Killing competition creates new breed of foreign correspondent

Yesterday I wrote for the tidbits of the Poynter institute a small "encore" on my previous leit-motiv: the future of the foreign correspondents. Since there was not a real China-angle to the article I did not want to post it here, but since there is still a China link I will summerize it here too.
In 2004 I wrote an article on the demise of the foreign correspondent, both in numbers and in the quality of the jobs being available.
Now, at least in terms of numbers I proved to be wrong. The number of Dutch foreign correspondents has exploded over the past year, creating a competitive atmosphere - and decreasing financial rewards - that has changed the playing field dramatically. The article is partly based on an article by De Journalist, a magazine of the Dutch trade union for journalists NVJ:

The hard part is that these days freelancers work for shockingly lower rates. "My income halved when I moved abroad," NVJ quoted one correspondent as saying, "so we keep the cost low to make a living."
NVJ didn't provide figures, but in China the going rate for English-language journalists is 15 cents/word (U.S.) -- and that actually looks nice because the U.S. dollar currently is so low. I have met (and, I must admit, hired) journalists for less. Chinese journalists would refuse to work for those rates; American journalists need a few years of experience before they accept them; and Europeans are the cheapest in the market.How to survive?
I decided to quit the foreign correspondent business and have started a speakers' bureau. In financial terms, that's a bit of a different league. Today, many foreign correspondents survive because their partner has a decent job.