You’d think I was a sports nut, what with yesterday’s Yao Ming posting and this clip above. I’m not. But entertain yourself by looking at this 2 ½-minute clip of shorts for Nike. It’s pitch perfect. I saw it on the Chinasportstoday.com website, which also links to a gallery of YouTube videos on Chinese sports. Here’s what that website says about the above clip:

It's hard to name a global brand that has had smarter China marketing practices than Nike. The series of advertising shorts above, first posted on YouTube two years ago, features everyday Chinese who can't help but turn their day-to-day lives into athletic showcases. A flat round cracker in a university cafeteria becomes a discus; a pair of boys use a repairman's bucket as a basketball hoop; a young woman uses judo moves to take down her boyfriend and snatch a bouquet of flowers from him. The commercials have a raw look, like they could have been shot by amateurs. And they will ring true—and funny—to anyone who has spent time in China.

Nike has had its missteps here, including a commercial featuring Lebron James bouncing the ball off of a kung fu master's forehead that is often cited as an example of what not to do when advertising in China. But Nike learned from that mistake, and does plenty of other things right.

Listen to what basketball great Yao Ming says are his chances to heal from foot surgery and play for the Chinese national team in the August Beijing Summer Games.

This clip is from the South China Morning Post website. The 27-year-old Yao spoke at a press conference last week but I couldn’t go because of other commitments.

In any case, the Morning Post cites Yao saying, "My fracture is 80 per cent healed, which is normal after four months of treatment. The other 20 per cent will take a year. . . . I have done everything I possibly can to get fit. Nobody would want to miss the Beijing Olympics and I won't let you down.”

In U.S. policymaking circles, there are two terms used as shorthand to describe the views of analysts of Chinese contemporary affairs.

On one side are the panda huggers. As a national symbol of China, pandas represent the cute and cuddly side of the Middle Kingdom. Panda huggers are those who want to embrace China, pulling it closer to the orbit of the West with greater trade and engagement. Panda huggers view the sophistication of many Chinese senior officials, believing that vast differences in core political beliefs can be set aside for cooperation, trade and engagement that mutually benefits both sides.

Dragon slayers, on the other hand, are deeply distrustful of China’s long-term intentions. They generally focus on China’s military build-up, and say its opacity is cause for alarm. Every new spy case uncovered in the United States – and there are many – causes them to lose sleep. They wonder what the message is when, as in mid-2005, Chinese PLA Maj. Gen. Zhu Chenghu tells Western journalists that China is prepared to lose every city east of Xian in a nuclear tit-for-tat exchange with the United States that would be triggered by U.S. intervention in any war between the mainland and Taiwan.

I bring this up because after years living in China, I see how simplistic these terms are. The Bush administration Cabinet has people that could be considered panda huggers and others who could be considered dragon slayers. The terms tend to pigeon hole rather than shed light.

Moreover, pandas are not all that gentle, and dragons may not be all that bad.

And that brings me to the painful tale of Li Suhua. Ms. Li, a native of Henan province, moved to the beautiful city of Suzhou and went to the city zoo on June 22. At her side were her husband and her child.

According to a story on the People’s Net website (only available in Chinese), Ms. Li and her family went to the panda pavilion, which was under construction. They could view the pandas from there. But seeing an employees’ door open, and wanting to get closer to a panda, and even pet one, they went inside.   

That was mistake number one.

Inside the employee area was Susu, a 25-year-old panda. By panda standards, 25 is old. The natural lifespan of a panda is 30 years. What happened next is not totally clear. But when Ms. Li emerged from the zoo, she was missing part of her right thumb. Susu bit it off.

That’s Ms. Li in her recovery bed, recovering from her tangle with a panda.

Maybe she was never a panda hugger to begin with. Maybe she was trying to give the panda the finger.

As workshop to the world, China is a place where ideas from elsewhere are manufactured and shipped on. Innovation is still not a hallmark. Few Chinese brands are known abroad.

But that is likely a blip in history. China has been a hotbed of innovation in the past.

An appendix in a book on my desk, The Man Who Loved China, by Simon Winchester, tells more of the story. It is a list of inventions and discoveries in China over the centuries and the date of their first recorded mention. We all know about paper and gunpowder and the like. But read further for a very partial list:

Acupuncture (580 BC)
Anatomy  (11th Century AD)
Axial rudder  (1st Century AD)
Ball bearings  (2nd Century BC)
Belt drive  (5th Century BC)
Blast Furnace (3rd Century BC)
Calipers  (AD 9)
Camera Obscura, explanation of (AD 1086)
Cast iron  (5th Century BC)
Chain drive (AD 976)
Chess  (4th Century BC)
Compass, magnetic Needle (AD 1088)
Crop rotation  (6th Century BC)
Crossbow  (5th Century BC)
Dating of trees by number of rings  (12th Century AD)
Dominoes  (AD 1120)
Draw loom  (1st Century AD)
Fertilizers  (2nd Century BC)
Firecrackers  (AD 290)
Folding chairs  (3rd Century AD)
Grafting (AD 806)
Gunpowder  (12th Century AD)
Handgun  (AD 1128)
Kite  (4th Century BC)
Lacquer  (13th Century BC)
Maps, relief  (AD 1086)
Negative numbers, operations using  (1st Century AD)
Paper, invention of  (300 BC)
Toilet paper (hallelujah!) (AD 589)
Parachute principle  (8th Century AD)
Playing cards  (AD 969)
Reel on fishing rod  (3rd Century AD)
Rockets, two-stage  (AD 1360)
Rotary fan  (1st Century BC)
Seawalls  (AD 80)
Sterilization by steaming (AD 980)
Stirrup  (AD 300)
Toothbrush  (hallelujah again!)  (9th Century AD)
Vinegar  (2nd Century BC)
Weather vane  (120 BC)

Maybe it is a new corporate strategy. Mount an ad campaign. Anger Chinese. Capture lots of newspaper headlines. Issue an apology. Keep the ad campaign running anyway.

That’s what may be happening with actor Richard Gere and Italian carmaker Fiat.

See the 45-second Fiat ad with Richard Gere above. It shows Gere zooming from Hollywood to the Himalayan peaks in his new Lancia Delta auto.

Gere, of course, is the most highly visible Hollywood celeb supporter of the Dalai Lama. He’s chairman of the board of the International Campaign for Tibet, the diplomatic and lobbying arm of the Tibetan government-in-exile.

No one can suggest that Fiat wasn’t fully aware of Gere’s background when he was hired for the ad. Why else have a Tibetan motif?

Indeed, Lancia CEO Olivier Francois is quoted on this blog saying Gere was chosen because he “is not merely a fine actor; not merely one of the most famous men in the world. He is a man with a great difference: the ability to combine talent, fame and style with great character. I'm talking about his commitment to peace."

Obviously, Chinese got wind of the campaign and tarred Fiat as being anti-Chinese something that -- oh my God! – could hurt corporate profits in the lucrative Asia region.

But wait! Fiat did an end run. It apologized last Friday to China. It said the company does not want to “interfere with the internal political system of any country." The insinuation was that the ad would be pulled.

This week a Fiat spokesperson quietly said, after reaping publicity from the Gere controversy, that the ad would continue to run in Italy and even in other European countries as the new Lancia Delta rolls out there.

Fiat didn't drop Gere in a heartbeat, not like Dior dropping Sharon Stone last month.

So what does this show? Tibet sells in Europe. No matter how much Chinese officials claim that the Dalai Lama and Tibetan activists are part of a criminal clique, that image doesn’t ring true with European consumers. It’s a powerful image. Which brings up a secondary question: Actors and singers get involved with a lot of different issues. Bono has Africa and world hunger. Tom Cruise has Scientology. Angelina Jolie is a U.N. ambassador on refugees. And Gere has Tibet.

I suspect that Tibet is a fairly “Teflon” issue for Richard Gere in the Western world. I doubt it hurts his image. It is a net positive, casting him out of the mold of a typical self-absorbed actor. (Within China, that is another matter.) My question is: How much does Gere impact the Tibetan issue really? How much does his image help the government-in-exile raise money? Raise awareness?

 
Some scholars suggest the high-profile nature of pro-Tibet campaigns in the West actually mislead restive Tibetans to think they have more support than they really do. So they take to the streets. And most governments remain silent.

Apparently it is the carmakers who are the shrewdest of all.

A U.S. cruiser and destroyer moored in Hong Kong last weekend.

When Typhoon Fengshen bore down near Hong Kong last weekend, the aircraft carrier USS Ronald Reagan and its strike group left the port and headed back out to sea.

More than 100 sailors got left behind.

As the South China Morning Post wrote in its introductory paragraph about the event, some sailors woke up and wondered: “Dude, where’s my carrier strike group?”

Somewhere in the Pacific, that’s where.

Since ships are often safer on the high seas than moored in port, where they are more vulnerable to storm damage, the strike group decided to end port leave early Sunday. But they couldn’t notify all 7,000 or so sailors in the strike group that “liberty” had been cut short.

Not that the marooned sailors were too unhappy.

"I'm sure they're not tremendously depressed, but they're out there. We'll get them back soon," Navy spokesman Lt. Ron Flanders told the newspaper (which is behind a pay wall and a link would be useless).

The carrier group includes the nuclear powered carrier, a cruiser, three destroyers and a frigate – all fairly fast vessels.

The Navy will fly sailors ahead to the strike group’s next port. Meanwhile, those left behind passed time in – what else? – bars. “Hong Kong is a fantastic city to be stuck in," one sailor told the paper.

You don’t need to wait and see which nation will win the most medals at the Beijing Summer Games. The wizards have already spoken.

Here is what they say: China will win the most medals (88), followed by the United States (87) and Russia (79).

If true, this will mark the first time China has ever topped the medals table at an Olympic Games.

The predictions come from economists at PriceWaterhouseCoopers, who regularly handicap the Olympic Games. Click here for the press release issued Monday.

The accounting firm says China has won significant advantage this year by being the host of the Summer Games, as well as its strong government support for sports and its growing economic strength.

“In general, the number of medals won increases with the population and economic wealth of the country,” said John Hawksworth, a macroeconomist who is the report’s author. “David can sometimes defeat Goliath in the Olympic arena, although superpowers like the US, China and Russia continue to dominate the top of the medals table.”

Among other conclusions of the report: “As the host nation in Beijing and an economy which has grown very strongly since 2004, the medal ‘target’ of 88 for China according to our model is much higher than its actual medal totals in Athens (63) or Sydney (59); in fact, the model predicts that China may be very slightly ahead of the US (87), although this difference is well within the margin of error of the model so the race for top place is really too close to call based on this analysis.”

By way of comparison, here are PWC’s projected list of top medal-winning countries. The second number is how many medals each won in Athens in 2004.

1. China                 88      63
2. United  States   87     103
3. Russia               79     92
4. Germany          43      48
5. Australia           41      49
6. Japan               34      37
7. France             30     33
8. Italy                  29      32
9. Britain              28      30
10. South Korea  27   30

China has attempted to tamp down down expectations it will sweep up medals.

Deputy Sports Minister Cui Dalin said last August: "America and Russia are stronger. We are far behind, especially in athletics, swimming and water sports. In the sports where we are traditionally strong, we have little space for improvement. America and Russia are in a leading group of their own, we are trying to be the leaders of the second group."

Then in March at a press conference I attended, he said: “We've got to take a pretty sober, objective view toward this. Overall, we're not a big sporting nation.”

He went on to say: “In the competition altogether, the United States and Russia are still well above our level.”

Any bets on who is right?

Ordinarily, an increase in the price of gasoline would not be news. But in China, it is. Gas and diesel prices went up 18 percent overnight. Here’s why that’s important.

China sets domestic energy prices. Gas, diesel, jet fuel and electricity are all carefully controlled.

The last time Beijing allowed gas prices to rise was in November. Since then, crude oil prices on the world market have climbed about 40 percent. Until earlier this week, Chinese consumers were paying about $2.60 per gallon for 90 octane gasoline, while consumers in the U.S. have been paying upwards of $4.00 a gallon.

Every time I filled up the office car, I’d think: Thank you, China! You’ve just given me a rebate of $1.40 a gallon. Merry Christmas to you, too!

Obviously, that subsidy was unsustainable. The two major oil refiners that retail gasoline could not continue losing tens of millions of dollars.

The prevailing thinking, though, was that Beijing would bite the bullet and not raise gas prices till after the Olympic Games in August, desiring complete social stability before and during the Games.  Also, it put off action in order not to aggravate rising inflation.

That thinking was wrong.

The price increase shows that other important factors came into play. Around Asia, other nations were pushing up subsidized prices, including India, Indonesia and Malaysia. China was coming under criticism that its artificially low prices were stimulating demand, forcing prices up further.

That is why oil markets plunged $4 or so with China’s announcement.

Also, shortages of gas were breaking out in southern China, a sign that refiners and retailers are weary of selling at a loss.

An analyst appearing now on CCTV 9, Tang Min of the China Development Research Foundation, is saying that he expects a second price hike soon and that the two hikes will stimulate the refiners to bring more gas to the market.

“If the companies lose less money, the more incentive to produce more,” Tang just said.

Social stability is still a major concern, of course. Another headline this morning notes the continuing drop in Shanghai stock market, which is affecting tens of millions of small investors. The main index plunged 6.5 percent  yesterday, dropping to 2,748, less than half of what it was last Oct. 16 when it hit a record 6,124.

The big question is what impact the hikes will have on inflation. The Consumer Price Index fell to 7.7 percent year-on-year in May, a dip from April’s 8.5 percent, giving officials breathing room to act. But could inflation soon hit double digits?

I think it already has. We went to a neighborhood restaurant last night, and I’m convinced the prices were at least 20 to 30 percent higher than the last time I was there a couple of months ago.

With the Olympics barely seven weeks off, China is apparently hoping that no one will notice it isn’t fully keeping its pledge to open up the country to the foreign media during the Games.

Wednesday offered a good example of the kind of controls China still places on reporters.

The Olympic torch made its tour during the morning through Kashgar, the Silk Road outpost in the troubled Xinjiang region of far west China. Minders kept foreign reporters away from most of the relay route and barred them from speaking to ordinary citizens.

Here’s a tidbit from the Reuters story datelined from Kashgar:

Foreign reporters have been banned from talking to anyone watching the torch along its route, despite China pledging complete media freedom when it applied to host the Olympics, and are limited to a few stage-managed events.

"Anybody can watch the torch, but if you come on your own or with your family, you'll have to watch it from afar and can't get up close," one sullen government official said.

The Associated Press story also made mention of the restrictions on foreign media:

Black-gloved security agents jogged alongside the torch as it wound through the streets of Kashgar, an ancient Silk Road city near the borders with Central Asia, Afghanistan and Pakistan. Foreign journalists were not allowed along the route, where cheering bystanders shouted "Go China!" under sunny skies.

Later in the same story, the AP journalist noted the following:

Xinjiang officials accompanied foreign journalists on a bus to the relay and did not allow them to wander from the group. After the start of the event, the journalists were taken to the finish point _ a square dominated by a giant statue of Mao Zedong, a reminder of heavy-handed Communist Party rule over the region since People's Liberation Army forces entered in 1949.

A day earlier in Urumqi, Xinjiang residents were told to stay home and watch the torch relay on TV. That’s probably what Chinese authorities also wish foreign reporters would do.

I returned last night from an interesting getaway that I heartily recommend to anyone either living in China or on an extended visit.

It’s taken us nearly five years to finally make it to the southern Guangxi autonomous region and the city of Guilin, and onward to our destination along the Lijiang River of Yangshuo.

The train trip from Beijing lasted 22 hours and was very pleasant. By the time we awoke, we’d already passed Wuhan and were arriving in Changsha, capital of Hunan province. It began to rain.

By the time we arrived in Guilin, then by bus to Yangshuo, it was a disaster scene. Floods had enveloped the town. We found dry lodging, and immediately put on shorts and flip-flops to look around. Much of the town was waist-deep in water.

Equally as interesting as the flooding was the extraordinary speed at which the town recovered within a day as flood waters receded. Everything seemed to recover almost immediately.

I hadn’t been to a place with such a variety of things to do for a family. We rented bicycles, including a couple of bicycles built for two. Riding along the Lijiang, we were delighted by the sight of several hot-air balloons drifting lazily over the karst mountains. So we chased them. It led us down dirt roads and trails till we could hear the snorting and ripping of the jet flame shooting hot air into the balloon in a field about 50 feet from us.

There are caves to explore, rivers to raft and many shops filled with tribal group handcrafts in Yangshuo to browse.

Perhaps most interesting was a day and night we spent in the village of Chaolong outside Yangshuo. We stayed at the Yangshuo Outside Inn, known to one and all as the Helan Fandian (or Dutchman’s Inn) (www.yangshuo-outside.com). The Dutch owner was away at the time, but the staff, all minority Zhuang women, were extremely helpful and food was great. We rented mountain bikes and took an amazing journey across small bridges, along gravel roads and into the back country. The region received enough foreign visitors so that one doesn’t get the, ‘My God, Martha, look at the Martians coming down the road!’ stares foreigners sometimes get in places like remote Sichuan Province. Those stares, by the way, are interesting all by themselves and will be subject of another blog. There are not that many places left on earth where one can one go and be seen as so alien to the ‘normal’ way of life of another people.

Another morning, through a steady drizzle, we hiked into neighboring valleys following age-old trails carved by peasants and farmers. Gravestones with writing in traditional characters marked the way. Farmers ploughed their rice paddies with water buffalo. It was nice to see that some traditions never change.