“In 2012, I will add more than 100 dessert kiosks, and operate 600 McDelivery hubs with online ordering. Around 40 percent of the new stores openings will be drive-thru,” said Chan.

“Drive-thru is one of the fastest-growing businesses.” After entering China by opening its first restaurant in Shenzhen in 1990, the fast-food giant has seen rapid development in the country. In 2011, McDonald’s opened a record 200 new outlets in the country.

It now has more than 1,400 restaurants in 26 provinces, autonomous regions and municipalities on the Chinese mainland and aims to expand that network to more than 2,000 outlets by 2013.

McDonald’s lags behind its rival Yum Brands Inc in opening outlets in China. Yum has opened about 4,500 restaurants under brands including KFC, Pizza Hut, East Dawning and the recently acquired Little Sheep.

McDonald’s push to make up ground in China’s fast-growing casual dining market also includes a new ad campaign that hits on heightened anxiety over food safety. From The Wall Street Journal:

The fast-food giant is planning to air a series of television commercials this summer to portray itself as the fast-food brand in China with the best quality. The ads will feature “100% fresh beef” on the chopping block, farmers picking tomatoes from the vine and chickens eating high-quality feed, according to a company spokeswoman.

Ads will air on Chinese TV networks ahead of and during the Summer Olympics in London, of which McDonald’s is an official sponsor and expects to make an impression on a high number of Chinese viewers. “We’re not out to have the most stores in China, but we want to have the highest quality,” Kenneth Chan, chief executive of McDonald’s China, said in an interview Tuesday. A spokeswoman declined to disclose spending.

…

Chinese consumers typically feel that Western food chains use safe ingredients, said Ben Cavender, a senior analyst at China Market Research Group. However, Chinese consumers are weary of food quality in the country after repeated spates of sometimes deadly food-additive scandals and upheavals in which some restaurants were found to cook with oil collected from gutters.

Still, the ad campaign comes as the industry faces increasing scrutiny in China. McDonald’s itself earlier this month said it had never used beef treated with ammonium hydroxide in China, as reports that the company had withdrawn the additive in the U.S. reached the mainland. KFC last year defended its use of powdered soy milk rather than fresh milk after facing online and media criticism, saying the powdered product met quality demands that it couldn’t match with fresh soy milk.

 

© Scott Greene for China Digital Times (CDT), 2012. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: fast food, food safety, foreign investment, kfc, mcdonalds, Olympics, television advertising, Yum Brands
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The City Games, seen as a seedbed for future Olympic champions, features most of the sports on the Olympic Games program, including soccer, basketball, table tennis, tennis, archery, track and field, swimming, diving, judo, kayak, shooting, weightlifting and wrestling.

The medal standings, however, will not be announced during the City Games in order to make sure delegations focus on grooming prospects rather than impressing on such standings.

Young athletes have been encouraged to take part in the competitions to gain experiences for international competitions and even boost their chances of being selected for the future Olympic Games.

In some of the sports, the youngsters will face an uphill task of competing against established athletes like Ye Shiwen, a 15-year-old swimmer who snatched the women’s 200m individual medley title in the world championships held in Shanghai last July.

Many outstanding Olympic champions like Athens Games men’s 110m hurdles champion Liu Xiang, women’s table tennis player Deng Yaping, arguably the all-time great, and diving queen Fu Mingxia, winner of four Olympic gold medals, all used this quadrennial event as a platform en route to their world fame

See additional coverage of China sports, via CDT, including the recent retirement of its longstanding top sports star, Yao Ming, and the recent triumphs of the woman who may be its next star, Li Na.

© Scott Greene for China Digital Times (CDT), 2011. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: Li Na, London, national games, olympic training, Olympics, yao ming
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If it had happened somewhere else, the chaos would have been given a name, such as “chrysanthemum revolution.” Instead, it was described as overnight violence followed by looting in local media.

Probably the only logic is since the chaos happened in the UK, the reaction to it by British media was more muted ….

British media are neither deeply troubled by the ethnic tension in London, nor are they interested to guess the impact it will have on authorities ….

Since economic recovery is a long-term challenge to the British government, there is no need to worry that “economic growth might enlarge the income gap which could mean more unfairness for minorities.”

Other Chinese reports asked what the riots imply about London’s readiness to host the 2012 Olympics. From The Telegraph:

The pictures of burning high-streets and apparently impotent policing astounded many Chinese, who perceive Britain as an enviably genteel – if fading – society where many of China’s new upper-middle classes send their children to elite private schools and universities to be educated.

China, fiercely proud of its smooth staging of the 2008 Olympic Games, which were preceded by widespread and often indiscriminate security crackdown, also wondered out loud if London was still a safe bet to hold the Games.

“The three consecutive days of rioting has spread to east London area where the main sports stadium of London Olympic is located,” observed a report on the state-run Xinhua news agency.

“After the riots, the image of London has been severely damaged, leaving the people sceptical and worried about the public security situation during the London Olympics.”

The BBC’s Sports Editor echoed Xinhua’s sentiments:

… [There] is no question the pictures of the capital burning, which are being beamed around the world, will seriously damage Britain’s and London’s image with a year to go until the Olympics.

And the rioting raises yet more serious questions about the Metropolitan Police’s capacity to secure the Games next summer ….

For the first time we are getting a sense of what it feels like to be at the other end of the lens. How often have we sat here, a year from an Olympics or World Cup, and made judgments on a country’s or city’s capacity to host these big events in the face of local security concerns, financial troubles or whatever else might be happening.

One year from the World Cup in South Africa and a stabbing in Johannesburg could spark questions about whether the whole thing should be called off. Some of this disorder is happening just a mile or so down the road from the Olympic Park. How will foreign athletes hoping to spend two weeks at the Olympic village in Stratford feel watching all this unfold on their televisions?

© Samuel Wade for China Digital Times (CDT), 2011. | Permalink | One comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: 2008 Beijing Olympic Games, London, Olympics, riots, United Kingdom
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Dong Fangxiao was 14 during the Sydney Games, according to an investigation by the International Gymnastics Federation. Gymnasts must be 16 during the Olympic year to compete.

“Young gymnasts cannot be manipulated,” FIG president Bruno Grandi said.

A second gymnast on the 2000 squad, Yang Yun, also was suspected of being underage. But there was insufficient evidence her age had been falsified, and FIG said it was giving her a warning.

…Zhang Haifeng, the Chinese Olympic Committee’s press attache at the Vancouver Games, called the decision an “old story.”

“That was in 2000. Now is 2010,” he said. “This was 10 years ago.”

Questions were raised about the age of gold medalist He Kexin and other gymnasts who competed in the 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing.

© Sophie Beach for China Digital Times (CDT), 2010. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: gymnastics, Olympics
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A demand by China that the Zimbabwean government “behave” in the run-up to the Olympics lies behind Robert Mugabe’s surprise decision to open negotiations with the opposition.

Beijing put pressure on Mr Mugabe to begin talks because of fears that the continuing crisis in Zimbabwe risked overshadowing the Olympics, according to government and diplomatic sources.

China’s leaders, who have have long enjoyed a close relationship with Zimbabwe’s beleaguered president, feared growing protests in the run-up to the Games and so leaned on Mr Mugabe to agree to the historic talks which began on Thursday.

Their move came after Russia and China together infuriated the West by blocking a United Nations Security Council attempt to impose sanctions on members of the Zimbabwean regime.

[...]

“China exerted diplomatic pressure on Harare for the protection of their own interests in this country, given the threat and risks of their economic investments under a new government. This explains the sudden change of heart by Mugabe. This is all choreographed.”

The Chinese ambassador to Zimbabwe is understood to have told Zimbabwean foreign affairs officials in Harare that his government expects Mr Mugabe’s administration to “behave” and help dampen international outrage over the recent elections.

[...]

One diplomatic source said: “Mugabe was told in clear terms by his Chinese friends that he has to behave and act in a way that will silence the international community.

China does not want a situation in which the Olympics will be snubbed.

© Matthias Giessler for China Digital Times (CDT), 2008. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: Africa, mugabe, Olympics, Zimbabwe
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The pledge came as the city was again blanketed in a thick haze, with temperatures at the Olympic stadium in the low 30s.

Du Shaozhong from the Beijing Municipal Environmental Protection Bureau says air quality has been improving.

The city implemented new controls a week ago to reduce the number of cars on the roads.

Cars with odd-numbered plates can drive only on odd-numbered days.

A number of heavy-polluting factories have also been shut down for the duration of the games.

Yet despite the measures, the pollution index for the city has been increasing in recent days.

Mr Du says “extreme weather” is to blame.

© Ying Jiang for China Digital Times (CDT), 2008. | Permalink | One comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: China, environment, Olympics, pollution
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Scientists are primed to launch rockets to stop it raining on the opening ceremony parade on August 8.

August in Beijing is among the wettest months, typically about 180mm of rain and a downpour every three days.

China leads the world in “weather modification” – particularly in the practice of cloud-seeding.

China’s Bureau of Weather Modification is a sprawling department with enough arsenal to put our army to shame: 30 aircraft, 4110 rocket launchers and 6781 anti-aircraft guns.

China’s anti-algae army, meanwhile, finally has cleared the Olympic sailing venue of a foul-smelling weed.

© Ying Jiang for China Digital Times (CDT), 2008. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: Beijing, Olympics, weather
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The prosecutor of the International Criminal Court filed genocide charges Monday against Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir, accusing him of masterminding attempts to wipe out African tribes in Darfur with a campaign of murder, rape and deportation.

The filing marked the first time prosecutors at the world’s first permanent, global war crimes court have issued charges against a sitting head of state, but al-Bashir is unlikely to be sent to The Hague any time soon. Sudan rejects the court’s jurisdiction, and senior Sudanese officials said the prosecutor was politically motivated to file the charges.

Luis Moreno-Ocampo asked a three-judge panel at the International Criminal Court to issue an arrest warrant for al-Bashir to prevent the slow deaths of some 2.5 million people forced from their homes in Darfur and still under attack from government-backed janjaweed militia.

Moreno-Ocampo said it was up to the U.N. Security Council to “ensure compliance with the court’s decision.” Achieving unanimous backing for any action will be fraught with problems since two of the council’s members, China and Russia, are Sudan’s allies.

China, which is Khartoum’s biggest arms supplier and a major investor in its oil industry, already had indicated its opposition to an indictment. China’s United Nations ambassador said that any action against al-Bashir may put peacekeepers in Darfur at risk. And since the prosecutor announced his plan to bring charges against al- Bashir, council members met privately, with China and Russia warning that a direct move against the Sudanese president would jeopardize any future peace talks.

With its decision last week to veto a UN attempt to impose sanctions on Zimbabwe’s President Robert Mugabe and with al-Bashir now indicted, China’s overall foreign policy of non-interference and no-strings-attached investments is once again under the spotlight.  In what surely is very bad timing for the Chinese, the indictment comes only one month away from the start of the Olympics.

From the BBC:

Next month’s Beijing summer games have been dubbed the ‘Genocide Olympics’ by Hollywood campaigners.

They accuse China of supplying the Sudanese government with arms to enable it to wage a campaign of violence in Darfur. Stephen Spielberg recently cut his ties with the Olympics over the issue.

Beijing and Khartoum have long had strong political, economic and military ties. Because of this strong relationship, Chinese leaders have traditionally resisted international pressure to use their clout to bring peace to Darfur, where there is conflict between government-backed militias and rebels.

© Matthias Giessler for China Digital Times (CDT), 2008. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: Africa, al-Bashir, Darfur, genocide, Human Rights, Khartoum, Olympics, Sudan
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“As the host nation in Beijing and (with) an economy which has grown very strongly since 2004, the medal ‘target’ of 88 for China according to our model is much higher than its actual medal totals in Athens (63) or Sydney (59),” said John Hawksworth, the report’s author.

China was third in overall medals at Athens 2004, behind first-place United States (102) and Russia (92). China was second in gold medals behind the U.S. in 2004 — 32 to 36.

“The bottom line is that size matters, but it is not everything,” Hawksworth said. “David can sometimes slay Goliath in the Olympic arena.”

PWC’s full table of predictions and an explanation of the survey methodology is available here.

The survey contradicts an assertion by sports official Cui Dalin last year that China would finish behind the US and Russia in the 2008 Games medal count.

© Zhaohua Li for China Digital Times (CDT), 2008. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: lucky numbers, Olympics, United States
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Chinese popular culture is rich with symbolism: It is customary to eat long noodles on your birthday, for example, because they signify long life.

Words that sound like one another, and dates, have an especially powerful attraction; September 18 is a popular day to open a business because the Chinese word for that date “jiu yi ba” (nine one eight) sounds like the phrase meaning “get rich quick.”

August 8 has been regarded as a particularly auspicious date, both for its numbers and for the fact that the Olympic Games, a matter of intense pride to most Chinese, will open on that day. Beijing hospitals say they are expecting a spike in births that day, according to the state-run press, even if it means an even higher number than normal of C-section deliveries.

Parents of prospective “Olympic babies,” however, laid their plans before doubts set in about just how lucky the number 8, or even the Games themselves, actually are.

© Japhet Weeks for China Digital Times (CDT), 2008. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: natural disasters, Olympics, superstition
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