30th of November 2010
The Lion Awakes
Daily News, Culture & Current Affairs about China
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China Daily
China proposes urgent talks to ease tensions
ROK, US launch joint naval drills as DPRK warns of counter-attack
BEIJING - China on Sunday proposed emergency consultations, among participants to the Six-Party Talks, next month amid rising tension on the Korean Peninsula.
"After careful deliberation, China proposes emergency consultations, among the heads of delegations to the Six-Party Talks, in early December in Beijing," said Wu Dawei, Chinese special representative for Korean Peninsula affairs.
It was China's latest move following the exchange of artillery fire last week between the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) and the Republic of Korea (ROK).
It came as the ROK and the United States launched a four-day joint naval drill on Sunday in waters west of the Korean Peninsula, with the US aircraft carrier USS George Washington joining the drill. A spokesman for the US 7th Fleet said no live-fire drills were planned. Officials would not supply exact locations but Yonhap news agency in the ROK said the drills were taking place about 160 kilometers south of Yeonpyeong island, the scene of last week's artillery barrage by the DPRK.
Counting the cost as inflation strikes nation
Traders and consumers reel as food prices continue to go up. Ding Qingfen in Beijing reports.
Wang Qilu looked out from his street-side fruit and vegetable stall and sighed.
"Business is getting worse," he said, his eyes downcast. "Prices keep going up and fewer people are buying."
After 15 years of menial jobs, including work as a street cleaner and coal miner, the stall had provided the 41-year-old with a safe and steady income. Until he began to feel the force of inflation, that is.
Central bank keeps watch on prices, liquidity
BEIJING - China's central bank has been keeping a close watch on prices, market liquidity and economic growth and has taken "responsive measures" in accordance with market changes, Ma Delun, deputy governor of the People's Bank of China, said Monday.
Such measures included an interest rate rise last month, two increases to the reserve requirement ratio this month as well as other open market operations, designed to curb excessively fast money supply and rising prices, Ma said.
The moves are "conducive to guide public and market expectations," he added.
China's consumer price index (CPI), the key gauge of inflation, rose to a 25-month high of 4.4 percent year on year in October.
Ma also said the central bank will keep the currency yuan "basically stable" to promote continuous growth of the country's economy.
Hidden risks in booming overseas housing market
China's overseas house purchasing power is becoming more prosperous as it is expected to hit 5 billion yuan ($750 million) in 2010. However, most of the well-heeled purchasers don't know how to evade risks when they grab properties in Western countries, China Economic Net reported Monday.
See Kaixin's 'China Real Estate'
BP to sell Pan American stake to Bridas for $7b
BEIJING - China National Offshore Oil Company Limited (CNOOC) said Sunday Bridas Corporation, a joint-venture equally-owned by CNOOC International Limited and Argentina-based Bridas Energy Holdings (BEH), will acquire a 60 percent equity interest in Pan American Energy (PAE) from BP for approximately $7.06 billion.
The acquisition excludes PAE's assets in Bolivia, according to a statement on the website of CNOOC, China's largest offshore oil and gas producer.
CNOOC International, a wholly owned subsidiary of the company, and BEH have agreed to contribute about $4.94 billion to Bridas to finance 70 percent of the proposed acquisition.
China Huaneng buys 50% InterGen for $1.2b
MUMBAI - India's GMR Group said on Sunday it has agreed to divest its 50 percent stake in US-based power utility InterGen to China Huaneng Group for $1.23 billion to focus more on the Indian market.
The deal, which is subject to regulatory approvals, is expected to close in the first half of 2011, GMR said.
"This divestment will enable GMR Group to deploy further capital and release substantial management bandwidth to focus on its Indian Investments," said G.M. Rao, GMR Group chairman.
GMR acquired a 50 percent stake in InterGen, which owns power plants in Britain, Australia, the Netherlands, Mexico and the Philippines, in October 2008.
China Huaneng Group, a major shareholder of Huaneng Power International, is also considering buying the remaining stake in InterGen from Ontario Teachers' Pension Plan but no agreement has been reached, a media report said on Saturday.
Minimum wage rise is mooted for migrants
Move seen as key to solving labor shortage in province
GUANGZHOU - Guangdong province is considering further raising the rate of minimum wages early next year to help ease the labor shortage in the southern province, a senior local official said.
"We have been conducting research and working out the plans (for the province's minimum monthly salary adjustments) for the provincial government," Ge Guoxing, deputy director-general of Guangdong provincial department of human resources and social security, said at a press conference on Monday.
"Guangdong might adjust its minimum salary levels according to the province's actual situation and the price hikes that take place early in 2011," Ge said, adding that the provincial government would need to approve raising the rate of minimum wages.
The rate of minimum wages in Guangdong, one of the country's economic powerhouses, is not the highest in China, Ge said.
Guangdong's minimum monthly salary is currently 1,030 yuan ($154), lower than that of Shanghai and other prosperous provinces and regions.
Solar power supply in remote areas
State Grid staffs work with photovotaic battery panels in Neixiang County, central China's Henan province, Nov 29, 2010. Local government has installed photovotaic devices for fifty househoulds located in remote areas to guarantee their power supply this year.
A farmer walks past photovotaic battery panels in Neixiang County, central China's Henan province
The 16th United Nations Climate Change Conference
Laboring for US citizenship
Increasing numbers of Chinese women seek to give birth in North America
BEIJING - The business of helping pregnant Chinese women to give birth in the United States has attracted an increasing number of people to the market. However, one insider predicts it will come to an end in five years.
The enterprise, which began 20 years ago in Taiwan province, has become popular on the Chinese mainland.
For Jia Zijun, a Chinese American who returned to the mainland from the US three years ago to start the business, the enthusiasm of Chinese people for having a baby in the US so it could have American citizenship was "crazy".
"We received more than 100 calls from people asking about giving birth in the US in one day in the third quarter of this year," said Jia, who is now the representative of a consultancy for helping expectant Chinese mothers travel to California to give birth.
Guizhou mulls rules to protect Moutai water source
GUIYANG - The legislature of Southwest China's Guizhou province said Sunday it is reviewing proposed regulations to protect the water source of Kweichow Moutai, known as "China's national liquor."
The proposals include a ban on dam construction on the Chishui River, a tributary of the Yangtze River, restrictions on building large poultry farms and a ban on the production, sale and use of detergents with phosphor in the river basin.
The quality of the Chishui River water was declining due to overuse of water, overexploitation of land and mineral resources, deforestation and soil erosion, said a statement from the legislature, the Guizhou Provincial People's Congress.
Lawmakers were also seeking to control pollutants discharged into the river and to gradually put in place water pollutant trading.
Zhou Zhongliang, secretary general of the Standing Committee of the Provincial People's Congress, said the regulation was vital in protecting the environment of the Chishui River and safeguard the production environment for leading liquor makers, particularly Kweichow Moutai.
China Kweichow Moutai Distillery Co, the producer of Kweichou Moutai, is an important taxpayer for the Guizhou provincial government, which has spent more than 3 billion yuan ($450 million) to protect the Chishui River.
Other measures the provincial government has taken to protect the environment in Moutai Town, Renhuai city, where the liquor producer is located, include the relocation of 15,000 residents and closure of 400 small liquor workshops.
Kaixin OpEd - This should be the top environmental priority for China. Mr Kaixin has spent many a pleasant hour with family and friends in China discussing life over many many glasses of Moutai & Wu Liang Ye.
See Kaixin's 'Insights into China'
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Global Times
Editorial - 'Pressuring N.Korea' rhetoric is self-deceiving
South Korea rejected China's proposal for restarting Six-Party Talks. South Koreans are now being misguided by radical emotions. It's true that Six-Party Talks can ease Korean Peninsula tensions, but South Korea first needs to vent its anger.
South Koreans are demonstrating almost concordant toughness, which is not normal for the country. South Korea's Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade should have the wisdom and insight that is clearly absent among netizens.
With an overall national strength much stronger than the North's, and defense assistance from the US, South Korea should be worried less of security issues than the North. The probability of enduring a massive invasion from the North is almost zero.
China cannot help vent South Korea's anger, but is sincerely helping ease Peninsula tensions and wants to find ways of defusing the Korean crisis. The South Korean government showed its reluctance to support China by not agreeing to talks. Decision-makers in Seoul probably believe that acting against pragmatic solutions entails much smaller political risks in the short term.
Since the US declared its return to Asia, the frequency of clashes in Korea Peninsula has accelerated. Instead of reflecting upon this, South Korea became more obsessed with its military alliance with the US, which has proven faulty at best. Seoul and Washington are seeking to pull Beijing to their side. They think once China gets tough, North Korea will behave - but such logic is quite ludicrous among Chinese.
People from the South and the North are one people. South Koreans clearly know about the Korean temperament of sticking to independent choices and being reluctant to succumb to external dissuasion.
Isn't Pyongyang's decisiveness in front of orders by external powers also part of South Koreans' national character? Does South Korea really think the North would submit to pressure?
The illusion of forcing North Korea to yield has plagued Northeast Asia for years. It stops the region from taking advantage of moments of opportunity to solve the Korean deadlock.
There is no simple solution to the complex Korean issue. Saying that China should blockade North Korea to make Pyongyang succumb is not only self-deceiving, it is a humiliation to the entire Korean people.
As long as people in this region do not want another war and let blood-and-iron policies reshape Peninsula dynamics, the only pragmatic solution is still to sit down and trade mutual compromise for lasting peninsular peace.
A test of tolerance over the Korean Peninsula
After the recent artillery exchange on the Korean Peninsula, North Korea seems to be the only country that gained, but Pyongyang is drinking poison to curb its thirst. It is running head long down a road that leads to nowhere.
Is the Korean Peninsula heading toward a dangerous dead end?
Stability is a shared goal of all the countries involved. North Korea wishes to maintain a stable government; the South would like to see a stable border area.
It is in the interest of China to keep an uneventful situation on the Peninsula, and the US hopes to see its influence in Northeast Asia unchallenged. Japan and Russia hold attitudes similar to China's or the US'.
However, this shared goal is often interrupted by other interests, primarily, the pursuit of nuclear weapons by the North and its continuous provocation. In addition, the inconsistent policies of the US and South Korea toward Pyongyang also cause the North agitation, which in turn tends to overreact.
Strategic trust is almost zero among the players involved. The efforts China makes in promoting regional stability are often offset by US strategic intentions in the western Pacific. China's efforts also often get the cold shoulder by North Korea. The on again, off again, Six-Party talks best exemplify the difficulty.
The hard line approach of the US is unlikely to succeed on the Korean Peninsula. If it did succeed it would mean the failure of China's diplomacy and bring unbearable strategic risk to China. But it is equally impossible that China's moderate stance takes the lead, which suggests a much needed fundamental policy adjustment from the US, South Korea and Japan.
The stalemate will continue and test the tolerance of all the parties involved. But the way things stand now, South Korea will go on living under the shadow of the non-stop provocations of the North; while Pyongyang will continue suffering isolation and poverty, which is getting worse after each incident.
Among all the countries with a stake in the region, it looks like South Korea can and should take the initiative to adjust its policy toward the North. But, the question is, is it willing to do so?
Kaixin Oped - The reason China supports North Korea is blindingly obvious.
It is the United States of America.
The U.S is uneasy about China because China is so far removed from the American mindset.America has sought to contain China since 1949. It supported the Kuomintang (KMT or Chinese Nationalist Party) in China and then in Taiwan. America only opened the door to China in the 1970’s when they were more afraid of the potential of Russia, than of China.
America obviously underestimated the potential of a China, bought to its knees by the Cultural Revolution.
The rise and rise of China has startled America.
It sees China as a threat. Perhaps not in the immediate time scale, but in the future, when China is strong enough to threaten America. So the logic behind America’s policy of containment is understandable.
North Korea is chock-a-block with nuclear arms. China obviously does not want America sitting next door playing with those toys.
If China did not support North Korea, then South Korea would have taken over long ago. That would have meant Uncle Sam smiling and waving at China from right next door, only ducking down to the basement every so often to polish his nuclear bombs.
A US Carrier in the region is sending a strong message to North Korea, South Korea, China and the region.
In Kaixin’s opinion, North Korea might have some big toys to play with but it is unlikely China will allow the children to get out of control. Diplomacy dictates China’s response. But Kaixin suspects China is like a parent who smiles when their child is naughty while friends visit, then gives it a good clip under the ear when they leave. Certainly hope so, given the alternative.
Dialogue - A 30 Minute Current Affairs Programme on CCTV - 9 (In English) where current issues are discussed by experts from China and Internationally:
Inclusive growth of next five years
Beijing vows to keep a lower but steady GDP growth rate in the next five-year plan. The blueprint is compared to a more sustainable strategy of inclusive development.
The consensus is generated at a landmark conference of the Chinese communist party that comes to a very fruitful conclusion on Monday. The strong visible hand of the central government has helped bail out a big continental economy in times of financial meltdown.
But is the Chinese mode of development healthy enough to sustain a sizable economy that will be based more on its domestic consumption and environmentally friendly manufacturing? How shall we examine the sense of global responsibility for China as its economy continues to pull the world economy out of recession?
12th Five-Year Plan & Sustainability
These days obersvors around the world have been discussing if China would sustain its double-eadged growth in the next five years, Beijing vows to transfer multi economy from labor intensive and exports growth to domestic consumption. It means to be more innovative and more invironmentally friendly and to prioritize improvement of people's lifelyhood and their social security programs.
But very quietly, more people are discussing if more sustanable and incrusive goals in this country would lead to broader political participation. With these questions, BRANDON BLACKBURN-DWYER and FARZAM KAMALABADI are taking part in this discussion.
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China Moves to Cool Korean Tensions 
BEIJING—China on Sunday proposed emergency discussions among delegates to the six-party talks to discuss "complicated factors" on the Korean peninsula, as the U.S. and South Korea started a naval drill that has prompted dire warnings of reprisals from North Korea.
The move comes as Beijing engages in high-level diplomacy to try to cool tensions between Pyongyang and Seoul.
Japan Rejects China's Proposed Six-Party Talks
TOKYO—Japanese Foreign Minister Seiji Maehara rejected China's new proposal to hold emergency talks between North Korea and related nations, saying Pyongyang must first display sincere effort to ease its confrontational posture.
"It's unacceptable for us to hold six-party talks only because North Korea has gone amok," the minister said.
Kaixin Oped - Kaixin reluctantly agrees with the last point.
Seoul Vows to Strike Back at Further Aggression From North
SEOUL—South Korean President Lee Myung-bak vowed Monday to strike back at any further attacks by North Korea on South Korean territory, but the South's military later canceled a drill that would have asserted its territorial rights over a maritime border the North disputes.
Leaked U.S. Cables Expose Tensions With China
BEIJING—Leaked U.S. diplomatic cables put China's relationship with Iran under renewed scrutiny by suggesting Beijing hadn't complied with U.S. requests to stop transfers to Tehran of technology and materials that could be used in its ballistic-missile and chemical-weapons programs.
The New York Times
Leaked Cables Depict a World Guessing About North Korea
WASHINGTON — With North Korea reeling from economic and succession crises, American and South Korean officials early this year secretly began gaming out what would happen if the North, led by one of the world’s most brutal family dynasties, collapsed.
As for the United States, the cable said, “China would clearly ‘not welcome’ any U.S. military presence north of the DMZ,” the heavily mined demarcation line that now divides the two Koreas.
Caixin Online
Strategizing an Inflation Fight on All Fronts
Much can be done to counteract inflation in an environment of excess liquidity, rising food prices and QEII
The People's Bank of China raised the deposit reserve ratio requirement for mainland lenders by 0.5 percentage points November 12 – the second increase in 10 days and the fifth so far this year. Analysts say the move will lock about 350 billion yuan in banks with only a limited impact on the real economy.
It's clear the central bank and the central government are not indifferent to rising inflationary pressure, and are adopting measures reflecting progressive macroeconomic policy.
Li Says Loose Monetary Policy Must Change
The central bank's advisory member said the loose monetary policy is certain to wind down
(Beijing) -- A member of the central bank's monetary policy committee said Saturday that the very loose monetary policy adopted in the past two years must change.
Beijing Sets Subsidies for New Energy Vehicles
The highest subsidy for hybrid cars will reach 50,000 yuan per unit and 60,000 yuan per unit for pure electric cars
(Beijing) -- The Beijing municipal government has set up to 60,000 yuan in subsidies per electric vehicle purchase in an aim to encourage the usage of new energy cars in the city.
The Sydney Morning Herald
Only a fool would play nice with a thorny North Korea
There is a certain predictability about international diplomacy in north-east Asia. Once again, the communist regime in North Korea has launched a unilateral military attack on the land and people of the democratically elected South Korean government. And, once again, the former Democratic United States president Jimmy Carter has effectively said that the way to handle the current crisis is to ask the dictators in Pyongyang what they want and then to give it to them.
Another falls foul of China's system
John Garnaut
It's hard to work your way through a legal labyrinth when you don't know the rules.
"But then again, can a company operating in China realistically take a position that it will not recognise the results of the Chinese legal process? That also seems untenable. Not just politically untenable, but also because the legal system does in fact produce many legitimate results alongside many illegitimate ones."
See Kaixin's - Corruption v 'li shang wang lai' 礼尚往来
Kaixin OpEd – Kaixin has long argued that Stern Hu took the bribes to facilitate business for his company. It beggars belief that the senior executives were not aware of this.
Perhaps his reward will come post-goal ….
The company would not the bad publicity it were to admit it was complicit. Stern Hu did take the bribes so had put himself in a vulnerable position.
China’s legal system does have some way to go. BUT! As the article points out, everyone knows this.
If you play with an unpredictable dragon, you must expect to get burnt at times.
Asia Times Online
Teetering Asian dominoes test Obama
By Victor Kotsev
The ripples from the crisis between North and South Korea add to a tide of reverses that threatens to undermine Barack Obama's patient foreign policy. Signs that Israel could use the distant conflict to pressure acquiescence for a strike on Iran stand in line with events in Iraq, Afghanistan and Yemen to suggest the specter of "falling dominoes" haunting the American president.
SINOGRAPH
Neighborly love running out
By Francesco Sisci
Despite all of the efforts China has made to cover up for North Korea, Pyongyang's shelling of a South Korean island shows that it does not trust Beijing. If the North is uncontrollable and there is no status quo to be preserved, then using the arithmetic of costs and benefits, it may be worth eliminating a troublesome neighbor.
Fall guys in Beijing need better PR
By Sunny Lee
In the court of international opinion, whenever North Korea creates a problem, China - as Pyongyang's major backer and economic benefactor - is held responsible. To some scholars, that is a too simplistic reading of the provocations that have brought the Korean Peninsula to the brink of war. Still, Beijing could use better public relations.
WSJ - Remembrance as Reminder? Mao’s Son in N. Korea
With the U.S. calling on Beijing to rein in North Korea after the artillery strike on a South Korean island, Pyongyang is playing up perhaps the most potent symbol of its historic link with the People’s Republic of China: the gravesite of Mao Zedong’s first son.
NYT - For China’s Women, More Opportunities, More Pitfalls
BEIJING — The question that dashed Angel Feng’s job prospects always came last. 
Fluent in Chinese, English, French and Japanese, the 26-year-old graduate of a business school in France interviewed between January and April with half a dozen companies in Beijing, hoping for her first job in the private sector, where salaries are highest.
“The boss would ask several questions about my qualifications, then he’d say: ‘I see you just got married. When will you have a baby?’ It was always the last question. I’d say not for five years, at least, but they didn’t believe me,” Ms. Feng said.
“The main issue we face is confusion, about who we are and what we should be,” said Qin Liwen, a magazine columnist. “Should I be a ‘strong woman’ and make money and have a career, maybe grow rich, but risk not finding a husband or having a child? Or should I marry and be a stay-at-home housewife, support my husband and educate my child? Or, should I be a ‘fox’ — the kind of woman who marries a rich man, drives around in a BMW but has to put up with his concubines?”
Guo Jianmei, director of the Beijing Zhongze Women’s Legal Counseling and Service Center, insists that, over all, women today are in a better position than they were three decades ago.
“They know so much more about their rights,” she said. “They are better educated. For those with a competitive spirit, there’s a world of opportunity here now, whether they are businesswomen, scientists, farmers or even political leaders. There really have been huge changes.”
Women in China
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