India – one; China – zero!
19/08/2013
A gaffe-prone Japan is a danger to peace in Asia; China concerned
Are we inching towards a military confrontation between thes two East Asian powers?
31/07/2013
Divide Uttar Pradesh into four states, Mayawati says
As we said in our post yesterday – https://chindia-alert.org/2013/07/30/bbc-news-india-coalition-approves-new-state-of-telangana/, India now has double the states it started with after independence. And the more sub-divisions are approved, it seems that more ethnic/language groups want their own state. Where will it all end?
Times of India: “The Bahujan Samaj Party demanded splitting of Uttar Pradesh into four smaller states on Wednesday, a day after the Congress Working Committee (CWC) urged the government to form a separate state of Telangana.
“We have always supported smaller states,” BSP chief Mayawati said here at a press conference.
She said Uttar Pradesh should be divided into four smaller states — Purvanchal, Bundelkhand, Awadh Pradesh and Pashchim Pradesh.
English: Map of UP subregions. It has been built on the public domain work “Uttar Pradesh locator map.svg” in Wikipedia. This work is also public domain. Free for any and all use without any restrictions whatsoever. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
“When this population is divided between four states, development will increase,” she said.
“Ministers in central government who hail from Uttar Pradesh should build pressure on the central government for formation of these states,” she added.”
via Divide Uttar Pradesh into four states, Mayawati says – The Times of India.
29/07/2013
Japan’s top diplomat heads for China seeking better ties | Reuters
Reuters: “Japanese Vice Foreign Minister Akitaka Saiki will visit China on Monday and Tuesday for talks with senior officials, the latest in a series of efforts by Prime Minister Shinzo Abe to improve relations soured by a bitter territorial row.
The hawkish Abe, who cemented his grip on power in an upper house election last week, called on Friday for an unconditional meeting between Japanese and Chinese leaders.
On Sunday, Isao Iijima, an adviser to the premier, told reporters that Abe could soon hold a summit with Chinese President Xi Jinping.
Often fragile Sino-Japanese ties have been seriously strained since September, when a territorial row over tiny islands in the East China Sea flared following Japan’s nationalization of the uninhabited isles.
Concern that the conservative Japanese leader wants to recast Japan’s wartime history with a less apologetic tone has added to the tension.
“Vice Minister Saiki will visit China on July 29-30 and exchange views with Chinese officials,” a Japanese foreign ministry spokesman said. He did not give further details.
China’s Foreign Ministry responded to Abe’s overture on Friday by saying its door was always open for talks but that the problem lay in Japan’s attitude.”
via Japan’s top diplomat heads for China seeking better ties | Reuters.
26/07/2013
India, China trying to develop mechanism to prevent face-off: AK Antony
Daulat Beg Oldi is in northernmost Ladakh. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
Times of India: “NEW DELHI: India and China are trying to develop effective mechanisms to prevent the “embarrassing” face-offs between their troops along the “disputed” points of the Line of Actual Control, defence minister AK Antony said here on Friday.
Terming the 21-day stand-off between the two sides in Depsang valley in Daulat Beg Oldi area as an “unusual” incident, the defence minister said the two countries will meet soon in Beijing to discuss issues and try to find a solution for such “unpleasant incidents”.
“Till the final settlement of the border issue, we are trying to find out more effective mechanisms to prevent occasional incidents. There are many points in the LAC that are disputed and they are patrolled by both sides. So, sometimes it leads to some face-off,” he told reporters on the 14th anniversary of Kargil Vijay Diwas.”
via India, China trying to develop mechanism to prevent face-off: AK Antony – The Times of India.
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- India, China trying to find long-term solution to border dispute: Antony (indiavision.com)
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- China shows off its horsepower: 50 Chinese soldiers enter Chumar on horseback and stake claim to it (dnaindia.com)
- Chinese general warns India against ‘new trouble’ as AK Antony visits Beijing (ndtv.com)
- Time to solve border dispute, says China premier Li Keqiang to AK Antony (ndtv.com)
- China & India: All Not Quiet on the Western Front (thediplomat.com)
- China plays down India’s strike corps move (thehindu.com)
23/07/2013
China to expand imports from ASEAN members
Is this action based on genuine economic reasons or is it partly to diffuse China‘s tension with many ASEAN countries involved with the on–going maritime territorial disputes?
China Daily: “China pledged to increase its imports from the Association of Southeast Asian Nations as bilateral trade started to favor China in the second half of 2012, Vice-Minister of Commerce Gao Yan told a news briefing on Tuesday.
Emblem of ASEAN (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
China will enhance trade facilitation through cooperation with ASEAN members in areas including customs and quality checking while sending purchasing groups for agricultural products from ASEAN members, Gao said.
In addition, exhibitions, including the 10th CAEXPO to be held September 3-6 in Nanning, Guangxi Zhuang autonomous region, will serve as opportunities for ASEAN exporters to expand their sales to China, she added.
China is the biggest trade partner of ASEAN and bilateral trade hit $400.1 billion in 2012, with Chinese exports totaling $204.3 billion and imports of $195.8 billion, leaving a trade surplus of $8.5 billion. China previously had a trade deficit with ASEAN, Gao said.”
via China to expand imports from ASEAN members |Economy |chinadaily.com.cn.
Related articles
- A Waiting Game – The Code of Conduct for the South China Sea (redoceans.com)
- Japan, ASEAN agree to discuss maritime security at Dec. summit (english.kyodonews.jp)
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19/07/2013
Strike Force Would Allow ‘War on Two Fronts’
WSJ: “The Indian government this week reportedly paved the way for the creation of a new military corps of 50,000 troops near its border with China. If correct, analysts say this is a sign that New Delhi, which has been largely focused on its frontier with Pakistan, is now shifting its attention to the long, disputed Sino-Indian boundary.
Government sources were quoted by the Press Trust of India as saying a new mountain strike corps costing nearly $11 billion over seven years, was approved by India’s cabinet committee on security Wednesday. The committee is headed by India’s Prime Minister Manmohan Singh.
The force will be headquartered at Panagarh, in the eastern state of West Bengal, the news agency reported. Attempts to confirm these reports with India’s ministries of defense and external affairs were not successful.
The creation of a strike corps would give India thousands of war-ready soldiers, trained and equipped to respond rapidly to a military threat, stationed close to the border between India and China, known as the Line of Actual Control.
Analysts say it would take five to seven years for such a force to be formed fully, as large numbers of soldiers would need to be recruited and trained for combat at high altitudes and in mountainous terrains.
“The process will be incremental,” said Srikanth Kondapalli, a professor in Chinese studies at the New-Delhi based Jawaharlal Nehru University. “There won’t be large-scale training, because there is no immediate threat.”
For decades, relations between India and China have been characterized by mistrust. The tensions boiled over into a war between the two in 1962, which China won by gaining control over a large swathe of Indian territory known as Aksai China.
Beijing is still in control of the 38,000 square kilometers of land, but Indian maps show Aksai Chin as a part of Jammu and Kashmir, it’s northernmost state. China also claims 90,000 square kilometers of land in Arunachal Pradesh, a state in India’s northeast.
Neither nation has shown any inclination to return to armed conflict since, but India’s decision to create a strike corps – which analysts say has been in the offing for over two years – reflects New Delhi’s growing concern that Beijing is becoming increasingly assertive in its territorial claims.
via Strike Force Would Allow ‘War on Two Fronts’ – India Real Time – WSJ.
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- China Welcomes Indian Defense Minister With Warning: ‘Don’t Provoke Us With New Trouble’ (hngn.com)
03/06/2013
China not disputing Japan sovereignty over Okinawa
Reuters: “China does not dispute Japanese sovereignty over Okinawa and recent comments in Chinese newspapers merely reflects the views of some academics, a senior Chinese military leader said on Sunday.
“China’s position has not changed… Scholars can put forth any idea they want and they do not represent the views of the Chinese government,” the deputy chief of general staff of the Chinese People’s Liberation Army, Lieutenant General Qi Jianguo, told delegates at a security conference in Singapore.
China’s state-owned People’s Daily last month published an article by two academics that said Okinawa was part of an island chain that used to be a vassal of imperial Chinese dynasties before it was annexed by Japan in the 19th century, implicitly asserting Chinese claims over the island.
Okinawa, host to the bulk of up to 50,000 U.S. military personnel in Japan, is the largest island in the Ryukyu chain, which extends south towards Taiwan.
China is already involved in a tense dispute with Japan over the latter’s move last year to nationalise the nearby Senkaku islets, which the Chinese call Diaoyu, which sits astride key shipping lanes and undersea energy resources.
That row has escalated in recent months to the point where both sides have scrambled fighter jets while patrol ships shadow each other in nearby seas, raising worry that an unintended collision or other incident could lead to a broader clash.”
via China not disputing Japan sovereignty over Okinawa | Reuters.
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- China Continues To Lay Claims To Okinawa (warnewsupdates.blogspot.com)
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- * China mouthpiece claims rights over Okinawa (chindia-alert.org)
- Now China Says It Owns Okinawa, Too (businessinsider.com)
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- Japan Protests Chinese Report Questioning Sovereignty of Okinawa (voanews.com)
19/05/2013
* China Premier Li Keqiang in India for first foreign trip
BBC: “China‘s Premier Li Keqiang is travelling to India in the first stop of his maiden foreign trip since taking office.
Upon his arrival in Delhi, Premier Li will hold talks with Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, followed by dinner at the Indian leader’s residence.
Border tensions and trade ties are expected to be among the issues discussed by the two men.
The neighbours are the world’s two most populous countries.
Beijing hopes the visit will help build trust and a new strategic partnership to the benefit of both countries, China’s official news agency Xinhua said.
Delhi thought “very highly” of Mr Li’s decision to make India his first foreign stop and the aim of the talks was to “enhance trust”, Indian foreign ministry spokesman Syed Akbaruddin said.
A decades-long border dispute flared up last month after India accused Chinese troops of crossing the countries’ de facto border in the Himalayas.
The dispute over the territory in the Ladakh region has dogged the two countries since the 1950s.
Boosting trade ties is also expected to dominate the talks. China is already one of India’s top trading partners and both countries have already agreed a new $100bn (£65bn) bilateral trade target for 2015.
Premier Li will spend three days in India before travelling on to Pakistan, Switzerland and Germany.”
via BBC News – China Premier Li Keqiang in India for first foreign trip.
14/05/2013
* India and China; making up, but what about trade?
FT: “Salman Khurshid, India’s foreign minister, is back from a trip to China last week, happy to see the end of a tense stand-off over a long-running border dispute. Settling that issue will re-open the way for a planned visit by Chinese Premier Li Keqiang to India and allow the two countries to concentrate on the big topic on Khurshid’s agenda: trade.
But here, too, relations between the region’s big powers are not entirely friendly.
Back in November 2011, India and China set a target for bilateral trade of $100bn for 2015. That’s quite a leap from $2.3bn a decade ago and marks a concrete step in bringing the two nations closer together.
But the balance of trade is strongly in China’s favour. Now Kurshid has put the November 2011 agreement “on pause” until the imbalance is resolved.
According to India’s department of commerce, India’s exports to China in April to December 2012 were worth $9.7bn. In the same period, China’s exports to India were worth $41.2bn – a bilateral trade deficit for India of $31.5bn, nearly a quarter of India’s entire trade deficit in the period.
Khurshid claimed not to have minced his words:
We said that let the trade imbalance be addressed upfront as an urgent priority, and then of course we can move to the next stage which is the regional trading arrangement.
What does the minister want from China? One target is better market access, especially for India’s IT and pharmaceuticals companies. Indian business leaders complain that exports to China would be much greater if China’s big state owned enterprises could be persuaded to source from foreign suppliers.
But others say a lack of competitiveness among Indian manufacturers contributes to the problem.
“China has a very competitive manufacturing sector that is able to produce at a large scale pretty efficiently and for reasonable prices,” says Louis Kuijs, chief China economist at RBS.
“Sometimes we would be inclined to think there is a lot of [Chinese] government policy behind this. People point to the subsidies that China’s government has given to industries in the past and companies having preferential access to loans. But in the bigger scheme of things, those subsidies aren’t the driving force. China is a bit ahead in industrialisation and has becomes very competitive globally.”
Kuijs doesn’t think this is about to change. Chinese manufacturers do good business in India in both consumer goods and capital goods. And he takes the view that, despite the current cyclical slowdown, both consumption and infrastructure investment will remain robust in India, so demand for Chinese products will continue to grow.
A little tinkering on a calculator provides a bit of good news for Indian trade, however. According to data from the World Trade Organization, India’s global merchandise exports grew faster than China’s between 2005 and 2012. Over the seven-year period, India’s exports grew at an average 18.3 per cent a year, against a figure of 16.3 per cent for China and 9.4 per cent for the world as a whole.
So, Indian exports are growing relatively quickly. But China’s lower growth comes from a far higher base. In 2012, China exported goods worth more than $2tn while India’s exports were worth $293bn. Even with their faster rate of growth, it will take a long time for India’s exporters to catch up on China’s lead.”
via India and China; making up, but what about trade? | beyondbrics.
CHINDIA ALERT: You'll be living in their world, very soon 