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

07/04/2013

* China deplores Korea tension, warns against regional turmoil

My belief is that the world has got it wrong.

I believe that North Korea is trying to reprise the plot of the film “The Mouse That Roared“ which is a 1955 Cold War satirical novel by Irish-American writer Leonard Wibberley, which launched a series of satirical books about an imaginary country in Europe called the Duchy of Grand Fenwick. Wibberley went beyond the merely comic, using the premise to make still-quoted commentaries about modern politics and world situations, including the nuclear arms race, nuclear weapons in general, and the politics of the United States.

The Plot: The tiny (three miles by five miles) European Duchy of Grand Fenwick, supposedly located in the Alps between Switzerland and France, proudly retains a pre-industrial economy, dependent almost entirely on making Pinot Grand Fenwick wine. However, an American winery makes a knockoff version, “Pinot Grand Enwick”, putting the country on the verge of bankruptcy.

The prime minister decides that their only course of action is to declare war on the United States. Expecting a quick and total defeat (since their standing army is tiny and equipped with bows and arrows), the country confidently expects to rebuild itself through the generous largesse that the United States bestows on all its vanquished enemies (as it did for Germany through the Marshall Plan at the end of World War II and for Japan through the McArthur Plan).

From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Mouse_That_Roared.

Nothing else makes sense.

Reuters: “China deplored tension on the Korean peninsula on Sunday and in an apparent reference to North Korea, said no country should be allowed to plunge the region into chaos after the United States postponed a missile test to ease talk of war.

North Korean soldiers take part in a shooting drill in an unknown location in this picture taken on April 6, 2013 and released by North Korea's official KCNA news agency in Pyongyang on April 7, 2013. REUTERS-KCNA

The North, led by 30-year-old Kim Jong-un, has been issuing threats of war against the United States and U.S.-backed South Korea since the United Nations imposed sanctions after its third nuclear weapon test in February.”

via China deplores Korea tension, warns against regional turmoil | Reuters.

North Korea Is Someone Else’s Problem (usnews.com)
The Duchy of Grand Fenwick attacks (dickdestiny.com)

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

Tags: China, gaming, Mouse That Roared, North Korea, politics, South Korea, United Nations, United States

06/04/2013

China’s Baidu makes its own Google Glass “independently”

Chinese innovations are catching up, fast. There is also the next generation Internet in play already.

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

Tags: Baidu, China, Google, Liquid crystal display

05/04/2013

* Chinese overtake Germans as biggest spending tourists

China Daily: “Chinese tourists have overtaken Germans as the world’s biggest-spending travellers after a decade of robust growth in the number of Chinese holidaying abroad, the United Nations World Tourism Organisation (UNWTO) said on Thursday.

Chinese tourists, known for travelling in organised tours and snapping up luxury fashion abroad, spent $102 billion on foreign trips last year, outstripping deep-pocketed travellers from Germany and the United States.

Chinese tourists spent 41 percent more on foreign travel in 2012 than the year before, beating the close to $84 billion both German and U.S. travellers parted with last year.

Tourists from other fast-growing economies with swelling middle classes, like Russia and Brazil, also increased spending in 2012. In recession-hit Europe, however, French and Italian tourists reined in their holiday budgets.

“The impressive growth of tourism expenditure from China and Russia reflects the entry into the tourism market of a growing middle class from these countries,” said UNWTO Secretary-General Taleb Rifai.”

via Chinese overtake Germans as biggest spending tourists |Economy |chinadaily.com.cn.

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

Tags: Brazil, China, economy, Germany, Russia, Tourism, United States, World Tourism Organization

03/04/2013

* China, ASEAN agree to develop code of conduct in South China Sea

Maritime claims in the South China Sea (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Is China becoming more pragmatic on the territorial disputes?

Xinhua: “All participants in the 19th China-ASEAN (Association of Southeast Asian Nations) Senior Officials’ Consultation have agreed to work toward a code of conduct in the South China Sea.

A Chinese Foreign Ministry press release on Tuesday said after the conclusion of the consultation it was agreed that all parties will commit themselves to fully implement the Declaration on the Conduct of Parties in the South China Sea.

They will make joint efforts toward “a code of conduct in the South China Sea” and continue to exchange views on the issue.

According to the press release, China and ASEAN also agreed to co-host celebrations on the 10th anniversary of the establishment of the China-ASEAN strategic partnership and further expand friendly communication and cooperation in all fields.”

via China, ASEAN agree to develop code of conduct in South China Sea – Xinhua | English.news.cn.

ASEAN’s new chief seeks early conduct of code in S. China Sea (english.kyodonews.jp)
* Railway linking China, ASEAN becomes operational (chindia-alert.org)

Posted in China alert, Neighbour conflict, Politics, Territorial dispute | 3 Comments »

Tags: ASEAN, Association of Southeast Asian Nations, China, South China Sea, southeast asian nations

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

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

* 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

Categories

Blogs I Follow

Posts tagged ‘China’

* China deplores Korea tension, warns against regional turmoil

China’s Baidu makes its own Google Glass “independently”

* Chinese overtake Germans as biggest spending tourists

* China, ASEAN agree to develop code of conduct in South China Sea

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

* Uyghur Jailings Highlight Chinese Media Controls

* China’s Glass Ceiling

* China pulls 1,000 dead ducks from Sichuan river

* Wages Rising in Chinese Factories? Only For Some

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

Tags

Creative Commons

Archives

Meta

Blog Stats

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

Categories

Blogs I Follow

Posts tagged ‘China’

Related articles

Related articles

Related articles

Related articles

Related articles

Related articles

Related articles

Tags

Creative Commons

Archives

Meta

Blog Stats