The dragon is awakened

China has a new offensive called a “charm doctrine” and it is using it even to more friendly countries like Brazil and Africa. We all know that China is good at manufacturing. But it does not have sufficient raw materials. It need to source raw items from all over the world. If it cannot source, then it buys up assets in foreign countries, resulting in fear that one day, it would control the whole world because it has become the world landlord. That might be a bit far fetch but never the less, it has begun a charm offensive to woo the less developed economies. But behind its strategy is to get at all the resources it can buy just so that its manufacturing will not suffer from having to buy at ridiculously high prices. She is using her vast reserves to splurge on asset accumulation and that has got western economies worried. Still, there is very little western countries can do because they themselves are facing a monetary crisis of huge proportion. China has agreed to buy up the debts of Greece, Spain and Iceland and is ready to do more. It is no doubts money power and it is a great weapon in times of credit crunches. In order not to fray feathers, China has push out the charm offensive to allay fears that it is out to enslave the world.

Aside from the charm offensive, China is also encouraging its people to go out and play their role by forming joint ventures with foreign parties. This is a good way to play down the need for raw resources. Manufacturing can now move out to the less developed countries. Chinese brands will no longer be solely made in China but will spread all over the globe. It works both ways. For countries that lack funds, China is eager to play the role of the financier. Joint venture with local firms will in a way make it look as if the locals are doing the manufacturing. That was the game played by the western powers after the Second World War. Today, however, the western economies are facing great problems and in its stead, China is putting herself as the great savior. Slowly and surely, we will see the advent of Chinese brands coming of age and infiltrating into the rest of the world’s market. Japan used to play that role but unfortunately it has lost a lot of ground and she will not see those glory moments again. Some wise men said if you arouse the dragon, you will ultimately regret it. There seems to be no retreat on this and we would be well advised to quickly tie up with a Chinese entity to go into joint ventures. Have you got a thought about doing a joint venture with a Chinese firm? Now, you can source for idea at China Asean Trade because Chinese Manufacturing is represented here in Asia in a permanent exhibition trade center right at this great economic developmental corridor called Iskandar Malaysia.

Bees are vanishing from this earth fast.

Scientists are reporting that the bee population is shrinking away fast. It seems that bee population is shrinking throughout the world, especially in the more developed countries. There has been a significant decline of bee population in Europe, North America, China and Japan. However, there has been no studies made in other countries, but scientists believed that the situation there is no better. But why are we concerned? Did we love bees that much? Well, bees are very important to mankind. They fly from one flower to another sucking at the nectar and in so doing, help to pollinate flowers. They don’t actually do the work of pollination but because pollens get stuck to their legs and when they move in and out of flowers, they help transfer the pollens from one flower to another flower. In this way, pollination helps in the creation of fruits. But of course bees are not the only means plant get pollinated. Wind, ants and other insects also helps out. However, bees play a major role of plant pollination.

Scientists are stumped for an answer. There could be many factors, but one of them could be due to the chemical pollutions caused by the widespread use of pesticides. Another one could be the increasing amount of acid rain. Bees don’t generally travel far from their habitats and when they have to fly further because agricultural patches are getting bigger, they somehow find it a burden and an energy sapping routine. A century ago, scents from flowers, for example, could travel roughly a third of a mile. In today's more polluted air, the scents only travel one third of that distance, making it more difficult for bees to zero in on flowers. Perhaps the bees get confused and lose their directions?

Then there are bee diseases. Bees are susceptible to tiny parasites like the varroa mite, which drains blood from and weakens bee hosts. As bees don’t belong to anybody, when they are affected by parasites, they just succumb and die off. Farmers, who are the main beneficiary of the pollinating bees, just do not know how to go about helping out the bees. Probably farmers should have bee culturing programs as part of their activity but before it could be done; there must be some sort of legislation put in place. Just as an indication of the importance of bees, almost eighty percent of the world’s food crop depends on bees for pollination. One alternative to bees is to use ants instead. It not only helps in pollination but it is also a defense against vermin and pests. A more sophisticated way is to use tiny flying robots to help out.

Excavators 2011-upgraded to make it safe and comfortable

It is the sign of the time and excavators not excepted. The new range of excavators has design features that put many car manufacturers to shame. Just for starters, the new range of excavators has air conditioned cabins and roll over protective cages. Can you find a car that is designed with roll over protection? Yes, safety has caught up with excavator designs. In some countries, it is even mandatory because safety come first before profit. You don’t send out a machine that is dangerous to use. Accidents do happen, even with these huge machines. On uneven grounds, and they do work in them quite often, the machine can easily tip over. Unlike a car, excavators do have accessories like long swing arms that when put to use do often change the machine’s center of gravity. They do often tip over when some of the arms dig into the ground. Sometimes, they do encounter hard materials underground and they could easily roll over especially with inexperience drivers. So for safety sake, a roll over safety cage designed to ISO 12117-2: 2008 standards. It is coming so maybe all those old machines without the standard cage might have to retrofit or be demobilized to the scrape yards!

There are also other features that might make its way to the excavators of the future. One of the more appropriate items is the retractable seat belt. If the machine rolls over, the driver must be secured in its seat, otherwise there is no point to have a roll over cage. Like cars, it would soon be mandatory to even have airbags. Again, if it does roll over, at least the driver could escape being injured by the deployment of the airbags. You would probably need a few of them since some machines do have a high mounted cabin and the bags would be useful when there is a toppling of the cabin. Another of the new feature is the dashboard. If the cabin is air conditioned, then you can afford a more decent type of monitoring meters like those you have in commercial aircraft! With a pressurized cabin, you don’t hear much of the noise outside. But to be able to hear a feedback noise when you extend an arm digging into the earth is something vital for the driver, so sound detectors and cctv should be incorporated into the machines. And with all these features incorporated, it would be obvious that the price will shoot upwards. Again, safety first, profit probably only comes second! Booking for your new excavator? Why not try amphibious excavator manufacturer ?

When you are faced with a problem, you either succumb or you …......

become victorious. For most ordinary people, when they are faced with a big problem, like getting into insolvency, they most likely succumb to being declared bankrupt. That it seems is the easy way out. Be honorable and face bankruptcy. You don't have to die, do you? Unfortunately, we can't encourage people to take that view because that would be a defeatist path and no honorable people can accept it. Instead, if you are faced with adversity, you should take it as a challenge. You should treat it as unjustified and fight on, no matter what, until you can break away from the morass. Of course it takes strength and strong spirits. One element that helps is a strong mind. Building a strong mind needs time and the right environment. Upbringing can make the difference. Richness can make you weak in mind and poverty can spurt you to great heights. When there is a need, there is a way. However, if fighting spirit is lacking, then failure ensures.

Have you met anyone who succeeds and had never tasted failures? It would be rare and unbelievable if people says they succeeded the fist time. It would most probably be a sugar coated case. It is important to taste failures as they can be a great teacher. Every time you fail, you learn of a way where things don't work. When you have that many experiences of failures, you will learn of the many ways that don't work out and you will try new ways. But some people just find it an excuse to give up easily. They usually don't have any pride at all and they have that flaw character of enjoying in defeat. Indeed, some are proud of failing. It is a form of mental disease; that thing that tells you not to fight on.

Successful people usually have an inner voice that tells them to get up and run, after they have fallen. Be it self motivation or a survival instinct, the inner voice can do wonders. Failures also have an inner voice, but they tell them to just give up! No matter whether you are a born failure or a born again success, you must learn how to do self motivation. Who else can tell you to get up and run again, except that mind of yours that resides in your head. It is there guiding you twenty four hours and for free as well. Use it often or you loose it. Speak to your mind constantly. Ask it to pressure you into getting results. Motivate yourself and you will also motivate others. When you get results, you would want others to also get results. And when they gets results, it will further motivate you to excel. If however your spirit is lacking, you can either remain where you are, or seek the advice of a Success Mentor .

China, spilled with beans all over the place is now trying to collect back the beans

It must be a hot hot place for realty aficionados in the China market when Beijing approved of the billions of dollars to help save China from a soft landing in the aftermath of the financial crises in the US. Overnight, china man, who have been waiting for such a landfall since the inauguration of Hu Jin Tau as the president, have now got the chance to partake in the sudden get rich syndrome like never before. With s much money being spilled unto the bankers, every Hu, Chen and Wang on the streets are figuring what property to buy. It is not so much of buying a house to live in, rather, it is a stampede to grab a piece of the action, with more people buying their second, and third property. They say it is once in a life time thing and if you missed it, then curse yourself to the grave!

So everyone is chasing their third home, at the expanse of the poor, the new graduate who has yet to land a job and the deprived and silenced villager. It was a fantastic exercise, at least from the view of the countries new rich. Besides playing the stock market, indulging in the property sector shows that you have arrived. Looking at the madness, Chairman Moa would have turned in his grave at the revolution that his red guards was assumed to have initiated. But of more concerned is how long can such a debacle last? You have thrown in money unto the streets and the lucky ones are picking them up and even asking for more, how could you put a stop to it. Really, China is a big place compared to other states, and it would even looked bigger if you were to see the amount of unlawfulness and bureaucracy inherent in its structures. Do you ask the bank not to lend anymore? Look, the bank managers have a cut in lending out money for speculations!

It would be a real show to see what China is going to do to rein in the speculators. Already, inflation, especially in essential food items and dwellings, have gone beyond the level that the Chinese have come to accept. Poor factory workers, left behind in the chase for richness in a communist state, have resorted to committing suicide because they can't survive otherwise! Factories, mostly of the sweat shop category, is racing towards a new collective agreement just so as to placate the deprived worker with a meager increase in wages. Now, the Chinese government is really worried about the situation getting out of control. A new proletariat revolution is not unthinkable as temperatures are boiling over from the urban west to the poor east. The least that they want to see is the greedy gobbling up all the funds at the expense of the poor. I looks like the US financial crisis has not only deprived work in America, it has also triggered trouble in the rest of the world, with China the main casualty.

Who is Stealing Your China Trade Secrets?

 

Intellectual property theft always an inside job

What is the big hu-ha about companies getting their intellectual property stolen in China? How could that be? Companies that have operations in China do not keep their files in China. They mostly likely, and these refers to the majority of western firms, do not have anything of value kept in a Chinese office. Nay, all these complaints are propaganda! Just ask yourself, if you have your research and development set up based in the US or Europe, would you put them (the data) in Beijing? Or you have it locked up in San Francisco? Most western firms having operations in China is only using that place because of the cheap labor. For manufacturing firms, China serve as a backyard factory as the labor cost is ten times cheaper than the US. And you only need to keep your finished model in China for reference. The rest of the development data you keep away from China. So, what sorts of intellectual property has got stolen in China?

How about those that provide services like Google and Yahoo? Are their intellectual property  really being stolen in China? Or was it because the Chinese authorities are getting edgy about its own citizens pilfering information to an outside party? There is no way secrets can get stolen in China, purportedly by Chinese spies. There is however a possibility that some trade secrets are being stolen, not by Chinese, but by their own people. Certainly, many of these western firms are manned by their own kind. and some of these are senior stuffs who might be thinking of getting a fast buck. They sold off secrets, or purportedly secrets, but are of not much use. In reality, some of the bigger Chinese companies do have their own R & D departments. manned by a mix of indigenous Chinese and westerner.  There are also some Chinese who were recruited due to their expertise whilst they were working in the west. Obviously, both are highly paid. And the leak, if there are any, will most likely come from inside the firm. After all, who will know of what data is available and who will know how valuable it is?

China Rules Skype Illegal. Tell Me Something New.

The two real problems in China

China is a large country with a large population. If you are given the opportunity to govern China, you will probably grasping for breath thinking of a solution. Mind you, China is made up of many seperate states with as many cultures and beliefs. Although it has a single written language, people in different states talk with diferent slangs and it is not uncommon for a northern  chinese to not understand what a southern chinese is talking about. To govern it, you would need great resources and to be ready to use untried methods. Now, China has progressed to the second largest economy in the world, and is moving towards dethroning US as the largest economy, probably within four years time. But beneath all those money making schemes that a revived China has, two things stand out in importance. One is how to control the communicating links among the citizenry and the other is the great concern about run away inflation. It is therefore not surprising that the present Chinese government spent most of their time debating as to what appropriate actions to be taken to keep the kettle from boiling over.

Communication is a serious matter. In China, with a population of one over billion  and with most of them able to call each other over the handphone, keeping a close eye on what is being chattered is top prioirity. Having emegered from Chaiman Moa's red revolution from the seventies, the China of today will have a whole new set of problems to tackle. It used to be that the citizenry had to be very careful what they talk and who they talk to. Communism does'nt allow freedom of speech, or for that matter, talking bad about the government. Not only that, they have to sing in praise of their leaders, something that is no more in vogue and fully embraced in North Korea. Like people anywhere in the world, praising for government actions is no more popular. People learns about hypocarcies and talking good about the government is one of the worst kind of hypocracy! The latest sign of government intolerance of freedom of speech is the banning of Skype in China. Why is it banned? First, like Blackberries systems, it is a foreign thing. With both systems, the government can't get its hand on tapping what is being conversed. That means they can't effectively put their control on how many people pass of chatting their hatred for the govenment. Without adequate control, the populace could topple the government, perhaps with a little bit of help from the west!

The second big problem in China is running inflation. But why inflation? As China progressed into a world economy, there is a dicotmy between the rich and the poor. A rising middle class is emerging fast, due to the large trade surplus the China has achieved for the past ten years. Unfortnately, this rich sector is unevenly distributed. Large industrial towns , mostly in the western coastal regions is causing a lot of dissent from the poorer states in the interia and western regions. As China grew from an agricultural base, and is still helped by a large rural sector with meagre incomes, it is finding great difficulty in distributing of wealth among the populace. Imbued with endemic corruption in its governing structures, channeling of wealth to the poor is proving to be difficult. Agricultural lands are illegally taken away for sale to private entities for conversion to industrial entities. The poor gets poorer and the rich gets to stake away money in overseas accounts. There is a great fear that another revolution might come along, manned by the destitute poor and rural have nots. The leaders are of the oppinion that they can't use the army, two million strong to control any rebellion. The first sign of an agrieved government is of course the new law in controlling asset bubbles by way of getting the banks from upping their cash asset value. Still, the property market, populaced by the rich is running at a dangerous pace. A burst, no matter how small will affect the economy of China, bringing with it more problems for the poor and also affecting the world. Like China, the other  progressing economies also have property bubble on their hands.