Taiwan should not cut interest rates: economist

Taiwan should not cut interest rates: economist
Recruitment scandal reflects struggles of China's private colleges
Thaw of Tianshan glacier in Xinjiang speeding up: scientists
Profits plunged in H1, say China's 'Big Three' airlines
Chinese automakers expand global reach despite weak economy
US has nothing to gain by abandoning Taiwan: scholar
Bored Chinese stock investors turn to tai chi and poker
CEO Donates $3 Million Bonus To Employees
China cops mistake sex toy for body of a woman
Cambodia Staves Off Criticism
Falun Gong Rally in New York to End 13 Years of Persecution in China
Private lending disputes in Zhejiang hit record high
Samsung's diversity closing gap on Apple in smartphone sector
Linfamy! Knicks boss felt betrayed by Jeremy Lin: report
People's Bank of China may cut required reserve rates
Acer hopes to reverse PC fortunes in China's smartphone market
Leaked China Documents Show Massive Corruption
China in talks to build UK nuclear power plants
Chinese cyclist unscathed after dramatic lorry collision - video
Ai Weiwei criticises China's justice system over tax fine - video

Taiwan should not cut interest rates: economist

Posted: 21 Jul 2012 05:04 AM PDT

Taiwan should not follow in the footsteps of the many emerging nations that are cutting interest rates to stimulate their economies, says economist Hu Sheng-cheng of Academia Sinica, the country's lea...

Recruitment scandal reflects struggles of China's private colleges

Posted: 21 Jul 2012 05:04 AM PDT

Police have nabbed two people who allegedly tampered with students' college applications to help a private college boost recruitment following China's national college entrance exams. The two, a man ...

Thaw of Tianshan glacier in Xinjiang speeding up: scientists

Posted: 21 Jul 2012 05:00 AM PDT

The thawing of a glacier in the Tianshan mountains in northwest China's Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region has been accelerating, local scientists said Thursday. The glacier, with an altitude of 3,750 ...

Profits plunged in H1, say China's 'Big Three' airlines

Posted: 21 Jul 2012 05:00 AM PDT

China's three major airlines have all reported more than a 50% drop in the profit forecast in the first six months this year but earnings are expected to recover in the second half of the year, marke...

Chinese automakers expand global reach despite weak economy

Posted: 21 Jul 2012 05:00 AM PDT

Some Chinese auto brands have witnessed rapid global market expansion during the first half of this year, despite a weak global economy and sluggish domestic sales. During an ongoing auto expo in the...

US has nothing to gain by abandoning Taiwan: scholar

Posted: 21 Jul 2012 04:40 AM PDT

The view that Washington is "abandoning Taiwan" seems to have gained some purchase in US intellectual circles in the past three years, naturally attracting concern and attention in Taiwan as well. A r...

Bored Chinese stock investors turn to tai chi and poker

Posted: 21 Jul 2012 04:32 AM PDT

A picture on the internet showing several individual Chinese stock investors practicing tai chi in the deserted lobby of a securities house has resonated with the sentiments of many investors, who are...

CEO Donates $3 Million Bonus To Employees

Posted: 20 Jul 2012 10:58 AM PDT

Chances are about 10,000 workers at Lenovo are smiling a little more today, after the tech company's CEO, Yang Yuanqing, took $3 million of his bonus ...

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China cops mistake sex toy for body of a woman

Posted: 20 Jul 2012 04:58 PM PDT

Eighteen policemen recently struggled for an hour in a river to recover what was initially mistaken for a woman's body, but turned out to be an inflatable sex toy at Wendeng in eastern China's Shandong province.

Cambodia Staves Off Criticism

Posted: 20 Jul 2012 05:44 PM PDT

Prime Minister Hun Sen has defended Cambodia from criticism over its chairing of a Southeast Asian ministerial meeting which led to an unprecedented delay in the adoption of a joint statement over the region's dispute with Beijing on overlapping territorial claims in the South China Sea.

Some diplomats from the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) had charged that Cambodia had been influenced by its giant ally China not to incorporate the views of ASEAN member states the Philippines and Vietnam in the statement, causing an impasse at the meeting last week.

Endless arguments over the text on the South China Sea dispute prevented the ASEAN foreign ministers from issuing their customary joint statement for the first time in the 10-member bloc's 45-year history at the conclusion of their meeting in Phnom Penh on July 13.

In a face saving move, Cambodia announced Friday that the Southeast Asian states had finally emerged with a statement calling for restraint and dialogue over the South China Sea and vowed to work towards a "code of conduct" governing nations with overlapping territorial claims in the vast sea.

The ministers had agreed on six principles, including a commitment to respect international laws and the non-use of force to settle disputes on the sea, where tensions have flared recently with Vietnam and the Philippines accusing Beijing of increasingly aggressive behavior, officials said.

The Cambodian cabinet issued a statement after the ASEAN understanding reached Friday, quoting Hun Sen as saying that that the six principles were in fact initiated by Cambodia.

"The six-point principles is a Cambodia success as the ASEAN chair," Hun Sen said.

"Cambodia is responsible as the ASEAN chair. Cambodia is working to resolve any differences about the South China Sea dispute and to bring about unity to resolve the dispute with China based on ASEAN and China policy.

"This is showing the world of our independence and ability to protect ASEAN interests," Hun Sen said.

Key issue

The six-point statement however did not include the key issue that had caused the impasse at the ASEAN talks—a call by the Philippines and Vietnam for the inclusion of a specific reference to Beijing's alleged encroachment in their respective exclusive economic zones and continental shelves.

Beijing claims sovereignty over nearly all of the South China Sea but ASEAN members the Philippines, Vietnam, Malaysia, and Brunei have overlapping claims in the area, which is believed to contain vast oil and gas reserves.

A standoff at the Scarborough Shoal, a horseshoe-shaped reef in waters that both China and the Philippines claim, began earlier this year when Manila accused Chinese fishermen of poaching in its exclusive economic zone, including the shoal. Both sides had sent government ships to the area.

Vietnam has faced its own problems with China, mostly resulting from Beijing's detention of Vietnamese fishermen in disputed waters. Hanoi has also protested a recent announcement by the state Chinese oil company opening nine oil and gas lots for international bidders in areas overlapping with existing Vietnamese exploration blocks.

Reported by Sok Serey for RFA's Khmer service. Translated by Samean Yun. Written in English by Parameswaran Ponnudurai.

Falun Gong Rally in New York to End 13 Years of Persecution in China

Posted: 20 Jul 2012 01:17 PM PDT

Flaun Gong practitioners in New York City gathered in front of City Hall on Friday to call for an end to the Chinese regime's persecution of the spiritual practice.

Private lending disputes in Zhejiang hit record high

Posted: 21 Jul 2012 02:04 AM PDT

The Zhejiang High People's Court received 58,037 cases of private lending disputes involving 28.39 billion yuan (US$4.45 billion) in the first half of this year, representing a 27% and 130% growth i...

Samsung's diversity closing gap on Apple in smartphone sector

Posted: 21 Jul 2012 02:00 AM PDT

After displacing Nokia as the top mobile phone supplier in the world, Samsung is continuing to gain ground on Apple in the smartphone sector. Samsung is banking on the huge Chinese market to grab the ...

Linfamy! Knicks boss felt betrayed by Jeremy Lin: report

Posted: 21 Jul 2012 02:00 AM PDT

New York Knicks chairman James Dolan would not match the Houston Rockets' offer sheet for Jeremy Lin because he felt betrayed when the point guard returned to Houston to rework the contract, the New Y...

People's Bank of China may cut required reserve rates

Posted: 21 Jul 2012 02:00 AM PDT

New loans extended by China's four major state banks shot up 100% to 50 billion yuan (US$7.9 billion) in the first half of July. To boost liquidity, the People's Bank of China released 80 billion yua...

Acer hopes to reverse PC fortunes in China's smartphone market

Posted: 21 Jul 2012 02:00 AM PDT

As Taiwan-based PC maker Acer strives to turn around its recent disappointing performance, the company's chairman CT Wang has visited China to meet local telecom carriers in an attempt to introduce Ac...

Leaked China Documents Show Massive Corruption

Posted: 20 Jul 2012 05:23 PM PDT

A list of officials, including their particulars, who fled overseas with embezzled money. On July 12, The Epoch Times received a collection of records documenting extensive corruption in the Communist Party. (The Epoch Times)

As of 10:15am on Nov. 26, 2011, Beijing had identified 225 corrupt officials, 58 of them at the local high-level (ditingji) and above, who had embezzled over 2.5 billion yuan. Oversight must have been laxer in Anhui Province, which had half as many corrupt cadres—only 97, 19 of them high-level—who'd managed to abscond with 3 billion yuan. But the coastal boom province of Guangdong took the cake: 1640 corrupt officials, 170 of them high-level cadres, who stole a total of 115 billion yuan ($18 billion).

The numbers come from what appears to be a leaked collection of data, possibly compiled by a state-affiliated research center, sent to The Epoch Times on July 12. It came with no explanatory note, and was simply identified as "record of corrupt Chinese officials."

The records include:
*A list of senior high-level (zhengtingji) and above officials, including name, last official post held, and year arrested
*A list of local high-level officials (ditingji) including name, last post held, amount embezzled, crime charged with, and punishment (in some cases it simply says "suicide.")
*A list of officials, including name and particulars, who have fled China, including the amount they stole. This group was relatively small fry. The vast majority were from state-owned enterprises. The most ambitious was Gao Shan, the president of the Bank of China branch on Hesong Street in Harbin City, who stole $839 million yuan ($131 million). China Bank has about 70 branches in Harbin and over 11,000 across China.
*A list of officials and their particulars who have been repatriated. Thailand was a common destination of escape and therefore extradition, with the United States and Australia also assisting in a few extraditions.
*A list of mayors removed from office after being caught for corruption.
*A list of officials who have been sent to prison or given the death sentence (sometimes reprieved).

The information almost certainly does not come from a government office, according to Heng He, an analyst of Chinese communist politics with the New York-based New Tang Dynasty Television. Based on the language and phraseology employed in the records, he suggested that the likely provenance was internal material compiled by a Party-affiliated research institute. "The full picture of the corruption is state secret," he added.

The Epoch Times checked a random sampling of the cases and found media reports that corresponded with the names and figures in the leaked documents.

Corruption in China is often referred to as both the lubricant of the Party machine's economic growth, but also a factor that may precipitate its demise, as ordinary citizens become increasingly incensed with an elite that functions like a kleptocracy, analysts say.

Party media regularly make noise about the threat corruption poses to the regime, but while the problem stems from the regime itself, the Party has never allowed any genuine mechanisms of oversight outside its own control.

The phenomenon of "naked officials"—where a cadre's wife and family is outside of China—also troubles Party disciplinarians, even though it has to some extent infected the elite. Research by the Chinese Communist Party's Central Committee found that of the 204 central committee members, 91 percent had relatives who had emigrated overseas. Out of the 127 members of the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection, the body that investigates corrupt officials, 88 percent had relatives who emigrated overseas.

The data received by The Epoch Times indicated that over 7,101 corrupt officials have fled to the United States together bringing over 336 billion yuan ($52.7 billion U.S. dollars). The United States thus remains the most favored destination for fleeing Chinese cadres, but countries with loose immigration regulations like Cambodia, Thailand and Myanmar are popular for lower-level apparatchiks.

In a recent interview with the New York Review of Books, Bao Tong, former director of CCP's Office of Political Reform and policy secretary of ousted Party leader Zhao Ziyang, said that getting rid of corruption will be impossible under one-Party rule.

"Because everyone is in one boat," he said, referring specifically to Party officials. "If that boat turns over, everyone ends up in the water … So in China everyone helps each other out. If you are in trouble, I'll help you out and if I'm in trouble you help me out."

He added: "If I were in the current system, I'd be corrupt too … what they need to do is change the system."

With research by Luo Ya.

Hong Kong's New Leader Meets Calls to Resign on Inauguration Day

Read the original Chinese article here.

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Click www.ept.ms/ccp-crisis to read about the most recent developments in the ongoing crisis within the Chinese communist regime. In this special topic, we provide readers with the necessary context to understand the situation. Get the RSS feed. Get the new interactive Timeline of Events. Who are the Major Players?

China in talks to build UK nuclear power plants

Posted: 20 Jul 2012 12:20 PM PDT

British officials talking to Chinese about plan that could see up to five reactors being built at cost of £35bn, sources say

China is poised to make a dramatic intervention in Britain's energy future by offering to invest billions of pounds in building a series of new nuclear power stations.

Officials from China's nuclear industry have been in high-level talks with ministers and officials at the Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC) this week about a plan that could eventually involve up to five different reactors being built at a total cost of £35bn.

Greenpeace described the move as desperate, while others warned of security fears, but the government has been courting China as the UK atomic programme has been hit by rows over subsidies and worries that EDF – the French company with the most advanced plans to build new reactors in the UK – could be hampered by the change of government in Paris.

China has operated its own atomic plants since 1994. It is awash with cash from its hugely successful industrial expansion and sees the UK as a potential shop window for exporting its atomic technology and expertise worldwide.

Companies from China have already invested in or taken over other infrastructure assets in Britain, such as Thames Water, the port of Felixstowe and the Grangemouth oil refinery. They also own businesses ranging from Weetabix to the Gieves & Hawkes tailoring brand.

The China National Nuclear Power Corporation (CNNPC), which is keen to invest in Britain, has just unveiled plans to raise about £17bn through a domestic share offering.

A team from the Shanghai Nuclear Engineering Research and Design Institute (SNERDI), an arm of the huge China National Nuclear Corporation (CNNC), met senior DECC officials over the last few days, three different sources confirmed.

The first part of the plan involves CNNC and another state-owned firm, China Guangdong Nuclear Power Corporation, bidding in two separate groups against each other for a stake in the Horizon consortium, which wants to construct new atomic plants at Wylfa in Wales and Oldbury in Gloucestershire.

But sources close to the Chinese say they are also interested in other locations at Bradwell in Essex, Heysham in Lancashire and Hartlepool in County Durham.

EDF has the right of first refusal to operate on these sites but CNNC wants to use an existing technology tie-up with US-based nuclear engineering group Westinghouse to potentially build three more reactors.

The Chinese accept they would need to bring in a UK utility firm to operate the plants and overcome any political or public resistance to their plans.

"The Chinese have the money and the experience," said the well-placed source. "They see setting up in the UK as an opportunity to show they can operate in one of the world's toughest regulatory environments so they can then move into other markets in Africa and the Middle East."

The DECC was unwilling to comment on whether it had met SNERDI officials this week, saying such meetings would be commercially confidential. A DECC spokesman would only say: "The UK is open for business and actively welcomes inward investment to our energy sector, but any potential nuclear operator is, and would be, subject to rigorous scrutiny through the established regulatory process."

Keith Parker, chairman of the Nuclear Industry Association in London, said it was "highly encouraging" that China wanted to invest in the UK. "They have 14 of their own reactors in operation and 25 under construction and they use both [French multinational] Areva and Westinghouse designs that could be used here. It was clear from my discussions with them that they have international ambitions."

In May, the energy minister Charles Hendry told the Energy and Climate Change select committee that he had no objection to Chinese firms being involved in the UK.

"In China, there are different companies who have experience of building dozens of nuclear power stations on time and on budget, and so there is no suggestion that these are companies that do not have expertise in this sector. They have extremely well-proven expertise in this sector, and in looking at how we take this forward in the United Kingdom I think we should be guided by where that expertise has already been proven."

But Greenpeace said the bid to woo China was a last throw of the dice by the government. "This is a sign of desperation," said Doug Parr, chief scientist at Greenpeace. "Chinese nuclear players have state backing, which could help solve the issue of financing colossally expensive new nuclear power stations in the UK. But this just means that the money from UK taxpayers will flow to the Chinese government, rather than to France."

The potential for political conflict has been highlighted by the former Downing Street energy policy director Nick Butler. He wrote in a recent Financial Times blogpost that Chinese involvement in the UK energy business could be a concern [subscription required]: "They will be inside the system, with access to the intricate architecture of the UK's National Grid and the processes through which electricity supply is controlled, as well as to the UK's nuclear technology.

"Perhaps that doesn't matter. Perhaps a Chinese wall exists between the Guangdong Holding company and the government in Beijing. Perhaps we have reached a level of globalisation in which the nationality of ownership is irrelevant.

"But even if all those things are true, it seems regrettable that in return for this investment the Chinese are not being required to halt the cyberattacks and the theft of intellectual property in which they are now the world leaders."

Terry Macalister

Fiona Harvey