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Has Hong Kong Technology Transformed China?
nbruinooge asks: "I just reread Neal Stephenson's profile In the Kingdom of Mao Bell in Wired, Feb. 1994. In it Stephenson speculates about what will become of Hong Kong in '97, and predicts a Chinese backlash against Western technology in the next couple of decades. Hong Kong shifting hands is old news now, and it occurs to me that other Slashdot readers must know more than I do about how things have been going there, from a technological perspective. Is Hong Kong transforming China, or is it the other way around? Was Stephenson his good ol' prescient self when he wrote this article, or have things taken unexpected turns? And how does that China-Linux announcement from a while back play into it?"
I have never seen a backlash against technology in any country; I would find it strange for china to be any different. A friend of mine recently visited China, where she grew up, and says that it hasn't changed much in the last few years. I guess because China is just some damn big that it would take A LOT to make any significant change.
Sure, but all I care about is if I can get plastic trinkets and stereos still.
How Can americans live without Bart Simpson Dolls that are (made in china).
Having just been there last week, I can say that technologically speaking they are eons ahead of Canada if not North America. I see WAP phones everywhere (eg Motorola Accompli A6188), their bank machines scan money without the need for envelopes, incredibly dense population yet the cellular networks work great, even in the MTR tunnels. If anything, China is learning from them, in cities such as Shenzheng just outside of Hong Kong. Definately, not the other way around.
I don't think there is much chance of Hong Kong seriously affecting China as a whole for a LONG time. China is large geographically, and has a huge population, the greater part of which is rural. Hong Kong is relatively tiny, and it is ridiculous to think that Hong Kong will greatly influence China in the short term.
So far, China has largely left Hong Kong alone. This is mainly because China knows the world is watching and it doesn't want any more bad publicity. However, if it decided to, China could do pretty much whatever it wanted to with Hong Kong.
I'll tell you what I like about Chinese people... They're hanging in there with those chopsticks. Still using chopsticks. You know they've seen the fork? Oh they're well aware that we have the fork. And the spoon. I don't know how they missed it. Chinese farmer getting up working in the field with a shovel all day. Hello? Shovel there it is. You're not plowing forty acres with a couple of pool cues.
Being from Hong Kong, I can probably offer a different perspective as to what he situation is - and that is that Hong Kong and China are developing both technologically and economically independent of each other. Remember that Hong Kong is for all purposes separate from China, and what happens in one place does not necessarily affect the other.
I cannot think of one example of how Hong Kong is shaping China technologially, or vice versa. But one thing that I can tell you all is that China is advancing amazingly quickly technologially. They may be communist, but that does not at all mean that they are slow at adopting new technology - cable modem is now slowly sifting into big cities, mobile phones are becoming more common, and so on - its an irreversible trend.
Hong Kong on the other hand is just about as technologically advanced as you get. Internet technology wise, cool widgets wise and all. 6.7 million people, 4 million mobile phones, 2.5 million land line phones - that says it all.
But, what percentage of China's population lives in Shenzheng, or cities like it. I can tell you the percentage isn't very high. Most of the Chinese are still peasants. They farm for a And it's not likely that modern technology will become accessible to the Chinese as a whole in our lifetime. So, I don't think Hong Kong is influencing China as a whole that much.
Actually, Hong Kong is having the same effect today as it did in 90'. The biggest change happened some 20 years ago when China began shifting to a more Liberalized economic model. This happened indepenedant of Hong Kong possession. (you can thank the same President that brought us the Tiamen Massacre) I work in a Scientific Institute, with a LOT of Chinese nationals. I get the impression that the United States influence of China brings change, while Hong Kong is merely the port (literally) that it flows in and out of. Before China had control this was true.
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May I suggest that anyone interested in this read Tom Clancy's The Bear and the Dragon. It's fiction, of course, but it deals in some detail with the effect of technology on Chinese politics.
TO BUY A NEW CAR WOULD MAKE YOU SEXUALLY ATTRACTIVE.
While at the university hospital, I had a chance to talk with the students, and the staff.
In China, the wages are low (head of a networking department at a university gets about $250 USD/month). It makes it hard to penetrate a market when a computer costs more two months salary. The people there are eager to learn and bright.
The issue of not allowing the people from the mainland into Hong Kong was to prevent a rush of people from going into Hong Kong for the higher pay and overtaxing the infrastructure of HK.
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> Typically, Asian people are a lot more self-sacrificing and willing to work for a group; they don't have the "looking out for number one" attitudes that most Western geeks do (not
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this is a stereotype that quite simply doesnt work when talking about people from mainland china. china has one of the most powerful, stable, and yet systematically corrupt governments in the world. almost EVERY person from mainland china ALWAYS looks out for number one...if they didnt, they wouldnt survive. if youve been to china or even hk you know what im talking about.
there is no such thing as fairness in modern china. it is all about influence, money, and power. everyone who does business in china learns this, when they have to pay off every local magistrate to get work permits. there is no official who cannot be bought, in one way or another.
try to think of what it would be like in a society where there is no such thing as justice. remember that it has been like this for 25+ years (under mao, it was complete chaos and was even worse...) do you really think that people would be that self-sacrificing?
as for **buying** windows ME... it is DAMN HARD to even find a legal copy to purchase of ANY software or DVD in china. pretty much all you can buy is pirated copies... and that is no joke...
unc_
I've read that some (most?) of the pirate CD plants are owned and run by the PLA (People's Liberation Army). This makes it a bit difficult for the government to crack down on piracy. Just think if Napster was owned by the 82nd Airborne.
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it is a world of difference between the rural countrysides and any of the cities. while the urban areas will catch up quickly (or, in the case of hk, occasionally lead the way) it will take at least a decade for much of the tech to filter throughout the country.
also, stephenson was both right and wrong about games...multiplayer games are very popular in the cities...there is a booming (and frequently illegal) industry in net cafes, where the majority of people are playing starcraft, ut and counterstrike. the chinese gov't recently cracked down on a lot of them, but they continue nonetheless...
unc_
My mother's Korean, but I'm pretty much culturally US, so take my observations with a big grain of salt :)
From what I can tell by observation of my relatives & their associates (many Asian non-Koreans), it isn't so much that Asians are self-sacrificing & willing to work for a group.
Asian individuals are just as willing to jockey for power & stab each other in the back as their Western counterparts. There's a couple things that make Westerners feel uncomfortable though. First, there's definitely a touch of xenophobia in native Asians - even my mother, who has lived in the US for 30 years, feels more comfortable working with a complete Asian stranger than she does working with a Westerner that she might know a little better.
Second, there's the all-important concept of "face". It is a highly undesirable thing for one's self to "lose face" (look bad). One's "face" is often attached to the actions of family members as well, esp. if you are a family member of some importance. Also, by corollary, it is EXTREMELY bad manners to make someone else lose face.
So, what ends up happening, is you have a whole bunch of people being polite to each other so that they don't cause offense by causing the other to look like they're being disrespected. Most of the time, they won't even flat-out disagree with you, even if they think you're being an idiot, because that would imply that they are questioning your judgement (trying to make you look bad).
This drives most Westerners I know nuts, because they're getting signals that everything they say is being agreed to, then later on they'll get some kind of impersonal, vague message politely suggesting that the matter be looked at more closely.
Amusingly enough, from the viewpoint of many of my older Asian relatives, many Westerners are considered charmingly "naive", unable to control their emotional responses during a simple conversation or discussion. (Unfortunately, from their viewpoint, this includes me :( - I'm just glad I'm family.)
First of all, Hong Kong is not about technology, its about real estate, money, financial knowhow, and services. So Hong Kong can help China move up the technology curve by providing venture capital, access to capital markets, etc. On the technology side, China is making rapid progress in a number of sectors, but it is very uneven. For example, after 20 years of intense government backing and inputs, the semiconductor sector is way behind the global curve. However, for telecom equipment, China is much farther along, with competitive companies across the border from Hong Kong in Shenzhen such as Huawei and Zhongxing leading the pack, producing switches, access equipment, mobile base stations, etc that are roughly on par with western producers. However, at the cutting edge, ie., highend routers, optical networking equipment, DWDM, etc. Chinese firms cant really compete yet with the likes of CISCO and Lucent. However, by converting research institutes into companies, they will be able to get closer, for example, Wuhan Research Institute is actually quite advanced on the DWDM and optical networking front, they just lack marketing. in the end, China currently lacks a whole range of piece of the high tech innovation puzzle: 1) Legal system 2) capital markets, IPOS, etc. 3) venture capital 4) government that promotes the industry, rather than hinders 5) entreprenuerial managers 6) financial system plugged into global systems (i.e., covertable currency) 7) professional and industry organizations 8) tradition of business university cooperation etc. etc. progress is being made on all these fronts, some of which Hong Kong can help with, but China must find where it fits into the globalization of IT production, like Taiwan and India, an open question right now...
I'm a Hong Kong resident.
:)
:) They are proud of being a RG before. Don't be alarmed when a China business tells you that he's a RG before, he's actually talking about his proud history! :)
:)
It's amazed to read an article about China and Hong Kong written in 1994. Thinks are so different nowaday.
With the economic growth, very few people has related their topic with political issue. It has nothing to do with freedom of speech, but simply people have their mind preempted by $$$.
Something hasn't been changing, is that they still love to use Hong Kong currency, which is Int. currency in compare with Renman currency. They still love to watch Hong Kong TV. They rely heavily on Hong Kong goods, e.g. most mobile phones are imported(legally and illegially) from Hong Kong.
It's true that M$ has been running office in China for quite sometime, but I've been told last year they've been liquidated many of the office and transfer the staffs to Hong Kong. Though M$ stil wants to do business with China, but the unsuccessful story telling them that they've charge too much for their product regardless of the living standard of China people. A suite of Office would cost an annual salary of a teacher there.
You may be interested to know how well Linux is used there. Well, just so-so. The hype of Linux really catch China people's attention, but since they didn't pay for M$ software(go figure why ^_^), free software momentum would not impress them too much.
However, it would make a big different with China Government. China Government has long been aware of the undocument features inside US closed-source software. The early release of Chinese (GB) Windows 95 has Easter Eggs that would play jokes on communists party and their learders. Why? Because the early relase are written by humorous Taiwanese.
China goverment was not amazed. Rumor has said that they imposed pressure on M$, which limited M$'s business growth; and on the other hand develop an OS Red-Flag Linux in view of the inflitration possibilities in closed-source software. Some government officers even took the liberty to ban their sectors from using M$ products, but this policy is not nation-wide. I'm working closely with China businessmen, these are _not_ rumors.
What is the role Hong Kong after World Trade? In fact, Hong Kong's role in China business hasn't been changed since 1994, and it'd never been changing in the future. Even after open trade, it's still _extremely_ difficult for foreign businessmen to do direct business with China, they must still rely on Hong Kong as a middleman. I could go on 10 pages of explanation, but I'll stop here because everybody doing business with China know the problems and uncertainty in China.
However, i've to clear the common misunderstanding in the article:
1) Slave labour - they don't have slave labour, really, none of us has seen slaves in China. They've prisoners making export goods, though. If you consider political prisoners are slaves, then there are.
2) Mainland China people are afraid of Red Guards and Culture Rev?... - They don't!
3) Corruption - well....you wouldn't feel hard if you considered it as the rules of game....
4) China government always influence business? - well, if you know how game is playing (see 3), they you wouldn't have the problem. Hong Kong people know how the game system is implemented, that's why I said Hong Kong's role as a middleman will not be changed in near future, or long future. However, if you are running a media, or news/news website, then you should be very careful on the 'law' issue. E.g. posting the news of taiwan must be handled very carefully, there's law in this issue.
Sorry for the long article. Please comment(on the grammer ^_^).
Academics in Hong Kong are resigning right and left after it's been learned that the government has been pressuring and threatening political scientists and others not to conduct polls which show that the government has become very unpopular since the Chinese takeover. In China, meanwhile, in some cities there's a big crackdown on videogame arcades as well as on the ongoing assault on web sites that offer anything but the private line (this is a country where people were fired when a newsbroadcast ran historical footage of an old news event without realizing that in the distant background you could see the Tiananmen Square massacre going on.).
The first year when I was in North America, when I read western-centered comments from westerners on Hongkong and China based on their casual observations, I would feel very angry, upset, mad, etc.
Now, I would just laugh and forget it.
Look, is it necessary to have a geek culture to develop good technology? Let's not forget China was advance in technology for a long time in history. There were no geek culture, yet there're ways to develop technology.
If you ask, is there any hacker's mind in China? Yes, there is. Do hackers in China really hack? They do. Do they try to distinguish themselves from others? No, they don't, because that will troubled them and block them from their hacking activities. That's the way Chinese prefer, express implicitly and practical. They also fight for the freedom.
It's the COST of communication that you can't find a network of hackers as you found in western world. I know, it has been rather affordable in the western world for a long time. But the same communication system is expensive in China for the last 50 years even the price is the same as in America: consider the living standard!!!
One more thing: I don't know why western people are so against communist countries, after all, communism is a western product!!! The bad things you saw in communist countries are not because the people in power are communists, it is because they are human! From the beginning how the communists get the power is by killing each other, and the system preserves this mechanism. I know this is offensive, but I do think, if you put any great western leader in a communist country's government, he would have been either 1. got rid of by others or 2. be as "bad" as other people in a communist government.
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Do I think China will get better? Of course, but first they need to solve their hunger problems fixed. Eventually the government will get its priorities straight and put their people before their need to posture for the rest of the world.
OK, now for a list of pointless computer observations: ;)
Some games were REALLY popular, esp. Delta Force 2 and Age of Empires were the hot tickets when I was there, and the 3D card of choice was the Riva TNT (but the TNT2 Ultra was for sale). The most popular Intel motherboards were ASUS brand, the popular Athlon motherboard was the GA-17X (?), the most popular gamepad was a Sony Playstation counterfeit pad attached to the parallel port (I bought one called "HONY", hah!), the most popular clock speed was 600MHz (as of April), flat panels were just coming into vogue and therefore on the display of every computer I saw, and there was an entire FLOOR about 10,000 square feet PER MALL full of pirated software vendors (every one taking about 12 square feet per booth, each with well over a few thousand cds per vendor... I tried to take a picture but the guards wouldn't let me, because everybody knows it's bad, it's just nobody cares.) But despite all the computer shopping, the bicycle rides were the fun part of being there.
(ok ok ok i'm done rambling)
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Things in China in the SEZ areas are pretty modern now, we wide boulevards and parks in the urban areas. They also have pretty modern highways (toll mostly) that span over to a neighboring large city. This is in Guangzou province of course, I'm sure its a whole lot different in other provinces.
Having toured through the industrial areas and checked out how they dealt business and manufactured the different things that we buy in the US and take for granted, the Chinese still have a long way to go to become proper businessmen. I witnessed something that appeared to me like lawnessnes, bartering, etc. I have also seen PLA soldiers watch some pretty crazy stuff happen and ignore it/don't care. I think they only start caring when you kill or rob someone on plain sight.
I had a discussion with a Hong Kong businessman who worked at a Shenzen factory as a manager, and he seems to agree that the Chinese have a lot to learn to become businessmen and know how to properly attract business, make deals, etc.
Anyway, a lot of other parts of China are still pretty backwards as we remember it from 25 years ago, and one can see things less technologically developed as you move further away from a SEZ. It will take at least another 15-20 years before we see technology trickle down to the rest of the Chinese population. There isn't much Hong Kong influence in China, except their model city Shenzen. "Sole proprietorship" businesses, restraunts and malls in Shenzen try to follow the Hong Kong model but are still playing catchup. An average Chinese person who lived in the Shenzen area is restricted in what he can possibly buy too; things that are made to be exported will not be found in the local market. Nice, high tech stuff is probably a 5 year old model. They are also restricted in how many imported cars they can buy in a time period, so most have to contend with the poorly built local makes. Their banking system is also another limiter; most people there do not keep their money in the banks because when they do need a large sum of money, they can't get it in that day (they can only get a small amount out each day). This contributes partly to a high petty crime rate.
The atmosphere of Hong Kong is still pretty much the same as it was 15 years ago, still free, laizefare business, businesses that follow the latest trends, etc. Hong Kong has all the latest technology, embraces it, but they did not develop them. Hong Kong uses technology from Europe, America, and Japan. One can see a very good example of how Hong Kong embraces technology very easily; practically everyone there has a cellular phone (from children to seniors). Cellular coverage is excellent too, little or no interference, you can be anywhere (underground to deep inside a building) except the mountains and still get reception. I borrowed a cheap Nokia phone from a friend and used it underground on the MTR subway, as well as on the train while it was moving and had zero problems with reception. IMO, Hong Kong does not get its influence from China, but Japan instead. They blend the influence into their way of managing business and other administrative things. They also get the latest gadgetry and TV shows from Japan only a few months after it comes out usually. It will be a while before Hong Kong and China influence each other, at the moment, nothing much has changed and its definately too soon to know.
Look at the huge economic build-up in Guangdong and mainland hinterlands of Hong Kong. This is a direct result of dollars and expertise flowing out of Hong Kong and into neighbouring Chinese towns and cities.
The other "Special Economic Zones" set up along the coast were in direct response (and a counterbalance) to the success of Guangdong. And with economic success has come political power as well. The governors of Guangdong, Shenzen, Shanghai and the other SEZs have become a considerable moderating influence on the central government in Beihing.
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Disclaimer : I can't be arsed reading Jon Katz anymore.
This is how Jon Katz should be writing, and what he should be writing about. Global implications of technology, the internet and privacy, and not just American libertarian concerns. Writing about the real-world, instead of trying to force himself into the graces of a given subculture he doesnt really understand. Writing about real issues, not trying to mangle the back-story for a fifteen-year-old role-playing game into some kind of metaphor about the alienation of geeks.
Real writing, about real issues.
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OK. There's a reason the HK is ahead of the US:
Until 1997, they were a British colony. And since Britannia wanted, in part, to sour the taste of Chinese rule, they gave HK citizens stuff similar to those of Anglia subjects of the Crown.
For example, until the changeover there was democratically elected officials. One person, one vote. The Chinese reverted to 'corporate voting' where a group of persons only had one vote. (Correct me if I am wrong.)
Now, the EU, of which the UK is a non-Euro member, adopted GSM as the Continental Standard for Digital Cellular Service. This made the cell markets of the EU much, much cleaner, as manufacturers only needed to produce one type of phone for the entirety of the EU market. And because your subscriber information in a GSM phone is based off a chipcard, and not the phone itself! (Meaning, if I travel from the EU to New York, LA, or most any other major metro area in the US (except Chicago) with a GSM provider, I just remove my chip, insert into a new phone, and voila! That phone has all my information!
The really good thing for the EU denizens is G3 will be out in full force within two years.
Repeat: By 2002, the European continent will be fully G3. ISDN speeds on wireless phones.
The US is behind because of several reasons:
1. The FCC, in its infinite wisdom, did not mandate a single, national digital cellular protocol. We have GSM, CDMA, and TDMA. Which means the manufacturers have to brew up three different phone types for the US market. (Also, this is why the wizzer phones are in the EU first: Only one network protocol means everyone can use any phone designed for that protocol.
2. In the EU, there is 'caller pays.' Simple translation: I call you from a hardline to your cell, I pay the air fees. (This is true no matter where in the world you're calling from, as long as the recipient is a cell user in a nation which has the 'caller pays' philosophy.) This also cheapens the cost of cell use; if you have a phone merely to recieve calls, it costs you nothing (besides the monthly subscriber fees.) That's one reason why cell phone penetration is over 50% in most of the EU, and over 75% in several.
3. The US has a LARGE number of analog cell users. All that bandwidth in the 800 Mhz range for cell users is mainly for analog cellular phones. In the EU, all cells are digital. Analogs were mandated out. The FCC should take the same stand on analog cell as it did with analog TV: Out in so many years.
PS: Catching cell signals in the tube isn't that hard to do: All the cellco needs to do is install a few antenna banks at several stations along the line. The catch is the cost-to-use ratio. If people don't use the Metro's cell 'towers,' they are a waste of money.
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