When that happens, China will really be a competitor to US for role of world Superpower.
26/08/2013
Sonia says food bill is ‘big message’, Mulayam calls it poll gimmick
Times of India: “Declaring Congress’s goal to “wipe out hunger and malnutrition”, Sonia Gandhi asked all political parties on Monday to set aside differences and support the Food Security Bill so that a “big message” could be sent out about India’s capabilities.
English: Sonia Gandhi, Indian politician, president of the Indian National Congress and the widow of former Prime Minister of India, Rajiv Gandhi. Français : Sonia Gandhi, une femme politique indienne, présidente du parti du congrès indien, et veuve de Rajiv Gandhi, ancien premier ministre de l’Inde. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
Opening the Congress innings on the debate in Lok Sabha on food bill, she rejected questions over whether the country had resources to implement the landmark measure.
“It is time to send out a big message that India can take responsibility of ensuring food security for all Indians … our goal is to wipe out hunger and malnutrition all over the country,” Gandhi said about her pet agenda.
Making a strong pitch for smooth passage of the landmark legislation, the UPA chairperson said the measure is a historic opportunity to provide food security to tens of millions of people in the country which will end the problem of hunger once for all.
She sought to dismiss questions over whether the ambitious scheme could be implemented. “The question is not whether we have enough resources or not and whether it would benefit the farmers or not. We have to arrange resources for it. We have to do it,” she said in the House where Prime Minister Manmohan Singh was present.
Gandhi said farmers and agriculture have always remained priority of the UPA.
Agreeing that reforming public distribution system (PDS) was a must for the food law, Gandhi noted that there was basic need to remove the leakages to ensure that benefits of the food bill reached the intended beneficiary.
Gandhi said the Congress had made a commitment to the nation in the 2009 election manifesto to bring forward such a legislation. It is one in a series of various rights promised and provided by UPA like Right to Information Act, Right to Education Act, Right to Work Act and Right to Forest Produce Act.
Poll gimmick
Contending that the Food Security Bill was being brought with an eye on elections, UPA’s outside supporter Samajwadi Party on Monday demanded that the measure be kept in abeyance till chief ministers are consulted as it would put additional burden on states.
SP chief Mulayam Singh Yadav raised a number of questions over the bill in Lok Sabha and said it would badly hurt farmers as there was no guarantee in the provisions that all the produce would be bought by the government.
“It is clearly being brought for elections … Why didn’t you bring this bill earlier when poor people were dying because of hunger? Every election, you bring up a measure. There is nothing for the poor,” he said participating in the debate on the bill.”
via Sonia says food bill is ‘big message’, Mulayam calls it poll gimmick – The Times of India.
25/08/2013
Japan tourist visits to Beijing halved amid tensions over islands row
SCMP: The number of Japanese tourists visiting Beijing fell by more than half in the first seven months of the year amid a spike in tensions between the countries, the city’s statistical bureau said Sunday.
Japanese tourist arrivals this year fell to 136,000 up to the end of July, down 53.7 per cent from the same period last year, the bureau said.
The drop follows violent anti-Japanese protests in Beijing and several other Chinese cities in September in response to complaints from the government over Japan’s move to nationalise uninhabited East China Sea islands claimed by China.
Japanese businesses were torched and Japanese-brand cars, most of which are made by Chinese joint venture firms, were smashed and their drivers assaulted.
There were also scattered reports of assaults on Japanese citizens, although none of the attacks were serious.
Tensions remain high between the sides, with their ships conducting regular patrols in waters surrounding the islands, called the Senkakus by Japan and Diaoyu by China. Taiwan also claims the islands and has negotiated an agreement with Tokyo to permit fishing in the area.
The decline in Japanese visitors was part of an overall 13.9 per cent decline in tourist arrivals blamed on the sluggish global economy, as well as a spike in Beijing’s notoriously bad air pollution.
Numbers of tourists from Asian countries fell 25.4 per cent, including a 19.9 per cent fall in visitors from South Korea. Visitors from the Americas fell by just 3.4 per cent.
via Japan tourist visits to Beijing halved amid tensions over islands row | South China Morning Post.
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- China’s military flexes its muscles in the East China Sea amid Japan war shrine tensions (rt.com)
- China Rules Out High-Level Summit with Japan over Island Dispute (voanews.com)
- Japan summons China envoy over ships near disputed isles (channelnewsasia.com)
25/08/2013
Why China Is Better Than You Think
Forbes: “The “imminent” demise of China will have to be postponed…again.
The risk to third quarter growth forecasts in the market are now to the upside.
On Thursday, HSBC’s China Flash PMI data showed a sharp rebound to 50.1 in August from 47.7 in July. Consensus estimates had it rising slightly to 48.2. Today’s manufacturing data is consistent with headline activity indicators such as industrial production, which also recovered in July. It confirms that the economy has stabilized in the short term at least and downside risks seen in the second half of the year have subsided.
Perhaps the best piece of news out of the PMI numbers is that it was driven by domestic demand. New export orders dropped to 46.5 from 47.7 in July, while total new orders rose sharply to 50.5 from 46.6.
Based on this flash PMI, we now see upside risks to our third quarter GDP forecast,” said Nomura Securities senior economist Zhiwei Zhang in Hong Kong. His forecast is for 7.4% growth, declining from the first (7.7%) and second quarters (7.5%).
For the last three years, the Chinese government has been trumpeting its stated goal to move away from its old export-driven export model. China is turning inward. That will come with growing pains as it transitions from a low-cost producer to one that produces value-added, even high end goods made by workers earning middle class incomes who then buy new apartments, cars, refrigerators, and — of course — take trips to south China for Disney and Macao casinos.”
http://www.forbes.com/sites/kenrapoza/2013/08/22/why-china-is-better-than-you-think/
23/08/2013
Is China’s Space Program Shaping a Celestial Empire?
Space.com: “China is pressing forward on its human space exploration plans, intent on establishing an international space station and, experts say, harnessing the technological muscle to launch its astronauts to the moon.
Highlighting China’s intent, the country is working with the United Nations to stage a major workshop on human space technology, to be held Sept. 16-20 in Beijing.
The meeting is organized jointly by the U.N. Office for Outer Space Affairs and the China Manned Space Agency, co-organized by the International Academy of Astronautics and hosted by the China Manned Space Agency.”
via Is China’s Space Program Shaping a Celestial Empire? | Space.com.
Related articles
- China: Space Program And Strategy – Analysis (eurasiareview.com)
21/08/2013
The economy: A bubble in pessimism
The Economist: ““JUST the other day we were afraid of the Chinese,” Paul Krugman recently wrote in the New York Times. “Now we’re afraid for them.” He is among a number of prominent commentators contemplating calamity in the world’s second-biggest economy. Three measures seem to encapsulate their fears. Economic growth has slowed to 7.5%, from its earlier double-digit pace. The investment rate remains unsustainably high, at over 48% of GDP. Meanwhile, the debt ratio—ie, what China’s firms, households and government owe—has risen alarmingly, to 200% of GDP, by some estimates.
Concerns about the first number were assuaged a little this month, when China reported strong figures for trade and industrial production (which rose by 9.7% in the year to July; see chart). Yet beneath the cyclical ups and downs, China has undoubtedly seen its momentum slowing.
It is the combined productive capacity of China’s workers, capital and know-how that sets a maximum speed for the economy, determining how fast it can grow without inflation. It also decides how fast it must grow to avoid spare capacity and a rise in the numbers without work. The latest figures suggest that the sustainable rate of growth is closer to China’s current pace of 7.5% than to the 10% rate the economy was sizzling along at.
For many economists, this structural slowdown is inevitable and welcome. It marks an evolution in China’s growth model, as it narrows the technological gap with leading economies and shifts more of its resources into services. For Mr Krugman, by contrast, the slowdown threatens China’s growth model with extinction.
China, he argues, has run out of “surplus peasants”. Chinese flooding from the countryside into the factories and cities have in the past kept wages low and returns on investment high. The flood has slowed and, in some cases, reversed. So China can no longer grow simply by allocating capital to the new labour arriving from the fields. “Capital widening” must now give way to “capital deepening” (adding more capital to each individual worker). As it does so, investment will suffer “sharply diminishing returns” and “drop drastically”. And since investment is such a big source of demand—accounting for almost half of it—such a drop will be impossible to offset. China will, in effect, hit a “Great Wall”. (The metaphor is so obvious you can see it from space.)”
21/08/2013
China’s Xi “Lurches” to the Left, Promotes Maoist Revival
Meadia: “In a move sure to dismay the people inside and outside China who hoped Xi Jinping would begin a new era of democratic reform, China’s president has “lurched” to the left, as the WSJ reports, promoting a revitalized version of nationalist Maoism across the country. ”Our red nation will never change color,” Xi said during a ceremony at Mao’s old lakeside mansion in Wuhan, declaring that the villa should become a center to educate young people about patriotism and revolution.
“It isn’t just Mr. Xi’s rhetoric that has taken on a Maoist tinge in recent months,” the Journal reports. “He has borrowed from Mao’s tactical playbook, launching a ‘rectification’ campaign to purify the Communist Party, while tightening limits on discussion of ideas such as democracy, rule of law and enforcement of the constitution.”
Xi appears to have capitalized on some uncertainty at the top levels of the Party after the fall of Bo Xilai, a charismatic and popular leader who also led a Maoist revival campaign and became a threat to the stability of the Party leadership. “Many of Mr. Bo’s former supporters and several powerful princelings have thrown their weight behind Mr. Xi’s efforts to establish himself as much a stronger leader than his predecessor,” party insiders told the WSJ.
Xi’s nationalist streak comes as the country prepares for Bo Xilai’s trial and amid an economic downturn that has caused worry among investors and analysts. At the same time, China and other Asian powers are engaged in a dangerous and accelerating game of military one-upmanship. New ships and maritime units are being unveiled from India to the Philippines to Japan and territorial disputes are growing more intense. Across the region, this trend is driven in part by a rising nationalism among citizens—in Japan, South Korea, the Philippines, India, elsewhere—who push their governments into increasingly aggressive and antagonistic positions against the neighbors. China is no exception.”
[Xi Jinping photo courtesy of Shutterstock]
via China’s Xi “Lurches” to the Left, Promotes Maoist Revival | Via Meadia.
21/08/2013
Asia Needs ASEAN-ization Not Pakistanization of Its Continent: What China Wants in Asia 1975 or 1908?
Another offering from
Prof. (FH) Dr. Anis Bajrektarevic, Acting Deputy Director of Studies EXPORT EU–ASEAN–NAFTA
Professor and Chairperson
International Law and Global Political Studies
University of Applied Sciences IMC-Krems
Austria, EUROPE
20/08/2013
Critical similarities and differences in security structures of Asia and Europe
is courtesy of:
Prof. (FH) Dr. Anis Bajrektarevic, Acting Deputy Director of Studies EXPORT EU–ASEAN–NAFTA
Professor and Chairperson
International Law and Global Political Studies
University of Applied Sciences IMC-Krems
Austria, EUROPE
20/08/2013
Bombay mix: Party pooper’s move takes golden glow off festival of lights
The Times: “Festival season is fast approaching in India, with a feeling in some ways equivalent to the run-up to Christmas in the West, and, right on cue, a would-be Scrooge has stepped forward.
Palaniappan Chidambaram may have little option, of course. The country’s embattled Finance Minister is struggling to shore up a collapsing rupee and revive a moribund economy, all with less than nine months to go before national elections.
So last week, as the rupee sank to fresh, record lows against the dollar — and with Diwali, the Hindu festival of lights looming in November — a panicking Mr Chidambaram wheeled out his latest package of measures designed to bolster the currency.
In a move that many Indians viewed as being distinctly short on seasonal good cheer, he slapped a ban on imports of gold medallions and coins, extending an attempt to curb the nation’s voracious appetite for the metal. Other measures included a reduction in the amount of cash that Indians and companies may remit overseas from $200,000 to $75,000 a year, a rule that Mr Chidambaram argued unconvincingly did “not amount to capital controls”.
Yet if the latter measure will not endear him to the millions of Indians with friends and relatives studying overseas, it is the gold ban that could prove a bigger issue. India’s lust for gold is undimmed and trying to temper it before the polls next spring — and before the wedding season that peaks around Diwali — could be catastrophic for the ruling Congress party.
The markets, certainly, were unimpressed by the minister’s efforts, sending the rupee crashing to new lows within hours of the announcement. The sell-off continued yesterday.
With the sliding rupee already forcing up the price of goods from petrol to food, Congress is desperately searching for new ways to head off a full-blown financial crisis as Indians prepare to vote. And while there is only so much that can be done to curb the nation’s demand for imported crude oil, the single biggest strain on India’s current account deficit, reining in India’s gold addiction may seem the next best alternative.
If his latest measures don’t work, and with that election due, it looks increasingly as if Mr Chidambaram’s days as Finance Minister may be numbered, one way or another.
As if policymakers didn’t have enough on their plates, India is in the grip of a new crisis. Last week, ministers held emergency talks to address a 36 per cent surge in the wholesale price of onions over a single weekend.
Onions are a key ingredient in virtually every Indian dish, so are viewed as almost as much of a staple crop as rice. Thus a fall in onion production prompted by poor harvests in the nation’s south has proved politically explosive. Shoppers have staged angry protests.
Yet there may be a welcome extra dish to this sorry tale. One option being considered by ministers is a loosening of trade restrictions with Pakistan, arch-foe and nuclear-armed rival, to start emergency onion imports.”
via Bombay mix: Party pooper’s move takes golden glow off festival of lights | The Times.
CHINDIA ALERT: You'll be living in their world, very soon 