China alert | CHINDIA ALERT: You'll be living in their world, very soon

02/04/2013

* China’s next generation Net is way ahead of the West

The Nation: “The Net is getting creaky and old: it is rapidly running out of space and remains fundamentally insecure. And it turns out that China is streets ahead of the West in doing anything about it.

Internet! (Photo credit: LarsZi)

A report published in the “Philosophical Transactions” of the Royal Society this month details China’s advances in creating a next-generation Internet that is on a national level and on a larger scale than anything in the West.

At the root of the problem are “two major gaps in the architecture of the Internet”, according to a report from the New England Complex Systems Institute, compiled in 2008 for the US Navy and released to the public this month. First up is the Internet’s inability to block malicious traffic as a whole. While malware can rapidly replicate and distribute itself across the Net, organisations can only respond to individual instances of online aggression.

China is already coming up with better defences. One of the most important aspects of its next-generation backbone is a security feature known as source address validation architecture (SAVA). Many of the existing security problems stem from an inability to authenticate IP addresses of computers that try to connect to your network. SAVA fixes this by adding checkpoints across the network. These build up a database of trusted computers matched up with their IP addresses. Packets of data will be blocked if the computer and IP address don’t match. Steve Wolff, one of the Internet’s early pioneers, calls it a “model that should be much more widely adopted”.

Even setting security worries aside, the Internet is running out of room. The current standard for assigning space to computers – known as Internet Protocol Version Four (IPv4) – uses a numbering system which has just under 4.3 billion possible spaces. Internet engineers have been working on the new standard for years. It is called IPv6 and will boost the number of available Internet slots by a mind-boggling 80,000 trillion trillion times. But progress on IPv6 has been painfully slow, and time is running out. IPv4 slots are due to run out in multiple regions around the world this year.

But China has been planning for that day for a long time, under pressure from its massive population, all of whom want to be connected to the Net. So says Donald Riley, an information systems specialist at the University of Maryland, who also chairs the Chinese American Network Symposium.

“China has a national Internet backbone in place that operates under IPv6 as the native network protocol,” says Riley. “We have nothing like that in the US.”

China is already running next-generation services: Internet service provider 3TNet provides television over IPv6, streaming programmes in high definition. It is the basis for a system that monitors and controls traffic flow over the Internet and provides remote medical services – even long-distance, real-time violin lessons in high definition. All have the potential to reach more people at higher speeds than any equivalent service on the old Internet.

“If you are thinking about the future of the Internet, anyone that explores that territory and maps it out first has a definite competitive advantage,” Riley says, “especially with the resources available to China.””

via China’s next generation Net is way ahead of the West – The Nation.

China Jumps to IPv6 While U.S. Moves Slowly Away From IPv4 (dailytech.com)
China’s internet architecture (thedroidguy.com)
China’s new internet backbone explained: verified sources, IPv6 at the core (engadget.com)
China’s Internet Architecture Gives the Rest of Us a Run for Our Money (gizmodo.com)

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

Tags: address validation, China, Internet Protocol, internet protocol version, IP address, next generation internet, Royal Society

02/04/2013

* Uyghur Jailings Highlight Chinese Media Controls

Eurasia review: “China’s jailing of 20 ethnic Uyghurs this week on terrorism and separatism charges using online activism as a basis for their conviction reflects government moves to increase media controls and use weak laws to suppress voices in the troubled Xinjiang region, Uyghur rights groups say.

Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region in China

The courts said the 20 Uyghur Muslims had had their “thoughts poisoned by religious extremism” and used cell phones and DVDs “to spread Muslim religious propaganda,” the government of the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region said on its official news website.

Nineteen of them were given prison sentences ranging from 5 years to life in prison in Xinjiang’s Kashagar prefecture while the 20th suspect was sentenced to 10 years in jail on the same day in the Bayingolin Mongolian Autonomous Prefecture.

They were accused of using the Internet, mobile phones and digital storage devices to organize, lead and participate in an alleged terrorist organization with the intent to “incite splittism,” reports have said.

Leading Uyghur activist Rebiya Kadeer of the Munich-based World Uyghur Congress (WUC) said that the sentences showed the new Chinese leadership’s “indifference for human rights and democracy” and that it will “continue with the ‘strike hard’ practices of the previous regimes.”

“It further indicates that the Chinese government will not contribute to the peaceful resolution of the conflict in the region in the near future, preferring instead to continue its counterproductive and destructive practices,” the WUC president said in a statement Thursday.”

via Uyghur Jailings Highlight Chinese Media Controls Eurasia Review | Eurasia Review.

Rising China’s Muslim Problem: What is the Future of the Uygurs? (Alimglu) (juancole.com)
Four Dead in Xinjiang After Knife Attack (theepochtimes.com)
Uyghur leader gives Chinese diplomats a history lesson at UN (worldbulletin.net)
Muslims in Xinjiang get arrested for having Qur’an Recitation files on mobile phones (alhittin.com)
Xinjiang Raids Point To Religious Controls (albanytribune.com)
Nothing has changed for the Uyghurs! (worldbulletin.net)

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

Tags: China, Human rights, politics, religion, Uyghur, Uyghur people, World Uyghur Congress, Xinjiang, Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region

02/04/2013

* China’s Glass Ceiling

Foreign Policy: “It’s over for America,” a Chinese academic told me in late 2008, two days after Goldman Sachs turned itself into a commercial bank in order to fend off possible collapse. “From here on, it’s all downhill.” Sitting in Beijing as American capitalism seemed to be hanging by a thread, it was easy to believe that one era was ending and another beginning.

The past half-decade should have been the glory years for the spread of Chinese influence around the world. After China’s ravishing 2008 Beijing Summer Olympics, and its startling recovery from the financial crisis, it had a platform to push for a bigger voice in international affairs. At a time when the United States has been navel-gazing on its own deficiencies and beset by dysfunction and infighting in Congress, China has quickly become the main trading partner for a long list of countries, not just in Asia, which should give it all sorts of sway. And at the very least, many Chinese assume, the country should start to resume its role as the natural leader in Asia.

Yet the years since the crisis have demonstrated something very different. Rather than usher in a new era of Chinese influence, Beijing’s missteps have shown why it is unlikely to become the world’s leading power. Even if it overtakes the United States to have the biggest economy in the world, which many economists believe could happen over the next decade, China will not dislodge Washington from its central position in global affairs for decades to come.

China is certainly not lacking in ambition, even if many of its final goals are not clearly articulated. It is implementing plans which challenge U.S. military, economic, and even political supremacy. But on each front, the last few years have demonstrated China’s limitations, not the inevitability of its rise.

China’s effort to gradually squeeze the U.S. Navy out of the Western Pacific did not start with the financial crisis in 2008. The financial crisis did, however, coincide with a new aggressiveness in the way China has pushed its territorial claims in the South China Sea and the East China Sea. Beijing has scored at least one victory, securing control of the Scarborough Shoal, a group of small islands in the South China Sea, from the Philippines in 2012.

But among these tactical successes, China has been sowing the seeds of a strategic defeat. China’s assertiveness is generating intense suspicion, if not outright enmity, among its neighbors. Its “peaceful rise” is not taking place in isolation. There may be echoes in today’s Asia of the late-nineteenth century in Europe and North America, but this is the one critical difference. The United States came into its own as a great power without any major challenge from its neighbors, while Germany’s ascent was aided by the collapsing Austro-Hungarian and Ottoman empires and Russian monarchy on its frontiers. China, on the other hand, is surrounded by vibrant countries with fast-growing economies, from South Korea to India to Vietnam, who all believe that this is their time, as well. Even Japan, after two decades of stagnation, still has one of the most formidable navies in the world, as well as the world’s third largest economy. China’s strategic misfortune is to be bordered by robust and proud nation-states which expect their own stake in the modern world.

The last few years have shown that these countries have no desire to return to a Sinocentric Asia, as existed before the arrival of Western powers in the late-fifteenth century, and one where China is the undisputed leader. All the talk about the Obama administration’s “pivot” to Asia has obscured the much bigger shift that has taken place in the region since the crisis — almost all of China’s neighbors are now deeply anxious about what a powerful, expansionist leadership in Beijing portends for their future. They still want to trade with China, but they also want protection from Beijing’s bullying.”

via China’s Glass Ceiling – By Geoff Dyer | Foreign Policy.

China using Senkakus dispute to test Japan, U.S. (japantimes.co.jp)
China: New leaders, same assertive foreign policy – CNN International (edition.cnn.com)
Vietnam accuses China over sea clash (bbc.co.uk)

Posted in China alert, GeoPolitics, History, Neighbour conflict, Politics | Leave a Comment »

Tags: Asia, China, Philippines, politics, Scarborough Shoal, South China Sea, United States

02/04/2013

Surely not. Robbing from its own people?

Posted in China alert, Economics, Illegal practices, land grab, Politics, urban development | Leave a Comment »

25/03/2013

* Third Pole glaciers shrinking, affected by black carbon

China Daily: “About 90 percent of glaciers in the Third Pole region are shrinking, accelerated by black carbon being transferred from South Asia to the Tibetan Plateau, a top scientist has warned.

The Third Pole region, which is centered on the Tibetan Plateau and concerns the interests of the surrounding countries and regions, covers more than 5 million square kilometers and has an average altitude of more than 4,000 meters.

The area has the largest number of glaciers outside the polar regions and exerts a direct influence on the social and economic development of some of the most densely populated regions on earth, including China and India.

The glaciers are at the headwaters of many prominent Asian rivers.

Influenced by global warming, its alpine glaciers have seen drastic changes in recent years, such as thinning and shrinkage, which pose potential geological hazards to people both on and around the plateau.

Like Antarctica and the Arctic, the Third Pole is drawing increased attention from the international academic community, but the results of former international studies in this area are inconsistent, said Yao Tandong, director of the Chinese Academy of Sciences‘ Institute of Tibetan Plateau Research.

The scientist, a member of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference National Committee, said some people believe the glaciers will retreat and finally disappear by 2030, while others argue they will remain unchanged.

There are even people who argue that the glaciers have even moved forward, he said.

Researchers at Yao’s institute say they can now draw a more comprehensive picture of the region, by showing data on the glaciers’ status over the past 30 years. An investigation using topographic maps and satellite images revealed the retreat of 82 glaciers, area reduction by 7,090 glaciers and the mass-balance change of 15 glaciers.

“Systematic differences in glacier status are apparent from region to region, with the most pronounced shrinkage in the Himalayas, the southeastern part of the region.

Some of the glaciers there are very likely to disappear by 2030,” Yao said.

“The shrinkage generally decreases from the Himalayas to the continental interior and is smallest in the western part. Some glaciers there are even growing.”

He said changes in the glaciers will be accelerated if the planet continues to warm.

Potential consequences would be unsustainable water supplies from major rivers and geo-hazards, such as glacier lake expansion and flooding, which could threaten the well-being of people downstream.”

via Third Pole glaciers shrinking, affected by black carbon |Society |chinadaily.com.cn.

How will climate change affect the Himalayas? Scientists trek to find out. (csmonitor.com)
Where has all the ice gone? (treehugger.com)
Between Glacier And Dam: Living With Climate Change On Tibetan Plateau (chimalaya.org)
Nepal’s glaciers retreat – but why? (climatenewsnetwork.net)
Glaciers in the Himalayas Are Retreating – But Why? (climatecentral.org)
Study Shows Canada’s Far North Glaciers Are Melting Fast (climatecentral.org)
Canada’s Glaciers Could Shrink by a Fifth by 2100 (themoderatevoice.com)

Posted in carbon emission, China alert, Economics, Environment, Pollution | Leave a Comment »

Tags: alpine glaciers, climate, environment, international academic community, political consultative conference, science

25/03/2013

* China pulls 1,000 dead ducks from Sichuan river

BBC: “Around 1,000 dead ducks have been pulled from a river in southwest China, local officials say.

Dead pigs along Songjiang, Shanghai - picture released 10/3/13

Residents found the dead ducks in Nanhe river in Pengshan county, Sichuan province, and alerted the environmental department, they said.

Local residents and livestock were not at risk as the river was not used for drinking water, officials added.

The news comes as the toll of dead pigs pulled from Shanghai’s Huangpu river passed 16,000.

Speaking in an interview with China National Radio on Sunday, Liang Weidong, a deputy director in Pengshan’s publicity department, said that the authorities were first made aware of the ducks on Tuesday.

Officials discovered over 50 woven bags which contained the carcasses of around 1,000 ducks in the river.

They were unable to determine the cause of death as some of the ducks were already decomposed, Mr Liang said, adding that the bodies had been disinfected and buried.

An initial investigation suggested that the duck corpses had originated from upstream and were not dumped by local Pengshan farmers, he said.”

via BBC News – China pulls 1,000 dead ducks from Sichuan river.

Dead pigs in China river exceed 13,000 (seeddaily.com)

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

Tags: China, environment, Huangpu River, Pengshan County, Shanghai, Sichuan

25/03/2013

* Behind China’s Switch to High-End Exports

WSJ: “As rising labor costs push manufacturing of T-shirts, jeans and the like out of China, the country has been able to offset that loss by grabbing the high end.

[image]

And nowhere is that on better display than the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge.

When the switch is flipped each night for the span’s two-year artistic light show, the electricity flows through sophisticated power devices made by Gary Hua’s factory not far from Shanghai.

In the six years since it was founded, his company has grown to 1,000 employees, who last year made three million power-supply units for high-efficiency light-emitting diodes. The company, Inventronics Inc., expects to double production this year and export more than half that output.

With labor costs increasing in China, the country is now shifting its manufacturing focus to high-tech exports such as computers and sophisticated power devices. Shaun Rein of China Markets Research tells the WSJ’s Jake Lee how Western countries are reacting.

* Wages Rising in Chinese Factories? Only For Some

Working in these Times: “If we are to take recent news reports at face value, the collective conscience of the worlds consumers can be eased, because conditions at Chinese factories are improving.

Last year, The New York Times told us that these workers are “cheap no more,” and just this February, the Heritage Foundation, touting the virtues of global free trade, claimed that Chinese factory wages have risen 20 percent per year since 2005. Foxconn, Apples major supplier and the manufacturer of approximately 40 percent of the worlds consumer electronics, says it will hold free union elections every five years.

But Pollyannas should take pause: The average migrant workers $320 monthly salary in 2011 was actually 43 percent less than the $560 national average, according to government statistics. And though its true that Foxconn will permit the election of union leaders, we have yet to see how much Chinas so-called democratic unions can empower the workers they purport to represent.

Skepticism and caveats aside, the reality is that the lot of formal production workers in China is indeed advancing, however slowly and painfully. But that is true only for formal workers. What many consumers and observers fail to note are the perilous conditions of Chinas temporary production workers and the increased tendency among Chinese factories to use such workers to manufacture the brand-name products that fill your home.

Factories supplying Apple and Samsung, for example, make heavy use of temp workers. According to official statistics, temp workers make up 20 percent of Chinas urban workforce of 300 million, though the proportion in individual factories often tops 50 percent. As China turns into a land of short-term workers, there are grave implications for labor, companies, and Chinese society.”

via Wages Rising in Chinese Factories? Only For Some – Working In These Times.

* Where Have China’s Workers Gone? (chindia-alert.org)
Foxconn Inland China Push Spurred by Labor, BI Says (bloomberg.com)
Union for iPhone workers is pure PR (salon.com)
Foxconn Workers Organize In Communist China (news.firedoglake.com)
Where Have China’s Workers Gone? (bloomberg.com)
Foxconn plans Chinese union vote (edition.cnn.com)
As China Changes, Infamous Foxconn Goes Robotic (forbes.com)
Chinese factories turn to outsourced workers (wantchinatimes.com)
China’s trade union reforms aim to control its militant workforce | Richard Seymour (guardian.co.uk)

Posted in China alert, Digital communications, Economics, employment, IT, Technology, temporary workers | 1 Comment »

Tags: Apple, Business, China, Chinese language, economy, Foxconn, migrant worker, politics, Samsung

25/03/2013

* China’s Xi tells Africa he seeks relationship of equals

Reuters: “China’s new president told Africans on Monday he wanted a relationship of equals that would help the continent develop, responding to concerns that Beijing is only interested in shipping out its raw materials.

TANZANIA-DAR ES SALAAM-CHINA-XI JINPING-ARRIVAL

On the first stop on an African tour that will include a BRICS summit of major emerging economies, Xi Jinping told Tanzanian President Jakaya Kikwete that China’s involvement in Africa would help the continent grow richer.

“China sincerely hopes to see faster development in African countries and a better life for African people,” Xi said in a speech laying out China’s policy on Africa, delivered at a conference center in Dar es Salaam built with Chinese money.

Renewing an offer of $20 billion of loans to Africa between 2013 and 2015, Xi pledged to “help African countries turn resource endowment into development strength and achieve independent and sustainable development”.

Africans broadly see China as a healthy counterbalance to Western influence but, as ties mature, there are growing calls from policymakers and economists for a more balanced trade deal.

“China will continue to offer, as always, necessary assistance to Africa with no political strings attached,” Xi said to applause. “We get on well and treat each others as equals.”

But gratitude for that aid is increasingly tinged with resentment about the way Chinese companies operate in Africa where industrial complexes staffed exclusively by Chinese workers have occasionally provoked riots by locals looking for work.

Countering concerns that Africa is not benefitting from developing skills or technology from Chinese investment, Xi said China would train 30,000 African professionals, offer 18,000 scholarships to African students and “increase technology transfer and experience”.”

via China’s Xi tells Africa he seeks relationship of equals | Reuters.

Posted in BRICS, China alert, Construction, Diplomacy, economic inter-dependence, Economics, exports, Foreign acquisition, GeoPolitics, Import, Infrastructure, joint venture, Manufacturing, Natural resources, Politics | Leave a Comment »

Tags: africa, Beijing, BRIC, China, Dar es Salaam, Jakaya Kikwete, Tanzania, Xi JinPing

CHINDIA ALERT: You'll be living in their world, very soon

Chindia Alert: You’ll be Living in their World Very Soon

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* China’s next generation Net is way ahead of the West

* Uyghur Jailings Highlight Chinese Media Controls

* China’s Glass Ceiling

* Third Pole glaciers shrinking, affected by black carbon

* China pulls 1,000 dead ducks from Sichuan river

* Behind China’s Switch to High-End Exports

* Wages Rising in Chinese Factories? Only For Some

* China’s Xi tells Africa he seeks relationship of equals

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