What's in the News

I have no idea.

Neither do I.   

China’s Coming Education Crisis

Yao Xinyu, founder of a popular software hosting service called GitCafe, opted not to attend college because he felt he could do a better job teaching himself what he needed to be successful in the real world.

His parents disapproved but he stuck to his guns, studied on his own and built the successful startup after attracting 3 million yuan in capital from Greenwood Asset Management in late 2013. The 24-year old doesn’t see much chance that colleges in China will change to better meet the shifting needs of China’s economy, he said, since demand is high, their business model is profitable and there’s little incentive to adapt.

“I just decided I knew how to develop my own career,” he added.

One the knottiest problems China faces as its economy slows is a mismatch between people’s education levels and the needs of an economy increasingly reliant on technology and innovation, the Organization of Economic Cooperation and Development said Friday in a report on China.

China’s productivity is decelerating and it’s important to reverse this “worrisome” trend given the nation’s rapidly aging population and the related prospect of slower rates of savings and investment, the Paris-based organization said.

“The knowledge taught and skills nurtured at school do not sufficiently match labor market needs,” it said. “Workplace training-based vocational education arrangements are woefully inadequate.”

While China has aggressively stepped up its spending on research, this isn’t translating sufficiently into innovation, the 34-member OECD said. China’s spending on research and development hit 2% of gross domestic product in 2013, which is above the European Union average, and has set a target of 2.5% of GDP by 2020. But innovation remains weak as measured by international patenting and trademark registration, the report said. “And the bulk of university research is not relevant for business,” the OECD said.

Many of China’s past gains in productivity were related to capital, but the country’s future focus should be on the economic benefits of better trained workers, said Angel Gurria, secretary general of the Paris-based group. “Productivity, productivity, productivity, it’s not a choice, it’s a must,” he said. “Without it, China’s not going to be able to continue growing at this cruising speed.”

China has targeted economic growth of 7% this year, a reduction from last year’s 7.4% which was its slowest pace in nearly a quarter century.

A 2013 survey by the MyCOS Research Institute of 150,000 graduates found the skills they learned in school often did not match the needs of companies, particularly in management, programming and “soft” areas of expertise like negotiating, trouble shooting and analysis. Many of these skills are important if China is going to expand its service industry and reduce its dependence on manufacturing, investment and exports, the OECD said.

While more money is being spent on education, average starting salaries for teachers are comparatively low amid stark inequalities over access to schooling, the report said.

Another major problem is that China’s school system has too often tended to emphasize theory over practice, said Tang Min, chairperson of the YouChange Foundation that funds education projects and a former official with the Asian Development Bank and China’s State Council. While the country has vocational schools, most of them are trying to convert to four-year academic institutions that are more lucrative and prestigious, he said.

“China’s education system is relatively backward and exam-oriented,” Mr. Tang said, adding that changing the system will take time. “That’s one reason for the slowing economy. Business is moving fast, there’s more competition from abroad and the comparative advantages of China are less.”

China has initiated various reforms. Last fall it announced a plan to reduce the singular importance of the gaokao, the national college exam, by including more information on prospective entrants’ high school records in university applications. And in January, the State Council issued a draft proposal making it easier to start private schools and giving provinces the authority to approve institutions of higher learning. But critics say reform is slow and doesn’t go far enough.

The Chinese education system’s inordinate focus on test scores discourages creativity and critical inquiry, analysts say. But it has at least fueled development of one creative sector. Blistering pressure to get into top schools leads to “myriads of cunning techniques and keeps afloat an industry of innovators, producers and suppliers of cheating devices,” the OECD said.

– Mark Magnier

So if I'm teaching things like management, trouble shooting, and analysis, that means higher salaries for me, right?

Right?

Yeah, right.


Actually, it might do if it were the companies doing the paying and they had an actual requirement. But as it's the government, the institutions, and the parents...

So if I'm teaching things like management, trouble shooting, and analysis, that means higher salaries for me, right?

Right?

Yeah, right.


Actually, it might do if it were the companies doing the paying and they had an actual requirement. But as it's the government, the institutions, and the parents...

I think it means you should start your own teaching or consulting business. But, imagine the patience that would require.

Stil, this dude lives in your neck of the woods.   

Not sure how long he will remain alive if the 17 girlfriends decide he shouldn't   

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/china/11520060/Chinese-man-with-17-girlfriends-caught-out-at-hospital.html

Thought you might get a kick out of this story from Taiwan (I've been translating/summarizing Taiwanese news lately).

http://www.totaltaipei.com/dragon-king-claims-to-cure-cancer-with-breast-fondling/“Dragon King” Claims to Cure Cancer with Breast Fondling

A self-proclaimed “Dragon King” fortune teller in New Taipei duped women into getting naked and giving him money. His powers that supposedly improved blood circulation could only work when the women were completely naked. He made about NT$300,000/mo.

Damn.  All the entertaining jobs are already taken.

Mapping China’s middle class

Generational change and the rising prosperity of inland cities will power consumption for years to come.

The explosive growth of China’s emerging middle class has brought sweeping economic change and social transformation—and it’s not over yet. By 2022, our research suggests, more than 75 percent of China’s urban consumers will earn 60,000 to 229,000 renminbi ($9,000 to $34,000) a year.

In purchasing-power-parity terms, that range is between the average income of Brazil and Italy. Just 4 percent of urban Chinese households were within it in 2000—but 68 percent were in 2012.2 In the decade ahead, the middle class’s continued expansion will be powered by labor-market and policy initiatives that push wages up, financial reforms that stimulate employment and income growth, and the rising role of private enterprise, which should encourage productivity and help more income accrue to households.3 Should all this play out as expected, urban-household income will at least double by 2022.

Beneath the topline figures are significant shifts in consumption dynamics, which we have been tracking since 2005 using a combination of questionnaires and in-depth interviews to create a detailed portrait by income level, age profile, geographic location, and shopping behavior.4 Our latest research suggests that within the burgeoning middle class, the upper middle class is poised to become the principal engine of consumer spending over the next decade.

As that happens, a new, more globally minded generation of Chinese will exercise disproportionate influence in the market. Middle-class growth will be stronger in smaller, inland cities than in the urban strongholds of the eastern seaboard. And the Internet’s consumer impact will continue to expand. Already, 68 percent of the middle class has access to it, compared with 57 percent of the total urban population (see “China’s e-tail revolution”)....


The projections later in the article are damn interesting. Tier 3 is where it's at, baby! Unfortunately, turns out I am a member of the Chinese mass middle, not the emerging upper middle. Meanwhile, someone should teach this stuff, you know? It's a little bit ridiculous that students still name anyone with disposable income "rich man".

China's cyberspace extremely vulnerable to overseas cyberattacks

China's massive Internet infrastructure is extremely vulnerable to overseas cyberattacks, experts warned on Thursday after a server malfunction redirected a large number of requests to wrong pages for days.

The country has seen an increasing number of attacks targeting key Internet infrastructure, government bodies and influential industrial organisations, according to a report.

This was released on Thursday by the National Computer Network Emergency Response Technical Team Coordination Center, a nongovernmental agency that monitors China's Internet safety.

"Although protection methods have improved generally, the risk level for basic Internet infrastructure remains high," the report said.

Last year, the centre detected more than 1,500 major security flaws from telecom carriers, triple the amount found a year previously.

Four days before the agency issued its warning, Internet users on the Chinese mainland were finding it difficult to access a large number of websites that allow visitors to log in using Facebook accounts.

Page view requests to these sites were hijacked and redirected to two addresses－wpkg.org, the home page of an open source software, and ptraveler.com, a travel blog.

The incident affected a long list of sites, including cnn.com, yahoo.com.jp and the site of Emirates airline.

A senior staff member overseeing Internet operations at the coordination centre said: "It was a rather strange case because the hackers were directly targeting the telecom carriers' servers. It has rarely happened before.

"China Telecom was the biggest victim because it is the largest Internet service provider. ... It is impossible to estimate the damage at the moment."

Access to the sites affected had been restored by Thursday afternoon.

In a statement, the centre said the redirection was caused because some of the servers in China were "contaminated" by malware from overseas servers.

Experts said it will be difficult to trace the source of the attack because it is technically possible to carry it out by remotely controlling the servers.

No group or individual has claimed responsibility for the attack.

Shen Yi, a researcher at Fudan University, said China has been on the receiving end of foreign online hacking.

"The country lags far behind the West in building an anti-hacking system. When the worst happens, we cannot find an effective way to defend Internet safety."

Shen added that China is focusing on improving cybersafety levels, but the vulnerabilities have been easy to find.


o_O

Also, btw, Zhou Yongkang was sentenced to life in prison.

British spies removed from operations after Russia and China crack codes to leaked Snowden files

MI6 has been forced to pull spies out of operations due to Russia and China cracking encrypted documents stolen by US whistleblower Edward Snowden

Britain has had to remove its spies from live operations after Russia and China allegedly cracked top secret files stolen by US whistleblower Edward Snowden, a source has claimed.

MI6 has been forced to pull spies out of operations due to Russia and China cracking encrypted documents stolen by the former contractor to the US National Security Agency, a government source has told the BBC.

The source said the countries "have information" that led to agents being moved but added there was "no evidence" any had been harmed.

It comes after Home Secretary Theresa May told the Commons' home affairs select committee in March the leaks about Britain's surveillance capabilities had caused "damage" to the country's security.

She said Snowden's actions, after he stole and disclosed thousands of top secret files, had led to "an impact on the ability of our agencies to do the work they need to do".

Snowden, now in Russia, leaked intelligence data two years ago.

According to the Sunday Times, Western intelligence agencies have been forced to pull agents out of "hostile countries" after "Moscow gained access to more than one million classified files" held by Mr Snowden.

"Senior government sources confirmed that China had also cracked the encrypted documents, which contain details of secret intelligence techniques and information that could allow British and American spies to be identified," the newspaper added.

Last year the Telegraph revealed GCHQ had lost track of some of the most dangerous crime lords and has had to abort surveillance on others after Snowden exposed their tactics.

The spy agency has suffered “significant” damage in its ability to monitor and capture serious organised criminals following the exposes by the former CIA contractor.

Intelligence officers are now blind to more than a quarter of the activities of the UK’s most harmful crime gangs after they changed their communications methods in the wake of the Snowden leaks.


/bullshit

.

That's a conspiracy theory too far for me. There are incongruities in all of what's happened over the last two years, but the simpler explanation is Snowden is/was smarter than we normally think someone hung out in public can be. If the CIA were behind it all, we'd have to credit them with outlandish new close-up magic abilities. Have there been similar media circuses orchestrated by the CIA that drew so much attention to spying itself? I do not doubt there have been media circuses orchestrated in the past, but surely they go out of their way to avoid any hint of meta-texts. The involvement of agencies is meant to be invisible.

What we're used to in the world of whistleblowers are people like Chelsea Manning, which is to say, people who get caught and crushed. They don't get away with it. The whole story is how horrible it is for them in prison after the fact. The leap we have to make to accept Snowden is he had what we haven't seen before, a strategy that keeps him out of the hands of the government. He gets away.

.

There is a case for saying what he leaked is nothing new. It relies some on minimising the difference between some people suspecting and lots of people having it reported in newspapers for them. It's possible also that the value of Snowden lies entirely in what political mileage various US agencies can get out of the supposed chaos he has created. But that does rather minimise any issues the people may have now. He said he was doing it so the people could be informed and that choice could be put back in their hands. Granted, most people are saying we don't care, just gimmie my gmail. But still, do we have to see what happened over the last two years as a story of unchanged power institutions just doing what they usually do?