China Challenges

Spying With Chinese Characteristics

This story comes from the Christian Science Monitor:

One month ago US officials rolled up what they allege to be a family spy ring, linked to the country some American officials call the most active collector of intelligence in the US today: the People's Republic of China.

China has spent more than two decades creating a large and varied intelligence infrastructure in the United States, according to US counterintelligence documents. High-profile prosecutions in recent years related to alleged Chinese espionage may merely hint at the depth and breadth of China's collection efforts.

To read more:
http://www.csmonitor.com/2005/1130/p01s01-usfp.html

A Hidden Killer

While bird flu rightfully gets much global media attention, BusinessWeek undercovers a more hidden killer.  Mr. Bruce Einhorn writes:

The disease is diabetes. Asia is already suffering badly from it, and the problem is going to get much worse in the years ahead. Consider this prediction from a diabetes expert: "When the history of this century is written, it will be diabetes, not bird flu or HIV/AIDS, that will have had the most devastating impact on the Asia Pacific [region]."

To read more:
http://www.businessweek.com/bwdaily/dnflash/nov2005/nf20051130_7353_db087.htm?campaign_id=hp_views&campaign_creative=bruce%einhorn

The Human Toll

The Japan Times has an editorial on China's environmental challenges.  They write:

The human toll is severe. As many as 300,000 Chinese die prematurely from diseases related to air pollution. Cancers and other diseases are abnormally high as a result of contaminated water. Over the next two decades, 30 million Chinese will be forced to migrate because of shortages of land or water.

To read more:

http://www.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/getarticle.pl5?ed20051130a1.htm

China's Military Rise

Mr. Peter Brooks of the Heritage Foundation has an article on the security situation in Asia.  He writes:

There is no doubt that the rise of China will have the greatest impact in defining and shaping the con­tent and texture of the Asian security environment in the coming decades. In turn, China’s ascendance will have a significant effect on American interests in Asia. In fact, some analysts see Beijing as being quite ambi­tious and believe that China seeks to replace the Unit­ed States as the preeminent power in the Pacific— even globally.

To read more:
http://www.heritage.org/Research/AsiaandthePacific/hl913.cfm

China and the WTO Meetings

Today two of my recent articles are posted at the American Thinker.  If you missed them, please take a look.

The Harbin crisis and China's internal power struggle
http://www.americanthinker.com/comments.php?comments_id=3761

China and the Hong Kong WTO Meetings
http://www.americanthinker.com/articles.php?article_id=5031

A Power Divide

As Harbin ecological crisis contines, Businessweek makes a key point:

As is often true in China, even as authorities in Beijing attempt to rein in the worst polluting factories and issue new regulations to clean up the environment, the central government is often stymied by its inability to assert power over the provinces. That reality was evident when early this year China's State Environmental Protection Administration ordered 30 hydroelectric projects to shut down for not carrying out required environmental impact assessments -- but was roundly ignored.

To read more:

http://www.businessweek.com/bwdaily/dnflash/nov2005/nf20051128_4335_db039.htm?chan=gb

The East Asian Community

Newsweek's Melinda Liu spoke with Qin Yaqing, vice dean of China Foreign Affairs University and a leading scholar involved in the East Asian Community concept. To read his comments:

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/10218349/site/newsweek/

Chinese Blogging

Blogging is exploding on the mainland.  The SCMP reports:

The number of registered online weblogs in China more than doubled in the first three quarters of this year, according to a report released yesterday by technology research firm Analysys. From 14.75 million at the beginning of the year, the number of registered internet-based personal diaries, or blogs, had jumped to 33.36 million by the end of September, the report said.

To read more:  ($$ required)

http://china.scmp.com/chitech/ZZZTOYL78GE.html

Water Woes

While the world's attention is focused China's ecological mismanagement, Tom Miller in the South China Morning Post reports on the Middle Kingdom's water woes.  He writes:

Water has long been the most precious of resources in north China, where rain barely falls for six months of the year. Now rapid industrialisation and misguided policies threaten to create a chronic water shortage that could see economic growth in China's heartland literally dry up. The mainland's annual per capita water availability currently stands at about 2,200 tonnes, just 25 per cent of the global average. 

To read more: ($$ required)

http://focus.scmp.com/focusnews/ZZZAJGP58GE.html

Coal Mine Sadness

How many thousands of Chinese miners must die before Beijing gets serious?  Terrible accidents happen almost everyday.  AP reports: 

An explosion tore through a coal mine in northeast China, leaving at least 51 miners dead and 100 missing, state media reported Monday.

To read more:

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/10233300/

Waiting for the Next Yuan Move

Will China move on the yuan again?  Businessweek reports:

Perhaps hinting at things to come, PBoC Governor Zhou Xiaochuan said on Nov. 4 that China's economy is flexible enough to withstand a more freely traded currency. He said that economists at other government departments have overstated the disruptive impact of a stronger yuan, and instead cited import and export elasticity, labor market flexibility, and the growing role of private companies.

To read more:

http://www.businessweek.com/investor/content/nov2005/pi20051128_2810_pi001.htm

Wanted: Internal Critics

In the Japan Times, Mr. Frank Ching argues political reforms must come from inside China:

In the long run, change in China is more likely to come from critics of the party from within than from outside, though it is still important for there to be outside critics; otherwise, the world will simply be pretending that all is well in China when that is not the case.

One such outside critic last week was President George W. Bush, who told China that it should emulate Taiwan and become democratic. "As China reforms its economy," Bush said in a speech in Kyoto, "its leaders are finding that once the door to freedom is opened even a crack, it cannot be closed. As the people of China grow in prosperity, their demands for political freedom will grow as well."

To read more:

http://www.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/getarticle.pl5?eo20051128fc.htm

Questions about Harbin

In the Harbin coverup scandel, the Financial Times asks the key question:

Why did it take more than a week for the 9m people of metropolitan Harbin - a city larger than most European capitals - to be told their drinking water was threatened by toxic benzene after an explosion at a PetroChina subsidiary's chemical plant in Jilin, higher up the Songhua river, on November 13?

To read more:

http://news.ft.com/cms/s/c57819da-5d8a-11da-be9c-0000779e2340.html

What Bad News?

China still finds it hard to reveal bad news.  See my comment about the ecological disaster in northeast China at the American Thinker.

http://www.americanthinker.com/comments.php?comments_id=3742

Affection for Mao

As a resident of Berkeley, Mr. Thomas Lifson at the American Thinker has a comment about how the local liberal establishment is defending the record of Chairman Mao.  To read it:

http://www.americanthinker.com/comments.php?comments_id=3739 

A Chinese Coverup

Government officials tried to coverup the unfolding ecological disaster in Jilin and Harbin.  How can we trust China in the global fight against bird flu?  The International Harald Tribune reports:

The government tried for days to keep secret the threat posed to the nearly four million people of this city by a chemical explosion and benzene leak that has made the water supply unusable, Chinese news accounts revealed Friday.

The reports, including some from the official Xinhua news agency, suggested that officials here and in Jilin Province, where the disaster occurred 380 kilometers, or 235 miles, up the Songhua River, lied or told only part of the story until they had no choice but to admit the truth.

To read more:

http://www.iht.com/articles/2005/11/25/news/beijing.php

Environmental Disaster in Harbin

The situation in the northeastern city of Harbin is a perfect example of China's excessive focus on economic development over the past 30 years, at the expense of environmental pretection.  The New York Times reports: 

The Chinese government on Thursday blamed the country's biggest oil company for a pollution spill that allowed a 50-mile slick of toxic benzene to reach this northern city of almost four million people on the river that normally supplies it with running water. 

To read more:

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/11/25/international/asia/25china.html?th&emc=th

Medical Reform Failure

The Economist explains:

"Getting your appendix out, is a year's farming up the spout,” goes the jingle in China, where the collapse of a once widely admired state-subsidised health-care system has left many citizens unable to afford even the most basic treatment. But the government's efforts to tackle the problem by ordering big cuts in medicine prices are winning it few admirers. Demands are growing for far more profound reforms.

To read more:

http://www.economist.com/World/asia/displayStory.cfm?story_id=5176231

New Terror Threat in HK

CNN International is reporting: 

A report on the Web site of one of Pakistan's largest English-language newspapers, Dawn, dated Tuesday, quoted an unidentified source as saying the Chinese Consulate-General in Karachi had received an anonymous fax message warning that fundamentalist religious groups and an Islamic terrorist network in China were planning to bomb some hotels in Hong Kong and China soon.

To read more:

http://edition.cnn.com/2005/WORLD/asiapcf/11/24/hongkong.terror.threat.ap/index.html

Sino-Japan - Opening a Book

The Japan Times says:  Sino-Japanese ties may be at their lowest point since the two countries normalized diplomatic relations in 1972, but a Japan boom is still rocking the Chinese publishing world.

To read more:

http://www.japantimes.com/cgi-bin/getarticle.pl5?nn20051124f2.htm

Party Blogging

Like  many others, this blog is unreadable in mainland China.  So this story caught my eye in the International Herald Tribune:

On her fourth day of keeping a Web log, she introduced herself to the world of blogging with these striking words, "I am a dance girl, and I am a Party member."

"I don't know if I can be counted as a successful Web cam dance girl," that early posting continued. "But I'm sure that looking around the world, if I am not the one with the highest diploma, I am definitely the dance babe who reads the most and thinks the deepest, and I'm most likely the only Party member among them."

To read more:
http://www.iht.com/articles/2005/11/23/business/bloggers.php

The Harbin Water Crisis

The South China Morning Post reports:

Ten days after a chemical factory explosion in Jilin province and a day after water was shut off in the city of Harbin, mainland authorities yesterday admitted the blast had "seriously polluted" the Songhua River.

The State Environmental Protection Administration said chemical contamination was found in various sections of the river, from which Harbin takes its water.

A sample taken near the PetroChina plant a day after the explosion found benzene levels 108 times above national safety levels.

To read more: ($$ required)

http://www.scmp.com/topnews/ZZZ0JNP58GE.html

China's Military Rise

The Christian Science Monitor has published some reader responses to the question:  Will China's military rise shift the global balance of power?

To read some responses:

http://www.csmonitor.com/2005/1125/p09s02-coop.html?s=hns

Book Review

Asia Media reviews a new book about intellectual property in China.  The book is The Politics of Piracy: Intellectual Property in Contemporary China by Andrew C. Mertha.  They write:

According to Mertha, a professor at Washington University in St. Louis, the problem is not just a lack of resources for dealing with the problem, or corrupt government officials, though those factors may contribute to theft of intellectual property. Rather, the problem is rooted in the fragmented nature of political authority in China.

To read more:

http://www.asiamedia.ucla.edu/article.asp?parentid=34148

Major Shift in Views

Mr. David Wall has very interesting column in today's Japan Times.  He writes:

The man who provided the intellectual underpinnings for Deng Xiaoping's dramatic post-Cultural Revolution reform and opening-up program, and who provided the ideological basis for describing capitalism as the first stage of communism, has recanted. He has recanted big time. And he has done so saying that he got the nod from above to publish his views.

Professor Liu Guogong, one-time alternate member of the Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party, former vice president of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences (the party's think thank), and former director of the Institute of Economics (for many years the spearhead for market-oriented reforms), has decided it has all been a big mistake.

To read more:

http://www.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/getarticle.pl5?eo20051122a1.htm

Beijing - Only Intensifed Vaccination Efforts

Is China serious about fighting bird flu?  After reading this passage in the Washington Post, I have my doubts.  Edward Cody writes:

International health officials said they had detected no signs of the national mobilization that would be necessary if Beijing genuinely sought to reach every bird in every barnyard. Instead, they suggested, the Chinese government probably intends to intensify what already has been a strong vaccination and culling program in areas where bird flu has broken out, and to encourage as many farmers as possible to get their poultry vaccinated even before the disease strikes their regions.

To read more:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/10119268/

Bush Photos - Funny and Humiliating?

Did the NY Times go to far in publishing some unflattering pictures of President Bush during his stay in Beijing?  The American Thinker says:

Filling two columns and three quarters of the front page, top to bottom, is a series of 4 full color photos of Bush walking towards a  door following a meeting with reporters, finding the door locked (and grimacing) ,and then being directed to a different exit, and finally walking out of that one.

Clearly, the message the Times is trying to deliver is ”Bush is an idiot. He can’t even find his way out of a room on his own.”

To read more:
http://www.americanthinker.com/comments.php?comments_id=3715

Keeping China on the WTO Path

Mr. Alan Oxley in the Australian makes some excellent points about the WTO and China.  He explains:

In recent weeks there has been many a forecast that the future of the world trading system hangs in the balance ahead of December's World Trade Organisation ministerial conference in Hong Kong.

Such predictions may turn out to be correct. But not for the reason that so many are touting: the apparent collapse of efforts to reach agreement on agricultural reform. Instead, it is because the WTO is in danger of losing sight of a far more important task today: that of keeping China on the path of free-market reform.

To read more:
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,5744,17308497%5E7583,00.html

The Bush-Hu Meeting

The liberal New York Times, not usually a friend of President Bush, writes:

After a day of talks that began with a 90-minute meeting inside the Great Hall of the People, Mr. Bush emerged with little progress to report beyond a $4 billion deal for China to buy 70 Boeing aircraft.

To read more:

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/11/21/international/asia/21prexy.html?pagewanted=2&th&emc=th

China Called a Weak Innovator

The Japan Times writes:

China has come a long way to show "pockets of excellence" in some fields of science and technology, but it still has a long way to go before it can become a full-blown innovative power, a China expert at a U.S. think tank told a recent symposium in Tokyo.

To read more:

http://www.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/getarticle.pl5?nb20051121d1.htm

Ugly Asian Images

Having lived in Japan and China for many years, this is a sad story for me in the New York Times:

A young Japanese woman in the comic book "Hating the Korean Wave" exclaims, "It's not an exaggeration to say that Japan built the South Korea of today!" In another passage the book states that "there is nothing at all in Korean culture to be proud of."

In another comic book, "Introduction to China," which portrays the Chinese as a depraved people obsessed with cannibalism, a woman of Japanese origin says: "Take the China of today, its principles, thought, literature, art, science, institutions. There's nothing attractive."

To read more:

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/11/19/international/asia/19comics.html?incamp=article_popular

The Coming China Slowdown?

Is China's hot economy ready for a slow down?  Newsweek International says:

If that's true, then a slowdown in China may be imminent. How painful is anybody's guess, but Jim Walker, chief economist for investment bank CLSA, says the figure could dip as low as 5 percent next year and 3 percent in 2007.

To read more:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/10117466/site/newsweek/

Religious Freedom

Read my comment about religious freedom in China at the American Thinker:
http://www.americanthinker.com/comments.php?comments_id=3701

Bush's Grievances

The commentary comes from the conservative Opinion Journal:

Mr. Bush will air further trade grievances this weekend in his meeting with Chinese President Hu Jintao in Beijing. Some are legitimate, for example the failure of China to police the theft of intellectual property and local authorities' nasty habit of resolving commercial disputes with foreigners by clapping them in jail, as they did last year with Los Angeles businessman David Ji. Other U.S. complaints are spurious, especially the U.S. claim that China is unfairly tilting the trade balance by keeping the dollar value of the yuan artificially low.

To read more:

http://www.opinionjournal.com/weekend/hottopic/?id=110007577

Hu's Bold Gamble

Read my new comment posted at the American Thinker called Hu's Bold Gamble.

http://www.americanthinker.com/comments.php?comments_id=3693

Bird Flu - How Transparent?

How transparent has China been in the fight against bird flu?  On the positive side, Businessweek has this story:

As the bird flu crisis afflicting China worsens, Beijing has leaped into action. Even as China announced its tenth and eleventh outbreaks of avian flu on Nov. 15, Chinese scientists said they would soon begin testing a possible vaccine against human infections. Health authorities have quarantined thousands of people, set up flu inspection sites in every province, culled millions of chickens, and declared their intention to vaccinate every bird in China's poultry industry.

On the contary, we had this story a few weeks ago in the South China Morning Post (via American Thinker):

Just days after pledging "complete openness" in the fight against bird flu, Communist officials in Beijing have reportedly ordered newspapers to seek approval from the authorities before publishing any reports on new outbreaks of bird flu and any animal or human deaths.

To read both reports at American Thinker and Business Week:

http://www.americanthinker.com/comments.php?comments_id=3627

http://www.businessweek.com/bwdaily/dnflash/nov2005/nf20051117_9543_db039.htm?chan=gb?campaign_id=nws_insdr_nov19&link_position=link10

Broken China

President Bush will meet the Chinese leadership in Beijing in the next few days.  When compared with other complex issues, like ongoing trade disputes, the status of Taiwan, environmental protection, and North Korea's nuclear ambitions, how high should Western leaders prioritize the human rights of minority groups within the Middle Kingdom?  Consider this comment by Nury Turkel posted at the conservative National Review :

Democratic leaders who recently met the wholly un-democratic Chinese president, Hu Jintao, on his tour of western Europe, have been heavily criticized for not putting the issue of human rights higher on their agendas.

To read more:

http://www.nationalreview.com/voices/turkel200511181226.asp

Coming Conflict with China?

A commentary in the Australian newspaper tackles the complex topic of China's rise in the future.  John Mearsheimer says:

The question at hand is simple and profound: will China rise peacefully? My answer is no.  If China continues its impressive economic growth over the next few decades, the US and China are likely to engage in an intense security competition with considerable potential for war. Most of China's neighbours, to include India, Japan, Singapore, South Korea, Russia and Vietnam, will join with the US to contain China's power.

To read more:

http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,5744,17280158%255E7583,00.html

No Online Paradise

Chinese people are nervous about buying products over the Internet.  A story from AP says:  A typical Chinese Internet user is a young male who prefers instant messaging to e-mail, rarely makes online purchases and favors news, music and games sites, according to a new study released Thursday.

To read more:
http://www.iht.com/articles/2005/11/17/business/chinet.php

Outsourcing Worries

Outsourcing continues to make headlines.  The liberal New York Times editorializes:

The newest expatriates aren't people. They're ideas, and America can't afford to watch them go. The Wall Street Journal reported last week that Microsoft had trimmed over $500 million from its yearly tax bill by putting a small subsidiary in Dublin in charge of $16 billion of its assets. The game is simple: A company sends intellectual property to a tax-haven country like Ireland and keeps the tax difference on the money it earns. The world is used to seeing manufacturing businesses move to countries where labor is cheaper, like Mexico or China. But profits from software created and designed at Microsoft's headquarters in Washington State should be taxed in America, not Ireland.

To read more:
http://www.iht.com//articles/2005/11/17/opinion/edtax.php

Beijing's Safety Pledge

The South China Morning  Post writes that Beijing has pledged to guarantee the safety of President Bush during his upcoming visit, after the second terror warning in a week to Americans living in China.   

Nothing in Common

In an article called Nothing in Common, John Tkacik of the Heritage Foundation writes:

There are few policy areas in which the U.S. and China share common strategic goals. For the time being, the Administration should keep expectations for U.S.-China relations low. In its November 2005 report, the Congressionally-mandated U.S.-China Commission put its conclusion quite bluntly: “On balance, the trends in the U.S.-China relationship have negative implications for our long-term national economic and security interests.”

To read more: http://www.heritage.org/Research/AsiaandthePacific/wm917.cfm

China As No. 1?

The International Herald Tribune has an interesting commentary by Mr. Ross Terrill.  He writes: 

As George W. Bush readies his chopsticks to dine with President Hu Jintao of China this week, he might ponder whether China's rise really means America's eclipse, as so many seem to assume.

Don't count on it. The U.S. economy is seven times the size of China's and the Japanese economy is three times China's. Not least, China is a Leninist regime - the kind that mostly went up in a puff of smoke 15 years ago.

To read more:

http://www.iht.com/articles/2005/11/16/opinion/edterrill.php#

Online Gaming

Business Week has a story about Beijing's efforts to clean up the online gaming industry. Mr. Bruce Einhorn writes:  The official Chinese media have been running alarming stories about online gamers becoming so twisted that they kill themselves, attack fellow players, or commit other crimes. Beijing therefore has recently decreed that the online-gaming companies must act against their own interest by discouraging people from using their games for too long.

To read more:

http://www.businessweek.com/bwdaily/dnflash/nov2005/nf20051116_3993_db065.htm?campaign_id=hp_views&campaign_creative=bruce%einhorn

China Takes Bird Flu Action

China has reported its first case of human bird flu.  It has announced that it will vaccinate all its poultry.  The New York Times says:

At any one time, China has about 4 billion chickens and 1.2 billion ducks and geese, but even those numbers understate the size of the vaccination task. The country consumes about 14 billion domestically grown chickens, ducks and geese every year. 

To read more:

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/11/16/international/asia/16flu.html?th&emc=th

Bush's Freedom Speech

In a speech in Kyoto, Japan, President Bush says China must allow more freedom.

For more from USA Today:

http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2005-11-15-asia-visit_x.htm

Hitler References towad Koizumi

It seems Hilter comparisons are moving across the Pacific.  Many extreme liberals in America like to compare President Bush to Adolf Hilter.  Now, according to the Japan Times, Chinese Foreign Minister Li Zhaoxing has harshly criticized Japan's Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi's visits to the controvsial Yasukuni Shrine by referring to Adolf Hitler and Nazis.

To read more:

http://www.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/getarticle.pl5?nn20051116a3.htm

Worried for Bush's Safety

The South China Morning Post reports:

Authorities say they have increased security after the US warned of a possible terrorist attack against Americans in Guangzhou one week before US President George W. Bush visits Beijing, the Foreign Ministry said yesterday.

To read more: (subscription required)

http://china.scmp.com/chimain/ZZZ7EYPFXFE.html

Remembering a Hero from 1989

As loyal readers of this blog may recall, the Chinese Communist Party decided a few months ago to officially restore the reputation of a liberal-leaning party leader whose death helped inspire pro-democracy protests in 1989. Now the festivities are about to begin.

To read more, see this article in the New York Times: http://www.nytimes.com/2005/11/15/international/asia/15china.htmlex=1132722000&en=2bab8ffa2b1d4f8c&ei=5070

IPR on the Street Corner

Just days before President Bush's arrival in Beijing, US Trade Representative Bob Portman reportedly commented on China's poor record of enforcing intellectual property rights.  He is exactly right.  He said:

"China should roll up the illegal distribution networks that are known to bring millions of fake DVDs and CDs to market," Portman said. "Fakes on every street corner are an unbecoming symbol for a world power, such as China. Likewise, government offices and government-controlled firms should not use fake software."

To read more:
www.internet.com/rss/click/www.internetnews.com/bus-news/article.php/3564036