Share this page
Quick links
Add feed
|
|
The Persuader
My personal blog, started in 2006. No paid or guest posts, no link sales.
Posts tagged ‘Republic of China’
04.10.2020

Which club is the better one to belong to? The ones who have bent the curve down and trying to eliminate COVID-19, or the ones whose curves are heading up? Apparently Air New Zealand’s boss thinks the latter might be better for us.
From Stuff today, certain ābusiness leadersā talk about the New Zealand Governmentās response to COVID-19.
We have Air New Zealand boss Greg Foran saying that elimination was no longer a realistic goal for us, and that we should live with the virus.
This is despite our country having largely eliminated the virus, which suggests it was realistic.
No, the response hasnāt been perfect, but Iām glad we can walk about freely and go about our lives.
Economist Benje Patterson says that if we donāt increase our risk tolerance, āWe could get to that point where weāre left behind.ā
When I first read this, I thought: āArenāt we leaving the rest of the world behind?ā
Is Taiwan, ROC leaving the world behind with having largely eliminated COVID-19 on its shores? It sure looks like it. How about mainland China, who by all accounts is getting its commerce moving? (Weāve reported on a lot of developments in Lucire relating to Chinese business.) The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia has adopted policies similar to ours with travel and quarantine, and Iāve been watching their infection figures drop consistently. Theyāre also well on their way to eliminating the virus and leaving the world behind.
We are in an enviable position where we can possibly have bubbles with certain low-risk countries, and that is something the incoming government after October 17 has to consider.
We are in a tiny club that the rest of the world would like to join.
Let’s be entirely clinical and calculating: how many hours of productivity will be lost to deaths and illnesses, and the lingering effects of COVID-19, if we simply tolerated the virus?
Work done by Prof Heidi Tworek and her colleagues, Dr Ian Beacock and Eseohe Ojo, rates New Zealandās democratic health communications among the best in the world and believes that, as of their writing in September, we have been successful in executing the elimination strategy.
Some of our epidemiologists believe the goal can be achieved.
I just have to go with the health experts over the business “experts”.
Iām not sure you could be described as a ābusiness leaderā if you are a business follower, and by that I mean someone who desires to be part of a global club that is failing at its response to COVID-19. GDP drops in places like the UK and the US are far more severe than ours over the second quarterāweāre a little over where Germany is. Treasury expects our GDP to grow in Q3, something not often mentioned by our media. As Europe experiences a second wave in many countries, will they show another drop? Is this what we would like for our country?
Iāve fought against this type of thinking for most of my career: the belief that āNew Zealand canātā. That we canāt lead. That we canāt be the best at something. That because weāre a tiny country on the edge of the world we must take our cues from bigger ones.
Bollocks.
Great Kiwis have always said, āBollocks,ā to this sort of thinking.
Of course we can win the Americaās Cup. Just because we havenāt put up a challenge before doesnāt mean we canāt start one now.
Of course we can make Hollywood blockbusters. Just because we havenāt before doesnāt mean we canāt now.
Heck, letās even get my one in there: of course we can create and publish font software. Just because foreign companies have always done it doesnāt mean a Kiwi one canāt, and pave the way.
Yet all of these were considered the province of foreigners until someone stood up and said, āBollocks.ā
Once upon a time we even said that we could have hybrid cars that burned natural gas cheaply (and switch back to petrol when required) until the orthodoxy put paid to that, and we wound up buying petrol from foreigners againāprobably because we were so desperate to be seen as part of some globalist club, rather than an independent, independently minded and innovative nation.
Then when the Japanese brought in petrolāelectric hybrids we all marvelled at how novel they were in a fit of collective national amnesia.
About the only lot who were sensible through all of this were our cabbies, since every penny saved contributes to their bottom line. They stuck with LPG after 1996 and switched to the Asian hybrids when they became palatable to the punters.
Through my career people have told me that I canāt create fonts from New Zealand (even reading in a national magazine after I had started business that there were no typefoundries here), that no one would want to read a fashion magazine online or that no one would ever care what carbon neutrality was. Apparently you canāt take an online media brand into print, either. This is all from the āNew Zealand canātā camp, and it is not one I belong to.
If anybody can, a Kiwi can.
And if we happen to do better than others, for Godās sake donāt break out the tall poppy shit again.
Accept the fact we can do better and that we do not need the approval of mother England or the United States. We certainly donāt want to be dragged down to their level, nor do we want to see the divisiveness that they suffer plague our politics and our everyday discourse.
Elimination is better than tolerance, and I like the fact we didnāt settle for a second-best solution, even if some business followers do.
Those who wish to import the sorts of division that the US and UK see today are those who have neither imagination nor a desire to roll up their sleeves and do the hard yards, because they know that spouting bullshit from positions of privilege is cheap and easy. And similarly I see little wisdom in importing their health approaches and the loss of life that results.
Iām grateful for our freedom, since it isnāt illusory, as we leave the rest of the world to catch up. And I sincerely hope they do.
Tags: 2020, Air New Zealand, Aotearoa, business, car, cars, China, communications, COVID-19, electric cars, Europe, film, fonts, freedom, health, Heidi Tworek, innovation, JY&A Fonts, Lucire, media, New Zealand, politics, Republic of China, Saudi Arabia, Stuff, Taiwan, UK, USA Posted in business, cars, China, culture, leadership, media, New Zealand, politics, typography, UK, USA | No Comments »
07.04.2020
Peter Lambrechtsen rightly pointed out that COVID-19 per capita infection statistics arenāt as good as knowing the infection rate based on tests done, so at 2 a.m. I decided to crunch some numbers based on the stats I had on hand. These are many hours old now but hopefully still indicative of where things stand. Here you want a low percentage, and we are very fortunate to be sitting on 2Ā·71 per cent. This site has tests per million as well, which I havenāt factored in. Taiwan and Hong Kong are looking even better on this measure; Australia isn’t looking too bad, either. The European and US numbers are sobering. Mainland China and the KSA havenāt released their testing numbers, only total infections.
I donāt really want to go into fatality rates.
France 98,010 of 224,254 = 43Ā·70%
Spain 140,510 of 355,000 = 39Ā·58%
UK 51,608 of 252,958 = 20Ā·40%
USA 369,179 of 1,941,052 = 19Ā·02%
Italy 132,547 of 721,732 = 18Ā·37%
Sweden 7,693 of 54,700 = 14Ā·06%
Switzerland 22,242 of 167,429 = 13Ā·28%
Germany 104,199 of 918,460 = 11Ā·34%
New Zealand 1,160 of 42,826 = 2Ā·71%
South Korea 10,331 of 461,233 = 2Ā·24%
Singapore 1,375 of 65,000 = 2Ā·12%
Australia 5,908 of 310,700 = 1Ā·90%
Hong Kong 936 of 96,709 = 0Ā·97%
Taiwan 376 of 39,011 = 0Ā·96%
Tags: 2020, Aotearoa, Australia, COVID-19, health, Hong Kong, New Zealand, Republic of China, statistics, Taiwan, Twitter Posted in China, France, Hong Kong, internet, New Zealand, Sweden, UK, USA | No Comments »
06.04.2020
Russell Brown linked this COVID-19 trend page by Aatish Bhatia on his Twitter recently, and itās another way to visualize the data. There are two axes: new confirmed cases (over the past week) on the y and total confirmed cases on the x. Itās very useful to see how countries are performing over time as itās animated, and to get a handle on what trajectory youāre on.
Iāve plotted us against some Asian countries and territories in the first graph and western countries in the second. South Korea is doing quite well and Taiwan is really bending its curve down. Try it yourself by clicking on either of the screenshot graphs below.


Tags: 2020, Aatish Bhatia, Asia, China, computing, COVID-19, data, design, Europe, health, Korea, occident, pandemic, programming, Republic of China, South Korea, statistics, Taiwan, Twitter, USA, YouTube Posted in design, globalization, Hong Kong, New Zealand, Sweden, technology, UK, USA | No Comments »
02.04.2020

I had to see how we were tracking on total COVID-19 infections alongside other countries on a per capita basis, and here’s the latest update (source also linked above). I knew Switzerland was doing badly, but not this badly. I know I haven’t been consistent with my previous postās country selection, but I don’t want this becoming an obsession.
Spain 2,227Ā·1
Switzerland 2,057Ā·5
Italy 1,828
Germany 931Ā·6
France 873Ā·6
Netherlands 795
USA 651Ā·7
Sweden 490Ā·7
UK 434Ā·8
Australia 202Ā·2
South Korea 194Ā·6
Singapore 171Ā·3
New Zealand 165Ā·7
Hong Kong 102Ā·4
Mainland China 56Ā·7
Saudi Arabia 49Ā·6
Japan 18Ā·8
Taiwan 14Ā·2
India 1Ā·5
I said in a recent post that a lot of the Asian territories have done well because of a community response. Another thing Taiwan, Hong Kong and Singapore have in common: a lot of people descended from Chinese who fled the mainland in 1949, and have a mistrust of anything the Communist Party says. If the CCP said Dr Li Wenliang was a stirrer, then that would automatically have these places thinking: shit, there might be a pandemic coming. That could account for their numbers being on the lower half, and for their general decrease in new infection numbers. (I realize Singapore just had a big jump. Anomalous? Or were things not tracking downwards?)
Tags: 2020, Aotearoa, China, Chinese Communist Party, COVID-19, health, Hong Kong, New Zealand, Republic of China, Singapore, statistics, Taiwan, WHO Posted in China, culture, Hong Kong, New Zealand, politics | No Comments »
31.03.2020
At the end of the last century, the National Government announced its Bright Future programme. Their research had identified that one thing holding back our national competitiveness was our devotion to the team rather than the individual, when in fact there have been many times New Zealand individuals have made immeasurable contributions and had not been fĆŖted. It compared us with the US, where someone like Bill GatesāI seem to recall he was held up as an exampleācould be recognized by many as an innovator, while the equivalent Kiwi wasnāt generally known. One of the first moves was to knight Angus Tait, the Christchurch entrepreneur.
These Kiwi pioneers are still aroundāpeople like Dr Sean Simpson of LanzaTech, for instance, using bacteria to consume carbon monoxide and turning it into ethanolābut other than news programmes, theyāre not part of our mainstream, and part of me wonders if they should be. They are doing work that should be rewarded and recognized.
However, the team spirit that New Zealand exhibits all the time, and admires, such as the All Blacks, the Black Ferns, or yachtingās Team New Zealand, could help with the COVID-19 pandemic, as itās invoked in our response. The four-week lockdown ordered by the New Zealand government has, from what I see out there, been generally accepted, even if Iāve publicly Tweeted that Iād like to see more testing, including of all those arriving back on our shores, including the asymptomatic. (I note today that the testing criteria have been loosened.) The places held up to have done well at āflattening the curveā, such as Taiwan, have managed it because, it is believed by the Financial Times and others, there is a community response, and, I would add, a largely homogeneous view when it comes to being in it together, helped in part by experience with the SARS outbreak, and possibly by the overall psyche of āWe have an external threat, so we have to stick together.ā Each territory has a neighbour that itās wary of: Taiwan looks across the strait at the mainland, since there hasnāt really been an armistice from 1949; Singapore has Malaysia as its rival; and South Korea has North Korea.
Across Taiwan, there have been 13Ā·5 cases per million population, or a total of 322 cases; New Zealand is currently sitting on 134Ā·5 per million, or 647 cases. Singapore is on 158Ā·7 per million, or 926 cases; South Korea, which is now seeing a fairly low daily new case increase, is on 190Ā·9 per million, or 9,786 cases.
I support the Level 4 approach in principle, and having the lockdown, and while we arenāt accustomed to the āexternal threatā as the cited Asian countries, we are blessed with the team spirit that binds Kiwis together. We are united when watching the Rugby World Cup or the Americaās Cup as we root for our side, and the unity is mostly nationwide. There are some on the fringe, particularly on Facebook, based on what others have said, with ideas mostly imported from foreign countries that are more divisive than ours.
On that note, we might have been very fortunate to have the national culture that we do to face down this threatāand not have any one person standing out as we knuckle down together. Even those who are seen regularly delivering the newsāthe director-general of health, for instanceādo so in humble fashion, while our own prime minister goes home after we go to Level 4 and answers questions in her Facebook comment stream via live video. Even if economically we arenāt egalitarian, culturally we believe we are, and it seems to be keeping us in good stead.
Tags: 1990s, 1999, All Blacks, Angus Tait, Aotearoa, Asia, Bill Gates, Bright Future, community, COVID-19, culture, equality, Financial Times, health, history, homogeneity, Korea, LanzaTech, National Party, New Zealand, pandemic, politics, Republic of China, SARS, Sean Simpson, Singapore, South Korea, sport, Taiwan, Team New Zealand, unity, yachting Posted in business, China, culture, leadership, New Zealand, politics | 1 Comment »
10.04.2015

The Cooler Master Storm Quick Fire TK, with white case.
On Tuesday, my Manhattan keyboard, for which I gave a glowing review on Amazon, gave up the ghost. Iām not entirely sure why but through its lifetime, there were two things wrong with it: the first was that regular typing wore off the keys’ markings (not an issue since I touch-type, and they were in Arial, so it was a pleasure to see them gone); and the wiring was conking out, as it would disconnect itself from the USB for about five seconds a day.
I tend to buy these things based on their practical value, and Iāve gone through my history of finding the right keyboard elsewhere. However, on Tuesday, I found myself needing one pretty quick smart.
Now, I could have moved another keyboard from one of the less utilized machines, but, faced with the prospect of finishing a book chapter this weekend, I didnāt savour the prospect of typing on a membrane keyboard. Sadly, those are all that are left here, other than the scissor-switch one on my Asus laptop.
As I headed out to town, there werenāt many alternatives. I looked in the usual places, such as Dick Smith and NoĆ«l Leeming, knowing that they wouldnāt have what I sought: a decent keyboard operated on scissor-switches, that was a maximum of 16 inches wide. (I can tolerate maybe an other half-inch on top of that at a pinch.) If anything, I only popped by these stores because they were en route from the Railway Station into town and I was using public transport that day. But, if there was a fluke and there was something that was the equivalent of the dead Manhattan, I probably would have got it.
To save you clicking through to the old post, I dislike reaching for a mouse (and I’m getting progressively fussier with those, too), and the 16-inch width is something I found I was comfortable with after years of typing. I also need a numeric keypad since I type in European languages, and Windows wants you to use the numeric keypad, unlike Mac.
I visited Matthew Sew Hoy at Atech Computers on Wakefield Street. He knew my plight because I had told him on previous visits: thatās the beauty of going to a smaller store and getting personal service. He remembered the story instantly. And he had just the thing: a mechanical keyboard for about 10 times the price of the old Manhattan.
I have long been a fan of the Cooler Master Storm Quick Fire TK, which suits my requirements to a T. The trouble always was the price: I have seen them go for over NZ$200, and Iāve toyed with bringing one in on a business trip. However, Atech had two, starting from NZ$160.
Over the years I had eyed the TK with Cherry MX Blue switches: the clicky ones. My Pinterest is full of blue-switch compact keyboards. This was familiar territory to me, and probably most people who are my age and up. Keyboards should make a little click noise as the keys are depressed: thatās the mechanical switch getting activated. This is the reason mechanical keyboards cost more: modern ones, the $20 variety you see at Dick Smith, donāt have individual switches underneath each key. They only have a sheet with a printed circuit and contacts underneath, sending electronic signals to the computer. This makes it wonderful for keyboard manufacturers, who can churn these out at low cost, but the typing experience is less than satisfactory, especially if you type a lot.
Sadly, and this is a consequence of living in a small country, Matthew only had the TK with Cherry MX Brown switches, which need medium force without returning the satisfying click. However, to use, in terms of the strokes and strength needed, it would be roughly the same. I sampled it at the shop, decided it was worth splashing out, and bought it.
For such an expensive device, the first one he sold me had a fault. The left shift key and the virgule (slash) both thought they were question marks, and the keyboard had to be returned. Matthew swapped it for the other keyboard, which initially was more expensive, without charging me the difference. Iām now the proud owner of a Cooler Master Quick Fire TK in white, with Cherry MX Brown switches, and itās not quite the combination I had planned on when spending so much on a keyboard.
But how is it to use? Iāll admit I still look somewhat enviously on those who bought their TKs abroad and managed to get them with blue switches, but I am definitely faster typing on the new one. And that is a good thing when you need for your typing to keep up with your thoughts. Iāve finished off more emails this week than I had done in a while.
I am frustrated with the odd typo I make and I wonder if this is to do with the lack of familiarity. Because I touch-type, I am hitting the u and the i together on occasion, or the full stop and comma together, and making similar mistakes, and I donāt recall doing that quite as often on the Manhattan. Iām sure these keyboards differ in their positioning by a millimetre or two, leading to these errors.
The unit is also higher than the very slim Manhattan, which means my wrists are raised. I havenāt found a position where they are as comfortable as they were with the previous keyboard, and the wrist rest itself is too low relative to the TK to make any difference. That is proving a problem.
The reason for the height, presumably, is for the feature I donāt need: illuminated keys. Iām not a gamer and Iām not typing in the dark. However, for those who use their TKs for such purposes, I can see how they would be ideal. To fit in the lights beneath, I imagine the designers had to raise the entire keyboard by a few millimetres, making it less comfortable to type on.
The final negative to the keyboard, and one which I knew I would confront, is how the numeric keypad and the cursor keys are all together. You have to take Num Lock off in order to get the cursor keys to work, much like in the old days of the early IBM PC compatibles. This has slowed me down as I switch between modes.
In this respect, I have travelled back to when I began using IBM compatibles in the late 1980s and early 1990s. Back then, the keyboards were mechanical and the cursor and numeric keypads were all in one lot, and thereās a certain retro charm to this arrangement. Without the clicking noises, it reminds me of the mechanical switches on my first microcomputer: the Commodore 64. I really have gone back to the future, appropriate in a year when Claudia Wells (the original Jennifer Parker before she morphed into Elisabeth Shue) has been Tweeting about Lucire.
I may be one of the few non-gamers to have invested in a TK, with typing efficiency and practicality as my main aims. When I posted pictures of it on my Instagram, I received plaudits from other serious gamers and geeks with expensive computers, calling me āDudeā and making me feel very welcome as a fellow TK owner. Looking online, the white case is a rare one, so I wound up unwittingly with a keyboard that is slightly more cool than the everyday black one. I sense that Matthew prefers the white one as well, and that I didn’t know how lucky I was (although I am very grateful to him for knocking the price down and giving it to me as a direct replacement).
Where does this leave me? I have a decent enough keyboard which is efficient for the most part, and from which I can expect a far longer life than the Manhattan (Cooler Master reckons each key is good for 50 million hits, five times longer than on the Manhattan, and ten times longer than on any membrane keyboard). I no longer put up with five-second daily outages. The way the keys are designed, I wonāt have to worry about the markings coming off (the glyphs are etched). I have multimedia controls from the function keys, which are a bonus, and one reason I liked the old Genius scissor-switch keyboard that got me on this path to finding the right unit. As I type, I ponder whether I should invest in a higher wrist rest, or whether my seating position needs to change to cope with the higher keyboard. I imagine that as my fingers adjust to the minute differences, I can only get faster with my touch-typing, and Iām looking forward to the efficiency gains. But, there are those Cherry MX Blues on Amazon. The grass might look greener there, but apparently the white case puts me up there with the über-gamers and the cool geeks.
Tags: 2010s, 2015, Aotearoa, Atech, business, Cherry MX, China, Commodore, computing, Cooler Master, IBM, Instagram, keyboards, New Zealand, Republic of China, retail, review, social media, social networking, Taiwan, technology, Wellington, Whanganui-a-Tara Posted in business, China, New Zealand, technology, Wellington | 5 Comments »
29.09.2014
Equal access: an audio recording of this blog post can be found here.
I know Iām not alone among expats watching the Occupy Central movements in Hong Kong. More than the handover in 1997, itās been making very compelling live television, because this isnāt about politicians and royalty, but about everyday Hong Kong people.
I Tweeted tonight that if I were a student there, Iād be joining in. While the idea of direct elections is a recent developmentāthey started in 1985 for the Legislative Council, itās important to remember that all UN member nations should permit its subjects the right of self-determination. It doesnāt matter when they started, the fact is they did. The latest protests arenāt about Legco, but the election of the Chief Executiveāthe successor to the role of Governorāwhich Beijing says can only be for candidates it approves.
Legal arguments aside, protesters are probably wondering why they could enjoy free and fair elections under colonial rule from London, and not by their own country from their own people.
I cannot speak for Beijing, but their perspective is probably more long-term: in the colonial days, the Legislative Council was appointed by London, not voted by Hong Kong subjects, for most of its existence. The Governor was always appointed by London. Surely what it is proposing for 2017 is far better?
And given that the Chief Executive currently is selected by an election committee of Beijing loyalists, then 2017 presents something far more open and akin to universal suffrage.
Those are the issues on the surface as I understand them, but they ignore some of the history of Hong Kong.
Hong Kong was a backwater until 1949, when the Communists revolted, and refugees poured in. My father was one of them, having made the trek from Taishan with his mother and sister. Other members of the family had got there on other journeys. The stories can happily fill chapters in a novel.
He recalls in his first days in Hong Kong, police officers had three digits on their shoulder. āI donāt know how many policemen there were,ā he recalls, ābut there couldnāt have been more than 999.ā
Hong Kongās population swelled, and the colonial authorities found a way to accommodate the new arrivals.
I donāt have the exact figures but at the dawn of the 1940s, the population of Hong Kong was 1Ā·6 million, and it was close to 2½ million in the mid-1950s. When I left in 1976, it was 3 million.
The reason most people went there and risked their lives to escape the Communists: freedom. Most were skilled workers and farmers fearing prosecution.
Dad recalls that in the lead-up to the family home and farm being seized things were getting tough at school, with false accusations made against him by teachers and students. The vilification of land-owning families had begun.
The day he left, he saw a notice on the front door and the family departed for Hong Kong, where my paternal grandfather already had contacts from his military days.
Assuming a million people came across from the Peopleās Republic of China, then itās not hard to imagine a sizeable part of the modern population of Hong Kong to have grown up with negative impressions of Beijing.
Those same impressions saw to the mass exodus of Hong Kongers in the lead-up to the handover, with most expecting doom and gloom despite assurances under the Basic Lawāthough of course many have since returned to Hong Kong since things hadnāt changed as badly as they feared.
They were the reasons my parents left in 1976. My mother simply thought a generation ahead and figured that by the 1990s, it would be hard to leave Hong Kong since some western countries would start going on about yellow peril again. (She was right, incidentally.)
While in the post-colonial days, there is more contact between Hong Kong and the rest of China, it will take a while for those impressions to subside.
It would be fair to say that culturally, we are predisposed to taking a long view of history, and the Cultural Revolution and the mismanagement of the economy in the earlier days of the Peopleās Republic stick in our minds.
Even if the PRC proved to be a benevolent nation and made no wrong moves since 1997, the suspicion would remain.
It hasnāt been helped by June 4, 1989 and its aftermath, continued censorship within China, and, more recently, some Hong Kongers feeling that theyāre a second class in their own city when mainland tourists pop over for a holiday.
Then you get people like me who cannot understand a word of Mandarin, which these days tends to be the second language many people learn. When the language of the colonials is easier to grasp, then that doesnāt bode well for our northern friends. Thereās a sense of separation.
This may explain a natural resistance to Beijing, because the way of life that the Chinese Communist Party envisages is so very different to what Hong Kongers believe they should enjoy.
Scholarism, meanwhile, from which Occupy Central has spawned, has come from this culture: a group protesting the introduction of āmoral and national educationā as a compulsory subject in Hong Kong. The subject was seen by opponents to be pro-communist, with the teaching manual calling the Communist Party an āadvanced, selfless and united ruling groupā.
Itās hard, therefore, for Hong Kongers who grew up in this environment not to be suspicious of Beijing.
That explains the solidarity, the sort of thing that would have inspired me if I was a young uni student today in Hong Kong.
Now we are looking at two sides, neither of which is famous for backing down.
One possible resolution would be for Beijing to accede yet bankroll a pro-Beijing candidate come 2017, which could, in the long term, save face, but provide the protesters with a short-term victory. Itās not what they are fighting forāthey want everyone to be able to stand for the post of CEābut it may be one way events will play out.
Hong Kong isnāt prepared to risk its economic freedom and progress, and it remains proud of its stance against corruption which has helped the city prosper. Citizens also place faith in the rule of law there, and the right to a fair trial.
Beijing, meanwhile, isnāt prepared to risk the danger of an anti-communist CE being elected and having that trip up the development of the rest of the nation.
I have to say that such a fear is very remote, given the overriding desire of Hong Kongers to get ahead. If Hong Kongers are anything, they are pragmatic and ambitious, and a Chief Executive who is imbalanced to such a degree would never get elected. With the rise of the orient and the sputtering of the occident, the ācompetingā ideas arenāt so competing anyway. The United States and Australia have laws either enacted or at the bill stage in the name of national security that they can hardly serve as an ideal model for democracy. After all, Edward Snowden went to Hong Kong first.
The Cold War is over, and what is emerging, and what has been emerging, in Hong Kong and the rest of China since the 1990s has been a distinct, unique, Chinese model, one that has its roots in Confucianism and which takes pride in the progress of the city.
The ideal Chief Executive would more likely be a uniter, not a divider, balancing all sides, and ensuring those they represent a fair go. They would be a connecter who can work with both citizens and with Beijing.
Under my reading, there shouldnāt be any concerns in Beijing, because pragmatic Hong Kongers would never elect someone who would risk their livelihoods or their freedoms.
And when Beijing sees that such a development can work in Hong Kong, it could be a model to the rest of China.
Taiwan, too, will be watching.
Tags: 2010s, 2017, Beijing, China, Chinese Communist Party, Confucianism, democracy, economy, freedom, freedom of speech, Hong Kong, law, Occupy, politics, press freedoms, Republic of China, Taiwan Posted in business, China, culture, Hong Kong, politics | 1 Comment »
22.08.2012
This wouldn’t have been the first time I bought a wifi adapterāthe first time was back in NYC, when laptops took PCI cardsāso they should be dead simple to install, right? Despite an OAP on Amazon.com saying, in his review, that he had no issue with his Level One WUA-0605, which arrived overnight from Ascent (props to them), naturally, things took four hours here (still an improvement on a day and a half) because, put simply, reading the manual does not work. In fact, it’s a useless manual, which simply rewords what one sees on screen with no attempt to explain the jargon and acronymsāabout as helpful as a Macintosh help screen to a layman. Why, oh why, does one need a computer science degree just to deal with basic matters?
This post, however, is not to complain about the lack of care in manual-writing. It is to publicize the helpfulness of two parties when things got tricky. First, Joe Ruwhiu at Ascent was very helpful in offering to forward any technical issues back to Level One. Secondly, despite a myriad of pages covering the problem of “can connect to my router but not the internet”, offering well meaning advice that was, sadly, ineffective to me (I had a reasonable idea of what I was doing, and that the majority of settings at and to the router, the TCP/IP and security were correct), only one was methodically written and gave step-by-step instructions on what to do. As it turned out, step one was successful. To Aseem Kishore, who wrote his piece in November 2008, I thank you. Now, if only people who wrote manuals did so as clearly as you write your help articlesāwith an understanding of the regular person.
Keyboard update: I ordered a Manhattan 177528, which appears to be a clone of the Ione Scorpius U2, from Taiwan. It’s not mechanical, but a scissor-switch keyboard, which is the next best thing. I type efficiently on my laptops, which have all had scissor-switch keys, and at US$18 (plus another US$18 for shipping), it seemed too good a price to pass up. My mechanical-keyboard quest, eventually, came up with nothing that fulfilled my requirements, and I wasn’t sure about what type of keys the one Razer that looked right had.
To top it off, when I emailed Manhattan Products, I actually got a reply from an Emmy Wang in Taiwan, who explained to me the features of he 177528 keyboard. She also noted that if I had a concern over the keys’ noise, there was an alternative. That’s quite a step up from Intopic, to whom I also wrote after buying one of their keyboards, raving about it and suggesting they should look at retailing here in New Zealand. I never received a reply to that, and I was a satisfied customer. How would they treat a dissatisfied one?
PS.: One day later. Aseem’s fix does workābut for me it meant employing it every time that computer rebooted. The adapter would fail each time I started up and required the fix. And since the gadget was for Dad, I didn’t want to subject a man in his 70s to feeding in DOS commands every day. So, after another few hours, I came across the fix at a Microsoft page and downloaded the ‘Fix it’ app. Running that seems to have worked but considering that’s only one of about seven reboots today, the jury’s still out. I still wish these things would work the way the manufacturers claim, but my experience is that there’s always tinkering involvedāsomething I can’t imagine the average user would be bothered doing. Joe at Ascent was willing to give a refund or replacement.āJY
Tags: Amazon, computing, customer service, English, internet, language, media, publishing, Republic of China, Taiwan, technology, writing Posted in business, China, internet, media, publishing, technology | 3 Comments »
15.12.2010

Apart from sounding like a burger, the Mitsubishi Zingerāor, to give its full model name these days in Taiwan, the Super Zinger (not kidding)āis one of those oddball vehicles I come across when editing Autocade. It’s a minivan based on a truck chassisāin this case the first-generation Mitsubishi Challengerāand a pretty ugly one at that.
When double-checking some details in the Autocade entry, I came across the official site. I wonder what the Broccoli family has to say about the gun-barrel and 007 imagery, and would James Bond, Chinese or otherwise, really be seen driving a naff minivan? Unless it was to carry around 007ās illegitimate children, which must number greatly by now? And will the next villain be called Auric K. F. C. Zingerburger?
Tags: Autocade, car, car industry, film, humour, intellectual property, James Bond, Japan, law, marketing, Mitsubishi, Republic of China, Taiwan Posted in business, cars, China, humour, internet, marketing | No Comments »
21.02.2010
Next year marks the centenary of the founding of the Chinese republic. We got rid of our rather hopeless Ching Dynasty, and ushered in Asiaās first democracy.
Both the Republic of China and the Peopleās Republic of China see 1911 as an important year, and Dr Sun Yat-sen as the founder of the nation (here is a page from the Zhongshan government on Dr Sun whichāshockāeven mentions democracy). As the father of the country, his legacy one of the few things nationalists and communists agree on, even though technically the two sides remain in conflict and are in a state of Civil War. The Republic began on October 10, 1911, a date which tends to be celebrated by many, though it was formally declared on January 1, 1912.
So, what might 2011 bring in terms of perspective?
Idealists might point to some possibilities:
that closer economic ties across the Taiwan Strait mean the eventual formation of a Chinese commonwealth, with both sides maintaining the political impasse;
a review of the ideas of the republic as espoused by Dr Sun, and the greater acceptance of the political structure he believed in, which included cooperation between nationalists and communists;
that both sides of the political argument agree there are more commonalities than differences between all Chinese peoples.
I doubt weāll see political unity while Beijing is still governed by the Communist Party, which sees little point in changing its own structure to accommodate territories it considers its own. We see a similar view, officially, within the Kuomintang, interpreted in its favour. The regular triumph of ideology over practicality and the prospect of a joint future growth of āChinaā gets in the way; the idea of an economic union or commonwealth might be the easiest way forward.
Never mind what you call it internally, it is a solution in which both sides can claim victory, preserve face, and avoid bloodshed. The fact that no armistice has been signed by both signs is actually an advantageābecause it means this difference of opinion can be solved technically as an internal matter, not one between two sovereign states.
This is not an idea that the diehards like, so let the name-calling begin in the comments.
But remember in whatever debate we enter, we should think of this question: since we all dislike what the Ching Dynasty did to China, what is the best way to honour the memory of the founding father of the nation in 2011?
Tags: 1911, 1949, 2011, anniversary, Beijing, centenary, China, Chinese, civil war, commonwealth, communism, culture, democracy, economic growth, economic union, economy, ideology, Kuomintang, politics, Red China, Republic of China, Sun Yat-sen, Taiwan, äøå, å
±ē¢é»Ø, åę°é»Ø, å«äøå±±, å«éøä» Posted in China, culture, politics | No Comments »
|