Let us Understand the Chinese

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rajkhalsa
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Re: Let us Understand the Chinese

Post by rajkhalsa »

I just came across what is probably the best online translation service for Chinese websites: Popjisyo.com.

What it does is, rather than translate the whole webpage at once like babelfish, actually keeps the webpage as is and only translates each word of a sentance when you hold your mouse over a word or character. It's a bit hard to explain, so just click here for an example of what I mean -- a Popjisyo translation of a popular Chinese language military news website.

It's a bit difficult to follow if you have no knowlege of the language (as it doesn't tanslate proper nouns and such too well), it is extremely helpful if you have taken a language class in Chinese or are familiar with Chinese grammar. Worth checking out
vsudhir
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Re: Let us Understand the Chinese

Post by vsudhir »

the chan akya dude at asia times lets rip a new one. apols if posted previously.

http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Global_Eco ... 0Dj03.html
The recently concluded successful Beijing Olympics may also have diverted attention from important matters - indeed, in the middle of the "ugly girl" scandal for the opening ceremony, it was revealed that the decision came in a senior government level meeting, perhaps even at the Politburo. Irrespective of what you think of the scandal itself - I am personally disgusted by it - it boggles the mind that senior government functionaries in a US$2.5 trillion economy had the time to sit around talking about the ideal girl on stage. Perhaps the agenda item for the next Politburo meeting includes a discussion on the ideal cut of the swimsuits for female athletes in the 2012 Olympics.
:rotfl: :rotfl: :rotfl:
rajrang
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Re: Let us Understand the Chinese

Post by rajrang »

Rare occasion when India shows its spine relative to China:

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/Hind ... 464581.cms
Avinash R
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Re: Let us Understand the Chinese

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Clueless Chinese uranium smugglers spared jail
Tue Sep 9, 10:34 AM ET

BEIJING (Reuters) - Three Chinese men have been spared jail after they smuggled a ball of depleted uranium into the country, ignorant the 274-kg (604 lb) shiny lump was a health threat, local media reported.

The three scrap merchants bought the ball of low-radiation uranium metal in Kyrgyzstan last year, haggling a dealer down to a price of $2,000, the official news website of China's far northwest Xinjiang region reported.

They smuggled it into China, evading customs checks but apparently ignorant the interesting metal could be dangerous. One of them hid it in his father-in-law's home in Xinjiang.

"They were surprised that at night when the lights went out the treasure sparkled and glittered, and Wang chipped a piece from it and kept it beside his bed, sometimes playing with it," the report said of one of the men.

Twice as dense as lead, depleted uranium is the substance left after the more highly radioactive parts are extracted. It is used in armor-piercing ammunition.

Contact with the skin is usually not harmful, but it can damage kidneys, lungs and other organs if it enters the body.

Determined to make a dollar from their find, the men decided to have the ball priced by an expert and Wang took a piece thousands of kilometers (miles) to Beijing.

"To prevent the sample being lost or stolen on the way, Wang used tape to stick the unidentified treasure to his body, and it never left him day and night," the report said.

But the three traders' hopes for riches evaporated after an expert identified the substance as degraded uranium, and the men were arrested on suspicion of smuggling.

Last month, a prosecutor decided not to charge the men, accepting their argument that they did not know what they had smuggled.

To date, the three had shown no "physical abnormalities," the report said.
ramana
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Re: Let us Understand the Chinese

Post by ramana »

Book Review Pioneer, 12 Sept., 2008
Challenging China Caricatures

What sets Pallavi Aiyar's book apart is the fact that there is neither an attempt to flatten out the differences between India and China nor to reify them to the point that these then go on to become self-fulfilling prophecies writes Nimmi Kurian

Smoke and Mirrors: An Experience in China
Author: Pallavi Aiyar
Publisher: Fourth Estate
Price: Rs 395

What is perhaps most refreshing about Pallavi Aiyar's book is that she approaches China with an open mind and makes a conscious effort to steer clear of essentialism. There is neither an attempt to flatten out the differences between India and China nor to reify them to the point that these then go onto become self-fulfilling prophecies. This clearly sets her work apart from those feel-good, mix-and-stir versions of India-China cooperation that is often the standard fare. Not having a mind made up also equips her not only with a greater willingness to learn but also with a listening ear to unlearn old habits of thinking and biases.

Aiyar's account is largely based on her experiences during her five-year stay in China first as a teacher and then as a journalist. Her observations are those of a largely sympathetic and curious onlooker trying to make sense of the fast moving target that China today represents. It tells the story of China's national obsession with growth and how it has wasted no time in embracing Deng Xiaoping's alluring exhortation to get rich with the missionary zeal of a new convert. And the ease with which China, no stranger to revolutions, has ushered in the great consumer revolution. It is also a story told in part through the eyes of her young students at the Beijing Broadcasting Institute and her interactions with them. These observations are as much revealing as they are sobering given the deeply ingrained disinclination on the part of her students to question given facts. She notes their boredom with compulsory classes in Marxist thought, their fixation with their careers and "fantasising of little but money." She despairs when she realises that none of her students knew that the Dalai Lama was the recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize. She also notes their indignant nationalistic responses during an interaction in class on the topic of media freedom. Arguing that while freedom of the press could apply to 'foreign countries', a student insisted that it was unsuitable for China because of the 'volatile' nature of Chinese people. The Chinese people, the student argued, needed to be fed constantly on a diet of appropriately good news, failing which they would get 'depressed and unproductive'.

A strong point of the book is that it problematises several dominant imageries and Aiyar acknowledges her own penchant for doing so. She is at her best when she dwells on the contrasting worlds that exist within China today -- an economy that for three decades has been scaling dizzying heights and a society that is seeing a rising graph of unrest in the form of protests, riots and strikes. A country whose contributions to global warming have turned out to be as massive as those to the global economy. It would however have enhanced the value of the book if many of these contradictions had been debated more thoroughly. For instance, one is not sure that a "genuine debate on the social and environmental costs of big dam projects" is totally "absent" in today's China. It is true that while there is deep resistance to accepting any curbs on growth, there is an emerging consensus on the severe extent of environmental degradation. There are growing fears that the country could be, as a Chinese proverb says, "draining the pond to catch the fish." This growing awareness has seen an increasing willingness to adopt greener policies such as energy-saving technologies, reforestation programmes and improving regulatory enforcement. NGOs such as Friends of Nature and Green Watershed have been scripting success stories in engaging the state on the issue of environmental protection. Late last year, top officials involved with the construction of the Three Gorges warned of an "environmental catastrophe". The willingness to acknowledge this publicly is no less significant than the decision taken recently to scale down the proposed dams on the Nu River from 13 to 4 in the face of a highly organised campaign led by local farmers and environmental campaignersThe new literature coming out of China such as Cao Jinqing's China along the Yellow River and The Blue Book brought out by the CASS also makes compelling reading for the increasingly frank treatment of complex social pressures.

The contested nature of the domestic debate on many of these issues nudges us to appreciate the reality that policy making in China today is a far more pluralistic process, involving numerous actors at various levels, than it is given credit for. If anything, the story of China's reform experience points to the creation of increasing degrees of social spaces wherein while the state appears to exercise considerable formal control, it also allows for a host of non-state actors to negotiate with the state varying spheres of functional autonomy to represent a variety of social interests, creating in the process interrelationships that are highly complex yet are also symbiotic in nature. It is of course true that the social space that has been opened up is a carefully managed one, subject to numerous direct and indirect means of state control.

Many of these larger debates point to exciting new trajectories of intellectual inquiry. Debating new questions such as these would also help steer the China studies programme in India beyond its limited and statist frames of reference. The book stops short of raising and exploring many of these issues with rigour. That said, by unbundling several conventional imageries of China in popular imagination, Aiyar is able to cut through the smoke and mirrors with relative ease.

-- The reviewer is an Associate Professor at the Centre for Policy Research, New Delhi and a Fellow, India China Institute, The New School, New York
Paul
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Re: Let us Understand the Chinese

Post by Paul »

Amid milk scare, China's elite get special food
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Digg Facebook Newsvine del.icio.us Reddit StumbleUpon Technorati Yahoo! Bookmarks Print By ANITA CHANG, Associated Press Writer Anita Chang, Associated Press Writer – 2 hrs 59 mins ago
Featured Topics: Iraq Russia AP – BEIJING – While China grapples with its latest tainted food crisis, the political elite are served the choicest, safest delicacies. They get hormone-free beef from the grasslands of Inner Mongolia, organic tea from the foothills of Tibet and rice watered by melted mountain snow.

And it's all supplied by a special government outfit that provides all-organic goods from farms working under the strictest guidelines.

That secure food supply stands in stark contrast to the frustrations of ordinary citizens who have faced recurring food scandals — vegetables with harmful pesticide residue, fish tainted with a cancer-causing chemical, eggs colored with industrial dye, fake liquor causing blindness or death, holiday pastries with bacteria-laden filling.

Now that the country's most reputable dairies have been found selling baby formula and other milk products tainted with an industrial chemical that can cause kidney stones and kidney failure, many Chinese don't know what to buy. Tens of thousands of children have been sickened and four babies have died.

Knowing that their leaders do not face these problems has made some people angry.

"Food safety is a high priority for children and families of government officials, so are normal citizens less entitled to safe food?" asked Zhong Lixun, feeding her 7-month-old grandson baby formula after he got checked for kidney stones at Beijing Children's Hospital.

The State Council Central Government Offices Special Food Supply Center is specifically designed to avoid the problems troubling the general population.

"We all know that average production facilities use large quantities of chemical fertilizers and pesticides. Antibiotics and hormones are commonly used in raising livestock and poultry. Farmed aquatic products are contaminated by various kinds of water pollution," the center's director, Zhu Yonglan, said in a speech earlier this year.

"It goes without saying that these are harmful when consumed by humans," Zhu told executives at supplier Shandong Ke'er Biological Medical Technology Development Co., which posted it on its Web site.

Zhu's speech has been widely circulated by Chinese Internet users on blogs and forums in recent days, with many expressing outrage that top government officials have a separate — and safer — food supply than the public.

The special food center enforces strict standards on suppliers like Shandong Ke'er, which makes health supplements designed to boost immunity and energy. Foods must be organic, not genetically modified and meet international food standards, said a manager in the center's product department, who only gave her surname, Zhang.

The reason: its A-list clientele of government officials and retirees of vice minister rank or higher.

It's not unusual for China's leadership to have a special food supply; the practice stretches back thousands of years to farms providing ingredients for lavish imperial meals or the greasy, spicy dishes favored by Communist Party Chairman Mao Zedong.

The former Soviet Union's ruling classes also ate food that was unavailable to the masses. In North Korea, where withering famines have seen tens of thousands starve over the past 13 years, leader Kim Jong Il is a gourmet known for his love of lobster, shark's fin soup and sushi. His former private chef has said Kim keeps an extensive collection of vintage French wines.

Set up in 2004, China's Special Food Supply Center is almost as secretive as its high-end clientele, whose precise number is unclear, but includes hundreds of top political leaders, their families and retired cadres. Much of the information on its Web site was removed after media inquiries and interview requests this week.

Goods deemed to meet the highest standards are stamped with the label "Nation A," which stands for "top end, irreplaceable, the best," according to the Web site. Those products are for senior politicians or government offices and not released to the general consumer market, said a customer service agent surnamed Dong.

Rice fed by melted snow from Mt. Changbai, which straddles the China-North Korean border, gets a "Nation A" rating, according to the Web site.

The center scours the country for purveyors in places famous for a particular product, said Zhang, the manager.

These include fish from Hubei province — known traditionally as the "land of fish and rice" — tea from mountainous Yunnan province abutting Tibet, and beef and mutton from the Inner Mongolian steppes, according to Zhu's speech.

As for rice, some comes from the northeast, grown from seeds specially cultivated by experts from the Jilin Academy of Agricultural Sciences, said sales manager Wu Honghua of Chifeng Heiyupaozi Organic Agropastoral Development Co.

It "has a very small output. It tastes very good. And it doesn't involve genetic engineering," said Wu.

Wu said 90 percent of the rice goes to the Beidaihe Sanitorium — a seaside resort for retired party cadres. The remainder is sold on the market, he said, at $4 a pound — a price five times higher than regular organic rice and 15 times more than the price of ordinary rice.

A brand of organic tea supplied to the center sells for $187 a pound. "It's fresh and tender, smells good and has a bright color," said Xia Dan, an employee of the Huiming Tea Co. in eastern Zhejiang province.

The latest food safety scandal began with tainted baby formula from one company, but widened to include products from 22 of China's dairies. Countries as far away as Kenya and Colombia have banned or recalled Chinese dairy imports, while cakes, candies and other products made with milk products have come under suspicion.

Since the scandal broke earlier this month, sales of Chinese milk have plummeted after top dairies Mengniu Dairy Group Co. and Yili Industrial Group Co. were found to have sold contaminated milk.

Chinese looking for reassurance have turned to one company not named in any recalls — Sanyuan Foods Ltd.

It proudly advertises that its milk is used for state banquets at the Great Hall of the People and has seen its sales triple in Beijing, while demand has outstripped supply in at least one province. And that's despite the fact that its price — about $1.60 a quart — is 25 percent higher than other brands.

___

Associated Press writer Chi-Chi Zhang and researchers Zhao Liang and Bonnie Cao contributed to this report
ramana
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Re: Let us Understand the Chinese

Post by ramana »

Book Review, Telegraph, Kolkota, 26 Sept., 2008
PEEK THROUGH THE WALL


Smoke and mirrors: An experience of China By Pallavi Aiyar, Fourth Estate, Rs 395

Till a few years back, there wasn’t a direct flight connecting China and India, the world’s two most populous nations that share a lengthy border, an ancient history and a love for Raj Kapoor’s films. This lack of easy accessibility, expectedly, bred both fear and stereotypes among the people. Sitting on a China Eastern flight, in 2002 (a direct link had been established by then), Pallavi Aiyar could only think of bicycles, “an exotic cuisine”, a difficult language and an inscrutable people when she thought of the land she was about to visit.

Her perceptions would change, in the course of the next five years, as Aiyar lived and travelled across China, learnt Mandarin, changed jobs (working as a “foreign expert” in the erstwhile Beijing Broadcasting Institute, then as a freelancer and, later, as a consultant with the CII), and made friends inside the Forbidden City. This is a story of a changing China through the eyes of a visitor who is both intelligent and affectionate.

Aiyar discovers a country developing rapidly: having built the world’s biggest dam, highest railway line and the fastest train, it had begun work on the largest airport. In the process, it was also busy effacing an older, and perhaps fairer, way of living. The hutongs — elegant, ornately built neighbourhoods dating back to the Yuan dynasty — are being mowed down and replaced by the glint of steel. There is also the reformed hukou, “an internal passport”, to check the migration of poor peasants into the gleaming cities. Cherished revolutionary ideals such as equality of labour are on the wane, and the State itself is on a tightrope walk, balancing the contradictions between the Market and Marx, often with disastrous consequences. Compared to India, China enjoys better healthcare and has higher literacy.

But Aiyar’s account of the Chinese Communist Party’s attempts to first deny, and then conceal, the real extent of SARS to the world and to China’s people reveals a society that is dangerously oppressive. The State’s strategy to ‘market’ Zhongdian in Yunnan, bordering the Tibet Autonomous Region, as a new Shangrila to the rich is chillingly devious as is its intolerance of opposition. The infamous Henan blood scandal, in which the entire province’s blood supply got contaminated by the HIV virus, is also a pointer of spiralling corruption and avarice.

But Aiyar is not unaffected by China’s beautiful people. The tales of Mr Wu, her landlord, who called only at dawn and took her out on dinners, the ancient, toothless Lao Tai Tai with bound feet, and the boisterous mahjong-players make Aiyar’s work richly anecdotal. There is also humour, in just the right dose. Aiyar recalls her initial perplexity with Beijinghua, a local dialect, which made all conversation sound like an endless snarl.

Aiyar’s experience also enables her to reflect on the challenges that bind China with her own country: endemic corruption, environmental degradation and a teeming populace. She also notes the many differences: in economy and politics, among students’ attitudes and in the collective responses towards women and food. But there are quaint similarities, such as the manner in which Hindi and Chini passengers scramble to their feet and push and shove to open overhead lockers when an aircraft lands.

Aiyar’s language and style are crisp, but the editing surprises occasionally: ‘none’ is used as a plural (p. 96). But these are too few to spoil Aiyar’s pleasant writing.

UDDALAK MUKHERJEE
Ameet
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Re: Let us Understand the Chinese

Post by Ameet »

Xinhua runs spacewalk story before astronauts leave earth

http://www.networkworld.com/news/2008/0 ... ml?hpg1=bn

Xinhua runs spacewalk story before astronauts leave Earth
By Sumner Lemon , IDG News Service , 09/26/2008
Sponsored by:

China's official Xinhua News Agency ran a story on Thursday announcing ground controllers were tracking Chinese astronauts sent aloft for the country's first spacewalk, complete with details and quotes from the astronauts. There was just one problem: the astronauts had yet to blast off for the spacewalk, which is scheduled for the early hours of Saturday morning, Beijing time.

Carrying a Sept. 27 dateline that declared Xinhua reporters were "sleepless in the middle of the Pacific Ocean" aboard a Chinese tracking ship, the story -- published on Xinhua's Web site on Sep. 25 at 9:04 a.m. -- offers a gripping account of conversation between ground controllers and astronauts aboard the Shenzhou VII spacecraft, citing the breathless silence aboard the Yuan Wang No. 1 tracking ship as observers waited for the craft to appear on its instruments.

The ship even established contact with the spacecraft 12 seconds ahead of schedule, said the report, which was written by reporters Wu Dengfeng, Mei Shixiong and Wang Yushan.

In reality, the astronauts didn't actually blast off until 9:00 p.m. on Thursday night, Beijing time, according to an Associated Press report -- about 12 hours after the Xinhua spacewalk story first appeared.

A copy of the story, which was pulled down by Xinhua, can be viewed in a cached version stored by search-engine operator Baidu.
Lalmohan
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Re: Let us Understand the Chinese

Post by Lalmohan »

some news channels commented that the live space walk pictures were on at least an 8 second delay in order to ensure that nothing untelegenic happened. i found it curious that the image broke up and degraded just before the flag came out

one expected the news to be doctored, but...
Philip
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Re: Let us Understand the Chinese

Post by Philip »

More Chinese fraud!Will it never end? I suggets a boycott and ban on all Chinese goods from entering India,as they are either harmfukl through chemicals (toys) ,poison to eat (milkfood,biscuits,"Cadbury"chocolates).not to mention its most lethal export "Bird Flu"!

http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2008 ... inks.china
Chinese biscuits recalled in UK as officials admit milk firm cover-upIan Sample and Tania Branigan, China correspondent The Guardian, Thursday October 2 2008

Thousands of packets of biscuits contaminated with the industrial chemical melamine were ordered off shop shelves in the UK yesterday, following an alert from the Food Standards Agency.

Inspectors were dispatched to Chinese supermarkets and independent retailers across the country to remove and destroy the biscuits after officials in the Netherlands said 3,500 packets of contaminated biscuits had been shipped to Britain.

The alert marks the first case of melamine-contaminated food to arrive in the UK since the health scare in China, in which tens of thousands of babies have been taken ill and four have died due to kidney problems after drinking Sanlu infant formula containing the chemical.

Yesterday it was revealed that the company at the heart of the scandal asked officials to help conceal the extent of the problem, according to China's state media.

The authorities had already said that officials in Shijiazhuang, Hebei, where Sanlu is based, sat on a report from the company for more than a month before telling provincial bosses.

But in yesterday's People's Daily, a city government spokesman, Wang Jianguo, said Sanlu asked for help in "managing" the media response to the case when the firm informed the authorities of the problem on August 2. Parents had begun complaining to the firm by the end of 2007.

According to the paper, Sanlu's letter asked the government to "increase control and coordination of the media, to create a good environment for the recall of the company's problem products. This is to avoid whipping up the issue and creating a negative influence in society."

Wang said his colleagues sent a team to investigate as soon as they became aware of the issue. But the People's Daily pointed out that they did not inform the provincial government until September 9.

"We mistakenly thought that taking necessary measures and raising product quality could mitigate the effect and reduce losses," said Wang.

Firms around the world have since been forced to withdraw a range of products due to health concerns.

Britain's Food Standards Agency said the Chinese biscuits, which have not been distributed to major supermarkets, were being withdrawn as a precaution and were unlikely to pose a significant health risk.

Dutch authorities raised the alarm yesterday after tests on Koala brand biscuits, manufactured by Lotte China Foods Co, found the biscuits contained nearly twice the precautionary limit of melamine at 4.98mg a kilo. Import checks revealed that 168kg of the biscuits had been sent on from the Netherlands to Britain.

The FSA has withdrawal alerts on four products: Koala chocolate cookies, Koala strawberry cookies, Koala yummy cookies chestnut and Koala melon cookies.
Paul
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Re: Let us Understand the Chinese

Post by Paul »

-post from scenarios thread
SGupta wrote:
BRFite -Trainee


Joined: 26 Feb 2007 08:16 pm
Posts: 32 If prior Chinese thinking holds, China will not start a war with India unless the outcome will be in Chinas favor and is certain. The added issue this time will be some temporary loss in economic output. Temporary simply because the economic tie up with the West is tight.

As far as any conflict scenario goes there will be many factors but I wonder what India's ability to damage Chinese economic output is and if a stated goal of making economic zones legitimate war targets would make sense. The Chinese are certainly doing it with their string of pearls to strangle India. Then of course India would have to develop capability to do this and the Babus would get in the way.

In terms of a future scenario and a 30,000' meter strategic view this might make an interesting backdrop.

and veteran china watcher Bhasker Roy in SAAG
How Acute Is China’s Power Struggle?

By Bhaskar Roy

The world was watching how China would behave after a successful hosting of the Summer Olympics, 2008. It was not only a case of successful games. There was unprecedented extravaganza in the opening ceremony – awesome, most would say. It displayed an equally high show of its athletic prowess, bagging the maximum number of medals. Despite the hyped terrorist threats, the games went through incident free, with a hundred thousand troops deployed for security, backed by missile batteries around Beijing. The powerful Propaganda Department of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and the government went on an over drive to raise nationalism and Chinese pride over everything else. Everything else was subsumed – for the moment.

The power of the propaganda department and the Ministry of Culture has been well documented during the 1966-76 Cultural Revolution. That force though moderated, has not diminished very much over the years. A recent authoritative Chinese think tank report said that the propaganda apparatus can unleash the forces of nationalism and control them at its will. After the Olympic games a senior Tibetan Autonomous Region (TAR) official said, in the context of the protests by Tibetans in March 2008, that the press was the strongest weapon. This was a direct reference to how Chinese propaganda subsumed international outrage over Chinese security forces dealing with the Tibetan protests. The manner in which the propaganda department and the state council managed and controlled news was bound to cause intra-party conflicts and raise questions from the people on political reforms. Melamine contamination of baby food and other milk products, the extent of real damage in the Sichuan earthquake including possible radio active leaks from nuclear plants were suppressed to present a picture of a well oiled China to the world for the Olympics. It was, therefore, a matter of time before the sharp political and ideological differences came out in the open.

Although erstwhile Party General Secretary Jiang Zemin, and current party boss Hu Jintao were both late paramount leader Deng Xiaoping’s nominees they came during different periods of time. Jiang was brought in from Shanghai after the 1989 students’ uprising when political reforms were brought to a halt. About ten years later he tried to bring in some liberal political restructuring inside the party, but implemented only a part of Deng Xiaoping’s road map. Jiang’s family and supporters known as the Shanghai clique got into serious corruption while pursuing very high speed development of the coastal areas at the cost of the vast poor hinterland and rural areas.

Hu Jintao, who is not even a closet liberal, decided to attack the coastal plans and focus on the rural construction. He is yet to be very successful in his efforts. From Hu Jintao’s point of view disappointment and resentment among the rural population comprising 800 million people cannot be left unaddressed any longer. Hu used Mao Zedong very liberally to push through his agenda.

Hu Jintao’s Premier, Wen Jiabao, while fully contributing to Hu’s ideas, is basically progressive. After the Tien An Men square incident he was banished into political obscurity for having met the protesting students along with the Party General Secretary Zhao Ziyang. Few of those punished at that time made a come back. But Wen managed to return successfully, during Deng’s life time.

This was a part of the late Deng Xiaoping’s plan to balance the more liberal with the conservatives to ensure that 1989 did not repeat. Jiang Zemin shuffled between the two sides depending on the situation. He was known as the “wind faction”. Jiang still remains a powerful centre of influence and continues to lead the Shanghai faction.

The uneven development between the rural and urban sectors in China appears to be the burning issue. But the problem is deeper. It is a question of ideology and politics, and each faction interprets or, as the Chinese idealogues prefer to say, “scientifically develop” and apply them for the benefit of the country. There are strong personal animosity among top leaders, too. Therefore, Mao Zedong thought, Deng Xiaoping’s theory, the “Three Represents” (associated with Jiang Zemin), and the liberal (not pluralistic) groups have got into serious contention.

Three recent developments need to be seen in the context of inter-factional fights. They provide some insight into the problem. On a tour to the southern province of Guangdong in the third week of October, politburo standing committee member Li Changchun laid a wreath at the statue of Deng Xiaoping in the Special Economic Zone (SEZ), Shenzen. He also called for efforts to overcome obstacles to “Scientific development”, heighten public awareness of development requirements, and promote development of “Socialist culture”.

Li Changchun’s activities in Guangdong are very significant. He tried to reenact Deng Xiaoping’s famous 1992 tour to Guangdong to force the conservatives to open up credit lines of banks to help develop the coastal region, Shenzen being the star special Economic Zone (SEZ). Laying a wreath at a leader’s statue is an exceptional act for a top communist party leader. Deng’s theory of socialism envisaged development of the coastal region first because of their geographical importance, and transfer this to the poor rural areas and hinterland. Li, a member of the Shanghai faction did not make any mention of the rural China. His visit was briefly reported in the Party mouthpiece, the People’s Daily, of October 22, 2008.

On September 28, in the run up to the 3rd plenary session of the 17th Party Congress (Oct.9-12), the People’s Daily carried another highly loaded brief report from the Party’s news net. In a sharp attack on lateral induction of businessmen and professionals in higher levels of the party, it charged that these people did not have political ideology training and experience and were corrupting young party cadres as their future centers of power and profit.

This was a serious attack on Jiang Zemin and his policy to induct top professionals, businessmen and experts into the party to boost the economy as a global leader. Like the “wind faction” he is known as, Jiang had downgraded ideology. Other reports and opinions carried by the People’s Daily tried to protect him with conclusions that what Jiang did was, correct, but that his successor had mismanaged the policy.

Jiang Zemin and the Shanghai clique are apparently under attack of privatizing the industries in much the same way the Soviet Union did under President Mikhail Gorbachev which led to the dismemberment of the country into new independent states. Basically, it is the question of loosening the control of the party over the country. The Shanghai faction is trying to fight this charge, arguing they are very conscious of the Soviet experience, and the arterial industries remain firmly in the hands of the state.

The third issue is some serious dismay among progressive state owned media organizations, intellectuals, and even some bureaucrats over media control and control over important information affecting the lives of the people. The reputed Guangdong magazine, the Southern Window, has come out with several articles stating suffocating state control is preventing action of law.

The Guangdong based media, which has tried to establish some freedom, has also complained of restrictions from the Centre when reporting on melamine contamination of milk products in the run up to the Olympics. The authorities were only bothered about the Olympics had no concern for of infants who were being slowly poisoned by these products.

Even worse, officials in Beijing have told foreign journalists that party leaders and senior bureaucrats consume only specially grown organic foodstuff from meats to rice and vegetables, suggesting that in the socialist society of China some people are more equal than others.

According to the well informed Hong Kong magazine “Open” (Kaifang), mistakes from all sides may be looking for a scapegoat, and that is premier Wen Jiabao. Political ideological article have started sniping at Wen, projecting him a man with western liberal ideas. His record of 1989 is emerging as his Achilles’ heel.

Hu Jintao may agree to sacrifice Wen Jiabao to protect his own position. It could be a quid pro quo. Hu worked to dismiss Jiang Zemin’s team member, Shanghai Party Chief and Politburo (PB) Member, Chen Liangyu last year, on charges of corruption. He was the first PB member to be dismissed on such a charge – serious loss of face for the Shanghai clique. Wen is already being quietly removed from some important leading bodies.

The official photograph line up of the 3rd plenum of the 17th party congress clearly indicated that Vice president Xi Jinping was Hu Jinto’s successor, and Li Keqing would take over from Wen Jiabao. Li Keqing is from the Communist Yough League (CYL), Hu Jintao’s constituency. China’s internal politics appears to be moving into an area of conflicting politics and ideology. Removing a serving Premier will be difficult to explain to party cadres, intellectuals and bureaucrats. Wen Jiabao has endeared himself to the people of Sichuan in the earthquake relief efforts. He was also in the forefront in relief efforts last December in the huge snowfall disaster. China has come a long way from 1989.

The draconian measures adopted by the authorities not only to control information, but also to virtually stymie the common people appears to have gone against the rising expectations that the party was moving towards more transparency and basic democracy which the Chinese people were hoping for as a result of Hu Jintao’s promise.

Finally, the growing conflict in political ideology, parts of which overlap between the two factions must be noted. It appears that Vice President and PBSC member Xi Jinping, who is reported to come from a princeling faction, is trying to find an undisturbed transition from Mao Zedong to Deng Xiaoping in practical ideology. Jiang Zemin, by himself, does not appear to figure prominently in the first and second generation leadership in Xi’s exposition.

China’s internal politics is still cloudy. But it may not be surprising if things suddenly start unravelling. The international community cannot look away from these developments. Close neighbours like India need to take special account of these developments.

(The author is an eminent China analyst with many years of experience of study on the developments in China. He can be reached at grouchohart@yahoo.com)
Bhasker Roy's article should be studied threadbare to predict which outcome will hold bearing for SGupta's post.
ramana
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Re: Let us Understand the Chinese

Post by ramana »

TOI reports
Finally, Pranab calls China a challenge
5 Nov 2008, 0220 hrs IST, Indrani Bagchi, TNN

NEW DELHI: The rise of China is a strategic challenge to a rising India. After years of dancing around this central factor in India's foreign
policy, foreign minister Pranab Mukherjee, for the first time, has described China as a security "challenge and a priority", but significantly not as an opportunity.


India, said Mukherjee, would have to develop "more sophisticated ways of dealing with these new challenges posed by China".

Addressing the National Defence College on Monday, Mukherjee outlined India's security challenges. "To my mind, the foremost among these would be (a) to cope with the rise of China; (b) maintenance of a peaceful periphery; and (c) managing our relations with the major powers."

Shorn of the excitement of the $60billion bilateral trade figures and a "strategic partnership", Mukherjee described the current phase of India-China ties in stark terms, calling it only "a somewhat normalised relationship".

Ten years after Atal Bihari Vajpayee blamed China's proliferation activities as one of the reasons for India going overtly nuclear, India is again articulating its concerns. In the meantime, the world has changed, as have both India and China. As a homogenous and focused China powered ahead in economic development, funnily enough, :roll: so did heterogeneous and chaotic India, to the extent that both countries are now being seen by the world as the twin engines of global growth. But with its growth trajectory intact, fears are growing in many parts of the world that China's rise may not always be "peaceful" as its leadership promises.

Mukherjee said, "We are today faced with a new China. Today's China seeks to further her interests more aggressively than in the past, thanks to the phenomenal increase of her capacities after 30 years of reforms. There are also new set of challenges which China poses such as the strategic challenge as China develops its capabilities in outer space; the geopolitical challenge as it reaches out to various parts of the globe in search of raw materials and resources." {Belated realizaion at the pen-ultimate time of their tenure! Wasted five years.}

India is not yet fully equipped to deal with the challenges that China poses. For instance, during his return flight from Beijing last week, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh told journalists that his conversation with Chinese president Hu Jintao focused a lot on the future of trans-border rivers.

While India does not articulate this concern often, it's clearly very high priority.
The MEA site would have full text. Lets try to find it and post it.
Philip
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Re: Let us Understand the Chinese

Post by Philip »

I coincidentally was reading in a past issue of the F-mag,Uncle George's interview-about China,which he said really did not really want a settlement with India and was delaying matters,had decided to become the world's largest military power,had repeatedly intruded into Indian territory and had actually admitted the same,brushing off criticism saying that talks could solve matters,had a better infrastructure along the border and that ABV did not want to alarm the nation about Chinese intrusions, hoping that diplomacy would resolve the issue.

Much snow has fallen in Tibet since,the uprising and protests against Chinese genocide and destruction of the Tibetan culture and religion.The Dalai Lama has now openly given up hope that talking to China will save Tibet and its people.Day-by- day China grows militarily stronger and behaves in a more cynical manner with respect to human rights and ignores any criticism about its massive military expansion,especially that of its navy,with its new naval/nuclear sub base on Hainan island..

Jut see how China is dealing with Taiwan,making it drop its guard while not sacrificing its massive missile inventory aimed at the island!

Silent diplomacy in Chinese envoy's historic meeting with Tawian's president
China's senior negotiator on Taiwan took the art of diplomatic silence to a new level on Thursday as he met the island's president for the first time.

By Richard Spencer in Beijing
Last Updated: 11:46AM GMT 06 Nov 2008

Previous1 of 2 ImagesNext Taiwan democratically elected President Ma Ying-jeou (right) made history when he became fisrt leader of the island to meet a senior Chinese leader science the end of the Chinese civil war in 1949. Photo: AFP / Getty Images
Pro-Taiwan independence activists march in the streets during an anti-China demonstration in Taipei to protest against the meeting between Taiwan's President Ma Ying-jeou and Chinese official Chen Yunlin. Photo: AFP / Getty Images
The meeting between Chen Yunlin and President Ma Ying-jeou, the highlight of a four-day visit to the island by Mr Chen, had been overshadowed by controversy over how the Chinese envoy would address his host.

In the event, he successfully ducked the issue - by offering no verbal greeting at all.

He could not use Mr Ma's title, since China does not recognise the Taiwan government's autonomy.

But he could not address him simply as Mr Ma without paying disrespect to his host - and playing into the hands of Mr Ma's anti-China opposition, who were already accusing him of selling out to Beijing by inviting him.

So during their five-minute public meeting, he uttered just one line, as he handed over a gift of a painting: "I offer this to you. This is by a master artist."

Mr Chen's visit is the fruit of a warming of ties between the two former enemies, who are still technically at war. Taiwan is ruled by the same political party that fought the Communist Party for control of China in the 1930s and 40s, and the People's Republic still claims sovereignty over it.

Mr Ma has improved relations since his election in March by promising not to move towards a declaration of formal independence.

Mr Chen signed a number of trade deals on his visit, but the two sides did not attempt to make progress on all-important security issues, such as the 1,000 missiles the Chinese People's Liberation Army has targeted at the island.

"We cannot deny that differences and challenges still exist, such as Taiwan's security and Taiwan's position in the international community." Mr Ma said at the meeting.

Mr Ma's opponents from the Democratic Progressive Party, whom he defeated in the election, staged noisy protests against Mr Chen's visit and said the president was "selling out" the island.

"Ma is sucking up to China by degrading Taiwan's sovereignty and this humiliates our country," said Ko Kai-liang, 40, a chemical company worker.

Nevertheless the visit will be regarded in both Beijing and Taipei as a success - especially the subtlety of Mr Chen's diplomacy.

For he did not quite fail to address Mr Ma: the picture was of a horse, the meaning of the Taiwanese president's surname.
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Re: Let us Understand the Chinese

Post by Avinash R »

ramana wrote:TOI reports
Finally, Pranab calls China a challenge
5 Nov 2008, 0220 hrs IST, Indrani Bagchi, TNN
The MEA site would have full text. Lets try to find it and post it.
Address by Mr. Pranab Mukherjee, Hon’ble Minister for External Affairs at National Defence College, New Delhi, 3rd November, 2008 India’s Security Challenges and Foreign Policy Imperatives

03/11/2008

Major General N. K. Singh, AVSM, VSM, Senior Directing Staff,
Members of faculty and staff,
Student Officers,
Ladies and gentlemen,

I am very happy to be here once again at the National Defence College and share my thoughts on the security and foreign policy challenges before India.

You are all professionally engaged on the various dimensions of security and foreign policy - from the perspective of internal and regional, to the continental and global. The goal of our foreign and security policy remains to increase our strategic autonomy, so that we can like any other country, engage in a reasonable pursuit of its national interests, and bring to bear any capabilities it may have to promote geo-strategic stability and global economic prosperity and contribute to resolving a range of global problems as well as crisis situations. Our policies have been shaped by the geography and history of our region. India has traditionally taken a broad view of security, an approach that goes beyond defence preparedness and includes fundamental issues of economic strength, technological self-reliance, food security, energy security, human security and preservation of core national values and cohesiveness.

Underlying these principles is India’s security paradigm, of expanding circles of engagement, with our neighborhood at its center and extending outwards in concentric circles. The framework of a policy embedded in our geography and historical experience and coupled with a paradigm of a concentric security structure has served us well.

The question nevertheless is, in a globalised world have these parameters met our requirements? Is such an approach adequate? These questions assume particular salience given that we are at a historical cross-road; firstly, India is being called upon to assume an increasingly demanding role on the global stage; and secondly, the global architecture is under strain and fundamental shifts are underway. Our response to these challenges will shape and influence the future direction of our country. The past can act as a guide; but it is the decisions we take in the present which shape our future.

Global Developments

Recent developments, particularly the challenges confronting the global financial system, have thrown up a qualitatively different set of questions to security and foreign policy practitioners. The most obvious is the unprecedented linkage between economic stability and security policy. We have in recent weeks seen countries seeking international financial assistance to stave off financial and economic collapse; elsewhere, falling oil prices have dampened political confidence and muted foreign policy and security orientations. In addition we also are hearing protectionist voices as previous notions about globalization bringing in all around benefits are being questioned.

The manner in which the present events reshape the structural contours of the world can be difficult to predict. We can however conclude with some certainty that we will be required to address new challenges the coming years, the biggest of which would be the management of global interdependence.

From India’s perspective, we need to see how best to manage the crisis while positioning ourselves to play a role in any future global financial or political structure. The immediate challenge will be to continue with economic reforms, striking a balance between financial stability, price stability and maintaining growth rates. The long term challenge will be to fashion a set of policies encompassing both the security and foreign dimension such that we can ensure an external environment conducive to India’s transformation and continued development.

Immediate challenges

What are the immediate challenges that we face. To my mind, the foremost among these would be (a) to cope with the rise of China; (b) maintenance of a peaceful periphery; and (c) managing our relations with the major powers.

China as India’s largest neighbour and as an emerging power is both a challenge and a priority. As a result of our engagement with China over the last thirty years we have now reached a somewhat normalized relationship. Of course there are some unresolved issues between us. However we need to factor in the fact that as a result of our engagement we have today a completely different situation than when we started. Further the economic developments in this period has given both our countries new capabilities. We are today faced with a new China. Today’s China seeks to further her interests more aggressively than in the past, thanks to the phenomenal increase of her capacities after thirty years of reforms. There are also new set of challenges which China poses such as the strategic challenge as China develops its capabilities in outer space; the geopolitical challenge as it reaches out to various parts of the globe in search of raw materials and resources. We would need to develop more sophisticated ways of dealing with these new challenges posed by China. We cannot change our neighbors. It is important therefore for us to recognize and work with the reality. Our belief is that there is sufficient space for both of us to grow together and build a cooperative relationship in the new architecture.

We need to ensure a peaceful periphery and an environment of peace and stability in our region and in the world, which will facilitate maintenance of socio-economic development and safeguarding of our national security. India is already engaged in establishing strategic partnerships and expanding the scope and depth of our economic and strategic interaction with different countries, groupings and regions – whether it is Russia, a long standing partner, South East Asia, Japan, Central Asia, IBSA or many others with whom we are developing a fruitful and active dialogue. The underlying rationale is that in a globalized world, challenges, be they financial or security, can no longer be tackled by countries acting alone.

The biggest threat to peace and security in our region and to the world at large comes from terrorism which emanates from our neighbourhood. This is compounded by the danger posed by terrorists’ accessing weapons of mass destruction or related technologies. The series of terrorist attacks in Pakistan shows the fragile internal situation of that country, a situation we continue to monitor closely and which we hope will not deteroriate. The situation in Afghanistan remains grave concern and a resurgent Taliban poses a threat beyond Afghanistan.

Our challenge has been try and work with both countries, to stabilize the situation. With Pakistan, India has called for removing bilateral impediments to trade and economic relations, which should not be predicated on resolving contentious political issues. Some progress has been achieved in this regard, notably along the line of control. We are however continuing to persuade Pakistan to grant overland transit to our goods as this can speed up stabilization in Afghanistan. We believe this can also lead to greater commerce and benefit all the countries in the region.

Our goal of a peaceful, stable and prosperous neighbourhood is predicated on enabling each of our neighbors to pursue the shared objective of the development of our peoples. Our economic growth is having an impact in the region and there are increased opportunities for others to benefit by partnering India. The challenge will however be to persuade our neighbors to set aside past mistrust and suspicions which have undermined development of harmonious relations and restricted the space for expression of our natural sentiments of affinity, based on a shared history. We continue to put forward proposals, multilaterally through the SAARC and bilaterally, to our neighbors, by making unilateral gestures and extending economic concessions. The facility of extending duty free access to imports from Bangladesh, Nepal, Bhutan and Sri Lanka demonstrates India’s readiness to assume asymmetric responsibilities.

Looking beyond the immediate neighbourhood, we continue to add important elements to our traditional ties with countries in the Gulf and the Central Asian regions by leveraging economic opportunities and long standing cultural and people to people links. Our Look East policy which was based on ASEAN’s economic, political and strategic importance in the Asia-Pacific region and its potential to become a major partner of India in trade and investment has now evolved to include the Far Eastern and Pacific regions.

I have just concluded a visit to Iran, a country with whom we have had a long history of cultural interaction. Today, a sizeable portion of India’s energy requirements are met by Iran. Discussions on an India-Iran-Pakistan gas pipeline are ongoing. We are also exploring possibilities of transit for our goods to central Asia and Afghanistan through Iran, since Pakistan does not permit transit to us. On the nuclear issue, we have conveyed that Iran must fulfill all its international commitments including those it has undertaken under the NPT.

Another set of challenges is that of managing our relationship with the world’s major powers. We need to use our strengths to create partnerships with major powers in a manner which would allow us political and economic space to grow. This will require us to strengthen relations with all the major powers of the world. Over the last few years our relations with all the major powers have substantially strengthened. Our relations with the US are now completely transformed and this is reflected in the successful completion of the civil nuclear initiative. As the US prepares itself for electing a new administration, we can be satisfied with the fact that today there exists a strong bipartisan support in the US for further strengthening and broadening our relations. We have developed a strong partnership with the European Union covering a wide range of areas including trade and investment, culture, science & technology. Our traditional relations with Russia continue to remain strong. PM’s visit to Japan recently further strengthened the strategic and global partnership that we have established with Japan. As we look forward to an increasing role in global affairs we need to expand our network of international relationships, political engagement and economic and technical cooperation with the world. We are also working with the major powers in forums such as the UN, G8, East Asia Summit and ASEAN Regional Forum, the trilateral initiative with Russia and China (RIC) and the IBSA forum with Brazil and South Africa. Multipolar engagement allows us to contribute actively to the search for solutions to issues such as regional and international security, terrorism, climate change, economic growth and energy.

In closing, and to illustrate the changes underway in the global order and India’s role, I will use the example of the civil nuclear initiative. The decision adopted by the NSG on 6th September 2008, enabling civil nuclear cooperation with India is a landmark development. You know that the NSG was established in response to our nuclear tests of 1974. On the one hand it is a vindication of our policies, of our impeccable non-proliferation record and our principled refusal to compromise on a well established nuclear policy. On the other, it is a recognition of India’s achievements. Despite years of technology denials and discriminatory measures, India developed a comprehensive atomic energy programme covering the entire fuel cycle in respect of uranium, plutonium and thorium fuels and has established world leadership in heavy water nuclear reactors. Over the years, we have progressively developed and put in place a domestic nuclear infrastructure comparable to the best in the world, including critical designs for validating thorium based advanced heavy water reactor core. The NSG’s decision enables India to make an even bigger contribution to the growth of international civil nuclear cooperation.

The importance of this initiative lies not just in the fact that it allows a resumption of international cooperation in civil nuclear energy with India but also that it would in course of time lead to greater access to technologies that were hitherto denied to us. We would need to adapt and master these so that we can meet the challenges of the future.

To conclude, it is not merely the structure of the international system that is changing at a rapid pace. The challenges themselves are evolving rapidly. We need to charter new waters, leveraging our competitive skills and managerial talent across the globe with confidence. We must be ready to play our rightful role on the global stage through forward looking approaches, based on our ethos of non-violence and peaceful co-existence, which would allow us greater strategic autonomy and space for maneuverability.

Thank you.
RajeshA
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Re: Let us Understand the Chinese

Post by RajeshA »

X-Posting from Bangladesh Thread.
Tension between Bangladesh and Myanmar intensified Friday as Myanmar started reinforcing border troops after talks in Myanmar over disputed waters in the Bay of Bengal failed.

This also prompted Bangladesh Rifles (BDR) to be on alert at strategic points in Bandarban and Cox's Bazar districts.

According to sources in BDR, the paramilitary forces have been put on alert in Rezu, Chakdhala, Asadtali, Fultali, Lebuchhari, Dhumdhum, Amtali, Tamru and Ukhia borders in the two districts.

Bangladesh Navy intelligence gathered information Thursday that Myanmar had begun mobilising ground troops near the Naf river but the mobilisation was not visible. Then the Navy alerted the BDR.

BDR sources yesterday said since Myanmar continued reinforcing troops along its border with Bangladesh, Bangladesh has also taken appropriate steps as a precautionary measure.

Local sources said BDR also alerted people living in the border areas apprehending untoward incidents. A number of schools in the areas were vacated and BDR troops took position there.

The dispute emerged after Myanmar started oil and gas exploration last week in a stretch of sea claimed by Bangladesh. Bangladesh deployed naval ships to the area and simultaneously sent a diplomatic team to Myanmar seeking to resolve the issue through negotiations.

Officials claimed that the meeting ended without any resolution but Bangladesh notified Myanmar authorities its claim on the territory. Bangladesh was in good terms with the Myanmar authorities until this dispute emerged.

In 1991, Myanmar had driven more than 250,000 Rohingyas into Bangladesh creating a war-like situation between the two countries. Bangladesh gave shelter to the Rohingyas and through diplomatic moves made Myanmar agree to take them back.

But repatriation of them remains slow and Bangladesh still has several thousand refugees on its soil.

Our Bandarban correspondent quoting Naikkhangchhari UNO Nowab Aslam Habib reports: Tension built up as Myanmar forces mobilised along the border. No untoward incident in Naikkhangchhari was reported, he said.

A defence source said BDR is unable to keep a close watch on 173km-long remote and hilly border area. BDR has only five watchtowers in that long stretch of border. Following the 1991 incident with Myanmar, BDR recommended increasing the number of towers there but there was no follow up.

Locals alleged that the Nasaka, border force of Myanmar, shot four Bangladeshis dead near the border last Sunday. Agitated people on Friday captured two Myanmar citizens, Mohammad and Azizul Haq, at Rezu-Amtali border areas. They are now under BDR's custody.

To review the situation, an eight-member high-level BDR team led by Chittagong Sector Commander Colonel Akhtar visited Lembuchhari and Chakdhala border areas of Naikkhangchhari.

Meanwhile, sources said the situation in the Bay of Bengal remains unchanged. There was no exploration activities for the second day yesterday but the Myanmar ships remain anchored 55km southwest at 227 degrees from St Martin's Island.

The Myanmar ships started exploration activities on November 1 ignoring Bangladesh Navy warnings of trespassing on Bangladesh waters. The area is well within Bangladesh's territory and marked as deep-sea blocks 8-13. Bangladesh officially lodged protest before Myanmar ambassador last Sunday. Myanmar also protested before the Bangladeshi ambassador in Myanmar the same day.

Bangladesh later on requested North Korean government to ask Daewoo, which is conducting the exploration for Myanmar, to stop its activities in the Bay. Bangladesh also requested Myanmar's closest ally China to ask Myanmar to quit Bangladeshi waters till the maritime boundary is marked as per the UN guideline.

On Thursday, China suggested that Bangladesh and Myanmar settle their dispute through friendly negotiations, apparently stepping back from taking any measure.

"We hope the countries will settle it through equal and friendly negotiations and maintain a stable bilateral relationship. As their friend, China will contribute in an appropriate manner," said Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Qin Gang at a press conference, reports Xinhua.
This is happening in India's backyard. China has forced itself onto Bangladesh to play the role of arbitrator in South Asia, a role which would have been India's. China is telling Bangladesh, that if it wants its security interests preserved, it would have to negotiate with China and give China concessions. On the other hand, China is giving Myanmar a long leash to go about expanding its military influence and browbeat its neighbors without any fear of retaliation, as it is under China's security cover.

India on the other hand is so paralyzed, that it cannot do anything. China is the primary country influencing Myanmar, so Myanmar would look up to Chinese leadership and not heed to what India has to say. So India siding with Myanmar in this dispute would be superfluous. India siding with Bangladesh would mean that the relationship that India had built up over the last decade, even playing second-fiddle to China on this, would come to naught. If India wants to play the role of a neutral mediator, guess what, India is not invited. Bangladesh did not come to India, but went straight to China, because Bangladesh knows, who pulls the strings on this. Should this dispute escalate, Western countries would throw their lot with Bangladesh to spite Myanmar, and Myanmar would go running even deeper into the Dragon's embrace, which means further strategic loss to India's interests. So whichever way you look at it, this is India's loss.

This stinks very strongly like something the Chinese have provoked. Myanmar is doing this at the behest of the Chinese, and the Bangladeshis are walking into the trap.

India would have to give this new turn of events some serious thought. This should also be something decisive. The most optimal outcome would be if those officers of the Myanmar junta, who are responsible for this event, are demoted or otherwise shunt out from decision-making, allowing other leaders to take up the mantle. Another course of action would be for India to completely rethink our strategy of appeasement of military junta in Myanmar, and forcing a people's revolution there with the help of the West. If Chinese influence is growing there by leaps and bounds, then India's current strategy is is bound for doom anyway.

This is turning very serious indeed. This is a very forceful entry of the Chinese into the South Asian Theater, otherwise India would be losing sway in all countries of South Asia, be it Pakistan, Nepal, Bangladesh, or Sri Lanka. The Chinese mean business, and India better learn to do things differently.

The Chinese may have decided to stoke this new conflict, so that when Obama is in the White House, the Myanmar-Bangladesh Conflict becomes the first crisis on his hands. He would have to turn to the Chinese to influence the Myanmarese to back off. With the side-effect, that the Chinese again prove to the USA, that they are the prime power in the whole of Asia, even in the South Asian region, and that Obama should not see India as a credible counter-weight as Bush used to see India.
cholaraja
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Re: Let us Understand the Chinese

Post by cholaraja »

this will teach the banglass, but if BD confronts myanmar then India needs to be carefull.

excellect statements from Mukherjee, long term threat and no easy grabbing of Arunachchal. But remember the cheenes think that a lound fart is better then a loud mouth. I wonder if the army is able to stick its two fingers to Myanmar on the BD border front. very difficult with BD trying to pull one over on the western border.
Muppalla
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Re: Let us Understand the Chinese

Post by Muppalla »

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/Indi ... 699907.cms

Why is Pranabda making this China as enemy statement now? Any context?

What that means is are we ready for the escalation. Chinese might start incursions as they did couple of months ago.
nsa_tanay
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Re: Let us Understand the Chinese

Post by nsa_tanay »

Economic Reforms, Poverty and Inequality in China and India -- By Pranab Bardhan
http://emlab.berkeley.edu/users/webfac/ ... /china.pdf


This is a excellant analysis.

NOTE: Pranab Bardhan is Professor of Economics at the University of California, Berkeley
nsa_tanay
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Re: Let us Understand the Chinese

Post by nsa_tanay »

Boston Review
JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2008

What Makes a Miracle
Some myths about the rise of China and India
-- By Pranab Bardhan


After more than a century of relative stagnation, the economies of India and China have been growing at remarkably high rates over the past 25 years. In 1820 the two countries contributed nearly half of the world’s income; by 1950, with the industrialized West having pulled away, their share had fallen to less than one-tenth. Today it is just less than one-fifth, and projections suggest that by 2025 it will rise to one-third. (In 2008 the World Bank is expected to issue revised numbers about cost of living in China and India, which may somewhat reduce these estimated income shares, both current and future).

The consequences of this expansion are extraordinary. The Chinese economy in particular has made the most headway against poverty in world history, with hundreds of millions of people moved out of the most extreme poverty within just a generation. (The environmental consequences are comparably remarkable, though perhaps proportionately disastrous).
What explains this strikingly rapid growth? The answer that continues to dominate public discussion in the United States runs along the following lines: decades of socialist controls and regulations stifled enterprise in India and China and led them to a dead end. A mix of market reforms and global integration finally unleashed their entrepreneurial energies. As these giants shook off their “socialist slumber,” they entered the “flattened” playing field of global capitalism. The result has been high economic growth in both countries and correspondingly large declines in poverty.
While India’s performance has been substantial, China’s has been truly dramatic. The particularly dramatic Chinese performance (like the earlier economic “miracles” in South
Korea, Taiwan, and Singapore) suggests, in the dominant narrative, that authoritarianism may be better than democracy for development—at least in its early stages. Regional economic decentralization provided local autonomy and incentives, and, even without democracy, led to broad-based local development. But the narrative warns that global capitalism has brought rising inequality, more in China than in India. The idea is that this may portend serious trouble for Chinese political stability, as China does not have the capability of democratic India to let off the steam of inequality-induced discontent.
This story contains a few elements of truth and provides many comforts to our preconceptions. But through sheer repetition it has acquired an authority that does not withstand scrutiny.

* * *
Start with the claim that global integration and associated market reforms resulted in high growth, which in turn produced dramatic declines in extreme poverty. Applied to China, the timing simply does not fit. China has indeed made large strides in foreign trade and investment since the 1990s, but well before then, say between 1978 and 1993, the country had already achieved an average annual growth rate of about nine percent—even higher than the impressive seven percent growth rate in East Asia between 1960 and 1980.
China’s poverty-reduction storyline is similarly flawed. While expansion of exports of labor-intensive manufactures lifted many people out of poverty over the past decade, the principal reason for the dramatic decline over the past three decades may lie elsewhere. World Bank estimates suggest that two-thirds of the decline in extremely poor people (those living below the admittedly crude poverty line of one dollar a day per capita at 1993 international parity prices) between 1981 and 2004 had taken place by the mid-1980s. Much of the extreme poverty was concentrated in rural areas, and its large decline in the first half of the 1980s may have been principally the result of domestic factors that have little if anything to do with global integration: a spurt in agricultural growth following de-collectivization, in which output increased at 7.1% per year on average between 1979 and 1984, almost triple the 1970-78 rate; a land reform program, involving a highly egalitarian distribution of land-cultivation rights subject only to differences in regional average and family size, which provided a floor for rural income; and increased farm procurement prices.
As for India, market reforms may not be mainly responsible for its recent high growth. Reform has clearly made the Indian corporate sector more vibrant and competitive, but most of the Indian economy lies outside the corporate sector; for example, 93 percent of the labor force works outside the corporate sector, private or public.
Take the fast-growing service sector, where India’s IT-enabled services have acquired a global reputation while employing less than a quarter of one percent of the total Indian labor force. Service subsectors like finance, business services (including those IT-enabled services), and telecommunication, where reform may have made a significant difference, constitute only about a quarter of total service-sector output. Two-thirds of service output
is in traditional or “unorganized” activities, in tiny enterprises often below the policy radar and unlikely to have been directly much affected by regulatory or foreign trade policy reforms. It is a matter of some dispute how much of the growth in traditional services (mostly non-traded) can be explained by a rise in service demand in the rest of the economy, and how much of it is a statistical artifact, since the way output is measured in these traditional services has been rather shaky all along.
As for poverty, the latest Indian household survey data suggest that the rate of decline, if anything, slowed somewhat in 1993-2005—the period of global integration—compared with the ’70s and ’80s. Moreover, some non-income indicators of poverty such as those relating to child health, already rather dismal, have hardly improved in recent years. (For example, the percentage of underweight children in India is much larger than in sub-Saharan Africa and has not changed much in the past decade or so). Growth in agriculture, where much of the poverty is concentrated, has declined somewhat over the past decade, largely because of the decline of public investment in rural infrastructure such as irrigation. Little of this has much to do with globalization. Indeed, some disaggregated studies across districts in India have found trade liberalization slowing down the decline in rural poverty. Such results may indicate the difficulty displaced farmers and workers have had adjusting to new activities and sectors due to various constraints such as minimal access to credit, information, or infrastructural facilities like power and roads; the high-school-dropout rate; and labor market rigidities—even as new opportunities are opened up by globalization.
The pace of poverty reduction in India has been slower than that in China not simply because Chinese growth has been faster, but also because the same one percent growth rate reduces poverty in India by much less, thanks largely to higher wealth inequalities (particularly in land and education). The Gini coefficient (a standard statistical measure of inequality, with a value of one indicating extreme inequality and zero indicating perfect equality) of land distribution in rural India was 0.74 in 2003; the corresponding figure in China was 0.49 in 2002. To a large extent this difference reflects a higher proportion of landless and near-landless people in India. In addition, educational inequality in India is among the worst in the world. According to the World Development Report 2006, the Gini coefficient of the distribution of adult schooling years in the population was 0.56 in India in 1998/2000, which is not only higher than China’s 0.37 in 2000, but even higher than almost all Latin American countries. To a large extent, this indicator reflects the high number of illiterate and near-illiterate people relative to the rest of the population in India.

* * *
The storyline about China and India’s “socialist slumber” is equally suspect. China and India have become poster children for market reform and globalization in much of the financial press, even though both countries’ economic policies with regard to privatization, property rights, and deregulation have departed demonstrably from free-market orthodoxy in many ways.
And what about the earlier period? Was it really an utter waste? While socialist control and regulations undoubtedly inhibited initiative and enterprise in both countries, the positive legacy of reforms undertaken in the ‘70s and ‘80s cannot be denied, particularly in China’s recent pattern of state-controlled capitalist growth.
China’s earlier socialist period arguably provided a good launching pad for market reform. That foundation provided wide access to education and health care; highly egalitarian land redistribution that created a rural safety net and thus eased the process of market reform, with all its wrenching disruptions and dislocations; increased female labor participation and education that enhanced women’s contribution to economic growth; and a system of regional economic decentralization (that linked the career paths of Communist Party officials to local area performance). County governments were in charge of production enterprises long before Deng Xiaoping’s economic reforms set in, and, even more significantly, the earlier commune system’s production brigades evolved into the highly successful township and village enterprises that led the later phenomenal rise of rural industrialization.
In all these respects China’s legacy from the earlier period has been much more distinctive than that in India. When I grew up in India, I used to hear leftists say that the Chinese were better socialists than us. Now I am used to hearing that the Chinese are better capitalists than us. I tell people, only half-flippantly, that the Chinese are better capitalists now because they were better socialists then!
The earlier period’s legacy in both countries is also evident in the cumulative effect of the state’s active role in technological development. It is often overlooked that the Chinese have succeeded in international markets with more than simple labor-intensive products such as clothing, toys, shoes, and wigs. Both China and India (but China more so) have succeeded in exporting more sophisticated products than is usual in countries in their respective per capita income ranges: China, in consumer electronics, including computers and other information- and communication-technology-related goods, and auto parts; India, in software, pharmaceuticals, vehicles, steel, and auto parts. This performance is remarkable (though more in gross value of exports than in value-added terms, as some of the components and technology used in production are acquired from abroad) and is due primarily to sizeable skill and technological bases, enriched over the years of “socialist slumbering” by indigenous learning-by-doing and nurtured by government policies of building domestic capability—sometimes at the expense of static resource allocation efficiency.
Of course, there are many cases in which protection from foreign competition sheltered massive inefficiency. But the overall storyline is by no means so simple. Consider auto parts. For many decades both countries practiced protection of “local content” (of components) in automobiles, contrary to the orthodox free-trade policy prescription. As a result workers in the auto parts industry acquired skills necessary to compete successfully in the global economy and have now reached international best practice.

* * *
What about democracy’s role in economic growth? The much more dramatic success of China (and, earlier, that of other East Asian countries under authoritarian regimes) compared with India does not in any way prove the superiority of authoritarianism over democracy in matters of development. Authoritarianism is neither necessary nor sufficient for development. That it is not necessary is illustrated not only by today’s developed countries, but by scattered cases of recent development success: Costa Rica, Botswana, and now India. That it is not sufficient is amply evident from disastrous authoritarian regimes in Africa and elsewhere.
The relationship between democracy and development is much more complex than the conventional wisdom suggests. Even if we were not to value democracy for its own sake (or regard it as an integral part of development by definition), and looked at it in a purely instrumental way, democracy has at least four advantages from the point of view of development. Democracies are better able to avoid catastrophic mistakes, (such as China’s Great Leap Forward and the ensuing great famine that killed nearly thirty million people, or its Cultural Revolution, which may have resulted in the largest destruction of human capital in history) and have greater healing powers after difficult times. Democracies also experience more intense pressure to share the benefits of development, thus making it sustainable, and provide more scope for popular movements against industrial fallout such as environmental degradation. In addition, they are better able to mitigate social inequalities (especially acute in India) that act as barriers to social and economic mobility and to the full development of individual potential. Finally, democratic open societies provide a better environment for nurturing the development of information and related technologies, a matter of some importance in the current knowledge-driven global economy. Intensive cyber-censorship in China may seriously limit future innovations in this area.
All that said, India’s experience suggests that democracy can also hinder development in a number of ways. Competitive populism—short-run pandering and handouts to win elections—may hurt long-run investment, particularly in infrastructure, which is the key bottleneck for Indian development. Such political arrangements make it difficult, for example, to charge user fees for roads, electricity, and irrigation, discouraging investment in these areas, unlike in China where infrastructure companies charge full commercial rates. Competitive populism also makes it harder to cut losses resulting from experimentation in industrial policy in India, where retreating from a failed project—with inevitable job losses and bail-out pressures—has electoral consequences that discourage leaders from carrying out policy experimentation in the first place. Finally, democracy’s slow decision-making processes can be costly in a world of fast-changing markets and technology.
China is widely, and rightly, acclaimed for its decentralized development: in the 1980s and ’90s local industries flourished under the control of local governments and collectives. This aspect of industrialization has largely bypassed India so far, even though important constitutional changes favoring devolution of power to local governments were carried out in the ’90s. Of course, decentralization is not always a good thing for development. Some have complained that decentralization in post-Soviet Russia was
growth-retarding, as provincial governments were captured by oligarchs, thus legitimizing the subsequent centralization of power by Vladimir Putin. Although egalitarian land reform in China may have helped avert the capture of local institutions by local elites—at least in the initial years of market growth—the problem has plagued regional decentralization in India and Russia.
But even China has had trouble with decentralization in recent years. With local party officials prospering in a reward system that emphasizes local economic performance (with access to profits of local collective enterprises and the power to privatize them), the central government in China is now finding it difficult to rein them in, particularly in matters of land acquisition (where local officials are often in cahoots with local commercial developers), toxic pollution and violation of consumer- product safety regulations (often in collusion with local businesses). The “harmonious society” mantra chanted by the central leadership has not yet succeeded in curbing the capitalist excesses of local business and officialdom. The centralization of tax reform since 1994 has reduced the incentives of the local bureaucracy to serve social needs, particularly in interior provinces. The lack of democratic-accountability mechanisms is, and will continue to be, felt acutely by local populations who face limits both in the types of economic growth they can pursue and in the delivery of social services.
In short, in the absence of democratic devolution, China’s much-celebrated regional decentralization may now be a source of much discontent and may undermine the economic growth it has done so much to foster.

* * *
A final element of conventional wisdom is that globalization has led to rising inequality, and that inequality-induced grievances, particularly in rural China, cloud the country’s political future and hence its economic stability. But the effect of globalization on inequality is difficult to disentangle from that of other ongoing changes (such as skill-biased technical progress due to new information and communication technology), and so the causal link between globalization and inequality is not always clear. Moreover, Chinese provinces with more global exposure and higher growth did not have a greater rise in inequality compared with the other provinces in the interior. Decline in agricultural growth in recent years, in both China and India, may also have something to do with the rise in aggregate inequality, as inequality is significantly lower in agriculture than in other sectors.
As for inequality-induced political instability, a frequently cited fact reported from official police records is that incidents of social unrest have multiplied nearly nine-fold between 1994 and 2005. While the Chinese leadership is right to be concerned about inequality, the conventional wisdom in this matter is somewhat askew, as has been pointed out by Harvard sociologist Martin Whyte and his team. Data from their 2004 national representative survey in China show that the presumed disadvantaged in rural or remote areas are not particularly upset by rising inequality. This may be because of the “tunnel effect,” a familiar concept in the literature on inequality: when you see other
people prospering you are hopeful that your chance will soon come (you are more hopeful in a tunnel when blocked traffic in the next lane starts moving). This is particularly so with the relaxation of restrictions on migration from villages and improvement in roads and transportation. Farmers are incensed by forcible land acquisitions or the severe environmental damage of land, air, and water than they are by inequality. Chinese leaders have so far succeeded in deflecting the wrath felt toward corrupt local officials and in localizing and containing rural unrest.
It may seem counterintuitive but the potential for unrest is arguably greater in the currently booming urban areas where, along with the breaking of the real estate bubble, a possible global recession could ripple through the excess-capacity industries and financially-shaky public banks. With a more Internet-connected and vocal middle class, a recent history of massive worker layoffs, and a large underclass of migrants, urban unrest could be more difficult to contain.
When faced with political shocks, the Chinese leadership has a tendency to overreact, suppress information, and act heavy-handedly, unnecessarily exacerbating the problem. Still, China now has a very strong economy, which can act as a cushion, and provide more financial resources for assuaging local grievances.
Chinese and Indian economic performance has been far better in the last quarter-century than in the previous two hundred years—and this is one of the striking events in the recent history of the international economy. Other countries must adjust to this reality, and learn to treat the partial restoration of the earlier global importance of these two countries as an opportunity for trade, investment, and exchange of ideas, not as a threat. (We also need to work in tandem with them on the environment.) But we must remember that the story of their rise is more complicated and nuanced than standard accounts make out. That more complex story includes the positive legacy of China and India’s earlier statist periods, which offers general lessons for the process of development much too often ignored.
Nikhil T
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Re: Let us Understand the Chinese

Post by Nikhil T »

Surprising and shocking :
China vetoed 3 times against banning JuD - Lashkar Front

Its all geopolitical play to keep India down and occupied. China had nothing to lose if this organisation Jamaat-ud-Dawah got banned. No reason for India to be so apologetic about the Tibetan protests now. It has been seen that their weakest link in international affairs is Tibet and Taiwan, more reason for us to get more proactive and strong (like Sarkozy, Nancy Peloski among others).
joshvajohn
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Re: Let us Understand the Chinese

Post by joshvajohn »

So ISI and Chinese have connections. Is there a wider motif of China involving in any attacks indirectly? Because India is encouraging dalai Lama to hold meetings in India, we support Pakistan even the terrorists.

I think India needs to develop a strategy of Tibetians taking up arms. In Chinese ears nothing heard except in gun terms.



China blocked move to ban Jamaat thrice
http://www.indianexpress.com/news/china ... ce/396754/
Rishirishi
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Re: Let us Understand the Chinese

Post by Rishirishi »

joshvajohn wrote:So ISI and Chinese have connections. Is there a wider motif of China involving in any attacks indirectly? Because India is encouraging dalai Lama to hold meetings in India, we support Pakistan even the terrorists.

I think India needs to develop a strategy of Tibetians taking up arms. In Chinese ears nothing heard except in gun terms.



China blocked move to ban Jamaat thrice
http://www.indianexpress.com/news/china ... ce/396754/
The Pakistanis get some favours back from China. But I strongly doubt that the Chinase dare block it once more. Hell will break loose. TSP has already become a liability for China.
The Chinease had to show TSP the eye, to make them storm the red mosque. I bet condi has done some seriously hard talking in Islamabad. This time American as well as jews got targeted. This will not be taken lightly.
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Re: Let us Understand the Chinese

Post by Arun_S »

China also refuses to relax its vise-like grip on Tibetans in Nepal, and in response to French President meeting His Holiness Dali Lama, it has declared it will not place any new civilan aircraft orders on European Union.
Mumbai grenade reports anger China
12 Dec 2008,
KATHMANDU: Stung by reports in a section of the media that the terrorists involved in the Mumbai attacks had used Chinese-made hand grenades,
China's ambassador to Nepal Qiu Guohong on Friday said that the provenance of all weapons used in the carnage should be investigated.

"China is a responsible country and we have adhered to the UN (guidelines for manufacturing arms and explosives)," the envoy said in his maiden media interaction in Kathmandu Friday. "However, no country can give cent percent guarantee that the weapons made by it will not be used by others... Most weapons used by terrorists are not made in China... China will never provide offensive weapons to any country."

The former deputy director-general at the Asia department of Beijing's foreign affairs ministry also denied that China was playing the India card to boost its ties with Nepal.

Replying to the speculation that Chinese foreign minister Yang Jiechi's visit to Nepal close on the heels of Indian external affairs minister Pranab Mukherjee indicated an Indo-China tug-of-war over Nepal, he said that the developing Sino-Nepal ties were based on the "very friendly relationship" between the people of the two countries as well as the desire by both desire for peace and stability in South Asia.

"China-Nepal and Nepal-India relations should go on in a parallel manner and not influence each other," he said. "China and India's relations have developed very fast in recent years. We are holding a joint military exercise (in Karnataka) to counter terrorism. There is no conflict between the two countries in South Asia."

Qiu said that if Nepal asked for help to resolve its border dispute with India over Kalapani, the 75km stretch in farwestern Nepal's Darchula district, China was ready to support the "efforts of Nepal to safeguard its territorial integrity and sovereignty."

However, he added that Nepal was presumably looking for political support and China would extend that on the principle of non-interference.

But China has refused to relax its vise-like grip on Tibetans in Nepal. Beijing will still not agree to allow the US government to resettle 5000 "vulnerable" Tibetan refugees on American soil.

"The Chinese government's policy on Tibet remains consistent," Qiu said. "We are firmly opposed to any country or forces seeking to be involved or intervene in Tibet issues."
French Minister Blasts China’s ‘Psychodrama’ Over Dalai Lama Meeting
Yesterday’s much-anticipated meeting between French President Nicolas Sarkozy and the Dalai Lama has inspired heated comments from all sides. In response to the Chinese government’s angry reaction, a French minister said that China had turned the meeting into a “psychodrama”:
  • Rama Yade, the junior minister for human rights, said on RTL radio on Sunday that the French government could meet “whomever it wants” and that it had no plans to change its relations with China.

    Yade said China and France should be pooling their efforts to tackle the global financial crisis instead of feuding over Tibet.

    “We need to co-operate, calmly,” she said.
-----------------------------------------
China calls off EU summit over Dalai Lama visit
Wed Nov 26, 2008 11:48am EST
By Darren Ennis and David Brunnstrom

BRUSSELS (Reuters) - China, angry at plans for Tibet's spiritual leader the Dalai Lama to visit Europe, has called off a summit with the European Union next Monday which may have forged a joint response to the global economic crisis.

The 27-nation bloc expressed regret at Beijing's decision but pledged to continue to promote a strategic partnership "at a time when the global economic and financial situation calls for very close cooperation between Europe and China."

France confirmed President Nicolas Sarkozy would meet the Dalai Lama at a December 6 ceremony in Poland to mark the 25th anniversary of the award of the Nobel Prize to former Solidarity leader Lech Walesa, despite Beijing's displeasure.

"Nicolas Sarkozy ... is free to decide his agenda," government spokesman Luc Chatel told reporters.

China's foreign ministry had no immediate comment. But earlier this month it warned Sarkozy, whose country holds the rotating EU presidency, that the EU risked losing "hard-won" gains in ties with Beijing if he met the Dalai Lama.

The Dalai Lama fled Tibet in 1959 after a failed uprising against Chinese rule in the mountainous region, occupied by Chinese troops from 1950. China calls him a "splittist" for advocating self-determination for his homeland.

European Central Bank President Jean-Claude Trichet, the head of euro zone finance ministers, Jean-Claude Juncker, and EU Economic and Monetary Affairs Commissioner Joaquin Almunia had been due to meet Chinese counterparts on the sidelines of the Lyon summit to discuss the global crisis.

The European Council on Foreign Relations,a think-tank, said the meeting should have been used to forge a partnership on the crisis.

Its Asia director Francois Godement called the Chinese move "unprecedented" and "aggressive" and said it exposed the EU's failure to coordinate policy toward Tibet and the Dalai Lama.

"SORRY SPECTACLE"

"The sorry spectacle of European disunity over the financial and economic crisis has confirmed to China's leaders that Europe is not a unitary actor and can be publicly provoked at no significant political cost," he said.

"It is urgent for Europeans to realize the steep political price for their failure to agree on common principles and practice for their China policy."

It was not immediately clear what commercial fallout, if any, there would be from the row.

A diplomatic source in Paris said China tried to persuade French officials last week to stop any meeting between Sarkozy and the Dalai Lama when Zhu Weiqun, a vice minister who handles relations with ethnic minorities and religious leaders, visited France.

"If there are problems between the two sides, the best step would be to work hard to solve the problem," he said.

The Dalai Lama, another Nobel Peace laureate, is also due to visit the European Parliament next week.

At a meeting between Asian and EU leaders in Beijing last month the EU side backed a greater say for China in global financial bodies but urged China to use its clout to help to resolve the global crisis.

The mood for that meeting was strained by a decision a day earlier by the European Parliament to award its annual human rights prize to Hu Jia, a Chinese dissident jailed for subversion after testifying to the assembly last year.

Trade disputes between Brussels and Beijing have been on the rise as the EU's trade deficit with China has ballooned, hitting 160 billion euros ($207.4 billion) last year.

This month Brussels imposed anti-dumping duties on Chinese-made candles and non-alloy steel products and added tariffs to imports of some citrus fruits products. China routinely denies it breaks trade rules and says Europe resorts to protectionism against its low-cost advantage.

(Additional reporting by Tamora Vidaillet and James McKenzie in Paris)

(Editing by Richard Balmforth)
Stan_Savljevic
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Re: Let us Understand the Chinese

Post by Stan_Savljevic »

Very reliable report as per sources...
Across Europe, Australia, and US, many espionage cases involving the Chinese have been reported at industrial clusters and cutting-edge firms. In most of these cases, investigations have revealed the key role played by Chinese students and workers.

Recent instances of Chinese hacker attacks on major Indian IT companies only serve to illustrate the seriousness of the threat. The top brass of one IT firm were unnerved when they landed in China and discovered that their hosts knew everything about their plans. The Chinese knew what their proposed branch intended to do, what salaries would be offered to locals, the number of jobs on offer, et al. “The Indian officials were surprised and came back to carry out a security audit,” said the source. “They found their computers had been compromised.”

Investigators suspect the Chinese are using their traditional network of students, workers, and tourists to extract sensitive information and gain access to any next-gen technology that Bangalore firms may be working on. “It may have started with Huawei Telecom, but today many Chinese firms have a presence in Bangalore,” said security analyst Rahul Bhonsle, an ex-army officer who, in 2000, wrote about the threat to the IT sector from China. “Some of them are fronts for intelligence operations.” Over the past two years, the government has rejected several of Huaweis proposals, including a deal with MTNL, on security grounds. In 2006, a high-powered committee had recommended that no Chinese investment be allowed in critical sectors.

“In tomorrows asymmetric information warfare scenario, it [a critical presence in Indias IT sector] would give them a great advantage,” said Bhonsle. “Besides, it is possible for a sleeper to wreak havoc in, say, some banking software created by an Indian firm and deployed with an international banking major.” Investigators are also looking at a significant number of joint ventures, collaborations and other work relations being built up between Indian IT firms and Chinese companies. “Many of them could be just a cover for industrial espionage,” said a source.

One area of concern is the memoranda of understanding that Mysore University has signed with Chinese universities such as Wuhan and Huanghaui. Students do two years of study at Mysore and obtain a BTech degree. The MoU of October 2007 has led to some 100 Chinese students coming to the university.
http://epaper.dnaindia.com/showstory.as ... %2012:00AM
Avinash R
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Re: Let us Understand the Chinese

Post by Avinash R »

China blocks Internet access to New York Times
http://www.expressindia.com/latest-news ... es/400915/
Reuters
Posted: Dec 20, 2008 at 1646 hrs IST
Beijing China, widely criticised for its censorship of the media, this week blocked access to ‘The New York Times’, the newspaper said on Saturday.

When computer users in cities like Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou tried to connect on Friday to nytimes.com, they received a message that the site was not available, the newspaper said.

There was no access to the site from Beijing late on Saturday without the protection of a virtual private network (VPN).
China regularly blocks sites it finds unsavoury, particularly those related to Tibet or critical of the Communist Party.

Access to the Chinese-language versions of the BBC, Voice of America and Hong Kong media Ming Pao News and Asiaweek were blocked early this month, Asiaweek said.
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Re: Let us Understand the Chinese

Post by ramana »

Op-ed in The Telegraph


Lot of information to mull over.
WHAT SETS THE DRAGON APART FROM THE TIGER
Democracy may appear to hinder India’s competition with China. But it is hard to tell how China will be affected by its underlying disquiet, writes Sekhar Raha


Different worlds
Last month marked the twentieth anniversary of the visit to China by Rajiv Gandhi. This was the first visit to China by an Indian prime minister after 34 years. Though it went almost unnoticed in India, China marked the event with a two-day seminar in Beijing on “China and India in the 21st Century”.

As a participant in that seminar and in discussions thereafter, it gave me an opportunity to reflect on the marked changes that have taken place in China in the intervening two decades, as well as on the human impact of such changes. At the time of Rajiv Gandhi’s visit, China was already a decade into its reforms, whereas we were still three years away from embarking on ours. In the period that followed, much to our chagrin, China remained inexplicably a more attractive destination for foreign investment than India in spite of the perception that India’s relative advantages in the use of the English language for business, and its established and recognized legal, banking and stock market processes should give the country an edge. Paradoxically, the English language and free media seemed to make India’s ills more transparent, whereas the mystique and opaqueness of China obfuscated its blemishes. Clearly, China had the advantage. It became a manufacturing hub for the world. In contrast, we continue to seek an acceptable approach to our rehabilitation issues surrounding the claims for land needed to support integrated manufacture. China would find such obstacles incomprehensible.

Where India has succeeded, in the information-technology sector, China is benchmarking this country for best practices. China’s stated target is to transform its identity from “Made in China” to “Created in China”. The Chinese perceive the basis of India’s success to be the use of the English language as a teaching medium. In pursuit of this, we were shown an experimental school in Beijing for primary education in the English language. Interacting with the 10-year old children there, unrehearsed and at random, we realized that their conversational skills in English were remarkable, even though neither their parents nor even their school headmaster spoke the language. And this was not a high-fee paying private school as would be its equivalent in India, but a State enterprise as a pilot for other Chinese schools of the future.

In truth, of course, we have leveraged a legacy of our colonial past. But it is worth remembering without effacement that it emphasizes both India’s ethnic heterogeneity and our choice of freedom of speech in every sense. The complex fabric of India did not comfortably permit the imposition of a uniform single language, as the Chinese did with Mandarin. And democracy gave sufficient voice for dissent in the 1960s to prevent the submersion of regional languages and culture.

But China’s uniformity has given it a homogeneous sense of purpose. The transformation of Beijing prior to the Olympics has created enviable boulevards comparable to Paris, and suburban avenues that look European. In her recent book, Smoke and Mirrors, Pallavi Aiyar gives a vivid account of the forced demolition of city blocks to literally pave way for the change. We tried such demolitions in Delhi in the mid-1970s, during the Emergency — our only experiment with unilateralism. And anyone attempting such forced dislocation again would do so at his peril.

Beijing’s environmental clean-up required draconian restrictions on vehicle entry into the city, reinforced further earlier this month by even stricter anti-pollution measures. In contrast, Calcutta’s relatively mild attempts to introduce more benign fuels for autorickshaws have met with violent resistance. In our democratic system, apparent intransigence will only be overcome by acceptable compromise.

Urban renewal in Beijing and Shanghai has been accompanied by severe restrictions on domicile being linked to holding a job in that city. No job means no permission to stay, and that prevents any sense of overcrowding. Residential blocks are necessarily modern with a uniformity that looks attractive as a development project but, from the experience of other cities elsewhere in the world, eventually lead to anonymity and to crime. Spanking new malls dominate new market areas. But as Aravind Adiga writes in The White Tiger of Delhi’s unseen “markets behind the market”, walk a couple of hundred yards away from the malls and you will find houses as small and as congested as you would in any Indian city. Very few of the old hutongs — single-storied buildings in narrow alleyways — remain in Beijing. Visiting some of those that do exist, one is provided evidence of how, until even recently, joint families lived here as in India around a small courtyard and a common kitchen. The human cost of the upheaval must have been enormous.

China’s sense of purpose is evident, too, by the overwhelming presence of youth, a result of its one-child policy. Whether shop-assistants or their customers, travel guides or interpreters, the public seemed incredibly young in comparison to its equivalent in India. China’s educational policy has been more successful than ours in making vocational education appealing and jobs more aligned to training.

In contrast to the Indian youth’s craving for educational degrees, often of doubtful quality and rarely related to the ultimate jobs sought, China now has as many students joining courses for vocational education as for formal secondary education. Chinese graduates, who have studied abroad, are being encouraged through tax incentives to return to China.

Further, China is taking advantage of the global recession by aggressively recruiting Chinese professionals presently living abroad. Its approach to human resource planning is holistic, matching educational qualification to future requirement in the manner that corporate planners do, but, in India, neither the Central nor the state government seems to understand this. We, too, are a nation of the young and Indian leaders often boast of the demographic advantage we will have in the decades to come with a larger ratio of people in the productive phase than the rest of the world, including China. But that window of opportunity can only be seized if we have HR policies to meet and match those aspirations.

Recently, the phrase, ‘Chindia’, has been coined, as if the two countries are in consonance in their approach to the rest of the world. But both in formal and casual conversation, it is evident that the Chinese do not regard India as serious competition. They are heavily invested in the United States of America, and will do whatever it takes to retain the competitiveness of their currency whether India is in alignment or not. Concerning relations with India, the Chinese refer to mutual suspicion, unresolved border problems, issues with Tibet and the Dalai Lama as areas in which India needs to change its mindset. Less palatably, a commentator from the Xinhua said that the general view of the Mumbai terrorist attack was that “it had destroyed the big-country dream of India”, and that Chinese news reports on India tended to be “at best neutral, at worst hostile” in an endeavour to boost China’s nationalism.

Not surprisingly, in view of its close relationship with Pakistan, the Chinese attribute India’s problems with terrorism to the non-resolution of the Kashmir dispute. What has been a surprise is the proximity of these views to recent statements by the British foreign secretary, David Miliband, supported by their foreign office spokesman, urging India to seek “lasting resolution of the issue of Kashmir which takes into account the wishes of the Kashmiri people”. Seemingly, both China and Britain choose to ignore the success of the recent elections in Kashmir, evidently reflecting the choice of the majority of how it wishes to be governed.

The underlying message is that India’s diversity and freedom require the ballot box to be the arbiter for the majority’s choice and the bulwark for the way forward. It may create contradictions and ambivalence as in, say, West Bengal’s approach to investment or its approach to environmental pollution, but it will ultimately result in majority support towards a humane resolution, which is implementable. The process is frustrating, noisy and will almost certainly hinder India’s competitiveness with China. But who can foretell the impact on China of the underlying disquiet when protests can no longer be suppressed?
enqyoob
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Re: Let us Understand the Chinese

Post by enqyoob »

The Spilit of Wrong Way Wong Wei Rives Again!

Pentagon says Chinese vessels harassed U.S. ship

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- The Pentagon said Monday that Chinese ships harassed a U.S. surveillance ship Sunday in the South China Sea in the latest of several instances of "increasingly aggressive conduct" in the past week.

During the incident, five Chinese vessels "shadowed and aggressively maneuvered in dangerously close proximity to USNS Impeccable, in an apparent coordinated effort to harass the U.S. ocean surveillance ship while it was conducting routine operations in international waters," the Pentagon said in a written statement.

The crew members aboard the vessels, two of which were within 50 feet, waved Chinese flags and told the U.S. ship to leave the area, the statement said.

"Because the vessels' intentions were not known, Impeccable sprayed its fire hoses at one of the vessels in order to protect itself," the statement said. "The Chinese crewmembers disrobed to their underwear and continued closing to within 25 feet."

After the Impeccable alerted the Chinese ships "in a friendly manner" that it was seeking a safe path to depart the area, two of the Chinese ships stopped "directly ahead of USNS Impeccable, forcing Impeccable to conduct an emergency 'all stop' in order to avoid collision," the statement said.

"They dropped pieces of wood in the water directly in front of Impeccable's path."
.....

He said the Chinese crew members used poles to try to snag the Impeccable's acoustic equipment in the water.
.....

The Impeccable's crew is composed primarily of civilians and the ship itself is not armed, the spokesman said.
....

The 281.5-foot Impeccable is one of six surveillance ships that perform military survey operations, according to the Navy. It is an oceanographic ship that gathers underwater acoustic data, using sonar.

It has a maximum speed of 13 knots -- or about 15 mph -- but it travels 3 knots, or 3.5 mph, when towing its array of monitoring equipment. It carries a crew of 20 mariners, five technicians and as many as 20 Navy personnel.

The Chinese ships involved were a Navy intelligence collection ship, a Bureau of Maritime Fisheries Patrol Vessel, a State Oceanographic Administration patrol vessel and two small Chinese-flagged trawlers, the statement said.

The Pentagon cited three previous instances of what it described as harassment, the first of which occurred Wednesday, when a Chinese Bureau of Fisheries Patrol vessel used a spotlight to illuminate the the ocean surveillance ship USNS Victorious.

In that incident, which occurred about 125 miles from China's coast in the Yellow Sea, the Chinese ship "crossed Victorious' bow at a range of about 1,400 yards" in darkness without notice or warning. The following day, a Chinese Y-12 maritime surveillance aircraft conducted 12 fly-bys of Victorious at an altitude of about 400 feet and a range of 500 yards.

The next day, a Chinese frigate approached Impeccable "and proceeded to cross its bow at a range of approximately 100 yards," which was followed less than two hours later by a Chinese Y-12 aircraft conducting 11 fly-bys of Impeccable at an altitude of 600 feet and a range of 100 to 300 feet, the statement said.

"The frigate then crossed Impeccable's bow yet again, this time at a range of approximately 400-500 yards without rendering courtesy or notice of her intentions."

And on Saturday, a Chinese intelligence collection ship challenged Impeccable over bridge-to-bridge radio, "calling her operations illegal and directing Impeccable to leave the area or 'suffer the consequences,' " the statement said.

In 2007, the Pentagon filed a formal protest with Beijing over its refusal to allow a U.S. aircraft carrier to make a Thanksgiving port call in Hong Kong so its crew could spend the American holiday with relatives and over its refusal to grant refuge to two U.S. minesweeping ships that were caught in a storm.

And in 2001, an EP-3 surveillance plane collided with a Chinese fighter jet piroted by the rate ramented "Wrong Way" Wong Wei and made an emergency landing on China's Hainan Island, where the Chinese held the plane's 24 American crew members for 11 days before releasing them.

Find this article at:
http://www.cnn.com/2009/POLITICS/03/09/ ... index.html
Vivek_A
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Re: Let us Understand the Chinese

Post by Vivek_A »

Why is this thread called "let us understand the chinese"? Isn't it clear by now that they're hegemonic power that's been supporting TSP for a long time?

Beijing raises stakes with tit-for-tat deployment in South China Sea
Beijing has increased tension in a disputed part of the South China Sea by sending a patrol ship to protect fishing boats after the United States deployed a destroyer in the area. The American move was in response to alleged Chinese harassment of one of its surveillance vessels.

The Yuzheng 311, a converted naval rescue vessel, is the largest and most modern patrol ship in the Chinese Navy, the Beijing News said. It was due to arrive in the Paracel Islands yesterday to patrol China’s exclusive economic zone and to "strengthen fishery administration" in the South China Sea. It will patrol the waters around the Paracels and the Spratly Islands, protecting Chinese fishing boats and transport vessels.

The remote reefs and atolls that comprise the Spratly islands are claimed by China, Vietnam, Malaysia, the Philippines, Brunei and Taiwan. The islands lie on major shipping routes for oil tankers travelling between the Middle East and Japan, South Korea and China. They may also be above undersea oil reserves.

Beijing was enraged by a law passed last week by the Philippines laying claim to the disputed islands, describing the action as illegal.

The timing of the deployment of the patrol vessel appeared to be a response to a build-up of American might in the region. The United States dispatched a destroyer armed with torpedoes and missiles to escort its surveillance ships after harassment earlier this month by the Chinese Navy.
RayC
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Re: Let us Understand the Chinese

Post by RayC »

It is titled ''Let us Understand the Chinese", because they are running the world in circles.

A lot many have not understood their doublespeak, metaphor, similes, pious platitudes. fraud concern for the downtrodden and all that humbug, while at the same time going ahead to be a world power!

If you have understood the Chinese, do share how we could also understand them!
satya
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Re: Let us Understand the Chinese

Post by satya »

Synthesis And Art Of China’s Security Perception - Part I
Synthesis And Art Of China’s Security Perception – Part II

Two part article by veteran Chinese Watcher Sh. Bhaskar Roy on SAAG website . Very informative .
Vivek_A
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Re: Let us Understand the Chinese

Post by Vivek_A »

I would call "it let's expose the chinese".
RayC
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Re: Let us Understand the Chinese

Post by RayC »

Vivek_A wrote:I would call "it let's expose the chinese".
I think that it would appear negative.

If one were to take only an adversarial attitude and only sniff and hunt for negatives, the value of the argument is lost; something like the Pakistan mentality towards India - everything Indian is bad - including that India is doing leaps and bounds better than the. Hence, their statements have no credibility! ;) :)

Take Pallavi Iyer's book. She see the good and the bad and hence comes out credible!

Let BR come out as a credible forum and not one that is bigoted!
NRao
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Re: Let us Understand the Chinese

Post by NRao »

We can all talk about China, but China keeps chugging (to destroy others):

China and Argentina in currency swap
China, which is pushing to end the dominance of the dollar as a worldwide reserve, has agreed a Rmb70bn ($10.24bn, £7.18bn, €7.76bn) currency swap with Argentina that will allow it to receive renminbi instead of dollars for its exports to the Latin American country.
:D
Beijing has signed Rmb650bn ($95bn, €72bn, £67bn) of deals since December with Malaysia, South Korea, Hong Kong, Belarus, Indonesia and, now, Argentina in an attempt to unblock trade financing that has been severely curtailed by the crisis.
Stan_Savljevic
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Re: Let us Understand the Chinese

Post by Stan_Savljevic »

I was in a seminar today with the speaker from china. The talk was on malware, bots etc. The speaker had an array of tools to detect malware and destroy them etc. Upon someone questioning the speaker, "Cant the malware writers figure out your detection strategy given that your work is open-source?" the speaker responds, "Yes, quite likely. We see too many hits of our webpages from Russia."
JwalaMukhi
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Re: Let us Understand the Chinese

Post by JwalaMukhi »

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090410/ap_ ... _imbalance
China has 32 million more young men than young women — a gender gap that could lead to increasing crime — because parents facing strict birth limits abort female fetuses to have a son, a study released Friday said.

"Nothing can be done now to prevent this imminent generation of excess men," said the report by Hesketh and two professors from eastern China's Zhejiang province.
RayC
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Re: Let us Understand the Chinese

Post by RayC »

Excess in men will lead to psychological and biological problems.
NRao
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Re: Let us Understand the Chinese

Post by NRao »

Understand China:

FT :: Apr 11, 2009 :: China withholds approval for ADB's India loan

:D
China has allowed a long-standing territorial dispute with India to spill over into the international arena by withholding approval for a multilateral development plan for India.

The unusual friction between Asia's two largest emerging economies occurred ahead of a board meeting of the Asian Development Bank at the end of last month, when China used its right to postpone approval of the lender's country partnership strategy for India, outlining ADB lending to India until 2012.

The Chinese did not give a reason for their intervention. But the ADB said Beijing was unhappy that its Indian plan proposed lending to projects in the disputed north-eastern region of Arunachal Pradesh. People familiar with the plan said the projects were for flood management, water supply and sanitation. China and India fought a war in 1962 over disputed territory. China declared victory and then pulled back its troops.
Showing her true color.
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Re: Let us Understand the Chinese

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rundstedt
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Re: Let us Understand the Chinese

Post by rundstedt »

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