A marginalized member of society chews on a fish bone from collected leftovers while eating on a Beijing street on January 11, 2009. (Frederic J. Brown/AFP/Getty Images)
BEIJING (AFP, Peter Harmsen) – Outlook magazine, an authoritative weekly published by the Xinhua news agency, said in this week's edition that the economy might become so bad in the coming months that China's social fabric could start unravelling.
Jan 7 -- China challenged to open up secretive finances
SHANGHAI (Daily Telegraph, Malcolm Moore) – A new freedom of information law is to be tested in China by a lawyer who has demanded the state opens up its secretive finances.
Yan Yiming, a 44-year-old commercial lawyer from Shanghai, presented a petition to the finance ministry headquarters demanding that it publish details of its 2008 expenditure and its 2009 budget.
Jan 7 -- China blogger population exceeds 50 mln: report
BEIJING (AFP) – China now has more than 50 million bloggers as increasing numbers of people seek an outlet for their views, state press reported.
Jan 7 -- China urged to release scholar Liu Xiaobo from ‘residential surveillance’
Amnesty International – A dissident literary scholar has been held without charge at an unknown location in China since 8 December.
The Chinese authorities detained Liu Xiaobo after he signed a campaign for political and rights reform in China, known as Charter 08. They have not yet made public any information concerning his alleged crimes, the charges against him and his current whereabouts.
Jan 7 -- Bank of America sells $2.8 billion China bank stake
HONG KONG (Reuters) – Top U.S. lender Bank of America, raising cash to weather a dismal market at home, sold a $2.83 billion chunk of its holding in China Construction Bank (0939.HK) on Wednesday, dragging the Chinese bank's stock 6 percent lower.
Jan 7 -- China pushes to ease grim graduate unemployment
BEIJING (Reuters, Chris Buckley and Ian Ransom) – China will push a rising tide of university graduates to find work in the countryside and small firms after Premier Wen Jiabao warned on Wednesday that they face a "grim" job market as a global slowdown seizes the economy.
Jan 7 -- China will miss Asean Summit
The Nation (Thailand's English news) – Chinese officials will not attend the Asean Summit in Bangkok next month as they will be busy with a National Congress, Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva said yesterday. China has notified Thailand that it will be unable to attend the summit, but Asean nations are all due to attend.
Jan 7 -- Negroponte in China to celebrate 30 years of Sino-US ties
BEIJING (AFP) – The US Deputy Secretary of State kicked off a visit to China Wednesday to mark 30 years of diplomatic ties between the two nations and give the Bush administration's farewell to the Chinese leadership.
Jan 7 -- Debate renewed on U.S.-China ties
The Hill (Ian Swanson) – Interest groups that have tried for years to demand changes in the economic relationship between the U.S. and China sense an opportunity in tying the global recession to the superpowers’ policies.
The financial meltdown has underlined the impact of the U.S. trade deficit with China and China’s investment of more than $1 trillion in U.S. Treasury bonds.
The two are interrelated....
Jan 7 -- China issues bird flu alert after woman dies
YANJIAO, Hebei province, China (Reuters) – China issued a bird flu alert on Wednesday after a woman died of the virus, the first such death in the country in almost a year, and closed poultry markets for disinfecting in a province surrounding Beijing.
Jan 7 -- Net tightens around China's richest man as wife is detained
BEIJING (Time Online, Jane Macartney) – The net is tightening around China’s richest man with the detention of his wife amid a police investigation into possible financial offences by the businessman who founded the country’s biggest appliance chain.
State media said Du Juan, 37, was now under police guard in Beijing and had been formally placed under “residential surveillance”. The police wanted to prevent her from leaving the country.
Jan 7 -- China urges deferral of Bashir war crimes case
KHARTOUM (Reuters, Andrew Heavens) – China, the biggest investor in Sudan, said on Wednesday a war crimes indictment against Sudan's president Omar Hassan al-Bashir would have a "disastrous" impact on the Darfur conflict and called for the case to be postponed.
In July, the chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC) asked judges to issue an arrest warrant for Bashir, accusing him of orchestrating genocide in Darfur where international experts say fighting has killed 200,000 people.
Jan 7 -- China's newly frugal youths
BBC (Gemma O'Neill and Shuvra Mahmud) – Amid the global economic downturn, young people in China are defying government initiatives to boost spending and coming up with novel ways to save money.
Jan 7 --Supporting 47 Million Chinese Quitting the CCP
LONDON, England (NTDTV) – In London a parade and rally took place to support more than 47 million people who have quit the Chinese Communist Party since December 2004.
The Organizer of the event, Dr. Guihua Li, said, "The Chinese Communist Party is so evil. They not only persecute ordinary people, at the same time they brainwash the Chinese people. So now Chinese people more and more join in the quitting the CCP movement. This indicates a lot of people standing up, brave enough to say goodbye to the Chinese Communist Party, to say no to the Party."
Jan 8 -- 600,000 workers leave south China's industrial heartland: govt
BEIJING (AFP) – About 600,000 migrant workers left south China's industrial heartland last year as the economic crisis caused exports to shrink and forced factories to close, a senior official said Thursday.
The number of migrants departing Guangdong province, one of the world's top makers of toys and electronic appliances, accelerated through 2008 as the global situation worsened, said provincial deputy governor Huang Longyun.
Jan 8 -- Bank of China shares fall after HK tycoon's sale
HONG KONG (Associated Press) – Bank of China shares tumbled Thursday after Hong Kong billionaire Li Ka-shing's foundation sold more than $500 million worth of shares in the lender, becoming the latest investor to cut its investment in China's banking sector.
The sale comes a day after Bank of America Corp. sold a stake in China Construction Bank for about $2.8 billion, and Swiss bank UBS AG said it sold its stake in Bank of China in a deal estimated to be worth around $900 million.
Jan 8 -- China's CCB says Bank of America partnership sound
BEIJING (Reuters) – China Construction Bank said on Thursday it was "fully confident" in its strategic relationship with Bank of America, after the top U.S. lender sold nearly 13 percent of its holding in the Chinese bank this week.
Jan 8 -- RBS May Join UBS, Li in Selling Bank of China Stock (Update1)
Bloomberg (Kelvin Wong and Luo Jun) – Royal Bank of Scotland Group Plc said it’s considering joining UBS AG and Hong Kong billionaire Li Ka-shing in selling Bank of China Ltd. shares as the end of a three-year lockup gives the U.K. lender a chance to raise funds.
Jan 8 -- China may put new curbs on overseas investments
SHANGHAI (Reuters) – China's Ministry of Commerce may ask Chinese companies to apply for approval from the ministry if they want to invest $100 million or more overseas, it said in new draft rules published late on Wednesday, after a few major Chinese companies reported big book losses on investments abroad.
Jan 8 -- China Bank to raise stake in thrift bank
MANILA, Philippines (GMA News) – China Banking Corp. has moved to fully gobble up the former Manila Banking Corp., ratifying a plan to buy out the minority shareholders of the former Puyat-owned lender.
China Bank’s branch network has grown to 214 to date from the 155 before the purchase of Manila Bank.
Jan 8 -- China promises to investigate alleged fake pills sold to Britain
People's Daily – China's drug watchdog promised to investigate how alleged counterfeit pills, which were made in China, ended up being used by the British National Health Service (NHS). "We will conduct relevant investigations and will surely punish companies or individuals who manufacture fake pharmaceuticals for export", Yan Jiangying, spokeswoman with State Food and Drug Administration (SFDA) said.
Jan 8 -- Fewer visitors to China last year despite Olympics
BEIJING (AP) – The number of travelers to China dropped by 2 million in 2008 in what was supposed to be a banner year for tourism but became one dampened by Olympics-related security measures and the global economic crunch.
It was the first decline in visitor numbers since 2003, when a deadly outbreak of severe acute respiratory syndrome, SARS, kept many people away.
Jan 8 -- Chinese Rights Campaigner Applauds Divine Performance
NEW YORK (NTDTV) – The Chinese New Splendor has left Jonathan Cao, from the Chinese Coalition for Citizens’ Rights, thinking about all that China has lost under communist rule.
"In China we don’t have freedom of speech; we don’t have freedom of association. We don’t have freedom of religion and freedom of religious belief."
He says Chinese people used to value virtues and have high moral standards, but the last 60 years of communism have made some Chinese pursue personal gain at the expense of others, culminating in poisoning children for profit with the melamine-milk scandal.
Jan 8 -- China starts buying South African arms
HONG KONG (UPI, Andrei Chang) – China has had a number of dealings with South African weapons manufacturers over the past decade, most of which have not resulted in actual weapons purchases. However, several recent Chinese-made military technologies bear suspicious resemblances to their South African counterparts.
