The China Thread

[Admiral Yi]

It is the businesses charging whatever they can.  Basically, a working class family making 20k a year needs to compete with rich mainlanders with tens of millions in cash to buy milk powder.  The mainlanders will always outbid the little guys.

Which makes sense if everyone is bidding for the last container of milk powder left in the world.  Not so much if more can be produced and imported.

[Monoriu]

It is the businesses charging whatever they can.  Basically, a working class family making 20k a year needs to compete with rich mainlanders with tens of millions in cash to buy milk powder.  The mainlanders will always outbid the little guys.

Which makes sense if everyone is bidding for the last container of milk powder left in the world.  Not so much if more can be produced and imported.

Problem is we are one of the few places in the world where tourists vastly outnumber locals.

[Monoriu]

Oh and if the product is flats, they can't be produced quickly enough.  And the consequence is locals don't have places to sleep.

[Admiral Yi]

Problem is we are one of the few places in the world where tourists vastly outnumber locals.

A gigantic problem if you all are bidding for one milk powder container.

[Sheilbh]

Mono's political quietism ends as he joins HKIP.

[Monoriu]

Mono's political quietism ends as he joins HKIP.

I am saying, yes the mainland tourists have brought tons of pain, but we still need more of them because that will bring our GDP up 

I simply explained why the majority of the population hate them.  I don't agree with them 

[Valmy]

Wait you like having to pay more for your powdered milk?

[Monoriu]

Wait you like having to pay more for your powdered milk?

I don't.  But it is not about whether I like it or not.  It is about free trade and GDP.

[Monoriu]

One of the things I deal with at work has to do with tourists.  School buses.  There are no designated school buses in Hong Kong.  There are plenty of charter bus companies.  Guess what, they all want to do business with the tourists because they pay more than local parents, schools and students.  So the parents complain to us that nobody wants to bid for the school contracts to take their kids to school and back.  They all prefer to take the tourists to shops where the mainlanders will be coerced to buy crap.  Afterwards the tourist guides, bus drivers, shop staff etc will all take a cut in kickbacks.  The supply of school buses cannot be increased because HK is already such a small place and road space is very limited.  So Transport won't issue any more permits for charter buses.  That's a fixed number and locals can't compete with tourists.

[jimmy olsen]

Appears? Fuck the AP, they can rot in hell with the BBC and other cowards of their ilk.

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/apr/17/gao-yu-and-document-no-9-china-jails-journalist-for-leaking-state-secrets

Gao Yu and Document No 9: China jails journalist for leaking state secrets
Guilty verdict and seven-year sentence appears to confirm formal Communist party policy on curbing press freedoms and civil society

Associated Press in Beijing

Friday 17 April 2015 04.12 BST  Last modified on Friday 17 April 2015 08.04 BST 

A Beijing court has sentenced a veteran Chinese journalist to seven years in prison after convicting her of leaking a document detailing the Communist party leadership's resolve to aggressively target civil society and press freedom as a threat to its monopoly on power.

The document that Gao Yu, 71, was convicted of leaking, deemed a state secret, underpins a clampdown under the administration of the Communist party leader, Xi Jinping.

The court verdict appears to confirm the authenticity of the leaked document, which had been reported since June 2013 but was never discussed openly by the leadership. It verifies widely held assumptions about Xi's distrust of any social organisation outside party control, recently manifested in the more-than month-long detentions of five women's rights activists held after planning to start a public awareness campaign about sexual harassment.

Gao had denied the charges, which could have carried a life sentence. Her lawyer Mo Shaoping said she was convicted of leaking state secrets by giving the strategy paper, known as Document No 9, to an overseas media group. The document argued for aggressive curbs on the spread of western democracy, universal values, civil society and press freedom, which the party considers a threat to its rule.

Another of Gao's lawyers, Shang Baojun, said Gao did not speak during the verdict and sentencing, but told her brother, Gao Wei, that she could not accept the result. "We will definitely appeal," Shang said.

Speaking to the Associated Press, Gao Wei said his sister appeared thinner and frailer than before her detention a year ago.

The court seemed to disregard Gao Yu's defence lawyers but heard only the prosecution, Gao Wei said, a common complaint in such cases where the outcome is usually determined before the court meets. "I'm very angry and concerned for my sister," Gao Wei said.

Police patrolled the perimeter of Beijing's No 3 intermediate court where the verdict was delivered. Journalists and foreign diplomats gathered at the court but were denied entry to the hearing.

"We're obviously disappointed with the verdict," said the US embassy first secretary, Dan Biers.

Gao, who wrote about politics, economics and social issues for media in Hong Kong and overseas, has already served time in prison on state secrets charges more than two decades ago.

In a statement, human rights watchdog Amnesty International said Gao was the victim of a vaguely worded and arbitrary state secrets law that is often used against activists to quell freedom of expression.

"This deplorable sentence against Gao Yu is nothing more than blatant political persecution by the Chinese authorities," William Nee, the group's China researcher, said in the statement.

The Hong Kong magazine to which Gao is alleged to have leaked the document, Minjing Monthly, issued a statement reiterating its contention that the charges against Gao were false. The magazine first reported on the document in August 2013.

The magazine suggested the document already had been circulated at the time when Gao is alleged to have leaked it. It also said the information contained neither military nor economic secrets, but was merely a "correct guidance" on ideological matters.

"This unjust judgment of an outstanding Chinese journalist utterly destroys Xi Jinping's commitment to 'rule according to law'," the magazine said.

[Camerus]

Wait you like having to pay more for your powdered milk?

I don't.  But it is not about whether I like it or not.  It is about free trade and GDP.

I wouldn't mind them so much either if I had a fully paid flat and a senior civil servant job.   

When I lived in Shenzhen for 3 years I would often come to Hong Kong, and the throngs of mainland shoppers would be a common sight at the border, on the subway and at particular shopping venues.  I can see why a lot of HKers do not like them.  There are the wealthy ones which pose their own sets of problems, but the most noticeable (at least to my eyes) are the throngs of poorly mannered, uneducated bumpkins that descend upon the city day in and day out, some of them multiple times in one day.   

[Josquius]

How come they trust HK products but not Chinese products?- are they not the same?
Can't Chinese shops just start importing from the same place as the HK shops?

[Admiral Yi]

How come they trust HK products but not Chinese products?- are they not the same?
Can't Chinese shops just start importing from the same place as the HK shops?

A mainland consumer couldn't be sure they are not knock offs.

[crazy canuck]

Afterwards the tourist guides, bus drivers, shop staff etc will all take a cut in kickbacks. 

I can understand why the shop owners pay the guides and drivers a gratuity for bringing in the hordes of mainlanders to their shops.  But why are they paying a "kickback" to their own staff?

[Monoriu]

Afterwards the tourist guides, bus drivers, shop staff etc will all take a cut in kickbacks. 

I can understand why the shop owners pay the guides and drivers a gratuity for bringing in the hordes of mainlanders to their shops.  But why are they paying a "kickback" to their own staff?

Because I used the wrong word