting and enjoyable:
I find bars interesting as businesses and enjoyable as places to relax and meet people. I like writing and have penned three columns and two newsletters over the years. Thus, since Beijing has a quickly morphing drinking scene and I have a notebook, writing about the citys bars was a natural. It also mixes well with my job as I meet many work-related people for drinks and can easily take notes about cocktail quality, service, ambiance, and so on. Finally, the drinking scene is a popular topic since almost everyone has a favorite bar, knows a good spot to take visitors to Beijing, or can opine on the pros and (especially) cons of drinking baijiu. My newsletter and blog aim to join in that discussion by providing useful information - hopefully in an entertaining way - and helping people make the most of their nights out on the town.
In addition to covering Beijing's bar scene, the blog also has posts on wine and other available spirits in China and it occasionally forays into Shanghai.
That's Beijing's Blog also reviews restaurants as does That's Shanghai Magazine. Any others?
I have been an upper tier member of United Airline's Mileage Plus program since I started practicing law more than twenty years ago in Chicago, United's primary hub city. So it is with great pleasure that I announce United Airlines as the winner of the beauty contest among U.S. airlines seeking an additional one a day flight to China.
Starting March 25, United will be adding a Washington D.C. to Beijing run. Does anyone think politics played any part in this pick?
According to the China Daily, Wuhan, China, has just been picked to become China's fourth air hub, along with Beijing, Shanghai, and Guangzhou. This means international flights will soon be able to go directly to Wuhan, without first stopping in Beijing, Shanghai or Guangzhou.
Domestic airlines will be also encouraged to set up branches in Wuhan. "Developing Wuhan into an air hub will not only support efforts to develop Central China, but also link the country's far-flung regions, easing access to western China's resources and market, said a government document."
Wuhan Tianhe Airport presently has only one runway and one terminal but is in the process of adding a second terminal and increasing capacity to handle 13 million passengers and 320,000 tons of cargo a year. These expansion projects are expected to be completed by the end of 2008.
This is likely to prove huge for Wuhan, giving it a real leg up over Chengdu and Chongqing for foreign direct investment (FDI).
A few weeks ago, I posted on the problems with China air traffic. Today, Reuters did a story, entitled, "Stop complaining, China tells airline passengers" describing how China's civil aviation authority is asking fliers to stop complaining about air travel (h/t to USA Today's Today in the Sky Blog) despite all its problems:
"The food's bad, the airport coffee costs too much, the in-flight service is terrible, the flight's delayed and your suitcase got destroyed in transit -- well, it's your fault for having unrealistic expectations." Indeed, the General Administration of Civil Aviation of China is trying to quell a rising tide of passenger complaints there by adjusting expectations. "We hope to increase consumers' understanding about the special nature of the civil aviation industry, so that together we can create a cosier, more harmonious aviation travel environment," the agency says on its website.
"What must be stressed is that safety is at the root of airline travel, and on-board service revolves around this," it adds. Reuters says that fliers in China "have long got used to surly cabin crew, decrepit in-flight entertainment systems and mysterious delays where aircraft full of people are just left on the tarmac."
The Chinese airlines attribute the complaints to passengers who are unfamiliar with flying. I attribute it to passengers who have schedules to keep and who know how food is supposed to taste.
In any event, this attitude of the airlines and the civil aviation authorities obviously does not bode well for rapid improvement.
Has anyone taken more than two internal China flights in a row without delay? Are you all like me in that you just assume your flight will arrive one to two hours late?
China Logistics News recently posted on the dismal passenger services and scheduling problems at Chinese airports. The article highlights the frustrations business travelers have in navigating to and from Beijing:
Finance Asia [subscription required] has just published the results of its annual business travel poll. A quarter of the responses referred to an above average number of delays on flights to and from Beijing. Some of the comments:
- "You cannot count on anything like a schedule flying in and out of Beijing."
- "The travel from Beijing to Hong Kong continues to get worse, with the delays rumored to be weather, military exercises, and plane maintenance."
- "It is extremely annoying that you cannot plan your schedule in the way that you want it to be, as the delay is always unpredictable. I have to budget more time for travel these days when going to Beijing."
- "Meetings are scheduled based on an expectation of a 1.5 hour delay time is wasted."
- "The flight is always delayed. We will be seated in the plane, but wont take off until 45 minutes to one hour later."
- "It sucks, it is a totally inefficient airport."
And this is the airport that is going to be the vital cog in the logistics for the Olympic Games? It sounds like London Heathrow of which Jeffrey Barnard wrote: I welcome death for I will not have to pass through Heathrow.
Beijing Capital Airport is definitely more chaotic than most of the other Chinese airports to which I have been. I have heard good things about Nanyuan Airport for short hop domestic flights out of Beijing, but I have never had occasion to fly in or out of there. Beijing is in the process of siting a second major airport for the city, but that is not going to come on-line for the 2008 Olympics. Beijing air travel is a problem.
But, no matter how nice the airport, the reality is that planes in China (particularly from or to Shanghai and Beijing) nearly always seem to leave late. I am constantly asking if any one airline is better than another on this (how are the discount carriers, Spring Airline and China United?) but the usual answer is that the skies over China are just too crowded. But then why are my flights into and leaving China nearly always on time?
At a seminar I recently attended, one of the speakers pronounced Vietnam as the safest country in the world. I wondered at the time whether that were true and how safest was being defined. Safest from what? Death by accident and/or violent crime/terrorism and/or natural disaster? Crime? Injury? Health care? Who knows?
Because I spend so much time in China, I often wonder how safe it is. What is its violent crime rate? Its auto accident rate? How common are natural disasters in China and where do they occur? Diseases? Food safety? Life threatening pollution? I have always found it difficult coming up with reliable statistics on any of this.
I, along with my co-blogger, Steve Dickinson, actually can lay claim to having been in two auto accidents in China on the same day, in different cities. We were in a taxi on the way to the Yantai airport and got rear-ended by another car. Then, that very same night, on our way back from dinner in Qingdao, while backing out of a driveway, our taxi hit another car. I hate to sound like Ronald Reagan (at least I hate mimicking his analyzing by anecdote), but our getting hit twice in one day must mean something about auto safety there.
China seems to have its share of natural disasters and exotic diseases, but I am unable to accurately quantify that in comparison to other countries. Food safety seems to be quite bad there, but, again, I am unable to quantify it. Like everywhere else, China also has violent crime, but I have never seen accurate statistics on that either.
I was able to find some good safety statistics on Asian airlines, including many that fly into and out of China. Plane Crash Info puts out a safety ranking on Asia's airlines based on the number of flights, the number of fatal accidents and the fatality rate of those accidents. The site notes that plane accidents are extremely rare and the odds of dying on any single flight are approximately eight million-to-one. "If a passenger boarded a flight at random, once a day, everyday, it would be approximately 22,000 years before he or she would be killed." Asian airlines rank as follows:
I guess I would have to say I think of China as being pretty safe so long as you ride around in a big car, watch what you eat, and avoid areas where bird flu is present.
Oh, and the safest country in the world? I found claims for Japan, The United States, Malaysia, Korea, New Zealand, Switzerland, and Israel. Japundit puts forth its own list made up of Uruguay, North Korea, Vietnam, Botswana, Mongolia.
If I had to, I would bet on New Zealand or Switzerland.
The People's Daily just announced that on October 30, Air China will launch the first direct flights between New Delhi and Beijing. Air China will operate this route three times weekly, Monday, Wednesday, and Saturday, using Boeing 767-200 aircraft.
Through November the promotional round-trip fare will be only 3,880 yuan (approximately 485 U.S. dollars).
Air India and China Eastern Airlines currently offer flights between India and China, but Air China will be the first to have direct flights between the two capitals.
In other China airline news, CATA (China Air Transportation Association) has replaced paper tickets with e-tickets, effectively ending paper tickets in China.
Interesting article in the International Herald Tribune on the worldwide expansion plans of the Shangri-La Hotels and Resorts luxury hotel chain. Shangri-La is based in Hong Kong, is majority controlled by the Kuok Group, founded by Malaysian billionaire Robert Kuok. The Shangri-La group operates two brands: the five-star Shangri-La and the four-star Traders hotels.
Thrust of the story is an interview with Shangri-La's chief executive, Giovanni Angelini, regarding Shangri-La's taking its hotels to Asia and the United States and building its name there. The company is the largest operator of luxury hotels in mainland China and is planning to double its current 20 hotels by 2010.
What I found fascinating about the article though, was Angelini's views on the future of China travel.
"By the year 2020, it is expected there will be more than 100 million Chinese travelers," he said. "Can you imagine the impact? Japan has made a tremendous impact in the industry and it never reached more than 17 million travelers.
"If you go back 30 years ago," Angelini continued, China is "exactly the way the Japanese were, traveling in groups around a little flag, negotiating the lowest rate. But look where the Japanese are now: in top hotels and big spenders. The Chinese market will be much stronger and develop much faster."
I think he is absolutely right and I think what he says will apply to all industries. Right now, talk to anyone who provides high end legal, financial, public relations, design, consulting, advertising, or other kinds of business services in China and I can assure you will be able to get them to complain about the unwillingness of most Chinese companies to pay their fees. Based on my own experiences in dealing with Korean and Russian companies over the last 15 years -- as frustrated as I am -- I am always counseling patience by saying "it will change."
Mr. Angelini would agree.
Came across this really cool site that allows you to create a map of all countries to which you have gone (h/t to the Bring on the Night Blog). I could not resist.
What I find interesting about my travels (see the map below) is that though I have been to almost every country in Europe and Asia and even to such exotic a locale as Papua New Guinea, I have yet to set foot in Africa or South America and though the site claims my having been to Turkey means I have been to the Middle East, I would beg to differ.
I come up with 47 countries, but I am a little irritated at it not counting my visits to Hong Kong and to Macau when they were not a part of China. Then again, they were not exactly separate countries then either. But if they can count Puerto Rico . . . .
Anyway, have fun creating your own map at World 66. Here's mine:
China and Korea recently agreed on an open sky agreement for flights between Korea and Shandong Province and, as Korean newspaper, Dong A Ilbo, makes clear in its article, entitled, "Korean, Chinese in Fare War," "the race is on to lower the airfare for trips between Korea and China."
Fares between Seoul's Incheon airport and Shandong Province which formerly cost 400,000 to 500,000 Won (approximately $420 to $530) roundtrip are now down to the 200,000 Won range (approximately $210) and are predicted to go as low as 100,000 Won (approximately $105) roundtrip in the near future.
Roundtrip fares for flights between Incheon and Qingdao of Shandong Province are now 200,000 won. Fares between Incheon and Yantai of Shandong Province and Incheon and Ningbo (not Shandong) are 240,000 Won and fares between Incheon and Sanya, Hainan Island (also not in Shandong) are now 260,000 won. Korean Air will be lowering its fare between Incheon and Weihai (in Shandong) to 200,000 won starting August 25 and it also plans to charge around 200,000 won for Incheon-Qingdao and Incheon-Yantai routes, when it begins service to those cities on August 25, at 200,000 won. Asiana Airlines will lower its Incheon-Yantai return fare from 350,000 won to 200,000 won beginning August 25, and it is "now mulling over cutting prices for other routes too."
China Eastern Airlines' head of Planning and Public Relations stated "the heightening competition between Korean and Chinese carriers to lower prices and increase services is highly likely to bring the fare between Korea and cities in Shandong down to the 100,000 won range.
This is all a result of the recently concluded Korea-China Air Travel Conference, at which Seoul and Beijing agreed on an open-sky deal to be carried out in phases, with the first step to be all Korean cities and Chinas Shandong Province. I am not sure what is driving the reduced fares between Seoul and Ningbo and Seoul and Sanya, but it is probably the same thing.
Since China and Korea will be expanding their open sky agreement every year, "the race to cut prices, which began for routes between Korea and Shandong, is expected to spread to Beijing, Shanghai, and other major Chinese cities." Since I nearly always pass through Seoul on my way to China, this is very good news indeed.
I am a big fan of going from the United States' West Coast to China through Seoul. Both Asiana Airlines and Korean Airlines fly nearly daily from Seattle, San Francisco, and Los Angeles to Seoul and then on to various cities in China. Both of these airlines are pretty good and both of them use brand new 777s to fly between Seattle and Seoul, with on-board internet access. The fact that a Korean-American friend of mine owns a travel agency that gets great rates on the two Korean airlines also plays a big part.
Korean Air's Seattle-Seoul-China connections are usually the same day, while Asiana Airlines' are usually the next day. To make up for this, however, Asiana puts up its travelers, gratis, in a decent Incheon or Seoul hotel and covers dinner and breakfast as well. I typically fly Asiana to China because Asiana is a member of the Star Alliance frequent flyer program while Korean Air is part of the Skyteam Alliance. I also like spending the night in Seoul and then arriving in China the next morning, fairly rested. As an added bonus, both Asiana and Korean Air have extensive Asian flight networks so if you are planning on going to other countries in Asia besides Korea and China, you can usually add on other Asian stops at a decent price.
Perhaps as US-China fares through Korea come down, US-China fares will face price pressures as well.
In the category of things better seen than described is this post with really good, high-tech, maps of China, Shanghai (including the subway) in particular.
Danwei.org just did a post on the allowability of bringing liquids on to planes leaving China's airports. The post said liquids have been banned for years, yet I know I was able to bring on a bottle of wine I purchased in a Qingdao airport shop only a few months ago. The comments to the post were all over the map as to what is and is not allowed.
I did a bit of research on this and found this Wall Street Journal article, that sets down the rules. According to this article, "no liquid aside from goods purchased after the airport-security check, like duty-free liquor, could be taken aboard outbound flights. The only exceptions were for baby formula and certain medicines."
On Wednesday, July 26, I am taking off on my bi-monthly Asian trip. As is nearly always the case, I will be spending my first night in Seoul, Korea. I leave Seoul, on Friday, July 28, for Shanghai, where I will stay until Sunday evening, July 30. I then fly to Qingdao where I will stay, probably, until the next day. On Monday, July 31, I will fly to Beijing, where I will stay through Thursday, August 3, at which time I will board a plane for Saigon, Vietnam, where I will be through either August 5 (in which case I will be in Seoul through August 7) or through August 7 (in which case I will go "directly" to Seattle).
My law and blog partner, Steve Dickinson will be with me for most of the China portion of the trip.
Steve and I are interested in meeting up with our loyal (or even not so loyal) readers in any and all of the cities listed above (Seoul, Shanghai, Beijing, Qingdao, Saigon) to talk China, China business, Vietnam, Vietnam business, Korea, Korea business, or whatever. Please contact us if you would like to meet with us. Drinks (including, but not limited to, green tea and Starbucks) will be on us.
The best way to contact us is by e-mail to firm@harrismoure.com.
I will post frequently to update my schedule.
China Rises: Notes from the Middle Kingdom Blog, a new blog written by McClatchy Newspapers (which purchased Knight Ridder) China correspondent, Tim Johnson, did a post on China's ten most charming towns, per the China Daily.
Mr. Johnson notes that he has "lived in China for almost three years, and traveled to more than a dozen provinces, some of them with charming places," but he has "not been to a single one of these towns." Neither have I, but judging solely from their pictures and descriptions, they certainly do seem to be bursting with charm. And, as much as I love places like Shanghai and Qingdao, which I most often frequent, I have never described either as "charming."
So, without further ado, the ten most charming towns, with China Rises' synopsis of their charms:
1. Tongli, Jiangsu province -- Sometimes called the "Little Venice of the Orient," Tongli is surrounded by lakes and has many bridges and gardens from the Ming and Qing dynasties.
2. Nanxun, Zhejiang province -- More quaint bridges and gardens, site of first silk exporters.
3. Xingan, Guanxi -- Site of the world's first man-made canal.
4. Shiwan, Guangdong -- The porcelain capital of southern China.
5. Shiwei, Inner Mongolia -- A Russian ethnic minority town along the border.
6. Heshun, Yunnan -- Beautiful scenery at China's first border trade town with Burma.
7. Wuzhen, Zhejiang -- Picturesque canal town known for "clear waters, fragrant wines, legendary lanes, and handmade calico.
8. Taining, Fujian -- Best maintained hometown homes of leading scholars in the Ming Dynasty (1368-1644). Also famous grottoes.
9. Hongcun, Anhui -- UNESCO-listed village near Mt. Huangshan, one of China's five famous mountains, and backdrop in the film "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon."
10. Zhangbi, Shanxi -- Site of ancient castle.
Bon voyage.
To quote Bob Dylan, there's a slow train coming. It's called the Beijing-Lhasa "express" and it seems just about everybody has an opinion on it.
Newsweek's Melinda Liu is doing a video blog of her trip on the newly completed Beijing-Lhasa express. The (first?) segment is a bit short, but certainly worth watching. It comes with an article. I think (but am not sure) that more posts will follow from Ms. Liu and I will post again on this when and if they do. Another good trip account can be found on the Moderate Voice Blog.
For those wanting additional information and perspectives on this groundbreaking run, check out the Washington Post, the Popagandhi, Ultima Thule, China Snippets, Mask of China, and Thomas Barnett. To greatly summarize, the widely divergent views on it range from viewing it as bad for the locals and the environment, to good for China and the economy. Nobody disputes that its pressurized rail-cars and permafrost stabilization qualify it as an amazing engineering feat.
UPDATE: There is also a first hand account of the trip at the Times U.K. blog here and this article from the Globe and Mail (Toronto) touches on the issue of smoking in a pressurized train compartment....no minor matter in a nation of 350 million smokers! The always informative EastSouthWestNorth blog also has an interesting English translation of a report from Chinese blogger Fu Jianfeng.
I have been a regular viewer (and viewer is the right word here) of the Middle Kingdom blog for a long time. It is operated by Mark Hobbs, who describes himself as a "British/Australian cultural studies teacher in China, trying to come to terms with the ways of the "middle kingdom" through photos and comments - Life and experiences are reflected with photos, art, design and musings on China."
Hobbs is based out of Guilin, which certainly is not a bad place to be for a photographer.
The blog itself is gorgeous and the pictures are stunning. I love this site. Go look for yourself.
I have been a United Airlines Mileage Plus member since I kicked off my legal career with Chicago (United's hub) mega law firm, Kirkland & Ellis, more than 20 years ago and I am addicted to miles.
So it is with great joy that I pass on today's news that Shanghai Airlines will be joining the Star Alliance mileage network. Air China is currently in talks with the Star Alliance regarding joining as well. The Star Alliance presently consists of United Airlines, Air Canada, Air New Zealand, All Nippon Airways (ANA), Asiana Airlines, Austrian Airlines, bmi, LOT Polish Airlines, Lufthansa, Scandinavian Airlines (SAS), Singapore Airlines, South African Airways, Spanair, Swiss International Air Lines, TAP Portugal, Thai Airways International, US Airways (America West), and Varig (Brazil). Rumours have been "flying" about Air India, and Qatar Airways also possibly joining the Star Alliance fold.
According to a recent Wall Street Journal article, the "three main global airline alliances are scrambling to line up members in China, where there has been a boom in air travel." The SkyTeam alliance (Air France, Aeroflot, KLM, AeroMexico, Continental Airlines, Delta Airlines, Czech Airlines, Northwest Airlines (NWA), and Korean Air), already has inked a deal to have China Southern in its fold, while the Oneworld Alliance (American Airlines, British Airways, Iberia, LAN (Chile), Qantas, Finnair, and Cathay Pacific Airways) has also been wooing Air China, in which Cathay Pacific has a 10% stake. The WSJ says that if Air China joins the Star Alliance, China Eastern Airlines would likely become Oneworld's new target.
The Wall Street Journal has a good story on tourism in some of China's less developed and less visited regions. There is also a very nicely done sidebar article, with a map, entitled, "Seeing the Rest of China" that describes "three trips -- two day, three day, and five day options -- from each of Beijing, Shanghai, and Guangzhou." The sidebar is meant those going to these main cities in China with a few days to spare for a bit of pleasure travel.
Now that we have your attention.
Seems competition on U.S. - China routes will be heating up when American Airlines enters the market on April 3. American will be offering a $372 Chicago-Shanghai round trip promotional fare, expected to be matched by United Airlines. With taxes and surcharges, the fare is actually more like $550. Shanghai Daily article states that this new competition should have a lasting downward effect on fares. We should be so lucky!
A couple readers e-mailed asking for travel information from this recent trip. I am hesitant to write about Shanghai because there are many good guidebooks on the city and so many expats live there, who presumably know the city far better than I ever could. So for Shanghai, I will limit my discussion to the hotel in which we stayed, mostly because I would definitely stay there again.
In Shanghai, we stayed at the Radisson Hotel Shanghai New World. The rooms are nice, the gymnasium is nice, and breakfast is good but way too expensive, so try to get it as part of your room package. The best thing about the hotel, however, is its location. It is right across the street from People's Park and right across the street from the People's Park subway station. This makes the hotel very easy to get to and an excellent base from which to travel throughout Shanghai. It is also steps away from the Nanjing Street Mall and close to a whole slew of good, traditional, Shanghai restaurants.
Qingdao: We have an apartment in Qingdao, but when I started having trouble with Internet access and started missing my gym workouts, I fled to the 5 Star Grand Regency Hotel, where Steve (using fluent Chinese) was able to get me a room at the "local rate" of only around $50 per night, including breakfast. Though the Grand Regency is not quite up to the standards of Qingdao's Shangri-La or Crowne Plaza Hotels, it very much has the feel of a Chinese luxury hotel and I like that. I also like how hardly anyone there speaks any English so I am forced to work on my Chinese.
Qingdao actually has a pretty good range of high end business hotels for foreigners. In addition to the Shangri-La, the Crowne Plaza, and the Grand Regency, one should also consider the following:
The Huiquan Dynasty Hotel , though not quite downtown, is in a beautiful section of Qingdao and overlooks one of Qingdao's nicest beaches.
I am a big fan of the Qingdao Seaview Garden Hotel. This hotel has every amenity, is only a five minute taxi ride from downtown, and overlooks a beautiful beach. I know this hotel well because it is a three minute walk from our apartment and I often go there for its excellent breakfasts.
The Best Western's Kylin Hotel Qingdao is also quite nice, but a good fifteen minute cab ride from town. It is, however, quite convenient to the Shandong Exhibition Center.
I have found elong.net (which has some connection with expedia.com) to be one of the best sites for searching for and reserving China hotels.
Qingdao food is consistently excellent and, by U.S. standards, ridiculously cheap. My favorite restaurant in Qingdao has to be Die Qiao, located in the center of Minjiang Lu's restaurant row.
This is one of Qingdao's newest and hottest (in multiple ways) Sichuan restaurants. The chef and nearly all of the staff are from Sichuan province. Word has it that the chef here was told not to change a thing from what he was doing previously as chef at one of Sichuan's finest restaurants and near as I can tell he hasn't. In other words, the food here can be ridiculously hot. One of my favorite dishes here is a shrimp dish, where the shrimp are completely covered in a mound of red peppers when the dish is first brought to the table. The shrimp are so spicy they burn my mouth, but I cannot stop eating them. The tofu and fish dishes here have all been excellent as well, and the fried corn makes for a great side dish. The restaurant itself is beautiful and would fit in just fine on one of London's or New York's trendiest streets.
I always have a couple lunches at the very good and always pleasant Japanese restaurant within our apartment complex at the Silver Garden (200 feet away from the Seaview Garden Hotel, which is at No. 2, Zhanghua Road). The chef here spent time in Japan and he always insists on speaking Japanese with Steve (who does speak Japanese, but not as well as he speaks Chinese). The clientele here seems to be made up mostly of Japanese and Koreans who live in the apartment (or perhaps are staying at the Seaview Garden Hotel. The cooked mackerel and salmon here are excellent, as is the ever changing array of side dishes that come with every meal. The staff at this small restaurant are always welcoming.
I also had excellent pizza for lunch one day at La Villa, 5 Xianggang Zhong, which MyRedStar aptly describes as being just "a pizza throw" up the street from the Shangri-La Hotel and just opposite Qingdao's World Trade Center.
Dou Lai Shun , at 232 Minjiang Lu, is a great place to go for hot pot.
Qingdao's two online English language information websites are good sources for restaurant (and all sorts of other) information on Qingdao. MyRedStar.com maintains an up to date list of Qingdao restaurants (oftentimes reviewed and/or with reader comments) and That's Qingdao has a pdf list of popular restaurants here.
On Sunday, I actually got a little time to do some sightseeing so I went to Changle Lu, also known as Qingdao Culture Street. This long street, in the old part of Qingdao, is made up almost exclusively of art galleries, book shops, and video stores. It also has a small outside market where street vendors line up selling mostly art and small antiques. This is a great place to bargain for and pick up old Mao Zedong plates and authentic little red books. A 200+ unit luxury apartment building is under construction on this street so I imagine it will be very different in a few months.
If anyone ever has any questions regarding Qingdao, please feel free to e-mail either Steve or me and we will try to assist.
This post comes to you from Asiana Flight 271, flying over the Pacific. Asiana is a fine airline and the Seattle flight is on a 777 that is only months old. From Seoul, Asiana flies to a whole host of Chinese cities.
The flight leaves Seattle at 12:20 p.m. and is scheduled to arrive in Seoul at 5:20 p.m., but it invariably gets there much earlier (oftentimes more than a full hour and my TV this time is saying arrival will be at 3:35 p.m.). Asiana even pays for a hotel room for those passengers continuing on to China. One usually gets the choice between a decent hotel near Incheon Airport or a quite nice hotel in downtown Seoul.
Incheon Airport is a great airport. It has a whole host of nice shops and many good restaurants. It even has a hotel in the airport, which rents out rooms in six hour blocks for only $45. The rooms have a television, a telephone, internet access, and a bathroom with shower. I recommend the Westin Chosun sushi restaurant on the second floor of the airport after immigration from an arrival. It is fast and good, though it can be difficult to find.
Postscript: My in-flight internet died before I could post this so, in the interest of full disclosure, I must admit this is actually now coming from Shanghai.
