Chinese Economics Thread

London Calling: Did Allwinner outsell Intel, Qualcomm?
Peter Clarke
5/8/2013 11:07 AM EDT

It may seem strange but Chinese chip vendor Allwinner Technologies Co. Ltd. (Zhuhai, China) probably sold more application processors for tablet computers in 2012 than Intel and Qualcomm put together.

The numbers for annual sales of smartphones and tablet computers are growing fast and we think we know who the winners are: the likes of Apple, Samsung, Nvidia, Qualcomm and so on, right? But Strategy Analytics is reporting an interesting snippet from its market research; that in 2012 Chinese vendors grabbed 20 percent volume share of the tablet application processor market between them. That's in a market that by value grew 83 percent year-on-year to reach $2.7 billion, the firm reckons. So even if those Chinese vendors were selling at the low-end of the pricing spectrum this is not chicken feed.

Sravann Kundojjala, senior analyst with Strategy Analytics pointed out that the Chinese vendors are selling dual-core ARM chips at $4 or $5 and quad-cores at $8 or $9, less than half what Nvidia is selling its equivalent chips for and so probably the Chinese vendors, while significant in volume, do not yet have 10 percent of the market by value.

Strategy Analytics reckons Apple had about 48 percent revenue share of the tablet processor market in 2012, although clearly their devices are captive in the iPad. Nvidia, Texas Instruments, Samsung and Qualcomm made up Strategy Analytics' top-five ranking of vendors. Strategy Analytics reckons Nvidia led the non-iPad tablet market with 27 percent revenue share in 2012 having scored high-profile design wins in the Google Nexus 7 and the Microsoft Surface RT.

So who are these Chinese tablet processor vendors? Strategy Analytics would like you buy a $6,999 report to find out their take on it.

But we can try and guess who might be on Strategy Analytics' list. It probably includes: Allwinner Technology, Rockchip, Amlogic, Infotmic, Ingenic, Hi-Silicon, NuFront. It may include Via Technologies Inc. – a long time vendor of x86 chips and more recently of ARM processors – although Via is based in Taipei, Taiwan, and so may or may not have been included in the Chinese category.

Hi-Silicon, which is effectively part of Huawei, may have won business with its parent, although it is equally possible that such captive sales could have been missed. Ingenic is MIPS licensee with a reputation for being one company that has figured out to make most Android apps run smoothly on MIPS. Nufront is one of our less likely contenders.

In fact we reckon that the first three names on our list – Allwinner, Rockchip and Amlogic – are probably responsible for more than half the Chinese supply of tablet processors in 2012. Allwinner clearly has the lion's share, according to supply chain checks made by my colleague Junko Yoshida; maybe nearly half the supply of Chinese tablet processors on its own. This would make it responsible for nearly 10 percent of the global supply by volume. The rest of the Chinese suppliers are part of a long list of much smaller suppliers. Interestingly in the previous year Rockchip was in a similar Chinese market-leading situation. The market changes and swings happen very fast in China.

Even more interesting is that Allwinner is therefore likely to have outsold Intel and Qualcomm put together. Strategy Analytics reckons Intel and Qualcomm missed the tablet processor boat in 2012 and captured less than 5 percent volume share in the tablet applications processor market. Stuart Robinson, director of the Strategy Analytics' handset component service, said that any success for these two in tablets will depend on Microsoft and whether its Windows tablet operating system can gain market acceptance.

Things can change rapidly in a fast-growing market but we suggest keeping an eye on Allwinner and its smaller competitors, Intel and Qualcomm.

AssassinsMace said:

London Calling: Did Allwinner outsell Intel, Qualcomm?
Peter Clarke
5/8/2013 11:07 AM EDT

It may seem strange but Chinese chip vendor Allwinner Technologies Co. Ltd. (Zhuhai, China) probably sold more application processors for tablet computers in 2012 than Intel and Qualcomm put together.

The numbers for annual sales of smartphones and tablet computers are growing fast and we think we know who the winners are: the likes of Apple, Samsung, Nvidia, Qualcomm and so on, right? But Strategy Analytics is reporting an interesting snippet from its market research; that in 2012 Chinese vendors grabbed 20 percent volume share of the tablet application processor market between them. That's in a market that by value grew 83 percent year-on-year to reach $2.7 billion, the firm reckons. So even if those Chinese vendors were selling at the low-end of the pricing spectrum this is not chicken feed.

Sravann Kundojjala, senior analyst with Strategy Analytics pointed out that the Chinese vendors are selling dual-core ARM chips at $4 or $5 and quad-cores at $8 or $9, less than half what Nvidia is selling its equivalent chips for and so probably the Chinese vendors, while significant in volume, do not yet have 10 percent of the market by value.

Strategy Analytics reckons Apple had about 48 percent revenue share of the tablet processor market in 2012, although clearly their devices are captive in the iPad. Nvidia, Texas Instruments, Samsung and Qualcomm made up Strategy Analytics' top-five ranking of vendors. Strategy Analytics reckons Nvidia led the non-iPad tablet market with 27 percent revenue share in 2012 having scored high-profile design wins in the Google Nexus 7 and the Microsoft Surface RT.

So who are these Chinese tablet processor vendors? Strategy Analytics would like you buy a $6,999 report to find out their take on it.

But we can try and guess who might be on Strategy Analytics' list. It probably includes: Allwinner Technology, Rockchip, Amlogic, Infotmic, Ingenic, Hi-Silicon, NuFront. It may include Via Technologies Inc. – a long time vendor of x86 chips and more recently of ARM processors – although Via is based in Taipei, Taiwan, and so may or may not have been included in the Chinese category.

Hi-Silicon, which is effectively part of Huawei, may have won business with its parent, although it is equally possible that such captive sales could have been missed. Ingenic is MIPS licensee with a reputation for being one company that has figured out to make most Android apps run smoothly on MIPS. Nufront is one of our less likely contenders.

In fact we reckon that the first three names on our list – Allwinner, Rockchip and Amlogic – are probably responsible for more than half the Chinese supply of tablet processors in 2012. Allwinner clearly has the lion's share, according to supply chain checks made by my colleague Junko Yoshida; maybe nearly half the supply of Chinese tablet processors on its own. This would make it responsible for nearly 10 percent of the global supply by volume. The rest of the Chinese suppliers are part of a long list of much smaller suppliers. Interestingly in the previous year Rockchip was in a similar Chinese market-leading situation. The market changes and swings happen very fast in China.

Even more interesting is that Allwinner is therefore likely to have outsold Intel and Qualcomm put together. Strategy Analytics reckons Intel and Qualcomm missed the tablet processor boat in 2012 and captured less than 5 percent volume share in the tablet applications processor market. Stuart Robinson, director of the Strategy Analytics' handset component service, said that any success for these two in tablets will depend on Microsoft and whether its Windows tablet operating system can gain market acceptance.

Things can change rapidly in a fast-growing market but we suggest keeping an eye on Allwinner and its smaller competitors, Intel and Qualcomm.

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Great to see Chinese semiconductor industry doing well.

Might as well get in a con for all this pro

Exclusive: China urbanization plan hits roadblock over spending fears - sources

9:44am EDT
By Kevin Yao
BEIJING (Reuters) - China's plan to spend $6.5 trillion on urbanization to bolster the economy is running into snags, sources close to the government said, as top leaders fear another spending binge could push up local debt levels and inflate a property bubble.
Premier Li Keqiang has rejected an urbanization proposal drafted by the National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC), seeking changes to put more emphasis on economic reform, according to the sources, who are familiar with the matter.
Many local authorities have already lobbied to get funding for projects, ringing alarm bells among top leaders in Beijing.
State-owned China Development Bank recently pledged to lend 150 billion yuan ($24.47 billion) to southeastern Fujian province to support its urbanization and channel 30 billion yuan into urban projects in central Anhui province, according to Chinese media.
"The urbanization plan could be delayed. Top leaders have seen potential risks if the program cannot be kept on the right path," said an economist at a top think-tank which advises the cabinet.
"The leadership aims to jumpstart reforms, but local governments see this in a different perspective - they view this as the last opportunity to boost investment," said the economist who requested anonymity due to the sensitivity of the issue.
China plans to spend some 40 trillion yuan ($6.5 trillion) to bring 400 million people to its cities over the next decade as leaders such as Li try to sustain economic growth that slowed to a 13-year low of 7.8 percent in 2012.
Li, the driving force behind urbanization, has turned more cautious following warnings from leading academics over the risks, said the think-tank sources who are involved in the policy discussions.
The NDRC is racing against the clock to amend the long-term plan in a bid to publish it by the end of June.
STIMULUS HANGOVER
Beijing is still nursing a hangover from its 4 trillion yuan stimulus package launched in 2008 to counter the global financial crisis, which left local governments under a mountain of debt and sent house prices rocketing.
To fund the urbanization plan, local governments would issue long-term bonds to finance spending on roads, housing and social safety nets, Reuters reported in March, quoting sources with ties to the leadership.
But a fiscal overhaul is needed because local governments don't have steady tax revenues to back the issuance of bonds. Under China's tax structure, in place since 1994, the central government gets most receipts while local governments do the spending, forcing them to rely on land sales for survival.
To support the process, Beijing needed to overhaul its land and tax codes as well as free up the rigid residency registration, or "hukou", system to give migrant workers access to education, health and other services where they work, experts have said. Li wanted more detail on these sorts of reforms in the plan, the sources said.
"The focus of the urbanization drive should be land and hukou reforms. It's doomed if China continues to rely on local government spending to support urbanization," said Yi Xianrong, senior economist at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences (CASS), a leading government think-tank in Beijing.
Ratings agency Fitch estimates local government debt at 13 trillion yuan, or a quarter of GDP. Government data puts the number at 10.7 trillion yuan.
China's housing inflation accelerated to its fastest pace in April in two years, despite stricter measures by Beijing to calm a frothy real estate market.
"RIDING A TIGER"
The government hopes 60 percent of China's population of almost 1.4 billion will be urban residents by 2020.
China's official urbanization rate is near 53 percent, but the real level is only around 35 percent as millions of migrant workers have been artificially included in the urban population, sparking criticism of "fake urbanization".
Some analysts are looking for guidance from a key meeting of the ruling Communist Party, expected in October, that will set the agenda for the next decade. Others are not so sure.
"I don't expect any policy breakthroughs this year as government departments still have different views," said Xiang Songzuo, chief economist at the Agricultural Bank of China.
"I feel that the top leadership may not have a clear idea on how to proceed with the urbanization strategy," said Xiang, who has been advising the government on urbanization issues.
Li Yining, the premier's former teacher at Peking University, recently said Chinese banks could be dragged into another spending binge that could spark a financial crisis.
But Premier Li is unlikely to backpedal on the urbanization drive, with his interest in the issue seen as far back as the early 1990s when he wrote a doctoral thesis on the subject. One of his key arguments was to reform the hukou system.
"It's like riding a tiger - it's not easy to get off once you're on," said a government economist who declined to be identified. ($1 = 6.1311 Chinese yuan)
(Editing by Dean Yates)

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China factory activity shrinks for first time in seven months: flash PMI

5:40am EDT
By Aileen Wang and Koh Gui Qing
BEIJING (Reuters) - China's factory activity shrank for the first time in seven months in May as new orders fell, a preliminary manufacturing survey showed, entrenching fears that its economic recovery has stalled and that a sharper cooldown may be imminent.
The flash HSBC Purchasing Managers' Index (PMI) for May fell to 49.6, slipping under the 50-point level demarcating expansion from contraction for the first since October and sending Asian financial markets sharply lower.
The final HSBC PMI stood at 50.4 in April.
The lack of vigor in the world's second-biggest economy implies its ability to meet the government's 7.5 percent growth target this year is increasingly difficult, analysts said, albeit it is still possible.
The soft data also sharpens Beijing's policy dilemma over whether to act to stabilize activity, or tolerate an orderly slowdown while focusing on reducing the country's dependence on exports and investment for growth, changes that would bring longer-term benefits.
Yao Wei, an economist at Societe Generale in Hong Kong, said the debate favors policy inaction from Beijing for now, as long as economic growth remains above 7 percent.
"We don't think it will trigger any cyclical policy move as long as the job market is fine," she said.
"China is really on a path of structural (growth) deceleration. It's possible (to meet the growth target) but it's becoming increasingly difficult."
The PMI survey suggested China is up against weakness both at home and abroad. A sub-index measuring overall new orders dropped to 49.5, the lowest reading since September, suggesting domestic consumption is not strong enough to offset soft global demand.
Asian stock markets extended early losses after the report, with Japan's Nikkei tumbling more than 7 percent. Oil, copper and rubber prices also retreated on concerns about softer Chinese demand, while the Australian dollar and riskier assets such as emerging Asian currencies skidded.
Thursday's PMI revived investor worries about whether China can sustain an economic revival this year, after annual growth slumped to a 13-year trough in 2012. China's factory output and investment performance for April released earlier this month had already underwhelmed markets.
The run of dismal data reports have prompted economists to slash their growth forecasts for China.
UBS this week downgraded its 2013 growth target for China to 7.7 percent, from 8 percent, and Societe Generale is in the midst of lowering its estimates. Bank of America-Merrill Lynch cut its China 2013 growth forecast earlier this month to 7.6 percent from 8 percent.
If the economy meets the government's growth target and expands 7.5 percent this year, it would still be its worst performance in 23 years.
JOBS ARE KEY
The HSBC flash PMI comes about a week before the final reading and is the earliest indicator of how the Chinese economy is faring each month.
The PMI survey showed new export orders hovered below the 50-point level in May, though the rate of decline slowed from April.
Still, the weak showing implied foreign demand remained lethargic due to a patchy U.S. recovery and Europe's nagging debt crisis, and echoes weak export momentum seen in Taiwan and South Korea in May.
In a reflection of the cooldown in the vast factory sector, both indices for input and output prices stayed muted in May to be near troughs seen in the third quarter last year.
"A sequential slowdown is likely in the middle of the second quarter, casting downside risks to China's fragile growth recovery," said Qu Hongbin, an economist at HSBC.
Yet, barring a slump in the labor market, most analysts believe Beijing will opt to stay on the policy sidelines. Measures such as reducing corporate taxes may be enacted, but only as part of broader tax reforms, not to pump-prime growth.
A stable employment market ranks high among China's policy priorities as the Communist Party justifies its one-party rule with tacit promises of economic prosperity.
Although Chinese media has reported that a record 7 million graduates will join the labor force this year, there are few reports of widespread discontent among job hunters. Thursday's PMI also pointed to a stable employment market.
"We believe the government will not loosen monetary policy to stimulate the economy in the second quarter because the labor market is still tight and although headline activity indicators are weaker, they are not collapsing," Zhiwei Zhang, chief China economist at Nomura, said in a note.
Chinese leaders for their part appear to be comfortable for now with moderating economic growth.
Chinese Premier Li Keqiang said last week the country has limited room to rely on government spending or policy stimulus to spur its growth, dispelling market speculation that Beijing may act to pump-prime its economy.
At the depth of the global financial crisis in 2008/09, an estimated 20 million rural migrant workers lost their jobs, prompting Beijing to unveil a 4 trillion yuan stimulus package to shore up the economy and guarantee employment.
The latest sputter in China's growth engine is clearly taking a toll on its corporate sector, but there are no signs of major defaults on loans.
Among China-listed companies which have posted their first-quarter earnings, 67 percent missed market expectations, ThomsonReuters data showed.
Zoomlion Heavy Industry Science and Technology Co Ltd (1157.HK: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz)(000157.SZ: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz), China's second largest construction equipment maker, reported a 72 percent plunge in its first-quarter earnings from a year earlier.
Government data this week also showed that profit growth in China's giant state firms cooled in the first four months of the year.
(Editing by Kim Coghill)

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GM’s Bankruptcy Lesson: China is Better Than the U.S.





By James Flaherty | More Articles

May 02, 2013


After watching its automotive competitors, including Volkswagen and Ford (NYSE:F), commit to substantial funding in China, General Motors (NYSE:GM) has announced plans to trump them all.

Earlier this week, GM announced plans to invest $11 billion in the world’s most populous nation, specifically in the form of new manufacturing plants, products, and people, Bloomberg said. The money will go to four new assembly plants in China, where GM already is the market leader with over 15 percent share. The company is expected to build 5 million vehicles annually, twice the sales of GM cars in the U.S. last year.

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Experts have compared trending Chinese investment to what Toyota (NYSE:TM) did in America in the last century — investing heavily in the country with the biggest growth potential.

“What GM is doing is really smart because it’s proactively investing in a market that, for the foreseeable future, is going to be the world’s largest,” Rebecca Lindland, an automotive consultant with Rebel Three Media & Consultants, told Bloomberg.

Earlier this month Volkswagen announced plans to double its vehicles sold in China to over 4 million in 2018. The German automotive company is eager to supplant Japan’s Toyota, restricted from the Chinese market thanks to political tensions, as the global sales leader. Additionally, Ford announced it would double its own manufacturing capacity by investing $600 million to produce 1.3 million vehicles annually.

But GM’s level of investment beats them all. The Detroit-based company sold 2.8 million vehicles in the country last year, and the predicted 5 million cars manufactured annually will easily be the most in China.

Could this move help GM fend off Volkswagen and supplant Toyota as the global leader in automotive sales? One thing is for sure: whoever expects to hold onto that top spot in the foreseeable future must first dominate the Chinese market.

Considering how important China is now, China should leverage this and make these contracts conditional, to get more trade secrets, lobby their governments in favor of more high end capital exports, share information and people to improve indigenous R&D and maybe even mainstream education and business practices.

I'm sure it already happens, but as people get more desperate it only makes sense to lean on them to get an even better deal than they already have now.

A continuation of my last post.

How Chinese Tourists Usurped the Ugly Americans



Ugly American Tourists rejoice, you've been replaced by the Ugly Chinese Tourist. This past week a 15-year-old teenage boy who etched "Ding Jinhao was here" into the side of Egypt's Luxor Temple has received worldwide attention, but the underlying question has been whether Ding is an anomaly or the norm? Should guards at Museo Del Prado be vigilant of its Chinese visitors? Should guides at The Met be on alert? Well, those guards and guides should always be on alert, but the answer is way more complicated, just like when it applied to Americans, than just the idea of a nation of terrible tourists.

RELATED: Matt Frei on China and the U.S.

The Economics of the Chinese Tourist vs. The Ugly American

For the longest time Americans have held the mantle and stereotype of being the most obnoxious tourists on the face of the Earth. Some of us were too loud, others were too tacky, many were too fat, others were too demanding, and an unfortunate few were all of the above — basically people around the world found the American tourists they met offensive. But lately that caricature has been fading. "The ugly American — the stereotypically brutish, ethnocentric, bumbling traveler abroad — is dead. He's gone the way of global U.S. hegemony, the strong dollar and mid-20th century American naivete," wrote Gregory Rodriguez for the Los Angeles Times in 2011. Rodriguez points to a number of different factors as to why the "ugly American" tourist has faded: Americans are more diverse, a kind of timidity that crept in after 9/11. But it's his point about the weak dollar which resonates today. "Americans were more rude when the dollar was strong," a longtime waiter at Madrid's Cerveceria Alemana bar told Rodriguez. And if you look at the weakening dollar and the sagging American economy over the past five years, and apply the waiter and Rodriguez's logic, it wouldn't be wrong to conclude that Americans are traveling less and Americans that are traveling abroad are being more mellow.

RELATED: 21 Years After Tiananmen, Reflections and Revelations

China is the flip side to that. The past few years have been great for China's economy, meaning more money to spend on travel. "In 2012, Chinese overtook Americans and Germans as the world's top international tourism spenders, with 83 million people spending a record $102 billion on international tourism," CNN reported last month. More Chinese tourists traveling make Chinese tourists more visible, and that gives people around the world the templates to start a stereotype. And just like the Americans who were rude and demanding when the dollar was strong, so too are the Chinese. "Rich Chinese tourists are pushing the boundaries and unfortunately some of these places are bending to their will ... Particularly the newly rich, who think, 'If I'm paying money then I'm God,'" as Mei Zhang, the owner of a Chinese travel told CNN.

RELATED: Did Obama Snub the Dalai Lama?

The Offenses:

As Zhang explained to CNN, one of the key parts of being an ugly tourist is making places "bend" to your will. It isn't simply just being rich, it's making the place you're visiting accommodate your tastes or disrespecting local customs. There's no proof that Chinese tourists behave any differently or worse than tourists from other countries, but across the world, there are signs they are earning that reputation.

RELATED: Notice a Theme? Trump Thinks Everyone's Laughing at Us
• At the Louvre in Paris, there's a sign for that warns people not to defecate and urinate on the premises. It's only in Chinese, reports Quartz's Gwynn Guildford.
• Elsewhere in Paris, Chinese tourists have drawn the ire of Zadig &Voltaire, a fashion retailer who said in October their new 2014 hotel will definitely not be open to Chinese tourists.
• In Buddhist temples in Chiang Mai, Thailand, monks and temples officials are having a hard time explaining to Chinese tourists that wearing shorts is not allowed. "Even though some of these tourists understand some English, it's hard to communicate. When asked why he and his group came to Chiang Mai during the Chinese New Year, a Chinese male in his thirties stabbed a thumb to his chest and said importantly: 'I am rich.'" reported Vint Chavala for Thailand's The Nation in February.
• On a Thai message board, Chinese tourists are singled out for bad driving, being loud, cutting in line, and even have their children defecate in public pools.
• At Ewha Women's University in South Korea, Chinese tourists have turned the private school into a photo opportunity and regularly disregard "trespassing" signs. "When you pronounce the word Ewha in Chinese, it becomes leewha, which sounds similar to leepa, and leepa means ‘Something brings you a benefit’ in Chinese. In addition, the Chinese character Ewha means purity as well.'," reported the blog Koreabang last month.
• In Singapore, as The New York Times reported in 2005, Chinese tourists became known for talking too loud. "Oh, my God ... They talk so loud I have to yell until my throat hurts," a sales clerk told The Times.
• Hong Kong Airlines, as CNN reported in April, had to teach their cabin crew kung fu in order to deal with drunken passengers flying to and from mainland China.
• In February, a Chinese mother saw it fit to let her young boy urinate in a bottle in the middle of a Hong Kong restaurant. Many did not see her fit.
• And, yes, in Egypt there's the boy who carved his name into the pyramid.

By no means is that every incident reported, but those are just some of the biggest ones leaving their dents in newspapers and social media.

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Visiting at Home

While Chinese abroad have had their fair share of transgressions, it's also worth nothing that tourist attractions on the mainland have come under fire too. For example, the ways animals are treated in China's zoos is downright sad. Zoos can (arguably-speaking) be depressing places on their own (though not as depressing as Sea World). But in China, there have been a rash of attacks on animals there, like a psychopath biting and killing an ostrich in January or the visitors in the same month who kept trying to hit the Hangzhou Zoo's lions with snowballs or the visitors at the Shenzen zoo who all but killed crocodiles by throwing stuff into their exhibits, because they thought the animals were fake. Clearly, that behavior would not fly in a U.S. zoo. But that's a little different than visiting Buddhist temple in tiny shorts or dropping trou and human feces in the Tuileries. And it's a tad different than a Chinese man busting the glass to a Forbidden City antique.

And it's a little different than the graffiti-style vandalizing of an Egyptian pyramid. But when it comes to that unfortunate (and sort of hilarious) "Ding Jinhao was here" vandalization, that act may actually come from the bubbling up of Chinese street art, which began in 2005. Writer Carolyn Look has a good story on the emergence of street art in Beijing and Shanghai and how the counter culture fights back against the idea of China being an uncreative economic powerhouse. "Today, graffiti is a trend that is on the brink of exploding in China," Look writes. Look explains that the vandalization of Beijing's buildings, some ancient, is a positive thing, "In many ways, graffiti in Beijing has been less a criticism towards the government than towards the passivity of the public. It has forced them to literally open their eyes."

The Chinese Response

Ding's parents have apologized profusely for wrecking the relic. And that's encouraging. It'd be quite a different thing if Ding's parents said that their child did nothing wrong and did not accept any responsibility. But the broader issue is the image of China. Ding's transgressions came just days after one of China vice premiers urged the country's people to be polite. Vice Premier Wang Yang said in a statement:


Improving the civilized quality of the citizens and building a good image of Chinese tourists are the obligations of governments at all levels and relevant agencies and companies ... Guide tourists to conscientiously abide by public order and social ethics, respect local religious beliefs and customs, mind their speech and behavior … and protect the environment.

And, as Guilford explains, China seems bent on cleaning up its tourism image: "China announced just last month that it is issuing a Tourism Law to take effect in October. That law will give travel agencies the authority to penalize tourists who 'violate social ethics,' though it’s also geared toward cleaning up the domestic tourism industry."

Still, some of mainland response of Ding's vandalization comes from a the grade-school, "well they do it too" excuse. In the wake of finding out about the Luxor vandalization came from Chinese hands, Author Abe Sauer explained that "numerous Chinese reporters pointing out that Great Wall is littered" with Western graffiti.

Frankly many countries execute people for such crimes. So it should be. The article is another China-bashing article since people can't climb the Central American pyramids anymore. You know why? Tourists have long chipped off stones from the pyramids as souvenirs. One instance is an indictment of the whole? Like the British tourist who raped a Chinese girl in public in Beijing? See what I mean? They don't want that logic being applied to them.

Myanmar Oil and Gas Pipeline is completed.

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Global Times | 2013-6-4 23:48:01
By Zhao Qian


The long-awaited China-Myanmar oil and gas pipeline project has been completed, the builder and operator of the pipelines, China National Petroleum Corp (CNPC), said Tuesday.

"This project could diversify China's oil and gas import channels so as to guarantee the country's energy safety," said Zhou Dadi, a professor at the Energy Research Institute under the National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC).

Lin Boqiang, director of the Center for Energy Economics Research at Xiamen University, said that oil transported along the new pipeline can take a shorter route than "the current long journey through the congested Strait of Malacca."

The two countries signed an agreement to build the project in March 2009.

In addition to its strategic significance for the country's energy safety, the project could also ease the problem of shortages of oil and gas in Southwest China, including Yunnan, Guizhou and Guangxi, Zhou noted.

Before the China-Myanmar project, China had oil and gas import pipelines mainly covering West, Northeast and East China, such as the China-Kazakhstan oil and gas pipeline project, China-Russia oil pipeline project and China-Turkmenistan gas pipeline project.

The project will transport oil and natural gas via Kunming, capital of Yunnan, and extend to Guiyang, capital of Guizhou, and Nanning, capital of Guangxi, as well as Chongqing.

Domestic oil prices are unlikely to be impacted by the China-Myanmar pipeline, as "the project will have a limited impact on international crude oil prices, which are the basis of calculations by the NDRC in adjusting domestic retail oil product prices," Zhou said.

The project will not lead to lower domestic prices of natural gas due to the high cost of transportation, Lin noted.

Media reports said that natural gas transported via the Myanmar pipeline is expected to cost around 3.5 yuan ($0.51) per cubic meter.

Currently, gas for residential use is about 2 yuan a cubic meter in gas-rich regions like Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, but it costs 3.86 yuan in gas-poor Guangxi.

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last year article on businessweek about china´s infrastructure development



They say that chinese building only last 25 to 30 years while US building last 70 to 75. However i wonder if they were built at anything remotly close in terms of cost. Chinese new leaders now prefer quality to quantity. I think that when china can built with quality, they will do it.

what strikes with this article is the mention that china has a "national employment problem" with a company employing millions of workers instead of technology, just to create jobs. Why do i get news that factorys in south china cant find enough workers?