Category: News

ASEAN’s labor could help China’ Pearl River delta solve the labor shortage problem, Zaobao reports.

Some interesting figures:

• Vietnam’s production cost is 15-30% lower than China’s.
• To start up a garment factory with one thousand employee, it takes 6-7 million HK dolor investment in Vietnam; while it needs a few times more investment in China.
• The textile industry’s labor cost in China is US$0.69 per hour; while in some emerging South East Asian countries, the cost is just US$0.4.

亚细安廉价劳动力优于中国

　　（昆明新华电）在昆明举行的第三届泛珠三角经济区（9＋2）社会科学院科研协作会透露，“东盟（亚细安）视野”有望成为珠三角地破解“民工荒”的新思路。

　　广东省社科院外事办主任游霭琼研究员认为，东南亚和南亚国家在劳动力的供应方面优于中国。印尼、越南、菲律宾拥有大量比中国更廉价的劳动力。据日本贸易振兴会的统计资料显示，同等条件下，越南的生产成本比中国低15－30％。

　　据香港出口商会调查，在越南等国开设一家千人左右的服装厂，投资（含人工、土地、水电、运输、设备等）仅需要600万－700万港元（142万8000新元），而中国则需投入几倍的资金。

　　中国纺织业的劳动力成本为每小时0.69美元（1.09新元），而东南亚一些新兴纺织品出口国的成本约为0.4美元，最低月工资仅有20－40美元。中国外企的中方管理人员平均薪酬也高于东南亚国家。

　　2006年，中国和东盟各国政府将加快中国－东盟自由贸易区《投资协议》的谈判，自2006年开始后的3年，中国政府将把向发展中国家提供的100亿美元优惠贷款的三分之一提供给东盟国家，并增加50亿美元的优惠贷款，用于支持中国企业在东盟国家的投资项目。

　　另外，游霭琼认为，机电贸易已成为广东对东盟贸易逆差最大来源。广东机电产品的总体竞争力略低于东盟国家，是构成广东对东盟贸易逆差的主要因素之一。

　　游霭琼说，2001年广东对东盟机电产品出现贸易逆差19亿1000万美元，之后贸易逆差逐年扩大，2004年进一步扩大到79亿9000万美元，2005年1－9月则已达到63亿美元。

　　逆差最大的商品为积成电路及微电子组件，占逆差额的一半以上。逆差全部是由对马来西亚、菲律宾和泰国等三国的贸易逆差构成。

　　2005年1－9月，广东与东盟机电产品进出口贸易额173亿2000万美元，同比增长18.3％，占广东对东盟贸易总额的65.3％，全国的这一比重为34％左右。

Today is a special day. It has been 17 years already.

Here comes an interesting news.

Two Chinese mathematicians, Professor Cao Huaidong, of Lehigh University in Pennsylvania, and Professor Zhu Xiping, of Zhongshan (Sun Yat-sen) University in south China’s Guangdong Province put the finishing touches to the complete proof of the Poincare Conjecture, which had puzzled mathematicians around the world for a century.

See the news in People’s daily.

Here is a Chinese version I got from Life Daily

中国数学家破解世纪难题
2006-06-04 08:56:39
彻底证明庞加莱猜想，比哥德巴赫猜想还重要

据新华社北京6月3日电国际数学界关注上百年的重大难题———庞加莱猜想，近日被科学家完全破解。
　　著名数学家丘成桐3日在中国科学院晨兴数学研究中心宣布，在美、俄等国科学家的工作基础上，中山大学朱熹平教授和旅美数学家、清华大学兼职教授曹怀东已经彻底证明了这一猜想。
　　“这就像盖大楼，前人打好了基础，但最后一步———也就是‘封顶’工作是由中国人来完成的。”丘成桐说，“这是一项大成就，比哥德巴赫猜想重要得多。”
　　任何一个封闭的三维空间，只要它里面所有的封闭曲线都可以收缩成一点，这个空间就一定是一个三维圆球———这就是法国数学家庞加莱于
　　1904年提出的猜想。庞加莱猜想和黎曼假设、霍奇猜想、杨·米尔理论等一样，被并列为七大数学世纪难题之一。2000年5月，美国的克莱数学研究所为每道题悬赏百万美元求解。
　　100多年来，无数的数学家关注并致力于证实庞加莱猜想。20世纪80年代初，美国数学家瑟斯顿教授因为得出了对庞加莱几何结构猜想的部分证明结果而获得菲尔兹奖。之后，美国数学家汉密尔顿在这个猜想的证明上也取得了重要进展。2003年，俄罗斯数学家佩雷尔曼更是提出了解决这一猜想的要领。
　　运用汉密尔顿、佩雷尔曼的理论，朱熹平和曹怀东第一次成功处理了猜想中“奇异点”的难题，发表了300多页的论文，给出了庞加莱猜想的完全证明。
　　从去年9月底至今年3月，朱熹平和曹怀东应邀前往哈佛大学，以每星期3小时的时间———连续20多个星期、共约70个小时———向包括哈佛大学数学系主任在内的5位数学家进行讲解，回答了专家们提出的一系列问题。
　　丘成桐指出，这一证明意义重大，将有助于人类更好地研究三维空间，对物理学和工程学都将产生深远的影响。

The Poincare conjecture is one of seven Millennium Prize Problems selected by the Clay Mathematics Institute in 2000. The Clay Mathematics Institute offers 1 million US dollor for its solution.

Following a program outlined earlier by Richard Hamilton, Grigori Perelman made a breakthrough in 2003. However, Perelman seemed to move on to other things after that and did not write down the details of a proof.

If the proof made by Prof. Cao and Prof. Zhu is verified, who will get the one million dollor prize?

记者就此问题请教数学家杨乐。这位数学家说，如果按百分之百划分，那么美国数学家汉密尔顿的贡献在５０％以上，提出解决这一猜想要领的俄罗斯数学家佩雷尔曼的贡献在２５％左右。“中国科学家的贡献，包括丘成桐、朱熹平、曹怀东等，在３０％左右。”

According to the XinHuaNet’s interview with another Chinese mathematician, these Chinese mathematicians contributed about 30% work, while Hamilton contributed 50% and Perelman made 25%.

朱熹平：这笔奖金应该发给前面那些做了很多工作的学者，我们只是走了最后一步而已。

But Prof Zhu said in an interview with New Express, “This prize should award those scholars who made most contribution before. We just completed the last move.”

相关文章： 八卦丘－田事件 1 Gossip about Qiu-tian incident 1 ; 庞加莱猜想（Poincare conjecture）－关于田刚丘成桐事件;

A homesick Singapore exchange student was getting some bad time in Xi’an and posted some explicitive laden negative complains on her blog. These entries were cross-posted in Tianya.cn. It spurred a (small) uproar on Chinese internet.

Many people have this view on Tomorrow.sg – a Singapore meta blog, another place the home sick girl was discussed.

the people of china can be very nationalistic and any attacks on their beloved country(or anything to do with it) spells trouble for the critic.

I also expected to see lots of attacks on the SEP girl when I came to Tianya.cn. But I am quite surprised to see that almost half of the Chinese comments are neutral actually, and close to one fourth of them support the girl to some extent.

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Quite a number of ppl said it was not right to cross-post other’s blog without the author’s consent.

作者：假使公主堕落　回复日期：2006-4-11　23:56:27

人家怎么想是一回事 人家是写在自己BLOG里的
语言再混帐也是在自己家里排泄
又没发到公共BBS上
你要允许人民有无知和恶心的权利

楼主没经过别人同意就把别人的日志到处转载
这样不太好吧？

That is a comment of its kinds. Generally, it means:

Whatever she wrote was her business. She wrote in her personal blog and did not post in a public forum. It was no good to cross-post other’s blog without the author’s consent.

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Many ppl shared this point of view, “She just a immature girl, no big deal.”

作者：闲愁非关风和月　回复日期：2006-4-12　23:24:53
当看到 “I learnt that in China, 80% of the ppl are BAD.”偶笑了,有什么好生气的,感觉像个小学生.

This guy said, “When I read, ‘I learnt that in China, 80% of the ppl are BAD.’ I laughed. No big deal, just a primary school girl.”

作者：fishifish　回复日期：2006-4-14　08:45:29
看完了,觉得这姑娘像是没见过什么世面, 从小给惯坏了的那种.
虽然如此,但她说的一些事也不是一点不靠谱.

This comment read, “She’s just a spoiled girl, inexperience. However, she did not make up the stories.”

作者：l100083　回复日期：2006-4-12　10:05:01

…

大概看了一下，不就是個沒吃過苦的留學生，不夠堅強，像小孩子，到了新的環境不能適應，看什麽都不順眼，靠發牢騷來排解鬱悶。
而且中國人愛中國，新加坡人愛新加坡，很正常。不過他言辭那麽極端確實討罵，但他寫的是日記，樓主轉載也是不對啊。
總之大家不要太生氣，傷身体，他說的一些不好的東西也確實存在，我們應該努力改變這一切，希望有一天，管tmd新加坡還是哪得人爭着搶着來中國留學

This one read, “She is just a spoiled student studying abroad, not able to adapt to the change, and complain about everything. China ppl love China; Singapore ppl love Singapore; that is natural. Her language was too extreme. However, she put it in her personal blog. … Don’t get angry. Some of what she said are truth. We should work hard on these. … Hope Singaporean or ppl from other countries would die to come to China for education one day.

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Some ppl even reminded that many ppl in China have similar complains and ppl need to do a lot to make China a better country.

作者：人活着快乐就好　回复日期：2006-4-12　22:58:05

那我们自己呢？我们在网上公开的侮辱广东人怎么样，湖南人怎么样，上海人又怎么样等等……的，人家不过在日记里发泄不满，谁比谁更高尚呢？

This guy said, “What about our own speech? We openly insulted Cantonese, Hunanese, Shanghainese, etc. on the internet too. She just made some complains in her blog. Who is better?”

作者：没有不散的筵席　回复日期：2006-4-15　14:31:03　

　　The Kungfu performance was fantastic. All of them are highly skilled! Really like in the Kungfu movies!
　　
　　我注意到有人翻译的时候故意找那些用词很恶毒的地方来翻译，很不厚道。明显地煽风点火。
　　LZ也没有必要那么生气，我们的确有许多需要改进的地方。新加坡的学校里早就没有粉笔和木头桌椅了，她奇怪也没有什么。硬件环境方面，的确有很多差距。不过很讨厌她说80％的人都是坏人。

This commented, “Some guys just picked those worst words to translate. That is not honest and kind. It’s obvious that they were trying to make trouble. … There are lots of things for us to improve. … In terms of hardware, we need to catch up. Just don’t like she said 80% Chinese were bad.

作者：choonhau　回复日期：2006-5-6　21:38:04　

　　哈哈，我在新加坡读书，与她同一所大学。。。
　　比起新加坡，中国确实有很多地方很不如意！！
　　再加上独自离家，对陌生的东西很容易产生恐惧感。
　　其实对于他的这种情绪，我觉得大部分新加坡人都会有同感。但她在网上用词确实十分偏激，想必没有考虑到中国人读后可能的感想。
　　我想之所以我们大学鼓励学生到中国exchange，除了希望建立与中国的合作关系的话，也希望学生学会在逆境中生活，想必此女并未完全理会她来的真正意义。另外也可以从某种角度反映出新加坡教育系统的不足。
　　当然有一些对中国的评论，抛去其过于失望而非理性判断的部分外，并非完全没有根据。
　　1。是否我们应该深刻的反思一下我们的教育系统？难道教一些学科成绩优异的学生就可以跻身“世界级大学”？或者一所大学需要除此以外更多的东西，为学生提供完善的教育？
　　2。计划生育（即文中所提的one-child policy）除了为中国控制人口做出贡献以外,是否对个人的成长造成负面的影响？
　　3。我们的社会，是否在腐化，变得失去诚信，道德？因为与国外发达社会相比，中国社会的道德标准，确实有待提高。
　　4。当我们听到别人对自己的负面评论时，是否只是一味的还击，遇无理的指责，而并未考虑是否可以从自己的身上找到更好的原因？
　　~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
　　声明：
　　1。我肯定，及时西安并非中国最佳的城市，很多方面西安的条件还很不错（相比某些城市）。
　　2。新加坡人对中国人并未有任何敌意与歧视。恰恰相反，很多新加坡人对中国有十分友善意与诚心。

This one is long. Here are some of my translations,

“I am studying in Singapore, at the same university…
Compared with Singapore, China needs to improve lots of things.
And she stayed far from home along, she is uncomfortable to anything not familiar.
…Her language was too extreme on the net, she might not consider what China ppl would think after reading.
…She did not understand the point of the Student Exchange Program. Maybe it reflects the flaws of Singapore’s education system too.
Except those irrational parts, her comments on China are not irrelevant.
1. Should we review our education system. …
2. Does the One-child Policy make negative influence on personal development?
3. Is our society corrupting, losing trust between its members? …
4. When we get any negative feedback from others, shall we just think of fighting back? …
1. I am sure, Xi’an is not the best city in China, but it is not that bad in many aspects. (compared with some other cities.)
2. Singaporean does not discriminate China ppl. On the contrary, they are very friendly and sincere to China ppl.

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Though superangry cross-posted the blog, she did not release the SEP girl’s email address or blog link even when a few ppl kept asking for it.

Chinese net users are getting mature. ppl who study or travel to Singapore help others understand the situation better.

Sometimes even a friend who have been to Singapore can help ppl clear the misunderstanding between both sides.

Globalization helps people become more tolerant and accommodating.

Even such web war will help people understand each other better.

However, I would say, fortunately, the SEP girl is not a Japanese student.