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10/06/2014

China Takes Dispute With Vietnam to UN – ABC News

China took its dispute with Vietnam over its deployment of an oil rig in contested waters to the United Nations on Monday, accusing Hanoi of infringing on its sovereignty and illegally disrupting a Chinese company’s drilling operation.

Oil Rig

China’s deputy ambassador Wang Min sent a “position paper” on the rig’s operation in the South China Sea to Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon on Monday and asked the U.N. chief to circulate it to the 193 members of the General Assembly.

China sent the rig into disputed waters on May 1, provoking a confrontation with Vietnamese ships, complaints from Hanoi, and street protests that turned into bloody anti-Chinese riots. Hundreds of factories were damaged and China said in the paper that four Chinese citizens were “brutally killed” and over 300 injured.

The oil platform is located about 32 kilometers (20 miles) from the China-controlled Paracel Islands, which Vietnam also claims, and 278 kilometers (173 miles) from the coast of Vietnam.

According to the paper, the state-run China National Offshore Oil Corporation has been conducting seismic operations and well site surveys in the area for the past 10 years and the drilling operation “is a continuation of the routine process of explorations and falls well within China’s sovereignty and jurisdiction.”

China accused Vietnam of “illegally and forcefully” disrupting the rig’s operation by sending armed ships and ramming Chinese vessels.

“Vietnam also sent frogmen and other underwater agents to the area, and dropped large numbers of obstacles, including fishing nets and floating objects, in the waters,” it said.

The paper said Vietnam’s actions violated China’s sovereignty, posed “grave threats” to Chinese personnel on the rig and violated international laws including the U.N. Convention on the Law of the Sea.

It cited numerous references to back its claims that the islands “are an inherent part of China’s territory, over which there is no dispute.”

via China Takes Dispute With Vietnam to UN – ABC News.

Posted in China alert, Diplomacy, Economics, Foreign invasion, GeoPolitics, History, Neighbour conflict, oil & gas, Politics, Territorial dispute | Leave a Comment »

Tags: Ban Ki-moon, China, China National Offshore Oil Corporation, Hanoi, Paracel Islands, South China Sea, United Nations, Vietnam

10/06/2014

Indian PM Modi meets with Chinese FM – Xinhua | English.news.cn

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi Monday met here with visiting Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi, the special envoy of Chinese President Xi Jinping.

INDIA-NEW DELHI-PM-CHINA-WANG YI-MEETING

During the meeting, Wang conveyed greetings and messages from President Xi and Chinese Premier Li Keqiang to Prime Minister Modi.

The Chinese president said in his message that he believes India will obtain greater development and progress under the leadership of Prime Minister Modi.

The Chinese president said that as two important forces in the process of multi-polarization of the world, China and India share far more common interests than differences and that the two countries are long-term strategic cooperative partners rather than adversaries.

The Chinese president pointed out that the dreams of both China and India to build a strong nation and to upgrade the living standards of their people have a lot of commonalities and the two countries should make an in-depth convergence of their development strategy, support each other with their respective strengths, build a close development partnership, and hold hands to realize peaceful development, cooperative development, and inclusive development, in order to benefit their people and enhance peace, stability and prosperity of Asia and the whole world.

Prime Minister Modi said that the important message from President Xi Jinping has given a clear guidance for developing bilateral relations.

Modi said he highly appreciates the achievements in the field of development made by China and personally cherishes a friendly feeling toward China.

Modi said India’s new government is willing to join China to give a clear signal to the world that the two countries are dedicated to common development.

He suggested that the two countries maintain exchange of high- level visits, consolidate strategic trust, and use each other’s strengths to deepen cooperation in the fields of infrastructure, manufacturing, and IT industry.

Modi also said that India and China should develop their resources of two ancient civilizations to enhance cooperation and increase exchanges in humanity.

On the boundary issue, he said the two countries should commonly maintain peace and tranquility on the border areas in order to provide guarantees to the development of bilateral relations.

Foreign Minister Wang said that China and India are now standing at a new historical starting point of developing their relations and in the meantime are faced with important opportunities of their own development.

He said that China is ready to realize convergence with India in the fields of development theories and ideas, exchange and learn from each other in practice and theories of governance.

Wang said China is also willing to realize convergence of development strategies with India and let the “Look East” policy of India meet and confluence with China’s acceleration of opening its western regions.

The two countries should also use their respective strong points to support and supplement each other in their respective development, he said.

Wang said as the two ancient civilizations, China and India should join each other to make new contributions to human civilization and progress. He also suggested that the two countries properly control and manage their boundary problem to seek a mutually acceptable, fair and reasonable solution to the boundary issue.

via Indian PM Modi meets with Chinese FM – Xinhua | English.news.cn.

‘Let’s match China’s scale, speed’

Posted in China alert, Chindia Alert, Diplomacy, Economics, Foreign invasion, GeoPolitics, Good news, History, India alert, Neighbour conflict, Politics | Leave a Comment »

Tags: Asia, China, Chinese foreign minister Wang Yi, Chinese President Xi Jinping, India, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Modi, Narendra Modi, Premier of the People's Republic of China, Prime Minister Modi, Wang, Xi JinPing

10/06/2014

India’s Modi calls for greater cooperation with China | Reuters

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi urged greater cooperation with China on Monday and said he planned to visit Beijing soon, underlining his administration’s promise to make a new beginning with the country’s giant neighbor.

India's Prime Minister Narendra Modi comes out of a meeting room to receive his Bhutanese counterpart Tshering Tobgay before the start of their bilateral meeting in New Delhi May 27, 2014. REUTERS/Adnan Abidi

India and China have rapidly expanded commercial relations in recent years but political ties remain difficult, after a dispute over their Himalayan border that led to a war in 1962.

But Modi, who took power last month, is seeking to engage with India’s neighbors, including China. A peaceful and stable neighborhood would help him pursue his economic goals at home.

On Monday, he met Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yin, who was visiting India as a special envoy of China’s president to build ties with the new administration in New Delhi.

On Sunday, Wang had a meeting with his Indian counterpart, Sushi Sward, that lasted more than three hours. It was the first high-level engagement between the two countries since Modi assumed office.

“The two sides will remain in touch through the diplomatic channel to make necessary arrangements for these visits and for other meetings and exchanges of leaders on the sidelines of multilateral summits,” the Indian foreign office said in a statement after Wang’s meeting with Modi.

It gave no other details. Modi has already invited Chinese President Xi Jin ping to visit New Delhi later this year.

India was once viewed as a rival to China’s economic juggernaut. Both the economies have slowed in the past two years, but India’s slowdown has been dramatic.

Asia’s third-largest economy grew 4.7 percent in the fiscal year that ended in March. That was the second straight year of sub-5 percent growth, the longest slowdown in more than a quarter of a century.

Modi, who last month won the strongest parliamentary majority in the past 30 years on a promise of economic revival and jobs, wants to push infrastructure and skill development – a model followed by China to boost economic growth – to promote a turnaround.

“Scale, skill and speed. If these three strengths we can stress upon, then we can rise to the challenge of competing with China,” he said at a book launch event on Sunday.

via India’s Modi calls for greater cooperation with China | Reuters.

Border resolution must be fair: Wang

Posted in China alert, Chindia Alert, Diplomacy, Economics, Foreign invasion, GeoPolitics, Good news, History, India alert, Neighbour conflict, Politics | Leave a Comment »

Tags: Asia, Beijing, China, Himalayas, India, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Modi, Narendra Modi, New Delhi

09/06/2014

China’s Environmental Problems Deepen With Mountaintop Removals – Businessweek

To create more flat land for the fast-growing cities in western China, local planners are increasingly turning to the drastic measure of bulldozing mountaintops and filling in valleys with dump trucks full of dirt.

Earth moving vehicles in northwest China's Gansu province

The impact of such massive earthmoving projects will have on soil conditions, erosion, groundwater, and other environmental factors remains largely unknown. Nor is it clear whether the filled-in land will provide adequate structural support for tall buildings; construction on unstable foundation has led to new high-rises tumbling elsewhere in China.

Three scientists from the School of Environmental Science and Engineering at Chang’an University in Xi’an last week published a forceful commentary in the journal Nature warning that “earthmoving on this scale without scientific support is folly.” As an example, they highlighted the city of Yan’an, in China’s central Shaanxi province, where planners aim to “double the city’s current area by creating 78.5 square kilometers of flat ground.” While the potential revenue from land sales is high, the scientists argue the risks are higher:

via China’s Environmental Problems Deepen With Mountaintop Removals – Businessweek.

Posted in China alert, Construction, Economics, urban development | 1 Comment »

Tags: Chang'an University, China, Crust (geology), drastic measure, environment, Hubei, Shaanxi, the School of Environmental Science and Engineering, Western China, Yan

08/06/2014

Chinese foreign minister Wang Yi holds talks with Sushma Swaraj – The Times of India

In the first high-level interaction with the new dispensation here, Chinese foreign minister Wang Yi on Sunday held talks with his Indian counterpart Sushma Swaraj and discussed ways to strengthen cooperation in key areas including trade and investment.

Wang, who is special envoy of Chinese President Xi Jinping, arrived in the wee hours to establish political contacts with the new Indian government amid hopes of an upswing in bilateral ties due to Prime Minister Narendra Modi‘s familiarity with China.

Both Wang and Swaraj were assisted by their delegations which comprised of senior officials from the foreign ministry.

via Chinese foreign minister Wang Yi holds talks with Sushma Swaraj – The Times of India.

Posted in China alert, Chindia Alert, Diplomacy, Foreign invasion, GeoPolitics, History, India alert, Neighbour conflict, Politics, Territorial dispute | 1 Comment »

Tags: China, Chinese foreign minister Wang Yi, Chinese President Xi Jinping, Foreign Minister Swaraj, Government of India, India, Narendra Modi, Sushma Swaraj, Swaraj, Wang, Wang Yi, Xi JinPing

08/06/2014

China Wants America’s Milk, and U.S. Dairy Exports Benefit – Businessweek

Increased demand for dairy products around the world, particularly in China, is doing for U.S. farmers what decades of farm policy could not: sell off all the milk their cows can produce at record-high prices.

Hunter Haven Dairy Farm in Pearl City, Ill.

The good fortune of U.S. dairy farmers is due to exploding demand from an emerging global middle class, but also to misfortunes elsewhere. In China, domestic dairy has been hampered by production problems and lingering distrust among consumers about safety. In New Zealand, the global leader in dairy exports, a 2013 drought reduced the country’s ability to meet foreign customers’ needs. In the first quarter of 2014, the value of U.S. dairy exports grew 39 percent.

“China buying has been through the roof,” says Alan Levitt, spokesman for the U.S. Dairy Export Council. “We shifted from a period of structural oversupply to structural undersupply.” Exports have been rising steadily during the past decade, but they surged in the past year—evidence that the U.S. can be a viable player in the global dairy market.

via China Wants America’s Milk, and U.S. Dairy Exports Benefit – Businessweek.

Posted in agriculture, China alert, Economics | Leave a Comment »

Tags: Business, China, Dairy, dairy exports, dairy products, export, Livestock, Milk, New Zealand, U.S., U.S. Dairy Export Council

08/06/2014

China taps tech training to tackle labor market mismatch | Reuters

China is waking up to a potentially damaging mismatch in its labor market.

A record 7.27 million graduates – equivalent to the entire population of Hong Kong – will enter the job market this year; a market that has a shortage of skilled workers.

Yet many of these university and college students are ill-equipped to fill those jobs, prompting the government to look at how it can overhaul the higher education system to bridge the gap. The problem is part structural, part attitude.

While most liberal arts students are still looking for work after graduating this summer, 22-year-old Li Xidong is preparing to start a job as an electrician that he landed well before finishing three years of training at a small vocational school.

Li’s diploma may appear less impressive, but his coveted job in a tight labor market may hold the key to the employment conundrum in the world’s second largest economy. The machinery sector alone projects a gap of 600,000 computer-automated machine tool operators this year, media have reported.

“We’re trained as skilled workers, it’s quite easy for us to find jobs while still in school,” said Li, who is in the final stretch of a 3-year program at Hebei Energy College of Vocation and Technology in Tangshan, an industrial city 180 kms (112 miles) east of Beijing.

“Seventy percent of our class found work and some others are starting their own businesses,” Li noted, as he waited for a friend at a recruitment fair in the capital, where fewer than a third of this year’s university graduates had found work by end-April.

The government has said it plans to refocus more than 600 local academic colleges on vocational and technical education – replacing literature, history and philosophy with technology skills such as how to maintain lathes and build ventilation systems. Course curricula will be tailored to meet employers’ specific needs.

Pilot programs will be launched this year, and 150 local universities have signed up for the education ministry’s plan, the official Xinhua news agency has reported.

via China taps tech training to tackle labor market mismatch | Reuters.

Posted in China alert, Economics, education | Leave a Comment »

Tags: Beijing, China, college students, Demographics of Hong Kong, Hong Kong, labor market, Labour economics, Li Xidong, skilled workers, Tangshan, Vocational education

06/06/2014

China frees three activists after Tiananmen anniversary | Reuters

China released on Thursday three activists who had been detained for a month for attending a meeting to commemorate the military suppression of pro-democracy protests in Tiananmen Square in 1989, their lawyers said.

A police car guards in front of a giant portrait of China's late Chairman Mao Zedong at Tiananmen Square in Beijing June 4, 2014. REUTERS/Petar Kujundzic

The activists were freed a day after the 25th anniversary of the bloody crackdown, marked by tens of thousands of people in Hong Kong, even as Chinese authorities sought to whitewash the event in the mainland.

Two of their peers remained in custody.

via China frees three activists after Tiananmen anniversary | Reuters.

Posted in China alert, Dissident, Internal politics, Politics | Leave a Comment »

Tags: activists, Beijing, China, Hong Kong, Pan-democracy camp, pro-democracy protests in Tiananmen Square in 1989, Tiananmen, Tiananmen anniversary, Tiananmen Square, Tiananmen Square protests 1989

06/06/2014

Stunning fossil eggs provide insight on ancient flying reptiles | Reuters

A spectacular fossil find in China – a prehistoric egg extravaganza from 120 million years ago – is providing unique insight into the lifestyle and gender differences of pterosaurs, the flying reptiles that lived alongside the dinosaurs.

An artist rendition depicts ecological reconstructions of Hamipterus, the flying reptiles that lived alongside the dinosaurs. REUTERS/Chuang Zhao/Handout via Reuters

Until now, only four pterosaur eggs had ever been found, and all were flattened during the process of fossilization.

But Chinese scientists said on Thursday they had unearthed five pterosaur eggs preserved beautifully in three dimensions at a site in northwestern China that also includes no fewer than 40 adult individuals of a newly identified species that lived in a bustling colony near a large freshwater lake.

“This is definitely the most important pterosaur site ever found,” said paleontologist Zhonghe Zhou, director of the Chinese Academy of Sciences‘ Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology.

The creature, Hamipterus tianshanensis, had a crest atop its elongated skull, pointy teeth for catching fish and a wingspan of more than 11 feet (3.5 meters).

via Stunning fossil eggs provide insight on ancient flying reptiles | Reuters.

Posted in China alert, Dinosaurs | Leave a Comment »

Tags: China, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Cretaceous, Fossil, gender differences, insight, Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology, Myr, Pterosaur, pterosaurs

06/06/2014

Modi govt to promote civilian settlements along India-China border – The Times of India

The Narendra Modi government may not only strengthen ITBP deployment and infrastructure along the India-China border, but also promote civilian settlements in border areas.

China-India Map

Unlike the UPA regime that was reluctant to undertake aggressive deployment of troops in stretches close to the India-China border, the Union home ministry may now go for a formal survey of the border gaps and come up with a fresh deployment plan to ensure that ITBP troops are in good strength to discourage incursions on part of the Chinese troops into Arunachal Pradesh and Ladakh.

In addition to that, road connectivity will also be strengthened along the border areas. The strengthening of infrastructure will also cover construction of bridges and better mobile connectivity through setting up of BSNL towers.

However, a significant move on part of the Centre would be to promote human settlements towards Indian side of the India-China border. This, sources pointed out, would help reinforce India’s claim to the area in any subsequent border settlement negotiations. A senior government functionary recalled former Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee‘s insistence on leaving human settlements untouched while working out the border demarcation.

Meanwhile, with reports indicating that Chinese President Xi Jinping may visit India later this year, there is renewed hope among the people of Arunachal Pradesh that the stapled visa issue would finally be settled. “The two leaders wield all the power to have the final word on betterment of India-China ties,” a senior government functionary pointed out.

via Modi govt to promote civilian settlements along India-China border – The Times of India.