Word: southerning
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China's near-miraculous economic rise has been built on the smarts of men like Cheng Wei-lun and the sweat of the 800 workers he employs as chief executive of the Tianji Wooden Products Co. Based in Guangdong province in southern China, the company, which exports $10 million worth of toys and children's furniture annually, is like thousands of other small manufacturers that help form the backbone of the country's formidable export-manufacturing machine. But that frame is showing cracks, and all the brains and brawn in the world might not be enough rescue Tianji Wooden Products...
...increased 50% in the past four years across southeastern provinces - an area of China sometimes called the "workshop of the world" - and a new labor law passed by Beijing will only add to the burden. Jonathan Anderson, an economist at UBS in Hong Kong, says that factory owners in southern China believe the new law will drive labor costs another 10-25% higher. Among other provisions, the new law entitles laid-off workers to one month of severance pay for every year of employment. "In a case where an export market is going down, if you want to reduce your...
Those two examples indicate Beijing is beginning to realize that it needs to be a good global citizen. But China's increasing willingness to interfere in the internal affairs of other countries does not mean the country isn't tending its own interests. Case in point: China's southern neighbor Nepal. Nepal has long looked to India as its natural ally in the region. But in the past few years successive governments in Kathmandu, perhaps sensing that Beijing and not New Delhi will be the real power in coming decades, have grown closer to China. Just how close...
There are other examples. Tourism officials and mountain-climbing companies in Nepal said last week that Beijing has asked Nepal to shut down access to southern climbing routes up Mt. Everest. This year's Olympic torch relay includes a visit to the summit of the world's highest mountain; Chinese authorities recently announced that they are closing their side of Everest - the northern slopes - because of overcrowding and environmental concerns. Most climbers believe the real reason is that China wants to prevent any demonstrations that would mar the event. Last year, climbers unfurled a banner at Everest base camp playing...
...experienced the siege mentality firsthand when I passed by Hizballah's "media office" in Beirut's southern suburbs to see if I could photograph the grave of its most recent "martyr," Imad Mughniyah - the Hizballah military commander assassinated in Damascus on February 12. It shouldn't have been a big deal: Mughniyah's pictures line the road from the airport into town. But the lady who ran the office looked at us as if we personally had detonated the car bomb that killed...