August | 2012 | CHINDIA ALERT: You'll be living in their world, very soon

25/08/2012

* 37 criminal suspects in Angola sent back to China

China Daily: “A total of 37 suspects involved in violent crimes targeting Chinese in Angola of west Africa were sent back to China under police escort Saturday.

They arrived in Beijing by air on Saturday morning.

The suspects, all of Chinese nationality, were allegedly involved in kidnapping, robbery, blackmail, human trafficking and forcing women into prostitution, said the statement from the Ministry of Public Security.

Chinese police sent a special team to Angola and, with the cooperation of local police, they cracked 12 criminal organizations and 48 criminal cases, rescuing 14 Chinese victims, the statement said.

The victims also returned to China on the same flight.

It was the first time Chinese police launched a large-scale action against crimes targeting Chinese in Africa, setting a new example of cooperation with African police, said Liu Ancheng, head of the criminal division under the ministry, at the airport.

Early this year, the ministry received a request from Chinese Embassy to Angola to help curb violent crimes targeting nationals in the African state since last year.

During the visit of Angolan Minister of Interior Sebastiao Jose Antonio Martins to China in April, Chinese Minister of Public Security Meng Jianzhu reached an agreement with him on sending police to help solve the problem.

According to investigations, a number of Chinese nationals were involved in serious crimes and handed out extreme brutality such as beating, burning victims after pouring gasoline on them and burying victims alive, to extract ransoms. Some were found taking young women to Angola and forcing them into prostitution.

In August, more than 400 Angolan police officers and Chinese police teams launched a joint raid against the gangs and arrested the suspects.

Also, local police arrested 24 accomplices in Fujian and Anhui provinces.

Police are confident and capable of improving law enforcement cooperation with foreign counterparts and protecting the safety of its citizens abroad, Liu said.”

via 37 criminal suspects in Angola sent back to China[1]|chinadaily.com.cn.

Posted in China alert, Crime | Leave a Comment »

Tags: africa, Angola, Beijing, China, Chinese, Police

25/08/2012

* Authorities deny remarks relating to fatal bridge collapse

Xinhua: “Authorities in Harbin have denied that officals had previously said no contractors could be found to take possible responsiblity for a fatal bridge collapse.

A ramp on the multi-million-dollar bridge in Harbin, the provincial capital of Heilongjiang in northeast China, collapsed early Friday morning, causing four trucks to plunge 30 meters to the ground, killing three people and injuring five.

Following the collapse, there were claims on the internet that officials from the Harbin municipal commission of housing and urban-rural development said the bridge construction headquarters had dissolved and no contractors could be found.

On Saturday, Huang Yusheng, secretary general of the Harbin municipal government, denied there had been any such remarks.

Huang said the government had provided relevant materials from the designer, contractor and supervisor to the investigation team. After the investigation ends, names of the designer, contractor and supervisor will be made public, he told a press briefing.

On Friday, Huang suggested that overloading of some vehicles could be one of the possible causes for the accident. The remarks drew a fierce backlash from the public as many saw it as an attempt to shirk responsibility.

The collapse of the bridge, which cost 1.88 billion yuan (296 million U.S. dollars) and opened to traffic in November 2011, has also caused public outcry over the safety of public facilities and inadequate management and supervision by government agencies.”

via Authorities deny remarks relating to fatal bridge collapse – Xinhua | English.news.cn.

Posted in China alert, Construction, Economics, Infrastructure | Leave a Comment »

Tags: Bridge, China, Harbin, Heilongjiang, List of bridge failures, Northeast China

14/08/2012

* Surge in Tibetan self-immolations challenges Chinese rule-rights group

Reuters: “As many as five Tibetans set themselves ablaze in China in the past week to protest Chinese rule over Tibet, a U.S. broadcaster said, a surge highlighted by a rights group as a sustained campaign against Beijing’s grip on religious freedom.

Two self-immolations on Monday in the Aba prefecture, a mountainous and mainly ethnic Tibetan part of Sichuan province, were followed by at least one clash between police and ethnic Tibetans that left one protester dead, Radio Free Asia said.

Lungtok, a monk from the restive Kirti monastery in Aba, and Tashi, believed to be a layman, set themselves ablaze on Monday “to highlight their opposition to Chinese rule in Tibetan-populated areas”, Radio Free Asia reported, saying three other Tibetans have died in self-immolations in the past week in China.

Many Tibetans have called for Beijing to allow the return of the Dalai Lama, their self-exiled Buddhist leader. China has branded the self-immolators “terrorists” and criminals and has blamed the Dalai Lama, for inciting them.

Calls to the Aba prefecture office were not answered.

Phelim Kine, senior Asia researcher for New York-based Human Rights Watch, said the frequency of the Tibetan self-immolations is “a reflection of the ever-deepening frustration and despair” that many Tibetans feel about hopes for reform and protection for their culture, religion and language.

“We don’t see any inkling of such changes in the short to medium term, instead we see a hardening of position by the Chinese government,” he said. “This is an unfortunate trend that will continue till we head into the leadership transition.”

Chinese leaders typically clamp down on possible sources of unrest before a once in a decade congress, likely in October, to announce a new leadership team.”

via Surge in Tibetan self-immolations challenges Chinese rule-rights group | Reuters.

Tibet (and Xinjiang) continue to be sore point with China. Religious and ethnic self-determination doesn’t want to go away, despite the efforts by China to improve the social and economic conditions.

Tags: Beijing, China, Dalai Lama, Human rights, politics, Self-immolation, Sichuan, Tibet

14/08/2012

* Syria crisis: China hosts Assad aide Bouthaina Shaaban

BBC News: “A senior aide to Syria’s President Bashar al-Assad has flown to China for talks on the crisis, officials say.

The Chinese foreign ministry said Bouthaina Shaaban would meet Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi later.

The ministry said it was part of its effort to implement the UN’s six-point peace plan. China has twice vetoed UN resolutions against the Assad regime.

Meanwhile, UN humanitarian chief Valerie Amos has arrived in Syria to assess the flow of emergency aid.

She is expected to ask for more visas for foreign aid workers as the Syrian Arab Red Crescent struggles to distribute food.

The UN says an estimated two million Syrian civilians have now been affected by the crisis and more than one million have fled their homes.

Tens of thousands of people have fled across Syria’s borders into Turkey, Jordan, Lebanon and Iraq amid continuing violence across the country.

In another development, foreign ministers of the Islamic Co-operation Organisation (OIC) have called for Syria to be suspended from the 57-nation bloc at an emergency two-day summit in Mecca, Saudi Arabia, which starts on Tuesday.

Only ministers from Algeria and Iran, which is regarded as Syria’s closest ally, were against the recommendation, reports say.

“We certainly do not agree with the suspension of any OIC member,” Iranian Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Salehi said after a preliminary meeting in the city of Jeddah on Monday.

“We have to look for other ways, means and mechanisms for resolving conflicts and crises,” he said.”

via BBC News – Syria crisis: China hosts Assad aide Bouthaina Shaaban.

Despite the deteriorating situation in Syria, China resolutely sticks to its principle of non-military intervention and its position of not supporting any regime change.

Posted in China alert, GeoPolitics, non-military intervention, Politics, regime change | Leave a Comment »

Tags: Bashar al-Assad, China, middle-east, politics, Syria, Syrian Arab Red Crescent

12/08/2012

* Bo Xilai scandal: Gu ‘admits Neil Heywood murder’

BBC News: “Gu Kailai has admitted murdering British businessman Neil Heywood and blamed her actions on a mental breakdown, Chinese state media report.

The state news agency Xinhua said the wife of former top politician Bo Xilai had apologised for what she described as the “tragedy” of Mr Heywood’s death.

She said she would “accept and calmly face any sentence”, the agency added.

Ms Gu was accused of poisoning Mr Heywood with cyanide last November, at her one-day trial on Thursday.

Her aide, Zhang Xiaojun, also admitted his involvement in the murder and said he wanted to apologise to Mr Heywood’s relatives, Xinhua reported in a detailed account of Thursday’s proceedings in court.”

via BBC News – Bo Xilai scandal: Gu ‘admits Neil Heywood murder’.

Incidentally, many Chinese news items use the name Bogu Kailai. That is because of the convention that the wife adopts the husband’s surname and prefixes her surname with his. See: https://chindia-alert.org/2012/04/05/deciphering-chinese-names/

See also:

Gu Kailai charged with murder of British businessman in China (guardian.co.uk)

Posted in China alert, Crime, Justice, Law suit, Politics, Rule of law | 4 Comments »

Tags: Bo Xilai, China, chinese state media, Chongqing, Heywood, Murder, Neil Heywood, politics

12/08/2012

* Cleaning up after Pranab Mukherjee leaves finance ministry

Reuters:”Pranab Mukherjee’s reign as Indian finance minister was stained by economic meddling and political favouritism. Now he is gone, and some of his excesses are being reversed. An enemy has been pardoned and a friend has not received a plum job. This could be the beginning of a better era.

Imagine if Tim Geithner had been accused of putting pressure on the securities regulator to protect some political friends. The U.S. Treasury Secretary would be in serious hot water. But when the former number two at the Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) accused Mukherjee of something similar – putting pressure on the SEBI chairman to “manage” some high-profile corporate cases – there was little attention.

Rather, in a move that was all too typical of the Mukherjee regime, the finance ministry countered with allegations against the whistle-blower, K.M. Abraham. But the post-Mukherjee government is different. Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has cleared Abraham.

In another development, the board of UTI, Asia’s oldest asset management company, is set to appoint a new chief executive. The position has been vacant for the past year and a half as the finance minister put pressure on the company, 26 percent owned by U.S. fund manager T. Rowe Price, to appoint the brother of one of Mukherjee’s most powerful advisors. The former political favourite, Jitesh Khosla, hasn’t made the new shortlist.

India’s new finance minister, P. Chidambaram, is also shaking up his own team. On Sunday he announced that the top officials in the revenue and expenditure departments would swap jobs. That seems to be a signal of a shift in the tax department’s priorities. It might pave the way for a reversal of Mukherjee’s damaging retrospective tax grabs.”

via India Insight.

The Dark Side of upcoming President Pranab Mukherjee (kractivist.wordpress.com)

Posted in India alert, Nepotism, Politics | Leave a Comment »

Tags: finance minister, Government, India, manmohan singh, politics, Pranab Mukherjee, Securities and Exchange Board of India

12/08/2012

* VanceInfo, HiSoft to merge to create China outsourcing leader

Reuters: “VanceInfo Technologies Inc and smaller rival HiSoft Technology International Ltd agreed to merge to create what they said would be the largest China-based offshore IT services provider by revenue.

Hi-SOFT牛奶軟糖 (Photo credit: SimonQ錫濛譙)

Image via CrunchBase

Shares of VanceInfo, with a market value of $444 million as of close on Thursday, fell as much as 13 percent on the New York Stock Exchange, while those of hiSoft, with a market value of $373 million, fell 7 percent on the Nasdaq on Friday.

VanceInfo and HiSoft shareholders will each own about 50 percent of a company, valued at about $875 million under the terms of the tax-free, all-stock deal, the companies said.

“I think it is good news for Vance, it might not be good news for hiSoft,” Roth Capital Partners analyst Kun Tao said.”

via VanceInfo, HiSoft to merge to create China outsourcing leader | Reuters.

Posted in Economics, Outsourcing, Technology | Leave a Comment »

Tags: Business, China, economy, hiSoft, HiSoft Technology International, Roth Capital Partners, technology, VanceInfo, VanceInfo Technologies

12/08/2012

* Pakistani Hindu pilgrims allowed to cross into India after detention

BBC News: “Pakistan officials have allowed a group of Hindu pilgrims who were detained at the border to cross into India.

More than 200 Pakistani Hindus were held at the Wagah crossing near Lahore after local media reported that they intended to emigrate.

Although the group had valid pilgrimage visas, it was rumoured they planned to remain in India because of growing attacks against minorities in Pakistan.

They were allowed to pass after they assured officials they would return.

A spokesperson for the pilgrims, Santosh Puri, told the BBC the group had assured the authorities that “this is a pilgrimage” and no one intends to emigrate.

Pakistani rights activists say dozens of Pakistani Hindu families have moved to India to escape killings, abductions and forced conversions in recent years.

According to Indian officials, Pakistani Hindus have often entered India on visit visas, only to settle there permanently.”

via BBC News – Pakistani Hindu pilgrims allowed to cross into India after detention.

Posted in India alert, Neighbour conflict, Politics | Leave a Comment »

Tags: Hindu, Hinduism in Pakistan, Human rights, India, islam, Pakistan, Pakistani Hindu, politics, religion, travel, Wagah

12/08/2012

* Beijing Reasserts Its Claims in South China Sea

NY Times: “China does not want to control all of the South China Sea, says Wu Shicun, the president of a government-sponsored research institute here devoted to that strategic waterway, whose seabed is believed to be rich in oil and natural gas. It wants only 80 percent.

Mr. Wu is a silver-haired politician with a taste for European oil paintings and fine furniture. He is also an effective, aggressive advocate for Beijing’s longstanding claim over much of the South China Sea in an increasingly fractious dispute with several other countries in the region that is drawing the United States deeper into the conflict.

China recently established a larger army garrison and expanded the size of an ostensible legislature to govern a speck of land, known as Yongxing Island, more than 200 miles southeast of Hainan. The goal of that move, Mr. Wu said, is to allow Beijing to “exercise sovereignty over all land features inside the South China Sea,” including more than 40 islands “now occupied illegally” by Vietnam, the Philippines and Malaysia.

In the past several weeks, China has steadily increased its pressure, sending patrols with bigger ships and issuing persistent warnings in government-controlled newspapers for Washington to stop supporting its Asian friends against China.

The leadership in Beijing appears to have fastened on to the South China Sea as a way of showing its domestic audience that China is now a regional power, able to get its way in an area it has long considered rightfully its own. Some analysts view the stepped-up actions as a diversion from the coming once-a-decade leadership transition, letting the government show strength at a potentially vulnerable moment.

…

The Obama administration, alarmed at Beijing’s push, contends that the disputes should be settled by negotiation, and that as one of the most important trade corridors in the world, the South China Sea must enjoy freedom of navigation. The State Department, in an unusually strong statement issued this month intended to warn China that it should moderate its behavior, said that Washington believed the claims should be settled “without coercion, without intimidation, without threats and without the use of force.”

Washington was reacting to what it saw as a continuing campaign on the South China Sea after Beijing prevented the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, at its summit meeting in Cambodia in July, from releasing a communiqué outlining a common approach to the South China Sea.

The dispute keeps escalating. On July 31, the 85th anniversary of the founding of the People’s Liberation Army, the Chinese Defense Ministry heralded the occasion by announcing “a regular combat-readiness patrol system” for the waters in the sea under China’s jurisdiction.

The government then said it had launched its newest patrol vessel: a 5,400-ton ship. It was specifically designed to maintain “marine sovereignty,” said People’s Daily, the Communist Party’s leading newspaper.””

via Beijing Reasserts Its Claims in South China Sea – NYTimes.com.

Beijing tells US to ‘shut up’ over South China Sea tensions (telegraph.co.uk)
China’s external tensions

Posted in China alert, Neighbour conflict, Politics, Territorial dispute | 2 Comments »

Tags: ASEAN, Beijing, China, South China, South China Sea

10/08/2012

* China Deal to Acquire U.S. Battery Maker A123 is Just the Beginning

WSJ: “As the script now reads, Wanxiang — China’s largest auto parts maker — plays the role of a clever opportunist in the unfolding tragedy of American competitiveness.

Here is an excerpt from the most recent episode:

A leading American maker of batteries for electric vehicles, A123 Systems, secures hundreds of millions of dollars in grants from Washington D.C and the State of Michigan.

A123 Systems, recently offered a $450 lifeline by China’s Wanxiang Group, makes lithium-ion car batteries at this plant in Michigan.

A123 quickly earns awards for both its innovative culture and its technical advances. But before long, the company encounters business difficulties, faces imminent bankruptcy and scrambles for money.

Wanxiang arrives with fistfuls of cash, takes control of A123 and inherits some of the world’s most advanced battery technology. Wanxiang is further encouraged as policy makers in Beijing promise $10,000 rebates to Chinese electric car buyers. The future is bright.

It is fair to say that Wanxiang, a private company based in Zhejiang, has broken no rules. Wanxiang sees a straight-up business deal in which it pays market price for a cash-starved company that is on the verge of failure.

However, what many American taxpayers see is bad business, a sham. And they sense a deeply troubling pattern for the future: America develops technology – subsidized with generous tax dollars – only to see it purloined, borrowed or, in this case, purchased on the cheap by firms from competing nations.

How can America possibly sustain its culture of innovation when assets are so vulnerable to cherry picking by cash-rich Chinese companies? This issue — not last month’s unemployment rate — should be the central issue as the U.S. tries to decide who will be its president for the next four years.”

via China Deal to Acquire U.S. Battery Maker A123 is Just the Beginning – China Real Time Report – WSJ.

Posted in China alert, Economics, Foreign acquisition, Manufacturing | Leave a Comment »

Tags: A123 Systems, advanced battery technology, american competitiveness, cars, China, lithium ion car batteries, transportation, United States, wanxiang group

CHINDIA ALERT: You'll be living in their world, very soon

Chindia Alert: You’ll be Living in their World Very Soon

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Archive for August, 2012

* Surge in Tibetan self-immolations challenges Chinese rule-rights group

* Syria crisis: China hosts Assad aide Bouthaina Shaaban

* Cleaning up after Pranab Mukherjee leaves finance ministry

* VanceInfo, HiSoft to merge to create China outsourcing leader

* Pakistani Hindu pilgrims allowed to cross into India after detention

* Beijing Reasserts Its Claims in South China Sea

* China Deal to Acquire U.S. Battery Maker A123 is Just the Beginning

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