About China blogosphere, travel, and entrepreneurship

A few weeks back on May 6, I briefly attended two sessions of Zero2IPO’s China Venture Capital & Private Equity Forum (CVCF). I wrote this post up but then the Sichuan earthquake happened and I was focused on that.

I only had time to attend two sessions that day. Here are my notes and key takeaways from first of the two panels I attended.

Session 1: Venture Capital - Behind the Scenes of 2007 China VC Industry & Projections for 2008

Elliott’s key takeaways:

• There are diverse investing styles among China VCs. Some like innovative, technology-driven deals targeting global markets. Others like execution plays targeted toward fast-growing domestic markets.

• The consensus is that early-stage has the least competition, with growth and mezzanine stage seeing high degrees of deal competition.

• Sectors that seem to be hot include: clean tech, health care, consumer products, consumer services. This is in addition to the traditional VC sectors of semiconductors, computer hardware, software, internet, and media.

• There is increasing regulatory pressure on traditional company structures like the “Sina model” and increasing barriers to foreign direct investment. An alternative joint venture structure is preferred by regulatory agencies like MOFCOM but are more onerous to set up.

• RMB funds are emerging as a new factor. They can be used to invest in new sectors, potentially in partnership with municipal governments. There are significant challenges in making this fund structure work with foreign Limited Partners.

• RMB funds also face challenge from a domestic investing environment where there is a lot of Chinese domestic money that is less demanding from a rights and preferences basis.

• The market feels a little “frothy” as there are lots of first time entrepreneurs and first time VCs. The legal and accounting support for these deals is also in scarce supply, forcing VCs to do more of the deal work themselves.

Panelists:

• Danny Lui, moderator. Zero2IPO Group, Vice Chairman Startup Capital Ventures, General Partner

• Yan Huang. CDH Ventures, General Partner
• Gary Rieschel. Qiming Venture Partners, Managing Director
• Alan Song. SoftBank China Venture Capital, Managing Partner
• Lip-Bu Tan. Walden International, Founder & Chairman
• Yang Xia. Legend Capital, Managing Director
• Joe Zhou. Venture Capitalist

Question: In 2007, how many deals have you done? How much money has gone in?

Yan Huang, CDH Ventures

We’ve invested $200 mm in 18 companies; 1/3 early, 1/3 mid stage, 1/3 inflection point. We invest in clean tech, medical device, internet, education. We focus on growth rate, not initial profitability.

Gary Rieschel, Qiming Venture Partners

We’ve made 14 investments; 10 are pre-revenue. We led 12 deals, and invested $100 mm. We are focused on early stage, where many investors are not comfortable investing.

Alan Song, SoftBank China Venture Capital

We invested in 12 companies, $75 mm. Our fund size is relatively small. Our first fund was $100 mm, our second fund was $200 mm, and today our 3rd fund is a $300 mm fund. We are still focused on early and middle stages. We are opportunistic with late stage deals, where late stage is defined as pre-IPO in China H Shares (Hong Kong stock exchange IPO)

Lip-Bu Tan, Walden International

Walden international is 40% in China, investing in 4-6 companies/year. Our focus is very early stage with 70% investment, and expansion stage with 30% of our investments. We are interested in clean tech, and often traditional businesses like a brick manufacturing machinery company we invested in.

Yang Xia, Legend Capital

We’ve invested in 16 deals, and deployed about $60 mm. We are mostly invested in early stage investments, but in three deals we invested in growth capital. We invest in information technology, design, wireless services, CRO outsourcing

Joe Zhou, raising a fund

I’m interested in clean tech, technology-driven fields like semiconductors, media, advertising, and consumer service.

Q: What industry do you like best in CN? How much money is needed for startup to get to liquidity? How much time is required to get to liquidity? What multiples are you looking for?

Yan Huang
We like clean-tech and alternative energy. An example is the solar sector. This is not a typical VC investment because it is investment-intensive and manufacturing intensive. For example, one firm we invested in, LDK, raised $100 million in six months, and went from zero to IPO in 2 years. Returns, management required, and capital needed is not typical. In this case, we got a 5X return on our investment in nine months.

Gary Rieschel
We don’t look at specific industry sectors, but at technology innovation. We’ve done study tours of: synthetic biology, pharmaceutical, clean tech. There is still very limited innovation base in China. We’re interested in healthcare, such as clinical trial outsourcing, and we’ve made four investments to date in health care. It can require anywhere from $2 mm to 40 mm in capital to get to profitability, depending on the deal. We have the most sector experience to date in healthcare.

Alan Song
We like recession proof industries. With a 550 mm urban population in China, industries like food and beverage and packaging material are interesting, and trade at 30 price-earnings ratios. A deal might require $20 million and 3-4 years to reach IPO, and our return expectations on deals are 10X.

Yang Xia
We like IC chip design/build opportunities. These deals generally require 3 rounds of capital to get from product to business success. They often take 6 years or more. there are lots of plays up and down the value chain in computing and IT.

Joe Zhou:
I don’t like hot sectors. However, we have been looking at clean-technology, semiconductor, media/advertisement, and the consumer service/direct marketing space. We’ve made three investments that went IPO. Respectively, we invested $40mm, $40mm, and $20mm, and achieved IPO valuations of $800mm, $500mm, and $250mm on that investment.

Q: RMB funds are starting to emerge. These funds allow you to make pure RMB investments into a joint venture with a local company, that then allows you to go public on China stock exchanges. What is the opportunity for these funds?

[caveat: I don’t fully understand the regulatory issues affecting RMB and foreign funds and the companies that can accept funds from RMB or from foreign funds, so these notes may not make complete sense]

Alan Song
The emergence of RMB funds is in part due to government pressure against the prevailing company structures that have been used by venture backed companies. There are two models, one called the “Rev Trip Model” (Elliott: not sure I have this correct) and the other called the “Sina model.” In the Sina model, a British Virgin Island (BVI) or Cayman Islands holding company is established, into which foreign investors invest funds. Then a Wholly Foreign Owned Enterprise (WFOE) is established in China. That WFOE then contracts with a domestic company owned by a Chinese national. The contracts between the WFOE and domestic company insure that the assets of the domestic company (such as the ICP license) are controlled by the WFOE. Officially, this structure is not allowed by MOFCOM (Ministry of Commerce). They are not supporting this and discouraging the use of this structure.

MOFCOM wants to push the use of Joint Ventures, but there are other issues with that structure. Investors receive the same stock with the same rights, and there are no priority rights that can be offered. So in a venture-backed joint venture structure, the company has another set of agreements that enforces the preferences for the investor. (Elliott: in Western venture deals, investors receive a preferred class of stock that offers certain preferences like liquidation preference, class vote on certain issues, board directors representing the class, etc.)

RMB funds are difficult to set up. Softbank was one of the first foreign VCs to create a joint venture-foreign RMB fund. But approval from multiple regulators is needed: MOFCOM, SAIC (State Adminstration for Industry and Commerce), SAFE (State Administration for Foreign Exchange), and SAST (Elliott: not sure I have this correct: State Administration of Science and Technology). But once the RMB fund is set up, then there is no case by case approval for deals. There is also a tax advantage to the structure, by setting up a “non legal person entity” which acts like a limited partnership, we only need to pay a 10% withholding when funds are … (Elliott: didn’t catch this)

In summary, RMB funds are: hard to set up, but then much easier to invest.

Joe Zhou
There are two problems with RMB funds. As a General Partner, I need to raise funds from RMB sources but it doesn’t fit with current Limited Partner base. If I take care of LP base, then there is a lengthy process of approval for the fund. (Elliott: I think this means that there is a way to set up an RMB fund that receives foreign investment, but the approval process is more onerous, both on the fund setup and also on individual investments? RMB funds that strictly receive domestic investment are more easily approved, not sure.) With foreign LPs, we need to get approval at the point of the investment and then you do capital call from foreign LPs.

RMB funds are a totally different game, because you are competing with local funds for investment. There are different capital market dynamics. For example, we invested in Unipay. There was a different investor base, they didn’t demand any rights and preferences, and those local investors were so much less demanding that we couldn’t ask for what we usually do and still be competitive.

I am going to continue to target technology plays that will list in offshore markets.

Danny Lui

Yes, there seems to be so much local money not looking for much return!

Yan Huang

The RMB funds invest into local Joint Ventures. This creates an opportunity to invest in some different sectors. We can work with municipal governments to let them into the fund as special limited partners into the core fund. Then, we can make RMB investments that can go into foreign-prohibited sectors, with the support of these municipal governments.

Question: What do you think about the overall state of VC and the model?

Joe Zhou
The next two years is the best time for investment in the sectors that we are focusing on. Not worried about market. We are moving from 80x to 50x … (Elliott: did not catch what…price-earnings ratio?)

Yang Xia
There is more money coming in and lots of Chinese money. More people are educating entrepreneurs on how to raise money. There is limited bank capital, so entrepreneurs must seek venture capital. I feel valuations are going up, as “more hunters are in the market.” There is too much money, the market is hot, and deal access is the issue. Early stage deals are more stable, but growth stage deals are crowded.

Lip-Bu Tan
The change in Taiwan and Mainland China’s relationship is creating an opportunity. Big investments from Taiwan companies are investing in China, and there are cross border opportunities. There is lots of competition, and still disjointed valuations between public markets, US venture markets, and China venture markets.

Gary Rieschel
I went through Japan from 1988-1993, and Silicon Valley from 1993-2004. What makes me nervous is that I am seeing lots of first time entrepreneurs, and first time VCs, and Limited Partners interested in going to China. In 1996, the Kleiner Perkins (KPCB) $300 million fund was the largest ever raised. Also, in Silicon Valley, the accounting and legal infrastructure is in place. Banking infrastructure is also in place. But in China, there is less capacity, so VCs need to be prepared to do more of the work. Quote: “You think its competitive in SV? Bull—. In CN, you should see what entrepreneurs do to each other.” There are also lots of challenges. For example, we were involved in “rollup from hell” wher we took four companies in clean tech from four areas with municipal government involvement and needed to negotiate a deal that made sense for all four founders and their four local government sponsors.

Yan Huang
The challenges are obvious. First, finding quality companies at a cheap price. Second, we need to work much harder - need to be lawyers, accountants, etc. and put more time into the deals. The consumer sector is strong. We invested in a soybean milk maker, a traditional industry that is growing 70%/year. Foreign direct investment is also geting worse because of RMB appreciation and hot money.

Gary Rieschel
There is no reasons why FDI would be relaxed.

Summary:

Venture capital in the US follows more clearly defined sectors–high growth, high market multiple opportunities driven by new markets and new technology. Venture capital in China is much more diverse, as the entire economy is high growth, and many sectors that are mature in the US are still at an early stage in China. As a result, there is a lot more diversity in fund strategy in China and the need to excel at pursuing that fund strategy.

Since the Sichuan Earthquake, I’ve been corresponding with Richard Brubaker of China Crossroads and AllRoadsLeadtoChina blog. He is Vice Chairman of the Corporate Social Responsibility Committee of AmCham in Shanghai. He just recently launched Hands On Chengdu. Here’s the description on their website:

With our strength being volunteer management, our goal will be to recruit, train, and manage volunteers at many levels, to develop community leaders through our volunteer leadership program, engage students and corporations to leverage their capabilities, and work with local NGOs to develop their capacity.

With that, we have established this website as a first step to:

1) Provide a place where volunteers in the affected areas, in cities around China, and around the world can register themselves and provide our NGO partners with a qualified pool of volunteers

2) Advertise and manage the volunteer needs of government agencies and NGOs who are working within various levels of the community to comfort the injured, build schools,

3) Volunteer project scheduling - we will be providing a platform to schedule volunteers in affected cities, townships, and villages.

4) Facilitating financial and product donations to NGOs and government donations in need

5) Provide a forum for announcements and news from affected areas, a place for volunteers to learn about how to help, and provide a discussion forum for NGOs to discuss with each other their needs and how to best service their communities.

This project is modeled after Hands on Shanghai, a similar project that Richard has been involved with.

I didn’t know much about Richard’s work prior to the earthquake, other than reading an occasional post at AllRoadsLeadtoChina. But after the earthquake I found China Crossroads and relied on his blog to frame my thinking about how to donate to the earthquake relief efforts.

I like many others have felt helpless in the face of this event. if you want to know how to help and especially how not to help, read these posts:

Resisting the Urge to Help in the Face of Disaster

Sichuan Earthquake: How to Help - Part 2

This last post, shortly after the earthquake, I asked Richard the questions:

1. How did you research ways to give or help out? What did you learn? What are good ways to help? What are bad ways? (like getting on a train to go to the affected areas to volunteer if you have no specialized skills)
2. What 1-3 options do you recommend for people in China? and for people in the US? (may be same or different…maybe just different payment method).
3. Why did you choose these options? What makes them effective and efficient? What assures you that they won’t waste the money?
4. How did you assure yourself that this is a trustworthy organization? Is there any 3rd party certification of the organization? What assures you that they won’t misuse the money?
5. List of NGOs.

Go see his post for the answers!

Elliott: This post does not reflect the opinions of my co-bloggers, they are solely my own.

Robert Scoble, this one’s for you.

Via Fuzheado on Twitter, Robert Scoble posted on the three day mourning period (translation of the edict on Shanghaiist) and why it was bad:

This is why I’ll fight to the death to protect our freedom of speech…Government control of its people starts with how it treats its media.

Comments on the topic were already ensuing on FriendFeed. This post highlights what I think Westerners don’t understand about China and Chinese people don’t understand about the West.

I felt the opinions of Robert Scoble and the Twitterati (or is it really FriendFeedrati?) were off base and I tried to get away with a rant and Scoble rebuked me into explaining myself. So here goes… (more…)

The China Business Network (TCBN) is sponsoring an invite-only cocktail party this Friday May 23 at the JWMarriott (北京JW万豪酒店, Beijing JW wàn háo jiǔdiàn) in Beijing. CNReviews is also a co-sponsor of the event. Space is limited to 150 people. If you want an invite, see the bottom of the post.

Originally the event centered around tech and VC attendees of the Asian Venture Capital Journal Conference and the CHINICT Conference in Beijing this week. But after the Sichuan earthquake, Christine Lu, Founder of The China Business Network decided to donate all proceeds to earthquake relief. From Christine:

The Library Project has created a program, “Project: Earthquake Relief”, to help rebuild the educational system that was affected as a result of the earthquake. It is projected that hundreds of elementary schools have been damaged in the Sichuan and Shaanxi Provinces. The Library (more…)

Oliver Ding create a SlideShare entitled “24+ ways to give“, based on our earlier post on methods (now up to 40) for China earthquake donations. It is another great way to share with people ways to help on earthquake relief for what has probably affected 20 million people. Thanks for your hard work on this Oliver.

| View | Upload your own

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photo (h/t ifgogo.com, zuosa.com)

There has been a tremendous outpouring of energy from the blogosphere and on Twitter to determine the best way to help out. This post provides a guide to how you can donate toward China earthquake relief efforts. We’ve now compiled over 35+ ways to give. Please add comments and links and I will keep this post updated. A SlideShare version of this post was also created by Oliver Ding.

I. Red Cross and various conduits

There is widespread consensus that donating to the Red Cross is the most reliable way to provide immediate disaster relief. Tuesday night BJ time, Bill Bishop (Niubi) hosted an auction with 15 mostly Chinese friends, and the consensus was the best way to give is to provide funds directly to the Sichuan provincial Red Cross. The next best option would be to give to the national Red Cross of China. (more…)

On 4/29 I attended a Asia American MultiTechnology Association dinner called “Silicon Valley-Style” Startups in China: The Next Wave. The panel was moderated by Evan Ng, of Dorsey & Whitney, a Silicon Valley law firm. Flickr photo set for the event is here.

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During the past few months, Christine Lu and I discovered we shared many of the same interests in bridging and connecting the world with China. So I’m pleased to share (h/t to Christine who already broke the CN Reviews sponsorship story) that CNReviews will be co-sponsoring Christine’s vlogging tour to Beijing and Shanghai from May 21 to May 30.

We will also be co-sponsoring a cocktail party for friends of CN Reviews, China Business Network, and attending the CHINICT conference on May 22 and 23. Aside from the conference, I will plan on carrying Christine’s bags and equipment as a China Business Network fanboy.

China Business Network aims to smash the one-way mirror

I was inspired to start CN Reviews because I observed the one-way mirror effect between America and the world. Chinese people know a lot more about the US than US people know about China. And according to Ethan Zuckerman, co-founder of Global Voices Online, its not because the voices of China and the world are not there. Its because the developed world is not interested. China Business Network is doing its part to smash the one-way mirror to make China visible to the World.

In the next few weeks, we’ll be planning our specific objectives for the trip. One goal is to reach out the China bloggers and the grassroots organizers of the CNBloggerCon to create a shared vision for bringing a select group of international bloggers to meet up with bloggers in Beijing, Shanghai, and Guangzhou.

Bringing together bloggers and young leaders could solve for global peace and understanding (crazy thinking, but yes I mean it!)

Our current vision is to bring international bloggers (and other young leaders) to meetups in Beijing and Shanghai, then culminating in an event to be held at a time and location very close to the CNBloggerCon, perhaps 1 day before or after. We don’t think bringing non-fluent international bloggers to CNBloggerCon, which is mostly in Chinese, is the right model. But by collocating with CNBloggerCon, we hope to create the opportunity for people to make connections with China bloggers.

Why am I spending my time trying to make this happen? My theory of change is as follows:

• People adept at the use of social media (like bloggers) have a disproportionate share of voice.
• Grassroots media is less subject to the economic and political pressures of mainstream media.
• Only a small number of American/European bloggers have strong connections with Chinese bloggers.
• Bringing bloggers and young leaders together will help then gain shared understanding and equip them to teach their audience and readers to become true “world citizens”

CN Reviews and China Business Network invite you to partner with us!

This is not a money-making or fame-generating exercise, so we would love to find other fellow travelers who share this vision and will work to make it happen. Our dream team would be Danwei, Global Voices Online, and other people who have been bridging the East and West for quite some time.

What do you think? A little too wide-eyed and optimistic for you?

Christine Lu (of China Business Network) compiled a great list of the (primarily English-language) China Twitterati on Twitter. If you’re on Twitter and am interested in China, go follow the Twitterati on the ChinaList!

Over the weekend, Louis Gray posted on the Twitter Noise Ratio — defined as the ratio of Updates to Followers — to contrast the “Listeners” (low Noise Ratio) from the “Megaphones” (high Noise Ratio). Naturally there was a bit of controversy about this measure! But it inspired me to measure up the ChinaList and see what I could find.

So what about the China Twitterati? Is this Twitter With Chinese Characteristics?

Here’s what I found about the ChinaList.

• The Super Twitterati. As measured by either Updates, Followers, or both, there are a few Super Twitter users: @thecarol, @isaac, @christinelu, @flypig, @webleon, @bbluesman! Wow. I am not worthy.
• In General, there is a wide variation of usage of Twitter among the ChinaList. Clearly there is no one best way to use Twitter. It is entirely between you, yourself, and your Followers!
• The Top Updaters. Some but not all of these Super Twitterati are among the prolific Top Updaters among the China Twitterati. The top 10 are @flypig, @webleon, @bbluesman, @christinelu, @DavidFeng, @isaac, @marcvanderchijs, @dimi3, @ericgonzalez, and @shanghaiist.
• The Top “Megaphones” among us (to use Louis’ controversial measure of Updates per Followers) are: @kevinkoo, @dimi3, @DavidFeng, @flypig, @siumuimui, @webleon, @bbluesman, @shanghaiist, @expatacular, and @Guerel. This group has a ratio of 15.6 Updates per Follower, vs. the median of 3.2 Updates per Follower! This is nearly five times the median! As my co-blogger DavidFeng says to his new Followers, “Get ready for your arrival!”
• The “Listeners” among us are: @kriadam, @ionchina, @djsircharles, @ThomasCrampton, @nicolasz, @ChinaTechToday, @chinapolarbear @JakeNewby, @anguslau, @Agraylin, @Neocha
• The “Moderates”, who have a Noise Ratio of near the median of 3.2 Updates/Follower include: @thehumanaught, @dedlam, @papajohn, @ajschokora, @jputman. @pandapassport, @msittig, @samflemming, @PhilipJohnson8, @ChinaMatt

The rest of this post has 2 cool charts and 4 leaderboards, including the entire ChinaList ranked by Followers at the end.

Chart 1: Updates vs. Followers - The Super China Twitterati of the ChinaList

This chart plots each member of the ChinaList with total Updates on the Y axis and total Followers on the X axis. All data is of 4/27/2008. This chart shows the emergence of Six Super Twitter users: @thecarol, @isaac, @christinelu, @flypig, @webleon, @bbluesman.

What’s the yellow shaded area? The majority of the 92 ChinaList Twitterati are in the shaded yellow area and I’ve created a separate chart for that area.

This data that produced this graph can be critiqued as not considering the length of time that people have been on Twitter. So for example, @thecarol may have joined 2 months ago and may be tweeting more rapidly than @flypig but he may have been on Twitter for a much longer time. What would be more interesting would be to graph Updates/Month vs. Follower Growth/Month. But the data are not available to do this.

Chart 2: Updates vs. Followers - The Rest of Us China Twitterati (the shaded yellow section in the above chart).

Because the Super Twitterati are such outliers, I expanded the chart to include only the mainstream China Twitterati.

Some of the more prolific Twitterati include @DavidFeng, @Marcvanderchijs, @shanghaiist, @dimi3, @ericgonzalez, @sioksiok, @zjjtrans, @kevinkoo, @shanghaiist, and @FonsTuinstra.

Leaderboard 1: Top 10 with Most Followers

He who ends up with the most followers does not win!

Most people might think “most followers” is the goal of Twitter, but Robert Scoble convincingly argues that its not about how many followers you have, but how many people you follow. That’s why he is following 21,000 people and tweets roll about 1 tweet/second on his GTalk screen! In fact, some of us (here, here, and here) wonder if he is a Cylon. If you worried about not having enough followers, please read his post and focus on following the right people, not about trying to win a popularity contest. Especially if you’re a Cylon.

In my own experience, I feel Followers is a function of the time that you have been on Twitter and how much you interact with other people who happen to have lots of Followers. I’m sure @ChristineLu retweeting my tweets and posts have resulted in a ton of new Followers for me, for example. Thanks Christine!

Leaderboard 2: Top 10 with Most Updates

Is there Life outside of Twitter? Ask these prolific Tweeters. Again, this metric is not entirely meaningful because it doesn’t capture the rate of increase of tweets. Either these folks have been on Twitter for a long time, OR they are prolific updaters, so be forewarned if you follow them! My dirty non-harmonious secret: I have actually unfollowed 1 of these people because they are too “noisy” for me, because they use TwitterFeed to feed all of their blog posts on Twitter! (But I follow the rest!)

Leaderboard 3: Top 10 Updates/Follower (aka Twitter Noise! according to LouisGray)

There is a lot of criticism of the Twitter Noise Ratio measure on FriendFeed and at Louis Gray’s post. Updates include the @ messages that you might send to a specific Follower or Twitterer. So as you get into more conversations, Louis’ measure would condemn you as “noisy!” Stowe Boyd has a different measure called Conversation Index that may be better but is not possible to measure easily. This Conversational Index is expressed like this:

Boyd’s Twitterized Conversational Index = (number of replies made by followers / number of tweets)

This is similar to measuring the number comments a blogger gets on a post. The more comments, the more reader engagement. Boyd is suggesting that the more @replies, the more your Followers are engaged and interested by your Tweets.

Also, I suggested that “Total Updates/Month” or “General Updates/Month” might be a better measure, but there are no historical Twitter stats to my knowledge.

What Twitter Metrics Matter? What’s interesting about how you or your fellow China Twitterati use Twitter? What might you change about how you use Twitter?

Karl Marx, in his famous Theses on Feuerbach, said, “the philosophers have only interpreted the world, the point is to change it.” I hope that this interpretation of the world will allow you to change it in your small way. On Twitter.

Finally, here is the entire list ordered by Followers:

Leaderboard 4: Entire China Twitterati List on ChinaList, sorted by Followers

Here is the Source Spreadsheet for ChinaList Twitterati 20080427 with all this data in case you are interested in it. Use it under Creative Commons license, by-sa-nc 3.0 with attribution to Elliott Ng, CNReviews.com.

UPDATE 4/28:  From the bully pulpit of Ogilvy Digital Watch, Kaiser Kuo wrote an excellent post discussing the trend of blogging about Twitter as dangerous self-referential narcissism and the risks of “excitable dorkitude,”:

Each to his own, of course. But am I wrong in thinking that there’s something not quite healthy and weirdly solipsistic about this? Mind you, I do find Twitter useful, as I made clear in a post of mine last week - a post which, as if to prove the point it made, rode a wave of Twitter-distribution to become one of my most widely-read posts to date. But if we all start looking like a bunch of excitable dorks (which many clearly are) we’ll scare away people who actually might make truly useful contributions - links to great stories, life hacks, great recommendations on apps or software or books or eats, real insights into the things that matter: things predicated on actually having a life.

Guilty as charged.  Kaiser earlier post about the myriad uses of Twitter notwithstanding, I concur with his latest view that indeed there is life outside of Twitter.

Via blackandwhitecat.org, one of fellow CN Reviews blogger Kai Pan favorite blogs, we got turned onto a recent BBC World Survey (pdf)on international public opinion on world countries. Warning: this is a Kai Pan’esque mega post written by Elliott.

The seeds of polarization are already clear in this survey

Blackandwhitecat came up with an unsurprising, but somewhat depressing, conclusion:

One of the interesting things about this poll is that each country seems to have quite a rosy view of its own influence on the world, even if the world doesn’t agree. The Chinese, however, have taken this tendency to extremes - a whopping 90% positive appraisal. Either the Chinese are extraordinarily perceptive, or they are somewhat lacking in introspection….

Throughout most of the poll, when one country has a negative view of another, the feeling is mutual. So China and Japan both gave each other bad marks. An exception to this is Germany, which gave the most negative of all the European assessments. China, on the other hand, was quite positive towards Germany. It probably isn’t anymore.

I don’t think people in the U.S. really know how positive Chinese people are about their role in the world. So these differences in opinion lay the seeds for misunderstanding.

What does the US invasion of Iraq and the Tibetan crackdown have in common? Both events have polarized the views of the citizens of the country against the views of the world.

Polarization has continued, most recently through the Tibet events and the subsequent Olympic protests

• Danwei posted on Who is winning the Olympic PR War? Jeremy’s conclusion: In the West, Free Tibet organizers. In China, the Chinese government.
• Global Voices Online posted on China Fallout from the Free Tibet Protests. Conclusion: increasing polarization on the China BBS’s that don’t tolerate minority opinions especially from Han Chinese.
• FT/Harris Poll showing that China has overtaken the US as the biggest threat to stability according to Europeans.
• Mutant Palm’s translation of Fanfou tweets (Fanfou is a microblogging tool, like Twitter) that demonstrates that Chinese people are not “brainwashed” by the government but carefully considering Western sources and see them as being just biased as their own sources.
• A plaintive cry from a Chinese person on cbc forums: “My friends, what do you want from us?” (h/t China Digital Times and China Herald) Even well-educated, cosmopolitan Chinese are feeling persecuted by the world and boycotting French products.

These posts, and the data from the BBC World Survey cry out for the need for people to seek to understand first and to see the world from each others eyes.

US people take note: the world still doesn’t like the US government. In fact they like China’s government more.

Views of China’s Influence by country

Views of U.S. influence by country

Which country has a more positive influence in the world, U.S. or China?

• Overall: China. 47% for China vs. 35% for U.S. (excluding subject country)
• Latin America: China. 45% for China vs 32% for U.S.
• Europe: China. 39% for China vs 31% for U.S.
• Middle East: China. 63% for China vs. 34% for U.S.
• Africa: United States. 66% for China, 70% for U.S.
• Asia (ex-China): China again. 40% for China vs 39% for U.S.

Advantage: China.

In fact, only 9 of 23 countries rated the U.S. higher than China: Portugal, Italy, Israel (just barely), Kenya, Ghana, Phillipines, South Korea, Indonesia, and Japan.

Caveat: Data was collected in December 2007 before the recent March Tibet events and the torch run. Things may have changed.

The only good news: things used to be worse for the US. The BBC looked at historical results and concluded that the “World views US ‘more positively’” than before.

So what should we do about this?

Listen first. Then understand. Then discuss. Then debate. Then convince. Only then will you gain the long-standing respect of your fellow world citizens.

UPDATE 4/19:  Lots of continuing examples of how extreme nationalism, amplified by the Web, is creating real cost to be a moderate.  Rick Martin at PandaPassport highlights Duke University Grace Wang’s actions to bridge the gap between pro-Tibet and  pro-China demonstrators, and also Jin Jing statements requesting moderation from Netizens, and the violent response from Netizens that turned a heroine into a traitor in less than a day as reported by Liang Fafu and translated by China Digital Times (h/t to PandaPassport):

Below is a news item:

2008-04-16 14:24:00 Source: Xinmin.cn. Netizen Comments: 480. Summary: Olympic torch bearer Jin Jing has publicly said she hopes netizens will be prudent in handling calls to boycott Carrefour as the first victims of such a boycott are likely to be the many Chinese who work for Carrefour.

Below is some of the commentary from netizens:

Netizen from Jinan, Shandong: “Jin Jing is bullshit! Speaking on behalf of Carrefour. I think she’s a traitor.”

Netizen from Beijing: “Torch bearer Jin Jing, I earnestly request you to shut your mouth. You’ve done your duty already. Don’t go around making irresponsible remarks. First she’s missing a leg, now she’s missing a brain.”

If an Olympic torchbearer, selected for her excellence in her sport to represent the Chinese people, and who happens to be handicapped, can be attacked with this degree of hatred from Chinese netizens, it means that anyone who shows moderation can face the wrath of extremist Netizens.

On the other site, I was disturbed by the TechCrunch article about Chinese Internet Users Say “Enough” to International Bullying to write a 450+ word rant in defense of what I thought were relatively level-headed commenters who were pro-(L) China against what I thought was shameful anti-(L) China commenters who appeared to be primarily American (or at least Western).  Frankly, my homeboys made me ashamed.  Now, I’m seeing a side of Chinese nationalism that frankly makes me concerned about where things are going.