Shanghai Pod

Aston Martin wants a piece of China's booming economy. Aston Martin has moved into China for the first time in the company's 94-year history. In a bid to cash in on the booming economy the company has awarded a franchise to GruppeM, led by CEO Kenny Chen, who has previous experience of the luxury sports car market in China. The first new showroom will be in Shanghai's Xin Tian Di District, with an area designed to accommodate five cars. The Shanghai Aston Martin Retail Centre will be the country's flagship dealer space. There will also be an Aston Martin service facility located close to Hongqiao airport. In Beijing, a showroom for three cars will be located in the city's Central Business District. The market for luxury goods in China was said to be worth $6bn in 2004, and has developed rapidly since. However Dr Ulrich Bez, Aston Martin's Chief Executive Officer, said that it was important to wait until the right partner was found. Aston Martin has been caref...

Shanghai will start the construction of its own Fisherman's Wharf next month. Unlike its namesake in San Fransico with sea views and sea lions, the local FW will be built on the banks of the Huangpu River in Yangpu District, according to the district officials. Taking a ground area of 16 hectares, the wharf will comprise various entertainment and commercial outlets. It is met by the Yangshupu Port in the east, Yangshupu Water Plant in the west, Yangshupu Road in the north and the Huangpu River in the south. It will be built on a waterfront area of 700 meters along the city's "mother river." The outlook of its main buildings will resemble various kinds of fish to commemorate the city's history. Shanghai was evolved from a small fishing village about 1,500 years ago. The short name of Shanghai is "Hu" which means an ancient fishing tool in Chinese. Project managers hope that the wharf will become a major tourist attraction for visitors to World Expo 2010. ...

A South China tiger was born at a wildlife reserve in South Africa, conservationists said Tuesday the first such birth outside China. Only about 60 South China tigers exist in captivity, and fewer than 30 survive in the wild, according to Li Quan, founder of Save China's Tigers. The male cub was born Friday and weighed more than 2 1/2 pounds, Li said in a statement from the Laohu Valley Reserve in central Free State province. "Although his eyes have not yet opened, he is already quite vocal, especially at feeding time," Li said. She said the cub was "healthy and strong," but had to be separated from his mother, 4 1/2-year-old Cathay, because of the unseasonably cold weather. The cub's father is 3 1/2-year-old TigerWoods, Li said. Eventually, the cub will join its parents on the reserve. "The rewilding program of these highly endangered South China Tigers has taken a major step forward with the birth of this cub," Li said. "The tigers brought t...

Peter Mandelson, EU trade commissioner, caused a storm in China yesterday by accusing the authorities of failing to tackle a "tidal wave" of counterfeit goods and turning a blind eye to the theft of European firms' innovations and patents. The former Labour minister, taking the gloves off on his sixth visit to the country, also warned the Chinese that they risked losing the confidence of foreign consumers because of safety concerns. Expressing forcefully the EU's "unhappiness" over barriers that prevent access to the domestic Chinese market and over the country's glaring trade surplus with Europe, Mandelson also underlined his growing impatience with the authorities' failure to deliver on promises of action and enforcement. But he stopped short of calling for legal action at the World Trade Organisation (WTO). His comments, at an international forum on food safety and later at a conference on intellectual property rights (IPRs), brought an angry resp...

The following is a staggeringly bad one- off article written by the economist about learning Mandarin. The craze for teaching Chinese may be a misguided fad “CHINA will be the dominant power in the 21st century and the employment opportunities that speaking Mandarin will give are immense.” Thus Anthony Seldon, headmaster of Wellington College, at a conference in 2006 entitled “Why every school should offer Mandarin”. Nearly two years later, the spectacular growth of the language in British schools shows no sign of slowing. More than 400 secondary schools now teach it, according to the Specialist Schools and Academies Trust, which is lobbying to bring Mandarin into the national curriculum. And Britain is not alone in its enthusiasm for the language: some 30m foreigners are studying Mandarin today, and Chinese authorities expect the number to rise to 100m by 2010. In a few decades China may indeed overtake America as the world's top economic power. Will Britons who make the effort t...

When the central government in Beijing announced an ambitious nationwide campaign to reduce energy consumption two years ago, officials in this western regional capital got right to work: not to comply, but to engineer creative schemes to evade the requirements. The energy campaign required local officials to raise electricity prices as a way of discouraging the growth of large energy-consuming industries and forcing the least efficient of these users out of business. Instead, fearing the impact on the local economy, the regional government brokered a special deal for the Qingtongxia Aluminum Group, which accounts for 20 percent of this region's industrial consumption and roughly 10 percent of its gross domestic product. Local officials arranged for the company to be removed from the national electrical grid and supplied directly by the local company, exempting it from expensive fees, according to an electricity company official who asked not to be named, an official of the aluminu...

China and Russia have agreed to locate a planned oil refinery capable of processing 10 million tons a year in the northern port city of Tianjin. China's top oil firm, China National Petroleum Cooperation (CNPC), and Russia's Rosneft, have set up a joint venture in Tianjin to implement the project, which is still subject to approval by the National Development and Reform Commission. The refinery project is a concrete follow-up to the two companies' agreement reached in March 2006 to intensify cooperation in the oil sector. During a recent meeting with a Rosneft delegation, Tianjin's vice mayor Yang Dongliang promised to allocate quality land for the project before June. A possible site for the refinery will be the Tianjin Harbour Industrial Park, about 80 square kilometers off the Bohai Bay east of Beijing. The central government has listed Tianjin as a national base for the development of the oil industry. (Xinhua News Agency November 24, 2007)

Chinese historical drama TV series depicting the life of Wu Zetian, the only female emperor in Chinese history is being shot in Xi’an, Shaanxi Province. Liu Xiaoqing, former actress-turned tycoon plays the leading role. It was her second time to act Wu Zetian and the TV series at the time won over the hearts of almost every Chinese household. Liu Xiaoqing was one of the most famous actresses in the last twenty years in China. She spent the eighties performing in numerous movies and winning every top acting award of China. Starting in 1990, Liu Xiaoqing set up her own business in real estate, food industry, cosmetics, advertising and film production. She became a billionaire, but she was involved the scandal of tax evasion in 2002 and imprisoned for over one year. In August 2003 Liu came out of the prison and began to work as actress again for the payment of the penalty. With an investment of more than 40 million yuan and a capable producing team the director and Liu ...

Stuck in a crowd of about 200 other tourists, Zhong Jian and her friends waited for an hour to buy tickets for a boat cruise down the scenic Li River before giving up. Their problem: scheduling their trip during the May national holidays. "Every place we went, we saw so many people," said Zhong, a 24-year-old travel agent. Finally, they got the ride by soliciting help from a local driver, who used his connections. "It was chaos." As China becomes more prosperous, its people are traveling more on their vacations — and overwhelming the facilities. The resulting public backlash is prompting the government to rethink its tightly regulated national holiday policy. Most Chinese cannot take a break when they want. Rather, the government has set three weeks a year as national holidays. Factories and offices shut down — giving many workers time off they might otherwise never get. But putting so many of the country's 1.3 billion people on the move at one time is causing a...

China's recently lowered AIDS estimates are probably accurate since they are in line with other countries which have scaled back their numbers because of a change in the way data are collated, a leading AIDS researcher said Thursday. China's leaders had denied AIDS was a problem in the past, leading some to doubt the country's most recent figures, which sharply lowered the estimated number of people living with the disease. But David Ho, a well-known AIDS researcher who also runs a public awareness and prevention program in mainland China, said the new figures reflected a change in methodology used by the United Nations and the World Health Organization. In 2004, China scaled back the estimated number of people infected with HIV, the virus that causes AIDS, from nearly 1 million people to 840,000, and then further lowered the estimate to 650,000 in 2005. "I have no basis to say whether the official AIDS estimates are right or not, but I feel that it is consistent with ...

Like a growing number of Chinese manufacturers hit by rising wages, Wang Jianping recently packed up his plant and machinery on China 's east coast and headed west, where cheaper labor helps offset rising inflation and withering competition. Unlike most of his rivals, though, Wang didn't stop at China's borders. He pushed as far west as Nigeria, where the shoemaker from Zhejiang—a bustling province of 44 million people—has been doing a robust trade since 2004. "We have a very successful operation," says Wang, whose Hassan Shoe Manufacture Co. exports shoes to more than a hundred countries. "Business has never been better." Leave it to a Zhejiang native to pioneer outsourcing in a country still known for its limitless supply of peasant labor. When it comes to trailblazing more efficient ways to make money, Zhejiang province has always been ahead of the rest of Chinese business. By the time China was getting comfortable with economic reform in the late 19...

Chinese-language publishers have printed more than 1.8 million copies of the final book about boy wizard Harry Potter and are considering issuing more, executives said Wednesday. In mainland China, where unauthorized translations of "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows" surfaced on Web sites ahead of its official release last month, publishers also said they were taking strict measures to curb piracy. Mainland China's The People's Literature Publishing House said it issued 1.1 million copies of the book, the seventh in the Harry Potter series, but declined to provide sales figures. Taiwan's Crown Culture Corp. has shipped 700,000 copies to book stores in Taiwan and Hong Kong, a figure that already exceeds the company's total print run of 680,000 for the sixth and penultimate Harry Potter book, marketing executive Icy Lee said. Lee also refused to offer sales figures, although both publishing companies said further printings were possible. In China, which has...

An early morning blaze at a foot massage parlor killed at least 11 people in northern China on Wednesday, a fire official said. The cause of the fire, which broke out at 4:30 a.m. at the Lantian Foot Massage Parlor, was still under investigation, said a man at the Chengde county fire department in Hebei province, who refused to give his name. Two were injured, he said. Footage aired on Hebei province television showed what seemed to be a small shop, burned almost completely black. The dead included the parlor's owner and 10 workers, the television report said. Massage parlors in China are frequently fronts for prostitution. The employees of the parlors, legitimate or not, are generally rural migrants who sometimes live at the shops where they work. The state-run Xinhua News Agency had reported earlier that the fire was at the Gedu Love Song Hall, a karaoke hall. But a telephone operator said the only karaoke hall in Chengde County was called the Huadu Love Song Hall. A woman who an...

China will become the world’s biggest carbon polluter this year, overtaking the United States, the International Energy Agency (IEA) said in a bleak forecast of soaring global demand for fossil fuels. The rapid growth of the Chinese and Indian economies will raise global energy demand by 50 per cent by 2030, the agency said in its annual World Energy Outlook. India and China alone will account for almost half of the increase. The agency pointed a finger at soaring coal demand, which threatens to upset carbon reduction targets, as it painted an alarming picture of a future of energy insecurity, soaring oil prices and a massive increase in carbon emissions. The dash towards prosperity in Asia will be fuelled by hydrocarbons - and mainly by increased burning of coal – with an inexorable rise in carbon emissions, hastening climate change. Accelerating demand for oil, which will reach 116 million barrels per day (bpd) by 2030, up 32 per cent, will require huge investments to keep pace, the ...

Digging coal deep underground, Luo Xianglai learned to listen hard to the sounds the rocks made when struck with his pickax. A dull thud usually meant solid rock and safety. A whistling noise signaled an impending cave-in. "Usually you could tell it was coming," said Luo, a squat 33-year-old with broad shoulders, a buzz cut and a worried look. "The rocks would start singing, letting off a whistling sound. We would get out in a rush." On a cold December day two years ago, the rocks did not sing, but disaster struck anyway. A cave-in buried Luo under fallen ceiling planks and more than 6 feet of rock, 300 feet down a mine shaft. His right leg was crushed, returning him to the life of an impoverished farmer — this time, with a steel rod in his leg. Coal mining remains one of the world's most dangerous trades. In China, more than 4,700 people died last year in coal mines. The deaths underscore the human cost of a worldwide boom in coal use, driven by economic g...

China's safety watchdog confirmed Saturday that toy beads recalled in the United States and Australia after sickening children contain a substance that can turn into the "date-rape" drug after ingested. The toys, coated with the industrial chemical 1,4-butanediol, were made by the Wangqi Product Factory in Shenzhen, a city just over the border from Hong Kong, the General Administration of Quality Supervision, Inspection, and Quarantine said in a statement. When ingested, the chemical metabolizes into the "date-rape" drug gamma hydroxy butyrate, also known as GHB, which can cause breathing problems, loss of consciousness, seizures, drowsiness, coma and death. Millions of units of the popular toys, which are sold as Aqua Dots in the United States and as Bindeez in Australia, were recalled in those countries as well as Britain, Malaysia, Singapore and elsewhere this past week after children began falling sick from swallowing the toy's bead-like parts. The recal...

The Chinese government has created profiles on thousands of foreign journalists coming to report on next summer's Beijing Olympics and is gathering information on thousands more to put into a database, a top official said in comments published Monday. The profiles appeared to undermine promises made by Chinese leaders in 2001, when they were bidding for the Games, that the event would lead to greater media freedoms. The database with information on the 28,000 foreign journalists expected for the Olympics would be a reference for interview subjects, designed to protect them from being tricked or blackmailed by "fake reporters," Liu Binjie, minister of the General Administration of Press and Publication, was quoted as saying in the state-run China Daily newspaper. "Disguising as reporters to threaten and intimidate others to collect money is cheating and very dangerous to society," Liu told the English-language paper.In China, people sometimes pose as reporters to...

China’s environmental problems are mounting. Water pollution and water scarcity are burdening the economy, rising levels of air pollution are endangering the health of millions of Chinese, and much of the country’s land is rapidly turning into desert. China has become a world leader in air and water pollution and land degradation, and a top contributor to some of the world’s most vexing global environmental problems, such as the illegal timber trade, marine pollution and climate change. As China’s pollution woes increase, so, too, do the risks to its economy, public health, social stability and international reputation. As Pan Yue, vice-minister of China’s state environmental protection administration, warned in 2005, “The [economic] miracle will end soon because the environment can no longer keep pace.” With the 2008 Olympics around the corner, China’s leaders have ratcheted up their rhetoric, setting ambitious environmental targets, announcing greater levels of environmental investme...

Lake Tai, the center of China's ancient "land of fish and rice," succumbed this year to floods of industrial and agricultural waste. Toxic cyanobacteria, commonly referred to as pond scum, turned the big lake fluorescent green. The stench of decay choked anyone who came within a mile of its shores. At least two million people who live amid the canals, rice paddies and chemical plants around the lake had to stop drinking or cooking with their main source of water. The outbreak confirmed the claims of a crusading peasant, Wu Lihong, who protested for more than a decade that the region's thriving chemical industry, and its powerful friends in the local government, were destroying one of China's ecological treasures. Wu, however, bore silent witness. Shortly before the algae crisis erupted in May, the authorities here in his hometown arrested him. In mid-August, with a fetid smell still wafting off the lake, a local court sentenced him to three years on an alchemy of ...