26th March 2010

The Lion Awakes 

News at a Glance

今天的中国新闻

A compilation of Headlines + Brief Summary from Chinese & International Publications relating to China.

Just 5 Minutes each day to be up-to-date on the News of China

Combined with Kaixin’s boutique SITE SEARCH ENGINE, it is a unique source of knowledge about China"

China News Archive

From 2008

China Daily

Chinese manufacturers learn to love labor lost

BEIJING - In the Pearl River Delta, once dubbed "the workshop of the world" and the preferred location for low-cost manufacturers, low-wage workers are increasingly scarce.

Latest government figures showed the Pearl River Delta, China's largest export region boasting nearly one third of the country's total export, saw an exodus of 22.5 percent of its migrant workers in 2009.
The shortages can be attributed to government policies aiming at closing the yawning income gap between the urban rich and the rural poor.

A Stern Warning

Official executed for embezzling public funds

An official with the administration of government subsidy for housing was executed on Thursday morning for corruption and embezzlement, in central China's Hunan province.

Li Shubiao, 46, was the former director with the office in Chenzhou city. He was found having embezzled public funds amounting at 120 million yuan (18 million US dollars) during his tenure, most of which have been invested in profitable deals or squandered in gambling.

China drills more wells, seeds clouds amid drought

BEIJING: Emergency wells were being drilled and cloud-seeding operations carried out in southern China, where the worst drought in decades has left millions of people without water and caused more than 1,000 schools to close, officials said Thursday.

Provincial and national land resources bureau officials met in Kunming, capital of the hardest-hit province of Yunnan, to discuss details of deploying workers to dig wells and increase cloud seeding and other aid to people in need of drinking water, according to a director at the Yunnan Land Resources Bureau, surnamed Ma.

"The situation here will get worse in the coming months before it gets any better, but hopefully with more wells and water being diverted to those in need, we can help ease the situation," said Ma.

China tops US in spending on clean energy

China beat the United States for the first time last year in investments in low-carbon energy like wind and solar power, according to a report by the Pew Charitable Trusts released on Thursday.

In 2009 China invested $34.6 billion in the clean energy economy while the United States invested $18.6 billion and came in second place, according to the report called, "Who's Winning the Clean Energy Race?"

Phyllis Cuttino, director of Pew Environment Group's US Global Warming Campaign, said the United States lacks strong national policies to support renewable energy.

President Hu: More efforts to develop west inland

YINCHUAN: Chinese President Hu Jintao has called for more efforts to promote social, economic development in the underdeveloped western areas of the country.

Hu made the call during his three-day visit to northwestern Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region from Sunday to Tuesday.

This year marks the tenth anniversary of China's campaign to develop the west.

The Wall Street Journal      China RealTime Report

GM Shows Its EN-V in Shanghai

General Motors Co. introduced a pod-like electric vehicle in Shanghai this week, a vision for a car of the future to help solve urban-transportation problems such as congestion and pollution.

From the ABC’s Catalyst – video

Future car

US researchers have been working on a radical technology that could change the way we get about. A team at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology have been designing collapsible, stackable electric vehicles that owe their flexibility and cheapness to a revolutionary new drive system known as in-wheel motors.

Kaixin – the lateral thinking that placed the motor in each wheel is brilliant.

The Wall Street Journal     China RealTime Report

U.S. Push on Internet Freedom Could Backfire

But Google’s experience in China over the past two months has led some to question whether legislators’ involvement helps or hurts the government’s cause, even as Google urges legislators to become more involved in such efforts.

Sentiment among Chinese Internet users is far from being unanimously in support of Google’s decision to defy the wishes of Chinese censors. Some prominent commentators have outspokenly praised Google as a champion for free expression, but most Internet watchers say Chinese-language discussion on the topic is now laced with skepticism because of blurred boundaries between the Internet giant and the U.S. government

Kaixin – The people we speak to, including students, couldn’t give a rat’s bum whether Google stays or goes. If Google wants to compete in China it has to accept that it is in China and abide by their law and culture. From yesterday’s comments,

On what basis does America assume such moral superiority? It holds itself up as the ideal after which all should follow. Yet, it is a self appointed role. Its moral superiority is self-awarded. It all exists within the collective mind of America.

The collective American mind would recoil if China assumed such moral superiority and proceeded to tell America what its values should be.

Indeed, when China protests about single issues that it regards as going to its core interests, America ignores it, quite rightly so. Yet, that is exactly what America is doing on a much larger and more profound scale. Not on core single issues, but on general moral and philosophical grounds.

So, why shouldn’t China simply take the same approach as America, and ignore it. Certainly, China should not comply simply because America opines from its lofty stance.

The New York Times

China Officials Wrestle Publicly Over Currency

The fight, mainly between the Chinese central bank and its Commerce Ministry, could decide the course of trade tensions between China and the United States.

Kaixin – Substantive  and interesting article

The Age

China in new web rule row
ELLEN NAKASHIMA AND CECILIA KANG, WASHINGTON

THE world's largest internet domain name registration company, GoDaddy.com Inc, will no longer offer domain names in China.

The move comes in response to intrusive Chinese government rules that require applicants to provide extensive personal data, including photographs of themselves.

Kaixin – As China says, Western companies are free to come and free to go. All they have to do is abide by the laws of China. As I noted above, the supply of rat’s rear ends from China over these issues is non-existent.

Hu trial: Verdict due Monday

Australia said on Thursday it had been told by China that the verdict in the trial of four Rio Tinto executives charged with bribery and stealing commercial secrets will be handed down on Monday.

The Australian

In dealing with Beijing, overambition tends to backfire

In contrast, Rudd and Obama were much more China-centric and took a more ambitious and optimistic view of the possibilities for collaboration with China.

It's time to lower expectations for Chinese co-operation, look first to friends and co-ordinate potential sources of leverage over Beijing. Paradoxically, if this is done, relations with China will likely improve.

Asia Times Online

Rio gets back to business
By Olivia Chung

HONG KONG - Rio Tinto executives, waiting to hear the fate of colleagues held in Shanghai on charges of bribery and stealing commercial secrets, may have to wait even longer for the outcome of usually contentious price negotiations for supplying iron ore to China. The annual talks involving Chinese steel companies and global ore suppliers set the price for the 12 months from April 1.

SINOGRAPH
Globalization yet to have its day
By Francesco Sisci

BEIJING - Vladimir Lenin's mark on communist theory was his book on imperialism [1], which the Russian leader considered the supreme - and thus last - phase of capitalism. After the imperialistic stage, capitalism would fall. He was wrong in many respects. Capitalism did not fall apart, and imperialism was just a stage in capitalistic evolution.

Now is the time of globalization.

US peeks into China's nuclear fortress
By Peter J Brown

The Chinese government is probably unhappy about a new report by a Virginia-based, non-partisan think-tank called Project 2049 [1] that reveals significant and previously little known details about Base 22 in the Qinling mountains in Shaanxi province, China's primary storage facility for nuclear weapons. Publicity about this new report - "China's Nuclear Warhead Storage and Handling System" - first appeared in Defense News in early March