Eric's Beijing Diary

The United States currently has a $200 Billion trade imbalance with China. What this means is that every five years, the U.S. hands China a trillion dollars. China is using part of this money to buy airplanes. Lots of them. The rest of the money is being used to buy the U.S. government, among other things. Anyway, given China's voracious appetite for passenger planes, the competition between Boeing and Airbus is heating up. Boeing owned the market until recently, but Airbus is going all out to grab a 50% market share. The French company has recently invested $80 million in a corporate office/training center in Beijing. Boeing complains that Airbus is able to do this because of subsidies. Old argument. True or not, Airbus' generosity is paying off. Last December, China ordered 150 Airbus 320's. I flew one of them yesterday from Changsha to Beihai. Nothing against Boeing, but I'll have to say the 320 is a comfortable plane. I can see why it is a strong competitor. But China seems to want to keep both big companies happy. Last fall, when Bush visited China, an order was placed for 70 Boeing jets, with options for 80 more in the future. Do the math. Eighty plus seventy...seems like China wants to keep things about half and half. So China is buying three hundred big birds, and is projected to buy 2500 more in the next 20 years. That means China will be doing this again every two or three years. Needless to say, air travel is increasing. And with it, the increase of businesses, legitimate and otherwise, that are trying to cash in on the bonanza. No less than three of them accosted me at the airport in Beijing before I got on the plane. I was ready for them. But it still irritated me. The first time this happened to me, I was fooled for just a minute. Last year I went to the airport for a flight to Dalian. A lady dressed neatly in a blue official looking suit stepped up and politely asked for my ticket and passport. It didn't take me long to realize that she was a huckster. She did a swift job of taking me through the process of getting checked in, and taking me to the security gate, then politely asked for 10 yuan (about $1.25). I didn't give her a dime. For a complete stranger to take my passport under the pretense of official position is an unspeakable abuse of trust. I was quite angry, but I tried to tell her as calmly as I could that I did not request her help, and I wasn't going to pay for it. If you come to China, do not give these guys money. They are criminals, and fraud is fraud. I have the greatest sympathy for working folks (such as bicycle mechanics) who are just trying to get some honest work. But this kind of thing is very different. They will ask to see your ticket. Don't show it to them. Just tell them very firmly that you are not interested.

I landed in Beihai just before midnight last night. Dr. Chen from the college picked me up, and took me to one of those roadside restaurants that was still open at this unlikely hour. I had miscalculated. I thought there would be dinner on the plane, but I guess a flight that doesn't leave until 7:30pm only merits a snack. So I was hungry. And the food was good. Sea food is abundant here in Beihai. Beihai is a small resort community situated on the Gulf of Tonkin, just off the northeast tip of what used to be North Vietnam. The college is a semi-private institution affiliated with Beihang University. The buildings have appeared out of the rice fields in just the past two years. I don't know the whole story, and perhaps this is an oversimplification, but I have surmised that this is one of the many private institutions that have sprung up around China to accommodate the needs of students who, for one reason or another did not score highly on the National Entrance Exam, but whose parents have enough money to pay for an alternative. The up side to this is that schools like this tend to soften the harshness of the National Entrance Examination, because it provides another pathway for students who, under the old system, would be "out in the cold." The down side is that teaching this caliber of student may be a bit more challenging, (in part because their English proficiency may not be quite as good). Beihang University in Beijing doesn't admit students who score below the 98th percentile on the National Entrance Exams. Whatever the case may be, these are some very delightful young people. I think I am going to enjoy working with them.