28th of September 2010

The Lion Awakes 

Daily News, Culture & Current Affairs about China

Graeme has been using ChinesePod since 2007

"I highly recommend ChinesePod, I haven't found any Online teaching programmes that come close."

China Daily

Confucius' anniversary celebrated in Taipei

 

A grand celebration is held for 2,561 anniversary of the birth of Confucius in Taipei on Sunday. This anniversary attracted more than 130 students, parents and citizens accompanied by performances in Hanfu or traditional Chinese costumes

Key pacts to be signed as Medvedev starts visit

Russian leader hails friendship 'sealed by blood'

BEIJING - Trade ties and greater energy cooperation will be a priority during Russian President Dmitry Medvedev's visit to China, which started on Sunday, with more than 10 key agreements set to be signed.

Medvedev arrived in Northeast China's port city of Dalian, starting his second official visit since assuming the presidency in May 2008.

In recognition of the close ties between the two countries, Medvedev visited a memorial in Dalian commemorating Soviet soldiers who died fighting Japanese invaders in China.

"Friendship with China is Russia's strategic choice, it's a choice that was sealed by blood years ago," Medvedev told Russian and Chinese war veterans, who participated in China's War of Resistance against Japanese Aggression (1937-1945).

Kaixin OpEd - cf this with the current spat with Japan (see below) where America is wading in boots and all.

Bountiful land faces barren future

Erosion of nutrient-rich black soil threatens China's grain production. Li Jing reports from Heilongjiang.

Official monitoring data shows rainfall is washing away up to 10 millimeters of black soil every year in some areas, while in others, layers are already down to about 40 centimeters, half the depth recorded at the start of agricultural reclamation in the 1950s. If such erosion continues, black soil could vanish within the next 50 years.

The worrying trend has alarmed experts nationwide, not least because black soil farms - mostly in the northeast provinces of Heilongjiang, Jilin and Liaoning - produce about one-sixth of China's grain, even though the long, harsh winters prevent farmers from harvesting more than once a year.

Covering an area of 1.03 million square kilometers, the black soil belt is the third largest in the world after Russia and North America.

Rules on private capital in health by Oct-end: NDRC

Guidelines on investment in rail construction sector also next month

BEIJING - China will encourage private investment in the healthcare sector, and related rules are likely to be released by the end of October, according to a statement by the National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC) on Sunday.

Hoarding of land tackled in new rules on property

Measures aim to increase housing supply and counter rising prices

BEIJING - Regulations to combat land hoarding by developers and boost the construction of government-subsidized housing were unveiled on Monday in the latest government efforts to curb property prices.

The regulations were announced amid climbing real estate transactions and public concern over high prices.

China looks to attract more foreign students

Beijing - Self-funding foreign students are set to become the largest overseas group in China, as the country plans to attract 500,000 of them in 2020, a senior official of the Ministry of Education (MOE) said on Monday.

The ministry is due to unveil a comprehensive document on Tuesday to encourage more overseas students to study in China.

Kaixin OpEd – Kaixin has been saying for some time that the flow of students from China to overseas universities will reverse and there will be flow overseas students to Chinese universities.

That can only be for the good, and promote a better understanding of China.

Top miner responsible for dam breach in S China

GUANGZHOU - China's top miner is responsible for the dam overflow that left 28 people dead or missing early last week when a typhoon hit South China's Guangdong province, provincial authorities said on Monday.

Industrial profits slow for cutting emission

BEIJING - Growth of industrial profits in China slowed further in the first eight months, in an indication that the government's measures to cut emissions are taking effect.

Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao to attend ASEM meet

BEIJING - Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao will attend the 8th Asia-Europe Meeting (ASEM) in October, where top leaders from the two continents will meet to discuss topics including sensitive issues such as the arms embargo on China.

Hutong spirit alive and well

For visitors to Beijing looking to escape the high-rise havoc of the CBD, Wudaoying offers a quaint retreat. Todd Balazovic shows the way.

Once a strictly residential hutong area, Wudaoying was opened to businesses and pedestrians in 2006 and has since seen rampant growth. It is being hailed as the newer sibling of well-known Beijing shopping and bar street Nanluoguxiang, but Wudaoying is still new enough to exhibit the unique fusion of classic hutong life with the retro boutiques that are a throwback from the quickly changing lifestyle here.

 China Daily website is running a special coverage on people’s dreams in Beijing under its This is Beijing program, and this is the first part of five people's dreams. Our previous issue was about morning exercises

Path of the Rest - 2010 Summer Davos Special (1)

Integration of the Rest - 2010 Summer Davos Special (2)

Post-Crisis Reconstruction - 2010 Summer Davos Special (3)

Summer Davos 2010 to focus on sustainable growth

More than 1,000 leaders from government and industry around the world gathered in Tianjin Monday for start of the 2010 Summer Davos, or the the fourth Annual Meeting of the New Champions.

Convened by the World Economic Forum, the three day event with delegates from more than 80 countries and regions will gather to tackle the latest issues in world economic development under the banner of 'Driving Growth through Sustainability.'

Double dip unlikely, says IMF official - VIDEO

The global economy does not face the risk of a double dip although it has entered a slow growth trajectory, Zhu Min, special adviser to the managing director of the International Monetary Fund (IMF), told China Daily on Tuesday.

China's improvement fastest among BRIC - VIDEO

Robert Greenhill, managing director and chief business officer of World Economic Forum, spoke to China Daily in an interview right after the Global Competitiveness Report 2010-2011 was released Thursday.

Summer Davos 2010 in Tianjin

 

Global Times

Editorial - Cementing strategic trust with Russia

Chinese  President Hu Jintao and visiting Russian President Dmitry Medvedev yesterday attended a ceremony in Bejing marking the completion of China-Russia crude oil pipeline.

The project marks a new high in the Sino-Russian relationship, which has seen significant improvements in the past decades.

Both countries have benefited from each other after the two sides shrugged off their past hostility. Trade delegations flourish in the bordering areas where the military was once heavily deployed. Cultural exchanges are on the rise. Minor conflicts break out occasionally, but they have not led to serious overall confrontation.

The strategic cooperation between the two has overcome traditional power games and friction. Historical resentment, geopolitical competition and mistrust are not preventing bilateral relations from moving forward.

Admittedly, suspicions between the two sides have not been completely removed by this rapport. A worry still exists among some Chinese that Russian foreign policy sways between Asia and the West.

Govt moves again as house prices rebound

China said Monday that it will ban developers who have failed to develop land more than a year after acquiring it from bidding for more land in auctions, in the latest move to rein in the coun-try's soaring property prices.

However, the effects of the new round of efforts remain in doubt, as property prices rose in recent months despite a slew of government measures to curb them.

In a joint online statement Monday, the Ministry of Land and Resources and the Ministry of Housing and Urban-Rural Development said cities that failed to allocate 70 percent of land acquired in auctions to subsidized apartments and small and medium-sized homes will be banned from developing large and high-end housing.

The ministries will also increase the amount of land available for smaller and affordable housing in cities with high property prices, the statement said.

Meanwhile, the housing authorities and China's banking regulator last week launched an inspection into loans to multiple-home buyers.

Dialogue - A 30 Minute Current Affairs Programme on CCTV - 9 (In English) where current issues are discussed by experts from China and Internationally:

Premier Wen outlines China's Int'l profile

 

CCTV - 9

News for Today

China     Business     Culture     Science & Technology     Travel

International News Sources

The Wall Street Journal   China RealTime Report

Pipeline Heralds New Russia-China Cooperation

The leaders of China and Russia are due Monday to celebrate the completion of the first oil pipeline between the giant neighbors, heralding a new era of energy cooperation and another symbolic step in the eastward shift in the balance of global economic power.

Video: Russian President in China

Russian President Dmitry Medvedev arrived in Beijing today for talks  with Chinese leaders that are expected to focus heavily on energy, including a potential gas-supply deal and a $5 billion joint-venture oil refinery in China’s eastern city of Tianjin. Video courtesy of Reuters.

China’s Continuing Labor Problems

Stanley Lubman, a long-time specialist on Chinese law, teaches at the University of California, Berkeley, School of Law and is the author of “Bird in a Cage: Legal Reform in China After Mao,” (Stanford University Press, 1999).

The outbreak of strikes at foreign-invested enterprises in China during the summer raises significant questions about the future of China’s industrial work force, and highlights a number of tensions at play. The questions involve different sectors of Chinese society, including business; government, including the state-controlled labor union; the All-China Federation of Labor Unions (ACFTU), and the work force. The core question is how the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) will adjust to stronger demands from China’s workers....

Apple’s China Stores Open to Queues

Apple opened two new retail stores in China on Saturday, the same day it launched sales of the iPhone 4 in the country, as the U.S. company pushes further into China to boost product sales and promote its brand there.

An Overhead View of China’s Pollution

To get a sense of how China’s air quality compares with the rest of the world, there’s a new map of global air-particulate pollution from Canadian scientists using National Aeronautics and Space Administration satellite data.

It’s important to note that the data used for this map are derived from 2001 to 2006.

Kaixin OpEd – At first glance this is indeed an alarming map. BUT, I have learned to be highly sceptical of how American Newspapers report issues relating to China.

So, I delved a little deeper.

First, the picture/data was taken in 2006. There has been significant progress in China since then. It is far from complete, however the issue is clearly recognised in China and is being addressed. China has to balance environmental protection with economic growth.

Second, the good ol’ US of A is blue as blue. Not a hint of pollution. What a utopia!

Perhaps we should delve even deeper …..

Is this a fair comparison of data when comparing China with America? Did the person colouring the map accidentally spill a bottle of blue ink over America??

China did indeed sacrifice its environment for economic growth for the 30 years from 1979. However, that phase of China’s growth has well and truly come to an end.

The environment is front and centre. It can’t be fixed over-night, however fixed it will be over time.

One Chinese engineer we spoke to pointed to a polluted stream and said he used to fish there when he was a child. He said, with absolute certainty, that he will do so again, and if not, his children will.

We met an American Engineer in Li Jian. He pointed out that the ‘west’ had to invent to technology and techniques to address environmental degradation. That took many years from the time that it became an issue in the early 1960’s following Rachel Caron’s clarion call in ‘Silent Sprint’.

That technology is now in place and available for China to use. So, he pointed out, when China is ready it can act quickly, relative to the ‘west’.

China, Japan Take New Jabs at Each Other

Beijing Slows Customs Inspections; U.S. Expresses Concern as Neither Side Lets Captain's Release Be Last Word in Rift

Rancor has continued between the two Asian powers even though Japanese prosecutors on Friday decided to release the captain of a fishing vessel, whose detention after a collision with Japanese coast guard boats three weeks ago enraged the Chinese government

Investment Banking in China Becomes a Locals' Game

Investment banking, like so many sectors in China, seems to be going the way of the local players. There shouldn't be too much hand-wringing over this back in New York and London.

Investment-bank revenue reached $3.5 billion over the first nine months of the year, making China comfortably Asia's most lucrative market, according to Dealogic's latest league tables. The lion's share of this has gone to domestic firms, with seven of the top 10 fee-earners being Chinese names.

Not all are ...

China Auto Maker BYD Gets Visit From Buffett

SHENZHEN, China—Warren Buffett's backing gave Chinese battery and auto-making tycoon Wang Chuanfu a huge boost, and on paper represents at least a six-fold return on the investment.

Monday Mr. Wang's BYD Autos launched a series of events in three Chinese cities meant to showcase the company's electric vehicles and energy strategy, and perhaps to reassure the billionaire investor from Omaha.

The visit by Mr. Buffett, who BYD staff say will attend the events here at BYD's home base in the southern boomtown of Shenzhen, in Beijing and then in the central Chinese city of Changsha, comes at a difficult time ...

Beijing, Moscow Boost Ties On Energy

BEIJING—China and Russia signed a string of agreements to boost their new energy partnership, although finalization of a long-awaited gas-supply pact remained out of reach.

The agreements—signed here's Great Hall of the People in the presence of Russian President Dmitry Medvedev and his Chinese counterpart, Hu Jintao— illustrated the strength and breadth of the new energy partnership, covering Russian crude oil and gas supplies to China as well as cooperation in coal, electric power, energy saving, renewable energy and nuclear power.

"The large scale of the delegation I have brought this time shows the high level of cooperation between the ...

China Targets Land Hoarding, Pushes Public Housing

SHANGHAI—China said Monday companies that haven't started developing land more than a year after acquiring a site at auction are banned from making bids in other auctions, in its latest effort to stabilize the housing market.

Dive into Beijing's night life

From hutong to high-rise, we check out some of the Chinese capital's best nighttime hangouts.

Jeeves Arrives in China

The Paiza's suites are more luxurious than anything Sands has built even in Las Vegas. Guests, usually the megarich, are admitted by invitation only. The prerequisite: at least 5 million to 8 million Hong Kong dollars rolling (US$650,000 to $1 million) on the casino tables.

China’s Latest Investment Craze

Worried gold has topped out? Don’t trust the stock market? Can’t raise the money for real estate?

Some in China claim to have the tonic for your investment blues.

In a new special report (transcript in Chinese), China’s state broadcaster CCTV delves into the stunning rise of dahongpao, a once obscure tea from the southern coastal province of Fujian that has suddenly become one of the country’s hottest commodities. Literally.

The New York Times

Missionary to the Forbidden City

An exhibition in Macao celebrates the remarkable life of the Jesuit priest and Renaissance scholar Matteo Ricci, the first missionary welcomed into Beijing.

Singapore Looks to China for Food Security

Singapore is studying a gigantic farming project in northeast China that could help the small, densely populated city-state diversify its food supplies.

Japan Refuses to Apologize to China

The diplomatic standoff showed just how difficult it will be to overcome nationalistic sentiments stirred up by the trawler episode, which is affecting the deeply intertwined business ties between the two neighbors, the world’s second- and third-largest economies, after that of the United States.

Kaixin OpEd - 南京南京 Nanking Nanking

Op-Ed Contributor
Blaming China Won’t Help the Economy
By Anatole Kaletsky


It is a safe bet that Asian currency intervention was not on the minds of Republican primary voters in Delaware this month when they selected a Tea Party favorite, Christine O’Donnell, as their Senate candidate. But the pendulum swings in American politics are a key concern of Wen Jiabao and Naoto Kan, the prime ministers of China and Japan, respectively, who both met with President Obama in New York on Thursday, with the loss of American jobs to Asian competition high on the agenda.

Kaixin's Follow the Debate - 'Economic China' & 'Yuan Revaluation & Internationalisation'

The Age

Asia looks to nuclear
Ziggy Switkowski

IN MANY parts of the world's energy industry there is enthusiastic reference to a global nuclear renaissance - an atomic bridge between the old world of dirty fossil fuels and the new world of inexhaustible clean energy.

But this revival of interest in nuclear power is neither European nor even Western. Indeed at the 35th annual conference of the World Nuclear Association in London last week, many of the 700 delegates wondered how long it would be before this meeting relocated to Asia, so great is the level of activity in the East.

Kaixin OpEd - A Must read ...

China's hollow miracle
John Garnaut

IF THERE is something miraculous about China's world-transforming, poverty-destroying development it is that it continues to happen while grassroots-level governance is almost dysfunctional.

Kaixin OpEd - Garnaut is quite a good journalist when it comes to China. However, he still pushes the 'western' agenda on many issues and he is always looking for the sensational over the substantive.

It is Kaixin's opinion that China will not de-rail. There will be bumps and wobbles along the way, but China will not de-rail.

China sails on as US all at sea

While the US is preoccupied with the Middle-East, China is busy expanding its global influence through naval power.

The Sydney Morning Herald

Scare over rare-earth minerals underlines fear of a rising China

Peter Hartcher

For a panicked moment last week, it seemed China had decided to cut off exports to Japan of a little-known, yet vital, ingredient in everything from iPhones to cruise missiles and wind turbines.

The open question is how China will deploy its wealth. China has developed under the rubric of "peaceful rise". What happens when it is risen?

Kaixin OpEd - I (Aus male) talk about this with my wife, Xiaosui (Chinese Female with degrees + plenty of savvy).

China's rise & rise is assured, absent any wild swan events.

Yet, Mr Hatcher's Q is relevant. At the moment China's rise is peaceful and there is no reason to suppose that will change given China's history and Sun Tzu's advice. Particularly not to go off fighting in far away lands. I guess the US of A skipped that chapter.

However in a couple of decades China  will be even more rich and powerful and controlled by only male children who will be as horny as hell with not enough women .... what then?

Probably nothing, probably business as usual. Why throw out a perfectly good business model?

Still, I expect that is at the back of America's mind as it expends great effort in trying to contain China.

Developing nations leaving rich ones behind

Americans would like to blame the US government for not protecting jobs and letting US jobs go overseas. The truth of the matter is that these countries are competing well for US jobs because the nations such as India, China and Korea have made massive investments in basic infrastructure and education.

The lessons here are clear — compete or become poor; don't just complain about the people who are building a better world.

Kaixin has been saying tha for some time now. This article should be read.

Asia Times Online

US stirs South China Sea waters
By Clifford McCoy

The White House added its own spin to a list of concerns the United States shares with the Association of Southeast Asian Nations last week, making mention of the South China Sea in a list that a joint statement on cooperation omitted. That's a reflection of ASEAN leaders' reluctance to chill relationships with China - and US readiness to stir the pot.

    
China draws in hotel giants
By Bill Savadove

International hotel groups, from United States-based Starwood to Malaysia's Hong Leong, are opening top-end hotels in China at a dizzying pace. Neither the prospect of a room glut or doubts on economic growth are holding back expansion plans.