11th October 08

International Herald Tribune

Asia suddenly feels the pain

From UBS to Morgan Stanley, investment banks have been warning in the past week of a global economic downturn. For Asia, that sounds uncomfortably like a forecast that economic slowdowns in the United States and Europe will cripple demand for Asia's exports and pull the region down into recession as well. What went wrong? As the biggest beneficiary of the rise in global trade, Asia depends heavily on exports to the West. Everything from corporate earnings to real estate prices depends on a steady inflow of dollars and euros.

From the Archive:

The Australian

China unlikely to go to war over Taiwan, says defence expert

CHINA is unlikely to be a military threat and the chances of a conflict over Taiwan are diminishing, according to a US defence expert. Jonathan Pollack, professor of Asian and Pacific studies at the US Naval War College, told The Australian that China would become a much more potent military force in the long run.

Asia Times Online

Jawboning the Chinese elephant
By Muhammad Cohen

HONG KONG - Interviewing me for The Real News, founder Paul Jay called China "one of the elephants in the room" of the US presidential campaign. Even though the Olympics are putting the China elephant in the spotlight, neither candidate has shed much light on where he believes US-China relations need to go. Their near-silence may indicate deep ignorance or a profound grasp of the situation.

The 'Hanification' of Xinjiang
By Peter Navarro

While Tibet has played the role of China's "rock star" to human-rights activists around the world, China's Xinjiang province has been treated more like an unwanted stepchild. One reason is that Tibet has a true rock star in the exiled Dalai Lama. Another reason is that the strife in Xinjiang involves Muslim ethnic minorities with alleged ties to the most hated man in the Western world - Osama bin Laden. All of this, however, is simply unfair because what is happening in Xinjiang in terms of human-rights violations may be even worse than the Tibetan repression.

ABC Radio National

China is the industrial success story of the last decade and looks set to continue for years to come. It’s also likely to become the global environmental villain, unless its scientists can find a solution to waste and pollution. The government has pinned its hopes on greener, cleaner technology, having made a Kyoto-style energy research pact with countries such as Australia and the United States. Rather than trying to enforce recycling policies across the whole country, China hopes that science will pull them out of the hole. Will this be enough to stem the rise of an increasingly hungry consumer culture? China is one the few countries where bicycle use is on the decline, whilst car ownership increases rapidly along with mobile phones, computers and household gadgets. This year, Beijing hosts the world’s largest zero waste technologies conference, involving hundred of researchers from around the world, all seeking to find ways of making sustainability a reality. With China hosting what they claim with be the greenest Olympic games ever, in 2008, the world is watching.