Roundup - 12/01/2010

• China has conducted a successful test of its missile interceptor technology, Xinhua says. China's HQ9 air defence system is designed to shoot down incoming missiles before they reach their targets in mainland china. Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Jiang Yu said that 'the test was defensive in nature and targeted at no country.' However, Al Jazeera quotes Shi Yinhong, Renmin Universities leading expert on Sino-US relations, as saying that there was a 'connection' between the test and the US decision to carry on with the sale of Patriot missile components to Taiwan. Taiwan says that there are approximately 1,500 missiles pointed at its territory and it relies on US arms imports to guarantee its security. Taiwanese media has suggested that President Ma Yingjiu will stop off in the US during a visit to Honduras this month in a move that is likely to provoke further anger from the mainland.
  
  
  
• China's leading internet search engine was down on Tuesday morning after being hacked by pro-Iran activists. Baidu's DNS was altered to redirect traffic to a page saying 'This site has been hacked by Iranian Cyber Army.' Below was a sentence in Farsi saying 'in reaction to the US authorities' intervention in Iran's internal affairs. This is a warning.' The name 'Iranian Cyber Army' was used by hackers who shut down Twitter last month.
  
  
  
• Google has apologised to 8,000 Chinese writers for scanning and publishing their books online without their permission. Google offered to publish a list of all Chinese works it has scanned in recent years. It also said that it would work to reach an agreement with Chinese authors by the summer. Currently more than 50 Chinese publishers have agreed to allow around 60,000 books to be published, Google said.
  
  
  
• China plans to build the world's highest airport on the Tibetan plateau state media reports. The 'roof of the world' project will cost 1.8 billion RMB (US$263.62 million) to build an airport at 4,436 meters above sea level. This will be 102 meters higher than Tibet's Bamda airport, currently considered the worlds highest. The new airport will serve the region of Nagqu in the centre of the Qinghai-Tibet plateau. Nagqu currently has a mainly Tibetan population of 400,000 though this may change as it is further opened up.
  
  
  
• China has scrapped restrictions on the use of foreign parts in its wind turbines. The decision by the National Development and Reform Commission was taken last year according to China Business News, but has only just been announced. Previously, manufacturers of China's wind turbine had to source at least 70% of their turbines from domestic markets. However, it is hoped that this move will open up China's wind turbine producers to foreign technology. China's wind power capacity was forecast to reach 20 gigawatts by the end of 2009 making China the world's third biggest wind power producer behind the US and Spain.
  
  
  
• Beijing-based iResearch has reported that the growth of China's internet gaming industry slowed to a nevertheless formidable 30.2% a year reaching 27.1 billion RMB (US$3.97 billion).
  

Roundup - 06/01/2010

• A Californian software company is suing the Chinese government for US$2.2 billion. Cybersitter claims that the Green Dam Youth Escort programme, designed to block pornographic and other websites deemed harmful by the government, contains more than 3000 lines of stolen code. More than 56 million copies of the software have been distributed in China.
  
  The government originally planned to instal the software on every computer sold in China but was forced to back-pedal after a massive public outcry.
  
  
  
• Hong Kong media is leading speculation about the removal of He Yafei from his position. Mr. He has been moved to a position at the UN from his post as Vice-Minister for Foreign Affairs. Commentators suggest that this is due to his handling of the Copenhagen negotiations which resulted in a PR disaster for China.
  
  While He Yafei cannot be personally blamed for the failure of the negotiations, his inability to take major decisions and the contrasting aims of China and the Western powers were the main causes, he was deemed to have handled the situation in a particularly undiplomatic manner. In particular his public insulting of US negotiator Todd Stern and his consistent vetoing of any climate deal, even one that did not include China, in the hectic final phase of negotiations, meant that China would inevitably come out of the summit looking the villain.
  
  Wen Jiabao managed to avoid being made the fall guy for the failure only by not turning up to many of the negotiations.
  
  
  
• 25 coal miners have been killed in a fire at a mine in Xiangtan, Hunan. More than 70 miners were in the shaft when underground cables caught fire on Tuesday afternoon. 43 managed to escape leaving at least 28 trapped. Nine bodies were retrieved on Tuesday and a further 16 on Wednesday morning. Hopes for the other trapped miners are failing as rescuers encounter the toxic fumes left by the fire.
  
  
  
• Public anger is rising as it emerges that a case involving the sale of melamine-tainted milk was withheld from public view for almost a year. Three people from the Shanghai Panda Dairy Co. were arrested in December, however, it seems that evidence that milk was contaminated emerged on Dec30 2008 and the investigation into the company began in February 2009.
  
  Some media reports claim that the tainted milk was actually made with the recalled products from the major 2008 scandal in which 6 children died and 300,000 were made ill but according to Xinhua all products involved in that scandal were destroyed.
  
  The reason given for not informing the public was that, when local authorities began investigating, they discovered evidence that a criminal case could be brought and so had to hand the investigation over to the Ministry of Public Security.
  
  
  
• A report in Faren magazine, affiliated with the Legal Daily, has highlighted corruption among the executives of China's state-owned enterprises. 35 executives face charges in 2009 of which 31 were convicted in cases involving an average of 110 million RMB (US$16.18 million).
  
  Among these, Li Peiying, former head of the Capital Airports Holding Company, was executed in August for taking 26.61 million RMB in bribes. Yang Yanming, once a senior trader with a securities company, was executed in December for embezzling 94.52 million RMB of public funds. Chen Tonghai was given a death sentence with two years reprieve for having taken almost 200 million RMB in bribes.
  
  Kang Rixin, former head of the China National Nuclear Corporation, is currently under investigation for taking backhanders in exchange for awarding construction contracts.
  
  Meanwhile a survey by the Horizon Research Consultancy Group says that 59.1% of people consider that corruption amongst China's officials is most damaging to China's image abroad. This was followed by counterfeit and shoddy products, pollution, uncivil conduct and industrial accidents.
  

Roundup - 29/12/2009

• China has executed a British man, Akmal Shaikh. Mr. Shaikh was executed by lethal injection at 10.30am local time according to Xinhua. Gordon Brown, the EU and a number of civil society groups have condemned the execution saying that his legal rights had not been granted. Mr. Shaikh was convicted of smuggling heroin into China in October 2008 after a trial that lasted just 30 minutes. Evidence of his mental illness was not considered.
  
  According to China's Criminal Law, if a mentally ill person is convicted of a crime, their condition should be taken into account when considering the sentence. However, according to the Chinese authorities there was not sufficient evidence presented to prove he suffered from Bipolar disorder. Some reports suggest that during his trial Mr. Shaikh claimed there was nothing wrong with him, it is unclear what legal representation or assistance with translation was provided to him.
  
  Last minutes attempts to save M. Shaikh's life were lead by the British Ambassador to Beijing and Mr. Shaikh's cousins. However, while international condemnations grows, China remains defiant saying that foreigners must obey its laws ad no country has the right to interfere in its legal process.
  
  
  
• An audit of China's government agencies and state-owned enterprises has uncovered 234.7 billion RMB(US$34.4 billion) disappeared from public funds in the first 11 months of the year. The report says that 16.3 billion RMB has been recovered so far. 231 people, including 67 officials, have had their cases passed on to disciplinary and judicial authorities.
  
  
  
• A Chinese ship and its 25 crew members are sailing home after being kidnapped by Somali pirates. The De XinHai was captured in October while transporting 76,000 tonnes of coal from South Africa to India. There is some confusion as to the nature of the operation. While Chinese media reports describe it as a rescue, a source claiming to be one of the pirates told Reuters that a $4 million ransom had been dropped on the deck of the ship by helicopter.
  
  The De Xin Hai was the first Chinese ship to be captured in the area since the arrival of three Chinese warships to bolster the international anti-piracy flotilla in the area.
  
  
  
• The Chinese author Mian Mian is to sue Google for scanning and publishing extracts from her work without permission. She is asking for 61,000RMB ($8,950) in compensations and a public apology from Google. According to the China Written Works Copyright Society more than 80,000 works by Chinese authors have been scanned into Google's digital library. Last year Google agreed to pay $125 million to settle similar disputes with US authors.
  
  
  
• Two separate gas explosions at Chinese coal mines have claimed at least 17 lives. According to Xinhua, 12 miners were killed in an explosion in Shanxi province. Another five were killed and six more trapped at in an explosion in Yunnan.
  

Roundup - 24/11/2009

• All outlets are reporting on the executions of Zhang Yujun and Geng Jinping over their involvement in the the tainted milk scandal that hit the news last year.
  
  Zhang Yujun was found guilty of endangering public safety for selling 770 tonnes of milk laced with melamine between July 2007 and August 2008. Geng Jinping was convicted of selling the milk to the now-bankrupt Sanlu Group.
  
  Six children died from drinking the milk and more than 300,000 were made ill.
  
  
  
• The jail sentence given to Huang Qi is also a widespread story outside of mainland China. Huang Qi gave advice to the families of five children who died in the Sichuan Earthquake in 2008. The family members wanted to bring a court case against the government over the shoddy construction of school buildings which contributed to the deaths of their children.
  
  Huang Qi was sentenced to three years in prison for illegally holding state secrets although no details were given about the charge.
  
  
  
  
• The Straits Times reports that China is backing its writers in a complaint against Google. They accuse Google of copying the work of Chinese writers without permission. Wang Ziqiang, a director-general of China's National Copyright Administration said, “I personally think Google is involved in copyright infringement, we support Chinese writers, the China Written Works Copyright Society and the Chinese Writers Association to defend their rights based on law and facts.”
  
  The copyright society claims at least 17,922 books by 570 Chinese authors have been added to Google Books.
  
  
  
• According to China Daily, Health Minister Chen Zhu announced that by the end of this year there will be an estimated 740,000 people living with HIV on the mainland. This seems out of sink with an number of external reports, notably one by the US National Intelligence Council which predicted that the number of HIV positive people in China could rise to 10 million by 2010.
  
  
  
• China is mourning the loss of esteemed translator Yang Xianyi. A brief obituary will be posted shortly.