Archive for ‘China alert’

« Older Entries  |   Newer Entries »
01/12/2013

China, India spar over disputed border | Reuters

China on Saturday urged India not to aggravate problems on the border shared by the two nations, a day after the Indian president toured a disputed region and called it an integral part of the country.

China's President Xi Jinping (R) talks with India's Prime Minister Manmohan Singh (L) during a meeting at the Diaoyutai State Guesthouse in Beijing October 23, 2013. REUTERS/Peng Sun/Pool

The two countries, which fought a brief border war in 1962, only last month signed a pact to ensure that differences on the border do not spark a confrontation.

But Indian President Pranab Mukherjee\’s visit to the state of Arunachal Pradesh in the remote eastern stretch of the Himalayas that China claims as its own provoked a fresh exchange of words.

\”We hope that India will proceed along with China, protecting our broad relationship, and will not take any measures that could complicate the problem, and together we can protect peace and security in the border regions,\” China\’s official news agency, Xinhua, quoted Qin Gang, a spokesman of the country\’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, as saying.

\”Currently Sino-India relations are developing favorably and both sides are going through special envoy meetings and amicable discussions to resolve the border dispute between our two countries.\”

Mukherjee was on a routine visit to Arunachal which has been part of the Indian state for decades, and where India has regularly been holding elections. But China has of late grown increasingly assertive and questioned New Delhi\’s claims over the territory, calling it instead South Tibet.

Mukherjee told members of the state\’s legislative assembly it was \”a core stakeholder in India\’s Look East foreign policy\” that intends to link the country\’s northeast with South East Asia.

\”We seek to make our neighbors partners in our development,\” Mukherjee said in Itanagar, the state capital. \”We believe that India\’s future and our own best economic interests are served by closer integration with Asia.\”

China lays claim to more than 90,000 sq km (35,000 sq miles) disputed by New Delhi in the eastern sector of the Himalayas, while India says China occupies 38,000 square km of its territory on the Aksai Chin plateau in the west.

via China, India spar over disputed border | Reuters.

Posted in China alert, Chindia Alert, Defence, Diplomacy, Foreign invasion, GeoPolitics, History, India alert, Neighbour conflict, Politics, Territorial dispute | 3 Comments »

Tags: , , , , , , ,
01/12/2013

U.S. airlines give China flight plans for defense zone | Reuters

U.S. airlines United, American and Delta, have notified Chinese authorities of flight plans when traveling through an air defense zone Beijing has declared over the East China Sea, following U.S. government advice.

A group of disputed islands, Uotsuri island (top), Minamikojima (bottom) and Kitakojima, known as Senkaku in Japan and Diaoyu in China is seen in the East China Sea, in this photo taken by Kyodo September 2012. REUTERS/Kyodo

The zone has raised tensions, particularly with Japan and South Korea, and is likely to dominate the agenda of a visit to Asia this week of U.S. Vice President Joe Biden. He will travel to Japan, China, and South Korea and try to ease tensions, senior American officials said.

However, China\’s declaration of the zone also represents a historic challenge by the emerging world power to the United States, which has dominated the region for decades.

China published co-ordinates for the zone last weekend. The area, about two-thirds the size of the United Kingdom, covers most of the East China Sea and the skies over a group of uninhabited islands at the center of a bitter territorial dispute between Beijing and Tokyo.

Beijing wants all foreign aircraft passing through the zone, including passenger planes, to identify themselves to Chinese authorities.

On Friday, the United States said it expected U.S. carriers to operate in line with so-called notices to airmen issued by foreign countries, although it added that the decision did \”not indicate U.S. government acceptance of China\’s requirements.

A spokesman for Delta Airlines said it had been complying with the Chinese requests for flight plans for the past week. American and United said separately that they were complying, but did not say for how long they had been doing so.

Airline industry officials said the U.S. government generally expected U.S. carriers operating internationally to comply with notices issued by foreign countries.

In contrast, Japanese carriers ANA Holdings and Japan Airlines have flown through the zone without informing China, under an agreement with the Tokyo government. Neither airline has experienced problems.

The airlines said they were sticking with the policy even after Washington\’s advice to its carriers.

Any sign that the United States was even tacitly giving a nod to China\’s air defense zone would disturb Tokyo, which is hoping for a display of solidarity when Biden visits Japan starting on Monday.

via U.S. airlines give China flight plans for defense zone | Reuters.

Posted in China alert, GeoPolitics, Politics, Territorial dispute | Leave a Comment »

Tags: , , , , , , , , ,
01/12/2013

For Cognac Makers, the Chinese Party is Over – Businessweek

French cognac makers won’t be toasting the Chinese New Year. After several years of double-digit growth, cognac sales in China have tanked as President Xi Jinping clamps down on conspicuous consumption.

Shares in Rémy Cointreau (RCO:FP), maker of Rémy Martin cognac, plunged nearly 10 percent on Nov. 26 after the company said it expected a “substantial double-digit decline” in profits because of weak Chinese sales.

The Chinese New Year, which falls on Jan. 31 in 2014, ordinarily would bring a sales windfall, with Communist Party leaders hosting cognac-soaked banquets and giving each other bottles costing $200 and up. But, Rémy Chief Executive Officer Frédéric Pflanz told Bloomberg Television, “We don’t necessarily expect a bettering of the situation” for the next few months. Chinese distributors are sitting on large, unsold stocks and aren’t placing new orders, he said.

via For Cognac Makers, the Chinese Party is Over – Businessweek.

Posted in austerity, austerity, China alert, corruption, Economics, luxury brand, Politics | Leave a Comment »

Tags: , , , , , , , , ,
01/12/2013

China Poised to Surpass India in Gold Purchases – Businessweek

Yang Cuiyan, a 41-year-old housekeeper from Anhui province, is one reason China is poised to topple India as the world’s top consumer of gold. Standing outside Beijing’s busiest jewelry store, wearing a thick coat against the autumn chill, she clasps a gold necklace that cost her 10,000 yuan ($1,640), or five months’ wages. “I can put it on when I go back home to show everyone that I’m doing well.”

Yang is one of the legions of middle-aged Chinese women, respectfully referred to as aunties, who bought coins and jewelry this year. Gold purchases in the world’s second-largest economy will surge 29 percent in 2013, to a record 1,000 metric tons, according to the median of 13 estimates from analysts, traders, and gold producers in China surveyed by Bloomberg News. China’s purchases of gold climbed 30 percent, to 996.3 tons, in the 12 months through September, while sales in India rose 24 percent, to 977.6 tons, according to the London-based World Gold Council. India was No. 1 in 2012. Each country buys more gold than the U.S., Europe, and the Middle East combined.

Gold’s burnished appeal in China stems in part from a lack of alternative investments. While the MSCI All-Country World Index of equities rose 18 percent this year through Nov. 22, the Shanghai Composite Index slumped 3.2 percent. Policymakers clamped down on property investments in March to cool the housing market, ordering the central bank to raise down-payment requirements for second mortgages in cities with excessive price gains. “In China, you look around and see very few places to put your money,” says Duan Shihua, a partner at Shanghai Leading Investment Management. “With the share market down and the government nudging people away from real estate, gold will remain a favored choice.”

via China Poised to Surpass India in Gold Purchases – Businessweek.

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

Tags: , , , , , , ,
01/12/2013

China, Japan and America: Face-off | The Economist

China’s new air-defence zone suggests a worrying new approach in the region

THE announcement by a Chinese military spokesman on November 23rd sounded bureaucratic: any aircraft flying through the newly designated Air Defence Identification Zone (ADIZ) in the East China Sea must notify Chinese authorities in advance and follow instructions from its air-traffic controllers. America’s response was rapid. On November 26th Barack Obama sent two B-52 bombers to fly through the new zone without notifying China (see article). This face-off marks the most worrying strategic escalation between the two countries since 1996, when China’s then president, Jiang Zemin, ordered a number of exclusion zones for missile tests in the Taiwan Strait, leading America to send two aircraft-carriers there.

Plenty of countries establish zones in which they require aircraft to identify themselves, but they tend not to be over other countries’ territory. The Chinese ADIZ overlaps with Japan’s own air-defence zone (see map). It also includes some specks of rock that Japan administers and calls the Senkaku islands (and which China claims and calls the Diaoyus), as well as a South Korean reef, known as Ieodo. The move is clearly designed to bolster China’s claims (see article). On November 28th Japan and South Korea sent aircraft into the zone.

Teenage testosterone

Growing economic power is bound to go hand-in-hand with growing regional assertiveness. That is fine, so long as the behaviour of the rising power remains within international norms. In this case, however, China’s does not; and America, which has guaranteed free navigation of the seas and skies of East Asia for 60 years, is right to make that clear.

How worrying China’s move is depends partly on the thinking behind it. It may be that, like a teenager on a growth spurt who doesn’t know his own strength, China has underestimated the impact of its actions. The claim that America’s bombers had skirted the edge of the ADIZ was gawkily embarrassing. But teenagers who do not realise the consequences of their actions often cause trouble: China has set up a casus belli with its neighbours and America for generations to come.

It would thus be much more worrying if the provocation was deliberate. The “Chinese dream” of Xi Jinping, the new president, is a mixture of economic reform and strident nationalism. The announcement of the ADIZ came shortly after a party plenum at which Mr Xi announced a string of commendably radical domestic reforms. The new zone will appeal to the nationalist camp, which wields huge power, particularly in the armed forces. It also helps defend Mr Xi against any suggestions that he is a westernising liberal.

If this is Mr Xi’s game, it is a dangerous one. East Asia has never before had a strong China and a strong Japan at the same time. China dominated the region from the mists of history until the 1850s, when the West’s arrival spurred Japan to modernise while China tried to resist the foreigners’ influence. China is eager to re-establish dominance over the region. Bitterness at the memory of the barbaric Japanese occupation in the second world war sharpens this desire. It is this possibility of a clash between a rising and an established power that lies behind the oft-used parallel between contemporary East Asia and early 20th-century Europe, in which the Senkakus play the role of Sarajevo.

via China, Japan and America: Face-off | The Economist.

Posted in China alert, GeoPolitics, Politics, Territorial dispute | 5 Comments »

Tags: , , , , , , ,
01/12/2013

Xinhua Insight: Aging China wants fairer, efficient social insurance – Xinhua | English.news.cn

Wang Hong, a 31-year-old woman and stay-at-home mother in South China\’s Haikou City, is worried about her future pension as she stopped paying social insurance four years ago.

After paying the insurance for five years while at work, Wang quit her hotel job to look after her child. With her child now 3 years old, Wang Hong, not her real name, is looking for a new job. But she is hesitant about paying the insurance she has missed for the past four years.

\”I don\’t know what will happen to my money in a social insurance account with possible inflation and other risks. It feels safer to keep it in my own pocket,\” she said.

In China, 38 million people stopped paying social insurance this year, either before or after reaching the pension-receiving threshold of 15 years.

Laid-off workers, employees in cash-strapped small companies and migrant workers are the majority of those who have stopped paying the insurance halfway through, according to Cui Peng, a research fellow with People\’s Insurance Company of China.

Social insurance funds cover basic endowment for senior citizens, basic medicare, unemployment, work-related injury and maternity.

The spending of endowment insurance funds, a key part of social insurance, grew 22 percent in 2012 year on year, while its revenue increased by 19 percent, according to the Ministry of Finance last week. This poses challenges for future pension payments.

According to the Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security, at the end of 2012 about 210 million urban employees paid endowment insurance.

Endowment insurance is paid by staff and the company, 8 percent and 20 percent of his or her wage respectively.

The money from companies is used to meet current pension demands while personal payments are accumulated for his or her own future pension after retirement.

However, as China\’s population ages, personal payments are often used to supplement growing current pension demands.

via Xinhua Insight: Aging China wants fairer, efficient social insurance – Xinhua | English.news.cn.

Posted in aging population, China alert, Economics | Leave a Comment »

Tags: , , ,
01/12/2013

Cameron tweets in Mandarin on Weibo for China trip | South China Morning Post

British Prime Minister David Cameron has joined Sina Weibo, China’s version of Twitter, and posted his first message ahead of a visit to Beijing, Downing Street said Saturday.

121111.jpg

“Hello my friends in China. I’m pleased to have joined Weibo and look forward to visiting China very soon,” he said in English and Mandarin in his first message.

It has since been forwarded more than 24,000 times.

Cameron has attracted more than 101,000 followers since setting up his account, which helpfully points out that he has the star sign Libra.

A Downing Street spokesman confirmed to AFP that the account was genuine.

The British premier’s social media savvy has come a long way since he said in 2009 that he was not joining Twitter because “too many twits might make a twat”.

He set up his own Twitter account in October 2012 under the handle David—Cameron, which now has more than 525,000 followers.

Cameron is due to leave for China on Sunday on a trip aimed at fostering good relations with the new leadership in Beijing and forging business links.

He will be accompanied by a delegation of ministers and business leaders on the visit, his first to the Asian powerhouse since President Xi Jinping took office in March.

via Cameron tweets in Mandarin on Weibo for China trip | South China Morning Post.

Posted in China alert, Diplomacy, Economics, GeoPolitics, Politics | Leave a Comment »

Tags: , , , , , , , ,
01/12/2013

China claims territories of 23 countries, but only has borders with 14

This article does not give a source ref. However, if it is correct, then together with the new “air defence zone” (https://chindia-alert.org/2013/12/01/china-japan-and-america-face-off-the-economist/), the requirement for Uighur students to demonstrate “approved political views” (https://chindia-alert.org/2013/12/01/xinjiang-college-says-approved-political-views-needed-to-graduate-reuters/) and recent spar with India (https://chindia-alert.org/2013/12/01/china-india-spar-over-disputed-border-reuters/) all point to a new belligerent China. Not good news at all for the world community.

See also: https://chindia-alert.org/political-factors/chinese-tensions/

Posted in China alert, Neighbour conflict, Politics, Territorial dispute | Leave a Comment »

Tags: , , , , , , ,
30/11/2013

BBC News – Why China is fixated on the Moon

The Moon could be a \”beautiful\” source of minerals and energy, a top Chinese scientist has told the BBC.

Exotic materials including helium-3 and the potential for solar power could prove invaluable for humankind, he says.

The comments come from Prof Ouyang Ziyuan of the department of lunar and deep space exploration.

His first interview with the foreign media provides insights into China\’s usually secretive space programme.

Prof Ouyang was speaking ahead of the first Chinese attempt to land an unmanned spacecraft on the lunar surface.

The Chang\’e 3 lander is due to launch imminently, perhaps as soon as Sunday evening, UK time.

It will be the first to make a soft touchdown on the Moon since an unmanned Russian mission in 1976.

No humans have set foot on the lunar surface since America\’s Apollo missions ended in 1972.

via BBC News – Why China is fixated on the Moon.

Posted in Aerospace, China alert, Economics, innovation, Technology | Leave a Comment »

Tags: , , , ,
26/11/2013

Sales of postcards drop amid push for austerity |Politics |chinadaily.com.cn

Printers claim SOEs scrapping orders of gifts

Companies making calendars and greeting cards say they have seen a huge drop in orders after the Party\’s top discipline body banned officials spending public money on their products.

The Central Commission for Discipline Inspection announced the ban on Oct 31, forbidding Party organs, government departments, State-owned enterprises and public institutions from buying, printing, mailing and handing out New Year cards, postcards and calendars.

The move was seen as the latest attempt to promote frugality and curb extravagance among officials.

In recent years, local governments and institutions have bought, printed and given away a large number of cards and calendars at the Spring Festival holiday, the commission said, adding that as the materials have become more luxurious, the waste in public funds has become more serious.

On Oct 14, the State-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission issued a notice saying the authority will strengthen supervision and inspection as well as strictly prohibit State-owned enterprises from buying, printing, mailing and giving away New Year cards.

While figures on the amount of public money spent on greeting cards, postcards and calendars every year are unavailable, a county official in Jiangxi province, who gave only her surname, Li, said her government purchases 40,000 New Year cards or postcards every year for about 5 yuan (80 cents) each.

While civil servants can each get 10 cards, some officials may ask for more than 150, she said.

\”Some cards are sent in the name of individuals, some are sent in the name of departments to higher level governments or officials,\” Li added.

Xinhua News Agency also quoted another county official in Central China as saying, \”the money used (in his county) to buy cards is more than 300,000 yuan, equivalent to the money needed to build a Hope Primary School\”.

There are more than 2,800 county-level administrative regions and more than 300 city-level administrative regions in China, as well as thousands of State-owned enterprises and public institutions.

The Bank of China\’s Zhejiang branch has scrapped a plan to purchase 73,900 wall calendars, 52,600 desk calendars and 26,000 postcards, Xinhua reported.

The ban, however, is potentially a disaster for companies that make postcards and calendars.

via Sales of postcards drop amid push for austerity |Politics |chinadaily.com.cn.

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

Tags: , , , , , ,
« Older Entries  |   Newer Entries »
CCChang

Law of Unintended Consequences

continuously updated blog about China & India

ChiaHou's Book Reviews

continuously updated blog about China & India

What's wrong with the world; and its economy

continuously updated blog about China & India