Ambulances enter as security guards open the gates to a sealed-off hotel where a number of Mexican nationals are being held under quarantine in Beijing. (Frederic J. Brown/AFP/Getty Images)
BEIJING (Reuters) -- China said on Saturday it has suspended flights from Mexico after Hong Kong authorities confirmed a Mexican traveler who transited through the city of Shanghai had the new H1N1 flu.
May 3—Anger as 70 Mexicans quarantined in China
BEIJING (AFP, Peter Harmsen) -- Mexican diplomats complained bitterly to China on Sunday saying about 70 of their countrymen had been placed under quarantine despite showing no signs of swine flu.
As Foreign Minister Patricia Espinosa called the action "unjustified" and warned Mexicans against visiting China, Ambassador Jorge Guajardo was refused access to 10 people held at Beijing Guomen Hotel.
"We are objecting to the fact that they are holding Mexicans in isolation for fear that they might have the flu virus, even though they have no signs of having the flu virus," Guajardo told reporters. ...
At a press conference in Shanghai, a Chinese official defended the handling of quarantine measures. ...
"All the measures are taken in accordance with laws and regulations," said Chen Qiwei, a spokesman for the city's government. ...
May 3—To fix economy, fix China trade
Baltimore Sun (Peter Morici) -- To dig out of the "Great Recession," Washington needs to challenge China on trade and currency manipulation - but President Barack Obama and Treasury Secretary Timothy F. Geithner must recognize that Beijing only has the leverage Washington gives it.
The nation needs to realize that this is no Eisenhower recession, caused by too much inventory. Rather, this meltdown was caused by structural imbalances in the global economy that no stimulus spending can fix. ...
Once Americans were no longer able to live beyond their means, the global economy collapsed, and President Barack Obama has volunteered the federal government as the borrower of last resort. Now China says Washington borrows too much. That's like a drug pusher complaining about his clients' addiction. Yet, Mr. Obama appeases Beijing by offering to share stewardship of the global economy with this renegade mercantilist.
China's purchases of U.S. Treasuries and threat to quit buying are the elephant in the room. But those purchases are made necessary only by China's huge hoard of dollars that is contrived by Beijing's massive sale of yuan for dollars on foreign exchange markets to keep the yuan cheap, exports flowing, and jobs moving from Indiana to Shanghai.
The Peoples Bank buys U.S. Treasuries because it does not have any better use for the dollars it obtains manipulating the yuan to boost exports. If it quit using those dollars to buy Treasuries, it would simply have to put those in the vault and remove them from circulation. The Federal Reserve would have to replace those dollars in circulation by purchasing the very same Treasury securities Beijing now buys. In other words, the Fed would collect the interest instead of the Peoples Bank. That's not so bad. ...
Peter Morici is a professor at the University of Maryland's Smith School of Business and the former chief economist at the U.S. International Trade Commission.
May 2—China pulling Southeast Asia into its orbit
BEIJING (Malaysian Insider / IPS) -- The global financial crisis is proving a boon for a resurgent China, which is poised to exert ever greater influence in Southeast Asia.
While drawing neighbouring countries back into China’s economic orbit has been part of Beijing’s strategy for restoring what it sees as the country’s rightful place on the global stage, recent months of recession have furnished Beijing with new opportunities to further its leadership ambitions in the region.
After the political turmoil in Thailand led to the cancellation of an Asean summit aimed at tackling the global crisis in April, Beijing made political mileage by inviting regional leaders and chief executive officers to the southern Chinese island of Hainan, where the annual Boao forum this year was billed as a new "platform for emerging economies" to cope with the economic downturn. ...
"Developed economies have long dominated international media," said Long Yongtu, the forum’s secretary general. "Our aim is to offer a platform for emerging economies to present their voices..."
China’s actions to further its leadership role in the region include a US$10 billion (RM36 billion) investment cooperation fund and an offer of US$15 billion in credit to its Southeast Asian neighbours. These are aimed at helping countries weather the current crisis. The fund will finance infrastructure development linking China and its neighbours while the loans will be offered as rescue packages over the next three to five years. ...
At the forum, Chinese economists promoted the use of the yuan as a regional currency while at the same time blaming the toll of the global economic crisis in Asia on the region’s high degree of dependence on the US economy.
"Asia is heavily dependent on US markets partly because of the US dollar’s role as an international currency," Fan Gang, a leading Chinese economist, said at the forum. "America’s attitude in the past has always been that: ‘this is our currency, but it is your problem’. Asia, however, is now in a position to raise demands and choose its foreign exchange reserve currencies." ...
Ding Yifan noted that by providing capital to the US and by buying its government treasury bonds, China has been blamed for its "excessively" high savings rates and for causing the credit bubble.
"It [the US] is really an unreasonable debtor," Ding wrote. "If we invest our capital in infrastructure programmes of developing countries, there will be no such blame."
The Mekong countries have been a particular focus of attention for China as it tries to further establish itself in Asia. Along with other proposals, Beijing has announced 270 million yuan (RM143 million) in aid to Myanmar, Cambodia and Laos, and a donation of 300,000 tonnes of rice to an emergency East Asia rice reserve — boosting food security in the region. ...
Today the countries that are bound by the Mekong River — Myanmar, Cambodia, Laos, Thailand and Vietnam — offer China’s southwestern regions the chance to catch up economically with the more prosperous provinces of the country’s east coast. The two Chinese provinces within the Mekong region, Yunnan and Guangxi, are being groomed for central roles in China’s plan to revive its influence in Southeast Asia. ...
Cooperation with other Mekong countries is important, not only as a way of boosting foreign trade and development in southwest China and redressing the country’s imbalanced economic structure, but also as a diplomatic tool, according to Zhang Xizhen. ...
May 2—China will power ahead as global recession bites
Brisbane Times / Sydney Morning Herald (Jonathan Pearlman, Defence Correspondent) -- The global economic crisis will threaten Australia's long-term security by shaking up the region's power balance and taking a toll on nearby fragile states.
The 20-year defence blueprint, published today, outlines the impact that the financial crisis and climate change will have but says they are unlikely to produce serious threats until 2030. ...
"In North-East Asia, China is likely to be able to continue to afford its foreshadowed core military modernisation. Over the long term this could affect the strategic reach and global postures of the major powers."
The paper says China will be able to exercise more influence on the region as its economy expands. The crisis could also lead to other rising economic powers - such as India and Russia - currying favour with vulnerable states. ...
"Fragile and vulnerable nations may struggle to meet the demands of their citizens, and may be easier targets for foreign influence in ways that might be unfavourable to long-term strategic stability." ...
May 2—Chinese company to finance $300 million in U.S. wind farms
NEW YORK (Reuters, Timothy Gardner) -- Private U.S. company Tang Energy Group said on Friday a Chinese company has agreed to provide $300 million in financing for its wind power projects. ...
The CATIC International Trade and Economic Development Ltd, a subsidiary of the state-owned industrial group the China Aviation Industry Corp, agreed to provide the financing to Dallas-based Tang. ...
Tang is considering wind farm projects in Illinois, Texas, Colorado, Iowa, Virginia and Massachusetts.
May 3—U.S. Media See a Path to India in China’s Snub
New York Times (Tim Arango) -- After many years of fervent lobbying and deal-making in China, American media companies have little to show for their efforts there and are increasingly shifting their attention instead to India.
Media executives still believe that Chinese audiences are receptive to Western culture ... but many companies have been pulling back out of frustration over censorship, piracy, strict restrictions on foreign investment and the glacial pace of its bureaucracy.
In recent weeks, America Online shut its operations in China, for the second time. Warner Brothers, the movie studio that shares a corporate parent with AOL in Time Warner, had plans as recently as 2006 to open more than 200 retail stores throughout China, with a local partner. Today there are no such plans. ...
May 2—Ottawa exec's company aims to bring down 'Great Firewall of China'
The Ottawa Citizen (Vito Pilieci) -- The Ottawa man who led the team that recently busted "GhostNet," an international network of cyber espionage, has launched an attack on "the Great Firewall of China."
Rafal Rohozinski, CEO of Psiphon Inc., and lead investigator in the discovery of GhostNet's cyberspy servers -- most of them based in China -- launched a service on Friday that allows people in China and other nations with government censorship of the Internet to get around the firewalls.
The service, called Psiphon, is not the first to try to crash through Internet censorship in countries such as China, Iran, Saudi Arabia and Egypt, but it is the first to require no downloads by the user. More significantly, it's the first to work on mobile browsers, such as those on cellphones. ...
Psiphon is the culmination of three years of work that began at the Citizen Lab in the Munk Centre for International Studies at the University of Toronto. ...
May 2—'China backing cause of Lanka defiance'
LONDON (Times of India) -- The Sri Lankan government has been able to disregard international concern over its civil war with Tamils because of financial and military backing by China, a senior former Indian intelligence official was quoted saying Saturday.
May 2—Dalai Lama in line for Paris honour, says his office
PARIS (AFP) -- The Dalai Lama may be made an honorary citizen of Paris next month, a spokesman for the Tibetan spiritual leader said Saturday, raising the prospect of further tension between China and France.
May 3—Tortured to Death for writing “Falun Dafa is good” on a rock
WUYI, China (Clearwisdom / Eyewitness Accounts) -- A man was tortured to death within two days of being arrested for writing “Falun Dafa is good” on a rock.
Fu Ziming from Jianli County, Hubei Province was traveling in a group tour held by the post office where he worked. On April 17, 2009, at the Wuyi Mountain Scenic Area in Fujian Province, he wrote on a rock with crayon: "Falun Dafa is good; Truthfulness-Compassion-Forbearance is good", which was recorded by a surveillance camera.
That night, he was arrested at the hotel by the Scenic Administration District Police Station of Wuyi Police Department. Within two days, he died from torture.
May 2—The Chinese Language, Ever Evolving
(New York Times, The Editors) -- The Times recently published an article about China’s effort to manage the vast number of characters in the Chinese language. A government computer database, designed to recognize people’s names on identity cards, is programmed to read about 32,000 of the roughly 55,000 Chinese characters, cutting out the more “obscure” characters.
This is not the first attempt to modernize a sprawling and ancient language. The most ambitious effort was the introduction to a simplified system of writing in the 1950s. As part of the Communist Party’s campaign to reduce illiteracy, simplified characters were promoted as the common written language, replacing many traditional characters.
More than five decades later, simplified characters remain the standard writing system of China, while Chinese elsewhere -- especially in Taiwan and Hong Kong -- continue to use traditional characters.
We asked several experts to explain the roots of this shift, and how it might affect the future course of the written language. ...
May 3—China quake survivors have bittersweet baby boom
Los Angeles Times -- A year after the tragedy in Sichuan, couples who lost an only child are rebuilding their families for emotional and economic reasons. Ten months and 25 days after he buried his only child, Luo Gang became a father again at a makeshift hospital cobbled out of aluminum trailers.
May 3—China quake survivors swallow grief and anger
While government is eager to rebuild quake-struck region, it stifles dissent
JUYUAN, China (MSNBC / Washington Post, Jill Drew) -- After last May's massive earthquake buried her son under tons of shattered concrete at his collapsed school, Han Xuehua, numb and disbelieving, boiled spicy water every Friday for weeks to prepare hot pot, his favorite dish. "I didn't want to accept that my child wasn't coming home," she said softly. "I still cannot accept it."
Han and dozens of other parents have pressed their town government to acknowledge that the school was shoddily built, to prosecute those responsible for its construction and to allow families to grieve at the site. Their demands have been rejected. Officials and local police have warned them against speaking openly or petitioning at higher levels. The parents are under constant surveillance, their phone calls monitored and their movements restricted. ...
May 2—NZer fights China tiger poachers
Stuff -- A New Zealand economist has been working undercover in China in an attempt to expose the illegal trade of tiger products in the country.
Brendan Moyle said he had been working covertly in border regions and had gained access to arrest and interception data that was helping him build up a model of the black market. The Massey University College of Business lecturer has made three visits to China and he hoped his work would help find a solution to a problem that has put the species in jeopardy.
Tiger bones were highly prized by Chinese people for perceived medicinal qualities and a whole tiger could fetch up to 340,000 yuan (about $NZ90,000). ...
May 2—Possibility of murder ruled out for dead vice mayor of E China city
People's Daily -- Local police have ruled out the possibility of homicide on a vice mayor of Huzhou city in eastern China's Zhejiang Province, who died after falling from the 29th story of an apartment building on early Saturday morning.
May 2—Death toll rises to 13 in east China fireworks explosion
Eastday.com -- Thirteen people were confirmed dead and two others fatally injured in a fireworks explosion Saturday afternoon in east China's Shandong Province.
May 3—China's Mongols see bleak future for their culture
BAIYUNKUANGQU, China (AFP) -- While China is widely accused of cultural repression in Tibet and its Muslim northwest, Mongols say their way of life also is being subsumed by Chinese culture and insensitive policies, as well as the impacts of climate change.
An influx of Han Chinese, China's majority ethnic group, has now left many towns and cities bearing hardly a trace of Mongol culture.
