China's content-rich microblogs

Sites like Sina Weibo can even get Western figures and celebrities, like boxer Mike Tyson, to come aboard.

WHILE Twitter is blocked in China, there are local microblogging sites to keep me informed and entertained.

Among the providers for microblogging service include Sina, Tencent, Xinhua, Souhu, People’s, Phoenix, NetEase and more.

Sina tops the list with 500 million registered users and 46.29 million daily active users as of December 2012.

Its popularity is proven with public and media using “Weibo” to refer to its microblogging site, although Weibo stands for microblog in general.

(Twitter has over 200 million active users churning out 400 million tweets a day, according to its blog post in March this year.)

The Chinese microblogging sites have similar basic features as their US counterpart, such as tagging other users with the symbol @, trending topics with hashtags and posting within an allowed character limit.

But what sets Weibo apart from Twitter is the rich media content.

Besides photos and animated GIF, some Weibo allow users to embed video and music files, and start a poll in their posts.

These elements have enhanced the Weibo surfing experience and created an entertaining platform for all.

A unique feature on Sina Weibo is the charity platform. Users can initiate a charitable cause, pledge donation, sign up as volunteers or simply repost a cause.

I am drawn to Sina Weibo for one simple reason – you can find almost everyone on it, from celebrities to writers, and government departments to restaurants.

Many of the official accounts are well-maintained, providing frequent and useful updates.

While Chinese president Xi Jinping does not have an official account, there is an account dubbed “Xuexi Fensituan” (Learning from Xi Fan Club) dedicated to disseminate news and photos of his activities.

The account owner has denied speculations that the account was a publicity effort, claiming that he was only a supporter.

Sina Weibo, which was launched in August 2009, is celebrating its fourth anniversary this month.

In an unaudited financial report for the second quarter of 2013, Sina Corporation announced a 209% year-on-year growth for its Weibo advertising revenue, which amounted to US$30mil (RM98.74mil).
The non-advertising revenues also increased from US$23.8mil (RM79mil) in the same period last year to US$32.2mil (RM106.9mil).

Back in April, China’s e-commerce giant Alibaba invested US$586mil (RM1.9bil) to purchase an 18% stake in Sina Weibo. This deal valued Sina Weibo at US$3.3bil (RM10.86bil).

The population on Weibo continued to beckon Western figures and celebrities to come on board to reach out to their Chinese fans.

The latest to join Sina Weibo was retired American boxer Mike Tyson, whose username is “Quanwang Taisen” (King of Boxing Tyson).

After greeting Chinese fans on his maiden post on Monday, he went on to ask who is the best fighter in China.

Amid the genuine replies (Donnie Yan and Jackie Chan, for instance) came an answer that had everyone in stitches – chengguan.

The term refers to the city management officers who are often labelled as abusive for getting involved in physical brawls with street vendors.

A clueless Tyson then asked, “Who is Chengguan? A tough man? I’ve never heard it (sic).”

He mentioned it again in a post later, “So many guys talking about chengguan as a great fighter? Still not a clue about him … All I’ve heard about are Jet Li, Jackie Chan, Donnie Yen, and wait wait, the Chinese dama (middle-aged women)!”

(Local news reports said the term Chinese dama became a popular term when the women rushed to snatch up gold.)

Needless to say, Tyson’s Weibo went viral, attracting 200,000 followers in just three days.

Although Sina Weibo has a reputation for self-censorship – posts with sensitive topics or keywords are deleted – it remains largely as a platform for freedom of expression.

It was even described as China’s Hyde Park in a report by Xinhua in December 2011: “… An open space where people feel free to participate in public affairs”.

As such, Weibo is the place to gauge public sentiments and there are calls lately to urge opinion leaders to observe their social responsibility on social media network.

Contributed by Tho Xin Yi

• Tho Xin Yi (thoxinyi@thestar.com.my) sees Weibo as a tool to get first-hand news and gain insight into the Chinese society. She follows 329 users on Sina Weibo.

Serious deficits that cannot be financed could lead to bigger global crisis!

A bigger global crisis possible

GEORGE TOWN: A global financial crisis bigger than the one in 2008 is conceivable in five to 10 years.

Value Partners Group chairman and co-investment officer Cheah Cheng Hye said the crisis, which would not be V-shaped in nature, would bring about capital flights, volatile markets, rising inflation and social unrest.

“The global financial crisis would have to do with the very serious deficits that cannot be financed.

Developed and developing countries have over the years accumulated such deficits by making promises that cannot be realised in order to get re-elected.

“These deficits would sow the seeds of future social and political unrest,” he said at a public lecture entitled From Journalist to Fund Manager, which was officiated by Penang Chief Minister Lim Guan Eng.

Also present was Penang Institute chief executive officer Zairil Khir Johari.

On Malaysia, Cheah said Value Partners was not bullish about the country.

“Malaysia’s Government and household debts are higher than those in Indonesia, China and Thailand. Half of the country’s government bonds are held by foreigners, who would be the first to run in a crisis.

“The Malaysian workforce is now less productive than the workforce in Thailand and the Philippines. Malaysia is also importing more oil than selling it,” he said.

On making investments, Cheah advised investors to have well-diversified portfolios.

“They should have investments in gold, real estate and a high level of cash of at least 25% of their savings to prepare for future uncertainties,” he said.

Cheah attributes his success to being at the right place at the right time more than the decisions he chose to undertake.

Born in Penang, Cheah, 59, has been dubbed the “Warren Buffett of the East” by the media in Hong Kong.

A Penang Free School boy, Cheah had worked as a journalist in The Star in the early 1970s.

- Contributed by DAVID TAN  davidtan@thestar.com.my

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KUALA LUMPUR: Malaysia’s economy in the second quarter of the year grew at a slightly faster pace, but below market expectations, as prolonged weakness in the external environment remains a drag to domestic economic activity.

Gross domestic product (GDP) for the three months to June grew 4.3% year-on-year (y-o-y), sustained by domestic demand, as compared with market expectations of a 4.7% y-o-y growth for the period in review, and a GDP growth of 4.1% y-o-y in the first quarter of the year.

“While domestic demand in the Malaysian economy has remained strong, the overall growth performance has been affected by the weak external sector,” Bank Negara governor Tan Sri Dr Zeti Akhtar Aziz said at a press conference.

She noted that the phenomenon was not unique to Malaysia, as growth in several economies in Asia, particularly those that were export-oriented, had also moderated in the second quarter, as the prolonged weakness in the external environment had started to affect the countries’ domestic economic activities.

“For the Malaysian economy, the prolonged weakness in the external environment has affected the overall growth performance of the economy, going forward,” Zeti said.

“While domestic demand is expected to remain firm, supported by sustained private consumption, capital spending in the domestic-oriented industries and the ongoing implementation of infrastructure projects, the weak external in the first half of this year would affect our overall growth performance for the year,” she added.

Consequently, Bank Negara has revised downwards the overall GDP growth target for Malaysia in 2013 to 4.5%-5.0% from its earlier target of 5%-6%.

“We are expecting a challenging environment, with little improvement in the second half of this year,” Zeti said, adding that domestic demand was expected to remain on its steady growth trajectory and would continue to be supported by an accommodative monetary policy.

Meanwhile, Malaysia’s current account surplus for the second quarter of the year narrowed to RM2.6bil from RM8.7bil in the preceding quarter. This was due to lower goods surplus as well as sustained services deficit and outflows in the income accounts.

Zeti said Malaysia would likely remain in a surplus position through the year, as the expected recovery in external demand, albeit at a moderate pace, would help improve the country’s current account balance.
In addition, Zeti said the Government was considering various options to improve Malaysia’s current account balance. These include scaling back some large projects that had high import content, increasing the country’s economic competitiveness and diversifying its export markets.

She said that Malaysia continued to enjoy a steady flow of foreign direct investment, which could contribute positively to the country’s current account balance.

Zeti and other Bank Negara officials during the Second Qtr 2013 GDP press conference in Kuala Lumpur on Wednesday. - Sia Hong Kiau/The Star 

On another note, Malaysia’s inflation, as measured by the increase in consumer price index (CPI), remained modest in the second quarter of the year. The CPI grew 1.8% y-o-y, compared with 1.5% y-o-y in the preceding quarter, due to price increases in the food and non-alcoholic beverages and housing, water, electricity, gas and other fuels categories

-  Contributed by CECILIA KOK  cecilia_kok@thestar.com.my

Malaysia can manage currency volatility 

KUALA LUMPUR: Malaysia had the capacity to manage its currency volatility, Bank Negara said, as it brushed off concerns of an Asian contagion risk.

“We had demonstrated our ability to handle such a weakness at the height of the global financial crisis in 2008/09, and therefore, would be able to do the same in the current environment,” the central bank governor Tan Sri Dr Zeti Akhtar Aziz said at a press conference.

In highlighting Malaysia’s strengths that would enable it to deal with the present volatility, Zeti said: “Firstly, we have strong intermediaries, and a well-developed financial market.

“Our bond market is one of the largest in South-East Asia, and we have a strong presence of institutional investors who can absorb any selling of our Malaysian Government securities. In addition, our reserves level currently is at its strongest ever and we have a low level of external indebtedness.”

In line with the performance of some regional currencies, Malaysia’s ringgit has weakened against the currencies of major economies in recent months.

Year-to-date, for instance, the ringgit has fallen around 7.7% against the US dollar to close at 3.2947 per US dollar yesterday, compared with 3.0580 per dollar at the start of the year.

Said Zeti: “We are seeing highly destabilising capital flows and this is within our expectations because we had earlier seen huge inflows into our financial system, as experienced by most emerging markets, when quantitative easing (by major developed countries) took place. We received something like RM70bil in inflows in search of higher returns.

“Now that there are discussions on tapering the quantitative easing, some of these funds would return to their respective economies, in particular, the United States. We expect that there would be reversals (of capital).

“This is not the first time we are seeing this phenomenon. Previously, at the height of the financial crisis in 2008/09, we also saw huge surges of capital flows. But then, deleveraging set in (as major developed nations attempted to reduce their indebtedness), which resulted in a significant reversal of funds, and that precipitated a depreciation in our currency and a significant decline in our reserves.

“But we demonstrated during that time that our financial system was able to cope with this (volatile condition), and therefore, we would be able to do the same in the current environment,” Zeti said.

She added that when global economic recovery improved further, the country’s financial markets would eventually move to reflect fundamentals.

“Our domestic economic fundamentals are strong. We have been able to have strong and resilient domestic demand, which grew at 7.2% year-on-year during the second quarter of this year.

“The private-sector investment is still growing at double-digit rates and investment activities are still holding up well. We have low price pressure in this environment and our labour market conditions remain stable,” she said.

- Contributed by CECILIA KOK  cecilia_kok@thestar.com.my 

Malaysia's Current Account Slumps In Q2, GDP Growth Picks Up 

KUALA LUMPUR: Malaysia's current account surplus plunged in the second quarter on weakening exports, overshadowing a slight acceleration in economic growth and highlighting the country's vulnerabilty to market selloffs that have rocked several other Asian economies.

The Indian rupee hit record lows this week and Indonesia's stock market and currency plunged on concerns that their worsening current account deficits left them exposed to an expected withdrawal of U.S. super-loose monetary policy.

Fears that Malaysia and Thailand could join that club have pushed their currencies to multi-month lows in recent days, raising concern that the market contagion could spread to economically healthier countries in Southeast Asia.

Data on Wednesday confirmed that Malaysia's current account surplus is evaporating fast, falling to 2.6 billion ringgit ($790 million) in the second quarter from 8.7 billion ringgit in the first three months and 22.9 billion ringgit before that, reflecting plunging exports and solid imports.

Still, the decline was not as much as some economists had fears.

Economic growth accelerated slightly to 4.3 percent in the April-June period from a year earlier, helped by pre-election government spending and a pick-up in activity after the May polls, but fell well short of economists' expectations of 4.9 percent.

In a nod to the deteriorating growth prospects, the central bank cut its forecast for full-year growth to 4.5-5.0 percent from 5-6 percent.

Malaysia, which is heavily dependent on its exports of commodities such as palm oil, could soon be recording its first current account deficits since the 1997 Asian financial crisis.

"I think the era of strong double-digit current account surpluses is over," said Lee Heng Guie, an economist at CIMB Investment Bank in Kuala Lumpur.

"Unless an export recovery materialises and is supported by a revival in commodity prices, the surplus will still be narrowing for the next two years."

CAPITAL OUTFLOWS

Central bank Governor Zeti Akhtar Aziz said that Malaysia was expected to maintain a current account surplus this year, and could cope with the current "highly destabilising" capital flows.

"This is not a new phenomenon. We coped with it before," she said, adding that the economy was expected to remain supported by strong domestic growth.

Sales of Malaysian bonds by foreigners, who hold almost half of the country's government debt, could be absorbed by Malaysian institutions including the insurance industry, she said.

Other data on Wednesday showed that inflation ticked up to 2.0 percent in July from 1.8 percent in June, in line with market expectations.

Manufacturing output rose 3.3 percent in the second quarter after subdued growth of 0.3 percent in the first, while mining activity picked up 4.1 percent after shrinking in the first three months of the year.

Many businesses put investment plans on hold in the first quarter ahead of the tense national election in May that was narrowly won by the long-ruling National Front coalition.

Investment has been rising strongly as Prime Minister Najib Razak pushes through his $444 billion Economic Transformation Programme aimed at doubling per capita incomes by 2020, but that has also pushed up imports, undermining the current account.

While economists note that Malaysia has a much stronger external position than Indonesia, its weaknesses include a stubborn fiscal deficit, a relatively high government debt of 53 percent of GDP and one of Asia's highest household debt levels.

Najib faces a possible leadership challenge from within his ruling party in October, raising uncertainty over his pledge to cut the budget deficit of 4.5 percent of GDP. He has pledged to announce steps to improve the fiscal position in his budget address in October.

Malaysia's ringgit has tumbled more than 7 percent this year to three-year lows around 3.3 to the dollar and is among Asia's worst performers this year. On Wednesday, it weakened further ahead of the data, falling 0.2 percent to 3.2940.

"It is just a liquidity event that hurt everyone," Abdul Farid Alias, the chief executive of Malayan Banking Bhd (Maybank), Malaysia's biggest bank by assets, told reporters on Wednesday.

"The fundamentals of the economy in Malaysia, of our organisation, remain strong."

The Malaysian data follows Thai gross domestic product figures released on Monday that showed a surprise contraction in second-quarter growth, partly due to weakening exports.

Regional economies have built up hefty foreign reserves and sharply reduced foreign currency debt since they were devastated by the Asian financial crisis in 1997, making them less vulnerable to flighty foreign capital.

Data from the Bank for International Settlements shows Malaysia has enough reserves to cover four times its short-term external debt, while Thailand has 6.8 times. Indonesia has only 1.7 times.

Kelvin Tay, regional chief investment officer Wealth Management Southern Asia-Pacific, said that while Asian debt levels had risen since the 2008 financial crisis, they were mostly sustainable because of higher growth rates.

"We have actually gone up (in debt) but don't forget the economies here are at growing at 6.5-7 percent as a whole," he said. "If you have growth of that kind of level you can certainly sustain the debt levels. If your growth falls to 4-4.5 percent then, yeah, you are in trouble."

Malaysia's central bank left its key policy rate unchanged at 3.0 percent at its last meeting in July, but warned that the weak global environment may hurt growth prospects. However, a pick-up in inflation and further weakness in the currency could prompt it towards a tightening bias- Reuters 

Malaysia-Market Factors To Watch On Aug 21

NEW YORK: Following is a list of events in Malaysia as well as news company-related and market news which could have an influence on the Malaysian market. 

GLOBAL MARKETS-U.S. bond yields retreat from 2-year peaks; Wall St recovers SE Asia Stocks- Indonesia near year-low; Thai stocks drop 2 pct WHAT IS HAPPENING IN MALAYSIA, IN TIMES LOCAL FOLLOWED BY GMT: Statistics Department releases July 2013 Consumer Price Index at 1700pm (0900). * Bank Negara Malaysia releases second quarter 2013 GDP at 1800pm (1000). Central bank governor Zeti Akhtar Aziz holds press conference earlier at 1545pm (0745). Malaysia Airlines' Business Plan update, Malaysia Airlines Academy, Kelana Jaya, 1200 pm (0400). Maybank Group half-year financial results announcement, Menara Maybank, Kuala Lumpur, 1300pm (0500).
MARKET NEWS
Nikkei tumbles to 7-week low on Fed uncertainty, emerging mkt fears US STOCKS-Wall St bounces to end four-day skid; retailers gain TREASURIES-Yields fall as buyers step in, emerging markets roiled FOREX-Dollar slides against euro and yen ahead of Fed minutes; PRECIOUS-Gold turns higher as dollar down ahead of Fed minutes; U.S. oil drops on pipeline outage, contract expiration; VEGOILS-Palm oil eases after rally, export demand caps losses.
MALAYSIA IN THE NEWS: PREVIEW-Malaysia Q2 GDP seen growing but current account in focus Malaysian planter Kulim's offer blocked for London-listed New Britain Malaysia's Aug 1-20 palm oil exports up 12.3 pct -SGS Malaysian Airline posts Q2 net loss of 175.98 million ringgit Muslim Rohingya asylum seekers escape Thai detention centre Malaysia's Aug 1-20 palm exports up 10.3 pct -ITS - Reuters

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It's not about rights or peace

There are many reasons why crimes happen, but let us not get befuddled by the view that we have to sacrifice our rights in order to live in peace.

Murder victims: Police personnel bringing out the bodies of the five men who were gunned down at an apartment in Sungai Nibong.

It is quite nice to hear the Prime Minister declare that any future development in criminal laws will not infringe upon human rights. Well, let’s hope that is true.

The thing is, by this statement there is an unsaid implication that human rights and crime are something that are somehow related. One retiree for example said that the price for more freedom is higher crime.

I wondered if this is true. After all, in our country, we respect the old, so perhaps there is some wisdom in this octogenarian’s statement.

So, I decided to poke around the information superhighway (Hah! Bet you haven’t hear that term for a while), and I chanced upon a study done by the United Nations office on drugs and crime in 2012. The study was a comprehensive survey of homicides around the world.

If greater freedom equates with greater crime (here the crime in question is murder), then we should see countries with the greatest civil liberties leading the pack. Crickey, a place like Denmark should, theoretically, be littered with dead bodies everywhere. You shouldn’t be able to walk to your corner shop to buy your poached cod or whatever is eaten in those parts, without having to step over cadavers riddled with bullet holes.

After all, they have ratified about thirty human rights treaties (including one against the death penalty); their criminals must be running around high on Carlsberg and whacking every Thor, Dag and Hagen that they come across.

But, this is not the case. They have one of the lowest murder rates in the world. 0.9 per every 100,000 people. To give that some sense of perspective, our murder rate is 2.3 per every 100,000 people. In fact, looking at the study, we see that there is simply no correlation between civil liberties and crime. The regions with the highest homicide rate tend to be those which are desperately poor.

Now this is of course a cursory amble of the Internet on my part and not some serious academic study, but it seems to me that it is very clear that to equate more human rights to more crime is simply not supported by the facts.

The reason I raise this is that we are often faced with the argument that it is one or the other. Rights or peace. This is simply not the case.

In the light of the recent spate of high profile and horrific crimes that we have faced and the police force’s “war” on gangsters, let us not get befuddled by the view that we have to sacrifice our rights in order to live in peace.

There are a myriad of reasons why crimes happen and these must be examined and studied so that any “war” on crime has to be fought on the correct “battlefield”.

For example, poverty and the vast disparity of wealth between the haves and the have not’s seem to be one of the things that the world’s most murder ridden nations have in common.

It sure as heck is not their observance of human rights principles.

So, yes, let us make all efforts to ensure that this country of ours has the least crime possible, but leave our rights (what little of them we have) well enough alone.

 Brave New World by AZMI SHAROM
Azmi Sharom (azmisharom@yahoo.co.uk) is a law teacher. The views expressed here are entirely his own.

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Why nations fail or succeed ?

This is much the East can learn from the West on economics

 

AUGUST is the holiday month – the time when we pause to take stock of a hectic first half year, and wonder what lies ahead.

Nestled in the hills of northern Laos, the ancient city of Luang Prabang sits around a bend in the river Mekong, isolated for centuries and renowned today as a city of 15th century Buddhist temples, protected as a Unesco Heritage site. It is a good place to catch up on one’s history to try to comprehend the uncertain future.

The recent best-seller by Massachusetts Institute of Technology economics Prof Daron Acemoglu and Harvard political scientist James Robinson, Why Nations Fail: The Origins of Power, Prosperity and Poverty (Penguin 2012), argued that national failure were all due to man-made factors, more specifically, how political institutions became extractive, rather than inclusive.

Acemoglu and Robinson is provocative because they stir up the debate on why Latin American economies never quite made it, even though they are resource rich. They did not succeed despite huge wealth because their political institutions remained extractive, meaning a few hundred families or elite essentially controlled the key resources of the continent for their own benefit.

Another obvious example is the difference between North Korea, one of the poorest countries around, and South Korea, an innovative and dynamic economy capable of challenging the best of the West, by learning from the West.

The Acemoglu and Robinson book touches on a raw nerve because many in the West are unsure whether they will continue to be dominant in the years to come. They argue that China will sooner or later stop growing because the institutions there are becoming extractive. But as one review argued, it cannot be ruled out that Chinese institutions would evolve into inclusive systems. After all, China could not have succeeded without being inclusive – taking more than half a billion out of poverty

In the same genre, Stanford Professor of Classics and History, Ian Morris’ 2011 book, Why the West Rules – For Now: The Patterns of History and What They reveal about the Future, takes also the grand sweep, arguing not only about the factors of biology and sociology, but also about geography.

So instead of Acemoglu and Robinson’s dictum, “institutions, institutions and institutions”, Morris considers that it is more about “location, location, location.” He argues that biology and sociology explain the similaries in development between the East and West, but “it is geography that explains why the West rules.”

This view concurs with Asian historian Wang Gung-wu’s perceptive insight that the West developed maritime and today air and cyberspace technology and power, whereas China remains essentially a continental or land-based power. Geography does shape behaviour and perception.

Personally, I am less persuaded by what caused nations to fail than what caused them to succeed, and not just succeed for a few decades, but remain relevant for centuries.

Most people forget that the first modern economy in the world was not Portugal or Spain, or England, but Holland. Even though the Portuguese and Spaniards opened up the maritime routes to America and the Spice Islands, they remained feudal powers that never evolved the institutions to manage their colonies efficiently and professionally.

Last month in Amsterdam, I was given a copy of Marius van Nieuwkerk’s history of Dutch Golden Glory: The Financial Power of the Netherlands through the Ages (2006). This wonderful gem of a book, beautifully illustrated, attributed the rise of Holland as a conquest of man over water. As we all know, Holland has only a population of 16.6 million, in an area 20% larger than the island of Taiwan, ranked 17th in the world in terms of GDP, and 14th in terms of GDP per capita, at US$46,100 just behind the United States (US$50,000) and Japan (US$46,700), but ahead of old rivals, UK (US$38,600).

Historically, because of constant flooding in its low-lying land, the Dutch learnt to work cooperatively to build dykes, through “poldering” – constant irrigation, drainage and pumping of water. Thus, in their constant struggle against flooding and weather risks, the Dutch developed their infrastructure cooperatively, learning how to manage risks through precaution (high savings), consultation (constant feedback) and inspection (maintenance of strict standards). To do so, they built highly inclusive, flexible and innovative institutions that opened up to global trade.

Their constant struggle against water meant that the Dutch had superior shipbuilding technology, drawing on timber from the Baltic areas and arbitraging the trade with northern Europe. By 1598, the Dutch had established the first Insurance Chamber, the largest trading company by 1602 (VOC), and forerunner of the first central bank, the Amsterdam Exchange Bank in 1609, Merchants Exchange 1611, and Grain Exchange in 1616.

VOC, which had trading monopoly for the East Indies in the spice trade, was so profitable that between 1602 and 1796, the average dividend was 18.5% annually! Indeed, the Dutch were successful because they were not only good traders, but also insurers and bankers to the rest of Europe. One tends to forget that as late as 1750, 30% of the share capital of the Bank of England was owned by the Dutch.

What is remarkable about the Dutch model is not that it has not been taken over by other larger powers, but its sustainability and durability. The Dutch runs one of the largest pension funds in the world, and a recent study has shown that there are over 400 Dutch companies with over a century of history, including one that survived from1530. It goes to show that a country may be small, but through thrift, hard-work, openness, and good governance, the country could succeed despite the odds.

There is much that the East has still to learn from the West. No history is a straight line, and there is nothing inevitable about success or failure. Whether it is Abenomics or Likenomics, the key to sustainable and inclusive growth is about strong social institutions with the right checks and balances.

  
Think Asian by Tan Sri Andrew Sheng

TAN SRI ANDREW SHENG is president of the Fung Global Institute.