Roundup - 18/01/2010

• China has confirmed the deaths of eight missing officers in Haiti. The four members of the UN peacekeeping force and four officials from the Ministry of Public Security were killed after the UN headquarters in Port-au-Prince collapsed during last Tuesdays earthquake. 18 Chinese nationals are now believed to have been killed in the earthquake. It is feared that the total death toll may rise to 100,000.
  
  
  
• A small earthquake in south west China has triggered landslides which killed 7 people. The earthquake struck 100km south west of Guiyang, Guizhou on Sunday afternoon. One person is still missing and nine others are in hospital.
  
  
  
• Two Chinese engineers have been kidnapped along with four Afghans in northern Afghanistan. The team were working on a road project with a Chinese company in Qaisar district. Afghan Islamic Press has reported that the kidnapping was conducted by the Taliban. Qaisar was previously considered one of the safest areas of Afghanistan but the war has been spreading over the last year and in October the Taliban attacked the police station in Qaisar's Faryab, kidnapping eight police officers.
  
  
  
• Yahoo has been criticised by its Chinese partner, Alibaba, over its stated support for Google. Yahoo announced that it was 'aligned' with Google on the dangers of hacking at the weekend. Alibaba, which runs Alibaba.com and Taobao.com, said that Yahoo's statement was 'reckless.'
  
  Yahoo has, like all other foreign internet companies in China, bowed to the will of the PRC. A source for the Straits Times says that China knew about the cyber attacks on foreign companies before being told by Google, but had taken the decision to remain silent on the issue.
  
  
  
• Texting services have been restored to Xinjiang more than six months after riots left almost 200 people dead. The July riots led to texting, the internet and international phone calls in the province being stopped in an effort to prevent the organisation of mobs and the circulation of photos which could inflame ethnic tensions in the region. These service have finally been restored over the last few weeks.
  

Roundup - 10/12/2009

• China has been playing down an apparent split in the G77+1's stance at the climate summit in Copenhagen yesterday. The split came when the Association of Small Island States seized the moral high ground by demanding a severe and binding agreement on greenhouse gas emissions. The group of states, supported by many of Africa's poorest coastal states, criticised the other delegations for attempting to place the burden of emissions cuts on other countries while their lands literally sank under the sea.
  
  Tuvalu, speaking for ASIS, managed to call a halt to negotiations until its own proposals were discussed. These proposals were opposed by developed nations and by the more industrialised developing nations such as China, India an South Africa. Until this point the G77+1 had been united in its stance, largely formulated by the Chinese, the the Kyoto protocol should be extended.
  
  The split seemed to receive little attention in the Chinese media, the headlines about the summit on news websites seem to mostly be a day out of date. Where there are articles on the rift it says that the moves were opposed by 'more industrialized developing states' but never mentions China by name.
  
  
  
• The US Ambassador has noted the role that China can play in bringing 'peaceful economic development' to Afghanistan and Pakistan. Speaking to the 'Group of 100,' a group of prominent Chinese-Americans, Jon Huntsman called on China to play a greater role in the two countries. China already has a strong relationship with Pakistan. Economic investment and military cooperation and intelligence sharing have been going on for years. In response to the speech Pakistani officials stressed the 'strong and independent trajectory' of Sino-Pakistani relations.
  
  Afghanistan's ambassador to China, Sultan Baheen, said he welcomed greater cooperation between China and the US in Afghanistan. China currently help train police and mine clearing teams in the country. Their greatest impact however has been their investment in the mining industry. China's $4 billion investment in the Aynak copper mines was the largest in Afghan history. Chinese investment is an important source of independent income for the Afghan government which helps to grant it greater freedom from American influence.
  
  
  
• China's top judge has called on the judiciary to support China's economic growth. Wang Shengjun, President of the Supreme People's Court, said that 'efforts should be made to ensure the court's work accords with the overall economic development situation.'
  
  While he asked courts to safeguard people's interests, the statement could also be taken to mean that courts should rule on the side of economic growth rather than social interests. He also called for a crackdown on crimes disturbing the market order.
  
  
  
• The Central Economic Work Conference has agreed that the government should attach greater importance to the employment and settlement of rural migrants in China's cities. They pledged to relax restrictions on residence permits in small and medium-sized towns.
  
  Rural migrants in China's cities are distinguished by where they are registered at birth, they are often barred from acquiring residence permits for China's cities. However, they are essential to the urban economy and to urban development. Reports on reform to China's registration and residence permit systems have been around since the 1980s but little has yet been achieved to this end.
  
  
  
• The most googled word in mainland China is Baidu. Google has released a report saying that the word most searched for by mainland Chinese is the name of its greatest rival. While Google has achieved widespread dominance across much of the world, China has been harder to crack. Chinese search engines are specifically design to use Chinese characters and to search Chinese websites.
  
  
  
• Garlic has become a source of wealth for many investors as its price has increased 40-fold this year. The rise is partly due to garlic's traditional use against the flu. Chinese investors have been buying garlic by the truck-load in an attempt to make a quick profit.
  
  
  
  

Roundup - 04/12/2009

• US President Obama's plan for Afghanistan is being discussed in China amid reports that the US is seeking a greater role for China in the country. China currently trains Afghan police and landmine-clearing teams as well as investing in the country's mineral deposits. Afghan Minister for Mines, Muhammad Ibrahim Adel, recently claimed that Chinese investment would likely triple Afghan government revenues within five years.
  
  Debate inside China's think-tanks is divided. Qi Huaigao from Fudan University believes that the troop surge will also help to isolate the East Turkestan Islamic Movement in Xinjiang and combat drug smuggling. Li Qingdong from the China Council for National Security Policy Studies on the other hand believes that it may force the Taliban to seek refuge in eastern China, exacerbating China's security problems. He also points out that it may put China's investments in the country at risk.
  
  Ding Xinghao, president of the Shanghai Institute of American Studies, said that, though it was unlikely China would send troops to Afghanistan, it may be willing to send peace-keeping forces under the UN flag.
  
  
  
• A court in Yangjiang, Guandong, has sentenced five people to death for their involvement in criminal gangs. 43 people were sentenced in total after a trial that began in June and produced a verdict that is reported to be 60,000 pages long. The convicts were part of a gang based in Yangjiang, nicknamed the 'knife and scissors capital' because of its cutlery industry. The gang is said to have begun by running a chain of gambling dens and then used the money and muscle to expand into the poultry, cement and trucking industries.
  
  Among the five given the death sentence are 'Spicy Qin' Lin Guoqin, said to be the brains behind the gang, and 'Hammerhead' Xu Jiangqiang who provided the muscle.
  
  
  
• China is mulling the cost of it announced cut in carbon intensity. A report from Renmin University claims that the cuts will cost $30 billion a year. It is likely that much of this cost will be carried by the Chinese consumer in the form of rising petrol and electricity prices. According to the 21^st China China Business Herald this could amount to an additional 440 RMB of expenditure each year for the average Chinese household.
  
  
  
• Chinese media is reporting the the National Human Rights Action Plan of China is progressing according to plan. The reports claim that much progress has been made since its inception in April. While the reports make such claims as 'migrant worker rights and interests were better championed,' no details or evidence has been given.
  
  The reports also admit that 'some local governments have not paid enough attention to the action plan.'
  
  
  
• Two people have been shot dead by police and eight injured during a protest at a Chinese owned copper mine in Peru. The Rio Blanco copper mine in Huancabamba is involved in a running dispute with local residents. They claim that the mine is polluting their land and that after protests in 2005 the mine owners arranged the kidnap and torture of some locals.
  
  
  
• The Austrian company Future Advanced Composite Components and been bought by the Xi'an Aircraft Industry Corporation and Hong Kong ATL. It is the first time a European aviation company has been bought by an Asian aviation company. FACC supplies composite structural components to Boeing, Airbus and Eurocopter among others.