China Watch Thread-I

Vayutuvan · Post by **Vayutuvan** » 13 Sep 2015 21:50

^ Yes. That is what I am pointing to. It is the need of the hour. No wonder US is making a lot of noise - a tad more than probably what Chinese are doing.

Singha · Post by **Singha** » 17 Sep 2015 19:48

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/09/17/techn ... -well&_r=0

china continues to successfully browbeat american tech cos to share technology with local 'partners'

SSridhar · Post by **SSridhar** » 20 Sep 2015 08:59

Four funerals and a wedding: China's Xi Jinping mends political bridges - Reuters

Chinese President Xi Jinping's attendance at the funeral earlier this year of a one-time propaganda minister was a surprise; Deng Liqun, who died aged 99, was never a top-ranked official and had been a political enemy of Xi's father.

Xi's presence, sources said, was in fact part of a nascent effort to heal wounds across China's ideological divide after his unrelenting crackdown on corruption alienated senior officials from the ruling Communist Party, government and military.

Xi wants to consolidate support ahead of the 19th party congress in 2017, when the seven-member Politburo Standing Committee, the apex of power in China, is reshuffled, said the sources, who have close ties to the leadership.

While Xi is expected to rule until 2023, he needs to get allies on the committee who will back his three-year war on corruption and his plans for reforming China's slowing economy, experts said.

Xi has been involved in a number of funerals this year for ex-officials who spanned China's political spectrum.

Funerals of notable figures have a unique place in Chinese politics and are carefully choreographed by the party.

Attendance is often scrutinised for clues as to whether retired officials are among the mourners, indicating they still have clout.

Xi's bridge-building shows a different, more nuanced side of a president who appears to the outside world as China's most top-down ruler since Mao Zedong.

The Chinese leader's anti-graft campaign has netted scores of senior officials, targeted influential families and frightened a bureaucracy to the point where some officials won't make decisions for fear of drawing attention to themselves.

It has also traumatised political factions.

FATHER'S NEMESIS

That's why Xi was among the mourners at Deng's funeral in Beijing on Feb. 17, where he bowed three times before the body of the ultra-conservative Marxist ideologue, sources said.

Xi had no obligation to go, the sources added, requesting anonymity because they were not authorised to speak to foreign media.

Deng had also been a nemesis of Xi's late father, Xi Zhongxun, a vice premier in the late 1950s and early 1960s.

"Deng Liqun was a leftist and Xi Zhongxun a rightist. They were political enemies since ... the 1950s," one source said.

In China, leftists are opposed to market-oriented reforms and Western-style democracy, while rightists are more liberal-minded. Precisely where President Xi sits is fluid, which is how he wants it, experts say.

"Xi went because he needs leftists in his fight against corruption," the source said.

Experts believe that, in a worst-case scenario, conservatives could try to oust Xi, especially if the economy falters further and unemployment sky-rockets.

The president has walked a tightrope targeting "tigers", or senior figures, in his corruption crackdown.

Among them has been former security tsar Zhou Yongkang, a conservative heavyweight jailed for life in June.

Despite that balancing act and China's plunging stock markets, Xi is sure to display confidence when he holds talks with US President Barack Obama in Washington this week and give little ground on issues that bedevil ties, from cyber security to China's territorial ambitions.

"HE'S THEIR GUY"

Xi has also paid tribute to those on China's political right.

Zeng Yanxiu, the first party member purged in the 1957 Anti-Rightist movement against liberal intellectuals, died in Beijing on March 3, according to sources close to the family. He was 96.

The party banned the holding of a public service because Zeng's death coincided with the annual full session of parliament, the sources said.

Neither Xi nor his father were close to Zeng, but the president sent a wreath, they added.

"Xi has been courting both the left and the right in the party," a second source with leadership ties said. "Xi is a pragmatist, neither a rabid conservative nor excessive liberal."

In the living room of Zeng's flat at the time, a Reuters reporter saw visitors bow before a portrait of Zeng, flanked by wreaths from Xi and other leaders.

"Xi draws strength from convincing both sides of the ideological divide that he's their guy," said Christopher Johnson, a China expert at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, referring to Xi's focus on funerals.

Another notable funeral Xi attended was for Qiao Shi, 90, a former chairman of parliament and once head of the party's anti-corruption watchdog who was a proponent of strengthening the legal system. Qiao died in Beijing on June 14.

DISQUIET IN THE RANKS

Xi also went to the funeral of General Zhang Zhen, former vice chairman of the powerful Central Military Commission, who died in Beijing on Sept. 3 aged 100.

Anti-graft investigators have focused particular attention on the military, causing much disquiet throughout the ranks, sources have said.

While Xi appears to have attended no public weddings since assuming power, his own showed his penchant for keeping his cards close to his chest.

Xi, then 34, and his wife, Peng Liyuan, then 24 and a popular army singer, exchanged vows in a simple ceremony at Xi's home in the southeastern port city of Xiamen in 1987 where he was a vice mayor, official media reported last year.

Xi then informed the mayor, who invited colleagues to a dinner.

The first to arrive recognised Peng and asked, while shaking Xi's, hand: "Why is she here?"

Xi replied: "She is my wife", official media said.

SSridhar · Post by **SSridhar** » 22 Sep 2015 10:05

China military hints at strong opposition to large-scale troop cuts

Bitterness is growing within China's armed forces to President Xi Jinping's decision to cut troop numbers by 300,000 and considerable effort will be needed to overcome opposition to the order, according to a source and commentaries in the military's newspaper.

Xi made the unexpected announcement on Sept. 3 at a military parade in Beijing marking 70 years since the end of World War Two in Asia. The move would reduce by 13 per cent one of the world's biggest militaries, currently 2.3-million strong.

One government official, who meets regularly with senior officers, said some inside the People's Liberation Army (PLA) felt the announcement had been rushed and taken by Xi with little consultation outside the Central Military Commission. Xi heads the commission, which has overall command of the military.

"It's been too sudden," the source told Reuters, speaking on condition of anonymity.

"People are very worried. A lot of good officers will lose their jobs and livelihoods. It's going to be tough for soldiers."

China's Defence Ministry, in a statement sent to Reuters, said the "broad mass" of officers and soldiers "resolutely endorsed the important decision of the (Communist) Party centre and Central Military Commission and obey orders".

It has said the cuts, the fourth since the 1980s, would be mostly completed by the end of 2017.

Experts say the move is likely part of long-mooted rationalisation plans, which have included changing the PLA command structure so it less resembles a Soviet-era model and spending more money on the navy and air force as Beijing asserts its territorial claims in the disputed South and East China Seas.

Soon after Xi's announcement, the official Xinhua news agency published a long article quoted soldiers as supporting the decision.

Each branch of the armed forces believed the cuts would raise quality standards, Xinhua said.

Commentaries in the PLA Daily newspaper have since warned that the reductions would be hard to carry out. Chinese state media often run commentaries that reflect the official line of the institution publishing the newspaper.

"UNPRECEDENTED" CHALLENGE

The cuts come at a time of heightened economic uncertainty in China as growth slows, its stock markets tumble and the leadership grapples with painful but needed economic reforms.

China has previously faced protests from demobilised soldiers, who have complained about a lack of support finding new jobs or help with financial problems.

A protest by thousands of former soldiers over pensions was reported in June, although the Defence Ministry denied any knowledge of the incident.

The PLA is already reeling from Xi's crackdown on deep-seated corruption in China, which has seen dozens of officers investigated, including two former vice chairmen of the Central Military Commission.

Barely a week after the Beijing parade, the PLA newspaper said the troop cuts and other military reforms Xi wished to undertake would require "an assault on fortified positions" to change mindsets and root out vested interests, and that the difficulties expected would be "unprecedented".

If these reforms failed, measures still to come would be "nothing more than an empty sheet of paper", it said.

It did not give details on the planned reforms.

But state media has said they will likely involve better integration of all PLA branches. As part of this move, China's seven military regions, which have separate command structures that tend to focus on ground-based operations, are expected to be reduced.

There had been no previous suggestion big troop cuts were planned.

TROOP ENTERTAINERS TO GO

Another commentary in the PLA Daily published a week later detailed the kind of opposition Xi faced.

"Some units suffer from inertia and think everything's already great. Some are scared of hardships, blame everyone and everything but themselves ... They shirk work and find ways of avoiding difficulty," the commentary said.

A second government source, who is close to the PLA, said military song and dance assemblies, which traditionally entertain troops, would be the first to go.

"The defence budget will not be cut. It will continue to gradually increase," the source added.

China's military budget for this year rose 10.1 per cent to 886.9 billion yuan ($139.39 billion), the second largest in the world after the United States.

Some retired Chinese generals have supported the troop cuts.

"A bloated military can only cause ineffectual expenditure and forfeited battles," retired Major-General Luo Yuan, a prominent Chinese military figure, wrote in the Global Times newspaper three days after Xi's announcement.

Xu Guangyu, a retired major general and now a senior army arms control advisor said: "Our country's military needs to take the path of modernisation ... These force reductions are an effort to stay on this path and increase quality not numbers."

Singha · Post by **Singha** » 24 Sep 2015 10:08

china has released this heat map of where their most wanted fugitives are hiding. unusual places incl sudan, sri lanka, west africa.

Vayutuvan · Post by **Vayutuvan** » 24 Sep 2015 10:24

So Chinese are going hammer and tongues at the U.S. There is always vice versa, of course

hnair · Post by **hnair** » 24 Sep 2015 10:39

So unlike the wisdom one sees here, they too are sending out dossiers? Of course they used crayola, instead of our newsprint quality paper

Singha · Post by **Singha** » 24 Sep 2015 10:49

one fugitive is being handed over from usa.
http://www.businessinsider.com/the-us-j ... 015-9?IR=T
He is the 13th fugitive sent back to China as part of the mainland’s “Operation Sky Net” anti-graft operation, since it was launched in April this year.

The other 12 fugitives were either convinced by Chinese agents to return, or repatriated by other countries.

Yang fled to the US in 2001, and had been listed as a fugitive, subject to red notices issued by Interpol, since 2005.

hnair · Post by **hnair** » 24 Sep 2015 12:30

A sum total of one benami operative swap? Our main benami-base, UAE, listen to us better, even without trillion dollar treasury leverages

Slim pickings in a target rich environment filled with fluffy Falun Gong and Dalai Cliques. We shall have to wait for the day when Uyghur types of the Lakhvi or Hedley category get extradited into PAP hands. Until then, Crayola art

Singha · Post by **Singha** » 24 Sep 2015 16:49

note the CIAish unmarked business jet for the extradition.

UlanBatori · Post by **UlanBatori** » 25 Sep 2015 06:21

Singha wrote:china has released this heat map of where their most wanted fugitives are hiding. unusual places incl sudan, sri lanka, west africa.

So many in Mongolia?

and not many in Londonistan? Or Pakistan?
Oh, wait, I forgot. Pakistan hands over Uighurs on demand to be shot by PRC - or just shoots them dead themselves on demand.

Mihaylo · Post by **Mihaylo** » 25 Sep 2015 06:47

Singha wrote:china has released this heat map of where their most wanted fugitives are hiding. unusual places incl sudan, sri lanka, west africa.

So Dalai Lama is no longer a fugitive ?

-M

member_29001 · Post by **member_29001** » 27 Sep 2015 19:36

Slightly old article on Xinjiang.
http://thediplomat.com/2015/07/troubled ... g-history/

It claims that the original inhabitants of Xinjiang were not Uighurs; but Tocharians(Caucasians) and other people speaking Eastern Iranian languages influenced by Sanskrit, Pali, and Gandharan.
Should be discussed under OIT too.

Hiten · Post by **Hiten** » 28 Sep 2015 10:49

watching China watching India

Singha · Post by **Singha** » 30 Sep 2015 15:51

a series of 13 huge explosions potentially parcel explosives has flattened buildings in Luizhou city in guangxi province of south china
http://www.nbcnews.com/news/china/liuzh ... ad-n436041

Vayutuvan · Post by **Vayutuvan** » 30 Sep 2015 20:58

Yet another? Multiply that 7 and 50 by 10.

member_29001 · Post by **member_29001** » 01 Oct 2015 06:03

Slightly older news from Xinjiang about coal mine attack:

http://www.rfa.org/english/news/uyghur/ ... 74319.html

Aditya_V · Post by **Aditya_V** » 01 Oct 2015 12:15

Singha wrote:a series of 13 huge explosions potentially parcel explosives has flattened buildings in Luizhou city in guangxi province of south china
http://www.nbcnews.com/news/china/liuzh ... ad-n436041

There was some news yesterday and then Blackout, buildings flattened but only 7 dead, I think the Chinese are hushing things to stop public outrage in China?

SSridhar · Post by **SSridhar** » 01 Oct 2015 12:49

Another blast reported in China's Liuzhou city - Teo Cheng Wee, Straits Times

BEIJING - South-western Guangxi's Liuzhou city was rocked by another blast on Thursday morning (Oct 1), which caused bricks to rain onto the streets below a residential area.

Chinese media reports quoted residents saying the 8am explosion was loud and that they could feel the tremors from their beds. Police and firemen have arrived at the six-storey building, with no one reported injured so far.

The latest blast came after local police revealed on Wednesday night that they had found more than 60 suspicious packages after being tipped off by residents. Explosives experts were being readied to investigate and deactivate the parcels.

Official postal services in Liuzhou have stepped up their safety checks and will suspend services up till Saturday (Oct 3). Authorities have advised locals not to open parcels they receive in the coming days and to avoid suspicious packages placed in public.

"The public must be on guard. Do not accept or pass items on for strangers. Do not accept parcels that arrive from unusual channels," the Liuzhou police were quoted saying on their social media Weibo account.

This morning's blast also comes after at least seven people were killed and 51 others injured in Liuzhou yesterday (Wed), as 17 package bombs went off in hospitals, shopping malls and government offices, among other places.

Chinese media reports say police have arrested a local 33-year-old male surnamed Wei for the "criminal" act. They have ruled out terrorism but did not say what motives Wei had for carrying out the blasts.

The explosions in Liuzhou occurred as China started its week-long National Day holidays, and comes after a string of violent knife and bomb attacks in China in recent years by people wanting to bring attention to their grievances.

panduranghari · Post by **panduranghari** » 01 Oct 2015 18:29

The Fuerdai

The fuerdai (pronounced foo-arr-dye) aren’t just an embarrassment. The Communist Party seems to consider them an economic or even political threat. President Xi Jinping himself spoke out this year, advising the second generation to “think about the source of their wealth and how to behave after becoming affluent.” An article published by the United Front Work Department, the bureau that manages relations between the party and nonparty elite, warned: “They know only how to show off their wealth but don’t know how to create wealth.” Some local governments have taken steps to reeducate their wealthy elite. In June, according to Beijing Youth Daily, 70 heirs to major Chinese companies attended lectures on filial piety and the role of traditional values in business.

Founded in 2008, Relay was created to help fuerdai meet other fuerdai, who might be facing similar challenges of wealth. There’s an initiation fee of 200,000 yuan, and members must prove that their family businesses pay at least 50 million yuan in annual taxes. At forums held several times a year, the heirs listen to lectures on topics such as how to minimize taxes or maximize profit (“All legal stuff,” one member assured me) and visit each other’s companies. “Most of the time the forum is very boring,” Hang said. He rolled out the magazine in 2011, hoping to promote a more positive image of fuerdai than the decadent wastrels usually portrayed in the media. It was a rebranding: Relay’s members dropped the fu (“wealthy”) from fuerdai and started to refer to themselves using a new term, chuangerdai, which means “second-generation entrepreneurs,” or just erdai, “second generation.”

It’s no surprise that most fuerdai, after summering in Bali and wintering in the Alps, reading philosophy at Oxford and getting MBAs from Stanford, are reluctant to take over the family toothpaste cap factory.

UlanBatori · Post by **UlanBatori** » 02 Oct 2015 01:55

Wow! Even terrorism cannot survive without cheap Chinese imitations flooding the market? This is shocking for Pakistanis.

Singha · Post by **Singha** » 02 Oct 2015 08:04

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/worl ... 190257.cms

50 knifed to death in a china coalmine..a well planned massacre of the trapped miners it seems

UlanBatori · Post by **UlanBatori** » 02 Oct 2015 15:48

Just posting this from the above link. Trying not to

about a tragedy.

Beijing's concerns about Pakistan's Taliban backing Xinjiang separatists features regularly in discussions between the two countries. A Communist Party official in charge of religious groups and ethnic minorities, Yu Zhengsheng, warned local authorities not to rest on their laurels because the threat from terrorists was severe.

"We must fully recognize that Xinjiang faces a very serious situation in maintaining long-term social stability, and we must make a serious crackdown on violent terror activities the focal point of our struggle," Yu said. Meanwhile, three more explosions rocked China's Guangxi province, killing one more person on Thursday.

SSridhar · Post by **SSridhar** » 03 Oct 2015 10:34

Scepticism over China's data could stoke recession fears - Esther Teo, Straits Times

The perennial debate over the reliability of China's official economic data has caught fire again, but with potentially more severe repercussions as its weakening economy fuels fears of a global recession.

A roar of scepticism went up after Beijing's claim that China posted a gross domestic product (GDP) growth rate of 7 per cent in the first half of the year and can maintain roughly that rate in the third quarter.

Some economists point to the coincidence as suspicious: Beijing set a yearly growth target of "about 7 per cent" in March this year and was spot-on in meeting it. The figure also raised doubts as it was not in line with other data suggesting a slump in the manufacturing and residential real estate construction sectors, China's economic powerhouses.

"There has been a long history in China of the official GDP data understating true GDP during a boom and overstating it during a slowdown, but the degree of overstatement on true growth by official data since about 2010 goes well beyond such smoothing," wrote Citigroup chief economist Willem Buiter in a note. He thinks growth in the first half could be "4 per cent or less".

The National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) defended its figures, emphasising the rebalancing in the world's No. 2 economy that is keeping growth steady. The service industry that includes financial, and hotel and catering services is - for the first time - on par with both the primary and secondary sectors combined in its contribution to GDP. The primary sector refers to agriculture while the secondary sector refers to industries like manufacturing and construction.

GDP generated by services has outstripped the secondary sector since 2012. This means it no longer suffices to use only old indexes such as increases in loan supplies, electricity generation and cargo throughput to measure China's performance as they have become "less accurate and representative", NBS spokesman Sheng Laiyun said at a news conference last month.

Electricity usage in the service sector, for instance, is about 20 per cent that of the industrial sector, so using only data on electricity consumption to derive a growth forecast would be wrong, he added.

The Chinese economy's shift to a service-led growth model has been accelerating with its share of GDP rising for the past five consecutive years. From January to June, the service sector contributed 50 per cent of China's GDP, up from 48 per cent for the whole of last year. It grew at a rate of 8.4 per cent, faster than the secondary sector's 6.1 per cent and the primary sector's 3.5 per cent.

Dr Friedrich Wu, an associate professor of international political economy at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies, said the trouble with measuring growth is that many services are difficult to count at the local levels. "It will take some years for the Chinese statistical authorities to come up with a comprehensive and valid set of services indicators," he noted.

But doubts over the reliability of China's data go back decades. In 1998, as the Asian financial crisis hit economies like South Korea, Thailand and Indonesia, Beijing reported 7.8 per cent GDP growth. Many economists later concluded that growth was closer to 5 per cent.

Capital Economics' chief Asia economist Mark Williams said China's recent GDP data is likely inflated by 1 to 2 percentage points resulting from a metric that understates inflation, creating the impression of faster real growth.

Experts say while Beijing has made significant strides to improve data accuracy and transparency, more can be done. No one knows, for instance, how China accounts for inflation when tabulating GDP.

"It would be wrong to call the Chinese system a black box. But if the NBS wants to restore trust, it will have to become much more of an open book," said Bloomberg economist Tom Orlik.

With China making up 15 per cent of world economic output, openness is also more crucial in light of a faltering global economy. Insufficient data dims the understanding of China's economy and can lead to panic. This has ripple effects on the global economy, such as the Chinese stock market rout last month that pummelled global stocks, UOB's China economist Suan Teck Kin said.

"Beijing should work on releasing frequent authoritative studies on the economy, such as on its housing sector, to engage investors and the public so as to let them understand how it thinks about issues and how this might affect future policies," he added.

panduranghari · Post by **panduranghari** » 03 Oct 2015 13:53

Until 1993 chinese used the material prosperity to measure their GDP. It was the same soviet union used. According to Americans once USSR collapsed they were able to go into the details of how the material prosperity index was calculated. It turned out the growth in ussr was way lower than reported. Chinese have moved to SNA2008 since 2011. The current reported gdp is quite accurate. In think once the data is adjusted we can be certain the chinese GDP is actually higher than what we think it is.

SNA repkies on tax receipts. Just like India we know, Chinese do a lot of tax avoidance. How can they report data when its incomplete? So they make some assumptions. The bureaucrats surely know what they need to do and whats expected. But we should be careful of the way the western press reports on Chinese economic data. No one knows exactly.

kmkraoind · Post by **kmkraoind** » 09 Oct 2015 13:19

Gordon G. Chang ‏@GordonGChang

#China Wang Jing lost 84% of net worth since June. #chinameltdown means proposed Nicaragua canal may not be built.

NRao · Post by **NRao** » 09 Oct 2015 14:09

Brace for crash landing. Too much smoke and mirrors.

SSridhar · Post by **SSridhar** » 09 Oct 2015 14:12

If you thought China’s equity bubble was scary, check out bonds - Bloomberg

As a rout in this year erased $5 trillion of value, investors fled for safety in the nation's red-hot corporate bond market. They may have just moved from one bubble to another.

So says Commerzbank AG, which puts the chance of a crash by year-end at 20 percent, up from almost zero in June. Industrial Securities Co. and Huachuang Securities Co. are warning of an unsustainable rally after bond prices climbed to six-year highs and issuance jumped to a record. The boom contrasts with caution elsewhere. A selloff in global corporate notes has pushed yields to a 21-month high, and credit-derivatives traders are demanding near the most in two years to insure against losses on Chinese government securities.

While an imminent collapse isn't yet the base-case scenario for most forecasters, China's 42.2 trillion yuan ($6.7 trillion) bond market is flashing the same danger signs that triggered a tumble in stocks four months ago: stretched valuations, a surge in investor leverage and shrinking corporate profits. A reversal would add to challenges facing China's ruling Communist Party, which has struggled to contain volatility in financial markets amid the deepest economic slowdown since 1990.

"The Chinese government is caught between a rock and hard place," said Zhou Hao, a senior economist in Singapore at Commerzbank, Germany's second-largest lender. "If it doesn't intervene, the bond market will actually become a bubble. And if it does, the market could crash the way the equity market did due to fast de-leveraging."

The slide in stocks is one reason why corporate bonds have done so well, prompting a 91 percent jump in issuance last quarter. Many investors who sold shares during the Shanghai Composite Index's 38.4 percent drop from its June high have plowed the proceeds into debt, viewing the market as a haven given its history of almost negligible defaults. Five interest- rate cuts since November have also fueled gains as the People's Bank of China seeks to revive growth with lower borrowing costs.

Yields on top-rated corporate notes due in five years have declined 79 basis points, or 0.79 percentage point, this year to 4.01 percent. The yield premium over similar-maturity government securities has dropped to 97 basis points, near the lowest since 2009

By contrast, the yield on corporate notes globally has increased 26 basis points to 2.92 percent. Credit-default swaps on China's sovereign debt jumped to a more than two-year high of 133 basis points in September and were last at 113 basis points.

Risks Rise

A reversal in the bond market would do more damage to China's economy than the drop in shares and exacerbate capital flight from the biggest emerging market, according to a worst- case scenario projected by Banco Bilbao Vizcaya Argentaria SA. The Spanish lender more than doubled its first-quarter profit by selling holdings in a Chinese bank.

"The equity rout merely reflects worries about China's economy, while a bond market crash would mean the worries have become a reality as corporate debts go unpaid," said Xia Le, the chief economist for Asia at Banco Bilbao. "A Chinese credit collapse would also likely spark a more significant selloff in emerging-market assets."

For all the concerns about a bond rout, default levels in China have so far been remarkably low, thanks in part to government-orchestrated bailouts for troubled firms. Just four companies have defaulted on onshore bonds, including Shanghai Chaori Solar Energy Science & Technology Co., which became the first to renege on its debt in 2014.

Government Firepower

China has the wherewithal to stave off a crisis in its credit markets, according to Ken Hu, chief investment officer for Asia-Pacific fixed income at Invesco Ltd. "Unlike most other emerging-market countries, China has high domestic saving rates, little government debt, healthy fiscal balances, strong trade and current account surpluses, and most of its corporate debts are domestic," he said.

Policy makers went to unprecedented lengths to combat the tumble in share prices, including compelling state-owned firms to buy equities and preventing major stockholders from selling. The Shanghai rose 3 percent on Thursday, the steepest advance in three weeks.

A recovery in the equity market could be the trigger for a selloff in bonds as money managers liquidate their holdings to catch the rally in stocks, according to Thomas Kwan, the Hong Kong-based chief investment officer at Harvest Global Investments Ltd., whose Chinese unit offers funds through the Qualified Domestic Institutional Investor program.

Warning Signs

The risk of a downward spiral in debt prices has increased after investors took on leverage to amplify their returns, according to Ping An Securities Co. The monthly volume of bond repurchase agreements -- a form of borrowing used by investors to increase their buying power -- has jumped 83 percent from January to 39 trillion yuan in September, according to data from the Chinamoney website.

About 16 percent of companies on the Shanghai stock exchange lost money in the past 12 months, double the proportion last year, and the number of firms with debt levels twice their equity has doubled to 347 since 2007. Profits at Chinese industrial companies sank 8.8 percent in August from a year earlier, the biggest decline since the government began releasing monthly data in 2011.

Baoding Tianwei Yingli New Energy Resources Co., a maker of solar components, could become the latest Chinese company to default on local-currency notes after its parent said it's unlikely to meet a deadline next week on a 1 billion yuan bond.

"Global investors are looking for signs of a collapse in China, which itself could increase the chances of a crash," Commerzbank's Zhou said. "This game can't go on forever."

Philip · Post by **Philip** » 09 Oct 2015 16:06

Massive gridlock in China,50 lane wide chaos!

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world ... 85961.html

Massive motorway in China brought to a standstill in huge traffic jam
Drivers were trapped in a 50-lane traffic jam
Serina Sandhu |
Thursday 8 October 2015

This was the incredible scene as millions of people took to China's roads during a week of national celebration.

Video shows hundreds of cars trapped in a traffic jam spanning around 50 lanes on the gigantic G4 Beijing-Hong Kong-Macau Expressway.

The reason for the tailback was because of a new toll station in Beijing, which squeezed traffic into far fewer lanes following the checkpoint.

The footage, taken on 6 October, shows drivers and passengers walking between the vehicles, passing time as they wait to continue.

The traffic situation was made worse as many people were trying to travel home for the end of the National Day celebrations - a week-long festival which begins on 1 October to mark the establishment of the People's Republic of China in 1949.

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Around 750 million people were expected to travel during the festival, which is also known as Golden Week and runs until 7 October. More than 650 million journeys were also expected to be made by road, according to China's Ministry of Tourism.

During the celebrations, workers are given three-days paid leave. The holidays have been in place since 1999 and were implemented by the Government to boost living standards and encourage more domestic tourism.

kmkraoind · Post by **kmkraoind** » 12 Oct 2015 09:59

Wow, senile grip of Commies is going to bonkers in China. If monolithic commies looses their grip, middle kingdom flag raisers will raise again (coastal kingdoms vs interiors). Previous Tiananmen Square started for economic unrest, nothing has changed now, except there are few billionaires. If there is any economic downscale, shutting of jobs means, China may face millions of mutinies.

Chinese protestor throws ink at portrait of Chairman Mao

Police wrestled the man to the ground last weekend after he threw a bottle of ink at the portrait, a potent symbol of Communist Party power which hangs on the Tiananmen gate tower where Chairman Mao declared a new republic 60 years ago.

"At around 13:35pm, April 5 2010, a man was put under control after he threw a plastic bottle of ink towards the Tiananmen gate tower," the Beijing Municipal Public Security Bureau confirmed in a statement faxed to The Telegraph.

The audacious attack echoes the 1989 Tiananmen Square protest when three young men threw ink-filled eggs at the portrait in a gesture of defiance against China' Communist ruling party that resonated around the world.

The three men, Lu Decheng, Yu Zhijian, and Yu Dongyue, received some of the harshest sentences in the crackdown that followed the violent crushing of the protests, being jailed for 16 years, 20 years and life respectively.

ramana · Post by **ramana** » 12 Oct 2015 23:49

http://bharatkarnad.com/

This piece was solicited by ‘Pengpai Defense’ (‘The Paper’) and published in its Mandarin translation on September 1, 2015 as lead-up to the massive Sept 3 Military Parade and celebration in Beijing, and is accessible at
http://www.thepaper.cn/newsDetail_forward_1370253

What I would dearly wish is for readers of this blog proficient in Mandarin to see if the translation is accurate and, even more, what the many Chinese reactions to this piece say.

————–

China suffered grievously at the hands of Imperial Japan in the years 1937-1945. As against 396,040 dead Japanese soldiers, nearly 20 million Chinese perished in the ‘War of Resistance’, approximately a sixth of this grisly total constituting soldiers mostly from Chang kai shek’s Kuomintang forces fighting the invaders in pitched battles, and of the Communist 8th Route Army and the New 4th Army (the kernel of the later Peoples Liberation Army) carrying out guerilla operations in the enemy’s rear areas. This was a horrendous price for a China embroiled in a civil-war-cum-‘anti-fascist’ war to pay even without accounting for the sustained atrocities, principally the ‘Nanjing massacre’ perpetrated by troops of the Imperial Japanese Central China Area Army and the 10th Army, excesses that pale only in comparison to the campaign for exterminating European Jewry by Hitler’s Nazi regime.
This experience has undoubtedly seared the Chinese people’s collective psyche and consciousness crowning, in their mind, the ‘century of humiliation’ their country suffered. That it embitters China’s relations with Japan to this day — some seventy years after the events of despoliation and mass murder, is not surprising. Bad national memories have a way of lingering, even growing weightier as resentments pile on with every passing year, and end up influencing current attitudes and future policies. The scorched memory has fanned the visceral fear in China of a re-militarised Japan.
The planned military parade on September 3 to mark for the first time and on a grand scale the victory in the war against Japan may thus be seen as sort of national catharsis, a means of venting anger at the suffering inflicted on the Chinese nation, and an occasion for a militarily ascendant China to flex its muscle, let Tokyo and the rest of the world know they are now dealing with a very different country. The parade will likely feature the most advanced armaments in the PLA arsenal, including the anti-ship ballistic missile system – a unique Chinese innovation expressly designed to keep Japanese warships and the aircraft carrier task groups of its treaty-ally the United States, from closing in on the long Chinese coastline on the East Sea and the South China Sea and initiating a conventional military affray, and the latest long range thermonuclear warheaded missiles, especially the DF-41, with the Second Artillery Strategic Forces to deter Washington, from escalating a losing campaign to the nuclear level.
So far so tolerable. Except China’s overly rough and belligerent foreign and security policy particularly vis a vis the countries it has territorial disputes with on land and sea – and there’s a whole host of such states on its periphery, conjoined to the matching military buildup the parade will try and showcase, is at an inflection point. Despite the beneficial economic interlinks it has with many adjoining countries, the uncertainty mixed with their apprehension and worry about how forcefully a powerful and ambitious China will push its claims and leverage its material resources against them, is forcing these states to seek protection, and secure military assistance and help from friendly big powers with problems of their own with Beijing.
Thus, three of the bigger Southeast Asian states contesting Chinese claims in the South China Sea are forging close military relations with extra-territorial powers. Vietnam has offered India the port of Nha Trang on its central coast to use as naval base and for electronic monitoring of the communications traffic to and from Hainan Island hosting both the headquarters of the Chinese Navy’s South Sea Fleet and the PLA’s Cyber Command. It has sent its Kilo attack submarine crews for training to the Indian submarine headquarters in Vishakapatnam, and secured batteries of the deadly Brahmos supersonic cruise missile from the Narendra Modi government. Hanoi is also seeking a rapprochement with the United States, and Cam Ranh Bay is likely to be opened to US aircraft carriers and escort vessels as rest, repair and replenishment station. Philippines, likewise, has sought American help, invoking the ‘mutual defence’ provision in the 1953 treaty, and received a number of F-16 combat aircraft to equip a depleted Philippine Air Force. Manila has also offered the Subic Bay naval base and Clark air force base for contingent use by the Indian military. Indonesia, meanwhile, has strengthened its security cooperation with India, for example, in terms of Indian help in maintaining its air force fleet of MiG-21Fs and Su-27s/Su-30MKs.
More significantly, a New Triple Entente is emerging in Asia of India, the United States and Japan with the aim, to the extent possible, of peacefully containing China. This entente is a backstop to the series of bilateral security arrangements between these big powers, and between them and the smaller rimland/offshore countries. The danger to China is that a clutch of states, motivated by feelings of shared threat and danger could end up coalescing into a formidable “nightmare coalition” of the kind Bismarck’s Germany faced in the 19th Century. Surely, this is not what Beijing wants to see happen, but it is something that will transpire and ultimately hurt China’s interests.
At the core of this emerging coalition is the trio of India-Japan-United States. China’s ties with India and the US are often troubled but do not carry the emotional-historical baggage of the kind Sino-Japanese relations do. If Beijing fears a militarily significant Japan, Tokyo is afraid of an over weaning China bent on redressing historical, wartime-related, wrongs with coercive use of military force. Tokyo feels aggrieved that the financial restitution and reparations, and direct investments Japan has made in the intervening years totaling in excess of a hundred billion dollars that enabled China to become a major manufacturing and economic power has made little difference to the anti-Japanese sentiments the Communist leadership keeps stoking in the Chinese people. Given the emotional drivers of this testy relationship on both sides, the situation could turn combustible.
At its heart, ironically, lies a seminal opportunity for peace. Can China move on, turn the page on a bad chapter in in the history of bilateral ties, and alight on a modus vivendi not laced with the animus from the past? Or, put differently, should a statute of limitations on the recompense and guilt for the long ago excesses committed by the Japanese imperial army not now apply? To argue that there has to be closure on this issue, sooner rather than later, is in no way to absolve the Japanese of the responsibility for the barbaric acts, albeit in wartime. But unless Beijing stops raking up the same old emotions, a fed-up Japan feeling it has atoned long and hard, has paid sufficient financial recompense, done enough to try and win China’s forgiveness, will simply stop feeling bad. After all, Japan is now three generations removed from the Second World War-generation. In an analogous situation Israel, with far more to cavil about the state-driven program to eliminate Jewry from Europe, has nevertheless made peace with Germany and is on the best of terms with the German nation and people.
There is, after all, only so much guilt that can be extracted from a one-time adversary. Beyond a point though there will be no guilt to feel. Japan has if not reached that point is rapidly approaching it. The nationalist government in Tokyo under Prime Minister Shinzo Abe is moving to unsaddle his country of the political obligation to be under a system of permanent guilt and moral debt to China. It, perhaps, explains Abe’s visit to the Yakasuni Temple enshrining the spirits of the Japanese war dead soon after assuming power despite knowing fully well the sort of furor it would create in China. His government, moreover, is moving to amend the country’s ‘peace Constitution’ and to begin selling armaments to friendly states. Japan sought to interest the Indian Navy in its Soryu-class conventional attack submarine and the Shinmeiwa Company will soon be signing a deal for its US-2 flying boat optimized for maritime surveillance and expeditionary missions.
Nanjing can no more be forgotten than Aushwitz, and it is only right for China (as it is for Israel) to remind the world that such episodes will not be tolerated, let alone allowed to recur. But this is very different from using the memories of excesses to keep enmity alive and all fired up, because that would create a powder keg milieu which is liable to blow up at any time should tensions begin to spiral with neither country feeling any obligation to control the situation. It is an outcome Asia and the world can well do without.
——–

Those who can read Mandarin please verify the translation.
Others mull over what the above is saying.

Singha · Post by **Singha** » 13 Oct 2015 12:58

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/na ... 4395972124

china arrests hackers based on a list provided by US govt!

SaiK · Post by **SaiK** » 14 Oct 2015 06:44

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/2/6e098274-587a ... 0d644.html
The Big Read

China’s Great Game: Road to a new empire

ramana · Post by **ramana** » 15 Oct 2015 23:24

FT is still hanging on to Kipling's Great Game. How does Asian development by Asians mean Great Game?

member_27581 · Post by **member_27581** » 17 Oct 2015 20:34

India, US and Japan hold naval exercises, Chinese mouthpiece cautions New Delhi

NEW DELHI: Naval warships, aircraft carriers and submarines from the US, India and Japan steamed into the Bay of Bengal on Saturday as they took part in joint military exercises off India's east coast, signaling the growing strategic ties between the three countries as they face up to a rising China.

.....
However, a Chinese state-run newspaper cautioned India to guard against being drawn into an anti-China alliance.

"The China-India relationship is on a sound track, and healthy ties are beneficial to both countries," Global Times said. "India should be vigilant to any intentions of roping it into an anti-China camp."

Almost simultaneously, China's People's Liberation Army and the Indian Army are conducting joint counterterrorism exercises in Kunming in southwestern China.

This year's Malabar exercises are being held against the backdrop of expectations that the US might directly challenge Chinese claims in the South China Sea by sailing a navy ship inside the 12-nautical-mile (21km) territorial limit surrounding an artificial island built by China.

May be they should the the lead in this by doing away with all investments in POK, CPEC and cancelling all further Shaheen exercises.

panduranghari · Post by **panduranghari** » 21 Oct 2015 14:27

Highly recommended viewing.

Philip · Post by **Philip** » 28 Oct 2015 10:46

More in the other China td. but this is the current mood in Beijing,quacking from its ducks...belligerent.

China 'not frightened to fight a war' in South China Sea after US move
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/o ... uss-lassen

China 'not frightened to fight a war' in South China Sea after US move

State-run media in belligerent mood after USS Lassen challenges Beijing’s territorial claims in disputed Spratly archipelago
Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Lu Kang told reporters in Beijing: ‘I advise the US not to make a fool out of themselves.’

Tom Phillips in Beijing
Wednesday 28 October 2015 05.00 GMT

China is not afraid of fighting a war against the United States in the South China Sea, a state-run newspaper with links to the Communist party has claimed.
Analysis How China's artificial islands led to tension in the South China Sea
Beijing is attempting to build artificial islands, while other states in the region are looking to the US to flex its military muscle on their behalf
Read more

Twenty-four hours after Washington challenged Beijing’s territorial claims in the region by deploying a warship to waters around the disputed Spratly archipelago, the notoriously nationalistic Global Times accused the Pentagon of provoking China.

“In [the] face of the US harassment, Beijing should deal with Washington tactfully and prepare for the worst,” the newspaper argued in an editorial on Wednesday.

“This can convince the White House that China, despite its unwillingness, is not frightened to fight a war with the US in the region, and is determined to safeguard its national interests and dignity.”

The People’s Liberation Army Daily, China’s leading military newspaper, used a front-page editorial to accuse the US of sowing chaos in countries such as Afghanistan and Iraq.

“Cast-iron facts show that time and again the United States recklessly uses force and starts wars, stirring things up where once there was stability, causing the bitterest of harm to those countries directly involved,” the newspaper said, according to Reuters.
Competing claims in the South China Sea.

Tuesday’s manoeuvre, which saw the guided-missile destroyer USS Lassen sail close to artificial Chinese islands, came after Barack Obama and Chinese president Xi Jinping failed to find common ground over the issue during recent talks at the White House.

US defence secretary Ash Carter warned that further “freedom of navigation” operations in the region were planned. “We will fly, sail and operate wherever international law permits,” he told a congressional hearing.

China reacted to Tuesday’s long-anticipated mission by hurling a barrage of accusations at Washington.

“The United States has been very irresponsible,” defense ministry spokesperson Yang Yujun said, according to Xinhua, China’s official news agency.

“We will take any measures necessary to safeguard our security.”

Lu Kang, a foreign ministry spokesperson, said China would “resolutely respond” to any deliberate provocations but declined to be drawn on any potential military response.

“I advise the US not to make a fool out of themselves in trying to be smart,” Lu said.
Mute

China warns US not to ‘make a fool of itself’ over South China Sea manoeuvres.

But despite the angry rhetoric coming out of Beijing, experts say China’s response has been relatively muted.

“It seems like China’s reaction – at least initially – has been to respond in a restrained, operational way. The Chinese have absolutely no interest in sparking a tactical crisis or any kind of confrontation with the Americans,” said Ashley Townshend, a South China Sea expert from the University of Sydney’s United States studies centre.

China’s military buildup in the South China Sea – including the construction of a 3km runway capable of supporting fighter jets and transport planes – has become a major source of tension between Beijing and Washington.

China claims most of the South China Sea, one of the world’s busiest sea lanes, although Vietnam, Malaysia, Brunei, the Philippines and Taiwan have rival claims. Beijing says the islands will have mainly civilian uses as well as undefined defence purposes.
US threatens further naval incursions despite furious reaction from China
Read more

But satellite photographs have shown the construction of three military-length airstrips by China in the Spratlys, including one each on Mischief and Subi reefs.

Washington hoped Tuesday’s mission would encourage Beijing to step back from its controversial island building campaign, which China claims is for civilian purposes but critics believe is an attempt to use military power to cement its grip over the region.

However, Townshend warned that sending US warships to the South China Sea could have the opposite effect.

“I think these freedom of navigation missions may play into the hands of the hardliners in the [Chinese] military or in the regime … It will be harder for moderates in the regime to say no to People’s Liberation Army hawks and others if the Americans are [seen as] being provocative.”

Townshend said the US mission may have temporarily strengthened Washington’s hand. “[But] there’s an element of you win the battle but you lose the war if actually these freedom of navigation missions make China more determined to militarise these islands,” he added.

“These islands are not going away – unless global warming takes them out.”

Singha · Post by **Singha** » 29 Oct 2015 06:57

http://edition.cnn.com/2015/10/27/opini ... index.html

china planning comprehensive social credit score of all citizens based on online activity.

NRao · Post by **NRao** » 29 Oct 2015 15:43

China abandons one child policy.

sudhan · Post by **sudhan** » 29 Oct 2015 17:06

Dear Mullahs of the China Dekho thread,

I am here for some Gyan after my own research gave no results.

I am trying to figure out the optimal amount of Dhoti-shiver one must calibrate themselves to when China threatens another country with War. Starting with PLAN..

When was the last time that the PLAN actually fought a Naval battle which did not involve deadly water spray warfare (Like the posted Singha posted)? I mean a battle where perfect complexions, trim tunics, Shrill war cries and synchronous goose stepping count for nothing. Please note: Reckless flying resulting in soosai when trying to intercept a turbo prop does not count as a modern battle in this scenario.

Many thanks!