Aug. 21 - In our third look at Olympic cities, we focus on Tianjin, Beijing’s next door neighbor, and a powerful city in its own right. Second only to Beijing and Shanghai, Tianjin is deserving of its own provincial status; the local government here reports to the central government, not a provincial one. The city has invested close to US$1 billion in its own Olympics facilities, which have been home, like Shenyang, to the Olympic soccer matches. The new stadium holds 60,000, and includes six levels of seating, conference facilities in addition to minor sporting venues.

Tianjin is another ex-treaty port, with extensive German influences. As the main port servicing Beijing, it has also developed a large manufacturing base, with TEDA being one of the best known and better developed business zones in the country. China’s third largest port, Tianjin is also strategically important as being the distribution gateway for products manufactured in West China—its extensive rail links connect it directly to Xinjiang province. (more…)

Aug. 19 – Qingdao, the ex-German treaty port, is now in the heart of its own Olympics events as it hosts the yachting races and speed trials for the Beijing Summer Games. Hampered somewhat by the seasonal lack of wind—some days racing has had to be canceled, and events left potentially open to just one heat for medals—the traditional sailing nations have fared well, particularly for Britain and Australia.

Yet, when we surveyed the city for infrastructure issues in handling the yachting events, it seemed problematic, as we reported nearly three years ago. Additional problems with the cities lack of sailing expertise had created numerous embarrassments—no appreciation for the tidal surge here (it’s a whopping seven feet), issues over gantry cranes to lift yachts out of the water that require removal of center masts—which had all been highlighted as areas of concern by Dezan Shira & Associates to the city government. (more…)

BEIJING, Aug. 7 - Beijing’s gross domestic product is expected to break the RMB1 trillion mark this year thanks to its hosting of the Olympic Games, said the deputy director of the city’s development and reform commission.

Wang Haiping, deputy director of the Municipal Development and Reform Commission said that the Games had kept Beijing’s economy strong, helping the city achieve “sound and fast economic development.”

Beijing’s GDP grew 12.3 percent in 2007 to stand at RMB900 billion, twice that of 2001 when it won the bid to host the Games, Wang said. The city has seen an average annual GDP growth of 12.4 percent. (more…)

TIANJIN, Aug. 5 - Under Tianjin’s current campaign for development, plans are underway to launch accelerated industry enhancement, improve scientific and technological innovation, and enhance the local living standard and overall domestic economy.

As a key player, the Tianjin Economic and Technological Development Area (TEDA) is reforming the Tianjin Binhai New Area (TBNA), located on the eastern coast of Tianjin. In addition, TEDA also supports innovative change in executive management, state-owned companies, and social matters.

Established in 1984, TEDA is one of China’s first state-approved and national-level development areas as well as one of three functional zones of the Binhai New Area. (more…)

BEIJING, July 29 - The dull boom of shells being fired in the layers of smog hanging the city echoed through streets around midnight last night as Chinese meteorologists attempted to improve the air over Beijing.

A battery of artillery fired shells into the air for about 30 minutes, giving rise to occasional lightning. The practice, which has long been considered controversial, is a last ditch attempt by China to remove the dense smog that has engulfed the city the past week, cutting visibility down to just 50 yards in some places, making buildings appear ghostly and wraith-like in the haze. By 10 a.m. today, the situation seemed to have improved, with visibility extending about a kilometer and the smog having lifted considerably. (more…)

BEIJING, July 21 - Beijing opened three new subway lines on Saturday to facilitate better transportation during the upcoming Olympics. The opening of the new metro lines represents yet another effort to combat the notoriously polluted air of the capital before the Games start in August.

The city has already enacted numerous efforts as to ease traffic issues. For example, a new law also went into effect Sunday that restricts driving private cars to alternate days through an odd- and even-numbered license plate system. Special Olympic road lanes, too, have been designated for the use of vehicles serving the Games. Measures such as these are crucial when a city has 3.3 million vehicles, increasing by over a 1,000 daily. (more…)

BEIJING, July 6 - The U.S. Internal Revenue Service is opening an office and place an attaché within the U.S. Embassy in Beijing.

The office, which will open “by the end of the 2008 fiscal tax year” according to Barry Shott, the deputy commissioner for the large and midsize business division, will focus on the Asia-PAcific region serve countries including Australia, New Zealand, Pakistan, India, Sri Lanka, South Korea, and Japan in addition to China.

The office “will be the face of the IRS in the Far East,” says Shott. The creation of the post is an agency response to the growing importance of the Asia-Pacific markets.

The IRS has already established overseas offices in London, Frankfurt and Paris, and this latest move is seen as an acceptance of the growing importance of developing relationships between foreign governments’ state tax departments and the co-sharing of tax data on both American individuals and multinational earning money overseas. It has not been uncommon elsewhere for U.S. businesses abroad to face visits from IRS officials.

For more information on filing taxes in the United States while living overseas, please visit the IRS website.

U.S. expatriates in China requiring advice over the paying of individual income tax in China and the implications of maintaining part U.S. paid salaries, or for the consolidation of China based accounts to U.S. GAAP standards, please contact tax@dezshira.com.

July 1 - The July/August issue of China Briefing magazine is out now and available for download (click on the image - subscription required, however this is complimentary).

In this issue, we take an in-depth look at Beijing, concentrating on the reemergence of the capital as the nation’s financial center. The development of Beijing’s Financial Street has largely escaped the mainstream press. Yet, astonishingly, an entirely new district, has sprung up west of Tiananmen Square. The implications for China’s financial services industry are huge. Home to government regulators, China’s largest banks, and serious global players such as JPMorgan, HSBC, and Goldman Sachs, the new wealth and power base that has been created here is astounding. We look at the history of the area, at why the shift has occurred, provide maps and guides to what’s where, and interview some of the key players.

Included in this issue:

Why Beijing’s Financial Street has the upper hand over Hong Kong and Shanghai
The global financial institutions that have already arrived
The application procedures for a banking license in China
China’s other financial centers: Hong Kong, Shanghai, Shenzhen and Taipei
China’s futures and commodity exchanges

By Jennifer Wu

June 12 - Multi-colored snow art and illuminated ice sculptures greeted visitors from near and far at the Harbin Ice Festival. Held in the capital of Heilongjiang province, the annual festivities bring together everyone from ice sculpture artists and experts to fans and tourists alike. The snow and ice that draws so many tourists also helps to obscure the region’s industrial past, concealing what has become in recent years China’s largest rust belt. After years of neglect, the region is again seeing renewed government interest and incentives aimed at transforming this former industrial center into a viable economic region.

Once known as the cradle of industrialization in the 1950s, Northeast China saw its importance diminish as the country’s market-oriented reforms took hold in the late 1970s. In the last few years, the old industrial base has been on the rise again, as the government pours money and resources in. Today, the region, which consists of Heiongjiang, Jilin, and Liaoning provinces, is expected to transform into the China’s fourth economic engine, after the Pearl River Delta, the Yangtze River Delta, and the Beijing-Tianjin area. (more…)

BEIJING, June 12 - Beijing has seen massive development in the last 20 years. International five-star hotels, Oriental plaza, Wangfujing, the central business district, SoHo, the Shangri-La-owned China World Complex, and many others area of note, all have sprung up on the east side of the city. All of this development on the east side of Beijing has meant that Tiananmen Square is no longer the center of the city. This has been a major issue now for some time amongst city planners and the traditional Chinese feng shui experts who are concerned about city harmony and the traditions of old Beijing.

Historically, the western side of Beijing was reserved for nobility. Minor royalty, advisors to the court, favored artisans, painters, poets and other artists all lived to the west. Only new money, merchants, and other lower ranks lived in the east, giving rise to the local Beijing backhanded saying: “The people living in the east are the wealthiest, while people living in the west are the most traditionally noble.” (more…)