GFW failure or temporarily accessible?

Google blogger/blogspot cannot be accessed from China mainland at this time. GFW failure or temporarily accessible? I do hope the damnable GFW is OK for this time...

After I opened this blog for only 2 days, the blogspot was blocked by Chinese government...

I will keep watching for another 2 days. If it is still OK, I will update this blog soon.

Internet Business in China

Doing business in China? Good idea! The largest market in the world, cheap and huge labor resource, the appreciating RMB, the kind government for foreign investors and promised high yields ... However, it does not sound as good as in internet business.

Google, the best online search engine and the best web company, acts in China not as excellent as Baidu. Yahoo defeated by SINA and SOHU sold its yahoo.com.cn to Alibaba, which is greatly threating ebay with its taobao.com without taking another Chinese C2C website dangdang.com into consideration.

What problems?The China government's rigorous internet policies upon foreign companies?Yes, but very limited. The most important factor, I think, is that Chinese have their own ways on internet surfing, quite different from that of the people in the US. In fact, the similar problems lie also in other businesses, just not so obviously.

For Google, I think it all right except for its boring Chinese name gu-ge; and it is true that, google has been greatly feazed by the GFW. Yahoo deserved its lose in China as it was not willing to study from sina.com and sohu.com. Chinese do not like to read news and stories on the web-pages from yahoo, which has a very "simple" homepage almost without scrolling the slider bar. Chinese hate to click for more than 3 times to read what they want; they dislike too much indexes and directories. They are fond of shortcuts; even these shortcut links are filled in all over the homepage. Also, ebay destined to fail when it entered China the first day. Two reasons: 1) Chinese do not believe in credit cards as this country pay more attention to reality rather than credit. 2) Chinese like bargaining when buying anything. For the first, ebay could not build up an online payment system according to Chinese customers as quickly as taobao.com. On the other hand, taobao solved the second problem completely by launching its own integrated IM software customized for online purchasing; thus the customers and the seller can enjoy the pleasure on bargaining, even more pleasant than in real market.

Now the US internet service providers might have learned a lot from their Chinese competitors. But understanding what Chinese customers want is really not so easy; you must really understand Chinese commerce under the background of Chinese culture, watch and study the customers' behavior very carefully.

In fact, the same problem lies not only in the internet business, but most of the other industries. It might just not so obviously. For example, Dell can provide much better notebooks than many Chinese manufactures, but Dell's selling acts not as well as its competitors'. Chinese people just do not like Dell's direct selling service. The problem seems to mainly lie in internet only because the internet business in fact mainly focuses on channel service.

Will Chinese Benefit from RMB Appreciation?

RMB appreciation or not, this is a problem. According to natural rules in economics and the interest of the US, I agree that RMB appreciation should be necessary. The government cannot always disobey the basic rules, no matter how powerful it is. Foreign investors may be excited on talking RMB appreciation; however, for ordinary Chinese people it might not be a good news.

I do not care for the affection of RMB appreciation on Chinese export trading, instead, let us take a look at the changes in ordinary Chinese life. In Wuhan, the biggest city in central China, with the population of over 850 million, food price has increased 25% in average since this August when China government began to speed up the appreciation of RMB; the price for egg even become 2 times that of in July. However, the average income increase only 0 - 3%; more than half employee cannot get a compensation in salary as the increasing of laid-off workers. Also, the prices of electricity, water and gas keep on rising national wide including in Wuhan this year. In spite of the government regulation on real market, the average price of apartments in all Chinese cities except Shanghai continue rising up. That is the life the ordinary Chinese should be faced in front of RMB appreciation.

I still admit that RMB appreciation is correct; the problem lies in the government financial policies. RMB cannot be exchanged freely for ordinary Chinese and the government insists on GDP increasing depending on export rather than domestic consumption. Now who should take the responsibility ? Again the whole Chinese people?

China in IC Kitten's Eye -- A Window to China

About this blog

China again grasps the eyes from all over the world. How the state runs; how its economy booms; how its big population inflates...let these be the specialists' problems. Here, IC Kitten just opens a window to display the ordinary Chinese daily lives and their true feelings.

About me

I am a Chinese living in Wuhan, the biggest city and the capital of Hubei province in central China with the history of more than 2000 years. I am a Wuhan native -- born here, studied here and now working here. I gave up much higher salary in south China foreign companies and full fellowship from the US universities only because I love this city.

Why blogging?

I found that people in foreign countries can understand even better than Chinese themselvs on Chinese big affairs, especially on political, financial, human right, etc. Little do they know how ordinary Chinese lives and what true Chinese feelings are in this drastically changed information age, which I think even worth being acknowledged.

I also run another blog in Chinese on financial, tech & life comment.

Thanks for your concern over China and this blog.