15th of October 2010
The Lion Awakes
Daily News, Culture & Current Affairs about China
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China Daily
Belated wedding photos capture a lifetime
A couple married for 78 years have their first wedding photos taken in Leping, East China's Jiangxi province on Oct 13, 2010. The couple, 103-year-old Huang Desheng (R) and 97-year-old Cheng Yinzhi, were selected to participate in Leping city's "free wedding photo shoots" ahead of the upcoming Chongyang Festival, or Double Ninth Festival, which advocates filial piety and respect for elders. The Chongyang Festival falls on the ninth day of the ninth month of the Chinese lunar calendar, or Saturday this year.
Fairness hot issue on agenda for Party
BEIJING - Social equality and justice are likely to be highlighted in proposals for China's 12th Five-Year Plan (2011-2015), as part of the country's efforts to ease social conflict, a Beijing-based think tank said on Thursday.
"Due to the uneven distribution of income, the fruits of economic growth are not equally shared by the people, which has resulted in growing social conflict and instability," Liu Shanying, a political science researcher at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, told China Daily.
CPC session opens to discuss nation's next five-year plan
BEIJING - The 17th Central Committee of the Communist Party of China (CPC) opened its fifth plenary session in Beijing Friday to discuss the nation's next five-year development plan.
The four-day meeting will review proposals for the country's 12th five-year program (2011-2015) on national economic and social development.
The 17th Central Committee of CPC opened its fifth plenary session to review proposals for the country's 12th five-year program (2011-2015) on national economic and social development.
The period would be critical for building a moderately prosperous society, the Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee announced last month.
It would be a time of difficult issues for deepening the reform and opening-up process while accelerating the transformation of the nation's economic development pattern, said the announcement.
China tells US not to make yuan a scapegoat
BEIJING - The United States should not make the yuan a scapegoat for its own domestic problems, a Chinese commerce ministry spokesman said on Friday.
Speaking hours before the United States faces a decision about whether to formally label Beijing a currency manipulator, Yao Jian said it was not fair to criticise the yuan's exchange rate simply by pointing at China's export strength.
"It is entirely wrong for the United States to make an issue of China's trade surplus and hence put pressure on the yuan exchange rate," Yao said at a regular ministry briefing.
"Other countries have no right to comment on what is a reasonable level for a country's trade surplus," Yao added.
Yao also singled out Japan, saying that it has no grounds to criticise the yuan.
"Japan is not the right country to say that. It has run a trade surplus against China for eight consecutive years," he said.
China's ties with Japan closer via diplomacy
BEIJING - In the latest move toward a resumption of normal Sino-Japanese relations, Premier Wen Jiabao and his Japanese counterpart Naoto Kan are expected to hold talks later this month.
Major cities' property prices jump 9.1% in Sept
BEIJING -- Property prices in 70 major Chinese cities rose 9.1 percent year on year in September, the lowest growth rate so far this year, the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) said Friday.
NATO alliance seeks to engage China
BEIJING - The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) is seeking closer cooperation with China, as the alliance charters a course toward the future.
Yuan exchange rate flexibility to gradually increase
BEIJING - China Thursday reaffirmed its steadfast determination to advance the reforms of the formation mechanism of the Renminbi (RMB), or the yuan, exchange rate but dismissed calls for the currency's appreciation.
"We are all on the same boat in the age of globalization. It is self-evident RMB's appreciation is not a cure for the US trade deficit. And nor would it help solve the imbalances in the global economy," Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Ma Zhaoxu told a regular news briefing.
China-Africa trade volume set to hit new record high
BEIJING -- The bilateral trade volume between China and African countries in 2010 is expected to exceed the record high of US$106.8 billion attained in 2008, said a report released Thursday by a research institute under the Chinese Ministry of Commerce (MOC).
First published this year, the China-Africa Trade and Economic Relationship Annual Report said China-Africa trade declined from the beginning of 2009 before it returned to growth last November, thanks to the rebounding world economy.
Ancient Qing Dynasty vase smashes auction record
BEIJING - A 300-year-old vase fetched HK$252.6 million ($32.5 million) in Hong Kong on Thursday, a world record auction price for Chinese porcelain.
The yellow-ground famille-rose double-gourd vase, made during the Qing Dynasty (1644-1911), was among a selection of rare works from four major private collections that went under the hammer at Sotheby's autumn sales.
Part Two
Global Times
Editorial - China has to pursue gradual political reform
The awarding of the Nobel Peace Prize last week to Liu Xiaobo triggered a wave of rebuke toward China's political system from Westerners. In the Western sense, China urgently needs to overhaul its political system.
Days before the Fifth Plenary Session of the 17th CPC Central Committee, which begins today, Western scholars and politicians hasted to provide advice, claiming that China would not continue to achieve substantial economic progress if it still delay reforming its political system in a Western way.
Such an attitude reveals an ignorance of basic facts in China. Walking through China, one rarely meets a Chinese citizen who is against political reform.
China no longer has life tenures for official posts and now promotes the principle of an accountability system, as well as the practice of making government affairs more public. Aren't these all part of reform?
Westerner's attitudes toward China's political reform reflect a wide gap between how China is developing and how they expect China to develop.
Numerous scholars point out that most countries with successful electoral policies and competitive democracy exist in Europe and North America. Countries from the Third World, where such systems were enforced, largely suffer from severe poverty, social turmoil and even war.
Politics is never isolated from public life. China's economy and society is witnessing dramatic changes.
Take a close look at the life of an ordinary Chinese official. His origins, way of rising to political office, daily work, and potential consequences of making a severe mistake are quite different from those of 30 years ago.
In the case of an ordinary Chinese, his way of acquiring information, freedom of speech, right to decide his own life and protect individual property are drastically different from those of 30 years as well.
China has changed a lot. In the future it will continue to adopt gradualism to bring about changes. No force can compel the nation to change what cannot be changed at the moment. This is the true political narrative of a large country with more than 1.3 billion people.
China has to continue its political reforms in the future, including drawing beneficial experiences from Western democratic politics.
However, China will never be a sub-civilization, and it will only follow its roadmap in a gradual manner.
The Chinese cherish stability. They don't want to let a radical revolution overwhelm current reforms.
In respect to reforming the political system, China needs political wisdom and constant drive. It doesn't need to rush its fences.
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China’s Communist Party Prepares for a Showdown
Russell Leigh Moses is a Beijing-based analyst and professor who writes on Chinese politics. He is writing a book on the changing role of power in the Chinese political system. Read more by Mr. Moses
It’s not often that we get to see a real showdown in Chinese politics. But that’s what the next few days here in Beijing promises, as the upper echelon of the Communist Party convenes an annual plenum.
Economic policy centered on the five-year plan is supposed to be the main topic, along with personnel.
But a growing number in the government would like to expand the conversation and take on a far more vexing question: political reform.
Senkaku, Diaoyu and Google Maps
Few would imagine Japan and China are yet ready to link arms and –- ahem –- sail off into the sunset following the renewed territorial dispute over an island chain sparked by a boat collision last month. But pointed remarks like, say, demanding one of the controversial names be wiped off the face of Google Maps, was unexpected in light of recent overtures from both countries that suggested relations were on the mend.
A Bad Week for an Antifraud Activist
Defending intellectual honesty is difficult anywhere in the age of Photoshop and copy-paste, but in China it can feel downright futile.
At least that’s the impression you get from reading about the week Fang Shimin is having.
Kaixin Oped - Corruption is still entrenched in China and has a long way to go. However, before the 'west' judges China it must understand China's history and that China is trying to address the issue of corruption.
See Kaixin's 'Corruption v li shang wang lai' 礼尚往来'
Taiwan Bowing Out of Island Dispute?
When Japan and China revived their long-running spat over a set of disputed islands in the East China Sea last month, one player stayed conspicuously low-key: Taiwan.
Huawei Burnishes Consumer Brand
No longer content with staying in the background, Huawei Technologies—the Chinese company that has been gobbling up global telecommunications equipment market share—is aiming to raise its profile among consumers with low-cost products using Google’s Android operating system and a more aggressive marketing strategy.
China Seeks a New Self Through an Old Method
BEIJING—China's leadership is aiming to use a sweeping twice-a-decade economic and social plan to set the country on a more equitable and sustainable path, but there are questions whether the old-style five-year plan can get it there.
The Communist Party leadership will discuss and approve an outline of the massive blueprint, which sets the nation's priorities for the years 2011 to 2015, at a major meeting that starts Friday, before the final plan is published next year.
Japan, Korea Tussle Over Won
Japan's criticism of South Korea's currency interventions threw a spotlight on a little-noticed reason for South Korea's economic success this year—the Korean won's weakness against the Japanese yen.
Chinese Property Prices Keep Climbing
SHANGHAI—Property prices in 70 of China's large and medium-sized cities rose 0.5% in September from the previous month, and were up 9.1% from a year earlier, the National Bureau of Statistics said Friday.
The U.S. Will Lose a Currency War
The Group of 20 should focus less on exchange rates and more on structural reform.
BY YIPING HUANG
A new currency war is looming as the dollar devalues versus the world's currencies. In the United States, Congress is putting pressure on Beijing to revalue the yuan, while Treasury calls for International Monetary Fund intervention to promote flexible exchange rates. Abroad, central banks in Brazil, Japan and other Asian economies have stepped in to stabilize their currencies. And the chattering classes of economists and academics are advocating everything from capital-market restrictions to trade sanctions.
The upcoming Group of 20 summit in Seoul could become a battlefield of this new conflict. But it doesn't have to be. Rather than focus ...
Yiping Huang is currently Professor of Economics at the China Center for Economic Research, Peking University. He was previously Managing Director and Chief Asia Economist for Citigroup based in Hong Kong, General Mills International Professor at the Columbia University in New York, Director of the China Economy Program at the Australian National University in Canberra and policy analyst at the Research Center for Rural Development of the State Council in Beijing.
China's Democratic Conversation
Far from a Western conceit, talk of freedom surfaces at every opportunity.
One of the worst conceits of modern Sinologists is that China is not like the West, that its people harbor different goals in life, and that freedom isn't one of them. According to that mindset, the Nobel Prize awarded last week to dissident Liu Xiaobo is a meaningless gesture made by foreigners and unreflective of the Chinese people's wishes. Yet when China's leadership signals a tolerance, however slight, for openness, debate about freedom blooms.
That may be what's happening now in the wake of Premier Wen Jiabao's recent statements extolling political reform. Taking the hint, 23 Communist Party elders Monday ...
Kaixin OpEd - I suppose it all depends where you are looking, what you are looking for and how you interpret events, speeches ... etc
The middle-class (yes, Josephine there is now a middle-class in China) are not all that concerned with pushing for more freedoms as defined by the 'west'. They are pretty happy with the way things are and the general direction of China, politically, economically and socially.
In terms of freedoms as defined by the 'west', China has come a long way since 1979. Xiaosui has lived through that period after emerging from the darkness of the Cultural Revolution. She acknowledges that there is a way to go in many areas, but that China recognises this and is moving in the right direction.
China does not want to become a clone of the 'west', and I am sure most thinking people in the 'west' do not expect that.
This century will bring many changes to China as it grows economically and as the education level of the whole population steadily increases.
The Age
Future of China is right on track
An ambitious rail program is boosting yuan bond sales in the world's most populous country, writes Shelley Smith.
China's plans to lay twice as much high-speed track as the rest of the world combined is turning this year into a record one for yuan bond sales.
Caixin Online
China Surpasses U.S. in Wind Power Capacity
By mid-2010, China's wind power capacity has exceeded 2020 energy targets set by Chinese policymakers
(Beijing) -- China has replaced the United States to become the world's top nation in wind power growth in 2009, increasing capacity by adding another 13.8 million kilowatts, according to a recent research report.
Climate Talks Limp Toward Doha-Like Deadlock
UN climate change negotiations in Tianjin lacked Copenhagen's excitement yet ended with a similar whimper
(Tianjin) - A battered and scarred negotiating text lay limp on the table at the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Tianjin. Negotiators staring down at the pages clearly understood the need to narrow differences and expand consensus if they hoped to lay a foundation for the next global conference in Cancun, Mexico, scheduled for the end of the year.
As in the past at climate talks, however, the Tianjin convention was marked by international friction and little action. Negotiators refused to make concessions and instead repeatedly broadcast pessimistic signals. Scars on the text remain.
A Yuan Lesson: Currency Leaders Don't Follow
Rather than lead, China was led down a yuan appreciation path that now can be adjusted to broaden policy options
The answer to the currency question seems straightforward and, of course, it's centered on China.
An acceleration for yuan appreciation began in September, showing China indeed can lead a revaluation of its currency.
Asia Times Online
Wen's European jaunt was just business
By Jian Junbo
The recent eight-day visit by Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao to Turkey and four European countries does not represent any strategic shift. China is simply consolidating its existing European ties at a time when a post-financial-crisis European Union needs China, and an embattled-in-Asia China needs friends.
Hu adopts quasi-Maoist tactics
By Willy Lam
Chinese President Hu Jintao's restitution of one of Mao Zedong's most famous slogans - "On the correct handling of contradictions among the people" - can be interpreted as a stratagem to win over still-powerful conservative party members. The lot of disadvantaged sectors, meanwhile, remains unaddressed.
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