China can proudly say as a creditor that America is not right. Unless the United States gives China the treatment it deserves, China will help no more.
April 06, 2009
Lately, the international media have been paying attention to a book published in China titled “China is Unhappy.” The book, written by five writers known for their nationalistic tendencies, became an instant bestseller after it was published in mid-March.

But why is China unhappy? Why is the world paying attention to this book?

Let’s look at some excerpts:

“Learn from America? The United States is virtually bankrupt already. However, it is not actually going bankrupt because it is like a water demon. Countries around the world have lent to the United States so much that they are all concerned about America’s collapse. The United States lives like a parasite. Its economic system is like a cancer to the global economy. Learn from America? China can learn only bad things from America.”

And: “The United States has no money and its manufacturing sector is crippled. Consumers don’t save and only indulge in spending. This led to the subprime mortgage crisis. Some Chinese still worship Western ideas. They are overwhelmed by the United States, underestimate the caliber of the Chinese people and are about to miss the opportunity that comes along with the global financial crisis.”

Then, finally: “The Chinese people are great. China has to save mankind. Amid the financial devastation, China must lead the world to overcome the crisis. The Chinese people have been given such a critical task.”

The international media are watching the book because it clearly demonstrates the nationalistic global perspective rapidly emerging in China. From this point of view, the Chinese deserve to be unhappy. The source of Chinese pride is the millennium-old conviction that China is the center of the world. However, after the First Opium War in 1840, China was torn apart by the Western powers. And in 1949, after almost 100 years, the communist government was established, and the territory was somewhat united. And during the 40 years of the Cold War, China was overwhelmed by the Soviet Union and the United States.

Since the fall of the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe, China has been working hard for 20 years under American hegemony.

Now in 2009, the 60th anniversary of the Communist Party regime, China can recover its pride. With the money earned from selling goods to the United States, China bought U.S. Treasury bonds. Now that the United States is in economic crisis, China can proudly say as a creditor that America is not right. Unless the United States gives China the treatment it deserves, China will help no more.

This is China’s subjective perspective. Having been hurt and forced to struggle, many Chinese think this way. Of course, it is not the official position of the Chinese government. Yet the absolute majority of the Chinese people shares the perspective, and some of the leaders are considered to be in covert agreement.

Last February, Xi Jinping, the most likely successor of President Hu Jintao, visited Mexico. During a meeting with local ethnic Chinese, he criticized the attitude of the West for pointing a finger at China when the West was at fault. Official Chinese media did not cover the story.

The important thing is that the Chinese government is moving in this direction gradually yet firmly. And in reality, the United States and other countries cannot resist such a move.

More importantly, the Korean Peninsula is most directly influenced by the emergence of China. In particular, China is the only country in the world that can influence North Korea.

If China were not there for Pyongyang, it is doubtful whether North Korea could have developed nuclear and missile programs. If China had not helped the North, it could not have afforded to decline America’s food assistance. Would the North have been able to launch a missile despite U.S. pressure? Could it open and close Kaesong Industrial Complex as it pleases? If China really wants to lead the world, it should understand that some countries, including Korea, could become unhappy because of China. In addition, Korea needs to remind China what it’s like when the shoe is on the other foot. 

April 2, 2009 — If you live in the "Knitwear Capital of India," your water probably doesn't taste very good, if you can drink it at all. That's because dyeing cotton for Banana Republic T-shirts, Reebok socks and truckloads of similar clothing bound for Europe and the United States requires tons of water, and the small textile firms that dominate the industry in the South Indian state of Tamil Nadu cannot afford traditional wastewater treatment, so they simply dump toxin-filled water into the local rivers.

That's the problem that a team of University of Virginia business students has a plan to solve. And their plan has been getting some validation recently.

Darden School of Business students Baijnath Ramraika, Ravi Yekula and Chip Ransler won two business plan competitions in the past week, raking in $5,000 at Wake Forest University last weekend and pocketing $10,000 on Tuesday from the Darden-U.Va. Business Plan Competition. The top finish in the Social Entrepreneurship category at the Wake Forest Elevator Competition also netted the team a share of $65,000 in legal and marketing services. This week's success follows three other wins in the past six months that garnered a total of $3,000.

The business, called Clean India, will use algae and sand filtration to treat and recycle wastewater as a "pay-for-use" service.

The garment makers of Tirupur, India generate about 100 million liters of chemical dye-laced wastewater per day, and generally face no penalties for dumping it into the local water supply, Yekula explained. To make their pollution less obvious, the companies typically add toxic de-coloring chemicals to the water before discharging it. The resulting contamination has caused such a shortage of clean water that the local price of clean water has doubled in the past five years. Many places in India, China and other developing countries face similar water supply challenges, giving Clean India lots of long-term growth potential.

But several factors make Tirupur an ideal spot to launch the business, Yekula said. For years, many Tirupur businesses got water by drilling wells, but the growth of this practice has completely depleted the local groundwater. The local municipal water supply is poorly developed, and so manufacturers purchase 60 percent to 70 percent of their water needs from private suppliers, who typically deliver it by the truckload. Clean India will also use tanker trucks to shuttle contaminated water to their treatment facility, and to deliver the cleaned and recycled water.

The large, up-front costs of traditional wastewater treatment equipment are not economically viable for these small garment makers, Yekula said, so Clean India plans to sell them recycled and cleaned water as an on-demand service, costing slightly less than they now pay for delivered clean water. The first target customers are a number of textile firms that are clustered together in a Tirupur industrial park. Three of the firms have already signed on as ready customers whenever the business gets online.

Clean India will use algae and sand filtration to treat the contaminated water. The algae is grown in a patented bioreactor, and then introduced to open ponds of wastewater. The algae breaks down the toxic elements in the water into nonharmful elements. Then a sand filter captures any remaining sediments and particulates. The whole process takes about five days for a given batch of wastewater. The process can be customized by identifying strains of algae that are best suited to removing particular pollutants.

The process is labor-intensive, as workers must move water from pond to pond and separate the algae every day.  This harnesses India's low-cost labor as a substitute for the high capital costs of traditional wastewater treatment equipment costing hundreds of thousands of dollars, Yekula said.

The modular system can be expanded as new customers are added. A 5-million-liter pilot treatment facility will cost $1.5 million. It should pay for itself in 18 months, Yekula said, and produce $4 million in revenue and $1 million in profits by the end of five years. By year five they hope to expand to 26 plants.

"India has a scarcity of water," Yekula said. "This problem is huge, but we think Clean India has a solution that actually makes a difference. ... It's not only solving a social problem, it's doing it in a very profitable way.”

Clean India has not yet lined up financing for the pilot facility, but investors and venture capitalists have expressed interest, Yekula said. "With the global economic meltdown, people are looking for places to invest where there will still be at least some growth, and India is still growing."

"I'm from India myself, so I feel a deep empathy for any kind of problem-solving in India," said Saras Sarasvathy, an associate professor at Darden who has been an adviser to the team.

"If Ravi and Baijnath can show their model works in one place, they could go lots of places, and they now have the education and vision to think about how to scale it up," Sarasvathy said. "That's what separates them from being just another successful entrepreneur in India. But I tell them, 'You have to get that first piece done. But if you can get it done, it could be a big solution.'"