Interesting article with interesting posts below it.Over at SCS thread Pan Asian complain about lack of PR. Ther is some truth to it China is novice when it come to guiding the narrative but It also reflection of overall softpower
Japan NHK did a better when it come to selling the Japanese kawai culture .But is also reflection of Japanese stronger soft power due to widespread acceptance of Japanese product worldwide. China will reached that stages too as more and more Chinese company are now going overseas to sell their product. IN the mean they are not sitting still and slowly make inroad in selling Chinese narrative of event. And remarkable this is spearheaded by the private sector!
China has better involve the private sector to increase the softpower. Also notice Chinese film is slowly getting better because involvement of Honkong producer and film industry basically now decamp to mainland China
Interesting article from LA time excerpt It is a long article
China has conquered Kenya': Inside Beijing's new strategy to win African hearts and minds
It took the StarTimes satellite TV salesman about 30 minutes to install a pipeline for Chinese propaganda into Francis Gitonga’s squat, cinder-block home here in southern Kenya, near Africa’s Great Rift Valley.
Gitonga was elated. His new digital TV package gave him better reception than he’d once thought possible in Kajiado, a small town on the savannah where Masai tribesmen wander past rickety storefronts and goats cluster in the shade.
“I didn't know about China before,” he said. “I can say it's good. They have changed this country in a big way, very fast.”
David Mugita is StarTimes' sole salesman in Kajiado, Kenya. StarTimes, a privately owned, Beijing-based media and telecommunications firm, has been sweeping across Africa since 2002. (Immanuel Muasya / For The Times)
Although StarTimes — a privately owned, Beijing-based media and telecommunications firm — is virtually unknown in the West, it has been sweeping across Africa since 2002, overhauling the continent’s broadcast infrastructure and beaming Chinese content into millions of homes. It has subsidiaries in 30 African countries, including such war-torn states as the Democratic Republic of Congo and the Central African Republic.
"Our aim is to enable every African household to afford digital TV, watch good digital TV and enjoy the digital life,” StarTimes Vice Chairman Guo Ziqi told China’s official New China News Agency in December.
But there’s a catch. StarTimes has substantial backing from the Chinese state — and an explicit political mandate.
China’s relationship with Africa — for decades defined by resource-for-infrastructure deals — is evolving, as Africa becomes wealthier and China’s foreign policy objectives grow more ambitious.
Beijing has invested billions of dollars into “soft power” campaigns aimed at convincing the world that China is a cultural and political success story. Yet beyond China’s borders, its heavily censored state media broadcasts go mostly unwatched; its newspapers go unread; and outsiders often continue to associate China with pollution, opacity and repression.
StarTimes' cheapest package, called “Novo,” costs about $4 per month. Novo features a mix of Kenyan and Chinese channels. Access to other international channels, such as , France 24 and BBC, costs more than most Kenyans can afford. (Immanuel Muasya / For The Times)
StarTimes signals a change in tack, one that highlights the depth and complexity of Beijing’s efforts to win hearts and minds — with much of that effort now being directed at Africa, one of the world’s great emerging media markets.
As a digital infrastructure provider, StarTimes is helping African states transition from analog television — a technology akin to FM radio, rife with snow, static and dropped signals — to digital, which ensures high-quality image and sound. As a pay-TV company, it is stacking its networks with pro-China broadcasts.
As both, it is materially improving the lives of countless Africans, then making China’s role in those improvements impossible to ignore.
“There’s a huge ideological element” to StarTimes’ African operations, said Dani Madrid-Morales, a doctoral fellow at the City University of Hong Kong who has researched the company. “It’s a huge effort to get Africans to understand China. Even the selection of TV shows is very carefully done. It’s very specific shows that showcase an urban China, a growing China, a noncontroversial view of China.”
Pang Xinxing, StarTimes’ chief executive, who could not be reached for comment, has told Chinese state media that he expanded to Africa to counter “exaggerated and biased reports” about China in the Western media.
“There’s a mindfulness among China’s leadership that China doesn’t get fair treatment overseas, and something needs to be done about it,” Madrid-Morales said.
StarTimes established its Kenyan subsidiary in 2012; now, it has 1.4 million subscribers, accounting for nearly half of Kenya’s pay-TV subscriptions. Its cheapest package, called “Novo,” costs about $4 per month. Novo features a mix of Kenyan and Chinese channels, including several belonging to the Chinesestate-run broadcaster, the China Global Television Network, or CGTN.
Access to other international channels, such as Al Jazeera, France 24 and BBC — which are more inclined to portray China in a negative light — costs more than most Kenyans can afford.
In December 2016, StarTimes launched a “pilot program” in Kajiado “as part of its long-term agenda” to bring digital television to rural Kenyans, according to the state-run China Daily. The company gave free StarTimes set-top boxes and subscriptions to 120 households. Sun Zhijun, a Chinese vice minister overseeing propaganda and media censorship, traveled to Kajiado for the inaugural celebration.
By January, StarTimes was everywhere in town — bright orange StarTimes advertisements glowed on schoolhouse walls, and StarTimes satellite dishes sprouted like carnations from corrugated sheet-metal roofs.
Chinese Economics Thread
- Thread starter Norfolk
- Start date
Good news all around on the solar front:
Chinese Government Confirms 24.4 Gigawatts Worth Of New Solar In H1’17
August 8th, 2017 by
China’s National Energy Administration last Friday confirmed previous reports that the country had installed a mammoth total of 24.4 GW worth of new solar across the first half of 2017, up from 22 GW in the first half of 2015 and only 7.7 GW in the first half of 2015.
that the China PV Industry Association (CPIA), the country’s solar PV association, had published figures that showed China had installed 24.4 GW (gigawatts) of new solar across the first half of 2017. That included as much as 16 or 17 GW in the second quarter, well up on the 7.21 GW that was installed in the .
Now, figures released by China’s National Energy Administration (NEA) confirm July’s preliminary figures, highlighting a 9% year-over-year growth for the country’s solar deployment. Amazingly, June ran away with phenomenal numbers, seeing 13.5 GW added — over half of the total for the first half of the year.
The total 24.4 GW was broken out as 17.29 GW worth of utility-scale solar and 7.11 GW worth of distributed solar.
Analysis from the Asia Europe Clean Energy Advisory (AECEA) found that three provinces were responsible for over half of all rooftop solar deployment — the Anhui province with 1.38 GW, the Zhejiang province with 1.25 GW, and the Shandong province with 1.23 GW.
This bring’s China’s cumulative capacity up to 101.82 GW, while the country’s solar curtailment has fallen significantly, down 4.5% year-over-year to 37 billion kWh as of June 30. Specific regions are not fairing as well as the national average, however, with curtailment of up to 26% curtailment in the province of Xinjiang, and 22% in the province of Gansu.
Analysts further expect that China will surpass installation figure of 34.2 GW, due in part to national policies driving speedy completion of projects. Further, Mercom Capital Group explains that “demand in China going into second half is a lot stronger due to the 5.5 GW Top Runner Program, which carries a deadline of September 30, 2017, and the Poverty Alleviation program (all year).”
Looking beyond 2017, the NEA last month provided guidance through to 2020 for its solar installation expectations, expecting cumulative installations to reach between 190 GW and 200 GW at the end of the country’s 13th Five Year Plan. Analysts suggest that total cumulative installed solar might actually go higher than that, considering that the new guidance doesn’t include distributed solar PV totals and poverty alleviation project targets, which means it could go as high as 230 GW by 2020.
Chinese Government Confirms 24.4 Gigawatts Worth Of New Solar In H1’17
August 8th, 2017 by
China’s National Energy Administration last Friday confirmed previous reports that the country had installed a mammoth total of 24.4 GW worth of new solar across the first half of 2017, up from 22 GW in the first half of 2015 and only 7.7 GW in the first half of 2015.
that the China PV Industry Association (CPIA), the country’s solar PV association, had published figures that showed China had installed 24.4 GW (gigawatts) of new solar across the first half of 2017. That included as much as 16 or 17 GW in the second quarter, well up on the 7.21 GW that was installed in the .
Now, figures released by China’s National Energy Administration (NEA) confirm July’s preliminary figures, highlighting a 9% year-over-year growth for the country’s solar deployment. Amazingly, June ran away with phenomenal numbers, seeing 13.5 GW added — over half of the total for the first half of the year.
The total 24.4 GW was broken out as 17.29 GW worth of utility-scale solar and 7.11 GW worth of distributed solar.
Analysis from the Asia Europe Clean Energy Advisory (AECEA) found that three provinces were responsible for over half of all rooftop solar deployment — the Anhui province with 1.38 GW, the Zhejiang province with 1.25 GW, and the Shandong province with 1.23 GW.
This bring’s China’s cumulative capacity up to 101.82 GW, while the country’s solar curtailment has fallen significantly, down 4.5% year-over-year to 37 billion kWh as of June 30. Specific regions are not fairing as well as the national average, however, with curtailment of up to 26% curtailment in the province of Xinjiang, and 22% in the province of Gansu.
Analysts further expect that China will surpass installation figure of 34.2 GW, due in part to national policies driving speedy completion of projects. Further, Mercom Capital Group explains that “demand in China going into second half is a lot stronger due to the 5.5 GW Top Runner Program, which carries a deadline of September 30, 2017, and the Poverty Alleviation program (all year).”
Looking beyond 2017, the NEA last month provided guidance through to 2020 for its solar installation expectations, expecting cumulative installations to reach between 190 GW and 200 GW at the end of the country’s 13th Five Year Plan. Analysts suggest that total cumulative installed solar might actually go higher than that, considering that the new guidance doesn’t include distributed solar PV totals and poverty alleviation project targets, which means it could go as high as 230 GW by 2020.
Interestingly, a business associate of my father's, a person (retired US Army Major) who patented one of the technologies that made satellite TV accessible to all, was working with west-African companies and governments, in the early 80's, to accomplish a similar objective from a pan-Africanist perspective.
His first-hand account, to me, was that the first and last person he encountered in every African country he visited was an African-American CIA agent, and that every American bank he approached refused any funding for the project.
Thank goodness China has economic independence from 'the west'! And, hopefully, China will seek "The Middle Ground" in its communications with African populations.
Jura The idiot
General
Man! You sound like there is actually a comparison. MD's have nothing on PhD's. PhD's are always superior to MD's, alway!
You know why physicians always wear white coats? And they seem not want to parted with their white coats. They keep their white coats in their cars, wear them in their offices, walking on the streets, at restaurants. I bet they would wear their white coats in sauna if they can. At the turn of the 20th century, medical doctors were close to the status of voodoo / witch doctors. In order to change their image and convince people that they actually knew something about the natural world, they started wearing lab coats, which at the time were only worn by scientists. You see, they are imposters, trying to pretend to be people of science.
Even nowadays, medical doctors don't actually understand biology. I myself have been trained alongside MD's in my first postdoctoral fellowship. These MD's know human anatomy, memorize disease symptoms and treatment strategies very well. However, their understanding of fundamental biology is still at undergraduate level. Most of the currently practicing physicians' understanding of biology is still at the time of their college graduation, which could be as many as 30-40 years ago. Yes, they must take classes each year to keep their licenses, but biology has evolved so fast. It's impossible to keep up with the most important new discoveries with a few classes and conferences. Plus, most physicians use the chances to go to conferences as their vacation time. They go in, register and get stamps to show that they have come to the conference. Then they go off to enjoy vacation.
I now teach medical school classes every once in a while. The Med School basically told us flat out that we should only teach the materials that will be covered in the Steps (the MD license exam like the Bar exam for lawyers). Nothing more. And we are told to keep our teaching as practical as possible. Don't lecture on basic stuff. Students will get bored. You can imagine how limited their knowledge base is...
Heh I can attest to this. In med school we all hated lectures by PhDs, as they inevitably bore us to tears with their talks about receptors, or enzymes, or genes, etc. with long acronyms and numbers.
vesicles
Colonel
Ha! An MD! You gotta admit those long long disease names are equally confusing
And Those receptors are most likely what cause diseases... Like EGFR, which stimulates MAPK and PI3K pathways. Its oncogenic mutations are found in over 50% of cancers (oops! Acronyms and numbers again...).
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Ha! An MD! You gotta admit those long long disease names are equally confusing
And Those receptors are most likely what cause diseases... Like EGFR, which stimulates MAPK and PI3K pathways. Its oncogenic mutations are found in over 50% of cancers (oops! Acronyms and numbers again...).
Just wondering if you have experienced that "eureka" moment in your work as a scientist?
vesicles
Colonel
We do. This is why I love it so much. It's hard work but it's those "eureka" moments that make all the hard work worthwhile. Those "lightbulb going off" moments are truly exhilarating.
Sometimes, I do feel a little addicted to those moments. Mostly because most of the time we have no clue what is going on... you get a feeling of being a blind feeling an elephant. Everybody you talk with has a different idea of the same phenomenon. I found a mug on Amazon that says " research is what you're doing when you don't know what you're doing". That basically summarizes everything.
Then every once in a while, the lightbulb in your head goes off. "Huh! Maybe that's what it is?!?!?!" Then you want to zap to the lab (you wish Scotty can beam you to the lab instead of having to drive there...) and do a quick experiment to see if you are right.
My associates now know my "eureka" look. When I walk into the lab with that look on my face, everyone goes "my Goodness... vesicles is having another crazy idea..."
And half of the time, my "eureka" moment turns out to be chasing ghosts. But you have to keep coming up with crazy ideas to have some true "eureka" moments that will yield astounding findings that will potentially change science (well, at least in my dreams).
Over at SCS thread Pan Asian complain about lack of PR. Ther is some truth to it China is novice when it come to guiding the narrative but It also reflection of overall softpower
Japan NHK did a better when it come to selling the Japanese kawai culture .But is also reflection of Japanese stronger soft power due to widespread acceptance of Japanese product worldwide. China will reached that stages too as more and more Chinese company are now going overseas to sell their product. IN the mean they are not sitting still and slowly make inroad in selling Chinese narrative of event. And remarkable this is spearheaded by the private sector!
China has better involve the private sector to increase the softpower. Also notice Chinese film is slowly getting better because involvement of Honkong producer and film industry basically now decamp to mainland China
Interesting article from LA time excerpt It is a long article
China has conquered Kenya': Inside Beijing's new strategy to win African hearts and minds
It took the StarTimes satellite TV salesman about 30 minutes to install a pipeline for Chinese propaganda into Francis Gitonga’s squat, cinder-block home here in southern Kenya, near Africa’s Great Rift Valley.
Gitonga was elated. His new digital TV package gave him better reception than he’d once thought possible in Kajiado, a small town on the savannah where Masai tribesmen wander past rickety storefronts and goats cluster in the shade.
“I didn't know about China before,” he said. “I can say it's good. They have changed this country in a big way, very fast.”
David Mugita is StarTimes' sole salesman in Kajiado, Kenya. StarTimes, a privately owned, Beijing-based media and telecommunications firm, has been sweeping across Africa since 2002. (Immanuel Muasya / For The Times)
Although StarTimes — a privately owned, Beijing-based media and telecommunications firm — is virtually unknown in the West, it has been sweeping across Africa since 2002, overhauling the continent’s broadcast infrastructure and beaming Chinese content into millions of homes. It has subsidiaries in 30 African countries, including such war-torn states as the Democratic Republic of Congo and the Central African Republic.
"Our aim is to enable every African household to afford digital TV, watch good digital TV and enjoy the digital life,” StarTimes Vice Chairman Guo Ziqi told China’s official New China News Agency in December.
But there’s a catch. StarTimes has substantial backing from the Chinese state — and an explicit political mandate.
China’s relationship with Africa — for decades defined by resource-for-infrastructure deals — is evolving, as Africa becomes wealthier and China’s foreign policy objectives grow more ambitious.
Beijing has invested billions of dollars into “soft power” campaigns aimed at convincing the world that China is a cultural and political success story. Yet beyond China’s borders, its heavily censored state media broadcasts go mostly unwatched; its newspapers go unread; and outsiders often continue to associate China with pollution, opacity and repression.
StarTimes' cheapest package, called “Novo,” costs about $4 per month. Novo features a mix of Kenyan and Chinese channels. Access to other international channels, such as , France 24 and BBC, costs more than most Kenyans can afford. (Immanuel Muasya / For The Times)
StarTimes signals a change in tack, one that highlights the depth and complexity of Beijing’s efforts to win hearts and minds — with much of that effort now being directed at Africa, one of the world’s great emerging media markets.
As a digital infrastructure provider, StarTimes is helping African states transition from analog television — a technology akin to FM radio, rife with snow, static and dropped signals — to digital, which ensures high-quality image and sound. As a pay-TV company, it is stacking its networks with pro-China broadcasts.
As both, it is materially improving the lives of countless Africans, then making China’s role in those improvements impossible to ignore.
“There’s a huge ideological element” to StarTimes’ African operations, said Dani Madrid-Morales, a doctoral fellow at the City University of Hong Kong who has researched the company. “It’s a huge effort to get Africans to understand China. Even the selection of TV shows is very carefully done. It’s very specific shows that showcase an urban China, a growing China, a noncontroversial view of China.”
Pang Xinxing, StarTimes’ chief executive, who could not be reached for comment, has told Chinese state media that he expanded to Africa to counter “exaggerated and biased reports” about China in the Western media.
“There’s a mindfulness among China’s leadership that China doesn’t get fair treatment overseas, and something needs to be done about it,” Madrid-Morales said.
StarTimes established its Kenyan subsidiary in 2012; now, it has 1.4 million subscribers, accounting for nearly half of Kenya’s pay-TV subscriptions. Its cheapest package, called “Novo,” costs about $4 per month. Novo features a mix of Kenyan and Chinese channels, including several belonging to the Chinesestate-run broadcaster, the China Global Television Network, or CGTN.
Access to other international channels, such as Al Jazeera, France 24 and BBC — which are more inclined to portray China in a negative light — costs more than most Kenyans can afford.
In December 2016, StarTimes launched a “pilot program” in Kajiado “as part of its long-term agenda” to bring digital television to rural Kenyans, according to the state-run China Daily. The company gave free StarTimes set-top boxes and subscriptions to 120 households. Sun Zhijun, a Chinese vice minister overseeing propaganda and media censorship, traveled to Kajiado for the inaugural celebration.
By January, StarTimes was everywhere in town — bright orange StarTimes advertisements glowed on schoolhouse walls, and StarTimes satellite dishes sprouted like carnations from corrugated sheet-metal roofs.
Making Chinese content accessible is a crucial step and efforts like this are great but not enough, a lot of Chinese content itself needs improvement in various aspects of quality especially when it comes to meaning not being lost in translation.