Bookraft

The NYTimes in its global edition is reporting much more on Chinese affairs - and why not ? Chinese manufacturing companies are major suppliers across more industries such as electronics, many consumer household goods, and now basic chemicals or finished metals. Of course there is the not small matter of $2trillion in US debt held by the Chinese plus an economy growing at least double the rate of the US or Europe. So the NYTimes suspects that Americans will be interested in what is happening in China.

But sometimes it is embarrassing to read NYTimes coverage because there is no way to easily confirm the stories by going to a local Chinese source and seeing what they have to say. First, Chinese script is Greek to me but more importantly, many of the Chinese in English media sources are official and therefore opaque if not downright suspect. Others may be private but guarded and hardly independent. Even going to Hong Kong or Taiwan press sources results in a distinctly business or local view. In sum, one does not easily have access to an authentic Chinese point of view. Compare what is available from most of the World Press.

Brazilian Newspaper O Globo translated from Portuguese to English

In contrast if one wants to find out what people are thinking in France read LeMonde. In Germany try Der Spiegel. In Brazil read O Globo as in the screen shot above. Or go to wikipedia in the local language [and do use Google Translate if you need some help - the translations can be laughlably Chinglish in style at times; but more often they get to the point]. But the key idea is that stories in most of the Worlds Press do not have the fishy odor of an official viewpoint as in the case of Chinese media.

So my problem is seeing in Chinese -but not the official Xinhua one.

Which brings us to Caixin Online [do visit the website, it is a revelation]. This is the English language website of caijing.com, a Chinese business news weekly magazine and online site based in Beijing. The screenshot just below shows the type of coverage offered by Caixin - it is certainly not the Xinhua official point of view.

As can be seen in the screenshot, the economic analysis is amazingly frank. The current real estate bubble in China is cited in three different stories - with the adverse effects on local government budgets being the main story. But there is also a sweeping story on the bad debt nature of large real estate "assets" in the Foul Assets story. Hardly Xinhua fare.

However, if you press the Chinese button on the extreme right you find that the Chinese version of Caixin is not identically the same as rendered into Chinese script. Rather the line-up of stories is different. Some are straight from the English version[including the Foul Assets opinion piece]; but there are several foreign press stories [including Barrons, arketwatch, the Financial Times and other Western sources]. And some of the hard hitting pieces in English are not found on the native Chinese magazine side. So what you see in the English version may not be available to most Chinese given this apparent self-editing plus the censorship firewall that China has in place.

Nonetheless the Caixin delivers an insight on what the Chinese business class are thinking. Given the recent history of the publication in which the chief editor and many of the staff staff left the original CaiJing Magazine just 6 months ago in order to start up Caixin Media - there is certainly a story behind the story. However, the best proof of the reality pudding is to follow such stories as the North Korean torpedo attack on a South Korean frigate that killed 46 South Koreans and continued Chinese support for North Korea or coverage of the European Financial Crisis. So far the results are mixed. But despite these provisos, with Caixin online, "seeing in Chinese" is much clearer than ever before.