People's Republic of China Nov 22, 2009

[Philip]

A swift way to end the stapled visa problem.Stamp all "Republic of Taiwan" citizen's passports with regular visas, and provide stapled visas for all PRC citizens! The gerontocracy and slimeballs of Zhongnanhai will get the message.

[chetak]

A swift way to end the stapled visa problem.Stamp all "Republic of Taiwan" citizen's passports with regular visas, and provide stapled visas for all PRC citizens! The gerontocracy and slimeballs of Zhongnanhai will get the message.

Certainly!

But do the gerontocracy and slimeballs in New delhi have the b@$$s to do it?

[chaanakya]

My wife is Chinese-American, I've seen the bias white Americans have towards *****.

How wish you not to use the word . It reflects poorly on rather thought provoking post

[arun]

X Posted from the TSP thread.

P.R.China fakes the generation capacity of the second Chashma Nuclear Reactor and claims a generating capacity of 340 MW when only 325 Megawatt is possible. Either that or the Islamic Republic of Pakistan, the world’s sole Islamic Nuclear Power is so incompetent in matters Nuclear that they cannot run a new nuclear reactor at its rated capacity :

ChashNuPP-2 fails to generate 340MW as per licence

[gakakkad]

My wife is Chinese-American, I've seen the bias white Americans have towards chinkis.

How wish you not to use the word . It reflects poorly on rather thought provoking post

Not all Chinese have an anti-India bias. Not all chinese have a mainland origin . Taiwanese too are Han Chinese. Singapore too has a sizeable Han population. In fact mainlander Chinese are looked down upon by Singaporean or Taiwanese for various reasons. (even Hong Kong people consider mainlanders as inferior).

Besides look at Taiwan. It is a democracy . And it is several folds more developed than PRC. The Han Chinese just like Indians have inherent characteristics which can make them successful. They are a family oriented society . And they give a lot of emphasis on education.

And Chola is right. At least with respect to chinese girls . Khanlanders like them a lot. Especially Chinese-americans.

An expat Indian would usually not have any cultural problem working with a Chinese origin colleague. Unless the colleague was a mainlander born , brought up and educated in mainland China and has for the first time in his life worked in foreign lands.

One of the reason why China should not be a democracy now is that it is misdirecting its resources. It has several structural problems in its economy . The biggest problem is the artificial image of development. The massive poverty that hides beneath the facade of bridges and bullet trains . Corruption is massive , even by Indian standards. The inherent capacity of an ancient civilization that rivalled the Indians in its achievements is suppressed . People are converted into a robots for industrial production . Their economy has fallen prey to western ponzi scheme. If it were to become a democracy it would be China v/s India fight to finish. And if it becomes a democracy right now we have no chance of winning the fight . That is because Indians too are suppressed albeit to a lesser degree . Only difference is that we are improving gradually. The Chinese are not. Indian scams are broadcast all day on the Media. While the Chinese people are fed with propaganda only. Chinese train crashes are covered up. Their nuclear sub disasters are covered up. It is not a good thing for them. If China becomes a democracy things will change for good. We don't want that.

[chola]

My wife is Chinese-American, I've seen the bias white Americans have towards chinkis.

How wish you not to use the word . It reflects poorly on rather thought provoking post

Since you quote I can't very well go back and edit it now. But I used it in the desi way not the American one which is a slur. It is just a term for someone who looks East Asian in my parents' household. It is not malevolent in any way. My mother proudly shows off pictures of my wife whenever she could.

[SSridhar]

x-post from TSP thread

Now, PLA is along the Rajasthan border too

Pakistan and China have launched joint war games barely 25 km from the international border along Jaisalmer-Bikaner districts of Rajasthan.

The brigade-level military exercise by the People's Liberation Army's 101 Engineering regiment began last week and will continue for one month. {Doesn't it look too long ? Will the Chinese go back or stay put ?} Independent sources said this was the first time that Chinese troops were detected along India's western border.

According to information from intelligence sources, China is extending all possible help to Pakistan militarily. After assisting in oil and gas exploration in Pakistan, China is now working in close cooperation with it in India's western sector, providing Pakistan with tank upgrade technology and unmanned air vehicles (UAVs).

Officials contacted at the Army headquarters in New Delhi said they had "no specific information" about such an exercise. Another official said Pakistan Rangers conduct annual exercises but there was no information about the ongoing operations.

An intelligence source said the PLA's engineering battalion along with Pakistani soldiers are on an exercise on how to take out tanks and other heavy military vehicles from marshy areas, and how to make way for the infantry by constructing bridges.

The places where these operations are on are Suryaan and Chor, near Sem Nala in Rahimiyaar Khan in Pakistan, adjoining Tanot-Kishangarh area along Jaisalmer. There is an entire brigade of China for the military exercise there.

The source also said that the Chinese battalion along with Pakistan forces are practicing formations and operations along Bikaner district of Rajasthan. One officer, who refused to indentify himself since he is not authorized to speak, said the Chinese army along India's western border in Pakistan in the name of military exercise is "really surprising, and could prove strategically dangerous for India".

"China under the garb of military exercise has reached India's western border. This can't but be a matter of concern for us," he said.

[jagga]

China probes nutrition pills made from dead babies

China is rocked by reports that a Chinese hospital sold dead infants and placenta to an underground factory to manufacture nutrition pills available in South Korea

[abhishek_sharma]

The Legacy of the Three Gorges Dam
Science 12 August 2011: Vol. 333 no. 6044 p. 817

The travails of the Three Gorges Dam are a cautionary tale for Laos and its Southeast Asian neighbors as they wrestle with the pros and cons of damming the lower Mekong River.

BEIJING—Scientists predicted that when the world's largest hydropower project came online in 2003, it would be an environmental bane. The Three Gorges Dam on the Yangtze River has unfortunately lived up to expectations. For that reason China is embarking on a 10-year mitigation effort that sources say will cost $26.45 billion.

The travails of the Three Gorges Dam are a cautionary tale for Laos and its Southeast Asian neighbors as they wrestle with the pros and cons of damming the lower Mekong River (see main text). Two consequences have proved worse than anticipated: deteriorating water quality and erosion. And the potential for spreading a snail-borne disease apparently wasn't even on planners' radar.

The decision to build the dam in 1992 came after decades of study and fierce internal debate. Benefits such as power generation and flood control are indisputable. But leaders also knew that the costs would be enormous. The newly created 1080-km2 reservoir submerged wholly or in part 13 cities and 466 towns, displacing roughly 1.3 million people, and triggered thousands of landslides. The reservoir wiped out fish spawning areas and raised an impassable barrier to one endangered mammal—the Yangtze finless porpoise—and two species that were in terminal decline: the Chinese river dolphin, or baiji, and the Chinese paddlefish (Science, 1 August 2008, p. 628).

Before the Three Gorges Dam began holding back the river in 2003, local Yangtze water by national standards was suitable for drinking. Not anymore. In the past several years, toxic algal blooms have regularly blighted 22 tributaries. Slower tributary flow due to the reservoir and a surfeit of nutrients from land-use changes are to blame, a team led by Fu Bojie, an ecologist at the Research Centre for Eco-Environmental Sciences of the Chinese Academy of Sciences in Beijing, reported last year in Progress in Physical Geography. A second scourge, they say, is increased heavy metal pollution.

Erosion, too, was underestimated. Because sediments accumulate in the reservoir, water released through the dam's turbines is relatively clear. Sediment-light water scours riverbanks to a degree that “is much higher than the designed and expected levels,” Fu's team states. Severe erosion has caused some riverbank sections to collapse.

Another headache is schistosomiasis, known as snail fever in China. As many as 1 million Chinese are infected with the parasitic trematode, transmitted by Oncomelania snails. In endemic areas near lakes and wetlands in the Yangtze River Basin, prevalence hovers around 5%. The Three Gorges Dam increased the snail's habitat—and the infection risk. China's health ministry is improving sanitation and implementing other measures in a bid to reduce the infection rate to less than 1% by 2015.

In May, the State Council announced a massive effort to rein in other potential harms—stabilizing river flow, reinforcing levees, improving water quality—and boost livelihoods of displaced people. “The fact that the government openly acknowledged negative impacts was a significant change toward more openness,” says Lars Skov Andersen of the E.U.-China River Basin Management Programme in Wuhan.

Since then, however, few details have come to light. One researcher who studies the new reservoir's impact on plant populations told Science that he has been ordered to deliver his reports to the government and cannot speak publicly about his findings. The official authorized to speak to the media was unavailable before Science went to press.

Secrecy aside, observers are confident that the initiative will have a robust scientific component. Some research lines may break new ground: for instance, probing habitat fragmentation after the reservoir turned dozens of hilltops into islands. But many findings are expected to be a sobering reminder that a big dam can bring unexpected consequences

[SSridhar]

China to step up role in Sri Lanka

China will extend increasing support to infrastructure projects in Sri Lanka and will also back the country's efforts to promote reconciliation without any external interference, Premier Wen Jiabao told visiting Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapaksa in talks here on Thursday.

Mr. Wen said China was also ready to “promote communication” between the two countries with regard to infrastructure projects and expand two-way trade and investment, the official Xinhua news agency reported.

The Chinese Premier said the “ever deepening” cooperation between both countries was promoting “regional peace and development”.

Mr. Rajapaksa is on a four-day visit to Beijing and Shenzhen, where he will be the guest of honour at Friday's opening of the 2011 Universiade, or university games, and will also meet President Hu Jintao.

His visit comes at a time of particular significance for the bilateral relationship, with Sri Lanka seeking crucial Chinese support against international pressure, in the wake of a United Nations report accusing the government of war crimes.

Mr. Rajapaksa told Mr. Wen Sri Lanka appreciated China's valuable long-term support.

“We also appreciate very much the understanding shown by China on the pressures of the post-conflict period, and the support extended to heal the wounds of war,” he told Xinhua in an interview earlier this week.

On Thursday, Mr. Rajapaksa was conferred an honorary doctorate by Beijing Foreign Studies University.

He addressed students of the university's Sri Lanka Study Centre, where 17 Chinese students are learning the Sinhala language.

[SSridhar]

China's maritime ambition - Jayadev Ranade

Symbolic gestures are usually a mix of intent and ambition. China’s recent success in its bid for a bloc for exploration and exploitation of minerals and natural resources on the Indian Ocean sea-bed is at once an expression of intent, self-confidence and ambition. It follows up on China’s ambition to maintain a long-term presence in the Indian Ocean, signalled first when a Chinese Navy flotilla unilaterally went to conduct anti-piracy operations off the Gulf of Aden in the Indian Ocean a couple of years ago. It additionally introduces an added element of ownership.

Since the early 1980s, China has been steadily developing its maritime capability. The primary objective has been to deter and delay ‘hostile’ navies from disrupting any potential military operations against Taiwan, or China’s attempts to ‘recover’ claimed territories in the South China Sea. China’s naval modernisation accordingly focussed on building submarines, in addition to surface ships, for the People’s Liberation Army Navy (PLAN). It currently has over 70 submarines including the recently added indigenously-built nuclear-powered submarines.

Plans were up-scaled once Beijing felt it was ready for a larger role, including in distant waters, and it commenced building an aircraft carrier. In mid-April this year, photographs of the aircraft carrier were posted on Chinese websites. These photographs, which clearly depicted the armaments fitted on board, revealed that the aircraft carrier was 70 per cent complete and started 15-day long sea trials on August 10. Another indicator that the vessel was nearly ready was the recent appointment of PLAN captain Li Xiaoyan, an experienced navy, army and air force commander who has studied how to command an aircraft carrier. Presently holding the rank of senior colonel, Li Xiaoyan was assigned to Dalian, where the aircraft carrier Varyag is berthed, in December 2010. China’s Dongfang Daily reported that the aircraft carrier will see service in the East, North and South China Sea.

Indicative of plans to build more aircraft carriers — three are expected to be inducted into service within the next five years — Bai Yaoping, another naval aviation pilot and course-mate of Li Xiaoyan, has been appointed vice president of the Dalian Naval School to train the new generation of navy commanders. Li Xiaoyan and Bai Yaoping were among the 10 outstanding pilots picked for training in the solitary ‘pilot warship captain class’ at Guangzhou Warship Academy in 1987.

Approval now by the 162-member, Jamaica-based International Seabed Authority, of China’s application for exploration of a 10,000 square kilometre polymetallic sulphide ore deposit bloc on the Indian Ocean sea-bed, is an important step. It confirms Beijing’s plans to extend its influence on a long-term basis in to the Indian Ocean. It simultaneously expands the scope of China’s search for scarce and much-needed mineral and natural resources from the land to the ocean floor. China is now one of three entities to be awarded such a contract, the others being two companies in Tonga and Nauru for the Pacific Ocean and the Russian government for the mid-Atlantic ridge. Once signed, the contract will be valid for 15 years. The venture, which also gives China a modicum of ‘ownership’ in the Indian Ocean, will permit China to map the sea-bed and identify suitable spots including for mining gold, silver, lead, zinc and copper. The bid was filed consequent to the discovery of clues by a Chinese government-sponsored expedition team in 2005 that an enormous belt of polymetallic sulphides existed.

China’s application to the International Seabed Authority clearly signals its desire to maintain a long-term presence in the Indian Ocean. Mineral exploration activity, which will take a long time once it commences, will require Chinese vessels to regularly ply the sea lanes to the designated spot. It will also entail regular visits by PLAN vessels. Giving an idea of the envisaged time-frame, Han Xiqiu, a researcher with China’s State Oceanic Administration’s Second Institute of Oceanography based in Hangzhou, Zhejiang, said that mining activities will not start ‘until we have solved the environmental issues. We may need to wait for years, if not decades’.

This bid simultaneously brings into focus China’s underwater research and warfare capability. It is one of the few nations with deep-sea exploration capabilities and recently sent its first manned deep-sea submarine, the Jiaolong to a depth of 5,057 metres in the Pacific Ocean. The deep-sea rift south of Madagascar, which is the area where China has been awarded the bloc by the International Seabed Authority, reaches a depth of 3,000 metres. Plans are to test the Jiaolong to a depth of 7,000 metres next year.

A potentially important, but little noticed, aspect has been China’s steady focus on the design, development and manufacture of Unmanned Underwater Vessels (UUV). The UUVs, which are low cost, would be part of China’s asymmetric subterranean warfare strategy and augment its already sizeable submarine fleet. They would give it added operational flexibility. Initiated as part of the secret ‘863’ Programme, the UUVs have been under development since 1996. They could be deployed as part of an undersea network and used for sensing, shooting or as communication relay stations. A number of specialised institutes are at work in China on UUVs, suggesting that a large quantum of funds along with the necessary research and development (R&D) effort have already been invested in the project. As Chinese researchers work on advanced guidance and propulsion systems for the UUVs to enhance their effective deployment in maritime undersea warfare, the UUVs would acquire the potential to be deployed in offensive operational roles in more distant waters, like the Indian Ocean.

China is presently pre-occupied with developments in the East and South China Seas, and to ‘recover’ sovereignty over large parts of these waters and establish dominance over this maritime territory of its interest. It, however, continues to harbour ambitions in the Indian Ocean. There have been sporadic indications of this in the form of comments by Chinese admirals of the need for bases abroad, and of the need for ensuring the security of Chinese commercial ships, largely carrying energy supplies, along commercial sea lanes in the Indian Ocean. The ocean seabed exploration rights acquired by China in the Indian Ocean are a major step forward in China realising its global maritime ambitions.

Jayadeva Ranade is a former additional secretary in the Cabinet Secretariat, Government of India

[abhishek_sharma]

India, China need to talk more: NSA

[A_Gupta]

The Xinjiang 13
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-08-1 ... leges.html

They call themselves the “Xinjiang 13.” They have been denied permission to enter China, prohibited from flying on a Chinese airline and pressured to adopt China- friendly views. To return to China, two wrote statements disavowing support for the independence movement in Xinjiang province. ....

They aren’t exiled Chinese dissidents. They are American scholars from universities, such as Georgetown and Massachusetts Institute of Technology, who have suffered a backlash from China unprecedented in academia since diplomatic relations resumed in 1979. Their offense was co-writing “Xinjiang: China’s Muslim Borderland,” a 484-page paperback published in 2004.

“I wound up doing the stupidest thing, bringing all of the experts in the field into one room and having the Chinese take us all out,” said Justin Rudelson, a college friend of U.S. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner and former senior lecturer at Dartmouth College, who helped enlist contributors to the book and co-wrote one chapter.

[Kanson]

China's maritime ambition - Jayadev Ranade

The deep-sea rift south of Madagascar, which is the area where China has been awarded the bloc by the International Seabed Authority, reaches a depth of 3,000 metres. Plans are to test the Jiaolong to a depth of 7,000 metres next year.

Jayadeva Ranade is a former additional secretary in the Cabinet Secretariat, Government of India

It is becoming more and more obvious that both India and China are playing poker games and rivalry set to rival the Great Game played by British. One day I wish someone with enough strategic acuity and background gives a detailed analysis of the games played by both. At present China is leading the game.

[Johann]

At present China is leading the game.

The CPC is playing harder because their survival in power is at stake. If they don't secure access to resources and markets, export driven manufacturing falters, growth falters and the Party will face rebellion.

If they don't appear to be able to buy off or intimidate other democracies and make China look great, their entire system looks weak and pointless to their own citizens.

In the end all politics is local as they say.

[abhishek_sharma]

Book Review of 'The Generalissimo: Chiang Kai-shek and the Struggle for Modern China.'

x-post

[krisna]

The march of China's new middle class

Despite the ranks of riot police, they came in their thousands: marching through the streets of the elegant port city of Dalian to demand the closure of a coastal chemical plant that came within a whisker of a major toxic leak.

China’s authorities deal with a 100,000 'disturbances’ a year, but the protests in Dalian last weekend were different, forcing the local government to announce the closure of the £950m factory that generates £200m of tax revenues a year.

It was a rare humiliation; a rare demonstration of people power; but also a sign of things to come for China’s rulers as they confront a new breed of middle-class protestor that knows their 'rights’ and dares to challenge the corruption inherent in China’s one-party state.

From corner-cutting in China’s high-speed rail network, shoddy schools that collapse during earthquakes, poisoned baby formula and countless pollution scandals there is a growing revolt against what the official People’s Daily recently dubbed “Bloody GDP” - economic growth that puts Communist Party prestige (and officials’ kick-backs) over the welfare of the people.

[dinakar]

An excellent article (Click) from open magazine which gives a hint about the internal political dynamics of PRC...

A flurry of security manoeuvres at a Hong Kong hotel. A dying ex-President. A rich criminal extradited to Beijing from Canada. A bullet-train crash in China. An open letter to a little girl in a hospital room. What could they possibly have in common?

[Christopher Sidor]

"Dignity Before Bread!" The Tunsian revolt, which sparked the so called Arab Spring/Thaw, had this as its slogan. Libya, a major oil-exporting nation, was undergoing a mini-boom, with oil prices going upto 60-80 USD a barrel. Please note that oil prices crossed 100 USD a barrel after the Libyan crisis erupted. Ditto for Iran. But still there were upheavals in both these countries.

For China the conclusion is inexplicable. Even high growth rate will not prevent or delay the uprising. It is the human dignity which is the key. It is allegedly said that the fruit seller who set himself ablaze in Tunisia, did so after he was beaten up by authorities. He had gone to the authorities so as to find a solution to his problem. His immolation sparked one of the widest revolutions, which would rival the unraveling of the Soviet Union and the Warsaw pact.

People are not that much bothered by poverty. It is the ungodly gains by a section, at the expense of others, which causes problem. What caused the civil society in India, to come out in support of anna was the belief that few had benefited disproportionately. This applies to China too. Will the ruling class of China listen? Will it heed the lessons of history, Berlin 1989, Tunisia 2011 and so on?

[joshvajohn]

Dalai Lama says democracy can spread everywhere
http://www.taiwannews.com.tw/etn/news_c ... id=1683958

Chinese People Should Listen to Their Hearts, Not the Propaganda of the Chinese Communist Party
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/rebiya-ka ... 31319.html

Clashes erupt as China sees first Jasmine type revolt sparked by Internet
Saibal Dasgupta,
http://articles.timesofindia.indiatimes ... onstration

[Rony]

China and India,2025 : A Comparative Assessment from RAND

China and India, the world's two most populous countries, will exercise increasing influence in international affairs in the coming decades, and each country's role on the world stage will be affected by the progress that it makes and by the competition and cooperation that develop between them. This monograph focuses on the progress China and India seem likely to achieve from 2010 through 2025 in four domains: demography, macroeconomics, science and technology, and defense spending and procurement. In each domain, the authors seek answers to these questions: Who is ahead? By how much? and Why? The authors find that India has distinct advantages over China in terms of demographics; that the two countries are surprisingly close in terms of forecasted economic growth, although China's overall economic output is likely to remain significantly higher than India's; and that, for both science and technology and defense spending and procurement, China's current substantial margins over India are likely to rise but by amounts that will vary widely depending on several alternative scenarios.

[Johann]

For China the conclusion is inexplicable. Even high growth rate will not prevent or delay the uprising. It is the human dignity which is the key. It is allegedly said that the fruit seller who set himself ablaze in Tunisia, did so after he was beaten up by authorities. He had gone to the authorities so as to find a solution to his problem. His immolation sparked one of the widest revolutions, which would rival the unraveling of the Soviet Union and the Warsaw pact.

People are not that much bothered by poverty. It is the ungodly gains by a section, at the expense of others, which causes problem. What caused the civil society in India, to come out in support of anna was the belief that few had benefited disproportionately. This applies to China too. Will the ruling class of China listen? Will it heed the lessons of history, Berlin 1989, Tunisia 2011 and so on?

Oh the ruling class of China has certainly been listening.

That is why they have the most sophisticated form of censorship anywhere in the world - internet, television, public speech.

They understand that its the free movement of information that allows people to be inspired by each other - the spark that sets the prairie on fire as Mao put it.

[svinayak]

something caught my eye in the china india report

Examples of Indian executives making decisions that benefit India as well as the companies they work for
include the following:
• Kanwal Rekhi (Novell) generated contracts for Infosys and other emerging Indian software firms
• Alok Aggarwal (IBM) managed to install a research center in India under his lead
• Rajat Gupta (McKinsey) led McKinsey to be a pioneer in subcontracting research services in India and has
helped to establish the Indian School of Business Hyderabad
• Ash Gupta (American Express) was decisive in American Express’s decision to open a customer service
center in India that employs 5,000 people.

They dont give examples of China gaining due to support from walmart, business trade with US for last 30 years. IBM donating lenovo and market access to US has built a mfg industry in China.

What about GE opening in India.
They want Indian market but dont want centers in India

[gakakkad]

The china-India report grossly underestimates India's growth. The report is based on 2007 data . One of the pessimistic estimates of India's GDP is 1.5 trillion in 2025. We have already reached 2 trillion in 2011-12. In fact the optimists in the report project the growth too is only 7% . A decent analysis otherwise. Too optimistic on Panda. Unrealistically pessimist on India.

[Ambar]

something caught my eye in the china india report

What about GE opening in India.
They want Indian market but dont want centers in India

GE's CEO was on bloomberg earlier this month and stated something that is being oft repeated since 2009. The outsourcing business no longer has the margin that was once there.According to him, the operating expenses between Indian callcenter vs US callcenter is down from 60% in mid 2000s to just 10% today,mostly due to wage inflation in India. Add other overheads and it makes no sense to outsource anymore. He said they have brought back around 8000 jobs into US and more to follow in the years to come. ATT CEO said something similar in December.

Wage inflation is a legitimate cause for concern. With such a huge skilled labor force esp in the tech sector, we cannot rely on foreign companies to create jobs in India forever. Ofcourse, with a much stronger currency, China is more prone to losing export oriented jobs than India.

[gakakkad]

Wage inflation is a legitimate cause for concern. With such a huge skilled labor force esp in the tech sector, we cannot rely on foreign companies to create jobs in India forever. Ofcourse, with a much stronger currency, China is more prone to losing export oriented jobs than India.

This means that workers are no longer willing to work at a low cost . This means that higher paying jobs for skilled workers are available. People often forget that call centre's are needed by Indians too. IT services are needed in India too. And the domestic market for these services may far exceed firangi market.

Besides BPO was never expected to propel jobs for long. Problem with Panda is that its manufactures so much that if west refuses to buy that stuff it ll not know what to do. Besides these are unskilled workers , that propelled the growth.

[Ambar]

It is not the unwillingness of workers, but the overall inflation in the country that forces companies to hike wages to keep up with inflation. I have no data about domestic consumption for IT products and services, but 90 billion$ in exports or roughly around 7% of gdp (not including the cascading effect high paying tech jobs have on other sectors) depends on IT/ITES. Until we have a mature domestic market that can replace foreign clients and pay the same price for products/services, not worrying about wage inflation and reverse flow of jobs out of country in times like these is preposterous. And we are not even looking at Philippines and Indonesia that have a huge english speaking,skilled population that is fighting to create a place for themselves in outsourcing world.

[gakakkad]

^^^ I heard that rising wages in IT-BPO (higher end stuff) were more due to skill shortage. Inflation was a contributor but less so. Unkil is printing dollars so we can expect inflation to rise in unkil land soon enough . That should be interesting to say the least. Anyway in 2008 as far as BPO is concerned Revenue was about 11 billion . Out of this IT accounted for 43%. So only a fraction of 90 billion software exports of India can be due to BPO. That is my understanding. Correct me if I am wrong. What is the composition of various segments in the 90Billion software exports?

[Ambar]

Responded in India Econ thread as we are digressing from topic here.

[Sri]

The paradigm has shifted a little bit. In the growth stage we (Indian It and ITES) were signing contracts only on cost advantage basis. Now we sign contract on quality + cost advantage basis. of course wages in India have gone up significantly and gone down in US significantly for coders / back office processes and call centers. Just 2 years ago I could convince my boss for signing a contract on 25% GPM (Gross profit margin) now I can't fly under 35%. This is happening because now we have a better client mix. US was dominant but now we get large contracts from India. China, Gulf / SE asia and Japan too. Still US is the single largest outsource country but now we do more and more work US based companies other divisions. of course one of the reasons we are losing out is because of strong rupee.

Further there are huge back log of orders from US which are just not getting implemented. Hence no billing. I think everything is more because of sentiment then anything else.

[JE Menon]

>>What about GE opening in India.
>>They want Indian market but dont want centers in India

There's this one...

http://ge.geglobalresearch.com/location ... ore-india/

Drawing on India's unique multi–disciplinary skills – from mechanical and electrical engineering to polymer science and chemical engineering – the Centre incorporates the latest technology and e–engineering tools to facilitate real–time global interaction with GE's businesses, technology centers, customers and suppliers.

The John F. Welch Technology Centre, inaugurated on Sept 17, 2000, is home to state–of–the–art laboratories working on research and development in the areas of mechanical engineering, electronic and electrical system technology, ceramics and metallurgy, catalysis and advanced chemistry, chemical engineering and process, polymer science and new synthetic materials, process modeling and simulation, power electronics and analysis technologies.

The 545,000 square foot Centre has filed for more than 185 patents for research and development activities here in Bangalore and been granted 12 to date.

In addition to the GE Global Research activities, the JFWTC is also home to technology teams from other GE organizations including GE Advanced Materials, GE Consumer & Industrial, GE Energy, GE Transportation and GE Healthcare.

[gakakkad]

^^^ As far as healthcare is concerned India is a Huge market. Surely the industry driver in the next decade. India has got only 2000 machines of MRI in the whole country. Compared to 7k in USA. So there is a market for atleast 3k machines in the next decade. Cost ranges from INR 3 crores -8 crore. They are cheaper in India compared to US as WHO gives some subsidies for purchase. If the gov't get them manufacture in INdia it would be good. Also an oportunity for the IT industry. Because the image acquisition protocols are constantly improved .

GE RECENTLY SHIFTED manufacture of MEDICAL EQUIPMENT TO PANDALAND.

[Sri]

^^^ Siemens too is shifting Medical equipment mfg to China.

[joshvajohn]

Chinese paper's executives punished for quoting historian's opinion
http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/greensl ... ss-freedom


Imminent Fall of Qaddafi Poses policy Challenge for China and Russia
http://www.middle-east-online.com/english/?id=47778


Chinese Red army think tank is trying to make an influence on Indian politicos' mindset - particularly Congressi's - interms of turning India into an AntiWestern so to isolate India not becoming powerful in joint cooperation with the West and also in doing good business with the West - secondly they turn India into a kind of red army state in terms of resisting freedom and reform in the constitution against corruption and so on.

[gakakkad]

^^^ Siemens too is shifting Medical equipment mfg to China.

Yup... They already have .... USG machine transducers in my hospital have made in china tag..

Anyway siemens fetish for china was well known. Even their power company did a lot of business with panda land. Quite idiotic one too.. They transferred their IPR to lizard companies...
They should consider renaming themselves as shin mian to sound more lizardish...

[Rony]

Slip-Up in Chinese Military TV Show Reveals More Than Intended : Piece shows cyber warfare against US entities

A standard, even boring, piece of Chinese military propaganda screened in mid-July included what must have been an unintended but nevertheless damaging revelation: shots from a computer screen showing a Chinese military university is engaged in cyberwarfare against entities in the United States.

The documentary itself was otherwise meant as praise to the wisdom and judgment of Chinese military strategists, and a typical condemnation of the United States as an implacable aggressor in the cyber-realm. But the fleeting shots of an apparent China-based cyber-attack somehow made their way into the final cut.

The screenshots appear as B-roll footage in the documentary for six seconds—between 11:04 and 11:10 minutes—showing custom-built Chinese software apparently launching a cyber-attack against the main website of the Falun Gong spiritual practice, by using a compromised IP address belonging to a United States university. As of Aug. 22 at 1:30pm EDT, in addition to Youtube, the whole documentary is available on the CCTV website.

The screenshots show the name of the software and the Chinese university that built it, the Electrical Engineering University of China's People's Liberation Army—direct evidence that the PLA is involved in coding cyber-attack software directed against a Chinese dissident group.

The software window says "Choose Attack Target." The computer operator selects an IP address from a list—it happens to be 138.26.72.17—and then selects a target. Encoded in the software are the words "Falun Gong website list," showing that attacking Falun Gong websites was built into the software.

A drop-down list of dozens of Falun Gong websites appears. The computer operator chooses Minghui.org, the main website of the Falun Gong spiritual practice.

The IP address 138.26.72.17 belongs to the University of Alabama in Birmingham (UAB), according to an online trace.

The shots then show a big "Attack" button on the bottom left being pushed, before the camera cuts away.

"The CCP has leaked its top secret here," says Jason Ma, a commentator for New Tang Dynasty Television. "This is the first time we see clearly that one of the top Chinese military universities is doing this research and developing software for cyber-attacks. There's solid proof of it in this video," he said.

The Chinese Communist Party has consistently denied that it is involved in cyber-attacks, but experts have long suspected that the Chinese military engages in them.

"Now we've got proof," Ma says. "They're also extending their persecution of Falun Gong overseas, attacking a civil website in the U.S. These are the clear messages revealed in these six seconds of video."


Network administrators at UAB contacted on Friday took a look at the IP address on their network and said it had not been used since 2010.

One of the technicians also recalled that there had been a Falun Gong practitioner at the university some years ago who held informal Falun Gong meetings on campus. They could not confirm whether that individual used that IP address.

A UAB network administrator assured The Epoch Times that they have safeguards against both network intrusions, and that their network is not compromised.

After the short interlude, the documentary continued with the themes it had started with for another nine minutes.

Last month McAfee, a network security company, said that an unprecedented campaign of cyber-espionage—affecting over 70 organizations or governments around the world and implicating billions of dollars in intellectual property—was being carried out by a "state actor."

Later evidence traced IP addresses involved in the attack to China, and a growing mountain of other circumstantial evidence also suggests that the attacks originated from China.

The military documentary on July 17, on the other hand, was meant to show that the United States is the real aggressor in cyberspace, and that China is highly vulnerable to cyber-attacks. “America is the first country to propose the concept of a cyberwar, and the first country to implement it in a real war,” the narrator said at one point.

It might have worked, except for those screenshots.
UPDATE: The University of Alabama at Birmingham made a statement after the news broke, noting that the IP address belonged to a website that was decommissioned in 2001 because it had been created against UAB rules. They said that they believe the purpose of the action demonstrated in the video was not to launch an attack from that website, but to block access to it, and that they're not aware of any such attack, past or present.

[SSridhar]

Stapled Visa: India-China trying for solution
I do not understand what is there to try. China simply has to reverse its policy, express regrets for the wrong step and assure that it won't happen in future. The Chinese are arrogant and won't understand anything less than an Indian display of danda and usage of it if the situation so demands.

India and China are discussing ways to find a solution regarding Beijing's policy to issue stapled visas to residents of Arunachal Pradesh and Jammu and Kashmir, Chinese Ambassador to India Zhang Yan said.

"This is the issue being discussed between the two governments. So, that means the two governments are working on it. So, once we have the solution, you will know. We are working on that," Zhang told PTI.

He replied in the affirmative when asked if India and China are "working" to review this policy, which has emerged as a sticky issue between the two countries.

Zhang hastened to add: "This issue (stapled visas) does not hinder our cooperation. Our cooperation is going on very well."

India had last month expressed unhappiness over the issuance of stapled visas by China to five sportspersons from Arunachal Pradesh with government sources, saying, "We are still searching for a de-stapler."

The Chinese Embassy had issued stapled visas to five karate players from Arunachal Pradesh preventing them from taking part in an international championship in China.

China started issuing stapled visas to people from Jammu and Kashmir from 2008.

[Prem]

^^^ As far as healthcare is concerned India is a Huge market. Surely the industry driver in the next decade. India has got only 2000 machines of MRI in the whole country. Compared to 7k in USA. So there is a market for atleast 3k machines in the next decade. Cost ranges from INR 3 crores -8 crore. They are cheaper in India compared to US as WHO gives some subsidies for purchase. If the gov't get them manufacture in INdia it would be good. Also an oportunity for the IT industry. Because the image acquisition protocols are constantly improved . GE RECENTLY SHIFTED manufacture of MEDICAL EQUIPMENT TO PANDALAND.

Chinese have been making MRI machines etc for long time but cant sell themesleves. The core/ mother boards etc are strictly controlled by Massa/Japani etc.Yours onlee almost lost the lungi to Chinesee just in translation. AFAIK, second hand machine market is also Khalas in India.

[gakakkad]

^^^ Yes panda mostly assembles...

Yours onlee almost lost the lungi to Chinesee just in translation.

You mean siemens ?

AFAIK, second hand machine market is also Khalas in India.

Don't know about this ... Due to the WHO subsidy their is almost 30% reduction when you buy a new one... A 1.5 T MRI with FMRI functionality , NMR spectroscopy etc costs about 4 crore in India... i doubt 2nd hand machine with these features would be available in market ... besides when you have so small number of machines in the first place (2000 in the whole country 2nd hand market can't be big) ..

[Prem]

Kakakkar ji,Second hand machines from Massa to matrboomi.
Chinese have been dreaming of competeing with Japani and Western companies in Medical Equipment market. Knowing little about Chinese caliber in this field , they wont be able to do much. So many years they brought in their machines to RSNA show and did not get any positive response becuase of bad reputation. Chinese made stuff is no looked upon so kindly in this field but i think they have/will capture market in CAR/Afrika etc.