Chinese Economy: Early Signs of Rapid Deceleration

July 23rd, 2008

Some signs point to a rapid deceleration of the Chinese economy:

The whole idea of an urgent politburo meeting just three weeks before the Beijing Olympics is a strong indicator of how serious the ruling levels of the Chinese government see this situation and would, in my opinion, be an ominous sign.

All of the signs point to an economy which is rapidly deflating, following on the falling performance of the Shanghai stock exchange, which has fallen more than 50% in the first half of the year. A lot of money which people thought they had made, and did not think of converting into cash thinking that it would go higher, is no longer there.

In China, this is always a warning sign of potential social instability. It also explains a lot about why the Chinese government has introduced new licensing regulations for online video and other communications means where people can communicate quickly, spreading views contrary to the official line, and events can quickly spin out of control.

If the Chinese economy deteriorates, as signs suggest, then it would be safe to say the government controls would tighten further. This would especially be the case in areas where foreign investment capital has gone into sensitive media sectors, which is always viewed with some degree of suspicion by the Chinese government.

Is Twitter the American QQ?

April 7th, 2008

Unless you have been living under a rock for the past six months, you have probably heard of Twitter. Developed with Ruby on Rails, it has now hit the big time, with many companies offering client versions of Twitter, so that you don’t have to keep the Twitter web page open to record your deepest thoughts, which you can share with your community/ies.

Technically speaking, there is not a whole lot of difference between Twitter and many other IM clients, including Tencent’s QQ, the immensely popular Chinese IM client. If there is any difference, it is that Twitter makes it possible for dispersed communities to keep track of each others’ activities. In contrast, the IM clients are mainly Web 1.0 tools which enable people to find and contact each other to meet offline. QQ, for instance, is a great enabler for that popular activity which we shall call “dating” in China.

The difference between Twitter and the Web 1.0 IM clients is not so much in the technology, as in the way people handle relationships. Put simply, the lines between offline and online relationships are blurring, and in many cases, more people spend more time online than they do offline. For this reason, their online communities are gaining value, and in a few cases, are assuming primary value, while their offline relationships become secondary.

This was not the case for most of the Web 1.0 IM clients.

From the business perspective, this means that businesses will have to pay even more attention to what is going on online, as I have mentioned in my previous post.

In China, many people do not have email addresses, instead they rely on QQ ID numbers to identify each other. Walk into any Chinese working area (including Starbucks and any other area which provides free Wifi) and chances are you will see that almost every screen has a QQ or Windows IM client window open.

And they are using it for business, not just personal gossip.

So, the ultimate test of whether Twitter becomes the American QQ is whether American’s use it for business, not just social chatting.

If that happens, the American Internet will suddenly look a lot more like the Chinese Internet.

China’s Cities: Coming Out At The Wrong End of History?

November 9th, 2007

Several days ago I attended Urbancamp Beijing, hosted by Orange Labs in Beijing.

The purpose of the event was to explore how cities of the not-too-distant future will look like; the theme was the Chinese City 2.0. Because China is growing so rapidly in this area, it has become a sociologist’s paradise for study. Neville Mars of the Dynamic City Foundation is a Beijing-based architect who is actively studying this field, and will come out shortly with an 800-page book on the subject in January.

His presentation was presented in a very interesting and chaotic manner, as if to reflect the chaotic development of the subject he covers. He alluded to how rampant growth in China was being fostered by the government, and then in most cases, the government took over development from the artistic groups.

Another group which is studying Chinese urban growth is the Urban Forum, which is studying the effects of China’s urban development. A Chinese language magazine, Urban China, is now covering China’s development, and a speaker unveiled plans for a web version of the magazine for global distribution.

Shang Dan of Orange Labs Beijing provided a fascinating report on car clubs in China, which bring together car owners to join in social activities. Since Chinese treat cars mainly as symbols of social rank and status, it is natural for them to research the car clubs before buying the model they want. This fits well into the city landscape well because it hard to find like-minded people in a literally new city, and the car club provides a welcome activity club for the new car-owner.

I wonder what kind of car club there is for owners of black Audi A6s? (If you have lived in China for a while, you’ll get this joke.)

Kenneth Fields of Peking University spoke about how to use tagging for location data, and City8 introduced their 3D mapping software for cities.

The afternoon discussion, which was a free discussion, was about the different themes in the definitions of place and city.

One subject which was not clear to me was what is the definition of city where people spend more and more time online on the Internet? Most of us spend a good part of the day jacked into the Internet; is it really important to have cities anymore? Has the city become a state of mind instead of a physical place? When pollution and hydrocarbons and global warming become ever greater issues, why bother with physical cities anyway? What are online and offline communities, and how do they map to each other?

Are Chinese developers and the Chinese government going exactly contrary to development trends by developing physical urban cities now, when they are falling into discredit?

These are interesting questions which need to be explored further.