What's in the News

Yes, but that was a Chinese person from Shanghai who refused to hire a 'black' person.  The local 'white' folk felt it was wrong for that to happen.  I know a large percentage of Chinese people in China are very racist against people from Africa.  When I was working in Wuxi they call the African graduate students 'black ghosts'.   

That newspaper article implies that the cafe owner (Chinese) was racist.  He hired a Japanese national to work but wouldn't hire someone he perceived was from Africa (even though the gentleman was from Brazil). 

I truly wish people were 'colour'  blind.  It is the person beneath the skin that is important not the external beauty/ugly/colour that is important.   

I think it's one of those times where he's got a specific bone to pick (something about getting screwed in business) and he wants to explain why his bone has generalisable elements. That is, it's not just that he's losing a bitter legal case with very large sums of money at stake. He wants to say that included inside the specific losing case are elements that helped everything go wrong and would help anything go wrong. So, it's not just CITIC's business approach, it's something built in to relationships between us and them. CITIC aren't the mongrels, "the Chinese" are. The style of speech with the relatively incautious generalization is perilous close to racism.

If he toned it down to "the current Chinese system of management and infrastructure that allows, even encourages corruption and very nearly mandates the exclusion of foreigners so that we can't do business as we best understand it and must always be on our guard because, hell, they shoot each other over there and really can't be relied on...." or something similar, then we might get a good story out of the deal and learn a few things. In which case it might not be racism so much as governance.

I'll admit to liking the blunt talk.

I totally agree it was terribly phrased, specially since Australia seems to have quite bad form for anti Asian racism

I'm always amazed when these billionaires go on TV and make arses of themselves, they must employ people on large salaries just to make sure they say something along the lines of your post rather than what he actually said. It just distracts from the valid point when they are so clumsy....

I also can not understand why a very wealthy person such Clive, goes into politics. If I had a young family and plenty of money  I think that I would be enjoying life with them. Clive does not appear fit or healthy to me, so in his shoes, I would not be wasting what may well be a short life of good health.

Clive's always been in politics, hasn't he? I had a look at his wikipedia entry to see how he grew up (and it says nothing much except that he was suburban kid with a family rich enough to support his education), and it suggests he's been screwing around in political stuff since before 1970.

The thing is, Australia has a fair bit of anxiety about China, right? Reading newspapers from time to time over the last few years you see worries about the amount of real estate Chinese companies buy in Sydney, the number of resource companies they want, and so on. So when Clive-y says, "They're Communists, they shoot their own people, they haven't got a justice system, and they want to take over this country," he might well have his finger on the pulse. Or one of the pulses. The primary replies, as far as can be judged by a brief scan of the news, are only two: "that's racist!" and "omg, our trade links!" Both strike me as inadequate. The Chinese reply - "that's absurd and irresponsible" - is equally shallow. The Chinese embassy in Australia said:

"We believe that a sound China-Australian relationship serves the fundamental interests of both countries. It is and will always be supported by the two peoples."

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-08-19/government-extending-olive-branch-to-china-after-palmer-tirade/5681118

Imputing China-serving beliefs to these "two peoples" is not racist, obviously, but it is as broad a generalization as Clive's and possibly even more self-serving.

In sum, there might be a fair number of otherwise normal Australia citizens saying, well yeah, Clive, we know what you mean (though you're kind of racist about it and omg our trade ties). How many other politicians are actively addressing the zeitgeist? Lord help us if the only other one is Jackie Lambie.

I'm sure I read somewhere that Australia dodged the 2008 financial crisis by cutting deals with China to sell a lot of the countries minerals to them for pretty cheap?

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

I do recall reading an opinion that Abbott and co are such mediocre politicians because they have nothing much left to do. The opinion claimed Australia's stability is build on a foundation of economic policy laid down a political generation ago by pollies like Paul Keating and co. (Conveniently, Keating et al were Labour while Abbott etc are Liberal.)

I also recall reading a possibly irrelevant statistical claim that the actual Chinese presence in Australia's property market is pretty small, like a percentage point or less. They supposedly have a disproportionate effect because companies build towering apartment blocks that might stay mostly empty and individuals avoid auctions by buying houses over the odds and driving up prices.

There's a lot of "hot money" about the place, supposedly, and it's been making people weird because it's "Chinese".

Yes Calach, Clive has apparently always had an interest in politics. I should have been specific. I meant, why would you start a new political party and, to my way of thinking, waste so much time, energy and money on it? I was thinking in terms of his children and his health. I guess you know the old saying "to each his own said the old girl as she kissed the cow". I would be off enjoying my family and my possibly limited lifespan.

I think i once read a study
  about this very thing. The answer was something like, what do they do when they got financial sucess? Seek power of course!  Goes with the buddisht thought of "never enough" always wanting more more more, so stop wanting.

China's Cesarean Section Delivery Rate too High

A new commentary published (20 August) in BJOG: An International Journal of Obstetrics and Gynaecology (BJOG) suggests that efforts must be made to decrease China's increasing caesarean section rate.

China has one of the highest caesarean delivery rates in the world. Of 16 million babies born in 2010, approximately half were by caesarean. Although the exact rate is not known, the current Chinese language literature on caesarean rates in China reports total caesarean rates ranging from 36% to 58%. However, before the 1980s, the caesarean rate was below 5% and it did not rise above 10% until after 1990.

The commentary, offering an analysis into reasons for the increase in caesarean section in the last few decades, concludes that China's high caesarean section rate appears to be driven by three factors: the structure of the obstetric care system, provider incentives and cultural aspects of patient preference....


Yet another reason..

Yes Calach, Clive has apparently always had an interest in politics. I should have been specific. I meant, why would you start a new political party and, to my way of thinking, waste so much time, energy and money on it? I was thinking in terms of his children and his health. I guess you know the old saying "to each his own said the old girl as she kissed the cow". I would be off enjoying my family and my possibly limited lifespan.

What they usually do and seems like the obvious thing to do if you were a billionaire would be to cultivate friends and influence in political parties rather than appealing directly to the public via the media, that way you are getting other people to look stupid for you and probably having more influence...

China's Cesarean Section Delivery Rate too High

A new commentary published (20 August) in BJOG: An International Journal of Obstetrics and Gynaecology (BJOG) suggests that efforts must be made to decrease China's increasing caesarean section rate.

China has one of the highest caesarean delivery rates in the world. Of 16 million babies born in 2010, approximately half were by caesarean. Although the exact rate is not known, the current Chinese language literature on caesarean rates in China reports total caesarean rates ranging from 36% to 58%. However, before the 1980s, the caesarean rate was below 5% and it did not rise above 10% until after 1990.

The commentary, offering an analysis into reasons for the increase in caesarean section in the last few decades, concludes that China's high caesarean section rate appears to be driven by three factors: the structure of the obstetric care system, provider incentives and cultural aspects of patient preference....


Yet another reason..

Had a conversation with some friends about this recently. They all agreed that caesarean delivery is safer than natural delivery.

Yeah, according to the article too:

"Additionally, patient preferences are an important factor when considering the caesarean section rate in China. The authors note that in the second generation of the One Child Policy, there is a demand for a perfect outcome and both patients and doctors now view caesarean delivery as more effective than harmful. Fear of labour on wards that do not offer pain control, epidurals, nursing support or family support reinforces this expectation, state the authors."

According to the internet, natural childbirth recovery time is 1-2 weeks. For C-section, it's 5-6. I have no idea. It's a topic fraught with peril.

Quote from: piglet on August 15, 2014, 07:18:15 PM

This would suggest that local police are pretty damn efficient.comments?
http://www.lostlaowai.com/news/australian-expat-dongguan-tied-apartment-robbed/

The guy appears to be some kind of wanted business man/engineer / rich guy. I wonder if they would be so eager to help an English teacher. Plenty stories around of how the police have not done just done little but the foreigner has been blamed, especially if the other is a rich guy.

Anyone rich enough to have 450k in cash and jewelry laying around the apartment probably lived in a place with lots and lots of high quality security cameras.

Even so, Good Job Dongguan PSB!

Had a conversation with some friends about this recently. They all agreed that caesarean delivery is safer than natural delivery.

I'm sure that TCM practitioners must have been endorsing it as safer for many thousands of years.  At least, that's how my lovely wife seems to make most of her medical decisions.