Thermal reactors currently contributed about 380 GW (gigawatts) of global electricity 
supplies, or 15% of total electricity production, which was due to grow by at least four times to about 1.5 TW (terawatts) by 2040. In line with this growth scenario, global ura-
nium consumption would rise from 69 000 tons/year 
at present to about 285 000 t/y by 2040. China’s electricity production, a key driver of Australia’s uranium industry, was scheduled to reach between 2 TW and 3 TW by 2050, with global needs in the region of 10 TW.

Over the next six months, another 24 of the 'natural uranium equivalent' (NUE) bundles will be used in two of the reactor's fuel channels. If successful over a one-year trial, this practice could help China get more energy from its imported uranium and reduce stocks of highly-radioactive used nuclear fuel at the same time.

Michael Pettis is a professor at Peking University’s Guanghua School of Management, where he specializes in Chinese financial markets, and a Senior Associate at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

* A revaluation shifts wealth from the Chinese government and the manufacturing sectors (and some wealthy Chinese) to Chinese households — which, by the way, is pretty much what is meant by “rebalancing” in the Chinese context.

* There are many other ways besides revaluation to shift income this way. The PBoC can raise deposit rates, wages can rise faster than productivity, companies can be privatized by giving away shares to the public, and so on. They all have the same effect. They shift resources to households and away from producers, infrastructure investment, and real estate developers. This allows household income to grow relative to national income, which ultimately increases the consumption share of GDP.

* rebalancing cannot happen too quickly without risking throwing the economy into a tailspin.

Each of the one-gigawatt reactors will cost as much as 14 billion yuan ($2.1 billion), Mu Zhanying, general manager of the state-run China Nuclear Engineering Group, said in an interview in Beijing today. Under the original plan announced in 2005, China was to spend 400 billion yuan to add 40 gigawatts of nuclear capacity by 2020 to help reduce reliance on more polluting coal and oil. The capacity will exceed 70 gigawatts by then under the revised plan, Wang Binghua, chairman of the State Nuclear Power Technology Corp. It would take 50 months to build one reactor, according to Mu.

Now that Google is pulling its search and advertising from China, and its over 1.3 billion people, there's only one significant platform remaining available for Web dominance and that's Baidu. If you've considered getting into China (as much as you can get into it) then we've put together a quick guide to SEO (search engine optimization) for your review.

Keyword Research
Any sophisticated search advertising or search engine optimization campaign is going to start with an in-depth round of keyword research. While it is probably best to hire a vendor/company with both translation and interpretation experience, there are fortunately some free online keyword research tools that you will be able to bootstrap with and use for Chinese translation.

Baidu's PPC management platform Search Marketing Pro (also known as Phoenix Nest) should be your first step in conducting Chinese keyword research. Baidu's platform is similar to others you are likely familiar with, offering daily budget features, keyword (and negative) keyword matching, ad rotation, geo-targeting, day parting and of course a keyword suggestion tool and bid estimator. The keyword tool from Baidu offers related keyword suggestions based on the core keywords you submit and provides them for download in a spreadsheet.

You may be saying to yourself, "Hey, what about Alibaba?" and you'd be wise to do so. Alibaba is a leading trade portal and one of our secondary focus points as it should be yours. Its keyword suggestion tool (Alibaba Wangxiaobao) is particularly useful for those in wholesale and trade businesses as Alibaba users tend to buy in bulk.

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the most popular print publication on Web success.

Editors Note: Install East Asian Language Files on Your Computer
I quickly learned that most of those in the English-speaking world, myself included, are not able to view Chinese characters without modifying our systems. The solution for Windows users is to install supplemental language support from your control panel. Doing so will enable you to see Chinese, Japanese and Korean language files, but at a cost of 230MB of disk space. Should you choose the install, open Regional and Language Options, click Start, click Control Panel, click Date, Time, Language, and Regional Options, and then click Regional and Language Options.

SEO Techniques
Unlike the complexity of search engine optimization for Google, Baidu offers a much more accessible challenge. Some of the core differences are that Baidu places more emphasis on meta information such as titles, descriptions and keywords. Alt tags are also weighted heavily, but the quantity of links is the key difference, as Google focuses more on the quality. Other techniques, including the use of heading tags and internal/external anchor text, should also be an area of focus.

If you just can’t seem to get your site added by the baidubot, you are able to submit directly using the Baidu Site Submit. For those interested in speeding up the process even more and getting some universal content into the index too, then it will be the Baidu Search Open Platform that will warrant your attention. Baidu’s open platform accepts XML data submission that may appear among the organic search results. The open platform requires developers/webmasters sign up and verify ownership (through file upload or meta tag verification) of the site, and submit a personal identity document.

One quick note on content and usability: Due to some speed and performance issues of the Baidu crawler, it has been suggested that writing in the reverse pyramid style (i.e. most important information at the top, preferably with a strong call to action) will result in higher positions, as often one the first few hundred kilobytes are indexed. This means you should keep design elements and content separate through CSS.

Chinese Domains, Hosting & Web Design
There are several important considerations when it comes to designing a website for Chinese users. In a perfect world you would have a Chinese domain extension as well as a Chinese hosting provider. Unless you’ve got some internal connections in China, however, it is best to start your search for hosting in Hong Kong, Taiwan or Singapore.

Finally, you'll want to make sure your pages have the appropriate content type indicated (see an example below) and avoid the use of robots.txt, focusing instead on modifying the .htaccess file instead.



This is far from a comprehensive guide for search engine optimization for China. What it does provide is quick but key insight into what you’ll need to consider if one of your objectives is total Chinese domination. Keep it light (no porn or gambling) and informational and you’ll make your mark in the land of the rising sun.

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Request a professional subscription to Website Magazine,
the most popular print publication on Web success.

The government has nearly finished the construction of a high-speed rail route from Beijing to Shanghai at a cost of $23.5 billion — almost equal to the price of the entire Three Gorges hydroelectric dam project on the Yangtze River. The authorities recently disclosed that they had 110,000 workers laboring to finish the route as quickly as possible.

Two lines to Europe are reportedly being considered under the proposals, one passing through India, Pakistan, and the Middle East, while a second would head to Germany via Russia. Exact routes are currently undecided however. A third line would extend south from China to connect Vietnam, Thailand, Burma and Malaysia.

The growth in 2010 would rely less on government stimulus spending, the main force driving the 8.7 percent growth in 2009. China would continue to bolster its economy through government-led investment, but on a much smaller scale, the report said.

Thanks to an impressive recovery early this year and a pickup in the global economy, exports are likely to grow for the whole year and contribute to the economic growth. However, uncertainties remain for later this year.

Another major boost for China's economy this year comes from the real estate sector, which is likely to add significantly more to growth than in 2009 as it begins to rebound.

Many of the brands I work with are extremely interested in the Chinese market. With a burgeoning economy and a billion people, it's easy to understand why. In fact, one of my clients got back from China just in time to fly to Austin for this conference. Her description of the differences was fascinating.

So if we're going to want to look at social media marketing for the Chinese market, we need to understand social media in China. That's why I attended "Social Media and China: Different than You Think" at SxSW. The panelists included:

• Jacqui Zhou from Dell
• Benjamin Joffee from Plus Eight Star; and
• Sam Flemming from CIC

Social Media Penetration

While the Internet population in China exceeds that of the United States, the initial question was about socia media usage, and whether or not it's popular. And it is. There are 221 million blogs, 117 million BBS and 176 million social network users. While Facebook is blocked, most people use a local Chinese social network, QZone, which was built by Tencent.

Note the Bulletin Board System reference there. While they are called that in China, they are not a throwback to the 1990 BBS systems in the US. You can upload pictures, video and more, in an anonymous forum, and it's among the most popular ways to spend time. And chatter about brands is more likely to take place on BBS than anywhere else. The most popular platforms are listed below, showing clearly that people have multiple accounts as there are only about 400m online users in China:

• Tencent (1B+, 485m active)
• Qzone (310m)
• RenRen 200m (50m mobile)
• Kaixin001 (75M)
• 51.com (160m)

What Do People Do Online?

272 million on instant message, 222 million on online video, 108 million on online shopping (The market leader beat eBay and chased them from the market), 265 million on online gaming and 321 million using online music.

Looking at the social technographics ladder, America has 21% of people who create original content, while China has 40% of people who create content. That's a very significant difference. While the inactives are equal (25% of each population), and people in the US are more likely to join social networks than Chinese (25% to 23%), the large percentage of creators is potentially interesting from a marketing standpoint.

Zhou noted the difference between the stereotype that Asians are less likely than Americans to speak directly and wondered if anonymous BBS systems are popular as a result. Flemming agreed, but noted that it's also a reaction to a media system that isn't fully objective. So the people spread the word themselves through many of these social systems. Virtual currency (at QQ, pictured above) is so popular that it's now taxed by the government. That's a shocking sign of its ubiquity.

What Are they Talking About?

By industry, the chatter varies dramatically. In order of declining popularity, conversations center around

1. Automobiles (~13m)
2. Mobile phone (~7m)
3. Sports (~3m conversations)
4. Computer
5. Baby products
6. Cosmetics
7. Healthcare

Flemming is finding that these conversations are changing the way people buy cars. His friend went online and asked if anyone wanted to buy the same car as her so they could get a discount. Two weeks later, 55 people went into the same dealership and bought 55 cars together. Needless to say, they got a very good deal by using this "group purchase" concept. Not surprisingly, mentions of "group purchase" in China have grown dramatically over the last two years.

Chatter around the Ford Focus found that more than half of people discussing the car didn't use the official brand name. They instead used a popular nickname for the car. Absent that local knowledge, the conversation tracking system could be set up incorrectly. In fact, a whole new language called Mars language has been created online and many people use them to speak both online and off. (I'd hate to have to build a monitoring system to track a made up language.) These slangs and languages are so pervasive that the university system had to ban the use of net slang in entrance exams.

China Learned from Korea and Japan

Joffe noted that China learned a lot from Korea and Japan. Korea's popuar Cyworld and Japan's Mixi, MobileGameTown and Gree (all of which are listed on the stock exchange and selling virtual goods). The online advertising market is not as valuable in China, so monetization occurs largely through sales of virtual goods. In fact $5 Billion worth of virtual goods were sold online, which is 5 times bigger than the US (down from 25x in 2008).

Tencent made over $1.5B USD (which is roughly 3x what Facebook made). Tencent is third largest internet company in the world, after only Google and Amazon. Most Americans know nothing of it, but their net margin is 40%, which is astounding.

Online Gaming in China

Love Farmville? The first farm game was made in China by a company called 5 minutes. That was inspired by a Japanese game, and then Zynga copied it and brought it to the U.S., but they weren't the first by any means. The original explanation for popularity was "because there are lots of farmers in China." The popularity of Farmville in the US, however, largely debunks that.

Doob.cc has a very popular game in China. It has a virtual goods component, and it looks like a standard rhythym game (think Dance Dance Revolution), but you dance with someone else via the network. The boys buy the girls they meet online virtual gifts, just as you would buy a drink in the bar. Suddenly the game is extending social life and even dating online.

The 5 Cs of Chinese Innovation

1. Copy: We always start with something.
2. Combination: By combining two things (i.e., instant messaging and virtual goods), you can get a great idea.
3. Competition: As soon as there are two strong video sites, for example, they need to compete and differentiate, which leads to innovation.
4. Constraints: Because you can't do everything, the constraints foster innovation, even knew business models (because online advertising isn't workable, for example).
5. China: It has to work for China, and the unique settings of the country, which might be different than for example a Japanese consumer.

Fewer Credit Cards

With much less popularity of credit cards, how do you get the payments for virtual currency? QQ began by selling scratch cards in stores. You'd buy it in store, scratch off the code, enter it and have the money deposited into your account. Very clever.

Other Examples

Zhenai is the most popular dating site in China (and the world, with 22 m profiles it's bigger than Match.com). Since they couldn't use teh same model, they have 350 people on staff who call people up to arrange a date. Then they call you back to see how the date was. They then get feedback from the person dating, and give you feedback on how you did on your date. That should, in theory, make you a better dater. They charge ~$450 USD for a six month subscription, which is very expensive given then income levels there. But they are adding a lot of value. Would that work in the United States? Interesting question.

• Lihua allows you to order food delivery by IM.
• BabyTree is a social network for young parents where you can also buy goods for the child. It's beginning to become profitable. The limitation on number of children you can have also impacts this site, both positively and negatively.
• Dianping is a Yelp-like site that has many more reviews than Yelp. It also ranks the many dishes at each restaurant in terms of popularity.

While China is known in the U.S. in part for their rampant piracy (software, fashion, films, etc.), it's clear from the level of participation, and the monetization of that participation, that China's innovation also offers lessons for marketers in the United States and elsewhere. 

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