The China Daily on The China Price

Much to my surprise, the China Daily has reviewed my book in a favorable light. The review, published in today's China Daily, argues that "Harney's book certainly has plenty of grim material providing grist for the China-critic mills. But Harney has too much integrity and objectivity as a reporter to altogether ignore the positive side of China's export economy." William Daniel Garst, the reviewer, liked the story of the girls of room 817 (pictured on my Twitter page) and agrees with my argument that the China price is unsustainable. He does take a more sanguine view than I do in the book, where I argue that while China is changing and worker expectations are rising, not much will change until Western consumers do. If anything, the financial crisis has deepened Western consumers' appetite for cheap goods. But recent books like Ellen Ruppel Shell's Cheap, which generated good press coverage, suggest that at least coastal American pundits are willing to discuss the question that lies at the heart of The China Price: are we really okay with prices this low, even if they mean unsafe working conditions, unsafe products and the decampment of our entire manufacturing sector to cheaper locales abroad?

Whither rule by law for China?

The detention of respected Chinese lawyer and member of the Beijing People's Congress Xu Zhiyong has left me deeply concerned about the direction China is moving. Several years ago, I had the opportunity to meet and spend some time with him. Xu (pictured here in this month's Chinese Esquire magazine) is soft-spoken and modest; it wasn't until someone told me about his ground-breaking work after the Sun Zhigang case to help change the policy on custody and repatriation that I realized just how extraordinary and important a person he is. Here is a man who wants to work through China's own legal system for the benefit of its people. His representation of victims of the Sanlu milk scandal and his efforts to expose black jails testify to his convictions. Much has been written with great eloquence about the tragedy of Xu's detention and its potential significance for China. The detention of someone who was still playing well within the system (or so it would seem) suggests that it will become even more difficult for other lawyers to take on potentially sensitive cases, including, perhaps, labor cases. Is China setting itself up for further social instability? Thanks to excellent promotion of last year's labor laws, Chinese workers know now they can use the courts to redress grievances. Labor-related lawsuits rose 95% last year, the fastest increase of any category. Disputes are up a further 30% this year from last year's high base. If the door to the courts closes, where will workers, newly educated about their rights, turn?

Chemicals at any price?

In the wake of the Tonghua Iron and Steel Group labor dispute/murder case, another horrific story emerges from China's hinterland. According to the South China Morning Post, at least five people are dead and more than 500 sick as a result of cadmium poisoning from toxic waste freely released by Xianghe Chemical, a plant in Liuyang city, Hunan province. Employees of the plant, which has been closed, told the SCMP a familiar story of officials from the environmental protection bureau who came to "drink tea" but never saw the production line. On the one hand, you have to give China credit for at least meting out punishment: the director of the environmental protection bureau has been fired, and the deputy mayor arrested. But on the other hand, this is neither an isolated event in China nor new to this area - the previous director of environmental protection was arrested on suspicion of bribery. On the one hand, the China Daily's coverage and Xinhua's commentary have been more frank about problems with local governance; but on the other hand, this is not about "emergencies" or "incidents" - this is about a systematic, nation-wide pattern that, if unaddressed, will threaten the very stability it seeks to preserve. China's government and others rightly cite the fact that other nations polluted their way to industrialization. What they don't mention is that it was only bitter protests, followed by laws and policies considered radical at the time that finally put pressure on local officials to change.

China's looming demographic challenges

I've been catching up on China's demographics lately, and have been fascinated to read a presentation Richard Jackson, a senior fellow at the Center for Strategic & International Studies' Global Aging Initiative, gave in May. It's well known that China's one child policy has had a profound effect on the country's development, that the country will get old before it gets rich. But the numbers Jackson cites are staggering: in 1972, when Japan's elderly comprised the same proportion of its population as China in 2005, its per capita income (in 2005 PPP) was nearly $15,000. America hit that share in 1943, when its per capita income was more than $15,500. China? Just over $4,000. The number of dependents (children and elderly) per 100 working age people will rise from 47 in 2010 to 87 in 2050. With a public pension system that Jackson estimates only covers one in three people, and smaller families meaning fewer children to support their parents, something has to give. He argues for pension reform. I agree. But as Japan, the US and other developed countries confront their own aging societies, it's worth asking how these social challenges will affect countries' foreign policy. I think we should expect rapidly aging countries to be more inwardly-focused, for profits of companies to decline as they are expected to shoulder more of the retirement burden, and for countries to revise their economic models based on a shrinking, not a growing, labor force.

Japan's herbivores

I'm interested in Japanese youth - particularly how they consume (see my Atlantic piece on that subject), but also how they think. The social changes in Japan are fascinating right now - young Japanese I talk to have a completely different approach to life than their parents. What kind of country does that create? Is it one where people are more free to pursue whatever lifestyle they want, where they feel less judged not following the traditional path of cram school-university-job-marriage-children-30 years of long hours-retirement? I'm also interested in how this generation is pursuing more inwardly-focused hobbies - a lot of online games, of course, but also Japanese traditional crafts, and domestic travel rather than the status-trip to Honolulu. One Japanese man told me that he and his friends have no interest in holding down regular jobs - their parents will support them, and any extra money they need they can earn easily, by working at convenience stores or in Japanese pubs. Another swathe of young Japanese earn their keep by selling manga to each other in Akihabara and elsewhere. Anyway, I've written a piece about part of this phenomenon for Slate here. I'd be interested to hear your thoughts. (Image by Robert Neubecker courtesy of Slate.)

K Lunch

And now for some lite fare: it turns out that Hong Kong people have been disappearing into karaoke rooms on their lunch hours - singing and eating their hearts out for less than five US dollars. K Lunch, as it's known, is not news to most Hong Kongers, but was completely new to me when I heard about it a while back. Check out my piece on the subject in Time here.

How green is your bamboo keyboard?

One of the issues that has captivated me (and let's be honest, lots of other people) for a while is how green products that say they're green really are. A lot of products marketed as green don't actually provide us the information to prove it, and green products are so in fashion these days that suppliers in China, Taiwan and elsewhere go to very un-green lengths to create "green" products. And just because a product carries a green label doesn't mean it's actually good for you. Over on the excellent New Energy and Environment Digest, my friend Elizabeth Balkan wrote about bamboo keyboards earlier this month. Her post reminded me of the debate on bamboo flooring, and my overall interest in building materials (stifle that yawn!). Bamboo materials, it has been pointed out, do not yet carry any certification like the Forest Stewardship Council. That's before we discuss quality and safety problems such as those raised in the recent lawsuits about Chinese drywall and Paul Midler's excellent book Poorly Made in China. I'm not suggesting that children are going to spent their days licking the keys, but given the above, I do wonder what else is in that bamboo keyboard.