An Earthquake-Causing Dam?

The idea that last year's Sichuan earthquake was caused by the Zipingpu dam is an idea that seems to be picking up steam.

From The Associated Press:

BEIJING (AP) — Pressure from a dam, its reservoir's heavy waters weighing on geologic fault lines, may have helped trigger China's devastating earthquake last May, some scientists say, in a finding that suggests human activity played a role in the disaster.

The magnitude-7.9 quake in Sichuan province was China's worst in a generation, causing 70,000 deaths and leaving 5 million homeless. Just 550 yards (meters) from the fault line and 3.5 miles (5.5 kilometers) from the epicenter stands the 511-foot-high (156-meter-high) Zipingpu dam, the area's largest. The quake cracked Zipingpu, forcing the reservoir to be drained.

Fan Xiao, a chief engineer at the Sichuan Geology and Mineral Bureau, said Wednesday that the immense weight of Zipingpu's waters — 315 million tons — likely affected the timing and magnitude of the quake. Though earthquakes are not rare in the area, one of such magnitude had not occurred for thousands of years, Fan said.

"I'm not saying the earthquake would not have happened without the dam, but the presence of the massive Zipingpu dam may have changed the size or time of the quake, thus creating a more violent quake," Fan said in a telephone interview.

Seismologists recognize that large bodies of water may exert pressure on fault lines deep in the earth, leading to earthquakes. The pressure can push the sides of fault lines harder together, increasing friction, or cause the fault lines to slip apart.

Read On

The article later on quotes scientists who do not think that a dam could have "caused" the earthquake. Although they do concede that dams may have had something to do with the timing and intensity.

I can't see this controversy over the Sichuan earthquake being caused by a dam ever turning into an explosive issue. Although the dam was very near the epicenter of the quake, the cause and effect between dams and earthquakes seems to be conjecture. I'm not sure how one would ever prove such claims.

The scientist who is most convinced of the connection is doing everything he can to thwart the building of future dams though. China, for years, has been on a dam-building fix.

Despite any challenges from academics, I can't imagine China would stop building dams any time soon.

Chinese Now Buying More Cars than Americans

Although Buick is actually a popular brand in China, this can't be good news for the Big Three US auto makers.

From The Financial Times:

US car sales fell to their lowest level since 1963 in January - and were less than China's on an annualised basis for the first time - as rental fleets and consumers bought fewer vehicles in spite of steep industry discounts and government efforts to ease lending.

General Motors' monthly sales fell 49 per cent and Ford Motor's - including vehicles made by Volvo, its Swedish premium brand - dropped 40 per cent.

"This is the first time in history China has surpassed the US," said Michael DiGiovanni, GM's head of global sales and industry analysis. GM estimated the industry's annualised selling rate for cars at 9.8m in the US in January, down from 10.3m in December, and less than China's estimated annualised selling rate of 10.7m last month.

The slide in sales will intensify the pressure on Detroit's carmakers, which are scrambling to avoid bankruptcy. GM and Chrysler are working on restructuring plans due by February 17 as conditions of their $17.4bn emergency government loans.

Read On

China's population is over four times as large America's, but I still see this as shocking news. The "car culture" that permeates American life is just not here in China (although one can see that it is growing from today's news).

For most people in China, having a car is not even within the realm of possibility. Jackie's family, for instance, is very middle class (ie. they own their own apartment, have two working parents, and have steady income and savings) and they do not have a car. And as far as I understand, they have never seriously considered buying one. Even if they could afford one, they just don't really need one. Public transportation and walking to places can more than suffice one's day-to-day needs and wants.

Somewhat ironically, one of the most liberating aspects of coming to live in China for me has been freeing myself from the shackles of car ownership.

In suburban Kansas City, you have to have a car. Public transportation just doesn't make any sense when you live in a place as spread out as the place that I grew up. It is not feasible for an active person to even consider getting by without a car in the suburbs. One has to drive everywhere.

Whereas in Xi'an, things couldn't be more different.

There are three grocery stores within a five minute walk of my apartment. I can also walk to work, walk to department stores, walk to my bank, walk to a hospital, and can even walk to two of the most impressive tourist destinations in all of China if I'm so inclined. And my situation is not unique. I live on a pretty average street in Xi'an.

Of course there are things that I give up for the convenience of where I live. Most notably, I do not have a nice front lawn to myself and I don't have the ability to walk down a street without being surrounded by swarms of people. But I do have to say that my apartment is very big and comfortable and I do not feel "cramped" at all in my current living situation.

While many Americans see car ownership as the definition of "freedom" (meant to be read in a George W. Bush accent), I've grown to see it as stifling.

Getting back into America's car culture is one of the things I'm dreading most about my eventual reintegration into American society. Knowing that getting back into America's drive-everywhere mentality is going to be awful, I'm thinking about which cities would be best for Jackie and me in terms of not having to get into the car to do absolutely everything. Sharing one car between the two of us would be ideal.

This criteria of wanting to live in a place where one can actually walk or rely upon public transportation really does pare down the number of places one can live in the good ol' US of A.

China's Wen Target of Shoe

A man at Cambridge University has followed in the footsteps of that Iraqi reporter from December.

From The Associated Press:

CAMBRIDGE, England — A protester threw an athletic shoe at the Chinese prime minister, Wen Jiabao, during his speech at Cambridge University’s concert hall on Monday, seven weeks after a similar incident involving President Bush in Iraq. The shoe missed Mr. Wen by at least 30 feet, but security officials promptly escorted the protester from the hall.

The police arrested the man on suspicion of a public order offense. Witnesses described him as a goateed European in his 20s or 30s speaking foreign-accented English. They said he blew a whistle as Mr. Wen spoke, causing him to pause and look up. “You should be ashamed of yourselves,” the man said, according to witnesses. “How can you listen to the lies he’s telling?” he shouted, in a video of the incident shown on Sky News television.

Mr. Wen appeared unruffled. Some in the audience said he called the protest “despicable.” Others said that when he resumed the speech, to an audience of Chinese government ministers, university officials and students, he assured them that “the relations between Britain and China” would not be affected by the protest. A police spokeswoman gave no other details about the protester, Reuters reported.

Read On

I'm really not a fan of these hot new shoe protests.

George W. Bush was an awful president and I believe he permanently tarnished the United States. I absolutely loathe him. Yet I did not think that the incident where an Iraqi reporter who threw his shoe at President Bush was very funny.

I understand that many feel as though Bush is directly responsible for unimaginable amounts of violence throughout the world, yet I don't believe throwing a shoe at him is a very appropriate way to air one's grievances.

I feel the same way about today's incident as I do Bush's.

Hurling one's shoe at a world leader in front of crowds of reporters is childish and focuses all of the attention on the shoe-thrower, not the cause in which the thrower is, supposedly, concerned about. It's counter-productive and meaningless. The resulting stories about the incident are not about supposed grievances, but are instead about the thrower and the leader's security.

I will say this regarding the two incidents though: at least the Bush attacker was pretty damn accurate. This guy today missed Wen with his shoe by about thirty feet.

Here is a video of the event:

And the Reckoning Begins

Economic numbers came out today in China. Just like the rest of the world's, they are not pretty.

From Reuters:

BEIJING (Reuters) - About 20 million Chinese rural migrants have lost jobs as the nation's economic growth has faltered, a senior official said on Monday, promising policies to boost incomes and a softer approach to potential unrest.

Chen Xiwen, director of the Office of the Central Rural Work Leading Group, told a news conference that a recent survey showed 15.3 percent of the 130 million migrants moving from villages to cities and factories had returned jobless to the countryside.

Adding this year's 6 to 7 million new entrants into the rural labor market, Chen added, China will this year have about 25 million jobless and potentially restive rural unemployed.

...

Yiping Huang, chief Asia economist for Citigroup, said even that number could double if government stimulus plans fail to offset slowed exports and general gloom.

"It is a big number coming from an official source but a lot of people are expecting even bigger numbers," Huang said of Chen's estimate.

"These are pretty difficult to check reliably, but people are talking about 30 or 40 million eventually."

China has about 750 million people in its countryside -- more than the combined populations of the United States and European Union -- and their incomes and willingness to spend will be crucial to government efforts to boost domestic consumption.

Read the whole article

China's Newest Export

This is an interesting twist on the economic crisis.

From McClatchy Newspapers:

Cheap labor has helped China become the world's top producer of a variety of consumer goods, including televisions and DVD players and apple juice and clothing. So it seemed only a matter of time before China would come up with a new export: the laborers themselves.

Recruiters come to hamlets around counties like this one in Sichuan Province in southwest China and offer salaries double or triple what workers can make at home.

"They said, 'If you go abroad, you can earn a lot more,' " said Yang Mingxian, whose husband traveled to Saudi Arabia to work on a construction project late last year. "He just did it for the money."

However, Beijing is discovering pitfalls in looking after workers overseas. A scattered few are getting killed in terrorist attacks. Others have been kidnapped or encountered peril in their host countries. Still others say they've been cheated by the companies that hired them and faced sudden deportation back to China after they lodged complaints.

Read On

Theoretically, going abroad to work as a Chinese migrant could be a good idea. Making money in a more valuable currency and having the opportunity to sent that money back home would be great for migrants struggling to find work.

But like a lot of get-rich schemes, this one is not as great as it sounds.

The problems that your average Chinese person could encounter abroad in the Middle East or Africa are mind-boggling. As the Chinese guy says at the end of the article:

"We don't want to go back to the (Persian) Gulf area. If something happens, they show guns," he said as more than a dozen villagers gathered around.

"If you steal things, they cut off your fingers," Feng said, making a reference to Islamic law that drew astonishment from his listeners. "If you look at a woman for longer than three seconds, they can call the police to take you away."

Of course, the way things are going at the moment for rural migrants in China, there are probably going to be a lot more downtrodden and frustrated farmers getting suckered into taking the bait on these trips abroad.