continuously updated blog about China & India
You will be living in their world, very soon
Beware the Waking Dragon
If this article is correct, then it is good news, indeed. Mr Wen may yet achieve what he didn’t quite do while Premier for a decade. It all depends upon whether then new top two leaders (probably Xi and Li) are pro-reform or not.
Reuters: “China’s leader-in-waiting Xi Jinping sought to reassure Southeast Asian leaders on Friday that his country wanted only peaceful relations with them, following months of growing tensions over the strategically located South China Sea.
Speaking at the opening of a trade fair in southern China for Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) members, Vice President Xi said China’s own prosperity could only be guaranteed by having good relations with its neighbors.
“The more progress China makes in development and the closer its links with the region and the world, the more important it is for the country to have a stable regional environment and a peaceful international environment,” Xi said.
“Having gone through numerous vicissitudes in modern times, we are deeply aware of the importance of development and how valuable peace is,” he added, according to state media.
Beijing’s assertion of sovereignty over a vast stretch of the South China Sea has set it directly against Vietnam and the Philippines, while Brunei, Taiwan and Malaysia also lay claim to other parts of the region, making it Asia’s biggest potential military troublespot.
At stake are potentially massive offshore oil reserves. The seas also lie on key shipping lanes.
Vietnam Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung is one of the ASEAN leaders attending the trade fair, held in the city of Nanning.
Xi said China – currently also involved in a dispute with Japan over a group of uninhabited islets in the East China Sea -wanted the peaceful resolution for its diplomatic arguments.”
via China’s Xi seeks to reassure Southeast Asia on sea dispute | Reuters.
See also: https://chindia-alert.org/political-factors/geopolitics-chinese/
BBCNews: “A safety official in China who sparked a public outcry after images showed him grinning at the scene of a fatal bus crash has been sacked, officials say.
Yang Dacai has been stripped of all his official duties for “serious wrongdoing”, Shaanxi province officials said in a statement.
Pictures of Mr Yang smiling while visiting the site where 36 people died on 26 August were posted online.
Outrage grew when netizens found images of him wearing luxury watches.
An investigation into Mr Yang’s “inappropriate behaviour of ‘grinning’ as well as wearing luxurious watches” found him guilty of “serious wrongdoing”, the Communist Party’s discipline commission in Shaanxi said.
Officials are still further investigating “trails of [Mr Yang’s] other wrongdoing”, according to the online statement.
Mr Yang, head of Shaanxi’s Provincial Bureau of Work Safety, fielded questions on his Twitter-like weibo microblog after netizens posted images of him wearing expensive watches on various occasions.
Responding to criticism that he grinned at the scene of the crash he said: “My heart was heavy when I reached the scene… Junior officials appeared nervous when they were updating me on the situation.
“I was trying to get them to relax a little, so maybe, in an unguarded moment, I got a little too relaxed myself.”
He also explained that he “used legal income” to buy a number of watches, saying that the most expensive one he owned was worth 35,000 yuan ($5,550, £3,420).”
via BBC News – Shaanxi bus crash: China sacks ‘smiling official’.
See also: https://chindia-alert.org/2012/08/31/beleaguered-official-faces-netizens-online/
Reuters: “One of China’s most celebrated experiments in grass-roots democracy showed signs of faltering on Friday, as frustrations with elected officials in the southern fishing village of Wukan triggered a small and angry protest.
On the first anniversary of an uprising that gave birth to the experiment, more than 100 villagers rallied outside Wukan’s Communist Party offices to express anger at what they saw as slow progress by the village’s democratically elected governing committee to resolve local land disputes.
“We still haven’t got our land back,” shouted Liu Hancai, a retired 62-year-old party member, one of many villagers fighting to win back land that was seized by Wukan’s previous administration and illegally sold for development.
The small crowd, many on motorbikes, was kept under tight surveillance by plain-clothed officials fearful of any broader unrest breaking out. Police cars were patrolling the streets.
“There would be more people here, but many people are afraid of trouble and won’t come out,” Liu told Reuters.
A year ago, Wukan became a beacon of rights activism after the land seizures sparked unrest and led to the sacking of local party officials. That in turn led to village-wide elections for a more representative committee to help resolve the rows.
Friday’s demonstration was far less heated than the protests that earned Wukan headlines around the world last year. But the small rally reveals how early optimism has soured for some.
Nevertheless, Wukan’s elderly village chief and former protest leader, Lin Zuluan, who was voted into office on a landslide, stressed these grievances were natural teething problems with any fledgling democracy.
He stressed his administration had made concrete strides including wresting back 253 hectares and implementing clean, legal and open administrative practices including full disclosure of village finances and open tenders for projects.
“At this starting point for Wukan there will definitely exist some problems but it doesn’t mean there hasn’t been democracy or that we have made major mistakes,” he said.
In March, expectations were high in this village, built near a sheltered harbor fringed by mountains, after Lin and his fellow elected leaders pledged to swiftly resolve the land issue.
Lin said complex land contracts and bureaucratic red-tape were hindering their work, with nearly 700 disputed hectares still unaccounted for.
Some critics say the village committee, which includes several young leaders of last year’s protests, lacked administrative experience, failed to engage the public and allowed itself to be out-maneuvered by higher party authorities.”
via Chinese democracy experiment marked by protest a year on | Reuters.
See also: https://chindia-alert.org/2012/03/05/wukan-village-elects-own-committee-hint-of-jasmin-spring/
I sincerely hope this is mere ‘sabre rattling‘ as nobody knows what the unintended consequnces of such a move would trigger. Total global economic meltdown? A new Sino-Japanese war which then draws in the US, Russia, Japan, North and South Korea, Taiwan, … and on to WW3? Who knows!
China Daily: “China consumed 615.5 billion kilowatt-hours (kwh) of electricity generated by clean energy sources in the first eight months of the year, according to statistics from the State Electricity Regulatory Commission.
The figure accounted for 19.3 percent of the country’s total on-grid power during the period, an increase of 1.1 percentage points from the same period last year, the commission said.
In breakdown, electricity produced from hydropower, wind power and nuclear power expanded 20.6 percent, 32.4 percent and 10.5 percent, respectively, to 489 billion kwh, 63.5 billion kwh and 63.3 billion kwh during the January-August period.
As of the end of August, China’s hydropower generation capacity rose 6.7 percent year on year to 203.83 million kilowatts, while wind and nuclear power generation capacity added 37.2 percent and 5.6 percent, respectively, to 54.37 million kilowatts and 12.57 million kilowatts.
To meet the target of cutting energy use per unit of GDP by 16 percent by 2015 from the level in 2011, China has taken a slew of measures, including increasing investments in clean energy, to boost the share of non-fossil fuels in its power structure.”
via China consumes more clean-energy-generated power |Sci-Tech |chinadaily.com.cn.
WSJ: “Contract manufacturer Foxconn Technology Group, which counts Apple Inc. and Sony Corp. as major customers, will build a fifth factory in Brazil, whose tax breaks and proximity to fast-growing markets are making it an attractive alternative to China.
Foxconn, the parent of Hon Hai Precision Industry Co., first invested in Brazil, the largest country in Latin America, only last year. While founder Terry Gou had said earlier that China would remain the company’s major production base for the foreseeable future—80% of its workforce is there—analysts said rising labor costs and taxes have led companies like Foxconn to reassess growth opportunities there.
Taipei-based Foxconn said in a statement Wednesday it has earmarked one billion Brazilian reals (US$492 million) for the new facility in São Paulo, which will produce smartphones, tablets and other electronic devices. The plant will start operations in 2014 and reach full capacity in 2016, employing 10,000 workers, the company added.
It didn’t specify which customers the new factory will produce for.”
via Foxconn to Build Fifth Brazil Plant – WSJ.com.
Another sign that China’s gradual cost increases are enabling other developing countries to become more attractive for manufacturers.
See also: https://chindia-alert.org/2012/09/20/china-worries-spur-mexico-stock-market-flows/
Reuters: “Mexico has been on the wrong side of China’s economic boom for the last decade, but is now seeing an upturn in its fortunes as the Asian powerhouse’s economy slows and international stock pickers look to hedge their bets.
Fund managers are shifting the composition of their portfolios to protect themselves against further slowing in China. That is bad news for exporter Brazil, but good news for Mexico, which has low trade exposure to Asia and which is starting to claw back the export share and wage competitiveness it lost to China.
After China joined the World Trade Organization in 2001, Brazil boomed due to a seemingly endless Chinese appetite for soybeans and iron ore, while Mexico’s manufacturers struggled to compete with cheap goods in their main U.S. market.
Brazil has grown almost twice as fast as Mexico in the last decade and overtook its northern rival as Latin America’s biggest economy in 2005, becoming a darling of investors.
But a recent soft patch in Brazil and a slowdown in China’s breakneck growth are prompting some investors to take another look at Mexico’s strong ties to the United States and the chances its new president will undertake major reforms that could push up growth.”
via Analysis: China worries spur Mexico stock market flows | Reuters.
Nothing ever stands still. At one time Japan was the destination of all new and high tech; then came South Korea’s turn; soon followed by China. But the laws of physics say that everything seeks equilibrium and the lowest common denominator (water seeks its own level). So as China’s minimum wages rise (by law – at 10 to 15% pa), other countries that appeared to be expensive are slowly becoming competitive. China, of course, will not stand still either; but will move up the value chain, as it has been doing steadily over the last 5 to 10 years.
BBC News: “Opposition parties and trade unions in India are staging a day-long strike over plans to open the country’s retail sector to global supermarket chains.
Workers blocked railways in Uttar Pradesh and Bihar states, and Calcutta and Bangalore virtually shut down, but the response was more mixed elsewhere.
The reforms are essential to revive India’s slowing economy, ministers say.
A key ally left the ruling coalition in protest, although its majority in parliament is not at immediate risk.
The Congress-led government attempted to introduce the retail reforms last year, but backed down in the face of opposition.
Thursday’s nationwide strike, called by the main opposition Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), its allies and Communist parties, has shut down schools, businesses and public transport in many cities.
TV channels showed protests taking place in the cities of Patna, Allahabad and Varanasi in northern India.
Most businesses were shut in the eastern city of Calcutta and public transport was disrupted, reports said.
The southern state of Karnataka, which is governed by the BJP, was shut down in response to the strike call with buses off the roads and schools, hotels and businesses closed. The state capital, Bangalore – home to hundreds of IT companies including multinationals like IBM and Microsoft – was completely shut down.
“We have asked our employees to stay back at home. We will instead work on Saturday,” an official of Infosys, one of India’s leading software companies, said.
“The fear factor is the reason for the closure,” a spokesperson for another multinational company told the BBC.
The Confederation of All India Traders said 50 million people were expected to participate in the protests, and that large demonstrations were planned in Delhi and other cities.
However, much of the capital was operating normally on Thursday, BBC reporters said. There was a similar picture in the financial capital, Mumbai.”
via BBC News – India strike over supermarket reforms.
See also:
China knows it is a major emitter of green gases and polluter. But it is also at the forefront of trying to minimize the effects without slowing down economic development. One example is Dezhou, a city not very far from Beijing.
Here is one image –
But if you want to get a proper impression go to – http://inhabitat.com/china-building-the-biggest-solar-energy-production-base-in-the-whole-world/dezhou-solar-valley-1/
Also read – http://www.renewableenergyworld.com/rea/news/article/2012/06/solar-thermal-scales-new-heights-in-china – extracts below:
“Ask any six-year-old in a Chinese street, ‘What’s a solar water heater and what’s it for?’ Without hesitation they will tell you: ‘A solar water heater is on the roof of a building to make hot water for the shower’. This story is told by Hongzhi Cheng, vice secretary-general of the Beijing-based Chinese Solar Thermal Industry Federation (CSTIF) and head of The Sun’s Vision, a company based in the city of Dezhou in Shandong province.
Dezhou, one hour by car south of Beijing, has become one of China’s solar towns due to the presence of Himin Solar, one of the country’s largest solar water heater manufacturers. For a German visitor with an interest in solar thermal technology, driving in the city provides an exciting tour past scores of roof and facade installations.
From Retrofits to Central Systems
Dezhou is also a great city to see how the solar thermal industry is developing from retrofitted systems for individual households towards large-scale rooftop solar fields serving entire buildings.
…
Building-integrated Systems Take Off
The third generation of solar thermal technology in China consists of building-integrated systems. Himin Solar is blazing a trail with several demonstration projects in Dezhou’s ‘Solar Valley’.
…
Pressurised Balcony Systems
Each flat at these new developments also includes a vacuum tube collector installed in the facade and a 300-litre tank on the balcony to supply hot water. These solar systems represent a totally new generation of residential solar water usage in China. They are pressurised, indirect systems with u-pipe collectors, and a closed-loop solar circuit filled with glycol. If the facade collector fails to reach 60°C, the electric element in the tank compensates. Solar domestic hot water is therefore separate from the buildings’ central heating and cooling system.
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Sales Double for Balcony Systems
Balcony systems are popular for multi-family buildings that lack roof space for a solar unit for each apartment. ‘We produced 60,000 tanks for balcony systems last year and we expect a doubling this year,’ says Jie Xu, Linuo Paradigma’s production manager.
…
China’s tall buildings seem to have no upper limit for solar thermal installations. The industry aims high and still has huge growth potential, says Hongzhi Cheng. ‘Only 30% of the market demand is fulfilled yet in the rural area. We expect the rural segment to grow [from around RMB100 billion ($15 billion) today] to RMB600 million.’ But he predicts even stronger growth of thousands of billions of renminbi for the large-scale solar thermal sector. European visitors will then be astonished by even more solar thermal installations on Chinese skylines.”
See also: https://chindia-alert.org/economic-factors/greening-of-china/
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continuously updated blog about China & India
continuously updated blog about China & India
continuously updated blog about China & India
CHINDIA ALERT: You'll be living in their world, very soon 