1 Talking Point 6 Week in 60 Seconds 7 Property Week in China 8 Agriculture 9 Auto Industry 11 Economy 13 China Consumer 14 China and the World 23 January 2015 15 Society and Culture Issue 267 19 And Finally www.weekinchina.com 20 The Back Page Road rage www.benitaepstein.com China’s taxi strikes are about more than Uber. They’re linked to a broader push to reform the Chinese economy Brought to you by Week in China Talking Point 23 January 2015 Driving reforms Why debates on taxi deregulation have gained nationwide attention Flying pickets: cabbies in Nanjing surround a driver who has declined to join their strike t was King Charles I who – The Knowledge – was introduced than 12,000 London cabbies went Ilaunched the world’s first taxi to make sure that cabbies were ex - on strike in protest against the service in 1638. Royal permission perts on the capital’s addresses. boom in unlicenced cabs. was given for 50 hackney carriages The Knowledge has since ac - Transport regulators in China, to “ply for trade” in London, al - quired a reputation as the world’s too, are embroiled in a heated debate though they were prevented from most difficult driving test, making about whether to deregulate the taxi carrying passengers on trips of less London’s taxi drivers almost as fa - industry. Meanwhile protests by cab than three miles. mous as the iconic black cabs that drivers have threatened to paralyse In 1833 restrictions on the num - they drive. major Chinese cities. ber of hackney carriages were re - But the 165-year system is now moved and the cab fleet kept being threatened by technology – How disruptive are the Chinese expanding until London’s Great Ex - such as the advent of satellite navi - taxi strikes? hibition of 1851. Dismayed by com - gation and Google Maps. Hailing Media reports on the taxi strikes are P h o t o plaints from visitors that drivers apps such as Uber, which allow free - being censored on a sporadic basis S o u r c didn’t know where they were going, lance drivers with smartphones to and the scale of work stoppages is e : I m a a stern police commissioner de - link up with passengers, are also difficult to establish. What is g i n e C cided that it was better to regulate threatening to force black cabs off known, however, is that protests by h i n a after all. A strict topographical test the roads. In June last year more cab drivers have been growing 1 Week in China Talking Point 23 January 2015 Time to scrap the existing system? across a numbe of major cities this There were reports that some driv - make room for hailing apps in month. Guangcha, a portal for in - ers refusing to take part in the stop - China’s biggest taxi markets. dependent news commentators, page were assaulted, although local has even described the protests as authorities later claimed that police Why the road rage? the “biggest labour strike ever in the had arrested those involved in these News about the increasing threat transport industry”. violent acts and that most cabs were from online hailing services seems The first stoppage was reported back on the roads by January 15. to have prompted many of the in Shenyang, the capital city of But discontent spread. About strikes. Following Baidu’s $600 mil - Liaoning province, earlier this 8,000 taxis in Changchun were lion investment in Uber (reportedly month (see WiC265), with the parked in protest, as their drivers for a 1.5% stake) last month, each of Global Times admitting that “thou - demonstrated outside the offices of the country’s top three internet sands of taxi drivers” refused to the city government. firms is positioned to compete in take passengers in a one-day In Chengdu and Wuxi, photos the cab trade. Tencent and Alibaba protest at “illegal vehicles using car- from weibo accounts show angry have invested heavily in their own hiring apps”. drivers parking their vehicles in taxi booking services, Didi Dache Other cab drivers staged their long lines in an attempt to block and Kuaidi Dache respectively (see own protests. Hong Kong’s Oriental traffic. Riot police were called in as a WiC226). Daily reported this week that at precaution. Taxi-hailing apps are the latest in least 10 cities from nine provinces Local governments in top-tier a long list of grievances for the li - had seen stoppages and that the in - cities such as Beijing, Shanghai and cenced drivers, some of whom are dustrial action was threatening to Shenzhen seem to have prevented being described in the media as sprawl into an unprecedented na - similar disruption by announcing modern-day “camel lads” – a refer - tionwide campaign. conciliatory measures to crack ence to the overworked and under - The biggest demonstration so far down on “illegal taxis” supported by paid lead character in Rickshaw Boy , P h o t o happened in Shandong’s Jinan, online booking services. a novel by Lao She that’s considered S o u r where more than 70% of the city’s However, government bosses are a twentieth century literary classic. c e : R e 10,000 licenced cab drivers under mounting pressure from in - Taxi markets in most cities are u t e r s protested for two consecutive days. ternet firms and consumers to dominated by a handful of firms, 3 Week in China Talking Point 23 January 2015 typically state-owned enterprises under the local government. As a Planet China result, new competitors are rare. In Strange but true stories from the new China Beijing, for instance, two compa - nies control about 66,000 offi - cially licenced taxis. In spite of HERO TO ZERO. Aren’t heroes supposed to be unforgettable? Last week a Beijing’s tremendous population woman was spotted standing naked on a riverbank in Nanjing in Jiangsu growth over the past two decades, province, before jumping into the river. Despite the freezing water, a young these companies have only upped man dived in to save her. Once the girl was pulled out of the water, taxi numbers by 10% since 1994. bystanders rushed to help her. But no one seems to have remembered the (Only 1,157 Beijing taxis are op - rescuer himself. Pictures that went viral on weibo show him having to climb erated by private individuals, unassisted up a steep ledge out of the river. “Everyone was watching the mostly on licences granted before naked woman, but no one lent a hand to the rescuer,” one netizen wrote. 1994.) But the story gets worse. The Good Samaritan, a local student, wrote on his Supply-and-demand basics sug - personal weibo that after he had managed to drag himself back to shore, he gest that this should be a good sit - found that his wallet and smartphone had been stolen from his trousers, uation for the drivers. But they are which he had removed before jumping into the water. However, our hero took this philosophically: “I comfort myself, that to save one life is better than also required to pay monthly fran - building a seven-story pagoda… It’s still worth it.” chise fees to work for these local monopolies. Drivers in Beijing and Guangzhou pay about Rmb5,000 collective frustrations have been bad press too. “The present system ($815) a month, for instance, al - brewing for a while. Aside from the was designed to regulate the num - though fees for newer and larger ve - franchise fee issue, they gripe about ber of vehicles on the road. It has hicles can cost Rmb9,000. And fines from overzealous traffic cops, now evolved into an exclusive while these fees have been going up, and fuel costs. profit chain between local govern - fare levels have not kept pace. Be - ments and taxi companies,” Nan - cause drivers have to take care of ex - Is the public sympathetic? fang Daily complained. penses like repairs and fuel, In rows of this type, the general pub - Beijing News also weighed in: monthly incomes can be pitiful. lic usually stands with the protest - “Drivers make more money with Many “camel lads” work for 14 hours ers against local officialdom. But in the hailing apps. Passengers get a most days and the first eight hours the current case there is little sign of cab more easily. It is a win-win sit - of earnings go to their taxi compa - the drivers getting much wider sup - uation. Why not?” nies, one driver told Xinhua. port. Mostly that’s due to the poor Surprisingly it was some of the “I get up before 6am every morn - service on offer in many cities. With leading voices from the official ing and sit for about 14 hours a day, such limited supply, hailing a cab in media that led the charge against only to get Rmb2,000 a month. peak hours can prove a dreadful vested interests in the industry, in - That’s unbearable,” another driver experience. Beijing was even voted cluding the People’s Daily, which in - from Nanjing told the China Daily. the world’s second-worst spot for sisted that it was time to “break up Private car owners working with taxi services last year (trailing only the profiteering taxi monopolies” hailing app Didi Dache give 20% of Moscow) by 54,000 TripAdvisor after the unrest in Shenyang. It fol - each ride’s fare to the internet firm travellers. lowed up with two further com - but can earn as much as Rmb5,000 “Striking taxi drivers should look mentaries over the next two days, a month by working only three to in the mirror,” a guest columnist as well as nine articles on its weibo five hours a day, according to re - told Century Weekly this month.