Oriada

One of the most common criticisms levelled at foreign journalism by Chinese media-watchers is that foreigners are only interested in making China look bad.  The foreigners, so the meme goes, are threatened by China’s development and are therefore out to smear China at every opportunity.  The truth, however, is that, rather than being part of a fiendish international conspiracy to undermine China’s rise, a lot of the journalism on China is, quite simply, just plain lazy. 

Most mainstream Sino-related articles in the major foreign newspapers still fall into the same three cozy stereotypes: "those crazy kungfu Chinese", "the mystical ‘Buddhism and Confucius and stuff…’ Chinese", or "the evil Chinese authorities and their dastardly plots".  And while they are almost certainly not committed to "making China look bad", many foreign editors do have a tendancy to seek out the more sensationalist stories about China.

On recent high profile story serves to illustrate this point.  The Guardian, among others, has been focusing on the decision by Jining City authorities to cull stray dogs after a recent rabies scare.  Newsworthy? Well, maybe, but this story really has been done to death in the international press, receiving far more coverage than it actually deserves.  (Although, it should be noted that this item is generating quite a bit of chatter on internet forums within China too.) 

The reason for this blanket coverage is cleary because this news item makes a perfect off-the-shelf article in the "Communists as Pantomime Villains" genre: guaranteed to attract the eyeballs while at the same time requiring absolutely no research whatsoever.  "Chinese Government Slaughters Cute Pets": the story pretty much writes itself.  (Of course, the way this incident was handled doesn’t say much for the Jining authorities’ spin doctors - if they have any - but that’s a different matter.)  Earlier this week the NYT had another prime example of this genre: a pretty gruesome report on China’s booming cadaver trade.

Ronald Soong, at the peerless Zonaeuropa blog, has an excellent post looking at the tendancy of negative China-related rumours to spread unchecked, and the resulting difficulty of refuting these rumours.  This is in relation to the recent "organ harvesting" scandal.  At Zonaeuropa you can also find an article debunking the recent, obviously very suspect tale of a "government sponsored massacre" in Xiangyin, a story that was picked up on spec by certain foreign news outlets.

When Chinese authorities actively encourage unionization at a major multinational corporation and then start prosletyzing for more unions, and when that major multinational corporation happens to be not-exactly-union-friendly "associates-not-employees" Walmart, something is quite obviously amiss.

Although both Walmart and the Chinese authorities will likely spin this as a victory for the common man to whom the unions will give a voice, the reality is, naturally, quite different.  Independent trade unions are illegal in China.  The only legal union is the government-sponsored and party-controlled All-China Federation of Trade Unions. It is therefore highly unlikely that the ACFTU is going to begin agitating for shorter hours and higher pay.  As the WP points out "the role of the state-sanctioned unions isn’t to channel the discontent into achievable gains; it’s to contain it to the employer’s benefit"
 
It remains to be seen, however, whether this will have any effect on Walmart’s profitability in China. The chain has been having trouble in other regions of late, completely pulling out of Korea and Germany within the last few weeks.  The Chinese market is very different to these other markets, though. Walmart has been rapidly expanding its operations here, and now has 59 stores in 29 cities.  There are many Chinese competitors in the market, but few of them can compete with Walmart in terms of either product ranges or prices, particularly in the second-tier cities where Walmart currently seems to be focusing its efforts.

Work has apparently begun on a new Disneyland in Shanghai.  This report says that it will open in 2010 and will be almost 4 times bigger than the Hong Kong Disneyland.  This has been in the pipeline for years, but it was previously reported that Disney wouldn’t open in Shanghai unless it had a guarantee that it could launch a Disney channel on Chinese TV.

It is interesting to note that Disney have promised that this park will be bigger than Hong Kong’s.  The HK one is the smallest off all the Magic Kingdoms and one of the many complaints levelled at it since it opened is that there aren’t enough rides inside (a mere 16 apparently, compared to 52 at the original). HKDL did not release visitor numbers for its first year of operation but it is suspected that they are well short of the target.   (Notwithstanding the mini-riots caused by crowds trying to storm the place over the Spring Festival)

On a related note, this blog’s former stomping ground, Wuhu city in Anhui province, has announced that it will build the biggest theme park in China.  It’s due to open next year, and the developers are expecting 3 million visitors a year.   Given that Wuhu’s rather run-down train and bus stations can hardly cope with the current capacity, some serious upgrading would be necessary to cope with an extra 9,000 visitors on average every day. 

The much greater worry, though, is where Wuhu is going to find these 3 million extra visitors once it has splashed the cash (2 billion RMB) on this new development.  It’s is certainly well located, near Nanjing, Hefei and other major centres. But even Wuhu natives would surely admit that the city doesn’t have many tourist draws, and would struggle to sell itself as a holiday destination.  Most people have never even heard of it, and many of those that have, know it only as the hometown of popular pop moppet and actress Zhao Wei.

What’s more, as this report outlines, themeparks are cropping up all over the country as grasping investors eye easy ways to soak up some of the disposable income of the emerging middle class.  Even the VP of the China Association of Amusement Parks is worried (and this is surely not a good sign): "If you go to any medium-sized and large-sized cities, you will find a theme park that is built up or under construction. I am kind of worried  what do we do with so many amusement parks?"

Exactly.  It’s the same old cycle of Innovation - Imitation - Saturation that has happened so many times before in the Chinese market.  As soon as someone starts making profit from something, the market becomes flooded with barely distinguishable versions of the same basic product, and before long nobody is making money.  Remember the short-lived Chinese pizza craze?