Chindia Alert: You’ll be Living in their World Very Soon
aims to alert you to the threats and opportunities that China and India present. China and India require serious attention; case of ‘hidden dragon and crouching tiger’.
Without this attention, governments, businesses and, indeed, individuals may find themselves at a great disadvantage sooner rather than later.
The POSTs (front webpages) are mainly 'cuttings' from reliable sources, updated continuously.
The PAGEs (see Tabs, above) attempt to make the information more meaningful by putting some structure to the information we have researched and assembled since 2006.
BEIJING, Sept. 11 (Xinhua) — Premier Li Keqiang on Wednesday expressed his expectation for the Japanese economic community to seize the opportunities of China’s opening up, increase investment in China and expand bilateral cooperation areas to promote more achievements in trade and the economy.
Li made the remarks in a meeting with a delegation from Japan’s business community, led by president of the Japan-China Association on Economy and Trade Shoji Muneoka, chair of the Japan Chamber of Commerce and Industry Akio Mimura, and Nobuyuki Koga, chairman of the Board of Councilors of the Japan Business Federation.
China-Japan relations have returned to the right track since last year thanks to the joint efforts of the two sides, and the trade and economic cooperation between the two countries has been steadily advanced and the prospects for bilateral cooperation are broad, said Li.
When China-Japan relations encountered difficulties, the Japanese economic community made important efforts and contributions to maintain their healthy and steady development as well as accelerate pragmatic cooperation between the two countries, the Chinese premier said.
According to Li, China and Japan are two of the world’s major economies, and should give full play to their complementary advantages and work together to deepen cooperation, which will not only benefit the two countries, but also conducive to regional and global economy, as well as the prosperity and stability of the world.
Noting that economic globalization is irreversible, and economic and trade exchanges should not be blocked by national borders, Li pointed out that promoting the healthy development of globalization is the way of progress.
“China has always firmly upheld the multilateral trading system with the World Trade Organization at its core and promotes the liberalization and facilitation of trade and investment,” Li said, stressing China will unswervingly promote all-round opening up, and strive to optimize the business environment.
China welcomes the Japanese economic community to seize the opportunity brought forth by China’s opening up and increase investments in China, expand cooperation areas, and promote more cooperation achievements in trade and economic areas between the two countries, he said.
While expressing congratulations on the 70th anniversary of the founding of the People’s Republic of China, the Japanese economic delegation said that Japan and China have witnessed progress in bilateral ties since last year, and close high-level exchanges have facilitated the two countries’ economic and trade cooperation.
The Japanese economic community firmly supports free trade and hopes China and the United States will resolutely resolve their trade disputes through negotiation, they said.
Speaking highly of China’s efforts in promoting trade and investment liberalization, expanding market access and improving the business environment, they said that the Japanese economic community is willing to boost cooperation with the Chinese side in science and technology innovation, climate change, health care and third-party markets.
They also expressed their expectation of concluding the negotiations for the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP), a proposed free trade agreement between the 10 ASEAN (the Association of Southeast Asian Nations) members and Australia, China, India, Japan, South Korea and New Zealand, by the end of the year.
HANOI (Reuters) – A Chinese survey vessel on Saturday extended its activities to an area closer to Vietnam’s coastline, ship tracking data showed, after the United States and Australia expressed concern about China’s actions in the disputed waterways.
The Haiyang Dizhi 8 vessel first entered Vietnam’s exclusive economic zone (EEZ) early last month where it began a weeks-long seismic survey, triggering a tense standoff between military and coastguard vessels from Vietnam and China.
The Chinese vessel continued to survey Vietnam’s EEZ on Saturday under escort from at least four ships and was around 102 kilometres (63 miles) southeast of Vietnam’s Phu Quy island and 185 kilometres (115 miles) from the beaches of the southern city of Phan Thiet, according to data from Marine Traffic, a website that tracks vessel movements.
The Chinese vessel group was followed by at least two Vietnamese naval vessels, according to the data.
Vietnam’s foreign ministry did not immediately respond to a request from Reuters for comment.
A country’s EEZ typically extends up to 200 nautical miles (370 kilometres or 230 miles) from its coastline, according to an international UN treaty. That country has sovereign rights to exploit any natural resources within that area, according to the agreement.
Vietnam and China have for years been embroiled in a dispute over the potentially energy-rich stretch of waters and a busy shipping lane in the South China Sea.
China’s unilaterally declared “nine-dash line” marks a vast, U-shaped, expanse of the South China Sea that it claims, including large swathes of Vietnam’s continental shelf where it has awarded oil concessions.
On Friday, Vietnamese Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc and his Australian counterpart expressed their concern about China’s activities in the South China Sea, known in Vietnam as the East Sea.
Earlier in the week, the United States said it was deeply concerned about China’s interference in oil and gas activities in waters claimed by Vietnam, and that the deployment of the vessels was “an escalation by Beijing in its efforts to intimidate other claimants out of developing resources in the South China Sea”
Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Geng Shuang, in response to the U.S. statement, said Washington was “sowing division and had ulterior motives”.
“The aim is to bring chaos to the situation in the South China Sea and damage regional peace and stability. China is resolutely opposed to this,” Geng told a daily news briefing on Friday.
Chinese State Councilor and Foreign Minister Wang Yi (R) meets with Malaysian Foreign Minister Saifuddin Abdullah in Bangkok, Thailand, Aug. 2, 2019. (Xinhua/Zhang Keren)
BANGKOK, Aug. 2 (Xinhua) — Chinese State Councilor and Foreign Minister Wang Yi met here Friday with foreign ministers from Malaysia, Mongolia, Timor-Leste, Canada and Australia.
Meeting with Malaysian Foreign Minister Saifuddin Abdullah, Wang hailed the sound momentum of China-Malaysia relations, saying that this year marks the 45th anniversary of the establishment of the diplomatic ties between the two countries.
China stands ready to work with Malaysia to implement the important consensus reached by the leaders of the two countries, consolidate strategic mutual trust and further promote mutually beneficial cooperation, he said.
Noting that the China-proposed Belt and Road Initiative upholds the principles of extensive consultation, joint contribution and shared benefits; adopts open, green and clean approaches and promotes high-standard, livelihood-improving and sustainable development, Wang said the initiative focuses on interconnectivity and is highly matched with the development strategies of Malaysia and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations.
The Chinese state councilor called on the two sides to step up the development of the joint industrial park in each other’s country and boost industrial and innovative cooperation, saying that China welcomes the relaunch of the East Coast Rail Link project.
China and Malaysia should enhance coordination and cooperation in multilateral affairs and resolutely supports multilateralism and free trade.
Saifuddin, for his part, said that Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad have made two visits to China in half a year since assuming office, which fully showed the importance the country attaches to the relations with China.
Malaysia-China relations enjoy a long history and transcends trade and business ties, he said, noting that Malaysia is willing to actively participate in the Belt and Road development.
When meeting with Mongolian Foreign Minister Damdin Tsogtbaatar, Wang said this year marks the 70th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic ties between the two countries, calling on the two sides to take this opportunity to further synergize the Belt and Road Initiative and Mongolia’s Steppe Road program in a bid to achieve substantive results at an early date.
Hailing the initiative a symbol of multilateralism, Tsogtbaatar said Mongolia is ready to spare no effort to support and participate in the initiative which is conducive to promoting sustainable growth in the region.
The two sides vowed to consolidate mutual political trust and strengthen pragmatic cooperation so as to bring the bilateral relations to a new high.
In his meeting with Timor-Leste’s Foreign Minister Dionisio da Costa Babo Soares, Wang said China and Timor-Leste are good partners. In recent years the two countries have actively carried out cooperation on jointly building the Belt and Road, with a number of projects built by Chinese companies benefitting the people’s livelihood in Timor-Leste and welcomed by the locals.
Wang said China is ready to draw up cooperation plans with the Timor-Leste side on Belt and Road cooperation at an early date and expand cooperation in such areas as petrochemical industry, trade as well as framing and fishing sectors.
China supports Timor-Leste in playing a bigger role in regional and international affairs, Wang said.
Soares said bilateral relations between Timor-Leste and China have maintained healthy and stable development.
He said Timor-Leste sees China as a trustworthy friend, and is grateful to the assistance China has provided for the country’s economic development. Timor-Leste is willing to actively participate in Belt and Road cooperation, enhance inter-connectivity, and work with the Chinese side toward greater development of the bilateral comprehensive cooperative partnership.
In his meeting with Canadian Foreign Minister Chrystia Freeland, Wang said it is regrettable that Canada arbitrarily detained a Chinese citizen in December last year, which aroused strong indignation of the Chinese people and brought serious difficulties to the China-canada relations.
The Chinese government firmly upholds the legitimate rights and interests of Chinese citizens and enterprises. “We hope that this issue will be properly resolved as soon as possible so as to bring the China-Canadian relations back to the right and healthy track at an early date,” he said.
For her part, Freeland said there was no historical grudge between both countries. It is indeed heartbreaking that China-Canada relations are what they are today.
Next year marks the 50th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic ties between the two countries. Canada values the relations with China and is willing to work with China for healthy and stable development of bilateral relations, she said.
While meeting with Australian Foreign Minister Marise Payne, Wang hoped that Australia will meet China halfway, uphold the principles of mutual respect and treating each other equally, properly handle differences, promote consensus and trust so as to push the China-Australia relations back to the right track.
Welcoming Australia to share the opportunities brought by China’s reform and opening up, the Chinese state councilor also hoped that Australia sticks to openness and inclusiveness to create a fair, transparent and indiscriminative business environment for Chinese enterprises.
Payne said the Australian side values and recognizes China’s growth and its development potential and speaks highly of China’s significant achievements in poverty reduction and development.
Although there are some differences in the bilateral ties, Australia is ready to join hands with China to promote dialogue and communication, seek more consensus, expand cooperation on trade and investment and push forward healthy development of bilateral ties on the basis of mutual respect, the Australian foreign minister said.
On the issue of 5G, Australia will make its decision independently and adopt no policies discriminating specific countries or enterprises, Payne said.
China suggests good progress made in Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership talks after marathon 10-day negotiations in Zhengzhou
Indian Commerce Minister Piyush Goyal has opted to skip the upcoming high-level meetings, adding fuel to rumours that the country could be removed
The Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean) has overtaken the US to become China’s second-largest trading partner in the first half of 2019. Photo: AP
China has claimed “positive progress” towards finalising the world’s largest free-trade agreement by the end of 2019 after hosting 10 days of talks, but insiders have suggested there was “never a chance” of concluding the deal in Zhengzhou.
The 27th round of the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) negotiations closed on Wednesday in the central Chinese city.
working level conference brought over 700 negotiators from all 16 member countries to Henan province, with China keen to push through a deal which has proven extremely difficult to close.
If finalised, the agreement, which involves the 10 Asean nations, as well as China, Japan, South Korea, Australia, New Zealand, and India, would cover around one-third of the global gross domestic product, about 40 per cent of world trade and almost half the world’s population.
“This round of talks has made positive progress in various fields,” said assistant minister of commerce Li Chenggang, adding that all parties had reaffirmed the goal of concluding the deal this year. “China will work together with the RCEP countries to proactively push forward the negotiation, strive to resolve the remaining issues as soon as possible, and to end the negotiations as soon as possible.”
China’s Foreign Minister Wang Yi (fifth left) poses with foreign ministers from the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean) countries during the ASEAN-China Ministerial Meeting in Bangkok. Photo: AFP
China is keen to complete a deal which would offer it a buffer against the United States in Asia, and which would allow it to champion its free trade position, while the US pursues protectionist trade policy.
The RCEP talks took place as Chinese and American trade negotiators resumed face-to-face discussions in Shanghai, which also ended on Wednesday, although there was little sign of similar progress.
As the rivalry between Beijing and Washington has intensified and bilateral trade waned, the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean) overtook the US to become China’s second-largest trading partner in the first half of 2019. From January to June, the trade volume between China and the 10-member bloc reached US$291.85 billion, up by 4.2 per cent from a year ago, according to government data.
The Asean bloc is made up of Indonesia, Thailand, Malaysia, Singapore, Philippines, Vietnam, Myanmar, Cambodia, Brunei and Laos.
China will work together with the RCEP countries to proactively push forward the negotiation, strive to resolve the remaining issues as soon as possible, and to end the negotiations as soon as possible. Li Chenggang
RCEP talks will now move to a higher level ministerial meeting in Beijing on Friday and Saturday, but trade experts have warned that if material progress is not made, it is likely that the RCEP talks will continue into 2020, prolonging a saga which has already dragged on longer than many expected. It is the first time China has hosted the ministerial level talks.
But complicating matters is the fact that India’s Commerce Minister, Piyush Goyal, will not attend the ministerial level talks, with an Indian government official saying that he has to participate in an extended parliamentary session.
India is widely viewed as the biggest roadblock to concluding RCEP, the first negotiations for which were held in May 2013 in Brunei. Delhi has allegedly opposed opening its domestic markets to tariff-free goods and services, particularly from China, and has also had issues with the rules of origin chapter of RCEP.
China is understood to be “egging on” other members to move forward without India, but this could be politically explosive, particularly for smaller Asean nations, a source familiar with talks said.
Deborah Elms, executive director of the Asian Trade Centre, a Singapore-based lobby group, said that after the last round of negotiations in Melbourne between June 22 to July 3 – which she attended – there was “frustration” at India’s reluctance to move forward.
She suggested that in India’s absence, ministers in China could decide to move forward through a “pathfinder” agreement, which would remove India, but also potentially Australia and New Zealand.
India’s Commerce Minister, Piyush Goyal, will not attend the ministerial level talks this week in Beijing. Photo: Bloomberg
This “Asean-plus three” deal would be designed to encourage India to come on board, Elms said, but would surely not go down well in Australia and New Zealand, which have been two of the agreement’s biggest supporters.
New Zealand has had objections to the investor protections sections of RCEP, and both countries have historically been pushing for a more comprehensive deal than many members are comfortable with, since both already have free trade agreements with many of the other member nations.
However, their exclusion would be due to “an unfortunate geographical problem, which is if you’re going to kick out India, there has always been an Asean-plus three concept to start with”. Therefore it is easier to exclude Australia and New Zealand, rather than India alone, which would politically difficult.
A source close to the negotiating teams described the prospect of being cut out of the deal at this late stage as a “frustrating rumour”, adding that “as far as I know [it] has no real basis other than a scare tactic against India”.
There was “never a chance of concluding [the deal during] this round, but good progress is being made is what I understand. The key issues remain India and China”, said the source, who wished to remain anonymous.
Replacing bilateral cooperation with regional collaborations is a means of resolving the disputesTong Jiadong
However, Tong Jiadong, a professor of international trade at the Nankai University of Tianjin, said Washington’s refusal to recognise India as a developing country at the World Trade Organisation could nudge the world’s second most populous nation closer to signing RCEP.
“That might push India to the RCEP, accelerating the pace of RCEP,” Tong said, adding that ongoing trade tensions between Japan and South Korea could also be soothed by RCEP’s passage.
“Replacing bilateral cooperation with regional collaborations is a means of resolving the disputes between the two countries,” Tong said.
Although the plan was first proposed by the Southeast Asian countries, China has been playing an increasingly active role, first as a response to the now defunct US-backed Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), and more recently as a means of containing the impact of the trade war.
China’s vice-commerce Minister, Wang Shouwen, told delegates last week that RCEP was “the most important free trade deal in East Asia”. He called on all participants to “take full advantage of the good momentum and accelerating progress at the moment” to conclude a deal by the end of the year.
Islam was forced on ethnic group ‘by religious wars and the ruling class’, Beijing says in latest report defending its actions in far western region
Uygurs’ ancestors were enslaved by the Turks, document says
Beijing has issued a white paper seemingly designed to defend its actions in Xinjiang where as least 1 million Uygurs are being held in detention centres. Photo: AFP
Uygurs became Muslims not by choice but by force, and Islam is not their only religion, Beijing said in a white paper published on Sunday, as it continued its propaganda campaign to justify its controversial policies in the far western province of
“The Uygur people adopted Islam not of their own volition … but had it forced upon them by religious wars and the ruling class,” according to the document released by the State Council Information Office.
Islamic beliefs were forced on the Uygurs during the expansion of Arabic states. This is a historical fact, the report said, though that did not undermine the Uygurs’ religious rights now.
The report said also that there are Uygurs who hold to faiths other than Islam, and others who do not practise any religion at all.
The paper also took aim at the Uygurs’s historic links with Turkey.
“Historically, the Uygurs’ ancestors were enslaved by the Turks,” it said, citing a history of conflicts between the two groups dating back to the 8th century.
China promotes Xinjiang as tourist idyll
The white paper was issued amid a campaign by Beijing to justify its policies in the restive region, which is home to more than 10 million Uygurs, most whom are Muslim.
Earlier this month, the ambassadors of 22 countries signed a letter calling on Beijing to halt its mass detention of Uygurs in Xinjiang, the first such joint move on the issue at the UN Human Rights Council.
The signatories included envoys from Britain, France, Germany, Australia, Canada, Japan and Switzerland. The United States, which quit the forum a year ago, did not sign the letter.
China responded by issuing a letter signed by the ambassadors of 37 countries, including several Muslim majority states like Saudi Arabia and Pakistan, backing its policies in the region.
Beijing said the show of support was “a powerful response to the groundless accusations made against China by a small number of Western countries”.
UN experts and activists say at least 1 million Uygurs and other Muslims are currently being held in detention centres in Xinjiang. China describes the facilities as training and education centres that aim to stamp out religious extremism and provide people with useful skills. It has never said how many people are being detained in them.
The United States has repeatedly criticised Beijing over its policies in Xinjiang.
On Wednesday, US President Donald Trump met victims of religious persecution from around the world, including Jewher Ilham, a Uygur woman whose father Ilham Tohti was sentenced to life imprisonment in 2014 after being found guilty of promoting separatism.
“That’s tough stuff,” Trump said after hearing Ilham’s account of her father’s ordeal.
China describes the detention camps in Xinjiang as training and education centres. Photo: AFP
In January, US lawmakers nominated the imprisoned economist, writer and former professor at Minzu University in Beijing, for the 2019 Nobel Peace Prize in a bid to pressure China to stop its crackdown on the minority group.
Sunday’s white paper is the latest in a string of similar documents published recently by Beijing as it seeks to defend the legitimacy of its policies in Xinjiang. In a document issued in March, it said that over the past five years it had arrested nearly 13,000 “terrorists” in the region.
Xinjiang camps defended at UN human rights forum
Neither the March report nor Sunday’s white paper mentioned Beijing’s other controversial policies in the region, such as the collection of DNA samples and extensive surveillance on local people.
“Xinjiang has borrowed from international experiences, combined them with local realities, and taken resolute measures against terrorism and extremism,” it said.
The measures have been effective, it said, though did not elaborate.
Over the past year, China has increased its efforts to defend the camps, including organising strictly controlled visits by selected diplomats and journalists to see the people who live in them.
State media has also released videos showing seemingly happy and healthy people inside the camps in a bid to counter accounts of harsh conditions and abuse published by the Western media.
With a defence budget second only to the US, China is amassing a navy that can circle the globe and developing state-of-the-art autonomous drones
The build-up is motivating surrounding countries to bolster their own armed forces, even if some big-ticket military equipment is of dubious necessity
Chinese President Xi Jinping reviews an honour guards before a naval parade in Qingdao. Photo: Xinhua
The Asia-Pacific region is one of the fastest-growing markets for arms dealers, with economic growth, territorial disputes and long-sought military modernisation propelling a 52 per cent increase in defence spending over the last decade to US$392 billion in 2018, according to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute.
The region accounts for more than one-fifth of the global defence budget and is expected to grow. That was underscored last week by news of
, China is amassing a navy that can circle the globe and developing state-of-the-art autonomous drones. The build-up is motivating surrounding countries to bolster their armed forces too – good news for purveyors of submarines, unmanned vehicles and warplanes.
Opinion: How the Shangri-La Dialogue turned into a diplomatic coup for China
Kelvin Wong, a Singapore-based analyst for Jane’s, a trade publication that has been covering the defence industry for 121 years, has developed a niche in infiltrating China’s opaque defence industry by attending obscure trade shows that are rarely advertised outside the country.
He said the US is eager to train allies in Asia and sell them arms, while also stepping up its “freedom of navigation” naval operations in contested waters in the
In his speech at the Shangri-La Dialogue, acting US Defence Secretary Patrick Shanahan touted American advancements in technology “critical to deterring and defeating the threats of the future” and said any partner could choose to win access to that technology by joining the US defence network.
Wong said the message was clear: “Buy American.”
Analysts say Chinese soldiers have less training, motivation and lower morale than their Western counterparts. Photo: Reuters
The analyst said there is a growing admission among the Chinese leadership that the
He said one executive at a Chinese defence firm told him: “The individual Chinese soldier, in terms of morale, training, education and motivation, (cannot match) Western counterparts. So the only way to level up is through the use of unmanned platforms and
To that end, China has developed one of the world’s most sophisticated drone programmes, complete with custom-built weapon systems. By comparison, Wong said,
US drones rely on weapons originally developed for helicopters.
Wong got to see one of the Chinese drones in action two years ago after cultivating a relationship with its builder, the state-owned China Aerospace Science & Technology Corporation. He viewed a demonstration of a 28-foot-long CH-4 drone launching missiles at a target with uncanny ease and precision.
“Everyone knew they had this,” Wong said. “But how effective it was, nobody knew. I could personally vouch they got it down pat.”
China unveils its answer to US Reaper drone – how does it compare?
That is what Bernard Loo Fook Weng, a military expert at Singapore’s S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies, told the author Robert Kaplan for his 2014 book, Asia’s Cauldron, about simmering tensions in the South China Sea.
He was describing the competition for big-ticket military equipment of dubious necessity.
submarines it could not figure out how to submerge.
“It’s keeping up with the Joneses,” Wong said. “There’s an element of prestige to having these systems.”
Submarines remain one of the more debatable purchases, Wong said. The vessels aren’t ideal for the South China Sea, with its narrow shipping lanes hemmed in by shallow waters and coral reefs. Yet they provide smaller countries with a powerful deterrence by enabling sneak attacks on large ships.
Nuclear-powered PLA Navy ballistic missile submarines in the South China Sea. Photo: Reuters
Type 218 submarines with propulsion systems that negate the need to surface more frequently. If the crew did not need to eat, the submarine could stay under water for prolonged periods. Wong said the craft were specially built for Asian crews.
“The older subs were designed for larger Europeans so the ergonomics were totally off,” he said.
Singapore, China deepen defence ties, plan larger military exercises
Tiny Singapore plays a crucial role securing the vital sea lanes linking the Strait of Malacca with the South China Sea. According to the
the country dedicates 3.3 per cent of its gross domestic product to defence, a rate higher than that of the United States.
State-of-the-art equipment defines the Singapore Armed Forces. Automation is now at the centre of the country’s military strategy, as available manpower is shrinking because of a rapidly ageing population.
Wong said Singapore is investing in autonomous systems and can operate frigates with 100 crew members – 50 fewer than they were originally designed for.
“We always have to punch above our weight,” he said.
Brahma Chellaney writes that excessive damming and drastic overuse of water resources are causing the world’s major waterways to run dry
Vessels head for the lock of the Three Gorges Dam in Yichang, in central China’s Hubei province. Sediment build-up in the dam’s reservoir stems from silt flow disruption in the Yangtze River, Brahma Chellaney writes. Photo: Xinhua
Thanks to excessive damming and drastic overuse of water resources, an increasing number of major rivers across the world are drying up before reaching the sea.
Nowhere is this more evident than in China, where the old saying, “Follow the river and it will eventually lead you to a sea,” is no longer wholly true.
While a number of smaller rivers in China have simply disappeared, the Yellow River – the cradle of the Chinese civilisation – now tends to run dry before reaching the sea.
This has prompted Chinese scientists to embark on a controversial rainmaking project to help increase the Yellow’s flow. By sucking moisture from the air, however, the project could potentially affect monsoon rains elsewhere.
For large sections of the world’s population, major river systems serve as lifelines. The rivers not only supply the most essential of all natural resources – water – but also sustain biodiversity, which in turn supports human beings.
Yet an increasing number of rivers, not just in China, are drying up before reaching the sea.
A major new United Nations study published early this month offers grim conclusions: human actions are irremediably altering rivers and other ecosystems and driving increasing numbers of plant and animal species to extinction.
“Nature across the globe has now been significantly altered,” according to the study’s summary of findings.
The Yangtze and Jialing rivers come together in the southwestern city of Chongqing. Photo: Simon Song
Water sustains life and livelihoods and enables economic development.
If the world is to avert a thirsty future and contain the risks of greater intrastate and interstate water conflict, it must protect freshwater ecosystems, which harbour the greatest concentration of species.
The Mekong is mighty no more: book charts river’s demise
Yet, according to another study published in Nature this month humans have modified the flows of most long rivers, other than those found in the remote regions of the
Amazon and Congo basins and the Arctic.
Consequently, only a little more than one-third of the world’s 246 long rivers are still free-flowing, meaning they remain free from dams, levees and other man-made water-diversion structures that leave them increasingly fragmented.
Humans have modified the flows of most long rivers, including the Yangtze, home to some of China’s most spectacular natural scenery. Photo: WWF
Such fragmentation is affecting river hydrology, flow of nutrient-rich sediment from the mountains where rivers originate, riparian vegetation, migration of fish and quality of water.
Take the Colorado River, one of the world’s most diverted and dammed rivers. Broken up by more than 100 dams and thousands of kilometres of diversion canals, the Colorado has not reached the sea since 1998.
Sinking sands along the Mekong River leave Vietnamese homeless
The river, which originates in the Rocky Mountains and is the lifeblood for the southwestern United States, used to empty into the Sea of Cortez in Mexico.
But now, owing to the upstream diversion of 9.3 billion cubic metres (328.4 billion cubic feet) of water annually, the Colorado’s flow into its delta has been reduced to a trickle.
Altering the flow characteristics of rivers poses a serious problem for sustainable development, because they affect the ecosystem services on which both humans and wildlife depend. Photo: AP
Other major rivers that run dry before reaching the sea include the Amu Darya and the Syr Darya, the two lifelines of Central Asia; the Euphrates and the Tigris in the Middle East; and the Rio Grande, which marks the border between Texas and Mexico before heading to the Gulf of Mexico.
The overused Murray in Australia and Indus in Pakistan are at risk of meeting the same fate.
Are China’s Mekong dams washing away Cambodian livelihoods?
More fundamentally, altered flow characteristics of rivers are among the most serious problems for sustainable development, because they seriously affect the ecosystem services on which both humans and wildlife depend.
Free-flowing rivers, while supporting a wealth of biodiversity, allow billions of fish – the main source of protein for the poor – to trek through their waters and breed copiously.
Urgent action is needed to save the world’s rivers, including improving agricultural practices, which account for the bulk of freshwater withdrawals
Free-flowing rivers also deliver nutrient-rich silt crucial to agriculture, fisheries and marine life.
Such high-quality sediment helps to naturally re-fertilise overworked soils in the plains, sustain freshwater species and, after rivers empty into seas or oceans, underpin the aquatic food chain supporting marine life.
China’s hyperactive dam building illustrates the high costs of river fragmentation. No country in history has built more dams than China. In fact, China today boasts more large dams than the rest of the world combined.
China’s chain of dams and reservoirs on each of its long rivers impedes the downstream flow of sediment, thereby denying essential nutrients to agricultural land and aquatic species.
A case in point is China’s Three Gorges Dam – the world’s largest – which has a problematic build-up of sediment in its own massive reservoir because it has disrupted silt flows in the Yangtze River.
Likewise, China’s cascade of eight giant dams on the Mekong, just before the river enters Southeast Asia, is affecting the quality and quantity of flows in the delta, in Vietnam.
Yangtze dams may spell end to sturgeon in a decade
Undeterred, China is building or planning another 20 dams on the Mekong.
How the drying up of rivers affects seas and oceans is apparent from the Aral Sea, which has shrunk 74 per cent in area and 90 per cent in volume, with its salinity growing nine-fold.
People beat the heat by cooling off in the Yangtze River in Wuhan, in central China’s Hubei province. Photo: Nora Tam
This change is the result of the Aral Sea’s principal water sources, the Amu Darya and Syr Darya, being so overexploited for irrigation that they are drying up before reaching what was once the world’s fourth-largest inland lake.
Compounding the challenges is the increasing pollution of rivers. Aquatic ecosystems have lost half of their biodiversity since the mid-1970s alone.
Chinese court jails nine for dumping toxic waste in Yangtze
Urgent action is needed to save the world’s rivers. This includes action on several fronts, including improving practices in agriculture, which accounts for the bulk of the world’s freshwater withdrawals.
Without embracing integrated water resource management and other sustainable practices, the world risks a parched future.
NEW DELHI (Reuters) – Five bodies were spotted high on a mountain in the Indian Himalayas on Monday during an aerial search for eight climbers feared swept away in an avalanche last week, a government official said.
The climbers – four from Britain, two from the United States, and one each from Australia and India – were reported missing by colleagues on Friday after they failed to return to their base camp near Nanda Devi, India’s second highest mountain.
An air force helicopter spotted the five bodies on a flight over the area where they went missing, Vijay Kumar Jogdande, the top government official in the nearby Pithoragarh district.
“Four bodies can be seen together and a fifth slightly away from the others,” he said.
The search mission was now working on the assumption that all eight climbers had been killed, he said.
“We are trying to retrieve the bodies. We believe the other three will be nearby,” he said.
The climbers was attempting to climb an unnamed, previously unclimbed 6,477 metre (21,250 feet) peak near Nanda Devi when their route was hit by a “sizeable avalanche”, said the company that organised the expedition, Moran Mountain.
Jogdande, said the bodies were above 5,000 metres and the possibility of a second avalanche would make accessing the site difficult. It had not been decided whether a team would go in by air or on foot, he said.
“We’re considering both alternatives. Since the bodies are at high altitude it is inaccessible, it is still unstable terrain that could lead to a secondary avalanche. We’re working out a plan.”
“It has always been a dangerous place to go. Mount Everest is easier to climb,” he said.
A team would take at least a week to reach the area, Sanjay Gunjiyal, a senior police official involved in the mission, told Reuters.
Four climbers in the group had turned back and later raised the alarm about their missing colleagues. They were evacuated from their base camp by helicopter and were “fine and healthy”, said Tripti Bhatt, an official of the Uttarakhand State Disaster Response Force.
DEADLY SEASON
It has been one of the deadliest climbing seasons in the Himalayas for several years. More than 20 people have been killed in the mountains, including 11 on Mount Everest, the world’s highest peak that has been plagued by poor weather, inexperienced climbers and overcrowding.
Nanda Devi, at 7,816 metres (25,643 feet), and its sister mountain, Nanda Devi East, are among the world’s most challenging peaks and only a handful of people have climbed them.
The leader of the missing group, Martin Moran, was the first person to summit Changuch, another peak in the area, and was known as a “godfather” of guiding in the Himalayas, according to a video diary of Rob Jarvis, who accompanied him on that expedition in 2009.
“He was very well versed with the area, but the route they were taking is not usually travelled,” Gunjiyal said.
Many of the other missing climbers are veterans but with little experience of Nanda Devi and its surrounding peaks, he said.
Indian authorities have identified the eight missing as Moran, John McLaren, Rupert Whewell and Richard Payne, all from Britain, Anthony Sudekum and Ronald Beimel from the United States, Ruth McCance from Australia, and liaison officer Chetan Pandey from the Indian Mountaineering Foundation.
may be a dominant military force in Asia for now but short of going to war, it will be unable to stop its economic and diplomatic clout from declining relative to China’s power.
That’s the view of Australian think tank the Lowy Institute, which on Tuesday evening released its 2019 index on the distribution of power in Asia.
However, the institute also said China faced its own obstacles in the region, and that its ambitions would be constrained by a lack of trust from its neighbours.
The index scored China 75.9 out of 100, just behind the US, on 84.5. The gap was less than America’s 10 point lead last year, when the index was released for the first time.
“Current US foreign policy may be accelerating this trend,” said the institute, which contended that “under most scenarios, short of war, the United States is unlikely to halt the narrowing power differential between itself and China”.
The Lowy Institute’s Asia Power Index. Click to enlarge.
. He most recently hiked a 10 per cent levy on US$200 billion worth of Chinese goods to 25 per cent and has also threatened to impose tariffs on other trading partners such as the European Union and Japan.
Herve Lemahieu, the director of the Lowy Institute’s Asian Power and Diplomacy programme, said: “The Trump administration’s focus on trade wars and balancing trade flows one country at a time has done little to reverse the relative decline of the United States, and carries significant collateral risk for third countries, including key allies of the United States.”
The index rates a nation’s power – which it defines as the ability to direct or influence choices of both state and non-state actors – using eight criteria. These include a country’s defence networks, economic relationships, future resources and military capability.
It ranked Washington behind both Beijing and Tokyo in terms of diplomatic influence in Asia, due in part to “contradictions” between its recent economic agenda and its traditional role of offering consensus-based leadership.
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Toshihiro Nakayama, a fellow at the Wilson Centre in Washington, said the US had become its own enemy in terms of influence.
“I don’t see the US being overwhelmed by China in terms of sheer power,” said Nakayama. “It’s whether America is willing to maintain its internationalist outlook.”
But John Lee, a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute, said the Trump administration’s willingness to challenge the status quo on issues like trade could ultimately boost US standing in Asia.
“The current administration is disruptive but has earned respect for taking on difficult challenges which are of high regional concern but were largely ignored by the Obama administration –
illegal weapons and China’s predatory economic policies to name two,” said Lee.
“One’s diplomatic standing is not just about being ‘liked’ or ‘uncontroversial’ but being seen as a constructive presence.”
CHINA’S RISE
China’s move up the index overall – from 74.5 last year to 75.9 this year – was partly due to it overtaking the US on the criteria of “economic resources”, which encompasses GDP size, international leverage and technology.
China’s economy grew by more than the size of Australia’s GDP in 2018, the report noted, arguing that its growing base of upper-middle class consumers would blunt the impact of US efforts to restrict Chinese tech firms in Western markets.
US President Donald Trump with Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping. Photo: Reuters
“In midstream products such as smartphones and with regard to developing country markets, Chinese tech companies can still be competitive and profitable due to their economies of scale and price competitiveness,” said Jingdong Yuan, an associate professor at the China Studies Centre at the University of Sydney.
“However, to become a true superpower in the tech sector and dominate the global market remains a steep climb for China, and the Trump administration is making it all the more difficult.”
The future competitiveness of Beijing’s military, currently a distant second to Washington’s, will depend on long-term political will, according to the report, which noted that China already spends over 50 per cent more on defence than the 10
stands in the way of its primacy in Asia, according to the index, which noted Beijing’s unresolved territorial and historical disputes with 11 neighbouring countries and “growing degrees of opposition” to its signature
and Myanmar due to concerns over feasibility and cost.
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Xin Qiang, a professor at the Centre for American Studies at Fudan University in Shanghai, said Beijing still needed to persuade its neighbours it could be a “constructive, instead of a detrimental, force for the region”.
“There are still many challenges for [China to increase its] power and influence in the Asia-Pacific,” Xin said.
Wu Xinbo, also at Fudan University’s Centre for American Studies, said Beijing was having mixed success in terms of winning regional friends and allies.
“For China, the key challenge is how to manage the maritime disputes with its neighbours,” said Wu. “I don’t think there is growing opposition to the Belt and Road Initiative from the region, actually more and more countries are jumping aboard. It is the US that is intensifying its opposition to the project as Washington worries it may promote China’s geopolitical influence.”
would persist and shape the global order into the distant future.
“They can still and do wish to cooperate where both find it mutually beneficial, but I think the more important task for now and for some time to come, is to manage their disputes in ways that do not escalate to a dangerous level,” Yuan said. “These differences probably cannot be resolved given their divergent interests, perspectives, etc, but they can and should be managed, simply because their issues are not confined to the bilateral [relationship] but have enormous regional and global implications.”
Elsewhere in Asia, the report spotlighted Japan, ranked third in the index, as the leader of the liberal order in Asia, and fourth-placed India as an “underachiever relative to both its size and potential”.
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Lee said the index supported a growing perception that Tokyo had emerged as a “political and strategic leader among democracies in Asia” under
“This is important because Prime Minister Abe wants Japan to emerge as a constructive strategic player in the Indo-Pacific and high diplomatic standing is important to that end,” Lee said.
, Malaysia and Thailand rounded out the top-10 most powerful countries, in that order. Among the pack, Russia, Malaysia and Thailand stood out as nations that improved their standing from the previous year.
Image copyright AFPImage caption Some 30 million farmers are engaged in cane farming in India
When Prime Minister Narendra Modi held a recent election meeting in the northern Indian state of Uttar Pradesh, he was compelled to make a promise relating to sugar, a diet staple.
Farmers who grow cane in the politically crucial state ruled by Mr Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) were angry because sugar mills had not paid their dues in time. They held protests and blocked railway tracks. “I know there are cane dues. I will make sure every penny of yours will be paid,” Mr Modi told the audience.
India’s sugar mills are bleeding money and collectively owe billions of dollars to 50 million cane farmers, many of whom haven’t been paid for nearly a year. Niti Ayog, a government think tank, says the arrears have reached “alarming” levels. More than 12 million tonnes of unsold sugar have piled up in factories. There is little incentive to export more as India’s sugar price is higher than the international price.
Sugar is serious business in India. Around 525 mills produced more than 30 million tonnes of sugar in the last crushing season, which lasted from October to April. This makes it the world’s largest producer, unseating Brazil. A large number of mills are run by cooperatives where farmers own shares proportional to the land they own and pledge their produce to the mill.
Image copyrightAFPImage captionIndia is the world’s largest producer of sugar
That’s not all. Some 50 million farmers, tightly concentrated geographically, are engaged in cane farming. Millions more work in the mills and farms and are engaged in transportation of cane.
As with much of India’s politics, cane growers appear to be a reliable “vote bank”. Uttar Pradesh and Maharashtra, which together produce 60% of the country’s sugar, send 128 MPs to the parliament. The price of cane can swing votes in more than 150 of the 545 seats in the ongoing general election, according to one estimate. Sugar is possibly the “most politicised crop in the world”, says Shekhar Gaikwad, the sugar commissioner of Maharashtra.
Indians are also voracious consumers of sugar. The bulk of the supply goes into making sweets, confectionary and fizzy drinks that are beginning to contribute to a rising obesity problem, like elsewhere in the world. “The world’s sweet tooth continues to rely on cane sugar, much as it did four centuries ago,” says James Walvin, author of How Sugar Corrupted the World.
Image copyright AFPImage caption Cane farmers have held protests, demanding higher crop prices
On the face of it, cane growers and owners of sugar mills should be happy.
The government sets cane and sugar prices, allocates production and export quotas, and hands out ample subsidies. State-run banks give crop loans to farmers and production loans to mills. When mills run out of cash, public funds are used to bail them out. “I earn around 7,000 rupees ($100; £76) from growing sugar every month. It’s not a lot of money, but it’s an assured income,” says Sanjay Anna Kole, a fourth-generation, 10-acre cane farm owner in Maharashtra’s Kolhapur district.
But protectionism may be yielding diminishing returns. Generous price support for the crop means the price at which mils buy cane has outstripped the price at which they sell sugar. Among large producers – Thailand, Brazil and Australia – India pays the highest cane price to farmers. It also spends more than Brazil, for example, in producing sugar.
Image copyrightMANSI THAPLIYALImage captionFarmer Sanjay Anna Kole says cane farming provides an ‘assured income’
The involvement of politicians may not be helping matters. Since the inception of the first mills in the 1950s, politicians have owned or gained control of them by winning mill co-operative elections. Almost half a dozen ministers in Maharashtra, India’s second-biggest cane growing state, own sugar mills.
A study on the links between politicians and sugar mills by Sandip Sukhtankar, associate professor of economics at University of Virginia, found that 101 of the 183 mills – for which data was available – in Maharashtra had chairmen who competed for state or national elections between 1993 and 2005.
He also found that cane prices paid by “politically controlled” mills fell during election years, and that this was not entirely due to loss of productivity.
These mills have also been blamed for holding on to arrears and releasing them before elections to win over voters; and political parties have been accused of using money from the mills to finance campaigns. “One would think that perhaps political parties that don’t benefit from links to sugar might have incentives to reform the sector, but we have seen parties everywhere want a piece of the action,” says Dr Sukhtankar. “There are resources in the sugar industry to be extracted for political purposes.”
Image copyright MANSI THAPLIYALImage caption Sugar stocks have piled up in factories across India
Whatever the case, India’s world-beating crop is mired in crisis. The farmers and the mills grumble that they aren’t getting a fair price for their crop and sugar respectively. “It looks like a sunset industry for me. There’s no future in cane until the government completely overhauls farm policies,” Suresh Mahadev Gatage, an organic cane-grower in Kolhapur, told me.
The unrest among the farmers is worrying. In January, several thousand angry cane farmers descended on Shekhar Gaikwad’s office in the city of Pune, demanding the mills pay their dues in time. The negotiations lasted 13 hours.
One of the farmers’ demands was to arrest a state minister, who was heading three mills in the state, and had defaulted on his cane dues. When negotiations ended way past midnight, authorities issued orders to seize sugar from the offending mills and sell it in retail. In India’s lumbering bureaucracy, that took another eight hours because 500 copies of the orders had to be printed. “My office is pelted by stones every other day by irate farmers,” says Mr Gaikwad.
Image copyright MANSI THAPLIYALImage caption Cane grower Suresh Mahadev Gatage says there is ‘no future in cane’
Meanwhile, what is completely forgotten is how much sugar has hurt India’s ecology. More than 60% of the water available for farming in India is consumed by rice and sugar, two crops that occupy 24% of the cultivable area. Experts say crop prices should begin to reflect the scarcity and economic value of water.
But before that, as Raju Shetti, MP and a prominent leader of sugarcane farmers, says, price controls should be eased and bulk corporate buyers like soft drink companies and pharmaceuticals should pay more for sugar.
“We need differential pricing for sugar. Cheap sugar should be only provided to people who can’t afford it. The rest should pay a higher price,” he told me.
“Otherwise, the industry will collapse, and farmers will die. Even politicians will not be able to save it.”
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