China Uncovered.

Kshatriya87

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China’s ratio of boys to girls is still dangerously high—and it’s the Chinese government’s fault

Premier Wen Jiabao set some new policy priorities in the government work report that he gave today. But he neglected to shake things up on at least one major issue: the one-child policy. “We should adhere to the basic state policy on family planning,” said Wen, in his lone allusion to the matter (pdf, p. 24). There had been promising talk of scrapping the policy, but Wen evidently won’t be the bearer of those tidings.

The policy, which limits urban ethnic-Han couples to a single child, was first implemented in 1979 in large part to offset the population explosion that started in 1949. But the policy has long since outlived any usefulness; research has shown for years that Chinese fertility rates are lower than they need to be to balance out the population. By keeping the policy in place today, the government is imperiling China’s economic growth. The faster-than-expected shrinking of the workforce is driving up labor costs, hurting China’s competitiveness. And the policy exacerbates aging trends that leave China’s future generations bearing the brunt of a disproportionately large retiree population.

But one of the biggest problems it created was China’s yawning gender gap. The cultural preference for boys meant that, for many years, parents used various ways to avoid having a daughter. That meant that many more boys were born than girls; in 2004, the highest year on record, 121.2 boys were born for every 100 girls.
As a result, by 2020, there will be between 30 million and 35 million more Chinese men of marrying age than women.

A new data point sheds some light on how things are going on this front. The People’s Daily just reported that the sex ratio in 2012 fell for the fourth consecutive year (link in Chinese).

Time to sigh in relief? Not really. China still has 117.7 baby boys per 100 girls—and that’s well above the danger zone, says Leta Hong Fincher, a sociology doctoral student at Tsinghua University. (Not to mention the fact that it only just barely fell, from 117.78 in 2011 and and 117.94 the year before that.)

“It’s quite absurd to claim any degree of ‘success’ in decreasing the sex ratio imbalance, when the differences in figures from 2010 through 2012 seem to be mere rounding errors,” Fincher told Quartz. “There’s no disguising the fact that China’s sex ratio imbalance remains an alarming demographic problem.”

While ending the one-child policy wouldn’t change cultural preferences, it would definitely be a first step. But Chinese policy tends to be highly consensus-driven—major reform hardly ever happens without a series of pilot programs first. And even with two-child programs underway in four regions of China for years, disagreement among government leadership has stymied those programs’ expansion, Reuters recently reported.

Academics Wang Feng, Yong Cai and Baochang Gu pinpoint another factor, though (pdf, p. 11). A “main force of resistance to policy change,” they write, is the “huge birth planning apparatus”—the one China created in order to enforce the policy in the first place.
 

HariPrasad-1

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Prostitution in china

http://gochina.about.com/od/tripplanning/a/prostitution.htm

ntroduction
The oldest occupation in the world is illegal but as in most countries, prostitution in China is flourishing. It is relatively easy to avoid ladies of the night if you know what to look for but in some, especially small or locally-run hotels, it can become a nuisance as the room telephone rings at 11pm to see if you would like a “massage”. Here is some information on what to watch out for so you don’t wind up in a sticky situation.

Avoiding Getting Approached
Ladies of the night typically hang around where they think clients will be (and where they have been successful at getting them). These include bars, hotels and massage parlors. I’ll talk about all of these in more detail following. It probably doesn’t need to be said but I’ll say it anyway. You can probably tell if a woman is really interested in you for your personality, or for something else.

Bars and Clubs
We’ve been in some clubs in Shanghai where it seemed like most of the women inside were “working”.
 

HariPrasad-1

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Prostitution plagues China’s budget hotels
By The Beijing News Source:Global Times Published: 2016-4-11 19:42:27
1


Many are familiar with the "calling cards" that get slipped under the doors of hotels. They are a sign that sex is just a phone call and a fistful of bank notes away. Due to the poor management of these hotels, little has been done to effectively prevent this sleazy business from thriving.


The sign of an hourly hotel in Kunming, Southwest China's Yunnan Province. Photo: IC


An April 13 assault in a Beijing hotel in which a pimp attacked a female guest who he mistook for a member of a rival prostitution ring has made headlines, and has also focused public attention on the rampant prostitution in China's budget hotels.

After security camera footage of the attack was released online, it had a huge impact and was watched hundreds of millions of times. Many women have begun to fear for their safety if they stay in these cheap hotels.

Last Friday, the Beijing police closed their investigation and detained five suspects. The police sent out a notice online, saying the attacker worked for a prostitution ring and thought the woman was working with a competitor.

The fact that ads for sex workers are slipped under the doors of hotel rooms is no news to anyone that has ever stayed in a budget hotel. While many hotels and local law enforcement bodies have tried to stop this from going on, the poor security of many hotels means that the practice is as common as ever.

A reporter from The Beijing News went undercover to a few hotels in the capital and called the numbers on a few cards to see the reality of this kind of prostitution.


A woman walks through the corridor of a hotel in Wuhu, East China's Anhui Province. Photo: CFP

Pornography chain Last Wednesday, the Beijing News reporter checked in at a Seven Day hotel in the city's Jingtaiqiao area. He called a number on a card and a man picked up the phone to introduce the "business."

The man said a "regular service" would cost 600 yuan ($93), "white collar woman service" costs 800, and "model service" costs 1,000. The package includes two hours of "bath and massage."

After 30 minutes, a woman called the reporter to tell him that she was in the hotel building. When they met and the reporter told her he just wanted to chat, the woman immediately called a man on the phone who reprimanded the reporter and said "It doesn't matter whether you go through with it or not, you have to pay up front!"

After she left the reporter called another number on a different card, and 20 minutes later, a woman who calls herself "Queen Fan" met with the reporter in the hotel.

She told the reporter she and a couple of other girls are managed by a so-called "chicken head," who introduces customers to women in different districts. She usually serves people in the southern parts of the city and about 40 percent of her business is in budget hotels. But she confessed these hotels aren't "safe" for their business, because there is sometimes a police presence.

"Our boss repeatedly warned us not to go to Haidian district, because there are many undercover police," she told The Beijing News.

Her boss has eight cell phones and receives calls about the "business" every day. The prostitutes are monitored by drivers who transport them to hotels and ensure their safety, and overseeing these drivers there are "chicken heads," who also organize the meetings and take part of their profit. Some prostitutes have never even met their boss.

She said the cards are distributed in many places besides budget hotels, they target sidewalks and cars' windshields. After a customer calls the card, they reach a "chicken head," who deals with them directly or through a mediator.

There are two ways a "chicken head" finds staff, "Queen Fan" said. They reach out to acquaintances or use WeChat to find people nearby, add them and ask whether they want a "part-time job."

"Queen Fan" once took a cosmetics training course. But after she paid thousands of yuan she realized she had been cheated. Then she went into prostitution to recoup her losses.

At midnight, the Beijing News reporter checked in at a Seven Days hotel near Beijing Industrial University in Chaoyang district. When he called a number on a card, the woman gave the phone to a driver.

"We will wait outside when they are working and drive them back when they are finished," said the man. He said he usually drives a girl somewhere every two hours. There are about 10 women in their "company" and he earns about 10,000 yuan every month. Whatever the sex workers earn, they have to share with the "chicken head" and driver.


Calling cards scattered on the street near a Beijing hotel. Photo: IC

Security breach The "porno cards" have their special ways of getting into hotel rooms. Even though many hotels have taken security measures and only allow people to use the building's elevators after they swipe their room keys, it still doesn't prevent people from getting in. They can get in the hallways using the fire-escape stairs and won't be stopped by anyone.

The Beijing News reporter visited 10 budget hotels, including Hanting, Seven Day, and Rujia. Porno cards can be seen easily in these hotels, emblazoned with the words "emotional company," "passionate woman" or "traveling to paradise."

When hotel staff clean rooms and hallways, the most common piece of trash one sees is these cards. Sometimes a few dozen cards can be found on one floor.

"I can often see the distributors when I clean," one cleaner said. He remembers seeing a few young men distributing the cards, and they would run away as soon as they see hotel staff. "We can't stop them anyway. All we could do is clean these cards away."

A security guard at a Seven Day hotel in Chaoyang district tried to stop a card distributer once. He said he was cleaning the cards off the ground while he saw someone in his 20s distributing the cards. When he said he would call the police, the man quickly ran out the door and the guard couldn't catch him.

Police told The Beijing News they've received many phone calls concerning these calling cards. But distributors usually conceal their tracks and they are hard to track down. Even if they are caught, because there's no proof they participate in prostitution, they can only be punished for "disturbing social order," and there's no guarantee the cards won't appear again.


In September 2011, the Beijing government sent over 340 policemen to catch suspects in many hotels. One operation seized more than 60,000 calling cards.

The ease with which these cards are distributed shows how chaotic management is in these cheap hotels, said Wang Xiao (pseudonym), manager a budget hotel.

While visiting, Beijing News reporter found these hotels don't keep strangers out of hallways or stairways.

At a Hanting hotel on the South Third Ring Road, though one must swipe a room key to use the elevator, it's easy to access hotel rooms by stairs. All the hallway doors on every floor are open.

Wang said the shoddy management in these economy hotels is connected with the fact that many are part of a franchise. If the franchisee has enough money, then the company will cooperate with it.

Even though the management and business standards are provided by the parent company, in reality, the franchisees are the boss, Wang said.

"Our company doesn't protect us at all. If these investors ask the company to change managers, we'll be fired immediately," he told The Beijing News.

Furthermore, these investors often want to cut costs and expand the business at the same time.

Wang gave an example, saying that according to his company's standard operating procedure, there should be 20 to 25 staff per 100 rooms. But in reality, in order to reduce costs, many only hire 12 to 16.

The poor security is a direct result of this understaffing. There's not enough eyes to keep watch all the time.

According to the standards, there should be four maintenance and security staff who take rotating shifts to patrol rooms.

But in practice, only two people patrol the hotel, Wang said.

Wang told The Beijing News that a "chicken head" once sought him out and asked whether they could rent a long-term room in the hotel, to make it easier to distribute cards. Because he and his boss both don't like this kind of business, they turned him down.

"But not all bosses think this way," Wang said. Some investors might think this is a good idea to boost business, he added.

Recently, a few incidents have happened in these cheap hotels. Last Wednesday, following the Heyi attack, a woman found a stranger taking a shower in her room in a hotel in Chongqing Municipality. Shocked, the woman demanded to check out and switched hotel.

The Beijing News

https://www.google.co.in/webhp?sour...=1&espv=2&ie=UTF-8#q=plagues meaning in hindi
 

HariPrasad-1

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Prostitution Thriving In China: The Dark Underbelly of Economic Prosperity
BY PALASH GHOSH @GOOCH700 ON 05/07/13 AT 5:12 AM




Officially illegal since the 1949 Communist takeover, prostitution is nonetheless a widespread, mostly underground, industry in China.

Perhaps no other Chinese city is more closely associated with the world’s oldest profession than Dongguan in the Pearl River Delta, located at the vast country’s southeastern corner, near Hong Kong.

According to a report in Hong Kong’s South China Morning Post, some 300,000 sex workers operate in the streets, massage parlors, karaoke bars, saunas and hotels of Dongguan; and up to 800,000 people -- an extraordinary 10 percent of the city’s population – are involved in the sex trade in one form or another.

Aided and abetted by some municipal officials, the sex trade in Dongguan generates as much as 30 percent of the city’s service industry revenues, the Post estimated.

Although prostitution is rife across China, Dongguan has gained the dubious distinction as the country’s “sex capital.”

"Many wives feel anxious whenever their husbands take business trips to Dongguan," the city's ex-party chief, Liu Zhigeng, said in 2009. "It's disgraceful."

Hundreds of thousands of girls and women end up in Dongguan to sell their bodies for one reason or another.

One 28-year-old prostitute calling herself "Luo" told the Daily Telegraph: "I'm married and have a 22-month-old son. My husband doesn't know I work here, nor do my parents."

Luo claimed she was forced into the sex trade after incurring huge debts gambling in the casinos of nearby Macau.

"I have no other option. I will leave this place [brothel] after I earn 20,000 ($3,250) or 30,000 yuan and I'll probably return to the casino to try and win it back," she added.

Another girl named "Tong" from Jiangxi province claimed that she was “tricked” into working as a bar-girl by a friend.

"I had no idea what business was going on here until I came," she said.

Yet another prostitute, Ling Ling, who came from Guizhou, China's most impoverished province, said she turns tricks because it generates more money than toiling on an assembly line at a toy factory.

"I have no choice. I have to support my family," she said.

Indeed, several factors have conspired to make Donnguan a mecca for prostitution – China’s rapid economic growth has attracted hundreds of thousands of migrants from the poor interior of the country to the affluent cities of the coast, desperate to make a decent living; the gender gap between male and female has created an imbalance leading to an army of men without wives who seek sex partners; while Dongguan’s proximity to wealthy Hong Kong also attracts large numbers of deep-pocketed sex tourists.

Dongguan officials, embarrassed by their city’s sleazy reputation, have periodically staged crackdowns on the sex trade.

Earlier this year, Dongguan municipal authorities sought to clean up the city’s image through a public relations campaign to recast the former factory hub as a place of culture, art and modernity. They even produced a promotional film with help from the Discovery Channel of the U.S.

Police and security officials also embarked on a crackdown on brothels and other places where prostitutes ply their trade.

However, despite the best efforts of city fathers and commercial TV directors, prostitution pervades the city of Dongguan.

A report from new.e23.cn (as translated by eChinacities.com) suggests that Donggan’s smut industry is resilient and also highly organized.

A driver who arranges for visitors to find prostitutes in Donnguan told new.e23.cn: "We are a team of about 20 drivers who have contractual agreements with various hotels in Dongguan. We're responsible for picking up clients from Shenzhen and other nearby areas, and make several trips to and from Dongguan each day. … On the weekends we can get as many as 100 clients."

The Post also reported on a Hong Kong-made comedy movie called "Due West," which chronicles the phenomenon of Hong Kong men journeying to Dongguan for sex.

One extra who appeared in the film explained to the Post why so many men cross the waters to Mainland China.

“[We] can never get that [from Hong Kong women],” he said. “Men are egoistic. We need to be respected, and these venues give us the respect that we need. It’s true that I pay for it. It’s a kind of service. It’s fake. But it’s worth it.”

Another Hong Kong "john" explained: “Men are afraid of being controlled. Many Hong Kong women suffer from the ‘princess syndrome.’ They want to tie their men down, but it never works.”

Of course, it is not a happy existence for the prostitutes themselves.

As an anecdote, China Hush reported on a girl named "Ayan," who arrived in Dongguan in 2005 to work at a toy factory at low pay – less than 900 yuan per month. She quit in the middle of 2007 to look for a job with a higher salary. She said she met an older woman named "Axiang" on the street who offered her a job with high wages.

“I thought she was really sincere, and working out here I also needed friends, so I started to trust her,” Ayan said.

She eventually became a prostitute, with Axiang taking the majority of her earnings.

“My first time, [I was] sold to a 40-some-year-old man, he gave me 4,000 yuan, and 200 yuan for the cab,” she said.

“Ever since then, I had to see two to three customers every day -- each time the price was anywhere from 1,000 to 10,000 yuan.”

But soon Axiang and a man seized all of Ayan’s money and sometimes beat her up to keep her under control. Ayan, as afraid of the police as she was of her pimps, eventually returned to her hometown.

In a broader context, a writer for China’s Nanfang blog explained the realities behind China’s huge sex industry.

“With living standards in poor rural areas still well below developed-country standards and wages failing to keep up with inflation, there seems to be a never-ending supply of prostitutes who migrate to China’s larger and wealthier centers looking for money for themselves and their families,” he wrote.

Consequently, the “illegal” trade in human bodies constitutes a significant part of the local economies in many cities.

During a prior government crackdown on Dongguan’s teeming sex industry, local voices expressed skepticism and even outrage over the heavy-handed measures.

“A real crackdown on prostitution would undoubtedly destroy Dongguan's economy amid global recession, and this raises the fear of political distrust of Guangdong [province] authorities by the central government,” economic and political columnist Jin Xinyi said, according to the Post.

“More than 500,000 people could be unemployed if Dongguan clamped down on all brothels, massage parlors, nightclubs, sex hotels, sauna centers and karaoke bars.”

A resident of Changping township in Dongguan told the Post that government crackdowns can never eliminate the city’s prostitution business since some local officials profit from the trade.

“Successful [sex] operators ... have been given important positions at local chambers of commerce and are interviewed in newspapers as public figures,” he alleged.

According to a blog on Lovelove.china.com, China’s enormous prostitution can trace its exponential rise to the economic reforms of leader Deng Xiaoping in the 1980s. It has since developed into a moneymaking industry like any other.

Pan Suiming, a Chinese sexologist and professor at Renmin University, wrote an essay called “Red Light District” in which he equated the prostitution business to legitimate corporations.

“Although the sex industry is still illegal, it already has a formed system and operative mechanism,” he wrote. “Production and distribution of pornography is its advertisement department. The escort services are its exhibition and sales department. The medical treatment of sexually transmitted diseases is its after-sale department. Clients who directly buy sex with money are its core production department.”

Related Stories
Pan has even advocated for the legalization of prostitution.

“China's sweatshops have fostered prostitution because female workers don't have other career opportunities," he told the Post. “Ninety per cent of prostitutes tried to find a factory job before working in the sex industry. Many said they were squeezed by sweatshops. Very few prostitutes said they wanted to return to the assembly lines.”

With money floating around China in magnitudes never seen before – and seemingly available to even the most humble peasant, along with the complicity of some government and police officials – it would appear that prostitution will continue to thrive.


http://www.ibtimes.com/prostitution-thriving-china-dark-underbelly-economic-prosperity-1239731
 

HariPrasad-1

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China sex trade infiltrates international hotels
  • 11 October 2013
  • From the sectionChina
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Media captionJohn Sudworth: "One of them tells me she's 20 years old, and has sex with up to three clients a day"
Prostitution is illegal in China, but the BBC has uncovered evidence of organised prostitution at independently run spas located inside a number of well known, Western-brand hotels, as John Sudworth reports for Newsnight.

The Kempinski Hotel chain calls itself Europe's oldest luxury hotel group. Founded in Germany, now based in Switzerland, it operates more than 70 five-star hotels around the world, including one in the city of Qingdao on China's east coast.

But following the signs to the spa in the basement, along a gloomy corridor, we found little luxury, just a small room from which more than 10 women are bought and sold for sex.

"Do you need them just once, or do you want them to stay overnight?" we were asked by the man on duty.


Image captionStaff working out of a third-party run business inside this building said they could provide up to 10 women for sex
He made it clear that the business was independently run as he could not, he said, offer us an official hotel receipt. But there appeared to be little secrecy about what was on offer.

One of the prostitutes told me that she was 20 years old, had sex with up to three clients a day, and was allowed to keep just 40% of the fee charged.

It is a stark illustration of just how easily reputable foreign businesses in China can become tangled up in vice and criminality.

China's communists once claimed to have eradicated prostitution. Whether they ever succeeded is debatable, although for a period, it was driven from public view.

Today, it is safe to say, the battle has truly been lost.

On paper at least, the ideological sanctimony is undiminished and prostitution remains illegal, but in practice the party rules over a country in which sex is bought and sold on an industrial scale.

Household names
There are an estimated four to six million sex workers in China, hiding in plain sight in the barbers' shops, massage parlours and karaoke bars that can be found pretty much everywhere.

So the allegation that prostitution is thriving inside some hotels in China will not be surprising to anyone with even a passing acquaintance of the travel and tourism industry here.

But our investigation shows for the first time just how far pimps and prostitutes have moved into the international hotel industry, apparently without its knowledge.

With very little effort, we have found the sex trade operating from inside hotels that are household names in Europe and America, seemingly with little fear of detection.


Image captionAt the spa operating in the Ramada Zhengzhou a leaflet was marked with the price for a prostitute
We called dozens of international hotels in China and asked to be put through to their spas.

A BBC colleague, posing as a personal assistant, told the spa receptionists that she was setting up a business meeting for potential clients who expected sex to be available in the chosen venue.

In around 7% of those she spoke to, in cities as far afield as Nanjing and Qingdao on China's east coast and the inland cities of Xian and Zhengzhou, we discovered that prostitution is very easy to arrange.

Using the results of that telephone survey, we then visited some of those hotels and, using the same cover story, filmed what we found on hidden camera.

In Qingdao, as well as what we found in the Kempinski Hotel we found sex on sale in the Intercontinental, part of the British-based hotel chain.

The signs in the spa on the second floor make it very clear that it is not run by the hotel, but is under independent management, and here legitimate massage is clearly the mainstay of the business.

But the spa staff showed little hesitation in telling us that sex could be supplied to those who ask for it. The prostitute herself told us that the bill for her services could be settled at checkout through the hotel main-desk.

Hotel denials
Both the Intercontinental and the Kempinski deny any knowledge of the prostitution we have found.

In a statement, the Intercontinental Hotels Group told us: "Prostitution is strictly prohibited" in all of its hotels, and that third-party run businesses, like the spa, have a "contractual obligation" to abide by that policy.

"Hotel staff have not knowingly been involved in processing bills for prostitution," it said.

The Intercontinental Hotel has now closed the spa.


Image captionA prostitute at the Intercontinental Hotel, Qingdao claimed her services could be paid for via the hotel
The Kempinski Hotel issued a statement saying: "While a spa was originally planned for the hotel, hence the signage in the elevators, the actual facility was never approved nor opened or operated by Kempinski Hotels."

The hotel, it said, is connected to a third-party business through a basement passageway that "cannot be closed off for safety reasons".

We asked the Kempinski why it was that when we called the hotel main desk, asking to be transferred to the massage centre, staff put us straight through to the pimp in the basement.

"Regarding the phone calls I'm afraid that there is no way for us to verify the calls and/or if indeed they were redirected," was the written reply.

The Kempinski group had already decided to pull out of the hotel in Qingdao before our investigation. They will cease to manage it from 15 November, a sign that just a year after it opened something has gone badly wrong.

The third hotel we visited was the Ramada Plaza in the city of Zhengzhou.

Once again, we followed the signs to the third-party-run spa, which was on the sixth floor. Passing a somewhat suggestive poster of a woman at the entrance, we found a massage centre that we were told was available for the use of male customers only.

The man on the reception desk told us that sex could be provided and that more than 20 women worked there. And he handed us a small leaflet on the top of which, handwritten in English, were the words, "Prostitutes 800Rmb" - about £85.

Female guests' warning
In response to our findings the Wyndham Hotel Group, which owns the Ramada brand, said it was looking into the matter and issued a statement which said: "Please know that we are a family-oriented company."

The company told us that while most hotels are run as franchises, "independently owned and operated", they are required to comply with the law and that Wyndham is providing training to help employees "identify and report human exploitation and abuse activities".

But it added, "As long as there are people profiting from tragic practices, we believe no member of the travel and tourism industry can ever guarantee these events will not occur in the future."


Image captionShaun Rein says the Chinese government is likely to crackdown on foreign companies
Few customers who visit the spa in the Ramada Zhengzhou would be left in much doubt about what is on offer there.

Indeed, a group of female travellers who stayed at the hotel earlier this year raised their suspicions in a review posted on the TripAdvisor website. "If you are a woman, don't come and stay in this hotel," it urges readers.

While prostitution might be easy to find in China, prostitutes continue to face danger not just from clients but the police too.

Sophie Richardson is the China Director of Human Rights Watch, which recently called for the Chinese government to remove the criminal sanctions in force against sex workers.

"We've documented torture and other kinds of physical abuses of sex workers, including rape, both by clients and by police," she told the BBC. "Anybody who understands what's at stake here and how vulnerable sex workers can be to these kinds of abuses would want to step up."

Three years ago, one foreign-run hotel was raided and closed by the Chinese police because a karaoke bar in the basement was linked to prostitution.

But now our investigation shows that the widespread use of third-party-run spas means that the sex trade has gained a much firmer foothold than the industry itself appears to realise.

Government scrutiny
Shaun Rein, managing director of China Market Research Group, advises foreign companies operating in China. He said that there is more that some hotels could be doing to keep the sex trade away from their doors.

"The companies should be negotiating with the landlords or the owners of the properties from day one," he said. "They should say that if we're going to run a spa, it can be owned by a third party, but it needs to be managed by our own employees, and we also have to be in charge of the hours, so it closes at nine pm, rather than later."

Mr Rein said that now more than ever, foreign companies in China should be striving to stay clean.

"There's a definite reputational risk for the brands to have hookers in the hotels, especially from the government side because they're going to crack down and go after foreign brands to show the country that they are adhering to the laws," he said. "It's much easier to crack down on a foreign brand than a local one."

A few months ago the British pharmaceutical company GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) found itself on the receiving end of just such a crackdown, accused of paying bribes to boost sales.

It was forced to admit that some of its employees did appear to have broken the law. But many observers wondered why GSK was being singled out when corruption is widely alleged to be endemic in China's domestic pharmaceutical industry.

Now our investigation suggests that the international hotel trade is at least running the risk of handing the government another political opportunity to look tough on foreign business.


http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-24487270
 

HariPrasad-1

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Sex trade goes underground in China's 'sin city'
By Johan Nylander, for CNN
Updated 0211 GMT (1011 HKT) May 26, 2015
Photos: Vice crackdown
This picture taken late on February 9, 2014 shows Chinese police taking away alleged sex workers and clients at an entertainment center in Dongguan, sometimes called China's "Sin City."
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Photos: Vice crackdown
This picture taken on February 9, 2014 shows Chinese police rounding up alleged sex workers and clients. The raids lasted several months and their impact is still being felt more than a year later.
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Photos: Vice crackdown
This picture taken late on February 9, 2014 shows an alleged sex worker and client during a raid on an entertainment center in Dongguan.
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Photos: Vice crackdown
This picture taken on February 9, 2014 shows an alleged sex worker and client during a raid on an entertainment center in Dongguan, in southern China's Guangdong province.
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Photos: Vice crackdown
This picture taken on February 9, 2014 shows a Chinese policeman keeping curious onlookers back during a raid on an entertainment center in Dongguan.
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Photos: Vice crackdown
This picture taken on February 9, 2014 shows workers crouching by a wall during a police raid on an entertainment center in Dongguan. An exposé by China's state broadcaster on rampant prostitution in the country's 'sex capital' Dongguan triggered a huge police operation.
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Photos: Vice crackdown
This picture taken late on February 9, 2014 shows Chinese police taking away alleged sex workers and clients at an entertainment center in Dongguan, sometimes called China's "Sin City."
Hide Caption
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Photos: Vice crackdown
This picture taken on February 9, 2014 shows Chinese police rounding up alleged sex workers and clients. The raids lasted several months and their impact is still being felt more than a year later.
Hide Caption
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Photos: Vice crackdown
This picture taken late on February 9, 2014 shows an alleged sex worker and client during a raid on an entertainment center in Dongguan.
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Photos: Vice crackdown
This picture taken on February 9, 2014 shows an alleged sex worker and client during a raid on an entertainment center in Dongguan, in southern China's Guangdong province.
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Photos: Vice crackdown
This picture taken on February 9, 2014 shows a Chinese policeman keeping curious onlookers back during a raid on an entertainment center in Dongguan.
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Photos: Vice crackdown
This picture taken on February 9, 2014 shows workers crouching by a wall during a police raid on an entertainment center in Dongguan. An exposé by China's state broadcaster on rampant prostitution in the country's 'sex capital' Dongguan triggered a huge police operation.
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Story highlights
  • Dongguan is known as China's sin city
  • Authorities have cracked down on the sex trade
  • But a recent visit suggests it has gone underground

Dongguan, China (CNN)When Han Yulai, a businessman in Dongguan, a town in southern China's manufacturing heartland, had clients in town for a factory visit or trade fairs, he would always offer them what he calls the "Dongguan standard."

In the evening, he'd take them to a KTV, a karaoke entertainment establishment often synonymous with sexual services.
There, a "mamasan" -- a name given to a woman in charge of running businesses at brothels -- would line up a dozen young women, mainly Chinese but also Japanese, Korean and -- the most expensive of all -- Russians.
"You choose one or two, sing and drink and have a bit of fun, and then go to a room upstairs for some 'business.' Not love, only business," said Han, who used a pseudonym as prostitution is illegal in China.
Today, doing that type of business is becoming increasingly difficult.
In February 2014, the government launched a crackdown on the sex trade in Dongguan, which has been dubbed China's "Sin City."
More than 2,000 hotels, saunas and massage parlors that catered to the city's migrant workers and visiting buyers were shut down, according to state media.
Thousands of people were arrested, including suspected operators and organizers of prostitution, alongside high-ranking officials and corrupt police officers. The city's vice mayor, who was also head of the city's public security bureau, Yan Xiaokang, was removed from his posts.

A hotel in a red light district of Dongguan, southern China
The raids lasted several months and their impact is still being felt more than a year later.
Empty red light districts
Indeed, at my hotel, a four-star establishment in the heart of Houjie, one of the red light districts, the massage and sauna floor still remain closed.
So are spas and KTV facilities at other hotels in the area that I visited.
On the streets, not one single "xiaojie" -- the Chinese word for miss that's also slang for prostitute -- is to be seen. In barbershops, often a front for sex services, staff seem to actually focus on customers' hair and nothing else.
Lin Jiang, a professor of public finance and taxation at Sun Yat-Sen University in Guangzhou, estimated that the raids could wipe out out 50 billion yuan ($8 billion) for businesses, including hotels, shops and restaurants. That's a tenth of Dongguan's city revenue in 2014.
He says it's impossible to know exactly what the financial losses were because officials have been too secretive.
"We can only estimate, we can't get the data to prove it."
Lin says the crackdown has caused financial pain in more ways than one. Dongguan's economy has traditionally relied on low-cost manufacturing. Efforts at growing high-end service industries and advanced manufacturing have been hampered by the high profile prostitution crackdown.
"The anti-vice campaign has hurt the city's image and this shadow won't completely disappear," he told
CNN.
Han, the businessman, agrees.
"We absolutely have fewer customers coming to Dongguan now than a year ago."
READ: Police on alert after sex industry crackdown
Going underground
But even if the go-go days of Dongguan's red light district are over, it doesn't mean the sex industry has disappeared. Rather, the trade has gone underground.
Han can no longer openly take customers to KTVs or saunas for the "Dongguan standard," but there are ways of flying under the radar, he said, like having your own contacts with go-betweens and "mamasans."
Getting contacts was far from difficult, as I experienced myself.
Coming back to my hotel one night, I was approached by the lobby boy. "You like massage?" he asked with a cheeky smile.
For 1,000 yuan ($160) I was offered 90 minutes in my room with "two beautiful Chinese girls." He gave me his number.
Right before the lift doors closed, he winked at me and made a risqué hand gesture suggesting a type of sexual service.
A hotel chauffeur also offered his services. As we were driving along a busy highway, he turned back to me and said "anmo, anmo?" -- massage in Chinese -- and made suggestive gestures with his fingers. I said I'd think about it and he gave me his business card.
In less than a day, I had two local pimps at hand should their services be required.


A pharmacy sells viagra in the southern Chinese city of Dongguan.
Social media 'hook-up'
Social media apps are also being used to connect supply and demand, especially China's mainstream instant messaging service WeChat. Since the women can't work at KTVs anymore, some of them instead linger around the building waiting for men to seek out their services.
By searching "People nearby" and selecting "Female only" you get a list of WeChat users in the area. Looking at their profile pictures, it doesn't take much imagination to figure out who's in business.
But using social media services is also getting increasingly difficult as China's Internet regulator is clamping down on sexual content.
Chinese media reports that the sex trade is also believed to have shifted to one-on-one home service and phone appointments and on the streets during my visit, I didn't see any sex workers.
Greater risks
More than 250,000 sex workers were estimated to have worked in Dongguan before the government took action. Critics of the raids say the new underground environment has exposed sex workers to greater risks.
"Sex workers have always been abused by the clients and the police. After the crackdown the situation is the same. They are still subject to violence from these to groups," said Ann Lee, a spokesperson for Zi Teng, a Hong Kong-based sex workers' rights group.
Human Rights Watch said in a 2013 report that sex workers in China are subject to serious abuses, including police violence, arbitrary detention and coercive HIV testing. The police often fail to investigate crimes against sex workers by clients, it said.
Global Times, a newspaper under the Chinese Communist Party mouthpiece the People's Daily, quoted people as saying the crackdown is hurting an already disadvantaged group, and raised the possibility of decriminalizing the industry, "as sexual freedom is arguably a human right."
Lee hopes one day the sex trade could become "just one normal business activity" with healthier control and regulations.
"But in China, that's just a dream. It's still too controversial," she added.
Viagra
Most of the entertainment venues closed by police last year have been allowed to reopen and stricter rules took effect in April, according to Chinese media.
The new rules include: Banning massages in private rooms with locked doors or lights turned off; identifying overnight guests to local police; and banning employees from offering services away from massage parlors.
However, local pharmacies in red light districts continue to display ads for Viagra in their shop windows, with both original and ripoffs for sale.
A pharmacist laughed when asked if there's still demand for the potency pills after the crackdown. "Yes," he said, "Especially at night time."
CNN's Shen Lu in Beijing contributed to this report

http://edition.cnn.com/2015/05/25/asia/china-sin-city/
 

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Three failure in last less than an year.

https://www.theverge.com/2017/7/3/15913448/chinese-rocket-long-march-5-failure-moon-mission

http://edition.cnn.com/2017/07/02/asia/china-rocket-launch/index.html

One more failure.

https://spaceflightnow.com/2017/06/...-ends-up-in-wrong-orbit-after-rocket-failure/

Chinese tried to do an ISRO by live telecast of launch which had to be aborted because of satellite failure.

Morale of the story: Do not try to copy when you are not as capable as the nation who you copy.
 

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