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

30/01/2013

* Panicked property fire sale in China amid corruption fight

Sydney Morning Herald: “Thousands of Chinese communist officials have been panicked into a fire sale of their illicit properties and billions of pounds have been smuggled overseas as the country’s new leaders intensify a campaign to root out corruption.

Corruption-fighter Chinese Vice Premier Wang Qishan in Beijing, China.

Luxurious properties are being dumped on the market in Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou for anyone able to pay in cash as officials try to cover their tracks. A report by the party’s anti-corruption unit, the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection, said “a wave of luxury home sales began last November and has accelerated since December”.

It said the volume of deals had intensified by “a hundred times” after Xi Jinping, the incoming Chinese president, warned that corruption could kill the party and put one of the country’s most vigorous and resolute politicians, Wang Qishan, in charge of stamping out graft.

Fu Zongmo, an estate agent in Sanya, Hainan, said his colleagues had sold two houses recently for government officials. In recent years, the tropical beaches and golf courses of Sanya have attracted plenty of speculators but recently the market has stalled.”

via Panicked property fire sale in China amid corruption fight.

Corrupt Chinese Politicians are Buying Billions in U.S. Real Estate (libertyblitzkrieg.com)
China’s Xi says ‘no leniency’ in corruption fight (sinodaily.com)
China Communists to Control Size of Party Amid Corruption Fight – Bloomberg (bloomberg.com)

Posted in China alert, corruption, Economics, Politics | 2 Comments »

Tags: Beijing, China, China Communists, economy, politics, Wang Qishan, Xi JinPing

27/01/2013

* China could prove ultimate winner in Afghanistan

SCMP: “China, long a bystander to the conflict in Afghanistan, is stepping up its involvement as US-led forces prepare to withdraw, attracted by the country’s vast mineral resources but concerned that any post-next year chaos could embolden Islamist insurgents in its own territory.

Cheered on by the US and other Western governments, which see Asia’s giant as a potentially stabilising force, China could prove the ultimate winner in Afghanistan – having shed no blood and not much aid.

Security – or the lack of it – remains the key challenge: Chinese enterprises have already bagged three multibillion dollar investment projects, but they won’t be able to go forward unless conditions get safer. While the Chinese do not appear ready to rush into any vacuum left by the withdrawal of foreign troops, a definite shift towards a more hands-on approach to Afghanistan is under way.

China is the only actor who can foot the level of investment needed in Afghanistan to make it succeed and stick it out

Beijing signed a strategic partnership last summer with the war-torn country. This was followed in September with a trip to Kabul by its top security official, the first by a leading Chinese government figure in 46 years, and the announcement that China would train 300 Afghan police officers. China is also showing signs of willingness to help negotiate a peace agreement as Nato prepares to pull out in two years.

It’s a new role for China, as its growing economic might gives it a bigger stake in global affairs. Success, though far from guaranteed, could mean a big payoff for a country hungry for resources to sustain its economic growth and eager to maintain stability in Xinjiang.

“If you are able to see a more or less stable situation in Afghanistan, if it becomes another relatively normal Central Asian state, China will be the natural beneficiary,” says Andrew Small, a China expert at The German Marshall Fund of the United States, an American research institute. “If you look across Central Asia, that is what has already happened. … China is the only actor who can foot the level of investment needed in Afghanistan to make it succeed and stick it out.””

via China could prove ultimate winner in Afghanistan | South China Morning Post.

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

Tags: Afghanistan, Central Asia, China, Kabul, politics, Xinjiang

27/01/2013

* Grandparents without borders

Another aspect of the on-going migrant workers issue that needs resolving by the government soon – before it blows up in their faces.

China Daily: “Migrant grandparents who leave their homes to live in the cities and take care of their children’s children are a growing demographic. Liu Zhihua highlights changes they have to face in adapting to their new lifestyles.

Grandparents without borders

In villages across China, grandparents have set aside their dreams of retirement to raise children left behind by their reluctant parents, who migrate to the cities in pursuit of making more money than at home. At a totally different level up the economic pyramid, in urban households, grandparents are now migrating from their homes to take care of their grandchildren in cities hundreds and thousands of miles away – as families scatter across a rapidly transforming China. Their children need to work, and are reluctant to hire a full-time babysitter, either due to distrust of a stranger, preference for family, or financial restraints.

As a result, grandparents, especially grandmothers, shoulder the responsibility of being primary caregivers, when they could be at their leisure after retirement.

But it’s not always easy to adapt, especially at what may be a relatively advanced age.

While staying in Shanghai last year to take care of her pregnant daughter, and later, her newly born grandson, Deng Chengying, 55, felt as if she was in a prison.

Xiong Jiayi enjoys quality time with his grandmother. [Provided to China Daily]

The Jingzhou native of Hubei province doesn’t understand the Shanghai dialect, but in the community where the family lives, nearly all the elderly neighbors speak only Shanghai dialect.

Deng does have one frequent visitor, a friendly old woman who is an empty nester , but conversation is difficult because she speaks only the Shanghai dialect.

If it wasn’t for the traders in the morning market speaking Mandarin, Deng would have few opportunities to speak her native tongue with those in her community.

When her daughter and son-in-law go to work and the housework is finished, she generally stays in the apartment and plays online games.

“I’m so thrilled I just jump if I meet someone whose language I understand,” Deng once confided to her relatives at home in Jingzhou during a phone call.”

via Grandparents without borders |Society |chinadaily.com.cn.

Tags: China, Grandparent, politics, Shanghai, society

27/01/2013

* India wary of China’s telecom forays in Nepal, Maldives

Times of India: “The growing presence of Chinese telecom companies in Maldives and Nepal has put security agencies on alert over fears that equipment used for infrastructure development there might be bugged and misused for intercepting any communication between India and the two countries.

The concerns by the central security agencies which have been conveyed to the telecom department here came against the backdrop of about $5.70 crore loan given by China to Maldives to implement its information technology (IT) infrastructure project, according to official sources.

The Huawei Technologies (Lanka) Co. Ltd, China enterprise business group and the National Centre for Information Technologies, Maldives have already signed an MoU to develop the IT Infrastructure in Maldives under the ‘Smart Maldives Project’, they said.”

via India wary of China’s telecom forays in Nepal, Maldives – The Times of India.

Maldives Moving Away From India? – Analysis (eurasiareview.com)
China’s Quietly Sinks New Delhi’s Influence in the Indian Ocean (irrawaddy.org)

Posted in China alert, Chindia Alert, Digital communications, Economics, GeoPolitics, India alert | Leave a Comment »

Tags: China, climate, Huawei, India, internet, Lanka, Maldives, Nepal, politics, technology

22/01/2013

* Fighting challenges to transform banking in rural India

Reuters: “India’s new program to transfer welfare payments directly to the nation’s poor has been touted as a near-revolutionary way to protect people from high-interest moneylenders, bureaucracy and bribes, and to help people improve their lives. Like many government programs designed to change the lives of millions of people, it has raised doubts about how well it would work.

I recently visited a couple of villages in Udaipur, the so-called city of lakes in Rajasthan. I wanted to see how the program is going in its early stages. My initial conclusion: it’s a big challenge.

Transferring cash directly means that the government wires money to people’s bank accounts. That avoids the traditional method of standing in endless lines at the post office, often making them easy pickings for corrupt bureaucrats looking to skim some of the cash off the top. Banks, despite what we have read, are often willing to venture into the hinterlands to set up accounts. Getting people to take them is another story.

Some officials of a government-owned bank went to survey a village in Udaipur, only to receive a rude shock — one family, petrified to see the bank officers, shut the door in their faces and wouldn’t deal with the officers until the village head man intervened.”

via India Insight.

Posted in Economics, India alert | Leave a Comment »

Tags: Bank account, India, politics

22/01/2013

* China’s Xi urges swatting of lowly flies in fight on everyday graft

Reuters: “Chinese president-in-waiting Xi Jinping on Tuesday took his campaign against corruption to the petty bureaucracy and minor infractions of lowly officials who are the bane of many Chinese people and businessmen’s everyday lives.

China's Communist Party chief Xi Jinping looks on during his meeting with U.N. General Assembly President Vuk Jeremic at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing December 27, 2012. REUTERS/Wang Zhao/Pool

Xi, in comments carried by the official Xinhua news agency, said it was just as important to go after the “flies”, or lowly people, as it was to tackle the “tigers”, or top officials, in the battle against graft.

“We must uphold the fighting of tigers and flies at the same time, resolutely investigating law-breaking cases of leading officials and also earnestly resolving the unhealthy tendencies and corruption problems which happen all around people,” he said.

Bureaucrats must not be allowed to get away with skirting rules and orders from above or choosing selectively which policies to follow, added Xi.

“The style in which you work is no small matter, and if we don’t redress unhealthy tendencies and allow them to develop, it will be like putting up a wall between our party and the people, and we will lose our roots, our lifeblood and our strength,” Xi told a meeting of the party’s top anti-graft body.

Xi called for “a disciplinary, prevention and guarantee mechanism” to be set up to prevent corruption, Xinhua said, though Xi did not provide any details.

Chinese bureaucrats have long had a poor reputation for laziness, a love of excessive paperwork and minor acts of corruption which infuriate the man on the street and add to growing mistrust of the party.

Since taking over as Communist Party head in November from Hu Jintao, Xi has vowed to root out corruption no matter how high it is, warning the party’s survival is at risk if it does not take the problem seriously.”

via China’s Xi urges swatting of lowly flies in fight on everyday graft | Reuters.

China’s Xi warns of unrest if graft not tackled (straitstimes.com)
Corruption fight a priority? (edition.cnn.com)
Corrupt officials unsettled by Xi Jinping’s anti-graft drive: Boxun (wantchinatimes.com)
Xi Warns of Regime’s Demise Unless China Tackles Graft (bloomberg.com)

Posted in China alert, corruption | Leave a Comment »

Tags: China, communist party of china, Hu Jintao, Political corruption, politics, Xi JinPing

21/01/2013

* India, Australia to launch n-talks in March

The Hindu: “India will begin talks for a civil nuclear energy cooperation with uranium-rich Australia in March this year.

External Affairs Minister Salman Khurshid with his Australian counterpart Bob Carr, prior to their bilateral talks, in New Delhi on Monday. Photo: V. Sudershan

“We shall be commencing negotiations on a Civil Nuclear Energy Cooperation Agreement in March 2013,” External Affairs Minister Salman Khurshid said here on Monday after talks with visiting Australian Foreign Minister Bob Carr.

The first round of negotiations conducted by the Foreign Ministries of both countries will be held in Delhi.

The agreement would enable the export of uranium from Australia to India, Mr. Carr said.

“A sense of urgency and purpose will be there. We will move swiftly,” Khurshid said pointing out that India already had similar agreements with a number of countries which could be used as a model.

During the parleys, it was decided that Defence Minister A.K. Antony would visit Australia sometime in March for further discussions on cooperation in defence and security sectors.

This would be the first ever visit by an Indian Defence Minister to Australia.

Australia had agreed to start negotiations on a civil nuclear deal with India during the October visit of Prime Minister Julia Gillard to New Delhi.

In December 2011, Ms. Gillard’s Labour Party had overturned its long-standing ban on exporting uranium to India.

via The Hindu : News / National : India, Australia to launch n-talks in March.

Foreign Ministers of Australia, Sri Lanka, Turkmenistan visiting India this week (nzweek.com)

Posted in Economics, India alert, Politics | Leave a Comment »

Tags: Australia, Bob Carr, Delhi, external affairs minister, India, Julia Gillard, Minister for Foreign Affairs (Australia), politics, Salman Khurshid

21/01/2013

* Women voters in India want to stand up and be counted

It’s about time!

Reuters: “Several years ago, a dinner-table conversation about state elections in Himachal Pradesh veered towards a candidate who gave away pressure cookers to woo women voters. Of course, bribing voters is illegal, but I remember wondering whether all I wanted as a woman was a pressure cooker.

The Delhi rape case and the molestation of a young girl in Guwahati in Assam last year have underscored the place that women often occupy in Indian society. These incidents have made me wonder to what extent our country’s political parties will focus on gender inequality as they look forward to the 2014 general elections. How will they vie for the women’s vote?

Until now, political parties and their largely male leadership focussed on the ‘aam aadmi’, or the common man, a phrase which subsumes women. Politicians and other public figures don’t make much hay of gender inequality and many of the attitudes toward women that hurt a large portion of our society — and when they do, they’re often lacking. The best attitude that politicians often apply to women is a patronising one. Instead of focusing on women’s empowerment through education and awareness, politicians distribute saris, cookers and sanitary napkins.

There is some attempt to change that. The Congress party’s weekend “Chintan Shivir“, or brainstorming session, in Jaipur put a special focus on women.

“Discrimination against the girl child and atrocities against women are a blot on our collective conscience,” party chief Sonia Gandhi said while opening the gathering. “Gender issues are fundamental and should be of concern to all of us.””

via India Insight.

Violence Against Women in India: Three Things to Know (cfr.org)
* How India treats its women (chindia-alert.org)
India – Single Women’s Association- A force not be forgotten #womenrights (kractivist.wordpress.com)

Posted in Gender issues, India alert, Politics | 1 Comment »

Tags: Assam, atrocities against women, current-events, Delhi, gender inequality, Guwahati, Himachal Pradesh, India, Indian National Congress, Jaipur, politics, society, Sonia Gandhi, women discrimination

20/01/2013

* India Congress Party Names Rahul Gandhi No. 2

Rahul finally throws his hat in the ring.

WSJ: “India’s Congress party has named Rahul Gandhi as the party’s vice president, giving a clear indication that the scion of the Gandhi-Nehru dynasty would be the party’s prime ministerial candidate in the federal elections next year.

The appointment of Mr. Gandhi—son of former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi and party President Sonia Gandhi—as the party’s No. 2 sets the stage for a likely face-off with Narendra Modi, chief minister of the western state of Gujarat and a top contender within the main opposition Bharatiya Janata Party for the country’s highest executive post, ahead of federal polls due before May 2014.”

via India Congress Party Names Rahul Gandhi No. 2 – WSJ.com.

Posted in Democracy, India alert, Leadership change, Politics | 2 Comments »

Tags: Congress, Gandhi-Nehru, India, india congress, Indian National Congress, mr gandhi, Nehru–Gandhi family, politics, rahul gandhi, Rajiv Gandhi, Sonia Gandhi, state of gujarat

20/01/2013

* In China, Discontent Among the Normally Faithful

NYT: “Barely two months into their jobs, the Communist Party’s new leaders are being confronted by the challenges posed by a constituency that has generally been one of the party’s most ardent supporters: the middle-class and well-off Chinese who have benefited from a three-decade economic boom.

A Jan. 9 demonstration in Guangzhou, where people protested the censorship of a paper known for investigative reporting.

A widening discontent was evident this month in the anticensorship street protests in the southern city of Guangzhou and in the online outrage that exploded over an extraordinary surge in air pollution in the north. Anger has also reached a boil over fears concerning hazardous tap water and over a factory spill of 39 tons of a toxic chemical in Shanxi Province that has led to panic in nearby cities.

For years, many China observers have asserted that the party’s authoritarian system endures because ordinary Chinese buy into a grand bargain: the party guarantees economic growth, and in exchange the people do not question the way the party rules. Now, many whose lives improved under the boom are reneging on their end of the deal, and in ways more vocal than ever before. Their ranks include billionaires and students, movie stars and homemakers.

Few are advocating an overthrow of the party. Many just want the system to provide a more secure life. But in doing so, they are demanding something that challenges the very nature of the party-controlled state: transparency.

More and more Chinese say they distrust the Wizard-of-Oz-style of control the Communist Party has exercised since it seized power in 1949, and they are asking their leaders to disseminate enough information so they can judge whether officials, who are widely believed to be corrupt, are doing their jobs properly. Without open information and discussion, they say, citizens cannot tell whether officials are delivering on basic needs.

“Chinese people want freedom of speech,” said Xiao Qinshan, 46, a man in a wheelchair at the Guangzhou protests.”

via In China, Discontent Among the Normally Faithful – NYTimes.com.

https://chindia-alert.org/prognosis/chinese-challenges/
* Corrupt Chinese Officials Draw Unusual Publicity (chindia-alert.org)
Chinese hold anti-censorship protest outside newspaper (familysurvivalprotocol.com)
* China censorship storm spreads, Beijing paper publisher resigns in protest (chindia-alert.org)
Chinese paper at centre of censorship protests hits newsstands – Reuters (reuters.com)
Chinese hold anti-censorship protest outside newspaper – Reuters (reuters.com)

Posted in Censorship, China alert, corruption, Democracy, Dissident, Economics, Governance, Inequalities, Openness, Politics | Leave a Comment »

Tags: China, Chinese people, Communist China, Communist Party, grand bargain, Politburo, politics, street protests

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

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

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* Panicked property fire sale in China amid corruption fight

* China could prove ultimate winner in Afghanistan

* Grandparents without borders

* India wary of China’s telecom forays in Nepal, Maldives

* Fighting challenges to transform banking in rural India

* China’s Xi urges swatting of lowly flies in fight on everyday graft

* India, Australia to launch n-talks in March

* Women voters in India want to stand up and be counted

* India Congress Party Names Rahul Gandhi No. 2

* In China, Discontent Among the Normally Faithful

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