"Mining China for baseball diamonds; MLB seeking to duplicate success of NBA" by William Wan, Washington Post | September 10, 2010
Baseball has been struggling to break into the Chinese market, and much of its strategy now rests on the slender shoulders of Li and a few dozen other adolescent players. In these boys, at this school, lies the future of baseball in China.
Just the news I need to know!
To the major league executives who set up this program in the city of Wuxi last year, the boys represent an entire generation of future coaches, sports ministers, and players in China’s nascent national league. But the biggest dream is that one day a player from this school will make it to the majors in the United States and bring with him some of this country’s 1.3 billion potential fans.
So the newspaper is really a promotional flier for baseball?
(Blog editor frowns as he sighs)
The story by now has become almost cliche: Big company sees huge market in China. Big company tries to capture that market before anyone else. But in terms of professional sports, that boat set sail long ago. It was called the National Basketball Association, and, as anyone in here will tell you, its champion was 7-foot-6 Chinese star Yao Ming.
An estimated 300 million Chinese now play basketball — roughly the size of the entire US population. China has the NBA’s largest foreign merchandise market. And when the league launched a separate entity called “NBA China’’ two years ago, Goldman Sachs estimated its value at $2.3 billion.
See: China's Best Seller
That success has left other sports salivating. The National Football League has flown in players (and attractive cheerleaders) to make its case. Professional golf is also making a push. Even World Wrestling Entertainment is trying to sell its spandex-clad, muscle-bound act here.
Far behind the NBA, but somewhere at the head of this second wave, is Major League Baseball. Its officials have adopted a guerrilla-warfare-type strategy — identifying areas where baseball can gain ground at minimal cost and settling in for the long haul....
Baseball in China stretches back to the late Qing dynasty when students dispatched to American universities by the emperor returned with the game. But baseball was purged during the Cultural Revolution, along with most things associated with the West (except for basketball, which Mao Zedong embraced).
Did you know they also BURNED BOOKS, America?
It was not until 2002 — after Beijing won its bid to host the 2008 Olympic Games — that Major League Baseball got serious about China. As host, China was guaranteed a spot in the Games, and MLB saw its chance to introduce the country to bang qiu, or stickball, as baseball is called in China.
Huh. That's what we called it when we played it in the streets of my childhood neighborhood.
The biggest push, however, has come in the past three years with the establishment of the organization’s Beijing office. Since then, MLB has created and sent a traveling baseball amusement park around the country. It negotiated a deal to have the sport’s fundamentals taught to more than 150,000 children at 120 primary schools. And when Chinese parents expressed concerns about their children getting hurt....
Executives declined to go into detail about costs but said the annual budget for operations in China is at the million-dollar level. Serious profit or revenue is still years away. But there are signs of hope.
This kind of "journalism" is making me ill.
A 2008 survey by market research firm TNS Sport Asia showed that 16 percent of the Chinese population is interested in baseball and 26 percent in MLB merchandise. With large followings in Taiwan, Japan, and South Korea, there is precedent in Asia. And according to the Chinese Baseball Association, 4 million Chinese currently play the game.
Baseball officials admit that is a drop in the bucket in China’s vast population. Even now, few people off the street know how to play. Equipment is scarce and, with the skyrocketing value of land in China, baseball diamonds are rare.I always thought golf courses and baseball diamonds were a waste of good land, but that's just me. I know I'm no fun, readers.
--more--"
Let the rivalry begin, 'eh?
"Union fights China’s grip on green energy; Steelworkers file trade complaint" by Howard Schneider, Washington Post | September 10, 2010
WASHINGTON — The United Steelworkers union launched a broad challenge yesterday against what it alleges is illegal support for China’s growing dominance in the renewable energy industry. The move targets China’s practices in a sector that President Obama has said is central to US economic renewal.
In a filing with the office of the US trade representative, the union asserts that China is steadily seizing world market share in the production of such things as solar panels and wind turbines through an array of subsidies, tax credits, cut-rate loans, and other policies that favor local producers.
Sounds like SOUR GRAPES to me since we DO THAT HERE!!
Then they MOVE to CHINA!
Hey, you are better off anyway, taxpayers.
Those policies violate World Trade Organization rules, the union says, and it is asking the Obama administration to open talks with the Chinese and then pursue the matter with the WTO if those negotiations fail.
“These practices have enabled China to emerge as a dominant supplier of green technology,’’ with an estimated 50 percent share of world solar panel production, said Leo Gerard, the union president. “It’s a direct violation of the obligations China undertook when it joined the WTO.’’
Don't you wish your government would protect your jobs the way the Chinese protect theirs, America?
Related: Chinese Spy Story
China Lets the Sun Shine In
The best disinfectant.
Also see: China says it dealt with pilots’ résumé fraud
Looks like the Chinese won the ball game, too!
