I saw the Olympic torch relay in Guangzhou!

I was so disappointed by not seeing the Olympic torch relay in San Francisco. Guess what? I saw it today in Guangzhou! And I couldn’t believe my luck – it ran through the street right in front of my hotel!

Thousands of people were gathering along the Liu Hua Road in the morning, waiting to see the torch relay. Contrasting to the tension between protesters and supporters in San Francisco, people in Guangzou enthusiastically welcomed the torch arrival. The banner says: "One World, One Dream."

Exactly at 1:30 pm, the torch runner, holding the "sacred fire" and waving to the people on both sides of the street, was running proudly in front of where I was standing. People were cheering: “China, go on!” “Olympic, go on!” Some people even climbed onto the tree in order to see the torch.

I was glad that people in Guangzhou were not disappointed, and I was grateful that I was given the second chance to see the Olympic torch!

Our capacity for acting on our hope

I had a conversation with Rob Watson, a leader in green building movement and founding father of LEED – a certification program and benchmark for designing and constructing green buildings. For the past decade, Rob has been instrumental in developing China’s green building standards.

With its unprecedented urbanization and a growing middle class, China is adding a New York City every two years. The question on everyone’s mind is where all the resources will come from and whether China can sustain its growth.

photo credit: eco-tech international

Rob seemed concerned. Human should abide by the law of nature, he said. A large middle class in China could reap huge benefits for the world economy, but also could cause potential disasters. “The middle class consumes ten times more than peasants,” he said. “Even if 20 percent of the people become middle class, it means adding another United States.” He was worried that at some point China may have an economic heart attack.

Rob’s concerns are certainly valid. But I am a glass-half-full kind of person. I believe that it is precisely these challenges that put China in the frontier of green innovation and technology.

China has committed to invest $265 billion in renewable energy by 2020. Rob told me that China is leading in solar thermal technology, and catching up in wind. A report by The Worldwatch Institute indicated that if China can scale up the renewable energy technologies for its domestic market, the same technologies will be adopted at affordable prices on a massive scale around globe.

China has the world’s toughest problem, as Rob said. No one has the right to deny hundreds of millions people to pursue “the Chinese dream” and have a better life. I agree with Rob that China should not copy Western style of development that resulted in severe environmental consequences. China has an opportunity to walk a different path.

William McDonough, the renowned architect and author of “Cradle to Cradle,” has designed buildings that produce more energy than they consume. He envisions a world of abundance where eco-friendly design can prevent environmental disaster and drive economic growth at the same time.

“Bill is an amazing thinker and visionary,” Rob said. “Conceptually, he is right. But in reality, the model hasn’t proved to be scalable.”

photo credit: eco-tech international

But I remain hopeful. What if the "Cradle to Cradle" model becomes scalable? If we can go to the moon, why can’t we clean up our mess on the earth and re-make a world “based on nature’s interdependence cycles” that sustainability and prosperity go hand-in-hand?

I would like to end this post with William McDonough’s words: “One of the wonders of human nature is our ability to hope…. Still more human, perhaps, is our capacity for acting on our hope.”

China’s Urban Billion

A recent McKinsey Global Institute report “Preparing for China’s Urban Billion” says that the country’s unprecedented urbanization will continue over the next 20 years, and by 2030 China's urban population will reach 1 billion. Here are some numbers that are indeed mind-bogging:

- By 2025, China will have 221 cities with more than one million inhabitants – compared with 35 in Europe today.

- China’ urban population will expand from 572 million in 2005 to 926 million in 2025. Over 350 million people will move from rural areas to the cities – more than the population of the Unite States.

- By 2025, China could have 15 super-cities with average populations of 25 million people. 41 percent of China’s higher income middle class will live in Beijing, Shanghai, Tianjin, Wuhan, Chongqing, Chengdu, Guangzhou and Shenzhen.

- China will build almost 40 billion square meters of floor space over the next 20 years, requiring construction of 50,000 new skyscrapers – the equivalent of ten New York Cities.

- Up to 170 cities could meet planning criteria for mass-transit systems by 2025, more than twice the current number in Europe. This could promise to be the greatest boom in mass-transit construction in history.

The report also says that China’s urban economy will generate 90 percent of its GDP by 2025. Urban China will become a dominant global market with its aggregate consumption almost twice, and disposable income over two times, those of Germany.

Businesses have not only an opportunity to leverage China’s booming middle class and a stratum of affluent consumers, but also to become major investors – in road and rail, public-transits, the energy-supply infrastructure, and energy efficiency technologies.

Thoughts on Recent Events of the Olympic Torch

Like thousands of people who went to see the Olympic torch relay in San Francisco, I was deeply disappointed by not seeing a single flame. Later, I watched the videos of the live reports on Youtube. My heart sank to the bottom. I have never seen anything like this: the Olympic torch – a symbol of world peace – was heavily guarded by three walls of police and security.

The first wall was the “blue guys” – the Chinese “torch body guards,” the second wall was police motorcyclists, and the third wall was fully armed policemen. Since when has the Olympic torch to be protected by an army troop? To me, the torch run has completely lost its meaning, and it was a bigger embarrassment than what had happened in Paris.

I understand the protesters have the right to protest and they were trying to make their point. But such protests can hardly get their point across and may even just do the opposite. Although they made it clear that they were not protesting against the Chinese people but the government, the Chinese people were angry and rallied behind their government more than ever.

Unlike Americans who separate themselves from the government, Chinese still see the government as their representation, or their collective “face,” especially on the international stage. When the government was humiliated, they felt they were losing face, therefore, humiliated; when the government was criticized, they took it personally and believed they were attacked.

It seems today Chinese are angrier toward foreigners than their government. It's not surprising that many young people were calling for a boycott of Carrefour – a popular French supermarket chain in China. The strong sentiment of nationalism is troublesome. The irony is that although Chinese are vocal against foreign media’s biased reports, they are mute on the government’s news censorship, which contributed to the problem in the first place.

A young entrepreneur, who owns an interior design firm in Beijing, once told me: “We know our problems, but it’s not up to Westerners to point the finger at us.” He said he couldn’t care less about politics – or democracy for that matter, as he had all the freedom to do anything he wanted.

Early this year, a top think-tank in Beijing released a “political reform plan,” which laid out the detailed blueprints for building a “modern civil society,” and eventually “mature democracy and rule of law.” I haven’t read the report, but according to a Reuters article, the report indicated that “freedom of the press is an inevitable trend” and current political system is incompatible with the economic growth. It mapped out three phases of reform in the next 12 years, including human rights, religious freedom, and restriction of the communist party’s power.

It seems that China is moving toward the right direction. The most important thing is that the world cannot afford to have a “closed China” and go back to the Cold War. Economically, America and China are too inter-connected and inter-dependent. America has a lot of influence on China in many areas, but not by bullying (which I believe is one of the reasons for the strong nationalism among the Chinese youth), but by engaging and leading by example.

The Olympics, which was supposed to be a great opportunity to show the world what China has achieved, is turning out to be a great challenge to China’s leaders. It would be interesting to see how events unfold in the next few months.

What do you want from us?

This is a hilarious summary of the confused minds of the Western world..., so confused that even the Chinese people get confused (from China Herald).

What do you want from us?

When we were called "sick man of Asia”, we were called peril.
When we billed to be the next superpower, we're called the threat

When we closed our doors, you smuggled drugs to open markets.
when we embrace free trade, you blame us for taking away your jobs.

when we're falling apart, you marched in your troops and wanted your fair share.
when we're putting the broken pieces together, “Free Tibet” you screamed! “it was invasion.”

So we tried communism, you hated us for being communist.
So we embraced capitalism, you hate us for being capitalist,

Then we have a billion people, you said we're destroying the planet.
Then we limit our numbers, you said it was human rights abuses.

When we were poor, you think we're dogs,
When we loan you cash, you blamed us for your debts.

When we build our industries, you called us polluters.
When we sell you goods, you blamed us for global warming,
When we buy oil, you called that exploitation and genocide.

When we were lost in chaos and rampage, you wanted rule s of laws for us.
When we uphold law and order against violence, you called that violation of human rights.

When we were silent, you said you want us to have free speech.
When we were silent no more, you say we were brainwashed.

Why do you hate us so much? We asked. “No”. You answered, “we don't hate you”.
We don't hate you either Bud, do you understand us?? “of course we do”, you said, “We have CNN, BBC, and CBC”.

But why, we still feel, your western people are not happy with us.

What do you really want from us??

My friend, What do you really want from us??

The Olympic Torch Relay in San Francisco

More than ten thousand people showed up to support the San Francisco Olympic torch relay yesterday. They never got to see the torch as it took a different route in the last minute for security reasons. But here are some photos:

Chinese students from Stanford, Berkeley and many other colleges in the Bay Area were gathering in front of AT&T park, where the opening ceremony was supposed to happen.

Some were singing the patriotic Chinese national song: “Arise, for the people who do not want to be slaves, let our blood and flesh be a new Great Wall. The Chinese Nation has arrived to a critical point, we are roaring out our cry as a last resort. Arise, arise, we are united as one heart, we are facing enemy’s fire, forward, forward, forward!”

There were many emotionally-charged and intense debates….. Fortunately, the demonstrations and debates were mostly peaceful and there was no violence.

Here is a photo you will probably never see in the media. The banner says: "Say NO to U.S. CIA campaign against China."

A Tibetan protester put a “Free Tibet” banner on Ferry Building at Justin Herman Plaza - the original ending point of the torch run. But the banner was torn down later by the supporters, who substantially outnumbered protesters.

Some people were having peaceful discussions and learning to see from each other’s point of view.

Mostly, people who had taken a day off from their work and waited the whole day to welcome the Olympic torch and celebrate this joyful event were disappointed as the torch never arrived.

An Old China Made Young

While the US economy is stumbling into recession, China’s retail spending, fueled by a burgeoning middle class, is on the rise. In 2007, China saw a 17 percent growth in its retail market, and there is no sign of slowing down.

According to a BusienssWeek article by Shaun Rein, much of this growth is coming from the young consumers. He wrote:

My firm, the China Market Research Group (CMR), conducted in-depth interviews with 500 Chinese between the ages of 22 and 32 in 10 cities to gauge whether fears of a global slowdown would influence their shopping habits. The answer was a resounding no. A full 90% of interviewees said they expected to "spend considerably more" in 2008 than they did in 2007, and the vast majority was "very optimistic" about salary potential in the next two years, with the majority expecting salary increases of 10% to 25% in next year.

This group of people, born in late 1970s to 1980s, grew up in an increasing prosperous China. They are wildly optimistic about the country’s future. Unlike their parents’ generation, they are not interested in saving. Many of them use credit cards and spend their future money – because of their confidence in the economy.

I was really intrigued when a 24-year-old young woman, who was making a monthly salary of 4,800 yuan ($700), told me that she planned to spend her 2007 Christmas in Paris, and play golf in Bali! I wonder how many of these are what she really wants and how many of these she wants because they are "cool." But one thing is for sure: not only have these young consumers become the core market for multinationals, they have also made a centuries-old China young.