Shanghai World Expo Guide for Dummies

Shanghai World Expo is huge, grand, massive and crowded. There are other adjectives that might be appropriate to this venue but I spent only two exhausting days there and barely scratched the surface. I can liken my Expo experience to the group of mahouts milling around the elephant, each only getting a partial and possibly less than accurate view of the animal.

On my first day, I visited Zone C which consisted of pavilions from the Americas and Europe. Next day, I tour Zone A which included the China pavilion and others from Asia. I did not spend time in Zones B, D or E except passing though E on my way to the exit. I also did not visit any of the theme pavilions, entertainment venues and by-passed popular pavilions with a long queue of people waiting to get in. For sure, I did not see much of the gigantic beast known as the Expo. Nonetheless, I made some observations and generalizations that I want to share with my readers.

All the popular pavilions metered the admission of visitors by letting in one group at a time. In some cases, the frequency of admission was dictated by presentations on discrete time segments and in others the control of visitors was just to avoid congestion at the beginning of the exhibition hall. In the less popular pavilions, we simply walked in, looked and walked out.

In general, I found that most countries focused on presenting a striking external appearance but may not have exhibitions inside commensurate with their fancy exterior. UK was one that came to mind. The exterior looked at a curled porcupine with thousands of acrylic rods sticking out. The inside consisted of the other ends of the same acrylic rods, the end of which had embedded seeds. One might have to queue for an hour or more to get inside the so-called chapel for a head-scratching bewildered “huh” response that could not justify more than a 3 minute stay.

Another enigma was the Spain pavilion. The outside of this pavilion was covered with overlapping rattan mats that gave the appearance of brown fish scales up close and intriguing mottled shades of brown at a distance,--all in all an interesting looking building. Alas, the promising allure of outside was unanswered inside. The visitor, after a long queue and finally being admitted, was visually assaulted with projection of images on the walls including that of a live flamingo dancer. The parade through the halls ended in a large area featuring a huge robotic statue of a sitting baby. The head of this baby turned, eyes opened and closed as did its mouth. I expected drool to come out which thankfully it did not. There was no way to understand the point of the many times life-size and homely doll. My best explanation was that it was an attempt to encourage birth control—and darn effective a message at that.

Admission into the China pavilion, by far one of the most popular, was impossible. The visitor first had to obtain a ticket with an assigned time slot for queuing and then return to queue for admission at the assigned time. Most of the tickets were gone almost immediately after the door to the expo opened. I did manage to enter the ground floor of the China pavilion where the cluster of pavilions of the provinces was located. These provinces actually made some of the most creditable presentations, many emphasized the tourist attractions that resided within their provincial borders.

The 4D presentations at Jilin and Liaoning pavilions were quite entertaining. The 4th D consisted of blasts of air, rocking chairs and wires that whipped against the spectator’s legs designed to take his/her breaths away while viewing 3 dimensional projection. These special effects were significantly superior to the presentation at the U.S. pavilion, though the American presentation had a touching story line while the story lines of Chinese presentations were weak.

Here are some general guidelines I would recommend to would be Expo goers:

1. It’s not necessary to get to the venue early in the morning when the Expo first opens. Early arrival simply means you’ll run out of gas earlier in the day. If you arrive in mid afternoon, some of the early goers may already be too tired to last and in the process of leaving. This way you might have some stamina left to see the Expo under the lights and might be able to get into some pavilions when the lines are not too long.

2. The local paper, such as the English Shanghai Daily, will have a summary of events planned for the day at different venues. You might want to plan your schedule to take in some of those.

3. Tickets are readily available, perhaps even at your hotel or you can simply purchase the ticket at the kiosks by any of the entrances. The tickets can be used at any time and remain valid until machine punched at the gate. I did not see any provision for re-entering the fairgrounds once the ticket has been punched.

4. Read about various pavilions as much as possible so that you can decide as to which ones are worth your while to queue and which ones to skip. I heard (but did not try myself) that local tours include a selected number of pavilions where it is possible to join the group tour line and avoid the long queue for individuals.

5. I also heard that to encourage visits to less popular pavilions, the Expo authorities will allow a visitor to jump the line after collecting a certain number of stamps on their souvenir Expo passport from the otherwise unattended countries. Domestic visitors were enthusiastic collectors of foreign chops on their Expo passports.

6. Zones A, B and C are located in the Pudong side of the Huangpu River while Zones D and E are on the Puxi side. There are frequent ferries, free of charge, to take you from one side to other. There are also free buses that go from zone to zone.

7. There are 8 major gates into the Expo grounds. You should pick the gate closest to the area you want to spend your time. For example, No. 5 and 6 gates are closest to the China pavilion while No. 8 gate is closest to the U.S. pavilion. The taxi cab can usually drop you off closer to the gate while the metro will require a longer walk.

Changting in the heart of Hakka country

From Yongding (永定), the center of Hakka roundhouses in Fujian, it was a short hop and skip to Changting (长汀)—at least it was now with new super highways that bridged chasms and bore through mountains.

I had a sentimental reason to visit Changting; I was born there. My parents were teaching at Xiamen University and the university had moved inward in anticipation of the Japanese invasion. Indeed, Xiamen port was taken by the Japanese imperial troops early in the War but they were spread too thin to bother moving westward toward the remote region around Changting.

Changting now a city of around 6-700,000 was already an important city in the Tang dynasty known as Tingzhoufu (汀洲府). The city’s tag line was that Rewi Ally said that Changting ranked as one of two most beautiful ancient cities in China along with Fenghuang (凤凰) in Hunan. Now that I have been to both places, I’d say it’s a bit of exaggeration. Fenghuang had much more to offer as a tourist destination.

Just one comparison should suffice to illustrate my point. Both cities have a pretty river flowing through the center of the city. In Fenghuang, the visitor can skip across the river over carefully placed concrete blocks pretending to be stones and hire boatmen to pole them on bamboo rafts down the river while being serenade in ethnic Miao folk songs. Changting offered a scenic riverside park for strollers but no raft rides. We did see a fisherman sitting comfortably in the middle of the river casting towards deeper pools. Ms Chen, our guide, explained since a huge flood that occurred in late 1990’s, Ting Jiang (汀江) has been reduced to not much more than a creek. The flood must have swept the resident dragon king out to sea, she speculated.

I went to Changting partly to see Fujian’s version of a Fenghuang but more because I wanted to see if there was anything left of Xiamen University campus, where I spent the first six years of my life.

Our guide took us to the largest elementary school in Changting just as the school was letting students home for lunch. This No. 1 elementary school with over 2500 students was built over the grounds of the former university. The only building remained of Xiada (夏大) was the “Daxiongdian” (大雄殿) built in the traditional style of a Chinese temple. On prominent display by the front door was a sign commemorating the former site of the university from 1937 to 1946.

Practically next door to the school was a Confucius temple, Wen Miao (文庙). My mother had told me that we lived in a Confucius temple. Our guide was quite adamant that it was not possible for anyone to live in the side chambers of the main courtyard leading to the main temple. Then my wife, May, spotted a wing of rooms in a dilapidated building in the back of the temple. A couple of rooms were still in use with beds. Others were for storing stuff and gathering mold and dust. Overall, the wing of rooms was just a slight upgrade from a manger. May and I agreed that we’ve found my likely place of birth. The feeling was personally gratifying.

Changting may not be quite ready for big time tourism—the best hotel in town did not even have a tourist map to give to the visitor, but did have an unusual local specialty called ba gan, i.e., eight dried edibles such as dried bamboo shoots, vegetable, bean curd, pork etc. The one that caught my attention was dried field mice. The advertisement showed red roasted color but easily recognizable dried whole rodent, tail and all. I was disappointed that the actual vacuum blister package contained only diced pieces. Still for about $1.35 per package, I got myself a bargain for a conversation piece.

From Changting’s museum, we learned that the old Tingzhoufu was the center of Hakka country. The displays talked about the culture and customs of the Hakka people and their five major waves of migration beginning from the great turmoil of Western Jin dynasty around the fourth century AD when they fled south from what is now the Henan region to Fujian. From Fujian, subsequent waves took the Hakkas to other parts of China and then to Southeast Asia.

Before the Nationalists and the Communists agreed to unite and fight the invading Japanese and before the Long March, Changting was an important commercial base for the CCP. In fact it was known as Red Shanghai, claiming that anything that was available in those days in Shanghai, it could be purchased in Changting. Jinggangshan (井冈山) where the main forces were stationed was just a short distance away on the other side of the Fujian-Jiangxi border.

If you are already going to visit the roundhouses of Yongding, then I would recommend a stop in Changting. The museum has excellent displays, albeit in Chinese only, that provide a thorough introduction of the Hakka people, culture and values. At the martyr monument for Qu Qiubai (瞿秋白) and the museum next to the statue of General Yang Chengwu (杨成武), one can find a lot of material describing the early days of CCP and its struggle against the KMT. Qu was an intellectual giant in the CCP’s early movement who was too sick with TB to join the Long March. He stayed behind, was captured and Chiang Kai-shek personally ordered his execution. Yang was a local who rose to become a three star general.

Going back to Xiamen from Changting only took a little over 3 hours on limited access toll road all the way. We counted 40 tunnels and probably as many viaducts in the 280 km span of the highway, from the mountainous western edge of Fujian to the seaport. Some of the tunnels were over 3 miles long. Some had serpentine curvature. Knowing that construction of the tunnels began from both ends, we marveled at the engineering skills involved and concluded that one by-product of its heavy infrastructure investment is that no one knows how to build bridges and bore tunnels better than China.

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Changting still has some alley sized streets that date back to Song dynasty

On this Song dynasty street, haircut still costs US 75 cents

Around the corner of the elementary school, a patient hawker was waiting for the children to look and buy his plastics toys.

The school gave the kids a 2.5 hour noon time break to give them time to go home for lunch.

A scenic view of Tingjiang River with part of the city wall visible on the right.

The riverside park just inside the city wall.


Changting also has a chenghuangmiao, a city god temple. In many cities in China, this temple is regarded as old superstition and has been torn down.

On one wing of the city god temple were arrays of small figurines that looked like depiction of historical or mythical figures revered in old China.

On the two sides of the main temple were ten murals depicting each of the ten magistrates in Hell that will review the sins committed by the new arrival and his orderlies then carried out the punishment to fit the crime.

福建土楼, Hakka Roundhouses

At one time, these structures viewed from satellite appeared to be threatening missile silos, at least to some wary American officials. In 2008, UNESCO designated these uniquely Hakka construction as World Heritage buildings. Though generically known as Hakka Roundhouses, not all are round but can come in oval and rectangular shapes as well as in all sizes and configurations. The generic Chinese terminology is tulou (土楼) meaning earthen buildings and is more accurate. Increasingly these buildings are considered as ecologically sound architectural gems and are drawing the attention of professional architects around the world.


Figure １Bird's eye view of a round and square tulou

Though varied in size and shape, the tulous share certain common characteristics. The walls are made of rammed earth reinforced with bamboo strips, up to 2 meters thick at the base and gradually tapered as the wall rises to the roof, 3 to 4 stories high. Small windows begin on the third floor where inhabitants live. Most roundhouses have only one entrance, a thick solid wooden door heavily reinforced and protected by a water dousing system in the event of siege by fire.

Most of the community activity takes place in the central courtyard. Facing the entrance would be the altar to pay homage to goddess Guanyin (观音) and in the center of large tulous, there would be a community meeting hall. There would be at least one well in the courtyard and in many cases two on the east west axis, though never aligned for fengshui (风水) reasons. Abutting the sides of the meeting hall are pig pens and chicken coops, most of them no longer in use, as well as public bath facilities.


Figure ２5-storied Yuchanglou from 1308 AD

Many families can live in one building, usually all related with the same surname. Every family occupies a slice of the roundhouse, from first floor to the top. Ground level is for cooking and eating. Second floor is usually for storage and to do the daily chores and the upper floors for sleeping. Obviously all social activities take place in the central courtyard.Figure ３Mahjong with kibitzers in the courtyard

The basic advantages of the Hakka buildings are low cost of construction and maintenance, the last one built in 1962 cost around $30,000, and long lasting for centuries. The buildings have proven to be earthquake proof, cool in the summer and warm in the winter.Figure ４Qiaofulou, built in 1962 for RMB 90,000

The Hakka people are Han Chinese and not a distinct ethnic minority. Through successive waves of migration from the north to south starting from the days of turmoil and strife during the Western Jin dynasty in fourth century AD, they came to remote regions of Fujian and Guangdong provinces. Hakka is derived from Cantonese for kejiaren (客家人) or guest people. Feeling like unwelcomed guests wherever they go, they devised the easy-to-defend roundhouses for their communities. Known for their diligence and hard work, many important historic personages are Hakka including Sun Yat-sen (孙中山), the father of modern China.

I first learned about the tulous from Professor Bill Brown, teaching at the Business School of Xiamen University and writes humor laden tour books on the side. Bill and his wife, Sue, have raised their two young kids into adulthood while teaching in Xiamen and developing a personal fascination for the roundhouses. I believe the Browns are prototypical of exemplary American ‘hakkas’ living in China.

It’s possible to see the Nanjing (南靖) tulous on a day trip from Xiamen, but that would be missing a lot. There are said to be 20,000 tulous in Fujian. One should at least stay overnight and see the many tulous in Yongding (永定) as well as Nanjing. The Yongding tulous are older and more varied. According to the tour guide at Yongding, the tulous of Nanjing were built by folks that migrated from Yongding.

Better go sooner than later. Along the way, we can see massive investment underway for modern hotels and entertainment centers and “disneyfication” of the scenic countryside is a real concern. The following are some of the photos taken during our visit.

The most photographed cluster is undoubtedly the Tianluokeng (田螺坑) village, nicknamed “four dishes and a soup.” The road to Nanjing leads right up to scenic view. After the obligatory photo stop, we then walked downhill to see and enter each of the buildings.Figure ５The 4 dishes, 1 soup cluster at Nanjing

This is a representative view of the upper structure of a roundhouse. Note the upper floor is cantilevered over the lower and the use of many bamboo baskets.Figure ６Upper floor of a tulou at Tianluokeng

Despite beams that were “off spec” causing as much as a 15 degree tilt from vertical, the building has withstood rain, wind and earthquakes for over 700 years.Figure ７Yuchanglou, mother of all tulous

The highlight of our visit was the opportunity to stay overnight at one of the tulous, Zhenfulou (振福楼) in the outskirts of Yongding. It was built during the turn of the 20th century; the third generation owner, Mr. Su and his family live in a two storied structure next to the tulou. We were their guests for the night. Figure ８Zhenfulou, now a museum on Hakka tulous

The grandfather made his money from tobacco, still grown in the region and built this tulou. The inside courtyard of this roundhouse is particularly elaborate, no doubt a reflection of his wealth and a more modern times. Figure ９The altar and meeting hall inside Zhenfulou

The first two floors of Zhenfulou has been converted into a museum on tulous and the Hakka culture. The area surrounding the building is being beautified and will become a future tourist destination as the heart of the Zhenfulou Scenic District.Figure １０The stream by the Zhenfulou

Figure １１Four generations of the Su family

The next morning we headed for the Hongkeng (洪坑村) village and tulou group. Right away, we can see that this cluster is all set to exploit the commercial potential of the recent World Heritage designation. There was a young lady waiting to guide us, and parking for our car was free since we were returning to have lunch at the hotel built at the entrance to the village.

The first major structure to greet us was Zhenchenglou (振成楼) and its prominently displayed World Heritage logo. A contemporary of Zhenfulou, this building has some advanced designs. Figure １２Zhenchenglou, Hongkeng village, Yongding

The owner, a Mr. Lin, had designed brick walls on the inside to mark off sections of the building and to act as fire breaks in case the wooden structure should catch on fire.Figure １３Inside view of Zhenchenglou

Another advanced design involved the way smoke was led away from the ground floor kitchen to the roof top via channels built inside the wall. Figure １４Kitchen smoke duct leading into the wall

Fuyulou (福裕楼 ) is also part of the Hongkeng cluster. This square shaped building is divided into three sections where, in a break with tradition, the youngest brother occupied the middle section while the two older brothers had the two sides.Figure １５Inside view of a square tulou

Kuijulou(奎聚楼) built in 1834 is a multileveled building more like a palace; in somewhat of a stretch, the guide said like the Potala Palace in Lhasa. Figure １６Kuijulou, Hongkeng village, Yongding

After lunch, we went to the nearby Gaobei (高北) cluster of tulous that included Chengqilou(承启楼), the “king” of tulous, with four concentric circles of buildings, four stories in the outer ring and a total of 400 rooms. Figure １７Inside view of the huge Chengqilou

In the same cluster is a very old Wuyunlou(五云楼) that looks shaky even to long time residents of tulou. Most have vacated and now only three elderly citizens have remained. We were told that they love having the run of the place.Figure １８Inside view of Wuyunlou, Yongding

A diagrammatic map of Fujian Tulou showed that there are more than 43 sites for tourists to visit, 8 of these are World Heritage sites and another dozen are designated as national treasures. So far availability of various Hakka roundhouse tours is not widely known to foreign tourists and that’s the best time to visit.

Are we losing China? Is China losing us?

The Committee of 100 just concluded their annual conference, held in San Francisco. Some significant speeches and gestures took place at this event that I will comment on in a later blog.

In the meantime, you can get one observer's point of view by going on the Andrew Ross' column in the SF Chronicle. Ross moderated one of the panel discussion and stayed to listen to other presentations dealing with US-China relations.

He also hosted and compiled brief commentaries from six disparate contributors, including Susan Shirk, who delivered the keynote speech to kick off the conference and three members of the Committee of 100. The title of this blog is the title Ross used to invite the responses in his compilation.

Famen Temple, where Buddhism meets Las Vegas

Famen Temple （法门寺） is the closest thing in China to Egypt’s discovery of King Tut's tomb. While not nearly as ancient as King Tut, the Tang dynasty treasures sealed in a vault under the pagoda at Famen also escaped the rapacious attention of tomb robbers and lain forgotten for over a thousand years. When the archeologists found the contents to tally perfectly with an inventory list, in a stone tablet found alongside, they concluded that the underground vault had not been disturbed.

The temple had a decidedly ragged history. It was the favorite place for early Tang emperors to go and pray to Buddha for bountiful harvest and a reign at peace. It then fell in disfavor during periodic anti-Buddhism movements. By Ming and Qing dynasty, being remotely located far away from any urban center, it was largely a forgotten place. At some point, lightening struck the pagoda and knocked off half of the tower.

It was not wholly forgotten, however. An old man in the nearby village, fearful of the invading Japanese troops that might break into the underground vault under the pagoda, had set himself on fire at the entrance. The resulting bad karma discouraged anyone that might have been curious.

In the 1980’s the rest of the pagoda toppled and the local authorities decided to investigate and make a determination as to whether the complex was worthy of the cost of restoration. They were thunderstruck by what they found in the sealed underground vault. They found ornaments, scepter, and vessels of silver and gold of exquisite craftsmanship, the best available during the height of Tang dynasty. These were personal tributes from Wu Zetian （武则天）, the only woman emperor and arguably one of the most powerful in China’s history.

The first time I visited Famensi it was around 1995 not long after Famensi reopened as a tourist attraction. It was a long drive and took nearly a half day to get there. I remember the priceless items on display and wanted to see them again. This time, it only took one and a half hours on expressway from center of Xian in the direction of Baoji.

On approaching Famen Temple, we noticed a massive, newly built complex of gray granite and faux gold facade. From the distance, we could see a giant golden, diamond-shaped edifice at the far end of the complex. As we approached, we could see that the diamond was formed by two somewhat abstract cupping hands joined at the wrists and fingertips. Nestled in the hands was a golden temple—a giant replica of one of objects found in the base of the original pagoda.

It turned out that this new complex was the new entrance to the Famen Temple. Visitors to the temple now walk through the new building. The enormous front façade contained three main entrances whose purpose seemed to be to make the visitor feel tiny. As we walked through the lobby, we could see as yet not completed areas for future shops. We then came upon a courtyard with two huge reflecting pools complete with plastic water lily pads with sun bleached but never wilting flowers. A row of stone lions stood on the side of one pool facing a row of stone elephants on the far edge of the opposite pool.

Walking in the middle walkway between the two pools—that felt more like a causeway, we entered an airy hallway, open to the sky. On the left of the hallway, we passed a restaurant zone. On the right facing the restaurants was a hotel for overnight guests. Opened since the 2009 Olympics, we could not tell if all the facilities were ready for business.



At the end of the courtyard, we came upon a long promenade leading to the new temple crowned by the aforementioned diamond. On the two sides of the promenade were huge golden statues of various major Buddha figures. In between the statues were golden pillars with Buddhist scripture in prominent black. For those not wishing to walk the length of the promenade, rides on electric cart were available for an extra fee.

At the end of the promenade, after a flight of stairs, the visitor would enter a new temple to be greeted by four heavenly guardians and the smiling Happy Buddha, all in gold color, and then enter the main hall, in a layout that followed the traditional layout of Buddhist temples but bigger and grander. On display in front of golden stature of Sakyamuni was the holiest relic in Buddhist religion, namely the original finger bone of Prince Gautama, found among the treasures under the pagoda.

The rest of the treasures were on display at the original grounds of the Famen Temple, to the right of the new complex. The museum built to house the objects was in neo-Tang dynasty style, far less flamboyant and blended well with the newly restored pagoda and temple. The main museum building in three floors were inspired by the same golden temple resting inside the diamond on top of the new edifice. The unique items of the Famensi were now properly displayed in a building of its own.

I am certain that there will be many visitors whose object is to see the original imperial gifts from Emperor Wu and could do without the ornate granite and gold and the implied ostentation. On the other hand, it will take a long time to forget Famen Temple again.

Senators find China Bashing easier than Policy Making

Senators Lindsey Graham and Charles Schumer (Reuters called odd couple) are at it again. They are sponsoring a bill in Congress demanding that China adjust the exchange rate of their currency, Renminbi (RMB), to the dollar because, they claim, the “artificially” low rate is costing America jobs.

This time their arguments are bolstered by commentaries written by no less than Paul Krugman, Nobel winning economist, accusing China of mercantilist practices. Krugman as a columnist for the New York Times certainly has the soapbox to preach his version of global economics.

Fortunately, other equally credentialed, if not as well known, professional economists have stepped up to offer persuasive contrarian views exposing flaws in Krugman’s reasoning.

I found three conclusions particularly noteworthy in Stanford Professor Ron McKinnon’s rebuttal to Krugman. First, he points out that trade imbalance has nothing to do with currency exchange rates. A sudden increase in the RMB value to the dollar may actually increase and not lessen the trade imbalance.

McKinnon argues that fixing the exchange rate of 6.83 RMB to a dollar was essential to stabilizing China’s economy against the global economic downdraft caused by Wall Street. With a stable yuan, China was able to stimulate its economy replacing fallen export with huge boost in domestic consumption, which in turn meant increasing imports from China’s neighboring countries and thus stimulating those economies.

China has contributed to a fast worldwide recovery which would not have been possible without a stable yuan. McKinnon presents data to show that it is America’s “ultra-loose monetary policy” instituted since the 2008 crisis that is guilty of manipulation.

UN Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) has come out in support of China’s control of the exchange rate. According to UNCTAD, China has done more than any other emerging economy to stimulate domestic demand in order to mitigate the crisis and urges China not to cave in to the western pressure.

Dr. David Caploe, Chief Political Economist of online EconomyWatch largely echo McKinnon’s analysis but in more quotable sound bites. He points out that the US has run overall balance of payment deficit since 1959 and overall trade deficit since 1971 seemingly without doing any harm to the American standard of living. “Put bluntly,” Caploe says, “Both the US and the rest of the world have benefited greatly from a global political economy that is fundamentally unbalanced.”

Graham and Schumer haven’t said how and what jobs would return to America if China were to bow to pressure and make a substantial and sudden adjustment in the exchange rate.

In fact it has been obvious to all of us that the jobs that went to China by way of Mexico, Taiwan or Korea left the US long ago and would never come back. Nor would we wish for those low paying jobs to come back because it would mean a collapse in the American economy as it currently exists and return to a third world standard of living.

However, bashing China has always been easier than proposing a carefully thought out roadmap that would create well paying jobs and protect the current standard of living. In fact the challenge of a real plan seems to be beyond even the capability of a Nobel Laureate like Krugman.

Caploe says, “If the US is going to somehow manage to find a way out of the mess it’s in, it should stop blaming China, and admit the fault lies in ourselves.” He goes on to say, “But of course, that’s a lot harder than shifting the onus onto one of the few countries in the world that has a political leadership that actually knows what it’s doing when it comes to economic policy.” Ouch.

A more plausible argument for a stronger yuan is that it would make American exports more attractive but this argument doesn’t stand up to scrutiny either. China is already buying virtually all the lower-valued export such as agricultural products that America is selling. For higher-valued products, such as high tech equipment where the US has a comparative advantage, price has not been the issue. China has been willing to buy more than the US government is willing to sell under Washington’s anachronistic export control regulations.

Steve Forbes, publisher of Forbes magazine, reminds us, "We started in the 1970s to put pressure on Japan to change the value of the yen. The dollar today has fallen 75 percent against the yen, and we still have a trade deficit."

Maybe our problem is that we don't have leaders that can offer real solutions.
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A shorter version appeared in the March 25 issue of the San Jose Mercury News.

In doing no Evil is Google doing any Good?

Google’s very public dispute with China has everyone confused. First Google accused China of hacking into their servers but wait Google did not necessarily mean China but that hackers were from China. In fact hacking was identified as coming from servers belonging to a couple of schools in Shanghai, but wait may be not, may be some clever hacker, who could be from anywhere, has disguised their origin by commandeering those servers.

Google then announced that they are going to stop censoring the contents flowing through their servers in China and would no longer obey China’s laws related to the control of information being access by China’s netizens. Testimony before Congress seems to indicate that Google will definitely get out of China. Well, maybe not said CEO Eric Schmidt because he was confident of a positive outcome from quiet negotiation with Beijing--negotiations that Beijing has denied taking place.

Bill Gates couldn’t understand what the fuss was all about. If a company is going to operate in China, the company is expected to obey Chinese laws. That’s the way it has been for Microsoft. If you don’t wish to obey the local laws, then yes, you better get out.

Somehow the issue seems more complicated from Google’s point of view. Whether at Google’s request or not, the US government seems ready to come to Google’s aid, by threatening to file a complaint with the World Trade Organization (WTO) accusing China of protectionism. Since China’s laws on cyberspace apply to all Internet enterprises and not just against Google or just foreign companies, it is a head scratcher as to how the U.S. can make such a complaint stick.

It’s possible, I suppose, for the US to insist on China opening the Internet to the same degree that the US is open so that Google can be more successful instead of being merely a distant second in market share in China. But that would be based on a rather dubious premise that having to filter the content puts Google at a disadvantage.

Finally Kai-fu Lee, former head of Google China, spoke up and shed some light to this matter. Lee was lured away from Microsoft in 2005 to right the floundering Google ship in China. By most accounts, he was going a good job as Google was slowly gaining on Baidu, the market leader in search in China. He unexpectedly resigned in September last year.

While attending the Abu Dhabi Media Summit last week Lee was asked about China’s Internet industry. While he would not comment directly on Google in China, he said, “For an American company to succeed in China, it needs to do the following: first, you have to have an empowered local team; second, you need to humbly listen to the local user; third, you need to move fast to give users what they want; and fourth you need to have a longer-term outlook and not be too greedy in wanting to make money on day one.”

Google isn’t the only one to stumble in China. Facebook, eBay, Amazon and Yahoo all did not achieve dominant market share in China comparable to their success in the US. I suspect that all suffered from the same drawback. Namely, their not understanding the local market and not trusting their China team to seize the moment and make decisions without having to go through the corporate bureaucracy back home.

Lee was too diplomatic to ever admit that the frustration of lacking local empowerment was what caused him to seek greener pastures. But he certainly does understand the China market and potential. He has established Innovation Works to harness the energy of entrepreneurs inside China and nurture them into next generation Google’s.

Lee’s incubated start-ups will be participating in a home market of 350 million web surfers and Internet users and 680 million mobile phone users, both largest in the world and growing at double digit rates. In another 7 to 8 years, Lee expects the by then 800 million mobile phone users to access the Internet with their smart phones and that’s the market he wants to play in.

Surely CEO Schmidt has to be agonizing over the dilemma: can Google afford to dither and watch the world’s most dynamic market zip by?
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After Google announced their move to Hongkong, I sent an updated commentary based on this blog to New America Media.

Google has just revealed that many countries have asked Google to remove contents. Of the countries that have asked Google to censor the contents, the United States came in 4th in frequency of requests.