Wikipedia defies Chinese government
Jimmy Wales, founder of wikipedia and one of the 100 most influential figures in the world according to Time magazine, refused to bow to Chinese government by defying a self-censorship on his website. (click here to read the news report)
Wikipedia, a tremendously populous reference tool, was banned in China last year, mostly on it’s entry on Taishi clash. It’s a great shame that the most populous online tool has little Chinese contents, since mainland Chinese can’t get access to it. It’s not only a pity to wikipedia, also a pity to Chinese people, who were isolated from a hugely powerful Internet tool.
Chinese can’t blame Wales of course. It’s the government who are blocking them from benefiting from the convenience and revolution of the Internet.
Jimmy Wales, unlike Yahoo’s Jerry Yang and Google’s two founders, rejected to delete the contents that Chinese government hates, and not surprisingly wikipedia will continue to be banned in China. Wales started wikipedia not for making money but to spread the strength of the Internet. This may be the motivation for his ethic and firmness. Yahoo and Google’s founders are businessmen, and it’s easy to understand businessmen don’t have morality. They bend to wherever money is.
For those who are interested in wikipedia, the Atlantic has a great story.
China’s Courts shut their doors
China derailed further from an open society by patching up a new rule against media’s access to courts. According to the new rule, national secrets, business secrets and private contents won’t be allowed to be reported. This is a panacea to all unfavorable reports the courts don’t like to see. Since everything can easily fall into the “secrets” and “privacy” catalog, the authorities now have the full liberty to decide what to be public and what not to be.
This is a brazen violation of the principles of a modern and public society.
Courts are aimed to serve the public by exerting final and indifferent authorities on issues that the public can’t sort out themselves. Their maintenance is relied solely on public fund. Every tax payer is the stock holder of courts and should be entitled proper rights. In an open society such as the U.S., court materials are open to citizens. Anyone can go to a court to review case documents. The federal courts put documents of every federal case on a public website.
Then you have China, where governments, although also maintained by public fund, hardly share their power with the public, and where the government legitimacy is established on force, rather than on public votes. That’s the fundamental reason why the authorities enjoy freedom to tamper and impose laws and regulations at will to oppress whatever they don’t want to see. And that’s also the fundamental reason why a few months ago the authority decided to force reporters away from reporting disasters.
By shutting their doors, current governments are steering away from the principles of an open and public society.
China Merchants Bank $2.4 billion IPO
Last Friday China Merchants Bank, the most profitable bank in China, sold it’s shares in Hong Kong Stock Exchange. China Merchants is the second mainland bank being listed in Hong Kong this year. Despite Bank of China’s $11.2 billion record IPO in June, China Merchants boasts the highest return on equity among the country’s biggest banks. Its earnings surged at an annual speed of 40 percent from 2000 to 2005. The performace obviously eclipses Bank of China, and ICBC, which is planning a HK-mainland dual list this year.
China Construction Bank was just included on Hang Seng Index. Agriculture Bank is the only incurable one among the big four that is seemingly forgotten by the authority.
The death of a so-called dark horse
China’s media love uncommon stories and newsworthy figures. That’s why they like to quote Sun Hongbin, former Chairman of a property developer named Sunco (the name is apparently derived from the founder’s surname), a dark horse. But few dark horses end up as white horses, none is Sun, who sold his 50 percent stake at Sunco last week to a Hong Kong infrastructure company. This end of the dark horse, however, has been much predicted by both real estate community and a few economists.
Let’s take a look at how Sun performed as a vigorous dark horse. He could easily drop 3 billion yuan on an auction of a single land project while his self-owned capital is less than 1 billion yuan. In 2003 he spent more than 7 billion yuan merely to buy land. His company swole to more than 8,000 people in less than two years. He deposited 12 million square meters’ land in a year. He proclaimed at several open events that he will badly beat Vanke, a listed property developer. Most of his senior executives were less than 30 years old, some of whom even can’t use computers. (facts are from a news report from Southern Weekend. By the way, I have to say the newspaper’s reporting and editing skills are deteriorating.)
People will naturally ask the source of his money. The answer is very simple: either from banks or from governments. Not surprisingly, this is the answer to most questions toward Chinese company’s capital. Low interest rates rendered Sun cheap money, and his dominance in Tianjin, a coastal city southeast of Beijing, rationalized much support and credit from the local government. In fact, the local government formed a partnership company with Sun only to pump money to Sunco.
Sun was so presumptuous that he was almost excluded from the real estate circle. But to Sun, he was well on his way, the way to build his empire, or, the way to withdraw someday, with his pockets full of cash. Despite his sorrowful tone, he might be the only winner of the stake selling deal. The buyer have to face staggering debts; the employees have to leave; property buyers spent the life-long savings only to suffer low-quality houses; as for bank, Sun left them one more non-performance loan. Sun will be the only one making money from the deal. How much is his 50 percent stake worth? No public reports cover this.
It might be time for China’s media to stop hailing people like Sun. They won’t create mysteries (in fact, there is no economic mysteries). They can only create bad loans and helpless consumers.
MySpace’s founder used to be an Internet Junk producer?
According to a report done by a blogger, MySpace’s founder used to work at a company involving spam, spamware, and adware. The report said MySpace is
Headed by C.E.O., founder, and chairman Brad Greenspan, eUniverse (now Intermix Media), was a multimillion-dollar marketing and entertainment company known for sites like Skilljam.com, pop-up advertising, unsolicited mass e-mails, spyware, and the adware behind controversial peer-to-peer file sharing network Kazaa.
Here is the news story from New York Times.
How long will Baidu maintain its hammerlock?
Today’s New York Times carried a length story about Baidu, the Chinese search engine that beats Google and Yahoo in its home market. The reporter seems very passionate on Baidu, and wrote the story in a favorable tone which is rare among foreign reporters, who usually use a sarcastically style whenever talk about China. The report said Baidu “clobbered” Yahoo and Google, which is hardly seen among China. In most industries, Chinese companies usually are little brothers who are either the acquisition targets of foreign companies or negligible rivals.
I am not a Baidu fan, I also don’t agree with Baidu’s most marketing activities, especially with its gimmicks such as using nationalism to promote its brand. Anyone with common economic sense will understand that Baidu is not a national company, if we have to divide companies with stereotyped standards of national, private, or collective. Baidu is simply a U.S. listed companies and is registered off-shore. When nationalism is frequently resorted as a political tool, I really hate to see it is also maneuvered with business motivations. Baidu should use its credit, technology, and business skills to kill Google and Yahoo at home.
I hardly use Baidu, so am not familiar with its upsides on Chinese content search. But I’ve heard people talking about it. Also Baidu is smart to use auction to sell Ads. Chinese have complete different reactions towards Ads, and it’s very important to adapt to the local tastes. As for the technology, most people, including me, won’t bet on Baidu. The battle is not over. Given China’s nascent advertising market and internet development, it’s still too early to write lengthy paean for Baidu. Eulogy won’t be good for a young company. It’s especially true if we look at Baidu’s stocks. While it’s stock price is only about 1/5 of Google, it’s P/E is more than 3 times higher. I am not sure if Baidu’s fundamentals and China’s internet market will support such an unimaginable valuation. Well, let’s see.
