05/06/2019
- Communist Party says those taking part pledged to ‘cultivate the Chinese cultural character of our nation’s religions’
- Confucius has been rehabilitated by party in recent years as a means of rallying patriotism and countering foreign influences
The Communist Party for decades attacked the sage as a symbol of feudalism, but now Confucianism has been elevated. Photo: AP
China has begun five-day Confucian culture immersion courses for religious leaders in the sage’s hometown as part of a campaign to extend government control over faith communities through a
.
The ruling Communist Party’s United Work Front Department said in a news release on Monday that the activity was designed to ensure the primacy of traditional Chinese values above all.
“To hold activities here … is a collective tribute to excellent traditional Chinese culture and a conscious identification and integration with Chinese culture,” said the release, posted on the department’s website.
Participants pledged to “cultivate the Chinese cultural character of our nation’s religions so that our nation’s religions are rooted in the fertile soil of excellent traditional Chinese culture, and to ceaselessly and deeply advance the Sinicisation of our nation’s religions”, it said.
The five-day immersion courses are being held in the sage’s hometown of Qufu. Photo: United Front Work Department
President Xi Jinping has launched the harshest crackdown in decades on religious practices, especially those viewed as foreign such as Christianity and Islam, while at the same time elevating home-grown Confucianism.
While for decades the officially atheistic Communist Party attacked Confucius as a symbol of feudalism, he has been thoroughly rehabilitated in recent years as a means of rallying patriotism and countering foreign influences.
Confucianism’s emphasis on strict social organisation, advancement through study and exam taking, adherence to hierarchy and maintenance of social harmony appeals especially to the heavily bureaucratic party, which brooks no challenge to its authority.
Xi has repeatedly called for religious leaders and believers to be guided by “socialist core values”. Party bureaucrats overseeing religion have demanded that key religious tenets and texts such as the Bible and Koran be interpreted “in conformity with the demands of modern Chinese development and excellent traditional Chinese culture”.
That has been accompanied by a campaign of removing crosses and bulldozing many churches, destroying mosques and locking an
in camps where they are forced to renounce Islam and their cultural traditions.
Despite international condemnation, China claims it upholds freedom of religion and is seeking only to ensure regulations are followed while discouraging religious extremism and violence.
Those participating at the launch of the five-day course included the president of the Chinese Taoist Association, vice-president of the Chinese Islamic Association, chairman of the Chinese Catholic Patriotic Association and president of the Chinese Christian Association.
Confucius was believed to have been born in the 6th century BC in the eastern town of Qufu. He is credited with authoring or editing key texts of statesmanship and social order, particularly the Analects that contain his key aphorisms and teachings.
The sage’s legacy is also invoked in the name of the
, quasi-academic bodies set up in colleges and other centres of education around the world.
Several US universities have rejected offers to open Confucius Institutes on their campuses or declined to renew contracts over concerns about Chinese government political influence.
Source: SCMP
Posted in Analects, Bible, bulldozing many churches, China alert, Chinese Catholic Patriotic Association, Chinese Christian Association, Chinese Islamic Association, Chinese Taoist Association, Christianity, Communist Party, Confucian culture courses, Confucianism, Confucius, Confucius Institute, destroying mosques, islam, Koran, President Xi Jinping, Qufu, religious leaders, removing crosses, runs, Sinicisation, symbol of feudalism, the sage, traditional Chinese values, Uncategorized, United Work Front Department |
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05/06/2019
BEIJING (Reuters) – With a cryptic message about UFOs and a picture of a missile launcher, China’s military has hinted that it has carried out a test of a new missile, after images of an object streaking towards the sky circulated on Chinese social media.
The People’s Liberation Army typically does not announce new missile tests, but occasionally drops hints about what it is up to, amid a massive modernisation push championed by President Xi Jinping to ramp up combat capabilities.
On Sunday, footage circulated on China’s Weibo microblogging service of an object travelling up into the sky, leaving a white trail behind it, over the Bohai Sea, partly closed at the time for military drills.
That caused some Chinese internet users to wonder if it was a UFO, though most thought it was probably the test of a new underwater launched ballistic missile.
In a short post on its official Weibo account late on Monday, the People’s Liberation Army Rocket Force showed a picture of what looked like a road mobile intercontinental ballistic missile launcher against a night sky.
“Do you believe in this world there are UFOs?” it wrote in the caption, without offering further explanation.
The navy then chimed in on its Weibo account with a picture of a missile being launched from underwater heading off into the blue sky above, with a similar caption: “Do you believe in UFOs?”
Defence publication Janes said on its website that the weekend pictures could have been China’s next generation submarine-launched ballistic missile, the JL-3.
The Ministry of Defence did not respond to a request for comment.
The development of the nuclear-armed JL-3 is being closely watched by the United States and its allies as it is expected to have a longer range than its predecessor and will significantly strengthen China’s nuclear deterrent.
In its latest annual survey of China’s military modernisation, the Pentagon said last month the new missile would likely to be fitted on China’s next generation nuclear missile submarines. Construction is due to start in the early 2020s.
Source: Reuters
Posted in believe, Bohai Sea, China alert, Construction, hints, Ministry of Defence, new missile, nuclear missile submarines, nuclear-armed JL-3, Pentagon, People’s Liberation Army, President Xi Jinping, Rocket Force, test, UFOs, Uncategorized, Weibo |
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04/06/2019
- Brahma Chellaney writes that excessive damming and drastic overuse of water resources are causing the world’s major waterways to run dry
Vessels head for the lock of the Three Gorges Dam in Yichang, in central China’s Hubei province. Sediment build-up in the dam’s reservoir stems from silt flow disruption in the Yangtze River, Brahma Chellaney writes. Photo: Xinhua
Thanks to excessive damming and drastic overuse of water resources, an increasing number of major rivers across the world are drying up before reaching the sea.
Nowhere is this more evident than in China, where the old saying, “Follow the river and it will eventually lead you to a sea,” is no longer wholly true.
While a number of smaller rivers in China have simply disappeared, the Yellow River – the cradle of the Chinese civilisation – now tends to run dry before reaching the sea.
This has prompted Chinese scientists to embark on a controversial rainmaking project to help increase the Yellow’s flow. By sucking moisture from the air, however, the project could potentially affect monsoon rains elsewhere.
For large sections of the world’s population, major river systems serve as lifelines. The rivers not only supply the most essential of all natural resources – water – but also sustain biodiversity, which in turn supports human beings.
Yet an increasing number of rivers, not just in China, are drying up before reaching the sea.
A major new United Nations study published early this month offers grim conclusions: human actions are irremediably altering rivers and other ecosystems and driving increasing numbers of plant and animal species to extinction.
“Nature across the globe has now been significantly altered,” according to the study’s summary of findings.
The Yangtze and Jialing rivers come together in the southwestern city of Chongqing. Photo: Simon Song
Water sustains life and livelihoods and enables economic development.
If the world is to avert a thirsty future and contain the risks of greater intrastate and interstate water conflict, it must protect freshwater ecosystems, which harbour the greatest concentration of species.
The Mekong is mighty no more: book charts river’s demise
Yet, according to another study published in Nature this month humans have modified the flows of most long rivers, other than those found in the remote regions of the
Amazon and Congo basins and the Arctic.
Consequently, only a little more than one-third of the world’s 246 long rivers are still free-flowing, meaning they remain free from dams, levees and other man-made water-diversion structures that leave them increasingly fragmented.
Humans have modified the flows of most long rivers, including the Yangtze, home to some of China’s most spectacular natural scenery. Photo: WWF
Such fragmentation is affecting river hydrology, flow of nutrient-rich sediment from the mountains where rivers originate, riparian vegetation, migration of fish and quality of water.
Take the Colorado River, one of the world’s most diverted and dammed rivers. Broken up by more than 100 dams and thousands of kilometres of diversion canals, the Colorado has not reached the sea since 1998.
Sinking sands along the Mekong River leave Vietnamese homeless
The river, which originates in the Rocky Mountains and is the lifeblood for the southwestern United States, used to empty into the Sea of Cortez in Mexico.
But now, owing to the upstream diversion of 9.3 billion cubic metres (328.4 billion cubic feet) of water annually, the Colorado’s flow into its delta has been reduced to a trickle.
Altering the flow characteristics of rivers poses a serious problem for sustainable development, because they affect the ecosystem services on which both humans and wildlife depend. Photo: AP
Other major rivers that run dry before reaching the sea include the Amu Darya and the Syr Darya, the two lifelines of Central Asia; the Euphrates and the Tigris in the Middle East; and the Rio Grande, which marks the border between Texas and Mexico before heading to the Gulf of Mexico.
The overused Murray in Australia and Indus in Pakistan are at risk of meeting the same fate.
Are China’s Mekong dams washing away Cambodian livelihoods?
More fundamentally, altered flow characteristics of rivers are among the most serious problems for sustainable development, because they seriously affect the ecosystem services on which both humans and wildlife depend.
Free-flowing rivers, while supporting a wealth of biodiversity, allow billions of fish – the main source of protein for the poor – to trek through their waters and breed copiously.
Urgent action is needed to save the world’s rivers, including improving agricultural practices, which account for the bulk of freshwater withdrawals
Free-flowing rivers also deliver nutrient-rich silt crucial to agriculture, fisheries and marine life.
Such high-quality sediment helps to naturally re-fertilise overworked soils in the plains, sustain freshwater species and, after rivers empty into seas or oceans, underpin the aquatic food chain supporting marine life.
China’s hyperactive dam building illustrates the high costs of river fragmentation. No country in history has built more dams than China. In fact, China today boasts more large dams than the rest of the world combined.
China’s chain of dams and reservoirs on each of its long rivers impedes the downstream flow of sediment, thereby denying essential nutrients to agricultural land and aquatic species.
A case in point is China’s Three Gorges Dam – the world’s largest – which has a problematic build-up of sediment in its own massive reservoir because it has disrupted silt flows in the Yangtze River.
Likewise, China’s cascade of eight giant dams on the Mekong, just before the river enters Southeast Asia, is affecting the quality and quantity of flows in the delta, in Vietnam.
Yangtze dams may spell end to sturgeon in a decade
Undeterred, China is building or planning another 20 dams on the Mekong.
How the drying up of rivers affects seas and oceans is apparent from the Aral Sea, which has shrunk 74 per cent in area and 90 per cent in volume, with its salinity growing nine-fold.
People beat the heat by cooling off in the Yangtze River in Wuhan, in central China’s Hubei province. Photo: Nora Tam
This change is the result of the Aral Sea’s principal water sources, the Amu Darya and Syr Darya, being so overexploited for irrigation that they are drying up before reaching what was once the world’s fourth-largest inland lake.
Compounding the challenges is the increasing pollution of rivers. Aquatic ecosystems have lost half of their biodiversity since the mid-1970s alone.
Chinese court jails nine for dumping toxic waste in Yangtze
Urgent action is needed to save the world’s rivers. This includes action on several fronts, including improving practices in agriculture, which accounts for the bulk of the world’s freshwater withdrawals.
Without embracing integrated water resource management and other sustainable practices, the world risks a parched future.
Source: SCMP
Posted in Amazon, Amu Darya, Aral Sea, Arctic, Australia, Brahma Chellaney, Cambodian, China alert, Chinese civilisation, Chongqing, Colorado River, Congo, drastic overuse, drying up, ecosystems, especially, Euphrates, excessive damming, extinction, Gulf of Mexico, hubei province, hyperactive dam building, Indus River, Jialing, major waterways, Mekong, Mexico, Middle East, Murray, nature, No time to waste, Pakistan, Rio Grande, Rocky Mountains, run dry, saving, Sea of Cortez, Syr Darya, Texas, Three Gorges Dam, Tigris, Uncategorized, United Nations, United States, Water resources, world’s rivers, Yangtze River, Yellow River, Yichang |
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04/06/2019
- 163-million-year-old fossil represents something new in evolutionary history
- Researchers say discovery is extraordinary
A small, tree-climbing dinosaur discovered in China has overturned evolutionary history with its cape-like membrane. Photo: Handout
Chinese scientists have discovered a new dinosaur species which appears to have been equipped – like Batman – with a cape that may have given it the ability to glide.
Researchers say the finding is extraordinary, representing something new in evolutionary history.
The little tree-climbing dinosaur – about the size of a magpie – was equipped with a soft, smooth membrane draped over its long, strong forearms that may have looked like the wings of a bat when spread.
The 163-million-year-old fossil has been named Ambopteryx longibrachium and was found at Wubaiding village, Liaoning province, northeast China, in 2017, according to a paper published in the journal Nature on Thursday.
The 163-million-year-old fossil found in eastern China showed long, strong forearms draped in a smooth cape-like membrane. Photo: Handout
Lead author Dr Wang Min, a researcher with the Chinese Academy of Sciences’ Institute of Vertebrate Palaeontology and Palaeoanthropology in Beijing, said quite a number of dinosaurs had birdlike feathers and some eventually evolved into birds.
“But bat-like wings? The idea has not been widely accepted,” he said.
The possibility was first raised a few years ago when a close relative of the newly discovered dinosaur was found, also in China, with a finger bone which had never before been seen in dinosaurs.
Scientists discover ‘nightmare’ crab with cartoon eyes
A small number of researchers suspected the bone could have been used to hold membrane, but the mainstream scientific community remained sceptical.
Why on earth, some critics argued, would a dinosaur need membrane when it already had feathers?
In the 2008 film “The Dark Knight”, Batman uses his cape to glide among the skyscrapers of Hong Kong. Researchers believe the new dinosaur may have used its cape-like membrane in a similar way. Photo: Handout
Ambopteryx longibrachium, nonetheless, had the same peculiar finger bone, only this time scientists were also able to observe a large membrane and a thick layer of hair over its head, neck and shoulders.
The hair and membrane was not an efficient combination for flight aerodynamics. But “in evolution, nothing is impossible”, Wang said.
The tiny T. rex cousin that humans could look down on
The dinosaur lived in thick forest and could have been easy prey to large predators. But its wings might have given it the ability to hop from tree to tree, and they could also have been useful when hunting.
The dinosaur had a slim body about the size of a magpie, with a soft, smooth membrane draped over its forearms like a cape. Photo: Handout
Wang and his colleagues found traces of small bones in the remnant of its stomach. While a tree-climbing dinosaur’s main diet should have been fruit, it could sometimes hunt as well, according to the researchers.
An absence of a large chest bone suggested the dinosaur could not fly at will, like a bird or bat. It remains unclear how long the species survived, but it eventually vanished, probably because of competition from better-equipped winged animals with all-feather or all-membrane wings.
Source: SCMP
Posted in Ambopteryx longibrachium, Batman, Beijing, caped, China alert, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Dinosaurs, found, glide, Institute of Vertebrate Palaeontology and Palaeoanthropology, Liaoning province, magpie, nature, T. rex, Uncategorized, Wubaiding village |
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04/06/2019
NEW DELHI (Reuters) – Five bodies were spotted high on a mountain in the Indian Himalayas on Monday during an aerial search for eight climbers feared swept away in an avalanche last week, a government official said.
The climbers – four from Britain, two from the United States, and one each from Australia and India – were reported missing by colleagues on Friday after they failed to return to their base camp near Nanda Devi, India’s second highest mountain.
An air force helicopter spotted the five bodies on a flight over the area where they went missing, Vijay Kumar Jogdande, the top government official in the nearby Pithoragarh district.
“Four bodies can be seen together and a fifth slightly away from the others,” he said.
The search mission was now working on the assumption that all eight climbers had been killed, he said.
“We are trying to retrieve the bodies. We believe the other three will be nearby,” he said.
The climbers was attempting to climb an unnamed, previously unclimbed 6,477 metre (21,250 feet) peak near Nanda Devi when their route was hit by a “sizeable avalanche”, said the company that organised the expedition, Moran Mountain.
Jogdande, said the bodies were above 5,000 metres and the possibility of a second avalanche would make accessing the site difficult. It had not been decided whether a team would go in by air or on foot, he said.
“We’re considering both alternatives. Since the bodies are at high altitude it is inaccessible, it is still unstable terrain that could lead to a secondary avalanche. We’re working out a plan.”
“It has always been a dangerous place to go. Mount Everest is easier to climb,” he said.
A team would take at least a week to reach the area, Sanjay Gunjiyal, a senior police official involved in the mission, told Reuters.
Four climbers in the group had turned back and later raised the alarm about their missing colleagues. They were evacuated from their base camp by helicopter and were “fine and healthy”, said Tripti Bhatt, an official of the Uttarakhand State Disaster Response Force.
DEADLY SEASON
It has been one of the deadliest climbing seasons in the Himalayas for several years. More than 20 people have been killed in the mountains, including 11 on Mount Everest, the world’s highest peak that has been plagued by poor weather, inexperienced climbers and overcrowding.
Nanda Devi, at 7,816 metres (25,643 feet), and its sister mountain, Nanda Devi East, are among the world’s most challenging peaks and only a handful of people have climbed them.
The leader of the missing group, Martin Moran, was the first person to summit Changuch, another peak in the area, and was known as a “godfather” of guiding in the Himalayas, according to a video diary of Rob Jarvis, who accompanied him on that expedition in 2009.
“He was very well versed with the area, but the route they were taking is not usually travelled,” Gunjiyal said.
Many of the other missing climbers are veterans but with little experience of Nanda Devi and its surrounding peaks, he said.
Indian authorities have identified the eight missing as Moran, John McLaren, Rupert Whewell and Richard Payne, all from Britain, Anthony Sudekum and Ronald Beimel from the United States, Ruth McCance from Australia, and liaison officer Chetan Pandey from the Indian Mountaineering Foundation.
Source: Reuters
Posted in Australia, avalanche, Britain, Changuch, climbers, Five bodies, India alert, Indian Himalayas, Indian Mountaineering Foundation, Martin Moran, missing, Moran Mountain, Mount Everest, Nanda Devi, Pithoragarh district, search, spotted, State Disaster Response Force, Uncategorized, United States, Uttarakhand |
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03/06/2019
NEW DELHI (Reuters) – India warned of severe heat in northern and central areas on Monday, following similar extreme weather on Sunday.
Of the 15 hottest places in the world in the past 24 hours, eight were in India with the others in neighbouring Pakistan, according to weather monitoring website El Dorado.
Churu, a city in the west of the northern state of Rajasthan, recorded the country’s highest temperature of 48.9 Celsius (120 Fahrenheit) on Monday, according to the Meteorological Department.
Churu has issued a heat wave advisory and government hospitals have prepared emergency wards with extra air conditioners, coolers and medicines, said Ramratan Sonkariya, additional district magistrate for Churu.
Water is also being poured on the roads of Churu, known as the gateway to the Thar desert, to keep the temperature down and prevent them from melting, Sonkariya added.
A farmer from Sikar district in Rajasthan died on Sunday due to heatstroke, state government officials said.
Media reported on Friday that 17 had died over the past three weeks due to a heatwave in the southern state of Telangana. A state official said it would confirm the number of deaths only after the causes had been ascertained.
The temperature in New Delhi touched 44.6C (112.3F) on Sunday. One food delivery app, Zomato, asked its customers to greet delivery staff with a glass of cold water.
Heat wave warnings were issued on Monday for some places in western Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh state.
The monsoon, which brings down the heat, is likely to begin on the southern coast on June 6, the weather office said last month.
The three-month, pre-monsoon season, which ended on May 31, was the second driest in the last 65 years, India’s only private forecaster, Skymet, said, with a national average of 99 mm of rain against the normal average of 131.5 mm for the season.
Source: Reuters
Posted in air conditioners, builds, Churu, coolers, died, district magistrate, El Dorado, emergency wards, gateway, government hospitals, heat wave advisory, heatstroke, hottest places, India alert, Madhya Pradesh, medicines, melting, Meteorological Department, New Delhi, Pakistan, poured, pre-monsoon heat, private forecaster, Rain, Rajasthan, roads, season, Sikar district, Skymet, Telangana, Thar desert, Uncategorized, water, weather monitoring website, Zomato |
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31/05/2019
BEIJING, May 30 (Xinhua) — Chinese and Russian military forces have maintained in-depth exchanges in 2019 to mark the 70th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic ties between the two countries, the Ministry of National Defense said Thursday.
They have engaged in cooperation in high-level exchanges, real-combat training and military competitions, and had sound interaction and collaboration on international multilateral occasions, the ministry’s spokesperson Wu Qian said at a press conference.
Armies of the two countries have provided positive energy for safeguarding world peace and regional stability, Wu added.
Speaking of the joint naval exercise earlier this month in Qingdao, east China’s Shandong Province, Wu said the drill achieved a new high in making China-Russia joint naval exercises more real combat-oriented, information-based and standardized.
The two navies have also strengthened their capabilities of joint command and addressing maritime security threats, Wu said.
Source: Xinhua
Posted in China alert, China-Russia joint naval exercises, joint command, military exchanges, Ministry of National Defense, Qingdao, Russia, shandong province, Uncategorized |
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30/05/2019
- Were buyer’s details leaked online?
- Police and e-commerce giant JD.com launch joint investigation
A woman in China was subjected to nuisance and calls texts after leaving a negative review about some fruit which she bought online. Photo: Shutterstock
A woman in southwest China was inundated with nuisance calls and texts after leaving a bad review with an online fruit seller.
Chinese e-commerce platform JD.com has launched a joint investigation with the police to determine whether the woman’s personal details were leaked online, according to online news portal The Paper on Thursday.
The woman, surnamed Pang, from Kunming in Yunnan province, said she started receiving the harassing phone calls and texts soon after writing a negative review for two boxes of pomelos – an Asian citrus – she ordered from a JD.com vendor last week.
Pang wrote the negative review when the number of pomelos delivered to her on Monday was fewer than the description in the online listing. After checking with her that the fruit was not damaged, the seller wrote: “Then you can’t leave a negative comment.
Why are you not responding? What the?”
Twelve minutes after she reported this interaction to JD.com customer services, the nuisance calls began. Pang told The Paper she suspected her personal information had been leaked.
JD.com said on Tuesday that the customer had been fully refunded for the price of the item, and that the mismatch between the description and the delivery was due to an omission by the seller. The e-commerce platform said it would deal with the merchant in accordance with its guidelines.
Pang said the vendor had contacted her on Wednesday to apologise for the poor customer service but had denied any involvement with the nuisance calls and texts. The seller also denied sharing her personal information with third parties.
Pang said she would seek legal advice to protect her consumer rights.
Source: SCMP
Posted in Asian citrus, China alert, e-commerce platforms, JD.com, Kunming, leads, nuisance calls, online news portal, pomelo, Rotten review, texts, The Paper, Uncategorized, Yunnan Province |
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29/05/2019
- President Xi Jinping will meet Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin next month and address economic summit in St Petersburg
- Diplomatic flurry will also include regional security forums in Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan
Xi Jinping has met Vladimir Putin more times than any other foreign leader since he took power in 2013. Photo: AFP
Beijing is stepping up efforts to seek support from regional and global players such as Russia and Central Asian nations as its geostrategic rivalry with Washington heats up.
President Xi Jinping is expected to meet his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin next month, when he will also address the St Petersburg International Economic Summit,
Russian presidential aide Yuri Ushakov told state-run TASS news agency earlier.
The Chinese president will also visit the Kyrgyzstan capital Bishkek for the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) summit in June, as well as another regional security forum in Dushanbe, Tajikistan.
Meanwhile, Vice-President Wang Qishan is visiting Pakistan before he heads to the Netherlands and Germany, according to the Chinese foreign ministry.
Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan meets Chinese Vice-President Wang Qishan in Islamabad on Sunday. Photo: AFP
The latest flurry of diplomatic activity comes as competition between China and the US intensifies on several fronts including trade and technology, the South China Sea and the Arctic, where Beijing’s partnership with Moscow –
– has drawn criticism from Washington.
It will be Xi’s second time at the St Petersburg forum, and observers expect the Chinese leader will reaffirm Beijing’s commitment to multilateralism and promote the nation as a champion of openness and cooperation.
China-Russia ties unrivalled, Beijing warns before Pompeo meets Putin
It will also be his second meeting with Putin in two months, after talks on the sidelines of the Belt and Road Forum in Beijing in late April, when the Russian president
for the controversial China-led infrastructure and investment initiative.
With China and Russia edging closer, the latest meeting is likely to see efforts to coordinate their strategies on a range of issues – including Venezuela, North Korea, nuclear weapons and arms control, according to observers. Xi has met Putin more times than any other foreign leader since he took power in 2013.
“This time it is very likely that the latest anti-China moves by the US, such as new tariffs and the Huawei ban, will feature prominently in their conversations,” said Artyom Lukin, an associate professor at Far Eastern Federal University in Vladivostok.
Lukin said Russia’s stagnating economy and sanctions imposed by the West limited its role as a substitute for the foreign markets and technologies China could lose access to because of the US crusade. But he said Putin would “provide political and moral support to Xi”.
“That is also significant as Russia has been withstanding intense US-led sanctions pressure for more than five years already,” Lukin said, referring to sanctions imposed after Russia’s annexation of Crimea in 2014.
Xi and Putin are also expected to talk about Venezuela, where US-backed opposition leader Juan Guaido is attempting to oust socialist President Nicolas Maduro, who has the support of China and Russia.
Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro has the backing of China and Russia. Photo: AP
“Moscow and Beijing are not able to seriously hurt Washington by raising tariffs or denying access to high technology. However, there are plenty of areas where coordinated Sino-Russian policies can damage US interests in the short term or in the long run,” Lukin said. “For example, Moscow and Beijing could intensify their joint support for the Venezuelan government of Nicolas Maduro, frustrating Washington’s efforts to dislodge him.”
China and Russia would also be seeking to boost economic ties. Bilateral trade, dominated by Chinese imports of gas and oil, reached US$108 billion last year – falling far short of the target set in 2011 by Xi’s predecessor, Hu Jintao, of US$200 billion by 2020.
China and Russia to forge stronger Eurasian economic ties
Li Lifan, an associate research professor at the Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences, said bilateral trade was a sticking point. “This is one of the potential hindrances in China-Russia relations and Beijing is hoping to [address this] … in the face of a possible global economic slowdown,” Li said.
Given the escalating trade war with Washington, he said China would seek to diversify its investments and markets to other parts of the world, particularly Russia and Europe.
“China will step up its investment cooperation with Europe and Russia and focus more on multilateral investment,” Li said.
But Beijing was not expected to do anything to worsen tensions with Washington.
“China is currently taking a very cautious approach towards the US, trying to avoid heating up the confrontation and further aggravation of the situation,” said Danil Bochkov, a contributing author with the Russian International Affairs Council. “For China it is important to demonstrate that it has a reliable friend – Russia – but that should not be done in an openly provocative manner.”
Stephen Blank, a senior fellow at the American Foreign Policy Council in Washington, said Beijing and Moscow would also seek to contain US influence “as far as possible” from Central Asia, where China has increased its engagement through infrastructure building under the “Belt and Road Initiative”.
Leaders from the region will gather in Bishkek next month for the SCO summit, a security bloc set up in 2001 that now comprises China, Russia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, India and Pakistan. Those members account for about 23 per cent of the world’s land mass, 45 per cent of its population, and 25 per cent of global GDP.
Newly re-elected Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi could meet the Chinese president for talks in Bishkek next month. Photo: EPA-EFE
There is growing speculation that Xi will meet newly re-elected Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi on the sidelines of that summit.
Independent analyst and author Namrata Goswami said India would be seeking a commitment to a WTO-led and rules-based multilateral trading system during the SCO talks.
“This is interesting and significant given the current US tendencies under President Donald Trump focused on ‘America first’ and the US-China trade war,” Goswami said.
Counterterrorism will again be a top priority at the SCO summit, amid concerns among member states about the rising number of Islamic State fighters returning from Syria and Iraq. Chinese scholars estimated last year that around 30,000 jihadists who had fought in Syria had gone back to their home countries, including China.
Alexander Bortnikov, chief of the main Russian intelligence agency FSB, said earlier that 5,000 fighters from a group affiliated with Isis had gathered in areas bordering former Soviet states in Central Asia, saying most of them had fought alongside Isis in Syria.
War-torn Afghanistan, which shares a border with four SCO member states – China, Pakistan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan – is also likely to be high on the agenda at the Bishkek summit.
“With the Trump administration drafting plans to withdraw troops from Afghanistan, the SCO will assess the security situation there and decide whether to provide training for Afghan troops,” Li said.
Eva Seiwert, a doctoral candidate at the Free University of Berlin, expected the security bloc would also discuss Iran after the US withdrew from the 2015 nuclear deal and ordered new sanctions against the country.
Iran, which has observer status with the SCO, was blocked from becoming a full member in 2008 because it was subject to UN sanctions at the time. But its membership application could again be up for discussion.
Iran presses China and Russia to save nuclear deal
“The Trump administration’s unilateral withdrawal from the Iran nuclear deal in 2018 made it easy for China and Russia to present themselves as the proponents of peaceful settlement of conflicts,” Seiwert said. “Discussing the possibility of admitting Iran as a full member state would help the SCO members demonstrate their support of multilateral and peaceful cooperation.
“This would be a strong signal to the US and enhance the SCO’s standing in the international community,” she said.
Kyrgyz President Sooronbay Jeenbekov (right) meets Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi in Bishkek on Tuesday last week. Photo: Xinhua
As well as security, Xi’s visit to Central Asia is also likely to focus on economic ties. Meeting Kyrgyz President Sooronbay Jeenbekov in Bishkek last week, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi said Beijing would continue to “provide support and help national development and construction in Kyrgyzstan”.
Li said China may increase investment in the Central Asian region, especially in greenfield projects.
“China will continue to buy agriculture products from Central Asia, such as cherries from Uzbekistan, and build hydropower projects to meet local energy demand,” Li said. “Investment in solar and wind energy projects is also expected to increase too.”
Source: SCMP
Posted in American Foreign Policy Council, Arctic, arms control, belt and road forum, Bishkek, Central Asia, Central Asian region, China alert, Chinese foreign minister, Crimea, Eurasian, Europe, Far Eastern Federal University, Free University of Berlin, FSB, Germany, Huawei, Imran Khan, India alert, Iraq, Islamic State fighters, Juan Guaido, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyz President, Kyrgyzstan, Mike Pompeo, Namrata Goswami, Netherlands, North Korea, nuclear weapons, Pakistan, President Nicolas Maduro, President Xi Jinping, Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Russia, Russian intelligence agency, Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO), Sooronbay Jeenbekov, South China Sea, St Petersburg, support, Syria, Tajikistan, tensions, UN sanctions, Uncategorized, US, Uzbekistan, Venezuela, Vice President, Vladimir Putin, Vladivostok, Wang Qishan, Wang Yi, Washington, WTO-led and rules-based multilateral trading system |
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29/05/2019
- China’s housing market showing signs of bubble similar to that seen in Japan in 1980s, says Asian Development Bank Institute dean and CEO Naoyuki Yoshino
- China’s loose policy following 2008 global financial crisis laid foundations for current housing bubble, with US-China trade war adding to concerns
The average price of a home in Beijing has soared from around 380 yuan (US$55) per square feet in the early 2000s to the current level of well above 5,610 yuan (US$813) per square foot, according to property data provider creprice.cn. Photo: Bloomberg
China must exercise extreme caution in handling its housing sector because it is showing signs similar to those witnessed during Japan’s bubble period of the 1980s that contributed to the collapse of Japanese asset prices and its subsequent “lost decades” of weak economic growth and deflation, a Japanese financial system expert warned.
The parallels between China’s current landscape and Japan’s three decades ago are readily apparent, stemming from a loose monetary policy that laid the foundation for the expansion of a housing bubble, said Naoyuki Yoshino, dean and CEO of the Asian Development Bank Institute.
China flooded its economy with credit in response to the 2008 global financial crisis, fuelling rapid growth in mortgages, real estate borrowings and investments over the past decade.
In the same vein, the Japanese government’s relaxed monetary policy in the 1980s triggered an economic bubble that eventually burst and sank the economy into a recession that
with the Bank of Japan continuing to still keep interest rates at or below zero per cent to this day in an attempt to spur inflation.
The Japanese government’s relaxed monetary policy in the 1980s triggered an economic bubble that eventually burst and sank the economy into a recession that lasted almost 25 years. Photo: Bloomberg
Japan’s experience could serve as a lesson on how to avoid a housing market collapse that would be especially detrimental to China’s financial sector and real economy, according to Yoshino.
“I’m very much concerned that if land prices keep on rising and if the population starts to shrink along with aggregate demand, then China will experience a similar situation to that of Japan,” Yoshino said.
There are already several strong signs of a housing bubble in China, according to Yoshino, firstly the astronomical surge in property prices in recent years.
I’m very much concerned that if land prices keep on rising and if the population starts to shrink along with aggregate demand, then China will experience a similar situation to that of Japan Naoyuki Yoshino
Home ownership is one of the few ways for Chinese families to generate wealth because of limited investment opportunities. The average price of a home in Beijing has soared from around 4,000 yuan (US$578) per square metre, or 380 yuan (US$55) per square feet, in the early 2000s to the current level of well above 60,000 yuan (US$8,677) per square metre, or 5,610 yuan (US$813) per square foot, according to property data provider creprice.cn.
The increase has also lifted the housing price to income ratio sharply from 5.6 in 1996 to 7.6 in 2013, well above the Japanese rate of 3.0 at its peak in 1988. The price to income ratio is the basic affordability measure for housing.
According to the Global Times, a reasonable home price should be three to six times the median household income. That means a family with an average income can buy a house with three to six years’ annual income. The house price to income ratio in China is above 50 in the first-tier cities and 30 to 40 in the third- and fourth-tier cities, the newspaper said in October. There are four levels of cities in China, defined by a number of factors including gross domestic product (GDP) and population, with Beijing, Shanghai and Shenzhen considered tier-one cities.
Another worrying sign, according to Yoshino, is that China’s financial sector has lent more heavily to the real estate sector than did Japanese banks during their bubble period.
Thirdly, the ratio of Chinese housing loans to the nation’s GDP has consistently been higher than Japan’s by about three times more.
Ever since US President Donald Trump started imposing tariffs on Chinese imports in July, worries have been mounting that China’s property bubble and its record debt level would make the economy vulnerable to the impact of rising trade tensions, leading to a sharper-than-expected economic slowdown.
Despite a government crackdown on debt and risky lending over the last several years, housing prices and bank lending to the sector have continued to rise, pushing homes beyond what the vast majority of people can afford, as well as putting many property developers deeply into debt.
The Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, a top government think tank, said in a report last week that the growth in housing prices in China’s bigger cities, caused by a relatively short supply of new homes, is likely to push up costs across the country.
“The government should closely monitor these cities to avoid overheating,” said Wang Yeqiang, a researcher at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences who co-authored the report.
Property developers have begun a debt-fuelled land-buying spree just as urban housing demand is entering a long-running structural decline, said Julian Evans-Pritchard, senior China economist at Capital Economics. The potential supply of property that could be built on developers’ land reserves jumped last year to a record high, meaning the risk of a glut of new housing is real, Evans-Pritchard added, if developers were to convert all their land reserves into housing tracts.
“Since real estate drives around a fifth of GDP, a sharp downturn in this sector would be contagious, resulting in a jump in defaults across a wide swathe of the economy that could quickly erode bank capital buffers,” he warned.
China’s corporate debt stood at 155 per cent of GDP in the second quarter of 2018, much higher than other major economies, according to data from the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development. In comparison, Japan’s corporate debt level is 100 per cent of GDP and is 74 per cent in the US. China’s corporate debt includes issuances by its
vehicles which by extension is mostly credit with an implicit guarantee from the central government.
Since real estate drives around a fifth of GDP, a sharp downturn in this sector would be contagious, resulting in a jump in defaults across a wide swathe of the economy that could quickly erode bank capital buffersJulian Evans-Pritchard
China’s imbalance between housing supply and demand may worsen because it faces a similar economic transition that is already well underway in Japan – a
and
that led to Japan’s long-term deflation problem, said Yoshino, who is also the chief adviser to the Japan Financial Services Agency’s Financial Research Centre.
Even if rising housing demand due to urbanisation were to push China’s housing prices higher over the near term, the country faces risks from an oversupply of housing in the longer term due to its increasingly unbalanced demographic structure, he said.
The government has proposed that China’s retirement ages of 45 to 50 years for females and 55 to 60 years for males introduced in the 1980s be gradually increased to 65 years for both by 2045 due to a rapidly ageing population.
The rising population of retirees will consume fewer goods and services compared to younger families with children, and in turn, could dampen business investment given lower expected rates of return.
At the same time, more retirees means a bigger burden on the younger generation of taxpayers, which would reduce their wealth and change patterns of consumption. This is especially worrying on the back of China’s high debt level and pension funding gap, similar to the situation in Japan, Yoshino said.
In Japan, benefits from government pension schemes account for an increasing share of the country’s accumulated debt as spending on social protection programmes now represents more than a third of the government’s total budget.
China’s national pension fund is forecast to peak at 6.99 trillion yuan (US$1 trillion) in 2027 before it gradually runs out by 2035, according to the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences. Photo: AFP
The strain is also evident in China with the
forecast to peak at 6.99 trillion yuan (US$1 trillion) in 2027 before it gradually runs out by 2035, according to the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, forcing the government to start to transfer assets from state-owned companies to fill the funding gap.
Against the broader economic slowdown, compounded by the trade war with the US, policymakers are also expected to carve out a highly expansionary fiscal budget for this year, with the broad deficit surging to 6.6 per cent of China’s GDP, up from 4.7 per cent last year, according to Larry Hu, head of China economics at Macquarie Capital.
Alicia Garcia Herrero, Asia-Pacific chief economist at Natixis, noted that the US criticisms of China’s unfair trade practises and currency manipulation were reminiscent of the US-Japan disputes in the 1980s and 1990s.
Because Japan was politically and economically dependent on the US at that time, it inevitably implemented economic policies to reduce its current account surplus. Subsequently, Japan suffered from the bursting of its asset price bubble, which led to deflation and the lost decades.
However, Herrero said that the modern China is less dependent on the US and so is in a better position to resist pressure to adjust its economic policies to create demand for American products.
Wang Yang, one of the seven members of China’s elite Politburo Standing Committee, said the US-China trade war could slash one percentage point off Beijing’s economic growth this year. Last year, growth expanded at its slowest pace since 1990, while corporate bond defaults hit a record high and banks’ non-performing loan ratio hit a 10-year high.
Source: SCMP
Posted in Ageing population, Asian Development Bank Institute, ‘lost decades’, Bank of Japan, Beijing, Central government, China alert, China’s housing market, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, Chinese imports, demographic structure, Financial Research Centre, financial sector, Financial Services Agency, Global Times, government think tank, gross domestic product (GDP), Home, housing loans, implicit guarantee, Japanese banks, Japanese housing bubble, national pension fund, Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), Population, real economy, real estate sector, Shanghai, Shenzhen, showing signs, similar to, Supply and demand, tariffs, Uncategorized, urbanisation, US President Donald Trump |
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