Hutongs Transplanted to Typepad

My friend, David Wolf, who works out of Beijing, has moved his two blogs--Silicon Hutong and Peking Review--to Typepad along with a third, fledgling blog called Ecohutong. I encourage all my readers to check out David's work as he provides a great deal of insight into business management in China, particularly in the media and technology industries.

I just yesterday thought of Ecohutong because of news here in Japan of an intention between China and Japan to cooperate on developing environmental initiatives in the vein of the Kyoto Protocal. Visiting Ecohutong this morning, I see David has already posted on the news.

As David notes, there are many reasons to doubt that such an initiative will have success. I have similar feelings, but only at the government level. Those who actually have to make such an initiative work at the ground level are already interacting with Japan to benchmark and bring new technologies or environmentally-friendly ideas to the Chinese mainland. One such area is biomass production. Others are studying Japanese public transportation systems and public space utilization/design to improve the public environment in Chinese cities. Where the government initiatives may lag and stall, I believe the private sector will take advantage of viable opportunities and develop alternatives to current business practices that contribute to mainland pollution.

I look forward to the Ecohutong providing updates on this interaction.