In fairness, much of the paper’s content is fine. Critics tend not to notice balanced and factual reporting, but it’s there. And occasionally something genuinely intriguing comes along, like the recent map of Hong Kong showing suicide rates by neighbourhood, which gets my cut-out-and-keep award. The SCMP is trapped like much Hong Kong media, wanting to do good journalism but required to appease the owner’s pathological need to shoe-shine Chinese officials who probably pay little notice anyway. Laughably clunky globs of pro-Communist tripe and an aversion to anything but mild and meek views are a price that, in today’s environment, has to be paid. It could be worse.

If you doubt that, take a trip over to the Standard. With little or nothing in the way of opinion pieces, and local reporting lifted from Sing Tao, the paper is far more obviously a tycoon’s plaything.With little or nothing in the way of opinion pieces, and local reporting lifted from Sing Tao, the paper is far more obviously a tycoon’s plaything. You are entering a parallel universe…

A universe where the presence on the Mainland stock market of 700 companies apparently overvalued by a factor of maybe seven prompts the phrase ‘of course’. And where bad news for landlords is a matter of genuine sorrow and distress…

The landlord who goes without income for six months before halving the rent to HK$400,000 is the Standard’s equivalent of children starving to death in Africa. (Today is unusual in that there is no glowing coverage of suckers snapping up the developers’ latest batch of overpriced apartments – talking up the property market is a core part of the paper’s mission, along with blatant fawning over tycoons and their offspring.) Meanwhile…

Rita Fan, pro-Beijing figure and self-appointed expert on What the Politburo Really Thinks, will not seek re-election to the National People’s Congress. Re-what? NPC deputies are appointed. A small group of loyalists pretend to vote for them in a contest in which the number of candidates equals the number of seats (honest). Not in Standard-land, where for good measure anti-locust protestors (a threat to landlords’ revenues) get the venom-treatment such bastard scum deserve, and an uptick in consumer spending predicted by, um, a credit-card company is due to the horrors of the Occupy movement(don’t ask).

As in any self-respecting parallel universe, the bizarre is considered normal…

A packaging company listed on the dubious GEM exchange is to be used as a front by a mysterious Mainland consortium offering secret funding to acquire Hong Kong’s disastrous ATV (sounds like they all deserve each other). This is Standard-land; as with the 700 firms with triple-digit P/E ratios – of course.

The post Hong Kong’s Increasingly Pro-China English-language Newspapers appeared first on The Nanfang.

After a little more than a year in the limelight, Zhuang Liehong has given up politics. Zhuang emerged as a leader of grass-roots protests over stolen land in Wukan in Guangdong in 2011 and was elected to its village committee in a historic democratic election the following year.

But he quit the committee in October and does not intend to stand in the new poll slated for some time after winter. Like many others in this community, Zhuang has lost faith in democracy – at least the local version – amid a clash of competing interests and claims of a lack in transparency in the committee’s proceedings.

[…] Commentator Xu Zhiyuan said authorities were trying to regain control of the village. “Wukan was a miracle,” Xu said. “It happened while China was in the throes of power struggles. But now the power of the central government has stabilised.”

[…] Lin [Zuluan, the village chief] said villagers fell broadly into four groups, depending on their views: some understood and appreciated the hard work of the new village committee; some had benefitted from the illegal land grab and so supported the old village committee. Others who supported Wukan’s democracy had lost faith, while a final group wanted it to fail for personal reasons. Lin said this left the village divided with little chance of reaching a compromise.

Via China Digital Times.

The post Wukan losing faith in democracy experiment appeared first on The Nanfang.

The SCMP is reporting that mainland carriers have amassed RMB1 billion (US$160 million) in losses in the last three months, with pressure coming from China’s ever-expanding high-speed rail network.

Those suffering include Guangzhou-based China Southern Airlines, the biggest of the major domestic carriers, whose revenue per kilometer – a measurement of the available seats sold – fell 1 per cent year-on-year. By comparison, Air China shed 1.5 per cent and China Eastern slumped 2 per cent.

But those statistics don’t really tell the story of last year.

China Southern, which is ramping up capacity with the introduction of five Airbus A380s, is putting more resources into its long-haul operations. The newly appointed ‘Canton Route’ is part of the new international focus. At the same time, it is having to contend with soaring jet-fuel prices.

Here is a significant line from the general manager Tan Wangeng carried in CAPA revealing the extent of today’s problems:

All of the carrier’s 30 weekly services from Guangzhou to Australia and New Zealand are profitable, the result of the carrier’s strategic transformation into an international network carrier (Xinhua, 06-Feb-2013). According to Mr Tan, the majority of Chinese carrier’s international routes are making losses.

With high-speed rail supercharging national connectivity, it’s going some way to put downward pressure on airfares, placing it at odds with the state-backed carriers.

Here’s what MF Global’s greater China transport analyst Geoffrey Cheng told SCMP’s Charlotte So:

“The diversion to high-speed trains has become more and more serious as the memory of the high-speed-train tragedy in Wenzhou in 2011 fades out.”

The situation has been made worse by airlines boosting capacity in expectation of a brisk Chinese New Year. Now, rock-bottom prices are in the system to try and fill seats.

While lagging, aviation analysts CAPA say growth will more than make up for short-term sluggishness. They says airlines can absorb a 3 per cent capacity cut in 2013.

If the 3% drop in capacity is entirely correlated to HSR, the one-year drop would be made up for in coming years with higher growth.

With the Chinese government tightly controlling aircraft imports, demand generally exceeds supply, which would allow any excess capacity on a route to be re-deployed.

CAPA has also conducted more of a detailed analysis on the impact of high-speed rail in China.

HSR holds an advantage over air travel on sectors under 800km. Between 800-1200km there could be a tradeoff depending on factors including how direct the train tracks are and what the fare difference is. Above 1200km air travel will almost always hold an advantage.

Seems pretty straight forward.

China Southern’s biggest high-speed rail threats are from Guangzhou to Wuhan (1020 km) and Beijing (2170km).

Image: Danny Lee

The post Airline revenue crashing due to high-speed rail competition in China appeared first on The Nanfang.

(Image from the Wall Street Journal)

It’s not often senior Chinese leaders make it down to these parts, probably partly because Guangdong is known as one of the more restive and free parts of China. Hong Kong, however, which is protected by a rule of law and an independent constitution, goes even further, and takes great pleasure at poking Beijing in the eye. Hong Kongers are expected to get plenty of opportunity to continue that proud tradition this weekend.

Chinese President Hu Jintao touched down in Hong Kong yesterday, amid a sea of singing children happily waving the Chinese and Hong Kong flags. He’s in town to mark the 15th anniversary of the handover of Hong Kong to Chinese sovereignty, and also swear-in the territory’s newest Chief Executive, CY Leung, who “won” an “election” in March.

Hu is bringing with him a grab bag of announcements designed to bolster Hong Kong’s economy, one of which is much closer integration with Shenzhen. The Qianhai area, which is northwest of Shekou, is expected to become an economic zone closely linked with Hong Kong.

But no visit would be complete without protests, and Hu is stopping by at precisely the time of year Hong Kong people hold their biggest. July 1 is handover day, but it’s also the day thousands of Hongkies take to the streets to voice their concerns on any number of issues. This year, the topics centre on the “election”, CY Leung’s credibility issues, the wealth gap, death of Li Wangyang, and many others. Unfortunately for the protesters, Hu is expected to take off before noon, when many of the demonstrations will get underway. Wise move, that.

There remains a lot of anti-Mainland sentiment in Hong Kong. Hong Kong locals have complained about Mainland mothers using up hospital space, shoppers being uncouth, and nouveau riche driving up the Hong Kong property market. One series of photos circulated earlier (pasted below), shows the security around the Queen of England’s visit in 1986 juxtaposed with Hu Jintao’s visit this year. However, the photo is not authentic (the security photo is actually from 2007, and was in preparation for the WTO meeting in Hong Kong).

Still, the general message stands. Roads are closed in Hong Kong, and many protesters who want to get within earshot of the Chinese leader will be unable to.

There have also been lively debates about the future of Hong Kong’s venerable English-language daily South China Morning Post. The paper has been heavily criticized becoming much more Beijing friendly, with one former award-winning journalist speaking out about how far the paper has fallen. Both articles are worth a read (and full disclosure, the first was penned by yours truly).

For Hong Kong people, times have changed.

The post Big weekend in Hong Kong: Hu Jintao and crew in town, protests expected appeared first on The Nanfang.