Archive for ‘China alert’

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24/03/2014

China Cracks Down on Ghost City Monoliths – Businessweek

China is getting serious about reining in at least one aspect of its ghost cities—the monolithic work palaces built for civil servants. On March 19, the central government announced it has investigated 147 officials and punished 55 for violating a five-year ban, imposed last July, on construction of all new government buildings.

An empty apartment building construction project in Ordos city, Inner Mongolia, China

“The malpractice of constructing new government buildings should be exposed. Departments and individuals should never cover or shield the malpractice,” said the State Council in its statement. “Precious funds should be used for safeguarding and improving the people’s well-being,” the statement said, as reported by the official Xinhua News Agency.

The ban has at least two purposes. One is to compel local governments to spend state funds more wisely, as concerns about growing levels of debt are mounting. China’s National Development and Reform Commission last year announced that 144 cities in 12 provinces were planning to build more than 200 new towns.

STORY: Breaking Through China’s Great Firewall

A Feb. 20 analysis by Beijing economic consultancy Gavekal Dragonomics showed that by 2011, 45 percent of all investment in China was channeled into “stagnant or loser prefectures,”—defined as those with little or negative population growth.

“Empty towns and ghost cities are redundant constructions that do not generate much economic benefit. They are a huge waste of resources which pile debt pressure onto local governments,” editorialized the People’s Daily last year.

The ban is also part of President Xi Jinping’s effort to curb ostentatious behavior by government officials and crack down on graft. The aim is “to promote a national frugality campaign and curb official’s appropriation of public funds,” explained Xinhua.

via China Cracks Down on Ghost City Monoliths – Businessweek.

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21/03/2014

Michelle Obama starts landmark trip[1]- Chinadaily.com.cn

After a long journey from Washington, US first lady Michelle Obama landed in Beijing on Thursday evening, starting her long-awaited trip to China with a big smile and a wave.

Michelle Obama starts landmark trip

When Obama, in an elegant black dress, stepped out of the plane with her mother and two teenager daughters, dozens of reporters that had waited in the airport for hours incessantly clicked their camera shutters.

Though nobody from the delegation spoke to the media, the first lady’s brief debut spread quickly on Chinese media and micro blogs, where users discussed what she would wear and eat, and how she will interact with Chinese first lady Peng Liyuan.

“It is another innovation in the history of Chinese diplomacy” and helps both sides’ leaders strengthen their personal relations, said Ruan Zongze, vice-president of the China Institute of International Studies.

Ruan was referring to the latest “creative” laid-back meeting between President Xi Jinping and his US counterpart, Barack Obama, at the Sunnylands resort in California last June, soon after Xi assumed office.

Peng, Xi’s wife, accompanied her husband on the Sunnylands visit but did not meet Michelle Obama, who was in Washington. Her absence left some Chinese disappointed and more excited about the “make-up” meeting.

On Friday, Michelle Obama, a Harvard-educated lawyer, is to spend almost the whole day with Peng. The two first ladies will visit a high school in Beijing, stroll inside the Forbidden City, eat Peking duck and watch a performance together.

“The meeting of the two first ladies shows that China is more open and is getting more involved with the international community,” Ruan said.

via Michelle Obama starts landmark trip[1]- Chinadaily.com.cn.

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21/03/2014

BBC News – Megadams: Battle on the Brahmaputra

China and India have their eye on the energy potential of the vast Brahmaputra river. Will a new wave of “megadams” bring power to the people – or put millions at risk? The BBC World Service environment reporter Navin Singh Khadka reports from Assam, India.

map

On the banks of the Brahmaputra it is hard to get a sense of where the river starts and ends. It begins far away as a Tibetan mountain stream. On the floodplains of Assam, though, its waters spread as far as the eye can see, merging with the horizon and the sky.

From here it continues through north-eastern India into Bangladesh, where it joins with the Ganges to form a mighty river delta.

For centuries the Brahmaputra has nourished the land, and fed and watered the people on its banks.

Today, though, India and China’s growing economies mean the river is increasingly seen as a source of energy. Both countries are planning major dams on long stretches of the river.

In Assam the plans are being greeted with scepticism and some fear.

The fear is that dams upstream could give China great power over their lives. And many in Assam worry whether China has honourable intentions.

Brahmaputra voices: What next for their river?

Brahmaputra stories: The businessman, the activist, the expert and the official

After a landslide in China in 2000, the river was blocked for several days, unknown to those downstream.

When the water forced its way past the blockage Assam faced an oncoming torrent. There was no advance warning. There are concerns this could happen more frequently.

Some also believe that China may divert water to its parched north – as it has done with other southern rivers.

India’s central government says China has given them assurances about the new Tibetan dams.

“Our foreign ministry has checked with China and we have been told that the flow will not be affected, and we will make sure that the people’s lives are not affected by the dams,” Paban Singh Ghatowar, minister for the development of north-eastern India, told the BBC.

By engaging in a race to dam the Brahmaputra as quickly as possible, China and India will cause cumulative environmental impacts beyond the limits of the river’s ecosystem”

Peter Bosshard

International Rivers Network

Do massive dams ever make sense?

Beijing says the dams it is building on the Tibetan stretch of the river will ease power shortages for people in that region.

“All new projects will go through scientific planning and feasibility studies and the impact to both upstream and downstream will be fully considered,” China’s foreign ministry told the BBC.

It said three new dams at Dagu, Jiacha, and Jeixu were small-scale projects: “They will not affect flood control or the ecological environment of downstream areas,” the foreign ministry said.

Despite the statements, there is no official water-sharing deal between India and China – just an agreement to share monsoon flood data.

via BBC News – Megadams: Battle on the Brahmaputra.

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21/03/2014

China Wants Its People in the Cities – Reuters

From: http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2014-03-20/china-wants-its-people-in-the-cities

Thirty-five years ago, when paramount leader Deng Xiaoping launched gaige kaifang, or “reform and opening,” China was a much more agricultural country, with less than a fifth of its people living in cities. Since then hundreds of millions of rural residents have left the countryside, many seeking jobs in the export-oriented factories and construction sites that Deng’s policy promoted.

Commercial and residential buildings stand in the Luohu district of Shenzhen, China, on Dec. 18, 2013 In 1978 there were no Chinese cities with more than 10 million people and only two with 5 million to 10 million; by 2010, six cities had more than 10 million and 10 had from 5 million to 10 million. By the following year, a majority of Chinese were living in urban areas for the first time in the country’s history.

Now urbanization has been designated a national priority and is expected to occur even more rapidly. On March 16, Premier Li Keqiang’s State Council and the central committee of the Communist Party released the “National New-type Urbanization Plan (2014-2020),” which sets clear targets: By 2020 the country will have 60 percent of its people living in cities, up from 53.7 percent now.

What’s the ultimate aim of creating a much more urban country? Simply put, all those new, more free-spending urbanites are expected to help drive a more vibrant economy, helping wean China off its present reliance on unsustainable investment-heavy growth. “Domestic demand is the fundamental impetus for China’s development, and the greatest potential for expanding domestic demand lies in urbanization,” the plan says.

To get there, China’s policymakers know they have to loosen the restrictive hukou, the household registration policy that today keeps many Chinese migrants second-class urban residents. China will ensure that the proportion of those who live in the cities with full urban hukou, which provides better access to education, health care, and pensions, will rise from last year’s level of 35.7 percent of city dwellers to 45 percent by 2020. That means 100 million rural migrant workers, out of a total 270 million today, will have to be given urban household registration.

To prepare for the new masses, China knows it must vastly expand urban infrastructure. The plan calls for ensuring that expressways and railways link all cities with more than 200,000 people by 2020; high-speed rail is expected to link cities with more than a half million by then. Civil aviation will expand to be available to 90 percent of the population.

Access to affordable housing projects funded by the government is also expected to rise substantially. The target is to provide social housing (roughly analogous to public housing in the U.S.) to 23 percent of the urban populace by 2020; that’s up from an estimated 14.3 percent last year, according to Tao Wang, China economist at UBS Securities (UBS) in Hong Kong. That means providing social housing for an additional 90 million people, amounting to about 30 million units, over the next seven years, Wang writes in a March 18 report.

The urbanization plan appears to face several big challenges. First, the government wants to maintain restrictions on migration to China’s biggest cities, which also happen to be its most popular. Instead, the plan calls for liberalizing migration to small and midsize cities, or those with less than 5 million. Whether migrants will willingly flock to designated smaller cities, rather than the megacities including Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, and Shenzhen, is an unanswered question.

…

Another obstacle to faster urbanization is that the plan doesn’t propose how to reform China’s decades-old land tenure system. Changing the system could allow farmers more freedom to mortgage, rent, or sell their land.

Finally, one of the most daunting problems is figuring out how to pay for implementing the ambitious urbanization targets. The cost of rolling out a much more extensive social welfare network will be substantial (today, most Chinese in the countryside have far lower levels of medical and pension coverage, as well as far inferior schools); building the new urban infrastructure will also be expensive.

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18/03/2014

Children’s shelter closes doors[1]- Chinadaily.com.cn

The trial operation of the temporary shelter in Guangzhou, Guangdong province, for abandoned children was suspended on Sunday, after 262 babies and children were accepted since it opened on Jan 28.

Children's shelter closes doors

Nanjing Children’s Welfare Institution in Jiangsu province may also suspend its temporary shelter due to a lack of capacity to care for the children. The institution has received 136 babies since it opened the shelter in December.

“Normally we just receive 160 abandoned babies and children a year,” said Zhu Hong, director of the Nanjing institution.

A man walks past a baby shelter outside the Guangzhou Social Welfare Home on Monday. The shelter was suspended on Sunday after receiving a total of 262 babies and children since it was put into use on Jan 28. Zou Zhongpin / China Daily

“I may refuse to be interviewed in the future to avoid more publicity for the shelter,” Zhu said. “Many people know about the shelter from the media and choose to abandon their children. Some people even drive from other cities to Nanjing to abandon their children.”

Xu Jiu, director of Guangzhou Social Welfare Home, said the increasing number of children being dropped off at the facility’s temporary shelter has put a strain on resources.

“Doctors and medical staff worry about the cross infection of diseases among the abandoned babies and children at the city’s welfare home, as many abandoned babies now have to share a bed and other facilities,” Xu said at news conference on Sunday afternoon.

The social welfare home, which has 1,000 beds, now houses 2,395 orphans and disabled young people.

“We have not decided when we will reopen the temporary shelter, and the Guangzhou Social Welfare Home will focus on curing the diseases of the abandoned babies and children who have been left at the shelter,” Xu said.

In addition to infants, children aged 5 to 6 were also abandoned at the facility, Xu said.

All of the 148 boys and 114 girls abandoned at the temporary shelter over the past two months have been diagnosed with ailments including congenital heart disease, Down syndrome, brain failure and cleft lip.

Ninety-eight percent of the babies abandoned at the Nanjing temporary shelter have serious diseases and physical or mental disabilities.

via Children’s shelter closes doors[1]- Chinadaily.com.cn.

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17/03/2014

China pushes forward urbanizing migrant workers – Xinhua | English.news.cn

China pledged increasing efforts to help migrant workers win urbanite status, removing restrictions in towns and lowering threshold in big cities, said a national plan unveiled on Sunday.

The country promised to help migrant workers from countryside to settle down in cities, by fully eliminating restriction of household registration in towns and small cities and gradually easing restrictions in medium-sized cities, according to the 2014-2020 urbanization plan released by the State Council, China’s Cabinet.

Reasonable conditions for settling in big cities will be set, while population in mega cities will remain to be strictly controlled, the plan said.

The plan also granted city services and public welfare to the migrants.

In China, cities with population between three million and five million are defined as big cities, while those above five million are mega cities.

via China pushes forward urbanizing migrant workers – Xinhua | English.news.cn.

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16/03/2014

China to bypass Malacca Strait by Kra Isthmus Canal in Thailand

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15/03/2014

Consumers in China: The true meaning of san yao wu | The Economist

FIFTY-TWO years ago this week, John Kennedy gave a speech to Congress in which he argued that consumers “are the only important group in the economy who are not effectively organised, whose views are often not heard.” His eloquent plea for their protection led to the United Nations guidelines for consumer protection and to the annual celebration of World Consumer-Rights Day on March 15th.

Nowhere is that day marked with more gusto than in China, where it is known as san yao wu (three one five). Every year on that date, the national broadcaster airs a much-watched programme lauding consumer rights. It is also used as an excuse to bash successful foreign firms—Apple was last year’s main target—for small or imagined transgressions.

This year China will better honour Kennedy’s legacy. The television gala is still due to be broadcast this weekend, and corporate evildoers—internet firms are rumoured to be in the crosshairs this time—will probably be shamed again. But something more important will also happen. On March 15th a new consumer law, the biggest reform in this area in 20 years, comes into force. At face value, it appears to give a big boost to consumer protection. Retailers must take back goods within seven days; in the case of online purchases, consumers do not even have to offer a reason. Consumer data will be protected from misuse, and permission will have to be sought for any commercial use of them. Class-action lawsuits, hitherto rare in China, will become easier to file.

The motivations for the law seem sincere. The government is keen to shift the economy towards consumption-driven growth. Regulations protecting consumers should help, by bolstering their trust in merchants. Max Xin Gu of K&L Gates, a legal firm, also believes the law “is timed to come hand-in-hand with the anti-corruption campaign” launched by President Xi Jinping: both are meant to allow ordinary people to benefit from the rule of law.

James Feldkamp is the founder of Mingjian, a pioneering Chinese website offering independent product reviews (akin to America’s Consumer Reports or Britain’s Which?). He agrees that trust and transparency are key to boosting consumption. However, he worries about how the law will be implemented and enforced. Indeed it may leave consumers ill-protected even as it saddles firms with extra costs and complexity. For example, although parts of the law resemble the EU’s strict rules on data privacy, it has important gaps. Michael Tan of Taylor Wessing, another law firm, notes that it does not grant a “right to be forgotten” (by having firms expunge all record of a former customer). It leaves businesses in the dark on how exactly they can use customer data, and fails to impose on them a duty to ensure their accuracy.

via Consumers in China: The true meaning of san yao wu | The Economist.

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12/03/2014

Decoupling Happened: U.S. Stocks Soared, China’s Shrugged – Businessweek

The idea that emerging markets could keep growing smartly despite the collapse of the U.S. was something romanced quite a bit in recent years. Decoupling, as it’s called, was at least numerically possible. After all, China, Brazil, India, and Russia—the planet’s four biggest emerging economies, which chipped in two-fifths of global economic growth in the year leading up to Wall Street’s 2008 collapse—stood out as the least dependent on exports to America. Upwards of 95 percent of China’s double-digit growth was attributable to domestic demand.

Turns out a decoupling did transpire in the five years since peak meltdown—only it’s the U.S. market that seems to be doing fine while China founders. It’s a divergence of fortunes few would have predicted.

The benchmark Standard & Poor’s 500-stock index has produced a total return of 207 percent to touch a record high in the five years since the market set a low unseen since the 1990s. Citigroup is clocking U.S. shares at “euphoric” territory. By comparison, the MSCI Emerging Markets Index has returned 125 percent.

via Decoupling Happened: U.S. Stocks Soared, China’s Shrugged – Businessweek.

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09/03/2014

* With legal reforms, China wants less interfering in cases, fewer death penalty crimes | Reuters

China has curtailed the power of the ruling Communist Party’s Political and Legal Committee, a secretive body overseeing the security services, to interfere in most legal cases, scholars with knowledge of the situation said – a significant reform at a time of public discontent over miscarriages of justice.

Zhou Qiang, President of China's Supreme People's Court, attends National People's Congress (NPC) in Beijing, March 7, 2013. REUTERS/Stringer

The move, which has not been made public by the party but has been announced in internal meetings, would clip the wings of the party’s highest authority on judicial and security matters.

Interference from the committee has led to many wrongful convictions, many of which have been widely reported in the press and even highlighted by President Xi Jinping as an issue that needs to be urgently addressed.

Part of a package of legal reforms, the move signals a willingness by Xi’s government to reform its court system as long as it doesn’t threaten the party’s overall control.

China’s highest court, the Supreme People’s Court, will delivers its work report to parliament on Monday, which could detail some of these reforms.

But the party would still have final say over politically sensitive cases such as those involving ethnic issues and senior politicians – like the disgraced former Chongqing party chief Bo Xilai, who was last year found guilty of bribery, corruption and abuse of power, and jailed for life – and would use the courts to convict citizens who challenge its authority.

via With legal reforms, China wants less interfering in cases, fewer death penalty crimes | Reuters.

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