Friday, October 30, 2015

An animated English-language video and song has been produced by China

An animated English-language video and song has been produced by China's propaganda department to promote the nation's next five-year economic and social plan. Photo: Xinhua“Hey, have you guys heard what’s going on in China? President Xi Jinping’s new style? Yes and there’s more …”
China’s propaganda machine is trying a new tack this week to publicise its economic and social plans by using an animated hipster pop music video – complete with a guitar-strummed song performed in American accents by four cartoon characters as they stand on top of a retro Volkswagen van.
The aim of the video, produced by a mainland animation studio that often works on state propaganda, is to tell English-speaking foreigners about the nation’s latest five-year social and economic plan that is being discussed behind closed doors by the Communist Party this week.
http://www.scmp.com/sites/default/files/styles/486w/public/2015/10/27/xijinping-xinhua.png?itok=ElVM
“Every five years in China, man. They make a new development plan. The time has come for number 13, shi-san-wu [13-5], that’s what it means! ...
“Wanna know what China’s gonna do? Best pay attention to the shi-san-wu!”
The video features one of the four cartoon characters with a lightning bolt across his face, just like singer David Bowie's Aladdin Sane persona, plus a cameo appearance by scientist Albert Einstein.
It was promoted by state media on Xinhua News’s Twitter on Tuesday, but can also be found on major video websites, too.
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Suntory brewery workers in China force their trade union to take a stand

Suntory brewery workers in China force their trade union to take a stand

30 October, 2015
Workers in at least three breweries in eastern China owned by Suntory Holdings went on strike last week after the company announced it was pulling out of its loss-making joint-venture with China’s best-known brewery Tsingtao.
Concerned about their job security, employees in Shanghai, Kunshan and Lianyungang staged a series of protests which eventually forced their trade union representatives to take a stand and side with the workers.
In Kunshan, workers blocked the factory gate holding signs stating “we want an explanation; we want to defend our rights”. One worker protested “after more than ten years of service, they just sell the factory when they please.” See photo below.
At the Shanghai plant, the enterprise union filed an official complaint with the company, asking for clarification of the compensation package being offered to employees. Suntory responded that it was simply selling its shares to its joint-venture partner and that employment conditions would remain unchanged and, as such, there was no need to offer any compensation for contract termination.
The disgruntled workers gathered in the cafeteria to discuss the company’s reply. One man climbed on to a table to denounce the company offer and announced the start of a campaign of resistance. The other workers responded with applause and shouts of approval.
The Shanghai workers were quickly joined by colleagues in Lianyungang who posted a photograph of them demonstrating solidarity with and support for their fellow workers in Shanghai. See photo below.
Workers said the union response at Kunshan and Lianyungang had also been supportive of workers’ demands but was more timid, choosing methods other than joining the strike. The two breweries have now resumed work without a clear response from the company.
The Suntory union response, while limited, at least was on the side of the workers and may encourage other unions in the industry to adopt a more pro-worker stance in the future. However, the failure of the union to foresee or preempt the Suntory sell-off clearly demonstrates just how weak and ineffective the vast majority of enterprise unions in China are.
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Friday, October 23, 2015

Anti-Chinese Propaganda disguised as Satire

China to build British nuclear plants that can be detonated remotely

21-10-15
nuke425
CHINA has agreed to build nuclear power stations in Britain that can be detonated from Beijing. 
The first station, at Hinkley Point in Somerset, will be followed by a chain of other power plants built at sites of strategic importance, military bases and in major population centres. 
President Xi Jinping said: “This is so much more cost-effective than maintaining ICBMs and warheads, and really reduces on delivery times. 
“We have the option of simply cutting off power to Britain for minor infractions, and for more serious displeasure I set off a chain of 30-megaton explosions reducing the UK to ash without even leaving my office. 
“Best of all, the problem of how to deal with nuclear waste is a lot less thorny when it is 5,000 miles away.”
The prime minister has reassured the public that the power stations will be operated and run by the French, who would never let anything happen to Britain.
CHINA has agreed to build nuclear power stations in Britain that can be detonated from Beijing. 
The first station, at Hinkley Point in Somerset, will be followed by a chain of other power plants built at sites of strategic importance, military bases and in major population centres. 
President Xi Jinping said: “This is so much more cost-effective than maintaining ICBMs and warheads, and really reduces on delivery times. 
“We have the option of simply cutting off power to Britain for minor infractions, and for more serious displeasure I set off a chain of 30-megaton explosions reducing the UK to ash without even leaving my office. 
“Best of all, the problem of how to deal with nuclear waste is a lot less thorny when it is 5,000 miles away.”
The prime minister has reassured the public that the power stations will be operated and run by the French, who would never let anything happen to Britain.
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Saturday, October 17, 2015

Chinese &Taiwan English Teachers Take Note: Hundreds Of Thousands More Students in U.S. Will Be Learning Mandarin Soon.

Ed Note: Taiwan and Chinese English teachers and English-speaking exchange students and ex-pats take note: There will be jobs for you in the USA if you have the qualifications to teach Mandarin. If you are working at a school or bushiban in Taiwan, think about making teaching your career. 


http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/one-million-strong-carola-mcgiffert_561c1369e4b0e66ad4c8dbac


Hundreds Of Thousands More Students Will Be Learning Mandarin Soon. Here's How.

The White House wants 1 million U.S. kids to study the language by 2020.

Headshot of Rebecca Klein
Education Editor, The Huffington Post
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Wednesday, October 14, 2015

Censorship claim as Apple news app fails in China

Censorship claim as Apple news app fails in China

SENSITIVE FEEDS:Users say the new app trialed in the US by Apple has been blocked in China, with the company apparently bending to the rules of its second-largest market

NY Times News Service, HONG KONG
Apple Inc has disabled its news app in China, according to a person with direct knowledge of the situation, the most recent sign of how difficult it can be for foreign companies to manage the strict rules governing media and online expression there.
The Apple News app, which the company unveiled in June, is available only to users in the US, although it is being tested in the UK and Australia.
Customers who downloaded the app by registering their phones in the US can still see content in it when they travel overseas — but they have found that it does not work in China.
Those in China who look at the top of the Apple News feed, which would normally display a list of selected articles based on a user’s preferred media, instead see an error message: “Can’t refresh right now. News isn’t supported in your current region.”
Cupertino, California-based Apple declined to comment.
China is Apple’s second-largest source of revenue after the US, with sales of more than US$13 billion in the third quarter. That means the company is most likely taking a careful approach to delivering new content, such as that on its news app, within China.
Beijing generally insists that companies are responsible for censoring content inside China. In Apple’s case, that would mean it would probably have to develop a censorship system — most Chinese companies use a combination of automated software and employees — to eliminate sensitive articles from feeds.
For now, Apple seems to be avoiding the problem by completely disabling the service for users in China.
Still, even if the company is moving carefully to appease the government, the move is troubling some users.
Larry Salibra, an entrepreneur who founded Pay4Bugs, a software testing service, last week talked about out the issue on Twitter.
In a written interview, Salibra said he found what Apple was doing “very disconcerting.”
In a post on Reddit, Salibra went further, writing: “They’re censoring news content that I downloaded and stored on my device purchased in the USA, before I even enter China just because my phone happens to connect to a Chinese signal floating over the border.”
“On device censorship is much different than having your server blocked by the Great Firewall or not enabling a feature for customers with certain country iTunes account. That Apple has little choice doesn’t make it any less creepy or outrageous,” he said in his post.
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Guangdong’s workers mobilize to protect leaders from arrests and reprisals

Guangdong’s workers mobilize to protect leaders from arrests and reprisals

13 October, 2015
As industrial unrest in China intensifies, worker activists in Guangdong are seeking more effective ways to counter management reprisals and arrests or detentions by the local police.
About one quarter of all cases of worker arrests this year have been in Guangdong. CLB’s Strike Maprecorded 126 incidents in China as a whole the first nine months of this year, 29 of which occurred in Guangdong, more than twice the number in any other province.
In terms of police intervention in strikes and worker protests, there were 100 incidents in Guangdong in the first nine months of 2015, about 17 percent of the national total of 569.
Police intervention and arrests continued after the National Day Holiday break: Four workers were beaten and eight were detained on 9 October during a strike at a Taiwanese-owned electronics factory in Dongguan. See photograph below.
Auxiliary police detain a striking worker at Kinpo Electronics in Dongguan. Photograph from Weibo
The relatively harsh response of business owners and police in Guangdong reflects the economic downturn in the province’s manufacturing sector, as well as the well-established ability of factory workers in the province to organize.
There is a need however for workers to further improve their organizing ability and better protect their representatives. On 12 September a group of organizers, lawyers and scholars met in Guangzhou to discuss this pressing issue.
Veteran labour lawyer Duan Yi argued that the protection of worker representatives was now the key task for the workers’ movement in China. If worker representatives are not protected, he said, no one will be willing to stick their neck out and organize workers. However, he noted, there were now many methods and resources workers could use to better protect their representatives from reprisals.
Duan Yi, Director of the Laowei Law Firm addresses the 12 September meeting
Labour organizer Chen Huihai described some of the methods he had found effective such as workers moving en masse to the police station where their representatives were being detained and handing in petitions demanding their release. If workers leaders are detained for an extended period of time, Chen suggested setting up a solidarity fund to support them and their family and electing replacement representatives to carry on the struggle and support those in detention, Chen said.
Three of the meeting participants had themselves been fired or detained by the authorities while acting as worker representatives but they all had fought back and wrested compensation and concessions from their employer. A key element in their success, Duan Yi said, was that even though the law did not yet recognise them as workers’ representatives, crucially, they themselves did.
Currently, only enterprise trade union presidents and committee members are legally protected from management reprisals. However many workers are reluctant to get involved in the union because they feel it will not have sufficient power to stand up to management and will not get the support it needs from the local trade union federation.
While recognising the current limitations and failings of the trade union, Director of the Panyu Workers’ Centre Zeng Feiyang, argued that getting workers elected to the union was an important first step and still the most effective and sustainable way forward in the long-term.
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