29th of August 2011
The Lion Awakes
Daily News, Culture & Current Affairs about China
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People's Daily
New policies help yuan's internationalization
BEIJING, Aug. 29 (Xinhuanet) -- China will extend to the entire country a program allowing the use of the yuan to settle cross-border trade, the People's Bank of China (PBOC) said on Aug. 23.
The extension is a crucial step in boosting cross-border use of yuan, and will better meet enterprises’ needs and further facilitate trade and investment, the central bank said on its website.
The Ministry of Commerce also released draft guidelines on how foreign investors can use yuan acquired overseas for direct investment in the country.
Ancestral villages all gone with the flow
NANYANG, Henan - Zhang Jianzhong had a sleepless night on Tuesday, a day before he was due to leave the home where he has lived all his life.
He is one of the 2,221 residents being relocated in the Danjiangkou Reservoir area, in Xichuan county of Nanyang city, Henan province, a key part of the nation's ambitious water diversion project.
"How I wish I can stay. I have lived here all my life," said Zhang.
More cities impose housing purchase limits
BEIJING - In a bid to cool down real estate speculation, officials are building a database, to be shared among 40 cities, where information about property ownership will be readily accessible.
"The shared database will involve two procedures," an official from the Ministry of Housing and Urban-Rural Development told the Beijing Times on Sunday.
Chinese FM rebuts Pentagon report on China's military
BEIJING, Aug. 26 (Xinhua) -- The Foreign Ministry on Friday voiced its firm opposition to the Pentagon's annual report on China's military development.
"It is an irresponsible act which does no good to enhance China-U.S. strategic trust," said Foreign Ministry spokesman Ma Zhaoxu in a press release.
China Daily
Opening ceremony starts for Shenzhen Universiade - SLIDESHOW
Rural students can feel a class apart
Many students from comparatively poor families find it harder for them to qualify for top universities.
More cities get housing purchase limits
BEIJING - In a bid to cool down real estate speculation, officials are building a database, to be shared among 40 cities, where information about property ownership will be readily accessible.
"The shared database will involve two procedures," an official from the Ministry of Housing and Urban-Rural Development told the Beijing Times on Sunday.
"First, records about properties and their ownership would be sorted out and put into the database. Then information about earlier sales of properties will go online."
The database will reveal when people buy several properties in some of these 40 cities. Analysis of these records will show the money flow from one city to another, thus helping the authorities to supervise more closely the housing market in different areas and reduce speculation.
"This information-sharing system, which is a dream we have pursued for a long time, will play a positive role in controlling property bubbles. But it will take time to complete the system," Gu Yunchang, vice-president of China Real Estate Association, told China Daily.
China's rural land law implementation to be checked
BEIJING - China's top legislature will send a team to find out how a law on rural land contract has been implemented in order to prevent farmers' land rights from being infringed.
The team, organized by the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress (NPC), will go in six separate groups to the provinces of Hebei, Jilin, Anhui, Shandong, Hunan and Gansu from August to October, according to a meeting of the NPC Standing Committee Saturday in Beijing.
The top legislature also ordered local legislatures of other provinces and regions to check the enforcement of laws concerning rural land contract and the mediation and arbitration of rural land contract disputes.
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XinHua News
Senior Chinese official calls for more scientific innovations
BEIJING, Aug. 28 (Xinhua) -- A senior Chinese official on Sunday encouraged the country's scientists to enhance cooperation with their foreign counterparts to make more scientific innovations.
China supports establishment of Palestinian state with East Jerusalem as capital: special envoy
CAIRO, Aug. 28 (Xinhua) -- China supports the establishment of an independent Palestinian state with East Jerusalem as its capital and with full sovereignty, Chinese special envoy to the Middle East Wu Sike said here Sunday.
The establishment of an independent Palestinian state with East Jerusalem as its capital and with full sovereignty is not only the expectations of the Palestinian people, but also is conducive to regional and world peace and stability, the special envoy told reporters after talks with Arab League (AL) Secretary General Nabil el-Arabi at the AL's headquarters Sunday.
China plans to attract more overseas Chinese scholars in next 5 years
BEIJING, Aug. 27 (Xinhua) -- The Chinese government has set the goal to attract at least 500,000 overseas Chinese scholars from 2011 to 2015 as the country is in large demand of high level talents to boost its development.
Scientists, team leaders and other talents in innovative science and technology who can "achieve technological breakthroughs and boost the country's hi-tech and emerging industries" are the country's main targets, according to the 2011-2015 blueprint on returned overseas Chinese talents released by the Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security.
The country also aims to attract talents in fields including equipment and manufacturing, information, bio-technology, new material, aviation, environmental protection, energy resources and modern agricultures.
"China will further improve policies regarding returned overseas Chinese in the next five years in accordance with the country's economic and social development... and create a favorable environment for them to exert their talents," said the document.
In addition, the country plans to have 200 business start-up incubators by 2015, which are expected to house 15,000 enterprises run or participated in by returned Chinese who have studied abroad.
Figures show that the current 150 incubators are providing business start-up services for more than 8,000 enterprises and over 20,000 returning students.
Global Times
Government credibility crisis
Following a series of problems such as Wenzhou train crash, Red Cross scandal, house price hike and food security scandal, Chinese government are facing "serious public mistrust."
US won't default: Biden
US Vice President Joe Biden wrapped up his visit to China today after seeking to reassure Beijing about Washington's ability to manage its debt crisis, but media and analysts remained unimpressed and demanded concrete action from the White House.
"The US has never defaulted, and never will," Biden said during an hour-long speech on Sunday at Sichuan University in Chengdu.
China is the largest foreign holder of US Treasury bonds, although the majority remains in the hands of the US public, the vice-president commented, "We cannot afford not to make good on (our debt)."
"I believe the US is even better equipped to compete in the economy of the future than it was in the past," he said, adding that the country remains the best bet among global investment destinations.
A recurring theme of Biden's visit was rebuilding confidence among the Chinese leadership in the US economy. When meeting with Premier Wen Jiabao on Friday, Biden told Wen that "you have nothing to worry about" concerning China's investment in US Treasury bonds.
Biden's noodle diplomacy hailed
US Vice President Joe Biden impressed the Chinese public Thursday by dining in a small restaurant in Beijing, while he and Chinese leaders vowed to deepen the two countries' economic partnership and expand high-level exchanges.
Biden started his second day in Beijing by meeting with his Chinese counterpart, Xi Jinping, at the Great Hall of the People.
"In the face of a complicated and fast-changing world, cooperation is the only correct choice of the two countries," Xi said. "China and the US are transforming their economic development modes and restructuring their economies, which has provided the two nations with good opportunities for cooperation."
"There is no more important relationship that we need to establish on the part of the US than the close relationship with China," Biden replied, adding that cooperation between the two sides has a significant impact on world economic stability.
Xi stressed the importance of maintaining high-level exchanges and pursuing common interests, while reiterating that Taiwan and Tibet-related issues are China's core interests and should be handled prudently and properly.
CCTV - 9
News for Today
China Business Culture Science & Technology Travel
Full CCTV9 Television Coverge in English
Full Video: Opening ceremony of 2011 Shenzhen Universiade
SHIJIAZHUANG, Aug. 28 (Xinhua) -- Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao urged more efforts by local governments to ensure agricultural production during an inspection tour of the northern Hebei Province from Friday to Sunday.
For sixty years, the protection and preservation of Tibetan regional heritage has been at the top of the Chinese government's agenda.
For this twelfth Five-Year plan, the government has launched a 270-million US dollar project aimed at the preservation of more than 60 cultural heritage sites.
More than 4000 cultural heritage sites exist in the Tibetan Autonomous Region of China. To match that colossal number, China has already injected 220-million USD in the past 30 years to preserve the cultural relics as well as the history of the region.
CCTV's "Heart-to-Heart" Art Troupe performed at Potala Palace in Lhasa in the Tibet Autonomous Region on Wednesday. Now, let's join the more than 10,000 people who attended the show.
This performance by the "Heart-to-Heart" Art Troupe was to celebrate the 60th anniversary of the peaceful liberation of the Tibet Autonomous Region, showing the great changes and development that has occurred there.
The number of participating performers and audience members was the most ever since the art troupe began performing there. And many of the performers are local.
See Kaixin's - China & Tibet
The Wall Street Journal
Op-Ed Columnist
All Together Now
By THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN
With the world experiencing so much change at once, will America get its act together?
Problems Building for Chinese Banks
China’s five biggest banks looks like they had a healthy start to 2011, but bad debts, unseen risks and other weak banks lurk below the surface.
China's Food Chain Lures Private Equity
Foreign Firms, Including Carlyle, Blackstone and 3i, More Than Tripled Investments in Food, Agriculture in 2010
BEIJING—In early 2009, when Carlyle Group LP's China team proposed that the private-equity firm invest in a Chinese infant-formula producer, the initial response was disbelief.
The idea seemed crazy to members of Carlyle's Washington investment committee, according to one account of the meeting. Memories were still fresh of the food-poisoning scandal in China in which tainted milk killed at least six infants and sickened 300,000 others.
The Carlyle team eventually convinced the committee to buy a 17.3% stake for an undisclosed sum in Guangdong Yashili Group Co. Ltd. Its winning pitch: growing demand from China's middle class for safe and ...
China Avoids Jackson, But Not Gathering Economic Gloom
China is not normally well represented at the meeting and the expectation this year is that no one from China will appear on the roster of speakers.
But present or not, China won’t escape the implications of the gathering gloom. With prospects for growth in the U.S. and Europe increasingly shaky, investment banks have been rushing to downgrade their forecasts for growth in China.
See Kaixin's - Economic China
China, France to Launch Yuan SDR Task Force
BEIJING—China and France have agreed to form a task force to discuss the conditions for and the form in which the yuan could become part of the International Monetary Fund's special drawing rights, French Finance Minister Francois Baroin said Friday after meetings with Chinese officials.
The group will make a proposal ahead of a summit of leaders of the Group of 20 nations in the French city ...
See Kaixin's - Yuan Revaluation & Internationalisation
Enter the Dragon Rolls-Royce
Rolls-Royce is ringing in the Chinese new year early. The British brand behind the famous Phantom says it’s producing a line of limited-edition cars celebrating the upcoming year of the dragon.
Hollywood Takes On The Great Wall
Legendary Pictures, the company behind historical hit movies “300” and “Clash of the Titans” has announced plans for its first production in China, which will focus on the country’s most recognizable historical monument: “The Great Wall.”
The film will be a fictional story set at the time of the wall’s construction. It will be directed by Edward Zwick, whose credits include “The Last Samurai,” “Love and Other Drugs” and “Blood Diamond.”
Latest Threat to Chinese Culture: Lady Gaga
China’s Communist Party, it seems, isn’t into threesomes — or Lady Gaga.
China’s Ministry of Culture last week released a list of 100 banned songs (in Chinese), its third such list.
Lang Lang on Packing: Mom Does It
Road Warrior provides travel tips from those who know best: busy executives and other globetrotters.
Lang Lang is a world-renowned pianist who lives in New York and Beijing, but when asked where he calls home, he says “airplanes or hotels.”
See Kaixin's - Western Classic Music (Scroll down for Lang Lang)
Eight Questions: Living in China’s Shadow
In his new book, “Eclipse: Living in the Shadow of China’s Economic Dominance,” scheduled to be published in September, Peterson Institute for International Economics scholar Arvind Subramanian starts with a nightmare scenario: It’s 2021 and the U.S. president heads across town to the International Monetary Fund to sign a rescue loan package negotiated by the IMF’s Chinese managing director. “The handover of world dominance is complete,” Mr. Subramanian, a former IMF researcher, writes. China is now the world’s leading economic power.
China’s Middle Class: Mobilizing for Political Action?
The tsunami of public outrage unleashed by last month’s high-speed train crash easily creates the impression that popular discontent and anger at the government are on the rise in China, particularly among members of the country’s rising middle class. The large demonstration against a chemical plant in Dalian just over a week ago has served to reinforce this impression.
But is China’s middle class really gearing up to take political action?
Yiyi Lu, an expert on Chinese civil society, is an associate fellow at the U.K.-based Chatham House. She is the author of “Non-Governmental Organisations in China: The Rise of Dependent Autonomy” (Routledge 2008).
Sex Scholar: China Losing War on Porn
Beijing’s war against pornography is infamous for producing an inordinate amount of collateral damage. For the most part, the casualties of the government’s efforts to crack down on porn, which is illegal in China, are non-pornographic websites that get swept up in periodic campaigns against “harmful” online content.
What Does Gadhafi’s Fall Mean for China, rest of Asia?
Ben Simpfendorfer is Managing Director of Silk Road Associates, an economic consultancy. He is an Arabic and Chinese speaker and author of The New Silk Road.
Tripoli might seem a long way from Beijing or Seoul, but the region’s global trade linkages and rising middle-class mean that events in Libya will have a knock-on effect.
Should My Kid Learn Mandarin Chinese?
I started to truly appreciate the power of early childhood Chinese-language education when our son, at the age of two, started speaking English wrong. “The blue of cup,” he would say, meaning his blue cup.
See Kaixin's - Introduction to Chinese
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The Age
Yao Yang
Structural adjustment needed to cure China's $3 trillion headache
Downgrade of the US is a big worry.
WHILE the downgrade of United States government debt by Standard & Poor's shocked global financial markets, China has more reason to worry than most: the bulk of its $US3.2 trillion ($A3 trillion) in official foreign reserves - more than 60 per cent - is in dollars, including $US1.1 trillion in US Treasury bonds.
Yao Yang is director of the China Centre for Economic Research at Peking University.
The New York Times
China Announces New Top Official for Tibet
Chinese leaders have appointed an ethnic Han official with political experience in central and eastern China, Chen Quanguo, to govern the vast region of Tibet.
See Kaixin's - China & Tibet
China Faces Obstacles in Bid to Rebalance Its Economy
CHENGDU, China — Leaders are finding it difficult to steer China away from growth that relies largely on infrastructure, construction and export manufacturing.
Chasing Rare Earths, Foreign Companies Expand in China
China mines 94 percent of rare earth minerals. As it tightens supplies and raises taxes, some companies are finding it more cost-effective to move production there.
An Investor's Guide to Buying Influence in China
In China, where "guanxi" -- the art of relationships -- is used to make everything from childbirth to burial easier, a new how-to guide promotes an equal-opportunity approach to bribery.
‘Made in China,’ but Still Profiting Americans
A new study finds that a majority of the price consumers pay for goods labeled "Made in China" goes to American businesses, not Chinese ones.
Books
Highlighting Differences in Interpretations of the Opium War
HONG KONG — Julia Lovell’s book tour for “The Opium War” sailed along the historic path of the conflict itself.
The book was introduced last month in Hong Kong, a city whose modern history began when it was handed to Britain after China’s defeat in the first Opium War in 1842, marking the start of 155 years as a prosperous crown colony.
Caixin Online
Two-Way Yuan Traffic Picking Up in Hong Kong
Chinese authorities introduced new measures and put more heat on Hong Kong to push for globalizing the yuan
The central government has approved dozens of new financial measures designed to boost the yuan's acceptance as an international currency in Hong Kong, giving foreign investors fresh access to opportunities in China.
Ample Reasons for Another Yuan Growth Spurt
Inflation, political pressure and exports are some of the many factors behind a jump in the yuan's value in August
While turmoil over sovereign debt crises roiled markets in Europe and the United States, the value of China's yuan quietly appreciated the week of August 8 for reasons not entirely clear.
Analysts: Inflation in China Winding Down
The slowdown of the U.S. economy has to some extent subdued the rise of global oil prices, and thus alleviated China's inflationary pressures, said Mizuho Securities analyst Shen Jianguang
(Beijing) -- China's consumer inflation may have tapered off, with CPI growth slowing in the remaining months of this year from a three-year high of 6.5 percent in July, said analysts.
How to Fill Treasure Chests with Fool's Gold
By Andy Xie
China, Germany and rich corporations are foolishly hoarding cash needed to keep the global economy afloat
Globalization makes such money-stashing people and countries richer than others. Of course, all that money has to be recycled in order for the global economy to function. And if the saved money is recycled inefficiently, savers lose some of their ability to make more money.
China's Gilded Gold Market
China's total demand for gold has increased on average 14 percent every year since 2001, but much of it has been propelled by individual investors
At 350 tons per year, China is the world's largest producer of gold. And yet China's statistics show that the country has been a net gold importer since the 1990s. Gold imports and exports have been tightly controlled by the People's Bank of China, though new avenues for investment have emerged in recent years.
Ominous Cracks for a High-Speed Rail System
Defective rail car axles could have serious consequences for a national bullet train system already mired in crises
Not Too Late for Fujian's Tulou Buildings
The 400-year-old Chengqi clan home in Fujian Province's Yongding County is known as the "king of earthen Hakka buildings." Known locally as ‘tulou,’ it received World Cultural Heritage status from the United Nation’s World Heritage Centre in 2008.
Asia Times Online
This time might be different
By Benjamin A Shobert
It is tempting for the United States to view China's current economic ascendancy as similar to the threat posed by Japan's "Rising Sun" in the 1980s. While American entrepreneurs keen to empower a "Made in America" resurgence plumb the depths of consumer anxiety about what "Made in China" means, the differences are stark, and cannot be framed in the same terms of a very different age
SUN WUKONG
New generation leaders blow lid on state secret
By Wu Zhong, China Editor
In a departure from the practice of keeping power succession a tightly held "state secret", China has let the spotlight fall on Vice President Xi Jinping and Vice Premier Li Keqiang, raising the world profile of the men who, barring unforeseen developments, will be the country's next leaders.
China joins shale gas hunt
By Olivia Chung
China is seeking to start exploration for shale gas, a cleaner-than-oil fuel that could cut dependence on overseas energy supplies. On the downside, lots of water will be needed alongside some assurance that toxic chemicals also used in extraction won't mess with drinking supplies.
The winner economy and the loser economy
By Spengler
It is confusing to speak of the overall performance of the United States economy when some parts will languish for years if not decades and other parts function perfectly well. America has become a dual economy - like China or India - but the fact that larger American corporations have had a strong rebound should reassure us that America is capable of a broader recovery.
THE ROVING EYE
An extreme traveler, Pepe's nose for news has taken him to all parts of the Pepe Escobar globe. He was in Afghanistan and interviewed the military leader of the anti-Taliban Northern Alliance, Ahmad Shah Masoud, a couple of weeks before his assassination
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