Let’s admit it, the intro section of this blog gives little information about me, other than the proven fact that I am not called Lilly. And I know from what I have read on other blogs that some people attach great importance to a name and a face, and that in their eyes a blogger signing ULN must be little more than an electronic scoundrel.

I can understand these feelings. Nothing would make me prouder than to stick my picture and my name at the top of each page, because I am not ashamed of what I write and I am ready to stand for each of my statements. Nor is mine a full anonymity, as I know and I am known (with my real name) by many people in the China blogging community.

So why continue hiding behind a pseudonym? Simple:  I like writing about subjects that have the potential to excite large numbers of people. Today I represent a company in China, and this company is not mine to decide its political stance.  There is a real risk of clients associating my blog with my company if my name gets spread all over the Chinosphere – it has happened to other bloggers before-  and due to the kind of clients I deal with, I cannot allow this to happen.

So if you don’t mind, and until the next horde of fenqing decide to flesh-seach and chop up Uln, I will keep my semi-anonymity. But since we are speaking of “credentials”, I want to unveil the following points about me, just to make sure that nobody takes me for what I am not:

• I am an engineer, but I have a Master in Business and a Semi-Master in International Relations (Didn’t get the degree because I got a job and never found the time to finish the thesis, but I will be back).

• I like reading a lot, books. Sometimes even uni course books, like my famous brick: Samuelson’s economics. Because of my focus-challenged nature I have always learnt more from my own readings than from what I heard in a classroom, even when I had remarkably good teachers.

• I have been in China for 2-3 years, including Beijing in 2002 and now  Shanghai. I haven’t stopped for a day speaking about politics with all the Chinese I’ve meet. That probably explains my poor results with the “delicate” sex. On the other hand, it has taught me to be diplomatic.

• My experience and “achievements” include weird and unconnected points such as: winning a national poetry contest in France, writing and performing songs with guitar and harp, spending 1+ year living and coordinating a project in 5 different provinces of North Korea, and others even more irrelevant.

• And finally, the most exciting: my Chinese qualifications. My level is already enough to read books in Chinese, the last book I read was XiongDi by Yu Hua, and I absolutely recommend it. I am aiming at HSK 7,  signed up for  the next test session in April and then I will publish the results on this blog.

Voila,  I don’t think any of the points above provides a serious basis to support my comments on Chinese politics and economy, so I am safe from self-satisfaction. My posts will all need to stand on their own, and when they don’t please point it out. Same when I “invent” words and phrases that don’t exist in English.

And I will leave this info hidden behind the fold of a single post instead of updating my profile info. Because I only feel like telling these things to those readers that had the patience to come all this way.

Xinhua has come up with the most brilliant in-depth analysis of the economic crisis that we’ve read to date.

BEIJING, March 8 (Xinhua) — China’s relatively fast economic growth has caught the eye of the world at a time when most of the countries are experiencing the full wrath of a raging economic slowdown.

As some Western media questions why China works, the world’s economic experts and scholars are also wondering the same thing: What tools China has to keep its economy resilient and why it is well-positioned to weather the financial crisis?

The answer lies in the nation’s unique growth mode featuring a “scientific outlook on development.”

Economists and bloggers of doom, read and learn.  For the sceptics, this editorial is based on the work of recognized specialists, such as:

• “Analysts”
• The vice president of Stellenbosch University
• The Colombian ambassador to China
• “The international community”
  
• Velia Hernandez, professor from the A.N. University of Mexico

And many other “economic experts and scholars”.

Finally,  science at the service of the community.  And the question is, what do I do now with my two months worth of canned tuna?

Today I am starting my review section with one of the books on Chinese economy that has impressed me most in the last year, “Capitalism with Chinese characteristics”, by MIT professor Huang Yasheng. It is a book that clearly stands out from the recent China books, and it might be destined to become one of the big references in the field.

There is no shortage of good China books in the last years. Many are written from a business perspective, by people with first hand experience who will tell you exactly how things are done here. Others look at the available economic data and build interesting theories to explain them. Few go deeper than this, to look into the heart of the matter: the politics behind the Chinese economy.

The problem is:  it is so difficult to obtain reliable information on Chinese policy that most efforts in this field turn into circular arguments over the same limited data. Professor Huang breaks the circle by going back to the sources and questioning directly all the mainstream assumptions, leaving many of them upside down. The situation in China requires this approach, as he says in the preface:

In studies of American economy, scholars may debate about the effects of, say, “Reagan tax cuts”. In studies of the Chinese economy, the more relevant question would be, “Did the government cut taxes in the first place?

By going back to the archives of what, in his own words is “some of the world’s most medieval record keeping”, Huang Yasheng is able to come up with a whole new picture of Chinese economic policy in the last three decades. This book is the result of painstaking archival research into rarely examined files, such as a “22 volumes compilation of internal bank documents” or the archives of the Ministry of Agriculture.

A qualitative leap from the classic tea leave reading, and one that deserves some careful consideration, even if the conclusions drawn will not be to the taste of every reader. Click to continue »

We are at the beginning of a historic week, and I just can’t not write about Obama’s inauguration. This blog is also about changing the World, and there is a chance that this Tuesday will be one of those days that changes everything. Call me a dreamer, but I want to believe that this new president of the USA will lead us to a better World, one finally based on the Rule of Law and not on the force of a few bullies. One where Western countries will not need to ask anymore for political change from China, because all know there’s no better teaching than leading by example.

Looking around the China blogosphere, I see some of the early birds have already done their Obama posts. There is this comparison of Obama’s inaugural ceremony with emperor QianLong’s, and Chinamatic here takes a look at one hilarious letter by a school kid. But I must say that up to now my favourite Obama post has been this one by Global Post. (h/t Peking Duck). I always liked the idea of interviewing a taxi driver, especially the chatty Beijing ones. These people get masses of information from all sorts of sources and can provide the best radiography of society. In this case, the taxi they chose sounds a bit conservative. He wishes Obama “to value Harmony”.

Now, one thing you don’t want to miss is the inauguration speech this Tuesday. For local info, it will be Tuesday night 12:30 China time and 17:30 West Europe. Whatever happens afterwards, this speech has all the chances of becoming a classic of political speeches. I dare say it might also become the most read/watched speech of all times: I’ve never known so many people in Europe and China preparing to watch a speech by a US president. Thousands of Chinese listened already to the election speech: We saw the Sensitive, who cried with emotion; the Ambitious, attentive to every detail of Obama’s technique; the majority, jotting down the new English vocabulary.

For American readers these links probably look too obvious, but for the rest: check out some analysis of the speech by previous presidents’ speech drafters, and here more details of the ceremony. Will Obama mention directly his ethnic background? Will he finish with “God bless America”, or with “I love you guys”? A whole lot of things to watch for Tuesday evening.

And what has Chinayouren been doing this weekend in preparation of the Historic Week? Well, among other things, reading Obama’s book in stereo Chinese-English. I bought these two books at the little stall next to my place, initially with the intention of getting some bilingual material to practice reading, but eventually captivated by the book and reading it all straight to the end (in English). As for the Chinese version, I admit I skipped a few pages and ended up in the passages where Obama plays with “Ma-li-ya” and “Sa-Sha”, which contain a vocabulary more adapted to my level.

By the way, if you are one of the thousands of Chinese out there trying to get this book, I would not recommend buying the daoban (fake) translation, buy the real one published by Han Manchun instead. The fake can be seen all over the place, riding on a thousand tricycles in Beijing and Shanghai, but believe me, I have some very serious doubts regarding the translation they are using. More about fake books in the next chapter I am preparing for this week…

This week David Dollar has a very informative post: On exchange rates, think multilaterally. It is an analysis of the RMB exchange rates and their change over time. Using one of those useful trade-weighted indexes that the World Bank likes so much, David goes over the history of RMB exchange rates from the 90s to now, drawing conclusions on the policies of the Chinese government and their consequences at each stage.

After some retrospective paragraphs that I absolutely recommend to read to anyone who wants to understand past Chinese currency policy, he goes on to speak of the future:

There is a lot of potential for misunderstanding in this area. China feels that it has had a rapid effective appreciation and now wants to see what the real effects are before going further.The U.S. is probably looking at a substantial devaluation of the dollar against other major currencies, as the immediate financial crisis wanes and the U.S. needs to rein in its consumption and save more. If that happens, it is not in China’s interest to follow the dollar down. It will take good coordination between China and the U.S. to resolve their large imbalances in a smooth manner.

And I have the same objection that I always make to the World Bank Chinese publications: they stick to strictly economic terms, and avoid Chinese politics as much as possible. OK, I can understand being part of the WB he is not as free as this anonymous blog,  and he prefers to not stick his nose into sensitive matters. The trouble is, looking at the economy without the politics around it leaves you completely blind to see the immediate future.

I am not even close to having the experience of David Dollar or the number crunching capabilities of the World Bank, but I have eyes to see that something very big is missing in his picture. Multilateralism? Misunderstanding? Before any misunderstanding can actually happen, there has to be a will to understand. And this is far from sure at this point.

I just copy here part of the comment I wrote on his blog to show what I mean:

Still, as you imply yourself in the post, economists are always better at explaining things in retrospect. I am not sure at all that Chinese authorities will do the right thing in 2009.

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We need to keep in mind that Chinese politics always give priority to internal issues over external image or foreign affairs in general. Examples of this abound in recent times, such as their attitude towards protesters during the Olympics, or their cancellation of latest EU Summit because of DL, etc.

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If it comes to a point where unemployment gets even slightly out of control I have no doubt that Beijing will do what it takes to avoid internal problems. Including playing with the RMB, engaging in trade wars, and all the while siding with the “people” against the “Western menace”.

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We should keep an eye on Unemployment and Currency.

I have been looking carefully at the Xinhua serial feeder today, and it’s been as expected: no news from Beijing. At least now we know who and when (Hu and Wen) attended the conference, but that’s about all they tell us from The Annual Meeting to Set the Tone for the Economic Development Next Year.

So that’s that. The opportunity is lost, no more China rebalancing until 2010. Next.

This week the international observers are observing us with renewed interest: China’s Annual Central Economic Work Conference is being held in Beijing Monday to Wednesday, where the country’s leaders will decide how to maintain a stable economic growth that will “improve people’s livelihood“.

Expectations are high on the meeting that will change the World. The trouble is, it will not. Xinhua has just published a first official explanation from NDRC, containing no news. The 40BRMB for “healthcare, education and cultural undertakings”, or the 280BRMB for housing projects were already announced before the meeting. If anything, note that now they have added the “cultural undertakings” for extra flavour.

What about all the rebalancing of the economy that we were supposed to see?

Wishful Thinking

What began as a series of advice by some economists has evolved into a streak of generalized optimism, as  more people started to believe that Chinese leaders will take the chance now to rebalance the economy. I suspect this very optimistic and profusely quoted World Bank report is partly responsible for this state of mind.

But the rebalancing of China’s economy, including a social safety net, health care, and all sorts of measures to bring into the economy the 900 milion rural residents that have been left out is not going to happen now.  Because it doesn’t make sense.

Here is why:

1- Hu Jintao hasn’t been able to implement his rebalancing policies during the first half of the 11 year plan. It is difficult to imagine that the development hawks in the CCP will allow him to implement them precisely now. Especially considering that things like a health care system are costly and someone needs to finance them. How much power do Hu and Wen really have to oppose the immediate interests of business?

2- Chinese like to save money, that is just the way they are, it is a trait of character. No amount of health care or land reform is going to make them spend more in 2009. How would it make sense that the same people who were saving during an economic boom decide to spend more now that there is fear of crisis?

3- All the social rebalancing and Scientific Development of Hu might be great for the long term, but they will not help China weather a difficult 2009. The real worries of the leaders now are: How well will the system resist the social and political tensions that will arise? And how well will Hu Jintao and an already fragile Social Wen resist them in the Party?

An emergency package

But there is a more fundamental objection to the notion that the stimulus package will implement any serious structural change: it is not its role. It is an effort to save an emergency situation and avoid the worst aspects of the crisis (notably unemployment) getting too serious.

And the sad fact is that great restructurings are not done in advance of crises, they are done afterwards. Hard times comes first, then reform. As an example, a quick look back at one of the historical cases that is most fashionable these days: FDR started his famous New Deal only in 1933, well after the crash of 29. In the meantime what was Hoover doing? Investing in infrastructure, like the Chinese now.

“Social” Stimulus

So will the package improve the livelihood of the peasants? Well, if you consider that buying a new color TV at a discount price is going to change their lifes, then yes. But otherwise, not.

The subsidies to buy home appliances that WSJ mentions here are clever measures, and they will probably be effective to boost the consumption of some farmers in the short term. Which makes sense, because the factories producing those TVs have to keep running, unless someone imagines that a legion of jobless manufacturing workers can be set to construct roads and railways overnight.

But nobody should be fooled: these are no social measures. They are measures to help the manufacturing companies to find a substitution market for the failing exports.

Another related “social” measure which might be hidden in the stimulus budget is an emergency fund to cover the possible cases of layoff riots. Victor Shih estimates it in his blog to be around 120BRMB in the worst of cases. I don’t think the government would be announcing this fund publicly, as it is a signal for disaster. But if 120B are missing in the 4Trillion package, now you know were to look.

Conclusions

It is all very healthy to dream, but I am afraid the largest part of China’s money in 2009 will go to help the companies resist the crisis and to mitigate the effects of it. The leaders are nervous, and the time is not for experiments.

But enough of stimulus already. Too much has been said, and I have the feeling that there are more important things to watch right now. Namely: Unemployement and Currency.

I have done enough tea leaf reading in my posts as of late, so I will leave these two subjects for next time. But if you want to know what 2009 is going to bring us in China, make sure keep an eye on them.

Now that inflation seems under control, unemployment has been identified by most as the real threat to Chinese stability in 2009. The risk of massive layoffs and social unrest is so obvious that you hardly need an economist to identify it. My blue taxi driver was telling me about it only a minute ago.

In the media and the specialized blogosphere we’ve seen many articles lately discussing the problem of closing factories. Mostly wondering how bad the situation really is, or how the government will be able to deal with it. Interestingly, opinions come in waves, one week exaggerating the damage, the week after dismissing it as seasonal closings.

Which just comes to show that, in times of crisis, bloggers and economists are all equally clueless.

The World Bank, Economists and Chinese Characteristics

The other day I commented the latest World Bank Quarterly Report, and I raised the issue that it does not take into account some obvious non-economic factors. Today, after reading the latest post on All Roads I went back to the WB report and performed a search for “unemployment”.

The number of results for this search in the 23 pages report is: 0.

Fair enough, there are 5 instances of “employment” (think positive), but most of them are explaining how the Magic Stimulus Plan is going to solve all the problems. The more I read it, the more I see this Report as loaded with Chinese Characteristics. It has been done in Beijing, by a mostly Chinese team… and like I said, it carries a highly suspicious 7.5% projection.

In spite of this, the WB report is an informative read, and one can hardly be surprised that an international institution tries to avoid conflict with one of its member governments. But what I did find quite surprising is that econoblogger Brad Setser’s analysis of the report doesn’t even mention unemployment either.

This is what made me think that we are going to need something more than economists if we want to see clear in the China 2009 scene.

Recommended Reads for the Fall

So, with all due respect, I have to desagree with Mr. Setser’s advice: If you only read one thing on China this Autumn, do NOT read the World Bank Report.

But then, what to read? Who knows really what’s going on in China?

Let’s analyze the root of the problem: China is not a transparent System. Even worse, unlike other non-transparent countries that we are used to deal with, China is a highly influential country. And it is in a position to not only hide the facts behind a painted veil, but also actively manipulate information and have hundreds of experts around the world scratching their heads.

So the answer to the question “Who knows China?” is:  A bunch of old men that are sitting in Zhongnanhai.

Now, forget your google, you will not find the Politburo Standing Comitee Blog, they will not take your phone calls to arrange an interview or explain their actions.

But what they actually DO every day is leave lots of traces, from the articles on the Chinese press to their announcements in economic policy. And these traces we can track down to the real intentions and the real information that they’re handling.  So it is by reading between the lines of People’s Daily, Xinhua and the likes that you can get a clue of what is going on here.

In conclusion, to understand China, economics is not enough: we also need politics.

Political Economics

So if you are only going to read one thing on China, I suggest you look for a political economist.  For example the blog of Victor Sish, which I discovered recently. He is a professor of political science at Northwestern University specializing in Chinese politics, and he also writes on Nourini’s monitor. He has a keen eye for interpreting the news from a Chinese government perspective. Don’t miss his last post on unemployment. For my part, I’m adding him to my Roll.

In fact, I am opening a new section on my Blogroll for Chinese politics and economy, and I would be grateful if you can recommend some other Crisis Watching sites, in English or Chinese. I am looking for sites that focus on making sense of the Chinese government’s moves.

Any more missing Links? Tips welcome. Thanks.

Picture credit: The shade of Zhongnanhai by Zhongnanhai 10毫克.

If you’ve been around in Shanghai today you might have noticed there was a Beijing nip in the air. One could almost smell the 烤鸭 as the temperature got rapidly freezing by midday. In the same time, the air felt clean like it does in the clean Northern winters, and it’s been a great day for a walk if this weather suits your clothes.

This is how it looked down the line of Nanjing Lu seen from the French concession:

A little search on the internet confirms that it is indeed the North Winds that are sweeping the pollution out of Shanghai and bringing us the blue skies. I found this cool weather site that is  more technical than the usual mainstream ones, and more enjoyable with lots of buttons and levers for all the geeks to play with.

This is what I got for Shanghai winds today:

I always love to google up “Shanghai Air Pollution Index”. It doesn’t give you a clue about the real state of pollution, but at least it shows some typical difference in perception.  These are the 3rd and 4th results:

Shanghai’s Air Quality Improves .China Daily

Shanghaiist: Shanghai air quality now sucks even harder .Shanghaiist

Whatever. The intention of this post is to start monitoring the air quality in Shanghai. During these past years leading to the Olympics, foreign residents in Beijing have been insistingly complaining about the pollution and have finally managed to have the government take some serious action.

Having lived in both places, I’ve always held that pollution in Shanghai is as bad as in Beijing. We have the World Exhibition coming, so now’s the time to start building the pressure to get the authorities do something about Shangai too. In case you are thinking that the EXPO 2010 is not as important as the Olymics, you might want to check out this article from the October issue of CER. The EXPO will have more than 10 times the visitors of the Olympic games, that is, 180 million lungs breathing in the Shanghai air in 2010. There’s clearly a critical mass to try some lung lobbying.

I also found that the blog “Mad about Shanghai” started some time ago a particular pollution scale, and for some reason gave up after a year. I will not apply the same scale, but I have a simplified one that I developed the first week i got to Shanghai: the Plaza 66 scale. It is simple, visibility index = the number of floors you can see when you look up at this building on Nanjing XiLu. Today we had a Full 66 (albeit with some browinsh hue in the horizon).

Now, I know if we really want to get technical you might say that visibility doesn’t equal pollution, and that Shanghai being in a more humid area, worse visibility is to be expected. There are also the famous API measurements done by the chinese authorities, and shown in this interesting  website for any day in the last 7 years. It shows that Shanghai has no problem with pollution.

But I have been an engineer for long enough to know that numbers are the most powerful tool of deception. I’m not buying the “blue sky day” statistics of the Shanghai Environment Monitoring Centre (SEMC). I have compared it with My Nose Monitoring Centre (MNMC), which says that, everytime you get back to Shanghai from a trip in the country, you can actually smell the air the minute you step out of the train in any one of those yellow “blue days”

I will be posting once in a while to see if there is any improvement from now to the EXPO. For more information on how China measures the pollution, you can read this very interesting post by an environment engineer explaining all you don’t want to know about API.

If you are not scared of the hard numbers, you can also check out the Shangzilla measuring scale, although judging by the number of reads, you probably have seen it before. As for me, I will stick to my Zhongnanhais while they are in stock. At least the air I breath in goes through a filter first.

I have decided I can’t really run a serious China blog without the corresponding “learn Chinese” section.

So here you go. This first post is about the HSK (汉语水平考试), which is giving me a lot of trouble these days. HSK is the official test for Chinese language organized by the Beijing Language University. Also known as the Chinese TOEFL, or the Chinese Proficiency language. It is a nightmare.

The second and last HSK examination of 2008 will be held on the 22nd November, which is this Sunday. And I have completed my registration and I am joining this time, and I am wondering how I ended up here. One day I told my teacher that I needed some challenge, and before I knew what was happening, it was all set up for me.

Yes, I have always been a bit of a masochist when it comes to languages, but HSK is beyond my wildest expectations. It hurts. It is the most stressful language exam I have ever done. You get less than 3 hours to read and answer more characters than any normal person would read in a week.

The listening part has to be my favourite. They play a CD with a guy babbling in Beijinghua, and immediately afterwards a lady comes up asking a tricky question about what he just said, and in the meantime you are supposed to choose an answer from four different options that have nothing to do with the subject in hand. You are still there wondering if you got the right CD track when there comes the man again with his next old chat. No repeats! you jot down your answer and move on to the next.

Among the hordes of professional Japanese and Korean examinees that will show up at Shifan University this Sunday,  I will probably be the only one there just for the sport of it. That must be the Olympic spirit I acquired earlier this year in Beijing.

GOALS: I am aiming at a 6th Level, which according to the official HSK should be enough to enter a non-language academic program in a Chinese university. According to me, the levels of HSK correspond quite closely to the age of a native speaker, so if I succeed in my goal I will be like a 6 year old toddler. Great! Then I will be able to update the age info on my profile.

That is probably what they meant when they said that China would make me grow.

UPDATE: I am still 5 y.o. I touched the 6 with my fingertips, but was short of 2 points in the grammar section (surprisingly the beijing gangsta-rap listening went fine, I think I got so obsessed with the listening that I overdone it and disregarded grammar). SHIT, I am going in again in April. If there’s anyone out there in Shanghai with similar level who wants to join me in the effort, please write me a note.

Last weekend, as I was browsing the net for some material to get over my post electoral withdrawal, I came across this iconic Obama.

I didn’t know exactly what it was, but something in it looked very familiar. Very Chinese. I saved it in my Obama bookmarks, and didn’t think of it again until Sunday evening.

That was the evening when I went to the barber’s to have my hair uncut.

I like the barber down the road, I’ve been going there every month since I came to Shanghai, and by now he knows exactly what I like. This is a great advantage, because I am always at a loss when giving instructions to a Chinese hairdresser. I feel even more embarrassed when they proceed to show me pictures of men supermodels, and rather optimistically ask me to point at one of them.

But Wu Shifu will do none of that. He is a no nonsense professional, and he delivers 20 kuai worth of real styling value. A true perfectionist, he takes care of every detail and will not give up until every single hair is at the right lenght.  Every now and then he stops cutting and reaches for the little mirror with which he shows me around my own head, asking eagerly if all sides are well shaped, and secretly hoping that I will request some virtuoso manoeuvre, perhaps a re-balancing of my temples.

Like usual, last Sunday the man was doing a great job. When it was almost finished and he came up with the little mirror for the 5th time, I thought I might as well give him some little bit of satisfaction for the trouble. And, since we are at it, why not test him for Chinese characteristics.

- Is it OK this side? And here? And the top?

- Um, no, no. Too short over the top, I will have it a bit longer this time.

- Uh, er… longer what, here?

- Yes, please, can you do that?

- Yes we can!-  Snap, snap, snap.

And there he goes snapping away with his scissors, cutting the air close to my head in his efficient fashion, and probably thinking that if he goes on for long enough, my hair will have actually grown longer by the time he is done with it. After 5 minutes of cutting the air thin, while I watched the ultra boring Shenhua-Tianjin  on his TV, I decided that my hair was long enough already, and informed him thus.

- Thank you, master Wu, it looks much better now.

Click to continue »

Finally, it looks like the Chinese authorities are going to get serious about internet addiction. My favourite Xinhua reader on the sidebar just brought in the scoop, straight from the medical research labs.

Internet addiction in China is a well known problem, and it has been quite present on China blogs these last weeks, following this much commented article by Robert Vance, an English teacher in China.

It is a good thing that the government has decided to address this growing problem, but I have some concerns about how they are going to go about it.

Will we be tested for internet addiction at the mandatory medical test? Will it be added as one of the questions in the immigration form at the airport, right next to “do you have AIDS?” And more seriously: will the Chinese authorities make use of this new disease as an excuse to restrict even more the access to free information on the internet?  Here is the report:

Chinese doctors released the country’s first diagnostic definition of Internet addiction over the weekend, amid efforts to address an increasing number of psychological problems that reportedly result from Internet overuse.

Tao Ran, a medical expert at Beijing’s Military General Hospital, where the definition was developed, said it was also the first time for China to officially designate hospital psychiatric units to treat such cases.

Symptoms of addiction included yearning to get back online, mental or physical distress, irritation and difficulty concentrating or sleeping. The definition, based on a study of more than 1,300 problematic computer users, classifies as addicts those who spend at least six hours online a day and have shown at least one symptom in the past three months.

“Eighty percent of addicts can be cured with treatment, which usually lasts about three months,” said Tao. He did not describe the treatment, however.

One of the main problems with the approach of the Chinese authorities is that it doesn’t seem to differentiate between addiction to the internet and addiction to online games. It is clear to anyone that has ever stepped into a chinese internet cafe that the real addiction problem here is to games, and not to the internet itself.

I always thought that if the government has not yet taken any serious measure against this well known problem, it is for a reason. In a way, the legions of Chinese young men immersed every night in their online games constitute a Harmonious force. How? Well, just imagine what all those idle minds would be doing with their spare time if they weren’t busy shooting aliens. Probably not studying the famous Scientific Development Concept of President Hu.

It remains to be seen if anything serious is going to be done against this real addiction, which affects the productivity of the chinese workforce in these difficult times when it will be most needed. And hopefully, they will leave alone the real internet community, the one that has created over the last few years a whole new world of Chinese free opinion.

One clue: Note that it is a Military Hospital that has developed the special psychiatric units to treat the disease. Who will be the first lucky user to get a ticket for the three months of rehabilitation with doctor Tao? He might be reading this blog right now.