Archive for ‘China alert’

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14/08/2014

Chinese Buyers Are Driving a Boom in Australian Real Estate – China Real Time Report – WSJ

Australian house prices are rising quickly and demand from China is increasingly driving the boom, according to a report by Hong Kong-based brokerage CLSA.

The report, based on interviews with 50 industry participants in Australia, including major realtors, finds Chinese are now “driving the residential property market Down Under” adding that the “phenomenal investment” will continue for at least three more years.

CLSA says China is now the top source of foreign-capital investment in Australian real estate and anecdotal evidence indicates that foreign investment from China has continued to increase in 2014, having slowly accelerated over the last 5 years. The stock brokerage did not attempt to put a value on the investment.

CLSA said good education and a clean environment were driving demand from China.

“Australia offers both and we see no reason why its fundamental appeal will diminish,” it added.

There are currently only limited curbs on foreign buying of Australian property. Any newly built Australian property can be bought by foreigners . The purchase of existing properties needs the approval of Australia’s Foreign Investment Review Board.

Government data this week showed house prices nationally grew by 10% in the year-to-June 30, with Sydney prices racing at 15% over the same period.

The issue of Chinese investment in Australian housing investment has prompted concern among Australians about the potential to be frozen out of the housing market, especially the highly desirable inner city markets of Sydney and Melbourne.

A government investigation into the issue of foreign investment in Australian property is underway and will report its recommendations in October.  One of the limitations of the debate over the issue is that there is not reliable data on how much money is coming into property from overseas.

Australia’s central bank has been watching the rise in house prices but has so far downplayed the role Chinese money has had on prices growth. If house prices continue to climb, the reserve Bank of Australia might have to raise interest rates at a time when the economy is weak and unemployment at more than decade highs.

via Chinese Buyers Are Driving a Boom in Australian Real Estate – China Real Time Report – WSJ.

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13/08/2014

Chinese medical workers arrive in Sierra Leone’s Freetown to battle Ebola – Xinhua | English.news.cn

A team of three Chinese medical workers arrived in Sierra Leone’s capital Freetown on late Tuesday to help the country fight against the deadliest-ever Ebola virus which has claimed over 1,000 lives in west African countries.

Chinese disease control experts arrive in Sierra Leone

The first batch of three medical workers arrived in Guinea on Monday and another three medical staff are expected to carry out anti-Ebola work in Liberia soon, medical sources told Xinhua.

China announced on Sunday it would send three expert teams and medical supplies to Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone to assist in the prevention and control of the Ebola virus, with each medical team composed of one epidemiologist and two specialists in disinfection and protection.

China announced on Sunday that it would provide relief worth 30 million yuan (4.9 million U.S. dollars) to the three countries. It was the second round of Ebola relief from China so far.

via Chinese medical workers arrive in Sierra Leone’s Freetown to battle Ebola – Xinhua | English.news.cn.

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13/08/2014

Beijing cuts coal use by 7 percent in first half of year – China – Chinadaily.com.cn

Beijing cut coal consumption by 7 percent in the first half of 2014 as part of its efforts to tackle smog, the city’s environmental protection bureau said.

Beijing cuts coal use by 7 percent in first half of year

Beijing is at the front line of a “war on pollution” declared by the central government earlier this year in a bid to head off public unrest about the growing environmental costs of economic development.

The city has already started to close or relocate hundreds of factories and industrial plants.

The coal-fired power generators at Beijing’s Gaojing Thermal Power Plant are decommissioned on July 23. Provided to China Daily

It will also raise vehicle fuel standards and is mulling the introduction of a congestion charge.

To reduce coal consumption, it is in the process of shutting down all of its aging coal-fired power plants and replacing them with cleaner natural gas-fired capacity or with power delivered via the grid.

Based on last year’s coal consumption level of 19 million metric tons, the 7 percent cut would amount to around 1.33 million tons per year.

Beijing has said previously that it plans to reduce total coal use by 2.6 million tons in 2014, and aims to slash consumption to less than 10 million tons per year by 2017.

The Beijing environmental bureau said the city had cut sulfur dioxide emissions by 5.4 percent over the first six months of the year.

It also took 176,000 substandard vehicles off the road.

Previous data issued by the Ministry of Environmental Protection showed that concentrations of hazardous airborne particles known as PM2.5 stood at 91.6 micrograms per cubic meter in Beijing in the first half of the year, down 11.2 percent year-on-year but still more than twice the recommended national limit of 35 mcg.

Much of the pollution that hits Beijing drifts in from the surrounding province of Hebei, a major industrial region that is home to seven of China’s 10 most polluted cities.

Under new plans to integrate Beijing with Hebei and the port city of Tianjin, the region will be treated as a “single entity” with unified industrial and emission standards.

Hebei said last week that it had cut coal consumption by 7.53 million tons in the first half of 2014, amounting to just over half of its target of 15 million tons for the year.

The province agreed last year to cut coal use by 40 million tons by 2017, and it is also planning to shed at least 60 million tons of excess steel capacity over the same period.

via Beijing cuts coal use by 7 percent in first half of year – China – Chinadaily.com.cn.

Posted in carbon emission, China alert, coal, Economics, Electricity, energy, Environment, greenhouse gas, Pollution | Leave a Comment »

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13/08/2014

China Demands that Japan Return the Plundered Honglujing Stele – Businessweek

Islands. Airspace. Antiquities. Until now, China has concentrated its attention on the first two as it fights against Japan for dominance in East Asia. In focusing on the wrongs done by Imperial Japan before and during World War II, China’s government has escalated its claims to uninhabited islands in the East China Sea controlled by Japan and has designated airspace in the area as its own.

The Honglujing Stele is housed in Tokyo's Imperial Palace, home to Japan's Emperor Akihito

The dispute has had humorous moments, such as the time officials invoked Voldemort.  The conflict has potential to become far more dangerous, though, with ships and planes from both sides provoking one another. On Tuesday, for instance, Chinese Coast Guard vessels patrolled near the islands, called the Senkaku by Japan and Diaoyu by China.

China’s foreign ministry voiced “strong dissatisfaction and resolute opposition” last week to a white paper published by Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s government that had expressed concern over China’s behavior in the East China Sea and South China Sea. Over the weekend, China’s defense ministry followed with a statement accusing Japan of looking for excuses to re-militarize.

China has plenty of ways to poke its neighbor. Determined to leave no grievance unaired, China has opened a fresh front in its battle against Japan: A group has  demanded the return of a 1,300-year-old relic that Japanese soldiers whisked away from China’s northeast a century ago.  The Honglujing Stele, three meters wide, 1.8 meters tall, and two meters thick, dates back to the Tang Dynasty and now belongs to Japan’s Emperor, according to the official Xinhua news agency.

A group called the China Federation of Demanding Compensation from Japan is now demanding that the Emperor give it back. Stolen items such as the Honglujing Stele “have done great damage to Sino-Japanese ties,” Wang Jinsi, the federation official in charge of recovering cultural relics, told Xinhua. “They should be returned to their rightful owner.”

That may be, but Wang’s group has chosen an interesting time to make its point. As Xinhua points out, Japanese troops went on a rampage in the mainland in the 50 years between China’s defeat in the First Sino-Japanese War and the end of the Second World War, with Japan stealing some 3.6 million relics. Only now is the Chinese group calling on the imperial family to return one of them.

via China Demands that Japan Return the Plundered Honglujing Stele – Businessweek.

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13/08/2014

China Names U.S. as the Top Destination for ‘Economic Fugitives’ – Businessweek

China’s wealthy elite is fleeing the country for a better quality of life—better education, better air, and greater personal security. China’s Ministry of Public Security has just added a further potential reason: fleeing the police.

“The U.S. has become the top destination for Chinese [economic] fugitives,” Liao Jinrong, a ministry official told state-run China Daily on Monday. According to the English-language newspaper, “More than 150 economic fugitives from China, most of whom are corrupt officials or face allegations of corruption, remain at large in the United States.”

While this is a rather incredible admission, the intent of the article—no doubt placed by China’s propaganda authorities—seems to be to make the case for an extradition treaty between the U.S. and China. “We face practical difficulties in getting fugitives who fled to the US back to face trial due to the lack of an extradition treaty and the complex and lengthy legal procedures,” Liao told the paper.

via China Names U.S. as the Top Destination for ‘Economic Fugitives’ – Businessweek.

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09/08/2014

China’s Shale-Gas Production Target Cut in Half by Top Official – Businessweek

Tapping China’s vast shale-gas reserves has proved more difficult than government planners in Beijing once hoped. In 2012, China’s National Energy Administration projected that, by 2020, from 60 billion to 80 billion cubic meters (bcm) of domestic shale gas would be pumped annually. Earlier this week the country’s energy chief, Wu Xinxiong, slashed the goal in half, to 30 billion bcm by 2020.

A shale well at Fuling, owned by Sinopec, China's largest oil refiner, in Chongqing, southwest China on April 21

According to the U.S. Energy Information Administration, China’s holds the world’s largest reserves of theoretically recoverable shale gas. But much of it is locked in mountainous regions in western China.

While China’s leaders—concerned about steeply rising energy demand accompanying rapid urbanization—dearly want to emulate the U.S.’s shale-gas boom, it turns out Americans have several practical advantages. For starters, the U.S. shale-gas revolution kicked off in fairly accessible regions: the flatlands of Texas, North Dakota, and Pennsylvania.

So far, explorations in China have identified only one clearly promising shale play: Fuling shale gas field, near the western megalopolis of Chongqing. Sinopec, which controls the Fuling field, projects that its annual shale gas production will reach 5 bcm by 2015 and 10 bcm by 2017. (China trivia fact: Fuling was also the site of River Town, well-known journalist Peter Hessler’s first book chronicling his years as a Peace Corps volunteer in the then-small city on the Yangtze.)

With no other comparable sites yet identified, it’s not clear where the other 20 bcm may come from. While Sinopec is currently at the forefront of China’s shale-gas development, two foreign companies, Royal Dutch Shell (RDSA:LN) and Hess (HES), have secured production-sharing contracts for other potential sites.

via China’s Shale-Gas Production Target Cut in Half by Top Official – Businessweek.

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09/08/2014

China provinces on track to meet 2015 energy targets: NDRC | Reuters

Most of China’s provinces are ahead of schedule or on track to meet 2015 energy savings targets, the government said on Friday, with Beijing and Shanghai among the frontrunners as the world’s No.2 economy seeks to reduce its impact on the environment.

Smoke rises from chimneys of a thermal power plant near Shanghai March 26, 2014. REUTERS/Carlos Barria

China has pledged to reduce its energy intensity – the amount of energy it uses to add a dollar to its gross domestic product (GDP) – to 16 percent below 2010 levels by 2015.

Beijing’s intention in setting the targets was to slow emissions of climate-changing greenhouse gases and cut expensive fuel imports, but they have won new relevance with the pollution crisis that has enveloped the nation the past two years.

via China provinces on track to meet 2015 energy targets: NDRC | Reuters.

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09/08/2014

China builds friendship railway to link Pakistan | The Times

In a park outside Islamabad, fountains tinkle beneath the huge glass façade of the new Pakistan-China Friendship Centre. “Pakistan China friendship is as high as the Himalayas, as deep as the ocean and sweet as honey,” declares a hoarding above an escalator, which grinds to a halt intermittently due to the country’s chronic power shortages.

Nanga Parbat mountain

Next month, China’s President Xi Jinping will arrive here to finalise plans to turn this gushing propaganda into reality by building a 1,800km railway that would, for the first time, directly link Beijing to Islamabad via its eastern province of Xinjiang. Stretching to Pakistan’s biggest city of Karachi, and beyond to a Chinese-built deep-sea port at Gwadar on the Gulf of Oman, the railway would bore through some of the world’s highest peaks in the Karakoram sub-range of the Himalayas.

“China has a new focus on this region,” beams Senator Mushahid Hussain Sayed, the chairman of the Pakistan China Institute, who says the railway will be a “game changer” and the most ambitious part of a Chinese plan to reboot the area’s troubled economy and open up its own western flank to development. After years of war and terrorism, Pakistan has suffered an exodus of foreign cash and expertise, but with Beijing now splashing out $32 billion on more than 120 projects in Pakistan over the next seven years, the number of Chinese living and working in the country has leapt to from 3,000 in 2008 to nearly 15,000.

Chinese workers are dredging Karachi’s port complex, and building a giant hydroelectric dam at Bunji on the Indus River, a highway linking Lahore to Karachi, and nuclear and coal-fired power stations, solar power plants and ports.

With Pakistan’s reputation for violence, terrorism and corruption, some westerners are privately raising their eyebrows at the scale of China’s spending spree. However, for China’s former ambassador to India and Pakistan, Zhou Gang, the attractions are clear. “It will promote the economic development of all Asian countries,” he said, pointing out that to reach the Gulf of Oman from Shanghai, Chinese goods must currently travel 15,858km by ship through the Strait of Malacca. A railway, road or pipeline through Pakistan would slash that journey to 4,712km.

Despite the hype, however, tensions exist. India disapproves of the railway, which would run through territory it claims as its own. China also frets about the safety of its citizens in Pakistan, several of whom have been killed. One Pakistani official warned: “If they can’t sort out the terrorism and security then it won’t happen.”

via China builds friendship railway to link Pakistan | The Times.

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08/08/2014

Nation to donate $4.9 million for Ebola assistance – China – Chinadaily.com.cn

The Chinese government announced on Thursday it will provide 30 million yuan ($4.86 million) in humanitarian aid to four Ebola-ravaged countries in West Africa to help contain the outbreak.

English: Biosafety level 4 hazmat suit: resear...

English: Biosafety level 4 hazmat suit: researcher is working with the Ebola virus (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

The Ebola virus has been blamed for at least 932 deaths in four western African countries－Guinea, Liberia, Nigeria and Sierra Leone－with 1,711 reported cases, according to The Associated Press.

China’s National Health and Family Planning Commission said on Thursday that no Ebola cases have been reported in China. Song Shuli, the commission’s spokeswoman, said a series of preventive measures have been taken to stop the virus from entering the country.

The commission said it is communicating with the World Health Organization to better monitor and anticipate the spread of the virus.

It has also ordered border control authorities to intensify their checks of inbound travelers, Song said at a news conference on Thursday.

She dismissed an online rumor that a person in Shanghai died of Ebola virus. She also said “the possibility of the virus coming to China remains slim right now” in response to news reports in late July of a Hong Kong woman who showed symptoms suggestive of the Ebola virus after a visit to Kenya. She later tested negative for the disease.

Local medical institutions must report any confirmed or suspected Ebola cases directly to the commission within two hours, said Song, who added that the public should learn more about the disease to protect themselves.

via Nation to donate $4.9 million for Ebola assistance – China – Chinadaily.com.cn.

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08/08/2014

In China, Wastewater Irrigates Parks and Spreads Bacteria – Businessweek

In theory, recycling water in China’s parched cities, including Beijing, makes ecological sense. But when wastewater is inadequately treated before being used to water urban parks—or redirected through scenic downtown canals—it can become an environmental health hazard.

Something Is Scary in the Water That Irrigates Many Chinese Parks

Six researchers in Beijing and Xiamen working for the Chinese Academy of Sciences recently decided to compare conditions in city parks watered with fresh water vs. recycled water. Their findings, reported in a July 24 article in the journal Environmental Science & Technology, may make you squirm.

Conventional wastewater treatment plants are designed to remove solids, organic matter, and nutrients from water, but they aren’t properly equipped to treat the kinds of waste that may be found in used water from hospitals and pharmaceutical facilities. In particular, most wastewater plants in China don’t remove traces of antibiotics and may even become “reservoirs” for them, as the researchers put it.

Even treated wastewater can therefore become a vector for spreading antibiotics, as well as “antibiotic resistant genes”—chance genetic mutations that make bacteria resistant to drugs. The researchers found that urban parks in China doused with recycled water contained dangerously elevated levels of antibiotic resistant genes, with quantities from 100 times to 8,655 times greater than in other parks.

An April 30 report from the World Health Organization sounded the alarm about growing antibiotic resistance worldwide: “This serious threat is no longer a prediction for the future, it is happening right now in every region of the world. … Antibiotic resistance–when bacteria change so antibiotics no longer work in people who need them to treat infections–is now a major threat to public health.”

Apparently lousy sewage systems and some irrigated parks in China, and likely elsewhere, are helping to accelerate the threat. China’s situation is particularly risky because of a culture of rampant overprescription of antibiotics, which the government is trying hard to bring under control.

via In China, Wastewater Irrigates Parks and Spreads Bacteria – Businessweek.

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