As a former resident of Chengdu*, the sustained coverage of my ex-home in English-language media (which I suspect has only just begun) has caught my attention. For those looking for good on-the-ground coverage of what is going on in Chengdu, Dujiangyan, Wenchuan and the surrounding area, might I suggest the following links:

This report and this audio slideshow on the effects of the earthquake by FT correspondent (and China Economic Review alumnus) Jamil Anderlini:

In Dujiangyan, two rows of soldiers and police held distraught parents back from the site of the collapse, where scores of soldiers sifted through rubble looking for more of the estimated 900 children buried in the rubble.

Each time a child’s body emerged, four soldiers covered the face with cloth and carried it on broken doors or other makeshift stretchers down a human corridor of panicking relatives and deposited it in the mud for the family to claim.

“I can’t take this,” said one soldier as he hurried away from a corpse and back to the rubble.

National Public Radio’s Chengdu Diary blog. By sheer coincidence, the NPR crew have been in Chengdu since the start of the month, joined recently by Robert Siegel (”Support for NPR is provided by the Ford Foundation …”), in preparation for a full week of broadcasts from the city scheduled for next week. Needless to say, what started out as a run-of-the-mill show on daily life in China (complete with snippets on traditional Chinese instruments) took a dramatic turn for them on Monday (here’s a recording of one of Melissa Block’s interviews being interrupted by the actual quake. I couldn’t hear the clip myself, though I mainly blame that on the woeful RealPlayer software).

I’ll be listening next week.

Photo by Art Silverman, NPR

Other posts from Chengdu Diary:
Caught in the Earthquake
A Horrific Scene at a Middle School in Dujiangyan
Meeting Survivors on the Road

*I admittedly have a soft spot for the area, and heartily encourage everyone to contribute what they can to the Chinese Red Cross (info here on how to donate) to help in relief efforts.
UPDATE: With thanks to the China Law Blog, Cn Reviews has a comprehensive list of ways to donate (36 and counting) here.

Our Shanghai office on Huaihai Zhong Lu just got back from a building-wide evacuation. Things are pretty much back to normal now. Office workers from buildings all along the street also evacuated, the streets were full of people, mainly clustered around a nearby park, where the Shanghai Music Hall is.

A 7.5 magnitude earthquake hit western China at 2.28 pm, with tremors felt as far as Beijing and Bangkok.

Some quick updates on the sources we’re following on the web:

This Twitterer in Chengdu has attracted a large online audience:

Traffic is completely jammed. Police and ambulance can not get through. Chinese seem to be rather relaxed about the situation, even thou … … 2 minutes ago from txt

Unbelievable amounts of people in the streets. Complete buildings still seem to be evacuated. 8 minutes ago from txt

Ok, the city is definitely a bigger mess than i previously thought… Keep you posted 11 minutes ago from txt

Sohu has thrown up a page with updates, pictures and more from Chengdu.

Here’s a list of Twitterers with their location as “Chengdu”

AP is reporting that there is no sign of damage or injury in Chengdu so far.

As my colleague Tom Pellman noted yesterday, lining up for Olympics tickets can be quite a pain. Today, I experienced it for myself.

A couple of friends had spent most yesterday morning and afternoon industriously refreshing the Olympics ticketing site. Their efforts paid off - we scored nine seats for men’s football quarterfinals at Shanghai Stadium.

But now the hard part. We had to go line up at a Bank of China branch to pick up or pay for the tickets (you were allowed to pay online or pay at BOC in person).

At 9am, the Bank of China branch (a ‘wealth management’ branch actually) in Grand Gateway was relatively quiet. There were about six people ahead of us in the pick up/pay line. Another half dozen people were waiting to apply for tickets. The bank’s security guards seemed particularly alert and enthusiastic, officiously announcing procedures for Olympic-related matters. Still, I thought I’d be done in 20 minutes, tops.

Half an hour later, the first pair was allowed into an inner area that was screened off. Another 30 minutes, another pair of people. Strangely, we never saw them return the way they went in. Meanwhile, the ticket collection queue grew. Chairs were installed outside the bank. Two hours after I first arrived, the line outside was maybe 15-people long. With two people being processed every 30 minutes, that was a pretty long wait.

I asked a bank officer what the hold up was. His reply was almost identical to the one Tom received: “The network is slow. Everyone in China is trying to access it now!”

Figures. Finally, it was our turn. We entered the inner area only to see the six people who had gone in ahead of us. They appeared to be still waiting in line. The queue, it seems, had merely been transferred from outside to the slightly-more-comfortable inner area.

After some passport-photocopying, however, it was rather quickly our turn to get the tickets. They were printed out of a foot-long rectangular metal box with a Ticketmaster (they’re providing ticketing services to BOCOG) sticker on it. There appeared to be a slight delay as the bank officer entered the information into her computer (the program she was looking at didn’t look like a standard website). I signed the receipt, paid up, and all three flaming-red-colored tickets were finally mine.

Related

Latest news brief: China struggles to handle Olympic ticket load

Colleague Tom Pellman’s account of lining up for Olympics tickets

The last BOCOG ticketing meltdown

New York, March 16, 2008 — JPMorgan Chase & Co. (NYSE: JPM) announced it is acquiring The Bear Stearns Companies Inc. (NYSE: BSC). The Boards of Directors of both companies have unanimously approved the transaction.

The transaction will be a stock-for-stock exchange. JPMorgan Chase will exchange 0.05473 shares of JPMorgan Chase common stock per one share of Bear Stearns stock. Based on the closing price of March 15, 2008, the transaction would have a value of approximately $2 per share.

So what does this mean for the agreement between CITIC Securities and Bear Stearns to invest US$1 billion in each another? Last we heard, they were renegotiating on the size of these stakes to reflect the downturn in their respective stock prices.

Inflation in China hit 8.7% in February, a 12-year high. The National Bureau of Statistics said the strong price growth - up from 7.1% in January - was largely due to the fierce winter weather and seasonal price rises over the Chinese New Year holiday.

Food prices were up 23% year-on-year, compared to 18% in January. Vegetable prices rose 46%, compared to 14% in January. Meat rose by 45% and edible oils 41%. Non-food prices rose by only 1.6%.

We receive our fair share of comment on this from the China-watchers at the investment banks and we much appreciate it. Here is a brief rundown on what some of them had to say.

1) Jing Ulrich, chairman of China equities at JPMorgan:

Implications for Monetary Policy:
With inflation viewed as a prime economic and political issue, and in light of recent comments by the central bank governor that there is “definitely room” for more interest rate hikes, we believe there is some likelihood of a further hike in response to this latest surge in inflation. China’s monetary tightening program has been complicated by the Fed’s recent aggressive cuts in interest rates. A widening interest rate differential between the yuan and other currencies could attract unwanted capital inflows. As such, we would expect only a modest increase if the central bank opts to raise interest rates at this juncture.

Implications for Markets:
Higher than expected inflation figures have made investors nervous about the growth prospects for companies that face rising costs. With prices rising for a range of commodities – from grain to iron ore – midstream processors, such as electricity generators and refiners, will face considerable margin pressure in 2008. The beneficiaries of higher inflation remain the resource suppliers – many of which are outside China.

2) Jonathan Anderson, global emerging markets economist at UBS:

It is crucially important to note that nothing has changed in the “pattern” of inflation. Core goods and services prices did not accelerate, most food items did not accelerate: nearly all of the February increase came from a surge in fresh vegetable prices and a further surge in fresh meat prices. As a result, we see no reason to change our underlying call, i.e., (i) current high inflation is temporary, (ii) the headline numbers should fade in the second half of the year, and (iii) the authorities have no incentive to take draconian demand tightening measures in the
meantime (see first attachment above for the gory details). In other words, this is not the end of the world for China. On the other hand, we’re not out of the woods yet - and we see plenty of room for weakening sentiment over the next quarter or so. March, April and May inflation numbers will likely stay high, and we could easily see further near-term policy reactions: a rate hike or two, continued price controls, lots of alarmist talk in the press.

3) Andy Rothman, China macro strategist at CLSA:

We continue to expect food prices to begin fall by this summer, with CPI to rise by about 5% for the full year. The flip side of our optimism on consumer prices is our strong pessimism on manufacturing margins, as producers will be unable to pass on more than a fraction of rising input costs. And with the economy already slowing, we do not expect Beijing to implement a tighter monetary policy. Instead, we expect Beijing to continue talking about tight monetary policy, as part of an intensive campaign to talk down inflation expectations.

It’s never good sign when someone stares past your shoulder while you’re trying to interview them. The finer points of economics are, well, fine, and so when I fail to grasp the nuances it’s understandable that those well-schooled in numbers might turn away in despair.

This appeared to be happening earlier today during an audience with an economist high up in Hong Kong’s International Finance Centre… until the economist shouted, “Hey, look at that!” I turned to the window behind me and saw a large bird of prey (I’ve since been informed it may have been a kite) sitting on the sill outside.

This may be a regular occurrence for those who pay a chunk of change for space at IFC but neither the economist or myself can call the building a home so it was a bizarre twist to an otherwise routine conversation about Southeast Asia’s fear of being overwhelmed by China. In a way, it was quite apt. (All we needed was for the bird to start circling menacingly above a small mouse called ASEAN…)

Needless to say, we both reached for our mobile phones…

I mentioned in a previous post my tour of the then still-in-progress Venetian Macao (which opened on Tuesday) how massive the building was. I had no idea, but according to this video from the magazine Destination Macau (via editor Jennifer Welker), it is not just the world’s largest casino, but also the world’s second-largest building. Presumably that means by total floor space - 10.5 million square feet, according to the fact sheet they sent me. The largest, if this is still right, is the Boeing factory outside Seattle - not the Pentagon as I had originally believed. Then again, maybe different measurements are being used here - the Boeing article doesn’t mention the factory’s floor area, just its total volume (472 million cubic feet).

Links on the Venetian’s opening:

NYT: Bigger Than Vegas? That’s Macao’s Bet

World’s biggest casino Venetian Macao opens

Gaming giant launches resort complex in Macao

The cover story in the August issue of China Economic Review looks at how certain companies are positioning themselves to leverage the marketing opportunities created by the 2008 Olympics.

Obviously, a host of other firms - most with no official Olympic ties whatsoever - are going to extremes to cash in on the Olympics story. They include, it seems, a wildlife research center in Chengdu, in southwestern China. Staff at the center are sculpting Olympic souvenirs out of panda dung, of which they are blessed with 300 metric tons each year.

“We used to spend at least RMB6,000 a month to get rid of the droppings, but now they can prove lucrative as half of them will be sold as souvenirs,” said Jing Shimin, assistant to the director of the center.

And don’t worry about the smell.

“They don’t smell too bad because 70% of the dung is just remains of the bamboo that the pandas are unable to digest.”

Highlights from the last week of China business news: Paulson’s latest visit (no prizes for guessing what he talked about. Starts with an R and ends with a ‘enminbi’); state-owned steel and auto giants get leaner, but not without dieting problems.

(more…)

The newly revitalized Shanghai Foreign Correspondents’ Club (facebook link) has been organizing some interesting and useful events lately, thanks to a new board.

It invited Kerry Brown, a scholar (now a fellow at the think tank Chatham House in the UK, though he has even lectured at Inner Mongolia University), former diplomat and now author of a new book on our favorite subject, for a talk at Arch on Changshu Lu. It’s called Struggling Giant: China in the 21st Century, and it’s published by Anthem Press.

The venue was rather cramped, but the talk went well - Brown made a few very good points about China from an outside observer’s point of view. We’ll be running an interview with him soon about his ideas on China. Here are some key points from his Shanghai FCC talk:

-China’s strategy of inviting foreign investment was primarily to facilitate technology and knowledge transfer; this has failed, so FDI is now no longer the yardstick the central government uses for provinces

-Foreigners tend to look at China in an ahistorical way, despite the country’s long history and attendant baggage

-NGOs are increasingly tolerated by the government as a way to help plug holes in a tattered social safety net

-Beijing’s control over the provinces is brittle – it can snap quickly and “the whole thing could fall apart tomorrow,” he said

-There’s no clear candidate for the top job when the Party Congress convenes this autumn, unlike previous leadership transitions

-What keeps Hu Jintao up at night? Not economic stability; not human rights and foreign government criticism. He’s worried about income disparities, including the great underclass of 200 million migrant workers, who are disenfranchised in almost every way. And since there’s no democracy, no one really knows what in the world they are thinking.