People's Republic of China Nov 22, 2009

[sanjaykumar]

Oops encomium is the spelling of the word.

[Suraj]

China has been boasting about its 'peaceful rise' since 2003, when the term was first used publicly. Considering how Chinese foreign policy paradigms work, it was likely formulated in the late 1990s and turn of the century, even before they were a trillion dollar economy. In fact, the statement is a tenet of the current generation leadership (Hu + Wen), which came into power in 2003; the pet doctrine of the previous generation leadership (Jiang Zemin + Zhu Rongji) was Jiang's Three Represents ideology. Of course, the fact that reality is far from the words - more meaningfully spelled as pissful rice - is another matter.

Remains to be seen what the next gen leadership (probably Xi Jinping as president, Li Keqiang as premier) will trumpet.

[Hari Seldon]

^^^encomopium is more like it, sanjaykr.

Mayeb we should help out the next gen cheeni netaship with coining slogans - I suggest sri Xi Jingping use "Asia under heaven" or something like that to depict his grandiocese vision for his reign.

[sanjaykumar]

How about: the yawn end is double yawn nigh.

[svinayak]

To put in a hisotical perspective, British criticized Indian rulers severely, often calling them greedy and violent. It struck me as odd when I questioned why they had no such words to describe their own monarch, who after all, and quite obviously, was more greedy since he/she sent its young men to fight/kill/die to get more money/land from India, a nation far away and one which attacked it. Then it occured to me that these cricitcism had no basis in any real empathy or adherence to any humanist principles.

This is known as psy ops after they learned how Indians/Hindus react to criticism. Now do you understand why western trained sociologists have similar line of observation and comments on Indian social behavior and keep harping on it. This is a well researched piece of behavior change they have learned to make on Indians without Indian realizing they are made fools. Indian media and text books are full of them and British employed Indian women as social commentators since women/mother have strong influence with their criticism.

[ravar]

The Sanatana Dharmic maxim यथा अन्न तथा मन [Yadha Ann, Tadha Mann; meaning - As your food is, so is your mind] explains the misplaced and undue aggression of the Chinese.

Perhaps no other civilization other than Indic has delved considerable thought into how the consciousness is conditioned by the food one eats. The Jains have a good repository of knowledge in this.

Leonardo Da Vinci, during his childhood, created a monster by cutting up body parts of venomous animals like scorpions, snakes, centipedes etc, mixing up the pieces to morph into a frightening new 'creature'. The artist in him, left it at that. More or less, the West leaves the imagination at that level .

But, what we find with the Chinese is a new dimension altogether. They consume, literally, what is usually abhorred by almost all other civilizations. Glorifying and bringing to the table, cruelty unseen and unthought of in the civilized world.

Warning- The following links are too graphic and disturbing and hence viewer's discretion is advised-

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OWZK8R8KU5Y

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xT61q8DTdRQ

Hardly surprising, then, to find a group of people who massacre their own, in millions, all in the name of 'cultural' revolution!

[Raghavendra]

^Super

[arunsrinivasan]

Indian elephant too slow for the Chinese dragon

By KEVIN RAFFERTY
Special to The Japan Times
HONG KONG — The visit by Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao to Delhi in December underlined the importance and immense diversity between the world's two once-and-future superpowers.

Neighbors China and India, home to 35 percent of the planet's population, are the great hope for future global growth while potentially posing great peril that could plunder and destroy the Earth's fragile resources.

Wen arrived with great fanfare, as if trying to prove that anything that the United States, France or Britain could do, China could do better and bigger. All four countries have paid court to India in recent weeks looking for business deals. President Barack Obama took 215 business leaders; Nicolas Sarkozy led more than 60; and David Cameron was accompanied by 40 British business executives. Premier Wen took 400 executives, including bosses from Shanghai Electric, SinoSteel and telecoms firms ZTE and Huawei.

When Wen left after a packed three days, China and India had signed 50 deals for power, steel, wind energy, telecommunications as well as food and marine products, altogether worth about $16 billion, much bigger than the $10 billion worth that Obama and his business leaders left with. The two neighbors also agreed to increase their trade from $60 billion to $100 billion by 2015.

So the wrapping paper on the talks was appropriately festive. But if you get beyond the bonhomie and the blahblah of the official speeches and the communique, the two countries failed to come to grips with real issues dividing them, which could undermine their promise of better ties.

China and India were both victims of colonialism in past centuries. When they regained their freedom, both China and India retreated into effective economic isolationism in different ways. China physically closed the door on the outside world with disastrous economic results until Deng Xiaoping opened it in 1978. India was always open but in pursuing economic autarchy, it condemned itself to the "Hindu rate of growth," barely above the rate of population increase.

India did not follow Deng's opening of the door to the outside world. It was not until the then Finance Minister Manmohan Singh found himself with only enough money in the kitty to pay for two weeks of essential imports in the early 1990s that India somewhat reluctantly began opening up its economy.

Singh in those early days asked if a nationalized industry was profitable, why shouldn't the people be allowed to share in the profits. It was a reasonable question, relevant today when it has been belatedly revealed that the Indian exchequer and people have been cheated of between $40 billion and $50 billion because the former telecommunications minister sold mobile telephone licenses too cheaply.

The fatal flaw in the logic that a nanny state knew best how to direct the details of the economy was that the many underpaid underlings saw their opportunities for making money out of the proliferation of permits required to start a business, employ people, get power and water supplies, have access to finance, let alone to fail and close a business or sack people.

India's "permit raj" played into the hands of corrupt officials and the big industrial groups that knew how to manipulate them to prevent competitors from entering the market.

In spite of recent often reluctant liberalization, India remains a difficult place to do business, according to the World Bank Group's annual report Doing Business 2011. It languishes in 134th position out of 183 economies ranked — up by a single place in a year.

China is in 79th place, down one from the 2010 study. Both India and China score poorly on the aspects of starting a business — India in 165th position, and China in 151st — and dealing with construction permits — where India comes 177th and China 181st.

They also diverge significantly in the importance of trade to their economies. China is a trillion-dollar exporting giant that took over from Germany as the world's biggest exporter in 2009, with exports of $1.2 trillion, 9.6 percent of global exports and a trade surplus of almost $200 billion. (As an importer, China lags the U.S. by a considerable distance, just over $1 trillion in 2009 against the $1.6 trillion imported by the U.S.) India is in lowly 21st place of the world league with only $136 billion exports in 2009, 1.3 percent of global exports and a trade deficit of $114 billion.

Trade between China and India has increased by leaps and bounds and will top $60 billion for 2010, making China India's biggest trading partner. China has made big inroads into India's consumer markets for all sorts of goods from shoes to toys, electronics and computers. In 2010, China exported a subway train to India. India has not had anything like the same success in selling to China because its long-protected manufacturers cannot turn out goods cheaply enough.

Iron ore alone makes up about half of India's exports, and the rest consist mostly of basic commodities. Delhi has long complained that China doesn't play fair in terms of market access, and has launched a string of anti-dumping cases against Beijing in the World Trade Organization. Indian companies also complain that China only opens the door reluctantly when they try to set up operation. Consequently, Beijing's surplus in trade with India will probably reach $24 billion in 2010.

Wen promised that China takes the trade imbalance with India "seriously" and promised better access for Indian producers in promising areas like pharmaceuticals, agriculture and IT. Cynics, however, claim that the Chinese promises are not commitments and were only made after India agreed to relax its barriers against China's banks.

Leading Indian commentators noted that little had been achieved on big political issues, such as Delhi's wish for a seat on the U.N. Security Council, its worries about China's plans for dams on the Himalayan and Tibetan rivers (agricultural and energy lifelines) and terrorism sponsored in Pakistan.

The Deccan Herald complained that in spite of the "strong personal chemistry" between Wen and Singh, the two leaders "engaged in parallel monologues with the Chinese leader more keen to talk about banalities."

China's premier flew on to Pakistan, a country with only 15 percent of India's population and trade with China worth $6.8 billion, and there wrapped up deals for $35 billion. He also praised Pakistan's brave stand against terrorism and promised strategic partnership and economic cooperation — all of which have made Indians wonder how much Wen's warm words for them are really worth.

Kevin Rafferty, formerly in charge of the Financial Times' coverage of Asia, is editor in chief of PlainWords Media.

[surinder]

This is known as psy ops after they learned how Indians/Hindus react to criticism. Now do you understand why western trained sociologists have similar line of observation and comments on Indian social behavior and keep harping on it. This is a well researched piece of behavior change they have learned to make on Indians without Indian realizing they are made fools.

We have to be vigilant that no one should take on issues that are ours alone to deal with. If there are issues in India, then they are nobody else's business. In the garb of taking up issues, they have exploited us badly. The voice on these matters cannot be given to anyone with links to the outside. We should make a solemn wow that any criticism of India shall be done by Indians themselves---thanks, but no thanks, to outsiders willing to fight for issues within India. Those who are so keen to see human right progress, can merrily take up issues in their own countries.

[Vivek K]

Harbans - great post!

[svinayak]

We have to be vigilant that no one should take on issues that are ours alone to deal with. If there are issues in India, then they are nobody else's business. In the garb of taking up issues, they have exploited us badly. The voice on these matters cannot be given to anyone with links to the outside. We should make a solemn wow that any criticism of India shall be done by Indians themselves---thanks, but no thanks, to outsiders willing to fight for issues within India. Those who are so keen to see human right progress, can merrily take up issues in their own countries.

That is why sociology studies should be inside India and should be a bharatiya version only for Indians.
DIE generation has taken control of this with their counterparts from US

[krisna]

China makes gain in battle against desertification but has long fight ahead

Expert warns it could take 300 years to recover desert land resulting from over-cultivation and water demands

A survey showed more than a quarter of China's land remained either degraded or lost to sand and gravel due to a combination of a naturally dry climate, centuries of over-cultivation and decades of excessive demand on water and soil from the world's biggest population and fastest growing economy.

But 1.7m hectares - more than six times the area of the UK - is still covered in sand dunes or gobi gravel desert. An even wider swathe of land is plagued by wind and water erosion or salination.

The government estimates that 530,000 square kilometres can be restored through afforestation, protection and natural regeneration. But the time needed for such an undertaking makes the Long March look like a weekend stroll.

In a few areas, such as mountainous north-west Sichuan, deserts continue to expand because local officials ignore restrictions on land reclamation and water use.

Tibet, Qinghai, Xinjiang and Inner Mongolia remain badly affected,(Illegal chinese occupied territories) partly because they are at a high elevation and more vulnerable to rising global temperatures, glacier melt, retreating snowlines and water shortages.

"We cannot be optimistic about the desertification situation on the Qinghai-Tibetan plateau," said Zhu. "Of all the challenges Tibet faces, the biggest is climate change."

(trouble for India)

The government has controversially moved hundreds of thousands of nomadic herders off degraded grasslands in the past 10 years. Tibetan critics are suspicious that this is being done to clear land for development or resource extraction. Many environmentalists also question whether it is a mistake to put too much of the blame on overgrazing.

The dust storms which blew in to Beijing from the Gobi have become rarer in recent years because of government efforts to encourage vegetation - which prevents the soil from being picked up by the wind - in surrounding regions.
Despite the improvement, officials were asked why the capital still had suffered a bright orange, dust-filled sky last spring.
"The sandstorms are a natural disaster like typhoons or earthquakes. We can try to control the source, but we cannot eradicate them altogether," said Liu.

[abhishek_sharma]

Zbigniew Brzezinski Interview on China

http://www.charlierose.com/view/interview/11382

[Lalmohan]

Good news for paquis from taller than mountain deeper penetration friends land
No male rape law in China

perp got one year in jail and $3000 fine, victim has identity protected
paquis will be happy with gubo arrangements then...

[Maram]

When China were in india's current position, there was simply no Chinese scream for "being superpower in 20 years" or "being surpassed whatever country in 10 years"

Very incorrect. India's current GDP is about same as what China's was in 2004. And China was then not just boasting of being a Superpower, it had the pretensions of being the sole superpower then even above the US. The talk of G2 was kicking then. Moreover China was behaving like a snobby bully back then which India does not, however much you bleat we do. No Indian even talks about getting past China in the near immediate future, let alone the US. So it was the Chinese that were boastful and sure of their "superpowerdom" rather than the Indians.


In the eyes of quite some Chinese, India is still reviewed as a poor country which usually fails to achieve yet get a "boastful" ego.

In the light of the above, now you really want to know whats boastful and egoistic??

Ok here you go in your very own words:

Note the fact whereever China occupied, there is no dispute at all, where-ever there is some disputes, there is someone-else who occupied.

Kind like what is mine is mine and what is yours is subject to dispute, I am not implying China is a bully, but I guess you get my point here.

Note: A BULLY IS egoistic and boastful. Ask ANY psychologist. And China IS a Bully as you just said..yourself. So your Commie crapoganda on Indian claims of "superpowerdom" are hollow and false.

India seeks cooperative multipolarity in the world order and not some sole dominant position. But looking at the way you and your Govt interpret things it might end up way above what China does ultimately. All fascist Command based structures and economies fail. China may just be biting off more than it can chew with it's present system.

Fact is 99% media in India is self loathing and self flagellating. There may have been a 1% of stories with some hype to sell. But the stories that really sell in India are on corruption, political intrigue, drama and not some dreams of superpowerdom. The BJP lost the last major elections because the public sort of did'nt synch with the 'India Shining' slogans. So no need for the advice on what brainwahed CCPians think how boastful Indians are. My own experieince with common Chinese and Indians are..Indians have their feet much more firmly on the ground. They also don't mind washing their dirty linen in the national media under full glare. Something highly restricted in China.

Your's is NOT a free country. So neither you NOR your Govt know what Chinese people really are like. You think they love Fascism? Bullcrap! Your leaders don't have the guts to give power really to the people and let them elect leaders of thier own choosing. You're scared and afriad of groups like Falun Gong. India is not. Only bullies and boastful people with ego's behave like the PRC..so get in touch with reality. It's quite the opposite of what you think and assume.

Harbansji,Top top quality post that !

Regarding Wen's pseudo expert comments on just about everything, I am reminded of Bhatruhari's subashitham "Tiviri Isamuna tailambu teeya vachhu"(You can sqeeze oil out sand, drink water from a mirage, even see a horned rabbit... BUT you can never convince a fool")

[rohitvats]

^Super

Please provide the URL and 'graphic warning' alert.....I could not stand 10seconds of that video. Please consider this as an earnest request.

Contradictory as it may seem, but I can really thrash a person doing 10% of something like above (in terms of hurting) in India to any animal.

PS: From my perspective, the smiley is in real bad taste

[Raghavendra]

^ you must be a counter revolutionary splitist supporter of dalai clique

jealous of beautiful chinese culture

[krisna]

Rise of Tibetan soft power

Tibetan ‘soft power’ has ensured that we are going to see a continued rise in Tibetan nationalistic aspirations along with the flourishing of Tibetan culture and civilization, in tandem with the rise of China as a global power

Many Tibetans these days are rightfully feeling dismayed, believing that their culture and identity is increasingly being eclipsed and their hopes for a resolution to the Tibetan question dashed by the rise of China.

The idea of ‘Tibet’ has enormous import in the minds of the international public: people all over the world are recognizing that Tibetan civilization needs to be preserved, supported and protected.

The idea of ‘soft-power’, coined by American political scientist Joseph Nye, is the ability of nations to use moral and cultural capital to persuade and inspire others.
All governments engage in exercises in soft power. Obvious instruments of this process include Alliances Francaise of France, the Fulbright Scholarship of the United States, the Goethe Institute of Germany, the British Council in the UK. The Beijing Olympics itself was a showcase for China’s own attempts at soft power.

Good news is that something similar is happening to Tibet, thanks of course to the leadership of the Dalai Lama. On the one hand, Tibetans are fighting against being assimilated into China. But on the other hand, a whirlwind of Tibetan cool has been spreading around the world for the past few decades. Exhibitions, teachings and seminars about Tibet have been held in places as farflung as Toronto, convincing even the most hardened cynic that Tibetan culture – rather than being lost as a result of the Chinese oppression – is in fact thriving in spite of the displacement.

Indeed, Tibetan Buddhism has begun to speak back to us in American-English. If meditation were denominated in real currencies, the Tibetan diaspora would easily run a major trade surplus with Europe and the United States.

It is no secret these days how popular Tibetan religion and spirituality has become amongst the Chinese public, helping compensate for the loss of Tibetan culture caused by its government’s policies. Those who think that this is all some new age mumbo-jumbo might want to check out the back issues of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States (PNAS), arguably the leading science journal in the country, which has published empirical findings of the experiments carried out with Tibetan monks at several top American universities.

During July 2011, the Dalai Lama will also bestow Kalachakra (Wheel of Time) teachings, highly sought after by Buddhists, not in the state of Bihar but in Washington DC

Still, we live in a real world where geopolitics is the name of the game and cultural capital can travel only so far. In the years ahead, we are going to see a continued rise in Tibetan nationalistic aspirations along with the flourishing of Tibetan culture and civilization, in tandem with the rise of China as a global power.

what will dlagon do- murder more tibetans, put down the culture and traditions of tibetans. hanify tibet so resistance withers away.

[chaanakya]

Interesting . Might try to attend it, time permitting, at India Habitat Centre. Anyone else attending?

[svinayak]

Till now has India and China grown together -

[ShauryaT]

Dancing with the Dragon

In the immediate aftermath of the three-day visit of Chinese premier Wen Jiabao to India in early December, the Indian strategic community purred approvingly at the host country’s changed assertive self in the face of continued Chinese diplomatic obfuscation and intransigence in bilateral geopolitical issues. Indian analysts, policy-wonks and think-tankers announced from the roof-tops at how self-confident we have become in the face of the dragon! Not just that, the venerable international magazine from London, The Economist published a special article suggesting that India is pushing back. In hindsight, though, more sobering analyses have appeared. However, looking at the broader perspective, the important question is whether our delayed and subdued response to continued Chinese belligerence since 1949 is enough or we need to do something more, both strategically and tactically, to deal with the perpetual, habitual and often covert Chinese aggression that we choose to ignore all the time.

Time to balance protocol

Tactically speaking, we committed several mistakes while negotiating on bilateral issues with China during the recent visit by Wen. First and foremost is the issue of protocol. We really need tochange the protocol while dealing with China owing to differential power structures and forms of governance in both the countries. The Prime Minister of China is not at par with the Prime Minister of India hierarchically. Let us be honest about it. The Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao comes third in hierarchy in the Chinese government. The top dog is President Hu Jintao and next to him comes Wu Bangguo, the speaker of the National Parliament of China (NPC). In the recent situation, the executive head of the Government of India, Dr Manmohan Singh held a bilateral meeting with number three person in the Chinese hierarchy! This anomalous situation must be corrected by amending the bilateral protocol whereby the executive heads of the two countries can deal directly with each other. Some in India gloated over the activation of the hotline between Dr Manmohan Singh and Wen Jiabao. The relevant question, taking the same analogy, would be why not establish a hotline between the Prime Minister of India and the President of China?

The stapled visa

India should not have agreed to a visit by Wen Jiabao till the stapled visa issue was solved satisfactorily to India’s viewpoint. China has brandished this new irritant in the bilateral relationship as it has become economically and militarily stronger. By not dealing with the issue forcefully, India lost another opportunity to assert its sovereignty. China only promised to have the stapled visa be discussed with and looked into by minor level Chinese visa officers. China will do everything to keep this issue alive for next few decades as it has changed its strategy in the Indian sub-continent and seeks to force parity and hyphenation of India with Pakistan. More emboldened with India’s naivete, China will manufacture more such issues implying geographical shrinkage of India’s official boundaries.

Preserve our boundaries

On the eve of the Wen Jiabao visit, Xinhua stated that the Indo-China border is
2000 km. This was a deliberate attempt to imply that the borders of of Jammu & Kashmir with Xinjiang (Eastern Turkistan) and the Tibetan Autonomous Region (TAR) are not part of the official Indo-China border. China has already disputed the boundaries in India’s east, calling Arunachal Pradesh as Southern Tibet. There is a fitting answer to China’s newly nuanced Chinese ploy in Jammu & Kashmir, as also the policy they follow vis-à-vis Arunachal. India should not accept the TAR as part of China, but clearly enunciate that Tibet is a colonised Asian country that has had civilisational relations with India for centuries. The border with TAR should be termed as the Indo-Tibetan border and not part the Indo-China border. Indeed, the Chinese used force to grab the nation of Tibet as war booty in 1949. Continued Chinese imperialism and usurpation of the territory of independent Tibet for natural and fresh water resources should no longer be acceptable to future Governments of India. Similarly Eastern Turkistan (Xinjiang) was an independent country in the 20th century till the Chinese forces overran it and was annexed as new frontiers.

Skewed bilateral trade

India has agreed to increase bilateral trade to $100 billion by 2015 without any chance of balanced and fair trade. Currently bilateral trade is heavily in favour of China. The Chinese have always been very business-minded. The international trade policies and long-term commercial strategy of the Government of China has always been predicated on mercantilism, intellectual property theft and deception. China continues to have both bilateral and multi-lateral problems with other trading nations of the world on currency issues, trade surpluses and stolen intellectual properties. This was a good opportunity for India to ensure fair trade practices with China prior to engaging deeper on bilateral trade issues. Currently China has trade imbalance with India of $19 billions and this situation could have been rectified in the recent visit but was not done. Promises never make a difference with China. Denial of markets is the only solution to force the Chinese towards fairer trade practices. Going slow on bilateral trade would take the steam out of China as Western markets have been drying up owing to the economic meltdown. Trade barriers and shipping costs (which increase with energy costs) will eventually neutralise the China price of manufactured goods and take away the Chinese trade advantages and surpluses.

Will China endorse India’s quest at the UNSC?

India’s first Prime Minister, Jawaharlal Nehru gave up the opportunity for permanent membership of UN Security Council in the 1950s, which was then encouraged by the US administration because he was too scared of the Chinese dragon. In 1971 when Communist China was seated for the first time in the UN General Assembly after manoeuvring to get Taiwan unseated, India’s permanent representative in the UNGA welcomed China by thumping the table. During the recent visit of the Chinese premier, there were high hopes that China would be persuaded to endorse India’s quest for permanent membership of the UNSC. China, of course, only promises to understand India's aspiration to serve in the UNSC as a permanent member! No concessions there! In context, we need to remember that China was pretty much forced to support the US-India civil nuclear energy deal in the NSG by the US administration.

The Sino-Pak all weather relationship

After many promises of positive Chinese intentions in New Delhi, Wen Jiabao travelled to Islamabad and promptly announced $20 billion bilateral deals including a Pak-China civil nuclear deal that has now, not only been approved but also ‘blessed" by the US! Why did we (India) not insist on de-hyphenation and demand a stand-alone India visit? May be next time an Indian Prime Minister visits China, on the way back home he or she needs to take a refuelling stop in Taipei and discuss some trade and business deals with the Republic of Taiwan.

The dragon’s necklace

It was good that in the joint statement there was no mention of India endorsing a ‘One China’ policy. However, there was no mention about China’s ‘String of Perals’policy which will lead to a strategic encirclement of India. In future, in bilateral communiques with China, a statement renouncing this strategy should be mentioned. If China refuses to do so, India needs to enunciate a ‘One China, One Taiwan, One Tibet’ doctrine openly. India needs to explore naval bases in North-eastern Asia to reciprocate this policy of encirclement.

Bully thy neighbour

Chinese national character is mired in feudalism despite professing equality and liberty. While decrying serfdom in pre-1949 Tibet, China has always considered itself as a divine power with all its neighbours as vassals or tributary states. This national trait manifests periodically in saber-rattling and pressure-tactics towards neighbours. China did the same during the 2008 Olympics and on the issue of participation in the Noble peace prize award ceremony to Chinese dissident political activist, Liu Xiaobo. During his recent visit, Wen Jiabao blamed the free Indian press for souring bilateral relations. Similarly, the Chinese Ambassador to India described bilateral relations as fragile because Indian print and electronic media have rightly taken a more stringent view of the dangers coming from China as compared to the one by the central Government of India.

Dr Adityanjee is President, Council for Strategic Affairs, New Delhi

[DavidD]

Till now has India and China grown together -

Definitely, the Indian subcontinent is pushing into the Euroasian plate as we speak!

[svinayak]

Till now has India and China grown together -

Definitely, the Indian subcontinent is pushing into the Euroasian plate as we speak!

Chicken China in Asia

[RajeshA]

Till now has India and China grown together -

Definitely, the Indian subcontinent is pushing into the Euroasian plate as we speak!

Yes that is called deep penetration with Himalayan erections.

[James B]

Definitely, the Indian subcontinent is pushing into the Euroasian plate as we speak!

Yes that is called deep penetration with Himalayan erections.

[Prem]

http://www.americablog.com/2011/01/chin ... rench.html
China is the primary suspect in French industrial espionage scandal
Poak ka Bhai Chor

This has been quite a big story over here in recent days. Perhaps the good news out of this is that China may be moving into the electric car market sooner. That's not necessarily a bad thing from an environmental angle. The Guardian:
Tonight a French magazine claimed the three men had leaked information about the development of batteries for the electric vehicles that Renault hopes to put into production in the next 18 months.Le Point said the employees had been approached by a private company used as a subcontractor by Renault. It claimed that in return for information, money had been paid into foreign bank accounts.More damaging for Renault, Le Point also alleged the leaked information concerned multi-million euro technology that the company had yet had a chance to patent, meaning it was not protected

[abhishek_sharma]

Chinese troops enter Indian territory again, stop development work

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/indi ... 247433.cms

[Philip]

US concerned over China's rapid development of new weaponsDefence secretary says Beijing, whose arms development is outpacing US intelligence estimates, could 'put some of our capabilities at risk'

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/ja ... ew-weapons

Associated Press in Beijing
guardian.co.uk, Sunday 9 January 2011

The US defence secretary, Robert Gates, is welcomed to Beijing by General Ma Xiao Tian as he begins a four-day visit to China. Photograph: Getty Images

US defence secretary Robert Gates says China's rapidly developing defence capabilities are worrisome to the US.

China has made strides in building a new stealth fighter jet and Washington is also concerned about a new ballistic missile that could theoretically explode an aircraft carrier nearly 2,000 miles (3,200 kilometres) out to sea. China has also apparently beaten US estimates to develop that weapon.

Gates arrived in Beijing today for talks about these weapons and other military issues with Chinese leaders.

"They [China] clearly have potential to put some of our capabilities at risk," Gates told reporters traveling with him to Asia. "We have to pay attention to them, we have to respond appropriately with our own programs." The US has long known that China wanted to field a stealth jet, but development outpaced US intelligence estimates, Gates said.

China is still years behind US capabilities in radar-evading aircraft, and even by 2015 the US would still have far more flying than any other nation in the world, Gates said.

China says it does not pose a threat and its military forces are purely for defence, which in its definition includes deterring Taiwan, a self-governing island that Beijing claims as its territory, from declaring formal independence.

In an apparent nod to US calls for more openness, China allowed video and pictures of last week's runway tests of its prototype stealth fighter to be taken and posted online.

Gates is trying to coax Chinese military leaders into more regular discussions with the US.

The Pentagon is focusing scarcer defence dollars on ways to counter the kinds of weapons China is now building. Gates said recently he wants to spend more on a new long-range nuclear bomber and updated electronics gear for the Navy that could throw an incoming missile off course.

He will also visit South Korea for talks about averting war with the North, as well as Japan, which is alarmed by Chinese military moves.

The invitation to visit Beijing was a coup for Gates, who invited a Chinese counterpart for similar talks and a visit to the US nuclear weapons headquarters in 2009.

[DavidD]

Definitely, the Indian subcontinent is pushing into the Euroasian plate as we speak!

Yes that is called deep penetration with Himalayan erections.

LOL

[Airavat]

Poor quality Chinese honey flooding world markets

Most honey comes from China, where beekeepers are notorious for keeping their bees healthy with antibiotics banned in North America because they seep into honey and contaminate it; packers there learn to mask the acrid notes of poor quality product by mixing in sugar or corn-based syrups to fake good taste. None of this is on the label. Rarely will a jar of honey say “Made in China.” Instead, Chinese honey sold in North America is more likely to be stamped as Indonesian, Malaysian or Taiwanese, due to a growing multimillion dollar laundering system designed to keep the endless supply of cheap and often contaminated Chinese honey moving into the U.S.

Chinese honey is notorious for containing the banned antibiotic chloramphenicol, used by farmers to keep bees from falling ill. The European Union outlawed Chinese honey imports because of it. Dilution is another issue. According to Grace Pundyk, author of The Honey Trail, Chinese manufacturers will inject a type of honey with litres of water, heat it, pass it through an ultrafine ceramic or carbon filter, and then distill it into syrup. While it eradicates impurities such as antibiotics, it also denies honey of its essence.

In the U.S., a hefty tariff – more than two dollars for every kilogram of Chinese-origin honey – was levied. But the tax only temporarily dammed the flow. Australian investigators uncovered the roots of a global conspiracy when they intercepted a large consignment of “Singapore” honey bound for the U.S. in 2002. At the time, Singapore didn’t produce honey. The shipment was traced back to China, opening the first window into a worldwide scheme.

[jamwal]

^Super
m_t7pmhu040

Saar jii, please put a warning for videos like that instead of a smiley. Bloody barbarians! I've seen a lot of animal slaughterings, but these oiseaules take the brutality to a bloody new level.

[abhishek_sharma]

Neighbours only since 1950

Shyam Saran

http://www.indianexpress.com/news/neigh ... 0/736322/0

A: India’s humiliation in 1962 does not diminish in any way the strength of India’s case concerning the India-China border. Nehru’s mistakes in handling the border dispute does not in any way negate the massive legal and historical evidence adduced by India in support of its claims. This can be readily accessed in the series of White Papers published by the Government of India on the subject. G.N. Rao’s The India-China Border: A Reappraisal also provides an excellent analysis.

B: Chinese claims in the western sector have no historical or legal basis. China’s traditional boundary, shown on its own maps, never extended south of the Kuenlun mountains. Aksai Chin never belonged to China. The eastern boundary between Ladakh and Western Tibet had also been fixed by treaty as far back as 1642.

C: There were no significant differences between India and Tibet concerning their traditional boundary and the McMahon Line only formalised what was already well known and recognised by people on both sides of the border. It is China’s unilateral and armed occupation of Tibet in 1950, which created, for the first time, a border between India and China. Incidentally, until 1985, the Chinese “package proposal” put forward by Chinese leader Deng Xiaoping in 1982, would have legitimised the status quo — that is, India to accept Chinese occupation in the western sector, while China would acquiesce to the Indian alignment in the eastern sector, conforming to the McMahon Line, but without the offending label. It is only in 1985 that the Chinese side reinterpreted the “package proposal” to insist that the Indian side would have to make concessions in the east while the Chinese side could reciprocate with some unspecified corresponding concessions in the western sector.

[sanjaykumar]

Good summary but seriously...However, it is equally necessary for us to exorcise the ghosts of 1962 and dispel the scepticism that appears to have invaded our own perceptions about the strength of our claims on the border.

Maxwell says that China had no alternative but to “get its retaliation in first”. Marvelous usage of English by that old b astard Maxwell-did not know he is still polluting the planet.

[Philip]

One "passive" way to teach China a lesson by the Indian people is to Boycott Chinese goods.Cheap Chinese goods flood the Indian market at our cost and that of our poor.Spread the message,"NO Chinese crap".I tell my friends not to buy Chinko wares and check labels of products and reject them if they have a "Made in China label".Chinese goods should also be publicly burnt as was done with British cloth during the Raj.This is entirely in the best Gandhian tradition,where "passive" resistance is actually pro-active and the most effective,.Unfortunately,our greedmongering politicos and babus will sell their souls and the country to our mortal enemy for "30 pieces of silver".

Here's how the Chinese plan to deal with HH the DL and the Tibetan diaspora.

http://news.in.msn.com/international/ar ... id=4790894

Fight against Dalai Lama to be intense: Chinese official
Beijing: A top Chinese official heading the Tibet administration has said fight against Tibetan spiritual leader Dalai Lama is meant to be "lasting, intense and complicated" and the government faced "arduous task" of keeping secessionists away.

"We are still facing an arduous task to fight secessionists and maintain stability in the region," official Xinhua quoted Choling as saying in his first government report submitted to the local legislature for review on Monday.

PS:Good! That the (pls avoid using this word - JE Menon) are facing an "arduous task" is welcoming news,in that the resistance to the ethnic-cleansing by the Han ****** is strong.We must support to the hilt every way possible the Tibetans within and without Tibet and checkmate Chinese michief in the Himalayas and the sub-continent.The "Game" is going to be long and arduous indeed!

[RajeshA]

^^
Agree completely!

May be some groups in India can start a campaign of publicly burning Chinese goods in various cities!

[Rupesh]

China's area increases by 1000 sq km

BEIJING: China, which has a land area of about 9.6 million sq km, the third-largest country in the world, will get 1,000 sq km more, thanks to Tajikistan which today agreed to cede a 130-year-long disputed territory to the neighbouring Communist giant.

The Majlisi Namoyandagon, Tajikistan's lower chamber of Parliament, ratified a protocol on demarcation of Tajikistan's common border with China.

This was decided at a regular sitting of the second session of the Majlisi Namoyandagon, presided over by its speaker Shukurjon Zuhurov, Tajikistan's news agency Asiaplus reported.

The protocol that was presented by Foreign Minister Hamrokhon Zarifi caused lively discussions, it said.

Zarifi noted that ratification of the protocol was an important political event and would promote further expansion of Tajikistan's ties with China.

According to him, territorial dispute at first between the Tsarist Russia and China, then between the Soviet Union and China and later between sovereign Tajikistan and China over some 28,500 square kilometers in the Pamirs rose in the second half of the 19th century.

"These disputable territories are nearly 20 per cent of Tajikistan's territory, while under the protocol, only 1,000 square kilometres, or 3 per cent of the disputable territories, are ceded to China," the minister said, claiming "victory" for Tajik diplomacy. ( Hopefully GOI will not take lessons from Tajiks )
"I consider that signing of this protocol is the victory of Tajik diplomacy," the report quoted Zarifi as saying.

[Ashoka]

Cheena is back on the track

Two Arunachal men get stapled China visas, stopped at airport

http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/new ... 270197.cms

ITANAGAR: In a departure from past practice, China has begun issuing visas to residents of Arunachal Pradesh, over which it lays claim, but they are stapled to passports as in the case of people from Jammu and Kashmir.

China's new tactics came to light when two sportsmen from Arunachal Pradesh were prevented by immigration officials from boarding a flight today from New Delhi to Beijing since they had stapled visas issued by the Chinese Embassy on their passports.

Indian Weightlifting Federation's Joint Secretary Abraham K Techi along with a weightlifter of the state were taken aback when immigration officials at New Delhi's IGI Airport stopped them and turned the two men away because of the stapled visas issued by the Chinese Embassy.

Techi and the weightlifter, who were to visit the country at the invitation of Chinese Weightlifting Association president Menguang for the January 15-17 China Weightlifting Grand Prix at Fujian province, thereafter got in touch with the Chinese Embassy.

Reacting to the Chinese action, the Ministry of External Affairs said India considers Arunachal Pradesh as an integral part of India and has conveyed to the Chinese side that a uniform process of issue of visas to Indian citizens be followed regardless of applicant's ethnicity or place of domicile.

Maintaining that both the athletes are reportedly domiciles of Arunachal Pradesh, the Ministry recalled that a travel advisory had been issued in February, 2009 cautioning Indian citizens that Chinese visas stapled to passports were not valid for travel outside the country.

Needling India, China started issuing stapled visas to people from J and K from later part of 2008 in an attempt to project it as a disputed area. In the case of residents of Arunachal Pradesh, visas were never issued till now as China claims the whole of the north-eastern state as its own.

The contentious issue of stapled visas for residents of J and K had figured during Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao's visit to New Delhi last month. Wen had said that China takes India's concerns on the issue seriously.

Techi told PTI the Chinese officials at the Embassy informed him that the 'right' visas have been issued to them.

"This is an insult and unnecessary harassment to Arunachalees," Techi said.

[krithivas]

I don't see Nepal in this news, but China.

http://www.hindu.com/2011/01/13/stories ... 751500.htm
Buddha birthplace: archaeological survey begins in Nepal
An international team of archaeologists has begun a three-year survey of the archaeological vestiges in Lumbini, the birthplace of Gautama Buddha, in southern Nepal. According to The Himalayan Times, the team, which also includes experts from the Department of Archaeology and the Lumbini Development Trust, is working under the leadership of Robin Coningham, Vice-Chancellor and Professor of Archaeology at Durham University, U.K. According to UNESCO, Nepal, the panel will work to identify the locations of archaeological remains below the surface so that development of facilities for pilgrims does not damage valuable archaeological resources. According to the U.N. body, the archaeological endeavour is part of a larger project — Strengthening the Conservation and Management of Lumbini, the Birthplace of Lord Buddha — launched in 2010 to address the issues and challenges facing the World Heritage Site. The project focusses on five components — evaluation and interpretation of the Lumbini's archaeological signature, conservation of the Ashoka Pillar, the Marker Stone and the Nativity Sculpture, review of the state of the sacred garden with respect to the Kenzo Tange's master plan, establishment of an integrated management process to preserve Lumbini's universal value in the long run, and improvement of knowledge and skills of local experts.
— Xinhua

[DavidD]

One "passive" way to teach China a lesson by the Indian people is to Boycott Chinese goods.Cheap Chinese goods flood the Indian market at our cost and that of our poor.Spread the message,"NO Chinese crap".I tell my friends not to buy Chinko wares and check labels of products and reject them if they have a "Made in China label".Chinese goods should also be publicly burnt as was done with British cloth during the Raj.This is entirely in the best Gandhian tradition,where "passive" resistance is actually pro-active and the most effective,.Unfortunately,our greedmongering politicos and babus will sell their souls and the country to our mortal enemy for "30 pieces of silver".

Here's how the Chinese plan to deal with HH the DL and the Tibetan diaspora.

http://news.in.msn.com/international/ar ... id=4790894

Fight against Dalai Lama to be intense: Chinese official
Beijing: A top Chinese official heading the Tibet administration has said fight against Tibetan spiritual leader Dalai Lama is meant to be "lasting, intense and complicated" and the government faced "arduous task" of keeping secessionists away.

"We are still facing an arduous task to fight secessionists and maintain stability in the region," official Xinhua quoted Choling as saying in his first government report submitted to the local legislature for review on Monday.

PS:Good! That the (pls avoid using this word - JE Menon) are facing an "arduous task" is welcoming news,in that the resistance to the ethnic-cleansing by the Han ****** is strong.We must support to the hilt every way possible the Tibetans within and without Tibet and checkmate Chinese michief in the Himalayas and the sub-continent.The "Game" is going to be long and arduous indeed!

Eventually, they'll be assimilated just like many other ethnicities before them. The Han will become a little more Tibetan, and the Tibetan will become a lot more Han.

[jamwal]