China`s `negative news?` - Motta, Fernandes Rocha Advogados

Opinion
WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 8, 2012
China’s ‘negative news?’
O
nly four years ago, Beijing played
host to the summer Olympics
and amazed the world with its
modernity and sophistication. The
event was widely seen as China’s coming out party and signaled its readiness
to become a major world power.
Visitors were dazzled by the glittering capital and its high-rises. As the
official website of the Beijing Olympics
stated, the city was “an international
metropolis’’ with an “impressive modern skyline, a reflection of its rapid economic development.’’
However, the recent July 20-21 rainstorm, which resulted in the death of
77 people, has provided a glimpse
behind the city’s glossy facade. Now, it
is clear that while externally the city
featured some of the world’s most marvelous architecture, beneath the surface
the infrastructure to support these
modern buildings was not in place.
Typically, the Communist party’s
propaganda apparatus sprang into
action, calling for fewer stories on
death and destruction and more “positive’’ reporting. Experts, perhaps
unaware of the full extent of the damage, declared the emergency response
as “effective’’ and, in fact, “even better
than that of the United States.”
News media was told not to raise
questions about whether the government had responded rapidly enough or
whether enough was done to prevent
the floods.
The censors went so far as to delete
Views From Overseas
Frank Ching
Journalist, Commentator in Hong Kong
eight pages of flood-related coverage in
the Southern Weekly, published in
Guangdong province.
Despite these steps, or perhaps
because of them, postings on the Internet suggested a growing anger on the
part of the people, who felt that the
government was not doing enough to
help flood victims. In fact, some police,
instead of helping, were giving tickets
to abandoned cars stuck in the water.
The Chinese public was skeptical
about what little information the
municipal government disclosed,
including the death toll, which the
authorities insisted for five days was
only 37. The government explained
that it could not update the death toll
because it had not identified all the
bodies.
Even the People’s Daily, the Communist party’s flagship newspaper, found
this explanation unacceptable. It ran a
commentary under the headline “Casualty numbers are not a sensitive topic,’’
and asked why it wasn’t possible to
publish a death toll first and report the
identities later.
Alluding to the propaganda from
NASA does gold
medal dismount
on Mars
authorities about sensitivity to “negative news,’’ the paper said: “People are
paying less attention to ‘negative news’
and more attention to how the government deals with ‘negative news.’”
Clearly, it feared that the government was losing the trust of the people.
After an updated death toll of 77 was
released, the official Xinhua news
agency quite untypically pointed out
that this was not done “until the public
and media criticized the government
over its failure to release the figures in
a more timely manner.’’ It added sarcastically that by then even “the death
toll of the city’s livestock had already
been calculated and released.’’
It is encouraging that Chinese media
is bold enough to criticize officials and
to offer them advice. However, this is a
case of national-level media criticizing
a municipal government. The case of
Southern Weekend, meanwhile, suggests that a regional media organ is in
no position to resist central propaganda authorities.
One positive sign is that the two
highest officials of Beijing municipality,
party secretary Guo Jinlong and acting
mayor Wang Anshan, both went to
Fangshan, the city’s worst hit district,
to mourn disaster victims.
Mr. Guo said the disaster had provided an extremely deep lesson that
should be remembered forever while
Mr. Wang said the municipal government would consider the public’s criticism and “constantly improve its
efforts to prevent such a tragedy from
happening again.’’
But even if officials are sincere the
job ahead is enormous. As the Global
Times, affiliated with the People’s Daily, frankly acknowledged, “in terms of
drainage technology, China is decades
behind developed societies.’’
As visitors were told during the
Olympics, Beijing was the capital city
during the Liao, Jin, Yuan, Ming and
Qing Dynasties. It is an ancient city
whose drainage system was built during the Ming (1368-1644) and Qing
(1644-1911) periods.
The system still holds up well in the
Forbidden City, home to China’s
emperors, but it cannot withstand a
major challenge. Fixing drainage pipes
isn’t romantic but it is vital if Beijing is
to present itself to the world as a modern capital. This is one problem that
can’t be swept under the carpet.
Frank Ching is a journalist and commentator
based in Hong Kong. Email the writer at
[email protected]. Follow him on Twitter:
@FrankChing1.
Rover Curiosity on Mars
By Dale McFeatters
The most elaborate, technically difficult and demanding dismount came
not in the London Olympics but 352
million miles away in a vast Martian
crater.
In a sequence NASA called “seven
minutes of terror,” the mobile science
lab Curiosity decelerated from 13,000
mph to be gently deposited on the
ground through an elaborated choreographed sequence involving a giant
parachute, 79 separate detonations to
jettison ballast, protective shields and
the parachute itself. A “sky crane” with
retro rockets then took over and with
Curiosity safely in place, cut its tethers
and flew off to crash a safe distance
away.
It was the end of a journey that
began last Nov. 26.
One slip-up and $2.5 billion would
have been down the drain. Martian
expeditions are no sure thing even
when it’s a fly-by with no landing
involved. The Associated Press says of
more than three dozen attempts since
the 1960s more than half ended disastrously.
Thus the understandable reaction of
engineer Allen Chen, the deputy leader
of the rover’s descent and landing: “I
can’t believe this. This is unbelievable.”
Curiosity was not a tiny craft like the
two rovers launched in 2004 with
expected life spans of three months.
(One of which, Opportunity, against all
odds, is still trundling around the planet.)
Curiosity is a nuclear-powered, sixwheel research vehicle the size of a
small car, packed with scientific instruments, and with an Earth weight of a
ton.
Curiosity went right to work and
began transmitting photos back to
Earth, the start of its two-year mission
to learn as much about the Red Planet
as possible, particularly looking for
any evidence that Mars once supported life.
The successful landing was an
important victory for NASA, which
has seen the end of the space shuttle
program and its most ambitious
projects canceled for budgetary reasons or by changes in administrations.
President Barack Obama, who has
been accused by Republicans of being
insufficiently ardent about “American
exceptionalism,” called the landing an
“unprecedented feat of technology that
will stand as a point of national pride
far into the future.”
Jet Propulsion Laboratory Director
Charles Elachi put the feat in a more
contemporary context. “This team
came back with the gold,” he said.
Indeed they did and sincere congratulations to all.
Dale McFeatters is an editorial writer for
Scripps Howard News Service (www.scrippsnews.com).
1
Romney’s fumbling foreign-policy foray
By Arthur I. Cyr
Did the Obama
presidential campaign stage-manage
Mitt Romney’s foreign policy trip to
Britain, Israel and
Poland? Of course
not, but then it
didn’t have to.
The result was
the same as if the Obama team had.
The public gaffes and blunders of the
Republican presidential nominee-inwaiting have been truly stunning.
The Romney visit to Britain was
launched in the media by an unnamed
adviser who praised “Anglo-Saxon heritage” in an off-the-record interview with
a British newspaper. There is in fact a lot
to praise about that heritage, which has
given us the common-law tradition, trial
by jury and also arguably our powerful
proclivity for philanthropy beyond the
boundaries of business and government.
However, the staffer instead provided media and political critics with an
opportunity to attack Romney’s camp
for elitism, insensitivity and even
racism. That is unfair, but who said
political campaigns are fair?
Even then, deft sound-bite salvos
could have recovered Romney’s
ground. He should have immediately
emphasized his minion meant the
Anglo-American “special relationship,”
also referred to in the interview, vital to
victory in World War II and instrumental in creating the United Nations and
other international institutions.
President Barack Obama, after visiting London, declared dramatically that
the British never used torture during
World War II, which is factually wrong.
He also abruptly sent back to the
British government a bust of Winston
Churchill that graced the Oval Office,
presented to President George W. Bush
by Prime Minister Tony Blair.
Churchill, pivotal in protecting democracy and defeating the Axis in World
War II, has recently become a posthumous target of British activists on the
loony left, offended by his lack of political correctness. They ironically confirm
his importance in leading the coalition
that saved freedom, including theirs.
That point and others could have been
made by the Romney campaign. Instead,
the candidate publicly pummeled the
British for problems plaguing the current
London Olympics, thus offending many
people far removed from the political left.
Prime Minister David Cameron rightly
retorted with cutting effect.
In Israel, Romney predictably underscored the vital partnership with the
United States. Here as well, however,
he and his organization could not resist
complicating things. His public denigration of Palestinian culture as explanation for that population’s economic
hardships, delivered before a Jewish
audience at a Jerusalem fundraiser,
was gratuitous and unfair.
In Poland, Romney was endorsed by
Lech Walesa, former president and
Nobel Peace Prize winner. As leader of
the labor union Solidarity, Walesa was
instrumental in ending Soviet domination in his country, and indirectly by
example in the rest of Eastern Europe
as well.
Romney wisely also visited monuments in Gdansk and Warsaw honoring veterans of World War II and Solidarity, and victims of the Holocaust.
He could easily have added visits
with American military personnel to
his trip itinerary. Apparently, his corporate-style campaign staff did not
even consider that.
To repair the serious damage done
on this safari, Romney can regularly
note the heroism of the Polish people
and others, and emphasize to voters
the service of our own military people.
Conventional wisdom holds that foreign policy does not have an important
role in presidential campaigns and
elections. However, that is an oversimplification.
In recent years, most of the public
has viewed Republicans as more effective than Democrats in protecting
national security. The Romney campaign retains but now risks squandering this asset.
Arthur I. Cyr is Clausen Distinguished Professor
at Carthage College in Kenosha, Wis., and
author of “After the Cold War.” Email
[email protected].
9
Asian tiger stalks
Brazilian jungle
By Michael Altit
T
his year Brazil is commemorating 40 years since the
arrival of the first Korean
immigrants in the country. They initially settled in the city of Sao Paulo,
and mainly engaged in small business ventures. With an innate
understanding of the importance of
education as a path to social inclusion, coupled with sheer tenacity
and hard work, they were
able to ascend both socially and economically.
Today, they are present at
all levels of Brazilian society as successful politicians, doctors, professors,
and businessmen.
Brazil has been traversing an important and
unique moment, which
started with the consolidation of democracy and control of
inflation marked by the introduction
of the Brazilian real in 1994. Everything relating to Brazil is supersized: the national territory (8.51
million square kilometers), population (192 million), and the sheer
diversity and volume of its natural
resources. For instance, some specialists have estimated that the
country’s newly found pre-salt oil
reserves might yield from 70 to 100
billion barrels of oil.
The country’s ability to cruise
through the 2009 crisis practically
unscathed, and with positive
growth, has attracted the attention
of businesses and investors around
the globe. However, there is still
much to be done, taking into
account the country’s immense
needs in terms of infrastructure,
technology, and specialized labor,
all of which are essential if the
country hopes to maintain the current momentum and truly differentiate itself from other emerging market economies. Moreover, the
upcoming 2014 FIFA World Cup
and the 2016 Olympic Games will
also require further investment.
With a keen eye, Korean ventures
have identified opportunities, and
could play an even greater role in
this process. In this scenario, Korean
investments in Brazil continue to
accelerate. According to the Brazilian Central Bank (BACEN), the South
American giant received more than
$1 billion in direct investments from
Korea in 2011. This represented
only 1.5 percent of total direct
investments in Brazil for the year.
Nonetheless, this entails an
increase of approximately 688 percent vis-a-vis 2009. The overall sentiment is that the investment spree
has only just started, and should
increase considerably in the near
future. For instance, the state of Sao
Paulo, Brazil’s industrial and financial locomotive, recently organized a
seminar geared towards Korean
investors interested in investing in
Brazil. As widely divulged in the
Brazilian specialized press, approximately 100 participants, from a
wide range of business segments
(oil and gas, telecommunications,
real estate, alternative energy,
water and sewage, among others)
attended the event. Unlike countries
with a long-established presence in
Brazil (Japan, Germany and the
United States spring to mind), Korean investors have been carefully —
but surely — learning with great
speed and fearless determination, to
navigate Brazil’s complex business
and legal environments.
Currently, together with Korean
titans Hyundai Motor,
Doosan, LG and Samsung,
there are more than 100
Korean-related ventures
already operating in the
country, including smalland medium-sized companies. More are expected.
The complexities of Brazil’s
tax, labor and regulatory
legal environment have not
deterred them. In developing their investment business strategy, Korean ventures have adopted a
multidisciplinary approach. They
are fast learners, and are keen to
use the latest legal and financial
technology available to maximize
returns their investments. Strategic
decisions are taken only after a
thorough investigation of all relevant aspects of the business alternatives available, traditionally followed
by on-site visits and face-to-face
contact with local partners and service providers.
Some of their major concerns
have been more affordable funding,
broad access to capital markets and
the possibility of simultaneous
access to local and international
sources of financing, including
BNDES — the Brazilian Federal
Development Bank — and its
diverse lines of financing. Instead of
straightforward direct investments,
typical in similar circumstances,
some Korean investors have decided to invest in Brazil using local
funds. One of the advantages is better management of profits and losses arising out of the project and a
more efficient dividend policy.
Another example is instead of
capitalizing the target project with
the usual cross-border loans,
investors have considered the
issuance of debentures, or local
securities. These can be purchased
by Brazilian and international institutional investors, and, provided
some specific conditions are met,
they allow the foreign investor to
receive interest payments free of
withholding tax, thus reducing the
final cost of funding for the borrower. This kind of innovative business
approach places a lot of pressure on
both legal and financial advisors. At
the same time, it also affords new
opportunities for service providers
to render services that effectively
create and add value to investment
decisions. The process is just beginning. The hunt is on!
Michael Altit is a senior partner at the
Brazilian law firm Motta, Fernandes Rocha
(www.mfra.com.br). He has a B.A. in law
from Sao Paulo University and an L.L.M.
from Harvard Law School.
Letter to the Editor
Foreign aid useless for Pakistanis
According to media reports, the
United States released $1.1 billion to
Pakistan from the coalition support
fund after the two countries signed an
agreement to regulate NATO supplies
to Afghanistan. Pakistan will also get
extra $84 million after reopening the
NATO supply route. Pakistan is one of
the largest recipients of U.S. assistance
and nearly $3 billion in U.S. aid to Pakistan is planned for year 2012.
True reality is that over the last several years U.S. aid served only the
interest of the elite class and corrupt
politicians in Pakistan and could not
change fortunes of ordinary Pakistani
people. Despite large amounts of foreign aid, foreign debts have already
reached $62 billion and the country is
facing worsening energy and power
crises.
Pakistani people believe that large
amounts of money have already gone
to Swiss Banks through corrupt politicians and Pakistan’s Supreme Court is
trying hard to bring back this corruption money but due to a lack of government interest it seems an impossible
task.
Instead of providing money to
unpopular and corrupt elements, the
U.S. should try to make good relations
with ordinary Pakistani people. Direct
U.S. investment into the energy and
power sector can bring better results
and also win the hearts and minds of
ordinary Pakistani people.
Pakistan is also seeking a role in U.S.
and international markets to boost economic activities, especially in the textile
sector. Due to worsening peace conditions, the worsening energy crises and
failed economic policies, foreign investment has already dried up in the country and unemployment is rising very
rapidly.
Now the government is seeking
another loan from the IMF on humiliating conditions and despite large
amounts of foreign aid ordinary Pakistani people find nothing to improve
their lives.
Khawaja Umer Farooq
Jeddah, Saudi Arabia
Email : [email protected]