Wen Jiabao interviewed by Zakaria
Wen Jiabao is the Premier of China, making him one of the most influential international figures of this generation. Today on Fareed Zakaria’s GPS - one of the best shows on TV, we are hearing from Wen Jiabao on several topics of extreme relevance to the global community.
I can’t compliment Zakaria enough for a journalistic style that does two things I’d argue are necessary to get *access to people* while at the same time getting real rather than canned insights. First, he’s polite, which gets access and creates a relaxed atmosphere where real dialog can take place. Second, he asks the *big* questions in a way that brings us real insights into the thinking patterns of the key political and thought leaders he interviews.
Rather than summarize things here I want to link to CNN’s GPS page where I think they will post the interview, because anybody with an interest in where things are going should be paying very close attention.
Much of the current debate in this country about China (as well as many things) takes a sort of cartoon form, where people are stuck on oversimplifying a handful of complex talking points like China’s economic relationship to the USA and China’s Tibet policy (which in my view could largely be solved by shifting treatment of Tibet to an autonomous region like Hong Kong, a relationship that is working fairly well).
Asked about the prevailing economic philosophy who did Wen Jiabao quote? None other than Adam Smith, suggesting that the free hand of capitalism should be balanced by Government regulations to keep things fair and orderly (FYI he’s right that Smith was an advocate of some regulation and application of “morality” to free markets - a historical point often lost in debates here over free market virtues).
What’s Wen Jiabao reading? Stoic Marcus Aurelius apparently is one of his favorite philosophers, a thoughtful but sometimes ruthless Roman emperor who advocated social responsibility and internal progressive social reforms even as he persecuted wars and treated some dissenters ruthlessly.
Tian Tan Buddha, Lantau Island Hong Kong
Over at Travel and History I posted one of Charley’s buddah pix from Hong Kong. Thanks to the eee PC crash I lost over 100 of my Hong Kong area and train trip pictures from the first 3 days of the China adventure. Luckily Charley and I had each taken quite a few.
This was the beginning of our adventure that took us from Hong Kong’s piers out to Lantau Island via a big ferry, then via a small ferry to unknown China Sea territories looking for the Tai O fishing village, which we did not find.
Table Tennis in Kowloon, China
We stumbled into a sport center near the Temple Street market, where I was informed that the sport is not called pingpongcho - the word I have carefully practiced saying, rather…Table Tennis !
Originally uploaded by JoeDuck
Victoria Peak Tram, Hong Kong
Here on Victoria Peak the view is legendary….but we can’t see due to fog right now. The tram was a fun and cool short ride up extremely steep slope to the top where there is a nice “Pacific Coffee” shop from which I’m writing this off a free internet terminal. Ironically I’m carrying around my spiffy 2 pound eee PC but it would have cost to use the WIFI that way.
Dim Sum for Breakfast was tasty
World’s largest cities
Largest city is hard to define, but I think metro area population is the best measure and according to Wikipedia these are the top ten:
1 Tokyo Japan 32,450,000 8,014 4,049
2 Seoul South Korea 20,550,000 5,076 4,048
3 Mexico City[2] Mexico 20,450,000 7,346 2,784
4 New York City[3] United States 19,750,000 17,884 1,104
5 Mumbai India 19,200,000 2,350 8,170
6 Jakarta Indonesia 18,900,000 5,100 3,706
7 Sao Paulo Brazil 18,850,000 8,479 2,223
8 Delhi India 18,600,000 3,182 5,845
9 Osaka-Kobe-Kyoto Japan 17,375,000 6,930 2,507
10 Shanghai China 16,650,000 5,177 3,216
Surprising to me was that Shanghai and Hong Kong are both larger than Beijing which was in 16th place, and all three are smaller than New York City. (Where do all our billion+ Chinese friends live, anyway?)
Hey, I’ll be in two of the top ten over the next week! Hong Kong and Shanghai. Cool.
Hong Kong Travel Tips
Thanks to some advice from Matt at Cutler Investments I’ve started a great list of things to do in Hong Kong, Shanghai, and Beijing. I’m also reading guidebooks and surfing but it’s always best to talk to experience travelers (or better yet, locals) who can clue you in to the “must see” tourist spots as well as the hidden gems.
For this first trip to Hong Kong I just had him quickly list for me some of the “don’t miss” stuff and I’m fleshing this in as I go with details as I find more things to see - this is as much for my reference as anything else.
Stanley Market
Fishing Villages via Ferry, where they’ll fix the fish you choose at a local restaurant. Aberdeen has many places like this plus the monster brightly lit floating restaurant called ? The food there is not great but OK.
Star Ferry Hong Kong to Kowloon. This is the one often cited for great views of the Hong Kong skyline.
Nathan Street Night Market
Double Decker bus. Take it from Wau Chai sp? over the mountain. Get the upstairs front seat for the best dramatic views and experience as it whizzes through traffic and over steep cliffsides. I think we can get on this near our first hotel, the Island Pacific Hotel, right off the main road that forms a crescent around Victoria Harbor.
Trams: There is one to Victoria Peak and another I’m not yet clear about.
Lei Yu Mun
Temple Street Market
|
Top 14 Must-See Sights from Oriental Travel: |
360 Ngong Ping Hong Kong Disneyland
Central District (then to Star Ferry)
Star Ferry Small green and white ferries link Central District on Hong Kong Island with Tsim Shs Tsui. 10 minutes.Aberdeen : Hong Kong Tsai - traditional fishing village. Boat-dwellers in the Aberdeen Bay, shuttling with sampan along the Bay. Jumbo Floating Restaurant and the Tai Bak (Tai Bei) Seafood Boat in Aberdeen Habour. Free travel by ferry boat to the restaurants, then to old Hong Kong Tsai Street and to the Hung Shing (God of the South Seas and weather prophet) Temple at the juncture of the sea lane and the land road, and the Tin Hau Temple
Victoria Peak “funicular” Tram.Double Decker Bus Ride
Ding ding rail tram across north side of Island - sit upstairs.Ngong Ping Cable Car: spectacular 5.7km bi-cable. From Tung Chung, cross Tung Chung Bay, angle station on Airport Island, turning in air towards North Lantau.
The Po Lin temple (Big Buddah! & Tai O fishing village:
On Lantau Island - take the Ngong Ping Cable car? Temple Street “men’s street bazaar”. Between Yau Ma Tei and Jordan. Men clothing, watches etc. Chinese opera at end of banyan trees. Bustling like a night club. The Tung Choi Street is also known as Ladies Street and has women’s clothing, handbags, etc for sale.
Island Pacific Hotel, Hong Kong
We are booked for three nights at the Island Pacific Hotel in Hong Kong and I’m looking forward to enjoying what looks like a great hotel very near the waterfront along Hong Kong’s spectacular Victoria Harbor.
We appear to be about two miles to the west of downtown Hong Kong, though only about a mile from the metro which can take us all over the city, and I think we are easy walking distance from the Macau Ferry Terminal where we can catch ferries to other parts of the Hong Kong island empire. There are several huge ferry terminal complexes along the harbor and I’m not sure how this works yet. The site of all those ships in the harbor must be amazing.
Hong Kong to Shanghai by Train
With less than a week to go on the China trip I’m trying to pin down some trip details. We have our China Visas Passport attachments, which my friend picked up for us at the Chinese Embassy in San Francisco. We’ve got our Medford to Hong Kong Plane Tickets, and we are booked at the Island Pacific Hotel on the harbor in the western part of Hong Kong. The hotel appears to be excellent quality and appeared to be a very good deal at Hotels.com’s $87 per night.
From Hong Kong International I understand we take a metro or bus that will deliver us to the Metro station at the Macau ferry terminal . Update: There is an express train to downtown hong kong from the Airport leaving every 12 minutes that costs about $15 US, but we’ll take the Island Pacific hotel shuttle for about $19 that departs from A02 every 30 minutes and will deliver us to the Island Pacific Hotel = cool!. which is within a mile of the hotel. I think the hotels have pickups but not at the airport which is some 60 miles away by road on Lantau Island. Hong Kong is the major city on the Island of Hong Kong, but there are many other big cities and activity on many other islands in the area, all connected by a massive ferry system that centers on docks along the Hong Kong Waterfront or Victoria Harbor, one of the world’s busiest ports and most spectacular waterfront skylines. We’ll be able to see this from our hotel.
We’ve heard some criticism from folks who have travelled in China about the plan to take a 20 hour overnight train to Shanghai, but I’m pretty sure we’ll be just fine and will see more of the countryside this way. The train system is huge and there are many classes of travel. We’ll probably try to get the “soft sleeper” which looks great from pictures on non-official websites. Some have said that travelling in the seats will hurt backs, but I have a hunch many of the bad rumors are from China’s pre-capitalist days when travel was a lot more spartan.
From the excellent (and I hope very accurate) train travel website www.Seat61.com : HK to Shanghai runs on odd dates in Jan, March, June, July 2008, & even dates in Feb, April, May 2008
We need to remember this:
The station in Hong Kong is in Kowloon and called ‘Hung Hom’ …. the Chinese refer to Hong Kong/Kowloon as ‘Jiulong’
So it looks like we’ll shoot for the April 4th train to Shanghai! Cost should be about $120 per person for a really nice sleeper.
I’m a little concerned about trying to buy tickets there just a few days before but that gives us some flexibility and also I’m hearing it can be more expensive and complicated to reserve them here or online.
Xianglu Grand, Xiamen China
I’m hoping that SES China in Xiamen is going to be at the same venue as last year, the Xianglu Grand Hotel. This hotel looks fantastic and elegant with beautiful rooms and several restaurants. Food is one of the things I’m really looking forward to in China and I’m sure the Xianglu Grand Hotel won’t disappoint in this area. I am a little concerned that it’s bad form not to try everything offered by a guest, so if I’m eating with folks who offer me fried canaries or something like that I better be sure to have the pepto bismol tablets handy. The Xianglu Grand website still suffers from almost bizarre optimizing problems, but the hotel is splendid and I’m really looking forward to the stay. Current special rates appear to be very low so I’m tempted to book very soon because the rack rates are more than double. About $80 vs $200 per night with the nice garden suites at an especially large discount.
I missed that conference but this year I will be in Xiamen for SES China April 18-19. The current plan is to fly in and out of Hong Kong, which is somewhat south of Xiamen, and then make our way up from Hong Kong to Xiamen to Beijing and possibly also Shanghai.
Hong Kong is on the sea in the South, Shanghai on the sea hundreds of miles north, and Beijing inland and somewhat north of Shanghai. Another very popular destination we’ll probably miss this trip is X’ian, home to the amazing ancient Terra Cotta army - hundreds of life sized clay soldier statues.
-
-
Recent Comments
Tech5 from Dvorak- Should Nokia Buy Yahoo?Obama picks tech team. All seem like government hacks. RIAA gets the state of Tennessee to throw away $10 million on spying on its students. MacArthur Foundation says Intern socializing is a good thing. New Honda Supercar, funny-looking. Google pulls plug on the unknown "Lively." Analyst suggests that Nokia should be Yahoo.
- Intel Stock Goes Into the ToiletNow that Yahoo is gone under $10 Microsoft is not interested anymore. Apparently the company is not interested when it's a bargain. MSFT decides to do anti-virus for some unknown reason. Company also unable to promote Silverlight against Adobe Flash. HP story from yesterday actually explained. I run down all the stocks that are in the tank.
- USB 3.0 Finalized at 4.8 GbpsSun Microsystems to fire 6000. Crazy wording in FT. Jerry Yang quits. AOL kills Homestead. HO Says sales are heading up, not down like Intel thinks. USB 3. released (finalized) today. I highlight two stories about USB 3.0 showing how bad today's tech coverage has become.
- Should Nokia Buy Yahoo?
Please subscribe to the feed
