The newspaper of China's future

It’s almost April Fool’s’ Day, and here’s a mock edition of the People’s Daily Overseas Edition newspaper written at some date in China’s future. This satire is finding its way around on the internet.

Check out these headlines:

The main headline at the upper left, above the mushroom cloud, reads: “China Successfully Tests new Type of Nuclear Bomb on San Francisco.”

Next to it in the top middle of the page: “United Nations HQ Moves to Beijing.”

Are you getting the picture? It’s enough to cheer up any Chinese less than chipper about the future.

At top right, the headline reads: “Premier Wen Jiabao accompanied by Gov. Ma Ying-jeou pays a visit to Taiwan.” (In other words, Taiwan has already been absorbed into China.)

At lower right, under the NBA logo, is the headline: “Yao Ming recovers from injury, helps Rockets with championship.”

Smaller headlines lower on the page read:

“Chinese government Apologizes for Accidental Bombing of Pentagon.”

“Dalai Lama is Shot and Killed.”

“Major Earthquake hits Japanese Islands;
           Chinese government Sends Rescue Team.
                      No Survivors found Yet.”

“China Plans to Build 2nd Patriotic Military Base on Moon.”

It’s interesting that headlines play off not only natural interest in China growing ever stronger but also in seeing punishment wrought on its perceived enemies. Japan is abolished in a big quake, and the bombs fall repeatedly on the United States.

Hey, who are those monks anyway?

Some security official in Lhasa is going to get taken to the woodshed for a paddling.

As most of you know, the Chinese government has organized its first trip for foreign journalists to Tibet since the riots there March 14. About two dozen American, European, Middle Eastern and Asian reporters are on the trip.

It was supposed to be a stage-managed trip to show that calm had returned after the riots. But something unexpected happened.

When the journalists were taken to the Jokhang Temple this morning, a group of about 30 monks started screaming that there is no religious freedom in Tibet. It lasted for about 15 minutes.

My colleague Charles Hutzler from the Associated Press wrote this in his story:

"Tibet is not free! Tibet is not free!" yelled one young Buddhist monk, who then started crying.

He added this further on:

"They want us to crush the Dalai Lama and that is not right," one monk said during the 15-minute outburst.

"This had nothing to do with the Dalai Lama," said another. The Chinese government says 22 people died, while Tibetan exiles say the violence plus the harsh crackdown afterward have left nearly 140 people dead.

The outburst by the monks came amid a morning of stage-managed events. Reporters had already been taken to a Tibet medical clinic that had been attacked nearby the Jokhang, and shown a the clothing stores where five girls had been trapped and burned to death.

The monks, who first spoke Tibetan and then switched to Mandarin so the reporters could understand them, said they knew they would probably be arrested for their actions but were willing to accept that.

Reuters, the British news agency, was not invited on the trip. But a Reuters reporter spoke to a journalist in Lhasa and wrote this in a dispatch:

The group of monks at the Jokhang Temple, the most sacred temple in Tibet and a top tourist stop in central Lhasa, barged into a briefing by the head of the temple's administrative office.

"About 30 young monks burst into the official briefing, shouting: 'Don't believe them. They are tricking you. They are telling lies'," USA Today reporter Callum MacLeod said by telephone from Lhasa.

Another reporter said some of the monks asserted that they had been unable to leave the Jokhang Temple since March 10.

A third journalist on the trip, Wang Che-nan, a cameraman for Taiwan's ETTV said the incident lasted about 15 minutes, after which unarmed police took the Tibetans to another area of the temple, away from the journalists.

It was unclear what happened to them next, the reporter said. Police and government minders did not confiscate notes or film from reporters but told them to move on. "They said: 'Your time is up, time to go to the next place,' " Wang said.

Okay, so imagine you’re a Chinese official in charge of public relations for this disaster: How do you spin it? Do you say the monks drank funny kool-aid this morning? Do you avoid explanations and just move on? Can you plausibly contend that all these monks are part of the “Dalai clique” and have been infiltrated into one of the holiest sites of Tibetan Buddhism?

Or do you just sit and feel that indigestion bubble up in the tummy, another Maalox moment, and prepare to go to the woodshed?

More on access to Tibet

The Foreign Correspondents Club of China, which has several hundred members here in Beijing, just weighed in with the following statement about today's trip to Tibet for a select group of foreign reporters.

MAR. 26, 2008 -- Chinese authorities have arranged a trip to Tibet from March 26-28 for a small group of international media. This brief, tightly managed trip falls far short of fulfilling China's promise, made during its bid for the 2008 Olympic Games, of free media reporting.

The FCCC calls on the Chinese government to allow all other foreign correspondents who wish to report in Tibet, and Tibetan areas in other provinces, to be permitted to do so at the earliest possible date -- and to enable them to work and travel without government interference.

We also urge Chinese authorities to allow the foreign media group that departed for Tibet March 26 unfettered freedom to report, and to safeguard the Constitutional right of free expression for Chinese nationals who agree to be interviewed.  We are extremely concerned about recent reports that sources in Tibetan areas and elsewhere have experienced various forms of intimidation.

Following unrest in Lhasa and other Tibetan communities, foreign correspondents have notified the FCCC of more than 40 violations -- nearly all by local officials --  of the Olympics-period foreign media reporting regulations which began Jan. 1, 2007. Although official efforts to assist journalists who've encountered interference are appreciated, we call on Chinese authorities to improve implementation of the new regulations as quickly as possible.

An organized trip to Tibet

This just in: The Chinese Foreign Ministry has picked a select group of foreign correspondents to travel to Tibet Wednesday to see the damage done during violent protests March 14.

I heard about this a few hours ago, and am told that reporters from the Asian Wall Street Journal, the Financial Times, Al Jazeera TV, Kyodo News, Associated Press Television News, a Taiwanese television channel and a couple of others were invited to go.

I called our senior Foreign Ministry contact, Mr. Tang Rui, to ask whether I could go. His response: “Who told you about it?” I said a journalistic colleague. He told me to send a fax. Later, someone at the International Press Center said we could send a fax but quickly appraised my chances of a spot on the trip: “No way.”

So there you have it. Like most aspects of this unfolding story of unrest in Tibet, the Foreign Ministry is keeping a strong hand on how it plays in the media and who tells the story. Interesting that Chinese diplomats want two international newspapers with a financial focus to get first dibs.

Hatred and the Wheel of Life

Suppose you’re an angry Tibetan. You bash some heads in a protest. You want to take out your anger on the Han Chinese who you feel are doing better than you.

Then you ponder a bit about Tibetan Buddhism, which says that all of us will reincarnate. What happens if you come back as a loathed Han Chinese? Or vice versa. As a Han, you detest the Tibetans who destroy the stores of innocent Han in Lhasa. And what if you come back in the next birth as a Tibetan?

This comes to mind from reading part of a blog post by Tang Danhong, translated courtesy of China Digital Times. She’s a Han, a poet and filmmaker, who sympathizes with the Tibetan cause. Here’s part of what she wrote:

“For more than a decade, I have frequently entered Tibet and often stayed there for a long time, traveling or working. I have met all kinds of Tibetans, from youngsters on the streets, folk artists, herders on the grasslands, voodoo doctors in mountain villages, to ordinary cadres in state agencies, street vendors in Lhasa, monks and cleaners in monasteries, artists and writers. … Among those Tibetans I have met, some frankly told me that Tibet was a small country several decades ago, with its own government, religious leader, currency and military; some stay silent, with a sense of helplessness, and avoid talking with me, a Han Chinese, afraid this is an awkward subject. Some think that no matter what happened, it is an historical fact that Chinese and Tibetans had a long history of exchanges with each other, and the relationship must be carefully maintained by both sides. Some were angered by the railway project, and by those roads named “Beijing Road,” “Jiangsu Road,” “Sichuan-Tibet road,” but others accept them happily. Some say that you (Han Chinese) invest millions in Tibet but you also got what you wanted and even more; some say you invest in the development but you also destroy, and what you destroy is exactly what we treasure. ... What I want to say here is that no matter how different these people are, they have one thing in common: They have their own view of history, and a profound religious belief.

“For anyone who has been to Tibet, he/she should sense such a religious belief among Tibetans. As the matter of fact, many are shocked by it. Such attitude has carried on throughout their history, and is expressed in their daily lives. This is a very different value, especially compared with those Han Chinese who have no beliefs, and now worship the cult of money. This religious belief is what Tibetans care about the most. They project this belief onto the Dalai Lama as a religious persona.

Then Tang goes on to the religious aspects. What happens if my worst enemy is who I’ll end up being on the Wheel of Life in the next incarnation?

"This group of people who believe in Buddhism because they believe in cause and effect and transmigration of souls, oppose anger and hatred, developed a philosophy that Han nationalists will never be able to understand. Several Tibetan monk friends, just the "troublemaker monk" type that are in the monasteries explained to me their view on "independence": "Actually, we may well have been ethnic Han in a previous incarnation, and in our next incarnation we might well become ethnic Han. And some ethnic Han in a previous life may well have been Tibetan or may become Tibetan in their next life.  Foreigners or Chinese, men or women, lovers aand enemies, the souls of the world transmigrate without end. As the wheel turns, states arise and die, so what need is there for independence?"  This kind of religion, this kind of believer, can one ever think that they would be easy to control?  Yet there is a paradox here: if one wants them to give up the desire for independence, then one must respect and protect their religion."

'No Dogs and Chinese allowed'

It was the kind of sign that humiliated Chinese during the semi-colonial era before 1949. Signs in foreign-run concession areas would sometimes say: “No Dogs and Chinese allowed.”

Those days are long over. China is a proud nation, with much to be proud of.

But there are certain places that continue to be restricted for Chinese. And I happen to be smack dab in the middle of one. Our office is in what is called the Qijiayuan Diplomatic Compound. It no longer is just for diplomats. While there are some diplomatic missions here, any foreigner with some currency can rent, I believe, and Chinese employees or family members are welcome. At the gates, People’s Armed Police guards stand smartly at attention. They often stop Chinese and ask for identity cards to see if they indeed have jobs here or are part of families residing here.

All this is a long wind-up to say my office assistant, Fan Di, arrived in tears this morning. She’d been stopped at the gate, apparently rather rudely, and it got her dander up. So she refused to pull out her identity card. She told the guard he’d seen her enter countless times and why was he harassing her? So I asked her to write up her impressions. That's her in the photo below, by the way. Here's what she wrote:

There were two soldiers standing there this morning. As usual, I was rushing directly to the doorway of our building when suddenly one of the two soldiers stopped me with his arm.

"Show me your card," he said.

"I work in this building," I replied confidently, hinting that I should be recognized since I have worked in this building for more than half a year and I was sure that I didn't look like someone who came here for the first time.

"This is an embassy and anyone should show their card if they want to get in," the soldier said.

"Oh really?" I questioned. "Why do you never ask for cards from foreigners?"

"Because this is a FOREIGN compound," he emphasized most arrogantly.

Okay, had he not said such words, I would have shown him the card. But this is not the first time that I heard such words spoken from their mouths. What he said irritated me and I decided that I would never show it to them. Do foreigners have priority in the foreign compounds? Is it logical?

"How do you know that I'm not a foreigner?" I asked.

"I should check your card before I know whether or not you are a foreigner," he said.

"I'm not giving you my card," I said. "I would give you my card if you checked everybody. But you don’t. Now I'm late for work and I'm going in."

Maybe the soldier had never seen a Chinese girl as tough as me. He was obviously angry and stretched out his arms to block me. When I was managing to get out of his control, the other soldier, who never said anything before, now came to help his comrade. He also stopped me with his arms. They were forcing their arms against me really hard.

"Let us try and see whether you can get in (without my permission)," shouted the first one as if he had great power superior to mine. The stalemate lasted for half a minute and finally I broke free.

As I was running to the doorway, that guard still couldn't stop shouting: "I'll remember you. You wait and see!"

During the whole process, another two guards were just standing there 10 meters away, laughing.

As I got into the elevator, tears just came from my eyes. I was angry not only because I was treated unfairly, but also I have experienced how some Chinese still make foreigners seem superior, and I felt pity for the guards. I think the other soldier must know that I work here. He still watched his companion give me trouble. They treat any foreigner better than their compatriots. The only standard they judge people is by the color of their skin. Should this be the way that they are educated? Don't they understand there might be more Chinese who work in the foreign compound and should be respected for who they are? AND, what are they here for? Supervising Chinese? In that way, they can even smile to a foreign terrorist!

At noon, I told another office worker about this and she asked why I didn't speak English to them to avoid trouble. Why should I? I don't want to pretend that I am a foreigner. I've never felt as a Chinese that I’m lower than a foreigner. I am just who I am.

Buggy about Beijing

The U.S. government has this warning for you if you’ll be traveling to Beijing to watch the Summer Olympics: Your hotel room could well be bugged.

The warning comes in a State Department fact sheet on the 2008 Games that I believe was either issued or updated this week.

Much of the fact sheet is not surprising. It says China is generally a very safe country and the threat level for political violence is low. No signs have emerged of particular threats against U.S. citizens (or those of any nationality, except maybe Japanese, for all I can tell).

“However, recent violence in Tibet and a purported early March failed attempt to create an explosion on a passenger plane in flight from western China’s Xinjiang Province to Beijing are good examples of how potentially dangerous events can occur in the run-up to the Olympics.  U.S. citizens planning travel to China should regularly check www.travel.state.gov for updated travel warnings, alerts or cautions.”

A little later in the tip sheet is a section on “privacy & safety.” The bold-faced part is my highlighting:

“All visitors should be aware that they have no reasonable expectation of privacy in public or private locations.  All hotel rooms and offices are considered to be subject to on-site or remote technical monitoring at all times.  Hotel rooms, residences and offices may be accessed at any time without the occupant’s consent or knowledge.  Many hotels and apartment buildings may be of substandard construction, lack emergency exits, fire suppression systems, carbon monoxide monitors and standard security equipment (locks, alarms, and personnel).  Americans traveling abroad should be reminded to review fire evacuation procedures for hotels, apartments or offices.”

I learned about this from Mikel Dunham’s blog.

Mobilizations in western Sichuan

I’ve just returned from my trip to western Sichuan province, an area with a heavy ethnic Tibetan population. The place is crawling with security, as one would expect.

But what I didn’t expect was the massive influx of paramilitary and military convoys on the main road from Sichuan toward Tibet. Each day earlier this week, we saw more than 100 military vehicles moving up the road. Nor did I expect such intense control in the cities and towns, with police cars racing up behind any vehicles stopped in the road and warning them through loudspeakers to keep moving along.

I was with a colleague from Time Magazine. We left the Sichuan capital of Chengdu Sunday morning and arrived six or seven hours later in Kangding.

Kangding is at about 8,500 feet in elevation, so it’s well into the mountains on the road to Tibet. Kangding now has walking patrols of helmeted anti-riot forces marching through the streets. The photo is of one we saw there. Notice not only the riot shields but also the automatic weapons slung over their backs.

On Monday, we left early and hit a snowstorm going over the first pass at an elevation of about 14,400 feet. It was there that we ran into the first major convoy of military vehicles. I have video of the convoys crawling through the snowy pass.

Many of the vehicles appeared to be People’s Liberation Army trucks. We heard various stories, including that they were doing a regular resupply run to Tibet. One person told us that the convoys run from March to November, when snows block the route, and that they were just getting restarted this year.

We arrived in Yajiang in the early afternoon. Police there were more aggressive, blocking all traffic from the center of the town. We found a new vehicle to take us on to our final destination of Litang. The driver was Tibetan, and two monks wanted to tag along. We said sure. As they ran a few errands, they began to get more and more agitated as police cruisers pulled up alongside and told the driver to keep moving, no stopping.

We finally got back on the road, only to be slowed down by new caravans of military vehicles and higher mountain passes, one reaching up to 15,400 feet or so.

Litang was deserted. Click here for the story I wrote about the situation there. Litang is a historic place, a center of Tibetan rebellion against Chinese Communist Party control. The big monastery there was literally bombed by PLA aircraft in 1956 to subdue one rebellion. The city of 50,000 or so is nearly all Tibetan.

The driver dropped us off at the edge of the city, saying no outside vehicles could enter. Surprisingly, we found no police checkpoint, though we were nervous about being spotted by police. We found a local vehicle willing to take us to a hotel.

The streets were deserted. The city was locked down. We hunkered in the hotel, talking to people in the reception. We learned that authorities had ordered all shops closed, all cars off the road, and for locals to stay in their houses. So far, there had been no major unrest in the city.

We were uneasy about getting detained and ordered out. After all, we were in contact with fellow correspondents who fanned out across Gansu and Qinghai provinces looking to cover the news, and virtually all of them had been stopped by police.

The next morning, with splitting headaches from the 13,100 foot altitude, we walked along the streets, snapping photos. For breakfast, we found a little hole-in-the-wall place serving beef noodle soup. In walks a group of three cops. Oops! We greet them jovially. They pay us no mind. Very curious. Two foreigners, obviously not backpackers, and they ignore us.

We walk on and head to the monastery (also have a great video from there but can’t post it yet). We speak with monks there, who were clearly tense about the situation.

As we left Litang Tuesday at noon, we see an extraordinary number of paramilitary vehicles from the People’s Armed Police, the internal security force of China. The PAP has a strength of more than one million men, and looks very military. Its troops wear olive green uniforms. The vehicles were camouflaged. What struck us is that the scores of vehicles we saw appeared to be prepared for a massive field maneuver against an insurgency or something.

We saw troop carriers, communications trucks, mobile ambulances, paddy wagons, cranes, and armored trucks that looked designed for riot control.

It hit us that these units were likely headed for the area around Litang.

As we headed back to Chengdu on Wednesday, another 150 or so PAP trucks and vehicles were chugging up the mountains. It is a massive mobilization.

While the trucks looked in good shape, we saw quite a few broken down by the side of the road. I found this interesting. China spends a lot on its military. But its Chinese-made trucks can’t avoid the quality problems that still affect many Chinese manufactures.

Update: I’ve had several other stories posted recently pertaining to the current crisis. I was in Nepal in February, and here is a link to an article about Tibetans who flee across the Himalayas, a three-minute video explaining the difficulties of the journey they undertake, and a sidebar about why they do it. Here’s another article on the frustrations of young Tibetan exiles overseas, some of whom clearly are not happy with the Dalai Lama and his pledge to non-violent means.

Another update: Here are the URLS for some of the video I shot. This first one is of military trucks rolling along the highway toward the Tibet border: http://videos.mcclatchydc.com/vmix_hosted_apps/video/1783925 And this one is of a short clip of the armed police marching in Kangding: http://videos.mcclatchydc.com/vmix_hosted_apps/video/1783937

Struggling to report on Tibetans

This is an interesting time to be a foreign correspondent in China. Like dozens of colleagues, I am near the border with Tibet but unable to get in.

I happen to be in Sichuan province. And I’ve been in contact with colleagues who I know are in Gansu and Qinghai provinces, all trying to get a feel for what’s going on among ethnic Tibetans.

It is not easy. We are face some measure of difficulty, trying to outsmart Chinese provincial authorities who would just as soon muzzle the foreign press at times like this.

None of us can enter Tibet, which is off limits to foreign reporters without a permit. I know of only one foreign journalist, James Miles of The Economist, who had the good fortune to be in Lhasa as events unfolded over the past few days.

So the rest of us spread out to neighboring provinces. There are 2.9 million Tibetans living in what is known as the Tibetan Autonomous Region, or for simplicity’s sake Tibet. But a couple million more dwell in adjacent provinces, often living near other minorities or the majority Han Chinese. I’m now in a city with a majority Tibetan population, although I won’t say which one it is.

We foreign reporters all take precautions. We have to switch vehicles often. Some of us swap out SIM cards in our mobile phones, or just turn them off. That way, authorities cannot triangulate mobile phone signals and figure out our locations.

None of us are doing anything illegal. It’s just that it’s very easy for officials in the hinterlands to stop us and ask endless questions, creating delays, or simply bar us from entering areas for unspecified security reasons.

Earlier today, I saw probably 100 or more military trucks on a highway heading to Tibet. I have no idea what they were carrying or if it was a routine caravan. It’s all part of the riddle of trying to decipher what is happening, and what will happen, in Tibet.

I may get stopped in the next 24 hours. But I’ll do my best to wriggle out of it.

'The Dalai Lama is right'

Ethnic Tibetan anger bubbled over today, and it wasn’t just in Lhasa, capital of the Tibetan Autonomous Region. Here’s a link to the story I've just written about the rioting in Lhasa.

Click on this website and scroll down to see photos taken with a mobile phone of what happened outside the Labrang Monastery in Gansu Province today. This place is far, far to the northeast of Tibet, practically halfway between Lhasa and Beijing. It is a big ethnic Tibetan enclave.

All week, Chinese officials have been saying only a handful of disgruntled Tibetans are causing problems. The Dalai Lama, for his part, says discontent is widespread because of "unimaginable and gross violations" by China against Tibetans.

I spoke a little while ago with Robbie Barnett, a professor of modern Tibetan studies at Columbia University in NYC. This is the way he summed it up: “The Dalai Lama is right. The Chinese are wrong. The Tibetan people are not happy.”

Strong as steel in China

There are a multitude of skyscrapers out there in China, and maybe no calamity will ever befall any of them. But on days like today, one has to wonder.

This morning’s Shanghai Daily carries a small article, the gist of which is that half the steel sold in the city’s wholesale markets for construction fails quality tests.

Yup. As I type this, I’m on the 14th floor of a building with no sprinkler system. I’ve always worried about fire. Now my overactive imagination is beginning to wonder about the building’s stability.

But first back to the article, which I spotted via the Danwei news site and the Shanghai Scrap blog. It says the Shanghai Industrial and Commercial Administrative Bureau inspected 52 batches of steel material at three markets and 15 construction sites in seven districts, and officials said 27 batches had quality problems.

It says some of the steel is “five times lighter” than China’s minimum standard for building.

“About 22 percent of the tested products failed tension tests. Buildings with such steel would not be able to withstand major earthquakes, the bureau said.

“Forty-eight percent of the tested material had inadequate amounts of carbon. Shortage of carbon can cause steel to break easily, officials explained.

“The bureau would not reveal where the steel was in use.”

That won’t exactly build confidence among those having to work or dwell in Shanghai high-rises.

Makes me think back to the collapse of the bridge in the Twin Cities in Minnesota last year. No one had a clue that there was a serious stability issue. Then Bam! Everyone talks about it. Same goes for steel from China. Go to this blog post of mine about building materials from last year and read the first comment. The guy knows what he’s talking about and is really concerned.

So what we know is: Shoddy steel is rampant in Shanghai. Regulators have detected it. They won’t say where it is in use. So we can’t worry too much about it. In other words, it’s not a big issue. That is until Bam! It’s a really big issue and people are dead.

Shutting down Mt. Everest

China just sprung a huge surprise on the mountaineering expeditions from around the world set to climb Mount Everest during this spring’s climbing season.

It just shut the mountain down until May 10. No mountaineers are welcome till then, which is virtually too late to make a real attempt on the world’s highest mountain.

The notice came from the Tibet Mountaineering Association, which governs activities on the Tibet side of Mt. Everest, which sits on the border of Tibet and Nepal.

According to the website mounteverest.net, the fiat will probably inconvenience about 1,000 mountaineers in dozens of expeditions, many of which are already en route to Tibet and have money down on porters, yak caravans, hotels and vehicles.

Presumably, the decision is so that Chinese torch bearers can take the Olympic torch up the mountain without disturbance sometime in the next two months.

The notice cites “concern of heavy climbing activities, crowded climbing routes and increasing environmental pressures” for the delay but doesn’t directly mention the Olympic torch.   

An ode to 'blue sky' days

Here are  the questions of the day when it comes to air quality and the Beijing Summer Olympic Games: Do you believe your eyes? Or do you believe your ears?

That is because what you see out the window does not match what Chinese officials say you should be seeing.

Today is a good _ but not clear _ example. I took the accompanying photos from my 14th floor office window overlooking the Avenue of Everlasting Peace, Beijing’s main drag. Air quality is pretty bad. I can barely see past the Second Ring Road, which is three long blocks away. Looking East, I can’t see the Third Ring Road.

Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi, meeting the press in an annual news conference (that is correct: he meets the Beijing press corps just once a year), was asked about air quality. An NBC television reporter began his question noting that an Ethiopian world-record marathoner decided this week not to take part in the Beijing Games marathon, citing the bad air quality. Read my story from yesterday on this topic here.

“Especially on a day like that which we have in Beijing right now,” the reporter went on, “and the Olympics so close at hand, what would you all say to the athletes of other countries and their governments as to the quality of air by the time the Olympics arrive this August?”

Yang responded exactly in the following way:

“I believe most athletes who are going to take part in the Olympic Games in Beijing are satisfied with the air quality, environment and sports facilities in Beijing. They have full confidence in these conditions.

“It’s up to debate whether China is a strong sports country or a major sports country. But there is one thing for sure: Many athletes in the world have broken world records in Beijing. If they can’t break world records in other places, maybe they can come to Beijing, where they will have better luck.”

“China takes climate change seriously. And the Chinese government has taken a full range of effective measures to tackle climate change. I believe that the air quality will only become better and better in Beijing.”

This comes a day after Zhang Lijun, the deputy chief of the State Environmental Protection Administration, also said air quality is getting better. He repeated that China has seen the number of “blue sky" days increase from just 100 in 1998 to 246 last year.

That point, however, needs some clarification. When Chinese officials talk about “blue sky” days, they don’t mean days when the sky is really blue. They mean days when sunshine can penetrate the haze and create a shadow. The sky is still an icky gray. We do get occasional clear days in Beijing when the sky is blue but they are a tiny fraction of the 246 “blue sky” days.

So there you have it. Are you going to believe what you see? Or believe what you are told?

Oh, and if you’re a suspicious sort, and want to check the facts, be forewarned that if you open up this webpage that used to offer a daily reading of air pollution levels in Beijing, it now comes up completely blank. Apparently the state environmental bureau doesn’t think this is useful information anymore with tens of thousands of people descending on the Chinese capital.

Just enjoy your “blue sky" day, like today, and be done with it.

China's tycoons and their wealth

Few can doubt that as China gets more prosperous, its wealthiest entrepreneurs will be asked to give more of their money away.

It’s already happening. In December, the investment bank UBS reported that the donations by China’s top 50 publicly disclosed philanthropists had risen eightfold in three years. Their donations hit $10.9 billion last year.

It’s not happening fast enough, though. At least that’s what a top Chinese entrepreneur said at Harvard Business School over the weekend. The entrepreneur is Niu Gensheng, chairman of Mengniu Dairy, the huge Inner Mongolia concern that trades on the Hong Kong stock exchange.

“No matter how you look at it, compared with developed countries, China’s enterprises and entrepreneurs in general lag behind their Western counterparts both in terms of shouldering their social responsibilities and in terms of investment in charitable causes,” Niu said, according to a text sent to me by Ogilvy Public Relations Worldwide.

Niu recounted in his lecture how he decided in 2005 to donate his and his families shares in the Mengniu Dairy Group, valued at $516 million, to set up the Lao Niu Foundation, dedicated to public interest causes.

He said Confucian ideals call for great achievers to give back to society.

“It is my hope that China will re-embrace our tradition of giving, adapt a new mindset of what ‘success’ means, and encourage our enterprises and entrepreneurs to advocate a philanthropic business culture,” he said.

Niu said his company provides milk free of charge for a year to all of the teachers and students of more than 1,000 primary schools in impoverished rural areas.

I can’t vouch for Niu or his company but I bet a lot of Chinese hope he is right when he says “entrepreneurs are awakening to their responsibilities to contribute to the harmonious development of China.”

To China, by bus

Can you handle a 16-day bus trip? Then consider BuddhaBus, a British company arranging travel between London and the Chinese city of Urumqi.

If you still haven’t had enough road trip, just make the return journey.

I saw the website for Buddhabus, and immediately felt a pain in my gluteus maximus. I can't imagine such a long road journey, even with four break days. Since the cost of the journey isn't cheap, the company resorts to another tactic.

If you peruse the website, you feel guilt settle in:

“For various reasons more and more people are choosing not to fly. A recent survey by the Lonely Planet guide found that 93 percent of respondents would consider switching to a more sustainable means of transport for future trips.

"Recent years have seen an increasing awareness of the damaging effects of air travel on the environment. The impact of climate change - largely ignored by governments and corporations - compels travellers themselves to lead the way towards more efficient solutions. At present BuddhaBus is the most efficient means of travel between Europe and Asia."

The site notes that taking the BuddhaBus trip would emit one-quarter of the carbon dioxide emissions of flying.

"One return journey with BuddhaBus saves at least 2 tonnes of carbon when compared to a flight. This is equivalent to 300 trees’ carbon conversion over a 100 year period, or a total of 100,000 trees for one return flight.

"Train travel is currently at least 25 percent less efficient than coach travel, making BuddhaBus the most environmentally responsible means of travel between Europe and Asia currently available."

Gosh, even if it were a limo powered by solar panels, I think I’d stay home. My rear end is already thanking me.

The Olympics 'software'

Covering the run-up to the Olympics can be quite maddening in China. Chinese officials flood us with minute details but refuse to answer basic questions, such as about security, anti-doping measures or food safety.

Olympics officials offered a tour and a press conference earlier this week of the newly finished Olympic Village where some 16,000 athletes and officials will stay during the Games. The facilities are beautiful.

But a British colleague and I walked out of the press conference shaking our heads. Authorities offered excruciating detail about the double-glazing of the windows in the Village and the environmental considerations going into construction of the 42 dormitory-style six- and nine-story buildings.

When it came time for questions, only three were taken, and the answers were boilerplate.

So what about security at the Village? What preparations have been made? To prepare well, one has to visualize who might attack and how. Who are the potential assailants?

Plenty of people might read this and say: China doesn’t need to detail this kind of information. One should just trust that China is well prepared for all contingencies. Okay. But one can easily build trust with a modicum of public information that indicates one has thought such contingencies out and is well-prepared.

From soundings of foreign correspondents, I can assure you that many of my colleagues are impressed with the “hardware” of the Games _ the facilities are beautiful, even stunning _ but there is much work to be done on the “software.” That means that questions go unanswered at news conferences, or responses to news events are not forthcoming.

Two examples: When the Sunday Times, a London newspaper, reported a couple of months ago that 10 workers had died during construction of the “Bird’s Nest” national stadium, it took Olympics officials days to respond, and they couldn’t get their facts straight even then. A second example occurred last month when Oscar-winning director Steven Spielberg bailed out as one of the artistic directors of the opening and closing ceremonies, Beijing Olympics officials were no where to be found to respond.

This may sound like needless harping. If so, please enjoy the beautiful facilities. But if there is a real news event in the run-up or during the Games, Chinese officials will get a quick and painful lesson on managing information in an emergency. Either they will respond quickly and openly, or they will get a set of aches and bruises not worthy of a well-trained Olympic athlete.

The Olympics opening ceremony

When the opening ceremony of the Olympic Games begins at the auspicious time of 8 p.m. on Aug. 8, some 10,000 entertainers will delight the spectators.

Details of the opening ceremony are supposed to be secret, but details are slipping out, the latest coming from famed film director Zhang Yimou, famed for "Raise the Red Lantern" and "Hero," who is directing the spectacle.

Zhang was besieged by journalists the other day at the Great Hall of the People, where he is attending the annual sessions of the National People’s Congress, the rubber-stamp parliament, and a consultative body known as the CPPCC.

In the crush, Zhang let slip that there has been a large-scale rehearsal of the ceremony and more than 10,000 people took part in it.

“All the actresses are good looking,” he said with smile, according to the semi-official China News Service.

Reporters asked how the ceremony would unfold. “I can't tell you this or I’d be leaking secrets,” said Zhang.

Zhang said the ceremony will be marked by grandeur and singularity.

“In order for all  audiences to enjoy the performance,” Zhang said, “the art of performance should be properly grand,” adding that costumes, movements and visual impact will all be impressive.

Zhang was supposed to be working with Steven Spielberg but the three-time Oscar winner pulled out last month, saying China was not doing enough to help end bloodshed in Sudan’s Darfur region. Zhang called Spielberg’s decision “quite regrettable.”

Among the 10,000 performers at the Bird’s Nest will be a 10-year-old girl – one of our daughters – who is among some students selected in Beijing for a song-and-dance number. Her teacher called our house to emphasize how important this event is and how she will be expected to rehearse hard in the next few months.

Then she’ll get home to face pressure from me too spill the beans about the show. I’ll twist her arm. Then I’ll tell you what to expect. But keep it to yourself.

On Murdoch, changing sexual mores

Here are some tidbits of interest in the last few days.

As many news junkies in China may have heard, the Hong Kong-based Far Eastern Economic Review has come under fire for ordering up a review of a recent book on Rupert Murdoch, the media tycoon, the declining to publish the it.

Other websites, notably Danwei.org, have published the spiked review. I can’t speak to the merits of the book, by Bruce Dover, a former Murdoch minion, but I found parts of the review rather entertaining.

By way of background, Murdoch has long-standing ties to China. His young wife is from Shandong Province, and his News Corp. has made many business forays here. A tidbit from the review:

If the thick-hided warhorse much cared, Murdoch probably wouldn’t like some of Dover’s racier anecdotes told against him. And he would hate any discussion of Wendi Deng, his mainland-born wife and a woman half his age (Dover claims to have introduced them). But its difficult to see the hard-headed businessman coming to any conclusion other than the inevitable one at which Dover arrives, that Murdoch’s efforts to conquer China failed miserably and expensively. What is strange, as Dover explains, is that it took such a long time for the man famed for his corporate perspicacity in most places he plunders to see that the same weapons he wields to build the world’s biggest media empire – influencing political outcomes in the world’s Anglophone democracies - shoot blanks in one-party communist China.

Dover enthusiastically describes Murdoch’s bumbling about China. But the most damaging anecdotes are when he fleshes out what has often been rumoured, how obsequious Murdoch’s elongated kowtow has been. Dover relates the many times the Murdochs went out of their way to out-purple the prose of Beijing’s party propagandists; Rupert’s pulling of the memoirs of Hong Kong’s last British colonial governor Chris Patten; paying millions to publish Deng Xiaoping’s daughter’s unremarkable hagiography of her father; Rupert’s demolition of the Dalai Lama as “a very political old monk shuffling around in Gucci shoes;” son James’ description of the Falun Gong spiritual movement as a “dangerous apocalyptic cult.” …

Other revelations are fun, portraying Rupert as anything but a megalomanic media mogul; a bored Murdoch walking out of the official Hong Kong 1997 handover ceremony and getting lost in Tsimshatsui’s rainswept backstreets; “Mr Grumpy” ordering a $3,500 bottle of wine in a sleazy Beijing bar in a fit of corporate pique; almost being mown down by a bus as he crosses Shanghai’s Bund and delightedly crowing about the $1 haircut he received on a Shanghai sidewalk.

Another interesting story earlier this morning from the Associated Press discusses the changing sexual mores of Chinese in cities. Here’s the link. And here’s an excerpt:

At the Pepper bar in Beijing, a 20-year-old manager who did not give her name said without hesitation that young women's attitudes toward sex is casual. Her friends often show up and pick up men.

Cai Junjie, a strapping 23-year-old golf coach who calls himself Tank, saw no reason for a long mating ritual before sex.

"If two people want to be together, time isn't an issue,'' he said, still avoiding the word "sex'' when talking to a stranger.

Chu Yanyang, an unemployed 21-year-old, said she once went to a bar known as "One-Night Stand,'' just to see if it lived up to its reputation. It did.

"They'll ... write their phone number on a little slip of paper. And if you drink a beer with him, then he'll give you the slip of paper,'' she said. "That way, you can get in touch if you want to hook up another day, or some people might even just leave together then and get a hotel room.''

Maintaining a relationship can be too much work, Chu added. "If when we eat I always put food on your plate for you and one day I don't, then you might get mad and fuss at me. These little fights are really hard,'' she said. "So you might have a one-night stand. It's just so much easier.''