People's Republic of China, Dec. 27 2011

harbans · Post by **harbans** » 15 May 2012 16:48

X posting from the Internal security watch thread..based on an article posted there:

Even Chinese high officials have started murmuring about the need to engage India over Tibet. With all the high priests of the four Tibetan Buddhism schools living in India or Bhutan

India should begin by reiterating UN resolutions that call for a plebiscite in Tibet, negotiate taking back of Aksai China, integration of the Kailash Mansarover region with India, withdrawal of China from the Shakgam valley and POK. That are the topics that we should be discussing on the table with the Chinese every time we meet up with them.

brihaspati · Post by **brihaspati** » 16 May 2012 08:46

Have people been following the story of the blind dissident? Interesting pussyfooting by US admin.

RamaY · Post by **RamaY** » 16 May 2012 08:48

How did a blind man escape the gleat wall of communism?

Prem · Post by **Prem** » 16 May 2012 09:26

China and Japan Fall Out Over Uighurs

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000142 ... bout_china

TOKYO—Signs of tension are returning to relations between Japan and China, casting shadows over accelerating efforts between the two East Asian powers to strengthen their economic ties.In the latest sign of renewed strain, China has harshly condemned Japan for allowing a group of exiled Uighur activists to hold a major conference in Tokyo this week. China considers the group, the World Uyghur Congress, an "anti-China separatist organization." Calling it a private group, Tokyo says it won't interfere with its activities.China's Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region has become one of country's most unstable in recent years.
In a signal of its dissatisfaction with Tokyo's Uighur position, China failed to arrange a bilateral meeting between President Hu Jintao and Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda on Sunday in Beijing, where the two nations and South Korea agreed to start formal negotiations for a trilateral free-trade agreement. To the annoyance of Japanese officials, Mr. Hu did meet bilaterally with South Korean President Lee Myung-bak.
Then Tuesday came the abrupt cancellation of a scheduled meeting between Chinese Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi and Hiromasa Yonekura, who is head of Japan's powerful Keidanren business lobby and was visiting. Chinese officials didn't have an immediate comment.Relations between China and Japan were placid for a while after Japan was hit by natural and nuclear disasters in March 2011. But tension has returned in recent months, stoked in part by provocative remarks from some of Japan's more nationalist and vocal politicians. Among them were Tokyo Gov. Shintaro Ishihara's proposal that his municipal government buy some East China Sea islands that are the subject of a territorial dispute between China and Japan, and Nagoya Mayor Takashi Kawamura's denial of Japanese atrocities in China in the 1930s.Several Japanese lawmakers from conservative parties have attended the Uighur conference.Beijing, meanwhile, has stepped up naval activities in sensitive waters between the two nations.This week's conference in Tokyo is attended by a number of Uighur activists in exile, including the leader of the World Uyghur Congress, Rebiya Kadeer.
Responding to Chinese criticism over her being issued a visa, Japanese foreign ministry spokesman Masaru Sato said Tokyo had simply followed its set rules and procedures.
Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Hong Lei expressed "strong dissatisfaction" with Japan's stance.
"Anti-China separatists from the World Uyghur Congress have colluded with Japan's right-wing forces and exposed their political determination to separate their homeland and undermine China-Japan relations," he said at a news conference Monday

gunjur · Post by **gunjur** » 16 May 2012 17:36

China and Japan discuss disputed island chain

They were expected to discuss the row over the resource-rich island chain known in Japan as Senkaku and in China as Diaoyu.
The islands are controlled by Japan, but also claimed by China.

But Japan's decision to allow the World Uighur Congress (WUC) to meet in Tokyo could cast a shadow over the Hangzhou meeting, reports from Beijing suggest.

Reports also suggest that harsh exchanges took place between Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda and Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao over the islands dispute and human rights issues when they met in Beijing over the weekend

Hari Seldon · Post by **Hari Seldon** » 16 May 2012 18:44

Yawn. The 'honorarily gora' japs and the hyper-nationalistic han cheenis deserve each other. Just like the UKstanis and Pakistanis deserve each other.

gunjur · Post by **gunjur** » 16 May 2012 21:13

Just imagine our MMS standing firm?? Being a babu, he is always comfortable taking orders(not giving) be it be from US, china or sonia.

Kanishka · Post by **Kanishka** » 17 May 2012 15:36

China: Growing old before it can grow rich?

China's economic miracle has been accompanied by astonishingly rapid population ageing. Could growing old too fast end China's irresistible march out of poverty?

The average age goes up as countries develop, because people live longer and have fewer children. But in China, the one-child policy has triggered a rapid decline in the birth rate.
"The speed of ageing in China is unique," says Professor Peng Xizhe, a leading demographer at Fudan University.
China has taken just 20 years to reach an age profile that took Britain or France 60 or 70 years, he says.
New figures show that one in four permanent Shanghai residents is now retired.
The rest of China is catching up - by the year 2050, a third of Chinese people, 450 million, will be aged over 60.

Prem · Post by **Prem** » 17 May 2012 23:54

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-05-1 ... igers.html
China’s Big Banks Look More Like Paper Lizards

After spending time combing through the financial reports of China’s biggest publicly traded, state- owned banks, I now understand what Jim Chanos, the famous short- seller, means when he keeps saying they are “built on quicksand.” He’s definitely on to something. Start with Industrial & Commercial Bank of China Ltd., the world’s most valuable bank, at least on paper, with a $238 billion market capitalization. Much of its capital consists of the remnants of bad loans dating to the 1990s, which ICBC now calls receivables. One such receivable represented about a third of ICBC’s shareholder equity, as of Dec. 31. It was scheduled to start coming due in 2010 but wasn’t repaid, and still sits on ICBC’s books at its original value. At the same time, ICBC has been reporting torrid, almost cartoonish, growth since going public in 2006. Total assets, about half of which are loans, rose 15 percent last year to 15.5 trillion yuan ($2.5 trillion). Earnings (1398) jumped 26 percent to 208.4 billion yuan. It has been quite a transformation. At the end of 2004, before its most recent restructuring by the Chinese government, Beijing-based ICBC said about 21 percent of its loans were nonperforming. Today the same bank, which is 71 percent state- owned, classifies less than 1 percent of its loans that way. You can choose to believe that latest figure if you like. Either the Chinese government has become extremely skilled at lending in a very short time, and Chinese borrowers have become even better at repaying. Or the numbers are too good to be true, in which case the quality of the bank’s capital matters a great deal, as a gauge of its ability to absorb losses. If nothing else, a look at the receivables at ICBC and other large Chinese banks provides insights into what passes for normal in the country’s banking system. Everything is a big circle. As recently as 2007, Ag Bank classified about 24 percent of its loans as nonperforming, comparewith 1.4 percent last quarter. After cleaning up its books, the company went public in 2010, raising $22.1 billion in the largest IPO ever. The bank, which is 83 percent state-owned, now has a $141 billion market cap. Last quarter alone, Ag Bank’s total assets rose 7.6 percent from their Dec. 31 level to 12.6 trillion yuan.

Similar receivables reside at China’s other Big Four banks, Bank of China Ltd. and China Construction Bank Corp. (939), though the amounts there aren’t as large. Before their restructurings almost a decade ago, Bank of China and China Construction classified about 16 percent and 17 percent of their loans as nonperforming, respectively. Now both show about 1 percent.

Shankas · Post by **Shankas** » 18 May 2012 01:06

In China, Economics is Politics

The problem is not the growth level itself, since the world’s second-largest economy is presumably still tracking for about 7 percent to 8 percent expansion in 2012. The concern is that all drivers of GDP growth appear to be faltering. There was once almost blind consensus in the West that authoritarian politics was good for China’s economy. This is now increasingly being called into question, and with good reason.

There is an economic and social logic to this mantra. Fixed investment overtook exports as the primary driver of Chinese growth in the first few years of this century. Prior to the global financial crisis, fixed investment was responsible for about 40 percent of growth each year. In 2009-10, it drove at least 80 percent of growth following the doubling of bank loans and the influx of cheap capital into infrastructure and property projects. Currently, fixed investment is driving at least half the country’s economic growth.

The use of capital is becoming more and more inefficient, however. For example, the capital factor productivity ratio (amount of capital inputs required to produce one additional dollar of output) at the turn of the century was about 3 to 1. It is now at least 7 to 1, if not higher. The increasingly inefficient use of capital is a sure precursor to the dangerous rise in nonperforming loans (NPLs), which plagued the Chinese banking system a decade ago.

In other words, the savings of the Chinese people are effectively subsidizing fixed-asset investment by SOEs, which receive at least three-quarters of all bank loans. While fixed-asset investment has shot up by an average of 20 percent to 30 percent each year over the decade, domestic consumption as a proportion of GDP has declined from about 48 percent to 33 percent, the lowest of any major economy in the world. With a GDP per capita barely inside the world’s top 100, China’s spectacular economic growth is not being translated proportionately into better material outcomes for a majority of the population.

Even though China has been growing at close to 10 percent since the early 1980s, inequality took off only from the mid-1990s onward—a period that coincided with the dramatic increase in fixed-investment activity by SOEs. Indeed, 80 percent of the poverty reduction since 1979 took place in the first 10 years of reform, a period before the return of dominant SOEs.

Prem · Post by **Prem** » 19 May 2012 03:03

http://thelede.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/0 ... -in-china/
Sentiment Against Foreigners Flares in China

Two of China’s largest Internet companies are urging users to help crack down on “misbehaving foreigners,” the state-run People’s Daily reported on Friday, after a high-profile case of sexual assault by a British man in Beijing last week and amid a push by the authorities to rein in foreigners illegally in the country.
The companies, the search giant Baidu and the huge social media hub Sina Weibo, have joined to call for users “to expose bad behavior by foreigners in China,” according to the report, which follows fury online after the alleged assault earlier this month that has galvanized social media anger in China.
Video posted on the Chinese video-sharing site Youku last week is said to have been recorded during the assault on a woman in Beijing. In the clip, which has been viewed millions of times already, the woman can be heard saying, “Help! I don’t know him,” in reference to the assailant. Chinese men then appear to attack the man, identified in a report from Xinhua, the state news agency, as an intoxicated British national with a tourist visa. The video shows only parts of a fight between the Chinese men and the foreigner. By the end of the clip, the British man is in the street, barely moving, his shirt torn. It was not clear who made the recording or who edited and posted it.A torrent of online comments, many of them obscene, celebrated the apparent actions of the Chinese men, according to a selection of responses translated by the blog Ministry of Tofu.

vera-vera-c: Isn’t this too audacious and licentious?! Actually, can our country at least try to control or reduce the population of foreign expats? They have come and occupied all the good places. The country, already packed with people, is now (accommodating) so many foreign nationals. So this won’t stop until we are crammed to death?!

sO__Dan: The blows were way too light.

nic-yang: He had the gall to play the bully on the Chinese territory! Beat him! Give him a good beating! Great job, Beijing bros!

Prem · Post by **Prem** » 19 May 2012 03:07

The Video of Chinese Hospital----ity

http://v.youku.com/v_show/id_XMzkzNDY5O ... l?tw_p=twt

Rudradev · Post by **Rudradev** » 19 May 2012 03:21

Jhujar wrote:http://thelede.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/0 ... -in-china/
Sentiment Against Foreigners Flares in China
Two of China’s largest Internet companies are urging users to help crack down on “misbehaving foreigners,” the state-run People’s Daily reported on Friday, after a high-profile case of sexual assault by a British man in Beijing last week and amid a push by the authorities to rein in foreigners illegally in the country.
The companies, the search giant Baidu and the huge social media hub Sina Weibo, have joined to call for users “to expose bad behavior by foreigners in China,” according to the report, which follows fury online after the alleged assault earlier this month that has galvanized social media anger in China.
Video posted on the Chinese video-sharing site Youku last week is said to have been recorded during the assault on a woman in Beijing. In the clip, which has been viewed millions of times already, the woman can be heard saying, “Help! I don’t know him,” in reference to the assailant. Chinese men then appear to attack the man, identified in a report from Xinhua, the state news agency, as an intoxicated British national with a tourist visa. The video shows only parts of a fight between the Chinese men and the foreigner. By the end of the clip, the British man is in the street, barely moving, his shirt torn. It was not clear who made the recording or who edited and posted it.A torrent of online comments, many of them obscene, celebrated the apparent actions of the Chinese men, according to a selection of responses translated by the blog Ministry of Tofu.

vera-vera-c: Isn’t this too audacious and licentious?! Actually, can our country at least try to control or reduce the population of foreign expats? They have come and occupied all the good places. The country, already packed with people, is now (accommodating) so many foreign nationals. So this won’t stop until we are crammed to death?!

sO__Dan: The blows were way too light.

nic-yang: He had the gall to play the bully on the Chinese territory! Beat him! Give him a good beating! Great job, Beijing bros!

Have you seen the actual video?

http://v.youku.com/v_show/id_XMzkzNDY5ODI0.html

Summary:

1) A shaven-headed man (actually looks like more of a Paki than a white Brit) is standing over, and preparing to r@pe, a yelling Chinese woman on a road-divider in the middle of a public highway

Definitely the most secretive, secluded space for a wannabe-rapist to operate in one of the world's most crowded cities.

2) A Chinese guy comes to him and starts asking questions. Slaps him two-three times.

3) Next thing, the Brit guy is lying on the road (in the middle of traffic which never seems to hit him). He is lying with a very, very peaceful expression on his face. Though his shirt is torn there is NO blood, NO sign of bruising or injury.

4) One Chinese guy comes and "kicks" the fallen Brit. The "kicks" are so fake they would make the toe-kisses of the Guiness Record Holding Pakistani "Karate Kicker" look like Bruce Lee. The angry Chinese guy then dances with another Chinese guy who pretends to be "restraining" him.

It's as fake as Melamine Milkshake. Typical garbage from the propaganda ministry of the Creeple's Republic of China; and so badly counterfeited that only Chinese drones, like the ones on the Chinese Youku site, would actually pretend to swallow it.

hnair · Post by **hnair** » 19 May 2012 03:50

If these tired men are their angry mob, then they should send these chaps to Fallujah for basic training.

No wonder even the inept pakis make fun of their pilots with impunity.

Prem · Post by **Prem** » 22 May 2012 02:28

LA Times and Chicago Tribune Reporters Eat Penis in Beijing

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FHiTV3saJCw

SSridhar · Post by **SSridhar** » 22 May 2012 08:47

Why do Chinese Leaders lack confidence in the country's future ?

In the heyday of the Soviet era, Communist leaders were described by the dissident Yugoslav theorist Milovan Djilas as the "New Class", whose power lay not in ownership of wealth, but in control of it: all the property of the state was at their beck and call.

There was the apocryphal, but appropriate story of Brezhnev's showing his humble mother around his historic office, his magnificent collection of foreign luxury cars and his palatial dacha with its superb meals, and asking for her impressions - to which she replied: "It's wonderful, but what happens if the Bolsheviks come back?"

But if even a fraction of the stories about the wealth and lifestyles of China's "princelings" - the descendants of Mao's revolutionary generation - are to be believed, China's New Class wants not only control, but also ownership. Few of China's netizens are likely to believe that Bo Xilai, the Politburo member and party boss of the mega-city of Chongqing who was ousted in March on corruption charges, was an aberration.

Why has ownership of wealth become so important for the Chinese elite? And why have so many Chinese leaders sent their children abroad for education? One answer surely is that they lack confidence about China's future.

This may seem strange, given that the Chinese have propelled their country into the top ranks of global economic powerhouses over the past 30 years. There are those who predict a hard landing for an overheated economy - where growth has already slowed - but the acquisition of wealth is better understood not just as an economic cushion, or as pure greed, but as a political hedge.

China's leaders cling to Deng Xiaoping's belief that their continuance in power will depend on economic progress. So globalising one's assets - transferring money and educating one's children overseas - makes sense as a hedge against risk. (At least $120 billion has been illegally transferred abroad since mid-1990s, according to one official estimate.)

Mao and his colleagues had a self-confidence born of many factors: triumph in civil war; a well-organised party apparatus; a Marxist-Leninist ideological framework, the road map to a socialist future; and the bulwark of the victorious People's Liberation Army. Today, more than 60 years after the civil war, only the PLA looks somewhat the same.

The denunciations of party leaders and officials by the Red Guards during the Cultural Revolution undermined the party's authority and legitimacy. The party's insecurity was accentuated by Deng's rejection (in practice) of Marxism-Leninism. The cloak of ideological legitimacy was abandoned in the race for growth.

Today, the party's 80 million members are still powerful, but most join the party for career advancement, not idealism. Every day, there are some 500 protests, demonstrations or riots against corrupt or dictatorial local party authorities, often put down by force. he volatile society unleashed against the state by Mao almost 50 years ago bubbles like a caldron.

Stories about the wealth amassed by relatives of party leaders like Bo, who have used their family connections to take control of vast sectors of the economy, will persuade even loyal citizens that the rot reaches to the very top.

In the months ahead, party leaders will use every propaganda tool to dissipate the damage inflicted on leadership unity, party discipline and national "harmony" by the Bo debacle. They might divert criticism from Bo by depicting his allegedly murderous wife as China's Lady Macbeth. But members of China's New Class will still worry that the revelations about elite corruption have exposed them to the danger of the Bolsheviks coming back.

SSridhar · Post by **SSridhar** » 22 May 2012 09:01

India issues advisory as Indian traders face fresh charges

The Indian Embassy in Beijing on Monday issued a second advisory warning, of the dangers of doing business in the southern Chinese trading hub of Yiwu, after two Indian traders, who have been fighting a six-month-long legal battle, were hit by fresh charges in an escalating dispute with local suppliers.

The advisory said there was “a high possibility of fresh cases being lodged in order to exert additional pressure on Indian businessmen,” who could face pressures to sign documents under duress, which “could be used against them in a court of law.”

The warning came after two new cases were filed in a Yiwu court against Deepak Raheja and Shyamsunder Agarwal, who were held hostage in the city in December, facing accusations from Chinese suppliers of owing 10 million RMB ($ 1.58 million), after the Yemeni owner of their trading firm fled, leaving dues unpaid. Chinese traders say the Indians, who were employed by the firm, are liable for the dues, and have signed documents that prove their claims.

The Indian traders argued at a court hearing last month that they were only employees of the firm, whose owners were a Yemeni and another Indian national, who remain untraceable. They said the documents were signed under duress, while they were illegally being held captive by suppliers.

An Indian official said the advisory was issued because the Embassy was “frustrated” by the local authorities' handling of the case.

A legal notice on the new charges was filed in Yiwu on January 20, and the summons date was fixed on May 2. The traders will again have to appear before a local court on June 27.

With no progress being made towards tracing the owners, Chinese authorities are reluctant to let the two Indians leave, with millions still owed to local businesses. The two traders, who are now staying at a hotel in Shanghai, have been under financial strain, and have relied on financial support from the Embassy and Shanghai Consulate for their daily living expenses, while they await a verdict. At one point, the traders were forced to spend several nights on the streets of Shanghai, and sell their jewellery when they ran out of funds.

The advisory warned that court disputes could require businessmen to stay on “for extended periods of time, hence requiring substantial funds for boarding and lodging,” in a message to the rest of the businessmen that the Indian government couldn't be expected to similarly bail them out if another such case occurred.

Mr. Raheja told The Hindu on Monday that he believed the two cases were filed by suppliers because hearings on the initial charge, held last month at a higher-level court at Jinghua, appeared to boost the Indians' arguments. He said he had given 900,000 RMB (Rs. 78.1 lakh) of his personal savings to the suppliers, after he was beaten while being held captive by them in December. He claimed the 10 million RMB dues that have been alleged hadn't been proven, and only 1.1 million RMB was owed.

SSridhar · Post by **SSridhar** » 22 May 2012 09:44

Off this block, lock, stock and barrel - Sandeep Dikshit in The Hindu

By withdrawing from an oil exploration block in the South China Sea, India might have extricated itself from a messy 50-year-old territorial dispute involving multiple players in a region in which the diplomatic cost of staying on would have been more than the commercial benefit.

The area from which India recently withdrew is in Vietnam's exclusive economic zone (EEZ) but also crosses over the “nine-dotted line” claimed by China. A vocal section of the Indian strategic community is not convinced, but India has been steadfast in insisting that it withdrew — “suspended operations” — from Block 128, three years after it surrendered the adjacent Block 127 because there was not enough oil to justify investment in the infrastructure for bringing it to the surface.

Posturing

For the past five years or so, India and Vietnam have diplomatically duelled with China over rights to scour for hydrocarbons near a sensitive base of the People Liberation Army's Navy (PLAN) but the differences have rarely got out of hand.

The closest the two sides came to squaring off was reported by a U.K.-based newspaper in 2011 when PLAN “questioned” an Indian naval ship transiting from one Vietnamese port to another. Indian diplomats deny the incident took place, taking recourse to the concept of “anomalous propagation conditions.”

By that they mean the Chinese might have been questioning another vessel, and the chatter was picked up by the Indian Navy's Amphibious Warfare Vessel INS Airavat; when reported to higher-ups, it was mistakenly presumed as having taken place between the Chinese and the Indian ships.

PLAN might or might not have `buzzed'' INS Airavat, but there is no denying that China has been jumpy since 2006 when India signed an exploration agreement for Blocks 127 and 128 in the Phu Kanh Basin. The basin is off the shore of northern Vietnam, not far away from the Hainan submarine base.

In 2009, when an Oil and Natural Gas Company Ltd. (ONGC) contracted company was surveying the Basin, Beijing eschewed confrontation.

The company's Holland-based management was called to the Chinese Embassy in The Hague and told to stop operations. But it made no further protests when ONGC, backed by assurances from Hanoi, asked the company to complete its work.

Two years before this incident, the Chinese Embassy in New Delhi served a démarche after India began moving heavy equipment into the allotted blocks in the Phu Kanh Basin. India turned to Vietnam which submitted a signed statement claiming sovereignty over the portion of the sea in dispute. This was passed on to the Chinese Embassy along with a note stating that in view of the Vietnamese letter, the Chinese had no legal basis to claim ownership over some portions of Blocks 127 and 128. The Chinese left it at that.

The last two years have been different. In 2010, the dispute moved on to diplomatic centre stage after the United States became an Observer to the Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN), half of whose 10 members are in dispute with China over patches of South China Sea. Simultaneously most parties to the dispute, which is centred not on the Phu Kanh Basin but the Spratly Islands, began beefing up their military postures.

The Philippines has a long airstrip on Spratly Islands where its heavy military transport aircraft now land regularly. Malaysia, Vietnam and Taiwan have also built shorter airstrips on islands they have occupied. The resultant tensions began reflecting in the exchanges between India and China, some carrying the seeds of a worsening of bilateral ties at a time when both countries have a never-before-full plate of cooperation.

Four points in defence

All along, Indian diplomats defended taking up the contract on four grounds: 1) that Vietnam has always claimed the two blocks in the Phu Kanh Basin are in its exclusive economic zone and continental shelf; 2) though India has been involved in drilling for gas in the South China Sea since 1988, China began raising objections only in mid-2000; 3) that as half of India's trade passes through the South China Sea, the contract for drilling in the two blocks underscored New Delhi's claim to unfettered access; and 4) India should pay back China in its backyard for being involved in heavy construction activity in Pakistan Occupied Kashmir, which even the United Nations accepts is disputed territory.

But it also needs to be said that when India signed a gas exploration contract with Vietnam in 1988, it was for two blocks (Lan Tay and Lan Do) in the Nam Con Son Basin, close to the Natuna Sea near Indonesian territorial waters. Phu Kanh, on the other hand, is up north, roughly equidistant between the Vietnam coast and Hainan Island of China where it has a large submarine base.

As for having a stake in unfettered navigation rights in South China Sea, this is more an issue for South Korea and Japan who have been active in resolving it for a decade. Even otherwise, the issue of open sea lanes of communication (SLOC) in the South China Sea is not relevant to hydrocarbon exploration in the Phu Kanh Basin where, due to its location as a virtual maritime cul-de-sac, is not on a transit merchant shipping route.

On the other hand, China may claim consistency in objecting to any commercial activity in the area known as the “cow's tongue” of the South China Sea, whether midwifed by Vietnam or the Philippines.

India-Vietnam ties

Observers have noted that Beijing ratcheted up the pitch ever since Vietnam and India resolved to enter into a tighter military embrace. India has increased the number of slots in military training courses for Vietnamese army officers and there is hardly any official delegation from Hanoi that does not contain high ranking military officers. Vietnam's request for transfer of Brahmos missiles has been pending for quite some time along with submarine training, conversion training for its pilots to fly the fighter jet, the Sukhoi-30, modernisation of a strategic port, and sale of medium-sized warships. But having armed Pakistan, China is on a weak wicket in frowning at the transfer of military arms between the two nations.

The benefits that will come from the “suspension [of drilling in Phu Kanh Basin] purely on commercial considerations,” as a high ranking official insisted, could outweigh the joy of making China endure diplomatic pinpricks for its role in the disputed area of northern Kashmir. In February this year, both sides agreed to cooperate in maritime security and oceanography research. Both sides have major stakes in cooperating on both aspects. Cooperation in maritime security has begun and India can only gain by joining hands with China in exploring an Indian Ocean ridge, something it has been unable to do despite having given permission 15 years earlier.

SSridhar · Post by **SSridhar** » 23 May 2012 13:53

One more Indian trader goes missing at Yiwu

An Indian trader has gone missing in the Chinese town of Yiwu, after an unidentified man took him away from a local restaurant, in an incident that is set to trigger a fresh commercial and diplomatic dispute, amid already rising strains between India and China regarding the safety of businessmen in the southern trading hub.

Indian officials told The Hindu the trader from Mumbai, who was in Yiwu on a temporary visa, was taken away on the night of May 19. He has remained unreachable since then. vThe kidnapping of another Indian is set to further strain ties, particularly after the Chinese Foreign Ministry on Tuesday hit out at an advisory issued by the Indian Embassy here a day earlier, warning Indian businessmen of the dangers of doing business in Yiwu, a major trading hub in the southern Zhejiang province, after fresh cases were filed against the two traders.

“The Indian Embassy's advisory isn't conducive to resolving the relevant issue, and will also affect normal trade and economic exchanges between China and India,” Foreign Ministry spokesperson Hong Lei said at a briefing.

“We hope that India will view China's handling of the case in a rational way,” he said, adding that China “always safeguards the legitimate interests of foreign businessmen, including Indians”.

Suppiah · Post by **Suppiah** » 23 May 2012 15:50

Chindu as usual is very obliging..almost makes it sound it is perfectly normal to kidnap when there is a overdue receivable....by that standard, practically every Chinese company's CEO that has debts overdue should be kidnapped and held to ransom until paid..

One Indian trader, who spoke to The Hindu , said kidnappings happen “only if you owe large sums of money.” “If you pay your dues, there is no problem, and Yiwu is a place where you can do a lot of business,” the trader from New Delhi said.

China has absolutely nothing to worry about from India as long as we have such 'liberal' luminaries.

PratikDas · Post by **PratikDas** » 25 May 2012 01:08

SMH: When Photoshop goes wrong: 'floating' inspectors cause internet stir
Julie Power
May 23, 2012

Photoshop fail ... government officials 'inspecting' a park. Photo: Yuhang Government website

And the award for the worst Photoshop ever?

For the second year in a row, the unofficial award goes to China after news that it was once again guilty of badly Photoshopping an official photo.

The story went viral yesterday after Time magazine published a photo and story showing Chinese officials seeming to walk on air.

Huili local officials float above a highway project in China's Sichuan province under the guise of 'inspecting' last year. Photo: Huili County Government

The US magazine reported that while the "old cut-and-paste technique works well in kindergarten classrooms and papier mache projects," officials from the Zhejiang Hangzhou Yuhang government discovered it doesn't transfer so smoothly to Photoshop.

Prem · Post by **Prem** » 26 May 2012 00:21

http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/ ... story.html
China’s economic crisis
FZ

Ruchir Sharma, who runs Morgan Stanley’s Emerging Markets Fund, makes a different and more persuasive case in his new book, “Breakout Nations,” pointing not to China’s failures but to its successes: “China is on the verge of a natural slowdown that will change the global balance of power, from finance to politics, and take the wind out of many economies that are riding in its draft.” Evidence is accumulating to support his view.
China’s growth looks remarkable. But it isn’t unprecedented. Japan, South Korea and Taiwan all grew close to 9 percent annually for about two decades and then started to slow. Many think that China’s fate will be like that of Japan, which crashed and slowed down in the 1990s and has yet to boom again. But the more realistic scenario is Japan in the 1970s, when the original Asian tiger’s growth slowed from 9 percent to about 6 percent. Korea and Taiwan followed similar trajectories.Sharma does the math: “In 1998, for China to grow its $1 trillion economy by 10 percent, it had to expand its economic activities by $100 billion and consume only 10 percent of the world’s industrial commodities — the raw materials that include everything from oil to copper and steel. In 2011, to grow its $5 trillion economy that fast, it needed to expand by $550 billion a year and suck in more than 30 percent of global commodity production.” All the factors that pushed China forward have begun to wither. China became an urbanized country last year, with a majority of its people living in cities. The rate of urban migration has slowed to 5 million a year. This means that soon the famous “surplus labor pool” will be exhausted. This decade, only 5 million people will join China’s core workforce, down dramatically from 90 million in the previous decade. And thanks to the one-child policy, there are few Chinese to take the place of retiring workers.Sharma predicts trouble for countries that have been buoyed by a booming China — from Australia to Brazil — as its demand for raw materials drops. He even predicts a decline in oil prices, which, coming on top of the shale boom, should worry oil-producing states everywhere.
As for China, Sharma suggests that 6 percent growth should not worry the Chinese; these would be enviable rates for anyone else. The country is richer, so slower growth is more acceptable. But China’s authoritarian regime legitimizes itself by delivering high-octane growth. If that fades, China’s economic problems might turn

into political ones.

abhishek_sharma · Post by **abhishek_sharma** » 27 May 2012 09:33

Fukuyama, Francis. The Origins of Political Order: From Prehuman Times to the French Revolution Macmillan.

CONFUCIANISM VS. LEGALISM

The policies implemented by Shang Yang in Qin were justified and turned into a full-blown ideology known as Legalism by later writers like Han Fei. Much of China’s subsequent history up through the Communist victory in 1949 can be understood in terms of the tensions between Legalism and Confucianism, a tension that revolved in part around the appropriate role of the family in politics.22

Confucianism is an intensely backward-looking doctrine that roots legitimacy in ancient practices. Confucius compiled his classics at the end of the Spring and Autumn period, looking back nostalgically at the Zhou social order, which was rapidly decaying as a result of China’s incessant wars. Family and kinship were at the core of that patrimonial order, and Confucianism can in many ways be seen as an ideology that builds a broad moral doctrine of the state outward from a model based on the family.

All tribal societies practice some form of ancestor worship, but Confucianism gave the Chinese version a particular ethical cast. Confucian moral precepts dictated that one owed much stronger obligations to one’s parents, and particularly to one’s father, than to one’s wife or children. Failure to act respectfully toward one’s parents, or to fail to care for them economically, was severely punished, as was a son who showed greater concern for his immediate family than for his parents. And if there was a conflict between one’s duty to one’s parents—for example, if one’s father was accused of a crime—and one’s duty to the state, the father’s interest clearly trumped that of the state.23

This tension between the family and the state, and the moral legitimacy that Confucianism gives to family obligations over political ones, has persisted throughout Chinese history. Even today, the Chinese family remains a powerful institution that jealously guards its autonomy against political authority. There has been an inverse correlation between the strength of the family and the strength of the state. During the decrepitude of the Qing Dynasty in the nineteenth century, southern China’s powerful lineages took over control of most local affairs.24 When China decollectivized under Deng Xiaoping’s household responsibility reforms in 1978, the peasant family sprang back to life and became one of the chief engines of the economic miracle that subsequently unfolded in the People’s Republic.25

The Legalists, by contrast, were forward looking and saw Confucianism and its glorification of the family as obstacles to the consolidation of political power. They had little use for Confucianism’s delicate moral injunctions and obligations. In its place, they sought to implement a set of straightforward rewards and punishments—especially punishments—to make subjects obey. In the words of the Legalist ideologist Han Fei,

Loving mothers have prodigal sons, whereas contumacious slaves are not found in a household that maintains strict discipline …. According to the laws of Lord Shang persons throwing ashes on the roads were subjected to corporeal punishment. Now dumping ashes is a minor crime and corporeal punishment is a heavy penalty. Wise rulers alone are capable of dealing severely with those who commit minor crimes, [making it clear that] even minor crimes are severely punished and that much more severely would those who commit major crimes be dealt with. Consequently, the people dare not transgress …

The only way in which wise and sage rulers can long occupy the throne, hold the imperial authority, and enjoy exclusively the benefits of the empire, is to rule autocratically with deliberation, and to implement the policy of surveillance and castigation by inflicting heavy punishments without exception.26

The Legalists were proposing to treat subjects not as moral beings to be cultivated through education and learning but as Homo economicus, self-interested individuals who would respond to positive and negative incentives—especially punishments. The Legalist state therefore sought to undermine tradition, break the bonds of family moral obligation, and rebind citizens to the state on a new basis.

There are obvious parallels between Legalism and the social engineering attempted by the Chinese Communist Party after 1949. Mao, like Shang Yang before him, saw traditional Confucian morality and the Chinese family as obstacles to social progress. His anti-Confucian campaign sought to delegitimize familistic morality; party, state, and commune were the new structures that would henceforth bind Chinese citizens to one another. It is not surprising, therefore, that the legacy of Shang Yang and Legalism was revived during the Maoist period and seen by many Communist scholars as a precedent for modern China.

abhishek_sharma · Post by **abhishek_sharma** » 27 May 2012 09:46

Continuing ...

WHY CHINA’S DEVELOPMENT PATH DIFFERED FROM EUROPE’S

One of the great metahistorical questions addressed by scholars such as Victoria Hui is why the multipolar Chinese state system of the third century B.C. ultimately consolidated into a single large empire, while that of Europe did not. The European state system did in fact consolidate, going from perhaps four hundred sovereign entities at the end of the Middle Ages down to about twenty-five at the beginning of World War I. But despite the efforts of conquerors including the Habsburg Charles V, Louis XIV, Napoleon, and Hitler, no single dominant European state ever emerged.

There are a number of possible explanations for this. First on the list is geography. Europe is cut up into multiple regions by broad rivers, forests, seas, and high mountain ranges: the Alps, Pyrenees, Rhine, Danube, Baltic, Carpathians, etc. One very important factor is the presence of a large island, Britain, offshore, which acted for much of European history as a deliberate balancer that tried to break up hegemonic coalitions. The first Chinese empire, by contrast, emerged in only a portion of present-day China, along a northerly west-east axis from the Wei River valley to the Shandong peninsula. This entire region was easily traversed by the armies of the day, particularly following the construction of numerous roads and canals in the Warring States period. Only after this core region consolidated as a single, powerful state did it expand to the south, north, and southwest.

A second factor is related to culture. There were ethnic differences between the Shang and Zhou tribes, but the states that emerged during the Zhou Dynasty were not clearly differentiated by ethnicity and language to the extent that Romans, Germans, Celts, Franks, Vikings, Slavs, and Huns were. Different dialects of Chinese were spoken across northern China, but the ease with which individuals like Shang Yang and Confucius moved from one jurisdiction to another, and the circulation of ideas between them, testifies to a growing level of cultural homogeneity.

A third factor is leadership, or the lack thereof. As Victoria Hui points out, a multipolar system is not a mechanical, self-regulating machine that always achieves balance to prevent the emergence of a hegemonic power. States are run by individual leaders who interpret their self-interest. Qin’s leaders exercised acute statecraft in using divide-and-rule tactics to break up hostile coalitions, and their opponents often fought suicidal wars among themselves without recognizing the danger that Qin represented.

But the final reason has to do directly with the different paths that political development took in China and in Europe. Europe never saw the emergence of a powerful absolutist state like Qin except for the Duchy of Muscovy, which developed late and was peripheral to European politics until the second half of the eighteenth century. (When Russia did enter the European state system, it quickly proceeded to overrun a good deal of Europe, both under Alexander I in 1814 and then under Stalin in 1945.) Those states like France and Spain in the late seventeenth century that are commonly spoken of as “absolutist” were, as we will see, considerably weaker in their power to tax and mobilize their societies than was the state of Qin in the third century B.C. When would-be absolutist monarchs began their state-building projects, they were checked by other well-organized social groups: an entrenched hereditary aristocracy, the Catholic church, a sometimes well-organized peasantry, and independent, self-governing cities, all of which could operate flexibly across dynastic boundaries.

Things were very different in China. Because it was based on an extended kinship system, the Chinese feudal aristocracy never established the same kind of local authority that European lords did. The Chinese nobles’ power base in a lineage was geographically diffused and intertwined with other kin groups, in contrast to the strong hierarchical local political sovereignties that developed under European feudalism. They were, moreover, unprotected by law, the ancient rights and privileges that the latter enjoyed. The aristocrats’ ranks were depleted by centuries of incessant tribal war, leaving the field open for political entrepreneurs to organize peasants and other commoners into powerful armies that could overwhelm the nobility-based formations of earlier centuries. China during the Zhou Dynasty thus never developed a powerful, hereditary landed aristocracy comparable to the one that would develop in Europe. The three-way struggle among monarch, aristocracy, and Third Estate that was so important to the development of modern European political institutions never happened in China. Instead, there was a precociously modern centralized state that defeated all of its potential rivals early on.

The state of Qin had many if not all of the characteristics that Max Weber defined as quintessentially modern. It is therefore something of a mystery why Weber, who knew a great deal about China, nonetheless described Imperial China as a patrimonial state.32 Perhaps one reason for Weber’s confusion lies in the fact that the coming of political modernity to China was not accompanied by economic modernization, that is, the rise of a capitalist market economy. Nor was it accompanied by social modernization: kinship was not superseded by modern individualism but continued to coexist with impersonal administration, up to the present day. Like other modernization theorists, Weber believed that the different dimensions of development—economic, political, social, and ideological—were tightly interconnected. It may be that because the other dimensions of modernization did not appear in China, Weber didn’t recognize the presence of a modern political order. Political, economic, and social modernization were in fact not closely connected temporally in European development either; but the sequence was different, with social modernization preceding growth of a modern state. Europe’s experience was thus a unique one that would not necessarily be replicated in other societies.

rsingh · Post by **rsingh** » 27 May 2012 11:01

More photoshops
http://chinadigitaltimes.net/2009/03/ph ... photoshop/

SSridhar · Post by **SSridhar** » 27 May 2012 16:09

Amid strains, India & China look to push trade ties - Ananth Krishnan, The Hindu

Even as Indian and Chinese officials were engaged in intense consultations to secure the release of Danish Qureshi, a Mumbai trader kidnapped by Chinese suppliers in Yiwu earlier this week, 120 Chinese businessmen gathered several hundred kilometres away at a business event on Friday with a common objective: finding out how to invest in India.

At the event, Indian officials courted investment from executives from some of China's biggest corporations, including telecom giants Huawei and ZTE and large infrastructure companies such as the China Road and Bridge Corporation (CRBC).

The event was part of a renewed push by officials to boost mutual investments and deepen a trade relationship that is still being driven by Chinese appetite for raw materials such as iron ore. The initiative was also aimed at addressing mistrust that persists between trading communities of both countries, which has been reflected in recent incidents that have seen Indian businessmen being detained over commercial disputes in the trading hub of Yiwu in southern Zhejiang province.

Bilateral trade reached $ 73.9 billion last year, with China once again becoming India's biggest trade partner. While trade between both countries has grown rapidly up from a few billion dollars a decade ago, India's trade deficit with China has also ballooned, reaching a record $ 27.1 billion.

“Buying and selling raw materials is an impersonal exercise, and has done little to bridge the gap between the two countries both in terms of misperceptions and mistrust,” said one Indian executive who has been based in China for several years.

Indian officials say Chinese companies are showing increasing interest in the Indian market with the economic troubles in the West.

Last year, Chinese investments in India increased by more than $ 100 million, driven by plans of energy company TBEA to invest in a major plant in Gujarat and other investments in new energy projects.

At the end of 2011, Chinese companies had directly invested $ 555 million in India, while Indian companies had invested $ 447 million in China, according to figures available with the Indian Embassy. While the number is still low, many investments are routed either through Hong Kong or other third party countries, and the actual invested figure is estimated to be far higher.

But whether or not the moves to boost two-way investments will pay dividends still remains unclear, particularly against the backdrop of new strains that trade ties have been grappling with in 2012.

Chinese imports of iron ore, which have largely driven trade, have fallen on account of last year's bans in Karnataka and a slowing down in the Chinese economy. India's moves to restrict exports of cotton and a proposal to impose 19 per cent import duty on power equipment, which has not yet been approved, have angered both Chinese officials and executives.

SSridhar · Post by **SSridhar** » 29 May 2012 09:56

China welcomes ManMohan Singh's visit to Myanmar

China on Monday said it was “happy” to see the development of relations between India and Myanmar, downplaying reports published by some media outlets here that framed Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's visit to the country as a challenge to once-unrivalled Chinese influence.

“Both India and Myanmar are China's friendly neighbours,” Foreign Ministry spokesperson Liu Weimin told reporters at a daily briefing. “China is happy to see the development of friendly relations between India and Myanmar, and we hope such development of friendly relations will be conducive to the stability and prosperity of the whole region.” Mr. Liu said China “would like to maintain high-level exchanges with Myanmar”, though there were no immediate plans for a visit by Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao, who reportedly postponed a trip scheduled for late last year. “We believe the two countries will arrange their high-level exchanges based on their actual needs above the ministerial level,” Mr. Liu said. Against the backdrop of unfolding political reforms in Myanmar, Chinese analysts have expressed some concerns over relations that were close and unrivalled under Myanmar's military regime, as new forces reshape the country's political landscape. In September, Chinese officials were left stunned when the newly-inaugurated Myanmar government under President Thein Sein ordered the suspension of the $3.6 billion China-backed Myitsone dam project on account of environmental concerns. With the United States also easing some sanctions, Myanmar has been keen to diversify its diplomatic and economic engagement.

India, however, is perceived by many Chinese analysts as being far less of a threat to China's interests in the country than the United States, whose moves to reengage with Myanmar have stirred much debate in the State media.

Ye Hailin, a South Asia scholar with the influential Chinese Academy of Social Sciences (CASS), pointed out in an interview with the Global Times this week that India's engagement with Myanmar in terms of trade and investments still trailed that of China and other countries.

“With Myanmar's new openness to the West, dominated by the U.S., and China's ongoing influence in the nation, India has actually been edged out of the main stage while both the U.S. and China are doing whatever they can to gain the favour of economically struggling, strategically-placed Myanmar,” Ms. Ye said.

“This is not a situation that India wants to see.” Last year, China led foreign investments in Myanmar, committing to $8.3 billion and far exceeding India's $189 million, according to data from IHS Global Insight cited by Agence France-Presse. In the year 2010-11, China was Myanmar's largest trade partner, with the $4.7 billion bilateral trade accounting for more than one-third of the country's total trade volume. India's $1.4-billion trade with Myanmar is expected to touch $2 billion by next year.

‘Sign of picking up pace'

Dr. Singh's visit this week has been seen by Chinese analysts such as Ms. Ye as “an obvious sign of India picking up the pace to bolster bilateral ties”. She said India would also be “closely monitoring whether the China-Myanmar relationship will take on a military dimension in case rumours about China attempting to build naval and intelligence facilities in Myanmar turn into reality. It is in India's interest to encourage Myanmar to take the current political reforms to their logical conclusion for free and fair elections in 2015, but whether it is in Myanmar's interest to take India as a main ally still needs consideration”.

anmol · Post by **anmol** » 29 May 2012 19:54

Chinese Local Official Rapes “Nearly One Hundred” Young Girls Before Capture

He was a successful public official. Not only was he Vice-Secretary of the Communist Party Standing Committee of Yongcheng City, a county-level city in Henan Province, but he moonlighted as a teacher in the language and culture department of Yongcheng Vocational College. He had been commended multiple times as an “outstanding Party worker.”

But Li Xingong (李新功) also lived another life. In that life, he lured dozens of girls as young as 11 years old into his black, unmarked Chevrolet, where he would rape them. He promised payments to students at one of the city’s middle schools who could help find him potential victims. Finally, on the evening of May 8, 2012, Li was caught in the act and arrested.

According to a report by the Youth Times (Chinese), a police raid of Li’s personal effects revealed a “large number” of condoms, lubricants and aphrodisiacs. On his personal computer were stored ***** pictures as well as the the QQ numbers of many young girls. (QQ is a widely used chat service in China.) It is now suspected that Li Xingong may have neared 100 different victims before he was finally caught.

China’s netizens have spared no word in assailing Li Xingong and his crimes. On Sina Weibo, China’s Twitter, they have demanded he be sentenced to death as soon as possible, with many calling for him to be subjected to a variety of corporal and capital punishments including castration, drawing and quartering, hanging, and a variety of other brutal measures used in imperial China. They are calling him a “beast” and “human scum.”

In the face of horrific facts, it is unsurprising to see an outpouring of anger and grief. But netizens are doubly perturbed by the reaction of local authorities to their fallen colleague: Silence, and an order for no one to speak or to accept interviews about the affair. The Youth Times reporter, using the pen name “Hot News Orange” (鲜橙热闻), wrote, “Before this reporter finished [his/her] story, [he/she] was advised by others that it would be ‘best not to do interviews first…people will thank you.’”

Making matters worse, local authorities either hid, or completely failed to understand, the extent of Li’s crime. A press release by Yongcheng authorities just two days ago said that “According to investigation, Li Xingong is suspected of raping over ten girls.” But according to the anonymous reporter, “A survey of victims’ families lasting over ten days revealed the number of Li’s victims far surpassed those recorded on his computer, most likely numbering close to 100.” Police have explained that Li himself admitted to over ten.

With estimates differing by an order of magnitude, netizens have made quite clear whom they trust more. In over 389,000 tweets on Weibo, netizens felt systemic problems were to blame for what amounted to a cover-up, or at least reflexive foot-dragging, from authorities predisposed to “shelter” one of their own. @我唔系Du仔 asked, “After this, how are we supposed to trust the official findings when they are released?”

Observers are not simply angered by the crime, and the cover-up. Many are publicly wondering how Li could lead two lives that were so different for so long, not only without detection, but with repeated instance of Party commendation.

To many, an unaccountable and fiercely protective Party organization lies at the root. Not only do netizens think the local Party is trying to protect Li, they feel that officials like him are an inevitable (if occasional) byproduct of the system around him. @见习医生85875239 wrote, “The cells in certain organizations have become diseased, and there are terminal symptoms.”

More tragic than the shattered trust in government is the broken lives of so many children who fell victim to an unchecked Li. Widely-followed microblogger Lian Peng (@连鹏), also enraged by the gag order issued by Yongcheng officials, asked them directly, “Do you have children?”

@郑洪升 reminded users that Children’s Day, when Chinese parents celebrate their (mostly) only children, is June 1, just days away. “Because of Li Xingong’s brutality…a layer of shadow will cover Children’s Day.” Even if the local party does the unexpected and steps forward to take responsibility, it will no doubt take parents in Yongcheng many Junes before they feel at ease handing their precious ones over to local schools again.

pankajs · Post by **pankajs** » 29 May 2012 21:29

Migrant workers go on rampage in China after death

(Reuters) - About 1,000 migrant workers went on the rampage in a city in eastern China on Tuesday, smashing up cars and protesting in front of a government building after a worker was apparently killed by his employer, state media said.

The protest began in the morning in Ruian, near Wenzhou in the wealthy province of Zhejiang, the official Xinhua news agency reported.

"Around 1,000 migrant workers rushed the government office building, turning over an iron fence gate, and damaging over a dozen cars with stones and bricks," Xinhua's English language report said.

"Local government sources said the protest was sparked by the death of 19-year-old migrant worker Yang Zhi, allegedly killed by his employer Xu Qiyin during a dispute over salary," it said.

The protest ended just before midday after the family of the dead man was given 300,000 yuan ($47,300) in compensation, Xinhua said.

Police have detained Xu, and ordered him to pay the compensation, the report said.{Anything odd here?}

It provided no further details, and Reuters was unable to reach the government for comment.

China's ruling Communist Party worries that the tens of thousands of sporadic protests over land grabs, corruption and economic grievances that break out across the country every year could coalesce into discontent that would threaten its control.

In December, a village protest in southern China over land grabs and the death of a village organizer drew national attention after officials conceded to protesters' demands.

No official counts of the number of protests, riots and mass petitions have been released in recent years. But most estimates in government-sponsored studies put such "mass incidents" at around 90,000 a year in recent years.

In 2007, China saw more than 80,000 "mass incidents", up from more than 60,000 in 2006, according to the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences.

pankajs · Post by **pankajs** » 29 May 2012 21:34

'Demand for Vietnamese brides booming in China'

Beijing: Vietnam's mail-order bride business is booming, fuelled by surging demand from Chinese men who have given up hope of finding a wife due to growing gender gap in the country.

Though international marriage agencies are officially illegal, loopholes in China have allowed the industry to flourish, a newspaper reported on Tuesday.

For a group purchase{Anything odd here?} price of 30,000 to 40,000 yuan (USD 4,727 - USD 6,303), an attractive Vietnamese bride aged between 18 and 25 can be "bought" from a marriage agency based in China's Yunnan Province, which regularly posts online advertisements, it said.

The agency is registered as a Chinese dating service in the provincial capital Kunming and organises group tours to Vietnam for single Chinese men and arranges dates for them with Vietnamese women selected from a catalogue as a possible mate for marriage.

The cost of the tour includes travel expenses, translation services, gifts for the women's families and the wedding ceremony.

They also assume responsibility for finding clients a new bride if the first one flees after the wedding, according to a report by a newspaper.

"We're gathering Chinese clients for group tours to Vietnam to arrange dating activities, not group purchasing. More than 80 per cent of clients find brides," an agency employee told a newspaper.

"All prospective brides who participate in the dates are willing to marry a Chinese suitor. Those who do tie the knot enter China with all legal documents, including a Vietnamese passport, a valid tourist visa and a health certificate," it said.

Like all foreigners with a Chinese husband or wife, permanent residency in China can be obtained after five years of marriage.

Chinese men opted to marry Vietnamese brides because of growing sex ratio in China increasing the gender gap.

According to 2010 Census figures, China's sex ratio at birth was 118 males for every 100 females. The number of males for every hundred females has risen consistently every decade from 108 in 1982, 111 in 1990 and 116 in 2000.

pankajs · Post by **pankajs** » 29 May 2012 23:37

China promotes world’s human rights cause

Anyone taking an objective look at the real changes in China would see clearly that China has made solid progress in human rights protection, and contributed significantly to the development of the international human rights cause.

First, the Chinese government takes respecting and protecting human rights as a basic principle for governing the country. The core of China’s Scientific Outlook on Development is to put people first, which theoretically covers respecting and protecting human rights.

I will spare you the rest....

Now...Now folks....

pankajs · Post by **pankajs** » 29 May 2012 23:56

Chinese despair at endless food-safety scares

"How come I didn't see any 'gutter' cooking oil, poisonous milk powder, dyed bread rolls and old leather shoes?" TV anchorman Wang Mudi asked recently on a Chinese version of Twitter, referring to four of China's countless food-safety scandals.

The shoe scare, which alleged that leather was used to make jelly and yogurt, was never proven, but plenty of very real worries rattle China's people every time they shop at a market or eat in a restaurant. The lure of even razor-thin margins has profiteers using chemicals to make everything from eggs to pig's ears.

Regular surveys reveal that China's authoritarian government struggles to reassure citizens that it can deliver the safe food they rank as a top priority.

In the city of Guangzhou, whose Cantonese cuisine is celebrated worldwide, more than 46% of residents are dissatisfied with food safety, and more than 37% said they had suffered recent food-safety problems, according to a survey released this month by the Guangzhou Public Opinion Research Center.

"There are two Chinas on the tip of the tongue," says Shanghai student Wu Heng, a fan of the series. "There's the China shown on TV, with its traditional food culture and long history. Then there's another China shown on my website, the current environment in which black-hearted enterprises make black-hearted foodstuffs and have a large market."

pankajs · Post by **pankajs** » 29 May 2012 23:59

Iran "cancels" US$2b dam contract with China

pankajs · Post by **pankajs** » 30 May 2012 00:11

Chinese Man Kills Himself to Protest Son’s Death in Tiananmen Sq.

pankajs · Post by **pankajs** » 30 May 2012 00:24

57% China's urban underground water polluted

Underground water in 57 percent of monitoring sites across Chinese cities have been found polluted or extremely polluted, the Economic Information Daily, a newspaper run by Xinhua News Agency, reported on Monday, quoting figures from the Ministry of Environmental Protection (MEP).

The MEP statistics also suggest that 298 million rural residents do not have access to safe drinking water.

pankajs · Post by **pankajs** » 30 May 2012 18:38

Double Jeopardy: Crime and China’s Communist Party

China’s announcement this week that the country’s former railway minister had been expelled from the Communist Party for corruption casts a spotlight on a significant flaw in the country’s pursuit of rule of law in criminal cases: More than 80 million Chinese people, including those at the top of the power structure, enjoy a different set of rules.

There are two parallel systems in China to punish criminal conduct, one for Communist Party members and the other, the formal criminal process. When a party member is suspected of a crime, it is the party’s own investigation that comes first.

Kanishka · Post by **Kanishka** » 01 Jun 2012 12:22

China factor to dominate top defence summit

In the absence of a formal defence alliance like Nato, the annual Shangri-La Dialogue in Singapore has become the pre-eminent annual security gathering in the Asia-Pacific region.

This year defence ministers and senior officials from some 27 countries are gathering in Singapore.

The US defence secretary is a regular participant as too are senior officials from China, Australia, Japan, Canada, India, Indonesia and a host of smaller Asian countries.

To old disputes like the tensions between China and Taiwan or those between North and South Korea can be added a host of new problems, many of them focused on the competition for natural resources in the South China Sea.

chaanakya · Post by **chaanakya** » 02 Jun 2012 15:31

Japan, China bypass US in currency trade

TOKYO - Japan and China started direct trading of their currencies, the yen and the yuan, on the inter-bank foreign exchange markets in Tokyo and Shanghai on Friday in an apparent bid to strengthen bilateral trade and investment between the world's second- and third-largest economies.

Direct yen-yuan trades also aim to hedge the risk of the dollar's fall in the long run as the world's key settlement currency and as the main reserve currency in Asia, the world's economic growth center in the 21st century. By skipping the dollar in transactions, the region's two biggest economies intend to reduce their dependence on dollar risk and US monetary authorities' influence on the Asian economy - aiding China's goal of undercutting US influence in the region.

It is the first time that China has allowed a major currency other than the dollar to directly trade with the yuan. For Beijing, this new step brings benefits of further internationalization of the yuan. For Tokyo, the possible future correction of China's still artificially undervalued yuan may bring the plus of a weaker yen, boosting profits of Japanese exporters such as Toyota and Sony in the long run.

pankajs · Post by **pankajs** » 02 Jun 2012 17:02

China fails to halt Tiananmen book’s release

A new book that offers a surprising reassessment of the Tiananmen Square crackdown through interviews with a disgraced former Beijing mayor went on sale Friday in Hong Kong despite efforts by Chinese authorities to stop the sale.

“Conversations With Chen Xitong,” which is not available in mainland China, is based on interviews with Chen, who was mayor of Beijing during the 1989 crackdown. Chen has long been portrayed as having supported the military assault, but in the book he says the crackdown was an avoidable tragedy and that he regrets the loss of life, though he denies being directly responsible.

Publisher Bao Pu said Thursday that Chinese Communist Party officials had asked the book’s author, Yao Jianfu, to stop its distribution in Hong Kong, a semiautonomous region of China that enjoys Western-style civil liberties not seen on the mainland, including free speech.

The officials said “they would take care of any financial loss if it is recalled,” Bao recounts Yao telling him. But by that point, the book had already been sent to shops, so it was “already a done deal,” Bao said.

There was strong interest in the 267-page book at some Hong Kong bookstores, where sales Friday appeared to be brisk. Staff at the Greenfield Book Store in Mong Kok district said about 40 copies had already been sold by noon. They also reported fielding 70 to 80 phone calls about the book from people speaking both the local Cantonese dialect and Mandarin, which is more common on the mainland.

At Cosmos Books in Wan Chai district, a dozen copies were stacked on a table with other books out front, while another two dozen had been set aside for customers to pick up later.

Chen was eventually deposed as Beijing’s Communist Party boss for corruption and is serving a 16-year prison sentence, effectively silencing him. Yao was able to talk with Chen because he was released on medical parole.

Chen told Yao that the Tiananmen crackdown should never have happened and that he hoped the government would formally re-evaluate the event, in which the military crushed weekslong protests, killing hundreds, possibly thousands, of people.

The book adds to a growing debate ahead of a once-a-decade transfer of power in China later this year from one generation of party leaders to younger successors.

Prem · Post by **Prem** » 03 Jun 2012 00:56

http://www.foxnews.com/world/2012/06/02 ... ports-say/
China detains top security official accused of being US spy, reports say

BEIJING – A Chinese security official has been arrested on suspicion of spying for the U.S., Reuters reports.Sources say both counties have made an effort to keep the case quiet for months. The official was detained earlier this year after allegedly passing along information to the U.S. regarding China's espionage activities. The New York Times said the official, was believed to be an employee in the Ministry of State Security, China's main intelligence agency.The U.S. and Chinese governments have not given any hint publicly of the discovery of the spying suspect. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, visiting Oslo on Friday, declined to comment on the reports